According to stupid right wing narratives and framing, being a centimillionaire or a billionaire is not elitist, but knowing stuff, having an education and qualifications and experience is “elitist”.

So, a scientist, still paying off student loans decades later (but when they talk about their subject matter, they make a winger feel talked down to) - elitist.

Scumbag parasitic idle rich jackass born with a silver spoon in their mouth, never worked a day in their lives, and accrued billions - NOT elitist.

Since the cons have so distorted the concept of elitist to mean only someone that’s educated, smart, etc., and has no money/power component to it, I’m kind of glad that people have started talking about the Epstein Class. Because when we talk about elitist jackasses, I have the feeling that we are talking about money/power and the base of the Republican Party think “poindexters that went to college”.

Agreed, and a whole lot of young idiots don’t seem to be falling into the fascist funnel.

I sure hope that Fourth Turning theory is wrong, but JFC, it sure looks like they may be onto something.

I’m absolutely terrified that Taco will completely crater this economy and that’s when things are bound to get very, very bad and very quickly.

LOL, “how”? “[B]ecome”?

Has The Atlantic met the Republican Party?

Can? I kinda figured that’s what he’s here to do on behalf of Putin.

Kinda like seeing ICE Barbie flying around and doing cosplay and weird videos on horses and later hearing about her 70 million dollar bang plane.

This kind of waste, fraud and abuse won’t make much of a dent in the budget and won’t really change the everyday experience for most Americans, but…still. It’s infuriating to watch. It’s almost like they are rubbing our noses in it.

Well, when people are having their health care ripped away, after Donvict had lots of other government employees lose their jobs for no reason and people are having an affordability crisis, as Donvict’s illegal tariffs cost them an additional $1000 last year, seeing this little troll flying off to Italy and doing this is a real optics problem.

Sure, does this in particular really change anyone’s life? No.

Doubling down on more idiocy.

Genius.

100% this. It’s all so tiresome to listen to those types, too. They really do think they are so very self-righteous and better than the “neoliberal shills”, etc. 🙄

Who else wasted their votes besides stupid voters?

What I found so exhausting was a whole lot of self-righteous people online that seemed to be doing everything possible to push away lots of groups, wholesale, especially during the Biden years. Playing these intersectionality politics and Oppression Olympics and demanding white men take a back seat. That people should all be made to read rather fringe texts and until they did, they should be marginalized and ignored. And that was what they were saying about allies.

People like me would get shouted down/banhammered if we piped up and said that’s no way to win elections and they are just doing things designed to create more Republicans. The message seemed to be that unless the movement was made up of perfectly ideological people with the right checkboxes, and unless the Democrats offered them the perfectly crafted messaging on certain key issues, then it was if Americans deserved whatever the worst thing Republicans could dream up.

It was just so crazy. I’m still baffled by it. Most of these types seem to have disappeared. I’m sure many might have been bots/paid trolls, but the ones that weren’t? What the actual fuck. Also, I still know a few of these IRL and I can barely even look at them now.

Guess all of us will get plenty of time to “check our privilege” under this stupid administration.

Also, they probably did not have enough bullying.

IKR? I only wish there was even 10% of the “cancel culture” the insane right wing claims is aimed at them.

It’s just more projection on their part.

How is that going to happen without having a party elected into office though?

There was an article years ago that delved into the differences between the Northern version of freedom vs. the Southern kind. The problem as a country is that normal Americans keep talking about “freedom” and assuming everyone has the same definition of what freedom and liberty mean. I wish I could dig that article up; I used to share it all the time. Of course cons would try to act like these differences did not really exist, when they absolutely do.

Essentially: the Southern kind of “freedom” is predominantly obsessed with the freedom to rule over property and not have anyone else tell you what you can do with your property. That property may include other humans.

I suspect that’s why some people that keep lying about “whole cities burning down” under BLM are so worked up - they view property damage as something just as bad as, possibly worse than, the murder of a human being, especially if the human being is not considered a worthy victim.

This is pretty much how it went for SCOTUS throwing out 50 years of law, except the last part: the right just moved the goalposts and cranked up more gaslighting about how there really won’t be Gilead States.

They didn’t even pretend as if anything needed to be fixed, they just wanted to push the Overton window even further by outlawing things in free states and trying to get rid of the Plan B everywhere, etc.

We could have used daily stories about this prior to the election. Hour long specials, constant questioning of Donvict beforehand, and so on.

It’s kind of too late to do this kind of assessment now that this piece of shit and true believers like JD are in there.

I had a good idea of who and what these people are since I’ve been posting and lurking on various forums since the BBS days, through Usenet, and onwards.

When Donvict got “elected” the first time, you never saw so much hateful rhetoric from these types that suddenly felt they had a permission structure to say whatever they wanted because of Donvict. Obviously, some videos went viral where these Karens and Kens had meltdowns in public. But definitely the temperature went way up online. It was off the chart on Diaspora. I never blocked so many people in my life as I did on that platform in 2016 and 2017.

I knew Donvict was trouble for two reasons - first, they gave all these idiots a “uniform” right off the bat with those stupid hats. Same with his flawed character - he was a well-known figure even back in the 80s, and most (decent) people thought he was a total asshole.

Lastly, when it comes to conservatives and Republicans, they have a habit of calling anyone and everyone not in their little circlejerk a “Communist” and then trying to dehumanize them based on that bullshit characterization.

Online, you’ll notice the right just assumes everyone that doesn’t love Nazi bullshit and Donvict is a “Communist” and tricked by the Jews into trying to “replace” the white xtian man, etc…they’ve been saying this kind of shit for literal decades when they think they are among like-minded individuals, or anonymous.

The fact that they published such a book and it now gets endorsements from the likes of the VP should shock no one. If people thought that the Republican Party and the John Birch Society really ever had any distance from each other they were in deep denial.

Initially, he was yammering about 10%, but I think he changed it to 15% by Saturday.

Because he’s such a stable genius.

Setting trade policy is really best done by just one individual, with no checks and no discussions or reflection, by blathering at press gaggles and via rants on Lie Social.

Just as the Founders intended.

All they would have to do would switch up a few things about doctrine and they’d fit right in with fundies of the Islamic stripe. Try to tell them that, and they just about pop a blood vessel. Because it’s fucking true.

And they know it.