Childless cat lady & teacher & postmenopausal queer feminist autist against far-right extremism
I'm tired of the racism, misogny, anti-immigration, all wrapped up in an Amerikan flag
At this point, due to a bunch of Life Interfering With Plans, I’m not able to write much of anything coherent about the cascading catastrophe of crap that has resulted from the perforation of JD Vance’s suppurating id.
So have two memes (one at the top, one at the bottom), both of which I adore (and feel free to share), plus some recommendations for Substacks, plus some additional links (to articles). At some point, I may track down more info about the introductions he’s written for the Heritage How-to-Fascist series.
Right now, I’m not really sure what else to say—other than, please, check your registration if you are in one of the states purging their voter rolls. Volunteer if you can (there are many different things available). Vote, and encourage everyone you know to vote.
Oh, and I was heartened to see that a number of Appalachian authors are sharing their views of their Appalachian families, towns, and culture that differ extremely from Vance’s on just about everything.
Recommended Substack 1: PolitiSage by Morgaan Sinclair, Ph.D.
Recent post: Misogyny ... Trump and Vance Tap the Toxic Manosphere for Votes using Andrew "Tate Hate Speech"
Trump re-posts a meme-lie about Kamala Harris giving bl*w j*bs to get ahead -- and to quote Carly--Vance uses Andrew Tate memes as a "dog whistle" to lure online misogynists to vote for Trump.
Where misogyny lay deepest in these groups was in the Proud Boys—which began as an anti-feminist group—in the White Supremacists, where racist and misogyny create a toxic cocktail of threats—and in the Oath Keepers, who want women barefoot and pregnant … and home.
A note by Sinclair (from the comments to the above post which are well worth reading): Note From Comments On Trump / Vance / Misogyny
The Capitol Insurrection Network Map: a tool I learned about from Sinclair’s posts:
As of January 2023, more than 300 defendants who have been criminally charged for participating in the January 6, 2021, attack on the United States Capitol have been identified as having connections to contemporary extremist groups and movements, including the Proud Boys, Oath Keepers, Three Percenters, and the QAnon conspiracy theory, as well as other less populous entities. The January 6th defendants collectively form more than 900 links to these groups and each other. The Capitol insurrection network map displays these relationships, helping users identify the ideologies and networks that played a central role in the attack.
To be included in the network map, a defendant must have a link to an extremist group or movement that was established prior to January 6, 2021, and that connection must be documented in court records, news articles, or other open sources. A connection between a defendant and a group/movement was made if the individual was a formal member of an extremist group (e.g., Proud Boys and Oath Keepers), self-identified as a member of an extremist movement that does not have a formal membership process (e.g., QAnon and Three Percenters Movement) or publicly praised an extremist group or movement prior to the January 6th attack. Links between defendants were made if there is evidence in open sources that the individuals communicated with each other, in person or online, prior to January 6, 2021. The Capitol insurrection network map only includes individuals who have been charged with criminal offenses in state, local, or federal court for participating in the attack on the Capitol. All defendants are presumed innocent until proven guilty in a court of law.
Click on the image on the page above to see larger interactive version on the network map.
Recommended Substack 2: Plato was a Dick by S. Peter Davis
OK, I know the ‘teaser quote’ below is really really LONG, but it’s such a GOOD piece that I wanted to highlight that in the context of my interest in the “culture warriors” on the far right who are weaponizing Tolkien!
Frauds in the Wings: The Plagiarized Fantasy Behind New Right Politics
Curtis Yarvin and other far right thought leaders are smuggling their political candidates into power--but all their ideas are recycled fantasy fiction.
What I want to talk about today is how much of the right wing faux-intellectualism that is coming to power today is downstream from epic fantasy. These top minds of the political brass, these Wormtongues whispering into the ears of the new generation of populist conservatism, the Yarvins and the Tates and whoever else, are doing little more if anything than running word replacement over the Wachowskis and Tolkien and half a dozen other fantasy epics and hoping their marks are too dazzled by the performance to notice.
. . . .
What Yarvin has more than political intelligence is density. There is no concise reading of Yarvin. He’s written probably millions of words. I’m not remotely the expert you’d consult to summarise over two and a half decades worth of continuous writing and tell you what it’s all about and audit its consistency. But “you need to read all the work” is the impossible standard used to shut down critics of many prolific writers and tweeters and video essayists. Like Yarvin. Like Peterson.
What I can tell you is that a hell of a lot of it is built on a reef of Matrix and Lord of the Rings references.
. . . .
Curtis Yarvin, departing from the libertarian image conservatives usually want to paint for themselves, is an unapologetic totalitarian. His vision is for democracy to be dissolved and for mercantilist capitalism to be adopted as not just the economic but also the governing structure of society, under the rule of a CEO King whose authority is total. As a software engineer who sees society as little more than an algorithm to be manipulated, it makes sense that he would have been enthralled by the concepts explored in The Matrix—human beings kept docile by the algorithm of a supreme intelligence so perfect that even the resistance is part of its plan.
The Matrix, released in 1999, is still a fairly young entry into the pantheon of legendary geek media. Undoubtedly one of the oldest gods in that pantheon is Tolkien, and Yarvin derives plenty from Tolkien as well. He has an entire parallel political theory that analogises human beings to the races of Middle Earth.
I won’t link to it directly only because Yarvin writes on Substack and Substack is social media now so linking to his page is the equivalent of tagging him on Twitter. I will generate as little encouragement for one of his notorious 4,000 word rebuttals as I can manage. His blog is easy enough to Google. To crudely summarise, the hobbits are conservatives and the elves are on the left, and everyone fuckin’ hates elves, that’s like high fantasy 101. But also, this is randomly a mixed metaphor about domestic violence for some reason. (As I said, there is no concise reading of Yarvin).
. . . .
In any case, it’s important that we remain alert to the actual origins of many of these philosophies entering the political arena. I certainly don’t mean in any way to diminish the brilliance and the powerful legacy of Tolkien, nor the creators of The Matrix or any other of the powerhouses of fantasy literature that are being misused in this way, but it must be understood that none of these works were ever intended as instruction manuals for good governance or social order, and we need to be savvy to maintain the health and literacy of our political discourse lest some tech billionaire one day smuggle a candidate into the White House with a political philosophy modelled on The Very Hungry Caterpillar.
JD Vance attacks influential Jewish head of teachers union for not having biological kids
Scroll down the page to see the video clip.
“So many of the leaders of the left, and I hate to be so personal about this, but they’re people without kids, trying to brainwash the minds of our children, and that really disorients me and it really disturbs me,” Vance said at the Center for Christian Virtue leadership forum while he was running for Senate in October 2021.
“Randi Weingarten, who’s the head of the most powerful teachers union in the country — she doesn’t have a single child. If she wants to brainwash and destroy the minds of children, she should have some of her own and leave ours the hell alone,” Vance went on to say.
At the same event, Vance railed against transgender rights and homes without heterosexual parents. “If we want kids to have a good life, if we want kids to be able to have happy, fulfilled existences, there needs to be moms and dads in the home,” he said.
Going to war . . . .against (no surprise here!) TEH WIMMINZ!
Vance: “cultural messaging” = “To be a little stark about this, I think we have to go to war against the anti-child ideology that exists in our country,” said Vance, who is currently the Republican senator from Ohio.
And a really lovely (meaning:shitty) example of how misogynists are always also racists:
“help help my masculinity is being suppressed” . . . and hatcheted to death!
In the 2021 interview Vance also claimed men and boys in the US were “suppressed” in their masculinity and made racially charged remarks about American cities and his political opponents.
Of Afghans who assisted US troops during the occupation of that country who were now seeking to come to America, Vance asked whether “certain groups of people can successfully become American citizens”, and said those hostile to Minneapolis’s Somali American community “don’t like people getting hatcheted in the street in [their] own community.”
Copied from my “quick link” post when this rancid misogynistic racist mess hove into view:
First: how did I miss Politico’s story on “How Lord of the Rings Shaped J. D. Vance’s Politics”?
Second: OK, I can agree with Prior about the problems with Vance’s reading of Tolkien, but as a 68 year old who has been reading fantasy for oh, about 63 years (Oz books, age 5), screw this “39-year-old dude equals rise of the fantasy generation” shit. I mean, WTF?
JD Vance: A Psychological Profile
Craig American ID Tally Tolkien, Vance, and Marx
My posts on Far-Right Extremists (FREs)
And finally, the perfect poster for me:
Dropping this here because I may not have gotten it in the post above:
NPR The History Behind Vance's Cat Lady: https://www.npr.org/2024/07/29/nx-s1-5055616/jd-vance-childless-cat-lady-history