#the tariffs were hell

[bellsblargbin]

i hope they riot again but against him and not for him

[friskyfreddie2024]

America: You Fucked Up

You could have chosen Hope. You chose Hate.

You could have chosen Empathy. You chose Enmity.

You could have chosen a New Beginning. You chose the Nazi.

We could have finally been rid of this cancer on American democracy. He could have been banished to obscurity, remembered only as the worst president in American history, and finally held responsible for his numerous crimes.

The ignorant, racist, misogynistic, white supremacist, pathologicial liar is now going back to the White House. He is a convicted felon, an admitted sexual predator, a total fraud, and a demented old man. He belongs in prison.

What did you do?

You ignored that the U.S. economy is the strongest in the world, that inflation is at its lowest level in four years, that unemployment is at its lowest level in three years. You believed the lies about how terrible the economy is. I knew better.

You forgot about his 30,000+ lies while he was in office. I remember.

You forgot about his complete mismanagement and ignorance over COVID, resulting in the deaths of over one million Americans. I remember.

You forgot about the saber rattling over military exercises in the pacific, when Kim Jong Un threatened us with nuclear missiles, causing us to fear whether we'd see another day. I remember.

You forgot about waking up every morning dreading to hear the latest abomination he tweeted. I remember.

You forgot about "very fine people on both sides." I remember.

You forgot about "only the best people" like Betsy DeVos, Rick Perry, Tom Price, Scott Pruitt, Steve Mnuchin, and many others who were given cabinet positions despite having zero qualifications for the job. I remember.

You forgot that 40 of his former cabinet members and dozens of former generals and officials refused to support him, saying he was "unfit to serve." I remember.

You forgot about January 6, "fight like hell". I remember.

You forgot that when he was told that his vice president was secured because the rioters wanted to kill him, he said, "So what?" I remember

You forgot about The Big Lie, "Release the Kraken" and 60+ failed attempts to overturn the election in the courts. I remember.

You forgot about "I just need you to find 11,780 votes." I remember.

You forgot about "They're eating the cats! They're eating the dogs!" I remember.

What now?

When a woman suffering an ectopic pregnancy dies because she doesn't have access to medical care, that's on you.

When they take away your neighbor, your co-worker, your friend, and deport them, that's on you.

When a woman is forced to suffer the agony of carrying her rapist's baby to term, that's on you.

When a transgender kid harms themselves because they can't get the medical care they need, that's on you.

When your middle-class taxes GO UP, while billionaires get even more tax breaks, that's on you.

When schoolchildren are killed by an assault rifle in a mass shooting, that's on you.

When children grow up ignorant because you banned books and dictated how history is taught, that's on you.

When Grandma can no longer afford a comfortable life because the Social Security she paid into all her working life, and provided income on which she now depends, has been cut, that's on you.

When violence against Jews, Asians, Hispanics rises again, that's on you.

When prices on the goods you buy skyrocket due to tariffs, that's on you.

When Ukraine, deprived of our support, is overrun by Russia, that's on you.

When the U.S. is the laughing stock of the world (as we were 2016-2020), that's on you.

What should you have done?

You should have exercised critical thinking skills, recognized the thousands of lies you were being told, recalled that his administration had four years to live up to his promises and failed at all of them. You should have realized that he is a profoundly stupid individual who doesn't give a shit about you or your family or anything except himself.

You had the last nine years to see that, and you still fell for his bullshit.

[zvaigzdelasas]

You can’t buy the Seagull in the US. But I bet you wish you could.

A small hatchback around the size of a Mini Cooper, the Seagull is a fast-charging electric car and claims a range of up to 250 miles [...] BYD, its Chinese manufacturer, claims it can go from 30 percent to 80 percent charged in a half-hour using a DC plug. It’s hardly a luxury car but it’s well-equipped, with a power driver’s seat and cruise control. “If I were looking for an inexpensive commuter car … this would be perfect,” veteran car journalist John McElroy said after taking a drive.

The best part? Its base model costs about $10,700 in China.

That’s about a third of the cost of the cheapest EV you can buy in the US. In South America, it’s a little pricier, but still fairly affordable, at under $24,000 for a top-trim version. Even in Europe, you can get an entry-level BYD for under €30,000. These are absolutely screaming deals — exactly the kind of products that could turbocharge our transition away from gas and toward electric vehicles.[...]

The problem for Americans? The Biden administration is hell-bent on preventing you from buying BYD’s product, and if Donald Trump returns to office, he is likely to fight it as well.

That’s because the BYD cars are made in China, and both Biden and Trump are committed to an ultranationalist trade policy meant to keep BYD’s products out. [...] Shipments to Europe have increased astronomically; Chinese companies sold 0.5 percent of EVs in Europe in 2019 but they’re already over 9 percent as of last year. Companies like BYD make cheap, reasonably good-quality cars people are eager to buy.

In 2018, Trump imposed, and Biden has since continued, a special 25 percent tax on Chinese-made autos, on top of the ordinary 2.5 percent tax on foreign-made cars.

That has so far prevented BYD and its Chinese peers from trying to enter the US market. US customer tastes are different enough that Chinese manufacturers would probably prefer to make cars tailored to them — but US policy has been so hostile toward cheap Chinese EVs that so far, the companies haven’t wanted to bother.

So, the result is that we’re left out of the bounty of cheap EV options created by BYD and others. “If you’re a consumer right now, the best place to be right now is China, because you have the best choice of EVs,” Ilaria Mazzocco, senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies and an expert on Chinese EVs, says.[...]

Still, China’s price advantage is big enough that even the extreme Trump-Biden import tax might not be enough to deter companies like BYD from entering the US market. Even with the tariffs, Chinese cars might be cheaper than their rivals. “​​Subsidies most likely won’t be enough; Mr. Biden will need to impose [more] trade restrictions,” climate journalist Robinson Meyer predicted recently. The Biden administration is already making noise about imposing even more draconian taxes or trade restrictions against these vehicles. Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo has described Chinese-made cars as a national security threat, and recently announced an investigation into the vehicles’ data collection abilities and the possibility they could send movement data to Beijing.

On the one hand, Biden is offering Americans up to $7,500 per vehicle to buy EVs (provided they meet certain made-in-North America rules). On the other hand, he’s imposing massive taxes to keep Americans from buying EVs. It’s a bizarre policy that makes no sense from a climate perspective.[...]

[The Biden Administration] has proven shockingly willing to sabotage its own climate policy if it gets to stick it to the Chinese in the process.

“There’s almost an across-the-board apprehension about Chinese EVs, even though they would make an important contribution to [lower] CO2 emissions,” Gary Clyde Hufbauer, a veteran trade expert at the Peterson Institute for International Economics, says.[...]

Realistically, Helveston argues, BYD might not sell something like the Seagull in the US because it’s smaller than most cars Americans buy. They’d probably build plants in the US instead, or its free-trade zone partners Canada and Mexico, to build vehicles tailored for Americans. “If you’re going to really enter a market, you have to make it locally,” Helveston explains. “US automakers like GM sell and make millions of cars in China to sell in China.” BYD would do the same. Indeed, it’s already reportedly scouting sites for factories in Mexico.

If they ever were to set up shop in North America, BYD and other Chinese car companies would still have a major price advantage versus American EVs. They have years more experience and a much more successful track record of building batteries and EVs at low cost.

“Part of why they’re so successful is they’ve been thinking outside the box on cost reduction for a long time,” Mazzocco says. They took the “opposite of the Tesla approach”: starting not with luxury vehicles but ultra-cheap cars fit for taxi fleets and not much else, and constantly improving their early inexpensive prototypes. The result is that Chinese firms have gotten extremely good at making inexpensive EVs, at a time when Ford, by contrast, lost $28,000 for every EV it sold in 2023.[...]

“If you have more affordable EVs in the United States, no matter where you come from,” Gopal says, “that’s better for the climate.”

Still, the Biden administration reportedly wants to restrict Chinese car companies’ access to the US even if they do set up shop in North America. Bloomberg reported earlier this month that the Biden administration is formulating rules that would limit US sales of Chinese-made parts, even if they’re in vehicles ultimately assembled in the US or Mexico.[...]

But the Biden administration’s objections to Chinese EVs are also ideological. The Biden administration represents the victory of a protectionist, trade-skeptical wing of the Democratic party that was relegated to the sidelines during the Clinton and Obama years.[...]

[O]ver 90 percent of American households have a car, and surging car prices were a huge contributor to the 2021–2023 rise in inflation.

Barriers to importing cheap cars make inflation worse and reduce the real incomes of the middle class.

Not only are the administration and other left-leaning institutions opposed to Chinese EVs, but hardline conservatives at places like the Heritage Foundation are calling for outright bans on Chinese EVs as well. Their rationale is security, another theme the Biden administration evokes often. On Thursday, the Commerce Department announced it was beginning a process to “investigate the national security risks of … PRC-manufactured technology in [internet-connected] vehicles.”

6 Mar 24

[itsfreerealestatelol]

Just. Really fast.

I really do try to keep politics away from my social media but...

I'm American. We just voted for the stupidest candidate we could have possibly voted for. If you know that one Cyanide and Happiness skit where the presidential candidates were a perfectly good, reasonable and professional person vs. a literal glutton for humiliation promising to make the country fall into ruin just for shits and giggles? Yeah that's basically this election right now. We fucking voted for a man so cartoonishly bad he is basically a Cyanide and Happiness character.

This country quite literally hates women more than it actually wants to have freedom. That's the bottom line here.

We are literally getting lambasted by OTHER COUNTRIES because we voted for Trump, our allies overseas are quite literally calling us idiots, and frankly? We fucking deserve it. People want to kill themselves over this election, LITERAL CHILDREN are concerned for the future of this country- I recently heard my very, very conservative, God-fearing mother express concern over her own future moving forward over Trump. It wasn't just her either, it was my entire right-wing family as well, they are all so concerned about what's going to happen with Trump in office, so it's not just the fucking liberals or whatever who are terrified of what's about to happen.

I'm scared for the hundreds of thousands of other queer folks out there who didn't get the chance to start living their truest selves before their rights got stripped again. I'm scared for the women who now have to live in constant fear of their own bodies because what if they get taken advantage of and don't want to carry the baby, or what if they miscarry or birth a still born? Congratulations you're going to jail! I'm scared for the POC people in our country who are about to face the worst racism this country has seen since the goddamn slave-years. I'm scared for every single person in this country who isn't a cishet white man because they're about to face the consequences of someone else's actions and have no say in it.

I'm scared for the businesses who are about to face tariffs so dumb they're going to have to restrict their worker's pay. I'm scared for the enviornment because Trump wants to go after the fucking climate crisis for some goddamn reason. I'm scared for my own future, because I want to go through college, I want to be an architect, and I may not get that opportunity over the sex I was born with and didn't get a choice in having.

I agree with the people that are saying shit like "if we can elect a president with 34 felons, then you should be able to get a job with one" because yeah. I think people are seriously forgetting Trump is convicted on 34 felony charges, is a rapist, a literal national security risk, is half a billion dollars in debt, is also convicted of fraud, whose own political party minus the loud part stopped supporting him, and his administration is not returning to the White House because they either hate him or are in jail.

And yet we elected him to be our president.

All of this to say-

Raise fucking hell.

Demand those votes be recounted, fight for your rights, donate to good causes, research what stores and businesses support human decency, do what you think you can do within your own limits to help our country and it's people.

We are not done fighting, we are not going to just wallow in our own defeat. If they get to be loud, then we get to be louder.

As Optimus says, "Freedom is the right of all sentient beings"

-

Edit:

Trump doesn't have the power to do shit right now. That is why I'm saying we fight before he does.

And also,

Our lives are worth more than the price of gas and eggs. Remember that.

[nocasdatsgay]

Fanfic: Barging In

Pair: Eris/Reader

Rating: T (Fluff)

Word Count: 771

Summary: Eris becomes High Lord and goes to get his mate in the middle of the night.

Notes/Warnings: Spring Court Reader. Tamlin is there but he’s not any trouble. Reader POV

Read here on ao3 or below the cut

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

You’d been sleeping peacefully. It took a while to adjust back to being in your home court of Spring with Tamlin almost back to normal. You were finally able to sleep through the night most nights now. You’d been dreaming about a forest when you stilled in your dream, the smell of bonfire coming through and you looked around for the source. 

You didn’t find it- you were jolted awake when you felt hands on your body. You screamed, thrashing about to get away from whatever grabbed you. Your feet hit something solid and you screamed again, trying to crawl up the bed. 

“Stop kicking me! Love, it’s me!” 

You stilled, panting and looking at the figure next to you. It took a moment for your eyes to adjust to the dark and your mind to catch up with what you heard and saw. It was Eris, his red hair and skin practically glowing and illuminating the room. You didn’t remember that from the last time you saw him.

“What, Eris- why- how are you here?” 

“I’m High Lord now,” he said, his voice soft and stirring that bond in your chest. “I’ve come to take you home.”

You were still stunned and confused. “In the middle of the night?” You hissed. 

He grinned at you. “I can’t wait another day. Trust me. I’ll send for your things, don’t worry.”

Then Eris scooped you up out of bed and tossed you over his shoulder, still in your nightgown. You yelled again and hit his back. “Have you lost your mind?”

He only laughed at you as he carried you out into the hall. You heard the rattle of armor and guards shouting. You flushed red with embarrassment. 

“Eris put me down!” 

“Eris, what the hell are you doing?” You wanted to die as that voice belonged to Lord Tamlin. 

“Taking my mate home,” Eris replied as if he didn’t just break several laws by barging into another High Lord’s manor. 

He stopped and Tamlin called out your name. “Do you even want to go with him?” He asked. He was more calm about this than you anticipated. “Eris put her down.” 

You lifted your body up, slightly dizzy and looked to see Tamlin shirtless, half laced trousers thrown on in a hurry. He was giving you an out. “I-“

Eris cut you off. “I’ll sign those trade agreements that had sat on my fathers desk for months and lower the import tariffs if you let us walk out of here right now, unscathed.” 

“Eris,” you glared even if he couldn’t see your face.

Tamlin pinched the bridge of his nose. “Do you want to go with him, yes or no?” His question was directed at you. 

You sighed. “Yes. But don’t tell anyone he hauled me out of here like a mindless brute.” 

“Wouldn’t dream of it.” Tamlin sounded beyond exasperated. “Break my wards again, Eris and I will kill you.” 

“Understood,” he said with a serious tone. “I’ll send you the documents in the morning. And I’ll request for her things- the right way.” He then patted your rear, making you jolt and flush again. “I’ll be taking my mate home now.”

You glared into the darkness as he proceeded to start walking again. Tamlin made eye contact with you as you both passed and you glared at him. He did nothing to hide his amusement. You couldn’t be too angry. Tamlin knew you were Eris’s mate. He knew the feelings were mutual and had known for decades. 

You were certain that was the only reason he let you both walk out without another word. Eris finally pulled you off his shoulder and down into his arms when you both reached the manor doors. You hit him on his shoulder while he opened the doors and carried you into the courtyard. 

“You did this on purpose,” you pouted. The sentries at the door ignored you both but you knew they were snickering to themselves. 

Eris turned and whispered as he carried you past the wards. “I will make it up to you, love. Once I sign those agreements in the morning, I have nothing planned outside of keeping you in bed for the rest of the day.”

Your scent betrayed you as you thought about being with your mate for the first time in nearly a century. He grinned at you, want in his eyes and his own scent changed ever so slightly. 

“Take me home,” you whispered back. 

“See, I told you to trust me.” You rolled your eyes as he grinned and winnowed you both to Forest House. 

[bitchy-peachy]

I don't know whether I should find Trump voters freaking out after learning that Trump doesn't care about him funny or infuriating. It's funny bc literally every reason they had voted for this man was a bold-faced lie and infuriating bc ppl on both sides has be telling them over and over that Trump would fuck America over and now that it's affecting them and their precious gas and egg price, they want to cry about being duped.

I find regretful Trump voters quite pitiful and soulless. Which is quite a lot from me cos when I despise someone to the core I go completely apathetic towards any suffering they may have.

They voted as selfishly as possible. Some didn't even care about the prices or anything, but yes for "sticking it to the libs".

But... While a lot of maga voted for Trump because he openly hates those they hate, there's unfortunately a lot of dumbass people that actually believed he would "unify" America.

(I'm not even joking. I've seen some maga online that are that effing delusional. They really thought they were the "good guys" in voting for the orange skidmark. I swear they need to get slapped for the audacity but I don't want to catch shit from them. )

These are the same people that compared wearing a freaking MASK to slavery so they've always been stupid and also racist af. They blame and project their own mediocrity on minorities and women (even if they're women themselves cos holyshit do maga women hate other women. My own maga mother... Oh she's literally hates everything with a vagina, even animals)

Those voters regretting their vote now... They won't even get the concept of pity from me. (My maga mother and her crying over her VA benefits she voted away lost me forever too.)

They didn't even know what tariffs were ffs. Or that "Obamacare" (a nickname given by republicans themselves, btw 😂) is the ACA they wanted to keep.

They just saw "Obama" in the little nickname and thought "Evil Black Democrat President is robbing us blind. We only want ACA🤬!"

Some are trying to lie to themselves thinking the tariffs will bring back American jobs (😂) and make us buy only "American products" ignoring the fact that our "American products" have imported components that will be affected by these tariffs.

So our "Made in America" shit... Yeah. That's going up.

Oh don't get me started on how more than half of our agriculture is imported and the agriculture that's actually done in our country is done mostly by immigrants that get paid shit wages. (And when Trump deports them all and farmers are forced to hire Americans that couldn't be assed to work a field, the prices will go up for our local agriculture as well)

These morons, we have to call them that, voted for the most epic downward spiral that will tank the American economy for potential decades (not just a few years of "hardship" like that Immigrant-That-Should-Get-Pimp-Smacked-Back-To-Africa Musk claimed.)

Sad thing is that we already had poverty. The middle class no longer exists. It's everyone's poor but with a handful of rich fucks.

And these moronic ass people just freaking put that shit on steroids with their dumb fucking voting.

People tell me I shouldn't insult them so much but shit. They're fucking stupid as hell.

They don't even understand why even relatives and friends don't wanna talk to them anymore 😂.

Oh its not a "difference of opinion". They voted to make us poorer, take rights away from the lgbtqia, women (yes, you miscarry and you can die from it now cos the procedure to remove rotting fetus matter is an abortion which these stupid dumbfuckers are very deaf about.), they voted against ALL POC (including the idiots that voted against themselves. DING DING DING! DENATURALIZATION! America has done it before and Trump will be bringing it back with his fake ass "invasion" emergency to activate the army), they voted against affordable healthcare and therefore fucked over people with preexisting conditions/disabilities etc., they voted against education because republicans need only stupid people to keep them in power.

Heck, they voted against gender affirming care because they think it only affects trans people when there's people with health conditions that require this kind of care (like me. A cis woman that produces too much estrogen that causes me a variety of health problems.)

Red states are behind in everything. Education, health, minimum wages but they're sure winning by being higher in crimes, sex crimes, incest and poverty.

They mooch off blue states taxes. They don't give as much as much back as they take. If it weren't for "demonrats" they'd be completely off the map.

Republican voters like living that way without realizing they could have been so much better.

They keep willingly voting for people that keep them in that life or worse... considering that these elections had very high stakes.

These elections were not like others in the past. He has too much power with the SC, senate and representatives.

Trump voters regretting their votes now should wipe words like freedom and patriot off their vocabulary because they have selfishly and quite stupidly fucked America.

Damn this shit was long, LMFAOOO.

[theliterarywolf]

This entire post election cycle as a black person has basically been me going into blogs of people I once respected (or at least thought were pretty decent) and tripping over the 800 different slurs they’ve clearly been dying to call me but couldn’t until now :(

If the 2024 Political Cycle taught me nothing else, it's that people -- no matter the political leaning, no matter the side of the poverty level, no matter the orientation -- have just been opting for a window to embrace cruelty.

Because, hell, ever since we got the results, people have just been rushing to show their assholes.

From people spamming online sex-workers with shite like 'Lol, say goodbye to your birth-control, stupid bitch', people trying to "clap-back" at merch/plushie artists worrying about how the incoming administration's severe misunderstanding of tariffs is going to affect their income, people proudly letting the slurs fly for minorities who voted for Trump.

And before anyone says anything, I'm not out here trying to say 'oh, if we just come together and Kumbaya, we can save the country'. People are scared, people have every right to be scared.

Because, really, the worst thing that's going to come out of the next few years isn't even going to be from the White House or the Supreme Court. It's going to be the everyday person taking the new administration as a window to be cruel.

Because, let's call a spade a spade, if American citizens did have more sense of community, did have something resembling mercy for their neighbors, no amount of political strongarming would matter for shit. Because a government's power is supposed to come from its citizens; not the other way around.

However, those in power have been successful at making the American populace forget about that and that's why we're in the situation we're in now.

[trannywithagodcomplex]

I think the most frustrating part of trump winning is just seeing how fucking stupid trump supporters are

Genuinely half of them voted without any basic knowledge on his policies or his stances and are now bitching about the fact that he won

Tough luck bitch you voted for him

If you were one of the fuckers that voted for trump and then decided to search "What are tariffs" AFTER the election please use critical thinking skills sometime in the future, i genuinely fear for your safety.

Also idk who needs to hear this, but no matter how much you hope and pray, the REAL trump supporters will not accept you as a person of colour. You are only alienating yourself from the communities that care about you, because coloured folk who are fighting for change don't want anything to do with you and the trump supporters are going to do immeasurable harm to your family. I hope you lie awake in a cold sweat thinking about the shit you've done after your grandmas and grandpas get deported. I hope you regret it for the rest of your life. I hope you never forget the feeling of that pencil scratching that paper you sick fuck. You signed your brothers and sisters' lives away. The next 4 years are going to be hell and it's just getting started.

The leopards eating peoples' faces party will not spare you no matter how hard you try to pretend, and when they eat your face i don't want to see you play victim.

[racefortheironthrone]

Why do economists need to shut up about mercantilism, as you alluded to in your post about Louis XIV's chief ministers?

In part due to their supposed intellectual descent from Adam Smith and the other classical economists, contemporary economists are pretty uniformly hostile to mercantilism, seeing it as a wrong-headed political economy that held back human progress until it was replaced by that best of all ideas: capitalism.

As a student of economic history and the history of political economy, I find that economists generally have a pretty poor understanding of what mercantilists actually believed and what economic policies they actually supported. In reality, a lot of the things that economists see as key advances in the creation of capitalism - the invention of the joint-stock company, the creation of financial markets, etc. - were all accomplishments of mercantiism.

Rather than the crude stereotype of mercantilists as a bunch of monetary weirdos who thought the secret to prosperity was the hoarding of precious metals, mercantilists were actually lazer-focused on economic development. The whole business about trying to achieve a positive balance of trade and financial liquidity and restraining wages was all a means to an end of economic development. Trade surpluses could be invested in manufacturing and shipping, gold reserves played an important role in deepening capital pools and thus increasing levels of investment at lower interest rates that could support larger-scale and more capital intensive enterprises, and so forth.

Indeed, the arch-sin of mercantilism in the eyes of classical and contemporary economists, their interference in free trade through tariffs, monopolies, and other interventions, was all directed at the overriding economic goal of climbing the value-added ladder.

Thus, England (and later Britain) put a tariff on foreign textiles and an export tax on raw wool and forbade the emigration of skilled workers (while supporting the immigration of skilled workers to England) and other mercantilist policies to move up from being exporters of raw wool (which meant that most of the profits from the higher value-added part of the industry went to Burgundy) to being exporters of cheap wool cloth to being exporters of more advanced textiles. Hell, even Adam Smith saw the logic of the Navigation Acts!

And this is what brings me to the most devastating critique of the standard economist narrative about mercantilism: the majority of the countries that successfully industrialized did so using mercantilist principles rather than laissez-faire principles:

When England became the first industrial economy, it did so under strict protectionist policies and only converted to free trade once it had gained enough of a technological and economic advantage over its competitors that it didn't need protectionism any more.

When the United States industrialized in the 19th century and transformed itself into the largest economy in the world, it did so from behind high tariff walls.

When Germany made itself the leading industrial power on the Continent, it did so by rejecting English free trade economics and having the state invest heavily in coal, steel, and railroads. Free trade was only for within the Zollverein, not with the outside world.

And as Dani Rodrik, Ha-Joon Chang, and others have pointed out, you see the same thing with Japan, South Korea, China...everywhere you look, you see protectionism as the means of achieving economic development, and then free trade only working for already-developed economies.

[walnutbun]

Just want to say, @ all of you self-proclaimed "leftists" and "progressives" who refused to vote for Harris, whatever your reasoning:

FUCK YOU.

This is on YOU.

You knew what was at stake here, and you STILL did this shit to us. You decided that strategic voting was somehow above you, that your perceived moral superiority was more important than the rights of women, LGBTQ+ people, minorities, and basically everyone who isn't a cishet white Christian male.

Trump won because of you, and now he's got the Senate - and quite possibly the House, too. You know what that means? Even more far-right "justices". Say goodbye to gay marriage - it was nice while it lasted. Oh, and don't kid yourself - there's no chance in hell he's keeping his promise to veto a national abortion ban. Even if he does, though, the Supreme Court will make it law for him.

Speaking of kidding yourselves, don't even try the "it's only four years" shit. The Supreme Court already took care of that - he's got total immunity for anything he does that's related to the "core powers of the office". I'm sure that he and his buddies can think of a way to ensure that, even if he can't stay President, we never see another Democratic POTUS.

Oh, and by the way: HE'S WORSE ON ISRAEL, YOU FUCKING MORONS. With Harris there was at least a chance to talk her out of supporting the genocide - with Trump, Gaza will be lucky not to be nuked. Say goodbye to Ukraine, too, since everyone knows Trump is in bed with Putin. Hell, Putin's probably already preparing a "justification" for continuing to march the Russian army westward.

I'd say that I hope the lower grocery prices was worth it, but he won't even do that - his tariffs will drive prices of everything through the fucking roof (on top of the greedy corporations who - spoiler alert - were the ones driving the recession in the first place, trying to recoup lost profits from COVID).

All of you. You all decided it was OK to gamble with other people's lives. Even if the gamble had worked out, you'd still have been horrible people for risking it - but it didn't work out, did it?

On behalf of those of us who will suffer because of your selfish choices, fucking thanks. I hope the ability to pat yourself on the back and say "well at least I didn't vote for someone who supports Israel" was worth the death, destruction, and suffering that he'll inevitably cause.

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

M.Wuerker

* * * *

"WE SHALL NOBLY SAVE, OR MEANLY LOSE, THE LAST BEST HOPE OF EARTH"

TCinLA

Oct 16, 2024

In what is now a little less than three weeks, the world’s oldest democracy will conclude a referendum on whether democracy will be maintained or be replaced by fascism.

I wish to hell I could write something more subtle. But there’s nothing subtle to write.

160 years ago, President Lincoln posed the choice the country face in the election of 1864 - held in the midst of the Civil War - thus: “We shall nobly save, or meanly lose, the last best hope of earth.”

That choice is before us again.

And this time it is even more stark.

The media continues to struggle - at the infrequent times they deign to even try - to use language that clarifies all this; with rare exception, the best they can do is to call the situation “extraordinary,” “unusual,” and “unprecedented.” Or at least they consider the possibility of using those words on the few occasions where they aren’t putting all their effort into telling us “Nothing to see here, folks, move along,” that it’s just another of those every-four-year competitions between two candidates who each love America and only want the best for us.

On Monday, both Trump and Kamala Harris held campaign events.

Trump’s town hall devolved into one of the most bizarre political events of the campaign, as he stopped taking questions (that he didn’t answer when they were asked), and stood dazed and confused on the stage for 39 long minutes, listening to music as he “danced” by himself while his staff played music from his personal Spotify list and the governor of South Dakota acted like a children’s show host, clapping along to the music as if everything was completely normal.

At about the same time, Kamala Harris held an energetic and positive rally; it was well- organized, inspirational, with accompanying music from artists who personally approved use of their songs by the candidate.

Coverage of the two events was mind-boggling, as the corporate media either completely ignored Trump’s behavior, or sanewashed it by calling it “a concert,” or otherwise acted like the two events were the same. There was no mention at all that the oldest candidate to campaign for president had “sundowned” in front of his supporters for close to three-quarters of an hour. The Guardian - which should definitely know better! - and the WaPo, which one would hope might know better, both called it a “dance party.” CBS and ABC described it as an “impromptu concert.” Surprisingly, the New York Times actually called it “odd,” while NBC used the word “surreal,” to describe the event. Trump was so far gone that when he “came around” at the end, he told his supporters to be sure to “vote on January 5.”

Clearly, there is nothing Trump can do that will get the media to tell their audiences the truth about what is happening to him.

But yesterday, the receipts were there for anyone who cared to look. Trump did a live interview at an event put on by Bloomberg News and the Economic Club of Chicago. It was another train wreck.

The entire sorry show began with Trump showing up an hour late. Moderator John Micklethwait, editor-in-chief of Bloomberg News, proceeded to ask real questions regarding Trump’s economic plans, which the former “dumbest fucking student who ever walked in my classroom” (in the words of a Wharton professor whose class young Donald was allowed to AUDIT because he failed to qualify for acceptance into Wharton) answered with rants and slogans. Micklethwait - a Brit who obviously does not suffer fools easily or at all - repeatedly corrected Trump and redirected him to the actual questions. Trump doesn’t like being publicly schooled or questioned, and the interview quickly grew angry and combative. On being corrected by Micklethwait for misunderstanding how tariffs work, Trump replied (in front of an audience of people who do understand how tariffs work): “It must be hard for you to, you know, spend 25 years talking about tariffs as being negative and then have somebody explain to you that you're totally wrong.” When Mickelthwait pointed out that an analysis by the Wall Street Journal stated his plans would explode the national debt, Trump wrapped his arms around himself like a petulant 10 year old being corrected and replied: “What does the Wall Street Journal know? They’ve been wrong about everything. So have you, by the way….. You’ve been wrong about everything…. You’ve been wrong all your life on this stuff.”

As Micklethwait continued to conduct journalism with Trump, the response was more and more outlandish statements: that children could do the work of U.S. autoworkers in South Carolina, and that he would be a better chair of the Federal Reserve than Jerome Powell.

Despite the claims by Trump press spokesman Fu Manchu, er, I mean Steven Cheung, that his candidate had “won” - as if the interview was a debate - $22 Million Man Chris LaCivita decided Trump would not do another economic policy event with CNBC.

David Rothkopf of Deep State Radio hit the nail on the head: “The past 24 hours seem to have been a dividing line in the Trump campaign...and in Trump. He went from being periodically adrift and sporadically demented to being 24/7 unfit and in need of permanent medical attention. He's one cloudless night away from baying at the moon.”

That’s why it was so bracing this week to find that General Mark Milley, former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, clarified remarks he had made previously to Bob Woodward for his book “War,” (which is an excellent account of how Joe Biden is the best president of the past 60 years) stating clearly:

"He is the most dangerous person ever. I had suspicions when I talked to you about his mental decline and so forth, but now I realize he's a total fascist. He is now the most dangerous person to this country, he’s a fascist to the core.”

The media was stuck. They had to talk about that. High ranking American military officers do not go around saying things like that. Ever.

In 1956, then-president Dwight D. Eisenhower - the last Republican president who didn’t either commit or knowingly benefit from treason to win his elections - spoke to a group of Republican women about the state of politics in America. He said:

“If a political party does not have its foundation in the determination to advance a cause that is right and that is moral, then it is not a political party; it is merely a conspiracy to seize power.”

Here we are, 68 years later, confronted by the fact we are not opposed by a political party, but by “a conspiracy to seize power.”

And it is up to each of us to “nobly save, or meanly lose, the last best hope of earth.”

Looking at the first day of early voting yesterday in Georgia - which exceeded the previous record in 2020 by 184% - and listening to interviews with voters who had stood in line resolutely through all the early morning glitches to be sure they voted tell reporters that they were there “to save democracy” in the words of several, “to be true to my mother and grandmother and her grandmother” in the words of one woman, I think we have a shot at doing it.

In the words of Willie Brown, the smartest politician I ever knew, “Ignore the polls and run like you’re ten points down till the real polls close, then celebrate.”

[infamousbrad]

You Need to Stop Kidding Yourself about Why They Hate Democrats

Long ago, Chicago labor attorney Thomas Geoghegan spent months at time, over about a decade, studying the German economy for a good book that came out in 2010 called Were You Born on the Wrong Continent? And I've spent all morning trying to find a quote that apparently isn't in the book, it must have been from an interview during his book tour. Here's the relevant passage in the book, with my emphasis added.

At the SPD headquarters, I met people on the left, the best and brightest, who can at least think in this framework. They grasp what their job is: to protect the way of life of a largely high school-educated middle class. That way of life is what constitutes the crown jewels. The protection of the crown jewels is a fiduciary responsibility. I hate to say so, but Democrats and Kennedy School-types (with honorable exceptions)—certainly Democratic politicians—really do not think seriously about how, in a practical way, to raise the standard of living of the non- college grad population, who happen to be, well, 73 percent of the adult population.

During an interview about this passage (that I apparently can't find) I remember him being asked about this, and as best as I can reconstruct it, he said that the SPD campaign organizer who pointed this out to him also said that once the OPEC crisis and resulting global recession back in the 1970s was over, the US decided to try to monopolize all the college-educated, high-wage jobs in the world, and to push every future head-of-household in America to get at least a bachelor's degree.

And the German said to him that nobody anywhere else in the world thought we could get our college graduate rate as high as we now have. But at the same time, the German government and its private sector as well set out to try to monopolize all of the skilled labor jobs in the world, because those jobs can, if that's who's available, be done by people with a high school education and a little bit of manufacturing experience.

In the 1992 Democratic Party primary, Bill Clinton, spokesman for the Democratic Leadership Council (or as my side of the party called them, the "Democrats for the Leisure Class") were explicit that they were literally throwing away any interest in supporting a living wage or any other protections for people with a high school diploma or less. They unashamedly said there was no future there, the real future was in the college-educated outer-ring suburbs.

So, he said, yes, life in America for college-educated whites is wonderful compared to most of the world, but that left him with two questions for this American labor attorney:

Do you have any plan for ever making it possible for any young man without a college degree to ever be able to afford to have a family? And ...

If not? Why do they let you get away with that?

Yesterday, Geoghegan's question was answered. They aren't going to let us get away with that. Not any more. Even if Trump is lying about his tariffs bringing back the working-class jobs, even if he also has no plans for those jobs paying a living wage, he says he hates the global trade in manufacturing with companies in China and Mexico that don't even allow private-sector independent unions.

As could have been entirely safely predicted, hell, as Eric Hoffer predicted way the hell back in the late 40s when he wrote The True Believer about the foot-soldiers for the Bolsheviks in Russia, the Klan in America, and the Nazis in Germany, there is nothing more dangerous than telling lots of young men from the dominant ethnic group in your country that they will never be able to afford to have a family. And now the chickens have come home to roost.

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Peter Baker and Dylan Freedman at NYT:

Former President Donald J. Trump vividly recounted how the audience at his climactic debate with Vice President Kamala Harris was on his side. Except that there was no audience. The debate was held in an empty hall. No one “went crazy,” as Mr. Trump put it, because no one was there. Anyone can misremember, of course. But the debate had been just a week earlier and a fairly memorable moment. And it was hardly the only time Mr. Trump has seemed confused, forgetful, incoherent or disconnected from reality lately. In fact, it happens so often these days that it no longer even generates much attention.

He rambles, he repeats himself, he roams from thought to thought — some of them hard to understand, some of them unfinished, some of them factually fantastical. He voices outlandish claims that seem to be made up out of whole cloth. He digresses into bizarre tangents about golf, about sharks, about his own “beautiful” body. He relishes “a great day in Louisiana” after spending the day in Georgia. He expresses fear that North Korea is “trying to kill me” when he presumably means Iran. As late as last month, Mr. Trump was still speaking as if he were running against President Biden, five weeks after his withdrawal from the race. With Mr. Biden out, Mr. Trump, at 78, is now the oldest major party nominee for president in history and would be the oldest president ever if he wins and finishes another term at 82. A review of Mr. Trump’s rallies, interviews, statements and social media posts finds signs of change since he first took the political stage in 2015. He has always been discursive and has often been untethered to truth, but with the passage of time his speeches have grown darker, harsher, longer, angrier, less focused, more profane and increasingly fixated on the past.

According to a computer analysis by The New York Times, Mr. Trump’s rally speeches now last an average of 82 minutes, compared with 45 minutes in 2016. Proportionately, he uses 13 percent more all-or-nothing terms like “always” and “never” than he did eight years ago, which some experts consider a sign of advancing age. Similarly, he uses 32 percent more negative words than positive words now, compared with 21 percent in 2016, which can be another indicator of cognitive change. And he uses swearwords 69 percent more often than he did when he first ran, a trend that could reflect what experts call disinhibition. (A study by Stat, a health care news outlet, produced similar findings.) Mr. Trump frequently reaches to the past for his frame of reference, often to the 1980s and 1990s, when he was in his tabloid-fueled heyday. He cites fictional characters from that era like Hannibal Lecter from “Silence of the Lip” (he meant “Silence of the Lambs”), asks “where’s Johnny Carson, bring back Johnny” (who died in 2005) and ruminates on how attractive Cary Grant was (“the most handsome man”). He asks supporters whether they remember the landing in New York of Charles Lindbergh, who actually landed in Paris and long before Mr. Trump was born.

He seems confused about modern technology, suggesting that “most people don’t have any idea what the hell a phone app is” in a country where 96 percent of people own a smartphone. If sometimes he seems stuck in the 1990s, there are moments when he pines for the 1890s, holding out that decade as the halcyon period of American history and William McKinley as his model president because of his support for tariffs. And he heads off into rhetorical cul-de-sacs. “So we built a thing called the Panama Canal,” he told the conservative host Tucker Carlson last year. “We lost 35,000 people to the mosquito, you know, malaria. We lost 35,000 people building — we lost 35,000 people because of the mosquito. Vicious. They had to build under nets. It was one of the true great wonders of the world. As he said, ‘One of the nine wonders of the world.’ No, no, it was one of the seven. It just happened a little while ago. You know, he says, ‘Nine wonders of the world.’ You could make nine wonders. He would’ve been better off if he stuck with the nine and just said, ‘Yeah, I think it’s nine.’”

[...] The former president has not been hobbled politically by his age as much as Mr. Biden was, in part because the incumbent comes across as physically frail while Mr. Trump still exudes energy. But his campaign has refused to release medical records, instead simply pointing to a one-page letter released in July by his former White House doctor reporting that Mr. Trump was “doing well” after being grazed by a bullet in an assassination attempt. How much his rambling discourse — what some experts call tangentiality — can be attributed to age is the subject of some debate. Mr. Trump has always had a distinctive speaking style that entertained and captivated supporters even as critics called him detached from reality. Indeed, questions have been raised about Mr. Trump’s mental fitness for years. [...]

Mr. Trump’s complexity level has remained relatively steady and has not diminished in recent years, according to the analysis. But concerns about his age have heightened now that he is trying to return to office, concerns that were not alleviated by his unfounded debate claim about immigrants “eating the pets” in a small town. Polls show that a majority of Americans believe he is too old to be president, and his critics have been trying to focus attention on that. A group of mental health, national security and political experts held a conference at the National Press Club in Washington last month on Mr. Trump’s fitness. The Lincoln Project, an anti-Trump group of former Republicans, regularly taunts him with ads like one calling his debate with Ms. Harris “a cognitive test” that he failed.

Mr. Trump has appeared tired at times and has maintained a far less active campaign schedule this time around, holding only 61 rallies so far in 2024, compared with 283 through all of 2016, according to the Times analysis, although he has picked up the pace lately. He appeared to nod off during his hush-money trial in New York before being convicted of 34 felonies. Experts said it was hard to judge whether the changes in Mr. Trump’s speaking style could indicate typical effects of age or some more significant condition. “That can change with normal aging,” said Dr. Bradford Dickerson, a neurologist at Harvard Medical School. “But if you see a change relative to a person’s base line in that type of speaking ability over the course of just a few years, I think it raises some real red flags.”

[...]

In 2011, as he was contemplating a run for the presidency, Mr. Trump addressed the Conservative Political Action Conference and sounded more partisan notes. While many of the themes would be familiar to today’s voters, he stuck closer to his script and finished his thoughts more often. His speeches in 2015 and 2016 were more aggressive, but still clearer and more comprehensible than now, and balanced with flashes of humor. Now his rallies are powered as much by anger as anything else. His distortions and false claims have reached new levels. His adversaries are “lunatics” and “deranged” and “communists” and “fascists.” Never particularly restrained, he now lobs four-letter words and other profanities far more freely. The other day, he suggested unleashing the police to inflict “one really violent day” on criminals to deter crime. He does not stick to a single train of thought for long. During one 10-minute stretch in Mosinee, Wis., last month, for instance, he ping-ponged from topic to topic: Ms. Harris’s record; the virtues of the merit system; Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s endorsement; supposed corruption at the F.D.A., the C.D.C. and the W.H.O.; the Covid-19 pandemic; immigration; back to the W.H.O.; China; Mr. Biden’s age; Ms. Harris again; Mr. Biden again; chronic health problems and childhood diseases; back to Mr. Kennedy; the “Biden crime family”; the president’s State of the Union address; Franklin D. Roosevelt; the 25th Amendment; the “parasitic political class”; Election Day; back to immigration; Senator Tammy Baldwin; back to immigration; energy production; back to immigration; and Ms. Baldwin again.

This New York Times article today calling out Donald Trump’s cognitive decline that has impacted his speeches over the past year or so is a powerful must-read as to why Americans shouldn’t put this senile fascist back in office.

Read the full article at NYT.

[wannabanauthor]

So Tim Minear,

Season 7 had Buck heading out with a spend-a-night bag to be with Tommy after his shift, and all of a sudden Tommy doesn’t want to move in together?

Also, Bobby gave his blessing, so did Eddie, Tommy made sure to include Eddie as much as he could while he was dating Buck.

See what I’m getting at here?

If Tommy is truly gone from the show forever, you’re fucking idiot. A new kind of stupid. A “you didn’t think that through” kind of stupid.

I’ve given as many explanations as I can for your subpar writing, but in the end it all comes back to “you’re really fucking stupid”.

Not to mention the Abby retcon, which doesn’t even match up with previous canon.

You really thought 2024 was the year to play with queer people even though you pulled out some early 2000’s harmful queer tropes?

I can’t even ask if you have debilitating ADHD because I have ADHD Combined type, and your show writing is on the same level as me when I was an undiagnosed teenager writing fanfiction.

Do you not have a show Bible?

Are you not embarrassed with this half-assed storyline?

Did you think you were going to be viewed as edgy?

After Game of Thrones last season? After The 100 went off the deep end?

On the same network as Shondaland?

Do you realize how bad you look? Fans have to dig deep into psychology to make your storyline make sense to the general audience and shippers.

Do you know how bad that is?

We need to stop letting mediocre white men write for shows. Y’all don’t know how to handle it.

You had so many golden opportunities with Tommy, and you threw it all away. For what exactly?

I really want to know what your reasoning or plan is.

What was the whole point just to retcon everything?

What was your end goal?

Please don’t tell me you thought you were being clever.

Because you weren’t.

You’re just a fucking idiot.

Plot twists need to make sense and the groundwork needs to be laid before executing it.

I want to have faith that you’re not this fucking stupid, but half the country voted for a convicted felon to be president.

I think you’re just stupid. Which is sad because there are so many other people who would love to have your career and not fuck it up.

Fucking hell, you’re really fucking stupid.

Not even a new level of stupid. Using 20 year old harmful queer tropes kind of stupid.

You weren’t even being original kind of stupid.

So fucking stupid that Trump is going to hire you as part of his cabinet.

Were you one of the ones googling what a tariff was?

Because that’s how fucking stupid you’re coming across.

Goodness gracious, you are just the worst.

And really fucking stupid.

[torque-witch]

LONG POST - election topic

Anyhow I ended up talking to my mom about the election results for a little bit the other day and it was some good (considering) and some bad.

My dad voted for orange man. He’s totally bought into whatever Muskrat is touting after decades of AM radio listening. Because he owns a business probably, but he does not make over 400k if my mom is concerned they’ll lose the house over an $800/month mortgage plus whatever mortgage he has at his building. He’s the only employee, for reference. Just a one-man show. He doesn’t socialize. He doesn’t have friends. He just isolates in his photo lab and comes home for dinner maybe and then sometimes sleeps at work.

My mom voted for Kamala, which is nice but she’s still conservative. She’s been trying to subtly or un-subtly get my dad to read non-right wing media on things like tariffs because he doesn’t understand how it will affect his business.

She also acknowledges that both me and my sister would be at risk, but moreso my sister because she is on disability and can’t work. If she can’t get her meds but is forced to work, the cycle of her being homeless will continue because she becomes violent without meds. She could be thrown in jail again.

My dad just wants economic benefits and I guess forgot about his only daughters.

My mom isn’t great though. I’m still not able to tell her all my beliefs because she’s not a safe person at the end of the day, even though I don’t think she would not speak to me or anything.

She thinks abortion is disgusting - BUT agrees that ectopic pregnancy shouldn’t be a part of the conversation because there is no “baby.” Almost had it haha.

She also made her and my dad leave their current church because they were turning into vocal Trump supporters, which she rightly doesn’t think belongs in church. She also was pretty upset that trumpers at church and the Christian school she teaches at are calling liberals “satan worshipping trash” because I and her sisters/extended family are liberal. But ALSO

So my dad sent me a text about Musk’s $200 incentive to sign a petition or whatever - he also sent it to my sister, who is not mentally stable for a good portion of the time. I just said thank you, didn’t sign it and went on with my day. As my mom said, he conveniently didn’t send it to her because he knows she would shut him down.

Anyhow - this text caused a whole breakdown with my sister because she’s on disability, she can’t accept money without it affecting her benefits. She signed up for it. Hasn’t received money obviously. But she as afraid if she did receive money what would she do? What if she won a million dollars? And my mom had to talk her down and explain that she wouldn’t even get the full million, she could just rip up any check and that she shouldn’t accept money from Elon Must under any circumstance.

And my dad just…didn’t think ahead about how the potential for a large sum of money might mentally affect someone with a) grand delusions and b) on disability and c) always threatened with homelessness.

My mom KNOWS he’s just dumb as bricks and under a LOT of propoganda … SO JUST LEAVE HIM.

I feel like if she left him (she won’t because divorce is a sin in her eyes) and moved to the city she would probably learn that she’s actually liberal and highly educated too (she has a masters degree) but the threat of hell is strong for her.

I get it. But I don’t. And I’m grappling with how much I can interact or should because I’m also the executrix of the (paltry) estate. Do I want that future labor? Prob not. But also if it helps us in the future idk.

Idk if it’s worth it to keep holding on because she’s been learning a lot, but at the very least I’m glad that I live 6 hours away. I can’t be doing that kind of socializing anymore.

[loving-n0t-heyting]

Alright, some context before I ask theis, because I don't want to misrepresent myself even by implication:

I am extremely economically right-wing. I am also pro-incarceration for quite a few crimes. I am generally not on the "democracy" side of the democracy to non-democracy scale. I think it would be okay if prisons were run hereditarily, if the position of Warden were generally given to the second or third son of a local Earl.

THAT BEING SAID:

There's no contradiction between prisons being a net cost to the taxpayer, and the demand for prisons being heavily driven by people who profit from them, that sort of thing happens all the time! The USA is rife with crony capitalism. It's not at all uncommon for something that is overall unprofitable to be promoted because it benefits a small group of wealthy and influential figures who can lean on politicians and media companies. Look at the defence industry. Look at protectionist tariffs. Look at corn syrup.

It's absolutely possible that if nobody were profiting from, for example, prison phone calls, or those prison dramas on American television like "OZ" or "Orange Is The New Black" (which make huge amounts of money, and are perceived as "realistic" or "gritty" because prisons exist) that there would be less incarceration.

Advertising, mass media, and campaign donations are not minor influences.

BTW, what's this about natural gas in Gaza?

there is absolutely a lot of crony capitalism going on in the us prison system, and this certainly creates some vested interest in engorging the prison population. but, like i said, it just cannot plausibly do all the heavy explanatory lifting ppl claim for it wrt the extent of us mass incarceration

its surprisingly hard to find much aggregated info on campaign finance and advertising in local judicial elections, but it kinda defies belief that they are the object of a vast industrial conspiracy to promote mass incarceration and that this more or less explains entirely why the us has so many of its ppl locked up. if it were so, one would to begin with expect the conspiracy to regularly promote judges to office with a consistent pro-imprisonment bent, rather than for sentencing severity to cycle with elections. indeed, it would be a hell of a lot more efficient to make sure these judgeships were all appointed, so the System could install them directly without the mediation of routine popularity contests. this doesnt look like the machinations of a crony capitalist cabal hand in hand with the state, it looks like individual mostly local elected bureaucrats pandering to a base that wants revenge all on its own

i probably am risking giving the impression i think judicial elections are the be all and end all of the crisis of mass incarceration in the united states. obviously thats not the case; states like cali with only limited electoral accountability for judges are hardly all bastions of freedom, and ofc this ignores legislative interventions like mandatory minimums and truth-in-sentencing laws. but it is useful as a way to point out the limitations of "just follow the money!"s explanatory power

"israel/us are bombing gaza for natural gas" was a silly theory being propagated on social media among some leftists