Pinball1970
Valued Senior Member
SNL If you didn't see it.
Trump 2.0
- Thread starter James R
- Start date
To me, it's like, we should have noticed when it was the Craigslist queers reaffirming their heterosexual masculinity by dating and fucking. No, really, apparently there's something more manly about the way a man does it than a woman. Don't ask, it barely makes sense if I really, really try.
And I just don't want to link out to the bits about grown-ass men who don't understand how to use a toilet.
Thing is, at some point along the way, we were supposed to take this stuff seriously.
But less absurdly damnably stupid than that, not long ago I was thinking about cancel culture in terms of Scott Lively↑ and David Barton↗, and the fact that neither have been cancelled tells us everything we need to know about cancel culture.
Anyway, sure, here's a brief thesis.
†
I would start by revisiting something I said a last month↑:
A lot of this has sharpened since 1992-96, and with increasing pitch and urgency through the new century. When I invoke Riesebrodt↗, for instance, it isn't just some easy line: The period between 2003-2015 can easily be described as involving "rapid social change" triggering a "crisis consciousness" lending to a "revitalization and search for authenticity"; and it's one thing if I might suggest rightest "'identical' authenticity" is "experiential", but we appear to be well into "charismatic fundamentalism", and if the question becomes "fundamentalism", the discussion of "antievolutionary thinking" is vast and even psychoanalytical.
The basic sketch from Riesebrodt starts with "rapid social change" leading to a "crisis consciousness" that sparks "religious revitalization and search for authenticity".
The sharpening, as such, from 1992-96, involves embittered traditionalists turning from anti-abortion to anti-gay. Hint, they lost. Toward this, the period between 1997-2002 saw the "culture wars" suffering a series of psychomoral blows; these escalated from 2003-15. The whole prudery movement kept outing itself as perverse and predatory; conservatives lost their culture wars. But around the same time, they also lost their defense and security posture; not only did 9/11 happen on their watch and because of their negligence-at-best, the Bush Adventures pretty much destroyed conservative pretenses to patriotism and American righteousness, and even undermined perceptions of American competence. Oh, and also around the same time, conservative economic principles pretty much blew the economy all to hell, like thrice over in less than ten years. Somewhere in our consideration of rapid social change and crisis consciousness, the failure of an entire political platform, and in such an excruciatingly clownish and awful way—the collapse of an historical narrative—counts for something.
If we want to split hairs, this crisis consciousness had been pressurizing since the early 1960s, but slowly, because traditionalists felt secure in their prejudice. And, sure, the years between Colorado Amendment 2 (1992) and Windsor (2013) basically saw the laundered legitimacy of post-Goldwater conservatism blown to smithereens. It's one thing to imagine how this turn might alarm conservatives, quite another to comprehend their forfeiture of logic, fact, and reason. Lind declared the death of intellectual conservatism in 1995↱.¹
And here we get to the tricky part. To conservatives, these losses are imposed, these failures are actually inflictions. The underlying, tacit conservative thesis, here, is that enough people have been deluded by evil that they simply insist on irrational fancy, i.e., liberalism. As they see it, conservatives are not losing certain elections and constitutional arguments on the merit of fact and logic, but because dangerous people insist and noncompetent people don't know any better.
So, are you ready?
• It's their turn: Now, conservatives want to say so, and have it just happen, just like all those evil liberals and feminists and homosexuals and Muslims and black people and illegal Mexicans did to them.
That's it. That's the tweet: Conservatives want to just say so.
†
Another reiteration, something I've mentioned↗ a few times↗, recently↑:
• When science and enlightenment sought to civilize the savage world, science and enlightenment were enough. But when the science starts to inform differently than the superstitions of the prevailing societal narrative, then we have a problem.
More practically, when enlightenment² starts to inform differently than prevailing superstition, people start putting the word in air quotes and complaining about elitism.
†
To recall↑ a recent line: It's a kind of discussion accommodating cynical, even craven insincerity.
Maybe I won't, in a given moment, criticize the choice to ask a butt-stupid question that is only made reasonable by the purported retardation it would address. Then again, you're not new, and neither am I, and it's reasonable to suggest nor is Bill↑. Maybe this time, as such, we can establish a marker. If not, well, fuck, something about accommodating cynical and even craven insincerity.
Kind of like, maybe this time↑, we can do away with what is recognized as bad faith. Compared to the prospect that the question about cars with spikes is approximately on par with an old firearms discussion in which the gun lobby never has answered the question about how to drive an AR-15 to work, or write a grocery list with a handgun, sure, there are reasons to doubt the efficacy or even utility of asking, and this point, too, is worth making: There is a reason these questions remain unanswered.
†
One important aspect of American society is how much depends on good faith. This might not be so easily apparent from across oceans, or even the Canadian border. But it is what the Trumptime tests. And according to a fairly straightforward, albeit dispassionate assessment, why would Republicans not, compared to the history of permission they've been given along the way.
How many times can conservative voters keep voting for those other reasons that never come true? And how many times can they shrug off the bait and switch? Like "economy" or "jobs" versus "identity politics", abortion, and birth control; now that it's here, and they're not turning away from the misogyny it always was, it really does look like they really were abiding supremacism and all that bad and crazy stuff the whole time, as if these are the enduring values that drive conservative movements.
Thus: It is perfectly natural that enlightened people would not want to quash, shame, silence, deplatform, or cancel political views, but there comes a point at which the result of this is quashing, silencing, and delegitimizing political views. And maybe that last is important, the idea of delegitimizing.
Another way to say it: It is perfectly natural that people would not want to silence legitimate political views. In this context, the question of legitimacy and legitimization demands resolution of who decides what is legitimate.
But it's not a who, it's a what: Facts, evidence, and function lend to our understanding of what is true, and it is truth that legitimizes.
Or, as such, there is a reason why certain questions remain unanswered.
____________________
Notes:
¹ What was it I said about Barton and Lively, vis à vis cancel culture? Same goes for Dennis Prager, who makes an appearance in the old Dissent piece.
² i.e., Maybe a bit from Aldous Huxley, ca. 1925, to show that this isn't a foreign idea to the British; or a quip from Stephen Ambrose, about capitalism and globalism, to remind the pretense of science and industry within our American enlightenment. (#3746869↗)
² i.e., Maybe a bit from Aldous Huxley, ca. 1925, to show that this isn't a foreign idea to the British; or a quip from Stephen Ambrose, about capitalism and globalism, to remind the pretense of science and industry within our American enlightenment. (#3746869↗)
Lind, Michael. "Why Intellectual Conservatism Died". Dissent. Winter, 1995. DissentMagazine.org. 25 February 2025. https://www.dissentmagazine.org/pdfs/lind.pdf
Did they give Musk an english accent?
Pinball1970
Valued Senior Member
A little bit yes, almost Jack Sparrow.
Austin Powers?
i mean right wingers not understanding the media they consume is a genre in and of its self.
Seattle
Valued Senior Member
Mick Jagger.
Well, thank goodness for the US Secretary of Agriculture, and her "solution" to the egg-shortage over there: just get yourself a chicken or two for your backyard!
www.huffingtonpost.co.uk
This despite the bird-flu epidemic that is causing (in part or wholly?) the shortage. Not to mention plethora other reasons it's just not feasible!
Well, whatever else you might say, I guess when you're part of Trump's cabinet you do eventually get your 5 minutes in the limelight to show everyone just how dumb and incompetent you are. He is at least "equal opportunities" in that regard!
Trump Ag Secretary's Clucked-Up Advice On Eggs Has Critics Squawking
Brooke Rollins' idea to combat rising prices isn't going over very well.
This despite the bird-flu epidemic that is causing (in part or wholly?) the shortage. Not to mention plethora other reasons it's just not feasible!
Well, whatever else you might say, I guess when you're part of Trump's cabinet you do eventually get your 5 minutes in the limelight to show everyone just how dumb and incompetent you are. He is at least "equal opportunities" in that regard!
Pinball1970
Valued Senior Member
Trump says he does not start wars he stops them. He certainly looks like he is ending any US involvement in Ukraine besides cosying up to the enemy.
He started this one. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/ckg1jxdpq0qo
He started this one. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/ckg1jxdpq0qo
Do Trump's clique actually welcome a decline in world trade and a general lowering of economic living standards (including "temporarily" at home) as a price for America becoming more independent from the world?
Is this tarif idea their version of Brexit?
His plan for Gaza doesn't strike me as a retreat from foreign wars
It seems to involve a Biblical forced displacement of the population.
Does he hope to engineer that by running them out of their territory and forcing
countries to accept them?
We have probably learned by now that his most outrageous ideas are subsequently acted out
Ого! До чего дошла пластическая хирургия! Это ботокс или силикон?
Make it so that i don't step on it again...
There's a certain "like sheep to the slaughter" quality that has always bothered me. Unless I'm going to be a rigid adherent to Morgan's Canon (which, funnily, a lot of people are, at least when they're considering anything other than "people"), I've gotta at least entertain the notion that people have agency, a degree of self-awareness, and some sort of sense of responsibility--whether that is simply to themselves, or it includes others, is entirely dependent upon entertaining the idea that most Americans are some sort of Christian or humanist, and that those terms have any sort of meaning whatsoever. Until people are locked into a room with other people and no food for a week, I'm not willing to let that go.
When you live in a society that has virtually no safety nets, good faith is everything. And when that goes out the window, you've got nothing. Ben Franklin said, "Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety." People who consistently and regularly peddle bad faith are my natural enemy, and entertaining and indulging their bullshit is no different to simply giving in to it. And their fucking bullshit absolutely does not warrant considered responses, what it warrants is pretty much what they themselves have repeatedly called for against their own perceived and imaginary enemies--only unto themselves.
First they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out—because I was not a socialist.
Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out—because I was not a trade unionist.
Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.
—Martin Niemoller
I honestly don't know whether you are truly this fucking stupid, or whether you're simply a fascist without even an ounce of integrity, and I don't really care. What really matters here is that you come across as a complete fucking idiot.
Yep.
Thank God we didn't have too many Sculptors during the buildup to World War II. "Why should I care about whether Germany crosses the English channel or not? I don't live there."
I've never really made up my mind about which pretense is more ridiculous and transparent: opposition to certain things based upon being anti-war, or opposition to certain things being based upon being anti-waste and anti-inefficiency. As though anyone is really for those things.
Yep. A great example of a strawman argument.
"Well, if you support the right to choose, you support murder! I guess you are OK with me murdering you because you support it. Well I for one am against murder!"
Seattle
Valued Senior Member
You don't have to be for it and that's the inevitable result. People do stupid things all the time even though the negative results are entirely predictable.
War is generally non-productive. Governments are generally wasteful and less than transparent. Some are better than others. Most are needed.
Trump, tariffs and Canada is stupid, the results entirely predictable and yet it goes on. No fentanyl that is statistically relevant comes from Canada, there isn't an "immigration" problem from that border and there is no Canadian auto company to move production to the US.
The parts suppliers that have been set up across the border was by agreement with the US car companies. It's benefits both countries.
The trade deficit is a surplus if you take gas out of the equation. We want the gas for our northern cities. If they cut the gas off it hurts us.
Therefore the whole thing is stupid. Yet it's reality.
That's the way the world works. Emotions, stupidity, all win out because people aren't as rational as we would like to think.
I saw a clip from Joe Rogan's interview with JD Vance in which Vance is going on and on about people celebrating abortions. Rogan interjects, "Well, I don't think people are really celebrating abortions."
When pretty much every argument and every policy is premised upon a strawman, and Joe Rogan is the sole voice of reason in the "conversation"... The distractions, lies, redirects are effective for many, I suppose, but a lot of people understand that Social Security is mostly self-funding and does not contribute to the debt (yes, it's more complicated than that; but even were we to wholly isolate this aspect, something like 83 or 85 percent of payment would be guaranteed regardless); and a lot understand that funding by the extremely wealthy through income tax would not put much of a dent in the deficit (with people like Jeff Bezos only making like 80 thousand a year), but a wealth tax sure as hell would (it doesn't take a whole lot of education or critical thinking to grasp that the terms "high earners" and "wealthy" imply different things, even if the Venn diagrams largely overlap); and a lot understand the implications of unchecked aggress even when it occurs thousands of miles away. I guess they know and understand their audience: the uneducated will just eat up this shit, while the extremely rich--and likely better informed--fully know it's utter nonsense, but so long as it lines their coffers.