LOL yeah - a pyhrric victory at best.

The only thing we have to fear is fear itself. — FDR, as Adolf Hitler becomes Chancellor of Germany, 1933

:fire: :death:

So the teenage girl-screwing creep is out of the mix — oh, what high standards the GOP has!

So the teenage girl-screwing creep is out of the mix — oh, what high standards the GOP has! — Mikie

It's very telling of the entire republican party being so ignorant and bad at speaking out against these creeps and behaviors of Trump and his closest circle of people that the entire party is immoral.

How much proof is needed?

If you are a republican, are you supporting this or not? If not, then speak up, if so, then you're just as immoral as them. And if you're against it, but fear them, then bite the damn bullet and organize together into a new party. Take the loss if that leads to a loss in the next election through diluting the voters between the two factions. Eventually your moral faction of the republican party will gain in popularity and snuff out the immoral trash of the other. The Lincoln Project already tries this, support them, gain their strength instead.

Republicans turning a blind eye towards the immorality makes them complicit in the immorality. Either take a stand against it or embrace it, either way, the current state of republicans is that of immoral bad people. Doesn't matter where you stand politically, that conclusion is solid.

Trump transition teams turns to Project 2025 to fill positions with Trump supporters

It's very telling of the entire republican party being so ignorant and bad at speaking out against these creeps — Christoffer

Yeah, there’s really no parity. Both parties are bought by corporations and are comprised of wealthy people educated at Ivy Leagues, generally — but anyone not locked in the “go team” red/blue tribalism can still see the differences. These nominees are beyond satire.

It’s just that people have stopped caring. They don’t trust anything, they don’t know anything, and they’ve now been influenced by something even worse than “mainstream media” — social media “influencers” and memes. :vomit:

They’re isolated on their information islands, transported there by big tech algorithms, addicted to their phones — all for profit. Not a great situation. You see it in polls where it’s asked if the stock market is doing well and Republicans say it’s awful, when it’s at record highs. I assume the same can be done with Democrats.

We’re no longer in the neoliberal era, it’s claimed. We’ll see. Biden was neoliberalism lite, Trump is just an idiot — so anything is possible. But what eventually emerges will be interesting to see. And how it disseminates to the masses via this strange media landscape.

I agree with everything there. Trump and everything we see is the symptom of the modern condition.

We’re no longer in the neoliberal era, it’s claimed. We’ll see. Biden was neoliberalism lite, Trump is just an idiot — so anything is possible. But what eventually emerges will be interesting to see. And how it disseminates to the masses via this strange media landscape. — Mikie

I think post-truth-ideals have taken over from neoliberalism. It's not a value system, but a sign of neoliberalism breaking down. The values of neoliberalism have programmed everyone to only be looking out for themselves; both as a sense of having a strong identity standing against the world, as well as stopping to care for anything. Everyone is in a bubble thinking they can exist without having to interact with anyone else but who they choose to. That they're not affected by climate change, economics, war and so on.

Communism was something that previously stood as a counter-weight to the neoliberal change. But since the fall of the Soviet union and placing communism's tyranny on full display as a failed system, it's more or less died out and neoliberalism could rage freely. We have the playbook for communism, we know how it played out, but we haven't truly for neoliberalism until now. We're starting to see the terrors of what it really did to our culture. And in the hindsight of the future I believe we will look back at the peak of neoliberalism just as we look back at the peak of failed communist empires obscuring the tyranny and terrors at its core. We will have an historical context showing identity enforcement and the tyranny of isolation that failed to organize people into movements for the betterment of humanity. Failing to organize the world into dealing with something like the climate change for instance.

Trump's authoritarianism is a clear sign that neoliberalism is ending. I'm only hoping it inspires a new world order to form around less authoritarian views as people get fed up with that form of fallout from the ending neoliberalism. And that the world finds a better equilibrium between the liberal values of freedom and the necessity of collaborative collective projects and systems that help people and improves life for all.

I don't think that's really a dream scenario, because I'm seeing how fed up people are with how things have been run over the past 50 years. No one wants a communist state, people don't want authoritarian leaders, they don't want a state boot, but they also don't want the soulless capitalist neoliberal machine just grinding them into mindless dust in which the existential dread of being reach a climax of absolute meaninglessness. People crave for a system that actually works, something well-planned and intelligent.

It might not look like it with all the trash and unintelligent brain rot that's going around, but you can see it in people's eyes... they're tired. They want meaning. Some go back to religion, only to find themselves in the same mess of incoherent ideas that it had. But some look for more collective coherence, something that connects people beyond the superficial realm of online trash that is algorithmically controlled social media.

People need big projects, big movements, stuff that connects and builds towards something profound or that gives a sense of it.

One example of how neoliberalism has reached its end and is about to fall is young people's interest in only short form TikTok-style media. The entertainment industry became democratized with the rise of YouTube and short form media to the point that it took the formula of commercials as the main media format. TikTok and Instagram reels functions like commercials, one after another of short form content. It flipped the idea of watching a show with commercial breaks into the commercial format being the main form of entertainment. But there's very little substance in this format, not because it's uncreative, but that it doesn't have the time to form deeper meaning. It's like looking for answers to existential questions in the commercial breaks on TV.

But young people have started to behave lost, finding themselves dissolution and without a sense of actual meaning. We're seeing a peak of this soulless consumption of the neoliberal market and that soullessness is beginning to become clear to everyone. There's a reason why we see trends like the vinyl records making a comeback. It's not because of some hipster-nostalgia, but for the purpose of slowing down and be more personal with things like listening to music. People are leaving social media or don't care for it as much anymore; they're mostly using it as a main form of communication with friends and family, but not as an identity sign post.

This form of anti-behavior against the plastic shallow nature of neoliberalism will build something new, it's a movement that is yet to have a specific form and core idea, it's a reaction that I think is the seed for what's to come after neoliberalism as a system of values truly crash down.

One of the better takes I’ve read:

https://apple.news/AEToGjqpLR4aQxsRScVmgVA

Absolutely true. But…there’s still a majority in this country that isn’t into Trump. They didn’t turn out for Harris like they did for Biden, and there’s good reasons for that too. That’s the other side of the coin.

One of the better takes I’ve read:

https://apple.news/AEToGjqpLR4aQxsRScVmgVA — Mikie

:up:

Also, Fox and friends are entertaining, like The Jerry Springer Show. Has been referred to as entertainment, for that matter.^{(thedispatch, logicallyfacts)} Compare to more sober, boring, ordinary news channels.

The source-memes and whatever it all is (plus the amount of that stuff around), begs the question of where they came from and who wrote them. Determining (and perhaps poking at) their murky origins might be worthwhile.

The implosion continues.

Compare to more sober, boring, ordinary news channels. — jorndoe

Tik Tok and all the rest — something like 50% of users aged 18-29 use it to catch up on politics — are much flashier than Frontline or 60 Minutes, let alone reading a paper. That’s just the way it is right now. It’ll change, but whether for better or worse I have no idea.

So, Biden pardons Hunter. Me, I think it was perfectly justifiable, but what's the bet that within a New York minute, you know who will be citing it in support of pardons for January 6th felons.

A pretty face, and some 634K followers on x/twitter as of typing, networked.
An example of what mad dis/mal/misinformation/bullshit campaigning can look like:

Liz Churchill

At a glance, it looks like noisy satire, except a couple of classes below The Onion.
I wouldn't want to impede their right to post nonsense, though some accountability would be great.

Does it work, are they making a difference?

^{2023Aug21 | 2023Oct20 | 2023Dec18 | vatniksoup | vaxopedia}

Why are your still on X? Stop wasting your time, or worse, ours.

, well, now and then I get a notice, a way to keep tabs on what's going on.
Becoming informed is not the same as taking the notices/stories seriously.
I'm guessing those propagandists/influencers are having an impact, but it's unclear how much.

What's up with Matt Gaetz? Can we now rest assured every time the democrats are accused of something ludicrous like a pedophile ring, it's projection in its purest form and it's Republicans actually doing this?

I think it's safer to assume that whatever filth one side is accusing the other of, the accusing side is guilty of too.

Heed Bernie's warning

[deleted]

I think it's safer to assume that whatever filth one side is accusing the other of, the accusing side is guilty of too. — Tzeentch

Exactly. The problem isn't one party or the other. The problem is both parties.

Abolish political parties. Abolish group-think and group-hate.

George Washington's Farewell Address (1796)

The unity of government which constitutes you one people is also now dear to you. It is justly so, for it is a main pillar in the edifice of your real independence, the support of your tranquility at home, your peace abroad; of your safety; of your prosperity; of that very liberty which you so highly prize. But as it is easy to foresee that, from different causes and from different quarters, much pains will be taken, many artifices employed to weaken in your minds the conviction of this truth; as this is the point in your political fortress against which the batteries of internal and external enemies will be most constantly and actively (though often covertly and insidiously) directed, it is of infinite moment that you should properly estimate the immense value of your national union to your collective and individual happiness; that you should cherish a cordial, habitual, and immovable attachment to it; accustoming yourselves to think and speak of it as of the palladium of your political safety and prosperity; watching for its preservation with jealous anxiety; discountenancing whatever may suggest even a suspicion that it can in any event be abandoned; and indignantly frowning upon the first dawning of every attempt to alienate any portion of our country from the rest, or to enfeeble the sacred ties which now link together the various parts.

The United States of Kakistan
20January25 (am)

Again, less than a majority of "We the Sheeple" have ignorantly voted for the Felon-in Chief (FOTUS) "they deserve" – shame! So now the hostile takeover of this moribund 'constitutional republic' (1787-2024) is on the verge of fully establishing an oligarchic kakistocracy (with "tech bro" stooge Vance-in-waiting with his finger on the "Twenty-fifth Amendment trigger). :mask:

Though a speculative singularitarian, IRL as a Black American activist I've never been tempted/persuaded by accelerationism (why?); but ...

• Carter-Mondale's Legacy –
Reagan (& Bush), 1981-1993

• Clinton-Gore's Legacy –
"Dubya", 2001-2009

• Obama-Biden's Legacy –
Trump The Clown, 2017-2021

• Biden-Harris' Legacy –
Trump The Convict, 2025-TBD — nails in the republic's coffin

[deleted]

Civil war? How you doing over there, these days?

In contemplating the causes which may disturb our Union, it occurs as matter of serious concern that any ground should have been furnished for characterizing parties by geographical discriminations, Northern and Southern, Atlantic and Western; whence designing men may endeavor to excite a belief that there is a real difference of local interests and views. One of the expedients of party to acquire influence within particular districts is to misrepresent the opinions and aims of other districts. You cannot shield yourselves too much against the jealousies and heartburnings which spring from these misrepresentations; they tend to render alien to each other those who ought to be bound together by fraternal affection. . . .

However combinations or associations of the above description may now and then answer popular ends, they are likely, in the course of time and things, to become potent engines, by which cunning, ambitious, and unprincipled men will be enabled to subvert the power of the people and to usurp for themselves the reins of government, destroying afterwards the very engines which have lifted them to unjust dominion. — George Washington's Farewell Address (1796)

If this does not describe the current political climate, I don't know what does.

United States of Kakistan
20January2025 (pm)


:fire: :death:

https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/963735

77 million Americans (+ 6 million Dems who stayed home), many knowingly but most ignorantly,voted for:

Sieg Heil 2025!


Former illegal immigrant from White South Africa and so-to-be trillionaire welfare queen & wannabe Bond-villain Elon Musk bought the US Presidency and took a huge step closer to Making Apartheid Great Again. Will there be blood after all? TBD.

update:

Far-right wingnut (racist, nativist) groups in both North America and Europe praise Elon Musk's "salute" ...

https://apnews.com/article/musk-gesture-salute-antisemitism-0070dae53c7a73397b104ae645877535

I don't think that white supremacists liking his salute means he himself is a nazi. I just think he's stupid and don't know what he's doing. Paying people to paint him as a smart man, as a leader. He was just outed to have paid some other gamer to play a character in a game to a point of being the best game character in the world, then trying to act like he was responsible for it, which other experts of that game saw through.

He spends a lot of time on crafting an image of himself as this super smart individual who think above society, but he's an insecure incel-type who gets high on power. Here's what I wrote in the news thread about his salute:

These new incel-type billionaires and celebrities do whatever it takes to frame themselves as masculine hard men, but they're like those insecure kids in school who tried too hard to be cool and tough but when cornered they could lash out in pathetic ways, while sometimes truly dangerous ways. In the US I'd argue it's those personalities who are more often than not the school shooting types.

Elon Musk seems to be such a person. He's not smart, but he spends a lot of money on trying to show the world that he is. He's radicalized into other people's ideologies because he's not smart enough to spot his own biases. He pays people to play his video games so that he can show his progress being that of the best players in the world.

It's all a show to fill that craving for attention. And up on that stage he doesn't know what to do. He dances around like an awkward drunk and he tries to interact with the audience in this euphoria of power, and in that moment he strikes a greeting that he doesn't understand looks like something else.

I don't think he did made that salute intentionally. I think it's being used by everyone online and in media to craft this narrative.

But I'm not sure this other explanation is any better. It just shows he's an insecure, emotionally unstable and stupid man who is easily drawn into ideologies with whoever gives him power and attention of a crowd.

A nazi we can deal with and fight, but a stupid man with too much power can be more dangerous. That's what no one seems to get in all this. Stop putting people in boxes and realize the actual issues, otherwise it's impossible to fight the real dangers.

If you fight him with the pretense that he is a nazi, then you will probably fail as he probably isn't and all the offense you used up with that pretense ends up being a weakness in the critique.

The public, on all sides, are so ill-equiped to deal with stuff like this today, everyone jumps deep into any polarized depth at the first glance of anything that can enforce their ideas. — Christoffer

Of course white supremacists will take advantage of this, but I don't think Musk is a nazi, I think he's just stupid and in over his head. He gets so high on the attention of the crowd that he doesn't know what he's doing.

Just look at his awkward dance; is that a man who is knowledgeable about, and controls his own body with enough self-knowledge to know what salute he's making?

I don't think that white supremacists liking his salute means he himself is a nazi. — Christoffer

I don't think he's a nazi either (btw, why does it matter?), just an über-rich, sociopathic, racist provocateur.

I don't think he's a nazi either (btw, why does it matter?), just an über-rich, sociopathic, racist provocateur. — 180 Proof

Which is why I think it's important to know why he's an über-rich, sociopathic, racist provocateur. We can't criticize and fight labels; they are incapable of being criticized as they describe themselves. A nazi is just as much of a label as a sociopath and über-rich. We cannot criticize a sociopath for being a sociopath, since it just underlines what is already known.

But we can criticize what's underneath. Why is he a sociopath? A racist? Über-rich? Doing so opens up to actual critique and means of fighting against these types.

One interesting reveal of this was that after years of trying to criticize Trump for being, what he's already being, nothing stuck. Except when people started calling him "weird". That somehow affected him more than anything else. Because it's not a label, it was calling out his behavior as being at odds with the norms.

That such a basic description of Trump rattled his emotions and senses more than calling him a racist underlines how labels are meaningless when dealing with these people.

Calling Musk "an insecure boy" I think carries more weight to him than calling him a sociopath. He made a twitter tantrum over the fact that gamers called him out as having faked his success in the video game. In a way much more childish than he usually does.

Because just calling these people labels ends when they deny it. Not because they're right, but because the discussion won't be able to move past such blunt denial.

But it absolutely matters if he is a nazi or not. If he is, then that's what's being fought against. If he's not, then trying to fight him as someone who does a nazi salute will just backfire as the reasons for it is something else than being a nazi.