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The conservative chief justice of the Wisconsin Supreme Court told the new liberal majority in a scathing email that they had staged a “coup” when they voted recently to weaken her powers and hire a new director of state courts.

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[-] Nightwingdragon@lemmy.world 203 points 1 year ago

The whole point of things like this is to dilute the impact of the words being used. This way, when they get caught doing the exact same thing, it won't seem "bad" in the eyes of their constituents.

It's one of the reasons the GOP are pushing so hard to impeach Biden. So when people say that Trump was impeached twice, the MAGA crowd can just say "Yeah, so was Biden. So was Clinton. Presidents get impeached all the time. They never get removed. It's all for political show anyway, it's no big deal. The next guy will probably get impeached too."

It's why GOP politicians are trying to frame even minor incidents of protest as "insurrections" or "coups". They know it sounds ridiculous. That's the whole point. If you water down words like "insurrection", "coup", "sedition", and "treason", then the MAGA crowd can just say "January 6th wasn't an insurrection. The country is still here. Quit calling every protest an insurrection. We're not in the 1780s any more."

Same thing with the RICO charges. Why do you think Miller and MTG were tweeting "RICO?". Charge everybody with RICO charges and Trump being charged no longer seems like a big deal.

It's a long term strategy. Make the idea of being charged with crimes just a normal part of the political process, and make everybody think it's not that bad. That way, when they're caught engaging in the corrupt acts they routinely accuse others of engaging in, it'll be considered "normal" and "no big deal", and make it almost impossible to remove them.

It's a very insidious way to make the country more like Russia, where there's so much propaganda there is no objective truth, words have no meaning, and rule of law of even more nebulous.

[-] babyphatman@lemmy.ml 19 points 1 year ago

Hypernormalization. Adam Curtis spoke about this in his documentary.

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[-] Bakkoda@sh.itjust.works 8 points 1 year ago

Firehose of propaganda is one of the main weapons discussed in Foundation of Geopolitics.

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[-] carl_dungeon@lemmy.world 23 points 1 year ago

It was just a little “light” treason!

[-] HoustonHenry@lemmy.world 13 points 1 year ago

"It wasn't" -Ron Howard

[-] Zombiepirate@lemmy.world 13 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

I offer as proof of your claim how Nunes kept calling things "drug deals" during the first impeachment because there was testimony that John Bolton and his moustache said he wasn't going to be a part of the "drug deal" being cooked up in Ukraine (referring to the scheme to blackmail Zelenskyy).

[-] AllonzeeLV@lemmy.world 8 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Boil the frog.

Just like we did with crony capitalist economy. It's ok because it's just the norm for those with capital to fuck over those without. No pitchforks required.

[-] ATQ@lemm.ee 131 points 1 year ago

TIL: The outcome of the democratic process is a “coup”. 🙄

[-] Stovetop@lemmy.world 51 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

It seems like most conservatives in power have this cognitive dissonance where they see themselves as nobility, chosen by god to rule. So when they are voted out of office through the mere expression of democracy, they see it as some sort of peasant uprising that violates their warped understanding of what a government is supposed to be.

We're just slowly sliding back to feudalism.

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[-] vlad76@lemmy.sdf.org 24 points 1 year ago

We want people to have the freedom to choose what we believe in. Anything else is clearly a mistake.

[-] DonJefe@lemmy.world 7 points 1 year ago

That has become the Republican party line. Since Trump, they think that any democratic process outcome that is not in their favor is corrupt, and it must be undone. In short, fascism

[-] treefrog@lemm.ee 5 points 1 year ago

Well of course it is. The Dems let women and dark skinned people vote. Taking power away from the white.. I mean the right!

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[-] YoBuckStopsHere@lemmy.world 4 points 1 year ago

That's how conformist think. They want you to do as they say.

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[-] Conyak@lemmy.tf 73 points 1 year ago

Pretty typical. If they win then it is democracy in action. If they lose it’s a coup. Republicans don’t care about democracy, they want an autocracy.

[-] gregorum@lemm.ee 23 points 1 year ago

They are fascists who want fascism

[-] newthrowaway20@lemmy.world 67 points 1 year ago

Republicans can go fuck themselves.

[-] GhostsAreShitty@lemmy.world 31 points 1 year ago

Imagine how much better everything would be if they just like, shut the fuck up and accepted losses.

[-] blanketswithsmallpox@kbin.social 14 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Graceful losses and being humble when wrong is a lost concept on them, and a lot of people besides.

An entire party of ❄️s when called out, but all they do is weaponize the hypocrisy lol. It's easier to just point it out quickly then move on. Just to prime any readers who might have a margin of sanity.

[-] don@lemm.ee 4 points 1 year ago

With jaw-dropping force.

[-] Honytawk@lemmy.zip 55 points 1 year ago

How can one stage a coup by voting?

[-] ExistentialKiwi@lemmy.world 23 points 1 year ago

I don't think she really believes it's an actual coup, Republicans have just been calling everything a coup since the Jan. 6th, 2021 Beer Gut Putsch, I assume to muddy the waters around that specific word and run interference for their wannabe dictator.

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[-] dhork@lemmy.world 21 points 1 year ago

By voting for the wrong candidate, obviously.

[-] sndmn@lemmy.ca 5 points 1 year ago

The people the judge is speaking to don't know what a coup means. They think it's a place where chickens live.

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[-] DocMcStuffin@lemmy.world 47 points 1 year ago

The simple fact that she's hasn't filed a lawsuit and instead has been sending out emails leads me to believe she is full of hot air. Amongst other things she is probably full of.

[-] HawlSera@lemm.ee 38 points 1 year ago

As always the GOP accuses the democrats of things the GOP is guilty of.

[-] Copernican@lemmy.world 13 points 1 year ago

Yeah. Didn't the republicans change rules to oust the former liberal chief supreme Court justice that the rules stated would be the longest tenured or oldest member of the court? Now the liberal members take it back.

[-] Fades@lemmy.world 37 points 1 year ago

It’s not a fucking coup IF IT WAS VOTED FOR BY A MAJORITY you fuckwit

[-] Leviathan@lemmy.world 11 points 1 year ago

Dude, she's a conservative. We're lucky she could write an email.

[-] Adalast@lemmy.world 5 points 1 year ago

You're assuming she didn't have her underpaid assistant write it for her.

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[-] lolcatnip@reddthat.com 32 points 1 year ago

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Accusation_in_a_mirror

Accusation in a mirror (AiM) (also called mirror politics, mirror propaganda, mirror image propaganda, or a mirror argument) is a hate-speech incitement technique where one falsely attributes to one's adversaries the intentions that one has for oneself and/or the actions that one is in the process of enacting.

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[-] ArtVandelay@lemmy.world 28 points 1 year ago

I'm convinced the Republicans are trying to water down the definition of coup, so that way when they are convicted of it, as they rightly should be, it already has a much less severe definition in the common lexicon.

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[-] Ertebolle@kbin.social 26 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

She was elected by the conservative majority to a second two-year term as chief justice in May.

This seems like a pretty stupid system, honestly - when the composition of the court changes there should be a new election, fixed terms for chief justices that overlap an election for another seat make no sense.

EDIT: apparently this was a recent change, in a referendum, replacing a previous system where they conservatives were stuck with a liberal chief they didn't like; from Wikipedia:

After passage of a referendum on April 7, 2015, the chief justice of the court is elected for a term of 2 years by the vote of a majority of the justices then serving on the court, although the justice so elected may decline the appointment. Previous to the change, the justice with the longest continuous service on the court served as the chief justice. Opponents of the referendum called it an attempt to remove longtime Chief Justice Shirley Abrahamson, a member of the court's liberal minority, while supporters called it an effort to promote democracy on the court.

So they literally passed a referendum to fix the problem of the chief justice not matching the politics of the majority, and now they're mad that the liberal justices are trying to fix the same problem again.

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[-] cultsuperstar@lemmy.ml 20 points 1 year ago

Hahaha cry me a fucking river. Tell that the North Carolina's governor when state Republicans tried to strip away powers after he beat the Republican nominee. She can eat a dick.

[-] HawlSera@lemm.ee 8 points 1 year ago

The problem is the GOP has the moral compass of a toddler.

The suspicion that their enemies cheated is more important than the reality of their own cheating.

[-] Not_Alec_Baldwin@lemmy.world 5 points 1 year ago

They don't care about cheating, they only care about being on the winning side.

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[-] Adalast@lemmy.world 6 points 1 year ago

Toss on metropolitan areas in Texas that are having their entire municipal legislative power ham stringed.

[-] Khalic@kbin.social 17 points 1 year ago

Here’s a transcript of the email:

REEEEEEEEEEEEE

[-] RegularGoose@sh.itjust.works 16 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Wisconsin's conservative extremists justices have taken a leading role in destroying our state's democracy and intentionally destroying and ending people's lives for years. This sack of shit should be overjoyed that she not only still hold her position, but also that she and her lackeys haven't been dragged out of their homes by a mob and put down like the rabid dogs they are.

[-] spider@lemmy.nz 14 points 1 year ago
[-] trackcharlie@lemmynsfw.com 12 points 1 year ago

Oh no, she's retarded

[-] AceFuzzLord@lemm.ee 12 points 1 year ago

Ah yes, the strategy of saying "you used your legal right to vote, therefore you are a terrorist" to voters.

[-] mo_ztt@lemmy.world 8 points 1 year ago

Just like in a video game: If you go in a direction and start meeting lots of opponents, you're probably making progress.

Is this just gonna be the norm from here on out? It is, isn’t it? Fuck, we are so fucked on…everything, basically.

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this post was submitted on 29 Aug 2023
320 points (96.0% liked)

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