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theladyred.bsky.social
The_Lady_Red
@theladyred.bsky.social
5.8K followers 6.7K following 20K posts
Queer Elder, Reader, Activist, Intersectional Feminist, Community Ed, Witch, Wife, Mom to Fur Kids, Singer, Auntie, People Watcher, Lifelong Democrat, Swears-A-Lot! CA/NM 💞🎶🏳️‍🌈 She/Her
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theladyred.bsky.social
The_Lady_Red @theladyred.bsky.social · Sep 27
I think there's a whole buncha people who never were taught what happens when dictators take power.

These are all from the 20th C.

1/2
Soviet Union: Joseph Stalin Rise to power: After the death of Vladimir Lenin, Stalin consolidated his power over the Soviet Union by 1929. The Great Purge (1936–1938): A brutal campaign to eliminate political rivals and perceived threats within the Communist Party and military. It resulted in the execution of at least 750,000 people and sent over a million to the Gulag, a network of forced labor camps. • Forced famine: During the collectivization of agriculture, Stalin's policies, including seizing grain from peasants, caused a devastating famine in the early 1930s, particularly in Ukraine, leading to millions of deaths. China: Mao Zedong Rise to power: Mao Zedong became the Chairman of the Chinese Communist Party and leader of the People's Republic of China in 1949 after the Chinese Civil War. • The Great Leap Forward (1958–1962): An economic and social campaign that led to the Great Chinese Famine, which killed tens of millions through starvation caused by disastrous agricultural policies. • The Cultural Revolution (1966-1976): A sociopolitical movement to purge "capitalist" and traditional elements from Chinese society. It led to widespread violence, with Red Guards persecuting, humiliating, and killing intellectuals, officials, and others. Estimates of the death toll range from 500,000 to 2 million. Cambodia: Pol Pot Rise to power: Pol Pot became the leader of the Khmer Rouge communist movement and took control of Cambodia in 1975. • The Killing Fields (1975-1979): The Khmer Rouge forced the country's urban population into rural labor camps to create an agrarian utopia. The regime's policies of forced labor, starvation, and execution were responsible for the deaths of up to 2 million Cambodians. • Targeting intellectuals: The Khmer Rouge specifically targeted intellectuals, ethnic minorities, and former government officials, often executing them in mass graves known as the Killing Fields. Dominican Republic: Rafael Trujillo Rise to power: Trujillo seized power in the Dominican Republic in 1930 and ruled with absolute control for over 30 years. • The Parsley Massacre (1937): Trujillo ordered the massacre of tens of thousands of Haitians living in the Dominican Republic, claiming they were a threat. • Brutality and repression: His regime was known for its persecution of political opponents, the use of a secret police, and a pervasive cult of personality.
Reposted by The_Lady_Red
kmcm.bsky.social
Thing is, Trump L O V E S to commit crime in plain sight—it’s one of his taboo-demolishing specialties

So of course he & his have pushed light-yrs beyond bounds w bloodlust horrors

Most things he pulls are corollaries of “I could shoot someone in the middle of 5th Ave…”

He’s a black hole of hate
December 5, 2025 at 7:56 AM
Reposted by The_Lady_Red
hcrichardson.bsky.social
December 4, 2025
December 4, 2025
“What I saw in that room was one of the most troubling things I’ve seen in my time in public service,” Representative Jim Himes (D-CT), the top Democrat on the House Intelligence committee, said.
heathercoxrichardson.substack.com
December 5, 2025 at 7:53 AM
theladyred.bsky.social
fkng MAGA POS's 🤢🤬🤬🤬

Gov. Tim Walz says his home is being hit by a non-stop barrage of drive-bys with people yelling the R-word.

www.tmz.com/2025/12/04/t...
Tim Walz Says People Drive by His House Calling Him R-Word After Trump Slur
Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz says his home is being hit by a non-stop barrage of drive-bys ... but instead of bullets ... nasty words are shooting out of the cars -- namely, the R-word.
www.tmz.com
December 5, 2025 at 8:03 AM
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maudi63.bsky.social
@bsky.app really has to get their act together with this list sh*t. I blocked this 👇 person over 12 hours ago because they ‘liked’ a really hateful reply to Hakeem Jeffries. They blocked me back. Okay 🤷🏻‍♀️. Here we are now and they just added me to a ‘Transphobes’ list. 😒
December 5, 2025 at 7:50 AM
Reposted by The_Lady_Red
krasnoviancommando.bsky.social
I mean this is straight up white supremacy:
December 5, 2025 at 3:51 AM
Reposted by The_Lady_Red
dburbach.bsky.social
NATIONAL SECURITY STRATEGY DROPPED

There is a LOT here, but omg NATO allies are going to seethe at this paragraph

www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/u...
December 5, 2025 at 3:26 AM
Reposted by The_Lady_Red
ericmgarcia.bsky.social
Defense officials have argued that the men killed in the boat strike were legitimate targets because they appeared to be radioing for help or backup. But the two men did not appear to have radio or other communications devices. www.cnn.com/2025/12/04/p...
Exclusive: Survivors clinging to capsized boat didn’t radio for backup, admiral overseeing double-tap strike tells lawmakers | CNN Politics
The two men killed as they floated holding onto their capsized boat in a secondary strike against a suspected drug vessel in early September did not appear to have radio or other communications device...
www.cnn.com
December 5, 2025 at 4:58 AM
Reposted by The_Lady_Red
ericmgarcia.bsky.social
For a little under an hour — 41 minutes, according to a separate US official — Bradley and the rest of the US military command center discussed what to do as they watched the men struggle to overturn what was left of their boat, the sources said.

www.cnn.com/2025/12/04/p...
Exclusive: Survivors clinging to capsized boat didn’t radio for backup, admiral overseeing double-tap strike tells lawmakers | CNN Politics
The two men killed as they floated holding onto their capsized boat in a secondary strike against a suspected drug vessel in early September did not appear to have radio or other communications device...
www.cnn.com
December 5, 2025 at 4:59 AM
Reposted by The_Lady_Red
therickydavila.bsky.social
The 6 far right extremists on the illegitimate Supreme Court have officially allowed fascist republicans in Texas to use their newly redrawn corrupt racist gerrymandered map in 2026.

These white supremacists won’t stop until US democracy is totally destroyed. Disgusting.
December 5, 2025 at 4:59 AM
theladyred.bsky.social
whew. all of this!

"The most disturbing thing about The Hunger Games is not the spectacle of violence or the Capitol’s grotesque luxury.

It is the quiet realization that President Snow never belonged to a fantasy world. He belongs to ours."
The most disturbing thing about The Hunger Games is not the spectacle of violence or the Capitol’s grotesque luxury. It is the quiet realization that President Snow never belonged to a fantasy world. He belongs to ours. I first wrote a version of this on LinkedIn in March 2025, but revisiting it now feels darker because the parallels are only growing more uncomfortable. Snow’s rise is not a cautionary tale about monsters. It is a study in how ordinary people slide into cruelty without noticing the moment they cross the line. We like to imagine we would never cheer in the Capitol’s golden seats. We tell ourselves we would be rebels, not spectators. Yet history shows that most people do not resist authoritarianism. They adjust to it. They rationalize it. They survive under it. The historian Timothy Snyder, in his book On Tyranny, warns that democratic decline starts with small steps that citizens convince themselves are harmless. Snow’s life follows that pattern exactly. In The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes, Coriolanus Snow begins not as a tyrant but as a hungry, anxious teenager determined to restore his family’s status. His mantra, “Snow lands on top,” is not arrogance. It is fear disguised as resolve. Psychologists refer to this as a survival script, a belief shaped by trauma that becomes the engine for future decisions. The political theorist Hannah Arendt described similar transformations when she wrote that “the most evil is done by those who never make up their minds to be good or evil.” Snow never chooses darkness. He drifts into it. Each early compromise seems reasonable. Help his tribute survive. Protect his scholarship. Hide his family’s disgrace. Align with those who can offer him power. None of these choices feels villainous. They feel logical. Yet each one reshapes him a little more, until protecting his position requires betraying others. That slow slide mirrors how democratic backsliding works in reality. In their 2022 research, Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt noted that most authoritarian shifts occur not through dramatic coups but through “a steady weakening of critical institutions,” enabled by citizens who assume the danger is temporary. Look at our world, and Snow’s logic becomes haunting. We trade privacy for convenience because resisting feels impossible. Pew Research Center reported that 81 percent of Americans believe companies track them in ways they cannot control, yet people continue participating in systems that harvest their data. Surveillance expands quietly when individuals feel powerless to stop it. We tolerate political rhetoric that dehumanizes opponents. Studies from Stanford University show that partisan hostility in the United States has reached levels that affect marriages, friendships, medical decisions, and hiring. Snow thrived on fragmentation. Modern societies are doing the same work for him. We consume suffering as entertainment. Researchers at the University of Michigan found that repeated exposure to real-world violence online decreases empathy and increases emotional detachment. Capitol citizens cheered for tributes because they believed they were simply watching a program. We often justify the same dynamic while scrolling. Even Snow’s roses feel familiar. They begin as symbols of his mother’s love, then morph into instruments of manipulation and intimidation. History is full of symbols that began with purity before being twisted by power. The swastika was once tied to prosperity and blessing before the Nazi regime turned it into an emblem of racial terror. Meaning corrodes easily when it serves the ambitions of the powerful. One of the most chilling parallels is Snow’s use of manufactured scarcity. Panem has resources but starves its districts into compliance. Economists today describe something similar in housing, health care, and education. A 2023 study in The Lancet Public Health found that millions in wealthy nations experience resource instability not because of genuine shortages but because access is restricted by policy. Artificial scarcity keeps people compliant. Snow understood that hungry populations do not rebel. They endure. His political strategy relies on three principles that authoritarian regimes throughout history have mastered. Control through spectacle. Turn trauma into entertainment so citizens feel overwhelmed rather than mobilized. The media theorist Neil Postman warned in 1985 that modern society was “amusing itself to death,” collapsing serious issues into shallow entertainment. The Capitol perfected that habit. We perfected it too. Divide and conquer. Keep people angry at each other instead of the system. Mussolini used this. So did Stalin. So did Pinochet. Snow simply applied the same logic to Panem. Today, Stanford’s polarization research shows that Americans distrust people from the opposite political party more than they distrust foreign adversaries. Normalize cruelty through necessity. Every oppressive society frames its violence as rational. Snow insists he preserves order. Dictators rarely see themselves as villains. They see themselves as guardians. This is why Snow feels so unsettling. He is not an exaggerated villain. He is a mirror. People rarely recognize the moment when self-preservation becomes complicity. They rarely admit when they have crossed the line. The sociologist Zygmunt Bauman wrote that modern evil is “a product of routine bureaucratic work,” which means most atrocities are enabled not by fanatics but by ordinary people performing ordinary tasks. picture: Young and Old President Snow. The citizens of the Capitol did not wake up craving cruelty. They adjusted. They tolerated a little injustice, then a bit more, until the Games felt normal. Their comfort was built on someone else’s suffering. That is always how decline works. We are not living in Panem. But we are living in a world shaped by the same psychological vulnerabilities. The same hunger for comfort. The same willingness to avert our eyes. The same slow drift that Snow followed without ever believing he was doing anything wrong. Snow was right about human nature. Most people will accept horror if it arrives gradually enough, framed persuasively enough, and distanced far enough from their daily lives. So the real question is the one we avoid. How many small concessions can a society make before it realizes it has already become the thing it swore it would never be?
December 5, 2025 at 5:07 AM
Reposted by The_Lady_Red
thorncoyle.bsky.social
Full moon blessings.

Love and protection for those most in need.
December 5, 2025 at 4:11 AM
Reposted by The_Lady_Red
bretdevereaux.bsky.social
SPLIT IN HALF?

The boat was capsized and SPLIT IN HALF?

I got nothing folks.

Trials. Prison. Everyone.

If you told me this was a psy-op to make me rethink my moral opposition to the death penalty, I would at least have to think hard about you being right.
brendannyhan.bsky.social Brendan Nyhan @brendannyhan.bsky.social · 10h
I mean, this is an execution
December 5, 2025 at 2:39 AM
Reposted by The_Lady_Red
repstansbury.bsky.social
Just landed in Albuquerque ✈️ to breaking news of the Supreme Court upholding Texas’s gerrymandered maps.

They know their agenda gutting healthcare, food, and education is so unpopular they can’t win—so they’re trying to cheat.

This is why the work cannot not stop! youtu.be/Y60qQo6IQY8
Rep. Stansbury: The GOP knows their agenda is unpopular - our work must not stop!
YouTube video by Rep. Melanie Stansbury
youtu.be
December 5, 2025 at 2:26 AM
Reposted by The_Lady_Red
dorothysporesnack.bsky.social
All you "its a joke" fuckers probably enjoy all sorts of lowest common denominator humor
December 4, 2025 at 11:16 PM
Reposted by The_Lady_Red
iwillnotbesilenced.bsky.social
Profound admiration

Teen brothers patrol the Chicago suburbs to track ICE agents and film raids
December 5, 2025 at 1:57 AM
Reposted by The_Lady_Red
pierceah66.bsky.social
Just weak ass racism from useless edgelords.
December 4, 2025 at 10:13 PM
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shayz0rz.bsky.social
This is...whew. The anti-Black racism, the trying to act like he's one of the token wannabe anti-Black MAGAts when he's been targeted for so much racist shit, trying to say he's AT ALL equivalent to Trump...

Just.

Wow.
December 4, 2025 at 9:21 PM
Reposted by The_Lady_Red
demsinarray.bsky.social
What a shock that she’s partnered with an outright racist.

Guess he does have a type, given that she volunteered for Ted Cruz and Greg Abbott.
December 5, 2025 at 2:03 AM
Reposted by The_Lady_Red
hot4civics.bsky.social
I remember when they were known for being witty. That was kind of their whole thing but that’s long gone. Their “humor” is now just mean or bigoted.
December 5, 2025 at 1:50 AM
Reposted by The_Lady_Red
invisiblelad7.bsky.social
I think this is let's step outside to talk about it disrespectful.
December 5, 2025 at 12:10 AM
Reposted by The_Lady_Red
pierceah66.bsky.social
Not sure what I’m supposed to find funny about this “satire” from that site run by a carpetbagging Congressional candidate’s unethical partner.
December 4, 2025 at 9:17 PM
theladyred.bsky.social
When Confidence Replaces Competence
YouTube video by Mary Geddry
youtu.be
December 5, 2025 at 2:03 AM
Reposted by The_Lady_Red
jbf1755.bsky.social
Many of you asked me to tell you when my episode of Jon Stewart’s Weekly Show aired.

Here you go.
December 5, 2025 at 1:40 AM
Reposted by The_Lady_Red
motherjones.com
Looks like the Trump administration is doing what it does best: playing politics with people’s hunger.
USDA goes full Scrooge on food stamp recipients—if they live in blue states
Democratic governors across the country are accusing the Trump administration of, once again, playing politics with people's hunger.
www.motherjones.com
December 5, 2025 at 1:35 AM
Reposted by The_Lady_Red
maudi63.bsky.social
Lest we forget there were a lot of Sanders to Trump voters both times Trump won. 👇
December 5, 2025 at 1:39 AM