Huh - apparently just being not-the-Republicans isn’t enough.

The important question is, will the DNC learn anything from this?

I’m guessing no.

It’d be bad enough if that just meant that the US is for all intents a one-party system, but at this particular point in history, the future of the country and the lives of millions depend on effective opposition to those who are building a plutocratic/fascist oligarchy, and the exact institution that should be the vanguard for opposition is just a bunch of greedy pigs and cowards.

There are no depths to which he will not stoop.

And that’s part of what his fans like about him.

I wonder if there’s been any scholarly research on that? It seems on reflection that it’s actually fairly common for autocrats to not only be foul, destructive, self-absorbed pieces of shit, but for them and their supporters to treat that as some sort of badge of honor.

More broadly, it’s striking me that there are likely dominant moods in countries - periods during which for instance, a plurality of progressives elects a progressive or a plurality of patriots elects a patriot or a plurality of warmongers elects a warmonger.

And the current US is a plurality of assholes who elected an asshole (two for the price of one even).

At this point, he doesn’t even bother to try to make sense. He just lets whatever words might serve his purposes fall out of his mouth, and counts on the loyalty of his sycophants to do the rest.

I sincerely expect future historians (if there are any) to have a specific name for this particular period in American history - something like “The idiot Age” or “The Faceplant Years.”

First they came for the immigrants, but I didn’t do anything because I wasn’t an immigrant…

Trying to bring back the good ol’ days, when rivers could catch fire.

If you ever want to grow a bit of integrity, ask yourself why you’re avoiding what I said and focusing on the fact that I said it.

Yes - assholes who see every tragedy as just another opportunity for another partisan pissing match make me angry, and especially when they’re also fucking tunnel-visioned hypocrites.

When this civilization collapses, it’s going to be in no small part because they’re in there, day after day, diligently chipping away at it. You’re fucking right that makes me angry.

It’s not in and of itself.

Did you really not understand what I said?

Is there some sort of joke here that I’m not getting?

I built better tree forts when I was 12.

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The “wrong man” bit is just an additional layer of evil really - it’s not as if they could’ve killed the “right man” over a stolen weed eater.

I think you have it exactly backwards - that the people who hate him just in and of himself do so for very good reason - because he’s a foul, self-absorbed, sociopathic serial liar, manupulator and rapist - and that it’s the people who ignore the plain truth about him and grant him respect he doesn’t deserve who are motivated by their own weakness.

The US has elected Beavis and Butt-Head.

Broadly, this is just the sort of thing that can be expected when we allow positions of power to be held by people who are mentally ill.

I’d never thought about it before and my immediate reaction was somewhere between wtf and lol, but thinking about it more, I guess I can sort of see the basis for an argument that they are, since at least some of the expected basic themes are there.

But I don’t think that’s enough. Cyberpunk isn’t just centered around computers and technology - it’s an aesthetic, and WarGames and Sneakers don’t have even the tiniest hint of that aesthetic.

To reach back to the roots of the word “cyberpunk,” I think it’s more accurate to say that WarGames and Sneakers are “cyberpop” or maybe even “cyber-easy-listening.”

Then free speech also means banning, or at least strictly limiting, corporate political contributions.

This anti-distortion rationale for government speech regulation used to be central to the First Amendment, especially in campaign-finance cases, until the Supreme Court rejected it when striking down corporate campaign-contribution limits in Citizens United v. FEC.

But of course that counts for nothing, since the Supreme Court is a wholly owned tool of the plutocratic oligarchy.

I don’t have the foggiest idea.

And really, if I did have a good idea, I wouldn’t post it publicly anyway. That’d just be tipping my hand to the astroturfers.

“The fediverse” really can’t. That’s just the reality of a decentralized system. It’s going to be up to individual instances to sort it out.

But that’s a good thing, because what it means is that different instances can and will try different approaches, and between them, they’ll sooner or later hit on the one(s) that will be most effective.