archomrade [he/him]

Hmmm

My take? That a third of the american population has taken a liking to fascism.

Fascism isn’t borne out of stupidity, it’s borne out of greed and desperation. Sure, some of those people are probably as dumb as a bag of rocks (any slice of the american population is liable to have a few), but most are likely just your average-intelligence american who has taken their feelings of fear or envy and rationalized them into fascism.

People like Josef Mangele don’t become famous because they’re dumb - they become famous because they end up wielding their intelligence against humanity. If we were to assume that everyone with those beliefs is dumb, we’d misunderstand what motivates them and we’d waste our time trying to educate them out of bigotry.

Of course she is.

Calling them weird is effective because it makes them seem weak and gross to people who are compelled by him appearing dominant. Accusing him of sexual assault (while gross to everyone else) reinforces that image of male dominance that his base fuckin’ loves.

Those two messages are working against each other.

Setting aside the seriousness of SA and the repeated examples of Trump committing it -

are we working off of the 2016 playbook or something? Between this and the rumored SA video, i’m getting strong ‘grab her by the pussy’ vibes. That didn’t move any voters back then, why do we expect it to now? Hell, Tucker Carlson was just giving a speech where trump was “daddy”, and he’s “coming home to spank his children”. They’re aroused by trump manhandling women and children…

All these stories do is get his core base excited; anyone who’s disgusted by Trump’s misogyny is already not voting for him.

Go back to calling him weird, that was so much more effective.

This might be a controversial take, but I don’t think racist bigotry is an intelligence thing

The study and measure of intelligence itself is a piece of the rationalization of racism.

We owe a lot of our scientific inheritance to genociders and racists and eugenicists - I wouldn’t be quick to assume the MAGA base is just a bunch of dimwitted Americans.

Maybe because that shortage lasted about a week

If you live in America, you already are.

People forget about how much it felt like labor and employment were about to be revolutionized for the better back then. It really seemed like employers were finally going to be forced to adapt to better conditions.

Now it feels like that’s all being undone. How many companies still have their remote work options? How many people are willing to leave their jobs for something better now?

I’ll admit that I was one of the privileged few who were comfortable and secure during the pandemic: i had a job that could be remote without issue and i lived in a city that took precautions seriously

But

• remote employment was a 100% improvement to being stuck in my office and in a toxic environment
• because I was remote, there was no pressure to work extra hours when my projects didn’t require it, which meant my work-life balance was much better
• the student loan moratorium helped me and my wife finally save up for a house down-payment and get ahead on our debt
• with the extra financial and work security, I finally reached a healthy weight and was the most fit i had been since college

Now, my weight is back up, my job is much less secure, my finances are strained again, and I feel like our future financial security is in question because the economy is dominated by two or three companies that may come crashing back down if AI turns out to be a bubble

This question is so subjective and incredibly personal, so i question the utility of it. But there’s no question for me about how precarious my personal situation feels now vs back in 2020. Back then, our primaries and much of the Campaign revolved around questions that had significant impacts on my life, but this cycle none of what is being discussed in the campaigns have much to do with my personal security. I don’t know if my remote job will last, I don’t know how long my house (that I bought in 2021 thanks to covid stimulus efforts) will be worth more than my mortgage, I don’t know if the items I rely on will continue inflating in cost or not, ect.

Again, I’m incredibly privileged. But democrats have switched focus to what happens if Trump wins, instead of focusing on what happens if they win. Seems like nothing significant is on the table for my family’s security, and that doesn’t comfort me at all. There’s just no hope in this election, all there seems to be is fear.

Like I said, it’s incredibly naive to think this problem goes away when Trump does.

Like how democrats splintered and fragmented when Biden stepped down?

They’ll reform and continue gaining power in lower-level positions until the next election, like they’ve been doing since 2020

I cannot emphasize how naieve it is to think this problem will go away if all we do is beat trump, or even if he dies or gets incarcerated.

The US has a growing fascism problem

It does not go away with Trump. I wish democrats would address it instead of pointing at Trump like he’s an aberration

I don’t think an apology is warranted when it’s apparent a claim is being made as a bad-faith deflection.

Even if you had made a compelling case for your use of the word (you still haven’t), it’s still in response to someone pointing to a genocide that’s already happening. You could’ve just said ‘Houthis are evil because they are using child soldiers’ and we wouldn’t have anything to talk about (except maybe a debate over whether that changes the ethics of a US-Saudi backed genocide against them), but instead you said “Houthis are using child soldiers”, then “Killing children is a form of genocide”, and then chose not to elaborate any further, even when pressed.

“It really seems like it to me” is about as satirical as dwight type-casting an italian-american as a mobster.

So your point about them using child soldiers is unrelated to your claim that they’re “killing children in large numbers”?

Seemed like you were conflating the two, maybe I got that wrong.

When you casually drop ‘genocide’ into a conversation without elaborating on who or what you’re talking about you’re likely to cause some confusion.

I am comparing your use of the word ‘genocide’ to describe a rebel group because they use under-18 soldiers to dwight accusing a pushy italian-american insurance salesman of being in the mob because he drives an suv.

Not as funny when it needs to be explained, though.

Hey guys, I drive a SUV, does that mean I’m in the mob?

No, not that, by itself. But look at all the facts. He seeeeems like a mobster.

Errr- i see why you might want to say that but that’s not how it works

The master’s tools will never dismantle the master’s house

Santa Cruz (with crest)?