#for those who don't know. trump just did a talk about how he wants to take control of all the gaza strip permanently kick out all

[jewish-microwave-laser]

i'm once again fucking livid that the """pro-palestine""" movement is so fucking chock full of people who are only anti-israel that THIS is what palestinians' self proclaimed allies have advocated for

[ms-demeanor]

making my own post because nobody needs my bullshit on their post:

OP:

Reblog 1:

Reblog 2:

My response:

The IRA blogs were here and they were active and they were quite popular; their posting patterns did not match normal tumblr users (i was followed by lagonegirl and followed back only to be put off by the account reblogging the same five or ten posts every hour for a day before selecting another five or ten posts to reblog hourly the next day - it was clear engagement bait).

Tumblr has never been as transparent about these accounts as both Twitter and Facebook were, but several of the accounts had shared names across platforms and you can find a significant amount of data that was released by both facebook (ex: ads purchased by the IRA accounts) and twitter (over three million tweets from IRA accounts). Academic researchers have published papers on the data released from facebook and twitter. Several papers. So many papers. Soooooo many papers. We have a LOT of direct evidence that you can explore for yourself that there were hundreds (possibly thousands) of IRA accounts that were created on Facebook and Twitter. Of those accounts, some shared usernames across platforms, and of those accounts, a few had tumblr accounts that posted the same content on twitter and tumblr.

To quote a buzzfeed news article from the time:

The Russian-run Tumblr accounts used the same, or very similar, usernames as the account names contained on a list of confirmed IRA accounts Twitter submitted to congressional investigators. In some cases, the Tumblr and Twitter account has the same profile image or linked to each other in their bios. Some IRA Tumblrs and Twitter accounts also cross-promoted content between platforms, further linking them together.

Current tumblr user @ alwaysbewoke (who I don't want to tag because I'm sure he's got better things to do) is interviewed in that article and talks about following one of the blogs identified by tumblr as an IRA blog that had a matching account on twitter identified as an IRA account but unfollowing when the left-leaning blog supposedly run by a black creator started rooting for trump in the election.

Dr. Jonathan Albright is heavily quoted in the article; the data review he collaborated on is one of the only reviews of this subject that includes data from Tumblr and Reddit.

One of the claims that I've seen is that tumblr just deleted funny black people, but these were blogs with thousands of followers on tumblr who never recreated, never popped up on another social media site, never started a reddit account after getting banned; nobody ever showed up saying "hey this is 4mysquad, I got banned on tumblr and twitter, follow me to pillowfort". These very popular blogs got deleted and, as far as I know, nobody ever popped up claiming to be a person who was deleted - and it's not like tumblr users haven't figured out how to evade bans.

What you are doing when you make posts saying that the IRA accounts on tumblr never existed is *absolving tumblr of guilt for their utter lack of transparency.*

Tumblr is not the only tech company that has tried to fly under the radar as its larger counterparts face regular scrutiny in Congress and in the press. Earlier this month, Reddit revealed it too had deleted hundreds of accounts with ties to the Internet Research Agency. A WIRED investigation found more than a thousand links to Russian propaganda websites are still live on Reddit, and unearthed two suspicious accounts that Reddit immediately shut down.

So should you believe what Tumblr says? No, because Tumblr has been functionally fucking silent on this issue and the information about this subject aside from the list of blogs has come from the hard work of data scientists, journalists, and researchers.

(For the record; some of those bot accounts that were recorded by Dr. Albright also had Google+ accounts in 2017 - there is every possibility that they had myspace accounts).

Now, the reason that I'm popping onto this post as an annoyed anarchist is that I was tracking a similar group of blogs for a while and was discussing them and I stopped precisely because of the galaxy-brained liberals who are now trying to dunk on communists for criticizing electoralism. One of the people who was following my project was one of the ones who started calling out the "joe biden kills dogs" posts as disinfo and I realized they were using some of the guidelines I'd written up to "identify" misinformation and that is very a rock fucking stupid approach to what was clearly a leftist making jokes and was horrified and realized there was no way that I could continue documenting what I was documenting without someone attempting to call actual leftists russian bots.

I've seen the post that OP is referencing [it's one where someone makes a very obvious joke about the democrat presidential ticket and people jump on to call them a bot and then someone tries to do the "AI tell me a story" thing and OP is just like "I don't want to :(", proving that they are in fact a person and not an AI] and have deeply enjoyed the humor of watching liberals a) not understand a very, VERY obvious joke and b) become the unwitting butt of a joke they were trying to make, but also I am so exhausted by watching normie dems call leftists AI bots after years of watching normie dems call real live actual leftists who hold actual political views that real people actually have, like prison abolition, russian bots.

But I am also so fucking tired of left conspiracism and how stupid it sounds when leftists dismiss a preponderance of evidence that is easily accessible and publicly available for analysis as "lol so you just trust everything tumblr tells you?"

No, dipshit, learn to click a fucking link or twelve.

[hazel2468]

You know, to get political for a second.

It hasn't escaped my notice that every time someone brings up the presidential election. There is ALWAYS an early 20-somethings queer person in the comments or replies going on and on about how Biden won't help Palestine, about how Biden is doing a genocide, about how "Israel this and that" and like...

You're all fucking idiots for falling for this. You are. Because those people saying that shit are either the morons we see protesting who can't answer which river and which sea they're screaming about or who don't know what Hamas' charter says, OR they're the same fucking bots who appeared all over tumblr back before the 2016 election to try and convince all of us, using the hot political topics at the time, not to vote Dem. Because they had a vested interest in us not voting Dem.

And just to speak on the whole Palestine thing here... Do you really thing. That Trump. The racist fascist who openly wants to be a dictator. Who is buddy-buddy with Netanyahu, the other racist fascist who wants to be a dictator. Is going to do anything other than give Bibi the fucking green light to do anything he wants? If you think that Trump is going to be better for your "Pro-Palestine" movement (which, btw, is in quotes because the vast majority of the idiots supporting it don't know jack shit about what's going on and don't actually care about the Palestinian people, seeing as they have a habit of cheering for the terrorist organization that uses them as human shields, steals their money and aid for their own devices, and they have a lovely habit of attacking actual Palestinian peace activists who call them on it and ignoring what they say they actually need so...) than Biden? You're out of your fucking mind.

Holy shit I am not going to sit here and watch people fall for the same BS they did back in 2016. Israel and Palestine is the hot-button topic right now. Every time you see someone talking about how Trump has promised to roll back all the protections that the Biden/Harris admin has put in place, every time you see someone pointing out that the Republicans LITERALLY have a plan to fucking turn our country into an Evangelical hellscape, there is some fucking numbnuts in the notes, probably with a pride flag in their bio, wailing about "Genocide Joe".

And you all need to ask yourself why the hell there are all of these nearly-identical blogs. All doing the exact same thing every time someone tries to point out that another Trump term would see people literally dead and our country fucking torn apart, possibly forever. Use your fucking brains.

[porcupine-girl]

I realize that I am preaching to the choir here, given that I actually have NOT seen any of this going around on Tumblr. But just in case it's here and I've just missed it:

DO NOT MAKE FUCKING CAT-EATING MEMES. I KNOW YOU THINK YOU'RE MAKING FUN OF TRUMP, BUT YOU'RE NOT.

The thing is, 90% of the memes and jokes I've seen about this don't specify in any way whatsoever that they are making fun of Trump/Vance/people who believe that it's happening. They're just "haha eating cats funny" - which, guess who else would make that exact same joke? People who believe that immigrants are eating cats and are making fun of the immigrants for it!

Almost all of the memes I've seen shared by people on the left, I have to wonder if they were originally made by people on the right. I hear people talk about wearing "cat-eating shirts" to the polls since they can't wear Harris/Walz shirts, and I'm like... won't the other side do that too? Do you not see how the exact same thing is funny to them, but for completely opposite reasons? Vance even outright said he wants to see more memes, whether or not it's true.

And if you share these memes, they will assume you agree with them. Have you ever wondered how MAGAs could possibly believe that over half the country agrees with them? Well, when it looks for all the world like everyone else is also laughing at those stupid immigrants who steal people's pets, it's not hard for them to assume that those people laughing at immigrants are on their side.

This isn't the first time this has happened, either. Right after Epstein's suicide, some guy was being interviewed on the news about something unrelated and right at the end threw in something like "Epstein didn't kill himself" or something, and people on the left thought it was hilarious and amazing and shared it all over the place.

Except. That guy? He thought CLINTON killed Epstein, not Trump. THAT was his point, THAT was the joke he was making. But the left caused his video to rack up the views and shares, so now he thinks everyone else also thinks Clinton did it. And the same for all the other Epstein jokes that didn't specify who you thought actually had him killed. I definitely saw ones that got used by both sides unironically.

Please think a little bit when it comes to political humor. Could someone on the opposite end of the spectrum from you look at the joke or meme you're posting and think that it's aimed at them? Like, no matter how obvious you think it is who the real target is intended to be, could someone possibly misconstrue the target to be someone on your side?

[captaincorgi128]

On Christmas Day of 2018, I received a paperback copy of George Orwell's 1984. I was 12 years old.

I remember the adults - aunts and uncles, parents, grandparents, looking at me cautiously, as if they had handed me a live bomb rather than a book. "That's a very intense book, okay?" my father told me. "If you want, we can talk about it after you read it." 12-year-old me, with only a dim idea of what fascism actually was and an insatiable appetite for books, only nodded.

While my younger cousins and sister played with their new toys, I sat on the couch and read the book in one sitting. When I finished, I looked up to see the adults staring at me with a strange sort of fascination. "Do you want to talk about it?" my father asked.

"No." I shrugged and turned away.

The truth was, I had been expecting a happy ending. Winston Smith was the good guy, wasn't he? Why didn't he win? Evil governments always lost in the end, didn't they? How could Winston have been brainwashed into believing such an evil, awful dictatorship was truly great? After all, when my middle school history teachers talked about dictatorships, those of Hitler and Stalin, it was obvious that they were the worst of the worst. No one actually agreed with them, did they?

Then I remembered my fourth grade class talking about the upcoming election, laughing about how obviously stupid Trump's wall idea was, and how strange it felt to hear someone say Clinton was worse. I don't remember his reasoning, but I distinctly remember thinking it was dumb because what could be dumber than a giant wall around Mexico? I remembered my grandmother arguing against vaccinating children, and I remembered flat Earthers I had seen online. That day was the first time it clicked for me: people believe what they want to believe.

The years passed. I read 1984 again, and again, and again. I watched as Trump shut down the government for sake of a temper tantrum, as he was impeached, as he told Americans to inject bleach, as he politicized a pandemic and let thousands die. I didn't know about his SA scandals. I didn't know he had called Mexicans "thieves and rapists." I just knew he could not be allowed to be president again.

Yet, when 2020 rolled around, I was only 14 years old and could not vote. I settled for watching anxiously as the votes came in - I didn't know much about Joe Biden, but he was clearly a better alternative. He actually believed the COVID-19 pandemic was real, for one. So I sighed in relief as the results came through four days later: Joe Biden had been elected president of the United States.

I kept watching. I watched as Trump incited insurrection, as terrorists stormed the Capitol. I stared in horror at the TV. How could this have happened? How were so many people so delusional?

In December 2021, for my sophomore year English class, I read 1984 again. I thought of January 6th.

My classmates thought it boring, confusing, stupid. It didn't make sense. What did it matter? Who cared whether or not we knew the significance of the character of O'Brien?

I kept watching. The summer before my junior year of high school, just before I entered a relationship with my now-partner, Roe v. Wade was overturned, and I felt a sinking pit in my stomach. Six months later, a friend of mine read 1984 for that same English class, and he loved it - we had a few intense study hall discussions about the nature of doublespeak, of totalitarianism, of a surveillance state. My partner agreed, reading it with a terrified fascination.

I kept watching. I realized I was nonbinary, and I watched in horror as the Republican Party made their creeping advances to eradicate trans rights. Idly, I reread 1984. What the right wanted did seem a lot like Oceania's government, didn't it? I wondered if I'd ever be able to marry my partner, who, despite also being trans, was still the same sex as me. If Trump ran again, he'd probably win, and then what would we do?

Then, 2024. Trump won the primaries in a landslide. I turned 18 and registered to vote. In the meantime, I skimmed Project 2025's bits about banning pornography and thought of 1984 and its carefully curated sexless society, created to achieve perfect complacency. I went off to college and voted absentee, carefully bubbling in the circle next to Vice President Kamala Harris's name. I woke up on Wednesday, November 6th to see Trump had won the presidency.

It has been one week. Again, I watch as Trump proposes a Department of Government Efficiency, which sounds euphemistically horrific. I watch as he suggests Musk to head it, a man known for being as inefficient as possible. I think of the Ministry of Truth and how its entire purpose was to disseminate lies. I watch as people celebrate, mocking me and many others who had desperately voted against a fascist, a rapist, a convicted criminal, a man who would kill us and spit on our graves if he was elected to office. I think of Parsons and duckspeak, the practice of simply spitting out the "correct" propaganda the same way a duck quacked. People really did believe what they wanted to believe, didn't they? I realize Trump won because, deep down, people hated minorities more than they loved democracy.

I hope my loved ones and I will survive another Trump presidency. I hope those in Gaza and Ukraine will survive it too, along with so many others - Jews, POC, immigrants, students, disabled, Muslims. At the very least, I hope to live long enough to watch as the bigots are forced to eat their own words and come to terms with the fact they gleefully voted in their own downfall.

At the end of the day, 1984 taught me something I could not have comprehended at age 12, 14, 15, or 16, but can understand now: democracy dies not with a bang, but with a whimper.

[odinsblog]

“Every time I talk to people, they talk about the economy. But I'm like, man, since World War II, the economy has always done better under a Democrat president. That's just a fact.

It's always been Democrats. There's been 11 recessions in this country. Ten of them have been Republicans.

So I don't know how they've hijacked that narrative. But I think the other thing that you just got to chock it up to is just good old fashioned racism. And I think in the case of Vice President Kamala Harris and Hillary Clinton 2016, sexism.

I just really do, like it's still America at the end of the day. There are people in this country who are still just holding on to old ideologies. They don't want to see America be a great American melting pot where all of these different people from all of these different walks of life can live.

They like that racist, sexist, bigoted rhetoric that Trump spews.

Why is it so hard for her to say that?

I think because for whatever reason, like, you know, you hate these elected officials even when you say, is America a racist country? OK, you can't say America is a racist country, but you can say that, you know, there's systemic racism in America. I think that is a fair thing to say.

Like, I watched her on Fox News the other night, and I loved how she handled Bret Baer. When Bret Baer tried to push her, Bret Baer was like, are you saying the American people are stupid? I can't remember how he worded it, but she was like, ‘No, I would never say that because I don't want to disparage the American people. But my opponent has no problem doing that.’

And I understand that approach, you know, but I think that it is perfectly fine to acknowledge that those things exist because guess what? As a Black man, as a Black woman, you feel that.

As a woman, you feel that sexism. As a Jewish person, you think you don't feel all the antisemitism that's happening right here in our country. Like as a gay person, you think you don't feel the homophobia.

So you can speak to what people are feeling because you see it.”

There was an amazing moment in the interview where someone comes along and brings up the F word, fascism.

Kamala Harris: It's two very different visions for our nation. One mind that is about taking us forward and progress and investing the American people, investing in their ambitions, dealing with their challenges. And the other, Donald Trump, is about taking us backward

Charlamagne: The other is about fascism. Why can't we just say it?

Kamala Harris: Yes, we can say that.

Tell me about what transpired there and how you felt about it.

“Well, it was the same thing that we just said, right? Like, you know, she was saying what she's about, and then she was saying what he's about.

And I was just like, yo, just say it.

Like, he's a fascist. You just had General Mark Milley just said he's a fascist to the core, like a danger to the country. So for me, it's like the American people will never understand the threat that Donald Trump is if people aren't spelling it out.

They didn't treat him like he's a threat to democracy. They kept saying that he's a threat democracy. They kept saying that he's a threat to democracy, but Merrick Garland should have locked Trump up after the coup. Right?

I was literally watching something yesterday and there was a person talking and the person was like, if Donald Trump, you know, really let an attempted coup of this country, why didn't they arrest him? They did. They did charge him.

But there's so many people who don't even know because he's not treated like that. We know we live in a society that knows how to demonize people when they want to. Right?

You can look at it, and I'm just going to use this as an example. Not saying that it's not warranted that it's happening, but look at somebody like Diddy. Front page of every newspaper, all over the news.

You hear about every charge. Like you see it, you see it, you see it over and over. They don't villainize and demonize Trump in that way.

You've never seen Trump in handcuffs. You saw one Trump mugshot. Like they don't treat it like.

The media has continuously treated Donald Trump and his whole candidacy like it's normal, which is mind boggling to me.”

What do we have to... Not to be defensive, but jumping up and down, what do we have to do? I mean, how many different ways can you say it?

“You know why it doesn't penetrate? Because Americans are spoiled and we don't think it can happen here because it's never happened here.

Like if you talk to older people who were closer to that, who can remember things like, ‘Oh my God, he's doing a rally at Madison Square Garden.’

That's what happened in the 30s with the Nazis.

If you can talk to people who understand that, they get it. This generation doesn’t.

If you have a sense of history and you've read things like The Fall of The Third Reich, things like that, you can see the patterns that lead to somebody like Trump becoming a dictator. I just don't think people think dictatorship is possible in America, but it is, because our democracy is very fragile.”

—Charlamagne tha God, on election 2024

[qqueenofhades]

The thing that confuses me about the "don't vote" left (not the "I don't want to vote", I'm talking explicitly the "don't vote" left. I don't agree with the "I don't want to vote" left either but I can understand their logic) is they lose me at the final step of the logic. I've tried to connect the logic here, even if I don't agree with a political position I do try to understand where people are coming from (empathy for someones situation is not the same as cosigning it), but I just can't connect the dots here in a way that isn't deeply cruel. Does United States politics prioritize the lives of those in the US (and often white) over those in the Global South? Yes, it's a fucking atrocity. We should continue to make noise about it, cus Biden has used less drones and that shows progress, even if it's not enough. The part where I lose the plot is where the conclusion to this injustice is to let even more people die? Cus that's kinda how I see the idea of not voting: I can pick between shit and more shit, and at the end of the day, I'm picking whoever allows the most people to make it to the next day. Given Trumps stance on everything but specifically climate change, I feel like Biden is pretty significant harm reduction.

I don't think both things can't be true: that every life lost is a travesty we should not forget AND the more people we can save is worth fighting for.

The thing is, I have seen nothing among the "don't vote" far left (and I am talking here specifically about the people who both loudly announce their intention not to vote and try to convince others to do the same) to convince me that they actually care about harm reduction or stopping genocide. They only care about what makes them look the most Correct and/or superior to the Democrats. They yelled bloody murder about Obama using drones, they went dead quiet about Trump using them even more (even when he nearly started WWIII by assassinating the Iranian general Soleimani with one), and then said nothing at all when Biden reduced the drone program to almost nothing and withdrew the US from a failed war in Afghanistan it had long ago lost. Now they will yell all day about Israel/Hamas (something that Biden did not start and has had no direct military role in responding to) but they don't care about Russian genocide of Ukraine and Syria, Chinese threats to invade Taiwan, etc, because those governments are "anti-western/anti-American" and therefore should be defended. Their opposition to human suffering is extremely conditional and rests on whether they can look good out of it, and they never interrogate the hypocrisies of their own ideology.

Likewise: every country in the world prizes its own citizens above those of other countries. It's just a basic fact. Yes, the US has a grim history of intervening in other countries and causing untold civilian damage (especially during the Cold War and then in post-9/11 War on Terrorism). Yes, that legacy is complex and needs to be acknowledged. But literally none of that will be fixed, not to mention all the vulnerable people in America itself who will be punished, by Trump getting into power again. Biden is not just a grudging "lesser evil," but has done a lot of truly good and helpful things, regardless of the Online Leftists' constant lies, misinformation, and misrepresentation. If you spend all your time announcing what a champion you are for non-American marginalised people and/or those undergoing terrible suffering, and then deliberately and knowingly adhere to a course of action that will increase that suffering tenfold not only for those people but your own neighbors, friends, and family, then no, I don't believe you are a brave champion of social justice. You just want to know what categories of people you can gleefully and righteously punish and make to suffer for not believing the same things as you, that makes you just as dangerous as the right-wing fascists, and I can and will call out your ass accordingly.

[batboyblog]

i live in the south, and i used to follow someone on here who lives in the same state as me, who i thought would've understood how difficult things are for marginalized people who live in red states and why we needed harris to win. but they kept reblogging posts about how both parties are the same and anyone who votes for harris is voting for genocide (as if letting trump win was going to be any better?? he's just started talking about wanting to "clean out the whole thing" and forcibly displace all remaining palestinians by making them move to jordan and egypt, an idea which every group who would be affected hates 🙄). i kept hoping they'd finally realize the very obvious fact that contributing to trump's win wasn't going to make things better for any decent person in the world but the last straw for me was when they posted something like "well i was going to go vote for [fictional character] but the line was too long so i just went home haha!!" i blocked them right after that, and now of course trump is in office and things are going to get so much worse for me and for them as those of us in red states have so much less of a chance to push back against our local governments and all of the bigots who voted for trump will feel more emboldened by his win. so yeah, i share your small fantasy that people like that will wake up and realize they were wrong for spreading these ideas. sorry for venting in your inbox though lol, you don't have to reply to this if you don't want to!

One of my best friends in politics is from Louisiana. He's gay and when he came out his parents sent him to a pray the gay away camp where... really horrible shit happened. And I think about that skinny kid coming out of just the most horrible shit imaginable and being a Freshman in college working his ass off for a Red State Democratic Senator, Mary Landrieu, Mary didn't win, but he worked SO hard for her. And we met working on Hillary's campaign together, boy has bad luck with Democratic women running for office.

Any ways the point is, I love red state Dems, I really do. My friend really loved John Bel Edwards, now I don't think either of us really fully agreed with Edwards, I know my friend was as feminist as a gay boy can be and believed in the right to an abortion totally, Edwards was/is one of the rare pro-life Democrats. But my friend understood, a Democratic governor would protect more people's rights, do more for the poor and the disadvantaged. Edwards' signed an order day one in office banning LGBT discrimination in the state government, when a Republican took over 8 years later, day one, threw that order out, a lot like Trump undoing all the pro-LGBT orders Biden did and rolling back trans rights/access to federal documents that came about under President Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

I think thats the thing, in Red States and in America at large we share this big country with a lot of people most of whom are more conservative than I am, so how do I get as much of what I want as I can? Do I vote Mickey Mouse for President? no I vote for the candidate that will do the most good, I won't always agree with them, I don't agree with myself most of the time.

idk it's not... theoretical to me? I'm likely not writing my best work here but when it comes to voting I think about all the people in my life who needed help, if they got it or not, and the ways they were left behind or would have been life behind and all the kids out there, queer kids trans kids, the poor always the poor kids, you know and the loss they'll suffer because of 4 years of a Republican President. And yes Trump is a VERY bad Republican President but if we ever get to some future after him there will come a time where maybe a bland centrist Democrat will run against a business focused Republican, Bush V Gore? and people will say "oh there's no difference" and there is.

oh also I want to say, the little old ladies, the normie "cringe lib" wine moms and grandmas (and yes dads and granddads, but more women then men tbh) who struggle with a grand-nephews pronouns did more for trans rights by going out knocking doors for Harris one weekend, then shitty leftist posters (trans and not) who endlessly attacked Dems and voting.

any ways I'm sorry all this is happening, idk what state you're in or how bad it is or will be. I don't have easy answers for living through this long night of the soul. As Thomas Paine put it all those years ago "These are the times that try men's souls: The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of his country; but he that stands it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman." it is trying my soul, but I will endure as we all must endure, we can not give up we cannot fail, we cannot allow ourselves to be ground down by fascists, and by their handmaids who act as if they're on our side, I hope everyone is looking to what they can do, and what the next chance they have to fight back and take back political power is.

[oacest]

My thoughts on the audio are that I genuinely cannot come up with a sane explanation. I don't think Liam was necessarily in the studio but he has to be talking about him, right? Like IDK there was some visual effect or whatever, literally who else could be the cunt Noel doesn't want to see. Beyond which I am not a proper scholar so please let me know if I'm way off base but I have an extended divorce theory that goes:

2009: Breakup, they're both big mad for a minute

201?-2012: They are texting and like, sending their kids to the same school. possibly the most normal they've ever been.

2013-2015: Liam blows his entire life up and is extremely sad about the consequences of his own actions. I saw actual video footage of Noel saying that he's shocked beady eye broke up and he's actually sweet about it and tells Liam not to give up? who is this man. anyway while Liam will later claim Noel wasn't there for him during the divorce but as a general rule they're much nicer about each other when they're divorcing other people. this is where I become extremely conspiratorial because at some point they had to get the documentary off the ground and a second, more personal breakup is clearly going down around this time. I believe in their ability to deeply wound each other by playing cryptic telephone through the press but I think it genuinely makes more sense if they were actually talking, perhaps about a potential reunion.

2016-2020: supersonic documentary and also (coincidentally?) the apocalypse. Liam launches his solo career, Noel hates it and is pretty relentlessly mean about it and about Liam more generally. we are gearing up for the kind of tweeting/podcast commenting where you call your brother your ex-wife. I think this is also when Noel decides to drag Molly into it for some reason. Liam says publicly that he thinks Noel was waiting for him to hit rock bottom so he could be magnanimous about saving him. whether he thinks this because of something concrete noel did or said or because he's liam is a mystery. the Anais incident goes down, the vogue article comes out. we are never ever getting back together for real this time. noel says a bunch of normal and well adjusted stuff about how he wants Liam to die in a self driving car crash with Donald Trump and seeing his face makes him want to shoot up a MacDonalds.

2020-2022: the pandemic saves oasis. I'm serious. they're both stuck sitting at home with nothing to distract them from themselves and think of brighter days. apparently being trapped in a house with noel is genuinely so unbearable that Sara calls it quits (in the matter of Sara v. Noel I'm on her side). presumably this was cause for at least some self reflection. divorce is a lonely and difficult experience, sara and liam seem to legit hate each other in a way that would be a barrier to reconciliation (in the matter of Sara v. Liam I am also on her side but less so bcs she didn't get trapped in a house with him). at the same time Liam pulls off Knebworth 2022, demonstrating he can handle big events without headcasing (and without noel, and he will be doing those big events solo or otherwise). at this point I genuinely think it was just a matter of time before we were back, baybeee! let's hope they can keep it together.

bro your brain is so huge and deeply wrinkled, profoundly agree with all of this. why you on anon when your opinions are so correct and you could be sharing them with us directly tbh 👀.

but yeah, 100% covid saved oasis lmao. noel's divorce saved oasis. noel's miserable midlife crisis (ongoing) saved oasis 🥰🥰🥰. and it juuuuuust really seems like all those insane highs and lows that went on publicly in the media between them over the years probably, or at least quite possibly, had irl personal catalysts rather than just a general holdover of ill will from the 2000s. there are so many random little times one or both of them casually mentioned they were in contact, and any one of those instances can be disregarded, but when considered in retrospect from a collective standpoint..... AWFULLY DAMNING!!!

lots more to say about all of this actually, every point you've made is legit af and could be expounded upon for a hundred years, but it's midnight and im coming down with a flu (punishment for some kind of hubris im sure), so. thank you for all of this and goodnight 🙏

[exyrpf]

Do I even want to know what happened in the last 24 hours 😭 I'm almost afraid to ask but I'm also insanely curious

You probably don't want to know but I'll tell you because you have no choice. This will be long and...awful. But there are sources so that's fun! Please keep in mind that this was all released within 24 hours on Thursday, September 20th, 2024 and that, unfortunately, I haven't mentioned everything.

But! The GOP was certainly having a wild one yesterday.

To start things off:

The first 'Big News' to break was about Mark Robinson.

For those saying 'who the fuck is Mark Robinson', he's the current (R) Lt. Gov of North Carolina that is running for Gov. Before yesterday, he was best known for openly hating LGBT+ and Jewish folks, being a Holocaust denier, being (forcefully) anti abortion, saying it was better when women couldn't vote, anti immigrant, hating the civil rights movement, etc, just being a hateful Evangelical nasty fascist. MAGA to his core. Trump has endorsed him, saying he should be cherished and calling him "MLK on steroids". (Robinson is Black).

So, yeah, that's bad enough right? Yesterday it got even worse. CNN released a report about some comments he made on a porn site forum 12 years ago, the most prominent being 'i'm a black NAZI'. He also commented that he wished slavery was legal and that he'd own a few, and called himself a 'perv' that used to 'peep' on women in public locker rooms when he was a teenager.

Also the tale as old as time that I'm sure you could guess when I mentioned 'GOP' 'loudly transphobic' and 'porn site scandal' - trans porn was a favourite of his. Because of course.

Also of course - the GOP hasn't taken him off the ticket, and he will continue to be the nominee for governor in North Carolina!

Read the article, there's more about him and the situation in general. Mind the warnings.

-

Now on to our favourite worm brained bear eating anti vaxxer conspiracy theorist, Robert F. Kennedy Junior! I'm putting this under a read more now.

The first thing to drop about him yesterday was the news of an investigation after he allegedly cut off the head of a dead whale and took it home 20 years ago. Now I bet you're thinking, wow that's bad! Unfortunately for RFK Jr yesterday got worse. It was then revealed that he (70) was having an affair with right wing journalist Olivia Nuzzi (31) after New York Magazine suspended her.

Everything I learn about RFK Jr I learn against my own will.

-

Saying goodbye to RFK for now, let's move on to Rep. Matt Gaetz of Florida! This Matt Gaetz, with the botox if you didn't recognise him.

Scary lookin, right?

This isn't a completely new story (here's an article about how he alledgedly paid for sex with a minor) but new court filings were released yesterday alledging that he attended a drug-fueled sex party in 2017 with the 17-year-old girl at the center of the alleged sex trafficking scandal.

Sure is great to have such trustworthy men representing this country!

OKAY, on to the next.

-

This wasn't really breaking news because this is just Trump being Trump but he gave a speech at an ANTI ANTISEMITISM EVENT where he preemptively blamed the Jews for being the reason he'll lose this election, telling them they need to get their head checked if they vote for Harris (that's pretty much part of his stump speech by now though) and saying he'll reinstate his Muslim ban. White fascist blaming Jews? Wow, I did Nazi that coming.

-

I genuinely could go on, I really truly could.

Oh! Kamala Harris went on Oprah and it was really nice and not at all insane and she talked to the family of the first known victim of Trump's abortion ban and it was very touching. Trump's official social media then posted a clip of her talking about her gun and saying 'If somebody breaks into my house, they're getting shot' like it was a snatch when in reality Republicans in the comments are saying 'actually, this would make me vote for her'. Thanks, Trump Team for the free advertising!

Misc:

Chris Rufo (known racist and anti immigration right wing activist) got revealed to have an illegal immigrant wife, and then got revealed to be a user of Ashley Madison (database where people go to cheat on their partners)(Robinson was also on Ashley Madison).

Jasmine Crockett during her thing and ripping white republicans to shreds. (idk this was just fun to me)

Actually Republicans and Project 2025 got ripped to shreds and shut down in general by multiple Congress members.

GOP is on the brink of causing a government shutdown, because of COURSE they are.

Cards Against Humanity sues SpaceX over “invasion” of land on US/Mexico border.

Anyway there's actually MORE believe it or not but I can't remember if it happened yesterday. Thank you for reading, I'm always open to discussing current events. I don't think it's a well known fact that I'm into politics because I don't talk about it on tumblr because people are kinda stupid. Anyway!

[0daylighthours0]

My Mother's Unbiased Byler + Milkvan Opinions - Viewing ST for the 1st Time!

(UPDATE)

My Mama has now witnessed Stranger Things in its entirety. Her favourite season was the third, her favourite characters Hopper and Joyce, her favourite pairing would be those guys too, and her most disliked pairing? Can only assume.

I wanted to write out her thoughts on the second to last episode previously, as she'd held many, but before I knew it we'd finished the whole show and I was forced to an income of NEW opinions which ruled out my memory of any old ones. Shucks. But boy did this lady have much to say. The only way I can break it down is by providing a sample of quotes she'd delivered, in order, a day after having finished the series.

All are just things she said about milkvan and byler, as they're this post's main focus. There's simply much to say about these relationships too, being so up in the air over where they ought be expected to turn out. These are all direct quotes too (as I typed as she talked, unkown to her) so you'll have to excuse the natural way in which some lines come off as unfocused, being written after real time conversations. Let's get into it:

Ok I really don't know whether she likes Mike very much. She actively disliked the guy earlier on, and now her feelings appear to be more mixed. A lot of her discussion was solely around this guy's actions.

"It's almost like he's [Mike] forcing himself like- ok Hopper he was kind of very passionate and kissing, you know he sort of instantly- with Mike, from being obsessed and spending so much time with her [El], suddenly he starts cooling off more and more and suddenly- they even separated right? I mean yeah that was out of his control but he, but he didn't really seem like he missed her you know it's like he just got on with it."

This point caught me off guard. I don't know how much I agree with my mother on this. It made me realize that during Mike and El's separation, there weren't many quiet Mike moments in which he expressed worry for her, beyond a couple that blend into him simply having breakup concerns. Any time Mike mentions distress for her whilst she's away, his talk evolves into him simply anxious over the state of their relationship. As a group, everyone in our Cali gang clearly wanted to save Eleven, but Mike really should have gotten more heartfelt moments in solitude (that means without Will you suffer bros) in which it is demonstrated to the audience that he really does miss her, as someone who is in love. Her being away shouldn't simply come off as a writing excuse for him to vent to Will. There wasn't enough of that tenderness milkvan desperately needs, and if anything I watched was an attempt then it really wasn't translated well - never trumping everyone else's familial or close frienship-like fret for El, never showcasing his concern to come from a more personal place. I mean how hard is it to have him in her room, staring longingly at a photo of hers, with a background composed of soft music. Then literally leaving it at that. I mean that is it. No Will rushing in there to insist, "you can tell her that thing when you see her k? It'll all work out trust me ight, you're the heart you're the HEART!" que affectionate gazes, constructs a byler scene for no reason I guess .

"I mean how do we know that he missed Will? He articulated it. Why didn't he articulate this the same way to El?"

True. I mean the fact that I can't remember a moment after they find El in which milkvan ask oneanother how they are, and communicate how much they missed eachother, does indeed say something. They shared a hug and touch when they first reunited, which was gladly interrupted by Will. That pineapple + pizza thing was not long enough, or sensitive enough, to be their moment. There was clear bonding, but it didn't breach a level of romance and chemistry nearly decently. It's good that they got at least that, I mean we need to know that these guys are at LEAST really close friends. And then the camera just felt like panning over to Will about to burst into tears in a corner. Like huh? Bruv you've now made it so that milkvan's pizza bit leaves a bad taste in our mouths. If I were a milkvan I'd be furious.

"You know what, I think it's done purposefully to create that sort of cold, distant, confused, you know they wanted to make people say he's [Mike] bisexual. For people to question. They want to get people to think that."

My Mama believes writers intentionally soured milkvan for viewers to "confuse" audiences, build up anticipation, make them question milkvan's relationship and wonder if our main man will spin to Will. I agree. They want that good ol' triangle comeuppance.

"They really are trying to bring that across- so that people start thinking Mike, you know he doesn't love El, he loves Will. They're really trying to, make people think that. Giving them [milkvan] a really nitty gritty relationship."

Yup.

"When you're gay. Coming out like that it's- it's terrifying. You have to be very careful. And Will could, he could tell. You know when someone is attracted to you. I think, things became sort of- sort of complicated. And Will sensed, he could feel that Mike is attracted to him. And that's why he could open up like that. Because you can always tell. You know, you just know, so that's why Will was able to confess these things to him [she sees painting scene as a confession, whether Mike realized it or not, and so do I]."

Well damn Mama. And there you have it folks. My.. I'm not gonna call her the h word but.. my- notabigfanofgaythingsandwouldbehappytopretendtheydon'texist mother, perceives Mike as a homosexual kid, and just that. Well bloomin heck that's all the confirmation I need.

I didn't expect this as a turnout, I mean so particularly. My Mama actually didn't like byler - I think. Well. Bloomin heck. She actually enjoyed Vickie x Robin, and this shocked me to my core. I don't know whether this is simply due to her being a fan of Vickie's actress (recognizing her from Anne With an 'E'), but I do know that my mother has a bias in gay relationships and sees ones involving females as more "pure" than that of two males. So her language when describing Will has changed since her realization that he loves Mike for sure (which became undeniable in the van scene). She describes him as being 'obsessed' with Mike, and says writers really wanted to get that obsession across. I agree with Will having been one note during season 4, him hopefully having more time to shine in the approaching season, but I thoroughly disagree with him coming off as obsessive. I suppose our camera man displayed the guy's little glances at Mike so often that my Mama felt it was overdone, and unable to be ignored. I also think she's just avoiding use of the word 'love' when describing anything homosexual.

She still doesn't think Mike demonstrates how much he loves El enough to leave no room for debate. According to her, his moments with her seem surface level. Just as a reminder she does not know my thoughts. She watched that entire 'I love you' thing and still isn't secure in any genuineness of the guy. I believe she supposes that we're intended to acknowledge milkvan's romance, but also probe it.

I now wonder whether my Mama was good enough representation for the average audience, because she actually does own a bias - this being that she usually actively dislikes gay things. So I puzzle over whether her brain overanalyzed any of the boys' highlights, wanting to "expose" their homo intentions. At first things were up in the air, but it became clear that Mike did not pass her gaydar, he was simply too intimate with Will to make that pass. And this wasn't the case in other seasons, she never questioned their friendship til now. She also hasn't acknowledged any supposedly queer relationships besides rickie (vobin?) and byler, meaning that other fan favourites such as elmax, steddie, ronance and such else didn't stand out as gay to her. This doesn't signify those other relationships to not have a chance, I'm elmax's personal cheersquad, it's plainly clear that my mother didn't have a tendency to point at every same sex relationship and yell suspicious. Byler was purely undeniable. You can thank Will's love being canoned for this, otherwise noone would have a need to read into Mike.

I don't know whether she supposes byler to have a chance moreso than the milk in the van, even with Mike's ambiguity. It would seem that as of right now her guess is that watchers are intended to second guess both relationships in order to build up interest. However, she doesn't know how unlikely Will's love life is to turn out negatively seeing as those damn writers manipulated crowds into consistently sympathizing for him. Dunno about the rest of you but that sounds like good news to me.

I have no idea how to close this analysis. Is it an analysis? There's much more I want to say, much more she said, but I fear this to be too jam-packed and aimless as is. I'm writing a third part to my most recent milkthevan failing relationship deep dive, and that'll possibly consist of thoughts I wish to input after gathering so much data from my mother.

[unforth]

We are one Iowa caucus into the absolute shitshow that is going to be the US 2024 elections, and I'm already sick of seeing takes downplaying the risk that Trump and his fascist followers represent.

Look. Around 1900, my mother's grandparents immigrated to the Lower East Side of New York City. They brought with them children born in Europe (Poland? Ukraine? which country they were in depends on what year we're talking about) - we're not 100% sure they were THEIR children, even, but there were three, and they were young, and they came. But my great-grandparents had siblings, parents, cousins, uncles, aunts, huge families. And while my understanding is that an attempt was made to convince those folks to move to the US, none of them ultimately opted to.

They all kept in touch as they were able, exchanging letters and pictures, but through World War 1, through the 20s, through the Great Depression, through the worsening situation in Europe in the 1930s, my entire extended family who chose not to immigrate...continued to stay.

I think we all know how this story ends.

I have an entire family photo album of people whose names I will never know, because after every single one of them died in the Holocaust, my great-grandparents and grandparents couldn't bear to even label them. And they were PEOPLE, poor, vibrant, eager to maintain connections with their loved ones abroad. One was a Klezmer musician, and we have photos of him with all the different instruments he played. They're so real on the page, and they all ended in ashes.

And you know how that started? Fascism started with every inch allowed, with every well-intentioned moderate who tried to maintain a middle position even as the whole ground shifted right beneath their feet and even "middle" became extreme, every "no that change isn't coming fast enough, I want instant full improvement NOW" liberal who felt that doing nothing was better than accepting a slower improvement in the (truly awful!) post-World War 1 living situation in Germany.

Most of the members of my extended family also downplayed the risks. They never imagined that the worst could happen to them. They never fathomed how bad things could become.

And now I have their example always before me to know and to scream:

I KNOW HOW BAD THINGS CAN BECOME. I KNOW WHAT HAPPENED TO MY FAMILY THEN.

I WILL NOT LET THAT HAPPEN TO MY FAMILY NOW.

People look at me like I'm crazy when I say I've got our passports ready (and have had since before the 2020 election).

Look. I don't know what will happen if Trump is elected, but there's a very real possibility he will, and he's been extremely clear about saying what he'll do. He did a lot of the things he said he'd do last time. I expect he'll continue to do the things he says he'll do. And the things he say he'll do will lead to the deaths of more people than we can imagine - in the US, in Palestine, throughout the world.

Don't tell me there's a middle ground here. Don't tell me I'm over-reacting. Don't tell me the worst won't happen. Don't tell me the risk is mild. Don't tell me we're safe.

We. Are. Not. Safe.

The lives of dozens, hundreds, of members of family were lost in the 1940s amid the horrifying statistic "6,000,000 dead Jews."

I will not let my life (as a Jew), my wife's life (as a disabled woman), my son's life (as a biracial boy), my daughter's life (as a biracial trans girl), be part of the statistics that come from our a second Trump presidency.

If you won't vote like YOUR life depends on it, vote like someone ELSE'S life depends on it, because IT DOES.

And if you can't even do that much, at least shut the fuck up and stop spreading your poison around. You're wrong. The danger is real. Downplaying it now won't make your conscience feel any clearer when it actually happens, and comforting everyone else downplaying it will just make you that much more complicit.

[nezuscribe]

(i was the nonnie who asked about how america works) i don't really wanna keep going back and forth with this cause i dont wanna be annoying or anything, but i did a little bit of research and... that's not really what i've seen??

for all the economy stuff, Biden still had four (or is it five? idk how long your presidents stay in office) years to fix the economy he got from trump if it really was bad, and what ive seen from gas prices and grocery prices in america, he clearly hasn't done that

kamala also had four years to fix the issues she was talking about, so there's that

also, from what i know (pls correct me if im wrong) all of those sexual assault cases and other charges placed against him were proven wrong. i dont think hes actually been indicted or placed in jail for anything (which ig you could sum up to the unfair legal system over there, but wasn't there that hole issue with the Clinton guy?? maybe im getting things confused, idk)

from my research didn't he also provide a lot more jobs for people of color? ive never heard him say anything explicitly racist during his rally's (i havent watched all of them) or with his legislation. ik that whole thing with the border wall was going on, and i do think that was 100% rash way to deal with the border crisis, but the Biden guy also didn't do anything to help that situation

for reproductive rights, i remember tuning into the kamala v. trump debate and he explicitly said that he was pro-abortion in the cases of rape, incest, and life of the mother (if you think that abortion should be okay in any circumstance, the ig its just a different morality, where i live thats very not okay)

for the banning books thing, ive seen plenty of clips where in elementary school library's theyve been putting out books with porn and smut in them, which i think is not okay for little children to be leanring. from what i understand, that's probably what he was trying to do with banning books (again, pls correct me if im wrong)

and i've also never really seen him display any sort of homophobic tendencies.

pls keep in mind that this is all very basic level research, as i dont really have time to go that in depth, but im majoring in politcial science at my uni, so i think this is an interesting and important topic to discuss (sorry for making this so long)

so you seem pretty pro trump at this point but I’ll still humor you if you want to be so forgiving of him.

Who told you those sexual assault cases weren’t true? Those victims still stand by their stories.

And I said I’m not saying that Biden is great. But he was still working with Trumps fuck up. Also idk how much you know about a vice president, but they can’t really do much when they’re not president. I’m not saying Harris did everything she coudlve done, but being a vp has a lot less power than you think.

And for reproductive rights, yeah right. Those fuckers don’t give a DAMN about any cases. Even if they say they do. They want it gone, point blank period.

And one of his first days of office he took away trans people from the military. He spews homophobia.

Do more research. This is embarrassing

[thelittleslowmoon]

For the last several weeks, he and his entourage had been flying across Indiana on this plane, returning every evening to sleep at this same hotel. The arrangement encouraged an extraordinary intimacy among his press corps and staff. Sylvia Wright called the Mother Inn “our home,” and when Dick Harwood returned to Indiana after visiting his family in Washington, she threw her arms around him and whispered, “Welcome home. We've missed you. I've got a husband and family back there somewhere. But this is our real home.” When Harwood's daughter asked him what campaign with Robert Kennedy was like, he had told her, “We all just live together and it's like being at home. And we don't have Mommys and Daddys 'cause we're all old and the same age; but it's a little like all are our brothers and sisters, and we love them the same.”

─ The Last Campaign by Thurston Clarke

“We were seduced,” he[Richard Harwood] explained, “because [Bobby’s] circle was so big that it took us in. It was impossible to draw lines and stay outside… By the time of the Indiana primary — very early in the game — we talked about the Kennedy airplane as ‘The Mother Ship.’ The airport motel at Indianapolis became ‘The Mother Inn.’ Those are family concepts which get back to the concept of the Circle. He brought us in by the qualities of his life… A couple of lines from the Tales of Canterbury [sic] [come] to mind. They were about the poor Parson who had a great gift: ‘To drawen folk to hevene by fairnessse, By good ensample; this was his bisynesse.’ That was Bob Kennedy. He did not draw us all to heaven because a lot of us were not capable of that. But he left the good example and made all of us want to try. He drew the circle to take us in and that is why, prodigal or no, we always ached to go home to The Mother Ship.”

[thefangirlinsideofme]

Kai's had his fair share of relationships; and he's had his fair share of talks. So fair in fact, that he couldn't help but notice a depressing pattern. The words.

The first time he'd heard the words, he'd simply nodded, sat down and looked expectantly at his then girlfriend. She'd been all fidgety and small and in the end Kai had been single. No big deal.

The first few times after that, they had still just been words. But then they'd caused dread spreading in his guts and then he started hoping that not this time and in the end, his partners hadn't even had time to say the words before Kai defeatedly hung his head.

Logan had been the last one. They'd come round to Kai's with a soft smile and light steps, sitting down next to him carefully before they'd said the dreaded words. Kai'd nodded understandingly, "It's okay, I get it."

Logan had been confused, "Oh, I haven't even-"

But Kai knew, always the same old same old. "You're dumping me, it's fine."

So Logan had squeezed his hand and left the house.

Never again, is what Kai'd sworn then and there. But then came the ninja. And with the ninja came Cole.

Because of Kai's insecurities concerning his talent at relationships, it took some time for them to get together, but in the end Cole's persistence trumped Kai's fear. And he was glad it did. They were very happy. Or so he thought.

Which is why he hadn't expected to hear those words again; and so soon at that.

"Kai, we need to talk."

His blood ran cold, he dropped his controller. With a pale face and wide eyes, Kai turned to his boyfriend who leaned against the door to the living room. The videogame's music was happily droning on in the background but to Kai it sounded like twisted laughter.

"Already?" he whispered sadly.

Cole pushed away from the door and came over to the couch, "Listen-"

"No, wait!" Kai'd be damned if he let Cole go that easily. Not this time. He was going to fight the words. "Wait. Before you continue, I have been practicing my steps with Nya and I promise I'm getting better, so we can go dancing soon, alright? And- and I've decided you get full music control in the car-"

"That's great, Kai-"

"We don't have to alternate; it's all you, everytime. Oh and I've made Zane show me how to use the iron, yeah? So I can totally do that for you, I don't iron my clothes, I kinda don't give a damn but I can iron yours? If you wanted?"

"No, that won't be-"

"Uh, and look, tomorrow I'll go get a haircut. You said I should and I will. Good? Do we still need to talk?"

"Well, yes." Cole tilted his head to the side, confused. Kai had hopefully reached out for Cole's hands to squeeze between his fingers but dropped them sadly when Cole didn't seem to defer to what Kai offered.

"But I promise I'm trying! I really am! I don't know what else- what do you need me to do? Tell me and I'll do it! A hundred times! A thousand!"

He was desperate now. Had he really fucked up already? That must be a new record.

"Kai, what are you on about?" Cole scooted a little closer to the Master of Fire and put a gentle hand on his thigh. Kai barely even noticed.

"It's only been eleven days! At least give me a month, I'll show you, I promise!"

Kai wasn't looking at him, so Cole carefully reached out to cup his boyfriends face, "Show me what?"

"That I can be a good boyfriend!"

"But, firefly, you are a good boyfriend!"

"I am?"

"Yes!"

Kai paused. This didn't make sense. He sniffled.

"Well, then why are you dumping me?"

Cole shook his head. "Who told you I'm dumping you?" He reached out to wipe at a tear on Kai's cheek, "Was it Jay? I swear his jokes are getting worse by the minute."

"But you said we needed to talk."

"Yes, because there is something I need to talk to you about."

Kai eyes got wide and wet again, "Is it the end of our relationship?"

"No, smokey! I just wanted to ask you to keep your open hair gel away from my desk."

Kai blinked at Cole with his big eyes. "That's it?" he whispered.

"That's it, love."

The relief was instant. Kai crumbled in Cole's arms. "Oh my God, yes. Of course! I'll throw them out, I'll burn them! In fact, I'm never styling my hair again! None of that stuff anywhere near you. None of it!"

Cole laughed and pushed a hand through Kai's hair, "Just keep the containers closed and off my sketches, please."

"Promise," Kai blew out in a long breath.

"Why did you think a talk means breaking up?"

"Fair share of talks, I guess."

"I'm not dumping you."

"You're not dumping me."

"Never, firecracker."

"Does that mean I still get to kiss you anytime I want?"

Cole laughed, "Yes, that means you still get to-"

He couldn't finish his sentence before Kai leaned forward and silenced him with a long kiss.

[sophieinwonderland]

Many Americans I have seen: *Says they are pro freedom and democracy.*

Also many Americans: *Votes for a guy who doesn't believe in democracy when he doesn't win, and who literally wants to be a dictator and has taken great measures (like what he did with supreme court) to ensure he becomes one.*

Maybe it's just me, but I, a non-American, can't comprehend the logic here lol...

Well, here is one thing that I can clear up. Republicans don't support democracy.

At least not over the past few elections.

You could see this most notably whenever the topic would come up of the electoral college. Democrats would point out the fundamental problems with the winner of the presidency being somebody who lost the popular vote by 3 million votes and how undemocratic it is. A popular response then became that America is not a democracy. That we are a "republic."

This is an incredibly stupid talking point because a republic is a representative democracy. The idea behind a republic is just that the people elect representatives to represent them rather than voting on legislation directly. It does not somehow make it anymore logical to have a president who was elected by a minority of the population.

But the anti-democracy talking points have been big with Republicans ever since the 2016 election.

To get more to the point... Rural Republicans feel threatened by the fact that the country's policies are being decided by large cities. They believe that because they occupy the most land, that they should be the ones in charge of the country rather than these concentrated areas with the densest population.

They view the very concept of democracy as tyranny of the majority. The irony being missed is that what they are actually supporting is a tyranny of the minority.

And let me say... I can understand where some of them are coming from. You come up to rural Oregon, for example, and one of the biggest issues is the logging industry regulations.

Oregon has been a logging state since forever. Heavy environmental regulations have destroyed countless jobs throughout the rural parts of the state. And these regulations haven't been coming from the places that are actually affected. They are coming from the big cities where forests aren't something you live near and around, but are a rare novelty you get to see when you travel.

I am not saying that environmental protections are bad. But the people who passed the environmental regulations didn't replace the jobs they destroyed with anything. If families in rural communities go hungry or lose their homes because logging restrictions destroyed their industries, that's not going to be a problem to anyone living in the city. They wouldn't even know about it, but if they did, they probably wouldn't care much.

So democracy, to Republicans, really just means that people who are living far away from them get to decide what happens to their communities.

But... Having pointed out some of the reasoning for why Republicans feel the way that they do, I also need to point out how much worse they actually are in this regard.

Their problem with the perceived tyranny of the majority isn't the tyranny. It's that the other guys get to be the tyrants.

Because while it is true that decisions made by people who aren't living in the areas affected can unintentionally be harmful to those areas... Much of the current Republican mentality is designed intentionally to hurt people and exert control.

When a Republican area needs disaster relief, this isn't a partisan issue. If part of the country is hurting, we mobilize and do what we can for them. But when people like Trump threaten to cut funding to fight wildfires in California and just let it burn, he is met with resounding applause from his base.

For as much as they claim to be against a tyranny of the majority... Republicans would happily cut off all disaster relief funding from liberal areas just out of pure spite.

As another example of conservative opinions on Democracy and freedom, you might look to this quote which they love to misattribute to Ben Franklin.

“Democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what to eat for dinner. Liberty is a well armed lamb contesting the vote”

That certainly sounds reasonable... until you spend more than a few seconds thinking about it.

If the lamb is the only one armed, then what is there to stop the lamb from imposing his will on others? For all the flaws democracy has... "liberty is using threats of violence to impose your will on the majority" sounds like the worst form of government. It's a military dictatorship.

There's also another version of the quote, one from the Los Angeles Times in 1992, that conservatives desperately need take a look at.

Democracy is not freedom. Democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what to eat for lunch. Freedom comes from the recognition of certain rights which may not be taken, not even by a 99% vote.

The point of this quote is that freedom requites acknowledgment that some rights need to be protected and are too important to leave up to the majority.

Freedom requires that those be preserved.

But Republicans aren't a party that care about freedom for anyone but themselves. Much of their platform is designed around taking rights from people. Especially from marginalized communities. Limiting the ability to vote, to marry, to have autonomy over your own body, even to use the bathroom of your choice!

This was a long post, but the TL;DR is this: Modern Republicans openly hate Democracy, and only pretend to support freedom while actively trying to strip people of their liberties.