#MAGA needs to hear this

[lgbtally4ever]

Dear Ma & Pa MAGA…

[shinobicyrus]

It doesn't matter to JD Vance - or Trump's supporters - that the 'immigrants eating pets' stories are false. He's admitted as much, and says he will keep repeating them. Because "memes."

It also doesn't matter when it's pointed out to him that the Haitian immigrants in Springfield, Ohio are in the country legally. He's going to keep calling them "illegal" because their legal status is not the thing about them that he finds objectionable.

It doesn't matter if they're legal immigrants or illegal immigrants. It doesn't matter that immigrants - regardless of legal status - are statistically much less likely to commit crimes than those born in the United States.

None of those things matter, because it's never been about those things.

Trump & JD Vance and all of their supporters hate immigrants. Full stop. The reasons and justifications will always shift and change to fit the present circumstances and political environment; reactionary politics at its finest. Meanwhile, the cold and vile core remains unchanged:

"These non-white people are lesser than us. In fact, they aren't people and we don't want them here."

[mugiwara-lucy]

A response from the Queen to Trump's horseshit about wanting to be the "protector of women"!

Again....would you trust someone with a LONG history of rape and sexual assault to be your protector?

Not to mention women do NOT need to be protected. Women need EQUALITY.

But....just listen to this horseshit....he talks DOWN to women and patronizes us:

Women are UNHAPPY and MISERABLE because you won't FUCK OFF, Grandpa. You appointed Supreme Court Justices that ended Roe v Wade and BRAGGED about it. His voice makes me sick. Like it LEGITIMATELY puts me in a BAD MOOD.

So we can be done with this creepy old bastard once and for all, let's all make sure we're registered to vote! The deadlines are coming up and here they are down below!!

The link to register to vote is down below:

And like I always advertise I recommend EARLY voting to avoid MAGA fuckery because they WILL try fuckery on voting day and here’s the link to check when early voting starts!!

And like I say, I HIGHLY recommend Mail in Ballots to avoid fuckery from MAGA but if you do that; MAIL IT AT THE ACTUAL USPS Post Office rather than your mailbox because MAGA WILL fuck with your mail! Here’s the link to register!!

We have FORTY DAYS until the election!

For the sake of women everywhere (and I’m talking to my fellow white women ESPECIALLY), PLEASE vote Kamala so we can be done with this orange pedophile ONCE AND FOR ALL!! 🙏

Thank You 🙏

[ace-in-a-very-distressing-hole]

Humanity went wrong when we turned being a decent human being into something political. Believing in the existence of trans people should not be a political opinion. Treating immigrants like equal human beings should not be a political opinion. Protecting erased cultures should not be a political opinion. Caring about other people should not be a political opinion.

[simonwoodbine]

The Existential Dreadniks - By Their Fruit Shall Ye Know Them - 1950s Co...

[thisiswhereikeepdcthings]

Bruce once said, half-jokingly, that anyone who wanted to marry any of his kids had to beat hik in single combat first. Unfortunately, joking on the Bat looks dead serious to everyone not in his circle, so now Wally is busy learning Muay Thai, Roy is brushing up on Krav Maga, and Conner has resigned himself to living in sin. Steph just figures she'd ask Cass to fight her battles for her.

Conner: I’m sorry. I love you, but we can never marry.

Tim, thinking about who he might need to politely go ask Jason to take care of:

Conner, entirely serious: I’m never going to be able to beat your dad.

Tim, hearing “beat UP” because he was thinking about Jason punching Luthor:

Tim: I feel like further explanation might be necessary here.

Wally: Okay. I think I’m ready to fight Batman.

Dick, only half paying attention: *nods* I understand completely. I have the same urge all the time.

Jason: What do you MEAN you can’t marry me because Batman will beat you?

Roy: But Bruce said-

Jason: I don’t care what Bruce said. Actually, no. I do care. How DARE he-

*cut to Jason fighting Batman*

Roy: So does this count, or…

Bruce, at six am in a bathrobe and slippers: Steph, what are you doing here?

Steph: Outsourcing.

Cass: *comes flying at Batman from two stories above*

[transmutationisms]

i would love to hear more about your criticisms of the BITE model! for me it always feels.. unfalsifiable? it seems to do poorly at distinguishing a cult from any other community, if you squint at the definitions

yeah so first of all i'm not particularly keen on even trying to defend the category of "cult" in general. obviously abuse and control methods can and do happen in groups, but i don't think it's particularly useful to talk about this like there's a strict dichotomy between evil malicious groups and all the others. and i think generally, when people do try to sort groups into strict categories like that, what you actually see is that the differentiating factor is less to do with the degree of control exerted by the group and more to do with how much the person doing the sorting is bothered by the group's ideology or doctrinal commitments lol. like, this is sort of baby's first cult concept critique but yknow, a group setting where you're being extremely openly financially controlled is your job and yet most workplaces, however abusive and surveilled and controlling, are not typically designated a 'cult' unless they're also peddling some kind of heterodox religious or medical claims or something.

anyway in regards to BITE in particular, yeah i think it does a really poor job of distinguishing between a 'normal' level of social pressure to say/do certain things, and the kind of control that ostensibly characterises a cult. for example steven hassan has called both MAGA and online trans communities cults, and a lot of this comes down to his persistent and pretty open belief in the power of 'mind control' and hypnosis as mechanisms of cult control. ofc any group of any political persuasion could engage in abuse and high-control of its members! usually this occurs by financial means, social isolation, etc. but hassan's BITE model isn't really good at identifying these kinds of material factors despite paying lip service to them, because it's more motivated by his desire to root out these kinds of shadowy quasi-occult forces of mental reprogramming that he fears.

i just find the whole model to be pretty silly and used mostly as a way of justifying dislike of lots of different social, religious, and political groups---some of which are genuinely mistreating members, some of which are just saying things their critics disagree with---because it's perceived as a reliable social-scientific designation and therefore name-dropping it helps the speaker feel that they're making some kind of objective scientific observation rather than a judgment dependent, as are all judgments, upon their own perspective and values. i think instead of this kind of haggling over Which Groups Count As An Evild Shadowy Cult it would be infinitely more productive and helpful to vulnerable people to talk about how high-control groups operate, what sorts of methods specific groups are using to control and abuse their members, and what sorts of resources those members are dependent on the groups for and need access to from other sources: financial and material provisions, social support networks, etc.

[qqueenofhades]

Hello, qqueenofhades!

I just want to say, that ever since I discovered you in the week following Biden stepping down, you've actually made me not dread talking about politics. I look forward to your thoughts on what's going on, and I want to thank you for that.

I would love to know: What do you think of the apparent exhaustion from Republicans/MAGA about Trump? People leaving his rallies (and that's not even covering how few are even coming at all or his supposedly needing to pay people to come), and the slew of formers we see at the DNC openly talking about their change in sides. Do you have any ideas about what might be causing this shift? Was it Harris? Was it Jan. 6th? Was it one singular reason, or multiple at once?

Hope you're having a good day.

I think it's a lot of reasons. First, as I said earlier, the whole theme of the DNC is about reclaiming the USA FREEDOM message from the Republicans, who have had a monopoly on it for the past three decades at least and used it to justify even more antidemocratic fascist militant theocratic hard-right turns. The scenes of joyful people talking rousingly about hope, compassion, morning in America, and breaking out into regular USA! USA! chants appeals a lot to the average American, who doesn't want to hear constant violent and negative bile from the Orange Felonious Traitor, because that is literally the only thing he has to offer and it's getting openly more deranged and dangerous every day. The whole Tough Talking Populist Outsider shtick worked in 2016, when Trump didn't have four years of incompetent chaos as the actual president and was just a theoretical concept who a lot of people thought would "smarten up" and take it seriously if he actually won. Likewise, the backlash of white grievance against Obama and the complacency that Trump didn't actually stand a chance was able to be leveraged against the decades of smears that the GOP had already leveled on HRC. Of course, Trump lost the popular vote by 3 million-plus, but the Electoral College did what it's designed to do and he snuck in anyway. But it wasn't a rousing landslide or a thumping victory.

As such, a lot of Reagan Republicans are now turning to the Democrats as the actual pro-USA party, because Trump trash-talks America, calls it a shithole third-world country, bellows about WWIII and the Great Depression, cozies up to foreign dictators, etc etc. Reagan also pitched the sunny message of America as the shining moral hero of the world (he in fact used the Make America Great Again slogan that Trump repurposed), and that likewise resonated with people after the chaos and unrest of the 1970s. Now, we all know that I hate Reagan's ass and I hope he's burning in hell for so many reasons, but his message was effective because it gave people a soaring rhetorical vision to believe in (even while he was often stripping away their economic prosperity in particular behind the scenes, all together now, FUCK REAGAN). But the Republicans who joined the 1980s party are now seeing Republicanism become a tawdry cult centered on, as Geoff Duncan (GOP former Lt. Gov. of Georgia) put it yesterday, the worship of a felonious thug. Trump is wildly anti-America; he only uses it as a vehicle to get what he wants, because Donald Trump is all that Donald Trump cares about. Yes, there are still plenty of brainwashed cultists in numbers great enough to make this election far, far closer than it should ever be in any sane universe, but increasingly even his own cultists don't want to hear it anymore. They keep leaving before the event is over and he's drawing far smaller crowd sizes than in 2016, which as we know is pretty much all he cares about. He has a desperate need for attention and approval to feed his damaged narcissistic-sociopath dementia-riddled brain, and he's just not getting it, while the very real prospect looms that if he loses this election (and it looks more and more like he will) he will go to jail for the rest of his life. Terrifying.

That's why we have the unprecedented spectacle of lifelong Republicans and former Trump voters flocking to Harris in large numbers. We've had Republican speakers at the DNC every night, and they keep playing video montages of former Trump voters disavowing him or explaining that they won't vote for him. If you consider what propelled Trump in 2016 -- conservative white grievance against a black guy named Barack Obama -- the willingness to unhesitatingly embrace a black/mixed-race WOMAN named Kamala Harris is incredible. Many of them were already planning to vote for Biden before he dropped out, but it was no certain thing that they would move from being willing to vote for an establishment old white guy to also being willing to vote for a woman and a person of color. The fact that we've had so many high-profile affinity group Zoom events for Harris, including from truly unbelievable quarters (Republicans for Harris, Mormons for Harris, EVANGELICAL CHRISTIANS for Harris), shows that there is a country-wide exhaustion with Trump's poisonous selfish grievance performances, where he's willing to do anything to anyone and turn the USA into a fascist dictatorship if it will exempt him, personally, from the consequences of his odious actions. That is not a message that any sane person can support, and more and more, they don't. As I have said before, that is why fascist movements always sow the seeds of their own destruction. They work for a while, but eventually they're boring, they're mean, they're exhausting, and they offer nothing for anyone but being angry all the time at everyone. Most humans don't like that, and eventually, they drift away.

I also think that part of the reason Kamala absolutely nailed it with Tim Walz as VP is because Walz is the literal anti-MAGA in every way. We have seen a lot of similar straight white military-vet football-coach-type Middle America older men drift into MAGA grievance politics because it offers a home for guys like them and feeds on fear of the future and fear of the other. They feel like they're being heard and understood, even if they aren't, and they vote Republican because they've grown up with Republicans being the pro-America party (however defined). But because Walz is a straight white married military-vet football-coach guy who actually models a joyful and compassionate masculinity, an openly emotional and supportive masculinity, who talks movingly about his love for his wife and children, who is a hunter and gun owner who nonetheless loves kids more than guns, who has taken his small-town rural-America values and become an effective and genuinely progressive politician focused on making ordinary people's lives better, he offers a total antidote to MAGAism. He shows that it is possible to be a traditionally manly American straight white guy who is not a gibbering conspiracy theory-addled shitbag dedicated to trampling on everyone else out of reactionary fear. He shows those guys that they can embrace the diverse future and not have to fear it, and he gives them a permission structure to vote for Democrats because it's the right thing to do AND feel that the Democrats are now the real pro-America party.

Basically, right now, Walz is the most popular member on either ticket, and he's crushing Vance into oblivion (there's something like a 27-point difference in their favorable/unfavorable spreads) because Vance is a horrible robotic hateful gremlin and Walz is an authentic and genuine person who a lot of traditionally Republican-affiliated men (and women!) can identify with. He's also the guy who came up with the devastating "weird" attack line that the GOP can do nothing with except splutter and whine, like playground bullies, that no YOU'RE THE WEIRD ONE. He models that it's actually normal to want your leaders to be compassionate human beings who want to use power to make your lives better, and not hateful fascist alt-righters dedicated to making you also hate everyone and be steeped in doom and gloom. That is why people responded so well to Obama in 2008 after the turmoil of the Bush Jr. years, and why this feels even more monumental than Obama. We won't know until the votes are counted, but this giant tsunami just rose out of nowhere when Harris took over, and it's speeding forward in a really incredible way. We've got to do the work and we've got to vote, but if we do, we could absolutely pulverize Trump and MAGA to smithereens in a way that means it wouldn't be able to come back for a good long while, and oh, what a glorious day that would be. So yes.

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Emily Singer at Daily Kos:

Right-wing Republicans are up in arms over a new campaign ad that reminds women their vote is private and they do not need to vote for former President Donald Trump just because their husbands want them to. "In the one place in America where women still have a right to choose, you can vote any way you want, and no one will ever know," actress Julia Roberts narrates in the ad. "Remember, what happens in the booth, stays in the booth. Vote Harris-Walz." Pastor Doug Pagitt, the executive director of Vote Common Good, the group that made the ad, told The Wall Street Journal that he often hears from evangelical women that they feel obligated to vote the same way as their husbands. This ad, he said, gives those women the permission structure to vote for Vice President Kamala Harris. The ad has Trump-supporting Republicans pissed.

Charlie Kirk, whose Turning Point USA organization is working on the turnout operation for Trump’s campaign, said it's horrible that women would “undermine their husbands” even though the husband “works his tail off to make sure that she can have a nice life.” Fox News' Jesse Watters went even further, saying Wednesday night that he would consider it a form of cheating if his wife voted for Harris.  “If I found out Emma was going into the voting booth and pulling the lever for Harris, that's the same thing as having an affair,” Watters said of his wife, who at one point was his mistress during his first marriage. After seeing the Julia Roberts ad, John McEntee, a former Trump White House aide and Project 2025 author joked that giving women the right to vote should be repealed.  “This video has made me rethink the 19th Amendment,” McEntee said. 

Cry more, fragile Republican males! You’re just upset a wave of women are going to vote in Kamala Harris, some of which are married to MAGA men who’ll vote for Donald Trump.

[anamericangirl]

What's telling to me about how sick people can be is that Trump was nearly killed, someone in the crowd WAS killed, multiple other shots went out, the whole thing was a terrifying event that everyone in the world should be able to agree was scary And yet I see the media on the left trying to spin this "Well this is to be expected, he's so radical and so fascist that of course someone tried to kill him" and "#YOUMISSED" is trending on Twitter Mask is fucking off and I'm done hitting Anon when I send asks to you, these people have truly shown they have no empathy, no sympathy, and are bloodthirsty. People get shot up in a school and their first thought is "This is why we need to ban guns" and "This is because of ultra-MAGA"

Some unhinged motherfucker actually attempts to kill the former president and kills someone in the crowd and the left turns it into a fucking hashtag and an opportunity to try to blame it on Trump even though he's the one that got shot at.

The left are fucking deranged, and I know better than most because I used to be ON the left. I shaved half my head, I had blue hair, I lived with liberal pedophiles (literally) in Ohio for 2 years who wore diapers around the house and bitched about Elon Musk and Trump every fucking day. I know these people are psychopaths and now they have finally just outright announced to the world how sick they are.

Even fucking Biden tried to call the hospital Trump was at to ask if he was okay, EVEN DARTH FUCKING BRANDON CARED ABOUT TRUMP and yet these Twitterlibs and liberal media fuckwads are just jumping on the opportunity to go "Aww man #YouMissed, you fired 5 shots how come you couldn't get him, you fucked up, omg"

For fuck sake hate the man all you want but SOMEONE TRIED TO KILL HIM AND AN INNOCENT PERSON'S BRAIN GOT REMOVED FROM THEIR HEAD, FOR FUCK SAKE HAVE AT LEAST A MODICUM OF SYMPATHY FOR ONCE IN YOUR LIFE YOU FUCKING SAVAGES.

If this doesn't turn people away from the democrat party then nothing will. Trump was not the only victim of this shooting. A couple of people were injured, an innocent person was killed and still the only thing we hear from leftists is annoyance that the shooter missed.

And while we are rightly angry at the spins the msm is putting on this assassination attempt, they have to put that spin on it or eat their words for the last 8 years. They've been characterizing Trump as a fascist tyrannical dictator since 2016. They've spun him to be Hitler 2.0 telling everyone he's a threat to democracy and leading people to believe he's a threat to their very lives. The "trans genocide" and "kids in cages" the "don't say gay" bill all that nonsense is always, always linked back to Trump and if they turn around now and condemn this attempt on his life what would that say about them? Either they will have to expose themselves as the liars and propagandists they are or they will have to be seen as being sympathetic towards literally Hitler. And narrative is more important to them than anything.

Which explains why they were trying to avoid reporting what happened like the plague. The headlines I saw in the aftermath, after we already knew Trump had actually been hit by the bullet were things like "Trump escorted offstage after gun shots were heard." "Loud popping noise heard at Trump rally." And other variations of that headline. And still leftists don't question why after Trump was shot every single mainstream media outlet had the same headline and they all avoided saying Trump had been shot or an assassination attempt had been made.

They can’t come out and say this was wrong because it will mean they will have to admit to something even worse: that they were wrong.

But of course the people currently in office can't come out and condone the shooting. That would look very bad. So yeah, it's good that Biden stood up there and said the right words and made an effort to contact Trump but how convenient that this happened a mere couple of weeks after the democratic party has abandoned and turned on Biden so his words and condemnation will be buried and ignored and mean nothing.

For the last 8 years, though, Joe Biden and every other democrat in office, paired with the media, have been villainizing Trump for his rhetoric. Everything bad thing that happened was directly the fault of Trump because of his "dangerous rhetoric." But the rhetoric they've employed against Trump and all conservatives since that time has been the worst fearmongering and slander I've ever seen so they are directly to blame for this shooting because of their rhetoric. No more "rules for thee but not for me." They have to live in the world they made.

Leftism, as I'm sure you've seen first hand what with your experience of being one and living in that environment, is no longer about what you support, it's just about who you hate. And every sane person still aligned with them is waking up. The mask has been slipping for years and most of us were able to see who they really were way before it fully fell off but there is no mask now. They're not even trying to hide it.

They have the ideas they pretend to support when told to, but all leftists are only united by one thing: hate.

Their heroes are criminals like Michael Brown, George Floyd and Trayvon Martin. And they hate police until they shoot and kill Ashli Babbitt who's only crime was being a Trump supporter at the capitol on January 6.

They still bemoan the killing of a pedophile, wife beater and injury of a career criminal who were shot because they tried to murder a child while villainizing the child they tried to kill because he successfully defended himself against their attack.

To this day they spin their violent riots as "mostly peaceful protests" while the January 6 protest was a "violent insurrection."

The rapes and murder on October 7 were a justified response to "occupation" but anything Israel does is "genocide."

During covid they freaked out about "public health" and wanted everyone vaxxed and masked to "save lives" but when Trump got covid they all immediately wanted it to kill him.

When a white boy shoots up a school it’s an example of how evil white people and right wing gun nuts are but when a trans person shot children at a Christian elementary school the main focus of leftists, all the way up to the White House, was the danger the trans community would allegedly be in from right wing retaliatory violence and how “hateful Christian rhetoric” was responsible for the shooting.

And none of this has anything to do with the values they claim to adhere to. All of their positions on every single issue come down to who it is they hate the most of the people involved. So their "values” change by the second.

So the violence, depravity and dangerous rhetoric is pretty much 100% on their side but watch them try and spin this assassination on Trump as Trump's own fault. And watch leftists just unquestioningly go with it or just try to distract people with more fear mongering about Project 2025 or something else stupid like that.

The only thing that bothers them about this shooting, other than the fact that the shooter "missed', is that this has pretty much guaranteed Trump is going to win the election. And of course they can't stand that after all they've done to try and make sure that doesn't happen.

[poorrichardjr]

I am sure a lot of you are like me and either listening to the info drop about Trump from Jack Smith, or reading it yourself.

This is when I wish America still had a sense of reality and responsibility on more than one side of the political aisle. Democrats are going to hear about this and understand that Trump broke the law and should be the first of many people going to be headed to prison for his crimes. If the allegations are true, and we are going to get an addendum with evidence for the claims in a few days, then Trump is cooked. He broke the law and is definitely going to be spending time in prison.

The thing is, right wing media is going into overdrive trying to obfuscate what this info drop means. They are going to claim it is just more proof of political persecution, try to say that the evidence is just from lying democrats or rino's who have it out for the great man, ignore much of the info when they can, try to say what was done had to be done as an official act, and finally go to their standby of saying that sure it may be a crime, but it is all just minor things in the pursuit of the truth. They cannot admit the truth to their audience, and even if they did, it is unlikely that MAGA will believe it anyway.

I can remember the time when just the hint of an affair or allegations of wrongdoing would be enough to have a politician step aside "for the good of the country." The age of Trump and republican collusion has thrown all that out the window. They don't care if their guys commit even the most vile crimes simply because their guys aren't democrats.

America needs to repudiate Trump, his allies, and every single person involved in this attempt to overthrow the election. There is no other way to get back to some sense of reality and morality.

[justagalwhowrites]

The Campaign - A TSATS One Shot

You're doing your part to get out the vote and Joel is doing his part to protect you while you do. AKA Bodyguard!Joel beats the shit out of a Trump voter.

Pairing: Bodyguard!Joel Miller x Movie Star!Female Reader (from The Savage and the Sanctuary)

CW: Joel beating the shit out of a Trump supporter. That's it, that's the fic. Also mentions of the misery that's befallen us since Trump and all the general misogynistic bullshit of this Godforsaken timeline. No use of Y/N.

Length: 1.1k

A/N: Look. I desperately want to beat the shit out of everyone I see wearing a MAGA hat but, unlike (my version of) Joel, I'm not a 6'5" man with years of experience beating the shit out of people so I can't. Wishing exactly what they voted for on every Trump voter there is and then this too because they deserve it. OK ENJOY LOVE YOU!

Joel was about ready to strangle you. 

Why the fuck you’d volunteered to go out and try to get a bunch of fucking college kids to vote was beyond him. Sure, he knew the election was important, but did that really mean you needed to personally go try to talk to as many idiots as possible in an unsecured area? 

He ground his teeth. You were standing on campus, surrounded by a mob of 20-somethings, each with their fucking phone in hand so he couldn’t even tell if someone was holding a goddamn weapon. Anything was safer than this and yet, here you were, doing it anyway. 

“Can I get a selfie?” One girl asked, practically glowing at the sight of you. 

“Of course!” You said and you smiled and put your face next to hers so she could take a photo. “Can I convince you to vote in the upcoming election? We really need voices like yours to be heard loud and clear.” 

“Definitely,” she said. “I already have a plan for getting there!” 

“That’s what we like to hear!” You said. “Just go online, make sure you’re registered and that you know your polling place and the times. Sound good?” 

She didn’t get a chance to respond, a man in a red Trump hat shoving his way through the crowd, pushing a student into and making you stumble. 

“Hey!” Someone in the crowd protested the intrusion but the man ignored him. 

“The hell do you think you’re doin’?” The man got in your face. “We don’t want your coastal elite bullshit getting mixed up in our government!” 

Joel went to intervene but you held a hand out, stopping him. He clenched his jaw but obeyed, standing at the ready in case things got out of hand. 

“I understand,” you said gently. “I’d probably be upset, too, if I were you. But it’s my government, too. I live in Austin, I love it here and part of showing that love is getting involved…” 

“I don’t give a shit,” he stepped closer. “Get the fuck out of here and leave our kids alone, you fucking bitch!” 

He went to shove you and Joel stepped in then, putting himself between you and the fucking Trump guy before he could lay a hand on you. The man’s hands ended up square in Joel’s stomach, bouncing off almost comically. 

The man was shorter than Joel and definitely weaker. He tilted his head back to look Joel in the eye, an unkempt beard growing in on his neck, his eyes narrowed.  

“That was a mistake,” Joel said, his voice dark and deep. 

“Joel,” your hand went to his shoulder but he shrugged you off. Yes, he was here to protect you but your almost callus disregard for your own safety made him want to pull his goddamn hair out and now, here you were, ready to just let this asshole off without any consequences. 

And fuck if this man didn’t deserve some fucking consequences.

“Need to you to apologize to the lady,” Joel said. “And take that fuckin’ hat off before I shove it up your ass.” 

“If you think I’m about to just let her indoctrinate a bunch of kids…” 

The man made the mistake of leaning around Joel, starting to reach in your direction, and Joel’s patience was nearing its end. 

He shoved the man back before he even really thought about it, making him stumble and sending college kids scrambling back. 

“Joel -“ your voice was sharper now, but he ignored you. 

“Step back,” Joel said, his hands clenching into fists. “Last warning.” 

“Fuck you,” the man said, stalking up to Joel again. “And fuck that bitch, too.” 

Joel’s fist caught the man off guard, not even getting the chance to flinch before it connected with his face. 

The man cried out, stumbling and disoriented, but Joel stalked after him, catching him on the chin and sending him sprawling to the ground. 

“Joel!” You yelled, but you seemed far away in that moment.

Instead, Sarah seemed close. He thought about the 2016 election, when Trump won and Sarah was all of 12 years old. She’d just started getting interested in shit like politics, she was excited about a woman running for president and Joel’d had to explain to her why someone would say something like “grab ‘em by the pussy” and have half the fucking country voting for him. 

Things had only gotten worse in the years since. He had to explain Brett fucking Kavanaugh to his daughter, had to watch as fucking Nazis burned torches and marched through the streets with her, had to just sit there as assholes like this man in his red goddamn hat tried to make life worse for her. 

Back when he had her, he had a reason to keep his nose clean and stay out of trouble, even when dealing with assholes like this. That reason was gone now and so Joel did what he’d been wishing he could for the last damn decade. 

The man tried to get up from his place on the ground but Joel didn’t let him, all but diving on him, grabbing him by the collar and holding him there so he could land blow after blow on his face. He clumsily tried to swing at Joel but he didn’t even feel it. When that failed, his hands scrabbled over Joel’s arms, trying to pull himself free. It didn’t work, either.

Hitting the man again and again hurt but it was a strangely satisfying kind of hurt, one that felt just and righteous, like Joel was finally doing something that was worthwhile. He was hurting someone who deserved it, he was protecting you, he was defending a world that would have been better for his daughter. 

“Joel!” You pulled hard enough on his shoulder that he was forced to pay attention. He was panting for breath, his knuckles bloody, the man’s face a mess. He looked back toward you, at your wide eyes in your unsettlingly perfect face. You looked afraid, but not of him. You were afraid for him. “You can’t do this, you can’t just… Joel, you have to stop.” 

He dropped the man to the ground where he lay, moaning, cradling his broken face. Joel ripped the hat off his head and he groaned in pain. 

“Should’ve listened,” he said, before holding up the hat. “I’m keepin’ this. Get fucked.” 

You looped your arm around Joel’s waist, pulling him against your side and he could have sworn he saw the hint of a smile on your face as you led him away. 

[milverton]

I watch Jake Broe's update videos on the war in Ukraine pretty religiously, so I wanted to share what he had to say in his latest video because I at least felt a little better about this whole new trumpocalypse fiasco after hearing some of the points he made.

Here's his tweet that summarises what he says in the video, but I would recommend still watching the whole thing! (I've bolded the main points)

Okay! We all needed a day to reflect on what happened and I have good news and bad news for Ukraine about Trump returning to the US Presidency.

Let's start with the bad news for Ukraine…

Trump could end all US military cooperation

Trump could lift all sanctions on Russia

Trump could return all frozen assets to Russia

Yes, that is all very bad, but there might be good news.

First, Trump is always transactional. It does not matter if Russia was helping Trump or not in the past, Trump does not feel like he owes anyone anything for past favors. If Trump ever gives something up, then he will want something in return at the same time.

Russia will make demands that Trump is happy to accommodate, but only if Russia agrees to something that makes Trump look good. If Russia refuses, then Trump will rapidly escalate against Russia out of spite. American weapons in Ukrainian hands have already killed hundreds of thousands of Russian soldiers. Putin might refuse any kind of transactional deal with Trump. Nobody knows what either Trump or Putin will do. Trump could inadvertently destabilize Russia without even meaning to.

Second, Trump does not take over until January 20th, which means we know for a fact that Russia is not going to use a nuclear weapon before Trump returns to office. Russia is not going to start a nuclear war if they think Trump will give them favorable terms. Meaning there is no risk of escalation management the next two months. Take the gloves off!

For the next two months Ukraine should be given permission to hit whatever they want with whatever is given to them anywhere on Russian territory. Additionally, Biden now is forced to rush deliver and allocate the rest of America's available funds allocated by Congress to Ukraine this winter.

If instead Harris was re-elected and MAGA controlled Congress, military aid would have ended anyways and Biden would have tried to stretch these funds out until next summer. Biden can't do that now. So Ukraine is actually going to get a huge boost in military aid right away.

Third, even though I do not think Trump cares at all about Ukraine, he does care about his own image and legacy. He is never running for office ever again, but he loves to be loved by his supporters. He does not want to look weak and if Ukraine refuses to a negotiated capitulation and instead fights on without US help, these are going to be top headlines daily (maybe the fall of Kharkiv or the fall of Odesa) and this will make Trump look weak. He hates that. These would be images that would look worse for America than the US withdrawal of Afghanistan.

Forth, Trump hates Iran. Trump fiercely supports Israel and Iran is currently trying to destroy Israel. If Trump takes any military action against Iran (or looks the other way when Israel does) this could weaken or cripple one of Russia's most important allies. Harris was never going to do anything about Iran. Trump might actually cripple Iran and their Russian allied proxies in the Middle East.

Fifth, Trump loves the idea of cheap oil. He might actually find ways (cutting regulations, building more pipes, granting access to more public lands) that brings the global price of oil down so much that this ends up bankrupting Russia faster. That is not Trump's goal, but he might accidentally do it.

Sixth, Europe might finally militarily wake up once Trump stops answering their phone calls. Europe has the population and the economic power to support Ukraine and defeat the Russians without America's help. This is Europe's moment. They can't use America as an excuse anymore for holding them back.

Lastly… this is crazy, but Trump's economic plan of tariffs and trade wars might actually trigger a massive recession in the United States. When the US goes into recession, this almost always triggers a global recession. We realistically need an economic collapse of Russia to defeat them and Trump might accidentally cause this without even wanting to.

It is all weird to think about. But we just do not know what will happen or what the state of the war will be three months from now. It is a complete mystery to everyone, including the Russians.

Keep supporting Ukraine. Russia will be defeated.

[deadpresidents]

Thanks for being real today.

I get people wanting to be hopeful.

But I can't with "it will be okay" and "we will survive this."

It was not okay for Heather Heyer, Joseph Rosenbaum, Anthony Huber, Joyce Fienberg, Richard Gottfried, Rose Mallinger, Jerry Rabinowitz, Cecil & David Rosenthal, Bernice & Sylvan Simon, Daniel Stein, Melvin Wax, Irving Younger, Andre Anchondo, Jordan Anchondo, Arturo Benavides, Leonardo Campos, Angie Englisbee, Maria Flores, Raul Flores, Guillermo "Memo" Garcia, Jorge Calvillo García, Adolfo Cerros Hernández, Alexander Gerhard Hoffman, David Johnson, Luis Alfonzo Juarez, Maria Eugenia Legarreta Rothe, Maribel (Campos) Loya, Ivan Filiberto Manzano, Elsa Mendoza Marquez, Gloria Irma Márquez, Margie Reckard, Sara Esther Regalado Moriel, Javier Rodriguez, Teresa Sanchez, Juan Velazquez, or any of the other people killed by white supremacists whose actions were aided and abetted by the Trump presidency. These people did not survive. Not to mention all the people who haven't survived COVID, but might have if the Trump administration had taken timely action. Or the women who have died after being refused appropriate medical care because of the rapist and his buddies that Trump appointed decided with some weird pastor in the 1600 said was more important than the lives of actual living, breathing, human beings. Or the school children who would not have been shot to death if we had actual gun control laws in this country, a thing that would have been possible to achieve if Trump had lost in 2016.

Yeah, sure, the majority of us in the United States will probably survive. That's how statistics work. And if that's what somebody needs to hear in order to move forward, then I guess saying such things has a purpose. But it's looking pretty shitty for anybody living in Ukraine and to me, it comes across as disrespectful to the people whose lives have been lost in no small part thanks to what goes down in US elections.

I needed somebody today who would say not only that this is not okay, but this is *really* not okay.

Thanks for being that voice.

Thank you for this. I can't help but write what I feel, even if some of it hasn't been the most optimistic message to send. There is a reality that we need to come to terms with in order to find some way forward. I'm pissed off and I'm disgusted with this country, so I'm going to keep doing what I've been doing because it is therapeutic for me right now and I'm too old to go around punching and kicking people.

I do want to say that I'm also cognizant of the fact that some people just need some time to allow this reality to settle. I certainly don't want to add to the stress or darkness that some of us are feeling right now. There is no denying that this is fucking terrible, but we will regroup and find a way through it. It won't be easy and we're going to have to fight, but I don't want anybody to think that there is genuinely no hope. There's always something that we can do, even if it seems bleak.

If I'm writing something or somebody else is saying something that you're not ready to hear, it's okay to do what you need to do to remain healthy. These posts are going to be here whenever you might feel like reading them. You can and should step away from this if you just need a fucking break. It doesn't mean you're any less ready or willing to fight this battle than anybody else. Even if Trump and the rotten MAGA cult takes control of every lever of power, you can gain a personal victory by not allowing them to completely crush your faith in the future. You can be depressed and despair, but do not give up. Do not give them that power over you. We will find a way. We will get through this. We will figure out what it is that we need to do and who we need to back and how we need to attack, but taking care of your personal health and well-being is more immediately important than the bigger political battle or the next step in the resistance. Take care of yourselves first and we'll still be here and ready to eventually harness this anger and frustration and fucking disgust to defeat the MAGA movement and Trump's Christian nationalist personality cult.

The main thing, though, is that if you're really having a tough time in the immediate future, step away, take some time, go for a walk, read something that has absolutely nothing to do with Donald Trump or American politics (if you need suggestions, I always have book recommendations!), and regroup. Again, we'll get through this, and as goofy and weird and ridiculous as Tumblr can be at times, there's always a community of people on this site willing to listen and help each other when we're struggling. So, if you are having trouble getting to tomorrow, reach out because there are scores of people here who will help get there with you.

[gothams-gotchya]

Just in case anybody doesn't know where I stand. I got into an argument with a coworker today and I think its time to set the record straight.

I want Kamala to win so bad. For many reasons, but thus far, at this point in my life, the biggest reason I want her to win: because so many MAGA fuckers are going to cry. I mean they are literally going to cry. I will relish in their tears.

I have no control over my body? Fuck you.

I can't identify how I want to identify? Fuck you.

I can't have free access to education or healthcare? Fuck you.

These MAGA assholes know what the Democrats are trying to do and yet, they continue to bash them, they continue to come up with false stories, they continue to ignore all the good that comes from our policies.

Don't let these people fool you. I have met some very intelligient MAGA drones. These people went to liberal colleges. These people are doctors and lawyers. They are not idiots. They don't want separation of church and state. They want an authoritarian regime. They want control. They know what they want.

So when Kamala wins, I want to see them cry. They all can suck cock.

That's where I stand. I do not care about their feelings if they refuse to care about me. They're cowards and limp dicks. People need to stop acting like they don't know any better. These people are not stupid.

If I have to hear one more time, "You can't blame them, they're brainwashed." I am going to lose my shit. These people are the same people that said Sandy Hook was staged. They aren't fuckin' brainwashed. This is who they are.

[vomitdodger]

This is classic psyop.

If you followed the news it went exactly as you’d expect with escalating weapons and survival training to build the narrative. It went from “additional training” to “firearms expert” to “firearms trainer” to “sniper”. The guy is a big nothing burger.

The weapon is alleged to have come from the base armory. Anyone in the military can tell you the ten different ways that couldn’t happen by a single individual. MULTIPLE access and locks needed to breach. Motion sensors. Burglar alarms. It didn’t happen. Period

Apparently it is alleged he was fitted with a very intense “hearing aid”. THEN he started to hear “the voices”. Hmmm. Can’t confirm this but much talk of it happening.

Much finger pointing at the MAGA crowd and “aSsAuLT wEaPoNs” but no asking anything about his treatment or medications or family concerns. And Maine is a red flag state. Where are the comments by people MOST in the know? They are suspiciously absent.

The real questions aren’t being asked by the media and they’re busy building a narrative.

Classic psyop. And likely false flag.