@ErikUden I like it when #reactionaries #TreatenUsWithGoodTimes!

Something that people (particularly, but not exclusively in the US) don’t seem to recognize with respect to the dangers of that German reactionaries pose today is that they have a recent memory of living in a state that actually collapsed, and I think that we who live in big, rich, predominantly anglophone countries just don’t have any similar lived experience. The actual existence of the UK was never threatened by the Troubles, and Scottish independence hasn’t even won an electoral majority (yet?). The last time the US was threatened with a real, fundamental systemic collapse was over 150 years ago. January 6 was very serious, and yet it still came nowhere close to actually undoing the transfer of power. I think most Americans still can’t actually envision what a collapse would look like. (I admittedly don’t know much about the impact of the Quebec separatist movement, but from south of 54°40’, I have never perceived that Canada was really on the brink of falling apart.)

In Germany, not only are there lots of living people who remember the collapse of the East German state, but it’s also not so long since there were a handful of people around who had lived in 1. the Kaiserreich, 2. the Weimar republic, 3. the Nazi state, 4. the GDR, and 5. the reunified Germany of today. That’s five very different kinds of states that some people experienced in recent history without ever going anywhere. So people have a much clearer sense that, yes, whole states do, in fact, come and go. I think that’s something we have a much harder time envisioning in the US, the UK, Canada, Australia, etc.

Starting from that kind of shared understanding – that a state that exists today need not exist tomorrow – is a really useful rhetorical framework for helping people feel empowered to take (sometimes drastic) action, or at least envision something to work toward. When Björn Höcke calls the Federal Republic of Germany a “failed state,” as he has done since at least 2015, citing what his supporters believe is a failed border regime, he’s also telling them “you know what comes next…”.

The right has also adopted a number of slogans and tactics from the iconic protests during the last days before the Berlin Wall fell. In 1989, “Wir sind das Volk!“ (“We are the people!”) was a slogan directed against the East German government’s pretense of representing “the masses” in an old-school Marxist way, and it was a demand for actual popular decision-making power. Today, it also echoes the ethno-nationalist language of the 19th/20th century “völkisch” movement and the Nazi regime. In other words, when today’s reactionaries use that slogan, they’re a) invoking language that was deployed under three different German states that don’t exist anymore, and b) engaging in obviously extremely racist sloganeering that they can easily pass off simply as a demand for more liberty, in the tradition of non-violent East German protest – a movement largely regarded as unassailable today.

Another example: at the height of the pandemic, big groups of reactionary dumbfucks would go on “walks” through cities without masks, which was prohibited at times. They knew that arresting/fining them all would be both logistically impossible and a very bad look that would prop up their rhetoric that they’re living under a dictatorship. Moreover, those “walks” were also deliberately meant to evoke the peaceful demonstrations in the late GDR just before it collapsed.

At the same time, the Reichsbürger (“citizens of the Reich”) movement is still picking up speed and plotting, sometimes in great detail, ways to actually induce the collapse of the German republic. They’re a lot like certain elements of the militia movement in the US, but in a much smaller country and, again, with a real recollection of states falling, as well as a serious interest in making that happen again.

I don’t mean to sound alarmist here. There’s not going to be an overnight revolution in Germany, but I do think that, despite having had generally more or less centrist governments and seemingly a fairly liberal policy toward refugees at the national level, the danger from the far right is at least as great there as it is anywhere in the West, if not greater.

#Germany, #AfD, #reactionaries, #GDR, #DDR, #FailedState

This really is their modus operandi. Weaponized outrage at completely made-up bull 💩 .... #Conservatives #reactionaries #modusoperandi

@threetails also we need to call "#conservatives" out as the "#reactionaries" they are.

#Conservative as a branding implies they're conserving something worth saving.

Which they don't!

Can confirm, after a two week suspension for “public shaming” of ‘neighbors’ on NextDoor the feed is still populated by reactionaries.

#nextdoor #reactionaries #neighborhood

#Watching #reactionaries having a meltdown never gets old lmaooo 🤣

"But individual intentions aren’t all that matter. The anti-trans discourse they’re joining in supports a more global reactionary movement by reinforcing key far-right tropes and giving mainstream legitimacy to forms of exclusion. Here, we explain some of the key facets of this collusion, and the danger that mainstream, liberal transphobia poses not only to trans people but also to all communities at the sharp end of the wider reactionary resurgence."

https://jacobin.com/2023/03/uk-liberal-transphobia-mainstream-media-far-right-politics-moral-panic

#FarRight #transphobia #GenderCritical #extremists #MoralPanic #Exclusion #reactionaries

Hippy Boomers of the 50’s and 60’s freaked out the Silent Generation so badly, they went into reactionary mode, launched the War on Drugs, and now we can’t have nice things.

#reactionaries #silentgeneration #babyboomers #warondrugs #nicethings #hippies

@tzimmer_history Not just "are actively mobilizing", "HAVE BEEN actively mobilizing". This goes back a long way, we're just seeing it in full bloom now.

It's essential that people who are not part of this #reaction realize that there are never any settled questions, and that #reactionaries will work FOREVER to undermine any " #progress " that has been made. Laws will be rescinded, #SupremeCourt rulings overturned, #rights curtailed, whatever it takes.

My $0.02: the idea that human dignity and resilience have “run their course” is anathema to the worldview of both liberals (distinct from the left) and conservatives (distinct from reactionaries)…

#politics #philosophy #liberals #conservatives #leftwing #rightwing #reactionaries

Another label for “extreme cultural conservatives” is #reactionaries, New Yorker copyeditor-in-chief.

https://www.newyorker.com/news/annals-of-inquiry/the-conservative-who-wants-to-bring-down-the-supreme-court

The Conservative Who Wants to Bring Down the Supreme Court: this conflation of #reactionaries with #conservatives doesn’t help #liberals, and our media ecosystem dependent on clickbait is enabling Overton Window creep normalizing #authoritarians. There’s nothing “conservative” about wanting to essentially neuter the branch of the government defined by Article III of the US #Constitution.

https://www.newyorker.com/news/annals-of-inquiry/the-conservative-who-wants-to-bring-down-the-supreme-court

… it can hardly be a shock to McCarthy that those #reactionaries now refuse to be governed. Nor that they make a mockery of the trade-offs necessary both to take office and also to #govern — Financial Times #quote #Republicans

The only ideological philosophy uniting American reactionaries is to completely undermine the administrative state built on top of the 13th through 19th Amendments to the US Constitution.

The rest is smoke, mirrors, heat, and noise. 💨🪞🥵💥

#Constitution #reactionaries #PoliticalInsight #publicpolicy #USA

Reactionaries in a few words: "our ideas were not popular on Twitter, must be a conspiracy to suppress our ideas because after all, bigotry, superstition, and ignorance are so cutting-edge everyone must embrace our dogma." #Reactionaries #MAGAs #Conservatives #MuskTrumplandia

“Shame is an odd emotion. It can sometimes motivate a person to slow down or stop behaviors that cause it. Just as often, however, it can backfire, creating a defensive reaction that causes the person to double down.” - @AmandaMarcotte
#shame #inferioritycomplex #insecurity #weirdos #grievance #grifters #reactionaries https://www.salon.com/2022/12/16/how-and-elon-build-their-cults-exploiting-right-wing-insecurity/

https://youtu.be/aM8jfRjkFPM

#LGBT #LGBTQ #MoralPanic #GayRights #ChristoFacism #reactionaries #hierarchy

“There is only one cardinal rule: Do not lose. The will to power, the urge to defeat the enemy, the insistence that the libs must be owned—this resentment and spite fuels everything. And worst of all, we’ve gotten used to it.” - Tom Nichols

https://www.theatlantic.com/newsletters/archive/2022/12/herschel-walker-is-the-new-normal/672377/

#power #ownthelibs #resentment #reactionaries

Hot take: Elon knows exactly what the heck he is doing. The intent has always been to destroy the potentially anyi-capitalist and liberatory power of twitter in the hands of the left. The move to purchase and destroy certain aspects of the site see through this lens makes more sense and as a power grab to defend his own interests: removing resistance to his capitalist ass and breaking apart movements that inevitably will target him and other like him.
#musk #Elon #birdSite #capitalists #counterRevolution #reactionaries #fascists

@Rihilism @jax_nature_photos55

Thanks for your concern
Not my "first rodeo," as they say
But, I'm not to too hip on confronting #reactionaries with #guns, though
The #CochiseCounty Sheriff is ok with them being there, evidently
(The new event)