Political Memes

Even the independent or non-profit media sources that have a lot of credibility and seem generally pretty chill will fall back on this every now and again.

You see it anytime you hear people talking about division or hyper partisanship "on the rise" in that clinical, abstract way that sounds objective. It's always in a discussion about the current state of "discourse", and it's nearly always remarked on like the story is the spike in "disagreements", and not about what the disagreements are actually about.This pervasive idea that somehow people being upset about the current state of affairs and the rise of actual fascism is some kind of aberration.

Like "Gee, people sure are arguing a lot these days. Boy howdy, they're sure a feisty bunch, aren't they?" Women literally had their right to an abortion taken away from them, we had armed fascists storming our God damn capital on the word of a President and current candidate, we had thousands die to a preventable illness because of rampant misinformation and right wing individualist propaganda, and still you hear this tone that people being really angry right now is weird.

Fucking Kurkusagst, a channel I have a lot of respect for, just the other day dropped a video blaming social media on the mounting political and social divisions in our country, and implying all will be well if we just stopped using big media platforms. Social media is definitely part of it, but anyone seriously acting like it's the primary reason people are fucking pissed right now has to be some well-off straight white man, because the rest of us have some pretty damn good reasons to be pissed. I don't need Twitter or Reddit or Facebook to make me angry, I just need to be paying the fuck attention.

It's insulting to every women, every LGBT person, every non-white person, and every single person struggling to make a living right now to imply "social media is just getting us riled up."

Transcontinental high speed trains

Spoilers: We're already slave-lite. Owned by our landlords, credit bureaus, state and federal government (taxes) and education finance system (immutable loans).

It's nowhere near as bad as real slavery was. The goal is to make us earn as much as possible for those that own us though under the guise of "freedom". Freedom is dictatorship. Freedom is being controlled. Freedom is doing the right thing as prescribed by those in power and their interpretation of law which always seems to side with those who already have the money and power.

I think it's a mistake to call them moderates. The "moderates" in the US have gone to great lengths to brand themselves this way, but really they are neoliberals who have bought into every aspect of conservatism except maybe the most depraved social views from the alt right, which they excuse as "just an opinion". They love to play both sides and act like they have some moral/intellectual high ground because they consider "both sides" when really they are already waist deep into right-wing ideology.