Following #Trump’s shameful #Tesla advert on the WH lawn last week, US #Commerce Secy #HowardLutnick used a TV appearance to urge Americans to buy stock in #ElonMusk's company.
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@Remittancegirl @thepoliticalcat @emory @Nonilex
I think you may have just given me a piece of a puzzle there. What I haven't been able to wrap my head around is how the charade can continue even as Trump's mental decline has moved fairly deep into dementia territory.
One possible thought is that there never was much there to begin with except a complete lack of shame, the hollow soul of a malignant narcissist, and a sense of entitlement so great it boggles the mind.
@SuneAuken @Remittancegirl @emory @Nonilex Precisely. He's always been a vile, shameless narcissistic psychopath. But now, he's rampaging like a spoiled brat. He has nothing to hold him back. He is showing us the effects of dementia on an aging brain with no guardrails. Who is going to put a limit to his madness? He's surrounded by bootlickers and yes-men.
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@Nonilex @thepoliticalcat @SuneAuken @emory
I do think it is a distraction we ‘progressives’ have a real penchant for getting lost in.
We want to know why people are the way they are. But there comes a point where I think it is ethical to deny them the dignity of your curiosity.
They’re just monstrous assholes.
@Remittancegirl @thepoliticalcat @SuneAuken @emory
Agreed. Still, it is probably something more people should know about. The billionaire effectively dictating the government is out of his mind on ketamine most of the time, even when he’s not high on it, the effects of abuse have created paranoia & megalomaniacal delusions.
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@thepoliticalcat @Remittancegirl @SuneAuken @emory
A while ago I gifted an Atlantic article examining #Musk’s #ketamine abuse.
@thepoliticalcat @Remittancegirl @SuneAuken @emory
Just boosted the thread.
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@Remittancegirl @thepoliticalcat @SuneAuken @emory
Agreed. Still, it is probably something more people should know about. The billionaire effectively dictating the government is out of his mind on ketamine most of the time, even when he’s not high on it, the effects of abuse have created paranoia & megalomaniacal delusions.
@Nonilex @Remittancegirl @thepoliticalcat @emory
"it is probably something more people should know about" takes an early lead in the International Understatement of the Year Competition 2025.
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@thepoliticalcat @Remittancegirl @SuneAuken @emory
Just boosted the thread.
@Nonilex Thanks
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@SuneAuken @Remittancegirl @emory @Nonilex Precisely. He's always been a vile, shameless narcissistic psychopath. But now, he's rampaging like a spoiled brat. He has nothing to hold him back. He is showing us the effects of dementia on an aging brain with no guardrails. Who is going to put a limit to his madness? He's surrounded by bootlickers and yes-men.
@thepoliticalcat @SuneAuken @Remittancegirl @emory @Nonilex the more interesting question for me is: if these people are as incompetent and narcisistic as they seem, who is actually running the show? Who's doing the detailed organising required to make their rants a reality?
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@thepoliticalcat @SuneAuken @Remittancegirl @emory @Nonilex the more interesting question for me is: if these people are as incompetent and narcisistic as they seem, who is actually running the show? Who's doing the detailed organising required to make their rants a reality?
Honestly, I think we fantasize some all-powerful, shadowy evil think tank pulling the strings in the background. And ironically, there’s a strange comfort in believing there is any coherent direction.
But I fear this is worse. No one is running the show. The object of the exercise is to destroy the ’show’ completely, through absurd acts.
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Honestly, I think we fantasize some all-powerful, shadowy evil think tank pulling the strings in the background. And ironically, there’s a strange comfort in believing there is any coherent direction.
But I fear this is worse. No one is running the show. The object of the exercise is to destroy the ’show’ completely, through absurd acts.
@Remittancegirl @fishidwardrobe @thepoliticalcat @emory @Nonilex
If you look at that mythical Nazi-playbook, which led well-nigh everyone who played by it to a horrible death in ignomy, and think "yeah, I'll play by that one, it'll be fine for me"; then on some level at least you have to be pretty darn daft.
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@Remittancegirl @fishidwardrobe @thepoliticalcat @emory @Nonilex
If you look at that mythical Nazi-playbook, which led well-nigh everyone who played by it to a horrible death in ignomy, and think "yeah, I'll play by that one, it'll be fine for me"; then on some level at least you have to be pretty darn daft.
@SuneAuken
I don’t think they actually think about it with that much determination.I think two things are happening at the same time:
They are getting a great deal of transgressive libidinal pleasure in doing things that were, until very recently, out of the question and forbidden by custom and socially condemned. Like the Nazi salutes. AND, they are using their power to get away with what they can, for their own benefit.
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@SuneAuken
I don’t think they actually think about it with that much determination.I think two things are happening at the same time:
They are getting a great deal of transgressive libidinal pleasure in doing things that were, until very recently, out of the question and forbidden by custom and socially condemned. Like the Nazi salutes. AND, they are using their power to get away with what they can, for their own benefit.
@SuneAuken
Both Trump and Musk harbor incredibly deep rage at not being accepted as part of the elite, cosmopolitan ‘in crowd’. All their money could not buy them that status. Each in their own way, they are enjoying the ability to take revenge on those who excluded them in a myriad of ways. -
@SuneAuken
Both Trump and Musk harbor incredibly deep rage at not being accepted as part of the elite, cosmopolitan ‘in crowd’. All their money could not buy them that status. Each in their own way, they are enjoying the ability to take revenge on those who excluded them in a myriad of ways.@Remittancegirl @fishidwardrobe @thepoliticalcat @emory @Nonilex
It will come as absolutely no surprise whatsoever to you that I agree wholeheartedly.
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@Remittancegirl @fishidwardrobe @thepoliticalcat @emory @Nonilex
It will come as absolutely no surprise whatsoever to you that I agree wholeheartedly.
@SuneAuken
I’m never going to forget - not Musk’s hand gesture - but the look on his face when he did it. It was libidinal pleasure.And I’ve seen it on Trump’s face at different points too.
Of course, there is no one more castrated than a man who continually tries to prove he’s not.
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@SuneAuken
I’m never going to forget - not Musk’s hand gesture - but the look on his face when he did it. It was libidinal pleasure.And I’ve seen it on Trump’s face at different points too.
Of course, there is no one more castrated than a man who continually tries to prove he’s not.
@Remittancegirl @fishidwardrobe @thepoliticalcat @emory @Nonilex
This, unfortunately, rings true.
And we are back at toxic masculinity once again.
Alas.
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@Remittancegirl @fishidwardrobe @thepoliticalcat @emory @Nonilex
This, unfortunately, rings true.
And we are back at toxic masculinity once again.
Alas.
The libidinal pleasure argument rings very true to me. One of the things I've often seen in people falling towards fascism is that they become annoyed at having to regulate their behaviour to fit in with others, and see it as an imposition. They are entitled, in their own minds, to behave as they please.
This combines closely with other entitled behaviours; for example young men in the incel-adjacent sphere often complain that they have to do a whole list of things to "get a girlfriend", regarding it not as a simple piece of mutual consent, but as society holding "their" girlfriend away from them until they jump through arbitrary hoops.
Someone on here once called Trump's policies "owning the libs as an ideology unto itself", and I think that's a good way of describing broader fascist behaviour. It's impulse driven, minute to minute, without a master plan of any sort.
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The libidinal pleasure argument rings very true to me. One of the things I've often seen in people falling towards fascism is that they become annoyed at having to regulate their behaviour to fit in with others, and see it as an imposition. They are entitled, in their own minds, to behave as they please.
This combines closely with other entitled behaviours; for example young men in the incel-adjacent sphere often complain that they have to do a whole list of things to "get a girlfriend", regarding it not as a simple piece of mutual consent, but as society holding "their" girlfriend away from them until they jump through arbitrary hoops.
Someone on here once called Trump's policies "owning the libs as an ideology unto itself", and I think that's a good way of describing broader fascist behaviour. It's impulse driven, minute to minute, without a master plan of any sort.
@passenger @Remittancegirl @fishidwardrobe @thepoliticalcat @emory @Nonilex
Carole Cadwalladr's "misogyny is the gateway drug to the far right" sadly remains relevant.
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@passenger @Remittancegirl @fishidwardrobe @thepoliticalcat @emory @Nonilex
Carole Cadwalladr's "misogyny is the gateway drug to the far right" sadly remains relevant.
@SuneAuken I love that woman. She can read power-brokers with uncanny specificity. @passenger @fishidwardrobe @thepoliticalcat @emory @Nonilex
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You know, I have always been passionately and deeply interested in the psychological details of complicated, dodgy people. But recently, I’ve completely lost interest in it. I don’t give a fuck why he is the asshole he is. Much like Trump. I won’t give them the dignity of being interested in why they are the shits they are.
@Remittancegirl @thepoliticalcat @SuneAuken @emory @Nonilex The ontological study of Trump's malignant narcissism is the only thing of interest in the 'Trump' Frankenstein's monster. In himself, Trump is a lump of mud, kneaded with blood, only his immense mental-sickness is interesting.
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@Remittancegirl @thepoliticalcat @SuneAuken @emory @Nonilex The ontological study of Trump's malignant narcissism is the only thing of interest in the 'Trump' Frankenstein's monster. In himself, Trump is a lump of mud, kneaded with blood, only his immense mental-sickness is interesting.
@Tharpa
I think your ‘lump of mud’ analogy is super apt.Because he is eerily unformed. So is Musk. They are not actually grown up men. They spend an inordinate amount of time and effort projecting themselves as grown up men precisely because they are not.
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@SuneAuken I love that woman. She can read power-brokers with uncanny specificity. @passenger @fishidwardrobe @thepoliticalcat @emory @Nonilex
@Remittancegirl @passenger @fishidwardrobe @thepoliticalcat @emory @Nonilex
Her and Rebecca Solnit and I should never wish for better company.
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@Tharpa
I think your ‘lump of mud’ analogy is super apt.Because he is eerily unformed. So is Musk. They are not actually grown up men. They spend an inordinate amount of time and effort projecting themselves as grown up men precisely because they are not.
@Remittancegirl @Tharpa @thepoliticalcat @emory @Nonilex
Literary historian jumps in to 'splain that the creature in Frankenstein is highly educated. Then slaps himself, turns back, and accepts that the point made remains valid.
Sorry. As you were.
