Chris Bray helpfully points out that Benito Mussolini combed his hair, which is also what Emmanuel Goldstein does:
We’re overproducing hysterical expert-scolds. I keep finding more of them in social media, loud and weirdly nasty, like feral cats in a hay pile. Here comes a shrewd take from Ruth Ben-Ghiat, a history professor at NYU who has a highly marketable sideline as an expert on authoritarianism, responding to some genius-level political analysis from a guy with the requisite Ukrainian flag in his profile:
Observation: Marjorie Taylor Greene wore makeup on television.
Analysis: “That’s what Fascists do.”
See, members of Congress usually go on television in just an old pair of gym shorts and a dirty Schlitz Lite t-shirt, but this one particular person is trying to be Literally Adolf Hitler, so she wore a necklace and some lipstick. Textbook fascism!
Meanwhile, the governor of Florida just said that students in schools should put their phones away until recess, so they can focus on learning. This, too, is precisely identical to blackshirts marching on Rome:
Spend five minutes with this person’s social accounts, if you must, because this is what she does. It’s fascinatingly random, like a lady who lives on a bus bench wandering around the neighborhood describing random objects as Nazis. That’s a Nazi tangerine! That scrap lumber invaded Poland! Discarded juice boxes are Francisco Franco!
Eventually, if you make enough completely random angry noise, you get tenure and a book deal.
Oy. I think she was a customer back when I worked at The Supermarket. Once had a crazy proto-Karen (this was in the days before Karen was a thing) accost me claiming that the bakery’s sugar cookies, specifically the ones that had been iced and frosted to look like ladybugs, were RAAAAAAAAAAAAACIST!!!!!! because they were not, in fact, images of ladybugs, but depicting an African American child eating a watermellon.
I honestly pity them: I can’t imagine what it must be like having to go through life being offended and generally butthurt by every single thing they encounter.
Comment by Raptor — January 25, 2023 @ 11:18
Oh, my. That’s quite the leap of imagination!
It is quite disturbing to think that a lot of people live their entire lives this way, either through lack of correct medication or “naturally” through indoctrination.
Comment by Nicholas — January 25, 2023 @ 11:57