#this is conservativism

[yesmissnyx]

An Unsexy Post About Censorship

Sooo...gumroad is shutting down NSFW content sales because of Stripe and Paypal. This is also why Wishtender has been down as well, if you weren't aware. And why Patreon is also cracking down on anything remotely kinky.

(If you're wondering why your favorite FICTIONAL sexual content isn't allowed on most platforms, it's payment processors.)

Please be extra kind to anyone who works with NSFW content right now, whether it be art, writing, audio, photos or video. Whether it be tasteful erotica, or the kinkiest BDSM porn you can think of, we're all in the crosshairs right now.

And, judging by trends from these past few years, this is only going to get worse.

Support NSFW creators where you can, whether by tipping or buying our content (where you still can) or just helping boost content on sites where algorithms want to drown us out.

Call representatives where you can and complain about payment processors acting as arbiters of what YOU are and aren't allowed to pay for and enjoy.

This may be about porn right now, but censorship of this caliber doesn't just stop with porn. Any transgressive (read: non-conservative) media is fair game.

Fight against it where you can. Support creators where you can.

Art is important. Reflections of our sexuality are important. We don't want a world where people aren't free to make or see the things they love and enjoy.

#nyxrambles #Warning: I'm going to get kind of grim in the tags so peace out of you have to. #This bums me out so fucking hard! #I have artist friends who are struggling because their content suddenly goes against these stupid fucking guidelines! #I'm going to have to take my stuff off of Gumroad even though it was previously allowed! #It's hard to not feel like everything is just spiraling toward fascism sometimes yanno? #I am usually opposed to slippery slope arguments but the goal of moral conservativism is to destroy everything that isn't in line with it. #They will not stop until the world reflects their narrow ideals. Like...that's the whole point of it! #Sorry guys I'm just having a rough one. #Between this and being sick for months I'm getting pretty fucking Done. #I'll be okay but I'm not going to pretend it isn't hard and scary.

[mostlysignssomeportents]

The conservative movement is cracking up

I'll be in Stratford, Ontario, appearing onstage with Vass Bednar as part of the CBC IDEAS Festival. I'm also doing an afternoon session for middle-schoolers at the Stratford Public Library.

Politics always requires coalitions. In parliamentary democracies, the coalitions are visible, when they come together to form the government. In a dictatorship, the coalitions are hidden to everyone except infighting princelings and courtiers (until a general or minister is executed, exiled or thrown in prison.)

In a two-party system, the coalitions are inside the parties – not quite as explicit as the coalition governments in a multiparty parliament, but not so opaque as the factions in a dictatorship. Sometimes, there are even explicit structures to formalize the coalition, like the Biden Administration's Unity Task Force, which parceled out key appointments among two important blocs within the party (the finance wing and the Sanders/Warren wing).

Conservative politics are also a coalition, of course. As an outsider, I confess that I am much less conversant with the internal power-struggles in the GOP and the conservative movement, though I'm trying to remedy that. Books like Nathan J Robinson's Responding to the Right present a great overview of various conservative belief-systems:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/02/14/nathan-robinson/#arguendo

And the Know Your Enemy podcast does an amazing job of diving deep into right-wing beliefs, especially when it comes to identifying fracture lines in the conservative establishment. A recent episode on the roots of contemporary right-wing antisemitism in the paleocon/neocon split was hugely informative and fascinating:

https://www.dissentmagazine.org/blog/know-your-enemy-in-search-of-anti-semitism-with-john-ganz/

Political parties are weak institutions, liable to capture and hospitable to corruption. General elections aren't foolproof or impervious to fraud, but they're miles more robust than parties, whose own leadership selection processes and other key decisions can be made in the shadows, according to rules that can be changed on a whim:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/04/30/weak-institutions/

Which means that parties are brittle, weak vessels that we rely on to contain the volatile mixture of factions who might actually hate each other, sometimes even more than they hate the other party. Remember the defenestration of GOP House Speaker Kevin McCarthy? That:

https://apnews.com/article/mccarthy-gaetz-speaker-motion-to-vacate-congress-327e294a39f8de079ef5e4abfb1fa555

Even outsiders like me know that there's a deep fracture in the Republican Party, with Trumpists on one side and the "establishment" on the other side. Reading accounts of the 2016 GOP leadership race, I get the distinct impression that Trump's win was even more shocking to party insiders than it was to the rest of us.

Which makes sense. They thought they had the party under control, knew where its levers were and how to pull them. For us, Trump's win was a terrible mystery. For GOP power-brokers, it was a different kind of a nightmare, the kind where you discover that controls to the the car you're driving in high-speed traffic aren't connected to anything and you're not really the driver.

But as Trump's backers – another coalition – fall out among each other, it's becoming easier for the rest of us to understand what happened. Take FBI informant Peter Thiel's defection from the Trump camp:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2023/11/12/silicon-valley-billionaire-donors-presidential-candidates/

Thiel was the judas goat who led tech's reactionary billionaires into Trump's tent, blazing a trail and raising a fortune on the way. Thiel's support for Trump was superficially surprising. After all, Thiel is gay, and Trump's running mate, Mike Pence, openly swore war on queers of all kinds. Today, Thiel has rebuffed Trump's fundraising efforts and is reportedly on Trump's shit-list.

But as a Washington Post report – drawing heavily on gossiping anonymous insiders – explains. Thiel has never let homophobia blind him to the money and power he stands to gain by backing bigots:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2023/11/12/silicon-valley-billionaire-donors-presidential-candidates/

Thiel bankrolled Blake Masterson's Senate race, despite Masterson's promise to roll back marriage equality – and despite the fact that Masterton attended Thiel's wedding to another man.

According to the post, the Thiel faction's abandonment of Trump wasn't driven by culture war issues. Rather, they were fed up with Trump's chaotic, undisciplined governance strategy, which scuttled many opportunities to increase the wealth and power of America's oligarchs. Thiel insiders complained that Trump's "character traits sabotaged the policy changes" and decried Trump's habit of causing "turmoil and chaos…that would interfere with his agenda" rather than "executing relentlessly."

For Trump's base, the cruelty might be the point. But for his backers, the cruelty was the tactic, and the point was money, and the power it brings. When Trump seemed like he might use cruel tactics to achieve power, his backers went along for the ride. But when Trump made it clear that he would trade opportunities for power solely to indulge his cruelty, they bailed.

That's an important fracture line in the modern American conservative coalition, but it's not the only one.

Writing in the BIG newsletter, Matt Stoller and Lee Hepner describes the emerging conservative split over antitrust and monopoly:

https://www.thebignewsletter.com/p/is-there-an-establishment-plan-to

Antitrust has been the centerpiece of the Biden Administration's most progressive political project. For the left wing of the Dems, blunting corporate power is seen as the necessary condition for rolling back the entire conservative program, which depends on oligarch-provided cash infusions, media campaigns, and thinktank respectability.

But elements of the right have also latched onto antitrust, for reasons of their own. Take the Catholic traditionalists who see weakening corporate power as a path to restoring a "traditional" household where a single breadwinner can support a family:

https://www.capitalisnt.com/episodes/when-capitalism-becomes-tyranny-with-sohrab-ahmari

There's another reason to support antitrust, of course – it's popular. There are large, bipartisan majorities opposed to monopoly and in favor of antitrust action:

https://d3nkl3psvxxpe9.cloudfront.net/documents/Antitrust_Policy_poll_results.pdf

Two-thirds of Americans support anti-monopoly laws. 70% of Americans say monopolies are bad for the economy. The Biden administration is doing more on antitrust than any presidency since the Carter years, but 52% of Americans haven't heard about it:

https://www.ft.com/content/c17c35a3-e030-4e3b-9f49-c6bdf7d3da7f

There's a big opportunity latent in the facts of antitrust's popularity, and the Biden antitrust agenda's obscurity. So far, the Biden administration hasn't figured out how to seize that opportunity, but some Dems are trying to grab it. Take Montana Senator John Tester, a Democrat in a Trump-voting state, whose campaign has taken aim at the meat-packing monopolies that are screwing the state's ranchers.

The right wants in on this. At a Federalist Society black-tie event last week during the National Lawyer's Convention, Biden's top antitrust enforcers got a warm welcome. Jonathan Kanter, the DOJ's top antitrust cop, was praised onstage by Todd Zywicki, whom Stoller and Hepner call "a highly influential law professors," from George Mason Univeristy, a fortress of pro-corporate law and economics. Zywicki praised the DoJ and FTC's new antitrust guidelines – which have been endlessly damned in the WSJ and other conservative outlets – as a reasonable and necessary compromise:

https://fedsoc.org/events/national-press-club-event

Even Lina Khan – the bogeywoman of the WSJ editorial page – got a warm reception at her fireside chat:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0FwdAxOSznE

And the convention's hot Saturday ticket was "a debate between two conservatives over whether social media platforms had sufficient monopoly power that the state could regulate them as common carriers":

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rwoO7bZajXk

This is pretty amazing. And yet…lawmakers haven't gotten the memo. During markup for last week's appropriations bill, lawmakers inserted a flurry of anti-antitrust amendments into the must-pass legislation:

https://www.economicliberties.us/press-release/fsgg-approps-bill-must-support-enforcers-not-kneecap-them/#

These amendments were just wild. Rep Scott Fitzgerald (R-WI) introduced an amendment that would give companies carte blanche to stick you with unlimited junk fees, and allow corporations to take away their workers' rights to change jobs through noncompetes:

https://www.congress.gov/congressional-report/118th-congress/house-report/269

Another amendment would block the FTC from enforcing against "unfair methods of competition." Translation: the FTC couldn't punish companies like Amazon for using algorithms to hike prices, or for conspiring to raise insulin prices, or its predatory pricing aimed at killing small- and medium-sized grocers.

An amendment from Rep Kat Cammack (R-FL) would kill the FTC's "click to cancel" rule, which will force companies to let you cancel your subscriptions the same way you sign up for them – instead of making you wait on hold to beg a customer service rep to let you cancel.

Another one: "a provision to let auto dealers cheat customers with undisclosed added fees":

https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/BILLS-118hr4664rh/pdf/BILLS-118hr4664rh.pdf

Dems got in on the action, too. A bipartisan pair, Rep Thomas Massie (R-KY) and Rep Lou Correa (D-FL), unsuccessfully attempted to strip the Department of Transport of its powers to block mergers, which were most recently used to block the merger of Jetblue and Spirit:

https://www.congress.gov/amendment/118th-congress/house-amendment/640

And 206 Republicans voted to block the DoT from investigating airline price-gouging. As Stoller and Hepner point out, these reps serve constituents from low-population states that are especially vulnerable to this kind of extraction.

This morning, Jim Jordan hosted a Judiciary Committee meeting where he raked DOJ antitrust boss Jonathan Kanter over the coals, condemning the same merger guidelines that Zywicki praised to the Federalist Society:

https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/7jxc8dp8erhe1q3wpndre/GOP-oversight-hearing-memo-11.13.23.pdf?rlkey=d54ur91ry3mc69bta5vhgg13z&dl=0

Jordan's prep memo reveals his plan to accuse Kanter of being an incompetent who keeps failing in his expensive bids to hold corporate power to account, and being an all-powerful government goon who's got a boot on the chest of American industry. Stoller and Hepner invoke the old Yiddish joke: "The food at this restaurant is terrible, and the portions are too small!"

Stoller and Hepner close by wondering what to make of this factional split in the American right. Is it that these members of the GOP Congressional caucus just haven't gotten the memo? Or is this a peek at what corporate lobbyists home to accomplish after the 2024 elections?

They suggest that both Democrats and Republican primary contesters in that race could do well by embracing antitrust, "Establishment Republicans want you to pay more for groceries, healthcare, and travel, and are perfectly fine letting monopoly corporations make decisions about your daily life."

I don't know if Republicans will take them up on it. The party's most important donors are pathologically loss-averse and unwilling to budge on even the smallest compromise. Even a faint whiff of state action against unlimited corporate power can provoke a blitz of frenzied scare-ads. In New York state, a proposal to ban noncompetes has triggered a seven-figure ad-buy from the state's Business Council:

https://www.timesunion.com/state/article/noncompete-campaign-raises-state-lobbying-18442769.php

It's hard to overstate how unhinged these ads are. Writing for The American Prospect, Terri Gerstein describes one: "a hammer smashes first an alarm clock, then a light bulb, with shards of glass flying everywhere. An ominous voice predicts imminent doom. Then, for good measure, a second alarm clock is shattered":

https://prospect.org/labor/2023-11-10-business-groups-reflexive-anti-worker-demagogy/

Banning noncompetes is good for workers, but it's also unambiguously good for business and the economy. They "reduce new firm entry, innovation by startups, and the ability of new firms to grow." 44% of small business owners report having been blocked from starting a new company because of a noncompete; 35% have been blocked from hiring the right person for a vacancy due to a noncompete. :

https://eig.org/noncompetes-research-brief/

As Gerstein writes, it's not unusual for the business lobby to lobby against things that are good for business – and lobby hard. The Chamber of Commerce has gone Hulk-mode on simple proposals to adapt workplaces for rising temperatures, acting as though permitting "rest, shade, water, and gradual acclimatization" on the jobsite will bring business to a halt. But actual businesses who've implemented these measures describe them as an easy lift that increases productivity.

The Chamber lobbies against things its members support – like paid sick days. The Chamber complains endlessly about the "patchwork" of state sick leave rules – but scuttles any attempt to harmonize these rules nationally, even though members who've implemented them call them "no big deal":

https://cepr.net/report/no-big-deal-the-impact-of-new-york-city-s-paid-sick-days-law-on-employers/

The Chamber's fight against American businesses is another one of those fracture lines in the conservative coalition. Working with far right dark money groups, they've worked in statehouses nationwide to roll back child labor laws:

https://www.epi.org/blog/florida-legislature-proposes-dangerous-roll-back-of-child-labor-protections-at-least-16-states-have-introduced-bills-putting-children-at-risk/

They also fight tooth-and-nail against minimum wage rises, despite 80% of their members supporting them:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2016/04/04/leaked-documents-show-strong-business-support-for-raising-the-minimum-wage/

The spectacle of Republicans in disarray is fascinating to watch and even a little exciting, giving me hope for real progressive gains. Of course, it would help if the Democratic coalition wasn't such a mess.

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/11/14/when-youve-lost-the-fedsoc/#anti-buster-buster

Image: Jason Auch, modified https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Antarctic_mountains,_pack_ice_and_ice_floes.jpg

CC BY 2.0

#pluralistic #trustbusting #antitrust #schisms #infighting #conservativism #millionaire on billionaire violence #jim jordan #lina khan #jonathan kanter #federalist society #trumpism #class struggle #labor

[shardsofswords]

Was scrolling the hellsite and saw this gem of a trashfire

be right back guys, I gotta make a malevolently bad map

#art #art critique #specifically BAD art critique #'good art is when i can just instinctively tell that it's good and bad art is when i don't like it and it confuses me' #DRUG METAPHOR: WEED #this guy is getting ratioed btw don't worry #he's pissed people are calling him fascist for this but if he didn't want that maybe he shouldn't have been so obvious about it #love the conservativism shining through in 'forgotten values' they can't be NEW values because fascists always long for a lost past utopia #that has been ~corrupted by the modern world~ and all these darn minorities #no new values exist. all the good things were already there in the past and we just need to get rid of X people to get them back #fascist playbook 101

[cimerran-714]

Those who perform "gender-affirming surgery" on MINORS is no better than a paedophile or s groomer.

I know that it is sometimes used to treat intersex people (which should certainly remain an important exception to this rule) however that's rare. Most of them are not done for that reason.

These scumbags should be thrown in prison for the rest of their lives.

#lgbtqiia+ #lgbtq #lgbtq community #lgbtqia #lgbt pride #lgb drop the t #lgb alliance #trans men #transition #transsexual #transgender #trans man #transfem #gender affirming surgery #gender euphoria #conservative #conservatism #conservativism #conservation #transgirl

[imusticaniwill]

#conservativism #gun control #women in the workplace

[womenaremypriority]

just so fascinating when conservatives say “forcing a little boy to wear a dress” is pedophilia- which is what they think happened whenever they see a boy wearing a dress, no matter the actual situation.

Of course, you shouldn’t force a child to wear anything, but it makes you think what they consider forcing a little girl to wear a dress- which they’re willing to do. If no boy child ever willingly wears a dress, and so forcing one to, is sexual, why is it not sexual to do the same to a girl child? Is it that girl children are meant to wear dresses, and so isn’t perverse? Is it because girl children are sexual to them?

#my post #Grooming #beauty culture #anti conservativism #religious misogyny #Radblr #radfem

[hadesoftheladies]

"why are men and boys more likely to become conservative/racist/homophobic/anti-progressive?"

because men are the status quo. next.

#feminism #politics #leftism #conservativism #men are the status quo to be opposed #radblr #marxist feminism

[i-just-like-commenting]

Knowing Tumblr I suspect I know how these results will go if this spreads but we'll see.

#politics #quizzes #pew research #socialism #conservativism #us politics

[gun-witch]

So weird seeing people post in support of gun rights when the rest of their blog is right wing crap.

You know right wing bigotry is the main driving force of gun control right? You realize liberalism is just rebranded conservatism, and anyone left of center hates them more than you right?

You support gun rights because you think that's what your side ought to do, and you hate liberals because they're the "other side" even though they have all the same policies as your side.

We support gun rights because the working class and marginalized people cannot be free unless the monopoly on violence is taken away from the ruling class.

We are not the same. The second there's an actual need for people to own guns, you'll be leading the march for gun control because you thought gun rights only meant cishet white people.

And for the love of the gods, Americans, stop pretending the second ammendment matters, it's always been used to protect the state, and there have been exceptions to disarm the people since day 1 of your dystopian country.

If you're right wing and believe in gun rights, you're either a bad faith actor lying about it, or you've been conned hard. It is impossible to truly believe in both right wing ideologies and gun rights, they are not compatible.

#gun rights #gun control #conservativism #liberalism #socialism #firearms

[paperlunamoth]

I feel like the "no one owes anyone anything and no one is morally obligated to do anything for anyone or be considerate or help anyone and we're all just a bunch of animals who can't be expected to do anything other than ensure our own survival and people expecting anything from one another is childish and cringe" attitude is explicitly anti-human tbh.

Like this is full fledged misanthropy and apathy covered up with an edgy "fuck yeah, fuck everyone, I'm a strong independent lone wolf" attitude. The fact that it is presented as the "mature" alternative to "entitlement" (read: the view that people should look out for each other and that people deserve things) is especially wild. Like, no, thinking that if other people take issue with your behavior then that's a "them problem" is not mature or based. Neither is thinking food, shelter, or medical care are not human rights. Neither is deliberately upsetting people you don't like just to upset them. Neither is turning away people in need, who you are fully able to help at little cost to yourself, because you don't feel like it. Neither is trying to justify any form of morally dropping the ball with "I don't owe" when what you really mean is simply "I'd rather not."

You believe that people don't have any ethical obligations to one another beyond the most basic, "don't rape or murder" level tenets because you're a selfish and self-centered person who doesn't want to take responsibility for how their choices impact other people and doesn't want to live in a genuinely pro-social world, not because you're a strong willed stoic survivor who's earned the right to be a selfish ass because you've worked hard for it or something. Your ilk are the people who fuck in public restroom stalls, who blast music on the bus with no headphones, who ghost friends because they bore you, who leave garbage on the floor because "someone else will get it," who refuse to assist anyone whose needs are remotely inconvenient, who express profound glee in response to "offending" (read: bullying) others. You view any and all altruistic acts performed by yourself or others, no matter how small, insignificant, and/or effortless, as gracious charity, as going above and beyond, something exceptional that recipients should be infinitely grateful for, because, of course, said recipients are owed nothing, deserve nothing, and are not entitled to kindness from anyone. You do not see everyday altruism as the basic moral duty that it is, as the backbone of healthy human interaction, something to be expected, equally as unworthy of special praise or recognition as abstaining from rape or murder. Your world is aggressive, selfish, cold, petty, individualistic and small, and yet you claim there is nothing wrong with it, that it is a good world, that anyone who objects to it is simply inferior to you in some way, too weak, too infantile, too, without any recognition of the irony, selfish. And that makes sense, in a way. Why would you see such a world as bad when you share so much in common with it?

#rant #ramble #venting #misanthropy #altruism #humanism #morality #entitlement #conservativism #leftism #like normally I associate this kind of thinking with hardcore conservatives #but lately I've been seeing it getting more popular on the left #and it's genuinely frightening because this the kind of thinking is deeply damaging to society #luna's

[scintillyyy]

there is probably an entire essay i could write about how 'chuck dixon hates poor people' is very true but is a lot more nuanced in that 'chuck dixon hates poor people, but no, not those type of poor people, he thinks they deserve a helping hand actually' and 'don't mistake what's actually racism & sexism for what seems to be classism, because again, he doesn't hate that type of poor person, actually' & 'in order to understand this mindset of his you also need to understand 90s conservativism & how he can support some poor people and not others and how he can be inherently contradictory like that, the eras in which he grew up and shaped his worldview' & 'this mindset of his is so baked into the characters of tim and steph in different ways & while tim's is more overt and easy to see, it's also a little easier to divorce from his character because it's so overt and in your face, but steph's story is a lot more insidiously conservative and everything about his conservative mindset & conservativeness of her story is far more inherent and so baked into every formative and key aspect of her character it's actually harder to do with steph without completely changing her as a character'

#sorry i'm forever having thoughts about stuff like this #like you need to understand him hating poor people is not a monolith. there are good poor people & bad poor people #like reading his comics as someone who has unfortunately #had to spend a lot of time with people who think like him by nature of. you have to treat ppl regardless of of whether you agree with them #i can see. see everything in what he wrote and see how intrinsic it is. #like tim's brand of his conservativism is so overt & in your face & the panels are all there #steph u need a primer on the american dream the book hillbilly elegy the conservative idea that certain people deserve success #tim is a comic book fairy tale. rich person stumbles his way into stopping crime is a tale as old as batman & it is conservative but #steph is a conservative fairy tale. the bootstraps story conservatives love #her eventual success is so inherently entwined with worldview and you can't change that #it is soo much harder to divorce it from the conservative wet dream it ultimately is #like obviously steph is not at fault for her creator #but the conservatism in her story absolutely leaps out to me lol i can see it it's so obvious to me and it's unfortunately #so important to her story

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Katherine Stewart at TNR (08.10.2023):

Earlier this year, nearly 1,000 supporters of “National Conservatism” gathered at the semicircular auditorium of the Emmanuel Centre, an elegant London meeting hall a couple of blocks south of Westminster Abbey, to hear from a range of scholars, commentators, politicians, and public servants. NatCon conferences, as they are often called, have been held in Italy, Belgium, and Florida and are broadly associated with what is increasingly called the “New Right.” In London, speakers denounced “woke politics,” blamed immigration for the rising cost of housing, and said modern ills could be solved with more religion and more (nonimmigrant) babies. The break room was lined with booths from organizations such as the Viktor Orbán–affiliated Danube Institute, the U.K.-based conservative think tank the Bow Group, the Heritage Foundation, and the legal powerhouse Alliance Defending Freedom, which is headquartered in Arizona but has expanded to include offices in nearly a half-dozen European cities. When I attended NatCon London in May, I heard a number of American accents in the crowd, and I was not surprised to see Michael Anton, a former national security official in the Trump administration and a senior fellow at the Claremont Institute, a right-wing think tank, on the lineup. These days, Anton and other key representatives of the Claremont Institute seem to be everywhere: onstage at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC); at the epicenter of Ron DeSantis’s “war on woke”; and on speed-dial with GOP allies including Josh Hawley, J.D. Vance, and Donald Trump.

Most of us are familiar with the theocrats of the religious right and the anti-government extremists, groups that overlap a bit but remain distinct. The Claremont Institute folks aren’t quite either of those things, and yet they’re both and more. In embodying a kind of nihilistic yearning to destroy modernity, they have become an indispensable part of right-wing America’s evolution toward authoritarianism. Extremism of the right-wing variety has always figured on the sidelines of American culture, and it has enjoyed a renaissance with the rise of social media. But Claremont represents something new in modern American politics: a group of people, not internet conspiracy freaks but credentialed and influential leaders, who are openly contemptuous of democracy. And they stand a reasonable chance of being seated at the highest levels of government—at the right hand of a President Trump or a President DeSantis, for example.

[...]

Founded in 1979 in the city of Claremont, California (but not associated in an official way with any of the five colleges there), the Claremont Institute provided enthusiastic support for Donald Trump in 2016. Individuals associated with Claremont now fund and help run the National Conservativism gatherings; Claremont Institute chairman and funder Thomas D. Klingenstein also funds the Edmund Burke Foundation, which has held those National Conservatism conferences across the globe. Claremont is deeply involved in DeSantis’s effort to remake Florida’s state universities in the model of Hillsdale College—a private, right-wing, conservative Christian academy in Michigan whose president, Larry Arnn, happens to be one of the institute’s founders and former presidents. Claremont honored DeSantis at an annual gala with its 2021 “Statesmanship Award,” and the governor returned the favor by organizing a discussion with a “brain trust” that included figures associated with the Claremont Institute. If either Trump or DeSantis becomes president in 2024, Claremont and its associates are likely to be integral to the “brain trust” of the new administration. Indeed, some of them are certain to become appointees in the administrative state that they wish (or so they say) to destroy.

The Claremont Institute in the Trump era has become a clearinghouse for far-right and fascistic ideas.  

#Claremont Institute #Conservativism #Right Wing Extremism #Alliance Defending Freedom #Danube Institute #The Heritage Foundation #Michael Anton #CPAC #CPAC Hungary #Bow Group

[loveaankilaq]

If you are actually interested in Japanese art tbh I'd suggest looking beyond just anime. I obv have anime and manga I like but only keeping to that genre of art you're not going to get a vast array of artistic expression. There's so many books, musicians, games, movies etc that exist. And there's 100 percent an area to talk and critique what that art sometimes expresses like political ideology and biases that may exist but completely dismissing the endless amounts of Japanese art as "pedoy" or whatever is just racist and is never a standard that gets applied to white artists. Expand your horizons and get out of your comfort zone and stop assuming you know everything about something you actually don't.

#this is a thing that very much irks me esp wity conservatives who think of Japan as a utopia for them #but shock shock most Japanese people hate them and there's an endless amount of Japanese art that heavily critiques conservativism

[thingstrumperssay]

Conservatives are mad at M&Ms again for some reason. And again their solution to protesting the thing is to buy the thing.

#republicans #repulibcan #M&Ms #M&M #nick adams #(alpha male) #conservativism #conservative #conservatives #lol #queue

[gendiebrainrotreceipts]

Tf is barbie’s ‘message’? Be pretty?

#‘the new barbie movie goes against the Barble’ #radfem safe #honestly I don’t wholly dislike this woman but most of the time her reasoning is ‘liberalism is wrong so conservativism must be right’ 🙄

[itscoldinwonderland]

"libertarians are conservatives!"

a real libertarian wants to legalize drugs and legalize sex work and leave lgbtq people alone and let women get abortions and remove church from state

#and im not a libertarian nor do i feel full libertarianism is it #but its so at odds eith conservativism #libertarian #conservative #text post #meme #gay marijuana guns