Emerald

Here’s my recommendation of what I’ve generally liked being on the receiving end of… I like it when a guy gives me an excuse to be closer to him (or at times, I’ve created the excuse). For example, you could say, “Hey, let me show you this cool thing on my phone.” Maybe bring up a music video that you like that you want her to see… or maybe some photos of something cool you did. Make sure it’s something that can spark a few minute long conversation at least. This gives her an excuse to sit really close to you for an extended period of time. And if she’s interested in getting physical with you (making out or sex) she will probably get as close as she has plausible deniability to do so. And if she does sit very close… right next to you to where her legs are within an inch or two of yours… you can relax your leg and let it gently rest against hers as you talk about what you’re showing her. Give yourself some plausible deniability in this. Make it to where she’ll know your intention if she’s interested… but not so obvious that it creates pressure or awkwardness. And if she pulls her leg away, de-escalate slightly back to the platonic/friendly frame. But if she lets you keep your leg there, (if you’re out in public) then scoot even closer and continue the conversation with your leg touching hers. And you can escalate further physical contact, like touching her hand or putting your arm around her. This will create anticipation if you’re out in public, which will heighten her desire. Anticipation is the best aphrodisiac from a woman’s perspective. But if you’re already alone with her you could also escalate this physical touch into a kiss… which could lead to sex.

You conveniently left out the part about charging teachers with felonies if they unknowingly have a book in their classroom that happens to have a gay character in it. And you left it out because you know on some level that it’s authoritarian, and it doesn’t suit your argument well to address it in your reply. And so you reframe it in more innocuous terms because the reality doesn’t fit well with your framework that this is just Conservatives being Conservatives. So, to protect that idea the DeSantis is just a run of the mill Conservative, you take the things I’m telling you about DeSantis defang them and make them look more harmless than they are. And to protect that idea, you view me through the lens of being some progressive that doesn’t understand the Conservative point of view and its function in society. The reality is that DeSantis is attempting to alter k-12 and college level schools’ curriculum. And when politicians are going through great lengths to mess with academia, the goal is to mold young impressionable minds in the direction of their own ideological agendas. It appears to me that you wouldn’t recognize authoritarianism if it smacked you on the ass.

He’s banning tons of books that have absolutely nothing to do with LGBTQ stuff. But worse than that he’s pushed legislation that would charge teachers with a felony for simply having books in their classroom that go outside of certain (intentionally) vague guidelines. One of the guidelines is that it contains nothing that instructs about LGBTQ issues. So, what would happen if a teacher happens to have a book in their classroom that they didn’t know had a gay character in it? Well, they could be charged with a felony and lose their teaching license. So, all sensible teachers would just have to take all the books off their shelves. But of course, we can’t have a school without books for kids to read. So, let’s be safe and just have books that are on DeSantis’s state sanctioned book list. You’re trying really hard to make a something into a nothing. Perhaps I just notice how authoritarian this is because I used to be a teacher. And no… there was no SJW indoctrination in the school I taught at. And during my time as a substitute teacher, there wasn’t any SJW curriculum at any of the schools I taught at in my district. So, all DeSantis wants is a monopoly over the minds of the youth. And that should be very concerning to everyone.

This is just a cop out. Examples please. Don’t make arguments you’re not prepared to defend.

You’re just wrong about DeSantis. And I do understand the Conservative position. I grew up in a community with a Conservative ethos. I can steel man all of their positions, and I could convince a Conservative that didn’t know me that I was a true dyed in the wool Conservative if I had to. What you must understand is that it’s not specifically about his ideological positions. It’s about the way he’s going about enacting them. It’s about how a politician chooses to enact their ideology that makes them an authoritarian… not necessarily the ideology itself. He’s banning books and attempting to influence public schools and colleges to indoctrinate kids into a certain way of thinking. That’s enough of an authoritarian red flag for me.

Like I said, it’s always been a purple state. It’s usually 51/49 in the slight favor of Republicans. But there’s a couple reasons that DeSantis cleaned house… one is leaning into culture war stuff. And his opponent was Charlie Crist who was a former Republican governor turned Democrat in order to run against DeSantis. So, it was really a battle of middle of the road Republican versus far right anti-woke Republican. Either way, the only reason why Democratic voters voted for Crist was because of negative voter turnout to try to keep DeSantis from getting it. But he certainly wasn’t going to excite the Democratic base.

That’s not a meaningful distinction at this juncture in time. We don’t know what DeSantis would do with the presidency.

They’re typically late Blue to middle Orange… depending on whether they’re a more Traditionalist Conservative or Libertarian Conservative. Most of them are very resistant to Green. And they don’t typically have an accurate idea of stage Green politics. If you ask your average right winger what people on the left believe and why, they wouldn’t be able to give you an accurate answer. That’s because they haven’t experienced Green yet. So, the mindset is foreign to them.

The reason why Trump was saying that was because it was at a time when he was down in the polls to DeSantis. So, he was trying to find ways to meaningfully differentiate himself from DeSantis to try to regain momentum when his political chances weren’t looking too good. And he was seeking to corner the constituency of Log Cabin Republicans who are put off by DeSantis’s anti-LGBTQ stances. I think this quote might have even been from when he attended a Log Cabin Republican event. He also decided to stand firmly in not cutting anything from Social Security or Medicare to regain his momentum. And it seems to have been a good strategy for him because he’s polling much better now. But I don’t expect him to support the LGBTQ community much now that he doesn’t need their support to win the primary. He’ll go whichever direction suits his political aspirations the best. At the time it was cozying up to Log Cabin Republicans and now it’s not.

The distinction between fears of left authoritarianism and fears of right authoritarianism is that the latter actually has the institutional power to back it up. The furthest left federal government official in American politics is Bernie Sanders. And most of his positions are moderate from the perspective of other 1st world nations… things like free public college and single payer healthcare. And America is so corporatist in its interests that even other Democrats fear mongered about Communism when Bernie ran for president. So, there is no valid threat of left authoritarianism from within the US government. But right wing authoritarians have a ton of institutional power on federal, state, and local levels. And the right wing propaganda machine is very effective and very well-oiled. This is why concerns about right wing authoritarianism are not just an over-reaction to “things I dislike”. The far right has been very effective at organizing themselves into a movement. And it’s become so normalized that people just think it’s business as usual… like frogs in slowly boiling water.

How can you think that progressives have all the cultural influence? It’s really obvious that progressives have little to no institutional power. And the culture (from an American perspective) is very Capitalistic and Stage Orange. Mainstream American culture is more Libertarian-minded than anything else. Aside from some really basic things, like more diverse representations in movies compared to 10 years ago and occasional lip service to vague values like equality, very little within mainstream culture is oriented toward anything particularly progressive. It’s all about maintaining the status quo and milking that status quo for everything it’s worth. All elements of mainstream culture are just watered down so that it has consumer appeal to the widest target audience possible. And that’s pretty anti-progressive by its nature.

I agree with that. My suspicion and hope is that Republican politicians will realize it’s a losing strategy to lean into authoritarianism and anti-LGBTQ stuff. They were expecting to clean house in the midterms, because the opposing party to the president tends to do very well in midterm elections. But they did quite poorly in the house (only getting a slight majority), and even lost a seat in the senate. And one of the number one issues they were leaning into was culture war anti-trans stuff. Yet again, Roe v. Wade had also been recently overturned. So, that certainly lost them support as well.

Be that as it may, it doesn’t stop this backlash from leading to Fascist ends and right wing authoritarianism more generally. And you would be wise to see this uptick in aggressiveness and legal attacks toward the LGBTQ community as a potential sign of worse things to come. There are plenty of traditionalist right wingers who would be willing to vote a Fascist into power if that Fascist promised to bring back the good old days when men were men and women were women by any means necessary. History doesn’t move in a straight line. It’s always 10 steps forward and 9 steps back.

He really is doing some authoritarian things. There are lots of red flags there. At this point, I’m not sure if he’s doing things this way because he actually wants to be an authoritarian leader or if he’s just playing the part to appeal to his base so that they elect him to the presidency. But I don’t want to take the risk to find out.

I agree with this. It’s not that I think that DeSantis’s current goal is to make death camps happen. That wasn’t my point in using Vaush’s quote. But to write DeSantis off as just a normal Conservative doing normal Conservative things is just foolish. He’s being deeply authoritarian and he’s repeating very old political patterns that have historically led to things like death camps. What’s happening now in the Republican party is that Fascists and Fascist rhetoric are gaining more and more of a foothold. Let’s say that Conservatism is the color blue and Fascism is the color red. And the trick is to add the color red in very gradually to where people forget what blue looks like altogether and to think that normal Conservatism is just a generally purplish color. We become frogs in boiling water if we don’t realize what’s happening. Unsinkable ships sink.

No, I meant gavel

“Also, I used Vaush’s “death camps” quote not to say that I think there will be actual death camps, but as a way to compare DeSantis and Trump’s relationship to authoritarianism.” This is what I just posted to Leo.

No, it most certainly isn’t standard right wing policy stuff. It’s being done in a deeply authoritarian way that should make anyone prick up their ears. Also, I used Vaush’s “death camps” quote not to say that I think there will be actual death camps, but as a way to compare DeSantis and Trump’s relationship to authoritarianism. My argument was never that DeSantis is going to literally do death camps.

It’s definitely a backlash. Many Fascist movements gain their momentum in a backlash against progress because they can harness the support of average people that feel uncomfortable with the changes. The Weimar Republic was actually a very progressive place. They even had an institution specifically for LGBTQ studies and research back in the 30s in the Weimar Republic. And the Nazis targeted that institution first before progressing to other targets. So, even though this is a backlash, it’s important to recognize that it could also be used as a segue into darker territory.

Again, it’s not about him being a right winger at all. It’s about him being him. He’s banning books and greenlighting intentionally vague legislation that can charge teachers with felonies and loss of their license if they have books in their classroom that goes against those intentionally vague policies. The outcome has been that many teachers have taken all the books out of their classrooms. He tried to pass legislation called the “Stop Woke Act” which would prohibit colleges from teaching about gender and racism in ways that are loosely defined as “woke”. Luckily that was slapped down by a federal judge because it was in violation of the 1st amendment. The judge called it “dystopian”. He was also trying to do this thing a few years back where he wanted to make all college professors fill out a survey with their political affiliation on it. And he wanted to penalize colleges that had too high of a percentage of liberal professors compared to conservative professors by taking away funding. Then, he also did the shenanigans with trafficking immigrants over state lines to Martha’s Vineyard. Then, there’s his background in Guantanamo Bay working with detainees. And there are allegations of him participating in force feeding torture practices. None of this looks good. And none of this is about him being a Republican. I expect authoritarianism from him because of his track record.

What I said was a reflection of my feelings about DeSantis… not of my feelings about the average right winger. I genuinely don’t think the right are all Nazis. I grew up in a very conservative area and most are not in favor of things like that. And most right wingers would be vehemently against things like death camps at this juncture in time. The formula for getting average people to support heinous things requires a demagogue and years of propaganda for there to be a movement in the direction of death camps and the like in average members of the populace. But I do think DeSantis could be a demagogue if he wanted to be. And I’m not entirely convinced that he doesn’t want to be given his political track record as governor thus far and his history in Guantanamo Bay.

That’s not entirely true. It’s a brand new thing that children are being taken away from their parents for seeking medical support for their trans kids. And we never had people trying to pass laws that enable bounty hunters to go after drag queens or any of the other of the hundreds of bills that they’re trying to ram through. There are newly popularized hate campaigns that LGBTQ people are facing now that they didn’t have to face with a few years ago. And these hate campaigns are directly influencing state policies. And this should not be ignored as business as usual… comments about progressive whining be damned. But what you say is true in that there has been a lot of progress over the past couple decades as well. But despite this progress… it’s also true the Fascistic movements historically have targeted LGBTQ people first. Then they begin to target religious and ethnic minorities if they’re relatively successful at regressing public opinion on gay/trans people. So, the fact that all the anti-LGBTQ rhetoric has gotten a lot more aggressive in the past year or so… and that fact the state legal systems are being bombarded by anti-trans bills should be seen as a canary in the coal mine. And if Fascistic movements are successful at pushing back gay rights or trans rights, it may be a sign of worse things to come.

I agree that it’s not a winning message in the eyes of the average American. But I fear that it could potentially become one with enough trickery and propaganda. There are many apolitical moderate people who could be convinced to support things that they’d never be in favor of without the propaganda. It’ll be a bit of a stress test to America’s system and level of development.

It’s infinitely limited and infinitely unlimited