Political Discussion

Indymisanthrope said:
Question / bit of a thought experiment

Disclaimer: not intending to rekindle arguments about who *should* have been the nominee or to imply anything about Bernie or progressive politics in general. There’s no subtext here.

I was thinking about how the right has been foaming at the mouth about Joe Fuckin’ Biden, and how Bernie is generally spared from being the focus of a lot of the QAnon stuff (and I have a few thoughts about why that is, but that’s another post), and it got me wondering...

Assume, for the sake of argument, two things:
1. Bernie wins the nomination instead of Biden.
2. All other things being equal, the election itself largely plays out the same (set aside specific questions like whether Georgia goes blue for Bernie; insofar as the election was a referendum on Trump, just imagine a world where this happens the same way it did in ours).

Now: think about the events that transpired between Nov. 3 and Jan. 20, but with a genuine democratic socialist coming into office this time. How much of the election challenging stuff, leading all the way up to the Capitol riot, plays out the same, and how much happens differently?

Has the Q cult pivoted in this scenario to make Bernie the Big Bad and it all goes down the same way? Does the fact that he’s a socialist make it even worse? Or does Bernie’s election basically disrupt the system enough to conclude the psy-op elements of Q to the degree that none of this feverish denialism ever happens at all?
Click to expand...
First, vice is running a three part documentary on Qanon that I have on my DVR but have not watched yet, so all of my speculation is based mainly on the articles I have read about the Qanon phenomenon. I am not 100% on everything they believe, and I think there are probably a lot of factions that chose only a part of the Q mythos to adopt.

A lot of what a lot of people, including me, like about Bernie is that he's never really been a political insider. What the Qanon people are upset about is a group of very wealthy people (they call elites and I will too, though I'm not big on the term) that are controlling everything from our stock market and government to our social media. They're main goal is to lay out an agenda that keeps them in power while systematically stripping the lower classes of money via financial vehicles like pay day loans, the stock market, credit cards and interest, the banking system, and rents/mortgages and the interest or upcharge there. This is the rational part of their argument, and the part that I feel is most pertinent to my point. They also believe that there's a cabal of elites that steals children from the lower classes and rapes them then drinks their blood to stay young--so they get into the crazies really fast.

Biden is firmly in the pocket of the elites--according to Qanon--and the elites will use his position of power to make things better for them, while systematically pumping money out of the rest of us and creating a country that is very unfriendly to workers and small businesses. If Bernie were elected, I would think that they would see is as a disruptive force, but an alternative disruptive force. My guess is that Qanon would start railing against socialism, but I'm not sure if it would have been seen as a usurping of power by elite forces to put in one of their own. I think there might have been protests, but the claim that the election was stolen in favor of a populist would be a stretch even for people who believe that the elites are devil worshiping children murderers.
 
Indymisanthrope said:
Question / bit of a thought experiment

Disclaimer: not intending to rekindle arguments about who *should* have been the nominee or to imply anything about Bernie or progressive politics in general. There’s no subtext here.

I was thinking about how the right has been foaming at the mouth about Joe Fuckin’ Biden, and how Bernie is generally spared from being the focus of a lot of the QAnon stuff (and I have a few thoughts about why that is, but that’s another post), and it got me wondering...

Assume, for the sake of argument, two things:
1. Bernie wins the nomination instead of Biden.
2. All other things being equal, the election itself largely plays out the same (set aside specific questions like whether Georgia goes blue for Bernie; insofar as the election was a referendum on Trump, just imagine a world where this happens the same way it did in ours).

Now: think about the events that transpired between Nov. 3 and Jan. 20, but with a genuine democratic socialist coming into office this time. How much of the election challenging stuff, leading all the way up to the Capitol riot, plays out the same, and how much happens differently?

Has the Q cult pivoted in this scenario to make Bernie the Big Bad and it all goes down the same way? Does the fact that he’s a socialist make it even worse? Or does Bernie’s election basically disrupt the system enough to conclude the psy-op elements of Q to the degree that none of this feverish denialism ever happens at all?
Click to expand...
I think it plays out much the same way. Whoever won the nomination was gonna be painted by the Right as “Radical Socialist” and the Q people’s belief structure is very malleable so long as it drives home the main narrative. And a Socialist Jew winning the presidency would fit right in with much of their anti-Semitic doctrine.
 
TenderLovingKiller® said:
I think it plays out much the same way. Whoever won the nomination was gonna be painted by the Right as “Radical Socialist” and the Q people’s belief structure is very malleable so long as it drives home the main narrative. And a Socialist Jew winning the presidency would fit right in with much of their anti-Semitic doctrine.
Click to expand...
The fact that they're calling Biden a Radical Socialist is proof of this.
 
I love AOC.
Democratic Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez on Thursday accused Sen. Ted Cruz of "trying to get me killed" during the January 6 insurrection at the US Capitol and called for his resignation from the Senate, after the Texas Republican appeared to agree with her on the need for an investigation into Robinhood following chaos on Wall Street.
"I am happy to work with Republicans on this issue where there's common ground, but you almost had me murdered 3 weeks ago so you can sit this one out," the New York congresswoman wrote in a tweet directed at the Texas senator Thursday. "Happy to work w/ almost any other GOP that aren't trying to get me killed. In the meantime if you want to help, you can resign."
She continued, "You haven't even apologized for the serious physical + mental harm you contributed to from Capitol Police & custodial workers to your own fellow members of Congress. In the meantime, you can get off my timeline & stop clout-chasing. Thanks."
edition.cnn.com

AOC rejects Cruz support over Wall Street chaos: 'You almost had me murdered'

Democratic Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez on Thursday accused Sen. Ted Cruz of "trying to get me killed" during the January 6 insurrection at the US Capitol and called for his resignation from the Senate, after the Texas Republican appeared to agree with her on the need for an investigation into...
edition.cnn.com edition.cnn.com
 
nolalady said:
And it's done nothing but make money for insurance companies and big health systems, while watching tons of small rural clinics, rural hospitals, and public health clinics close in record numbers.
Click to expand...
I think it’s done something. Expanding Medicaid and ending denial of coverage for pre-existing conditions has helped out people a great deal but that just goes to show you how inept our healthcare system was before Obamacare. Overall it’s still just a tiny Bandaid on a gaping wound.
 
Indymisanthrope said:
Yeah I can’t decide if I think that Bernie’s nomination would short circuit a lot of the conspiratorial stuff well before the election, or if Jan. 6 would have been much, much worse.

I lean toward the thinking that the incitement would have been just as bad, but predicated on much uglier implications than ballot fraud.
Click to expand...
January 6 wasn't so specifically about Biden as much as Trump claiming "they" stole the election.
 
TenderLovingKiller® said:
Glen Greenwald is the worst. I can’t stand that guy. No one on the Left is ideologically pure enough for him. I actually thought he was an important voice under Obama but now he has devolved to the point that he would rather cozy up with the Authoritarian Right to attack the middle. The man is over the bend. He would rather make excuses for Russia and Trump than work with people the that agree with a large chunk of the same issues he supposedly champions.

and yeah while I agree with much of what he has said here, he attacks the idea of regulating the internet/social media, which definitely needs to happen and never discusses the way you fix the issue with the stock market is heavy government regulation something the the former bow tie wearing TV Dinner Heir Host probably doesn’t agree with.

Also, yuckin’ it up with a White supremacist is not the best way to get your message out there.
Click to expand...
One other thing I remembered I’m when I hear about convincing others of your ideas they have to hear it from a trusted source or they won’t listen at all. Tucker is that for a lot of far right leaning people.
 
yukbon said:
are they seriously going to cause a fuss over brexit regarding the vaccine?
Click to expand...

They already have. They’ve invoked the protocol that effectively creates a hard border on our island. Less than one month after Brexit. They didn’t bother to consult the Irish government until after they’d announced it. Some bunch of fucking allies they are.
 
Now they’re saying that some poor mandarin at the commission, who didn’t understand the impact, triggered it accidentally because they didn’t understand the importance of it! Jesus Christ!
 
Joe Mac said:
Now they’re saying that some poor mandarin at the commission, who didn’t understand the impact, triggered it accidentally because they didn’t understand the importance of it! Jesus Christ!
Click to expand...
Obviously, this is just a cover up, but man, wouldn't you hate to be the guy they're going to pin this one on.
 
Wouldn't it be nice to be an executive, have a huge salary and still get huge bonus when things are bad?

The MBTA, public transportation in Massachusetts is under investigation for paying out huge bonus to it's executives after lousing billions last year due to COVID-19, laying off thousands of workers and cutting service for 2021.

I didn't know people in the public sector got bonuses.
 
nolalady said:
Obviously, this is just a cover up, but man, wouldn't you hate to be the guy they're going to pin this one on.
Click to expand...

Oh completely, they had Macron in front of the cameras justifying it despite there being questions put to him about the Irish borders. They’ve been outmanoeuvred by a borderline incompetent administration, that’s been trolling them for four years, on supply contracts and their toys are well and truly out of the pram.
 
Last edited:
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top