Woke is just a republican branding exercise. Like radical democrat socialists. Too many republican voters have followed the creation of a new religion called conservatism. Not all conservatives belong and intelligent people who are conservative are disgusted. It signals educated people who think they are better than you forcing acceptance of people of color, gay, trans, on society. Plays on fears. Republicans need to be in the cool group. Woke allows them to clearly show the bad vs the righteous
“The woke now control the Democratic Party, the entire federal government, the news media, academia, big tech, Hollywood, most corporate boardrooms, and now even some of our top military leaders,”
Maybe because I live overseas and don't get the daily bombardment of balderdash, but can anyone provide me with a relatively succinct definition of "woke" or "workism"? Last time I checked my Funk and Wagnalls, "woke" related to being awake, vice asleep, as in "I woke up". If as used by the semi- or completely-fascists spewing it around as an insult, that just tells me we "wokens" (as in people who are awake) are on to their efforts to remove democracy from the USA.
Ok, so I've something of a bone to pick with Trump being credited with the First Step Act.
In some technical sense, one could always quibble with crediting the executive with what is actually the work of Congress. All the President actually has to do is not veto it (or explicitly sign it near the end of the Congressional term).
But often times, the legislature is fulfilling one of the President's campaign promises, which generally coincides with their party's platform. The President and his advisors may have proposed a legislative plan and/or draft legislation, and either they or their VP may have lobbied various members of Congress or twisted some arms to get it done. In this case, it's fair to call something like this an accomplishment of the President, or at least their administration.
Yet virtually none of this apples to Trump and the First Step Act. Trump ran on a platform of being "tough on crime" and appointed an AG who immediately set about seeking maximum sentences for federal cases, and attempting to overrule consent decrees negotiated by local police departments to address police misconduct. In fact, it was Trump who needed to be convinced to support the law (for which we can apparently, and surprisingly, thank Jared Kushner), as Sessions opposed it and both he and Barr were resistant to actually implementing it.
While Trump's acquiescence may have been responsible for the bill passing with veto-proof majorities, it easily had enough bipartisan support to make it a no-brainer from a political standpoint. In reality the legislation was a gift to Trump at a moment when his poll numbers were in the crapper and he was badly in need of something that the media would dutifully label "a political win", when all he really did was agree not to veto it.
Oh, but at least Trump did his part of the work to actually implement it, right? Of course not. The heart of the FSA was clemency reform, and the vast majority of clemency petitions under Trump went completely ignored. If you weren't one of his cronies in need of payback for political support or refusing to squeal on him when he was under investigation, or some high profile case being pushed by a celebrity that could be used in a campaign commercial, he wasn't interested.
And if your early release was granted by a judge based on the reformed drug-sentencing guidelines, Trump's DOJ may have been actively appealing your decision. One man had actually gotten a hug from Trump on television while his case was being appealed, only to have the appeal mysteriously dropped shortly thereafter once DOJ realized they might actually end up re-incarcerating one of Trump's political props.
Trump loves claiming credit for the FSA, and his shameless sycophants love giving it to him. The truth is that Republican sponsors of the bill were willing to give it a go once there was no longer a Democrat in office to take credit for it. Trump was the fortunate recipient of McConnell's gamesmanship, and made no good faith effort to actually do what it required of him if it didn't offer him a clear political benefit.
The big question is why these supposedly intelligent, successful people think they have more to fear from such nebulous ideas as "critical race theory" and "wokism" than from the obvious creep of authoritarianism? In fact I'd like to hear them or anyone even explain those concepts. They
are just made up. They are the bright shiny things with which they attempt to distract folks, and keep us from seeing the developing fascism that is infiltrating every aspect of our in this country.
I just completed my mail-in ballot - a straight Democratic ticket all the way. Being white, I don't think they'll toss out my ballot, but with all of the shenanigans they have pulled here in Texas, I think we'll come up short.
I'm very old, so the lurch today's GOP has taken towards semi-fascism probably won't impact me to a large degree. But how did so many in my generation go from protesting and ending a war, marching for Civil Rights, and demanding environmental protection - clean air and water - to voting for the very people who will ensure our children, grand-children and great-grandchildren will be stripped of the rights and freedoms we once fought for and won?
Apparently, not only has the John Birch Society not disappeared, it has metastasized. The Chait piece reminds me of everything I've ever read about the far right from the 1930s on through Robert Welch's heyday.
RE Section 1 - I keep coming back to the simple math on adult development (see Keegan’s work at Harvard). 67 percent of people are followers and 33 percent are leaders but only five percent of leaders mature to become system thinkers, capable of putting the system ahead of tribe and self-interest. Just increasing five percent to ten percent would make a huge difference.
I think there's another group of people who don't get too worked up over Trump: those with the privilege to assume it won't really affect them. It may affect people of color, who are scapegoated and vilified (so what), immigrants (good riddance), LGBTQ folks (well, who cares about them), women who no longer have dominion over their own bodies (sorry, embryos trump), and poor folks who see the social safety net disintegrated away (only getting what they deserve). But I'm safe, so no biggie.
As I have remarked previously, people will go to great lengths to justify/rationalize what is essentially an identity-based vote. They will ignore or downplay anything that calls such a vote into question and seize on even the stupidest thing to justify voting for "their team."
We have seen it time after time over the last few decades, with the actual mechanism becoming more apparent, the justifications (in opposition to the good reasons NOT to vote identity) becoming weaker and weaker.
Even so-called independents (those who deny party identity affiliation) do this, usually centered upon one or two "issues" (like abortion or guns).
These are things that researchers have known for some time but that the larger pundit class seemingly has ignored (I guess because it removes a lot of the tension of the whole horse-race mode of reporting that has become prevalent).
If you understand that people vote largely on the basis of identity (regardless of what they SAY) and you have a good idea of the identity distribution in the population, you can make a pretty good guess on who is going to win (barring how the non-party identity affiliated go on the basis of their particular issue identities).
You can tell that identity is king because people will often vote against their own, objective self-interest on the supposed "kitchen sink" issues that they shout out that are so important to them (but apparently aren't).
I mean, based upon observed historical results, why would you expect the GoP or a GoP controlled government to actually solve any substantive economic problems? Or have any economic agenda besides cutting entitlement programs, cutting taxes, and cutting regulation? And why, on the basis of the evidence, would you think any of those things would actually help the economy in a substantive sense?
A majority of the voting population is fairly locked in--a number of the "independents" that are leaners are also locked in, the one issue voters are locked in. Sure, a black swan event can change the calculus (Dobbs, for example or a war, or a massive social/economic disruption (like maybe a pandemic)--but most times that doesn't happen.
What really skews things in our system is its non-representative nature (unequal weighting of population, state-based results rather than population results, etc).
So, in the end, it is absolutely unsurprising (to me) that people will tolerate absolute shit in order to vote identity--up to and including the destruction of many of our principles and existing institutions. Just like in SW, democracy will die to thunderous applause on the part of many and an accepting silence on the part of even more.
This will not end with this election cycle or the 2024 election cycle even if the "good guys" win... in fact, the more they win, the worse things will get. The more frustrated and angry the other side will get, the more ready to accept violence and a total reconstruction of the system.
IF (and that is a REALLY big if) this situation gets resolved in favor of the "good guys" it will be because the other side is effectively destroyed and outlawed. That means violence. The "good guys" will likely NOT start it--but in order to come out the other side, they WILL have to answer that violence effectively. That means counter violence and a number of other measures that run against their own identity. I find that unlikely.
I fully expect that in the next 20 years we WILL see a MAGAt or MAGAt-like government take power and they WILL attempt to do all the things they say they are going to do. It seems almost inevitable to me.
There will be a lot of regrets after it happens... but then it will be too late... and the only satisfaction that people like me will have is saying, well, we told you so (hopefully from the safety of my retirement in Canada).
If anyone here read Mollie Hemingway's piece in The Federalist a few years ago regarding a summer vacation trip with her children to Disney World, then you will know that--and I say this with ALL Christian love and fellowship-- Ms Hemingway is a wee bit of an idiot. She wrote about how hot and crowded WDW was in June. Evidently, she was unaware that Florida is quite unpleasant in June. Also, it seems did not not realize that many families make the trek to Orlando right after school lets out for the year. Any time I see that woman or catch a glance at anything she has written (I do not make it a habit...I find a firehose colonic a more pleasurable experience), I flash back to that idiotic article. Funnily enough, "conservative" writer David Harsanyi has written a similar WDW family trip piece. Are pundits on the "Right" common-sense deficent? I'm asking for a friend...
Really enjoyed the Marshall Project article. Beautiful writing. Thank you
This is the scariest article I have ever read. I don't think I want to live in their version of the United States.
Woke is just a republican branding exercise. Like radical democrat socialists. Too many republican voters have followed the creation of a new religion called conservatism. Not all conservatives belong and intelligent people who are conservative are disgusted. It signals educated people who think they are better than you forcing acceptance of people of color, gay, trans, on society. Plays on fears. Republicans need to be in the cool group. Woke allows them to clearly show the bad vs the righteous
“The woke now control the Democratic Party, the entire federal government, the news media, academia, big tech, Hollywood, most corporate boardrooms, and now even some of our top military leaders,”
Maybe because I live overseas and don't get the daily bombardment of balderdash, but can anyone provide me with a relatively succinct definition of "woke" or "workism"? Last time I checked my Funk and Wagnalls, "woke" related to being awake, vice asleep, as in "I woke up". If as used by the semi- or completely-fascists spewing it around as an insult, that just tells me we "wokens" (as in people who are awake) are on to their efforts to remove democracy from the USA.
What does woke mean and how does that relate to communism?
A good reminder of why people go along with the ruler... It's all about the keys.
https://youtu.be/rStL7niR7gs
Ok, so I've something of a bone to pick with Trump being credited with the First Step Act.
In some technical sense, one could always quibble with crediting the executive with what is actually the work of Congress. All the President actually has to do is not veto it (or explicitly sign it near the end of the Congressional term).
But often times, the legislature is fulfilling one of the President's campaign promises, which generally coincides with their party's platform. The President and his advisors may have proposed a legislative plan and/or draft legislation, and either they or their VP may have lobbied various members of Congress or twisted some arms to get it done. In this case, it's fair to call something like this an accomplishment of the President, or at least their administration.
Yet virtually none of this apples to Trump and the First Step Act. Trump ran on a platform of being "tough on crime" and appointed an AG who immediately set about seeking maximum sentences for federal cases, and attempting to overrule consent decrees negotiated by local police departments to address police misconduct. In fact, it was Trump who needed to be convinced to support the law (for which we can apparently, and surprisingly, thank Jared Kushner), as Sessions opposed it and both he and Barr were resistant to actually implementing it.
While Trump's acquiescence may have been responsible for the bill passing with veto-proof majorities, it easily had enough bipartisan support to make it a no-brainer from a political standpoint. In reality the legislation was a gift to Trump at a moment when his poll numbers were in the crapper and he was badly in need of something that the media would dutifully label "a political win", when all he really did was agree not to veto it.
Oh, but at least Trump did his part of the work to actually implement it, right? Of course not. The heart of the FSA was clemency reform, and the vast majority of clemency petitions under Trump went completely ignored. If you weren't one of his cronies in need of payback for political support or refusing to squeal on him when he was under investigation, or some high profile case being pushed by a celebrity that could be used in a campaign commercial, he wasn't interested.
And if your early release was granted by a judge based on the reformed drug-sentencing guidelines, Trump's DOJ may have been actively appealing your decision. One man had actually gotten a hug from Trump on television while his case was being appealed, only to have the appeal mysteriously dropped shortly thereafter once DOJ realized they might actually end up re-incarcerating one of Trump's political props.
Trump loves claiming credit for the FSA, and his shameless sycophants love giving it to him. The truth is that Republican sponsors of the bill were willing to give it a go once there was no longer a Democrat in office to take credit for it. Trump was the fortunate recipient of McConnell's gamesmanship, and made no good faith effort to actually do what it required of him if it didn't offer him a clear political benefit.
"Semi-loyalty" is the same thing as ends justifying means. We know where that leads. And there's nothing "semi" about the collaborators' fascism.
Maybe this is too small a question, but what's the ground game for combatting this disease?
The big question is why these supposedly intelligent, successful people think they have more to fear from such nebulous ideas as "critical race theory" and "wokism" than from the obvious creep of authoritarianism? In fact I'd like to hear them or anyone even explain those concepts. They
are just made up. They are the bright shiny things with which they attempt to distract folks, and keep us from seeing the developing fascism that is infiltrating every aspect of our in this country.
I just completed my mail-in ballot - a straight Democratic ticket all the way. Being white, I don't think they'll toss out my ballot, but with all of the shenanigans they have pulled here in Texas, I think we'll come up short.
I'm very old, so the lurch today's GOP has taken towards semi-fascism probably won't impact me to a large degree. But how did so many in my generation go from protesting and ending a war, marching for Civil Rights, and demanding environmental protection - clean air and water - to voting for the very people who will ensure our children, grand-children and great-grandchildren will be stripped of the rights and freedoms we once fought for and won?
Oh what a sorry thing to see....
Apparently, not only has the John Birch Society not disappeared, it has metastasized. The Chait piece reminds me of everything I've ever read about the far right from the 1930s on through Robert Welch's heyday.
RE Section 1 - I keep coming back to the simple math on adult development (see Keegan’s work at Harvard). 67 percent of people are followers and 33 percent are leaders but only five percent of leaders mature to become system thinkers, capable of putting the system ahead of tribe and self-interest. Just increasing five percent to ten percent would make a huge difference.
I think there's another group of people who don't get too worked up over Trump: those with the privilege to assume it won't really affect them. It may affect people of color, who are scapegoated and vilified (so what), immigrants (good riddance), LGBTQ folks (well, who cares about them), women who no longer have dominion over their own bodies (sorry, embryos trump), and poor folks who see the social safety net disintegrated away (only getting what they deserve). But I'm safe, so no biggie.
WRT loyalist semi-fascists:
As I have remarked previously, people will go to great lengths to justify/rationalize what is essentially an identity-based vote. They will ignore or downplay anything that calls such a vote into question and seize on even the stupidest thing to justify voting for "their team."
We have seen it time after time over the last few decades, with the actual mechanism becoming more apparent, the justifications (in opposition to the good reasons NOT to vote identity) becoming weaker and weaker.
Even so-called independents (those who deny party identity affiliation) do this, usually centered upon one or two "issues" (like abortion or guns).
These are things that researchers have known for some time but that the larger pundit class seemingly has ignored (I guess because it removes a lot of the tension of the whole horse-race mode of reporting that has become prevalent).
If you understand that people vote largely on the basis of identity (regardless of what they SAY) and you have a good idea of the identity distribution in the population, you can make a pretty good guess on who is going to win (barring how the non-party identity affiliated go on the basis of their particular issue identities).
You can tell that identity is king because people will often vote against their own, objective self-interest on the supposed "kitchen sink" issues that they shout out that are so important to them (but apparently aren't).
I mean, based upon observed historical results, why would you expect the GoP or a GoP controlled government to actually solve any substantive economic problems? Or have any economic agenda besides cutting entitlement programs, cutting taxes, and cutting regulation? And why, on the basis of the evidence, would you think any of those things would actually help the economy in a substantive sense?
A majority of the voting population is fairly locked in--a number of the "independents" that are leaners are also locked in, the one issue voters are locked in. Sure, a black swan event can change the calculus (Dobbs, for example or a war, or a massive social/economic disruption (like maybe a pandemic)--but most times that doesn't happen.
What really skews things in our system is its non-representative nature (unequal weighting of population, state-based results rather than population results, etc).
So, in the end, it is absolutely unsurprising (to me) that people will tolerate absolute shit in order to vote identity--up to and including the destruction of many of our principles and existing institutions. Just like in SW, democracy will die to thunderous applause on the part of many and an accepting silence on the part of even more.
This will not end with this election cycle or the 2024 election cycle even if the "good guys" win... in fact, the more they win, the worse things will get. The more frustrated and angry the other side will get, the more ready to accept violence and a total reconstruction of the system.
IF (and that is a REALLY big if) this situation gets resolved in favor of the "good guys" it will be because the other side is effectively destroyed and outlawed. That means violence. The "good guys" will likely NOT start it--but in order to come out the other side, they WILL have to answer that violence effectively. That means counter violence and a number of other measures that run against their own identity. I find that unlikely.
I fully expect that in the next 20 years we WILL see a MAGAt or MAGAt-like government take power and they WILL attempt to do all the things they say they are going to do. It seems almost inevitable to me.
There will be a lot of regrets after it happens... but then it will be too late... and the only satisfaction that people like me will have is saying, well, we told you so (hopefully from the safety of my retirement in Canada).
If anyone here read Mollie Hemingway's piece in The Federalist a few years ago regarding a summer vacation trip with her children to Disney World, then you will know that--and I say this with ALL Christian love and fellowship-- Ms Hemingway is a wee bit of an idiot. She wrote about how hot and crowded WDW was in June. Evidently, she was unaware that Florida is quite unpleasant in June. Also, it seems did not not realize that many families make the trek to Orlando right after school lets out for the year. Any time I see that woman or catch a glance at anything she has written (I do not make it a habit...I find a firehose colonic a more pleasurable experience), I flash back to that idiotic article. Funnily enough, "conservative" writer David Harsanyi has written a similar WDW family trip piece. Are pundits on the "Right" common-sense deficent? I'm asking for a friend...