{"id":83702,"date":"2022-11-28T11:00:00","date_gmt":"2022-11-28T17:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/?p=83702"},"modified":"2022-11-27T08:41:23","modified_gmt":"2022-11-27T14:41:23","slug":"night-of-the-long-tweets","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/?p=83702","title":{"rendered":"Night Of The Long Tweets"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

One of the key goals of any authoritarian or totalitarian system is to dehumanize <\/em>its opponents. Because without an opponent to mobilize against<\/em>, people start looking seriously at the shortcomings the system’s autocrats bring to their lives. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

And a good enemy isn’t really very human at all. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Whether it’s a drill sergeant during bayonet practice, or a Stormtrooper yakking about \u00fcntermensch<\/em>, or a kommissar <\/em>denoucing a kulak <\/em>or a “wrecker”, the key in getting regular people in any authoritarian or totalitarian system to feel that rage with “the enemy” is to reinforce how really subhuman they actually are. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

“President” Biden took the moral arc of American civilization a little further toward tyranny and barbarism over the summer, when he referred to half of Americans as fascists. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Former President Obama got curiously specific in referring to Republicans as “The Revolutionary Guard”<\/a>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

But it was far from just national figures. Locally, reverse-McCarthyites were finding “fascists” behind hedges as well:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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So proud of @EducationMN<\/a> members calling for pro-student school board candidates across the state every night! Rochester, Moorhead, Elk River, Sartell, Forest Lake, Lakeville, Minneapolis, Eastern Carver Co and more. Fighting actual fascists in some of these places! #edmnvotes<\/a><\/p>— Anna Brelje (@annabmpls) October 25, 2022<\/a><\/blockquote>