#don't be like the maga women

[vintageseawitch]

let this be a reminder: A LOT OF PEOPLE ARE GOING TO VOTE FOR TRUMP.

it's a big deal that Harris was on such a massively popular podcast "Call Her Daddy" & i hope many young women have been swayed in a good way to get out there & vote.

it seems like, according to the comments on Instagram, that there are MANY white maga women who listen to/watch that podcast & they're ANGRY. there are more positive comments on TikTok but there you go.

it's disheartening in some ways but don't lose hope. we can't lose hope! there's probably bots & plants from different countries commenting, etc. we already know millions of people will be voting for him, white women unfortunately included in too high of a number. but maybe this podcast was a spark of hope for some young women out there. maybe that combined with those sticky notes & people posting on social media & discussing it privately amongst friends that YOUR VOTE IS PRIVATE. YOUR RIGHTS ARE AT STAKE. YOUR WHITENESS WILL NOT SAVE YOU FOR LONG.

they want to ban abortion, contraception, IVF, no-fault divorce. don't be surprised if they take away our right to vote, have a bank account without a husband or father giving permission, owning property, hell maybe they'll restrict our right to drive or travel or what we fucking wear. they have so many terrible things in mind because they hate us.

those white maga women? there's a lot of them. it's concerning how much they hate others. it's concerning that they think they're the exception or it won't get that bad. to any other woman out there on the fence: do you really want to take that gamble? do you really only want to be considered an incubator where a potential idea has more rights than you? where are corpse has more rights than you?

let this be a wake up call to voters: we got a helluva fight we need to get through. they intend to not just vote in droves but will cause mischief of not outright violence & harm. let's beat them. there are a lot of women who will vote against their best interests but i would like to believe there will be a surprising amount who will vote in a good way.

your vote is private. please think about your rights & everyone else's who will be at stake. oh, & Alex Cooper did a phenomenal job interviewing her that shames mainstream media. i hope this turns out for the best.

please, PLEASE, VOTE 💙

[mugiwara-lucy]

I've been talking to my fellow women lately and I figured seeing this Tweet pop up on my feed, I feel compelled to address it:

This guy is a routine dicksucker for Trump on Twitter but look at what he's saying; he's basically saying wives of Conservative men MUST vote for Trump ESPECIALLY since they know that Trump and his pet dog; Vance, have pissed OFF women and they want to make sure they're voting for "the right person". Disgusting and given this guy is a Conservative Christian, it wouldn't surprise me if he's abusive (either physically or emotionally) to his own wife.

On one hand it would be easy to make fun of MAGA wives and call them dumb Karens BUT I'll have more empathy than that. And if you wives of MAGA Conversative Christian men see this post I just want to say, please do NOT let these assholes make ANY kind of decisions for you. If you want to vote for Kamala, you have the anonymity of the polling booth to make your decision and IF your husband or anyone else tries hovering over your shoulder to coerce you into voting for Trump if you don't want to; here's a list of numbers you can call depending on the state you're in since YOU have the right to dictate who YOU want to vote for. And keep in mind YOUR polling booth is YOUR personal space and also, you can always LIE to your husband. Especially given their orange god is a habitual liar anyways 😂:

And if you don't to deal with Trump and his nonsense; here's the link to register to vote as well as the voter registration deadlines by state! Time is running out so if you're not registered to vote; WE HAVE NO MORE TIME TO PLAY AROUND!!

And Early Voting has started and I'm happy to say there have been 70 % of Democrats who have been voting compared to MAGAs and if you don't wanna vote November 5th for obligations that day, please take advantage of the Early Voting opportunity and do early voting! Here's when Early Voting starts depending by your state! And for the women married to conservative men, if you wanna early vote for Kamala, just lie and say you need to go to the store and get XYZ.

And for Mail In Ballots which have MAGAs lagging behind Democrats which we should continue in! Here's the link to register for your Mail in Ballots BUT again like I've been stressing if you choose this option, make sure to deposit your ballots at the USPS Mailing Stations to avoid MAGA Mail Fuckery!! And for the women married to conversative men, if you choose this option, like with Early Voting just lie and say you have to meet a friend or get XYZ at the store.

My fellow women.....I'll end with this.....Trump and Vance LITERALLY WANT to have MENSTRUAL SERVAILLANCE:

Do you want your daughters, potential granddaughters or yourselves having your MENSTRUAL CYCLES tracked like cattle on the line??

I'll leave you with that thought.

Especially since one of Trump's dicksuckers have talked about RIDDING WOMEN OF THE RIGHT TO VOTE:

Would you like to continue voting? Because this could legitimately be our LAST ELECTION where we have that right.

[breaking-everything]

Women who vote MAGA really hate themselves. In fact they shouldn't vote at all seeing as men on their side don't want them to have that right.

[aikuse]

the empty threats from liberals in this post-election social media hellscape is gonna drive me absolutely insane actually

[seancosy]

Leftist Americans, you actually need to be patient and try to win people over to your side. Labeling potential allies as racist, sexist, uneducated, entitled, deplorable, etc is unhelpful. (Even if these labels are true, as we know they often are.)

People who lean towards the right have several traits in common. They are proud. They have a strong sense of independence. They like to feel they are correct. They like to feel they are defeating an enemy, even an imagined one. They will blindly overlook some of their values if you can make them feel more strongly about some of their other values. It is important to keep these facts in mind when debating with them.

I worked in a vaccination clinic during the pandemic. It was hell. I had to deal with anti vaxxers who came in specifically to antagonize me and waste my time. Do you know what they left with, more often than not? A vaccination in their arm, and a booking to come back for a booster dose.

No, I didn't ninja dart a vaccine into their deltoid when they weren't looking. I argued with them, politely. I didn't win any arguments using logic, though. I always used emotional arguments, tailored to the person's values: Does this person value personal liberty? Do they value tradition? Do they want to feel like they are besting an enemy? Is their antagonism based on a fear of the unknown?

Some arguments I used for covid vaccinations:

"Don't you wish this could all be over, so you could go on holiday again? Most countries won't let you cross their border without a vaccine. Yeah, I know. It sucks. But imagine chilling on a beach just a few months from now."

"Let's look at the vaccine ingredients together. Most of them are sourced from nature. That way it works well for your body and reduces the risk of side effects."

"I heard that our country managed to import the best vaccines. Way better than the vaccines being made in China, where this all started." (Note that while alluding to race, this statement itself isn't actually racist. It helps to make people feel like they're on your side, even if you aren't.)

"Getting a vaccine was an important personal choice for me, because I want to protect my family and my patients. I had a colleague die from covid, and I don't want that to happen to anyone else I care about." (Making things personal can be helpful.)

"Our clinic was allocated some of the smallest needles in the district. We were really happy when we found that out. If you know anyone else who doesn't like needles, you should recommend they come get their vaccines here." (This wasn't quite a lie, but it wasn't entirely true. Every clinic had the same sized needles.)

In an American context, you might use the following arguments.

"I just want to make sure that guns stay in the hands of the right people." (when talking about gun control)

"I was always taught to respect my mother, and all women. Don't you feel the same?" (when talking about women's rights/bodily autonomy)

"I don't think the government should have a say in what people get up on their own property." (when talking about queer issues)

My point is, you actually need to make an effort to understand people. Especially people you don't like, or whose values don't align with yours. We as leftists need to be welcoming and appreciative when people do take the time to engage in conversations with us.

Being antagonistic actually isn't helpful. If it helped, it would have worked by now.

[brick-van-dyke]

"An irreplaceable part of your body" is something sexist cisgender heterosexual men who want women for breeding and that alone say a lot to young girls. So... to be honest? Don't be surprised if said people who grew up hearing that don't trust you and your so-called "Gender Critical" (read gender role adhering) movement aimed to criticise any attempt to not conform to being a breeding sex doll for men to use. Sorry, but I grew up with that and y'all don't sound at all different to the men who told little girls to "let boys be boys".

When transphobic "Gender Criticals" make this argument, they always just can't help but reuse the sexist entitled logic of "women shouldn't ever change any part of their bodies" and "women's ability to give birth is sacred". It's something religious men have told me my entire life, pushed almost violently with policy and treatment of young girls and anyone who just appears to be one, and generally just gives ride to some really gross objectification of girls and their bodies.

So excuse me for being cautious when a GC/ TERF centres their entre argument against giving up my uterus (as someone who really doesn't like children and has no paternal instinct, hates having a period and is repulsed viscerally by the idea of bearing a child all irrespective of even the "gender" part here), being purely far right MRA "girls should be raised to be good wives" rehtoric, all while prominent GCs are calling themselves "trad wives" and working with MRAs to repeal protections for women?? Yeah, I'm going to just see you as a sexist, woman hating pervert rather than a "concerned" lady for the younger generations of girls. The only concern you have for the bodies of people assigned female at birth is whether or not you can use that body to breed it without the care for that human beings personal ideas, personality and feelings. It's all just some big game you play to pretend to be on the side of people with uteruses while promoting the most vile sexist bullshit I haven't heard since old men asked when I'd find a good husband and settle down.

So yes, even beyond the inherent issue of simply Being Wrong and using false information to have a point that makes no sense? People who are claiming "no don't just swap out an irreplaceable part of your body like Mr potato head!" are an MRA who is hates feminism and want to control the bodies they perceive as belonging to women, or more specifically, any type of body that can be used to for breeding purposes and they dehumanise because of their own patriarchal bullshit.

not that transphobes are ever saying anything interesting or insightful but it makes me insane when they see a trans woman who wants a uterus and start frothing out the mouth about how the sinister trans cabal is going to start harvesting organs from the poor and vulnerable... worsties do you have any idea how many trans men and cis women would be THRILLED to rehome their uterus to someone who actually wants it? all I'm doing with mine is complaining about it for a few days every month, I'd happily pawn that shit off to someone who would be happy about it. yes I am on my period why do you ask.

[reginaofdoctorwho]

i am so terrified and there's nothing i can do about it

[percypaints]

Trump survived. Here's what will happen.

Every media, news outlet will be showing this photo. Not of a convicted felon who was impeached, who summoned violent terrorists to the white house, who sexually assaulted many women, but of a survivor, a hero.

And Trump will win 2024. The Alt Right and his MAGA supporters will see this and be more motivated than ever to vote Trump. Centrists will see this and think "the left is so much more extreme than the right" and vote Trump. Fuck, even liberals, after seeing Bidens disastrous debate performance might vote trump. In their eyes, he's a survivor now, he's strong now, he's worthy now. If you don't believe me, wait and see the top comments of news articles, the Reddit posts, the twitter quote tweets.

It isn't if Trump wins, it's when Trump wins, Ukraine is Fucked. Palestine is extra Fucked. And of course, America is absolutely Fucked.

I don't like Biden, but Americans have to remember: you live in a two-party system.

It is Biden or Trump.

And I'd much much rather an old husk of a man that has done so much good for trans rights, social policies, and human rights in general, than Trump. Yes, Biden has sent aids to Israel. Do you think Trump won't do the same? Do you think Trump won't do worse?

"Vote for a third party, they're both awful" you might say. Come on, be realistic. This is about holding the line against fascism. It is going to be way WAY easier to change the system when you're up against milk toast Joe than an actual dictator. So,

For the love of god, vote Biden in Novermber.

[deadpresidents]

I just hope these next 4 years go by fast

This election isn't just about the next four years. With Trump in the White House and a Republican Senate at his side, the MAGA movement can pick up where they left off when it comes to packing the federal judiciary with right-wing judges who will control the Supreme Court and appellate courts throughout the country potentially for the rest of the lives of everyone reading this right now. It's the perfect recipe for them to continue stripping reproductive rights away from women nationwide and gives them the opportunity to turn their attention to the other issues that they have been dying to attack, from voting rights to gay marriage and every other extension of personal freedom that has been won by minorities and marginalized people in hard-fought battles over the past 60 years. This is the nightmare scenario that people have been warning folks about for the past few elections. It's here. And there isn't going to be a way to put the toothpaste back in the tube.

The consequences of this election will have a direct, negative impact on your life -- possibly on the entire remainder of your life. This country just re-elected a President with authoritarian tendencies who is the willing puppet of a dangerous Christian nationalist movement that figured out exactly how to manipulate him (through flattery) for their aims. They have created the perfect vehicle for a genuine cult of personality that they can use to achieve the goals they have been very clear about striving for over the past few years. And you can't blame anybody other than the American voters because they not only elected Trump, but they gave him a fucking mandate, with a Republican Senate and potentially a Republican House. They already have a right-wing dominated Supreme Court for the next few decades, and now they are going to ensure that the entire federal judiciary is in their control for years to come. And don't forget the fact that a few months ago, the Supreme Court handed down a decision that gave Presidents sweeping immunity for a broad (and conveniently undefined) range of "official" acts, so Trump is going to go into this second term knowing that not only does he not have to deal with the "guardrails" of responsible adults he had around him in his first term (Mattis, Tillerson, Kelly, General Milley, etc), but he knows he can get away with virtually anything and everything that he wants to do this time around. If you thought that Trump's first term was bad, just understand that they are prepared this time and now he's surrounded himself with people who will do his bidding -- people who are perfectly willing to let Trump be Donald Trump.

I wish there was a reason to cry foul, lodge protests, and challenge the election's results. But this wasn't a rigged election. There isn't any confusion about what the voters really wanted. The American people did this. People you know and care about and who say they care about you are the people who did this. We need to recognize that these elections aren't outliers anymore. Trump's supporters aren't simply chaos agents who got lucky on a bad day for the Democrats. That's the country we live in now and we have to find a way to resist it that actually makes a difference because now they have the keys to all the doors and all of the alarm codes. This country has normalized the conspiracy theories and nativism and racism that has powered the MAGA movement since the moment Trump came down the elevator at Trump Tower in 2015. He's given those people permission to be open with their hatred towards people who aren't like them, and it's actually become surprising to see how many Americans have been eager to take advantage of that. I didn't think I had any misconceptions about this country before Donald Trump because I recognized this nation's history, but I clearly had some misconceptions about people I thought I knew until I saw them wearing a red MAGA hat or noticed they had a gigantic flag with Trump's name hanging where their U.S. flag used to hang. Once that happened, it was like a switch went off with them and they started saying things in ways that I'd never heard them speak. I feel like that's happened to the entire country. It breaks my heart and it pisses me off.

For the past few years, I've been warning everybody about how elections have consequences. I imagine that there are hundreds of posts on this blog with that phrase in all caps listed with the tags. Now the elections have happened, and we have to live with real fucking consequences. And we're going to pass these consequences on to other generations because this is the one that you can't get a do-over on. When you give a movement like this the power and the mandate that this country just gave them, there is no easily rolling back the things that they end up doing. They are going to fundamentally change the lives of people in this nation and especially change the way the younger generations of Americans live and love and learn for years to come. And you have people in your life who made that happen. It's another disgusting day in America -- a prelude to another reprehensible four years (at the very least) -- and I'm ashamed of tens of millions of my fellow Americans because this one is on them. They know exactly who the man is that they voted for, and now we know exactly who they are, too.

[gayagendaofficial]

i'm already seeing people blame third party voters, but the numbers don't support the idea that the spoiler effect handed trump this victory. trump won an outright majority in PA, GA, and NC, and is on the track do the same in MI and NV; even if every third party voter instead voted for Harris, she still would have lost. hell, it looks like trump is even on track to win the popular vote for the first time. this is entirely the fault of Harris and establishment democrats for having run a shit campaign.

they had so much momentum at the start of her campaign, especially with young people, and they fucking massacred that momentum. they stopped calling maga weird, stopped feeling like they needed to court progressives or young voters, cozied up to republicans, threw trans people under the bus, and continued to side step questions about the ongoing genocide in Palestine that they're funding. hell, they sent Bill Clinton to MI to condescend to the arab community there. they basically said "we don't need the arab vote, we don't need the youth vote; we need the vote of rural white women by dangling reproductive rights just out of reach."

turns out trying to appeal to the "median american voter" doesn't work as well as energizing your base, making at least some concessions to them, which we already learned in 2016. but now trump is going to have a second term, and women, queer people, people of color, immigrants, the entire country, the entire fucking WORLD are going to have to live with the consequences

[imagitory]

I've never been more heartbroken in my life.

I was gobsmacked in 2016, don't get me wrong. I was devastated and frightened and shaken beyond words. I even had to go behind a wall and collect myself at one point that horrible November 9th, 2016, after colliding with a man wearing a red MAGA hat at work. A good chunk of us at work talked amongst ourselves about it, offering each other comfort.

But this? This is different. I could imagine dumb people making excuses for voting for Trump in 2016 -- saying that they thought a businessman would be good for the economy, saying that they wanted someone who wasn't a "Washington insider" like Hilary Clinton. Sure, it was stupid, but people can be stupid. Quite frankly, a lot of people are stupid, in this country and otherwise.

But now? Anyone who voted for Trump now has voted for a man who not only rounded up immigrants and put them in concentration camps separated from their families; bungled the response to COVID-19 so badly that the American death toll easily surpassed every other country on Earth; has poisoned the Supreme Court to the extent that they overturned years of precedence with Roe V. Wade and has basically given Trump cart-blanche to do whatever he wants while he's president; was the first president in history to refuse to concede on election day; was impeached for crimes in office not once but TWICE; was instrumental to and passionately supportive of the full-on attempted coup at the U.S. capitol on January 6, 2021 that could've very easily resulted in the deaths of his own Vice President and multiple members of Congress; has spoken glowingly of despots like Vladimir Putin and Kim Jong Un and even said he will be "a dictator on day one" if elected again; has both used slogans originally used by modern American Neo-Nazis ("America First") and purportedly told one of his ex-subordinates that he wanted generals like Adolf Hitler's...but also has by the day proven more and more just how mentally inept, vindictive, and mean-spirited he truly is.

And unlike in his previous races, Trump is ahead in the popular vote too. We can't just blame this on the electoral college being antiquated and gerrymandered AF like in the Trump-Clinton or Bush-Gore elections. Even if all of the third-party voters in this country had grown a bloody brain cell and voted for Harris so as to show solidarity against Trump and his form of American fascism, it still somehow wouldn't be enough. We could potentially blame this on lower voter turn-out -- according to what I'm seeing so far, even with all the votes not counted in this race yet, it looks like there were far less votes cast this election than in the last one, though likely still more than the 2016 race. But even so, I don't think that's the only problem. I truly think there were just a lot of people who turned out en-masse to vote for Trump. And all I can think in regards to those people is...

This is beyond stupidity or even selfishness. This is cruelty. This is large swaths of people deciding that they want fellow American citizens to suffer -- because in their minds, if those people suffer, that'll somehow make them happy. This is a large chunk of America saying, "yeah, you know all that crap about 'liberty and justice for all'? Screw that, I want a 'strong man' to bully people different from me for my own amusement." And -- perhaps -- there's also an element of feeling like their vote doesn't really have any consequences for them, so why should they care if the man they voted for is a god-awful person? It's not like that man will hurt them.

I had hoped. I had hoped, seeing the outpouring of support from liberals, independents, and conservatives for Harris/Walz. I'd hoped, seeing how many ex-Trump appointees were standing up against him, how much people were shouting their disdain for Project 2025 from the rooftops, and how many women were protesting in the face of Roe V. Wade being overturned. I truly had started to hope that America would prove we'd grown beyond our country's own original sin -- how our United States preached freedom for all while still being built on the backs of slaves and refusing to grant a vote to over half their population -- by electing a smart, successful, charismatic woman of color who sees our country as great in potential and wants us to pursue that potential as our first female president, rather than backtracking all the slow progress we've made over the last 200+ years.

But now...my hope has faded. My heart is in pieces and the world is so dark. I hardly know how I'll function at work tomorrow, even if I know somehow, I have to try. We'll all have to stand somehow. Somehow, someway...we'll have to find the strength. We'll have to stand, and we'll have to keep moving forward, even when it feels like we're a Little Mermaid walking on knives.

We'll have to stand.

[hussyknee]

THE LEFTIST THIRD PARTY HAS WON SRI LANKA'S PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION.

WE HAVE A PRO-LGBT, PRO-UNION, ANTI-ETHNOFASCIST, ANTI-IMPERIALIST PRESIDENT. MY ANTHROPOLOGY PROFESSOR IS GOING TO BE PRIME MINISTER. A COMPETENT ACADEMIC WHO HAS WORKED ON FEMINIST INITIATIVES AND RESEARCH ALL HER CAREER.

please please please please god don't let them fuck this up don't let them turn into a bunch of cunts to retain their new voter base don't let them fuck up the economy don't let them let the minorities down please please please they won't ever get another chance if they ruin this one we'll be stuck with more idiot corrupt nepo babies till we die please please please PLEASE LET THIS BE THE END OF THE EXECUTIVE PRESIDENCY AND PREVENTION OF TERRORISM ACT AND PERSECUTING THE NORTH please please please let them decriminalize being gay and not bury LGBT rights please please please let there be a god I can't take anymore of this shitshow please please please don't let hope be something that keeps pissing in our faces please please please please please please please

ANURA KUMARA DISSANAYAKE WILL BE THE NINTH PRESIDENT OF SRI LANKA. TAKE THAT YOU TWO PARTY VOTING MOTHERFUCKERS.

Edit:

WHAT DO YOU MEAN FUCKING COLOMBO WENT TO THE IDIOT NEPO BABY???

AKD HAD 52%!!!!! HE WAS ALL BUT SWORN IN?????

THEY HAVE TO COUNT THE SECOND PREFERENTIAL VOTE FOR ONLY THE SECOND TIME IN HISTORY??

There is a very real chance that nobody will get over 50% of the vote. That would be really, really bad.

Fuck.

I HATE YOU MOTHERFUCKING URBAN MIDDLE CLASS LIBERAL CUNTS SO MUCH. PLAGUE ON THE WHOLE DAMN COUNTRY. FUCK YOU.

Edit 2:

Ok so first counting gets AKD 42% and SP 32%. It's very likely the preferentional vote will put him over the 50% line.

It's so poetic that Ranil's greed for power ended up handing the country to the very Marxists that his uncle hunted like animals. You love to see it. 🥰

Edit 3:

So the preferential vote didn't give anyone a 50% majority and we're still at AKD 42% and SP 32%. But apparently that's enough to declare AKD President as per the Constitution. I don't think that's ever happened before. He was sworn in an hour ago.

Point of clarification: The NPP are not Marxists. Foreign news is just uncritically regurgitating the pro-government Red Scare propaganda. AKD and his JVP party used to be Marxists back in the '80s and '90s. They're now more very pro-union socialist. The NPP is their coalition, which is even more mildly social democrat and just happens to be a little more left than the other two. Calling them a Marxist is like how MAGA thinks the Dems are commies. 😂

I truly don't have great hopes that much will change, but there's a chance one or two important things might. Which is more than we've been able to hope for in decades.

See this post for a run down of the what's really been happening.

Edit 4:

I retract the "openly bisexual" part with many apologies. I completely misremembered. It wasn't AKD but JVP senior K. D. Lalkantha, who said in a 2018 interview is that he has also had same sex encounters with his friends as a boy and young man, and that he knows others who have had as well. And he specifically said he doesn't see the need to maintain a label for his sexuality. Still, the fact that his party allowed this in a country that still criminalises homosexuality, to a Sinhalese magazine, speaks to a commitment to LGBT rights. He also explicitly stated his support for women's rights, trans rights, polyamory, open relationships, explicit sexuality in media. It's impressively progressive for this country. The interview is in Sinhala and you can read it here.

Here's an excellent write-up of AKD's career, political outlook and creation of NPP in The Hindu by correspondent Meena Srinivasan, a journalist whose reporting I've always liked.

[cade-a-way]

Posts are starting to pop up asking how to report maga supporters for things like having an abortion. It should be pretty obvious, but don't do this.

Not only are you also becoming a hypocrite by protecting people you like and reporting those you don't, but there was just a lot of focus put on women who are in controlling and abusive relationships who are left-leaning but have to pretend like they aren't for their safety.

You can't claim to be pro-choice and list off a dozen reasons why someone may need to have an abortion for their safety or well-being, then report women for actually having one because you don't like them and don't think there's more to that story. If someone, anyone, needs an abortion, they should not have to be afraid of the consequences like others finding out.

The same goes for anyone who is secretly LGBTQ. You do not start publicly outing people as some weird form of "revenge", because you are also hurting those you love and support. If anyone asks, you don't know anyone who secretly has gotten or will get an abortion, you don't know anyone secretly here illegally, you don't know anyone secretly left-leaning, and you don't know any secretly LGBTQ people, and you especially don't start reporting anyone.

[beardedmrbean]

Centrist Democrats are slamming their far-left colleagues following Election Day, arguing that their emphasis on "identity politics" and other issues handed huge victories to the GOP.

Rep. Ritchie Torres, D-N.Y., argued that President-elect Trump has "no greater friend than the far left." Like-minded Democrats say racial politics, anti-police rhetoric and gender hysteria are alienating millions of voters.

"There is more to lose than there is to gain politically from pandering to a far left that is more representative of Twitter, Twitch, and TikTok than it is of the real world," Torres wrote on X. "The working class is not buying the ivory-towered nonsense that the far left is selling."

Longtime Democratic strategist James Carville put it more bluntly in a Sunday interview with the New York Times, calling "defund the police" the "three stupidest words in the English language."

"We could never wash off the stench of it," he said.

Torres is one of several Democratic lawmakers in both the House and the Senate who have called out his party's "nonsense." One centrist House Democrat complained to Axios on Monday that the "identity politics stuff is absolutely killing us."

Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Conn., argued on Sunday that Democrats are "out of touch with the crisis of meaning/purpose fueling MAGA."

"We don't listen enough; we tell people what's good for them. And when progressives like Bernie aggressively go after the elites that hold people down, they are shunned as dangerous populists. Why? Maybe because true economic populism is bad for our high-income base," Murphy wrote.

Not all Democrats are ready to make a change, however. When Rep. Seth Moulton, D-Mass., broke with his party to condemn biological males playing in women's sports last week, he faced an avalanche of hate.

"Democrats spend way too much time trying not to offend anyone rather than being brutally honest about the challenges many Americans face," Moulton said in a New York Times report. "I have two little girls, I don’t want them getting run over on a playing field by a male or formerly male athlete, but as a Democrat I’m supposed to be afraid to say that."

The statement resulted in calls for Moulton to resign, and at least one of his staffers quit in protest.

Massachusetts state Rep. Manny Cruz suggested Moulton's stance was "a betrayal" in a post on X.

"Congressman Moulton, your commitment then was protecting the LGBTQ community, standing up for their rights, and compassion. Now, on a political whim, our Congressman has betrayed the words he signed onto just last year by scapegoating transgender youth in sports for the failures of the national Democratic Party and leaders to win the presidential election. You said you 'would stand with Nagly and with all our community … against all forms of bigotry, discrimination, bullying, and harassment,'" Cruz wrote. 

Salem city Councilor Kyle Davis, another Democrat, called for Moulton to resign. 

"I’m not looking for an apology from [Moulton], I’m looking for a resignation," Davis wrote in a post on X.

Moulton refused to apologize and instead doubled down in a statement late last week.

"I will fight, as I always have, for the rights and safety of all citizens. These two ideas are not mutually exclusive, and we can even disagree on them. Yet there are many who, shouting from the extreme left corners of social media, believe I have failed the unspoken Democratic Party purity test," he said.

"We did not lose the 2024 election because of any trans person or issue. We lost, in part, because we shame and belittle too many opinions held by too many voters and that needs to stop. Let’s have these debates now, determine a new strategy for our party since our existing one failed, and then unite to oppose the Trump agenda wherever it imperils American values."

[qqueenofhades]

I love your essays; they are fascinating. Thank you for sharing your perspective! I have a follow up question, if you have the time or energy: in your last, you said, “It's a blueprint for a tiny group of extreme right-wing theocrats and fascists to get their way regardless of what the broader public says about it…”. Who ARE the tiny group of extreme right wing theocrats and fascists? Is it the politicians whom we see all over the news, like Vance and Boebert ands Haley and DeSantis? Or are they puppets whose strings are being pulled by donors behind the scenes, like…I don’t know, the Koch brothers and the Uleins (sp?)? I feel like whoever it is must have mind boggling amounts of money, to overcome the sheer number of people who don’t think like that, even people nominally republican who believe in traditional low taxes and small government, but are not completely bananapants. Or maybe that’s why they tagged trump, bc no one before him was willing to act like enough of an outright gangster to seriously move the needle…? How much more rich than disgustingly rich do they need to be?

Perhaps surprisingly, it's fairly easy to identify the Hall of Shame who are busily trying to end American democracy, not least because they have become increasingly open about it. Their motives are diverse but all terrible. The quick rundown is as follows:

First, the alt-right billionaires club such as Peter Thiel, Elon Musk, Harlan Crow, and Leonard Leo (the last two are some of the chief funnelers of dark money to SCOTUS; Crow is Clarence Thomas's sugar daddy). They have reasons ranging from grandiose delusions about "remaking" the world in their preferred image (not at all terrifying) to attaching themselves to fascist politics in order to defeat workers' rights and labor unions, who they view as a threat to their mega-wealth. Thiel is the primary sponsor of JD Vance and the alt-right cryptobros clubs that draw the young right-wing white men who also primarily form the membership of neo-Nazi and white nationalist groups. They want to end democracy in order to punish women, minorities, LGBTQ+ people, and anyone else who Nazis always hate. Crow and Leo have lavishly funded the corrupt SCOTUS in order to influence their preferred right-wing rulings, and there are undoubtedly more who we don't even know about. This is just the tip of the iceberg and I have no doubt that it's far, far worse than anything that has been publicly reported.

Next are the extremist right-wing interest groups that have cohered around and advocated for Project 2025, which is basically just the conservative-extremist wet dream put in one place and written down. They include the Heritage Foundation (the primary Project 2025 author) the Federalist Society and the John Birch Society of right-wing judges and policymakers, and Opus Dei, the secretive Catholic right-wing influence group who are straight out of a Dan Brown novel but are in fact some of the most consequential and powerful players in MAGA World. Their name means "work of God" in Latin, which is very much what they see themselves as doing, and their reach in DC is vast, particularly in the far-right evangelical and fundamentalist Christian groups that have attached themselves to Trump as a vehicle to push through their regressive-reactionary social and cultural politics, especially on abortion, women's rights, LGBTQ+ rights, and other things that they view as "unholy." These are the diehard true believers who really, truly think that it's better for the US to be a fascist theocracy espousing "Right and Moral" religious views than a flawed, pluralist, and secular democracy. Hard Yikes.

Thirdly we have the useful idiots, such as Vance, Ron DeSantis, Boebert, Greene, basically pick-a-Republican-politician-here, who are pursuing fascist politics out of careerism, opportunism, some amount of genuine belief, and exploiting the age-old fissures of American racism, nativism, xenophobia, and other original sins that have dogged the country since its founding. Of course, Trump himself is chief among these useful idiots, because he's completely willing to end American democracy and install himself as Dictator-for-Life if it exempts him from having to face the consequences for all the crimes he did last time (and frankly, his entire life, which is now catching up with him). I don't think Trump has an actual consistent or coherent policy bone in his body; witness how quickly he was willing to flip-flop on the Florida abortion issue depending on what he thought was useful (and then after the backlash he received from his base). He's a malignant narcissistic sociopath who is incapable of complex reasoning and long-term planning. His only and overriding interest is himself, he will do absolutely whatever he has to in order to save himself, and as long as he has his death grip on the GOP, everyone who wants to succeed in the party or even have a future in it has to slavishly kiss Don Corleone Trump's ring. That is why many lifelong Republicans have been breaking ranks to say they will vote for Harris, because "being a Republican's" one and only qualification is now "being utterly loyal to Trump." That's it.

These are all actors based more or less in the US, but we also can't forget the fact that basically the entire Republican Party is in deep, deep hock to Vladimir Putin and other foreign autocrats (but most especially and dangerously Putin). We just had the DOJ indictment of MAGA influencers who were taking Russian black cash by the bucketload in order to spread damaging lies about Biden/Harris and pump for Trump, and this is consistent with Russia's pattern of extensive interference in American elections going back to at least 2016. It is hard to overstate how much Putin hankers to end American democracy for many reasons. He is a former KGB agent trained in the black-and-white us-and-them logic of the Cold War where the US was the USSR's archenemy, his constant mourning for the USSR's collapse has been well documented, and it would be the absolute defining and singular achievement of all of post-imperial Russian history for Putin to effectively end American democracy with a second Trump term.

This is for the simple reason that Trump is utterly in thrall to Putin and will do whatever he asks, whether it's cutting off aid to Ukraine and forcing them to accept annexation by Russia, pulling America out of NATO and letting Putin set his invasion sights on Poland and the Baltic states, and anything else. That is genuinely terrifying but very likely if Trump was re-elected, aside from the end of American democracy and the worldwide ramifications it would have to empower fascist authoritarians everywhere. Putin is trying to achieve this through a combination of good old-fashioned Soviet-style dezinformatsiya, paying off MAGA influencers, putting the entire resources of the Russian state into defaming Harris-Walz, and recruiting useful idiots like his asset Jill Stein, who has extensive Russian ties and only pops up every four years for idiot leftists to spoil their vote and ruin Democratic electoral prospects. So. Again. Hard yikes.

So that's the quick rundown of the people who are vested in Trump and Project 2025's success and why, and as you can see, while they're all different, they're all terrible. But yes: that really is a very, very small group of people, relatively speaking. And a vote for anyone except Kamala Harris and Tim Walz is a vote to empower them and also to ensure that you will never have the chance to vote again, due to living in an authoritarian fascist regime. Choose wisely.

[avelera]

"Weirdness", Decency, and the Historical Echoes of Walz's tide-turning call-out of MAGA

At the risk of writing a high school paper about American politics in 2024, I think there's a historical echo that I'd like to add to the conversation of why Walz calling MAGA people, "weird" seems to finally armed Democrats with a line of personal attacks against MAGA that resonates with voters and seems to have overall broken the spell on this, well, weird behavior by them.

I think the one line of discussion that I haven't seen explored as to why the "weird" attack seems to be working to call out this aptly-named behavior by the far right in America is its similarity to the end of another far right movement in America: McCarthy's Red Scare.

It is popularly attributed that the moment, the quote, that brought about the end of the Red Scare was this:

"Until this moment, senator, I think I never gauged your cruelty or recklessness . . . . Have you no sense of decency, sir? At long last, have you left no sense of decency?"

Special Counsel for the U.S. Army Joseph N. Welch confronting Sen. Joseph McCarthy (source)

Many historical accounts will say this is the moment the spell broke with McCarthy. That this is the moment when Americans looked around like the naval officer at the end of Lord of the Flies and basically said, "What the hell is going on here?"

I think Walz's "weird" quote is this moment.

I've been waiting for this moment to occur with MAGA for some time. It did indeed feel as if no amount of pointing out the lunacy, the absurdity, of the movement was enough. I think other commentators might be right when saying that appealing to how dangerous they are, how scary they are, wasn't working. I could speculate on a variety of reasons for this, like that people like to be part of the winning side and being "scary" can feel good. Or that because of Godwin's Law it's nearly impossible to impress upon people how serious and swift the rise of fascism can be even when it's right in front of you, because no one wants to believe that "our sort of people" would do that sort of thing.

But calling out the MAGA movement as "weird" seems to be working because it echoes Welch's "decency" attack. It is treating childish behavior with the response it deserves. It's huff of exasperation, it's the admonishment of the social choir saying, "What the hell is wrong with you? Why do you care about other people's personal lives so much? Why the hell are you trying to ban books like the Nazis did? Why are you going after women and immigrants and trans kids? Why can't you just be a good neighbor and leave people alone? At long last have you no sense of decency?"

We're tired of it. The MAGA movement has gone too far beyond the wishes of the moderate "silent majority" (such as it is and that's its own topic of debate) and is now obsessed with its own culture war issues that have grown increasingly detached from anything anyone really cares about day to day except for their die hards. And those die hards are so out of touch they don't realize it happened.

If I may end on one last rumination, I think that part of the reason the MAGA movement has lost touch is because of Trump's skill at marketing. Now, I loathe pretty much every aspect of the man, I struggle to think of any point on which I don't, but there is one thing, one thing I'll give him credit for which is being an arguably generational talent at marketing, branding, and self-promotion. He's good at getting his name on things and making them all about him (before he inevitably runs them into the ground).

But the thing is with marketing, you do a thing called A/B testing. You see which message resonates the most. And if a feel-good ad gets you 30% response and a misogynistic ad gets you 60% response, you go with that misogynistic one because the numbers support it (I actually saw this happen with an ad campaign so it's based on personal experience).

Now, if you notice that 16 year old boys really like your product and if you sell to them, you move more product, even if you lost the interest of everyone else, you're still doing a good job at moving your product (see Hollywood for the last few decades). Because a large, certain audience is better in marketing than trying to achieve broad but tepid appeal.

But the thing in politics is that you actually do have to expand your appeal. You have to get over 50% in the US. That means expanding the coalition, appealing to more people. But that runs counter to the way a lot of product marketing would work, where you'd single out your best audience and market aggressively to them because you'll get a better return. That, I think, is why Trump risks losing the middle even as he has the right locked down. He is a marketer, not a politician. He has his reliable audience. But that reliable audience isn't enough to win office. It's just enough to get reliable buyers of his product. And he doesn't know how to expand beyond them.

To bring this all back to "weirdness" and "decency", I think this too plays into what we're seeing. The MAGA movement has turned in on itself through its constant marketing to itself, always seeking a bigger outrage, a bigger sequel to bring people to the theater. That has put it out of touch with the wider mainstream. It's made them weird, a weird subculture within America that is not in touch with what most people want out of their government.

At least, that's what I hope. We'll find out in a few months now, won't we?