James A. Robichaux

@jamesrobichaux.bsky.social

576 Followers 158 Following

I am working to purge the dishonest and destructive mythologies of Monetarism and taxpayerism from people's brains. You can read my essays on those subjects here: https://jamesarobichaux.substack.com/

a Twitter post from Caitlin Johnstone that quotes a tweet from Joe Walsh quoting a tweet from Mehdi Hasan. @caitoz If you keep feeding the public the lie that they need to choose between supporting genocide and hating Jews, people are going pick hate Jews, because they don't want to support genocide. When that happens, the blame will rest on all you pricks who circulated this lie. Quote Joe Walsh @WalshFreedom · Jul 17 Nope my friend. If you hate the state of Israel, you hate Jews. If you are pledged to the destruction of the state of Israel, you hate Jews. If you do not believe the state of Israel has a right to exist, you hate Jews. Have a nice weekend. x.com/mehdirhasan/st… 9:46 AM · Jul 18, 2026
Bari Weiss @bariweiss · Feb 22, 2018 I know I should be over it, but the speed at which the organized conservative movement became the ideological home of Marion Le Pen, Seb Gorka, Nigel Farage, Dinesh D'Souza and their ilk remains shocking to me. Steve Schmidt @SteveSchmidtSES · Feb 22, 2018 I think about this constantly. It is beyond shocking to me. The utter capitulation to it and the absolute abandonment of any principle. Sometimes I feel like a sucker who got conned by the shady salesman . I actually believed in a lot of what we were supposed to believe in Bari Weiss @bariweiss I think maybe the most shocking and terrifying part was how little resistance there was on the part of people who were supposed to be the gatekeepers. 6:19 PM · Feb 22, 2018
James A. Robichaux · July 15, 2021 · He is making it seem like wealthy people's money is what makes all of these great things possible. 😡 Gross. U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders July 15, 2021 · At a time of massive wealth and income inequality and when half our people are living paycheck to paycheck, what this reconciliation bill will finally do is address the needs of our working families by asking the wealthy and large corporations to pay their fair share of taxes. In many ways, it is the most consequential piece of legislation for working families since the Great Depression. This legislation will aggressively reduce childhood poverty by extending the Child Tax Credit to deliver direct monthly payments of up to $300 per child to working families. It will guarantee that no family pays over 7 percent of their income for child care. It will, finally, provide paid family and medical leave for working people. It will make higher education affordable by allowing everyone to attend community college tuition-free. It will take on the greed of the pharmaceutical industry and the reality that our people pay the highest prices in the world for prescription drugs by having Medicare negotiate prescription drug prices with drug companies. It will ensure our seniors can live in dignity by expanding Medicare to cover eyeglasses, hearing aids, and dental care. It will take on the existential threat of climate change by creating millions of good-paying jobs transforming our energy systems away from fossil fuels and toward renewable energy. Finally, it is my hope that this legislation will restore the American people’s faith in their government by proving that it works for them, not just the wealthy and powerful and their lobbyists.
I get accused of harming Democrats by criticizing them but actually I think the most harmful Democrat is the blue loyalist, the Sacred Moderate or Conservative Democrat. They refuse to incorporate public opinion into their electoral outlook, cover their ears when electorates sour on the status quo, and always - without fail - blame voters when they lose elections, rather than self reflect. Doubling down on the party brand in this era of anti-establishment sentiment is harmful to Democrats. Einstein's definition of insanity is applicable here.
I get accused of harming Democrats by criticizing them but actually I think the most harmful Democrat is the blue loyalist, the Sacred Moderate or Conservative Democrat. They refuse to incorporate public opinion into their electoral outlook, cover their ears when electorates sour on the status quo, and always - without fail - blame voters when they lose elections, rather than self reflect. Doubling down on the party brand in this era of anti-establishment sentiment is harmful to Democrats. Einstein's definition of insanity is applicable here.
Idrees Ahmad @im_PULSE Leaving aside this lady's history of racist tweets, I am intrigued by her use of "Gaza people". By that she means people who take genocide very seriously. In her mind, and in the mind of centrist Democrats, this is some kind of a deviance. And this is why the centre is collapsing Quote Rachel Bitecofer 🗽🦆 @RachelBitecofer · Jul 5 Commentary account I’m starting to hate the Gaza people with the passion of a thousand suns. Y’all get that the average Palestinian would cheer your death?? 2:21 PM · Jul 7, 2026
Joe Walsh on Twitter: "3 Dallas Cops killed, 7 wounded. This is now war. Watch out Obama. Watch out black lives matter punks. Real American is coming after you." 7 July 2016
There probably actually is a good liberal and-or socialist case against Graham Platner. It's just that I haven't seen anyone make it, though I have seen one person make a proto-argument for what I have in mind. Yes, this is a possible liberal case against Platner even for the general election, and I think that it's the only anti-fascist case against him that has any merit. You could make the case that Platner being elected would cause so much harm to the progressive and-or liberal and-or socialist cause(s) that it would even be better in the long term to allow Susan Collins to retain that Senate seat. Of course, to make this case, you'd really have to ... explain why having Susan Collins, who has supported practically every evil thing that Donald Trump and Republicans have done, remain in the Senate to likely do more such evil things somehow is even worse than the effects of the branding issues that Platner's elevation would bring. Such a case would have merit. I think that the fact that no one is making this case means something! 🙂
The popular success of figures like Richardson and Snyder rests on the fact they are presenting a narrative that rarely challenges their audience—which is largely white, middle-class, well-educated, and progressive. It is an audience made up of people for whom, up until now, the American project has worked out very well. What many of these people want to hear is that the rise of Trump and the MAGA movement is an aberration, a fixable malfunction. The audience for Richardson and Snyder, whether on podcasts, Substack, or Threads, want to believe that the current president and his supporters are not heirs to their American legacy but have instead twisted the truth about this nation’s history for their own malign ends. In this context, not only are their detractors the real inheritors of the nation’s Founders, but there is a clear path to escaping this fraught moment: accepting the truth about the nation and following where it leads us.
kareem 🪴 🦧 @kareemisposting America 250 being a huge flop (in contrast with what I understand about the bicentennial) is maybe the surest sign that the social bonds in this country have significantly deteriorated, maybe irreparably. No one cares about this at all anymore. Pack it up. 11:28 AM · Jul 4, 2026 ·
Ellis Winningham June 27, 2021 · Progressives: You cannot win this fight playing by the rules of neoliberalism. The notions that national governments have no money of their own and must tax to fund their spending, and that the national debt is a future burden which will require huge tax increases to service are not unassailable laws that both sides must accept; they are not rules set in stone which neither the right or the left can violate; they are not truths - in fact, they are lies. Progressives must adopt an economic narrative that is the exact opposite of so-called mainstream “common knowledge”. If anyone says that the governments have no money of their own and there is only taxpayer money, then progressives must insist that taxpayers do not fund national governments; national governments fund taxpayers. If anyone says that the national debt is unsustainable, then progressives must counter with the statement that there is no unsustainable level of public debt for sovereign currency-issuing national governments. If anyone says that we must find cuts to pay for this or that, progressives must reply that finding cuts to pay for national government spending is obsolete unless real resource constraints force us to eliminate one thing to do another. If anyone says that national government budget deficits crowd out private investment, progressives must state boldly that banks are not intermediaries, there is no such thing as finite savings, and that a national government budget deficit is the private sector’s income. Progressives must outright refuse to play by the rules of neoliberalism. Progressives everywhere must cease disseminating the false neoliberal doctrine of taxpayer-funded currency-issuing national governments because it is economic terrorism.
Ellis Winningham June 27, 2021 · Progressives: You cannot win this fight playing by the rules of neoliberalism. The notions that national governments have no money of their own and must tax to fund their spending, and that the national debt is a future burden which will require huge tax increases to service are not unassailable laws that both sides must accept; they are not rules set in stone which neither the right or the left can violate; they are not truths - in fact, they are lies. Progressives must adopt an economic narrative that is the exact opposite of so-called mainstream “common knowledge”. If anyone says that the governments have no money of their own and there is only taxpayer money, then progressives must insist that taxpayers do not fund national governments; national governments fund taxpayers. If anyone says that the national debt is unsustainable, then progressives must counter with the statement that there is no unsustainable level of public debt for sovereign currency-issuing national governments. If anyone says that we must find cuts to pay for this or that, progressives must reply that finding cuts to pay for national government spending is obsolete unless real resource constraints force us to eliminate one thing to do another. If anyone says that national government budget deficits crowd out private investment, progressives must state boldly that banks are not intermediaries, there is no such thing as finite savings, and that a national government budget deficit is the private sector’s income. Progressives must outright refuse to play by the rules of neoliberalism. Progressives everywhere must cease disseminating the false neoliberal doctrine of taxpayer-funded currency-issuing national governments because it is economic terrorism.
Ellis Winningham June 27, 2021 · Progressives: You cannot win this fight playing by the rules of neoliberalism. The notions that national governments have no money of their own and must tax to fund their spending, and that the national debt is a future burden which will require huge tax increases to service are not unassailable laws that both sides must accept; they are not rules set in stone which neither the right or the left can violate; they are not truths - in fact, they are lies. Progressives must adopt an economic narrative that is the exact opposite of so-called mainstream “common knowledge”. If anyone says that the governments have no money of their own and there is only taxpayer money, then progressives must insist that taxpayers do not fund national governments; national governments fund taxpayers. If anyone says that the national debt is unsustainable, then progressives must counter with the statement that there is no unsustainable level of public debt for sovereign currency-issuing national governments. If anyone says that we must find cuts to pay for this or that, progressives must reply that finding cuts to pay for national government spending is obsolete unless real resource constraints force us to eliminate one thing to do another. If anyone says that national government budget deficits crowd out private investment, progressives must state boldly that banks are not intermediaries, there is no such thing as finite savings, and that a national government budget deficit is the private sector’s income. Progressives must outright refuse to play by the rules of neoliberalism. Progressives everywhere must cease disseminating the false neoliberal doctrine of taxpayer-funded currency-issuing national governments because it is economic terrorism.
James A. Robichaux · June 27, 2021 · "How will you pay for Freedom Of Speech?" "How will you pay for women's suffrage?" "How will you pay for the abolition of chattel slavery?" Yes, it's Stockholm Syndrome indeed, and it's cringey, embarrassing, and off-putting to potential allies among the impressionable young people for whom various political factions are competing. STOP DOING IT. 😡 Ellis Winningham June 27, 2021 · "How will you pay for universal health care?" Translation: "Hello. I have Stockholm Syndrome."
‪Jaime Harrison‬ ‪@jaimeharrison.bsky.social‬ · 1mo 🧵 Folks, I’m tired… and I know a whole lot of us are tired. Our party isn’t perfect. Our leaders aren’t perfect. But there are people right now putting everything they have into standing up in this moment. Constructive criticism matters. Accountability matters. ‪Jaime Harrison‬ ‪@jaimeharrison.bsky.social‬ · 1mo But if all you do is attack the Democratic Party while Black leaders are being targeted, Black voting rights are being dismantled, Black political power is under assault, and HBCUs are under attack, then don’t expect me to treat you any differently than I treat Trump and his MAGA acolytes. ‪Jaime Harrison‬ ‪@jaimeharrison.bsky.social‬ · 1mo You are coming after one of the last major institutions capable of protecting my community. At that point, you are not an ally. You are the opposition, and you’ll be treated as such. Shuffle ‪@shuffleosint.bsky.social‬ Follow OK so the party has learned why it failed in the past and made appropriate changes right? Right?? 2:28 PM · May 6, 2026
The Safe Radical This is why the proposal fits so neatly with the broader pattern that has surrounded Sanders for years. He is not the destroyer of establishment myths. He is one of their more useful managers. He gives angry people the emotional language of revolt while leaving untouched the deepest institutional lies: that the federal government is financially constrained like a household, that public goods must be paid for out of private riches, and that concentrated capital can remain in command so long as the public gets a partial rebate. That is the role of a pressure-relief valve. Popular anger gets harvested, dramatized, and redirected into policy designs that preserve the central architecture of power. The AI fund follows that script perfectly. It offers symbolic confrontation with billionaires while reinforcing the basic establishment story about money and leaving private capital at the commanding heights of the economy. Whether the explanation is stupidity or fraud matters less than many people think. The practical result is identical. The public remains trapped inside a false fiscal narrative, and the establishment remains protected by a politician who sounds radical while thinking in the safest and most conventional terms available.
PalMedia @PalMediaOrg To choose or not to choose A vote for Trump is a vote for the destruction of Palestine. The stakes couldn't be higher. Quote George Conway ⚖️🇺🇸 @gtconway3d · Jun 24, 2020 No one is compelled to work for, speak for, defend, explain, rationalize, or excuse this president and his incompetence, derangement, and racism. Whether to do any of that, or not, is a choice. And it’s a moral choice, a crucial one, both for individuals and the nation. 11:12 AM · Jun 29, 2020
Amy Klobuchar @amyklobuchar · Jun 16 With $300 billion, we could end homelessness, fund cancer research for 40 years, and give every child free pre-K for over 7 years. Instead, Trump is sending it to Iran. This is not America First. Not even close.
Travis Cimino: This is so condescendingly stupid. Of course it's MY MONEY, and of course I get a say in how MY MONEY is spent. And ideally, I'd like as little of MY MONEY spent by someone else as possible. Sitting there dressing it up as 'the state should take from you because by existing you agreed to it' 1. Tells me you can't convince people your policy the taxpayer has to pay for works or is beneficial to them 2. Tells me you're shit with your own money and life so you need to pay Daddy Government to step in and manage your life for you Both are pathetic no matter how many college words you use 🙄 58m Author James A. Robichaux: Yeah, I didn't say that the state should take from you because by existing you agreed to it, but, anyway, thank you for coming here to help demonstrate *my* point to the stubborn liberal and progressive people who continue to validate *your* dishonest and harmful framework. <meme that shows an NFL referee with the phrase "ILLEGAL USE OF STRAWMAN">
"and then you look at how [taxpayer identity has] been deployed, and how it has been deployed really since the 19th Century, and since before that, but definitely since the 19th Century, has been in the service of exclusion. It's been in the service of keeping out people of color, keeping out women." "Making claims to resources and entitlements on the basis of being a 'taxpayer' for most of US history has meant making claims that other people should not get resources, benefits, entitlements, and protections." - Dr Camille Walsh, author of RACIAL TAXATION
Erin Ekins (she/her) @QueerlyAutistic · Mar 17 Many of us have been yelling for years that the venn diagram between anti-trans bigots and anti-abortion zealots is a circle. Quote PinkNews @PinkNews · Mar 17 Former EHRC chair joins 'gender-critical' peers targeting abortion rights https://thepinknews.com/2026/03/17/ehrc-chair-abortion-rights/?utm_content=1773749712&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter Erin Ekins (she/her) @QueerlyAutistic · Mar 17 This is not a 'haha we told you', this is a 'please start listening and paying attention because we needed you to several years ago, but you didn't'. Erin Ekins (she/her) @QueerlyAutistic · Mar 17 The 'gender critical' transphobes are fundamentally attached to the same bio-essentialist misogyny that fuels anti-abortion rhetoric, and they are also fundamentally against people having the right to autonomy over their own bodies. These are the same people. Erin Ekins (she/her) @QueerlyAutistic The legal attacks on kids accessing gender affirming healthcare in the UK were absolutely about forcing trans kids away from transitioning, but they were also designed to undermine Gillick competence so that kids' access to abortion/contraception could be targeted next.
Corey Robin June 13, 2025 · New York Times just reporting this tonight: "The Trump administration has abruptly shifted the focus of its mass deportation campaign, telling Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials to largely pause raids and arrests in the agricultural industry, hotels and restaurants, according to an internal email and three U.S. officials with knowledge of the guidance. The decision suggested that the scale of President Trump’s mass deportation campaign — an issue that is at the heart of his presidency — is hurting industries and constituencies that he does not want to lose. The new guidance comes after protests in Los Angeles against the Trump administration’s immigration raids, including at farms and businesses. It also came as Mr. Trump made a rare concession this week that his crackdown was hurting American farmers and hospitality businesses. The guidance was sent on Thursday in an email by a senior ICE official, Tatum King, to regional leaders of the ICE department that generally carries out criminal investigations, including work site operations, known as Homeland Security Investigations."
Common Dreams 2h · “The money that Trump wants to burn on war should instead be spent on the needs of the American people, including restoring funding for healthcare, food, housing, and climate action,” said one critic. See less While Slashing Food Aid and Healthcare, GOP Advances Trillion-Dollar Military Budget | Common Dreams commondreams.org While Slashing Food Aid and Healthcare, GOP Advances Trillion-Dollar Military Budget | Common Dreams
Being brave or patriotic doesn’t matter to Christian nationalists. The ultimate goal is to exclude all non-Christian people from being full American citizens. What Hegseth accidentally did, however, is reveal that a whole lot of self-proclaimed Christians are also on the chopping block. Once the principle of religious discrimination against non-Christians is established in American law, the next step was always going to be reclassifying huge swathes of Christians as non-Christians, so they can be marginalized, too.
Adam Bates Yesterday at 10:50 AM · OK Platner is officially the nominee. Time for all you "vote blue no matter who," "harm reduction," "lesser evil" folks to line up and kiss the ring, yeah? You gotta give him the full Kamala Harris treatment from this point forward. Every evil thing he's ever done is now just an "imperfection," if he says anything really evil from this point forward then that's just "something he can be moved on after the election," and if you see anybody NOT full-throatedly supporting Graham Platner with every calorie of energy every waking moment of every day, you have to call them a Trump-loving fascist who hates democracy and is only demonstrating how privileged they are. And if he loses, well that's the voters' fault. Maybe they're just too bigoted and ignorant and stupid and deplorable to do the right thing, unlike you, yeah? If he loses then every time you see him for the next couple years you have to yell "yass queen you told 'em so!" and stand up and clap and then buy his book. It's a tough ask, but I didn't make the rules, you did. Now follow 'em. We're all watching.
Ken Fredette: I’m having a fun chat on this very topic right now! 29m Ken Fredette: First thing I notice is how defensive people get about the fact that they’ve paid into it. “How can there not be a trust fund, if I’ve had payroll taxes taken out to put in the trust fund?” 24m Author James A. Robichaux: Yes, and it is so profoundly frustrating and dispiriting watching liberal and progressive people do this, because they refuse to let go of the mythology that is the best argument AGAINST the social-welfare-spending policies (not just Social Security and Medicare) about which they claim to care. They're acting just like conservative types, only liberally and progressively, which is why they are creating permission structures for austerity and violent exclusion. 😡
James A. Robichaux Published by James A. Robichaux (tooltip)Only people who manage this Page can see who published · June 9, 2025 · This is exactly how I feel, and it's the people who don't feel this way and the people who think that it's unreasonable for us to think this way who are the ones who have to explain why we should NOT feel this way. The onus is on them to justify their feelings - or lack thereof - and their way of thinking, not on us to justify our way of thinking. See less Culinary Anarchy June 3, 2025 · I'm not going to be polite or civil with people who want to put my friends and family into camps. No apologies.
James A. Robichaux Published by James A. Robichaux (tooltip)Only people who manage this Page can see who published · June 8, 2025 · Yes, though the other bad news is that the one opposition party that our system allows, too, is quite unpopular, and for reasons that are understandable. We have to do better than just being against Trump. We have to be FOR things. Scott LeBleu May 7, 2025 · Donald Trump is flopping. Three months into his second term, his poll numbers have plummeted to historic lows. A growing majority of Americans — 55% — disapprove of his presidency. In one poll, a whopping 45% gave him an “F” grade. Voters give him devastatingly low marks on issues like the economy and immigration. Another poll shows that 52% of Americans see Trump as a “dangerous dictator” who is overstepping his presidential authority. The bad news: As Trump becomes more unpopular, he escalates his authoritarian tactics. With every passing day, he commits shocking new acts — abducting people and sending them to concentration camps in El Salvador, arresting judges, shredding the Constitution, pushing the economy toward recession, and threatening to stay in office for an illegal third term. ~Framelab
Swoletariat ‪@swoletariat.bsky.social‬ Follow The Democratic party failed to protect black voters by throwing an election for Bibi's genocide, and now leadership is using black voters as a shield for their own fecklessness, incredible.
Butlerian Jihaad Campbell ‪@severedlimb.bsky.social‬ Follow Jaime do you think it’s more likely for us to reach you with our criticisms or the GOP who hate us and want us dead? I really don’t get what’s so hard to understand about this ‪Jaime Harrison‬ ‪@jaimeharrison.bsky.social‬ · 1mo But if all you do is attack the Democratic Party while Black leaders are being targeted, Black voting rights are being dismantled, Black political power is under assault, and HBCUs are under attack, then don’t expect me to treat you any differently than I treat Trump and his MAGA acolytes. 2:37 PM · May 6, 2026
Straight Edge of Hormuz ‪@banjeaux.bsky.social‬ Follow Many people, rightfully, feel the Democrats have done a poor job protecting society's most vulnerable. At the same time, there are people actively trying to turn this country into a white male Christian ethnostate. This former chair of the DNC believes both groups should be treated equally. ‪Jaime Harrison‬ ‪@jaimeharrison.bsky.social‬ · 1mo But if all you do is attack the Democratic Party while Black leaders are being targeted, Black voting rights are being dismantled, Black political power is under assault, and HBCUs are under attack, then don’t expect me to treat you any differently than I treat Trump and his MAGA acolytes. 5:29 PM · May 6, 2026
Adam Bates 1h · There appears to be a lot of consternation in liberal circles about why Graham Platner's support endures despite so much available evidence that he's a dudebro scumbucket, and I gotta say I actually think it's almost painfully simple. Progressives are just doing right back at liberals exactly what liberals have always done to them, and not only do the liberals not seem to recognize their own arguments being flung back at them, but the cognitive dissonance seems to be driving them insane. Here's a fun experiment: find any liberal pundit writing thinkpieces these days exclaiming all the reasons they think Platner is disqualified from the support of any decent person. Then go back to 2024 and see what those exact same commentators were saying about Kamala Harris' support for genocide, and how much they contorted any semblance of a moral compass they had to justify NOT treating genocide as a dealbreaker. Do that and I think you'll figure out that this whole thing is a lot simpler than people are treating it. Liberals have spent our entire adult lives preaching to us about how morality has to fold in the face of political practicality, how "harm reduction" means "choosing the lesser evil" no matter how bad they are, about how having any moral principles at all just enables fascism. Up to and including telling actual genocide victims that they're morally obligated to support their own extermination at the ballot box.
Last week, President Joe Biden announced a plan to cancel some amount of student-loan debt for student debtors who meet a means-tested income threshold. This announcement was met with a chorus of angry responses from Republicans and conservative and libertarian types, and nearly all of them made the horrid and disingenuous claim that other people – usually portrayed as blue-collar workers with no college education, though sometimes people who had student debt and paid all of it off – would be stuck, burdened with, paying the debts of those whose debts were being canceled. But how is it that Republicans get away with making this horrid, dishonest accusation? The answer is, most frustratingly, Democrats and liberal and progressive people in or associated with their coalition.
Steven Salaita 8h · To a significant degree, the debates now raging about rightwing anti-Israel sentiment result from the failure of the Anglophone left, particularly in North America, to develop (or adopt) a coherent anti-Zionism beyond some determined but smallish intellectual and activist communities which were systematically (sometimes aggressively) ostracized. The pathetic abdications of the left-liberal professional classes amid the Zionist genocide created a vacuum that various carnival barkers have been happy to occupy. Many of the same people now mourning the emergence of a rightwing vanguard within the Palestine solidarity movement were seminal in delegitimizing principled opposition to Zionism. This is what happens when it becomes acceptable to dispose of the oppressed in order to chase fantasies of electoral salvation. This too is what happens when politics cannot transcend a deep-seated insistence on redeeming the United States.
Travis Cimino Rick Shellhammer Not at all, you're just approaching things from a socialist viewpoint. You seem to be missing that infrastructure and taxpayer dollars don't come from thin air though. infrastructure needs taxpayers. Taxpayers don't need infrastructure. If all the roads and paths disappeared overnight, we'd still figure out a way to get to work. If taxpayers disappeared overnight, infrastructure wouldn't have a function 😉
Published by James A. Robichaux · May 23, 2025 · And they promote "taxpayer" thinking and identity because it very much fosters and is fostered by the Rugged Individualism from which 2A fetishization springs. It is in the interest of the wealthiest people in society and the most bigoted people in society for you to think of yourself as a "taxpayer". That's why they promote that way of thinking. Anarcho-Judaism May 23, 2025 · The bourgeoisie do not fear a well-armed proletariat. They use 2A and rugged individualism as rallying points to support their reactionary program. No, what they fear is a well-educated and well-organized proletariat because this would turn the power that comes with being armed right back against them.
Third Way 2h · Combative centrism is how Democrats win the middle.
Katie Jagielnicka 5h The Noösphere You know what’s infinitely scarier and more dangerous than low rates of AI literacy? Low rates of actual literacy. We can survive without the latest tech. But we cannot easily survive when a massive chunk of the population is unable to analyse what they read and see through a critical lens, distinguish truth from falsehoods, learn new things, and understand one other.
Mystic Mikester 38m · About Graham Platner: You can be vigilant without being self-defeating. In Maine right now, it's him or Susan Collins. Platner has shown that he's responsive to critique by adapting to it, and the preponderance of his currently stated positions - the ones he's running on - are progressive. We know historically that working class anxiety can be funneled into fascism if there aren't strong progressive options. It is not a mystery to me how someone can fall under the spell of that in their youth, and grow out of it later as they mature. It doesn't take a fascist mindset to be tempted by rhetoric designed to deceive you. The character deformity emerges in those who dig in their heels once they've seen what it really is. *Those* are the unrepentant Nazis, and they don't get their tattoos removed, apologize, and then work hard to put out progressive policy plans to show they mean business. Meanwhile, Collins is worse than spineless, she deliberately sits in the middle and flips legislation according to the most toxic direction the wind is blowing in any moment. She might as well be the one with nazi tattoos, she's the most dangerous kind of complicity. So there's a .00001% chance Platner is some kind of cryptonazi, just flying under the radar to grab power. It's hard to understand why he'd do that in a time when out nazis can win as openly nazi, it reminds me of people who say rapists need to pretend to be women to be rapists. But even so, I'll take those odds. Collins is 100% a non-starter. I'll take a .00001% chance for the 99.99999% likelihood that Platner at very least is any distance at all to the left of the centrist Democrats