Commentators offer different theories to explain Biden’s low approval ratings, but many miss the importance of partisan loyalty. Gallup polls show that Biden’s support among Democrats declined from 95% at the start of his presidency to 85% by early 2022. Trump, on the other hand, had lost only 1% of Republicans over a similar time period during his presidency, going from 87% to 86% in approval. What could likely account for Biden’s comparatively worse losses among members of his own party is the insidious influence of what I call the “fan fiction left.”
Increasingly dominant on the internet — particularly social media and the podcast sphere — the fan fiction left imagines an alternative universe where the Republican Party, with its embrace of Trump and his authoritarian tendencies, is not the main problem of American politics. Instead, in this view, the only hindrance to the enactment of just and beneficial public policy is lack of will within the Democratic Party.
Far worse than teenagers writing an extension of their favorite anime series or video game, the fan fiction left encourages its audience, which depending on the writer or podcast often rivals those of mainstream publications and programs, to act in accordance with its weird delusions. Hallucination is central to their magical world of make-believe.
Republicans make up shit based on some random fact and bark it as loudly as possibly and for as long as possible. Massive amounts of barking on media as usual.
Democrats have all the real actual evidence on a plate in front of them and all the power and. … have Merrick Garland etc installed. smfdh!
Would Reps have left the liberal equivalent of Louis de Joy stay if the coin was flipped?.. ez question.
Not to mention that White House counsel, the DOJ and everyone else investigating on his behalf informed him that not only were the fraud allegations were, as Barr put it, bullshit but the scheme to stay in power was illegal.
this fucking nazel-gazy bullshit is such a great example of a smoking gun symptom of the shit we’re talking about in this thread. It’s harmless in and of itself, but when you see this, there’s absolutely 100% some dumb fucking neolib radical centrism afoot
The hyphen continues to serve a dual purpose: it both connects and separates. In justified text, it divides into appropriate syllables a word that lands on a line break, a task that machines have not yet mastered; and it is instrumental in the formation of compounds, where it is famously subject to erosion. Yesteryear’s “ball-point pen” became the “ballpoint,” “wild-flowers” evolved into “wildflowers,” and “teen-age” found acceptance as “teenage” in most outlets (but not in this one).
