Stop trying to understand Republicans through any coherent, logical frame.
They are inherently and intentionally incoherent, a body that exists purely to protect and promote white supremacy and the wealthy’s pursuit of profit at any cost and through any means.
White supremacy and hypercapitalism are illogical and self-destructive ideals that only survive through the intentional eradication of coherence and the violent enforcement of “revelatory” knowledge and faith over empirical logic.
The Right has to be incoherent to defend them.
The only way white supremacy and hypercapitalism survive or continue to thrive is by muddying reality and distorting information to the point that understanding is impossible and only infighting and conspiracy theories remain.
This is who the GOP is and what they are doing.
Give up trying to fit the GOP into coherent frames to support a worldview and instead investigate where their contradictions reveal what they’re trying to hide and/or capitalize on.
Continuing to treat any of this as good-faith only gifts them cover to operate.
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Always love these articles on population shrinking that do literally everything in their power to talk around the fact that artificial austerity and intentional economic inequality keeps people from affording families or even basic standards of living.
Like, corporations and the disgustingly wealthy have so completely captured the economy and political structures, and pushed such drastic exploitation, that the basic functions of life have become unattainable.
That’s...kind of a massive story.
And this is one of the biggest stories of them all: the political and economic project of the 20th century, this American led hypercapitalism/hegemonic project, has failed in totality, wasted god knows how much money, and killed god knows how many.
There’s a lot of talk about how Trump is slipping into larger cultural irrelevance without social media, but those conversations are missing a larger point that media profiting off his destruction, dysfunction, and hatred helped create a massive crisis.
That Trump is withering without Twitter or Facebook only shows that it wasn’t any talent on his part, but that his ugliness and venality made him a perfect antagonist the sites could use to gain attention, drive content and engagement, and push numbers.
Having a villain on social media allowed people to react and “fight” against him, all while giving users a chance to openly demonstrate their own identities and values. It was a marketing campaign that put an incompetent, hateful criminal in the White House.
What we are seeing, already, with the "Stop The Steal" conspiracy theory is that the Right and white voters are now challenging every single election they lose, claiming there is a giant criminal conspiracy
This is about delusion and legitimizing the destruction of democracy
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Trump's desperate need to save his reputation, lie about the results of the election, and guide the Right deeper into dangerous delusions and conspiracy theories, has given the GOP a weapon to legitimize antidemocratic actions while their popularity craters.
Despite promises of colonizing Mars, ushering in paradise through VR, and piloting "Wellness" programs, the wealthy aren't ACTUALLY interested in dealing with humanity's problems.
They're focused on getting *beyond* humanity to increase profits.
To really understand our bizarre moment and crisis, we have to take a look at both the history of capitalism and the current cults of personality that have developed around disgustingly wealthy men like Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk, who have become savior-like to their followers.
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The worship of men like Musk and Bezos is centered around a loss of faith in our political and societal structures and a need to find messiahs who might act singularly, outside those systems, to create a solution to problems like climate catastrophe and political schisms.
One of the most infuriating things that happens almost daily is when political shows that have given incalculable time to the Right to communicate conspiracy theories air these people regurgitating them and then shake their heads like they can’t believe anyone thinks this.
For years now, networks and newspapers have given platforms to Trump and other conspiracy mongers for clicks and ratings, all while hardly ever pushing back or wringing hands over calling them lies. These segments are measuring their own effect on culture.
It wasn’t just the Right profiting off wild, baseless conspiracy theories. Our media, our political parties, our tech corporations, all of them made a ton of money off corrosive, society-destroying, endangering lies. To act like this came out of nowhere is complete madness.
People are acting like the ouster of Liz Cheney by the GOP is a puzzling development, but the truth is that this is who the Republican Party is and has always been.
What we're watching is the inevitable evolution of a dangerous political movement.
Liz Cheney's refusal to trumpet the Big Lie of a stolen presidential election.
This should be lauded, but we can't pretend the GOP has not trafficked in these poisonous mythologies for decades now, and that this lie is that different from past propaganda.
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Pundits, journalists, politicians, and historians have long laundered the real and disturbing truth of the GOP through this sepia-toned lens of Ronald Reagan, a completely fabricated, alternate reality that hides the disturbing truth behind star-spangled mythologies.