It’s weaponized dishonesty. They push a false narrative of the “extreme left” because it energizes their extreme base. The fact that they are hypocrites only seems to subconsciously fuel the “own the libs” bullshit.

The argument is he chose countries that did not provide enough information to the US for certain vetting. But that’s a dishonest argument. Trump and his cronies chose a list from the Obama era that involved dual-nationals from visa waiver countries, meaning that if someone was say a Dutch and Pakistani citizen if…

But the term “liberal democracy” covers all of that. That’s the term used most often in political science literature because the distinction between a liberal and illiberal democracy (and the spectrum between them) is far more useful than democracy vs republic, which is based in outdated theory and ironically in the…

That line of argument has always been a mark of charlatanism to me. If you actually study political science the US is definitely within the spectrum of liberal democracies, though right now we’re taking a solid illiberal turn along with most of the world. The whole “republic vs democracy” talking point relies on…

The most damaging part of this is that the Supreme Court has basically abdicated responsibility for checking whether whatever appeal to national security the government makes is actually supported by fact. The majority decision basically says it doesn’t matter, because it’s in the President’s power, whether the…

I have absolutely zero issue with a restaurant owner taking that stand. If you read their comments, a lot of it was having LGBTQ staff. I mean, if I was the them I would have refused too, even at the risk of losing my job. Pointless symbolic stands sometimes have value, and I’m not going to judge anyone who chooses to…

Ah well there might be a variable you aren’t aware of. There is currently a theory on the far-right, it’s probably spread more widely now, that someone at the restaurant tipped off the protesters. I saw it mentioned on a number of far-right Twitter accounts last night, along with demands that the DoJ fire an employee…

I disagree. I think this is a behavior that has at least some origin in the way economic frameworks penetrate American society, which is largely a reflection of the neoliberal consensus in US politics.

It has to do with the predominant neoliberal schema for viewing and understanding the world. Neoliberal ideology views everything through an economic lens, in the same way Realist IR theory views everything through the lens of power, mostly state power. It’s the assumption under their framework.

I have, and it’s the neoliberal focus on viewing the world through a heavily economically focused, if not solely economically focused, lens. That is a neoliberal trait, even if it’s not as blatant outside the US which has a stronger capitalist bend. 

Our entire society revolves around money as speech, as social worth, as political and social power. Hitting someone in the wallet is one of the only possible ways for the average citizen to express their opinion on a group or issue. That’s not good, but it’s just adaptation to the system.

It’s not a myth. It’s been proven through empirical analysis on social media.

Of course he should, but he’s not going to. Miller has given him most of his victories in far-right media. 

No, I get you. No judgement here. Retreating into dispassionate analyst mode is part of my way of coping with the same thing. The good news is it’s not as bad as it seems because of a lot of factors like the ones I mentioned, but that’s not really a defense against the emotional toll. It’s still bad. There’s still a…

Yeah, but a significant portion of that is soft support. They support it because it’s been linked to their tribal political identity and they’ve been fed misinformation by the right wing media ecosystem. Those people aren’t committed, and if the issue falls out of the news cycle it’ll leave their minds. You might find…

“I never intended to do the thing I explicitly said I’d do and then defended multiple times on the record”.

GEO group, Corrections Corporation of America/CoreCivic, Bethany Christian Services, Southwest Key. Those are the ones I know and have seen reported. The first two are outright “private prison” corporations. The latter two have been involved with the child internment and resettlement. Bethany Christian Services is a…

It’s finally happened. The US has finally decided to copy Israel’s “administrative detention”. Though I suppose at least we’ll charge people and not use secret evidence, but in reality the indefinite detention is effectively similar. So we’re slightly better, on paper. 

I mean, that is important. It’s good it’s that low. The problem is people take that accurate bit of data and then just disconnect. They don’t take action it just gets dismissed. Why 27% support it and whether that’s a problem gets lost.

Well, it depends. On one hand they aren’t uniformed combatants so it’s been argued portions of the Geneva Conventions don’t apply to them, hence the Bush era neologism and Guantanamo issues.