— Joshua Reed Eakle 🗽 (@JoshEakle) July 7, 2024
Between yesterday's pushback against the far-right in France and the Labour Party win in the UK, I guess at least there are some things to feel good about, even while US politics is giving me the agita. Evil never rests though. Le Pen (and Salvini's La Lega) has some kind of Patriots for Europe thing cooking with Orban who had just gone sleazing off to visit Putin (not in a way that represents the EU).
Not sure how patriots of any stripe mooch up to Putin.
I have thoughts about that, and about how CPAC and Heritage seem to love, love, love Orban, too. But I think I will just be happy about the elections for a little while, first.
I've been to Sicily a couple of times and it is fiercely beautiful. I am heartbroken for what is happening. The temperature in Palermo a couple of days ago was47°C, which is astonishing not only because it is a local record, but because it is a record likely to be demolished soon.
Those things are hard to fathom (though we need to figure out how to), but in the meantime, if we value eating, if we value culture, if we value any of the standard of living we associate with civilization, we need to reckon with the idea that some sacrifices must be made now to prevent the losses of things beyond price. Not for the sake of our great-grandchildren. I'm talking about the intolerable conditions we will spend what we have of our old age in.
I'm not literally calling John Durham an "idiot", mind you, because I don't think he is. I also think Jake Tapper probably has the capacity to read and think critically, and you know--I can technically use stairs and take the elevator at every opportunity. What I think is that Durham was given an assignment that was distinctively difficult: try to make an investigation into a critical national security issue seem like it was unnecessary and unfair to a particular 2016 Presidential candidate.
And the very best Durham could do was suggest that, although DOJ and the FBI don't need to do anything different, and even though out of three cases he got exactly one conviction (sentence: probation) the bottom line is his opinion is that the FBI could have been a little slower before going into an investigation that was like, probably just great to be a preliminary investigation based on the little they knew from Downer and the Aussies.
And after all the Mueller investigation convictions and the Senate intelligence report into Russia's interference in the 2016 election and the DOJ IG investigation report, I'm going to just laugh and say: "Well, you tried."
Because that's me, a person who has been paying attention. And I know that for people who were inclined to believe the Russia, Russia, Russia thing was a hoax based on whatever Trump had to say about it are very inclined to take Durham's word that despite the lack of any connecting of dots to support his conclusion that the investigation still seems hinky to him and will fast-forward to that conclusion whether there is any strength to that argument.
I don't want to think about what it means for Giorgia Meloni to break the glass ceiling of women in power in Italy when to me it sounds like the breaking of so much other terrible glass elsewhere. Perhaps a "Kristallnacht." I do want to think about what it means when US Republicans think that she is a great example of the fight against Communism and the kind of politician we need more of, here.
Scalise on Meloni: It’s interesting to see that Europe is leading the way by throwing out Socialists with Conservatives and great bold Conservative women like Meloni and Truss. We need to bring that kind of conservatism to the United States” pic.twitter.com/Ln7XHCe24v
Does he just not know the difference? Or is it true that "David Duke without the baggage" absolutely does want fascism right here, right now? I can't help but think he does. She supports Viktor Orban of Hungary, the focal point of CPAC and Tucker Carlson's wretched White Power Hour.
Is she the worst? I don't pretend I know. I know me and the spouse won't be comfortable visiting the homeland with this person in charge and hope the weird vagaries of Italian politics make a new vote a thing in a pretty basic tick tock.
We are told the right succeeds because the left fails to do more than point out that the right exists and is terrible. But the right does exist and is terrible. I don't know what the left needed to do because unless a party is in power, they can do little to demonstrate their ideals. But there is always the idea of defining their morality and highlighting the difference.
I don't know if that is enough.
I don't know why knowledge of history is so limited it isn't already enough.
UPDATE: If I were Liz Truss, I would hate this comparison so much I'd go out of my way to refute it, and I rather hope she does.
UPDATE: A further introspection into what the US rightwing (and other right-aligned folks) see in Meloni might be summed up in this meaningless, but buzzword-laden speech that seems defiant against an unknown "them" that is trying to deny people their cultural and family heritage. No one is saying Meloni can't be a woman, a Christian. an Italian, a mother. What an absurdity! Can I proclaim myself a woman, an atheist, an American, and childfree? I do. The existence of other people and their experiences don't negate my own, they start conversations.
But what is Meloni's answer to people who are different? LGBT people fear for their families with her in a position of leadership, because she would deny them their right to be themselves, to be parents, to have their legacy and authenticity. Every right-wing claim of victimhood is a confession about what they would do to others--always.
