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It’s utterly mortifying, and heartbreaking. This person wrote that shit with complete confidence in their perception of the world and their superiority in it. They have not even a scintilla of awareness or doubt or shame. I don’t fully understand how anyone could get like this. I’m about to start reading a book about a young man who grew up as a white supremacist but then, through the patience and care of some new friends, changed his views. It’s called Rising Out of Hatred by Eli Saslow. I heard about it on the podcast “With Friends Like These”.

I feel like I need to try to understand how that comment could happen. How the virulent hatred I see on T_D and MGTOW and Voat became acceptable and normal for some people who grew up in the same country I have, with the same popular culture. Every individual experience is different, like there are 300 million versions of America, but somehow a huge portion of my peers seem to live in a particular America that I do not remotely recognize, and that terrifies me.

I read (and frequently recommend) Jon Ronson’s fascinating book Them: Adventures With Extremists where he spends time with hateful people like a not-yet-famous-but-definitely-nuts Alex Jones and with a bunch of families at a KKK meeting. It’s compelling stuff, but I feel like I need to know more. It’s one reason I hang out in this sub, to keep an eye on what the average yet extreme bigots are thinking and saying.

On a more cheerful note, I came across something that made me think of you after our side conversation about makeup. A Sylvia Plath fan should coordinate their lipstick with this T-shirt and necklace! I’m obsessed with this company, Out of Print. My favorite book of all time is a Tree Grows in Brooklyn, and they even make a tee of that! I wish could spend thousands and wear a different book shirt every day. Anyway, that’s a little more lighthearted way to end this depressing comment contemplating the ugly and in my mind practically profane attitudes expressed in that disgusting thread. Not that Plath is especially cheery, but, well, you know what I mean!

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On the other hand, an actual, real-life exit counselor who works with actual walkaways from actual cults has in fact pretty much formally declared MAGAts to be a coercive political cult of personality, using actual characteristics common across pro-Trump groups and comparing to evaluations of groups like Scientology and the Moonies. (It's worth noting here that said exit counselor actually has written one of the more thorough evaluation scales of the "cultiness" of a coercive group.)

And apparently he's not alone on this; the former head of psychological profiling at the CIA pretty much has completely separately identified MAGAtism as a classical political cult, and literally the person who defined the term "brainwashing" in English and wrote the very first book on coercive groups and thought reform tactics has in fact just written a book on political extremism that also in part defines MAGAtism in the exact same framework of being a coercive political cult as Maoists during the Cultural Revolution. (Considering Dr. Robert J. Lifton's initial studies were of persons involuntarily interned in Maoist "thought reform" camps during the Korean War up to the beginning of the Cultural Revolution...yes, as in the guy has literally written the books on the subject--methinks he'd know exactly what he's talking about when he's comparing MAGAts and Trump to the Cultural Revolution and Mao Zedong). Both Hassan and Lifton have also been contributors to a book that notes that Trump shows all the signs of being a malignant narcissist in the technical sense and which also include OTHER psychologists who have expressed concerns a personality cult exists around Trump (and feel strongly enough on it that they feel an ethical duty to warn a potential target of violence by a person, well, (pardon the expression) trumps the Goldwater Rule). Rick Alan Ross, another exit counselor, has likewise explicitly noted MAGAtism has all the characteristics of a coercive cult of personality--and Rick Alan Ross is actually a Republican (though very much in the "Never Trump" court).

(Pretty much the only major exit counselor that has NOT outright called out MAGAtism as a literal personality cult is Dr. Margaret Thaler Singer, and that's because she's dead.)

And we're just talking the redcaps posting MAGA and KAG memes on Twitter and Facebook--we're not talking members of Certain Subreddits Soon To Exhaust The Reddit Community Patience, or even sub-movements within (like QAnonsense--at this rate, pretty much almost universally regarded as a literal coercive New Religious Movement by every exit counselor that's evaluated it and which heavily cross-recruits with older cults like Ramtha--or the New Apostolic Reformation, which has heavily embraced QAnonsense and which (in a remarkable sea change from even fifteen years ago) is also pretty much universally regarded as an extremely coercive religious group within "Charismatic" Christianity).

>wealth hoarding capitalists

That's not how that works. People do not hoard wealth, there isn't a Scrouge McDuck style swimming pool full of gold somewhere in Trump Tower. People who are millionaires have investments, money moves, so not only is this wrong, it's purposefully ignorant.

>I want the people with power over me to be people I have a hand in choosing to put there.

You do, you vote, your vote puts people there.

You can be as vague as you want, but we both know you are not in favor of a free market and are trying to hide your authoritarian desires behind muddy water.

>With these capitalists I have no freedom.

That's literally a lie.

>Their wealth is so great they can rig the market to generate them more wealth.

Okay, so here's the problem. You do not like there being rich people. Guess what, the only way to level is through violence., typically that's through socialism. Now you avoid any clarifications, and it's clear that's on purpose. It's obvious you are not here to do anything but apologize rather than actually talk.

I've got dozens of friends who grew up in this neighborhood. I used to party in houses all around this area, then we'd walk to Politics and Prose or American City Diner for hangover food in the morning (long before Comet came around). This whole thing is so fucking stupid.

I was reading Casey, about Reagan's director of the CIA, last weekend. After Carter and the Church hearings dismantled the CIA due to the insane over reach and corruption that was taking place, William Casey rebuilt it with Reagan's blessing. It tripled(ish) in size in the early 80's to something like 15,000 employees. There's a quote in there somewhere in which Casey says something like, "Now the CIA would be in the top 5% of all corporations in the US, given the budget and number of employees." That's entirely due to GOP policy and GOP politics.

So is it possible that there are a large number of people affiliated with the CIA in one of DC's nicer neighborhoods in the NW quadrant favored by well paid government workers? Sure. Does that have anything to do with Comet Ping Pong? No.

The views of the American libertarian party is small government, not the total abolition of the state, as secular government courts have proven effective as neutral mediators. If you want to know more there is a great book called "don't hurt people and don't take their stuff"

https://www.amazon.com/Dont-Hurt-People-Their-Stuff/dp/0062308254

Not really a single source, more of a collection. It also depends on how deep you want to get. Bodybuilding came from the late-19th century belief in 'physical culture', where looking muscular was a side effect of being strong and healthy, not the goal. I don't know if you'd like info on how bodybuilding came to be, or just its history as a gay subculture, but I can give you a few links and some heads up so you can take it where you want.

Most of the info can be found in the Muscle, Smoke & Mirrors series and Completely Queer: The Gay and Lesbian Encyclopedia. But if you don't feel like thesis-level research, then

https://www.t-nation.com/training/dark-side-of-bodybuilding

http://bilerico.lgbtqnation.com/2011/02/a_short_history_of_physique_magazines.php

https://gayinfluence.blogspot.com/2013/05/bob-mizer.html

http://www.menspulpmags.com/2010/10/american-manhood-magazine-didnt-ask-and.html

http://www.musclememory.com/articles/fairyTale.html

should at least get you started. Bodybuilding as a cultural phenomena (as opposed to its roots in 'physical culture') has always had a quiet but tremendously gay backstory. The transition from being strong yet athletic looking to just big muscles was almost exclusively to draw in the underground gay male community and make as much money as possible off of them. I can't find the source ATM, but there were even some photographers (like Mizer above) and magazines that would publish symbols along with pics of the young models; the symbols were codes for what the model was into (muscle worship, posing only, oral only, submissive, etc), as they were also being pimped out to wealthy gay men who read the magazines.

It all continues today (NSFW), though. All you'd need to do is plume the depths of the 'muscle worship' scene, look into the clusterfuck surrounding Kai Greene's infamous grapefruit video, or even just check certain parts of Reddit. Regular users of the now banned SST sub would often trade links to gay cam sites or back-page lists for gay modeling to make a quick buck. Because modern bodybuilding relies entirely on so many various drugs, a lot of bodybuilders and physique competitors (especially the younger ones) rely on either dealing steroids themselves or 'modeling' for gay men to make enough money to compete. It's the most common 'dirty secret' in the entire 'sport'.

> Like what reading? I like to read!

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Sexing-Body-Politics-Construction-Sexuality/dp/0465077145

https://www.amazon.co.uk/d/Books/Bodies-Matter-Discursive-Limits-Sex-Routledge-Classics/041561015X/ref=pd_sim_14_5?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1&refRID=CNDN34DGBXQGMJRNHAEQ

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Sexing-Brain-Lesley-Rogers-2000-06-01/dp/B01HC0RD82/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1481591782&sr=1-2&keywords=sexing+the+brain

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Delusions-Gender-Science-Behind-Differences/dp/1848312202/ref=pd_sim_14_1?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1&refRID=CNDN34DGBXQGMJRNHAEQ

http://bennorton.com/gender-is-not-alone-the-social-construction-of-sex/

http://www.dana.org/Cerebrum/2003/Extreme_Problems_with_Essential_Differences/

would be good places to start, plus numerous other papers, some books and blog posts I don't have quite the google-fu to relocate, and a lot of more tangential stuff. (I originally came to this mostly through the study of the theory of bodies and embodiement in art, as well as my spouse's academic studies in gender and sexuality). In getting to grips with this material and the general position it's important to move away from the facile strawman of the idea that biology is disregarded in a social constructionist view; more profoundly, social constructionists realise that social environment reshapes biology.

>Yeah it is. If you believe trans women only transition because of quote unquote "gender" which is purely social...you're wrong.

But what is a 'gender role'? If you restrict it to something as facile as 'girls like pink' then you can make anything absurd. It's worth remembering that the term 'gender roles' was originally coined by the sexologist John Money to describe the behaviours inhabited by unassigned intersex individuals trying to express a single binary gender identity. From a performative standpoint, gender roles are the entirety of the behaviour with which we signal the gender identity we wish to and are trained to project towards society. To say such things are not bound up in the trans experience is simply wrong; many trans folk experience feelings of dysphoria at being identified as their wrong gender, and lessening of these feelings or even positive counter-feelings at being identified as their correct gender. This is purely a matter of social perception. Therapeutically speaking, people transition because it helps to alleviate their feelings of dysphoria. Whether the underlying cause of the dysphoric state is genetic, epigenetic, foetal or psychological (or even spiritual) or some subtle combination of factors which differs on an individual basis is immaterial to the benefits provided by transition to the majority of those who seriously seek it. This is, it is important to note, only the medically legitimised narrative of the trans experience.

Just a sidenote to this, the Derek he refers to is Derek Black, the son of the creator of Stormfront, godson of David Duke and ex prodigal son of the white nationalist movement. I say ex because he renounced all his racist beliefs and broke free from the movement. A book--written by a Pulitzer-winning WP reporter--just came out about him last month. I really recommend it.

https://www.amazon.com/Rising-Out-Hatred-Awakening-Nationalist-ebook/dp/B078LJKP88/