It did happen here
By 
The collapse of the American liberal democratic order continues to accelerate:
Paul Weiss and Columbia think that paying Danegeld is going to solve their temporary little misunderstandings with the Trump administration, except as the poet noted, once you pay it, you never get rid of the Dane:
Some lawyers said the deal was driven by profit. Others said it was enabling autocracy. One said the move had prompted her to quit her legal job in disgust.
All over the legal world, lawyers on Friday were talking about the deal that Paul Weiss, one of the nation’s most prominent law firms, had made with President Trump to escape an onerous executive order that would have prevented it from representing many clients before the federal government. To avoid the hit to its business, the firm agreed to do $40 million worth of pro bono work for causes favored by the White House.
It was a striking development in the White House’s broad retribution campaign against big law firms that represented lawyers or prosecutors in the criminal cases against Mr. Trump before the 2024 election.
Paul Weiss’s move was a particular point of contention because of the firm’s standing in the legal community. The firm has long been dominated by Democrats and prided itself on being at the forefront of fights against the government for civil rights.
Last night’s new EO shows just how destructive this kind of willingness to be blackmailed really is.
When the institutions fail, it’s time to look for new leaders:
For the Democrats, the path forward couldn’t be clearer: Out with the Vichy regime of Schumer and Jefferies; in with people who are actually willing to fight:
In what he described as his largest rally ever, U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vermont, spoke to a crowd that filled Denver’s Civic Center on Friday evening, railing against billionaires and President Donald Trump while listeners chanted and nodded along.
“We will not allow America to become an oligarchy,” Sanders said to cheers. “This nation was built by working people, and we are not going to let a handful of billionaires run the government.”
Sanders, speaking alongside U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-New York, visited the city as part of a “Fighting Oligarchy” tour the pair are taking across the country to garner early support for Democrats before the midterm elections in 2026.
“An extreme concentration of power and corruption is taking over this country like never before,” Ocasio-Cortez said. “A better world is possible.”
Ocasio-Cortez, who said the crowd was estimated to be 30,000 people, praised each of Colorado’s Democratic members of Congress while addressing the park.
“We need a Democratic Party that fights harder for us, too. That means communities choosing and voting for Democrats and elected officials who know how to stand for the working class,” she said. “Colorado, I want to thank you for working hard to make that happen.”
AOC for president.
Mortimer2000 flags this quote:
AOC: “Fox News and the right wing will have you believe that these American values are something out of the Communist Manifesto. That we believe these things because we went to college and read them in a book somewhere… I don’t believe in health care, labor, and human dignity because I’m a Marxist. I believe it because I was a waitress.”
This is the way.