Mark Mansour's analysis of the watershed moment in which the US now finds itself seems exactly right to me.
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William Lindsey :toad:replied to William Lindsey :toad: last edited by
"a malevolent movement led by a mentally ill, criminal despot who would turn the nation into his own plaything, using the unlimited power granted him by a corrupt Supreme Court to imprison his adversaries, accuse as traitors those who defy him and prepared to turn a 900-page hate screed into a user’s manual to dismantle rights, deport immigrants and turn the nation into a dictatorship subject to the whims of one man."
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William Lindsey :toad:replied to William Lindsey :toad: last edited by
"The sobering fact is that nearly half this country is willing to dispose of democracy in order to win. They view it as a matter of survival. Well, so do we. It is not Democrats who are attempting to manage the lives of Democrats. It is the Republicans who are determined to force the rest of us to live under their warped screed."
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William Lindsey :toad:replied to William Lindsey :toad: last edited by [email protected]
It's very much worth repeating here: PRRI has just found that four in ten Americans — notably Republicans, evangelicals, and weekly churchgoers — score high on sociological measures used ot measure authoritarian tendencies.
Some 40% of us actively want the fascist-leaning "solution" the Republican party now wants for us. Though it's a solution only to manufactured problems the GOP itself is making up….
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bouriquetreplied to William Lindsey :toad: last edited by
@wdlindsy Given the growing tensions with China taking occasional tests on Taiwan airspace as well as unpredictable events between Ukraine and Russia, coupled with uncertainty in potential escalation between Israel and Hamas in Lebanon, it is not a time for amateurs in the State Department or a President in the White House worshiping Putin and with potential loyalties to other dictators.
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rconsolireplied to William Lindsey :toad: last edited by
@wdlindsy C'mon Bill. They always have been. What's new?
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LibTarg the Border Czar 🐗✊🏾🤬replied to William Lindsey :toad: last edited by
@wdlindsy What I’d like to see happen is some kind of plan to do something about this proclivity for fascism in our society. I’m personally not sure what exactly that “what” is, but we can’t keep allowing things like Russian disinformation campaigns to turn these types against the rest of us, things of that nature.
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William Lindsey :toad:replied to rconsoli last edited by
@mycenaean_guy Who's they? They've been what? When Mark Mansou says that we're at a watershed moment, what about his analysis seems inaccurate to you? And what's to be gained by playing the cynical game of, "Oh, it's always been that. Nothing new to see here."
I obviously agree with Mansour that we're at a critical juncture and it demands action and not cynicism.
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William Lindsey :toad:replied to bouriquet last edited by
@bouriquet I couldn't agree more. The entire world will be far, far less safe if Trump regains the White House.
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William Lindsey :toad:replied to LibTarg the Border Czar 🐗✊🏾🤬 last edited by
@Acronymesis I think there may not be a one-fix solution, but that a multi-pronged solution is warranted.
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Dervishreplied to William Lindsey :toad: last edited by
@wdlindsy My own view is that we're raised to see those things as good and satisfying. In childhood, the wrongdoer gets an anvil dropped on his head (from cartoons), in our teens it's so satisfying to see the villain and up in prison, and the stories of our adulthood say that a good or equable solution is too complicated to even understand.
Yes, the above *is* a bit exaggerated, but as you say, we won't change our behavior until we change ou thinking. -
Simplicatorreplied to LibTarg the Border Czar 🐗✊🏾🤬 last edited by
@Acronymesis @wdlindsy Public persuasion—which the Democratic Party actively eschews, b/c if they did it, it would make their oligarch funders mad.
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@Acronymesis @wdlindsy If anyone wonders why the Democratic Party doesn’t stand for anything. that’s why. They do a laundry list of policies, never a cohesive moral message
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William Hughesreplied to William Lindsey :toad: last edited by
@wdlindsy I feel like that's proof that maintaining democracy and protecting/expanding human rights is hard work that could really only take hold worldwide after the Enlightenment. I know some places had "democracy" on and off (but only for some people), but we're over 200 years into this in America and only in the last 50 years or so did we start acknowledging *everyone* needs their rights recognized & defended.
Getting that number to continually fall is our only hope. It's going to take lots of years.
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You've not been paying attention to what Democrats and their supporters are actually saying when they talk with voters if you think that's still true.
For example -
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=0LDsfdmj8qc -
William Lindsey :toad:replied to William Hughes last edited by
@wdhughes Yes, good commentary, especially linking democracy's rise to the Enlightment, which is under siege right now by the very same theocrats wanting to turn the clock back to a pre-democratic social polity.
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William Lindsey :toad:replied to Grassroots Joe last edited by
@joeinwynnewood @Simplicator @Acronymesis Thank you. I wholeheartedly agree.
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William Lindsey :toad:replied to Dervish last edited by
@Dervishpi Yes, I think a strong case can be made for arrested development on the part of many of those promoting authoritarian view. They're seeking a parent, especially a Strong Father figure, to tell them what to do. This suggests that intellectually and in terms of moral thinking, many of these folks have not advanced to adulthood.They are operating at what analysts of moral development call a premoral stage of moral thinking.
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Dervishreplied to William Lindsey :toad: last edited by
@wdlindsy Is it arrested development if you've never seen an alternative? People /like/ and are /attracted/ to the 'authoritarian viewpoint' for reasons, and at some point society has to change before we can expect half the population to stop finding it appealing.
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William Lindsey :toad:replied to Dervish last edited by
@Dervishpi I think a big adult task — a task we all face to bring us into adulthood from childhood — is to begin to see that there are many alternatives to the way of thinking we were presented with by authority figures when we were children.
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CassandraVertreplied to William Lindsey :toad: last edited by
@wdlindsy
I think it's been floating around a while that 1/3 lean authoritarian, 1/3 lean progressive, and 1/3 wander around in between.