“I told you… (deep breath) they all need to have BENCH SEATS in the REAR! WHAT the FUCK do I PAY YOU PEOPLE FOR??? Don’t you KNOW who I AM???”

Now I’m picturing him being so delighted by you pulling a McChicken from behind his ear that he gives you Iowa.

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There are ways of saying that without posting ragebait bullshit.

I see. So you’re spreading it around despite doubting if it’s even true?

Any source on this besides a twit account I’ve never heard of?

How did I possibly forget that Tulsi ‘Present’ Gabbard was the director of national intelligence?

I guess I don’t understand what you think I’m missing. I think the rise of an explicitly fascist party and the propaganda arm to support it is pretty dire.

And historically, the right has been at the forefront of new media. Talk radio has been almost exclusively reactionary since its inception, and that provided a model for new media as well. We’ve had nearly a century of radical right-wing radio content to hone the message and tactics. Father Caughlin was doing his radio show in 1933, wherein he took his “America First” message to the nation.

There have been more leftist new-media shows than previously, but they are still playing catch-up with the well-funded reactionaries.

The right-wing rage machine has recently been fueled by a number of things, but mainly loss in prestige due to acceptance of LGBTQ+ people & the US hiring a black president. They got a candidate in Donald Trump who swore to be their retribution, and they rallied around him because he hates all the same people, but (perhaps most importantly) also spoke to their loss in a way that other Republicans and Democrats would not.

Yes, the reactionary right is often derided as stupid, but they’re very effective at stealing the language of liberation from the left and repurposing it to defend the people in power.

While many of the base are indeed ignorant and misinformed, the people driving the message are meticulous and creative about finding ways to make White Evangelical Supremacy more palatable. Tucker Carlson is especially effective at laundering neo-nazi talking points for them; his constant scaremongering around the racist “great replacement” conspiracy theory and his open hatred and lies about trans people are some of the most egregious.

But it’s also people like Joe Rogan who make this reactionary funnel really work: he acts like a middle-of-the-road centrist, but also sells a gentler version of the same great replacement and “gender ideology” bullshit while introducing his audience to a whole bunch of radical right-wing freaks like they’re just normal people.

Reactionary ideology is about loss and blame.

The current reactionary stripe in the US is focused on White Evangelical Supremacy, so everyone who is not in that group is a prime target.

White Evangelicalism has lost a heap of prestige in the last 30 years, while LGBTQ+ rights have been ascendant. This is the reason why trans people have long been taegeted by the reactionary right: they want to roll back all of the gains made to sexual minorities, and trans people make the easiest targets.

They also target immigrants for largely the same reason: they’re a highly visible population who doesn’t conform to their ideal White Evangelical model, so they use terror tactics to oppress them.

The goal is to make life intolerable for the people they hate so that they don’t have to compete against ideas that make the world a more equitable place. It’s no coincidence that the reactionary right rallied around fighting diversity, equity and inclusion: they are an evangelical white supremacist coalition.

She’s just mad that she got frozen out of the boys club. She was one of the biggest fundraisers in the party— she did her “duty” and only after she got stiffed did she figure out that there is no honor among thieves.

If this caterwauling troll had gotten her bag she’d have had no complaints. Fuck her.

I’ll just wait until you’re done moving those goalposts.

They “conveniently” left out something that wasn’t in title VII when they were talking about classes protected by title VII? How devious.

You’ve acknowledged that a reactionary government can get into power and pardon people.

You must also see that the same reactionary government can more easily execute its critics if we allow the institution of capital punishment. And for what? A “deterrent” that seems to have inverse effectiveness?

If the death penalty serves as some kind of deterrent, why is murder more prevalent in States where it is performed?

States that execute people for murder and the highest murder rate per capita by State are almost the same list.

I think there are other, more significant factors that should be addressed first before we allow the government to kill people (a very, very good many of whom were actually innocent).

What does the death penalty achieve that life in prison does not?

Here’s an idea: how about we stop killing people for no good reason?

Only if they change the triathlon to:

1. Dodging accountability
2. Sitting in a rental truck and eating 4 Taco Bell chalupas
3. Pistols at 6 inches while their friends hold the target

That conservatism is an inherently reactionary ideology dedicated to entrenching the status quo and reversing the hard gains made towards a more free, open, and fair society.