"But Sir, You ARE 'The Man!'"

The billionaire and his authoritarian wannabe friends think they’re the Resistance. https://t.co/ClRB6xee6o

— Bradley P. Moss (@BradMossEsq) August 11, 2024

Just a reminder that the hippies of the '60's were not poor kids who embraced poverty, and the anti-war protestors were college kids who didn't really have to worry about the draft.

And even Byron was a Lord and an aristocrat who could afford to play at "rebellion" without ever endangering his position or his wealth.

I was going to say there is a through-line from the protest leaders of the '60's (Hayden, Hoffman, etc.  The white leaders, not the black civil rights leaders, who literally weren't allowed to be as privileged in their upbringing or the place they could earn in America) to the apotheosis in their "children," spiritually if not actually, today. But all the most famous Romantic poets who sired that "rebel against the world" posture, without exception, had money to live on, and so could devote their lives to poetry and posturing.

There's always that connection.  The truly radical, which today includes Steve Bannon, always have some source of money, some benefactor with wealth, to sustain them.  Or they die in poverty and obscurity, if not in prison.

There's always somebody who's rich, and wants to stay rich, but wants to pretend to be a rebel and a "Bad Boy."  Ever since Byron, anyway.

What's Elmo's record on accepting his trans child, after all?  He likes rebellion and revolution, as long as it doesn't strike home.  Byron never gave up his status, either.  It's what, above all, allowed him to be Byron.