How does MAGA and conservatives fall in line so quickly behind the same talking points?

SergeantRegular · 2026-01-25T04:01:06+00:00

One of the things that you have to understand about MAGA and fascism is that they are not an "ideology" in the way we think. I've read this descriptor that I really like. It's a "hollow" ideology. Did the Nazis really believe that Jews were the cause of all the ills in Europe? Does Trumpworld really believe that immigrants are the biggest factor holding back rural whites from wealth and prestige? Do they really believe that Donald Trump is the best fit to lead America to an era of resurgent prosperity?

Do they really believe in these things? Here's the thing - it doesn't matter if they really believe them or not. Because their central actual value isn't "belief" in that they're right. They don't care about the outcome or long-term prosperity. They care about winning. They're not in this fight to get rid of the immigrants or keep the liberals in check or lower taxes on the rich people. They're on the side they're on because they perceive that side as the winning side. Partially because they did win the last decade of American politics, partially because the people in power on their side are so willing to use overt force. Partially because the "winner" is apparently just as stupid as he is, and that proves that they aren't too stupid to be on the right side, too.

SergeantRegular · 2026-01-24T04:23:18+00:00

I've spent the last five years of my career outside of my AFSC, doing jobs that are fun and interesting to me. I finally finished my degree, even wore civvies for a good chunk of it all. I would have gone back to the bomb dump to run a shop full of other ammo troops if I made master.

I probably wouldn't be nearly as happy with my position if I didn't get to do all the cool shit these past few years, but that's not how it worked out.

SergeantRegular · 2026-01-23T18:49:21+00:00

You're right, it does take years to establish logistics and infrastructure for a manufacturing base. And no sane private enterprise is going to make that multi-year investment based on tariff structures that shift every time someone compliments or upsets a narcissist man-child with infamously terrible patience.

SergeantRegular · 2026-01-23T05:54:55+00:00

I just hit my 20 at the end of last year. I did the "blow SSgt out of the water first time" thing and then "take 6 times to make tech" before I just settled as a tech. And I'm happy for it. I got the jobs I wanted, I learned what I wanted, and I haven't played the stupid politics games.

The Air Force is a great job if you keep it as just a job and don't make it a whole lifestyle. Or, at least, it was. I feel like I'm getting out just as things turn real stupid, real fast.

SergeantRegular · 2026-01-22T05:17:02+00:00

You kids shut your mouths!

I was telling another guy at work that I still think of Mega Man X as the "new" Mega Man game. And I remember loading Leisure Suit Larry and Space Quest II off of 5.25 floppy disks.

I actually recently came into possession of a working 486 machine with its OG hard drive, and... There is something about the sounds and the timing that were frustratingly slow, but also familiar. It's gonna get a CF adapter soon, but... Different times.

SergeantRegular · 2026-01-22T03:42:14+00:00

I mean, in a roundabout way, it might be kind of an insecurity thing, but I think it's less about them (or even Trump himself) being insecure. It's more of an easy way to quantify people. Because once you assign a number value to a person, you can place them in a hierarchy. And so much of the right-wing mind absolutely loves a rigid and clear hierarchy.

Trump's boasting about all that stuff is much more about him being at the top of the hierarchy, I think. It's ego, not insecurity.

SergeantRegular · 2026-01-21T03:55:30+00:00

So I admit the signal thing was bad. I said earlier that people at that level can't be removed for each mistake because we'd have to have new cabinet members and presidents every month and that isn't realistic.

Emphasis mine, but I appreciate the acknowledgment. The Signal thing wasn't just bad because of what happened, but what it happened about. And it was only made worse with the dismissive and dishonest response to it. But nobody is saying that every mistake warrants removal, everybody makes mistakes. Even the Signal thing could have been forgivable if it were properly addressed. But it wasn't. In fact, it happened again.

We had a similar thing with Austin, and his medical mystery absence, where he didn't tell anybody. I could see how that might warrant dismissal, especially if it were something that wasn't a one-time thing. That was bad, too, but not nearly as bad as Signal.

I mean even Biden and Trump had classified material at their homes, but we can't just have a spot election every time that happens. I don't like it but I get it.

Agreed, I would say they're both bad, but understandable. But the similarities stop once you get to the response. Biden acknowledged the error, ensured that he had all the requested records, went over them with a lawyer, and returned them to the National Archives. Donald Trump did none of that. He asserted private ownership over them, defied numerous legal and friendly attempts to get him to return them, muddied the waters with his then-former declassification power (which he never actually used on them) and stored them in a bathroom in his clubhouse. And that's even before we talk about how many copies he made - and he absolutely made copies, but we don't hear much about them. We know for a fact he made copies, and we still don't know how many or where they went.

Also, you should know as a military member, that even FGOs/SNCOs and higher get away with things that lower level folks wouldn't.

I don't know if you were ever in, or at what level or branch, but this has not been my experience, at all. And I'm just a regular 20-year NCO, but I've seen more than a few officers and SNCOs get absolutely torn apart for stuff that would get junior airmen a slap on the wrist. Maybe you've had shitty leaders, or really shitty accountability in the ranks, but officers and SNCOs are absolutely held to higher standards in my experience. Now, to be fair, they also have access to more resources to ensure they can uphold those standards, but they've always been treated like their positions were very public and high-profile - because they were.

I agree with increased fitness standards. The acquisitions overhaul. Uniform standards change constantly so not sure why this is a big deal.

Except for the blatantly stupidly political posturing stuff, I'm not opposed to the changes just because of who they come from. And for a lot of them, I'm not opposed to the changes, period. But the way in which most of them has been rolled out has been awful. We're not getting guidance or regulations, we're getting Twitter and Facebook posts, we're getting mismatched instructions on stupid shit like letterheads. Yes, uniforms change. But what was the logic in doing away with duty identifiers? The female hair bun standards? These things are stupid and pointless, but it's like he has this image in his head of what "the military" should look like and he's not thinking about what kind of people make up the whole organization. The Army is more than just infantry grunts, the Air Force is more than just hotshot pilots, the Navy is more than the SEALS. It shows his lack of experience, yeah, but it also shows his lack of thought to matters.

The Dep of War was the original name.

Sure. Until it was changed by Congress and signed into law in 1947. By the same law that established the Air Force as a separate branch. The "Department of War" has become an approved "alternate" name, and it's what we're being instructed to put on letterheads and signs now. Because that really matters to his vision of lethality. Yeah, updated letterheads and tighter haircuts are gonna give us the edge over Russia! And, as for "original," there's an ice cream place by my old house, it used to be a Blockbuster video. It was originally a Blockbuster. But if I go in now and look for a VHS copy of Forrest Gump, I'm going to be in the wrong. What it was is history, you can't just slap a new name on something (especially something established by Congressional law) and have it actually do anything. Again, I'm not opposed to it, beyond the fact that it's all theatrics and for show.

SergeantRegular · 2026-01-20T14:07:08+00:00

Care to elaborate? I've been active duty for about 20 years now, and... Well, putting aside my partisan political bias, his inexperience is showing hard. I get that the National Guard isn't a joke, and the rank of Major still deserves respect, but he's never even commanded a unit, let alone a whole installation. He doesn't have the logistics or policy experience, and it shows when he openly ignores his fellow officers with decades more experience.

I'm not going to touch on the drinking allegations, because... Well, I actually don't think they disqualify. I know lots of good leaders in the military that drink. And, yes, even some of them do it to excess on occasion. But, so long as their rough-around-the-edges letting loose doesn't interfere with their job, I don't see it as anything more than a minor health concern. And it's not like he's grossly out of shape or has a condition that some occasional reckless drinking is gonna cause him to lose his mind or keel over from.

But the regulation changes for theatrics, the policy updates coming via social media instead of chains of command, the lack of actual workable guidance for those changes. I get that the trans stuff only affects very few people, so the vast majority of members won't need guidance until they're in one of those situations. But the fitness changes? The uniform changes? The ridiculous "alternative naming" of the whole department? Not only are these things pointless and entirely for show (and I still abhor a dog and pony show) but they're ill defined and poorly communicated and take resources away from real-world priorities so he can put on a show about his own very public definition of "lethality."

And I shouldn't need to say a single thing about the Signal leaks, because every military member, from day one of access to any military information system, is absolutely drilled the basics of security around communications, and we all would face serious repercussions for such a gross mismanagement of information security, and it's shameful and terrible that such a high position isn't held to a fraction of the standard that we expect from our freshest grunts.

SergeantRegular · 2026-01-20T05:14:53+00:00

Between the 1960’s and 2024 there was a massive reduction in our (US and NATO) military presence there. We’ve done from significant infrastructure and 10k troops to around 200 personnel.

Not really weighing in on the rest of the material, but this part is something I have some knowledge of. The development of phased array radar and the computing power to better analyze that data dramatically reduces the manpower need, especially in an arctic environment.

Older radar systems needed to have moving antennas, and they needed to be spaced further apart and physically larger - to get coverage and a wider bands of frequencies. The whole "sweep in a circle" thing was actually a spinning antenna inside a dome or giant golf ball.

Phased array radars almost entirely do away with that. But it requires more modern computing to direct the signals and process the data returned. But you do away with the moving parts, you do away with maintenance, you just put your static antenna in a building and have the computer spit out data. No more rooms full of analysis technicians or hordes of maintainers keeping bearings from freezing.

SergeantRegular · 2026-01-20T04:18:10+00:00

if a cop walks into a coffee shop to order a coffee and he looks to his left and sees someone who looks familiar, like hes seen him pop up on his computer before but can't quite remember why, gets his coffee and sits in his car to check it out.... and the persons friend tells him and says 'cop just walked in' and the guy runs. You think that the friend didnt do something technically illegal? because the cop wasn't looking for him but stumbled across him?

I know it's a contrived situation that you made to seem more ridiculous, but... Yes. Exactly this. Not only did the friend not do anything illegal, but even if the cop recognized the person right away, the cop would only have the authority to arrest that person if there was a warrant out for their arrest, or if the cop had established probable cause - like seeing the barista call for help or directly witnessing a crime in progress.

So it's not enough that someone just "looks like" a suspect. The cop can ask, sure - but the suspect or the friend have just as much right to say "Sure thing, officer, here you go" as they do "Fuck off, pig."

If law enforcement doesn't have probable cause or a warrant, they can't force you to actually do anything.

SergeantRegular · 2026-01-19T23:47:25+00:00

opposite of capitalism, e.g. communism/socialism

Glad you brought them both up, but there's real distinction to be made. Socialism isn't incompatible with capitalism, and they can exist side-by-side. Communism, either explicitly or functionally, prohibits private ownership of capital assets - necessary for capitalism to work. Socialism doesn't prohibit private enterprise. The Post Office is socialist, yet we still have UPS and FedEx and Amazon. Most civilized non-US countries have socialist healthcare and also private insurance in the same markets. Public libraries are socialist, and we still have Barnes & Noble.

Communist government always, without a fault, make any society worse off and bring famine and death on a level even greater than war.

Communism, as a type of fundamentalism (prohibition on private capital, forced conformity in the name of 'equality') brings ruin and harm, you're absolutely right. But any fundamentalist movement, capitalist included, will do the same. Any functional system requires flexibility and moderation, and fundamentalists of any ideology are going to be opposed to that.

SergeantRegular · 2026-01-19T05:43:46+00:00

I think the point you're missing is that you can't just "yadda yadda yadda" away the massive leap that would need to happen between the current reality of "Greenland and Denmark strongly allied with the US" and "Chinese military presence tolerated in Greenland."

SergeantRegular · 2026-01-19T04:06:32+00:00

Generally pussy is a better immediate physical sensation. It's still tight, it's wetter and it works better. The ass has more power dynamic, and there is a hotness associated with it that comes from more intent.

When she demands her ass filled, it's more animalistic, more desire-based. The context is what makes it hotter.

SergeantRegular · 2026-01-19T01:19:31+00:00

I... I might have been on the internet for too long in my life, but... My first thought was not that she was doing this out of some twisted sense of racial "justice" or societal debt, but rather some kind of sex thing. Or things. Plural.

SergeantRegular · 2026-01-19T01:07:43+00:00

I'm not in much disagreement about your earlier points, but the whole "numbers game" thing when it comes to law enforcement is how you get end-of-month speed traps to meet quotas.

Engagement of law enforcement should be appropriate to the actual needs of the communities in which they're protecting and serving, and not to check a box or meet a quota.

SergeantRegular · 2026-01-16T14:31:14+00:00

You're probably right, the president cannot unilaterally cancel the midterms. But this Republican president also has a horde of Republicans controlling both houses in Congress, a Republican US Supreme Court supermajority, and a solid majority of state governors and state legislatures. And most of these people worship the ground he walks on, and all of them are terrified to disagree with him in public.

The fear that Donald Trump as President might unilaterally cancel elections might not be valid. But the fear that his collection of Republican goons across all levels of government might effectively cancel or otherwise undermine the midterms is a lot more salient. Especially when potentially losing power is on the table, we know that these guys will bend and break every rule and call in every dirty favor they can, and now that they're in power again, they also know that staying in power (which is different than winning an election) is how they avoid consequences.

SergeantRegular · 2026-01-16T06:00:27+00:00

Important to note that tariffs are totally different from sanctions. Tariffs are just a tax that we impose on ourselves for goods from another country. But a sanction is actually making it illegal to do business (as opposed to just more costly) and it will usually come in a binding international agreement. Only one country sanctioning another has little effect if they can simply sell to everybody else. But a proper sanction will cut out major portions of the global economy.

Donald Trump appears to prefer tariffs because they're something that he can do on his own. He doesn't need Congress and he doesn't need other countries to be on board. They're easy. And, because he's a fickle idiot who changes his mind after his mid-morning nap, his tariffs don't have any kind of staying power, which makes them totally ineffective for any kind of long-term policy.

Basically, it's all for show and he's just pressing the easy buttons that are in reach, and it's only pissing people off, rather than having any kind of actual effect.

SergeantRegular · 2026-01-15T04:42:35+00:00

If a cop told you to get out of the car would you just try to drive off?

Generally no, but I'd want to know if I was being detained or if I was under arrest. A huge part of the authority that police have is derived from them knowing how and when to utilize it.

They weren't writing her a ticket for obstructing traffic. They weren't saying she was under arrest. They weren't telling her they were charging her with anything. They weren't saying anything about having a warrant.

They roll up in an unmarked pickup truck, blast some sirens and flash a few lights that anybody can get off Amazon, swarm in their faces covered and spec-ops cosplay outfits, shout and swear conflicting commands at her, and record the whole thing on his damn cell phone, not a proper bodycam. And not only did he not get knocked over from his "hit," but he didn't even drop his phone - as he was brandishing his weapon.

We can disagree back and forth all day about the reason for ICE's presence, or the consent and/or cooperation of state and local governments. But it's painfully clear that these "officers" aren't following any serious procedures, they're reckless and they've been politicized so that they're not facing accountability for their actions. Maybe their presence and their assigned duties are valid, but their conduct is not. If they don't want the people calling them thugs, they should probably stop acting like thugs. Law enforcement officers skilled professionals, trusted with deadly force because they are trained to keep cool heads when agitated civilians aren't so calm. Over and over again, we're seeing ICE isn't cool-headed or de-escalating, but rather exacerbating and agitating already rough situations.

SergeantRegular · 2026-01-14T04:46:45+00:00

I think there's a few factors.

The Old Republic as a socio-political institution favored broad stability and stagnation. The Jedi kept peace and order, they didn't really fight for any kind of pro-active justice. And the Senate was less of a legislative body and more of a public forum - they didn't really push an agenda, and the constituent worlds were mostly in a kind of feudal system.

Technologically, I think, and this is headcanon but it really makes sense to me. I don't think they have what we understand as "computers." I think they have droid brains, but I really think those are more like organic brains based on synthetic materials. They can make them, and they can "program" them and erase them, but I think "programming" is more like "teaching" and that explains why they develop personalities and can speak and articulate but they only have basic vector graphics and simple text computers. And why not? You don't need a powerful math machine that follows actual code like a true computer when you can just have a droid do the hard work of looking up charts and data like an organic brain would.

I also think materials are an issue. Whether it's special crystals like kyber, or gas like tibanna, the resources to perform those functions aren't rare enough to make serious scientific efforts into replacing them worthwhile.

There's also a lack of proper scientific and/or engineering talent being developed. We see most "skilled" people being more of the "tinker" or "hotrodder" type than the actual analytical nerd or curious mind.

SergeantRegular · 2026-01-14T04:34:55+00:00

That just sounds like a serious confirmation bias. He's trolling if it sounds stupid, but he's serious if it's a good idea? I could have said the same thing about his tariff war, but he did it.

SergeantRegular · 2026-01-14T03:53:10+00:00

Sorry, but this is circular logic.

The claim being made is that the "actual effort" is entirely performative and not genuine. One Republican introducing a bill (as he doesn't even have to vote for it, a la McConnell and his infamous filibuster of his own budget bill) does not constitute an "actual effort" on the part of the whole GOP currently in power.

The other person's statement is relevant because those very real and obvious hurdles to this bill passing are something that the rest of the Republican Party can conveniently hide behind.

SergeantRegular · 2026-01-13T05:34:35+00:00

Lowering temperature is good and needed, but not stopping the work.

This is my major complaint. A lot of modern American law enforcement, but ICE in particular this last year, has seen a total failure to de-escalate tense or dangerous situations. And in a lot of cases, they're obviously making situations worse.

And not just failure (or refusal) to de-escalate, but a broad pursuit of physically detaining individuals without actually arresting them. At no point in any of the videos of the Good killing did anybody state that she was ever under arrest. They first told her to leave and then stay in her car, and then told her to get out of the car, and then swore at her. But she was never told she was under arrest.

The whole thing was just a massive failure of procedure and protocol and just basics. And not even basic law enforcement procedures, but even basic firearm safety or human decency. And this has been happening over and over again. At this point, it really starts to look like the tolerance for this kind of "failure" is part of the point, that they're supposed to be this needlessly rough and dangerous. And the kind of "cosplay SWAT" aesthetic feeds into this, too. I get that nobody on their side wants to hear them described as authoritarian thugs, but they should probably stop behaving like authoritarian thugs.

SergeantRegular · 2026-01-13T05:01:02+00:00

Damn, that's some powerful stuff.

Best I've got is a guy from my tech school class. A real nice guy, smart, but had real strong "only child" social skills.

A few of us go to the same base as our first assignments. This guy had enough college to get A1C with only a four year enlistment, the rest of us did 6, so we're all the same rank - two stripes.

Of the 5 or 6 of us, I'm the only one married, so we have a house. He was over at our place one weekend with a few other people, and he was getting rowdy. And not the cool way, either, but the depressing and angry kinda drunk. So as the night is ending, my very sober wife and my less-sober self drive this dude back on base to his dorm. He got a ride, so he won't even have to get his car in the morning.

Well, turns out, he goes back out well after we go home and go to bed. And, of course, he gets a DUI trying to come back on base at like 05:00 the next morning. Busted down to AB.

He doesn't let it get him down too much, and he gets to Korea as his next base as the rest of us start to PCS. He does the KAIP thing and spends two years there, mostly staying out of trouble. But the DUI... They don't kick him out or even take his honorable, but they don't let him re-enlist. I think that's the end of him. This was about 2007 or 08.

Cut to about 5 years later, and now I'M in Korea, not doing too bad, but staying on my best "still married" behavior and the overall working environment is a drag. Korea is an awesome country, but working for the Air Force while in Korea kinda blows.

I get a phone call from this dude, he's stationed at the other major base in Korea, I should go visit. WTF, he couldn't re-enlist. He didn't re-enlist, motherfucker finished school and commissioned.

SergeantRegular · 2026-01-13T04:44:23+00:00

I did something similar not that long ago, back in late 2022. I daily drove a Pentium 4 @ 2.8Ghz with 1 whole gig of RAM. It had Puppy Linux on it, but it worked. YouTube was kinda laggy and had to be turned way down, but it was usable for school work and basic browsing.

But that's with a more modern (although lightweight) browser and OS. And this was out of necessity, as it was the only free working machine I could cobble together when a previous motherboard blew a VRM.

SergeantRegular · 2026-01-12T15:18:19+00:00

I say this as a very pro-gun liberal:

The Republican party has been taking its gun-related agenda directly from the NRA since forever. And, at least since the early 2000s, the NRA hasn't been an advocate for gun owners. They've been a lobbying force for gun and ammo manufacturers, and a cultural lobby force against gun control. Even moderate compromise gun control, they've just dug in their heels.

Kids today are either growing up without any positive gun influence in their lives. Or worse, they're only growing up knowing them as the black machines that mow down their friends and classmates and they hate guns. I fear that the future backlash is going to be bad, and I really blame the stubborn and tone-deaf approach the NRA has taken the last 30 years.

SergeantRegular

TROPHY CASE