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The GQP: Trumpist Death Cult


Hugo Stiglitz

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21 minutes ago, jimmyjazz said:

Well put.

Well, I can't take credit for it.  I listened to a podcast the other day where cult survivor Hoyt Richards used the phrase.  He recounted leaving the "Eternal Values" cult - and after more than a decade of giving them millions of dollars while they shaved his head and performed group rituals where they verbally abused him, he STILL was vigorously resistant to labeling the group he had left as a cult.  

This was after many, many years of his very closest friends and his family doing big, coordinated interventions to confront him with "YOU ARE IN A CULT!"

 

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You probably weren't inviting actual responses, but I think about this question all the time.  Forgive me for taking a stab at an answer:
1. Right-wing media has the format and the appearance of news.  But instead of news, it relentlessly broadcasts conspiracy theories, and then lines up well-groomed anchors and fake authorities to repeat well-choreographed talking points that are always cynical ("all government is bad"), paranoid ("the left is trying to destroy your white, Christian culture"), aggrieved ("your vote was stolen"), and deeply hostile to experts ("Arrest Fauci!").  
Almost every item they broadcast validates and reinforces their viewers's beliefs along one of those axes:  government should be destroyed, liberals are evil, deep-state experts are wrong, and you (viewers) have been violated.
2.  Conspiracy theories are infinitely more seductive and persuasive than nuanced policy discussions.
3.  Experts on civil war (Barbara Walter's book is great) tell us that widespread political violence is most likely in countries that have tainted democracies (she doesn't use that language... she calls them anocracies), and is also far more likely when there is a demographic shift where one ethnic group knows that it is losing its ruling power.  
4. It's pretty easy to fool people.  It's nearly impossible to convince people that they have been fooled.  How many moments have we had - including January 6 - where a lot of us naively thought, "**THIS** will be the thing that finally makes the Republican Party repudiate this fascist clown?"  But there's never going to be a reckoning as long as 1. and 2. continue to exist.  --  and especially if 1 and 2 exist in a country with the characteristics described in 3.

Which is why…and follow me here….we’re fucked, with no path forward that doesn’t involve us being fucked.
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Brisket, you might be right.  
 
But that kind of nihilism feels to me like trying to drive out darkness with darkness, and I’m just not willing to live with the resulting hopelessness.  

Oh….it’s not pure hopelessness. See, here’s the cool thing that the fascist fucktards have never fully grasped: we get to shoot back. I’m actually looking FORWARD to their violence. Because the next time they attack my country, we can, should and must treat them like we treated the last group of treasonous rebels. We should stack up their bodies like it was Gettysburg. FAFO.
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1 hour ago, Paul Wesley said:

Brisket, you might be right.  
 

But that kind of nihilism feels to me like trying to drive out darkness with darkness, and I’m just not willing to live with the resulting hopelessness.  

The only hope I have, which I will continue to espouse, is that the vast majority of these people are full of shit and know they are full of shit.  I have to hope that atomheart's prediction is correct.  That when push comes to shove, they will just bitch on the internet and ultimately slink away.  That said, we do have to crush them, both in real life and online, just to be sure.

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I don’t think we will see violence of the Jan 6 type.  The FAFO has persuaded many not to fuck around this way.  The right wing infrastructure (talk about deep non state!) is very deep now, and when they win the next Fed election, they will use governmental means, as has already been published.   Perhaps down the road they will get to hassling white dem voters en masse.

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there's been a decent effort so far to troll far-right MAgA/Qanon groups into thinking that certain protest activations surrounding the myriad Trump court venues are actually false flag operations by ANTIFA and the Deep State.  so that they can be mobilized to come down there and confront themselves without the knowledge that they were all baited there under the same bullshit.  I think You can probably get a few hundred arrested and a few dozen to kill one another or be rightfully killed by police before anyone is the wiser.  I think this can also be replicated at a few debates, primaries, and the RNC convention.  You can properly antagonize them online to have them credibly believe that in-person demonstrations are being organized to undermine the rightful defense/campaigning/nomination of Trump.  If the validation appears organic, you can get a fair amount arrested or dead with a few months.  But it's gonna take more than just online chatter.  

The good news is they still believe that deep state fakes and ANTIFA and media lies are out there, trying to invalidate Trump.  So that narrative exists.  They are willing to pack heavy, even in front of law enforcement, to show off their commitment.  And they'll have lots to be pissed off about, which will invariably cloud their judgement, regarding his legal proceedings, media coverage, debates, and primaries/convention process.  The foundation and groundwork for disbelief and ability to be veered off course are all there.  That's the good news.  The heavy lifting has been done for us.  The trick, and I fully admit I am not clever enough to figure this part out is, how do you turn all of this into a way to get them to show up and murder one another thinking they are taking back their country from socialist deep-staters?  How do you make them act out violently and get arrested or shot dead not just in one city by the hundreds but in dozens of cities by the thousands?  

There is a way to a cleansing here, I can see it.  I can hear it.  I can taste it.  There's something missing as a middle step, and I have a feeling it's one of those things that's so simple...you can't help but overlook it.  Imagine tens of thousands of protestors in Milwaukee a year from now.  And the rioters open fire on the crowds thinking they're avenging the wrongs befallen MAGA nation and Trump.  But the whole time they were murdering one another.  That's spiritual cocaine mainlined right into your cerebrum and ball sack.  

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5 hours ago, BamaATL said:

While of that is true, I offer a simpler explanation, and it's nothing new.  The vast majority of people are dumb, and we live in a world where a mob mindset often gets it's way.  When they perceive themselves as the majority and they don't get their way, crazy prevails.  Ultimately, most people are just dumb and lack critical thinking skills.  

Next time your out in your community take a look around, count the number of truck nuts you see, or people you know are living wildly beyond their means.  Take note of people with political clothing on and ask yourself if they could pass a basic civics test (they can't)? 

By the way, dumb doesn't necessarily = bad.  Most people have good intentions, even with the human nature of selfishness in play.  Dumb people are just easily lead around by the nose, and as you said, once they are convinced they are right, the generally only seek out information that only reinforces their world view.  

 

There's a lot of truth to this. Unfortunately, there are some very clever, downright evil folks playing into that and playing them like finger puppets.

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To add to this, his girlfriend is almost 40 years old and pays absolutely ZERO attention to anything in the world.  I'm not asking anyone to be a political wonk, but if you've never even heard the name Ron DeSantis before (as she claims), I'm not sure what rock you are living under.  Luckily, she just asks us to who vote for each November, so we get a free vote, but I just don't understand that type of inattention.
When we've got 30-40 year olds in Austin like this, I can't imagine it's too much better with Gen Z and the other youngs.

My wife is 45 and I’m not sure she could name the Vice President. Her philosophy is she’s a straight ticket democrat so there’s no reason to get worked up about shit since it’s not going to affect her vote.
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7 hours ago, BamaATL said:

While of that is true, I offer a simpler explanation, and it's nothing new.  The vast majority of people are dumb, and we live in a world where a mob mindset often gets it's way.  When they perceive themselves as the majority and they don't get their way, crazy prevails.  Ultimately, most people are just dumb and lack critical thinking skills.  

Next time your out in your community take a look around, count the number of truck nuts you see, or people you know are living wildly beyond their means.  Take note of people with political clothing on and ask yourself if they could pass a basic civics test (they can't)? 

By the way, dumb doesn't necessarily = bad.  Most people have good intentions, even with the human nature of selfishness in play.  Dumb people are just easily lead around by the nose, and as you said, once they are convinced they are right, the generally only seek out information that only reinforces their world view.  

 

This is really, really depressing because it's entirely correct. 

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8 hours ago, BamaATL said:

While of that is true, I offer a simpler explanation, and it's nothing new.  The vast majority of people are dumb, and we live in a world where a mob mindset often gets it's way.  When they perceive themselves as the majority and they don't get their way, crazy prevails.  Ultimately, most people are just dumb and lack critical thinking skills.  

Next time your out in your community take a look around, count the number of truck nuts you see, or people you know are living wildly beyond their means.  Take note of people with political clothing on and ask yourself if they could pass a basic civics test (they can't)? 

By the way, dumb doesn't necessarily = bad.  Most people have good intentions, even with the human nature of selfishness in play.  Dumb people are just easily lead around by the nose, and as you said, once they are convinced they are right, the generally only seek out information that only reinforces their world view.  

 

Well, and I'll add that some of our economic policies and mistakes have hurt the dumb people.  And also tended to segregate them into rural and ruralish communities.

It's probably not exclusively GOP/GQP policies, either.  We didn't handle the loss of manufacturing jobs well on either side of the aisle, and farming is becoming a rich man's game, also. Just everything that's happened in the last 40 years or so, technologically and every other way, hurts the dumbs.

So these people are hurt and hurting with loss of opportunity.  And they're dumb, so they're not reacting well to it.  And, because they're dumb, they're seizing on demagogues like Trump.

In our more sanguine discussions, brisket and I have posed the question, "what the hell are we gonna do with the morons"?  No one has tried very hard to answer that in the last 40 years or so, while the morons keep getting pushed further down.

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6 minutes ago, TwiceHorn said:

Well, and I'll add that some of our economic policies and mistakes have hurt the dumb people.  And also tended to segregate them into rural and ruralish communities.

It's probably not exclusively GOP/GQP policies, either.  We didn't handle the loss of manufacturing jobs well on either side of the aisle, and farming is becoming a rich man's game, also. Just everything that's happened in the last 40 years or so, technologically and every other way, hurts the dumbs.

So these people are hurt and hurting with loss of opportunity.  And they're dumb, so they're not reacting well to it.  And, because they're dumb, they're seizing on demagogues like Trump.

In our more sanguine discussions, brisket and I have posed the question, "what the hell are we gonna do with the morons"?  No one has tried very hard to answer that in the last 40 years or so, while the morons keep getting pushed further down.

And certain elements have figured out that the morons aren’t party or idea led, they are emotion led.  You can create the largest voting bloc in the country with emotional pleas to them. 

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You and Brisket are too bright to pull that bullshit passing of the buck "what do we do with the morons since nobody else is answering the dilemma as they get pushed down further and further."  We all know what happened.  They were geographically isolated and had educational opportunities eroded away with the hope they would turn into a forgotten sub-class of America that would be happy with the scraps tossed their way.  What few saw coming were three major usurping principles to an otherwise solid plan:  the ability to rally around one another via social media/internet, newfound access to troubling amounts of firepower, and cohesion around a political brand.  Of if y'all saw this coming and didn't say anything...more power to you I guess?  'Cause I sure as fuck didn't see this coming.  i figured they'd languish on the sidelines of life like they always have and quietly peter out on drugs, alcohol, and fear.  But they got rallied, got angry, got armed, and got registered.  And once again, our lack of imagination was our prize mistake.  While I was busy celebrating my brown-ness getting all these diplomas, somebody else was getting busy blaming brown people for everything wrong which was nothing new.  But the next move was a stroke of genius---getting other brown people to subdivide other brown people into groups to blame so the white dude didn't have to get his hands dirty.  Sonderkommandos playbook, Rio Grande Valley style.  I never saw it coming and it's too late to explain it to my own family trapped on the inside of it.   

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6 minutes ago, TwiceHorn said:

Well, and I'll add that some of our economic policies and mistakes have hurt the dumb people.  And also tended to segregate them into rural and ruralish communities.

It's probably not exclusively GOP/GQP policies, either.  We didn't handle the loss of manufacturing jobs well on either side of the aisle, and farming is becoming a rich man's game, also. Just everything that's happened in the last 40 years or so, technologically and every other way, hurts the dumbs.

So these people are hurt and hurting with loss of opportunity.  And they're dumb, so they're not reacting well to it.  And, because they're dumb, they're seizing on demagogues like Trump.

In our more sanguine discussions, brisket and I have posed the question, "what the hell are we gonna do with the morons"?  No one has tried very hard to answer that in the last 40 years or so, while the morons keep getting pushed further down.

I actually wasn't referring to farmers at all.  Quite frankly, I think people that have that capability have a tremendous skill-set, one I don't have.  I respect work and workers, even if that doesn't remotely include book smarts.  I'm also just a couple of generations removed from an agricultural life, I've heard many of the financial horror stories that go along with that.  

To your point, independent farmers are being squeezed out and corporate farming has long been taking over, and their way of life is not only threatened, but likely heading to extinction.  The fear associated with that for them is very real, because it's reality; and it makes tons of sense for them to latch on to anyone that will tell them they will survive (they won't).  

Ironically, my other side of the family comes from the coal mining industry, which is facing the same extinction.  It also makes sense for those people to operate the same way, even when their are green job programs available to them that have been proven successful.  They are hanging on grasping at hopes for a future of the past.  Coal is dead, not just because of the environmental impact associated with it, but also because economies of scale in green tech will render it non economically viable.  

What I was actually referring to was more in terms of general population, it's not isolated to just traditional blue collar populations, the dumb permeates every level of population, regardless of wealth.  I live in a fairly affluent area, and everything I described about seeing dumb everywhere applies here, just as it does in non affluent areas.  My wife grew up with limited financial means (I was fortunate, nothing I did, just fortunate), and she has said something that always has stuck with me, which is more or less, that she assumed that as we found success and were able to move into a nicer area we would be surrounded by better people.  However, what she has observed is that it's the same amount of trash, just here the trash has more means.  

I guess I'll leave it at this, having financial means doesn't translate to not being dumb.  Nor does struggling translate to being an idiot.  Now people living large well beyond their means (and that happens at any level of wealth), is idiotic, and there is a shit load of that at every level.  

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Solar panel manufacturing and chip manufacturing are two very important jobs that “the morons” can do right now, and make good money. 

https://www.axios.com/2023/07/23/south-mountain-west-manufacturing-boom-biden

Glad my octogenarian, know nothing, sleepy president found time to do that while navigating out of Covid, delivering historical levels of unemployment and fixed 5% investment gains for anyone who wants it.

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42 minutes ago, StassneyHorn said:

Solar panel manufacturing and chip manufacturing are two very important jobs that “the morons” can do right now, and make good money. 

https://www.axios.com/2023/07/23/south-mountain-west-manufacturing-boom-biden

Glad my octogenarian, know nothing, sleepy president found time to do that while navigating out of Covid, delivering historical levels of unemployment and fixed 5% investment gains for anyone who wants it.

Don't know a whole lot about solar panel manufacturing, but believe it to have quite a bit in common with semiconductor manufacturing.  Semiconductor manufacturing, unlike say, car assembly, or fabrication of car parts, tends to require a skilled and semi-educated workforce and, at least heretofore, in urban areas.

That's not replacing Colorado Fuel & iron or Tyler Pipe.

Nonetheless, I think the CHIPS Act may be one of the more significant pieces of legislation to come down the pike in quite some time.  We should have been doing this in 1983, not 40 years later.  Other countries, namely Germany, with strong manufacturing economies, dealt far better with the temptation of "offshore" manufacturing.

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3 minutes ago, StassneyHorn said:

Samsung and NXP semiconductors put out Craigslist ads for help. It can’t be that bad. If I’m wrong, I’ll say so.

My sister helps with manufacturing at Tesla. Insider info: nothing has been done on cyber truck for 6+ months. 

Yes, but where are they at on the Cyber Shovels?

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3 hours ago, TwiceHorn said:

In our more sanguine discussions, brisket and I have posed the question, "what the hell are we gonna do with the morons"?  No one has tried very hard to answer that in the last 40 years or so, while the morons keep getting pushed further down.

3 hours ago, Pato del Muerto said:

And certain elements have figured out that the morons aren’t party or idea led, they are emotion led.  You can create the largest voting bloc in the country with emotional pleas to them. 

We have the answer for what to do with them.  First, you get one of them to pay way too much for a social media company.

Then you get 7 of them to install a new logo on a building after the first one throws away 17 years of branding.


F2S62e7W0AYdGbh?format=jpg&name=medium
 

And then you get the rest of them to use that social media platform to publicly out themselves as racists, pedophiles, and just generally undesirsbale people.

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1 hour ago, wildcat09 said:

This isn't technically the GOP, but I don't think we need a new thread about the libertarian party and they're pretty well aligned with the GOP on all the issues they really care about (the racism):

 

 

I don't get the "we must secure the existence" thing.  Why are these people so afraid of being exterminated?  That's more of a fascist thing, not so much a progressive thing.

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4 minutes ago, Biff Tannen said:

I don't get the "we must secure the existence" thing.  Why are these people so afraid of being exterminated?  That's more of a fascist thing, not so much a progressive thing.

Because they're Libertarians which means they're either dumbass kids that think they're smarter than the system (see my vote in 2016 for their esteemed candidate) or they're old people who are scared of everything.

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On 6/28/2023 at 11:29 AM, wildcat09 said:

Y'all remember this guy? The fellow in what's probably the most influential conservative think tank around right now? Turns out he's even more of a nazi in private:

 

I guess it's funny that Breitbart is pretending to be offended by that kind of stuff just to fuck with DeSantis supporters, at least. But it really cannot be exaggerated how horrible the next generation of the GOP is.

Oh look, he's even more of a nazi than was previously reported:

 

Other conservatives have thoughts:

 

This fuckin guy just said "earnest bigotry" as if it was perfectly rational and good.

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I think this goes here. From the NYT this morning:

image.png.e0333cfe90b0805388c87710e074a431.png

I was unaware that the GOP had decided drug traffic was terrorism as an excuse to puff up their vicarious machismo which finds expression through choosing a new country to bomb and invade. Kids in concertina wire seemed pretty extreme to me, but let's get into the business we're so good at: collateral damage that's okay because we didn't mean to bomb your wedding or misidentified car! We're the good guys, after all.

Old school American imperialism is in the house. We'll send soldiers. Some will get killed. Some will be taken by angry invadees and treated horribly. Then we claim that we can't let the first guys die for nothing (as though you can retroactively fix that) and claim we've got the moral high ground because they didn't use the collateral damage clause to justify a horrific act.

They keep bringing this show back. Everybody loves the first episode or two, but they quickly tire of it and want it cancelled. 

The Envy of the World is sending planes to bomb you and drones to bomb you and and cannon to blow you up and men to shoot you!

 

 

 

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1 hour ago, wildcat09 said:

This isn't technically the GOP, but I don't think we need a new thread about the libertarian party and they're pretty well aligned with the GOP on all the issues they really care about (the racism):

 

 

In case someone is not aware of the 14 words that Nazis and other racists talk about, there they are. Sub white for libertarian and you can be welcomed at your local klan gathering. 

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17 hours ago, YGIFS said:

You and Brisket are too bright to pull that bullshit passing of the buck "what do we do with the morons since nobody else is answering the dilemma as they get pushed down further and further."  We all know what happened.  They were geographically isolated and had educational opportunities eroded away with the hope they would turn into a forgotten sub-class of America that would be happy with the scraps tossed their way.  What few saw coming were three major usurping principles to an otherwise solid plan:  the ability to rally around one another via social media/internet, newfound access to troubling amounts of firepower, and cohesion around a political brand.  Of if y'all saw this coming and didn't say anything...more power to you I guess?  'Cause I sure as fuck didn't see this coming.  i figured they'd languish on the sidelines of life like they always have and quietly peter out on drugs, alcohol, and fear.  But they got rallied, got angry, got armed, and got registered.  And once again, our lack of imagination was our prize mistake.  While I was busy celebrating my brown-ness getting all these diplomas, somebody else was getting busy blaming brown people for everything wrong which was nothing new.  But the next move was a stroke of genius---getting other brown people to subdivide other brown people into groups to blame so the white dude didn't have to get his hands dirty.  Sonderkommandos playbook, Rio Grande Valley style.  I never saw it coming and it's too late to explain it to my own family trapped on the inside of it.   

Currently reading Kendi’s  Stamped From The Beginning.  Drawing color lines within ethnic minorities is a time worn strategy.  His message is, this doesn’t work in the favor of the overall group in the long run.  And it’s a racist strategy.  

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3 minutes ago, nbmishoid said:

Currently reading Kendi’s  Stamped From The Beginning.  Drawing color lines within ethnic minorities is a time worn strategy.  His message is, this doesn’t work in the favor of the overall group in the long run.  And it’s a racist strategy.  

good lesson.  I want to borrow from it and figure out how to turn MAGA's on RINO's in the way they turned people of color on other people of color.  Every generation of new fascism has the decency to reboot itself and take advantage of new technologies and narratives.  I am going to trying to replicate their own playbook and have them turn on one another.  I am nowhere close to figuring it out but i suspect there are others who are.  I want MAGA supporters to openly battle one another in public.  And I have every confidence we can get there in 15-24 months.  And it's going to be glorious.  They need to be led to believe their fellow "Republicans" underminded their own efforts.  And we need to arm them to the teeth.  There is a path forward.  

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My former MIL sent a text to me, my ex-wife, ex-BIL and ex-SIL to go to YouTube and search "Austin Moody I'm Just Sayin'." Having no idea what this was, I looked it up. Here are the lyrics from the song:

Quote
They've torn Portland all to pieces
And let Chicago go to hell
There's people leaving New York City
Like they rang the fire bell
 
Well they call themselves enlightened
But cancel those who don't agree
I wish all these folks
Who claim they're woke
Would just go back to sleep
 
I'm just sayin'
Have we all lost our minds?
I'm just sayin'
Where Do we draw the line?
 
And I know ya'll think it takes balls
To be singing what I'm singing
But I'm just sayin', I'm just sayin'
What you're thinkin'
 
I believe in live and let live
We're all free to each their own
If you were born a he
But wanna be a she
Do your thing but leave my kids alone
 
I'm just sayin'
Have we all lost our minds?
I'm just sayin'
Where Do we draw the line?
 
And I know ya'll think it takes balls
To be singing what I'm singing
But I'm just sayin', I'm just sayin'
What you're thinkin'
 
We send 'em off to college
To get 'em educated
They send 'em back to us indoctrinated
And how much are we paying
 
I'm just sayin'
Have we all lost our minds?
I'm just sayin' (oh, I'm just sayin')
Where Do we draw the line?
 
No offense but common sense
Is the direction that I'm leanin'
Some of ya'll think it takes balls (I'm just sayin')
To be singing what I'm singing
But I'm just sayin', I'm just sayin' (what I'm just sayin')
What you're thinking
 
Yeah, what you're thinking (what you're thinkin')

Looking a little further and I see this guy was on NewsMax a few weeks ago discussing this song.

JFC

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