Speaking of the rhetoric/post-rhetorical presidency: those Republicans who relied on Trump primarily for their news source largely believed everything he said: journalism.org/2021/02/22/rep…
Some political scientists have claimed that the rhetorical presidency doesn't exist because it's difficult to move public opinion and the president's messages fall on deaf ears. Perhaps they weren't looking at the right things, in the right way.
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I just realized that the solution has to be humanism, affirming the humanity of everyone. Reminds me of this, from one of my grad school mentors--a philosopher of human rights.
"Equals do not prescribe destiny for each other, they hold conversations of minds."
This is what's central, I think. Also "prescribe" means before-write--so good.
What if the difference between the left and the right today is that the left sees people as, well, people, and believes that people have value and the right sees people as objects that are only valuable when they're useful?
These two yahoos absolutely helped to cause the insurrection: U.S. investigating possible ties between Roger Stone, Alex Jones and Capitol rioters washingtonpost.com/local/legal-is…
If you haven't read my book yet, I explain how they did this in 2016 (with help from other assorted propagandists):
Republicans nominated and elected an authoritarian in 2016. We knew that, that's why everyone who studies democratic erosion & authoritarianism predicted that Trump wouldn't accept the election results in 2020.
Deregulation of public utilities + failure to regulate environment destroying industries was destined to cause exactly this situation. Politicians probably thought they'd be long gone before it affected them. Nope.
Like, you might have a job that pays you money, but we all work for Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, TikTock, YouTube, etc. That's a trip. How have they programmed us to work for them for free and they make money?
I know we all know this, but it's still a trip. Not only do we work for them for free, but they sell us out while we do it.
I pay to have internet access and then I use it to do free labor for huge companies. How did I end up such a mark?
Hubs got a ride to HEB, but the shelves were pretty empty, so I'm making sandwich bread for my little sweetie's grilled cheeses. Trying the tangzhong method for the first time, which I've seen on GBBO & @1lisameid posted about recently: kingarthurbaking.com/blog/2018/07/2…
Life's just a series of stress-baking adventures, isn't it?
Hopefully I've timed the two proofs/baking correctly for our rolling 45 minute on/off power outages, but who knows? lol/cry