domain:drmanhattan16.substack.com
netstack
Texas is freedom land
1m ago
Still not really hitting the level of effort expected for a top-level. This is not a link-aggregating site; it’s a discussion forum. Start the discussion!
WandererintheWilderness
4m ago
Well, mods aren't machines. But I also think it's because your post was a 'low-effort', two-sentences thing. An inflammatory term which might represent a drop in the ocean in some multi-paragraph effortpost, and skate by as a result, is more of an issue when it's at the very core of a very brief comment.
ajuuiomml
4m ago
There isn’t a there in the article. It mentions podcasts, the price of beer, and ads, including a new one about republicans literally abducting your immigrant girlfriend… but not changes in policy, just different messaging. This is the problem, right?
netstack
Texas is freedom land
5m ago
Thank you. Is there something missing though? I really wish we could see the overlap between those separate screenshots.
I stand by my position. None of these things constitute
essentially laying out the case that Republicans should be shot and killed, and their children murdered in front of them, so that they change their politics.
Maybe that was said in the undocumented phone call?
gattsuru
6m ago
For Trump, the DoJ is a political instrument to wield against his enemies, he is rather open about that. In that context, saying "no, I am not advocating for political violence, I am advocating for harsh penalties imposed by a kangaroo court for political crimes" does not seem very convincing.
This argument cuts both ways; if that discussion is tantamount to advocating for political violence, then anyone else who's "advocated for harsh penalties imposed by a kangaroo court for political crimes" is just "splitting hairs" about the gap between that and just outright saying "x gets the bullet". And it's not like we have a shortage of people who said -- and in many cases did, and did often, and did to far less prominent people -- those same scope of things.
And no one treated them the same as someone talking about how he'd shoot a motherfucker.
TK-421
6m ago
Oh, no objection that it reflects poorly on him and I'm very against this kind of violent rhetoric generally. We agree completely that low-level background support of violence is a bad thing and should be actively discouraged, regardless of the side.
I will push back on this and suggest that if you give him a gun, access to a high-value political opponent, and approximately zero chance of being caught and punished for it, he is somewhat likely to pull the trigger.
I think you're well aware of this but just to state it for the record: impossible for any of us to know the heart of another. But I will gently rotate out of your pushback and note that you had to change the scenario significantly to even get to "somewhat likely" to pull the trigger. Assassinating a high-value political opponent is nowhere near the same thing as shooting a child.
netstack
Texas is freedom land
19m ago
I think a lot of people fail that standard, even if they have a “stated commitment.” Talk is cheap.
KMC
25m ago
I think it's more like eating the seed corn. Sure, one generation of cynics might maintain some do-gooding, but if they don't believe in it, they won't pass it down.
KMC
26m ago
That was what I noticed, too. This seems like it's at least 10 years old, if not 15.
KMC
32m ago
reddit's tagline is literally the front page of the internet.
It's as normie as you can get, while still being on the internet.
quiet_NaN
32m ago
I don't think saying, "This person is guilty of a capital crime, in my opinion," is the same thing as calling for political violence. It's calling for the rule of law, and if the law says, "Sorry, this person isn't actually guilty of a capital crime," then there you go. Violence stops there.
With regard to the Kirk quote, this seems splitting hairs. When Kirk or the MAGA base are fantasizing about locking Clinton up or executing Biden, I do not believe that they are thinking of a totally impartial judge and jury coming to the conclusion that their opponent has indeed committed the crime they are accusing them of beyond any reasonable doubt.
The presidential action which came closest to treason in recent memory was J6 (Trump inciting his mob to impede the certification of the election), and his pet SCOTUS decided that he had actually immunity for that. Last time I checked, Biden had not order Seal Team Six to kill Trump, if he had, that would excuse Kirk's statement.
For Trump, the DoJ is a political instrument to wield against his enemies, he is rather open about that. In that context, saying "no, I am not advocating for political violence, I am advocating for harsh penalties imposed by a kangaroo court for political crimes" does not seem very convincing.
And the stochastic terrorism is present in that just the same. Kirk's statement would strongly suggest to his most deranged 10% of listeners that morally speaking, Biden should be killed or imprisoned for his crimes. Add more context, like the justice system being characterized as corrupt and woke, and it sounds like an incitement to do outside the law that which the law would do if it was enforced fairly, in the minds of the deranged.
--
Relatedly, there is a reason why MAGA is more leaning towards violence which is state-sanctioned and the left is more leaning towards extrajudicial violence. The MAGA motivation for violence is basically "DC is a swamp which opposes the will of the people, and should be punished for its corruption".
With the left, Trump might be seen as a Tiberius Gracchus figure: a populist breaker of norms who has ambitions of tyranny. So it is less "Trump must be punished for his past misdeeds" and more "Trump must be stopped before he dismantles the republic".
NunoSempere
32m ago
Thanks, mentioned you in the final version
KMC
39m ago
the powerlessness of norms in the face of voters that no longer care about them.
Who is supposed to care about them, if not voters? Why should voters care about norms held by, non-voters? Some subset of extra-special-super-equal voters? Who exactly gets to set norms, then?
we still haven't really seen a Democrat Trump, meaning a President-level Democrat that absolutely revels in upsetting the other side and breaking norms left and right.
A Democrat Trump would have to run roughshod through his own party, goring their oxen, while overwhelming any party resistance.
People still don't recognize the #1 attribute of Trump, and it isn't norms or vulgarity. Trump was the man who had the guts to break with the bipartisan consensus on trade and immigration. That's what Trump is, that's why he won, that's why he's hated, and that's his eigenvalue. That's why you get Bernie-bros voting for Trump. That's why the private sector unions are republican now.
Immigration. Trade. That's Trump. Not norms, not vulgarity, not shooting someone on 5th avenue or grabbing anyone by the pussy. It's trade and immigration.
RoyGBivensAction
Zensunni Scientologist
43m ago
But is the problem purely liberals alienating young men or are conservatives also successfully courting them?
Probably more the former. Team Red isn't offering that much, but at least they aren't broadcasting their disdain at every opportunity.
Disclaimer: I'm middle-aged and not terribly in contact with the yutes. But as a straight white male with a job, I occasionally wonder what exactly Team Blue could ever do to entice me to vote for them in a national election (short of entirely abandoning 75%+ of their policies).
oats_son
48m ago
I can't believe the news networks could stoop so low, seriously. They are playing an extremely dangerous game here, and for what?
Him saying he really fucking means it. https://postimg.cc/nXMNVw2N
Edit: reading further down I see the dance, so in case someone pretends they think by that I mean when he says the office joke, I mean when he says
Yes, I've told you this before. Only when people feel pain personally do they move on policy
And
I mean do I think Todd and Jennifer are evil? And that they're breeding little fascists? Yes
WhiningCoil
Ghost of Quokka's Future
50m ago
It's really weird to me that more than one person here honestly came away thinking it was just a The Office joke?
Now that I'm seeing more news networks pick up this story, if they aren't going full "Republicans pounce after Jay Jones 'alleged' comments", they are leading with the joke, omitting everything else, and then including his apology. I imagine people who still trust the media are reading their trusted sources that lie by omission, charge into this thread thinking they are informed, skim my top post, and then blast out the ignorant rebuttal they've been primed to make.
I finished The Sun Also Rises this week. I needed to intersperse my slog through a history of the roman empire with some shorter candy. I grabbed recs from a couple people, this one from @FiveHourMarathon and Stranger in a Strange Land from someone else.
In short: I found it decent but not great, and strangely compelling in many ways. I powered through it fairly quickly, found myself looking forward to it, and felt like Hemingway did a great job of conveying an enormous amount of depth through simple language in a way that is lost on many authors (especially in Spain).
At the end of the day, though, it's a circular story with a lot of repetition, and the things that made it so transgressive and compelling aren't really that unique nowadays.
sockpuppet2
58m ago
Reports like these have been an almost weekly occurrence all year. To state the obvious that none of these articles include: The Democratic Party and liberals engage in bulverism and bulverism alienates people. But is the problem purely liberals alienating young men or are conservatives also successfully courting them?
sockpuppet2
58m ago
It's not just them as individuals; high schools also embrace Goodhart's Law - students getting into good colleges makes them look good.
ZanarkandAbesFan
1hr ago
Fair enough, that's pretty bad. He was arrested and sentenced though. I'll amend my original post to specify republicans that went unpunished for making these comments.
TeknOShEeP
1hr ago
"erosion of norms" is just DNC speak for "refusing to play the loveable loser to our obviously more virtuous candidate."
I freely admit I was part of it in my stupid college days, but frankly the DNC has been demonizing conservatives for a lot longer than Trump has been relevant, he was just the first one to fling the shit back in any effective manner.
If you want to point to a specific moment the norms really started to collapse, I would suggest the Johnson administration for the most recent cycle.
RoyGBivensAction
Zensunni Scientologist
1hr ago
Do you have evidence of republican politicians caught saying they'd like to murder their opponents' children?
There was that failed Republican candidate in NM who was convicted of doing drive-by shootings of several opponents' houses (which included children in the houses).
Be honest and admit that these kind of "just joking" comments come from all sides.
I think we usually expect more from people running to be elected officials? Do you have evidence of republican politicians going unpunished for saying they'd like to murder their opponents' children?
IIRC at least Parler and Gab were kicked out of both the Apple and Google app stores for what is demonstrably less "violent rhetoric" than is frequently seen posted on Bluesky (by public figures, no less) about Jesse Singal, plus whatever you can find about Charlie Kirk.
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