It’s a false choice to say you have to choose between getting the pandemic under control and saving the economy.
Republicans and their wealthy constituency are unwilling to try anything because to even cede an inch would mean admitting our economic order is intentionally unfair.
The powerful in this country know our economy, with its cruelty and vast inequality, is a fragile order in their favor and to even attempt to address the pandemic or people’s suffering might topple that rigged game.
It’s really very simple.
The wealthy and powerful value their wealth and power more than your life, your family’s lives, and the lives of every other American. They’ll sacrifice millions without blinking.
That’s the reality of this situation.
What Trump and the ghouls around him symbolize perfectly is the corporate ethos of pursuing profit at the expense of lives while hiding behind the flimsiest veneer of public relations.
That, plus a disaster like this pandemic, leads to mass tragedy. We must reject this.
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This moment, this attack on democratic institutions, the theft of the Supreme Court and a possible stolen election, is a result of generations’ worth of lies, manipulations, and an anti-democratic project.
If we’re going to escape it, we must learn how we arrived here.
Hope is not lost.
History teaches us that once we separate truth from fiction, when we organize and act in unison, we can overcome great injustices.
The truth is that this feeling of powerlessness is by design. Read AMERICAN RULE. We’ve been here before and we can still win.
Tell you what, for such a big strong, tough president it sure seems like Donald Trump is as thin-skinned and as pitiable as they come.
It's almost like MAGA and Trumpism are masculine overcompensations that are actually more about weakness than they are strength.
And it's almost like these phenomenons are just masks being worn by insecure, terrified men.
And it's almost like our entire conception of what fascism is, that it relies on "strongmen" is completely wrong and off-base and that we've been misunderstanding masculine insecurity and deadly overcompensation.
This appeal that Trump is now using everywhere that Biden will "take away your guns and your god" has a basis in the fascistic conspiracy theories that have led to mass slaughter and killings, including in America.
Every poll, internal or public, shows that Trump has a narrowing chance of victory, and as that window closes he's going to try more and more dangerous techniques to hold onto power.
What we're talking about is fascistic appeals that regularly inspire terrorism.
Hillbilly Elegy is Right Wing propaganda that actively promotes Reaganomics, the poor as deserving of their suffering, and intentionally obscures racism and white supremacy as major factors in America’s decline.
Also, Hillbilly Elegy became a bestseller because the media needed a Middle American Poverty For Dummies to help explain Trumpism because they had all but ignored suffering outside of their bubbles. It laundered Trumpism, continues stereotyped, and was Right Wing propaganda.
For what it’s worth, most of us who grew up in rural poverty recognize Hillbilly Elegy as a destructive and bad-faith propaganda piece that was championed by people who had no idea what they were talking about and were hopelessly lost in their own privilege.
With this Amy Coney Barrett farce, we need to examine how the GOP and evangelical Right merged to protect white supremacy and aristocratic control, resulting in Donald Trump and rising fascism.
As I detailed in the latest American Rule lecture, America was founded and designed to support a white supremacist aristocracy and control everyone else.
Recent history has been dictated by the Right's desperate attempt to maintain that control.
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With the nomination of Amy Coney Barrett, who could shift the balance of power in the Supreme Court for decades, we are seeing the realization of a Right Wing project that has defined American history for the past six decades.
Unfortunately, I spend a lot of time on here talking about the rise of fascism and how that poisonous ideology destroys democracy and society.
I want to take a second to talk about how to fight back on a personal level as it is weaponized trauma inflicted on the individual.
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Fascism, as I've written about, is an attack on reality that's meant to radicalize people by racist paranoia, but also in how it atomizes society, makes us feel alone, powerless, and continually inflicts personal harm.
Here are a few thoughts and resources to combat this.
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Because fascism constantly shifts and relies on propaganda that intentionally fractures objective reality, I endorse @sarahkendzior 's advice to keep a journal.
The internet is shifting type, media cycles are numbing, but we can keep a record of what we know to be true.
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