Jay from Toon Town

Western animation enthusiast and anti-imperialist, perpetually living in 1999.

[Jay from Toon Town @thegraynineties]

Just adopted these girls. Love them to bits.

[💀DeathMetalViking💀 @DeathMetalV]

It's funny how the NRA is never around when the government starts getting "tyrannical" for real.

[Nathan J Robinson @NathanJRobinson]

what about this guy

[Jesus Freakin Congress @TheJFreakinC]

Do you think U.S. is currently under attack by immigrants?

Then congratulations, you would have fallen for Nazi propaganda in the 1930s.

[🌻 teedy 2x 🌻 @T_Barbs]

I hate this country with everything in me.

[🌽🌽 Erica, The White Trash Socialist 🌽🌽™️ @herosnvrdie69]

It turns out the “don’t tread on me” fandom does indeed enjoy when the government is treading on people

[Mojo @BynumMojo]

Until yall are ready to ostracize police and ice agents from our communities from churches businesses etc for their actions this will continue they shouldn’t be able to take off their uniforms and live normal lives when they have turned their back on communities and harm us

[Gwen🔻 🏳️‍⚧️☭ @ST0NEDSOCIALIST]

These people will cheer for this then bring up Tiananmen Square as some gotcha for China

[evan loves worf @esjesjesj]

The lesson of the Holocaust was not that the Nazis were uniquely evil. The lesson was that anyone can become a Nazi. You're witnessing this with America right now.

[Mrs Too Damn Media Literate @bobo_circus]

75 IQ country with all the nukes mobilizes its fat fuck Big Bang Theory shirt wearing SS to send random people to black sites while Real Estate Hitler & Meme Goebbels do car ads at the capitol. how is everyone not screaming 24 hours a day

[jourdain searles @judysquirrels]

worthwhile critiques of lockdown:

- wasn’t a proper lockdown
- didn’t go on long enough
- the govt owed us more money
- masks were politicized when they shouldn’t have been
- covid tests should have remained free throughout
- schools didn’t take remote learning seriously

[Zack Stentz @MuseZack]

It's kind of wild that there is apparently a cult of young Bay Area computer geniuses killing people on both coasts and it's not even a national news story.

[PlusMinus (58/100) @PlusMin03340269]

I'm already massively anti generative AI but if you ever use ai to communicate matters of the heart you're missing out on the best parts of being human. It's like you're already dead

[Stop the Forever Wars @DoctorFishbones]

One week into the Trump administration and it is impossible to deny Biden sat on his hands and feigned powerlessness for four years and Obama for eight

[Jamare (Jay) @Jay2Goat_]

Yeah this shit so scripted man I hate this country with all my soul

[Jay from Toon Town @thegraynineties]

@PlayStation

[Arnaud Bertrand @RnaudBertrand]

None of these people are even remotely on the left.

The real important story that happened since the Cold War is perhaps best illustrated by this Margaret Thatcher anecdote: in 2002, she was asked for her greatest achievement. She replied: "Tony Blair and New Labour. We forced our opponents to change their minds."

And guess what: she was right, that was indeed her greatest achievement.

That's what happened throughout the West: the ideological takeover of the "left" by "social democrats" who had no substantial difference to their opponents across the aisle. And in order to maintain the pretense that they were different, they decided to focus their platform on cultural and identity issues while abandoning any challenge to economic or imperial power - reducing civil rights struggles to convenient diversions from questions of class and systemic change. It's not the left that's unpopular, it's this sanitized ersatz of it. Voting essentially became a choice between the same product with different packaging, the illusion of choice.

Even more contemptible: candidates who emerged who were actually on the left, who wanted to drive actual substantial and meaningful change, were endlessly demonized with some of the most dishonest and disgusting tactics in politics. Jeremy Corbyn in the UK is a perfect example of this - smeared as a national security threat (and an antisemite) not just for his economic program but for questioning the wisdom of NATO expansion and opposing Western imperialism. In France we're currently seeing much the same playbook being applied on Jean-Luc Mélenchon.

This ties back to the concept of "extreme center" described by thinkers such as Tariq Ali, Pierre Serna or Alain Deneault. A radicalized form of liberalism that presents itself as moderate and reasonable while actually taking extremist positions in defense of the status quo - whether through unwavering support for imperial adventures abroad or the suppression of democratic alternatives at home. This centrism is 'extreme' in how viciously it reacts to any genuine left-wing challenge to the established order, whether through media smear campaigns, lawfare, or the cynical weaponization of identity politics to defend both domestic inequality and imperial power.

The irony and the situation we today find ourselves in is that this "extreme center," in its zealous defense of neoliberal orthodoxy and its refusal to address fundamental economic grievances, ended up creating the very conditions of social instability and political polarization it claims to stand against. And, ultimately, the conditions of its demise as we're currently seeing throughout the West.

The sad result though is that because the actual left has been so thoroughly demonized, legitimate popular anger and resentment largely get directed towards nihilistic movements that, far from solving our fundamental problems, channel these sentiments into scapegoating and division. These movements won't solve our fundamental problems - while they may break with certain aspects of neoliberal orthodoxy, they mostly offer the aesthetic of rebellion while dropping even the pretense of serving the common good.

That's where we are: the victory of the 'extreme center' over the left has proven to be simultaneously absolute and self-defeating. Thatcher's boast about Blair might have been premature - her true legacy may not just have been making the left compatible with neoliberal economics, but creating a world where our only choice is between the plague and cholera.

[RSGabe 👓 @RSGabe1]

Shoutout Nintendo for keeping the headphone jack :)

[Jay from Toon Town @thegraynineties]

@Dunkeyshspittle Real ones include K. Rool, R.O.B., and Pac-Man. Ooh, and Pianta is a cultured choice.