The imagery of the “semi-mobilization” in Russia is alarming, to say the least. It definitely feels as though we’ve entered a new stage of the Russo-Ukrainian War one that might see an escalation between the two nations either now before it snows or in the spring.
Add to this that Russia has cut Europe off from its gas reserves and we really do have the winter of our discontent rushing towards us. But the question is, of course, is Russia going to remain stable going forward or is this mobilization the first step in a rapid decline in the stability of the world’s largest nuclear power?
I honestly don’t know. But history would definitely indicate that that is a real possibility. Repeatedly in Russian history major political debacles have caused massive political change.
Or, put another way, the world is a lot less stable than you might otherwise think. It’s at least possible that we’ll look back upon 2022 as a modern day 1937, where we got a shot across the bow that a world war was brewing. It seems to me very possible that what might happen is the United States for some reason withdraws from the global order — be it because of civil war, military junta or MAGA themed autocracy — and that is the thing that pushes into something akin to a new world war in 2024 – 2025.
The point is — Pax Americana is in its last days. We’re about to go through a very, very turbulent period in human history. There will be no narrative or value to any of it until it’s over and we figure out who the winners are.
When I was in South Korea, I knew this one Iranian expat who collected friends like other people collect stamps. I went to his birthday party and there must have been 35 people at the restaurant. And, in general, Iranians as a people love America, even if their theocratic government definitely does not.
So I watched the recent protests in Iran with keen interest. I’m just the right age that the American hostage situation in Tehran made a big impression on me when I was growing up. That was, in fact, probably the seminal political event of my early childhood.
Anyway, what are we to make of what’s going on in Iran right now? I honestly don’t know. The protests started because a young woman was beaten to death after she wore her headscarf the wrong way or some such. The real issue is, are all these protest just the usual “letting off steam” that happens every once in a while in a dictatorial society or is it something bigger?
If democracy came to Iran, that would radically change the geopolitical framework that we’ve long come to assume with the Middle East. The price off gas across the globe might come down. Iran and Israel might break bred. And, in general, we could sigh a huge sigh of relief.
There is the other end of the spectrum, of course, which is if the Mullahs begin to feel threatened on an existential basis that they lash out against their perceived external enemies in an effort to juice up support domestically. I don’t know what to tell you. It could go either way.
It’s growing alarmingly clear that in an abstract fashion, Reds fucking hate Blues with a white hot rage. I’m not particularly fond of MAGA Republicans, either, so you could say the feeling is mutual. And, yet, given how at the moment everyone assumes that if there’s a National Divorce that it will be Republicans (Reds) who serve the papers, what will be the reaction with the opposite happens?
I suspect there will initially be a big difference between rank-and-file Reds and the Establishment. Initially, your average Republican will be ecstatic that they have finally gotten rid of those given “groomer” libtards who want to take their guns and turn everyone gay. Meanwhile, up in the upper echelons of the Federal government, Republicans are going to freak the fuck out.
And things get interesting. While the MAGA base is celebrating in the streets that the United States can finally become a white Christian ethnostate in peace, there is going to be a lot of messaging on the part of the Republican Establishment to try to get MAGA to support crushing Blue states in an effort to keep the country in one piece.
It will be ironic and surreal, but that’s usually the path that history takes. Whatever the most ironic and surreal thing history can possibly do is the direction it goes. It happens all the time.
Anyway, hopefully we won’t have to deal with that. Hopefully we somehow manage to punt our massive number of structural problems down the road and don’t have to deal with the possibilities of autocracy, civil war or military junta.
Because the issue of “wokeness” is so often demagogued by Right wing nutjobs, the whole issue is so conflated and muddled that generally in the minds of conservatives is just means “something I don’t like and may ruin my life.” But let’s try to break down not just what “being woke” means, but it’s causes as well.
A lot of the issue of “being woke” comes from generational changes combined with technological changes. It’s easy for the most idealistic and touchy voices of the Zoomer generation (or whatever) to be the one we all hear about the most to the point that even if you don’t agree with the most woke of concepts, you still somehow find yourself having to defend them.
I mean, in the 70s there were some spicy takes on the part of second wave feminists that were so extreme that even your most woke person today might blanch at them a little bit. So “wokeness” has existed since dirt, but technology — to a limited extent — has given these spicy woke takes a lot more potency. Add to this dramatic differences in what different generations believe on the hot button issues of the day and you have a recipe for conservatives getting really angry about people being “woke.”
Also, another issue is a matter of audience. Outside of the horrible men who were justifiably canceled as part of the #MeToo movement, most of the other people who have been canceled, well, just didn’t read the room. In my experience, there is usually some other factor that aggravates the situation whenever someone is “canceled.”
So, JK Rowling was far more suspectable to being successfully “canceled” than, say, Louis CK. And Louis CK is doing quite well for himself, even though he did, in my opinion, things far worse than what JK Rowling is accused of doing. But you have to give Rowling credit — she’s stuck to her guns, even though her audience loathes her as a person.
But that doesn’t stop conservatives from believing that, by definition, for the average person to be conservative is to risk having their life ruined. They think this in such an abstract manner that it’s easy for Republican shithead cocksuckers to demagogue the whole idea to the point that an already divided America gets more and more divided.
Let me begin by saying I’m always wrong. Always. And the following is just for fun because I find myself thinking about what the fuck is going on with Olivia Wilde and this is what I manage to come up with.
Here is what might explain Olivia Wilde’s career path — she really resents how much emphasis has been placed on her good looks over the years. I think she is very tired that people think she’s hot to the point that they ignore any of her other talents.
This aggravation has driven her to be “woke.” And she has even said in at least one interview that what I propose about her motivation is right. She recalled that early in her career she was told to “sex things up” if she wanted to get an acting role.
If you wanted to make a quick, massive return on an investment and you happened to be MAGA Republican oligarch, here’s a way to both stroke your conservative ideological cock and make a lot of money — finance a series of middle-tier “anti-woke” movies with big name stars.
America can’t even agree on what’s funny.
But the key issue is you can’t be conspicuous about how you are actively being “anti-woke.” Not only is there a huge, huge audience for natively conservative songs, TV shows, movies and, hell, even comedy, but the country is tearing itself apart at such an alarming rate that all you have to is build your conservative media and they will come.
It’s not like this sort of sly messaging hasn’t happened before. As I seem to recall, there were a series of movies — Blood Diamond among them — that each addressed some sort of political cause as the basis of their plot. So, what you do is you, maybe find someone like Clint Eastwood and give him a three picture deal to essentially make a series of “anti-woke” movies that would be designed from the ground up to appeal to MAGA Republican (fascist) sensibilities in such a way that is so subtle that the average person isn’t alienated.
I’m not advocating this, but I am pointing out that money is being left on the table by Hollywood by not doing this.
The crux of what makes it so difficult for me to talk to my Traditionalist relatives — who I love dearly — about Trump and MAGA is they are primed and ready to be “Good Germans.” They don’t really think of it in those terms, even if pressed, but when they say they “like what Trump has to say, just not how he says it” what they’re saying is they are prepared to serve the purpose of “Good Germans” in the American political system.
And from what I can garner, they have two red lines. One red line is “violence in the streets” and the only is the personal — if I get snatched up by a weaponized ICE they’re going to help get out of the concentration camp I’m cooling my heels in.
So, if it’s DeSantis not Trump who is our next POTUS, then there won’t be any political violence “in the streets” because he’s so smooth, which will leave the other, final red line of the personal. I don’t expect to get snatched off the street by ICE immediately when DeSantis is sworn in, but it’s inevitable that it will happen.
But the key thing is that fascism is very, very popular in the United States. A lot of people want a white autocratic Christian ethnostate to the point that they don’t even realize the implications of what they want. Want they want describes fascism, but they get really angry when you point this out to them.
The point is –the United States is fucking doomed. We’re either going to slide peacefully into a MAGA themed autocracy, have a civil war or have military junta. There is no middle ground and this is not an abstract to me — I’m going to inevitably cross our new MAGA autocrat, whomever that may be, and that’s going to be that.
As I’ve written before, my Traditionalist relatives look at me with concern whenever Ron DeSantis comes up in our now-rare political conversations and say, “Why do you hate Ron DeSantis?”
Let me be clear — I do not hate Ron DeSantis. I hate the MAGA Republican movement with a white hot rage equal to the center of the sun that is so powerful that it’s generating a six novel project on my part. But I don’t hate Ron DeSantis.
The reason why this is relevant is when it comes to shipping hapless undocumented immigrants to strategic sites in Blue states, DeSantis has struck political gold. It’s a very “cruelty is the point” Trump-ish thing to do and, as such plays exceedingly well with the MAGA Republican base. And, if something should happen politically to Trump, then DeSantis will cruse into the presidency and be our first autocrat.
This cruel ploy by DeSantis works so well with the base because it’s simple and plays well with their preconceived notions of evil “groomer” liberals. It’s a perfect plan for DeSantis because we wins, just by doing it. There is NO reaction on the part of Blues that he can’t credit as a win. And, if need be, MAGA will simply lie or spin whatever reaction there is so it fits their media narrative.
It’s times like these when I am reminded at how alarmed we should all be about the future of the United States. As I keep saying, we face the choices of autocracy, civil war or military junta between now and, say, spring 2025. If you have the means, I would suggest you prepare to leave the country and never look back.
The simple explanation for why MAGA Republicans are so adamant that the United State is a constitutional republic rather a democracy is it’s a form of debate nullification. It gets MAGA Republicans, who are fucking fascists, a retort against liberal-progressives who talk about how MAGA Republicans are a “threat to our democracy.”
MAGA Republicans hear this so much that they have come up with, “Oh yeah? Well fuck you, the United States isn’t a democracy in the first place, it’s a constitutional republic!” Then it becomes obvious that the two people talking can’t even agree on the terms they’re using and the conversation trails off to something else.
There is so much wrong with the growing insistence by MAGA Republicans that we can’t defend democracy because, lulz, the United States isn’t even one to begin with. They have a number of talking points thought out about all of this, everything from “Are you going to challenge the wisdom of the Founding Fathers?” to a garbled, misinterpretation of Alexis de Tocqueville.
That this is even an issue, is also something of a tell as to the agenda of MAGA Republicans. That they get so wrapped up in this dumb conflation about the nature of our Constitution tells us that they don’t believe in democracy and they want to establish a white Christian ethnostate. Or, more specifically, rather than work within the bounds of our democracy and change their policy agenda to win elections fair and square, they’re so fucking racist that they want to play lesser democratic elements of the Constitution like a xylophone so they can establish an autocracy and that will be that.
The point is — another reason why this is a tell is the idea that the United States is a “constitutional republic” is not mutually exclusive with it being a democracy. It’s both and has been, to varying degrees, since its conception. It’s only now, when MAGA Republicans are looking for some retort to evil libtards that the two equally true concepts have been muddled by MAGA Republicans’ partisan needs.
I would note that “What form of government does the United States have?” is following the same path as any number of other hot button issues where the two sides are so far as apart that they can’t agree on the basics. If you bring it up MAGA Republicans laugh at you, use a joke they heard on some fetid MAGA podcast and then you spend all your time not talking about the issue, but wading through bullshit designed to make it impossible to even debate the topic at hand in the first place.
It’s happened with gun control. It’s happened with the Green New Deal. It’s happened to a variety of topics and it’s happening with the very basic idea of the Untied States being a democracy. If that’s not a sign that at some point between now and spring 2025 we’re going to have a civil war, turn into a MAGA autocracy or have a military junta, I don’t know what is.
This is where I have to bring up the great irony of this bullshit. I have people in my family to believe “the United States isn’t a democracy.” I love them dearly, even if I’ve actively given up debating politics with them because of shit like this. The irony is that given that I’ve made it very clear that I’m not going to ever stop ranting about how much I fucking hate the MAGA Republican movement, should the United States turn into an autocracy, it’s inevitable that I’m probably going to be sent to a camp.
THEN, of course, my Traditionalist conservative relatives will sit up and take notice and have to figure out how to get me out of my concentration camp. Once things get personal — their only red line other than violence in the streets — then they will start to get upset about America no longer being a democracy. Then, of course, it will be fucking too late. This is not an abstract to me. I’m never going to be a “Good German” and any shift on the part of the United States into autocracy poses real risks for me, personally.
But my Traditionalist relatives scoff at these fears or just don’t want to talk about it. They hate the soft power of the “woke cancel culture mob” SO MUCH that they willing to give up their American birth right of democracy so they can live in a white Christian ethnostate, even if it puts my life in real danger.
It just occurred to me that the basic premise of Tik-Tok could easily be adapted to a powerful dating service. Tik-Tok knows me so well that it already pushes me women that I find oddly very specific to my personal tastes. It has me figured out so well that it knows the phenotype and personality type of women I’m interested in.
All they would have to do is use whatever algorithms they already have and tell people it’s just like Tik-Tok, but for singles. You would see content on a For You Page just like with normal Tik-Tok and gradually the service would figure you out and begin to push you “singles in your area” who were doing videos just like you.
There are some obvious obstacles to overcome. One is, whenever the potential for sex is involved, people — especially men — act pretty fucked up. So you would have to establish some pretty strict ground rules for what could be in your videos. Nothing in frame could tip people off as to where you lived specifically and that kind of stuff.
But the premise — using Tik-Tok algorithms as part of a dating service — would make a lot of sense. I, personally, have already seen several women pushed to me on Tik-Tok that I probably would fall in love with if I ever had the chance to meet them in person. They all live in New York City, of course, so lulz.
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