This is gonna sound supremely insanely haterist of me but hear me out:
If someone is talking about swastikas in the context of naziism and antisemitic hate crimes, you do not need to bring up the fact that it is actually a Buddhist or Hindu symbol of good luck or prosperity or peace. We know that. We know. You have eyes, you can see that those are not the swastikas we are talking about. Please please please can you use an iota of reading comprehension. I don't care that this is the piss on the poor site, you can choose to improve yourself.
Juneteenth marks a pivotal moment in the long and complex history of emancipation in the United States.
This JSTOR Daily reading list explores how freedom was commemorated across different communities, the origins of Juneteenth celebrations, and the ways Black Americans used Emancipation Day gatherings to advocate for citizenship, voting rights, and civic participation.
See the reading list.
Image: Juneteenth Emancipation Day Celebration, June 19, 1900, Texas, Mrs. Charles Stephenson. Via Wikimedia Commons.
You and your spouse have been married almost a decade. Your spouse has several bank account, credit cards, and small investments that they haven't shared with you. your finances are separate, save for a groceries account they mete out specific amounts into. You didn't agree to this arrangement, you just didn't really get a say. You've had chronic illness for a while so work has been patchy. You're struggling to cover your cell bill and bus fare in slow months. Your spouse wants to solve this by giving you an allowance ($65/mo). This kind of financial arrangement in a marriage is:
Wow. I was not expecting the massive response this post got, but thank you to everyone who's been filling out this poll and/or commenting on it! I feel like maybe I should give some clarification or context?
I posted this poll because my spouse thinks the above arrangement is reasonable and their prerogative. They feel that what is theirs is theirs, and they don't have to share it with their spouse, and wouldn't expect me to share what's mine with them if the tables were turned. I deliberately avoided using language in the poll that made any of the responses leading, because I didn't want to influence the results. When my spouse and I have arguments about how few of my basic needs they meet, and how vulnerable I feel, they tend to dig their heels in and insist that defining what a partnership looks like is up to the individuals and it's ok to deviate from the norm (which I agree with in principle, but only if both parties agree to the arrangements and can do so freely, not through coercion), and sometimes I genuinely feel like I'm crazy for thinking that there's a basic standard we get to expect from each other mutually, not in this one-sided way, and that my partner is being being both neglectful and controlling at the same time. I posted this poll because even when my spouse makes me feel like I'm being unreasonable, I know in my gut I'm not (not least of all because we very much did talk about our expectations of each other in both the best and worst potential situations, and what they promised me is not what I'm living now).
To see how many people have responded by straightforwardly calling this financial abuse, and to see how few people see this as normal, is validating to say the least. I've begun the process of building myself a life raft out of this situation, and I think I needed to see this feedback - so many strangers responding to what I hope is as neutral a summary of the situation as I intended it to be, and still calling it like I see it.
What I didn't put in the above poll is the even crazier stuff: A few years ago I ended contact with my abusive family, and my spouse promised to take care of me. Not long after they stopped giving me emotional support and asked me to seek it from my friends instead of them. When my computer, my main work tool, suddenly stopped working, they would only help me pay for a new one if I paid them back for it (they put me on a payment plan, but it was better than a bank loan because there was no interest and they let late payments slide). I also contracted a serious chronic illness because my partner was careless and ignored my existing health issues which made me vulnerable, and they failed to take care of me to the point I wasn't even eating properly while in bed with a fever, and for months after. Any support they gave was won at the cost of arguments I didn't have energy for, and reluctantly, but to friends and family my partner presented themselves as a caretaker.
I've struggled to work steadily and most of my limited income went to repaying the cost of my computer, so I depleted any savings I had left after the pandemic. As a result I sometimes couldn't even afford basics like toiletries or even clothes (I once showed up half an hour late to a doctor's appointment because the zipper on my only jeans broke and I had to wear a skirt in the freezing cold), and my partner, while expressing sympathy verbally, didn't take any action to offer tangible support, ie. buying me a new pair of jeans. I didn't have my family to rely on for safety and support. Anything I want or need, whether it's a necessity or something like a trip to visit family or friends who all live far away, I have to meet my partner's parameters since they're the one footing the bill. It took many arguments and detailed explanations of my difficulties and expectations before they would give me basic support like a one-off clothing purchase, and even more negotiation for it to be given in a way that allowed me autonomy in decision making (ie. they handed me a limited budget instead of going shopping with me or asking me to run purchases by them first).
I've given my partner a lot of leeway because they're struggling with several simultaneous neurodiversities and they tend to be passive observers in most situations, rather than active participants. I can see the ways in which they struggle to understand my experience because of their NDs. It has also been several years now since their diagnosis, and they use their ND as an excuse, but won't seek support for it. I have to do the emotional heavy lifting for us both, and if my expectations of them feel reasonable to me, it doesn't matter because if it's outside of their comfort zone, even the simplest things become contentious and they get the final say, since they're the only one in the relationship who have financial independence right now. I have no access to, nor do I get updated on, any of their bank accounts or savings (worrying in case of an emergency), except for a debit card which has a set amount on it at any given time and is only for groceries and recurring bills.
My spouse will give me information on their financial standing occasionally if I ask, but they are very hesitant and reluctant. I have a bank account of my own, and my spouse has asked to see my monthly earnings for the purpose of understanding my needs, but I'm hesitant to show them because of how much of my trust they've compromised, and how private they've always been about their financials (not to mention that it indicates they don't trust me to state my needs reasonably and reliably). I believe that everyone in a marriage should have at least one personal bank account, but our finances aren't shared at all, save for the one shared groceries/bills account. That account does, however, include medical costs, and as long as my spouse approves the spending, I can use it for things like amenities.
I don't know if I will show my partner this poll, but it's really good to have in case I would like to. It shows what I've been saying to them for a very long time, which is that my expectations are based in widely socially accepted ones that most people are aware of, and while I want to respect that my partner's ND may preclude them from having understood this, I also feel it's reasonable to ask that they accept that I'm not unreasonable in having these expectations (especially since they had justified this with commitments they made when we got married and have since broken).
It's been well over a year since this post and I wanted to add an update:
I never did show my spouse this poll, but what I did do was go to
A lawyer
A domestic abuse non-profit
A government agency
and had all three confirm that the situation was economic abuse. It took me several months but I scraped together enough to have a consultation with a divorce lawyer and learned what my options were. I wasn't expecting to get much - even though they'd have to either sell our home and give me half of what he got for it, or buy out my half, I didn't think they'd be willing to do the former or have the money for the latter, but I could at least get alimony and I could take care of my needs and my health problems better and get away from the stress of the marriage. So I asked my spouse for a divorce.
The divorce process itself was... illuminating. I found out that my spouse had several massive savings accounts they had conveniently forgotten to tell me about. And what was lucky for me, they didn't seem to understand that in a marriage all things are legally shared. They seemed to think that if something was only under their name, it was theirs exclusively - like putting a label in your clothes for summer camp. So they didn't secure any of their accounts, and most of them consisted of funds accumulated during the marriage. Not long after that came to light, they moved out (their ND includes being severely conflict averse and you can imagine things became... tense). It took a long time until I could start to relax and feel like I could be safe again.
In the end I walked away with enough to have a safety net. I bought an apartment that meets my disability needs, and have enough to live on for a few years while I get back on my feet (though hopefully it won't take that long). Moving, and doing all this on my own was really hard, but luckily I've had wonderful friends who've helped me and been incredibly supportive. I still feel like I'm putting myself back together and finding myself, but am doing worlds better.
Thank you to everyone who commented and reblogged and added tags - that massive and unapologetic naming of this situation as abuse was so so validating and meant the world to me. I was significantly luckier than most people facing a similiar situation and found a way out. I hope you'll consider donating to one of these domestic abuse non-profits if you're able to, to help others who are struggling:
If you want to volunteer with domestic violence nonprofits, make donations, fundraise for them, or gather information, this can be the ultim
In 2019, Benjamin Netanyahu draped buildings with giant banners that depicted him shaking hands with a grinning Donald Trump. Captioned with the words Another League, the posters presented Netanyahu’s ties with the American president as an argument for the Israeli prime minister’s reelection. No one else, Netanyahu’s campaign implied, could deliver the mercurial man in the White House.
That was then. Today, Netanyahu’s boast has boomeranged, transformed from an electoral asset into an advertisement of his diminished influence. In June alone, Trump has labeled him “fucking crazy” and said that he has “no fucking judgment.” The reprimands have gone beyond rhetoric. According to Israeli and American reports, over the past week, the president forced Israel to abort imminent retaliatory strikes on Iran and demanded that the country restrict its response to Hezbollah fire from Lebanon that has pummeled the Israeli north. Trump also reportedly denied Israel’s request to view the memorandum of understanding that his administration negotiated with Iran until it was already a fait accompli. Desperate for a deal to wind down his ill-conceived war, the president effectively offered Israeli concessions to his Iranian interlocutors.
Trump has railed against Netanyahu in the past, most famously after the Israeli leader congratulated Joe Biden on his 2020 election victory. But the current contretemps has much higher stakes and comes at the worst possible time for Netanyahu. Israel’s elections are slated for either September or October, and Trump has placed the Israeli prime minister in a fiendish vise that jeopardizes his political future.
For years, Netanyahu has built his brand on two promises to the Israeli electorate: that he alone could withstand international pressure to compromise on Israeli security, and that he alone could handle Trump. Now the president is forcing Netanyahu to choose between the two. Either he defies Trump’s diktats about Lebanon and Iran to save his reputation as a stalwart security hawk, or he folds to preserve the perception of his alliance with the president. Whatever path Netanyahu picks, he will imperil Israel’s geopolitical standing and undermine his own case to Israeli voters.
Those voters already aren’t buying what Bibi has been selling. Netanyahu’s coalition of far-right and ultra-Orthodox parties received just 48.4 percent of the vote in Israel’s last election and obtained a parliamentary majority only due to a quirk of the country’s electoral system. Even before the horrors of October 7, 2023, polls had showed Netanyahu and his allies losing the next election. For years after, about two-thirds of Israelis regularly told pollsters that they wanted the prime minister to resign. A similar number today don’t want him to run for reelection. Israel’s opposition is leaderless and fragmented—but nonetheless projected to win markedly more seats than the current government. (Whether it can cobble together a viable coalition is another question.)
Israel’s failed forever wars in Iran and Lebanon have further eroded Netanyahu’s prospects. At the outset of the joint U.S.-Israeli campaign against Iran, the Israel Democracy Institute found that some 70 percent of Israeli Jews believed that the operation could succeed in destroying Iran’s nuclear and ballistic-missile programs, and 61 percent thought that it would topple the Iranian regime. These expectations, stoked by Netanyahu and his media allies, were always unrealistic and have predictably curdled into disillusionment. The institute’s most recent survey found that less than a third of Israeli Jews expected a U.S.-Iran agreement to dismantle the ballistic-missile program or the Iranian regime, and just 29 percent believed that ending the war under current conditions was compatible with Israel’s security interests.
According to Amit Segal, a journalist well sourced on the Israeli right, Netanyahu had hoped to host Trump in Israel before the looming election, in what would essentially have been a campaign rally in diplomatic disguise. Today, such festivities seem fantastical. After the interim Iran accord was announced, the Likud party reportedly canceled a planned electoral blitz meant to highlight its leader’s close ties to Trump. But as a student of power who has done everything he can to hoard it, Netanyahu should have seen this rug pull coming.
As the president has demonstrated time and again, the only person whose interests matter to Trump is Trump. Those interests have often aligned with Netanyahu’s, but this was always a marriage of convenience. Like many of his party and generation, Trump has long held generally pro-Israel inclinations. He cares little for the aspirations of the Palestinian people and has openly fantasized about invading Iran since the 1980s. Tilting toward Israel played to the president’s evangelical-Christian base, as Trump noted when he declared that he recognized Jerusalem as Israel’s capital “for the evangelicals.”
But Trump’s interests were bound to diverge from Netanyahu’s as the Iran war stretched on without resolution. Netanyahu needed military achievements to pitch to voters at the ballot box; Trump needed the markets to calm before the midterms. And so when the campaign failed to produce quick results, Trump pulled the plug, first acceding to a cease-fire in early April, then restraining Israel from bombing Iran and Lebanon this month, and today moving toward an interim accord that lifts sanctions on Iran even as it does little about its nuclear program and says nothing about its ballistic missiles or support for terrorist proxies. That 60-day accord is tentative and fragile and may yet collapse into renewed hostilities. But if the president chooses to see it through, the Israeli leader can do very little about it. As Trump put it today, “We’re the big partner, and he’s the very small partner.”
For Netanyahu, who is finally facing a reckoning before the Israeli electorate, this is a disaster on his doorstep. For Trump, it’s someone else’s problem.
As my friend Julian puts it, only half winkingly: "God blessed me by making me transsexual for the same reason God made wheat but not bread and fruit but not wine, so that humanity might share in the act of creation."
This has been driving me insane because this quote is so incredibly Jewish but every time I saw it was completely divorced from Judaism in the version applying it to 'transsexual'.
The original concept that humans complete the act of creation by making bread from wheat is from the Talmud! And the specific "wheat but not bread, grapes but not wine" phrasing is from Jewish theologian Abraham Heschel but it is missing "clay but not bricks".
And among trans Jews the sentiment was already popular before I ever started seeing this specific phrasing so I knew, knew, knew a Jew and likely a trans Jew was involved.
As it happens, Ortberg's friend Julian is Jewish and they have strongly negative feelings about the way the quote has been removed from the context of their life as someone trans and Jewish. They used to have a thread up on xwitter about it but have since made their account private and only have a very terse FAQ online from which you can glean the treatment they likely received when being more open about their Jewishness, relationship to transness, and the interaction of both.
I looked at Julian's twitter and there's a linked in bio thread about this quote. There are a few clarifying tweets there
1. Julian isn't Jewish.
2. The quote actually is influenced by Jewish theology, specifically Rabbi Akiva.
Anyway, I'm glad I saw their twitter and the thread about this famous quote. It's often misattributed, and it's clear that it annoys Julian when people post this quote starting with "As my friend Julian puts it..." and then cite Danny Lavery (usually with a surname he no longer uses) as the author, when the original quote is available as a tweet from 2018.
I found this reddit thread on bluesky, and the comments are surprisingly a nice read (how can we really verify these comments are from actual tourists and they're being truthful? Eh, I guess we can't do that better than you can on any other reddit thread, but the comments are pretty overwhelmingly positive, so at least some of them are likely from real tourists expressing their real opinions)
Some friendly comments from Americans replying to the last one, too:
Isn't it lucky for non-Jews that she died before she could answer that question one way or the other and now they have a perfect little Jewish corpse to play with like a paper doll 🥰🥰🥰
Anne didn't want anyone to read those pages, she glued the pages together to make sure they were her secrets, she was murdered knowing those were still secrets that only she knew.
Restorers carefully separated the pages and her secrets were published in later editions with the permission of her father Otto Frank. She was young and didn't know what these feelings meant about her, she was a Jewish girl who was murdered so near the beginning of her life that she never had the opportunity or privilege to draw her own conclusions about herself.
Anne Frank's questions about herself don't belong to anyone but Anne Frank.
just a quick fact check re: anne gluing pages together. while anne did glue brown paper over some sections in her diary, these sections contained information about “sexual matters,” including sexual intercourse, menstruation, prostitution, and jokes about sex. in 2016, the anne frank house discovered these passages and restored them + detailed their findings to the public. as far as i can glean from reading articles about this discovery, these passages didn’t describe her sexuality.
however, other sections definitely did—and it’s most likely that otto frank, her father, omitted them in early published editions. anne frank herself was rewriting a new version of her diary for publication; when otto frank helped edit her diary, he included passages from both her own edited and unedited sections.
regardless of semantics here, the through line remains the same: anne frank herself did not ultimately choose which parts of herself to share with the world and which to keep private. otto frank did the best he could to both honor her memory & respect her privacy when omitting passages. (it’s also not hard to determine why either otto or anne might have omitted sections about her attraction to girls in their own respective edits).
furthermore, she did not get the chance to explore an lgbt identity because nazis murdered her for being jewish. that’s the point all comments above & in the tags reiterate and why we’re really tired of lgbt goyim focusing on these sections from her diary—anne frank may be a historical figure now, but she was once a regular young girl who died young because of antisemitism. the least you can do to honor her memory is refrain from speculating about an aspect of her identity she was prevented from exploring & claiming.
regarding the goyische appropriation of anne frank in general, i highly recommend all goyim (and jews) to read this article by dara horn:
Why did we turn an isolated teenage girl into the world’s most famous Holocaust victim?
A Letter to the Minnesota DFL on Blackness, Belonging, and the Politics of Approval
Hey, Jumblr! Seeing anything familiar in this piece? (Bolding by me)
So that "no other minority" thing? Not true. Unfortunately, it shows that the problem is bigger and more widespread than is often assumed.
I have spent much of my adult life arguing with the Democratic Party.
I have questioned candidates. I have questioned policies. I have questioned priorities. I have sat in meetings, attended conventions, organized communities, and participated in countless conversations where disagreement was not only expected but necessary. Politics, after all, is not a religion. It is an ongoing argument about how we ought to live together.
Questioning the party is not new for me.
What is new is the growing realization that the questions themselves have become unwelcome.
That realization has been slow and, at times, painful. It did not arrive through a single election cycle, a single candidate, or a single controversy. It emerged through years of watching a political movement increasingly define itself through the language of inclusion while becoming less comfortable with disagreement. It emerged through countless conversations in which difficult questions were acknowledged but not answered. It emerged through the subtle but unmistakable feeling that belonging was no longer rooted in shared values, but in ideological compliance.
As a Black woman, that feeling is difficult to ignore because it carries echoes of a much older story.
Over the last several years, I have watched the Minnesota DFL increasingly define itself through the language of identity. Diversity, equity, inclusion, representation, belonging these words appear everywhere. They are repeated in speeches, campaign materials, conventions, and community meetings. Yet the more frequently I hear these words, the more I find myself wondering whether we have confused representation with liberation and symbolism with solidarity.
The contradiction became impossible for me to ignore as conversations unfolded around Hennepin County Sheriff Dawanna Witt. To be clear, this is not an argument against criticism. Public officials should be questioned. They should be challenged. Accountability is not oppression, and disagreement is not discrimination.
What troubled me was something else entirely.
What troubled me was watching people who proudly place Black Lives Matter signs in their yards, who speak passionately about protecting democracy, who insist that we must believe Black women, suddenly abandon those principles when confronted with a Black woman they disagreed with.
The issue at hand was the federal immigration enforcement surge that swept across the Twin Cities. People were angry. Fear was real. Communities were frightened. But what I could not understand was why so much of that anger became directed at Sheriff Witt, a county sheriff who neither created federal immigration policy nor controlled federal immigration enforcement.
Yet as I listened to accounts from those present, I heard story after story of people literally turning their backs as she spoke. Not debating her. Not questioning her. Not engaging her. Turning away from her.
There was something profoundly symbolic in that image. A Black woman standing before a crowd that regularly invokes the language of justice, inclusion, representation, and solidarity, only to be met with a gesture of rejection. And I found myself wondering what happens when our slogans collide with our actions. What does it mean to proclaim that Black lives matter, that Black women should be believed, and that democracy requires listening, only to dismiss the experiences of Black women when those experiences become uncomfortable?
And I found myself wondering what happened to all of the slogans.
Where were the lawn signs?
Where were the declarations that Black lives matter?
Where were the calls to believe Black women?
Where was the insistence that democracy depends upon listening, especially when we disagree?
Because democracy is not tested when we hear voices that affirm our existing beliefs. Democracy is tested when we encounter voices that challenge them.
What unsettled me most was not the treatment of Sheriff Witt alone. It was what followed.
What struck me was not disagreement. Disagreement would have required engagement. It would have required listening, asking questions, and taking seriously the experiences that were being shared. Reasonable people can witness the same event and come away with different conclusions. That is not what troubled me. What troubled me was the absence of any real effort to grapple with what Black women and Black elders in my community were trying to communicate.
In the days that followed, I listened as people shared their experiences of what they witnessed. I listened to Black women describe their discomfort. I listened to elders whose commitment to civil rights, coalition building, and community organizing stretches back decades reflect on what they had seen and why it troubled them. These were not people looking for an argument. They were not demanding agreement. They were asking a simple question: Can we talk honestly about what happened?
That is the question I cannot shake. Not because everyone must agree about what happened, but because so many people seemed unwilling to even examine why Black women and Black elders walked away with the same sense of unease. What I witnessed was not a debate. It was a refusal to engage. And I keep returning to the same unsettling thought: What does it mean to invite people to share their lived experiences if we have already decided which experiences are worthy of our attention?
What troubled me most was not just the treatment of one sheriff. It was the realization that many of the same political spaces that insist Black voices matter often appear uncomfortable when Black people exercise independent political judgment. Blackness is celebrated when it confirms the movement’s assumptions. Blackness becomes suspect when it complicates them.
This is not a new phenomenon. Black Americans have spent generations navigating institutions that welcomed our participation while attempting to regulate our autonomy. Historically, this took obvious forms: legal exclusion, segregation, voter suppression, and discrimination. Today the mechanisms are more subtle, but the underlying question remains remarkably similar: Who gets to determine which Black voices are legitimate?
That question has been sitting heavily on my mind because I increasingly see a form of politics that claims to celebrate diversity while quietly narrowing the range of acceptable thought. The expectation is rarely stated outright. No one hands you a list of approved opinions. Yet the boundaries become clear enough. Certain conclusions are rewarded. Certain questions are discouraged. Certain forms of dissent are interpreted not as disagreement but as moral failure.
As a Black woman, I find that deeply unsettling.
I have spent much of my life watching other people project their expectations onto Black bodies. I have watched institutions tell us who we should be, what we should prioritize, and what forms of expression are acceptable. What I did not expect was to encounter a progressive version of the same instinct. Different language. Different intentions. The same impulse to determine which forms of Blackness deserve validation.
Increasingly, it feels as though support is conditional. Representation is conditional. Solidarity is conditional.
We are told Black lives matter, but I find myself wondering whether what is actually meant is that Black lives matter when they remain politically useful. Black voices matter when they affirm prevailing narratives. Black women matter when they arrive at approved conclusions. Once disagreement enters the picture, the celebration often fades.
The irony is difficult to ignore. Movements that speak passionately about dismantling systems of power can become remarkably uncomfortable when marginalized people exercise power in unexpected ways. Organizations that champion diversity often struggle with genuine diversity of thought. Communities that celebrate authenticity can become suspicious of anyone who refuses to perform the identity they have been assigned.
This realization has forced me to confront an uncomfortable truth. The political tradition I inherited taught me that coalition building requires humility. It requires accepting that people who share your values may disagree about solutions. It requires the ability to remain in relationship with those who challenge your assumptions. What I increasingly see instead is a politics of litmus tests a politics where belonging depends less on shared principles than on ideological conformity.
That is what grieves me.
Not that people disagree. Disagreement is healthy. Disagreement is necessary. What grieves me is the growing sense that many institutions no longer know how to hold disagreement without interpreting it as betrayal.
And so I find myself asking a question I never expected to ask of the Minnesota DFL: If your commitment to Black voices disappears the moment those voices challenge you, what exactly is it that you are committed to?
Because there is a difference between supporting Black people and supporting a particular performance of Blackness.
There is a difference between representation and agency.
There is a difference between inclusion and obedience.
The distance between those ideas may be the distance between the party I once knew and the party standing before me today.
Internet progressive post 2: Everyone who disagrees with me even a little is Evil TM and I revel in the thought of them suffering.
Internet progressive post 3: Bad People TM are inhuman monsters and I, a good and perfect smol bean never have to worry being like them because I am a person unlike the Bads.
Internet progressive post 4: the jews are stealing organs and baking matzah with children's blood.
Internet progressive post 5: ngl hitler was kinda based
#all of this. this whole list#not a single stance or principles beyond ‘my way or the highway’#and ‘my hatefulness is ‘morally superior & justified’’#it’s always ‘xyz need to happen now and nothing else is important’ but the topic switches every hour or get mismatched together#and don’t ask them what plans they actually have to put any of their ideas in place#they circle back around to the talking points they rely on because there’s no real attempt#they just expect us to be ready to sacrifice ourselves at a moment’s notice with a smile#the ‘hold the line’ of progressives#Internet progressives
So many people who call themselves "progressive" have done nothing to develop a set of personal principles, let alone a personal praxis to live those principles in daily function. They are just floating along on "what I believe in is right and so therefore I am always right" vibes and it is nothing but evangelism with the serial numbers filed off. They're just the opposite side of the coin from Mike Johnson and Joel Osteen.
What is up with lefty types pushing to learn practical skills (sewing/gardening/etc whatever) as like "you'll need to know this after The Revolution:tm:" and not, like, "this is a useful skill to help yourself & others in your communities Right Now". You all sound like doomsday preppers and it's weirding me out. We don't have to prep for communist rapture maybe thee revolution starts with helping your neighbors
YOU KNOW WHAT I MEAN LIKE....... it's weird. It's a subtle distinction but it's weird. People wanna be protagonists in post apocalypse movies so bad & when you're like "well that's not going to fucking happen innit" they call you a counterrevolutionary. Like yeah no I'm on board with dismantling the establishment etc etc I'm just saying you're being fucking weird about it. This is an action movie hero fantasy in a gen z aesthetic trenchcoat. You can just repair your clothes and feed people Right Now
The line I’ve heard from Jewish Trump supporters for the last 3 years is that he’s good at diplomacy with dictators in the Middle East because he “speaks their language”.
And no shit he does. Because he’s one of them. He “speaks the language” of authoritarian dictators with no regard for human rights because he’s a mobbed-up authoritarian wannabe dictator with no regard for human rights.
And what you need to understand is that this also goes the other way: they speak his language. They can get him to fold as long as they give him big flashy airplanes, and stroke his ego and pad his wallet enough.
He talks rough, and he’ll bulldoze anyone who gets in the way of what he wants, not because he’s actually strong, but because he’s an infantile spoiled brat who demands his way. This is exactly the same reason he also rolls over and barks like a dog the second he’s promised a treat.
What he wants is not what you want, no matter how much he tries to sell you that line. He is out for himself, the rest of us be damned.
He’s not the Ayatollah whisperer. He just wants to be a member of whatever club the Ayatollah is in.
The Monkey's Den @monkeymongola - Tumblr Blog | Tumgag
