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Cake day: December 6th, 2023

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  • Actually, we got fascism by constantly moving towards it over a span of at least 60 years, with the only difference being that we sometimes moved more quickly towards it and sometimes more slowly.

    We moved towards it under Biden too, and would’ve continued moving towards it under either him or Harris.

    The only thing that’s notable about Trump as far as that goes is how much he moved us and how quickly. But this was always the destination.

    The only way we could’ve moved away from fascism rather than towards it would’ve been to elect federal politicians who were actually good instead of just less bad. But we not only haven’t been given that choice, but have been indoctrinated into treating less bad as a virtue



  • And what you just described is the exact process by which governments descend into tyranny.

    The much better way to deal with the issue, if you actually do care about your fellow humans, is to refuse to support a toxic candidate even if they are somewhat less toxic than the alternative, and make sure at every single turn that the blame is placed squarely where it should be - on the foul, loathsome, corrupt and compromised scumbags who arranged for the nomination of a toxic piece of shit candidate in the first place.

    Less bad is still bad. If you settle for less bad, the best you’ll ever get is that things woll potentially get worse somewhat more slowly than they would otherwise. They’ll still inevitably get worse.

    If you want things to actually get better, then you have to hold the scumbags’ feet to the fire. You have to make sure that it’s widely understood that they and they alone are the reason that the best we can hope for is somewhat less bad and things getting worse somewhat more slowly. And you can’t do that by meekly going along with them.




  • “Your decision to withdraw at the last moment—explicitly in response to the Center’s recent renaming, which honors President Trump’s extraordinary efforts to save this national treasure,” the letter, shared to the Associated Press, reads, “is classic intolerance.” And, Grenell continues, “Your action surrenders to the sad bullying tactics employed by certain elements on the left, who have sought to intimidate artists into boycotting performances.”

    Grenell also took personal jabs at Redd in the letter, claiming that his show wasn’t popular. “The contrast between the public’s lack of interest in your show with the success we are experiencing under our new chairman is drastic,” Grenell wrote. Trump’s board elected him as chairman in February. “The most avant-garde and well-regarded performers in your genre will still perform regularly,” he added, “and unlike you, they’ll do it to sold–out crowds regardless of their political leanings.”

    One of the most notably bizarre things about the Trump regime, to me, is how childish they are. From Trump on down, so many of them literally act like spoiled, petulant children throwing public tantrums.

    Truly, the most accurate term for this government is kakistocracy


  • Oh and…

    The fact that this whole norion of a lack of lefty unity is complete bullshit was neatly demonstrated by leftist voters coming together to overwhelmingly support Zohran Mamdani.

    And who didn’t support him? The fucking establishment neolib hacks - the exact same people who keep fucking us over by putting up shitty candidates then trying to guilt trip leftists into voting for them. We finally got a candidate we wanted and they couldn’t even be arsed to endorse him.



  • I’m old. My first awareness of the world of politics was the Watergate hearings, so I actually lived through most of the run-up to this.

    It’s certainly the case that the US has been moving more or less steadily toward plutocratic oligarchy since at least Nixon, and progress has definitely accelerated (though it really started accelerating with the Wall Street bailouts in the wake of the 2008 real estate bubble collapse and hasn’t really let up since), but that’s not really what I’m talking about.

    I’m talking about the literal insanity of Trump and his sycophants. They aren’t merely corrupt tools of the plutocrats like so many past politicians - they’re deranged lunatics. That’s not hyperbole - it’s simple fact, plainly obvious to anyone who takes a step back and honestly looks at what they do and say.

    It’s not that the US has accelerated toward autocracy in less than a year (though it has), because yes - that’s the direction it’s been headed for decades. The astonishing thing to me is that the US has effectively gone insane in less than a year.

    If the US was a person, it’d be on a psych hold. And that’s something I wasn’t prepared for, even as cynical as I’ve always been.


  • Oh look - it’s the DNC Defense Force, here to get an early start on guilt-tripping leftists who won’t vote for whichever shitty center right neolib hack the DNC will likely end up trying to foist on the voters at the behest of their corporate donors.

    Fuck that. It’s not the voters’ responsibility to vote for a piece of shit just because they stink a little bit less than the other piece of shit - it’s the DNC’s responsibility to run candidates people actually want to vote for. And when they can’t (or more accurately won’t) even do that, then they and nobody else are responsible for the consequences.


  • That’s the most astonishing part of it to me.

    Reality has gone completely off the rails. Virtually every day, I read another account of blithering insanity, and painfully obviously dangerous and destructive insanity, from this administration, and then I watch as all of the official entities that are meant to check that sort of insanity just treat it as another day and another press release from another President’s office.

    It’s like The Emperor’s New Clothes, only far far worse.

    And all in less than a year…


  • At this point though, that’s just noise.

    Unfortunately, the mass media is complicit in the insanity - they’ve abandoned principles, integrity, honesty and accuracy in pursuit of profit and/or the owners’ agenda, whichever might be deemed more important in a given organization.

    That’s not to say that that story is necessarily false. It’s simply that if it’s a spin that serves someone’s agenda, as this obviously is, then it will be published somewhere, entirely regardless of whether it’s true or not, so the fact that it has been published means nothing at all.