Why else would they also seek a blanket revocation of our right to bear arms?

Is this an actual serious proposal by the administration, or more "well, a couple of the lunatic fringe in Congress have put it forward" or "well, I could seeeee this happening."

who are currently pushing for the FBI to define all transgender people as terrorists and lock us all up.

So, when you wrote this, did you actually mean "okay, they aren't doing it now but they might in future!" or did you not know what was actually being proposed?

Because this is the key. There is a huge difference between the worst case scenario I can imagine and what is happening.

Consider the flip side. When the Right says that the Democrats are just one step away from communism because folks like AOC say there shouldn't be billionaires or Mamdami wants to run government grocery stores, I would imagine you see those as pretty nonsensical claims. But, they're doing the exact thing you are, where they're taking a handful of proposals, grossly misrepresenting the content and saying it's a path to ruin. So, we tend to tune them out.

Or, you could look at trump 2016. There were some worrying parallels between him and fascist beginnings but at the end of the day, an election was held and, despite his best efforts he left. And now, the mainstream is pretty suspicious of us when we scream fascist at the actual scary stuff.

By the way, by admitting that what I see happening looks a lot like historical examples of the steps towards genocide, it is possible to paint me as a terrorist under the proposed TIVE categorization.

Read the section I quoted again and you'll see this isn't the case unless you ignore a large swathe of it. Again, being able to imagine something is not the same as it being true.

When you hear a wild claim like that, it's worth double checking a primary source or, failing that, a reputable second hand source.

From page 3 of the full memo:

Note that this designation does not apply to all persons that are transgender, or their allies. It applies to those who: (1) believes that any opposition to transgender ideology is a violent and existential threat to the right of transgender people to exist and amounts to an imminent threat to physical safety; (2) believes that this fear justifies violence against those who refuse to affirm transgender ideology; and (3) takes, incites, or promotes violent action based on that ideology. All three criteria must be met. Individuals cannot and will not be investigated solely based on 1st Amendment protected activity alone.

While I don't particularly agree with their take, what's actually being proposed is adding transgender based violence to existing categories. The current categories are: race based, anti government/authority, animal rights/environmental, abortion and other.

Now, as far as I understand, vegans are not being locked up for being vegan, racists are still allowed to be racist, environmental activists are still okay to protest etc.

Could this be abused? Absolutely! And that is why it is stupidly important to be accurate. When we claim hysterical untrue shit, it makes everyone less likely to listen when things are actually dangerous. (We spent 4 years screaming fascist starting in 2016 and now when shit's actually getting scary, it is much harder to get people to listen because they've tuned us out. Boy who cried wolf etc.)

Edit: And like a goof, I forgot to link the primary source!

https://itsyourgov.org/investigation/oversight-project-unveils-case-for-new-fbi-domestic-terrorism-designation/

Like I said earlier, if you mean something like social media, then I agree. When I say social media, I also mean our new ways of ingesting media, eg short form text, memes, podcasts etc (though should probably use a different term.) I think there are a bunch of pernicious effects and incentives which have made seeing the humanity in those with whom we disagree difficult and compromise impossible. We don't need propaganda, people in general are just not able to handle the information landscape that's been created.

But, if you're really talking about even the spread of more independent written media etc, then I just don't see their limited readership being the fundamental game changer that we've seen.

As much as we rightly villify ICE, this just doesn't make much sense.

Even operationally, you'd have to assume they have guys just sitting around waiting. And then, for some reason someone alerts them to an international flight landing so they bust through the apart to detain people who had never intended to visit?

What I could see happening is sure, you have to use a motel or something while they figure out alternate arrangements, the hospitality industry being legendary for a not entirely legal workforce means there's a chance you get raided there? But this is stretching the bounds of credulity pretty gosh darned far.

Need? Probably! Willing to pay for? Sadly, probably less so...

To each their own. I agree with Chomsky that yeah, media blinkers people and frames the terms of the debate. But, this has been true for decades. Something has fundamentally changed in the last 10 - 15 years and we're watching those changes ripple across almost every society.

Again, you're free to share any relevant research. But, I think blaming the Rightward swing that we're seeing across the world on just "the media" is, at best, over simplistic.

aka, "okay, I know they didn't say this but I feel it!"

Which is eerily similar to how republicans paint the Left on various issues.

You are free to share some of that scholarship.

Unless you mean something like social media, then I'd probably agree. But any research blaming traditional media would have to answer three large issues that seem to stand in direct contradiction:

1. Germany has a wildly different media ecosystem than America, which has a wildly different media landscape than the UK, which has a wildly different media ecosystem than Italy, which has a wildly different media landscape than Austria, which has a very different one than France, which is very different from Poland etc. But the same phenomenon is happening across the board.

2. Traditional media is no longer where most people get their news. So either it's really radicalizing a smaller group or?

3. Traditional media consumption among age groups seems to indicate quite the opposite happening, ie, in America at least (I can't recall the age related shifts across Europe) younger voters are, relative to historical norms, lurching Right, whereas older voters are moving a bit to the Left. Yet, the younger groups are much less likely to get their news from traditional media than older voters, so if media were the culprit, you'd expect the shift to have happened the other way.

The short answer is media. Or as the kids like to say, “propaganda”.

Ehhhh, I think blaming a problem happening simultaneously in almost every democracy on "the media" feels a bit like putting our heads in the sand and avoiding the issues. But to each their own.

Thanks!

Admittedly, the Lemkin institute is being pursued in court for misusing the Lemkin name and fragrant misuse of the word genocide. (They are also claiming there's now a genocide red alert in the UK for trans people.)

You could cite multiple groups like the heritage foundation etc that would strenuously deny anything of the sort is taking place.

Hell, just not engaging with social media would probably be the correct call for all sides.

This stuff is destroying our ability as a people to handle anything.