Developing 1): the major political parties in Weimar Germany were monarchists, right-wing socialists, left-wing socialists, the Nazis, anarchists, and conservative democrats who were *de facto* allied with the monarchists until the latter pivoted to the Nazis.

This is the mistake Labour keeps making. THEY'RE NOT IN OPPOSITION ANYMORE. Farage can say what he likes. Labour can do & doing small things well makes people happy Their focus on infrastructure has negated that advantage because they're spending money on stuff that won't happen until the far future

the vassal states of the famously non-colonialist soviet union might beg to differ.

There were 3 things going on simultaneously, that both communist hunters and communists want to conflate. 1) quest for actual Communist spies working for the Soviets 2) quest to purge certain sectors of society (like Hollywood) of Communists and fellow travelers supposedly corrupting society...

Greater Manchester Police are investigating Reform over the potential breaking of electoral law in the Gorton & Denton by-election. The party sent out election materials without identifying they were the promoter. If Reform won the election the result could be overturned in court.

Yep. I dont feel like I am at least on "yellow alert" going through most any major global city in Western countries bc I dont think seeing non-white ppl or occasional instances of poverty are actually a threat to my wellbeing, but 🤷🏻‍♂️

seeing a lot of discourse lately about this tweet and just want to point out that it’s from 2020, whatever else you think about it. not sure the author would say the same today. (he might!) have to think Carl Schmitt would have had follow up thoughts eventually though.

An AuDHD person who planned to change their entire life in a day has already ruined it with a single deviation from their vision, it has been rumoured.

Another in a long list of "this site is multiple forms of illiterate" is the fact that *so many people* on here seem just fundamentally incapable of grasping the difference btwn what McConnell accomplished in 09-14 and what he accomplished in 15 & 16 (or even beyond).

it's genuinely heart-breaking to me that Stalin had American communists doing protests in front of the White House against Lend-Lease until he was suddenly the newest beneficiary

Not really, because the likelihood of “the Labour government actually doing anything about it” runs through “what does ‘some twerp’ do to break the government out of its stupor?”

OMG thank you. A bunch of dipshits have wildly over-indexed on this and the Lynn Cheney thing, when not one voter out of a *million* knows who all those people are or what happened.

I shared a few thoughts on this yesterday - but this is very, very good and accurate. Marie's point about how some MP's think too broadly and intelligently to be promoted as Ministers is also quite key I think as well (and may well explain a few mystifying non-promotions)

I realized that a lot of the guys who have been found in the Epstein files are probably really struggling because the guy they would have gone to for advice about being discovered in the Epstein files was JEFFREY EPSTEIN

I'm sorry but actually we need this. The current infrastructure is not fit for purpose (spare me the jokes this time)

I think it's great that this is basically no longer an issue that causes wars.

Man I am more than happy to build bridges and work alongside the left - and frankly some of our local DSA folks have been the biggest stalwarts in this ICE nightmare - but there are so many lefties who can’t se to understand that agreeing on ICE doesn’t mean I suddenly changed all my views

in this week's newsletter! my very, very hot take, which is that one of the reasons politics has got bad is that our politicians have got.......too good - do read it, see what you think, shout at me, etc youngvulgarian.substack.com/p/politics-i... [free edition!]

Being very Marshall McLuhan about it, I think technological advancement feeds this tendency by making it hard to relate to our own past. The people protesting for/against civil rights as characters in old fashioned movies who didn't have Instagram, rather than your grandparents.

No joke: I got angry hate mail today for writing an obituary of a Black woman scientist—because the person felt she did didn’t deserve the recognition. Which just makes me want to share it again: www.nature.com/articles/d41...

The problem is that the opponents to the repairs to parliamentary refit a) complain costs too much b) say that MPs should stay in Westminster during the works (which will dramatically increase costs) Doesn't feel like a grown-up debate www.ft.com/content/7fca...

👇 It's stunning the amount that this lesson has not yet sunk in. No, it is never 'good news' or 'not worth worrying about' if your opponent moves further away from you or becomes more extreme.

I think the problem with this approach is the power of US money rapidly makes them the only ideological show in town on the right, and then regardless of domestic opposition to MAGA, you are one bad economic run from them getting power.

This is exactly what so many of them are doing & it's why politics is breaking down. Good political leaders aren't the actors or musicians but the director or conductor. We need politicians to stop obsessing about details & focus on the big picture. That's how you get a programme for government.

Feels telling that they’re just making up shit and still don’t even pretend to be getting support from young women. If you’re just writing fan fiction anyway, why not?

Initially, I actually thought that user had posted that quote in the context that it had demonstrably been proven false. You know, in the sense of "they thought people wouldn’t raise against them, but look at what is actually going on, look at all this push-back".

Petition to stop citing Nazis when they famously convinced themselves that their enemies were weak and then lost. It's a genre of Nazi posting that really needs to stop being a thing.

Look, there's a lot of arguments you can have about boundaries, for example anything outside the M25 is Wales...

He's right, but I think it is strange, because many of the most extreme forms of Christian practice are relatively new, whilst "moderate" forms of Christianity like Anglicanism and Catholicism are half a millennium old or greater. There should be some consideration for that.

As always, if your position is that “only the literalists and reactionaries are the true form of a faith or religion” you ARE espousing fundamentalism

This is really an instance of a very longstanding trend where secular pundits end up unwittingly aligned with fundamentalists in treating the crudest and most extreme version of any faith as the genuine article and everything else as somehow inauthentic.

I often just wonder how much less fucked up we would be as a people if adults weren't fucking weird about kids with opposite sex friends and say things like "OOOooooOOo, is that your BOY/GIRL FRIEND???" That's such a good way to make sure your child feels uncomfortable having opposite sex friends

VA Gov. Spanberger (moderate, was in CIA) and NYC Mayor Mamdani (left, is in DSA) both taking steps to block local law enforcement from helping ICE as it violently violates people's rights is a good example of how the relevant divide in the Dem coalition isn't center-left, it's fight-don't fight.

It's so funny to be talking about the "contradictions of reformist social democratic strategy" when it's NYC Mayor. Like yeah I know that critique, but that argument is for the scale of like *France*. Even if you get a communist Mayor what's your plan, you gonna do Paris Commune 2?

Discworld QOTD, from The Light Fantastic “Not for the first time she reflected that there were many drawbacks to being a swordswoman, not least of which was that men didn't take you seriously until you'd actually killed them, by which time it didn't really matter anyway.”

I'm actually ok with spending a fair bit on Parliament and it being a nice place? It's an important location for our nation and what passes for our democracy, it having a bit of splendour and being a place people might actually want to visit and learn things is good imo.

Biden just had the most labor-friendly administration since FDR and tried to doubled the size of the IRS to go after rich tax cheats

what people think PIs doing: be Benoit Blanc what PIs actually do: mostly investigate infidelity

it's literally the same room? you stupid fuckhead??

I'm trying to phrase this take, but one of the weirder issues Starmer has created is a massive majority for a project he's not interested in, making votes he should win easily surprisingly close because he's asking MPs to vote against why they were elected.

(seen a bunch of people sharing this/talking in general about how "normal" Mamdani is but imo this doesn't show a normal person, but an *exceptionally* skilled communicator - a normal person wouldn't react like that to having a speech interrupted by a child! give him his due!)

His mother is Mira Nair, he probably learned to ad lib a scene before he could walk. Theatre kids are built for this aspect of politics. It's the rest that he's somehow is nailing that's the shocker

They should keep punching this because people think it’s insanely racist & just weird and also because punching nazis is fun

worstpersonyouknow.gif

And at a time when our existing museums and heritage sites are being cut to the bone, it’s lowkey rude to the entire sector trying to desperately to survive to act like this is somehow a thrifty option

This comes up a lot so I do want to let you all know that the option of turning the existing building into a heritage/museum site has been costed out and it is substantially more expensive

Case in point, the removal of the plaque about Absalom Jones (TEC's first Black priest) in Philly. This is basically a positive story, and unlike Washington's slaves, raises no awkward qs about national heroes. But it's a story that foregrounds people who aren't white - so apparently it had to go.

I think also, the actual structural issue, in politics as in pretty much every field, is that the honest list of 'how to be good at your job' is 'step one: have a good predecessor'.

I understand folks are scared but I want you to think about the mechanics of this. There are more polling places (>100k) than ICE and CBP agents combined, so they can only pick a few districts to try to intimidate. Now what happens when cell phone footage of that goes online in the early morning?

Ynys Gybi (Ynys Môn) Council By-Election Result: ➡️ RFM: 43.9% (New) 🌼 PLC: 25.0% (-3.7) 🌹 LAB: 12.5% (-11.3) 🌍 GRN: 8.6% (New) 🌳 CON: 8.2% (-13.1) 🙋 Ind: 1.9% (New) No Ind (-26.3) as previous. Reform GAIN from Plaid Cymru. Changes w/ 2022.