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TwiceHorn

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Posts posted by TwiceHorn

  1. 17 minutes ago, BevoAbyss said:

    RE: Reagan and MAGA-Trump

    While I appreciate the PBS traditionalist history provided by Twice, it left out some key aspects of Reagan era, perhaps because it does not fit into his worldview or selective memory banks.

    1.  Reagan Worshipped Like a God >>> Trump Worshipped Like a God

    I was at the University of Texas in 1984.  Reagan was a freaking God to the frat boys, “Young Conservatives,” and Libertarians. Across America, Republicans worshipped him like a God as well. Sure seemed cult-like to me; not as bad as MAGA and Trump, but the worship was there. Still is. Hell, some Surly posters still wax poetic about him. 

    Reagan was swept into office in a winning brew of Hollywood glam (albeit B or C level), rapidly escalating evangelicalism, a stagnant economy, supposed free market ideology, the hysteria of propagandized patriotism of the Cold War, all anchored by a yearning for the “good ole days.” 

    2. "It’s Morning in America Again"  >>> Make America Great Again.

    — In the wake of the 1970s inflation and tepid Carter administration, Reagan was all about Making America Great Again. After all, his famous TV ad said “It’s Morning Again in America”!  Largely celebrating small town white America, along with marriage, white picket fences, big American flags, etc. An obvious, spot-on foundation of MAGA.  

    3. From Hollywood Celebrity Glam >>> World Wrestling Celebrity Glam

    Don’t scoff. That B or C-level Reagan celebrity "glam” sets the stage ... for D-F level Bush the baseball team owner ... to Z-level celebrity glam of Trump, in which celebs, glitz, and $$$ wow the rurals and less educated. From Hollywood B level star to loser Baseball Team to World Wrestling. What a crater.

    4. Reagan + Moral Majority  >>> MAGA crusades and against science and abortion.

    Reagan openly courted the Moral Majority and Jerry Falwell, thus marrying the Republican Party to religion, specifically Evangelicals, Fundamentalists, and Creationists. The anti-science, anti-evolution, anti-abortion crusades had a political home. A clear precursor to MAGA and the overturing of Roe v Wade.

    5. Breaking Down Wall Between Church-State

    — Reagan got the “Equal Access” bill passed that permitted students to have religious gatherings in school. In the name of “freedom,” of course. Thus, starting the erosion of the wall between church and state, which was accelerated by W’s “faith-based initiatives” and MAGA White Christian Nationalist regime. Again, Reagan is a clear precursor.

    6. Astrology Readings >>> Complete MAGA Idiocy Into the White House

    Nancy and Ronnie have regular astrology readings in the White House, which caused a media outcry for fears of astrologers advising Reagan on Cold War matters. Yet, more anti-science and idiocy. Eventually, leads to MAGA and Q and Trump’s idiotic birther conspiracy.

    7. DEA and Mass Incarceration >>>  ICE Concentration Camps

    Reagan ramped up Nixon’s Drug War massively, leading to the sprawling industrial prison complex. Targeting mostly people of color and inner cities, before spreading across nation. Busting down doors, No Knock Raids, masked agents, etc. Again, a clear precedent for ICE, mas raids, “detention center” concentration camps, militarization of America, etc. 

    — Republicans love throwing people in jail, especially people of color.

    8. Teflon Tough Guy God

    Reagan invaded Grenada, had the Iran-Contra scandal of outright lies, the grant rigging in HUD, fired numerous EPA officials, the Savings and Loan collapse, various scandals and corruption in Defense Department, and so on. 

    In the end, Reagan was a Teflon tough guy God, worshipped by tens of millions of Americans and Evangelical Christians… not unlike you know who. 

     

     

    It's lived experience dude.

    For all those little anecdotes, Reagan Republicans were nothing like MAGAts.  Nothing at all. 

    As a frat boy in 1984 I can say you're wrong.  Frat boys didn't give a shit about politics or really Reagan, nothing like this performative shit.  The President of the Young Republicans or whatever was a fucking geek.  Yeah sure, we mostly voted Republican if we could detach ourselves from the keg or the pussy long enough.

    Hell, back then, before the Republican takeover of Texas, a bunch of em were sons of powerful Texas Democrats.

    They sure as fuck didn't worship Reagan like Trumpists do.

    The most overtly political act was knocking down the shanty every couple of weeks, and that was more for shits n giggles than some kind of conservative tour de force.

    • Hook 'Em 3
    • Like 1
  2. On 9/8/2025 at 10:01 AM, Js1 said:

    The L can sub in for any back row player but once you sub out, you have to sit out a rally. A lot of teams are experimenting with the two L system, where one serves and then subs out for one to do serve receive.

    You have to be pretty on top of your subs so you don’t run out. I remember a match last year where Nebraska’s L had to play her front row rotations because they ran out of subs lol 

    I seem to recall JE running out of subs back in the Ashley Shook days when we went 5 and probably shouldn't have.  It wasn't quite that bad, but left us in a bit of a spot.

  3. 14 minutes ago, Willfully Horn said:

    image.jpeg.2ab09f7ccabd98301b89ee045cb1854a.jpeg

    A later thing, I'm quite sure.  You're conflating subsequent idealization of Reagan with how it really was at the time.

    The point, again, being that Americans, particularly lower class ones, did not feel so completely abandoned and misused by the government during the Reagan era. 

    I think the Clinton administration probably started to solidify working class not feeling well-served by the government.  Also Obama, but in no small part because he couldn't get anything done other than Obamacare.  And I'm not necessarily blaming either one, but corporate control of  #bothsides took pretty serious hold post-Reagan.

    So there weren't cultists calling past Republicans RINOs and shitting on members of their own party who didn't tow the line.

    The free shit army didn't vote for Reagan.  They did for Trump.

    Also, don't get me wrong, I'm not defending Reagan here.  But there are vast differences between America now and America then, including among the electorate.  He was popular, yes, but for conventional reasons, not the same kind of thing as Trump.

    • Hook 'Em 2
  4. Elaborating on the above, because it's possibly worthy of discussing, maybe moreso in the Democratic party thread.

    But when Reagan was elected, he was seen as more progressive than Nixon for example, although some considered him a Goldwater Republican.  The latter may be more correct through the lens of history.

    But it's important to note, I think, that the American people at that point didn't feel broadly let down by their government.

    The 70s sucked shit economically and Carter got saddled with a lot of that, part rightly and part wrongly.

    But there absolutely was not the lower classes feeling as completely abandoned as they do now, and by #bothsides, as bozo relentlessly reminds us.  We were still at the tail end of the post-war boom and petrodollar economics were just starting to assert themselves as a major issue.

    Yes, Reagan had a lot to do with letting them further down (trickle down) and with engendering distrust of government, but it wasn't the thing that it is today that has people so wildly voting against their own interest.

    • Hook 'Em 3
  5. 9 minutes ago, BevoAbyss said:

    Lulz. Gaslighting again.

    What's going down in Team USA is the Reagan-Falwell-Moral Majority GQP wet dream! 

    Reagan too was viewed as "outside the establishment" by being a movie star turned politician. Like Trump, he was a "Democrat" turned Republican. He rallied those conservatives, frat boys, and low education, low income, rural types who felt the GQP was not fascist enough, racist enough, Christian enough, and patriotic enough. 

    There is a clear through line from Reagan/Moral Majority to Bush 2/Tea Party to Trump/MAGA.

    The end goal was a Medieval Anti-Science Fascist America ruled by White Christian and billionaires. 

    Quit making excuses for the GQP. This is their American dream.

    Oh fuck off, the above is completely non-responsive to what I posted.

    Do you ever do anything besides repeat yourself?

    Gaslighting my ass.  I rarely neg but you got one.

    I was alive and of voting age during the Reagan revolution, and while yes there are some things that trace a direct line, there were about zero of the cultish aspects of the Trump administration present in that era.

    • Hook 'Em 4
  6. Just now, Satchel said:

    The problem with ethnicity being an unavoidable criterion arises when one understands ethnicity in the context of a shared cultural background or descent. Such cannot be easily discerned by skin, social location or even accent. I’m a black man of light complexion with two black parents with nappy hair. Fiesta employees speak to me in Spanish every time I shop in the store without fail, because, they make incorrect assumptions about my ethnicity. Because it’s so easy to do, the protections should be stronger.

    All of that is no doubt true.  But barring immigration inquiries, arrests, and detention based on ethnicity is really unmanageable because of the nature of immigration.

    Maybe you could take detention off the table so the inquiries have no "penalty," but that doesn't seem realistic either.

  7. 1 minute ago, Brisketexan said:

    Fine.  I have my design program queued up.....

    tumblr_lrmxdsoJfz1qauwcn.gif

    Give her the kneeshooters?

    Possibly more seriously, roughly half of this country would seem to go along with a new country with a similar Constitution with a lot of the vagary and experimental shit taken out.

    The only problem might be wresting the territory from the existing US.

    • Like 1
  8. 42 minutes ago, Fudge Nuggets said:

    This is next-level "well akshuly..." shit.

    It's ackhuly called legal analysis.  Something SCOTUS, as well as surly, is notoriously short on.

    2 minutes ago, Brisketexan said:

    Dude...."should" was escorted from the building, taken out in the back alley, and double-tapped to the back of the head a long fucking time ago when it comes to the Rule of Law.

    It's over, man.  It's been over for a while, now's just when it all manifests, with no impediments or inhibitions.

    Maybe we should start to design a new country.

  9. 38 minutes ago, Brisketexan said:

    1) this is correct.

    2) this will never happen.  Because we no longer have the Rule of Law, we just have the rule of Supreme Executive Power, as decreed by the POTUS and SCOTUS.

    I will now list the limits on executive power (as wielded by the actual POTUS, so long as that POTUS is a Republican) this SCOTUS will ultimately find and uphold:

     

     

     

    ....

     

     

    ....

     

     

    ....

     

    Yep, I think that covers it.

    You're right, never said it would.  But that's what SHOULD happen with this.

  10. 3 minutes ago, elfenix said:

    That and there's always some charlatan with a degree who is willing to spout bullshit. And then the idiot will claim that the science isn't settled or that there is legitimate opposing evidence. 

    This is basically the result of almost a century of oil and tobacco industry bullshit. All disciples of Ivy Lee. Running a psyop campaign on everyday Americans. 

    Ie Robert Malone.

    • Hook 'Em 1
  11. 16 hours ago, BurntOrange&White said:

    lol at twice horn

    For a bit of perspective on this, we've always known there is a lower threshold than probable cause for immigration-related stops as the lawdogs spent hours telling VAPA, years ago.  This low?  Maybe not.

    And, the reason ethnicity is prohibited for criminal stops is that ethnicity is an invidious (extremely unfair) indicator of criminality or criminal activity in most cases, the exception being when the suspect has been identified as someone of a particular ethnicity.

    But, ethnicity is kind of an unavoidable criterion when it comes to immigration.

    Also, legally, immigration/removal/deportation is not criminal so the protections against unreasonable search and seizure are lower because the prosecution apparatus is not triggered.  I think that should be rethought, though, and it's not whether the criminal apparatus is invoked, but whether the government seeks to detain whether civilly, or criminally, or otherwise.  THAT is the deprivation of liberty we're concerned with. not whether a criminal proceeding is invoked, because the net result is the same.

    That's not to say that I agree with any of this shit, but there are a lot of historical SCOTUS, including liberal ones, that would have come to a similar "conclusion."

     

  12. 2 minutes ago, High Plains Drifter said:

     

    I like that this guy calls it the "Republican Medicaid Cuts". Put the blame square on Congressional Rs. 

    I think this points up a problem we have as a nation and that is that a lot of MAGAts don't identify as Republicans or Trump as a Republican.  They view both Rs and Ds as part of the establishment that has fucked them over.

    They view Trump as outside the establishment.

    And until and unless Ds come up with some kind of antidisestablishmentarian candidate, they'll never get MAGAt votes.  Then again, the R candidate that follows Trump probably won't get their votes, either.

    • Hook 'Em 5
  13. Just now, utee94 said:

    I mean, you don't need my permission to comment on whatever you like.

    I'm just pointing out that if there's any "moving backwards" as you cite, it's not coming from the younger generation, regardless of any intolerance they might or might not have.

    Overall I think they're likely more tolerant.  But those on the edges also seem to be more aggressive when trying to eliminate opposition ideas and speech.

    Yeah, I suspect there's quite a tension in the youth between going with their natural inclination to be accepting and external forces opposing that.

  14. 16 minutes ago, Brisketexan said:

    Yes....but...I think that USED to be true.

    Sponge-brained youth would show up at university, get exposed to utopian (fantastical, unrealistic) ideas which are often raised by voices/authors on the left, and buy into them hardcore because they have little wisdom, experience, or discernment.  Frankly, it's a natural part of the intellectual growth curve; many people go through an "ignorant, naive idealist" phase.  

    Such "ignorant, naive idealist" tendencies generally didn't lend themselves to hardcore retrograde/"conservative" thinking; that mostly came from upbringing.  BUT....in recent years, with social media, algorithms, and an explosion of often purposefully divisive right-wing online content being streamed 24/7 into those same impressionable sponge brains, young intolerant ideologues of the right-wing persuasion have blossomed.  Will they grow out of that phase?  It remains to be seen, we're still pretty early in this game.

    Right, exactly what I was thinking.

    The "liberality" of higher education is a natural result and not the product of liberal or progressive indoctrination, it's "organic."

    But whatever the source, be it Turning Point or twatterx or insular retrograde parenting, the current wave of youth ideology and intolerance is intentional and external.

    • Drool 1
  15. Answering the broader question, the young are always/usually/often idealistic to the point of being ideologues, with the attendant intolerance of the status quo or other notions.

    Historically, that's taken the form of utopian and other pretty impractical notions that are identified with progressives or liberals.

    So, it's a bit startling to see these retrograde ideologues cropping up.  So it seems that it may be six of one, half a dozen of the other.  However, I think the liberal idealism is a more natural result of new autonomy and exposure to new ideas.  That is, the reason that higher education is progressive by its very nature, as opposed to the result of some sort of political influence or indoctrination.

    This retrograde idealism is definitely a product of indoctrination.

    • Hook 'Em 3
  16. I will say this, too.  When I wrote above, evidently incorrectly, about university administrators not taking official adverse action based on student protest or denunciation, I was basing it on my own observation of mostly "local" meaning in-state events.

    In keeping with what Texas used to be, I'm thinking the administrations were pretty live-and-let-live about this sort of thing, borne out by what Welsh did even at the highly conservative lapdog eaTme.  Whereas it seems the historical sanctions came from more east coast type places (Central Florida, wth?).

    The futility of student protests and denunciations at local unis was one of the hallmarks of them.  Again, see shanty.

    So much for that.

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