Brave Little Hitachi Wand

More importantly, you can’t really process things emotionally without understanding why they happened, if you’re anything like me. Knowing why society is fucked helps me get to a better place mentally and - in my wildest dreams, puts me in a position to make any changes that leave the world better than I found it. By the same token, learning why I grew up too early and always felt emotionally lonely can hopefully help me raise my kid so he doesn’t have that issue. These books help. <3

Bob Altemeyer’s The Authoritarians book is the one thing I would recommend to someone like yourself, they demystify the mindset of these people in a way that doesn’t condone them or sugarcoat anything, but still manages to make them back into comprehensible human beings. The author’s passed away but his site offers them for free, super recommend. I should reread them, apparently I haven’t digested everything.

Unrelated tangent about another book in the same mental category for me (transformative, reframes some of my life’s struggles in a way that makes it easier to process, clear and concise professional writing style) is Adult Children of Emotionally Immature Parents. These two books had all the tools I need to begin to heal from the sorry predicament of being me, in this time and place. Maybe you’d feel the same? Pardon the random too-familiar sidebar.

I bet this means nobody dared to tell him how bad the poll data actually was.

I’ve read Altemeyer’s book, but I’d forgotten that his figure was also pretty much 30%. I hope the other fella is right, and all you need to get authoritarian personalities on the same page as us societally is to make sure leadership is thoroughly and vocally prosocial. In a society like that, I’d still hate conservatives and the religious right, but things would definitely feel more politically sustainable.

That said, billionaires are outspending for conservatives everywhere and mostly getting what they want from everyone who isn’t a conservative, and capitalism makes that the likeliest outcome. The Nazis have to be fought from every direction, top-down and bottom-up - and yes, that means also punching sideways. I’ve tearfully shed a few dear friends who can’t get with the program myself, and one who outright went insane with incel racist shit after too much 4chan. Each one of them does need to change and grow, but it’s deluded to think they’re our job to fix.

Even walked away from a friend of 20 years. I still have a pretty complete mental model of him in my brain. I haven’t needed to talk to him to know what he’d say for years, and nothing I could think to say was changing his mind. So I gave up. Fuck conservatives, authoritarians, and billionaires forever.

So yeah, longwinded comment to say I basically agree, but I haven’t given up all hope yet.

I know that’s your whole thing and we mostly agree in the broad strokes, but what keeps me up at night is the possibility that humans are generally just… 30% bastards? I still don’t think it’s true, but the possibility chills my blood because that’s not a solvable problem within my ethical boundaries.

I really do worry about the firmness of that 30%, I think if liberal democracy wants to stay a ‘thing’ it will have to find a way to massage that number significantly lower.

What it’s worth is “current situation”, unfortunately

That’s a lot of ifs. I don’t see any reason to think Jeffries or Schumer are secret masterminds, any more than I see a reason to hope Fetterman won’t Fett.

Alex, give me “How every midwit in the universe feels for $300”.

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I wish humans were smarter :(

You’re right, I was just tossing out as many things as I could think of. Pardon my gish gallop, my main point is just that showing respect to nazis is not going to earn it from them so why bother.

Really hope Texas gets just a taste of governance that is trying to do a good job. So many Republicans are kakistocratic grifters that they have to gerrymander and suppress turnout while also lying about everything just to make sure their base never gets a taste of what competent leadership even feels like.

“Potatoe”

“Slick willie”

“Enthusiastic scream”

“Swiftboating”

“Thanks Obama”

“Biden gaffe machine”

“But her emails”

“But her laugh”

…But when a nazi scumbag has an awkward moment, suddenly the calls for decency and measured reactions. Fuck that times infinity. Any and every low blow is absolute fair game at this point.

Insider Democrats described the crisis as “fucking bliss”

That may be, but it’s dangerous to guess at a distance. And time is a distance all its own

Well yes, but also the concept of honour back then was dictated largely by rich slave owners. So…

Double ha, I vote in multiple countries!

There’s no class solidarity like .01%er solidarity

…vism?