United States Politics Thread 46

[MacAnDàil]

From Twitter, regarding the recent enthusiasm for censorship: "Tennessee is just closing the loop: authors turn abstract ideas into books; Tennessee turns books into abstract ideas."

Thanks for letting me know about this. And that's coming from the same people who complain about 'cancel culture'?

[Travis B.]

From Twitter, regarding the recent enthusiasm for censorship: "Tennessee is just closing the loop: authors turn abstract ideas into books; Tennessee turns books into abstract ideas."

Thanks for letting me know about this. And that's coming from the same people who complain about 'cancel culture'?

Obviously when they do it they're doing the LORD's work.

[Moose-tache]

How hilarious would it be if, instead of a rubricated Bible, you had one where everytime Jesus speaks it has a little blue check mark next to it?

[Travis B.]

One thing I dislike about modern liberals and like is their tendency to dismiss freedom of speech as something that only helps the right, when with things like this and conservatives' big push to censor the teaching of history and social studies in general here in the US that the left would also benefit from freedom of speech - and conservatives, for all their supposed support for freedom of speech, only really care about it when it helps them.

[Raphael]

How hilarious would it be if, instead of a rubricated Bible, you had one where everytime Jesus speaks it has a little blue check mark next to it?

Thank you, that made my day!

[Travis B.]

For all their complaints about "cancel culture", now the Republicans have been pushing their "Don't Say Gay" law through the Florida legislature banning discussion of sexual orientation or gender from schools...

[zompist]

From the venting thread...

An independent judiciary is one of the biggest obstacles to tyrrany, and one of the first targets of would-be autocrats.

Nice idea, but we no longer have an independent judiciary. We have a judiciary that explicitly promotes partisan Republican policy and outlaws anything to the left of Mitch McConnell.

And sure, sometimes the judiciary reined in Trumpism. But Trump merely laid the groundwork, clumsily; his work is being carried on by surer hands. Next step will be for the Supreme Court to formally end democracy at the federal level, by letting state legislatures throw out Democratic votes.

[Travis B.]

From the venting thread...

An independent judiciary is one of the biggest obstacles to tyrrany, and one of the first targets of would-be autocrats.

Nice idea, but we no longer have an independent judiciary. We have a judiciary that explicitly promotes partisan Republican policy and outlaws anything to the left of Mitch McConnell.

And sure, sometimes the judiciary reined in Trumpism. But Trump merely laid the groundwork, clumsily; his work is being carried on by surer hands. Next step will be for the Supreme Court to formally end democracy at the federal level, by letting state legislatures throw out Democratic votes.

An Ken Paxton has already said he would try to reinstate struck-down anti-sodomy and anti-same-sex marriage laws in Texas...

[alice]

It's not a particularly original question, but how the hell did your country get to this? In a rhetorical sense, of course; there's no need for masses of specific detail.

More worryingly: where do you think it's going? All-out civil war and a split into two or more mutually hostile new countries?

[Raphael]

It's not a particularly original question, but how the hell did your country get to this? In a rhetorical sense, of course; there's no need for masses of specific detail.

Unfortunately, I'm not at all sure how to even start explaining this without masses of specific detail.

[zompist]

It's not a particularly original question, but how the hell did your country get to this? In a rhetorical sense, of course; there's no need for masses of specific detail.

I outlined my analysis most briefly in this post on cultural materialism.

Or to put it another way: none of this is new. Even the assault on voting rights: the white elite prevented Blacks voting for a century after Reconstruction. The craziness is a combination of:

1. The Southern Strategy (basically: get poor whites to vote for rich whites by hating Blacks)
2. Fear sells things that otherwise couldn't be sold, like gold and survival gear.
3. Their own media bubble.
4. Conservative terror over their increasing unpopularity, leading them to try to all they can when they have control.
5. Moderate Republicans' continuing acceptance of the crazy in return for lower taxes.

And if that list is too long, just remember #1. Rooseveltian liberalism had huge majorities because his coalition included the southern racists. The civil rights movement made them defect to the GOP.

More worryingly: where do you think it's going? All-out civil war and a split into two or more mutually hostile new countries?

Realistically, more of what we have now: a division into liberal blue states and ultraconservative red states. That would persist indefinitely even if they go full fascist at the federal level.

[alice]

(succinct and informative as ever; exactly what I was wanting!)

More worryingly: where do you think it's going? All-out civil war and a split into two or more mutually hostile new countries?

Realistically, more of what we have now: a division into liberal blue states and ultraconservative red states. That would persist indefinitely even if they go full fascist at the federal level.

Would this lead to mass exchanges of population, as in post-Partition India?

[zompist]

Do you think that will happen between England and Scotland...?

[LingEarth]

More worryingly: where do you think it's going? All-out civil war and a split into two or more mutually hostile new countries?

Realistically, more of what we have now: a division into liberal blue states and ultraconservative red states. That would persist indefinitely even if they go full fascist at the federal level.

I agree that that's the most likely scenario. My worry (well, besides worrying for the sake of people stuck in red states) is that those blue states soon won't even be able to do much. E.g. for now, conservatives are happy to be able to make abortion illegal in red states again; but if they take over the federal government, how long before they do a nationwide abortion ban and declare blue states' abortion rights laws (and lgbt rights laws, and whatever else they hate) unconstitutional? Democrats would keep getting elected in e.g. New York, but they wouldn't be able to actually implement the policies that people voted for them for.

[Moose-tache]

Due to a combination of professional interest (my MA thesis was about sexual politics) and a morbid attraction to everything I can find that will hurt me, I've followed the new right pretty closely for the last fifteen years or so. For most of that time, the trend has been the rise of the young radicals and the technocrats: right wingers who are able to appeal to the young, weaponize information technology, and in many cases are not even conservatives (in the classic sense of being in favor of the status quo). But after about 2019 or so there has been remarkably little evolution on the alt-right. The men's rights-incel-PUA types are doing the same tricks they were doing at Charlottesville. Partisan gerrymandering and media bubbles have reached a plateau (hardly anybody uses GETR these days- trust me, I am sacrificing my sanity to bring you this fact). The wackos haven’t gone away, they’re just carrying on stagnantly.

Meanwhile the traditional conservative right seems pretty vibrant. They’ve scored big with the whole “standing athwart history shouting stop” strategy, from support for police to taking credit for rolling back abortion rights. Then there’s inflation. The last time inflation was this high, we got Reagan. Inflation is bad for the working class, but it’s REALLY bad for people who gain their wealth from owning capital, and these people are very eager to pass their losses down the food chain. So if I were a betting woman, I would say the chances of a traditional right-wing ascendancy are greater than a revolutionary right-wing one. Next season’s Fascists will be strutting down the sidewalk in suits and split bonnets, not Gadsden t-shirts and purple-and-green sweaters.

I’m probably not the first person to wonder “who is voting for these people?” But it seems there is a real market for TradFash. A recent poll showed there is more negative reaction than positive to the Black Lives Matter flag. When I was recently in the US, I saw several Thin Blue Line flags for each BLM one I saw (even in California). And it’s the traditional wing of the GOP that was always working the hardest to court Latinx voters, so maybe they can succeed now that Trump is dead and in the ground (metaphorically speaking). Also, after 2031 it won’t matter who votes for what anymore.

[zompist]

I would say the chances of a traditional right-wing ascendancy are greater than a revolutionary right-wing one. Next season’s Fascists will be strutting down the sidewalk in suits and split bonnets, not Gadsden t-shirts and purple-and-green sweaters.

I'm not sure how we're supposed to tell the difference any more. The right decided on full-on attacks on LBGT people, forced birth for rape and incest victims and livestock status for all women, banning books by non-white authors in libraries. Is that TradFascism or AltFascism? Does it matter?

But especially for foreign friends, it's worth pointing out that if the right can win elections, they are happy to do so. The "moderates", the Susan Collinses of the world as well as small-company CEOs, will happily go along. Which is all according to historical precedent of course: conservatives like fascists.(*) And some leftists like fascists too, because their plan is "fascists triumph; liberals killed; *steps to be filled in later*; communists triumph".

(*) Robert Paxton would point out, though, that conservatives will suppress fascists when they don't need them.

I'm not sure anyone has outlined the following scary scenario: the Supreme Court decides that state legislatures can overturn elections; they do so in 2024 in a few states but don't have to because they get an electoral college victory anyway; they can then freely steal the 2028 election because election-stealing is now precedent.

[alice]

I'm not sure anyone has outlined the following scary scenario: the Supreme Court decides that state legislatures can overturn elections; they do so in 2024 in a few states but don't have to because they get an electoral college victory anyway; they can then freely steal the 2028 election because election-stealing is now precedent.

With everyone else wringing their hands in despair, of course, but unable or unwilling to do anything about it. That's what's most depressing about the entire situation.

[masako]

The J6 hearings are dramatic and sensational, but nothing yet disclosed sounds like it will yield anything like a prosecutable crime against DJT or his closest advisors.

It may yet produce charges for a few of the mid-tier players, but even then, I have doubts that any jail time will be involved.

[alynnidalar]

So far, if they get him on anything, it looks like it'll be witness tampering, which I have to say would be pretty funny. I mean sure I'd like to see him go down for everything else, but to be taken out by his inability to shut his big mouth--I would find a great deal of satisfaction in that.

[Moose-tache]

Who, and I mean this as a sincere question, who the hell is still holding out for a criminal punishment of 45? Nothing can stop his presidency, because it already happened and it's complete. And we've hopefully all figured out by now that Donald Trump was a symptom, not a pathogen, a single bubo on a self-inflicted plague victim. We made him. He happened. Let's focus on not doing this to ourselves again, instead of pretending that the problem was one old shouty man from Queens who needs to be individually stopped.