JWcph, Radicalized By DecencyJul 14, 2024

Although it's worth nothing that even with all the money & power at their disposal, The Right™️ has still failed to realize its authoritarian dream for over a century, @pluralistic is right, we should be alarmed - among other things over how they still get to openly plot this sh*t even though we've had more than 100 years to pick it apart as the rickety cobweb of cruel, contradictory nonsense it is. You know, because they're fascists & fascists are f**king idiots.

https://mamot.fr/@pluralistic/112784584183565005

Cory Doctorow (@[email protected])

Attached: 1 image Like you, I have heard a *lot* about Project 2025, the Heritage Foundation's roadmap for the actions Trump should take if he wins. Given the Heritage Foundation's centrality to the American authoritarian project, it's about as awful and frightening as you might expect: https://www.project2025.org/ -- If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this thread to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog: https://pluralistic.net/2024/07/14/fracture-lines/#disassembly-manual 1/

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Show threadJanisJul 14, 2024

@jwcph
I'm quite convinced that fascists are not idiots. We have blind spots, corporately, to how cruelty unwinds, to hypocrisy, and (systemically, particularly behind the closed doors of corporate rule)are incentivized not to call it out.

When we can't afford to live out our values, when we think that conforming to this system is what makes a person valuable, when we ourselves engage in the behaviors that shut human potential down, when we think we're ok, we have problems.

@pluralistic

Show threadJWcph, Radicalized By Decency
@janisf @pluralistic No, really - they're idiots. They have to be; their "ideology", such as it is, demands & depends on it. @Catvalente explains: https://catvalente.substack.com/p/theres-no-such-thing-as-a-smart-fascist
There's No Such Thing As a Smart Fascist

But don't get it twisted, there's no such thing as a safe one, either

Welcome to Garbagetown
Jul 14, 2024 at 3:52pmWeb
Show threadJanisJul 14, 2024

@jwcph @pluralistic @Catvalente Thtat doesn't really explain to me how it is the rest of us have ended up supporting them enough to let them get as far as they have.

I mean, unless you count all of humanity inside the circle of idiocy. ATM, I'm trying really, really hard not to do that.

Show threadJWcph, Radicalized By DecencyJul 14, 2024
@janisf @pluralistic @Catvalente It's in the article, the part about how we paper over the ugly spots etc. No, we're not all part of that idiocy but sometimes we are, in fact, too stupid for our own good - more often, though, it's complacency or mental interia. Sometimes laziness. Idiots like fascists & bullies are very good at exploiting that, because it doesn't take intelligence, just indifference to the consequences, including a complete lack of empathy & conscience, which they have.
Show threadJanisJul 14, 2024

@jwcph
You can't assign a lack of empathy to someone else. All you can do is scream when they do something that hurts and then call on the group for assistance.

We're at a critical impass of calling out the psychiatrists as crazy bullies, the police as violent, and the scholars as ignorant. What remains is their response.

@pluralistic @Catvalente

Show threadMiguel de Icaza ᯅ🍉Jul 14, 2024

@jwcph @janisf @pluralistic @Catvalente isn’t it because we assume that the belief system comes first and we think they build upon it?

The ideology is just a means to an end for those calling the shots.

Show threadJanisJul 14, 2024

@Migueldeicaza @jwcph @pluralistic @Catvalente yes, but they don't see it that way, and i'm not sure pointing it out directly helps.

The problem is that we have a chunk of people thinking in absolute values and a chunk more of people who've done calculus and effectively apply that thinking to government. the public are legal pragmatists (and Putin installed 3 absolutists, but I digress).