One characteristic of right-wing authoritarian followers is that they’ll treat you that way even (perhaps especially) when you openly acknowledge the misery and pain that drives their choices. That’s because, in addition to being dull-witted, they’re usually foolish.* Their mantra is “you think you’re better than me?” and their response is to try to make the lives of the people showing compassion even more difficult.
I agree about the hardcore of right wing authoritarians. They thrive on the notion of dehumanization and someone they can constantly better, including through violence. That’s why engaging them in a back and forth is destined to fail. It doesn’t help that they are immune to facts, either, or prone to creating their own reality, facts be damned. Projection is also a big part of what they are doing. They assume that how they feel about the “other” is how the “other” feels about them. They see it as a civilizational struggle. It drives the whole concept of white supremacy, that “white” Europeans are in a struggle against other “races” for supremacy. They don’t see how connected we all are and how much depends on us working together to deal with our now global set of problems.
But I don’t think everyone on the right is that either. I do think it, plus what I described above, is the core of Trumpism, however. He appeals to the right wing authoritarian mindset and the intellectual exercise/game mindset simultaneously. But plenty of people who are center right do believe in democratic practices.
If that means centre-right mixed economics, then I would agree. I am not using right wing as an insult here, I just mean it as to the right of 50% socialism-50% capitalism.
That sounds nice, but if you actually think about it it could mean anything, and when you look at it in practice you find that conservatives believe in a lower living wage than liberals do, and liberals believe in a lower living wage than DemSocs do.
Instead of the conservative slogan: “A Fair Day’s Pay for a Fair Day’s Work”, we say instead: “Let’s Abolish the Wage System”.
-Industrial Workers of the World
What’s the distinction between the people who believe that capitalism is often a good way to find market efficiencies that benefit all people and the people who believe that capitalism is the best way to insure that the “deserving” are supplied with wealth and the “underserving” remain in poverty?
My definition of a living wage:
Able to pay Rent/Morgate on time.
Able to feed my family
Able to clothe my family
Able to educate my family and a little left for entertainment.
And how do you decide what area your living wage applies to? There will be people trying to gerrymander that area to keep the cost of paying wages down, so bear that in mind.
Also, education should be a right not a privilege. If you get your living wage area wrong then a lot of people will get trapped in poverty with no hope of being able to afford education.
Never ask for the bare minimum, You will always get less than what you ask for. This has been one of the failings of the Democrats for several decades now.
You need to add: Able to save for the future and for emergencies. Most people can do all those things in normal times, but they are literally a disaster, accident, or serious illness away from those things not being true because they have no savings. We are seeing that play out in real time right now.
I guess it depends what you count as representing moneyed interests. Just to be sure, I read it in full again, a little slower this time. It did not say anything differently than the first time.
I honestly feel like this is the whole point of this sophistry, to present opponents with an impossible task. The Trump supporters are somehow are excused of agency. But you are asked to be simultaneously fierce and gentle, vocal and silent, honest and calculated, to talk to people like children while respecting them like adults, to stand against their beliefs without criticizing their beliefs.
Fail at any of these contradictory things and they are going to do exactly what they said they meant to do, only now it is your fault for not handling them in precisely the right way. Better luck next time, hopefully you can be both more and less accommodating then. And sorry to anyone who doesn’t make it to next time but like I said, we’ve already excluded them from the narrative.
I wonder how many progressive movements in history succeeded by trying to thread this moving needle, instead of by actually standing up for what they believed in? Because from where I am standing, it does not seem like many. Almost like this is advice from people who don’t want them to succeed.
divorce → men’s rights → anti-feminism → hating Hillary
and from there it was just another half-step to going all-in on Trump and his bullshit
It is indeed amazing that Adams has tricked himself into supporting somebody so foolish and incompetent, qualities that Dilbert has always critiqued in everybody else
There were other paths that kind of forked along the same direction. His whole NLP/influence/systems stuff is very much in that Joe Rogan always threatening to tip into the red pill sort of area. The biggest thing that tipped it though was that he literally put out a post that said “If anyone wants to pay me like $1,000,000, I will support your candidate.” and then shortly after that he declared that he was for Trump.
A true sign of privilege is to view this election as an interesting example of anything.
This country is in serious trouble if what has been happening for the last 3.5 years continues.
this is so important. i teach a financial math class to high school seniors. one of the least realistic elements of the curriculum my district has bought is the idea that someone straight out of high school will be able to put back an emergency fund holding 3-6 months of expenses into a savings account or a money market account within a 12-18 months and if you don’t or can’t it’s because you’re buying too many $7.99 lattes or $100 haircuts or something similarly frivolous.
i won’t even get into the weird and mostly sexist way the curriculum sells the idea of an emergency fund to guys (you may not get it men but women feel that need for an emergency fund “in their wombs” kind of language). a lot of the curriculum is taken from that whole “prosperity gospel” system minus the overtly religious references since it’s made to be sold to public schools. unfortunately after having taken a deep dive into the other curricula available in my state what we had wasn’t the worst course available, unfortunately it turned out to be the best.
so i spend a lot of my time creating my own additions to the course that actually give the kids a look at how things really work and ways to deal with the inequities built into it. i’m frequently pointing out disparities in treatment between demographic groups and giving useful advice on how to try to work around it. i definitely try to get them to be more realistic on the emergency fund idea so they understand that it might take 3-5 years to be able to put back a half a year’s expenses if they’re making $10/hour and they might never be able to do it on a minimum wage salary if they live in a state like i do that doesn’t allow for a minimum wage higher than the current federal minimum. and they shouldn’t be ashamed of that because the current federal minimum is a disgrace to workers. i also strongly encourage my students who work at unionized workplaces to join the union there because labor solidarity is one way to oppose societal inequity.
Do you care whether those things are provided through you paying for them directly or through taxes? Because that’s one of the things supposedly money-smart capitalists seem to be intentionally dense about: there’s no functional difference between paying for things directly or through taxes, except that doing so through taxes allows access to those things for everyone.
So, we’ve got:
-shelter
-food
-clothes
-education
-entertainment
I think you forgot healthcare, which is pretty damn important.
Transportation is critical.
Clean air and water.
Protection from hostile actors, both foreign and domestic.
I’m still probably missing a few.
ETA: Communications. Forgot comms. Never forget comms.
I think it was the Mary Trump book that recounted that a common night in the Trumpy household had Donald sitting with Ivanka in his lap while Don Jr and Eric wrestled on the floor. Donald would get up and kick whichever kid was losing.
I don’t know what it’s going to take to get libs to turn out in high numbers. The highest ever. It’s the only way. It has to be overwhelming. Fuck polls, all the statistical bs. Everyone loves to speculate. This election needs to defy logic: we need to be out in absolutely overwhelming numbers and turn this motherfucker out! Are we just going to roll over and accept that the proud boys will be standing there with their stupid penis guns? Fuck those guys. We vote anyways. Afraid or not, we vote!!! Afraid of suppression or not, we vote! We demand change!
