For those unfamiliar with Minnesotan language, that’s what this vow is.
He will fight Project 2025 as state governor, which does give him powers the president can’t just take. “While working to understand the appeal” means he acknowledges that Magats are idiots and will also work on a way to get through their thick skulls to also reject the Presidents agenda.
Minnesota nice is fun :)
Edit: another interpretation would be he said to Trump supporters: “Y’all need Jesus.”
I’m kinda in love with Walz right now. Hopefully he’ll be my governor soon™. Fuck Greg Abbott. Just hope I manage to get out before Texas fascists go full nuts.
You could also come over to Illinois. It’s shaping up to be a stronhold for the Trump resistance as well.
I’m looking into learning Dutch and going to Denmark, tbh. Cruz winning, Abbott, Paxton, Patrick, and the rest being complete Trumpian ass-slurpers does not give me any hope for Texas going Blue
I can barely see him from over the pond but he seems somewhat decent
If I’m not mistaken, his policies are a big reason why Minnesota is one of the big LGBT travel destinations right now. I think he was the governor who signed legal weed into law and supported really strong trans and LGBT healthcare bills that do things like force health insurance to cover gender-affirming care.
About weed, funniest shit, republicans didn’t understand the language in a bill pushing for hemp-derived edibles and decided to push it through lol https://www.npr.org/2022/07/02/1109576113/minnesota-thc-edibles-accident-delta-8
I think that’s a different bill than our smokeable marijuana bill but you gotta appreciate the irony
After an amendment passed unanimously during a Minnesota legislative session in May, state Sen. Abeler jokingly said: “That doesn’t legalize marijuana — we just didn’t do that, did we?”
And nothing was learned, yet again.
Not true. We learned that apparently being decent, caring, and empathetic won’t win against racism, misogyny, homophobia, transphobia, and hate.
Jesus, when it’s put that way… Holy fuck. We’re not in a good place
I am fucking astounded that there is still a disconnect even with high level Democrats who can’t seem to grasp that much of America is living in a completely alternate reality because of the right-wing propaganda machine, exacerbated by foreign adversaries like Russia.
Lichtman’s (one saving grace from this election I never have to hear about this charlatan) keys prove this because he never accounts for the disconnect between what we see versus those in the echo-chamber perceive.
The megaphone of disinformation and sowing of distrust of traditional media, in my view, was the single biggest reason for our loss.
I would have posted this as a post if not violative of Rule 1, but Jon Stewart’s The Weekly Show posted a great episode yesterday with a very thoughtful political theorist guest. It focuses on why the disinformation campaigns are responsible for this election.
In short: We have already reached a point where real policy and positions is no match for propaganda. Political power was decisively proven this election to derive from creating and exploiting a false reality, with multiple groups in Trump’s coalition directly and decisively voting against their interests because they simply believed Trump more than reality. In Russia this is called “political technology” and Trump followed that playbook exactly.
Is it even possible to learn that lesson in time? I don’t think so - I think we missed our last chance. Because Trump’s campaign so effectively recognized this, we can also expect them to recognize that media cannot be allowed to be independent and control of the media is how they maintain that false reality. Like Hitler, like Putin, like Xi, expect that Trump’s team - given free rein by his sycophantic House, Senate and Supreme court - will ruthlessly crack down on free press. I’d be shocked if it doesn’t happen in the first few months.
We’re about to enter a very dark time, and by the midterms, it’s likely that even with a “free and fair” election, it will be so tainted by state-sponsored misinformation there is no hope of the public voting out the right.
I watched that as well yesterday. Somber albeit pointed episode. Political theology nails it because we’re entering a phase (see Michael Flynn going around promoting the Christian Nationalist movement) where GOP leadership is elevated to a religious faith. And we all know arguments of reason or ethics do not work on those whose belief set is forged on blind faith and loyalty.
It’s probably best that we hope for the best and expect the worst. At this point, it seems the only way things will course-correct is when it all comes crashing down. And that won’t be pretty for anyone.
You just explained precisely why I’m working on a plan to get out. This country is no longer safe for my family.
You have any good candidates to suggest?
There are no safe havens for multiple reasons… there are places you can probably guess will be less bad… but there are potential worse consequences for each. For example :
- US military power already far exceeds that of every other country on Earth. It is not post WWI 🇩🇪 rearming after licking its wounds. If you go somewhere that “resists,” there is no guarantee you won’t fall under its 🎯
- COVID has seemed to have a lasting effect EVERYWHERE in the world. Look how many other countries have now elected far right wing officials. In 🇩🇪, the non-right coalition government has just collapsed.
- as an immigrant in any of those countries with newly elected right-wing anti-immigrant governments, you will be the first they punish for any perceived failures of said governments to improve their existing citizenry’s lives.
In truth, despite things like inflation getting “better” overall and other economic indicators seeming to point to improvement, an overwhelming number of constituents who participate in voting across the world have felt pain from price increases without sufficient wage increases to offset that pain… and without action being taken that “feels” like it improves people’s material conditions, they are further ripened for the 🐂-💩 scapegoating of demagogues who gladly lie to pretend they will make their lives better… so everywhere they are being elected.
It’s not fair, but history shows us this is what happens…
Thank you for that. I’m not normally a podcast watcher and didn’t know Jon had one. I’ll check it out!
Yeah billionaires with their finger on the media scale. We can’t allow them to get away with this.
Not much we can do, is there?
We lick our wounds and then we organize and prepare starting now and not wait until the next election
If that’s the terrain you have to fight on, there’s not much you can do about it.
There is, but the solution comes before the indoctrination. It’s much easier to vaccinate and inoculate before being infected with the mental illness. After that, the best defense really is just a bullet. You can’t operate a functional democracy when the majority of the population are demented and actively working to tear it apart.
Well said. I hesitate to say I’ve studied this but it’s been a subject of passion of mine for some time now, and I’ve written long write-ups on how to, as you say exactly, inoculate people from mis/disinformation. However, once people lose their anchor to reality, it is extremely hard to get them back.
Are there ways out of our predicament? Maybe. And that’s a big maybe. Our moves have to be perfect from hereon out but even so… We may be beyond the point of no return and now the whole thing may have to come crashing down.
Have you learned anything useful on inoculation and deprogramming? I’ve been looking as well but haven’t found much.
Is it like you say, have a true set of idea anchors? But still what if it’s a false anchor?
On a widespread scale, or say individually with someone you know?
Generally speaking, you need to treat it like a substance addiction. For these people, this alternate reality is an escapism; the reaction of anger to fear & disgust is actually a physical addiction; the neural pathways become entrenched and habituated to an extent that anything counter this quite literally takes more mental effort to trudge through — like going off the beaten path and into the jungle.
What this means is cutting off the source and putting them into rehab; in this case, rehab being you having their undivided attention for a couple weeks until you can break through. As you can see, the problem is that (1) You are competing with someone who has a cellphone in their hands 24/7 and you cannot compete with that, time-wise. (2) Even if you can convince this person to go out on a camping trip with you, it takes a certain tact and relationship to actually raise this without entirely burning the bridge and having them shut down.
People fall down this rabbit-hole most frequently due to self-loathing or trauma. It’s why the likes of incels are such easy targets. Lonely, young men being told wrong advice get upset that said advice isn’t working and they just get increasingly radicalized. It’s just another example of Shock Doctrine as described by Naomi Klein. When people are broken down and at their most vulnerable, they are most susceptible to radical changes in personality.
It’s another reason why men in their mid-life crisis also run through this. “It’s the immigrant to blame for me being jobless; not me!”
My family across several generations shifted from being Republican to progressive Democrat. The circumstances for us was unique and I don’t even know if we could’ve broken out in this day compared to 20-years-ago.
The other boring answer is good education, but that’s a long-term investment that takes so long to yield results, and even that is being undermined at every turn. Healthy community; healthy idols can be anchors. They have for me, anyway.
You might be interested in the documentary, “The Brainwashing of My Dad.” It ends on a somewhat positive note.
I’ll check out the documentary, and thanks for your reply.
I agree, my working conclusion for a while has been that I can’t compete with the phone and to focus on my wellbeing by reducing contact.
