Australian Atheists Forum

pipbarber wrote: ↑Sat Jul 20, 2024 8:34 am If history continues to rhyme, the issuing of maga membership cards is not far off. A good grifting opportunity too. Multiple tiers of membership from free to premium member, costing whatever is deemed feasible to charge. Then we'll be in a situation where there are places one doesn't one to be caught without a valid membership card.

Perhaps my dystopian imagination is getting the better of me.

MAGA contains the standard ingredients of traditional fascism: a confected appeal to "tradition" and "the good old days"; racism and scapegoating of minorities; the application of violence; a cult of personality. But I wonder what sort of tyranny cake will be baked from those ingredients. Hitler, Putin, Pinochet, Marcos, Pol Pot - they all had their own flavour. I'm sure there will be a focus on elections. Trump won't need to depend on someone like Mike Pence and the long-shot Senate certification process in 2028, he'll be well ahead of the game by then.

Another question is, what of the resistance? The states run the election. Their resilience will be tested again this year. Also, people power will be interesting to see. The mass protest movement has been pretty much dormant. If it stays that way then the Trump tyranny cake will rise even higher.

https://web.archive.org/web/20240719142 ... -that-bad/

More Sunday morning reading. The late Octavia Butler was on reading lists in 2016, too, but this time around she is even more prescient. I read almost her entire oeuvre since then (skipping the vampire novel). I love her.

https://www.yesmagazine.org/culture/202 ... able-sower

stylofone wrote: ↑Sun Jul 21, 2024 7:13 am
MAGA contains the standard ingredients of traditional fascism: a confected appeal to "tradition" and "the good old days"; racism and scapegoating of minorities; the application of violence; a cult of personality. But I wonder what sort of tyranny cake will be baked from those ingredients. Hitler, Putin, Pinochet, Marcos, Pol Pot - they all had their own flavour. I'm sure there will be a focus on elections. Trump won't need to depend on someone like Mike Pence and the long-shot Senate certification process in 2028, he'll be well ahead of the game by then.

Another question is, what of the resistance? The states run the election. Their resilience will be tested again this year. Also, people power will be interesting to see. The mass protest movement has been pretty much dormant. If it stays that way then the Trump tyranny cake will rise even higher.

https://web.archive.org/web/20240719142 ... -that-bad/

I share the same nervousness expressed in that article. I wonder about the just world syndrome having an impact, its soporific effect - 'yes, Trump is terrible, but we're good people so nothing bad will happen to us.' I think it's pervaded the Democrats for years, perhaps not so much right now.

As the article detailed, it's amazing how the internal opposition, the Never Trump Republicans, have just rolled over or disappeared. It's really astonishing to witness. What a moment we find ourselves in.

Another concerning situation is Trump losing the presidential election narrowly, and that is actually a highly probable outcome. What in the fuck will happen then? Because it's almost impossible to conceive of the maga movement accepting such a result. Presumably the Democrats are thinking about this. Presumably the adults in the room are thinking about this. Presumably....but i wouldn't bet on it.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/art ... -civil-war

Dickhead republican says what maga people think? Then apologises. I'm really looking forward to the debate. Hopefully harris can goad trump into letting himself express the full derangement of the maga fascists

More than once I seen warnings that defeating Trump is not the end of the fight. The US Supreme Court will be a fountain of pus for years to come.

Here we see Scientific American indicating that in its milieu, the resistance to the war on facts will continue.

https://www.scientificamerican.com/arti ... f-justice/

The far right GOP having fisticuffs with the further right GOP, can it get any better, oh yeah second amendment right? When do they start shooting each other?

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/worl ... 92189.html

Long read from the New Yorker:

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2024 ... -far-right

The crossover between these white supremacist groups and members of the police and military is hardly surprising, but no less disturbing.

pipbarber wrote: ↑Mon Aug 19, 2024 7:41 am Long read from the New Yorker:

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2024 ... -far-right

The crossover between these white supremacist groups and members of the police and military is hardly surprising, but no less disturbing.

I haven't read the whole article yet, but i am developing a sort of dread that we are blithely sitting on a powder keg of right wing extremism. The US election is the most obvious opportunity for the fuse to be lit. The graun article below talks about xitter specifically, but I also noticed google/youtube pushing neo-nazi influencer material at me during the recent riots.

The suggestion is that Jan 6 2021 was just a blip compared to what could be coming. My worry is that Musk is just the tip of the iceberg.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfr ... or-america

“Today is a dark day in Arkansas,” said Rebecca Bobrow, a spokesperson for Arkansans for Limited Government (AFLG), the group leading the petition effort. “This morning, by a vote of 4-3, the Arkansas Supreme Court upheld Secretary Thurston’s disqualification of the Arkansas Abortion Amendment. More than 102,000 Arkansas voters exercised their constitutionally protected right to engage in direct democracy by signing the petition to get the Arkansas Abortion Amendment on the ballot. The Court’s majority ratifies Secretary Thurston’s decision to silence those voices.”

https://arktimes.com/arkansas-blog/2024 ... n-petition

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/art ... y-theories

It feels like the US is trapped in a catch-22 scenario. Policies that might take the heat out of emergent fascism, such as free public healthcare, open access and free higher education, increasing the minimum wage and workplace regulations, electoral reform and taxing billionaires and corporations at a much higher rate, are next to impossible to implement electorally. Even if the Dems wanted to do any of this, which they don't seem to, they'd be slaughtered in the media for their turn to 'communism.' They wouldn't win any election. So they're locked in to a 'more of the same' policy portfolio, which is exactly why fascism is stirring. No matter the strategy, the US is only going in one direction.

Harris, it seems, has a strong chance of winning this election and that will be a fucking huge relief, for four years, or perhaps not that long. Trump losing is shaping up as a disaster of lesser proportions. Obviously, Trump will claim the election was corrupt, he basically already is. Where that claim goes this time around is anyone's guess but it probably won't be through the court system, like last time, which was a total failure. What other option is there? At the worst case end maybe armed resistance? Secession? Or perhaps a boycott of future elections?

Maybe not much will happen, but that seems to me to be wildly optimistic, even naive. The maga movement is not going anywhere, it's here to stay as long as neoliberalism dominates. It's a symbiotic relationship now, it's an ideological trap.

That's my morning musing.