Gadfly

But anything outside Cali, let alone a national presidential run, and he's going to throw an immense fit before shutting it all down. Or there's the more likely possibility, that he'll get bored of this by the end of the summer and we'll never hear about it until he needs an attention boost. 3/3

Starting a 3rd party requires not only patience, but a strict adherence of election law to even get people on the ballot, let alone win seats. If he is serious about this (and he has decent advisors), he would start with running in CA due to their low ballot access threshold. 2/3

Hey, y'all! Just hopping on real quick to note Elon Musk's desire the start a new third party called the America Party. On one hand, congrats on picking the most generic, overused name. On the other, this is never going to happen. 1/3

Fascist Dem Tracker

The past five years have been such a blast and we will keep the past episodes online for as long as we financially can. Also, if you want an occasional dose of Gadfly energy, you can check out my side project at @fascistdemtracker.bsky.social or fdt.beehiiv.com.

Truly, thank you all so much. 4/4

Additionally with *gestures all at America* all of this, its been difficult to focus on history when all my energy wants to focus on the present. As such, we'll be putting Gadfly on indefinite hiatus. If you're a member of the Patreon, we will keep it up, but definitely feel free to unsubscribe. 3/4

In 2023, I was diagnosed with relapsing-remitting multiple sclerosis. I had to re-learn how to type and found it much harder to research topics. Due to this, we switched to an every-two-weeks schedule. This worked for a while, but recently, even this has been too hard to maintain. 2/4

Hey, y'all! Posting today with a bit of sad news.

Oona & I started this pod five years ago and it's been a ridiculous rush ever since. We've met amazing people and the fan base has been truly amazing. That said, matters of personal health have made it harder and harder to create each episode. 1/4

Crud. I thought I switched that over sooner than then.

That should clear up. I started recording on my end on the wrong room setting.

I honestly don't know. I hopped onto the newspapers.com archive and the phrase is a mess to search. I found kind of versions of it from the '50s and '60s, but there are far too many random classified ads to search through to find an exact match. I'd wager that there is, but that's purely vibes based

Stubbs Stec-Spone - Gadfly Hey, y'all! We are back from our holiday hiatus and due to the world just being a ball of chaos, we are focusing on something a bit more whimsical. In the late '90s, the town of Talkeetna, Alaska name...

Hey, y'all! We're back from our holiday hiatus to tell you the story of a cute little cat named Stubbs. In the late '90s the small village of Talkeetna, Alaska made the town bodega cat their mayor. This is the story of not just Stubbs, but of Talkeetna itself.

Does that mantra have some sort of contract deal that requires Democrats to use it at least once a quarter?

When you make eugenicist arguments, a Nazi will happily agree with you.

"So you agree that mentally ill people are dangerous? We both agree that fat people need to be punished? Sounds like we're both disgusted by gay and trans people my friend"

They'll nod along happily as you say Nazi shit.

We failed to stop the rise of fascism. What comes next? How to navigate the future without a map.

We failed to stop fascism's rise. Now it's dancing about on the White House lawn. I don't know how to fix all this but I do know that the shit we've been doing won't get us out of this one.

shatterzone.substack.com/p/we-failed-...

Already there are wannabe local influencers here in Chicago making all-caps posts about ICE raids in neighborhood Facebook groups because their friend saw an unmarked cop car somewhere and they consider that evidence enough to growth-hack off of people's fear. Listen to trusted orgs, not randos.

For a man of God, Raphael Warnock sure seems to be voting like he doesn't believe Hell is real.

Who Goes Nazi?, by Dorothy Thompson

Still probably one of the best pieces ever written about the people who do go Nazi and what that looks like. This is from the 1940s but every time I read it the more I appreciate the game Dorothy Thompson played. 

YouTube video by Chicago Legal Responders Network En Su Casa

Chicago Legal Responders Network has produced a series of short videos about what to do if ICE shows up at your house, stops you while driving, etc. Available in Spanish and English. Please share with those who may find them useful.

Here's what to do if they show up at your house.

The instinct people online have to make a dumb clichéd joke in response to other people suffering in a way that will never affect them is really fucking annoying

Laken Riley Act HR 29/SR 5

Truly hope you can have an equal amount of fire for the 20% of Dems in the House and 40% of Dems in the Senate already lining up to vote for fascist laws.

IMEU Policy Project Post-Election Polling Shows Gaza Cost Harris Votes — IMEU Policy Project

"Hi. My name's Joel and I'm completely disinterested in data. More of a bigoted vibes type guy."

Laken Riley Act HR 29/SR 5

And I wish #resist types cared as much about TikTok as the 20% of Dems in the House & 40% of Dems in the Senate who are already eager to support fascism.

Are these the "working class" politics the center wanted? January 18, 2024

@jesspish.bsky.social raises the relevant questions about the opening salvo on immigrants and the eagerness of Democratic “centrists” to cooperate with what will inevitably prove to be a historic travesty.

substack.com/@sheriffs/no...

Laken Riley Act HR 29/SR 5

It's almost like the law wouldn't have passed unless Democrats voted for it. But hey, that was then. I'm sure there won't be a bloc of Democrats, say 20% in the house and ~40% in the senate, who are going to be reliable votes for fascism going forward

Laken Riley Act HR 29/SR 5

True. Otherwise they'd have to come to terms that 20% of house Dems and 40% of senate Dems think the first fascist bill of the Trump era freaking rules

Voters Broadly Positive About How Elections Were Conducted, in Sharp Contrast to 2020 Trump voters’ skepticism about election administration and the counting of mail-in ballots declined sharply with their candidate’s win.

Also sorry if you've already seen this, but Pew's post election study has some really wild moments. The question at the bottom of this page showing that neither Biden or Harris were able to get a majority of their own voters to like them more than they disliked Trump.

IMEU Policy Project Post-Election Polling Shows Gaza Cost Harris Votes — IMEU Policy Project A poll released Wednesday, January 15, by IMEU Policy Project and YouGov found what few in the Democratic Party have been willing to admit: Vice President Harris lost votes because of the Biden administration’s support for Israel’s genocide of Palestinians in Gaza.

Checking out that study now and holy hell. Have to run some numbers, but this seems to really show that if they didn't support the genocide they could have won. Thanks for mentioning it! Link below for anyone who wants to look too.

Laken Riley Act HR 29/SR 5

Surely they'll stop doing that with the incoming administration ahhh fuck

Laken Riley Act HR 29/SR 5

A bill that over 20% of Democrats in the House voted for and made even worse by 21 Dems in the Senate