Notices by Matthew Sheffield (mattsheffield@mastodon.social)

@Beldarak It's only Trump supporters who cannot see these problems you describe.

Sadly, many of them are totally ignorant about politics (knowing far less about it than many non-Americans) and would have to be personally affected by Musk or Trump in order to know about it.

This short video is the best-yet summary of what tech oligarchs like Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos want to do to societies everywhere.

They want you to own nothing, drop out of school, eat industrial slop, lose your money on shitcoins, and live in terror of 14 trans athletes.

Please share this clip far and wide. Even your normie friends can understand it. The author's site is here: https://www.vezanmatics.com

The #JeffreyGoldberg Signal chat is the latest instance of how everything Republican elites say is in bad faith.

After they pretended for months to be outraged at Hillary Clinton's emails, they deliberately tried to evade records laws and then accidentally included a journalist.

This came just hours after Trump claimed that he didn't sign an executive order bearing his signature -- right after Republicans claimed Joe Biden was a puppet who didn't sign his own executive orders.

Everything they say is fake.

That last graphic is critical.

Trump's puppet master Elon Musk is killing tens of thousands of jobs nationwide for an issue that almost no one cares about. Just 3% of Americans say spending is the country's biggest problem.

Trump is ignoring what people want him to focus on.

🧵Most voters everywhere do not follow politics much. They don't need to because in most countries, the political parties who have power are not wild extremists like the Republican Party is.

Thus far, Trump's reckless budget cuts have affected agencies that don't impact most Americans, so they have not cared. This will change with Trump's attacks on the Education Department. Millions of people will be negatively affected by him.

It's a huge mistake to think that policy positions are the basis of voter decisions. Most Republican positions are very unpopular.

What matters much more is how often people hear your pitches. Quantity is much more important than quality.

Propagation is the chief value of right-wing media.

Trump is destroying the American economy. His chaotic and vindictive policies are smothering consumer confidence.

Multiple outlets reporting that remaining USAID staff have been instructed to destroy classified documents.

This is surely a violation of federal record-keeping laws. Will be interesting seeing what the motivation for this policy was. https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/trump-administration/usaid-employees-told-burn-shred-classified-documents-rcna195853

Far-right activist Charlie Kirk of Turning Point USA threatens universities after Trump illegally canceled $400 million in federal funds to Columbia University.

"That is just the start. For all these campuses that don't treat us well at Turning Point USA, and you guys restrict freedom of speech, your funding might be cut soon."

Kirk is a personal friend of Trump and his children. This is intimidation.

Matt Taibbi is one of those right-wing grifters where the line between deceit and incompetence is perpetually blurred.

His insane paranoia against fact checkers distorts his perception, but his total dishonesty makes him unable to make even basic corrections.

Ultimately, you can't tell where the incompetence and the dishonesty begin and end.

Via @Noupside https://reneediresta.substack.com/p/an-object-lesson-in-bad-faith-media

Democracy is dependent on an informed public. This is why Trump and his underlings attack journalism and education so much.

They need ignorance to win elections. They need to be the only source of information to followers.

Political control requires factual relativism. Cynicism and anarchy are the parents of totalitarianism. https://davidrothkopf.substack.com/p/the-opposite-of-woke-isdespotism

For decades, reactionary extremists pretended to be "free speech absolutists," but this was always a lie.

The latest proof of this is how the Trump administration is trying to ban private scientists from using basic words that it thinks encourage leftism, horribly politically correct words like:

barrier
Gulf of Mexico
black
female
mental health
women
gender

This is the most sweeping censorship operation in US history, carried out by supposed "free speech" people https://archive.ph/Bxd91

Right-wingers are pretending to care about women's sports even as the Trump administration is literally discouraging scientists from using the words 𝘧𝘦𝘮𝘢𝘭𝘦 and 𝘸𝘰𝘮𝘦𝘯.

It's important that far right parties not be labeled as "populist."

Not only is it inaccurate on account of the fact these groups advocate policies that are harmful to the public rather than helpful, by calling them "populist," you make them more attractive to nonpolitical people https://foreignpolicy.com/2024/06/28/far-right-populism-france-rn-le-pen-trump-united-states-modi-india-majoritarianism/

Trump's team is looking to return to an untrammeled Great Power foreign policy and unlimited spheres of influence.

This is the bigger picture behind Trump's dictator fluffing. He's a crazy old man, but his handlers have actual ideas they are moving towards.

They are willing to trade a unipolar world in which the US is constrained by international agencies for unlimited regional power. https://foreignpolicy.com/2025/02/21/samuel-huntington-fukuyama-clash-of-civilizations/

Nikki Haley just accused Donald Trump of spouting "classic Russian talking points. Exactly what Putin wants."

She should have listened to Trump's favorite poem, "The Snake" from during his 2024 campaign.

Lots of comparatively more moderate independents and Republicans lied to themselves about Democrats being "extreme." We're paying the price now.

The Southern Baptist Convention just announced that it's going to stop the creation of a database of abusive pastors.

Remember this next time you hear a QAnon evangelical pretending to care about child trafficking. It's all a lie. https://religionnews.com/2025/02/18/abuse-database-is-no-longer-a-priority-for-southern-baptist-leaders/

🚨Tonight, Fox host Jesse Watters said the quiet part aloud. He spoke openly about how right wing media controls its audience. 🚨

The right cannot persuade through reason, so they flood the zone through repetition.

"What you're seeing on the right is asymmetrical. It's like grassroots guerrilla warfare. Someone says something on social media, Musk retweets it, Rogan podcasts it, Fox broadcasts it, and by the time it reaches everybody, millions of people have seen it. It's free money."

Yes!

Major Democratic donors have effectively gone on strike against the party for its refusal to speak clearly, loudly, and frequently against Donald Trump's criminality.

Cutting off the money spigot is going to be the only way to force action https://archive.is/lUQbe

#uspol