Of course they aren’t but that’s what I’m saying. If people thought this was going to be quick, easy, and precise they need to learn that isn’t how it works. I say good luck to them but don’t ask for my help when the lesson turns out to be painful.

What part of people voting for this exact scenario makes you think they aren’t going to be “cool” with it happening? Hell, Hispanic people voted for this. Why is it my job to save them from what they asked for? If we keep bailing out idiots when they do dumb things they will never learn how dumb they are.

I’m not banking on that happening in large enough numbers to change anything but I am not batman either. We signed up for this and we all need to realize what that actually means if we want to have any hope of making better decisions in the future. Some of us won’t learn until well after that knock on the door and I don’t have anything to say about that other than I’m not the one knocking.

It would be a pretty on-brand ending to a saga involving two former TV personalities turned head of government. A real daytime soap opera plot line.

Yeah I would say so. I am pretty laid back by nature and there are some minor things that impact my mood in a negative fashion more than they used to. That could be getting older in general but I do think being away from those kinds of things for a while has made them harder to ignore.

I wouldn’t necessarily blame your niche interests or anything else like that. There’s lots of people this applies to who just forgot how to socialize. I would put myself in that category. I like sports and many other popular things, and I used to be reasonably easy to talk to but ever since covid I’m considerably more awkward in social situations.

Someone I haven’t seen in two years will ask what I’ve been up to and my mind just goes blank. It’s not that I’ve been sitting at home doing nothing the whole time but for some reason none of the things I could talk about come to me in the moment. It’s a strange thing to feel yourself being socially inept in a way that you didn’t used to be. I’ve gotten better but it’s still weird a lot of the time.

What’s the better and safer alternative to nuclear power plants?

I don’t have any good advice for you. My company held an all-hands call today during which the CEO said “Now that the election is behind us we can look forward to political stability”, among other equally insane things. You could say I’m feeling pretty down about the whole situation as well.

If our politicians require coaxing to defend democracy then we’ve already lost it.

Are we spinning the actions of fascists as some sort of secret protection of democracy now? Because what you just said sounds crazy to me. 100% of so called reasonable Republicans have already left the party. The people who remain are corrupt without exception.

Fascism taking hold depends on a significant portion of people ignoring the threat it poses in its infancy. Saying Trump won’t do what he’s clearly trying to do, and even going so far as to say it might turn out to be a good thing, are both extremely bad ideas. Many Germans did not believe Hitler was the threat he turned out to be and as a consequence they did not react to his early actions as they would have had they known what was to come. Trump attempting to purge military leadership and install loyalists is an obvious example of an event that will come to be seen as a pivotal moment in history if we continue down this path we’re on.

Trump won’t be allowed to destroy the military. He will weaken it, though, and that can only be a good thing.

Real 1930s Germany vibes coming out today

Hello fellow Montanan. I wish you well in your journey. There are more of us than you might guess but it does feel like a losing battle a lot of the time

It doesn’t matter as much what Trump is planning to do with his powers. He’s old and on the way out whether he likes it or not. The real problem is what the people set to take over when he’s gone plan to do with them. Does Trump set up his successor or does his ego force him to shut the door behind him? Our best chance at normalcy in a post Trump world might just be that he’s so unbelievably mean spirited that he takes his potential rivals down with him when the time comes.

They already have started doing that

Please read my previous comment again because the response to this statement is exactly the same.

They said the same thing about black people until a black man running as a progressive won the nomination. I think you’ve been learning the wrong lesson from all the elections since.

Absolutely, and to be clear, this does not imply that Trump has a good solution to this problem. He’ll probably make it significantly worse. But at least he’s talking about it in a way that resonates with people. Don’t tell me my problem is that I don’t understand my own financial situation. Show me how you plan to improve it in ways that I actually care about.

This is not a messaging problem it’s a measurement problem. The metrics we use to gauge economic progress and/or health are not effective indicators of anyone’s experience but the wealthy. When Dems tell me wages have gone up so income inequality is getting better what they mean is that new jobs are on average offering slightly higher pay to new hires.

They don’t say that slightly higher pay is 5 cents an hour which is practically useless. They don’t acknowledge that this tiny wage increase is dwarfed by the impacts of inflation over the last 4 years. Worst of all, they don’t say that because this wage increase only applies to new hires, anyone working the same job for more than a couple of years hasn’t seen a wage increase at all, but that price gouging has definitely impacted them. That last one is important because it applies to a huge chunk of people.

This is just the way it works out with wages but basically everything these pundits are saying is great under Biden could be described the same way. They’re talking about averages which when applied to 330 million people produce numbers that sound significant, but when you look at almost any individual it doesn’t make a practical difference in their lives. Sure, you may have slowed the rate at which things are getting worse, but are you honestly surprised at this reaction? You’re telling people you solved their problems and they’re responding “no, you absolutely did not and fuck you for saying that”

Dems need some bashing and Bernie is the official spokesman of disaffected Dem voters so he is perfect for the job.

I believe she would have been marginally better than Biden but, as you continuously refuse to acknowledge because it completely defeats the point you are trying to make, that is not what we’re discussing here. Trump is indisputably going to be worse than either of them and that’s what you have chosen to support through inaction. You can talk in circles around that fact as much as you like but it won’t change reality.