Elections; 2024
POSTED BY: THG
UPDATED: Friday, November 21, 2025 00:12
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Trump’s Fans Are Suffering From Tony Soprano Syndrome
Some conservatives are embracing the villains in what are supposed to be cautionary tales.
By Adam Serwer | December 5, 2024, 2:35 PM ET https://www.theatlantic.com/author/adam-serwer/
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2024/12/elon-musk-judge-dred
d-autocrat/680881/
In every Judge Joe Dredd story I’ve ever read, there is at least one almost comically obvious moment when the author makes clear that the protagonist is a jackbooted fascist and not someone to admire. This may come across to the average reader as heavy-handed, but when the richest man in the world misreads the character as heroic, you can see why such heavy-handedness is sometimes necessary.
Shortly before former Representative Matt Gaetz of Florida withdrew his nomination for attorney general, Elon Musk posted on X that Gaetz was the “Judge Dredd America needs to clean up a corrupt system and put powerful bad actors in prison.” Generally speaking, one’s model for justice should not be a fascist invented in part to illustrate the distinction between elite impunity and the brutality that ordinary people face. (Were Dredd’s zero tolerance for lawbreaking evenly applied to obscenely wealthy scofflaws like Musk himself, it would surely be less appealing to him.)
Musk’s media illiteracy is not particularly shocking—it seems to be part of a broader trend tied to the rise of Donald Trump. Genre stories that are meant to highlight the dangers of fascism, cruelty, or selfishness instead end up being misinterpreted or even condemned by those who find fascism appealing or see cruelty and selfishness as aspirational virtues.
The messaging in Dredd stories verges on didactic, but it also assumes at least a tacit objection to fascism in the reader. One of the series’ co-creators, Pat Mills, has said that his model for Dredd and the other judges was the monks at his parochial school, who subjected children to physical or sexual abuse. The stories are set in a dystopian future where several “megacities,” surrounded by a radioactive wasteland, are ruled by draconian judges. Initially established by the character of Eustace Fargo in response to rampant street crime, this judge system empowers its agents to convict and sentence those they deem criminals, and simply kill many of the people they encounter.
As mentioned, the implications of these stories are not exactly subtle. In one 2019 story arc, The Small House, Dredd confronts Judge Smiley, the Justice Department’s chief of black ops, over Smiley’s use of invisible assassins to murder democracy activists in Mega-City One. Dredd’s main objection to Smiley’s operations, it seems, is that Smiley’s assassinations are not following proper protocol. Dredd has no moral objection to killing democracy activists, but it has to be done by the book. Smiley calmly explains to Dredd, “We’re fascists. We rule. It’s the only way we can survive in this irradiated, dead world.”
Dredd is a true believer in the judge system, and as such lacks the corruption of his contemporaries. This renders him ethically superior only to the other fascists, however; he is an unthinking armed goon who would never allow the system to be changed just because the majority would prefer it. He acts fanatically in service to the unjust system he upholds, not to any larger ideals of honor or integrity. In the 2006 storyline Origins, a cryogenically frozen Fargo is briefly thawed and begs Dredd to undo the judge system. “It was never meant to be forever,” Fargo pleads, just before dying. “We’re the monster, we got greedy—wanted everything—so we killed the dream Joe, we killed America!” Dredd, being Dredd, ignores Fargo’s pleas and, when asked later about Fargo’s last words, says Fargo wanted him to “keep the faith,” forever burying Fargo’s wish to end the judge system in favor of democratic rule.
As Trump reshapes the nation in his image, some of his supporters seem inclined to turn cautionary tales on their head, empathizing with villains or antiheroes to such a degree that the
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Kamala Harris bombed with Hispanic voters. That’s the whole story.
By Kevin Drum | December 6, 2024 – 11:43 am
https://jabberwocking.com/kamala-harris-bombed-with-hispanic-voters-th
ats-the-whole-story/
As I've mentioned, I'm a little skeptical of any theory about why there was a big turn against Democrats in 2024 because, in fact, there wasn't a big turn. There was a normal, moderate turn.
But in one place there was a huge turn: Hispanic voters. Here's the Democratic winning margin among Hispanics going back to 1980:
Even if you assume that Democrats lose the overall vote in 2024 by two points, you'd still expect them to win the Hispanic vote by 33%. Instead they won it by only 5%. That's an enormous shift both generally and compared to Joe Biden in 2020.
Now, the 2024 vote isn't completely without precedent: George Bush did extraordinarily well among Hispanics in the 2004 election. But that was explainable: Bush actively courted Hispanics and received a surge in Hispanic support after the capture of Saddam Hussein. The 2024 election remains a little more mysterious.
In any case, the Hispanic drop represents a shift of nearly 5% of the total popular vote away from Kamala Harris. That's way more than enough to account for her loss.
This doesn't automatically mean that all the other theories are wrong. It could still be inflation or wokeness or immigration. But any theory worth considering needs to account for why it affected Hispanic voters differently than others. So far none of them really do that.
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two
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Quote:
Originally posted by second:
Kamala Harris bombed with Hispanic voters. That’s the whole story.
...
In any case, the Hispanic drop represents a shift of nearly 5% of the total popular vote away from Kamala Harris. That's way more than enough to account for her loss.
Incorrect.
Joe Biden* had 81,282,632 votes in 2020 (51.3%. Donald Trump had 74,223,234 (46.9%).
That's 4.4% right there.
https://ballotpedia.org/Presidential_election,_2020
Trump just won this election by 1.5%.
That's more than 5% right there.
And since we don't have any real idea how many Hispanic votes there were in 2024 vs. 2020 yet since any 2024 data out there is from exit polling, we should assume that the number of Hispanics that voted in 2024 dropped along with all other races this year vs. last election cycle.
Kevin Drum, as always, is an idiot.
Meanwhile, maybe you should be asking yourselves why Latinos hate you. Maybe don't call them LatinX anymore for starters.
--------------------------------------------------
Trump is fine.
He is also your current President.
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Quote:
Originally posted by second:
Examples abound. Last year, another heavy-handed comic-book adaptation, the television series The Boys—about a covert-ops group that targets the irresponsible corporate-produced “supers” who kill more people than they actually save—made its criticism of fascism so overt that many of its fascist-sympathetic fans began to get upset. These fans complained that the show had gotten “woke” once the plot began to more plainly illustrate the political points it had been making all along, to the dismay of those fans who were living vicariously through the antagonists’ acts of cruelty.
None of this ever happened outside of a white college "educated" "journalist" brain.
--------------------------------------------------
Trump is fine.
He is also your current President.
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Quote:
Originally posted by second:
You can stop filing tax returns after Trump is President
I would not suggest that course of action.
--------------------------------------------------
Trump is fine.
He is also your current President.
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Quote:Ladies and gentlemen, Donald Trump:
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:
I would not suggest that course of action.
--------------------------------------------------
Trump is fine.
He is also your current President.
President-elect Donald Trump said members of the now-defunct House select committee tasked with investigating the deadly Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection at the Capitol should be in jail.
....In the interview with Kristen Welker, Trump also claimed he would not appoint a special prosecutor to investigate President Joe Biden.... “I’m not doing that unless I find something that I think is reasonable,” Trump said. “But that’s not going to be my decision, that’s going to be Pam Bondi’s decision and, to a different extent, Kash Patel’s.”
....Trump also said he would let Bondi “do what she wants to do” regarding an investigation into Jack Smith.... “I think he’s very corrupt but I want [Bondi] to do whatever she … wants to do.”
He added, “I’m not going to instruct her to do it.”
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2024/12/08/trump-january-6-bid
en-jack-smith/
I wonder if Pam Bondi and Kash Patel already know what Trump wants them to do even if he doesn't give them explicit instructions?
Biden should pardon everyone Trump or his team has ever mentioned. Does it set a bad precedent? Of course it does. It's a toxic precedent. But the real precedent buster is an incoming president who threatens to prosecute political opponents over and over and over. In the face of that, practically anything would be a bad precedent.
Is Trump just blowing hot air? I think he probably is. But why take chances?
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two
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Quote:
Originally posted by second:Quote:Ladies and gentlemen, Donald Trump:
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:
I would not suggest that course of action.
--------------------------------------------------
Trump is fine.
He is also your current President.
President-elect Donald Trump said members of the now-defunct House select committee tasked with investigating the deadly Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection at the Capitol should be in jail.
....In the interview with Kristen Welker, Trump also claimed he would not appoint a special prosecutor to investigate President Joe Biden.... “I’m not doing that unless I find something that I think is reasonable,” Trump said. “But that’s not going to be my decision, that’s going to be Pam Bondi’s decision and, to a different extent, Kash Patel’s.”
....Trump also said he would let Bondi “do what she wants to do” regarding an investigation into Jack Smith.... “I think he’s very corrupt but I want [Bondi] to do whatever she … wants to do.”
He added, “I’m not going to instruct her to do it.”
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2024/12/08/trump-january-6-bid
en-jack-smith/
I wonder if Pam Bondi and Kash Patel already know what Trump wants them to do even if he doesn't give them explicit instructions?
Biden should pardon everyone Trump or his team has ever mentioned. Does it set a bad precedent? Of course it does. It's a toxic precedent. But the real precedent buster is an incoming president who threatens to prosecute political opponents over and over and over. In the face of that, practically anything would be a bad precedent.
Is Trump just blowing hot air? I think he probably is. But why take chances?
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two
THAT IS WHAT YOU ALREADY DID, YOU DUMB MOTHERFUCKER.
TRUMP DIDN'T OPEN PANDORA'S BOX. DEMOCRATS DID.
If Democrats give out blanket pardons to all the criminals in their ranks now, don't be surprised when these pardonees start mysteriously being deleted.
--------------------------------------------------
Trump is fine.
He is also your current President.
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T 
Trump makes CRUSHING admission on national TV
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Quote:Pandora's Box did not contain Trump's tariffs. Trump can't guarantee his tariffs won't lead to higher prices. Cool!
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:
THAT IS WHAT YOU ALREADY DID, YOU DUMB MOTHERFUCKER.
TRUMP DIDN'T OPEN PANDORA'S BOX. DEMOCRATS DID.
Consider this: Trump has repeatedly talked about how much he likes tariffs and how, as soon as he takes office, he’s going to tariff the daylights out of other countries like China and Mexico.
Economists - probably elites - say the cost of tariffs will get passed along to American consumers. They say that because it’s exactly what will happen. But Trump, the everyman, has long denied that reality, convincing the forgotten men and women of the middle class he’s an economic wizard and this will all work out great for them.
On NBC's "Meet the Press" Sunday, Trump was asked if he can “guarantee American families won't pay more” under his tariff plan. Trump, the billionaire, said: “I can't guarantee anything. I can't guarantee tomorrow.”
You see? Trump cares about American families to not guarantee anything.
So don’t worry, forgotten men and women. Be confident that Trump and Musk and Ramaswamy and McMahon and Lutnick and all the other totally trustworthy and altruistic non-elite billionaires know what’s good for you.
Because you’re about to get it, regardless.
https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/columnist/2024/12/09/trump-musk
-ramaswamy-gut-healthcare-education/76823151007/
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two
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Quote:
Originally posted by second:Quote:Pandora's Box did not contain Trump's tariffs. Trump can't guarantee his tariffs won't lead to higher prices. Cool!
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:
THAT IS WHAT YOU ALREADY DID, YOU DUMB MOTHERFUCKER.
TRUMP DIDN'T OPEN PANDORA'S BOX. DEMOCRATS DID.
Consider this: Trump has repeatedly talked about how much he likes tariffs and how, as soon as he takes office, he’s going to tariff the daylights out of other countries like China and Mexico.
Economists - probably elites - say the cost of tariffs will get passed along to American consumers. They say that because it’s exactly what will happen. But Trump, the everyman, has long denied that reality, convincing the forgotten men and women of the middle class he’s an economic wizard and this will all work out great for them.
On NBC's "Meet the Press" Sunday, Trump was asked if he can “guarantee American families won't pay more” under his tariff plan. Trump, the billionaire, said: “I can't guarantee anything. I can't guarantee tomorrow.”
You see? Trump cares about American families to not guarantee anything.
So don’t worry, forgotten men and women. Be confident that Trump and Musk and Ramaswamy and McMahon and Lutnick and all the other totally trustworthy and altruistic non-elite billionaires know what’s good for you.
Because you’re about to get it, regardless.
https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/columnist/2024/12/09/trump-musk
-ramaswamy-gut-healthcare-education/76823151007/
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two
Your Opinion article has nothing to do with the topic at hand.
And besides, Trump's picks got rich before they went into government. Democrats get rich once they get in office.
I'll forgive Elon for being a Billionaire if it results in the Pelosi family having everything taken from them before they're thrown into prison.
--------------------------------------------------
Trump is fine.
He is also your current President.
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