Capital_Room
rather dementor-like
Disabled Alaskan Monarchist doomer
User ID: 2666
Capital_Room
rather dementor-like
2d ago
If I had to take a swipe at how it might be different I could see there being a luddite/anti-tech angle.
I find this highly dubious. As others have noted, wokeness is in many ways a product of tech, and social media specifically, and a number of their issues — most notably around transgender — require the magnifying effect of the internet and media to maintain relevance.
Capital_Room
rather dementor-like
3d ago
Not waste trillions on forever wars in the middle east with no prospect of success. Maga is the opposite of the fiascos of nation building from the mainstream republicans.
Well, there's some on the right — though, per your later point about "younger republicans," these skew older — who belong to what Parvini calls the "counter-jihadis." For them, the answer is that it's not about "nation building" or bringing democracy, feminism, and LGBT tolerance to the Middle East, it's about killing Muslims — because either you're killing Muslims, or Muslims are killing you.
I remember one, shortly after Oct. 7, demanding that US troops be sent over to start killing Gazans, because if we didn't do so right now, we'd have similar attacks in countless American towns, and that the whole reason the attack happened in the first place is because we weren't keeping the Muslims suppressed enough, which is why we need to make sure that we are bombing or shooting Muslims in multiple countries 24/7/365.
I've encountered arguments about how there are no civilian casualties in Gaza because there's no such thing as a Muslim civilian, that every single one of them — even a newborn — is a valid military target. About how there are no moderate Muslims, only those biding their time and practicing taqiyya, and how even the most well-integrated and moderate-seeming Muslim could suddenly commit a terrorist attack at any given moment. How the First Amendment doesn't apply to "Mohammedanism," because it's not really a religion at all, but a political ideology of murderous global conquest — much like Nazism — trying to pass itself off as a religion. How Islam is and has always been the number one enemy of Christendom — with invocations of Charles Martell, the Reconquista, the Gates of Vienna, the Crusades, etc. — and thus fighting them must remain the West's highest priority. (I find this one skews a bit younger and more online than the rest, tending to come with a fondness for "Deus Vult" and "Make Istanbul Constantinople Again" memes.) Lots of "founded by a pedophile warlord" comments.
Israel actively supporting jihadists in Syria hurts their supposed "anti-islam" stance.
Yeah, and that has quieted some of these folks a bit, though there's a certain amount of "enemy of my enemy" and "it's a complex situation" rationalization that happens IME.
Capital_Room
rather dementor-like
3d ago
If there was a way to poll trump voters who also deny the Holocaust, I suspect that poll would show strong support for Israel in its wars against Palestinians.
This doesn't match my personal experience… but then again, the "Holocaust-denying" sorts I know IRL weren't exactly big on Trump — either from a 'not voting until the left is actually correct about the GOP candidate being Hitler' position, or a 'they're both ZOG puppets, but Harris winning would at least keep more attention on the ongoing genocide in Gaza, which has been the best thing in decades for waking people up to the vile, murderous inborn character of the Eternal Jew' position.
Capital_Room
rather dementor-like
3d ago
His base has won absolutely nothing from the last few decades of neo con wars. His base got nothing but debt and mentally ill veterans from the fiascos in Afghanistan and Iraq.
Who exactly do you think Trump's "base" is. More specifically, who matters more, the average (R) voter, or the "donor class"? I can't find it again, but I remember a bit circulating right-wing circles online some years ago, quoting an interview with a Republican "campaign advisor" who got a little too honest with the interviewer and said that his job was basically to help GOP candidates more convincingly lie to red state rubes about how they're going to do the various stupid things these voters want, all the while knowing, as all Republican candidates do, that once in office their job will be to do none of that, and deliver what the deep-pocket donors want instead.
Trumps loyalty should be to the US, not people whose loyalty is to other countries.
"Should be" ≠ "is."
I've been heavily persuaded by thinkers like Yarvin and Parvini (who have many disagreements) about how elite backers matter so much more than the peasant masses who have nothing but their (meaningless) votes, and "democracy" is a sham. For example, the H1B fight: Musk is going to get his way, because he matters, and millions of "Trump voters" simply don't.
For an alternative narrative (which I don't exactly share) I know some right-wing anti-Trump people — a very much different group from the "Never Trumper" crowd — who have their own narrative about 'who is Trump's real base.' These acquaintances held that the "Russian collusion" narrative was pretty much correct in all the broad strokes… except for having the wrong country. They argued that when people say that Trump didn't (or wasn't able to) deliver for his base in his first term, they're wrong: Trump very much did deliver what his actual backers, the people who installed him in the White House, put him there to do: "moving the embassy to Jerusalem and tax cuts for (((billionaires)))." (Cue more comments about Kushner, "the Tribe," "ZOG," and how it would have been better if Harris won, because at least then we'd have more attention paid to the "ongoing genocide" in Gaza, etc.)
And further, I'd conclude by asking why we should be trying to "make America great again" when "American greatness" is what got Western Civilization into the mess it's in in the first place.
Capital_Room
rather dementor-like
8d ago
I replied elsewhere in the thread: 43.
Capital_Room
rather dementor-like
8d ago
You can choose to advance toward your goals
Which means nothing if I don't actually get there. This is why I hate the whole idea of "grading on effort." You either got the right answer or you didn't. You either accomplish a goal, or you don't. How much effort you put in is completely and totally irrelevant!
It doesn't matter if you fail to achieve a goal after thirty minutes, or thirty years. It doesn't matter if you spend your whole life in pursuit of the goal. The only thing that matters is that you failed! In fact, the latter is arguably worse, because you wasted time and effort on something that didn't work.
Results are the only thing that matters. If you try really hard to do something, but never succeed? Then you might as well have never tried at all.
No, just plug the controller back in.
I'm not grasping your metaphor here.
Capital_Room
rather dementor-like
8d ago
I have absolutely no idea what you mean here.
Capital_Room
rather dementor-like
8d ago
You can. But why not do something in the meantime?
By "call it quits and take the exit" I mean the exit on life. I'm saying that "going forward" isn't the only thing I can do, because there's always the option of suicide.
Capital_Room
rather dementor-like
8d ago
This is not maga; there’s no deep history lore to justify blood and soil.
In support of this, I here submit Neema Parvini's "MAGA as Fulfillment of the Kali Yuga":
While writing The Prophets of Doom, it struck me several times, especially during the chapters on both Thomas Carlyle and Julius Evola, that Donald Trump and his MAGA movement are more truly liberal and truly democratic than their opponents. In other words, there are no truer believers in The Populist Delusion than the populists themselves. When Carlyle talks about the spirit of democracy as a spiral downwards and when Evola talks about involution as the inevitable consequence of American-style liberalism, it is difficult to picture the Davos set or even the decrepit incumbents of the Washington regime because these people do not embody the spirit of plebian energy ‘from below’ described by Carlyle or Evola. MAGA is a low-status ‘working people’s’ populist movement against a powerful, entitled and rich elite. If one considers the classic Anacyclosis as outlined by Polybius (see below), one can spot that the Trumpian figure comes after the oligarchy.
…
This way of thinking about the current predicament gives rise to some strange thoughts. For example, and I voiced this on my appearance on the Alexandria podcast, what if life under the populists is even more intolerably degenerate than life under the Regime? Afterall, MAGA is probably the most genuinely non-racist, pro-black, pro-LGBT, ‘easy going’ and ‘true 90s liberal’ movement ever to exist (aside from, possibly, the British Tory party since Boris Johnson). ‘We have won our country back!’ cry a right-wing led exclusively by people like Kari Lake and Caitlyn Jenner as the black Zoomer in the MAGA hat posts a video of himself drinking Coca-Cola to a Libs of Tik-Tok video to 100k+ likes on twitter. This is really what MAGA is in its core essence. Jerry Springer passed away recently, but his real legacy was MAGA, in all its gauche, loud American awfulness. Jerry! Jerry! Jerry! Jerry!
Capital_Room
rather dementor-like
12d ago
although maybe fewer per capita than other areas
Alaska has had the most male-skewed sex ratio of any state since before I was born.
Capital_Room
rather dementor-like
15d ago
You can only go forward.
No, you can also call it quits and take the exit.
Capital_Room
rather dementor-like
15d ago
Meditate on the mundane truthfulness and wisdom of corny motivational poster bromides that you have to get busy living.
Or get busy dying.
The point of starting something else is that the alternative is continuing on the current path which demonstrated by your post clearly isn't satisfying, so even if the something else isn't satisfying either at least it's novel.
Or there's the third alternative: ending it all.
Capital_Room
rather dementor-like
15d ago
Sorry, I input my age as a number at the start of my reply, and the formatting turned it into a numerical list point. Should be fixed.
Capital_Room
rather dementor-like
15d ago
Let's see what happens with Elon / Vivek, but they might be the ones that end up burned from this.
To quote Parvini's most recent Substack:
Power is top-down. Democracy is an illusion. At best, one can say that this or that group of elites gets their friends elected. Power is never bottom-up, never comes as the result of a government-sanctioned street protest, a ratio, the fact you got 20,000 likes on Twitter, or because you ‘redpilled the normies’. When I wrote The Populist Delusion a couple of years ago, it was to teach these fundamentals of power. Many thousands of people read this book, but alas its lessons were not, in the end, internalised.
And later:
As I’ve pointed out countless times, there is no trade off. How it works is as follows: a big donor, whether Zionist, Tech Bro, or any other stripe, gives resources and in exchange they get what they want. You, dear voter, like the kids in Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, GET NOTHING, YOU LOSE, GOOD DAY SIR. The costs to Trump of not going along with H-1B Visas or uncritical and blind Israel support is billions of dollars and institutional support. The cost to Trump of betraying the voters? None. ‘This time it will be different, get in the crystal’, they will cry. To which I can only say, ‘do not be silly, no it won’t be.’
All power belongs to a tiny elite; the masses do not matter. Elon and Vivek can't "get burned," because they're each one more powerful than all 77 million Trump voters put together.
Capital_Room
rather dementor-like
16d ago
You're going to wind up dead eventually either way, why would that dissuade you from learning Brazilian Jiu Jitsu today?
Because for me "learning Brazilian Jiu Jitsu" would be the project of many, many decades, if ever, given how poorly my childhood karate lessons went given the gross and fine motor skill problems from my Sensory Processing Disorder. (You know the thing that most people call "muscle memory"? Practically non-existent for me. You've ever heard it said of an uncoordinated person "can't walk and chew gum at the same time?" Yeah, part of my bad posture is that I'm always looking down, because I need to be able to see my feet and where I'm placing them to walk.)
43. Writing fiction. Writing a non-fiction book (political manifesto). Trying to improve my programming ability (I've been "learning to code," as it were, since a was a little boy writing in BASIC on an Apple IIc. I took a comp sci class at Caltech where we had to write in Scheme). Fatherhood (which starts with somehow managing to get a date for the first time in my life).
Capital_Room
rather dementor-like
16d ago
Law enforcement, the military
Controlled by blue. Because it doesn't matter how red the rank-and-file are, they will always, always, always put obedience to the chain of command ahead of their personal political views. Just ask them: colonels leading coups is something that only ever happens in other countries, but the US military is different — the military is "apolitical," and no US serviceman would ever dishonor himself and the Armed Forces by putting his personal politics ahead of that.
I also remember a forum post online by a Chicago cop, in a 2nd amendment/gun control conversation, saying it doesn't matter how much he might personally support gun rights, if he gets the order to go door-to-door confiscating everyone's guns, he's doing it. First, because 'try telling your boss "no" to a direct order to do something, and see if you still have a job. I have my pension to think about and bills to pay.' And second, since most known, legal gun owners are older and highly law-abiding, he'd be safer and less likely to get shot taking their guns away than he was when he worked dealing with the gangs in the worst parts of Chicago.
When Greg Abbott told the feds he rules the border now, he got away with it, and the border patrol refused to contest this
Because what difference did it make?
the truckers got what they wanted
Funny, everything I remember reading on the topic said the truckers lost badly, Trudeau won, the precedent for "debanking" was set, and remains ready to be used to crush future dissidents.
Reds win regularly. Those victories do not look like random terrorist attacks.
No, we don't. And those "victories" you speak of are nothing of the sort.
Capital_Room
rather dementor-like
16d ago
How to deal with demotivation around feeling too old? That is, the persistent feeling that there's no point in starting anything to try to develop a skill, complete a large project, or make an effort toward a large life-improvement goal, because before I can get anywhere meaningful enough to justify the effort, I'll be dead — there's just not enough time left in my life to get anything of note done, so all that's left is to sit down and pass the time waiting to die.
Capital_Room
rather dementor-like
16d ago
I am once again surprised to find one of my posts on this list. (I'm always surprised by positive feedback online.)
Capital_Room
rather dementor-like
17d ago
Like, what if you're wrong Bryan? Where does he go from there: "Well, shucks, I guess we ended up with two Indias after all. My bad."
I vaguely remember an exchange someone had with him on Twitter back when his book with the SMBC webcomic artist came out, where someone basically asked him this, and his response was that it's good to support immigration and open borders because then a world-famous economist can get a job teaching — in English — at any number of universities in any number of countries and maintain his "beautiful bubble" and standard of living. When asked about everyone else left behind, well, that got the usual argument about why the "beautiful bubble" in the first place — being a libertarian means he owes nothing to nobody, doesn't have to care about anyone else unless he wants to, and that he'll support whatever policies benefit him personally, and if those same policies cause you harm, that's your problem.
Capital_Room
rather dementor-like
19d ago
Thanks for the clarification.
Capital_Room
rather dementor-like
19d ago
Given all the "takes" on Luigi Mangione flooding various online spaces, which is the most odd/surprising that you've encountered?
Mine was from a podcaster I sometimes listen to who, in the context of talking about getting away from the "political binary" and viewing and judging these sorts of incidents through the lens of tribal affiliations, went on to compare Mangione to Beowulf.
Capital_Room
rather dementor-like
19d ago
If you are sending out feelers to organize a "gun club," do it elsewhere.
Nope, not my intent. And for clarification, at what point does comparing the relative odds/effectiveness of various methods go from allowed "discussion" to "advocacy" — and thus edge against the "discussing the culture war, not waging it" rule? (Which is the rule which "fedposting" violates, yes?)
it’s inter-institutional warfare that devolves into kinetics.
With what institutions?
the path to total red victory is not individual level violence
I see little evidence that there's any path to red victory, and as for "individual level," that's why the "organize into groups" part was there.
Like others have said, it's a useful heuristic. I'd say that's because it connects to the same idea as "set a thief to catch a thief," and black hat hackers becoming top security consultants. Who knows better how to defend against a tactic than those expert in it's use? If you want to know how to build the strongest safe, ask the world's best safecracker.
This is why I get frustrated with fellows on the right who make arguments like 'well, if the left took over all these institutions via an entryist "long march," why don't we just do our own "long march" infiltration to take them back?" or 'since the left so effectively weaponized demographic change against us (via mass immigration), we'll easily be able to weaponize it right back (via birth rates).' It misses that in the past cases, the right was not on guard against these tactics from the left, but the left, being intimately familiar with them, will see them coming and be prepared to shut them down. No institution is better protected against entryists attempting to infiltrate than one which has already been taken by entryists. (Again, who knows better how to stop and catch a burglar than a better, more experienced burglar.) And just because the right mostly stood by and did little when the left used mass immigration, does not mean the left will stand by and let right-wingers outbreed them. If anything, it means the opposite: they'll be watching demographics closely, on watch for the slightest sign of reversal, and ready to use any and all means at their disposal to shut down any attempt from the start.
It's not about 'rejecting "tools" on association with the enemy' (I personally hate that argument), it's about classic, pragmatic strategy, going all the way back to Sun-Tsu, about not fighting battles that inherently favor the enemy.
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