Andrei Klepatch

In the past I have described the element of hiking that I enjoy as being dynamic terrain really grounding you in your body (the same reason I use fingered socks). So I have derived a lot of positive valence from living in a mountainous steppe with a large peak in my backyard.

This dignity is what "MAGA"ists and trumpists fear the most, btw. You can point out to them that cutting off USAID or bombing elementary schools is horribly unethical, and they'll only laugh at you (because to care about human lives instead of actively uncaring about them is to be a pussy). But if you treat them like they're toddlers who got their hands on dangerous toys that they might hurt themselves with—blabbering buffoons to be removed from position as quickly as possible, whisked away under the arms like you would reposition a cat—you remove the feedback loop they feed on. They relish libs screaming at them and saying "DON'T DO THAT", just so they can do that and make them scream even more. They love hysterics; they'll do stupid things on purpose just to get screamed at. It doesn't matter what they make us lose in the process—American hegemony, THAADs in the Pacific, wealth—so long as they get screamed at, they feel good. What makes them shit their pants is the American dignity that doesn't even bother meeting their eyes or arguing with them bc it correctly sees them as little babies who need to be returned to their daycare and plopped into the legal system that will condemn them calmly and in an orderly manner, not even bothering to engage with them on a rhetorical rather than procedural level, patiently and silently working toward true overarching goals and principles rather than heat-of-the-moment lib-owning. This is the quiet dignity you'll hear sometimes, e.g. at Pam Bondi's congressional hearing, where unable to respond to those basic questions, she lost her shit. Or when reporters sometimes ask basic questions to Trump that he can only answer with annoyed senile bumbling and a pathetic grasping for straws. It's what forced the President to fold back his goons from Minnesota. It's the trembling of the lip that Hegseth has when he reviews the dozens of amicus filings from the Anthropic legal case he instigated because he couldn't control his temper tantrum, after sitting down at his desk and scratching at his undersized shoes. It's the constance and reliability of the American memetic environment that forces JD Vance to place lie on lie on lie till he loses his balance. It's Law with a capital L, that does not care for your thrashing or show of strength because it has one job and will simply do it. Do remember this next time you think of who the Trump administration's natural enemy is! It is not the wokes: the wokes are the fuel they run on, even now. "Harris is for they/them; Trump is for YOU" and all that. No, it is classical liberalism and the Old American. It is the thing that doesn't even play on MAGA's rhetorical field, and comes at them from above like a nonchalant predator (but from its own perspective, is wiping the floor with a mop). The thing that doesn't even give *any* special attention to MAGAists (just as it wouldn't give any special attention to anything else that deviated from Law). The thing that breaks MAGA composure simply by doing as it does, indiscriminantly.

Thought this was a parody, but, no, the US Mint really removed the olive branch—but not the arrows—held by the eagle on the dime. The design goes back to the super-woke days of 1782. Link in next tweet.