We. Would. CRY.: US Politics, July 2022

Are you socially liberal but fiscally conservative but also maybe a bit of a transphobe and also you don't really like the way your darlings Cody and Ambyr are being taught to villainize white people in school and you keep seeing posts on Nextdoor about gangs prowling around in your subdivision and oh shit you're just going to vote Republican anyway.

yes i am

But wait, remember how Trump was embarrassing?

I can't believe Manchin switched positions. For whatever reason he did, I am glad. It truly feels like the end of the world, although I suppose everyone has said that for at least 100 years.

F-word Party

what a breath of fresh air they will be
💨

Remember that RT upthread, of Yang reminding us that Lincoln (REPUBLICAN) and Johnson (DEMOCRAT) were a winning thing, baby---John Legend: "And what happened then?"

pretending to have covid so you can recover from a face lift is so me https://t.co/PkYLpeEgxG

— Bʀᴀɴᴅᴏɴ (@bjbjonez) July 26, 2022

It truly feels like the end of the world, although I suppose everyone has said that for at least 100 years.

people have been saying this since forever, only it feels really real this time

I've taken to responding to my doomscrolling brother's pronouncements of our imminent demise (mostly because of climate, but other things too) by saying, "Well, probably not in my lifetime." What else is there to say to it really?

"Well, probably not in my lifetime."

what your brother probably says to this, or what i would say to it at least, is "it's already happening in our lifetime"

so much data, coming so fast

Not species extinction tho — I mean, our species in particular. That's where he sees it all going. And he may be right! It's just that I expect to perish well before we get there. I've tried to argue that if you really believe that, it should be kind of comforting because then none of the rest of the angst-producing stuff (COVID, Christian nationalism, abortion crackdowns, Joe Manchin) really matters. He doesn't find this reassuring, for whatever reason.

(But also, humans are amazingly adaptable. We'll survive way longer than we should, probably dragging it out through generations of unrelieved misery and suffering. Speaking of which, sorry for the diversion, on with the politics.)

oh, gotcha.

i don't think humans will go extinct, at least not in the next 10,000 years. that's kind of a weird place for him to go, though, because if climate change reduces a global population of 8 billion down to about 1 or 2 billion people, that's not going "extinct", but that's also very bad.

at any rate, though,, to generations of unrelieved misery and suffering! *raises a glass*

We'll survive way longer than we should, probably dragging it out through generations of unrelieved misery and suffering.

Worth remembering that human life only got materially better than "subsistence farming peasantry" within the last 200 years. Before the mid-1800s, even rich motherfuckers had no appreciable technological advantages over their poorer brethren. All work was physical and arduous — the only perk of being rich was you could pay someone else to do it for you. Modern technological existence and leisure is a bubble, and when it pops it'll just be humanity going back to "as you were" status...except it'll be a lot hotter outside.

Need to start planning for a post-grid-collapse ILX. Anyone good with homing pigeons?

people have been saying this since forever, only it feels really real this time

― a (waterface), Thursday, July 28, 2022 7:40 AM (two hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

I mean ours is the first generation to have all the information in the world at its fingertips which I am pretty sure is making us the most anxious generation in history

i feel fine

i might spend some time alone

Good morning!

Worth remembering that human life only got materially better than "subsistence farming peasantry" within the last 200 years. Before the mid-1800s, even rich motherfuckers had no appreciable technological advantages over their poorer brethren. All work was physical and arduous — the only perk of being rich was you could pay someone else to do it for you. Modern technological existence and leisure is a bubble, and when it pops it'll just be humanity going back to "as you were" status...except it'll be a lot hotter outside.

― but also fuck you (unperson), Thursday, July 28, 2022 9:55 AM (two hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

I don't think modern technology is going away but yeah I think it's important to get some perspective. despite everything going on this is still probably the best time in human history to be alive. this isn't just my opinion it's the fact that the world population has gone from 2.5 billion in 1950 to nearly 8 billion today, which is not something that happens to a species unless conditions are really good. I think about this a lot too, for example when watching Get Back it occurred to me that this was all happening at a time when there were literally less than half as many people on the planet as there is today. And a lot of these people are young and learning to adapt to a world that seems to us like it's spiraling out of control.

I think people feel this way in large part because human emotion is so relativistic - we're at our happiest when we get something (material or otherwise), at our most despondent when things are being taken away from us (either real or in our imaginations). There is something profound in the fact that Donald Trump and Elon Musk are two of the most miserable fucks on the planet despite having been granted every single advantage life could offer. They are the pinnacles of a system that is fundamentally unsustainable and as such every dose of reality they get feels like a personal attack. One of the greatest joys in life is parenthood and they are unable to experience any of that joy because of how poisoned their brains have become. If/when the societal collapse comes (and I'm with KM here, I think we're sort of in the middle of it) my hope is that it at least can wash away some of that poison.

Modern technological existence and leisure is a bubble...only made possible by the mass uptake of fossil fuels aiui.

so far, but yes aiui also

Not quite the same thesis, but I've been meaning to read this for years after encountering his argument that coal amplified democracy in the West (because coal workers worked near one another and formed unions, etc.) and oil undermined it: https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/232680/carbon-democracy-by-timothy-mitchell/

i was talking with my parents about roe v wade and while they are very depressed about it they told me they think america is in a very different place now than then in terms of support networks for women who want abortions and the social stigma attached to it. back then you still needed to be married (and heterosexual) to get a hotel room together in a lot of places. for instance. things were very very old school in a way that few of us have ever experienced. so yes it’s bad yes it’s a clawback, but there’s more of “us” than there used to be imo. and maybe this is wishful thinking but conservatives wouldn’t be this active, they wouldn’t be this hellbent on seizing structural consolidation of gains if they weren’t scared as hell of being made totally irrelevant by the next generation of young people who have zero sympathy for their necrotic politics

Drugmakers are waking up to the reality that Democrats’ revived budget reconciliation bill has a shot at enactment, and are waging an intense lobbying campaign on Capitol Hill and over the airwaves in a last-minute attempt to bring it down...

And I'll bet they succeed in some fashion... Glaxo, Perdue lobbyists are always first in line

https://thecolumn.substack.com/p/during-record-heatwave-nyt-wapo-atlantic

"Remember that RT upthread, of Yang reminding us that Lincoln (REPUBLICAN) and Johnson (DEMOCRAT) were a winning thing, baby---John Legend: "And what happened then?""

yes, this was John Legend's greatest moment, it utterly redeems him for being 1) boring and 2) married to Chrissy Teigen

re: extinction, I try to avoid doom shit, and I also dislike this guy for a whole variety of reasons, but for some reason Medium keeps pushing him on me. I relented and read this one and actually agreed with it. I suspect what we'll ultimately wind up with in 100 years time (maybe less) is something like the Jackpot in William Gibson's 'agency' novels.

https://medium.com/eudaimonia-co/the-age-of-extinction-is-here-some-of-us-just-dont-know-it-yet-7001f5e0c79a

Sorry if this has been shared already

Marc Short, Mike Pence’s chief of staff, on Matt Gaetz.

I didn’t expect this strong of a response. pic.twitter.com/i4SN89Thpk

— Yashar Ali 🐘 (@yashar) July 25, 2022

Reading about this climate bill and it seems the Dems waited for CHIPS to pass before announcing it, since McConnell threatened to torpedo it in retaliation. That’s the kind of underhanded go-fuck-yourself sorta play the Dems need to do way more of

otm -- it's like they...stumbled into this strategy

They’re also taking another run at 9/11 healthcare comp so seems like they’re feeling themselves?

PACT Act will come up again in the Senate Monday night, Schumer said

— Jake Sherman (@JakeSherman) July 28, 2022

Schumer says Democrats will be adding in insulin legislation to reconciliation

— Burgess Everett (@burgessev) July 28, 2022

I mean this administration's strategy of "do nothing" hasn't been great for their approval numbers

Punchbowl News: House Democrats plan to announce a proposal next month to ban lawmakers, their spouses and senior staff from trading stocks, according to multiple sources close to the issue.

— Kyle Griffin (@kylegriffin1) July 28, 2022

republicans are tanking VA and gay marriage bills in retaliation

Does pelosi know? xp

Whisper it by they’ve pulled back from 2 points behind to dead heat in the average of generic congressional ballot polls since dobbs (and since gas prices fell almost a dollar in two months)

republicans are tanking VA and gay marriage bills in retaliation

― Muad'Doob (Moodles), Thursday, July 28, 2022 9:29 PM (twelve minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

if they're gonna do this kind of nakedly evil shit let 'em do it in full daylight

...resignations on matters of principle from his inner circle are extremely rare, and show that even among some parts of the right there is unease at how his rhetoric on race is developing.
Next week Orbán is due to travel to Dallas, where he will open CPAC Texas, a gathering of US conservatives. Orbán counts the former US president Donald Trump among his many admirers on the American right.

xp

the campaign ads practically write themselves, and yet I feel like very few people will suddenly care

say it aint so

Susan Collins tells @JNicholsonInDC that same-sex marriage bill may be doomed now bc of what Dems did on the inflation reduction bill https://t.co/ndnTOLxbEt

— Amanda Terkel (@aterkel) July 28, 2022

_...resignations on matters of principle from his inner circle are extremely rare, and show that even among some parts of the right there is unease at how his rhetoric on race is developing.
Next week Orbán is due to travel to Dallas, where he will open CPAC Texas, a gathering of US conservatives. Orbán counts the former US president Donald Trump among his many admirers on the American right._

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/jul/26/longstanding-adviser-to-viktor-orban-resigns-over-pure-nazi-speech🕸🕸

Conferences to cover the cocaine orgies, no doubt.

https://www.newsweek.com/democrats-favored-win-senate-first-time-538-1728325

I heard that on "Daily Beans" this morning. It strikes me as whistling past the graveyard, but still.

Walker leading Warnock by a sliver here in Georgia. We'll see.

trying to follow david hogg backlash on twitter right now and can't make heads or tails of it. I find him annoying and his pillow thing was dumb and I stopped following him because he posts every second, but nothing he's said lately seems off or wrong; he's pissed that the house dropped an assault weapons ban bill, which the dems have the votes to pass (in the house). continual 'he's a liar' reactions from people angry he's criticizing the dems? I don't even know what they're pissed about.

I'm impressed by the barrage of angry Jon Stewart clips I've seen lately. He even went on Newsmax to call out the senate for being a bunch of feckless dickheads for voting against bonus healthcare for troops that got poisoned on the job. *That's* how you use celebrity.

Republicans celebrating fucking over troops with cancer is something that should be in every campaign ad from here on