Wonderful piece from Timothy Burke about how Trump-Musk are destroying the very power they want to wield,…

Wonderful piece from Timothy Burke about how Trump-Musk are destroying the very power they want to wield, right under their own feet. This is what happens when ‘elections/popularity = democracy’ folk meet the real world. Some highlights. /1 https://t.co/EdMnFVs8ER

This is where the ideological insanity of the US itself, stretching back centuries, of being at perpetual war with the institutions of actually being a country, is reaching its possible endgame. What gives the US power, domestically and internationally, *is* its government. /2 https://t.co/HvWa8RHJ2Z

The more Mump (Musk-Trump) dismantle federal institutions, the more power they give back to the States, to oppose them. None of this is surprising to those who see democracy as active public institutions, rather than elections. Mump is neutering itself at speed. /3 https://t.co/mOLARsCI5E

There it is. All the social media wailing and gnashing of teeth about fascists and Nazis and tyrants is just more populism, from the losing team(s). In REALITY, by destroying the State, these imbeciles are literally ‘dickless’, in terms of power. /4 https://t.co/oj2Hhp9tBg

Whom the Gods would destroy, they first make mad. Right now that’s Trump and his team, AND all the other opposing teams yelling ‘fascists’ and ‘Nazis’ at them. All adolescent team sports. Irrelevant to what’s actually going on, in REALITY. /5

I’ve Tweeted about this for years. Reality does not give a shit what we think or feel. About anything. It could not care less who we elect or don’t elect. Victory in an election is a momentary victory in popularity team sports. That’s all it is, nothing more. /6

It has no meaningful impact on actual realities of life or existence. Once you surrender to popularity and team sports *as* reality, you’re blind to actual reality. I’ve never believed the apocalyptic narratives around the populist insurgency. /7

It’s ‘dickless’ chest-beating hot air, all of it, from all sides. All that matters is victory for the team. Substituting society with social media has dramatically accelerated this insanity. /8

We’re living inside the bubble of these platforms. They’re making us blind to obvious truths. The Trumpian project will collapse under the weight of its own incompetent, dickless insanity. /9

Yes it will do tremendous damage in the process. But electing somebody different wasn’t going to prevent it. Once we handed over dealing with reality to popularity contests, the die was cast. That will always end the same way. In catastrophe. /10

And that, finally, is all that will bring change. Catastrophe. That’s all of history, alas. All that ruptures our obsessive self-interested status games. Only monarchies and churches ever slowed this cyclic destruction, by erecting centralised status hierarchies. /11

To manage status games, to open some breathing space for attention to reality itself, for a while. Government itself appeared in this breathing space. Dismantling it will break everything. Nothing else will be a big enough bitch slap to our eternal striving for status. /end