politics

and that's th epost

https://www.politico.com/news/2024/05/30/biden-black-voters-00160520

Today I stumbled across a weird corner of Twitter, where a ton of ostensibly conservative Christian women and men were trying to debate incels and RedPill bros using facts and logic, talking about how they shouldn't shame single mothers or promote having extramarital affairs as "high value" men, and how a TikTok trad wife was a larp of a real adoring wife--who may just have a career and have been intimate with someone else before them.

The women were also trying to redefine an "alpha" as a man who could control his sexual urges and stay faithful and kind, and were criticizing guys worshipping that kicker guy for his commencement speech, saying that if they wanted a homemaker wife they needed to be bringing in his kind of salary. Hell, all the worst fears of misogynist chuds, like how a woman won't date you unless you made 6 figures or had a good body, were things these conservative women were unapologetically saying they expected their husband to have, whereas most secular and liberal women I know would never criticize their partner on those grounds.

And then there were the "nice" Christian men who were showing themselves caring for their wives and trying to insist to incels that this was not "beta simping," along with women criticizing pastors who said DV was not grounds for divorce. All the while incel chuds, for as much as we know they hate feminists, were whining that conservative women were actually the "most disobedient" and likely trying to hide their past promiscuity behind their newfound conservativism. Hell they were even arguing to Mike Cernovich of all people that all women who partied in college were irredeemable.

Not to say these anti-redpill women were totally woke or whatever, they were usually transphobic, pro-Israel, anti-abortion, and claiming incel/redpill stuff was "just as bad as feminism," but my takeaways are:

1. This redpill/incel/trad shit is tearing the conservative Christian community apart and giving their men brainworms too, the educated and family oriented women of the community are actually unhappy with this trend and the potential partners it's yielding, and unhappy with the female incel-pandering grifters facilitating their marginalization. That is not to mention the precipitous decline of conservative male church attendance.

2. The ideal man as described by a lot of conservative women is actually the "beta soy lib" archetype who isn't dogmatic about gender roles and is unafraid to show kindness, provided he knows how to shoot a gun/do yardwork. A left/lib female-attracted person who made videos unapologetically espousing their belief in respect and equality in partnerships, in their own terms, might draw as many conservative women fans as they do trad/incel men enemies. A lot of the talking points we on the left find trite and self-evident would be eye opening in some places if they were just articulated again.

3. These anti-misogyny conservative women are fighting a losing battle and they don't admit it to themselves yet, because they keep quoting scripture to justify their entitlement to male fidelity and gentleness, while the scripture was still designed by men to let married men get away with everything from DV to child SA.

4. These conservative Christian women go at this new wave of misogyny harder than the left does, because the left oftentimes subconsciously steer away from these online spaces for fear of being ratioed and triggered and these women don't have that fear because they are still kind of, psychologically speaking, fighting with their ingroup. It's similar to how the current libertarian presidential candidate was the only guy who appeared on right wing podcasts to unapologetically defend drag queen story hour and trans-friendly bathrooms.

Thoughts? (Also, feel free to repost this anywhere if you like.)

Shit BBC

linky

As Ms. O’Hanlon politely pressed him on what she called his “change of heart” on the issue of the local pipeline, which he had previously opposed, Mr. Fetterman pulled faces of faux concern until he stepped onto an elevator and let the closing door end the interaction.

Fuck the environment

But there have been other notable differences. He has taken a hawkish stance on immigration, calling the surge in migration across the United States border with Mexico “a crisis.” He has broken with President Biden on energy policy, condemning his decision to pause approval of new liquefied natural gas exports to allow time to study the impact on climate change.

A stubborn contrarian by nature, Mr. Fetterman’s political brand has always been quirky, irreverent and at times frustrating to ideological purists on the left.

"purists"

Mr. Fetterman’s longtime political adviser, Rebecca Katz, the person he spoke with first in the morning and last at night through his 2022 Senate campaign and who has been at his side since 2015, has recently moved on.

His first Senate chief of staff, Adam Jentleson, who kept him connected to the outside world during his stay at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center, quietly resigned last month, taking on a role as an outside adviser.

Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Democrat of New York, who had been involved in the verbal fracas, responded with a post suggesting Mr. Fetterman was a bully.

“I have no comment on that,” said Ms. Ocasio-Cortez, who endorsed Mr. Fetterman in 2022, when asked on Thursday about Mr. Fetterman’s shift in persona. “It’s up to Pennsylvanians.”

During his Senate campaign in 2022, he claimed he had always supported fracking, even though in the past he had said he would “never” support the industry. That year, he also told Jewish Insider that he would always be pro-Israel and “lean in” to strengthening the security of the Jewish state.

But his return to work and sharp break with the left has coincided with a distinct shift to the right in his media diet; he sometimes appears sucked into a vortex dominated by social media, The New York Post and Fox News, where for the first time in his political career, he is receiving approving coverage.

“The left should welcome it,” said Rick Wilson, the anti-Trump Republican strategist. “His position in the center left is much more viable in an ongoing political way than the idea of John Fetterman chanting ‘from the river to the sea.’ I don’t think that’s where most Americans’ heads are at. The left should welcome watching something that works.”

republicans always share good advice

He also criticized Mr. Biden’s decision to pause an arms shipment to Israel amid the dispute, saying: “I don’t think we should be withholding any kind of munitions. I have no conditions. I never have. And I can’t imagine I ever will.”

Pressed a week ago on his support for Israel, he told CNN: “If someone is very much supporting the pro-Palestinian view, that’s fine, it’s reasonable. I just decided to be on the side for Israel on that.”

On domestic policy, he is largely still holding the line on progressive values. Mr. Fetterman wields legislative power foremost as chairman of the Senate Agriculture Committee’s panel on food and nutrition, which oversees the food stamp program SNAP. In that role, he has drawn a hard line against any cuts to SNAP in the farm bill, which is due to be reauthorized this year.

so brave

On this day in 2013, Turkish protesters began occupying Gezi Park to oppose its demolition, an act with led to widespread protests and strikes with approximately 3,500,000 participants, 22 deaths, and more than 8,000 injuries.

The wave of civil unrest across Turkey began after the park occupation was violently evicted by police, who used to tear gas, pepper spray, and water cannons to try and break up the protests, injuring more than one hundred people and hospitalizing a journalist.

The protest quickly grew in size - by May 31st, 10,000 gathered in Istiklal Avenue. In June, the protests became national in scope and transcended any particular demographic or political ideology. Among the wide range of concerns brought by protesters were issues of freedom of the press, expression, and assembly, as well as the alleged political Islamist government's erosion of Turkey's secularism.

Millions of Turkish football fans, normally divided by intense sports rivalry, marched in unity against the government. Protesters displayed symbols the environmentalist movement, rainbow banners, depictions of Che Guevara, different trade unions, and the PKK and its leader Abdullah Öcalan.

On June 4th, Taksim Dayanışması (Taksim Solidarity) issued a set of demands that included the preservation of Gezi Park, an end to police violence, the right to freedom of assembly, and an end to the privatization of public spaces. Deputy Prime Minister Bülent Arınç met the group on June 5th and rejected these demands.

Erdoğan blamed the protests on "internal traitors and external collaborators", demonizing his political opposition as the former. Despite the popular mobilization, Erdoğan remained in power and no major concessions were won from the government.

• Istanbul Taksim Gezi Park is not about trees

Megathreads and spaces to hang out:

• 📀 Come listen to music and Watch movies with your fellow Hexbears nerd, in Cy.tube
• 🔥 Read and talk about a current topics in the News Megathread
• ⚔ Come talk in the New Weekly PoC thread
• ✨ Talk with fellow Trans comrades in the New Weekly Trans thread

reminders:

• 💚 You nerds can join specific comms to see posts about all sorts of topics
• 💙 Hexbear’s algorithm prioritizes comments over upbears
• 💜 Sorting by new you nerd
• 🌈 If you ever want to make your own megathread, you can reserve a spot here nerd
• 🐶 Join the unofficial Hexbear-adjacent Mastodon instance toots.matapacos.dog

Links To Resources (Aid and Theory):

Aid:

• 🌈 LGBTQ+ Resource Post
• 🍉 Resources for Palestine
• 🐌☕ Zapatista Coffee

Theory:

• ❤️Foundations of Leninism
• ❤️Anarchism and Other Essays