There's a stock gag a lot of comedies use where a character is charged with a series of crimes, some of which are serious, but one of which is just annoying. For example, murder, arson, and taking your shoes off in an airplane. The joke is that the annoying thing is treated as as serious as the really bad things.
These anti-American conservatives seem like people who don't get the joke. They really think that woke people being stupid and annoying is so bad that tolerating a violent dictator is acceptable price to pay to stop them. Their myopia is insane.
Even if I conceded that mass third world migration would make the country worse (which I don't) the fully open borders woke activists do not have any serious power. Obama and Biden have both been moderate on immigration and sought compromise and incremental reforms. They might be less closed borders than you prefer, but they have never supported mass third world migration.
Biden has allowed and tacitly encouraged the most unprecedented wave of migration in american history (both in numbers and the extent to which the newcomers are distant from and hostile to the host culture and peoples).
And this was obviously not for a lack of capacity or resources, as the previous admin managed to reduced net migration without congressional legislation.
The recently rejected bill granted mayorkas discretion to continue to refuse to enforce the law, and it granted asylum to waves of no-value-add third worlders. It was proposed solely to allow people like you to mendaciously claim biden is moderate and incrementalist
Seems unlikely that Senator Lankford, R-OK, would propose a bill solely to make Biden seem moderate.
One of the major issues at the border is that the current laws require us to take asylum claims very seriously, and the rate of (dubious) asylum claims is overwhelming the system, which doesn’t have the resources. The bill would have actually increased border resources and added new provisions requiring asylum claims being rejected if the volume gets too high.
There is no behind the scenes elite running the country. Do not attribute to malice what can be explained through stupidity.
Mass immigration does have a serious effect on the lives of average people: a serious positive effect. Periods of mass immigration in the USA have been times of growth and prosperity.
LGBT rights are not social dysfunction, they are a triumph. Suppression of LGBT people in the USA was a pointless act of cruelty, and it is good that it is over. It harmed everyone, not just LGBT people, but also straight people, whose lives could be ruined by false accusations of being gay.
Transgenderism, specifically, is being promoted not out of malice, but out of the belief that there are some people that might benefit from gender transition, but are not aware that it is an option. This belief is probably true for some people. Some people such as Jesse Singal have argued that the current tran health care services generate too many false positives and give gender affirming care to minors who do not need it. This may be true or not, but it is a sign of that medicine is hard, not that transgenderism is actively trying to destroy lives.
"Mass immigration does have a serious effect on the lives of average people: a serious positive effect. Periods of mass immigration in the USA have been times of growth and prosperity."
I strongly disagree on that one. Societies aren't prosperous thanks to immigration. It's the opposite : they attract immigration because they're prosperous
"Do you think that anti-social phenomenon like transgenderism that are being pushed by a hostile elite don't have a serious effect on the quality of life for the average person?"
Yes, I do. All these lgbt issues are only problems for consumers of mass media. I bet if I clipped your internet connection all the trans people in your life would disappear.
This is a great summary and the bit about the oppositional culture explains very well why rightoids prefer Russia over a country like Poland, which in theory should be a much better role model for their ideal society (more religious, bans abortion, better economy, generous family policies). But Polish conservatives love America, so even though they try very hard to win the sympathy of the likes of Tucker (like our president going on a pathetic interview on his old show), they’ll never get it.
I struggle to understand your argument. Law and Justice is a socialist party with a religious outlook on morality to begin with, and their replacement isn't a particularly progressive movement either, just less adversarial towards all of our neighbors.
I don't know what do you mean by "wiping out all of their gains" and Tusk "destroying everything they stood for". Not a lot has changed in Poland, except for kicking out the propaganda out of the state TV and the kick-off of the work to remove unlawfully elected judges from the constitutional tribunal. Also, by "many of those politicians", how many exactly do you mean? These two that were incorrectly pardoned by the president from their camp, and are now back free after he issued a correct pardon?
Richard - this isn’t hard. And you are largely correct. The post WW2 world order is collapsing. The moderate Left is in the iron grip of its extremists. So much so that otherwise rational Progressives are forced to use their influence to agree with absurdities. Ten years ago, no Progressive university president would allow for rabid anti-Semitism on their campus. Bill Clinton (or younger Joe Biden) would never hold a trans-party on the White House lawn. Or allow Pride flags to be flown at government buildings. Our sports teams would never force-feed black national anthems or end-zone messages demanding we End Racism. Those with superior cultural influence, Progressives, have lain down and surrendered their moral authority to their enraged extremist flank lest they, too, be branded the intolerable Racist! Bigot! Xenophobe! slurs. They make too much money and live too pristine lives in their bohemian paradises to give that up.
So, rabid conservatives - instead - take on the job that was always that of moderate progressives to do. Pushing back against coercive cultural incursions. But they suck at that job don’t they? They don’t occupy those commanding heights of influence do they? So, they are clumsy. Childlike. Like third-world carpenters trying to build a house they were never trained to do. Dangerous. And more than not-quite-right.
If moderate Progressives weren’t such cowards, this clumsiness in trying to paint a persuasive alternative to racial and gender essentialism wouldn’t be happening. The people better suited to making art, literature, film, and media would be more full-throated and convincing in uniting us behind a shared heterodox society that keeps us together rather than taking a knee to the mafia protection racket which is the Woke. Who give them the Putin offer: “Support us and stay rich. Or challenge us and be destroyed”. We clearly see what bargain normal Democrats accepted.
So, yes, conservatives suck at the job of cultural pushback. They color in Crayon rather than oil paint. But somebody gotta do this unpleasant job. At least they’re standing up and DOING SOMETHING rather than taking a knee. So - good.
The thing is that your grievances that supposedly justify this right wing stupidity are so trivial. Pride flags and end racism in the end zone? Those are your indictments of western civilization and your justification for people liking Putin? If you’d said Covid lockdowns it would’ve been more understandable, but those ended at least. This kind of bizarre value system and sense of priorities is part of the problem.
No it’s not. And you know it. It is Culture War reaching its crescendo. We all know western societies are converging to an apotheosis. Dividing our pluralistic societies into zero-sum race and gender groups is the recipe for civil war. The violent kind. As Barbara Walter points out happens all over the earth. We are here, now, because Progressives elected to embrace this vile thing. And coercively push it through their commanding heights. And conservatives elected to push back. It is not trivial. It is the struggle for shared civilizational values - our so called national soul - that is creating a fissure we cannot come back from,
This is the problem. You have an aesthetic distaste for liberalism so imagine crazy things like civil war, or a coming economic collapse, or a million other tail risk events that never happen. In reality, the worse thing that liberals do is be anti-market, which is a trait they share with a lot of rightists who hate wokeness.
Ya, Barbara Walter NOT a fraud. And civil war NOT delusional. They happen all the time and for reasons we see right here. You should wake up to that and tell the truth to your audience. Carving us up into immutable characteristics like race, gender, and sex preference is a disaster and our corrupt elites are shoving it down all of our throats. That’s the reason Trump grows more powerful every day - despite Jan 6 and countless lawsuits.
As someone very disturbed by Wokeism, I certainly agree there are elements of the “green grocer” parable in Vaclav Havel’s essay, “The Power of the Powerless”, which describes life under Soviet rule, in the US today. However, because there are superficial similarities, I think many on the Right have become overly panicky and jumped to the false conclusion that we are literally headed towards Soviet-style rule. Wokeism can be defeated and may already be waning. Right wingers should get busy having kids, promoting their lifestyle as a model for happiness, and rolling back the civil rights bureaucracies. https://hac.bard.edu/amor-mundi/the-power-of-the-powerless-vaclav-havel-2011-12-23
The US has deep cultural divisions but it is a very, very stable country. Things work, the lights are on, and while there is unprecedented distrust in its institutions, these institutions remain powerful and more importantly they remain obeyed. There are no parallel actors rivalling the state in any sphere. People, for the most part, pay their taxes.
If I was making a list of large countries ordered by likelihood of civil war the US would be firmly in the bottom half, definitely above the likes of Japan but way below, for example, Brazil, Mexico... and Russia.
I used to think that. Then it dawned on me that Rome was all those things too. Until Julius kicked over its Republic and forever changed it to an autocratic empire (yes, that was a civil war of army on army).
And the same Germany of Beethoven, Mozart, Wagner, Goethe, Freud, Porsche, and Einstein turned into genocidal monsters who gassed Jews and dive bombed their neighbors.
Great empires and sophisticated peoples…fall. This should be our vigilance. It could indeed happen here.
I will admit I didn't think I'd live to see American liberals become the most ardent defenders of an unaccountable intelligence apparatus and an unlimited federal bureaucracy. But I think both of these things are actually bullish for America's stability. Not for its moral goodness, but for its stability.
It’s because they seized power. They opposed it when they were the counter culture. Now, they are the culture. Those institutions protect power and their commanding heights of influence
The country's too rich. The problem is once you have enough poor people with no prospects, revolution starts to seem like a good idea to them.
Ironically I don't think most people care that much about the cultural divisions, it's mostly people on blogs like this and our opposite numbers on Tiktok and Tumblr.
Yeah, for real. We have our NEETs but we don't have armies of angry, hungry young men hanging around the streets like, say, Egypt.
Yeah, the divisions are not present in day-to-day life. I live in an extremely liberal part of a pretty liberal metro and I'm far right socially, but the amount of impact this has on my day-to-day life is zero. It doesn't change anything.
Those are the symbolic and visible signs of the issues but they don't encapsulate it. Widespread opposition to SAT's, merit, the free market (in favor of victim grievance and equity-based selection criteria)? Almost total rejection of free speech and free expression? The popular beliefs that America is a white supremacist superstate and that the family, language, borders, and police are all thoroughly oppressive concepts that should be swept away? Maybe these ideas haven't corroded American society that deeply YET but give it another 10 years. Watch the rot continue to spread... I will check back in with you then. Flags and parties don't even begin to define the problems on the Left.
Ironically belief in America's white supremacist legacy is probably one of the key indicators of the country's stability. People who believe this are either:
1) Lumpen antifa criminals (maybe 5% of the total.)
2) Regular black people maybe 15% of the total.)
3) Normal taxpaying people like teachers and doctors and secretaries (80% of the total) who watch TV news and speak to their neighbors and go to bake sales.
Some progs are probably misanthropic towards right wingers in that they are delighted when their kids are gay/trans, but I think most really believe the trans nonsense and want to “help” these kids achieve happiness. You shouldn’t underrate the extent that a squishy but powerful egalitarianism powers their emotions.
It's a shame because I still have a soft spot for Tucker, I even found out about you from his old show. But it's true, his recent content has been embarrassing. I think a lot of it has to do with him spending too much time with loons like greenwald, Jimmy Dore, Douglas macgregor etc. recently.
There is no hope for someone like Tucker. He has brain rot at this point, it's best to just mock him to every rightwing person you know in the hope of shaming them into following someone less retarded.
The notion of Putin as literally Hitler among 90% of educated shitlibs has caused far more human catastrophe than Putin as a savior among neck-bearded anons.
I'm not sure which is worse, but despite living in a very conservative place, I haven't encountered defenses of Putin's Russia in real-life; only online.
Meanwhile an otherwise well-read and moderate, I might even say right-of-center, acquaintance of mine caught a bad case of TDS, which metastasized into PDS (the "P" is for Putin). In his view, Putin is no different from Hitler because he has invaded a sovereign country, just like Hitler did. Any counterargument will, of course, be construed as a defense of Putin and therefore Hitler. We used to be able to talk geopolitics but can't anymore.
That's because the number of people on the right that actual defend Putin is tiny. Tucker's comments sound crazy stupid (I haven't seen it, so taking representations of his comments at face value), but while a lot of people on the right may like Tucker, he's not some thought leader.
People spending so much time on the "pro-Putin" sect of the right are just trying to equate hesitancy to a blank check policy with Ukraine with being "pro-Putin" as a dishonest debate method. It's a certainty that a lot of the money we spend in Ukraine is going to be embezzled. We are basically insolvent right now if you treat our unfunded social security and medicare obligations as debt (granted we can just not pay those, but however we handle those is going to be painful). Our political class refuses to do anything to stop millions of border crossings per year on our southern border. Supporting Ukraine to try to drain Russia in a proxy war may still be worth it, but it's hardly crazy, much less being "pro-Putin", to think it's not worth it in our current position.
Great take. Very on point. My wife looked up how much a cashier is likely to make at the place Tucker went. Starting salary is $550 a month. A worker where he went couldn't have afforded what he bought on a weekly basis.
There are in fact a lot of great things about Moscow. I wonder how Tucker would feel about the massive public investment that went in to building its metro though. The commies built a lot of nice expensive monuments in the center of Moscow but go to a town two hours away and you have abject poverty.
Tucker, of all people on the right, would probably be the most favorable toward massive public investment in a metro. That said, we on the right understand that most mechanisms for public "investment" are not controlled by people who value actual trains getting to/from actual places on time.
No, they don't hate humanity; they just hate modern-day America. And there's something completely rational about it.
First thing you need to know is that allegiance to a nation is not unconditional. Given that, if a given country adopts a mainstream culture and government policy whose tenor is: "Straight white man are bad and need to be brought down a notch," and then all of the major institutions of that country dedicate entire bureaucracies in order to discriminate against and talk smack of white men, then why, as a white man, would you stay loyal or even root for that country?
A society that officially discriminates against you and puts you down does not deserve your loyalty. Simple as that. Cheering for someone who craps all over you amounts to tolerating blatant disrespect. You can stand up for the negro anthem of the Affirmative Actions of America.
Look, I'm a middle aged straight white male in Woke Soviet Canuckistan (aka Canada). I even work for the government of this progressive, free-speech-crushing hellscape. (that's sarcasm, around here that description might be taken literally) I'm doing fine. Every once in a while I hear about Black History month or listen to a land acknowledgement. I have some questions/concerns about the latter but none of this has killed me yet. It's all just part of living in a liberal democracy that's trying to figure it out.
If I can manage this without curling into a little ball then so can you.
You could ask the same about black people who historically faced a lot more discrimination. Why should they be loyal to and root for America?
Well maybe because despite it's faults, there are still good things about the country. Institutions are an important part of it but they don't define it completely. Just like we don't like to define American history by it's historical institutional racism, which is what the woke want to do, we shouldn't define America's present by it's current (misguided and damaging) woke leanings. Bad as that is, America's history has seen worse and the country has survived and remained worth fighting for and staying loyal to.
Ah yes, the famously reliable UN population projections. There's a lot of conjectures in that statement to be so alarmist. I now prefer climate doomers over immigration ones. At least the former have better data. Perhaps it's for the best that SubSaharan Africans replace you. They would make better arguments.
The data might be overstated to some degree as countries inflate their numbers to bolster the case for aid.
But it is not debatable that africa still has skyhigh fertility rates—far higher than anywhere else in world—and that this is a major impetus behind mass migration
“Perhaps it's for the best that SubSaharan Africans replace you. They would make better arguments.”
I see you are restacking intercept leftists so its not surprising that you harbor racial animus towards me and wish to lower my quality of life
... Get over yourself you absolute caricature. In what world would my wishing to lower your quality of life would help anyone. No wonder you guys are always so doom and gloom when this is 24/7 on your mind.
The subjective intent honestly is not important. If you support mass third world migration while operating under delusion that it is somehow beneficial, that is equally blameworthy. Whether those who support open borders do so out of malice or not the consequences are the same—whites will still be subject to violence and discrimination, and politics will be centered around expropriating their wealth and property.
Mass migration is and will continue to be the defining issue of the 21st century (with implications for rate of technological progress, sustainability of 1st world civilization) so its not surprising that many seem inordinately focused on it
I have seen an amusing meme comparing Carlson to Bernie Sanders, who visited the USSR in the 1980s. Sanders, too, admired its grand subways. No doubt Carlson would have mercilessly mocked Sanders at the time. If “the line goes up” in Russia, it’s because it is now more capitalist (it was never a socialist country).
Russia was never a socialist country? If by socialist you mean the state dominating the production and distribution of resources through central planning, then I think it was.
Russia very certainly was a socialist country. They even tried to abolish money! Lenin moved away from the extremes of socialist with his New Economic Policy, making a grudging concession to economic reality, but most of the economy remained either owned or controlled by the state for decades.
That’s not my claim. I don’t think socialism is remotely possible. My claim is that central planning is impossible and the USSR did not actually attempt it. It was a polycentric system, as argued by Michael Polanyi & Paul Craig Roberts (neither of whom were/are socialists). The USSR was an oligarchical, state capitalist system that used money, prices, and profits to guide production, as explained here: https://mises.org/library/failure-bolshevism-and-its-aftermath-0
I think this part of the explanation is correct, but incomplete. What I offer I am admittedly stealing from Russian-born political philosopher Vlad Vexler (who I recommend checking out on YouTube!).
Russia has struggled for centuries with its relationship with the West. Is Russia part of the West? Should it be? Should it be partially Western? Etc. etc. etc. Currently, there are some in Russia who would say:
"We are not part of the West, because the West has lost its way. You Westerners have been corrupted by LGBT activists, neoliberalism, and globalism. We wish to be like you were before you lost your way, the fact you lost your way is why we cannot get along with you".
In case it isn't already obvious, this fits pretty well with what Tucker Carlson propagates to his audience. The reason Tucker and Putin thought they could use one another is their shared understanding of and hatred for the West.
Practically every major city -- and especially capital city -- has much to like. Money goes there and governments in repressive countries make (parts of) their capital look impressive. This is even true in North Korea. Did Carlson take the standard tour of the good parts or did he shuck off handlers and visit the less pleasant parts of Moscow and the many places outside Moscow? I would recommend reading Robert Heinlein's account of his travels in the Soviet Union (shortly before it collapsed). You can find this in the superb collection Expanded Universe. It is not current but Heinlein did push to see beyond the usual areas.
An alternative explanation for why cons Stan Putin is not because of stats like "drag queen per capita", but like all traditionalists, they respect the rule of a competent strongman. If anything the Tucker interview highlights, it's the absolute disparity between Putin who can construct a coherent, historical argument for their invasion of Ukraine, vs. Biden who just ducked a cognitive test. Try selling "democracy" to the pro-Bukele crowd in El Salvador and see how much they prefer that to someone who can actually come in and get the job done... Anatoly Karlin has a good twitter thread on the net positives of Putin's reign since the 1990s, including drastically reducing crime, increasing fertility (from a 1.2ish to now comparable level with the US). Not to mention, ofc, that word is just an obfuscation on the actual governing system of the US, which has been an oligarchy ever since the leftists took power in the 60s.
So while yeah, Tucker reverse Gorbacheving Moscow supermarket is kinda cringe, retard pols standing Putin on horse is mega cringe, that does not completely negate the fact that Putin is a competent strongman.
And as for the Ukrainian invasion... Well, I think the best counter to that. Is still the "imagine if Russia started installing missile bases in Toronto, and then started arming Canadian nationalists in Windsor/Detroit"
Canada wouldn't allow that though because the US is a friendly neighbor. Russia is not. Threaten your neighbors and of course they will want to seek friends to help defend against you. If you want friends, don't be a dick.
Yes, and they also have suzerantities ... Anyways, the point is moot because it's not because Russia and Ukraine aren't great friends, it's because sucne collapse of USSR, Russia has had weak sphere of influence in its previous satellites states, allowing it's enemy the USA push it's nationalist ideology there and ferment anti Russian sentiments. In the hypothetical question I posed, we shud assume that Russia has the same power level and capabilities as the US does relative to the current day situation
This is is misguided. There's no need for the US to introduce nationalist ideology into Eastern Europe. If you hail from Eastern Europe, where your history is marked by one Russian invasion after another over centuries, then nationalism and skepticism towards Russia arise quite naturally on their own.
Nah. I'm a Canadian civil servant who has been involved in cross border policy disputes for 20 years. If we were a vassal state then there wouldn't be such things, we'd just do what we were told. We don't. Examples are legion.
That said, it's fair to ask, if our powerful neighbor would certainly strongly object to us doing something (like allowing Chinese or Russian bases on our soil) that we have *absolutely no interest in doing anyway*, are we still "independent"? I'd say, functionally, yes. Why the fuck would we host a Chinese base? Like, literally, why on earth would we need to do this? Do we fear being invaded by the US, and need allies? We've been at peace with the US since 1812 and haven't given a moment's thought to being invaded since 1844 when we moved the capital from Kingston to Ottawa.
By the standards of international relations, that's as good as it gets.
Sure, we're in the US "sphere of influence"... and it's great! Because liberal democracy is great.
Russia's self-conception is that of being a "superpower like the US", and it wants to dominate its neighbors in the way that it *thinks* the US dominates their neighbors, through fear. The problem is that Russia is a poor, murderous, and unattractive country with ample recent history of dominating and oppressing its neighbors (Holodomor, anyone?), so nobody (except for under-educated reactionary muppets) would *want* to be in the sphere of influence of such a shithole. That's why every single one of Russia's neighbors joined NATO as soon as they could. And Russia hasn't come to terms with that yet. Maybe when everyone who was an adult when the Soviet Union collapsed is gone, Russia can learn to be a normal country that can live in peace with its neighbors again.
Oh also, re: corruption. If we define it as "prompting unqualified people to positions of power for political allegiance rather than administrative ability"... Well guess what woke/DEI hiring policies do
The supermarket shows the PPP matters a lot more than nominal GDP. On a nominal basis we should be curbstomping Russia. On a PPP basis they make 155mm shells at a greater scale for 10% of the price. This has important implications for considering the relative strength of our competitors.
It makes sense that Biden wants to prop up the Ukrainians, as he doesn't want a complete strategic defeat of the Ukrainians in the middle of his re-election. Unfortunately, even if the House approves more money, Ukraine might collapse this summer regardless. We watched the counter-offensive, and we saw that the Ukrainians are incapable of taking back lost territory. They lack the population to match the Russians in a war of attrition, and the West has demonstrated that it lacks the military-industrial base to match the Russians in the production of basic weapons and munitions. We can't produce enough artillery rounds to keep up with the Russians, and the Ukrainians will never have enough soldiers to fire the rounds we can't produce. Not sure who the planners for this proxy war were, but they make the Bay of Pigs planners look competent.
Also not sure what RH means by "misanthropy" but all propping up Ukraine will do is ensure that Ukraine losses even more people and even more territory before it ultimately capitulates, not to mention the Russian army gets bigger and more experienced every day. Will it be better for NATO if Putin takes Odessa and Kiev? Will it be better for NATO if the Ukrainian army breaks and Ukraine capitulates? Russia isn't morally superior, it is superior 5 to 1 in population and 10 to 1 in material, which is the kind of superiority which makes this war a suicide mission for Ukraine. If you really like Putin and you are a misanthropist, you should support aid to Ukraine, because you will be helping him to butcher Ukrainians in greater numbers and for longer.
Not clear on Russia's "moral superiority" but they do seem to limit their military adventurism to scenarios where it actually serves their national interest, rather than waste blood and treasure to please ethnic lobbies and military contractors.
"Providing lethal aid to Ukraine would exploit Russia’s greatest point of external vulnerability. But any increase in U.S. military arms and advice to Ukraine would need to be carefully calibrated to increase the costs to Russia of sustaining its existing commitment without provoking a much wider conflict in which Russia, by reason of proximity, would have significant advantages."
You do understand that Ukraine just collapsed in Adivka and they have no real fortifications behind Adivka (because Ze ignored the recommendations of Zaluzhnyi), so now the Russians are in a position to break through and flank the Ukrainian lines from the back? I'm not even sure the UAF are going to fight now that Ze dismissed Zaluzhnyi.
Misanthropy is about hating people as such. Hating the plebs for being more concerned with creature comforts than with aesthetics is different. Also hating gays and brown people isn't misanthropy. We have other words for that, too.
There's a stock gag a lot of comedies use where a character is charged with a series of crimes, some of which are serious, but one of which is just annoying. For example, murder, arson, and taking your shoes off in an airplane. The joke is that the annoying thing is treated as as serious as the really bad things.
These anti-American conservatives seem like people who don't get the joke. They really think that woke people being stupid and annoying is so bad that tolerating a violent dictator is acceptable price to pay to stop them. Their myopia is insane.
The Left might be insane. But the Right is mentally retarded.
Annoying woke antics is not severe enough to warrant their reaction, mass third world migration is
Even if I conceded that mass third world migration would make the country worse (which I don't) the fully open borders woke activists do not have any serious power. Obama and Biden have both been moderate on immigration and sought compromise and incremental reforms. They might be less closed borders than you prefer, but they have never supported mass third world migration.
“Obama and Biden have both been moderate on immigration and sought compromise and incremental reforms.”obvious mendacity
Biden has allowed and tacitly encouraged the most unprecedented wave of migration in american history (both in numbers and the extent to which the newcomers are distant from and hostile to the host culture and peoples).
And this was obviously not for a lack of capacity or resources, as the previous admin managed to reduced net migration without congressional legislation.
The recently rejected bill granted mayorkas discretion to continue to refuse to enforce the law, and it granted asylum to waves of no-value-add third worlders. It was proposed solely to allow people like you to mendaciously claim biden is moderate and incrementalist
Seems unlikely that Senator Lankford, R-OK, would propose a bill solely to make Biden seem moderate.
One of the major issues at the border is that the current laws require us to take asylum claims very seriously, and the rate of (dubious) asylum claims is overwhelming the system, which doesn’t have the resources. The bill would have actually increased border resources and added new provisions requiring asylum claims being rejected if the volume gets too high.
Trump is extremely hostile to both. Most of his supporters think he's okay with legal immigrants. He's not.
Yes, despite these things the US is a tremendous place to live. I came here from Europe. You could not pay me enough to go back.
Where are you from? What are the big differences?
There is no behind the scenes elite running the country. Do not attribute to malice what can be explained through stupidity.
Mass immigration does have a serious effect on the lives of average people: a serious positive effect. Periods of mass immigration in the USA have been times of growth and prosperity.
LGBT rights are not social dysfunction, they are a triumph. Suppression of LGBT people in the USA was a pointless act of cruelty, and it is good that it is over. It harmed everyone, not just LGBT people, but also straight people, whose lives could be ruined by false accusations of being gay.
Transgenderism, specifically, is being promoted not out of malice, but out of the belief that there are some people that might benefit from gender transition, but are not aware that it is an option. This belief is probably true for some people. Some people such as Jesse Singal have argued that the current tran health care services generate too many false positives and give gender affirming care to minors who do not need it. This may be true or not, but it is a sign of that medicine is hard, not that transgenderism is actively trying to destroy lives.
"Mass immigration does have a serious effect on the lives of average people: a serious positive effect. Periods of mass immigration in the USA have been times of growth and prosperity."
I strongly disagree on that one. Societies aren't prosperous thanks to immigration. It's the opposite : they attract immigration because they're prosperous
I agree.
"Periods of mass immigration in the USA have been times of growth and prosperity."
So where is this marked increase in prosperity for the average American?
"Do you think that anti-social phenomenon like transgenderism that are being pushed by a hostile elite don't have a serious effect on the quality of life for the average person?"
Yes, I do. All these lgbt issues are only problems for consumers of mass media. I bet if I clipped your internet connection all the trans people in your life would disappear.
Yes. I think it's a great country.
Yes. Agree 100%
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/ArsonMurderAndJaywalking
That is one of the best comparisons I have ever heard.
This is a great summary and the bit about the oppositional culture explains very well why rightoids prefer Russia over a country like Poland, which in theory should be a much better role model for their ideal society (more religious, bans abortion, better economy, generous family policies). But Polish conservatives love America, so even though they try very hard to win the sympathy of the likes of Tucker (like our president going on a pathetic interview on his old show), they’ll never get it.
I struggle to understand your argument. Law and Justice is a socialist party with a religious outlook on morality to begin with, and their replacement isn't a particularly progressive movement either, just less adversarial towards all of our neighbors.
I don't know what do you mean by "wiping out all of their gains" and Tusk "destroying everything they stood for". Not a lot has changed in Poland, except for kicking out the propaganda out of the state TV and the kick-off of the work to remove unlawfully elected judges from the constitutional tribunal. Also, by "many of those politicians", how many exactly do you mean? These two that were incorrectly pardoned by the president from their camp, and are now back free after he issued a correct pardon?
Richard - this isn’t hard. And you are largely correct. The post WW2 world order is collapsing. The moderate Left is in the iron grip of its extremists. So much so that otherwise rational Progressives are forced to use their influence to agree with absurdities. Ten years ago, no Progressive university president would allow for rabid anti-Semitism on their campus. Bill Clinton (or younger Joe Biden) would never hold a trans-party on the White House lawn. Or allow Pride flags to be flown at government buildings. Our sports teams would never force-feed black national anthems or end-zone messages demanding we End Racism. Those with superior cultural influence, Progressives, have lain down and surrendered their moral authority to their enraged extremist flank lest they, too, be branded the intolerable Racist! Bigot! Xenophobe! slurs. They make too much money and live too pristine lives in their bohemian paradises to give that up.
So, rabid conservatives - instead - take on the job that was always that of moderate progressives to do. Pushing back against coercive cultural incursions. But they suck at that job don’t they? They don’t occupy those commanding heights of influence do they? So, they are clumsy. Childlike. Like third-world carpenters trying to build a house they were never trained to do. Dangerous. And more than not-quite-right.
If moderate Progressives weren’t such cowards, this clumsiness in trying to paint a persuasive alternative to racial and gender essentialism wouldn’t be happening. The people better suited to making art, literature, film, and media would be more full-throated and convincing in uniting us behind a shared heterodox society that keeps us together rather than taking a knee to the mafia protection racket which is the Woke. Who give them the Putin offer: “Support us and stay rich. Or challenge us and be destroyed”. We clearly see what bargain normal Democrats accepted.
So, yes, conservatives suck at the job of cultural pushback. They color in Crayon rather than oil paint. But somebody gotta do this unpleasant job. At least they’re standing up and DOING SOMETHING rather than taking a knee. So - good.
The thing is that your grievances that supposedly justify this right wing stupidity are so trivial. Pride flags and end racism in the end zone? Those are your indictments of western civilization and your justification for people liking Putin? If you’d said Covid lockdowns it would’ve been more understandable, but those ended at least. This kind of bizarre value system and sense of priorities is part of the problem.
No it’s not. And you know it. It is Culture War reaching its crescendo. We all know western societies are converging to an apotheosis. Dividing our pluralistic societies into zero-sum race and gender groups is the recipe for civil war. The violent kind. As Barbara Walter points out happens all over the earth. We are here, now, because Progressives elected to embrace this vile thing. And coercively push it through their commanding heights. And conservatives elected to push back. It is not trivial. It is the struggle for shared civilizational values - our so called national soul - that is creating a fissure we cannot come back from,
Yes, your model of the world is wrong. Barbara Walter is a fraud, and anyone who thinks the US is headed for civil war is delusional.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/civil-war-united-states-unlikely-violence/2020/10/29/3a143936-0f0f-11eb-8074-0e943a91bf08_story.html
This is the problem. You have an aesthetic distaste for liberalism so imagine crazy things like civil war, or a coming economic collapse, or a million other tail risk events that never happen. In reality, the worse thing that liberals do is be anti-market, which is a trait they share with a lot of rightists who hate wokeness.
Ya, Barbara Walter NOT a fraud. And civil war NOT delusional. They happen all the time and for reasons we see right here. You should wake up to that and tell the truth to your audience. Carving us up into immutable characteristics like race, gender, and sex preference is a disaster and our corrupt elites are shoving it down all of our throats. That’s the reason Trump grows more powerful every day - despite Jan 6 and countless lawsuits.
The US is a very elderly & overweight country. Not the demographic to fight a civil war.
As someone very disturbed by Wokeism, I certainly agree there are elements of the “green grocer” parable in Vaclav Havel’s essay, “The Power of the Powerless”, which describes life under Soviet rule, in the US today. However, because there are superficial similarities, I think many on the Right have become overly panicky and jumped to the false conclusion that we are literally headed towards Soviet-style rule. Wokeism can be defeated and may already be waning. Right wingers should get busy having kids, promoting their lifestyle as a model for happiness, and rolling back the civil rights bureaucracies. https://hac.bard.edu/amor-mundi/the-power-of-the-powerless-vaclav-havel-2011-12-23
The US has deep cultural divisions but it is a very, very stable country. Things work, the lights are on, and while there is unprecedented distrust in its institutions, these institutions remain powerful and more importantly they remain obeyed. There are no parallel actors rivalling the state in any sphere. People, for the most part, pay their taxes.
If I was making a list of large countries ordered by likelihood of civil war the US would be firmly in the bottom half, definitely above the likes of Japan but way below, for example, Brazil, Mexico... and Russia.
I used to think that. Then it dawned on me that Rome was all those things too. Until Julius kicked over its Republic and forever changed it to an autocratic empire (yes, that was a civil war of army on army).
And the same Germany of Beethoven, Mozart, Wagner, Goethe, Freud, Porsche, and Einstein turned into genocidal monsters who gassed Jews and dive bombed their neighbors.
Great empires and sophisticated peoples…fall. This should be our vigilance. It could indeed happen here.
Did you EVER think things would get THIS FAR?
The Germans had a large mass of desperate people due to depression and hyperinflation. We don't have that...yet.
I will admit I didn't think I'd live to see American liberals become the most ardent defenders of an unaccountable intelligence apparatus and an unlimited federal bureaucracy. But I think both of these things are actually bullish for America's stability. Not for its moral goodness, but for its stability.
It’s because they seized power. They opposed it when they were the counter culture. Now, they are the culture. Those institutions protect power and their commanding heights of influence
The country's too rich. The problem is once you have enough poor people with no prospects, revolution starts to seem like a good idea to them.
Ironically I don't think most people care that much about the cultural divisions, it's mostly people on blogs like this and our opposite numbers on Tiktok and Tumblr.
Yeah, for real. We have our NEETs but we don't have armies of angry, hungry young men hanging around the streets like, say, Egypt.
Yeah, the divisions are not present in day-to-day life. I live in an extremely liberal part of a pretty liberal metro and I'm far right socially, but the amount of impact this has on my day-to-day life is zero. It doesn't change anything.
I mean, you probably have to lie a bit on dating apps if you're at that stage of life. ;)
But I agree, we don't have the angry, hungry and thirsty (in both senses of the word) young men who would start revolutions.
Those are the symbolic and visible signs of the issues but they don't encapsulate it. Widespread opposition to SAT's, merit, the free market (in favor of victim grievance and equity-based selection criteria)? Almost total rejection of free speech and free expression? The popular beliefs that America is a white supremacist superstate and that the family, language, borders, and police are all thoroughly oppressive concepts that should be swept away? Maybe these ideas haven't corroded American society that deeply YET but give it another 10 years. Watch the rot continue to spread... I will check back in with you then. Flags and parties don't even begin to define the problems on the Left.
https://jmpolemic.substack.com/
Ironically belief in America's white supremacist legacy is probably one of the key indicators of the country's stability. People who believe this are either:
1) Lumpen antifa criminals (maybe 5% of the total.)
2) Regular black people maybe 15% of the total.)
3) Normal taxpaying people like teachers and doctors and secretaries (80% of the total) who watch TV news and speak to their neighbors and go to bake sales.
Is this a real worry or on par with Hispanic littering? https://open.substack.com/pub/bariweiss/p/are-islamists-in-charge-of-britain-kisin?r=b5zww&utm_medium=ios&utm_campaign=post
Some progs are probably misanthropic towards right wingers in that they are delighted when their kids are gay/trans, but I think most really believe the trans nonsense and want to “help” these kids achieve happiness. You shouldn’t underrate the extent that a squishy but powerful egalitarianism powers their emotions.
Afaik Richard has children of his own.
bro what
RH has children.
He has kids. Multiple I believe.
It's a shame because I still have a soft spot for Tucker, I even found out about you from his old show. But it's true, his recent content has been embarrassing. I think a lot of it has to do with him spending too much time with loons like greenwald, Jimmy Dore, Douglas macgregor etc. recently.
Still think there's hope for him though.
Same goes for Musk, unfortunately
There is no hope for someone like Tucker. He has brain rot at this point, it's best to just mock him to every rightwing person you know in the hope of shaming them into following someone less retarded.
Some solid debate should take place
The notion of Putin as literally Hitler among 90% of educated shitlibs has caused far more human catastrophe than Putin as a savior among neck-bearded anons.
He may not be "literally Hitler" but he's definitely in the same postcode.
The one person who has created, until recently unthinkable, human catastrophe (including over 300.000 casualties on his own side) is Putin.
Yeah, nuance is hard.
I'm not sure which is worse, but despite living in a very conservative place, I haven't encountered defenses of Putin's Russia in real-life; only online.
Meanwhile an otherwise well-read and moderate, I might even say right-of-center, acquaintance of mine caught a bad case of TDS, which metastasized into PDS (the "P" is for Putin). In his view, Putin is no different from Hitler because he has invaded a sovereign country, just like Hitler did. Any counterargument will, of course, be construed as a defense of Putin and therefore Hitler. We used to be able to talk geopolitics but can't anymore.
That's because the number of people on the right that actual defend Putin is tiny. Tucker's comments sound crazy stupid (I haven't seen it, so taking representations of his comments at face value), but while a lot of people on the right may like Tucker, he's not some thought leader.
People spending so much time on the "pro-Putin" sect of the right are just trying to equate hesitancy to a blank check policy with Ukraine with being "pro-Putin" as a dishonest debate method. It's a certainty that a lot of the money we spend in Ukraine is going to be embezzled. We are basically insolvent right now if you treat our unfunded social security and medicare obligations as debt (granted we can just not pay those, but however we handle those is going to be painful). Our political class refuses to do anything to stop millions of border crossings per year on our southern border. Supporting Ukraine to try to drain Russia in a proxy war may still be worth it, but it's hardly crazy, much less being "pro-Putin", to think it's not worth it in our current position.
Great take. Very on point. My wife looked up how much a cashier is likely to make at the place Tucker went. Starting salary is $550 a month. A worker where he went couldn't have afforded what he bought on a weekly basis.
https://twitter.com/TradeandMoney/status/1758534591185326294
There are in fact a lot of great things about Moscow. I wonder how Tucker would feel about the massive public investment that went in to building its metro though. The commies built a lot of nice expensive monuments in the center of Moscow but go to a town two hours away and you have abject poverty.
Tucker, of all people on the right, would probably be the most favorable toward massive public investment in a metro. That said, we on the right understand that most mechanisms for public "investment" are not controlled by people who value actual trains getting to/from actual places on time.
No, they don't hate humanity; they just hate modern-day America. And there's something completely rational about it.
First thing you need to know is that allegiance to a nation is not unconditional. Given that, if a given country adopts a mainstream culture and government policy whose tenor is: "Straight white man are bad and need to be brought down a notch," and then all of the major institutions of that country dedicate entire bureaucracies in order to discriminate against and talk smack of white men, then why, as a white man, would you stay loyal or even root for that country?
Whoever fights snowflakes should see to it that in the process he does not become a snowflake.
A society that officially discriminates against you and puts you down does not deserve your loyalty. Simple as that. Cheering for someone who craps all over you amounts to tolerating blatant disrespect. You can stand up for the negro anthem of the Affirmative Actions of America.
"Officially puts you down". How do they do that exactly? Is that one of those 'microaggressions' I've heard about?
Ah the usual leftist deflecting "tactic"
ever heard of AFFIRMATIVE ACTION ?
Look, I'm a middle aged straight white male in Woke Soviet Canuckistan (aka Canada). I even work for the government of this progressive, free-speech-crushing hellscape. (that's sarcasm, around here that description might be taken literally) I'm doing fine. Every once in a while I hear about Black History month or listen to a land acknowledgement. I have some questions/concerns about the latter but none of this has killed me yet. It's all just part of living in a liberal democracy that's trying to figure it out.
If I can manage this without curling into a little ball then so can you.
I think the thing is losing your job is a lot more dangerous in the USA where you lose your health insurance and social supports are a lot weaker.
Also, your population is much whiter, so the number of jobs off-limits to you is much smaller.
You could ask the same about black people who historically faced a lot more discrimination. Why should they be loyal to and root for America?
Well maybe because despite it's faults, there are still good things about the country. Institutions are an important part of it but they don't define it completely. Just like we don't like to define American history by it's historical institutional racism, which is what the woke want to do, we shouldn't define America's present by it's current (misguided and damaging) woke leanings. Bad as that is, America's history has seen worse and the country has survived and remained worth fighting for and staying loyal to.
In half a century Russia will not have imported large portions of subsaharan Africa; we likely will. Lets compare living standards then
By "we" do you mean Europe? That's closer to Africa, and gets more of its migrants.
Europe gets more and slightly worse quality. But the african population boom will be so large such that america will begin seeing larger numbers.
One point of hope is that many of the african migrants now are just single men, so hopefully most of them dont reproduce
What are the current rates of sub saharan migration?
Have you looked at UN population projections? It is already happening across the darien gap, and will only get worse as time goes on.
Its as if you people have a totally static view of the world and think that current trends will just persist indefinitely
Ah yes, the famously reliable UN population projections. There's a lot of conjectures in that statement to be so alarmist. I now prefer climate doomers over immigration ones. At least the former have better data. Perhaps it's for the best that SubSaharan Africans replace you. They would make better arguments.
The data might be overstated to some degree as countries inflate their numbers to bolster the case for aid.
But it is not debatable that africa still has skyhigh fertility rates—far higher than anywhere else in world—and that this is a major impetus behind mass migration
“Perhaps it's for the best that SubSaharan Africans replace you. They would make better arguments.”
I see you are restacking intercept leftists so its not surprising that you harbor racial animus towards me and wish to lower my quality of life
Yes I wish to lower your quality of life 😈😈
... Get over yourself you absolute caricature. In what world would my wishing to lower your quality of life would help anyone. No wonder you guys are always so doom and gloom when this is 24/7 on your mind.
The subjective intent honestly is not important. If you support mass third world migration while operating under delusion that it is somehow beneficial, that is equally blameworthy. Whether those who support open borders do so out of malice or not the consequences are the same—whites will still be subject to violence and discrimination, and politics will be centered around expropriating their wealth and property.
Mass migration is and will continue to be the defining issue of the 21st century (with implications for rate of technological progress, sustainability of 1st world civilization) so its not surprising that many seem inordinately focused on it
I have seen an amusing meme comparing Carlson to Bernie Sanders, who visited the USSR in the 1980s. Sanders, too, admired its grand subways. No doubt Carlson would have mercilessly mocked Sanders at the time. If “the line goes up” in Russia, it’s because it is now more capitalist (it was never a socialist country).
Russia was never a socialist country? If by socialist you mean the state dominating the production and distribution of resources through central planning, then I think it was.
https://jmpolemic.substack.com/
See the explanation of how the USSR operated in this article (his book on the ECA converted several socialists away from socialism): https://mises.org/library/failure-bolshevism-and-its-aftermath-0
Will do. I spent many hours in high school reading Lew Rockwell and Von Mises while skipping class. Thanks
Russia very certainly was a socialist country. They even tried to abolish money! Lenin moved away from the extremes of socialist with his New Economic Policy, making a grudging concession to economic reality, but most of the economy remained either owned or controlled by the state for decades.
Yes, they retreated from socialism pronto and established state capitalism.
"Not real socialism!"
That’s not my claim. I don’t think socialism is remotely possible. My claim is that central planning is impossible and the USSR did not actually attempt it. It was a polycentric system, as argued by Michael Polanyi & Paul Craig Roberts (neither of whom were/are socialists). The USSR was an oligarchical, state capitalist system that used money, prices, and profits to guide production, as explained here: https://mises.org/library/failure-bolshevism-and-its-aftermath-0
I think this part of the explanation is correct, but incomplete. What I offer I am admittedly stealing from Russian-born political philosopher Vlad Vexler (who I recommend checking out on YouTube!).
Russia has struggled for centuries with its relationship with the West. Is Russia part of the West? Should it be? Should it be partially Western? Etc. etc. etc. Currently, there are some in Russia who would say:
"We are not part of the West, because the West has lost its way. You Westerners have been corrupted by LGBT activists, neoliberalism, and globalism. We wish to be like you were before you lost your way, the fact you lost your way is why we cannot get along with you".
In case it isn't already obvious, this fits pretty well with what Tucker Carlson propagates to his audience. The reason Tucker and Putin thought they could use one another is their shared understanding of and hatred for the West.
Practically every major city -- and especially capital city -- has much to like. Money goes there and governments in repressive countries make (parts of) their capital look impressive. This is even true in North Korea. Did Carlson take the standard tour of the good parts or did he shuck off handlers and visit the less pleasant parts of Moscow and the many places outside Moscow? I would recommend reading Robert Heinlein's account of his travels in the Soviet Union (shortly before it collapsed). You can find this in the superb collection Expanded Universe. It is not current but Heinlein did push to see beyond the usual areas.
An alternative explanation for why cons Stan Putin is not because of stats like "drag queen per capita", but like all traditionalists, they respect the rule of a competent strongman. If anything the Tucker interview highlights, it's the absolute disparity between Putin who can construct a coherent, historical argument for their invasion of Ukraine, vs. Biden who just ducked a cognitive test. Try selling "democracy" to the pro-Bukele crowd in El Salvador and see how much they prefer that to someone who can actually come in and get the job done... Anatoly Karlin has a good twitter thread on the net positives of Putin's reign since the 1990s, including drastically reducing crime, increasing fertility (from a 1.2ish to now comparable level with the US). Not to mention, ofc, that word is just an obfuscation on the actual governing system of the US, which has been an oligarchy ever since the leftists took power in the 60s.
So while yeah, Tucker reverse Gorbacheving Moscow supermarket is kinda cringe, retard pols standing Putin on horse is mega cringe, that does not completely negate the fact that Putin is a competent strongman.
And as for the Ukrainian invasion... Well, I think the best counter to that. Is still the "imagine if Russia started installing missile bases in Toronto, and then started arming Canadian nationalists in Windsor/Detroit"
Canada wouldn't allow that though because the US is a friendly neighbor. Russia is not. Threaten your neighbors and of course they will want to seek friends to help defend against you. If you want friends, don't be a dick.
People have friends. Countries don't
But they do have alliances
Yes, and they also have suzerantities ... Anyways, the point is moot because it's not because Russia and Ukraine aren't great friends, it's because sucne collapse of USSR, Russia has had weak sphere of influence in its previous satellites states, allowing it's enemy the USA push it's nationalist ideology there and ferment anti Russian sentiments. In the hypothetical question I posed, we shud assume that Russia has the same power level and capabilities as the US does relative to the current day situation
This is is misguided. There's no need for the US to introduce nationalist ideology into Eastern Europe. If you hail from Eastern Europe, where your history is marked by one Russian invasion after another over centuries, then nationalism and skepticism towards Russia arise quite naturally on their own.
ya, why would Ukraine want to be independent from Russia? It's so weird! (/sarcasm)
Nah. I'm a Canadian civil servant who has been involved in cross border policy disputes for 20 years. If we were a vassal state then there wouldn't be such things, we'd just do what we were told. We don't. Examples are legion.
That said, it's fair to ask, if our powerful neighbor would certainly strongly object to us doing something (like allowing Chinese or Russian bases on our soil) that we have *absolutely no interest in doing anyway*, are we still "independent"? I'd say, functionally, yes. Why the fuck would we host a Chinese base? Like, literally, why on earth would we need to do this? Do we fear being invaded by the US, and need allies? We've been at peace with the US since 1812 and haven't given a moment's thought to being invaded since 1844 when we moved the capital from Kingston to Ottawa.
By the standards of international relations, that's as good as it gets.
Sure, we're in the US "sphere of influence"... and it's great! Because liberal democracy is great.
Russia's self-conception is that of being a "superpower like the US", and it wants to dominate its neighbors in the way that it *thinks* the US dominates their neighbors, through fear. The problem is that Russia is a poor, murderous, and unattractive country with ample recent history of dominating and oppressing its neighbors (Holodomor, anyone?), so nobody (except for under-educated reactionary muppets) would *want* to be in the sphere of influence of such a shithole. That's why every single one of Russia's neighbors joined NATO as soon as they could. And Russia hasn't come to terms with that yet. Maybe when everyone who was an adult when the Soviet Union collapsed is gone, Russia can learn to be a normal country that can live in peace with its neighbors again.
Oh also, re: corruption. If we define it as "prompting unqualified people to positions of power for political allegiance rather than administrative ability"... Well guess what woke/DEI hiring policies do
The supermarket shows the PPP matters a lot more than nominal GDP. On a nominal basis we should be curbstomping Russia. On a PPP basis they make 155mm shells at a greater scale for 10% of the price. This has important implications for considering the relative strength of our competitors.
It makes sense that Biden wants to prop up the Ukrainians, as he doesn't want a complete strategic defeat of the Ukrainians in the middle of his re-election. Unfortunately, even if the House approves more money, Ukraine might collapse this summer regardless. We watched the counter-offensive, and we saw that the Ukrainians are incapable of taking back lost territory. They lack the population to match the Russians in a war of attrition, and the West has demonstrated that it lacks the military-industrial base to match the Russians in the production of basic weapons and munitions. We can't produce enough artillery rounds to keep up with the Russians, and the Ukrainians will never have enough soldiers to fire the rounds we can't produce. Not sure who the planners for this proxy war were, but they make the Bay of Pigs planners look competent.
Also not sure what RH means by "misanthropy" but all propping up Ukraine will do is ensure that Ukraine losses even more people and even more territory before it ultimately capitulates, not to mention the Russian army gets bigger and more experienced every day. Will it be better for NATO if Putin takes Odessa and Kiev? Will it be better for NATO if the Ukrainian army breaks and Ukraine capitulates? Russia isn't morally superior, it is superior 5 to 1 in population and 10 to 1 in material, which is the kind of superiority which makes this war a suicide mission for Ukraine. If you really like Putin and you are a misanthropist, you should support aid to Ukraine, because you will be helping him to butcher Ukrainians in greater numbers and for longer.
Not clear on Russia's "moral superiority" but they do seem to limit their military adventurism to scenarios where it actually serves their national interest, rather than waste blood and treasure to please ethnic lobbies and military contractors.
Interesting article from the Rand Corporation from 2019:
https://www.rand.org/pubs/research_briefs/RB10014.html
"Providing lethal aid to Ukraine would exploit Russia’s greatest point of external vulnerability. But any increase in U.S. military arms and advice to Ukraine would need to be carefully calibrated to increase the costs to Russia of sustaining its existing commitment without provoking a much wider conflict in which Russia, by reason of proximity, would have significant advantages."
You do understand that Ukraine just collapsed in Adivka and they have no real fortifications behind Adivka (because Ze ignored the recommendations of Zaluzhnyi), so now the Russians are in a position to break through and flank the Ukrainian lines from the back? I'm not even sure the UAF are going to fight now that Ze dismissed Zaluzhnyi.
Part of me thinks Tucker was trolling his audience with those videos.
If it's the case than he's really sticking with the act.
Misanthropy is about hating people as such. Hating the plebs for being more concerned with creature comforts than with aesthetics is different. Also hating gays and brown people isn't misanthropy. We have other words for that, too.
Wait Tucker is anti-GMO? Politics really is a horse shoe.