I mean, he kinda did both.

He's both sending out the actual contents of the words he's saying, and sending a message to all viewers that thinking itself is suspect and not worth bothering with. After all, it's a new day, and you can't trust the lying media anyway. Better to just trust the leader instead.

http://www.nybooks.com/articles/1995/06/22/ur-fascism/

That's a most damning indictment of trump, which even at this stage I hope isn't correct.

It's incredibly scary that he doesn't even have to be thinking that way for it to play out along those lines. Events will happen and he will take full advantage of it to blame others and do whatever he can get away with.

There is a lot of financial incentive to keep the biggest-selling story going. They don't want to kill the goose that lays golden eggs.

Evidently Trump cannot get any stay on this order til Monday for whatever reason. Seems likely this judge knew what he was doing allowing a 2 day window for everyone to try and get back in

Thanks we will fight him at every turn while you bow down to the biggest threat to global security since Hitler.

I would snap be we will be proud to tell our children our role in 20 years while you will be pretending you had joined our fight.

So what should intellectuals do?

Let me tell you what they shouldn't do ... they should not become tribal, they should not give up actually thinking in the name of blind opposition and partisanship.

The moment that someone can predict your position on any given topic is the moment you've stopped thinking.

The current tactics to combat this are not working. The opposition to Trump has become the illiberal mirror to Trump.

That's no good. We MUST be better than that.

Eco on the early days of fascism under Mussolini:
Sounds strikingly familiar. What comes next is worse though.
http://www.nybooks.com/articles/1995/06/22/ur-fascism/

I am genuinely concerned that serious, long-term damage is being done to the institutions and ideals of my country that I value most. I do not believe we can afford to sit around, wait 4 years and hope for the best. I will not be calm. I will stay angry. I will stay active.

Your proposed response is passive to the point of cowardice. The end result of that, I believe, is best summed up in The Atlantic's most recent cover story. Apathy and appeasement are the paths to autocracy.

You can keep complaining about the pile of **** we're standing in or you can grab a shovel and try to help out.
http://www.contactsenators.com/

Because virtue signalling to your own children is all that matters?

I live in the real world, I'm afraid, and I have to operate on that basis.

he made some big mistakes but don't forget he used the time to re-arm and he prepared the defences that led to winning the key Battle of Britain.

Churchill gets most of the credit despite faults of his own but he couldn't have done it without Chamberlain groundwork. I sure hope there are some quality people putting everything into organising to win the next election. Battles can be lost along the way but lose that and you might lose the war.

You need both enthusiasm and political activism to have a viable movement. Protests without any political follow through will accomplish nothing and political game without enthusiasm was the Clinton campaign. Combine them both and it should work.

Did posting this make you feel good? No need to answer here, just be honest with yourself. If it did, you might want to run it by a mental health professional, just to be on the safe side.

Good day, sir.

Taking a step back from horrifying global affairs to focus on horrifying domestic affairs we have going on right now:

I just want to point out that while you're lecturing us about game theory and playing for the long run, there were:

- a few hundred people, actual human beings, being illegally detained in US airports and

- thousands of additional people who had their lives upended because the plans they had made to come to the US for school, medical treatment, jobs, etc were destroyed with absolutely no warning

These people don't have the luxury of waiting for the next midterm. They needed lawyers to rush to the airports to advise them of their rights and file lawsuits on their behalf. And the lawyers needed the (almost universally nonviolent) protesters to put pressure on the CBP to actually follow the orders.

Intellectualism lost decisively. This is an era of populist revolt. I didn't start it, I didn't ask for it, and I don't like it at all. But that is what we now have, and you refuse to recognize the new reality. Intellectualism doesn't have an answer to populism, it sits on the sidelines and waits for the dust to settle.

I think the only answer is to stop hating the player and start hating the game. At this point, we just have to ****ing win. The challenge is doing it without compromising everything we allegedly stand for.

This is becoming an incredibly useful shibboleth.

It's sad that it's devolved so quickly, because in and of itself it's a fairly astute description of a lot of behaviours (though it's much more interesting outside of political spheres: dutiful condemnation of selfies, reflexive scorn for CGI in movies etc - these are the interesting and illuminating instances of virtue signalling imo).

Now, any appeal to moral sentiments is 'virtue signalling' - providing it comes from the left. If you can't show that your opponent is wrong, you must claim that he's insincere. Even actions - protests, lawsuits, the prevention of attempted incitement to violence against non-nationals - these are all just 'virtue signalling' and as such need be paid no mind. Of course once it can be used to describe anything, it means nothing, which is a shame.

The rape issue aside, I always thought the abortion issue was a bit one-sided.

How the law in the US is now, from a woman's perspective:

Scenario A: woman gets pregnant. Doesn't want to be a parent and endure a lifelong responsibility and expenses: has abortion.

Scenario B: woman gets pregnant. Wants to be a parent: doesn't have abortion.

How the law in the US is now, from a man's perspective:

Scenario A: woman gets pregnant. Dad wants to be a parent: tough luck, woman has the abortion.

Scenario B: woman gets pregnant. Man doesn't want to be a parent and endure a lifelong responsibility and expenses: tough luck, the woman has the baby.

The deeper hidden meaning is that in fascism, the only virtue worth striving for is dedication to The Leader and possibly a glorious death in battle fighting for him. Traditional morals and values are put aside because you cannot serve those values and serve The Leader at the same time. You can see that the value of small d democracy is constantly being bashed right now--this is in response to the vast popular vote loss by Trump and the popular reaction to his illegitimacy (for many reasons) and it plays right into the hands of fascism.

Scenario A: woman gets pregnant. Dad wants to be a parent: tough luck, woman is dragged kicking and screaming to a maternity ward to squick out a kid she wanted rid of months ago.

Need I say more?

This may be the most ****ed up post itt. And that's saying something.

Things that make you copy and paste a raised eyebrow emoji.

This is ****ing crazy.