Re: The 47th POTUS - Donald J. Trump

[BurtReynolds]

Also the death of God and modernity's failure to provide new meaning for humanity isn't a new problem! You'd know this if you read Nietzche like I told you!

[dimejinky99]

Also the death of God and modernity's failure to provide new meaning for humanity isn't a new problem! You'd know this if you read Nietzche like I told you!

They have a new god though. You didn’t see the video Trump put out with him depicted as a massive golden statue?
I’m fairly sure the Christians and Jews of all stripes have fairly strict rules against idolatry and false gods But they don’t appear too bothered by him doing it.

[tragabigzanda]

FUCK ICE

[Peeps]

Burt I am genuinely unclear on the logic of that meme. Is it arguing that the leftist Christian elite are hypocritical because their reading of the Bible, to drive deployment of Federally subsidized wealth into things like Medicaid, international aid, and (admittedly bloated) Federal institutions makes them just as bad as the conservative Christians who do the same towards their own techno-nationalist goals? Or that they are somehow worse than the conservative techno-nationalists because they fail to disclose their leftist bias at the top of the article?

It describes the common phenomenon of non-Christian preaching the one true interpretation of a book they have nothing but contempt for in an attempt to shame Christians to do what they want.

But yeah I'm sure despite two thousand years of history, real Christianity preaches open borders and gender pronouns.

Call me crazy, but I don't think the Brooklyn Jewish woman with a gender studies degree and writing for the NYT is an excellent source of truth for Christianity's influence on silicon valley. My only question is whether this is meatless article designed to get a paycheck, or a not so clever propaganda piece designed to create a wedge between an enemy political coalition.

or maybe its those of us who dont inherently believe in a one power above all asking why people cherry pick "lessons" from a fairy tale when it fits their narrative but ignore "lessons" when it goes against their argument. either you think the book as a whole is how people should live their life or you dont. there shouldnt be an inbetween


the west wing nailed it

[BurtReynolds]

Also the death of God and modernity's failure to provide new meaning for humanity isn't a new problem! You'd know this if you read Nietzche like I told you!

They have a new god though. You didn’t see the video Trump put out with him depicted as a massive golden statue?
I’m fairly sure the Christians and Jews of all stripes have fairly strict rules against idolatry and false gods But they don’t appear too bothered by him doing it.

I'll add "don't make statues" to the list of Christian commandments. Though admittedly, statues and idolatry often go hand in hand. And gold strikes me as a little too ostentatious for them, but Trump has a brand to consider!

[BurtReynolds]

Burt I am genuinely unclear on the logic of that meme. Is it arguing that the leftist Christian elite are hypocritical because their reading of the Bible, to drive deployment of Federally subsidized wealth into things like Medicaid, international aid, and (admittedly bloated) Federal institutions makes them just as bad as the conservative Christians who do the same towards their own techno-nationalist goals? Or that they are somehow worse than the conservative techno-nationalists because they fail to disclose their leftist bias at the top of the article?

It describes the common phenomenon of non-Christian preaching the one true interpretation of a book they have nothing but contempt for in an attempt to shame Christians to do what they want.

But yeah I'm sure despite two thousand years of history, real Christianity preaches open borders and gender pronouns.

Call me crazy, but I don't think the Brooklyn Jewish woman with a gender studies degree and writing for the NYT is an excellent source of truth for Christianity's influence on silicon valley. My only question is whether this is meatless article designed to get a paycheck, or a not so clever propaganda piece designed to create a wedge between an enemy political coalition.

or maybe its those of us who dont inherently believe in a one power above all asking why people cherry pick "lessons" from a fairy tale when it fits their narrative but ignore "lessons" when it goes against their argument. either you think the book as a whole is how people should live their life or you dont. there shouldnt be an inbetween


the west wing nailed it

If my eyes roll back into my head any further I'm going to need an ambulance. But yes, that's another great example of the meme.

[dimejinky99]

I like statues generally speaking. Not gold ones though and certainly not to such a massive bollix

[BurtReynolds]

It is wild watching MAGA Christians trying to convince themselves that Trump is anywhere near a Christian, when he so clearly isn't. Then again, it's not like they have much of an alternative.

[dimejinky99]

Musk is reportedly firing Trump. He’s still in his probationary period.

[dimejinky99]

Trump has told Zelenskyy ‘you are gambling with world war three’

In other words give me what I want or you’re all going to get wiped out.

He also ordered him to be ‘thankful’

*the meeting had descended into a screaming match it seems.

[McParadigm]

Higgs + McP:

There was a good piece in the NYT last week about the rise of Christianity in Silicon Valley, a concerted effort led by Peter Thiel, Trae Stephens’s wife (he’s Anduril’s co-founder), and others to meld the techno-cultural elite with the teachings of Christ by leveraging things like (I shit you not) VC networking opportunities and a faith-based view of a career in coding.

This strain of Christianity runs straight into Montana, and directly into my professional circles. And there were more than a couple chilling passages from the article, but this is the one I keep thinking about:

This political flip has prompted some skepticism about the new religiosity in the tech community, with even some Christian thinkers questioning whether some of it might be more self-serving than sincere. “When you look at the Bible, it’s all about supporting the poor, helping the other, inviting the stranger in,” said Anne Foerst, a theologian and computer scientist at St. Bonaventure University in New York and the author of the book “God in the Machine.”

“There’s a certain attitude with some evangelicals that when you accept Jesus as your savior you are saved,” she continued. “Then you don’t have to worry — about drone building, rejecting foreigners, rejecting wokeness, all that sort of stuff.”

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/02/11/busi ... ticleShare

Thanks for the read, trag.

The Christian element is something I try to tiptoe around. But I think Donald Trump and Elon Musk are driven entirely by their internal cravings, not by any kind of ideology. And I think the groups that seek to weaponize Christianity (the CREC, which advocates for Christian nationalism and for Christians to take control of every lever of American society, in particular) have stepped in to fill that void.

Pete Hegseth’s church is a member of the CREC. In his book, notably titled American Crusade, and in podcast interviews, he routinely diverts back to the idea that Christian Americans must eventually accept that they are in a state of civil war against secularism…that it will not be bloodless, and that police and the military will eventually be forced to pick a side.

The CREC is the brainchild of Douglas Wilson, who sees a future where Christians have taken control. Douglas Wilson is currently sharing a house with Mike Johnson in Washington DC. Douglas Wilson is also a prominent figure in JD Vance‘s post-conversion Christianity.

A party that is centered around Donald Trump is a party centered around a person and not ideas. That opening provides opportunities for people who are hungry and powerful enough to latch on. The result is a haphazard blending of wannabe oligarchs and Christian dom-fetishists (personal term), and that is why I think this has the potential to get so ugly.

[tragabigzanda]

FUCK ICE

[McParadigm]

Burt I am genuinely unclear on the logic of that meme. Is it arguing that the leftist Christian elite are hypocritical because their reading of the Bible, to drive deployment of Federally subsidized wealth into things like Medicaid, international aid, and (admittedly bloated) Federal institutions makes them just as bad as the conservative Christians who do the same towards their own techno-nationalist goals? Or that they are somehow worse than the conservative techno-nationalists because they fail to disclose their leftist bias at the top of the article?

It's mocking the non-religious leftist who uses the Bible when convenient to tell Christian conservatives that they should hold such and such position because of Jesus/the Bible despite the fact that they don't believe in Jesus/the Bible.

Yes. Burt’s approach is always to portray an argument as not deserving to exist, and never to debate the substance or merit. He is saying that this argument can be ignored, because of who said it.

[BurtReynolds]

I posit that the true Christian understanding of Trump is him as one of those "biblically accurate angels": an incomprehensible being of unfathomable power chosen by God to cleanse the Earth with blood and fire. You didn't really think the angels of the apocalypse would be a beautiful sight to behold, did you?





Same picture.

[doug rr]

this is nuts

[McParadigm]

Anyway

The whole “binder” thing will hopefully become a meme mocking the world of utter bullshit the MAGA influencers live in. The AG should either release the contents of the hard drives from Epsteins safe or STFU and admit we will never be allowed to know the truth

Exactly as you say, we'll never be allowed to know the truth.

One of the things that shits me the most about what Trump has bought into both politics and really just everyday life is this idea of "alternate facts" and "Fake News". The ideal was always if you speak the truth you have nothing to really worry about, but that's now long gone.

Trump's practice of suing anyone who speaks against him, regardless of what is said, resulting in a never ending stream of court cases is really fucked up.

Essentially, as the US government pays for all his cases, you are fighting against a bottomless pit of money. So his lawyers keep at it, putting forth anything to keep the case going. This in itself has lead to a few cases now being settled out of court for Trump. So he's literally getting paid out for his lies, simply because he has more money to go to court.

And it's not just Trump. This is the new norm. Litigation for everyone, with the richest winning by default.

In turn people are afraid to speak out. Why do you want a court case against you having to go to the cost and effort to try to prove that what you said was factual truth when factual truth no longer exists.

Its scary stuff and imo the real death of free speech, capitalised or not.

I worry for where we are headed as a world as more politicians across the globe take pages out of the Trump playbook, with less push back as people get scared to voice alternate ideas or call things out.

Maybe I'm over thinking this, but this really feels like the world we're living in now. And I think it's really fucked up.

This is a good point to make, and I wish it was just about litigation. But they’re also willing to use revocation of security and safety for past personnel who were insufficient loyal. They’re willing to use the justice department, the fbi, the SEC, etc purely as extortion tools…and as a way to do favors for friends.

This is the thing that Donald Trump always wanted in his first term: to run the country the same way he ran his business: through intimidation, backroom deals, extortion, and threat.

I think we’re in a bad place, because that’s also how they’re going to run their elections… Justice Department investigations for those who make large sum donations to (or endorse) the wrong people. FBI investigations for candidates who might disrupt their majority. Intimidation efforts for voters they don’t want voting.

I wish a lot of people would stop pretending about what this is.

I wish they would stop bending themselves into pretzel shapes to explain how every self-serving idea is actually part of a 3-dimensional strategic effort make the nation better off. You’re talking about people who decided it was better to dump out the water we save for our most productive agricultural counties and then pretend that they’d helped, than it was to actually help. Stop pretending they believe in meritocracy. They gave Dan Bongino a job. Stop pretending they care about sex trafficking and pedophilia. They literally used Jeffrey Epstein’s client list to prank you yesterday, because they wanted to bring Andrew Tate home and knew that even in conservative circles, that would be a bit of a hard sell.

These are the things that should serve as context, with every single new proposal they make. Every plan that they announce. This is how it’s always going to go. Loyalty means everything, and merit means nothing. Personal gain means everything, and the nation is only here to enable more personal gain. Strip it for parts. All of it.

You've used this term here before, I don't really get it, but maybe we are talking about the same using different terms. From my optic, what appears to be happening domestically is that Elon and his friend circle have recognized the US federal government is the ultimate customer. Limitless money, limitless patience. BUT they are struggling to break in because of rules and regulations that ensure corporate accountability, fair contracting, and anti-corruption processes are in place, so under the guise of weeding out fraud and waste and corruption, they are removing the very tools that have been put there to prevent it like what is happening at the Department of Labor and OMB. Because compliance with the law is very expensive and time-consuming, and changing the law is difficult to near impossible, destroying the enforcers of the law is the fastest way to market dominance. It's swapping one type of corruption for another in the name of anti-corruption. Ironically, much like "anti-racism" swapped one form of racism for another.

Describing Elon Musk as someone who is “struggling to break in“ to the business of having the US government as a customer is not something I really understand.

But you’re right: they are using the language of “rooting out corruption” to enable and expand the level of actually available corruption, and to create contracts for themselves that make the government fully dependent on them for key services.

I use the term “strip it for parts” because that is the way that this is different from the usual corruption you see in Washington. This is what it looks like when top leadership ONLY sees this nation as a collection of resources to be mined. This is what it looks like when you don’t really care if there’s anything left when you’re done.

[BurtReynolds]

Burt I am genuinely unclear on the logic of that meme. Is it arguing that the leftist Christian elite are hypocritical because their reading of the Bible, to drive deployment of Federally subsidized wealth into things like Medicaid, international aid, and (admittedly bloated) Federal institutions makes them just as bad as the conservative Christians who do the same towards their own techno-nationalist goals? Or that they are somehow worse than the conservative techno-nationalists because they fail to disclose their leftist bias at the top of the article?

It's mocking the non-religious leftist who uses the Bible when convenient to tell Christian conservatives that they should hold such and such position because of Jesus/the Bible despite the fact that they don't believe in Jesus/the Bible.

Yes. Burt’s approach is always to portray an argument as not deserving to exist, and never to debate the substance or merit. He is saying that this argument can be ignored, because of who said it.

I was responding to the quoted bit specifically, but yes, I find the article rather meritless.

[tragabigzanda]

FUCK ICE

[McParadigm]

Burt I am genuinely unclear on the logic of that meme. Is it arguing that the leftist Christian elite are hypocritical because their reading of the Bible, to drive deployment of Federally subsidized wealth into things like Medicaid, international aid, and (admittedly bloated) Federal institutions makes them just as bad as the conservative Christians who do the same towards their own techno-nationalist goals? Or that they are somehow worse than the conservative techno-nationalists because they fail to disclose their leftist bias at the top of the article?

It's mocking the non-religious leftist who uses the Bible when convenient to tell Christian conservatives that they should hold such and such position because of Jesus/the Bible despite the fact that they don't believe in Jesus/the Bible.

Yes. Burt’s approach is always to portray an argument as not deserving to exist, and never to debate the substance or merit. He is saying that this argument can be ignored, because of who said it.

I was responding to the quoted bit specifically, but yes, I find the article rather meritless.

Then by all means, debate its merits. I thought that’s what we were here to do.

[doug rr]

this is nuts