Federalist Admits Fascism; "Stop Calling Us Conservatives"

[Grinning Serpent]

The article is from The Federalist which is a major conservative outlet.

Since when? It's not funded by any of the big think tanks or corporate moguls like Koch etc. The Wikipedia article doesn't even list major funding or production at all, which means it must not be associated with the big names or their shell companies. Why does it matter?

[Edge-]

Since when?

Since it was founded in 2013 or so. It's been one of the bigger conservative sites, and for a bit had pretenses of being one of the more "serious" and "intellectual" outlets in the conservative media landscape.

It's not funded by any of the big think tanks or corporate moguls like Koch etc. The Wikipedia article doesn't even list major funding or production at all, which means it must not be associated with the big names or their shell companies. Why does it matter?

It does however, note that it receives major backing from Dick Uihlein, a big Trump backer and supporter of other extreme right wing candidates. And if you did read the Wikipedia on it, you'd realize that questions about its funding aren't new or uncommon.

Because for all we know, much like outlets like Breitbart, it too is fully funded by extreme right wing billionaires. And yes, Breitbart has a depressing amount of influence over conservative politics and readers.

Why does it matter? Because you're trying to pretend that notable conservative outlets "just aren't that important" and attempting to downplay the significance of podcasts despite the well established connections between the start and growth of right wing talk radio laying the groundwork for the current extremism we see and how podcasting is simply taking ye-olden radio waves and now is transmitting them all over the world.

[Cthulhu 2020]

Since when? It's not funded by any of the big think tanks or corporate moguls like Koch etc. The Wikipedia article doesn't even list major funding or production at all, which means it must not be associated with the big names or their shell companies. Why does it matter?

It always baffles me that people ask such obvious questions when they have the internet at their fingertips.

While not one of the most massive distributors of fascist conservative media, they're still highly popular, and have been pushing fascist rheotoric since their founding nine years ago.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Federalist_(website)

They've pushed a lot of heavily racist narratives, as well as COVID "truther" bullshit and the 2020 election fraud conspiracy.

At a certain point, google adsense threatened to shut down their funding to the Federalist because the comment section on their articles was filled with hateful racist, sexist, and bigoted comments. The Federalist just got rid of their comment section as a result, and went on to complain about how big tech companies were weaponizing monetization to "push a woke agenda". i.e. they were chicken shits who valued their revenue stream over allowing their audience to freely express violent and hateful rhetoric.

[Grinning Serpent]

It always baffles me that people ask such obvious questions when they have the internet at their fingertips.

While not one of the most massive distributors of fascist conservative media, they're still highly popular, and have been pushing fascist rheotoric since their founding nine years ago.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Federalist_(website)

They've pushed a lot of heavily racist narratives, as well as COVID "truther" bullshit and the 2020 election fraud conspiracy.

At a certain point, google adsense threatened to shut down their funding to the Federalist because the comment section on their articles was filled with hateful racist, sexist, and bigoted comments. The Federalist just got rid of their comment section as a result, and went on to complain about how big tech companies were weaponizing monetization to "push a woke agenda". i.e. they were chicken shits who valued their revenue stream over allowing their audience to freely express violent and hateful rhetoric.

Yes, I read that article. I wouldn't be asking why they matter if that article had contained anything useful or important in it.

So, as I said pages ago, it's just another one of those stupid limpdicked cuck white guy podcasts with a bunch of likeminded, angry limpdicked cuck white dudes listening to it and being angry about things.

So what? We *already knew* they were fascists or proto-fascists, and it's been white supremacist 101 for a long time now to present a dignified and refined face to the public eye (it's why these losers always wear nice suits, have nice haircuts and carefully trimmed beards, etc.) It has *always* just been window dressing, and nothing more.

So I guess I just don't understand the significance of one of those meaningless podcasts going "mask off." Their listeners *already* knew what they were about (or are by this point so gaslit that a bald-faced admission like the linked article wouldn't budge them anyway.) Antifascists *already* knew them for what they are. So what's the point?

Why is it significant or newsworthy? You just asking me to make sure I got a bullet for each of them in my magazine? I've already had that handled for the past three years now.

[tehdang]

He's not wrong either. Nazis, and many nazi sympathizers within the US (of which there were a lot) all thought they were doing "good" by exterminating the Jews.

You claiming that "both parties believe they're doing good" is in fact a meaningless truism.

One correction. The Federalist spoke on the rise of former conservatives now embracing the use of expansive government powers to do good. Libs and progs were already comfortable doing the same, from their perspective. Conservatives eschewed it for the most part, and had to compromise with other factions in the Republican Party to gain ruling coalition. So not just do good, but believe that government force can and should be used to do good in social, big business, and civic freedoms sectors.

We are all FULLY aware the right believes they doing good. The issue is, they are causing demonstrable harm with nearly all of their policy positions. And it's not like you've ever had the testicular fortitude to even tell us what your policy positions are. You just whinge about left wing politics and wag your finger at criticisms of the right.

I’m just a single poster and can’t hope to match the output of the half-truths and disinformation commonly found in these threads. Perhaps with a more established group of frequent posters in ideological contention, this might seem more balanced with substance.

Here's the thing about policies and laws, you need a clear vision about who or what you're helping and why. The right has three very broad categories under which their policies fall.

1. Religious, they're doing it for the magic man in the sky consequences be damned. Abortion and LGBTQ policies mostly fall under this. They typically try to explain these policy positions in a "scientific" way here because they know the religious discussion is not allowed. But the "scientific" side of it always ends up being bullshit and easy to counter.

2. Pro corporate. For as much as the right claims that they want prosperity for the middle man, whenever it ACTUALLY comes down to it, their policy explanations always tend to make fun of poor people just for being poor, claim it's the poor person's fault, etc. and then they go and suck off corporations with more free money, claiming corporations making billions of dollars a year need even more tax cuts because if we throw more money at them, jobs will magically start appearing. We've been doing this for 50 years and it hasn't been working.

3. Racist and sexist malarky. The whole "law and order" side is utter shite, and is a thinly veiled cover excuse for their hate boner of minorities. The justification of excessive use of force on black communities, the cruel separation of children from their parents and caging at the southern border, the insistence that crime is coming from our southern border, etc. For some reason the right never really seems to give a shit about the OVER HALF of illegal immigrants that are white. They always profile latinos, even legal citizens who are latinos, for being "illegal".


If we look at the whole of the right's policy positions, they come from a place of good intention. They're just so stubborn though, that they refuse to acknowledge that most of these are causing tremendous amounts of harm to either our whole society, or parts of our society. The most recent anti-abortion shit hurts far more people than it helps, as we know from historical examples that when abortion is illegal, people who do not want children will still seek to cause one but in far less sanitary conditions. That and demanding women carry unwanted pregnancies to term is just reducing them to being brood mares.

GQP policies aren't about helping anyone. They're about control. You might claim that you want small government, but when literally every Republican you vote for doesn't do a single thing that's small government it's either hypocritical on your part, or ignorant on your part to ever believe your representatives wanted small government in the first place.

Wrong on all counts, for many reasons.

Conservatives want broad first amendment protections for both speech and religion. The progs are wont to call all protections for free exercise and speech as unacceptable. They’re happy to bully the last religious-objection cake maker in Colorado until he spends the majority of his latter years in court battles. They reject religious-agnostic abortion battles as purely religious. They’re very hostile to religion, and that breeds an intolerance and ignorance to citizens with other religious views. And specifically to abortion, they push themselves on towards extremism where no major Democratic candidate can even admit to wanting restrictions applied to unborn children before birth. It might just matter in tight battles where that comes out in the debates. Woman and doctor make decision, no mention of the third body in the room and how well-developed he or she might be.

For business policies, conservatives have regularly defended the businessman and CEO from over regulation and varied overlapping taxation schemes that seek to make business uncompetitive in the world and stuck lobbying government for the chance to earn money. And what do progressives have to show for it? An abundance of regulation that only big business can hope to comply with, and a massive weight on any small business just starting out or seeking to grow. Tax the dollar when it comes into corporate domestic profits, and tax it again when it goes into payroll, and again in the individuals yearly accounting. Gotta love it. The rallying cry for conservatives became tax cuts and regulation cuts precisely because it sucks money from employed members of the middle class (as with the others). And it gets spent unwisely and wastefully on the flip side.

I see we have the classic progressive hate and fear on race. I particularly like Obama’s cages. One liberal outlet put in the photos from his reign into a Trump article and oops. Had to retract. But let’s reframe this dumb attack. When Dems suck at governing and can’t defend their record, they play the race card. They’ve failed to legislate and execute a sane immigration policy, so they dump millions of illegal immigrants on border states with “notice to appear,” then call it racism to demand more restrictive policies and better enforcement of the border. Republican efforts on this front have been opposed as racist, precisely because Democrats view border chaos as a net win. It’s not in their communities after all. And if it became that way via some red state tactics, they call it so unfair. The Rio Grande Valley’s been overwhelmed for some time now, so try handling one tenth of one percent of it for a change. (And then they handwave away every twice-deported felon that re-offends in the US. Americans are tired of it. They’re going to reject these policies at the polls, yell and scream -isms at them all you want.)

I hope the GOP returns to small government principles. Obviously their latest president was elected explicitly rejecting any of that. And Dems have played tough politics calling any retraction of advancing government control as heartless and cruel. GOP managed a sequester and some small baseline cuts in the past. We’ll see if people of my ideological persuasion can manage more of that in the future. First, we have to take power from Biden and democrats. And much money must be spent in advancing the arguments in the public square than is currently spent. The current inflation issues, and Democratic commitments to make them worse and blame the out-of-power Republicans, are starting to expose the weakness of tax-and-spend policies. Policy change might happen this cycle, or it may have to wait at least another two years while the GOP undoes the current crises and abuse of power. And (naturally) deals with Trump’s thoroughly unhelpful rhetoric while out of office.

[Edge-]

They’ve failed to legislate and execute a sane immigration policy

I will once again point out that they've tried, and it's primarily Republicans who have killed any efforts.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gang_o..._(immigration)

I'll remind you that there was almost a bipartisan overhaul of our immigration system. Except that Republicans in the House led by John Boehner killed it. It had passed the Senate and had Republican support with 14 voting for it.

But as always, I'm sure you're well aware of this but just voluntarily choose to pretend this bit of history doesn't exist because then you'd have to find a way to dismiss it before trying to say that it's actually Democrats who are the main problem here.

[Endus]

Conservatives want broad first amendment protections for both speech and religion. The progs are wont to call all protections for free exercise and speech as unacceptable.

No, they don't. You're lying.

The Conservatives already have those broad First Amendment protections, like everyone. What they're calling for is that everyone else's rights to speech get restricted, to shut down open criticism and condemnation of those Conservatives. They're calling for restrictions on freedom of association, so that businesses can't choose to deny service to customers over the content of one's speech. They're calling for attacks on non-Christians' rights to their religious freedoms; see any of them, particularly Boebert recently, describing the USA as a "Christian nation" because every such comment is exactly that kind of attack, implicitly.

You're lying about the facts, here. This isn't a difference of opinion; this is you being rankly dishonest.

They’re happy to bully the last religious-objection cake maker in Colorado until he spends the majority of his latter years in court battles.

Because he's denying service based on sexual orientation, which is a protected class in Colorado. Not complicated. Also absolutely fuck-all to do with freedom of speech; that cake owner is free to speak out against the LGBT all he likes.

They reject religious-agnostic abortion battles as purely religious.

They deny their relevance to anyone who doesn't share those views, because enforcing religious views into the law is automatically a direct attack on everyone else's freedom of religion. You're literally citing an example of Conservatives' attacks on freedom of religion, here, nobody's attacking their freedoms; conservatives are perfectly free to choose to not get an abortion due to their religious views and nobody's challenging that.

They’re very hostile to religion, and that breeds an intolerance and ignorance to citizens with other religious views

You're lying and projecting. Progressives are in no way intolerant of religion, as a group. And refusing to allow conservatives to attack other religious groups, including the non-religious, is a demonstration of that tolerance, not a refutation thereof.

And specifically to abortion, they push themselves on towards extremism where no major Democratic candidate can even admit to wanting restrictions applied to unborn children before birth.

That's not "extremism". Canada's had no restrictions on abortion for over 30 years now.

It might just matter in tight battles where that comes out in the debates. Woman and doctor make decision, no mention of the third body in the room and how well-developed he or she might be.

That's a fundamentally and irrevocably religious point of view. See above about how enforcing religious views as the law is, irrevocably, an attack on everyone's religious freedoms.

You can't even get through that one paragraph without openly lying about every single element.

[Paranoid Android]

We can discuss the "R" word here, but the amazing flip of Conservatives say they are having their rights infringed cause they cannot discriminate because of the "R". On top of that it's dominated by one major "R" where we all know if this was any other "R" they would flip the fuck out.

To tie this into the thread it's about a singularity nationalism. White, Christian nationalism. The fascism of a authoritarian leader, single party rule, with no rights to anyone who does not follow their ideology. This is unquestionably the Republican playbook.

[Flarelaine]

The Conservatives already have those broad First Amendment protections, like everyone. What they're calling for is that everyone else's rights to speech get restricted, to shut down open criticism and condemnation of those Conservatives. They're calling for restrictions on freedom of association, so that businesses can't choose to deny service to customers over the content of one's speech. They're calling for attacks on non-Christians' rights to their religious freedoms; see any of them, particularly Boebert recently, describing the USA as a "Christian nation" because every such comment is exactly that kind of attack, implicitly.

...

Because he's denying service based on sexual orientation, which is a protected class in Colorado. Not complicated. Also absolutely fuck-all to do with freedom of speech; that cake owner is free to speak out against the LGBT all he likes.

But don't bakers have freedom of association as well?

[tehdang]

I will once again point out that they've tried, and it's primarily Republicans who have killed any efforts.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gang_o..._(immigration)

I'll remind you that there was almost a bipartisan overhaul of our immigration system. Except that Republicans in the House led by John Boehner killed it. It had passed the Senate and had Republican support with 14 voting for it.

But as always, I'm sure you're well aware of this but just voluntarily choose to pretend this bit of history doesn't exist because then you'd have to find a way to dismiss it before trying to say that it's actually Democrats who are the main problem here.

It had high promises, but Republicans were too wise after the 1986 amnesty bill. The enforcement mechanisms were just promises for the future, and the amnesty was front-loaded. The "compromise" was the same Lucy-pulling-up-the-football trick again. Amnesty first, and we'll work on all those enforcement mechanisms we're promising to execute on ...

It does serve as a good example of the thin gruel Progressives cling to in order to make it out to be the other guys that won't play ball. And progressives might as well complain that Republicans took some lessons from the 1986 amnesty bill that was passed in exchange for compromises towards enforcement that never happened.

Goodlatte, at the time
https://www.nationalreview.com/corne...bob-goodlatte/
Gee whiz, amendments placing firm checks on security before amnesty rejected? Nearly all amendments of the kind rejected? No penalties for just a 1984 repeat?
https://www.nationalreview.com/2013/...andrew-stiles/
How surprising. The gang of eight debacle was a little prelude to a big turn against establishment Republican candidates for office.

[Santti]

But don't bakers have freedom of association as well?

Not if we are talking about protected classes, I think. Which is what Endus mentioned.

[Flarelaine]

Not if we are talking about protected classes, I think. Which is what Endus mentioned.

Legalistically, he may be right. I'm not certain. In fact, there's a recent case from California where the court decided otherwise.

California bakery wins case over refusal to make cake for same-sex wedding

But I never understood these fights. I for certain would never want what is proverbially called the happiest day of my life poisoned by the thought that the cake we're sharing was made by someone against their will. Why then do people try to force bigoted bakers to bake their cakes?

[Paranoid Android]

Legalistically, he may be right. I'm not certain. In fact, there's a recent case from California where the court decided otherwise.

California bakery wins case over refusal to make cake for same-sex wedding

But I never understood these fights. I for certain would never want what is proverbially called the happiest day of my life poisoned by the thought that the cake we're sharing was made by someone against their will. Why then do people try to force bigoted bakers to bake their cakes?

In short as I stated on this page. Conservatives use "religious freedom" as a hammer to discriminate. So I'm dipping my toe in the "R" discussion again. So if you want me to say this in broad terms the Republicans try to manipulate our Constitution and laws as a weapon for their weapon to attack people on the margins. Well, in my opinion they might use these laws now to silence half the country.

Back to this is what the article is clearly stating and what already a majority of Republicans spout. They want their identity as the ruling majority in this country, no questions asked. At best they want to be barely tolerant of the fringe.

[Endus]

But don't bakers have freedom of association as well?

As mentioned, protected classes exist, and in Colorado, that includes sexual orientation. The big difference is that protected classes protect you from being denied service for what you are, not what you're saying or doing. You can't kick a guy out of your store for "being black", but you can kick a black guy out of your store for playing super-loud music and bothering your other customers.

Legalistically, he may be right. I'm not certain. In fact, there's a recent case from California where the court decided otherwise.

California bakery wins case over refusal to make cake for same-sex wedding

The USA has a lot of issues with systemic bigotry, and that extends to the courts, frankly. If these cases were cases where the reason they were denied service was that the customer was black, or celebrating an interracial marriage, or was a Christian, I'm pretty sure these same courts would rule against the bakery. Those arguments were tried in the wake of the Civil Rights Act, and all failed to hold up in court, eventually.

But I never understood these fights. I for certain would never want what is proverbially called the happiest day of my life poisoned by the thought that the cake we're sharing was made by someone against their will. Why then do people try to force bigoted bakers to bake their cakes?

It's less that they want to force those bigoted bakers to make the cake, and that those bigoted bakers shouldn't be in business at all if they're going to be bigoted and abusive towards customers. If they keep that shit up, they can get fined over and over until they change their ways, or go bankrupt. I sure wouldn't trust any cake that came out of those shops, but that kind of means those bakers shouldn't be bakers.

It's kind of like making the argument that Alex Jones shouldn't be being sued, because his victims could just not listen to his radio show. The abuse both extends further than the single act, and the one responsible shouldn't be permitted to behave that way.

[Specialka]

It's not the principle people have problems with. Which you'd know, if you paid even the least bit of attention. It's what is being reconstructed from, and to. Specifically, purging support and protections for various minority groups like the LGBTQ+ and non-whites in general and women and religious minorities and so on. Because that's what "woke" means; just not being an abusive shithead to those groups. If you're anti-woke, you're pro-bigotry. So that's the goal here; purge those protections and support, and shift to a society where those groups are scapegoated and targeted for intentional systemic subjugation and abuse.

And that is what's directly comparable to the Nazi Reich, which did the same shit. For the same reasons. And that's (part of) what's fascist. Not the process, the goal they seek to achieve. You're attacking a straw man.

At least, you dropped the "if you are not anti-woke, you are woke" BS.

[Edge-]

It had high promises, but Republicans were too wise after the 1986 amnesty bill. The enforcement mechanisms were just promises for the future, and the amnesty was front-loaded. The "compromise" was the same Lucy-pulling-up-the-football trick again. Amnesty first, and we'll work on all those enforcement mechanisms we're promising to execute on ...

So to understand you correctly, Senate Republicans were all a bunch of gullible idiots and if it wasn't for John Boehner we would have the immigration reform you demand Democrats pass by themselves?

This sounds incredibly like a bad faith argument.

It does serve as a good example of the thin gruel Progressives cling to in order to make it out to be the other guys that won't play ball. And progressives might as well complain that Republicans took some lessons from the 1986 amnesty bill that was passed in exchange for compromises towards enforcement that never happened.

I note you're still not acknowledging the bipartisan drafting of said bill nor bipartisan package.

What was so terrible about it, especifically? You make vague reference to the 1986 amnesty bill, to be clear - This is the bill passed with a Republican Senate majority and signed by Ronald Reagan.

That bill?

That was actually a secret liberal bill that they pulled a fast one on the Gipper with?

Goodlatte, at the time
https://www.nationalreview.com/corne...bob-goodlatte/
Gee whiz, amendments placing firm checks on security before amnesty rejected? Nearly all amendments of the kind rejected? No penalties for just a 1984 repeat?

Weird that the party was fine with this overall in the Senate, and helped write this bill to begin with, but the House - which had already become a breeding ground for right wing extremism by this point with the Tea Party and Freedom Caucus (which are now mostly gone since there's no point in extremist factions when the whole party is extremist)? So it was that extremism that Boehner and House leadership had to cater to.

Let's take a few criticisms -

Among my many concerns, the Senate bill gives legal status before enforcement is up and operating

Because the US government can walk and chew gum at the same time. These are two separate things handled by separate agencies and people and can be dual-tracked in the name of expediency. Because the bill included considerable expansion of funding to hire more CPB agents, mandate electronic exist systems at crossings, 700+ miles of new fencing, additional surveillance including aircraft, and ramping up prosecutions.

I guess those all count as no checks or improvements on security?

provides a special pathway to citizenship for those who have broken our immigration laws

Yeah, because such moves have been pretty beneficial in the past and just kicking out millions of people who have built lives here and become integral parts of their local communities isn't very workable. This has been proven time and time again.

Do I need to remind you of that time Alabama was publicly talking about their very serious crackdown on illegal immigration and the immediate effect was that farmers crops rotted in the field because the usual crucial undocumented labor that did that work didn't show up? https://www.theguardian.com/world/20...on-law-workers

Imagine this, but everywhere. Because as much as Republicans may just want to kick every brown person out of the US, there are consequences to that kind of short-term thinking.

allows the president to waive many, if not most, of the bill’s internal enforcement requirements

This was, and is, flatly untrue. The POTUS has always had fairly expansive authority on enforcement of laws, see DACA and that it's survived multiple legal challenges for example. There was nothing different with this bill.

Now that was a fun little trip down memory lane for how bad-faith, dishonest criticisms from Republicans are at least a decade old, and how people even a decade later will uncritically believe and post them as if we don't know better by now.

We shouldn't do this again though, especially since it's driving us off-topic. It was a good reminder of just how recently at least some Republicans pretended they were still a functional political party and not a party heading full speed ahead towards full on fascism.

[Endus]

At least, you dropped the "if you are not anti-woke, you are woke" BS.

Where did I ever say that?

I've pointed out that all "woke" means is "consciously unprejudiced". And that to be "anti-woke" is, necessarily, to be a bigot; to be opposed to such a lack of prejudice. I've never claimed there wasn't ground between those two points. Just that anyone who uses "woke" as a slur or something to be opposed is, themselves, bigoted.

Nobody really talks about the middle ground of "subconsciously unprejudiced" through "subconsciously prejudiced but unaware about it and would be upset to have it pointed out because they thought better of themselves". There just isn't much to say there, really.

[Specialka]

Where did I ever say that?

I've pointed out that all "woke" means is "consciously unprejudiced". And that to be "anti-woke" is, necessarily, to be a bigot; to be opposed to such a lack of prejudice. I've never claimed there wasn't ground between those two points. Just that anyone who uses "woke" as a slur or something to be opposed is, themselves, bigoted.

Nobody really talks about the middle ground of "subconsciously unprejudiced" through "subconsciously prejudiced but unaware about it and would be upset to have it pointed out because they thought better of themselves". There just isn't much to say there, really.

Ah sorry, I thought you dropped that childish nonsense. My bad.

[Endus]

Ah sorry, I thought you dropped that childish nonsense. My bad.

Can't explain why it's "childish nonsense", though. Because it isn't, and you know it.

[Specialka]

Can't explain why it's "childish nonsense", though. Because it isn't, and you know it.

Nah it would further derail the thread. And I would infracted for it and you would not.