2/ Endless iterations of the Onion thing where people laugh uproariously at jokes about the Holocaust/disabled people/religious beliefss/everything else -- then they make fun of a child actress in a ridiculously over-the-top way and everyone needs a fainting couch. Disingenous.
(From 2017, also Vice)
ONE OF DAVE CHAPPELLE'S OLD STANDUP CHARACTERS WAS A FOUL-MOUTHED CRACK-DEALING BABY
This stuff annoys me because I think cultural criticism, and conversations about what we should joke about, are important. And they are being outsources to people who are either too young or too clueless or too scoldy to bring any context to these controversies. You *cannot*
laugh along as a comedian skewers almost every possible subject offensively, clap along, write glowing profiles of him, and then, when he's mired in controversy, start combing through his new material - but only his new material - with a fine-tooth offense-comb. It's incoherent!
• • •
Missing some Tweet in this thread? You can try to
force a refresh
[con't] There's a consistent error American liberals make, which is that it will be ~obvious~ to persuadable American voters that Trump is beyond the pale, that he is steamrolling important norms. Voters don't see it that way! They see both sides endlessly screaming.
[con't] Persuadable voter is going to land on something like "Maybe Trump made some cuts he shouldn't have, but weren't the Dems also bad on covid? And what about that weird gender stuff?" You gotta meet voters where they're at not pretend there's *nothing* to Jennings' argument
3/ Gordon Guyatt and Romina Brignardello-Petersen emailed the authors of all five systematic reviews McMaster worked on w/SEGM and proposed inserting language about bans being "unconscionable." As Guyatt admitted to me, this is very unusual language for a systematic review.
"No one can invest significantly in the U.S. if they have no idea what the policy is going to be from day to day" is a concept that understandable by a bright 6-year-old. There's really *no one* left in Trump's orbit with *any* power to deter him from this garbage?
2/ None of this is even internally consistent. He will reward other countries just for *calling* us, regardless of what was said or how productive the conversation was? The man has no idea how to negotiate.
3/
1. announce tariffs, wiping out trillions
2. temporarily *partially* suspend *some* of them because some countries... called
3. retain huge tariffs on largest producer in world
4. *all of this is* re-re-reversible at *any* point, for *any* reason, if DJT feels like it
1/ Emma is well beyond reasoning with, but for anyone who is close to her and actually cares: According to pretty basic tenets of suicide research, it's likely dangerous to constantly spread the idea that trans kids are on the verge of killing themselves over policy disputes
2/ This simply isn't how suicide works, usually, thankfully. In a vaccuum, it's uncommon for someone to receive bad political news and kill themselves. What's more common is for already-at-risk kids to internalize the meme that suicide is a common/rational response to adversity
3/ None of this is to say that there's no connection between a group's mental health and how that group is treated by society. But it's a lot more complex than Emma is suggesting, in part because adversity can cause people to come together, seek support, etc. If you have a
There's a culture of just total impunity over there when it comes to violence. On Twitter, as far as I can tell, it's rare for people to post violent threats or musings under names identified with their IRL identities. Over there, they know they can do so without any risk.
2/ All the death threats are couched in the idea that *I* pose an imminent threat to the community. That's the line: I'm putting users there at risk. No one can explain how. NBC is at work on an article with that angle, based on the request for comment they sent me.
2/ They're going after Hannah Gais, who works at the SPLC and who I knew foreeeeeever ago (People's Republik RIP). She stands accused of not giving a straight answer as to whether she'll sign (she'll sign, I'm sure), and liking a problematic skeet.
FASCINATING community.
3/ This is like an online summer camp for people who would have been gulag guards if they'd been born in a different time and were capable of leaving their houses. I've never see anthing like it and I can't turn away.