Wednesday Open Thread

16 thoughts on “Wednesday Open Thread”

1. The Republican party and the people who run it are staring at a maelstrom of their own making. The delineation between the Trumplicans and the Old Guard is picking up steam. And now of course, the splinter group of DeSantis-nistas are working to shoot the Orange Pretender out of his saddle and replace him with their little Stalin.

   I do not see a path for the GQP to save itself.

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   1. And yet, somehow, the Republicans continue to draw support. 

      In Colorado, there seem to be some pretty distinct factions, including some feuds among the Republican faithful.  The God (of RW Christians) group, the Guns group, and the Gas&Oil group find common Ground in opposing Democrats (Bitecofer's negative partisanship explains a great deal). I'm not precisely certain how each gets recruited into the Sedition/autocracy emphasis — perhaps this primary season we will be able to get a better sense of how that will work.

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   2. I agree. Vanguardist movements often splinter around purity and inter-party or inter-personal conflicts.

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      1. Bukharinist!

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         1. Speaking of Bukharin…

            His confession was a litany of all the horrible things that the Western Imperialists were doing against the Soviet Union. However, each and every item was actually descriptive of problems under Stalin. So, metaphorically speaking, it was a massive case of projection, or reverse-projection… probably intentional.

            Just this past week, a member of Putin's may be playin the same game, talking about how the European & US economy was collapsing, ethnic tensions were driving centrifugal tendencies, and the West was about to collapse.

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            1. "I could shit on my own head, Koba, for doubting your leadership."

                Bukharin to Stalin

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2. Josh Marshall again on “Trump’s Willing Paramilitaries“

   Remember Sen. Tom Cotton’s demand for regular military to be deployed in cities to defeat the ‘Antifa mobs’. That was all part of prepping Trump’s willing paramilitaries for what happened on January 6th and what may happen again. People do bad things and they should be punished for doing bad things. But you need to pump people up to get large numbers to do bad things in an organized way. And that’s something Trump has been and continues to be good at.

   …

   You can seldom get large numbers of people to do really bad things without getting them to believe that those people are getting ready to do something similar to them.

   This isn’t exculpatory and it’s not simple. It’s just human nature. A lot of Germans really believed, at some level, that the Jews were an existential threat to them. But belief is a funny thing. We choose to believe things that make it easier to do what we want to do. As we’ve seen in the Trump Era ‘belief’ often becomes a form of aggression in itself. I choose to believe you run a pedophile sex ring because my professed belief damages you and it lays the groundwork for me to hurt you more.

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   1. You been readin' books again, Parkie?

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   2. Radio Télévision Libre des Mille Collines (much like Newsmax, OAN, Fox News) used their broadcast to project hate propaganda against Tutsis, moderate Hutus, Belgians, and the United Nations mission. 

      When the genocide began some of the first to be slaughtered were Hutus. I believe the same will happen to many Republicans as the base eventually rises up. 

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3. Ian Milhiser on Activist Judges: "Trump judge’s opinion striking down the airplane mask mandate is a legal disaster"

   Read the whole article as it demonstrates the utter disregard of the written law, as well as the English language, demonstrated by Kathryn Kimbal Mizelle, another Clarence Thomas alumna.

   The appointment of Mizelle — and other, similarly ideological judges — by Trump was intended to short-circuit this democratic process. Trump gave dozens of Federalist Society stalwarts the power to block literally any federal policy. And, especially in the public health context, Trump’s judges are using this power quite aggressively.

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4. Here's an interesting thought….

   Opinion | How Orwell Diagnosed Democrats’ Culture War Problem Decades Ago – POLITICO

    

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5. Masha Gessen on "This is how Russia Ends"

   Good article from someone who writes on totalitarianism.

   There are so many analyses in the media about what Putin wants as well as these debates about his rationality or irrationality. Is he going crazy? Is he paranoid? Does he want power in a conventional way that we can understand? Timothy Snyder had this point about Putin caring about things we don't value. What is your fundamental understanding of his motivation?

   I don't think he's particularly mysterious. I find all of this speculation really annoying because what is crazy but another term for somebody existing in coordinates that you can't see?

   What Putin has been doing for many, many years is building up to a big war. At a certain point, I felt crazy for saying it because the big war kept not starting. But the logic of his rhetoric, the logic of his actions, the logic of totalitarianism in general — all of these things required a big war. Since his Munich speech in 2007, there has been a constant and open insistence on re-establishing Russia as a great power and a refusal to recognize what's referred to as the world order.

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6. Jennifer Rubin is endorsing Gov. Polis … for his approach to governing.  [Paywall — sorry]

   Take a lesson from Jared Polis, Democrats

   Instead of overreach and a busybody government, Polis offers voters something better: the chance to find good-paying jobs that he’s welcoming to his state and to achieve whatever dreams they might have. Polis deserves credit for speaking to voters in terms that defy the stereotype of a big-government and anti-business liberal. He has flipped the script to identify the real threat to prosperity and personal autonomy: the MAGA authoritarians. Other Democrats might want to pay attention.

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7. Debbie Does Math …. but apparently not very well

   GOP congresswoman ridiculed for claiming over one billion migrants were stopped at US-Mexico border (msn.com)

    

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8. He's tanned, rested and ready….. BERNIE '24

   Bernie Sanders hasn't 'ruled out' running for president if Biden doesn't seek reelection – POLITICO

    

    

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   1. Oy. Got any more good news, LBiaWPoS?

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