US US Politics General 2 - Discussion of President Trump and other politicians

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Should be a wild four years.

Helpful links for those who need them:

Current members of the House of Representatives
https://www.house.gov/representatives

Current members of the Senate
https://www.senate.gov/senators/

Current members of the US Supreme Court
https://www.supremecourt.gov/about/biographies.aspx

Members of the Trump Administration
https://www.whitehouse.gov/administration/
 
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I mean your not wrong but like are Americans any better ? Remember the summer of Floyd and how many statues were tore down ? Remember how anti White frankly anti American thinkers like Robin Diangelo and Ibram X Kendi were (and in many cases still are) mandatory reading in the biggest corporations and the most elite universities .

I would argue White guilt is a bigger issue in America. I just want White Americans to self reflect on their own circumstances instead of getting mad at their kin over in Europe for problems that exist in America.
Americans whites are better in a indescribable way, I think it may be less gayness. Whatever that trait is that makes us think we can handle guns, whereas European will look at something that powerful and think "no one should have that."
 
Interesting thing I saw in Financial Times February 18th print edition that I haven't seen talked about anywhere. The interesting part is this graph:
View attachment 7002130

Something like 70% of the top Uranium mining countries are Russia-China aligned. The article took great pains to complain about Niger no longer selling to the West, and Kazakhstan doing uranium business pretty much solely with Russia and China (2/3rd is sold to Russia and China, and only 28% to US, Canada, France, and UK).
View attachment 7002172

That's not really good for US, and makes keeping Canada as a friend (or annexing it) a vital security interest.
Whilst Kazakhstan dominates the exports, in terms of raw deposits, Australia sits on almost one third of the world's total uranium. It'll be interesting to see if the US government decides to pressure the Aus government to allow more mines to open.
 
So what are YOUR responsibilities, if the government is supposed to take care of all these trifles?
Responsibilities are not exclusive.

Both Parents are responsible for the wellbeing of their child. Grandparents also have a responsibilty. The extended family of aunts, uncles, and cousins have some level of responsibility for their relation. This extends out to clan or further nativity levels, which includes the nation. That's why we have orphanages.

A nation having a responsibility to care for the wellbeing of its native citizens doesn't mean infantilized dependency.

Responsibility is a social contract. It only exist if people agree it does. Laws are also a social contract.
 
Americans whites are better in an indescribable way, I think it may be less gayness. Whatever that trait is that makes us think we can handle guns, whereas European will look at something that powerful and think "no one should have that."
I mean, there were hundreds of years where every time the equivalent of “take your clot shot or lose your job” came up, there was also the option of “I guess I could go to America…”

When Europe was out of frontiers and people dreamed of just making it on their own in the woods somewhere, they could go to America.

Eventually anyone with testicular instincts was in America

@UnidentifiedFlyingOrchid

Our constitution’s preamble mentions “providing for the general welfare.”

“General” is used to indicate non specificity.

I interpret that to mean providing a climate within which opportunity exists so that people can generally provide for themselves. No promises were made to support a class of drug addicts and the mentally and morally feeble. If you’re not addicted to drugs or mentally or morally feeble, you don’t need help
 
We're legitimately watching the soul of the parties switch in real time and its fascinating.
The mask has been ripped off of the Democrats. This has always been the soul of the Republican party, but without the media control needed to keep up the narrative, reality comes back to light.
I agree, but how exactly would you allow for normal people to pay half price for fresh ingredients without fraud, or without the food companies raising prices, over time, so that we are essentially paying the same as before?
Keep the price normal but double the food stamp cost of junk food. The store doesn't get more money, just on the EBT side.
 
The biggest problem Native Americans face is white guilt.

Why? Because the results are that white people unilaterally decided that any sort of image of Native Americans is racist, and it needs to be removed so we don’t have to see it and remember they exist. And if you don’t think that, then you have to prove it by saying Natives suck and they should all die, so we don’t have to remember they exist and feel bad about it

But Natives are just like “um, we think the redskins logo was cool. Not thrilled about the Cleveland Indians Indian, but like, ok. What we’d really like is for everyone to like, stop kidnapping our girls for sex slavery”

We just fucking expect them to hate us so hard, that we don’t even check. We’re like “well I mean, we didn’t mostly kill off black people, and black people hate us pretty bad, so it must be even worse with the natives”

It’s not. They’re cool.
I once worked with an Osage guy, great guy, nice as all get out and fucking tough. Almost killed himself in college, flipped his truck driving drunk, survived getting his skull cracked open. Zoned out sometimes and not the best memory, but otherwise great.

I don't own any weapons, but I would suggest you buy weapons and ammunition with that money.
$5000 will buy you a lot of AR-10 and .308, maybe a real nice handgun made by Czechs or Italians. Shit, you could probably get a Barretta 1301 for that, if you like quality semi-auto shotguns as opposed to Turkish crap.

Edit:
Also, a lot of pop sales on EBT end up being 2 liter bottles that the EBT user will turn around and sell to Indians running gas stations for 50 cents on the dollar, or just handing EBT cards over to the Jeets. It's not just health related, it can also fuck over the streetshitters, always a noble goal.
 
Money doesn't cause inflation by sitting as an entry in a book somewhere. It causes inflation by getting spent on goods & services.

This is just wrong. People suddenly having more money available to spend than previously may cause them to compete for the same limited goods resulting in an increase in their price, but it does not devalue the money itself. The money which those people now have must have come from somewhere else and in this case it comes from various NGOs who now do not have that money to spend which would result in less demand for whatever was being purchased previously instead. You fail to see that increased prices in some goods which are now more valued are offset be decreases in those less valued. The long term effects of this are producers moving to supply more of goods and services that are in higher demand while reducing production of those things which are in less demand. The value of the money is unchanged, but the market is realigned to better supply the desires of the people who spend it.

Inflation is a reduction in the value (purchasing power) of money as a whole. There are two possible causes for this. The first, and most common, is that money is added to circulation at a faster rate than economic activity adds goods or services of equal value. If you have more dollars but the same amount of goods/services, the dollars are naturally less valuable relative to the point in time before they were added to circulation. The second, is for the money to remain fixed, but for massive losses of goods/services to occur. For example, if tomorrow 50% of the world's population were snapped out of existence, the amount of money would be the same, but we'd have 50% of the workers to produce things for that money to buy. If a massive naturally disaster destroyed the homes of every person, we'd still have the same amount of money, but the loss of goods to spend it on makes it relatively less valuable. If you destroyed everything that humans possessed, but left them with all of their money, those dollars would be worthless because there's nothing to exchange them for.

People tend to think that inflation is necessarily bad, but there are some arguments to be made as to why having a small and consistent amount of it is beneficial. First of all it does encourage people to put their money towards some useful investment as leaving it alone means that it will gradually lose value due to inflation. It is also beneficial to anyone who has accrued a debt as even if they cannot pay down the entirety of it, as long as they can pay off the interest, inflation will gradually reduce the relative value of that debt over time. This second fact is pertinent to our national problem. While it would be good for us to pay down our debt (I'd even argue that reducing it even by a few meager tens of millions of dollars would have a massive psychological effect) it's something that would require multiple presidencies to accomplish. Instead if we can just prevent it from growing, inflation will slowly erode its value. To illustrate this, suppose for a moment that the United States stopped increasing the debt in 1980, but never did more than paying the interest on it. The debt would still stand at $900 billion, which seems like an absolutely laughable amount to us today, but that's because the inflation caused by increases to our money supply has made $900 billion not such an impressive sum as it once was.
 
Scoop: Why Trump targets AP
Axios (archive.ph)
By Marc Caputo
2025-02-17T12:33:04
trump01.webp
President Trump signs a proclamation for Gulf of America Day, aboard Air Force One on Feb. 9. Photo: Roberto Schmidt/AFP via Getty Images

One of the big reasons President Trump is limiting AP reporters' White House access is to protest what aides see as years of liberal word choices that the wire service's influential stylebook spread across mainstream media, according to top White House officials.
Why it matters: The trigger was the announcement by The Associated Press that it would continue using the 400-year-old "Gulf of Mexico" rather than switch to "Gulf of America," as declared by Trump in a Day 1 executive order. But it turns out that broader underlying grievances made AP a target.
The big picture: By spotlighting AP, Trump is amplifying Republican and conservative criticisms that the AP Stylebook, a first reference for most U.S. news organizations, shapes political dialogue by favoring liberal words and phrases concerning gender, immigration, race and law enforcement.
  • "This isn't just about the Gulf of America," White House deputy chief of staff Taylor Budowich told Axios. "This is about AP weaponizing language through their stylebook to push a partisan worldview in contrast with the traditional and deeply held beliefs of many Americans and many people around the world."
  • The dispute with AP is part of Trump's broader effort to discredit legacy media outlets and the public's trust in the press — already at a record low.
The other side: AP — which has long been considered the gold standard of neutrality — rejects any accusation of bias. Lauren Easton, vice president of corporate communications, told Axios that AP "is a global, fact-based, nonpartisan news organization with thousands of customers around the world who span the political spectrum."
  • "If AP journalism wasn't factual and nonpartisan, this wouldn't be the case," she said.
  • Easton said AP provides "guidance on issues brought to us by members and customers, and it is up to them what they choose to use. Again, this is guidance. It's not surprising that political parties, organizations or even individuals may disagree with some entries. The Stylebook doesn't align with any particular agenda."
State of play: After barring AP reporters from covering several events with Trump last week, the White House said Friday that because the wire service "continues to ignore the lawful geographic name change of the Gulf of America," AP slots in the Oval Office on Air Force One "will now be opened up" to other reporters.
  • An AP reporter and photographer were blocked Friday from boarding Air Force One for Trump's weekend trip to Florida.
  • The White House said AP journalists "will retain their credentials to the White House complex."
The backstory: AP said in its Jan. 23 "style guidance," released proactively to guide members and customers, that Trump "has signed an executive order to rename the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America. The body of water has shared borders between the U.S. and Mexico. Trump's order only carries authority within the United States. Mexico, as well as other countries and international bodies, do not have to recognize the name change."
  • "The Gulf of Mexico has carried that name for more than 400 years," the guidance continues. "The Associated Press will refer to it by its original name while acknowledging the new name Trump has chosen. As a global news agency that disseminates news around the world, the AP must ensure that place names and geography are easily recognizable to all audiences."
  • AP said in the same announcement that it'll follow Trump's executive order returning the name of Alaska's Mount McKinley, which had been changed to Denali in 2015. AP's logic: The peak is solely within the U.S., and "Trump has the authority to change federal geographical names."
Behind the scenes: Five days after AP issued its guidance concerning the gulf name change, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt held her first briefing, and foreshadowed the fight the White House would pick with legacy media.
  • "Karoline said she would not lie and that she would call out media organizations who do lie," a Trump adviser said, speaking on condition of anonymity. "And we knew the AP would keep calling the Gulf of America the Gulf of Mexico, and that's misinformation."
To attract maximum attention to his change, Trump signed an order in front of reporters on Air Force One as he flew over the Gulf en route to the Super Bowl on Feb. 9, declaring the "first ever Gulf of America Day."
  • Two days later, the White House blocked an AP reporter from an Oval Office event.
Zoom out: Trump allies — including Mike Cernovich, a leading MAGA influencer on X — began attracting the attention of the president's advisers by highlighting longstanding complaints about some of the AP stylebook's thousands of entries. Other less-well-known accounts criticized guidance about immigration and transgender issues that White House advisers have seen. Among the AP guidance conservatives find objectionable:
  • Warning against "all views" in transgender coverage: AP's "Transgender Coverage Topical Guide" says to avoid "false balance — giving a platform to unqualified claims or sources in the guise of balancing a story by including all views."
  • Using the phrase "gender-affirming care": AP says the term, commonly used by advocates and physicians, refers to "a swath of mental and medical treatments (such as counseling, hormones or surgery) that help bring a person's gender expression (such as voice, appearance or anatomy) in line with their gender identity."
  • Capitalizing Black but not white for race: AP's stylebook advises that "Black" should be used for racial descriptions while the lowercase "black" is considered just a color. AP says "white people's skin color plays into systemic inequalities and injustices, and we want our journalism to robustly explore those problems. But capitalizing the term white, as is done by white supremacists, risks subtly conveying legitimacy to such beliefs." AP notes that white people "generally do not share the same history and culture, or the experience of being discriminated against because of skin color."
  • Describing immigrants: The Stylebook frowns on the term "illegal immigrant" and says to "use illegal only to refer to an action, not a person: illegal immigration, but not illegal immigrant." AP doesn't recommend "undocumented immigrant," and says acceptable "variations include living in or entering a country illegally or without legal permission. For people: immigrants lacking permanent legal status."
What they're saying: Terry Schilling, a conservative critic of "transgenderism" (a word AP recommends against), called the style guidance "Orwellian newspeak. It's 1984."
  • Ashley Brundage, a transgender activist with GLAAD, defended AP for trying to use "inclusive language," and said that "if Republicans are good with name changes for the Gulf of Mexico, then they should be OK for any name changes" for transgender people.
The Axios position: We've taken a different approach than many media companies, based on serving primarily a U.S. audience. The government, plus Apple Maps and Google Maps, call it the Gulf of America. For clarity, we call it the "Gulf of America (renamed by the U.S. from Gulf of Mexico)."
  • "At the same time," Axios said in a statement Friday, "the government should never dictate how any news organization makes editorial decisions. The AP and all news organizations should be free to report as they see fit. This is a bedrock of a free press and durable democracy."
Exclusive: MAGA's list of AP grievances
Axios (archive.ph)
By Marc Caputo
2025-02-18 23:24:26GMT
Republican grievances against the AP Stylebook's influential guidance on topics like race, gender and immigration have incubated for more than a decade — culminating last week with President Trump's expulsion of Associated Press reporters from the Oval Office.
The big picture: The White House blamed the restriction on AP's recent "Gulf of Mexico" decision. But it's part of a broader escalation against what conservatives see as the AP's tight control over the news media's word choices, as Axios' Marc Caputo reported.
  • At a Mar-a-Lago press conference on Tuesday, Trump said that "some of the phrases that they want to use are ridiculous."
The backstory: The first notable conservative complaint surfaced in 2013, when AP discontinued "illegal immigrant" following a pressure campaign from immigrant-rights advocates. Congress was debating a major immigration overhaul at the time.
  • Then and now, AP disputes the accusation that its Stylebook favors a political party, movement or ideology. Lauren Easton, AP's vice president of corporate communications, told Axios the news service "doesn't align with any particular agenda." AP provides style guidance to members and customers "and it is up to them what they choose to use," she said.
How it works: For most of its 179 years, AP has been viewed as non-controversial — known for just-the-facts neutrality. The AP Stylebook, first published in 1953, is a basic text in journalism schools — and the first grammar and style guide most U.S. news outlets (including Axios) consult when setting their own rules. The guide is constantly evolving.
  • The style rules that rankle conservatives are nested among thousands of Stylebook directives about punctuation and grammar, most of them time-tested and innocuous — capitalization, commas and company names.
Zoom in: Below are some of the AP style guidelines that have stuck in the craws of conservative critics. Axios compiled the list by checking common complaints from MAGA influencers against specific wording in AP guidance.
  • Warning against "all views" in transgender coverage: AP's "Transgender Coverage Topical Guide" says to avoid "false balance — giving a platform to unqualified claims or sources in the guise of balancing a story by including all views."
  • Using "gender-affirming care": AP says the term, commonly used by advocates and physicians, refers to "a swath of mental and medical treatments (such as counseling, hormones or surgery) that help bring a person's gender expression (such as voice, appearance or anatomy) in line with their gender identity."
  • Using "sex assigned at birth": That's recommended "instead of biological sex, birth gender, was identified at birth as, born a girl and the like," the style guide says. "Avoid references to a transgender person being born a boy or girl, or phrasing like birth gender. Sex assigned at birth is the accurate terminology."
  • The concept of "non-binary" language: "Experts," the guide says, "say gender is a spectrum, not a binary structure consisting of only males and females."
  • Excluding binary terms concerning sex or gender: "Since not all people fall under one of two categories for sex or gender — as in the cases of nonbinary and intersex people — avoid references to both, either or opposite sexes or genders," the guide says.
  • Opposing language of transgender critics: "Do not use the term transgenderism, which frames transgender identity as an ideology," AP says.
  • Using trans activists' language: The Stylebook discusses "deadnaming," a transgender advocates' term that refers to a person's original name that "can be akin to using a slur and can cause feelings of gender dysphoria to resurface."
  • Calling out transgender critics: The guide notes that "opponents of youth transgender medical treatment say there's no solid proof of purported benefits, cite widely discredited research and say children shouldn't make life-altering decisions they might regret."
  • Capitalizing Black but not white for race: The Stylebook advises that "Black" should be used for racial descriptions while the lowercase "black" is considered just a color. AP says "white people's skin color plays into systemic inequalities and injustices, and we want our journalism to robustly explore those problems. But capitalizing the term white, as is done by white supremacists, risks subtly conveying legitimacy to such beliefs." AP notes that white people "generally do not share the same history and culture, or the experience of being discriminated against because of skin color."
  • Limiting use of the word "riot": AP says that "focusing on rioting and property destruction rather than underlying grievance has been used in the past to stigmatize broad swaths of people protesting against lynching or police brutality or for racial justice, going back at least to the urban uprisings of the 1960s in the U.S."
  • Alternatives to "Hispanic": The Stylebook says that "Latino, Latina or Latinx are sometimes preferred" over Hispanic. Poll after poll shows Hispanic is preferred, and support for using Latinx is minuscule.
  • Describing immigrants: The Stylebook frowns on the term "illegal immigrant" and says to "use illegal only to refer to an action, not a person: illegal immigration, but not illegal immigrant." AP doesn't recommend "undocumented immigrant," and says acceptable "variations include living in or entering a country illegally or without legal permission. For people: immigrants lacking permanent legal status."
  • Disfavoring the term "anchor babies": The Stylebook says it's "a pejorative term in the U.S. for children who are born to noncitizen parents wanting to take advantage of birthright citizenship."
  • Disfavoring "catch and release": The Stylebook notes it's "a term favored by advocates of immigration restriction" for those caught illegally in the country who are then released in the U.S. But the guide calls it a "misleading and dehumanizing term."
  • Avoiding "chain migration": AP notes it's a term used by immigration restrictionists, and says to avoid it in referring "to what the U.S. government calls family-based immigration." The guide says the term is "vague and may imply unfettered immigration."
  • Cautioning against "terrorism and terrorist" because they've become "politicized": The Stylebook says that instead of "labeling an attack or attacker as terrorism or terrorist, AP describes the specific atrocity, massacre, bombing, or assassination, and so on. We do not use the terms terrorism or terrorist for specific actions or groups, other than when attributed to authorities or others."
  • Changing the spelling of Ukraine's capital: In 2019, AP announced a style change to spell the city "Kyiv" to align with the government's spelling, and not "Kiev," which is more associated with Russia. (Chicken Kiev, however, remains unchanged in the style guide).
Criticisms from liberal circles are harder to find — or were resolved, like some concerning coverage of racism or race and ethnicity. But there are some:
  • Use of "Palestine": Supporters of Palestinian rights, who tend to be left-adjacent, have for years complained that AP style says the West Bank and Gaza should not be referred to as "Palestine ... since it is not a fully independent, unified state."
  • President Trump's conviction: The organization was also criticized by those on the left for not routinely describing Trump as a "convicted felon" during the campaign.
The other side: Easton says that only does the AP Stylebook not align with any one agenda, it "is used as a writing and editing reference worldwide. It contains thousands of entries. It offers guidance on spelling, language, punctuation and journalistic style and is regularly updated as usage evolves. In doing so, we consider a wide range of input."
  • "Updates are made with an eye to making the news report clear, accurate and easily understood by a global audience. Like AP journalism, guidance offered in the Stylebook is used by organizations that span the political spectrum."
AP defenders say that objections to Stylebook prescriptions are no justification for punishing journalists. Several news organizations and press groups have issued statements condemning the White House actions.
  • An AP statement says: "Limiting our access to the Oval Office based on the content of AP's speech not only severely impedes the public's access to independent news, it plainly violates the First Amendment."
 
I agree, but how exactly would you allow for normal people to pay half price for fresh ingredients without fraud, or without the food companies raising prices, over time, so that we are essentially paying the same as before?

Imagine a resturaunt sends the bus boy to buy expensive ingredients at the grocery store, at half price, rather than through a wholesale company. They save a few dollars and defraud the government thousands.
You just tag items in the system to be eligible for EBT/food stamps or not.

You don’t change anything about the prices. Government handouts just don’t work to buy shit with
 
What would you use your $5000 on, hypothetically? Anybody could answer this.
Husband and I signed the contract to build our house right before COVID started and material costs went crazy, so we got the house built for the agreed upon price but couldn’t afford any of the other site improvements we wanted. It would be nice to finally get the driveway paved.
 
Former Vikings punter Chris Kluwe was arrested at a City Council Meeting in Huntington Beach, CA. He came to protest against a MAGA sign and called MAGA a “Nazi movement.“ He then called for “civil disobedience” before walking up to the council members where he was arrested.
Wow, another ghost of Gamergate past here. He looks like shit. It's remarkable how many of these people have aged like milk.
Chris Kluwe...I knew that name sounded familiar.

Article | Archive

Why #Gamergaters Piss Me The F*** Off​

Chris Kluwe

I played in the NFL for eight years, but I’ve been a gamer for 26 — I’m sick and tired of the misogynistic culture in today’s gaming community.

By Chris Kluwe
Dear #Gamergaters,
Do you know why you piss me the fuck off?
Because you’re lazy. You’re ignorant. You are a blithering collection of wannabe Wikipedia philosophers, drunk on your own buzzwords, incapable of forming an original thought. You display a lack of knowledge stunning in its scope, a fundamental disregard of history and human nature so pronounced that makes me wonder if lead paint is a key component of your diet. You think you’re making piercing arguments when, in actuality, you’re throwing a temper tantrum that would embarrass a three-year-old.
(#Gamergate, for those unaware, is what happened a bit over a month ago, where an angry neckbeard posted demonstrably false allegations about his ex-girlfriend, claiming she slept with video game site reviewers for better scores for her games (again, demonstrably false), and then a whole bunch of other angry neckbeards on the Internet went full Denis Dyack and spitfrothed themselves into national attention by making an array of threats on numerous female game developers, including ones about their death, tried to hide behind a shield of “it’s about journalistic ethics because they said gamers are dead,” and generally proved why the Internet needs to be burned to the ground and the ashes salted. If you’re curious about the details, here’s a good background link.)

There’s this herd of people, mainly angsty teenage caucasian men (based on an informal survey of 99 percent of the people who feel the need to defend this nonsense to me on Twitter), who feel that somehow, their identity as “gamers” is being taken away. Like they’re all little Anne Franks, hiding in their basements from the PC Nazis and Social Justice Warrior brigades, desperately protecting the last shreds of “core gaming” in their unironically horrible Liveblog journals filled with patently obvious white privilege and poorly disguised misogyny. “First they came for our Halo 2’s, and I said nothing.”
These paint-huffing shitgoblins think they’re “gamers,” and it pisses me the fuck off.
I grew up playing games. When I was six years old, back in 1987 (so long ago!), I got an NES, and there was no looking back. I played Battletoads, and learned that “faster computer reactions” is a cheap substitute for “harder difficulty.” I played Final Fantasy VI on the SNES, and watched an opera play out through a video game. I played Metal Gear Solid on PS1, and thought my game was freaking the fuck out. I logged on to Ultima Online the day the shards went up, and got pk’ed, and tried to figure out what this giant sandbox could actually do. I played just about every MMO after that as well, and first person shooter, and JRPG, and on and on (except for sports games; I hate sports games).
I am a gamer. I’ve had 24-hour LAN parties, fragging people in Duke Nukem and Quake, pounding Mountain Dew to stay awake, WinAMP playlist blasting my favorite songs at high volume. I’ve traded Nintendo Power facts and tips with my friends on the playground, and tried to figure out where the next boss was, or the best strategy to use (complete with horseshit stories from that one friend who just loved making things up and —NO! — you cannot save Aeris, goddammit). I’ve been made fun of by the jocks, even when I was on the football team.
Gaming is part of who I am, I can promise you that.
Thus, when I see an article titled “Gamers are dead,” referring to the death of the popular trope of a pasty young man in a dimly lit room, it fills me with joy, because it means WE FUCKING WON. So many people are playing games now that they are popular culture. They are not going away. All sorts of cool things, that I like, are now things that a whole bunch of other people like! There’s enough space now for people to make games that are strange and disturbing and maybe highlight a different perspective of the world, because gaming is no longer a niche activity, it’s something that everybody does. There is room for artin video games. That’s awesome!
You slopebrowed weaseldicks with zero reading comprehension and even less critical thinking skills who think an article claiming “Gamers are dead” is something bad? Fuck me sideways with a sandblaster.
It’s like all you can do is look at this collection of words, scratch yourself uneasily, and then run off to look for grubs. Your reaction (and I am not making this up, because it’s been widely documented literally everywhere) to various articles proclaiming the death of the basement-dwelling, cheetos-huffing, poopsock-sniffing douchepistol, because games are so good now that they are common entertainment and thus everyone plays them, was to COMPLETELY MISS THE POINT by either:
a) Making misogynistic threats against a wide variety of female game developers and critics because somehow they’re going to keep games you enjoy from ever being made again
or
b) Being stupid enough to get sucked in by people busy making misogynistic threats against a wide variety of female game developers and critics, and supporting their idiotic crusade for the dumbing down of everyone everywhere ever.
Every time I see one of you slackjawed pickletits link me something like “I’m a moderate #Gamergate’r,” or “#Gamergate in sixty seconds YOUTUBE CLIP,” or “Here’s an anecdotal story from this one woman we found that completely negates an entire history of misogyny and abuse of women, not just in videogaming but in the entirety of human existence so support the REAL GAMERS,” it pisses me the fuck off because you are ruining something I enjoy. When people — everyday people who watch the coverage on CNN of Anita Sarkeesian having to cancel a speaking engagement due to death threats — think of “gamers,” they are going to think of you, and that irritates me. It enrages me. I want to punch down a wall, and I like my walls. They’re nicely painted.

When people think of “gamers,” I want them to think of Child’s Play, and athletes who play competitive League of Legends, and all the normalization we’ve accomplished over the years. I want them to think of feminism, and games as an art form — something more than mass entertainment. I want them to think of all the amazing things that video games have done, and can do, because that means we get to keep playing more games. But as long as you hemorrhoidal gunt stains continue this asininity, they won’t, and it makes me want to pick you all up collectively and shake you until your rectum leaks out what little brains you possess because YOU’RE SO FUCKING DUMB.
We are winning the culture war. There are multiple TV shows about nerds as role models. For fuck’s sake, in House of Cards, Kevin Spacey plays a goddamn U.S. Representative who relaxes by playing first-person shooters! The only danger to the things “gamers” enjoy doing (i.e. playing new games), is the threat YOU YOURSELF have created, because for some reason you think sharing your toys with others is going to make the world explode.
You, #Gamergaters, with your bilious Internet rage, you think you’re speaking for some core demographic, some historic legacy, but you’re not. You’re speaking for a lie trapped inside your mind; a lie that one somehow has to be “hardcore” in order to appreciate games; a lie formed by social ineptitude and too much time spent picturing yourself as the only creature that matters in the universe. A lie about male power and privilege, and how dare those women try to ruin your fun? (No matter whose expense you’re having it at). The lie you tell yourselves is one completely incapable of recognizing just how far society has come — that equality is important, and that the tech industry has been misogynistic for a very long time, and that we need to change that, and we’re in the process of doing so, despite the mouthvomits you like to pretend are logical trains of thought.
All the real gamers? They’re the developers now, the reviewers, the writers and the players who remember a time when you couldn’t download a virtual copy of your game, but instead had to go to a Toys“R”Us and hope they had it in stock. The real gamers, both men and women, look at your frantic rantings about “ethics in videogame journalism,” and they shake their heads sadly, wondering how you could get sucked in by some script-kiddie /b/tards and conspiracy-nut celebrities gleefully using you as a smokescreen for misogynistic hate. They look at the rich diversity of games that exist now, and they are THRILLED, because no one ever thought we’d get this far, and real gamers like PLAYING GAMES.
I know game developers, personally. I know game reviewers, personally. You know what else I know? That both developers and reviewers know each other quite well, because this industry used to be very small. One where you had to be a gamer to want to make a game, or to write reviews, because the money certainly wasn’t NFL money. It absolutely wasn’t the billion-dollar industry it is now, with games pulling in just as much as blockbuster movies. It was a group of people, doing what they loved, making games, and playing games, and a lot of them are still there, and they’re friends!
Does this mean occasionally there will be a review you don’t agree with somewhere? You better believe it. First off, a review, BY DEFINITION, is subjective. It’s one person’s take on a moment in time from their own perspective. If you don’t like it, look at some other reviews. There’s plenty out there! Second, when you spend a lot of time with other people, you tend to become friends, which means you help each other out. Like donating to a friend’s Kickstarter or Patreon campaign because you like what they do and want to see them do more of it. This isn’t some ethics-blighting stain on the video game industry. This is basic human nature, but apparently you pestilent little toads can’t imagine the concept of friendship. Perhaps you should go watch some Care Bears?
This fallacy that you hide behind — the idea of wanting to make video game journalism some pristine bastion of unbreakable ethics, where no one ever gives a game a 5 instead of a 4 because they’ve known the developer for over two decades and one of their kids is the other’s goddaughter? Yeah. Good luck. Might as well develop cold fusion while you’re at it. You don’t even see the complete idiocy of this idea because you’re too busy wargleblargling your face into your keyboard.
(Oh, and feel free to direct some of that naivete at the actual media, whose job is to cover things that actually matter. Every game reviewer I know is actually highly concerned with the ethics of their situation, because they’ve gone to school for it. They know that acting unethically is a very quick way to drive away consumers.)

You know what else acting unethically does (like, say, for example, supporting misogynistic mouthbreathers who get off on making rape threats against women as part of your “movement”)? It drives away supporters. It makes them question your basic humanity and intelligence.
In fact, #Gamergaters, if your concern really was ethics, the very first thing you would be saying about this whole mess is, “Holy shit, get these fucking misogynistic creeps away from us. Let’s find a different hashtag to assemble under RIGHT FUCKING NOW.” You’d be doing everything in your power to make sure the legitimate cause you’re concerned about wasn’t hijacked or used as a shield by those with no other agenda than to make women and minorities afraid, simply because they can. You wouldn’t defend the oppression of someone simply based on their gender (because let’s be real honest here, I haven’t seen a single #Gamergater go after Activision, or Ubisoft, or Rockstar), and you definitely wouldn’t concoct ever-more wild conspiracy theories to support your increasingly flawed view of reality.
(My personal favorite is that a combination of a secret cabal of power-mad journalists are working with the world-threatening feminist agenda in order to remove the purity of video games, because Obama and Jews. That’s a good look, people. Very convincing. I’m surprised you couldn’t work chemtrails in there somehow.)
Unfortunately, all you #Gamergaters keep defending this puerile filth, and so the only conclusion to draw is the logical one: That you support those misogynistic cretins in all their mouthbreathing glory. That you support the harassment of women in the video game industry (and in general). That you support the idiotic stereotype of the “gamer” as a basement-dwelling sweatbeast that so many people have worked so hard to try and get rid of.
And you know what? That pisses me the fuck off. I’ve spent too long as a gamer, seen too much progress made, to let you tarnish that name.
I hope you all, every #Gamergater, picks up a debilitating case of genital warts.
The rest of you — find a different hashtag.
Sincerely,
Chris Kluwe
Eight-year NFL player
26-year Gamer

Note: Several of you pointed out a glaring factual inconsistency in my piece. The original text said Kevin Spacey was a U.S. Senator, rather than a Representative, in the TV show House of Cards. Many apologies.

Fuck me, it never ends, does it, Sargon? Time really is a flat circle.
 
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