Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

Welsh rarebit @welshrarebit.bsky.social · 1h

If accurate, this is Trump at his most Hitlerian. Hitler and Speer planned an enormous triumphal arch at the center of their reconstruction plans for Berlin.

Welsh rarebit @welshrarebit.bsky.social · 1h

This highlights a deeply bizarre feature of our age: America’s 250-year old democracy is being demolished by a man with the mind of a child. Who could have guessed that it was so fragile?

Welsh rarebit @welshrarebit.bsky.social · 2h

Can Congress pass a law to take away Obama’s prize? That’s what started this whole ridiculous affair.

1

Welsh rarebit @welshrarebit.bsky.social · 3h

Also a sign that by associating the Democrats with Antifa they’re heading towards declaring the Party a terrorist organization.

3

Welsh rarebit @welshrarebit.bsky.social · 3h

These people…

1

Welsh rarebit @welshrarebit.bsky.social · 3h

Still, it wasn't a wholly vacuous question whether the Nobel Committee might be cowed by the pressure campaign. I'm glad they weren't, but, as we are seeing every day, plenty of people aren't capable of mustering that kind of courage.

1 4

Welsh rarebit @welshrarebit.bsky.social · 4h

Also a legitimate perspective!

1

Welsh rarebit @welshrarebit.bsky.social · 5h

Chicago is to Trump what Atlanta was to General Sherman.

2

Welsh rarebit @welshrarebit.bsky.social · 5h

This is all about 2020 isn’t it? As usual he can’t tell the difference between present and past, and it fits with his mentality of bearing grudges and plotting retribution.

4

Welsh rarebit @welshrarebit.bsky.social · 5h

A constructive suggestion!

10

Welsh rarebit @welshrarebit.bsky.social · 5h

What it does show is Trump’s mastery of media and “the attention economy.” But yes, it’s lamentable.

4 42

Welsh rarebit @welshrarebit.bsky.social · 6h

Now if there was a Nobel Prize for all-round awesomeness …

1

Welsh rarebit @welshrarebit.bsky.social · 6h

But if you count the wars that never started thanks to him, then it’s in the hundreds.

2

Welsh rarebit @welshrarebit.bsky.social · 1d

This whole cognitive frame - rural “real” America, traditional values vs decadent urban America overrun by crime and disease - has been nurtured by right wing media for 30 years. By now people are firmly locked in.

20

Welsh rarebit @welshrarebit.bsky.social · 1d

Figures are figures, but it’s still surprising. Trump (and Putin!) have been so successful in framing the issue in terms of the US culture war, Ukraine being turned into a “woke” cause, it’s hard to imagine that being reversed.

1 1 6

Welsh rarebit @welshrarebit.bsky.social · 2d

One feels that if only Comey could be publicly humiliated by a perp walk Trump would be satisfied and drop it. It’s always the image, never the substance.

12

Welsh rarebit @welshrarebit.bsky.social · 2d

A factor in play in the interwar period - maybe now also - is that many people supported fascism who saw themselves as conservatives. They believed in the same things (country, order) and hated the same things (socialism, decadence). That enabled the drift from one to the other.

1

Welsh rarebit @welshrarebit.bsky.social · 2d

In theory she’s the nation’s top law officer, mandated to protect the rule of law. In practice she’s more like a consigliere for a crime family.

2 15

Welsh rarebit @welshrarebit.bsky.social · 3d

The fact that he got reelected despite being found liable in the E Jean Carroll case suggests that Americans don’t care all that much about these sexual offenses. If someone is rich and famous they tend to get a free pass.

1 16

Welsh rarebit @welshrarebit.bsky.social · 3d

Yes, that remark was the giveaway, wasn’t it.

5

Welsh rarebit @welshrarebit.bsky.social · 3d

Putin’s great insight, which he probably reached 20 years ago or more, is that racism is the Achilles heel of western societies. With brilliant success he continues to exploit and exacerbate it in order to further Russia’s recovery of its great power status.

2 7

Welsh rarebit @welshrarebit.bsky.social · 3d

There’s a whole theory that Brexit was dreamed up and funded by people who wanted to protect their access to tax havens, which was being threatened by EU policy. It was then sold to the masses as a patriotic thing.

2 6

Welsh rarebit @welshrarebit.bsky.social · 4d

Um … Justice Kavanaugh would like a word.

4

Welsh rarebit @welshrarebit.bsky.social · 4d

That’s right, nothing new. I think it’s really helpful to place the current crisis in that historical perspective.

1 5

Welsh rarebit @welshrarebit.bsky.social · 4d

Jefferson Cowie’s book Freedom’s Dominion is an eye-opener in that regard.

1 1 14