I’m at one of the biggest airports in the world in the middle of a very red state today. The mood is somber. I have never seen this airport this quiet. There is no sense of pride or celebration here, and I know the majority of people around me voted for Trump.

If I were to speculate, I see scared faces and other faces too guilty to look anyone in the eye. Eye contact among strangers in an expectation here under normal circumstances, but not today. Everyone is aware on some level that this is a bad thing.

When Microsoft hears " how can Microsoft get any worse?" they have always taken that as a challenge.

It is way, way worse than this. It’s not hundreds, it’s millions. 1 in 3 people in the US over 65 have some form of dementia. The Republican party is driven by dementia at this point. There is a literal reason they’ve been rhetorically targeting the cognitively impaired for the last ten years. I am a dementia care professional and this is not a joke.

This is why I put this in politics instead of news. This is such a calculated position technically reversing on something they were seemingly committed to to an absurd degree. Until now the WH has been consistent that it was not willing to even entertain the suggestion that any limitations at all be placed on “Isreal’s right to defend itself.” Allowing humanitarian support to mitigate the problems of disease and famine on the gaza strip is the absolute least of what needs to be demanded of Israel.

I feel like my group has been doing this unofficially for a long time.

There isn’t one atrocity committed by the US or its allies that the NYT wasn’t in full support of. The “paper of record” is essentially the main distribution channel for COINTELPRO style bullshit.

All my exes are from Side 3

This was a really interesting video which I had a lot of thoughts about.

I think that discussing narcissistic personality traits that appear commonly among many in our culture is valuable, just as I believe discussions concerning safe spaces, triggers, and what it means to be woke are valuable. The thing that all these have in common is that conservatives took these terms over and made them meaningless to suit themselves. This video features dozens of instances of American con artists and cult leaders leveraging a valuable discussion to their own benefit.

The experts in the video believed that they and people like them were inherently superior, or deserved to be considered among the elite group. They expressed no empathy or compassion toward the people they dehumanized. Since they make their money from the people they lie to through lying to them, they are skilled exploiters. I would call all these narcissistic tendencies even if none of them had diagnosed NPD.

The reality is that many Americans, especially those in business, don’t care how they get what they want as long as they get it, and have no qualms about doing whatever they can get away with. I think this is a consequence of our culture and economic system rather than individual moral failings.

I don’t accept that no one should be called out for their greedy and selfish behavior. I don’t accept the most greedy and selfish in our society are once again trying to blame their own vices on their victims. I don’t think it’s monstrous to behave the way that countless nobles, gangsters, and capitalists have throughout history have because it’s clearly very human behavior in the circumstances that allowed these people to thrive at the cost of others. It’s the circumstances that allow and/or encourage this behavior which are a problem.

Sterilization is back on the table for those the state deems unfit. We need another major anti-eugenics movement. This is sick.

If your peace of mind is based on the lie that everything is already fine, anyone disturbing your peace by reminding you it’s not fine for them is perceived as an aggressor against that peace of mind. The problem is cowardice.

To summarize, an officer committed a mass shooting on a public subway in the effort to shoot a $2.60 fare jumper.

Toad in the streets, Link in the sheets.

You know, I think that’s accurate.

Being born to narcissistic parents was extremely controversial in my childhood home. I was the selfish little ingrate in the house who kept asking for things even though they already provided a house and food most of the time, and that was very polarizing for my parents.

This is pretty mind blowing. Finding even one of the lost parts of Homer’s cycle would be nuts. I’m excited for the discoveries and all the gaps in our records we can fill in.

Hamas was using the school as a human shield, I’m sure.

You’re onto a very important aspect of fascist rhetoric. The lies have to be absurd. They have to be obviously wrong. They need the kind of people who are looking to belong to something greater than themselves, not people who look for evidence. Lies like these are a great filter to end up with uncritically loyal followers. Same as any cult.

Sartre wrote about the tendencies of anti-semites in 1944 who followed a similar model of “belief” to contemporary conservatives. Here’s a breakdown of that essay.

I think you’re making a similar mistake that I have made many times, which is to assume that others are putting more thought into their decisions and beliefs than they actually do.

Among the conservatives, there are a handful of bad actors who are aware of the grift and are deliberately lying to promote themselves and their scam enterprises. The rest of the conservatives are using the cultural practice derived from a religious and/or nationalistic upbringing to uncritically have “faith” in whatever the party line is. Regardless of intelligence, if someone is vulnerable to group dynamics like this (also existing in other cults), it is more important to conform and receive validation from the group than it is to pointlessly research whether or not the group’s belief is true and risk ostracisation.

It’s not really falling for conspiracies, it’s more like conforming to cult beliefs. Conservatives don’t really understand the things they say or why they believe what they do.

Boundaries.

Why do predators seem to always find the person who will let them sink their teeth in? They’re not seeking intelligently. What they’re doing is pushing boundaries with everyone. People with healthy boundaries are pushed away, people lacking boundaries let the predators in. The reason the predator got to you was that you either set no boundaries with them or you folded on a boundary you did give showing them how they can further take advantage of you. I was raised in such a way as to tolerate abuse and neglect so my boundaries let the predators right in historically.

“Predator” might seem like a strong word for emotional vampires, closet narcissists, and dependent personalities, but what they are doing is victim seeking. They can’t be another way until they identify their own behavior and choose to be another way. Let them push you away when they push your boundaries.

Having to reliably listen to bigotry and nonsense that you are obligated by social conditioning to nod along with is not only draining but an attack on your own identity by yourself. Either you’re torturing yourself by continuing to put yourself in this uncomfortable situation or you will come to tolerate it and not be as bothered by it and corrupt yourself that way. It’s worth finding someone with some clippers that doesn’t give you an identity crisis on a regular basis.