#Populists

[buffboybucko]

Rant below, sorry for its length.

My (hard-leaning) republican father doesn’t believe in the constitution anymore, I’m fuckin scared man.

As soon as I say “Trump doesn’t care about the bill of rights” or “he’s disobeying the Supreme Court and king established law” it’s all “Joe Biden did that too”, I’m sure he did, every president does but not to THIS SCALE.

He’s outright shipping regular people out like cargo to a complex and outright ignoring basic law regarding rights, not to mention the tariffs threatening to wipe the economy while the rich just continue to line their pockets, not that I’m surprised, he’s forced the feds to drop cases against large companies (most of the cases regarding citizens and environmental rights).

I love my father, but I feel like he’s a cultist at this point, he doesn’t think at all, its all “Well others did this, so he can do whatever he wants to stop this in term!” Absolute after absolute, no compromises are allowed in his mind when combatting “the left”, whatever that means. He sounds like McCarthy in the Cold War for Christ’s sake, “You like workers rights? You think workers should be paid fairly? You’re a communist!”

One of the major reasons why he likes trump was because his tax cuts in his first term, allowing us to live a lot for comfortably at the time, yet he never takes into account the stupidity of his new policies soon to cost us dearly in tariffs, public service cuts, and MORE tax cuts for the rich. Yippee, our national parks are falling apart more, amenities are rising in cost AGAIN, and billionaires get more private jets, yay indeed.

Preface for next part: I brought up how I’m scared of cops (he’s a retired one) because they can end your life (literally or economically) with no consequences in a single moment, that’s all it takes. Then he goes on about “So you belief all cops are bad?” No, just dangerous.

Anyway, he brought up the previous thing when I stated NOT THE WHOLE of the Democratic Party (around 50% of America, or 165 million give or take) believe men can have menstrual cycles, few believe that afterall, basic anatomy not to mention a straw man argument, “Not all democrats are bad? Well not all cops are bad!” Stop changing the subject #1, #2 you’re just spouting random claims you heard from Ben Shapiro. (This point is continued halfway through the next paragraph)

He says “all democrats are evil”, and “they’re all idiots”, I don’t agree with a lot of their policies sure but that doesn’t immediately mean they’re all orks wanting our deaths and downfalls, a two party system is bound to have parties within parties, people who cry out stupid things that don’t resonate with 99% of the others, yet he thinks that 1% means the 100% overall. That people who don’t agree with him are fundamentally flawed and don’t deserve any quarter or argument against his own opinions.

There are radicals within moderates, yet he only sees black and white. Good or bad. Right and wrong. He refuses to budge on that. He’s starting to be a radical himself, someone who refuses to listen to any reasoning of the other side, ready to argue with anyone who doesn’t like his beliefs, that is him by definition now.

He doesn’t even believe that America should be free towards the average person anymore, “Don’t tax the rich, they pay enough as is!”, or “Trans people shouldn’t exist!”, people have rights, rights to services under the government, rights to services and rights to do what they wish as long as it isn’t hurting anyone, that’s the whole reason America was formed! (Minus the slave part lol)

His whole anti-trans argument in powered by “Kids shouldn’t be pressured by their parents and others into it! They’ll regret it down the line! They’re too young!”, you do realize there are already age requirements set in, right? 16 is the age of sexual consent, and transitional consent as well, they can do what they want past that point. Not to mention, it’s shown consistently by hundreds of studies have less than 3% regret it.

At the end of the day, he’s a like a fish to a line when it comes to arguments like “We have to protect people from themselves!”, when it comes to life-impacting decisions like this I understand regulations should be in place, but they already are.

Jesus fucking Christ man.

You wanna know something funny?

He hates the Mormons, Scientologists, etc., I do too afterall, I think large, violent, and suppressive organizations like them should have their tax rights stripped away on large scales. They’ve gained too much power afterall, owning entire towns and hundreds billions in assets, they’re beginning to be shadow states within the larger nation. But when large companies pollute the entireties of America with PFAS’ or just dump tons and tons plastic in the oceans, buy out senators or as seen with trumps campaign, donate BILLIONS in obvious bribes, not a fuckin peep.

Another point-

“We have to get rid of all illegal immigrants, they’re costing American money and lives” is all fine in his books, but Major American companies gaining hundreds of billions of financial support and tax cuts to “support American jobs” while they buy mansion after mansion is a wonderfully fine thing to invest in. The hypocrisy is so so close to his face he thinks it’s a fuckin wall, one that’ll smack him in the face I hope.

I wish we had FDR back, a man long before my lifetime that took the powerful by the balls and forged a new nation out of sheer willpower.

FDR bypassed plenty of laws to do his work within his executive orders, something trump tries to do as well with the opposite of success due to sheer incompetence.

“I’ll run america like a buisness” Trump says, mf, you’ve been bankrupt FOUR TIMES. Running a business means massive profits at the cost of everyone else involved, and he can’t even do that correctly!

I don’t know anymore man, I wish America wasn’t run like an incompetent empire, not that us going back to isolationism would solve our problems. I just wish we were more open again, open to the present that has changed. So many of us try to find their place in it while clinging to what they know, to what people shout it to be the truth in a sea of beliefs. I understand we’re in a turbulent place, but there’s no reason to take others rights and harm future generations becuase of our own inaction to save the environment and average person, “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness” don’t mean anything to my father anymore, and it scares me.

TLDR: My dad has shut down basic thought, says I have while spouting rhetoric without thought. He doesn’t believe in the constitution anymore and is becoming a McCarthy lover. Idk what to do man.

Also, I sent him the image below and he said “you’re sounding more like a democrat every day” and “you’re being a liberal”, well sorry for liking my rights as an American I guess. I wish I could just teleport the founding fathers back (man’s maybe ensure a lack of racism in them lol), I wouldn’t want to disturb old George as he was pretty tired of politics, but he’d be listened to and fight at a moments notice for the average person, and at this point, it’s all I want from a politician.

[florencekinnie-slash-hj]

I looked up Hasan on here because I thought there would maybe be some fun fanart or some interesting political takes

Instead it’s a bunch of horny shit

[askbensolo]

how is your mom's job

I am continuing to resist my mother’s clear will for me to join her office staff. I told her that once I post my novel, I’m gonna go right back to job hunting.

I already told you I don’t want to work an administrative job. No offense…but to me those are jobs where you don’t really do anything. You just do stuff so that other people can do stuff: put things on the calendar, make purchase orders, fill the caf machine. It just doesn’t seem fulfilling.

The other thing is…I don’t want to work in politics. Yeah, yeah—I know I was the Politics Hyperfixation Guy for a long time—but I’m kinda over it at this point. I think I liked politics so much because I was thirteen and I didn’t understand how they played out in the real galaxy. In the year 30 ABY, it’s just depressing.

Fannie and I used to argue because she didn’t really care about politics. (Granted, she’s not a New Republic citizen—but she didn’t even know who the Rylothian emissary was.) I thought she was just being, y’know, a bury-your-head-in-the-sand Jedi freak…but honestly, a lot of it is worthless. Bipartisanship is dead. The Populists and the Centrists fight way too much to get anything done. And it feels like everything they do accomplish is only done in the name of, like, owning the other party.

At this point, I think the New Republic just needs to split in half. Let the Centrists go their own way and build a government the way they want it, and all the worlds that want to be under Centrist government can follow them. And then the Populists can do what they want to do, and all the worlds that want to be under Populist principles can stay in the New Republic. Everyone’s happy!

Mom disagrees. She says that she would rather live in a governing system where people of different perspectives can come together and compromise, instead of separating over irreconcilable differences.

“Besides,” she said, with something like fire in her eyes, “I am not letting my babies live through a second Galactic Civil War.”

[tomorrowusa]

« Rightwing populists can often win the culture wars. But mishandling the economy is much harder to explain away. If Maga makes Americans poorer, Trump and his movement are likely to pay the price. »

— Gideon Rachman at the Financial Times (archived).

Always keep in mind James Carville's comment on the white board at Bill Clinton's 1992 campaign headquarters...

It's the economy, stupid.

Talking about democracy and DEI may get us some nods, but it's stuff that has economic impact that is far more likely to get us votes. And Trump is wasting no time in fucking over the US economy.

When possible, refer to tariffs as "the Trump tax", inflation as "Trumpflation", and tax cuts as "MAGA tax breaks for billionaires". Any effective messaging depends on repetition. So don't be shy about repeating.

The economy may not be your main issue, but not emphasizing the economy enough will result in in other issues being undercut.

[galerymod]

Politicians and leaders who see the media as 'the enemy within' divide society into two clashing cultural camps. Populist demagogues benefit from binary oppositions.

Elif Safak

It's interesting how some people view the world. The fact that demonstrators are paid for the issues they take to the streets is, in conclusion, an indictment of the person who made the statement. After all, they must be spending a lot of money to keep thier supporters on board.

mod

There are people who have convictions, while others are paid for them.

[next-pres]

[awesome-casuallyfamouscollector]

The real socialism, created not by theoreticians and stupid populists, but by communists, looked like this - empty shops and poor residents, while "leaders" enjoyed the benefits created by "capitalists" in special stores: The uniqueness of this photo is that it shows not only a "happy" Russian past, but also their "bright" future towards empty shops and mass poverty... Soviet Union, after WWII (sometime after WWII, a Russian store could look so empty both in the 1950s and just as well in the 1980s)

P.S. No matter how ridiculous it is, there have always been quite a lot of political idiots useful to the Kremlin in the West, who believe that they should befriend with Moscow...In the modern West, the role of this useful idiots has been taken on by various not only left-wing socialists and communists, but also by right-wing and ultra-right-wing foolish populists...

[adeerus]

Every time, a new leader proclaims a new dawn, ascent assured—yet once more the followers dance in gilded circles, puppets of the system beneath the masquerade of history.

[askbensolo]

This “First Senator” thing has got me really worried.

I’ll fill you in, in case you’re not a New Republic citizen: Arkanisian Senator Carise Sindian just proposed an amendment to replace the chancellor with a new title called “First Senator.”

The name itself is deceptive. Like so much else in the New Republic, it’s dripping with false equality. We got rid of the Senate pods because “no one’s voice should be elevated above another,” but that doesn’t keep certain senators from dominating the floor. The senatorial complex was built flat to prevent any suggestion of rank, but the least important offices are still stationed at the peripheries.

The title “First Senator” is meant to sound innocuous. Like it’s just another senator with a captain’s hat on. But it’s not. Sindian proposed that the First Senator be given “real authority over economic and military matters” (what exactly that entails has yet to be defined).

This is not a senator. This is an executive head of state.

I can understand why this would sound appealing. Notoriously, the New Republic Senate doesn’t get poodoo done, especially as the partisan divide yawns wider. Populists and Centrists spend most of their time blocking each others’ actions instead of collaborating. An executive head of state could cut through all the bickering and finally make things happen.

But a First Senator isn’t going to be an antidote to the Populist/Centrist gridlock. Yeah, it might get rid of it—but only by launching us into a whole new problem.

The past decade has shown that Populists and Centrists are no longer willing to find middle ground on, well—anything. When it comes time to elect First Senator, what options do you think they will give us? Do you think we will be offered a moderate who will temper the two? Or do you think each side will offer their most dominant voice and strongest personality, and we will be forced to choose under whose rule we want to live?

Yes, we have a single-year election cycle. Yes, it means a bad First Senator can be swiftly voted out of office within a year. But think about the whiplash if the swing planets switch sides every election and we have to bounce back and forth between two extreme administrations. We still wouldn’t get anything done. Each First Senator would spend most of their office dismantling what the previous one did, and slapdashedly building as much as they can before the next First Senator takes it down.

Essentially, we will be suffering the exact same problem—only now they’re gonna be spending money on it.

I don’t know what the solution is. I’m a journalist, not a political analyst. But I pay attention, and I pay taxes—and I have got a bad feeling about this.

[tomorrowusa]

Rodrigo Duterte, autocratic former president of the Philippines, has been arrested and is being flown to The Hague to face charges of crimes against humanity. 👍🏼

Philippine police have arrested former President Rodrigo Duterte after the International Criminal Court (ICC) issued a warrant accusing him of crimes against humanity over his deadly "war on drugs". The 79-year-old was taken into police custody shortly after his arrival at Manila airport from Hong Kong. He has offered no apologies for his brutal anti-drugs crackdown, which saw thousands of people killed when he was president of the South East Asian nation from 2016 to 2022, and mayor of Davao city before that. [ ... ]

The ICC earlier said that it has jurisdiction in the Philippines over alleged crimes committed before the country withdrew as a member. But activists called the arrest a "historic moment" for those who perished in his drug war and their families, the International Coalition for Human Rights in the Philippines (ICHRP) said. "The arc of the moral universe is long, but today, it has bent towards justice. Duterte's arrest is the beginning of accountability for the mass killings that defined his brutal rule," said ICHRP chairman Peter Murphy. Duterte had been in Hong Kong to campaign for the upcoming 12 May mid-term elections, where he had planned to run again for mayor of Davao. Footage aired on local television showed him walking out of the airport using a cane. Authorities say he is in "good health" and is being cared for by government doctors.

Holding rogue leaders accountable is essential if there is to be such a thing as the rule of law. The arrest of Duterte is a major step forward.

Duterte's arrest marks the "beginning of a new chapter in Philippine history", said Filipino political scientist Richard Heydarian. "This is about rule of law and human rights," he said.

As president he may have killed as many as 6,000 people without trial. And that doesn't count his time as mayor of Davao.

Duterte served as mayor of Davao, a sprawling southern metropolis, for 22 years and has made it one of the country's safest from street crimes. He used the city's peace-and-order reputation to cast himself as a tough-talking anti-establishment politician to win the 2016 elections by a landslide. With fiery rhetoric, he rallied security forces to shoot drug suspects dead. More than 6,000 suspects were gunned down by police or unknown assailants during the campaign, but rights groups say the number could be higher. A previous UN report found that most victims were young, poor urban males and that police, who do not need search or arrest warrants to conduct house raids, systematically forced suspects to make self-incriminating statements or risk facing lethal force. Critics said the campaign targeted street-level pushers and failed to catch big-time drug lords. Many families also claimed that the victims - their sons, brothers or husbands - were simply in the wrong place at the wrong time. Investigations in parliament pointed to a shadowy "death squad" of bounty hunters targeting drug suspects. Duterte has denied the allegations of abuse. "Do not question my policies because I offer no apologies, no excuses. I did what I had to do, and whether or not you believe it... I did it for my country," Duterte told a parliament investigation in October.

Duterte took the law into his own hands. Now he's in the hands of the law.

Donald Trump can't be too happy about the arrest of Duterte and that of impeached President Yoon Suk Yeol of South Korea.

Duterte idolized Trump and Putin and appeased China.

His populist rhetoric and blunt statements earned him the moniker "Donald Trump of the East". He has called Russian President Vladimir Putin his "idol" and under his administration, the Philippines' pivoted their foreign policy to China away from the US, its long-standing ally. Marcos restored Manila's ties with Washington and criticised the Duterte government for being "Chinese lackeys" as the Philippines is locked in sea dispute with China.

Duterte's daughter Sara is the current vice president of the Philippines. She is being impeached for corruption and for making death threats against President Ferdinand "Bongbong" Marcos Jr..

Philippines feud escalates as lawmakers vote to impeach vice-president

The arrest of wannabe dictators should make Trump look over his shoulder more often.

[quotesfromall]

In 1896 the Populists fused into the Democratic Party. With the defeat of Democratic presidential candidate William Jennings Bryan and with the Democrats successfully launching white unity campaigns in the South, the Populists gradually disappeared as a political force.

Richard Wormser, Populist Party

[russia-libertaire]

Russian Populism

"The central populist goals were social justice and social equality. Most of them were convinced, following Herzen, whose revolutionary propaganda in the 1850s influenced them more than any other single set of ideas, that the essence of a just and equal society existed already in the Russian peasant commune - the obshchina organised in the form of a collective unit called the mir. The mir was a free association of peasants which periodically redistributed the agricultural land to be tilled; its decisions bound all its members, and constituted the cornerstone on which, so the populists maintained, a federation of socialised, self-governing units, conceived along the lines popularised by the French socialist Proudhon, could be erected."

'A Remarkable Decade', in Russian Thinkers, by Isaiah Berlin

[awesome-casuallyfamouscollector]

The 5 Laws of Human Stupidity That You Must Know!

Learn about the 5 basic laws of human stupidity according to renowned historian Carlo M. Cipolla. With examples from history, discover the logic (or lack thereof) behind human foolishness. From the rise of Nazi Germany to everyday life, these laws will change the way you think about stupidity forever.

[judyfaylondon]

He used populism as one of his tools to attract followers #democracymatt...

[kamalkafir-blog]

Democracy at stake as populists battle mayors in EU’s troubled east

[News] This article is an onsite version of our Europe Express newsletter. Sign up here to get the newsletter sent straight to your inbox every weekday and fortnightly on Saturday morning. Explore all of our newsletters here Welcome back. The election campaigns in Romania and Poland came together this week in the southern Polish city of Zabrze. George Simion, the ultranationalist frontrunner in…

[askbensolo]

Hey. Hey. Did you ever get a chance to meet Ransolm Casterfo? I feel like the two of you would get along on a neoimperialist front.

You mean Senator Casterfo? He’s, uh…the Riosan guy, yeah?

(For context: this is an old old ask. I am no longer a neoimperialist. I was also FIFTEEN when I claimed to be, and frankly I just didn’t know what I was talking about.)

…Hold on. Casterfo’s an neoimperialist? I mean, I know he’s a Centrist, but, like—is he actually pro-Empire? When did he say that? How has he not been booed out of office already?

Or…wait. Are you just another Populist running a smear campaign?

…Man, I never know what to believe anymore. Or who to believe.

Casterfo’s one of the younger senators. Maybe seven or eight years older than me. There was that meme about him a while back—the one that was like, “I’m not interested in politics,” and then it would show a hot holo of him and say “I am very interested in politics”—you ever see that?

It was kinda funny. Until the Centrist party caught ahold of it and started using it for campaigns. Then it just became cringe.

Anyway…I’ve never been introduced to Senator Casterfo, no. Seen him around a lot, though. At social functions and such. Unfortunately, Populists and Centrists are about as unwilling to mingle at a gala dinner as they are unwilling to practice bipartisanship on the floor.

I’m not a Populist, to be clear. Nor am I a Centrist (despite my early blog posts). However, I am Senator Organa’s son, so whenever I’m around her I basically get treated like an extra appendage.

I tried introducing myself to some of the Centrist senators before. Y’know…because they’re people? People playing a pretty big role in the representative democracy I’ve spent in my entire life in?

Well…the actual interaction wasn’t too bad—a little stiff; a little awkward, maybe—but the problem is it made headlines. Bad ones. “Populist Senator Organa’s Runaway Teen Seen Schmoozing Across Party Lines!”

First of all—EXCUSE ME, I’M TWENTY-FOUR NOW. Can the #FindBen23ABY thing PLEASE stop following me into adulthood so I can move on and live my life. Second of all—“schmoozing??” I was TALKING! You know, the thing people do with their mouths???

But see, here’s the thing—I’ve worked in journalism before. Yeah, I got my bachelor’s degree in it—but that’s different. UNaboo was where I learned how to write. The Chommsec Daily was where I learned how to sell. Revenue is based on hits, you know—not on the quality of a piece, and certainly not on its intellectual honesty.

It used to be that consistent inaccuracy would sink readership, creating a commercial incentive for good reporting. But the greater the Populist/Centrist divide becomes—and the more they funnel donations into their news outlets of choice—the more the two parties and its adherents are just…living in two mutually-exclusive warped realities. You notice that?

Mom’s a Populist. A staunch one. But the Populists keep moving farther and farther away from center (just like the Centrists—ironic), and now Mom is typically categorized as a moderate. It’s the “Princess Leia of Alderaan” thing and the “General Organa of the Rebel Alliance” thing that keeps the far-out Populists from denouncing her completely—the same thing that still garners her respect with even the far-in Centrists, who hold a high degree of reverence for royal and military titles.

I’m not sure where Casterfo lies on the spectrum, whether he’s middle-center or far-in center. But I do know that he’s sexy and charming and well-dressed and he makes me wanna be him when I grow up. And that probably does a whole lot more for him in politics than anything else.