- Joined
- Jun 18, 2018
- Messages
- 81,913
- Reaction score
- 86,985
- Gender
- Male
- Political Leaning
- Progressive
1. Fantasy. There is no true and false. There is no such thing as lying. There are just “stories,” as Vance says. So in one world (let’s call it the real world, for old-time’s sake), a cat disappeared for a moment, as cats will, and then reappeared, as cats will, in the basement. In another world, the Trump-Vance fantasy world, that cat was eaten by Haitians, as part of a general trend of pet consumption, one which justifies their deportation and our outrage etc.
2. Impotence. Central to the Trump-Vance campaign is a politics of impotence. The government cannot actually do anything for the average citizen. (In the background, of course, a smaller, dysfunctional government creates a void filled by the oligarchs, which is the practical implication of this theory). In elaborating the cats-and-dogs fantasy about his home state, Vance is revealing to us his theory of federal power. ... Project 2025 expels the civil servants who know what to do, nothing works anymore except for oligarchs and pals of the president, and the rest of us get Schrödinger’s Cat.
A person holding a position of authority and responsibility in the federal government has no other role than to talk about things that are not true and pass on responsibility for the untruth to the media, as Vance does. Remember: Vance is a United States Senator representing Ohio. If there were some actual problem in Ohio he could propose to address it with legislation. But he cannot and will not do so, not only because there is no actual problem, but because he must personify impotent government.
3. Fascism. In the Trump-Vance political theory, government acts not in the normal way, by laws, but as an instrument of the fury of the people. There is no legal basis, or indeed any basis at all, to call for the Haitian population of Springfield, Ohio to be deported. The people in question are here legally, as Trump and Vance know, and did nothing, as Trump and Vance also know.
In fascism, the government becomes the will of the people, or rather the race, as embodied in a single person. A fantasy of evil done by others is deliberately invoked to create a sense of us and them. Government exercises power by taking revenge on groups, for example by deporting them (the first large-scale action of Hitler’s SS, by the way, was deporting immigrants).
Link
They have no use for legislating policy because problems, imaginary or otherwise, aren't for solving. They're for exploiting.
2. Impotence. Central to the Trump-Vance campaign is a politics of impotence. The government cannot actually do anything for the average citizen. (In the background, of course, a smaller, dysfunctional government creates a void filled by the oligarchs, which is the practical implication of this theory). In elaborating the cats-and-dogs fantasy about his home state, Vance is revealing to us his theory of federal power. ... Project 2025 expels the civil servants who know what to do, nothing works anymore except for oligarchs and pals of the president, and the rest of us get Schrödinger’s Cat.
A person holding a position of authority and responsibility in the federal government has no other role than to talk about things that are not true and pass on responsibility for the untruth to the media, as Vance does. Remember: Vance is a United States Senator representing Ohio. If there were some actual problem in Ohio he could propose to address it with legislation. But he cannot and will not do so, not only because there is no actual problem, but because he must personify impotent government.
3. Fascism. In the Trump-Vance political theory, government acts not in the normal way, by laws, but as an instrument of the fury of the people. There is no legal basis, or indeed any basis at all, to call for the Haitian population of Springfield, Ohio to be deported. The people in question are here legally, as Trump and Vance know, and did nothing, as Trump and Vance also know.
In fascism, the government becomes the will of the people, or rather the race, as embodied in a single person. A fantasy of evil done by others is deliberately invoked to create a sense of us and them. Government exercises power by taking revenge on groups, for example by deporting them (the first large-scale action of Hitler’s SS, by the way, was deporting immigrants).
Link
They have no use for legislating policy because problems, imaginary or otherwise, aren't for solving. They're for exploiting.