The other day, I tweeted out my tin-foil-hat theory that the recent BTC runup was partly due to alt-right interests, expecting the events on the 6th to go very differently.
This kind of makes me wonder even harder.
This kind of makes me wonder even harder.
Additionally, Tesla has the advantage that many European countries are phasing out ICE vehicles and Tesla is the solid tech lead, plus the hype machine that Elon Musk has created... it's not surprising to me that Tesla is a very much sought-after stock. And unlike Wirecard or P&R Containers, Tesla has actual cars on the road with government records certifying that number.
David Columbia, the author, provides evidence of right-wing associations with cryptocurrency.
This run will probably last as long as their finances allow. I don't think it'll end on January 20th. The delusions have held this long, it's probably going to continue.
It's terrible. Not only have these conspiracy theories led to isolation and a destruction of their social networks but soon it'll also lead to their financial ruin as bitcoin will inevitably crash once again (I'm holding tens of thousands in crypto. I know it's a day at the casino. My fear is about those that don't. The current flurry of nonsecuritized uninsured bank looking companies that have surfaced in this crypto bubble isn't helping one bit. Stable coins are fine, but give the depositors some security)
It's very plausible but I don't want to lump independent groups together.
In the same way that many leftist groups really don't like each other and it's probably wrong to lump them together.
Totally plausible but I haven't seen direct evidence. (I also haven't, say, done any analysis of historical tweets from qanon believers for the evidence)
It's ultimately unimportant as they're both part of the same overarching bullshit movement, but something sounding logical doesn't constitute valid evidence.
Plus coastal elites (including non-elites who still identify as hollier-than the plebs in the fly-over country) sneering at them.
The glorious march of the stock market, or the glorious technological future, only meant being worse of (job prospects, housing costs, healthcare costs, education costs, etc.) for them. Even openly calling out a 40% who voted another candidate "deplorables".
So from this European's standapoint, it makes sense for these people to consider more of the status quo to mean "return to the dark ages".
Obama encouraged organizations that were re-training coal miners and others in dead industries to join the digital workforce.
It's the alt-right who have been promising to go back to 'normal' and that coal is the future. The economics aren't there, fossil fuels is a dying industry. Even if we aren't elimiating fossil fuels tomorrow, we don't need 2,000 men underground digging, we have machines, automation and different mining methods now.
Any one who perpetuates this idea that we can get through this without radical change is fooling themselves.
Is Biden going to lead us into the future? Unlikely, but he is not going to perpetuate a lie. Coal is not coming back, drivers are on the way out, the economy is going to be turned upsides down in the next decade and we need to admit that fact.
What a wrote wasn't just about coal. Heck, I didn't ever had coal in mind when I wrote it. It's a general situation with working class jobs and middle class prospects, that's way beyond coal shutting down.
And the "encouraged organizations that were re-training coal miners and others in dead industries to join the digital workforce" part shows how out of touch those running the "business as usual" part were.
This is the advice/career path famously summarized as "learn to code", as if 40-50 year old coal miners (and millions of people in other working class jobs) are suddenly going to be able to complete those programs and join some "digital workforce" (in any capacity other than POS operators). And as if the market eagerly awaits for those people to join the digital workforce and will jump at the chance to hire them.
This is at-least one source of coal (and other fossil fuels) being politicized this election cycle.
https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2020/09/29/joe-biden-no-c...
You should watch the relevant answer from Biden[0], the Brietbart article is heavily biased and misleading.
His position is simple and data driven, it is no longer economically viable and the market will no longer create any new coal or oil fire plants in America.
To fact check Biden: "Under the 25-year contract ... Los Angeles ... would pay less than 2 cents per kilowatt-hour ... the lowest price ever paid for solar power in the United States, and cheaper than the cost of electricity from a typical natural gas-fired power plant"[1]. This includes the cost of production and storage.
But what about other parts of the country with less sun? "solar and wind energy will dominate America’s new generation in 2020, making up 76% of new generation ..., while coal and natural gas will dominate 2020 retirements with 85% of plant closures."[2]. And this was 2020 while Trump was helping the fossil fuel industry.
[0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wW1lY5jFNcQ&start=1h44m03s
[1] https://www.latimes.com/environment/story/2019-08-27/los-ang...
[2] https://www.forbes.com/sites/energyinnovation/2020/01/21/ren...
> Here’s what he said: "During our administration in the recovery act, I was...able to bring down the cost of renewable energy to cheaper than or as cheap as coal, and gas, and oil. Nobody’s going to build another coal-fired power plant in America. No one’s going to build another oil-fired plant in America. They’re going to move to renewable energy."
If Biden promises to increase subsidies for renewables (which, as I understand, he plans to do), and that causes disinvestment away from say gas-fired plants, isn't it reasonable for folks in places like Pennsylvania and Texas where fracking is a huge part of the economy to oppose such measures?
If "the market" is going to make it so nobody builds new gas-fired plants (I agree the market won't build new coal or oil plants) why is Biden proposing $2 trillion in subsidies for renewables?
To be clear, I think Biden's renewables plan is basically the correct one, but its going to be bad for currently prosperous middle class parts of Pennsylvania, Texas, etc., that rely heavily on gas extraction.
You can argue that their feelings of economic greivance make sense--but their voting habits are a rejection of policies like universal healthcare (which would benefit the vast majority of them) because "socialism." They eagerly voted in those who planned to dismantle the ACA and loudly said they would do so in 2016 ("repeal and replace"), then when the Republicans attempted to leave them high and dry, everyone, including Trump, panicked and backed out. What's going on here?
This attempt to make them sound reasonable in their fear glosses over the obvious contradictions in how they vote and where they think their problems lie. What will four more years of Republican tax cuts coupled with absurd austerity politics get them? Biden is worse than this because...?
Compare:
>Fascism is strongly opposed to the individualism found in classical liberalism. Fascists accuse liberalism of de-spiritualizing human beings and transforming them into materialistic beings whose highest ideal is moneymaking.[261] In particular, fascism opposes liberalism for its materialism, rationalism, individualism and utilitarianism.[262] Fascists believe that the liberal emphasis on individual freedom produces national divisiveness.[261] Mussolini criticized classical liberalism for its individualistic nature, writing: "Against individualism, the Fascist conception is for the State; ... It is opposed to classical Liberalism ... Liberalism denied the State in the interests of the particular individual; Fascism reaffirms the State as the true reality of the individual."[263] However, Fascists and Nazis support a type of hierarchical individualism in the form of Social Darwinism because they believe it promotes "superior individuals" and weeds out "the weak".[264] They also accuse both Marxism and democracy, with their emphasis on equality, of destroying individuality in favor of the "dead weight" of the masses.[265]
...
Fascists saw contemporary politics as a life or death struggle of their nations against Marxism, and they believed that liberalism weakened their nations in this struggle and left them defenseless.[268] While the socialist left was seen by the fascists as their main enemy, liberals were seen as the enemy's accomplices, "incompetent guardians of the nation against the class warfare waged by the socialists."[268]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fascism_and_ideology#Liberalis...
I think an issue we're seeing is American schools don't really teach anything about the Fascists outside of the context of WW2 itself and the Holocaust, and it means regular people don't recognize it in the Republican's rhetoric.
https://timeline.com/business-plot-overthrow-fdr-9a59a012c32...
They didn't attack Biden as being those things. They attacked Biden for being old, not entirely there, and weak barrier against the radical elements of the Democratic Party. For example Karen Bass, who was on Biden's VP shortlist, had a bunch of communist ties: https://www.lamag.com/citythinkblog/karen-bass-vice-presiden...
> First reported were her ill-chosen words upon the death of Fidel Castro in 2016, she opined, that “the passing of the Comandante en Jefe is a great loss to the people of Cuba.” Ouch! But politically survivable.
> Far more damaging was news that that Bass first visited the island while, in college, at age 19, in 1973 with the Venceremos Brigade, a group popular with leftwing student radicals and social progressives that organized and ferried Americans to Cuba to cut sugar cane and build homes—in defiance of the U.S. Embargo and policy. She would take eight trips with the Brigade during the 1970s alone
As to "anti-American" many on the left embraced taking the name of founding fathers off of school buildings. My magnet high school in Virginia is named after Thomas Jefferson and there has been an effort to rename it. Even Abraham Lincoln has been indicted (if not yet convicted): https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/factcheck/2020/12/20/fac....
Taking Thomas Jefferson's name off a school building is a declaration of war to conservatives. They believe that civilization is a product of history and tradition and practice, not abstract principles. The idea you can "keep the good things Jefferson believed" while ditching the historical figure himself is something that makes no sense to them. It'd be like taking Jesus out of the Bible.
> You can argue that their feelings of economic greivance make sense--but their voting habits are a rejection of policies like universal healthcare (which would benefit the vast majority of them) because "socialism."
Trump voters already have healthcare. They're disproportionately likely to be folks who bear greater burdens under the ACA--like small business owners. Or the majority of people who are happy with their private health insurance.
More generally, the Republican Party is a coalition of social conservatives (some of whom are quite economically liberal) and economic conservatives. Voting Democrat wouldn't make any sense for them, especially because, as you observe, the Democratic Party is staunchly neo-liberal as well. I recall listening to interviews with Trump voters around Scranton (where Joe Biden was born). Folks were talking about how they were multi-generational Democratic voters, but were disillusioned by Democrats' support for NAFTA, etc. If Democrats chose to prioritize social liberalism and economic neo-liberalism it makes totally sense for those folks to vote Republican.
> Trump voters already have healthcare. They're disproportionately likely to be folks who bear greater burdens under the ACA--like small business owners. Or the majority of people who are happy with their private health insurance.
I don't understand this at all. The ACA has been a godsend for myself who over the last 8 years been an owner(for 4 years) and employee(for 4 years) at a small business. It allowed me to work for a small business(as both an employee and an owner) because I could get insurance. I tried getting insurance before the ACA and was denied because my testosterone levels were 5% under the cut off for normal.
And second it's been super helpful because the biggest barrier to recruiting for a small business is healthcare. Specifically many developers are willing to take a 30k+ paycut to get premium healthcare(which isn't providing 30k of value but is unpurchaseable for small clients) and this problem was worse pre-ACA. If we had a Medicare option the job market would be more efficient, and small businesses would be better able to compete with enterprise.
Since the elites that push them over and throw them to the dustbins of history as deplorables are mostly Democratic, and the elites that hypocrically placate to them as lip service are mostly Republican (hypocritically since both serve the same neoliberal agenda), those masses confuse their liberalism (left-leaning-ness) as a reason that they hurt them.
That the Democrat elites and coastal pundits also hate their (the fly-over peoples) guts and everything they stand for culturally (e.g. them being more conservative wrt tradition, family, etc.), and diss them from a left/socialist point of view is also another reason for those masses to consider that "socialism" is their enemy.
Because for them socialism is not some benevolent Swedish style state socialism that caters to their needs, or old-style workers-first aid, but superficial cultural "socialism" with "fuck these backwards people" at its mast flag combined with neoliberal policies.
If the Democrats actually catered to their needs (rural growth, working/middle class jobs, wage stagnation, skyrocketing college, health costs, etc) and also had a sincere dialogue about those people's values (instead of pushing the latest SJW cause as if it's something everybody should get on with pronto or they are Hitler -- when in reality it's things not even the foremost leftists in the US championed just 20 or 30 years ago, never mind the Democrats themselves. Heck, Obama himself was publicly against something as inoffensive as gay marriage back in the day iirc, never mind other modern causes) and didn't consider them all backwards rednecks that should be put into re-education camps, the same people would change their mind about "socialism" and such.
But instead the Democrats publicly deplore them, and use those social justice causes as a substitute for real progressive policies (economic, for peace, for curbing big tech, etc.).
>You can argue that their feelings of economic greivance make sense--but their voting habits are a rejection of policies like universal healthcare (which would benefit the vast majority of them) because "socialism."
From what I've read and discussed with some people there - haven't delved much into it to read the details - the ACA mostly benefited the very poor and welfare, while did two things for working class and middle class people: it increased their healthcare costs and also (I see mentioned) make them not able to keep the doctors they used to see.
If true, this is not a case of those masses "voting against their interests", but the other side confusing the very poor/welfare recipients etc (who assumedly did benefit from ACA) with the working/lower middle class (who was hurt by it), and wondering why the latter don't jump with joy about ACA.
>What will four more years of Republican tax cuts coupled with absurd austerity politics get them? Biden is worse than this because...?
To my eyes both parties are neoliberal and thus bad.
That said, Trump (not the GOP) term was marked by less (no?) wars and hawkish behavior (good for the globe at large) and a promise to scale-back American "democracy export business" (e.g. war).
That alone, and thus hundreds of thousands not impacted by that, is better than anything we could see coming from legendarily hawkish Hillary, in my book. With regards to Biden, let's see.
Trump also spoke against outsourcing everything and about rampant globalism, which, last time I checked (I'm old) it was one of the concerns of our side (the leftists), people fought in Seattle protests, Genova protests, etc. Suddenly, people on the left seem to consider this to have gone out of style, just out of partisanship to the Democrats against Trump.
As for domestically, all the numbers I've seen put the number of e.g. blacks shot by cops as the same during the Obama years, and the numbers of migrants deported roughly the same as well. So on that front, I see more partisanship and cant, than actual difference.
This sounds like a Biden campaign ad. I don’t find takes where the Professional Twitter Opinion LoudPeople are “the left” and “the right” are very interesting. Picking an extreme/outlier take and saying “look what the left/right thinks! aren’t they crazy!!” is exactly why the political discourse is so dumb. What are we supposed to do about it? I think Twitter is dumb
And this should begin by absolutely banning any kind of donation above, say, a small dollar amount per person (with very strict criminal penalties for bypassing this in any way). Want to get funding as a party? Find more persons to fund you -- as opposed to non-representative parties being pushed forward by large donors.
Then again, it's your parties, do as you wish with them. But no real political discussion is ever gonna come out of those...
Your comment makes me imagine a person in a room somewhere with the ability to change everything all around, but they just haven’t seen that they need to do it. The truth is that there are lots of people dedicating their life’s work to improving the system, but the system is complex – it has billions of people with competing priorities – and even pretending someone has the correct answer about how the system should be rearranged, implementing that system would be a task akin to moving oceans.
To look at it another way, they really expect the end of American and Joe Biden and/or Kamala Harris are just the right wing villains of the moment. You could pick anyone else from the field of Democratic politicians and they would equally be treated as the harbinger of the apocalypse.
The underlying anxiety of the alt-right (though not every single individual therein) is that 2020 was the first year when white people became a minority of the youngest (u18) demographic cohort. As most far-right adherents in the US build their politics around racial identity this is regarded by them as the onset of demographic winter, historical decline, fall of empire et.c etc.
I think the white identity thing is more widespread on the far right than you appreciate; even neo-nazis have examples of ethnic diversity that they like to bring out (eg photographs of black soldiers in wehrmacht uniform socializing with caucasians) but these are employed mainly as an aid to entryism in breaking down reflexive hostility to national socialism, rather than because neo-Nazis are actually trying to build an ethnically diverse movement.
People really seemed to honestly feel that way about Obama... then Obama again. I expect people will feel that way about whatever Democrat eventually gets elected next too.