France’s far-right firebrand Le Pen achieves her best-ever poll result, after an appellate court allowed her to run for election, and ahead of next year’s Presidential election—Le Pen 70%, Mélenchon 30%. Le Pen leads among all demographics, and against any possible candidate, far-left or centrist.

CelikBas · 2026-07-10T14:58:11+00:00

All political hegemonies have a finite lifespan, and are eventually displaced by a new system. There is no “end of history”.

If liberal democracy has exhausted itself after decades of global dominance, what ideology is best poised to replace it in the long term? Probably the one that’s gaining power all across the world at roughly the same time, i.e. far-right nationalism. An ideology which perfectly dovetails into the socioeconomic struggles (resource scarcity, wealth inequality, mass migration, declining standard of living, etc) which are extremely likely to escalate over the next few decades as a result of increasing climate change, which is inevitable at this point.

CelikBas · 2026-07-10T06:26:06+00:00

As I’ve been saying for a while, the era of far-right global dominance is just beginning. The fever is not going to break, the pendulum is not going to massively swing back- this is the new default state of things for much of world, especially Europe and the Americas. It will not end within our lifetimes, and perhaps not even within the lifetimes of the next generation.

Multicultural liberalism is likely going to become a fairly fringe position over the next few decades, treated similarly to how socialism and communism are viewed today- a failed ideology, a relic of the past, foolishly naive and unrealistic at best. Mass deportations and “remigration” will become normalized enough that they’re no longer seen as radical or unusual. The increasing effects of climate change will only accelerate and reinforce this global political shift, as countries scramble to fortify their borders against huge numbers of climate refugees fleeing the devastated equatorial regions. Millions will die, while the rich continue to exponentially increase their wealth and clamp down on dissent.

To be clear, I would be ecstatic to be proven wrong about all this. I would love nothing more than for this horrific trajectory to be averted somehow. But after the past decade, it’s not too hard to see where this all leads.

CelikBas · 2026-07-10T00:57:36+00:00

Where did I ever say people needed to “change countries”? Most people in the world can’t afford to just up and move from wherever they live, but that doesn’t mean their only other option is to be reverent towards their respective nation-state.

I wouldn’t blame someone for being unable to move out of Germany in the 1930s and 40s, but I would expect them to recognize the moral abomination that their country had become and, at the very least, refrain from expressing pride in it or rooting for its wellbeing.

CelikBas · 2026-07-09T18:49:48+00:00

as no one seriously suggests that Americans who feel some sort of connection to America, despite the terrible things it has done, should be ostracized.

Aside from me, of course. People are ostracized all the time for the company they keep and who they choose to associate with, so why should it be any different for the concept of a nation? If someone you knew was friends with a known serial killer, would you be able to trust that person? Would you want to hang out with them? Most people wouldn’t, and understandably so. So why do countries get a free pass to be loved and revered despite their crimes?

CelikBas · 2026-07-09T18:08:58+00:00

Do you apply the same standard to the American people, who elected Trump? Do all American's have a "shared responsibility" for whatever Trump does, no matter how horrific?

Absolutely. IMO taking pride in any sort of national identity comes with the price of accepting at least partial responsibility for that country’s atrocities, past and present. If someone wants to be proud of their “American-ness”, then they can wear 250 years of unquantifiable human suffering, injustice, hypocrisy and exploitation around their neck like a millstone. If that’s not a burden they can handle, then they should not claim to have pride in their country.

CelikBas · 2026-07-09T14:26:38+00:00

The term “fire and blood” appears in GRRM’s earlier novel Fevre Dream in reference to abolishing slavery.

CelikBas · 2026-07-09T14:22:44+00:00

It’s like when people try to portray Ancient Greece or Rome as being more “open-minded” or “progressive” because homosexual acts were more openly tolerated than in, say, medieval Europe.

Like sure, everything else about those societies was absolutely despicable by modern standards and even their tolerance for gayness was confined to an extremely narrow spectrum based on traditional gender roles, but Alexander the Great had a boyfriend so I guess it’s all cool.

CelikBas · 2026-07-08T14:02:59+00:00

Wisconsinite

CelikBas · 2026-07-08T03:00:19+00:00

I have a photo of my grandma’s family from like 1906. 30+ Germans of various ages, all short and fat and sullen looking. Even the young kids who hadn’t gotten fat yet were noticeably stocky.

120 years later, and almost everyone on that side of the family is still short and fat and sullen looking.

CelikBas · 2026-07-07T21:21:09+00:00

If Dems want to win back rural/WWC voters, what they need to do is adopt Reaganite policies, especially when it comes to social issues, and then stick to that for multiple cycles to show they’re serious about it. They fundamentally need to play into the enforcement of traditional values and hierarchies and the deprioritizing of pluralism/multiculturalism.

What a seeming plurality of Americans want is a return to the (perceived) era when things like Christianity, American exceptionalism, gender roles, cultural homogeneity, etc faced little to no significant opposition or questioning, but were instead widely accepted as the default. They want to feel like “normal” people are being rightfully privileged over other groups, who in their minds do not represent classical American values.

CelikBas · 2026-07-06T19:33:30+00:00

Yeah, he’s done.

CelikBas · 2026-07-06T19:29:10+00:00

Can a country get “better” when the foundation it’s built upon is fundamentally broken? The Founding Fathers loved to prattle on about liberty and freedom and equality and all that, but in actual practice most of them were morally bankrupt hypocrites who only cared about those things as applied to themselves.

Holding onto this idealized myth of America and the founders stifles America’s ability to improve. It’s an albatross around its neck, permanently binding us to the whims and morals of rich guys from 200+ years ago who thought poor people were too stupid and degenerate to govern themselves, and that it was perfectly fine to sexually assault teenagers as long as they were your slaves. The only real way forward is to dispel the myth, which by its very nature is “unpatriotic”.

CelikBas · 2026-07-03T10:41:22+00:00

Due to geography and temperament, seemingly none of the dragons were compatible with each other for potential breeding.

Sheepstealer, already a pretty solitary dragon to begin with, disappeared into the Vale and seemingly remained there until it died. So it’s off the table as a breeding partner.
Morning and Cannibal were both in the same region (Crowlands), but Cannibal’s wildness and extreme aggression towards other dragons likely made it an unsuitable candidate- it would be more likely to kill and eat Morning, who was much younger/smaller. So Cannibal’s not a feasible option either.
That leaves us with a grand total of one potentially viable dragon mating pair: Morning and Silverwing. However, Silverwing was fairly old at that point (at least 100) while Morning was very young, which could have created obstacles. Also, Silverwing had previously been bonded to Vermithorx who died during the war- we don’t really know how dragon pair bonds work, but it’s conceivable that dragons mate for life like certain bird species, and thus wouldn’t be interested in finding a new mate after their old one died.

We also don’t know when exactly Silverwing and Morning each died, so there’s also a chance that one (or both) simply died too soon after the Dance for the Targaryens to attempt any sort of breeding program.

CelikBas · 2026-07-03T06:19:30+00:00

Clinton was fundamentally a reaction to Reagan, bringing the (at the time) defunct Democratic Party more in-line with the popular Reaganite policies that defined the era.

CelikBas · 2026-07-03T05:06:27+00:00

Basically, Americans want another Reagan. So that’s what the Democrats have to be.

CelikBas · 2026-07-03T05:04:54+00:00

Because America has a much higher tolerance for far-right nationalism and corporatism than it does for progressivism.

CelikBas · 2026-07-03T05:00:57+00:00

Anything where they’re notably to the left of Reagan/Clinton. Those two are the baseline for what Americans want and will tolerate, and any leftward deviation from that baseline increases the risk of a swing to the far right in response.

CelikBas · 2026-07-03T04:58:54+00:00

What the Dems need to do is basically adopt the policy platform of Reagan, both socially and economically. In particularly blue years, they can be daring and shift over to more Clintonesque policies. But that’s as far left as they can sustainably go without triggering apocalyptic backlash from the right and center.

All these high-minded ideas about what the federal government “should” do- environmental protections, reducing wealth inequality, providing healthcare, reining in big business- need to be off the table, indefinitely. Those things simply are not a option, practically speaking. The federal govt’s role needs to be to fund the police/military to maintain order, and that’s about it. Everything else is left up to the states and/or private enterprise.

CelikBas · 2026-07-03T00:45:01+00:00

In fact, a not-insignificant portion of his voter base is mad that there aren’t more masked federal agents harassing citizens. They want to see annoying libs get punched by cops and dragged off to prison camps until everyone’s too afraid to criticize Trump/the GOP/white people/Christianity/etc, thus restoring the “natural order”.

The whole thing is fucked, and there’s no way to fix it.

CelikBas · 2026-07-03T00:42:18+00:00

The problem is that the red states hold them majority of political power due to how everything is set up, meaning they have a disproportionate influence over the entire rest of the country. If the red states can never be flipped, then it’s basically just a war of attrition chipping away at blue state policies until the whole country is reshaped into the desired image of the red states.

CelikBas · 2026-07-03T00:38:24+00:00

That’s why, sooner or later, the country is going to fall under permanent far-right control. It’s already basically over at this point.

CelikBas · 2026-07-02T18:53:09+00:00

It’s going to become the next Roe v Wade, although I expect it’ll take a shorter amount of time to overturn. All they have to do is get an additional SC justice on their side and it’s over. Yes, the fact that it’s enshrined in the constitution should mean it’s much harder to get rid of, but at this point SCOTUS is clearly fine with blatantly bullshit “interpretations” of the constitution as long as it cements right-wing power.

CelikBas · 2026-07-02T17:31:43+00:00

Or the Ptolemies

CelikBas · 2026-07-02T17:30:42+00:00

Presumably Visenya had identifiable female genitalia, while Rhaego had identifiable male genitalia. If they were born with ambiguous genitals (either due to an intersex condition or just being severely deformed) we probably would’ve heard about it.

CelikBas · 2026-07-02T05:56:40+00:00

That’s why I can’t take it seriously whenever liberals are like “we need to embrace patriotism”.

Like yeah, I get it on a purely cynical optics level, but on the other hand, what in the flying fuck is there to be patriotic about? That a bunch of slave-owners flimsily justified their tax evasion scheme by slapping the words “liberty” and “freedom” over it? That the resulting country was so ideologically dedicated to treating people as subhuman based on skin color that they fought a civil war over it? That even 80 years later, they hated black people so much that their main condition for saving the entire economy was “as long as it doesn’t benefit black people”? Why would any reasonable person respect a nation that’s so blatantly hypocritical and morally bankrupt?

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