Finished, Aug & Sept

The changes of the seasons are less obtrusive on spots of this kind than amid woodland scenery.  Still, to a close observer, they are just as perceptible; the difference is that their media of manifestation are less trite and familiar than such well-known ones as the bursting of the buds or the fall of the leaf.  Many are not so stealthy and gradual as we may be apt to imagine in considering the general torpidity of a moor or waste.  Winter, in coming to the country hereabout, advanced in well-marked stages, wherein might have been successively observed the retreat of the snakes, the transformation of the ferns, the filling of the pools, a rising of fogs, the embrowning by frost, the collapse of the fungi, and an obliteration by snow.

Thomas Hardy, Far from the Madding Crowd

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But what rising authoritarianism and declining democracy in America really look like is exactly what Project 2025 has laid out as a game plan.  The MAGA movement seeks to consolidate power with Trump, erode checks and balances from Congress, degrade expertise, and remove anyone who might object to violations of the rule of law.  The results of those efforts won't be felt immediately.  Instead, the system will quietly collapse from within.

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Project 2025 envisions an America where abortion is strictly illegal, sex is closely policed, public schools don't exist, and justice is harsh, all in accordance with fundamentalist Christian principles that would form the explicit basis for policy.

David A. Graham, The Project:  How Project 2025 is Reshaping America