I’m starting to really consider the whole “reality is a simulation” angle, and whoever is running the game has put in a cheat code. (not really really, but more than I ever have before)
It’s like a shitty unrealistic movie plot has unfolded over the past decade. And every time it looks like maybe things are heading back on track, BOOM, we get another event that just turns us right back on the track to crazytown.
I’m having a hard time coming up with anything I can cling to in the hopes that Project 2025 isn’t going to go exactly as planned down to the last detail.
How are we not going to become real-world Gilead (but with more racism)?
I don’t know if this is necessarily a good thing, but I’m a firm believer in the political pendulum, and I believe that if Trump fails to provide what he promised to the working class in terms of economic prosperity we will see the rise of a left wing populist movement in America (perhaps the first of its kind?). I’m not talking a Bernie Sanders Social Democrat but a full blown socialist movement. The risk here is that this movement could rise from within MAGA itself, keeping the cultural/social framework (aka white nationalism) but ditching the economic framework (capitalism). Already there are factions within the alt and new right that flirt with socialist ideals.
Examples? Seems inherently contradictory.
https://www.greeneuropeanjournal.eu/imitation-game-the-rise-of-conservative-socialism/
This next article describes it very well
https://quillette.com/2022/12/27/on-conservative-socialism/
This is more relevant to Europe but I have seen discussions in online boards with similar ideas in the US. The alt right is defined more by its desire to remove immigrants and anti elite sentiment than any economic ideology. For proof see how protectionist policies are very popular among them, when anyone who is fundamentally capitalist would be against them. They see globalism, a fundamental feature of capitalism as a threat to an ideal white Christian society.
Remember how Athenians called themselves a democracy but excluded everyone but rich males from participating in it? It’s a similar concept.
When has cognitive dissonance and being contradictory stopped the right wing in the US?