U.S. Politics January 2023: Kevin McCarthy's Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Life

between santos and qanon crazy stuff i feel like 'being insane' is a new frontier in public life which has affects and functions - there's a reason why this is allowed, encouraged and presented to us. rubbernecking is sort of fun for a second i guess but ultimately that's part of the point.

― ꙮ (map), Tuesday, January 24, 2023 12:46 PM (nineteen minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

otm.

bread and circuses

if there is a "design" it is to keep people engaging with politics in a way that has nothing to do with the decision making process.

a new frontier in public life which has affects and functions

Not the least of which is the cray-cray defense... Sidney Powell's was something to the effect of "No sane person could possibly believe the things I clearly, repeatedly said into a microphone at a press conference."

far right ideas, including the idea that the vaccine is a deliberate depopulation effort, are literally making people insane. in what numbers, idk, but this has to have long term consequences, even for the capitalist class who believe it is in their interest for the population to be concerned with "bread and circuses."

at the gym sometimes there will be a guy watching FOX news right in front of the treadmill so I kinda have to watch it, or at least be aware of what they're talking about. holy hell is it insane. today they did like 15 minutes on how a few migrants "bussed into New York" stole some things from a Macy's. then a segment on some Antifa arrests which didn't actually focus on what they did but rather the fact that they were apparently "privileged" and maybe were acting under the orders of the shadowy Deep State. next something about an Axios article "attacking pickup trucks", side by side with a bunch of stock photos of nice looking pickups - I assume this is the article about the study showing that in any given year the vast majority of truck owners don't actually haul anything. and then something about XBox promoting a green agenda. I'm just trying to imagine what it's like being the sort of person who watches this all day. they must be miserable!!

Country version of "Versace On The Floor"...

"If you come to my house, you'll find Chick-fil-A bags all over the floor" -- Lindsey Graham pic.twitter.com/P3IEwMhFnr

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) January 24, 2023

also helps that nobody expects right wing pols or media personalities to have any integrity whatsoever, so they can say the most insane shit knowing that even if they're obviously wrong their audience won't ever think about it again nor will they expect you to explain it. that's what irritates me so much about "both sides" reporting, for God's sake people were harping on Obamas "you can keep your doctor" thing for a decade, it's not the same playing field at all

One of my best friends has had to disassociate himself from his brother, who has gone from Trump supporter to election denier to full-on conspiracy theorist. If you multiply that example by the vast numbers in similar circumstances, yeah it can't be good for society.

you can even see it in silk, from diamond and silk. so like in 2015 she was apparently a registered democrat and the duo's first online videos were pro black lives matter. then they pivoted to endorsing trump, speaking at his rallies, etc. for a while they had a streaming show through fox news and were regulars on the network. but then, in 2020, they started embracing covid conspiracy theories, causing fox to drop them. the most recent statements from silk are about how she believes her sister died from "vaccine shedding" and that this is part of a deliberate effort by the deep state to cull the population. really intense paranoia.

trump was definitely the gateway drug for many

honestly that is one of the worst parts of his legacy.

That and what he did to the White House toilets.

it's bigger than DT now though. the paranoid style is now more entrenched in the political system as well as the culture.

I personally believe the worst thing he did was ending the peaceful transfer of power - as far as brainwashing the masses with crackpot theories, I think he went from confused to bemused, only recently openly courting the Qberts, which pushes him further and further away from Mainstream America and I guess that's okay with me

i mean, ending the peaceful transfer of power was part of how he poisoned the well. the democrats are no longer a legitimate opposition party -- they are criminals who stole the election and also are engaged with all these morbid fantasies these people have

AOC dancing naked in the moonlight, covered in children's blood - details at 11

the transfer of power thing was fucked because, although there were definitely a sizable number of people who secretly would have been fine with an extralegal way of keeping him in power, the majority of the GOP didn't want that bullshit to materialize, they just wanted him to win outright and in dominant fashion.

once they saw the coup had sizable popular support among conservatives, more supported it because "hey it's a new tool we only used once before in modern times". once you see the blowback isn't what you thought it would be, it's easier to support terrible shit.

i can't help but think the GOP members are idiots. like, do these nerds -- most of whom are just hoping to become lobbyists after their terms are up -- believe they would fare better in a society with completely broken democratic institutions rather than just largely broken ones? like what kind of society do they think they are opening the door to here?

i think the shock doctrine is relevant here. also, oligarchy is a really good gig if you can convince yourself that it's inevitable and that you deserve to be on top

Hey, apparently Pat Buchanan retired! from what, I have no clue because there was no way I was keeping up with that guy.

The last I heard about him was a few years ago when he was depressed and grumpy because Trump basically had the platform he was trying to get off the ground for decades, only it was extremely Trump-style dumb and destroyed the possibility of Buchanan's ideas ever having credibility

like what kind of society do they think they are opening the door to here?

I'd say society as a concept rarely penetrates their consciousness, even though they are technically among the most important stewards of the social fabric. They think almost exclusively in terms of money, power and status.

hence why they are idiots

well, they saw what happened to Kinzinger & Cheney - they might find Trump repellent on all levels, but he's the party boss now, don't get on his bad side

xpost I saw Pat Buchanan in a Hunter Thompson documentary awhile back! I guess they sort of got along on some level

Probably a society more like India or Israel or Hungary or etc. It's a mistake to think a more fascist USA would immediately collapse into civil war or succumb to a third reich style mass social movement / reign of terror. 21st-c. fascism can thrive in nominally democratic countries, and people are still making lots of money in those countries. I bet there are lobbyists too

xp the Thompson quote was “We disagree so violently on almost everything that it’s a real pleasure to drink with him”

reminds me of jeffries and scalise

Patrick Joseph Buchanan is an American paleoconservative author, political commentator, columnist, politician, and broadcaster

I confess I have not encountered this term before

does that just mean Goldwater stan?

it's been around since the Bush adminstration to distinguish his assholes from previous assholes

fascism certainly thrives in the US, as to Rob’s point above.

and frankly, it has for a long time, and it’s been out in the open, but Trump allowed it to blossom and spread in ways previously unimaginable.

pale ol' conservative

does that just mean Goldwater stan?

― Andy the Grasshopper, Tuesday, January 24, 2023 2:22 PM (eight minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

somewhat, but more a Robert Taft stan

i think table's 'brain detergent' and 'soul rot' metaphors are very apt. there is a lot of pressure in this very inhumane world we've built to become inhuman. gop crazy talk .. like the beliefs are sort of beside the point, the point is that you identify yourself with this group that is at the avant garde of self-destruction. such a vast sea of bullshit we find ourselves in that most people would rather try to turn into reptiles than face any of it for what it is.

that is, what used to be Idaho-based, ZOG-believing gun nuts (a la Ruby Ridge) and violent white supremacist terrorists (a la McVeigh) became mainstreamed in ways that were unimaginable when these former fashies were doing their thing in the 90s

thanks map for the cosign. I also think that the reality of being so exhausted by having to survive under US capitalism makes people loathe to deal with the insanity going on around them… and in some ways, that’s the point

there's still plenty of lip service paid to 'election security' but now some of these nutjobs have moved on to 'democracy is inherently flawed anyway'

They don't say ...

you can even see it in silk, from diamond and silk. so like in 2015 she was apparently a registered democrat and the duo's first online videos were pro black lives matter. then they pivoted to endorsing trump, speaking at his rallies, etc. for a while they had a streaming show through fox news and were regulars on the network. but then, in 2020, they started embracing covid conspiracy theories, causing fox to drop them. the most recent statements from silk are about how she believes her sister died from "vaccine shedding" and that this is part of a deliberate effort by the deep state to cull the population. really intense paranoia.

― treeship., Tuesday, January 24, 2023 12:43 PM (forty-eight minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

yeah this whole thing is a really good example of how online clout and social media has poisoned so many people's brains. you hear stories of people getting surgeries just to conform to some sort of popular streamer look so why wouldn't you change your personality and political views as well. given how much we know the algorithms boost conservatives it really feels like you can get massive engagement without being insightful, funny, or interesting, so long as you kiss the ring. for example I'm pretty sure the fucking Dilbert guy doesn't turn into a hardcore chud without Twitter. I mean you can tell just watching these people. They never have anything original to say. they just repeat catchphrases and conspiracies. if you try to connect the dots you wind up sounding like Alex Jones and quite frankly none of them are that creative.

i think table's 'brain detergent' and 'soul rot' metaphors are very apt. there is a lot of pressure in this very inhumane world we've built to become inhuman. gop crazy talk .. like the beliefs are sort of beside the point, the point is that you identify yourself with this group that is at the avant garde of self-destruction. such a vast sea of bullshit we find ourselves in that most people would rather try to turn into reptiles than face any of it for what it is.

― ꙮ (map), Tuesday, January 24, 2023 1:34 PM (nine minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

I still think a lot about the "Kanye. Elon. Trump." tweet. not in the sense of "here are three very famous and very insane conservatives" but rather by how much money and power they have, and therefore how much freedom from consequence they are. and knowing there's a whole generation of conservatives who look at these people and think, "I want to become that". they're role models.

then we wonder why films like Triangle of Sadness and Tár, whatever their merits, keep getting made

I wonder if Pence ratted on himself just to get back in the news

michael pence, dreading having to tell mother

An obvious but maybe easy to overlook factor in the ongoing parade of outright lunatics is that there is relatively a LOT of money on the right to fund all of these people. If your racist ranting loses you a sinecure at one of the more upscale think tanks, there's always some other insane billionaire or multi-millionaire with a boutique foundation of their own and some personal right-wing obsession — immigration, school vouchers, abortion, etc — who will snap you up. Same with the expanding right-wing mediaverse, where you can bounce from Fox to Breitbart to NewsMax to whatever. It's not that the left doesn't have its own rich people, but being crazy or radical on the left doesn't attract the same kind of funding. I've been thinking about this a lot as my state increasingly embraces the DeVos vision of dismantling public education — an objectively unpopular cause, based on every survey you can find, and one that is only alive because of some billionaires pumping money into it for decades until they could capture enough GOP party elites.

something I think about a lot is how real news and actual scientific articles are often paywalled while right-wing psycho news is always free. it's wild how all these people who insist they're free thinkers who won't be manipulated are getting 100% of their talking points from billionaires directly funding people like Charlie Kirk and Candice Owens. there's some real persuasive value to the idea that pissing people off only means you're getting close to the truth. it's real childbrained logic..."Why are you mad at me? I just spilled juice on the floor. It was an accident. You shouldn't be mad. Is it that you HATE ME?"

xp there's also the self-funded lunatics like Mike Lindell

This is why killing the FCC's Fairness Doctrine and allowing much greater consolidation and control over mass media were top priorities for the hard right when Reagan was elected president. Those were a huge stumbling block on the road to leveraging wealth into conservative political dominance.

Mike Pence leaked the story so he can be cool.

"I steal docs too! Love me!"

crudely drawn "TOP SECRETS!" on an old PeeChee folder