Friday Open Thread

10 thoughts on “Friday Open Thread”

1. https://www.westword.com/news/lauren-boebert-son-car-wreck-injured-friend-16586981 
   Like mother, like son.

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   1. The injured dude is talking about taking "legal action," but my guess is that there's about a 0.0000% chance that Bobo's stump-jumpin' spawn has any liability insurance coverage. Here's hoping the injured guy has decent uninsured motorist coverage.

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      1. He failed to show up for his court hearing.

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         1. Another thing that seems to run in the family with these morons.

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         2. lol Of course. That boy's gonna make a great contemporary GOP daddy.

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2. On Populism-Fascism-neonaziism. Brad DeLong, the economic historian reviews a book by Charlie Maier’s The Project State & Its Rivals

   Here is what I have to say about modern Cæsarism-fascism-neonaziism:

   With too much political voice in the hands of the super-rich, Maier suggests, politicians soft-pedal appeals to reforming the distribution of income. Political messages then become tuned either to enabling upward mobility by removing legacies of past injustice, on the left, or to the construction of a cross-class alliance based on the people vs. the strangers. As he writes:

   "Contemporary populist ideas [are]…that there exist…two sorts of people…a virtuous, usually ethnically uniform core and a collection of ultimately parasitic hangers-on, whether intellectuals or immigrants or politicians—a mass infestation of updated ‘caterpillars of the commonwealth.’…The ‘people’ are summoned into life when the nonpeople, the exploitative outsiders, somehow fundamentally alien, are conjured into existence….But populism involves a dipole in a further sense. It requires a people’s tribune or political entrepreneur, a would-be strong man, a leader waiting to summon the people or at least define it as a political group. Antiquity provided the model for Caesarism…"

   Maier calls this dipole both “essential” and “implausible,” and marvels at the strength in India of the forces that made the Hindu-identified “economically successful…sign… into a Hinduist movement whose rhetoric seemed designed to demonize them….”

   But Maier’s confrontation with modern populism appears to end with him in fear. Perhaps, in his heart of hearts, he fears he has written the wrong history? Perhaps history is not so much about networks—of capital, of people committed to a project-state, and other such—but rather about the search for collective identity and the creation of collective loyalties, with people often becoming near-mindless puppets directed by a charismatic leader manipulating loyalties of tribe, race, and faith against those they cast on the roles of Enemies of the People.

   …

   But a populist leader who lowers the taxes of the rich? That has always been a delicate tightrope dance, requiring both personal magnetism on the part of the leader and an appeal to nonmaterialist values. It is easy for the charismatic leader to fall off the tightrope. And it is inevitable that the leader’s heirs and successors will.

   I find myself very optimistic, much more so than I have been ever since 2008, in this year 2023.

   Loyalties of tribe, race, and faith require charismatic boosting to make them politically powerful. The touchstones of political legitimacy are safety and prosperity, and perhaps a sense that your government is at the head of a truly worthwhile and valuable community. A democratic state committed to that project has a considerable edge over other types of régime, now and in the future. 

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3. Ginni Thomas Vows Not to Let Husband’s Problems Interfere With Her Work on Supreme Court – Borowitz Report.

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4. 

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   1. That picture is nasty, but painfully accurate.

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5. No Labels is funded by Republican Mega Donor Harlan Crow!

   The Lincoln Project @ProjectLincoln

   The very same billionaire cozying up to Clarence Thomas and his MAGA activist wife is also a megadonor to the No Labels platform. 

   Don't be fooled by their messaging. No Labels is a front to re-elect Donald Trump as president, plain and simple.

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