Angus McIntyreNov 26, 2024
Trump's plan to use tariffs to force agricultural producers to move production to the United States, while simultaneously using the army to expel the workforce they need to do so is really some next-level strategic genius thinking.
Show threadGraydonNov 26, 2024

@angusm In the MAGA imagination, there's a large urban population who do nothing but drugs. As a result, MAGA thought holds that re-enslaving them to perform agricultural labour would be doing them a favour and only foolish leftist nonsense about human rights prevents this sensible solution.

This is not quite the same thing as the "enslave every leftist" take or the "food crisis = infinite authority (because everyone will panic)" take, but all three sets of ideas slosh around together.

Show threadNazaniNov 26, 2024
@graydon @angusm
I'd be more blunt; they want to send Blacks back to the fields.
Show threadCharlie StrossNov 26, 2024
@Nazani @graydon @angusm Their public line is "back to the '50s", but going by the subtext they mean the 1850s, not the 1950s.
Show threadAlexxKayNov 27, 2024
@cstross @Nazani @graydon @angusm
If Graydon's right, it's more like "the 50s" with no prefix at all. 1st century FTW.
Show threadCharlie StrossNov 27, 2024
@AlexxKay @Nazani @graydon @angusm IIRC the lot of a Roman slave in 50AD was better than that of an American one in the South in 1850 (unless they'd been condemned to the mines). It wasn't hereditary, they could be manumitted ...
Show threadGraydon

@cstross @AlexxKay @Nazani @angusm There wasn't a religious position that someone who looked like them could only be a slave…

There was a big tangle of social customs to economically integrate freedmen, come to that, which advantaged the former master and was normal and common.

Rome was an authoritarian horror; it wasn't as bad as a cult that wants to force God to end the world having control of nuclear weapons, and it didn't contain something as bad as the dominionist position on slavery.

Nov 27, 2024 at 12:19pmWeb