Implanting Bill Gates's Micro-chips In Brains For Over 20 Years!

[Pretty Little Flower]

Originally Posted by Icky Thump

Joint Chiefs probably thinking they should have nuked the White House on 1/6.

Take the fucking Mags away!

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally Posted by Pretty Little Flower

That seems to be the case, but less clear is that he would have even needed their help if he had found enough loyalists in the right places.

Or if there had been more uncertainty about the bogus claims of voter fraud. Which is what Trump supporters are creating, across the country. They do not trust the government, institutionally, and their lack of trust is self-fulfilling and self-replicating.

[Pretty Little Flower]

Originally Posted by Tyrone Slothrop

Or if there had been more uncertainty about the bogus claims of voter fraud. Which is what Trump supporters are creating, across the country. They do not trust the government, institutionally, and their lack of trust is self-fulfilling and self-replicating.

Polls from earlier this year showed a staggering percentage of people still believe Trump won. An Axios poll had that number at over 40%. Forty fucking percent. And think about how many Republicans elected officials openly promote this lie. Think about how many more quietly do. But democracy is doing just fine.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

I read this and thought it was Sebby:

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally Posted by Pretty Little Flower

Polls from earlier this year showed a staggering percentage of people still believe Trump won. An Axios poll had that number at over 40%. Forty fucking percent. And think about how many Republicans elected officials openly promote this lie. Think about how many more quietly do. But democracy is doing just fine.

I don't disagree with your point, but would add that I'm sure many people understand that Trump lost but say -- in public, to pollsters, whatever -- that he won, because the expressive act of saying that is flying their colors, whatever they actually believe.

[Pretty Little Flower]

Originally Posted by Tyrone Slothrop

I don't disagree with your point, but would add that I'm sure many people understand that Trump lost but say -- in public, to pollsters, whatever -- that he won, because the expressive act of saying that is flying their colors, whatever they actually believe.

I agree, but those people (whatever they happen to believe in whatever rational parts of their minds that still exist) are the ones whose lack of trust in government is self-fulfilling and self-replicating, and their numbers are scary large.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally Posted by Pretty Little Flower

I agree, but those people (whatever they happen to believe in whatever rational parts of their minds that still exist) are the ones whose lack of trust in government is self-fulfilling and self-replicating, and their numbers are scary large.

A lot of people seem to think that if you just give them the facts, they will come around. But it's some combination of motivated reasoning and willingness to lie and be lied to that is impervious to that sort of Enlightenment thinking. As Google and Facebook have gotten rich showing, lots of people want to hear what they want to hear.

[Adder]

Originally Posted by Icky Thump

Joint Chiefs probably thinking they should have nuked the White House on 1/6.

Remember when all living former secretaries of defense signed a letter that basically said, "please don't coup"? I still want more context on what prompted that, and I want to hear from the Pentagon what TFG asked them to do.

[Replaced_Texan]

Originally Posted by Tyrone Slothrop

A lot of people seem to think that if you just give them the facts, they will come around. But it's some combination of motivated reasoning and willingness to lie and be lied to that is impervious to that sort of Enlightenment thinking. As Google and Facebook have gotten rich showing, lots of people want to hear what they want to hear.

The only way to get them off of this is to redirect their fear/hate/mistrust. Facts are totally useless to them.

[sebastian_dangerfield]

Originally Posted by Replaced_Texan

The only way to get them off of this is to redirect their fear/hate/mistrust. Facts are totally useless to them.

You can't do that because the forum is a binary competition. There's the institutions, and the revolutionaries. Even if a revolutionary's leader is an obvious lying ass, he can't re-embrace the institutions.

[sebastian_dangerfield]

Originally Posted by Pretty Little Flower

So, in your scenario, if Trump had found a sympathizer in the Georgia Secretary of State, and maybe a couple of others in the Justice Department, the military would have stepped in and stopped the steal? Really? Maybe, maybe not. I don’t know and you don’t either. But the problem with the delusionally arrogant is that, no matter how many times they are proven wrong, they are still 100% right about everything else all the time, and everyone who disagrees is a hair-on-fire hysterical alarmist in an echo chamber. And by they time the delusionally arrogant are proven wrong yet again, and offer their weak, self-serving mea culpas, it is too late. COVID is killing 2,000 people a day, not 2,000 total. Roe v. Wade is dead and the right to gay marriage is not far behind.

I once told Sebastian about my uncle who was so overtly racist that he disowned his daughter because she married a successful black man. I noted that my uncle faced essentially no personal or professional consequences in his little Greenwich, CT world for his overt racism. Sebastian nonetheless insisted that this was not the case, that this type of overt racism was Simply. Not. Tolerated. I shared this story with my cousin and her husband, and her husband said, “Do you know how many white people have explained to me over the years how the overt racism I personally experienced did not actually exist?”

Yeah, and for years I carped here about how the country was devolving and we'd see civil disobedience and loss of control by authorities because even the dumbest fuckers out there realized they were being lied to and economic neoliberalism by its very design viewed the losers in the modern economy as nothing more than necessary collateral damage.

People told me that was nuts. Adder cited Adam Smith about how the destruction of one set of workers leads to more jobs for others, the most facile response one could muster in reply to such a charge.

I was correct. Trump came along like a pied piper and led Grievance Nation to become a huge political power that is now imperiling democracy. I didn't see that, but it's hardly surprising they eventually found a leader.

But so what? So I predicted the future. It's not like anyone was going to do anything about it. You think if Trump hadn't come along the problems wouldn't arise? He's a symptom, not a cause. Again, symptom, not cause.

And me being right is worth about as much as you being right that Trump would try to thwart the will of the people. What did anyone do about it? Nothing. The systems held and his coup failed, as would always be the case.

But what remains is important. Those angry fuckers of Grievance Nation aren't going anywhere. Or worse, they're amassing behind DeSantis, who can actually get things they like done.

[sebastian_dangerfield]

Originally Posted by Tyrone Slothrop

Or if there had been more uncertainty about the bogus claims of voter fraud. Which is what Trump supporters are creating, across the country. They do not trust the government, institutionally, and their lack of trust is self-fulfilling and self-replicating.

With the endless barrage of stories emerging online - from credible sources - showing our govt's capture by special interests and corporations, why should anyone entirely trust the govt?

2008 Bailout
Iraq War based on lies
Revolving door
K Street
Endless lies about the actual state of things ("Everything's fine!" or "We're fucked... but only because of what the other party did!")
Significant corrupt media doing the right's and left's bidding
SCOTUS

The case for trust in anything pretending to be running this country right now is?

ETA: I just watched Vice the other night, for the fifth time. It's a dark comedic satire. It's also about 10X more truthful about what happened during Cheney's reign than the NYTimes, WaPo, CNN, Fox, or any other news network carrying the administration's water on the Iraq War at the time. Jon Stewart told more truth in his show than the nightly news of every network during his tenure. We're a country run by clowns and fabulists. To understand this fucking place you don't need Harold Beale. You need a fucking stand-up.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

I've just been reading Gorsuch's dissent in the Indian law decision, Castro-Huerta, and we are in a world of hurt. There are several Supreme Court justices now who just do not give a shit what the law has been, and are happy to use their power to make it what they want it to be. Conservatives like to pretend that the Warren Court was some sort of liberal conspiracy, but Warren was a Republican, and the Warren Court's rulings generally followed a consensus across much of the country about how things should work. No one packed the Court to produce its rulings. The Roberts Court is going to be far more activist than the Warren Court was, far less legitimate, and much less popular. Which is ironic, because that's not how Roberts would like to do it, but on most cases he won't be the deciding vote.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally Posted by sebastian_dangerfield

Trump did not and still doesn't represent a serious threat to democracy.

Originally Posted by sebastian_dangerfield

Trump came along like a pied piper and led Grievance Nation to become a huge political power that is now imperiling democracy.

No rush, but why don't you make up your mind.

[sebastian_dangerfield]

Originally Posted by Tyrone Slothrop

No rush, but why don't you make up your mind.

Why don’t you read the whole thing?

Trump couldn’t pull off a coup. There was 0.000 chance of that. Grievance Nation, OTOH, is about to paint the country red this fall. They, and particularly if they get DeSantis in office in 2024, can usher in quiet, incremental authoritarianism.

Trump’s like an evil, dumb Moses. He could never get to full Mussolini-ness. And if he’d stayed in charge, he’d fuck it up. But his followers might assist DeSantis in getting there.