Francis Fukuyama (author of The End of History) has a new article discussing how the neoliberal, democratic permanent future he imagined isn't happening after all with the re-election of Trump

I'm pretty sure I read something of his on Persuasion, the ultimate site for centrist !grillers. Oh look, Yascha just interviewed him a couple days ago. I gotta hear that.

>be Francis

>dedicate your life to free market reforms and neoliberalism

>help drive a stake through the heart of communism

>zoomers who have never read a book call you a socialist cute twink

Noted free trade advocate Karl Marx

he's a neocon not a liberal

"hitler wasnt a socialist too. real socialism has never been tried. I'm the only true socialist in the world and you will see real socialism only by selecting me as world leader and implementing true socialism" - every socialist ever

Fukuyama is not for "central planning" what the frick are you on about

with Socialist Characteristics

So every government on Earth that has some kind of central planning (the vast majority of them) is socialist now? What is this "core" you're talking about? Do you think you think the billionaires in China are socialist because they work closely with the CCP?

Incredible levels of mental gymnastics over here.

I didn't read past the marsey, and it's not socialist characteristics, but chinese characteristics (which is how China copes with having a massive free market). Where and when has Fukuyama ever supported further historical developments beyond neoliberal crapitalism?

I don't

Well duh, he was a champion for it before it had a common name.

Yeah, and I'm old enough to remember 2000. Bush arguably stole it with the Supreme Court on his side. I'd like to think with hindsight that I realized chimping out over a difference of a few hundred votes wouldn't help. But I was young and had that feeling that everything is very very important. Jesus Fricking Christ the things I did over girls back then who I can't even remember now. Anyway, lots of us Dems were livid at the election being actually stolen. But nobody was suggesting marching on the capital and shooting people over it. In the years after the election it was something we were butthurt about, but there weren't a bunch of schizo conspiracy theories made up. (Well Naomi Klein probably was but she was a joke even back then.) Everyone just said that one Supreme Court ruling (which I can't remember now) was wrong. There were no fantasies about rigged voting machines, ballot stuffing, dead people voting, etc. It was nowhere near the same as league as MAGA tards after 2020.

In 2016 even that didn't happen. People were mad. Some may have suggested that the vote was rigged, but they were on the fringe. You get all your knowledge of this from the Daily Wire, Breitbart, and *Fascist Catboy Weekly". I get mine from being immersed in leftoid culture back then. (in fact 2016 is when I finally completely renounced any affiliation with Democrats, cut these people out of my life, and became a dramanaut.) Election rigging was not something that was really talked about. I mean to the extent that I don't remember anyone talking about it ever. I was in with the most vile GenX upper middle/upper class crowd so I could see say what they were saying to each other internally. these are the same people who:

Well I got some stories but I want to develop this as a major drama project at some point, so I'll just say these are the people who were convinced that the New York Times (especially Maggie Haberman) was actively trying to get Trump elected. Maybe some said voter ID laws or something is why they lost, but I don't recall them ever challenging the actual votes that came in. I recall literally nothing about the election being stolen and I was cataloguing r-slurred behavior to use on rDrama.

SHOW MORE

>Democrats spent 6 years telling everyone the result was illegitimate

No they didn't you r-slur. Certainly not to the extent Trump did. Hilary conceded the night of.

>because it probably was

im actually curious if it spun off from the left-wing or if it developed "independently" or maybe even before the left wing

They've got their own anti-government/conspiracy theory traditions going way way back:

• The John Birch Society, wasn't anti-government in principle but when you're saying that Eisenhower is a secret communist, that's pretty anti-government. They were pushing all kinds of conspiracy theories and had a pretty large audience. Before that McCarthy, who I don't think had any real ideology but he was an opportunist who spread the cancer of conspiracy theorist thinking.

• Southerners who hadn't gotten over the Civil War. Rightoids don't like to talk about this, but if you read any detailed history or watch media from the early-mid 1900s southerners still hated the US Army, blaming it for their precious plantations getting burned down. As late as WW2 there's jokes about them trying to dodge the draft because they hate the Army. (This is why you see so many southerners in the Navy in this era. That was considered okay.) They even protected that black girl going to school in Little Rock! And of course they hated the FBI since it infiltrated and destroyed their organizations like the KKK.

• Rural westerners and southerners who didn't want the government interfering with them. There were lots of hillbillies who just wanted to do subsistence farming and didn't want or need no government poking around in their lives. They just wanted to farm and go to their weirdo hick church. Watch the first half of Sergeant York if you want to understand. Many of these people ended up being forced to give up the lifestyle and move to urban areas, but they kept some of that same spirit with them. These would be the crazier side of people who supported Barry Goldwater in 1964.

• Wacko religious fanatics who talk more about politics than religion. Long before televangelists they had Father Coughlin on the radio.

• People obsessed with gold. FDR confiscated everyone's gold in one of his most blatant violations of the constitution. This was a legit reason to be pissed at the bankers and the government that worked for them. If you go back far enough, there's William Jennings Bryan and the Free Silver movement of the late 1800s that pitted farmers against the banks and all the forces of capitalism. That may seem like a long time, but I know people who knew people who were adults back then. This stuff does percolate through the generations.

• Legitimate grievances sane people had with real conspiracy theories. You want to get a job in the theater in the 1930s? Well you'd better be a card-carrying commie because otherwise you're screwed. You want to get a job in a city on the East Coast? Better be Catholic. Or if it's on the docks, depending on the city you'll need a good word from the mafia or the commies. On the Great Plains? There's gonna be a church that pulls all the strings in the county, maybe the Swedish Baptists or God knows who. In Portland? Everyone knows that the [sheriff-turned-mayor]](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_Theatre_Project) is part of the Mafia-affiliated gang that runs the city. People were way more aware of the actual conspiracies screwing them over in daily life so naturally they're going to start hating the religious/ethnic group that screwed them and pass that on to future generations.

Yes. As you can see from their pathetic attempts to chase after this crowd. It turns out there's actually very few of these people. I won't deny that Trump and the movement behind him has done a lot of good things for this country. The neocons did far more damage to this country than Trump did and I'm glad they've been pretty much annihilated.

Except CNN keeps bringing John Fricking Bolton on as an expert on foreign policy. This draft-dodging chickenhawk has been wrong about everything. How in the frick does that make him an expert? Unironically you could go back and compare what I said about invading Iraq in high school versus what he said and it turned out I was completely right and he was completely wrong. Why in the frick don't they just have me on as an expert? The establishment left's fascination with Republicans who defect to their side because they have a personal beef with Trump is bewildering to me.

No, of course I didn't. I've read two of his books, talked to him in person, and concluded that he's full of shit. You can see that in the OP, which helped me connect the dots.

Obviously, to some degree, I'm fricking around because I love seeing these r-slurs go all up in arms. But the man's a warmonger. He's an enemy of liberty. He believes in the efficacy of central planning--to the point where one government can invade a country and magically create a modern, Western-style democracy. It's delusional. Yet somehow, this guy is a """genuine""" proponent of free markets and neoliberalism and not at all related to socialism. I don't know why the cute twink !commenters ( Hello!) think he's this free market reform, "neoliberal" lover of capitalism. He isn't even though he says he is because you need to read what he says and listen to what he actually believes. You'll then see the contradictions.

the institutions should have thought about that before destroying public trust.