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๐ตAlmeida gasta 30.000โฌ en un Congreso de Tauromaquia ๐ตMazรณn tira 500.000โฌ para "asuntos taurinos" ๐ตDicen que es por โinterรฉs pรบblico y socialโ porque les da vergรผenza admitir que disfrutan torturando animales hasta la muerte ๐ตMรกs barbaridades del PP: blogsostenible.wordpress.com/2โฆ
Es de sobra conocido que el Partido Popular (PP) es un partido sin el mรกs mรญnimo respeto por lo ambiental. Las noticias sobre esto son tan numerosas que cuesta hacer una selecciรณn de algunas de lasโฆ
It's been a year since Project 2025 hit national news. Back then, I cited Rick Perlstein, an expert on the history of the conservative movement, who said that the most important thing about the P2025 document wasn't its extreme plans, but rather, it's total incoherence:
If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this thread to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:
You see, Project 2025 isn't just *one* roadmap for turning America into a doomed, corporate/christofascist hellscape: it is *several* such roadmaps, with many policy prescriptions that directly and violently contradict each other.
For Perlstein, this was both revealing and important. Like all successful political campaigns, Trumpism is a coalition. Coalitions form when groups of people set aside their disagreements and join together.
Virtually every important political change is downstream of a coalition.
The easiest kind of coalition to form is an oppositional one, where groups agree on what they *don't* want, without agreeing on what they *do* want. Think, for example, of the Andrea Dworkin wing of the feminist movement making common cause with Jerry Falwell to oppose pornography.
Obviously, these people have a completely irreconcilable goals for what they *want*, but when it comes to porn, it's easy for them to agree on what they *don't* want.
That's fine when you're waging the campaign *against* something, but if you happen to win that campaign, you're in trouble. That's when the fight starts over who will get their way. That's the moment when winning coalitions become bitterly divided:
Now, some of these conflicts matter more than others. The least politically connected, least sophisticated (and most numerous) members of the conservative coalition have long been mollified by performative acts of cruel racism and gender discrimination.
These could be enacted without any real impact on the power-players in the coalition, since they were insulated from discriminatory lending and hiring, immune to police violence, and could skip to another state or country to get abortion care, hire sex workers, etc. No one is ever going to deny Peter Thiel a mortgage, no matter how many twinks he bangs. Ted Cruz's daughter will always be able to get an abortion, no matter what Texas or federal law states.
Clarence Thomas doesn't have to worry about getting pulled over because he "fits the description." As Wilhoit's Law says:
> Conservatism consists of exactly one proposition โฆThere must be in-groups whom the law protects but does not bind, alongside out-groups whom the law binds but does not protect.
Project 2025 is an anthology, edited by the Heritage Foundation, collecting the post-victory aspirations of the most important members of the Trump coalition.
As anthologists, Heritage's job was to choose which submissions to include and which ones to reject. Perlstein's key insight is that wherever Heritage included two or more directly contradictory plans in Project 2025, we can infer the groups that submitted those plans are each too powerful and important to sideline - they are equally matched combatants, and it's impossible to predict which one will get their way and which ones will eat shit in the aftermath of a victory.
There were *so many* contradictions in Project 2025: immigration policy, military policy, trade policy, monetary policy, tax policy, and more. As Perlstein pointed out, Project 2025 was a 900-page roadmap to the future fracture lines in the Trump coalition. These were the places where the opposition could break off parts of Trump's base, in the same way that Steve Bannon has been doing to the progressive movement (also an easily fractured coalition).
Since Trump won the presidency, House and Senate, he has done a remarkable job of keeping this brittle coalition together through a mix of flattery and bullying. But the fact remains that Trump's most important factions *hate* each other and are gunning for one another, and whenever Trump chooses one faction to win and another to lose, the losers are prone to turning on *him*:
Trump's lifelong strategy has been to race across a succession of rivers on the backs of alligators without losing a leg. He is the undisputed all-time historical champion of this bizarre sport, but no one can win that race forever, and your first loss is a career-ender.
I think a lot of people - including Trump allies - understand this, at least at a gut level. That's why the Epstein stuff is so huge now.
These beliefs are a stand-in for an overall rage against elite impunity, the two-tiered system of justice that lets the powerful get away with anything. The sexual abuse of children is such a viscerally offensive crime, so the idea that rich and powerful people are getting away with it carries a lethal charge.
Many Trump voters were under the naive impression that his administration would release information about Jeffrey Epsteinโs co-conspirators in his child trafficking operation. So it came as a shock wh
Conspiracy fantasies have their roots in traumatic reality. Without a long list of US military cover-ups, there'd be no room for UFO conspiracies. The credibility of antivax ("pharma companies want to kill you and regulators want to help them") is rooted FDA's failure to prevent the opioid crisis, and the million Americans who died as a result:
Conspiratorialism is a cognitive failure that occurs when you blame systemic problems on individuals. That's why they call antisemitism "the socialism of fools" - it's what you get when you blame Jewish bankers, rather than the finance sector's class warfare, for your problems:
Conspiratorialists have the right feeling, but the wrong facts. If you hate elite impunity, you should be furious about the Supreme Court ruling that presidents have "absolute immunity" from prosecution for the crimes they commit in office. But bad actors can exploit the failures of the conspiratorial mindset to make people who are legitimately enraged by elite impunity to direct that rage at imaginary "cultural Marxists" at universities.
As Naomi Klein writes in *Doppelganger*, the right lives in a "mirror world" where child abuse is confined to largely imaginary children in nonexistent pizza parlor basements, while actual kids in Florida concentration camps, or border detention cages, or meat-packing plant night shifts, or living in hunger and without a home, are ignored:
It's not hard to understand why Trump wants to suppress the Epstein files. He had a long friendship with Epstein, and spoke glowingly of Epstein's taste in "beautiful women...on the younger side." Trump sent Epstein lewd drawings and imaginary dialogues about Epstein's "wonderful secret":
Not only that, it's likely that many of Trump's most important supporters were directly complicit in Epstein's crimes (participating in the rape of young women and girls) and indirectly complicit (covering up these crimes and helping to launder Epstein's money).
Can Trump convince the conspiratorial wing of his coalition that Epstein is a "nothingburger" and a fabrication of Biden, Obama, the Clintons, Emmanuel Goldstein and Snowball?
It's not impossible. As *The American Prospect*'s Ryan Cooper points out, conspiratorialists possess an incredible ability to "believe just about anything, even if it literally kills themโwitness, for instance, the unvaccinated Texas GOP official who was posting anti-vaccine memes on Facebook right up until he died of COVID":
As ever, *The Onion* captures the spirit of the moment with a single, brilliant headline, "Elderly Woman Keeps Mind Active Justifying Trumpโs Actions":
But so far, the signs are not looking good for Trump. Writing for *Wired*, Jake Lahut speaks to many high-ranking Trump advisors, past and present, anonymous and named, who are concerned about the mounting fury from Trump's conspiratorial base:
LEXINGTON, KYโStressing the importance of regularly performing mental gymnastics to prevent cognitive decline, local 80-year-old Edna Connolly confirmed Thursday that she keeps her mind active by justifying President Donald Trumpโs actions.
As Lahut writes, Trump is flubbing this badly, but there may be *no way* for him to resolve the Epstein affair to the satisfaction of his base. They were already primed to be suspicious of whatever story they were presented with, and this latest incident all but guarantees that they will not accept whatever material Trump is eventually arm-twisted into releasing.
And that's not even the biggest disappointment Trump's conspiratorialists will confront. Trump has no intention of changing the system to make life better for this Christmas-voting turkeys. Arresting 11 million immigrants and any number of US citizens who fit the description will not help these people with their very real, material problem.
Nor will banning abortion, giving tax breaks to the ultra-rich, or defunding the police at the CFPB who were in charge of shutting down rip-off artists at payday lenders, big banks, cryptocurrency exchanges, etc. So these people can only ever get angrier.
But the conspiratorial base isn't the only Trumpland faction that is being forced to eat shit after Trump's victory.
Amjadย Masad is the founder and CEO of Replit, a cloud-based coding platform. He is also an outspoken voice on cultural and educational shifts in technology.โ ...
And there's Elon Musk, who is (correctly) furious that Trump wiped his ass with his promise of a balanced budget so he could hand trillions to the richest people in the history of the human race:
This is as Rich Perlstein prophesied a year ago: these groups hate each other and the only way for some of them to get what they want is for others to be totally betrayed.
Trump has been racing over those alligator-backs for so long now, it can sometimes feel like he'll never miss a step. But he's one snap away from losing a leg, and after that, it'll be a bloodbath.
Support me this summer in the Clarion Write-A-Thon and help raise money for the Clarion Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers' Workshop! This summer, I'm writing "The Reverse-Centaur's Guide to AI," a short book for Farrar, Straus and Giroux that explains how to be an effective AI critic:
Cory Doctorow (craphound.com) is a science fiction author, activist and journalist. He is the author of many books, most recently RADICALIZED and WALKAWAY, science fiction for adults; HOW TO DESTROY SURVEILLANCE CAPITALISM, nonfiction about monopoly โฆ
I genuinely tried my hand at identifying factions early on but I think some shifting has occurred.
I also seem to have undercounted the degree to which Heritage itself was a coalition and how much power Trump would have in forcing the Tarrifs. zirk.us/@MidniteMikeWrites/113โฆ
@bls@mas.to My completely uninformed speculation is that there are probably ~4 factions at play here: Heritage (P2025), America First (another think tank offering EOs for Trump to sign), Musk (has his own agenda??), and true MAGA and/or "true" conserโฆ
Victoria shared a sweet anecdote about the couple's daughter Thu, 17 Jul 2025 David Mitchellโs daughter is just like his wife, Victoria Coren, according to a sweet new interview.
Victoria shared a sweet anecdote about the couple's daughter Thu, 17 Jul 2025 David Mitchellโs daughter is just like his wife, Victoria Coren, according to a sweet new interview.
Puma has announced it is ending its sponsorship of the Israel Football Association (IFA), after a years-long boycott campaign. Puma denies the boycott impacted its decision, but activists say otherwise. #BDS #Puma
Slovenia today (July 17) announced an unprecedented move within the European Union, declaring that the entry of Bezalel Smotrich (Minister of Finance) and Itamar Ben-Gvir (Minister of Security) of the Israeli regime is prohibited.
one handed operation; you should try to make sure that you can operate the keyboard with one hand so your other hand can stay on your mouse
proximity follows frequency; if you use it a lot it should be close to hand
same purpose, same place; across programs similar functions should share the same key
birds of a feather flock together; similar and related functionality kept in proximate clusters
typing trounces topography; if you have to use both hands for typing you have to take your hand off the mouse anyway so then it doesnโt really matter where on the keyboard the shortcut key is
Over on his YouTube channel [Pat Deegan] from Psychogenic Technologies shows us two KiCad tips to save a million clicks. In the same way that it makes sense for you to learn to touch type if youโฆ
For mouse and pointing intensive applications, one hand keyboard and macros can improve speed a magnitude for me. For CAD programs, I have always found the keyboard to be far faster than a mouse
Grรผnenpolitikerin will nationalen Gedenktag fรผr โmenschliche Opferโ des Klimawandels apollo-news.net/gruenenpolitikโฆ Anlรคsslich des dritten Jahrestags der Flutkatastrophe im Ahrtal forderte die Grรผnen-Umweltpolitikerin Lisa Badum die Einrichtung eines nationalen Gedenktags fรผr die ... The post Grรผnenpolitikerin will nationalen Gedenktag fรผr โmenschliche Opferโ des Klimawandels appeared first on Apollo News. #news
Die Grรผnen-Politikerin Lisa Badum fordert die Einrichtung eines nationalen Gedenktags fรผr die Opfer der Klimakrise. Laut ihr gehe es nicht nur um Umweltschutz, sondern um โden Schutz von Menschenlebenโ.
see the problem with democrats is that they're psychopaths, so that instead of thinking "let's take this opportunity to push for justice for victims of child sex trafficking" they think "how can we exploit this for political gain, and make some shit up and lie about trump"
republicans who are protecting pedos basically either shut up about it, or make up some feeble excuses and try to cover it up. democrats are like *hand rubbing* yeah there's a list and here's a big fake story we just concocted to frame our enemy
in fairness, trump is also doing this to an extent, calling it a "democrat hoax" although a less specific frame-up than the fake letter from trump to epstein that dems just tried to pass off. funny how trump calls it a democrat hoax, then the democrats release an obvious hoax.... really makes you think that maybe the uniparty is working together to cover this up
The Japanese police have released a Phobos and 8-Base ransomware decryptor that lets victims recover their files for free, with BleepingComputer confirming that it successfully decrypts files.
The UN's Albanese has long opposed Israelโs genocide of Palestiniansโbut what broke US warmongers was her naming corporations profiting from that genocide.
ALT
Next Friday (July 25th) is The International Day of Solidarity with Antifascist Prisoners!
Weโre calling on all antifascists to take some action that day in solidarity with our imprisoned comrades.
I'm primarily an American princess, with colonial heritage. But my corrupt government has chosen to finance the jew war on the Levant, so that activates the divine lineage I have from Maria Komnene. It makes no sense religiously or politically for Americans to turn over that land to jews. If we're going to pay for it, we should rule it. I'm not the only American with descent from Maria Komnene, just one who has established it genealogically, and the first to claim that divine right. So I should be queen.
European Christians established a divine right of royal families to rule, and Maria had that right in spades over Jerusalem.
My lineage back to her is through The White Queen, Elizabeth of York. As an English queen. It's fitting that her descendant should rule Jerusalem, because it was the English who took the land back from the Ottomans in WWI. Her mother was a descendant of Maria.
Maria was a Byzantine princess, her right of rule over Jerusalem established by the Romans in 70 AD, as a Byzantine.
She was also a descendant of Armenian kings, who descended from the Seleucids, the Ptolemies, Philip of Macedon, Cyrus the Great of Persia, and the Chaldean dynasty of Babylon. That means she was a descendant of every non-jewish (and non-Muslim) royal family that had ruled Jerusalem since the first destruction of the Jerusalem temple in 587 BC.
Also, Muslims claim (with a very questionable genealogy) that the English royal family has lineage back to Mohamed. I have that lineage as well. I don't claim it, but if Muslims believe it, who am I to argue?
According to their own prophets, jews angered God so much that he condemned them. Malachi said God's favor turned from the jews to Gentiles. That means the people chosen by God to rule Jerusalem were and are Gentiles, even according to jewish books.
Yes there are several lines of Kings and Queens. A bloody time and struggle . I see in the battles that both sides were my kin. There was no inbreeding. I haven't seen that. The Hapsburg Coburn and Queen Victoria seems to be the line of inbreeding and rumor of a rabbi entering that line. The Russian Tzar also refused a marriage with his daughter to a member in the English royal family because it was a first cousin. Maybe that's why England stood by and allowed the Massacre and downfall of Russia.
There is some speculation that the two princes in the tower may have been rescued and raised by a Clerke . However two skeletons were found under a floor . Now It has been discovered that the two princes did survive . Who and what happened in between however still needs more documentation. This video I find revealing and factual. youtube.com/watch?v=S7ND6bDZjUโฆ
The Princes in the Tower - The New Evidence - Did Richard III kill his nephews? Philippa Langley and Rob Rinder go on a continent-crossing journey to investi...
ALT
ALERTA! ALERTA! LONDON ANTIFASCISTA! Absolute banger of a lineup for this show on Friday August 1st, benefitting The International Anti-Fascist Defence Fund.
๐๐๐ Depuis quโun gรฉrant a virรฉ des israรฉliens de son restaurant en #Espagne, il a triplรฉ sa clientรจle La semaine derniรจre, le propriรฉtaire du restaurant Mimassa ร #Vigo, en Espagne, a expulsรฉ des Israรฉliens de son รฉtablissement. Depuis, son entreprise connaรฎt une forte affluence. Il explique que sa clientรจle a triplรฉ, depuis que la vidรฉo a circulรฉ, ร travers le monde.
Psyop-ocracy: A system of governance or societal structure in which power, control, or rule is exercised primarily through psychological operationsโtactics involving manipulation, propaganda, deception, or influence over perceptions and behaviors to maintain authority.
Merci encore ร Elaonore pour lโavรจnement de ce raz de marรฉe dรฉmocratique et tous ceux qui y participe. Mais j'ai entendu par ces cher mรฉdias que cela n'aller pas faire grand chose, 1 truc balanรงait par Ifop et autre affidรฉs avec questions orientรฉ sur 2/3000 personnes et balancรฉes sur les ondes, ร l'รฉcoeurement est 1 raison pour faire bouger leur idรฉes, mais ici non! Va vraiment falloir qu'ils fassent attention, il n'y a pas que les pรฉcores fn de la FNsea qui peuvent bloquรฉ 1pays!
General Christopher Donahue, Commander of the U.S. Army in Europe and Africa and the head of NATOโs ground forces, told Defense News on July 16 that NATO has put in place the Eastern Flank Deterrence Plan. NATO forces, he said, together with the U.S.
Vladimir #Poutine, dans une conversation avec le journaliste Pavel #Zarubin, a dรฉclarรฉ que dรจs le dรฉbut des annรฉes 2000, il รฉtait clair que les pays occidentaux n'รฉtaient pas des partenaires pour Moscou: ยซCโest devenu รฉvident dรจs le dรฉbut des annรฉes 2000. Pourtant, nous nourrissions des illusions โ j'en nourrissais aussi โ fondรฉes sur les รฉlรฉments suivants. ร l'รฉpoque, moi et beaucoup d'autres, j'en suis sรปr, croyions que les problรจmes dans les relations entre l'Union soviรฉtique et le soi-disant #Occident รฉtaient avant tout idรฉologiques. D'un cรดtรฉ, il y avait le rรฉgime communiste, que beaucoup considรฉraient comme une tyrannie, et de l'autre, le monde dรฉmocratique dirigรฉ par les รtats-Unis. Et beaucoup pensaient โ moi y compris, curieusement, mรชme si jโavais travaillรฉ dans les services de renseignements soviรฉtiques pendant prรจs de 20 ans โ que la principale contradiction รฉtait de nature idรฉologique. Mais lorsque l'Union soviรฉtique a disparu et qu'il n'y a plus eu de rรฉgime communiste, le mรฉpris de l'Occident envers les intรฉrรชts stratรฉgiques de la Russie a perdurรฉ, l'attitude dรฉsinvolte envers les intรฉrรชts de l'รtat russe est restรฉeโฆ Tout cela รฉtait liรฉ ร un dรฉsir รฉvident d'atteindre certains avantages gรฉopolitiques. De plus, mรชme lorsque je suis devenu prรฉsident, je n'ai pas tout compris immรฉdiatement. J'ai essayรฉ de mโen expliquer avec mes collรจgues occidentaux : ยซรcoutez, vous dites une chose, mais vous en faites une autre. Et voici la preuve.ยป Ils acquiesรงaient et rรฉpondaient : ยซOui, oui, oui, tout va bien, nous allons rรฉgler รงa maintenantยป. Et rien ! Cโest mรชme exactement le contraire qui est arrivรฉยป. ll m'est apparu clairement que l'idรฉologie jouait probablement un rรดle, mais qu'ร la base de toutes ces contradictions se trouvent des intรฉrรชts gรฉopolitiques. Pour le bien de la #Russie, jโespรจre que ces illusions disparaรฎtront une fois pour toutesยป.
guys i have a freaking hair in my ear. and i mean deep inside my ear, touching the ear drum. not growing in there, but a cut hair that just landed inside there somehow and it's sitting there. i can see it on my otoscope video cam.
only one problem, i can't remove it with the scraper tip so i had to order an otoscope with a forceps cause idk i don't want to leave it in there causing irritation
they make these little otoscope video cameras now that are fairly decent. mine just doesn't have a tweezer on it which i need. i think this is a good thing to have in case an insect ever gets stuck in there too
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California illegal immigrant Yuriana Calderon faked ICE 'kidnapping' for fundraiser scam and to 'smear' federal agents: DOJ nypost.com/2025/07/18/us-news/โฆ
Syrian ministry denies reports of security deployment in #Sweida The #Syrian Interior Ministry refutes rumors of a security presence in Sweida, emphasizing that forces remain on routine duty with no changes on the ground.
The Syrian Interior Ministry refutes rumors of a security presence in Sweida, emphasizing that forces remain on routine duty with no changes on the ground.
Joint visit of Church leaders to #Gaza after deadly Church attack on Thursday
The Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem, Pierbattista Pizzaballa, along with Greek Orthodox Patriarch Theophilos III, conveyed the "shared pastoral solicitude of the Churches of the Holy Land," as stated in a release from the Latin Patriarchate of Jerusalem.
Top church leaders in Jerusalem made a rare solidarity visit to Gaza on Friday, just one day after an Israeli shell hit its only Catholic church, resulting in three fatalities.
Claims that "antisemitism" is being weaponized to support Israel miss that its function has always been to bolster European supremacy. Today, the chimera of โJewish safetyโ is used to justify Western dominance through Israelโs genocide in Palestine.
Claims that โantisemitismโ is being weaponized to support Israel miss that its function has always been to bolster European supremacy. Today, the chimera of โJewish safetyโ is used to justify Western dominance through Israelโs genocide in Palestine.
REVEALED: WSJ โReporterโ Who Wrote Epstein Hit Piece on President Trump Has a Connection to Founder of Fusion GPS, Which Was Funded by Hillary and the DNC to Produce the Russia Hoax
ย ย ย ย ย ย The โreporterโ behind the disgusting smear piece produced by one of Americaโs leading newspapers has a connection to one of the greatest scandals in American political history.
What do you think of the historical accuracy of outfits in Kingdom of Heaven? (Ignoring the plot which is not historical accurate) m.imdb.com/title/tt0320661/
I think even prior to GoT, movies like Kingdom of Heaven added more drab and muddied palettes to scenes. That being said I think the accuracy and colors of the outfits are decent in some parts, but Ridley Scott made a lot of creative choices that are not in any way historical, like the mask that King Baldwin never actually wore. I admit I understand the choice to darken medieval themed movies because it makes it more grounded and dark. Even if its historical to have a lot of bright and vibrant colors from nobles to peasant wear, the risk is making it appear like a non-serious fairy tale.
idk, the 80s era of fantasy movies was probably the last decade to not be afraid to have characters in bright colored outfits. If you want a surprisingly historically accurate medieval film, definitely give Flesh and Blood (1985) a watch. The costumes and sets are on point and you would never see modern hollywood make a movie like this nowadays.
Fun fact, Berserk creator Kentaro Miura based his design of Guts on the character Martin as portrayed by actor Rutger Hauer in Flesh and Blood.
@bekopharm Remember when Hollywood decided that instead of bright costumes, all comic book superheroes now had to be decked out in black leather? Same thing.
yeah mostly everyone was fine with the all leather ensemble of the xmen films, just like most people are fine with the dark and grimy costume design choice in contemporary medieval & fantasy films.
The paintings might have been done colorful with clothing on purpose to brighten it up ๐ color pigments for clothing dye were expensive as fuck in those days. Why there's colors like "royal blue, royal purple" because you had to be in royalty to afford it
there are certain color dyes that were indeed expensive, particularly red and purple. But bright colors such as yellow and orange were very common and easily applied to textiles using commonly found plants. The blue color dye was inexpensively made using urine and woad
the point is that in most hollywood media depictions, even royal characters wear very muted colors and peasants wear only brown when that couldn't be further from the truth
have to hand it to mha all might has an incredibly brandable face, hes like mr clean or colonel sanders his ass would fit right in on a can of raid or something
>Stop talking about Epstein there is no list it doesn't exist >Durrr he's just slow-rolling it guys Well I guess ripping the E-brake, jumping out of the car, and setting it on fire with the hooker still in the trunk is technically slow-rolling.
I hadn't really bothered to check into the "normie" social media reaction to that stuff, kinda assumed that this was way too crazy of an about face for MAGA types to be supporting it, but man they really do just work backwards from "Trump can never be wrong". He could sell them into slavery and they'd giddily accept it, trusting "the plan".
Watch him string them along with crumbs for the remainder of his tenure, then right before he is set to leave "aw shucks guys I was just about to release it for real."
he'll probably just do the usual American president thing, whip up a false flag in the middle east and send people to die for another meaningless perpetual war
Cory Doctorow
in reply to Cory Doctorow • • •Sensitive content
You see, Project 2025 isn't just *one* roadmap for turning America into a doomed, corporate/christofascist hellscape: it is *several* such roadmaps, with many policy prescriptions that directly and violently contradict each other.
For Perlstein, this was both revealing and important. Like all successful political campaigns, Trumpism is a coalition. Coalitions form when groups of people set aside their disagreements and join together.
2/
Cory Doctorow
in reply to Cory Doctorow • • •Sensitive content
Virtually every important political change is downstream of a coalition.
The easiest kind of coalition to form is an oppositional one, where groups agree on what they *don't* want, without agreeing on what they *do* want. Think, for example, of the Andrea Dworkin wing of the feminist movement making common cause with Jerry Falwell to oppose pornography.
3/
Cory Doctorow
in reply to Cory Doctorow • • •Sensitive content
Obviously, these people have a completely irreconcilable goals for what they *want*, but when it comes to porn, it's easy for them to agree on what they *don't* want.
That's fine when you're waging the campaign *against* something, but if you happen to win that campaign, you're in trouble. That's when the fight starts over who will get their way. That's the moment when winning coalitions become bitterly divided:
pluralistic.net/2025/01/06/howโฆ
4/
Pluralistic: Winning coalitions arenโt always governing coalitions (06 Jan 2025) โ Pluralistic: Daily links from Cory Doctorow
pluralistic.netCory Doctorow
in reply to Cory Doctorow • • •Sensitive content
Now, some of these conflicts matter more than others. The least politically connected, least sophisticated (and most numerous) members of the conservative coalition have long been mollified by performative acts of cruel racism and gender discrimination.
5/
Cory Doctorow
in reply to Cory Doctorow • • •Sensitive content
These could be enacted without any real impact on the power-players in the coalition, since they were insulated from discriminatory lending and hiring, immune to police violence, and could skip to another state or country to get abortion care, hire sex workers, etc. No one is ever going to deny Peter Thiel a mortgage, no matter how many twinks he bangs. Ted Cruz's daughter will always be able to get an abortion, no matter what Texas or federal law states.
6/
Cory Doctorow
in reply to Cory Doctorow • • •Sensitive content
Clarence Thomas doesn't have to worry about getting pulled over because he "fits the description." As Wilhoit's Law says:
> Conservatism consists of exactly one proposition โฆThere must be in-groups whom the law protects but does not bind, alongside out-groups whom the law binds but does not protect.
Project 2025 is an anthology, edited by the Heritage Foundation, collecting the post-victory aspirations of the most important members of the Trump coalition.
7/
Cory Doctorow
in reply to Cory Doctorow • • •Sensitive content
As anthologists, Heritage's job was to choose which submissions to include and which ones to reject. Perlstein's key insight is that wherever Heritage included two or more directly contradictory plans in Project 2025, we can infer the groups that submitted those plans are each too powerful and important to sideline - they are equally matched combatants, and it's impossible to predict which one will get their way and which ones will eat shit in the aftermath of a victory.
8/
Cory Doctorow
in reply to Cory Doctorow • • •Sensitive content
There were *so many* contradictions in Project 2025: immigration policy, military policy, trade policy, monetary policy, tax policy, and more. As Perlstein pointed out, Project 2025 was a 900-page roadmap to the future fracture lines in the Trump coalition. These were the places where the opposition could break off parts of Trump's base, in the same way that Steve Bannon has been doing to the progressive movement (also an easily fractured coalition).
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Cory Doctorow
in reply to Cory Doctorow • • •Sensitive content
Since Trump won the presidency, House and Senate, he has done a remarkable job of keeping this brittle coalition together through a mix of flattery and bullying. But the fact remains that Trump's most important factions *hate* each other and are gunning for one another, and whenever Trump chooses one faction to win and another to lose, the losers are prone to turning on *him*:
pluralistic.net/2025/05/21/et-โฆ
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Pluralistic: Strange Bedfellows and Long Knives (21 May 2025) โ Pluralistic: Daily links from Cory Doctorow
pluralistic.netCory Doctorow
in reply to Cory Doctorow • • •Sensitive content
Trump's lifelong strategy has been to race across a succession of rivers on the backs of alligators without losing a leg. He is the undisputed all-time historical champion of this bizarre sport, but no one can win that race forever, and your first loss is a career-ender.
I think a lot of people - including Trump allies - understand this, at least at a gut level. That's why the Epstein stuff is so huge now.
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Cory Doctorow
in reply to Cory Doctorow • • •Sensitive content
It's impossible to overstate the extent to which the Trump base is organized around conspiratorial beliefs about elite pedophile rings:
soundcloud.com/qanonanonymous/โฆ
These beliefs are a stand-in for an overall rage against elite impunity, the two-tiered system of justice that lets the powerful get away with anything. The sexual abuse of children is such a viscerally offensive crime, so the idea that rich and powerful people are getting away with it carries a lethal charge.
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The Great Epstein Backstab (E332)
SoundCloudCory Doctorow
in reply to Cory Doctorow • • •Sensitive content
Conspiracy fantasies have their roots in traumatic reality. Without a long list of US military cover-ups, there'd be no room for UFO conspiracies. The credibility of antivax ("pharma companies want to kill you and regulators want to help them") is rooted FDA's failure to prevent the opioid crisis, and the million Americans who died as a result:
memex.craphound.com/2019/09/21โฆ
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Republic of Lies: the rise of conspiratorial thinking and the actual conspiracies that fuel it โ Cory Doctorow's MEMEX
memex.craphound.comCory Doctorow
in reply to Cory Doctorow • • •Sensitive content
Conspiratorialism is a cognitive failure that occurs when you blame systemic problems on individuals. That's why they call antisemitism "the socialism of fools" - it's what you get when you blame Jewish bankers, rather than the finance sector's class warfare, for your problems:
pluralistic.net/2024/03/25/blaโฆ
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Pluralistic: Conspiratorialism and the epistemological crisis (25 Mar 2024) โ Pluralistic: Daily links from Cory Doctorow
pluralistic.netCory Doctorow
in reply to Cory Doctorow • • •Sensitive content
Conspiratorialists have the right feeling, but the wrong facts. If you hate elite impunity, you should be furious about the Supreme Court ruling that presidents have "absolute immunity" from prosecution for the crimes they commit in office. But bad actors can exploit the failures of the conspiratorial mindset to make people who are legitimately enraged by elite impunity to direct that rage at imaginary "cultural Marxists" at universities.
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Cory Doctorow
in reply to Cory Doctorow • • •Sensitive content
As Naomi Klein writes in *Doppelganger*, the right lives in a "mirror world" where child abuse is confined to largely imaginary children in nonexistent pizza parlor basements, while actual kids in Florida concentration camps, or border detention cages, or meat-packing plant night shifts, or living in hunger and without a home, are ignored:
pluralistic.net/2023/09/05/notโฆ
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Pluralistic: Naomi Kleinโs โDoppelgangerโ (05 September 2023) โ Pluralistic: Daily links from Cory Doctorow
pluralistic.netCory Doctorow
in reply to Cory Doctorow • • •Sensitive content
It's not hard to understand why Trump wants to suppress the Epstein files. He had a long friendship with Epstein, and spoke glowingly of Epstein's taste in "beautiful women...on the younger side." Trump sent Epstein lewd drawings and imaginary dialogues about Epstein's "wonderful secret":
archive.is/20250718003039/wsj.โฆ
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Cory Doctorow
in reply to Cory Doctorow • • •Sensitive content
Not only that, it's likely that many of Trump's most important supporters were directly complicit in Epstein's crimes (participating in the rape of young women and girls) and indirectly complicit (covering up these crimes and helping to launder Epstein's money).
Can Trump convince the conspiratorial wing of his coalition that Epstein is a "nothingburger" and a fabrication of Biden, Obama, the Clintons, Emmanuel Goldstein and Snowball?
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Cory Doctorow
in reply to Cory Doctorow • • •Sensitive content
It's not impossible. As *The American Prospect*'s Ryan Cooper points out, conspiratorialists possess an incredible ability to "believe just about anything, even if it literally kills themโwitness, for instance, the unvaccinated Texas GOP official who was posting anti-vaccine memes on Facebook right up until he died of COVID":
prospect.org/politics/2025-07-โฆ
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Epstein Signals the End of Donald Trumpโs Crackerjack Crisis Management Style
Ryan Cooper (The American Prospect)Cory Doctorow
in reply to Cory Doctorow • • •Sensitive content
As ever, *The Onion* captures the spirit of the moment with a single, brilliant headline, "Elderly Woman Keeps Mind Active Justifying Trumpโs Actions":
theonion.com/elderly-woman-keeโฆ
But so far, the signs are not looking good for Trump. Writing for *Wired*, Jake Lahut speaks to many high-ranking Trump advisors, past and present, anonymous and named, who are concerned about the mounting fury from Trump's conspiratorial base:
wired.com/story/trump-epstein-โฆ
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Elderly Woman Keeps Mind Active Justifying Trumpโs Actions
The Onion Staff (The Onion)Cory Doctorow
in reply to Cory Doctorow • • •Sensitive content
As Lahut writes, Trump is flubbing this badly, but there may be *no way* for him to resolve the Epstein affair to the satisfaction of his base. They were already primed to be suspicious of whatever story they were presented with, and this latest incident all but guarantees that they will not accept whatever material Trump is eventually arm-twisted into releasing.
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Cory Doctorow
in reply to Cory Doctorow • • •Sensitive content
And that's not even the biggest disappointment Trump's conspiratorialists will confront. Trump has no intention of changing the system to make life better for this Christmas-voting turkeys. Arresting 11 million immigrants and any number of US citizens who fit the description will not help these people with their very real, material problem.
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Cory Doctorow
in reply to Cory Doctorow • • •Sensitive content
Nor will banning abortion, giving tax breaks to the ultra-rich, or defunding the police at the CFPB who were in charge of shutting down rip-off artists at payday lenders, big banks, cryptocurrency exchanges, etc. So these people can only ever get angrier.
But the conspiratorial base isn't the only Trumpland faction that is being forced to eat shit after Trump's victory.
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Cory Doctorow
in reply to Cory Doctorow • • •Sensitive content
In another *Wired* story, David Gilbert presents a snapshot of the pieces of the Trump coalition that have broken off, or are hanging by a thread:
wired.com/story/jeffrey-epsteiโฆ
There's Tucker Carlson, who thinks (correctly) that Trump is a warmongering lunatic for bombing Iran:
theguardian.com/us-news/2025/jโฆ
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Tucker Carlson confronts Ted Cruz on Iran as Maga rift erupts into public view
Joseph Gedeon (The Guardian)Cory Doctorow
in reply to Cory Doctorow • • •Sensitive content
There's Laura Loomer, who thinks (correctly) that it's unforgivably corrupt for Trump to accept a luxury plane from Qatar:
politico.com/news/2025/05/12/tโฆ
There's Ben Shapiro, who thinks (correctly) that Trump's tariffs are economic suicide:
mediamatters.org/tariffs-tradeโฆ
There's Joe Rogan, who thinks (correctly) that Trump's immigration raids are unforgivably cruel:
youtube.com/watch?v=WfmrEa0L08โฆ
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Joe Rogan Experience #2344 - Amjad Masad
YouTubeCory Doctorow
in reply to Cory Doctorow • • •Sensitive content
And there's Elon Musk, who is (correctly) furious that Trump wiped his ass with his promise of a balanced budget so he could hand trillions to the richest people in the history of the human race:
wired.com/story/elon-musk-thirโฆ
Each of these people is an avatar for a bloc in the Trump coalition, and they reflect the fury of the people who stand behind them.
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Cory Doctorow
in reply to Cory Doctorow • • •Sensitive content
This is as Rich Perlstein prophesied a year ago: these groups hate each other and the only way for some of them to get what they want is for others to be totally betrayed.
Trump has been racing over those alligator-backs for so long now, it can sometimes feel like he'll never miss a step. But he's one snap away from losing a leg, and after that, it'll be a bloodbath.
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Cory Doctorow
in reply to Cory Doctorow • • •Sensitive content
Support me this summer in the Clarion Write-A-Thon and help raise money for the Clarion Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers' Workshop! This summer, I'm writing "The Reverse-Centaur's Guide to AI," a short book for Farrar, Straus and Giroux that explains how to be an effective AI critic:
clarionwriteathon.com/members/โฆ
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Clarion Write-a-Thon | Cory Doctorow
clarionwriteathon.comAnne Ominous
in reply to Cory Doctorow • • •Sensitive content
dont threaten me with a good time!!
ugh i cant bear this much longer, feeling like something. has to give somewhere, and yet ... nothing.
Cory Doctorow reshared this.
MidniteMikeWrites
in reply to Cory Doctorow • • •Sensitive content
I genuinely tried my hand at identifying factions early on but I think some shifting has occurred.
I also seem to have undercounted the degree to which Heritage itself was a coalition and how much power Trump would have in forcing the Tarrifs. zirk.us/@MidniteMikeWrites/113โฆ
MidniteMikeWrites (@MidniteMikeWrites@zirk.us)
zirkusCory Doctorow reshared this.