It is so delicious that even before Trump is signed into office, MAGA is ripped with an internal war.
Civil war has broken out within the MAGA Republicans. On the one side are the traditional MAGAs, who tend to be white, anti-immigrant, and less educated than the rest of the U.S. They believe that the modern government’s protection of equal rights for women and minorities has ruined America, and they tend to want to isolate the U.S. from the rest of the world. They make up Trump’s voting base.
On the other side are the new MAGAs who appear to have taken control of the incoming Trump administration. Led by Elon Musk, who bankrolled Trump’s campaign, the new MAGA wing is made up of billionaires, especially tech entrepreneurs, many of whom are themselves immigrants.
The battle is over immigration, between those who want perfect purity and every non-white expelled from the country, and those who want to allow a few brown people to stay to work in their factories and tech industries. It’s really that simple — are you so racist you don’t want to even see a brown person, or are you so racist you want to exploit their labor? Unfortunately they’re still in total agreement on the racism part.
One of the problems is that the leaders of these two factions, Trump and Musk, are ignorant buffoons with fallacious ideas about genetics.
Among the many charming aspects of their partnership is a fondness for some highly unsavoury views on genetics. Trump is an enthusiastic advocate of “racehorse theoryâ€, which he shares with white supremacists; the belief that he is personally superior and that this is rooted in his “good genesâ€. It’s a vapid idea, but it directly informs his toxic views on immigration, where he argues the country needs to be shielded from the “bad genes†of outsiders.
Meanwhile, Musk has his own equally baffling take on genetics, infused with a characteristic messiah complex. Like some of his fellow tech moguls, he is determined to “save humanity†by producing as many offspring as possible, convinced that our future depends on it. This might all be laughable were it not for the fact that Trump and Musk now wield more power than they ever have before. The shared thread running through their rhetoric is genetic determinism: the idea that who you are, and what you can achieve, is all down to your DNA. Nothing else matters.
Do I need to explain why these ideas are bogus? I’m tired. I’ll let Jonathan Roberts do it for me.
In debates surrounding genetics and social policy, it is easy for the language of genetic determinism to lure you into an ill-advised “nature v nurture†debate. You know this debate: maybe she’s born with it; maybe it’s the pervasive conditions of social inequality? But this debate misses the bigger picture entirely: it should not be seen as a binary choice. The truth is, humans are born with genes that require a good environment to thrive. It’s not either/or, but a complex interaction between the two that determines who someone becomes. We have a nature that requires nurture. Good science accounts for this complexity, rather than reducing it to a simplistic binary.
No matter how the “civil war” is resolved, we’re still screwed because all of these people are stupid assholes.
As I’ve said on Blue Sky, laugh at the MAGA civil war spectacle to lift your spirits, but don’t think whatever chaos comes out the other end isn’t going to be dangerous. Be prepared for horrible things to happen.
lol Short version of this debate, CN MAGA: “Non-whites are idiots and dangerous.”, Techbro MAGA: “Actually no, Americans, including the white ones are idiots and dangerous!” Sadly, neither side is interested in correcting the “Americans have spent generations with crappy schools being turned into idiots, because idiots are easier to control.”, problem. They CN MAGA actually imagine that creationists and ignorant people in general will be building computers, flying planes, constructing huge buildings, etc., while having the social and technical skills, thanks to their erasing education, of our chimp relatives, whose “expertise” is in line with, “What if I sharpen a pointy stick and poke at the airplane with it?” Weirdly, this makes Techbro MAGA “partly” right, but for absolutely all the wrong reasons (i.e., typical MAGA in general).
@ ^ Recursive Rabbit : Yup. Thanks Vicar, Beholder & all the other useful idiots for Putin, Trump, Musk and other outright evil douchecanoes who made this happen.
We could’ve had a Kamala Harris Presidency to look foward to now instead.
Or an HRC one back in 2016.
But here we are instead.. Becoz you dropkicks preferred Trump.
Cannot help feeling w’re in a meant-to-be fictional alternative timeloinbe where thinsg went wrong wherey’know, nazis won, Konfederates won, Truimp won. and yet here we are. For Fucks sake.
Well, that was certainly an alternative spelling of timeline. Oh well Y’get the gist. I hope..
Even if genetic determinism were true, I don’t see that racists gain all that much from it. Let us suppose that on average, whites have better genes that make them work harder, have fewer criminal tendencies, and more intelligent. We’re still talking about averages, which means there would still be lots of whites who are lazy, stupid and criminal, and lots of non-whites who aren’t. This is basic Statistics 101.
So when a particular non-white comes along who is intelligent, works hard, and is as honest as the day is long, would that person not be entitled to be treated as an individual? Should that person not be encouraged, same as everyone else, to climb as high as their talents and hard work will take them? Wouldn’t society benefit just as much from their talents as it does from those of white people? Who seriously wants to make the case that the world would be better off if Neil deGrasse Tyson or James Baldwin or Langston Hughes had spent their lives picking cotton?
The whole idea is stupid, and even if it were true, so what?
USA is so very fucked now.
Very best case scenario is a miltary coup where actual patriotic US Generals decide they refuse to hand over the nation to its very worst actual nazi domestic enemies.
Democracy in the USA is provably dead becoz it voted to end itself.
So what now?
Happy New Year (almost here) y’áll. No sarc at all.. well not fucking much.
PS. Had been so looking forward to a Kamala POTUS-cy and never hearing about Trump anymore except for him being sentenced to jail and then dying in there. But, hey, sure those in Gaza are real grateful the most anti-Palestinian POTUS ever has now been returned and Netanyahu now gets his cheerleader cheering genocide on and, oh yeah, genocide for Ukraine and proble many more ex-Soviet / Czarist Russian Empire landsd and culture willnow be genocided and die thanks to yáll.
You folks claim to have consciences, well, how much blood and deathand hu8man suffering do you think is about tosplatter thsoe and your hands ‘frorm now on?
But, hey, Biden lost, Kamala, lost Hillary lost and .. ya reckon that’;s better thanTrump winning? Well, we’ve found out some and we’re about to Find Out a lot more. All through .. the next
four yearsrest of our lives.Only fools believe in genetic determinism
They cain’t help it – they wuz borned that way!
@3
Oh, hello, StevoR. I see you’re still obsessing over me.
Anti-populism is a losing strategy. Your candidate was unfit for office and she ran a terrible campaign. The electorate responded accordingly. Get over it.
beholder, was your candidate fit for office and did they run a wonderful campaign?
No fighting in the playground!
Can we not simply enjoy the spectacle of horrible people in MAGAworld tearing chunks of flesh from each other’s scaly hides.
Birger, feel free to do so, but I can’t. Because it’s just fluff. Little vortices in the unstoppable flow.
You should know… for years now you’ve posted links in
TETTIT alleging that Trump has been destroyed, demolished, dismantled, disintegrated, dismantled, devastated, etc. Same thing exactly.(Wishful thinking doesn’t do it for me)
—
“all of these people are stupid assholes”
Not so stupid as for one to be unable to become the richest person in the world and the other to not be able to take over the Republican party.
(Perhaps to imagine they are stupid is to underestimate them)
Nothing funnier than watching two first generation Indian Americans fight over the exact flavor of economic slavery they are proposing for immigrants from… India.
If Ramaswamy thinks the US is so mediocre, why is he living and doing business in the US? Why isn’t he living and doing business in India? Presumably in the Indian version of Lake Wobegon, where all the women are strong, all the men are good-looking and all the children are above average.
awomanofnoimportance@5–
The point of genetic determinism is not to make sense but to provide pseudoscientific justifications for bigotry. That’s why they don’t get the statistical overlap problem, which as you say is Stats 101…Lecture 1.
John Morales@11–
Trump and Musk are both demonstrably stupid (to be fair to Musk, he is not stupid about everything, just most things). The fact that one can become US President (twice!) and the other the richest person in the world is not a refutation of their stupidity, it’s evidence of the failure of political and financial processes. If the measure of intelligence is highest attainment, then Dan Quayle, Sarah Palin, and RFK Jr must be really, really smart people.
Chris, “stupid is as stupid does”.
It’s not about IQ, it’s not about mathematics or logic or abstruse philosophy or whatever.
Basically, Trump is a genius at being a demagogue and Musk a genius about accumulating money.
Demonstrably.
The post from Heather Cox Richardson which PZ links to is a little out of date. Trump has openly supported Musk’s perspective in the past few days, affirming his support for the H1-b programme and stating that he has long relied on “well educated” immigrant labour in his businesses and has no real problem with the proposals floated by Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy. Loomer and co. on the more rabid MAGA side are disgusted. Cue more infighting, wails of betrayal and “this is not what I voted for!” pants-pissing in the days, weeks and months ahead.
Regarding the alleged idiots:
Elon Musk’s ‘social experiment on humanity’: How X evolved in 2024
Or, both of them inherited so much money that it would take a Herculean effort for them to get rid of it all even intentionally, due to the way money past a certain point sucks in more money, and it is easy for a rich person to be politically successful in a country where political success is for sale to the highest bidder?
No. Look at the data, BB.
You are ignorant.
cf. https://nymag.com/intelligencer/article/zuckerberg-bezos-altman-trump-inauguration.html
<
blockquote>The reasons for their generosity are not very complicated. Trump, who has proven to be quite vindictive over the years, rewards people who reward him. A measly $1 million for the inauguration could pay itself back many times over if their companies are in the president-elect’s favor. Meta and OpenAI fall within the administration’s push to promote economic growth by loosening restrictions around artificial intelligence. Bezos has a lot more at stake, fighting Trump megadonor Elon Musk for lucrative government contracts in space. A million-dollar donation is the price of admission for donors to attend the inaugural ball, so at least they’ll all have a chance to pull out their tuxes in January.
<
blockquote>
It’s not his wealth, it’s his demagogery. All those people and enterprises are richer than Trump.
—
Musk, well, he was worth a few million in the mid 1990s.
His rate of wealth accumulation is, well, not exactly diminishing.
And now he has political power, too.
I well remember threads right here dissing him for splurging on Twitter and running it to the ground, but hey: regulatory capture was worth it. And he’s like 25% wealthier now than he was then.
(Very stupid)
@8. beholder :
Oh I’m sure you’d love everyone to memory hole what you did and who you chose to vote for and support in the last American election beholder.
There were two options and you picked the openly genocidal, misogynist, racist, fascist, demented, greater evil one. No. I will not let you off the hook for that or let you live that down. I’m sure you want to smugly move on, your conscience supposedly unblemished – at least in your own mind – to spew your old bullshit insulting and undermining the people who offered far better than your side could ever do. As Trump’s genocides in Gaza and in Ukraine and elsewhere goes on, as Democracy is snuffed out and Trump appoints more SCOTUS “Justices” and as the Climate Catastrophe strikes home globally, you’d love everyone to forget that you helped make it all happen and make it all so very much worse. Tough luck. I won’t let you – or Vicar or any other Trump via Stein Purity Disunity Traitor voters forget or live it down.
BTW. Would I be right to guess you were a BernieBro? One of those still bitter about HRC beating him to the nomination and, if so, ain’t that more than a bit hypocritical on your part to then argue to others about letting things go? Or am ithinking of some other extremist, useful fool troll?
Interesting to note you admit falling to populism. Trump’s demagoguery aided by the useful fools that voted third party or stayed home when it mattered. When the American left and centre needed to turn out to save the world from Trump.
Kamala Harris has been in office as Senator for california, as Attorney General of California and District Attorney of San Francisco. as Vice-President and she proven a good well-qualified, reasonable, rational leader in those roles. Kamala Harris would’ve been an excellent POTUS and was well fit and qualified for that job. Certainly vastly better and more fit and superior to the only other alternative that’s now put in the White House with unchecked power thanks to you.
Kamala’s campaign wasn’t actually “terrible”, the election was closer than it first appeared and been claimed. If she hadn’t been undermined by the likes of you and other TrumPutin tools like Jill Stein and if Arab-Americans had turned out against the proven most anti-Paestinian POTUS ever, well, we’d be looking forward to the new era of the Kamala Presidency and Trump would be facing jail for the rest of his life now. Instead of the shitshow we’re now in for thanks to you and your lot. No I won’t forget that and, yes, I will be reminding you of it constantly.
StevoR, you are deep into BlueAnon conspiracy theories. Seek help, please.
Way to ignore the actual question and its thrust.
(Your intellectual cowardice is quite evident)
@ Morales
C’mon dude. You have to admit Stevo’s posturing is at least a little ridiculous given he was literally banned for advocating torture, and had a long history of opining that Israel could do whatever the fuck it wants to Palestinians to (supposedly) prevent another “Shoah”. You were there and know this is true. Good on him for (unlike you) making some attempt to approximate a decent human being, but the drunken holier-than-thou rants cannot come off as anything other than theatrical and self-aggrandizing.
I don’t have to admit anything of the sort, and I’m quite correct as to the attempted evasion.
That is, cowardice.
Theatrical, technically perhaps; but self-aggrandizing? Not even slightly.
Self-righteous, that’s the concept you can’t grope. Like so many other commenters here.
Still, thing is, is no less theatrical. But it’s not someone you dislike, so, meh.
(Cowardice takes multiple forms)
the ignorance and the resentment and conceit of all the Maggot world is in the long run the only good aspect of this shit hole situation we find ourselves in. civilizations may fall from just these things but people will continue to make babies and someone else in some other place may stand on the ruins a little higher given enough time.
These “great men” of riches are the pinnacle and the result of “capitalism”. They focus their lives on money and the power it provides not for the good of society or humanity but their own private personal gain. Even the churches and TV preachers measure success by money.
This is really good:
It’s a year old but I thought worth sharing since Morales continues to believe in a meritocracy where the only way one could be rich is to have a “genius” for getting rich (and also he hates “late night comedians” and I can’t resist winding the buffoon up).
I do not believe such a thing.
I gave no reason for anyone to believe I believe such a thing.
(I don’t think you believe it, either)
Oh, the claim “he hates “late night comedians— is absurd, as well.
How does this ‘genetic determinism’ work, exactly? Is my taste in music determined by my genes? The job I have? The person I’m married to? How does all that trace back to my genetic code?
@5 How about Percy Julian or Vivien Thomas ? That movie “Something The Lord Made†is about Vivien Thomas. It’s on YouTube. Racism almost cost us a good doctor .
That’s rich, coming from Mr. “AI is totally not a bubble! No, really!”
We are talking about people here, BB. Not about AI.
(Be aware that “MR. [AI]” is a rather silly epithet, too)
[BTW, my actual claim, which is mischaracterised almost as much as were Silentbob to essay the task, is that a financial bubble may or may not exist, but that there is a ‘there’ there. BB’s inchoate concepts lead to all sorts of confusion and misapprehension]
@22. beholder
I notice you didn’t actually answer that question. Shall we take that as a yes?
“BlueAnon” isn’t actually a thing – the obvs comparison with the Quanon cult and its batship toinfoil hat nonsense is utterly absurd and offensive.
Also which Conspiracy theory exactly do you think I’m espousing when I point out your own words and actions eg attacking Kamala Harris and voting de facto for Trump as I’ve explained a lot of times to you have had consequences that are catastrophic for all of us going into the future. A future which your choices, again , Beholder, Vicar and co, have made far worse
PS. I really don’t want next year – actually this year since it’s 2025 here already in Oz – to just be me saying “i told you so” endlessly. However, seems all too likely it will be.
@ Silentbob : You have to admit Stevo’s posturing is at least a little ridiculous …
What exactly have I said that you think is “ridiculuous?”* I’ve noted the horrific implications of Trump’s return to being POTUS and what it means for our planet’s Climate, for genocide in Gaza, Ukraine and elsewhere, for Human Rights and American Democracy (as badly flawed as it already was) based on Trump’s words, policies, nominees, history and other evidence. I hope I’m wrong. Obvs I don’t think I am. You do? Why is that?
I fear you and too many others forget how bad Trump was and is and under-estimate how bad it will be esp given the lack of any obstacles and checks on his power this time with Congress and SCOTUS effectively captured and controlled by the Trumpists.
Oh & you don’t think, say, Beholder & Vicar wrongly thinks they’re holier than the rest of us for their focusing on opposing and attacking the Democratic party which – reminder again -was the only actual alternative to Trumpist fascism?
.* Or for that matter mere “posturing” – do you think I am being insincere in what i say here? That’d be wrong.
A financial bubble indubitably exists and the only “there” that’s there is a boost to artists’ creativity — when it’s not instead undermining them in the labor market.
Topic is “Only fools believe in genetic determinism”, BB.
Adduced text is “Civil war has broken out within the MAGA Republicans.”
Your attempted debouchment towards AI is irrelevant.
I know damn well you can’t sustain your intended insinuation about inherited wealth, of course, and thus this attempted digression.
(People, not AI. Again!)
OK, Mr. Pedant, which obviously-accurate statement do you stupidly disagree with then, “money attracts more money, once you have enough of it” or “political success in the US is for sale to the highest bidder”?
(sigh)
It seems I must I point out that to stupidly disagree with something entails being stupid.
Two entirely ad hoc statements with which you are trying to bullshit me.
Many many people in many many countries inherited at least that much money in that same chronological cohort, and they are not Trump or Musk.
The entirety of your claim is that because they inherited a few millions, they can be POTUS and Scrooge McKek.
(Again and again I’ve linked to Musk’s historical wealth over time, but of course those are mere real world facts)
—
It is not pedantry to dispute that the very fact that they were born to wealthy parents made them who they are. It’s just pouty wishful thinking on your part.
Datum: https://finance.yahoo.com/news/people-inherited-fortunes-then-blew-001323440.html
(Man bites dog, do you think, BB?)