The GOP is dominated by a minority of far-right activists and wealthy donors who have views that their own voters don't support.
Thread: Conservative Policy and the Trump Presidency
On the last full day of the Trump administration, I think it's useful to examine why he accomplished so little legislatively. TLDR version: American conservatism has almost no policy program.
The GOP is dominated by a minority of far-right activists and wealthy donors who have views that their own voters don't support.
This is not, however, how things used to be in the GOP.
Next, with Trump's encouragement, it began trying to consume the brains of marginally attached Republicans and other low-info citizens.
This is why it's so extremely critical that media, businesses, and educators publicly reject these toxic lies.
Republican politicians condemning the #TrumpCoupAttempt who are also not calling for his immediate removal and irrevocable prohibition from holding any federal office are nothing more than rats leaving a sinking ship.
— Matthew Sheffield (@mattsheffield) January 7, 2021
The GOP will have no political future unless it does this.
To them, a dolt who ruins things is their fantasy because he makes it easier for the public to hate government like they do. https://t.co/hhVg8KjExc
Thread for those interested: https://t.co/wztIp5PZUz
Thread: Meaning and loss in American conservatism
— Matthew Sheffield (@mattsheffield) January 12, 2021
I've written a lot about how Christian supremacism (expressed and implicit) is the underlying objective of most Trump supporters but the psychology of American conservatism is very important in its descent into madness.
More from Matthew Sheffield
This Parler user explains it quite well here. Because of yet more security flaws at Parler, it's now possible for all that "free speech" to be shared and archived with the world, even if the posters tried to erase their not-at-all innocent videos and GPS data.
In slightly more technical terms, it seems as though Parler never closed some of their developer-friendly security holes (sort of the programming equivalent of game cheat codes made by devs) and as a result, their anyone with the right knowledge could have admin access.
Parler never actually deleted anything its users posted. And, stupidly, they also kept it accessible to admin users.
This meant that anyone with admin access could still download it.
Once Parler's two factor authentication feature was disabled, because it was designed for developer convenience rather than security, anyone with the knowledge could become an administrator. And that's how Parler just got owned.
People have been downloading the raw videos, photos, and text posts by the gigabyte and archiving it for later public distribution.
All that perfect, totally harmless free speech will still be searchable, even now that Amazon locked out Parler from its servers.
great job, everyone pic.twitter.com/22gooTH4sl
— crash override (@donk_enby) January 11, 2021
In slightly more technical terms, it seems as though Parler never closed some of their developer-friendly security holes (sort of the programming equivalent of game cheat codes made by devs) and as a result, their anyone with the right knowledge could have admin access.
Parler never actually deleted anything its users posted. And, stupidly, they also kept it accessible to admin users.
This meant that anyone with admin access could still download it.
Once Parler's two factor authentication feature was disabled, because it was designed for developer convenience rather than security, anyone with the knowledge could become an administrator. And that's how Parler just got owned.
People have been downloading the raw videos, photos, and text posts by the gigabyte and archiving it for later public distribution.
All that perfect, totally harmless free speech will still be searchable, even now that Amazon locked out Parler from its servers.
More from Trump
Donald Trump has repeatedly disavowed David Duke, Richard Spencer, white supremacists, the KKK, and neo-nazis, etc. since well before 2000 These people and groups have nothing to do with Trump or his supporters, but Democrats simply refuse to hear
There are many more examples as shown in the above video, but here are 15 times that Donald Trump has denounced white supremacists, the KKK, neo-nazis, David Duke, and racists of all types, etc., etc. ...
The FACTS are that Donald Trump is NOT a racist nor has he ever been a
Joe Biden, HOWEVER, is an actual bona fide racist. A life long racist in fact. Read the following FULL thread for an good accounting (with documentation!) of Joe's 50-year long political history of being a racist and of supporting
Do you know that white supremacist Richard Spencer endorsed Joe Biden for president ... TWICE! Clearly he knows a fellow racist when he sees one and he clearly sees one in
There are many more examples as shown in the above video, but here are 15 times that Donald Trump has denounced white supremacists, the KKK, neo-nazis, David Duke, and racists of all types, etc., etc. ...
The FACTS are that Donald Trump is NOT a racist nor has he ever been a
Joe Biden, HOWEVER, is an actual bona fide racist. A life long racist in fact. Read the following FULL thread for an good accounting (with documentation!) of Joe's 50-year long political history of being a racist and of supporting
THREAD
— \u274cTimothy Tobin\u274c (@tatobin2) July 24, 2020
Biden's a racist and always has been.
\u201cUnless we do something about this, my children are going to grow up in a JUNGLE, the JUNGLE being a RACIAL JUNGLE with tensions having built so high that it is going to explode at some point,\u201d\u2013Joe Biden 1977https://t.co/STkojDN0cL
Do you know that white supremacist Richard Spencer endorsed Joe Biden for president ... TWICE! Clearly he knows a fellow racist when he sees one and he clearly sees one in
@WestJournalism DemoKKKrats just LOVED the BLM/Antifa rioters when they descended upon DC! Nancy Pelosi even Tweeted:
https://t.co/MbXFf5Xc4u
I would like to see Democrats produce even one shred of evidence or just one example of President Trump calling for insurrection. Just one. That's all.
https://t.co/MbXFf5Xc4u
I would like to see Democrats produce even one shred of evidence or just one example of President Trump calling for insurrection. Just one. That's all.
We welcome the presence of these activists, and we strongly urge the Capitol Police to allow them to continue to organize and participate in our democracy.
— Nancy Pelosi (@SpeakerPelosi) November 13, 2018
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I'm going to do two history threads on Ethiopia, one on its ancient history, one on its modern story (1800 to today). 🇪🇹
I'll begin with the ancient history ... and it goes way back. Because modern humans - and before that, the ancestors of humans - almost certainly originated in Ethiopia. 🇪🇹 (sub-thread):
The first likely historical reference to Ethiopia is ancient Egyptian records of trade expeditions to the "Land of Punt" in search of gold, ebony, ivory, incense, and wild animals, starting in c 2500 BC 🇪🇹
Ethiopians themselves believe that the Queen of Sheba, who visited Israel's King Solomon in the Bible (c 950 BC), came from Ethiopia (not Yemen, as others believe). Here she is meeting Solomon in a stain-glassed window in Addis Ababa's Holy Trinity Church. 🇪🇹
References to the Queen of Sheba are everywhere in Ethiopia. The national airline's frequent flier miles are even called "ShebaMiles". 🇪🇹
I'll begin with the ancient history ... and it goes way back. Because modern humans - and before that, the ancestors of humans - almost certainly originated in Ethiopia. 🇪🇹 (sub-thread):
The famous \u201cLucy\u201d, an early ancestor of modern humans (Australopithecus) that lived 3.2 million years ago, and was discovered in 1974 in Ethiopia, displayed in the national museum in Addis Ababa \U0001f1ea\U0001f1f9 pic.twitter.com/N3oWqk1SW2
— Patrick Chovanec (@prchovanec) November 9, 2018
The first likely historical reference to Ethiopia is ancient Egyptian records of trade expeditions to the "Land of Punt" in search of gold, ebony, ivory, incense, and wild animals, starting in c 2500 BC 🇪🇹
Ethiopians themselves believe that the Queen of Sheba, who visited Israel's King Solomon in the Bible (c 950 BC), came from Ethiopia (not Yemen, as others believe). Here she is meeting Solomon in a stain-glassed window in Addis Ababa's Holy Trinity Church. 🇪🇹
References to the Queen of Sheba are everywhere in Ethiopia. The national airline's frequent flier miles are even called "ShebaMiles". 🇪🇹
This is a pretty valiant attempt to defend the "Feminist Glaciology" article, which says conventional wisdom is wrong, and this is a solid piece of scholarship. I'll beg to differ, because I think Jeffery, here, is confusing scholarship with "saying things that seem right".
The article is, at heart, deeply weird, even essentialist. Here, for example, is the claim that proposing climate engineering is a "man" thing. Also a "man" thing: attempting to get distance from a topic, approaching it in a disinterested fashion.
Also a "man" thing—physical courage. (I guess, not quite: physical courage "co-constitutes" masculinist glaciology along with nationalism and colonialism.)
There's criticism of a New York Times article that talks about glaciology adventures, which makes a similar point.
At the heart of this chunk is the claim that glaciology excludes women because of a narrative of scientific objectivity and physical adventure. This is a strong claim! It's not enough to say, hey, sure, sounds good. Is it true?
Imagine for a moment the most obscurantist, jargon-filled, po-mo article the politically correct academy might produce. Pure SJW nonsense. Got it? Chances are you're imagining something like the infamous "Feminist Glaciology" article from a few years back.https://t.co/NRaWNREBvR pic.twitter.com/qtSFBYY80S
— Jeffrey Sachs (@JeffreyASachs) October 13, 2018
The article is, at heart, deeply weird, even essentialist. Here, for example, is the claim that proposing climate engineering is a "man" thing. Also a "man" thing: attempting to get distance from a topic, approaching it in a disinterested fashion.
Also a "man" thing—physical courage. (I guess, not quite: physical courage "co-constitutes" masculinist glaciology along with nationalism and colonialism.)
There's criticism of a New York Times article that talks about glaciology adventures, which makes a similar point.
At the heart of this chunk is the claim that glaciology excludes women because of a narrative of scientific objectivity and physical adventure. This is a strong claim! It's not enough to say, hey, sure, sounds good. Is it true?
THE MEANING, SIGNIFICANCE AND HISTORY OF SWASTIK
The Swastik is a geometrical figure and an ancient religious icon. Swastik has been Sanatan Dharma’s symbol of auspiciousness – mangalya since time immemorial.
The name swastika comes from Sanskrit (Devanagari: स्वस्तिक, pronounced: swastik) &denotes “conducive to wellbeing or auspicious”.
The word Swastik has a definite etymological origin in Sanskrit. It is derived from the roots su – meaning “well or auspicious” & as meaning “being”.
"सु अस्ति येन तत स्वस्तिकं"
Swastik is de symbol through which everything auspicios occurs
Scholars believe word’s origin in Vedas,known as Swasti mantra;
"🕉स्वस्ति ना इन्द्रो वृधश्रवाहा
स्वस्ति ना पूषा विश्ववेदाहा
स्वस्तिनास्तरक्ष्यो अरिश्तनेमिही
स्वस्तिनो बृहस्पतिर्दधातु"
It translates to," O famed Indra, redeem us. O Pusha, the beholder of all knowledge, redeem us. Redeem us O Garudji, of limitless speed and O Bruhaspati, redeem us".
SWASTIK’s COSMIC ORIGIN
The Swastika represents the living creation in the whole Cosmos.
Hindu astronomers divide the ecliptic circle of cosmos in 27 divisions called https://t.co/sLeuV1R2eQ this manner a cross forms in 4 directions in the celestial sky. At centre of this cross is Dhruva(Polestar). In a line from Dhruva, the stars known as Saptarishi can be observed.
The Swastik is a geometrical figure and an ancient religious icon. Swastik has been Sanatan Dharma’s symbol of auspiciousness – mangalya since time immemorial.
The name swastika comes from Sanskrit (Devanagari: स्वस्तिक, pronounced: swastik) &denotes “conducive to wellbeing or auspicious”.
The word Swastik has a definite etymological origin in Sanskrit. It is derived from the roots su – meaning “well or auspicious” & as meaning “being”.
"सु अस्ति येन तत स्वस्तिकं"
Swastik is de symbol through which everything auspicios occurs
Scholars believe word’s origin in Vedas,known as Swasti mantra;
"🕉स्वस्ति ना इन्द्रो वृधश्रवाहा
स्वस्ति ना पूषा विश्ववेदाहा
स्वस्तिनास्तरक्ष्यो अरिश्तनेमिही
स्वस्तिनो बृहस्पतिर्दधातु"
It translates to," O famed Indra, redeem us. O Pusha, the beholder of all knowledge, redeem us. Redeem us O Garudji, of limitless speed and O Bruhaspati, redeem us".
SWASTIK’s COSMIC ORIGIN
The Swastika represents the living creation in the whole Cosmos.
Hindu astronomers divide the ecliptic circle of cosmos in 27 divisions called https://t.co/sLeuV1R2eQ this manner a cross forms in 4 directions in the celestial sky. At centre of this cross is Dhruva(Polestar). In a line from Dhruva, the stars known as Saptarishi can be observed.
