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Tim McFarlane Studio's avatar

Great analysis. The highs they get from the sadomasochistic thrill of living out their power fantasies are part of why trying to reason with them is a lost cause.

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Adeline Koh, Ph.D.'s avatar

Thank you! It’s thrill both from dominating and being dominated. I feel like there are primal impulses here that we can’t really reason our way out of, so it’s exactly as you describe.

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Tim McFarlane Studio's avatar

You’re welcome, and yes, those primal impulses are now backed by having control of one of the world’s richest economies and militaries. Like with porn, where the same level of eroticism will get boring to some people, we’re dealing with potentially unchecked power that comes with the need for even more and greater highs. It’s only been three months, we likely haven’t seen anything, yet, unfortunately.

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Adeline Koh, Ph.D.'s avatar

Yeah. This is exactly why I went back to read texts about German Fascism to understand what’s going on here. Some heartening stuff I haven’t written about yet is that when I read these old texts I couldn’t recognize what’s going on now in them exactly. As in - American fascism doesn’t have the discipline, order and cunning as German fascism did. It’s a lot more chaotic, disorganized, and unintelligent. And in these differences, I believe, the resistance has opportunity.

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Tim McFarlane Studio's avatar

Totally agree. There are chinks in the armor, but we have to be ready to take advantage of them.

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Lauren Gallo's avatar

So apt! Brilliant analysis.

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Adeline Koh, Ph.D.'s avatar

Thank you. Much appreciated — sometimes these posts give me pause before I publish them. The kind words keep me going.

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SLUTTY FOUNDER's avatar

You always manage to connect the dots. Happy to see this post do well ✨

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Adeline Koh, Ph.D.'s avatar

Thank you for your Muaddi heels analysis which helped me think through this ✨

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