@GottaLaff@willbunch Thanks Laffy for posting this Will Bunch editorial. I think he hits the nail directly on the head, and in that same stroke, shoved the nail two inches below the level of the wooden board.
@GottaLaff@willbunch I read it and shared it. She's their latest scapegoat for their problems. Last year it was Dolly Parton and Beyonce. A decade ago it was Miley Cyrus. 15 years ago it was Obama. 20 years ago it was Eminem. 50 years ago it was disco music. These folks need to take a long look at THEMSELVES in the mirror. THEY'RE their OWN problem,not anyone else's.
@GottaLaff Exactly the same Othering that is spouted by our reprehensible Neoliberal #RightWingNutJobs here in Australia.
The billionaires and their tax-dodging sycophants (who cause the inequality and joblessness), cleverly divert attention away from themselves, and onto more easily accessed culprits. @willbunch
@GottaLaff@willbunch Connecting the Taylor Swift conspiracy theories with this violent (apparent) murder is a good rhetorical move, but the mainstream press still will not cover the very real danger of right-wing violence for some reason
Imagine if Mohn was a dark-skinned Muslim who executed his father and made a video offering $1 million bounties to kill top US military officials?
@GottaLaff@willbunch - This thread. We are heading into dangerous territory. Egged on by those who should know better and who are either down the rabbit hole themselves or, worse, who are cynically exploiting the paranoia.
It is what you get when in certain media and political right wing views polarization and manipulation instead of facts and truth become the norm and a web of disinformation is woven…
No morality nor ethics left… worrying and sad how those in distress or who have lost track otherwise can easily derail into mental darkness…
@GottaLaff@willbunch it's like after all those decades the clowns suddenly wake up and realize P!nk and Taylor Swift are celebrities. So that means they always spam "leftist" propaganda. To maximize pop
from that article:
“The hateful blather is an effort to politically hijack the real moral panic among young white American men: that the safety net of white privilege and patriarchy that long served as an insurance policy against personal failure is collapsing on top of them.”
@GottaLaff Although I think my favorite historian was the one I discovered in my teens. I thought she was writing a NOVEL, and couldn't get enough....Barbara Tuchman. DAMN, that woman! SO good.
@GottaLaff@willbunch Just fyi, this extreme male toxicity and murderousness isn't new, it's just being emboldened. What's of note to me here is how it's become messianic because of how QAnon/evangelicals frame everything in religious garb and are inciting this kind of epic religious grandiosity.
"....the people who stood behind #JustinMohn whispering all kinds of nonsense — for clicks or votes or whatever they need to prop up their own mediocrity like [#DonaldTrump, #GregAbbot, #RonDeSantis, or #MTG] — are splattered with the blood."
a pyramid of paranoia that starts with penny-seeking bottom feeders on social media and ends with the bloviation of national broadcasters...
@GottaLaff@willbunch There is a mental health epidemic among many people regardless of sex or race. The last 4 years made a big dent on society. Use of psychiatric medication is through the roof. I wonder what kind of medication this guy was on?
2/ "In his most recent 14-plus minute production, Mohn ranted against a variety of usual right-wing suspects — Black Lives Matter, antifa, an invasion of immigrants at the southern border, LGBTQ activists, and an overreaching, all-powerful federal government. You know, the same kind of stuff you’d hear on the Fox Channel in prime time.
The only real difference was that Mohn started his screed Tuesday night by holding aloft the just-severed head of his father..."
3/ "We’ll never know if the quick arrest of this murder suspect prevented yet another mass shooting by a young, alienated white man...Mohn’s long descent into some sort of mental illness is, unfortunately, nothing new. What is new is broadband multiverse of voices bombarding this young man — not voices in his head, but a pyramid of paranoia that starts with penny-seeking bottom feeders on social media and ends with the bloviation of national broadcasters and politicians who should know better"
4/ "I keep coming back to something that Mohn said in his beheading video, when he declared that the flood of desperate refugees crossing the Rio Grande is actually “an invasion from third world countries. They’re coming here with health issues, they’re uneducated, unemployed, & all they do is commit crime on the streets.”
Oh wait, that wasn’t the beheader. That was GOP lt gov of TX Dan Patrick on Fox spouting rhetoric that might inspire a “Mohn militia” — blaming America’s probs on some Other"
5/ "Much more common is the lower-grade fever, which can produce a cold sweat and the bizarre delusion that Taylor Swift is the diabolical architect of a modern-day “Da Vinci Code” that binds her once-in-a-century pop superstardom with an intricate plot to rig the NFL to reelect President Joe Biden in November.
In the far-right freakout that’s launched a thousand hot takes..."
6/ "Why is Swift the ideal vessel for this? ... it’s not just her success but her sisters-are-doing-it-for-themselves message that terrifies Dude-Bro Nation...
How else to explain the much more consequential freakout against all forms of diversity, equity, and inclusion — DEI — on college campuses or in the workplace? Right-wingers have even pushed the fact-free claim that the recent mid-air blowout aboard a Boeing-manufactured jet is result of Black pilots"
7/ "...Society is partly to blame — from the decades of outsourcing good-paying middle-class jobs to make billionaire investors a quick buck, or the slow death of vocational education.
But the bigger problem is an unwillingness to surrender the cultures of patriarchy and white privilege to the majority of Americans they’ve locked out...t’s also this warped mindset that craves a Trump “Red Caesar” dictatorship, to end their losing streak in the culture wars.."
8/ "We don’t talk nearly enough about the things we could do to end some of the unfairness in American society — the broken system of educating, or not educating, our young people when they turn 18, and the loss of good job opportunities for those who don’t win the college lottery — that could bring true equity and reduce the fever among angry young white men.
But we also don’t talk enough about how politicians like Dan Patrick block solutions because demagoguery is easier."
9/9 "In the end, the person who bears full responsibility for killing Michael Mohn is his son. But the people who stood behind Justin Mohn whispering all kinds of nonsense — for clicks or votes or whatever they need to prop up their own mediocrity — are splattered with the blood."
Beautiful writing. On the subject of angry young white men, BBC Radio reported a survey last night which showed 20% of UK males between the ages of 11-20 view Andrew Tate* as a mentor.
The survey concluded that age group to be far more misogynistic than boomers.
Worldwide, societies are producing incels and it's not getting better.
Tate is a Brit currently under house arrest in Romania facing multiple sex trafficking & rape charges. He preaches misogyny.
@GottaLaff
I kind of regret that the beheader was captured so soon.
Don't get me wrong. I in no way wanted anymore violence to happen, but it seems that the story is pretty much being ignored and I find that quite troubling.
If he'd have hid out in the woods or something then we might have gotten more coverage of it and the stochastic terrorism that the GOP is stoking in the USA.
@GottaLaff Thanks for the ‘summary’ of what is a godawful affair. I do not have the stomach to read further. America is sick and needs help. BTW thanks for your toots. Be well.
@GottaLaff Inequity and poverty are created by govt policy. We appear, in English speaking west, to lack govts with the ambition to provide the security and opportunities people had 1950s-70s
@GottaLaff
Pretty sick. They all seem to forget that MOST immigrants are neither, just in general people who fear for their lives.
They seem to forget that we have many, MANY homegrown criminals ourselves. Maybe not forget but sweep under the rug. I suppose those are at the frontlines in TX. Sure, there are bad apples in any group of humans but most folks are decent, sometimes desperate scapegoats for election purposes in this case.
@GottaLaff Oh dear, so this beheading was real. Sounded so extreme, I wasn't sure. The insane hate generated by Trump, the likes of Fox News and many others is incredibly damaging to the fabric of society. This is going to get worse before it gets better, one suspects. I Hope the insanity doesn't spread into what will become your new home. What a world!