DEATH // SENTENCE Profile picture
Sep 28, 2020 11 tweets 3 min read Read on X
Okay, I don't want to do a whole 'STRAP IN YOU COCK-HOLSTERS AND TAKE A BIG SIP OF COVFEFE BECAUSE THIS IS A THREAD' thing, but the #TrumpTaxReturns, #TrumpIsBroke thing is stupid and annoying, so here it goes: (1/whatever)
This is Robert Trump, Trump's younger brother who died recently. He's normal, right? Regular hair, no fake tan- oh and did you know he was on the board of the company that owns Bethesda, who published the Wolfenstein games?
So Robert Trump is what Donald Trump would look like if he was normal, and a big part of being normal is caring what other people think of you. It's obeying rules: fake tan looks bad and tacky (with a whole load of classist assumptions thrown in) so you don't get it.
So what if you don't care about rules? There's a whole strain of anti-aesthetics that runs from Dadaism through Surrealism, Punk, 2000s hipsterism to whatever 100 Gecs think they're doing that says "rules for what 'looks good' in a world as fucked as this are hypocritical"
But that's not Trump- he has strong beliefs in a whole host of norms (punching Don Jnr for not wearing a suit to a baseball game). So more accurately, his aesthetic relate to the Nazi jurist Carl Schmitt's idea of the Sovereign as being one who can 'decide upon the exception'.
His aesthetic ideas are "there are rigid, gendered rules for how somebody should look that must be obeyed, but as a Sovereign, I may break those rules." See also his effeminate, gossipy behaviour and crucially his taxes.
And people, literally all people, love the idea of somebody who exercises sovereignty. John Wick didn't say 'killing people is wrong and illegal, so I had better call the police about the death of my dog', he fucking shot a billion guys. And that's cool.
Virtually every story in popular fiction has elements of deciding upon exceptions as a crucial heroic trait. People love that trope, and Liberals don't seem to understand this *at all*, hence all the 'got his ass' posts going around today.
They see hypocrisy as a sign of weakness when they should see it, as Trump's supporters do, as a sign of strength.
To counter it you don't need a finger-wagging hall monitor, you twatwaffles need a heaping spoonful of Deleuze. Deciding on the exception may break the rules, but it does so by acknowledging that the rules exist- they're a territory that you might step outside sometimes.
So move elsewhere. Don't play games with people who make a virtue of cheating at those games. Crazy idea: *have policies that improve people's lives in ways that they cannot deny*, like Medicare for All.

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More from @DeathSentencePC

Aug 25, 2020
NEW EPISODE: A solo episode! Langdon launches a new subseries where he works through all of Nobel Prize-winning author Kazuo Ishiguro's books in chronological order starting (of course) with his debut, A PALE VIEW OF HILLS (1982) soundcloud.com/death-sentence… Image
this is covered in the episode proper, but our current setup has recording every other work for a variety of scheduling reasons, but the show had always been a weekly. these shorter solo episodes are a way to bridge that gap
they also allow some more experimental ideas that we had always kicked around but hadn’t pulled the trigger on to be tested out! this time, it’s Langdon’s long-running threat to work through all of Ishiguro, but there are other ideas on paper that may show up
Read 5 tweets
Jul 4, 2020
IMPORTANT STUFF: You've probably noticed that we haven't put out any episode's lately. That's all been on me (@GarethLWatkins1) having kind of a rough time lately, but also diving deep into some new writing projects.
I've spoken to Langdon and we've decided that I'll take a backseat for the time being and he'll take over the running of the show, probably with a new co-host or two.
Making a public announcement about how you're not going to do one hobby any more so you can do another hobby is weird, but thanks to everyone who has listened to the show, all of our guests (who have been amazing- I would have never thought we'd get the people we got)...
Read 4 tweets
May 23, 2020
Re: the Dominic Cummings thing, I worry that 'but he broke the ruuuuules' is going to reinforce the existing perception of the Left as busybody hall monitors when we should be emphasizing how we're the only side of the political spectrum who can talk about freedom.
The postmodern right has done really well by offering people carte blanche to break rules, and if Cummings is smart he'll appeal to that impulse. "Wouldn't you do anything, even break the law, for your family? When you think about it I'm like the Taken guy" etc.
After all, if Dominic Cummings can decide upon the exception (to use a Zizek-ian term) then why can't you and the rest of the Norf FC Ultras have a barbecue? If there are consequences for him then there could be consequences for you- do you want that? Of course not.
Read 5 tweets
May 16, 2020
1) If you want us to guests on or help out your podcast we'll probably say yes.

2) Don't know how to start a podcast? Here's how:
You'll need a microphone. Your phone will actually work surprisingly well for this, but if you're thinking of doing it regularly many people get a Blue Yeti USB mic- personally, if I was starting over I'd get a Samson Q2U: amazon.co.uk/Samson-SAQ2U-M…
We use Discord with a recording bot named Craig (craig.chat/home/) to record, but again if I started over I'd probably use Zencastr: zencastr.com/pricing. This sets up a VOIP call then records each caller as a separate track- this is vital.
Read 10 tweets
May 4, 2020
Re: Gove’s bookcase. As somebody who spent a long time researching Nazis the whole ‘I read David Irving to understand the enemy’ thing rings hollow. You already understand David Irving because he believes things that a lot of people believe, but with a superficial gloss over it.
Everyone’s encountered some undergrad who thought they could be interesting by being a Holocaust denier, or something equivalent, Irving just decided that there was money and clout in writing books about the cyanide in gas chambers being from paint.
Same goes for The Bell Curve. Yer Da probably believes that black people are intellectually inferior to whites, mine certainly does, and you already understand why, so reading a whole book about IQ isn’t going to help you understand it and defeat yer da at Sunday dinner
Read 5 tweets
Mar 9, 2020
Okay, so how would a large-scale quarantine work? Say if 25% of the population had to self isolate.
Some people could continue to work from home and order food to be delivered, but they'd be in the minority. If you're not a white-collar office worker then you can't work...
Which means that if you don't have savings (which many people don't) then you can't pay your rent/mortgage, bills or for food. Where's that money going to come from? If it's from the government, then how can people apply for it? Should it be a universal benefit or means-tested?
Why should Guy A have to deplete their savings to get through their quarantine while Guy B gets free rent and board? Who is delivering food? There are companies who deliver groceries, but none of them can scale up to tens of millions of customers overnight...
Read 4 tweets

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