I saw some BBC vox pop news nonsense (I hate vox pop pieces in BBC news programmes) a couple of days ago, asking people why they voted for Trump. Some MAGA fuckwit said he agreed with America First and if stuff was going on overseas, unless it affected America or its interests, the US should stay away from it.
I guess these people’s definition of ‘its interests’ is (ok, I’m going to be polite) … uninformed.
I bet they think Ukraine and Taiwan have nothing to do with/no impact on America’s interests. As if Russia’s invasion had absolutely nothing to do with the inflation of the past few years. If China invades Taiwan (hugely more likely in the next 4 years now) then all the silicon chips coming from there that will end up under CCCP control is going to have a huge impact.
(And I knew Trump would win when I heard him asking one of his rallies “does anyone here feel better off than they were four years ago?”)
It feels like the entire nation has just collectively lost their goddamn minds and decided to just accept the alternate reality that previously only Qanon nuts inhabited.
BBC just reported that Wiles took the job on one strict condition: That she would be in sole control of access to Trump.
The reporter followed this up by suggesting much of the disorganisation and unpredictability of his first term was that all and sundry were whispering in his ear.
And a pundit noted that last time they did not know how government worked and how to govern, but their 4 years in power means that they certainly do now!
Like others have said many times in many other places, the set of figures behind him - and that they know what they want and how to get it - is what is truly terrifying this time.
Thanks for the intel, I don’t watch The Young Turks often enough to really be familiar with the various talking heads there and now I know I needn’t bother. What a freaking shitshow.
Fucking hell. I have been feeling awful all week because of this and it doesn’t affect me directly, but most assuredly indirectly… and possibly, eventually, directly. It feels very similar to our leaving the EU in that those who voted for this shit are screwed, they just don’t know it yet, and when they come to realise what a horrible mistake they’ve made it’ll be too late.
Cenk Uyger started TYT. He’s still a progressive, but he has a tendency to engage in both sideserism. His nephew, Hasan Piker (aka HasanAbi) used to be part of it but he left years ago to stream on Twitch, which he still does. He is a legit leftist. He doesn’t scape goat trans people or any other group, he doesn’t get into both sides arguments. He seems like the real deal. He’s actually how I learned about TYT, because I kept seeing clips of him on YouTube, and I just Googled him. So I’ve never really followed TYT, either, but I do know who the players are.
Well, Oregon shifted from 4 Dem/2 GOP representatives to 5 Dem/1 GOP. I live in a deep blue district but can see trees from my windows that are in a purple district. That district elected a Black woman, narrowly, over a full MAGA jackwagon.
Republicans: Gingers in our schools! Gingers in the media! This is getting out of control!
Democrats: Wait, what? Gingers have been around since forever, why are you getting so freaked out about them all of a sudden?
Republicans: If the Democrats had their way all your kids would come home from school looking like Raggedy Ann & Andy dolls! We need to at least have some basic protections for our students, like enacting laws to keep redheads out of organized sports and shared bathrooms!
Democrats: What the fuck, man? We’re not going to support that hateful stuff!
Pundits:Democrats threw the election by campaigning on fringe issues such as ginger rights instead of issues most Americans care about.
To so many of these people I just want to ask, “what the fuck did a trans person ever do to you?”
I agree with this. He’s had some enormously shitty takes on things over the years. He’s long struck me as a kind of Bill Maher-style “scumbag leftist”.
Didn’t want to link directly to shitter but here’s Bonnie Greer laying it on the table like a boss and shutting down that conservative nitwit Montgomerie.
I want to know what other groups they’re willing to sacrifice for appeasement, after the fascists wedge-off trans people, to preserve their own privilege, and who do they think will be left to speak up when the fascists come for them, “the enemies of the people”?
Because once you pay the fashgeld, you’ll never get rid of the fash.
They’ll get to all “out” groups eventually, because as you note, this is always how fascism (or any kind of authoritarian state, for that matter) works, a constantly steady stream of internal enemies that need to be rooted out and rounded up and gotten rid of, in one way or another.
And we know this from the Niemöller poem. In the end they come for the appeasers themselves, and only then do they realize they really shouldn’t have thrown everyone else under the bus. But apparently some people refuse to learn anything from the mistakes of the 30s and 40s.
I was talking about this with a friend who was trying to convince me that democracy isn’t over because once the horrorshow starts and the effects finally hit the fascists and their enablers personally, they’ll be appalled and try to oust Trump/Vance. I reminded him what happened during COVID: people literally died rather than mask up and get vaccinated, and their friends who were lucky enough to survive saw this, were appalled… and doubled down on their antivax and pro-Trump stance. I don’t think the majority of Americans are capable of admitting or even realizing they’ve made a horrible mistake. When the consequences hit them, they’re just going to blame the left and escalate the violence and suffering even further. I’m not trying to be negative here or to advocate giving up, but I think we should mentally prepare for the possibility that these people, like the Trumpers before them, have gone full death cult and will never again act in a rational manner.
Funny fact about a cage, they’re never built for just one group
So when that cage is done with them and you’re still poor, it come for you
The newest lowest on the totem, well golly gee, you have been used
You helped to fuel the death machine that down the line will kill you too (oops)
