I wonder why right-wing messaging aligns so closely with that of a foreign adversary? Some citations would have been nice, but the information is freely google-able, and backed by many reputable sources. It all sounds so conspiratorial, but the people involved have done a fine job of leaning into that angle to cover their tracks. I don't feel an unwavering loyalty to the United States, nor do I fetishize the founding fathers, or our constitution. Joe Biden is a big, fat "meh", and the idealism of American Progressivism is often naive, impractical, and ineffective. But I'd like to think that I have a knack for sensing when a particular school of thought is clearly toxic for society writ large, and I'm here to say, with some restraint (it may be in all caps, next time): The Koch-Heritage-Federalist-Birch bullshit is absolutely fucked. If you're a fan, and your net worth is less than several tens of millions of dollars? Congratulations, I consider you not only a special type of idiot, but a hazard to a healthy society. Sorry. To continue some of another thread here, I'd never refuse a hug. If you ever need one too, that's A-OK, I'm stocked on hugs :). Long distance bromance is rough. The wrongness of the second half of this sentence is why the first half is wrong. Power is all these people are interested in, and considering how much power we've consolidated into the executive, that's the main focus of the GOP, but hey, waging lie-based "cultural" warfare at a local level is apparently entertaining in the meantime. If Trump grew horns, a barbed tail, sported a pitchfork, and went from orange to full-blown red, Grassley'd still be hamming it up at rallies to cement his own re-election. More importantly: I cannot overstate how much I appreciate you engaging me, 'bl00, even if we completely diverge in our perceptions from time to time.Let us retrace our steps. From the 1930s to the 1950s, the Koch family, oblivious in the interest of profits to the national interest, or the threat posed by fascism or communism, sought to do deals with Hitler and Stalin in Germany and Russia. In the 1980s and 1990s, Donald Trump inherited and largely squandered his father’s real estate empire, launching scheme after ill-fated scheme, only to be bailed out by the senior Trump. As the 2000s broke, Trump turned to Russian oligarchs seeking a haven for funds from their profiteering of former Soviet assets. The oligarchs’ gangster-like methods of nationalization as privatization combined Stalin’s forced takeovers with monetizing formerly national assets. Then, former Soviet agents in the KGB, led by Putin, began a program of money-laundering which met the needs of both the oligarchs and the Trump Organization as the Trump family became Putin’s latter-day useful idiots. Then, in 2016, the odd Russian bet on one such idiot, like a bet on 23 red on a roulette wheel, paid off big time.
They're gonna run Paul Ryan and not give a fuck if they lose.
One of the quandaries I ruminate over is "what makes a liberal/what makes a conservative." I've tried on a number of ideas and haven't rejected any of them; however, my current favorite hypothesis is that youth tend to be liberals because a liberal/progressive/permissive social structure tends to favor innovation and innovation favors the young. We grow conservative as we age, however, because we've accumulated wealth and resources and wish to retain them for future generations. I was struck yesterday by what a socioeconomically regressive institution peerage is. Drew Barrymore is John Barrymore's kid is John Barrymore's kid and Drew Barrymore's kids are gonna have an easier time in Hollywood than mine will but ain't none of 'em gonna be Lord and Lady Barrymore, Eighth Viscount of Tujunga or some shit. You ass out in America? You've assed out. You ass out in the UK? So long as you dot your I's and cross your T's you can lord your upbringing over the proles until the sun is a cinder. The Commonwealth's favorite spectator sport isn't football it's class warfare. And if you can parse your society into "our people" and "the help" then Nazis are just saying the quiet part out loud. I think that's why the Fascists did better in the UK than the US - if it had been rabble-rousing East Enders who wanted to round up the jews they would have been shipped off to India or some shit. But since it was Lord Curzon's son-in-law pip pip cheerio heil hitler. Naaw, dawg you're missing the forest for the trees. Their power structure has been hijacked. That was something that stuck out for me in Frances Haugen's testimony: Facebook has fielded complaints from legit G8 politicians saying "your platform forces me to pander to extremists in order to get elected." THAT is why the world is full of MTGs and Lauren Boeberts: Teh Crzy has been platformed above the archetypal sops-before-proles aristocracy. And yeah - the Republican Party has devalued integrity and character faster than the Democratic Party so there are more craven opportunists who will lick that doorknob on the Right but there's no fucking future in it. I don't know if you've noticed how many bright stars have burned out since Trump. He's a career-ender. There's no loyalty there, there's no strategy there, there's no payback there. Don't vote until they restore me to godhood. Until the Republicans change the narrative they will accomplish nothing on a national level. What's Trump's platform, exactly? Besides "I'm president" and "build the wall"? What does anyone else have to run on? I'm not saying they won't. I'm not saying they won't make the most of it and try their hardest. I'm not saying they aren't hell-bent on a hereditary monarchy and have been since the Virginia Colony. I'm saying the clever are out of power. Georgia doesn't flip in a universe where Trump isn't actively, deliberately sabotaging the Republican Party. Certainly, there are opportunists who can use a little TrumpGloss for a short-term bump. But as a national strategy? Trump was something that happened to the Republican Party, not something they chose. They would have been in a better position running Carly Fiorina against Clinton, even though she woulda lost, because they'd still control the narrative. They want the narrative back. If they run Trump in 2024 it'll be because they haven't wrested control.The wrongness of the second half of this sentence is why the first half is wrong. Power is all these people are interested in, and considering how much power we've consolidated into the executive, that's the main focus of the GOP, but hey, waging lie-based "cultural" warfare at a local level is apparently entertaining in the meantime.
Side note: Don't discount the very real brain function changes that happen in people over 50, and continue to diminish at an accelerating rate until death. Ossification and the inability to take in new information is well documented, and everyone in senior leadership in any part of the government is at the very tail end of this decline. Cognitive abilities collapse by 70. Nobody over 65 should even be allowed to run for office, much less hold a senior policymaking position."One of the quandaries I ruminate over is "what makes a liberal/what makes a conservative." I've tried on a number of ideas and haven't rejected any of them; however, my current favorite hypothesis is that youth tend to be liberals because a liberal/progressive/permissive social structure tends to favor innovation and innovation favors the young. We grow conservative as we age, however, because we've accumulated wealth and resources and wish to retain them for future generations."
Nothing. Like the Tea Party, they are single-issue dipshits with no administration skills or experience. The sheer boredom and mundanity of the everyday job of being on a school board will stifle them, and they'll leave voluntarily. School Boards are also committees staffed with locals who have VERY strong views on what is important and what needs to happen. Many of them have had the same members for decades. One or two lunatics are always elected to the school board, who quickly find themselves ostracized from any decision-making process. There's one on my local city council who votes No on everything, because he's anti-regulation. So the only thing he does at every single city council meeting is utter the word "No". You can imagine how effective that is. Finally, many of these people are running under false pretenses. Critical Race Theory is a COLLEGE-LEVEL ELECTIVE course, and is not taught in grade school. So they are running to fight something that literally doesn't exist.