#like it makes sense but Greater Poland???

[feathers-little-nest]

I just learned that Wielkopolska in English is Greater Poland Voivodeship and that made my day

[coffeeandmagicaltales]

The Auror&The Devil part 3

The defender of Hogwarts, a fifth-year student, Morana, after prof. Fig's tragic death, becomes prof. Sharp's protégée. Potion's master is unsure of woman's future... her temper and strenght can be dangerous, but he also sees light within her.

A story born in my head, about my OC character Morana and prof. Aesop Sharp. Sorry for my english, I'm from Poland.

(Student-teacher relationship platonic (for now), mentioned trauma, mentioned death, extensive use of the word f*ck, grab some coffee/tea and enjoy)

*

Aesop closed the door behind him, and just as he suspected, when he felt that he was alone and safe, all the carefully hidden emotions flooded over him.

"You lying bastard..." he said to himself, and his body slumped lifelessly to his chamber's floor. Breathing heavily, with his face pressed against the floorboards, he analyzed the nonsense he had spoken this evening. Had he had everything under control? Had he known what he had been doing? Fuck, he had no idea what it had been all about! Back then, he had still been able to think clearly but now, shattered memories of everything Morana had said and done were chaotically swirling in his head like ash flakes over the inferno of flames. He felt incredibly tired.

He found the strength within himself to roll onto his back and propping himself up against a standing nearby chest, struggling, he got up relasing a groan of pain. He prayed to get to the armchair by the fireplace as fast as possible. Quickly, he removed his coat and jacket, carelessly throwing them on the floor, and then sank heavily into the comfortable seat.

In the pleasant, soothing silence, he could hear the crackling of the fireplace and his own breath. He rested his head in his hands and closed his eyes for a moment, trying to calm himself. He wasn't sleepy, but his body was currently incapable of making any movements, entirely lifeless.

The girl was dangerous. It didn't take a detective with years of experience as an Auror to figure that out. She didn't control her magic. She didn't control her emotions. What the hell had those "Guardians" taught her? What had Fig taught her?

With a swift motion of his wand, he summoned a glass of whiskey with ice and took a small sip. "Fucking hell..." he muttered to himself, feeling a complete disgust for anyone who had used Morana for their own purposes. How could they have? How could they have demanded such dangerous tasks from someone so young and completely inexperienced in magic, practically sending her to her death? Matilda, of course, had asked him to keep silent about Morana's magic, and not to reveal anything to those outside of Hogwarts. She had always been one to sweep everything under the rug for the "greater good," as she saw it, which was synonymous with „not bothering the then-headmaster”. She didn't understand that what was done was done, and there was no turning back, and seeking the opinions of others might shed some light on Morana's situation. Perhaps someone had heard something about her past? Maybe there was someone else who could use this kind of magic? Had someone written about it? Where did this magic come from, and why did it only appear in some people? Morana had become a vessel into which an indescribable amount of power had been poured... something long forgotten by wizardkind, more akin to dark magic, as he had heard... What if... she her life would be shorter because of it? What if it caused her pain?

He growled angrily and took another sip of whiskey.

What if the tests she had to go through failed? Why had Fig agreed to her participation, had he completely lost his mind? Aesop had always considered him a sensible man, but apparently, he was wrong. Common sense often blinded people with the glow of the "greater cause"... Oh, how many times had he seen such individuals in his life? Fixated on keeping some secret, defeating a dark wizard, or "saving the world"... These people were the first to sacrifice the lives of others without feeling any remorse or guilt... If the student were to die... they would probably wait for someone "more worthy." And so on and on.

Pure madness... If only he had known... If only Fig had told him something... He would have immediately informed his friends, who were certainly more competent in seeking the Vault than Fig. He would have forbidden him to deal with a matter beyond his knowledge; perhaps he was three decades younger than Eleazar, but he had much more experience in dealing with dark or unknown magic and all sorts of curses. He would probably have blow the portraits of the Guardians to smithereens if they had started talking to him about the "necessity of sacrificing someone's life"...

But that hadn't happen... He had to focus on what was happening here and now, and it was damn serious.

The girl was shattered- first, he had to piece her back together and let the time heal her wounds, especially those that had scarred her mind and heart. He had always been better at dealing with dark wizards than with women, secretly feeling awkward around them, even though he had once been pursued by them, considered as handsme and rich... Honestly, he didn't quite know what to do. What did girls her age like? The only thing that came to his mind was combing hair, and he immediately considered himself an idiot unsuitable for working with a young woman. How old was Morana, anyway? She neither looked nor acted fifteen.

He was slowly beginning to regain his strength, he took a big, soothing breath, and summoned letters with his wand. As he read, he mumbled the formalities about "why he had been chosen and blah blah blah." He immediately threw that envelope into the fire, feeling a twinge of satisfaction as the paper was being eaten by flames.

That's better... he thought and started opening the next letters. Of course, Matilda knew that he might not want to keep Morana's magic a secret, so she had included a "how important it is to keep silence outside of the school" in a letter, which also ended up in the fireplace. A satisfied growl escaped his chest, and he twisted his lips into a sardonic smile. Next in line was a letter from the headmaster; he didn't even bother opening it, just tossing it into the flames. The last two were about his new duties (which he sent onto his desk, saving for later), and an information about the student. He took a deep breath and started reading. As he unfolded the parchment, he could see that there was pitifully little data.

Student's name: Morana Dimm. Place of birth: Austro-Hungarian Empire. Citizenship: UK. Date of birth: 01/01/1875 (established according to Document I in the attachment). Mother's name: unknown. Father's name: unknown. Legal guardians: Lyra Anastasia Dimm, Marcus Francis Dimm. Eye color: blue. Hair color: black. Distinguishing features: scar on the left cheek. Additional information: First recorded in 1875 between January 1st and 2nd at the St. Francis of Assisi Orphanage near Nitra (translated excerpt from the orphanage in the attachment). She was subsequently moved to Brno (April 12th, 1878), Klagenfurt (October 23rd, 1879), and Vienna (March 10th, 1880). The adoption took place on May 19th, 1880, and was concluded between the headmaster of the St. Sebastian Orphanage in Vienna, Father Julus David Horst, and Marcus Francis Dimm (translated excerpt from the orphanage in the attachment).

That was all. Aesop sighed in disappointment. Well, as he suspected, Morana is probably already of age. From the beginning, something didn't sit right with him, and at first glance, he saw that she stood out from her peers in appearance and maturity... A tough childhood. He felt a pang of injustice that some children, like he had once been, were chubby babies showered with kisses by their parents, while others didn't even have a birth date. Sorrow tightened his throat, and he wasn't sure if he wanted to read the documents from the first orphanage. He reluctantly took another piece of paper from the envelope.

Night of January 1st/2nd, 1875. The girl found alone in the woods by the local forester Jan Skubany, she claims she doesn't know where she comes from, freezing, dressed in a dress unsuitable for the season. Introduces herself as Morana, doesn't know her last name. Age unknown, speaks fluently, can read, knows many rhymes, lost baby teeth, has a terrible scar on her left cheek. Given soup, warmed up.

March 2nd, 1875. Morana gets into another fight with her peers, one child pricked with something sharp, a non-serious wound. Girl transferred to isolation. So far, no one has reported her missing or picked her up.

May 20th, 1875. Morana transferred to isolation. Fight with children. Children complain that she, as a punishment, frightened them with "charms." Punished, she claims the children destroyed a crow's nest she was taking care of and wanted to get revenge on them by summoning spirits.

June 1st, 1875. Morana colored a classmate's hair green. Accused of stealing paint, she swears she didn't do anything like that, and Adelaida's hair changed color "on its own." As a punishment, she was told to kneel on bags of peas.

"Well, well... A bit of a trouble, are you?," Aesop said to himself, smiling warmly, appreciating the girl's „character”. The following entries concerned her escapes, punishments, listing the schools she attended in Europe and finally- England, and at the end, there was "Hogwarts."

The girl had to learn to control herself. He didn't mean to suppress the emotions that had given him trouble that evening, but to find an alternative for her that would direct her magic in the right direction.

This evening had ben tough. He had been genuinely scared of her behavior, but...

His thoughts returned to the moment when Morana had thrown herself into his arms. It had felt strange, awkward because no one had behaved that way towards him in many years, especially no student... Mirabel and Abraham would have certainly handled such a situation better... He secretly hoped that something like that wouldn't happen again because he had no desire to hug anyone anymore EVER... Morana, on the other hand... She was so full of sensitivity and compassion... Then, when she had walked past him... smiling, being so fond of him, looking at him with such kindness... He had felt awkward, but also... content? Well, that had made him feel... quite happy actually. Hmm, from the very beginning, Morana had seemed to perceive him differently. Oh well, she was new, and she still didn't know him THAT well as others ... Or maybe because she could see in him what he was afraid to show anyone. Tenderness, which he had used to hide in the depths of his soul. Once he had left his chambers, he had been immediately burrying it under sarcasm, sharp retorts, indifference... and the stern expression on his face, had been supposed to be the culmination of the fortress guarding his fear of someone hurting his feelings, making him vulnerable...

...And then she had appeared. When new students had seen him for the first time, they stared at his scar, observed how he moved and whispered to each other... Dimm had listened to what he said while entering the classroom, without passing judgment on him. Nobody had dared to ask him a single question about his life for five years of his work at Hogwarts... and she had done it the first time she had seen him... Merlin... Sometimes he didn't know why he had responded to her, but he had felt that she had no ill intentions, and maybe that's what had convinced him to speak more than usual. To open up more... She had been simply curious, and curiosity should be praised, not punished. Of course, he had pretended to be busy and indifferent, but those tricks hadn't work on her, and she boldly stood her ground.

He doubted she liked his classes because only after they ended, she would relax. His presence must have stressed her out. He felt a bit sorry for her and others; maybe he was indeed a bit too harsh at times. He decided to soften up a bit, but only a bit, fearing the chaos that could engulf his lessons, even the ones without young Mr. Wesley... Aesop's stomach turned at the mere thought of Matilda's relative. It was good that Morana had confessed to helping him at that time - it had been wise on her part and quite courageous, to be honest. Therefore, without telling her directly, he had allowed her to keep the stolen feather. The poor girl had such a sad expression. She had probably thought she had been helping a new friend and that it would lead to friendship. However, Garreth, like every egoist, only used others for his own purposes. Then he had heard her tell him that she had no intention of being part of his "experiments." Sharp hadn't had such a good time in a while, listening to someone challenge his biggest annoyance among the students. Hmm... He was amazed that it feels like it had been ages ago, and it had been only a few months since then.

This evening, when he had taken advantage of the rare opportunity to closely examine Morana's freckled face, he looked into her eyes and tried to read something from them. This method had always worked, whether he had been interrogating dark wizards or talking to annoying students... or women.

In his mind, there were many concerns about the young lady, for even though her clear, watery blue eyes had a wise and pure, dimond-like look, they concealed many secrets, and black magic was not unfamiliar to her. But she had never used it to achieve her own goals. He had seen that clearly; she didn't want to harm anyone, just help, often walking the fine line between good and evil. Maybe there was a ray of hope...

It bothered him that everyone had placed such a responsibility on his shoulders. During monthly meetings, everyone had loved to show off and had stood their ground, and Aesop had often fallen asleep knowing there had been no point in speaking up because he wouldn't have been heard. But when it had come down to dealing with any issue, everyone had immediately rushed to him for help or advice, which had annoyed him because he ALWAYS had to fix other people's mistakes.

"Morana," he said to himself softly. "What kind of name is that, anyway?"

He could only associate it with the Celtic "Morrigan," but everything related to the East was rather unfamiliar to him. He didn't know when, but he got up and found himself at the door, putting on his jacket. It was the middle of the night, true, but he knew he wouldn't sleep anyway, and tomorrow was Saturday, so he could sleep until noon, wrapped in his favorite blanket.

His steps echoed in the empty corridors. Out of the corner of his eye he noticed the house-elf of the headmaster polishing one of his million statues scattered throughout the school.

"Excuse me, Scrope? Can I take a moment of your time?" he asked very quietly. "Yes, Professor Sharp, Scrope has just finished his work." Sharp nodded and hesitated for a split second, wondering if he had made the right decision. "Um, do you happen to know Miss Morana Dimm?" "Oh, of course!" Scrope seemed to come to life. "Miss Morana is always so kind to Scrope, she has helped him many times." Sharp smiled, inside of his soul, of course, pleased with what he heard. "Could you check if... she is in the dormitory and doesn't need anything?... She had a tough day..." "Does Scrope have to find you later, or will a note be enough, Professor?" "A note will suffice, Scrope. Don't trouble yourself. I still have something to take care of..." "Of course!" Scrope snapped his fingers and disappeared.

In the library, the only sound was the quiet snoring of the portraits. Sharp cautiously took his steps to avoid waking anyone and making noise, promising himself that if he met Peeves, he would happily cast a silencing spell on him, or even better, one that would transport his spirit arse to the moon.

Mrs. Scribner tirelessly patrolled the area. Oh, how she got on his nerves, always accusing him of bending the spines of her invaluable manuscripts and disturbing her work when he was flipping through the books looking for a cure after hours. Supposedly, according to the Old Hag, he was doing it "too loudly."

"Oh, Professor Sharp," she grumbled, looking at him over her glasses. "Roaming around at night again, I see? Just like this unhinged nightmare of a student- Sallow... or his new partner in crime- a devil in human skin, Dimm..."

"I'm looking for a book on Slavic names," he muttered through clenched teeth, secretly content that somebody was making this Old Crow's life miserable.

Mrs. Scribner adjusted her glasses.

"Well, an unusual choice for you, sir..."

"Which shelf?" he interrupted, and their mutual aversion seemed to emit sparks. Scribner waved her wand, and several books fell from the top floor onto one of the desks.

"Don't want to strain yourself with all these stairs, do you, Professor?"

Sharp ignored her and took his seat, picking up a random book and opening it to a random page.

His eyes were immediately greeted by an engraving depicting a beautiful and terrifying woman. Her skin was as white as snow, her hair as black as ash, and her wild eyes were wide open, filled with madness. Surrounded by billowing storm clouds and flocks of ravens, she floated above fields of grain. To her right, they were devoured by hail and fire, and to her left, they were gently caressed by a mild wind, nurished her love and protection.

Morana, Marzanna, Mara, Morena – an ancient, powerful goddess of destruction, death, winter, and rebirth. Her name meens "death" or (less likely) "dreams."

"Well, well...," Sharp muttered to himself, and he felt an adrenaline rush, a feeling he hadn't experienced in a long time, last felt when he and his partner took on another challenge. He realized how much he missed that feeling and how excited he had become to start working with Morana, to find out how her story would end. The woman was an enigma, although she was probably not entirely aware of it.

Suddenly a small note appeared on the top of the books.

Miss Dimm cried a little bit, Scrope comfoted her, then she drank some tea Scrope had made, and now she calmly sleeps. Regards, Scrope

Goblin attacks, ancient magic, and now her– deviless who walked the thin line between darkness and light... Maybe working at Hogwarts wasn't so dull after all?

End of Part 3 Thanks for reading <3

[gryficowa]

My mother bought Kinder and Mentos, eh… Generation X/PRL

I can't even be angry with her because she tries (Compared to others from this generation), her understanding: Bought in a Polish store and with Polish packaging = Does not support these companies

In her times, there were empty boxes and cards, and the products were from Poland, because they rarely came from abroad (For an obvious reason)

She hates Israel for what he is doing, and this is still unusual for her generation, especially Poles, without hating Jews or supporting Israel (Or classic ignorance), maybe Generation X in the USA and UK looks different (Because of different experiences), because he has a greater understanding of the world and prefers to be ignorant, my mother is from the generation of the Polish People's Republic, the same dates as the rest of Generation X, but not the same experiences from the same generation

I just appreciate her openness to many things (She uses technology when the rest of her generation doesn't even try to learn it) and she may not understand everything, but she tries, and that's the most important thing, especially in these times

So it's a bit strange to see her generation from the USA or other countries claiming that they are better than others, honestly, it's damn strange

But coming back, I can't be angry about it, because she tries to understand and, as I mentioned, she doesn't like Israel for what she's doing, and that's still a lot for her generation, especially the one that grew up in the times of the Polish People's Republic, where the mentality was different than in other countries. countries because of everything that was happening at that time, her family were farmers, which was typical for Kashubians, there was nothing in the shops, and everything was on pieces of paper and often it was less than what was needed, in her times learning German and Russian was obligatory

This is all different from Gen Xers in other countries, so it makes sense that they understand everything differently

I just can't be angry with her for not understanding it all like I do, it's human not to understand something, she's just a person from times that were difficult, it's worse with my sister from the Y generation, who considers it all stupidity (Because nothing can be done) and complains all day long about everything

So I see the differences in approaches, which makes me appreciate my mother's efforts to understand it all even more

I may feel guilty for constantly failing during the boycott, yes it will overwhelm me, but it's human that we can't control everything, but the most important thing is that we try when others don't even try, the most important thing is to boycott as much as possible, and we won't always be able to do it 100%

We should do everything we can, even if our head tells us that it is not enough, the truth is that sometimes we simply cannot give more, because it is human to have limits, the very fact that it is a challenge and we are able to meet it to cope with it is extraordinary, because many people died at the very beginning

For those who got here, click for Palestine:

[happy-ramm]

Hi!

First of all: Thank you very much, I really appreciate all of your input on the current rammstein situation and I’d totally say I agree!

The situation is fucked.

I just want to add some of my thoughts about all of this, if that’s ok:

Let’s start with: I hate it here.

I hate what this debate does to the bigger image of the band: they are in the process of becoming a tool to express hate towards women and the general idea of feminism. There are misogynists, fans of this red pill ideology ‘defending’ Till by simply calling the women who came forward with allegations slurs. And there are fanaccounts sharing these videos like “go watch it, big recommendation” … you’re like ten seconds in and the dude in the video calls a woman “bitch”/“hoe” because he has ‘evidence’ that she might be lying? Shut up, Sherlock and maybe let some professional investigator do their job?

Who do they think they’re helping with that? It’s ridiculous, really embarrassing and not helpful at all imho.

This antifa-incident now also gives a lot of rather right winged people (Nazis lol) the opportunity to slide in the comment section of posts about it and spread hate of the political left as a whole and force their ideas of “the lefts being the new facists” on everyone. This connection is also very nice for all those journalists out there who love discussing rammstein as nazis! And also veeeery nice for the current political situation in Germany! much wow. I’m so done. (Also quick advice to all the activists out there: if you feel like vandalism, maybe rather write ‘no stage for Nazis’ on some buildings that are owned by ‘Alternative für Deutschland’?)

(These right winged accounts also really often show their homophobia - which I find quite ironic given the fact that rammstein eg waved pride flags in poland and their guitarists kissing on stage like every concert now but ok)

Id def consider myself somewhere on the spectrum of the political left and I also think that one can (and should) read rammsteins appearance in their political songs in this context.

My point being: there are now a lot of people interested in rammstein who seem to actually have nothing in common with their world view? It just makes me really uncomfortable and I hope that once this is over they’ll loose their interest in the band again.

I’ve been to three rammstein concerts and one of Lindemanns shows - until now everything was ok and we met some nice people. (Even tho the Lindemann Show was a rather weird, unique experience in general but that’s sth different) .. all in all I’d say my (female passing) friends and I were having a good time and everything was ok.

But with all of this, with the chance that the amount of these kinds of really bad people being interested in rammstein and as a result maybe also attending the concerts is growing - I might be afraid of going to another one (if there will be another tour?) and no, not because of Till Lindemann.

Sorry for the late repsonse Anon! I was moving house!

In general, though, I share a lot of your concerns. Situations such as this one are tricky because what is ultimately the dealings between two people and their own feelings/experiences of the matter gets submitted to the greater public for their judgement. Politics, laws, personal morals and agendas all get dumped in one big pot to boil over and eventually fester. It is all very confusing...and then out pops something nasty. In this case, the misogynistic right wing.

Frankly, I am not surprised that the right-wing has found a little nest within the Rammstein fandom. I do not say that because I believe Rammstein harbours any sympathies with that ideology - I like you firmly believe them to be a left-leaning band - but simply because people's media literacy skills are in general....ah, how to say this politely?....ah yes, they are fuckin' shit.

Rammstein is a band that rewards those willing to look deeper; those who love satire and those who simply have a good sense of humour. Unfortunately, they also appeal to those who really like when things go BANG.

Now, I also like when things go bang, don't get me wrong - pure sensation can never be underrated in terms of art. However, its a matter of aesthetics versus text. A reasonable person would conclude that these can't be separated: their interaction, whether it be complimentary or contrasting, creates the meaning. In the case of Rammstein, however, there exists a neat line, formed due to the language barrier between the band and the general audience.

This barrier has benefitted Rammstein - I believe they would not have gotten so far if their content was in English, for instance, but it means there are too many who only see "the picture".

The hardness. The hypermasculinity. The violence. The sexual imagery. The stoicism. The evocation of fascism. And all without the crucial framing of the lyrics.

Even when the satire should be self-evident, many miss the cue. Take Links 234 as an example: a song which functions as a politically rally for the left, specifically against the right, and was constructed in response to a reactionary media who sought controversy and not understanding, has ended up as a right-wing marching song in many minds.

It is very frustrating

Even more frustrating is deciding how to deal with this....

Argue with every idiot you see on the internet? Now, that's a Sisyphean task.

Leave the fandom altogether? Well, that feels like a different kind of defeat.

Realistically speaking, there is no silver bullet. One decides what is best for themselves. Personally, I feel no fear participating in the fandom as a queer AFAB person. Reality is different from the online spaces and I have never felt uncomfortable at their concerts, and when online, the block button is a blessing. I have no idea how this recent controversy is going to change the demographic of the Rammstein fandom, but I know I ain't going to fuckin budge to leave space for some Nazi twat. All I can say is, I hope this situation is resolved quickly, and I hope all Nazis die in a fuckin' fire.

That is all.

[workersolidarity]

Just a warning now, something I've seen coming for a while now, don't be surprised if some time this winter or spring we see a complete collapse, Afghanistan style, of the Ukrainian Armed Forces.

The writing has been on the wall for a while now, pretty much ever since the UAF didn't make a major puncture, or any puncture for that matter, through any of the main Russian lines of defense in the first few days of the Offensive anywhere on the frontlines where they attacked.

It doesn't matter that they seem poised to secure with infantry a small section of trenches Northwest of Verbove, East of Robotyne that does in fact bypass the first line of defense because Ukraine no longer has the offensive potential to exploit it.

And now with Poland ending weapons shipments to Ukraine, the US clearly looking for a way out, and Russian Forces looking poised to launch a missile offensive, pretty much ending any ideas Zelensky may have had at compensating for the loss of Polish supplies with domestic production.

What domestic production? The Russians have grinded out of existence Ukraine's domestic productive capacity.

Long story short, they don't have the productive capacity, the manpower, the munitions, the ammunition, or the logistics to continue this fight alone.

Yet, the Ukrainian leadership went so far as having a law passed that preemptively prevents Zelensky from negotiating with the Russians as long as Putin is the President and as long as they have their Forces occupying any Ukrainian territory based on their 1991 borders.

So you have a regime that cannot continue the fight alone, cannot negotiate, and has now lost over 300'000 men, with many times more severely wounded, millions of refugees have fled the country, their infrastructure and production is decimated, and its allies are backing out.

So again, I'm going to say it now.

Don't be surprised if we see a complete, Afghanistan-style collapse of the Ukrainian Armed Forces sometime this winter or spring or whenever.

I'm not trying to say I know exactly what's going to happen, no one does and anyone who says they do about any war, is thoroughly full of shit.

What I am saying, is don't be surprised if it happens.

All the conditions are there. For some, though not all, of the same reasons.

There are some differences, Ukraine had a much stronger military it started this war with, but the inevitable crush of Russian Forces grinding forward, learning from their mistakes, honing their skills, all the while Ukraine was spending its best forces on losing battles.

The saying, "pick your battles" doesn't exist for no reason.

Ukraine chose poorly, by defending every inch of land, spending endless lives, weapons systems, and ammunition on battles they knew they couldn't win, like Bakhmut, and the Kharkiv and Kherson Offensives. Both of which were a pointless waste of lives spent on taking tiny farm villages instead of building the kind of Defenses the Russians did in Zaporizhzhia and Donetsk.

Had Ukraine's leadership chosen to defend land they knew they could, instead wasting Military capabilities and lives on a pointless and exceedingly costly offensive, they wouldn't be in this position today.

And then they did it again! And this time never even broke through a single main line of defense in nearly 4 months, at the cost of more than 70'000 Ukrainian lives.

The insanity of these policies speak for themselves. They don't even make any sense from a strategic, or even tactical point of view. It's just plain stupidity. Any idiot can make these observations.

I haven't even mentioned the simple fact that Russia is, and always was going to be a MUCH MUCH bigger country, with a much much greater productive capacity, and a population pool many many times greater to draw its conscripts from.

And now the Ukrainians are likely going to face collapse. All because they chose to listen to whispers of those who would make them heroes in the eyes of the Western media, at the cost of the country they claim to represent and love.

Love, even as they run 24/7 war propaganda on tv with no other stations allowed, they refuse to hold elections next year, and are in fact extorting the US for billions more dollars before Zelensky will hold any kind of elections, they raid churches, arrest priests, journalists and political dissenters, the ones they don't assassinate and then brag about.

And to add to all this, Zelensky will never ever ever ever again get the kind of weapons or men to launch an offensive of the kind he just fought.

The Ukrainian Armed Forces Offensive capabilities are essentially no more. Gone. Completely and utterly decimated. Tens of thousands of men, gone. All for roughly about 8-12km of gains, depending on where you're measuring.

They've also lost about an equal amount of territory in the Kupiansk direction, so there REALLY was no point in these 70'000 deaths.

Think about that.

This has to stop, but I'm afraid it may be way too late for Ukraine to come to its senses in time. And I don't think the Russians feel like talking anymore.

That's why I expect a collapse.

[campnorthstarmaineme]

best summer camps near me

Title: "Unplugged Adventures: The Transformative Power of best summer camps near me

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But perhaps the most enduring legacy of summer camp is the friendships formed amidst the backdrop of nature. Campers come from all walks of life, bringing with them a diversity of backgrounds, experiences, and perspectives. In the inclusive and supportive environment of camp, lifelong bonds are forged around campfires, on hiking trails, and during late-night conversations in bunk beds. These friendships transcend the boundaries of geography and time, providing a sense of belonging that lasts long after the final campfire has burned out.

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[tomsquitieri]

Estonia Makes It Clear: Putin Is Winning

TALLINN, Estonia — There is no mystery to Estonians as to what Russian President Vladimir Putin’s plan is to win in Ukraine nor what he plans to do next, in the Baltics, as he waits out a battle of attrition that they say is in his favor.

They know because, among other things, their grandparents told them.

“Seeing those, those butchers, deportations of kids, mass graves, executions, all these things, you know, these, until recently, these were stories from our grandparents, and now they are being relived, again,” Kristjan Mäe, head of the Estonian Ministry of Defense’s NATO and EU department, said.

“Except this time, these are televised on social media and so forth. So in that sense, it's just not an assumption. It's me as an Estonian citizen, really wanting Ukraine to win this war, knowing the cost if Ukraine will not win this war,” he said.

Mäe said if Russia is not defeated — not just stopped — in Ukraine, it is only a matter of time before Putin strikes the Baltic nations and elsewhere. Estonia borders Russia.

His superiors agree.

Estonian Prime Minister Kaja Kallas told the Munich Security Conference that no Russian crime against Ukraine and its people must go unpunished, and no Russian leader be immune from responsibility. “So that history does not repeat itself, we need to prosecute the crime of aggression,” she said.

The defense minister, Hanno Pevkur, said Russia will be in for a surprise if it continues its efforts and that “It’s not too late and it is never too late” to send more weapons and support to Ukraine.

“Don’t play with us,” Pevkur said during a news conference here with Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin. “When there’s a hope, and when there’s a last man standing, there is, there is a chance to win this war. As long as we international allies, international partners of Ukraine, can deliver them what they need.”

For his part, Austin provided reassurance in words to match U.S weapons and personnel flow to Estonia.

Responding to an Estonian reporter, Austin recounted his pre-invasion pledge to Pevkur: “I told him that if Russia invaded Ukraine, we would deploy forces to Estonia the next day. And we did. We were the first to be here. And we meant every word we said, and we’ll live up to our commitments going forward,” Austin said.

Yet Mäe and other Estonian officials fret that no one beyond those in the Baltics and possibly Poland grasp how Putin really is and how he operates.

“Putin does not recognize the border of the Baltic States as an internationally recognized border,” Mäe said. “He calls that the contact line.”

“Our concern is that Russia feels very comfortable with the war of attrition. They can outlast the relative cost for them,” he said during a 45-minute interview. “I don't think we are currently winning this war.”

Mäe projected that the upcoming fighting “will be intense, bloody, but they might still not lead to the strategic breakthrough, that perhaps we would like to see.

“But that attrition war will not end in three months time, six months time. So it’s a battle of narratives, but it’s a battle of strategies as well. Today, we are not changing the calculation, the tank brigades, additional air defense systems and missiles are not changing the calculation,” he said.

“Fundamentally, Russia has won this war, because they have moved closer to their strategic objectives. And their objective is to undermine the international order."

The Estonians, like Baltic neighbors Latvia and Lithuania, are among the fiercest advocates for more assistance to Ukraine and are among the loudest in warning about Putin’s greater intentions and how he chooses to conduct warfare.

Estonia was taken over by the Nazis in World War Two and subjected to a brutal occupation. Some of the government officials who were slain have their names on a plaque at the entrance to Stenbock House, where Austin had a meeting with Kallas.

Soviet troops drove out the Nazis only to impose a higher grip of subjugation, forcing Estonia into part of the U.S.S.R. Thousands of Estonians were slain, tortured, deported, disappeared, and imprisoned during the Soviet rule.

Both occupations explain why Estonians have been unceasing in their forceful admonitions that more and more is needed to help Ukraine now — or else.

Mäe and other Estonian officials point to the Minsk ceasefire agreement signed after Putin illegally annexed the Black Sea peninsula of Crimea in southern Ukraine in 2014 as a reminder. In subsequent years, Putin enhanced pro-Russia separatist operatives in several eastern Ukrainian cities and in parts of Georgia, Latvia, Moldova, and Estonia— showing how he is fine with using stagnation in conflicts as steps toward his larger goals, they say.

“That's that's the concern, we, we're making it easier for him, if we send these messages, he doesn't have the necessary kind of pressure within the system,” Mäe said.

Mäe noted that economic sanctions have not put much pressure on Putin. “So we need to ratchet it up,” he said. “So kind of simplistically speaking, we need some sort of an economic spring offensive as well.”

Estonia is spending 1.1 percent of its GDP, the most among all nations, in support of Ukraine. It has also welcomed roughly 60,000 refugees.

“We have never done it in our, in our past, or in the 30 years. And it’s not like Ukrainians have been tremendously close to Estonians,” Mäe said. Instead, it is “because the majority of Estonians understand the importance of this war, and the outcome of this war.”

He notes that others in the world — especially China as it hungrily eyes Taiwan — are watching to see if NATO and the west convincing deals with Putin.

“We are punishing Russia. But it's not changing course,” Mäe said. “We can change the course.”

[ultrajaphunter]

https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2022/07/24/ukriane-himars-russia-us/

Ukraine wants more ‘game-changer’ HIMARS. The U.S. says it’s complicated.

The agile, precision-launch rocket systems are helping Ukraine fend off Russian artillery attacks in the east

By

Isabelle Khurshudyan

,

Karen DeYoung

,

Alex Horton

and

Karoun Demirjian

Updated July 24, 2022 at 2:45 a.m. EDT|Published July 24, 2022 at 2:41 a.m. EDT

NEAR IZYUM, Ukraine — If only they had more, and more sophisticated, weapons from the West, Ukrainian officials often tell their American counterparts and anyone else who will listen, they could make short work of Russian invaders. Last month’s arrival of the first of what are now a dozen U.S. multiple-launch precision rocket systems, known as HIMARS, has already been a game changer, soldiers here said this week.

Since a recent HIMARS strike on an enemy ammunition depot in Izyum, located southeast of Ukraine’s second-largest city Kharkiv, Russian shelling has been “10 times less” than before, said Bohdan Dmytruk, a battalion commander in Ukraine’s 93rd Mechanized Brigade.

Yet the Biden administration has parceled out the rocket systems slowly, watching how the Ukrainians handle them — and how the Russians respond. To fighters on the ground, that makes little sense at a crucial moment in the war.

In his battalion alone, Dmytruk said, the number of killed and injured has fallen dramatically compared to when his soldiers moved to this part of the front line three months ago. “We have about one guy suffer a concussion every week now. Before the HIMARS hit, it was about two to three a day because of the intensity of the shelling.”

Dmytruk and soldiers in the area attributed the drop-off in what was near-constant bombardment to the Russians’ need to conserve shells after the depot was destroyed, and their fear that firing their own artillery will alert the far more accurate and agile HIMARS to their positions.

“They have no idea where it is,” Dmytruk said of the wheeled launch vehicle and its four-man crew, which can fire and drive away at up to 60 miles per hour within two minutes. Already, he said, the Russians are likely adjusting to the new weapons by moving their supplies deeper into Russian-held territory beyond the 50-mile HIMAR range.

BELARUS

RUSSIA

Chernihiv

Lysychansk

Sumy

POLAND

Kharkiv

Kyiv

Lviv

Izyum

Slovyansk

UKRAINE

Separatist-controlled area since 2014

Dnipro

Mariupol

Russian-held areas and troop movement

Mykolaiv

Kherson

ROMANIA

Sea of Azov

Odessa

Crimea Annexed by Russia in 2014

Black Sea Control areas as of July 22

100 MILES 

The administration announced Friday that it would send four additional HIMARS — High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems — to Ukraine, bringing the total to 16. Britain and Germany also have each sent or pledged three similar multiple-launch long-range systems. But the Ukrainians and some other close observers of the conflict say the need is far greater and immediate.

Ukrainian government and military officials have said at various times that they need dozens, hundreds or even thousands of HIMARS. “For an effective counteroffensive, we need at least 100,” with longer-range munition than what has been supplied, Ukrainian Defense Minister Oleksii Reznikov said Tuesday in a video appearance at the Washington-based Atlantic Council. “That would be a game changer.”

Russian missiles strike port of Odessa, a day after grain deal

The provision of security assistance to Ukraine has become a massive operation, involving more than 50 countries. The United States leads the effort, with the most money spent and weapons sent — $8.2 billion worth since the beginning of the administration, with billions more expected — although others have collectively provided billions worth of light and heavy military equipment. To Washington, confronting Russia with a large and united global front is worth the occasional headaches of coordinating donations from around the world, ensuring equipment is in working order and matches needs on the ground, and seeing that it gets to the right place inside Ukraine.

The nerve center of the operation is a large, secure room at the U.S. European Command in Stuttgart, Germany. Cables taped along the floor and folding tables lined with laptops gave it a makeshift atmosphere during a reporter’s recent visit, with a World War II allied vibe as uniformed officers from many countries traded documents, pointed at screens filled with lists and graphs, and consulted on telephones in various languages. The to-do list is complex. Norwegian tanks have needed new barrels to match donated ammunition from somewhere else. Aging Spanish tanks, made in Germany, required refurbishment after years in storage. Shells and spare parts for Ukraine’s own Soviet-era artillery are being solicited from other former U.S.S.R. states. There are logistics routes to be plotted and, always, new Ukrainian requests to consider.

Most attention has focused on big-ticket items that only the United States and a few of its NATO allies have been able or willing to provide. From antitank weapons to air defense to howitzers and now HIMARS, each escalation has required consideration by individual governments of what is possible and advisable.

For some critics, and many Ukrainians, the steps in that process do not always match the urgency of the situation, especially as Russia has said it plans to annex parts of occupied southern Ukraine and made slow but steady progress expanding its hold on the east.

Some argue the objective should be to put Ukraine in a better position for cease-fire negotiations to keep Russia from conquering more territory. Others say the goal of the ally-provided aid, now that the Ukrainians have shown their fighting mettle, should be arming them for a counteroffensive to push the Russians back across their own border.

“There’s a window of opportunity that’s narrowing rather rapidly to change the trajectory of this war. But right now, I just don’t hear the urgency to do so,” said Alina Polyakova, president and chief executive of the Center for European Policy Analysis. She defined that window as within the next four to six months.

Fleeing war, Ukrainians find open arms but a closed border

U.S. and allied incrementalism — the measured provision of more and better equipment after, instead of before, Russians have advanced in a particular battlespace — will make it ever-harder to dislodge established Russian facts on the ground, Polyakova and others said.

U.S. administration and military officials have said that one of their top concerns is not provoking Russia into a direct conflict with NATO, even as Ukraine points out that Russia invaded their country without provocation. The range of the ammunition the United States is providing for the HIMARS will not reach across the occupied east to Russia itself from Ukrainian front lines, but it allows what Gen. Mark A. Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, speaking at a Wednesday news conference with Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, called an “echelon of fires,” with shorter-range weapons, across various distances.

At the same time, Austin indicated, such sophisticated weapons don’t just come out of the box ready to use. So far, he said, 200 Ukrainians have been trained outside the country on using and maintaining the HIMARS.

“It’s not good enough just to provide a piece of equipment,” Austin said. “We need to have that piece of gear plus spare parts, plus tools to repair it.”

The HIMARS have been used to destroy Russian command posts, ammunition depots and other logistics hubs. In the southern region of Kherson, an area occupied by Russia since the first days of the war, recent strikes have targeted Antonovskiy Bridge, a key supply route that connects the Crimean Peninsula, where Russia has a military base, to their troops in Kherson.

The HIMARS have been so effective that Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu has ordered commanders to prioritize them for targeting. Moscow is hoping to use drones — likely bought from Iran, according to U.S. officials — to find and destroy the HIMARS. Russia has already claimed to have hit at least four of the weapons systems.

But “we haven’t lost a single HIMARS, despite what the Russians have claimed,” Kyrylo Budanov, Ukraine’s military intelligence chief, said in an interview.

Ukraine's farmers have become the latest target of Russian missiles

The HIMARS can also fire a munition called the Army Tactical Missile System (ATACMS) with a range of nearly 186 miles, nearly quadruple what they are now supplied with, but the Pentagon has withheld those out of concern the missiles might land in Russia itself. The restriction has frustrated Ukrainian officials, who described it as paternalistic.

In a battle now largely conducted with artillery at distances where troops of opposite sides rarely see each other, the longer-range missiles would also allow Ukrainian forces to move their HIMARS further back from the front lines, better insulating them from enemy detection.

“The sooner we receive them, the more lives of our soldiers we will save, and the sooner we will start the counteroffensive operation,” Yehor Cherniev, a member of the Ukrainian parliament, said in a statement. “It is unfortunate that we have to spend weeks and months to convince our partners.”

In late May, as the decision to provide HIMARS was being made, President Biden told reporters that “we’re not going to send to Ukraine rocket systems that can strike into Russia.” At the news conference, Austin and Milley sidestepped questions about whether the Pentagon would supply the ATACMS. “We think what they’re working with [now] is giving them a lot of capability,” Milley said.

The Americans have said they want to see how the Ukrainians use and absorb particular capabilities into their arsenal before they send more advanced weaponry, even if potential delays cost lives.

From Ukraine’s perspective, that decision process is “like in a computer game,” Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba said in an interview. “You have to unlock the next level, but before you do it, you usually die a couple of times. The problem with real life is that you can’t die multiple times before you get to the next level.”

How Russia is laying the groundwork for its annexation of Ukraine

Another potential U.S. concern is the availability of the weapons themselves. There are likely between 1,000 and 3,000 ATACMS in U.S. stocks, said Chris Dougherty, a senior defense fellow at the Center for a New American Security. They’re the oldest missiles in Army inventory, according to the service, and are periodically tested to ensure viability. The replacement munition, which can fire even further, is not yet in production.

The Defense Department said in 2020 that the United States had a supply of 410 HIMARS, but the Pentagon declined to produce a current figure. Stockpiles are “internal to DoD,” said spokesperson Jessica Maxwell.

Budanov, Ukraine’s military intelligence chief, said the longest-range system currently in his country’s arsenal is the Tochka-U, a Soviet-era system with a maximum distance of about 75 miles, and “very few of them are left.”

But for now, he said, they have the HIMARS. “We’ll fight with these,” he said. “If we get the longer-range [munitions], we’ll use those. And the Russians know that either way, it’s the end for them with these weapons.”

DeYoung, Horton and Demirjian reported from Washington. Dan Lamothe contributed to this report.

[tanadrin]

Off topic but do you have any thoughts on how you predict trans liberation playing out in the future (and how to stay sane in the mean time)? Should we ignore or try to deradicalize people spreading deliberate ignorance and misinformation like terfs, Nazis, fundis, etc?

I think as with any struggle for civil rights and social acceptance, you muddle through and things continually get better; but there's always room for improvement. And there's no inevitable arc to these things; the way things are going in the UK, it's possible (not especially likely, but certainly possible) that you could see a reactionary anti-trans backlash the equal of anything in Poland or Russia sometime in the next couple of decades. You already kind of have one in progress with the anti-HRT/puberty blocker laws passed in some US states--while those are contested, states pretty clearly have the right to pass those laws in the same way that more progressive states have a right to pass anti-conversion-therapy laws, unless and until a Roe-style decision prevents them. And there are plenty of places in the world where trans rights, along with more general kinds of LGBT rights, are just a total non-starter, and will be probably for the rest of our lifetimes.

Berlin provides a useful example: in the 1920s, it had a rich queer culture, and with the rise of the Nazis in the 30s there was a long, bleak winter that seemed to last basically until West Berlin, due to its unique status under international law, became a haven for young people dodging conscription in West Germany, and the city began to rebuild its countercultural credentials. If you were alive here in the 30s and 40s, it would have felt like the end of the world; in the 60s and 70s, like a dark episode in a complicated history; in the 2000s, perhaps like a momentary lapse in the natural progression of society becoming ever more tolerant; but in the future, who knows?

The lesson to me is that while you can and should care about the bigger picture, you can't let anxiety about the bigger picture prevent you from living your life now, nor fears (nor hopes) about what might eventually happen putting off what happiness you can seize for yourself today. It is possible to become too invested in the big picture, to the point where anger about politics (and climate change, and everything else going on in the world) leads you to overlook already present possibilities of fulfillment in your life right now. I don't want to blow rainbows up anybody's ass here; there are people stuck in genuinely awful situations, their personal equivalent of Berlin under siege, with the Gestapo still arresting gay people even as the Red Army closed in and the city starved. But if that's you, your goal isn't systemic political change, or convincing your enemies to see your point of view, it's to survive--a month, a year, however long it takes until the spring.

As for convincing people: that's not really the goal. By which I mean, convincing specific individuals is an extremely hard problem, and not usually worth the effort. You will likely never convince the diehard transphobe or religiously-motivated bigot, and the greater population of fencesitters and soft transphobes that it is important to sway from a political coalition-building perspective are only useful if you can persuade them in large numbers. That's a quite slow process, at least at first, but thankfully, it's far from futile. LGBT people have an advantage that other groups seeking civil rights don't: they're randomly distributed throughout the population, and often invisible unless and until they come out. To put it mildly, few white segregationists in the 60s would have had to reckon with learning by surprise that someone they loved was black and having to square their racism with their personal relationships. But by and large the dominant form of political change on (for example) gay rights seems to have come from people discovering that 1) homosexuality is actually very common, and 2) they likely know and love someone who is gay. That's not a silver bullet for homophobia, but boy is it persuasive!

Which makes sense, given the affective nature of politics. And of course it's a situational advantage; you don't come out in a place where it would be suicide even if it might actually convince some marginal homophobes to rethink their homophobia. That's why progress on gay rights was so slow for so long. This isn't a categorical imperative: it's not a duty of any individual trans person to come out regardless of circumstances. It's a circumstantial tool, along with political organization, and pushing to make transphobia socially unacceptable in more and more places, in the manner of racism or homophobia.

From where I'm sitting, in Western Europe, the U.S., and Canada, trans rights seem relatively secure in the gains they've made, with important exceptions like the UK and several specific U.S. states. Further progress outside of those exceptions seems to be linked primarily to the fortunes of socially progressive political parties, e.g., an SPD or Green-led government is likely a precondition for the Selbstbestimmungsgesetz in Germany, and in Europe stridently anti-trans positions are mostly the province of far-right parties that are (for now!) political pariahs. In most of the rest of the world, the situation ranges from bleak to dire, and except for those in a position to move, I don't know what I would do. But I would say this, in general: I don't think anybody has an obligation to emotionally mortify themselves to try to convince a bigot they are wrong. If you enjoy arguing for sport, or you feel particularly called to it, by all means go ahead. But if the idea gives you a headache, I give you permission to ignore the assholes. You have a far higher moral obligation to yourself, to live the happiest life that you are able, and to take joy wherever you are able to find it. That is in fact a political act, a positive propaganda of the deed, and a refutation of the canard that goodness and joy are inherent only in the moralistic and restrictive bounds created by prejudice.

[cosplayproblemsposts]

Polkadot Man x M! reader Pt 2

Warning-Vent and a little bit of fluffy.

Summary: you manged to find out the truth but it didn’t help the fact you were still clinging onto something that has been proven true. Abner couldn’t help but comfort you even if you keep on rejecting every advantage. The thinker couldn’t help but feel a sense of justice but also a hint of guilt.

You sat within the bus eating girl scout cookies that you bought against Rick’s thoughts pressured on the cookies. “I can’t believe you actual bought girl scout cookies” Rick pondered on your childish behavior. “Your just jealous for your not stuffing your face” Rick rolls his eyes but smiles and gives you a fist bump. 

Cleo grins for Rick stomach growls “And when was the last time you ate Rickie” you tease. Rick huffs and takes the offered cookies and says “Shut up” you hum. More boxes of girl scouts cookies are handed out to everyone expect Nanaue for he doesn’t eat such foods.

“I like strawberry” Abner mumbles to which cause you to trade over your strawberry for his chocolate ones. You gave him a sly wink to which cause him to hide his face with the help of the box. 

“Hey why are you afraid of rats?”  Cleo asks Robert while you moved and took a sit beside Abner. “Why are you so in love with them ratcatcher 2?, you know what I think?, I think you have serious case of daddy issues” you frowned at Robert. Robert isn’t exactly known as a expressive type and everyone can see it regardless how cold heart he is you know otherwise.  

 “I have no issues with how much I loved my father” Robert sighs “You remind me of my daughter that’s why I’m here”. You couldn’t help but smile while biting into a cookie. “Why are you afraid of rats?” Cleo once again asks the same question. “My old man. when I was a lad, if I didn’t finish a task right, he would dole out a punishment. And one day, he just locked me in a create for twenty-four hours. And it was full of starving rats”.

You sighed and whistled to gain Roberts attention and threw three cookies at him, he caught all three of them. “As imperfect my father was ,he loved me. I wish I could give that to you”. ‘Don’t worry yeah?, I’m gonna get you out of here alive” Cleo smiles “I’m going to get you alive out of here”.

“What about clock” you hummed “Your oddly quiet” Robert pips up “Oh yes whats your story”. Cleo smiles up at you while Abner turns his attention to how close you were. “I don’t want to bore anyone to death” Rick scoffs “Shut up and tell us, I’m all eyes and ears” you frown at him. 

“Uh...where do I start, I was born in may the 18th 1918″ you thought of how you lost your mother. “My mother died after bring me into the world. I was small but strong while my father walked out of my mothers life the moment he found out she was pregnant”. Cleo frowns “So my granddad took me in so all I knew was that I had to live through a time era where if you were caught crying even a little your shamed for it”. Abner places a shy but comforting hand on top of yours “I was different I knew that but different made me strong and I reached for knowledge”.

“I found it easier to keep to myself until Benjamin came along in shape of defending me” you chuckled a little. “He is my childhood friend who glued himself to me from the very beginning, you see we both grew up in the back houses” Cleo frowns out of confusing. “That is what we called them, it’s just houses that were mistaken for apartments” Cleo nods. “I remembered getting into fights with older boys and I was an idiot for believing that I’ll win but I never did” Chris now understand why you protect Abner. 

“But I ain’t no coward for I didn’t run away from a fight other then that the old crow wouldn’t let it go” Robert chuckles or something like that. “I would come home all scruffy every two weeks to the crows dismay” Rick nods. “Years past and I was top of my class even tho I caused trouble and had been caned for it” Abner winces at the thought of it. “I enrolled into university but halfway through my second semester I dropped out to join the air force in 1939 August the 18th” you had to take breath. “I had trained enough to find myself within the sky in the midst of 1942 defending my country” you found yourself growing a pit in your stomach and you felt like vomiting.

“I was battling above a filed like nothing had gone wrong in the first place, the very Nazi manged to slash me out of sky” Robert doesn’t know anything about the air force but can see it. “I found myself hurrying to my death until an enemy pilot collided with me but I didn’t meet death instead I found myself two days before the whole entire event”. “Other then that when the fall of Poland had happened I had to be the last to know” You squint at the box of chocolate cookies before you.

“Around the time Benjamin had been set off to Poland and hadn’t returned so when I had been shipped off to Poland, I searched for him” Robert clears his throat. “I think that’s enough” Robert could tell that you didn’t want to go any farther with your side of the story. Abner squeezes your hand and when you notice you move your hand from his to which caused him to shutter away.

“Hey penis-maker, we’re on a mission” Chris makes a face “Easy inspector gadget. A little drink never hurts nobody”. You frowned at the idea but you really need a pick me up so you gone with the flow. “Expect the thousands of people killed in drunk driving accidents every year” Abner commented. You stare at him and could tell he was still a little hurt from you moving away from him.    

“Here’s to last three hours of being alive” Robert didn’t agree “I’ll be alive. You speak for yourself”. You drank your drink like a shot and didn’t hesitate to ask for another. You find yourself laughing and watch as Abner gag on his drink to which cause you to pat his back. “Easy there dots, you want to be somewhat sober” Abner nods.   

Everyone found themselves dancing with the music blazing in the background. You watch them fail at one of the most simplest thing in the world and you couldn’t help but laugh. “C’mon Y/N join us” Abner spoke while holding out a hand. “No you guys got it handle, I’ll just get in the way” you weren’t an upbeat dancer your more of slow dance type of guy. “No your not, you need this too” You smiled but caved in “Fine”. You took a last swig of your drink before standing up to dance with him.

You held onto Abner’s waist from behind and dance with him, for the truth you weren’t that bad. Abner sways his hips in synced with yours and you couldn’t help but evolve your arms around him. Swaying with your face just a few inches off from his right shoulder. You held his hand and kept on swaying while the both of you smile and laugh. You tugged him back to which cause him to look down at you, you grin and “Damn you are one dish”. Abner frowns out of confusion but by your grin it must be a good thing.

Abner turns around and stares down at you and without warning he captures your lips with his. You stood thunderstruck but kiss back after a few seconds, it never accrued to you how soft his lips were. How gentle and shy he can be, how easy a red tent grows across his cheeks. He had to be the most sweetest thing you ever had met. Far too sweet, Abner had to be the number one candy in the world. 

The two of you pull away with a small smiles on each other faces. You hum and kept on swaying to the music until Cleo poke Abner side. “Sorry for breaking you two up but you gonna have to focus for his here” you look and saw The thinker himself. You nod before parting from Abner to keep an eye on the weirdo over at the bar with Robert pressing a gun to his side.

But now here your with this odd looking man making a way to the back door with him mouthy off. “If you think that big mouth of yours is gonna save you sadly think again” he hums at your words. “Your the 1940′s guy right” you grow surprised “Pardon” he just smiles. You push through to the back only to see half-naked women “Sorry Loves we just want to get by” they screamed of course. 

A solider turns to us but Cleo makes a rat shove it’s way into his mouth to which cause you to frown. “Ah geez now you don’t see that everyday” you watch the man squirm while the others moved on. “Now that is nasty” the man reach a hand out to you but you declined his odd muffles for help. “Sorry mate it’s more like a you problem” he still lays there until he just stop moving. You made a face “Oh my goodness that’s fucking gross” you watch the rat scurry off somewhere else. You flinch when the rat doubled back and ran pass your right shoe “Ugh, fuck no” you shiver “Y/N!” you hear Milton call out.

“That was a gross way to die” Cleo only sighs “I’m sorry if that creep you out”. “No I didn’t mean it in that way for it was unexpected” Cleo looks up at you and smiles. You can tell she is still jumping “Welp weirdo how does it feel to be here” the man only grins. “Benjamin called out to you but you never came” you glare at him and kicked him. “Y/N” Abner spoke softly “Don’t his just lying” you frown and said “Yeah, his just lying”.

“Look Abner about before I..” you were cut off “don’t worry about it  we all have our ups and downs”. “For I killed my mom” you frown and by his very life you can tell he had done it for the greater good. “I know Abner and I’m truly sorry” Abner smiles and lays his head on your right shoulder. “Num Num” Nanaue says so you groaned “No, he isn’t Num Num��s” Nanaue seems disappointed.

Abner cuddles into your right side “Hey Abner” he hums “What are you gonna do once your free”. For the truth Abner doesn’t know himself “I don’t know” you smile. “You can see the rest of England with me then” Abner smiles and says “I’ll like that. Cleo came and said “Hey can I join” you smile and move over for her to join. She took your left while Abner has your right, Weirdo looks at you three before he started pondering over his own life.

“Okay so operation Harley” Rick says to each of us while we all nod.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I know I said two-parts but I’m gonna stop here for now.

[tothelasthoursofmylife]

6th (!) Anniversary

A Schultüte ("school cone"), also known as a Zuckertüte ("sugar cone") in some parts of Germany, is a large cone-shaped container made of paper, cardboard, or plastic.

When children in Germany and in parts of the Czech Republic close to the German border, in parts of Poland (Greater Poland, Upper Silesia, Warmia), in Austria and Belgium set off for their first day of school upon entering first grade, their parents and/or grandparents present them with this large cone, attractively decorated and filled with toys, chocolate, candies/sweets, school supplies, and various other special treats. The cone is given to children to make this anxiously awaited first day of school a little sweeter. (Wikipedia)

When I pondered over what I could do for Watchdog of the Queen's 6th anniversary, the thought could not leave my mind that the fanfic would reach "primary school age." I was six when I got into school (nowadays children get enrolled when they are four/five which I think is a little young but well); thus, for me "six-year-old = first-grader." I also loved the idea of a family (?) photo :) And because I couldn't do this in the actual setting, I'll give you this Modern AU (of an AU, double AU?).

Also, for me, the first day of school is also strongly associated with school cones - even if it is a very German tradition and not a British one! To make it make sense, let's say that Vincent's and Francis' school cones are gifts from a very doting uncle :)

I had the most fun drawing this and I hope you like it even if it's not much^^

Six years. I cannot believe that it has already been that long!

I started this fanfic as a grouchy 16-year-old eleventh-grader and now I'm a grouchy university student (please don't do the maths for my age *cries*).

I'm very grateful for those who have stuck around with me and this fanfic for all these years and for those who have found it later^^ It's such a niche story but it's such a cosy little niche. I never got any mean comments, just the loveliest words. What little engagement I get is the sweetest, and all your kindness really helped keeping WotQ alive for so long. I do very much enjoy writing it, but I'm not sure if I was still writing it would it not be for the knowledge that there are people out there who enjoy reading it as much as I enjoy writing it!^^

And you are also so very patient! I do my best to write as much and as fast as I can, but updates are still not regular or often. Especially last year when I only managed two chapters :( It was a chaotic year, and I'm glad I did (a bit) better this year. I hope next year will be even better (or just a bit better! let's move forward bit by bit).

Thank you a lot for all your lovely words and friendliness and patience!^^ I cannot thank you enough.

I've also never been that active in a fandom for such a long time before as well! Almost everyone I met/have something to do with in the Kuroshitsuji fandom are surprisingly nice and I made some good friends^^ No matter how things will be years and years from now, WotQ and the Kuro fandom will always be very special to me. But that thought is for the future :)

When I first started writing WotQ six years ago, I spent a few months planning it out, trying it out. Many of those initial plans have since been thrown out, replaced, reworked, but a lot stayed as well! And while the story took its "main course" in 2018 with one very major rework (but that does not mean everything beforehand has become "irrelevant" or "unimportant" with that!), there's still a lot I have and which I keep "open" whether to ultimately include or not. Watchdog of the Queen is an iceberg: There's a lot in the underground (little details, backgrounds, side stories, etc.), but you will only see what's floating above - though I'm not 100% set yet what it will contain. But the end? The end has never changed in the past six years. The epilogue has long been drafted and only needs to be fixed and polished when the time comes.

And I hope its time will eventually come. Fanfiction is so uncertain (and this story so long, omg), but I want to keep on going for as long as I can. I want to get as close to the end as I can - and try my best to reach it. Bit by bit. Let's see how long this will take :)

To more years and chapters!

- Momo

[chicago-geniza]

things i have been Dying to discuss with [redacted] for 84 years, under a cut for length:

Ojczyzna was published as "Fragment of a greater whole"; he wrote die Heimkehr in 1937; it would actually make sense if this were a translation of his German text, or an excerpt of it. I'm sure somebody in Schulz studies suggested this already like before I learned to read but that was my impression, anyway, & it would be a very interesting exercise to translate it into German; it would also explain the unusual form, since he was writing it more in the style of Buddenbrooks than Joseph & his Brothers

Tonio Krüger (Erich Heller on "the artist as an exile from reality" in this story vs. Schulz's Wiosna - Levine trans., mod. - "Where else would the exiled one [wyklęta] take shelter, where find asylum, if not where no one is looking for her - in those cheap calendars and journals, in those canticles of beggars and old men?") Tl;dr [redacted]'s thought that the first Wiadomości pub ("Ptaki," 1933), under "Bronisław Schulz," is like a dialectical image, a Polish name and a Jewish name, and that's def there, but he's also obsessed with Mann, and Schulz is as much a German name as a Jewish name in Galicia, & he's getting into Buber-style fin-de-siecle Orientalism at this point too, right, and for Mann that's Italy and Poland! And those characters always have hybrid Italian/German and Polish/German names. Przybysław Hippe; Tonio Krüger; etc. His first pseudonym, Marceli Weron, in 1920, gestures at Italy (and winks at another reference that [redacted] brought up); I am SURE our boy had read Der Zauberberg by 1933. [redacted] thinks the reason he decided to use Bruno instead of Bronisław was an affirmative diasporist one, and I think that's part of it, but I also think: 1) "Bruno" can still sound Italian, and works with "Schulz" in that dialectical-image, Tonio-Krüger type way; 2) He's publishing his work in Wiadomości Literackie, and they already have a regular art contributor named Mieczysław Szulc (lol)

Murzyni in Wiosna (how that word was used imenno w okresie międzywojennym, see Słonimski, see the press in general, see how racialized signifiers have their referents supplied by context, how they become interchangeable in "discursive space" without a racialized subject standing there to define your terms for you) (see also how Yiddish theater & lit in Poland were taking American Jewish works & putting their own spin on…the solidarity-as-equivalence trend best encapsulated in S. Czarny's pseudonym to narrate the experience of Polish Jewish marginalization) (very long way of saying "murzynski" was SUPER common slang of "Jewish")

Do you think Lwów Voievodship during the II Rzeczpospolita was the Galician equivalent of America's kidney stone belt because EVERYONE mentions kidney stones in their private correspondence, or is that just what happens when "Sanacja" extends to ideology but not so much to water filtration

[route22ny]

By Timothy Snyder

Published Jan. 9, 2021 - Updated Jan. 10, 2021, 10:12 a.m. ET

When Donald Trump stood before his followers on Jan. 6 and urged them to march on the United States Capitol, he was doing what he had always done. He never took electoral democracy seriously nor accepted the legitimacy of its American version.

Even when he won, in 2016, he insisted that the election was fraudulent — that millions of false votes were cast for his opponent. In 2020, in the knowledge that he was trailing Joseph R. Biden in the polls, he spent months claiming that the presidential election would be rigged and signaling that he would not accept the results if they did not favor him. He wrongly claimed on Election Day that he had won and then steadily hardened his rhetoric: With time, his victory became a historic landslide and the various conspiracies that denied it ever more sophisticated and implausible.

People believed him, which is not at all surprising. It takes a tremendous amount of work to educate citizens to resist the powerful pull of believing what they already believe, or what others around them believe, or what would make sense of their own previous choices. Plato noted a particular risk for tyrants: that they would be surrounded in the end by yes-men and enablers. Aristotle worried that, in a democracy, a wealthy and talented demagogue could all too easily master the minds of the populace. Aware of these risks and others, the framers of the Constitution instituted a system of checks and balances. The point was not simply to ensure that no one branch of government dominated the others but also to anchor in institutions different points of view.

In this sense, the responsibility for Trump’s push to overturn an election must be shared by a very large number of Republican members of Congress. Rather than contradict Trump from the beginning, they allowed his electoral fiction to flourish. They had different reasons for doing so. One group of Republicans is concerned above all with gaming the system to maintain power, taking full advantage of constitutional obscurities, gerrymandering and dark money to win elections with a minority of motivated voters. They have no interest in the collapse of the peculiar form of representation that allows their minority party disproportionate control of government. The most important among them, Mitch McConnell, indulged Trump’s lie while making no comment on its consequences.

Yet other Republicans saw the situation differently: They might actually break the system and have power without democracy. The split between these two groups, the gamers and the breakers, became sharply visible on Dec. 30, when Senator Josh Hawley announced that he would support Trump’s challenge by questioning the validity of the electoral votes on Jan. 6. Ted Cruz then promised his own support, joined by about 10 other senators. More than a hundred Republican representatives took the same position. For many, this seemed like nothing more than a show: challenges to states’ electoral votes would force delays and floor votes but would not affect the outcome.

Yet for Congress to traduce its basic functions had a price. An elected institution that opposes elections is inviting its own overthrow. Members of Congress who sustained the president’s lie, despite the available and unambiguous evidence, betrayed their constitutional mission. Making his fictions the basis of congressional action gave them flesh. Now Trump could demand that senators and congressmen bow to his will. He could place personal responsibility upon Mike Pence, in charge of the formal proceedings, to pervert them. And on Jan. 6, he directed his followers to exert pressure on these elected representatives, which they proceeded to do: storming the Capitol building, searching for people to punish, ransacking the place.

Of course this did make a kind of sense: If the election really had been stolen, as senators and congressmen were themselves suggesting, then how could Congress be allowed to move forward? For some Republicans, the invasion of the Capitol must have been a shock, or even a lesson. For the breakers, however, it may have been a taste of the future. Afterward, eight senators and more than 100 representatives voted for the lie that had forced them to flee their chambers.

Post-truth is pre-fascism, and Trump has been our post-truth president. When we give up on truth, we concede power to those with the wealth and charisma to create spectacle in its place. Without agreement about some basic facts, citizens cannot form the civil society that would allow them to defend themselves. If we lose the institutions that produce facts that are pertinent to us, then we tend to wallow in attractive abstractions and fictions. Truth defends itself particularly poorly when there is not very much of it around, and the era of Trump — like the era of Vladimir Putin in Russia — is one of the decline of local news. Social media is no substitute: It supercharges the mental habits by which we seek emotional stimulation and comfort, which means losing the distinction between what feels true and what actually is true.

Post-truth wears away the rule of law and invites a regime of myth. These last four years, scholars have discussed the legitimacy and value of invoking fascism in reference to Trumpian propaganda. One comfortable position has been to label any such effort as a direct comparison and then to treat such comparisons as taboo. More productively, the philosopher Jason Stanley has treated fascism as a phenomenon, as a series of patterns that can be observed not only in interwar Europe but beyond it.

My own view is that greater knowledge of the past, fascist or otherwise, allows us to notice and conceptualize elements of the present that we might otherwise disregard and to think more broadly about future possibilities. It was clear to me in October that Trump’s behavior presaged a coup, and I said so in print; this is not because the present repeats the past, but because the past enlightens the present.

Like historical fascist leaders, Trump has presented himself as the single source of truth. His use of the term “fake news” echoed the Nazi smear Lügenpresse (“lying press”); like the Nazis, he referred to reporters as “enemies of the people.” Like Adolf Hitler, he came to power at a moment when the conventional press had taken a beating; the financial crisis of 2008 did to American newspapers what the Great Depression did to German ones. The Nazis thought that they could use radio to replace the old pluralism of the newspaper; Trump tried to do the same with Twitter.

Thanks to technological capacity and personal talent, Donald Trump lied at a pace perhaps unmatched by any other leader in history. For the most part these were small lies, and their main effect was cumulative. To believe in all of them was to accept the authority of a single man, because to believe in all of them was to disbelieve everything else. Once such personal authority was established, the president could treat everyone else as the liars; he even had the power to turn someone from a trusted adviser into a dishonest scoundrel with a single tweet. Yet so long as he was unable to enforce some truly big lie, some fantasy that created an alternative reality where people could live and die, his pre-fascism fell short of the thing itself.

Some of his lies were, admittedly, medium-size: that he was a successful businessman; that Russia did not support him in 2016; that Barack Obama was born in Kenya. Such medium-size lies were the standard fare of aspiring authoritarians in the 21st century. In Poland the right-wing party built a martyrdom cult around assigning blame to political rivals for an airplane crash that killed the nation’s president. Hungary’s Viktor Orban blames a vanishingly small number of Muslim refugees for his country’s problems. But such claims were not quite big lies; they stretched but did not rend what Hannah Arendt called “the fabric of factuality.”

One historical big lie discussed by Arendt is Joseph Stalin’s explanation of starvation in Soviet Ukraine in 1932-33. The state had collectivized agriculture, then applied a series of punitive measures to Ukraine that ensured millions would die. Yet the official line was that the starving were provocateurs, agents of Western powers who hated socialism so much they were killing themselves. A still grander fiction, in Arendt’s account, is Hitlerian anti-Semitism: the claims that Jews ran the world, Jews were responsible for ideas that poisoned German minds, Jews stabbed Germany in the back during the First World War. Intriguingly, Arendt thought big lies work only in lonely minds; their coherence substitutes for experience and companionship.

In November 2020, reaching millions of lonely minds through social media, Trump told a lie that was dangerously ambitious: that he had won an election that in fact he had lost. This lie was big in every pertinent respect: not as big as “Jews run the world,” but big enough. The significance of the matter at hand was great: the right to rule the most powerful country in the world and the efficacy and trustworthiness of its succession procedures. The level of mendacity was profound. The claim was not only wrong, but it was also made in bad faith, amid unreliable sources. It challenged not just evidence but logic: Just how could (and why would) an election have been rigged against a Republican president but not against Republican senators and representatives? Trump had to speak, absurdly, of a “Rigged (for President) Election.”

The force of a big lie resides in its demand that many other things must be believed or disbelieved. To make sense of a world in which the 2020 presidential election was stolen requires distrust not only of reporters and of experts but also of local, state and federal government institutions, from poll workers to elected officials, Homeland Security and all the way to the Supreme Court. It brings with it, of necessity, a conspiracy theory: Imagine all the people who must have been in on such a plot and all the people who would have had to work on the cover-up.

Trump’s electoral fiction floats free of verifiable reality. It is defended not so much by facts as by claims that someone else has made some claims. The sensibility is that something must be wrong because I feel it to be wrong, and I know others feel the same way. When political leaders such as Ted Cruz or Jim Jordan spoke like this, what they meant was: You believe my lies, which compels me to repeat them. Social media provides an infinity of apparent evidence for any conviction, especially one seemingly held by a president.

On the surface, a conspiracy theory makes its victim look strong: It sees Trump as resisting the Democrats, the Republicans, the Deep State, the pedophiles, the Satanists. More profoundly, however, it inverts the position of the strong and the weak. Trump’s focus on alleged “irregularities” and “contested states” comes down to cities where Black people live and vote. At bottom, the fantasy of fraud is that of a crime committed by Black people against white people.

It’s not just that electoral fraud by African-Americans against Donald Trump never happened. It is that it is the very opposite of what happened, in 2020 and in every American election. As always, Black people waited longer than others to vote and were more likely to have their votes challenged. They were more likely to be suffering or dying from Covid-19, and less likely to be able to take time away from work. The historical protection of their right to vote has been removed by the Supreme Court’s 2013 ruling in Shelby County v. Holder, and states have rushed to pass measures of a kind that historically reduce voting by the poor and communities of color.

The claim that Trump was denied a win by fraud is a big lie not just because it mauls logic, misdescribes the present and demands belief in a conspiracy. It is a big lie, fundamentally, because it reverses the moral field of American politics and the basic structure of American history.

When Senator Ted Cruz announced his intention to challenge the Electoral College vote, he invoked the Compromise of 1877, which resolved the presidential election of 1876. Commentators pointed out that this was no relevant precedent, since back then there really were serious voter irregularities and there really was a stalemate in Congress. For African-Americans, however, the seemingly gratuitous reference led somewhere else. The Compromise of 1877 — in which Rutherford B. Hayes would have the presidency, provided that he withdrew federal power from the South — was the very arrangement whereby African-Americans were driven from voting booths for the better part of a century. It was effectively the end of Reconstruction, the beginning of segregation, legal discrimination and Jim Crow. It is the original sin of American history in the post-slavery era, our closest brush with fascism so far.

If the reference seemed distant when Ted Cruz and 10 senatorial colleagues released their statement on Jan. 2, it was brought very close four days later, when Confederate flags were paraded through the Capitol.

Some things have changed since 1877, of course. Back then, it was the Republicans, or many of them, who supported racial equality; it was the Democrats, the party of the South, who wanted apartheid. It was the Democrats, back then, who called African-Americans’ votes fraudulent, and the Republicans who wanted them counted. This is now reversed. In the past half century, since the Civil Rights Act, Republicans have become a predominantly white party interested — as Trump openly declared — in keeping the number of voters, and particularly the number of Black voters, as low as possible. Yet the common thread remains. Watching white supremacists among the people storming the Capitol, it was easy to yield to the feeling that something pure had been violated. It might be better to see the episode as part of a long American argument about who deserves representation.

The Democrats, today, have become a coalition, one that does better than Republicans with female and nonwhite voters and collects votes from both labor unions and the college-educated. Yet it’s not quite right to contrast this coalition with a monolithic Republican Party. Right now, the Republican Party is a coalition of two types of people: those who would game the system (most of the politicians, some of the voters) and those who dream of breaking it (a few of the politicians, many of the voters). In January 2021, this was visible as the difference between those Republicans who defended the present system on the grounds that it favored them and those who tried to upend it.

In the four decades since the election of Ronald Reagan, Republicans have overcome the tension between the gamers and the breakers by governing in opposition to government, or by calling elections a revolution (the Tea Party), or by claiming to oppose elites. The breakers, in this arrangement, provide cover for the gamers, putting forth an ideology that distracts from the basic reality that government under Republicans is not made smaller but simply diverted to serve a handful of interests.

At first, Trump seemed like a threat to this balance. His lack of experience in politics and his open racism made him a very uncomfortable figure for the party; his habit of continually telling lies was initially found by prominent Republicans to be uncouth. Yet after he won the presidency, his particular skills as a breaker seemed to create a tremendous opportunity for the gamers. Led by the gamer in chief, McConnell, they secured hundreds of federal judges and tax cuts for the rich.

Trump was unlike other breakers in that he seemed to have no ideology. His objection to institutions was that they might constrain him personally. He intended to break the system to serve himself — and this is partly why he has failed. Trump is a charismatic politician and inspires devotion not only among voters but among a surprising number of lawmakers, but he has no vision that is greater than himself or what his admirers project upon him. In this respect his pre-fascism fell short of fascism: His vision never went further than a mirror. He arrived at a truly big lie not from any view of the world but from the reality that he might lose something.

Yet Trump never prepared a decisive blow. He lacked the support of the military, some of whose leaders he had alienated. (No true fascist would have made the mistake he did there, which was to openly love foreign dictators; supporters convinced that the enemy was at home might not mind, but those sworn to protect from enemies abroad did.) Trump’s secret police force, the men carrying out snatch operations in Portland, was violent but also small and ludicrous. Social media proved to be a blunt weapon: Trump could announce his intentions on Twitter, and white supremacists could plan their invasion of the Capitol on Facebook or Gab. But the president, for all his lawsuits and entreaties and threats to public officials, could not engineer a situation that ended with the right people doing the wrong thing. Trump could make some voters believe that he had won the 2020 election, but he was unable to bring institutions along with his big lie. And he could bring his supporters to Washington and send them on a rampage in the Capitol, but none appeared to have any very clear idea of how this was to work or what their presence would accomplish. It is hard to think of a comparable insurrectionary moment, when a building of great significance was seized, that involved so much milling around.

The lie outlasts the liar. The idea that Germany lost the First World War in 1918 because of a Jewish “stab in the back” was 15 years old when Hitler came to power. How will Trump’s myth of victimhood function in American life 15 years from now? And to whose benefit?

On Jan. 7, Trump called for a peaceful transition of power, implicitly conceding that his putsch had failed. Even then, though, he repeated and even amplified his electoral fiction: It was now a sacred cause for which people had sacrificed. Trump’s imagined stab in the back will live on chiefly thanks to its endorsement by members of Congress. In November and December 2020, Republicans repeated it, giving it a life it would not otherwise have had. In retrospect, it now seems as though the last shaky compromise between the gamers and the breakers was the idea that Trump should have every chance to prove that wrong had been done to him. That position implicitly endorsed the big lie for Trump supporters who were inclined to believe it. It failed to restrain Trump, whose big lie only grew bigger.

The breakers and the gamers then saw a different world ahead, where the big lie was either a treasure to be had or a danger to be avoided. The breakers had no choice but to rush to be first to claim to believe in it. Because the breakers Josh Hawley and Ted Cruz must compete to claim the brimstone and bile, the gamers were forced to reveal their own hand, and the division within the Republican coalition became visible on Jan. 6. The invasion of the Capitol only reinforced this division. To be sure, a few senators withdrew their objections, but Cruz and Hawley moved forward anyway, along with six other senators. More than 100 representatives doubled down on the big lie. Some, like Matt Gaetz, even added their own flourishes, such as the claim that the mob was led not by Trump’s supporters but by his opponents.

Trump is, for now, the martyr in chief, the high priest of the big lie. He is the leader of the breakers, at least in the minds of his supporters. By now, the gamers do not want Trump around. Discredited in his last weeks, he is useless; shorn of the obligations of the presidency, he will become embarrassing again, much as he was in 2015. Unable to provide cover for their gamesmanship, he will be irrelevant to their daily purposes. But the breakers have an even stronger reason to see Trump disappear: It is impossible to inherit from someone who is still around. Seizing Trump’s big lie might appear to be a gesture of support. In fact it expresses a wish for his political death. Transforming the myth from one about Trump to one about the nation will be easier when he is out of the way.

As Cruz and Hawley may learn, to tell the big lie is to be owned by it. Just because you have sold your soul does not mean that you have driven a hard bargain. Hawley shies from no level of hypocrisy; the son of a banker, educated at Stanford University and Yale Law School, he denounces elites. Insofar as Cruz was thought to have a principle, it was that of states’ rights, which Trump’s calls to action brazenly violated. A joint statement Cruz issued about the senators’ challenge to the vote nicely captured the post-truth aspect of the whole: It never alleged that there was fraud, only that there were allegations of fraud. Allegations of allegations, allegations all the way down.

The big lie requires commitment. When Republican gamers do not exhibit enough of that, Republican breakers call them “RINOs”: Republicans in name only. This term once suggested a lack of ideological commitment. It now means an unwillingness to throw away an election. The gamers, in response, close ranks around the Constitution and speak of principles and traditions. The breakers must all know (with the possible exception of the Alabama senator Tommy Tuberville) that they are participating in a sham, but they will have an audience of tens of millions who do not.

If Trump remains present in American political life, he will surely repeat his big lie incessantly. Hawley and Cruz and the other breakers share responsibility for where this leads. Cruz and Hawley seem to be running for president. Yet what does it mean to be a candidate for office and denounce voting? If you claim that the other side has cheated, and your supporters believe you, they will expect you to cheat yourself. By defending Trump’s big lie on Jan. 6, they set a precedent: A Republican presidential candidate who loses an election should be appointed anyway by Congress. Republicans in the future, at least breaker candidates for president, will presumably have a Plan A, to win and win, and a Plan B, to lose and win. No fraud is necessary; only allegations that there are allegations of fraud. Truth is to be replaced by spectacle, facts by faith.

Trump’s coup attempt of 2020-21, like other failed coup attempts, is a warning for those who care about the rule of law and a lesson for those who do not. His pre-fascism revealed a possibility for American politics. For a coup to work in 2024, the breakers will require something that Trump never quite had: an angry minority, organized for nationwide violence, ready to add intimidation to an election. Four years of amplifying a big lie just might get them this. To claim that the other side stole an election is to promise to steal one yourself. It is also to claim that the other side deserves to be punished.

Informed observers inside and outside government agree that right-wing white supremacism is the greatest terrorist threat to the United States. Gun sales in 2020 hit an astonishing high. History shows that political violence follows when prominent leaders of major political parties openly embrace paranoia.

Our big lie is typically American, wrapped in our odd electoral system, depending upon our particular traditions of racism. Yet our big lie is also structurally fascist, with its extreme mendacity, its conspiratorial thinking, its reversal of perpetrators and victims and its implication that the world is divided into us and them. To keep it going for four years courts terrorism and assassination.

When that violence comes, the breakers will have to react. If they embrace it, they become the fascist faction. The Republican Party will be divided, at least for a time. One can of course imagine a dismal reunification: A breaker candidate loses a narrow presidential election in November 2024 and cries fraud, the Republicans win both houses of Congress and rioters in the street, educated by four years of the big lie, demand what they see as justice. Would the gamers stand on principle if those were the circumstances of Jan. 6, 2025?

To be sure, this moment is also a chance. It is possible that a divided Republican Party might better serve American democracy; that the gamers, separated from the breakers, might start to think of policy as a way to win elections. It is very likely that the Biden-Harris administration will have an easier first few months than expected; perhaps obstructionism will give way, at least among a few Republicans and for a short time, to a moment of self-questioning. Politicians who want Trumpism to end have a simple way forward: Tell the truth about the election.

America will not survive the big lie just because a liar is separated from power. It will need a thoughtful repluralization of media and a commitment to facts as a public good. The racism structured into every aspect of the coup attempt is a call to heed our own history. Serious attention to the past helps us to see risks but also suggests future possibility. We cannot be a democratic republic if we tell lies about race, big or small. Democracy is not about minimizing the vote nor ignoring it, neither a matter of gaming nor of breaking a system, but of accepting the equality of others, heeding their voices and counting their votes.

Timothy Snyder is the Levin professor of history at Yale University and the author of histories of political atrocity including “Bloodlands” and “Black Earth,” as well as the book “On Tyranny,” on America’s turn toward authoritarianism. His most recent book is “Our Malady,” a memoir of his own near-fatal illness reflecting on the relationship between health and freedom.

***

Essay copied & pasted here in its entirety for the benefit of those stuck behind the paywall. Follow the link for the accompanying photos and captions.

[lenarish]

APH Lithuania is SO complex.

I don’t know how I got so obsessed with this character, but more and more I always end up thinking about the same fact of how f*cking well his personality fits the country and it’s history.

This is going to be a random ramble about Liet, as a person who roleplays as him on this deep, deep hole we call Hetalia. He deserves attention!

First of all, one of the things people will learn about Lithuania if they see the things Himaruya tell us about him and what history tells is that he, and his problems, are not what they seem to be at first glance. Let me explain;

When people write Lithuania or think of his main traits, they immediately remember him as the ultimate doormat. Well...he is! But the reason is not because he is weak, or because he is afraid of the others, or maybe because he is naive, like people may think sometimes, or portray him as. One cannot tell that it’s all because of PTSD as well. Like we can see, he is described as serious, and with a strong perseverance. One time, even being said to be more serious than Germany. But what I find most interesting is...

This says a lot about him. Maybe one of the most well represented personifications psychologically on my point of view just because of this really really really good person detail together with the serious and persevering ones. And finally, I’ll tell why.

Lithuania’s history is marked by how different it was from the Western Europe when it came to the territories’ treatment.

Century after century, there was a lot of intense and longstanding wars going on, starting when Lithuania in hetalia would be just a child. Eastern Europe never was the best part of the continent as we all know. It was too cold. People at the time were hungry, tired, and terrified of the Mongol and Ottoman Empires. If you see videos of how Lithuania was changing year by year on youtube, you may notice that there were huge territorial expansions in a tiny gap of time, that were kept that way for centuries. The explanation is; Lithuania was a badass, the Lithuanian culture at this time still held the pagan attitude of considering an honor to die in battle, as their beliefs were that no one truly died, they would come back in a second life as vėlės(spirits/souls). The conquered territories overall liked the Lithuanians, because they were very good rulers, respecting the languages and costumes of the people and protecting them, as well as the ones still willing to fight against the enemies.

...And winning.

All the Lithuanian history is painted by the fact that he was the protector. Sure, Poland was strong, Ukraine was strong, but Lithuania was the one keeping everything together.

Now think about APH Lithuania, him as this tiny child...

Kicking the crap out of not only Prussia on many battles, but also a lot of more armies at the same time. No wonder Russia wanted him as a friend, and why Lithuania was so quick to offer his friendship to Russia if he wanted.

His attitude fits perfectly.

I’m not saying that he was the only country kicking ass, but certainly we see the others acting as children and having a life. All we see of Lithuania is him working, pleasing, and overthinking.

Later on the comics, we see that it ended as people easily taking advantage of him or hurting him, and he doesn’t seeming to mind, or to act against it. And it’s not entirely because of his PTSD from the Soviet times. Oh, no, no, no. He is rehabilitating, and these scars concern Russia, only. It just makes sense that he doesn’t complain, he is...used to it.

As Vydūnas once said ‘’The tension in the lithuanian mind is manifested in a very characteristic fashion; the greater the difficulty, the more he is disposed to accept all with serenity, and even with gaiety and jest.’’

The point where it starts to get complex is; Lithuania wants to protect and please to the point where he forgets about his own needs. He as a country grew up taking care of others, and now his anxiety is one of the reflections of it. As a complement of...what could be the most reasonable result? 

Atlas personality.

Compulsive caregiving defines Lithuania completely, he doesn’t know when to stop, and the fact that he seems to want that Estonia stay with him, as well as sometimes slightly bossing him and Latvia around, could mean that he still think he needs to, not giving space for them. Because that's the only thing he learned to do and to be in life.

That’s why the fact that Poland is helping him with his PTSD is not sufficient. And one can say ‘’well, but now things are fine! He has space and time to work on it too’’. It’s...not true, though. Sure, there’s no more brutal wars and brutal bosses, and he has his friends with him, now being independent.

But we are talking about these guys;

They were talking about Poland in this strip. The baltics are...strangely jealous of him with Poland because he is ‘’too close’’, and as we can see, Poland doesn’t seem to be the particular problem, since Latvia seems to be lowkey threatening Estonia. So are they jealous of everyone that gets ‘’too close’’??? They love him, but the two of them alone gives Lithuania so much trouble that he doesn’t have space to get better, because he needs to be the responsable one, the ‘’big brother’’, and that’s problably his own fault unintentionally for insisting to much on taking care of everything alone(what he often does, and right after we see him complaining alone about having to do it). Just see their interactions, for god’s sake, Lithuania always has the final word on almost everything.

And about Poland, we all know how much stress he gives Lithuania even if the two love each other as best friends. Lithuania still has some really tense stuff going on with Poland, and neither of them talks about it.

Was not the fact that Lithuania is a really really really good person, Himaruya could have taken another path for him, considering his epic past. I dare to say he could have been very similar to Denmark and Prussia in personality. Yet, he is not.

Well... The King of Eastern Europe still has a long road to walk before finally having peace. He needs someone to show him that he doesn’t need to carry the world on his shoulders, and that the ones he love will be okay if he does so. Maybe one day Poland will, who knows? It would be awesome to see some character development...but for now I just keep dreaming.

[ekebolou]

So food has created an interesting issue, not unlike the one language causes on account of my not being a linguist.

So, language is an important part of culture, and understanding how language works can tell you a lot about cultures and characters.  But I am not Tolkien, and will not be trying to make up languages for Kostas - so, I have used (very bad) Gaelic for Ainjir and (equally bad) Latin for Midraeic.

But this is a bit culturally insensitive, especially for Gaelic - to use it like a fantasy language when there have been concerted colonialist efforts in the past to stamp it out.  So, in the re-write, I did more adapting, trying to follow sounds and grammatical patterns to produce something like a real language without being pastiche or exploitative. 

I don’t now how much better that is.  I probably should have just bitten the bullet and used nonsense, but I didn’t want to for a number of reasons, not the least of which is that using a language means at least some people have a chance of recognizing it as language, and language learning is fun even if I’m bad at it. 

ANYWHO I was talkin’ ‘bout food. 

Food, likewise, is culturally significant, but borrowing cuisines (except in certain circumstances) is, I think, less loaded?  But there’s a greater limiting factor at play, in that food will be tied to climate and geography.  Which are also things I am not so pro at.  So I have also borrowed those, in a very broad sense.

While a lot of individual features are based on particular places, the generality of Ainjir and its neighboring countries are sort of loosely rooted in China and Poland.  These aren’t, I would say, all that closely related geographically even on a broad level, but honestly, what do I know about it.  China is much bigger, and in that sense just has more room for diversity of geographies, but Poland is closer to the scale of Ainjir, and also very geographically diverse, just not in the same ways. 

So Midraeic food is based in ancient roman cooking, with the added adaptation to local conditions.  No big deal there.

But Ainjir food is going to be some mix of a particular regional cuisine in China (I’m thinking Henan, but there’s a lot there), and medieval polish food.  But in a culturally sensitive (but still sensical) way. 

My first, and I think still successful, version of this is the marriage duck recipe.  But, like, I gotta figure out what they’re serving in the Academy mess hall, what bivouac rations are going to look like, what the highly ranked officers and nobility eat...

and it’s really tempting to make it all pierogi and congee

fuck it, it’s my story, I do what I what I want.

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

Timothy Snyder [don't miss a word]

When Donald Trump stood before his followers on Jan. 6 and urged them to march on the United States Capitol, he was doing what he had always done. He never took electoral democracy  seriously nor accepted the legitimacy of its American version. Even when he won, in 2016, he insisted that the election was fraudulent — that millions of false votes were cast for his opponent. In 2020, in  the knowledge that he was trailing Joseph R. Biden in the polls, he spent months claiming that the presidential election would be rigged and signaling that he  would not accept the results if they did not favor him. He wrongly  claimed on Election Day that he had won and then steadily hardened his  rhetoric: With time, his victory became a historic landslide and the  various conspiracies that denied it ever more sophisticated and  implausible.                                                

People believed him,  which is not at all surprising. It takes a tremendous amount of work to  educate citizens to resist the powerful pull of believing what they  already believe, or what others around them believe, or what would make  sense of their own previous choices. Plato noted a particular risk for  tyrants: that they would be surrounded in the end by yes-men and  enablers. Aristotle worried that, in a democracy, a wealthy and talented  demagogue could all too easily master the minds of the populace. Aware  of these risks and others, the framers of the Constitution instituted a  system of checks and balances. The point was not simply to ensure that  no one branch of government dominated the others but also to anchor in  institutions different points of view.                                                                                                                          

In  this sense, the responsibility for Trump’s push to overturn an election  must be shared by a very large number of Republican members of  Congress. Rather than contradict Trump from the beginning, they allowed  his electoral fiction to flourish. They had different reasons for doing  so. One group of Republicans is concerned above all with gaming the  system to maintain power, taking full advantage of constitutional  obscurities, gerrymandering and dark money to win elections with a  minority of motivated voters. They have no interest in the collapse of  the peculiar form of representation that allows their minority party  disproportionate control of government. The most important among them,  Mitch McConnell, indulged Trump’s lie while making no comment on its  consequences.                                  

Yet  other Republicans saw the situation differently: They might actually  break the system and have power without democracy. The split between  these two groups, the gamers and the breakers, became sharply visible on  Dec. 30, when Senator Josh Hawley announced that he would support Trump’s challenge by questioning the validity of the electoral votes on Jan. 6. Ted Cruz then promised his own support, joined by about 10 other senators. More than a hundred Republican  representatives took the same position. For many, this seemed like  nothing more than a show: challenges to states’ electoral votes would  force delays and floor votes but would not affect the outcome.

Yet  for Congress to traduce its basic functions had a price. An elected  institution that opposes elections is inviting its own overthrow.  Members of Congress who sustained the president’s lie, despite the  available and unambiguous evidence, betrayed their constitutional  mission. Making his fictions the basis of congressional action gave them  flesh. Now Trump could demand that senators and congressmen bow to his  will. He could place personal responsibility upon Mike Pence, in charge  of the formal proceedings, to pervert them. And on Jan. 6, he directed  his followers to exert pressure on these elected representatives, which  they proceeded to do: storming the Capitol building, searching for people to punish, ransacking the place.

Of  course this did make a kind of sense: If the election really had been  stolen, as senators and congressmen were themselves suggesting, then how  could Congress be allowed to move forward? For some Republicans, the  invasion of the Capitol must have been a shock, or even a lesson. For  the breakers, however, it may have been a taste of the future.  Afterward, eight senators and more than 100 representatives voted for  the lie that had forced them to flee their chambers.Post-truth is pre-fascism,  and Trump has been our post-truth president. When we give up on truth,  we concede power to those with the wealth and charisma to create  spectacle in its place. Without agreement about some basic facts,  citizens cannot form the civil society that would allow them to defend  themselves. If we lose the institutions that produce facts that are pertinent to us, then we tend to wallow in attractive abstractions and  fictions.

Truth defends itself particularly poorly when there is not  very much of it around, and the era of Trump — like the era of Vladimir  Putin in Russia — is one of the decline of local news. Social media is  no substitute: It supercharges the mental habits by which we seek  emotional stimulation and comfort, which means losing the distinction  between what feels true and what actually is true.Post-truth  wears away the rule of law and invites a regime of myth. These last  four years, scholars have discussed the legitimacy and value of invoking  fascism in reference to Trumpian propaganda. One comfortable position  has been to label any such effort as a direct comparison and then to  treat such comparisons as taboo. More productively, the philosopher  Jason Stanley has treated fascism as a phenomenon, as a series of  patterns that can be observed not only in interwar Europe but beyond it.

My  own view is that greater knowledge of the past, fascist or otherwise,  allows us to notice and conceptualize elements of the present that we  might otherwise disregard and to think more broadly about future  possibilities. It was clear to me in October that Trump’s behavior  presaged a coup, and I said so in print; this is not because the present  repeats the past, but because the past enlightens the present.Like  historical fascist leaders, Trump has presented himself as the single  source of truth. His use of the term “fake news” echoed the Nazi smear Lügenpresse (“lying press”); like the Nazis, he referred to reporters as “enemies  of the people.” Like Adolf Hitler, he came to power at a moment when the  conventional press had taken a beating; the financial crisis of 2008  did to American newspapers what the Great Depression did to German ones.  The Nazis thought that they could use radio to replace the old  pluralism of the newspaper; Trump tried to do the same with Twitter.

Thanks  to technological capacity and personal talent, Donald Trump lied at a  pace perhaps unmatched by any other leader in history. For the most part  these were small lies, and their main effect was cumulative. To believe  in all of them was to accept the authority of a single man, because to  believe in all of them was to disbelieve everything else. Once such  personal authority was established, the president could treat everyone  else as the liars; he even had the power to turn someone from a trusted  adviser into a dishonest scoundrel with a single tweet. Yet so long as  he was unable to enforce some truly big lie, some fantasy that created  an alternative reality where people could live and die, his pre-fascism  fell short of the thing itself.

Some  of his lies were, admittedly, medium-size: that he was a successful  businessman; that Russia did not support him in 2016; that Barack Obama  was born in Kenya. Such medium-size lies were the standard fare of  aspiring authoritarians in the 21st century. In Poland the right-wing  party built a martyrdom cult around assigning blame to political rivals  for an airplane crash that killed the nation’s president. Hungary’s  Viktor Orban blames a vanishingly small number of Muslim refugees for his country’s problems. But such claims were not quite big lies; they stretched but did not rend what Hannah Arendt called “the fabric of factuality.”

One  historical big lie discussed by Arendt is Joseph Stalin’s explanation  of starvation in Soviet Ukraine in 1932-33. The state had collectivized  agriculture, then applied a series of punitive measures to Ukraine that  ensured millions would die. Yet the official line was that the starving  were provocateurs, agents of Western powers who hated socialism so much  they were killing themselves. A still grander fiction, in Arendt’s  account, is Hitlerian anti-Semitism: the claims that Jews ran the world,  Jews were responsible for ideas that poisoned German minds, Jews  stabbed Germany in the back during the First World War. Intriguingly,  Arendt thought big lies work only in lonely minds; their coherence  substitutes for experience and companionship.In November 2020, reaching millions of lonely minds through social media, Trump told a lie that was dangerously ambitious: that he had won an election that in fact he had lost. 

This lie was big in every pertinent respect: not as big as “Jews run  the world,” but big enough. The significance of the matter at hand was  great: the right to rule the most powerful country in the world and the  efficacy and trustworthiness of its succession procedures. The level of  mendacity was profound. The claim was not only wrong, but it was also  made in bad faith, amid unreliable sources. It challenged not just  evidence but logic: Just how could (and why would) an election have been  rigged against a Republican president but not against Republican  senators and representatives? Trump had to speak, absurdly, of a “Rigged  (for President) Election.”

The  force of a big lie resides in its demand that many other things must be believed or disbelieved. To make sense of a world in which the 2020 presidential election was stolen requires distrust not only of reporters  and of experts but also of local, state and federal government  institutions, from poll workers to elected officials, Homeland Security  and all the way to the Supreme Court. It brings with it, of necessity, a  conspiracy theory: Imagine all the people who must have been in on such  a plot and all the people who would have had to work on the cover-up.Trump’s  electoral fiction floats free of verifiable reality. It is defended not  so much by facts as by claims that someone else has made some claims.  The sensibility is that something must be wrong because I feel it to be  wrong, and I know others feel the same way. When political leaders such  as Ted Cruz or Jim Jordan spoke like this, what they meant was: You  believe my lies, which compels me to repeat them. Social media provides  an infinity of apparent evidence for any conviction, especially one  seemingly held by a president.

On the  surface, a conspiracy theory makes its victim look strong: It sees Trump  as resisting the Democrats, the Republicans, the Deep State, the  pedophiles, the Satanists. More profoundly, however, it inverts the  position of the strong and the weak. Trump’s focus on alleged  “irregularities” and “contested states” comes down to cities where Black  people live and vote. At bottom, the fantasy of fraud is that of a  crime committed by Black people against white people.It’s  not just that electoral fraud by African-Americans against Donald Trump  never happened. It is that it is the very opposite of what happened, in  2020 and in every American election. As always, Black people waited longer than others to vote and were more likely to have their votes challenged. They were more likely to be suffering or dying from Covid-19, and less likely to be able to take time away from work. The historical  protection of their right to vote has been removed by the Supreme Court’s 2013 ruling in Shelby County v. Holder, and states have rushed to pass measures of a kind that historically reduce voting by the poor and communities of color.

The  claim that Trump was denied a win by fraud is a big lie not just  because it mauls logic, misdescribes the present and demands belief in a  conspiracy. It is a big lie, fundamentally, because it reverses the  moral field of American politics and the basic structure of American  history.

When Senator Ted Cruz  announced his intention to challenge the Electoral College vote, he  invoked the Compromise of 1877, which resolved the presidential election  of 1876. Commentators pointed out that this was no relevant precedent,  since back then there really were serious voter irregularities and there  really was a stalemate in Congress. For African-Americans, however, the  seemingly gratuitous reference led somewhere else. The Compromise of  1877 — in which Rutherford B. Hayes would have the presidency, provided  that he withdrew federal power from the South — was the very arrangement  whereby African-Americans were driven from voting booths for the better  part of a century. It was effectively the end of Reconstruction, the  beginning of segregation, legal discrimination and Jim Crow. It is the  original sin of American history in the post-slavery era, our closest  brush with fascism so far.If the  reference seemed distant when Ted Cruz and 10 senatorial colleagues  released their statement on Jan. 2, it was brought very close four days  later, when Confederate flags were paraded through the Capitol.

Some things have changed since 1877, of course. Back then, it was the Republicans, or  many of them, who supported racial equality; it was the Democrats, the  party of the South, who wanted apartheid. It was the Democrats, back  then, who called African-Americans’ votes fraudulent, and the  Republicans who wanted them counted. This is now reversed. In the past  half century, since the Civil Rights Act, Republicans have become a  predominantly white party interested — as Trump openly declared — in  keeping the number of voters, and particularly the number of Black  voters, as low as possible. Yet the common thread remains. Watching  white supremacists among the people storming the Capitol, it was easy to  yield to the feeling that something pure had been violated. It might be  better to see the episode as part of a long American argument about who  deserves representation.

The  Democrats, today, have become a coalition, one that does better than Republicans with female and nonwhite voters and collects votes from both labor unions and the college-educated. Yet it’s not quite right to  contrast this coalition with a monolithic Republican Party. Right now,  the Republican Party is a coalition of two types of people: those who  would game the system (most of the politicians, some of the voters) and  those who dream of breaking it (a few of the politicians, many of the  voters). In January 2021, this was visible as the difference between  those Republicans who defended the present system on the grounds that it  favored them and those who tried to upend it.In  the four decades since the election of Ronald Reagan, Republicans have  overcome the tension between the gamers and the breakers by governing in  opposition to government, or by calling elections a revolution (the Tea  Party), or by claiming to oppose elites. The breakers, in this  arrangement, provide cover for the gamers, putting forth an ideology  that distracts from the basic reality that government under Republicans  is not made smaller but simply diverted to serve a handful of interests.

At  first, Trump seemed like a threat to this balance. His lack of  experience in politics and his open racism made him a very uncomfortable  figure for the party; his habit of continually telling lies was  initially found by prominent Republicans to be uncouth. Yet after he won  the presidency, his particular skills as a breaker seemed to create a  tremendous opportunity for the gamers. Led by the gamer in chief,  McConnell, they secured hundreds of federal judges and tax cuts for the  rich.

Trump  was unlike other breakers in that he seemed to have no ideology. His  objection to institutions was that they might constrain him personally.  He intended to break the system to serve himself — and this is partly  why he has failed. Trump is a charismatic politician and inspires  devotion not only among voters but among a surprising number of  lawmakers, but he has no vision that is greater than himself or what his  admirers project upon him. In this respect his pre-fascism fell short  of fascism: His vision never went further than a mirror. He arrived at a  truly big lie not from any view of the world but from the reality that  he might lose something.

Yet Trump  never prepared a decisive blow. He lacked the support of the military,  some of whose leaders he had alienated. (No true fascist would have made  the mistake he did there, which was to openly love foreign dictators;  supporters convinced that the enemy was at home might not mind, but  those sworn to protect from enemies abroad did.) Trump’s secret police  force, the men carrying out snatch operations in Portland, was violent but also small and ludicrous. Social media proved to be a  blunt weapon: Trump could announce his intentions on Twitter, and white  supremacists could plan their invasion of the Capitol on Facebook or  Gab. 

But the president, for all his lawsuits and entreaties and threats  to public officials, could not engineer a situation that ended with the  right people doing the wrong thing. Trump could make some voters believe  that he had won the 2020 election, but he was unable to bring  institutions along with his big lie. And he could bring his supporters  to Washington and send them on a rampage in the Capitol, but none  appeared to have any very clear idea of how this was to work or what  their presence would accomplish. It is hard to think of a comparable  insurrectionary moment, when a building of great significance was seized, that involved so much milling around.

The lie outlasts the  liar. The idea that Germany lost the First World War in 1918 because of  a Jewish “stab in the back” was 15 years old when Hitler came to power.  How will Trump’s myth of victimhood function in American life 15 years from now? And to whose benefit?

On  Jan. 7, Trump called for a peaceful transition of power, implicitly  conceding that his putsch had failed. Even then, though, he repeated and  even amplified his electoral fiction: It was now a sacred cause for  which people had sacrificed. Trump’s imagined stab in the back will live  on chiefly thanks to its endorsement by members of Congress. In  November and December 2020, Republicans repeated it, giving it a life it  would not otherwise have had. In retrospect, it now seems as though the  last shaky compromise between the gamers and the breakers was the idea  that Trump should have every chance to prove that wrong had been done to  him. That position implicitly endorsed the big lie for Trump supporters  who were inclined to believe it. It failed to restrain Trump, whose big  lie only grew bigger.

The breakers  and the gamers then saw a different world ahead, where the big lie was  either a treasure to be had or a danger to be avoided. The breakers had  no choice but to rush to be first to claim to believe in it. Because the  breakers Josh Hawley and Ted Cruz must compete to claim the brimstone  and bile, the gamers were forced to reveal their own hand, and the  division within the Republican coalition became visible on Jan. 6. The  invasion of the Capitol only reinforced this division. To be sure, a few  senators withdrew their objections, but Cruz and Hawley moved forward  anyway, along with six other senators. More than 100 representatives  doubled down on the big lie. Some, like Matt Gaetz, even added their own  flourishes, such as the claim that the mob was led not by Trump’s  supporters but by his opponents.Trump  is, for now, the martyr in chief, the high priest of the big lie. He is  the leader of the breakers, at least in the minds of his supporters. By  now, the gamers do not want Trump around. Discredited in his last  weeks, he is useless; shorn of the obligations of the presidency, he  will become embarrassing again, much as he was in 2015. Unable to  provide cover for their gamesmanship, he will be irrelevant to their daily purposes. But the breakers have an even stronger reason to see  Trump disappear: It is impossible to inherit from someone who is still  around. Seizing Trump’s big lie might appear to be a gesture of support.  In fact it expresses a wish for his political death. Transforming the  myth from one about Trump to one about the nation will be easier when he  is out of the way.

As Cruz and Hawley  may learn, to tell the big lie is to be owned by it. Just because you  have sold your soul does not mean that you have driven a hard bargain.  Hawley shies from no level of hypocrisy; the son of a banker, educated at Stanford University and Yale Law School, he denounces elites. Insofar  as Cruz was thought to have a principle, it was that of states’ rights,  which Trump’s calls to action brazenly violated. A joint statement Cruz  issued about the senators’ challenge to the vote nicely captured the  post-truth aspect of the whole: It never alleged that there was fraud,  only that there were allegations of fraud. Allegations of allegations,  allegations all the way down.The  big lie requires commitment. When Republican gamers do not exhibit  enough of that, Republican breakers call them “RINOs”: Republicans in  name only. This term once suggested a lack of ideological commitment. It  now means an unwillingness to throw away an election. The gamers, in  response, close ranks around the Constitution and speak of principles  and traditions. The breakers must all know (with the possible exception  of the Alabama senator Tommy Tuberville) that they are participating in a  sham, but they will have an audience of tens of millions who do not.

If  Trump remains present in American political life, he will surely repeat  his big lie incessantly. Hawley and Cruz and the other breakers share  responsibility for where this leads. Cruz and Hawley seem to be running  for president. Yet what does it mean to be a candidate for office and  denounce voting? If you claim that the other side has cheated, and your  supporters believe you, they will expect you to cheat yourself. By  defending Trump’s big lie on Jan. 6, they set a precedent: A Republican  presidential candidate who loses an election should be appointed anyway  by Congress. Republicans in the future, at least breaker candidates for  president, will presumably have a Plan A, to win and win, and a Plan B,  to lose and win. No fraud is necessary; only allegations that there are allegations of fraud. Truth is to be replaced by spectacle, facts by  faith.Trump’s coup attempt of 2020-21, like other failed coup attempts, is a warning  for those who care about the rule of law and a lesson for those who do  not. His pre-fascism revealed a possibility for American politics. For a  coup to work in 2024, the breakers will require something that Trump  never quite had: an angry minority, organized for nationwide violence,  ready to add intimidation to an election. Four years of amplifying a big  lie just might get them this. To claim that the other side stole an  election is to promise to steal one yourself. It is also to claim that  the other side deserves to be punished.Informed  observers inside and outside government agree that right-wing white  supremacism is the greatest terrorist threat to the United States. 

Gun  sales in 2020 hit an astonishing high. History shows that political  violence follows when prominent leaders of major political parties  openly embrace paranoia.Our big lie  is typically American, wrapped in our odd electoral system, depending  upon our particular traditions of racism. Yet our big lie is also  structurally fascist, with its extreme mendacity, its conspiratorial  thinking, its reversal of perpetrators and victims and its implication  that the world is divided into us and them. To keep it going for four  years courts terrorism and assassination.

When  that violence comes, the breakers will have to react. If they embrace  it, they become the fascist faction. The Republican Party will be  divided, at least for a time. One can of course imagine a dismal  reunification: A breaker candidate loses a narrow presidential election  in November 2024 and cries fraud, the Republicans win both houses of  Congress and rioters in the street, educated by four years of the big lie,  demand what they see as justice. Would the gamers stand on principle if  those were the circumstances of Jan. 6, 2025?To  be sure, this moment is also a chance. It is possible that a divided Republican Party might better serve American democracy; that the gamers, separated from the breakers, might start to think of policy as a way to  win elections. It is very likely that the Biden-Harris administration  will have an easier first few months than expected; perhaps  obstructionism will give way, at least among a few Republicans and for a  short time, to a moment of self-questioning. 

Politicians who want  Trumpism to end have a simple way forward: Tell the truth about the  election.America will not survive the  big lie just because a liar is separated from power. It will need a  thoughtful repluralization of media and a commitment to facts as a  public good. The racism structured into every aspect of the coup attempt  is a call to heed our own history. Serious attention to the past helps  us to see risks but also suggests future possibility. We cannot be a  democratic republic if we tell lies about race, big or small.Democracy  is not about minimizing the vote nor ignoring it, neither a matter of  gaming nor of breaking a system, but of accepting the equality of  others, heeding their voices and counting their votes.