Authoritarianism is about power; mockery is about removing power. A narrative that undermines the authoritarian's illusion of strength is more dangerous to their movement than any law or army.
In the Project 2025 Mandate for Leadership, Trump's allies are demanding the right to define societal deviancy to mean whatever they declare it to mean. And that is the essence of fascism.
The longer the press frenzy goes on, the weaker the evidence getsāand the more the story begins to resemble past moments of media-manufactured public hysteria.
As purpose-built disinformation engines become nearly free to create and run, the production of researched and factual content remains expensive. The result could well be an internet so clogged with 'debris' that it loses everything that once made it useful.
While I was cleaning out our barn, I found signs that someone had briefly been living there. Among the scraps left behind was this scrawled letter dated Feb 22, 2023.