From 🌒September🌕Rayne🌘 @Lippyaddiction
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Welcome to Trump's United States of FAFO - "Fuck Around and Find Out":
FYI - FAFO has two common meanings, depending on context:
"Fck Around and Find Out"** – A warning or statement implying that reckless actions will lead to consequences. Often used in a confrontational or humorous way.
"Fire And Forget Operations" – A military term referring to weapons (like certain missiles) that do not require further guidance after launch.
Drawing from Timothy Snyder’s work, particularly On Tyranny and Bloodlands, eugenics typically emerges once authoritarian rule is consolidating but before full-scale repression escalates into mass violence. In the timeline of fascist takeovers, it tends to appear at the "consolidation of ideology and state control" stage, after initial democratic erosion but before widespread purges or extermination campaigns.
Stages Where Eugenics Fits In:
- Subversion of Democracy – Discrediting elections, demonizing opposition, and weakening institutions.
- Defining the “Pure” vs. the “Other” – Establishing a narrative of national rebirth that requires "cleansing" undesirable elements.
- State-Sanctioned Discrimination – Legal restrictions, sterilization programs, or exclusionary policies targeting those deemed unworthy.
- Biopolitical Control & Elimination – Expanding eugenic policies into forced removals, incarceration, or even extermination.
Snyder emphasizes that the shift to eugenics happens before outright genocide, often justified as economic necessity, national security, or public health. This was the case in Nazi Germany, where eugenics began as forced sterilization programs years before the Holocaust.
If we apply Snyder’s framework to modern political rhetoric, we can see early warning signs of eugenic thinking creeping into policy discussions—often disguised as economic pragmatism or "national greatness."
Key Modern Parallels:
Defining "Burdens on the Nation" – When leaders start framing certain groups (the disabled, chronically ill, or elderly) as economic drains rather than citizens with rights, this mirrors early fascist rhetoric.
- Example: Calls to reduce healthcare support for those with pre-existing conditions, Social Security cuts, or suggesting that some people are simply "not productive" enough for assistance.
Dehumanization Through Policy – When policies are proposed that subtly (or overtly) make life harder for vulnerable groups, leading to exclusion, suffering, or premature death.
- Example: Medicaid work requirements, gutting disability benefits, or defunding mental health care, effectively sidelining those deemed “unfit.”
“Making the Nation Stronger” by Removing the Weak – The idea that a country can be restored to greatness by eliminating social or economic "burdens" is directly linked to historical eugenics movements.
- Example: Trump-era policies that deprioritized COVID care for the elderly, rhetoric about certain populations being “useless eaters” (a phrase used in Nazi Germany), or suggestions that only the strong deserve survival.
Where Are We Now?
In Snyder’s terms, we’re in a precarious middle stage—where eugenic ideology is not yet official policy but is being tested through rhetoric and selective policies. If history is a guide, the next steps could involve further institutionalizing discrimination, removing safety nets, and ultimately, escalating the logic of exclusion to more dangerous ends.
President Trump's recent actions have significantly increased the costs of life-saving medications, adversely affecting many Americans.
Reversal of Drug Pricing Initiatives: On January 20, 2025, President Trump signed an executive order reversing policies aimed at reducing prescription drug costs for Medicare and Medicaid recipients. This action has led to higher medication expenses for seniors and low-income individuals.
Project 2025 Impact: The administration's "Project 2025" has further escalated prescription drug prices for seniors by rescinding previous efforts to cap insulin prices and limit out-of-pocket costs. This rollback undermines financial protections for those reliant on essential medications.
Medicaid Funding Cuts: Proposed Medicaid cuts to finance other policy initiatives threaten access to affordable healthcare for approximately 72 million Americans. Such reductions could lead to increased out-of-pocket expenses for medications and medical services.
Disruption of Medical Research Funding: The administration has halted medical research funding, delaying critical studies and potentially hindering the development of new, cost-effective treatments. This disruption may lead to long-term increases in drug prices due to slowed innovation.
These policy decisions collectively contribute to the rising costs of life-saving drugs, placing a heavier financial burden on vulnerable populations.
Trump’s policies raising the cost of life-saving drugs and cutting healthcare access align with a soft form of eugenics, where economic barriers function as a tool of exclusion—determining who lives or dies based on their financial means. Timothy Snyder warns that authoritarian regimes often implement biopolitical control in stages, beginning with economic strangulation of vulnerable populations before advancing to more direct forms of exclusion and harm.
How This Links to Eugenics & Authoritarianism:
Economic-Based Survival (“The Fit vs. The Weak”)
- By making essential medications unaffordable, the government filters out those who can’t "contribute" economically—a hallmark of eugenic thinking.
- Cutting Medicaid and reversing drug price caps disproportionately harms the disabled, elderly, and chronically ill, echoing early 20th-century policies that framed them as burdens rather than citizens.
"Let the Market Decide Who Survives"
- Shifting healthcare away from public support and into a fully privatized model turns life-or-death access into a profit-driven equation—mirroring historical eugenics policies that used cost-saving justifications to deny care.
- Example: Nazi Germany’s early T4 program began as cost-saving euthanasia for the “incurably ill.”
Destroying Public Healthcare as a Form of Democratic Erosion
- Universal healthcare and medicine price controls are fundamental to democratic, egalitarian societies. Weakening these protections enforces a hierarchy of worthiness—where the rich thrive and the poor struggle to survive.
- Historically, dismantling social safety nets has been a precursor to authoritarian consolidation, as it creates a weakened, desperate population less able to resist state control.
Where This Leads If Left Unchecked:
- Further removal of legal protections for the disabled, elderly, and marginalized.
- Worsening economic disparity leading to shorter lifespans for those deemed “unworthy.”
- Expansion of state control over reproductive and medical decisions (who gets care, who doesn’t).
Snyder warns that authoritarians rarely start with mass violence—they begin by shifting who deserves to live well and who doesn’t. If Trump’s policies continue in this direction, it’s not just about cost-cutting—it’s about reshaping the nation based on an ideology of survival-of-the-fittest.
Will America retain enough of its democratic foundations in the near future to counter these actions—to remove those Trump has installed through his own and Elon Musk’s purges—and to preserve the democracy and principles upon which the nation was originally founded?
Or are we already lost?
- The Tattered American Flag → Symbolizes democracy under threat, reflecting concerns about whether America will remain true to its founding principles.
- The Shadowy Figure in Power → Represents authoritarian leadership, akin to Trump’s consolidation of control and political purges.
- The Divided Crowd (Some in Light, Others in Darkness) → Illustrates social stratification, a hallmark of eugenic policies where some are deemed more “worthy” than others.
- Industrial, Ominous Setting → Evokes historical parallels to regimes that have used economic and political means to enact exclusionary policies.
Here’s a breakdown of the concept:
Disrespecting America: The obvious observation is that MaGA supporters, by embracing rhetoric that attacks the integrity of the U.S. government, the media, and institutions, have undermined the country's foundational values. This includes actions like promoting conspiracy theories, undermining elections, or attacking the legitimacy of democratic processes.
Attacking a Liberal Democratic Constitutional Republic: The term "liberal democracy" refers to a system where the rule of law, civil rights, free elections, and separation of powers are key. Critical observations of MaGA show that certain elements within this movement have embraced authoritarian tactics, such as supporting leaders who subvert democratic norms or ignore checks and balances, which goes against the core principles of the liberal democratic constitutional republic Ameria is and was meant to be.
Supporting Fascism: Fascism is an authoritarian political ideology that emphasizes dictatorial power, forcible suppression of opposition, and strong regimentation of society. "MaGA" has been observed worldwide, as a critique of the movement's embrace of extreme nationalism, intolerance toward dissent, and support for leaders or policies, that mirror fascist tendencies, such as authoritarian rule, state control, and the erosion of civil liberties.
So, the use of "MaGA" as opposed to "MAGA" reflects a critical stance against the movement, suggesting that it has strayed from the values that typically define a democratic society, instead endorsing actions and ideologies associated with authoritarianism and fascism. It’s a way of emphasizing that the movement may be hurting the nation rather than uplifting it.
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