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Power Map

@powermap.bsky.social

A socialist journal for people who want to organize. https://powermapmag.substack.com/

38 Posts281 Follower22 Folgt
Michael Seemann@mspr0.de · 2d ago

weil wir ja wissen, dass jede anschuldigung von rechts ein geständnis ist, kann man das rechte vokabular für linke einfach übernehmen, um ihre phantasma-topographie aufzufalten, wie dieser text hier zeigt.

Power Map@powermap.bsky.social · 3d ago

A right wing fever dream has consumed our culture. None of us can escape it grasp. In Power Map, we look at how fascism is spreading through all of our minds and how we can keep our sanity. powermapmag.substack.com/p/the-fascis...

daniel?@danielgoulden.bsky.social · 3d ago

I've been feeling absolutely insane since sometime in late 2024. It feels like no one talks about things that matter and we are consumed by bullshit. So I tried to suss out why for Power Map.

Power Map@powermap.bsky.social · 3d ago

A right wing fever dream has consumed our culture. None of us can escape it grasp. In Power Map, we look at how fascism is spreading through all of our minds and how we can keep our sanity. powermapmag.substack.com/p/the-fascis...

BLIMP! JUICE!@blimpjuice.bsky.social · 3d ago

This piece is an excellent breakdown of how the right is basically obsessed with meaningless cultural ephemera, people's identities, and social media in the exact brain rotting way they accuse the left of. Goes great with @jamellebouie.net's idea of commentary class' decadence and emptiness.

Focus on Irrelevant Bullshit. The right loves to argue that the left works itself up into a tizzy about things that don’t matter like pronouns or racism, but it is the right that cares about irrelevant bullshit: ivermectin, the casting of superhero movies, Hasan Piker, the Cracker Barrel logo, which celebrities appear in which beer commercials, nonexistent trans women in the WNBA, whatever is going through Candace Owens’ mind. The right loves focusing on bullshit because it is a great way to not only distract people from their actual problems, but to make them live in a constant state of rage. Enraged people are easy to manipulate and a world with millions of enraged people is a world where fascism can more easily spread. Fascism relies on the beliefs that you, on a personal level, are under assault from forces both powerful and omnipresent, and there is an entire industry of conservative talking heads fomenting outrage, making our society aggressive, overly sensitive, and intolerant. Individuals afflicted with the Fascist Mind Virus live in a constant state of hyper vigilance and anger, miserable for sure, but also naive and manipulatable. One of the easiest ways to manipulate an infected individual is the classic trio of racism, sexism, and homophobia. This gets us to our second observation.
Power Map@powermap.bsky.social · 3d ago

A right wing fever dream has consumed our culture. None of us can escape it grasp. In Power Map, we look at how fascism is spreading through all of our minds and how we can keep our sanity. powermapmag.substack.com/p/the-fascis...

Phasers On Fun@humanspareparts.bsky.social · last wk.

you watched this happen real-time but the digest below puts all the data points together, and taken all together, it’s a dire situation

Power Map@powermap.bsky.social · 2w ago

Centrist Democrats are building a SuperPAC-funded flood of racist attacks, and making it their main tool against left candidates like Zohran Mamdani, Melat Kiros, and Abdul El-Sayed. @blimpjuice.bsky.social tracks this strategy's rise, and how to fight back. powermapmag.substack.com/p/the-democr...

BLIMP! JUICE!@blimpjuice.bsky.social · last wk.

The centrist ecosystem of racism against the left is weirdly underdiscussed. Maybe because it shreds both of centrist's anti-left narratives? Regardless, I spent a very long time tracking it so you can learn how it evolved, what it means, and how to beat it: powermapmag.substack.com/p/the-democr...

The Democratic Establishment Is Getting Really Racist

For Democratic leadership, spending millions in racist ads is fine if it’s against the left

powermapmag.substack.com

BLIMP! JUICE!@blimpjuice.bsky.social · last wk.

But with new players like AI, crypto, and gambling join the SuperPAC flood, these attacks will only get worse. Which means everyone from influencers to new DSA Congressmembers will need to use their megaphone to attack it. It's the only way the media will ever acknowledge what is happening at scale.

But Candidates Can’t Do It Alone Still, even the best candidate’s own megaphone to decry attacks is limited. A story, especially this type, is generally not deemed coverage worthy until other voices the press considers legitimate make it one. Back in 2024, the press barely covered George Latimer’s racism until AOC called it out. As slow as coverage of the pro-Espaillat/anti-Haitian hatred was to come, it may not have happened at all without the mayor of NYC publicly weighing in. In Detroit, a mainstream newspaper actually debunking a highly funded SuperPac most likely helped El-Sayed. And in NYC, I experienced it firsthand as part of the DREAM campaign, where an array of political and cultural figures pushed overt attacks on Cuomo’s funders and racism into the mainstream in ways candidates weren’t able. Just as Axelrod & Co used their credibility, connections, and press access to push “she’s crazy” into the press, the left is now a big enough force that our name figures have the power to push our criticisms in there too. With the added bonus of our criticisms actually being true. So as the new set of DSA electeds prepare to serve in Congress, they will need to do this. This means potentially ruffling the feathers of their colleagues in some potentially incendiary ways. But as this money flood shows no signs of slowing down, they’re going to need to, because it’s going to be necessary to grow their numbers further. Don’t just play defense, go on offense with press cycles of our own demanding leadership condemns these racist attacks. Say, something like:
BLIMP! JUICE!@blimpjuice.bsky.social · last wk.

Fortunately, this disgusting strategy has increasingly mixed results. Campaigns like those of Zohran Mamdani and Abdul El-Sayed are showing how a combination of tactics based on addressing the spending head on can both counter the well-funded flood of racism, and even turn it back on its sources.

Candidates Must Tackle It Head On We’ve already touched on how El Sayed built this into his strategy, but it bears repeating. The proof here is not just in how much it became part of the race’s narrative, but that now in the general election, even his Republican opponent is trying to disassociate himself from AIPAC in the eyes of voters. (It’s just for show). The power here is in focusing on the money fueling the attacks, inoculating voters enough so that when they see an endless wave of attack ads, they go “wait, this is really a lot of money to be spending, and it’s the genocide guys right?” At the same time, pieces like his grandparents ad and turning his own name into proof of his outsider legitimacy, “I got a name that’s got 11 letters in it…People like me are not supposed to run,” helped him overcome the racist attacks. Mamdani too dealt with Islamophobia using his characteristic deftness, laughing off the hyperbolic tone of attacks, but at key points in the race he created high profile moments turning the Islamophobia against him into a statement about what Muslim New Yorkers face as a whole, rooted in the same “I love NYC” messaging and universalist ideology of his campaign. So as candidates consider what narrative to prioritize pushing through their limited media and press windows, it’s clear that incorporating a line like “the fact that big money is spending so much against me just proves that I really will stand up to big money” into your story, and calling out bigotry in a way that bolsters your own credibility are the best things you can do.
BLIMP! JUICE!@blimpjuice.bsky.social · last wk.

Now, SuperPAC-supercharged racism is the *go to* tactic against left primary challengers. In Harlem, Adriano Espiallat and AIPAC spreading JD Vance style anti-Haitian racism against Darializa Avila-Chevalier. In Denver, Diana DeGette slung xenophobic smears against Melat Kiros in Denver.

How is this any different from what a MAGA candidate would say? A lot of the response to the “not from here” attack centered on it being wrong factually. But it’s also wrong morally. Even if she had just moved to Denver, what the hell kind of person condones millions of dollars of ads plastering the face with headlines about how they’re not from here? Certainly, not one who is going to fight ICE. Image of an ad with a truck that says "WHEN MELAT KIROS MOVED TO DENVER LAST YEAR" next to her face
BLIMP! JUICE!@blimpjuice.bsky.social · last wk.

The next year, Andrew Cuomo took it to a new level. We remember how racist it was towards every group imaginable. But less discussed is how Democratic leadership remained silent on it. In 2018 they blacklisted firms for even working in primaries. In 2025 they signaled that racism was fine in them.

2025: Andrew Cuomo Once Latimer and AIPAC kicked the door open in New York, the flood of shit would inevitably pour into the NYC Democratic Mayoral Primary. It’s no secret that Andrew Cuomo ran one of the most disgusting racist campaigns in modern Democratic history. Nor is it a secret that he ran one of the most expensive ones, where an array of creeps from Michael Bloomberg to Doordash poured millions into SuperPACs amplified his racist message.
BLIMP! JUICE!@blimpjuice.bsky.social · last wk.

Racist insinuations in Democratic primaries are not new. But by embracing virtually infinite SuperPAC funding, centrists have transformed these attacks into full-on multimillion dollar media ecosystems of racism. AIPAC's successful, record-breaking spend against Jamaal Bowman set the model in 2024.

If there was any doubt this “angry black man” caricature was rooted in racist stereotypes, Bowman’s white opponent, Westchester County Executive George Latimer, couldn’t help but make the subtext text, with some highlights including: Telling reporters Bowman had “an obvious ethnic benefit,” Accusing Bowman of “playing the ethnic game,” Telling Bowman in a debate that “Your constituency is Dearborn,” an Arab majority city in Michigan. Telling Bowman “You don’t mention people who are not Black or brown.” At the same time, Cori Bush faced a similar onslaught of AIPAC funded attacks rooted in similar stereotypes, including a mailer that altered Bush’s face in overtly racist ways. Faced with this outpouring of money and racism against two incumbent Black Democratic congressmembers, did Schumer, Jeffries, or the party establishment leap to their defense? Did they call out their opponents’ displays of racism? Did they say anything at all? No. The Democratic party apparatus largely distanced itself from Bowman and Bush at the exact moment they faced these attacks, leaving nothing but a few perfunctory statements that came with no resources or real support. They said nothing about this highly funded infusion of racism into Democratic primaries. (And yes, Bowman and Bush were incumbents, but they were not on the side of the establishment here.)
BLIMP! JUICE!@blimpjuice.bsky.social · last wk.

🧵 You've heard about the rise of centrist SuperPAC funding. But what does it actually fund? The same establishment smearing the left as both too racist and "too woke" is in truth building a multimillion dollar media ecosystem of racism, with tacit approval from Schumer and Jeffries on down.

Imagine if a white socialist candidate for Congress accused a Black opponent of “playing the ethnic game,” or spent hundreds of thousands on xenophobic mailers attacking an immigrant candidate. Hakeem Jeffries, Chuck Schumer, and every centrist Democrat, pundit, and news anchor would go all out attacking the white socialist candidate, the Democratic Socialists of America, and anyone who’s ever been remotely associated with them for disgusting racism and bigotry. This didn’t happen, but the opposite did. Over the past two years centrist Democrats have unleashed a highly funded barrage of racist attacks against left candidates in primaries, aided by massively funded SuperPACs. In 2024, AIPAC opened the floodgates with its then-record spending to unseat Jamaal Bowman and Cori Bush, which led to further record breaking spends like the AIPAC-led $63 million against Abdul El-Sayed in Michigan.
Power Map@powermap.bsky.social · 2w ago

Centrist Democrats are building a SuperPAC-funded flood of racist attacks, and making it their main tool against left candidates like Zohran Mamdani, Melat Kiros, and Abdul El-Sayed. @blimpjuice.bsky.social tracks this strategy's rise, and how to fight back. powermapmag.substack.com/p/the-democr...

RAMR Consultants LLC@rumimartin.northsky.social · last wk.

Right after Mamdani won his primary, Cuomo used a column just so he could get mad at ZM and make sure he got on record saying the t-slur. That’s how much these people fucking hate trans women - so much they can’t bother to keep us out of their mouths when we elect help a candidate they don’t like.

Power Map@powermap.bsky.social · 2w ago

Centrist Democrats are building a SuperPAC-funded flood of racist attacks, and making it their main tool against left candidates like Zohran Mamdani, Melat Kiros, and Abdul El-Sayed. @blimpjuice.bsky.social tracks this strategy's rise, and how to fight back. powermapmag.substack.com/p/the-democr...

Danny 🐦‍⬛@stagraven.bsky.social · last wk.

We’re already past the primaries, so these aren’t centrists Democrats, they’re just bigoted Republicans, just like Trump and the rest. Switch your party affiliation and be done with it.

Power Map@powermap.bsky.social · 2w ago

Centrist Democrats are building a SuperPAC-funded flood of racist attacks, and making it their main tool against left candidates like Zohran Mamdani, Melat Kiros, and Abdul El-Sayed. @blimpjuice.bsky.social tracks this strategy's rise, and how to fight back. powermapmag.substack.com/p/the-democr...