New newsletter: THE END OF MORALITY AND THE RISE OF THE 'MORAL BLANK CHECK'
Within a 48 hour period this week, Trump:
- got out of a $100m IRS fine
- secured IRS "immunity" for his family
- created a $1.8b slush fund for his supporters
- was reported for likely insider trading worth nearly $1 billion
Trump's corruption is obvious. What I find less obvious and more interesting is that practically nobody tries to defend him. The closest thing to a defense you get is the common argument that "Biden/woke was also bad," which isn't even an attempt at a defense. It's rather a moral blank check made out to the administration that promises to cover the cost of any transgression.
When you zoom out, it is extraordinary how rare it is in modern politics to hear universal arguments for virtue or morality. Just listen to the way we talk about right and wrong, these days. We hear that 'the rich don't play by the rules, so why should I?' We hear that Democrats are bad, so why should Republicans be good? It is broken social contracts and special excuses all the way down.
We are in a world after virtue. It's the age of vicemaxxing. And that's bad.
https://t.co/t6rI2D3iat
A dozen states did this to nuclear power in the ‘70s and ‘80s. It helped killed the industry for forty years. Many states have repealed those measures since 2016.
Applying the “will of the people” to infrastructure is how you get a country that can’t build anything.
It would be useful for a free-market friendly billionaire to give DSA members a compound somewhere, where they get the land free for ten years and the only rules are *strict Communism* and *everything gets recorded on video to see how it all works out.*
I’m not trying to flex on being a great Christian or anything but I have never in my life had to explain that the golden statue I was worshipping was technically not a calf so you can’t get mad at me
My theory is that if you eliminate the "but what about YOUR side?!" argument, modern political discourse in America crumbles (because you'd have to actually defend policy instead of dismissing everything as "political hypocrisy").
Political independents destroy binary politics.
@cbgrasshopper@Ancestry “AT MOST 92% environmental” is still killing me 😂
“Oh yeah, that’s barely anything. Man, my genes are really driving THIS fashion ship!”
passive observation that once you’ve outsourced state capacity to corporations such as this one it’s bound to be that they come with other aspects of quasi-statehood like internal politics, ideology, internal judiciary
Absolutely catastrophic for American men. If you are a sports better break away immediately. It is not worth it. You will not win it back. You will not beat the house. You are being exploited.