DocWatts

Almost like he was going out of his way to make it to the bottom of those Presidential Rankings lists compiled by Historians, via his one upmanship of the underachievers who only managed to get Impeached once

Agreed! The Metamodernism book mentioned by Hanzi Freinacht that @Elevated mentioned intrigued me enough to order a copy; looking forward to reading it. Almost seems like an extension of some of the things that another one of my favorite authors, David Foster Wallace, wrote about; that postmodernism, having done its job, has reached the limits of its usefulness, and it's due time for a more constructive paradigm to take its place.

Obviously Big Tech companies must be regulated, but be careful about critiquing Big Tech from Below (rather than from Above). The reason for regulating Big Tech is because of the immense amount of Power they wield, and also because many of them are Monopolies that society has come to depend on. Social Media platforms have become breeding grounds for the spread of misinformation such as Conspiracy Theories, in addition to the problematic way that online Echo Chambers reinforce and amplify divisions in society; the disastrous consequences of which we've seen unfolding over the past few years. A critique from above would advocate for treating Social Media platforms as Public Utilities, and finding policies to regulate the spread of misinformation, and devising strategies for pushing back against the radicalizing effect of online Echo Chambers. Bitching and moaning about Trump finally getting banned from Social Media platforms, after years of propagating misinformation and advocating for Political Violence, is a critique from Below.

I could also see a situation developing where the radicalism Trump helped to ferment becomes something he's unable to reign in, even if by some miracle he were so inclined. You saw this exact same dynamic happen with Fox News, who's to say it has to stop with Trump? That's the problem with demagogues, the radicalization they ferment has a way of spilling out beyond the bounds of what people benefiting from it intended. I don't see this sort of thing going away until we evolve our Society to the point that it's not creating so many embittered, alienated people, and come to grips with the democratization of media that provides fuel for the spread of dangerous ideologies.

Post-postmodernism, or the New Sincerity, is another term for this. Found this great description on the website linked below: We see this manifest as a kind of informed naivety, a pragmatic idealism, a moderate fanaticism, oscillating between sincerity and irony, deconstruction and construction, apathy and affect, attempting to attain some sort of transcendent position, as if such a thing were within our grasp. The metamodern generation understands that we can be both ironic and sincere in the same moment; that one does not necessarily diminish the other. http://www.metamodernism.com/2015/01/12/metamodernism-a-brief-introduction/

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/congress/live-blog/live-updates-house-begins-effort-remove-trump-n1253700/ncrd1253847?cid=sm_npd_nn_fb_ma&fbclid=IwAR1CiKvZ2Ez2iLK3THbU6VDeRIgcf7tXTrTtHDweWnTUQJgAdmKTjrTjD5U#blogHeader Banks halt business with Trump after U.S. Capitol riots

Seems like OP doesn't understand thr concept behind Political Dog Whistles. It's political shorthand for a phrase that may sound innocuous to some people, but which also communicates something more insidious either to a subset of the audience or outside of the audience’s conscious awareness — a covert appeal to some noxious set of views https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.vox.com/platform/amp/the-big-idea/2016/11/7/13549154/dog-whistles-campaign-racism Basically political dog whistles are used when someone wants to advocate for things like racism ans violence, while also maintaining plausible deniability.

True... So let's try to make sure it doesn't come to that.

Let me take a moment to check my own biases, and imagine if the situation were reversed and BLM protesters or Socialists were storming the Capitol. ...And yup, this checks out. That said, there are no authoritative Leftist politicians or thought leaders in America actually encouraging violence, at least that I'm aware of. Seems like a pretty big qualitative difference between violence on the Left vs. Right. In modern times, there's nothing at all comparable on the Left to the MAGA Cult (and let's hope there never will be).

Thanks for the helping to clear that up, the reasoning you laid out seems much more plausible than alternative explanations I've come across so far. Even if it is depressing for the state of our country that perpetuating violence from a leverageable position of power apparently affords one more humane treatment at the hands of the Police...

I'll agree with your assessment that the Capitol Hill Police were caught off guard and overwhelmed, but why the hell weren't they better prepared in the first place? I've got nothing but respect for the cops who actually tried to do thier job under those circumstances, but it never should have come to that. Incompetence as an explanation only gets you so far, since the threat of something exactly like this happening has been evident for weeks; seems far more likely that the higher ups in the Capitol Hill Police didn't take the threat of MAGA violence seriously and didn't prepare, likely due to biases in the organization. If a portion of our legislators have been supporting Trump's coup attempt, is it that unlikely that maybe some of the higher ups in the Capitol Hill Police were also sympathetic to Trump's cause, and only put in a half hearted effort to defend the Capitol Building from Trumpists? Some degree of collusion with the Trump administration is also a possibility, though one that's worth being tentative about considering until the incident is investigated further. Where were the rows of police in Riot gear that were there to meet the BlackLivesMatter protestors? Sam's explanation that the fiasco was due to the city of DC caving to pressure for police cutbacks doesn't seem to hold a lot of water, since the Capitol Hill Police are its own jurisdiction with its own Federal funding (to the tune of half a billion dollars a year). Correct me if I'm mistaken, but I would assume an organization like that much more insulated from public pressure than a city police department.

Fair enough, and I'm %100 for making allies with the police, as long as it doesn't come at expense of needed Reforms. And I guess that's the rub, getting Police departments on board with Humane Policing. A difficult prospect when Police Departments often benefit in real ways from corruption within the current criminal justice system, with things like 'Policing for Profit' and having access to military hardware. Not to mention from clear conflict of interest policies that shield police officers from facing consequences of misconduct.

Calling attention to the troubling inroads that far right extremist groups have made with law enforcement, something the FBI was been warning about for years, is not to allege that most individual police officers are white supremacists. Compartmentalization is such that a majority of individuals can be decent people who happen to be working for dysfunctional Institutions. I would think that surely this is an issue that can be addressed without demonizing the Police, who perform a difficult and stressful job.

Remarkably bad take by Sam Harris, who to his credit does at least understand the gravity of Trump's coup attempt and recognize the danger that Trump poses, while at the same time using Trump's coup as an opportunity to demonize the Left, and to deny the possibility of White Supremacist sympathies with the negligent way that the Capitol Hill Police weren't prepared for the quite obvious threat of violence from MAGA supporters. He seems to think that Black Police Officers being on scene discredits the entire notion of possible White Supremacist ties in the Capitol Hill Police; doesn't even cross his mind that the Higher Ups could have left the people defending the Capitol building out to dry, or that racism in institutions can be compartmentalized. He just kind of shrugs of thr dysfunction of the Capitol Hill Police as a mystery, and leaves it at that.

Part of the shame about Joe Rogan is that there are reasonable Conservatives who are worth having a dialog with (his show with Gary Johnson, the former Libertarian Presidential candidate comes to mind). Joe does a very good job at being open to different viewpoints, while at the same time retaining the ability to push back against things he disagrees with, while still retaining a conversational tone. The problem is that reasonable voices on the right become overshadowed by the platforming of dangerous bullshit artists like Alex Jones or Ben Shapiro. That's in addition to irresponsibly spreading Conspiracies and false equivalencies about politics. I think Rogan probably means well, but is struggling to use his immense platform in a socially responsible way. And labeling him as a trans-phobe is an overreaction. Hell, Vaush made a good case that trans inclusion in sports is not a black and white issue, and there's going to be some growing pains as we figure this out.

Yes, and that's going to be generally true for all Reactionary ideologies which long for an idealized past, defend a rigid social hierarchy built around ethnicity and gender, and who view society as groups fighting against groups.

I wouldn't try to oversell to the Liberation of Women under the Soviet regime. In practice what it meant was that women could do manual labor alongside men under a repressive political regime. As far as women rising to positions of authority , the Soviet Union never had a female General Secretary, and most of the regional Party Bosses and Politburo members were men. I'll grant that women had more opportunities than they would have under a fascist regime, but that's not a very high bar.

The Trump presidency was like that alternate timeline in Back to to the Future where Biff found the Sports Almanac... As far as Joe Rogan, the amount of respect I've had for the guy has been plummeting over the past year or two. I'm all for having a dialog with diverse political voices, but the fact that he can't see the harm of giving a platform to someone like Alex Jones is troubling... That and the false equivalencies he sometimes draws between Biden and Trump, and some of the Conspiracies over Covid he's been parroting... And thing is this is probably more on me for not being cognizant to this aspect of Rogan's personality earlier, as I don't think he's substantially changed over the past few years so much as the world has changed, and some of the problematic aspects of Rogan are more readily apparent...

In Hitler's case the community he did latch onto was the camaraderie he developed for his fellow soldiers during the horrific conditions of World War 1, which was a formative experience not only for him but for an entire generation of Germans. When the news broke that Germany lost the World War, Hitler was in a hospital bed recovering from wounds he received during a chemical weapons attack. He was informed that Germany had lost the war because 'socialists had taken over the state' and 'stabbed the army in the back', and the news broke him. The extent of how badly the war was going for Germany was hidden from the population, and the idea that the German army was stabbed in the back was a popular Conspiracy Theory going around which absolved the military leadership of its responsibility for losing the war. Add to this the fact that Allied armies never advanced into Germany, and the news of Germany's defeat came as a shock to many people. Not hard to see how the bitterness and resentment from that could develop into a Toxic Life Purpose.

Omg i'm laughing out loud to this

Kaiser Wilhelm might be a more apt Historical comparison. Or to get more granular, if you perhaps put the Kaiser into a blender with Kanye West and Boris Yeltsin, along with a few cans of Spray Tan...

My reaction when I see anyone claiming Nazis were left-wing:

This might be the most frustrating historical misconception I come across semi-frequently, both for how pervasive it is, and also how easily verifiable it is to debunk this claim. That and completely misunderstanding the reasons for the rise of a regime that led to the deaths of 70 million people is profoundly dangerous.

Hitler didn't take over the government in a coup, at least not in the traditional sense that you're likely referring to. They tried going that route in the Beer Hall Putsch of 1923, which ended in fiasco and embarrassment for the Nazis, who afterwards decided that using electoral politics to gain power and end Democracy would be more successful. The widespread suffering caused by the Great Depression, which hit Germany especially hard due to the Treaty of Versailles and also to the withdrawal of the American financial support which was keeping the German economy afloat, finally presented conditions which were conducive to Nazi political aims. The Nazi Party won enough seats in the 1932 election to make them the largest party in the Reichstag, allowing Hitler to become chancellor, ruling alongside president Paul Von Hindenburg (the Conservative former military dictator of Germany during WW1, who hated Hitler, yet decided to appoint him chancellor under political pressure in the mistaken notion that moderates in the government would restrain him). It was the burning of the Reichstag building in 1933 that provided Hitler with opportunity to declare a State of Emergency which ended all civil liberties and banned other political parties in Germany, putting the last nail in the coffin of the Weimar Republic. When Hindenburg died in 1934, the last person who could have potentially opposed Hitler was gone, and his consolidation of political power complete. As to Hitler's political beliefs, he despised the Social Democracy of the Weimar Republic, which for its brief existence was one of the most Progressive and Left leaning Democracies in the world up until that point. Just because he shares similar personality defects to other SD-Red leaning individuals (such as Stalin), does not make him a Leftist.