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Lillia Gajewski's avatar

I love this line in the NYT's video: "Trump's teaching us to expect the worst from people in government."

No, sweet cheeks, the people in government are teaching us to expect the worst from the people in government. They need no help from Trump.

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Ph8drus's avatar

Trump only helped them reveal themselves and the lows to which they will stoop.

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BookWench's avatar

One of the greatest things about Trump is how he has forced the Deep State to reveal itself.

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Scuba Cat's avatar

It's funny that NYT wants to pretend we're talking about any of the people featured in this video when we're talking about getting rid of unelected bureaucrats.

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vladROBOT 🪱's avatar

Spot 🎯 on❗️

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wrknight's avatar

I really hate it when people say things like that. Most government workers I have known (and that's a lot) are decent, hard working people doing their best to meet the demands of public service. It's the political class at the top that has corrupted the system and they are a small percentage of the 2 million people working for our government.

So don't throw the baby out with the bath water.

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Lillia Gajewski's avatar

Depends on which government workers we're talking about. It's been a mixed bag from my experience. Some are great. A lot are useless.

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Lawyers Guns & Money's avatar

Let's call it 50-50. Half of government employees are friendly and productive, half are worthless. It's the same ratio in the private sector--think of any job you ever had. It's human nature.

Obviously the government needs people to do work. The normal government employee who processes visa applications, or handle Medicare issues don't need to go. It's the ones who are in appointed, senior positions that end up staying there forever. And when those deep state people happen to be in FBI, DOJ, ATF, DEA, CIA, Pentagon, Homeland Security, etc., they also inhabit the Security State.

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BookWench's avatar

Nah. I worked at a public library. I think the ratio of slackers to actual hard workers is much higher in government work. It's too hard to fire people.

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Jordan Lee Canter's avatar

The library is not the deep state lmao. But to your point, there are sooooo many bums at every job I’ve worked and it seems like they are catered to.

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BookWench's avatar

Jordan, I was not saying that public libraries were part of the Deep State -- although the thought is intriguing. . . Trust me, we'd have nothing to worry about if that were the case (one of our administrators compared managing library staffers to herding cats). I just think there are a lot of slackers in any government job, really.

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Jordan Lee Canter's avatar

And it’s mostly the cell phone ones lol. I’m a cell phone one, but I don’t look at my phone at work, I wear one ear bud and listen to podcasts and audiobooks.

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Janet's avatar

So did I for 14 years. We had our share of slackers but it was the younger cell phone addicts who were actually idiots and untrustworthy. Almost all. I questioned their ability to know the alphabet in order. Don’t they teach that little ditty in school anymore? . Forget the Dewey system. Useless.

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Lillia Gajewski's avatar

Even on the bottom end of the totem pole, government (local, state, federal) is a haven for people who wouldn't survive anywhere else. The stereotype of the officious, lazy bureaucrat has its basis in reality.

But having said that, yes, I've come across plenty of friendly and productive government employees.

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Noam Deplume, Jr. (look,at,me)'s avatar

I enjoyed this discussion. Soon after I was hired at a university and went across the street to the Post Office to get a PO box, the lady said to me, "I can tell you're a business man and not like those lazy university people." I didn't let on that I was university, but I later learned that there were hard workers and total frauds. It's a 90/10 deal. What's weirdest is that the main parasites are faculty members taking jobs as top administrators, without any training as administrators!

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Janet's avatar

Yup. Gotta be some at the bottom of their classes in every occupation. Maybe more in customer service?

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Subcomandante Mark's avatar

It's simply the nature of the beast. I've worked all my life in the private sector, now I work for the .gov in a technical position. Government agencies are byzantine bureaucratic accretions produced by decades of decisions made by political toadies. The Kafkaesque environment saps initiative and and leads to cynicism. I am lucky in that I have a nice little niche somewhat insulated from the stupid.

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Ann22's avatar

Like the world.

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wrknight's avatar

Then please don't condemn all of them.

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Lillia Gajewski's avatar

Where did I condemn all of them? That's your reading.

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wrknight's avatar

"No, sweet cheeks, the people in government are teaching us to expect the worst..."

You don't say some people, you say "the people". A noun preceded by the definite article "the" implies the entirety of the object; e.g., the table, the apple, etc..

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Lillia Gajewski's avatar

As I said, it was your interpretation. And if you'll notice, the examples of objects you use are singular nouns. "People" is a plural noun. So it could mean "all"; it could mean "some." You're reading it is "all."

I'm going to go out on a limb here and guess that you are one of "the people in government" that more disparaging comments might be applied to and that I've hit a personal sore spot.

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Ann22's avatar

Absolutely!

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Torpedo 8's avatar

Back when I was working Quality Control for the State Welfare department, my job was to spot fraud and waste. When I found it, my superiors then spent the rest of the week sweeping it under the rug because the amount of money the state received from the feds was directly linked to the amount of waste & fraud in the system. I was drawing a chalk line to the problem and a couple of higher ups were right behind me, erasing the line.

The "bad guys" in government aren't really evil doers, they're driven by a profit angle and quite benign, which is where that whole Banality of Evil comes from. Perverse incentives introduced by the Feds to keep all your problems under wraps, lest your state suffer some shortfall of riches.

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Lillia Gajewski's avatar

Socializing any part of a capitalist system is rife with possibility for "perverse incentives" to lead to waste and fraud. It doesn't mean that I think we don't need "common services." The exact opposite, actually. It's just that, as your example illustrates, we need to go in with eyes wide open and have a way for people like you to report to an independent body so these issues don't get swept under the rug. And thank you for your comment. No, I don't think these people are evil. They're just not morally strong enough to "resist temptations."

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StikeDC's avatar

OMG just watched the NYT video -- while not funny, indeed unintentionally hilario. Also, NOT the Deep State. (Which they would be killed if they actually filmed.) At least Ali Velshi brings the Kenyan-Canadian narrative perspective. #TGIF

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Jen Downey's avatar

Calling people who happen to be federally employed, "the deep state" is like calling the G.I.Joe franchise "the military-industrial complex".

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Conservative Contrarian's avatar

Ok, call them Useful Idiots; it fits. I have 4 family members who fit the description. We love them but we also don't trust them.

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Gnome Chonky's avatar

"Strawman Arguments for Dummies"

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K Andrew Serum's avatar

I fucking love this community 😂♥️

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vladROBOT 🪱's avatar

I know, right?

♥️♥️❤️‍🩹

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Mrs. McFarland's avatar

Ditto… it’s my daily dose of sanity.

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Marilyn F's avatar

Isn’t it the best?

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wrknight's avatar

I came to the conclusion during Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction that the NY Times was a piece of shit, and this doesn't do anything to dispel that conviction.

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2serve4Christ's avatar

It ain't mine but this "deepstate" workplace comedy is hilarious. Funny/sad that the folks in the show may be more human and moral than in our "reality"😜

...

"Inside Job" (netflix) takes place in the super top-secret and ultra-elusive shadow government [deepstate] organization Cognito Inc. Their mission? Hide some of the universe’s biggest conspiracies and keep the world intact.

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Valerie's avatar

Just texted my husband that we should add this to our Netflix list. Thanks!

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memento mori's avatar

I want to think that the "elites" are desperate, but I fear that is just wishful thinking. Well, I can just laugh on the way to the gulag.

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Marilyn F's avatar

Depressing but probably true

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Charles Anesi's avatar

The NYT video is a great example of the cherry picking fallacy. Hey, I found a few examples of Federal employees doing good stuff, so we can assume the majority do good stuff and therefore it would be folly to fire 50% of the federal work force. This is what passes for logic among those crazy dumb stupid bastards. Of course the NYT people have no bloody clue what proportion of the federal work force is worth their salt, or worth anything at all.

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DaveL's avatar

Actually, most probably do DO good stuff. But it is still a fallacy, because even if a small minority is doing bad stuff, that is sufficient. Another problem is the ever expanding payroll, the recipients of which are incentivized to vote for those supporting their employment.

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Charles Anesi's avatar

Possibly most are doing good stuff, but we have no factual basis for believing that, and observing that a few are doing good stuff certainly does not prove it. It does however decisively refute the premise that no federal employees at all do good stuff. Which of course nobody, including Trump, has ever suggested anyway. So the NYT video is a cherry-picking attack on a straw man. For the NYT, this sort of idiocy is par for the course.

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DaveL's avatar

I’d agree with that. Simply propaganda, and too many will fall for it, with its “salt of the earth” theme.

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Marilyn F's avatar

Bingo

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Margaret Anna Alice's avatar

Of course, the NYT self-own video starts with Trump 🙄 And saying Trump is obsessed with the deep state is all they need to do to deploy the turnkey mass consensus I described back in October 2021:

"An unwitting Goldstein, Trump played right into BigPharma’s strategy to discredit hydroxychloroquine by praising it—giving Trump Derangement Syndrome (a psychological disorder manufactured by and spread to tremendous monetary benefit and turnkey mass control by the media) sufferers the best and only reason they needed to dismiss it. They have been trained to plug their ears, cover their eyes, scream at the top of their lungs, and stamp their feet the instant any one of the Deplorables opens his mouth. One of the most effective instruments in the plutocracy’s toolkit, TDS has been brandished to misdirect the public for years, and it continues to work its magic despite Trump’s declining relevance, the embers of which the media will continue to fan as long as it pays dividends—just as Goldstein’s detested image is deployed in culturally unifying activities such as Two Minutes Hate." (https://margaretannaalice.substack.com/p/letter-to-a-scientifically-minded)

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A Harding's avatar

I feel like I just watched an episode of The Office. Mindy Kaling as Radhika for sure 😀

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Gnome Chonky's avatar

NO THAT'S RACIST!

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MissAnneThrope's avatar

HOLY. SHIT. Does the NYT REALLY think we're THAT STUPID? It insults our intelligence. Cause, ya know, when I think "Deep State," the first agencies that come to mind are EPA, NASA and Department of Labor. What the everlasting FUCK???? Notice they avoided the NSA, DHS, FBI, Pentagon, CIA, and cast of thousands alphabet- soup agencies (spending the REAL money, dictating our policies and crushing our democratic republic.) Why does anyone with three or four operating braincells give a nickle to subscribe to that birdcage liner?

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Mrs. McFarland's avatar

Yes, they do think we’re that stupid.

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Dee's avatar

Unfortunately, many will buy it. There are sheep all around. There are people who still think the Covid shots are good for you, Biden is an upstanding guy, etc.

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Mickel Knight's avatar

Actually, the EPA is one of the first agencies I think of when I think of 'The Deep State'. I noticed the NYT didn't cover the EPA terrorizing families about fishponds in their yards. Funny that.

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MissAnneThrope's avatar

Wow. Well, Mickel, when I think of the EPA, it never occurred to me that people with fishponds were being terrorized by them. Do YOU have a fishpond in your backyard? I'm trying to understand what that (bring terrorized about a fishpond) would look like. I'm not even kidding. Harassed? Irritated? Fined? But "terrorized" is a pretty big leap.

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Mickel Knight's avatar

Here's some details on just one of the few instances of this I've heard about over the years. The SCOTUS ruled against the EPA on this case 9-0. I don't like linking to an opinion, but the couple of news reports I glanced at didn't go into enough detail on, well, the details.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2023/05/26/supreme-court-epa-ruling-idaho-couple/

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MissAnneThrope's avatar

I don't subscribe to WaPo, but looked up the deets. 20 years is a long time to have the ACOE restrict building on one's own property! That said, building on wetlands isn't a great proposal, both environmentally (with which I assume you’ll disagree) nor longterm structurally. Maybe they got a good deal on the property exactly because of that? Surely there were local permits and so forth required. Maybe they should have gone after the realtor (being a little facetious here.) Wetlands are crucial to our environment (as you surely read) and not just to the variety of species that reside within them. But. Hey, I'm just a crazy woman who believes that humans do, in fact, have a responsibility to sustainability. That's a pretty big discussion, probably best left for another thread. Thanks for sharing your link! Just FYi, this is what I read. https://www.ballardspahr.com/insights/alerts-and-articles/2023/05/supreme-court-constricts-clean-water-act-in-sackett-decision

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Mickel Knight's avatar

I believe the EPA takes an exceedingly liberal interpretation of wetlands which would encompass much of the US.

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Sharon F.'s avatar

They want(ed) to, that's what the WOTUS controversy is about. Here's the regulatory changes based on the Supreme Court decision

https://www.epa.gov/system/files/documents/2023-08/FINAL_WOTUSPublicFactSheet08292023.pdf

Probably more than you wanted to know.

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Ann22's avatar

Well, you are mistaken.

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Mrs. McFarland's avatar

If you don’t mind, I’m saving this delicious rant for the next time one of my TDS friends references the NYTimes….” What the everlasting Fuck” is now replacing my oh FFS! Thank you!

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Marilyn F's avatar

The NYT is targeting those with only 2 brain cells to rub together.

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Eirebridge's avatar

Exactly! I think of it as being embodied by those agencies that were completely glossed over, and refer to it as 'the national security state' now. The term 'Deep State' has become too loaded a term, co-opted beyond its original meaning.

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Maenad's avatar

We want to see the top runner ups too.

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Madjack's avatar

There is a VERY dangerous and malevolent deep security state:FBI/CIA/NSA that must be disbanded

There is a second much larger bureaucratic deep state which encompasses the left liberal world view which promotes left wing goals and obstructs conservative policies. Power must be devolved from DC to disempower this group

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DaveL's avatar

Like the recent regs (EPA) that essentially phases out internal combustion engines over the next 10 years. What’s not to like?

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Coco McShevitz's avatar

This is correct. Decentralization promotes liberty, centralization tyranny. This is why the founders intentionally set up a system with multiple centers of power, although unfortunately their design has been badly corrupted by the rise of the federal administrative bureaucracy which actually runs the country.

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scmcn's avatar

My 4 adult children and 2 grandchildren are angry which masks their fear. Hard to have a conversation that doesn't deteriorate into canceling hearing any alternative perspectives. Those of my boomer generation in power have really "gotten us in a fine kettle of fish" to quote Oliver & Hardy.

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dorothy slater's avatar

One of the things that drives me crazy as people whom I have never met before, and to know nothing about me, assume that I hate trump. I even got a cartoon in the mail today from an old friend who assumes I will find it very amusing because it makes fun yet again of trump. I would never assume that anyone loves Biden or hates Trump until I knew for sure what they were thinking. But the assumption that I share their hatred of trump without even knowing me for 10 minutes drives me nuts

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Mrs. McFarland's avatar

And then they shame you….

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Mrs. McFarland's avatar

Yup, the Hippies abandoned their altruistic peace loving principles and have adjourned to their counting houses…. At 72, I’m stunned by the zero shits they give….

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StikeDC's avatar

all the hippies cut off all their hair...

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Lindi Biachi's avatar

I think it has mostly fall out by now 😂

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Jen Downey's avatar

Bazinga!

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Mrs. McFarland's avatar

Now now.. that does not excuse them!

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Subcomandante Mark's avatar

When I lived in the bay area, one of my neighbors was an old beatnik from San Francisco. He hated the hippies for ruining San Francisco. He considered them a bunch of spoiled suburban brats; useless tourists.

In my estimation, he was correct. The hippies have simply gone full circle and returned to their roots as entitled assholes.

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Mrs. McFarland's avatar

Yup, but now in their 70s, they’ve added a heaping helping of moral shaming….

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Marilyn F's avatar

You can say that again

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Woke_Capital's avatar

It’s the banality of evil…

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Gnome Chonky's avatar

I thought of that too. "She eats Lucky Charms" etc.

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BookWench's avatar

These folks just sit around shuffling papers & coming up with new regulations to mess up our lives.

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Woke_Capital's avatar

Just doing their jobs, that’s the tragedy.

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John Jay Myers's avatar

I am only half way into this, the asteroid guy is not "deep state" and the second person, the lady, I am pretty sure she doesn't do pilates or eat salads.

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Matt Taibbi's avatar

Bullseye

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Secret Squirrel's avatar

You guys are reading my mind!

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DaveL's avatar

Didn’t look like it!

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Mickel Knight's avatar

There's a rather large portion of NYT reporting that is simply a superficial attempt to placate folks in their echo chamber.

You may have heard of this deep state thingy - don't worry it's just those dumb right wing mouth breathers being dumb again. Feel free to dismiss their concerns and we encourage you to laugh or pity them as your muse dictates. Be sure to tune into SNL this weekend where they'll take an 80 IQ stab at skewering these deep state concerns!

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Mickel Knight's avatar

I just realized that by using the word 'stab' I was encouraging violence against the NYT and its readers, and SNL and its viewer. I apologize for the ill-conceived use of that violent terminology.

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Mark Kennedy's avatar

You should be severed from polite society. Oh, wait...

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MattieRoss's avatar

Congrats, you just made the “people who are a threat to democracy” blacklist, LOL

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BookWench's avatar

I am LITERALLY shaking.

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