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1. Here's a meme posted on FB by the GOP of Cambria County, PA. It was liked 761 times and shared 151 times. The voting age population of the county is only about 100K. But the real story is in the comments... 
2. When a President yells "lock them up" about his political opponents, it's only a threat to the polity if a substantial portion of the citizenry will eagerly support such an abuse of power.
3. And boy oh boy...do the good Republicans of Cambria County want Bill Barr to start throwing a whole bunch of Democrats in the clink.
4. I hesitated before posting those screen shots, but this is a *public* FB page. No one is trying to hide anything here. This is the official page of the county's GOP...and they want the show trials to start *yesterday.* I didn't find a single dissenting voice.
5. It's stunning to me how quickly the political culture of Trump's GOP has embraced outright authoritarianism. I grew up in this county. I knew folks were conservative, but I had no idea they'd just jump right into the authoritarian deep end with an adulterous billionaire.
6. Interestingly, though the county went hard for Trump, Democrats still have a registration edge (41K Dems, 33K GOP). This is probably a leftover from the days when the county was far more blue. tribdem.com/news/cambria-c…
7. I'd like to see more reporting on county level GOP organizations. The outcome of any sort of constitutional crisis Trump might try to provoke will depend in part upon how ordinary citizens respond & what messages they send to their representatives.
8. Trump and the GOP has the Republican voters of Cambria County scared out of their wits. Take this post on the Holocaust, for example. How did people interpret it? "This is what the Democrats want to do to us."
9. So when Trump says "we will never be a socialist country," most of us may chuckle and think "he has no idea what socialism is." But many in his base think they know, and what they know is that socialism = putting them in concentration camps. Like for real, this is their truth.
10. The irony of this GOP post about the Holocaust, of course, is that this same FB page has circulated a host of anti-semitic memes about Soros and globalists.
11. An earlier thread on the rise of white nationalism/right wing radicalism in small town Pennsylvania.
12. And here’s a story that just broke today about violent right wingers in the Washington state GOP. theguardian.com/world/2019/apr…
