I think what Republicans and especially Trump have captured is not exacly the spirit of the volk, but a widespread cultural trauma bond, characterized by an inability to differentiate between strength and cruelty, between the exercise of power and breaking things, between leading and domination.

Thank goodness for the government that it can't commit political violence, only state violence. Otherwise it would have to submit to lecturing about dialogue and agreeing to disagree.

It wouldn't matter if Trump was delivering a chicken in every pot, bringing the government to bear on corporations to silence critics is wrong. And by the way, a lot of the things that he promised are definitely happening.

Jake Tapper: "This is not as simple as it would seem, there's real money to be made here."

Pretty sad in hindsight that they declared "cannot" when what's accurate is "should not". They can because there's no one to stop them, and there probably isn't even actual law that defines what they just did and what the penalty should be.

That antifa doesn't actually exist is what makes it the perfect pretext for siccing the DOJ on just about anybody.

"I wouldn't go fishing right now in that area of the world. Heh heh. Wouldn't recommend being brown either. Or having pronouns."

That we live in a world where the president talks like this, and people just stand around mutely, is a horror. A genuine horror.

If you can watch and listen to this guy for 30 seconds without seeing what he is then you have a kind of character blindness, like people who can't recognize faces, except for souls.

That we live in a world where the president talks like this, and people just stand around mutely, is a horror. A genuine horror.

Yes but you can't win because you are branded the enemy for holding that view, as well as for pointing out he was hoist by his own petard, as well as for dyslogizing the passing of a terrible human being.

His country freely chose a kakisticracy, his leaders are made up of bigots, compulsive liars, fundamentalists, imbecilic trolls, authoritarian white supremacists, fascists and chuds. He lives in the spray of a firehose of narcissism and ignorance by the likes of RFK Jr. Must be those video games.

I'm learning today that there are a lot of people who believe that anything that isn't violence belongs in the category of "politics". No room for concepts like hate, bigotry, intolerance, segregation, antisocial pathology, anti-liberty, misogyny. It's just politics, man.

One can both decry violence and believe the world is better without him. How awful must a person be before it's permissible to cheer their passing?

So anything that isn't violence is politics?

"We're a big tent. Our bigotries are not limited to visible indicators of race. There's language, culture, religion, political ideology. Anybody who's not like us."

Personally, I have no more use for Judaism than any other religion. Israel's responding to criticism with automatic charges of antisemitism is dishonest and immoral. When the criticism is in reference to the systematic extermination of defenseless people it's particularly disgusting.

Too bad we're reduced to dumpster diving through the garbage of a grandiose narcissist's brain to determine which of his ideas might happen to have merit, that being unfit and unqualified isn't enough to just completely ignore him. Debating what the village idiot says creates an idiot village.

Edited for acuracy: “So Trump promised to attack a broken system, I get it. But here’s the thing. He’s a crook. And a con man. Yet his voters accepted Trump's con because this gave them the narrative they could use to defend their support for the bigotries which were the core of his message.”

The bulk of this war consists of targeting the allied forces for not being up to the task of fighting the Nazis.

(looks around) Still not seeing anybody punching Nazis.

How is that hypothetical? They just did it. Each new outrage, barbarity, and atrocity gets absorbed into the culture. Eventually they could be gassing people in concentration camps and the public,at least those opposed to it, will be like "they can't do that, that's wrong."

It's not a war crime when you're not at war. It's just mass murder.

Technically, what they have is preemptive ownership of future productivity

Oz-Salzberger's unapologetic bland rationalizations (holding fast to her conception of Zionism and not the reality) and studious avoidance of truth and reconciliation ("now is not the time to talk about history") is how Israel's original sin and ongoing crimes are tolerated and perpetuated.

It may be that expressing astonishment about how Trump "genuinely believes" something absurd or factually wrong places one in the category of his dupes.

The the unrestrained, bad faith weaponized charge of antisemitism has been Israel's evil superpower.

One might conclude that on the right the anti-Muslim bigotry must therefore exceed the antisemitism, except it's hard to tell when bad faith charges of the latter so effectively allow for such public expressions of the former.

Still think what's going on here is good-faith debate and not just ginned-up RW reaction of creeping American vigilantism preying on an authoritarian-minded political base that's been cultivated to be terrified of everything? I rest my case. Stand your ground, my friend. Oops I mean Stand on Guard.

"People used to say 'sir' and 'ma'am'" -Sheriff from No Country for Old Men

Of all these predominantly WTF news items, one is clearly the WTFest.

Pretty sure this sort of thing is part of their weird Freudian impulse to cull the herd. "I don't want to be a member of the ruling class in the sort of society that would elevate someone like me to a position of leadership."

I wonder. Thus far they've proved to be unfailingly reprogrammable and fully capable of abandoning foundational beliefs and moral stances.

We live in the Sopranos age now. America spent years watching a soap opera about gangsters, mistook the lead sociopath for a protagonist, and can no longer apprehend basic moral truths.

Rolling Stone: Aha! MAGA: Lol

MAGA: You mean our guy? The pussy grabber we've heard say inappropriate things about his own young daughter? The one we've already seen partying with Epstein? Barging into girls' changerooms? So? We'll give a shit when it incriminates Democrats otherwise God works in mysterious ways, now fuck off.

The Kakistocratic Klown Show *is* the strategy. Resistance and focus is spread too thin. They are literally in the process of consolidating and cementing power, not to mention enriching himself, yet some people declare that they don't know what they're doing.

My faith lies in the planet's salvation orchestrated via benevolent A.I.. Sure, the odds might be minuscule, but they're still infinitely better than the ZERO chance that it's gonna come from organized human endeavor. I mean, just look around.

My assumption is that it's because for 100 years the rich have engineered a world where, like money itself, they are free to roam and not bound to statehood, leaving nations in a race to the bottom.

Does NY Times Editor in Chief Joseph Kahn Beat his Wife? Joseph Kahn Not a Domestic Abuser, Some Say Kahn Faces Scrutiny Over Wife-Beating Allegations Party Concerned Domestic Abuse Allegations Undermine Joe Kahn's Prospects

We celebrated today as Trump voters do- we shitposted lies about people like Mamdani and AOC, drank some Liberal tears, and made a list of all the things that Hitler actually got right.

"Backwards" being the operative word.

Such polling & reporting that he ran as anti-war so such aggressions could hurt his standing with his voters completely misunderstands that this applies only to interventionism. Americans will ALWAYS support the bombing of other peoples if they can be convinced that they pose a threat to Americans.

If you live in Tehran or Gaza or Kyiv and a missile hits your apartment building then violence has already reached "unimaginable levels" and indeed the world has already ended. Let's get one thing straight: these are nuclear powers illegally attacking (i.e. committing murder) non-nuclear powers.

Here's a thought I haven't had or heard for some time: "It's nice to see that common sense and decency have prevailed."