71 Comments
User's avatar
тна Return to thread
Koshmarov's avatar

I think this "division" will be more of a reconfiguration. Lots of Berners and MAGAs getting together.

Expand full comment
Frances Taylor's avatar

I hope so. I really like your optimism. Indeed, I have been white pilled by the event because I think it exposes who the real tyrants are. So far, I have been disappointed by how so many people are absolutely swept up by the Cathedral. But I'm hopeful that many more will wake up. The Great Awakening is here!

Expand full comment
Koshmarov's avatar

We Americans love our Great Awakenings. Is this the 5th?

Expand full comment
Citizen of Banana Republic's avatar

I can see it. I mean, if this MAGA reads every MT article and watches every Dore show because I really enjoy them, how far off am I?

I like the man but the downside of Bernie's policies have always been the socialist angle, but the way our govt is printing money like it's toilet paper in a pandemic, how long before the word 'fiscal responsibility' becomes a forgotten concept? Kinda strange how Wang's UBI went from ridiculous to sure-why not in the space of a year.

Expand full comment
Nobody's avatar

Keep this in mind- if the poor get UBI, just imagine what the elites are going to get. I can certainly see how a number of unscrupulous individuals would like to exploit the printer of the world's reserve currency abandoning all fiscal restraint.

Expand full comment
Waiting for Homo Superior's avatar

I know some blue collar Republicans that liked BernieтАЩs policies and wanted to vote for him.

Expand full comment
Koshmarov's avatar

It's funny how much Bernie appealed to the Reagan Democrat bloc. Crucial difference was Reagan won a national election twice and Bernie couldn't get through the Democratic primary.

Expand full comment
Spiderbaby's avatar

Reagan didn't have his own party sabotaging his primary run though. I remember reading an article at the beginning of the primary season that said the Democrats biggest donors had informed the DNC that, should Bernie win the nomination, the donors would switch their money to Trump.

Expand full comment
Running Burning Man's avatar

"Lots of Berners and MAGAs getting together." LOL, I howled at that. I have thought from your comments for weeks that you are a Russian troll. Your comment confirms it.

Expand full comment
Koshmarov's avatar

I live under a bridge in Irkutsk. I am simultaneously both a ╨Ь╨░╨╣╨╛╤А in the GRU and a bot. The bot posts while the human sleeps.

Expand full comment
Kathleen McCook's avatar

I still wonder how Grigory Volkonsky 's son became a Decembrist. It might lend insight.

Expand full comment
Neo's avatar

So the pension of a major isn't very luxurious?

Expand full comment
Koshmarov's avatar

No. Everybody's into gig work and side-hustles now. Gotta make ends meet.

Expand full comment
Pat Fahy's avatar

Nice to meet ya...........

Expand full comment
Koshmarov's avatar

Likewise. I'm a man of wealth and taste,

Expand full comment
User's avatar
Comment deleted
Jan 11, 2021
Comment deleted
Expand full comment
Diana's avatar

My grandmother always wanted to see St. Petersburg. Beautiful city, she thought. And then came the revolution. She finally saw it, in her 80s.

Expand full comment
Koshmarov's avatar

I saw it was time for a change.

Expand full comment
Frances Taylor's avatar

You'd be surprised. I'm an ex-Berner that turned MAGA and even noticed some comments in Jimmy Dore's videos supporting the Capitol uprising. Person noted that they thought it was awesome that anyone stormed the Capitol and that the progressives should have.

Expand full comment
mrvco's avatar

The sad truth is that there is no way to have an honest and/or rational conversation with anyone indoctrinated into either Team Blue or Team Red (whether they are self-aware or not)... and that started before the Trump era. Neither side can believe that I didn't vote for their douche bag of choice... even if as a vote against one or the other. They may not be able to pillory me for being on the 'other team', but my choice is no less treasonous in their mind... and maybe worse, because I refuse to participate in their game.

Expand full comment
Running Burning Man's avatar

Ah, yes, truth by anecdote!

Expand full comment
Frances Taylor's avatar

And your "truth" is by accusation with zero evidence. At least, I have an anecdote.

Expand full comment
Running Burning Man's avatar

"zero evidence"? O?h, please, Franny. Read Grisha's posts I referenced. Sheesh.

Expand full comment
Carol Jones's avatar

At least its better than "truth" by gaslighting

Expand full comment
Carol Jones's avatar

geez ЁЯЩД I won't say what think you are

Expand full comment
Ralph Dratman's avatar

I don't think grisha is a troll. Russian? Maybe.

Expand full comment
Carol Jones's avatar

ЁЯЩДЁЯЩДЁЯЩДЁЯЩД

Expand full comment
Koshmarov's avatar

Ralph Dratman has asked me to no longer respond to his comments. I'm respecting his request.

Peripherally, I am in fact a troll, but I'm the world's saddest and nicest troll, along the lines of Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer if Santa's sled were pulled by trolls.

Expand full comment
Ralph Dratman's avatar

I retract my request for you not to comment. I was having a difficult time temperamentally at the moment I requested that. Now it seems wrong to me.

And thank you for honoring my request in the mean time.

Expand full comment
User's avatar
Comment deleted
Jan 11, 2021
Comment deleted
Expand full comment
Lisa's avatar

Agree. When Hilary won the nomination, I felt that Bernie supporters had more, or at least the same amount of, beliefs in common with the MAGA crowd. I'm a lifelong conservative, yet I'm now drawn to reading Matt and Glenn Greenwald because I care first and foremost about civil liberties. I wouldn't lose hope for the US just yet. I wasn't alive in the 1960s, but I can imagine that everyone felt pretty hopeless and divided during that time.

Expand full comment
Ralph Dratman's avatar

I was born in 1951, so I was 17 years old in 1968, one of the worst years for feeling good about politics. My personal low point came in 1970 or 71, after Nixon invaded Cambodia and students died at Kent State. In my experience, things are much more discouraging now than ever before in my lifetime. Of course that is a personal viewpoint.

Expand full comment
Ralph Dratman's avatar

That is interesting. Yet I still think that Fox News has been by far the strongest agent of polarization. I might be wrong.

Expand full comment
FleeTheCave's avatar

Wally, you have uttered the most intelligent and composed statement on this thread (much of which is a Q.E.D. of what Taibbi wrote). As I said to my dad the other night: if the poor right and the poor left ever figure things out and get together, we might have a very interesting situation on our hands. But then what.....?

Expand full comment
Bill Heath's avatar

The Occupy Movement and the Tea Party never realized they had a common enemy, crony capitalism, which reached its zenith in about 2012. Together they could have at least softened the war on small business and Trump's egregious dialog.

Expand full comment
Running Burning Man's avatar

"crony capitalism".

Bingo.

The differences between Bernie Bros and MAGAs is the word "crony" and the desired "fix". Most MAGAs like capitalism, but not the capitalism of powerful monopolists, oligopolists, legislatively-favored entities. Many (?) Bernie Bros just don't like capitalism, either because they focus only on the adverse consequences of cronyism or they don't want to consider the consequences of socialism*.

So what happens is that the MAGAs become sycophants for anything threatening more regulation and the Bernie Bros adopt the same behavior about anything reducing regulation of markets and market participants. [Kinda like the abortion "debate" - All or nothing.]

MAGAs = No or damn little government

Bernie Bros = Complete regulation by government.

That is where it all leads. Extremes. Why? Because there is no way that rational folks can discuss. The Langoliers swoop in and destroy memory.

Even my comments about MAGAs and Bernie Bros are open to attack because trying to explain a concept in a sparse comment is a recipe for counterattack.

Expand full comment
Koshmarov's avatar

"MAGAs = No or damn little government"

I speculate that MAGAs accretely are less minarchist than myself. Many are strict Constitutionalists legitimately outraged by the various scams the permanent bureaucracy has pulled over the past 4 years in an effort to unseat a fairly elected president.

"Bernie Bros = Complete regulation by government."

Did you ever talk to a Bernie Bro? Many are personally libertarian but favored his calls to increase taxation on wealthy corporations and individuals to fund the common good, e.g. M4A.

"trying to explain a concept in a sparse comment is a recipe for counterattack."

You got that one right.

Expand full comment
Running Burning Man's avatar

"Many [Bernie Bros] are personally libertarian but favored his calls to increase taxation on wealthy corporations and individuals to fund the common good ... "?

Sorry, Vlad, but no Libertarians favor taxes, especially increasing on wealth generators or, really, give much of a rat's ass about what you call "the common good" such as Bernie and Bros. would define it.

And, yes it seems that "trying to explain a concept in a sparse comment is a recipe for counterattack" is true and you failed the test.

Expand full comment
Koshmarov's avatar

"Sorry, Vlad, but no Libertarians favor taxes, especially increasing on wealth generators"

My name's not Vlad. I'm glad you took time to poll all the Libertarians and they responded with a unanimous verdict, though.

I suggest your proposition here may depend upon what your personal definition of "libertarian" is. Do I really have to trot out Ben Franklin's old chestnuts?

Last time I checked you didn't have to have a membership card to get into the Libertarian Club. There's face control, maybe.

Expand full comment
Running Burning Man's avatar

* This is an old debate. The battle between the proponents of individual liberty, in economic, social, and governance spheres) and of collective determination of the same is older than any of us and older that Marx and Adam Smith. It is the age old issue of "whose got the power?"

Expand full comment
Jim Fuquay's avatar

Then, as the late Molly Ivins wrote during H. Ross PerotтАЩs 1992(?) presidential campaign, about half the people voting for him were going to be very disappointed if he won and actually got down to the details.

Expand full comment
mcelroyj's avatar

There may be some overlap with some minor points of economic libertarianism and the Populist Bernie left, but the problems of racism, woke police, and indifference make this alliance fleeting at best. These two groups could partner on legislation in a few areas, but not align naturally with any sort of platform.

Expand full comment
Coco McShevitz's avatar

The point is they are all populists who have been shut out by the establishment. The enemy of my enemy and all that.

Expand full comment
Frances Taylor's avatar

Yep. I've been saying this for at least a year before Trump won in 2016. The enemy of my enemy is my friend. The MAGA were anti-war and so were the progressives.

But the progressives were so short-sighted that they didn't realize by uniting to stop the establishment we would be saving hundreds of thousands of brown and black people on the other side of the planet. As an ex-progressive, I think the progressives are dumb AF.

Expand full comment
Koshmarov's avatar

"As an ex-progressive, I think the progressives are dumb AF."

Frances... a gentle, unsolicited advisement: please try to stop identifying other people with labels. They're just people. The sports-team mentality has led to the decay of our polity.

Expand full comment
Carol Jones's avatar

Exactly! Thanks Bot ЁЯдг Grisha ЁЯТЧ

Expand full comment
Koshmarov's avatar

Beetle boop!

Expand full comment
Ralph Dratman's avatar

I don't understand your point about saving hundreds of thousands of brown and black people on the other side of the planet. Are your referring to foreign wars that might not have been fought by the US if the two political groups had united at some point?

Expand full comment
Maddi's avatar

I think Frances is referring to the fact that no new foreign wars have been started under TrumpтАЩs presidency...first time in decades.

Part of MAGA philosophy was fewer wars...more focus on bringing jobs home and energy independence...both of which were goals that were actually accomplished.

Frances is saying if progressives could have stopped with the sole identity politics and faux outrage pearl clutching for 2 seconds...maybe they would have seen these great policy moves for what they were and have been able to build an alliance with working class MAGA against the establishment.

I agree with Frances that progressives are dumb AF. I work in the arts and used to work in academia...and my explanation for this is...most progressives I know personally like to cosplay as тАЬlaborтАЭ and тАЬthe working classтАЭ on social media but they are actually the elite...not workers or small business owners but institutionalists still drawing paychecks for doing very little while harshly criticizing people who want and need to work.

I think specifically of my own cousin. A foaming at the mouth progressive who constantly posts about guillotines and тАЬpunching NazisтАЭ (aka anyone whoтАЩs even slightly right of the furthest left you can go) and тАЬeat the rich.тАЭ

On social heтАЩs a struggling single dad who works at a co-op and paints houses for a living. In reality heтАЩs the rich trust fund kid of rich parents whoтАЩs always had a huge safety net and has never really had any threat of failure.

Yeah. He thinks heтАЩs super smart...and I love him...but heтАЩs dumb AF, blind AF...hypocritical AF.

Expand full comment
Martin Vandepas's avatar

I was reading your comment until you called a bunch of people you don't know "dumb AF".

Expand full comment
Maddi's avatar

Lol.

Well, first...you may have noticed that I was picking up the rhetoric from Frances...an ex-progressive who now believes that the group he deserted is dumb AF. Presumably Frances knew a lot of progressives and understands their viewpoint well since he used to share it.

Second...if you had kept reading my comment, you would have seen that I do know a ton of progressives thanks to my line of work. If it makes you feel better...I think these specific progressives are dumb AF...and I have reasons and examples to back up this assessment.

Third. IтАЩm glad to know you and your progressive friends have never made a blanket (and dumb AF) judgment about a group of people you know nothing about. Like IтАЩm sure youтАЩve never posted a mocking meme about Trump supporters or said that we should eat the rich because all rich people are evil. ThatтАЩs really good of you.

Fourth and finally...I donтАЩt care if you read my comments.

Expand full comment
Martin Vandepas's avatar

You don't know me, or my friends, and no I actually don't post mocking memes about Trump. I'm here as a subscriber because I want to have substantive discussions about issues and to challenge my views. I'm sick of the many other places that are just mocking memes and people calling each other "dumb AF". Can you save that crap for facebook, please?

Expand full comment
Ralph Dratman's avatar

Thank you for explaining that.

But I do not think it is a good idea to call anyone names.

And it is definitely not a good idea to insult people in the other political party or those who vote differently from you. We need to work together to fix many problems in our country.

Expand full comment
Koshmarov's avatar

I agree with you, Ralph, but there's a component of human psychology that gets really juiced by calling other people names.

Most of it is simple ingroup/outgroup stuff, but I think the more subtle and insidious part is how higher-status people within a given self-defined community leverage the open use of "forbidden" language specifically to signify and magnify their status.

Rhetorically, it's Carnival for me (King) but not for thee (peasant).

Expand full comment
Ralph Dratman's avatar

Human psychology is not working right now, for our needs. Unless we can get to the point of constructive dialog, we have little to no chance of getting past this overshoot era with an intact technological framework. We will see a lot of death with no pattern, no organization. How will the survivors be able to get anything working again?

Expand full comment
Koshmarov's avatar

I have no idea about how to "fix" human psychology and am completely fatalistic about it. Above my pay grade.

I make efforts at constructive dialogue from time to time but also can't resist trolling when an easy target presents itself. Human nature.

The stuff going on right now has a very late-1970s sci-fi movie vibe to me. Logan's Run, Soylent Green, Damnation Alley. Maybe we've been here before.

Expand full comment
Ralph Dratman's avatar

What I am hoping for is probably impossible.

Expand full comment
Koshmarov's avatar

"On social heтАЩs a struggling single dad who works at a co-op and paints houses for a living. In reality heтАЩs the rich trust fund kid of rich parents whoтАЩs always had a huge safety net and has never really had any threat of failure."

One of the simultaneously hilarious and terrifying developments of the social media era is how it has empowered individuals with functions jealously relegated to state propaganda/intelligence functionaries in times of yore. Make up a fake identity! People will believe you!

Expand full comment
mcelroyj's avatar

True... fewer enemies besides the establishment would be nice. But somewhere between Hayak and Roe/Wade, new enemies form.

Expand full comment
Koshmarov's avatar

Pertinent observation. I view the Christian Right as a largely spent force in US politics; I think they have politically (not personally) conceded to Roe/Wade. I could be wrong and don't profess to see the future.

The New Puritans are elsewhere.

Expand full comment
K.M.'s avatar

Agreed. IтАЩm beginning to view this тАЬpuritanismтАЭ as a potent virus here in the U.S. ItтАЩs been around since Plymouth Rock and it just mutates over the years.

Expand full comment
Koshmarov's avatar

To quote Malcolm X: "Plymouth Rock landed on us!"

Expand full comment
Carol Jones's avatar

Exactly!

Expand full comment
Stxbuck's avatar

Most libertarians (and decent/libertarianism conservatives) have zero problem with legitimate police reform-body cams, union oversight, more/better training,etc.

The problem is that D dominated. big cities donтАЩt want the fiscal investment-they would rather pander to the mob, pay the occasional settlement, and virtue signal instead of actually improving the police and by extension their worst neighborhoods. They would rather play to the woke mob of n a virtual one party state and hope for a fiscal bailout from DC.

Expand full comment
User's avatar
Comment deleted
Jan 11, 2021
Comment deleted
Expand full comment
Ralph Dratman's avatar

What is economic libertarianism?

Expand full comment
mcelroyj's avatar

That is true, but they hold very little sway over the right in a political sense - Enjeti talks about this all the time on Rising as he thinks it is a big barrier for the Republicans to claim more populist positions. But it is not that easy to cut Ayn Rand out of the right's consciousness --- just as the Bernie left defending Marx's criticisms of capital (some memes always get knocked into the rough, using Matt's metaphor of golf in Hate Inc (2019).

Unusual coalitions do occur and I mentioned that on certain individual policies, but it would be an uneasy long term partnership -- fraught with the possibility of getting to close to one another and then betrayal (not unlike the Scorpion and the Frog parable).

Expand full comment