<nettime> January 30, Time To Wake Up

[sebastian@rolux.org]

January 30, Time To Wake Up

"The media always has taken Trump literally. It never takes him seriously." 
(Peter Thiel)

What is beginning to dawn upon Americans is that the exact opposite is true: 
That by taking Trump seriously, they completely misunderstood what he was 
telling them and vastly underestimated his ambition; that instead, each and 
every announcement of his government has to be taken literally.

When the President's statement on Holocaust Rememberance Day fails to make any 
mention of the Jews, to be followed by tweets that justify his immigration 
order with the execution of large numbers of Christians in the Middle-East, 
this has to be taken literally.

When White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer calls the Quebec City shooting, in 
which a White Nationalist killed six people in a mosque, a terrible reminder of 
why the President had to enact a Muslim ban, this has to be taken literally.

When Trump says his Mexican border wall is going to be beautiful, this has to 
be taken literally too.

Just like his attacks against Hillary Clinton, the New York Times, independent 
judges, or the City of Chicago. Short of a popular uprising, this government 
will go all the way. Shutting down news media, arresting the opposition, 
suspending the judiciary, tanks in the streets? It's all in the cards. If this 
sounds like the recent history of Turkey, then Americans will have to study 
that history, look at each of its phases, find out where they think it will 
stop in the U.S., how it will stop there, and what each of them will have to 
contribute, personally, to make it stop.

Further reading:

Yonatan Zunger: Trial Balloon for a Coup? Analyzing the news of the past 24 
hours. https://medium.com/@yonatanzunger/trial-balloon-for-a-coup-e024990891d5

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