The Federalist, a rightwing media outlet cofounded by the serial-plagiarist spouse of John McCain’s Daughter™️, published a screed yesterday that pushes the “saying the quiet parts out loud” cliché to a new level. Titled “We Need To Stop Calling Ourselves Conservatives,” the content suggests that they should start calling themselves “fascists” instead and rechristen their media outlet The Fascist.
The wind-up to the author’s ardent embrace of fascism is a declaration of defeat for the conservative movement. The author claims there’s nothing left to “conserve” because godless liberals have already transformed America into a “woke dystopia.” He says conservatives and “classical liberals” alike recognize this, so props to the left-of-center “cancel culture” hysterics.*
Admitting defeat in the culture war, the author opines that conservatives must now seize power and use government as a “blunt instrument” to impose their worldview on the rest of us. Small government? No-fault divorce? Public education? Reproductive healthcare? Nope, nope, nope and nope:
The left will only stop when conservatives stop them, which means conservatives will have to discard outdated and irrelevant notions about “small government.” The government will have to become, in the hands of conservatives, an instrument of renewal in American life — and in some cases, a blunt instrument indeed.
To stop Big Tech, for example, will require using antitrust powers to break up the largest Silicon Valley firms. To stop universities from spreading poisonous ideologies will require state legislatures to starve them of public funds. To stop the disintegration of the family might require reversing the travesty of no-fault divorce, combined with generous subsidies for families with small children. Conservatives need not shy away from making these arguments because they betray some cherished libertarian fantasy about free markets and small government. It is time to clear our minds of cant.
In other contexts, wielding government power will mean a dramatic expansion of the criminal code. It will not be enough, for example, to reach an accommodation with the abortion regime, to agree on “reasonable limits” on when unborn human life can be snuffed out with impunity. As Abraham Lincoln once said of slavery, we must become all one thing or all the other. The Dobbs decision was in a sense the end of the beginning of the pro-life cause. Now comes the real fight, in state houses across the country, to outlaw completely the barbaric practice of killing the unborn.
Seemingly using The Handmaid’s Tale as an instruction manual, the author goes full eliminationist on what he chillingly calls “the transgender question,” berating right-wingers who hold live-and-let-live views and proposing that a conservative government arrest parents, doctors and teachers for wrong-think:
On the transgender question, conservatives will have to repudiate utterly the cowardly position of people like David French, in whose malformed worldview Drag Queen Story Hour at a taxpayer-funded library is a “blessing of liberty.” Conservatives need to get comfortable saying in reply to people like French that Drag Queen Story Hour should be outlawed; that parents who take their kids to drag shows should be arrested and charged with child abuse; that doctors who perform so-called “gender-affirming” interventions should be thrown in prison and have their medical licenses revoked; and that teachers who expose their students to sexually explicit material should not just be fired but be criminally prosecuted.
I’d love to dismiss this person as a kook, but my governor (and others!) has already passed a law that’s a precursor to enacting the broadly anti-LGBTQ and specifically anti-trans agenda outlined above. DeSantis used a taxpayer-funded communications shop to smear anyone who opposes him as a “groomer,” a label eagerly taken up by the hard-right nationwide. And he’s likely to be reelected in a few weeks and has a decent chance of becoming the GOP nominee for president in 2024.
I’d also love to dismiss The Federalist as an unprofitable mouthpiece for the lunatic fringe of the hard-right, a bonfire onto which reactionary plutocrats like Dick Uihlein throw stacks of cash. But what was once the hard-right fringe is now the mainstream Republican Party.
What passes for today’s Republican Party’s intelligentsia is sharing their unpopular schemes now because they aren’t concerned the Beltway press will warn their intended victims — all of us — and why should they fear that, after Trump? They’re telling us who they are, and we damn well better believe them.
Open thread.
*The so-called “classical liberals” who ginned up the “cancel culture” hysteria are the invasive cane toads of political discourse. Great job, everyone!
Baud
Oh, when I saw the discussion in the morning thread, I thought it was the Federalist Society. I guess this is a different crazy outfit. An idea incubator for the right.
zhena gogolia
Ugh. I never heard of this guy.
Baud
Dems could probably get behind the bolded items, depending on the details. I doubt this author or any other Republican would be willing to work with them ono those items without all the other fascist stuff included.
BenCisco 🇺🇸🎖️🖥️♦️
@Baud: It may not be the Federalist Society, but how far behind are they, really?
Gonna go catch up on the early thread.
Chief Oshkosh
How precious. I suspect that this jamook has never been on the receiving end of a “blunt instrument.” Here’s hoping he gets an education.
schrodingers_cat
I have seen variations of this since at least the 90s, some here may have seen them from before that. All that Trump emboldened the current crop of Republicans to do was drop their mask of fake politeness.
Baud
I agree with this. Teachers shouldn’t be acting like religious leaders in public schools.
Snarki, child of Loki
@Chief Oshkosh: I suspect that this jamook has never been on the receiving end of a “blunt instrument.” Here’s hoping he gets an education.
A prime candidate for a Lumber Massage, it’s true.
PST
Maybe I just have the wrong set of young relatives, but I despair when I read something like this Federalist piece that all they can talk about is what’s wrong with Joe, what’s wrong with Nancy, and how little the Democrats have done to earn their vote. Some of them seem to share the opinion that democracy has failed and only direct action can save us. As far as I can tell, they have no plan whatsoever, only romantic faith in the revolutionary impulse. The fascists have a plan and are already implementing it.
Juice Box
Why are conservatives so melodramatic? No one wants to get married and raise children any longer? Srsly?
sab
@Baud: My atheist father started reading the Bible out loud to my baby sister because he thought that as an educated man he oight to be more familiar with it. He quit because he thought it was “pornographic” in parts.
Baud
@PST: There are always people like that. It’s unfortunate, but there’s often little you can do except at the margins.
Matt McIrvin
@Juice Box: I think one of the thing that upsets them is that the people who are actually doing best at creating stable family lives are in liberal constituencies. We don’t pump out giant numbers of children, but thriving, loving families? Yeah, they’re there but we’re voting Democratic.
Betty Cracker
@Baud: Hard-right nutjobs really are champion grievance mongers, aren’t they? They’ve successfully worked the “Big Tech” refs like they did the MSM of yesteryear. The idea that conservatives are persecuted by Facebook, Twitter, etc., is hot garbage — unless fomenting an insurrection, threatening Jewish people, sharing Nazi propaganda, etc., are fundamentally “conservative” activities. Maybe that’s the point.
Leto
@Baud: I think the details for both bolded items would simply be polar opposites. Dems want anti-monopoly, fair practices, along with not having those systems be platforms for mass disinformation. Conservatives want to push 1000% disinformation, 24/7, under the guise of “free speech” with zero consequences. They basically want all social media to be Fox or OANN.
And those “generous subsidies…” will only be for white conservatives. Any time we do social welfare programs for ALL people, conservatives go into conniptions. And I know you know all this, it’s just repetition.
Ken
@sab: I believe the idea is that the Song of Solomon is to be read as a statement of God’s love for his people and/or church, expressed using the metaphors of pert buttocks and oiled breasts.
Keith P.
Sure sounds like *somebody* recently got served with divorce papers.
Ksmiami
@zhena gogolia: it’s ok. He’s first against the wall in my book.
Ocotillo
I will come to the hive mind for a bit of advice.
Regarding the Trans people and the right wing opposition based on trans athletes ruining sports for girls as transitioning athletes seek to compete.
I have had dialogue about this and don’t have a good response to those who bring this up. All I have done is mouth a bit about the numbers of cases of this happening are insignificant but it comes back to “even if one person is hurt by this, yadda yadda”
Baud
@Betty Cracker: Shared grievance is the source of their solidarity and discipline. They need it like they need oxygen.
sab
@zhena gogolia: He has a wikipedia entry. He’s a Texan who went to Hillsdale College. He also works for The Texas Public Policy Foundation which claims to believe in Liberty, Personal Responsibility and Free Enterprise. Somehow fascism is okay with those values?
Leto
@Baud: yet another thing Obama had them dead to rights on.
Princess
It’s worth noting that we still don’t, I believe, know who funds the Federalist.
Also that the anti-Ukraine tankie guy we were all mocking in here in a post a couple of weeks ago (I forget his forgettable name) works for some big anti-Big Tech organization whose funding is likewise unclear.
Scout211
Thank you for posting this. Even though it’s really frightening and depressing to read the lengths that the writers for the Federalist seem to go to in order to disrupt our democracy, I do think we need to talk about it.
I posted a comment a couple of months ago that included a link and excerpt from an article in the Federalist and was chastised for it. I wasn’t offended because I do understand that focusing on their extremism often triggers commenters’ panic and feelings of doom. But in my mind, ignoring it is not an option either.
It’s hard to be informed but also stay sane here* lately. Sigh.
ETA: *here in the global sense, not here at balloon-juice, to clarify.
Betty Cracker
@Ocotillo: Sister Golden Bear provided a comprehensive rebuttal on that issue, complete with stats that demonstrate what garbage the anti-trans argument is. Thought I’d bookmarked it, but now I can’t find it. I’ll see if I can dig it up…
Fair Economist
Hundreds of thousands of children have been molested at churches.
No child has ever been molested at a drag show. But that’s what they want to ban.
There’s a reason Republicans masturbate at elementary schools for “stress relief”.
Amir Khalid
I clicked through. What I read was utterly vile.
sab
@Ken: I think Dad got freaked out in Genesis so he never got that far. Adam and Eve naked in the garden talking to that weird snake.
Baud
Question for the Brits. As I understand, the Tories could deal with their present troubles by passing a law that canceled elections or gave only Tory districts the right to vote. What’s stopping them? Are they a better class of conservatives than in the U.S., or is the threat of violent rebellion more tangible in UK than in the U.S.?
Betty Cracker
@Scout211: I’m firmly in the “ignoring it is not an option” camp, and I wish people who find that sort of discussion depressing would just locate the damned scroll button rather than chastising others. There are plenty of positive threads at this blog.
Ken
@Ksmiami: He’s also likely first against the wall if he achieves his goals.
“But I helped the Party overthrow the government!!”
“That is exactly why the Party finds you too dangerous to live.”
SFAW
@Snarki, child of Loki:
I read the other day that, because of either disease or animal infestation, baseball bats are no longer made of ash.
Leto
@Ocotillo: ask them who is specifically transitioning just to win a woman’s scholarship to… idk, volleyball. Ask them who would willingly do something like this just to get a scholarship to a small D3 school, who would put up with the all the shit these people have to go through on a daily basis from our society, just to go play volleyball. Ask then who has the spare cash just to throw away (because it’s fucking expensive) just to… do what? It’s so fucking ludicrous, but it’s the next topic they moved on to once they lost the overall gay rights battle. It’s also coming from a misogynistic angle of “we have to protect our women”. Just fucking ludicrous.
John Oliver did a segment on trans rights last Sunday, and he also covered what you’re asking about. It’s about 26 mins.
Another Scott
Meh. It looks like he’s published stuff like this all over for years.
TheGuardian – Trump is no fascist. He is a champion for the forgotten millions (from 2/2017)
Lots of buzzword bingo in that piece. And, of course, only his opponents have agency.
“Yeah, fascism is kinda dangerous. But look at what you made us do!”
Grr…,
Scott.
sab
@Ocotillo: One argument I remember off the top of my head is that student athletics aleady are monitored by a bunch of long established organizations that already have procedures in place (drug monitoring etc) that accomplish the same thing in a much less overtly harrassing manner.
Barbara
Somebody has either been served with divorce papers or spent the weekend arguing with his adult children about why they don’t go to church and haven’t produced grandchildren yet, and oh yeah, why their best friends are freaks.
Reversing the “travesty” of no fault divorce can be defeated by simply not getting married to begin with. That’s what happened in Ireland. And, seriously, the fact that the author does not seem to understand that the rate of marriage is on a downward slope suggests that he is at least one generation out of date in diagnosing social problems.
Yeah, I know, they will try to “correct” these issues by limiting assistance to families where the parents are married to each other. And then find out how many dyed in the wool conservatives are also divorced, because, doh, the highest rate of marriage and lowest rate of divorce are among those who tend to vote blue — those with a college education. But he wants religion and not education to be the driver of social trends, and it’s driving him crazy that it isn’t — but it hasn’t been for a long, long time. That’s what he is missing.
TheTruffle
The author, John Daniel Davidson, ticks all the boxes for a right wing welfare case. Educated at Hillsdale College. Wrote for a bunch of other conservative outlets. Now writes for the Federalist.
As for Florida, they need a Stacey Abrams. Someone suggested Val Demings as their Stacey Abrams.
Ken
@sab: Fun bit of trivia: In the Revised Common Lectionary (the three-year cycle of readings used by many Christian churches), every verse in the first four chapters of Genesis is included in some reading — except for Genesis 2:25, “The man and his wife were both naked, and were not ashamed.”
brendancalling
Those guys at the Federalist sure seem like swell people. Probably lots of fun at dinner parties.
Leto
@Ken: having just a cursory knowledge of revolution is usually helpful. Especially the type of revolution he’s suggesting. But that requires a non-insane education, and we can plainly see from his writing that that’s not an option.
MattF
There’s a big realignment in progress on the Right, (see, e.g., the Trials of Truss) and the rest of us should take note. Flatly denying that ‘conservative’ is a descriptor of what he wants is quite an admission. And not even a pretense of empathy. Actual conservatives should take note, although I think there aren’t very many.
Chief Oshkosh
Crap. There goes the morning’s productivity…
Princess
@Baud: At that point, I expect you’d have the king stepping in. It’s the point of a constitutional monarchy and knowledge of that is what keeps it in check. Also, the king, not the prime minister, is the commander in chief of the army. It means nothing in normal times, but at the end of the day, and what you’re describing is the end of the day…
Amir Khalid
@Ken:
I have a slightly different theory: The Song of Solomon is really just smut, which God put in His sacred book to reassure His flock that having sexy-time was normal, and nothing they had to feel all torn-up inside and guilty about.
Eolirin
@Ocotillo: There’s no evidence that children receiving hormone therapy have any kind of gender based advantage over their peers. If they did we’d be seeing them win in a consistent pattern and they don’t.
Keep in mind sports already aren’t fair and are dominated by genetically benefited individuals. Trans athletes are overwhelmingly not competitive in actual real world experience, in large part because there are so few of them that the right combination of factors to be competitive, which are staggeringly unlikely, don’t line up. And they have no special advantage to make up for this.
And the even if just one person is harmed thing is insane anyway. Only one person can win a competition by definition. Everyone else is going to lose to someone. They’re effectively saying it’s not okay for trans athletes to ever win anything. Because the harm they’re talking about is losing. Which all but one athlete is going to do any time there’s a competition.
Ask them to replace the word trans for black and tell you if that’s okay. Because it’s the same damn thing.
MattF
@Amir Khalid: Dignified smut. ‘I am black but comely’.
Baud
@Eolirin:
This probably goes too far. IIRC, the governing authorities of sports that allow trans athletes have rules about hormones and transition times that regulate when trans athletes can compete with their gender. You don’t have those rules for racial differences. It’s not clear to me why politicians should second-guess the rules that the experts have adopted, but I don’t think you can just do a 1:1 substitution and make the issue go away.
UncleEbeneezer
@Ocotillo: Trans athletes are not dominating sports at any level of statistical significance. Not HS, not college, not Olympic/Pro. There is no problem, full stop. And for things like the Olympics, they already have reasonable guidelines that nobody really objects to. ACLU has this good piece Four Myths About Trans Athletes, Debunked.
Baud
@Princess: Interesting.
Another Scott
@Eolirin: +1
I’m reminded of the “controversy” about the runner Oscar Pistorius and whether he had an “unfair advantage” by not having lower legs.
No, he did not.
Trans people are people. They should be treated as such. This isn’t hard.
Thanks.
Cheers,
Scott.
UncleEbeneezer
@Ocotillo: Here’s a good thread on the phony panic around Trans Athletes. It explains the International/Olympic guidelines that seem quite reasonable, fair and have been in place for years!
zzyzx
I admit that I had the same fears about women’s sports. Then I learned about the NCAA’s rules which prevent trolling “yep! Identify as a woman haw haw!” alt-right people hacking it. Then I learned that in the last 4 years exactly 2 races (one x country , one swimming) have been won by someone who has transitioned. No one is breaking records or blowing away the field. It’s a non issue.
NotMax
@Amir Khalid – @Ken
Cue Lenny Bruce.
:)
trollhattan
@Betty Cracker: Trump, while caging children, while having protestors gassed and beaten so he can hold up a book for cameras, while stealing everything but the wall plates, manages time to mewl, “I’m being treated so unfairly.” They’d reelect him in a heartbeat. “Can we have more, sir?”
UncleEbeneezer
@Baud: Sports were racially segregated for a very long time due to the fear of inherent superiority of Black athletes. I think Eolirin’s point is that The Trans Athlete Panic is using the same basic playbook. And it’s an important point and has definitely helped me get people to better understand the issue, in my own experience. It’s not exactly the same, but there are striking similarities.
Baud
@zzyzx:
Unlike other efforts to oppress and harass trans people, the sports issue strikes me as one where we should exercise caution and try to distinguish between hateful people of bad faith and other people who just aren’t familiar with the reality fo the situation.
Calouste
@Baud: The Tories don’t have a majority in the House of Lords, and they can hold up any legislation for two years. And that will create a lot of time for action, among other things probably a General Strike.
Baud
@UncleEbeneezer:
I didn’t realize that, since school segregation wasn’t based on the idea that black people were smarter than white people.
I thought the reason Jesse Owens at the 1936 Berlin Olympics was famous is because he shattered the myth of white athletic superiority.
Gin & Tonic
Speaking of going fascist, Elon Musk, ladies and gents:
Baud
@Calouste: Another interesting angle.
Formerly disgruntled in Oregon
The
FederalistFascist – the thought leaders of the US right wing. A vanguard, if you will.Refreshing honesty. Is the country prepared to have this shit shoved in our faces every day? I’m not sure we’re going to take it well.
zhena gogolia
@Gin & Tonic:
I saw that. I liked this reply:
Baud
@Gin & Tonic: Can we swap Musk for Brittney Griner?
OzarkHillbilly
@Ocotillo: “Show me where the trans man/woman hurt you.”
Betty Cracker
@Baud: I agree 100%. This is why Repubs are leaning into this non-issue so hard — if it’s not something you’ve looked into or thought a lot about, it sounds plausible on the surface.
zhena gogolia
@Gin & Tonic:
Does Ukrainian have the particle “bliad'”? Or is this woman speaking a mixture?
Gin & Tonic
@Baud: Your offer is acceptable.
UncleEbeneezer
@Baud: I think it was both. Like a lot of racism it wasn’t really consistent. One minute white athletes were superior, the other, it was we can’t let Black athletes with their “fast-twitch muscles” in because they have an unfair advantage. Just depends on the day and who was doing the racism, which framing they chose.
Ocotillo
thanks to the jackals who responded to my earlier query. I am bookmarking this thread to do homework later as technically, I am working at the moment. Again, thank you so much.
Eolirin
@Baud: Those bodies are frequently making those kinds of rules without any grounding in the basis of sound science, as they frequently have been called out for making capricious and discriminatory decisions, including ones that have affected assigned at birth female athletes for having naturally elevated testosterone levels, despite zero evidence that those testosterone levels result in any actual outcome differences in their sports, and those same bodies were instrumental in excluding black athletes back when that was a going concern. Also on the issue of fairness.
They’re not genuine experts on these topics and they’re just as prone to bullshit discriminatory thinking as anyone else.
I’m not going to say there’s no need for there to be rules on transitioning, duration of hormone treatment before an athlete can compete, etc, but the regulatory bodies aren’t a good authority on anything. Sports science is the right place to look.
And to note, those rules are already in place and that doesn’t matter to the people making these arguments for exclusion. Trans women aren’t real women and shouldn’t take victories away from real women is an inescapable and inherent part of their argument, and that’s exactly the same as the race based argument from when blacks were excluded from sports.
celticdragon
Hey guys. Long time no see.
Matt McIrvin
@zzyzx: The transphobe side has done a really good job creating an argument that SOUNDS legitimate here. It’s not, but at first glance it looks like it is.
And it seems like the specter of cheating at sports is a really powerful trigger that can motivate even people who are relatively apolitical or liberal to extreme positions. People who are pro-trans-rights in every other way can be convinced fairly easily that the antis have a point here. It ties in with old stories about Soviet Bloc countries cheating at the Olympics, etc.
sab
@UncleEbeneezer: I am old enough that I remember before Title IX girls didn’t have much available in the way of sports in most schools. Sports was for boys. So I will never believe that any of these adults are arguing in good faith to protect cis girls right to fair competition.
Gin & Tonic
@zhena gogolia: It has made its way into Ukrainian. I saw her yesterday and thought “you think you can conquer this country?” This is everyone’s grandmother.
Geminid
@sab: They are working up an excuse to get rid of Title IX.
Eolirin
@Baud: You know what this is a fair point. These issues are too close to me, and I assume bad faith a little too much because of it. The positions I’ve laid out are under the assumption of bad faith.
This stuff is really really obvious with just a little education, but it’s depressingly obvious how little education on these topics the average person has, still. We need to keep working on that.
zhena gogolia
@celticdragon: Hi!
zhena gogolia
@Gin & Tonic: Amazing.
sab
@Geminid: Yep.
Matt McIrvin
@Baud:
It’s interesting, though, that the highest-profile case of an athlete getting heat for this was a (cis woman but also intersex) Black African. I do wonder if racial stereotypes figure into who will get a lot of attention.
Zzyzx
@Baud: basically I had a philosophical disconnect between:
1) We need to have gender segregated sports to make the playing field competitive
and
2) Gender is an amorphous thing that can’t really be defined.
The NCAA seems to have come up with a decent way of defining who qualifies that seems satisfactory to most. So the question then became finding out if the gender difference was like “A lottery NBA team would win the WNBA championship, ” A good NCAA team would win the WNBA,” or – as the real jerks like to claim – “My pick up team at the Y could win the WNBA.”
One thing I did was look at running. I’m an OK-ish runner so I checked my stats at a recent heavily attended 15k. I was 21st or so in my division. If I had the same results in the women of my age group, I’d do better… but I’d still be like 15th or so.
The evidence is coming in that the gender difference is nowhere near what the biggest women’s sports haters claim, and odds are that anyone good enough to dominate a women’s team would be so close to qualifying for a men’s team that they’re much more likely to push themselves to try to make it than go through the non-trivial process that the NCAA requires.
It’s just not an issue.
Alison Rose
Bannon only gets 4 months? Boooooooo. JAIL! JAIL FOR A THOUSAND YEARS.
kalakal
@Baud: I know it’s a joke.
Such a law would not have the shelf life of a lettuce, nor would anyone who proposed/voted for it. It would also be counter to every bit of electoral law since at least the 1832 Representation of the people act and going back further the 1535 Justices in Liberty Act. It would also cause the breakup of the UK as it would destroy both the 1707 Acts of Union (Scotland) and the 1535 Justices in Liberty ( Wales)
That and King Big Ears commands the armed forces a lot of whose members might object to being disenfranchised, a lot of the police might feel the same.
And yep if they didn’t back down fast there would be world class rioting
ian
Them private jails ain’t gonna expand their own profit margins by themselves
Not just the performers, but the parents too! I’ll take “Its about parents rights, choices, and liberty for 500$, Alex”
At least the fucker admits that they want Democracy gone, he just doesn’t care.
He doesn’t call himself a straight up fascist, but it is certainly the closest description of fascism I have read since Umberto Eco‘s Ur-Fascism
Leto
Here’s some good news:
Steve Bannon Has To Go To Prison — And This Time Trump Can’t Save Him
Matt McIrvin
@Ocotillo: The “even if one person is hurt” angle makes it seem like what they’re really concerned about is not some kind of competitive advantage, but TERF-y fears about trans women being secret assaulters in the locker room.
But if it’s really competitive advantage, there’s the question of where we draw the line. Is Michael Phelps cheating at sports because he has some kind of freak physiology normal swimmers don’t? etc.
kalakal
@Alison Rose: Damn, I was hoping for a lot longer. Still 4 months without booze is going to feel like decades for that creature
Baud
@kalakal: God Save the King!
Thanks!
MisterDancer
Especially since the two issues continue to be intertwined!
The latter notes:
We’re told it’s “sane” and “rational” to “just ask questions” about Trans Women (and note it’s really just Women; no one’s saying shit on a shingle about TransMasc athletes) because we do it, right now, to Black Women. Black Women have “too much testosterone” in the same way that the bigots pushing these rules say about Trans folx.
It’s bias, in both cases! Worse: both are used to re-enforce the other bias, and to normalize the overall belief that some people’s natural gifts aren’t “allowed,” in our society, to give them “unfair advantages.” And those people are in groups already marginalized by society…what a weird coincidence, hunh.
Do I really need to pull out the literal centuries of writings on “race science” that all this bollicks is based on? This is the kind of crap that Sully lives and breathes for!
Stop playing into their hands, gang. It’s Bullshit, all the way down.
Gin & Tonic
@zhena gogolia: She even manages to call him a підорас. It’s great, this is even better than sunflower-seed grandma.
Alison Rose
@kalakal: I wonder if they will only let him wear one shirt. That might be enough to do him in.
schrodingers_cat
@kalakal: The maximum sentence is 6 months and he is a first time offender so this pretty hefty sentence for a first time offender.
h/t Teri Kanefield.
louc
@Ocotillo: There is a good story showing that the allegation that this will discourage girls from participating in sports is utter nonsense.
Matt McIrvin
@Zzyzx: I tend to think that if it’s really important to do that segregation and police the bounds for “cheating”, some kind of height/weight division like they have in boxing or wrestling might be better than making it about gender. But the number of people who are going to be classed on the other side of the line by that will probably create a freakout of its own, because frankly there’s a lot of physical overlap even among cis people. Most full-time female athletes could surely kick my ass at any physical activity whatsoever.
On the other hand, if the segregation is mostly for some kind of sociocultural reasons… then trans athletes shouldn’t be a problem.
Eolirin
@Zzyzx: Ostensibly we have genital and secondary sex characteristic segregated sports, not gender segregated sports, and that distinction is less difficult to square if you’ve properly separated the two (no one is stopping nonbinary or gender fluid athletes with vaginas from performing in women’s sports), but even the genetics and hormone levels end up more amorphous and difficult to pin down in terms of the affects on sports performance.
Ken
@kalakal: Plus, only one layer of clothing, so he’ll probably freeze to death. And I understand he’ll be expected to bathe daily.
kindness
We have to figure out a way to go after the money that pays for fascist mouthpieces. Yea, the oligarch class. It’s sad that titans of their various endeavors will now support open fascism in order to have a greater degree of control than they do now. I swear to the fsm those oligarchs don’t seem to have ever learned a thing by history. Those that don’t are bound to repeat it and sadly we have to live through it all.
gene108
Much like the conservative freak out on post-birth abortions, there are technically laws against teachers showing sexually explicit materials to students.
The issue is what crazy ass understanding of sexual explicit materials conservatives think need to be criminalized. It sure isn’t what the rest of us are thinking.
Tony Jay
@Baud:
1) They’d have to pass it. They currently don’t have enough votes to end democracy in such a blatant way.
2) Even if they did pass it through the Commons, unless they’d included it in an election winning manifesto (which they currently haven’t) it would have to get through the Lords, and there are more than enough awkward bastards there to stop it dead for a good long while.
3) Even if they did get it through the Lords, it would have to be signed off on by the Monarch. Chuckie Big Ears might be a spoilt brat in his 70s, but he knows full well that the British system of constitutional Government rests on the principle that the absolute power held by Kings and Queens can only legitimately be exercised by Parliament, because Parliament represents the People. Signing away democracy undermines the monarchy and would end it.
4) Even if they did get the King to sign it, it would mean riots and civil-unrest like Britain hasn’t seen in centuries. Tories aren’t a majority, and they haven’t yet succeeded in forging a ‘Tory Culture’ that sees itself as a state within a state like the GOP have with ‘Red America’. Parliament would burn.
5) Even if they did get the Public to accept it, they’re a bunch of incompetent, backstabbing weasels who hate each other as much as they love power. A Tory dictatorship would last roughly three days before descending into blood-drenched anarchy and the last Tory standing dropping dead of his or her wounds.
Nah. They prefer to do it nice and slow. Death by a thousand cuts, etc.
gvg
@Keith P.: I was thinking she ought to be running away from this guy.
Reboot
@PST: Send them this comment and a link to the article.
kalakal
@schrodingers_cat: It could have been a lot heftier
But as you say for a first time offender it’s quite hefty, it could have been 30 days and a $200 fine. The DOJ wanted 6 months and $100,000.
Matt McIrvin
On the original subject, does anyone still think this isn’t going to be a shooting war sooner or later? If this is the Republican Party’s position, we’re not going to defeat it by elections or any kind of regular politics.
KB
@Ocotillo: Deflect from the false narrative and point out that women’s sports are on average funded at 2% of men’s sports, which harms far more student athletes than a trans girl (who IS a girl).
louc
@MisterDancer: I also cannot recommend enough this series called “Gonads” out of RadioLab. It shows how not even a chromosome but a little hair trigger on a chromosome is what triggers testosterone and male sex features.
One of the pieces features an Indian runner, Dutee Chand, who is biologically female and is not intersex, but has a naturally occurring level of testosterone in her system. What about people like her? It destroyed her life when she was kicked out of the running world for her extra T.
Matt McIrvin
@gene108: To a conservative, a picture of two men showing affection like any married couple would in public is the same thing as hardcore pornography.
Another Scott
@MisterDancer: +1
I think it’s funny that these oh-so-genuine concerns about the sanctity of sport are happening at the same time that on-line betting on sport is being pushed hard on US sports shows. It’s been a problem in Tennis for a while, but it’s everywhere and presumably will only get worse as sports gambling gets easier and more accepted in the US.
tl;dr – watch what they do, not what they say.
Cheers,
Scott.
Kropacetic
So…business as usual then?
Seriously, “small government” was always a canard. It was always a specific set of government interventions they didn’t like, usually ones limiting capitalists from aggregating all the power and money and the white patriarchs from oppressing racial minorities, women, and queerfolk.
Significant overlap between those capitalist and white patriarch groupings, also.
Baud
@Tony Jay: Thanks.
Baud
@Matt McIrvin:
Hate to say it, but people aren’t going to go to war over the rights of trans people or abortion.
kalakal
OT Mrs Kalakal has just reminded me that today is the 10th anniversary of my first official day as an immigrant to these shores. A celebration is in store at Kalakal Towers
trollhattan
@Zzyzx: Suppose in sports determined by the stopwatch or tape measure, the issue will eventually come to a head with a particular athlete. As a handy example, the marathon gap between men and women seems to not narrow. Generally applies to track and field.
Team sports seem more difficult as to measuring gender’s impact on the court/field. And I gotta ask, why is there men’s, women’s and mixed curling?
Baud
@kalakal:
👍
Kropacetic
The same rights underpinning the right to live as a trans person or for women to exercise control over their bodies affect all of us. People need to be shown that.
schrodingers_cat
@Baud: RWNJs are bullies and cowards. We should not attribute them with the strength they don’t possess. We know what they want, we see to it that they don’t get it
(I am not saying that you are doing this but that’s the commentary I see everywhere Ooga Booga Republicans they are going to kill you in your sleep, be afraid be very afraid. They want us to be afraid, why give them that satisfaction.)
UncleEbeneezer
@MisterDancer: There was a Trans Male wrestler that I heard interviewed (I think on the Marsha’s Plate podcast) who talked about a bit of uproar about his situation in High School, but yeah the focus is almost entirely on Trans Women athletes. And yes, it’s bullshit all the way down, thank you for saying that.
Baud
@Kropacetic:
If people could be shown that, there wouldn’t be a need for a shooting war in the first place.
Leto
More good news:
Trump-Appointed Circuit Judges Agree Lindsey Graham ‘Failed’ to Show Testifying in Georgia Election Probe Would ‘Violate His Rights’
Leto
@UncleEbeneezer: see my link @33 with the John Oliver segment; he covers that athlete.
Kropacetic
We still got time. We don’t need every single individual to catch wise.
Baud
@schrodingers_cat:
Conservatives will kill people, but it’s highly unlikely that most of the people on the Internet who are afraid of being killed will be.
schrodingers_cat
@Baud: True. Its their inaction and Republican votes that will kill people.
Matt McIrvin
@Baud: It’s not just trans people or abortion, it’s every damn thing. They’re talking about a regime that would be their every paranoid fantasy of “cancel culture” turned upside down. Haircut police and pants police. Parents hauled off to jail for being a little too gay-friendly. Assistant principals inspecting the genitals of schoolchildren just to be sure. Together with an active disdain for democracy.
schrodingers_cat
OT:
Waiting for his chorus to arrive.
Modi is in campaign mode, supposedly seeking blessings (posing for a photo-op) at Kedarnath in the neighboring Uttarakhand. This is what upper caste well-off Indians like. Don’t ask me, why I am baffled. He is their Indian Doll (like the American Girl doll franchise)
Baud
@Matt McIrvin:
It will take a lot to get people to revolt.
UncleEbeneezer
@Leto: It was a different wrestler, I believe. But very similar story. That Oliver piece is SO GOOD!! He did a great job debunking all the BS.
zhena gogolia
@Gin & Tonic: I know.
zzyzx
@trollhattan:
I’ve wondered that too but it comes down to sweeping. Apparently there’s a big difference to how well you can guide the shot due to upper body strength. However that was me googling this in like 2000 or something so I might be misremembering.
zhena gogolia
WaPo:
MisterDancer
Yeah. We noticed.
Living life as, say, a Black Man has always, in America, meant some level of that Risk. Indeed, that’s what’s at core of the Black Lives Matter movement — the Risk of being killed just because an LEO took a notion to you, for any reason, good or bad.
You can let that drive your life. Or you can chose otherwise. And I’m well-informed a lot of other people who are “sorted” into marginalized groups, develop similar opinions — in the main.
It is, bluntly, a fool’s bargain to trade away what peace of mind and quality of life I have, because the GOP has openly embraced the same shit my Dad spent his early decades surviving. One can, and should, work with others to fight that with every tool we have, while also ensuring I can have the emotional and mental capacity to enjoy the life I have left, as well.
I know that’s not a direct answer to your concern, but no one knows the day, or the time, Matt. All we know, is what we can and must do, to fight against it, until our race is run.
Eolirin
@Baud: Stochastic violence and terrorism is already happening on their end. I don’t think we can use those tactics.
And unless there’s some kind of military schism, there won’t be large scale armed conflict between US citizens.
But abortion rights are also about maternal healthcare, and a failure to provide adequate maternal healthcare frequently results in death. We’ve seen what can happen when the right tries to take people’s healthcare away.
War is maybe not the right word for it, but it isn’t like the trans bigotry, which will be easier for most people to dismiss. Not enough people will know a trans person to have a personal stake.
Just about everyone has women in their lives. And women that look like the women in their lives are going to be dying. Sustaining abortion bans under those circumstances will require tactics that are likely to piss off people even more.
Miss Bianca
@zhena gogolia: Ahh…well, I was just reading the subtitles. Which provided balm to my bitter, jaded, fascist-hating soul.
Ksmiami
@Ken: yep. Along with Rod Dreher…
UncleEbeneezer
@Matt McIrvin: Also, HRT is fairly common for Cisgender people too (Much like The Pill has other uses besides contraception). So it also means athletes can’t have legit medical treatments for say acne, AND participate in sports.
A fun thing to do when someone argues that Trans Girls/Women will have an unfair advantage due to Testosterone, muscle, body mass etc., is to ask: “Oh so then I assume you favor letting them have access to puberty blockers?” and watch then them squirm.
Baud
@Eolirin:
Yes, I agree. I was responding to the “shooting war” concept. There will be terrorism.
zhena gogolia
@Miss Bianca: The subtitles are okay, but they don’t convey the eloquence!
Eolirin
@Baud: Any attempt to start a shooting war will be crushed by the US government, regardless of which side was responsible. Only way it happens is if the government starts it.
Leto
@Eolirin: this was a short article from a few months ago, but consider it a companion piece to the above tripe and also what you’re talking about (and what Silverman has discussed for a long time):
White Power, White Violence: A manifesto is not something to be ignored; it’s a playbook for the next attack.
schrodingers_cat
@Eolirin: Stochastic means random, nothing about their violence is random.
We know who is susceptible, we know the targets. All that is unknown is the particular agent/person causing the harm. It is curious that this term is deployed when the perpetrators are most likely to be white men, and their Bin-Ladens are radio hosts and elected Republicans. I never heard it in the context of Al-Queada based activities which pretty much followed a similar model. Coincidence, I think not.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Gin & Tonic:
To me, it reads like he’s trolling them for not making progress in Bakhmut.
Of course, his words mean nothing. He’s a shitposter who just wants to appear to be liked and be a “hero”;
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Eolirin:
What about the example of Vietnam?
livewyre
@Matt McIrvin: I would put it this way: there’s no need to surrender to the concept of war.
zhena gogolia
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): He starts by complimenting Medvedev’s “trolling.”
zhena gogolia
Medevedev has a nerve making fun of the Brits. So it’s better to have a KGB agent running your country for 22 years?
Eolirin
@schrodingers_cat: Americans only really think of Al-Queada in the context of 9/11 which was very much a top down planned attack, and not stochastic terrorism.
And it’s the word scholarship uses to describe this kind of activity, which is distinct in the perpetrators being unknown and unknowable, with unique implications for how you need to deal with it. We need a way to describe that.
It applies just as much to terrorism being done for Islamic based ideological reasons as white supremacist ones, and I’d use it there just as much when appropriate, but we only really have a white supremacist problem in the US, so that’s all it’s going to get used to describe here.
TriassicSands
I just read the Davidson screed and I was sure the Federalist must be a publication of the Onion.
Davidson is clearly a person who is not only uncomfortable with the idea of people being different from him, but who wants to use force to stop them from being different. When he quotes Jefferson that we must be all one thing or all the other (slave or free), I couldn’t help but think he’d prefer it to be all-slave.
It’s hard to think of anything he doesn’t overstate or exaggerate in some way. He seems to feel that “conservatives” have failed to “conserve” anything at all that he values. Think of gun control. Conservatives have failed miserably at conserving the right to keep and bear arms because they have expanded that “right” into a murder-suicide pact by working tirelessly to ensure that crazies of all kinds can have as many weapons of all kinds as possible.
Davidson is one sick cookie. The US is now so “woke” and conservatives have failed so badly that in virtually every Red state it has become harder to exercise our most fundamental right — voting. And the effect is not designed to limit everyone equally, but to focus entirely on limiting the right of African Americans, people who have voted overwhelmingly for Democrats in recent decades.
No restrictions on forced births, because, while it’s fine to kill human beings in war and even to execute innocent people of crimes they didn’t commit (because we all know that it better to kill innocent people than to ever allow a single guilty person to escape punishment), forcing a child to give birth to the product of rape or incest is intolerable. And if forcing a woman to give birth to a child that will force everyone in the family into poverty, that’s OK because people in poverty will be willing to work for the lowest possible wages. That poverty will also make poor education and ignorance more likely and those people won’t ever threaten the ascendence of Davidson’s elites by voting.
Fascist may be too kind a description of Davidson.
schrodingers_cat
@Eolirin: Yes I know that is the word that social science scholarship uses but as someone who studied randomness as a physicist it bugs me
Jan 6 was a planned attack too.
Eolirin
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): What about it? I’m not sure how Vietnam suggests an armed conflict between large groups of US citizens is likely or even possible.
Whiskey Rebellion and the Civil War are your touchstones. Except the US government has fighter jets now.
glc
@sab: Too bad he missed Leviticus, it’s really funny in parts.
I read some to my kids when they were around 8 or 10, at meals. They think the bible is basically a Dad joke with occasional genocidal remarks.
TriassicSands
@PST:
For many Americans, the government’s doing things to help the country is irrelevant. What matters, and all that matters, is what has the government done for ME.
Eolirin
@schrodingers_cat: It’s still describing randomness though? Like, from a social science frame the interest isn’t really in the violence in and of itself but the individual perpetrating it, and in the context of stochastic behaviors, which is terrorism in this context, that is a random distribution of individuals exposed to the underlying culture/movement/information.
There’s nothing deterministic about who carries out the actions being expressed by the cultural leadership/influencers. You can’t even predict it down to the individual level, like you’d be able to in a more traditionally organized effort.
So I’m not sure what the problem is.
Eolirin
@TriassicSands: Meh, not even. It’s what has the government done to/about them that motivates a lot of the right.
kalakal
@Eolirin: I think something more like Northern Ireland is what it could be like
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@zhena gogolia:
Oh….
schrodingers_cat
@Eolirin: Everything unknowable is not random.
Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony
@Keith P.: Even Rod Dreher, Mister Lets-Be-Ridgid-About-Gods-Rules got divorced. Divorce is common among right-wingers. Look at Trump! These people and their funders would never give up the right to leave their women once they get tired of them. Why does he just be honest? He has a problem with woman initiated divorce.. women leaving asshole men.
Ruckus
@Matt McIrvin:
And you aren’t pumping out enough deranged future conservative voters. I’d seriously bet that they think that if they can control the schools they can override any liberal ideas that you put in their heads and create a new conservative class to help them.
I was sent to a religious high school, a religion I did not and do not believe in. I went for one year, refused to go back. That was fun. The refusing, not the school.
I believe that extreme religious assholes are insane. Maybe not considered so within the medical field, but in real life yes.
GibberJack
@Ken: I myself am partial to oiled buttocks and pert breasts. But hey each to their own!
Matt McIrvin
@Eolirin: A stochastic process (in the technical sense) is not just a nondeterministic one, it’s one that you can model very well with random numbers following some probability distribution. So a physicist is going to think you’re claiming a lot by calling something stochastic.
Eolirin
@Matt McIrvin: I’m pretty sure the modeling on this works like that though? At least to social science standards, which granted are not physics standards.
catclub
@Ocotillo:
so ask em, if even one person is hurt ( killed) by their anti-woman abortion law, is that too many?
ETtheLibrarian
So now they like anti-trust laws. I can’t keep up.
Ruckus
@Betty Cracker:
It is exactly the point.
The more the majority pushes back the more insane the far right religious will go to “prove” they are real, and extremely sure of every insane idea they come up with to justify their insanity.
Gravenstone
I look forward to many of these morons spending large amounts of their lives in prison (or actuarially prematurely assuming ambient temperature) because they said the quiet parts out loud often enough to get the undivided attention of law enforcement.
Ruckus
@Ocotillo:
If you are feeling frisky you could come back with well you hurt plenty of people by excluding them based upon your beliefs in writings thousands of years old that are less believable than a Wes Craven movie. You might want to be walking away when you say that…..
Gravenstone
Which will allow their concept of “small family” to be as flexible as needed. Since their Quiverfull fellow travelers would balk at the concept of stopping with one or two sprogs.
Ruckus
@Amir Khalid:
The super religious nuts sure seemed to have skipped that part….
Gravenstone
Emerald ash borer infestation did a number on the native ash tree population in North America. So yeah, it prompted a move to maple (I believe) as the primary material for bats now.
Gravenstone
@TheTruffle: Hopefully both are soon occupied in government office and haven’t the time to organize full time.
lowtechcyclist
From that piece:
I can see what this loon is ranting against, but I can’t for the life of me figure out what he’s for, other than whatever might stick it to those he regards as enemies. Take the above excerpt: why does he regard widespread irreligion as a bad thing? If fewer Americans consider themselves Christians, so what?
There’s no ‘there’ there, except the usual ‘we know who we want to stick it to.’ Nothing new about that, except some new targets and a willingness to go much further against the old ones.
Matt McIrvin
@Gravenstone: They ARE law enforcement.
schrodingers_cat
@Eolirin: If only. I think they have borrowed some jargon without understanding what it means mathematically.
I seriously doubt that there is a probability distribution by which you can predict who is going to be the next RWNJ to go on a killing spree. It would be far easier to go after the source causing the discord. Those sources are neither random nor unknowable they are well known and they are inciting the public sentiment 24/7. They are on Fox, talk radio and on R side of the aisle in our elected bodies.
Matt McIrvin
@schrodingers_cat: I can imagine a physicist-dabbling-in-social-science type trying to do it, but we know where that kind of thing tends to go.
Matt McIrvin
(I’m reminded of Nassim Taleb’s weird claim that you can prove that the most intolerant fanatics will eventually take over every society using the renormalization group)
Kay
@Juice Box:
Guffaw. So true. Often when I read their stuff the word in the back of my mind is “ninny”.
The funniest are the Right wingers in their 40’s telling me how the 1990’s were this Golden Age of The Family. WTF. I was THERE. It’s all romantized, nostalgiac nonsense.
Ruckus
@Gin & Tonic:
I wonder how this might effect his business interests and how the share holders of those businesses might react and that he owns only about 25% of Tesla stock.
BruceFromOhio
@Matt McIrvin:
Just read up on this I agree, that is exactly what is happening. The demise of polite company lies in the trait of polite accommodation.
ChrisSherbak
@Baud: Sadly, IMO, this issue, the ‘gay’ issue (either marriages or locker rooms or the military etc. etc. etc.) and even the ‘black’ issue in the Before Times (as was noted in Sports and the military again) are way easier to demagogue and can really only be rebutted with calm, rational, appeals to reason.
I think people naturally fear change and The Other and all three of these (and maybe more?) evoke primal responses that take time to overcome. Which the GOP has little to no intention/desire to deal with when there is power to be taken and subservience to the elites at stake.
catclub
@Ocotillo:
So if even one woman is hurt (killed) by their anti-woman abortion laws that is so different.
Odie Hugh Manatee
How long until someone punches this Nazi in the face? A fist is a pretty blunt instrument and if I was within range of this fucking fascist I would gladly give this mother fucker one upside his head.
Just being blunt here.
Bill Arnold
@schrodingers_cat:
It’s in the spirit of stochastic optimization/stochastic search. See for example the first paper on Simulated Annealing (S. Kirkpatrick; C. D. Gelatt; M. P. Vecchi, 1983).
Yes, Jan 6 was a planned attack. Lone wolf attacks are often the expected result of incitement, but incitement of lone wolves (aka stochastic terrorism) is not a deterministic method of achieving the desired result of lone wolf attacks. (In particular, it appears to be hard to get a conviction in a free-speech society.)
Bill Arnold
@schrodingers_cat:
Is radioactive decay acausal?
PBK
@celticdragon: Welcome back. Stay a while!
Ruckus
@schrodingers_cat:
I am a zero fan of SB but this is a misdemeanor charge and as you say he got close to the maximum sentence.
This is I believe not the end of his troubles with the law. He might not/won’t get a near billion dollar level penalty or 50 yrs in jail but he’s not out of issues to discuss with lawyers and the government.
As a point of reference we all know that most white’s get lessor penalties than POC and that grading on a racial curve is very, very wrong.
Matt McIrvin
@BruceFromOhio: But my point was that Taleb’s explanation is pseudoscience, as far as I can tell. (I used the renormalization group in my doctoral thesis work–I have no idea how it would apply here.)
And if it’s such a fundamental mathematical certainty, then there should never be any societies that are at all tolerant in the first place, so it’s an explanation that explains too much.
pluky
@SFAW: emerald ash borer has done a number on the trees.
Another Scott
@ETtheLibrarian: Um, no. They still don’t like anti-trust laws.
They want to beat up on and cower power centers that do not cater to them. They want the threat – no matter how nonsensical – to change behavior. A smaller Alphabet and FB and all the rest won’t make the GQP messaging easier, it will make it more difficult.
Cheers,
Scott.
Skippy-san
The author of this piece needs a Louisville Slugger across the temples.