All purpose news and politics thread part VI: This Is Not The Time For Posing

[Revolutionary_Jack]

Oh, right, I totally agree he was unable to do anything but what he did. It's just crazy to imagine the many ways that could have helped him. It's a good thing he's not a competent fascist.

In a way "competent fascism" is what we had with Reagan. Reagan was a pretty extreme and radical figure who masked that and hid that well and he took American politics to the right...and that's what fascism in a democratic system done competently would achieve, it would consolidate a system of regression as legitimate and couched in the language of law. By a 1000 cuts.

But for that you need patience, you need a certain sense of relaxation and calm, which Reagan had. Reagan had long experience working as a politician whether in the Hollywood Unions, or in California, and then as Governor and eventually President. So he had a sense of calm and discipline to him.

Whereas Trump is all ablaze. He's a gambler and a chancer, and he's also quite old...and he definitely has a paranoid fear of death. Freud would call that the death drive where the sense of incoming death and mortality makes people live their life differently and impatiently.

The fear of death is a common tenet of fascism. Fascists like Mussolini, Hitler, Trump all fear death and so they think that if they gain power to kill a whole bunch of people, and actually do ahead and kill a whole bunch of people, then that means they control and master death. No joke, this is a real thing about fascism.

[Joker]

3 is a bigger number than 2, Joker.

The truth still matters to some of us.

My dude, I still have no idea what you are talking about. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[kidfresh512]

I had to stand up and cheer for the speech Cori Bush gave. She better drag these haters.

[SquirrelMan]

Well that's where Mets starts. He eventually gets somewhere above a quarter up from the bottom.

Anyway, if Mets was smart enough to pick a video he could have picked this interview where Rep. Jayapal explains exactly the full situation and context:
https://www.thecut.com/2021/01/prami...tol-riots.html



We have a Congresswoman, who had a cane after a recent surgery...which means by the way she can't simply run and bolt at a moment's notice like everyone else making her uniquely vulnerable. She wore a mask and then capitol police told her to get on the floor (which again because of her cane meant that it was hard for her to bend down and then get back again) and use the special gasmasks they have at the Capitol for gas attacks...and then she goes and finds herself in a special anteroom where she has no choice to walk away from (physically and situationally). While also dealing with the notion that as a South Asian woman, she can't blend in and will stick out and would probably be a target for the mob.

Not to mention by the way that Republicans in the room not only refused a mask when offered but basically gloated and sneered at the offer by the Dem Represenative from Delaware, Lisa Blunt Rochester. Including among those Republicans is that Qanon Clown Marjorie Greene, Arizona Rep. Andy Biggs, Pennsylvania Rep. Scott Perry, Texas Rep. Michael Cloud, and Oklahoma Rep. Markwayne Mullin, who can be heard rebuffing Rochester’s proffered mask by telling her, “I’m not trying to get political here.”



Anyway, that's that. It's kind of infuriating that when you have posters who have proven themselves to argue in bad faith multiple times, sloppy in their reasoning and citations, that you have to go out of your way to be thorough. It's an extension of "work twice as hard to be half as good". You need to read far more extensively, and post longer to refute this, then these figures have to about their posting. It's exhausting frankly. And I wish there was a ranking of "good faith" about posters on CBR and elsewhere. In academics, when you have people do sloppy citations or work, there's a mark against that and it goes in the record. We need to introduce that to online discourse.



What gives power to the crazies is the non-crazy conservatives deciding to get in bed with them because they care more about tax cuts and stacking the judiciary than any long-term plan to reform their ideology. Numerically, the MAGAs would not have been a national level movement, and would not find themselves in power. Yet the Republicans despite your own party condemning Trump during the primaries in strongest of terms decided to get in bed with them because you guys wanted to own the libs far more than own yourself.

The Republican party should do what Lyndon B. Johnson did when he backed the Civil Rights Movement knowing that doing so would cost the Dems the South. Johnson believed that losing the South might cost the Dems in the short term but would ultimately benefit them. If any Republican had real principle, they would take stock regroup and redo the party aware that it might cost them short term but ultimately reform into a more viable party later on. But you guys want power...and I mean all of the power. It's not gonna stop with 6-3, it's gonna go till it's 9-0, it's going to continue until NYC is gerrymandered, isn't it? The Democrats can praise Republican presidents and senators and representatives and build on their policies and works but no Republican now or in the past can bring themselves to credit the Dems with anything, nor can they admit that Dems in power isn't really so bad.

What else is there to say? Republicans want us to agree that voting for HRC over Trump was a "bridge too far". No it wasn't. It was an easy choice, just as voting for Biden over Trump was easy...or voting for Sanders over Trump would have been easy.

I thank you for clearing that up.

I urge Mets to delete his hateful post. The forum should not be a room for smearing victims.

[Amadeus Arkham]

In just a week from now.



From @Mark Hamil.

[DrNewGod]

That's a depressing photo the LA Times posted from the US Capitol. I'm glad I'm not a parent trying to explain that it wasn't always like this to a small child.

Image.jpg

[Revolutionary_Jack]

I had to stand up and cheer for the speech Cori Bush gave. She better drag these haters.

Agreed. Excellent 30 seconds use.

[PwrdOn]

In a way "competent fascism" is what we had with Reagan. Reagan was a pretty extreme and radical figure who masked that and hid that well and he took American politics to the right...and that's what fascism in a democratic system done competently would achieve, it would consolidate a system of regression as legitimate and couched in the language of law. By a 1000 cuts.

But for that you need patience, you need a certain sense of relaxation and calm, which Reagan had. Reagan had long experience working as a politician whether in the Hollywood Unions, or in California, and then as Governor and eventually President. So he had a sense of calm and discipline to him.

Whereas Trump is all ablaze. He's a gambler and a chancer, and he's also quite old...and he definitely has a paranoid fear of death. Freud would call that the death drive where the sense of incoming death and mortality makes people live their life differently and impatiently.

The fear of death is a common tenet of fascism. Fascists like Mussolini, Hitler, Trump all fear death and so they think that if they gain power to kill a whole bunch of people, and actually do ahead and kill a whole bunch of people, then that means they control and master death. No joke, this is a real thing about fascism.

Perhaps one reassuring aspect of all of this is that fascism and competence are sort of directly contradictory, because fascism is built upon fundamentally incorrect ideas about people, and so any regime that tries to govern by those principles will end up failing eventually. It isn't even really a long term process either, and you can see it happening over the past few years with the absurd turnover in the Trump administration, since it's rather difficult to keep finding talented and capable officials who could carry out a coherent policy platform while remaining loyal to the whims of a leader with no interest in governing. The arc of history bends toward justice, not because there is some kind of greater power guiding it, but because our ideas of right and wrong ultimately derive from what works from a societal survival standpoint, and so fascists will always lose in the end because the very nature of their own ideas sets them up to fail.

[DrNewGod]

Perhaps one reassuring aspect of all of this is that fascism and competence are sort of directly contradictory, because fascism is built upon fundamentally incorrect ideas about people, and so any regime that tries to govern by those principles will end up failing eventually. It isn't even really a long term process either, and you can see it happening over the past few years with the absurd turnover in the Trump administration, since it's rather difficult to keep finding talented and capable officials who could carry out a coherent policy platform while remaining loyal to the whims of a leader with no interest in governing. The arc of history bends toward justice, not because there is some kind of greater power guiding it, but because our ideas of right and wrong ultimately derive from what works from a societal survival standpoint, and so fascists will always lose in the end because the very nature of their own ideas sets them up to fail.

An interesting take. I would like to believe that you are right. I just wish fascists wouldn't break so much **** on the way to losing.

[Iron_Legion87]

These extreme right wing folks REALLY are ticking me off with their meltdowns and dumb comparisons to the BLM events over the summer to "justify" the capitol event last week.

Also this DUMB tweet REALLY pissed me off.

https://twitter.com/AmandaPresto/sta...56437144551425

[Revolutionary_Jack]

Perhaps one reassuring aspect of all of this is that fascism and competence are sort of directly contradictory, because fascism is built upon fundamentally incorrect ideas about people, and so any regime that tries to govern by those principles will end up failing eventually.

Exactly.

Fascism is weird because it's defined by spectacle, by escalation, by immediate results. Any other idea (conservative, liberal, socialist, communist) is dedicated towards consolidation and state building. That's why Reagan, McConnell, and others don't exactly qualify as fascists.

Fascism is anti-institutional by nature. It's ad-hoc and its dedicated to making war, on an "other" to permanently suppress. And it has to produce results. Fascism isn't about incrementalism (even communism ironically is about incrementalism). It's about escalation and radicalization.

Trump's administration isn't fascist because of some tired Hitler comparison...it's fascist because he and his administration and his henchmen act far more similarly to the Nazis and fascists than anybody else.

An interesting take. I would like to believe that you are right. I just wish fascists wouldn't break so much **** on the way to losing.

Well that's what fascists like to do...they see the power to destroy and break stuff as power in total. They believe that vulnerability is weakness and the power to destroy is divine.

Remember fascism is founded on a fear of death and a desire to master death, and that amounts to having the power to hurt and kill as much people as possible, and in practice hurt and kill as many people as possible.

[Amadeus Arkham]

[Iron_Legion87]

Republicans who are against impeachment are saying it's pointless because Trump isn't going to run again in 2024. But we all know if he feels he has the support and his ego is running wild again, he will run. Impeachment won't stop him from running again (legally) but we shall see. There are rumors his daughter is thinking of running in 2024 SMH.

[Amadeus Arkham]

The fact McConnell is undecided instead of flat-out saying he opposes impeachment like he did when the first impeachment was announced tells us he’s strongly considering convicting him but he needs some time to make up his mind.

[babyblob]

The fact McConnell is undecided instead of flat-out saying he opposes impeachment like he did when the first impeachment was announced tells us he’s strongly considering convicting him but he needs some time to make up his mind.

I think it is Mitch trying to deflect the question. He knows damn well how he is going to vote. And I am pretty sure it will be to let Trump off the hook.

he is too much of a piece of **** for him to show that he cares about America now.