The guy had serious issues before he spent a few years in solitary.

The left is worshiping Chelsea Manning the way liberals worship Hillary Clinton, right down to the yas-queening, but I don't think they know they're doing it.

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Who do you mean by "the Left?"

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Mostly the Democratic Socialists of America, which seems to be the standard-bearer for the current left.

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The idea of a unified contemporary left is a complete fiction. I think you are overstating the influence of the DSA and its 20,000 members or so. BLM, for instance, occupies a far more prominent position in the public consciousness--and has significantly different priorities than DSA. But DSA appears to be better organized, so there's that I guess.

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Yeah, I'm just more tuned into DSA than BLM. They may only have 20,000 members, but 10,000 of them write for Jacobin , The Baffler, and Current Affairs, so they seem larger than life.

I thought it was more reform-minded than other leftist groups but it turns out it's a lot of 24-year-olds from Brooklyn ironically praising Stalin and unironically damning Israel. I guess it's been more or less hostilely taken over.

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I guess if the right has to own all their rascists and nut jobs the left should own their whack jobs?

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Why the man is missed.
antifa? Far left? Fuck. You.
War.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5W801pqy3lQ


"my mom knew him"--Trig Palin
"shut it"--Frank


#GreatAmericanHeroes


bonus feature-- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B4fgHwxBFmA
"wow"--Willow Palin
"yeppers"--Sarah Palin

#anHistoryofFascism

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Obama's Legacy is Trump.
And dead cops.

"One guy lays the pipe, the other guy smokes it"--Clint Eastwood

I like "rascists" as a portmanteau of racist and fascist. It's very efficient!

But does the right "own" its fringe element? Their ownership of it usually consists of benignly neglecting it and letting it thrive so that they can drag the continuum of acceptable political thought ever rightward.

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I will just say it's my perception that all the whack jobs on the right get lumped in with all republicans more so than the other way on the left.

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I understand. But our political spectrum doesn't just run 0-50 Democrats, 51-100 Republicans, for lack of better phrasing. Right now, you have a Republican Party that occupies the far right, a Democratic Party that ranges from the center-left to center-right if not well into the meat of the right wing in some places, and tons of practically unrepresented territory to the left of the Democrats. And it's like that because the Democrats patrol their own flank much more than the Republicans do. Look no further than the 2016 primary, where the Republicans let the process play out, even if that meant a gasconading fascist being nominated, while the Democrats did everything but wrap Hillary Clinton in a box and smuggle her through the service elevator.

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Definition of gasconade

: bravado, boasting

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Reality is your friend, not your enemy. -- Seacrest