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| -Great Cultural Revolution |
| The New Right's Stasi Fantasy |
| 2022-08-17 |
| [Ordinary-Times] Politics today is a new brand of performative art. With the rise of social media and the ability of politicians to create viral videos, snarky tweets, and other red meat content for the politically addicted, it’s no wonder we have a barely functioning federal government. Why attend boring committee hearings, mark up legislation, do constituent outreach, debate policies, and propose legislation when tweeting and making Instagram videos are so much more fun? Congress has become merely another platform for niche celebrities. For the life of me, I still cannot comprehend the unwavering loyalty so many on the right show towards Donald Trump. Yes, he won a fluke election in 2016 against the best possible candidate for him, Hillary Clinton. No one likes her. Outside of what he could do in four years (which most Republicans would have done anyway), he became a three-time loser. The GOP lost the House in 2018. Trump lost the 2020 election, and his stupefyingly ridiculous crusade to claim no one could trust the electoral process in Georgia cost Republicans the Senate. Do you want someone to blame for the American Rescue Plan and the lousy spending bill Democrats rammed through via reconciliation? Blame the former president. Nearly every problem the man has is the result of a self-inflicted wound. I’ve lived across the Hudson River my entire life. I am old enough to have watched that charlatan rise through the ranks of the New York City elite in the early 1980s to the point where he became a pop culture sensation, meriting mentions on television shows and in the movies. He never cared about anyone or anything beyond himself. We’re talking about a guy who created fictitious publicists (John Miller and John Barron) to promote himself. In the late 80s and early 90s, Trump wanted nothing more than to appear on Page 6 of the New York Post. |
| Posted by:746 |
| #7 Actions speak louder than labels. Tyranny has many synonyms. |
| Posted by: JohnQC 2022-08-17 17:32 |
| #6 I have no skin in the game when it comes to the left choosing to destroy itself in a quest for raw power. That scene in Winter Soldier when the lackey suddenly realizes a rather innocuous statement just put him on the hit list. You see, Michael, the movie is fiction, yes. Ask yourself though, why was that scene able to just breeze on by with no explanation? Kiddo....you just put skin in the game. How many writers, official government writers, so you suppose highly authoritarian regimes allow? Its a small number so as to be controlled. How many unofficial writers? |
| Posted by: swksvolFF 2022-08-17 13:08 |
| #5 Stasi is a poor comparison, I agree. A better metaphor is Haiti's Tonton Macutes. Both them and the FBI are enforcers of the regime in power, and have about as much legitimacy. That is, zero. |
| Posted by: Tiny Jeater6933 2022-08-17 11:38 |
| #4 This guy misses the point. Most on the right would feel the same if the FBI had raided Obama with such a flimsy pretext. Especially after years of leaks and lies hoping to tear him down. It's no the man in particular its the abuse of power to take him down that really has folks thinking Stasi. |
| Posted by: ruprecht 2022-08-17 10:50 |
| #3 I have no skin in the game when it comes to the left choosing to destroy itself in a quest for raw power. You will if they achieve it as they have in so many locations around the world. |
| Posted by: Procopius2k 2022-08-17 07:44 |
| #2 Ok, did the White House hire Mike Grillo to write this? Or was it a group effort by NYT/WAPO CNN? Mike Grillo is a 30'ish liberal writer in New Jersey. |
| Posted by: NN2N1 2022-08-17 07:31 |
| #1 want a world where the economic ideals of Friedrich Hayek and Milton Friedman lead the way. Yeah yeah yeah, wait... Was he related to Salma Hayek? |
| Posted by: Dron66046 2022-08-17 04:27 |