These guys want to build some dystopian hell-society that has never existed before - reactionary radicals, as it were - whereas I'm here thinking we ought to actually go and build the kind of society that growing up in the 1990s I was told (with some degree of inaccuracy) that we already had.
if I was in congress today I’d give a bunch of radical speeches just quoting republican politicians just to fuck with them
Just combing through the library of Reagan (maybe Eisenhower?) speeches looking for the one that only needs a couple tweaks to be apropos for whatever you’re speechifying on, see if anyone notices
there’s pitfalls to this, and I bet Nixon is a better source on many topics: I’ve heard Reagan loved to cite the John Birch Society without attribution, for example
Ok but that’s why you choose carefully and tweak as necessary The whole point is that 99.999% of them wouldn’t even realize if you did hair and makeup and the voice, because they’re fucking dumb with no actual knowledge of history
I’d say the quote, finish without mentioning it’s a quote, wait for the inevitable “Socialism! DEI!!!” response, and then be like “oh oops, forgot to attribute that, it’s from President Ronald Reagan, sorry my bad”.
“Our nation is a nation of immigrants. More than any other country, our strength comes from our own immigrant heritage and our capacity to welcome those from other lands. No free and prosperous nation can by itself accommodate all those who seek a better life or flee persecution."
They're like Sulla, thinking they're returning the republic to a state that never actually existed, but they've convinced themselves existed.
"dystopian hell-society" like Sparta? I mean, they look at the rest of us, they see Helots I think...
I remember you getting into it with Noah Smith back in the day. Guess we know who turned out to be the piece of shit in that conversation -- not that there was any doubt, of course.
That dystopian hell society very much existed in the USA, that's the again part of MAGA. This is a reversion, not a new thing.
I just read Cowboy Apocalypse and now I see it everywhere. They really want society to collapse so that they can be the gun carrying arbiter of right and wrong.
I saw that title and immediately thought of this, which predates it by two years but could (in an "explain a plot badly" way) be described as "cowboy hat apocalypse": www.goodreads.com/book/show/57...
TBH, based on the sub-title of Cowboy Apocalypse, they might well touch on a lot of the same themes. (To say more would be major spoilers, and even that feels like it is getting close.)
Oh. The book I mentioned analyzes the “trans-media narrative” of Cowboy apocalypse. So if that film fit into it, it’s because so many do.
It's a book, but, well, let's just say the cowboy hat (by proxy of the people whose brains it takes over) is the bad guy and is turning the multiverse into a wasteland.
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That's how you get the cybertruck and Elon touting it's alleged bulletproof capability. It's meant to be some dumb madmaxmobile.
Absolutely it is. It’s the soft “doomsday prep” for cars.
That’s prepper accelerationism in a nutshell
The book is pretty good if you enjoy that kinda thing.
I often think about the world MTV portrayed to me in the 90s. A world where diversity was hip and cool and expressing yourself was super important and the ultimate form of self-expression was voting. And all kinds of music was good and guitar was still cool but guitar solos were not, etc...
Looking back to better decades is so helpful for staying sane. My favorite concert I didn't attend was INXS at Wembley in 1991 and I'm glad I can watch highlights ... Michael Hutchence was the perfect lead singer. Totally recommended for anyone who needs a nostalgia escape.
We got to see them once, great show. Very sad that Hutchence couldn’t overcome his demons
Yeah, my sadness over celebrity deaths is usually nonexistent, except for Hutchence and Scott Hutchison of Frightened Rabbit. And Diogo Jota last week.
And you're lucky you got to see INXS!
People like that are American Taliban.
thank you for voicing something i've had on my mind since the mid-oughts but always felt like a crazy person actually saying
The 90s weren't perfect by any means for sure. But there was genuine unity, community, and kindness to spare. And most importantly, the hope and promise of a more perfect union for all.
The 90s are kind of like the "now-despised conservative president who says something that makes him look far better than the current administration" of decades. His policies objectively *sucked* but he personally actually believed in democracy and basic human dignity. I hope that makes sense.
That would be the 80s if you are referring to Reagan. He left office in January 1989.
Personally, I feel like it applies to Clinton, too. But that's a long argument I'm not sure I'd like to get into tonight.
Agreed.
there was so much optimism and opportunity in the nineties. I know it wasn’t perfect or as equally spread as my statement might imply, and that’s a massive shortcoming. but it seems those caretakers and drivers of society (govt, even unis, etc.) pissed so much of that away with techbroification.
A thousand million times this
Oh, man, I’m having flashbacks to a forums read-through of the novel Victoria by William S Lind. An entire web community slowly vomiting in communal disgust at a neo-nazi’s psycho fantasy.
The Irony that the patriarchal monarchists are the revolutionaries and the conservatives are the cosmopolitan democrats is delicious, not that any of the weak men who wish they were a middling European ethnostate rather then a cosmopolitan superpower would be able to understand