Matthew Downhour
@matthewdownhour.bsky.social
Liberal, Montanan. Subscribe to Paine-Wollstonecraft-Douglass-George thought, Bolivar-Juarez-Nkomo-Zelenskyy praxis
I worry about this frequently in fact
Seeing what FPV drones are doing on the Russia-Ukraine border, I think in civil war we'd see over half the country cut off from power in a couple weeks
Except the anti-green movement is spearheaded by agricultural parties, who are mad that their massively polluting industry is being made to reduce its pollution
The other lesson from MEP elections: polls that show a lot of people as very concerned about global warming but not particularly keen on any solutions to it are on to something
Presumably very very few Green votes transfer to Boylan, based on his Twitter anyway!
So like now in Europe everyone is grasping for explanations besides “lots of people wanted less immigration and instead they got more”. This isn’t a ‘failure of liberalism’, liberalism pushed through more freedom than the people themselves wanted
I think both liberals and leftists really struggle with this idea that many people are actually anti-immigration because they like enjoying cultural hegemony. We don’t see that as a legitimate aspiration but it is an actual one whether we like it or not
Ironically I think it skews MEP elections towards Euroskeptics because the elections are low turnout but have the most salience for people unhappy with EU rules
Also Clare Daly - one of the few really left wing anti-Ukraine MEPs - is out in Dublin, replaced by, as far as I can tell, anti-environmentalist Niall Boylan (Irish voters feel free to enlighten me)
I hate to be the bearer of bad news - and legitimately this is bad news - but the biggest winners in the MEP elections were all extremely anti-Palestine www.dw.com/en/where-do-...
He’s not wrong that there will be expanded right wing terror if we for example re-impose Roe on the South. Is that a reason not to do it?
But like - he’s wrong unless we do what leftists want. The military is not going to abandon the broad constitutional order, so actually extreme right wing threats are mostly hollow *unless we first abandon it*
Exactly, I hate to fall back on ‘instinct’ but I think it is one, to an extent
Is it xenophobic? 1000x yes! But for many people that’s not disqualifying. We struggle to grasp that so we say no it’s messaging no it’s economics but nah many people in every society are xenophobic as a baseline belief
I think both liberals and leftists really struggle with this idea that many people are actually anti-immigration because they like enjoying cultural hegemony. We don’t see that as a legitimate aspiration but it is an actual one whether we like it or not
The biggest upset was Le Pen's party winning a plurality in France, and this was after something of a Le Pen pivot modestly in favor of Ukraine and hard turn against Palestine. I don't think the vote was about foreign policy but Snowden should hope even more that it wasn't
In a disaster people cling to theocrats and usually form ethnic militias
I hate to be the bearer of bad news - and legitimately this is bad news - but the biggest winners in the MEP elections were all extremely anti-Palestine www.dw.com/en/where-do-...
Seeing what FPV drones are doing on the Russia-Ukraine border, I think in civil war we'd see over half the country cut off from power in a couple weeks
I added a little note that he's anti-Biden *from the Left*, because I think that makes clear he's being nonsensical, not threatening
"A civil war would be horrific in ways you liberals don't understand, that's why I'm not voting for Biden" just literally doesn't make any sense
To be clear, this is a 'gun leftist' coming with this position! I don't actually oppose liberal or leftist rifle orgs to balance right wing ones, but 90% of 'gun leftists' in my experience are deeply misinformed about the destructiveness of armed conflict
I mean if you're not aware he's a leftist, that is plausible misreading (he's a biggish account so I thought it would be clear enough, but I'll add an addendum!)
It’s not wrong about what a civil war would look like but it’s overwhelmingly liberals who are seeking to avoid that outcome and overwhelmingly communists who want to toss out the constitution and try our luck with a war
Lol as if it’s the *leftists* who hold the power to pursue a civil war?!
He’s pretty big in the Bad Place but I don’t know much about him
But also I want to drink wine while the army blows up rednecks. Like all liberals I contain multitudes
Yes famously liberals are the ones blasé about civil conflict we definitely are constantly hankering for a breakdown of constitutional order and justifying political violence that’s us not everyone else
It's a Caribbean restaurant most Caribbeans cannot eat at
The cool thing about our age discrimination laws is that unlike most antidiscrimination laws they only work in one direction, and they really break new ground by only outlawing discrimination against the on average wealthier, more powerful group!
The average American production/nonsupervisory worker has to work roughly 12 minutes (perhaps 18 considering tax) to afford a pound of ground beef. This is actually an environmental catastrophe
Boy if the crux of inflation discourse is "beef is too expensive now", we're really going to have a bad time with climate change
Bill ‘Acktivist man’ over here doing some A+ electoral analysis
I'm hoping Hunter takes this gun law to the Supreme Court on 2nd Amendment/due process grounds so that future history students will have to learn about US v Biden and be entirely flummoxed by the who the actual defendant is
I'm not terribly invested in this trial, but it does seem that Hunter Biden has a decent chance at an acquittal and that would be very very funny.
Do you ever get the sense that maybe Matt Bruenig isn't the best husband
Why are you attacking Fetterman's car's right to exist
For exactly the reasons you noted - I don't trust their security and I don't have any good means to evaluate it
Alt text - DSA poster saying 'you may not follow politics, but your landlord, insurance company, and employer do'
This, except it's "you may not see the difference between the parties, but...."
The capitalist consolidation behind Trump is producing some wild quotes.
www.politico.com/newsletters/...
So...the pier is capable of getting food in, but the WFP isn't capable of operating their warehouses safely right now?
Probably! But I actually don't want it to have any kind of wireless/bluetooth whatever. Same with my oven, freezer, anything connected to my water.
lol most states adopted rules about having an open container of alcohol in a vehicle that's turned on - Montana didn't adopt this until I was maybe in middle school
Yeah my space heater quite nicely just plugs in and then gets unplugged and I strongly prefer it that way
I would argue though that German genocidal tendencies began in Namibia
Anakin exhibited his genocidal nature on the outskirts of the empire before bringing it in to the metropole. I honestly think Lucas was reading Arendt when he came up with the character
The entire focus is on "Anakin shouldn't be married because Jedi," not "Anakin might be a murderous ragemonster and the person he loves isn't just aware of it but is actively complicit," which is sort of the real problem!
And yet overwhelmingly people also didn't support students protesting it, which is strange
I'm surprised that pillbugs or rolly pollies are not the far and away favorites here
Yeah woodlouse sounds so much grosser than rolly polly
France seems pretty predictable - like, what their presidential election would have looked like w/o a runoff
Oh yeah I mean we've always had tons of those types but they've attracted ever more. It's related. People move to isolated ranches with lots of guns, are hours from any kind of mental health, and at some point spiral
I mean it should tell leftists something but I can see y'all are excited not to hear it