Call me a birkie, but I do skip the stomach stuffed with pluck (aka liver, heart and lights (aka lungs)) in favor of a simple loose saute of a nice lamb and/or beef and/or venison mince with oats, onions and proper spice; plus carrot and parsnip puree instead of neeps; plus a nice chianti.
It’s a Turing pattern generator. Inevitable results.
To fix it, employers could require applicants to include a random variant as part of their application. What parameters? Postage, as is being discussed. Attach a handwritten personal reference letter.
I once designed, built and sent — on my own initiative — a building facade model for an architecture job, but it was with Michael Graves, so I’m sure other applicants sent in entire villages. They were old school enough to send it back with the rejection letter.
If you are debating whether to read this article, read it. It’s comprehensive and precise, and although political in substance, not political in form — test-fitting an imprecise definition. The fact it also reaches a firm conclusion (spoiler alert right there in the title) is depoliticized by allowing for malleable application. A benchmark article I will now go share elsewhere.
What’s left to talk about? How to react. How it ends. Where we likely go from there. Where we should go.
People are dying on broad daylight and who knows what Anne Frank atrocities we're going to discover in the years, even decades, to come in this year alone. Yes it's political. No, this isn't really red vs. blue anymore.
If nothing else it's very clear we need to bring politics back to the dinner table. And not he afraid to talk about it in 'nonpartisan' spaces. You can ignore politics, but it never ignores you.
To be honest I didn't find the historical parallels as convincing in this article. I'm glad the author did recognize that we are in uncharted waters, but I think another potential reason to believe that our current fascist government is a little bit more restrained than earlier ones is due to the same forces that allowed it to rise in the first place - that is, social media and instantly viral videos.
What has happened since the Alex Pretti shooting was simply impossible in previous fascist governments. The administration can tell all the lies they want about it, but most of us have eyeballs, and we can see the multiple videos with frame-by-frame analysis. In the past, government propaganda would have been more effective in cases like this - it would have been a case of "who do you believe, team A or team B?" I don't have to believe either team, I just have to believe my own eyes.
> The administration can tell all the lies they want about it, but most of us have eyeballs […] In the past, […] it would have been a case of "who do you believe, team A or team B?"
Damn I wish I could share your optimism. If one thing, social media has induced more division, and generalised the idea that "if you are not with me, you are against me". We are at a point where many are demonstrably more comfortable staying in their bubble of lies than willing to seek the truth out of it. And truth is unfortunately overrated.
> I researched every Democratic attempt to stop fascism in history. the success rate after fascists were elected was 0%.
Ergo Trump isn't fascist since he already was elected and democracy removed him once before. Otherwise they have to say that there has been one successful attempt for democracy to remove a fascist. Only reason Trump won the last election was that the democrats failed so hard at coming up with good candidates, if they had someone as good as John Biden before dementia Trump would have lost, trying to hide his dementia is why Trump rules today.
Well he did try to overturn that election, but he failed. So I guess that makes him a failed fascist last time around. This time he’s trying much harder. Let’s make sure he fails again.
It's nice but also endlessly frustrating and very very late, because what he regards as overuse of the term is really just people who were applying the term correctly for the past 10 years as people like the author refused to call a spade a spade. If the nascent fascist were discarded, people would have stopped saying it so much.
The problem for people like the author is that other more astute individuals [1] correctly diagnosed the issue over a decade ago. All it took was for her to have grown up in Poland and to be a clinical psychologist who knows how to spot malignant narcissism. The rest fell into place because human nature is so... predictable.
So while it's welcome for the author to finally catch up to the rest of us, it's a little late at this point. Also If people like the author had listened to more sensible people when they had started using the F word instead of dismissing them as hyperbolic, then we wouldn't be here.
Also this bit:
> Although Trump is term-limited, we must not expect that he and his MAGA loyalists will voluntarily turn over the White House to a Democrat in 2029, regardless of what the voters say—and the second insurrection will be far better organized than the first.
shows the author is still a step behind. The correct framing is that the first insurrection succeeded. It continued after Jan 6 for 4 years, as Trump waged an information war contending he was the true winner of the election, and also a war on the judiciary to evade accountability. In that battle he evaded all accountability, nullified the impeachment clause of the Constitution, and also gained "Presidential Immunity" from his appointees on SCOTUS. He also nullified Section 3 of the 14th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, which prohibits anyone who has previously taken an oath to support the Constitution from holding state or federal office if they have "engaged in insurrection or rebellion" against the US. Trump caused an insurrection, and yet somehow he was allowed to run and hold office again.
So the first insurrection was successful, the perpetrators got away with it, and they assumed total power over the government they attacked after evading judicial accountability and waging an information war on the population.
Anyway, next time there won't be a need for an insurrection, because the only reason there was one in 2021 was because plans A through G failed -- they couldn't get votes in Georgia, they couldn't overturn any state, they didn't win any court cases, they couldn't get people to go along with their "alternate electors" theory, and they couldn't get Pence to go along with the scheme. So they caused an insurrection as a last ditch effort to delay certification.
In 2029 every Republican will go along with plan A. They've already purged everyone who did the right thing in 2021 from the party. So they won't need an insurrection because any Democrat that wins in Georgia will just be erased, as they've made sure to take state control over county election boards after county election boards there went against Trump's wishes in 2020.
This is it. Trump doesn't really matter anymore, he will likely be dead by the next election. Why it doesn't matter is because its all project 2025 people now, they're using Trump to further their goals and those hove some overlap with Trumps wants. Their main goal is that there will be no transfer of power away from them again. Like the 2020 election they will try many different things, but will likely succeed as the party now is mostly loyalists, the entire white house cabinet as well, so does most of the government as a goal of project 2025 wasn't just RAGE, it was also to hire replacements. And now they have very well funded goons in training to deploy when needed.
Back in 2024 after reading project 2025 and about its authors and backers (federalist society, Thiel, Vance, other tech CEOs, Curtis Yarvin, etc) it was already clear that this was going to happen. I was already convinced that the only way out of this was a general strike and/or military coup, and it doesn't look any better now. I fear an Iran like crackdown is in the deck now.
Yeah I assume no one will be stupid enough to try that because I don't think it would end well for anyone and I think everyone knows that. For anyone trying to gauge the general level of crazy here recall that there was a guy who landed a helicopter on the whitehouse lawn a few years ago.
> The correct framing is that the first insurrection succeeded
If you redefine success to whatever you want, then sure.
> In 2029 every Republican will go along with plan A
If you treat people as enemies, they’ll become one. The arrogance in the assumption that every Republican will allow Trump to get elected for a 3rd term might spite them into it.
>If you redefine success to whatever you want, then sure.
The definition ModernMech actually uses in their comment would seem to be accurate. They did get away with it, they did assume power, and they are waging "information war" on the population. Although I might expand that to say they are waging war, in general, on the population. And government.
They're getting just about everything they wanted except AOC at the end of a rope, that seems like success to me. They're certainly having a better time than liberals or leftists. Or immigrants. Or black people. Or women. Or anyone else.
What part of this definition do you object to, and for what reason?
>If you treat people as enemies, they’ll become one. The arrogance in the assumption that every Republican will allow Trump to get elected for a 3rd term might spite them into it.
...which would mean they were enemies all along and ModernMech's assumption was correct?
People who actually had strong moral objections to Trump would oppose him regardless of the assumptions being made about them. People who lean into the evil because someone assumes they're evil are just looking for a justification.
And the assumption about Republicans seems justified given that they have the power to stop Trump and... haven't. At all.
> If you are debating whether to read this article, read it. It’s comprehensive and precise, and although political in substance […]
Also perhaps worth noting that David Frum, former speech writer to Dubya Bush, writes for The Atlantic (and has been against Trump from the start: see his book Trumpocracy):
The left / right split isn't really meaningful in the United States right now.
The split is currently between people who believe in and want a functional and equitable government, and those who are fine with a kleptocracy as long as they are personally the beneficiaries (or at least, the people they dislike suffer worse).
People like Frum were quick to notice this and get on the correct side of it. Unfortunately, there are not enough Republicans who feel the same way to make much of a difference.
It must just be a coincidence that literally everyone supporting this is on the right politically. Isn't this sort of weasel wording part of the problem? Conservative voters are the problem. Full stop. Without them, there is no Trump.
nit: Fascist voters who think of themselves as "conservative" are the problem. Actual conservatives wouldn't support Trump attacking institution after institution, both domestic and international.
My point isn't to defend the behavior of the people who have called themselves conservative for the past ~forty years. Rather it's meant to reclaim the term for what has now clearly become the middle of the Overton window. For example, never before having voted for a major party candidate in a national race in my whole life, I voted Biden in 2020 and Harris 2024. I consider these solidly conservative votes, and partially attribute them to my getting older and more conservative.
It's quite honestly amazing how much conservative propaganda has warped the liberal mind. So many liberals actually believe that conservatives just want a slow measured pace of change and to balance budgets, but that's literally never been what they have actually legislated for or accomplished. Liberals are the only people in my lifetime who have actually held those values. They are also the only ones who believe conservatives hold those values. Conservative's know better. And they demonstrated it with their vote. You can no-true-Scotsman until you're blue. There has literally never been a time in this nations history when that was an accurate depiction of conservatives.
Consistently throughout this country's history, conservatives rally to oppose rights being shared with a broader group of people. Conservatives fought a civil war to maintain slavery. They fought for Jim Crow laws. They fought against anti-miscegenation laws. They fought against women's right to vote. They fought and are still fighting against gay rights and recognizing trans people as humans. Literally every single time there is a minority "at risk" of having a better lot in life, there are conservatives turning out to fight against it. When the fuck will you give up the benefit of the doubt on conservatives?
> how much conservative propaganda has warped the liberal mind
Maybe? I feel like my only real assumption is that there is some coherent set of values that describe conservatism. But maybe that is still falling into a trap of applying a liberal value of intellectual consistency to the "conservative" position (cf "Wilholt's law").
I would often read conservative media / forums from about 2008-2016, and saw merit to many of their arguments. And for others I could at least put on my empathy hat and see where they were coming from. At the same time I would see plenty of excesses and blind spots in progressive media and forums. So it really did feel like a "both sides" dynamic, where they both earnestly wanted freedom but always failed to catch the roadrunner (thanks to corrupt politicians that tended to only move in the corporate-authoritarian direction).
But sure, with the whole-hog rise of Trumpism I'm now confronted with the possibility that perhaps the kernel of conservatism isn't based on any sort of lofty ideals at all, but rather the starting point is always the ingroup-outgroup thing - even if locally-coherent logical arguments branch off of it.
But even if this is true for the vast majority of conservatives, surely it is not true for at least some "liberal minded" conservatives who do apply those values consistently? And even if they're only a small segment, with the way elections get decided isn't it still worthwhile to try and reach them by pointing out the failings in what they're ultimately supporting? (eg flagrant rejection of the 2nd amendment, previously with Breonna Taylor and now with Alex Pretti)
> Consistently throughout this country's history, conservatives rally to oppose rights being shared with a broader group of people. Conservatives fought a civil war to maintain slavery. They fought for Jim Crow laws. They fought against anti-miscegenation laws. They fought against women's right to vote. They fought and are still fighting against gay rights and recognizing trans people as humans. Literally every single time there is a minority "at risk" of having a better lot in life, there are conservatives turning out to fight against it.
Let me explicitly state that I agree with where you're coming from morally on these specific points - I'm certainly not trying to whitewash or defend these things. But I don't see how these points support your main point - they're all instances of trying to prevent social change. But before Trump, it doesn't seem like they were openly trying to turn the clock back (at least more than one lifetime). Now perhaps that's just me viewing the past with rose-tinted glasses. But it really feels like there was a sea change with Trump, and I think it makes sense to try and appeal to people for whom the reality distortion field may be fading - especially as the Trumpists continue to shamelessly kill American citizens.
> But even if this is true for the vast majority of conservatives, surely it is not true for at least some "liberal minded" conservatives who do apply those values consistently? And even if they're only a small segment, with the way elections get decided isn't it still worthwhile to try and reach them by pointing out the failings in what they're ultimately supporting? (eg flagrant rejection of the 2nd amendment, previously with Breonna Taylor and now with Alex Pretti)
This is cope, they don't exist, it's just comforting to believe they do. And if they ever existed, they would never, ever vote for a Democrat.
The "principled" conservatives will never save us. There are fewer of them than principled liberals. Go watch The Bulkwark. The anti-Trump conservatives have had their balls cut off and they have zero influence on anything. Nor should they. They still want the fucked up things conservatives want. They just want a more polite face pushing it.
> He only left the Republicans in 2024, he was around for the first term.
Yes, he hoped to fight from the inside, but recognized that the GOP had been taken over my inmates.
In 2016 he voted for Clinton and urged others to do so:
> Surely the American system of government is more robust than the Turkish or Hungarian or Polish or Malaysian or Italian systems. But that is not automatically true. It is true because of the active vigilance of freedom-loving citizens who put country first, party second. Not in many decades has that vigilance been required as it is required now.
> Your hand may hesitate to put a mark beside the name, Hillary Clinton. You’re not doing it for her. The vote you cast is for the republic and the Constitution.
Independent education and practice in foundational skills inherently threatens entrenched interests. For example, professional organizations have always managed the flow of entrants to their fields. Autocracy-controlled AI is the killer app to displace professional development, creating an unbridgeable gap in knowledge and experience — the “knowers” and the “know-nots”. Discuss.
Wolf Hall. Despite a sprinkling of linguistic and philosophical gems, I really struggled, then put it down for a couple of months, and couldn't bring myself to read anything else of any substance during that time. Thought it had destroyed some part of my brain. I finally had a long flight and determined to finish it, which I did. Then I sat in the heated pool on the roof of the TWA Hotel, with an icy wind whipping the rising steam, glad I was not Henry and don't have to deal with Anne, even though people are still mostly the same as they ever were, and grateful for the planes, phones and even Slack setting me free.
To quote Wolsey via Shakespeare:
A peace above all earthly dignities,
A still and quiet conscience
That (\/) (;,,;) (\/) I’m helping! feeling upon discovering a mod has bumped one of your 04:00 UTC “oh, this is interesting” posts that nobody else saw.
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