It's dangerous to underestimate them. Vance is not charismatic to you or I, but if you care less about what he's saying than how he says it, he has an incredibly persuasive speaking style. He's like Bill Maher: great at seeming smart but he'll probably be exposed as a fraud by a MAGA Ben Affleck.
Oh, I don't underestimate them at all. They'll do whatever they can to shape the world to their whims, and they clearly see this as their last, best chance. But there are so very many of them, and they all want different things, and I don't think a single one of them is capable of compromise.
Whatever their intentions, I increasingly feels like we're being pushed to the edge of a cliff. It's felt this way for a decade, but BLM and MeToo were ways to push back and stay away from the edge. The regime not giving a fuck this time invites a harder response.
Hard agree. Everyone with power falling behind Trump (or refusing to offer even a little of their strength to shield the weak ones he attacked) really drove home how little of a fuck they really give. I think that was a mistake. We always knew, but people don't like having their noses rubbed in it.
It's truly fascinating how most people just do not understand we would already be in anarchy but for the American experiment being held together with the duct tape of underpaid bureaucrats doing their level best to not get fired for no reason while understaffed and underresourced.
I might argue that what they're saving us from is more the Paxtonesque corruption of Texan oligarchy, but I'd certainly agree that the clock-punchers should get far more appreciation than they do for doing the vital work 5+ days a week. Hopefully, more folks'll recognize their value going forward.
Sincerely doubt they will, Americans take a lot of their lives for granted. Separately, I think if you're not from Texas or haven't really been there, there's a certain fascination with it as a little fail state. But it's a place that pushes through despite Paxton and Abbott.
Remember, this is also where we get Juneteenth. Texas celebrates the traitors at the Alamo, but there's also a deep connection with the immigrant experience. It's a study in contradictions. And it's bumbling along despite the oligarchy that runs it.
Oh, sure. I hope I didn't come across as shitting on the state as a whole. I was talking more about the current ruling crop, and politically speaking, I don't blame Texans for Abbott or Paxton any more than I'd hope they'd blame New Yorkers for Trump. I put that shit squarely on DeLay and his ilk.
Not at all, I'm adding not criticizing. I think the paradox of tolerance coupled with the success of Republican cheating necessitates that the left (Dems are hopeless) go further then Mamdani and Planter to secure the future.
One of the most insightful things I've ever heard concerned gays and trans people in the military. A good friend who's an officer told me that if respecting gay and trans rights an order, it doesn't matter what troops personally believe, they'll comply. We need something similar. Make it law.
My point was more that the nation as a whole is learning what states like Texas learned two, three decades ago: how easily the worst people can grab the most power by learning how to bend the laws into shapes they were never meant to take, until they're so unrecognizable that they're mostly ignored.
For sure. The lesson is focusing on process over outcome is how prosecutors become...well, Kamala Harris style prosecutors. Paxton has his job because he's winning procedurally, not because he's factually innocent.
(Well, maybe not learning, but certainly finding out.)