He is a modern day Girolamo Savonarola for a MAGA inquisition. I am surprised there isn’t a section for patches to be worn for undesirables like gay or trans people or liberal democrats or the Jews who support them.
In the longer chapter he tended to repeat himself. I had to cut so much out because he just kept saying the same thing. I also cut out a large portion at the end where he just went into a deep dive about how to reform the various agencies which was full of jargon. The cruelty throughout the chapter was stunning. I’ve paraphrased parts as he was long winded but it’s basically kick them out, keep them out, no exceptions unless they are wealthy or highly skilled.
That’s the edited version. This chapter has been the worst so far. The part that got me was the elimination of visa for people who had been crime victims and were working with the police. The folks at the Heritage Foundation just don’t care. Migrants are scum to them. There’s zero empathy.
There is no sense of adherence to facts or evidence, just operationalizing the extreme opinions of a zealot on closing the borders and oppressing anyone who does not meet the far right’s definition of being an American. And then, of course, there is the mandate to privatize anything that moves, including eliminating national flood insurance that would then be covered by commercial insurance. Commercial insurance is abandoning places that are suffering flooding, so this means that in an era of climate change, we would have no flood insurance. Also, even in major disasters, the federal government would only cover 75% of the cost. Since the far right believes in eliminating all taxes, that means there would not be sufficient disaster relief, especially for those situations where in their “wisdom“ they decide that it is only a minor disaster, where the federal government would only kick in 25%.
The kakistocracy here is astonishing in its reach. Put all of these major agencies into a blender and then put the sludge through a food mill to remove career professionals, replace them with loyalists and have a dumb loyalist at the top. And then there are lies, built into policy, nullifying the finding that Russia did interfere in the 2016 election, requiring a defense against disinformation and misinformation. But no, all lies would now be free to roam along with any facts so that no one would know what to believe. That is a core element of a fascist takeover. Then there are goodies like re-vetting military assignments because they happened under the Biden administration. And there is expansion of the Coast Guard, whose duties primarily involve search and rescue to make it a the military arm of border enforcement. And how would you put that into action?
Believe it or not, there is a way to understand where such recommendations make sense to someone with a different worldview. There is a variety of right wing extremists that are well described by George Lakoff, who tries to understand that worldview as a cognitive linguist. This 2005 lecture is the clearest presentation of that understanding, and it hasn’t aged. It also helped me better understand how the Harris/Walz campaign is much smarter now about framing their messaging rather than reinforcing the memes of the far right.
A keeper. We all know it’s hateful and wrong, but thank you for your ability to get to the core. I’ll refer to it and — I hope — throw it away in November.
He is a modern day Girolamo Savonarola for a MAGA inquisition. I am surprised there isn’t a section for patches to be worn for undesirables like gay or trans people or liberal democrats or the Jews who support them.
In the longer chapter he tended to repeat himself. I had to cut so much out because he just kept saying the same thing. I also cut out a large portion at the end where he just went into a deep dive about how to reform the various agencies which was full of jargon. The cruelty throughout the chapter was stunning. I’ve paraphrased parts as he was long winded but it’s basically kick them out, keep them out, no exceptions unless they are wealthy or highly skilled.
Bone-chilling!
That’s the edited version. This chapter has been the worst so far. The part that got me was the elimination of visa for people who had been crime victims and were working with the police. The folks at the Heritage Foundation just don’t care. Migrants are scum to them. There’s zero empathy.
There is no sense of adherence to facts or evidence, just operationalizing the extreme opinions of a zealot on closing the borders and oppressing anyone who does not meet the far right’s definition of being an American. And then, of course, there is the mandate to privatize anything that moves, including eliminating national flood insurance that would then be covered by commercial insurance. Commercial insurance is abandoning places that are suffering flooding, so this means that in an era of climate change, we would have no flood insurance. Also, even in major disasters, the federal government would only cover 75% of the cost. Since the far right believes in eliminating all taxes, that means there would not be sufficient disaster relief, especially for those situations where in their “wisdom“ they decide that it is only a minor disaster, where the federal government would only kick in 25%.
The kakistocracy here is astonishing in its reach. Put all of these major agencies into a blender and then put the sludge through a food mill to remove career professionals, replace them with loyalists and have a dumb loyalist at the top. And then there are lies, built into policy, nullifying the finding that Russia did interfere in the 2016 election, requiring a defense against disinformation and misinformation. But no, all lies would now be free to roam along with any facts so that no one would know what to believe. That is a core element of a fascist takeover. Then there are goodies like re-vetting military assignments because they happened under the Biden administration. And there is expansion of the Coast Guard, whose duties primarily involve search and rescue to make it a the military arm of border enforcement. And how would you put that into action?
Believe it or not, there is a way to understand where such recommendations make sense to someone with a different worldview. There is a variety of right wing extremists that are well described by George Lakoff, who tries to understand that worldview as a cognitive linguist. This 2005 lecture is the clearest presentation of that understanding, and it hasn’t aged. It also helped me better understand how the Harris/Walz campaign is much smarter now about framing their messaging rather than reinforcing the memes of the far right.
https://youtu.be/5f9R9MtkpqM?
A keeper. We all know it’s hateful and wrong, but thank you for your ability to get to the core. I’ll refer to it and — I hope — throw it away in November.