Tanista
10mo ago
Definitely think Vance set them on a collision course with the respect comment. That's a red rag to someone like Trump and Zelensky was apparently in no mood either.
Tanista
10mo ago
Whittling down an ever-shrinking population of young European males even more, to save Western civilization.
Tanista
10mo ago
Sure but I mean the dismantling or downsizing of the American empire created to fight the Soviets, this is more about not even getting started.
It's a weak continent that cannot break free of US hegemony, is reluctant to pay part of the toll of said hegemony (maintaining militaries at a certain level of potency) while fantasizing about pulling away and having an independent foreign policy and doing things that both annoy its hegemon (like Germany's sidling up to Russia for energy, which they laughed at Trump for criticizing*) and perhaps even make wars that its hegemon must fight more likely. And is unwilling to shoulder sole responsibility for said wars.
The "deal" left dissatisfaction on both sides because there's no coherent bargain in ink, because Europe is a bunch of different factions. It's essentially a sort of cowardly/lazy slide into American dependence paired with wishful thinking about an independence that would not require reconciling these contradictions.
* What person who acknowledges the supremacy of the another does this btw?
Tanista
10mo ago
There's another "third" category: fully commercialized but not celebrated. Nobody cares what kind of shampoo I use or what snacks I eat at home, and I can buy what I want when I want, for the most part. I'm also not pushing my choices in your face.
Those things are still heavily advertised.
I don't think weed commercials about how fun and empowering it might be (which I've seen for cleaning and food products) really fits "only begrudgingly tolerated" as OP imagines it
The better way to frame it is that they think they're weak morons. Their ridiculousness comes from the disconnect between their pomposity and seriousness and their inability to manage without America.
The basic Trumpian view is that Trump may be crass but America can at least handle its own business or face the consequences. You get more leeway if you can pay your own tab.
Trump(ism) is all about power or the appearance thereof.
Tanista
10mo ago
Some version of "America First" has been predicted since the end of the Cold War.
One wonders how much more serious it would be under a different President.
Ah well, we'll never know.
TBF, They sometimes claim that whatever mistake was made by some minor part of the coalition somewhere over there.
They of course never answer why no one checked this minor and irrelevant faction despite their enemies constantly warning them and promising consequences for not doing so.
Tanista
10mo ago
Yes, there's a reason people "simp" and it isn't just a chance with a particular woman. But they're simping.
Tanista
10mo ago
A lot of these things were radical if viewed from the outside, but didn't put them directly at risk.
I would think the employed and well-off progressives were the ones providing cover in the NYT by shutting down things like Tom Cotton calling for a national response, not the actual people burning down cities (and even there there was more cover because some local authorities simply refused to use a strong hand).
OP is talking about them risking felony charges from a Trump-led government by trespassing on federal property or trying to bodily prevent Trump-appointed people from access. It's one thing to bully editors from your company discord for covering riots. But that is a different level of skin in the game.
And it's specifically demoralizing in the context of taking radical action.
This would imply that they took the sort of radical actions OP is describing in response to Trump's first term, where he didn't have this sort of delegitimizing gain amongst important demographics and Russia hysteria was at its peak.
I don't think they risked felonies even then.
Tanista
10mo ago
I thought it was very convenient: "race and IQ poaster concludes problem is race and IQ". But it is interesting to see the left-wing version from Cenk Uygur posted above. Both sides seem to think Democrats lost or alienated important human capital.
The 70 year-old politicos aren't going to give anyone a chance to arrest them. The middle class bureaucrats aren't going to risk jail either without some cover.
The actual play would be to stoke enough rage amongst the general public and underclass for them to do it or provide cover for people with more to lose, at which point people can come out with the excuses used during BLM/Luigi frenzy: obviously it isn't ideal but there's a legitimate reason behind all of this we need to talk about, "language of the unheard" and all of that.
The problem, I think, is that significant swathes of the public simply don't care that much about minutiae around government departments. What this election seems to have shaken is the notion that these sorts of people actually represent the groups in whose name they seize power . Apparently it's taking them a while to find the rhythm again.
Might vary by type of celebrity too. The tabloids seem to report that many WAGs just know that it's the cost of doing business, with maybe the expectation that the athlete is discreet. Does the same apply to relatively equal status actors ?
Tanista
10mo ago
His girlfriend, Kayla, is an attractive woman (happy to cite my sources) who speaks Korean. Most men, in theory, would be happy to score even a 1st date with a woman like her.
I'm sorry but I find the idea of someone going "but I speak Korean" in response to being cheated on inordinately funny for some reason.
Maybe if she could read manga instead of manhwa she would have avoided this!
Tanista
10mo ago
Most of those examples started as comics which have a much lower barrier to entry than AAA games or movies.
They became organically popular, at which point studios and corporations jumped on them for adaptations.
People did go out and make their own. And this is what they made and were rewarded for making.
I mean, sure. He has good political instincts for where the base is (not that it was unclear immigration was an issue voters cared about). So did Obama.
But, if we're going with that older definition of meme, then the mainstream media would arguably be more responsible for "memeing" him into existence. Both in terms of the free advertising/transmission and by condemning him so much.
Something they've never psychologically recovered from.
Tanista
10mo ago
Copyright law is at fault for this. Letting individuals monopolize cultural icons neuters our ability to use them as shared myths...
"Cultural appropriation" is, strangely, an attempt to do this even to things that can't be copyrighted, by people who otherwise can't stop complaining about capitalism.
but only warner bros is formally allowed to use that shorthand to make money which in practice serves as a massive disincentive for artists to portray the same values in the same package and discuss them in a salient way.
On the flip side we have no end to Superman expies: Homelander, Omni-Man, The Plutonian, Brightburn. They're just deeply, deeply cynical and aimed at subverting the character. Which may say something about the audience.
Tanista
10mo ago
Let's grant that it was radicalizing. I'm not sold that a certain sort of anti-woke radicalism matters.
It takes a long time to get people to some Rufo stage. A lot of the critics of Anita Sarkeesian were still fundamentally in agreement with progressives. It was just "mostly the same values, can you just leave our shit alone?". Around this time atheism was having a moment online and the GOP were the loser squares who talked about the body shutting down legitimate rape. Working with them to break wokies was unthinkable and the sheer unconstrained nature of woke demands and their who/whom mentality wasn't fully accepted. Some people are still in denial (until it impacts them)
A lot of people didn't care, and a lot of people were embarrassed by attempted strike backs against the heart of the problem or to rally people against that a la "they came for gamers, gamers".
I think pro- and anti-GamerGaters both tend to overestimate its impact. I tend to think GamerGate was just one instance of Toxoplasma of Rage that served as a political awakening for some people. I don't think it was more impactful than other Toxoplasma skirmishes, like New Atheism or BLM.
There was a period where people were claiming memes got Trump elected (or at least selected in the primary). This obviously wasn't the case except in the most trivial sense. It wasn't God Emperor Trump memes or the_donald, those were all riding on existing enthusiasm for the guy who broke with the learned helplessness strategy on a few issues central to the base.
It's just overly online people over-estimating the impact of the things they care about.
I'm probably above the 90th percentile of grass deficiency here. I was actually still reading IGN and other games sites for reviews and even I couldn't be fucked to drill through the tangle of claims that was Gamergate. It was just another populist vs journalist flashpoint AFAICT.
Tanista
10mo ago
There is at least the cluster of things that amount to a rapid shredding of the previous arrangement where the US has a network of allied nations that enthusiastically follow it as a Big Good/moral leader
Was that why? Or was it because the US was the strong horse?
Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep’s clothing but inwardly are ravenous wolves. You will know them by their fruits. Are grapes gathered from thorns or figs from thistles? In the same way, every good tree bears good fruit, but the bad tree bears bad fruit.
If you set up any moral system that gives people prestige for conspicuously following it it'll attract bad actors who try to use it. These people can do outsized damage and are thus more salient and all movements that plan to survive must develop antibodies against it. Hence Jesus' warning and the feminist disdain and suspicion of people who constantly display their piety.
So The MFSP as a predator + The MFSP as salience bias. I think feminists overrate the salience of all sorts of things for ideological reasons (e.g. the risk of conservative domination, the risk from random incels vs normal men you know) but this one is probably a bit rational.
The real interesting question is where progressives have not only failed but stubbornly refused to develop antibodies and insisted on credulousness.
The problem here is that deportation is what Trump controls. He can't change state policies towards migrants or things like them having a "right" to schooling in the US. He can catch them at the border or send them back when he gets them but most anything else will be partly determined by lower governments.
To make sweeping changes would require Congress and, well, they've had years to do anything. If they could, Trump wouldn't exist.
Beyond that, nations like Germany don't have birthright citizenship. Plenty of people would eat shit indefinitely until their kids are born and have citizenship. That's just the incentive of all incentives (even if you stopped the sponsorship loophole). And there's no conceivable way Congress amends the Constitution any time soon. Let alone for that.
Why did Vance defend freedom of speech in Europe? Why care?
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