I'll be slightly OT, but Our Host doesn't seem to understand kayfabe, or open secrets in general. The fans mostly know pro wrestling is fake. However, they are not supposed to speak of the fakeness in public. And they don't; it would spoil the point of the fandom. This isn't limited to wrestling, or Trump. Think of Madonna's phony transgressiveness in the 1990's. Everybody pretended it was shocking; nobody was shocked.
In the case of immigration, I'm not sure that the MAGAts are convinced that Trump will kick all the foreigners out. But they pretend to believe this in public. Their true (and I think accurate) belief is that Trump will make life hell for foreigners, or at least better subordinate them. But they're not supposed to say this in public. And they mostly don't, except for the out-and-out Nazis, who have their own phony transgressiveness act.
With Trump, there is always considerable question of who is "everybody" here, what are lies of a demented neofascist, and what is planned. Who is inside and who is outside, and who knows and who half-knows, and who is in on the con, who thinks they are in on the con but is actually not in the con—is being conned by being made to think they are in on the con when they are not—and who does not know that there is a con. It is not easy to untangle. And the principals can shift the narrative in a blink of an eye, as reversals are part of the game.
After spending twenty years making it impossible for anyone else to go to China, Nixon went to China and was then acclaimed as a Great Statesman, after all... -B.
All agreed. I'm only concerned with the word "kayfabe," which is not itself a con, but whose allure is the pretense that somebody is being conned. What part of Trump's shtick is kayfabe and what part true con is very open to debate.
I saw a post somewhere that described this as a fight between the people who say America First and mean White People First, and the people who say America First and mean Rich People First.
You did confuse Musk with Vance as vice-president, right?
More important, why do you think original Magats have any power, now that Trump can't run again? I agree with those who say Bannon and Loomer were the marks, not the perps. I will get some satisfaction watching Bannon vent. Perhaps he and Musk can unite over supporting AfD.
One of my jobs is to grease the wheels on the rails to have more wrecks between OM’s and MumpBro’s ( Mumps from Timothy Snyder) . My other job is to throw sand in the gears of corrupt institutions that are being bent toward the oligarchs’ will.
This is the year I finally lost patience and cancelled my Times subscription. I have followed Snyder's advice to respect Kant's categorical imperative and am supporting local journalism ("The Tyee") instead.
But, come on, when your product is "hierarchy and domination", conflict is inevitable because there are not enough places at the top of the hierarchy for all the people who expect to occupy them. And, while mainstream MAGAts are loathsome and contemptible, the morons here are definitely the tech oligarchs, who had less to gain and more to lose by destroying rule of law. And yes, I remember that we have had this argument before, but I remain convinced that defense of the status quo is the vested interest of privilege. You just have to skim the biographies of the Nuremberg Trial defendants to get a sense of who wins and who loses when you undermine the established order.
I'll be slightly OT, but Our Host doesn't seem to understand kayfabe, or open secrets in general. The fans mostly know pro wrestling is fake. However, they are not supposed to speak of the fakeness in public. And they don't; it would spoil the point of the fandom. This isn't limited to wrestling, or Trump. Think of Madonna's phony transgressiveness in the 1990's. Everybody pretended it was shocking; nobody was shocked.
In the case of immigration, I'm not sure that the MAGAts are convinced that Trump will kick all the foreigners out. But they pretend to believe this in public. Their true (and I think accurate) belief is that Trump will make life hell for foreigners, or at least better subordinate them. But they're not supposed to say this in public. And they mostly don't, except for the out-and-out Nazis, who have their own phony transgressiveness act.
With Trump, there is always considerable question of who is "everybody" here, what are lies of a demented neofascist, and what is planned. Who is inside and who is outside, and who knows and who half-knows, and who is in on the con, who thinks they are in on the con but is actually not in the con—is being conned by being made to think they are in on the con when they are not—and who does not know that there is a con. It is not easy to untangle. And the principals can shift the narrative in a blink of an eye, as reversals are part of the game.
After spending twenty years making it impossible for anyone else to go to China, Nixon went to China and was then acclaimed as a Great Statesman, after all... -B.
All agreed. I'm only concerned with the word "kayfabe," which is not itself a con, but whose allure is the pretense that somebody is being conned. What part of Trump's shtick is kayfabe and what part true con is very open to debate.
I saw a post somewhere that described this as a fight between the people who say America First and mean White People First, and the people who say America First and mean Rich People First.
You did confuse Musk with Vance as vice-president, right?
More important, why do you think original Magats have any power, now that Trump can't run again? I agree with those who say Bannon and Loomer were the marks, not the perps. I will get some satisfaction watching Bannon vent. Perhaps he and Musk can unite over supporting AfD.
Follow the money.
True and powerful.
One of my jobs is to grease the wheels on the rails to have more wrecks between OM’s and MumpBro’s ( Mumps from Timothy Snyder) . My other job is to throw sand in the gears of corrupt institutions that are being bent toward the oligarchs’ will.
This is the year I finally lost patience and cancelled my Times subscription. I have followed Snyder's advice to respect Kant's categorical imperative and am supporting local journalism ("The Tyee") instead.
But, come on, when your product is "hierarchy and domination", conflict is inevitable because there are not enough places at the top of the hierarchy for all the people who expect to occupy them. And, while mainstream MAGAts are loathsome and contemptible, the morons here are definitely the tech oligarchs, who had less to gain and more to lose by destroying rule of law. And yes, I remember that we have had this argument before, but I remain convinced that defense of the status quo is the vested interest of privilege. You just have to skim the biographies of the Nuremberg Trial defendants to get a sense of who wins and who loses when you undermine the established order.
Powerful. One cannot do poorly by assuming capital will do whatever to suppress labor’s ability to organize and unite. It’s in our history.