3 ms·

Apparently, this was done to promote "intellectual diversity"! I wonder if she would have been in compliance with the "intellectual diversity" law if she had al

Apparently, this was done to promote "intellectual diversity"! I wonder if she would have been in compliance with the "intellectual diversity" law if she had also presented the perspective of the MAGA crowd on why they believe MAGA isn't about racism or white supremacy? I do feel one needs to be quite careful when using current political labels, and taking sides on it in an academic discourse, because the long-term consequences of the politics behind it (positive or negative) on society remains to be seen - as it is current, one doesn't know how it will impact society, and in some ways, you may end making a biased judgement call of it that may never pan out.

defrost 1y ago
That would have been a nuanced conversation with some breadth (albeit skewed right) given that JD Vance was recently warned by a right wing source about the recent even more right wing Groyper takeover of the GOP. JD Vance Received a Dire Warning About the Groyper Takeover of the GOP From a Strange Source (November, 2025) “After these last three days in Washington, I am more convinced than I have ever been that we are moving towards some kind of totalitarianism — or at best, authoritarianism,” said Dreher. The claim that more than a third of young GOP staffers are at least sympathetic to Fuentes isn’t entirely shocking. Recent years have seen numerous indications that this new brand of neo-Nazism and white nationalism has increasingly taken hold in the right-wing establishment. and what’s notable about Dreher’s post isn’t the idea that Groypers are ascendant in the MAGA era. The remarkable thing here is the fact this message to Vance came from fairly far out on the right. Dreher is perhaps most famous for his 2018 book — The Benedict Option — in which he pitched the idea that conservative Christians should form their own separatist communities due to their concerns about modern, secular values and the increasing acceptance of the LGBTQ community. In a 2022 essay where Dreher discussed the fact his father had been a Klansman, he described himself as a “race liberal” while also asserting “black people and white people really were very different in terms of culture,” including what he called a “sexual code” among African-Americans that includes teenage motherhood and absentee fathers. In the very essay where he decried the rising tide of Groyperism in D.C., Dreher repeatedly empathized with the roots of these young extremists’ anger and declared that, while anti-Semitism is misguided, Europe has been overwhelmed by a “Muslim mob.” ~ https://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/jd-vance-received-a-dire-warning-about-the-groyper-takeover-of-the-gop-from-a-strange-source https://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/jd-vance-received-a-dire-... So much for those that claimed MAGA lacked diversity, disagreement about the angle of salute has scale akin to that of Lilliput and Blefuscu.
- thisislife2 1y ago
  And personally, as someone who isn't American, I honestly don't see much difference between the Republicans and Democrats, apart from how they do their political propaganda. While they do try to portray themselves as different to the public, both of them are ideologically right-leaning, and even have similar spectrum of politicians as members - from conservatives to progressive. But when it comes to policies, they all have the same ideas and just bicker on how to implement it. A good and recent example of it is how the Democrats recently "caved in" on the healthcare issue with the Republicans (there was no "caving in" - many Democrats do support the Trump administration policies on healthcare). Or how the core Democrat party remains wary of Zohran Mamdani and didn't even support him.
  - defrost 1y ago
    See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hotelling%27s_law https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hotelling%27s_law The US electoral system was essentially doomed to iteratively spiral into two blocs, neither of which significantly represent a sizable chunk of the US population. It's the unfortunate emergent behaviour of a system set up hundreds of years ago by founders opposed to Kings, little kings, and dominant Party politics. Had they the means to model iterative dynamic systems and the time to do so, they might have chosen better, instead Franklin noted that it was "good enough for now" (then) and that without attention and upkeep would slide into despotism. My own great grandparents went with a Washminster system, a hybrid of UK and US governance, with elections that evolved to avoid First Past the Post as a nod toward greater choice and keeping the bastards honest (a once popular minority party slogan here). Don't Hate the Player, Hate the Game Rules?
  - graemep 1y ago
    We have had a uniparty in the UK two for the last few decades. At least dating back to Blair becoming leader of the labour party in 1994.
  - thomassmith65 1y ago
    This generation of Republicans are opposed to liberal democracy. Democrats are not. There are other real differences, but given the enormity of that one, why bother? Dems didn't support Mamdani because he's a liability outside large, progressive cities.

defrost 1y ago

That would have been a nuanced conversation with some breadth (albeit skewed right) given that JD Vance was recently warned by a right wing source about the recent even more right wing Groyper takeover of the GOP. JD Vance Received a Dire Warning About the Groyper Takeover of the GOP From a Strange Source (November, 2025) “After these last three days in Washington, I am more convinced than I have ever been that we are moving towards some kind of totalitarianism — or at best, authoritarianism,” said Dreher. The claim that more than a third of young GOP staffers are at least sympathetic to Fuentes isn’t entirely shocking. Recent years have seen numerous indications that this new brand of neo-Nazism and white nationalism has increasingly taken hold in the right-wing establishment. and what’s notable about Dreher’s post isn’t the idea that Groypers are ascendant in the MAGA era. The remarkable thing here is the fact this message to Vance came from fairly far out on the right. Dreher is perhaps most famous for his 2018 book — The Benedict Option — in which he pitched the idea that conservative Christians should form their own separatist communities due to their concerns about modern, secular values and the increasing acceptance of the LGBTQ community. In a 2022 essay where Dreher discussed the fact his father had been a Klansman, he described himself as a “race liberal” while also asserting “black people and white people really were very different in terms of culture,” including what he called a “sexual code” among African-Americans that includes teenage motherhood and absentee fathers. In the very essay where he decried the rising tide of Groyperism in D.C., Dreher repeatedly empathized with the roots of these young extremists’ anger and declared that, while anti-Semitism is misguided, Europe has been overwhelmed by a “Muslim mob.” ~ https://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/jd-vance-received-a-dire-warning-about-the-groyper-takeover-of-the-gop-from-a-strange-source https://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/jd-vance-received-a-dire-... So much for those that claimed MAGA lacked diversity, disagreement about the angle of salute has scale akin to that of Lilliput and Blefuscu.

thisislife2 1y ago
And personally, as someone who isn't American, I honestly don't see much difference between the Republicans and Democrats, apart from how they do their political propaganda. While they do try to portray themselves as different to the public, both of them are ideologically right-leaning, and even have similar spectrum of politicians as members - from conservatives to progressive. But when it comes to policies, they all have the same ideas and just bicker on how to implement it. A good and recent example of it is how the Democrats recently "caved in" on the healthcare issue with the Republicans (there was no "caving in" - many Democrats do support the Trump administration policies on healthcare). Or how the core Democrat party remains wary of Zohran Mamdani and didn't even support him.
- defrost 1y ago
  See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hotelling%27s_law https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hotelling%27s_law The US electoral system was essentially doomed to iteratively spiral into two blocs, neither of which significantly represent a sizable chunk of the US population. It's the unfortunate emergent behaviour of a system set up hundreds of years ago by founders opposed to Kings, little kings, and dominant Party politics. Had they the means to model iterative dynamic systems and the time to do so, they might have chosen better, instead Franklin noted that it was "good enough for now" (then) and that without attention and upkeep would slide into despotism. My own great grandparents went with a Washminster system, a hybrid of UK and US governance, with elections that evolved to avoid First Past the Post as a nod toward greater choice and keeping the bastards honest (a once popular minority party slogan here). Don't Hate the Player, Hate the Game Rules?
- graemep 1y ago
  We have had a uniparty in the UK two for the last few decades. At least dating back to Blair becoming leader of the labour party in 1994.
- thomassmith65 1y ago
  This generation of Republicans are opposed to liberal democracy. Democrats are not. There are other real differences, but given the enormity of that one, why bother? Dems didn't support Mamdani because he's a liability outside large, progressive cities.