Archived copies of the article: ghostarchive.org archive.today web.archive.org
About the only way we’re going to actually have a democracy is if they consistently lose elections. That’s going to mean volunteering, donating, and actually turning out to vote
Wonder what they’d do if we started proclaiming and raucously celebrating “The End of the Republic”.
Lmao I can imagine some of them are thinking democracy = democrats.
I guess I got to be the first year to say it: this is fucking horrible, and we have to do everything we can in our power to stop this.
The comment directly below this one reads like propaganda straight from Moscow. I’m very glad to see it down-voted. Blaming blatant authoritarianism and extremely dangerous rhetoric on “old people” seems like a pretty obvious diversion from the actual culprits: the entire Republican party who is sleepwalking into a legit second coup attempt. They’re losing political power and have abandoned the idea of democracy. The fact that they’re unable or unwilling to drown this Nazi rhetoric in the bathtub speaks volumes. They are openly supporting authoritarianism. Not “old people”. Republicans.
I just wish that included candidates that weren’t geriatric. Their age and old values are from a dead world.
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One guy on the internet: " I don’t want my candidates to be so old they don’t understand me"
Jeze3D: “Oh my god you are supporting trump now you fucking cow…”
Stop polarizing everything, especially, if you are trying to fly the flag of cohesion. I can measure the cognitive dissonance with a odometer.
I mean, you both have something akin to a point.
Yes, establishment democrats are happy to benefit from the “but the other guys are evil!” rhetoric. Both sides do, actually. We have two political parties that coexist in a broken system. They feed each other and rely on each other to be the “other” for their own power and monetary gain.
However, there is a time and place where this matters enough to bring into a conversation. In certain times and places, like this one, pointing it out when we are staring down the barrel of a vindictive narcissist wannabe dictator and a party full of sycophants that are literally sounding the call to usher literal fascism through the door because they can’t win even after rigging the system to benefit their fringe beliefs serves only those people who rely on suppressed voter turnout (hint: it’s those fascists).
You’re not wrong. The system sucks. It’s been broken for a long time. But you’re not advocating for a better system right now. You’re literally making calls to aid the people hoping to destroy it further and replace it with a white, christian ethnostate.
Do you see the difference? If this were a conversation about the system being fucked, yeah, that’s where you talk about it. But when the topic at hand is “group of politicians aiming to install fascism in next election,” the answer can’t be “dems old.” Anyone who is anti-fascist would back any horse to evade fascism.
Again, that answer sucks. We all know it sucks. But that’s not the question right now. The question is “how do we keep this fascist and his fascist cronies away from the levers of power?”
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And yet Bernie still wasn’t popular enough to even beat Hildawg.
That had nothing to do with his popularity.
… It had literally everything to do with his popularity. Are people able to vote for who they want or not? Did not Bernie give Hilary a run for her money.
Did almost every average Democrat still vote for Hilary instead of Bernie? Did young people still not vote for him?
All of it yes. Blame Hildawg having so much political influence, more experience at the presidential level, and money particularly with the democratic establishment as much as you want, it’s literally part of political capital and knowing when to use it.
Bernie didn’t run against Biden after. Bernie didn’t try to get on VP ticket for either. I voted for him every chance I got, which was exactly once. He even won nearly everywhere that wasn’t populous.
Bernie was ultimately defeated by superdelegates, not by people voting in the primaries.
He “lost” the primary because Hillary controlled the superdelegates. They are beholden to the party, not the choice of the people.
Ohhh bernie… I’d let him rule it all just to see us all picking up trash like he did day one of his service!
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This should disqualify any of these people running. These are treasonous bastards who should not be allowed to participate in democratic elections.
Republicans, the party of treason.
Isn’t this what the second amendment is actually for?
it’s what the whole fucking constitution is for
… Ignore the shit parts though. Ideally we’d amend them.
Honestly we’ve learned with Trump just how shit the constitution actually is legally. There really needs to be a constitutional reformation.
Yeah it’s painfully obvious that it far too often neglects to even consider that an official (or party of officials) could use their power in bad faith, and that each malevolent action by them often has no check but is simultaneously not punishable.
The second amendment tells you what it’s for - militias. But what are militias for? The constitution tells us that too.
Article I, Section 8, Clause 15: [The Congress shall have Power . . . ] To provide for calling forth the Militia to execute the Laws of the Union, suppress Insurrections and repel Invasions.
So, no, the second amendment is about a system to suppress insurrections, not commit them. You’ve been lied to.
We have revolutions every 2-4 years. Insurrections are not about the will of the people, they are about subverting the will of the people.
That also infers your militia has to be one that can be called up and thus that Congress can declare who is and is not a member of a militia.Edit - nvm that requires like three leaps of logic not accounted for. Don’t post before coffee kids!
It’s so nice to see someone correct themselves. I try to show my kid accepting when you’re wrong and acknowledging it. With friends I’ve been espousing the last Marc Maron where he’s like “what happened to regular stupid?.. ‘oh my bad, I’m an idiot, that’s totally wrong, sorry about that’” … ffs you can’t learn anything new if you don’t listen to other ideas and get defensive.
I didn’t think the commenter above was referring to arming the insurrectionists…
Not even close, but It’s my fault. I’m really bad at articulating my thoughts sometimes, and usually end up deleting my comments before someone calls me out on it. Sorry!
Hahaha you’re self aware and acknowledge you’re fallible, no need to apologize to anyone
And the way the winds blowing is why the #1 demographic for first time firearm purchasers throughout covid has been liberals.
They are taking themselves down.
FIFTH. COLUMN.
The Republican Party and the con movement is nothing more than a fifth column in this country, if not just outright terrorists. And every serious journalist should state that fact as often as possible.
I used to get scared to talk about weed on the phone. You don’t disparage a public figure with a hint of violence for fear…
How TF is this not enough to lock these motherfuckers up? This is the God damn United States of America and these treasonists are threatening our government. Fuck “soft Democrats” - this isn’t about policy. These criminals are promising a coup against our democracy. Why aren’t they in jail? I’m seriously asking. Where the fuck is law enforcement???
what laws have you seen being enforced lately? literally none that matter.
I don’t fucking understand this. The old right wingers in govt like the world order in the “new American century” so why aren’t they doing anything?
“But what about mah FREEZED PEACH?” -Nazis, all the time
Whoosh eli5 please
There are a bunch of Supreme Court rulings which basically said the KKK can advocate for violence in general so long as they don’t lay out specifics. That’s what these folks hide behind
Holy shit. When was that??
The biggie is Brandenburg vs Ohio, from 1969
Where that really falls down is when you have social media algorithms selectively showing inflammatory speech to the audience most likely to act on it. This means that inflammatory speech which wouldn’t have caused violence in the 1960s is incredibly likely to do so now.
Well, as long as they’re abiding by the rigorous standards of the KKK then. Clearly an upstanding group of people to emulate.
Jail is just right-winger free parking until the next putsch, law enforcement is mostly on their side.
Ugh I hate how right you are. I just assumed federal agencies were above it bc of their black/white sociopathic by design ways.
Right. Law enforcement, defenders of democracy.
Of their own livelihood 🤷
Can’t even count on the evil conventions of days past anymore dag nabbit
Does anyone have a link to this actual speech, whenever I hear something this damning, I assume something is wildly out of context.
Shh, we’re on a roll here.
Here you go.
LIVE REPLAY: CPAC Day Two 4:48:38
edit: never mind, that is his CPAC speech where he promises to destroy to democracy
edit: People only seem to be reporting on the clip linked in the article that was of the panel in that conference room. There doesn’t seem to be a recording of the entire panel online currently.
Ok he did say it verbatim but it sounds like he’s being sarcastic.
Edit: y’all I never said that this was a responsible example of a politician communicating with the public.
A leader, like a grifter, should always know how his audience is likely to respond to certain words, regardless of the spin he puts on them. Donald Trump, television personality and renowned wage-withholding, mouth-flapping scumbag, certainly has the experience to know this. To pretend that his delivery is not as much a part of the ruse as the code words themselves - that is, the part that’s for your benefit, rather than theirs - is to ignore what you already know about the man - the lies he’s told, the things he’s done, the way he acts, all of which obviously screams “smarmy creep”. You can predict every argument he makes in court based on what a bone-stupid lying simpleton he is as well, blurting out whatever comes into his head just so there’s a ball in the air he can try to distract you with. He’d be a good stage magician, if stage magic weren’t hard, but it is hard, so you can be assured he’s never tried it. He spent his whole first presidency watching tv.
Republicans already tried to end democracy when they tried to stop the transfer of power through violence in the last election.
Now they’re just coming out and saying it “we’re terrorists” and “we’ll end democracy”
This guy: “they’re being sarcastic”.
Bush V. Gore
Poll taxes.
Well he clearly is being sarcastic though. Frankly this whole thread is an affront towards the concept of language comprehension.
The facts don’t matter, only the narrative.
Every accusation is a confession.
I see, so the other day when you were accusing me of being disingenuous and splitting hairs, you were confessing that you are disingenuous and split hairs.
While it was obvious, I have to say I’m surprised to hear you admit it.
“Don the Magic Cloak of Plausible Deniability and come with us!”
Pretending it’s a joke is literally their tactic.
Read the wider context.
They need to dress what they’re very serious about as sarcasm because saying it seriously is a crime.
Delivering something in a sarcastic affect doesn’t necessarily make it a joke if the context doesn’t support it.
There’s nothing funny about calling insurrectionists “martyrs”, having a written plan about how they’ll gut the government, seeing how they behave in states where they have complete control where they have actually gutted the possibility of anyone else coming to power.
None of that supports this as a joke.
“Don the Magic Cloak of Plausible Deniability and come with us!”
GP didn’t say these people or this speaker aren’t trying to destroy democracy. GP said they were being sarcastic in this specific video timestamp with the “ending democracy” quote and the context around it.
But nobody in this thread has doubted that the Republicans are anti-democratic in general.
Delivering something in a sarcastic affect doesn’t necessarily make it a joke if the context doesn’t support it.
Well did you actually look at the context in the video? Because if you don’t see that he is being sarcastic there then, no offence, you have no idea what sarcasm is. Or you are hugging your confirmation bias like your life depends on it, which to be fair it actually might. The speech in its entirety is clearly a fascist screed, but that doesn’t mean the beginning of it isn’t sarcastic. And obviously so at that.
Read the wider context.
Yes, context matters. On that we agree. And unless you think he is actually proposing to “flood the nation with millions of invaders [sic] who vote the way we want” then he was being fucking sarcastic there.
And unless you think he is actually proposing to “flood the nation with millions of invaders [sic] who vote the way we want” then he was being fucking sarcastic there.
That is not what I mean when I say he wasn’t being sarcastic. I understand that the joke is he said “this is my plan”, then listed a bunch of things the Democrats did, including when he listed immigration, and then the punchline is the Democrats did those things and have already destroyed democracy. What I mean is that he and MAGA supporters really believe that immigration is the Democrats fault. And that he thinks immigration poisons the blood of our country even though the US is a nation of immigrants and in fact immigration is a net benefit.
When he says, to paraphrase, “I want to destroy democracy” but says it in a sarcastic way, I mean he’s not being sarcastic. He really wants to destroy democracy. He describes destroying democracy in the second part of his CPAC speech.
He’s not being sarcastic. He’s artificially injecting sarcasm into his voice so he can say what he really believes. He wants to jail Democrats and pardon the insurrectionists. He defines everything that is beneficial about our society as evil. He’s talks like he lives in alternate reality. He wants to tear down our liberal democracy and replace it with a christofascist dictatorship. It’s not a joke.
It’s time to stop giving these guys a free pass when they say they’re just joking or speak in a sarcastic way. These people are unironically telling you what they want to do. Believe them when they say they want to destroy our democracy.
He’s not being sarcastic. He’s artificially injecting sarcasm into his voice so he can say what he really believes.
Say what? Did you watch your own video? Because I followed your link, watched it for ~3min, and he is clearly 100% being sarcastic. Not just in tone of voice, it’s clear from the content. No doubt about it. When laying out his “plan to destroy democracy” it’s a laundry list of points from the stop-the-steal bullshit. Among that:
- Ban paper ballots
- Replace with mail-in voting and dropboxes
- Remove election day
- No voter-ID requirements
- Arrest opposition leader 4 times (this is a Trump reference)
- Imprison protesters who don’t like democracy being abolished (January 6th reference)
- Flood the nation with millions of “invaders” to vote in their favour
All things the Republicans accused the Democrats of doing during the 2020 election. Then he ends with saying:
This is their “democracy” [doing air-quotes]. This is the regime we will overturn. They say democracy but they mean authoritarianism, and we know it.
I mean the guy went off the deep end and is obviously insane, but there is simply no doubt that he was being sarcastic here and that the measures he cites are not his actual plan. A Republican letting millions of people into the country voluntarily should have given it away to even the densest of viewers.
It is absolutey insane how hard it is to find one reasonable comment on Lemmy these days. ‘Naturally gifted’ density or willful ignorance, either way, there’s an impressive amount of people that believe he was speaking from the heart because it confirms their own beliefs.
I understand the start of his speech where he says “this is my plan” is his idea of a joke. He’s not saying he’s going to do those things, he’s saying the Democrats have already done those things. But he really believes that the Democrats have done those things or that the beneficial things the Democrats have done are evil. Sorry I didn’t think I needed to be this explicit.
He does want to destroy our democracy though. He wants a christofascist dictatorship. He talks about making a “new American Republic” out of the ashes and retribution. He wants to pardon the Jan 6 rioters. He wants to lock up political opponents in the Democratic Party. They want to replace everyone in the white house with partisan yes men, a plan called Project 2025.
Sorry, I didn’t do a good job explaining this the first time around.
And I understand that you understand the joke. I understand that Posobiec and the far right are nuts and believe the Democrats have already done what he’s joking about. You didn’t need to be that explicit, and you don’t have to type “Sorry, I didn’t think I needed to be that explicit” in every reply to make yourself feel superior either. You’re not apologizing, you’re still on a high horse. I don’t even necessarily disagree with you but I took issue with your responses.
Sorry, I should have been more explicit. My bad. All the things he lists are the alternate reality he lives in. He really believes the Democrats have done those things and thinks the beneficial things the Democrats have done are evil. Like he thinks Democrats have poisoned the blood of our country by letting in immigrants, even though we’re a nation of immigrants, and even though Republicans killed the border bill. He thinks mail in voting is bad, because he wants to suppress voter turn out. That list was him thinking he’s being clever, to paraphrase, “The Democrats have already destroyed our democracy.” He even accuses the Democratic party of being an authoritarian regime, when we know that is what Republicans want on day 1.
When he says he wants to restore our constitutional republic he means he wants to destroy our democracy. Constitutional republic is conservatives code for “we are not a democracy, we have minority rule”. He then accuses us, anyone left of him, all of hating white, straight, “successful people”, when it’s the same group of white straight screw ups that hate all of us. He says we hate our founders, our history, and self made people when, all conservatives do is lie about the founders and history. Most of the founders were Deists, but conservatives insist we are a christian nation. Conservatives say they don’t want activist judges, but then use British law in their opinions to overturn Roe v Wade. The say billionaires are self made success stories, but Elon Musk and billionaires they hate like Bill Gates just inherited a bunch of money.
Do I need to do a full translation of his speech or have I a clarified enough? He wants to destroy democracy. I thought his “joke” was self explanatory too. The commenter I was replying to seem to suggest Republicans don’t want to form a christofascist dictatorship because they’re saying it with a sarcastic tone of voice. Which is nonsense and so 2016, “He’s just trolling”. Does anyone else remember that? Self proclaimed internet trolls got interviewed and proudly explained how they had got Trump elected and were in on the joke. I’m never going to let that kind of rhetoric slide again. edit: typo
Fair enough, but none of that means he wasn’t being sarcastic. Merriam-Webster defines that as “a sharp and often satirical or ironic utterance designed to cut or give pain”, which this clearly was. That is of course not a get-out-of-jail-card for being a dumbass, but he doesn’t intend to abolish (his twisted idea of) democracy.
I mean suppose for a second, just for arguments sake, that the Democratic party did indeed steal the 2020 election and you would have to re-evaluate things like January 6th being an insurrection, because violent resistance against somebody undermining a country’s constitution is legitimate. Which is a stance you might have to take yourself sooner rather than later, especially if Trump wins again.
On a side-note, as a German growing up on copious amounts of Nazi history in school and some TV channels running 24/7 documentaries about them it seems rather clear to me where these MAGA people are headed. Already was in 2016. It’s fascism. But it is important to remember that such movements aren’t as monolithic as they might seem from the outside. There are many people in them who are just high on their own supply of bullshit, and you don’t do yourself any favours by misinterpreting them and fielding arguments which are then easily refuted, doubly so if you are fighting against their confirmation bias.
To be fair though, the article in the OP seems to make that very same mistake.
The comment I replied to was:
Ok he did say it verbatim but it sounds like he’s being sarcastic.
What this implies is, because the speaker said it a certain way, he doesn’t really mean he wants to destroy democracy. I’m saying, no, he clearly does, in the second half of his CPAC speech he describes destroying democracy.
His joke in the first half of the CPAC speech was he said “this is my plan”, listed stuff the Democrats have done, and then the punchline was Democrats have already destroyed democracy. It doesn’t matter how he said it. Many MAGA support believe the Democrats have done those things or that the beneficial things the Democrats have done are evil. He does intended to abolish Democracy as do many MAGA supporters.
If you have an argument that can refute this and demonstrate that the fascists in the Republican party are not trying to build a christofascist dictatorship please share it.
it’s a big part of why bottomfeeder conservatives don’t pick up on sarcasm or any form of linguistic subtlety - they have their own stories they tell themselves about what Don Jesus said after the fact, and don’t need to worry about whether he was being sarcastic to own the libs. The angels don’t use sarcasm, so neither do they, and they certainly don’t expect it from a cheesy poof.
Ok, well then. He was being sarcastic. I guess the rest of the overall trend of the cons and the Republican Party going ever more extreme, ever more fascist is just cosplay.
If American Republicans can’t win using democracy, then they’ll just show their true colours and go full on fascist. Nothing new here. We saw it with the 2020 Capital Hill riot and we’ll definitely see it if Trump is elected again, except it could become temporarily permanent.
This is more of an “if we win, we will toss you in jail or kill you” kind of promise
A great civilization is not conquered from without until it has destroyed itself from within.
- Will Durant
I first remember that guy for his absolute brutal takedown of the OT god in his Story of Civilization.
I’ll take him at his word. I don’t doubt he’d follow through with what he’s saying.
But also the headline sucks. He has a heavy sarcasm to his voice like he’s mocking liberal’s and the media’s portrayal of him and “rabid cheers” isn’t how I would describe the sound of the reaction in the video.
Yeah this is the same kind of thing they did at another one of these events in the past with the whole “Ladies and gentlemen, we are all domestic terrorists.” thing. It was meant as a joke to make fun of what the liberals were saying but at the same time it wasn’t entirely inaccurate.
Doesn’t democracy allow any useless corrupt politician to come to power as long as they are popular? Like, it’s the power of the people, by the people, for the people, but the people are retared? /S
Man if only someone at the DNC would see this…
EDIT: y’all I was being sarcastic
They do. They love how far to the right they can now go while still being second worst.
I know, I was joking
You’re still at it jfc
He’s not wrong. It pays much more to be on the political right because it affords more of soieties’ resources to large corporations and/or their CEOs, which is of course who pays lobbyists. Being more left means trying to get more money distributed to the poorest echelons of society, which is of course not very lucrative for everyone else.
They spend all day espousing this shit trying to dissuade Biden voters. Everywhere. Any context.
