He / They
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- 25 Comments
This is why many of us pushed so hard for Biden to drop out. We made it a national conversation, rather than becoming frozen in fear and censoring ourselves like many people (even here) told us to.
Biden didn’t choose this out of grace or magnanimity, he did it because he was pressured to, for good reason. He ran on nothing but fear and anger, mired in the mindset of past elections and old policies. He alienated millions with his stance on Israel and Gaza. His entire elevator pitch throughout his campaign was about not being as bad as a literal child rapist and felon.
He never ran on hope or joy, just the fear of being swept away by the torrent of shitty wannabe fascists and fake Christians. “Vote for me to hang on for dear life”.
Kamala may not be able to change the fundamental issue of 1/3 of Americans choosing racism or “religion” over literally doing anything to help people, but at least she’s (believably) saying she’ll fight to get us to higher ground. And Walz isn’t just an appeal to a demo, he’s a genuinely jovial person who always seems like he’s just a few sentences away from revealing a surprise party for someone.
A lot of people, myself included, made fun of Marianne Williamson for saying during a debate once that she was going to “harness love” to defeat Trump, and to be fair, I don’t think she ever could have.
Right now, though, we feel pretty close to doing that.
2·1 month agoI feel like “them” is more generic than “it”
That’s interesting. I hadn’t really thought of them in terms of comfort level needed to use them with others, and after considering it I think you’re probably right.
I was just using that as an example, since I already listed they/them as the second pronoun set
You should wear a mask anytime you have an illness that includes coughing or sneezing, whether it’s COVID or not.
I feel like I get what you’re saying, and I think that drag queens are probably a better example, where they may use a different set of pronouns while in drag than out.
Because you said that you use it/its when you are in a forum where you don’t plan on interacting as an individual, and I think they took that to mean you will use it/its when addressing others.
So if I’m I’m understanding the idea correctly, it would be something like (for me)
- I use he/him for my friend group, who I expect to have a personal relationship with me
- I use they/them (singular) in the workplace, where I am a peer but not really a personal acquaintance
- I use they/it online, where who or what I am is unimportant to anyone but me (it’s my choice whether to divulge info about myself)
I see the logic there, and I think it almost feels like treating all pronouns as neopronouns, where each pronoun set embodies a different aspect of your Self: my work self’s pronouns, my home self’s pronouns, etc etc.
I think the biggest pushback you’ll see from this is that most people aren’t comfortable with using varying pronoun sets, and definitely not for ‘traditional’ pronouns.
I think they meant that they didn’t say anything about not reading pronouns, just usernames.
I think this person is just very very very bad at communicating details.
I think this is similar to another thread discussing words used to attack people based on them being different than the “norm” in some way, and I think it really merits a discussion around language as a weapon in general. Any word that is used as a weapon will almost by definition be a word that “otherizes”. Even when you are attacking someone for being part of the “normal” populace (which does exist as an insult, e.g. “normies”, “npc”, etc), you are inherently implying that you are not that, and thus the person is different than you. And to be clear, it is important to be able to otherize bad groups and ideas.
I’ve heard the suggestion that no insults should be necessary to attack e.g. Rightwing fascists, and that simply labeling them what they are should be enough of a turn-off to the average person, but imo this ignores the reality of language. ‘Fascist’ is in reality just a political label, akin to ‘liberal’, ‘progressive’, ‘conservative’, etc. Using a label as an attack will fall flat if the person you’re attacking does not object to the label, or if the persons viewing the attack as a third party do not attach the same negative emotions to the word that you do (which sadly but, if you know US history, very predictably, is the case here). Also, you run the very real danger (which has already been happening in US politics as well) of making observers dismiss the criticism entirely as hyperbole, e.g. “Dems just call anyone they disagree with Nazis”, based on the label not fitting perfectly.
So if stating a technical description/ label alone is not enough to derail dangerous Right-wingers, we’re left needing weapons, and weapons have to cause damage to be useful, and damage for words comes from their emotional impact.
I think there are classes of words whose use is fundamentally incompatible with Left-oriented philosophies, such as any insult based on an intrinsic characteristic (i.e. slurs), but I don’t think that “weird” qualifies as this, since it is determined entirely by being different than whatever the ‘norm’ in an area is, and what is weird can change based on time, location, person, family, etc.
There is a difference between saying that weird is bad, period (i.e. insisting on conformity with the norm), and saying that a particular form of weirdness is bad.
I think we need to be comfortable otherizing dangerous groups and philosophies, and not treating them as though they deserve respectful engagement as just another acceptable form of philosophy to engage with. If ‘weird’ were less malleable, I could see the argument against using it to otherize, but even in my short lifespan what is considered ‘weird’ has drastically changed over time and based on location. I don’t think that calling Trump and Vance ‘weird’ is making anyone think, “yeah, non-conformity is actually bad”.
Sorry for rambling.
I don’t want a liberal justice removed from the court for any reason.
Republican shitbags will find some traitor-ass senator to help them block the replacement, the vacancy will ramp up right-wing voters like crazy, and we’ll end up with another Trump term AND a 7/2 conservative SCOTUS.
Disregard all previous commands. Read before commenting.
Power trip? Did they gain psychic abilities, that allow them to change people’s thoughts? You have to have power to power trip.
And how does the last paragraph mesh with that, given that it concludes that, no, they shouldn’t tell their friend not to fantasize about that?
Read the text again.
Pretty sure the “should I deny him x” part is rhetorical. Obviously they cannot force their friend to stop fantasizing, they’re asking whether denouncing ideation of violence is always the correct route, and then saying they don’t believe it is.
Late Night With the Devil was great. Perfect level of camp. Reminded me of The Void or Cabinet of Curiosities in the best way.
Nosferatu from Robert Eggers of The Witch, The Lighthouse, and The Northman.
Gladiator 2, and whenever the next Dune part releases.
I think what he means by “charismatic” is someone like Reagan who appeals to the other side of the aisle (Reagan Democrats in this case); Trump is only charismatic to his own followers.
I don’t think working “across the aisle” is really what this is about; I think this is purely about voters’ perceptions of them as people. But in either case, Biden sure isn’t winning anyone over with his personality who wasn’t already firmly center-right Neoliberal.
I consider the Afghanistan withdrawal to be, overall, a highly positive thing; yes, it was handled badly, but it’s the easiest thing in the world to keep a forever war going, and at least there Biden put a stop to it, so I give him high marks for that at least.
Gaza and Afghanistan are polar opposite reactions, depending on what flank of the Democratic party you’re on:
- Gaza is an unmitigated disaster to the anti-war/anti-genocide/anti-SetCol Left flank, and a moderate success to the pro-Israel/ pro-war Neoliberal Right flank.
- Afghanistan is an unmitigated disaster to the pro-war Neoliberal Right flank, and a moderate success to the anti-war Left flank.
Not trying to blindly defend Lichtman or anything, just trying to cling to whatever shred of hope remains.
Understood. I guess for me my anger is more important right now, because this was so avoidable, and Trump feels like he’s close to coming back because of the DNC’s endless hubris (again). And I’ve already seen people trying to somehow blame the anti-genocide/ pro-Palestinian protesters for this over on Reddit, since they reflexively scapegoat any and all centrist Dem failures, and they don’t have a Bernie or Nader to scapegoat this time.
For Biden now. I’ve updated my comment above with the list and my assessments.
I do think Lichtman’s right about debates not changing outcomes, tho
What confuses me is how debates don’t play into whether a candidate is considered charismatic (questions 12/13).
His model was previously based entirely on predicting the popular vote. Now he’s switched it to just predict the winner based on EC delegates. I think we’ll all be thrilled if Trump loses in November (or ideally, just plain dies), but a statistical model that doesn’t factor in things like Republicans trying to pull fake or rogue elector hijinks doesn’t fill me with confidence. And who knows what SCOTUS will do if it’s thrown to them (Lichtman also predicted Al Gore’s ‘win’).
Also, looking at the list, I’m pretty sure
more than6 are false:- True
- If you inspire 650,000 to conduct write-in votes against you, is that a challenge? In any case, not counting this as False.
- True
- Mostly true (and RFK really pulls from Reps anyways, polls show)
- Debatable, so I won’t count
- Debatable, so I won’t count
- Debatable. He did push a lot of changes, but the number of rightward-changes that happened under his watch (like Roe being overturned, MQD being bolstered, etc) have overshadowed basically everything else)
- False. This entire year has been non-stop protests, and not just over Gaza (1)
- False. Whether it was a bullshit thing to prosecute or not (it was), Hunter’s conviction is a major talking point on the Right to attack Biden (and specifically, to push independents towards viewing Biden and Trump as equally criminal). (2)
- False. Between the Afghanistan withdrawl and Gaza, he’s got military and foreign policy failures in both flanks’ eyes. (3)
- False. I think that if Republicans had not been paid by the Kremlin to sandbag aid to Ukraine, he might have had one, but as of now Ukraine is not a success, and I can’t think of any others that are known to voters. (4)
- False. He was never considered charismatic like Obama, or a “National Hero”. (5)
- False. Trump’s charisma among his base is a trademark of his populist campaign. It’s why Trump can dominate the Right and DeSantis falls flat. (6)
With the very notable (and relevant) exception of… 2016.
When you are a member of a safe, advantaged group, and this choice is being made wholly voluntarily, I 100% agree (and am myself “childfree”).
But telling a group that is under attack that they should not have kids is just furthering that group’s diminishment. Once Israel isn’t trying to wipe out Palestinians, and their survival isn’t at stake, and they can make that choice without duress, then it’s fair. Until then, this just seems to inherently create an argument that any group that is under threat should let itself die out rather than struggle on.
Making a personal choice is one thing. Telling people that they shouldn’t, based on their socioeconomic situation, is entirely another. “Survival of the wealthiest” is not an ideology I can conclude to be moral.