Thank you for bringing this up. I’m liking both this comment and the one above.
I think sometimes in an effort to mock MAGA, we may over-legitimize doctors. They’re just people, just like us, and there is a looooong history of medical malpractice and systemic abuse—much by the same forces MAGA is allied with.
haha I paused a bit as I wrote that, too; but yeah. W Bush was stupid, a bad public speaker, and a warmonger… but he knew when to listen to his advisors.
I’ve absolutely seen tons of astroturfed messaging saying “Let’s all wait for the midterms” since about when Trump took office. It has been the predominant message across so-called liberal media and so-called liberal groups. I have not heard that idea by anyone IRL. I have seen that message online stated many political accounts which popped up around January 2025 and caught the algorithm while everyone in the USA was rightfully freaking out about Elon’s Nazi salute, DOGE’s ransacking, and Trump’s absurd nominations.
This might have been the case under sane-but-horrible leaders like George W. Bush, Mike Pence, and the last Democrats, but I think this outcome is improbable as 1) that international united refusal didn’t happen when George W. Bush waged war over lies in the Middle East; 2) This administration is composed of hyped-up christo-fascists and their sycophants, and is goaded by oligarchs who want the destruction of the USA so they can buy up what remains.
^ this. The specific example in my mind was TikTok short-form manosphere content that flooded the internet in 2023.
It doesn’t even need to have fake views. Content tagged with rising extremist views will naturally foster higher engagement—some of it from the absurdity; some of it from the growing group of people who believe it. Andrew Tate was a large part of promoting violent misogyny and patriarchy. The views never changed; they just became far more familiar.
It’s not about quality. Most people use content just to fill a void. Look outside at the people around you. Just about everyone is looking at their phones on rides, listening to podcasts when walking. It’s just filler.
The alt-right took over the social sphere just by taking up space. All the manosphere/trad-life/christo-fascist/slopaganda crap flooded the internet, and then it became the norm—not because it was convincing, but because it was recognizable. People parrot what they hear; And that’s especially true for the majority of unintelligent folks who wish to masquerade as intelligent. It just so happens the masses heard a lot of “women/people of color/queers are destroying our great white Christian society”.
There’s nothing about this that’s inherent to bigotry or conservative ideology; It’s just that USA conservative-aligned businessfolk bought up the outlets and skewed the scene a little bit in the favor of alt-right ideology. Over years that compounded, and now it’s seized the entire conversation. Perhaps lefties/liberals were hesitant to use those methods because they play to emotions, and not intelligence; But this is the reality of our current social sphere.
Read the whole thing. This is absolutely worth it. Every word.
those two details go hand-in-hand, do they not?
its creators, Alex Slater and Connor McLaren, did not fix its security issues despite multiple requests and an offer from an independent researcher to help them fix the problem.
FUN! How much ya wanna bet this was vibe-coded?
lul yeah. that dynamic alone is why I started working en dashes into my comments <3
The medical system was already doing this (to minors and adults) for decades and Democrats and Republicans alike welcomed it in. Child trafficking also was common, often done by groups tied to the Mormon church. Then we’ve had ICE. I’d consider this bill on the verge of passing on the Senate date of March 9th.
Current law generally requires a child committed to the custody of the Tennessee Department of Children’s Services to be released after six months. The proposal would create an exception if the juvenile is accused of assaulting a staff member at a residential placement.
Six months and then can be extended indefinitely. I know minors have no rights, but JEEZ!! I fully expect this to be weaponized against trans youth and become an extension of the School-To-Prison pipeline.
I’ve heard this content classified as “traditional” but what I’ve seen of the manosphere+friends is something else truly terrifying. It’s a mix of cult-like masochism and rhetoric you’d expect of a mass shooter or bomber; and it’s public and widely-viewed, liked… I grew up Catholic and in “traditional values”. This stuff goes beyond “woman is the home-maker” and “a family is a man and a woman”; to “women are sex slaves and property that men dominate”. It sounds like the ideology of some vile hentai, and perhaps that’s where it comes from.
Hell…, some of this rhetoric IS from mass-killers. The New Zealand mosque shooter was inspired by “Great Replacement Theory” at a time where that ideology was relegated to niche crevices of 4chan. Now extremist racist/incel beliefs are a core part of the platform of UK Reform, USA MAGA, German AfD, and general pronatalist ideology. And those parties are rising or seized power.
A sick population is easier to control. I know our oligarchs and 95% of the Republican party are networked with the best science-following doctors around.