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PaperclipPerfector  11d ago (text post)   27528 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of October 7, 2024

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I tend to delete my Motte account for my own mental health, but I'm back because the lawfare against Trump has gotten so intensely bad that I'm afraid for the future of this country.

Elon Musk is right: if the Democrats win, then the demographics of the next elections will favor the Democrats. Sure, there could be splinter parties or factions which adjust to a new post-Republican reality, but the victory of the progressive stack will be permanently fixed in our society. The Civil Rights movement went too far and now we're stuck with a notion of equality that is anything but. And who will stand against the wokes?

When Trump stood against him, they made up the most vicious lies about his supposed 'fascism.' Look at this piece of work.

Headline: Trump's Rally Just Went Full Nazi with Bloodthirsty Immigration Threat

Does that sound like unbiased news to you? Excerpt:

“They took the criminals out of Caracas, and they put them along your border, and they said if you ever come back, we’re going to kill you,” Trump said.

“Think of that!” he continued. “We have to live with these animals. But we won’t live with them for long!”

At that, one person in the crowd shouted, “Kill them!”

In the same speech, Trump called for the expeditious “removal of these savage gangs,” promising that, if elected, he would appoint “elite squads” to conduct mass deportations. He also vowed to enforce the death penalty for “any migrant that kills an American citizen or a law enforcement officer.”

Obviously one person shouting isn't representative of a movement. It could be a leftist plant trying to make Trumpism look more violent than it actually is, and this dishonest leftist propaganda is intent on portraying Trump himself as violent.

The truth is that we have to be able to discuss the perils of unmitigated mass migration. Why should people in Aurora, Colorado have to deal with these criminals? It's central to a nation that it defends its borders and keeps these people out, and if they get in, they need to be rounded up and deported: a sensible policy that is painted as "fascist" by the wokes who can't reason functionally about certain topics.

But the lawfare is what makes me the angriest. Jack Smith is an illegally appointed special prosecutor fabricating dirt on Trump to be released by the corrupted courts right before the election (linking to PBS so you can see how they're spinning it). These witnesses aren't telling the truth: the truth is that Trump, being president and having access to top secret information, knows things we don't, and Trump is within his executive right to fight the results of the 2020 election, and this election, too, if it's not fair. And it's already not fair.

Trump's statement on the matter in 2022 makes it crystal clear for me:

Do you throw the Presidential Election Results of 2020 OUT and declare the RIGHTFUL WINNER, or do you have a NEW ELECTION? A Massive Fraud of this type and magnitude allows for the termination of all rules, regulations, and articles, even those found in the Constitution.

It comes down to who you trust, and I trust Trump to fight against the communism of the wokes. But I'm afraid because as much as the polls look good for Trump, the cheating will continue.

I encourage you to vote because that makes it harder for them to lie.

  • -10

within his executive right to fight the results of the 2020 election

Kind of depends what fight actually entails. There are things he could do and things he couldn't do, it can't be that literally any means he might have chosen are fine.

It's not like he ordered the military to assault the Capitol.

Indeed. And if he had, that would not have been within his rights and we'd be here saying "he did not have the right to fight the results of the 2020 election in that way"

I approved this, with misgivings, because it looks a lot like boo-outgroup trollbait. There is certainly an argument here and a point of view, and posting polemics about how only Trump will save us is allowed, but your user name and your "first" post under this new account has a familiar smell to it.

I am saying this so you are aware, we made a decision to approve your post, but we have doubts about your intentions. Usually people who want to create a new alt let us know about it and who they were previously if they want to convince us they are returning in good faith.

I'm gonna second 'troll'. There's definitely righties willing to make argument this bad, but they're not going to make this argument. In particular:

  • There are way too many better examples of biased output from media than the New Republic -- an openly leftist media org is nowhere near as demonstrative as a 'centrist-claiming' one -- and too many better examples of TNR bias exist than quoting something technically true. CNN had a dem talking head online saying Trump "would absolutely try to exterminate people". Cfe the recent ProPublica abortion piece NaraBurns highlighted. And for TNR, 'do you know who else played in Madison Square Garden' is literally on the front page now.
  • "the truth is that Trump, being president and having access to top secret information, knows things we don't" is... the sort of thing that looks like it got pulled from a discussion on the classified documents trials. It makes some approximation of sense there; it's too unrelated from even the often-schizophrenic theories for voter stuff, if only because it would paint Trump's post-J6 unwillingness to declassify whatever more transparently fake than the UFO stuff.
  • People who care enough about this to write at length aren't going to dismiss sketchy witnesses without naming them or some shape of what they're supposed to be lying about. I recognize I'm at the upper end of grudge-holding, here, but there's just been so many incredible claims that just shrugging about who or what makes for a weird bit.
  • A lot of the other terminology is way too hesitant to spell things out. "then the demographics of the next elections will favor the Democrats" is passive voice in the sort of way that ... uh, is a lot harder for Blue Tribers to not passive voice. "stuck with a notion of equality that is anything but" and "it's central to a nation that it defends its borders" are currently google-bombs pointing here today, while other framings of the same concept are well-established in other fields.
  • "my own mental health" isn't as much of a Blue Tribe shibboleth as 'for mental health reasons' or 'mental wellness reasons', but it's still weak evidence.
  • And, yes, the author's word choices and topics of focus don't match any of the right-wing long-term posters who had been present here and then deleted their accounts. This is not a Zontargs post.

It's probably worth letting it through anyway, but it's worth spelling out that it also should be collapsed and ignored unless someone pulls a silk purse from this sow's ear.

I guess you don't have to think about what I have to say if I'm a troll. We live in a shocking reality. Easier to ignore it.

  • -10

Do you think it's real though? "It comes down to who you trust, and I trust Trump to fight against the communism of the wokes." That seems like a joke to me, I would hypothesise it could be a liberal false flag post attempting to make republican supporters sound dumb(er).

I was being glib in that statement I admit but I'm directionally correct. Leftist anti-capitalist sentiment could get us all killed. I like my shelves stocked thank you.

This is obvious bullshit, I'm not sure why it got approved. The reference to Aurora seals it.

What do you have difficulty with, the notion that I believe the left reports on Trump's speech in Aurora dishonestly? Or something else?

Some days I feel like my shadow's casting me Some days the sun don't shine Sometimes I wonder what tomorrow's gonna bring When I think about my dirty life and times One day I came to a fork in the road Folks, I just couldn't go where I was told Now they'll hunt me down and hang me for my crimes If I tell about my dirty life and times I had someone 'til she went out for a stroll Should have run after her It's hard to find a girl with a heart of gold When you're living in a four-letter world And if she won't love me then her sister will She's from Say-one-thing-and-mean-another's-ville And she can't seem to make up her mind When she hears about my dirty life and times

Banned for mangling Warren Zevon.

No, but seriously, even if you think someone is trolling, don't respond like this.

I'll eat a short ban and just be glad you recognized the lyrics.

A ban for 0.001 days seems appropriate.

To format a poetic stanza properly in Markdown, you need to type two spaces at the end of each line.

posting polemics about how only Trump will save us is allowed

I am pretty sure the point being made is the opposite, and the quotes and references are on-purpose bad just so they can point at this post and complain about how it's all dumb Trump supporters here.

That's possible. Is it TDS, BDS, or Poe's Law? So when we see a post like this, which could be sincere, or could be a troll, we have to make a judgment call. Usually we err on the side of allowing suspicious "new" accounts enough rope to hang themselves.

Why would we need that, considering for example that this far more overbearing paean by a fairly established account is sitting at +24 a bit further down? We are evidently in Poe's Law territory ether way.

That overbearing paean was at least a genuine, defendable pro-Trump case; it was a steelman of very strongly enthusiastic support. As opposed to OP here who made a post to see if people would even upvote a strawman if it was pro-Trump.

I don't think that this is what "steelman" usually means, unless you are actually trying to imply that statements "we were literally on the cusp of world peace" are the most defensible version of the case for Trump. That would mean the case for Trump is really rather indefensible, which lends credence to "all dumb Trump supporters".

There's nothing bad about my case. I'm simply willing to platform the ideological manipulation of the left in a spirit of good faith, and I resent the implication that the pro-Trump position as presented by either of us is somehow indefensible.

Just because the left is reduced to hysterics in its hallucination of a wolf doesn't mean I can't platform those hysterics.

The following is a melancholic musing, and maybe my participation here is as an unhealthy rant, just a sort of getting my rage and consternation out of my system so that I know other people feel the same way.

I appreciate that you're giving me the benefit of the doubt, even as giving people the benefit of the doubt is a charitable act which strains the bounds of reason. Wokes have shown us what they'll do with the benefit of the doubt, given power and the means to persecute their enemies.

But I also wish that more people extended Trump the benefit of the doubt. Maybe that's the only path to civilization.

Alas, I'm a nobody and I want to keep my online presence small. If you look at the history of purges, there's nothing stopping an AI from scraping pages to find the undesirables for re-education, and I wasn't always good at opsec. So forgive me if I don't mention past usernames. It's enough that you let me stand. (Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean there's no one out to get you.)

I am left with this melancholy: what is good faith participation? In a hyper-partisan atmosphere where one side insists on a false reality in which IQ is imaginary, that when Trump mentions a 'bloodbath' in manufacturing he's talking about actual violence, that communism can work, how can we engage constructively?

I didn't put much thought in my username, to be honest. I try to be moderate, in that I find the extremists on both sides reprehensible. I try to be liberal, in that I still try and believe that speaking with people can lead to greater understanding, that platforming people matters. Sorry if that was a suspicious choice.

And thanks for working so hard to keep this place running.

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