#modern black republicans

[alwaysbewoke]

[personal-blog243]

I am not particularly interested in discourse surrounding sex slavery that doesn’t acknowledge the gender disparity. Most of the statistics that I’ve seen suggest that most non-consenting sex trafficking victims are young females and femmes. I am not interested in discourse that isn’t through a LOUDLY feminist lens on this issue.

There are enough movies about middle aged, cis-het, white male cops and spies getting to play savior to claim the issue for republicans and even “Christianize” it. Im tired of leftist women being falsely accused of “not caring” about this issue because of the way it has been co-opted.

Where is a movie about the actual victims fighting back??? Oh wait, that would be the handmaids tale which actually appeals more to a target demographic of younger women and is less friendly in its portrayal of religion.

For the record, I have not seen “The Sound of Freedom” or “Priceless”, but I did watch “Taken” so please let me know if I’m wrong about these movies I haven’t seen.

[musicofthenightphantomoftheopera]

URGENT UPDATE ON KOSA

Guys, this is getting really scary now. According to Senator Blumenthal they "rewrote the bill' (they didn't change anything actually) and the bill now has bipartisan (both democrat and republican support) with 62 co-sponsors now and could hit the senate as early as next week.

If you don't know what I'm talking about, KOSA (the Kids Online Safety Act) Is a strait up fascist mass internet censorship and serveillance bill that if passed, will force you to upload your government ID online in order to verify your age and give not only the government to track everything you do on the internet, but also the pwer to censor and erase anything or anyone they deem a threat to their power all by using the vague wording of the bill to deem it "a danger to kids"

both of the co writers of the bill, Senator Blumenthal, and Senator marsha Blackburn have fully admitted that they will be using this bill to wipe out any anti-isreal content as well as (in Blackburn's own words) "eliminate transgender content"

This bill WILL be used to end modern activism as we know it.

anything related to Free Palestine, Free Congo, Free Sudan, Black Lives Matter, Stop Cop City, LGBTQIA Rights, will be censored and wiped off the face of the internet.

we are looking at Farenheit 451 and 1984 COMBINED. And I still see almost NO ONE talking about it since my initial post I made talking about it last year. Every single one of you need to interact with this post and spread the word. contact your reps. sign petitions (all of which will b linked at the end of this post) AND MAKE SOME GODDAM NOISE. This is the fate of the internet as well as the fate of modern activism and literally the entire internet.

Resources for learning about KOSA:

Petition and Call Script for contacting your senators and reps

Sign the open letter against KOSA

Stop KOSA Movement Linktree

[thatwolfarrow]

KOSA is soon to be voted on in senate. Here's why you should oppose it.

Through KOSA, the government will be able to control of topics they oppose on the internet under the guise of protecting children from disturbing/inappropriate content. This isn't just limited to most websites requiring age verification and/or parental controls, but the FTC can also demand websites to straight up remove content it deems inappropriate

And even though it's taken up the lion's share of noise, this won't just be limited to queer topics and reproductive subjects, but literally anything the current ruling party opposes.

Think about the multitudes of things that the modern republican party takes umbrage with that have nothing to do with queerness or abortion, or even the bipartisan response to current social movements: Criticizing Christianity, criticizing Christian teachings in public schools, sharing footage of and/or criticizing war crimes and atrocities committed by the US military or its allies (like Israel), teaching about the US' involvement in the Atlantic slave trade, the civil war, the struggles of black people in the Jim Crow era, the genocide and forced migration of the Native Americans, global warming and climate change, or even discussion on how capitalism has negatively impacted our lives broadly.

All of these subjects can be deemed as inappropriate for minors due to their violent, heavy, and/or contentious subject matter. As such, they can be outright censored through KOSA's "duty of care" under the justification of these subject feeding into mental health conditions such as anxiety or depression.

And I'm not being hyperbolic in my language here, because this exact line of logic has already been used to enact book bans, abortion bans, and gender affirming care bans at the state level and was also the basis for the push to ban "Critical race theory" from universities. The US government will use this bill to censor the internet, and if the republican party wins the presidency this November and they re-categorize the FTC to being a schedule F commission (As outlined in Project 2025), it'll be done under completely partisan motivations. DO NOT let the rhetoric of "protecting children" blind you to the true implications of this bill. If you care about free speech in this country, you should be firmly against it. EDIT: I initially assumed the bill had passed in the senate, but, as it was brought to my attention, the senate has thankfully only moved to cloture the initial debate on the bill. The bill still has yet to be voted on in the senate, but they're going to call a vote in the near future. And it'll also have to go through the house as well. In the meantime, you can still find and contact your senator through this website here: https://www.senate.gov/senators/senators-contact.htm As well as your local representative through this website here: https://www.house.gov/representatives/find-your-representative

[qqueenofhades]

Hoping you can explain this because you’re smart but why in the world are the same people who scream about a labor shortage worried about the border and immigration? Isn’t more people coming to our country a good thing if we train them properly to fill vacant positions (a lot of which are service jobs anyway)?

Alas, you are forgetting what is quite possibly the chief shibboleth of Western white supremacy/far-right nationalism: that all people from other countries, especially *gasp* the brown ones, are invaders, murderers, job-stealers, polluters of the (white) body politic, etc, and that under no circumstances should they be invited or allowed to stay. This isn't just an American thing; witness the Tories in the UK salivating over the idea of torturing migrants, trying to shut down any legal migration routes even with the employment black hole caused by Brexit, steadfastly denying that their workforce problems have anything to do with Brexit, steadfastly denying that they need to loosen immigration rules, etc. This is also the case with the European right/far right, the Australian far right, and anywhere else in the world that has historically been built on systems of white colonization, white supremacy, and other racial and legal scaffolds of privilege and exclusion. The white people who come to a country and settle it are bringing "civilization" and therefore should be welcomed and encouraged, but the non-white people who already lived there are "savages" and need to be exterminated for the good of the "master race." If they try to come back to the (white) nation state after their homelands were colonized, moreover, they are "invaders" who just want to "soak up the money of hard-working citizens" and etc etc.

The core fascist hatred of immigrants is also why Trump is directly echoing Hitler's anti-immigrant rhetoric with his "poisoning the blood of America" screeds, his promise to round up and deport migrants en masse, and otherwise be as massive of a dick as possible. The fact that there's no economic benefit and indeed a lot of economic pain is entirely beside the point. Trump and his deranged followers like the cruelty and the idea of torturing brown people for daring to come to "their" (white) America, and think that if they can be outrageously monstrous enough, this will finally deter all the other ones from coming. It won't, and no globalized economy will run without immigrants, but again, this isn't the point. Reality or pragmatic calculations have nothing to do with it. It's only about what can cause the maximum amount of cruelty and chaos to everyone who doesn't wholeheartedly worship and fit the (white) fascist model. That's why the Republicans yelled about wanting a border bill before they'd fund Ukraine; the Democrats obligingly gave them one with some of the toughest restrictions in years, and the Republicans yelled and threw it away because Dear Leader Trump told them to trash it. In some sense this is a good thing, because it meant that Ukraine got funded without being beholden to performative partisan cruelty at the border, but it also shows that they don't actually care about any of this. They have bluntly stated in so many words that they want a manufactured crisis at the border so Trump will have it as a campaign issue. Then he can take office and implement all his terrible concentration camps and all the other genocidal fascist bullshit of Project 2025 (bUt bIdEn iZ thE wOrsE oPtiOn!!!!!)

So: yeah. There's no point looking for any actual consistency or logic in the modern far right, because that is so far from the actual aim. No matter if migrants are essential, no matter if Americans literally won't take many of the jobs they do, etc. I live in a big city that has had a ton of migrants coming here and have read many, many news articles about how all they want to do is get a work permit, make their own money, learn English, and integrate into American culture; they are often far more positive about the prospects of America than actual Americans. But because the entire project of a (white) fascist ethnostate as advocated by Trump and co. in America, the Tories/Reform in the UK, and the far-right European parties, Russia, and other places (this is all connected worldwide -- again, it's not limited to one country or region), rests on demonizing (brown) immigrants as subhuman scroungers who come to rape, murder, steal jobs, and otherwise threaten (white) law-abiding citizens, that will always win out above every single other consideration.

[callmelola111]

guilty conscience ☆ part one

⭑ part 2 , part 3 , part 4 , part 5 →

synopsis: it’s your first year at college and you’re 1,500 miles away from home. you’d feel completely alone if it wasn't for your attractive roommate ellie. will this attraction complicate the already uncharted territory? or will she be the answer to all your problems?

      |✯| pairing & wc: college!ellie williams x roommate!reader. wc: 1.4k

      |✯| cw (by part): 18+ themes (MDNI), fem reader, modern au!ellie, feelings of angst, sexual themes on like the verge of smut, some swearing

a/n: hey lovelies!!!! this my first time posting a fic so plz enjoy. feedback is appreciated as long as it is constructive. im new to all of this, and still learning. i plan on making this into a series so expect more coming soon. sorry if this chapter is very reader-centric. once reader gets to know ellie better, i’ll write more about her perspective. this will be a slow burn despite part 1 already having sexual themes (lol sorry, couldn't help it), but do expect eventual real smut <3 <3 (p.s: lets b mutuals, message me!!)

As you packed the last of your belongings into your parents' 2008 Toyota, excitement was the last thing you were feeling. When speaking about college, most people explained this coming of age experience with phrases like “change”, “hard work”, and “no sleep”. These pessimistic descriptions made the big move that much harder. Unlike your friends from high school, you were crossing multiple states to attend your dream school. You would’ve been stuck in your home state too if it wasn’t for your impressive art portfolio which earned you a full-ride. Art school is where you know you’re meant to be, but the anxiety of doing it alone lingered.

Of course you were happy to be escaping the grapples of your small Republican town, but you couldn’t help but wonder if 1,500+ miles would really be the solution to all your problems.

                                          ★,｡･:*:･ﾟ☆｡･:*:･ﾟ★

“God where is she??” you grunt to yourself. The brown swivel chair provided as dorm furniture was your only source of entertainment. You spun around in circles, checking your phone every few minutes. You were anticipating a text from Ellie Williams. Through the cracked screen your phone read 11:03pm and the notification wall was empty.

Ellie is supposed to be your roommate. The two of you had met through the university's online roommate matching system. Your interactions were limited to the few texts sent back and forth about move-in times and who’s bringing what. Ellie was supposed to show up 5 hours ago to move in her stuff but she never arrived. You consider messaging her to check-in but Ellie’s previous texts wreaked of un-interest so you thought it best to leave her alone. You knew nothing about the girl, or even what she looked like, but with her stand-offish demeanor and your overthinking, a friendship didn’t seem in the cards.

Another half-hour passes before the sound of keys rattling pulls you out of your trance. Realizing you’re about to be face-to-face with your new college roommate, you snap up from your slouched position and push your hair behind your ears in preparation.

The slender door lazily swings open and your gaze quickly shifts to the faux wood floors. There was a sense of hesitancy, like you weren’t ready to see your fate just yet. A pair of dirty, black converse covered in writing sulk into your line of sight, triggering you to look up. As you did, your eyes were met with the most jaw-droppingly beautiful girl you’ve ever seen. Peeking through her messy auburn locks were piercing jade green eyes and an angular nose scattered with freckles.

It was Ellie Williams, and she was the epitome of “cool girl". Your head spun with all kinds of thoughts as your physical body went idle. You sat before Ellie gawking until she broke the awkward silence that had gone unnoticed by you. 

“Uh, hi… I’m sorry for coming in so late… some stuff came up. But uh, I’m Ellie Williams.” She held her right hand out towards you to shake it. It took you a second, but you snapped out of her spell and quickly shook her hand in return.

“Shit- Ellie, hey, it’s uh, nice to finally meet you.” You stumbled through your words as nerves overpowered your usual confidence.  There was an obvious awkward tension between the two of you. A typical feeling when moving in with a complete stranger.

Silence loomed in the air as Ellie took a stationary tour around the small, 12 x 20 ft. dorm. She surveyed your side of the room, taking note of any items that could hint towards who you are as a person. Her eyes stopped on a band poster you had hung up just hours ago. 

“You listen to Sleater-Kinney?” she inquired. 

“Hell yeah, they’re one of my favorite bands. Honestly anything in the riot grrrl music scene is right up my alley. Do you listen?” you replied with more enthusiasm and less nerves than before. 

“Yeah, yeah I do,” Ellie answered nonchalantly. You took note of her answer realizing what it could mean. Sleater-Kinney was like the gayest band ever, and Ellie definitely knew that. Maybe she just likes them for their music, but it's possible she also found the lyrics laced with sapphic pining to be relatable. Selfishly, you were dying to know her sexual orientation. Ellie seemed like too much of a stranger to ask her outright and so the game of reading between the lines began. Little did you know, Ellie was wondering the exact same thing about you. 

It was getting late and Ellie decided to save unpacking for the morning when she wasn’t so tired. You climbed onto your stiff dorm mattress and fluffed your pillows for sleep. Ellie did the same in her bed. 

“Is it cool if I turn out the lights now?” you asked, still navigating the new social dynamic as roommates. Ellie replied with a gentle hum and you hit the switch turning the room pitch black. As you lay in bed all you can think of is Ellie and the future. You didn’t know what it was, but you knew she was special, and you yearned to understand her. With these thoughts in mind, your eyes slowly begin to droop and you slip into a deep slumber. 

The next thing you know Ellie is sitting at the foot of your bed staring straight into your soul. Her beautiful green eyes felt especially intense as the rest of her face was shadowed from the dark room. 

“Ellie- I-” you could barely get out 2 words as you sat up from bed flustered. You felt like prey and she was the hunter… and you liked it. Ellie slowly inched her way toward you, crawling on hands and knees. She didn’t have to say anything, you knew what she wanted.

Your plush thighs sat between her knees and her crotch hovered over yours, heat being exchanged. You wanted her so bad. You needed her. Ellie took your chin in her hand and pulled you in close. You exchanged breaths as her lips brushed up against yours. She couldn’t wait any longer and pressed her face into yours, capturing your lips which she so longingly desired for. You fell back onto your pillows and she followed intently.

Her body lay pressed against yours and she desperately shoved her wet tongue into your supple mouth. It was ravenous and you wanted more. You knew she did too as you began to feel the rotation of her hips digging into your pelvis. The heavy breaths coming from her swollen lips were in sync with the fervent grinding. You bucked your hips towards her in a frenzy. Ellie took her veiny hand and ran it along your waistband. As she began to slip it into your pants... you woke up to discover your own hands cupping the heat below and Ellie nowhere to be found. 

“What the fuck.” is all you could say. You pulled your hand from your pants and stared at the slick spider-webbing between your fingers. God this was humiliating. You climbed out of bed to wash your hands and glanced at the clock. It was 7:15am and Ellie was already gone. That seemed kinda odd for a 19 year old college student. You wondered where she had disappeared to so early in the morning.

Soon, the over-thinker took over and you began to grapple with the possibility that you said something out loud during your naughty wet dream. What if Ellie heard you? God what if you moaned her name?? What would you even say if she brought it up? Before you could formulate a hypothetical response, Ellie walked right through the door.

“AHh-” you yelped, startled by her presence. Ellie backed into the doorway holding a coffee in each hand. 

“God, sorry, you scared me.” you explained. Ellie shuffled back inside, twiddling her thumbs trying to decide what to say.

“Sorry, I just left to grab some coffee early this morning. I couldn’t sleep.” She continued, “I brought you one too. As an apology, for any trouble I might have caused by showing up at almost midnight to move in…”. Your cheeks flushed with color and you hoped she didn’t notice.

“Oh, thanks Ellie, that's nice. I promise there was no harm done.” you answered, trying to sound as nonchalant as possible. Seemingly enough, this news meant she was awake while you were, ya know... dreaming. Ellie definitely wouldn’t bring a pervert coffee though. Right? Either way, you knew one thing for sure, you've got to have her.

  ← masterlist ⭑ part 2 →

[damnfandomproblems]

Fandom Problem#6020:

Im just going to assume everyone who screams "JUST MAKE UR OWN CHARACTERS!!!!!1!" at people who want to add poc to monochrome white casts are privileged white people at best and racist at worst. I'm sorry I have a favorite character I already like that happens to be white and can't invest the time nor energy to create a whole new ass character for the same world to fill the same space of my favorite char when I can just..........have my favorite character in a different shade. jesus fucking christ.

And I'm only talking about racebending WHITE characters, mind, as there are a disproportionate amount of them and it wouldn't hurt if a few were.... not white. For example: musical fandom. stage musical is a different medium to movies. remakes of movies, even if they modernize and upgrade and cast poc into white roles, are still gonna have the same cast when you watch them over and over whereas you can watch 5 different shows of a musical and not get the same show twice unless it's a recording. you're gonna have actors and actresses of many ethnicities playing the same characters. heather duke was played by a white actress in the movie, an asian actress in the off-broadway musical, and lately she's usually black in west end. is that an issue? she's still the same character so to speak, but are all those iterations of heather duke not valid because they're not white republican shannen doherty? (granted, musical heather duke is a strange case because she's the ONLY character whose race is consistently changing but i digress)

make your own character, if I wanted an oc or a self-insert I'd write original fiction no one would read.

[mariacallous]

Lame-duck periods are meant to be inconsequential, but on Thursday afternoon at the White House, U.S. President Joe Biden got a chance to present one of the most important breakthroughs of his time in office. In what was the largest U.S.-Russia prisoner swap since the Cold War, involving at least seven countries over a period of months, a total of 24 people moved across borders as pawns in a game of global 3D chess.

Eight Russians are returning home in exchange for a combination of 16 Americans, Germans, and Russians. Within an hour of confirmation that U.S. prisoners were safely out of Russia, Biden assembled family members of the freed Americans at the White House and addressed a gathering of journalists. As he looked into the cameras, he no doubt knew that he was being closely watched by his counterparts in Beijing and Moscow, by millions of people around the world, and by history.

Even in his moment of triumph, Biden found a way to focus on the human reality of the moment. He singled out Miriam, the daughter of the released Russian American journalist Alsu Kurmasheva. It was one day until her 13th birthday, and Biden put an arm around Miriam, leading a chorus of the world’s most popular song. The joy was obviously precipitated by a major international development, but it was also the day a teenage girl would see her mother again after more than nine months in prison, convicted for the crime of writing about Russia’s army.

There’s a long list of prominent names involved in Thursday’s prisoner swap, including Evan Gershkovich, the Wall Street Journal reporter sentenced to 16 years in prison under false claims of conducting espionage, and Paul Whelan, a former U.S. Marine who was in Russia for a friend’s wedding and accused, again, of espionage. There were German citizens and even Russians, including Oleg Orlov, a human rights defender and co-chair of the Nobel Peace Prize-winning group Memorial, in prison for speaking his mind about his country’s war in Ukraine.

Journalists, tourists, and activists went one way in the prisoner exchange; on the other side was Vadim Krasikov, a former colonel in Russia’s Federal Security Service serving a life sentence in a German prison for a hit on a former Chechen fighter, conducted in broad daylight in Berlin. Others included a Russian citizen involved in international money laundering, a hacker, a credit card fraudster, and an actual spy.

The historic exchange instantly evokes imagery from the Cold War, when such transfers of prisoners were more common. But rather than the historical parallels, it is the contrasts drawn by Thursday’s events that will be remembered. There was Washington, fighting for the freedom of not only its own citizens but also Russians who dared to criticize their own government, and in stark relief there was Moscow, openly trading journalists for criminals and Nobel winners for fraudsters. The Kremlin has gleefully applauded knocks to U.S. soft power, from the misadventure of the Iraq War to the botched U.S. departure from Afghanistan in 2021, but the symbolism of the moment will have not been lost on Russian President Vladimir Putin: This exchange isn’t a great look for him. And even though Biden’s claims of a grand battle between democracies and autocracies are often criticized for being too black and white for the modern multipolar world, the lame-duck president now has a moment to mark his favorite reference in the history books.

It’s an election year in the United States, so contrasts will also be drawn around the alternate visions of Washington’s role in the world—currently being debated by surrogates for the Democratic and Republican campaigns. Former U.S. President Donald Trump has long argued for a more transactional approach to geopolitics. In such a world, there are two players—one is a winner, the other a loser. The Trump worldview prioritizes singular might over alliances; values don’t matter as much as the value of the hand of cards a player is clutching to their chest. Biden, while careful to focus on the humanity and history of the moment, couldn’t resist pointing out the difference: “For anyone who questions whether allies matter, they do.” He was referring in particular to the role of Germany, which had reportedly been reluctant to give up Krasikov. Biden personally spoke with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz in January and February, arguing the importance of the prisoner exchange.

Speaking a short while later to reporters, U.S. National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan built on his boss’s message as he detailed the roles played by Germany, Turkey, and others in the prisoner swap. “There is no more powerful example of the importance and power of allies,” he said. “This was vintage Joe Biden.”

Supporters of presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris are also pointing out her role, visiting the Munich Security Conference a few times as vice president and building relations with German and European leaders.

Sen. J.D. Vance, the Republican vice presidential nominee, was quick to offer an alternative view: “We have to ask ourselves, why are they coming home? And I think it’s because bad guys all over the world recognize Donald Trump’s about to be back in office, so they’re cleaning house. That’s a good thing.”

And so the race for the White House rolls on, with both sides seeking to score points and spin their version of events. Thursday will be a historic study in contrasts—between Washington and Moscow and between rules and impunity. It will also be a moment that could play a part in an American referendum on Washington’s role in the world and whether the electorate favors the slow, painstaking diplomacy of Biden or the instant gratification and drama of Trump’s dealmaking.

[hero-israel]

More receipts of Pro Palestine being racist:

https://x.com/afrosabi/status/1824067188510130301 (Pro Pal accusing Black and Jewish people of making up the anti-Black history of the watermelon in America to discredit Palestine)

https://x.com/Sarahmango23/status/1823472916169707549 (Pro Pals accusing Black people of being racist for saying 'watermelon people', despite the fact that Black people told them from the beginning the symbol was racist against Black people and Pro Pals had told them to fuck off)

https://x.com/mistergeezy/status/1823828863220375622 (Another Arab being racist)

https://x.com/PettyLupone/status/1823777446594011530 (Targeting Black women specifically about "supporting genocide")

https://x.com/Datelinefam/status/1824046702493311347 (Black woman clapping back on an Arab thinking it's on Black women to fix I/P)

https://x.com/zackoryk/status/1823561655613067712 (Another Black woman clapping back on Pro Pal racism)

https://x.com/SashaBeauIoux/status/1823700014746546201 (Gay Black man calling out Pro Pals for demanding Black people give up their vote "for Palestine")

Bonus receipt:

https://x.com/rockera_bella/status/1823847606738673738 (Receipts on Arab Americans being reliable Republican voters despite them pretending to be Democrats)

Any member of Pro Palestine that's pretending this is a "psyop" (because of course they're already saying it's "the Jews" trying to sow discord), I can do this all day. 10 months worth of receipts if they want to go hard.

Pro Palestine is racist.

In 2000, 72% of Arab-Americans in Michigan voted Republican. Trump scrambled things (apparently not enough since clearly many are fine undermining Harris) but the concept of "shared struggle" is a complete lie from the start.

While I'm here, for over a century the U.S. legally categorized Arab-Americans as white. A few months ago Joe Biden invented the new census category of "Middle Eastern" - to include them and also to include Israelis. Couple that with Trump adding coverage of Jews as an ethnic group under the Civil Rights Act, and we can fairly state that there has never been a time in modern American history where by legal stricture Jewish Americans were "white" and at the same time Arab Americans were "people of color" or something like that. We have always been grouped the same as them; the strident colorist categorization is based purely on hate.

[beardedmrbean]

Black Lives Matter has criticized the Democratic Party for "anointing" Vice President Kamala Harris as the expected Democrat presidential nominee without a public vote.

President Joe Biden announced on Sunday that he was leaving the presidential race and endorsed Harris to replace him at the top of the Democratic ticket to face Donald Trump, the Republican nominee, in November. Biden had faced pressure to step aside after a disastrous debate performance last month magnified concerns about the 81-year-old's age and ability to beat Trump and serve a second term.

By Monday evening, Harris had secured the support of enough Democratic delegates to become her party's nominee, The Associated Press reported.

Responding to the development, Black Lives Matter criticized Democrats for not giving voters a say—and called on the Democratic National Committee to host a virtual snap primary ahead of the party's convention in August. Newsweek has contacted Black Lives Matter, the Harris campaign and the DNC for comment via email.

"Democratic Party elites and billionaire donors are attempting to manipulate Black voters by anointing Kamala Harris and an unknown vice president as the new Democratic ticket without a primary vote by the public," Black Lives Matter said in a statement. "This blatant disregard for democratic principles is unacceptable. While the potential outcome of a Harris presidency may be historic, the process to achieve it must align with true democratic values." The organization added: "We do not live in a dictatorship. Delegates are not oligarchs. Any attempt to evade or override the will of voters in our primary system—no matter how historic the candidate—must be condemned. We demand an informal, virtual snap primary now that the incumbent president is no longer in the running."

Harris is the first woman, Black person and person of South Asian descent to serve as vice president. If she becomes the Democratic nominee and defeats Trump in November, she would be the first woman to serve as president.

Black Lives Matter said any process that does not include voters could undermine Harris, or another Democrat, if they win the White House in November.

"Let us be clear: This is about the Democratic Party following a process that protects the legitimacy of any future Democratic president following this unprecedented moment," the statement said.

"Installing Kamala Harris as the Democratic nominee and an unknown vice president without any public voting process would make the modern Democratic Party a party of hypocrites. It would undermine their credibility on issues related to democracy.

"Imagine our first Black woman president not having won some sort of public nomination process. The pundits would immediately label it as affirmative action or a DEI [diversity, equity and inclusion] move, and any progress made by a President Harris would be on shaky foundations. If Kamala Harris is to be the nominee, it must be through a process that upholds democratic principles and public participation."

Some Republicans have already sought to cast Harris as a DEI hire.

"The incompetency level is at an all-time high in Washington. The media propped up this president, lied to the American people for three years, and then dumped him for our DEI vice president," Representative Tim Burchett of Tennessee wrote on X, formerly Twitter, on Monday.

[robertreich]

The Hard Hat Riot: A Forgotten Flashpoint in America’s Culture Wars

Missing from most history books is a key moment leading to the culture wars now ripping through American politics.

In 1970, hundreds of construction workers pummeled around 1,000 student demonstrators in New York City — including two of my friends. The “Hard Hat Riot,” as it came to be known, ushered in an era of cynical fear-mongering aimed at dividing the nation.

The student demonstrators were protesting the Vietnam War and the deadly shooting of four student activists at Kent State University that occurred just days before.

The workers who attacked them carried American flags and chanted, “USA, All the way,” and “America, love it or leave it.” They chased the students through the streets — attacking those who looked like hippies with their hard hats and steel-toed boots.

When my friends in the anti-war movement called to tell me about the riot later that day, I was stunned. Student activists and union workers duking it out in the streets over the war? I mean for goodness' sake, weren't we on the same side?

According to reports, the police did little to stop the mayhem. Some even egged on the thuggery. When a group of hardhats moved menacingly toward the action, a patrolman apparently shouted: “Give ’em hell, boys. Give ’em one for me!”

The construction workers then marched toward a barely-protected City Hall. Why? Because the mayor’s staff had lowered the American flag in honor of the Kent State dead. In a scene eerily foreshadowing the January 6th Capitol Riots, they pushed their way towards the building.

Fearing the mob would break in, city officials raised the flag.

The hard hats also ripped down the Red Cross banner that was hanging at nearby Trinity Church. They stormed a Pace University building, smashing lobby windows with their tools and beating students and professors.

Around 100 people were wounded that day, many of whom were college students. Several police officers were also hurt. Six people were reportedly arrested, but only one construction worker.

My friends escaped injury but they were traumatized.

The Hard Hat Riot had immediate political consequences. It was, in my opinion, a seminal  moment in America’s culture wars.

Then President Richard Nixon exploited the riot for political advantage. His administration had been working on a “blue collar strategy” to shift white working-class voters to the Republican Party.

“Thank God for the hard hats,” Nixon exclaimed when he heard about the riot.

But rather than passing pro-labor policies to court workers, which would go against the values of the pro-business Republican Party, Nixon sought to use cultural issues like patriotism and support for the troops to drive a wedge between factions of the Democratic Party.

Nixon invited union leaders, some of whom were involved in the riot, to the White House. They presented Nixon with a hard hat inscribed with “Commander in Chief”and an American flag pin. Nixon praised the union workers as, “people from Middle America who still have character, and guts, and a bit of patriotism.”

Nixon’s strategy to use the Hard Hat Riot to appeal to blue collar voters paid off. In his 1972 re-election campaign against the anti-war Democrat George McGovern, he secured a victory with ease and gained the majority of votes from organized labor – the only time in modern history a Republican presidential candidate accomplished such a feat.

The Hard Hat Riot revealed a deep fracture in the coalition of workers and progressives that FDR had knitted together in the 1930s, and the later alliance of Black Americans, liberals, and blue-collar whites that led to Lyndon Johnson’s landslide re-election in 1964.

The mostly white construction workers who attacked the demonstrators had felt abandoned — and forgotten – as the Civil Rights movement rightfully took hold. They felt stiffed by the clever college kids with draft deferments, and burdened by an economy no longer guaranteeing upward mobility.

The class and race based tensions that Nixon exploited would worsen over the next half century.

I witnessed this when I was secretary of labor during the Clinton Administration. I spent much of my time in the Midwest and other parts of the country where blue-collar workers felt abandoned in an economy dominated by Wall Street. I saw their anger and resentment. I heard their frustrations.

Many Democrats, whether they will admit it or not, have not done enough to respond as Republicans have destroyed unions, exacerbated economic inequality through trickle-down nonsense, tried to gut just about every social safety net we have – and stood in the way of practically every effort to use the power of government to help working people.

Today, the right is trying to channel that same anger and violence against the Black Lives Matter movement, the LGBTQ+ community, particularly drag queens and transgender people, and whatever they consider “woke.”

It is the same cynical ploy to instill a fear of “the other” as a means to distract from the oppression and looting being done by the oligarchs who dominate so much of our economy and our politics.

As such, today we face the same questions we faced in 1970:

Will we finally recognize that we have more in common with each other than those who seek to divide us for political and economic gain?

Can we unite in solidarity, and build a future in which prosperity is widely shared by all?

I truly believe that we still can.

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Charlotte Alter at Time Magazine:

The soundtrack suggested a Beyoncé concert. The light-up bracelets evoked the Eras Tour. And the exuberant crowd—more than 14,000 strong, lining up in the rain—resembled the early days of Barack Obama. Inside a Philadelphia arena on Aug. 6, Vice President Kamala Harris was greeted with a kind of reception a Democratic presidential candidate hasn’t gotten in years. Fans packed into overflow spaces, waving homemade signs made of glitter and glue as drumlines roared. When Harris introduced her new running mate, Minnesota Governor Tim Walz, the cheering lasted more than a minute.

If you’d predicted this scene a month ago to anyone following the race, they would never have believed you. But Harris has pulled off the swiftest vibe shift in modern political history. A contest that revolved around the cognitive decline of a geriatric President has been transformed: Joe Biden is out, Harris is in, and a second Donald Trump presidency no longer seems inevitable. Democrats resigned to a “grim death march” toward certain defeat, as one national organizer put it, felt their gloom replaced by a jolt of hope. Harris smashed fundraising records, raking in $310 million in July. She packed stadiums and dominated TikTok, offering a fresh message focused on the future over the past. Volunteers signed up in droves. Trump’s widening leads across the battleground states evaporated. Over the span of a few weeks in late July and early August, Harris became a political phenomenon. “Our campaign is not just a fight against Donald Trump,” she told the cheering crowd in Philadelphia. “Our campaign is a fight for the future.”

Where has this Kamala Harris been all along? For years, Democratic officials questioned her political chops, pundits mocked her word salads, and her polling suggested limited appeal. Her performance in the 2020 presidential primary was wooden, and her turn as Biden’s No. 2 did little to inspire confidence. Even this summer, as party insiders chattered about possible replacements if Biden stepped aside, “it was explicit from some of the major donors that she can’t win,” says Amanda Litman, the co-founder of Run for Something, an organization that trains young Democrats to run for office. “They didn’t think people were ready to elect someone like her.” Harris may still be the underdog. Trump has arguably the clearer path to 270 electoral votes and an edge on the issues that voters say are most important to them. Harris will have to answer for the Biden Administration’s record, including on inflation and border security. Republicans are casting her as a coastal elite, pointing to positions she took in the 2020 primary—arguing for gun buybacks, a ban on fracking, and an overhaul of the health-insurance system—that may indeed be too liberal to win over many of the swing voters who decide elections. Harris has yet to do a single substantive interview or to explain her policy shifts. (Her campaign denied a request for an interview for this story.) She has to repair ruptures in the party coalition, galvanizing the Black, Hispanic, Arab American, and young voters who migrated away from Biden. Though her early polling numbers are far better than Biden’s were, she lags his 2020 support with some key demographic groups she needs to win.

Harris has less than 90 days to prove that she can convert the momentum of her successful launch into a tough, smart operation capable of beating a former President with a dedicated base of support and a knack for commanding the stage. She inherited a campaign infrastructure and policy record from her predecessor, but the energy is all hers. Picking Walz as a running mate over more conventional choices signals a belief that this race is as much about feelings as it is about fundamentals. Harris’ brand shift—the happy-warrior attitude, the viral memes, the eye roll at Republican “weirdos”—has already done what no Trump opponent has ever been able to do: snatch the spotlight away from him.

She may seem like an overnight sensation, but Harris’ moment was years in the making. Quietly, her small team of top aides had been laying the groundwork for a future presidential run. After the Supreme Court’s Dobbs decision, the Vice President added reproductive rights to her portfolio. Abortion was never a comfortable issue for Biden, a devout Catholic, but it was a natural fit for his No. 2. Harris believed that with Roe gone, Republicans would turn their sights to restricting both birth control and IVF. In the months after Dobbs, she traveled the U.S., talking about abortion rights as a matter of “reproductive freedom.” As far back as the 2022 midterms, aides say, she argued for making this the core of the party’s national message, even as the White House focused on jobs and the economy.

[...] The list was intended for 2028. But when Biden dropped out on July 21 and quickly endorsed Harris, it was instantly pressed into service. The Vice President—clad in a Howard University sweatshirt, munching pizza with anchovies—spent the next 10 hours on the phone, dialing delegates and wrangling endorsements. A day later, the nomination was all but hers. Even though other presidential hopefuls had ties to swing states or big donors, “the list was the thing that we had that they didn’t,” says a top aide. “It wasn’t a fairy godmother waving a magic wand.”

Harris’ ability to sew up the nomination so quickly was a triumph of work ethic and political dexterity that foreshadowed what was to come. “To consolidate the Democratic Party in a matter of hours, to do as many visible events and establish that presence without putting a foot wrong, is a feat,” says Pete Buttigieg, the Transportation Secretary who ran against Harris for the 2020 nomination and was a finalist to become her running mate. “I don’t think anybody expected her to be so flawless.” With Biden no longer atop the ticket, the moribund Democratic grassroots came to life. Harris was capable of delivering a message that never felt quite right under Clinton or Biden: that theirs was the party of the future, and Trump was of the past. Her campaign raised $200 million in the first week, in what it said was the best 24 hours of any candidate in presidential-campaign history. More than 38,000 people registered on Vote.org in the 48 hours after she became the presumptive nominee, eclipsing the voter-registration surge encouraged by Taylor Swift last year. Within a week, Harris erased Trump’s polling dominance in key states, turning a burgeoning landslide into a dead heat.

[...] The shift is perhaps most visible in the digital sphere. While millions of hardcore Democrats would crawl over broken glass to keep Trump from re-election, less reliable voters in Gen Z are especially attuned to online trends. For months, President Biden’s online supporters have been on the defensive about his support for Israel’s war against Hamas. Comments about Gaza flooded pro-Biden content posted to social platforms, making it difficult to create what digital strategists call a “permission structure” to support him. To many, it evoked the online mobs who would mock Clinton supporters in 2016, preventing her from building traction on social media. “In 2016, if you wanted to be an online supporter of Hillary Clinton, you did it in a private Facebook group,” says Litman. “In 2024, you blast it on TikTok, and you’re part of the K-Hive and you make your username the coconut tree.” Even if Washington was taken by surprise, the energetic fighter of the past two weeks matches the Harris whom allies say they have known for years. Louise Renne, a former San Francisco city attorney, recalls that when Harris took over the city’s interest in adoption cases in the DA’s office, she brought an armful of teddy bears to court on her first day. Andrea Dew Steele, a donor-adviser who snacked on wine and cheese with Harris as they typed up her first political bio sheet for her 2003 campaign for San Francisco DA, remembers Harris sitting outside grocery stores with an ironing board stacked with campaign literature. Those who made it through her 2020 primary recall that after she dropped out, she joined the last of her staff in a dance party in the campaign headquarters. Harris’ early allies in California may have seen glimpses of Barack Obama, but her turn on the national stage has seemed more Selina Meyer. After a splashy kickoff in 2019, the Harris 2020 campaign stalled, then sputtered out. Aides say she took advice from too many different advisers offering conflicting guidance. Her record as a prosecutor was unwieldy baggage for a Democratic primary shadowed by a movement for racial justice. In a contest defined by Bernie Sanders on one side and Biden on the other, she never found her lane. Her operation was plagued with mismanagement and infighting. Harris seemed tentative and insecure, terrified of putting a foot wrong. “We did a disservice to her in 2020,” admits Bakari Sellers, a state co-chair on that campaign. “We Bubble-Wrapped her.” Enthusiasm waned; the money dried up. She dropped out long before the first votes were cast in the Iowa caucuses.

[...] Republicans admit Harris will be harder to beat than a diminished Biden. But they believe the candidate riding high the past few weeks will soon, under sustained attack, come down to earth. “If she runs the same kind of campaign she ran in 2019 and 2020, her campaign will collapse and Donald Trump will waltz into the White House,” Republican pollster Whit Ayres says. “On the other hand, if she has learned as much as her allies and friends say she has in the last four years, she will give Trump a real run for his money.” Harris campaign officials say they remain focused on the seven key battleground states—Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin. With Harris atop the ticket, those states “are even more in play for us, stronger for us than they might have been otherwise,” says Dan Kanninen, the campaign’s battleground director. Harris is more popular with younger, Black, and Latino voters than Biden was when he dropped out of the race, according to polling, which puts her in a stronger position to win the Sun Belt states. At the same time, she may be losing ground with older white voters, which makes her more vulnerable in the trio of “Blue Wall” states—Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin—that form that core of the Democrats’ Electoral College strategy. To shore up those states, Harris is leaning on her major labor endorsements and making multiple visits to the upper Midwest.

Harris inherited Biden’s campaign infrastructure, including more than 260 outposts across the battleground states. In Nevada, the Harris campaign has 13 field offices to Trump’s one; in Pennsylvania, it has 36 coordinated offices to Trump’s three, according to a campaign memo.

Time Magazine has an insightful column on the resurrection of Kamala Harris and her rising political fortunes.

Read the full story at Time Magazine.

[mthofferings]

SquadOfCats

See SquadOfCats’s existing works here.

Preferred contact methods: Tumblr: norelationtoatticus Email: ckelly2342@gmail.com

Preferred organizations: - International Rescue Committee - National Network of Abortion Funds - Palestine Children's Relief Fund - Rainbow Railroad - Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) (See the list of approved organizations here)

Will create works that contain: Humor. Hurt/Comfort. Care taking. Hijinks & Shenanigans. Action/Adventure. Character arc/character study. Canon compliant, canon divergent, canon adjacent, or canon fix-it. Shrinkyclinks or Shrunkyclunks. Smut/NSFW. Activist or political themes (modern issues or historical, only left-leaning Steve/Bucky).

Will not create works that contain: POV Hydra characters or HTP. Degradation kink. Scat. Non-canon major character death, unhappy ending, anything very dark. Right wing/Republican Steve or Bucky. Omegaverse. Job AUs (eg: coffee shop, rock star, mafia, etc). Slice of life. Conflicts that could have been an email. Characterization of Steve or Bucky as very dark, cruel, pro-Hydra, or a super-suave charming macho sex god.

  -- Craft or Merchandise --

Auction ID: 1028

Will create works for the following relationships: Avengers fandom any gen - MCU

Work Description: I am offering a set of 6 candles, specially designed for the Marvel Trumps Hate 2024 auction. The pack includes one candle themed to each of the original Avengers (2012 MCU), and they are all custom scented and hand poured. The wax is a soy-paraffin blend, and each is in a 7oz glass jar with a label and a screw-on lid. The scents are... - Captain America: Apple Pie & Sandalwood - Iron Man: Whiskey, Pomegranate, & Ginger - Black Widow: Black Cherry Merlot & Amber - Bruce Banner/The Hulk: Cucumber Water, Honeydew, & Sriacha - Thor: Spiced Honey & Hearth fire - Hawkeye: Warm Coffee, Cinnamon, & Vanilla If bidding goes over $100, I will throw in an extra 2 oz mini version of each candle so you can share with a friend. If bidding goes over $200, I will add one extra candle themed to any MCU character of your choice (I will develop the scent blend based on the oils I know how to work with, but I'll give you final approval before I create the candle). **Please note! Because of shipping costs and constraints, I can only ship these to a mainland USA address. If you win this auction, you must be comfortable providing me with your shipping address so I can send you your present. I do accept pod bids, but I will not ship to more than one address.**

Ratings: Gen

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CLICK HERE TO BID ON THIS WORK

-- Fic or Other Writing --

Auction ID: 2014

Will create works for the following relationships: Bucky Barnes/Steve Rogers - MCU

Work Description: I am offering one Stucky fic, specially for you! Length will depend on the final auction amount - but I tend to write long, so minimum will start at about 10k. I will not list out a specific dollar amount = word count criteria, but in general, the higher the winning bid, the more lengthy/complex the fic. Smut is welcome but not required, and I'll do anything from a PWP to a more plotty story with romance in it. My general tone/style of fic tends to be bonkers, off-the-wall, highly specific concepts, executed with a surprising amount of humor and heart. I love to make you laugh and cry, often in the same scene. Mainly, I like to work in the canon-ish realm, although I am open to some AUs. Have an idea that might be in my wheelhouse? Let's make it happen! If you win this bid, I will work with you to develop your concept. You will have access to the draft as I am writing, and we can chat about it as much or as little as you prefer. Once the fic is done, I will post it to AO3 under the MTH 2024 collection, and I will designate it as a gift to your account.

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-- Fic or Other Writing --

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Will create works for the following relationships: Steve Rogers-centric - MCU Bucky Barnes-centric - MCU Sarah Rogers-centric - MCU

Work Description: I love Sarah Rogers and would love a reason to write more about her! I am offering a short one-shot fic focused on Sarah Rogers. I am a big Sarah enthusiast, and I keep working her into my Stucky fics wherever I can. Let's work together to do something from her POV! I'm open to a lot of options. Maybe something canon-compliant set in the 20s or 30s as Steve is growing up? Maybe an AU? Time travel shenanigans with adult Steve? A "What If" style exploration? Maybe something about Sarah's youth in Ireland, pre-marriage and children? Sarah at any age! Lots of options! I'm happy to do Stucky from Sarah's POV, or something focused on her relationship with Steve and/or Bucky - but I would like the focus and the POV to be Sarah. Whatever the story prompt, I will always write her as someone who is funny, brash, hard-headed, compassionate, and as much of a defender of the little guy as her son.  Have a Sarah idea you'd love to see? Come talk to me about it! If you win this bid, I will work with you to develop your concept. You will have access to the draft as I am writing, and we can chat about it as much or as little as you prefer. Once the fic is done, I will post it to AO3 under the MTH 2024 collection, and I will designate it as a gift to your account.

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[centrally-unplanned]

“And this is in fact a sociological change by the way - this doesn't describe 1960's radicals. They were weird but not mentally unwell. Its a modern phenomenon, due to how modern society functions (which is its whole deep topic). This is a "type", a social phenomenon. “

What is the evidence for this, and do we know why it happened?

Its gonna be subjective in the end like anything is in this space, but overall the 60's radical factions are very well-documented. We have like hours of interview footage with the Weatherman Underground, Red Army Faction, Black Panthers etc, diaries and contemporaneous accounts. Most of them lived, and weirdly in a lot of cases, became normal members of society - mainly due to the FBI breaking every law on the books investigating them. Bill Ayers co-founded the Weatherman Underground! He is an Education Professor of at the University Illinois, he helped Obama in his early days which fueled mountains of republican conspiracy drivel. If you want to know if he is mentally unwell, just go to his office hours! He co-founded it with his wife, who is a law professor now!

Its not every group of course - the Japanese Red Army definitely had leadership that you can see pathology in, but in the main I think this trend holds.

The reason for this is ofc one million things, but I see the main things as being that the first half of the 20th century was just a maelstorm of social change. The US is one of a handful of governing regimes that survived from 1900 to 1960 (setting Latin America aside at least), radical social experimentation just seemed like the order of the day. It made the idea of like actually being able to overthrow governments seem pretty reasonable, it wasn't weird to believe that it didn't require crazy oddball beliefs to buy into. That isn't true today, the world of developed countries is in fact extremely stable, no major country has gone through a true revolution in decades (this doesn't mean they havent changed, we talking about revolutionary groups here). And its deeper than a rational calculation or strength or w/e, the "accepted space of action" for people is more restricted now. The US *was* radically changing at that time, after all. Whose to say when that had to stop?

It was also a more violent time? Huge swathes of the population had been in the military at some point. Many of the radicals were veterans, or knew veterans, who knew how to do things like make bombs and such. Culture was different to, every level of society was less controlled, more violent or at least physical. The details ofc are deeper but I think you can see the trend - it just isn't a hard sell to someone who sees the world as inherently violent to like bomb a building. It was normal then in a way that is very hard to conceive of now (even if ofc that level of organization to the violence was exceptional, most people still never did).

"Why the 1960'/70's radicalism happened" is both worthy of and the subject of dozens of books, there is so much more than this. The fact that it was a mass movement that spanned dozens of countries and lasted around a decade for it to fully trail off I think shows that it was a structural force in society.

[leohtttbriar]

Letters from an American

H. C. Richardson (Oct 24)

[...] And then there are the Republican voters, some of whom are abandoning the MAGA Republicans who are now openly embracing fascism. Today, Republican state senator Rob Cowles of Green Bay, Wisconsin, who has served for almost 42 years, announced he would vote for Democratic presidential nominee Vice President Kamala Harris. David Holt, the Republican mayor of Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, also indicated he would be casting his ballot for Harris. In 1880, when the Democrats went off the extremist cliff, voters forced it to move to the center. In 1879, after the bitterly contested 1876 election, voters gave Democrats control of Congress. So convinced were Democrats that the American people backed their determination to overthrow Reconstruction, they refused to fund the government unless Republican president Rutherford B. Hayes pulled the federal government out of the southern states. (They also tried to get a federal pension for Confederate president Jefferson Davis.) “If this is not revolution,” Civil War veteran House minority leader James A. Garfield (R-OH) said, “which if persisted in will destroy the government, [then] I am wholly wrong in my conception of both the word and the thing.”  Observers had expected the 1880 election to be a romp for the Democrats, who reiterated their demands in their party platform, but voters backed Garfield’s defense of the country and of Black rights and elected him to the White House.  The unexpected loss prompted the Democrats to toss aside their former Confederate leaders and shift toward the northern cities. For president in 1884 they backed former New York governor Grover Cleveland, who had broadened Black appointments to office and desegregated the New York City police force, and who had worked closely with New York Assembly minority leader Theodore Roosevelt, a Republican, to reform the worst abuses of the industrial system. Cleveland won with the help of significant numbers of crossover Republican voters, dubbed “Mugwumps,” thereby securing the roots of the modern Democratic Party.

[qqueenofhades]

Man, the Russia/Ukraine war has led to a lot of terrible takes from far leftists. I have a mutual from Brazil, a self identified socialist, who is convinced that Ukraine is full of nazis. While they don't support Russia, they questioned why they have to be "pro-Ukraine" or "pro-Russia". They call Ukraine a "nazi hole" but call Russia merely "fascist". Am I wrong in thinking that they've been influenced by Russian propaganda? I know Ukraine does have a nazi/far right problem, but so does the US? And most European countries? idk they strongly hate the US/US government too, and it seems to create some kind of brainrot. at least they don't blindly support China or Russia like tankies do (nor identify with them), but it's still frustrating to take a neutral position on a pretty black and white situation.

I don't want to confront them 1) cause I'm not the type to argue over serious things like this and this may break our long friendship and 2) I'm not super educated on the nazi situation in Ukraine.

Anyway thank you for letting me rant in your inbox.

Yes, Russia has specifically focused its propaganda efforts on Latin America, Africa, and other regions that HAVE suffered from Western/European/American imperialism and are thus predisposed to take the worst view of them/believe that this situation is their fault somehow. This is similar to what the USSR did in newly postcolonial Africa in the 1960s and 1970s, positing themselves as offering the shared hand of communist brotherhood from Western oppressors. Because of more recent events like the invasion of Iraq, which was fully as unjustified as the invasion of Ukraine, Russian propagandists and their eager tankie/leftist foot soldiers have also got a lot of mileage out of "whataboutism." This is likewise an old Soviet propaganda technique designed to deflect any criticism of the actual situation by disingenuously asking "what about this other one!!!"

Likewise, the idea that Ukraine has a "Nazi problem" is itself propaganda. In the last election, far-right/Nazi-identified parties won barely 2% of the vote and AFAIK, no seats at all in the Verkhovna Rada (Ukrainian parliament). This is far lower than the nearly half of the USA voting for the far-right/Nazi-sympathetic Republican Party, and as noted, the far right elements in the UK and Europe. The idea that Ukraine is "full of Nazis" (with a Jewish president who just celebrated iftar with the Ukrainian Muslims/Crimean Tatars during Ramadan and instituted observance of Muslim holidays nationwide, very Nazi of him) is a line used by Russian propagandists to "justify" their attack and appeal to national memories of the Great Patriotic War (World War II) and the struggle against the Nazis, which is the central cultural grievance/memory in modern Russia. The Putin regime has referred to anyone they don't like, but especially the Ukrainians, as "Nazis" for a long time now, so it's supposedly their holy duty to kill them/commit ethnic cleansing/forcibly reunite the "fraternal" people of "Little Russia," as Ukraine has been called since the 17th century, with "Great Russia." And yeah, no.

Because the West and Europe has been pretty solidly on Ukraine's side, Russia has therefore cultivated countries like China, India, Brazil, etc, who have all suffered from Western interference and are looking to move into the first rank of global superpowers. This is, as noted, similar to the competing systems of influence built during the Cold War, but it also relies on much deeper Russian grievances that go back to the medieval era. Anybody who knows a thing about actual Russian history would therefore know that every single word it says about the Ukraine situation is a lie, but because that lie is useful for many other countries and fits into their own understanding of themselves, it is easy to repeat and act like it's a so-called superior moral position. This is also why US/American tankies so eagerly lap up Russian propaganda, because it plays into their moral sense of themselves as far better than the rest of the West and "righteously" discovering that the West is responsible for all the evil in the world etc etc. While non-Westerners are just helpless misunderstood puppets with no real agency or ability to make complex choices. This totally makes sense!!!