Recent searches
Search options
Administered by:
It's always so easy to blame women, isn't it? And Black women in particular. That's what's going on right now, of course, in the orgy of recrimination mounted by those blaming Democrats, and a Black woman, Kamala Harris, for the triumph of fascism in the recent election. Blaming Democrats for the free choice of nearly half of our citizens to usher in fascism by electing Trump president….
#Trump #fascism #cruelty #future
/1
https://www.wonkette.com/p/democratic-state-leaders-prepare?
@wdlindsy@toad.socialA large percentage of those gleefully playing this blame game right now, including here on my feed, are white men, young white men at that.
Here's the response of a young Black leader, Baltimore mayor Brandon Scott, to these folks:
"It is really on my heart this morning to say that as a man, but more importantly as a Black man, that this country does not deserve Black women or Black people, but specifically Black women."
"The unfortunate reality is that this country is still steeped in racism, sexism and misogyny. I am personally proud of her, and I know that so many others are the same. We appreciate her tenacity, her focus, her decency and how she handled herself throughout this campaign. And I don’t want to hear anybody saying that they should have done something different, she should have been running longer."
"The fact is, is that they did everything that a campaign can do and more. But we as a country really have a lot of soul searching to do.”
But what Black people have to say isn't really important to a lot of us, right? Never has been. Never has been taken as seriously in the opinion pages of our major media outlets as the verbiage of any white person anywhere. Right? And it's never about racism or misogyny even when it's always about them.
Another piece of eloquent testimony from a brilliant Black man that won't be taken seriously by lots of us as we engage in the futile game-playing of the circular firing squad:
"America deserves everything it is about to get. ...
The conversations about who is to blame, the hand-wringing about who showed up and who failed the moment are largely academic and pointless."
~ Elie Mystal
#Trump #fascism #cruelty #future
/5
https://www.thenation.com/article/politics/trump-is-america-not-a-fluke/
"America did this. America, through the process of a free and fair election, demanded this. America, as an idea, concept, and institution, wanted this. And America, as a collective, deserves to get what it wants. ...
Now that he is here, we deserve our fate, because the most fundamental truth about Trump’s reelection is that Trump was right about us."
"He will be president again because he, and perhaps he alone, saw us for how truly base, depraved, and uninformed we are as a country. Trump is not a root cause of our ills. He did not create the conditions that allowed him to rise. He is, and always has been, a mirror. He is how America sees itself."
And from Black historian Jemar Tisby:
"I find most of the postmortem pontificating about why Democrats lost the presidential election unpersuasive.
The reason, not the only one but a major one, Democrats lost the presidential election is disinformation and misinformation super-charged by billionaires and Russia through a network of right-wing media outlets and institutions."
#Trump #fascism #cruelty #future
/8
https://jemartisby.substack.com/p/why-democrats-lost-the-2024-presidential
From Wajahat Ali, son of Pakistani immigrants:
"We knew exactly what we were getting. And despite everything he’s done, millions of Americans would rather have a cruel, aging vulgarian than a competent Black woman become President. This is more a revelation of their lack of character than anything else. They chose to vote for him. No one forced them to do it."
#Trump #fascism #cruelty #future
/9
https://thelefthook.substack.com/p/america-shit-in-its-milk-but-the
"This includes a majority of white men and white women. Without that bloc, Trump never comes close to being President. This bloc also includes margins of Latino, Black and Asian men. The two groups that understood the assignment were 90% of Black and Jewish women who voted for Harris. A majority of Black men also came through. The two religious groups that voted for Harris were Jews and Muslims, although many defected from Muslim and Arab communities due to the Gaza war."
And a Jewish American voice, Steven Beschloss:
"Now we have more evidence that the appeal of authoritarianism is on the rise, in America as well as globally."
He cites a poll last year by Open Society Foundations polling 36,000 people in 30 countries, which finds commitment to democracy strong but waning globally.
Two key findings that bode ominously for the future of democracy in America:
#Trump #fascism #cruelty #future
/11
https://www.americaamerica.news/p/what-i-wont-get-over-and-some-of
"An average of 86 percent of the global respondents said it is important to them to live in a country that is democratically governed, yet only 80 percent of Americans did. That put America in the bottom five of thirty countries, below Turkey, China, India, Egypt and Mexico, to name just a few.
Just 57 percent of 18- to 35-year-olds said democracy is preferable to any other form of government; 71 percent of older respondents said the same."
Another Jewish American voice:
"I don’t expect normal times ahead. I believe Trump when he tells us who he is. I believe MAGA when they tell us who they are. This wasn’t just a campaign where the winner takes office and we all move on happily together, shoring up our disappointment. We have to be prepared for that reality, and not get sucked into a 'business as usual' version of what Trump’s time in office will look like."
Another Jewish American voice warning of how disinformation not only corrupts our minds, but also erodes our hearts, the center of our moral awareness:
"As a matter of truth and morality, the idea that immigration hurts Americans, or that immigration is immoral, is just a lie. …
It is simply a lie to say that anything that trans people are doing in America is harming other Americans...."
~ Peter Beinart
#Trump #fascism #cruelty #future
/15
https://peterbeinart.substack.com/p/dont-confuse-popularity-and-truth
And on the white male side of the ledger, there's Elon Musk — though remember that the Democrats are the problem, as lots of white male commentators (and fellow travelers who are white women) want to tell us now:
"Elon Musk's influence with Donald Trump is one of the biggest stories in media, tech and politics right now."
~ Brian Stelter
#Trump #fascism #cruelty #future
/16
https://view.newsletters.cnn.com/messages/17313334122092dcc361a5d62/raw
"Musk has 'loomed over' all the action at Trump's Mar-a-Lago club since Trump's election night victory, CNN's Kaitlan Collins reported last night. Musk has been dining with Trump on the patio, hanging out on the golf course, and, more importantly, 'weighing in on staffing decisions, making clear his preference for certain roles.'"
"Much of Musk's immense wealth comes directly from the federal government, which has handed billions of dollars in contracts and subsidies to Tesla and SpaceX, raising the potential for enormous conflicts of interest as Musk helps Trump create winners and losers of his new administration."
"His ownership and clear support for Trump on X also raises concerns he will use the social platform to push political narratives that further his business interests…."
But don't forget as you read this that the real problem is Democrats, and "wokeness," and "identity politics" centering people of color and women who have long been shoved to the margins. The real problem is Black women like Kamala Harris. /s (!)
"Trump broke American journalism; and it is likely to get worse as power and influence shifts toward platforms that honor algorithms more than truth. …
When we are done flagellating other institutions, we need to admit the possibility that something is profoundly broken in the American psyche and character. …
We found out last week that we are a profoundly unserious country."
~ Charlie Sykes
#Trump #fascism #cruelty #future
/19
https://charliesykes.substack.com/p/are-we-sanewashing-the-voters-now
"Fascism is now in the algorithms, the neural pathways, the social interactions. How did we fail to see all this?"
~ Timothy Snyder
#Trump #fascism #cruelty #future
/20
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/dispatches/what-does-it-mean-that-donald-trump-is-a-fascist
Trump proved proved "that the most vicious campaign of lies, misogyny, racism, and xenophobia ever waged—and yes, I am including his previous two campaigns—was not enough to stop nearly half the country from supporting him. …
It is a disastrous revelation about what the United States really is, as opposed to the country that so many hoped that it could be."
~ Susan Glasser
Second statement quoted by Charlie Sykes, /19 above.
@wdlindsy We didn't miss it. We saw it and called it out, loudly and consistently for 60+ years.
For our trouble, we were marginalized, made fun of, called alarmist and abused both by the fascists and by the people who were ostensibly our allies.
Don't pretend this was a lack of awareness. America *wanted* this and stubbornly did everything to silence dissent, kill education and otherwise set the stage for fascists.
@wdlindsy
One of T****'s nominees for "#Border Czar" said over the weekend that we can avoid "Family Separation" when we #deport "illegals" with citizen family members by simply deporting the entire family.
This will require ignoring the #14thAmendment.
And THEN… once they do that & get away with it… they'll just start ignoring EVERY inconvenient Constitutional Amendment and get away with it b/c you'll no longer be able to #impeach or even INVESTIGATE a sitting president. #Fascism
@wdlindsy @mastodonmigration Many, perhaps even most, of us did see it. We just didn’t vote.
#FBPE 
@wdlindsy We didn't! Millions of us have been warning about it *for years* We saw it for what it was when he first opened his mouth. And all we got was told to calm down and stop overreacting with a smug "both sides are calling each other fascists so whachyagonnado?!"
I don't get these ... "It's all broken" ... laments. 68M people obviously feel that Trump & what he represents was the wrong direction. If we are profoundly unserious no one would have supported a message of hope, progress, and democracy. A vast number of us still see a better path despite broken journalism & algorithms that feed the darker side of the human psyche.
When Trump fails to deliver relief to the working class & causes a recession with tariffs opinions will shift.
@NJWookie "68M people obviously feel that Trump & what he represents was the wrong direction."
But the rest of us chose to place all power in the hands of Trump and MAGA.
@wdlindsy @SykesCharlie Algorithms of engagement and social media broke journalism a long time ago by sucking all the attention and all the money away from journalism. We moved from a healthy intellectual diet to junk food for our brains. Trump is a consequence not the cause of that.
@patrickco @SykesCharlie Yes. I don't think Charlie Sykes is saying Trump is the cause of all of that, either.
@wdlindsy American journalism broke itself in service to fascism.
They don't get a pass anymore where we pretend they just couldn't help themselves.
@gooba42 Yes, I agree. I doubt Charlie Sykes wants to give corporate journalism a pass.
@wdlindsy American journalism was broken with the revocation of the fairness doctrine, arguably, and the current election cycle is an effect rather than a cause of the decline of journalism in the post-Reagan age.
@wdlindsy so. Much. This.
@Danetteb I agree — good commentary.
@wdlindsy Just waiting for the MSM to travel to a diner just outside of Pittsburgh to get to the bottom of this over a breakfast platter and black coffee...
@Badger_AF Indeed. They must have a whole list of heartland diners compiled by now.
@wdlindsy Reagan broke American journalism by getting the Fairness Doctrine repealed. The current administration is the beneficiary, not the causal agent.
@phaedral Thank you. A good historical reminder.
@wdlindsy you're missing the point. All those groups can live side by side (even if not really interested in each other) - it's the #algorithmicmanipulation from #bigtech #platforms that is stoking anger.
It's dividing people from other people way further than they normally would be.
Look at where people got their #news before the election...
@patrickleavy Someone doesn't want to see the point — you're right about that.
@wdlindsy This is especially chilling to me. Do we essentially have a foreign-born President now?
@vashafer A good and chilling (as you say) question to ask.
@wdlindsy I think it's clear that Trump is just going to be the figurehead. A president on paper if you will. I don't think Vance is smart enough to be the power behind the scenes. Which leaves Elon Musk. The founders would be spinning in their graves.
@vashafer Yes, I agree.
@wdlindsy I think this is going to be worse than when Reagan was in office. A foreign-born éminence grise with his fingers in many defense and technological pies...why this isn't openly raising questions is beyond me.
/s
@hans Isn't it, though?
/s
@wdlindsy
No matter what @JoyceVance says, I always know she understands, and her views are spot on.
@lolonurse @JoyceVance Yes, she's sometimes a bit too establishment for me, but I never fail to find her grounded, highly intelligent, insightful.
@wdlindsy @JoyceVance
The thing is (to my way of thinking), in order to be "free" but safe & secure, there needs to be an ordered, reliable, focused establishment. Then we can feel free to be free thinkers, dissenters, artists, inventors, explorers... so I appreciate the grounded, realistic people as much as the more daring ones, because I know they're telling me facts & sensible things. I can only fly if I know where the ground is.
@lolonurse @JoyceVance Yes, I agree. And this is a big reason that I read Joyce Vance continuously with great interest.
@the5thColumnist All archys eventually succumb to their overinflated egos, don't they?
Ⓥ
(he/him) @wdlindsy I mean, part of this comes down, I think, to the failure of the neoliberal consensus to actually improve the lives of most people. Especially when people are told capitalism and democracy are intertwined (they really aren't, but that's the narrative), then feel the negative effects of capitalism, why wouldn't they reject democracy?
@chiraag I have long been critical of neoliberalism. I also think that it's a miscalculation to say that the choice of increasing numbers of people to swallow fascist ideas is entirely rooted in economic malaise.
