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a dear friend of mine describes sexual violence as a core value of this current admin. she says she finds it critically important to point this out to her because growing up in post soviet eastern europe, that was the key marker of corrupt governments. it was easy to see the greed of access to power through violence as being about money, but it runs so much deeper than that. the money is means. sex, violence, and sexual violence is the end

Eliot Weinberger did a few essays in this style for the London Review of Books in the first term. It’s exhausting.

This is from 2024, before he took office: https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v46/n24/eliot-weinberger/incoming

Definitely hear where you're coming from.

But I think it is relevant here as it communicates immense privilege.

By virtue of being from a well known political family he is able to shake the baggage of his prior drug use off easily. He's even spoken openly on the fact he used it to self medicate.

But most persons who have suffered addiction do not have that privilege and carry this baggage lifelong.

Its important to call out the hypocrisy of the ruling class. They will simultaneously ignore drug use among their contemporaries while murdering and imprisoning 'lessers' involved in the trade or consumption of drugs.

The empire that birthed this nation formally flooded the Chinese market with opium to enrich themselves and went to war twice when they met resistance. The rich and powerful are always talking out of both sides of their mouths.

This is why the moral outrage around drugs, coming from the ruling class, as a justification for dehumanization, must be questioned. Especially when they seek to use drug addiction, a universal and timeless human hardship, as a tool to justify violence upon 'outgroups' on behalf of the 'ingroup'.

I totally get how it made you feel. I have a feeling that mentionning that had more to do with how it is often used to justify racism towards colored people. Because in that guy's case it does not seem to matter to republicans, but it was enough of a reason to justify George Floyd's death. I may give too much credit to OOP though, it is still tone deaf.

He's also got the sexual assault, fwiw

DEI-opponents often say things like "there's more to a job than the skill directly related to it", and then call being white a "merit of trustworthiness". At least their anti-disabled excuse "what if a big object needs to be moved?" is less obvious, other times they just think every invisible disability is "severe intellectual disability" (that's why they're thinking about autistic people).

It's true though.

Just yesterday I elongated my face into the shape of a wolf and let out a loud whistle until my ears steamed and my head flapped open like a vent and she said "I have a boyfriend", the nerve of the female.

The "compliment" in question: a literal rape threat.

In case anyone else had to look it up.

Government by the least qualified, most stupid members

Well yes and no.

It felt a bit shoehorned in at the end. But I see their point.

Do you think black Trump gets elected? I'm gonna hit doubt on that one.

I'd argue the fact that they're white is central to why they are where they are today. They just happen to also be really really shitty people too.

This has nothing to do with them being white people.

I wish that were true. But if RFK Jr had been from a poor black family, do you really think he'd be leading HHS? Do you think he'd be a free man, even? Or alive?

After all the shit he's done to himself - serial substance abuse, reckless engagement, multiple self-inflicted life threatening medical conditions, sexual assault of numerous young women - who honestly believes he wouldn't have gotten the Rodney King/Eric Garland treatment with any other surname or complexion?

Same with Trump. Ffs, Sean Combs is actually in jail right now. The parallels are undeniably. This is entirely about race.

I believe Anita Hill

I bet he wishes he could have left race out of it as well.

Sadly until the day racism is no longer an issue, it will have to be brought up by people who suffer from the racism (and also us who don't, we can't just be silent).

American political posts feel so weird because of this

I don't really disagree with you but I believe the point of the post is that no black person would be able to occupy those offices with such condemnable offenses.
It's "shut up about DEI" because there is clearly already preferential selection of white people.

But yeah, small-scale righteousness has done lots of harm to the left. Especially in policing what is politically correct. Sure, somebody might be "in the wrong", but it's better to have that person on your side than against you.