Tag: still amazes me

angstbotfic:

lovelikesummer:

I mean, it doesn’t pain me at all. They need to do it.

so, after 9/11 U.S. Poet Laureate Billy Collins (in)famously said it was like the U.S. losing its virginity. (hella problematic on a zillion levels, but- ) 9/11 was this traumatic violation of a national sense of safety and identity and what was and wasn’t possible and that these things didn’t happen to us. 

in some ways, Trumpism is the same kind of American trauma. it strikes at the heart of the stories we told ourselves about being a beacon of freedom and justice. that’s why it pains Dr. Gu to admit that we are human rights violators at scale.

now, were those stories always lies? absolutely. but they were nice lies that made us feel good and were things that “we” aspired to be true. but now we’ve discovered just how shaky and incomplete that “we” always was. and for people who weren’t always failed by those lies, it’s painful. 

Source: doggie-girl

Four successful Republican scams that have changed American politics in the last 40 years:

politicalprof:

1. That income tax cuts are good for poor, working and middle class people. (Compared to property tax and sales tax cuts, income tax cuts affect poor, working and middle class very little.)

2. That “they” – racial and ethnic minorities – benefit from social programs like welfare, housing subsidies, public transportation, and higher education, but “we” – white people – don’t. (Since there are LOTS more white people in America, even now, than “not white” people, simple math suggests most beneficiaries of social programs are white. And they are.)

3. That the “free market” can lead to the least expensive, highest quality solution to social and political problems. (Many social and political problems, after all, involve situations where no one has any money, so the “free market” has no reason to touch them.)

4. That the “free market” means that government must not intervene in the market, and must allow whatever the market determines to actually take place.(The “free market” requires government to pass laws, create courts, and run a stable banking system to make the market work smoothly.)

These four ideas have convinced millions of Americans to smile and wave as rich people rob them blind.

Too relevant: Why right-wing populism works