Well, I've gone from having no clue who he was to having a great deal of respect! Thank you for all the insights, LJ. That's said, I don't like the music. If there wasn't a video to watch, I think the music would be repetitious to the point of boredom or annoyance--but that's my reaction to the sound, not to BB as a person, his lyrics, or the message.
Washington Examiner had an article today about an imaginary group supposedly teaching people how to use vandalism against ICe in Chicago. There is a Facebook page put up by someone with people making suggestions along those lines ( an ICE operation? Is anyone actually dumb enough to advocate crime on FB?) but the actual groups doing training are very scrupulous about document only--do nothing that could justify an arrest. Kid Twat is quoted in another article bemoaning unAmerican youth. There was another Kirk-deification piece about those mean Dems who aren't being sufficiently worshipful of Saint Charlie of Free Speech for Conservatives. This is Goebbels-style propaganda and it is a multiple times a day occurrence every fucking day and has been for decades.
But if I call it out for what it is, supposedly I'm being as bad as or the same as the haters.
Fuck no.
Maybe the Republican party wouldn't have degenerated into the corrupt, fascist, anti-Constitutional front for religious extremists and oligarchs that it is today if the rest of us had spent the last twenty-five years LOUDLY DENOUNCING THEIR FASCIST PROPAGANDA instead of trying to be "reasonable" while politely engaging in discussion of issues.
. The call a thug a thug post was about how DEM POLITICIANS need to speak, not individual MAGA voters , The communication needs to be directed toward independents, new voters, nonvoters, people who previously haven't followed politics much etc to keep them from failing for the Noise Machine bullshit.
Yes, it is true that the cult isn't ideological of philosophical in nature. It is the result of decades of smears, defamation, lies, and other "Othering" techniques intended to polarize for the purpose of creating a base that will vote R no matter how bad R policies are out of a conviction that everyone who isn't an R is an existential threat to real true good American values. Remember wedge issues? Framing complex issues as simplified good versus evil dichotomies? Republican party leaders did that purposefully to convince Republican voters that the Democratic party had bad values and was a threat to their good values. While Rove was creating polarization through good/bad framing . other Republicans were spreading outright defamation such as the Swift Boat Liars. It was all Othering. Tactical, not philosophical. And the hate and fearmongering directed by the Republican party toward the rest of America has been going on for years and years and years.
Of course the whole time the Republican party/Faux/etc propaganda network was in high gear, the propagandists used faux victimization whenever anyone criticized them. How dare anyone call the Swift Boat Liars liars? How dare anyone criticize the content produced by Limbaugh, Coulter, Malkin. That's cancel culture! It has been normal for decades for elected Republicans to engage in the promotion of hate and division while Dems were not supposed to object because to do so was supposedly to be engaging in divisiveness.
If people want to spend time talking actual policy with MAGA voters they can do so and maybe they will be able to break through sometimes. But the evidence of voting patterns shows that r voters usually vote R even when they are aware that they are voting for policies they oppose. Heck they kept on voting R even when their majour news sources Faux and Newsmax were revealed as liars. They even re-elected TRump even though Trump instigated a violent attack on Congress. Most R voter vote R no matter what. Some examples: in an interview with the head of the farmers' soybean special interest group, the head said that Trump's tariffs were bad but he'd vote for Trump again. Walz spent time talking to white union guys who nodded and agree on lots of issues but said they were voting for Trump. Biden bailed out union pensions, supported strikes, raised union wages, and lost the white male union vote. I read an interview with a R pol from Louisiana who was mourning the toxic wastes that had been spread around the state by floods. He told the reporter that he knew the state party was bad on environment issues, but he had to vote R because Republicans, he said, were Christians.
Othering is when a group of people is smeared with a false negative generalization. Kirk was othering when he said that white people were targeted for attack by roaming bands of black men. Elected Republicans nationwide are othering now when they say the No Kings Day even is a "hate America" event. Othering is when the Republican party decided to claim to be "pro-life" as opposed to the babykilling Democrats.
Othering is so common from Republicans and their media that it is normative. And no it is not othering them to say that--because othering is a false generalization, not an accurate one.
So how should a Dem politician run for office in this toxic polarized society created by Republican propaganda? Step one is to communicate reality clearly to the people not in the cult. Give voters a choice and make the choice obvious. Do it with humor as when Dem Sen Wyden said that Cosplay Cop Kristie was afraid of a man in a chicken suit or do it with moral outrage like Pritzker or stand up in public and say, in effect, bring in on while flooding the zone with lawsuits like WA Governor Ferguson. But do not treat propaganda from the Republicans as if it is good faith ideas for discussion.
The Portland Frog.
We’ve been talking about communication to reduce polarization and fight fascism. I think that at this moment in time, the smartest communicator I know of is the Portland Frog.
Why? Because he exposed the Trump admin as lying crisis actors and he did it in a way that is easy to understand, accessible to the non-political citizen, and catchy enough to get the attention of the MSM. What's going on with the Portland Frog standing off against ICE? Among Portland Protests, It’s Frogs and Sharks and Bears, Oh My! - The New York Times
I raised the question of whether MAGAs were born or made. I think that the comment about authoritarian personality types is very relevant: There are people who are natural born followers of a leader who is perceived to be strong. They care less about where they might be led than they do for the comfort of feeling that someone big and mean is in charge and will keep them safe.
No one is a natural born follower of a leader who is an idiot.
Republican influencers are trying hard to convince the MAGAs that King Pussygrabber and Cruelty Barbie are defending us against an existential threat. The longer Portland activists can keep things silly, the harder it will be to keep up the lying. Protest frogs vs. MAGA media influencers: the info war over ICE in Portland and Chicago
I am concerned about the upcoming No Kings Day. I am concerned about the leftwing wannabe heroes who do stupid and destructive things like blocking traffic, setting fires, and throwing things. If those jerks aren’t Republicans, then they should be because that’s who they’re helping. I hope the Portland Frog inspires people all over the US to make the NO Kings Day event be a day of silliness, music, and fun. Fuck Fascists with fun!
I’ll be down in Olympia WA where protests are always like that.
Best wishes to you all wherever you go and stay safe
This post was about how Dem pols should talk and I firmly believe they should be VERY LOUD AND HARSH IN THEIR CRITICISMS of the R party. Use the F word. Actually, both of them.
However, I don't think they should say anything about MAGAs and should talk to them. The goal must be to defuse the polarization.
As for me, I have MAGA friends and acquaintances and no desire to hurt their feelings. However, I also think that I'm not going to be complicit. At all. So, I post stuff on FB that flat out contradicts a lot of MAGA beliefs. For example, I posted an article about Saint Charlie of Free Speech for Conservatives Only and how people who criticized him have been attacked. At least one of my FB friends loves Kirk.
We still seem to be friends.
"So, Democrats have three words for this: no fucking way. It's literally life or death. We will not let Republicans blow up our health care system."
THANK YOU CHUCK!!!!!!
About giving up hate and experiencing pain instead. I don't think MAGAs are in pain any more than the usual for middle class Americans. I don't think that's why they like to hate. The concept of MAGAs as these poor sad people who have been left behind, the Forgotten Americans, working class and ignored by Dems, struggling to get by etc is mostly wrong. MAGAs tend to be better off than Dems, more likely to own homes as opposed to renting and are mostly middle class, They are over represented in government. Their lack of any real grievances is what makes them so appalling. Demographics & Group Affinities – Panel Study of the MAGA Movement The only thing they would lose if they gave up hating is their goddawful snobbery about being superior to everyone else and the entertainment they get from the thrill of horror as they armchair hero their lives away in front of the TV>
Thank you, JP. As for messaging, the people of Portland are doing it right; the image of ICE teargassing a silly inflatable dinosaur is not what Cruelty Barbie and King Pussygrabber want. The NYT noticed and had an article to the effect that "Portland responds to ICE with whimsy" and this morning's Wall Street Journal, under the headline "What's really going on in Portland" details out from police logs that answer is "Not much at all." Maybe Walz has the smartest approach of all: "These people are nuts."
I think "bought the farm" for dead dates back to the days when small family farms lived precariously from one season to the next, always struggling to get their mortgage paid off.
"Drank the Kool aid" is relatively new.
Different places have different directions to indicate failure. "The deal went south" maybe comes from "being sold down the river" etc? I read somewhere that in Ireland your deal doesn't go south; it goes west. Does anyone know?
It's remarkable how recurrent the pattern is: a group exists which I will call "Our Nation". Outsiders move in. At first, when the outsiders are perceived as such a tiny minority as to not make much difference, they are received fairly well; however, as time goes on and more outsiders arrive, a reaction is triggered. The reaction has predictable elements: Our Nation first! Talk about the inherent cultural superiority (and often genetic superiority) of those who are real true members of Our Nation, flag fetishism, militarism, women sidelined out of leadership (unless they can out-hate the male leadership or are physical exemplars of the preferred genotype), the use of Othering to gain power, etc.
I think this territoriality, cult of a strong leader, and fear of the Other is hardwired into our species.
There's Russian saying, "Man is wolf to man."
I've been not dealing with this because it is less painful to me to be angry than to be sad. There are people whose death really hurts--I mean people I don't know but seem somehow permanent and essential so it's a shock when they die.
"Outside a train station near Tokyo, hundreds of people cheer as Sohei Kamiya, head of the surging nationalist party Sanseito, criticizes Japan’s rapidly growing foreign population.
As opponents, separated by uniformed police and bodyguards, accuse him of racism, Kamiya shouts back, saying he is only talking common sense."
This reminded me of how way back when I was a kid "Made in Japan" meant cheap and shoddy. Now it is more likely to mean "made well"--I suppose because of the Japanese cars that hit the US market at about the time I reached the car buying stage.
It's ironic that this post is "uncategorized" because I wonder if the spectrum itself is a construct of the human predilection for categorizing rather than a discovered phenomenon.
For example, let's suppose that we had a high need for athletic skills in order to be even moderately successful in life. Let's suppose that those without the high level skills were viewed as outliers. Would we have categories of lower skilled people? Would they be considered handicapped? Once labeled, would they become a focus and/or target (beyond the usual targeting that people get for being outliers of any kind)? Would we fail to notice anything special about people on the functional end of the autism spectrum but be highly concerned about the clumsy guy who can't dance well or the one who hits his thumb rather than a nail? What about people with poorly developed sense of spatial relationships?
Humans exist on multiple spectrums and human development from fertilized egg to viable baby is extraordinarily complex. People come out all kinds of ways.
I understand that there are conditions of life that mean an individual truly cannot survive, let alone thrive, without extensive support; however, I also wonder sometimes if we categorize too much and think that maybe if we as a culture put more emphasis on being accepting of variations the categories wouldn't be necessary.
I also think we should consider the possibility that some of our categories aren't grounded in anything that actually matters, the equivalent of saying that birds with red breasts should be a category, not birds that perch.
I used to make pilgrimages to Glacier National Park but no more: climate change and crowds. I used to go to Yukon Territory but no more: climate change. I got married in front of the Tree of Life on the coast out at Kalaloch and my husband and I have gone there annually for over 20 years. This winter will be our last trip. The Tree of Life has fallen over--victim of climate change. Most of the bluff cabins have been torn down because of bluff failure, also climate change. I am planning a pilgrimage to Escalante in Utah. I've been going there for the hiking since the 1970s but this will be my last trip. Too crowded. Zion and Bryce get over a million visitors each summer and the spill over is reaching the Boulder area. When I first went there, the trails were barely developed, the roads were gravel and there was barely anything in the way of tourism. Now the area is being promoted by the state and the wonder and adventure is gone.
I'm in pretty good shape for 71--meaning I didn't have weight gain with menopause; don't have cancer; I can see, hear and think; my hair is still brown; and I can walk three or four miles without collapse (if the weather is cool).
As mentioned above, fast movement or sudden movement is jarring and painful. I'm not flexible anymore. I can't remember names. I can't walk very far if the temp is over 80 without getting ill. This is a big change from my previous baseline which included 20 mile mountain hikes wearing a backpack and weekend bike trips of 60 miles or so plus occasional bike trip vacations.
Mostly I'm okay so far. I'm kind of afraid I will follow the pattern with my family which is to lose my sight and hearing while continuing to live into my nineties. I don't want to keep going when it stops being fun.
I don't think that the MAGA movement has an ideology or philosophy. I think they are they kind of people who are susceptible to manipulation by leaders who present as strong defenders and appeal to their need to invest faith in a savior. It doesn't matter that the savior is saving them from an imaginary threat. in this case fear that nonwhite people might participate in American life on the same basis as the MAGAs.
That's certainly what the Republicans are doing: deifying Charlie because that's how they legitimize themselves and delegitimize everyone else.
I've been thinking about Ezra Klein and his horrible fascist-enabling article about Kirk "doing politics the right way." Apparently, Ezra thinks that having public discussions where a hater gets to air the hateful crap is doing politics the right way.
I'm more in agreement with this guy who says in the article that he doesn't debate fascists. Why not? Because they are wrong, so there's nothing to discuss.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/the-problem-with-debating-fascists-from-a-guy-who-s-debated-just-about-everyone/ar-AA1MOhSE?ocid=msedgntp&pc=HCTS&cvid=68cc404ce9b94b64b1660870857945a1&ei=21
Medhi Hasan engages in lots of debates, not to change the mind of the person he's talking to, but to reach the people who are watching and listening.
We need to move the Overton Window so that discourse that promotes stochastic violence is not debated or discussed as if there was legitimacy to it. Just called out for what it is and rejected.
To remarkable degree, Republican messaging uses the precepts set out by Goebbels. One is to give people the thrill of fear, basically something to be outraged about that isn't real. Kind of like the fun of being scared at a horror movie. For literally decades, Republican messaging has consisted of telling people to be afraid of not-real while also telling them that the real is fake. So "They are going to take your guns!!!!" and "There is no climate change." War on Christmas, trans kids, white people are going to be a minority!!!! ect. From the safety of their armchairs, life becomes an exciting experience of being scared/outraged over imaginary threats, which is a reinforcing experience. It's fun. Allows the participant to feel virtuous and vicariously heroic by voting for the party that will smite the evil enemy without ever being in any real danger. Meanwhile, I'm sure that those people worry about real problems, but election after election they vote to fight the imaginary ones.
I think leading Dems are sort of hoping that the economy will be the real problem that breaks through this bullshit and gets enough voters to vote D to give the Dems some power in Congress and at the state level. Hence "kitchen table issues" versus R culture war bullshit. It worked in Sioux City at a special election.
On the other hand, Missouri, which is a hell hole of bad government, just keeps electing Republicans over and over.
I keep thinking of the Depression, when enough voters were suffering enough to give a reform politicians real power. Once the suffering receded to being mostly minorities, that desire for reform and improvement, that desire for government as a service for the common good, started losing elections to "I got mine, screw you, and besides you are just a (fill in the hater crap du jour)."
It is a privilege to be outraged all the time about imaginary shit.
I think my difficulty is... MAGA is a fascist movement--literally. People who like Prager U, Kirk, or other haters are the moral equivalent of good Germans. And most of the good Germans were, mostly, nice people.
As noted above, they only learn from being hurt themselves and even then the commitment to their groupthink often remains. The core of that groupthink is disrespect for the rest of us.
Actually disrespect isn't a strong enough word. That friend I had who claimed that Dems supported infanticide, for example. How the hell could he justify believing something that awful about other people? The Republican party message is a fairy tale about how the good Republican party will save the good people from the existential threat presented by the rest of us. How are we an existential threat? Because we (fill in the blank with current hater memes). What unites the MAGAs isn't a set of shared values or support for certain policies; it's hate for the rest of us.
Just as racists make exceptions for someone they know, MAGAs make exceptions for someone they know. But that nice person who is a good neighbor, a long time friend, goes home and chooses to indulge in hate messaging that makes the rest of us potential targets of violence because of the false claim that we are an existential threat to real true good American values.
Would my neighbor Anne object if I got shot at a protest rally? Probably. Would she object if someone else did? Not if Ingraham or Watters or someone told her that the protester had it coming.
It's weird to chat and be friendly with someone who would has no trouble seeing people get hauled off to prison in El Salvador or FL, can rationalize women dying of miscarriages, supports voter suppression and gerrymandering, voted for the guy who instigated a violent attack on Congress and who is in fact an existential threat to representative government and fundamental human rights.
I guess I have to remember the line about "Forgive them, they know not what they do." But I sure as hell am not forgiving to the ones who get elected or get on Faux.
Thank you for your thoughtful in depth response. I think my neighbor was really shocked by an attack on a Christian church--that definitely rattled her world view. I don't know if there's any change in her attitude toward Kirk because she has gone silent.
I have another rightwing friend that I met through the community of dog rescuers. Her instinct is to be a racist. She calls herself a conservative and is very responsive to Republican messages that trigger her tendency to "Other" everyone else. The one exception is that she dislikes intensely religious conservatives. She is a racist, not of the N-word type, but of the type that very readily believes any negative generality applied to all immigrants who aren't white.
The Republican party has built a community around "othering". My theory is that they are appealing to an instinctive behavior hardwired into humans from clear back in caveman days when "our" little band of cave people were in competition for territory and resources with "yours", a competition that could be put aside sometimes for interbreeding or cooperation on a hunt, but still an embedded sense that people like me are a group and people unlike me are inherently scary.
I've talked my dog rescue friend down from anti-immigrant hysteria several times but it takes very little for her to revert. She consumes Republican hate propaganda all the time.
*Comment archive for non-registered commenters assembled by email address as provided.
On “Weekend music thread #02 Bad Bunny”
Well, I've gone from having no clue who he was to having a great deal of respect! Thank you for all the insights, LJ. That's said, I don't like the music. If there wasn't a video to watch, I think the music would be repetitious to the point of boredom or annoyance--but that's my reaction to the sound, not to BB as a person, his lyrics, or the message.
On “Let’s start calling a thug a thug”
Washington Examiner had an article today about an imaginary group supposedly teaching people how to use vandalism against ICe in Chicago. There is a Facebook page put up by someone with people making suggestions along those lines ( an ICE operation? Is anyone actually dumb enough to advocate crime on FB?) but the actual groups doing training are very scrupulous about document only--do nothing that could justify an arrest. Kid Twat is quoted in another article bemoaning unAmerican youth. There was another Kirk-deification piece about those mean Dems who aren't being sufficiently worshipful of Saint Charlie of Free Speech for Conservatives. This is Goebbels-style propaganda and it is a multiple times a day occurrence every fucking day and has been for decades.
But if I call it out for what it is, supposedly I'm being as bad as or the same as the haters.
Fuck no.
Maybe the Republican party wouldn't have degenerated into the corrupt, fascist, anti-Constitutional front for religious extremists and oligarchs that it is today if the rest of us had spent the last twenty-five years LOUDLY DENOUNCING THEIR FASCIST PROPAGANDA instead of trying to be "reasonable" while politely engaging in discussion of issues.
"
. The call a thug a thug post was about how DEM POLITICIANS need to speak, not individual MAGA voters , The communication needs to be directed toward independents, new voters, nonvoters, people who previously haven't followed politics much etc to keep them from failing for the Noise Machine bullshit.
Yes, it is true that the cult isn't ideological of philosophical in nature. It is the result of decades of smears, defamation, lies, and other "Othering" techniques intended to polarize for the purpose of creating a base that will vote R no matter how bad R policies are out of a conviction that everyone who isn't an R is an existential threat to real true good American values. Remember wedge issues? Framing complex issues as simplified good versus evil dichotomies? Republican party leaders did that purposefully to convince Republican voters that the Democratic party had bad values and was a threat to their good values. While Rove was creating polarization through good/bad framing . other Republicans were spreading outright defamation such as the Swift Boat Liars. It was all Othering. Tactical, not philosophical. And the hate and fearmongering directed by the Republican party toward the rest of America has been going on for years and years and years.
Of course the whole time the Republican party/Faux/etc propaganda network was in high gear, the propagandists used faux victimization whenever anyone criticized them. How dare anyone call the Swift Boat Liars liars? How dare anyone criticize the content produced by Limbaugh, Coulter, Malkin. That's cancel culture! It has been normal for decades for elected Republicans to engage in the promotion of hate and division while Dems were not supposed to object because to do so was supposedly to be engaging in divisiveness.
If people want to spend time talking actual policy with MAGA voters they can do so and maybe they will be able to break through sometimes. But the evidence of voting patterns shows that r voters usually vote R even when they are aware that they are voting for policies they oppose. Heck they kept on voting R even when their majour news sources Faux and Newsmax were revealed as liars. They even re-elected TRump even though Trump instigated a violent attack on Congress. Most R voter vote R no matter what. Some examples: in an interview with the head of the farmers' soybean special interest group, the head said that Trump's tariffs were bad but he'd vote for Trump again. Walz spent time talking to white union guys who nodded and agree on lots of issues but said they were voting for Trump. Biden bailed out union pensions, supported strikes, raised union wages, and lost the white male union vote. I read an interview with a R pol from Louisiana who was mourning the toxic wastes that had been spread around the state by floods. He told the reporter that he knew the state party was bad on environment issues, but he had to vote R because Republicans, he said, were Christians.
Othering is when a group of people is smeared with a false negative generalization. Kirk was othering when he said that white people were targeted for attack by roaming bands of black men. Elected Republicans nationwide are othering now when they say the No Kings Day even is a "hate America" event. Othering is when the Republican party decided to claim to be "pro-life" as opposed to the babykilling Democrats.
Othering is so common from Republicans and their media that it is normative. And no it is not othering them to say that--because othering is a false generalization, not an accurate one.
So how should a Dem politician run for office in this toxic polarized society created by Republican propaganda? Step one is to communicate reality clearly to the people not in the cult. Give voters a choice and make the choice obvious. Do it with humor as when Dem Sen Wyden said that Cosplay Cop Kristie was afraid of a man in a chicken suit or do it with moral outrage like Pritzker or stand up in public and say, in effect, bring in on while flooding the zone with lawsuits like WA Governor Ferguson. But do not treat propaganda from the Republicans as if it is good faith ideas for discussion.
"
The Portland Frog.
We’ve been talking about communication to reduce polarization and fight fascism. I think that at this moment in time, the smartest communicator I know of is the Portland Frog.
Why? Because he exposed the Trump admin as lying crisis actors and he did it in a way that is easy to understand, accessible to the non-political citizen, and catchy enough to get the attention of the MSM.
What's going on with the Portland Frog standing off against ICE?
Among Portland Protests, It’s Frogs and Sharks and Bears, Oh My! - The New York Times
I raised the question of whether MAGAs were born or made. I think that the comment about authoritarian personality types is very relevant: There are people who are natural born followers of a leader who is perceived to be strong. They care less about where they might be led than they do for the comfort of feeling that someone big and mean is in charge and will keep them safe.
No one is a natural born follower of a leader who is an idiot.
Republican influencers are trying hard to convince the MAGAs that King Pussygrabber and Cruelty Barbie are defending us against an existential threat. The longer Portland activists can keep things silly, the harder it will be to keep up the lying.
Protest frogs vs. MAGA media influencers: the info war over ICE in Portland and Chicago
I am concerned about the upcoming No Kings Day. I am concerned about the leftwing wannabe heroes who do stupid and destructive things like blocking traffic, setting fires, and throwing things. If those jerks aren’t Republicans, then they should be because that’s who they’re helping. I hope the Portland Frog inspires people all over the US to make the NO Kings Day event be a day of silliness, music, and fun. Fuck Fascists with fun!
I’ll be down in Olympia WA where protests are always like that.
Best wishes to you all wherever you go and stay safe
On “Bathtub Bug is Dead”
Woodlouse - Types, Habitat, Diet, Lifespan, Life Cycle, & Pictures
On “Let’s start calling a thug a thug”
This post was about how Dem pols should talk and I firmly believe they should be VERY LOUD AND HARSH IN THEIR CRITICISMS of the R party. Use the F word. Actually, both of them.
However, I don't think they should say anything about MAGAs and should talk to them. The goal must be to defuse the polarization.
As for me, I have MAGA friends and acquaintances and no desire to hurt their feelings. However, I also think that I'm not going to be complicit. At all. So, I post stuff on FB that flat out contradicts a lot of MAGA beliefs. For example, I posted an article about Saint Charlie of Free Speech for Conservatives Only and how people who criticized him have been attacked. At least one of my FB friends loves Kirk.
We still seem to be friends.
On “Weekend music thread #1”
That's so apocalyptic, JP. Does it reflect your state of mind? I think I would tear my ears off if I had to listen to that all day.
Paul and I are the opposite; our home is nearly always silent. No radio, no TV.
On “Let’s start calling a thug a thug”
"So, Democrats have three words for this: no fucking way. It's literally life or death. We will not let Republicans blow up our health care system."
THANK YOU CHUCK!!!!!!
About giving up hate and experiencing pain instead. I don't think MAGAs are in pain any more than the usual for middle class Americans. I don't think that's why they like to hate. The concept of MAGAs as these poor sad people who have been left behind, the Forgotten Americans, working class and ignored by Dems, struggling to get by etc is mostly wrong. MAGAs tend to be better off than Dems, more likely to own homes as opposed to renting and are mostly middle class, They are over represented in government. Their lack of any real grievances is what makes them so appalling. Demographics & Group Affinities – Panel Study of the MAGA Movement The only thing they would lose if they gave up hating is their goddawful snobbery about being superior to everyone else and the entertainment they get from the thrill of horror as they armchair hero their lives away in front of the TV>
"
Thank you, JP. As for messaging, the people of Portland are doing it right; the image of ICE teargassing a silly inflatable dinosaur is not what Cruelty Barbie and King Pussygrabber want. The NYT noticed and had an article to the effect that "Portland responds to ICE with whimsy" and this morning's Wall Street Journal, under the headline "What's really going on in Portland" details out from police logs that answer is "Not much at all." Maybe Walz has the smartest approach of all: "These people are nuts."
On “WTF moments at cultural borders”
I think "bought the farm" for dead dates back to the days when small family farms lived precariously from one season to the next, always struggling to get their mortgage paid off.
"Drank the Kool aid" is relatively new.
Different places have different directions to indicate failure. "The deal went south" maybe comes from "being sold down the river" etc? I read somewhere that in Ireland your deal doesn't go south; it goes west. Does anyone know?
On “The DIY party”
It's remarkable how recurrent the pattern is: a group exists which I will call "Our Nation". Outsiders move in. At first, when the outsiders are perceived as such a tiny minority as to not make much difference, they are received fairly well; however, as time goes on and more outsiders arrive, a reaction is triggered. The reaction has predictable elements: Our Nation first! Talk about the inherent cultural superiority (and often genetic superiority) of those who are real true members of Our Nation, flag fetishism, militarism, women sidelined out of leadership (unless they can out-hate the male leadership or are physical exemplars of the preferred genotype), the use of Othering to gain power, etc.
I think this territoriality, cult of a strong leader, and fear of the Other is hardwired into our species.
There's Russian saying, "Man is wolf to man."
On “Jane Goodall RIP”
I've been not dealing with this because it is less painful to me to be angry than to be sad. There are people whose death really hurts--I mean people I don't know but seem somehow permanent and essential so it's a shock when they die.
On “Japan unleashed”
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/anti-foreigner-sentiments-and-politicians-are-on-the-rise-as-japan-faces-a-population-crisis/ar-AA1NHryD?ocid=msedgntp&pc=HCTS&cvid=68ddee28709948baa43ae8adcb5dd35a&ei=14
"Outside a train station near Tokyo, hundreds of people cheer as Sohei Kamiya, head of the surging nationalist party Sanseito, criticizes Japan’s rapidly growing foreign population.
As opponents, separated by uniformed police and bodyguards, accuse him of racism, Kamiya shouts back, saying he is only talking common sense."
"
This reminded me of how way back when I was a kid "Made in Japan" meant cheap and shoddy. Now it is more likely to mean "made well"--I suppose because of the Japanese cars that hit the US market at about the time I reached the car buying stage.
On “Ezra Coates DESTROYS Ta-Nehisi Klein!!!”
Ezra does a lot of rationalizing when he ought to just say, "Yeah, I fucked up. He wasn't doing politics right."
On “Un morceau de blog”
It's ironic that this post is "uncategorized" because I wonder if the spectrum itself is a construct of the human predilection for categorizing rather than a discovered phenomenon.
For example, let's suppose that we had a high need for athletic skills in order to be even moderately successful in life. Let's suppose that those without the high level skills were viewed as outliers. Would we have categories of lower skilled people? Would they be considered handicapped? Once labeled, would they become a focus and/or target (beyond the usual targeting that people get for being outliers of any kind)? Would we fail to notice anything special about people on the functional end of the autism spectrum but be highly concerned about the clumsy guy who can't dance well or the one who hits his thumb rather than a nail? What about people with poorly developed sense of spatial relationships?
Humans exist on multiple spectrums and human development from fertilized egg to viable baby is extraordinarily complex. People come out all kinds of ways.
I understand that there are conditions of life that mean an individual truly cannot survive, let alone thrive, without extensive support; however, I also wonder sometimes if we categorize too much and think that maybe if we as a culture put more emphasis on being accepting of variations the categories wouldn't be necessary.
I also think we should consider the possibility that some of our categories aren't grounded in anything that actually matters, the equivalent of saying that birds with red breasts should be a category, not birds that perch.
On “Rule Six, there is NO … Rule Six!…”
I used to make pilgrimages to Glacier National Park but no more: climate change and crowds. I used to go to Yukon Territory but no more: climate change. I got married in front of the Tree of Life on the coast out at Kalaloch and my husband and I have gone there annually for over 20 years. This winter will be our last trip. The Tree of Life has fallen over--victim of climate change. Most of the bluff cabins have been torn down because of bluff failure, also climate change. I am planning a pilgrimage to Escalante in Utah. I've been going there for the hiking since the 1970s but this will be my last trip. Too crowded. Zion and Bryce get over a million visitors each summer and the spill over is reaching the Boulder area. When I first went there, the trails were barely developed, the roads were gravel and there was barely anything in the way of tourism. Now the area is being promoted by the state and the wonder and adventure is gone.
"I ain't got no home in this world anymore."
On “Don’t know much about [ObWi] history…”
Thank you for doing all this work
On “We are all Usain Bolt now”
Sorry about the apostrophe.
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I'm in pretty good shape for 71--meaning I didn't have weight gain with menopause; don't have cancer; I can see, hear and think; my hair is still brown; and I can walk three or four miles without collapse (if the weather is cool).
As mentioned above, fast movement or sudden movement is jarring and painful. I'm not flexible anymore. I can't remember names. I can't walk very far if the temp is over 80 without getting ill. This is a big change from my previous baseline which included 20 mile mountain hikes wearing a backpack and weekend bike trips of 60 miles or so plus occasional bike trip vacations.
Mostly I'm okay so far. I'm kind of afraid I will follow the pattern with my family which is to lose my sight and hearing while continuing to live into my nineties. I don't want to keep going when it stops being fun.
On “Precursors”
I don't think that the MAGA movement has an ideology or philosophy. I think they are they kind of people who are susceptible to manipulation by leaders who present as strong defenders and appeal to their need to invest faith in a savior. It doesn't matter that the savior is saving them from an imaginary threat. in this case fear that nonwhite people might participate in American life on the same basis as the MAGAs.
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That's certainly what the Republicans are doing: deifying Charlie because that's how they legitimize themselves and delegitimize everyone else.
I've been thinking about Ezra Klein and his horrible fascist-enabling article about Kirk "doing politics the right way." Apparently, Ezra thinks that having public discussions where a hater gets to air the hateful crap is doing politics the right way.
I'm more in agreement with this guy who says in the article that he doesn't debate fascists. Why not? Because they are wrong, so there's nothing to discuss.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/the-problem-with-debating-fascists-from-a-guy-who-s-debated-just-about-everyone/ar-AA1MOhSE?ocid=msedgntp&pc=HCTS&cvid=68cc404ce9b94b64b1660870857945a1&ei=21
Medhi Hasan engages in lots of debates, not to change the mind of the person he's talking to, but to reach the people who are watching and listening.
We need to move the Overton Window so that discourse that promotes stochastic violence is not debated or discussed as if there was legitimacy to it. Just called out for what it is and rejected.
On “Guestpost from Wonkie”
To remarkable degree, Republican messaging uses the precepts set out by Goebbels. One is to give people the thrill of fear, basically something to be outraged about that isn't real. Kind of like the fun of being scared at a horror movie. For literally decades, Republican messaging has consisted of telling people to be afraid of not-real while also telling them that the real is fake. So "They are going to take your guns!!!!" and "There is no climate change." War on Christmas, trans kids, white people are going to be a minority!!!! ect. From the safety of their armchairs, life becomes an exciting experience of being scared/outraged over imaginary threats, which is a reinforcing experience. It's fun. Allows the participant to feel virtuous and vicariously heroic by voting for the party that will smite the evil enemy without ever being in any real danger. Meanwhile, I'm sure that those people worry about real problems, but election after election they vote to fight the imaginary ones.
I think leading Dems are sort of hoping that the economy will be the real problem that breaks through this bullshit and gets enough voters to vote D to give the Dems some power in Congress and at the state level. Hence "kitchen table issues" versus R culture war bullshit. It worked in Sioux City at a special election.
On the other hand, Missouri, which is a hell hole of bad government, just keeps electing Republicans over and over.
I keep thinking of the Depression, when enough voters were suffering enough to give a reform politicians real power. Once the suffering receded to being mostly minorities, that desire for reform and improvement, that desire for government as a service for the common good, started losing elections to "I got mine, screw you, and besides you are just a (fill in the hater crap du jour)."
It is a privilege to be outraged all the time about imaginary shit.
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I think my difficulty is... MAGA is a fascist movement--literally. People who like Prager U, Kirk, or other haters are the moral equivalent of good Germans. And most of the good Germans were, mostly, nice people.
As noted above, they only learn from being hurt themselves and even then the commitment to their groupthink often remains. The core of that groupthink is disrespect for the rest of us.
Actually disrespect isn't a strong enough word. That friend I had who claimed that Dems supported infanticide, for example. How the hell could he justify believing something that awful about other people? The Republican party message is a fairy tale about how the good Republican party will save the good people from the existential threat presented by the rest of us. How are we an existential threat? Because we (fill in the blank with current hater memes). What unites the MAGAs isn't a set of shared values or support for certain policies; it's hate for the rest of us.
Just as racists make exceptions for someone they know, MAGAs make exceptions for someone they know. But that nice person who is a good neighbor, a long time friend, goes home and chooses to indulge in hate messaging that makes the rest of us potential targets of violence because of the false claim that we are an existential threat to real true good American values.
Would my neighbor Anne object if I got shot at a protest rally? Probably. Would she object if someone else did? Not if Ingraham or Watters or someone told her that the protester had it coming.
It's weird to chat and be friendly with someone who would has no trouble seeing people get hauled off to prison in El Salvador or FL, can rationalize women dying of miscarriages, supports voter suppression and gerrymandering, voted for the guy who instigated a violent attack on Congress and who is in fact an existential threat to representative government and fundamental human rights.
I guess I have to remember the line about "Forgive them, they know not what they do." But I sure as hell am not forgiving to the ones who get elected or get on Faux.
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Thank you for your thoughtful in depth response. I think my neighbor was really shocked by an attack on a Christian church--that definitely rattled her world view. I don't know if there's any change in her attitude toward Kirk because she has gone silent.
I have another rightwing friend that I met through the community of dog rescuers. Her instinct is to be a racist. She calls herself a conservative and is very responsive to Republican messages that trigger her tendency to "Other" everyone else. The one exception is that she dislikes intensely religious conservatives. She is a racist, not of the N-word type, but of the type that very readily believes any negative generality applied to all immigrants who aren't white.
The Republican party has built a community around "othering". My theory is that they are appealing to an instinctive behavior hardwired into humans from clear back in caveman days when "our" little band of cave people were in competition for territory and resources with "yours", a competition that could be put aside sometimes for interbreeding or cooperation on a hunt, but still an embedded sense that people like me are a group and people unlike me are inherently scary.
I've talked my dog rescue friend down from anti-immigrant hysteria several times but it takes very little for her to revert. She consumes Republican hate propaganda all the time.
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