Politics and Current Affairs

Topic

I wonder who’ll be next week’s Prime Minister?

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Martin Smith wrote:

lorcan_nagle wrote:

And because there’s a two term-limit, the current president, Yoda Michael D Higgins can’t run again.

What was Higgins’s deal before he was President?

Jedi Master Hermit he was involved in electoral politics since the early 70s, first elected as a TD in 1981, lost his seat the following year, was a Senator from 73 – 77 and again from 83-87, then back in the Dail from 87 until he ran for President in 2011

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Martin Smith, Ben

Martin Smith wrote:

lorcan_nagle wrote:

And because there’s a two term-limit, the current president, Yoda Michael D Higgins can’t run again.

What was Higgins’s deal before he was President?

Martin Smith wrote:

What was Higgins’s deal before he was President?

Jedi master in the Dagobah district.

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Arjan Dirkse, Martin Smith, Ben, lorcan_nagle

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/sep/30/will-pivotal-election-turn-czech-republic-into-another-anti-eu-agitator

 

Czechia is a complete basket case, politically speaking. The people are fine, they have good beer and beautiful cities but oh my God are they fucked.

This is a great explanation. Thanks!
I’m so out of touch with Ireland these days, but fuck FF and FG will be evergreen I guess.

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lorcan_nagle

Honestly I’m fine with Germany banning AfD, if they can do so. We should defend what we stand for as a society and fight ideas that are not in accordance with that. I just watched a documentary on religious schools in the Netherlands and it’s disgusting what some of them teach kids. Raising a generation of zealots and bigots. Just close those schools. We sould finally get serious about that. Liberal society is not an “anything goes” society, it stands for certain principles and rights and freedoms and responsibilities we agreed on as a society. We can’t just give that away.

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Ben

Casetteboy just dropped an amazing new video

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Martin Smith, Daniel R, Dave

Arjan Dirkse wrote:

Honestly I’m fine with Germany banning AfD, if they can do so.

I wish they’d finally start the proceedings for this, but the other parties are too chickenshit. I mean, there’s a real risk that there isn’t quite enough evidence to ban them – the hurdles for this are very high, and rightfully so. BUT at least as long as the court proceedings for this would be going on, they’d have to be very aware of it and try and dial back their extremist connections and Höcke’s rhetoric. Because as things are, they’re managing very well to convince the average protest voter that they’re just anti-system conservatives, while at the same time building a neo-nazi network.

Isn’t it supposed to be a decision to be made by the justice system? I think we have a process in place in the Netherlands to ban parties but it’s not a decision taken by other political parties, it’s a dicision made by a judge.

 

It should ideally be very simple, if a party in their proclamations and programs repeatedly utter things that are against certain principles of the state, things like equality under the law, or infringement on certain freedoms, ban them. Under such a rule I think the PVVwould be banned here in the Netherlands. They pretty much said they want to ban a whole religion.

 

Iran has a council that is specifically there to weed out undesirable candidates, that go against the principles of their state. Now I think the principles of the Iranian state are pretty bad, but such a vetting system by the law would be a good thing I think.

Arjan Dirkse wrote:

Isn’t it supposed to be a decision to be made by the justice system? I think we have a process in place in the Netherlands to ban parties but it’s not a decision taken by other political parties, it’s a dicision made by a judge.

The decision whether to ban them would be a judicial decision, but parliament has to start the proceedings.

Arjan Dirkse wrote:

It should ideally be very simple, if a party in their proclamations and programs repeatedly utter things that are against certain principles of the state, things like equality under the law, or infringement on certain freedoms, ban them. Under such a rule I think the PVVwould be banned here in the Netherlands. They pretty much said they want to ban a whole religion.

Yeah, our national secret service has already declared them right-wing extremists and enemies of the constitution. The rest of it should be pretty easy really.

Well… easy if you look at the people making up the party and what they say and do. They’re clever enough not to put any of this stuff into the party’s official documents, which I suppose is where it gets tricky.

I hnestly don’t understand why the PVV hasn’t been outlawed here…given their attitude towards Islam. They want to ban the quran and close all mosques. That is a direct attack on basic human rights. It’s crazy that even some normie parties worked with him. I mean I said some things abotu Islam and the behavior of some Muslims that some take offence at, but I hate this polder fascist.

 

Maybe it’s just that they’re afraid of riots from their supporters if that happens.

 

It’s pretty tough…some family members of mine voted Wilders. I just take the stance that everybody has to vote what they think is best and it’s their personal business, I am not going to argue with them about it. I still love them of course.

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Christian

Irish Presidential Election update:

the knives are out, the tabloids have some sort of story about how eeeeevil Catherine Connolly is every few days, a lot of them are misrepresenting things she’s said in her stance as an anti-NATO, anti-EU leftist.  Sadly there’s a huge streak in the anti-NATO sphere, where people are willing to downplay the deeds of NATO’s opponents and she’s said some fairly naive things in that sphere.  The thing that’s stuck the most is the revelation that she hired a person who’d served time for armed robbery, cut she’s stuck to a line stressing that she believes in redemption and this person had served her time. One of the Burke clan (the evangelicals so extreme the Westboro Baptist Church think they need to tone it down) was turfed out of an event Connolly was at the other day, so that’s in her stead too.

Heather Humphreys has been able to avoid the muckracking for the most part, but apparently her husband said that as a proud Unionist he wouldn’t move into Arás an Uachtarain – the President’s residence – which is a bit of an oof moment.

Jim Gavin’s the one who’s been hit the worst with scandal – he had to remove two campaign videos, one because it seemed to suggest he had the backing of the Defense Forces, who are an apolitical organisation and never endorse a candidate; and the other because it had aerial footage of him out for a run, but the footage was shot in a no-drone red zone.  Not a huge deal except Gavin was Chief Operations Officer of the Irish Aviation Authority, he was literally in charge of air safety in Ireland.  On top of that it transpired that he apparently was overpaid around €3,300 rent on a property he owned, and despite promising to return it to the tenant this never happened.  That last one was the straw that broke the camel’s back and he dropped out of the race on Sunday night.

The last poll showed Connolly on 35%, Humphreys on 23% and Gavin on 15%, the balance saying they were undecided or wouldn’t vote, and in a three-candidate race odds are Gavin’s votes would largely transfer to Humphreys or vice versa depending on who went out first.  It’ll be interesting to see how that arithmetic changes now we’re down to two candidates.  In each debate so far the consensus seems to be that Connolly is the more accomplished speaker, and speechifying is one of the main things the President does, so that’s in her favour.

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Martin Smith, Christian, Todd

Trump is turning more anti-Russia. I wonder what goes on behind the scenes, who is influencing him to make these changes.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/oct/07/edouard-philippe-sebastien-lecornu-france-emmanuel-macron-elections

 

An ally of Macron who could be his successor calls for presidential election.

Just as Kamala Harris said. He is sending armies into cities:

https://abcnews.go.com/US/texas-national-guard-training-center-chicago-suburbs/story?id=126320753

There was a report last week about ICE invading a Chicago housing complex (helicopters landing on the roofs) very late at night and zip lining everyone.

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Arjan Dirkse

Al-x wrote:

There was a report last week about ICE invading a Chicago housing complex (helicopters landing on the roofs) very late at night and zip lining everyone.

I really hope you meant to say “zip-TYING everyone”.

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JRCarter, Sean Robinson, Al-x, Todd

njerry wrote:

Al-x wrote:

There was a report last week about ICE invading a Chicago housing complex (helicopters landing on the roofs) very late at night and zip lining everyone.

I really hope you meant to say “zip-TYING everyone”.

Yes. Zip tying. Doesn’t make the news any better though. The country is more of a police state, if it’s not already.
ICE comes with no ID and give no due process. They just abduct without consequence. Now there have been reports of – since they give no ID – ICE impersonators doing robbery and other crimes.

Now six former surgeon generals and two prominent psychiatric organizations are urging for RFK Jr. removal as Health Secretary.
https://abcnews.go.com/Health/hhs-hits-back-former-surgeons-general-wrote-op/story?id=126333161
https://www.npr.org/sections/shots-health-news/2025/10/06/nx-s1-5559217/rfk-jr-mental-health-substance-abuse-ssri

When and how is all this going to end?

Our parliament approved a motion to declare antifa a terrorist organization.

Jesus Christ, what the fuck, Dutch parliament?

Over the last few days, a lot of journalism came around to saying that Trump maybe deserved the Nobel Peace Price because of the armistice in Gaza. The guy who renamed the Department of Defence into Department of War, and who is trying to ware a war against American cities. It’s… rather annoying.

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Martin Smith, Sean Robinson, Todd, lorcan_nagle

They should probably wait and see how many days the ceasefire lasts before writing any cheques their asses can’t cash.

 

Or you know, look into the rules of the Nobel Peace Prize and pay attention to the nomination dates.

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Andrew, Uncle Retrospective, Todd

lorcan_nagle wrote:

They should probably wait and see how many days the ceasefire lasts before writing any cheques their asses can’t cash.

 

Or you know, look into the rules of the Nobel Peace Prize and pay attention to the nomination dates.

Lorcan, you know damn good and well that MAGA can’t read.

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JRCarter, Sean Robinson, lorcan_nagle

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/10/05/opinion/west-europe-america-lost.html

 

This “we’re doomed” rhetoric exists both on the left and the right. I don’t know…I think all our politicians are pretty shit, but if we have the right mindset there is no obstacle we can’t overcome.

 

Experts who can only promise a managed decline deserve to be kicked out of all the institutions where they are to be found. That sort of thinking needs to end.

I doubt the ceasfire in Gaza will last for a long time. Hamas is not going to disarm, and Israel is not going to turn pacifist.

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Todd

Christian wrote:

Jesus Christ, what the fuck, Dutch parliament?

Yeah it sucks.

 

Might get worse. Wilders is going to win the election, I just hope he can’t form a coalition. (He will probably get something like 20-25 % of the votes)

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Christian

I’d say there is a 50/50 chance we get a Wilders coalition. Like in so many countries, there is an almost even split between left and right, or parties who prefer a left wing coalition to a right wing coalition. France also seems split between left and right almost evenly.

 

The AfD in Germany seems too extreme to get into power, but we could see a Europe with Le Pen, Farage, Meloni, Wilders and Orban. (although there’s a chance Orban will lose the elections next year)

French parliament is stuck in three main blocks that can’t agree on anything. Nobody can get a majority of the votes so nothing works.

Arjan, our president has some time on his hands now that he’s settled the problem in Gaza. Would you like us to send him to Amsterdam to straighten things out?

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Arjan Dirkse

MAKE AMSTERDAM GAY AGAIN

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Christian, Todd

Trump’s no good for this, you need the Couch Lover.

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Todd

Arjan Dirkse wrote:

MAKE AMSTERDAM GAY AGAIN

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Todd, lorcan_nagle

Annnnnnnd Israel has broken the ceasefire

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Al-x, Todd, Andrew, Martin Smith

lorcan_nagle wrote:

Annnnnnnd Israel has broken the ceasefire

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Al-x, Todd, Martin Smith, Uncle Retrospective, lorcan_nagle

There was an anti-immigration protest in Amsterdam with about a thousand people. They were using “filthy Jew” as chant against Frans Timmermans, leader of the center left PvdA. (Who isn’t Jewish but they just use Jew as a slur)

 

There is a contingent of PVV voters on twitter who think antisemites are only on the left, so they accused them of being left wing infiltrators…I think these people are so far gone. Completely crazy.

Yeah, that’s one of those things those new fascists will do, blaming antisemitism exclusively on immigrants and using it as a hammer against muslims, while at the same time being wildly antisemitic themselves. There’s been some of that here.

Christian wrote:

Yeah, that’s one of those things those new fascists will do, blaming antisemitism exclusively on immigrants and using it as a hammer against muslims, while at the same time being wildly antisemitic themselves. There’s been some of that here.

I think this particular contingent of Wilders voters is not really antisemitic, they’re just very very dumb. They see an actual right wing antisemite and conclude he must be an undercover leftist.

 

(I’m sure there are some antisemites in the party but many antisemites prefer FvD, our other right wing party. FvD is more edgy, they often dogwhistle antisemitic conspiracy theories)

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Uncle Retrospective, Christian

[Al-x]

This No Kings is in so many other countries.

It just gets to me about voter mentality ie. the single issue voters, voting against your own interests just to spite others, voters ignorant of how connected things are, voters who ignore facts and fair warnings of what would happen, and it led to 45 being reelected again. What a mess!

 

• This reply was modified 2 weeks, 1 day ago by Al-x.
• This reply was modified 2 weeks, 1 day ago by Al-x.

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Christian, Todd

Feels appropriate for the day:

“Nac Mac Feegle! The Wee Free Men! Nae king! Nae quin! Nae laird! We willna be fooled again!”

(Terry Pratchett, The Wee Free Men)

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Christian, Todd

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Todd, njerry

So, er, about that AI video of Trump engaged in literal crap-bombing of the protests posted by…. Trump.

It’s unhinged stuff.

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Todd, lorcan_nagle

He also posted an AI video of himself endorsing the Med Bed conspiracy theory, but someone with access to his account deleted it.

 

For those who don’t know, some people claim that the US government has developed what are essentially the bio beds from Star Trek, thy heal everything and they’re just about to be made accessible to the public.  And you can buy your access at my perfectly legitimate link!

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Todd, Ben

Someone one a Dutch podcast mentioned that in Europe political power and important decision making procedures largely rest with the EU, but political debate is on a national level. The EU doesn’t really express itself about what it wants to be.

It was never set up to be that, the EU still reflects its origin as economic co-operation. There’s been attempts to make it more than that but they run into the same wall: Any common EU policy is not under the control of its nation state members. In that respect that free movement, the Euro and single market are political miracles.

The US likes to view the EU as akin to itself, but the EU nations are far more than US states. It’s an inaccurate perception.

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Dave, Todd, lorcan_nagle

It would probably be better if there was more of a debate on the identity of the EU, especially with regards to foreign policy and military. Right now it’s very shaky.

 

People don’t feel very connected to the EU and therefore there is not a lot of talk about what we want the EU to be.

[Ben]

It suits the individual nations to cast the EU as an over-mighty central body, but the council of ministers run the EU, not the other way around. For there to be an EU line in x, nation states have to be willing to give it up, which doesn’t tend to happen.

The mess that is brexit did emphasise the successes – that you can move freely and trade goods with a single currency across the EU member states.

• This reply was modified 2 weeks ago by Ben.

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lorcan_nagle, Todd

Ben wrote:

So, er, about that AI video of Trump engaged in literal crap-bombing of the protests posted by…. Trump.

It’s unhinged stuff.

It can’t really be stressed enough how insane this is.
The current President of the US is posting a video in which he stages himself as a king who literally shits on the people on the streets from a fighter jet. This is a portrayal he finds flattering.

Trump posts insane video of himself as a king flying a jet that drops feces on protestors below. Seriously
byu/ExactlySorta inFauxmoi

I mean… what the fuck, man? If Ellis had written something like this back then in Transmetropolitan, I’d have said, well even for a satirical satire comic about politics, this is just too much of a sledgehammer, yeah? Jesus fucking Christ.

And Vance posting this on Bluesky…

https://bsky.app/profile/jd-vance-1.bsky.social/post/3m3ijow42tc2z

Jesus. This has become the first true nerd troll presidency. 4chan is clearly to blame for everything that’s wrong with the world.

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Uncle Retrospective, Sean Robinson, Ben, Todd, lorcan_nagle

AI video of him crap-bombing protesters.

Demolishing the White House for a new thron, ballroom.

Spraying his VP’s motorcade and police protection with shrapnel from a premature shell explosion fired over a public highway.

Just a few days in Trump’s second presidency.

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Todd, lorcan_nagle

Well, they shouldn’t have hired Armando Iannucci to write the second term, should they.

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Todd, Uncle Retrospective, Ben, lorcan_nagle

Christian wrote:

Well, they shouldn’t have hired Armando Iannucci to write the second term, should they.

Ironically, Armando Iannucci has talked about trying to get a satire of Trump off the ground but nobody will fund it for fear of reprisals from the White House.

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Todd, Christian, Uncle Retrospective, Ben

Israel says it will return to ceasefire after Gaza strikes

This all increasingly feels like an article in The Onion.

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Todd, Christian, lorcan_nagle

Yeah that’s not what the word ceasefire means. You can’t just start bombing and return to the ceasfire whenever you want.

 

There are no checks on Israel. They have no incentive to be anything other than genocidal.

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Todd

Bullies are always gonna be bullies. Netanyahu, Trump, and Putin are a gang of thugs.

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Dave, Todd, lorcan_nagle

I’m increasingly thinking Europe is going to give in eventually and strike a deal with Putin. France is going in a bad direction especially. Two of the main contenders for the next presidential election are Bardella and Melenchon, right wing and left wing, and both are very soft on Putin. Also Farage is soft on Putin. Although Farage is constantly shifting, I am not sure what to think of him.

lorcan_nagle wrote:

Christian wrote:

Well, they shouldn’t have hired Armando Iannucci to write the second term, should they.

Ironically, Armando Iannucci has talked about trying to get a satire of Trump off the ground but nobody will fund it for fear of reprisals from the White House.

It’d be a crazy undertaking anyway. I mean, how do you satirise that? All you could do would be to just show what’s actually going on. Maybe take it down a notch to not be accused of hysteria.

On a different note, it seems like the Green Party is doing well in the UK currently, due to the new Party Leader pushing for left-wing economic policies and being good at the whole social media thing.

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Uncle Retrospective, lorcan_nagle

Arjan Dirkse wrote:

Also Farage is soft on Putin. Although Farage is constantly shifting, I am not sure what to think of him.

That he’s a dangerous shitbag that has done untold damage to the UK and caught Ireland in the backwash.

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Ben, Dave, lorcan_nagle, Todd

It’s 3 days to the Presidential election and Heather Humphreys’ campaign has been exceptionally nasty, even by the standards of the Presidency.  It transpired that while working as a barrister, Catherine Connolly took on work on behalf on landlords that ended in the eviction of some tenants.  As a left wing politician, this is of course counter to her statements since being elected to office.  That said the code of ethics barristers are required to take work that’s offered to them and should not be held responsible for the views of their client or the tasks they’re instructed to undertake – like someone who defends a murderer shouldn’t be considered a hypocrite if they then speak out against murder. Various legal professionals including the Law Society and a number of elected politicians who were barristers or solicitors before entering politics have talked about how irresponsible that line of attack has been. Humphreys cited her time as the manager of a credit union and how she didn’t have anyone evicted to portray her as more virtuous.

Naturally, it’s come to light that during her time as a manager of a credit union, Humphreys took legal action against people who were in arrears. Now in both cases they basically acted within their rights, expectations and duties. But it’s some next to attack someone for doing something that you also took part in. Also, you’d think the fact that Connolly would take work that she was morally opposed to would put paid to the people claiming she’d snub Trump or Putin or whoever by being an outspoken leftie, but hey.

Similarly Humphries has been attacking Connolly on her association with Paul Murphy, a left-wing TD who was arrested on illegal imprisonment charges for his part in a protest during the water charges protests where then-Tainiste Joan Burton was stuck in her car for some hours.  Murphy and five others were arrested, put on trial and cleared on all charges, but Humphreys insisted repeatedly during an interview that he did indeed imprison her, even while the interviewer tried to urge her away from defaming him.  He’s now suing her.

And for the most part, Connolly has been running a clean campaign, even as many of her supporters online have been nasty about Humphreys, particularly around her connections to the Orange Order. One comment I saw put it perfectly – Connolly has been running a campaign that says why she should be president, while Humphreys has been running a campaign that says why Connolly should not be president.  And unsurprisingly, a positive campaign will almost always beat a negative one

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Christian, Martin Smith, Todd, Ben

Uncle Retrospective wrote:

Arjan Dirkse wrote:

Also Farage is soft on Putin. Although Farage is constantly shifting, I am not sure what to think of him.

That he’s a dangerous shitbag that has done untold damage to the UK and caught Ireland in the backwash.

Just to clarify, I know Farage is a bad guy, and he did bad things for the UK, but I’m talking about this position on the conflict with Russia specifically. He changes his stance on that quite often.

Dutch intelligence services are changing their policies on information sharing with the US.

 

https://nltimes.nl/2025/10/18/dutch-intelligence-services-cut-back-sharing-information-us

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Uncle Retrospective, Todd

Yeah, nobody should shary any information with the US for the next three years, that much is for sure.

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Uncle Retrospective, Todd

Arjan Dirkse wrote:

Dutch intelligence services are changing their policies on information sharing with the US.

 

https://nltimes.nl/2025/10/18/dutch-intelligence-services-cut-back-sharing-information-us

Smart move.

Man sent to France under ‘one in, one out’ scheme returns to UK on small boat

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Uncle Retrospective, lorcan_nagle, Todd

Tearing down and renovating the White House:

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cy40lw22dyvo

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Todd

Soon to be the Piss House, due to the colour of that ballroom.

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Todd

Christian wrote:

Yeah, nobody should shary any information with the US for the next three years, that much is for sure.

The problem really is that even if there’s an election in 2028 and the Dems get back in, unless they actually work to fix the root causes of the dysfunction in the US, it’s only a matter of time until someone even more venal and capricious than Trump gets in and fucks stuff up all over again.

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Todd

lorcan_nagle wrote:

Christian wrote:

Yeah, nobody should shary any information with the US for the next three years, that much is for sure.

The problem really is that even if there’s an election in 2028 and the Dems get back in, unless they actually work to fix the root causes of the dysfunction in the US, it’s only a matter of time until someone even more venal and capricious than Trump gets in and fucks stuff up all over again.

Exactly.

Trump has irrevocably broken the US to the point where you can’t put it back together to what it was in 2024.

The POTUS and Congress will have to build something new from the wreckage. Assuming good people with good hearts are elected (HA!!!) and can quickly devise a strong plan to address underlying problems, it will take decades to right the ship. Yeah, they can perform triage to fix some of the bigger problems, but this won’t be a quick fix.

This also assumes everything will go mostly right. And we know that won’t happen.

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lorcan_nagle

Trump is fucking the US really badly but overall my opinion of the US is positive. Yes there are problems, yes there are flaws like there are everywhere, but most of the people are decent. I honestly think all the democrats need is a half way decent candidate. If Obama could run again he would probably win.

lorcan_nagle wrote:

The problem really is that even if there’s an election in 2028 and the Dems get back in, unless they actually work to fix the root causes of the dysfunction in the US, it’s only a matter of time until someone even more venal and capricious than Trump gets in and fucks stuff up all over again.

Absolutely. If the Dems don’t get it the fuck together finally, it’ll be over for American democracy pretty soon.

And we should add that fixing some of the systemic US-specific problems is going to be incredibly difficult. Fixing the election system for example – they’re never going to get a majority for a constitutional change for that. And the Supreme Court, that’s going to be very hard to change back to a less radical incarnation. And restricting Presidential power, that’d need an amendment to the constitution, too.

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Todd, lorcan_nagle

This is an interesting development but I am not certain it isn’t a facade…act annoyed at Israel’s actions but don’t oppose them in any meaningful way if they decide to annex the West Bank.

 

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/oct/23/marco-rubio-warning-israel-west-bank-donald-trump

It’s crazy that the American government can shut down. Sorry, we’re closed for business!

Arjan Dirkse wrote:

Just to clarify, I know Farage is a bad guy, and he did bad things for the UK, but I’m talking about this position on the conflict with Russia specifically. He changes his stance on that quite often.

Farage has taken a shitload of money from Russia, he used to work openly on Russia Today. His ex leader in Wales has just been convicted for being paid to ask questions in the EU parliament supporting Russian interests, he will be sentenced soon. Russia was also deeply involved in the social media side of the Brexit referendum.

However that is not a popular position in the UK, it could be deemed by a lot of his supporters as very bad and possibly treasonous, so Farage always distances himself from his support for Putin publicly.

So he’s not really changing his stance often, he’s a Putin beneficiary and supporter who knows he can’t stand on that so will pretend he isn’t.

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Christian, lorcan_nagle, Todd, Arjan Dirkse

Arjan Dirkse wrote:

It’s crazy that the American government can shut down. Sorry, we’re closed for business!

To be fair Belgium did without any government for over a year.

Ok slightly differently, they had no government but in their system that just means civil servants carry on with whatever rules and budgets were last decided. I think the US in unique in shutting up shop.

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Ben, lorcan_nagle

I think technically Belgium did have a government. They had a demissionary cabinet, which stays in power until a new government has been formed. At least that’s how it works in the Netherlands.

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garjones

garjones wrote:

Ok slightly differently, they had no government but in their system that just means civil servants carry on with whatever rules and budgets were last decided. I think the US in unique in shutting up shop.

Yeah, I don’t think I’ve ever heard of another country where that happens. Probably because it’s fucking insane.

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Ben, lorcan_nagle, garjones

Wilders is seeing a huge tumble in some polls…one poll had him at only 23 seats today, that is like 15 procent…elections are tomorrow and this is making me a little hopeful. Still it is possibe that there will be a right wing coalition.

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Todd, Uncle Retrospective

Graham Linehan is retweeting straight up nazi accounts on X.

 

I saw part of an interview with him a while ago, and I think he might have some kind of brain damage. He had trouble finding basic words, remembering certain obvious things.

 

It’s a sad case. I check up on what he is saying on X sometimes just to see how he’s doing. My own views have also been influenced by things on social media but I’m not as crazy as him. I am not retweeting nazis. But I understand how you can fall in these rabbit holes.

[lorcan_nagle]

Linehan is a great example of how the far right pipeline works.  He was always a bit of a prick online, but between being one of the early celebrity adopters of Twitter and being broadly progressive a lot of his bad behaviour was glossed over.  And then someone gave him some mild criticism of an episode of the IT crowd which he took in good nature at the time, but it clearly rankled at him.  And the descent was gradual at first, I was at a protest against giving the Sisters of Charity ownership of the new National Children’s Hospital in 2014 and he was a speaker at it, but even then there were murmurs about him being a TERF.  And, well, look at the comments on this Reddit post to see how the shine was coming off him even then:

My friend met Graham Linehan at the We Own Our Hospitals protest in Dublin yesterday. Perfect placard.
byu/NaBacLeis inireland

(I swear I found this when I was trying to work out the date and couldn’t find the photos I took of the event)

You can see how things accelerate and the further along you go the faster the descent is.  A couple of years ago he was tweeting post-radical mastectomy photos of what he claimed were trans teenagers,  and I know logic doesn’t come into it but these were photos of people that by his definition were underage girls (they were in fact over 21 when the photos were taken but he either didn’t know that or lied about it). He claims his marriage failed because of the pressure that was put on their relationship by activists, but he was tweeting every 8 minutes on Christmas Day the year she left him, after the claimed in public that he’d promised to cut back.

Last year he was showing up at a couple of Irish protests, and they were all anti-migrant far right ones, a far cry from when I saw him way back when.

 

And for additional “fun”, you can see Roisin Murphy falling down the rabbit hole right now as well.

• This reply was modified 5 days ago by lorcan_nagle.

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Uncle Retrospective, Christian, Todd

He is the poster boy for social media radicalisation. As you say his first post in response to the criticism was saying he’d take it on board etc.

That’s morphed week by week from having ‘concerns’ into vicious insults about any trans people and now sharing neo-nazi material.

He’d be living a far happier and more successful life if he’d just deleted his Twitter account after that first IT Crowd criticism. It’s a tragic story really because he wrote very funny sitcoms that made people happy and now just wastes his time ranting online and making everyone’s lives more miserable.

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Todd, lorcan_nagle

I think there is something in social media that stimulates just general nastiness. A relaxation of certain norms of behavior and etiquette, letting loose the unpleasant side a lot of people have. Being extreme is incentivized. Linehan probably always had that nasty streak in him, but social media can exacerbate it.

Arjan Dirkse wrote:

I think there is something in social media that stimulates just general nastiness. A relaxation of certain norms of behavior and etiquette, letting loose the unpleasant side a lot of people have. Being extreme is incentivized. Linehan probably always had that nasty streak in him, but social media can exacerbate it.

This is deliberate, mind you. The algorithm favours engagement, and it turns out that what causes us most to engage, to spend time with out screen, is not when we see something we love but when we see something that makes us angry. And that, the time we spend on a video clip or a post, is what brings in the money. So social media has turned into hate machines, and we’re all seeing the fallout of that right now. And yet, nobody seems to be willing to legislate against this.

PLus, there seems to be a deliberate slant going on, especially on tiktok. There’s been some recent experiments in which researchers started clean tiktok accounts and basically gave no input whatsoever, and it didn’t take long until the majority of the content that was fed into those account was radical right stuff. It’s almost as if China had an interest in destroying Western democracy…

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Dave, lorcan_nagle

Yep, the levers social media pulls aren’t subtle. It’s why I liked the Luthor monkeys in Superman so much.

In other stuff, I was looking over Kinnock’s 1983 election speech, he had Thatcher and Reagan nailed, and their heirs.

If Margaret Thatcher is re-elected as prime minister on Thursday, I warn you.

I warn you that you will have pain–when healing and relief depend upon payment.

I warn you that you will have ignorance–when talents are untended and wits are wasted, when learning is a privilege and not a right.

I warn you that you will have poverty–when pensions slip and benefits are whittled away by a government that won’t pay in an economy that can’t pay.

I warn you that you will be cold–when fuel charges are used as a tax system that the rich don’t notice and the poor can’t afford.

I warn you that you must not expect work–when many cannot spend, more will not be able to earn. When they don’t earn, they don’t spend. When they don’t spend, work dies.

I warn you not to go into the streets alone after dark or into the streets in large crowds of protest in the light.

I warn you that you will be quiet–when the curfew of fear and the gibbet of unemployment make you obedient.

I warn you that you will have defence of a sort–with a risk and at a price that passes all understanding.

I warn you that you will be home-bound–when fares and transport bills kill leisure and lock you up.

I warn you that you will borrow less–when credit, loans, mortgages and easy payments are refused to people on your melting income.

If Margaret Thatcher wins on Thursday–

– I warn you not to be ordinary

– I warn you not to be young

– I warn you not to fall ill

– I warn you not to get old.

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Uncle Retrospective, Dave, Todd, Christian, lorcan_nagle

D66 beat Wilders, at least that’s how it looks from the exit polls. That’s very good news. D66 is a moderate left wing, liberal party. They have 27 seats, Wilders 25, VVD 23 and Labor 20. It looks like it will be impossible for Wilders to form a government if this exit poll is correct.

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Martin Smith, Christian, Todd

Arjan Dirkse wrote:

I think there is something in social media that stimulates just general nastiness. A relaxation of certain norms of behavior and etiquette, letting loose the unpleasant side a lot of people have. Being extreme is incentivized. Linehan probably always had that nasty streak in him, but social media can exacerbate it.

Scientists Created an Entire Social Network Where Every User Is a Bot, and Something Wild Happened

It’s no secret that social media has devolved into a toxic cesspool of disinformation and hate speech.

Without any meaningful pressure to come up with effective guardrails and enforceable policies, social media platforms quickly turned into rage-filled and polarizing echo chambers with one purpose: to keep users hooked on outrage and brain rot so they can display more ads.

And given the results of a recent experiment by researchers at the University of Amsterdam, they may be doomed to stay that way.

As detailed in a yet-to-be-peer-reviewed study, coauthors Petter Törnberg, AI and social media assistant professor, and research assistant Maik Larooij simulated a social media platform that was populated entirely by AI chatbots, powered by OpenAI’s GPT-4o large language model, to see if there was anything we could do to stop social media from turning into echo chambers.

They tested out six specific intervention strategies — including switching to chronological news feeds, boosting diverse viewpoints, hiding social statistics like follower counts, and removing account bios — to stop the platform from turning into a polarized hellscape.

To their dismay, none of the interventions worked to a satisfactory degree, and only some showed modest effects. Worse yet, as Ars Technica reports, some of them made the situation even worse.

For instance, ordering the news feed chronologically reduced attention inequality but floated extreme content to the top.

It’s a sobering reality that flies in the face of companies’ promises of constructing a “digital town square” — as billionaire and X owner Elon Musk once called it — where everybody coexists peacefully.

With or without intervention, social media platforms may be doomed to devolve into a highly polarized breeding ground for extremist thinking.

“Can we identify how to improve social media and create online spaces that are actually living up to those early promises of providing a public sphere where we can deliberate and debate politics in a constructive way?” Törnberg asked Ars.

The AI and social media assistant professor admitted that using AI isn’t a “perfect solution” due to “all kind of biases and limitations.” However, the tech can capture “human behavior in a more plausible way.”

Törnberg explained that it’s not just triggering pieces of content that result in highly polarized online communities.

Toxic content “also shapes the network structures that are formed,” he told Ars, which in turn “feeds back what content you see, resulting in a toxic network.”

As a result, there’s an “extreme inequality of attention,” where a tiny minority of posts get the most visibility.

And in the age of generative AI, these effects could become even more pronounced.

“We already see a lot of actors — based on this monetization of platforms like X — that are using AI to produce content that just seeks to maximize attention,” Törnberg told Ars. “So misinformation, often highly polarized information — as AI models become more powerful, that content is going to take over.”

“I have a hard time seeing the conventional social media models surviving that,” he added.

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lorcan_nagle

Todd wrote:

“We already see a lot of actors — based on this monetization of platforms like X — that are using AI to produce content that just seeks to maximize attention,” Törnberg told Ars. “So misinformation, often highly polarized information — as AI models become more powerful, that content is going to take over.”

“I have a hard time seeing the conventional social media models surviving that,” he added.

That’s actually maybe a hopeful note, isn’t it? If social media is flooded entirely with made-up AI shit, sooner or later people will just turn it off, won’t they?

Won’t they?

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Uncle Retrospective, Todd, lorcan_nagle

On the topic of radicalisation, this is a fascinating read:

https://www.cosmopolitan.com/uk/love-sex/relationships/a63915627/political-beliefs-dating-app-experiment

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Christian, Todd

Todd wrote:

For instance, ordering the news feed chronologically reduced attention inequality but floated extreme content to the top.

That’s surprising. You’d think rage-bait content would be boosted by an interaction-favouring algorithmic timeline rather than just a chronological one.

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Todd, lorcan_nagle

Christian wrote:

That’s actually maybe a hopeful note, isn’t it? If social media is flooded entirely with made-up AI shit, sooner or later people will just turn it off, won’t they?

Won’t they?

Don’t overlook the real likelihood that there is a group of MAGAs out there who actually believe that Donald flew a fighter jet over Times Square and released a load of poop onto a crowd of No Kings protesters.

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Christian, Sean Robinson, Todd, lorcan_nagle

[Arjan Dirkse]

Arjan Dirkse wrote:

D66 beat Wilders, at least that’s how it looks from the exit polls. That’s very good news. D66 is a moderate left wing, liberal party. They have 27 seats, Wilders 25, VVD 23 and Labor 20. It looks like it will be impossible for Wilders to form a government if this exit poll is correct.

 

FFS, the exit poll was off and now it looks like Wilders might just eek out a very slim win. Both are at 16,6 % of the vote. But some votes still have to be counted and D66 might have the advantage there. 20 % of the votes in Amsterdam which is a left wing bastion still have to be counted, as well as the mail votes, which typically go left.

 

Nevertheless, it seems impossible for Wilders to form a government with this result. But who the hell knows what might happen.

 

We’ll have 15 parties in parliament.

 

edit: this is crazy, just as I wrote this post Amsterdam posted an update and now D66 is 15,000 votes ahead. Looks like they will win after all. (fingers crossed)

• This reply was modified 3 days, 10 hours ago by Arjan Dirkse.

So we’re almost a week past the Presidential election, and Catherine Connolly walked it handily, with not only an unprecedented percentage of first preference votes (63.36%), but also the largest number of first preference votes for any candidate ever (914,143).  Heather Humphreys was a distant second with 424,987 and Jim Gavin got 103,568 even though he dropped out. The other remarkable result is 213,738 spoiled votes, or 12.9% of the total votes cast while the average is 1-2%

It’s interesting to delve into the numbers and tease them out a bit.  Connolly may have been a united left candidate and a socialist but that doesn’t mean that if there was a general election tomorrow that the left-wing parties would get a clear majority.  Similar to electing Higgins and Mary Robinson before him, it seems that the Irish public is willing to tack left when it comes to a position with a moral authority but not necessarily power, while on the parliamentary front they prefer more conservative/centrist hands on the tiller.  And while the spoil your vote campaign was largely the domain of the far right, I personally know some liberals who spoiled their vote – they wouldn’t vote for Fine Gael, but couldn’t support Connolly based on their perception of her position on Russia and Ukraine. It’s still being heralded as a victory on some level by the right.

The big worry I had coming out of this was that Fianna Fail and Fine Gael would look at the results, and rather than see the landslide to a leftist candidate and say “we need to improve people’s material conditions”, they see the spoiled votes and the rhetoric around it and say “we gotta get more racist”.  And, well…

https://www.thejournal.ie/simon-harris-immigration-comments-6860162-Oct2025

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Martin Smith, Christian, Todd

Speaking of emulating the far rights’ racist rhetoric, our chancellor has done a real sprint down that route:

Merz’s ‘discriminatory’ cityscape migration remark draws ire
Richard Connor with dpa, epd
10/16/2025October 16, 2025
Greens and Left Party lawmakers have urged Chancellor Friedrich Merz to apologize after he linked migration to a “problem in the cityscape.” A government spokesman says critics are “reading too much into” the comment.

Germany’s opposition Green and Left parties on Thursday urged Chancellor Friedrich Merz to apologize for a controversial remark about migration and Germany’s cities.

The opposition parties accused him of fueling division with remarks they say were racially insensitive and “unworthy of a chancellor.”

What exactly did Merz say about migration and cities?
Merz made the remark during his official visit to Brandenburg, after being asked in the state capital Potsdam about the rise of the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD).
During an appearance in Potsdam earlier this week, the conservative politician had said his government was correcting past migration policy mistakes and reducing numbers by 60% year-on-year.
He added: “But we still have this problem in the cityscape, and that is why the interior minister is working to carry out large-scale deportations.
“What exactly did you mean by that — how are you supposed to see this “problem” other than by the color of people’s skin? How do you want to recognize this ‘problem’? This statement is absolutely hurtful, discriminatory, and indecent. I would have expected you, Mr. Merz, to stand here today and have the courage to apologize for this sentence — that you have offended so many people in this country. That divides our society and, in the end, harms Germany. Take this sentence back — apologize.”
“

https://www.dw.com/en/merzs-discriminatory-cityscape-migration-remark-draws-ire/a-74390107

He has since doubled down when asking what he meant by his comment, responding to the reporter “Do you have daughters? Ask them, they’ll tell you.”. Nicely mining the old fear of the sexually aggressive darkie.

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Todd, lorcan_nagle

Christian wrote:

Todd wrote:

“We already see a lot of actors — based on this monetization of platforms like X — that are using AI to produce content that just seeks to maximize attention,” Törnberg told Ars. “So misinformation, often highly polarized information — as AI models become more powerful, that content is going to take over.”

“I have a hard time seeing the conventional social media models surviving that,” he added.

That’s actually maybe a hopeful note, isn’t it? If social media is flooded entirely with made-up AI shit, sooner or later people will just turn it off, won’t they?

Won’t they?

We are in Dead Internet Theory territory now:

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Christian, lorcan_nagle

Christian wrote:

That’s actually maybe a hopeful note, isn’t it? If social media is flooded entirely with made-up AI shit, sooner or later people will just turn it off, won’t they? Won’t they?

That;s something I’ve been wondering about. You have people with AI girlfriends now, it appears some people get comfort from interacting with AI.

It’s funny that people like Wilders who are yelling about “saving our culture” don’t have the slightest clue what our culture really is or how it could be saved. He is a vulgarian, a small minded person for whom culture is summed up in nice pictures of tulips and windmills.

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Todd, Ben, Uncle Retrospective

Arjan Dirkse wrote:

some people get comfort from interacting with AI.

Well, I used to say that the ladies do that about me but I digress.🤣

————

The government shutdown has SNAP benefits discontinued for the time being which will mean 42M households will have to put food on their tables somehow without that subsidy. This month will be… interesting. Happy Thanksgiving.

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Todd

Arjan Dirkse wrote:

It’s funny that people like Wilders who are yelling about “saving our culture” don’t have the slightest clue what our culture really is or how it could be saved. He is a vulgarian, a small minded person for whom culture is summed up in nice pictures of tulips and windmills.

Reminds me of this great moment when one the AfD party leaders was interviewed for a kid’s news format and he was going on about how important it was to get more German culture back into schools, folksongs and poetry and so on, and the kid asked him what his favourite poem was.

Didn’t know a single one.

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Dave, Arjan Dirkse, Todd, lorcan_nagle

Christian wrote:

Reminds me of this great moment when one the AfD party leaders was interviewed for a kid’s news format and he was going on about how important it was to get more German culture back into schools, folksongs and poetry and so on, and the kid asked him what his favourite poem was. Didn’t know a single one.

Reminiscent of Trump’s favourite bible passages.

The worst actions to rhetoric comparison I’ve seen has to the the leader of the ‘patriotic flag’ anti-immigration movement in Manchester. He had a conviction for smuggling 4 Vietnamese nationals into the UK.

His ‘defence’ was he was bringing them to work on a cannabis farm, still very illegal in the UK, and not taking benefits. It beggars belief.

 

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Uncle Retrospective, njerry, Todd

I don’t have threads because for some reason my meta accounts always get banned, but apparently on threads things are even worse than twitter. People there are now yelling that the Dutch elections were a fraud.

If you want to find the worst material possible, every social media platform will supply all you could want.

Someone on twitter made the point that all the main platforms are controlled by right wing billionaires. Bezos (who owns Washington Post) and Zuckerberg seem to have switched to supporting Trump. It’s all quite concerning.

Exactly, there is bad and there is worse, no social media platform is good. X is in the worse category due to Musk. But the others also polish Trump’s nuts.

Back to Dutch politics, this was an interesting read:

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/nov/02/dutch-voters-positivity-liberals-patriotism-d66-netherlands-election

Arjan Dirkse wrote:

Someone on twitter made the point that all the main platforms are controlled by right wing billionaires. Bezos (who owns Washington Post) and Zuckerberg seem to have switched to supporting Trump. It’s all quite concerning.

I think Musk is all-in, in fact further to the right than Trump and half his crowd. He’s already declared the likes of Nigel Farage are too left wing for him and he prefers neo-Nazis like Stephen Yaxley-Lennon.

Zuck and Bezos are just cowards. They bent the knee as soon as Trump took power because they are afraid of any repercussions on their business if they didn’t. I’m not saying for a second they are secretly Marxists or anything, they are billionaire businessmen after all and like to be taxed low and have weak unions. My suspicion is though they’d rather someone more rational in there, probably don’t like the ICE shit, definitely don’t like the tariffs etc.

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Ben, Todd

Ben wrote:

Exactly, there is bad and there is worse, no social media platform is good. X is in the worse category due to Musk. But the others also polish Trump’s nuts.

Back to Dutch politics, this was an interesting read:

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/nov/02/dutch-voters-positivity-liberals-patriotism-d66-netherlands-election

I have some problems with D66, theyre into things like digital surveillance a bit too much for my liking, but they’re not bad. They have some smart people in the party.