@cdarwin@c.im2026-03-01 22:36:40
“What they posed as the threat they were trying to preempt
—an attack by Iran against US forces
—is so extremely implausible, it is also laughable,” said one analyst
Experts Pillory Trump Case for War on Iran: ‘Flimsiest Excuse for Initiating a Major Attack’ in Decades
https://www.comm…
@hex@kolektiva.social2026-02-28 10:20:01
As salty as I am about it, there's also another way to think about this. For anyone who still has connections to folks on the right (which is perhaps unlikely for anyone on this server, I digress), the cult that has consumed them thrives on isolation and grievance.
The words "you were right" have the potential to cut through the programming and open up an opportunity for reconnection. The modern conspiratorial cult of the Right has been built partially around people who were told they were wrong or were crazy. In the vast majority of cases, they were wrong and even when they were right they completely misunderstood why, but we'll skip that for now. Liberals making fun of them (even the times when they definitely earned it) has pushed them further and further into their ideological hole.
The thing about those words, "you were right," in this context is that the way they offer reconnection also requires them to take one little step of betraying their ideology to accept them. So they must choose between maintaining allegiance to a pedophile or finally getting to feel superior after years of living in an illusion of persecution.
Under the ideology of the Right, admitting one is wrong is a weakness. It is admitting defeat. They have to "own the libs" by saying things, things that they know aren't true, in order to feel dominant. But these things are often so absurd that they end up being made fun of, feeling even more weak and pathetic, reinforcing their fear and alienation.
Offering what they're looking for can offer a way out, but only if they're willing to start to recognize the thing they've supported for what it is.
And they were right about some things. They were right that Bill Gates was a terrible person. I've had plenty of liberals defend him based on his philanthropy washing, but he's awful and always has been. The Epstein links make that blatant. They intuitively recognized him and didn't trust him, even if they were wildly off base about *how and why* he shouldn't be trusted... Even if their correct mistrust was leveraged into one of the most destructive conspiracy theories ever (vaccine denial and COVID vaccine avoidance).
They were right about Bill Clinton. He was always shady as fuck. Sure, the people who attacked him at the time turned out to be even more shady but that's not the point right now. He was connected to Epstein and that was always creepy as fuck.
And the Epstein thing was an open secret that liberals ignored for a long time. It was seen as some weird thing that right wing nutjobs believed about the Clintons. But it was true. Not all of it, and there has always been an antisemitic element to the right wing interpretation or Epstein stuff, but his whole pedophile conspiracy was always kind of real.
The whole "Illuminati"/deep state thing is a vast oversimplification, an attempt to make comprehensible an incredibly complex set of interlocking and emergent behaviors. But Epstein did very much want to remake the world, to create a new world order, and he absolutely played a part in it.
The Right wing nutjobs talked about global authoritarianism, Blackhawks flying over American cities, masked men with guns disarming and executing legal gun owners in the streets. That's all happening right now.
The "FEMA concentration camps" are not actually that far off. ICE and FEMA are sister agencies, both under DHS. I'd be more than happy to call that one "close enough" in order to hear some MAGA admit that ICE is, in fact, building concentration camps.
There was always a huge millennialist element to these things. They tended to be connected to "the antichrist." It was absurd, especially for me as someone who no longer identifies as a Christian. But I'll even acquiess that to a degree. The "the number of the Beast" is 666. That's just the sum of the Hebrew spelling of "Nero." Revelations focuses a lot on Nero coming back to life after his death. His death that involved a head wound, thus the line from Revelation 13:3:
> And I saw one of his heads as if it had been mortally wounded, and his deadly wound was healed. And all the world marveled and followed the beast.
The parallels between Trump and Nero are easy to draw, and Trump's ear wound feels pretty on-the-nose for this. I don't believe in "prophecy" in this way. I think that there are patterns, and useful patterns can become encoded in beleif systems. But I will, again, happily call this one "close enough" for anyone on that side willing to also acknowledge it. I'm happy to meet on that common ground, because anyone who accepts it must recognize that their duty is to fight against it.
A lot of these correct nuggets are embedded in a framework of religious extremism and antisemitism. The vast majority of the beliefs holding these together are wildly wrong and incredibly toxic. But by giving some room to feel validated, listened to, understood, can give some room to admit things that were wrong.
Cult de-programming starts with an opening. People have to talk through their own thoughts, hear their own inconsistencies. Guiding questions can help them untangle these things for themselves. And it all starts by having enough room to feel safe, to not feel cornered, to not feel stupid. Admitting mistakes means being vulnerable, and the MAGA cult is built on fear. It's built on exploiting vulnerability and locking it away.
De-programming takes a long time. It's not easy. It takes patience. But every person who comes out does so with a powerful perspective, a deep understanding, that can be turned back against it. The best people at getting people out of cults are former members. Some of the most dedicated antifa are former fascists who understood their mistakes and dedicate their lives to fixing them.
@simon_brooke@mastodon.scot2026-03-01 12:33:05
@aredridel@kolektiva.social2026-04-02 02:14:53
RE: https://dair-community.social/@timnitGebru/116332667717903322
I really think that we _are_ starting to build those tools. I'm party to a lot of discussions about how to use these tools well, and a lot of that starts to look like systems design: what are controls? What are the feedback loops? Where do we need to add new frictions? Where do we need to eliminate old bottlenecks?
We are still very, _very_ early in this.
But the work is getting done, and a lot of us 'haters' need to get in the drivers seat and start putting up useful critique like mttaggart's. I don't agree with the entire article, but it's solid work and solid case report. It’s very good stuff. We need a lot more of these conversations.
And we need to let people hate it. Not to be confused with obstinate blocking, but to have the feelings of hating it, of disliking the processes it engenders, of finding those new footings — or rejecting the bad ones. We can't look at this clearly unless we have the space to hate it.
@cdarwin@c.im2026-02-01 21:13:29
Five-year-old Liam Conejo Ramos and his father,
who were detained by immigration officers in Minnesota and held at an ICE facility in Texas,
have been released following a judge’s order.
They have returned to Minnesota, according to Texas Rep. Joaquin Castro.
The boy and his dad, Adrian Conejo Arias, who is originally from Ecuador,
were detained in a Minneapolis suburb on Jan. 20.
They were taken to a detention facility in Dilley, Texas.
Katherine Sch…
@rasterweb@mastodon.social2026-03-01 23:43:13
Our world is run by monsters. Like, literal monsters.
I've seen plenty of films and books where the "monster" might harm or destroy only a handful of humans before being vanquished, and yet, our governments have killed how many?
The people in charge have done damage to our world we cannot reverse.
The real monsters live among us, not in stories or fantasy.
How do we end these monsters?
@shriramk@mastodon.social2026-04-02 02:02:17
Pleased to live in a place where this is true (enough):
Eight states received “A” grades for LGBTQ safety based on their comprehensive pro-equality laws and low rates of hate crimes against LGBTQ people. **Only Rhode Island nabbed an A mark.**
https://www.safehome.org/data-lgbtq-state-
@cdarwin@c.im2026-03-02 15:19:15
Democratic leaders were outspoken during the massive US military buildup in the Middle East,
⭐️decrying his unwillingness to engage with Congress and lack of long-term strategy for Iran.
🔸They noted that it was Trump, during his first term, who shredded Barack Obama’s nuclear agreement with Iran.
Once the US and Israeli military struck on Saturday, the sharpest voices accused the president of riding roughshod over the constitution.
Senator Bernie
@cdarwin@c.im2026-02-01 06:21:36
A 2016 civil lawsuit found in the Epstein files alleges that
Trump raped a 13-year-old girl at parties hosted by Jeffrey Epstein in NY.
Epstein raped her too.
For anyone wondering why the victim dropped the case…
Immediately following this rape, Defendant Trump threatened Plaintiff that,
were she ever to reveal any of the details of the sexual and physical abuse of her by Defendant Trump,
Plaintiff and her family would be physically harmed if not killed.”<…
@cdarwin@c.im2026-04-01 20:46:21
Donald Trump threatened to stop supplying weapons to Ukraine
unless European countries joined a U.S. military effor to open the Strait of Hormuz,
the Financial Times (FT) reported on April 1,
citing people familiar with the discussions.
The report comes a month into the U.S.-Israeli war against Iran,
which has escalated across the Middle East.
Following the attacks, Iran has shut down the Strait of Hormuz, a key waterway through which roughly one-fifth o…
