Don't blame me, I voted for the other guy. (Politics General)

@Wiimeiser  

 
Vikings aren’t that early. “Viking” is a profession and developed pretty late all and all, it’s not at all primordial. But as I said: it’s more the romanticist imagery of the Viking they were claiming, not the fact.
 
If you want to plumb the absolute depths of this then consider: Hitler admitted to Mussolini that he believes he is not possessed by an Aryan spirit, but a pre-historic hyperborean demon. Or something. I will have to find the passage again, it’s an excerpt from a Mussolini biography. Very funny.

Mr. Trump celebrated the 20th anniversary of the the day that he bragged about now having the tallest tower in Manhattan, by commentating on a boxing match featuring an elderly and decrepit Evander Holyfield.

@SparkleDash  
Eh, further proof he was not really a president, but an impostor, upstart and a shirker

Tech workers and industry leaders are rethinking the slow trickle of jobs into Texas after the recent double hit of voting and abortion bills.
 
Up until now, Texas was a rising star in the tech world, with little mini silicon valleys popping up around the state. Now, it looks like that may dry up.

@tehwatever
 
If you want the background as to why things shook out the way they did after 9/11, then I cannot recommend enough The Power of Nightmares by Adam Curtis, which looks into what drove both the islamists and the neoconservatives.
 
Be warned though, it’s 180 minutes long, so you may want to watch it piecemeal.
 
@Background Pony #F6BB
 
Found out today that two of his SC appointees helped Bush steal the 2000 election. Really makes you think, eh?…

@Ebalosus
 
I mean, Trump was very and repeatedly open about how he wanted the SCOTUS to just hand him the election.
 
That’s the weird thing during the Trump years. Things that should sound like tinfoil hat conspiracies about the POTUS were being said by the POTUS.

@SparkleDash  
Yeah I saw on twitter. I even took a screen cap of it.

@Dustcan  

It never ceases to depress me that in the four years he occupied the office, the only thing he ever exceeded my expectations on was how unbelievably terrible he was going to be.

Larry “Maybe the Slaves Deserved it” Elder is already playing up “voter fraud” ahead of his predicted loss to Newsom on the California recall election.
 
 
Republicans continue to show that if they cannot win, they will foment chaos to bend the system.
 
 
If you continue to support this party, you are not on the side of democracy.

@Zincy  
What changed about the GOP since 9/11?

@CaptainXtra
 
It wasn’t 9/11 that changed them.
 
 
You want to know what morphed the modern GOP you don’t have to look further than Newt Gingrich.
 
 
Back in the 80s and early 90s, Gingrich pioneered a new “path” for campaigning. Abandoning the loyal opposition mentality that the two parties once held in favor of “the other side is my enemy”. Since then, the GOP has made it’s platform all about absolutely hating and opposing anything the left does.

@Zincy
 
Which is strange, because that tanked them big-time in 92 with the moral-majority shit scaring away all the moderates.

@Zincy
 
Can technically start earlier with the Southern Strategy making racism a core component of the GOP.
 
Every decade after added a new festering boil to the party, but the GOP’s shift from the Party of Lincoln to the Cult of Trump started at least with Nixon.

@Ebalosus
 
@Zincy  
Isn’t that also during the time where the Satanic Panic was in full swing?

@Ebalosus
 
You can thank Fox News and the right wing media bubble for that.
 
Vox explains better than I can, but the gist is that some nutjob who’s never held office but owns a mic tells the GOP to treat politics like a game of sports, and then when that inevitably backfires and millions of Americans suffer for Hannity’s or Limbaugh’s “score” those same people then spend all day everyday running damage control.

@Ebalosus  
Blame Bush Sr wanting America to be more like The Waltons and less like The Simpsons.

The reason why I’ll never take the “Transgenders don’t belong in sports” controversy is because, well, most of the athletes complaining about them are probably on some form of PEDs  
It’s a badly kept secret in the sports world  
For example, most of Lance Armstrong’s opponents in the Tour de France were also on PEDs so really(look this up it’s true), was he really being unfair towards them?  
A younger me would be angry at them for taking PEDs but frankly, I don’t care anymore  
Just don’t be a fucking hypocrite

@Dustcan  
@Wiimeiser
 
No, Adam Curtis in The Power of Nightmares can explain it better (specifically part 2, if you don’t want to sit through the first hour of it), and it has to do with the fact that due to the failures of liberalism delivering in the 70s on politician’s dream of the future, they decided to use fear instead. For the GOP during that time, it was easy: blame the soviets. Instead of it imploding like it was, pretend that it was more powerful than ever, and that it was developing hyper-advanced technologies to beat the west _{(where do you think Reagan’s push for the SDI (aka “Star Wars”) and the 600-ship navy came from?)}. When it went away in the 90’s and there was nothing abroad to scare people into voting Republican, they instead turned to the neoconservatives, who then suggested they play the muh moral decay of people and society card to try and beat Clinton. That failed in 92, but helped them win in 2016 _{(Bush stole the election in 2000, and still had the residual good will (and the Dems laughably trying to out-patriot the GOP) from 9/11 in 2004)}.
 
Honestly, you all should check out The Power of Nightmares as it’s scary how applicable it is to the current situation for which we still find ourselves within, despite being made in 2004. If 180 minutes is too much for you, Chapo Trap House episode 65, which you can get for free on either YouTube, Apple podcasts, or Spotify, has an interview with Curtis where they go over a lot of the same points.

@Ebalosus
 
A few minutes in and the length doesn’t bother me. It’s how quiet the narration is.
 
Welp I ain’t watching this one as background noise. Gonna have to sit and watch it by itself.

https://www.patrick-breyer.de/en/european-court-of-justice-to-hear-cases-on-general-indiscriminate-data-retention/
 
https://www.patrick-breyer.de/en/20-years-since-9-11-stop-fundamental-rights-terrorism/
 
Mass surveillance is still a problem, whether or not it is a US politics matter:

Rep Cawthorn is proposing a bill to gut OSHA.
 
 
Guess he just wants more people in wheelchairs so he and Abbot don’t feel left out.

@Zincy  
Even my conservative dad thinks the recall is a huge waste of money and voted no

@Commune  
I oppose PEDs as well though, and I think most people in general are. I think a system needs to be in place ao that the trans people joining don’t have an unfair advantage. I know the Olympics have a system in place, and it may change, but maybe they do have it right.

@Zincy  
He’s just being petulant about the proposed vaccine mandate.
 
Viruses are people too.

@Background Human
 
In Republican minds, viruses have more reproductive rights than women.