This "national divorce" talk is dumb for a zillion reasons, but the main one is that there are no red & blue states to divide up. The blue country consists of city centers & the red country consists of exurban & rural areas. There's no way to separate them.
Nevertheless! It's worth musing a little over what those countries would be like. The blue country would be diverse, dynamic, & wealthy. The red country would be poor, declining, & utterly dependent on aid (just like it is inside the US).
The blue country would be a multiracial democracy bound by rule of law, respectful of learning/knowledge, w/ a robust social safety net. The red country would be an authoritarian theocracy marked by social darwinism & systemic oppression of immigrants, women, & POC.
Of course the blue country wouldn't be perfect. But just imagine what it could do if it weren't systematically stymied by reactionaries, who are empowered by the absurd defects of the US constitutional system. Imagine!
And while I'm indulging in this pettiness, a final point: the red country would remain obsessed w/ the blue country. Reactionaries need enemies. On their own, they would turn on one another, divide & find new internal enemies. Whereas, as a citizen of the blue country ...
... I would never again devote a single brain cycle to the red-nation theocrats who hate me. I'm not obsessed w/ them like they are w/ me. I just want them to go away & inflict their cruelty on one another rather than my people. I would love nothing more than to forget them.
This is something the reactionaries don't/won't/can't understand (because projection makes them think everyone is like them): they organize their entire lives & societies around hatreds & hierarchies. Without out groups on which to inflict cruelty, they are lost. But ...
... the out groups w/ whom they are obsessed are not obsessed w/ them. Most people just want to live peaceful lives & get along. Most people aren't trying to fill a gaping hole inside w/ hatred. The people reactionaries are fixated on would happily forget about them entirely.
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This Schmeck guy (the "let's go Brandon" guy) offers another good chance to think about RW whataboutism. This is a textbook case.
So, righties are now saying, in response to criticism of Schmeck, "well, liberals said 'fck Trump' for years! Whatabout that?"
If you're enough of a sucker to respond (hi), there are 3 levels of response.
First is to point out that, even at face value, the comparison doesn't hold. Random tweeters saying "fck Trump" is obviously different than saying "fck you" to the president's face ...
... when he's literally calling you to give your kids a holiday surprise! No elected D said "fck Trump" in public but practically every R elected is giggling about & echoing "let's go Brandon." More to the point, the RW has been organized around *contempt* for opponents ...
Is there anything in the world that inspires more cringe than the unquenchable yet futile political ambitions of @tedcruz? He has utterly debased himself, shed all principle, become a Trumpist clown, & in the end it'll be for nothing. washingtonpost.com/politics/2021/…
I know I'm not saying anything new, but one of the most remarkable aspects of the Trump Era has been seeing conservative dude after conservative dude just *aggressively* humiliating themselves. Cruz, Christie, on down the line. Aggressively, willfully, gladly. It's so creepy.
When we talk about the authoritarian personality common on the RW, we tend to focus on the cruelty it delights in visiting on people lower on the hierarchy. But the flip side of that is the creepy acceptance, even *welcoming*, of humiliations visited on them from those higher.
You're aware that meat is bad (congrats -- tons of people On Here remain in denial) but you don't have the wherewithal to go full vegetarian, much less vegan. Here's a helpful guide from Vox on how to eat *less* meat. Love this practical approach: vox.com/pages/meat-les…
Cue the predictable responses:
"Actually, I only eat elk that have been raised in the wild & hand-fed organic acorns their entire lives. I kill them myself, with crude knives I've hewed from found wood."
"Actually, my unique physiology requires meat & you're ableist."
The Roberts Men saw Spider-Man: No Way Home yesterday. We agree with pretty much every other reviewer: it's fantastic! Thrilling & joyful & genuinely moving -- they threw a LOT of balls in the air & juggled them flawlessly.
I'm sure I'm not the first to make this comparison, but it occurred to me & the 18yo both on the drive home: this movie is the Endgame of the Spider-Man franchise(s). It pulls all the threads, 20 years of movies, together in an intensely satisfying way.
It pulls together all the previous Spider-Man movies, AND integrates Spider-Man further into the Marvel universe (setting up the Dr. Strange movie), AND pulls the Netflix & Disney+ tv shows into the Marvel universe, AND is tonally truer to the Spider-Man comics than the last 2.
The spread of wind power in the US, absolutely central to climate policy, is being slowed & impeded by local communities who are having their heads filled full of ludicrous disinformation on the internet. buzzfeednews.com/article/joseph…
Read this and weep, forever.
By the way, though I was thoroughly mocked earlier this year for saying that people's experience of inflation is mediated, the above 👆 is further evidence for my point that *everything* is mediated. Even your physiological response to a wind turbine!