It’s as if some notable proportion of humanity suddenly switched to eating nothing but vaguely food-shaped plastic, then a study concluded that that might have negative effects nutritionally.

No shit?

It doesn’t get much more performative than that.

Authoritarianism works with rightism. It’s a crazy position to take IMO, but at least it’s somewhat internally consistent.

Authoritarianism just does not work at all with leftism. It immediately establishes and institutionalizes a ruling class, so it destroys leftism before it even gets out of the gate.

Of course that doesn’t stop unpricipled, power-hungry weasels from trying to put themselves at the top of a leftist authoritarianism, but somehow it also doesn’t stop people who are destined to only be among the oppressed masses from demanding it as well.

I have no idea how that works inside their brains, because it’s such a screechingly irrational position to take, but that somehow doesn’t stop them.

Though it does lead to some astonishing cognitive dissonance.

Yow.

That might just be the cringiest attempt at a meme I’ve ever seen.

Yeah - there’s a fairly significant game of The Emperor’s New Clothes going on, as the new set of impossibly wealthy assholes insist on pretending they’re not impossibly wealthy assholes and instead try to force society into accommodating them, apparently entirely unaware of the simple fact that all they’re doing is hastening the demise of the civilization that birthed them and on which they’re little more than grossly destructive parasites.

And that’s not an opinion - either mine or anyone else’s. It’s a simple fact that’s been borne out by history over and over throughout the ages, and will be again, no matter how many comforting lies people tell themselves and each other.