Straw men, meanwhile, are great for keeping away crows!
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Exactly. They just want the Christian version of Sharia law.
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Where do anarcho-communist autonomous collectives fit into this? I expect they wonât react well to the suggestion that they are some kind of ideal of conservative government, I know Iâd react with laughter if I was called conservative (Then eventually anger if they continued to do so).
But as I have said numerous times before, Conservatives and Libertarian-Capitalists in the US have a very strong interest in not letting people know that there is such a thing as Libertarian Socialism. To be fair, so do the Democrats (who are also conservative at the party leadership level).
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Gulags?
I keed. Clearly a two party system doesnât even begin to meet the needs of the wide political spectrum out there.
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There are a lot of splinter anarchist movements/subfacets, most with minuscule memberships, few with the ability to compellingly persuade Americans that anarcho-whateverism is a great thing. I donât think the GOP and Democrats actively suppress knowledge of them or are even aware of them (in this day and age) so much as the tiny handful of them left are barely noticed any more than the Trots or other radical leftist movements are.
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From Umberto Ecoâs frequently reposted article on fascism:
- Ur-Fascism is based upon a selective populism, a qualitative populism, one might say. In a democracy, the citizens have individual rights, but the citizens in their entirety have a political impact only from a quantitative point of view â one follows the decisions of the majority. For Ur-Fascism, however, individuals as individuals have no rights, and the People is conceived as a quality, a monolithic entity expressing the Common Will. Since no large quantity of human beings can have a common will, the Leader pretends to be their interpreter. Having lost their power of delegation, citizens do not act; they are only called on to play the role of the People. Thus the People is only a theatrical fiction. To have a good instance of qualitative populism we no longer need the Piazza Venezia in Rome or the Nuremberg Stadium. There is in our future a TV or Internet populism, in which the emotional response of a selected group of citizens can be presented and accepted as the Voice of the People.
In a functioning democracy, votes are counted, and whichever side has the most votes prevails. If you fail to vote, no one can legitimately claim to be speaking for your interests. Invoking the silent majority is a claim to speak for the common will without the bother of an election.
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Is that what theyâre for?
Hey, remember when that great swath of Gingrichâs campaign staff resigned? (And we got that stirring press release?)
Oh, 2011. What a sweet and innocent era.
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The republicans have been running a series of jokes for president for the past three primaries. I can see it happening once on accident but three times stretches my credulity.
The second time they dodged a bullet and went âOh thank GOD we still have Romneyâ they should haveâif they actually caredâtook serious stock and made sure they didnât run another joke primary. At this point, Iâm forced to conclude that the party leadership either wants to run a joke for president or canât find a serious candidate who is also capable of appealing to their base.
Iâm sure itâs not the clown party they were hoping for but it sure is the clown party theyâve been making down payments on. 
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Only three?
I canât remember if Bob Dole wasnât a joke, but all the ones since have been.
Well, Iâm not talking about all of the candidates.
The primary GWB won wasnât a total piece of slapstick performance art. Iâd go so far as to say it wasnât even mostly slapstick performance art. Going further than that requires I explain my off kilter âconspiracy theoryâ regarding GWB (nothing to do with 9/11) which would be extremely off topic.
But 2008 and beyond and itâs been like class president of clown college.
(I donât actually recall the primary Dole won. I wouldnât say I was too young but that was around the time I got my first job and I had other things on my mind.)
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I lie awake at night, staring at my ceiling, thinking to myself, âI may not know everything, but I do know why Vine was created.â
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I wasnât even in the country for 2000, but wasnât McCain supposed to be fairly reasonable, back then? I guess the joke was on the people that time around.
1996? Looking it up, I see that Doleâs main rival was Pat Buchanan (and Steve Forbes). Iâd say that counts.
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Iâm sure itâs been pointed out upthread, but I ainât about reading 150+ just to find that out, Iâm fairly lazy.
But, while I agree Trumpâs a monster, no one should pay his former minion any mind. FFS, âI no longer felt that he was the leader the country wasâŚâ whatever, her story is that she never believed that at any point.
Iâm not about âdonât feed the trollâ, I believe in challenging trolls when it is amusing, butâŚ
Donât feed the trollâs poops.
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Have you seen the latest campaign pamphlet?
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McCain had actually always been kind of reasonable-ish considering his party (had to change âhasâ to âhadâ because I wikipediaâd him and whoops ⌠what the hell, John). I dislike him as a politician for reasons that go beyond my own politics and are also off topic. But, ignoring politics and elected office, heâs a decent man and a hell of a comedian.
Oh my gods, Iâm so glad I missed that. What a crap storm that must have been.
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And this toon from circa 2012 campaign applies to most of the voters, but seems 'specially apropos this year (Bernie/Hillary or Anybody/Drumpf)
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I happen to have had the misfortune to see some recent episodes of âI am Cait,â and it turns out Caitlyn Jenner is also quite conservative.
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Itâs a little sad.
The Radical Right Christians and Radical Right Muslims have so much in common.
Both subscribing to a history that never happened, both having conspiratorial myths about what the hell is going on.
People used to do many more shout outs to deities and quotes religious texts in political arguments. Because religion is the higher law.
And what happens here to you, isnât nearly as important as what you do⌠Because your soul depends on it.
Iâm sure in America thereâs hatred for all things Muslim and Catholic preached from pulpits in more radical churches. Itâs amplified in communities and online. Becomes very racist. And its reflected in politics and the news⌠as conversations about immigrants and security and terrorists.
Seen through all these lenses at once⌠Itâs a very different worldview. But the Radical Right Christians and Radical Right Muslims are both the scariest things in the others point of view. For good reason.
Completely incompatible worldviews and they occupy the same political niche.
These are also the people that believe in an inevitable clash of civilizations war. They continue to cause horrible problems.
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Sigh⌠I just thought about The Handmaidâs Tale.
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