Quite a lot, actually.
Michelle Goldberg, in the NYT, 2/25/25 wrote,
In writing about our country’s rapid self-immolation, I try to ration Hannah Arendt references, lest every column be about the ways “The Origins of Totalitarianism,” published in 1951, foreshadows the waking nightmare that is this government. But contemplating Bongino’s ascension,* it’s hard to avoid the famous Arendt quote, “Totalitarianism in power invariably replaces all first-rate talents, regardless of their sympathies, with those crackpots and fools whose lack of intelligence and creativity is still the best guarantee of their loyalty.”
Misha Gessen author of National Book Award winner 2017 “The Future Is History: How Totalitarianism Reclaimed Russia,” that reveals much both politically and culturally about 20th and 21st century Russia (and reminded me of being there in 2012) wrote in 2024,
....I was struck most of all by the mood that seemed to accompany [Hungarian PM] Orban’s actions. We all remember it from Trump’s first term, this sense of everything happening all at once and the utter impossibility of focusing on the existentially threatening or of distinguishing it from the trivial — if that distinction even exists. It’s not just what the autocrats do to stage their breakthrough, it’s how they do it: passing legislation (or signing executive orders) fast, without any discussion, sometimes late at night, in batches, all the while denigrating and delegitimizing any opposition.
Thomas Friedman in a NYT discussion said,
I’ve kind of given up on politics when dealing with Trump because at least until the midterms, there are no levers to pull. The Senate is all in on him. The House is all in on him. The Supreme Court is all in on him. His media ecosystem’s all in on him. I’m now entirely betting on physics, on the hard realities of things.....They say the market is a voting machine and then it’s a weighing machine. And when you weigh the weight of these things, they don’t add up. If this weren’t my country, I’d put my feet up, grab some popcorn and watch the show. What a show! But it is my country. Trump is driving, we’re all in the back seat, and I think he’s heading into a wall.
Hannah Arendt, also the author of The Banality of Evil" in 1963, wrote,
The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the convinced communist, but the people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction no longer holds.
When you fire all the leaders, you lose the knowledge of the experienced.
When you fire all the new people, you lose the future.
When you fire all the lawyers, you unravel the law.
When you shut out the experts, you lose the able.
When you substitute your loyalists, you merely duplicate yourself.
When you end support to those in need, you end hope.
*Dan Bongino, conservative podcaster and one time Secret Service agent, has been appointed the Deputy Director of the FBI. He has said things like Liberals (aka "scumbag commie libs") have been playing at revolutions, and will now get a taste of the real thing. (Deputy Director of the FBI–seriously!)
A poem for our time (thanks to NYT for bringing this to my attention).
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