She’s also been a firm advocate for Epstein’s victims and has repeatedly called for releasing the Epstein files.

She believes the worst conpiracy theories and she’s a terrible bigot, but the difference between her and her peers is that she actually believes the things she says she believes. She’s not just grifting for profit. She ran on a platform of being against child sexual abuse, and she’s still against child sexual abuse.

This is somewhat less notable, as it’s the usual Republican “but this affects ME now”, but she is actually different from the other Republicans in Congress because she has principles that she sticks to. Many of them are horrible principles, but they’re principles nonetheless.

If you like facts then you should know that “Autist” Is a rather controversial term in the autistic community, with many finding it dehumanising, and with a significant proportion of those who use it themselves doing so to “reclaim” it in an n-word-like “it’s okay when i say it, but not when you say it” way.

And if you really do have an autistic daughter, then you might want to do some internal reflection on why you think being “surrounded by […] autists” Is negative enough to use as an insult. Those kinds of attitudes can have negative impacts on children and can lead to internalised ableism. And if it’s not the kind of attitude you would show around her, then it’s worth asking yourself why not.

Even the defence is bullshit. The „Roman salute“ was invented for a film and almost immediately adopted by Italian fascists. The Nazis copied it from them.

So, it is a „Roman Salute“. Because that‘s exactly the same thing as a Nazi salute.

Maybe he means that he admires Mussolini more than Hitler?

One of the hopes for a Labour government was that they would roll back the restrictions on our right to protest…

Yes, I agree. I‘ve long said that Greene (and Boebert) are what you get when someone who actually believes this shit gets into power.

I don‘t follow this stuff closely enough to know how this article fits into her history, but the Epstein stuff is completely consistent. And, while I don‘t agree with 99% of her principles, it actually shows her to be more principled than most of Trump‘s followers, who were fully against paedophilia when Pizzagate was a thing, but who now seem to think that it‘s no big deal and that every man would fuck a pre-teen if given the opportunity to do so.

Maybe Musk should ask them for some tips on how to do this effectively?

It‘s perhaps worth noting that the first people the Nazis came for was LGBTQ people. If you‘ve seen photos of Nazi book-burnings, there‘s a high percentage chance that what you‘ve seen is the first book-burning, because the vast majority of photos are from one event. The books being burnt at that event was research from an organisation called Institut für Sexualwissenschaft (the Institute of Sexual Science), which was founded by a gay activist and focused mainly on LGBTQ research and care - including gender-affirming surgery. The Nazis very deliberately tried to wipe out this research and acknowledgement that trans people existed.

If you don‘t care about the current attacks on trans people in and of itself, it should trouble you as a canary in a coal mine. The famous poem‘s first line should be „first they came for the trans people“, rather than „first they came for the Socialists“. Don‘t do the „and I did nothing because I wasn‘t trans“ thing.

It all matters, even if your concern is purely for yourself.

That, and he doesn‘t make them feel stupid.

There‘s a lot of power in telling people „yes, you can say that out loud now“. But there‘s also a lot of power in not playing the same game as anybody else. There‘s power in being the guy who doesn‘t watch what he says because he‘s a politician.

Here in the UK we have a similar politician in Nigel Farage - far right, and very much able to speak to people on the level of „I‘m not like all those stuffy politicians, I‘m an ordinary bloke just like you“.

It‘s not true for him, either, and I find him equally repulsive, but I can‘t deny that they‘re both effective at making people think „he‘s one of us!“ And it‘s not that other politicians don‘t try, at least here in the UK, which is why you‘ll find endless photo opportunities of them doing things like drinking a pint in a pub. But those always seem fake and hollow.

I see Farage and Trump described as „charismatic“. I don‘t think that‘s quite the right word, because that suggests a sort of charm, I think. But I can understand on an intellectual level why some people find them appealing.