mozz

We don't. The news, however, does. Their mission is to get clicks, and shit like this gets clicks.

(I mean I didn't click on it, but in general I think it's far far more effective than updating people with what's going on with the Houthis or another story about how Trump is a crook or something like that.)

MAGA people having the ability to enact violence is terrifying, period.

But they already have that- as police, as governors, as other agents of the State. That is much more terrifying than a bunch of assholes in lifted pickups, because I can legally shoot those assholes if they come for my trans nephew

The point that I am making, is that they haven't come for your trans nephew yet, in an organized and trained grouping, to remove him from his parents' care and take him to somewhere where he can be reeducated or charged with a crime or both. Even in deep red states, that's still difficult to do, although in some places it's becoming not impossible.

Creating a force like this is the final step for them to be able to do it easily, outside the bounds of the normal legal system, and shoot you and suffer no consequences if you resist them. If you don't want that reality, you should be significantly more worried about this development than about the already worrying status quo.

Are you sure that the unfolding abortion disaster in this country currently is what you want to pick to argue the "it doesn't matter whether we elect Democrats or Republicans, because the outcome will be the same" thesis?

Think again. Are you sure? Because I'm happy to argue against that thesis if you're sure you want to stick with it. I think probably you can imagine what my argument will be without me even needing to say it.

Feels like a broken record at this point

In 2020 they voted for Biden and got:

• $150 billion in student loan forgiveness
• Lowest unemployment in 20-50 years depending on how you count
• Wealth inequality going down for the first time in I have no idea how long
• Actual urgent effort to address climate change for the first time in US history
• 15% minimum corporate tax, Amazon paying higher taxes than they ever have before by quite a large margin (which is what funded most of the above)

And, that all happened despite absolutely rabid resistance from the Republicans at every turn.

A lot of people are still suffering, which makes it hard to feel like anything is good -- in particular, inflation is rising faster than wages at the top end of the scale, which makes it "feel" especially to people in the tech industry like the economy is still doing bad (which, it kind of is). However, wages for people who do housekeeping or manufacturing or etc are actually rising faster than inflation by quite a large margin -- that's incredibly unusual in the modern day even when inflation isn't spiking, and it's a direct result of some of Biden's policies like strengthening the NLRB or spending billions and billions of dollars of Amazon's money on domestic manufacturing.

The criticism of Biden over his criminal support for Israel is real and fair. Of course, he's at least making some limp little noises about maybe giving Netanyahu a stern talking to if he exceeds his dead children quota, whereas Trump just wants to kill all the Palestinians and ban Muslims from the country and maybe start with Hispanics too.

The mythology that people got betrayed who voted for Biden is very explicit propaganda; it has absolutely no grounding in the reality of what happened.

It wasn't selling points though, it was specific rebuttals to specific things that someone had said about his company in public.

It should cut both ways. If you want to publicly say "hey this is what I think of company X," people with company X should be able to say "hey what you said is bullshit, and now that you started the conversation I'm going to explain why, whether or not you feel like the conversation needs to continue after your side and only your side has been expressed." I mean, the CEO was way more polite about it than that for understandable reasons, but I think some level of that frustration is probably behind him wanting to be able to explain himself even after she said she wasn't interested.

Such is my opinion at least. As long as nobody's getting sued or silenced or harassed at length beyond a few emails, he who opens the slinging of ideas that aren't friendly, should be prepared for responses to their ideas to come back at them that might not be friendly. This whole "free speech for me but then shut the fuck up and don't tell me anything back about what I said" seems unfair. At least, in my opinion.

* 50 years or more

Not that I'm disagreeing with your thesis as applied to the modern day, but pre-Lyndon Johnson, the Democrats were the racist party. There was a massive sea change during the era of Nixon, when the Democrats decided after quite a bit of heated internal debate that they couldn't possibly stomach depending on the support of the segregationists, whatever the cost, and the Southern Strategy scooped all the for real lynch-mob enthusiasts all up for Nixon. Except for Carter's brief flirtation with actual human decency, which the US isn't okay with for some reason, the Democrats got accustomed to losing elections for quite a while, until Clinton decided to make a pact with the neoliberal bastards since all the actual progressives were so ground down into not-voting-land that they weren't even worth appealing to anymore. That worked and that set the tone which has continued to the modern day of slight steady progress under Democrats versus absolute naked fascism under the Republicans (accelerating year by year to its current breakneck pace.)

Side note, if you want to have your heart broke a little bit, read Hubert Humphrey's speech at the DNC in NINETEEN FUCKING FORTY EIGHT, where he calls out the Democratic party for their acceptance of racism:

My friends, to those who say that we are rushing this issue of civil rights, I say to them we are 172 years late. To those who say that this civil-rights program is an infringement on states’ rights, I say this: The time has arrived in America for the Democratic Party to get out of the shadow of states' rights and to walk forthrightly into the bright sunshine of human rights.

He was still around in 1968, in the literal bloody battle, inside and outside the convention hall, for what the Democrats were going to be. They never fulfilled their promise completely, and they still haven't, and that year it cost them the presidency, just like it did in 2016.

I say this 1,000% agreeing that Biden has represented a big step forward and accomplished some genuine impressive things, and that voting for him in November is an affirmative good thing and not just a way to prevent Trump's end of the world. But the Democrats had to be dragged kicking and screaming by their progressive wing into doing good things, just as they have to be now on Israel among some other issues.

The difference is that they can be dragged into good things, which is enough. And they've done pretty much all of the progress the country has made since 1976; I'll fully agree with you there.

I'm sorry, but those people have access to the exact same information I do.

No they don't. Or rather, the ones I've talked with extensively had no idea what was going on; media they genuinely trusted had given them this very incomplete, bizarre, and specifically constructed view of the world that was perfectly believable to them, but which bore absolutely no resemblance to reality. In particular it even has specific features to make it harder to be able to break yourself out of, make you resist learning new information that might challenge it. If you haven't had your brain inside that type of box or talked extensively with people who did it's sometimes hard to appreciate how pervasive and reality-defining it can be.

So like think of all those guys who went down to the border expecting there to be this army of Mexicans coming over and terrorizing the whole town, and they were ready to go down and help sign up for their patriotic duty to help, and they were surprised and confused when they got there and it was just a normal town. It's not like they were like "oh okay let me start shooting any Mexicans I see on the street because that's my main goal" -- they had a perfectly humane reason for being there, in their minds. They had a perfectly humane response (like "wtf these guys lied to me, what even is going on here"). It's easy to laugh at them because they were so wrong, but they really believed it. Because all the news they watch and all their friends they talk to and all the internet they observe told them that's what's going on.

I definitely will agree that there's a way-too-large minority that's like "hey I always wanted to shoot Mexicans / shoot up the Ramadan celebration / kill my family member who I suspect of being a Democrat." I'm not trying to give everyone a free pass. I'm saying that the root of it for a lot of the rank and file is being duped, not being evil.

(Not that that makes them any less dangerous of course)

I hate the terms "both sides" and "America is divided" because it implies that there is some form of symmetry to this madness. This is not the case.

Fully agree on this part. The movement as a whole and its leaders are extremely dangerous and evil, and the media for the most part is looking for any excuse to avoid saying "these guys are Nazis WTF how do we stop them," and "both sides" is one convenient excuse.

Trump supporters can come back to earth any time they want

Well, but they can't. Not on their own. They're either going to realize the reality through some outside force helping them see the truth, or they're going to keep growing in numbers and fervor until their leaders can use them to enact a for-real fascist takeover.

The Island of Dr. Moreooohhhhhh

I'm just gonna sit in quiet contemplation of how you've managed to make it sound halfway sensible "Yes, Biden's done some substantive good things even though the majority of the rest of the government is against those things, but they've been too effective at making sure he can't do more, so I oppose him."

So what I was trying to do in focusing on the pre-Nazi German police was saying, it is possible for the US police to be unjust in all the ways you are claiming they are (which I actually don't agree with, but that's beside the point) -- and yet still for privately operated armed forces operated by MAGA Republicans to be a terrifyingly significant development. And I was bringing up the example of the SA by way of concrete example to illustrate the point.

Seems reasonable? Or no? I'm happy to talk about justice or injustice in the system as it currently exists without the new SA being added in also; I just didn't want to shift the topic completely to that instead of talking about the original topic. Can we maybe wrap up the original thing first and then switch to that?

Yeah; I should have said no one has a compelling proven explanation. There are a lot of theories obviously. This article goes into a little bit of detail about it, although in my opinion is proffering its "death by a thousand cuts" theory without that being the consensus of the scientists i.e. "yes this is exactly the combination of factors responsible and they are all significant, we are confident." It's more just that things are collapsing too completely and quickly to even be able to coherently study for root cause(s).

Are you under the impression that the 1920s-era German police and colonial officers were generally friendly to the underclass?

Or, if they weren't (which is the case), that that represented a good counterargument to someone who was saying the SA represented a new type of dangerous development?