In the mega thread - I posted this (prescient?) tweet an hour ago...

By Wednesday it’ll be two weeks and the baby will have to prove it’s looking for work.

“It is down to 4 weeks,” Biden says on CNN of his paid family and medical leave proposal.

Tweet

  • ClimateChangeAnxiety [he/him, they/them]
    ·
    3 years ago

    Can we please get to the “Semi common assassinations of elected officials” stage of US collapse? This is fucking exhausting. How the hell is this man allowed to be in public without his life being in serious danger?

    • inshallah2 [none/use name]
      ·
      3 years ago

      Imagine a leftist on MSNBC. I know, I know - it's almost an impossibility but lets watch. The segment has already started...

      Talking head: "What do you think should be done about Joe Manchin?"

      Leftist: "A very mild thing would be milkshaking."

      Talking head: "Uh... milkshaking? I don't follow."

      Leftist: "Milkshaking is when a person - a regular person - throws a milkshake on one of the very worst garbage politicians. It has a Wikipedia page. It's happened in the UK and—"

      Talking head: "I need to stop you there. Right there. Are you actually suggesting people commit violent acts on duly elected government officials?"

      Leftist: "Violence? Nah. It's just a milkshake..."

      Then there's back and forth where the leftist tries to express that it's simple civil disobedience and the host keeps saying it's violence. Less than 60 seconds have passed - the ad break is still minutes away.

      Talking head: "I shouldn't need to tell you - violence can lead to terrorism."

      Leftist: "A milkshake is just milk and ice cream. What next? Are you going to tell me using lactose in this way is terrorism? Lactose terrorism is not a thing."

      Talking head: "We need to go to a break. And when we - I mean I - return we will discuss this with our panel."

      And then there's a solid ~72 hours where seemingly every single lib pundit in American is speaking on the importance of norms, civility, the vital importance of the discourse, and the danger of extremism on each side of the political spectrum. "On both sides" is only used by the clumsiest lib pundits due to it being a Trumpian phrase.

      Full disclosure - I put myself on MSNBC. I couldn't help it.

    • activated [he/him]
      ·
      3 years ago

      This happened in the 70s, a little bit here, but largely in countries like Italy.

      As it does, capitalism adapted, and now we have the modern security state that grew out of those crises. It's a mix of hard (secret service, etc.) and soft (demonization of all violence in politics) deterrents.

      So what will happen will be exactly what happened in Italy during the Lead Years or during the Troubles. The government or (often and) the far right will do acts of murder and violence, and the left will retaliate in kind. The right wing violence will be downplayed by the fascist media apparatus, and the left wing violence will come to dominate public perception of the issue. Eventually, there will be something that goes too far (assassinating the PM in Italy's case), and the government will use it as an excuse for a fascist crackdown, and the world will cheer.