Surviving a second Trump admin*

[1 CAT FAN]

Thought for the day:

“Hypernormalization” is a heady, $10 word, but it captures the weird, dire atmosphere of the US in 2025.

First articulated in 2005 by scholar Alexei Yurchak to describe the civilian experience in Soviet Russia, hypernormalization describes life in a society where two main things are happening.

The first is people seeing that governing systems and institutions are broken. And the second is that, for reasons including a lack of effective leadership and an inability to imagine how to disrupt the status quo, people carry on with their lives as normal despite systemic dysfunction – give or take a heavy load of fear, dread, denial and dissociation.

“What you are feeling is the disconnect between seeing that systems are failing, that things aren’t working … and yet the institutions and the people in power just are, like, ignoring it and pretending everything is going to go on the way that it has,” Harfoush says in her video.

Worth reading the whole article:

https://www.theguardian.com/wellness/ng ... status-quo

Great article. I think it's worth studying other periods in time that experienced changes to gain some insight into how things unfold.

One of the precursors to the sudden changes in Europe in the early twentieth century post ww1 was the rise of the radio. While the new dissemination of information probably wasn't the main catalyst of societal change it certainly helped push things over the brink. For us, social media and the internet are likely having a similarly profound affect. There would be no president Trump without the rise of social media. AI offers an entirely new conundrum for which we're not in the least but prepared for.

Rahaf Harfoush - What's a writer do when she has no words? Hustle & Float

[Vrede too]

Trump Asks Congress To Take Back Funding For NPR, PBS, Foreign Aid
The White House says it's prepared to make even more requests to slash already-approved funding.

President Donald Trump asked Congress on Tuesday to rescind more than $9 billion in funding it already approved for public broadcasters, foreign aid and global health efforts, taking aim at those initiatives as “wasteful” and “woke.”

The requested cuts are part of a process known as rescission, in which the president can ask Congress to remove funding commitments from the budget.

... The single biggest cut Trump is requesting is a $1.1 billion funding commitment to the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which funds NPR and PBS. Leaders of both news outlets said the rescission would strip Americans of vital sources of information while cutting very little in costs.

“This rescission would have a negligible impact on reducing the deficit and provide little-to-no savings for taxpayers, yet it would harm all Americans, shutting off access to local news, national reporting, music and regional culture, and emergency alerting,” NPR’s CEO Katherine Maher said in a lengthy statement.

... Paula Kerger, the president and CEO of PBS, raised similar concerns, saying the impacts will especially be felt at “smaller and rural stations that rely on federal funding for a larger portion of their budgets.”

Leopards eating the faces of rural voters.

... Other requested cuts include millions to the President’s Emergency Plan For AIDS Relief, or PEPFAR, a Bush-era program credited with saving 25 million lives.

Rep. Susan Collins (R-Maine) told reporters she wouldn’t support any reductions to PEPFAR, calling it “possibly the most successful public health program that has ever been used in Africa and other parts of the world.”

MAGA hates Black people.

... “If they pass this, we’ll send up many more,” White House budget director Russ Vought said on Fox News, referring to rescission packages.

[GoCubsGo]

Not to be outdone.
.

[Whack9]

Trump admin appoints 22 year old recent college grad as head of CP3 (terror prevention agency)

https://www.msn.com/en-us/politics/gove ... r-AA1G8Lca

The inexperienced 22-year-old reportedly tasked by Donald Trump with tackling U.S. extremism was working as a neighborhood gardener just five years ago and in a grocery store as recently as August 2023, the Daily Beast can reveal.

Thomas Fugate, who graduated from the University of Texas at San Antonio just 12 months ago, is currently heading up the Center for Prevention Programs and Partnerships at the DHS, as first reported by ProPublica Tuesday.

The center, also known as CP3, plays a vital role supporting nationwide efforts to combat terrorism and hate-fueled violence.

...

There isn’t much else on his resumé to suggest Fugate has the requisite skills to weed out terrorists. Prior to his work as a gardener—while studying for a degree in politics and law—Fugate worked at an H-E-B supermarket in Austin, Texas, as a ‘Cross Functional Team Member.’

...

Since leaving college, Fugarte has had a meteoric rise in the political world, having served as an “advance team member” on President Donald Trump’s 2024 campaign, according to his LinkedIn page.

An avowed Republican, he also interned at the Heritage Foundation, generally acknowledged as the think tank behind Project 2025, and for Texas Representatives Terry Wilson and Steve Allison.

Only the best.

Here's the previous head. You can read about his experience prior to his appointment

https://ctc.westpoint.edu/a-view-from-t ... -security/

Braniff previously served as the START director and a professor of the practice at the University of Maryland, the director of practitioner education at West Point’s Combating Terrorism Center, and an instructor in the Department of Social Sciences at West Point. Braniff is a graduate of the United States Military Academy. Following his Company Command in the U.S. Army, he attended the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies where he received a master’s degree in international relations. Braniff then served as a foreign affairs specialist for the National Nuclear Security Agency.

Braniff previously served as a member of the editorial board of the International Centre for Counter-Terrorism-The Hague, the RESOLVE Network Research Advisory Board, the Prosecution Project Advisory Board, the Hedayah Center International Advisory Board, and the Global Internet Forum to Counter Terrorism Independent Advisory Committee, as well as serving as a non-voting advisor to the Board of CHC Global. He was also a founding board member of We the Veterans and Military Families, an organization dedicated to strengthening American democracy.

Real time unwinding of the United States as a global leader. This post might not be incredibly important (I've never heard of it before today, so I can't comment), but it appears to be another example of the patronage system infecting US governance.

[GoCubsGo]

It's beyond weird.

It's also been noticed.

https://search.yahoo.com/search?ei=UTF- ... mas+Fugate