> The middle east is giving the US insanely good deal US => US elites Autocrats hate the rule of law, they just like it as an instrument. Also, they think in

> The middle east is giving the US insanely good deal US => US elites Autocrats hate the rule of law, they just like it as an instrument. Also, they think in spheres of influence where the strong party can "eat". That is why the ideologues behind the current US insurrection of autocracy have such difficulties with the EU and are hell bent on destroying it. It might sound crazy, but their ideologues think in terms of power polars, with the US, Russia and China as the three world powers, with some reservoirs between them. In their view Europe is such a reservoir, as is the Middle East and Africa. The same way as the Kremlin views Ukraine. Our problem is that we have started to believe that history was over. That fascism = Hitler, and so cannot happen anymore. But the human struggle against autocracy will be forever. - On an optimistic note: autocrats are extremely vulnerable. It is a small group of people that needs to parasitize on the public. It is a matter of people waking up just in time. - On a pessimistic note: this time it is possible to lock up people in information silos and spy 24/7 on them. All ingredients what one would call a tech dystopia are ready. Also: Europe is being cut off from critical supplies needed for defense. This is how nazi Germany got suffocated. This is also why there is such a strong focus in the US on Greenland and Canada. Might makes right, they only need to normalize it to the US public. The war to shape the fascist mind has already begun, in all kinds of ways, step-by-step. In the mean time, the press will present things like if they are neutral. Yet, even if press people are starting to get nervous at this moment and want to correct course, they are likely to find they have forfeited their own space for doing their actual job. The repercussions are real. Case in point: The Gulf of America. A loyalty test needed for the Gleichschaltung. The focus on Trump and circus eats the bandwidth away that the public needs for introspection: how much do I normalize autocracy? That is the first war, the others will follow.