#coalition dynamics

[truthwars]

Ireland’s Political Crossroads: Dissecting the RTÉ Leaders' Debate

The Upfront with Katie Hannon debate on RTÉ has etched itself into the annals of Irish politics as one of the most comprehensive and scrutinised political exchanges in the nation’s history. With ten party leaders present, the debate provided a sprawling forum for the presentation—and, often, the demolition—of competing visions for Ireland ahead of the General Election on November 29. While some…

[townpostin]

Hemant Soren Stakes Claim to Form Govt, BJP Says Unfair to Champai Soren

Political Shift as Champai Soren Resigns After 5-Month Tenure Hemant Soren’s return as Jharkhand Chief Minister marks a significant political development, raising questions about governance continuity and alliance dynamics. RANCHI – Jharkhand Mukti Morcha (JMM) working president Hemant Soren is poised to return as the Chief Minister of Jharkhand after he staked his claim to form the next…

[ascefreckles]

Ppl wanna talk about Kaladin’s second hand embarrassment moments but can we talk about the fact the Oathbringer is an entire BOOK of epic cringe fails by Dalinar Kholin (with a couple of major Ws sprinkled in)

[uniqueeval]

Trump adds RFK Jr. and Gabbard to transition team | World News

Donald Trump has added former White House hopefuls Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Tulsi Gabbard to his transition team if he wins November’s US presidential election, his campaign said on Tuesday. Kennedy and Gabbard hail from outside the Republican party sphere where former President Trump draws most of his support. “As President Trump’s broad coalition of supporters and endorsers expands across…

[newspatron]

Lok Sabha Elections: The Verdict

Thank you for following our Lok Sabha Elections series. Your engagement has made this analysis a meaningful dialogue. Stay tuned for more insightful content on newspatron.

Unravelling the Election Saga Welcome to the concluding chapter of our insightful journey through the Lok Sabha Election Results Analysis of 2024. As we’ve navigated through the intricate narratives of political strategies and voter tides in our previous four parts, we now stitch together the final threads of this election’s story. Lok Sabha Elections: The VerdictUnravelling the Election…

[signode-blog]

"Political Pundits Predict: Lok Sabha Elections 2024 in India Set to Shake NDA's Majority"

As the anticipation builds for the upcoming Lok Sabha Elections in 2024, political analysts and pundits are scrutinizing every indicator, from public sentiment to the betting trends in places like Phalodi Satta Bazar. While the outcome remains uncertain, one prevailing sentiment emerges: the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) might face challenges in securing a resounding victory. Contrary to…

[roosterzebra]

once I finish babylon 5 it's over for you hoes

[prettypinkguns]

HOARFROST. ‖ poly!141 x reader

[wolf shifter au]

✎ cw: Wolf Pack, Wolf Instincts, Werewolves Turn Into Actual Wolves (monster sized wolves), Pack Hierarchy, Pack Bonding, Werewolf Courting, Mating Cycles/In Heat, Mating Bites, Mating Bond, Scent Marking, Marking, No Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Polyamorous Task Force 141 (Call of Duty), Military Inaccuracies, Military Backstory, Mild Hurt/Comfort, Possessive Behavior, Protectiveness, Eventual Smut

AO3

Named in a will of estranged grandparents that you never met, you bequeathed a generous inheritance and a property out in Alaska; in a small town called Coalition. With city life slowly whittling away at you, you decided to take time off of work, flying out to Alaska. Partly to prepare the property to be sold before winter and to enjoy the wilderness in the meantime. There you meet four mysterious ‘bachelors’ of the town who not only took interest in you, and you in them. But soon, you realize something wasn’t quite right about those men or the pack of wolves, with their strangely intelligent eyes, that frequented the woods surrounding your property. Curious, you're determined to get to the bottom of it. But as the saying famously went… curiosity kills the cat.

[1]

Sometimes, you wished life was simple. 

Where the world was nothing but a simple place with simple people who lived nothing but simple lives. Where there were no complexities, no complications, no corruption nor any suffering. A symbiosis, a balance. Between individualism and culture, nature and civilization, necessities and consumerism. Yet, life was anything but simple. And to long for such simplicity was nothing but wishful thinking. 

Like many, you felt crushed by the hustle and bustle of modern life. From which everything was autonomous, automatic. Where an individual’s entire life revolved around their jobs and whose personhood was defined by market value. To capitalism, a person was nothing but a commodity to be exploited and to maximize profits. Passion was snuffed out like a flame or squeezed and squeezed until it was nothing but rind. In which pastimes and hobbies were too much effort to keep; a common sacrifice. Just another stepping stone on a long career path, just another rung on the corporate ladder. Now only an emptiness remained from the smothering of both soul and spirit. Until you were nothing but a husk, an empty shell of a person. 

But such was life. And who were you to want simplicity?

But unlike you and a majority of the population, there were outliers. Others that weren't partaken with conformity or willing to settle for such a thing known as ‘normality’. Mostly nut jobs, based on personal assumptions. Or even religious cultists and doomsday preppers. Or people too consumed with conspiracy theories and antigovernmental beliefs. The black sheep of the family. But among it all, you didn’t know where your grandparents aligned. Didn’t know if they were a little bit of the above or none at all. They were never heavily involved in your childhood or your teenage years. You had no memories of them. Only knew what was whispered between the adults. Questions brushed off when you got too curious for your own good. Denial when you happened to remember something small and stray. A fleeting memory, that was like sand grains in your palm. Rendered as nothing but a child’s wild imaginations or vivid dreams.

Or even the feign of ignorance when you found a Purple Heart behind a delve of old photographs. All collecting dust in an old shoebox when you were helping your parents go through old boxes for a spontaneous spring cleaning. You remembered your parents’ faces when you showed them the shoebox. Purple Heart in your palm, black-and-white photographs rifled through by your curiosity. They had a look of complete fear; wide-eyed, color drained from their faces and frozen in place. Before the shoebox was yanked from your hands and you were sent away to your room, excused from helping out. 

That was the last time you saw the shoebox. 

You remembered one time when you tried to sneak into their bedroom to find it, but to no avail. But that fear on your parents’ faces was unforgettable. As were the old monochrome photographs of blurry faces, of strangers. Just like the weight of the Purple Heart in your hand and the stain of grime and dust on your fingertips. Sometimes you wondered about the significance of it. Wondered why your parents acted the way they did that day. They never did answer your questions about it, told you they didn't know what you were talking about when you would bring it up.

And soon, just like many things in your life, it became nothing but an odd occurrence in your past. Something you tossed around your head before shrugging your shoulders and worrying about other things. But one thing stood out to you, one thing was certain as time passed. Those strangers in the photographs weren’t just some random faces in a crowd. They were your grandparents. Those unspoken, estranged family members scratched out in the familial records. And even more interesting, they were former military. 

Now, you were sitting in your break room. Mentally exhausted, physically tired. Ready to go home and snuggle underneath your bed covers, scrolling through your phone until bedtime. It had been a long and draining work week. More than you had thought possible. But it wasn’t unusual. The holidays were coming up which only meant more strenuous work and more tedious responsibilities -– but such was life was it not? Luckily, you were the only person in the break room. Able to take a breather and actually enjoy your break by yourself. Your social battery was completely depleted, and you were in no mood to socialize, let alone tolerate another presence in the same vicinity as you. 

Quietly brewing in your own thoughts, you thumbed against a piece of paper in your hand. One that had been just another envelope lost in your endless pile of mail on your side table: bills, notices, magazines, and flyers. You had stumbled upon it a few days ago when finally getting the motivation to sort through the accumulating pile. Inscription of a legal notice was across the front that made your heart drop into your chest, fingers shaking as you carefully tore the seal to fish out what was inside. A will, and all assets and inheritance named to you. From your supposed grandparents. The call that followed was interesting… for lack of a better word. You were the sole inheritor, no one else in your family was named. But none of your family had contested it. Not even your parents. Upon their death, your grandparents’ bodies were already taken care of; cremated and buried in a private graveyard in their hometown.   

You had taken note of the information given to you and made arrangements for your appointment with an attorney in regards to the probate. You had gone early yesterday morning, all legalities and protocols were explained to you. And in the following afternoon, with a few signatures, all assets and inheritance were now legally yours. Namely, and more intriguingly, a property out in Alaska was now under your name. Now, you eyed the document again. Still in disbelief. It all felt too good to be true. As if any second, you would wake up from a dream to a snoozed alarm and indentations on your skin from your sheets. Your eyes went to your blaring watch, realizing that your break was over. You folded the document, tucking it away in your pocket. Letting out a deep sigh, you forced yourself on your feet. It was going to be a long day…

Back at home, you collapsed on your couch. Bag, keys, and all. Too tired to walk to your bedroom. Too tired to even think. But underneath it all, there was relief as well. Not only from finally being at home after such a long and grueling day. But also from your time-off being approved. Which was surprising given such a short notice and the upcoming holiday season. You remembered the nervousness. The shock you felt when you got that approval email. Things were going too well for your liking. But there was no time to question it or mull over it. You supposed ‘urgent family emergency’ had been sufficient enough. Which was accurate, but you knew it would serve partly as much needed time away from life.

You didn’t know how long you stayed there lounging on your couch. But eventually, like you had in the break room, you forced yourself up on your feet to get ready for bed. You had another long work week ahead of you. All you needed to do was to tough it out and get through it. Then it was packing up and heading to Alaska to see that estate for yourself. Do some upkeep and maintenance if necessary, take time-off as you did so, and then simply sell it — land and all. Then it would be a piece of cake from there. A straightforward plan; a solid course of action. 

Now all you needed to do was book that flight.

From above, the town of Fairbanks was a spectacle among all the wilderness. And, after hours of flying, it was also a sight for sore eyes. Fairbanks was much more than what you expected for a city out in the Alaskan frontier. With high-rise buildings, arching bridges, highways, downtown areas, residentials and beautiful wilderness just beyond. A beautiful city just waiting to be explored and experienced. But it was not your destination nor was there any time to tour it. You had another flight to catch immediately after yours landed. The property that was left to you was out further, in the outskirts of Fairbanks. In a small town; more rural, more remote. Driving there was feasible. The main highway went near enough to the small town, but it did not go thoroughly. Renting out a car and driving there was an option, but not something you wanted to do after such a long flight. The next best option you found was to take another plane there. And luckily, the town had an airstrip.  

With all your luggage behind you, you went to find the right terminal gate and the pilot that would take you there. The terminal was surprisingly busy. But expected given the upcoming season and it being in such a huge city. Though it wasn’t the worst, not too overcrowded or hectic, as it wasn’t a hindrance to walk around. You eventually found the terminal gate on the other side of the terminal, opposite to where your plane landed. The sitting area for the terminal gate was completely empty, save for a couple workers behind a tall desk. The sight of it made you double check that you were in the right area. But soon after checking, you sat down and waited for the boarding call. Which didn’t take long to be announced. 

You walked forward with your luggage. Confused when the workers didn’t take it to be packed away onto the plane. Instead you were escorted onto the tarmac and towards a noticeably small conventional aircraft ahead of you. There was a person near the wing of the plane in the distance. Rendered into a blurred figure in the sun, no matter how hard you squinted to make out any noticeable features. But as you grew nearer, the clearer the figure became; as did the plane. A man stood against an old Beechcraft. Wiping along the wing tips so affectionately that it made you feel that you were stumbling into a private moment. But as you approached, his head lifted up and the man’s focus waned. Attention now on you. 

His face immediately lit up.

The man gave both of the workers a nod and a grin. Immediately, your ears perked up at the rhythmic lilt of a Russian accent as the man introduced himself as Nikolai. He took your luggage from the workers and you, stacking it away into the underside compartment of the Beechcraft. You couldn’t help but notice how casually the man was dressed for a pilot. Clad in jeans, a plain T-shirt, a brown leather jacket and boots. Finger length raven hair was slicked back neatly, curling naturally at the bottom of his neck  and emphasized his widow’s peak. A Cuban gold link chain hung around his neck. Apprehension prickled down your spine, suddenly unsure. More so as the workers left you alone with your supposed pilot. You eyed the man as he stacked another one of your suitcases inside the belly of the aircraft. 

“So you’re a pilot… sir ?” You asked. Trying to sound polite, conversationalist even, only for the skepticism to peek through and waver your voice. But if your pilot was bothered by it, you couldn’t tell. He only gave you a warm smile.

“Call me Nik, please.” He said, stuffing your duffel bag away. “And yes. Your pilot to be exact.” 

 “Well… Nik . How long have you been a pilot for?” 

“Nearly two decades.” With your luggage and bags all put away safely, Nikolai shut the underside compartment closed with an audible click. “But don’t worry. You’re in good hands.” He patted the side of the plane. “Katyushka and I will get you there safely.” 

You blinked at him. “ Katyushka.. ?”

The edges of Nikolai’s lips twitched as his smile widened. Obviously finding your butchering of the Russian word funny.

“Yes.” He leaned against the Beechcraft. “Well, to me. But to strangers, it’s Ekaterina .” The drawl of his accent made it sound so sensuous that you couldn’t help but shift your weight on your heels. “Built her from the ground up years ago. She’ll take you where you need to go, no problem.” He affirmed that notion with a gentle patting on the metal body again.

“Ok.” You nodded, your concerns not diminished in the slightest.

“It’ll be smooth sailing, I promise.” Nik opened the passenger side door. Offering his hand out to you as you reluctantly stepped forward and into the aircraft. Then took his seat in the pilot seat afterwards. 

Curious, your eyes wandered around the flight deck. At the various knobs, levers, buttons, and dials. Blinking displays and flashing lights that grabbed your attention, wondering what they all were for. Nikolai grabbed the aviator headset from its perch, placing it on top of his head. Then looked towards you, gaze meeting your inquisitive one as he tapped against the earmuff. 

“Headset – put it on.”

You nodded, looking around near your seat aimlessly before a hand darted in your vision, grabbing the other headset next to the side of your seat. Though Nik’s smile remained, you grabbed them sheepishly. Putting them on then fastened your seatbelt. Nikolai flicked a few switches and pressed more buttons before the Beechcraft sounded to life. The engine revved as the propeller began to spin faster and faster. Until the twisted nose blade was but a blur. 

“She purrs like a dream.” The static voice of Nik surprised you as it hummed through the intercom. “Hope you’re not afraid of heights or get motion sick. Ran out of emesis bags months ago.”

You swallowed, putting on a neutral expression. “I’ll be fine. Already came this far, didn’t I?” 

You didn’t know if you were trying to convince him or yourself but either way Nikolai moved the plane down an unoccupied part of the airstrip. Away from the other larger commercial planes, one of which you had arrived on. He stopped just at the end of the tarmac where it ended at the tree line. Slowly and steadily, the Beechcraft went along the airstrip before Nikolai increased the throttle, making the Beechcraft pick up more speed. Until the wheels hovered above and the aircraft soared. The worst part of the plane ride came and went. The Beechcraft cruised at a comfortable altitude. But your nails were dug into the leather of your seat still and you released the lungful of air you repressed. The Russian man found it amusing it seemed by the way his grin only widened. Which made you force yourself to ease your grip on the seat and relax. 

There was a silence between you both, more comfortable than awkward which you appreciated after such a long day of traveling. You settled back into your seat, arms across your chest as you leaned to your right. Stared out of your passenger window to the sight beyond. All you saw was a clear blue sky and the tufts of clouds floating on by, whipped around by wind. Before you knew it, you were starting to get drowsy. Your aviation headset blocked out the sound of the plane and the propeller, only emitting white noise from an open radio line. You decided to lay down your head for a while, letting your eyelids flutter close as you snuggled against the side of the plane’s interior and into the leather seat. But soon just resting your head turned into you dozing off the rest of the way there.

A sudden turbulence made you bolt you awake, panicked as your stomach dropped. Hands gripped around the armrests as the plane shook as it began to descend. Your wide eyes darted to your left, catching the Russian pilot’s apologetic smile.

“Sorry,” Nik said over the headset, “Didn’t mean to scare you awake.”

You were groggy, still rubbing the sleep away from your eyes. Not lucid enough to consciously hide the scowl on your face. You relaxed a little, arms across your chest as you peered through your window. You weren’t surrounded by an endless sky anymore, having decreased in altitude. Below you was the Alaskan frontier in all its glory — alpine mountains, wide lakes and winding rivers, overgrown grasslands, open fields and thick woodlands.

You couldn’t help but admire the beautiful view, disregarding all that second guessing that occupied your headspace since your first flight. For that moment, all worry and regret was gone, and you felt at peace. Enjoyed all the scenery for a while, but it wasn't long before you were near your destination. From above, the small town of Coalition was a strange sight in the surrounding frontier. A smidge of civilization in all that untamed and untapped Alaskan wilderness. 

"Hold on."

The fuzzy words of your pilot came through the aviation headset that you both wore. 

On cue, Nikolai eased the Beechcraft lower and the cabin of it shook as it began to descend downwards, making you clutch against the armrests. Your pilot aimed towards the landing strip on the outskirts of the town where its fetal airport, paling in comparison to a commercial terminal, settled in a manmade open field. When the plane's wheels safely kissed the ground, you let out a rush of air. Relaxing into your seat as Nikolai slowed the acceleration until the aircraft began to lose its speed and rolled off into a slow and easy cruise.

He drove it towards an overarching steel hangar, coming to a stop just at the threshold. When the engines were cut off, you were quick to pull your aviation headset off and hop out. Stretching away the ache in your limbs and breathing in deeply for once as crisp air filled your chest for once rather than city smog. You took in the sight of the trees in the distance. Already their canopies were just beginning to lose their green pigmentation, right on the cusp of turning into shimmering gold and auburn. 

Fall was imminent. Thereafter, winter. Ideally, the land you inherited would be sold before then with a bit of luck on your side. But for now, you would enjoy your time off in such beautiful surroundings. 

“See. Told you it would be smooth sailing.” Nik smiled with a lean against the right wing of the plane.

“What about when you scared me awake? What was smooth about that?” You asked.

But he only shrugged. “Can’t tame the wind.”

Nikolai began to pull your luggage out of the holding compartment – one by one. Quicker he was retrieving it out than he was when trying to stack them inside like Tetris pieces. When you grabbed all your luggage, you and Nik exchanged your farewells before sauntering off and tended to the plane. His ‘ Katyushka’ , whatever that meant. But it was only when you grabbed all your luggage, struggling to carry it all as you walked, when you realized how far the town was from the airstrip. And how you didn’t have a designated ride there. You stood there for a moment, contemplating on what to do next. With such a small town, you doubted there were any taxis or any sort of paid ride shares. It seemed your predicament wasn’t as internal as it seemed when Nikolai soon approached you, concern etched on his smiling face.

“Are you waiting for someone?” 

“Not really.” You said, trying to sound unbothered. “I was just going to walk.”

“All the way to town?!” Nikolai eyed all your bags. 

You couldn’t help but feel bashful, feeling a need to dissuade and not draw attention to yourself and your little predicament. “Yeah. I need to stretch my legs anyway after the back-to-back flights.”

“It’s a two mile walk into town.”

You nodded, nonchalant about it. But internally you were screaming. “That’s not too bad.”

By the look on his face he doubted your words. “Do you have anyone you can call to pick you up?”

“No.”

He was quiet for a long moment. Before saying, “Wait here.”

You watched as Nikolai jogged towards the hanger then went around the side of it. Less than a minute later, a loud engine roared to life. Revving in the distance before a vintage four door sedan appeared from behind the hangar. And around the landing strip, following a gravel road along the perimeter. The car stopped at a junction just off the runway, where the gravel merged into a dirt road and then stopped in front of you. Nikolai emerged from the driver’s side, trunk already popped open as he went for your bags.

“It’s ok, Nik, really. I don’t mind walking. It’s not that far.”

But he only shook his head at you. “It’s no problem to me.”

“But the road leads straight to the town, right? I think I can manage it fine.” 

“With all these bags? You won’t make it there by sunset.” Nik said right as he stuffed one of your duffle bags into his trunk. Ignoring your pointed stare. “Besides, we got some wolf sightings recently. Not good to let you wander about.” 

You widened your eyes at him. Your skin began to prickle. “Wolves? Aren’t they usually too scared to be so close to people?”

“Usually, yes. But this pack’s the bold type. They like to sometimes wander the outskirts of town, too close for people’s liking. But for the most part, they mainly stick to the forest.” Nik huffed as he picked up one of your heaviest suitcase. “Which is why I don’t want to let you walk all the way to town. If you get lost in the trees and end up as their dinner, I don’t want to have that on my conscience.”

You let out a sigh, an almost laugh that made you ease up. You watched him a moment before deciding to help Nikolai put away your luggage in his car. Despite his insistence for you to let him do it. 

“Is it a big pack?" You asked, putting your bag into his backseat. Mostly for conversation but also to feed your curiosity. 

Nikolai loaded the last suitcase and closed the trunk with a loud click. Then shook his head. “It's only a few of them.”

You hummed in interest. Went around the car and opened the passenger side door. You settled yourself in the leather seat, putting on your seatbelt before the car went driving down the road. A silence settled between you and Nikolai once more, much like the one during the flight here. You occupied yourself by leaning on the car door armrest, looking out the window to the surrounding trees. But as the road turned uneven and rough, the car rattled over holes and bumps. What was a nice cruise down turned to slow and steady driving as Nik carefully tried not to scratch the paint or get his car stuck or scraped. And the lowered suspension from the added weight of  all your luggage didn’t help the effort of getting over potholes and elevated ground. 

You sat back in your seat, arms across your chest. But nonetheless grateful for not walking, experiencing just how bad the desolate road had become. Soon Nikolai was on a paved road again, leading into civilization. The town of Coalition was about what you expected for a small, rural town in the middle of nowhere. Small facilities here and there, the necessities needed to sustain and maintain a population. You noted some of them as the car drove by: a small general store, a local grocery store, a doctor’s clinic, a post office, a community center and a gas station. And all in a centralized area. 

You guided Nikolai towards where the property was, having written the directions just in case. Nikolai knew the roads by heart and nodded along, already knowing where to go. The property was on the outskirts of the town, more situated within the forest. But it wasn’t uncommon, there were other properties that did the same. It was late afternoon, by the time the vintage sedan rolled up to the property, following an off road dirt roadway leading between a dense thicket. Soon you saw a cabin, unassuming in the shadow of the pines and evergreens and all by its lonesome in a clearing in the forest. It stood on a few acres of sundered land – your land – that endured against the fickleness of nature. Slowly and steadily, the forest encroached – brush, young tree saplings and briar that creeped into the clearing and towards the cabin. 

Nik stopped just short of the gravel driveway where a tree had fallen and blocked the path. Roots uprooted, sticking out of the end of the trunk. It was a young tree, properly too weak to hold its canopy during the winter. The hole where it grew from was already covered up. And the tree was already cut up and sectioned in logs by a chainsaw, its branches rotting in a heap thrown aside towards the forest. You wondered if your grandfather had done it. The thought sat like a stone in your mind, it made you recoil. Trying to imagine the grandparents you never met, never saw. But still gave you this property after their passing. One that you looked up at now with curiosity and… fear, comprehension? 

Too many questions, too many thoughts. You dismissed it all away.

You expected Nikolai to stop right then and there and park. But he only drove around the logs, crushing the vegetation underneath as he went. The sedan stopped in front of the cabin. He left the car on but in park as he hopped out, wasting no time in unloading all your luggage with your help despite his disapproving frown. It was easier taking it all out than it was loading it, and before you knew it all your luggage and bags were on the front porch. And with a wave and smile from Nikolai, and sincere gratitude from you, you watched as the sedan drove away until it disappeared between the trees. 

With a heavy sigh, you turned and faced the door to the cabin. The house key felt heavier in your pocket. Overcome with a sudden hesitation that prevented you from moving. As if you were a vampire needing permission to enter a home. You took a big step back, sitting on one of the wooden chairs out on the patio. Next to dead perennials and other potted plants grouped along the railing where you assumed the early morning sun concentrated. You took in the fresh air. The smell of the forest and soil that felt cleansing for your lungs, accustomed to the fumes of pollution. After a few minutes you stood back up. Facing the door once more, you placed your hands upon the wood. Feeling the cool, smooth surface. You grabbed the key, turning the lock and with a squeak, you opened the cabin door and went inside. 

You stared into darkness. Only a rectangular strip of light extended into the cabin from behind you. Enough for you to distinguish the shadowed shapes of furniture and decorations. Your footsteps echoed against the wood flooring, reverberating through the dark as you grabbled around for a light switch. 

“Let there be light.” You mumbled to yourself and flicked on a light switch. 

Immediately the house flooded with warm lighting. You walked further in, hit with the layered smell of dust and must. The cabin was a bit smaller than it looked from the outside. With a small yet open kitchen that led directly to a living room. A singular hall divided both, leading to the back of the cabin where a bedroom and bathroom were. You took a second to wander and take in the inside. It was what you expected a grandparents’ house to be like. Rustic and vintage. With old furnishings, knickknacks, and décor. 

Various art pieces, landscape paintings and nature photographs hung on the walls. 

A cross-stitch sampler of the wild Alaskan landscape full of grazing deer and songbirds in the treetops was next to the front door, right above a small table where a wilted plant sat. Plush couches overstuffed with not matching throw pillows huddled around a wood-stove in the living room. A large bookshelf stuffed full of old books and films lined along the wall, away from the wood-stove, and next to an antique grandfather clock. Ticking away, louder than your footsteps as you went to the window. Pulled the drapery and opened the window to air out the house and get rid of the stench. Dust motes danced in the sun streams, floating and falling slowly like fall leaves.

Everything felt lived-in and loved. How peculiar.

You made quick work in bringing in all your luggage and bags. Collapsing on one of the couches and into the pile of pillows, some tumbling onto the floor from your impact. But soon the smell of dust from the cushions invaded your nose and you quickly got up, making a mental note to deodorize the couches. You grabbed your suitcases and bags, taking them down the hall past the other bathroom and a closet to where the master bedroom was at its end.

The floor creaked as you stepped foot inside. Sunlight filtered through the drapery as you pulled it aside and right onto the handcrafted quilted duvet of a queen sized bed in the center. It was a decently sized room with a small connecting bathroom. Compared to the rest of the house, it was decorated minimally. With only a bed, an armoire, and a lamp. A small vanity desk near the window. Some novelties here and there. You lifted the window latch and opened the bedroom window to get rid of the stuffiness in the bedroom and continue to air out the house. You rummaged around the room, finding clean sheets, pillowcases and blankets in a plastic tub underneath the bedframe. 

They were still fresh and smelt of detergent, better than the duvet and pillowcases that have been sitting in a stuffy room for who knows how long. You quickly changed the bedsheets, pillowcases and duvets. Throwing the stripped contents aside on an end-of-the-bed bench to be cleaned later. You brought all your luggage inside, the entirety of it cluttered a majority of the space. Only giving you one way to get on and off the bed and a path to the bathroom. You cleaned up as much as you could, a shallow cleaning: sweeping and wiping away the gathering dust; taking up the rest of the late afternoon that turned into early evening.  

Now, the only thing left was something to eat. You walked into the kitchen, looking around. The fridge was filled with expired and molding food. And nothing appetizing. You looked into the pantry cabinet, seeing a lot of canned foods and sealed, labelled mason jars. One of the labels reading ‘chamomile’ caught your eye. You grabbed it, looking inside to see the dried flowers of chamomile. Deciding that tea and that bag of chips in your handbag from your flight to Alaska would be your dinner. You found an old kettle and searched through the kitchen cabinets stacked with mismatched dishes, old tea cups, novelty mugs, and glassware. You grabbed one of the mugs, noticing it was hand-painted with a howling wolf. After a few tries, you managed to light the propane stove, filled the kettle with water and began to boil it. You filled a tea ball you found in one of the drawers with the tea, letting it seep once the kettle whistled and you filled up your mug with boiling water. 

You enjoyed what you could of your…dinner. Deciding to peruse the bookshelf for something interesting to read as you began to settle. But soon, you felt your entire day weigh down on you; the entirety of your day filled with travel. You closed the living room window, noticing the waning gibbous moon between the sliver of clouds. You pulled the curtain closed and went to the bathroom for a much needed shower. When you finally collapsed onto the bed and sunk into the quilt, you tried to get some rest. Only to toss and turn for hours, not being able to get comfortable. Soon there came a recognizable sound. Between the doldrum came a cry, the howls of wolves in the distance. It was a night’s call, a symphony. Haunting, beautiful. You couldn’t help but tilt your head, trying to hear it better. Memorized by the harmony. 

You snuggled underneath the covers, listening to the howling until it lulled you to sleep.

[bluemantics]

here’s a list of all my fics! i won’t be able to post and reblog much since I’m traveling the next week and a half, so I’ll compile all my works here in the meantime :-)

will also update this list as i write more!

klance:

midnight snacks don't exist in space

G | 1.7K | RP/BP dynamics

There are no rules about eating at 3:00 AM if you're in the far reaches of the universe.

In a bright kitchen while the team is asleep, Lance and Keith find each other, as they always do.

Why We Fight

T | 5.7K | truth-telling au

With the Rebels in need of resources, the team ventures to a planet known for its raw materials in hope that they'll join the coalition. Here's the thing: they need to prove that they can be trusted by telling the truth about why they fight.

Lance finds this more difficult to voice than the others. Unfortunately (thankfully), Keith has returned from the Blade and is more than willing to listen.

"This is bigger than any of us alone."

A Keith By Any Other Name

T | 8.2K | coffee shop rom-com AU

Lance McClain was dared to hit on Keith. Keith thought that’d be the first and last time they’d meet. However, Lance keeps coming back, charming Keith with his jokes and charisma.

Here’s the catch: Keith refuses to tell Lance his real name.

“I’m not telling you my name unless you order and move on.” Keith pointed to the register screen.

“Alright, I’ll do a cappuccino.” Lance pulled out his wallet from his jacket pocket and slid his card over to Keith. “Now will you tell me your name?”

“My name is Yorak.” Keith passed the card back to Lance, who looked shocked at that answer, his eyebrows raised to his hairline. Keith was beginning to realize how dramatic Lance could be.

“Really?!” Lance demanded. He looked pityingly at Keith, and irritation welled up in his gut.

“No!” Keith rolled his eyes.

“You’re the worst,” Lance huffed.

a billion light years from here

T | 8.5K | post-canon fix-it

Keith and Lance reconnect over letters. Through their writing, Keith learns to open up, and Lance learns what a home is.

"For all the game I talked on the castleship about missing home, now that I’m back on my family farm, I kind of feel like there’s something missing. Like, even surrounded by all of the juniberry flowers Allura gave us, and even with my parents, I still feel lonely. Or restless."

Or: A post s-8 fix-it AU told entirely through letters between Lance and Keith, both sent and unsent.

out of my head

G | 1.2K | high school au

Keith didn’t even want to watch the spring musical auditions. Forced by Pidge to accompany them, he finds himself surprised at the talent of a particular actor. He also finds himself surprised by his own response. 

OR:

Lance is ridiculously good at singing and Keith is a lovable, impulsive jock.

baptism by fire

T | 1.5K | canon-compliant angst

Prompt: write a private scene between two characters with no dialogue, of just them two alone.

Lance just witnessed the unthinkable. Keith offers his company in wake of the tragedy.

kiribaku:

unstoppably, immovably, unbreakably you

G | 651 | canon-compliant

A character study.

An unstoppable force meets an immovable object.

Katsuki Bakugou’s hand implodes against Eijirou Kirishima’s arm; a flurry of sparks surround them with a sound that rings between his skull.

This is something he knows how to do well. With every blow that Katsuki unleashes, he feels Kirishima retaliate with more, responding like a dance to his every movement. Katsuki is a fine-tuned instrument of destruction, every muscle on his body worked with the intention of winning.

as always please let me know what u think thru asks & comments on ao3!! ill answer asks between travel, but im going to frequently be in spotty service.

[houseofbrat]

Bernie Would Have Won

By Krystal Ball

There are a million surface-level reasons for Kamala Harris’s loss and systematic underperformance in pretty much every county and among nearly every demographic group. She is part of a deeply unpopular administration. Voters believe the economy is bad and that the country is on the wrong track. She is a woman and we still have some work to do as a nation to overcome long-held biases. 

But the real problems for the Democrats go much deeper and require a dramatic course correction of a sort that, I suspect, Democrats are unlikely to embark upon. The bottom line is this: Democrats are still trying to run a neoliberal campaign in a post-neoliberal era. In other words, 2016 Bernie was right.

Let’s think a little bit about how we got here. The combination of the Iraq War and the housing collapse exposed the failures and rot that were the inevitable result of letting the needs of capital predominate over the needs of human beings. The neoliberal ideology which was haltingly introduced by Jimmy Carter, embraced fully by Ronald Reagan, and solidified across both parties with Bill Clinton embraced a laissez-faire market logic that would supplant market will for national will or human rights, but also raise incomes enough overall and create enough dynamism that the other problems were in theory, worth the trade off. Clinton after all ran with Reagan era tax cutting, social safety net slashing and free trade radicalism with NAFTA being the most prominent example. 

Ultimately, of course, this strategy fueled extreme wealth inequality. But for a while this logic seemed to be working out. The Soviet Union collapsed and the Cold War ended. Incomes did indeed rise and the internet fueled tech advances contributing to a sense of cosmopolitan dynamism. America had a swaggering confidence that these events really did represent a sort of end of history. We believed that our brand of privatization, capitalism, and liberal democracy would take over the world. We confidently wielded institutions like the World Bank, IMF, and WTO to realize this global vision. We gave China most-favored nation trade status.

Underneath the surface, the unchecked market forces we had unleashed were devastating communities in the industrial Midwest and across the country. By the neoliberal definition NAFTA was a roaring success contributing to GDP growth. But if your job was shipped overseas and your town was shoved into economic oblivion, the tradeoff didn’t seem like such a great deal.

The underlying forces of destruction came to a head with two major catastrophes, the Iraq War and the housing collapse/Great Recession. The lie that fueled the Iraq war destroyed confidence in the institutions that were the bedrock of this neoliberal order and in the idea that the U.S. could or should remake the world in our image. Even more devastating, the financial crisis left home owners destitute while banks were bailed out, revealing that there was something deeply unjust in a system that placed capital over people. How could it be that the greedy villains who triggered a global economic calamity were made whole while regular people were left to wither on the vine?

These events sparked social movements on both the right and the left. The Tea Party churned out populist-sounding politicians like Sarah Palin and birtherist conspiracies about Barack Obama, paving the way for the rise of Donald Trump. The Tea Party and Trumpism are not identical, of course, but they share a cast of villains: The corrupt bureaucrats or deep state. The immigrants supposedly changing your community. The cultural elites telling you your beliefs are toxic. Trump’s version of this program is also explicitly authoritarian. This authoritarianism is a feature not a bug for some portion of the Trump coalition which has been persuaded that democracy left to its own devices could pose an existential threat to their way of life. 

On the left, the organic response to the financial crisis was Occupy Wall Street, which directly fueled the Bernie Sanders movement. Here, too, the villains were clear. In the language of Occupy it was the 1% or as Bernie put it the millionaires and billionaires. It was the economic elite and unfettered capitalism that had made it so hard to get by. Turning homes into assets of financial speculation. Wildly profiteering off of every element of our healthcare system. Busting unions so that working people had no collective power. This movement was, in contrast to the right, was explicitly pro-democracy, with a foundational view that in a contest between the 99% and the 1%, the 99% would prevail. And that a win would lead to universal programs like Medicare for All, free college, workplace democracy, and a significant hike in the minimum wage.  

These two movements traveled on separate tracks within their respective party alliances and met wildly different fates. On the Republican side, Donald Trump emerged as a political juggernaut at a time when the party was devastated and rudderless, having lost to Obama twice in a row. This weakened state—and the fact that the Trump alternatives were uncharismatic drips like Jeb Bush—created a path for Trump to successfully execute a hostile takeover of the party.

Plus, right-wing populism embraces capital, and so it posed no real threat to the monied interests that are so influential within the party structures. The uber-rich are not among the villains of the populist right (see: Elon Musk, Bill Ackman, and so on), except in so much as they overlap with cultural leftism. The Republican donor class was not thrilled with Trump’s chaos and lack of decorum but they did not view him as an existential threat to their class interests. This comfort with him was affirmed after he cut their taxes and prioritized union busting and deregulation in his first term in office.

Meanwhile, the Democratic Party put its thumb on the scales and marshaled every bit of power they could, legitimate and illegitimate, to block Bernie Sanders from a similar party takeover. The difference was that Bernie’s party takeover did pose an existential threat—both to party elites who he openly antagonized and to the party’s big money backers. The bottom line of the Wall Street financiers and corporate titans was explicitly threatened. His rise would simply not be allowed. Not in 2016 and not in 2020.

What’s more, Hillary Clinton and her allies launched a propaganda campaign to posture as if they were actually to the left of Bernie by labeling him and his supporters sexist and racist for centering class politics over identity politics. This in turn spawned a hell cycle of woke word-policing and demographic slicing and dicing and antagonism towards working class whites that only made the Democratic party more repugnant to basically everyone.

This identity politics sword has also been wielded within the Democratic Party to crush any possibility of a Bernie-inspired class focused movement in Congress attempted by the Justice Democrats and the Squad in 2018. My colleague Ryan Grim has written an entire book on this subject so I won’t belabor the point here. But suffice it to say, the threat of the Squad to the Democratic Party’s ideology and order has been thoroughly neutralized. The Squad members themselves, perhaps out of ideology and perhaps out of fear of being smeared as racist, leaned into identitarian politics which rendered them non-threatening in terms of national popular appeal. They were also relentlessly attacked from within the party, predominately by pro-Israel groups that an unprecedented tens of millions of dollars in House primaries, which has led to the defeat of several members and has served as a warning and threat to the rest.

That brings us to today where the Democratic Party stands in the ashes of a Republican landslide which will sweep Donald Trumpback into the White House. The path not taken in 2016 looms larger than ever. Bernie’s coalition was filled with the exact type of voters who are now flocking to Donald Trump: Working class voters of all races, young people, and, critically, the much-derided bros. The top contributors to Bernie’s campaign often held jobs at places like Amazon and Walmart. The unions loved him. And—never forget—he earned the coveted Joe Rogan endorsement that Trump also received the day before the election this year. It turns out, the Bernie-to-Trump pipeline is real! While that has always been used as an epithet to smear Bernie and his movement, with the implication that social democracy is just a cover for or gateway drug to right wing authoritarianism, the truth is that this pipeline speaks to the power and appeal of Bernie’s vision as an effective antidote to Trumpism. When these voters had a choice between Trump and Bernie, they chose Bernie. For many of them now that the choice is between Trump and the dried out husk of neoliberalism, they’re going Trump.

I have always believed that Bernie would have defeated Trump in 2016, though of course there is no way to know for sure. What we can say for sure is that the brand of class-first social democracy Bernie ran on in 2016 has proven successful in other countries because of course the crisis of neoliberalism is a global phenomenon. Most notably, Bernie’s basic political ideology was wildly successful electorally with Andrés Manuel López Obrador and now his successor Claudia Sheinbaum in Mexico, Lula Da Silva in Brazil, and Evo Morales in Bolivia. AMLO, in fact, was one of the most popular leaders in the entire world and dramatically improved the livelihoods of a majority of his countrymen. Bernie’s basic ideology was also successful in our own history.

In the end, I got this election dead wrong. I thought between January 6th and the roll back of human rights for women, it would be enough. I thought that the overtly fascist tendencies of Donald Trump and the spectacle of the world’s richest man bankrolling him would be enough strikes against him to overcome the problems of the Democratic Party which I have spoken out about for years now–problems Kamala Harris decided to lean into rather than confront. Elevating Liz Cheney as a top surrogate was not just a slap in the face to all the victims of American imperialism—past and ongoing; it was a broad signal to voters that Democrats were the party of elites, playing directly into right-wing populist tropes. While the media talked about it as a “tack to the center,” author and organizer Jonathan Smucker more aptly described it as “a tack to the top.” And as I write this now, I have zero hope or expectation that Democrats will look at the Bernie bro coalition and realize why they screwed up. Cable news pundits are already blaming the left once again for the failures of a party that has little to do with the actual left and certainly not the populist left. 

Instead, Trump’s victory represents a defeat of social democratic class-first politics in America—not quite final, but not temporary either. The Democrats have successfully smothered the movement, blocked the entranceways, salted the earth. Instead they will, as Bill Clinton did in the ‘90s, embrace the fundamental tenets of the Trumpist worldview. 

They already are, in fact. Democrats have dropped their resistance to Trump’s mass deportation policies and immigrant scapegoating. The most ambitious politician in the Democratic coalition, Gavin Newsom, is making a big show of being tough-on-crime and dehumanizing the homeless. Democrat-leaning billionaires like Jeff Bezos who not only owns Amazon but the Washington Post have already abandoned their resistance.

Maybe I will be just as wrong as I was about the election but it is my sense that with this Trump victory, authoritarian right politics have won the ideological battle for what will replace the neoliberal order in America. And yes, I think it will be ugly, mean, and harmful—because it already is.

[allthecanadianpolitics]

Hi! Wanted to reply to the anon from Alberta, and also folks in general anxious about the BC election, with a (mostly) hopeful message.

I'm a queer POC immigrant from BC and I've never really seen it as a left stronghold. The "BC Liberals" were always actually a conservative party, and the BC NDP are in many ways more centrist than the already centrist-in-many-ways federal NDP. This might sound dire, but I like to frame it as: this election isn't revealing a loss in empathy. We've already been working at this level, and we can continue to make gains from here.

Furthermore, if the pre-recount results hold and the Greens end up holding the balance of power with their 2 seats, the coalition between the two non-conservative parties could encourage them both to lean into their more popular and progressive ideas, like the harm reduction that became a wedge issue this election. This was the sort of power dynamic I had hoped for when proportional representation was floated in BC, and it may be interesting seeing how that plays out.

Further-furthermore, no matter the electoral situation, grassroots movements continue to fight, and their wins are often underreported by the news. Even though times may toughen, people are always finding ways to look out for each other.

~~~~

[centrally-unplanned]

This Richard Hanania piece was quite good for crystallizing some thoughts I had around the toxic nature of the electoral college. Obviously the electoral college is dumb - it is undemocratic in an arbitrary way, just randomly rewarding certain voters. I think idea of a system empowering "rural voters" would be really bad, but if that is your goal fair enough; it is telling that so many defenders of the EC will do so on grounds like that, but it doesn't do that! It just randomly empowers people in Pennsylvania, agonistic of density of living.

But more than it being undemocratic, it results in pernicious political dynamics - national elections being decided by tiny slivers of voters such that their hobbyhorse topics get undue preference. It twists the policy agenda, yes, but it also twists the parties themselves, who have to exist in its world. As someone who is far more of a Democrat, I think about it in terms of the Democratic Party; but Hanania is right to note it has been far more destructive to the Republican Party. The Republican Party has a much larger "anti-establishment" element that the Democratic party does, and they are concentrated in swing states. As I have said before, there are more Republicans in California than there are in Texas; but the voice of those Republicans doesn't matter. Everything gets bent around catering to that swing state slice. A Republican party staffed by its members in NYC and Los Angeles would still not be my fave party or anything, but it would be far better than the status quo.

The post reminds me of similar things around primaries; the US primaries are currently built very badly. US political parties just aren't democratic institutions, they don't really make sense to be that way and do not function that way, but we sort of pantomime it with this weird, staggered "race to drop out last" that rewards factional posturing over clear governance & electoral agendas. But as annoying as the democrats have been under it, the Republicans have suffered far worse! A complete outsider who disagreed with a third of the party's stated agenda and was deeply unpopular with the median voter exploited razor-thin majority-of-a-majorities in "elections" with maybe 25% voter turnout to seize the nomination twice. These conditions are "unfortunate" in a certain sense, it is bad that a solid ~1/10th of the US population are ride-or-die nativists for whom "immigration" is their only concern and are, to be frank, too poorly informed to understand the policy issues they care so much about. But something like that will always be true; these systems make every election a dice roll to dodge unlucky alignments, and when you hit them your coalition warps to match them and becomes sticky.

Many Republicans will mention these hazy ideas that "without the EC we will never win", and this is the least accurate idea of all. I actually remember a Richard Hanania post I blogged about a long time ago, about how so many Republican ideas are actually very popular and have gotten more popular over time. School choice, parts of immigration, taxes, law & order, etc, are all winning issues. Sans the EC the party woulds shift, as it always had, to a new equilibrium. And I bet you could do it within one term, voters have no long term memory, like at all. If in two years Nikki Haley is campaigning on Compassionate Conservatism and expanded Medicare, she would do just fine.

Ofc the issue now is that the Republican Party - while filled to the brim with hucksters, for sure - are true believers enough that they wouldn't want that. Because the EC alignments are sticky, as mentioned, it is part of why it's so toxic. Which is very sad because, despite probably being a lifelong Democrat voter, I really want a better Republican party. Because they are going to win elections! It is a democracy, of course they will, and they probably "should", I don't want a unipolar state and god knows the Democrats have their own brand of bullshit that electoral defeat has gotta discipline to keep them sane. Even if it means a Republican party that wins more elections, if they are saner it is worth it. They have some good ideas after all, if only they had a chance to breathe.

Since I don't think Republicans will consider it, I do think it is something Dems should pursue harder. But I'll admit the capacity to execute here is bleak - do your best with the State Compact I guess.

[gatheringbones]

Hey I was reaching out cuz I remember u have read what seems like a good amount of recounting of 60’s/70’s coalition organizing, I remember u used to talk in tags under selected quotes abt the rifts n dynamics whiteness brought into those spaces. Bought a Mab Segrest book cuz of u - wondering if u have any titles off the top of ur head that were either good for illuminating the way whiteness can fracture or strain organizing, or any titles where these tensions were sat with and worked thru. Teeny tiny autonomous org I’m in is going thru growing pains and trying to be more proactive abt anti-racism, I wanna do all I can to ensure things don’t crumble and feel like looking to the past would be useful

thanks, I deleted a bunch of those thoughts because I thought they were inappropriate. re: your request, a few books came to mind, not all of them are immediately applicable to your topic but they have a lot to do with group tension and how to channel it, the bus one specifically is one that I think is essential reading for anyone who wants to interface with the public, same for the one on actually making amends

the revolution starts at home: confronting intimate violence within activist communities, edited by ching-in chen, jai dulani, & leah lakshmi piepzna-samarasinha

the empowerment manual: a guide to collaborative groups by starhawk

the lines that make us: stories from nathan’s bus, by nathan vass

on repentance and repair: making amends in an unapologetic world, by rabbi danya ruttenberg

[dostoyevsky-official]

How Long Can the Alliance Between Tech Titans and the MAGA Faithful Last?

On Sunday evening, the night before Donald Trump’s second inauguration, scores of luminaries from across the New Right are expected to gather for a dinner and gala called the Coronation Ball at the Watergate Hotel. The event is being hosted by the young right-wing publishing house Passage Press, known for publishing the neoreactionary writer Curtis Yarvin — one of the earliest of those luminaries, most famous for advocating a monarchy “run like a start-up.”

Today, this upstart coalition of thinkers may be best described simply as the intellectual wing of Trumpism. “Celebrate the inauguration of Donald J. Trump,” the publishing house announced, “with the people and organizations that will shape the culture in his second term.”

The ball will celebrate more than the recoronation of a president. It seems intended to mark the ascent of a new counterelite with aspirations to supplant the existing establishment in everything from high politics to business and culture. But this is a loose alliance, colored by rivalries and complex divisions. It has brought together people who previously had little in common.

It’s a gap in worldviews that went overlooked in the heady days of the campaign. When Elon Musk endorsed Mr. Trump, putting a great deal of personal money and energy into the project of MAGA populism, he joined figures like the venture capitalist and podcaster David Sacks and the crypto exchange founder Tyler Winklevoss in what represents one of the most surprising and disruptive alliances in American political history. Tech emerged as an alternate power center to the Republican establishment. Silicon Valley money filled in for dollars lost from the traditional donor class. As the presidential transition took shape, tech figures stepped in to supply elite human capital, as they put it, to staff the new administration. All the biggest tech companies made sure to offer a $1 million tribute to help fund the inauguration.

But the core of the aspiring Trumpian aristocracy are still reactionaries and nationalists aching to restore an American way of life thought to be lost after decades of what they see as globalist technocracy. They are often deeply skeptical of the idea that the innovations promised by tech companies represent progress, and they describe America as “not just a country, not just an economy but a people with a common history,” as Jeremy Carl, a deputy assistant secretary of the interior in the first Trump administration and a senior fellow at the Claremont Institute, told me. The tech figures who came to the movement in 2024 were often sympathetic to Trumpian nationalism. But they tended to be more interested in making money and launching a new era of American dynamism.

[...] The debate has genuinely high stakes, heading in the first days of a wildly ambitious presidential administration. People like Mr. Bannon see the tech right almost as an fundamental enemy to the natural human order they wanted to restore. More moderate allies on the MAGA side just hope to keep things calm and friendly. If a true conflict emerges, Mr. Trump himself might well end up siding with the part of the coalition that offers vast supplies of cash and new friends socializing and scheming with him down at Mar-a-Lago.

The coalition is achingly close to achieving a long-held conservative dream — of fashioning a high-low alliance powerful enough to supplant the liberal establishment and remake America. It is a project that might well collapse if one side or the other gets too much of what it wants and ends up driving the other away.

[...] “I think the tech right is going to win in the short term,” said Razib Khan, a geneticist and tech consultant who is friendly with many figures in both the MAGA and tech right spheres. As he saw it, the talent and money were mostly on the side of tech.

“The tech right is pro-American,” he said. But it’s pro-American in the sense that they see America as “an empire that takes over the world and goes interplanetary.” This was too rationalist of an approach for many on the MAGA side, which is shaped in large part by Christian faith and, at least for some, a belief that America should be a homeland for “heritage” Americans, of Northern European extraction. They are “not excited about the American Empire,” he said, or racing into space. They care more about the values of a “pre-1960s America, the values of a Western civilization.”

[gemsofgreece]

Has there been a rise of the far right in greece too (like in western europe) ? If yes, how is it manifested ?

It’s so hard to explain politics in Greece, it’s like when you don’t have the words to explain something so incredibly stupid.

In Greek politics everything is nominal. Political parties change approaches according to where the wind blows. As of now:

The country is governed (and it will be governed for the entire millennium by the looks of it) by the centre-right party. This one, just like all major parties in Greece, change rhetorics second by second according to global power dynamics and affairs. As an example, this party legalised same sex marriages earlier this year with the PM stating how significant it was for Greece to take that progressive route and support people’s rights etc. A couple of days after Trump’s election the very same PM said, in an international convention mind you, how he was done with wokism and the imposition of their rights to the majority. So… you get an idea. Wherever the wind blows. And, are they competent at least?……. lol no

The far right consists of smaller joke parties with people that you aren’t sure they can handle the matters of their own house, let alone those of the country. They are preoccupied with solving the serious problems of the country like: the 6 gays who got married this year, women having armpit hair and they exploit the religion unethically to the point that one of them who, besides a political party leader, is also selling hair loss creams in a telemarketing tv show, also tried to sell supposed letters written by Jesus himself… Those parties are voted by people who can’t tell religion from blasphemy, usually middle aged people of poor education and old as heck grandpas and grandmas who just won’t give it a rest. These aren’t going to ever govern but they could participate in a coalition government, should the centre-right party’s popularity ever fall.

Greece had received a lot of bad press globally some years ago for the huge rise of the Golden Dawn, the most extreme far right party we have had. Those were indeed a different style: they weren’t a “Jesus and family” type of far right that the Greeks love, they were hardly hiding their love for fascism / nazism and they were more into Ancient Greek supremacy. They were elected third into the parliament causing international uproar. Even their highest members acted violently, even on TV. Those were the years of the crisis and it is safe to say that most people (stupidly) voted for them to punish and shock the major parties which were responsible for the dire situation of the country. In the next elections Golden Dawn was plummeted. I don’t remember the timeline, whether it happened before or after the next elections, but the turning point was when important members of the Golden Dawn fought and murdered a leftist rapper. After that, Golden Dawn was removed from the Parliament, condemned as a criminal organisation and its leaders were imprisoned. Its place is filled by the party “Spartans” founded by old members of the GD, but they are a much weaker - and comparatively moderate - political party and there is no serious risk of them getting any power soon enough, which also shows how impulsively Greeks voted that first time. This is how impulsively they always vote. Thinking is not involved.

As of now I don’t think anyone will disagree with me for saying there is no Left in Greece. The second in power party until recently was a moderate leftist party which this year managed to self-combust in a glorious way. This was the only left party to ever govern, at the times of the crisis (and of course it went where the wind blew too) ! But yeah they exploded now. Long story. The rest of the left parties could not exist at all and you would not be able to tell the difference. The communist party is stuck in the Russian Revolution of 1917. The rest… I don’t know if there are any decent people there but what’s the point if they are invisible and without any vision? (And most are not decent there either.) Our whole political scene is a circus.

The socialist / centre-left party was in the third place until the major left one self combusted so now it is second. It was historically the only truly potent party alongside the centre-right one and power was switched between the two always. During the crisis it was viewed as the more responsible one for the mismanagement of the finances, so it was plummeted and it got a new younger leader, minimising trust even more. Now they are back in second place but it’s also like they are not there. All those parties look like they operate in auto pilot. They are just there.

Perhaps you understand by now that the centre-right reigns undisturbed. The country can be threatened to be purged tomorrow and nothing will change, it seems. They don’t have a competitor and they are free to do whatever they want and I think they do take a lot of advantage of this “liberty”………

As for the people, compared to my years in high school and college, I definitely see a clear shift towards the right and religion. You see it in social media. Then again there are a lot of people talking back to such comments. I don’t think the far rights will topple the centre rights. Currently, it’s by far the centre rights, then in a long distance the socialists / moderate leftists and then chaos. It’s just that the far rights are very loud and it’s the first thing you see always. In truth most Greeks vote for a beach umbrella and a cocktail every time we have elections and that’s how you get one single party essentially ruling unbothered and then the void.

What you need to understand is, it doesn’t matter whom people vote in Greece, we’re cooked anyway.

[tanadrin]

i do think some of these oppression theories of everything are trying to create quantum gravity. Bringing everything back to racism or, sorry marxists, class definitely gives me this vibe.

it's a lot more reasonable to relate all the feelings related to gender roles yeah

i mean yeah, it's possible to be wrong on the object level about what set of cultural/material/political incentives produces a given set of biases in society, but that doesn't mean that thinking about the way these biases are connected is a pointless exercise in the first place

i think the relationship of (for example) homophobia, transphobia, and misogyny to one another is particularly clear and particularly salient bc of the way all three are based on a particular conception of gender roles and gender hierarchy.

and honestly, i do have a lot of sympathy for the class reductionists! i think there's a point to be made about the way the historic development of racism usefully propagated the new world economic institutions of the cotton plantation and sugar plantation, and slavery that supported it, and also helped to politically fragment the poor rural agricultural workers who otherwise might have found it useful to enter coalition with one another. i think there's absolutely a materialist connection (surrounding reproductive labor and the division of domestic labor) with the way those gender roles mentioned above are constructed in the first place.

where i think going full class reductionist is in error is in thinking that these dynamics are sustained only by material conditions, and that if you can just change the political economy then racism and sexism and all other prejudices will wither away. in fact these dynamics can be self-perpetuating, and they can find purchase in new emerging political and economic dynamics, and they can be repurposed to dismal new ends; so you do in fact have to deal with them individually and in detail, and not just hope that When The Revolution Comes Everything Will Just Fall Into Place.

and even if there is a deep conceptual connection between different forms of prejudice in history, individuals don't experience it that way: you can have people who are feminist or nominally pro gay rights but super transphobic--you can have people who are nominally in favor of trans rights but super sexist!--you can have gay people who hate women, just as you can have socialists or trade unionists or Marxists who are super racist. indeed, all of these categories of mix-and-match prejudice are actually pretty common.