Mastodawn

Tony, Pretty Much Jun 25, 2024

I saw a comment go by today that said some people are going to sit this election out and wait for 2028. First, there are many downballot elections now and before 2028. Don’t sit out.

Second, if you’re thinking if Trump wins and gets to pack up the courts with more Aileen Cannons, Matthew Kacsmaryks, and Brett Kavanaughs and you’ll have a chance to correct all that in 4 years, you will not.

Trump’s 2025 authoritarian playbook and what it means for democracy | On Point
https://www.wbur.org/onpoint/2024/02/26/trumps-authoritarian-playbook-for-2025-and-what-it-means-for-democracy

Trump’s 2025 authoritarian playbook and what it means for democracy | On Point

Donald Trump has openly admired authoritarians around the world. Now he’s pledging to rule like one. An examination of the promises, powers and plans of a second Trump presidency.

WBUR

Tengrain Jun 25, 2024

I’m always amazed that the “Both parties are the same” argument doesn’t fall apart more often when one points out that the Republicans are (constantly) trying to take away voting rights and access, and Democrats are trying to restore and expand voting for everyone.

Go figure.

Texty the Bard Jun 25, 2024

@Tengrain @TonyStark What they really mean is "both parties won't give me the communist Utopia I want, so I'm happy to let the world burn." They're getting off on the idea that they have that kind of power, and that candidates should be falling all over themselves to court them. Which pretty much makes them more or less the same as the similar self-aggrandizing asshats on the right. But at least those guys are honest about it.

Tony, Pretty Much Jun 25, 2024

@textualdeviance @Tengrain I’m voting for the most progressive candidate available. The “burn it down, I’m not voting for Biden” crowd are actually the ones electing the right- what they accuse me of.

Nobody is going to listen to anyone proud of throwing them under the bus. It’s why that wing is completely falling apart.

@TonyStark @Tengrain Exactly. The GOP gave in to their radical fringe and then utterly lost control. All the moderates got swept out in primaries and by 2010, the party was fully in the hands of the Dominionists and Tea Party sovcit weirdos.

Democrats so far haven't pandered to the radicals on our end of the horseshoe, and I think that's helping us survive. We're picking up way more people from the disillusioned right-leaning middle than we would endlessly trying to placate the alt-left.

Tengrain Jun 25, 2024

@textualdeviance @TonyStark

I don’t think our extremists are all that extreme, it’s just that the GOP pushed the window so far right.

So, yes, I’m blaming the Republicans for making the left into the far left.

Tony, Pretty Much Jun 25, 2024

@Tengrain @textualdeviance Some farL in my mentions definitely want their own brand of authoritarianism. That’s a problem.

Texty the Bard Jun 25, 2024

@Tengrain @TonyStark I'm not talking about the genuine progressives, though. I'm progressive myself. I'm talking more about the weirdo anarchocommunist sorts who fap to the idea of a bloody revolution, and who are willing to sacrifice millions to dictators, disease, and climate disasters if they don't get their way. Basically the same as the Rapture cult on the right, but subtract religion and add weed.

Tony, Pretty Much Jun 25, 2024

@textualdeviance @Tengrain Same.

RiaResists Jun 25, 2024

@textualdeviance @Tengrain @TonyStark and they think they’ll be able to sit back & watch it on YouTube.
They won’t do any fighting.
They might vandalize your stuff to get their rocks off but they won’t do anything that matters.

Shoq Jun 26, 2024

@textualdeviance @Tengrain @TonyStark

Weed, fast-fashion, and maybe a pretty pink Stanley water jug for those scorching days on the ramparts.

Jeremy (יעקב) 🇺🇦Jun 25, 2024

@textualdeviance @TonyStark @Tengrain

Democrats so far haven't pandered to the radicals on our end of the horseshoe, and I think that's helping us survive.

It's also been long enough, with the Left side of the horseshoe being sidelined while seeing their counterparts getting what they want, that most of them are openly defecting to the other party in hopes of getting a better shot at power than Democrats are willing to give them.

Far Left podcasters, journalists, even a handful of elected officials flirted with it up through 2020. Then 2022, putting them on their heels and empowering the Dem base, came the wholesale defection of people like Greenwald and Rogan and Chapo and Jacobin and such to arguing Dems are worse and Trump is preferable.

Now we have a handful of the elected officials joining in on it publicly, notable exception of AOC who is now an enemy for not.

#USPol #USPolitics #FromTheLeft #Left #Chapo #Jacobin #Democrats #GOP #Election #Horseshoe

Tengrain Jun 25, 2024

@imstilljeremy @textualdeviance @TonyStark

Puritopians are always going to purge their own ranks; it’s like the rule that "Conservatism can never fail it can only be failed."

I have not seen it so much on the left, but I think that’s what you are getting at.

Tony, Pretty Much Jun 25, 2024

@Tengrain @imstilljeremy @textualdeviance Jewish people are probably seeing that more than the average user as they have been full out coming for us. I’ve blocked more self-described leftists here than right wingers I ever had to block on Twitter. I don’t think the left is particularly progressive, because progress of any kind is rejected by many.

Jeremy (יעקב) 🇺🇦Jun 25, 2024

@Tengrain @textualdeviance @TonyStark

A really good example would be the entire RFK and Cornell West campaigns and all associated hangers-on, as a spectrum from the parts of the Left horseshoe who are now openly far right (RFK's campaign) and which just prefer the right to the Democrats right now (Cornell West's).

Both are fairly openly coordinating with far right funding, logistical support, and media and focusing on swing states. Now, it looks like RFK's campaign got too much in bed with the GOP to keep pulling Dems, which is why they started coordinating with West too.

#CornelWest #RFKJr #RFK #Election #Elections #GOP #FromTheLeft #horseshoe #FarRight #Fascism #Fascist

Tony, Pretty Much Jun 25, 2024

@imstilljeremy @Tengrain @textualdeviance I hate to put up an X screenshot and unfortunately don’t have time to caption it but…what a merge.

Texty the Bard Jun 25, 2024

@TonyStark @imstilljeremy @Tengrain It seems weird until one realizes all of the people in question are Putin puppets. The bridge across the horseshoe is built on rubles.

Texty the Bard Jun 25, 2024

@imstilljeremy @TonyStark @Tengrain I saw someone here arguing Trump would be better because he's supposedly isolationist. Letting Putin roll tanks through half of Europe would be perfectly fine, I guess. Violent capitalist imperialism is supposedly only a US thing?

Tony, Pretty Much Jun 25, 2024

@textualdeviance @imstilljeremy @Tengrain I have a collection of responses like that from accounts I’ve suspended.

IF we manage to win, it’s highly doubtful their voices will have weight with the candidates they chose not to support. That just makes sense. But I'm sure they'll find the Republican Party more than welcoming instead?

Tengrain Jun 25, 2024

@TonyStark @textualdeviance @imstilljeremy

They become the useful idiots for the right, just like Lieberman was. They won’t be thought leaders there, either, just props.

Think GlennZilla always being on Tucker Carlson’s old show. Like that.

Tengrain Jun 25, 2024

@TonyStark @textualdeviance @imstilljeremy

I want to stress that I am not sanguine about any of this. We are in a treacherous political moment, we need to rally everyone to vote, there’s no margin of error.

Paraphrasing Franklin: if we don’t hang together now, we will hang separately later.

Jeremy (יעקב) 🇺🇦Jun 25, 2024

@Tengrain @TonyStark @textualdeviance

And I want to be equally clear that I don't think either of us (Tony can correct me if I'm wrong about him, but we talk about this stuff enough that I'm confident, here) think or were trying to imply that you were part of the problem or blase about it.

I can say, for myself, I felt like this was productive and collaborative between us all, discussing, analyzing, and lamenting a mutual concern.

Tony, Pretty Much Jun 25, 2024

@imstilljeremy @Tengrain @textualdeviance 💯

Also, Tengrain has been privately very, very supportive. I hope TG doesn’t mind me saying that.

Tengrain Jun 25, 2024

@TonyStark @imstilljeremy @textualdeviance

Thanks, Tony!

I’m a short walk away from Temple De Hirsch Sinai, which I am told is largest temple in the PNW, which also makes it the biggest target, too.

I take it very personally and seriously when the Nazis show up in my ‘hood (and they do!) — again, we are all in this together and I try to be as good of an ally as I can.

Tengrain Jun 25, 2024

@imstilljeremy @TonyStark @textualdeviance

Oh, I did not think that at all, thanks!

I’m aware I have a Pollyanna reputation because I see the (gallows) humor in everything. But I have some depth for someone who is admittedly shallow.