As Israel is becoming an increasingly brown country consisting of jews from MENA countries and religious fanatic ultra orthodox groups it is going to be hard to push the narrative that Israel is a pro western country. Israel has a long history of oppressing Christians, is causing chaos in the middle east and is doing extensive lobbying.
Which group is supposed to be supporting the west? The ultra left LGBTQ groups in Tel Aviv? The ultra orthodox? Ben Gvir talking about moving millions of Palestinians and creating a migrant tsunami?
What makes the zionist narrative difficult is that the ADL, AIPAC and the average Likud voter aren't really representing Matt Walsh base. Mainstream republicanism seems to be a wide tent as long as they are Israel first. The Israel first part is an increasingly difficult sell. They can pander Matt walsh as legitimate because he satisfies the jewish donors but he won't have the same appeal to the base. The base won't see him as more legit.
functor
16hr ago
Ukraine has a tfr of 0.98, Russia at 1.41, Russia's is 44% higher. Also Russia has immigration of ethnic Russians from former soviet countries. Ukraine is experiencing an exodus combined with south korean birth rates...
functor
1d ago
Most likely massive exaggerations of Russian incompetence, a massive downplaying of Ukrainian successes, huge depletions of western stockpiles, wild levels of corruption and a war based on slogans rather than reality. It will be hard to sell Russia is collapsing, Ukraine are uber mench as Ukraine is falling apart. They are way more loudly invested in this fiasco than some fiascos in the Middle East. It will be embarrassing when the charade falls apart.
functor
1d ago
Ukraine was Russia for centuries, it was still Ukrainian. Ukraine now has collapsing demographics and will end up being completely replaced.Their culture will be some washed out American culture and their population will be Pakistani workers extracting resources for black rock. There is no force that is more culturally corrosive than western liberalism.
Ukraine wasn't even a part of Russia. There are parts of Russia with strong cultures. Ukraine would easily have remained Ukrainian.
functor
1d ago
While London is 50+% non British? Ukrainian culture will be as deconstructed as western culture and replaced by bland American consumerism while their population will be replaced by Bangladeshis extracting resources owned by western financial institutes. Ukraine's demographics rival South Korea's as the most catastrophic on Earth while they are allying with people who want mass migration with incredible fervor.
Don't think the Black rock owned plantation is going to have an HR department that cares about traditional Ukrainian culture or that the Nigerians working there have any interest in it.
functor
1d ago
, wants to suppress the Ukrainian language, indoctrinate their children into Russian culture with its own historical narratives
Unlike the western globalists who would never ever do something to dismantle a country's ethnic and cultural heritage...
If they want ethnic Ukrainian culture Macron and Keir Starmer are their worst nightmare.
functor
1d ago
Half the population of Gaza are children, I don't think most woke people advocate for mass murdering people in non woke countries.
Also Israel's goal is to create a massive refugee crisis on Europe's doorstep. In other words, Israel is trying to export Palestine to the west.
functor
1d ago
I would say it is a result of hyper moralism, a view of history that reads francis fukuyama as a prophet and the dumbing down of politics. The way Russians are being treated is similar to how transphobes were treated during peak wokeness. They can't be acknowledged to have any legitimate concerns, they are motivated by evil and we all have to performatively show our disgust on social media. It becomes impossible to have a sane, rational and calm debate regarding topics when they go BLM 2020.
We can't have a debate regarding war aims, what the security architecture of Europe should look like, whether pax Americana is feasible in a world in which the US is 17% of global GDP or whether Ukraine in NATO even makes sense. Just like we couldn't have a calm, rational debate about what defund the police will actually look like. There is just people performatively screeching slogans.
This has some roots back to the Afghanistan war. We could never have a debate or calm discussion. It couldn't be treated like a normal war because we were fighting "terrorists" and that apparently justified anything. Nobody could explain a path to victory, just slogans. It is amazing that it took five months from 20 years of Afghanistan fiasco to the start of the next forever war. At least after Vietnam there was a long cool down period.
Also it took years for the true scale of lying and issues in Vietnam, Afghanistan and Iraq to be revealed by whistle blowers. During those wars the media was far more critical than they are now. Sooner or later there will be a Daniel Ellsberg of Ukraine and most likely we will find out the lies and propaganda for this war were at least as spectacular as they were in the previous wars.
functor
4d ago
He wasn't supporting Harris because he supported wokeness, he supported her because the republicans aren't delivering. The strategy of voting republican no matter how poorly they serve their base only causes the base to get trampled. If the Republicans can count on votes no matter what, there is no reason for the republicans to consider the base's interests.
The republican establishment needs the threat of the base going against them in order to keep the establishment delivering.
functor
5d ago
The Tories are dying, the CDU is dying, mainstream republicanism is dying. The "right wing" elite has little to offer its voters and consistently fail. People aren't voting republicans for more wars in the middle east, cheap Indian labour and a deregulated wall street.
They try to brand Fuentes as extreme when his policies are having an immigration policy that would make America far safer, more cohesive and that would benefit labour. Meanwhile, we are supposed to pretend that invading Iraq was sensible Milquetoast policy.
The left has a similar problem in that establishment Democrat policies don't deliver to their base either. Parading the first DEI person at some post while delivering neoliberal economics isn't what the base desires. Most likely we are going to see a revolt within both parties that turns both sides into internal shit shows. The establishment controls the campaigns and the seats, the base refuses to vote and to do activism.
functor
5d ago
A big part of it is ignoring structural incentives created by political changes. "I can get divorced if I want to get divorced" souds great. But it also creates the incentive structures that causes men to pump and dump women on tinder. "I can sue my ex for tonnes of child support"- sounds great, but my boyfriend of seven years doesn't want to get engaged, doesn't. The thinking is only in one step, government gives me stuff, I want stuff. Not what are the actual consequences of this.
Women can dress however they like sounds lovely. Women are dressing in hyper sexualized ways and compete by having translucent leggings as pants and thong bikinis doesn't sound great. You can't have women competing, no rules regarding dress and not expect women to outbid the competition by showing skin.
functor
8d ago
Reagan was a neocon globalist. A strong focus on military interventionism, free trade and shipping jobs abroad. He didn't really focus on America but a globalized American empire.
functor
8d ago
Vietnam has low taxes, social conservatism and super business friendly policies while having hammer and sickle flags along the streets and a political system that celebrates Lenin. The republicans are going to talk about how great Reagan was while under no circumstances wanting to talk about his policies since Reagan's agenda are pretty much the opposite of MAGA. Republicans will like the aesthetic while refusing to even acknowledge the ideas.
functor
9d ago
I find it strange, we live in a self centered era in which people care a lot about image and status. In a social media fueled age in which cosmetic surgery is doing better than ever I would have expected people to spend more effort than ever on looks.
functor
12d ago
My guess is that a lot of streamers are cheating. The pro players have to train for hours a day, manage competition and then stream for hours. While IQ is a primary requirement for becoming a chess pro, mental stamina is essential for success. Streaming requires working on regular hours even if one is tired or not in the mood. While streaming, the viewers want fast decisions and the streamer is supposed to quickly find brilliant moves and analyzes on the fly.
Cheating on streams is probably less about improving play and probably more about mentally offloading the streamer.
functor
12d ago
The same could have been said for the Algerians who then took their land back.
Being given a deal where you are evicted from your ancestral homeland and forced out into the desert with no right to even return to the place you where born because some Eastern Europeans claim it is theirs is absurd.
functor
14d ago
It is easier than that. Journalists are basically rehashing press releases and are doing little actual reporting. Start a think tank and start producing press releases and your "reporting" will seep into the media as factual news. Buying entire institutions is obviously the most powerful tool but there are many less powerful tools that are cheap. Get social media influencers to promote your cause.
functor
18d ago
What else does the mainstream left have then the nazi-scare? Free medical care, cheap housing and no more forever wars are popular policies with the base but the elite veto these policies. Trans ideology is losing steam and winning 50+% of votes on trans issues and BLM isn't going to work. What are they going to run on? Free trade fundamentalism, open borders migration and increased deficit spending? The only other issue that they really could run on is a repeat of the inflation reduction act. However, this would require massive deficit spending.
The democrats have Trump = Putin and Trump = Hitler. Other than that they have few policies of their own that they could actually win on.
functor
19d ago
Dotcom bubble was a bubble because there were no users. The reasoning was along the lines of 20% of all shoe sales in 2010 will be online. Company x has started to sell shoes online so in 10 years they will make billions. They had no sales and no where close to amazon's supply chain.
Chatgpt has millions of daily users. This is more akin to the boom of companies created when the world got smart phones. Those companies made money.
functor
19d ago
We are going to win a trade war with China! We are going to bring the factories home!
A few companies add a few GW of base load demand and people start freaking out. The failure to build electricity has got to be one of the largest self owns ever.
functor
19d ago
Unemployment is low and humans have been replaced by machines for 250 years. If anything we would stagnate if we were unable to boost productivity.
There are other productivity improvements from AI, such customer service outside of office hours speeding up bureaucratic processes, rapid prototyping and making it easier to start companies and more. This should improve the overall economy.
functor
19d ago
People underestimate the size of the labour market. Replacing 1% of global labour is tens of millions of workers. The cost isn't just the salary, employees are expensive. The AI companies set the bar too high by promising AGI and replacing the majority of all coders and other promises that won't materialize. Luckily, they don't even have to come close to those lofty goals for AI to have a massive impact.
People need to reflect upon the fact that a mayor race of a US city is having an ethnic group's view of its homeland as the main issue. Imagine if a significant US city was having its election being about the Sudanese communities view of the mayor's Sudan policy. The absolute level of capture and control by a lobby of a small country is reason enough to vote for anyone opposed to it.
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