I completely agree. They've always felt unwieldy and annoying, emphasizing some bit of text from a few paragraphs ago that I had just read and was no longer related to what I'm reading now.
I think I'll try this out, I definitely have a bad habit of opening up multiple tabs of comments at a time. It's pretty much just muscle memory now. And that's a tasteful loading bar. Thanks for sharing!
For anyone interested in a detailed explanation of fructose metabolism (and why it's bad for you), I'd highly recommend these two talks by Robert Lustig on the subject. The first one is about how the body reacts to fructose, and the second video is a follow-up that emphasizes how fructose has contributed to the obesity epidemic in the US and elsewhere.
> I think that suggested to the Capitol Hill rioters that political violence was no longer out-of-bounds; rather, it was legitimate and necessary.
I hadn't thought of that. I could definitely see it playing a role, especially since there was likely a much larger emphasis on the violence of the protests within their bubble. It probably imprinted stronger than it would have on anyone with less partisan sources.
I would like to draw a line here, though. The rioters at the capitol did not turn violent because they were primed by BLM or Antifa. They turned violent because they were fed a warped image of the protest movement, an image that demonized the left so thoroughly that they came to view them as (sometimes literally) devils seeking to undermine the fabric of American democracy.
> the media, the academy, silicon valley, Hollywood, and virtually every other prominent cultural institution either condoned or ignored the violence over the summer
This is definitely something I'm concerned about. The whole thing is suspicious to me as well because none of these institutions have much interest in actually aiding the movements they claim to support. Swapping your profile picture to a black square isn't support. It's just a cynical performative wokeness. They are not really allies to these causes, and have no interest in improving conditions for people in a way that would make the protests unnecessary.
> I think we need to reestablish non-partisan norms of honesty, civility, and non-violence and consistently enforce breaches of those ethics whether from the right or the left.
agreed.
> This is a long-winded way of saying that reigning in the far left feels like a prerequisite to reigning in the far-right.
I have the exact opposite view. I disagree with the perspective that we were in a well-oriented, moderate position on liberal democracy that is now being torn apart by equally radical right-wing and left-wing movements. The political trend in this country over the last 40 years has been more appeasement to right-wing policies, more corporate favoritism, and a weakening of social institutions (i.e. neoliberalism). People like Bernie Sanders advocate for policies that do not raise an eyebrow in any other developed country, yet he is vilified by supposedly centrist news sources (though I suppose it's relaxed now that he isn't threatening to run for president anymore). If we had a legitimate left-wing party advocating for policies that helped people climb out of their collective pits of despair, the BLM protests would never have happened, and the far right would never have had such ease in their recruiting efforts.
My perspective is that the progressive movement has answers to deal with the violence on both sides. The people on the far-right turn to these proto-fascist movements because they are desperate for change, any kind of change. The system is not working for them and they wish to return to some mythologized past where they could still have dignity and hope for the future. Many of the people who voted enthusiastically for Trump in 2020 knew he wouldn't fulfill many (any?) of his promises, but they felt that he saw them. He recognized that they exist, and he spoke to them directly and at their level. I believe the violent protesters and belligerent twitter users that you mentioned are also frustrated by the disintegration of the American dream. They're upset, they abandoned, and their solution is a rejection of the system.
In a way, I think we want the same thing. We cannot sustain our democracy while demonizing each other. But to me it seems you want to emphasize on improving the discourse. I think the discourse improves itself when the material conditions of people's lives are improved. I don't mean to imply we must choose to focus on one thing or the other, but that the latter choice will be more effective.
> I want to understand why society (including a great many moderates) are only alarmed by illiberalism when it's labeled "fascism" (and conversely why we tolerate illiberalism in the name of combatting 'fascism').
I suppose it's a matter of perspective. I don't know how much the sympathies for authoritarian regimes and the calls to violence on twitter would translate to people taking action. The calls for revolution just seem like role-play to me. I just don't hear this sort of rhetoric being voiced by people actually doing the work of advancing progressive political causes. Maybe it's easier for me to dismiss the illiberalism on the left because I genuinely am not exposed to that much of it.
> it kind of feels like we're trading the liberal foundation of our society for some short term political expedience or catharsis, and that's deeply depressing.
I feel the same way about the behavior of the right in recent months.
> From the sounds of it, you think fascism is the more proximate threat?
Yeah pretty much. I believe fascism is gaining political traction. I'm concerned about the increasing militancy of white nationalist groups and the significant number of people in the US who think the election was stolen.
This seems to be a fairly common perspective, and I'll try to take it at face value and respond to it in parts. Sorry if I'm late and you got a bunch of other lengthy responses already.
> For example, a lot of people who have vocally criticized America in the last 5 years as being a fascist country seem to be pretty opposed to liberal values like freedom of speech and nonviolence with many such people either rationalizing left-wing violence (BLM riots as well as general antifa violence) if not outright arguing that political violence and even (capital-R) Revolution is necessary.
One problem I've had with this perspective is that the BLM movement is ongoing and has developed into a more coherent (but still decentralized) organization. According to the The Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project (https://acleddata.com/2020/09/03/demonstrations-political-vi...):
"Between 24 May and 22 August, ACLED records more than 10,600 demonstration events across the country. Over 10,100 of these — or nearly 95% — involve peaceful protesters. Fewer than 570 — or approximately 5% — involve demonstrators engaging in violence."
I disavow the violence and rioting. The looting and destruction of storefronts is unconscionable. But it doesn't represent the majority of the movement.
As for Antifa, that ends up being a whole conversation unto itself—a poignant one given the main topic of fascism. Antifa exists as an idea more so than a formal movement. It's not something you are, it's something you do. It is a form of counter protest directed at fascists and (particularly in the US) white supremacists. It isn't a club with members that you join. The most publicized actions are violent, but more often there is no violence involved. You can counter-protest a white nationalist rally, but you can also call the hotel they are staying at and warn the management that white nationalists will be frequenting the establishment.
> Many support communism and talk about how great life was in the USSR or how amazing China is, which suggests that they're not just referring to some abstract communism that "hasn't been tried yet", but rather specific instances of communist regimes that tick many (all?) of the 'fascism qualities' boxes.
Funny enough, there's a derisive term for this in progressive circles: "Tankies"
They're an exceptionally fringe group, especially in the US, and I would appreciate some additional evidence for the claim that "many" support the USSR and China. Even for people on the left who explicitly advocate for socialism, they do so in advocacy of social justice and workplace democracy, neither of which is reflected at all in the USSR or China.
> many left-wing Americans seem to have pretty segregationist views on race even if they don't have a "master race" per se (perhaps one could argue that "people of color" is their "master race" in the way that various European identities coalesced into "white" in prior centuries?).
Again, I'd appreciate if you could provide some evidence for your claim of "many" left-wing Americans holding these views. I agree that in the last 20-30 years there has been massive re-segregation of schools in the US, and a significant demographic of Biden voters are the people who live in these very segregated suburbs. However, this issue is a common talking point for progressives in this country. I'd argue they're the only group bringing it up and attempting to address it. As for the "master race" thing, I am not entirely sure how to respond to this. Of course you can find any sort of fringe belief on the internet, but I have never seen any traction for this ideology in any of the progressive movements in the US. I know it has been a talking point when criticizing BLM (e.g. countering with "all lives matter"), but this criticism to me is intentionally misunderstanding the movement. BLM is meant to be aspirational, not exclusionary: Black lives also matter.
Two final notes:
1. You talk about a horseshoe where the fringes of the political spectrum are closer together. This is, in my opinion, an incorrect projection of the political landscape, since it implies a single dimension between right and left. I would encourage you to look at https://www.politicalcompass.org. One could get more complicated about it, but I think the distinction on authoritarian/libertarian and conservative/liberal is important. You can be a right-wing or left-wing authoritarian (e.g. Stalin vs. Hitler) and you can be a left-wing or right-wing libertarian (e.g. Noam Chomsky vs. Robert Nozick).
2. I don't want to dismiss the possibility or danger of left-wing authoritarianism. We have plenty examples of that. I do what to emphasize that fascism in particular is not one of them. It is a specific form of conservative authoritarianism that relies heavily on conservative ideology, specifically the desire for hierarchy. In every political movement we would identify as fascist, progressives and communists were the first group to be attacked as the fascists rose to power.