#vox (rift war)

[allcheers-allfears]

Beloved moments in Rift War:

Owen and Tosh being the dream duo <3

also, Trio beloved

No torchwood story would be complete without deadpan shopping/death puns

himb face (I love him, this panel was so Owen)

Six(6! ), I repeat SIX people in the SUV asdfhjk

Torchwood crew power pose (if we ignore Vox)

That's all folks, thank you for coming to my Ted Talk have a nice day :-)

[utilitycaster]

look, I know polls are silly and fun and so I want you to understand writing this rant is silly and fun for me but EMON? Emon is the Critical Role Entry for Most Place of All Time? I must call bullshit. And so:

Friends, fellow critters, and people who have me blocked but hate read my blog each morning over breakfast: Emon is not even the Most Place on the Material Plane. It is not even the Most Place in Tal'Dorei. Hell, it's not even the Most Place on the fucking Bladeshimmer Shoreline, which includes a destroyed city now overtaken by bandits, and a cave system that hosts both a rift to the Far Realm and a different rock than residuum that can make a different magical drug than suude. Emon is if you took the aggressively mid vibes of Washington, DC and transplanted them to the inconvenient location and city of refuge for flaky people who avoid gluten for non-medical reasons of Los Angeles. The second Percival Frederickstein von Musel Klossowski de Rolo III invents the motorcar that sumbitch is going to have traffic bad enough to summon Tharizdun. Also there's a literal pit of fire that's been burning for 30 years that both hasn't been adequately addressed but also doesn't really seem that interesting. Like oh a bunch of dragons destroyed your city? Big deal. Draconia got so fucked up it doesn't exist anymore, and at least Westruun has some fucking charm. At least Pike and Grog actually lived there, whereas Vox Machina got a house in Emon and proceeded to spend their time literally anywhere else.

Here is a brief list of places on the planet of Exandria in the Material Plane - not even across Critical Role's main campaigns/EXU, which includes such non-Exandrian places as "living city of people who mind-melded and escaped to the Astral Sea during a century-plus-long war of the gods"; "Ligament Manor"; "Ryn's groovy pied-a-feu, man I wonder what made the scorch marks on that furniture, anyway", and "THE MOON THAT IS ACTUALLY AN PRISON FOR A THING THAT EATS GODS AND IS POSSIBLY HATCHING" - that are more of a place than Emon:

Jrusar: 5 spires no waiting, sweet cable car system, city almost entirely destabilized by goo creatures as part of an overly complicated plot to blow up the aforementioned moon

Bassuras: (literally "garbagetown") Run by Mad Max gangs and everyone is cool with it; regular sandstorms; one of those gangs apparently sits atop a hive mind and NO ONE has examined this (except for them)?)

Whitestone: has a tree planted by one god over a buried temple to another god that was corrupted in the name of a third, shittier god; overrun by zombies but it's fine now; streetlights and two bears that are allowed to do whatever the fuck they want.

Yios: The canal system of Venice meets the colleges per capita of Boston meets the orcs from your fantasies, also there's some kind of kitchen-based organized crime ring so intricate it could be its own campaign (so, also like Boston).

Vasselheim: literally no one understands what the fuck its government system is. Old as balls. Temples everywhere! Temples full of trees. Temples full of blood! Temples full of an old guy who will kick your ass. A sphinx that regulates the monster hunter mini-game. Presumably the giant titan full of the ancient cannibal dwarf city is like, still there, as a new fixture, since I don't see how they're moving that.

The arctic: where teleportation doesn't work, there's a river of lava in the middle of the snow, ancient ruins full of snow globes full of actual people, and the Chaos Bisexual Emerald - and that's just a smattering of what Eiselcross has to offer.

Since this is about space and not time we can toss Aeor and Avalir too, since they once were places, and while we're at it whatever the fuck is going on with the Shattered Teeth and its permanent fog cloud and fish dream cult and capitalist shipwrecked merchants.

And, of course, any arbitrary square millimeter of Wildemount, frankly, has more Mostness than the entirety of Emon could muster under absolutely ideal conditions. But for the sake of one place per region, let's hand it to Rosohna (city of eternal night for practical purposes, built over the Evil God Headquarters); Uthodurn (underground! Giant goats! Elves and dwarves, living together, mass hysteria!); Hupperdook (steampunk gnome party city); Nicodranas (Fjord, Jester, Veth, Marion, and Yussa literally all live there at once; plumbing used to be courtesy of an imprisoned marid...but watch out); and Blightshore (Blightshore).

In conclusion: Emon is boring, nominating it was a mistake, there are literally sealed gods in other parts of the world and also way better taverns, good night, and what the fuck.

[kaledya]

HOWDY!! @marquisev

Overlord Arc general review:

First, OH MY GOD!!!! What level is this diyslog writing??????

First of all, I loved all the dialouges between Zestial and Alastor ı can READ them for hours. Everything they say is great And since they are both intelligent men,

it is not clear how their conversation will end.Sometimes it feels like Alastor is a Fly about to be caught in a spider's web.But Zestial expressions His speech is so vague that neither Alastor nor the reader knows what the outcome will be.But it's nice that Alastor stays calm despite this and approaches the event and sentences intelligently.

In short, look at this part And the scene at the end where Zestial warns Alastor about Constantine was very cool, it was a very nice description!!

Also The Tournament It's also a great detail to enter that area by measuring the weight of the Overlords!!. "Only those who are monsters enough can step here."

--

It was also very nice when Alastor met Rosie and talked to Serenity after entering!!

--

Then the Overlords gather and give a speech.I loved every dialogue here Vox's reaction to Alastor Alastor doesn't have his chair yet (you shouldn't have stayed AFK for 7 years)

And my favorite part is when things are getting heated, Lolicia comes out in a very cool way. It was really great how she supported Alastor and sat next to him.

I really like Valentino and Vox's dialogues.Vox sort of takes on the role of constantly keeping Val at line. (You know no one wants to starta a War in there)

The part about the gangs was really good And it's great that they gave this task to Alastor.(You were gone for 7 years, now you will remember the hierarchy and obey orders)

I really love using Serenity, she loves how she acts as the one pulling the strings no matter what the subject is.A kind of news-bringer It's also nice for Vox to say "I buy my information from the best source" and look at Serenity.

In addition, Lolicia declares her alliance with Alastor with nobility and bloodliness as always. It was seriously a great scene.

And the last scene where Serenity looks at the Lolicia and says "After all, Sir Pentious is not the only one who left his region alone, right" and the episode ended there was VERY EXCITING

I was like: Who WILL WAIT FOR 2 DAYS FOR NEXT EP!!!

-------

The dialogues in this episode were great It was really fun to read the chaos of Lolicia's inner thoughts.Like Sherlock Holmes, because of Misfortune's warning. counted all the possibilities in her mind and eliminated some of them.

And Alastor mentally analyzes the Overlords on the Table and lists what his current position is and what he needs to do, etc. It's really fun to read.

And it was really cool that Vox then yelled at Alastor and said he always ran away like a wet dog..(ah Vox you found the last person to fall in love with)

And it was very cool that after this sentence, Alastor got really angry and his voice changed and the atmosphere became completely tense.

I also loved the tension between Serenity and Velvet, they have a really good exchange of words.

And Lolicia deciding to take action against the fey, assuming the rules. But on the other hand, Al thinks that this mission will cause a rift between him and Charlie.

And it is very powerful that Serenity comes out and speaks for Alastor as things go even further downhill.

Every overlord (including Alastor and Lolicia):Wtf??

Lolica: wait a minute is that...

Misfortune: What? (I'm defending my dad, okay?)

This chapter was really exciting and fun to read!!

------

This chapter was simply amazing. You write Serenity really well. I love the way you reflect her smart, quick-witted and sneaky attitude. It was a lot of fun to read!!

Also watching his little fight with Velvet Seriously, their banter was great and there was a lot of dialogue that made me laugh.

I think my favorite was "why shouldn't I give 1 coin to the beggar" to Velvet in Serenity's dialogue.

And Lolicia noticing the rope between Alastor and Serenity and theorizing about it She thinks about pulling it out, and just as she's about to listen, the thread disappears from the sound Velvet's gum makes.

Frankly, I wonder if Lolicia will say something to Alastor about this purple Rope !!

And it was also very cool during Velvet and Serenity's conversation, where Serenity told Velvet that she could never beat her in a Strategic battle and Velvet remained unanswered.

It was very nice when Serenity said goodbye to Alastor and left him wondering about more things.

And the Battle between Alastor and Vox was seriously awesome TO I read the song you wrote And you pay so much attention to details You seriously look at the meaning of every word like WOW🛐🛐. Simply a perfect arc. My eyes are truly blesed

I'm also very excited for what will happen after this arc.How will they go about destroying the gang? What will Lolicia's role be in this mission?what about Charlie's reaction ro what did her two member of her hotel AAAAA SO EXCITING

----

Arts:

FIRST OF ALL THE DRAWINGS WERE AWESOME AND VERY CUTE!!!!!?!

Jophiel and Abaddon are so cute It was very funny that Abaddon carved a statue of Raphael.

She is beautiful in the picture of her walking with Michael The picture of her exchanging letters with Uriel was really cute!!

And she was so cute in the picture where she was leaning on Gabriel's head

AND SERIOUSLY THANK YOU FANARTS, ARCHANGELS ARE REALLY GOOD IN YOUR STYLE 🛐🛐🛐🛐

And finally the Constantine on the Ring box You have drawn the Constsntine wonderfully and the ring and the box are in the Lolicia Theme (genius idea,). As soon as I find the energy to draw, I will draw the Lolicia version of this art!!

Seriously, thank you so much for the gifts!!!*Crying from Happiness

--

AND CONGRATULATIONS ON 100,000K It's really AMAZING that you wrote such a quality, creative and long work in such a short time. I have endless respect for you🫡🫡🛐🛐🛐

And most importantly SUMMER THEMED LOLICIA ART!!! OH MY GOD THEY ARE SO CUTE. I LOVE THAT THEIR SWIMWEAR IS FROM THE 30'S AND A LOVE THE COMPOSITION AND I LOVED LOLICIA'S BRAIDS, IT LOOKS SO SWEET

And the little Constsntine on top looks so cute too!!

And again, thank you so much for loving this AU and putting so much effort into it.And thank you very much for introducing me to OCs like Lolicia Abaddon Verdelet and Hürrem. It is truly an honor to meet a talented writer like you!!!

and in case I don't see ya, good afternoon, good evening, and good night!

And take care!! ❤️🫂🫂

[crossroadsdimension]

FFXIVWrite 2024 Day 18

Prompt -- Hackneyed

(FFXIVWrite 2024 Masterpost)

(spoilers for 5.3 ShB are mentioned, as well as the "plot" in the Dragonsong War's Reprise Ultimate and mentions of a certain Rising cutscene we get every year. Nothing beyond that!)

“Isn’t it a little hackneyed that there’s all these worlds out there that have a Warrior of Light saving them from the end of the world?”

“Snrk”

“…what. It’s an honest question.”

“No, no, it’s not — I didn’t imagine you to be someone who used the word hackneyed. I would’ve expected something else, considering your vocabulary.”

“Hrm.”

“…it is a good question, though. I never imagined I would meet those from another star who were familiar with the title, much less knew those who had carried it. Perhaps…perhaps all of creation calls for heroes, and the thought of bringing light and peace to their stars is consistent enough for the title to manifest?”

“Maybe. I still think it’s more than a coincidence, though. There’s gotta be something bigger pulling the strings from somewhere to make the title that common.”

“Someone other than the Ascians? I seem to recall Elidibus called for Warriors of Light from the other shards before he transformed.”

“Someone way bigger. Palamecia isn’t a shard.”

“Hm. And you aren’t about to volunteer a name from your own experience there, I assume.”

“Nah. Vox was just focused on Palamecia. He wasn’t big enough to cover the entire universe. I would’ve noticed him messing with things here if he was.”

“Fair point. …are you asking this question because you are concerned someone like Vox is doing this and has somehow avoided showing themselves to us?”

“Maybe. I don’t know. If there is someone like that out there, I’d like to figure out why they let Palamecia get as bad as it did. Maybe they could’ve done something to…I dunno, change the narrative? Keep Vox from letting the planet deteriorate as much as it did?”

“I know that desire well, but it is more of a question for myself and my knowledge, looking back. I do not have the experience you do, with narrators and cycles. Most of my questions are whether or not I would have known what was going to happen before it did. If I missed or ignored the signs, or what might happen if I changed events. I asked Yoshi-san that, once. If two companions could be saved.”

“Who?”

“The wandering minstrel. He told me to call him Yoshi-san.”

“Oh, that guy. Didn’t know that was his name.”

“He made it sound more like it was a preferred name than his actual name.”

“Hm. So? What’d he do?”

“…he constructed a ballad where I saved Haurchefant from his death at the hands of one of the Knights. Yoshi-san implied that the act would have allowed the archbishop to transform into King Thordan without our knowledge, and while we would have still fought Nidhogg whilst he possessed Estinien, we would have also been forced to fight Hraesvelgr on the Steps of Faith.”

“So he thought Hraesvelgr would’ve left Zenith and made it that harder, huh.”

“Very much so. The fighting would not have ended there, either — he thought King Thordan would arrive in the midst of that fight, after we rescued Estinien from Nidhogg’s control. The primal would have taken both dragons into himself, enthralled the dragons of both their broods, and forced us to fight him and them all at once. We would have lost an ally in that fight, by ending Thordan and sending Hraesvelgr to the aetherial sea. Escaping Omega’s collapsing Interdimensional Rift would have been made impossible without him.”

“…yeah. It would’ve. ...I think the wandering minstrel’s got something to do with all the string-pulling.”

“What makes you say that?”

“Some of the things I’ve heard him say, I guess. He gets really weird around the Rising.”

“The visions, you mean?”

“You get them too, huh?”

“Yes. The strange hyur who looks like Yoshi-san certainly acts as though he knows me, and what lies on the horizon. He does not seem as…controlling, as what I have heard of your Vox, though.”

“Maybe not to you, but I heard him say a couple things about putting together the next adventure and it gets me on edge. Wouldn’t be surprised if he’s causing Warriors of Light to pop up in other places, too.”

“Is that such a bad thing, though?”

“Hrm.”

“I understand where you are coming from, do not get me wrong — what I have heard of Palamecia and your experiences are not events I would see repeated on other worlds — but…there are always myths of heroes, on the Source and the shards. People need someone to bring the light back to them, in a manner of speaking. To give them the strength to carry on to see tomorrow. Whether we be Warriors of Light — or Darkness — matters less in the title and more in our actions. There could be stars out in creation that have people who do the same as we, but under a different name.”

“…maybe. Still not sure how I feel about that.”

“I don’t expect you to change your mind immediately, considering your experience. But I like to think that those who become strong warriors for their people do so more from their own volition than by the will of another. You, after all, did your best to save a star despite the systems set in place, then returned and saved your star under a different title.”

“….”

“I doubt that, if any powerful being was watching closely, they would have let you change your title to what you were more comfortable with. Considering that Warriors of Light manifest on more than one star, according to you.”

“…sigh. Might have a point there. Doesn’t mean I like it, though.”

“Mm. Understandable. …I think you are preparing to awaken.”

“Hm? Oh. Yeah, looks like.”

“Would you be willing to do something like this again?”

“What, beat a monster in seconds for the heck of it?”

“Well, that but — this. Talking. I don’t get the chance to communicate with others like us very often. They never linger long enough, unless we’re all fighting the same simulation multiple times over.”

“…sure. Why not. Not every day it’s an alternate-dimension thing instead of a time loop.”

“Heh. Yeah. Rest well.”

“You too, Cross. Don’t let other me drive you nuts.”

“Ha! It will take more than that — I have spent time with Hildibrand, and we both know how maddening events can become with him.”

“Gods, yeah….Yeah, you’re gonna be fine. See you around.”

[tiamat-zx]

If there is a single Season 1 moment from Keyleth in “The Legend of Vox Machina” that will always resonate with me… here it is in one word.

Sunbeam.

It was such a powerful moment, one that even made Matt Mercer cry. Because that’s his wife’s character, and it warms my heart knowing that nowadays she’s very well-loved. I’ve seen plenty of reactions. They cry when she hurts or gets hurt, they smile when she’s happy or being her usual anxious self, they are in awe when she gets her moments to shine.

And no moment did she literally shine brighter that season than in the climactic battle with Sylas and Delilah Briarwood in “Whispers at the Ziggurat”.

When she was gut-punched hard by Sylas and sent flying into a wall… only to also collide with a lower level and finally collapse shortly after in the first leg of the battle, I definitely flinched and panicked. This was a story that I’ve known for many years, but seeing this animated gave it more of an impact.

Everyone’s kept at bay, on the verge of defeat. And she tries her best, dear gods she tries her best to get back up… and yet she falters and collapses again, reeling from her pain.

And then she sees them. The roots of the Sun Tree, still clinging to whatever life it has left.

And so she makes her plea, straining to cling to life herself.

“Sun Tree? I’m Keyleth, of the Air Ashari. I know you’re there. And holy shit do I need your help.”

The Sun Tree answers her plea, and she grabs hold of the roots.

“Please. Help me be the light.”

She manages to finally get back on her feet, supported by the Sun Tree… as she channels its energy to bring the light to the battlefield.

The aura from the light breaks the charm on Vax. It invigorates Pike which leads to a Beam-O-War clash against Delilah… which the cleric slowly begins to overcome.

And most importantly, Sylas goes to cut her down only for Grog to intervene, having gotten his second wind.

Thus leading to not only figuring out how to avoid getting charmed, but unleashing a Reckless Attack that overpowers Sylas.

And so we get to the big moment itself, as Grog holds Sylas in place.

And Keyleth remembers Pike’s words from before, which now hold more weight than ever before:

“You’re their light now. Keep them out of darkness.”

So she does so, drawing from the tree and her own power.

And even with so much at stake, she still shows concern for Grog, who just assures her that he can take what she is about to dish out.

Only the slightest bit of hesitation…

…before unleashing the full might of her inherent druidic power and the life-force of the tree in a single blow.

The Sunbeam that turned the tide decisively in Vox Machina’s favor.

As I said, it’s this moment from Season 1 that will always stay with me.

Especially with the amazing score behind this one, “Turning Tides” and “Blinded by the Light.”

Perfection.

And so far in Season 2, her greatest moment to shine was easily in “Pass Through Fire” where she not only unlocked her fire elemental form, but also closed the rift to the Fire Plane all by herself. And she got a new look out of it to boot, on top of now having the power to use Plane Shift.

Granted, as of this post, there are still six episodes left in the second season. Only time will tell if she manages to outdo this one.

But all the same, I’m so glad that at least once per season, she gets to truly be the force of nature that we know she will become.

The Voice of the Tempest.

This post goes out to @waltwhitmansbeard because I say so ;)

[ogdoadfates]

Vox Machina Trials forgotten AU

This AU takes place post campaign. Keyleth accidently finds an old abandoned library of sorts hidden underneath and within the roots of a tree near Zephra, there are this weird beautiful yet eerie alters around each with some sort of animal like symbolism, most have filled bookshelves but quite a few have little or none. Keyleth starts to discover that these books are the diaries and biographies of past voice of tempests and their loved ones, some telling rather horrific tales. She learns quickly that some elder families in the ashari are corrupt (her family isn’t corrupt, they have no clue) and  have kept a great secret from recent Tempests that being the Life link trials, they are trials the family/loved ones of the Tempest take to share in the extended life span of the Tempest so they don’t succumb to loneliness and madness (which she reads about some who fell to both of these, lots of the past Tempests she finds had died in horrific ways by either the corrupted elders, put down for going mad, or other ill fates) Tons of ancient traditions lost some being a way to help the ashari thrive and some others hinting at how Ashari not only protected the element plane rifts but also had a helping hand in dealing with the undead. She inlists the help of Percy and in secret the two focus on keeping the books safe and away from other Ashari for now in case the corrupted ones come to destroy it all. (The guards/blades are completely loyal to Keyleth) eventually Vex finds out which leads to the rest of Vox Machina finding out and helping as well. Eventually one of them finds a startiling connection, the Raven Queen only started taking/needing champions once the ashari tradition of taking care of the undead stopped, this causes Vox Machina to start to trying to commune with/or research more into the Raven Queen. Eventually a agreement is met with Keyleth and the Raven Queen due to their ideals and wants aligning but due to The Matron knowing that this will start a civil war within the Ashari she sends Vax to help protect Keyleth and the rest of Vox Machina for the revolution of the Ashari. (This kind of is why Vax is fate touched, because if he stayed with Keyleth she would have never found any of this out)

Main romantic relationships: Vaxleth, Percahlia, Pikelan

Platonic ships: all Vox machina ones with a focus on Keyleth & Percy and Keyleth & The Raven Queen (kinda more like they bond over hating some people)

[clover-cat-commissions]

Hello and welcome to my new post chain where i compile my favorite section from each of the siege of Terra novels!

PART 1: THE SOLAR WAR

Across Terra, every person looking at the sky could see it: a burning wound across the night, or a scar of midnight in the daylight. Through it came ships from the realm beyond, dragging cloaks of insects and shadow. Winged creatures circled them, flying like birds in the gale of etheric energy. Bolts of lightning leapt from the wound, strobing across space. And here were the vessels that had been absent from the weeks of war already waged. Here was the Conqueror, its white hull red with smoking gore. Here were the ships of the World Eaters, their murder cries echoing from the vox, and the voice of every legionary. Angron stood on the hull of his capital ship, a vast and ragged shadow axe raised to the sunlight, roaring his fury at the circle of Terra. There were the ships of the Emperor’s Children, fuming musk and grey dust from jewel-crusted hulls. In the guts of the Pride of the Emperor, Fulgrim coiled and looked out through the eyes of every soul in his fleet, and laughed with delight. And there – following the rest, like the chariot of a king come in triumph – came the Vengeful Spirit. Warships flanked it. Daemons flew as its heralds. High on its hull, on the fortress that it bore upon its back, Horus, Warmaster, First Son of the Emperor, Chosen Champion of the Dark Gods, looked out at Terra. The seat of his father’s empire glimmered beyond the prow of his ship. Shadow bled from him, and the daemons that held to the shadows of his court hissed and bowed their heads as the light of the sun touched his face. The ships poured from the rift, spreading out in a swarm of glinting lights. A hundred, a thousand, ten times a thousand, more and more Now they swam from the warp into the gulfs of the inner system, not an army or a fleet, but a host sent by the will of gods and the art of mortals. The ships clustered and divided as their engines caught on the cold vacuum and turned them towards Mars and Luna and the small orb of Terra all alone in the dark Horus watched, and then gave a single nod. ‘Begin,’ he said.

[hopeful-hellion]

Jackie rolls his eyes, reading the note and picking up a fresh piece of paper along with a green gel pen. "Did he not understand the meaning of fuck off from the last note?"

He writes up a reply pretty quickly.

Hey Vox, having full filling your time with this petty mail war? I know I am! I can't wait to show these to Alastor later. I'm sure he'll get a kick out em~

Christ, are you really trying to pull the tactics of a Saturday morning cartoon villain on me? This "rift in the friendship" shit won't work on me lol

Why don't you get back to getting ur ass beat on television and radio <3

Jackie~

*a note blows into the hotel.*

*it's clearly from a vee*

(So..Vox is the big bad of season 2)

Jackie looked up at the window in their hotel room. "Huh?" Much to their surprise it looks like a letter? Curious, they hop off the bed and retrieve it carefully. Looking it over, he sees a familiar logo and frowns. "Ah." They look down at it with a scowl, pacing back tot he velvet bed sheets. Why the hell would one of the Vees be sending me mail? They hesitate for a moment. What if it's a prank or some creepy stalker letter?

Before shrugging and giving in to their curiosity. Maybe if it was from Vox he could laugh about it with Alastor.

[soraka-in-warhammer40k]

"Know No Fear" by Dan Abnett

(Horus Heresy Vol. 19 - as always when I write this, Spoiler Warning. But then again, this all appens in 30k and we are in 40k now, so not much of a spoiler really?)

That sure was a ride. Just a short refresher: this is the Battle of Calth. The Heresy is picking up speed, but word has not gotten around yet. Meanwhile, to seemingly mend old rifts and animosities, the Ultramarines are grouped together with the Word Bearers for a joint assignment, a brutal crusade into Ork territory. None of them will ever see a single Ork in this book.

On demand of the Emperor more than 40 years ago, the blueberries purged had Monarchia, the throne world of the Word Bearers. They took no joy in that, but the Word Bearers definitely saw that differently. So when Horus needed someone to keep Big G and his crew busy and away from Terra, as the specialization of the 13th legion is by far the most dangerous element he had to work around, they volunteered. Eagerly.

This book has some curiosities in its structure: first of all, it is all written in present tense as some sort of log. Takes getting used to. All chapter titles are timestamps. At first they count down and bring in SO many locations and characters. It's a bit rough of a method but it sure helps to show the massive scope and collateral damage this battle had. Then, at zero, you obviously expect the big bad thing to happen.

Jokes on you, it happens about 20 minutes before that. And what is it that happens? Well, a bunch of religious hyper-freaks hijack a spaceship and deliberately put it into collision course max speed into the civilian orbital infrastructure of Calth, a prosperous Ultramar world.

That's right.

We got 40K 9/11

I had to google if the author was american for a moment.

However, in this case the faction doing the thing actually had a followup plan, and also did prep-work to shut down the sensors before that. Eight names of Chaos entered into a computer system via Vox, all accompanied by a human sacrifice. That's right, we are going full religious fuckery here, while also *checks notes* including waves of suicide bombers. Look, I don't want to be that guy, but while I do get that the Word Bearers are "religious evil" in their characterization, this feels a bit lazy in retrospective.

But then again, the book is nearly 10 years old and back then that was the largest act of war known to the western culture sphere in recent memory. Today that looks puny compared what happens not even 2 days a car ride from my home, but I try not to think about it too much. When Russia loses in Ukraine, and the nukes fall because a dictator lost his mind... either nothing changes or I don't have to go to work anymore. But I digress, back to the book.

As someone who often heard the meme of "Ultramarine plot armor", it sure feels weird that my very first Ultramarine centric book is "blueberries getting FUKIN DECIMATED over 250 of 300 pages". "250 pages of blueberry smoothie in slow motion in a see-through mixer".

And while they (BigG, some officers, and some grunts) do survive, they lose one of their top 5 systems along with 90% of their total forces. Like, TOTAL total forces. They had 95% of their entire legion there, and the initial attack and the followup wiped out most of it.

Killing them completely was never part of the plan for the Word Bearers. That was just a bonus. They scorched the world and bathed it in blood, to then build an altar upon it from stones imported from Istvan V, to bring the ultimate sacrifice: the life of a star. They take control of the orbital defenses and point them at the sun - every single planet in the system is now a radioactive shithole where life will never be possible on again. And even THAT was just a bonus, as the ritual's true purpose was to summon the most dangerous galaxy-spanning warpstorms the universe has ever seen since the Age of Strife to cover Horus' advance to Terra and isolate imperial systems from each other.

Imagine that. An entire star system, billions of lives, and future of all live to ever exist in that area of space - all gone for one massive space fart. And in the end Horus still fucks, achieving a tie at best.

[darrowsrising]

Hi friend!

I was just wondering what you think about Sevro’s decision to leave Darrow on Mercury in Dark Age? Do you think that his loyalty to Darrow has evolved from what it used to be and he has prioritized his family over ending the war, or do you think that it was actually more of a strategic move than PB was letting on?

Hello! Thank you for the ask!

@hyena-frog has cut to the chase and I think she is right when she said Pierce Brown just put Darrow and Sevro in a situation where they both make different choices. They are not good or bad, right or wrong for their choices, it's just who they are as characters.

I will go several steps foward and tell you that Sevro and Victra's journeys in Dark Age were also consequences of their choices - they chose to be divisive and ignore any call to caution, patience or anything actually helpful. The fact that they went after the children is one thing, what they did from that choice on was foolish, aggravating and fucking unhelpful.

Before anyone jumps for my throat, Darrow's journey in Dark Age is also a consequence of his choices - from wanting to end the war in one strike to trusting the wrong people and most especially destroying the Docks of Ganymede. Same with Virginia.

There is of course a matter of impredictibility - who the fuck knew the Hydra's head extend so far? But every member of the main 4 went through very unfair and miserable times, in part because their actions brought them in a vulnerable position that the enemies exploited.

What Sevro and Victra did was to isolate from Darrow and Virginia, the rift causing way more lee way for the enemies to strike. Dancer's stunts with the Vox Populi were bad enough, the discord there was way too much and it cost Mercury and the Free Legions. Sefi is way more understandable in why she rifted away from the Republic, although using Pax and Electra was a bitch move, but I appreciated she told Darrow in his face that she is not going with him. But Sevro and Victra's plans to shut out Virginia and negociate Mars with Sefi were so fucking stupid, what were they trying idk.

Look, the kids are important and they need their parents. No one is denying that, but no one is a bad parent for trying to protect the Republic AND get the kids. Sevro and Victra wasted valuable cards to get fucking nothing. Sevro was supposed to destroy the Syndicate one Duke/Duchess at the time and Victra was supposed to negociate ships and info with Sefi until she got the kids back.

Does this stink of bullshit to you yet? No? Let's dig deeper.

If Virginia was in on everything that happened, they would have had the kids faster. Everyone tried to hide from her, Sefi included, as though she was the adult that will punish them for doing a nasty, but she was more than open to the terms.

Sevro took the Nessus and the hostages to get back to Luna...just to get revenge one sucker at the time. Thats it! All that big speech about his kids having a da', just for da' to be busy trying to topple a terrorist organisation one by ine and losing Howlers in the process. You know what bothered me the most? The fact that his plan is fucking stupid. One at the time? Has he learnt fucking nothing, one at the time won't cut it, ask Darrow.

Victra refused to accept any call to patience and caution, she was the first to cause the rift, because Virginia would not do things her way and she was the one who thought Virginia would not agree with giving Sefi what she wants. All of her presumptions left her alone, not even at her estate on Mars where she would have been better protected.

Sevro and the Howlers would have been way more useful on Mercury, where they were actually needed, instead of fucking around on Luna.

That being said - yes, Sevro did evolve from terrorist warlord. He cannot stand having to live his father's life. That talk he had with his girls must have been one hell of a talk, but yes, Sevro simply cannot follow Darrow anymore, because he is sick of war. It's a foolish thing, though, because he cannot escape war, as he is living it - see Dark Age. It's just that he felt caught in a vicious circle following Darrow, he couldn't even cut himself loose, Darrow had to cut him off.

The entire thing delved into Sevro and Victra as characters, they aren't bad at all, it's just that they can make mistakes when they are stubborn.

Truth is, Sevro can and deserves to be happy and at peace. But his approach in Dark Age was not good at all, for himself or for his kids. Victra as well. And it's painful to see it too.

The enemies created discord, but if they all were united, the damage wouldn't have been as huge. But by the time they all needed each other, they were all caught up in their own hell, there was no one to turn to. But there were so many playfields, so little unity...

Now that there is unity, I hope the revenge will be sweet.

[arcticdementor]

On the end of “New Atheism”

I’ve seen a few people, referencing Scott Alexander’s recent piece on online culture wars, make the point that online “New Atheism” debates died out because they won — the movement to put intelligent design and “teach the controversy” in classrooms was soundly defeated — and moved on to other things.

But, at least from what I recall of what I saw from the periphery, coming into things rather near the end, is that, with the defeat of the “common enemy,” various rifts split the groups, and they moved on to rather different things.

First, of course, was 9/11 and the GWOT, and the schism between, on the one hand, people like Dawkins, Harris, Hitchens, etc., to whom religious fanaticism is dangerous no matter which religion, and on the other, the people who argued that worrying about Muslim extremists is Islamophobic, and Christianity alone is the threat. (I note that this characterization of the latter group is supported by their tendency, IME, to also “split” from the other group on the issue of TCM and other non-Western “woo” — only “Western” superstitions and pseudoscience are acceptable targets for debunking; criticizing non-Western practices would be culturally insensitive.) One group mostly moved on into other left-wing causes, as noted… while Dawkins has since been increasingly “cancelled” for his dissent.

But there was another big split, which is where I really got introduced to things.

I remember way back in the day, whenever another pro-“intelligent design” documentary or book came out, the result was usually eye-rolling dismissals and quick references to cached arguments and sources at Talk.Origins or such. But then Ben Stein did his, and it had one part that really looked to have hit a nerve, because it resulted instead in angry, sputtering denunciations lacking in the sort of reasoned argumentation and source citations usually given. And that was the bit arguing that evolution is racist.

Because I was around for people pointing out that Lewontin’s fallacy is indeed fallacious, for Cochran and Harpending, for Razib Khan, for the revelation that is was Gould who “mismeasured” the data for political ends, for PZ Myers finding whole new levels of assholery as his environs collapsed into an dissent-crushing dogmatic echo chamber.

And thus the second schism, the folks who have also split off, and been cast further into the Outer Darkness… the “HBD-sphere” and those adjacent to it. (Into which latter “adjacency” Scott, by virtue of his refusal to blanket censor the topic, may well fall.)

What brings this to mind, though, is this recent article from the Daily Mail: “Sheffield University tells staff Charles Darwin was 'racist' and used natural selection theory to justify white male superiority in 'decolonising curriculum' lecturing handbook”

Sheffield University has created a handbook for students and lecturers in its science department to help 'tackle racial injustice' by 'reflecting on the whiteness and Eurocentrism of our science'.

As part of the guide, the department created a list of 11 'problematic' scientific figures - including Darwin - whose views 'influenced the type of research they carried out and how they interpreted their data'.

An explanation next to the 19th century naturalist's name says that Darwin 'believed that his theory of natural selection justified the view that the white race was superior to others'.

But the guide provides no information about Darwin's strong support for the abolition of slavery, something he referred to as his 'sacred cause'.

…

The handbook however says that the likes of Darwin must be historically caveated when lecturers teach his seminal theory of evolution.

It says his voyage on HMS Beagle, when he collected plant and animal samples, was to map colonies.

It also suggests dropping the use of the terms 'founding father', 'idols' and 'geniuses' to avoid 'hero worshipping' scientific figures.'

UK science is inherently white, since the discipline developed from the European scientific enlightenment,' it adds. 'When viewed in this way, it is clear that science cannot be objective and apolitical.'

…

Other scientists named in the handbook include Julian Huxley, a supporter of the theory of natural selection who the Sheffield states 'believed that the lower classes were genetically inferior and should be prevented from reproducing and even sterilised'.

The handbook however admits Huxley was 'a strong critic of Nazi race-theory and published several anti-racist pieces'.

As Vox Day notes of the handbook’s list:

With the exception of James Watson, the list of problematic scientific figures reads like a who's who of atheist heroes. Atheists have falsely claimed that science and Christianity are incompatible for decades, but what they've learned in just three short years is that it is science and social justice which are totally incapable of coexisting.

So, I have to wonder, will all those who shrieked about ‘how dare you accuse evolutionary biology of being racist’ when it was Ben Stein making the accusation (and who call for the fainting couch and the censor at the slightest whiff of HBD) shriek nearly as loudly when it’s the Woke Left “decolonizers” making the accusation instead?

[doomedandstoned]

10,000 Years Take Us Into The "Gargantuan Forest"

~Doomed & Stoned Debuts~

Review by Billy Goate

Album Art by Francesco Bauso

Leaving the world For salvation yonder Quest for eternity To suns beyond

Gazing upon our past Out into forever To a future obscured What glory awaits?

To begin another week of awesome original content at Doomed & Stoned, we're getting you better acquainted with the Swedish juggernaut 10,000 YEARS.

Last summer, the band dropped their eponymous debut to welcome ears and in just a few short weeks 10,000 Years come roaring back with a follow-up. Y'all know I'm a sucker for a good concept album. The eight-track full-length record 'II' (2021) picks up the trail of the Albatross research vessel, which has been galavanting 'cross the nether reaches of the galaxy on a potent rocket fuel made of sludgy stoner rock and doom metal.

If that sounds epic, wait'll you get a load of what's next for our interstellar crew. It helps if you picture the following text as a Star Wars-style screen crawl, slowly working its way up the page against the backdrop of a starry night.

After narrowly escaping the confines of the strange planet and its surrounding dimension, the Albatross and its crew finally return home to Earth. The re-entry is rough and the ship crashlands in a forest. The earth that greets them is vastly different from the one that they left.

When the ship travelled back to earth through the wormhole, it created a rift in the space-time continuum which propelled them far into the future, as well as allowing the Green King and other ancient gods from the other dimension to cross over to our dimension. They have since taken control of not only the earth, but the entire solar system.

After various harrowing experiences and encounters, the truth finally dawns on the surviving members of the crew. They are indeed back on earth, but ten thousand years in the future from when they started their journey. And to make matters worse, they find evidence that the Green King has been known and worshipped by secret cults and societies on earth for millenia, since before humankind even existed.

The surviving members of the crew come to the conclusion that the only way to set things right again is to repair the Albatross and take it back through the rift again in order to close it.

Now that's a saga I'm ready to get invested in. George Lucas, eat your heart out!

The record revs to a start with "Descent," a track that can best be described as terrific panic. It had me thinking of KOOK's "Escape Velocity" from their recent second album, though that's an eight-and-a-half minute slow burn and this is a quick twenty-six second fall from the sky. I wish this little notion had a chance to develop into something longer, but regardless what a thrilling way to open an album!

With rapt attention, I'm waiting to hear what comes next. The ship seems to have crash landed deep inside a "Gargantuan Forest." As an aside, it would be a blast to smoke a bowl o' something (anything, really) with Erik Palm (guitar), Alex Risberg (bass, vox), and Espen Karlsen (drums) just to gab it up a bit about sci-fi lit and horror flicks. I mean, check out the trove of B-movie greats referenced in their preface to the new single (which Doomed & Stoned is debuting today):

In this ABSURD (1981) video, 10,000 Years enter a FOREST OF FEAR (1980) as they access THE BEYOND (1981) and enter a BLOODBATH (1971) with THE BOOGEY MAN (1980), otherwise known as the Espbeast. The Espbeast stalks and haunts the bodies and minds of the characters in this C-grade homage to the horror movies of yesteryear.

The characters FIGHT FOR YOUR LIFE (1976) through insane NIGHTMARES IN A DAMAGED BRAIN (1981). If they survive the AXE (1974) they may still end up in an INFERNO (1980) and risk being EATEN ALIVE (1976). All the same risks face the viewer, so don’t watch with the lights out, don’t watch by yourself and DON’T GO IN THE WOODS ALONE (1981). Because after all, isn’t there an Espbeast in all of us?

10,000 Years have picked the ideal setting for the music video. The forests of Sweden stand tall and dark, the ground packed with snow. Screw you, Blair Witch Project -- this is where I want the next found footage flick filmed!

The song opens with a mysterious theme on solitary electric strings, surrounded by hazy reverberation. Drums and bass accent the motif as it's repeated several times over. Dazed by their graceless fall to earth, the crew wander about, checking one another for injuries, seeing if the faithful Albatross has even hope of another journey. As the shock begins to wear off, their hopeless plight reveals itself.

Screaming from the sky Blasting through the atmosphere

Come to rest On the forest floor Still alive What fresh new hell is this?

Surrounded by swamps A strange bleeding from the earth

Giant trees A dense horror taking root Same old sun Unfamiliar rays shine down

Is there something lurking about in the Gargantuan Forest? I'm sure no one wants to wait until nightfall to find out! The so-called "Espbeast" (which the band may actually have been first to name) is more than likely some strange amalgamation of guitar and creature, ripping through foes like a berserker of sound with scraps of High on Fire's "10,000 Years" echoing perversely through the treetops as it stalks and ultimately slays you. Nobody wants to be around when the Espbeast is on the prowl.

Now see, I'm letting my imagination get carried away! Then again, maybe that's what the band had planned all along -- for listeners to join in the fantastic adventures of these cosmonauts, to see through their eyes and feel through their body as they touch foot to strange soil. What will our adventurers find next?

The answer comes all too soon: "Spinosaurus!" This gruff beast charges angrily through the woods knocking things about, displacing rocks, snapping branches, royally pissed and ready to make somebody pay for the noise that snatched him away from a damned good nap. The repeated note riff, with its odd strumming pattern, does a nifty job of representing the crude movements of the Spinosaurus as it lumbers about the forest. Eric is a virtuosic mess of frantic tremeloes and wiry noodling against Espen's stampeding drums, as Alex narrates the scene with a terrifying shout:

Is this our earth? No time to dwell Dorsal sail cutting air Cretaceous ghost made flesh

Staring into Dead end eyes No place to hide Theropodic annihilation

Teeth into flesh!

What the crew is experiencing on their homeworld thus far seems foreign, almost ancient. Through some curse of Einstenian logic have we zipped through a wormhole only to return to the distant past? "The Mooseriders" are about to challenge our assumptions about what's possible on this Rock.

Thundering hooves crack the sky Dark robed wizards appear in the light Travellers in ether descending Protectors of the realm

These are the oath-bound eternals -- interdimensional templars, if you will -- who have arrived at this precise moment in time to take on the Green King. Complex rhythmic drumming with precisely stricken odd beats, is accompanied by a hyperactive bass and progressive metal riffmaking. Together, the band conjures the trot and hustle of the approaching entourage. A wilding guitar heralds a message from the great protectors:

The hour draws near The endgame is nigh Divine prophecy Even death may die

The mood now turns stately. A brave theme is introduced and developed with dashing prowess. This track would fit perfectly into a playlist with Mastodon, Ape Cave, and Zirakzigil. I found Alex's vocal approach especially appropriate for the frantic depiction of "antlers clashing with steel" in this battle to the finish. "Even death...may...DIE!"

"Angel Eyes" greet us on the B-side, and it's not a cover of the Jerry Cantrell song (though that would have been unexpectedly awesome). No, the hard-charging mood and raspy vocals are pointing to something far more apocalyptic.

Hooves of burning coal Let loose upon the world

Return of the warlord Eternal fire scorches the earth

Heavenly gaze Order through chaos

At times Alex seems exasperated, practically out of breath, as he gives these dire words his all. It's a style the 10,000 Years frontman owns as well as his counterpart, Simon Ohlsson of Vokonis, who has a comparable vocal attack. A bass-fortified guitar establishes a second theme that adds a Wagnarian touch of high drama, and this ushers in the song's curtain fall.

If 10,000 Years is to be compared with High On Fire at all, the rumbling riffstorm "March Of The Ancient Queen" surely merits it (to say nothing of their mutual love of alternative histories).

Her royal blood Once ruled these lands Generations Buried by time Dynasty of dust Rise from the sands Rise from the dead The Green King's servant

March!

March Of The Ancient Queen - Single by 10,000 Years

That last lyric is uttered with the most blood-curdling all-caps conviction that I was immediately drawn into its sentiment, miming "Maaaaarrrrrch!" with my ugliest war face on every time it came up in the song. The NWOBHM-style finish is so deftly executed that it comes across as orchestral. 10,000 Years paint with big, bold strokes here.

"Prehuman Walls" is a welcome shift down, with its chugging "Bury Me In Smoke" tempo. You sludge fiends will find moments of Zen here, with riffs that bend and twist and saw 'neath the summer sun. The crew have chanced upon a temple of sorts, though not one made with human hands. Nothing seems to make sense here at all. It's like Area X from the film Annihilation (2017), where everything is a contortion of reality. Then the "truth settles in." This alien monstrosity, we find, bears the mark of the sinister Green King. We thought we'd escaped him, only to find that he both followed us and was here millenia before.

Unholy worship Feed the Green King Eyes pried open Sanity stripped away

At last, we reach the final track in our journey: "Dark Side Of The Earth". So many revelations have been made in this second chapter, so many loose ends that need to be tied off. Naturally, a third chapter must be written. "We must go back, set it right," deliberates an exasperated Albatross crew. "We must go back, whence we came."

Dimension walls broken down The fabric ripped and torn apart Thread the needle once again A journey of ten thousand years

We must go back, set it right We must go back, through the tears

Insanity the only way The dark side of the earth

Following these words, the song develops instrumentally and the mood gets quite emotional. I found myself drawing parallels between this "bastard version of earth" and our own, wondering if we ever can go back and make it right. For us, perhaps it should be about moving forward, for there is no golden age or better time to which we can return. We make this world a heaven or hell tomorrow by the choices made today.

The album was recorded by Tomas Skogsberg at Studio Sunlight. Totally diggin the awesomely swamp landscape that Francesco Bauso of Negative Crypt Artwork created. It reminds the five-year old me of Luke's sopping wet landing on Dagobah, though guitarist Alex Risberg says the band's more inspired by Planet of the Apes than by Star Wars.

The album will be released on June 25th as a special vinyl "Green King Edition" by Interstellar Smoke Records pre-order here), a cassette tape "Forest Edition" from Ogo Rekords (pre-order here) and "Swamp Edition" from Olde Magick Records pre-order here), with the digital and compact disc formats handled by Death Valley Records (pre-order here).

10,0000 Years have in II their most accomplished album to date, with powerful moments that will stay with you long after the record's stopped spinning. Fans of High On Fire, Black Tusk, and The Sword listen up! You might just discover your next favorite band.

Give ear...

10,000 Years - Gargantuan Forest (Music Video)

Some Buzz

Having previously played together in the original lineup of Swedish underground heavyweights Pike, Erik Palm (Guitars) and Alex Risberg (Bass/vocals) found their way back to each other, musically, in early 2020. The creative fire reignited and stoked to a burning inferno and through a mutual love of heavy riffs and thundering stoner rock, doom, and sludge metal, 10,000 Years was born. Finding a drummer would prove to be an easy task and with Espen Karlsen the final piece lay firmly in place. The groove they fell into during the first rehearsal hasn’t stopped rumbling since.

After spending the first-half of 2020 writing and rehearsing, 10,000 Years recorded their self-titled debut EP during one weekend in June in the legendary Studio Sunlight with equally legendary producer Tomas Skogsberg. The self-titled EP was released on July 10th and immediately struck a chord with the heavy underground worldwide, and 10,000 Years garnered rave reviews and accolades.

10,000 Years by 10,000 Years

10,000 Years' musical and lyrical world revolves around the tale of the terran class III exploration vessel Albatross and its mission to explore the Milky Way and nearby galaxies in search for a possible new home for humanity. The EP tells the tale of its first foray into space and what happens when the crew accidentally travel through a wormhole and end up in an adjacent dimension populated by ancient gods and giant beings, ruled by the Green King. The EP ends with “From Suns Beyond,” where the crew make it off from the strange planet, back out into space in search of a way back home. The new album picks up the story as the Albatross blasts through the atmosphere of a seemingly unknown planet and crashlands headfirst into strange new adventures.

II by 10,000 Years

Now, less than a year after their first release, 10,000 Years are back with their first full-length effort, aptly titled 'II' (2021). Picking up right where the EP left off, II continues the story of the ill-fated Albatross mission and its exploration of time and space through a skull-crushing mixture of stoner rock, doom, and sludge metal. The album will no doubt continue to build on 10,000 Years' already golden reputation and prove to be an even bigger hit with the heavy masses.

Follow The Band

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[ratchaptermaster]

How to start a New Solar Year

The Battle Barge Supreme Lance slammed her crackling horned helm into the broadside of the wounded Tyranid bioship, the beast groaned the sensation of pain as unnatural energies burned at its innards. Muscles convulsing and crushing its crawling swarms, the ultra-powered thrusters pushing it against another of its kin-ships. Inside, the designated slave-captain bounced and cackled at the pain he insured. 

“Yes-yes! Give the xeno-ship sweet-pain! I want to hear it scream!” He cackled to his servitors, the last remnant of humanity in those half-machines were bleak at best but it acknowledged in dull crackling voxes as multiple servo-limbs translated the maddened bloodlust of their master to the barge’s combat capabilities.

The hundred years in warp-space was ample time to the inventive minds of the Blessed Ratmen of the Horned Emperor. The thousands of battery guns lining her starboard, portside and bow were relentless, millions of bolts flying across the air to hit ships of the Nom-things, big and small. Careless of the fighters between their destruction. 

The Vermintide washed over the Rift-stolen Nom-Fleet, a great fleet of greedy hunger devouring the Incarnation of Hunger itself. Two of the same coin but it was clear who had the clear disadvantage as the screaming daemons born from the Black Hunger writhed and reached from between stars to tear at these offences of their very existence.

The Shadow of the Warp pained them and in pure ugly spite, the Children of the Rat-God fought with bloody teeth and claws. 

Tearing the groaning bio-ship in chunks, the Captain cackled with madness clear in his eyes. “Yes-yes! More-more!” He cried out, “Spill excess heat and fire! Hahah!” The command made manifest, the deadly overheat of both the converted engines and constantly shooting guns was siphoned in a fatally clever way, feeding one of the countless armaments that fed out from the Supreme Lance of Clan Skryre. Like a massive meltagun, vents spewing sun-level heat out into the vacuum of space - shields actively keeping the temperature to the barest capabilities of burning every mutated crewmen at the bottom and sides of her vessel before all was sung into one great belch of pure hatred through the bio-ship and the ship beyond it, spilling millions of charred Nom-things in the cold talons of space. 

 The fleet kept moving, even as one of the strike cruisers exploded from an overexcited core. Blossoms of green fires before it literally lunged for one of the Nom-ships in a twisted sacrifice of noble spite before taking the xenos with the crew. 

 Hissing out with a smile and tears running his messy face, the slave-captain clicked on the vox-link for the barge’s inner sanctuaries. “Great and Ever-Ingenious Master-Warlock of Sciences and Knower of the Great Rat in the Cables, we-we lost Strike-Cruiser Gaggle’s Cry.” He alarmed, there was a moment but a growl that was hard to distinct of the vox malfunctioning, the blessing of electronic vermin-daemons crossing between their airways or the True Master of the Barge’s vocal replacements. 

“Good-good, ship full of fool-thralls. We get more! Keep forward-up to the Nom-Things’ Head Ship. Prepare the Warp-Cannon!” The cold clicks and malign hiss of the Lord-Warlock commanded, then the Supreme Lance herself started to react to her master before actual input was made. 

Now the Master had the command and the Slave-Captain was the spectator, the entire Vermintide of Skryre’s Front started to mobilize with disquieting unity, even as the shipmasters screamed in demand for their ships to obey them - the Spirits of the Ships were the Master-Warlock’s and his dominance was made clear with each ram of slave-ship biting a wound into a Devourer-ship and Astartes-ship slicing and beating the fleet in sections like a finer dining noble-rat of the Skavenblight.

In the Supreme’s heart, the great Warlock’s six optics gleamed with the wide metal-toothed smile, cackling with the great cape of cables flexing and feed his inhuman ambition into his beloved ship. His ship was second-biggest to the Chaptermaster, his despicable counterpart - Seerlord Qhet may have the Master’s ear and attention - but the Master of All Warlocks had the intelligence to give the Great Rattus Astartes the power that all envy!

All of his hatred, envy, ambition, pride, and logical bloodlust pumped into ichor and the Supreme Lance sung her infernal love for him, directing every shot to the swarm of small nom-interceptors with undeniable precision. Those that managed to evade and only slam into the front shields as bubbling memory upon the crackling green warp-shield. The great vessel painstakingly tattooed from bow to stern with hemogrammetic wardings inlined with crushed Warpstone of a hundred worlds etched by the bleeding hands of thousands of slaves, whose souls now scream and howl in each cornerstone of his polish warpstone works. 

All in the name of Clan Skryre Supremacy and in extent, the Great Chapter Chosen by the Great Emperor! 

And in this beautiful destiny manifest, the great Lord-Warlock Zextal laughed with the madness of a thousand plans in each black heartbeat as his vessel fired the tri-cannons of his Warp Cannon, lancing pure weaponized warp-lightning in its raw extremity across the vacuum of space and arched against anything that dared to stand in its way or near. The cooking of chitin and flesh, innards, and spawnlings before hitting the heart-ship into nothingness. 

In return of such awesome power, the cannon’s links exploded and took at least a hundred thousand slave-rats and man-things in green fires and ashes. The self-wounding brought a soft chatter of pain...but it was worth it.

A good war-testing for his works, yes-yes!

[lobocomicsandtoys]

New @ Lobo Comics | 08/14/19

Make sure you never miss a title again! We have a pull box system that you can learn how to sign up for here and have all your comics and trades pulled for you every week.

   Missed an issue already? Can’t find a trade paperback you want? Ask us to special order for you and you’ll have it in about a week!

Comics:

ABSOLUTE CARNAGE SCREAM #1 (OF 3) ABSOLUTE CARNAGE SEPARATION ANXIETY #1 AGE OF CONAN VALERIA #1 (OF 5) AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #27 BATMAN AND THE OUTSIDERS #4 BATMAN UNIVERSE #2 (OF 6) BLACK HAMMER JUSTICE LEAGUE #2 (OF 5) CAPTAIN MARVEL #9   CATWOMAN #14 COLLAPSER #2 (OF 6) CONAN THE BARBARIAN EXODUS #1 CRITICAL ROLE VOX MACHINA ORIGINS SERIES II #2 DETECTIVE COMICS #1009 DOCTOR STRANGE #17   DOCTOR WHO 13TH #11 EVENT LEVIATHAN #3 (OF 6) FANTASTIC FOUR #13     FLASH #76 FRIENDLY NEIGHBORHOOD SPIDER-MAN #10 GIDEON FALLS #16 GO GO POWER RANGERS #22 GOGOR #4 GWENPOOL STRIKES BACK #1 (OF 5) HAWKMAN #15 HIT-GIRL SEASON TWO #7 HOUSE OF WHISPERS #12 IMMORTAL HULK DIRECTORS CUT #1 (OF 6) INVADERS #8 IRONHEART #9 JAMES BOND ORIGIN #12 JOE GOLEM OCCULT DETECTIVE CONJURORS #4 (OF 5) JUSTICE LEAGUE ODYSSEY #12 LOKI #2 MILES MORALES SPIDER-MAN #9 OBLIVION SONG BY KIRKMAN & DE FELICI #18 ONCE & FUTURE #1 (OF 6) ORVILLE NEW BEGINNINGS #2   OUTER DARKNESS #9 POWERS OF X #2 (OF 6) PUNISHER KILL KREW #1 (OF 5) PUNK MAMBO #5 (OF 5) REAVER #2 RED SONJA #7 ROAD OF BONES #4 (OF 4) ROBOTECH #23 RUMBLE #15 SHARKEY BOUNTY HUNTER #5 (OF 6) SILVER SURFER BLACK #3 (OF 5) SILVER SURFER PRODIGAL SUN #1 SONATA #3 STAR TREK YEAR FIVE #4 STAR WARS TARGET VADER #2 (OF 6) SUPERGIRL #33 SUPERMAN #14 SWORD DAUGHTER #8 SWORD MASTER #2 SYMBIOTE SPIDER-MAN #5 (OF 5) TITANS BURNING RAGE #1 (OF 7) UNBEATABLE SQUIRREL GIRL #47 UNEARTH #2 UNNATURAL #12 (OF 12) USAGI YOJIMBO #3 WARNING #10 WATCHER #1 (OF 3) WHITE TREES #1 (OF 2) WONDER WOMAN #76 X-FACTOR #87

Trades:

ADVENTURE TIME FIONNA CAKE ORIGINAL GN BASH BLUES AMAZING SPIDER-MAN TP HUNTED ARCHIE BY NICK SPENCER TP VOL 01 ASGARDIANS OF THE GALAXY TP VOL 02 WAR OF REALMS BATMAN TEENAGE MUTANT TURTLES II TP BORGIAS TP CYCLE OF THE WEREWOLF ILLUST NOVEL DISNEY FROZEN TP REUNION ROAD ELVIRA MISTRESS OF DARK TP VOL 01 FORGOTTEN QUEEN TP GODZILLA COMP RULERS OF EARTH TP VOL 02 GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY TP VOL 01 FINAL GAUNTLET HITMAN GREATEST HITS TP JAMES BOND ORIGIN HC VOL 01 MR AND MRS X TP VOL 02 GAMBIT AND ROGUE FOREVER SIDEWAYS TP VOL 02 RIFTS AND REVELATIONS STAR WARS REY AND PALS HC TMNT URBAN LEGENDS TP VOL 01 WAR OF REALMS TP

Manga:

AGAIN GN VOL 10 ATTACK ON TITAN GN VOL 28 STAR BLAZERS TP VOL 01 SPACE BATTLESHIP YAMATO 2199

Toys:

ALIEN RESURRECTION XENOMORPH QUEEN ULTRA DLX AF BATMAN ANIMATED SERIES BATCYCLE & AF SET BATMAN FAMILY NIGHTWING MULTI PART STATUE DARK KNIGHTS METAL BATMAN THE DROWNED STATUE DC CINEMATIC WONDER WOMAN 7IN VINYL FIG DC COVER GIRLS BLACK CANARY BY JOELLE JONES STATUE FREDDY VS JASON JASON VOORHEES ULTIMATE 7IN SCALE GODZILLA VINYL 3.5IN SCALE FIG ASST B GUNDAM ASTRAY NOIR HI-RESOLUTION 1/100 MDL KIT JOJOS BIZARRE ADV GOLDEN WIND BRUNO BUCCIARATI FIG LOVE LIVE SUNSHINE EXQ MARI OHARA VER 2 FIG MARVEL COMICS AVENGERS SERIES CAPTAIN MARVEL ARTFX MARVEL COMICS AVENGERS SERIES THANOS ARTFX+ STATUE MY HERO ACADEMIA GRANDISTA MIDORIYA IZUKU FIG ONE PIECE TREASURE CRUISE WORLD JOURNEY V2 REIJU V ONE PIECE WORLD COLOSSEUM 2 V8 SABO FIG POP DC HEROES BATMAN DAMNED PX VINYL FIGURE X-FORCE LEGENDS 6IN AF ASST 201901

[thecounterplan]

You Can’t Change the Mind of Steven Crowder, and It’s Not Worth Trying

by Brice Ezell

If you know Steven Crowder, it’s likely for the meme seen above, derived from his “Change My Mind” series on his YouTube channel and CRTV show, Louder with Crowder. In this series, Crowder places himself in various locales — typically university campuses, though he also took the streets of my own Austin, TX for one installment — and invites people to challenge him on his deeply held views, which thus far have included, to name a few: “There are Only Two Genders,” “Hate Speech Doesn’t Exist,” “I’m Pro-Life,” and “Trump is Not a Fascist.” Each one of these “Change My Minds” is equal part provocation and, ostensibly, invitation to debate: rather than sit in his CRTV studio 24/7, addressing a paying audience who largely shares his views, Crowder does attempt to get his viewpoints out into the public, subject the scrutiny of any passersby. 

Yet it’s not long into any one of these “Change My Mind” segments — to say nothing of his other YouTube videos — that the veneer of respectable debate, well, starts looking a lot less respectable. Like Nathan J. Robinson, I hold the view that debates between the political left and right, when done well, are important and can advance civil discourse in helpful ways. So when I first heard about Crowder and saw that, unlike a cheap shock jock, he actually invited anyone to debate him, I thought for a (fleeting) moment that he might be someone invested in actually facilitating substantive debate on the important issues of our divisive political times. 

Crowder, it turns out, is not that person. Above all else, he occupies the role of comedian/pundit for the right wing, so his primary responsibility is to entertain and, as a result of the directive to entertain, sensationalize. His YouTube video titles include things like “OMG GENDER POLITICS GAP!” and “TOP 5 Reasons Elizabeth Warren’s a RACIST FRAUD!” The seeming invitation into debate that is the “Change My Mind” title quickly morphs into a presumptuous imperative when you read video titles like “Why the Left HATES Successful People.” (The latter is a curious notion, given that Crowder, like many right-wingers, calls out “SJW” corporations in Silicon Valley and elsewhere for their supposed “identity politics,” and those companies are nothing if not successful.) As a pundit, Crowder’s mandate is to make arguments, but not really to debate. Debate requires fairness, some mutual understanding, and above all else clash, i.e. arguments which interact in some kind of competing form. Crowder has a segment on his channel called “Devil’s Advocate” in which he, playing a quasi-hipster character called “Skyler Turden,” performs the classical fallacy known as the straw man, which a textbook example of bad debating, where no real clash exists. 

The appeal of a segment like “Change My Mind” hinges on the very possibility hinted at by the title: that the person making that request is actually open to having their mind changed. On his show, Crowder gives little impression he is open to a serious challenge to his political views. Normally it would be just enough to say that Crowder is a pundit, not a politician or a researcher, i.e. people who make discursive arguments as a big part of their living. As a pundit, Crowder need only say his opinions and successfully monetize them by building an audience, and that he has done. But with “Change My Mind” and other segments on Louder with Crowder — for instance, his trotting out of the oft-repeated right wing claim that lefties can’t handle debate, which is why they shut right-wing speakers out of universities — Crowder appears to show great concern for debate and discourse. To those unfamiliar with his history or his style, then, Crowder seems to be someone who actually cares about discursively defending right-wing views, rather than simply being, well, louder about them. 

This rhetorical move on the part of Crowder, as I undoubtedly have already made clear, is thoroughly disingenuous. However, instead of merely calling Crowder a pundit and moving on, I want to analyze an example of his argumentative style, through which I will show that Crowder is not interested in debate, and has no meaningful argumentative strategy that would actually produce a debate worth having. 

The example I’ve selected is a video response by Crowder to a Vox video entitled, “Admit it. Republicans have broken politics,” presented by Carlos Maza. I chose this video because I think Maza’s argument is a strong one — one I happen to agree with, though like any argument it is of course debatable — and therefore affords Crowder an opportunity to have a serious debate, rather than a pundit vs. pundit war where the only metric is who can shout their opinions the loudest and most creatively. What we get with Crowder, unfortunately, is punditry, not real debate, and it doesn’t take long for his “rebuttals” to Maza to start wearing thin. 

Before I get into the specifics of this Crowder/Vox debate, an overview. It is important to know that there is a single failure of political thinking – one many of Crowder’s fellow conservative commentators like Ben Shapiro also commit – which muddles Crowder’s argumentation throughout all of his videos: he equates the terms “Democrat” and “leftist.” In this rather interesting video, Crowder answers a letter from a fan asking, “Should I marry a Crazy Democrat?” The fan writes in the letter that a newfound paramour is a Democrat, and worries “she might be a leftist.” To this, Crowder and his co-hosts reply, “She’s a Democrat, of course she is.” This is pure nonsense. 

Plenty of folks – from the aforementioned Robinson to Elizabeth Bruenig – have effectively demonstrated the distinctions between Democrats and actual leftists, and those between liberals and leftists. But one doesn’t even need to wade into the theory in order to see the distinction between Democrats and leftists: one need only look to the 2016 Democratic presidential primary, in which the competition between a garden-variety leftist (Bernie Sanders, who ran for the Democratic nod despite being an independent) and an elite Democrat (Hillary Clinton) further widened the significant rift in the Democratic party between its center/center-right wing (i.e. Clinton) and leftists who actually want to make the Democrats a left-wing party. Even now, establishment Democrats are doing everything they can to prevent Bernie from becoming a name in the 2020 presidential election. Keep in mind that in most Western liberal democracies, Bernie would be little more than a boring social democrat; it’s only in the US, where the political compass is skewed far to the right, that he appears to be some Marxist ideologue to commentators like Crowder. For Crowder’s characterization of the Democrats as “leftists” to hang together at all, his definition of “leftism” would have to incorporate people – like most of the leading Democratic politicians – who without fail vote for every single increase in the military budget, think capitalism is good and fixable, and are more than happy to let major corporations like Apple and Amazon take over major cities. It doesn’t require much else to demonstrate the absurdity of such a definition. 

If the Democratic party truly was “leftist,” Sanders wouldn’t have been perceived as some radical shock, and those at the heart of the party wouldn’t be doing everything they can to ensure that Sanders’ coalition doesn’t take over or gain prominence in the party leading up to 2020. What does this mean for Crowder’s argumentation? It means that when he attempts to argue against Democrats and “leftists,” he commits error after error in conflating the two. A good deal of his rebuttal to Maza’s Vox argument falls into this trap, and rather than parse out every single instance of this happening, I’ll note this broad issue here to further clarify why his rebuttal to Maza is deeply insufficient. 

With that said: in going through Crowder’s video, I’ll break down the arguments as he presents them, where he shows a clip from Maza’s video and then replies to it.

Maza Claim 1: Based on research done by political scientists at UCLA, we can graph the political ideology of members of Congress. With this data, we can see that over time, both parties have moved away from the center, but Republicans have moved much further away than Democrats. Similarly, if you compare Republican and Democratic presidents since Truman, you find that Republican presidents have become more conservative, while Democrats have remained roughly level.

Crowder Responses: (1) “Uh, Bush is more conservative than Reagan? Obama is more conservative than Clinton?”; (2) Insinuates that Vox just made up the graphs itself; (3) Argues against extrapolating this data to suggest that polarization is bad, because if you’re moving in a non-polar direction toward “success” and “truth,” that is preferable; (4) Points out that “just days” before the release of this video, “noted Democratic activist Julia Louis-Dreyfuss” compared Trump to the Holocaust.

(1) These questions are meant to undermine the data, but it’s not obviously clear why either of these claims of the data – that Reagan can be understood as less conservative than Bush II, or that Obama was less liberal than Bill Clinton – are so absurd as to deserve the mocking tone with which Crowder delivers them. Off the top of my head, I can point out that Reagan’s decision to give amnesty to millions of undocumented immigrants would get him expelled from the post-2000s GOP, and Obama deported more people than anyone in recent US history. I could go on, but the point is: Crowder gives us little reason to question the charts.

(2) The graphs were not made up by Vox, and come from an extensive series of data gathering by the University of California at Los Angeles political science department. Not hard to figure this out.

(3) This is a point, actually, that Crowder and the left would be in agreement on: namely, that “centrism” or “meeting in the middle” is not an inherent virtue. Unfortunately for Crowder’s argumentation, this is a view where the Democrats and the left diverge, as Democrats trip over themselves to find ways to reach across the aisle. Hillary Clinton proudly owned the label of “centrist” (or “moderate”) in the run-up to the 2016 election. But this is skipping ahead to a later part of the argument; Crowder just flags this here briefly – more on that later. 

(4) Julia Louis-Dreyfuss is a celebrity. She may speak out for Democratic-backed causes from time to time, but she is far from an activist, or anyone that could be said to speak for the majority of the party. But, most importantly, even if Crowder’s interpretation of the Louis-Dreyfuss video he quotes is accurate – and I don’t think it is – Crowder responds to meticulously gathered data by… pointing to one example, as if a single celebrity video proves that the Democrats are actually as far left as Republicans are far right. One example does not an argument make.

Maza Claim 2: Being a “queer, tree-hugging atheist with immigrant parents,” Maza knows that he’s a bit obvious in criticizing Republicans. So rather than just rely on his own argumentation, he turns to Norman Orenstein of the American Enterprise Institute to further establish the claims about polarization. 

Crowder Responses: (1) Orenstein is a “token independent conservative who makes his living bashing the GOP”; (2) The use of Orenstein is a “lie” to hide the “subjective” opinion of Maza, and is the equivalent of saying “I have a black friend” to prove you aren’t racist; (3) Mitch McConnell “called Orenstein out” for being an “old fashioned far-left guy.”

I’ll group all of these together here, as they all in the same way signal Crowder’s unwillingness to engage the substance of the debate. Nowhere does Crowder actually show why Orenstein is a non-credible source; his tactic is essentially to just undermine the idea that Orenstein is actually conservative. We’re to trust the opinion of Mitch McConnell – one of the most ghoulish living politicians (here, here, and here are good places to start reading why that’s true) – in calling Orenstein “far left” because, uh, reasons? Crowder doesn’t give any, except to call McConnell “cocaine Mitch,” a name only true in that, like cocaine, McConnell should be illegal.

Maza’s use of Orenstein isn’t “hiding” subjective opinion; he’s using another expert to back up his own opinion. Debate should operate in this way, and invoking an expert doesn’t necessarily mean saying, “I am right because this expert is infallible,” but because all of us should look to people who have extensively researched issues to back up our viewpoints. That’s all Maza is doing. Bringing Orenstein onboard doesn’t mask his argument, for it is part of his argument. The fact that Crowder first chooses to attempt to rubbish Maza’s source, instead of directly addressing the matter of Orenstein’s research, puts him on argumentatively thin ice from the outset.

Lastly: the words “far-left” and “American Enterprise Institute” are mutually incompatible. The Institute is widely regarded as a right-wing think tank, an experience I can confirm firsthand, having attended a conference there as an undergraduate. Just about every single proposal and speech I heard that weekend would not have made a single member of the current GOP bristle in the slightest. Nor would this description from AEI’s “About” page have anything in it with which Crowder would disagree: “We are committed to making the intellectual, moral, and practical case for expanding freedom, increasing individual opportunity, and strengthening the free enterprise system in America and around the world.” AEI is nonpartisan, but its aims and research agendas are undeniably conservative – far from a place where a far lefty would find employment, let alone want to work.

Maza Claim 3: “There is no question” that the GOP’s goals have become more extreme over the past decade. George W. Bush talked about a “rational middle ground” for immigration policy, whereas Donald Trump is a hardliner who talks about “deportation forces.”

Crowder’s Response: Why compare Bush to Trump? Why not compare Obama to Trump, when we see in a pre-2008 election clip that Obama said that “those who entry the country illegally and those who employ them disrespect the rule of law?” Trump’s policy is just Obama’s policy put into full effect “for the betterment of the country!”

First off: congrats, Steven, you found another place where you and the left are in agreement! The left consistently called out Obama for his immigration rhetoric, and his hardline deportation policies. The Democrats undercut a good deal of their argumentation against Trump’s immigration views by the actions they undertook during Obama’s eight year term as president. That is true.

But Crowder’s move here is the classic “whataboutist” strategy that animates most right-wing punditry: “You don’t like this? Well the Democrats did something similar!” It’s a form of argument that doesn’t engage with the substance of the claim (i.e. the rightness or wrongness of a particular action) and instead diverts to hypocrisy gaming that advances the conversation very little. Additionally, it’s a strategy typically accompanied by false equivalency, as is the case here: Obama did not propose a giant wall on the US/Mexico border, nor did Obama enact a widespread policy of family separation (see here and here), though some family separations did occur under previous administrations, albeit never in the formalized way enacted by Trump.

In this case, Crowder ducks Maza’s claim: his point is that there is a marked difference between how Bush and Trump, both Republican, handled immigration. Pointing to Obama in between them does not disprove that. All it does is prove the opposite of a point Crowder tried to make earlier: that the Democrats, far from being left-wing, have moved to the center and even to the right on some issues, immigration being one of them.

And I question anyone calling the abhorrent family separation and detention camp policy on the border a “betterment for the country.” A sane person would call it a stain on this country’s history. Even if you’re an absolute hardliner on immigration, the logical thing would be to send illegal immigrants back to their country of origin, not to separate their families as a needless act of cruelty on top of it. (Not that mass deportation, a policy not justified by Crowder here, would be a better solution.)

Maza Claim 4: Richard Nixon, a Republican president, founded the EPA; now, Republicans campaign on abolishing it.

Crowder Responses: (1) So what? The EPA had a purpose, now it doesn’t. (2) The Democrats used to the party of the KKK, which brings out a contradiction between Maza’s video and another Vox video about the “southern strategy” in the mid-20th century: how could the Democrats have changed so much, if as Maza claimed earlier in the video that the Democrats have “stayed the same” while the Republicans have moved further to the right?

(1) For a conservative like Crowder, obviously anti-EPA is a fairly orthodox position. But Maza’s point is about the rightness or wrongness of the EPA primarily: it’s about Republican attitudes toward environmental protection. His point is that just about half a century ago, Republicans founded a major agency to enshrine environmental protections; now, with climate change-related externalities more pressing than they were in Nixon’s administrations, Republicans want to scale back environmental projections. That is, objectively, a more extreme, more right-wing view. People can debate the legitimacy of those views, of course, but Maza’s video isn’t about debating climate policy; it’s about charting the intellectual color of a party, and the EPA example is a fine one to illustrate the further rightward swing of the GOP.

(2) Crowder here willfully distorts and mishandles the comparison between the illustration of the Southern Strategy in the other Vox video and the graphs presented at the start of Maza’s piece. Maza himself said the Democrats have changed, and have drifted further from the center to the left (albeit not as far as the Republicans have drifted to the right, per his argument). Note that the graph Maza shows at the beginning of the video starts at 1960, right around the time that the Southern Strategy was being put into place; were the graph extended back to the 1900s, it would show a dramatic shift in the Democratic party.

For more on the Southern Strategy, and why despite Crowder’s skepticism it is definitely a thing, historian Kevin M. Kruse (Princeton University) assembled a useful Twitter breakdown of the Southern Strategy and how it manifested in the Republican/Democratic shifts in the mid-20th century.

Maza 5: The governing methods of Republicans have become more extreme and anti-compromise over time. Data shows that Republicans have used more filibusters than any other party when they are not in power.

Crowder Responses: There are two factors to consider in the filibuster graph: (1) Opposition parties are more likely to use the filibuster (2) Use of the filibuster correlates with a “sharp rise” in executive orders and “power grabs” unprecedented in modern history.

(1) Okay, well, even if it is true that opposition parties are more likely to use the filibuster, this does not take away from the fact that the two highest peaks – without any nearby competition – on the filibuster graph are Obama’s first two years, when he hadn’t even proposed much of his legislation yet. The point of Maza’s use of the graph is, “The Republicans excessively use the filibuster.” Crowder’s first response does not challenge that in any way.

(2) This argument, a popular one amongst the post-2008 GOP, is complete garbage. Have a gander at the graph below, which lists the number of executive orders (Eos) by president since Truman: 

Obama has the lowest EO-per-year average of any president since Truman, and the lowest total for a two-term president in the post-Truman era. Having not completed his first (and perhaps only) term, Trump hasn’t built a fully representative sample size of EOs, but already his per annum average is 12 points more than Obama’s. Frankly, given the relentless obstruction Obama faced following the 2010 midterms, it’s amazing he didn’t use more EOs. 

Crowder’s only evidence for the “unprecedented executive power” is the widely-disproven talking point (see here and here) that Obamacare was “rammed through” Congress, and several out-of-context soundbites where Obama talks about “using his pen” if Congress didn’t act. As the graph above shows, that was most likely a rhetorical move on Obama’s part, not a marker of policy, and at worst it was an empty threat. (And I find Crowder’s belief in “executive overreach” on this point a bit inconsistent, since I didn’t see any red alerts raised when Trump announced that he intended to repeal birthright citizenship through EO, a far more ludicrous and baldly unconstitutional than anything Obama ever did.) So even if it was true that the filibuster was necessary to counter a power-hungry executive, the facts of Obama’s administration do not square with Crowder’s claims about Republican use of the filibuster. His “argument” is just a talking point with no substance, a hallmark of punditry.

Maza Point 6: Some Republican procedure has not even been for intellectual disagreement; Republicans refused to vote on Obama’s 2016 budget proposal before they even saw it, for example.

Crowder Responses: (1) “No for the sake of no is sometimes okay; as in, 2 trillion more dollars? NOPE!” (2) Republicans refused to look at Obama’s 2016 budget because he failed to submit it on time, and in fact Obama followed budgetary procedure throughout his presidency “ZERO” times.”

(1) This amounts to little more than assertion, and it’s one I know about which Crowder is inconsistent. As far as I can tell, Crowder has never once railed against the US’s largest expenditure, its ginormous military, which is increased just about every year (it should be noted, with near-unanimous bipartisan consensus), nor has he weighed the enormous structural costs of increasing tax cuts for the upper strata of society. From what I can gather of Crowder’s view of government from this point and his previous claim that “polarization isn’t bad so long as you’re going in the direction of the truth,” Crowder’s political view seems to be: “If you’re right, you get to do whatever you want.” That sure doesn’t sound like the deliberative republic set up by the founding fathers so revered by Crowder and his ilk. Generally speaking, I don’t think it’s controversial to say that major issues in government should be debated between respectable adults who are willing to hear the other side out – or, if you rather, “have their mind changed.” Crowder’s vision of the Republican party in this video is a party that is always of the correct opinion, so anything it does must be correct. Seems to me a pretty untenable thesis.

For more on what is called “the deficit troll,” which Crowder uses here to depict Obama as exceptionally spendthrifty, this excellent piece by Adam Johnson shows its absurdity.

(2) Crowder responds to Maza’s claim about the 2016 budget by pulling up a fact about… Obama’s 2012 budget. The timestamp is right there on the screen: this is either a willful misreading or distortion of evidence.

Now, Obama did in his first and second terms submit late budgets. That obviously is a concern, though it’s worth noting that doing so was not unique amongst modern presidents, which further rubbishes Crowder’s claim that Obama was so problematic a president that Republican intransigence was required to keep him in check. Furthermore, while it is fair to point out Obama’s missed budget deadlines, discursively defending the claim that Republicans were therefore justified in rejecting a budget proposal before reading it is an entirely separate claim. “He broke the rules, so we get to do whatever we want” is not a legitimate standard of governance, particularly not for the rule-abiding “constitutionalists” that Crowder and his co-hosts christen themselves in this video and elsewhere.

Maza Point 7: Republicans claimed they would hold the late Antonin Scalia’s vacant Supreme Court seat open even if Clinton won the presidency. For Orenstein, this is not “normal behavior,” and it is rather attributable to a party “attempting to hold the levers of power” as it loses a majority nationwide. 

Crowder Responses: (1) In 1960, Senate Democrats passed a resolution against election-year recess appointments; (2) Obama was a “lame duck” president when he appointed Merrick Garland to fill Scalia’s seat; (3) Democrats “initiated the behavior” of refusing to hold confirmation hearings with Robert Bork in the ‘80s.

(1) and (2) can be grouped together here, as they’re part of a similar line of argument used by conservatives about the behavior of the GOP toward Garland: Democrats would happily do the same in the GOP’s position (“Biden rule!”), and that Obama was basically on his way out.

There are several problems with this line of reasoning. First and foremost, the Senate did pass a resolution against election-year recess appointments in 1960, but Obama’s appointment of Garland was not a recess appointment. A recess appointment occurs when a president appoints someone to a federal office while the Senate is in recess, hence the name. The Senate was not in recess when Obama appointed Garland, nor was Obama a “lame duck,” as that refers to an elected official who is in office while their successor has been elected, and Trump had not been elected when Obama recommended Garland to the Court. Obama, like all presidents, gets elected to four-year terms, and 2016 was his fourth year, meaning he was acting within his legitimately elected powers as president. (And lest anyone say “the Biden rule” proves Crowder’s point: Biden never followed his 1992 suggestion, and later even said “there is no Biden rule.”)

So, yes, Orenstein is correct to say there is no precedent for this behavior, and it is clearly motivated by power. One little detail Crowder leaves out is that his friend “cocaine Mitch” said that the purpose of leaving the seat open was “so the American people could have a say” in the seat – despite the Constitutional structure of the Supreme Court, which is designed to insulate the justices from popular opinion – yet McConnell and other colleagues of his, like “reasonable Republican” John McCain, then said that if Clinton was elected, the GOP would stonewall any of her nominees. That’s about as brazen a declaration of “we don’t care what you think” as there has been in recent memory.

(3) I’m not sure Crowder should stake his case defending the legitimacy of GOP behavior in blocking Merrick Garland’s nomination on Robert Bork, who was rightly denounced for his racist, anti-civil rights political views, and his involvement in the Watergate Scandal, where he was doing Nixon’s bidding. Just a thought. Crowder thinks it’s okay to say “no for no’s sake” irrationally; I think it’s better that people say no when it’s right, and denying Bork a court seat was the right thing to do.

Maza Point 8: When in Obama’s second term Republicans refused to even hear out Obama’s lower-court appointees, Democrats made the “bad but necessary move” to lower the threshold to break a filibuster – the so-called “nuclear option” – from 60 votes to 51 votes. This was an ad hoc response to a problem “created by Republicans.”

Crowder Response: If the Democrats ended the filibuster, it’s their fault, and they have to own up to it.

This response is inadequate for at least two reasons. First, nowhere has Crowder made a positive defense for the Republican-led obstruction of Obama, nor has even attempted at a discursive rationale – apart from a bogus claim about Obama being an executive overreacher – as to why obstruction in general is a good idea. The tone of his view of the Republican party in this video is simple: they’re right, so they get to do whatever they want. Without a positive defense of Republican obstruction, Crowder can’t reasonably claim that lowering the vote threshold (which, to be sure, is a questionable strategic move that requires justification itself) is only the Democrats’ fault. A simple counterfactual: imagine the roles are flipped from 2008-2016, and Democrats are obstructing Republicans. Can anyone imagine Crowder saying, “Well, they’re obstructing, but that’s their right?” I sure can’t.

This leads to the second reason: based on the behavior of Republicans since Trump’s election, can anyone credibly claim that, in the same situation, they would have just lied down and taken it? The post-2010 GOP couldn’t reason with Obama, a boring centrist whose “tyrannical” healthcare plan was invented by Republicans in the ‘90s, and implemented in Massachusetts by a conservative governor and later GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney; a president who deported more immigrants than any other president in history; a president whose drone warfare in the Middle East should have made him a beloved member of the DC circles bent on spreading US imperialism by violence. In other words, Obama offered the GOP quite a lot of common ground. On strategic grounds, one can debate the choice to lower the vote threshold in the Senate from 60 to 51; an intelligent debate can be had there. But how we got to that point was not by the Democrats being hellbent on crushing norms; if that fact were true, they’d have lowered the vote threshold right after their crushing 2010 midterms defeat, rather than attempt to reach across the aisle for three years until the “break glass in case of emergency” option starts to sound plausible.

Maza and Orenstein’s main point is that situation was caused by Republican obstinance, and they are correct. Maza thinks the nuclear option was right; others can respectfully disagree. But no evidence can plausibly paint the picture that Democratic disregard for normal procedure got us to the stalemate that led to the nuclear option. Just to give two recent examples: many Democrats continued to vote for lower-court Trump nominees, even though in the senate they don’t have enough votes to block any nominees. That is to say, rather than signal opposition without costing them any political capital, Democrats continue to play ball with a party that is openly contemptuous of the will of the people. And what were some of Nancy Pelosi’s first words when the Democrats won back the House in the 2018 elections? Not, “We will deny the Democrats anything they want.” Once again, the “bipartisan” buzzword was trotted out, a fool’s errand in the face of a ruling party whose mantra is not the Constitution, but “our way or the high way.” 

Crowder then ends the video with a litany of spurious claims, ones largely rendered incoherent by the prenominate collapsing of “Democrats” with “progressives” and “leftists”, including:

(1) The claim that Kavanaugh’s accusers were all liars; this, despite the fact that most commentators agreed Christine Blasey Ford’s testimony was credible (and if you’re going to care about “truth,” maybe don’t back an unrepentant liar like Kavanaugh himself – see here and here).

(2) The Democrats “have always been the party of the KKK and segregation”; the Democrats were this for much of their existence, but, yes, since the Southern Strategy, things have changed, and last I checked it wasn’t a Democratic president who said that a group of Neo-Nazis in Charlottesville who eventually killed a woman “were very nice people.”

(3) The Democrats have become “radically left and gone for power-grabs”; despite the fact that, for much of the past 20 years, Republicans have controlled most branches of government and most state houses across the United States; and that, as I said earlier, any party that consistently votes for more military spending, bank bailouts, and corporate takeovers of major cities and urban areas cannot be in any sane universe called “left.” Talk to an actual leftist, Steven: most of them do not like or outright loathe the Democratic party, and only vote for it when they feel it is strategically necessary.

(4) The Democrats have become “anti-free speech” and want to do away with private firearms ownership; this, despite that there is not a single policy proposed by Democrats remotely approaching this, and Obama famously received an “F” grade from pro-gun control groups. This is such transparent fearmongering it deserves no more response than that.

(5) The Democrats have gone from advocating “safe, legal, and rare” abortions to “abortion on demand”; this is again another warrantless claim, and one that doesn’t really square with the evidence, given that Hillary Clinton said she would be open to constitutional restrictions on late abortions so long as they included exceptions for the life and health of the mother.

(6) The Democrats “enable Antifa,” even though most majority Democratic leaders like Nancy Pelosi openly condemned Antifa and violent protestors, and even Vox – which Crowder wants to paint as some kind of far-left, progressive outlet (when in fact it’s a favorite of centrist wonks) – ran a piece expressly making a case against Antifa.

Crowder then argues that the right is only “polarized” in the sense that it is aligning itself with the truth against the open falsehoods of “the left”/Democrats/progressives, a nebulous group he clearly ill understands. Given how incapable Crowder is of articulating the basic beliefs of the Democrats and the left, and of owning up to the anti-governance of the GOP post-2010, I’m going to go ahead and give the win to Maza, who at least doesn’t misrepresent sources, make wild claims without any evidence, and seriously mishandle the evidence he uses to advance his own side.

So at the end of all of this, I find it hard to come to any other conclusion than this: if you see Crowder filming a “Change My Mind” segment near you, don’t go expecting a real debate. When presented with a reasonable (but, of course, completely debatable) video, Crowder does everything but directly clash with the argument at hand. Just because someone proclaims themselves to be invested in debate doesn’t mean that they’re worth engaging. Based on how Crowder characterizes the GOP in this video – ahistorical and evidence-deficient as it is – and his own argumentative methodologies, Crowder thinks that he and fellow conservatives know all the answers, and that presenting arguments against them necessarily means falling into the “false” side of a “true/false” binary. If that’s Crowder’s view of the world, there’s no debate, no changing of mind, no reasoned discourse. It’s the all-too-familiar mantra of “you’re with us or you’re against us.” Facing that worldview, you might as well debate the brick wall in front of which Crowder sits.

[patriotsnet]

How Did The Democrats And Republicans Switch

New Post has been published on https://www.patriotsnet.com/how-did-the-democrats-and-republicans-switch/

How Did The Democrats And Republicans Switch

The Fifth Party System And American Liberalism And Conservatism

In more modern times we can to look at the Fifth Party System in which race, social justice, the currency debate, religious issues like Temperance and Prohibition, and other issues of modernization seen in earlier systems had already split the parties into many factions. In this era, we can see a telling split by comparing the socially conservative anti-communist classical liberal Republican Hoover to the big government pro-worker social liberal Democrat FDR .

To fully grasp what happens from Hoover and FDR on, itll help to quickly discuss American liberalism and conservatism and how they relate to other ideologies like progressivism.

Although we can see shadows of most modern political ideologies in any age of recorded history by looking to old nation-states like , , and  or to revolutionary Britain, America, and France, American liberalism and conservatism undergo a noticeable change in the Gilded Age and Progressive era. Given this, the general tension over social issues, and thus the use of government, can be described in modern times as being between a few general political ideologies:

NOTE: Many elites are classical liberals and/or conservatives, yet most issues discussed in politics between voters are social issues . For example, almost everyone on K street and Wall Street are neoliberals and neoconservatives, yet the average voter votes on social justice issues. Think about it.

With That Said It Is More Complex Than We Can Just Say

With everything thus far said, we have only skimmed the surface.

The truth is, be we talking about the South or not, not every faction changes, and we have to account for more history than can fit in any essay. We have to account for changing platforms, changing voter bases, congressional changes over decades, battles between factions within states and parties, the changing ideologies of factions and parties, technological changes of automation and modernization, business interested elites in both parties who tend to organize better and dominate, populists in both parties who cant always agree on divisive social issues, the general rift between key voter issues and social issues vs. economic issues, arguments over the size of state within parties, voter issues taking on new importances, single issue third parties, global politics, and so much else to fully tell this story.

This is to say, the history of the major U.S. political parties if of course more complex than can just be said which is why we use like parties switched and party systems to preface this long in depth essay.

Three Factions Of Modern Republicans To Oppose This

Although conservatism is complex, it is defined well as an opposition philosophy to liberalism. Through this lens, there is a type of conservatism that stands against for brand of liberalism. Modern American conservatism wants to conserve, which means not being progressive on a given issue and which by its nature is not conservative. Thus we get modern social conservatism which says no to social programs and federal power, except when it upholds conservative social values. There is also a more liberal version that we call libertarianism. It is against all uses of state power for any reason and is a form of radical classical liberalism, combined with traditional classical conservatism, which is willing to use federal power to keep order, but not inherently against social programs. These factions can be said to become allies the conservative coalition mentioned above, although the establishment of both parties tends to favor aspects of traditional classical conservatism.

TIP: When either party uses government power, they are traditional conservatives, when either party deregulates and lets the private market and individuals handle it, they are classically liberal. More than one ideology uses classical liberalism, and more than one uses classical conservatism, as all political ideologies grow out of these foundational ideologies.

An Overview Of The Platform Switching By Party System And President From The Founders To Eisenhower

The First and Second Party Systems included some important changes and debates. Examples included the argument over the favored , and the Anti-Federalist favored Articles of Confederation and Bill of Rights and debates over slavery, , and  Major changes began at the end of the Second Party System.

The Second Party system ended with the Whig Party dissolving in 1854. They were critically divided by the Kansas-Nebraska Act and the related debate over manifest destiny and popular sovereignty . The heated battle over whether Kansas should be a slave state, and the debate over whether the south could keep expanding southward creating slave states, resulted in the country being split. This had happened in the Mexican-American war. One faction became the Northern Republicans and their allies the Union, who wanted to hold together the Union under a strong central government. The other became the Southern ex-Democrats and their allies the Confederacy, who wanted independence and wanted to expand southward, to for instance Cuba, creating new slave states. By the time Lincoln took office in 1861, the division was inescapable

FACT: The tension was so great the Democratic party ceased to exist from 1861 1865 as the Confederacy rejected the concept of party systems; which is why we refer to them ex-Democrats above.

The post-Reconstruction Gilded Age and Third Party System resulted in a progressive populist era aptly known as the Fourth Party progressive era 1890s 1932 .

Democratic And Republican Ideologies Undergo Dramatic Role Reversal

The Democratic and Republican Parties have undergone a long transition from their founding ideological principles. The started out as the conservative party but are now the liberal party, and the were once the liberal party but are now the conservative party.

The Democratic Party we know today evolved from the conservative Democratic-Republican Party of the 1790s. The first contested Presidential election was in 1796. The Democratic-Republican Party nominated the conservative Thomas Jefferson as their first presidential nominee. Party members were anti-federalists who favored state sovereignty, free markets, a decentralized federal government, and an originalist interpretation of the U.S. Constitution and the attendant Bill of Rights. The Democratic-Republican Party also supported the institution of slavery.

Democratic President Martin Van Buren presided over the panic of 1837, and during that time he was steadfastly opposed to using the government as a means of employing workers on public works projects. In fact, during this economic depression Van Buren literally sold the federal governments tool supply so that the government could not use the tools for public works projects. This ideological mindset is diametrically opposite of the economic stimulus proposals that contemporary Democrats now support and advocate for, especially during periods of economic morass.

Legislative Seats Lost Under Obama

Between the time of World War II and the end of the second term of President George W. Bush in January 2009, the political party of an outgoing two-term president or consecutive political party administration lost an average of 450 state legislative seats. During President Obama’s two terms in office, Democrats experienced a net loss of 968 state legislative seats, the largest net loss of state legislative seats in this category since World War II. The second-largest loss occurred following Dwight D. Eisenhower’s two terms in office, when were handed a net loss of 843 state legislative seats. President Ronald Reagan was the only president to increase his party’s number of state legislative seats over his two terms in office, gaining six total seats across all 50 state legislatures.

How The Republicans Became Socially Conservative

The Fourth Party Republicans began to change when the Progressive Republican Theodore Teddy Roosevelt broke from the party in 1912 . Following the break, the Republicans increasingly embraced social conservatism and opposed social progressivism . From Harding to Hoover, to Nixon, to Bush they increasingly favored classical liberalism regarding individual and states rights over central authority. This attracted some socially conservative Democrats like states rights Dixiecrat Strom Thurmon. It resulted in a of the Republican party and drove some progressive Republicans from the party over time.

TIP: See History of the United States Republican Party.

How Republicans Made Common Cause With Southern Democrats On Economic Matters

Map: Vox. Data: Barry Hirsch, David Macpherson, Wayne Vroman, “Estimates of Union Density by State.”

Roosevelts reforms also brought tensions in the Democratic coalition to the surface, as the solidly Democratic South wasnt too thrilled with the expansion of unions or federal power generally. As the years went on, Southern Democrats increasingly made common cause with the Republican Party to try to block any further significant expansions of government or worker power.

“In 1947, confirming a new alliance that would recast American politics for the next two generations, Taft men began to work with wealthy southern Democrats who hated the New Deals civil rights legislation and taxes,” Cox Richardson writes. This new alliance was cemented with the Taft-Hartley bill, which permitted states to pass right-to-work laws preventing mandatory union membership among employees and many did.

Taft-Hartley “stopped labor dead in its tracks at a point where unions were large, growing, and confident in their economic and political power,” Rich Yeselson has written. You can see the eventual effects above pro-Democratic unions were effectively blocked from gaining a foothold in the South and interior West, and the absence of their power made those regions more promising for Republicans’ electoral prospects.

Those Racist Dixiecrats Create Mainstream Republican Policy

But their ideas formed modern GOPs core platform.

In a campaign ad, Democrat-turned-Republican Jesse Helms said racial quotas prevented white people from getting jobs. The lie of racial quotas persists in the GOPs rejection of affirmative action. Racial quotas are illegal.

Take the idea of special interests. Heres Helms view, as a Republican:

Are civil rights only for Negroes? While women in Washington who have been raped and mugged on the streets in broad daylight have experienced the most revolting sort of violation of their civil rights. The hundreds of others who have had their purses snatched by Negro hoodlums may understandably insist that their right to walk the street unmolested was violated. Television commentary, 1963, quoted in The Charlotte Observer.

But you would think that Ted Cruz would have a clearer understanding of the connections between the Dixiecrats and the Republican Party.

He loves Jesse Helms.

Looking to do your part? One way to get involved is to read the Indivisible Guide, which is written by former congressional staffers and is loaded with best practices for making Congress listen. Or follow this publication, connect with us on , and join us on Facebook.

A General Summary Of The Party Switching And Party Systems

Above I offered summaries in the for of bullet  pointed lists. Below Ill try to weave everything together into a story to offer another perspective:

As America became increasingly progressive over time, from 1776 forward, different socially conservative and socially liberal movements banded together to create the parties of each of the 6-7 Party Systems .

This caused different social-minded factions to align with different business-minded factions over time , and this changed the parties .

Oddly enough, this resulted in the previously Small Government Populist Democratic Party becoming the party of Big Government, Neoliberalism, Progressivism, Globalization, and Social Liberalism, and the previously Big Government Aristocratic party Republican Party becoming the party of Small Government , Nativism, and Social Conservatism. Oddly again, despite the changes the Republicans have always been Protectionist, Nationalist, and Stricter on immigration . On that note, it is very important to understand that immigration changed the Democratic Party as they embraced new non-Anglo Protestant immigrants over time.

The tricky thing to grasp is that some conservatives want to conserve back to a time that they feel they had more freedom and that progressive social liberalism requires Big Government to implement.

How the Republican Party went from Lincoln to Trump.

An Introduction To The Different Types Of Democrats And Republicans: This Is A Story Of Factions Switching And Parties Changing

I cant stress this enough, a major thing that changes in history is the Southern Social Conservative one-party voting bloc .

This is the easy thing to explain given the conservative Souths historically documented support of figures like , John Breckenridge and his Socially Conservative Confederates of the Southern Democratic Party, , the other Byrd who ran for President, , C. Wallace, , and later conservative figures like Reagan, Bush, and Trump .

The problem isnt showing the changes related to this, or showing the progressive southerners like LBJ, the Gores, and Bill Clinton arent of the same exact breed as the socially conservative south, the problem is that the party loyalty of the conservative south is hardly the only thing that changes, nor is it the only thing going on in American history .

Not only that, but here we have to note that the north and south have its own factions, Democrats and Republicans have their own factions, and each region and state has its own factions and that gives us many different types of Democrats and Republicans.

Consider, Lindsey Graham essentially inherited Strom Thurmonds seat, becoming the next generation of solid south South Carolina conservative, now solidly in the Republican party.

was all about a Democrat spraying a at a Democrats, while the Democrats sent in the national guard to stop the protestors, while a Democrat told the guard to stand down.

The Claim: The Democratic Party Started The Civil War To Preserve Slavery And Later The Kkk

As America marks a month of protests against systemic racism and many people draw comparisons between current events and the Civil Rights Movement, an oversimplified trope about the Democratic Partys racist past has been resurrected online.

Many Instagram users read between the lines for the tweets implication about the modern Democratic and Republican parties. Some argued this past action discredited current liberal policies, while others said it did not matter.

Historians agree that although factions of the Democratic Party did majorly contribute to the Civil War’s start and the KKK’s founding, it is inaccurate to say the party is responsible for either.

When Did The Democratic And Republican Platforms Switch

As noted above, the planks, platforms, ideologies and even the names of the American political parties switched often, and at many different points. We call these changes: the first party system, second party system, third party system, fourth party system, and todays fifth party system .

Some changes stick out like a sore thumb, but most of the changes between party systems happened slowly over time. Its hard to summarize or detail every issue, but the keys are names like Free Soil, Free Silver, Bourbon Democrats, anti-slavery Republicans, Stalwarts, Half-Breeds, American Independent, and other telling titles of factions or third parties whose members inevitably have gravitated toward a major party over time.

When we cant cut through the rhetoric, we can look at voting records to see which party favored what.

Its important to note, that the current parties werent established until the 1850s . From this point forward is when the major switching happens, but it is also when issues we consider important today take center stage for the first time. When Lincoln takes office, the Republican party is only a few years old, prior to this the ideology is roughly the same and they are called Federalists, and then Whigs. The same is true for anti-Federalists, Democratic-Republicans, and Jacksonian Democrats.

Perhaps the best answer to, when did the platforms switch, is: under Lincoln, the Roosevelts, and LBJ.

The Myth Of The Republican

When faced with the sobering reality that Democrats supported slavery, started the Civil War when the abolitionist Republican Party won the Presidency, established the Ku Klux Klan to brutalize newly freed slaves and keep them from voting, opposed the Civil Rights Movement, modern-day liberals reflexively perpetuate rather pernicious myth–that the racist southern Democrats of the 1950s and 1960s became Republicans, leading to the so-called “switch” of the parties.

This is as ridiculous as it is easily debunked.   

The Republican Party, of course, was founded in 1848 with the abolition of slavery as its core mission. Almost immediately after its second presidential candidate, Abraham Lincoln, won the 1860 election, Democrat-controlled southern states seceded on the assumption that Lincoln would destroy their slave-based economies.

Once the Civil War ended, the newly freed slaves as expected flocked to the Republican Party, but Democrat control of the South from Reconstruction until the Civil Rights Era was near total.  In 1960, Democrats held every Senate seat south of the Mason-Dixon line.  In the 13 states that made up the Confederacy a century earlier, Democrats held a staggering 117-8 advantage in the House of Representatives.  The Democratic Party was so strong in the south that those 117 House members made up a full 41% of Democrats’ 283-153 advantage in the Chamber.

So how did this myth of a sudden “switch” get started?

It would not be the last time they used it.

How Republicans Gave Up On Reforming The South

University of North Carolina

As mentioned above, Republicans had done a lot to help former slaves in the South, but many of the gains they had made existed more on paper than in practice, and others were in danger of being rolled back.

And indeed, the backlash soon arrived. In the South, whites were dead set against what Radicals had done, and were willing to use violence to fight it.

In the North, whites essentially thought they’d done more than enough for black Southerners at this point. Businessmen wanted their own interests to take center stage. Some intellectuals worried about the federal government squelching states rights.

And public opinion turned there was little appetite among white Northerners for an indefinite violent federal occupation of the South.

But most Republicans no longer cared. The party had achieved its founding aim and had gone quite a bit further, since the Slave Power was now a thing of the past, and that provided a handy rationalization for not doing more. The cause of equal rights for black citizens would now essentially vanish from national American politics for decades.

Never Trumpers Will Want To Read This History Lesson

In the 1850s, disaffected Democrats made the wrenching choice to leave their party to save American democracy. Hereâs what happened.

âI was educated a Democrat from my boyhood,â a Republican delegate confided to his colleagues at Iowaâs constitutional convention in 1857. âFaithfully, I did adhere to that party until I could no longer act with it. Many things did I condemn ere I left that party, for my love of party was strong. And when I did, at last, feel compelled to separate from my old Democratic friends, it was like tearing myself away from old home associations.â

As often seems the case today, American politics in the 1850s were nearly all-consuming and stubbornly tribal. So it was hardâand bitterly soâfor hundreds of thousands of Northern Democrats to abandon the political organization that had long formed the backbone of their civic identity. Yet they came over the course of a decade to believe that the Jacksonian Democratic Party had degenerated into something thoroughly autocratic and corrupt. It had fallen so deeply in the thrall of the Slave Power that it posed an existential threat to American democracy.

Placing the sanctity of the nation above the narrow bonds of party, these Democrats joined in common cause with former Whig antagonists in the epic struggle to save the United States from its own darker instincts.

***

***

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But history offers them some consolation.

After The War Radical Republicans Fight For Rights For Black Americans

When states ratified the 14th Amendment. Republicans required some Southern states to ratify it to be readmitted to the Union.

For a very brief period after the end of the Civil War, Republicans truly fought for the rights of black Americans. Frustrated by reports of abuses of and violence against former slaves in the postwar South, and by the inaction of Lincolns successor, Andrew Johnson, a faction known as the Radicals gained increasing sway in Congress.

The Radicals drove Republicans to pass the countrys first civil rights bill in 1866, and to fight for voting rights for black men at a time when such an idea was still controversial even in the North.

Furthermore, Republicans twice managed to amend the Constitution, so that it now stated that everyone born in the United States is a citizen, that all citizens should have equal protection of the law, and that the right to vote couldnt be denied because of race. And they required Southern states to legally enact many of these ideas at least in principle to be readmitted to the Union.

These are basic bedrocks of our society today, but at the time they were truly radical. Just a few years earlier, the idea that a major party would fight for the rights of black citizens to vote in state elections would have been unthinkable.

Unfortunately, however, this newfound commitment wouldnt last for much longer.

The Solid South Switch And Southern Strategy

Although it is hardly the only switch that happens in American political history, the Solid South Switch , is both one of the easiest to spot, easiest to prove, and one of the most impactful switches.

The Deep South, unlike most of the country, has often had a one-party system at the state level , and that makes them an easy place to look for changes .

To prove the switch, we can first confirm southern political history up to the 1950s via works like V.O. Keys Southern Politics in State and Nation .

In his classic work of political realism, Key documents the history of the South to explain that what we might describe as Progressive Reformist Populists, Southern Socially Conservative Populists, Small Government Libertarians, agrarian Southern Conservative business people, and Bourbon Liberal Pro-Business  were all Solidly in the Democratic Party in the South from the Gilded Age to the start of the 1950s.

This isnt to say there werent progressive Republican factions, Gilded Age small business pro-Gold Libertarian-like Republicans, or America-First Know-Nothing Republicans in the North and South, this is to say, we are talking about the dominate solid south factions who vote in lock-step here .

From the start of the 1950s on, we can then confirm the consequent changes via the Republican southern strategies .

Then we can show how, even though not everything changes, this led to a switch over party stances on key voter issues.

The South And The House Go Republican

Jonathan Davis, Arizona State University

“I think we just delivered the South to the Republican Party for a long time to come,” President Johnson said shortly after signing the Civil Rights Act, according to his aide . And indeed, Sen. Strom Thurmond of South Carolina switched his party affiliation from Democratic to Republican specifically for this reason.

Yet party loyalties take a long time to shake off, and the shift of white Southerners from being solid Democrats to solid Republicans was in reality more gradual.

And while race played an important role in this shift, other issues played roles too. White evangelical Christians became newly mobilized to oppose abortion and take stands on other “culture war” issues, and felt more at home with the conservative party. There was that suspicion of big government and lack of union organization that permeated the region. And talented politicians like Ronald Reagan promised to defend traditional values.

Still, Democrats continued to maintain control of the House of Representatives for some time, in large part because of continued support from Southerners, as shown in this map by Jonathan Davis at Arizona State University. But in 1994, the revolution finally arrived, as Republicans took the House for the first time since 1955. And many of the crucial pickups that made that possible came in the South.

Democratic Losses In State Legislative Seats

During Obama’s tenure, Democrats lost members in 82 of the 99 state legislative chambers across the country. These losses were most visible in both chambers of the and West Virginia state legislatures as well as the state senate chambers in and .

The following table illustrates five largest losses in state legislative seats during President Obama’s two terms in office. Rankings were adjusted to account for varying sizes of legislative chambers.

Top five Democratic losses in state legislative seats, 2009-2017 Chamber

A Summary Of Party Systems Realigning Elections And Switching Factions In The Major Us Political Parties

Now that we have the essential basics down, lets do an overview of all the changes .

Historians refer to the eras the changes resulted in as party systems.

Each party system is defined by realigning elections or otherwise important elections like the elections of , , , , , , , , , , , , , , and , key voter issues of the day like states rights, workers rights, social welfare, equal rights, central banking, and currency debates, and which factions were in which parties at the time like the New Deal Coalition and Conservative Coalition .

To make things simple , we can say the red and blue statesflipped between the Third and Sixth Party Systems  as the battle between the Union and Confederacy during the Civil War gave way to ,  , and the Gilded Age, which gave way to the Democratic Party   William Jennings Bryan and the Fourth Party Progressive Era, which led to Theodore Roosevelts split from the Conservative Taft and exit from the Republicans along with his progressives, which led to the Republicans becoming increasingly classically liberal and conservative starting in the 1920s under figures like Harding, Coolidge, and Hoover, which led to the the Democrats becoming increasingly socially progressive under FDR in the 1930s at the start of the Fifth Party System, which led to the solid south conservative states rights faction of the Democratic party favoring the Republicans in the post-64 Sixth Party system by the  election .