@Josiah_Walrus it's a fun movie, i take issue with some of the politics, like why they ask for a union when they can just be a union? but i'm just a contrarian sometimes
uspol pundit quote threadthere's a few points i agree with in this thread, namely internet based disinformation is a huge part of why trump won, other than that, pointing to the stock market or unemployment rates to say 'the economy is doing great, that's absolutely bullshit, as is this stuff about 'american identity' or lamenting how people don't listen to the mainstream media...
@0utside0utsider@lyra what would actually be the difference? if everything is staged, a simulation, whatever, then the simulation is the reality, for all practical purposes it doesn't really make a difference
uspol shitting on demsthinking about how self congradulatory the pro harris team were about very silly things, like 'ha we called them weird, haha we said vance fucked a couch we're such geniuses they were never recover'
ii'm ot particularly optimistic about, that. The Presidency is already basically a dictatorship, especially with the supreme c ourt on his side, he'd got at least 4 years of legitimate rule where he can do anything he wants. What's preventing Trump from being a dictator is himself, he simply doesn't fucking know how to consolidate power, as we can see from his previous administration, while he will certainly be successful at gutting the regulator apparatus, the real "deep state" as in the Pentagon, CIA DHS etc. aren't going anywhere, both because of their institutional strength but also because they are pillars of executive power, and so if there's any risk of trump being overthrown it comes from the military and policing apparatus, who themselves are also basically fascistic and don't really oppose trump policy wise with the exeption of his affection for Putin...
On the local level there is the possibility of resistance, both in terms of grassroots activism and controlling state governmnet, but the dems are pretty inept themselves and unwilling to take any radical action, and will likewise throw the grassroots to teh wolves, and federal police have near absolute power anyway, if trump succeeds at consolidating power and leveraging the full force of the federal policing and surveilance state it's basically done, they could round up leftists and put them in camp and both legacy and social media would mostly make this invisible, americans are complacent and brainwashed anyway... but again, trump is so inept, he just tapped Mat Gaetz as Attorney General and Marco Rubio as Secretary of State, i.e. he entrusted his most powerful cabinet positions to the 2 most incompetent members of congress, i doubt either of them will last due to trumps pathological insecurities, so really trump's greatest obstacle is himself and the ghouls that surround him.
Then again, the current power behind the thrown is definately Peter Theil, Vance is his guy as well as numerous other key figures, but Trump might just shake off him or the Heritage Foundation as he doesn't like being managed by anyone. Maybe trump just gets a heart attack pill and Vance takes over, but without Trump's cult will be very difficult to keep the current ruling coalition together.
catholicism@0x4d6165 What follows is a somewhat incoherent theory relating to early christianity:
Mary's importance in Catholicism today a survival from early heretical christian and also functioned as a way to incorporate aspects of so called pagan goddess cults into their whole orthodoxy... like the gnostic trinity which iirc predates the orthodox version was God the Father, Sophia mother of wisdom and baby Jesus. Sophia is a complicated deity in that there are multiple contradictory mythologies surrounding her, but it makes sense she'd get replaced with 'holy spirit' because she was seen as the source of wisdom (gnosis)... women had a lot of influence in early Christianity, Mary Magdalen, if the gospels have any historic validity was probably a leader in the original lineup, and the spread of Christianity in roman empire was largely helped by patronage from upper class women who often were introduced to it by their slaves ( christianity has much to say on slave/master interpersonal ethics ) many slaves were Jews or other Semitic peoples like Cartheginians, Coptics, Phoenicians etc the wives of roman citizens being legally property of the pater familis weren't that much beter off, so early christianity had this quality of a servile revolt that could be seen as feminist in this context, and the "Church Fathers" i.e. the Orthodoxy and future Catholic Church didn't like any of that social equality shit and so instituted a forever war against Heresy that uprooted anything in early Christianity that was dangerous to their patriarchal slavocracy, the mystical gnostics, reasonable modern thinking christians like Origen, so what the Padres did was on the one hand re-assert roman patriarchy while also throwing women the proverbial bone -- Sophia and anything gnostic sounding including genuine texts like Gospel of Thomas get the boot, Mary Magdalene is smeared as a sex worker ( this is not in the text ) but Mary the "Mother of God" ( literally Sophia in sethian mythology ) is venerated for her 'virginity' - another weird take, since she was obviously not a lifelong virgin, she had other children referred to in the gospels, namely "James the Just" who was Jesus' biological brother and head of Jerusalem church after Jesus' death, his martyrdom was recorded by Josephus.
But even knowing all that i think strength of Catholicism is exactly that is contains that historical legacy as a movement of subtaltern for mutual aide and social equality, it's why it's able to adapt to so many cultural situations, , because it has this pre-capitalist, side to it. And compare this to Protestantism, religion of capitalism par exellence, protestants accuse Catholics of idolatry for Mary and the Saints, but they also have no equivalent divine feminine at all and i think this misogynistic aversion any feminine veneration is a big part of protestant anti-catholicism, also related to laisee faire austerity etc.
