wilwheaton:

“It turns out the 2018 midterm elections were pretty much a rout. Counting all the votes makes all the difference in the world. In the House, as of this writing, the Democratic gains are up to 30 with about five more races still to be called — in which Democrats are leading. A gain of 35 seats would be the largest House pickup for Democrats since the first post-Watergate midterm election in 1974. The Democrats picked up seven governorships, with Stacey Abrams, as of now, still fighting to make it to a runoff in Georgia, and Andrew Gillum trailing by 0.4 percentage points, enough to trigger a recount in Florida. In the Senate, Democrats may not quite have pulled off an inside straight, but they had two aces — in Nevada and Arizona. With 26 seats to defend, many in red states, it now looks as if their losses will be small. Democrats won in Nevada and are now poised to pick up a seat in Arizona.”

—

Three days later: Hey, Republicans really did get clobbered

Early on Election night, idiot relic James Carville told progressives that there was no Blue Wave. This set a narrative that idiot right wing dickheads were happy to run with, because it demoralizes progressives and our allies.

When this is all done, it looks like the “not a blue wave” will result in Democrats controlling the House after winning around THIRTY seats, and Republicans will continue to control the Senate after picking up a single seat.

It’s clear and undeniable that America is fed up with Trump and people like him, and it’s clear and undeniable that Americans are overwhelmingly good and decent people who reject Fascism and Authoritarianism.

Don’t let Trump and his lying allies trick you into thinking that America is the country they want it to be, because it’s very clear that it isn’t. To be sure, there are pockets of regressive, racist, revanchist trash in our country, but they are outnumbered by those of us who reject everything they stand for.

It’s heartbreaking to lose close races, but we must remember that the forces of evil have rigged the game against the forces of good, and they are still either losing or barely winning. 

Have faith in your fellow humans. We’re going to prevail, together.

the-real-seebs:

lizardlicks:

lines-and-edges:

I mean, I absolutely share the concern that the structure of our society has become totally untenable. But.

Leaving aside the hazards of doing anything that damages our already flagging infrastructure, having a feasible revolution that leaves you with a place to live afterwards has to follow the same principles as electing a feasible third-party candidate.

Your neighbors have to already know and agree with you, or it won’t work.

I would like these people to go out of their front door and look around and talk to these neighbors. See those American flags on porches? Those are people who are often conservative or “politically moderate”, whatever that means any more. They are invested in going about their daily lives and raising their children.

They will likely oppose revolution and support martial law (under the extant regime) over revolution unless and until they are absolutely assured that this new regime these people are talking about will bring them stability and not harm their kids.

Which means that in order to organize a revolution, an actual revolution and not just a bloody and brief conflict in which a bunch of leftist activists are slaughtered to send a message to anyone else who might want to try it:

(a) it has to actually be stable for people’s kids! Keeping everyday people’s lives running has to be a central strategic focus!

(b) talking to your neighbors and bringing them into the loop has to be a central tactical focus for getting started! A majority of people have to agree with or be willing to go along with what you’re doing!

One of the primary objectives of alt-right astroturfing on fake leftist blogs is to keep leftists from thinking realistically or doing any of the things necessary to succeed.

Y’all wanna start a revolution, get involved with your community. We keep saying it. Go talk to people. Go to the town hall meetings, go to your co-ops and your churches, talk to the people who you don’t think matter. Talk to the moms and dads, the grandparents, aunts, uncles, the 9-5s, the graveyard and swing shifts. Find out what they need. Figure out how to get it for them.

When you have the everyday folk behind your back, you have an army.

Yeah. Violent revolution is almost always an insanely bad idea. We’re a long way from the circumstances where it would be better than “not”.

zenosanalytic:

captainsnoop:

captainsnoop:

the idea that people nowadays are more sensitive and easy to offend than they were in the past is such horseshit. people used to throw hands if you stepped on their shadow and calling a person a coward was legally justifiable grounds for them to challenge you to a duel with pistols.

since some people are having trouble understanding what i meant here, i would like to clarify that i am 100% mocking the hypocrisy of people who idolize the “good old days when people weren’t offended by everything” and then turn around and whine about how sjws are ruining their lives

if you’re whining about sjws in the comments of this post please know that i am making fun of you and that the old white relative you idolize for “giving no fucks” probably cried himself to sleep last night when he saw an interracial couple in a target commercial 

And the thing is most of those complaints about “sensitivity” are, themselves, examples of offense-taking. Every article ever written about leftist campus protest was written to complain about some millionaire not “being allowed” to speak, unchallenged, at a university and get paid(with those students’ fees) for the pleasure. Every article ever written about “PC Campus Culture” or “Leftist Academia” was written to complain about right-wing views not being accepted and propagated uncritically as university policy. Hell: Republican state govs, like that of Missouri, are going so far as to cut funding for their state schools in an attempt to force them to cover subjects in a particular way(and suppress student speech the pols in the lege don’t agree with).

The point of this offense-taking over “sensitivity” has always been shutting up people the offense-taker doesn’t want to listen to, rather than a genuine concern for how thin-skinned contemporary society is. What these folks complaining about “sensitivity” and “pc culture” are really longing for is a past where women who talked about rape and harassment were shamed; where non-whites who complained about racism were ignored; where gays and transfolks and queers were not only silenced, but erased. What they’re praising isn’t really some non-existent past when their ancestors “gave no fucks”, but the very real and deadly past when the only voice that mattered in our culture was male and white.

realsocialskills:

There are people who look much better than they actually are. They trick other people into admiring them for virtues that they do not actually possess. Sometimes they do this by using their charisma like a mirror. 

It works along these lines (I’m using ‘he’ here both for ease of reading and because this is *often* male-coded behavior, but there are also people who do this who aren’t men):

• Charisma Man is a bad leader. He talks a lot about important causes, but doesn’t do any effective work on them. 
• Mostly, Charisma Man insults all the leaders who are doing serious work on those causes for not having fixed it yet.
• Idealistic people see that the problem hasn’t been solved yet, and assume that it’s because the other leaders don’t care as much as Charisma Man does.
• They are sincere, and they think Charisma Man is too. 
• They will tell everyone that Charisma Man is kind and wise and good.
• None of this is actually true. There is wisdom and kindness and sincerity and goodness in the room, but it’s not coming from Charisma Man, it’s coming from his followers. 
• When they look at Charisma Man, they see their own good qualities reflected back, and then give him credit for them.
• Charisma Man is wielding his charisma like a mirror in order to stop people from noticing what he is actually like. 
• People don’t notice all the ways that Charisma Man is failing at leadership because they’re seeing their own reflected goodness instead.
• They also don’t notice all the ways that they are good and competent and valuable because they are attributing everything good they notice to Charisma Man.

If you are admiring a leader in an unbounded way and losing sight of your own worth, you might be looking at a charisma mirror rather than reality. It’s worth asking yourself: 

• What does this leader do that I think is admirable? 
• Do they actually do those things?
• Is it unusual to do those things? Who else does them?
• How is this leader helping others to be effective?
• How is this leader valuing other people’s work?
• When there is kindness and wisdom and sincerity in the room, where is it coming from? Is it from the leader, the followers, or both?

If a leader is making you feel like the only valuable thing you can do is follow them, sometimes is seriously wrong. Everyone, including you, has their own good qualities and their own contributions to make. Good leaders don’t want you to depend on them for your own sense of self worth, and they don’t want you to see them as the only person with something to offer. Good leaders don’t want unbounded admiration from their followers; good leaders collaborate and show respect for other people’s strengths.