https://www.msn.com/en-us/news...6b8a51bc474bdc&ei=11

For those who like "analysis":

(excerpts)

To understand why is to peer into the dark heart of America, an undertaking no one in the establishment media wants to perform. Instead, they prefer to serve us a heaping helping of sentimental Americana.

No media coverage of a political campaign would be complete without the small-town diner story featuring salt-of-the-earth folks in John Deere hats descanting their cracker-barrel wisdom about the state of the world. But something is going on in America, and particularly in the red states, that does not comport with the Norman Rockwell mythology.

The steep rise in gun violence is one notably grisly example, but Americans are killing themselves at record rates in all sorts of ways: drugs, booze, suicide, obesity, even car accidents. The longevity plunge, something almost unheard of in developed countries in peacetime, is extraordinary in itself; the fact that it is intimately connected to Republican politics ought to make it the story of the decade, if not the century.

Since the rise of the Tea Party, droves of people have left the GOP

But it does not explain the 74 million Americans who lined up to vote for Donald Trump, having had four years to evaluate his presidency. The party's secret sauce to stay competitive, to replace those who bolted the party, is something nobody cares to talk about because of the light it casts both on electoral politics and society.

The GOP has attracted to its base the hitherto apolitical and disregarded: rednecks living off the grid, armed-to-the-teeth survivalists, psychopathic grifters and con artists (who may have been attracted by Trump's transparently crooked fundraising), violent criminals, the borderline psychotic, incels living in their mothers' basements, hitherto tiny political extremist groups.

In better times, these disparate groups of antisocial lunatics were institutionalized, socially marginalized or physically isolated from each other. The GOP's vast media-entertainment complex has given them a cause, mobilized them and made them march in unison. One may think there aren't enough of the people I have described to constitute a mass movement. But there are certainly millions of them in a country of a third of a billion, and their presence in a major political party works as a kind of psychological Gresham's Law, resulting in the worst elements driving out the good.

If these groups' demographic weight in the GOP weren't enough, they are augmented by heretofore ostensibly sane people who have gone around the bend. To put it bluntly, four years of nonstop bellicose shrieking from the Trump White House, culminating in the most deadly pandemic in living memory, caused a lot of formerly stable Americans to go nuts. Over the last decade, virtually every one of us has known a friend, a co-worker, or an Uncle Ned who was previously personable, but now rants about how George Soros controls the weather. This is currently the vital center of the Party of Lincoln.

What is it that attracts these types to Trump specifically? The Trump base, disproportionately conservative and religious fundamentalist, is also likely to have been the subject of punitive and authoritarian upbringings; rather than making a clean break with the sickness, they keep replicating it in their lives. Their slave-like loyalty to Trump is a form of masochism towards the angry yet protective family patriarch.

One of the little-noticed aspects of his presidency was the emergence of a right-wing cottage industry cranking out kitsch portraits of their leader as a heroic figure who has somehow shed 60 pounds and displays implausible muscularity. Likewise, the schlock statues, like this example at a CPAC convention, which are apparently not meant as a joke. Some of these efforts are embarrassingly Freudian if not homoerotic.

https://www.salon.com/2020/01/...-artist-of-our-time/

https://jonmcnaughton.com/patriotic/the-resistance/

https://www.nbcnews.com/think/...-gop-his-ncna1259362


And what do these people want? They don't want better health care, fiscal responsibility, better infrastructure, clean drinking water or anything on a policy menu that serves rational ends. They don't necessarily even want a competently administered fascist state such as DeSantis or any number of other Republicans might bring them. The result would bore them; what use do "burn it all down" nihilists have for a detailed political platform?

https://www.texasobserver.org/burn-it-all-down/

Marjorie Taylor Greene and Paul Gosar (who is so toxic his own family disavowed him) were not installed in federal office by Martians; a majority of their voting constituents elected them knowing full well what they stand for.

What they truly want is demons to wrestle with till the end of time. They want revenge. That is why the people they elect to Congress are such a bad fit for a system that requires consensus and compromise. They crave contentiousness and conflict 24/7.

Trump's hold over his base, a force that none of his Republican opponents can quite replicate, is ultimately predicated on the implied threat of violence. As armies, gangs and cults have demonstrated, violence is a tacit loyalty oath that bonds one member to another and above all the group to the leader. The simmering air of menace that characterizes Trump rallies is the sadomasochistic tie between Trump and his followers turned outward as hatred towards the rest of society.

More than 80 years ago, George Orwell commented on the malleability of the endless hate propaganda of earlier charismatic dictatorships; it sounds eerily like the Trump technique: "As for the hate-campaigns in which totalitarian régimes ceaselessly indulge, they are real enough while they last, but are simply dictated by the needs of the moment. Jews, Poles, Trotskyists, English, French, Czechs, Democrats, Fascists, Marxists — almost anyone can figure as Public Enemy No. 1. Hatred can be turned in any direction at a moment's notice, like a plumber's blow-flame."

Can YOU explain why more than 74 millions voted for Biden and Kamala??

quote:

Originally posted by Saeed:
Can YOU explain why more than 74 millions voted for Biden and Kamala??

Trump

Big Myth About Jan. 6

https://www.msn.com/en-us/musi...1b75031339c228&ei=25

While cruising the internet, and enjoying a Bud Light, I ran into this:

DRUDGE RETORT

https://drudge.com/news/267078/gops-heart-darkness

"We enter parliament in order to supply ourselves, in the arsenal of democracy, with its own weapons. If democracy is so stupid as to give us free tickets and salaries for this bear's work, that is its affair. We do not come as friends, nor even as neutrals. We come as enemies. As the wolf bursts into the flock, so we come."
Joseph Goebbels

I find the Words: "Heart of Darkness" interesting.

There are parallels in Joseph Conrad's book and politics, etc. then and now:

https://www.123helpme.com/essa...art-of-Darkness-7882

Here's a new movie that captures the idea; Heart Of Darkness:

Killers Of The Flower Moon Review: A Cautionary Masterpiece On The Insidiousness Of White Men [Cannes 2023]
Story by Lex Briscuso • Yesterday 10:28 PM

https://www.msn.com/en-us/movi...nes-2023/ar-AA1bsTW3

Martin Scorsese’s Killers of the Flower Moon Is a Triumph
Story by David Sims • Yesterday 3:45 PM

https://www.msn.com/en-us/movi...f850952ae44f53&ei=45

https://www.msn.com/en-us/movi...wer-moon/ar-AA1bto5i

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news...to-trump/ar-AA1bu0sJ

Robert De Niro compares villain of 'Killers of the Flower Moon' to Trump
Opinion by Mary McNamara • 1h ago

And you insist this is all one way?

Mao, Lenin, Stalin, and Chavez all had similar comments and beliefs.

Extremism is not the province of the right or the GOP.

Doc Butler - I have a lot of respect for you, believe it or not.

I agree that extremist are not the realm of just the left or the right.

I just point out the extremist aspect of the Right.

If you care to, please point out the equivalence from the left; not history, but today.

That should be no problem for you, since your favorite thing is equiveillance.

I'm counting on you.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/mone...87b7e7a1cfe584&ei=12

America’s Poverty Is Built by Design

Over 42,000,000 Americans are so poor they live on food stamps!

What an utterly fucked up country!

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news...76b00911fd571c&ei=19

Defending America’s soul in an age of extremism
Opinion by William S. Becker, opinion contributor • Yesterday 3:00 PM

In a speech before last fall’s midterm elections, President Biden warned we are engaged in a battle for the nation’s soul. “As I stand here tonight, equality and democracy are under assault,” he said. “We do ourselves no favor to pretend otherwise.”

So, let’s not pretend otherwise. We should start by not calling this a battle. There are white militias that would like nothing better than civil war. They’ve been arming themselves and training for a long time.

Instead, we should defend America’s fundamental principles of freedom, equality, morality, dignity and loyalty to the same Constitution. These are the “soul of the nation.”

The various groups engaged in the assault include white supremacists, white separatists, white nationalists, neo-Nazis, Christian nationalists, the Ku Klux Klan and an assortment of self-identified patriot organizations on the far-right wing of politics. Experts classify them as Islamophobic, anti-Semitic, homophobic, transphobic, misogynistic and xenophobic. For the sake of brevity, we can call them the “phobics.”

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news...76b00911fd571c&ei=36

Stand your ground set the stage: How we let fascism creep in
Story by Scott Huler • 4h ago

quote:

Originally posted by Magine Enigam:
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news...76b00911fd571c&ei=19

Defending America’s soul in an age of extremism
Opinion by William S. Becker, opinion contributor • Yesterday 3:00 PM

In a speech before last fall’s midterm elections, President Biden warned we are engaged in a battle for the nation’s soul. “As I stand here tonight, equality and democracy are under assault,” he said. “We do ourselves no favor to pretend otherwise.”

So, let’s not pretend otherwise. We should start by not calling this a battle. There are white militias that would like nothing better than civil war. They’ve been arming themselves and training for a long time.

Instead, we should defend America’s fundamental principles of freedom, equality, morality, dignity and loyalty to the same Constitution. These are the “soul of the nation.”

The various groups engaged in the assault include white supremacists, white separatists, white nationalists, neo-Nazis, Christian nationalists, the Ku Klux Klan and an assortment of self-identified patriot organizations on the far-right wing of politics. Experts classify them as Islamophobic, anti-Semitic, homophobic, transphobic, misogynistic and xenophobic. For the sake of brevity, we can call them the “phobics.”

Where is equality in America?

Blacks are preferred to whites.

Men are winning women sport!

Oh, I forgot.

THIS IS DEMOCRACY!

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news...21b72602c60e16&ei=12

The ambitious Republican plot to take it all down
Story by Heather Digby Parton • 1h ago

(excerpts)

he next Trump administration will be ready to hit the ground running with their leader's Retribution Agenda and it won't be because Trump is any more effective at presidential leadership. It will be because right-wing institutions will have spent their four years in the wilderness preparing for their chance to enact a radical overhaul of the federal government unlike anything we've ever seen in this country.

Even some members of the GOP establishment are getting nervous:

There was always talk of this among the original Trumpers, even though the president himself didn't have a clue what they were talking about. Recall former adviser Steve Bannon bellowing about the "deconstruction of the administrative state" and former Attorney General Bill Barr's assertions of unchecked executive power for example. As it happened, Trump was so far in over his head and ran such a chaotic, scandal-filled administration that they were unable to institute many systematic changes to test their theories but they came away with the knowledge that given another chance with a corrupt demagogue they could make changes to the system that could help them stay in power indefinitely.

Americans may think that a rerun of the The Trump Show won't be a catastrophe since most of us survived his tenure. But it won't be a rerun. Since the day Trump left the White House for his exile at Mar-a-Lago, well-funded right-wing organizations have been planning the return to power with a fully developed agenda and plan to enact it. All they have to do is put the Sharpie in Trump's hand to sign what they put in front of him after which he can run out to the cameras and whine and complain about whomever is his target that day as his minions turn the executive branch into a full functioning partisan operation.

Last summer, Axios' Jonathan Swan wrote a long report on what they've been planning: https://www.axios.com/2022/07/...cal-plan-second-term A radical plan for Trump’s second term

The impact could go well beyond typical conservative targets such as the Environmental Protection Agency and the Internal Revenue Service. Trump allies are working on plans that would potentially strip layers at the Justice Department — including the FBI, and reaching into national security, intelligence, the State Department and the Pentagon, sources close to the former president say...The heart of the plan is derived from an executive order known as "Schedule F," developed and refined in secret over most of the second half of Trump's term and launched 13 days before the 2020 election.

Schedule F is an executive order which would reassign potentially tens of thousands of federal employees they determine to have policy influence so they would lose their civil service protections. Republicans have come to believe that the entire federal government is filled with woke liberals intent on depriving them of their natural right to rule without restraint.

https://www.axios.com/2022/07/...-f-federal-employees
==========================================================

How we let fascism creep in

The plan is being produced by a number of Republican groups and coordinated by some names with which you are no doubt familiar, like former Justice Department (DOJ) lawyer Jeffrey Clark, former Devin Nunes and Pentagon staffer Kash Patel, and former White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows all of whom are caught up in Trump's legal messes as well. They plan to salt every department with GOP toadies from the military to the DOJ to the Department of Education to the Centers for Disease Control and the National Institutes of Health. And conservative organizations like the Heritage Foundation are drawing up lists of candidates. (That same right-wing institution similarly staffed the provisional government in Iraq with young neocons to disastrous results.) https://www.eenews.net/article...-gop-administration/ Inside Heritage’s plans for a 2025 GOP administration
By Kelsey Brugger | 02/22/2023 01:38 PM EST

--------------------------------------------------

https://www.news-journal.com/h...e5-2764107d3bd7.html Heritage Hires John McEntee To Help Staff Next GOP Administration
Philip Wegmann | RealClearWire May 3, 2023 Updated May 3, 2023

As voters begin to assess each of the Republican candidates running for president, behind the scenes, the conservative Heritage Foundation is vetting personnel as they prepare to staff the next White House as part of “Project 2025,” their $22 million transition operation.

The New York Times previously dubbed the effort, “right-wing LinkedIn.” But Heritage calls it the “Presidential Personnel Database,”

Heritage has long operated according to the motto that “personnel is policy” and helped Republican presidents since Ronald Reagan staff their administrations. The group has never before launched such a broad, well-financed effort, however. The push was born of previous failure, or, at very least, opportunities not fully realized the last time a Republican entered the Oval Office.

https://www.google.com/search?...sclient=gws-wiz#ip=1

--------------------------------------------------

The beauty of this plan is that it doesn't actually matter if Trump wins again. They can use it just as easily for another Republican. But it would be especially well-suited for Trump's principal rival Florida Governor Ron DeSantis. Time Magazine's Molly Ball reported on DeSantis' desire to use every bit of executive power to achieve his goals:

"One of my first orders of business after getting elected was to have my transition team amass an exhaustive list of all the constitutional, statutory, and customary powers of the governor," he writes in The Courage to Be Free. "I wanted to be sure that I was using every lever available to advance our priorities." Aides from the time have corroborated this account, describing a thick binder of information that DeSantis proceeded to devour.

There's no need to reiterate all the ways in which he uses every lever and coerces the legislature to enact the most extreme agenda of any state in America and now promises to take it national. Should he win he will run with the Schedule F plan and probably come up with a few of his own. This is what defines him as a political leader. https://nymag.com/intelligence...to-trumps-right.html

In fact, from the sound of all the Republicans on the trail extolling the alleged "bombshell" that's actually a dud of the Durham Report as if it's some huge indictment of the "deep state" that has to be completely dismantled, it's obvious that this is going to be a Republican Party project, not a Trump project at all. They are all organizing themselves around blatant lies about elections, democracy, law and justice, health, foreign policy and national security and their partisan institutions are plotting to use those lies to remake the federal government.

It's an ambitious plan but with the courts on their side and a congressional majority, it's eminently doable. It's imperative that the American people do not let them attain power again as long as this is their agenda or there may be no going back.

Well, fortunately for both of us, I’m finishing up my final process for my hunting trip to Africa, and don’t have the time to sit and research for acceptable links on my desktop- and trying to do it by phone is just an exercise in frustration.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news...3b6829631c5059&ei=88

Reality is an endlessly useful political opponent
Story by Philip Bump • 10h ago

Here's how fascist fodder are fertilized:

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news...fptaskbarhover&ei=10

Violence is the new Republican grift
Opinion by Chauncey DeVega • 1h ago

(excerpts)

Most Republican and other right-wing elected officials and members of the political class and media machine likely do not know who Carl Schmitt is. That is most certainly true of Donald Trump, a man who is proudly ignorant and does not read. It is almost certain that the average Republican voter, and other rank-and file-members of the MAGA movement do not know who Carl Schmitt is. But that does not matter because they are most certainly compelled to embrace Schmitt's arguments in favor of violence against some type of "enemy" such as Black and brown people, Muslims, the LGBTQ community, Democrats, liberals, progressives, and others deemed to not be "real Americans."

Trump's greatest appeal is how he gives his followers and others in the MAGA movement's orbit permission to be their worst true horrible selves. Violence bonds members of a social group together; this is especially true of political personality cults such as the Trump MAGA movement. Healthy democracies discourage and outlaw political violence because it is antithetical to normal politics with its rules-based deliberation and collective decision-making and other ways of attempting to be legitimate sources of authority among the governed.

Trump continues to valorize the Jan. 6 terrorists as "heroes" and "political prisoners" who are victims of the deep state and the Biden administration.

https://www.salon.com/2023/04/...e-not-going-to-stop/

"Right now, the American condition is to pretend that fascism isn't happening."

"After Trump comes others": Author Jeff Sharlet explains why "neofascists are not going to stop"
"It's worse post-Trump than it was during Trump's presidency"

The Republican fascists are escalating their nationwide campaign to end multiracial democracy and freedom. As seen on Jan. 6, these plans include terrorism and other acts of violence.

Donald Trump is the Republican frontrunner and polls show that he has a very real chance of returning to power where he will then, per his public promises and threats, engage in a "final battle" and campaign of revenge and retribution against he and his fascist MAGA movement's "enemies" – meaning Democrats, liberals, progressives, Black and brown people, the LGBTQ community, and anyone else who dares to defend real democracy and common decency.

The right-wing propaganda machine and echo chamber is amplifying the fascist assaults on democracy and a humane society.

White Christofascists and other right-wing Christian evangelicals believe that Donald Trump is an emissary or prophet from their God – a MAGA fascist Jesus – and that it is their sacred duty to support the traitor president and to end secular pluralistic democracy.

For more than a decade in such books as "The Family: The Secret Fundamentalism at the Heart of American Power" and "C Street: The Fundamentalist Threat to American Democracy", author and journalist Jeff Sharlet has been warning the American people about the rise of American neofascism and the Age of Trump – what he describes as "the Trumpocene." Sharlet's new book, "The Undertow: Scenes from a Slow Civil War," is an invaluable field map and guide for an America that is sick with neofascism and other great societal sicknesses and troubles and how to navigate, survive, and perhaps even triumph over them.

================================================

https://www.salon.com/2023/04/...rumpocene-nightmare/

Trapped in the Trumpocene nightmare
Is there any way to escape this era?

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/FAXSZxyuySc

Dear Ma and Pa MAGA: Donald Trump Never Faught for You, He Only Validated Your Hate.

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/pgetuiTmPG0

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trumpism

Trumpism

Trumpism is a term for the political ideologies, social emotions, style of governance,[7] political movement, and set of mechanisms for acquiring and keeping control of power associated with Donald Trump and his political base.

The precise composition of Trumpism is contentious and is sufficiently complex to overwhelm any single framework of analysis;[10] it has been referred to as an American political variant of the far-right[11][12] and the national-populist and neo-nationalist sentiment seen in multiple nations worldwide from the late 2010s[13] to the early 2020s. Though not strictly limited to any one party, Trump supporters became the largest faction of the Republican Party in the United States, with the remainder often characterized as "the elite" or "the establishment" in contrast. Some Republicans became members of the Never Trump movement, with several leaving the party in protest of Trump's ascendancy.

Former National Security Advisor and close Trump advisor John Bolton states this is true of Trump, disputing that Trumpism even exists in any meaningful philosophical sense, adding that "[t]he man does not have a philosophy. And people can try and draw lines between the dots of his decisions. They will fail."

Writing for the Routledge Handbook of Global Populism (2019), Olivier Jutel claims, "What Donald Trump reveals is that the various iterations of right-wing American populism have less to do with a programmatic social conservatism or libertarian economics than with enjoyment."[39] Referring to the populism of Trump, sociologist Michael Kimmel states that it "is not a theory [or] an ideology, it's an emotion. And the emotion is righteous indignation that the government is screwing 'us'".[40] Kimmel notes that "Trump is an interesting character because he channels all that sense of what I called 'aggrieved entitlement,'"[41] a term Kimmel defines as "that sense that those benefits to which you believed yourself entitled have been snatched away from you by unseen forces larger and more powerful. You feel yourself to be the heir to a great promise, the American Dream, which has turned into an impossible fantasy for the very people who were supposed to inherit it."

(it's a long analysis - worth reading.)

Note it didn’t say Fascist or neofascist in what you quoted.

I skipped that part in choosing what to quote.

It's there, but I try to not over-use those terms.

I think the article/analysis of Trumpism per Wikipedia is the most accurate and thorough out there. I arrived at that article by way of neofascism, which had a link towards Trumpism.

The reasons I'm conflicted in using the terms, and avoiding their use, is because they are both offensive and misinterpreted, but IMO accurate.

My intent is not to be offensive. But some things need to be said.

I think most conservatives, including especially yourself, are conditioned to deny or overlook the tendencies and trajectory of what's happening in the GOP.

I use the term Fascist Fodder pejoratively, not to offend, but IMO it's the best description for the ignorance, denial and vulnerability.

Quote from a previous post:

"Right now, the American condition is to pretend that fascism isn't happening."

"Everywhere there’s globes": Georgia GOP chair goes full flat-earther in wild rant
Story by Tatyana Tandanpolie • 7h ago

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news...89b3cc2b8ab122&ei=77

Just in case you think Trumpism isn't real enough:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oWE930leuVU

Trump Calls To 'Purge These Criminals' In Power, Rails Against Clinton And Biden After Durham Report

Republicans triggered by Homeland Security chart showing right-wing extremism begins with GOP activism
Story by Sarah K. Burris • 7h ago

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news...1b2cc28d3452e9&ei=13

Far-right groups are complaining about being included in a Department of Homeland Security chart called the "Pathways toward terrorism" which includes research on terrorism and political violence and was written in 2008 by Sophia Moskalenko and Clark McCauley.

The researchers show how radicalization generally increases from benign political involvement, "increasing extremity of beliefs, feelings, and behaviors in support of intergroup conflict and violence," the study's abstract explains. "Across individuals, groups, and mass publics, twelve mechanisms of radicalization are distinguished."

So, political activism on the right can begin at the party level and slowly increase to anti-government militias, it says.

The Heritage Foundation was quickly triggered by being included in the bottom rung of the pyramid among the right entry-level groups. One piece they were miffed about was a researcher's comments that fringe extremists can infiltrate groups or rallies.

The argument from the right is that President Joe Biden's administration is weaponizing the government against Republicans. Still, the administration explains that domestic terrorists come from far-right groups like those at the Jan. 6 attacks. Militia groups like the Proud Boys and Oath Keepers were working with Republican Party leaders and lawmakers.

Speaking to Fox Business on Thursday, Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH), behind the so-called "weaponization" committee investigation, expressed outrage.

Republicans have consistently attacked investigations into domestic terrorism. In the Feb. 2021 House Homeland Security, the FBI explained that there has been a steady rise in domestic extremism and violence.

“There’s no question in my mind that the rhetoric inflamed it and turned the boiling water from a hot pot of water to overflowing,” said Rep. John Katko (R-NY).

Yet, throughout the Donald Trump presidency, the administration "steps to weaken the federal government’s response to the growing crisis," American Oversight claimed at the time.

https://www.americanoversight....ng-violent-extremism

COMBATING DOMESTIC TERRORISM AND RIGHT-WING VIOLENT EXTREMISM
Despite the documented rise in violent right-wing extremism, the Trump administration has taken steps to weaken the federal government’s response to the growing crisis. We’re investigating cuts to funding for a countering domestic terrorism program, the role of key offices within the Department of Homeland Security, and the installation of political appointees with anti-immigrant and anti-Muslim views.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/ente...1b2cc28d3452e9&ei=31

Fox News hit with a new billion dollar case as "Succession" ends with a warning

Another billion dollar case is rocking Fox News after it lost the historic Dominion case over alleged lies, and fired anchor Tucker Carlson after damning revelations and evidence from that lawsuit. HBO's hit show “Succession" channels and critiques Rupert Murdoch's empire, and has lessons and a warning for today’s billionaire era. In this exhaustive cultural and journalistic report, MSNBC anchor Ari Melber draws on four seasons of the show; real life events in politics, law and media; interviews with the show’s stars from “The Beat,” and data on rising inequality to explore the fictional show’s warning for real life.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news...04282ab766cb6f&ei=20

Secession is here: States, cities and the wealthy are already withdrawing from America
Story by Michael J. Lee, Professor of Communication, College of Charleston • 4h ago

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news...647b2edc35e645&ei=20

Across Europe, the far right is rising. That it seems normal is all the more terrifying
Opinion by Owen Jones • 13h ago

The left has Antifa, ELF, ALF, Communist party. The left did a good job of destroying Portland and killed at least one cop.

"Two wrongs don't make a right."

Multiple wrongs makes the political Right.

One's wrongs doesn't justify another's wrongs.

Wrong is wrong in and of itself and can never hold high ground.

Wrong is never a justified means to an end.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news...135ce6d6d05ab9&ei=41

Former GOP Rep Answers If Trump Or DeSantis Is Greater Threat, Doesn’t Hold Back
Story by Lee Moran • 3h ago

“But in Ron DeSantis, you have somebody who bears the same fragile vanities of Donald Trump, the paranoia and the executive abuse of Richard Nixon, a view of religion and church and state like Pat Robertson, and the discreet methodologies of Attorney General Bill Barr,”

Trump could “try to topple the nation in a single day,”

DeSantis “will do it by a thousand cuts.”

“And those thousand cuts include bringing and ripping our culture backwards 100 years to a pre-civil rights era, normalizing a view of race and gender and progressive ideologies and the LGBT issues that we continue to try to mainstream in the United States,”

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news...384fa77b1d5033&ei=22

The False Equivalence Between The ‘Far Right’ And The ‘Hard Left’
Story by Peter Dreier • Yesterday 8:40 AM

It is difficult to rank House members on an ideological scale because rankings look solely at voting records, and each organization that attempts to rank members selects different votes as crucial. The more important point, though, is not necessarily about voting records. It’s a question of how we define “extremism.”

On a scale of political ideology and positions from 100 to 0 (with 100 being the far left and 0 being the far right), and 50 being in the middle, even the most left-oriented Democrats (Ocasio-Cortez, Bush, Casar, Bowman, Raskin, Jayapal) are not extremists. They are different shades of social democrats; they espouse policies that are fairly mainstream across western democracies. They advocate for the rights of marginalized people and are pro-union, pro-choice and concerned about climate change. They want to expand the social safety net, favor progressive taxation and want to raise the minimum wage.

In contrast, the most right-wing Republicans are extremists and reactionaries. Many rub shoulders with, and speak in support of, white supremacists, Christian nationalists, and anti-Semites. In many cases, they want to repeal the political and cultural victories of the civil rights, feminist, gay rights, environmental, and labor movements. They deny that the 2020 election was legitimate, and took steps to overturn it. They support the January 6 insurrectionists, who they cast as freedom fighters. They have opposed the fundamentals of democracy — like the right to vote and the peaceful transition of power — and, in some cases, played active roles in the closest thing to a coup the U.S. has experienced in its nearly 250-year history.

It might be tempting to say that extremism is in the eye of the beholder. Ocasio-Cortez thinks that Greene is an extremist and vice versa. But for the media to continually create this false equivalence between the “far-right” and the “far-left” is misleading and distorts a crucial, critical reality of American politics in 2023 — one that looms behind even the most anodyne legislative battle.

Strange how Peter Dreier doesnt seem to think Ilhan Omars Israel comments are extreme left. Her own party called her out as anti-semite.

This to me represents the Right - burn it all down:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hjYAEtO-Ohk

Easy Rider 1969 End