The useless grifters are in the Trump administration.

I suspect they transcend political party. Joe Rogan asked Elon about the worst of it. Elon paused, reflected, and said they couldn't cut the worst of it or he might get a target on his back - like get shot. That was a very disturbing moment.

And you ate it?

I mean, the worst of it is likely to be some subset of defense contracting. How sure are we that a company in the business of doing covert violence would never resort to the use of covert violence?

The problem with conspiracy theorists is they thrive on the truth being just out of reach. Blatant corruption is not interesting to them, it has to be something slightly unknowable.

So when the richest person in the world, who is part of a party that controls all three branches of government and the military, tells you "Oopsie, we actually can't cut the important stuff because we might get in trouble," you guys actually eat it up.

That was the explicitly stated goal of the creators of Project 2025. “We want to put them in trauma.”

Yes. They've said it even more blatantly.

“And so I come full circle on this response and just want to encourage you with some substance that we are in the process of the second American Revolution, which will remain bloodless if the left allows it to be.”

These people do not believe in America as it exists or the promise of what it could be. They hate us and they want to destroy what we have to create something fundamentally different.

> Political violence against disagreeable people is disturbing and I wish you would condemn it.

If the end game of those disagreeable people is to literally ruin one's life, violence as an answer is understandable.

>I don't know who this person is

Pretty much the most important person behind what is going on in this country right now from an ideological and policy prescription perspective as it relates to the executive.

He sounds like a policy nerd who helps write EO's. I think Trump himself and his military advisors have more impact.

Name any act of violence that has been committed by a "left" person this "political season," whatever time frame that encompasses.

Are you in the states? ICE protests that get violent. Burning Tesla dealerships. Assassinations. The list is long and growing.

Just write one down. Any particular place and date.

Please don't comment like this here. You can make your points with substantive arguments rather than trollish snark like this.

They didn't want to engage and rather be impish so I terminated the conversation impishly.

There are organisations keeping track of this.

"All the extremist-related murders in 2024 were committed by right-wing extremists of various kinds, with eight of the 13 killings involving white supremacists and the remaining five having connections to far-right anti-government extremists. This is the third year in a row that right-wing extremists have been connected to all identified extremist-related killings."

[0] https://www.adl.org/resources/report/murder-and-extremism-un...

The ADL sure are reaching with those 13 whole murders in 2024. They are such a reputable unbiased organization, too.

Meanwhile LA had mass anti-ICE riots this year that were clearly organized, at least 1 death, $20 million in damages.

That riot's funding was pulled after IRS investigation threats, and poof, violence and mayhem stopped overnight. Then we all moved on to the next dumb news story.

Where are the right wing violent mass formation events? White supremacy is a left wing media fiction; it lives only in wojack memes as far as I can tell.

"Donald Trump is a fascist" justifies violence in this country, clearly. Calling anyone Hitler or any group Nazis is a dog whistle for violence, and the left throws those appellations around constantly.

The reputational damage of being crybullies is finally catching up, though. That makes it difficult to turn the page and win legitimately at the ballot box with attractive candidates on a coherent platform.

So what will the left do? Accelerate? (DOOMED to fail) Pause on the violence and go all-in on stealing the vote? (tough with all the pending EO's, but doable) Pivot to new politics? (but to what, and aren't they exhausted with made-up causes??) Seethe in decline? (regroup, husband dwindling resources, hoodwink another generation down the line)

2026 or 2028 - I imagine those are make-or-break years for the political left in the states, maybe globally.

I predict break because the liberal democracy experiment appears to have crashed. I'm praying the left chooses the seethe option so we can all catch our breath and relax for a bit.

Huh?

I think it's hard to make a case that the left is meaningfully more violent, even weighing in stuff like riots/arson/looting (and it's not actually fair to pin all that on the left, when we know so much is opportunistic and only loosely ideology-driven).

But you can't name an act of violence committed by someone on the left recently? Not one?

Saying "bloodless" is telling.

Psychological violence is being committed and they're calling out physical violence.

It's a fantastic method of argument. But only a sociopath would use it.

The cruelty is the point.