Vaush is sounding like me, and I'm sounding like Vaush

 So...2024 broke the left. And...it's weird. Now people who were die hard Biden bros are now radicalizing into anti establishment progressives (to be fair Vaush has always been a leftist...), and people like me who were anti establishment progressives are turning into "democratic party shills", kind of. I mean, I'm not really a shill. I'm kind of in that Vaush territory of obviously being to their left but arguing to vote for democrats because of harm reduction, while these guys are like HELL NO I AINT VOTING FOR GAVIN NEWSOM. 

So what's Vaush's argument? Well, it's still harm reduction.  It's based on the idea that he advocated for people to vote for Biden in 2020 and 2024, people didn't in fact vote for him, and then the democrats turned around, did nothing, and then Trump came back in 2024 FAR WORSE than he was in 2020. Like...if Trump won 2020, he would've been a lame duck, would've been an ineffective president and then left office, but the democrats winning put their own gross incompetence on to such a blunt display that it caused Trump to win again. Meanwhile, Trump started out relatively tame, went bonkers when he lost 2020, been on the big lie ever since, and now he's morphed into full blown authoritarianism and fascism. Basically, if Trump won in 2020, we'd be in a better timeline.  

Now, to be fair, this is the same argument I've been making since 2016. in 2016, I figured I didnt want clinton to win because she'd do nothing with her power, and then the GOP would come back in 2020 and win big, possibly establishing a mandate. It would be better for Trump to have a relatively ineffective presidency because the dude was a moron who didn't know what he was doing, had no real agenda, no real means to materialize his agenda, etc. But he would be bad enough that people would look at that and go "yeah let's never do that again." And then we'd come back, run Bernie (hopefully the democrats would learn their lesson) and then we'd be in the GOOD timeline.

However, I must admit, I did make some miscalculations, some of which I was warned about.

1) The republicans were able to fill 3 SCOTUS seats. To be fair, part of this is the dems being their own corrupt mess of incompetence too. RBG shouldve resigned during the Obama era instead of dying of cancer under trump. And then they filled scalia and kennedy's seats. This has shifted the courts to the right, leading to an era of right wing judicial activism that largely benefits trump. This isn't fatal in and of itself since I do believe we have a shot with thomas, alito, and roberts have their seats up for grabs in the 2030s some time, but right now, SCOTUS can't be trusted to contain this trump administration in his second term. It would be one thing if they acted like legit constitutionalists, but they're not. 

2) The democrats never learned, tried the same 2016 playbook in 2020...and 2024...and probably in 2028....

3) That trump would be fundamentally unpopular after his first term. He hasnt been. He only narrowly lost 2020 and in 2024 he still had a coalition behind him. Even now, with the authoritarianism and concentration camps, politics has only shifted about 8 points to the left, which is substantial, but not like, coalition breaking. His coalition is still viable, and will remain viable for some time to come.

4) Knowing the future of MAGA and the GOP is tenuous, the GOP sees their future in voter suppression and radically changing the demographics of the country by purging and disenfranchising certain demographics hostile to its interests, and they are in a very real position with a very real danger to do this. This could head off any Obama era "coalition of the ascendant" that would otherwise happen. 

I'm not saying that we'd be in a better timeline had Clinton won in 2016. I do believe Vaush is right in that democratic incompetence and unwillingness to fight would get us in some variation of total GOP domination one way or another. If clinton won in 2016, she'd lose 2020 in a landslide, giving the GOP an in that way. But I am just pointing out that I thought like Vaush back in 2016 and 2020, and how the solution was to refuse to vote democrat to force them to change. But the GOP is doing unimaginable damage now, and the dems still havent learned, and quite frankly dont seem interested in learning. These are very dangerous circumstances.

And honestly? The fact that Trump is now so dangerous is why I sound like Vaush. In 2016, I'd argue we had the luxury of being able to pull off a protest vote. Trump wasnt that dangerous. He was just a normal politician at that stage as far as I'm concerned. While he always had some authoritarian impulses, it seemed clear that we had enough checks and balances to contain him if he tried anything. I mean, back then the GOP were so called "constitutionalists", and I believed the GOP itself would support those principles enough where they would push back against anything too crazy and authoritarian. And you know what? They kinda did. Trump tried January 6th, he failed, in part because of Mike Pence, his own VP, and the system worked. The system worked. it stopped trump's attempted coup. 

But things are different now. He went insane with the big lie since losing 2020, and in 2024, he morphed into something much darker. He wasnt just getting normal republicans in his cabinet, he was getting loyalists. He had the heritage foundation write project 2025. He had a plan to consolidate power. He had a cooperative congress, a cooperative supreme court. And he's GOING FOR IT. He's trying to dismantle our democracy.

Look, for years, I've criticized the democratic party for being useless. And I still do. Their uselessness is on full display during the trump era. Chuck Schumer and Hakeem Jeffries are a joke. They are not vigorously opposing Trump. And most 2028 candidates are establishment lightweights who won't be able to deliver better than Biden. Even if they win in 2028, and if we still have fair elections, they should, quite comfortably, we're at a D+8 scenario right now give or take based on more recent polling projections, they're gonna make the same mistakes Biden did and then lose again.

And the next wave of MAGA? Hooh boy. We're already seeing outlines of what they could be. If you think these guys are bad? The next wave WILL be worse. They'll be the Nick Fuentes types, the MTG types, ya know that anti establishment "America first" faction that sounds more and more like outright fascists. Trump is fascist lite. He has authoritarian tendencies but lacks the ideological commitment to the bit. he only cares about power. The next wave are gonna be the true believer types who are ideologically committed to the bit and who are openly fascist and white supremacist. That's where we're going. 

And I would agree with Vaush, the only way to head off this fate is if the democrats themselves change. But that's probably the worst thing about all of this. it seems quite clear that they have no intention of being responsive to the voters and will just come back every 4 years and demand we support them to avoid the fascist, and we're in a tough situation where we're darned if we do, but also darned if we don't.

In 2016 and 2020 I saw through their behavior, and I responded with their threats with my own that if they dont appeal to my politics, I aint gonna vote for them. It's a reasonable reaction in a world where democracy is assumed as a constant. You vote for a third party, the democrats lose until they get the message, and then they change. But that CAN take a few cycles of repeated losses to actually make it sink in. Here's the thing. We no longer have that luxury. Trump and his administration is too dangerous, and I'm worried about us having free and fair elections THIS YEAR. All it would take is a few congressional bills making it to his desk and him being able to implement strict voter ID laws, or destroying mail in voting, or reducing the number of polling places, or having the federal government (his people) counting the ballots, or him declaring a national emergency that allows him to suspend elections. And none of these are all that unthinkable. All he needs is 218 house votes (or whatever a majority would constitute these days, 214? 215? 216?), 50 senate votes, vance voting as the tie breaker in the senate, the bill reaching his desk, him signing it, and when challenged, SCOTUS either rules in his favor or he just ignores SCOTUS and does whatever he wants anyway since he also controls the justice system via pam bondi and kash patel. 

And that's what has me so freaked out. We dont have the luxury of forcing the dems to learn their lesson over a certain period of time of F-ing around and finding out.  We need these guys out NOW. 

However, Vaush is also right. If the dems truly learn nothing, they'll just make the same mistakes again, and we'll have a worse iteration of MAGA come back in 2032 that will not just finish what this one started, but worse. 

It's as if...the democrats really need to learn not to push wishy washy centrists, and I'm with Vaush, stop putting these people up, no one likes them, give us fighters. it's what I said since 2016. BUT....again....can I really embrace third party voting when the consequence is the guy who wins is literally Hitler? 

And that's the rub. Vaush is right. He's late to the party, or I'm early but he's right. BUT...maybe he's too late. I've been thinking about this, and I thought, okay, dealignment in 2016, maybe a realignment by 2028? (mirroring the new deal dealignment in 1968, but reagan winning in 1980) But with the 2028 candidates looking to be more Gavin Newsoms, and Kamala Harrises and Pete Buttigiegs and them running the party, I'm not seeing a progressive bench. bernie Sanders was our once in a generation realigning figure, and we blew it. And the democrats left are just...the same uninspiring clinton types I've been opposing all along. AOC is in there sure, but she's 4th and not well positioned for a win. We need a whole new candidate to come out of nowhere and win people over. 

Idk...2016 might've been the realignment, and now we're screwed. The time to fight was 2016, and 2020, and now, it's too late. The current alignment seems locked in and I dont see a way out. It's just the whigs vs the jacksonian democrats again. An ineffective opposition party opposing a crazy populist. It didn't have to be that way, but that's the way it went. 

So...idk. I'm kinda resigning myself to a vote for harris or newsom right now. That's where 2028 seems to be going. I hate that it's going that way, and by rights, these MFers should NEVER get our votes....but when I think about it...what would it take for me to vote democrat under those circumstances? It's basically that they'd literally need to run against someone like Hitler. And that's....precisely where we are. I hate to say it, but that's where we are. 

Maybe I'll change my mind after 2026 if we win big. If we can get checks and balances in and get this national emergency that is the trump administration and MAGA cancelled, I'd be willing to behave more normally. And maybe it would be better for the GOP to win in 2028...ASSUMING we have checks and balances from congress and the courts to contain their worst impulses. 

But right now, given that the trump administration is literally working on breaking elections and building concentration camps and terrorizing americans (not just illegal immigrants, but americans) with his ICE gestapo thugs, well....I can't afford to be picky. Democrats are sleeze balls, but at least they're not outright fascists. 

Still doesn't mean I wont be critical of the party. I'm very much gonna be critical of the party. And thats the thing. Centrist dem apologists hate you just for criticizing them. I had some biden bro type trying their weird pam bondi esque talking points (see the hearing the other day?) about how biden was the most progressive president ever and youre dumb if you didnt like him and blah blah blah. F off. I mean, you can maybe force me to vote for someone like that given the alternative is a fascist, but you'll never get me to actually speak more positively about them than they deserve. Biden sucked. harris sucks. Newsom sucks. Democrats suck. DEMOCRATS SUCK. 

I just understand that we're reaching levels of evil with trump that even I cant like...refuse to vote for them. So yeah, I guess I will support voting blue no matter who until this crisis passes. But like I said in 2024, this is a tactical retreat based on the circumstances, not a surrender. I dont like these people, and my principles have not changed. by rights, these people dont deserve a vote. But...again....if we dont back them, we might lose our democracy altogether. So let's not be stupid about this.  

ELECTION RED ALERT: Trump's plan to steal the 2026 midterms

 So, this one comes from Kyle Kulinski, who had a pretty thorough video on Trump's plan to steal the 2026 midterm elections. Basically, Trump wants to coerce Maduro (ya know, THAT one, the one he kidnapped from Venezuela) to claim he helped Biden steal the 2020 election so he can seize voting machines and have ICE do the counting. It sounds kinda crazy, but to be fair, it's Trump, and he's done crazy stuff already, so...

He also wants to disenfranchise mail in voters from voting by claiming voter fraud, and kyle is encouraging people to vote in person. I get the logic, but I also just mailed by mail in voting request for the year the other day, so that's already set. And I doubt my family would want to vote in person either given their age/physical conditions. Still, if you can manage to do it, it, it would help.

But yeah. As far as I'm concerned, this represents another possible attempt/scenario that Trump might weaponize to steal the elections. You are now aware of it, plan your vote accordingly. Just passing the info along since I plan on covering anything that could disrupt the 2026 midterm elections if I can. As I've been saying it's kind of essential for the future of the country for elections to remain free, and Trump is gonna try to break them. 

Responding to the post: "The problem isn't DICE, it's the community"

 So, I came across this post on reddit, but didn't get to it fast enough in time to respond to it and it got locked. And given this is very much...blog material given my blog at this point extends to gaming discussion if it has some deeper intellectual merit, and given I've posted on several adjacent topics, I wanted to give my thoughts here. 

 You can read the full post on the above link, but I'll copy the TLDR, as while I agree with the premise of the discussion, I very much don't think he made a positive argument for modern gaming, and I would actually hit the red button here to some degree.

 TL;DR: BF6 maps take longer because they’re way more complex. Paid DLC doesn’t fix that; it only adds paywalls. You won’t get BF4-style map quantity unless you accept BF4-level simplicity. You can’t have 2026 fidelity and 2013 output speed. The end.

 So...first. Let's discuss the obvious. DLC. This post was made in response to the myriad of whiners in the community going on about how paid DLC was SOOOO much better than live service. Hard disagree. Even if we got more content, it was more expensive. people are complaining we'd be on our way to getting our 3rd DLC if we were on BF4's release schedule, and how we got so much more content back then. The argument is live service is worse because the content is free, which disincentivizes businesses from making it. I would actually somewhat agree with the premise, but you know what? FINE. 

I HATED DLC. I HATED season passes. I'd rather get 1-2 maps free every few months, than have to pay almost double for a game to get the full experience. And from what I understand the business model wasnt that successful anyway, since only a small minority actually bought and played the premium maps. IIRC, origin actually gave a lot of them away later for free just to get people playing them again. 

But yeah, DLC sucked. I hated it, I'm glad it failed as a business model and largely disappeared. I'd rather get half the content for free, than to get 2x as much but then have to also pay 2x as much. I paid $90 for BF4 back in the day with the premium. It was one of the few games I ever bought with it since i despised the model, but I just loved BF so much I shelled out for it. I paid $40 for BF2042 and $50 for BF6. I paid as much for BF4 as I paid for 2 BF games, and that's with inflation. F premium. Even if BF4 was a very good game in part because of the strong level of support. 

Now, with that out of the way, let's address the post. Basically, this guy is saying even if we changed the model, we couldn't get more content now because gaming takes more time to make maps. Okay. Well...I am VERY opinionated on 2020 gaming and think that games being too ambitious is part of the problem. I've previously discussed my idea of peak gaming, and how the ever increasing complexity of games is making development cycles more expensive, last longer, and also require increasingly ridiculous hardware demands while the price of computing is also going up due to moore's law. Basically, this guy is saying we can't have 2013 level content output any more because of this complexity. 

And...you know what? Go back to 2013. or, more specifically, 2016-2018. Still gen 8, still beautiful looking, better than 4, but not as good as modern games in theory. Because let's face it, I barely notice the difference these days. As I've said lately, I hate how modern games look anyway. Developers in modern game play cycles make games have such good fidelity on paper that gamers can largely no longer play them at native resolution, and the games tend to try to scale down using TAA, or FSR/DLSS by default. This makes the games extremely blurry. And you know what? I dont care how good your lighting and other effects look if the game is running at fricking 720p just to hit 60 FPS on low on a $250 GPU. I really don't. It looks like TRASH. And I keep feeling like, playing my new 2025 era games that I'm like, whats wrong with me? Why is everything so blurry, is my eyesight going back? And then I see some old game from like 2007 and it looks so much clearer even with lower graphical fidelity and I'm like "oh, it's not me, it's the game." I HATE THIS, DEVELOPERS! STOP DOING IT! I don't give AF about your art style, if games look blurry AF on reasonable hardware. I swear, we are seeing the downfall of gaming with this stuff. And I almost kinda wish for a video game crash like the 1980s, where these big budget blockbuster games fail because they bite off more than they can chew and their business model becomes unsustainable, so that the market resets to something that works.

I don't want to wait until 2029 for TES6. I don't want to wait until the 2030s for fallout 5. It used to be in gen 7 that you could pump out a new game every 2 years or so. Don't believe me? Oblivion, 2006, Fallout 3, 2008, Fallout New Vegas, 2010, Skyrim, 2011. Now it takes 5-10 years just to make one. I'd rather have more content at lower fidelity....than to keep doing this 2020s era BS.

Btw, since that post from last month about modern games being blurry, I looked into modern AA methods and why we dont use the old ones like MSAA. And it's the same arguments this guy is making above. The technology of modern games is different. It's supposed to be better, but in terms of anti aliasing, I think it's markedly inferior. Because it DOES basically impose blur on the player. TAA is horrible. It's such a joke this is the default. It's SOOO BLURRY. AMD's suite of ideas like FidelityFX CAS and FSR are better, but not perfect. Apparently DLSS and its AA version, DLAA are great, but you need to buy nvidia which is overpriced for that. And yeah I know some are gonna say I should've bought nvidia, but I shouldnt have had to pay 50% more just to get games to be less blurry. I just want good old native resolution. I HATE this new tech. Again, if we could go back to like 2016 or so, that would be great. I always hated this modern tech, it's always been forced on me, and when you're like "oh but you see, you gotta go back to like 2013 to not have these issues with modern gaming" like it's an own I'll say DO IT, DO IT NOW! SLAM THE RED BUTTON, SLAM IT! Because to me, those games still look good. Again, ideally I'd go like 2016-2018, but the point is, I would go back to before this modern crap existed. I dont think games in the 2020s look appreciably better than that stuff, if anything, they look WORSE because of this stuff. While being more demanding. Again, peak gaming. Learn about it.

So yeah. The 2010s can keep their crappy DLC business practices, but if the problem really is the 2020s era tech being so hard to use, yeah, go back to the previous gen and stay there. I'd rather have my games look reasonably good and get content in a reasonable time frame than for it to take months and years to make content only for the games to look like crap at the end of the day anyway. That's my take at least.  

As for the community...is OP right about the community? Yes. And I've stated my own thoughts already on this. This community is in a state of collective delusion and bashing the best game we've had in a decade. Now they're screeching over content release cycles (which are pretty standard and reasonable tbqh) and going on about how DLC is better. I think it's wild we literally got a group of people defending DLC as a model. It sucked then, I'm glad its gone. And again, if the devs listen to these people, they're gonna ruin the game. Their views arent based on reality but on some weird sense of nostalgia about how great the game used to be while not living in the same reality as the rest of us. I like the classics too but I aint completely and utterly delusional about them either. 

So let's talk about Trump's concentration camps

 Yeah. I'm calling it as it is, this is what they are. So....Trump is building a massive network of "Alligator Alcatraz" like facilities across the country, including two in my state. As the first article I pointed out mentions, this doesn't seem like a temporary thing based on the funding and logistics, but camps that could be in operation for years. There's also references to crematoriums in them....so....fun....

Look. I'm not trying to be alarmist, but this is Nazi level crap. This is EXACTLY what they did. And they might say well it's to process and deport illegal immigrants. But keep in mind, the number of illegal immigrants is already massively overstated by this administration. It's possible at some point that they'll go beyond just immigrants, locking up political dissidents and people who disagree with them. There's already been a lot of talk of a lot of the people in these camps not being illegal immigrants. And honestly? it's very well possible even if the current citizens rounded up were so in error, what's to stop Trump from expanding detentions in the future? We know under NSPM7 that anyone who basically dares disagree with fear leader is considered a suspected domestic terrorist, with them actively taking pictures of protesters and putting them in databases. 

This is really scary crap. And I don't wanna hear "oh you shouldnt call the administration fascist, you need to turn the temperature down." NO, THESE ARE FREAKING CONCENTRATION CAMPS. THIS IS WHAT THEY DID IN GERMANY, AND I'M CALLING THIS CRAP OUT WHILE WE STILL GOT FREE SPEECH RIGHTS LEFT. Ya know, the whole, "they came for X, but because X wasn't me, I said nothing, then they eventually came for me" thing. Because one of these days, they might come for me. They might come for you. They might come for all of us. We all know I have views that are critical of Christianity, of capitalism, of conservatism. And if you stay silent while you still have your rights, you're gonna lose them. This is insane. This is what this administration wants to do. Their own sick and twisted "final solution" to the problem of those they disagree with them. They know they can't win through legitimate means so they're doing this to suppress and potentially kill off the opposition down the line. 

Some may think I'm hyperbolic. I hope the frick I am. I don't want to end up in one of these camps some day. I dont want my friends, my family, people who I know to end up in these camps some day. Vote democrat in 2026 and 2028 and hope to god they have the balls to put a stop to this before its too late.  

I'm very disappointed in the media coverage of the epstein files

 So, in my social circles, everyone is focusing on the epstein files and the horrors within them. You turn on the media and they're obsessed with Trump posting a racist depiction of the obamas and savannah guthrie's mom. It's kind of sad, really. This is literally one of the biggest presidential scandals of my life, and it's getting virtually no coverage. I get it, they can't really discuss a lot of it because of how horrible it is and how they need to make it more PG rated, but still, they should be discussing it somewhat. And honestly, everyone above a certain age/maturity level should at least be keeping up with the story. It's serious. I mean, it's horrifying how evil these people have been, and yet, it gets virtually no coverage? That disgusts me, if anything. We basically got a cabal of elite pedophiles who run the world and created the entire alt right movement from the shadows and some new anchor's mom being kidnapped gets more coverage? Really?

I would discuss it more, but I dont wanna be nailed for posting disgusting crap on my blog, so I won't, but I'll just say this, just about every crazy conspiracy theories about the world run by some shadowy group of billionaire pedophiles is true in some form, and it's so much worse than pedophilia, we're talking sex trafficking, murder, cover ups, fricking CANNIBALISM, rich people going to the middle east to just casually hunt people in war zones for their birthdays. It's sick. It's just...sick. But hey, they're not being held accountable, trump is telling the world to move on and stop talking about it, and the media isn't doing it's job. It disgusts me.

Do better, media. Do better.  

Multiple RED ALERTS: The Save Act and Steve Bannon's poll watcher scheme

 So...there are multiple threats to democracy that were discussed tonight on the majority report that I want to report on. The first, Steve Bannon wants there to be ICE watching polling places on election day. There have historically been right wing "poll watchers" at polls and generally speaking which not all poll watching is necessarily bad, a lot of it can have racist implications, like say, the KKK watching a polling place where black people vote. or ICE watching a polling place in 2026. Yeah. They wanna do that. And obviously, the goal is clear: voter intimidation. Sure, they'll say there's fraud and they gotta watch the polls to stop it, but like every attempt at voter suppression that conservatives try to do, they always claim fraud that doesn't exist as an excuse to pass ridiculous measures intended to intimidate and disenfranchise people.

Another red alert discussed in the video is the Save Act, which hasnt passed congress to my knowledge, but the purpose is to make it require a real ID to vote. Again, "we gotta make sure citizens vote", so what's the problem? Well, a lot of underprivileged groups tend to struggle to access the right paperwork. And Real ID's requirements are so hard at times that it's hard for american citizens to get them, especially married women. I mean, Sam mentioned it on his show, and I know people in my life who had had this problem too. So...you wanna prove you're a citizen for a real ID. Okay, show your birth certificate. Oh, but what if you're married and dont have the same name as on the birth certificate any more? Well now you need a marriage certificate. Oh, but it has to be from such and such, and I know with my family we've had to track down a marriage certificate out of a church that no longer exists to prove that a person is in fact a citizen. It's a ridiculous process. It is painful, time consuming, and can take years. Of course, women tend to vote democrat so screw them right? And of course if you're poor and overworked, you likely wont have the right documents, and it's hard for you to acquire them, and if you're working 40+ hours a week just to survive, you're not gonna wanna go through the headaches of getting the ID. So...you wont vote. And then the republicans win. See the problem? Yeah, voter suppression. These guys are doing it.

As i said, they're gonna try to rig 2026 in every way possible. "Watching" the polls, having ridiculous ID requirements to vote. Hell, and this is unconfirmed, but I heard that they're photographing the ICE protesters and putting them in a database so they can wipe them from voter rolls later, claiming they're "domestic terrorists". Yeah. Protesters who are using their rights to protest a tyrannical government and jack booted thugs terrorizing the streets are being considered "domestic terrorists" and they're gonna try to wipe them off the rolls. This one is unconfirmed, but Kyle Kulinski mentioned it several times on his show, although I couldnt verify the claim. I wouldn't doubt it though. Again, they'll do it in every way possible. Trump's long term success comes from the republicans breaking democracy and ensuring that democrats do not retake congress. If Trump can't consolidate power by november, the worst of it is over. And then we take our country back, one institution at a time. And every institution we take, the weaker he becomes until we run the republicans out of office for good.

At which point, it'll be up to the democrats what happens next. it's possible they're so weak they screw it up themselves, but hopefully they'll learn SOMETHING from recent losses and actually get it together and have a long term strategy to hold this administration accountable and ensure, through legal and ethical means of course, that a future fascist administration doesnt happen again.

But again, that's why I feel a need to urgently report on stuff that comes out that seems to be a threat to elections.  

Hate to break it to you, but all of modern politics is a psy op

 So...some on the right, the more intellectually honest ones I mean, are currently coming to the realization that their entire political worldview is based on a right wing psy op. I mean, with the Epstein files basically confirming that Epstein was partially responsible for bringing /pol back on 4chan, and Bannon being largely responsible for pushing gamer gate and the like, people are realizing that their views are largely influenced by a cabal of elite billionaires who ran a massive psy op campaign to build the right wing movement. 

And before that, in the previous generation, Evangelical Christianity was also a psy op created not just to dumb down and brainwash the conservative population in the US into modern conservatism, but also much of the developing world. While some forms of left wing Christianity did exist previously, they became supplanted by an authoritarian fundamentalist version that emphasized obedience and justified the existing economic system.

And...if we really think about it, conservative protestant Christianity ALWAYS existed to justify the current economic system, as my own research into the protestant work ethic, the history of property rights, etc., shows that the entire thing was a psy op created to justify the wealth of the wealthy and the poverty of the poor at home, while also simultaneously justifying colonialism abroad.

And before that, complex webs of relations between the monarchies and catholic church supported the medieval system. And before that Constantine the Great adopted Christianity as a way to further his rule too. So Christianity has always had its roots in justifying conservatism and authoritarianism too, and the history of the past 2000 years has been shaped by powerful people utilizing religion for their own ends and to justify existing power structures and economic relationships. 

But the left...isn't much different. Especially the modern left. Honest question, guys. Do you honestly think there aren't wealthy and powerful people coordinating with each other and deciding what talking points are used, and how to justify the existing power structures within the democrats as well? Do you honestly not think the complete and utter worthlessness of the modern democrats isn't coordinated? That they didn't just flood message boards with propaganda, bullying people into voting blue no matter who, and pushing out and minimizing organic grassroots movements? Do you think it's a coincidence, the democratic party has, instead of pursuing a working class strategy, explicitly abandoned working class politics to push for a brand of fiscally conservative moderate instead? I mean, we had the podesta emails and clinton campaign emails 10 years ago, we saw a glimpse of what was going on behind the scenes. And while people will point out "yeah but russians released them for their own purposes", maybe they did, but don't they still tell a story about the rot inside our own organizations?

Do you think it's a coincidence that the corporate media pushes corporate talking points? Do you think the rise of wokeism was just a coincidence? I've heard that wokeism's elevation itself was a CIA psy op intended to create a new version of left wing politics that explicitly didn't have a working class bend to it. And I kinda believe it, because it's been corrosive to our movement since.

I honestly believe that the Bernie Sanders political revolution was the natural end goal of the direction left wing politics were going until the 2016 campaign, when these entities came down hard and enforced "voter discipline" on people to push people to Hillary. And I never bought it. Why?

Well...when you have the education I do, and you have the ideological basis for politics that I do, it kind of makes you more hardened against propaganda. You have critical thinking. You gain some immunity to this nonsense. The entire direction we've gone in since 2016 has been a massive distraction by the wealthy to move us away from the direction politics was naturally evolving toward....with disastrous consequences. Now politics is reminiscient of 1930s germany, with a useless and fractured left and a strong, growing, fascist right. It was a psy op. We're here, because this was a psy op. 

And...I can't say I'm fully immune to propaganda, no one is. It's impossible to have an opinion without it being influenced by something, and some propaganda force probably helped influence it. But, I would say I'm a bit more hardened to it. And outside of my college education, I really would credit my deconversion from Christianity as helping me here. You see, Christianity is a mind virus used by the rich and powerful to pull one over on us. It always has been, as I stated above. But, the key to overcoming that is a strong worldview based on reason and evidence. And quite frankly, leaving Christianity immunized me enough and hardened me enough where I wasn't biting the modern culture war, and I've remained pretty consistent in my views since I developed them around 2012-2014 or so. That isnt to say there aren't evolutions and iterations, but my core convictions are the same, and I've been trying to keep my eyes on the prize. And for all saying I've kinda turned into a blue no matter whoer, as I can see that coming, I only did so because of the growing fascism in the GOP that represents an existential threat even I have to respond to. The wealthy try to control democracy, and that's bad enough, but some are trying to kill that, and just implement authoritarianism. And that's dangerous because if they succeed, the level of control they'll have over the discourse and society will get worse. SO we must fight to maintain democracy before we can move back on to other things. It's not a surrender, it's a tactical retreat. But I digress.

And honestly, the fact that new atheism declined in favor of this new "woke" paradigm, and the whole fiscally conservative/socially liberal thing is probably because it can't be used by the wealthy. because a worldview based on reason and evidence, teaches people to see truth. And the wealthy dont want you to see truth, they want you to live in their matrix, or their cave arguing within the paradigm they set up for you. And that's how they control politics, even with a democratic system on paper. They dont control all of democracy, but if they can control the key players, and discourage pursuit of say, third parties, they can keep most people in their paradigm. And sadly, most of society has fallen for it and this transition to a 7th party system is shaped into the image THEY wanted it to be, and not what was good for the people. 

But yeah, if you wonder why I dont abandon new atheism in this new paradigm, even if I am somewhat spiritual now, this is why. Because new atheism and humanism ARE the answer. Some on the left will say marxism is the answer, but when has that ever ended well. Powerful people corrupted that too, and quite frankly, I've come to a realization lately when I think about it is that the reason Marxism failed is because it basically is a regression to feudalism. And even if everyone is equal on paper blah blah blah, we all know the reality in those states is much different, and a ruling class ruled over them with an iron fist. 

So no, I dont see marxism as the answer, even if some level of class consiousness and conflict theory is useful. Basically, the rich and powerful will either use systems to push people toward their ends, or try to destroy them. Which is why our society has an aversion to marxism, which teaches people about class relations, and atheism, which teaches people reason and causes people to abandon the christian mind control virus that the elites use to control people. Atheism, btw, is relatively benign compared to marxism, and my own ideology is more "liberal" in nature than "leftist", but still, it's liberalism done right. Not a corporate captured and controlled version of it, but an organic version based on intellectualism and doing what's best for the masses. 

But yeah. Again, the ruling class couldnt control that so it was displaced for wokeism, and that's when the left started losing. Because it no longer represented the people, channeled their anger, or stood for something in opposition to what currently exists, but it was this corporate captured thing that served to distract people with useless social issues and keep people fighting amongst themselves over nothing.

And until we abandon these ideologies, nothing will change with politics. With that said, I encourage people to abandon these failed and controlled ideologies for something actually substantive, as that's how we really change society. This blog has tools that will help. I've been writing and maintaining it for the past 10 years now.