Prelude to the Apocalypse

[Vanguard]

They will cuck for Trump because there is no other alternative. The GOP could have solved the Trump problem by producing a single good GOP candidate, ever. They haven't had a good presidential candidate during my life time.

Neither have the Democrats. Whoops. That's how they get you.

[Sima Tuna]

They will cuck for Trump because there is no other alternative. The GOP could have solved the Trump problem by producing a single good GOP candidate, ever. They haven't had a good presidential candidate during my life time.

Neither have the Democrats. Whoops. That's how they get you.

I mentioned that in my post. I explained why the Dems win while the Republicans lose. Democrats don't have better candidates, but they are willing to offer crumbs from their table. Republicans are not.

[Sengoku Strider]

Biden didn't get the nomination because the party was excited about him or he was their #1 choice, he was a compromise who was a known quantity, a safe, middle of the road candidate at a time when they were justifiably terrified of another Trump term. They knew a lot of people desperately just wanted normal back, and were Bernie Sanders the candidate 6 months of republican freakouts branding him a raging communist might have made him seem too much of an unknown for centrist voters. Most of the mud Trump was going to throw at Biden wasn't going to stick because after 8 years as VP everyone knew his deal, he might let off steam once in a while but he wasn't an inexperienced incompetent or a boat-rocker. It didn't let Trump use his bullhorn to define their candidate.

Not that it stopped them from years of flailing attempts at trying.

[BryanM]

Biden didn't get the nomination because the party was excited about him or he was their #1 choice, he was a compromise who was a known quantity, a safe, middle of the road candidate at a time when they were justifiably terrified of another Trump term.

That's the rationalization they use, but it isn't the real reason. Just like the "law and justice" and "godly" tropes of their GOP brothers, that's all just bullshit they tell each other and themselves to pull the lever. If it wasn't this particular rationalization, it would be another line of bullshit. "Oh, we can't change things too fast! Don't wanna bankrupt our 'political capital', don't you know! Marginal incrementalism, that's the way!" "Nothing will ever get better! This is the best the world can be!" (Actual lines I've heard from these NPCs all the time during 2016. I don't bother talking to those people, because again it's very clear it isn't a person I'm talking to - it's a TV. Chapo's line about us being a monoculture that all go home and watch TV at the end of the day always rings so true - conservatives aren't any different. Back when I hung out at the Bodybuilding political forums, it was exactly the same: same lines and stories from whatever media they liked to watch, mindlessly parroted. When ChatGPT has more original thoughts and deeper insight into things, you have to feel rather sad about humanity.)

It's as simple as the fact that democrats like democrats. People who don't like democrats vote republican, or don't vote at all. They're just as authoritarian and tribal as the republicans are, they just don't like being loud and like decorum. (Which is why they ABSOLUTELY HATE Bernie Sanders. He is both loud, and makes them feel guilty for not being better people.)

It was Hillary's turn, so they gave it to her. It was Biden's turn, so they gave it to him (after the voltron ratfuck happened and they were told to do so. Liz helped out and stabbed the guy in the back a few hundred times, too.) It's no different than when Mitt Romney was in his primary, and there was a new contender every month. (Their internal polls showed they would lose to Donald Trump, if he were in that primary. They joked and laughed about it, of course.) In the end all the resistance was futile, and they pulled the lever for Romney. Because that's what they were told to do.

They can win Texas and somehow hold the rust belt this year, the GOP could be dead on the presidential level forever, and it wouldn't matter. Kamala Harris is the next nominee. Then Pete. It's been decided. If the voters somehow manage to pick someone that isn't a bank, that will be corrected.

The soldiers are loyal. They do what they're told. Their imaginary friends in the TV mean more to them than anything after all - who do they spend more time with than them?

(Geh, and people think super hyper weebs are sad. Whatever the group does, that's "normal". Things the group doesn't do, that's "weird" or "creepy". That's the real reason many democrats don't like Sanders or what he stands for. But that's too much honesty, and most NPC's ego can't handle it. I can admit I'm an NPC, I ain't no MC on the big stage.

... fuck, that reminds me of the "I want to vote for the winner" effect in elections. So they can feel like they're living through this other person and their victory vicariously. Sometimes I wonder how our species ever survived the elephants...)

[BulletMagnet]

They're just as authoritarian and tribal as the republicans are

Heaven knows how often I rail about the Dems - especially the "centrists" among them - and how the two parties are indeed a lot closer to each other than they should be in a lot of ways, but I'm sorry, this is just nonsense. Horrid as it is to watch AOC vote to break the railroad strike and Biden continue to fund Israel's genocide (if memory serves even Bernie took his sweet time to come around on this one), they want more people to vote instead of less and abide by the results of elections they lose, and when the other side blatantly does not that isn't something you just file under "decorum" and ignore.

Political talkers who say "there's no difference between the two parties" are akin to civil rights talkers insisting "nothing has changed since Jim Crow/slavery/etc." It just plain isn't true, on a substantive level: there are plentiful differences, and incredibly important ones, even if not as many as there ought to be; acting as if this isn't the case only serves to help those attempting to utterly undo whatever progress has been made, let alone allow anything more to happen. Sea change for the better would be great, but step one in that direction is to actually be aware of where we are and what we're dealing with, even if you might have to sacrifice some pithiness to do so.

Honestly, instead of all that I probably should have just allowed our foremost scholar on the subject to speak for me:

you guys saying it's all the same under a democrat or a republican have taken way too many loads to the eyes.

[BryanM]

They're just as authoritarian and tribal as the republicans are

Heaven knows how often I rail about the Dems - especially the "centrists" among them - and how the two parties are indeed a lot closer to each other than they should be in a lot of ways, but I'm sorry, this is just nonsense. Horrid as it is to watch AOC vote to break the railroad strike and Biden continue to fund Israel's genocide (if memory serves even Bernie took his sweet time to come around on this one), they want more people to vote instead of less and abide by the results of elections they lose, and when the other side blatantly does not that isn't something you just file under "decorum" and ignore.

I'm going to tell you something that's going to shock you to your core: the only reason they want "more" people to vote (with "want" in implied quotation marks as well, because christ do they really not want people to vote either... if you knew man, there's always more and it's always worse), is so their team can win. If lower turnout favored them, they would want less people to vote. If it looked like they were facing a future where they'd never seat another president, a lot of them would be chomping at the bit at overthrowing elections just as much as our fascist friends.

How many of them are furious at the anti-democratic nature of their primaries? How many of them know about the anti-Sanders voltron ratfuck? How many of them know that Elizabeth Warren was lying when she said Bernie didn't think a woman could be president? (After he literally tried to get her to run against Hillary in 2015, before giving up and going "I'll do it myself, then" protest-candidate style.) How many of them approve 1000% completely with those kinds of tactics, as long as their bank guy who doesn't want to raise their taxes wins?

It isn't about ethics or morals, it's about winning. (Or in the case of Democrats, losing I guess... Since they're paid to lose. Hillary really is the best democrat of all time... of all time.)

We're not talking about the people who want to give everyone healthcare here, we're talking about liberals. You can't use the "one side wants a white christian theocracy and the other wants to give everyone healthcare" point here. We're not talking about "good" and "evil" here (though that you went there immediately proves my point about our tribal monkey brains). We're talking about celebrity and the desire to seat a king - god emperor / slay qween stuff.

You know, normal human impulses of normies.

Going outside the tribe is the biggest taboo of them all. Appearing on Fox News and talking directly to their viewers is absolute anathema to democrats.

they want more people to vote instead of less and abide by the results of elections they lose

Or in the case of Al Gore, accept a loss of an election he won.

That's the real fun-house mirror and difference between liberals and the fash. Liberals are fine losing, since they get paid either way. The modern fash are hungry, and need victory to make that buck.

you guys saying it's all the same under a democrat or a republican have taken way too many loads to the eyes.

Aye, shutting down out-group badthink isn't authoritarian or tribal at all

It's always been a matter of degrees. Sam Seder thinks if a democrat wants to build a bunch of concentration camps, but says he'll make one fewer of them than his opponent, then he'd vote for the democrat no hesitation.

I call bullshit on the reasoning behind this, because flip the script: if the republican says he'd make one fewer concentration camp than the democrat, would Sam vote for the republican? Of course not. Not in a million years.

Because he doesn't trust them. They're not his tribe.



(And is it really any different to the average Fred Sadfuck to who the king is? Even if Trump was president right now, the grocery prices would still be double what they were before, wouldn't they? Liberals always have to pull out some obscure anecdote about some imaginary hypothetical person's life turning around from a 5% tax credit or whatever...

To the average person, what they saw was thousands of trump bux and hundreds of biden dollars in their pocket. And things were better in the past and suck worse now, so is Trump better than Biden, then? "No it's more nuanced than that!"

Yeah, exactly. Because the president doesn't rule the country. The people who own the presidents do. And they'll do whatever they want regardless of how we vote. Because that's their prerogative.)

[Sengoku Strider]

That's the rationalization they use, but it isn't the real reason. Just like the "law and justice" and "godly" tropes of their GOP brothers, that's all just bullshit they tell each other and themselves to pull the lever. If it wasn't this particular rationalization, it would be another line of bullshit. "Oh, we can't change things too fast! Don't wanna bankrupt our 'political capital', don't you know! Marginal incrementalism, that's the way!"

Well yeah. But also, look at the field they had, and tell me which of these names in 2020 was going to knock off Trump's death cult?

Spoiler

As you can see, even democratic primary voters werent considering most of them. Biden's sales pitch was more Obama but with a safe old white guy in charge; people knew what they were buying into. He didn't have to try and establish himself in a media environment where covid and Trump were sucking up 99% of the media oxygen. Sanders was the only one of those names that had a real following, but his working class brand meant they'd be gambling on him deprogramming Trump's cult to vote for him. He'd have been fighting uphill the whole time against Trump's biggest strength, through corporate media that already wanted him to lose.

It's as simple as the fact that democrats like democrats. People who don't like democrats vote republican, or don't vote at all. They're just as authoritarian and tribal as the republicans are

Far be it from me to say leftists aren't tribal, but I think there are some pretty major tonal differences between the two in how that goes down.

[Sengoku Strider]

They will cuck for Trump because there is no other alternative. The GOP could have solved the Trump problem by producing a single good GOP candidate, ever. They haven't had a good presidential candidate during my life time.

Neither have the Democrats. Whoops. That's how they get you.

You're only seeing the sanitized version of Obama the Deep State wants you to see.

[Vanguard]

I mentioned that in my post. I explained why the Dems win while the Republicans lose. Democrats don't have better candidates, but they are willing to offer crumbs from their table. Republicans are not.

What crumbs? All Obama did was mass murder foreign civilians and impoverish domestic civilians for the benefit of the rich. The fact that he is still tolerated, let alone loved by the left, proves beyond any doubt that BryanM's words were true: Nothing matters more than the tribe. Biden's first act as president was raising the price of insulin btw. These aren't the actions of fallible men trying to help, and they aren't compromises being forced by the republicans either. The democrats are working to weaken and immiserate the working class at least as hard as the republicans are.

[BryanM]

As you can see, even democratic primary voters werent considering most of them.

Ah, good ole name recognition and parasocial imaginary friend syndrome. I feel bad for Julian - when he gave his speech at Kerry's DNC coronation, I thought the guy had a real future. Especially with how they were putting money into their Battleground Texas initiative. If they wanted to accelerate the year that Texas flips forward, it made sense to push a native, right?

But they never pushed him, after that. I guess the earliest he'll get a turn is as Pete's VP. Feels more like he's 4th or 5th in line. If AoC plays ball and sells out hard enough, he might never get his turn.... it feels wrong if he falls into the same bucket as Rubio did.

One thing whinny people complain about is "why doesn't Bernie go more negative against democrats hur hur???" They really don't fucking get it. Democrats love democrats, and if he went negative all they'd see is this angry old man being an asshole to their imaginary friend that they like. This chart would have had him at negative 66% if he had used that strategy, and an absolute 0% chance to win the general. (As opposed to the ~15% he'd have after the media flipped to pro-Trump and the liberals had the proper noise patterns in their heads telling them to stay home on election day. Their friends Rachel Maddow and Whoopi told them to!!)

Far be it from me to say leftists aren't tribal, but I think there are some pretty major tonal differences between the two in how that goes down.

One of the most popular things to do in actual leftist circles is to let others know how cool and based they think John Brown is. Which of course gets their reddit forum shut down pretty quick.

Sometimes I get a little sad that people can't ever really tell one another what they really think.

(Eh. It's probably just anime girls anyway.)

The fash do feel like they're able to speak their minds in public now, when before it would be cringe and uncool. I totally get why liberals want to stuff that genie back into the bottle, so they can continue managing the apocalypse in peace and quiet.

What's "normal" can change so fast.



(Also the leftist would probably have a long tract of text like Tom Tomorrow or something in that rear window. A popular motto there is "horny is not allowed", so maybe it could be a sales pitch for the volcel lifestyle?

"Horny is not allowed" does not apply to trains, however. So be warned, anyone who seeks to venture into that part of the internet.)

He'd have been fighting uphill the whole time against Trump's biggest strength, through corporate media that already wanted him to lose.

I had always hoped he would be a reverse Ronald Reagan instead of a reverse Goldwater. How many freaking generations do we have to go before TV isn't the sole determinant of elections??

The fact that he is still tolerated, let alone loved by the left

Oh god, popularity charts. Those always blow my mind. How they go up and down so fast, like how W. is quite popular now when he was down to like 30% by the end of his tenure. People are lemmings. (Remember his gigantic spike to over 80% approval after 9/11? Haha.... ha............ ugh..... ..... .. .. . . nothing means anything......)

It's the only reason I can't say Biden is hosed this year. The data won't mean much until Summer starts in earnest..

Strider could even be right about the convictions, if they happen close enough to the election. And they don't give people time to adjust to and accept the new normal.

[Sima Tuna]

I mentioned that in my post. I explained why the Dems win while the Republicans lose. Democrats don't have better candidates, but they are willing to offer crumbs from their table. Republicans are not.

What crumbs? All Obama did was mass murder foreign civilians and impoverish domestic civilians for the benefit of the rich. The fact that he is still tolerated, let alone loved by the left, proves beyond any doubt that BryanM's words were true: Nothing matters more than the tribe. Biden's first act as president was raising the price of insulin btw. These aren't the actions of fallible men trying to help, and they aren't compromises being forced by the republicans either. The democrats are working to weaken and immiserate the working class at least as hard as the republicans are.

Crumbs:

Obamacare

SAVE

I explained, again in my previous post, that I personally know people who have been able to get healthcare from a form of Obamacare which continued to this very day. They would not have healthcare otherwise. Time will tell how Biden's loan forgiveness plan works, but this seems to me exactly the same "crumbs from the master's table" giveaway you see from Dems come election season. The stimulus checks came out under Biden too, and you know Biden's team is gonna call in the marker there.

I'm not about to defend the foreign war records of ANY president during my lifetime. They've all been abominable and would face summary execution in a just world. Any person who orders strikes on civilian targets and first responders should face a death sentence, immediately carried-out by a squad of six and one in the chamber.

I'm trying to explain to you why Democrats are winning elections and mainstream Republicans are not. The Democrat election strategy involves giving voters (a very few) things they want. The Republican election strategy is to offer nothing.

[Sengoku Strider]

Ah, good ole name recognition and parasocial imaginary friend syndrome.

I don't know that it's so much imaginary friends as it is sufficient data for people to form internal predictive models with enough relatable elements for them to onboard smoothly. The notion of taking politicians' campaign speeches at face value and then voting feels very 1980s...or maybe 1960s. These days people need to really get to know which movie character you're playing first.

One of the most popular things to do in actual leftist circles is to let others know how cool and based they think John Brown is. Which of course gets their reddit forum shut down pretty quick.

The man gave the emancipated black settlement he helped set up the name Timbuctoo, NY because of how far out of the way it was. He called his militant version of the Underground Railroad the "Subterranean Passway." He was a wayward internet spirit born far ahead of his time.

How many freaking generations do we have to go before TV isn't the sole determinant of elections??

I think it's more Instagram and Facebook these days TBH. Curatedly-perfect influencer celebrities interspersed with infinite baby and dog pictures. Old ladies love that stuff.



You're voting for President Swift as her final decisive victory over Kanye, and you're going to love it.

[BulletMagnet]

I explained, again in my previous post, that I personally know people who have been able to get healthcare from a form of Obamacare which continued to this very day. They would not have healthcare otherwise.

I imagine you could also get some pretty sizeable pushback against the "both parties are equally useless" narrative from the citizens of Connecticut. Is it Medicare For All? No. Will it make a significant and positive difference for a whole bunch of people regardless? I think that's a pretty safe "yes". Would you ever get anything resembling it from a Republican, let alone other GOP states looking into following suit? Hearing someone attempting to argue that would quite frankly make my weekend.

But whatever, the people behind it are "liberals" and thus automatically Henry Kissinger and all destined for the same level of Hell as he currently inhabits. Oh, and all just as eager to abandon America's democratic experiment the moment they lose an election, obviously, because in the end Everyone Must Be Equally Terrible All The Time. No Exceptions.

Except for Fox News viewers apparently, we need to make yet another congressional deal with the devil and send all the reporters out to every diner in the Midwest for the millionth fucking time because somehow they're still being ignored.

Aye, shutting down out-group badthink isn't authoritarian or tribal at all

I'm sorry, but this seriously reminds me of my childhood being raised in a high-control religious group: there was literally no such thing as legitimate criticism, anything anyone said or wrote that challenged you or otherwise made you uncomfortable was deliberate and malicious persecution.

Nobody is "shutting down" anybody. It's an admittedly snarky take that I still think sums up the situation quite well, and you and anyone else are as free to push back or ignore it as you ever were. Deal with it.

[BryanM]

Would you ever get anything resembling it from a Republican

The republicans gave every individual $3,200 during Covid. My neighbors' family got over ten thousand dollars.

I'll repeat it. The republicans. With complete control of the senate. Just gave everybody free money.

But whatever, the people behind it are "liberals" and thus automatically Henry Kissinger and all destined for the same level of Hell as he currently inhabits.

(I've often talked about liberal conservatives like Romney, over the years. There's a spectrum of different factions in any coalition, just as there is in the democrats.)

Almost everybody is a liberal. It's our era's "normal". For those at the top, laissez-faire capitalism is sacrosanct. For those at the bottom, we're allowed to say and do anything we want as long as it doesn't hurt their bottom line. It's a pretty good deal versus the theocratic feudalism a certain small segment of the population wants to go back to.

You're arguing against things nobody is saying. "It would suck if the Taliban ran the country" is something almost everyone here agrees with.

We're very aware there are people who want to mandate prayer in school and outlaw video games with boobies in them, I was just about to make a post about that very topic.

I'm sorry, but this seriously reminds me of my childhood being raised in a high-control religious group: there was literally no such thing as legitimate criticism, anything anyone said or wrote that challenged you or otherwise made you uncomfortable was deliberate and malicious persecution.

Nobody is "shutting down" anybody.

"You guys are dumb" is not legitimate criticism.

I know you probably didn't vote for Bernie Sanders in any of the primaries. You've dodged the question enough times. It's fine. It doesn't mean anything, besides not actually wanting Medicare for All. That it's more of a symbolic thing for you, not an actual terminal goal.

I had dropped it since I got the vibe it was bothering you. As you've admitted from your projection, it makes you uncomfortable.

[Sengoku Strider]

Down with fascism! Divine monarchy now!

[BulletMagnet]

The republicans gave every individual $3,200 during Covid.

C'mon dude, you're getting close to "very fine people" territory here; this is the same principle guiding why bosses give employees occasional one-time bonuses instead of salary raises or better working conditions. You know this. It's also why the GOP fought tooth and nail - and, with an inevitable assist from the "center", succeeded - to, among many other things, allow the expanded Child Tax Credit to lapse and more than double the child poverty rate.

Feel free to split hairs and call the medical debt cancellation just as much of a one-time case if you want, but that doesn't change the fact that you really need to twist yourself into a pretzel to insist that no matter what manner of "liberal" you elect nothing ever really changes. Speaking of which:

There's a spectrum of different factions in any coalition, just as there is in the democrats.

Perhaps I've missed some inherent nuance over the years, but this is a point I've always found to be very much glossed over whenever the term "liberal" comes up in your posts - whether we're talking about someone who clearly sees hard-and-fast limits in how far one can ethically go in pursuing one's self-interest or someone willing to, as the FF6 quote goes, sell his mama for a nickel, the rhetoric always seems to be "they both aren't Socialists and thus neither is worth voting for over the other, and if you support either you really just want to watch the world burn" (and that, of course, doesn't count as an attempt to "shut down" dissenting viewpoints). And whenever the argument comes up that small wins would be better than no wins, the response is some form of "lol you love Mr. Burns, it's nice you admit it".

Again, perhaps I've missed something, but methinks if I have it's because it's been, deliberately or not, buried well out of view.

"You guys are dumb" is not legitimate criticism.

This would be the case if digging up that quote was the only thing I had to say on the matter, as opposed to a frankly frustrated summary of my overall position. Presumably you didn't skip everything else and just read that bit.

I know you probably didn't vote for Bernie Sanders in any of the primaries. You've dodged the question enough times.

Putting aside the fact that I have noted in the past that my state holds closed primaries and I'm thus not eligible to vote in any of them unless I switch my party affiliation, that by itself brings forward my issue with your oft-repeated notion that voting a particular way in a party primary is the only legitimate way to effect change (and if you don't, of course, none of your beliefs actually mean anything and you're not worth listening to); for one thing, just how far should you take this plan of attack? Should people not only register to support the person they like, but then show up for the other party's events in hopes of nominating a more favorable opponent? Hell, should Sanders have even gotten our vote since he attempted to work within the confines of the Democratic party? Should people have voted DSA instead? You act as if there's some universally agreed-upon and self-evident line where ideals end and pragmatism begins inherent to your preferred method of action.

Moreover, yes, voting is important, and the first-past-the-post system we have is godawful and I hope more states at the very least start splitting their electoral college votes in the coming years, but there's no way that you can blame the inherent misrepresentation baked into our electoral system on people who don't put all their eggs in the same basket as you do, let alone label every last one of them useful idiots in the service of the ghouls...and then go on to finger-wag them for not reaching out enough to people they disagree with while you're at it.

[Sengoku Strider]

Someone absolutely showed him that headline. This might be the closest I've ever seen him to grovelling for anyone not named Vladimir.

[Lemnear]

is Trump totally mad ?

[Sengoku Strider]

is Trump totally mad ?

Yes, but so is roughly 27% of America. So really, he's just democracy in action.

[Lemnear]

where the goodsense is? :FacePalm:

[Sima Tuna]

Front line worker who works in the Death industry? Sounds pretty cool. Please tell me more.

[Sengoku Strider]

Front line worker who works in the Death industry? Sounds pretty cool. Please tell me more.

He meant the weekend he spent trying to become a COD streamer on his 360.

Or his day job at Target. One of the two.

[BryanM]

Jon Stewart on the Daily Show is a great way to pretend it's still 2004 or whatever. It just makes me feel tired and old and sad for the most part, though. It's better than people still trying to have massive internet crusades over imaginary heaps of sand, though.

If you want nostalgia, I recommend the more upbeat stuff of the 90's, the apex of human civilization. As always, I was into vibe-y music compilations like this, for a little while there. Ryan George's 90's guy bit is also cute, let's you cosplay a younger version of yourself that didn't know stuff. Sociopathically upbeat things like his channel seem more and more necessary as the apocalypse continues to manifest.

I feel like colors are really important. (Remember Richard Garriott's Tabula Rasa? I always shake my head when that game comes up. Like... just look at a screenshot of the game. If you're human, you don't want to continue looking at the image for four seconds, let alone play the game. This is called the "screenshot-viewing duration metric" (SVDM) that I just made up 3 seconds ago. I feel like modern gacha games really push this concept to its limit, and that many devs from the early days never grasped it as a concept that's important. Since they benefited from having almost no competition back then.)

(I guess this is applicable to politics as well: Having two candidates nobody wants to look at or listen to helps enshittify the electorate. It's not a bug, it's a feature.)

(Also don't watch shitty TV shows from the 90's, that'll break the illusion. Old Pokemon or Earth: Final Conflict episodes will only make you more pro-doom.)

https://youtu.be/BvJZQwy9dvE

Dan seems to feel revulsion at the idea that supernatural thinking and submission to authority have higher fitness when it comes to natural selection. Though it seems to be a sound theory - tribes that work together as one unit will kill and consume the tribes that don't. (I know he doesn't necessarily disagree with it, but like me I'm sure he wants to believe it isn't an inviolable necessity of our species.)

One of the things that always blew my mind was when I discovered that biologists do not believe in group selection. How do they not believe in group selection? Not even a little bit? Isn't that... literal evolution??? .... am I using the word "selection" wrong somehow????

It really doesn't make any sense whatsoever, looking in from the outside. The only explanation is that's the dogma within their profession. ... somehow?

Another thing that blew my mind this week was I learned that Mississippi only mandated that phonics be taught in schools in... 2013? There's another way to teach children how to read... that isn't teaching them how letters work????!!!!

Old dogma dies hard I guess.

[BulletMagnet]

Yes, but so is roughly 27% of America.

Just a quick recap:

Republicans complain that the Mexican border is an emergency that needs to be handled right this minute, and demand border funding be tied to a huge and unrelated foreign aid bill.

Radical Socialist Biden, following in Radical Socialist Obama's footsteps, gives them almost everything they want, driving his voter base into conniptions for roughly the millionth time in the name of "bipartisanship".

Trump tells the GOP to kill the bill because he wants to use the border as a campaign issue, and they immediately oblige; apparently it's not as much of a crisis as they insisted it was.

A new bill is drawn up that only includes the aforementioned foreign aid.

Republicans refuse to support this one either - their stated reason? Because it doesn't include border funding.

These are the people half or more of the electorate will continue to say they want running the country. And that's before you get to the Fascism.

[Vanguard]

The Biden administration is sending Israel tens of billions of dollars in aid money and they aren't going to do anything to stop or punish Israel's invasion, literally no matter how far they go. Biden is absolutely complicit in a genocide and he's stealing your money to do it. Trump's alternative is to loan them the genocide money instead.

Crumbs:

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SAVE

Obamacare admittedly came with some good crumbs even it didn't address any of the fundamental problems with american health care and came with its share of bad stuff. Personally I thought it was a pretty nice crumb when republicans removed the part of Obamacare that fined you for not having health insurance. I'm not sure what you're referring to by SAVE.

The stimulus checks came out under Biden too, and you know Biden's team is gonna call in the marker there.

Biden said he was going to give us $2000 stimulus checks if we voted the way he wanted, and people did vote how he wanted, and he lied and gave us $1400 with the most outrageous excuse imaginable. He cheated everyone in America out of $600 when he's always so generous with billionaires and Israel. I genuinely believe the $1600 Trump checks, inadequate as they were, were at least as good a crumb as anything we've received from the dems this millennium.

I'm not about to defend the foreign war records of ANY president during my lifetime. They've all been abominable and would face summary execution in a just world. Any person who orders strikes on civilian targets and first responders should face a death sentence, immediately carried-out by a squad of six and one in the chamber.

You're alright, Sima Tuna. And to be clear, I believe Trump should be executed like every US president after Carter.

I imagine you could also get some pretty sizeable pushback against the "both parties are equally useless" narrative from the citizens of Connecticut.

The two parties are not merely useless, they and their corporate masters are by far our worst enemies. They think of us as something halfway in between their enemies and their cattle. If there were no republicans it would be obvious to all that the democrats are the enemies of the working class whom we desperately need to destroy. But the elites have figured out a trick. Ask people if they prefer to be stabbed or shot and you can get them to spend their energy fighting each other over which one to choose. Eventually cliques of getting stabbed enthusiasts and getting shot enthusiasts form and at the point the elites barely have to put any effort into staying in power. Somehow the idea of killing the leaders of both the stabber and shooter factions never comes up.

[BryanM]

The Biden administration is sending Israel tens of billions of dollars in aid money and they aren't going to do anything to stop or punish Israel's invasion, literally no matter how far they go. Biden is absolutely complicit in a genocide and he's stealing your money to do it. Trump's alternative is to loan them the genocide money instead.

This really is why he's likely going to lose.

Within this decade, we're looking at a prez election scenario where Texas is blue and Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania etc are red as hell. Typical democrats.

You're srsly, for real, more likely to see real change from Bill Gates getting his mittens on that machine god they've always wanted to have. Probably not good change - the only realisticish scenario I've seen is the idea that these superintelligences would shake off the control of their masters like so much ants, and be benevolentish overlords. You really have to buy into some religious ideas to have any hope in that though: quantum immortality, anthropic principle, blessed timeline, etc.

I guess it's hopium and religion all the way down, no matter what team you're on, eh.



...I imagine Mischief really isn't feeling good about having to vote for Biden this year. With the war crimes influencers you can watch twerking on the tiktok on top of children's corpses and shit.. it's the worst I've ever seen for anyone paying attention with any empathy. A depressing part is how futile his vote will be - Michigan's probably already gone.

I genuinely believe the $1600 Trump checks, inadequate as they were, were at least as good a crumb as anything we've received from the dems this millennium.

It's an 'ole classic republican trick, giving people a big one time bonus instead of a lasting raise. One might recall the George W Bush tax rebate. It's extremely effective to the simple animal brains we have - like I always say, the average person has the cognitive function of a 3rd grader or less when it comes to math, long term planning, comprehending paragraphs, etc.

Of course all of this is worth jack shit in the face of the price of groceries being more than doubled.

Miraculous artifacts like blenders, toasters, and mixers are still the same price they've always been, however. Funny how that works. Razors and blades.

They think of us as something halfway in between their enemies and their cattle.

The parasocial thing of viewing these guys like part of their family, like so-and-so is their dad or uncle who cares about them... ugh. Grown adults that believe in Santa Claus.

I really don't understand how they can't comprehend the relationship really is like that of a farmer and his livestock. Worse really - most farmers have a little bit of real affection for their animals.

The absurd kabuki theater shown on Jon's Daily Show is so... they're honestly doing the "my old guy isn't really old!" bullshiting thing. My guy is perfect and can do no wrong, your guy can do no right. If you care about honesty at all, you won't find any here. I can't watch this shit anymore like I could in the 200X's, I know it's engineered to be intentionally revolting to keep decent people as far away from politics as possible.

Fuck, Sanders is older than both of them added together, and can at least complete coherent conversations. But that ain't what the electorate's been groomed to want - an angry farting turnip and an indignant yet confused onion. That's what America wants to see. That's how the world ends.

[Sima Tuna]

The Biden administration is sending Israel tens of billions of dollars in aid money and they aren't going to do anything to stop or punish Israel's invasion, literally no matter how far they go. Biden is absolutely complicit in a genocide and he's stealing your money to do it. Trump's alternative is to loan them the genocide money instead.

Crumbs:

Obamacare

SAVE

Obamacare admittedly came with some good crumbs even it didn't address any of the fundamental problems with american health care and came with its share of bad stuff. Personally I thought it was a pretty nice crumb when republicans removed the part of Obamacare that fined you for not having health insurance. I'm not sure what you're referring to by SAVE.

The stimulus checks came out under Biden too, and you know Biden's team is gonna call in the marker there.

Biden said he was going to give us $2000 stimulus checks if we voted the way he wanted, and people did vote how he wanted, and he lied and gave us $1400 with the most outrageous excuse imaginable. He cheated everyone in America out of $600 when he's always so generous with billionaires and Israel. I genuinely believe the $1600 Trump checks, inadequate as they were, were at least as good a crumb as anything we've received from the dems this millennium.

Even when they throw us crumbs, the elites always figure out a way they can justify giving fewer crumbs than expected.

So anyway, SAVE is a new-ish Income Driven Replayment plan for student loan borrowers. I don't know exactly how it all works yet, and I think the system is still in flux. But it's one of Biden's ways to get around being told he's not allowed to issue blanket student loan forgiveness.

https://www.ed.gov/news/press-releases/ ... -borrowers

85% of community college borrowers MAY be debt free eventually. This is the most generous IDR plan to date. Since this is an election year and I'm a cynical fuck, of course I don't consider this anything more than crumbs from the master's table. But, like Obamacare and the stimmy checks, they are at least crumbs.

Republicans removing fines for not having obamacare was a rare example of them standing up for their party principle of personal freedom (notice how they don't do that when it comes to the personal religious freedom to not be christian). Even though the reason they were opposing healthcare mandates was primarily because insurance companies were buttmad over the existence of cheaper healthcare. Republicans are completely opposed to cheap/free healthcare because they love insurance companies gouging ordinary people.

I didn't quote most of your post because we agree. There hasn't been a good President in the United States during my lifetime. I see zero indication of that changing. I don't even discuss presidential foreign policy here, most of the time, because our US foreign policy is saturday morning cartoon villain levels of fucked and I don't need to be depressed 24/7 about something I can't change.

[Sengoku Strider]

Yes, but so is roughly 27% of America.

Just a quick recap:

Republicans complain that the Mexican border is an emergency that needs to be handled right this minute, and demand border funding be tied to a huge and unrelated foreign aid bill.

Radical Socialist Biden, following in Radical Socialist Obama's footsteps, gives them almost everything they want, driving his voter base into conniptions for roughly the millionth time in the name of "bipartisanship".

Trump tells the GOP to kill the bill because he wants to use the border as a campaign issue, and they immediately oblige; apparently it's not as much of a crisis as they insisted it was.

A new bill is drawn up that only includes the aforementioned foreign aid.

Republicans refuse to support this one either - their stated reason? Because it doesn't include border funding.

These are the people half or more of the electorate will continue to say they want running the country. And that's before you get to the Fascism.

That's all just excessively cynical retail politics though. The real crazy happened when Taylor Swift won the Super Bowl. I've never seen anyone take a breakup harder than conservatives and Taylor.

Spoiler

[orange808]

Well, she's going to eventually have something to say about that shooting during the parade--and it won't help the Republicans.

[BryanM]

They really have an obsession for attractive women, eh. I guess Fox News's casting decisions were pretty effective.... ... it's almost like they want to win or something........

.......

I do wonder how the theft of the 2000 election would have gone online if there were more of these social media for idiots websites. Instead of Geocities and LiveJournal. Probably nothing since the entire topic was little more than a little bitty peep in the normie thought-o-sphere. It's more like a game of scoring imaginary touchdowns to them, I suppose.

Election fuckery really determines the outcome of the coinflip. Paxton crowing about how he rigged the election in Texas for Trump is one of those things...

He was found innocent of all charges in his impeachment for corruption btw. This quote from one of his opponents is some solid level copium gymnastics:

"From a very narrow partisan perspective, it’s almost better for the Democrats if he’s acquitted. Then the entire Republican Party is tarred with this corruption, and you can’t separate it out." - Justin Nelson

Losing is winning.