Need to let loose a primal scream without collecting footnotes first? Have a sneer percolating in your system but not enough time/energy to make a whole post about it? Go forth and be mid: Welcome to the Stubsack, your first port of call for learning fresh Awful youā€™ll near-instantly regret.

Any awful.systems sub may be subsneered in this subthread, techtakes or no.

If your sneer seems higher quality than you thought, feel free to cutā€™nā€™paste it into its own post ā€” thereā€™s no quota for posting and the bar really isnā€™t that high.

The post Xitter web has spawned soo many ā€œesotericā€ right wing freaks, but thereā€™s no appropriate sneer-space for them. Iā€™m talking redscare-ish, reality challenged ā€œculture criticsā€ who write about everything but understand nothing. Iā€™m talking about reply-guys who make the same 6 tweets about the same 3 subjects. Theyā€™re inescapable at this point, yet I donā€™t see them mocked (as much as they should be)

Like, there was one dude a while back who insisted that women couldnā€™t be surgeons because they didnā€™t believe in the moon or in stars? I think each and every one of these guys is uniquely fucked up and if I canā€™t escape them, I would love to sneer at them.

Last weekā€™s thread

(Semi-obligatory thanks to @dgerard for starting this)

  • o7___o7@awful.systems
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    9 days ago

    The bad guys have definitely learned a new sort of trick. Havenā€™t wrapped my head around it yet, but it is bad, innit?

    • swlabr@awful.systems
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      8 days ago

      Apologies for the screed:

      Quick recap:

      2016-2020: executive orders every day, non-elected positions being captured by conservatives, dems just hand-wringing and tweeting. but Dems get lucky with a pandemic and trump loses

      2021-2024: weekend at bidenā€™s.

      Where was the election reform? The dismantling or reform of the electoral colleges? The extra seats on the SC? Bribing the public with stimulus packages to boost the economy?

      Remember when we pushed Biden left? Remember when the dems preserved abortion rights, prevented the invasion of ukraine, and stopped bankrolling Israelā€™s genocide?

      ā€œexercise your democratic rights and voice by voting for our candidate that wasnā€™t democratically chosen as our candidateā€. ā€œvote blue and do not voice any critical thoughtā€. ā€œany vote that isnā€™t for the party that didnā€™t meaningfully reverse or prevent conservative actions is a vote for trumpā€.

      In sum: the bad guys didnā€™t do anything new.

      The closest we got to a trump loss was some republican spook who went to a trump rally with a gun because it was closer than the harris rally.

      • o7___o7@awful.systems
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        9 days ago

        The thing thatā€™s most baffling to me is how the difference in ground game had zero impact. We were pounding the pavement, doors got fuckin knocked. The GOP did less than zero, firing their entire staff responsible for in-person outreach and gave 100 million to PACs run by grifters who put it directly into their own pockets.

        Unless weā€™ve missed a trick, retail politics as it has existed is dead.

        • korydg@awful.systems
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          7 days ago

          Iā€™m seeing some takes now that the ground game did make a difference of a couple of points in the swing states, where it was concentrated, itā€™s just that that wasnā€™t enough.

            • o7___o7@awful.systems
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              6 days ago

              Here in TN, we had a monster grassroots door knocking/letter writing movent. We did manage to get a couple of rad women into the general assemblyā€“with several heart-breakingly-close missesā€“but not nearly as many as weā€™d hoped, and the vile supermajority is still in place. Anecdotally, we are seeing the actual useful activists here getting radicalized rather than demotivated, which will be important re: surviving the present kakiclysm

              Also, Iā€™d just like to say I appreciate ya.

        • Amoeba_Girl@awful.systems
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          9 days ago

          Dem talking heads spending so much energy courting moderate conservative votes was an excellent way to demobilise their base. They really gave their all to lose an election that should have been a free win.

          • YourNetworkIsHaunted@awful.systems
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            8 days ago

            I mean, I donā€™t think it was unreasonable to expect liberals to show up against someone whoā€™s sole policy proposals were mass deportations and political reprisals, and so I can understand the logic of focusing on the center (which in US politics means center-right).

            But this being the democratic party, they also couldnā€™t commit to an actual narrative to make that play. Rather than ā€œlook at their ties to Big Tech!ā€ or even sticking with ā€œlook how weird these people are!ā€ they had to go hat-in-hand and stake themselves to divisive (to say nothing of abhorrent) policies because thatā€™s the only connection they could try to make. I think weā€™re seeing a major problem with the whole ā€œbig tentā€ concept.

          • ShakingMyHead@awful.systems
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            8 days ago

            This wasnā€™t a free win, however. The reason Harris took over in the first place was because Bidenā€™s performance in the debate was poor enough that the Democrats thought there was no longer any chance with him, and this was already with lowering approval ratings. Had he stayed, I bet Trumpā€™s victory would have been even wider.

        • ShakingMyHead@awful.systems
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          9 days ago

          It was twitter. Elon Musk joins Trumpā€™s team. What happens? Harrisā€™ chances begin to drop.
          Trump did lose support, but there was probably enough propaganda on Twitter to make enough people go ā€œboth sidesā€ and just sit out the election.