#we might seriously have to face the possibility of not having elections in this country anymore

[glitterdustcyclops]

to anyone who is still considering not voting at all or voting third party in November, i need you to make the time to sit and watch this video

i need to you to really seriously weight the cost of choosing to note vote in protest, and the potential (incredibly scary and dangerous) impacts of that choice on marginalized folks, including immigrants and trans people

please

[vonlipvig]

Ranking the Not For Broadcast epilogues from happiest to bleakest, in a completely subjective and possibly contradicting fashion, because Man Some Of These Are Bad In Wildly Different Ways:

(Below the cut, because obviously, spoilers)

The 'Actually Good' Tier:

An Accord: My first epilogue, and to me, the canon ending in my heart. This one truly has it all--the truth has been exposed, democracy has been restored, and of course, the team is back together again. Maybe politically it doesn't sound quite as immediately great as the next one, but it's a step in the right direction, and c'mon, seeing Jeremy and Megan fills me with absolute joy.

A Brighter Future: PM Katie Brightman would have my vote for sure! Universal Basic Income, 4-day workweek, climate change being taken seriously, territorial independence, and more? Yeah, sign me up! Also, it seems to be set in a distant future, since this is Katie's third term as PM, which means it's really been working! Only thing bumping this one down from the top is that Jeremy is dead, so it's a rather bittersweet victory for everyone.

A New Leaf: Hey, Bannon! You're alive! Regardless of whatever ordeal he's been through, it's great to see him back (and finally as an anchor! Took the gang going to jail for it to happen, but oh well lmao). This one is pretty similar to the last one, with Katie being the frontrunner, and we have Julia being put to trial, which is deserved. Pretty alright, as endings go.

The Middle Ground: What is the most neutral ending doing this far up? Well, it gets Worse lmao. But yeah, this one is honestly a bit similar to An Accord, expect that poor Jeremy isn't offered his job back. Still, we've got democracy being respected, the news are showing the Actual News, so in my book it's pretty alright as well!

The 'Hmmm' Tier:

A Renewed Mandate: Here it starts to get a bit...hmm. Julia gets reelected, which...I wouldn't have, personally, but hey, that's democracy for you (unless there's trickery going on which oof imagine). But at least it seems that things are not as terrible as they could be. Sure, it seems Advance is really going for that 'we're all one territory' shtick, but it looks like at least other countries are choosing to join? Idk, still a bit too imperialistic for my tastes, but it does get worse.

Julia's Judgement: You might be asking 'why is this one so low?', right? Bannon is back, democracy is restored, Julia's facing criminal charges, all seems ok. Yeah, NO, that Hamilton-Mann guy is about to be president, and sorry but that seems MISERABLE. I mean, at least people had the right to CHOOSE but uhhhhhhhh, yeah no, have you heard that guy speaking? Scary stuff.

All Fall Down: This one and the next one are the hardest to place in this list for me, because they're...bad, clearly, but how bad is hard to ascertain. This is the one where the country is reduced to just a heavily fortified Territory One, and in one hand, I'm sure they're having a bad time due to the war and all, but hey, at least the other territories are finally taking back their rightful independence. But yeah, not a great time for the citizens of T1 who didn't even ask for any of this.

Inevitable Advancement: This one's funny, not even gonna lie. Sure, everyone is sterile, population numbers are dwindling, everyone is stuck with this terrible government with no possibility of an election...but something about Julia going 'MESSAGE TO ALL CITIZENS: PLEASE FUCK' just sends me into hysterics.

Under New Management: I don't care that there were elections here, this one just sucks ass. The CH1 team just gets fired and replaced, and holy shit, 'how many guns are enough?'? THIS SUCKS GET ME OUT OF THIS TIMELINE. Megan looks so gorgeous tho, mwah.

The 'What the Fuck Oh my God' Tier:

Chaos Reigns: This one's pretty bleak, not even gonna lie. The country is in shambles and nobody is safe, but at least Megan's out there doing her best to keep the people informed (possibly with Jenny helping her out? I can dream). Still, it seems like everyone is fucking miserable, so it lands down here in the terrible tier. I can't tell if it's bleaker than the next ones or not, because they're very different types of bleak (and anyway, the next ones hurt me personally lmao).

A Better Jeremy: LOOK WHAT THEY DID TO MY BOY! I don't care that this one and the next one might seem like happier futures at first (cause we all know how much Megan and the rest can act like everything's fine when it clearly isn't fine at all), THIS ONE IS SO EVIL, Julia's like 'look we brainwashed and tortured this guy until he became a hollow shell of his former self!' and everyone has to be like 'YAY! SOCO!' like HOW FUCKING EVIL AAAAAAAAAA.

Jeremy's Injustice: I DON'T CARE THAT POPULATION NUMBERS ARE RISING AND THAT EVERYONE IS HAPPY AND WHATEVER, THEY JUST MURDERED JEREMY DONALDSON IN COLD BLOOD AND COVERED IT UP LIKE IT WAS AN ACCIDENT OR SOMETHING. THEY'RE MAKING MEGAN HAVE TO SMILE THROUGH THIS WHEN THEY KNOW FULL WELL SHE KNOWS THEY KILLED HIM. I'M GONNA RIP THEM TO SHREDS.

Wacky Fun: THE EVERYONE IS DEAD ENDING! All your faves died horrible, violent deaths (and some of them had to watch as others died!), there are no news anymore, the country is probably as fucked up and in disarray as in some of the others, and the only thing you can watch on TV is the most unhinged and manic children's programming. Still, this one has Geoff Algebra suffering, which is better than most of the epilogues here can offer.

Changing of the Guard: Nope nope nope nope. Fuck the military dictatorship ending. Worst possible outcome, you can't change my mind. Bad.

[influencermagazineuk]

France Decides: Second Round of Parliamentary Elections Underway

Today is election day for France as people head to the polls for the second round of parliamentary elections across the country. Polling stations opened at 08:15:00 local time, inviting the citizens to express their opinions in voting until the evening when the urban areas closed at 20:00.  The following are the consequences of this election in relation to the political future of France, especially with regard to the RN: After the first round of the voting, the candidates who withdrew recently and aimed at concentrating the anti-RN vote made the winner’s position in the final level less predictable.  The problem that a voter is trying to solve in contemporary political culture is the problem of RN and the possibility of Right-wing radical factions to combine their efforts against it. The centrists may seem to vote for the extreme left candidates and the left-wing voters may also grudgingly cast their vote for the Macronists This creates an implied voting pattern.  Rama, CC BY-SA 3.0 FR https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/fr/deed.en, via Wikimedia Commons The significance of these elections is further brought out by a very high turnout of 26 senators. 63% by midday – the most people have participated in parliamentary voting since 1981. This strong turn out is as a result of the increased political activism and politically knowledgeable competent citizens who appreciate the importance of this election might be decisive in the future of the nation.  French President Emmanuel Macron who asked for this early election only one month ago now will have to wait for the final results that will define the structure of the 501-member Assemblée Nationale. To form a government the party needs a clear majority which is 289, none of the party was able to get this number in the first round.  During it, projections and some preliminary results are declared as soon as the voting is over; thus, it gives a brief idea about the political future of the country. Nevertheless, due to the complex tendencies of voters and the computational manipulations of political parties and blocks, the result always stays open until the very last vote is counted.  France, a hub of politics and rich political history is set for an evening of drama. The nation resides in abeyance to discover whether it will continue on a divided parliament or more seriously may face the novel challenge of a far-right government.  This campaign has been vigorous for the day to be established; this has involved heated discussions and various political parties’ lobbying for the position. Presumably, for most French citizens, the end of this election will be viewed as a given since the French political campaigning and deliberation period lasted a month.  The world community also follows this process too, this is because the outcome of these elections will certainly affect the internal politics of France and its activities within the framework of the European Union. The likely consequences of this election do not only pertain to the national economy, immigration, and foreign policy, which is why the results of the election raise interest not only nationally but internationally as well.  With the voting carried out throughout the day and well into the night, the French citizens as well as worldwide observers wait in suspense, for the decisions that will determine the destiny of the country. We present to the readers the most often used words of many political commentators: “Nothing is decided until the day is out,” which evidently conveys the uncertainty that surrounds this decisive stage for the French people.  Read the full article

[literaticat]

you're the best. can i ask you why are responses to queries sooo slow? im and MG author and it seems forever to get a response...I would think that coming out of a pandemic editors would be hungry for new material.

I'm going to be as calm as I possibly can be because I know this is probably a sincerely meant question, and you may be new, and you haven't seen the year+ worth of discourse about agents and editors and what is happening in the pandemic within the book industry (and that despite lots of people "coming out of a pandemic", for us, these things are still very much ongoing!). A brief Pandemic Publishing history, from my perspective:

March 2020. We realize that the "pandemic" is officially happening. The Bologna Book Fair is cancelled, travel is cancelled, everyone has to work from home, it's confusing, schools are closed, nobody has child-care. We expect this to last a couple of weeks.

April 2020. It does NOT last "a couple of weeks." Now just for background -- publishing is already an extremely slow process with a lot of lead time - like, we are currently selling/acquiring books for 2023/24 publication. So that means that when all this hit, there were lots of projects in the pipeline already, things that were in various stages of progress and were delayed in Spring/early Summer 2020. They were delayed at that time bc of the combined factors of: the pandemic shutting down everyone's office, not to mention schools, libraries and bookstores, which meant no place to SELL books -- PLUS there are layoffs -- PLUS there are printing/shipping/supply chain issues meaning problematic to make or ship books -- NOT TO MENTION, people getting sick and dying all over NYC, which is where most of US publishing is headquartered.

Early Summer 2020. Shaken, but rallying, all editors and the entirety of publishing are now getting used to working from home. There is a huge learning curve here -- publishing is very much a "face-to-face meetings" and "paper trail" kind of industry and *nothing* about the office life was really set up for remote work. (Most publishers didn't even used to allow DocuSign for contracts, we had to send multiple hard copies all over the country before the pandemic!) -- People learned how to work zoom, and did meetings virtually. They quickly realized that electronic contracts and payments are a blessing.

Now, there are still problems -- like, editors having to work from tiny flats with their children crawling all over them, and designers having to be at the kitchen table instead of, like, a whole studio with the proper lighting and every kind of material available, and contracts people having no files at their fingertips -- but hey, everyone is muddling through.

Of course - bookstores and the like are still closed, and there are still big supply chain issues - and that's a HUGE problem for the actual publication part. But on the agent/editor side, we are all working on future books, so that work simply has to continue, or there won't be any books two years from now!

Summer/Fall 2020. Everyone is absolutely scrambling like mad to do all the work that didn't get done in Spring. There is now a backlog of projects in the pipeline, but OK. Everyone is feeling quite literally traumatized by the things that have gone on, but OK. Some people are still recovering from having gotten sick themselves, or are mourning family lost to the disease. But OK.

This time is as busy as I have ever seen it, for everyone - pretty much a non-stop whirlwind of work. (Both because of the things that didn't get done before AND the fact that nobody can travel or do anything else!) -- There is also, to be honest, a lot of crying. We all desperately need a vacation, and it shows.

Winter 2020/2021. Now mind you -- Aside from that very very rough few months at the beginning, which was just a very confusing time -- books WERE coming out, and WE WERE ALL WORKING, selling, acquiring, creating new books. All of our authors were ALSO working and creating new books. MORE, in fact, because a lot of them were at home for the first time in a long time! But remember -- there's already a backlog, right? So, ALL of these new projects have been slowed/delayed both because of the pandemic, and the backlog of already existing projects, creating a larger backlog of existing projects. At this point we are running on fumes.

Spring/Summer 2021. We are slowly coming out of pandemic pandemonium in personal lives. People are getting vaccinated. It's great. Some people might actually get to go on vacation! Amazing! But it's not actually "normal" yet in publishing-world, because again, there's still that backlog, and everyone is STILL working from home, which is ok, but honestly, still makes things slower for a number of reasons, and look, everyone is just exhausted, okay? It's been a lot.

So anyway that's, in a ginormous nutshell, why you might find that editors and agents are not quite as "hungry" as you might want us to be coming out of a pandemic. IDK. We are just people, my friend.

ETA: I realized that this explainer was JUST pertaining to burnout because of what was happening IN-OFFICE. Combine ALL of this with what was happening in the real world -- like, for example, the horrific brutality against George Floyd and others, and the subsequent intense social justice rallying in Summer 2020 and beyond -- climate disasters, like California being ON FIRE -- a lot of *spicy drama* in the book world -- and A GINORMOUS FLIPPING PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION... yeah omg. I think there could literally be a book about this, but I can't write it or read it tbh.

ETA x 2: (AND I didn't even touch on the fact that a huge problem for everyone I know was A LACK OF ABILITY TO READ during the worst of this! Which as you can imagine is a huge problem for somebody whose job involves READING BOOKS. I mean seriously there were MONTHS where I could not get through a single book, and I know for a fact I'm not alone. I'm JUST getting the ability back and I'm still scared.)

[tobi-smp]

you might be able to expand on this in a way that’s smarter then me, but honestly; i think technoblade apologists rely far too much on word of god for their analysis.

like, it feels like every time technoblade (the character) is analyzed in the context of the Text Itself, the fans will say “that’s not what techno intended” or “he didn’t think that when acting techno”.

this is probably because cc!techno cares so little for the the fourth wall. but as someone who analyzes techno it also annoys me. “cc!techno didn’t plan to kill anyone canonically during doomsday, cc!jack just challenged him” regardless of what your cc intends, c!techno still bombed a country and shot at other characters, and for him to think there would be no casualties in that is ridiculous.

this fourth-wall-breaking honestly gives quite a few issues like this; techno acts like killing tubbo was unimportant or even funny because “it’s minecraft” and anyone still angry at him about that is just irrational. obviously, because c!tubbo still has to live with the scarred body and the huge amount of trauma, this makes c!techno seem like a Huge Dick. but pointing that out always gets so many angry responses.

rivals duo enthusiasts make so much “techno heals and cares for dream” content, but in actuality techno wants his lore to be only funny so he says “i’m not getting tortured. that seems like a you problem.”

i’m not saying that techno isn’t nice— because he is, to ranboo and phil and niki— but because he participates is HUGELY SERIOUS topics (bombing a nation twice, tommys exile, terrorism and taking hostages, dreams torture) and then acts like he doesn’t care, it just makes him look…. Bad.

i dont really know where i was going with this. basically i just wanted to complain about how one of the most argued about characters doesn’t even seem to be serious about the serious parts of the lore.

perhaps you can somehow expand on this in a way that’s smart T_T

Honestly, techno apologism takes techno's word as absolute truth Way too often in general (both in character and out). which isn't unique to techno fans by any means, but it's particularly bothersome because it leaks out into how they talk about other characters, All The Time.

a quick example would be techno arguing that l'manberg was corrupt because tubbo was given presidency without an election. the reality of the situation was that they were in the middle of a crisis (a war that just came to an end, the death of the president with no one to take his place, and the destruction of the entire nation), so it Wasn't under normal circumstances. l'manberg would've then held elections every couple of months had they not been exploded before that could happen. (there's also the fact that nearly everyone that'd be a part of l'manberg was there and could've voiced their concerns, instead the crowd cheered. they didn't get a ballot but they still expressed their approval).

and of course things that he says about other characters being taken as word of god (him wholesale inventing the character flaw that tommy sees himself as a hero with the theseus speech despite the fact that tommy denied it right then and there. or cc!techno making the joke that tommy's only facing the consequences of his own actions, Twice.)

but more on the topic, there Is a massive tonal difference between techno's viewpoint and everyone else's, and that's completely on purpose ! but that creates some of the worst discourse this fandom has to offer Because techno involves himself in serious lore while still insisting on carrying his non-serious roleplay style.

when you take his word on it and Only his word on it it strips other characters of their nuance because he doesn't see or Care about their motivations or the context behind them. that's why it's so easy to paint the butcher army as purely evil from his perspective. Technoblade doesn't care about releasing withers on l'manberg, Technoblade doesn't care about having shot tubbo, Technoblade doesn't care that quackity is terrified of him, so why should they? why should anyone?

people refuse to see the butcher army as a response to technoblade's actions because technoblade doesn't treat his actions as if they have weight. and so quackity is taken to the fandom alter to be sacrificed as an uncomplicated villain (either alongside tubbo or while painting quackity as a manipulator who coerced the rest of the butcher army), and this Long before las nevadas was a part of the lore.

but then of course, if you look at his actions and attitude from any other perspective (minus philza) he just looks, Cold.

he's bombing l'manberg because of a failed execution and philza's house arrest but he won't even acknowledge that tubbo's execution or his destruction of l'manberg was something that he should've apologized for. he painted tommy as a dehumanizer because tommy chose to stand by his best friend, but techno is risking the lives of people who haven't wronged him without remorse because philza (his best friend) got hurt. he's angry at tommy for betraying him (to the point that he's indifferent to his literal death), when he refused to take tommy seriously over feeling betrayed with tubbo's execution and when He was the one who lied to tommy during their partnership.

he refuses to engage with other characters on an emotional level because that would suck the dumb fun out of his actions (and I don't mean dumb fun as an insult here, I love his roleplay style when it Isn't tonally dissonant from everything around it). but from the other perspective that comes across as indifference to suffering, willful ignorance, hypocrisy, or just outright cruelty.

which just isn't how his character Should be read with how its being acted, but it's the only way To read it in context.

techno wants his character to be the comic relief on the server but he still wants to involve himself with heavy lore, which would still be Possible if he was fine playing a villain (just look at jack and niki with their team rocket arc). but the problem is that he presents his character as emotionally disconnected from everyone around him outside of a select handful of people (and even then, he won't engage with certain things seriously for fear of being pulled into serious lore) while still wanting his character to be read as good (or at least lighter on the gray morality scale).

the solution to this would be a more careful implementation of techno's involvement with the lore. keeping him involved in conflicts in a way where his character doesn't bump elbows with the darkest aspects of the server. either by having him Not involved with things like doomsday or having him involved in a way where he isn't an instigator, Or by technoblade the content creator taking the L and taking his roleplay more seriously when he involves himself in serious lore.

instead we have the insistence that it's not technoblade's fault that people died when he killed them because it doesn't fit with how cc!techno wants to engage with those events.

[feelingbluepolitics]

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/09/23/robert-kagan-constitutional-crisis/

Much of this article is trash, written by a mewling conservative trying to distinguish Republicon policies and Republicon ideology as beyond and separate from "trump precursors" for "the last 30 years." Try 60 years, or more. Go all the way back to them with their fury and screams over Social Security as an evil Communist plot.

Kagan is a Never-trumper attempting to sound reasonable despite being a mental conservative, who thinks -- much like poor, beleaguered Joe Manchin -- that Democrats "need to let good Republicons" help them save the country.

He's one of those types of fools who, when he speaks of officials with integrity, is alluding to Mr. Anti-vote Raffensperger, who is to voting like so many white male Republicons are to immigration -- none too happy about illegal or legal. His hero Raffensperger is also one of the leading architects of the Republicon rash of Jim Crow 2.0 laws which Kagan points to as a prime symptom of Nazi-type fascism threatening American right now...but logical consistency fares extremely poorly on the Right.

However, there are some useful points in this article. The criticism leveled toward the Right by a [pre-trump] insider is one. And the insistent urgency of our nation's crisis is another.

"The United States is heading into its greatest political and constitutional crisis since the Civil War, with a reasonable chance over the next three to four years of incidents of mass violence, a breakdown of federal authority, and the division of the country into warring red and blue enclaves. The warning signs may be obscured by the distractions of politics, the pandemic, the economy and global crises, and by wishful thinking and denial. But about these things there should be no doubt:

"First, [t]rump will be the Republican candidate for president in 2024. The hope and expectation that he would fade in visibility and influence have been delusional. He enjoys mammoth leads in the polls; he is building a massive campaign war chest; and at this moment the Democratic ticket looks vulnerable. Barring health problems, he is running. [Or legal problems. Or even better, in order to be a bit safer, both].

"Second, [t]rump and his Republican allies are actively preparing to ensure his victory by whatever means necessary. [t]rump’s charges of fraud in the 2020 election are now primarily aimed at establishing the predicate to challenge future election results that do not go his way. Some Republican candidates have already begun preparing to declare fraud in 2022, just as Larry Elder tried meekly to do in the California recall contest.

"Meanwhile, the amateurish 'stop the steal' efforts of 2020 have given way to an organized nationwide campaign to ensure that [t]rump and his supporters will have the control over state and local election officials that they lacked in 2020. Those recalcitrant Republican state officials who effectively saved the country from calamity by refusing to falsely declare fraud or to 'find' more votes for [t]rump are being systematically removed or hounded from office. Republican legislatures are giving themselves greater control over the election certification process. As of this spring, Republicans have proposed or passed measures in at least 16 states that would shift certain election authorities from the purview of the governor, secretary of state or other executive-branch officers to the legislature. An Arizona bill flatly states that the legislature may 'revoke the secretary of state’s issuance or certification of a presidential elector’s certificate of election' by a simple majority vote. Some state legislatures seek to impose criminal penalties on local election officials alleged to have committed 'technical infractions,' including obstructing the view of poll watchers.

"The stage is thus being set for chaos.

..."Most Americans — and all but a handful of politicians — have refused to take this possibility seriously enough to try to prevent it. As has so often been the case in other countries where fascist leaders arise, their would-be opponents are paralyzed in confusion and amazement at this charismatic authoritarian. They have followed the standard model of appeasement, which always begins with underestimation. The political and intellectual establishments in both parties have been underestimating [t]rump since he emerged on the scene in 2015. They underestimated the extent of his popularity and the strength of his hold on his followers; they underestimated his ability to take control of the Republican Party; and then they underestimated how far he was willing to go to retain power. The fact that he failed to overturn the 2020 election has reassured many that the American system remains secure, though it easily could have gone the other way — if Biden had not been safely ahead in all four states where the vote was close; if [t]rump had been more competent and more in control of the decision-makers in his administration, Congress and the states. As it was, [t]rump came close to bringing off a coup earlier this year...

..."Where does the Republican Party stand in all this? The party gave birth to and nurtured this movement; it bears full responsibility for establishing the conditions in which [t]rump could capture the loyalty of 90 percent of Republican voters. Republican leaders were more than happy to ride [t]rump’s coattails if it meant getting paid off with hundreds of conservative court appointments, including three Supreme Court justices; tax cuts; immigration restrictions; and deep reductions in regulations on business.

..."From the uneasy and sometimes contentious partnership during [t]rump’s four years in office, the party’s main if not sole purpose today is as the willing enabler of [t]rump’s efforts to game the electoral system to ensure his return to power.

..."With the party firmly under his thumb, [t]rump is now fighting the Biden administration on separate fronts. One is normal, legitimate political competition, where Republicans criticize Biden’s policies, feed and fight the culture wars, and in general behave like a typical hostile opposition.

"The other front is outside the bounds of constitutional and democratic competition and into the realm of illegal or extralegal efforts to undermine the electoral process. The two are intimately related, because the Republican Party has used its institutional power in the political sphere to shield [t]rump and his followers from the consequences of their illegal and extralegal activities in the lead-up to Jan. 6. Thus, Reps. Kevin McCarthy and Elise Stefanik, in their roles as party leaders, run interference for the [t]rump movement in the sphere of legitimate politics, while Republicans in lesser positions cheer on the Jan. 6 perpetrators, turning them into martyrs and heroes, and encouraging illegal acts in the future.

..."Even [t]rump opponents play along. Republicans such as Sens. Mitt Romney and Ben Sasse have condemned the events of Jan. 6, criticized [t]rump and even voted for his impeachment, but in other respects they continue to act as good Republicans and conservatives. On issues such as the filibuster, Romney and others insist on preserving 'regular order' and conducting political and legislative business as usual, even though they know that [t]rump’s lieutenants in their party are working to subvert the next presidential election.

"The result is that even these anti-[t]rump Republicans are enabling the insurrection. Revolutionary movements usually operate outside a society’s power structures. But the [t]rump movement also enjoys unprecedented influence within those structures. It dominates the coverage on several cable news networks, numerous conservative magazines, hundreds of talk radio stations and all kinds of online platforms. It has access to financing from rich individuals and the Republican National Committee’s donor pool. And, not least, it controls one of the country’s two national parties...

"The world will look very different in 14 months if, as seems likely, the Republican zombie party wins control of the House. At that point, with the political winds clearly blowing in his favor, [t]rump is all but certain to announce his candidacy, and social media constraints on his speech are likely to be lifted, since Facebook and Twitter would have a hard time justifying censoring his campaign. With his megaphone back, [t]rump would once again dominate news coverage, as outlets prove unable to resist covering him around the clock if only for financial reasons.

"But this time, [t]rump would have advantages that he lacked in 2016 and 2020, including more loyal officials in state and local governments; the Republicans in Congress; and the backing of GOP donors, think tanks and journals of opinion. And he will have the [t]rump movement, including many who are armed and ready to be activated, again. Who is going to stop him then?

..."[Republicons] have refused to work with Democrats to pass legislation limiting state legislatures’ ability to overturn the results of future elections, to ensure that the federal government continues to have some say when states try to limit voting rights, to provide federal protection to state and local election workers who face threats, and in general to make clear to the nation that a bipartisan majority in the Senate opposes the subversion of the popular will. Why?

[They, just like trump, want and intend to be in power at all costs.

..."We are already in a constitutional crisis. The destruction of democracy might not come until November 2024, but critical steps in that direction are happening now. In a little more than a year, it may become impossible to pass legislation to protect the electoral process in 2024. Now it is impossible only because anti-[t]rump Republicans, and even some Democrats, refuse to tinker with the filibuster. It is impossible because, despite all that has happened, some people still wish to be good Republicans [sic] even as they oppose [t]rump. These decisions will not wear well as the nation tumbles into full-blown crisis."

[prettybiching]

Okay you are an angel for doing this but can I have a Jon Ossoff one where the reader is a Senator please... I’m very scared that he has a secret tumblr and can see this but fuck shame. THANK YOU

Look At Me

Pairing: Jon Ossoff x Senator!fem!reader

Warnings: 18+ mature content, oral (male and female receiving), orgasm denial, unprotected sex (use protection, children), praising kink? hair pulling, cursing

Word Count: 4,985 words

Note: In this fic, Jon wins his race on 5th January instead of the 6th. The insurrection still happens and I’ve left the possibility of a second part open if anyone wants it (it will take place on the day of the inauguration/his swearing-in)

Also this was heavily inspired by Why Don't We's song 'Look At Me' so you can listen to it while reading <3

This one is a personal favourite of mine so hope you guys enjoy

Being the youngest Senator in the United States Senate wasn't as easy as it seemed, especially when you're a woman. You spent the past two years working twice as hard as your constituents for them to take you seriously. Thankfully, the hard work paid off as you smoothly rode your way to a second term with a fierce and no-nonsense reputation. 

With a satisfying national election out of the way, the entire country's eyes were on the Georgia state run-off elections, including yours.

As soon as you'd secured your own Senate seat, you threw yourself onto Jon Ossoff and Reverend Raphael Warnock's campaigns. Your relationship with the former was turning out to be an interesting one, to the say least.

The two of you flirted, relentlessly and shamelessly. You were certain even the crowd in the rallies took notice of it. Yet, it was not going anywhere. At least not for some time.

"How are we on the count?" you asked, walking into the room filled with campaign staffers. Although Jon was in the lead the last time you'd heard, the race was still open. 

"Ossoff is still on the lead," your chief of staff, Beverly announced, her eyes not leaving her iPad. You had decided to bring in your manpower for the last few weeks of the campaign as well. "However, Perdue is closing in."

"Shit," you cursed, your fingers curled into a fist.

"We will be fine," came another voice, calm and far more composed than yours. You felt the weight of Jon's arm around you as he swung his it over your shoulder, drawing you closer to him. 

You rolled your eyes at his optimism. How did he manage to be so calm while you were losing your mind? It was so unfair. 

"Jon," you dragged, turning to the side--as much as his grip on you allowed, "I thought you were meant to be in your home?" You fluttered your eyelashes at him dramatically, inducing a smile from him. 

"I didn't feel like staying there," he shrugged, leaning his weight against your side, stuffing his free hand in the pocket of his pants. "Besides, you're here," he winked at you, a shit-eating grin on his face.

You hummed, unable to stop the smile curling onto your lips. "Aren't you adorable?" you cooed, taking in the scent of Jon's aftershave. 

"Take me in all you want because this miss is out tomorrow," you remarked, lifting Jon's arms from around you, turning yourself around to stand across him. 

"It's alright," he shrugged, not letting go of your hands, "I'll join you in two weeks."

An involuntary smile escaped your lips at his cockiness before you shook your head.

"You're something else, aren't you?" your hand curled around his bicep before the two of you began walking out of the room.

"I'll take that as a compliment," he grinned at you, every now and then waving or nodding towards the interns and staffers you two passed. 

"You should," you sighed, your heart sinking a little at the thought of leaving Georgia the next day. You came to enjoy your time here more than you had expected to, it was as if you were inside your own bubble, a bubble that would burst once you left. 

Jon noticed your change in demeanour and nudged you with his hip, breaking you away from your trance. "What's up, buttercup?"

"Call me that one more time and I'll break your pretty face," you warned with a deadpan glare.

However, that didn't seem you faze him. Instead, he focused on another aspect of your threat. 

"Awe, you think I have a pretty face?" he teased, stopping at his feet. He took a step forward, closing in the gap between the two of you, him towering over him.

Instead of backing away, you let go of his bicep, lifting both of your hands to cup his cheeks, squishing them. "You have the prettiest face in town," you cooed in a baby voice. 

You felt his face heat up in your grasp, making you smile. Two can play this game, you thought.

"I prefer yours, though," his voice came muffled as your hands made it difficult for him to speak, but you heard it, alright.

"Bitch, you should!" you exclaimed, letting go of his face, stuffing your hands in the pockets of your overcoat for warmth. "I have the face of a goddess, thank you very much."

Jon threw his head back in laughter as you mock curtsied, his face turning red. You couldn't help but join in as well, his state far too amusing for you to just stand by. You shook your head, giggling, holding onto his arms for balance.

"You know what?" he rasped, recovering from his fit. "I see why Raphael finds us insufferable at times," he said before letting out another laugh.

"Hey!" you pouted, slapping his forearm lightly. "We are adorable."

 With a grin still in his face, Jon leaned in closer, wrapping his arms around your shoulder, engulfing you in a warm hug. He swayed the two of you side-by-side, "That we are."

Your palms remained pressed against his back, enjoying the way his body heat radiated off to you. His chin settled on the crown of your head, securing you in place.

"You're going to win this thing," you stated against him, your voice void of any hesitation, "and you're going to join me in DC."

"Because if you don't, I'm going to annoy you to death," you tilted your head upwards, making him move his head back.

His hands trailed down before settling on your waist, a gentle smile washing over his face, making your heart melt. He opened his mouth to respond, but before he could get a word out, Beverly's voice rang through the empty lobby.

"I've got an update---"

"Okay, are you guys fucking yet?" she asked, her mouth hanging wide open at the two of you. No doubt, the two of you looked comfortable.

Jon's laugh vibrated against you as you rolled your eyes at her words, unlinking yourself from him. However, he did not let you go too far away as one of his hands resting on your waist as you stood by his side.

You felt a remark coming from Jon, so you dug your elbow to his side, shutting him up prematurely before turning to Beverly. "What do you have, Bev?"

Forgetting about what was happening earlier, her eyes darted between the two of you, a devilish smile that you'd seen so many times before taking over. "You guys might want to see this."

The two of you walked back into the office room, ignoring the lurking eyes of the campaign volunteers and interns on you. 

The atmosphere inside the room was airy and cheerful, a transformation from what you'd seen earlier. You knew this meant some positive news. 

Jon's campaign manager held a massive grin on his face as he spoke, "You're going to want to start brushing up on that victory speech of yours."

"They're almost done with counting the votes, the race is about to be called anytime," someone else added from afar, eyes fixated on their computer screen.

Your lips split into a toothy grin, your heart swelling with excitement. It was happening, Jon was going to win. Your eyes went over to his face, he was smiling, but more than that, you knew he was relieved. A weight was lifted off of him. 

"Guys," Beverly called out, drawing everyone's attention towards her. Jon's campaign manager joined in, both of them looking at one another for confirmation before they turned to Jon.

"The Associated Press has called the race for..." she read from her iPad, "Jon fucking Ossoff."

The room erupted into screams, everyone letting out a loud cheer for Jon. You jumped at your feet, your arms snaking around his neck to pull him against you. He responded by planting his arms around your waist, holding onto for balance. 

You pulled your face back for a second, only for him to lean forward, crashing his lips against yours with fervour. Your stomach did backflips as you felt his hands squeeze your hips. 

Your brain froze for a second, unable to process what was happening before you kissed back with the same ardour, your hands resting on his jaw to pull him closer to you. 

After a few seconds, the two of you are forced to pull back for air, already missing the taste of his lips and your eyes widen at him in surprise. "Holy shit," you gasped, "did you just kiss me?"

His nose creased as he smiled down on you, his hands finding their way back to your waist, oblivious of all the onlookers. "I think I just did, Senator."

"We are going to talk about this later," you arched your brow at him pointedly before untwining from him. The kiss could wait, for now, this was this moment. He belonged to the people right now, he could be yours later. 

Everyone began congratulating him, bombarding him with handshakes and hugs as you stepped to the side, Beverly joining you.

"Don't," you warned, looking ahead, avoiding the teasing smile on her face you could see from the corner of your eyes. 

"I didn't say anything," she threw her hands in mock surrender. "All I'm saying this, about damn time, L/N."

You rolled your eyes, your slightly swollen lips curling into a small smile as you met Jon's eyes from across the room.

-----------

With the Georgia election results in, you had another itinerary to fulfil in DC. You had a flight to catch the next day, early in the morning so you could join your colleagues in certifying the Electoral College votes. It was merely symbolic. However, recent words of rejection from the far-right made the event much more significant. You needed to be present.

A few months ago, you would've been ecstatic at the prospect of being part of history, but it seemed like your heart had other plans. 

"You know you can have more than one drink, right?" Beverly's voice announced, taking a seat beside you. You deviated your eyes from the crowd to her, her usual pantsuit gone and replaced by a white woollen bodycon. She, along with others, had finally let loose and you knew they deserved it. No one worked harder than them.

"I'd rather not wake up with a hangover in the morning," you retorted, taking a sip of the drink you'd been nursing for quite some time. "You look nice," you added, "not that you don't look nice every day."

She rolled her eyes at your compliment, scoffing, "Please, I look like I ran out of a burning building at work."

"That's so not true," you gasped, playfully swatting her arm. "Take the compliment and shut up."

"Anyways," she began, ignoring you, "there comes your loverboy." Your eyes followed her extended finger and at the end of it was a neatly dressed Jon, his eyes glistening against the dimly lit room, a lazy smile on his face and his usually set hair, unruffled. 

Beverly slides out of her chair, waving lousily at you before leaving the two of you alone. You didn't miss her poor attempt at winking at Jon to which he let out a chuckle before taking Beverly's seat.

"Hi," you propped your chin atop your knuckle, a smile creeping up your face as your heart fluttered at his sight. Damn it, you're whipped.

"You look," he took in a sharp breath, eyeing you up and down, "breathtaking."

Your mouth ran dry, you bit into your cheeks as you felt your face beginning to heat up. "You don't look too bad yourself," you teased, leaning closer to Jon.

Abandoning the drink on the table, your hands trailed towards his tie, fixing it as his eyes remained fixated on you. 

"You know it's getting late," he remarked absentmindedly, pulling your stool closer to him. 

"Hm?" you pretended to feign oblivion, your hands still on his tie. "What about it?"

He closed the gap between the two of you, his lips hovering over your ear, "No one will miss us."

With that, you tilted your head to the side, pulling him by his tie as you captured his lips with yours, he responded instantly, his hands coming up to cup your cheeks. His lips were warm and soft, tasting of alcohol as they moulded around yours. You let out a sound of approval, a fire igniting within you as your mind dizzied from the smell of his cologne. 

The two of you pulled back, panting. Jon's pupils were blown, his lips swollen as he stared at you with a sheepish smile. Your chest heaved, and you reciprocated his expression before taking his arm, pulling him out of his seat.

You made a beeline for the exit door, pushing past the sea of people, your legs moving fast as Jon followed suit. You're hit with a cold breeze as you make your way out, your navy blue dress and the coat draped over your shoulders not enough to withstand the chill, goosebumps rising on your arms. 

Neither of you speaks on the elevator ride to your hotel room. Your bodies, every touch, every movement, does the speaking for you. Jon's standing behind you, one of his hands firmly planted on your hips as he bends his head down, brushing aside your hair. His fingers are cold against the delicate flesh of your skin, making you shiver.

You feel his lips on the nape of your neck, slowly and painfully, his kisses trailing down your exposed skin. Just as a moan escapes your lips, the elevator dings open and this time, Jon's the one leading you out.

You're a panting mess, and Jon's far too collected for your liking as you reach the door of your hotel room. Your hands are shaky as you attempt to retrieve your card from your purse, failing a few times to unlock it before the door clicks open.

As soon as the door closes behind you two, the atmosphere has changed. You throw your purse and the coat off of your shoulders on the floor. You're about to free yourself off your stilettos when Jon's voice stops you, "Keep those on."

You oblige, halting your actions before turning around. Your eyes are fixated on Jon as he discards his suit jacket, the clothing joining the pile on the floor. You bit your lips, stifling a whisper as you watch his arms flex, untying the tie from around his neck. 

You watch as he frees himself from the restraints of his clothing while you take your own sweet time, unzipping your dress, leaving you only in your bra and panties. 

Jon’s tongue darts out to lick his lips at your sight, and you make your way towards him, pulling his face down towards yours, meshing your lips together once more, and it’s different from before but not any less good. He presses against your back and then moves his hand down to your ass, squeezing it through the lace of your panties and you let out a whimper in surprise.

“Did you like that?” His voice has dropped an octave, almost a growl and wetness pools at your core at the mere sound. You nod desperately. God, it’s so good, and you don’t realize you’re walking backwards until your legs hit the bed and you find yourself planted on the mattress. 

Jon situates himself between your open legs, kneeling on the floor and you wrap them around his shoulders, pulling him closer to you, and then he’s kissing you again. Your hands move to his back and trace your fingers along his exposed back - so toned and warm, and he shivers when your nails graze his skin. 

He's so fucking perfect, you cry in your head. How many nights did you spend with your hands between your legs playing out the exact scene happening in front of you? Far too many and the sight of him between your thighs is enough to make your pussy clench.

"Changed your mind?" He asks, a teasing smile on his face as he runs his hands along your legs and you look at him with wide eyes, shaking your head furiously.

"Never," Your answer makes him chuckle, and he leans over, his knees off the floor as he kisses you once again. The kiss is intense, filled with hunger and desperation, and you fall back a little, bracing yourself on your elbows. His hands leave your legs before going to your waist, trailing them up until they reach the clasp of your bra.

He unhooks the fabric, your chest exposed to the cold wind, making your nipples harden. “God,” He murmurs, resting his palm against your breast, and then he squeezes. You moan out, and then he’s focusing on your nipple, rolling it between his fingers. It feels so good you could sob, and you bring your fingers up to run through his hair.

 Jon looks up at you with one raised eyebrow and then moves his head to your chest, pressing wet, open-mouthed kisses against your chest. Your back arches into his mouth, squeezing tightly on his black strands, a choked-up cry leaving your mouth as his teeth graze your nipple.

Godgodgodgodgod. Feels so fucking incredible your brain starts getting fuzzy. He’s so good at this. All you can focus on is him, now, working through his soft hair as he wraps his lips right around your nipple, cheeks hollowing as he sucks, and you groan out.

“God, Jon. Fuck.” It’s all you can say, though you’re fairly positive he gets the gist of your feelings about what he’s doing. You push yourself up, and Jon moves off of you, looking at you with his brows furrowed, confused why you push him away.

"Jon, I need you. Please," You whimper desperately.

His lips curl up slightly, and you narrow your eyes at him. "You have to be patient, doll.”

“I don’t want to be patient, I want you now, Jon, please.”

You pout your lips. Jon's head is mere inches from your chest, and when he breathes out, it tickles your breasts.

But then Jon says, “Don’t be a brat, honey,” and you furrow your eyebrows. “I said to be patient. You get it -” his hands trail to your panties, tucking at them, “when I say you can have it. Alright?”

No, you don’t think it’s very alright, actually. You open your mouth to protest, to beg Jon for it, even, and be the brat he told you not to be. His hand snakes up and presses against your mouth, and you huff.

With his free hand, he tugs down your panties - the crotch area is damp, sticky with your arousal, and you see his lips nearly spread into a smile at the sight of it.

Jon leans in and attaches his lips to your clit, flicking his tongue against the sensitive nub, and you cry out louder than you ever have before. Your legs - over his shoulders, ankles crossed at the top of his back - shake desperately, thighs enclosed around his ears.

His eyes flit up to you, and they’re so smug. Full of cockiness and all you want is to be full of him.

His tongue is magical. Your hips buck into his mouth as he sucks at your clit and then he braces his hands over your hips, keeping you pressed right down onto the mattress. Your eyes shut of their own accord and your breath is erratic no matter how much you try to keep it steady.

“Eyes open.” Jon's voice is low, and you obey him without a second thought, gazing down upon him from his spot between your thighs. He isn’t looking at you - his own eyes are shut as if the pleasure of doing this to you is too much for him to keep them open - and he moves his mouth from your clit to ghost open-mouthed kisses over your inner thighs before licking a thin stripe up your folds.

Your hips try to jerk up again, but Jon keeps them pressed down, and when you look back down at him, your eyes meet. The knot that had been forming in your stomach begins to unravel. Your thighs clamped around his head, your skin warm against his ears. Your hand is in his hair, and you grip his strands. His locks feel so soft between your fingers, and cries are streaming from your mouth.

Jon is a constant chant coming off your lips.

You swear you’re a second away from toppling over the edge of your orgasm when he pulls away. His chin is slick with your juices, and you sob out, a tear trickling down your cheek as you slowly start to come down from your denied pleasure - but it’s so bad, you hate him for this, you need to fucking cum.

“Please, please.”

Jon listens to your pleads for just a moment, resting his cheek against your inner thigh. He watches you catch your breath and then stands, and you’re on the verge of protesting, but then he grips the backs of your thighs - pulls you to the edge of the bed and then picks you up.

Your legs hook around his waist, and he wraps one arm around your back, pulling you as close to him as you can, and then he kisses you, hard and fast and passionate, and you moan into his mouth.

He plops you onto the bed once again, your head nearly missing the headboard as you sink into the soft mattress. As desperate as you are for your release, the sight of his thick bulge beneath his boxers makes your mouth water. 

Licking your lips, you prop yourself onto your elbows before sitting upright, your hands travelling to his boxers, your eyes locked to his, asking for permission. Wordlessly, his fingers tangle themselves into your hair, pulling you closer.

You snake your hand down into his boxers, grasping his length, and he lets out a loud groan. His grip on your hair tightens, and you moan yourself, tightening your grip on his member.

Jesus.

He’s big. It’s all you can fucking think about, now, and you bring your hand to your mouth - spit into your palm - and begin jerking him off, slowly, still marvelling at him.

You scoot forward a little, and Jon growls underneath you. You whimper, pumping your hand faster up and down his length, and then you lean your head in and lick a stripe up his shaft, following a thick purple vein that leads right to the tip.

“Oh, fuck!” Jon's fingernails dig into your scalp, making you moan against him. You wrap your lips around the tip of his dick, hollowing your cheeks as you suck on it, and the room is filled with your noises.

Jon's hips buck up into your mouth, and you gag around him, tongue swirling around the tip of his cock.

Your mouth leaves his cock, replaced with your hands as you pump him a couple of times, and you lean forward to lick at his tip when Jon groans out and buries his hand into your curls, tugging you back and away from his cock, and your hand drops away from him. You push him down on your back, so Jon's lying on the mattress, and you’re straddling his lower stomach. Then you turn so you facing him, admiring his face - lust overtaking his features - and he brings his hand up to your cheek, stroking your skin with the pad of his thumb.

“I don’t want to cum in your mouth, sweetheart,” he murmurs, voice soft, and a chill runs up your back at his tone. That and - the cold breeze of the room. Jon places his hand on your thigh and trails it nearer to your cunt until his fingers are ghosting over your folds, and with one fluid motion, he pushes a finger inside of you. There’s not a single bit of resistance from your body, slickness making it entirely too easy for him, and you moan out. “I want to cum in here.”

Jon pushes himself up against the back of the bed, pressing his hands against your back, and you kiss him so fucking hard it almost hurts. Your taste is on his lips, and you love it, love the mixture of the two of you, love how beautiful this all is. 

You reach down and take hold of his cock again, legs shaking as you position yourself right above him, lips still so close to his, and you sink down onto his achingly hard member after one deep breath.

He is big, and it almost hurts - not much, but it’s almost there. Almost - but the pleasure that fills you overpowers any ounce of pain you could feel. Jon drops his head back, moving his hands to your hips, rubbing your skin, and if Jon's feeling half as good as you are, then he’s in fucking heaven.

Based on his blissed-out face, you’d think he is.

Your head drops to his shoulder, and you swallow thickly, a tear forcing its way from your eye and down your cheek, and Jon's breathing is so heavy. You can feel him throbbing inside of you, and you need a moment before you can move, but you wouldn’t have it any other way.

You need time to value this, savouring every second of him inside of you. 

You lift yourself up, legs shaking near violently, and then drop back down. Jon’s moan is nearly louder than yours, and you lean in to kiss him again as you keep moving. Slow at first, but you try to get faster. 

You roll your hips and grind into him, bouncing up and down, and Jon helps you with his hands on your hips and on your waist, and his moans and cries are the perfect motivation to keep going.

“Oh my god.” your voice is breathy, a cry breaking through the words like water through a dam. “God, Jon. Oh, god, fuck.”

You rest your hands on his shoulders, leaning in again to kiss him, but you’re moving fast enough that it’s hard to land every kiss and so you end up with your lips pressed against his jawline. You want his touch everywhere - your waist and your ass and your tits and your clit - because wherever he touches it feels like electricity sparking through your body.

“Feel so good and tight around me,” Jon grunts, and you could cum just from the words. “You’re so wet, sweetheart, so - fucking - good. So good for me.”

“Jon -” your legs are aching, muscles burning, and you’re afraid of the pace stuttering, but you can hardly get the words out to tell him. You wrap your arms around his neck and use that as leverage to keep bouncing up and down.

It’s hard. Jon notices your pace slowing and holds your hips down, forcing you to take all of him in, and then he pulls you off of him with one swift motion.

You already miss his cock filling you up. He pushes you back onto the bed, and you sink into the mattress with a small grin as he presses his body on top of yours. You throw a leg over his waist, pulling him down, and then you lean up again, attaching your lips as he slides into you.

His hips are fast against yours, the pace near brutal, but you wouldn’t have it any other way. Skin slaps against the skin, and he bites at your lip, swallowing every single sob that escapes your mouth, catching your tears with a finger beneath your eye. Your hand snakes between your body and rubs at your clit, two fingers against your swollen, sensitive nub, and it’s so intense.

It’s all so intense. Jon's grunts are akin to that of angels, and with every thrust, he hits your g spot, and your fingers on your clit only add to the experience - and it’s even better when he rips your wrist from your cunt and replaces it with his own finger, rubbing tight, fast circles.

You won’t last.

You cum, and it’s violent, legs thrashing, body arching upwards. Your eyes roll back into your head and pleasure rips through your body like a fucking earthquake, and Jon's still pumping in and out of you, his fingers are relentless on your clit.

Leaning down to kiss you once more, he pushes his hips into yours a few more times, pace slowing.

“Gonna cum in you, sweetheart,” Jon murmurs.

He cums within another minute, spilling inside of you, and the warmth of his cum painting your walls could push you over the edge again. Jon’s groans are loud and brash, rolling his hips slowly against yours until he’s finished, and then he collapses right back on top of you.

Your bodies are slick with sweat and entirely too warm, but with the cold contrast of the room, you don’t mind. Your leg around Jon's waist, your arms on his neck, his head in your shoulder. Lips on your neck. It’s all so perfect.

A peaceful silence overtakes both of you, and you want to swim in it for eternity. However, you can't resist the words leaving your lips.

"How the fuck do you expect me two spend the next two weeks in peace after this?"

He laughs against your bare skin, sending a tingle down your spine before he presses a kiss on your shoulder blade. 

Nevertheless, you know your coming two years in DC will be far from lonely.

[robertreich]

Trump is a Clear and Present Danger to America and the World

In retrospect, what’s most disturbing about “Sharpiegate” isn’t Donald Trump’s clumsy effort to doctor a National Weather Service map or even his brazen move to get the same agency to lie on his behalf. It’s how utterly petty his motive was.

We’ve had presidents try to cover up a sexual liaison with an intern and a botched burglary, but never have we had one who went to such lengths to cover up an inaccurate weather forecast. Alabama being hit by a hurricane? Friends, this is not rational behavior.

Trump also canceled a meeting with the Taliban at Camp David. The meeting was to have been secret. It was scheduled for the week of the anniversary of 9/11. He cancelled it by tweet.

Does any of this strike you as even remotely rational?

Before that, Trump canceled a state visit to Denmark because Denmark wouldn’t sell Greenland to the U.S. Hello? Greenland wasn’t for sale. The U.S. no longer buys populated countries. The state visit had been planned for months.

He has repeatedly told senior officials to explore using nuclear bombs to stop hurricanes hitting the U.S. He believes video games cause mass shootings. He blames light bulbs for his orange hue. 

Trump thinks climate change is no big deal. He says trade wars are “good and easy to win.” He insists it’s Chinese rather than U.S. consumers who pay his tariffs. He “orders” American firms to stop doing business in China.

He calls the chairman of the Federal Reserve an “enemy.” He retweets a comedian’s sick suggestion that the Clintons were responsible for the suicide of convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.

I think we have to face the truth that no one seems to want to admit. This is no longer a case of excessive narcissism or grandiosity. We’re not simply dealing with an unusually large ego.

The president of the United States is seriously, frighteningly, dangerously unstable. And he’s getting worse by the day.

Such a person in the Oval Office can do serious damage.

What to do? We can vote him out of office in 14 months’ time. But he could end the world in seven and a half seconds.

There’s also the question of whether he’ll willingly leave.

Can you imagine the lengths he will go to win? Will he get Russia to do more dirty work? Instruct the Justice Department to arrest his opponent? Issue an executive order banning anyone not born in the U.S. from voting? Start another war?

By the time the courts order him to cease whatever unconstitutional effort he’s making to remain in office, the election may be over. Or he’ll just ignore the courts.

It’s almost too late for an impeachment. Besides, no president has ever been sent packing. Richard Nixon resigned because he saw it coming. Trump would sooner start a civil war.

Also, being unstable is not an impeachable offense.

Two Republicans who have announced primary challenges to Trump have suggested another possibility: the 25th Amendment.

Former Massachusetts Gov. Bill Weld recently tweeted that Trump is “a clear and present danger” to the U.S., adding the hashtag “#25thAmendment.” Former Illinois Rep. Joe Walsh says the amendment should be “looked at.” 

Last February, former FBI deputy director Andrew McCabe said officials in the Department of Justice had discussed using the 25th.

Ratified in 1967, the 25th Amendment allows the vice president to become “acting president” when “the vice president and a majority of either the principal officers of the executive departments or such other body as Congress may by law” declare a president incapacitated.

The only attribute Vice President Mike Pence has displayed so far is sycophancy. The most recent illustration: overr-nighting at Trump’s golf resort in Ireland. But with rumors flying that Trump might exchange Pence for another lapdog, who knows? Maybe Pence will discover some cojones.

Another problem: the 25th Amendment doesn’t define who “principal officers” are, and the Constitution never mentions the word “Cabinet.” If Trump thought a revolt was brewing, he’d fire everyone instantly.

I wouldn’t completely rule out the use of the 25th Amendment, but the only thing that’s going to get Pence and a majority of Trump’s lieutenants to pull the plug before Trump pulls it on them may be so horrific that the damage done to America and the world would be way beyond anything we’ve experienced to date.

Which is to say, be careful what you wish for.

Pray that we make it through the next 14 months. Then, do everything in your power to remove this man from office.

[shadowfromthestarlight]

The moment a group of people stormed the Capitol building last Wednesday, news  companies began the process of sorting and commoditizing information that  long ago became standard in American media.

Media firms work backward. They first ask, “How does our target demographic want to  understand what’s just unfolded?” Then they pick both the words and the facts  they want to emphasize.

It’s why  Fox News uses the term, “Pro-Trump protesters,” while New York and The Atlantic use “Insurrectionists.” It’s why conservative media today is stressing how Apple, Google, and Amazon shut down the “Free Speech” platform Parler over  the weekend, while mainstream outlets are emphasizing a new round of  potentially armed protests reportedly planned for January 19th or 20th.

What happened last Wednesday was the apotheosis of the Hate Inc. era, when this  audience-first model became the primary means of communicating facts to the population. For a hundred reasons dating back to the mid-eighties, from the advent of the Internet to the development of the 24-hour news cycle to the end of the Fairness Doctrine and the Fox-led  discovery that news can be sold as character-driven, episodic TV in the  manner of soap operas, the concept of a “Just the facts” newscast designed to  be consumed by everyone died out.

News companies now clean world events like whalers, using every part of the  animal, funneling different facts to different consumers based upon  calculations about what will bring back the biggest engagement kick. The  Migrant Caravan? Fox slices  off comments from a Homeland Security official describing most of the  border-crossers as single adults coming for “economic reasons.” The New York Times counters  by running a story about how the caravan was deployed as a political issue by a Trump White  House staring at poor results in midterm elections.

Repeat this info-sifting process a few billion times and this is how we became, as none other than Mitch McConnell put it last week, a country:

Drifting apart into two separate tribes, with a separate set of facts and separate realities, with nothing in common except our hostility towards each other and mistrust for the few national institutions that we all still share.

The flaw in the system is that even the biggest news companies now operate under the assumption that at least half their potential audience isn’t listening. This leads to all sorts of problems, and the fact that the easiest way to keep your own demographic is to feed it negative stories about others is only the most  obvious. On all sides, we now lean into inflammatory caricatures, because the  financial incentives encourage it.

Everyone monetized Trump. The Fox  wing surrendered to the Trump phenomenon from the start, abandoning its  supposed fealty to “family values” from the Megyn Kelly incident on. Without  a thought, Rupert Murdoch sacrificed the paper-thin veneer of  pseudo-respectability Fox  had always maintained up to a point (that point being the moment advertisers  started to bail in horror, as they did with Glenn Beck). He reinvented Fox as a platform for  Trump’s conspiratorial brand of cartoon populism, rather than let some more-Fox-than-Fox imitator like OAN sell the  ads to Trump’s voters for four years.

In between its titillating quasi-porn headlines (“Lesbian Prison Gangs Waiting To Get Hands on Lindsay  Lohan, Inmate Says” is one from years ago that stuck in my mind), Fox’s business model has  long been based on scaring the crap out of aging Silent Majority viewers with  a parade of anything-but-the-truth explanations for America’s decline. It  villainized immigrants, Muslims, the new Black Panthers, environmentalists —  anyone but ADM, Wal-Mart, Countrywide, JP Morgan Chase, and other sponsors of  Fortress America. Donald Trump was one of the people who got hooked on Fox’s  narrative.

The rival media ecosystem chose cash over truth also. It could have responded to  the last election by looking harder at the tensions they didn’t see coming in  Trump’s America, which might have meant a more intense examination of the  problems that gave Trump his opening: the jobs that never came back after  bankers and retailers decided to move them to unfree labor zones in places  like China, the severe debt and addiction crises, the ridiculous  contradiction of an expanding international military garrison manned by a  population fast losing belief in the mission, etc., etc.

Instead, outlets like CNN and MSNBC took a Fox-like approach, downplaying issues in  favor of shoving Trump’s agitating personality in the faces of audiences over  and over, to the point where many people could no longer think about anything  else. To juice ratings, the Trump story — which didn’t need the slightest  exaggeration to be fantastic — was more or less constantly distorted.

Trump  began to be described as a cause of America’s problems, rather than a symptom,  and his followers, every last one, were demonized right along with him, in  caricatures that tickled the urbane audiences of channels like CNN but made  conservatives want to reach for something sharp. This technique was borrowed  from Fox,  which learned in the Bush years that you could boost ratings by selling  audiences on the idea that their liberal neighbors were terrorist traitors.  Such messaging worked better by far than bashing al-Qaeda, because this enemy  was closer, making the hate more real.

I came  into the news business convinced that the traditional “objective” style of  reporting was boring, deceptive, and deserving of mockery. I used to laugh at  the parade of “above the fray” columnists and stone-dull house editorials  that took no position on anything and always ended, “Only one thing’s for  sure: time will tell.” As a teenager I was struck by a passage in Tim  Crouse’s book about the 1972 presidential campaign, The Boys in the Bus, describing  the work of Hunter Thompson:

Thompson  had the freedom to describe the campaign as he actually experienced it: the  crummy hotels, the tedium of the press bus, the calculated lies of the press  secretaries, the agony of writing about the campaign when it seemed dull and  meaningless, the hopeless fatigue. When other reporters went home, their  wives asked them, “What was it really like?” Thompson’s wife knew from  reading his pieces.

What Rolling Stone did in  giving a political reporter the freedom to write about the banalities of the  system was revolutionary at the time. They also allowed their writer to be a  sides-taker and a rooter, which seemed natural and appropriate because biases  end up in media anyway. They were just hidden in the traditional dull  “objective” format.

The  problem is that the pendulum has swung so far in the opposite direction of  politicized hot-taking that reporters now lack freedom in the opposite  direction, i.e. the freedom to mitigate.

If you  work in conservative media, you probably felt tremendous pressure all  November to stay away from information suggesting Trump lost the election. If  you work in the other ecosystem, you probably feel right now that even  suggesting what happened last Wednesday was not a coup in the literal sense  of the word (e.g. an attempt at seizing power with an actual chance of  success) not only wouldn’t clear an editor, but might make you suspect in the  eyes of co-workers, a potentially job-imperiling problem in this environment.  

We need  a new media channel, the press version of a third party, where those  financial pressures to maintain audience are absent. Ideally, it would:

not be aligned with either Democrats or Republicans;

employ a Fairness Doctrine-inspired approach that discourages       groupthink and requires at  least occasional explorations of alternative points of view;

embrace a utilitarian mission stressing credibility over ratings, including by;

operating on a distribution model that as  much as possible doesn’t depend upon the indulgence of Apple, Google, and Amazon.

Innovations like Substack are great for opinionated individual voices like me, but what’s  desperately needed is an institutional reporting mechanism that has credibility with the whole population. That means a channel that sees its mission as something separate from politics, or at least as separate from politics as possible.

The media used to derive its institutional power from this perception of separateness. Politicians feared investigation by the news media precisely because they knew audiences perceived them as neutral arbiters.

Now there are no major commercial outlets not firmly associated with one or the other political party. Criticism of Republicans is as baked into New York Times coverage as the lambasting of Democrats is at Fox, and politicians don’t fear them as much because they know their  constituents do not consider rival media sources credible. Probably, they  don’t even read them. Echo chambers have limited utility in changing minds.

Media companies need to get out of the audience-stroking business, and by extension  the politics business. They’d then be more likely to be believed when making  pronouncements about elections or masks or anything else, for that matter.  Creating that kind of outlet also has a much better shot of restoring sanity  to the country than the current strategy, which seems based on stamping out  access to “wrong” information.

What we’ve been watching for four years, and what we saw explode last week, is a paradox: a political and informational system that profits from division and  conflict, and uses a factory-style process to stimulate it, but professes  shock and horror when real conflict happens. It’s time to admit this is a  failed system. You can’t sell hatred and seriously expect it to end.

Matt Taibbi is one of the only people I subscribe to. He’s one of the few journalists I like because I actually believe he’s genuine.

[jillianallen14]

Goodbye, Bernie; Hello, us

A Love Letter To All Young People Who Are In Pain Right Now:

I saw an article today from a NYT journalist who did an interview with Bernie Sanders and wrote about it. In it, she says that saying goodbye to Bernie for a second time (knowing he won’t run again and might not even run for senator again) is possibly even more painful than the first time in 2016. In it, to give her hope, Bernie says, “When you look out and you talk to these beautiful, beautiful young people who want to move this country forward in such a decent, humane way, it really does inspire me. And to the degree that I have gotten those folks involved in the political process, yeah, I am very proud of that. I don’t know that I’ve ever done anything in my life more important than that.” It made me cry. 

You see, I’ll carry this pain around with me for a long time, probably my whole life. I thought saying goodbye to Bernie in 2016 was rough, but I didn’t know how much more difficult this time would be. Because Bernie was the one who made me believe a better world was possible; he was the one who finally gave me words to describe what I already knew I felt and what I already knew to be right. And he gave me an incredibly large community of people to take solace in, and as one of the lone leftists in a intensely conservative pocket of California, that was irreplaceable. And I am 20 years old, and this is my first presidential election that I get to vote in. I’ll forever be grateful I got the chance to vote for him this one last time. But the pain I feel is real and will never go away.

I remember that bright, sunny, all-consuming hope I had after Iowa, New Hampshire, and Nevada. I remember how safe I felt in those few weeks, how I felt like the world was taking a turn for the better, and I got to watch it happen. I went to one of Bernie Sanders’ last rallies in San Jose two days before Super Tuesday, and I cried in the front row because I couldn’t believe I was finally watching a man who actually deserved the presidency inch closer and closer towards actually getting it. Those hours I spent there will always be special to me. But then I got back into my car and saw the terrible news: Pete Buttigieg had dropped out. And I knew what was coming, and, lo and behold, it did. And I watched in real time as all that hope just vanished and as I saw our chance at a better, brighter future just descend into disaster. I watched in real time as the Democratic Party derailed an election practically overnight, and it’s something I’ll never forget. They took my future from me, and, no, I am not being dramatic.

They took my future from me because I am mentally ill, and this society is killing me; I always feel like I’m living on borrowed time. I’ve had two suicide attempts, and I’m never sure at any given time how much longer I can hold on. I don’t know how much longer I can survive centrism and this country’s ever-increasing move to the right. The only thing this country is progressive on is our steady progression to the right, and it just keeps getting worse and worse. I can’t describe the pain of watching a future you were clinging so desperately to in order to survive being ripped away from you, but I’m sure many of you know. Because I’m sure many of you experienced the same thing, be it because you’re mentally ill or because you’re a POC or because your family are immigrants or because you desperately need healthcare or because the rent crisis is killing you. This society is killing so many of us, and centrism won’t stop that. And I’m mad. God, I’m fucking furious because how dare they? 

How dare they ruin our chances and then tell us we’re the ones to blame? How dare they basically rig an election and then try to gaslight us into believing they won fair and square? And how dare they tell us to, “Stop crying and whining”? 

This was never about a man. This wasn’t about a singular politician. This wasn’t about Bernie; this was about us. This was about someone telling us that our needs and our desires and our stories and our voices are important, that we are being listened to when no one else will. This was someone telling us that our visions for a better future are not stupid, are not pie-in-the-sky, and that we aren’t alone in wanting that future. This was a fight for our fucking lives, for our livelihoods, so how dare they look at us with those smug faces and demand we stop crying after they tried to gaslight us into believing we lost simply because the policies weren’t popular enough?

They have so much contempt for the young people of this country, but Bernie never did. They relish in our pain and laugh at us as though our fear for our lives and our futures are simply “teenage angst”, but Bernie listened to us while they laughed. Even on his darkest days, Bernie tells us that this is about us, never him; he calls us beautiful and tells us that we’re inspiring, that we give him hope. And you know what? He’s fucking right. We are a beautiful generation(s). We are the most diverse, most accepting, most empathetic, most leftist generation, and we fight like mad. All you have to do is look at the BLM protests for proof. Millenials and Gen Z (and some Gen Xers) took the streets by storm and burned a fucking police precinct down to the ground. We’re not fucking around. We said we wanted a better world, and we were serious. 

So when they try to inevitably tell us in November that young people didn’t come out enough or that we’re to blame for Bernie not winning the primary or that we just sit around whining and never acting, I want each and every one of you to remember that we are beautiful, and we are here to stay. That we are the future, not these old ass boomers who refuse to embrace change and refuse to take us seriously. All around this country, young progressives are winning primaries against establishment democrats; all around this country, young people are rising up. I have leftist friends in college who are making the decision to run for city council positions. The change starts locally, and we are doing that work. 

And I want you to remember that no matter what, Bernie Sanders thinks we are the most important thing he’s ever done in his life and that he believes in us. And he’s right. 

I’ll never stop mourning what could have been if Bernie had been the one, but even though that’s over, even though we’ll never have that, I refuse to stop believing a better world is possible. And I’ll never stop fighting for that world, even if (like Bernie), I’ll probably never get to see it. 

Stay strong, unionize, join (or organize) protests when you can, take care of yourselves and your communities. They’ve made it abundantly clear that we’re all we’ve got. 

[fantasticstoryteller]

Kingdoms ch. 29

Stephen looked at the inferior mirror and sighed at his reflection. For the most part, the people of Mysterio kept to themselves and expected the other kingdoms to do the same. The powers in charge of the kingdom had seen the trouble brewing in Ajax, and had elected to do the same this time—until the goddess stepped in Herself and gave the order—Stand together, or be beaten apart. So here he was, among people who still used chamber pots for heaven’s sake, waiting for an audience with the Queen of Arachne.

Then there was the other problem. He tapped at his goatee nervously as he stared at the mirror. Nearly half a decade ago now, an assassin had slipped into Mysterio from the country of Reaper and gotten to a young alpha claiming political asylum from his home kingdom. Even with the best of magic available, even with the best of Tony bloody Stark’s “tech,” the man had not been detected until the killing blow severed the alpha’s head. Identifying the assassin as the only heir to the Reaper throne had not been enough—not when said man left the city, reached the surrounding countryside—and vanished. No magic or tech had been able to find him. No one had seen him, remembered him passing, or sold food to him. It was as if, once he escaped the city, he ceased to exist.

And now that same man carried unprecedented power in the form of blessings from all five goddesses of this world. No telling what the blessings were; he might not even know. The goddesses almost never told those they blessed what they were getting. Stephen, though he would never admit, strongly suspected that people were given blessings based on what they goddesses needed in the humans, and that the reason the humans were never told was because they would then have the ability to say no.

Stephen rubbed his hand over his face as he looked at himself in the mirror. His best friend, the animated (possibly alive; he wasn’t sure) cloak wrapped him in a hug. “I don’t think that’s going to help,” Stephen said to the living cloth.

“Probably not,” agreed a voice behind him.

Stephen whirled to face the intruder—and stared. The man in front of him had clearly been in intense, soul-crushing torture. Stephen, with his clinical eyes, could see the branding iron marks, places his skin had been carved away, and even where someone had dug in at the sensitive glands on either side of the neck. Whoever had done it had known what they were doing—it wasn’t enough damage to kill or, if he knew anything about humans—to knock him out long enough to give him peace. Even more surprising was the red, raised mark of a freshly made bond on one of the glands—a mark that was fresher than the scars.

“Great Merciful Goddess,” swore Stephen as he felt his legs go weak. If the cloak hadn’t supported him he would have fallen to the floor. He stared as his brain made the only connection it possibly could.

The people who had tortured this man, this alpha, had been trying to make a vessel. They had been trying to break his body, his mind, and his soul. He wasn’t certain what shocked him more; that humans would do such a thing to one another—or that the man hadn’t broken. Couldn’t have broken—he wouldn't have been able to mate if he had.

The man simply nodded. “I get that a lot,” he said calmly, leaning against the wall nearest the open window.

Stephen suddenly realized why the man was so familiar. “You’re him,” he said in awe. “The assassin.”

There was a slight, recognizable twitch. “Yeah,” admitted the strange man. No, Wade Wilson. “That’s me.”

“We didn’t even know you were there until you killed!”

“Well, you don’t get close to a target by screaming to the people around you, ‘I’m gonna kill this guy’.”

“You stabbed me through the hand!”

“You stabbed me in the arm. With a stick.” He sounded bizarrely impressed.

Stephen stared at the man for a moment. There was no anger, no accusation in his voice. He did not appear to be carrying a weapon (although he would be foolish to assume the man was unarmed). Most importantly of all, his living cloak was not reacting aggressively to the man. He took a deep breath and let it out slowly to center himself. “You have a point,” he admitted. “Are you here to kill me?” he asked with morbid curiosity.

Wade snorted. “If I was here to kill you,” he said calmly, “you never would have known I was here.”

Stephen watched the man with curiosity. “Well,” he asked finally, “why are you here?”

Bright blue eyes met his dark brown ones. “Would you believe,” Wade asked with deadly seriousness, “that I came to see if you’re here to kill me?”

[tainted-sentimientos]

Barack Obama’s DNC Speech

“Good evening, everybody. As you've seen by now, this isn't a normal convention. It's not a normal time. So tonight, I want to talk as plainly as I can about the stakes in this election. Because what we do these next 76 days will echo through generations to come.

I'm in Philadelphia, where our Constitution was drafted and signed. It wasn't a perfect document. It allowed for the inhumanity of slavery and failed to guarantee women -- and even men who didn't own property -- the right to participate in the political process. But embedded in this document was a North Star that would guide future generations; a system of representative government -- a democracy -- through which we could better realize our highest ideals. Through civil war and bitter struggles, we improved this Constitution to include the voices of those who'd once been left out. And gradually, we made this country more just, more equal, and more free.

The one Constitutional office elected by all of the people is the presidency. So at minimum, we should expect a president to feel a sense of responsibility for the safety and welfare of all 330 million of us -- regardless of what we look like, how we worship, who we love, how much money we have -- or who we voted for.

But we should also expect a president to be the custodian of this democracy. We should expect that regardless of ego, ambition, or political beliefs, the president will preserve, protect, and defend the freedoms and ideals that so many Americans marched for and went to jail for; fought for and died for.

I have sat in the Oval Office with both of the men who are running for president. I never expected that my successor would embrace my vision or continue my policies. I did hope, for the sake of our country, that Donald Trump might show some interest in taking the job seriously; that he might come to feel the weight of the office and discover some reverence for the democracy that had been placed in his care.

But he never did. For close to four years now, he's shown no interest in putting in the work; no interest in finding common ground; no interest in using the awesome power of his office to help anyone but himself and his friends; no interest in treating the presidency as anything but one more reality show that he can use to get the attention he craves.

Donald Trump hasn't grown into the job because he can't. And the consequences of that failure are severe. 170,000 Americans dead. Millions of jobs gone while those at the top take in more than ever. Our worst impulses unleashed, our proud reputation around the world badly diminished, and our democratic institutions threatened like never before.

Now, I know that in times as polarized as these, most of you have already made up your mind. But maybe you're still not sure which candidate you'll vote for -- or whether you'll vote at all. Maybe you're tired of the direction we're headed, but you can't see a better path yet, or you just don't know enough about the person who wants to lead us there.

So let me tell you about my friend Joe Biden.

Twelve years ago, when I began my search for a vice president, I didn't know I'd end up finding a brother. Joe and I came from different places and different generations. But what I quickly came to admire about him is his resilience, born of too much struggle; his empathy, born of too much grief. Joe's a man who learned -- early on -- to treat every person he meets with respect and dignity, living by the words his parents taught him: "No one's better than you, Joe, but you're better than nobody."

That empathy, that decency, the belief that everybody counts -- that's who Joe is.

When he talks with someone who's lost her job, Joe remembers the night his father sat him down to say that he'd lost his.

When Joe listens to a parent who's trying to hold it all together right now, he does it as the single dad who took the train back to Wilmington each and every night so he could tuck his kids into bed.

When he meets with military families who've lost their hero, he does it as a kindred spirit; the parent of an American soldier; somebody whose faith has endured the hardest loss there is.

For eight years, Joe was the last one in the room whenever I faced a big decision. He made me a better president -- and he's got the character and the experience to make us a better country.

And in my friend Kamala Harris, he's chosen an ideal partner who's more than prepared for the job; someone who knows what it's like to overcome barriers and who's made a career fighting to help others live out their own American dream.

Along with the experience needed to get things done, Joe and Kamala have concrete policies that will turn their vision of a better, fairer, stronger country into reality.

They'll get this pandemic under control, like Joe did when he helped me manage H1N1 and prevent an Ebola outbreak from reaching our shores.

They'll expand health care to more Americans, like Joe and I did ten years ago when he helped craft the Affordable Care Act and nail down the votes to make it the law.

They'll rescue the economy, like Joe helped me do after the Great Recession. I asked him to manage the Recovery Act, which jumpstarted the longest stretch of job growth in history. And he sees this moment now not as a chance to get back to where we were, but to make long-overdue changes so that our economy actually makes life a little easier for everybody -- whether it's the waitress trying to raise a kid on her own, or the shift worker always on the edge of getting laid off, or the student figuring out how to pay for next semester's classes.

Joe and Kamala will restore our standing in the world -- and as we've learned from this pandemic, that matters. Joe knows the world, and the world knows him. He knows that our true strength comes from setting an example the world wants to follow. A nation that stands with democracy, not dictators. A nation that can inspire and mobilize others to overcome threats like climate change, terrorism, poverty, and disease.

But more than anything, what I know about Joe and Kamala is that they actually care about every American. And they care deeply about this democracy.

They believe that in a democracy, the right to vote is sacred, and we should be making it easier for people to cast their ballot, not harder.

They believe that no one -- including the president -- is above the law, and that no public official -- including the president -- should use their office to enrich themselves or their supporters.

They understand that in this democracy, the Commander-in-Chief doesn't use the men and women of our military, who are willing to risk everything to protect our nation, as political props to deploy against peaceful protesters on our own soil. They understand that political opponents aren't "un-American" just because they disagree with you; that a free press isn't the "enemy" but the way we hold officials accountable; that our ability to work together to solve big problems like a pandemic depends on a fidelity to facts and science and logic and not just making stuff up.

None of this should be controversial. These shouldn't be Republican principles or Democratic principles. They're American principles. But at this moment, this president and those who enable him, have shown they don't believe in these things.

Tonight, I am asking you to believe in Joe and Kamala's ability to lead this country out of these dark times and build it back better. But here's the thing: no single American can fix this country alone. Not even a president. Democracy was never meant to be transactional -- you give me your vote; I make everything better. It requires an active and informed citizenry. So I am also asking you to believe in your own ability -- to embrace your own responsibility as citizens -- to make sure that the basic tenets of our democracy endure.

Because that's what at stake right now. Our democracy.

Look, I understand why many Americans are down on government. The way the rules have been set up and abused in Congress make it easy for special interests to stop progress. Believe me, I know. I understand why a white factory worker who's seen his wages cut or his job shipped overseas might feel like the government no longer looks out for him, and why a Black mother might feel like it never looked out for her at all. I understand why a new immigrant might look around this country and wonder whether there's still a place for him here; why a young person might look at politics right now, the circus of it all, the meanness and the lies and crazy conspiracy theories and think, what's the point?

Well, here's the point: this president and those in power -- those who benefit from keeping things the way they are -- they are counting on your cynicism. They know they can't win you over with their policies. So they're hoping to make it as hard as possible for you to vote, and to convince you that your vote doesn't matter. That's how they win. That's how they get to keep making decisions that affect your life, and the lives of the people you love. That's how the economy will keep getting skewed to the wealthy and well-connected, how our health systems will let more people fall through the cracks. That's how a democracy withers, until it's no democracy at all.

We can't let that happen. Do not let them take away your power. Don't let them take away your democracy. Make a plan right now for how you're going to get involved and vote. Do it as early as you can and tell your family and friends how they can vote too. Do what Americans have done for over two centuries when faced with even tougher times than this -- all those quiet heroes who found the courage to keep marching, keep pushing in the face of hardship and injustice.

Last month, we lost a giant of American democracy in John Lewis. Some years ago, I sat down with John and the few remaining leaders of the early Civil Rights Movement. One of them told me he never imagined he'd walk into the White House and see a president who looked like his grandson. Then he told me that he'd looked it up, and it turned out that on the very day that I was born, he was marching into a jail cell, trying to end Jim Crow segregation in the South.

What we do echoes through the generations.

Whatever our backgrounds, we're all the children of Americans who fought the good fight. Great grandparents working in firetraps and sweatshops without rights or representation. Farmers losing their dreams to dust. Irish and Italians and Asians and Latinos told to go back where they came from. Jews and Catholics, Muslims and Sikhs, made to feel suspect for the way they worshipped. Black Americans chained and whipped and hanged. Spit on for trying to sit at lunch counters. Beaten for trying to vote.

If anyone had a right to believe that this democracy did not work, and could not work, it was those Americans. Our ancestors. They were on the receiving end of a democracy that had fallen short all their lives. They knew how far the daily reality of America strayed from the myth. And yet, instead of giving up, they joined together and said somehow, some way, we are going to make this work. We are going to bring those words, in our founding documents, to life.

I've seen that same spirit rising these past few years. Folks of every age and background who packed city centers and airports and rural roads so that families wouldn't be separated. So that another classroom wouldn't get shot up. So that our kids won't grow up on an uninhabitable planet. Americans of all races joining together to declare, in the face of injustice and brutality at the hands of the state, that Black Lives Matter, no more, but no less, so that no child in this country feels the continuing sting of racism.

To the young people who led us this summer, telling us we need to be better -- in so many ways, you are this country's dreams fulfilled. Earlier generations had to be persuaded that everyone has equal worth. For you, it's a given -- a conviction. And what I want you to know is that for all its messiness and frustrations, your system of self-government can be harnessed to help you realize those convictions.

You can give our democracy new meaning. You can take it to a better place. You're the missing ingredient -- the ones who will decide whether or not America becomes the country that fully lives up to its creed.

That work will continue long after this election. But any chance of success depends entirely on the outcome of this election. This administration has shown it will tear our democracy down if that's what it takes to win. So we have to get busy building it up -- by pouring all our effort into these 76 days, and by voting like never before -- for Joe and Kamala, and candidates up and down the ticket, so that we leave no doubt about what this country we love stands for -- today and for all our days to come.

Stay safe. God bless.”

- Former President Barack Obama

To the decided:

To the undecided:

To the opposed:

[anexplanationofunfortunateevents]

the voting ends today but the fight almost certainly does not

Republicans are filing increasingly desperate and ridiculous lawsuits trying – emphasis on TRYING – to have votes thrown out because they’re big old losers who know they can’t win legitimately.

If you’re the kind of person who can get into the weeds of federal court filings on elections, you probably already have your hair on fire. If you’re not, I don’t recommend picking up the habit right now. It’s just going to make your head swim. These are so incoherent and meritless that even our corrupt federal judiciary and plenty of conservative state judges have frequently brushed them off. I get the sense that Trump’s lawyers are more hoping to win those cases than trying to win them. What they seem to be trying to do with these lawsuits is some mix of the following dishonest things:

depress turnout by making people feel like he can just have their votes thrown out so why bother;

set something, anything, up on track for the Supreme Court, which Trumpworld is (not unreasonably) confident they have sufficiently corrupted;

create a general sense that there’s some authority other than the voters who get to decide this election.

That is what makes me think Trump’s plan to barricade himself in the White House and tweet out a declaration of victory the first moment Fox News reports a good exit poll for him is only mostly about his pathetic need to self-soothe with an autocratic display. He’s also making one last go-for-broke play for the public narrative. He thinks – again, not unreasonably – that if he says he won, then he’ll get a bunch of “Trump Declares Victory” headlines and chyrons, which puts a thumb on the scale in terms of how people frame any resulting developments in their own minds. It’s not a good strategy, it’s more of a hail Mary, but it’s the only potentially helpful option he’s left for himself.

All of this has, once again, summoned the specter of the 2000 election.

We can’t look one day into the future. But we might be able to prepare ourselves for it if we look about twenty years into the past.

There’s kind of a fable that’s built up around the 2000 Florida recount that Republicans were just tougher and savvier and wanted it more, while Democrats clumsily Ned Starked everything up. It’s important to reject that premise as fundamentally abhorrent. In a functioning democracy, campaign strategy is irrelevant after Election Day, because voters are in charge. The Gore campaign, to its credit, was buying into the basic premise of democracy, and had therefore planned their campaign around trying to win an election fair and square. When you punish or condemn people for that, you are ceding ground to the fascists and agreeing to fight on their terms.

The Bush campaign was just fundamentally not operating from the premise of democracy, but from the premise that elections are merely a weak opening bid from the electorate. Before anyone even knew there would be a recount, they had already gamed out a scenario where they could win even if they lost. The contingency they’d planned for, that struck them as most likely, was actually that Gore would win the Electoral College but Bush would win the popular vote. They planned out a whole pressure campaign to create enough of an uproar to give some friendly Republican state legislatures somewhere just enough of an excuse to award electors to Bush even if their constituents had voted for Gore. That wasn’t the scenario they ended up facing, of course. But when you do those kind of war games, you have to think about what your opponent would do, which means the Bush team was ready to hit the ground running with a whole bunch of things they had been expecting Gore’s campaign to do. The core point of whatever they were going to do was always to create an excuse for the nuclear option of having Republican state legislators send Republican electors to install George W. Bush no matter what their voters wanted.

One major difference between then and now is that generation of Republicans knew what they were doing was abnormal and wrong, so they kept it under wraps. Now they’re so high on their own supply that they brag about it to The Atlantic, because they genuinely don’t realize that people will object and try to stop them if they give up the element of surprise.

In 2000, the nuclear option of state legislatures just ignoring their voters to install Bush was not something the Gore campaign could have reasonably foreseen, and even if they did have an in-house psychic to warn them about it, it’s not something they could have realistically stopped except by winning with the biggest margin possible, which they were already trying to do. In 2020, Republicans are basically trying to run the same play, but against Democrats who very much are as prepared as they could possibly be, and by “Democrats,” I mean Democrats at every level. Inside the campaign, Biden campaign senior adviser Ron Klain ran Gore’s recount effort in Florida, and is therefore the last person to have any illusions about the opposition. Their lawyers are fucking beasts. Outside the campaign, Democratic voters have already voted, dragged their friends out to vote, and are amped for whatever fight tomorrow brings.

And, unlike 2000, any formal government processes are going to have to go through House Speaker Nancy D’Alessandro Pelosi, and honey, she is not having it. Remember, Pelosi has already thwarted not one but two Trump regime connivances to steal elections. In 2018, she successfully deterred any attempt to undermine Democrats’ midterm victory. And with her crisp, digestible, precision strike impeachment strategy, she neutered the HUNTERGAZI plot that Trump had every intention of using to sabotage the election this year. (God only knows what other schemes she headed off by making an example out of the pressure campaign against Zelensky. Any foreign leader or official who might have been tempted to cave under similar pressure by Trump got put on notice that trying to appease him quietly was not going to make their lives any less complicated.) No wonder she felt emboldened to tell the Trumpist wing of the Supreme Court to sit their asses down if they know what’s good for them.

What Democrats – and other small-d democrats and progressives – can do, we’re doing. You need to take heart from that, and brace yourself for a couple of stressful weeks.

Unfortunately, we can’t control everything. We can’t control what Trump will do to seize the narrative, and we can’t do much about how the press responds. And again, I’d point back to 2000 as a cautionary tale. Did you know that most of the networks actually called the race right, and they did it pretty fast? It’s true! Early-ish that night, they called Florida for Gore. And, as a subsequent investigation showed, Gore got more votes in Florida! But the ballot count was tighter than it should have been – a lot of registered voters who were likely to have preferred Gore were kicked off the rolls in a racist purge – so they did a reasonable thing and retracted the initial analysis to say the state was too close to call.

I did say most of the networks. I’ll give you one guess which was the outlier. John Ellis – head of the decision desk (ie, the decision of when to call a race for one candidate or the other) at Fox News and first cousin of candidate George Bush and Florida Governor Jeb Bush – somehow knew something about the Florida vote count that the Associated Press didn’t. Late that night, as Gore’s numbers were actually ticking up, Ellis called Florida for Bush. (I might’ve been more circumspect making those implications five years ago, but these people have forcefully rejected the benefit of the doubt.) The other networks, embarrassed by the earlier retraction and exhausted after a long night, leapt after Ellis like lemmings in five minutes flat.

This created a narrative that seamlessly dovetailed with the Bush campaign’s evolving strategy: a Bush win was a fait accompli, so why was sore loser Gore insisting on this recount, wasn’t it taking way too long? Of course, the truth was that nobody actually wins an election before the votes are counted, so if Bush really wanted to get this over with, why was he so resistant to having so many votes counted even once?

Because, of course, while Bush’s top campaign people were out in front of the press loftily insisting that this recount was an irrelevant waste of the country’s time and attention, Republican lawyers were down in Florida doing everything they could to run out the clock. Deadline after deadline loomed and then passed with a bunch of Federalist Society hacks badgering and haggling over every single ballot. Said Federalist Society hacks included John Roberts, Brett Kavanaugh, and Amy Coney Barrett.

So legal correspondents and voting rights advocates, unfortunately, aren’t crazy to have their hair on fire about the Supreme Court once again doing what happened next in 2000: the court ordered all the counts to stop until arguments that it scheduled for the day before an arbitrary deadline. Then they handed down a decision that even they knew was so incoherent and indefensible that they said it wasn’t supposed to be used as precedent in any other case, even though the Supreme Court’s job for over two hundred years had been to hand down rulings that lower courts could use as precedent.

(Seriously. Guys. If Doc Brown ever tosses you the keys to his DeLorean, your mission is to go back to 1999 and run Chief Justice Rehnquist over with it. Then – and this is important – back up and run over him again. Twice. Then you can go buy stock in Google or feed Trump to zombie vampire bats or hit up a Borders or whatever.)

If you’re not really familiar with this story, you’re saying “wait, what? Why did people stand for this bullshit?” FAIR QUESTION. There are a lot of reasons, though no excuses. One reason that’s been previously underrated, I guess, is that Bush hadn’t spent the week before the election running around telling everyone who would listen that “what we’re gonna do is, we’re gonna make ourselves a huge pain in the ass while people are trying to count votes, and then we’re gonna whine about, ‘why is it taking so long to count all these votes?’ Heh heh heh.”

If he had … well, I’m pretty sure at least 538 Floridians would have been alarmed enough to make a better choice than they ultimately did.

I always want to be able to share an action item. This time, I can’t. (Unless you can vote but haven’t yet, in which case, WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU DOING ON TUMBLR, GET YOUR ASS IN LINE AND STAY THERE.) I don’t know what the world is going to look like six hours from now. It’s entirely possible that there’s a Biden blowout big enough that Trump just gives up and flees the country. But assume we’re not going to get to take the easy way out of this. Get organized and stay fired up. WE RIDE AT DAWN, unless Florida and/or Texas breaks our way by 10:30, in which case, WE DRINK AT 10:31.

[thessalian]

Thess vs Party Politics

There was an advert in my mailbox today: for the Women’s Equality Party. And I seriously just rolled my eyes. I may be all for equality, but this? This is not how you do it.

The main reason is that a single-issue political party does not win elections. I don’t even have to point at the Brexit Party here - because, yes, Brexit went ahead in the end but the Brexit Party was never actually represented in Parliament and all the Brexit Party’s existence did was weaken the Conservative vote in a few places (note that when the Brexit Party dissolved, that was when the Tories got their fucking 80-seat majority in Commons). I mean, look at the Greens. The Green Party has been standing on a platform of environmentalism above all else for literal decades and they’ve maybe, sometimes, got a seat or two. Maybe. All they’ve ever done is take away votes from Labour or the Liberal Democrats, weakening their positions and making it easier for the Conservatives to take seats, and then eventually 10 Downing Street because First Past the Post.

Yes, the two-party political system is bullshit. It’s bad, it leaves us very few choices, it seldom if ever gets our voices heard ... but unless you remove First Past the Post or the Electoral College ... and hell, unless you change things so that a party leader / head of state / whatever can’t just stack their cabinet with sycophantic, cronyistic yes-men ... having a wide variety of political parties standing on single issues is just going to make things worse. Sure, it’s possible that some Tories will look at the current attitude to women coming out of the Tory government, say they don’t like it, and vote the Women’s Equality Party instead ... but probably not, because let’s face it - the Conservatives are the party that have had not one but two women party leaders, and both of them went on to become Prime Minister, while having a woman leading the Liberal Democrats hasn’t helped them one tiny bit since Clegg screwed them all over in the Coalition Years. People will generally speaking hold their noses and vote along their party line and those that don’t will probably be on the Labour side because Kier Starmer has been too much a lawyer and not enough of a leader since he got the leadership. Or they’ll just steal votes from LibDem and the LibDems will lose even more political ground, tipping us even more into true two-party system territory.

The best you’re going to get with smaller parties trying to get a foot in the political door on single issues is coalition governments or minority governments, and deadlock either way. Now, if we had a way to have people run for cabinet positions, instead of just their personal MPs, we might see more political progress. Because honestly, cabinet ministers are supposed to be there to tell the Prime Minister what the situation is and how to handle it; not to say, “Yes sir, of course sir, anything you say sir” and sign off on whatever bullshit the PM thinks is best for either his political career or his economic interests.

I’m honestly not going to look up much about the platform of the Women’s Equality Party. I’m a little terrified, given this country has a bit of a reputation about not handling trans rights very well, about what their definition of a ‘woman’ is. But mostly I’m just sighing at the fact that here we have another reactionary individual who can’t see the bigger picture. If you want to fight for equality, right now the system is rigged so that the best way to do it is get into your political party of choice and fight for it from within, not start pecking around the edges of the political arena like the Littlest Hyena At The Buffalo Kill.

[arcticdementor]

In the wake of Trump’s election, Brexit, and the growth of anti-EU populism, the placid doctrines of establishment politics are now being remade. But perhaps more significant is the absolute and utter collapse of Western self-declared “anti-establishment” politics: the “socialist” left has proven to be one of the earliest casualties. The cresting wave of left-wing populism turned out to be illusionary; as it receded, its only lasting legacy was bitter acrimony, rotting political hopes, failed analyses, and stranded careers in academia and the NGO-world.

This is not to say that “the left” has lost. Only the romantic narodism of the 21st century left has truly died: the belief that “the people,” or “the working class,” can be relied upon in the political struggle. One need only consider the riots going on even now in the US, or the one of the many institutional revolutions playing out (at foundations, newspaper editorial boards, and academia), to recognize that the movement is still in good health. But after the disappointments of late-2019 and mid-2020, those revolutions will no longer maintain any pretense of being waged by the people. They won’t even pretend to be waged for them.

…

The left may prefer to talk about a supposed “precarization,” of the college educated, and the right may be more comfortable talking about ”useless college degrees,” but neither side denies the facts on the ground: that for some time now, the West has been using a massive expansion of higher education to create a new class of functionaries—”knowledge-workers” and would-be managers—in numbers far in excess of what the labor market can or could absorb. Yet, it is only just now that we are seeing, with clear eyes, that this class of people (which, again, nobody denies the existence of) might begin acting as a class.

…

Rather than try to pin the blame on American television, or even social media, it behooves us to recognize that the conditions for this new “Springtime of the Managers” are just as ripe in London and Berlin as they are in Portland and New York City. What we have now on the left and right—on both sides of the Atlantic—is an open and bitter class war. It is a conflict between a growing cadre of imperial lords and the peasantry they hope to subjugate; between the managers and petty nobility of the much-prophesied “knowledge economy” and those they aim to manage.

Just as few took the existence of this class of people seriously, no one took the existence of this class war seriously until recently. The left was forced to outright deny it because they were already on the side against the working classes, and any acknowledgment of that fact would destroy their legitimacy. What is East Germany, without Communism? Nothing; it is merely part of greater Germany. The left faced a similar dilemma, and so the charade, emptied of all class conflicts in favor of “cultural” ones, had to be maintained.

Meanwhile, a minority of left intellectuals have already begun jettisoning ideological ties to a people it no longer belonged to or recognized. In the UK, thinkers like Paul Mason diligently sought to replace workers with young (educated) people who have a smartphone as the natural constituency of the left. In the US, Nathan J. Robinson, the publisher of Current Affairs magazine, pleaded for the left to finally abandon Marxism and historical materialism in favor of couching its arguments in moral terms. These characters were, almost without exception, mocked and ridiculed. But time has vindicated them. It is now clear that they took heat not because they suggested a new and different strategy, but because they were advancing the end to the left’s doublespeak and doublethink. The left had long since abandoned the workers; Mason and Robinson were merely preparing the ideological contingency plan for when the workers would abandon the left, as has now well and truly happened.

In the leadup to the 2020 election, the right faced a different dilemma. For them, the class conflict they refused to recognize was internal. The Democrats, having fully consolidated its new political coalition between petty managers, Silicon Valley grandees, and a dwindling base of minority clients, could not only defeat the likes of Bernie Sanders, but also reabsorb all of the hammer and sickle-brandishing “revolutionary communists” back into the machine. Unfortunately for the GOP—as with the Tories in Britain and the Sweden Democrats or Rassemblent Nationale in Europe—the consolidation of “the ascendant” into center-left parties has left them stuck with the political leftovers: an entirely ad-hoc coalition consisting of disgruntled heartland workers, small business owners, and big business also-rans. For this reason, and in part due to the intellectual legacy of the Cold War, talk of actual class conflict comes at a very high risk for the right. Trying to unite the competing interests that make up the extant and potential base of the Republican party is nigh impossible. The Democrats—and the Western left in general—talk about culture rather than political economy because they know the makeup of their coalition, who their enemies are, and what their plan is. Republicans—and the Western right in general—talk about culture rather than politics because they know none of these things.

…

As a political cause, Black Lives Matter seems to thrive just as well among the surplus managers of Dublin as it does in San Francisco—never mind the complete incompatibility of the Irish situation with the American. Sweden, for example, never had a plantation economy nor a period of formal or informal Jim Crow rule. But this in no way impacted the formation of a Black Panther movement in immigrant-dominated suburbs. At first blush, the children of immigrants to Sweden—predominantly of Middle-Eastern descent—cosplaying as 60s-era Afro-American freedom fighters reads as a hilarious anachronism. But there is an institutional logic behind it: Sweden already has a state-funded patronage network geared towards “community organizers” in particular, but also the surplus professional class in general.

Behind most declarations of proletarian solidarity or racial justice, one tends to find repeated and urgent demands for the state to simply create more jobs. How do we solve the thorny issues of racial justice? By diverting more federal and state money to employing the various temporarily embarrassed aspiring commissars currently stocking the shelves at Target, of course! While the language of economic redistribution today maintains a veneer of proletarian radicalism (often eagerly assisted by various red-baiters on the right, as seen during the fairly anemic “Joe Biden will usher in SOCIALISM” run-up to the 2020 election), only the truly credulous could believe that demands for the state to directly and indirectly employ more and more college graduates—creating as many ideological commissariats as necessary to rescue them from the ignominy of having to work at Starbucks—merely represents some innocuous side effect of the political project as a whole.

A full accounting of the scope of the Swedish patronage machine is neither possible nor necessary in this essay, but it does serve as a valuable example. Most of the country’s patronage machine actually predates the class that currently subsists on it. The “one percent rule” which states that at least one percent of the budget allotted to new buildings or infrastructure must be paid to artists for the express purpose of creating art, is just one example. The Swedish Inheritance Fund, (Allmänna Arvsfonden) was established as far back as 1928, when the country abolished the automatic inheritance rights of cousins and other distant relatives in the absence of a written will or close family. Originally, the intention was that the state would use this newly “orphaned” money to fund the care of orphanages and related causes. The fund’s mission has expanded over time to the point where it now funds a great variety of overtly ideological causes—often with next to no oversight. As such, the fund has become controversial, especially in the eyes of the Swedish right.

The various incarnations of the “one percent rule” or the Inheritance Fund only scratch at the surface. On every level—state, regional, and municipal—myriad grants, privileges, subsidies and direct cash transfers are available, aimed at a heterogenous group of race hustlers, artists, activists, and academics. It hardly needs to be said that cultural minority status, or fluency in the shifting language of wokeness, is a strict and unavoidable requirement for those seeking to access these resources. The state also pays the salaries of many Swedish journalists, either directly (through the various public service channels) or indirectly, through massive distribution subsidies. Are you perchance a radical syndicalist on a holy quest to crush the capitalist value-form while also grinding the running dogs staffing the reactionary Swedish state into dust? Have no fear, that state will gladly subsidize both your salary and cost of distribution for your newspaper urging the workers to destroy capitalism! Even as larger and larger parts of Sweden succumb to deindustrialization and lack of opportunity, this money tap will keep flowing.

All of this is to say that there is a very real, non-ideological endpoint for many of the fervent demands coming from the Red Guards of the American cultural revolution. The state can take it upon itself to create and sustain an ever increasing number of jobs for the surplus elite generated by our universities. Moreover, even systems that were originally not intended to serve as patronage machines for surplus managers—such as a state fund for orphans—can easily be repurposed into a job creation program controlled by woke guild rules. Again, to reiterate: very few of our institutions that are now notorious as liberal-hegemonic patronage machines were created for that purpose; they were colonized. American conservatives should thus be very careful in their quips about “socialist Sweden,” given their own immediate future.

…

The left populist project is very much a project of social democracy for young professionals. Joe Biden’s electoral victory—such as it is—would have been impossible without the immense class solidarity and sense of purpose uniting the supposedly “ascendant” or “reality-based” half of America. (Drunk on victory, there is already talk of drawing up lists of people who in any way abetted the old regime.) They no longer feel any need to hide their power, or their plans for the future.

Broadly speaking, these surplus managers have two complementary goals: the above-discussed expansion of the social-democratic state, and the establishment of formal and informal guild protections and structures within the newly-expanded or pre-existing professional fields they hope to inhabit. Some characterize this secondary goal as one of ideological domination of the workplace, but this confuses the means with the ends. Put plainly, the ideas that are getting people fired today are not only empty of content, they are also constantly and arbitrarily changing. Compared to the often murderous totalitarianism of, say, a crusading religious fanatic, there is a distinct lack of object permanence at play here. The religious fanatic, obsessed with forcing everyone to bend to the True Faith, chooses his doctrine once and then sticks to it. But in the world of the woke, doctrine is ever-changing, and the commissars of today will gleefully sign your proscription sentence for holding opinions they themselves held only yesterday.

Yet, in this cultural revolution, the fickleness of its dominant ideas is an essential feature, not a bug. The point of this “totalitarianism” is not to force everyone to think correct thoughts at the risk of getting fired; it is to get them fired. Full stop. Like the medieval guilds of old Europe, surplus managers are threatened by the existence of a mass of people willing to do any job within their ambit that cannot be comfortably accommodated without inviting the pauperization of their entire profession. For the medieval guilds, guaranteeing that only a select few who could actually hope to become carpenters or glove makers had nothing to do with improving the economic efficiency of the towns, but rather to secure the living standards and social status of those carpenters and glove makers already in practice.

Guilds, unlike unions, are institutions meant to inflate scarcity. It is hard to imagine an American auto workers union threatening strike action in order to forestall Ford or GM from producing more cars. After all, more cars means more workers, means more potential union members, means more power for the union. The specific political opinions of any one worker does not factor into the basic arithmetic. For a guild, however, the arithmetic of power is very much concerned with the ability to discipline its own members, as well as raise barriers of entry into the workplace via social, cultural, or other grounds. For the union, having more members is (almost) always just a good thing. For the guild, it is a nightmare scenario. (Of course, exceptions exist. In some narrow vocations, unions maintain scarcity through licensing requirements and other means. But even then, the interests at play are economic, managing qualified labor scarcity for the benefit of its members.)

It is significant that the figure of “the boss” is imagined by these surplus managers as being evil not because he is a capitalist, but because his myopic profit motive or outdated personal morality is an obstruction to the creation of committees staffed by employees for the purpose of firing and disciplining other employees. Today, one can even be a millionaire capitalist while maintaining a properly anti-capitalist, revolutionary outlook, denouncing other companies that refuse to discipline their workers for ideological commitments.

…

To illustrate the hopelessness of any conservative or right-wing project which aims to somehow “shift the debate,” consider the way those same efforts played out on the left before the election. Take the case of Jacobin magazine’s recent article entitled, “Trying to Get Workers Fired Is the Wrong Way to Fight Racism.” Within minutes of its being published to Twitter, the article was inundated with angry and shocked reactions from mostly self-identifying socialists. The idea that bosses shouldn’t be trusted with the power to arbitrarily dismiss workers over allegations of racism produced a firestorm of controversy among the people who, we are supposed to believe, represent the vanguard that will lead those same workers into a revolution against those same bosses.

If this is just a modern expression of “Marxism,” then it has certainly come a long way.

…

Just as the Boston Tea Party looms large in the minds of Americans, the entrance of the black ships into Edo bay occupies a place of importance in the Japanese historical memory. It is seen as the moment in which the simmering social and political contradictions irrevocably boiled over. Neither the British monarchy nor the Japanese shogunate recognized what was happening until well after the point of no return. The fight against Trump has already forced such massive changes that the old social compact no longer exists. Silicon Valley has merged with the larger progressive machine, taking it upon themselves to guide (if not outright control) political discourse, picking political winners in a completely open and blatant manner.

The old order that was constituted in the US in the 90s depended on the separation not of church and state, but of the separation of civil servants, technical expertise, and scientific empiricism from politics. Without it, end-of-history liberalism lacks any legitimating mechanism. But it is precisely this separation that has just been destroyed; often violently and publicly. The election—with its artfully coordinated media blitz, the monumental failure of institutional polling (again), and the sudden about-face on the existence of electoral interference, is just the final swing of the knife against what remains of post-war Western liberalism.

This is not some trifling ideological point. The last year has seen very large institutional changes in the real world—huge cash transfers from business to various progressive NGOs, the embrace of political education in government institutions as a matter of course (briefly and ultimately meekly resisted by Trump’s executive order, now poised to return stronger than ever). On top of that, the US has seen a series of rolling purges of politically unreliable people from all positions of importance within academia, journalism, and similar sectors. Are those people going to suddenly be rehired now that Trump is gone, no harm, no foul? Will the alliances forged between progressive liberal causes and big business be voided, and all that money returned?

Even so, it is very much in doubt that many people actually want to go back. All these new alliances, all of these new technical and social instruments of political control and discipline, are far too useful for anyone to willingly give up. You can hear it clearly coming from congresswoman Alexandra Ocasia-Cortez: the tune for the future seems to be a mix of revenge and reeducation, not restoration. But since the deplorables are unlikely to whip themselves in penance, the reeducators will have to be trained, deployed, and (one would assume) amply paid for their work.

The class war is here. It will not go away on its own. After 2020, not even the staunchest anti-communist or “traditional conservative” on the right should indulge fantasies to the contrary. Donald Trump, whatever else one may say of him, was not defeated by ideas, but by a society-spanning managerial omerta, organized by a stunningly impressive (and frankly, terrifying) class alliance working together in total discipline.

In an era of elite overproduction, the only realistic means of sustaining the unsustainable elite’s social status and standard of living is by increasing the exploitation of the rest of the population; demands, taxes, and tithes levied against the two-thirds of America that does not attend college by the one-third that does. And so more institutions will be built, more money will be transferred from the undeserving poor to their educated superiors. Our media personalities, academics, and experts will continue the work of inventing new crimes for their gardeners, gig workers, and unemployed countrymen to commit, so that they might maintain this process of looting and extortion.

Those of us outside this coalition of the ascendant—whatever else we may lack in commonality—are now called upon to realize one very basic point: regardless of whether you call yourself a national conservative, a one-nation Tory, a part of Blue Labour, or a labor populist, this class war cannot only be analyzed and complained about. It must be vigorously prosecuted and won. It is one thing to debunk the “Marxism” of the surplus managers, but another thing entirely to strike against the structures of their guild privilege, dismantle their networks of patronage and access, and defund and marginalize their institutions and money pipelines.

The battle lines of the class war have been drawn. For those of us who would fight against this miserable vision of the future, it is high time we proclaimed our own Sonnō jōi. Only then can we hope to restore some semblance of dignity. Only then can we hope to halt the creeping rot that is eating us from within.

[foreverlogical]

Just in case you missed seeing what caused tRump's latest meltdown, here it is again. From Christianity Today. #IMPOTUS Trump Should Be Removed from Office

In our founding documents, Billy Graham explains that Christianity Today will help evangelical Christians interpret the news in a manner that reflects their faith. The impeachment of Donald Trump is a significant event in the story of our republic. It requires comment.

The typical CT approach is to stay above the fray and allow Christians with different political convictions to make their arguments in the public square, to encourage all to pursue justice according to their convictions and treat their political opposition as charitably as possible. We want CT to be a place that welcomes Christians from across the political spectrum, and reminds everyone that politics is not the end and purpose of our being. We take pride in the fact, for instance, that politics does not dominate our homepage.

That said, we do feel it necessary from time to time to make our own opinions on political matters clear—always, as Graham encouraged us, doing so with both conviction and love. We love and pray for our president, as we love and pray for leaders (as well as ordinary citizens) on both sides of the political aisle.

Let’s grant this to the president: The Democrats have had it out for him from day one, and therefore nearly everything they do is under a cloud of partisan suspicion. This has led many to suspect not only motives but facts in these recent impeachment hearings. And, no, Mr. Trump did not have a serious opportunity to offer his side of the story in the House hearings on impeachment.

But the facts in this instance are unambiguous: The president of the United States attempted to use his political power to coerce a foreign leader to harass and discredit one of the president’s political opponents. That is not only a violation of the Constitution; more importantly, it is profoundly immoral.

The reason many are not shocked about this is that this president has dumbed down the idea of morality in his administration. He has hired and fired a number of people who are now convicted criminals. He himself has admitted to immoral actions in business and his relationship with women, about which he remains proud. His Twitter feed alone—with its habitual string of mischaracterizations, lies, and slanders—is a near perfect example of a human being who is morally lost and confused.

Trump’s evangelical supporters have pointed to his Supreme Court nominees, his defense of religious liberty, and his stewardship of the economy, among other things, as achievements that justify their support of the president. We believe the impeachment hearings have made it absolutely clear, in a way the Mueller investigation did not, that President Trump has abused his authority for personal gain and betrayed his constitutional oath. The impeachment hearings have illuminated the president’s moral deficiencies for all to see. This damages the institution of the presidency, damages the reputation of our country, and damages both the spirit and the future of our people. None of the president’s positives can balance the moral and political danger we face under a leader of such grossly immoral character.

This concern for the character of our national leader is not new in CT. In 1998, we wrote this:

The President's failure to tell the truth—even when cornered—rips at the fabric of the nation. This is not a private affair. For above all, social intercourse is built on a presumption of trust: trust that the milk your grocer sells you is wholesome and pure; trust that the money you put in your bank can be taken out of the bank; trust that your babysitter, firefighters, clergy, and ambulance drivers will all do their best. And while politicians are notorious for breaking campaign promises, while in office they have a fundamental obligation to uphold our trust in them and to live by the law.

And this:

Unsavory dealings and immoral acts by the President and those close to him have rendered this administration morally unable to lead.

Unfortunately, the words that we applied to Mr. Clinton 20 years ago apply almost perfectly to our current president. Whether Mr. Trump should be removed from office by the Senate or by popular vote next election—that is a matter of prudential judgment. That he should be removed, we believe, is not a matter of partisan loyalties but loyalty to the Creator of the Ten Commandments.

To the many evangelicals who continue to support Mr. Trump in spite of his blackened moral record, we might say this: Remember who you are and whom you serve. Consider how your justification of Mr. Trump influences your witness to your Lord and Savior. Consider what an unbelieving world will say if you continue to brush off Mr. Trump’s immoral words and behavior in the cause of political expediency. If we don’t reverse course now, will anyone take anything we say about justice and righteousness with any seriousness for decades to come? Can we say with a straight face that abortion is a great evil that cannot be tolerated and, with the same straight face, say that the bent and broken character of our nation’s leader doesn’t really matter in the end?

We have reserved judgment on Mr. Trump for years now. Some have criticized us for our reserve. But when it comes to condemning the behavior of another, patient charity must come first. So we have done our best to give evangelical Trump supporters their due, to try to understand their point of view, to see the prudential nature of so many political decisions they have made regarding Mr. Trump. To use an old cliché, it’s time to call a spade a spade, to say that no matter how many hands we win in this political poker game, we are playing with a stacked deck of gross immorality and ethical incompetence. And just when we think it’s time to push all our chips to the center of the table, that’s when the whole game will come crashing down. It will crash down on the reputation of evangelical religion and on the world’s understanding of the gospel. And it will come crashing down on a nation of men and women whose welfare is also our concern.

Mark Galli is editor in chief of Christianity Today.