US Politics, October 2018: next week will be even longer

Bolsonaro is scary, thats a comprehensive margin.

I can live with the umbrella thing, umbrellas are dicks, cant blame a man for say ah fuck it sometimes. he did try, theres a president in there somewhere

the minion that followed though? who does he think he is, didn't even try. this administration is rotten to the core

i thought this thread was excellent. not inspiring, depressing. but excellent

The idea of people who subscribe to a moral universe that is truly counter to our own, that considers what we believe to be good as evil and what we consider as evil to be good, is so foreign to many of us as to be incomprehensible.

— Ari Ne'eman (@aneeman) October 28, 2018

(that's just one tweet; read the rest of the thread to see what i mean. i guess i don't know how to link entire tweet storms)

eh, better off not linking tweet storms. would get unwieldy.

i have class this morning and i prepared a test review, but it seems shitty to do that given what's happened the last few days. i think i'll figure this out at about 8 AM.

xp yeah that's good but I think this should be obvious to most people by now. can't stress enough that both the MAGABomber and the synagogue shooter were repeating Trump talking points verbatim. 46% of the country voted for this man and 43% approve of the job he's doing.

speaking of, this here feels like literal fascism:

There is great anger in our Country caused in part by inaccurate, and even fraudulent, reporting of the news. The Fake News Media, the true Enemy of the People, must stop the open & obvious hostility & report the news accurately & fairly. That will do much to put out the flame...

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 29, 2018

I'm right on the cusp of explicitly endorsing a very particular form of extralegal political action at this point. Enough is fucking enough.

Like, how is that tweet anything less than a million-decibel dogwhistle saying, 'hey, will somebody with better bombmaking acumen go finish the job at CNN?'

what the mother fuck. that tweet only has credibility if he's talking about FOX news

“The true enemy of the people”

i thought this thread was excellent. not inspiring, depressing. but excellent

The idea of people who subscribe to a moral universe that is truly counter to our own, that considers what we believe to be good as evil and what we consider as evil to be good, is so foreign to many of us as to be incomprehensible.
— Ari Ne'eman (@aneeman) October 28, 2018
― affects breves telnet (Gummy Gummy), Monday, 29 October 2018 05:54 (eight hours ago) Permalink

I think his take is subtly wrong and dangerous. Yes, there are people in the world who genuinely believe things we find repugnant and have reasoned and "informed" justifications for those beliefs, and will not be convinced by "facts." At the same time, most people who vote at all just walk into a booth and pull a lever. Many of them are not all that politically engaged and not what you would call a "supporter" of another candidate, let alone hardcore subscribers to an ideology. Conveniently, that take fits very well with the Israeli narrative of its struggle with the Palestinians -- there are people on the other side of the wall who believe everything the opposite of what we believe, they love violence more than their own children, they want to see all Jews dead, they celebrate death etc. etc. And sure enough, a little ways down, I found a RT of a tweet to that effect about Hamas (which is not, in itself, a good organization, but tends to just become a stand-in for the Palestinians at large in Israeli discourse).

Many Gang Members and some very bad people are mixed into the Caravan heading to our Southern Border. Please go back, you will not be admitted into the United States unless you go through the legal process. This is an invasion of our Country and our Military is waiting for you!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 29, 2018

what, are there white people in there

i’m right on the cusp of explicitly endorsing a very particular form of extralegal political action at this point. Enough is fucking enough.

^^^

good mourning!

They are doing the legal process. They’re asylum seekers.

Mentioning in case Trump lurks

He probably applauded himself for his cunning.

friend of mine leaves to meet the caravan in mexico in a few days, really concerned for her safety. not when she's there, but when she comes back

I disagree with ⁦@MaxBoot⁩ about a lot but I truly appreciate him writing this column and if you read it I bet you will too. https://t.co/9RgJwIMxMJ pic.twitter.com/FC4kMELTQ9

— Jon Schwarz (@schwarz) October 29, 2018

putting this here, where perhaps it will get a little more attention and do some good

Backgrounder on Citizen Strong - a group that's crowdsourcing opposition research on GOP candidates:
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2018-10-04/a-former-obama-operative-built-a-new-anti-republican-attack-machine

.@NRCC has gone back on TV in #TX23 after canceling reservations there earlier this month, per source familiar with media spending. One order shows the committee up on San Antonio broadcast starting yesterday morning: https://t.co/ttbW6EtXUA

— Patrick Svitek (@PatrickSvitek) October 28, 2018

.@NRCC going up in #SC01 and #WI06. Trump won each by 13 points and 17 points, respectively. The firewall is clearly shifting...

— Emily C. Singer (@CahnEmily) October 29, 2018

Two years ago, Cernovich was an indefatigable Trump cheerleader, among the most prominent of a small vanguard of Trumpist culture warriors who trolled their way from the fringes of the right-wing internet to real-world relevance. Loosely lumped together as the celebrities of the “alt-right”—a label most of them have since disavowed—they hailed from different corners of the web and professed different views, but they were united by a shared disdain for progressives and establishment Republicans, and a shared faith that the disruptive outsider named Donald Trump could usher in the change they believed America needed.

Once unleashed in Washington, they harbored dreams of taking over the Republican Party and pushing American popular culture sharply rightward. And at a moment when it seemed that anything was possible in American politics, it looked like this group of fringe web firebrands just might be able to harness the right’s anti-establishment energy into a muscular and profitable movement.

No longer. Halfway into Trump’s term, the president has settled into power, remaking the office in his own attention-sucking style and pushing the national conversation in directions it hasn’t taken in generations. But his most flamboyant supporters, who once planned to overrun Washington, find themselves in retreat. Milo Yiannopoulos, the former Breitbart tech editor and right-wing campus provocateur, has lost his book deal, the sponsorship of his billionaire patrons and most of his staff. Charles Johnson, the online alt-right activist who alarmed the public by attending this year’s State of the Union address as a guest of freshman Florida Congressman Matt Gaetz, has quit social media. Lucian Wintrich, the inaugural White House correspondent for the Gateway Pundit, a pro-Trump outlet with a penchant for publishing fake news and conspiracy theories, has been dumped by the site and returned to New York. The white nationalist Richard Spencer, organizer of 2017’s alt-right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, has given up his residence in Alexandria, Virginia, and is living on a family property in Montana, where he is plotting a move to an undisclosed location.

As for Cernovich—a right-wing men’s empowerment blogger who saw Trump as the counterweight to political correctness and establishment conservatism—he’s become disillusioned with politics and increasingly critical of the president. These days, he spends most of his time on other pursuits, including the “Gorilla Mindset” lifestyle-coaching practice he runs from his home in southern California. In September, he tweeted glumly, “There’s no Wall. She’s not locked up. But Flynn got fired and sent to wolves. And Sauadi [sic] Arabia sold weapons of murder. I give zero f-cks about Republicans losing the House.”

In Florida there is a choice between a Harvard/Yale educated man named @RonDeSantisFL who has been a great Congressman and will be a great Governor - and a Dem who is a thief and who is Mayor of poorly run Tallahassee, said to be one of the most corrupt cities in the Country!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 29, 2018

"said to be" and "poorly run" beside each other

Oh wow Harvard/Yale

sounds like an elite to me

At this point, "embolism" has become a personal mantra. If wishes were fishes...

"It is evident that the race had degenerated, like many a noble race besides, in consequence of a too strict watchfulness to keep it pure," writes the American novelist Nathaniel Howthorne, c. 1851.

— 𝕿𝖗𝖔𝖚𝖇𝖑𝖊 𝕰𝖛𝖊𝖗𝖞 𝕯𝖆𝖞 (@NickPinkerton) October 28, 2018

Gillum strikes back at "weak" Trump (can't see that getting under his skin...)

https://www.politico.com/story/2018/10/29/gillum-trump-florida-2018-946218

Charles Johnson, the online alt-right activist who alarmed the public by attending this year’s State of the Union address as a guest of freshman Florida Congressman Matt Gaetz, has quit social media.

matt gaetz

On 17 October, the Florida congressman Matt Gaetz sent out a tweet that read: “Footage in Honduras giving cash 2 women & children 2 join the caravan & storm the US border @ election time. Soros? US-backed NGOs? Time to investigate the source!” While attempting to explain the tweet, he made a similar charge about Soros and the Balkans.

gaetz discussed a bit upthread, when i wondered how he ended up being the congressmen chosen to receive the video. didn't realize he was the guy who brought charles johnson to the SOTU, too! time to update the inner circle shit list. looks like 538 projects him to win 70% of the vote in the midterm

yeah gaetz sadly is one of the "safest" republicans out there in terms of reelection

nunes is unlikely to be unseated as well

after some token expressions of "heartbreak" about the pittsburgh shooting, my congressman is back to sharing breitbart stories about the "migrant caravan" being the work of democrats who want to bring "socialism" to the US.

A religious leader just interrupted Jeff Sessions and recited Matthew 25:42—43:

"I was hungry and you did not feed me. I was a stranger and you did not welcome me."

He was removed by police.

Another religious leader defended him.

He was also removed.pic.twitter.com/2dRJtpe7AL

— 👻low voter turnout💀 (@JordanUhl) October 29, 2018

The idea of people who subscribe to a moral universe that is truly counter to our own, that considers what we believe to be good as evil and what we consider as evil to be good, is so foreign to many of us as to be incomprehensible.
— Ari Ne'eman (@aneeman) October 28, 2018

― affects breves telnet (Gummy Gummy), Monday, 29 October 2018 05:54 (eight hours ago) Permalink

This thread connects to my notion that fascism breaks the strategic logic of nonviolence--strategic nonviolence requires a shared popular moral framework within which the movement can move people in its direction and marginalize & progressively deplatform the opposition. Within this moral universe fascists appear as impossible creatures from another dimension.

can't have actual religious principles on the mind of the AG

xp

fascism breaks the social contract of liberal democracy, free speech etc. this is well-trodden ground, political theory-wise.

and yeah that's why non-violence does not apply

the local activists here focus their message on "love" and "coming together around shared values" and perhaps that's the only tactic that has some hope of working in a deep-red district, but every time i see something like that i think, well, most of the people in this district don't share our values. they are fascists. they see the murder of jews as, at worst, an unfortunate byproduct of the battle to prevent their country from being overtaken by brown people and socialists. my congressman not only does not care if i live or die, he will actively encourage those who wish for me to die by spreading the same sort of propaganda that motivated the pittsburgh murders of 11 elderly jews. it is hard waking up each day realizing this.

previous generations fought a war over this shit. we can do it.

fwiw my congressman hasn't held an event open to the public (except for two debates with his opponent) in the two years he's been in office. he is terrified of having to speak extemporaneously and answer difficult questions. he posted a video boasting of all his "constituent events" which was just footage from Republican-only fundraisers.

the few times people have managed to get into private or semi-private events and ask him questions he doesn't want to answer, his staff will step in and separate him from the questioner so that he doesn't have to answer. he's like a special-needs child they have to prevent from being exposed to any disorienting stimuli. in the few seconds before his staff steps in you can see the confusion and fear in his eyes. he's basically an empty vessel, a precisely replacement-level republican who is stupid enough not to pose any challenge to the donors and right-wing interest groups and media that fill him and his campaign with whatever messages they have chosen for the week.

where is your District? I forget

western-central PA.

Gummy's rep:

https://uproxx.files.wordpress.com/2013/08/congressman.jpg?quality=95&w=650

lol looks like a wax dummy

sorry to confuse: that's a still from Parks & Recreation

previous generations fought a war over this shit. we can do it.

which war are you referring to? the one where the forces of fascism were neatly attributable to the Axis Powers? where combatant could join an army with a uniform and a chain of command and fight in battles that had names and clear winners and losers?

what about this world, where the fascists are the political leaders of the country you live in, they don't call it fascism, and the political violence (to date) mostly manifests itself in code words and dog whistles carried out by their most alienated followers?

and where the cops with military-grade materiel have made clear their undying allegiance to the fascists

Footage from a Trump rally - Cesar Sayoc, the mail-bomb guy, is repeatedly visible at the front of the crowd.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=opM6YIx3gA8

btw here's an example of the sort of Giant Brain Genious that is common in these parts:

https://ptpimg.me/22040d.png