I am curious about the reception to the Larry Ellison quote on surveillance. I suppose you were in the SV space, where surveillance is the bread and butter; but in my mind, this message could be used much more widely and more effectively than it is, as could the “Netanyahu wants Trump to win” bumper sticker message for the masses.
I was at the Bitcoin conference where arguable 95% of people in attendance, tuning in, and generally aligned are voting Trump. Tens of millions. And it’s all about government control and surveillance. Edward Snowden beamed in and gave a chilling speech about the dark road we’re heading down. If Dems really want to promote freedom and disavow the new world order shit, they have to really walk the walk and, as Audrey Tang puts it, radically trust the people. I think if we do some kind of non-electoral Trump-squashing move inside of this brainwashed moment we will never again be able to claim that we are the party of democracy. We kind of let this happen. We didn’t do enough, over decades and yes, against extraordinary forces of determination, to prevent this. We didn’t run for school boards until 2018, fight for working class, show up in Michigan,etc (obv oversimplifying). It’s not our fault, but it’s not not our fault.
We are in a codependent relationship with republicans. Like Javert needs Valjean. Without a threat, we lose our fucking focus.
Well, here’s the threat. I think surveillance is a huge issue that maybe wouldn’t alienate dem voters but could win some others if we came out strongly against. Pair this message with the Kroger “flexible pricing” and “eye tracking” dystopian shit that ppl would viscerally recoil against, and claim that anti corporate/pro freedom message as our rightful inheritance
Yes the problem is without an interrupt and if Trump / Vance win, it may not be possible to restore elections due to all the tactics they will use to dismantle the system
Yes, that is precisely the problem. I guess I just think that the dems even lost a lot of people by "coronating" Harris, which I think is insane. Yes, it was imperfect (I was on those "Delegates are Democracy" calls, I really do get it!), but I don't think it was the Deep State engineering feat of the century, or whatever people think it may have been. So I think any other maneuvers to foreclose upon this election would shrink the window of rebuilding even further. I guess I'm just really focusing on beating him fairly and squarely, but knowing that there's a Hail Mary involved in really sweeping the election and praying (yes) that our system can contain the anger and outrage and violence that he has seeded in advance of a potential loss. A lot of ifs and hoping in there, I fully recognize. I just don't see another way.
Oh! And speaking of "praying," (and despite my general sense that sharing one's own writing on someone else's substack is a writerly faux pas) here's the piece I mentioned, where I propose a daily practice of synchronized collective imagination as we lead up and respond to this election, in addition to our unrelenting efforts on the ground. https://allisongustavson.substack.com/p/a-granola-bar-of-a-post-dense-with
I think Daniel is correct that if elected Trump will not be allowed to take office, the anti-Trump rhetoric contains assertions that cannot and probably never were intended to be dialed back. Some last minute legal argument will be made by those who hold the power / the current administration and "democracy will be suspended" in order to "save it". Social media like X will be shut down to prevent dissent, protest and social organization. All the things that the Democrats have been signaling and preparing for for at least a year. People like Daniel will rejoice that we have been saved from a horrible "dictatorial fascist regime " while those on the other side will only see the bold ascension of a previously thinly disguised dictatorial -anti-democratic, militaristic , fascist state, that will now boldly pull anything to maintain control.
Not a self-reflective moment will be spent considering where the responsibility lies for this electoral outcome. How such a terrible, evil person could defeat such a wonderful , intelligent , sincere, righteous and generous incumbent will all be self-servingly attributed to "brainwashing" or "stupidity" as we have seen Daniel and others argue in these threads.
I tend to disagree: when Trump won an election, he became president for four (shitty) years; when he lost an election, he whined and lied about it for four (also shitty) years.
Although I would wager against it, I agree with you in that I see the deepstatedems as less likely to accede to the results of the election than Trump.
To me, most likely outcome is Trump and a split Senate. And although that's nothing to rejoice over, it is quite possibly the least dangerous option.
I meant to also say that in this case, I am 💯 with you on working every angle inside of this election (your relational organizing “organizing,” etc) rather than working from outside of it, as globally dice-rolling as that may sound
Here's what I've posted on social media in case anyone wants to repost or repurpose:
In the last few days, Trump has repeatedly said that his political opponents —and he mentions explicitly Nancy Pelosi and Adam Schiff to make it clear he is not talking about immigrants, etc —are an "enemy within" and that he will use the national guard and the military to deal with them. Trump is explicitly saying that he intends to be a military dictator.
Here is the "Truth" Trump posted on his social media platform, Truth Social, where he says he is entitled to suspend the Constitution:
"Do you throw the Presidential Election Results of 2020 OUT and declare the RIGHTFUL WINNER, or do you have a NEW ELECTION? A Massive Fraud of this type and magnitude allows for the termination of all rules, regulations, and articles, even those found in the Constitution," Trump wrote in a post on the social network Truth Social and accused "Big Tech" of working closely with Democrats. "Our great 'Founders' did not want, and would not condone, False & Fraudulent Elections!"
The whole idea of America was not to be ruled by a king and to have checks and balances to keep a would-be despot from seizing power. The founding fathers warned us that democracy was a fragile experiment that could fail if a despotic demagogue fooled voters.
Less than two weeks after the start of the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia, George Washington wrote to his friend, the Marquis de Lafayette, on June 6, 1787, explaining that his critical purpose in attending the convention was to prevent a demagogue from gaining power in the politically unstable young nation and thus destroying it.
Washington described how he was pulled out of retirement by an urgent risk to the United States. "Anarchy and confusion" were threatening the security of the American people and the rule of constitutional law. But this was only half the danger.
The deeper risk, he wrote that early June, was that the political chaos created fertile ground for exploitation "by some aspiring demagogue who will not consult the interest of his country so much as his own ambitious views."
Washington, of course, was not the only framer who viewed our Constitution largely as a bulwark against demagogues. In the surviving records of the speeches given at the Constitutional Convention, the word "demagogue" was used 21 times by the framers as they crafted the Constitution's essential checks and balances against despotism and tyranny.
Voters in this country are on the verge of giving an Electoral College victory to a man who tried a coup to hold on to power and is explicitly telling you that he intends to suspend the Constitution and be a military dictator.
This is not time for "what aboutisms" related to Biden/Harris. Yes, Biden had some disastrous failures. Yes, Wokism is a motherload of stupid ideas. Yes, Harris said stupid things in 2019. Yes, we have a mass psychosis in this country on both the left and on the right--the left version is more obnoxious, but the right version is far more dangerous.
As a well-informed, lifelong Republican said in 2016 on why he was going to vote for Clinton,
"I disagree with Clinton on almost everything, but she's within the normal range of being wrong."
Trump is far outside the normal range of being wrong--he has explicitly announced his intentions to end democracy. Anyone voting for him or failing to vote for the only viable alternative will be complicit in ending America's fragile, 240-year experiment with democracy.
Besides voting for Harris, here's what you can do. This election will be decided by about 75,000 people in seven swing states--Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. Search your contacts for voters in those states who might not vote or are not fully committed to a candidate. DO NOT waste time debating someone who is fully intoxicated by the Orange Koolaide. Research shows that offering facts to those who are ideologically captured only causes them to harden and double down on their position. I've tried that experiment. When I was fourteen, I was a champion debater on the #1 debate team in the country year after year, the Bronx High School of Science Debate Team. Winning the debate will only motivate them to get off the couch and vote for the Orange Goblin. I was able to turn around one vote so far, someone who is a classic liberal but turned off by the mass psychosis on the left (Wokism). If you don't want to call your contact in a swing state, PM with their number, and I will cold call them.
I'm fully with you but I'm afraid that it's far too late. X, Facebook and Instagram should have been held responsible a long time ago. Unfortunately the Dems are too much fair-play and too weak.
'I find it wearying to keep fighting against the stupidity, short-sightedness, historical blindness, naïveté, blithe sense of entitlement, and cunningly crafted mind-control programming that has taken hold of so many people in my extended network'.
I'm pleased you seem to be the only one with a handle on the truth.
As you know, i've been following you for over twenty years, but you're coming off as a 'container' with these last posts.
You wish to see change of direction but are fighting tooth and nail to maintain the status quo. I get the nuance and your fears of a Trump presidency but my feeling is that it won't be the sock puppet who gets the vote who will make any change anyway (the parties controlling both candidates will have their interests sown up in either case) - it will be the people.
There's going to be the same old trouble (increasing) anyway so perhaps you need to bring up the boil to lance it. The US people are not quite the entranced victims many would condemn them to be.
You've mentioned that everything we're going through is some kind of birth pangs? If so, perhaps we need to hear the screams?
This could be considered conspiratorial and or treasonous talk, couldn't it ? "Trump is unfit" is certainly a potent psycop post hypnotic suggestion and a perfect preemptive meme to insure that even though legally, constitutionally and democratically elected Trump could be refused office , through military enforcement and the risk of civil war. This has to be the stupidest idea I have ever heard , that is so dangerous to the Republic, . Anything attempted on January 6th pales in comparison to the ramifications of this act of anti-democratic madness and or elitist hubris.
Read the link from The Atlantic. Even both of his former defense secretaries say he is completely unfit to serve and the most dangerous man for the country
Whether he’s not “fit to serve” is ofc not a fact no matter how many people say it. It is an opinion, and not an unbiased one. It is not up to any candidate’s political enemies to determine their fitness for office , it’s up to the electorate. If anyone believes in the democratic process of voting and of letting the people speak to power.
I see calling it a lesser evil as misleading. Reality is a multi leveled field process that is complexly dialectical. There is a difference between one’s concrete utopia which has causal force. And the actual world situation in the moment. Maturity in Kant’s sense can be taken as honoring them both and knowing the difference. Too often one can confound the two and make utopia demands on the present that simply cannot measure up to any creative solution to manifest it as such. At present it’s not a lesser evil in some monolithic sense. It’s the openness of progressive goodness that can come about as well by supporting one trajectory rather than another. It’s not judging political positions nakedly against the concrete utopia. That’s a form of immaturity. Not is jt abandoning that utopia vision as actually possible. It’s seeing what is what in the present and working with that holding the moral complexity of it all as we are creative agents in history’s unfolding. To give an example. I would now hold the wisdom and insight of a Tim Snyder over a Cornel West in matters pragmatic. And yes it is tough to see one’s former friends and family take up irrational irreal and less than moral stances - it does end up reflecting back on our own limits of whom we thought we where engaging back then. Our own blindnesses.
You go to the gas station, but you can't fill up because the automated system in the station tells the manager you're not MAGA enough. So you have to bribe him, let's say double the cost of the gas you need.
You want to go to that AI conference in Singapore, but the conveyor is pissed because you didn't bribe *him enough last time, so he reckons, but you don't find out until you get to the airport and you're on a no fly list. So you have to bribe DHS a LOT, and the people at the gate, and eventually the convenor of the conference. In fact you have to kiss his ass so bad you spend two more days in Singapore wining and dining him just to be able to get out of there.
Thank you Daniel. You are not alone. And this post made me think about my own personal culpability in this state of affairs. And, how (shockingly, as I think more deeply about this) all of this talk about personal transformation has not been enough to change the world, but rather reinforce systems and structures that lead to Donald Trump (someone who has always been unfit to be President) to run for President. AGAIN. And he has backers supporting him that are far more educated, monied and sophiscated than the Qanon crazies in days of yore.
As a center right Libertarian, I hesitated to participate in direct political action because how do you politically organize against post-modernistic hyper-relativism? So, I kept my politics to myself, and indulged in the "consolation" of philosophy and alternative spirituality. (I am a huge fan of Ken Wilber.) I was convinced that if you just worked towards elevation of consciousness - as many who ready your Substack are also doing apparently - that we would by our sheer numbers reach that critical mass and shift the Overton window toward the society you describe perfectly above. But, what that did was create a time where a whole lot us collectively engaged in spiritual bypassing rather than political organizing and action which was considered declasse or an exercise in negativity.
It was (and still is) so fashionable to question those who question authority, right?
For example, I remember that I was part of a group of women exploring the elevation of women's consciousness, where we discussed the gains that women made over the decades as part of that, but I was told that mentioning the feminist movement from a historical perspective was "not what this group is about, and offensive to others." I quit the group, not in protest, but because I did not want to upset the dynamics of the group by promoting my point of view when I was not the one leading it, but privately I was very upset about it.
And the thing that is important to note is that this group was super-progressive, not Concerned Women for America. But this has happened to me a lot in spiritual circles over the years. I had a great spiritual advisor counsel me during the pandemic to not focus on all the chaos that was happening politically, culturally (this around the time of the BLM riots, etc.). She would get mad at me for focusing too much on all of those pesky externals. I mean, she was great at her craft, and to be fair, she kept me sane during the pandemic, but I could not ever talk about what was going on politically.
Don't get me wrong, I am not denying that there are people in the alternative spiritual community who are not socially engaged or doing good work. I'm thinking here about Marianne Williamson, the Commune app, and Developmental Politics, and Braver Angels, the writings of Terry Patton - to name but a few. Yet, I would argue as well intentioned and occassionally effective these initiatives are, they pose very little threat to the juggernaut that we are facing, that we've been for all intents and purposes avoiding.
Also, I'm glad that you emphasized the fact that the members of this cult will not leave without a fight.
They've been at war with all places, people and things progressive for a long, long time.
Whoa—Sorry, but this post feels seriously unhinged to me. It actually feels kind of insane. Infused with the kind of religious certainty that has been ‘revealed’ to you, where you’ve put together the pieces that bring it all together with total clarity. It’s all spoken as a true fundamentalist, with every NYTimes, MSNBC, Atlantic magazine angle of the last three years taken as gospel truth. January 6th—an insurrection! If it was, it was the worst armed insurrection army ever. Half a dozen guns, some bats, and bear spray. I wouldn’t pretend to justify Trump’s behavior on January 6th, but an insurrection?—no fucking way. Meanwhile the Democrats are merely “mediocre”. Really? We’re in two wars, both threatening to spiral out of control into WWWIII territory, one a virtual genocide.
I hate Trump and know he’s dangerous and a total shit—but this tone is dangerous talk, the kind of dark future that prompts people to do really crazy things because they KNOW they’re right, and think they see beyond what others do. Sure, encourage people to canvas and stuff, but there’s something else going on in these words that is actually quite disturbing. I think you’ve really lost it.
And by the way, the Democrats—of which I am one—may very well lose because of Harris’s dogged refusal to break with Biden’s support of Israel; it’s killing her appeal to young people and independents, both of whom she desperately needs. I have two adult sons, and believe me, both of them and their friends were initially excited by her, and now are marginal supporters—at best. Against the alleged existential threat of fascism, the Democratic party just can't rein in the neo-cons in their ranks, who clearly run the show. Instead they’re happy to make their precious liberals immolate themselves with fear and terror, and let them splatter their brains against the wall as you’re doing, while the party meanwhile just can’t bring themselves to do the smallest things to actually win—like delaying Netanyahu’s weapons so that he’ll stop slaughtering arabs for a few hours. Which, as it happens, is also the moral thing to do, not that the party actually gives a shit. Oh, but Trump will be worse to the Palestinians! What a rallying cry….
Daniel your links simply echo a well constructed and repetitively conditioned conspiracy theory. Everything about the content is in juxtaposition to create suspicion, raise ominous fears , target evil actors for hatred and fuel negative speculation about highly improbable future events. They are all based on circular thinking based on accepted assumptions like "they are all liars and cheats" etc. It seems reasonable to admit that at best these links forward an unproven hypothesis, and there are equal and opposites hypotheses to the same future Trump administration.
Something else for you to maybe write about— Do the Republicans have an advantage due to their constituents praying? If we take seriously the ideas from your consciousness class, about psy powers, are the republicans at an advantage due to these collective prayer army groups? My super Christian aunt in west VA was telling my partner that “the prayer armies are super active, and have been praying for Trump to win all year.”
Many people think Jan 6 was not a coup but a relatively peaceful protest/civil disobedience. Many believe the people arrested for Jan 6 were treated unfairly and excessively prosecuted. What would you say to folks holding this opinion? I hear this a lot in Florida. “Democrats imprison their dissidents” type rhetoric.
Feel free to post links to these. What could they possibly have left out that would mitigate calling to hang the VP hunting Pelosi with cable ties and gear spray, smearing shit on the walls, beating cops?
I’m thinking social security will likely be toast. My homeless friend couch surfing at a food bank is voting Stein and doesn’t care about social security because he never qualified, though he’s getting Medicare, something else that will likely be toast. Otherwise there seems to be a general mistrust of the establishment that has ossified within his mind. I’m forwarding everything I can to help save him, and save us.
With maga it’s seems most are “in for a penny in for a pound” and there’s no budging them.
I am curious about the reception to the Larry Ellison quote on surveillance. I suppose you were in the SV space, where surveillance is the bread and butter; but in my mind, this message could be used much more widely and more effectively than it is, as could the “Netanyahu wants Trump to win” bumper sticker message for the masses.
I was at the Bitcoin conference where arguable 95% of people in attendance, tuning in, and generally aligned are voting Trump. Tens of millions. And it’s all about government control and surveillance. Edward Snowden beamed in and gave a chilling speech about the dark road we’re heading down. If Dems really want to promote freedom and disavow the new world order shit, they have to really walk the walk and, as Audrey Tang puts it, radically trust the people. I think if we do some kind of non-electoral Trump-squashing move inside of this brainwashed moment we will never again be able to claim that we are the party of democracy. We kind of let this happen. We didn’t do enough, over decades and yes, against extraordinary forces of determination, to prevent this. We didn’t run for school boards until 2018, fight for working class, show up in Michigan,etc (obv oversimplifying). It’s not our fault, but it’s not not our fault.
We are in a codependent relationship with republicans. Like Javert needs Valjean. Without a threat, we lose our fucking focus.
Well, here’s the threat. I think surveillance is a huge issue that maybe wouldn’t alienate dem voters but could win some others if we came out strongly against. Pair this message with the Kroger “flexible pricing” and “eye tracking” dystopian shit that ppl would viscerally recoil against, and claim that anti corporate/pro freedom message as our rightful inheritance
Yes the problem is without an interrupt and if Trump / Vance win, it may not be possible to restore elections due to all the tactics they will use to dismantle the system
Yes, that is precisely the problem. I guess I just think that the dems even lost a lot of people by "coronating" Harris, which I think is insane. Yes, it was imperfect (I was on those "Delegates are Democracy" calls, I really do get it!), but I don't think it was the Deep State engineering feat of the century, or whatever people think it may have been. So I think any other maneuvers to foreclose upon this election would shrink the window of rebuilding even further. I guess I'm just really focusing on beating him fairly and squarely, but knowing that there's a Hail Mary involved in really sweeping the election and praying (yes) that our system can contain the anger and outrage and violence that he has seeded in advance of a potential loss. A lot of ifs and hoping in there, I fully recognize. I just don't see another way.
Oh! And speaking of "praying," (and despite my general sense that sharing one's own writing on someone else's substack is a writerly faux pas) here's the piece I mentioned, where I propose a daily practice of synchronized collective imagination as we lead up and respond to this election, in addition to our unrelenting efforts on the ground. https://allisongustavson.substack.com/p/a-granola-bar-of-a-post-dense-with
Daniel, this idea of removing Trump from the ballot is not going to happen. We're two weeks out.
I think Daniel is correct that if elected Trump will not be allowed to take office, the anti-Trump rhetoric contains assertions that cannot and probably never were intended to be dialed back. Some last minute legal argument will be made by those who hold the power / the current administration and "democracy will be suspended" in order to "save it". Social media like X will be shut down to prevent dissent, protest and social organization. All the things that the Democrats have been signaling and preparing for for at least a year. People like Daniel will rejoice that we have been saved from a horrible "dictatorial fascist regime " while those on the other side will only see the bold ascension of a previously thinly disguised dictatorial -anti-democratic, militaristic , fascist state, that will now boldly pull anything to maintain control.
Not a self-reflective moment will be spent considering where the responsibility lies for this electoral outcome. How such a terrible, evil person could defeat such a wonderful , intelligent , sincere, righteous and generous incumbent will all be self-servingly attributed to "brainwashing" or "stupidity" as we have seen Daniel and others argue in these threads.
I tend to disagree: when Trump won an election, he became president for four (shitty) years; when he lost an election, he whined and lied about it for four (also shitty) years.
Although I would wager against it, I agree with you in that I see the deepstatedems as less likely to accede to the results of the election than Trump.
To me, most likely outcome is Trump and a split Senate. And although that's nothing to rejoice over, it is quite possibly the least dangerous option.
" It’s not our fault, but it’s not not our fault." Paradoxical truth wrapped in a dilemma.
Yes! Perfectly put! Oy.
I meant to also say that in this case, I am 💯 with you on working every angle inside of this election (your relational organizing “organizing,” etc) rather than working from outside of it, as globally dice-rolling as that may sound
Here's what I've posted on social media in case anyone wants to repost or repurpose:
In the last few days, Trump has repeatedly said that his political opponents —and he mentions explicitly Nancy Pelosi and Adam Schiff to make it clear he is not talking about immigrants, etc —are an "enemy within" and that he will use the national guard and the military to deal with them. Trump is explicitly saying that he intends to be a military dictator.
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2024-election/trump-democrats-enemies-within-rcna175628
Here is the "Truth" Trump posted on his social media platform, Truth Social, where he says he is entitled to suspend the Constitution:
"Do you throw the Presidential Election Results of 2020 OUT and declare the RIGHTFUL WINNER, or do you have a NEW ELECTION? A Massive Fraud of this type and magnitude allows for the termination of all rules, regulations, and articles, even those found in the Constitution," Trump wrote in a post on the social network Truth Social and accused "Big Tech" of working closely with Democrats. "Our great 'Founders' did not want, and would not condone, False & Fraudulent Elections!"
The whole idea of America was not to be ruled by a king and to have checks and balances to keep a would-be despot from seizing power. The founding fathers warned us that democracy was a fragile experiment that could fail if a despotic demagogue fooled voters.
From:
https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2019-12-26/demagogues-constitution-impeachment-washington-hamilton
Less than two weeks after the start of the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia, George Washington wrote to his friend, the Marquis de Lafayette, on June 6, 1787, explaining that his critical purpose in attending the convention was to prevent a demagogue from gaining power in the politically unstable young nation and thus destroying it.
Washington described how he was pulled out of retirement by an urgent risk to the United States. "Anarchy and confusion" were threatening the security of the American people and the rule of constitutional law. But this was only half the danger.
The deeper risk, he wrote that early June, was that the political chaos created fertile ground for exploitation "by some aspiring demagogue who will not consult the interest of his country so much as his own ambitious views."
Washington, of course, was not the only framer who viewed our Constitution largely as a bulwark against demagogues. In the surviving records of the speeches given at the Constitutional Convention, the word "demagogue" was used 21 times by the framers as they crafted the Constitution's essential checks and balances against despotism and tyranny.
Voters in this country are on the verge of giving an Electoral College victory to a man who tried a coup to hold on to power and is explicitly telling you that he intends to suspend the Constitution and be a military dictator.
This is not time for "what aboutisms" related to Biden/Harris. Yes, Biden had some disastrous failures. Yes, Wokism is a motherload of stupid ideas. Yes, Harris said stupid things in 2019. Yes, we have a mass psychosis in this country on both the left and on the right--the left version is more obnoxious, but the right version is far more dangerous.
As a well-informed, lifelong Republican said in 2016 on why he was going to vote for Clinton,
"I disagree with Clinton on almost everything, but she's within the normal range of being wrong."
Trump is far outside the normal range of being wrong--he has explicitly announced his intentions to end democracy. Anyone voting for him or failing to vote for the only viable alternative will be complicit in ending America's fragile, 240-year experiment with democracy.
Besides voting for Harris, here's what you can do. This election will be decided by about 75,000 people in seven swing states--Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. Search your contacts for voters in those states who might not vote or are not fully committed to a candidate. DO NOT waste time debating someone who is fully intoxicated by the Orange Koolaide. Research shows that offering facts to those who are ideologically captured only causes them to harden and double down on their position. I've tried that experiment. When I was fourteen, I was a champion debater on the #1 debate team in the country year after year, the Bronx High School of Science Debate Team. Winning the debate will only motivate them to get off the couch and vote for the Orange Goblin. I was able to turn around one vote so far, someone who is a classic liberal but turned off by the mass psychosis on the left (Wokism). If you don't want to call your contact in a swing state, PM with their number, and I will cold call them.
Thank you Daniel. I am tracking with you 100%. Thank you for writing with such urgency about this horrific situation, the times demand it.
You are welcome
I'm fully with you but I'm afraid that it's far too late. X, Facebook and Instagram should have been held responsible a long time ago. Unfortunately the Dems are too much fair-play and too weak.
Great article at Daily Grail exploring the malignant intentions of the technofascists backing Trump:
https://www.dailygrail.com/2024/10/the-technocratic-conspiracy-how-tech-tycoons-plan-to-disrupt-democracy-and-become-the-new-rulers-of-the-world/
'I find it wearying to keep fighting against the stupidity, short-sightedness, historical blindness, naïveté, blithe sense of entitlement, and cunningly crafted mind-control programming that has taken hold of so many people in my extended network'.
I'm pleased you seem to be the only one with a handle on the truth.
As you know, i've been following you for over twenty years, but you're coming off as a 'container' with these last posts.
You wish to see change of direction but are fighting tooth and nail to maintain the status quo. I get the nuance and your fears of a Trump presidency but my feeling is that it won't be the sock puppet who gets the vote who will make any change anyway (the parties controlling both candidates will have their interests sown up in either case) - it will be the people.
There's going to be the same old trouble (increasing) anyway so perhaps you need to bring up the boil to lance it. The US people are not quite the entranced victims many would condemn them to be.
You've mentioned that everything we're going through is some kind of birth pangs? If so, perhaps we need to hear the screams?
Yes Biden stopping the election because Trump is unfit is how I propose we lance it
This could be considered conspiratorial and or treasonous talk, couldn't it ? "Trump is unfit" is certainly a potent psycop post hypnotic suggestion and a perfect preemptive meme to insure that even though legally, constitutionally and democratically elected Trump could be refused office , through military enforcement and the risk of civil war. This has to be the stupidest idea I have ever heard , that is so dangerous to the Republic, . Anything attempted on January 6th pales in comparison to the ramifications of this act of anti-democratic madness and or elitist hubris.
Read the link from The Atlantic. Even both of his former defense secretaries say he is completely unfit to serve and the most dangerous man for the country
Whether he’s not “fit to serve” is ofc not a fact no matter how many people say it. It is an opinion, and not an unbiased one. It is not up to any candidate’s political enemies to determine their fitness for office , it’s up to the electorate. If anyone believes in the democratic process of voting and of letting the people speak to power.
Let’s just say I’m exploring my options in case those monsters “win.”
What have you come up with so far?
My wife still has her Thai citizenship so there’s that route.
Otherwise, staying and fighting isn’t really my thing. I’d find ways to support my loved ones from afar.
I see calling it a lesser evil as misleading. Reality is a multi leveled field process that is complexly dialectical. There is a difference between one’s concrete utopia which has causal force. And the actual world situation in the moment. Maturity in Kant’s sense can be taken as honoring them both and knowing the difference. Too often one can confound the two and make utopia demands on the present that simply cannot measure up to any creative solution to manifest it as such. At present it’s not a lesser evil in some monolithic sense. It’s the openness of progressive goodness that can come about as well by supporting one trajectory rather than another. It’s not judging political positions nakedly against the concrete utopia. That’s a form of immaturity. Not is jt abandoning that utopia vision as actually possible. It’s seeing what is what in the present and working with that holding the moral complexity of it all as we are creative agents in history’s unfolding. To give an example. I would now hold the wisdom and insight of a Tim Snyder over a Cornel West in matters pragmatic. And yes it is tough to see one’s former friends and family take up irrational irreal and less than moral stances - it does end up reflecting back on our own limits of whom we thought we where engaging back then. Our own blindnesses.
I love Tim Snyder - want to read his new book soon, also Autocrats Inc seems like a must
Daniel try this.
You go to the gas station, but you can't fill up because the automated system in the station tells the manager you're not MAGA enough. So you have to bribe him, let's say double the cost of the gas you need.
You want to go to that AI conference in Singapore, but the conveyor is pissed because you didn't bribe *him enough last time, so he reckons, but you don't find out until you get to the airport and you're on a no fly list. So you have to bribe DHS a LOT, and the people at the gate, and eventually the convenor of the conference. In fact you have to kiss his ass so bad you spend two more days in Singapore wining and dining him just to be able to get out of there.
And that's your weekend.
Thank you Daniel. You are not alone. And this post made me think about my own personal culpability in this state of affairs. And, how (shockingly, as I think more deeply about this) all of this talk about personal transformation has not been enough to change the world, but rather reinforce systems and structures that lead to Donald Trump (someone who has always been unfit to be President) to run for President. AGAIN. And he has backers supporting him that are far more educated, monied and sophiscated than the Qanon crazies in days of yore.
As a center right Libertarian, I hesitated to participate in direct political action because how do you politically organize against post-modernistic hyper-relativism? So, I kept my politics to myself, and indulged in the "consolation" of philosophy and alternative spirituality. (I am a huge fan of Ken Wilber.) I was convinced that if you just worked towards elevation of consciousness - as many who ready your Substack are also doing apparently - that we would by our sheer numbers reach that critical mass and shift the Overton window toward the society you describe perfectly above. But, what that did was create a time where a whole lot us collectively engaged in spiritual bypassing rather than political organizing and action which was considered declasse or an exercise in negativity.
It was (and still is) so fashionable to question those who question authority, right?
For example, I remember that I was part of a group of women exploring the elevation of women's consciousness, where we discussed the gains that women made over the decades as part of that, but I was told that mentioning the feminist movement from a historical perspective was "not what this group is about, and offensive to others." I quit the group, not in protest, but because I did not want to upset the dynamics of the group by promoting my point of view when I was not the one leading it, but privately I was very upset about it.
And the thing that is important to note is that this group was super-progressive, not Concerned Women for America. But this has happened to me a lot in spiritual circles over the years. I had a great spiritual advisor counsel me during the pandemic to not focus on all the chaos that was happening politically, culturally (this around the time of the BLM riots, etc.). She would get mad at me for focusing too much on all of those pesky externals. I mean, she was great at her craft, and to be fair, she kept me sane during the pandemic, but I could not ever talk about what was going on politically.
Don't get me wrong, I am not denying that there are people in the alternative spiritual community who are not socially engaged or doing good work. I'm thinking here about Marianne Williamson, the Commune app, and Developmental Politics, and Braver Angels, the writings of Terry Patton - to name but a few. Yet, I would argue as well intentioned and occassionally effective these initiatives are, they pose very little threat to the juggernaut that we are facing, that we've been for all intents and purposes avoiding.
Also, I'm glad that you emphasized the fact that the members of this cult will not leave without a fight.
They've been at war with all places, people and things progressive for a long, long time.
Thanks again.
A fitting companion piece here https://open.substack.com/pub/heathercoxrichardson/p/october-21-2024?r=pinl3&utm_medium=ios
An excellent and important read, thank you.
Whoa—Sorry, but this post feels seriously unhinged to me. It actually feels kind of insane. Infused with the kind of religious certainty that has been ‘revealed’ to you, where you’ve put together the pieces that bring it all together with total clarity. It’s all spoken as a true fundamentalist, with every NYTimes, MSNBC, Atlantic magazine angle of the last three years taken as gospel truth. January 6th—an insurrection! If it was, it was the worst armed insurrection army ever. Half a dozen guns, some bats, and bear spray. I wouldn’t pretend to justify Trump’s behavior on January 6th, but an insurrection?—no fucking way. Meanwhile the Democrats are merely “mediocre”. Really? We’re in two wars, both threatening to spiral out of control into WWWIII territory, one a virtual genocide.
I hate Trump and know he’s dangerous and a total shit—but this tone is dangerous talk, the kind of dark future that prompts people to do really crazy things because they KNOW they’re right, and think they see beyond what others do. Sure, encourage people to canvas and stuff, but there’s something else going on in these words that is actually quite disturbing. I think you’ve really lost it.
And by the way, the Democrats—of which I am one—may very well lose because of Harris’s dogged refusal to break with Biden’s support of Israel; it’s killing her appeal to young people and independents, both of whom she desperately needs. I have two adult sons, and believe me, both of them and their friends were initially excited by her, and now are marginal supporters—at best. Against the alleged existential threat of fascism, the Democratic party just can't rein in the neo-cons in their ranks, who clearly run the show. Instead they’re happy to make their precious liberals immolate themselves with fear and terror, and let them splatter their brains against the wall as you’re doing, while the party meanwhile just can’t bring themselves to do the smallest things to actually win—like delaying Netanyahu’s weapons so that he’ll stop slaughtering arabs for a few hours. Which, as it happens, is also the moral thing to do, not that the party actually gives a shit. Oh, but Trump will be worse to the Palestinians! What a rallying cry….
Yes this is about the lesser evil and the non totally fascist choice. I am not jumping up and down with joy about the Democrats.
Did you read through the links?
Daniel your links simply echo a well constructed and repetitively conditioned conspiracy theory. Everything about the content is in juxtaposition to create suspicion, raise ominous fears , target evil actors for hatred and fuel negative speculation about highly improbable future events. They are all based on circular thinking based on accepted assumptions like "they are all liars and cheats" etc. It seems reasonable to admit that at best these links forward an unproven hypothesis, and there are equal and opposites hypotheses to the same future Trump administration.
Something else for you to maybe write about— Do the Republicans have an advantage due to their constituents praying? If we take seriously the ideas from your consciousness class, about psy powers, are the republicans at an advantage due to these collective prayer army groups? My super Christian aunt in west VA was telling my partner that “the prayer armies are super active, and have been praying for Trump to win all year.”
Not unless the devil grants their wishes.
😂😂😂😂😂 good one!
The Authoritarian Playbook https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T-vVO3nRFzI
Many people think Jan 6 was not a coup but a relatively peaceful protest/civil disobedience. Many believe the people arrested for Jan 6 were treated unfairly and excessively prosecuted. What would you say to folks holding this opinion? I hear this a lot in Florida. “Democrats imprison their dissidents” type rhetoric.
Charlotte I mean, like, watch the videos ?
Like you said, people seem able to watch the exact same thing and just see whatever they want to see. 🤷🏼♀️ Guess it’s just how humans are.
Videos edited by whom? What about the video footage the Republican's claim was left out?
Kevin I think we should just agree to disagree at this point.
Feel free to post links to these. What could they possibly have left out that would mitigate calling to hang the VP hunting Pelosi with cable ties and gear spray, smearing shit on the walls, beating cops?
I’m thinking social security will likely be toast. My homeless friend couch surfing at a food bank is voting Stein and doesn’t care about social security because he never qualified, though he’s getting Medicare, something else that will likely be toast. Otherwise there seems to be a general mistrust of the establishment that has ossified within his mind. I’m forwarding everything I can to help save him, and save us.
With maga it’s seems most are “in for a penny in for a pound” and there’s no budging them.
Doomed.