@dedicto @sjshancoxli most people are adaptive, i think. they can be nice liberals under one social order, cruel bigots under another. they’ll gravitate towards whichever order seems most plausible to protect them from unwanted change and threats both social and economic.
@dedicto @sjshancoxli yeah. the fascism is a step farther than safetyism. i think it’s organized effectively by the plutocrats, because safetyism alone invites calls for social insurance, so plutocrats construct threats, an “enemy within”, that is not them and that social insurance can’t address.
@dedicto @sjshancoxli i think it takes a whole lot of social insurance before any of us are comfortable with a really dynamic prosperity. it’s like how safety is a more basic element of Maslow’s hierarchy than “self-actualization”, growth. once safety is threatened, a bitter rentier stasis seems better than risking any alternative. some of us are more comfortable with risk and dynamism than others. but i think as a social generality this is very broadly true.
one perhaps salutary consequence of Donald Trump is he’s exposed just how pathetic plutocratic “masters of the universe” really are.
“The rentier economy is characterized by low growth and therefore less material prosperity for everyone, but more guaranteed relative position for those on top. And people, it turns out, really like relative position.” @sjshancoxli https://www.liberalcurrents.com/the-plutocrat-populist-axis/
@LesterB99 the rich do pretty well independent of rates, high asset prices when rates are low, high cash flows when they are high. but the asset poor have to actually pay those high cash flows, they are the net payers, so find high interest rates more burdensome.
high interest rates are just taxes the poor pay to the rich.
what if prime is the new blue checkmark?
Jeff Bezos is frightened of Donald Trump.
I have been debunked. You are hearing voices.
i’m being frequently notified that some application i can’t identity is generating funny-sounding notifications. i love to stay informed.
@carolannie yes. nothing good can happen, nothing bad can happen, is quite the failure of imagination.
some people vote for Trump because they think he can overthrow the “deep state”. but i bet at least as many do so because they think he can’t, so whatever bullshit he spouts he can’t do much harm, and they want to protest just that situation.
(i think they are badly wrong about the putative impotence of elected Presidents. but these people are lost in a shrug of cynicism, our flawed democracy is not a democracy at all, no better than any autocracy you might name.)
"Jeff Bezos just forced the Democrats to see that economic power is political power." @matthewstoller https://www.thebignewsletter.com/p/monopoly-round-up-jeff-bezos-and
there are important distinctions between very bad and much, much worse.
@akkartik this too shall pass. it may maim and torture and murder us while it does, we may not live to see its passing. but the question is the rate of impermanence, not the fact. we can do our best, futile or not, to hurry things in a good direction, and to protect ourselves while things fucking suck.
people who own the media are capable of manufacturing vibes of despondency about the candidate they disfavor.
fuck them. even though they are unfuckable. everyday miracles.
“after all, if there is no god, there are billion dollar valuations.” https://mastodon.social/@blogdiva/113377194084638747