#trump fuels hate

[dirt-grub]

If you fuckheads are still trying to justify this garbage game for garbage fascists, here’s a comprehensive fuck you to the defenders of it, or just the people who claim its “not that bad” to support. your allyship is literally nothing if its so flimsy that a shitty video game is too hard to boycott.

#jk rowling #fuck terfs #hogwarts legacy #harry potter #swinging a bat at a bees nest with this but im fed up with fascists #also yes. it is that serious. she has political influence. she sides with right wingers that also hate the quote 'real' women #yall seem to think you're defending by stanning her #theres going to be a bill introduced in the US if trump wins again that outlaws being transgender pretty much straight up #so fuck you absolute invertebrates who can't commit to caring about people because of a video game you'd otherwise forget about in a month #gonna receive nasty shit in my inbox #it only fuels me you fucks #cant wait for the false equivalences too. 'you said i was a fuckhead and thats mean. you're as bad as me advocating for fascism and bigotry' #also thank you james stephanie sterling the queen #they do not MISS! #which ive recommended their channel before bc their career got fucked when they came out as trans #but even more so now!

[tomorrowusa]

There is "a tiny window" of hope remaining for keeping the climate from spinning out of control. But to keep that window open we need to keep professional climate deniers out of power.

Increasingly severe weather impacts had also been long signposted by scientists, although the speed and intensity of the reality scared some. The off-the-charts sea temperatures and Antarctic sea ice loss were seen as the most shocking. The feeling of entering a new age of devastation was the result of the return of the natural El Niño phenomenon, which has temporarily turbocharged global heating, they said. Another factor was many people being confronted with extreme weather they had never experienced before, as climate impacts began to clearly stand out from usual weather. The scientists were clear the world had not yet passed a “tipping point” into runaway climate change, but some warned that it got ever closer with continued heating.

The scientists also warned that the “crazy” extreme weather of recent months was just the “tip of the iceberg” compared with the even worse impacts to come. In just a decade the exceptional events of 2023 could be a normal year, unless there is a dramatic increase in climate action. Some further warned that the tendency of climate models to underestimate extreme weather meant we were “flying partially blind” into a future that could be even more catastrophic than anticipated. However, a “tiny window” of opportunity remained open to tackle the climate crisis, they said, with humanity having all the tools needed. The researchers overwhelmingly pointed to one action as critical: slashing the burning of fossil fuels down to zero. “Climate science’s projections are pretty robust over the last decades. Unfortunately, humanity’s stubbornness to spew out ever-higher amounts of greenhouse gases has also been pretty robust,” said Prof Malte Meinshausen, of the University of Melbourne, Australia.

There's a relatively simple prescription to keep things from getting worse.

“We need to stop burning fossil fuels,” said (Imperial College's Dr. Friederike) Otto. “Now – not sometime when we’ve allowed companies to make all the money they possibly can.” Others said the world was on “code red alert” to stop fossil fuel extraction and to fight to halt new exploration projects.

The stats are pretty damned clear about what's happening.

The first step in making things better is to stop them from getting worse. A certain political party in the US pretends that climate change is just "politicization of the weather". Making sure these people are not put in power gives us time to work on solutions.

Why Republicans can’t get out of their climate bind, even as extreme heat overwhelms the US

Even as more Republican politicians are joining the consensus that climate change is real and caused by humans, Trump’s inflammatory rhetoric has driven the party to the right on climate and extreme weather. Trump has called the extremely settled science of climate change a “hoax” and more recently suggested that the impacts of it “may affect us in 300 years.”

Even if some Republicans grudgingly admit that humans cause climate change, the influence of their party's Dear Leader will keep them from taking any action.

And if The Donald choked on a triple cheeseburger tomorrow, don't expect the party to abruptly swerve away from its extremist anti-science positions. It's not just Trump himself, it's Trumpism as exemplified by his Mini-Me Vivek Ramaswamay.

Vivek Ramaswamy calls climate change agenda a ‘hoax’ during debate

Here are some of the current "hoaxes" which Trump lickspittle Vivek doesn't want you to think about too much.

#climate change #carbon dioxide #greenhouse gas emissions #fossil fuels #carbon fuels #republicans #climate denial #gop climate denial #donald trump #trumpism #vivek ramaswamy #malte meinshausen #friederike otto #vote republican if you hate this planet #election 2024 #hurricane idalia #hurricane franklin #tropical cyclones

[qqueenofhades]

Do you have any idea why people are so fixated on Biden’s age but not Trumps? I know he’s 81, but Trump isn’t exactly far behind at 77: in fact he’s the second oldest. This keeps stumping me: it’s not a big gap in age

There are a few reasons for this, yes. As you might imagine, all of them are very stupid.

First and most critically is the way Trump's violent extremism has been completely neutered, mainlined, and normalized by the mainstream media. That's why we still have said media largely treating this as a normal presidential election, instead of that of a successful incumbent against literally the most deranged, unfit, treasonous, criminally and civilly liable, already-led-an-attempted-coup, deep-in-hock-to-Russia, adjudicated rapist, 91-felony-counts-indicted career cheater, grifter, and failed businessman who nonetheless appeals to the still-very-powerful isolationist, racist, white supremacist, and Christian nationalist elements in this country. Crucially, he also appeals to the billionaire class that owns the media and who will benefit from Trumpian tax, economic, and labor policies (especially now that Biden used the SOTU to once more call for a minimum 25% corporate/billionaire tax rate). The media also openly wants Trump back in office, as all the shitass insane things he did (and will do) are good for ratings, and allows them to act like the Principled Truth Tellers, instead of shilling so hard for a greasy orange fascist that we may well lose our 250+ year old democratic republic if he, God forbid, is elected again. Profit is more, well, profitable than truthful reporting, so the media has been completely disincentivized to cover this in any accurate way. We presume they will all wake up with shocked Pikachu faces when Trump packs them off to concentration camps with everyone else he hates, as he has openly promised to do.

Because we're also starting from an underlying premise that everything is the Democrats' fault, this means the party should be blamed for running said successful incumbent for reelection, even if he has low poll numbers which have in fact largely been produced by the media's relentlessly stupid and dishonest coverage. I was reading an article in the AP today about how 15 major student/youth groups have endorsed Biden and plan to work for his reelection; even so, the author could.not.stop going on and on about how Zomgz Old Biden was and how supposedly most Americans thought he was mentally unfit for the job (which is a straight-up lie produced by the endless "Zomgz Biden Old!!!!" handwringing have been subjected to without end. Weird how that works). That is also why we have all those idiotic "Biden should step down!!!" opinion pieces by Very Smart Pundits, notwithstanding the fact that a) it would be completely insane, b) it would be completely insane, and c) somehow nobody seems to think that hey, maybe the Republicans shouldn't nominate an openly seditionist generally god-awful fascist shitweasel who has already been the worst thing to happen to American politics in the twenty-first century (I'd say also the twentieth century, but unfortunately that was when we had Reagan).

In other words, Trump is just taken as a given, while the media spends all its time attacking Biden, calling on Biden to step down, amplifying "concerns" about Biden's age, producing idiotic narratives about Biden, distorting or ignoring the things Biden has done, and then writing concern-troll navel-gazing pieces earnestly wondering why people don't like Biden. (Apparently people's opinion of Biden drastically improves when they learn what he's actually accomplished, but the relentless parade of lies somehow makes it difficult for them to learn what those actually are. Again, weird.) Likewise the endless coverage we get of Biden's smallest slips or stumbles, while the media resolutely ignores Trump's full-on recent descent into absolute raving dementia. Hello, double standards!

This is also fueled by a heaping helping of racism and misogyny, because if God forbid Biden does die in office, what happens? The vice president takes over! We have a clear and constitutionally established precedent for this that has happened many times before! Except, oh no scary!!!, Biden's vice president is a brown woman, and that means SHE WOULD BE IN CHARGE!!!! TERRIFYING!!! So all the scaremongering around Biden's age, aside from being generally dishonest and stupid, has as its implicit message that sure, maybe you're fine voting for an old white man, but are you really comfortable doing that if it means a brown woman might also have the chance to be president?? I DON'T THINK YOU SHOULD BE!!!!!

Anyway, yes. It's a complete straw man argument, it's fueled by bad faith and stupidity, and as with most things in the current American media environment, it's geared toward helping Trump win. Because you know. Something something BUT HER EEEEEEEEEEEEMAILS BUT BIDEN WAS OOOOOOOOOOOOLD.

#anonymous #ask #politics for ts

[robertreich]

Is Donald Trump a Fascist? 

I want to talk to you about the F word. No no — not that F word.

I’m talking about fascism.

Is Donald Trump really a “fascist,” as some would claim?

Is “authoritarian” adequate?

The term “fascism” is often used loosely, but you can generally identify fascists by their hate of the "other," vengeful nationalism, and repression of dissent.

To fight these ideas, we need to be aware of what they are and how they fit together.

Let's examine the five elements that define fascism and what makes it distinct from, and more dangerous than, authoritarianism.

1. The rejection of democracy in favor of a strongman

Authoritarians believe strong leaders are needed to maintain stability. So they empower  strongmen, dictators, or absolute monarchs to maintain social order through the use of force.

But fascists view strong leaders as the means of discovering what society needs. They regard the leader as the embodiment of society, the voice of the people.

2. Stoking rage against cultural elites

Authoritarian movements cannot succeed without at least some buy-in from establishment elites.

While fascist movements often seek to co-opt the establishment, they largely depend on fueling resentment and anger against presumed cultural elites for supposedly displacing regular people. Fascists rile up their followers to seek revenge on the elites.

They create mass political parties and demand participation. They encourage violence.

3. Nationalism based on “superior” race and historic bloodlines.

Authoritarians see nationalism as a means of asserting the power of the state.

For fascists the state embodies what is considered a “superior” group — based on race, religion, and historic bloodlines. To fascists, the state is a means of asserting that superiority.

Fascists worry about disloyalty and replacement by groups that don’t share the same race or bloodlines. Fascists encourage their followers to scapegoat, expel, and sometimes even kill such “others.”

Fascists believe schools and universities must teach values that glorify the dominant race, religion, and bloodline. Schools should not teach inconvenient truths about the failures of the dominant race.

4. Extolling brute strength and heroic warriors.

The goal of authoritarianism is to gain and maintain state power at any cost. For authoritarians, “strength” comes in the form of large standing armies that can enforce their rule. They seek power to wield power.

Fascists seek state power to achieve their ostensible goal: achieving their vision of society.

Fascism accomplishes this goal by rewarding those who win economically and physically, and denigrating or exterminating those who lose. Fascism depends on organized bullying — a form of social Darwinism.

For the fascist, war and violence are means of strengthening society by culling the weak and glorifying heroic warriors.

5. Disdain of women and LGBTQ+ people

Authoritarianism imposes hierarchies. It’s about order.

Fascism’s idea of order is organized around a particular hierarchy of male dominance. The fascist “heroic warrior” is male. Women are relegated to subservient roles.

In fascism, anything that challenges the traditional heroic male roles of protector, provider, and controller of the family is considered a threat to the social order.

Fascism seeks to eliminate homosexuals, nonbinary, transgender, and queer people because they’re thought to challenge or weaken the heroic male warrior.

These five elements of fascism fit together and reinforce each other.

Rejection of democracy in favor of a strongman depends on galvanizing popular rage.

Popular rage draws on a nationalism based on a supposed superior race or ethnicity.

That superior race or ethnicity is justified by a social Darwinist idea of strength and violence, as exemplified by heroic warriors.

Strength, violence, and the heroic warrior are centered on male power.

These five elements find exact expression in Donald Trump. His uniquely American version of fascism is rooted largely in White Christian Nationalism. It is the direction that most of the Republican Party is now heading in.

It’s not enough to call Trump and those promoting his ideas authoritarians when what they are really advocating is something far worse: fascism.

#youtube #fascism #Donald Trump #politics #election #video #videos

[seraphofthesimps]

A Mechanic’s Manipulation - Yandere Draken x Reader

TW: possessive themes. Word count: 982

“Where the fuck are they going now?”

Over the past 3 days, the little red dot representing your car has traveled all across town, much to Draken’s dismay. A typically rather unbothered man, he hates when he gets like this. No, scratch that. He hates when you make him like this.

Well, it can’t be helped, for now. If you insist on being a pain, you can deal with the consequences. It’s better than him dealing with the excruciating pain he feels every time you leave with someone other than him without so much as a care. All he asks, without actually asking of course, is a simple check in to let him know where you are headed, with who, and why. It’s the least you could do if you honestly loved him half as much as he does you, right?

Thanking every God in the heavens he can that he had the foresight to know you would force his hand like this, he tries to calm down. He took counter-measures for this sort of thing at your last oil change 3 weeks ago. The GPS is only the first tool at his disposal. It has proven quite handy thus far but now it’s time for his trump card to shine.

“Hurry up and make it to a side street. Fuck, how long does it take you to make a turn? This is why I always drive when it’s the two of us,” his impatience fuels his agitation. However, that only lasts as long as it takes the red dot to travel through its current stoplight and into the nearest neighborhood. “There, this spot should do fine.”

One click of the mouse on his auto shop’s computer has him scoffing to himself, proud of how he’s sure to win this battle. You will probably have a bad day, but you did it to yourself. Traveling out of his boundaries, testing perimeters he doesn’t approve of — Whether you knew to ask or not is not of his concern. If you cared the way you should, the way you will one day, the way he’s going to make you, then you wouldn’t even have to think twice. Any second now..

His phone rings almost on command, your name bright across the display. A knowing chuckle leaves his chest as he answers, ready to play the knight in shining armor. All he needs is for you to beg a little. And beg you do, so pretty for him.

“What do you mean the car just shut off? Did you have any warning signs? Are you didn’t hear a noise or anything? That’s strange. Yeah, sure, I can be there in 15.”

Despite his anger with you, he keeps true to his word, leaving you none-the-wiser. As suspected from your Snap Story, you were with an unknown man, a lesser one than himself he quickly notes. Immediately popping the hood, he greets you with that same flirty smile that has you in this situation in the first place. It’s both cruel and humorous how you have the nerve to claim he has the most beautiful smile you have ever seen, yet you still refuse to be called his. No worries, he constantly reminds himself, because his smile is nothing compared to his determination. If he wants something bad enough, and boy it is quite the understatement to say he wants you, he will do whatever takes it to manipulate you into his arms. Like so.

Tinkering around with his wrench and a few bolts under the hood, he twists a valve to release a bit of steam with a dramatic hiss. It’s completely ordinary for that to happen, but he knows you don’t know any better. Your car has always been looked after by him so he knows it in and out. The only problem with it today is that he got pissed off and triggered the automatic shut off he installed last month. Greedy dealerships aren’t the only geniuses that can make use of that nifty mechanism.

“I need to get this back to the shop for diagnostics. I brought the hitch so we don’t need to call in a tow, but I can only fit the two of us in my truck with my tools. You didn’t tell me you had someone with you,” he looks to the eyesore on your left, “You don’t mind catching a lift from someone so we can take care of this right?” His smile fools you every time, telling you he only intends to help. His eyes make sure to do all the talking to your accomplice that is noticeably smarter, yet inadequate to do anything about it under Draken’s size and the false hero veil you allow him to so easily wear and abuse. Luckily for all of you right now, your friend, Draken’s self-declared competition, took the hint and says his farewell. Draken can't help but rumble out a low laugh at the way he sulks away, pulling out his phone to call for a ride as he disappears in the opposite direction. “Talk about a walk of shame,” he mumbles too low for you to hear.

The ride back to the shop is full of chatter, with Draken using the opportunity to pry into your personal life. As planned, he learns what you were doing, who the male you had with you is, and that he needs to make sure he pays him a visit to guarantee he stays far away from you. And as planned, you fall further and further into Draken’s carefully weaved web. Promises of a proper date and confessions of regret about not doing it sooner are what you graciously gift to him as a genuine thank you to your savior. Just like he expected, a little force and manipulation is all he needs to keep you right where he wants you.

#draken x reader #yandere draken #tokyo revengers x reader #yandere tokyo revengers

[strawberryamanita]

Y'all I'm sorry but this is making me freak the fuck out

I know this is gonna probably cause people to call me a terrible person, but I'm just gonna risk it anyhow because this is getting really scary.

If you are a USAmerican,

Please vote for Biden this year.

I am 1000% aware that the genocide in Gaza is being perpetuated by Biden's administration. It's not good at all. I don't like the guy either, and like every President the US has ever had, he will burn in Hell, guaranteed.

But if we don't vote, then Trump is gonna win. This sounds rhetorical, but I ask genuinely: do you think Trump is gonna stop the genocide?

Has Trump ever shown that he cares about a single human being besides himself? The level of misanthropy that idiot is on is remarkable. I personally cannot see him slowing the flow of genocide in any direction; if anything, he might redouble the effort.

I think it was Warren who is tryna warn people that if Trump gets elected again, he'll never leave. I think back to a time during his first term where he said there might one day be a "forever President", and that makes me sick to my fucking stomach. That's not a presidency, that's a monarchy or a dictatorship. That would be the de-facto end of having a say in who's in control until he finally fucking dies -- and not even then, because then the mantle will be passed down to one of his children.

I know the US shouldn't exist in the first place. I am 100% aware of that. They say that empires fall after 250 years, and the US is gonna be 248 years old in July. But unfortunately, it exists right now, and it's full of people who will not survive another four years of Trump.

Again -- I will say it as many times as I need to -- I don't like Biden. I don't like him. He's done some beneficial things, but using his executive powers to speed up a genocide tips the scale completely over back towards hating him.

But Biden will step down when his term is done. I know the bar is in the fucking Mariana Trench, but for the love of God I do not wanna be under Trump for even a minute more. I hate Biden, but I hate Trump more, and that is fueling me, personally, to show up to vote.

At the end of the day, the problem is systemic. Every single authority over the US, since even before Washington, has only cared about hurting people of color and churning up the earth to make money. Our taxes could help improve the lives of US civilians, but instead they are funneled into the trillion-dollar War Machine aimed in every direction, including the US itself. The US commonwealth doesn't matter to the US government. We are human livestock who generate revenue; no matter how many changes of hands our money makes for hopes of a better cause inside the US, every last penny will find its way back into the War Machine or under the dirty ass of a billionaire who should be tarred and feathered in oil and their own paper money.

With all that said. There are US citizens who are enthusiastically pro-Biden right now, and siding with them might just keep us from living in Trump Hell all over again. The bigots have gotten too proud around here, and it makes my blood run cold. My mother doesn't show enthusiasm for ANYTHING the way she shows it for her freedom to hate people loudly and proudly. It makes her come ALIVE. And I know I'm not the only one who's been subjected to this kind of horror show for the last 9 years. Every state of mind curated by the US is a cult, and there is no escape outside of moving away.

Please. Vote. For Biden.

#please vote #vote blue #vote biden #vote democrat #blue no matter who #vote blue no matter who #biden 2024 #biden harris 2024

[itsmythang]

Trump supporter: Trump is a godly man. He’s working for God…He really cares about us. He cares about what happens to us.

These are lost people, being willfully used by some of the most insidious forces today: trump, the GOP, Koch Bros., Fox, Newsmax, Russia, dangerous algorithms, OANN, fundamentalist churches, anti-science death merchants, cynical grifters, false prophets, and the list goes on. However, most of these people are fueled by hatred. Make no mistake about that. They are not innocents that are being tricked into supporting trump. These are hate-filled losers who found their dream candidate in dictator-wannabe trump.

[southshoretides]

There was a great post I saw a while back but lost about the ideological lens of media criticism that went like "Your average Reylo-hater doesn't hate it because she thinks Rey is not submitting to Kylo as a wife rightfully should, they hate it because it normalizes abuse. People who really hate Avatar tend to think it's colonialist, not that the humans are failing to teach the Na'vi about Christianity. People who hate Harry Potter in 2024 hate it because it's a story about rich prep school kids growing up to become feds plus the trans stuff etc, not because books about magic are Of The Devil."

In other words, you can only say that shaming campaigns/social-media mobbing for people who like Problematic Content is inherently a conservative (i.e. bad) thing (which is an argument I see over and over again, and not just on Tumblr) if you define 'conservative' as entirely divorced from its object-level goals (re: family, religion, law and order, etc) and round it off to "telling people that their feelings are invalid or immoral," with the implied inverse being that it's unprogressive to ever criticize someone's tastes in media.

And I guess that's internally consistent if your modal progressive is a live-and-let-live hippie with a high openness-to-experience and agreeability scores, that's internally consistent. But it's 2024 and if that's your modal progressive, I'm wondering why. Part of the reason this sort of stuff gets me genuinely worked up in a way little else does these days is that it seems so willfully, deliberately ignorant of the last ten years of cultural change, and it often comes from people who really ought to know better.

Because if you listen to the sort of people who hate Problematic Content, you will find that they indeed don't care about media spreading the Gospel, or enforcing traditional heteronormative values, or being patriotic, in fact they have contempt for all those things (which are, yes, themselves, kind of hall-of-mirrorsy concepts, but the important point here is that most conservatives define themselves as favorable to those concepts).

But what they do care about is media that enforces harmful stereotypes, or causes harm to marginalized groups, or defends capitalism/nationalism/etc, and other things conservatives don't really care about. And it is entirely internally consistent to say "I hold progressive values XYZ, I think that fiction that opposes my values will weaken them, ergo I want to ban or suppress fiction that opposes my values." There's nothing inherently un-leftist about that, the Soviet bloc did it for decades! There are millions and millions of people who think that way who openly and proudly despise all things conservative and Republican.

Thousands of words have been spilled about what happened to the left in the 10s, how they willingly took on the pro-censorship, pro-word-police mantle once various proto-Trumps and the big guy himself ran in the opposite direction. Maybe the last few years of things (somewhat, sorta) swinging back the other way have made people forget. (And I put 'in 2024' up there for a reason: the battlefield really was very different as little as 15 years ago. But now it's not.)

But I think it's more likely that people who think you can't be both censorious and a progressive are simply still unwilling to truly accept that, that we have this whole class of people who may say the right things and vote the right way on green fuel and gay rights and whatever else, who claim the mantle of progressives, but are as strict and paranoid and closed-minded as any conservative in practice when it comes to anything outside their comfort zone, just as dependent on whisper campaigns and public moral grandstanding and consent-manufacture as the conservatives they hate.

And this is embarrassing for leftists who don't believe in media censorship, so they try to write these guys off as infected by enemy memes, or double agents, or just hopelessly confused. Either way, they're not real progressives, because they're not how I'd prefer progressives to be. And like again, fine, you can do that, but we have a term for that behavior, not a complimentary one. "Progressives don't ban books" only hold true insofar as progressives don't ban books--that the people with the levers of power in the progressive movement refrain from doing that.

Ultimately, a book banned for reasons of blah blah Jesus morals Christian America is a banned book, and a book banned for reasons of blah blah privilege historical inequity triggers trauma is a banned book, and no clever rhetoric can get you around that.

[mariacallous]

“Ireland is on the brink of civil war,” white nationalist Nick Fuentes declared Monday during his show on Rumble. “It’s going to be ugly.”

Ireland is not on the brink of a civil war, but riots did break out in Dublin last week following a stabbing outside a school that left three children and two adults hospitalized. Despite an unknown attack motive, the situation spiraled.

Ireland’s far-right community quickly claimed that this proved immigrants pose an inherent danger to Irish society: Within minutes of the stabbing, far-right Telegram channels lit up with questions about the attacker’s ethnicity. It was eventually reported that the attacker was a naturalized Irish citizen who came to Ireland from Algeria in 2003. Less than two hours later, well-known figures within the Irish far-right community were organizing their followers to meet up in Dublin’s city center that evening. The riots quickly turned violent with police cars, buses, and trams set on fire. Dozens of shops were looted, and a number of police officers were injured. In total, 34 people were arrested on November 23.

Ireland’s own far-right community, like the far-right in the US, has been fueling anti-immigrant sentiments in the country for years. And this dark international alliance of far-right, anti-asylum American and Irish influencers is unsurprising. During his show, Fuentes, the leader of the America First movement, said that Conor McGregor, an Irish MMA star who called for war in Ireland in response to a report that noncitizens could vote in Irish elections prior to last week’s Dublin riot, should “rise up.”

McGregor, Fuentes said, needed to “salvage the country because it’s either going to be the Irish or it’s going to be the blacks … only one side is going to come out of this alive.”

Some far-right influencers in the US have also pushed elements of the great replacement theory, a conspiracy claiming that a globalist elite is working with Western governments to force out native populations through immigration.

Tucker Carlson, who now broadcasts his show on X, told his millions of followers that “the Irish government is trying to replace the population of Ireland with people from the third world.”

Former White House adviser and 2020 election conspiracist Steve Bannon, who is currently strategizing for former US president Donald Trump, responded to Carlson by declaring: “Ireland is a powder keg.”

Meanwhile, Catturd, the hugely influential pro-Trump account on X run by Florida shitposter Phillip Buchanan, told his 2 million followers to make the hashtag #IrishLivesMatter trend—which many duly did.

Elon Musk, who this week told X advertisers to “go fuck yourself,” also weighed in, claiming on X that the Irish prime minister “hates the Irish people,” and agreeing with another far-right influencer who posted on X saying Ireland needed McGregor to run for office. “Not a bad idea,” Musk wrote in reply.

McGregor, who, just 24 hours before the riots broke out, posted “Ireland, we are at war” to his 10 million followers on X, has become a lightning rod for international and local far-right support. McGregor has not fought an MMA fight for more than two years and has since spent much of his time outside of Ireland, including in his home in Florida. His social media posts over the past year have become increasingly political and have been directly influenced by many of the same far–right figures who encouraged their followers to meet in the center of Dublin ahead of the riots. The Irish police are currently investigating the riots, and McGregor is one of many currently under investigation for alleged incitement to hatred.

In far-right Telegram channels, poorly-generated AI images of McGregor proliferated, showing him in various poses ranging from standing patriotically in front of a burning bus to debating in parliament, as well as ones of a bare-chested McGregor holding a rifle and leading a mob of similarly-armed Irishmen. “Rebellion 2023?” wrote the operator of the far-right Telegram channel who posted an image.

Some experts believe that all of the attention that US far-right figures are giving to Ireland’s far-right community is now emboldening Irish figures to continue pushing their rhetoric. “In Ireland, this international attention appears to have been largely welcomed by far-right communities here who see such attention and promotion of their cause as a positive, and are drawing on this attention as further support for their campaign to target asylum seekers and migrants based on lies and falsehoods,” Ciarán O’Connor, a senior analyst with the Institute of Strategic Dialogue think tank, tells WIRED.

Irish far-right influencer Keith O’Brien, who is known online as Keith Woods, has maintained relationships with the far right in the US. O’Brien has become a leading figure within the Irish far-right movement in recent years, and spoke at a notorious white supremacist conference in Tennessee this summer. Over the past 12 months, his profile has grown internationally too, thanks in large part to both Fuentes and Musk. Fuentes has hosted O’Brien on his online show several times, while Musk has responded directly to O’Brien on X, particularly around a new anti-hate-speech law that is set to come into force in Ireland soon.

O’Brien, who did not attend the riots in person, told his Telegram followers that they were the government’s fault. “They flooded our country with unsustainable levels of migrants, planted small communities with migrant centers, responded to legitimate concerns by labeling all opposition ‘far right,’ and passed the most draconian hate speech laws in the world to shut us up,” he wrote. “When you deny people an outlet to express concerns they know are reasonable, you make them desperate.”

While two of the children injured in the stabbing attack have been released from hospital, a 5-year-old girl is still there with critical injuries.

[batboyblog]

Singer-songwriter Taylor Swift hasn’t even endorsed President Joe Biden for reelection yet. That hasn’t stopped members of MAGAland’s upper crust from plotting to declare — as one source close to Donald Trump calls it — a “holy war” on the pop megastar, especially if she ends up publicly backing the Democrats in the 2024 election.

According to three people familiar with the matter, Trump loyalists working on or close to the former president’s campaign, longtime Trump allies in right-wing media, and an array of outside advisers to the ex-president have long taken it as a given that Swift will eventually endorse Biden (as she did in 2020). Indeed, several of these Republicans and conservative media figures have discussed the matter with Trump over the past few months, the sources say.

While Swift has not yet issued an endorsement in the 2024 race, The New York Timesreported Monday that Swift is a key name on Biden aides’ “wish lists of potential surrogates.” A potential Swift appearance at Super Bowl LVIII alongside her boyfriend, Kansas City Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce, has already prompted the MAGA right’s culture-war pugilists into a conspiracy-fueled froth about how this NFL season has been rigged to boost Biden. 

Behind the scenes, Trump has reacted to the possibility of Biden and Swift teaming up against him this year not with alarm, but with an instant projection of ego. In recent weeks, the former president has told people in his orbit that no amount of A-list celebrity endorsements will save Biden. Trump has also privately claimed that he is “more popular” than Swift and that he has more committed fans than she does, a person close to Trump and another source with knowledge of the matter tell Rolling Stone.

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

This is Republican politics now, Conspiracy theory insanity and hate and rage filled culture war against everyone.

#taylor swift #swifties #Donald Trump #Trump #Joe Biden #politics #Superbowl #travis kelce #US politics

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

The New Yorker

* * * * *

“Trying to steal history.”

January 9, 2024

ROBERT B. HUBBELL

On Monday, President Biden delivered a stirring and spirited speech at Mother Emanuel AME Church in Charleston, South Carolina. In June 2015, members of the congregation at the church invited a stranger to join them for services. The stranger killed nine members of the church in the worst church-related shooting (to that point)—a mass killing that was racially motivated. President Obama delivered a eulogy for Pastor Clementa Pinckney of Mother Emmanuel AME Church that included his rendition of Amazing Grace a cappella.

[The video is here, Joe Biden speaks at Charleston church (start at the 26:00 minute mark), and the full text of the speech is here: Remarks by President Biden at a Political Event | Charleston, SC.]

Against the backdrop of the 2015 racially motivated mass shooting, President Biden addressed Trump's use of the “lost cause” of white supremacy to bolster his hate-fueled campaign. Biden said, in part,

On June 17th, 2015, the [nine] beautiful souls and five survivors invited a stranger into this church to pray with them. The word of God was pierced by bullets in hate and rage, propelled by not just gunpowder but by a poison — a poison that’s for too long haunted this nation. What is that poison? White supremacy. Oh, it is; it’s a poison. Throughout our history, it’s ripped this nation apart. This has no place in America. Not today, tomorrow, or ever. Now — now we’re living in an era of a second lost cause. Once again, there are some in this country trying — trying to turn a loss into a lie — a lie, which if allowed to live, will once again bring terrible damage to this country. This time, the lie is about the 2020 election, the election which you made your voices heard and your power known.

Biden tied the lost cause of white supremacy to Trump's 2020 loss, identifying both of as existential threats to the nation. He then pivoted to Trump's insurrection on January 6 and Trump's threat to continue that assault on democracy if he is elected to a second term in 2024.

Biden said, Just two days ago, we marked the third anniversary of one of the darkest days in American history: January the 6th. The day in which insurrectionists stormed the United States Capitol, trying for the first time in American history to stop the peaceful transfer of power in the country. We all saw with our own eyes the truth of what happened. That violent mob was whipped up by lies from a defeated former President . . . . We saw something on January 6th we’d never seen before, even during the Civil War. Insurrectionists waving Confederate flags inside the halls of Congress built by enslaved Americans. A mob attacked and called Black officers, Black veterans defending the nation those vile of racist names. And yet, an extreme movement of America, the MAGA Republicans, led by a defeated President, is trying to steal history now. They tried to steal an election. Now they’re trying to steal history, telling us that violent mob was, and I quote, “a peaceful protest.” The lies that led to January 6th are part of a broader attack on the truth America today that we all have seen before. The same movement that, throughout the mob at the United States Capitol, isn’t just trying to rewrite history of January 6th, they’re trying to determine to erase history and your future: banning books; denying your right to vote and have it counted; destroying diversity, equality, inclusion all across America; harboring hate and replacing hope with anger and resentment and a dangerous view of America.

Powerful words delivered with passion and dignity befitting the hallowed ground and the proximity to January 6. As Trump's speeches are becoming more unhinged and hateful, Biden’s are becoming more forceful and direct in challenging Trump. If you can spare twenty minutes, watch the video linked above, beginning at the 26:00-minute mark. Your confidence will be renewed.

But I can’t leave this story without commenting on the media coverage. Biden delivered a truly inspirational and important speech on race and democracy. For sixty seconds during Biden’s speech, a protestor stood up and demanded that Biden call for a cease-fire in Israel. Biden handled the protestor with skill and grace. As the protestor was escorted from the church, Biden said,

It's alright. I understand their passion. I’ve been quietly working with the Israeli government to get them to reduce and significantly get out of Gaza.

That sixty-second incident of an otherwise historic speech dominated virtually every headline describing the speech. See, e.g., NYTimes, Protesters Calling for Gaza Cease-Fire Interrupt Biden Speech; The Hill, Biden address in Charleston church interrupted by protesters; and NPR, Protesters calling for a ceasefire in Gaza interrupted Biden's campaign speech.

The bias against Biden is just unbelievable. I wonder if the headline writers or journalists who wrote the articles even bothered to read or listen to the substance of Biden’s speech. I doubt it. Shame on them!

Meanwhile, Trump hopes the economy crashes before he is re-elected.

As Biden continued to call for the preservation of democracy and mourned the tragedies of January 6 and the AME shootings, Trump was telling an interviewer he hoped the economy would crash during Biden’s remaining time in office. See The Hill, Trump says he hopes economy crashes in next 12 months: ‘I don’t want to be Herbert Hoover’.

Trump said,

We have an economy that’s so fragile, and the only reason it’s running now is it’s running off the fumes of what we did. It’s just running off the fumes. And when there’s a crash — I hope it’s going to be during this next 12 months because I don’t want to be Herbert Hoover. The one president I just don’t want to be, Herbert Hoover.

Ha! Trump remembered as Herbert Hoover? He should be so lucky! He will be remembered as Benedict Arnold, Aaron Burr, Jefferson Davis, and Aldrich Ames—combined!

And, in case you think I am resorting to hyperbole, Trump refused to sign a traditional pledge in Illinois in which presidential candidates pledge not to overthrow the US government. See The Guardian, Donald Trump did not sign Illinois pledge not to overthrow government. Trump signed the pledge in 2016 and 2020, but not in 2024. Hmm . . . it’s almost like he’s planning ahead to overthrow the US government!

[Robert B. Hubbell Newsletter]

#Robert B. Hubbell Newsletter #Robert B. Hubbell #Election 2024 #Democracy #rule of law #american history #The New Yorker

[voskhozhdeniye]

The entire western liberal worldview is currently balanced on the ability to psychologically compartmentalize away from the mass atrocities in Gaza and what western governments are doing to perpetuate them.

Everything that mainstream liberals claim to oppose is on full display in Israel’s actions in Gaza. Racism. Fascism. Tyranny. Injustice. Genocide. Yet they must necessarily avoid throwing themselves into opposing these things there at all cost, because it would mean acknowledging that their own political allegiances are inseparably interwoven with them.

It would mean turning against Biden during an election year. It would mean admitting that their entire political posture against Trump all these years has been a phony performance, because they’re tacitly endorsing all the things they claimed to hate about him. It would mean admitting their entire worldview is a lie, and that all their critics to their left have been correct.

The western liberal is therefore in the year 2024 engaged in an exhausting regimen of nonstop mental gymnastics to avoid having an authentic relationship with the reality of what’s happening Gaza. They squirm this way and that, twisting their gaze toward empty nonsense like Barbie movie Oscar snubs and Trump’s latest instance of verbal diarrhea to avoid looking at what’s happening. On those odd occasions when they are forced to confront the reality of Gaza they start spouting gibberish about how “complicated” and “heartbreaking” it is and how they hope there can be peace as soon as possible, while frenetically avoiding saying precisely how that “peace” should be brought about.

Gaza exposes the mainstream western liberal ideology for the kayfabe performance it always has been. The job of the so-called liberal “moderate” has never been to oppose racism, fascism, tyranny, injustice or genocide, their job is to perpetually give the thumbs-up to one head of the two-headed monster that is the murderous western empire. Their job is to help put a positive spin on a globe-spanning power structure that is fueled by human blood. To help elect Bidens and Starmers and Trudeaus and Albaneses who will ensure that the gears of the empire keep on turning completely unhindered while paying lip service to human rights and social justice.

The one faint glimmer of brightness in this profoundly dark chapter in human history is that it might start opening some eyes to the fraudulence of the mainstream fake-left political faction that has been marketed to the western public as an alternative to far right depravity. That westerners might start awakening to the reality that everything they’ve been trained to believe about politics, their government and their world is a lie. Such an awakening would be the first step toward a mass-scale movement into health.

#I hope y'all understand I don't take any of these motherfuckers serious anymore. #Caitlin has a more positive outlook than I. #In DM's yesterday I likened what's happening to an abusive relationship. #Biden's entire platform right now is simply vote for me or the bad guy will win. #While he's committing the same acts #and the vote blue no matter who folks argue why one abusive spouse is better than the other. #They're like minorities if Trump wins he'll commit violence against you. #Standing Rock and Ferguson happened during Obama dipshits. #The crime bill was Clinton. #They will beat us no matter who is in charge. #The mental gymnastics Caitlin talks about is them clutching to Biden because they're afraid of Trump. #Because as I said the other day this is the first time many of them have felt what we feel. #They will cling to Biden because he hasn't torn their communities the way he has ours. #He's just let Covid rip their communities apart like everything else to them that's beyond his control. #The nature of fascism is that it devours everything. #Y'all place nice with Biden now if you want. #When it's your turn to be repressed I hope I'm alive to see it.

[tomorrowusa]

Republicans hate Taylor Swift. So I'm glad they have to see her picture on all those magazine covers when they go to the supermarket to buy white bread, Diet Coke®, and ketchup. 🤭

Conservatives have yet again placed Taylor Swift in their conspiratorial crosshairs following her recent unveiling as TIME’s “person of the year.” Swift has been a target for right-wingers since at least 2018, when she broke from her largely apolitical persona and endorsed Phil Bredesen as Tennessee’s Democratic Senate nominee, who was running against then-Rep. Marsha Blackburn. In her endorsement, Swift said that Blackburn’s voting record “appalls and terrifies me,” citing Blackburn’s anti-LGBTQ views and her opposition to renewing the Violence Against Women Act. And footage from Swift’s 2020 Netflix documentary shows her upset over Blackburn’s eventual victory, with the artist saying “[Blackburn] gets to be the first female senator in Tennessee, and she’s Trump in a wig.” That Swift has used her Eras Tour to register voters has drawn conservative ire, too. (More examples of the hate directed at Swift here.) Liberals, for their part, seem to love that conservatives are trying to pick a fight with one of the most popular stars on earth. So that helps to explain the conniption pitched by Republicans on social media this week, which has featured right-wing pundits fueling baseless theories that Swift’s selection as Time’s “person of the year” is some sort of political manipulation campaign.  [ ... ] The right-wing response here underscores a problem conservatives have struggled with for decades now, which is that their widely unpopular politics often place them at odds with pop culture figures. Not all pop culture figures, of course. But certainly the ones who endorse the tenets of a democratic society, like voting rights, bodily autonomy for abortion-seekers and trans people, and freedom from discrimination. In fact, House Speaker Mike Johnson railed against liberal pop culture figures in a recent campaign email describing America's "depraved" culture. "[Y]ou don’t even want to see the filth that passes for popular culture these days," Johnson said. (Fact check: I do.)

The fact is that the MAGA zombies with their pagan worship of "Orange Jesus" are the truly depraved (and deeply hypocritical) ones.

As mentioned in the article, Taylor Swift has been promoting voter registration on her tour. Let's lend a hand...

Be A Voter - Vote Save America

#person of the year #taylor swift #republicans #maga #conspiracy theories #donald trump #mike johnson #phil bredesen #tennessee #ja'han jones #election 2024

[qqueenofhades]

i truly can't decide whether i want orange fuckface to be locked up (or dead. dead works too) and not be able to get the nomination so it, presumably, goes to florida hitler (who hopefully loses anyway because people hate him and/or they write dump truck's name in anyway) or if it would be better if orange guy gets the nomination and dems can use that as fuel to get people out to vote. do we think if the nominee is anyone other than the big orange felon, this will have any effect on the fascist turnout? or will they just fall in line for the next dictator no matter who he is?

Honestly, I don't know. Either way, the GOP nominee will be Trump or DeSantis, and it is absolutely CRAZYMAKING to me that the choices will literally be "solid, competent, and incredibly experienced Democratic president who has presided over unprecedented job growth and infrastructure investment, most progressive since FDR, nominated a ton of judges to reverse Trump court-packing, but is admittedly an old white guy" vs "literal deranged racist fascist authoritarian traitor charged with 60+ different felonies who probably couldn't even hold a security clearance if he was elected and a lifetime cheater, sexual abuser, business fraud, and cult leader" AND IT WILL BE A VERY CLOSE RACE DECIDED BY A HANDFUL OF STATES IN THE ELECTORAL COLLEGE. Like. I can't. That is boggling. This country is so beyond fucked up in so many ways.

Unlikely as the possibility may be, the idea of either Trump or DeSantis actually becoming president (in Trump's case, again) is so existentially terrifying to me that I don't let myself think about it or picture a future where it happens, because it is so utterly devastating. If Trump goes to jail and/or is somehow disqualified from running, DeSantis will be the nominee, but Trump's cultists will hate him for not being their felonious orange messiah. That might hurt him, sure. But even with Trump (who is still far and away the likely nominee), there are still 75 million Americans who voted for him last time, and we don't know what the impact will be, even after all of this. Cultists won't change their minds due to logic and/or facts. Indeed, the narrative from the right wing and compliant mainstream media has so overwhelmingly been "poor innocent Trump being persecuted unlike the evil Biden crime family" that it could shore up his support from wavering Republicans who hate him but hate any conservative accountability via the legal system more. We just don't know.

Either way, it's not a good situation (understatement of the century, etc) and you'd really fucking HOPE that either way, Team Blue is motivated to get out the vote. If we work hard and we do that, we will win. And yet again, as will be the case until this malignant MAGA cancer is removed from the American body politic, there is really no choice or moral option except to do everything we can to make it so.

#anonymous #ask #politics for ts #the giant orange monster

[alloarocharactershowdown]

LORD DOMINATOR PROPAGANDA: How often is it that you get a villain whose motive is passion & love & fun, whose personality majorly reflects those things, who massively comes off as aro-coded, and who is presented as being EPIC and RIGHT for hating when ppl make romantic advances towards her & for shutting fools tf down for having the gall to assume she'd want to date them or that it'd even be appropriate to consider asking her out in the first place!??! (It's like hitting on someone while they're working but 100x worse bc her work is being The Big Bad!) Each time she does so, it is in NO WAY framed as evil of her for harshly rejecting dudes, EVEN WHEN SHE DOES SO TO ONE OF THE MCs!!!

There's an entire story arc about one of the beloved villain MCs havin a big dumb crush on her, and it's constantly portrayed as inane and also sexist for him to pursue her (or even be encouraged to) and to make all the hetero/amatamornative assumptions that he does. It's all buildup to her RIGHTEOUSLY putting him & his enablers in their place and stomping his inappropriate advances to pieces. We're meant to root for her in that regard the ENTIRE ARC, and that's made very evident at every turn; the show's voices of reason always point out that treating her as Love Interest Character™ is bad!! Even when loverboy ~changes~ to be considerate of what she may want instead of purely caring about how bad HE wants to date her, even when his approach is "fixed" to be a ""sweet, grand gesture,"" the writing still goes, "nO THIS IS STILL INCREDIBLY WEIRD WTH" and commits to the buildup of her inevitable harsh rejection of him being SATISFYING & RIGHT OF HER. And bc leaving it at that isn't cool enough, it's literally the thing that leads into her AMAZING villain song that further drills in how typecasting women & girls as love interests (or anything else) purely bc of their gender is stupid & wrong, and how she's very happy as she is, without romance in her life!!! And as she sings, she up and destroys a planet that's entirely themed around romance and dating AND GOD DOES IT GO HARD. She LITERALLY kills amatanormativity dead.

Oh, and on top of all this, the reason the crush arc even happened in the first place... was bc Wander thought that if he set Dom & Hater up together, them having romantic love in their lives would "cancel out all their evil." His best friend (& voice of reason character) points out that not only can people have that kinda love in their lives and still be evil, two villains could even become TWICE AS EVIL. The lesson there: Romance ISN'T an inherent force of good!!! Nor is any kind of love, genuine or not!!! Dominator's villain song also majorly proved that bc it stressed how she's happy & FULL of love for her life exactly the way it is!!! She doesn't need Hater's romance or Wander's friendship to be happy, nor would either thing make her happy at all! In fact, it's made pretty obvious that having either of those things would make her (and both the other characters) UNHAPPY!! It's a recurring moral of the story that happiness is unique to everyone; you can't force what makes some people happy onto everybody as a one-size-fits-all source of happiness, and romance is a MAJOR example of that! Just because it makes some people happy doesn't mean that it's like that for all people, and half the protags get to learn that through the fact that Dom does NOT want romance in her life and is HAPPY that way! Lord Dominator's intense love for living her life the way she wants to live it is actually what makes her so unstoppable!! It can very much be said that she's totally fueled by The Power Of Love, and her love trumps the protags trying to go up to her with, 'umm... the power of romantic love and offering friendship to ALL!' Yeah, NOPE!! She's doing what makes her happy, and that absolutely DEMOLISHES everything stemmed from the concept that romance & heroism tropes would inherently make anyone happy! They can't stand against her with that and hope to win! It DOESN'T work that way!!

And to top it all off, IT'S CONFIRMED THAT SHE WAS WRITTEN AS GAY. A BUNCH OF THE CREW SAW HER AS A LESBIAN AND THEY LEANED INTO IT, AGAIN IN A WAY THAT'S ENTIRELY SEPARATE FROM HER BEING A VILLAIN! There was literally an entire episode dedicated to coding her and the one other female character in the main cast as such, and it was written by a lesbian staff writer!!!!! The intent behind writing her as lesbian is just so.. sincere(? if that's the right word) bc of that, and ik another writer on the crew once spoke about how the team really cares about never writing gags or characters in a way that would imply that being gay is anything outrageous or bad. And on the subject of "lesbian undertones: the episode", it lends itself to the aro lesbian Lord Dominator hc so well because, canonically, there aren't any romantic feelings involved in the story of that ep even tho it was consciously written to have hella lesbian undertones; it's wholly about Dominator temporarily finding a friend in the one other woman in the main cast, and how she's affected by the bond they share on their night out bc she's never had anything like that before. She doesn't want a love life, but something like this she is so gung-ho for!!

No one does it like Lord Dominator.

.

#lord dominator #wander over yonder #propaganda #asks #long post

[its-cunt-dracula]

Scott Cawthon vs J K Rowling

@horrorfem tagged me in a post where I mentioned hating Scott Cawthon in the tags and she asked me to explain. I decided not to piggyback off that post and just make my own cause I got a lot to say.

For those of you not in the know Scott Cawthon is the guy who made Five Nights at Freddy's (FNaF for short cause I don't have all day). I super popular, super successful video game from 2014 that shaped the indie horror scene to this day. Every other indie horror is just people trying to recreate Scott's success. I used to babysit a kid who was obsessed with the first game so I know a little too much about the franchise considering I never played any of the games. I don't like jump scares, I consider them cheap. But this is not a review.

Anyway, in 2021 someone shared online this man's donations (which were publicly available) and they trended on Twitter. Almost all of his donations were to republicans, including Donald Trump. So he basically came out as a republican on Reddit where he played the victim because people were mean to him online. God, men get criticism for their hurtful ideology and actions once and act like they're the most opressed of them all. He also particularly mentioned that he was pro-life (i e anti-women). Which really irks me the wrong way when I see he has 6 kids. Did his wife want all of them? Did she have any choice?

You can google the post and read it all online pretty easily. What I wanted to point out was how people reacted to finding out their favourite game dev is a piece of shit.

======

Notice how they're all so understanding and nice? Obviously there were people mad back then too, but the backlash he faced for donating money to fucking Donald Trump was so tame compared to JK for stating sex is real and immutable.

A few people were at most silently boycotting him and not buying the new game, Security Breach (the 8th game in the series not counting the spin off. I can imagine this man with little money bags for eyes like a cartoon character) But nobody was intentionally spoiling the game so that people don't buy it or pester everyone who did. The youtubers covering the game weren't repenting for their sins by donating money to Planned Parenthood or pro LGBT organisations. Some of them acknowledged the controversy before playing and theorising about the game like no tomorrow. I'm curious if fucking MatPat is gonna cover Hogwarts Legacy and just shrug off when people talk about JK. Doubtful.

And look at how many awards his fucking post got. It infuriated me to no end.

For those not in the know, reddit awards cost real money. People were throwing real money at this guy for saying he thinks "Donald Trump was the best man to fuel a strong economy and stand up to America's enemies abroad". That's a direct quote from his post. He tries to placate by saying I donated to black people, women, gay people... but he just think a straight, white man is the best for the job tho. I wanna fight him.

He would never in a hundred years have gotten such a mild reaction if he were a woman. Especially since he was a game dev, he didn't just own the universe the game was set in.

People act as if for every new purchase of Hogwarts Legacy JK Rowling personally strangles a trans woman to death.

#radfem #radfemsafe #radblr #personal rant #jk rowling #hogwarts legacy discourse