The imminent collapse of the liberal-conservative consensus.

Mundane & Pointless Stuff I Must Share: The Off Topic Forum

Moderator: Moderators

Lago PARANOIA
Invincible Overlord
Posts: 10555
Joined: Thu Sep 25, 2008 3:00 am

The imminent collapse of the liberal-conservative consensus.

Post by Lago PARANOIA »

So I have been saying for years that the GOP is ripe for a fall. I still maintain that. And if you just look at the electoral battlefield, I don't know how you can conclude anything else. For fuck's sake, President Pigboy was, well, President. Which doesn't mean anything in of itself, but he still has a deathgrip on the party despite being the most unpopular President since Truman. Not a healthy party.

That said, my analysis missed something huge when predicting the collapse of the GOP: a similar weakness mirrored within the Democratic Party. Now, in theory, the Democratic Party isn't in as bad of a position as the GOP. They could become an electorally dominant force not seen since the 1930s just like that. They have the positions and they have the votes and they have the infrastructure. Whether we're talking about voting rights, abortion, imperialism, education, LGBT rights, racial justice, unions, WHATEVER the Democrats usually have a majority position and sometimes have the supermajority.

Again, in theory.

The problem is, and the Democratic Party goes to great pains to hide this, is that it's being led by the dick and balls by a faction of bourgeois, even haute bourgeois, coastal liberals who have a monstrously unpopular agenda. That agenda being: handjobs to cops and statesec, techdick entrepreneuralism, tech-enabled workplace managerialism, increasingly accelerating educational requirements for academia, a vigorous (but smartly led!) military-industrial complex, turning bureaucracies into a source of profit, austerity and low inflation, taxes as a replacement for social engineering, and status-quo legalism. You know, stuff the capitalists who own if not outright directly chair the Democratic Party want.

This friction between what the leadership wants and what the voting base wants makes its purported electoral strength largely illusory. 2014 and 2018 being years of record electoral triumph for both the liberals and the fascists, especially in absence of an exogenous event like a recession or war, is unheard-of. It's an outcome that only makes sense if you believe that both parties are unsustainably weak.

So where's all this going? Here's my prediction.
  • The parties stay weak. There's no reason for them to change. The capitalists are winning under Trump and they're winning under Biden. Yes, some Tea People and Pepes are going to be very upset/juiced depending on how 2022 turns out. But their opinion doesn't matter. And fascists aren't smart enough to realize that they're the housebroken and gelded lackeys of the cuckservatives they so hate. As we can see by Trump agreeing to slit his own throat and sabotage his Presidency to keep the billionaire class happy.
  • There isn't going to be a replacement party or a viable 3rd-party. Why would there be? Way too many people believe that the Democratic Party is reformable. Even after President Ted Cruz chews up the party and spits it out in 2024, vowing to use his Constitution-rewriting statehouse supermajority to pass a Right To Work and a Balanced Budget Amendment, there will always be some scared bunnypants willing to reinflate the saggy corpse of the Democratic Party juuuust enough so that there can be no viable alternative.
  • The 2024 and especially 2022 landscape looks really fucking bad for the Democratic Party. Not as bad as 2018 had Clinton been President, thank God, but still really fucking bad. The GOP recapturing a Constitution-rewriting statehouse supermajority just during the 2022 midterms is not out of the question. If 2022 and 2024 end up looking like 2014 and 2016, it's all but guaranteed.
  • The Democratic Party (and its adjacent consultancy and media apparatuses) is shielded from failure. There are no personal or professional consequences for electoral failure, even spectacular electoral failure like we saw in 2010, 2014, and 2016, so long as the failure was within the bounds of liberal orthodoxy. The apparatchik still get to wet their beaks, the politicians still get to stay rich, the party still gets to keep its captured voting base who only alternatives are the fascists. So don't expect for them to be even the tiniest bit fazed about the oncoming 2022 disaster except for some Twitter weirdos who ironically don't actually have a vocational stake in politics.
  • A Bernie Sanders or AOC type isn't going to stave off this collapse. On the contrary, it would've accelerated it if Bernie became President in 2016, let alone 2020. As of September 2021, there simply aren't enough Democrats willing to break with the doctrine of liberal capitalism to make even a mildly social-democratic agenda a success. On the contrary, they have every incentive to make such an endeavor a leftism-discrediting failure. As in, the liberal consensus consensus would LOVE to say: shut up about a 15-dollar minimum wage, Bernie's failed administration the reason why we have President Tom Cotton.
  • We're getting a fascist takeover sometime in the next couple of years. It will not be as bad as it could've been had the takeover happened 40 or even 20 years ago, mostly because fascism relies on a vital base of petit bourgeois to really inflict its terror. And, for better or for worse, the liberal-conservative consensus has reduced this hotbed of fascism to a rump as capitalism continues to reproletarianize workers and commoditize the economy. There are still some boat dealership and law firm partners out there, but they're nowhere as politically or militarily strong as they were just a few decades back. Let alone as during the 1930s. There will be fascist terror, of course, but it'll be largely indistinguishable from Reagan and Obama's brand of fascist terror. No jackboots, but the powers that be will lean on the courts to empower the police and statesec to squeeze our nuts a bit harder.
Josh Kablack wrote:Your freedom to make rulings up on the fly is in direct conflict with my freedom to interact with an internally consistent narrative. Your freedom to run/play a game without needing to understand a complex rule system is in direct conflict with my freedom to play a character whose abilities and flaws function as I intended within that ruleset. Your freedom to add and change rules in the middle of the game is in direct conflict with my ability to understand that rules system before I decided whether or not to join your game.

In short, your entire post is dismissive of not merely my intelligence, but my agency. And I don't mean agency as a player within one of your games, I mean my agency as a person. You do not want me to be informed when I make the fundamental decisions of deciding whether to join your game or buying your rules system.
MGuy
Prince
Posts: 4774
Joined: Tue Jul 21, 2009 5:18 am
Location: Indiana

Re: The imminent collapse of the liberal-conservative consensus.

Post by MGuy »

I do wonder what state the country will be in 20 years. I think this virus is going to be staying with us for the foreseeable future given how violently adamant a good portion of this country seems to be about keeping it going. Whatever fraction of the Republican voter base dies to it they'll make up for with their ongoing project to keep holding power with less and less of the popular vote. Dems have completely disarmed themselves so that they can do nothing about issues outside their party or even deal with problems* within it. Meanwhile scientists seem to be saying we're past the point of too late to avoid catastrophic damage to society due to worsening climate conditions. We're even looking at a wave of homelessness about to sweep over the nation. With all of these things going on outside of our ridiculous political circus that'll likely effect it I don't think I could comfortably make any predictions on what the country is even going to look like in 20 years and certainly not 40.

*This is if you buy that holdups in the senate and house really only occur because of the will of 2-10 people and isn't just allowed or even supported by more than that.
The first rule of Fatclub. Don't Talk about Fatclub..
If you want a game modded right you have to mod it yourself.
Lago PARANOIA
Invincible Overlord
Posts: 10555
Joined: Thu Sep 25, 2008 3:00 am

Re: The imminent collapse of the liberal-conservative consensus.

Post by Lago PARANOIA »

MGuy wrote:Dems have completely disarmed themselves so that they can do nothing about issues outside their party or even deal with problems* within it.
Don't get it twisted. It's not that they can't, it's that they won't. Liberals are capitalists first and anything else second. It suits their purposes to pretend to be helpless, because as mentioned they represent on paper a massively popular platform... that their capitalist paymasters don't want.

And the unpopular shit they want to do, like increasing the DOD's budget by another $23b, doesn't require them to go out of their way to antagonize their masters.
Josh Kablack wrote:Your freedom to make rulings up on the fly is in direct conflict with my freedom to interact with an internally consistent narrative. Your freedom to run/play a game without needing to understand a complex rule system is in direct conflict with my freedom to play a character whose abilities and flaws function as I intended within that ruleset. Your freedom to add and change rules in the middle of the game is in direct conflict with my ability to understand that rules system before I decided whether or not to join your game.

In short, your entire post is dismissive of not merely my intelligence, but my agency. And I don't mean agency as a player within one of your games, I mean my agency as a person. You do not want me to be informed when I make the fundamental decisions of deciding whether to join your game or buying your rules system.
User avatar
The Adventurer's Almanac
Duke
Posts: 1540
Joined: Tue Oct 01, 2019 6:59 pm
Contact:

Re: The imminent collapse of the liberal-conservative consensus.

Post by The Adventurer's Almanac »

I, for one, welcome our new cyberpunk woke fascist overlords. Free will was a mistake and the war of all-against-all shall soon begin. Electronic old men running the world - a new age! Why contain it? S'cool.
In all seriousness I am succumbing to bitterness and helplessness and I don't like it. I'd like to say "surely it isn't as bad as I hear", but every day the homeless encampment underneath the freeway by my place gets a little bit bigger. Every day I see regular people strike and scream and bitch at other citizens instead of the people who are actually making decisions that run this country. Every day the twist on my nuts gets a little tighter.
I wonder what 2022 will look like! :gross:
Lago PARANOIA
Invincible Overlord
Posts: 10555
Joined: Thu Sep 25, 2008 3:00 am

Re: The imminent collapse of the liberal-conservative consensus.

Post by Lago PARANOIA »

If it makes you feel any better, this has been, callous as it sounds, the optimal scenario for long-term survival ever since Reagan became President. The ranks of the middle class (the actual middle class according to Marxism, not America's weird idiosyncratic definition thereof) have been drained like crazy over the past two generations thanks to the forces of globalization and reproletarianization, depriving reactionaries of their armies. However, it's also not at the point where strong AI can start seriously replacing cops and soldiers. And yeah, climate change is going to get real bad and it'd be nice to have these gears turning 20 years ago -- but frankly there was never a historically plausible path not to have hundreds of millions of people die from it until the Western middle class started dying off/being demoted in large enough numbers.

The Democrats will not save us from the fascists. Indeed, they've actively funneling them political and material goodies, whether we're talking about mass incarceration or tying class consciousness to racism. All the same, the fascists have been weaker than they've ever been simultaneous with liberalism being the weakest it's been since the 1920s-1930s. Whether these dual weaknesses will be enough to let some other movement swoop in and crush these omnicidal ideologies in time to save the species is hard to say.

We'll see what happens in November 2022. The optimal scenario would be for the fascists to fail to mount a counterattack simultaneous with the Democrats becoming so toxic that they start collapsing in their electoral strongholds in the cities.

But it's not over yet.
Josh Kablack wrote:Your freedom to make rulings up on the fly is in direct conflict with my freedom to interact with an internally consistent narrative. Your freedom to run/play a game without needing to understand a complex rule system is in direct conflict with my freedom to play a character whose abilities and flaws function as I intended within that ruleset. Your freedom to add and change rules in the middle of the game is in direct conflict with my ability to understand that rules system before I decided whether or not to join your game.

In short, your entire post is dismissive of not merely my intelligence, but my agency. And I don't mean agency as a player within one of your games, I mean my agency as a person. You do not want me to be informed when I make the fundamental decisions of deciding whether to join your game or buying your rules system.
Lago PARANOIA
Invincible Overlord
Posts: 10555
Joined: Thu Sep 25, 2008 3:00 am

Re: The imminent collapse of the liberal-conservative consensus.

Post by Lago PARANOIA »

The GOP is going to gain a Constitution-rewriting statehouse supermajority very soon. 3 years tops, by the end of 2022 most likely.

https://www.propublica.org/article/heed ... -elections
It has only been a few months — too soon to say whether the wave of newcomers will ultimately succeed in reshaping the GOP or how they will affect Republican prospects in upcoming elections. But what’s already clear is that these up-and-coming party officers have notched early wins.

In Michigan, one of the main organizers recruiting new precinct officers pushed for the ouster of the state party’s executive director, who contradicted Trump’s claim that the election was stolen and who later resigned. In Las Vegas, a handful of Proud Boys, part of the extremist group whose members have been charged in attacking the Capitol, supported a bid to topple moderates controlling the county party — a dispute that’s now in court.

In Phoenix, new precinct officers petitioned to unseat county officials who refused to cooperate with the state Senate Republicans’ “forensic audit” of 2020 ballots. Similar audits are now being pursued by new precinct officers in Michigan and the Carolinas. Outside Atlanta, new local party leaders helped elect a state lawmaker who championed Georgia’s sweeping new voting restrictions.
https://www.cnn.com/2021/04/30/politics ... index.html
"I am concerned about ... the lost learning. But I do think we have an opportunity now to make things better. That's one of the reasons I was so excited about the American Rescue Plan, because it has so much money in there for education," Jill Biden said.
The first lady noted "each district is different," and said, "I think we have to listen to the experts and science, and then the districts have to decide."
"We're following the science and what the CDC says," she said.
Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona said Friday that the administration is continuing to push to have schools open this spring.
Cardona told CNN's Ana Cabrera on "CNN Newsroom" there is "still some hesitancy" about the safety of reopening schools in communities across the country, "but we are working really hard to try to make sure that all schools open this spring."
https://www.peoplespolicyproject.org/20 ... liminated/
The Bureau of Labor Statistics released its monthly jobs report earlier today. This is the last report before pandemic unemployment benefits are eliminated across the entire country on September 6 and thus gives us the last bit of labor market information we will have prior to this massive policy change.

According to today’s report, non-farm payrolls increased by 235,000 people last month, bringing the total number of non-farm employees to 147.2 million people. This number is still 5.3 million below the employment level in February of 2020 right before the COVID pandemic hit the country.
Josh Kablack wrote:Your freedom to make rulings up on the fly is in direct conflict with my freedom to interact with an internally consistent narrative. Your freedom to run/play a game without needing to understand a complex rule system is in direct conflict with my freedom to play a character whose abilities and flaws function as I intended within that ruleset. Your freedom to add and change rules in the middle of the game is in direct conflict with my ability to understand that rules system before I decided whether or not to join your game.

In short, your entire post is dismissive of not merely my intelligence, but my agency. And I don't mean agency as a player within one of your games, I mean my agency as a person. You do not want me to be informed when I make the fundamental decisions of deciding whether to join your game or buying your rules system.
User avatar
The Adventurer's Almanac
Duke
Posts: 1540
Joined: Tue Oct 01, 2019 6:59 pm
Contact:

Re: The imminent collapse of the liberal-conservative consensus.

Post by The Adventurer's Almanac »

Lago PARANOIA wrote:
Sat Sep 04, 2021 5:13 pm
The Democrats will not save us from the fascists. Indeed, they've actively funneling them political and material goodies, whether we're talking about mass incarceration or tying class consciousness to racism. All the same, the fascists have been weaker than they've ever been simultaneous with liberalism being the weakest it's been since the 1920s-1930s. Whether these dual weaknesses will be enough to let some other movement swoop in and crush these omnicidal ideologies in time to save the species is hard to say.

We'll see what happens in November 2022. The optimal scenario would be for the fascists to fail to mount a counterattack simultaneous with the Democrats becoming so toxic that they start collapsing in their electoral strongholds in the cities.
2022 is going to be a bloodbath. The choices will be "Republican who hates you and wants you to die" and "Democrat who whines about how they can't do anything to help people when they have a supermajority". Because the Democrats are the ones in power right now, they will receive most of the blame and the Republicans will win by doing nothing and gerrymandering. Then they will shit the bed and in 2024 we get Ted Cruz vs Kamala Harris and we'll really see how much shit can be shoved down the average American's throat.
I'm happy to be proven wrong, but last March I also said we would experience coronavirus lockdowns for 3-5 years minimum, and here we are.
User avatar
Kaelik
ArchDemon of Rage
Posts: 14757
Joined: Fri Mar 07, 2008 7:54 pm

Re: The imminent collapse of the liberal-conservative consensus.

Post by Kaelik »

It is almost certainly going to be an huge sweep of the House for republicans, because they will draw all the maps, but can we please stop doing election prognostication this soon.

If you want to make a narrow point about how democrats doing something would make them more likely to win, sure, but what is the point of spending a year predicting results of an election we don't even have the maps for? I know the news does nothing but horse race stuff, but they do that because they don't want to talk about the substance of politics. Why are you doing it?
DSMatticus wrote:Kaelik gonna kaelik. Whatcha gonna do?
The U.S. isn't a democracy and if you think it is, you are a rube.

That's libertarians for you - anarchists who want police protection from their slaves.
Lago PARANOIA
Invincible Overlord
Posts: 10555
Joined: Thu Sep 25, 2008 3:00 am

Re: The imminent collapse of the liberal-conservative consensus.

Post by Lago PARANOIA »

Kaelik wrote:It is almost certainly going to be an huge sweep of the House for republicans,
And the statehouses. The GOP had 33 governorships after 2016. They're starting further down the hole now than in 2014/2016, but there are literally no good pickups for the Democrats unless you want to count Maryland and Vermont -- and the Republican there won by like 65% last cycle in Vermont. If we're counting states where the Democrat won their last election by 5% or fewer, the Republicans could pick up 11 governorships, putting them at 38 seats. Depending on how the state legislative races go that might not quite put them there, but the fascists could very well see a Constitution-rewriting supermajority as early as 2022.

Keep in mind that 2010 and 2014 had a way worse swing for Democrats in even the most marginally competitive races than 5%. 2014 doesn't look as bad as it was on the surface as it actually was because the GOP had a very unfavorable map, but another performance in 2022 like that and that's what we're looking at.
Kaelik wrote:If you want to make a narrow point about how democrats doing something would make them more likely to win, sure, but what is the point of spending a year predicting results of an election we don't even have the maps for?
To stunt on people when my nihilistic predictions turn out to be true, duh. If Lago is in fact wrong and Biden manages to pull his head out of his ass and save himself, well, good. That means that I won't die in a post-apocalyptic fascist hellscape. But if we are doomed to die in a post-apocalyptic fascist hellscape -- and we'll know for sure by Dec. 2022, even if the Democrats manage a not-that-disappointing midterm -- you better fucking believe I will be there to laugh at you stupid fucks who believed in stupid bullshit like liberalism not leading us to our doom as surely as the omnicidal fascists. Stuff like agonizing over Cuomo's popularity or Biden lying about $2,000 checks will seem quaint in the face of a 2030 Crime And Refugee bill.

It's like Pascal's Wager, but for the future of the planet. No pressure, eh?
Josh Kablack wrote:Your freedom to make rulings up on the fly is in direct conflict with my freedom to interact with an internally consistent narrative. Your freedom to run/play a game without needing to understand a complex rule system is in direct conflict with my freedom to play a character whose abilities and flaws function as I intended within that ruleset. Your freedom to add and change rules in the middle of the game is in direct conflict with my ability to understand that rules system before I decided whether or not to join your game.

In short, your entire post is dismissive of not merely my intelligence, but my agency. And I don't mean agency as a player within one of your games, I mean my agency as a person. You do not want me to be informed when I make the fundamental decisions of deciding whether to join your game or buying your rules system.
User avatar
The Adventurer's Almanac
Duke
Posts: 1540
Joined: Tue Oct 01, 2019 6:59 pm
Contact:

Re: The imminent collapse of the liberal-conservative consensus.

Post by The Adventurer's Almanac »

Kaelik wrote:
Mon Sep 06, 2021 3:40 pm
If you want to make a narrow point about how democrats doing something would make them more likely to win, sure, but what is the point of spending a year predicting results of an election we don't even have the maps for? I know the news does nothing but horse race stuff, but they do that because they don't want to talk about the substance of politics. Why are you doing it?
Ennui.
MGuy
Prince
Posts: 4774
Joined: Tue Jul 21, 2009 5:18 am
Location: Indiana

Re: The imminent collapse of the liberal-conservative consensus.

Post by MGuy »

Joe Biden did the 1400+600 move as soon as he stepped in the door. There are people in very important positions who legitimize that parliamentary excuse to back out of a minimum wage hike. Centrist outlets have let the fact that this administration has fumbled the eviction crisis be overshadowed with hand wringing about whether or not we should continue killing people on the ground in Afghanistan vs just bombing them when we want. There are plenty of sad things we can force a chuckle over right now. Only one of those things seems to have cost him a significant bit of his approval rating and it sure wasn't the shit that 'should' have done it.

When we are all caught up in Armageddon, whatever form it eventually takes, every liberal you can think of has likely already done the mental work of convincing themselves there was nothing that could be done.

I'm not sure at this point that they believe the system even works. You can even see it when you talk to them and it's in a lot of the media. Over and over again there's an admission that the system is bad but also that nothing substantive can be done about it. I think the goal really is just a desire not to have to think about it. The 'mature' stance seems to be acknowledging the system is bad and really wishing people would do better. Which happens to be very convenient for people who are not suffering right now. I don't think that this is a stance that would at all be shaken by any number of electoral failures. Hillary lost to Trump and the guy we put up next was a geriatric guy who was a prominent figure in just about every major policy mistake we've made in recent history.

If I were to picture how your average Biden supporter might feel if Dems are swept out of office in a major way for the next few elections, it would be some combination of blaming Bernie/AOC types and lamenting that they didn't appeal hard enough to horse pill gobbling racists. I am really sure this is the case because we've seen it happen multiple times.
The first rule of Fatclub. Don't Talk about Fatclub..
If you want a game modded right you have to mod it yourself.
User avatar
deaddmwalking
Prince
Posts: 3459
Joined: Mon May 21, 2012 11:33 am

Re: The imminent collapse of the liberal-conservative consensus.

Post by deaddmwalking »

I'm pretty optimistic. About just about everything, really.

I mean, I do expect to have to wade through a bunch of shit with everyone else, but eventually I expect to get to the other side.
-This space intentionally left blank
User avatar
Josh_Kablack
King
Posts: 5318
Joined: Fri Mar 07, 2008 7:54 pm
Location: Online. duh

Re: The imminent collapse of the liberal-conservative consensus.

Post by Josh_Kablack »

re: 2022

From my view in Western PA, it looks like Fetterman picks up a PA Senate Seat for the Dems, but lose the Governership due to Wolf being term-limited.
"But transportation issues are social-justice issues. The toll of bad transit policies and worse infrastructure—trains and buses that don’t run well and badly serve low-income neighborhoods, vehicular traffic that pollutes the environment and endangers the lives of cyclists and pedestrians—is borne disproportionately by black and brown communities."
Whatever Jr.
Apprentice
Posts: 53
Joined: Tue Feb 23, 2021 11:53 pm

Re: The imminent collapse of the liberal-conservative consensus.

Post by Whatever Jr. »

deaddmwalking wrote:
Sat Sep 11, 2021 9:34 pm
I'm pretty optimistic. About just about everything, really.
This is a much stronger case for pessimism than anyone else has presented, bravo.
MGuy
Prince
Posts: 4774
Joined: Tue Jul 21, 2009 5:18 am
Location: Indiana

Re: The imminent collapse of the liberal-conservative consensus.

Post by MGuy »

Whatever Jr. wrote:
Mon Sep 13, 2021 12:17 am
deaddmwalking wrote:
Sat Sep 11, 2021 9:34 pm
I'm pretty optimistic. About just about everything, really.
This is a much stronger case for pessimism than anyone else has presented, bravo.
I think that Lago or I gave a better framework for being pessimistic about the future. All dead is saying is that they don't believe they'll personally suffer that much in the future. You would have to associating this sentiment with other things to draw a pessimistic outlook from that. Dead didn't even list out a reason so there's not much to read into. Only thing I get from that is "Dead probably is pretty well off and comfortable".

So what I'm saying is I feel like you're giving dead the gold medal way too easy. There should at least be some effort.
The first rule of Fatclub. Don't Talk about Fatclub..
If you want a game modded right you have to mod it yourself.
User avatar
Kaelik
ArchDemon of Rage
Posts: 14757
Joined: Fri Mar 07, 2008 7:54 pm

Re: The imminent collapse of the liberal-conservative consensus.

Post by Kaelik »

MGuy wrote:
Tue Sep 14, 2021 3:52 am
Whatever Jr. wrote:
Mon Sep 13, 2021 12:17 am
deaddmwalking wrote:
Sat Sep 11, 2021 9:34 pm
I'm pretty optimistic. About just about everything, really.
This is a much stronger case for pessimism than anyone else has presented, bravo.
I think that Lago or I gave a better framework for being pessimistic about the future. All dead is saying is that they don't believe they'll personally suffer that much in the future. You would have to associating this sentiment with other things to draw a pessimistic outlook from that. Dead didn't even list out a reason so there's not much to read into. Only thing I get from that is "Dead probably is pretty well off and comfortable".

So what I'm saying is I feel like you're giving dead the gold medal way too easy. There should at least be some effort.
The point of the post was to mock deaddm for always being wrong and being very stupid by saying that deaddm thinking things are good is a more compelling case that things are fucked then any facts about reality.
DSMatticus wrote:Kaelik gonna kaelik. Whatcha gonna do?
The U.S. isn't a democracy and if you think it is, you are a rube.

That's libertarians for you - anarchists who want police protection from their slaves.
PseudoStupidity
Journeyman
Posts: 174
Joined: Thu May 13, 2021 4:11 pm

Re: The imminent collapse of the liberal-conservative consensus.

Post by PseudoStupidity »

And here I was thinking it was about centrists/liberals believing things are fine is a sign that things are not fine. Like my parents saying the recent climate report was good news, probably because WaPo and NYT both had articles talking about how it was good news. It was not good news.
User avatar
Kaelik
ArchDemon of Rage
Posts: 14757
Joined: Fri Mar 07, 2008 7:54 pm

Re: The imminent collapse of the liberal-conservative consensus.

Post by Kaelik »

PseudoStupidity wrote:
Tue Sep 14, 2021 7:04 pm
And here I was thinking it was about centrists/liberals believing things are fine is a sign that things are not fine. Like my parents saying the recent climate report was good news, probably because WaPo and NYT both had articles talking about how it was good news. It was not good news.
I think deaddm being a lib who believes whatever the propaganda tells him (things are good and we will just vote harder next election after the Republicans draw districts that guarantee we lose) is inherently tied to his optimism and dumbness.
DSMatticus wrote:Kaelik gonna kaelik. Whatcha gonna do?
The U.S. isn't a democracy and if you think it is, you are a rube.

That's libertarians for you - anarchists who want police protection from their slaves.
MGuy
Prince
Posts: 4774
Joined: Tue Jul 21, 2009 5:18 am
Location: Indiana

Re: The imminent collapse of the liberal-conservative consensus.

Post by MGuy »

Kaelik wrote:
Tue Sep 14, 2021 11:56 am
MGuy wrote:
Tue Sep 14, 2021 3:52 am
Whatever Jr. wrote:
Mon Sep 13, 2021 12:17 am

This is a much stronger case for pessimism than anyone else has presented, bravo.
I think that Lago or I gave a better framework for being pessimistic about the future. All dead is saying is that they don't believe they'll personally suffer that much in the future. You would have to associating this sentiment with other things to draw a pessimistic outlook from that. Dead didn't even list out a reason so there's not much to read into. Only thing I get from that is "Dead probably is pretty well off and comfortable".

So what I'm saying is I feel like you're giving dead the gold medal way too easy. There should at least be some effort.
The point of the post was to mock deaddm for always being wrong and being very stupid by saying that deaddm thinking things are good is a more compelling case that things are fucked then any facts about reality.
I got the joke. The point of my post was to whine about dead getting more props than myself. If course it wasn't supposed to be taken seriously.
The first rule of Fatclub. Don't Talk about Fatclub..
If you want a game modded right you have to mod it yourself.
Whatever Jr.
Apprentice
Posts: 53
Joined: Tue Feb 23, 2021 11:53 pm

Re: The imminent collapse of the liberal-conservative consensus.

Post by Whatever Jr. »

forum posting isn't a game you can win, but it sure is a game you can lose.
Lago PARANOIA
Invincible Overlord
Posts: 10555
Joined: Thu Sep 25, 2008 3:00 am

Re: The imminent collapse of the liberal-conservative consensus.

Post by Lago PARANOIA »

With the Democrats allowing the parliamentarian to shoot down immigration reform in budget reconciliation, they've all but sealed their fate for 2024+. Granted, I think it was pretty much impossible to recover from the damage Obama did to the Democratic Party with his own mass incarceration/mass deportation policies to begin with, but this assures it.

I hope all your bitch asses are ready for a Right To Life Amendment come April 2025.
Josh Kablack wrote:Your freedom to make rulings up on the fly is in direct conflict with my freedom to interact with an internally consistent narrative. Your freedom to run/play a game without needing to understand a complex rule system is in direct conflict with my freedom to play a character whose abilities and flaws function as I intended within that ruleset. Your freedom to add and change rules in the middle of the game is in direct conflict with my ability to understand that rules system before I decided whether or not to join your game.

In short, your entire post is dismissive of not merely my intelligence, but my agency. And I don't mean agency as a player within one of your games, I mean my agency as a person. You do not want me to be informed when I make the fundamental decisions of deciding whether to join your game or buying your rules system.
Whatever Jr.
Apprentice
Posts: 53
Joined: Tue Feb 23, 2021 11:53 pm

Re: The imminent collapse of the liberal-conservative consensus.

Post by Whatever Jr. »

Doesn't need to be an amendment. Court will decide it's always been there as soon as they have enough cover.
User avatar
Kaelik
ArchDemon of Rage
Posts: 14757
Joined: Fri Mar 07, 2008 7:54 pm

Re: The imminent collapse of the liberal-conservative consensus.

Post by Kaelik »

Whatever Jr. wrote:
Mon Sep 20, 2021 7:03 pm
Doesn't need to be an amendment. Court will decide it's always been there as soon as they have enough cover.
It seems like they are having argument on the case that will officially overrule Roe in December.
DSMatticus wrote:Kaelik gonna kaelik. Whatcha gonna do?
The U.S. isn't a democracy and if you think it is, you are a rube.

That's libertarians for you - anarchists who want police protection from their slaves.
Lago PARANOIA
Invincible Overlord
Posts: 10555
Joined: Thu Sep 25, 2008 3:00 am

Re: The imminent collapse of the liberal-conservative consensus.

Post by Lago PARANOIA »

The rather speedy co-option of AOC into the corrupt core of the liberal-conservative consensus is why I say that the Democratic Party must die out in the next few years -- or humanity dies shortly thereafter the apocalyptic deadline due to some combination of climate change, ecofascism, and strong AI.
Josh Kablack wrote:Your freedom to make rulings up on the fly is in direct conflict with my freedom to interact with an internally consistent narrative. Your freedom to run/play a game without needing to understand a complex rule system is in direct conflict with my freedom to play a character whose abilities and flaws function as I intended within that ruleset. Your freedom to add and change rules in the middle of the game is in direct conflict with my ability to understand that rules system before I decided whether or not to join your game.

In short, your entire post is dismissive of not merely my intelligence, but my agency. And I don't mean agency as a player within one of your games, I mean my agency as a person. You do not want me to be informed when I make the fundamental decisions of deciding whether to join your game or buying your rules system.
User avatar
The Adventurer's Almanac
Duke
Posts: 1540
Joined: Tue Oct 01, 2019 6:59 pm
Contact:

Re: The imminent collapse of the liberal-conservative consensus.

Post by The Adventurer's Almanac »

As long as their is social media for them to capitalize on and yell at progressives, and a Republican Party for them to point at and say "aren't those guys scary?" the Democratic Party isn't going anywhere. I try my best to support third parties when I can, but the fact is that both parties have a lot of inertia right now and the extension of our political system into the virtual space means they have even more control over discourse and thought than ever before. Shit, just look at most social media sites. Tell me the CIA and FBI isn't elbow-deep in Facebook's asshole telling them what to do and how to control people - I'll laugh in your face.
Post Reply