Life is complicated, embrace nuance. Don’t take it too seriously. Love dogs and rescues, probably cats too. Star Trek nerd but love all Sci-Fi & Fantasy. Oh and fascist wannabes can all go fornicate themselves.
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I think "media attention inflation received" is separable from "actual inflation," which is why inflation narratives remained a panic even while inflation returned to normal. All that matters what people are paying attention to: crime, or inflation, or caravans, or ebola, or scandal, or egg prices
REPOST if you believe Katie Johnson
Solar is no longer “alternative energy.” It is the energy of the future. America risks remaining a petro-state, clinging to the past, instead of becoming an electro-state, embracing the future.
Trump doesn't care. RFK was a "troll the libs, f-you to everyone" choice that put a compliant, if weird, guy in the Cabinet. RFK destroying American health is just a side effect that Trump couldn't care less about.
Replaying Red Alert, I don’t think there is any song that goes harder than Hell March #RedAlert
AND I think the border should be secure. They’re not mutually exclusive. the deal would have allowed us to far more efficiently deal with asylum seekers. I’d also point out that the majority of people deported under Biden/Obama were deported at the border, not people that have lived here for decades
The border can’t be open, it should be secure, but undocumented workers should be able to come in legally on work visas, or to pursue perm citizenship in a reasonable way. The current path to citizenship and residency is far too cumbersome. I believe anyone who wants to live here should be able to.
Nuance is a motherfker, but as a rule no. Never say never, but I can’t think of a significant event. The border deal was opposed by maga after all.
I agree that there should be no compromise on “ability of trans people to exist”. But have we seen anything close to that from any Dem, centrist or not?
But suggesting that cooperating with Lincoln Project or kin is the same as compromising with fascists is not even close to accurate.
We work together for democracy. We work with those that we disagree with on policy to stop fascism. MAGA is fascism. No compromise with maga. That is a real and present threat. Old fashioned republicans of W’s era and Reagan aren’t the same, yet had problems.
Again, it’s not about the person you’re arguing with. It’s about the readers. They’re persuaded by what they think majority opinion is. If all they see is one opinion, they’ll sway faster. It’s about the reader.
It’s not about convincing the person you’re having the back and forth with. It’s about showing your position for people reading the back and forth.
Perhaps, but then again it ain’t over ‘till the fat lady sings…May yet get through. Or maybe we’ll need a different Twitter replacement. I feel Bluesky and Threads suffer much the same problems. And I don’t think it’s great they’re both competing. I do find more moderates on Threads.
Not a fan of threads either?
If you don’t push back against a false narrative no progress can be made however
Now all I can think of is Homer eating pants at a store when he should have been buying Lisa’s birthday present
“Going crazy from the internet or the television” is an incredibly widespread condition but many people still insist that our new fascist politics either reflects “how they always were” or must have deep roots in the political economy. Buddy it’s just YouTube poisoning
Jesus, I had no idea you were so unserious
Also, who is being sold out in your fake scenario?
Sounds like you don’t understand anything at all
I know it’s cognitively easier for you to perceive voters as rational. But they’re not. They don’t think, they feel.
People don’t vote based on policies. They vote based on vibes. Tough lesson, but it’s true.
Obama ran as a center left dem. I’m more left than Obama.
Believe what you want, most people online either outright lie or build a fictional version of things and themselves. This is not that case. This is 100% true, and she’s been very eye opening in how she and family think
And then there is the tribal influence. Her family and friends all pressured her to vote this way because they lied. And she hated Trump before but didn’t know any of the dark details. She is a median voter through and through. She is 100% a normie that I speak of. And I love her
Has been lost. They have a fictional reality they perceive. My fiancé voted for Obama twice and then Trump in ‘24 because of prices and she got a bad vibe from Harris, though she couldn’t tell me one policy she didn’t like. She regrets that decision horribly. She hates the news and politics
I am online a lot but I am surrounded by median voters. I do talk to them a lot. My fiance is one, though we didn’t date around the election we speak about it a lot. I hear how my clients talk, I live in one of the reddest parts of the country, and I know how they think. The problem is the narrative
Biden won because median voter normies who don’t pay attention to shit were angry enough about his incompetence and cruelty to vote against him. Those same people are fickle and have short memories, and young Gen z entering the fray broke sharp for him based on social media vibes.
People posting about Jill stein aren’t getting paid, it’s quite common, and we being liberal
But it’s with everyone and everything that led to the distortion of reality that got us here
Thank you for your contributions. You’re right, normies don’t know who she is. But leftists who do nothing but snipe at Dems all day feed into an ecosystem of information that normies get bits and pieces of. My anger isn’t just at self proclaimed leftists, I have many social democratic philosophies
Oh snap so you believed bullshit. Know nothing fits
No I’m doing it for the love of pointing out stupidity while in a waiting room. Basically this is passing the time. And if you think Dems care more about stein than Garcia you’ve lost the plot
I base my opinion on whether she was a good candidate based on likely outcomes. She was a far superior candidate to Trump, and it’s not even close. Not even the same league.
Hey! Look at that. You understand the concept of people having opinions without being paid for them. That’s an important first step
It’s random snark online meant to make a point that costs nothing
Not even trying to beat the allegations.
The irony is you should be
Congratulations on outing yourself
It’s because we’re mad she was part of a larger operation to depress Dem voter turnout and make both top candidates seem bad to the know nothings. And if you think both candidates were equally bad you’re a know nothing
lol this is peak tankie, thank you for this. This is just such an excellent bad take, I hope it’s printed and shown in a museum for future generations.
Idk, seems like you’re off on this one
Wth is a “stakeholder”?
We talking mayor Pete here? Which one abandoned trans people?
Fair point, I don’t know what the different signs supposedly mean; my ability to commit to the bit ended after the initial snark
It was capitalism that brought all the other designs too. Eventually modern esthetics will shift, and the designs with more flair will be in vogue
I’m a hanger on but won’t block, what’s all this about a label now? Do I have to pay extra for the Tom Nichols follower moderation label? Idk if I want it that bad but we’ll see
Yeah but you’re still not a Leo so…
I’ve said my piece to you, wishing you the best, but I won’t be engaging any longer.
Your identity is too wrapped up in being a contrarian, still defining yourself by others. I’d recommend against that, just live your truth. Understand that most folks aren’t evil. But a lot of em are dumb. we have so very little time. all of this has happened before, all of it will happen again.
I believe in representative democracy, rule of law, protection of the individual from the mob, protection of the people from individuals, universal healthcare, free state college/trade schools. I believe in a safety net to protect the most needy. I believe in freedom of choice, in all that it means.
Seems to me the communists wanted to negotiate with Hitler so they would have their turn after he burned things down. Reminds me of accelerationists. They boycotted the social Democrats and then Hitler killed them all.
Well, that is very clearly not true
Nobody on here is arguing against holding Trump to account, calling him out for his authoritarian and fascist ways. The very point is that focusing on policing language is not a priority right now.
One of the more depressing features of the past decade has been seeing how quickly and easily the right abandoned the genuinely good principles it once pretended to care about. Free trade; federalism; free speech. They jettissoned everything they had a point about & kept all the loathesome bits.
God fucking damnit this is so very true, and so very irritating
And my hatred grows
I see plenty of Congress members speaking with aggressive rhetoric against maga. But it seems it’s the beltway journalists and consultants that don’t seem to get the message. And anyone associated with Schumer.
Bullshit, he can’t fire her.
You are living through the unthinkable: the president of the United States using the military to seize domestic power. The greatest crisis of executive power in American history, at the hands of the worst, most corrupt, and most unfit president in American history.
It’s not even ambiguous, he was clearly referring to discussion of language such as “birthing persons”. I also believe he was alluding to your apparently stronger desire to police language than sway median voters. No candidate for the Dem vote is going to advocate that trans people shouldn’t exist
Why?
Mr. Nichols, are you saying that you hate Star Trek the next generation?? You are not a fan of Captain John Luke Picard??
Are you under the impression that Harris, or Buttigieg, or any of the other possible candidates are opposed to the existence of trans people?
Aww man, always a bummer when the OP is deleted
I’d also like liberals to try and take control of the narrative for once too. I’m thinking you meant “not beating” btw too, I get it. But if we’re going to get independents they need to know a liberal isn’t a socialist
Words are funny like that, they mean different things to different people. Here in the US it means on the left. The left right divide are vague terms anyway, only guidelines. The founders were very much left wing of their day for example.
And I think it’s important that normies know the difference between the two lol, but fat chance that ever happens
I agree liberals are on the left, but I’d also say a liberal isn’t a socialist. That’s my point. Both are on the left, one is more than the other. Now I’m a liberal, I consider myself on the left, but I believe in capitalism with only basic industries like healthcare and utilities socialized
Btw isn’t Sanders a leftist? Is he not a socialist? Why would Reuters call him a liberal?
I agree with 3 and 4, the new logo is bland, and they have good food. I go there or get take out pretty often. Then again, I do live in Florida.
WHY IS THE GOVERNMENT OF MY COUNTRY HELLBENT ON TORTURING THIS MAN
Too many people use fascist as a stand in for evil. Don’t get me wrong, fascism is evil. But any system of government can have evil actions, we can’t escape human flaws. That’s why it’s so important to disperse power as widely as reasonably possible.
This is a five-alarm fire. Washington, DC is now going to be crawling with ARMED military units, for no apparent reason. At what point do our idiot media members drop the crime-fighting pretense?
Letting the roll hang under instead of over is a sign of psychopathy
Roughly 3% is the answer by the way. Anytime innocents are killed it’s a tragedy, and Netanyahu is an evil and uncaring man. War crimes are evil enough without hyperbole because everything on the internet has to be the most extreme version of something.
He asked if they wanted to do it how would they do it differently, they could. I’m done for the day being bogged down in hyperbolic semantics when war crimes are horrible enough on their own.
What defines a genocide? One possible definition I’ve seen is a people being forcibly relocated. And under trumps encouragement Netanyahu may go from war crimes to that definition.
Well that clearly isn’t my argument. What % of the Gazan population has died by the way?
While I agree that Israel has not conducted this war with honor, and many including Netanyahu are guilty of war crimes, Israel has the capacity to eliminate all Gazans.
In my chronic online experience, people who use that terminology believe the genocide has been ongoing for decades. I feel like another good book would be “The Death of Nuance”.
Actually I think Threads is becoming the biggest Twitter alternative. Though I think some more respectable news sources are on Bluesky
I can’t in good conscience use Twitter. Disappointing it’s still used by so many. I do see a lot of traffic on Threads too.
Whether she was murdered or not, she was for sure unceremoniously buried on a golf course for a tax write off
I remember these same back and forth chats on Twitter like a year and a half ago
The entire west is under authoritarian attack
Those goddamn pieces of shit
And instead of taking control of the narrative your suggestion is to chase polls and play to fictional problems. And you’re calling me dumb?
Wait…you did think inflation and crime were issues? Were you hoping for deflation? Did you not check crime stats?
Left/right haven’t always been economic positions. That’s a rather modern take imho. US founders, and classical liberalism, were on the left. The very origination of the phrase comes from the French Revolution, entirely predating the concept of Marxist ideology. But I appreciate your response
Goddamnit
So you see the problem. I want universal healthcare, childcare, and education. Yet, I also believe in private enterprise and private property. Therefore I am right wing? I don’t buy into a strict definition, especially regarding terminology that is vague and fluid depending on context.
Personally I’m just tired of false equivalences between Dems and GOP by leftists. And I’m tired of the notion that anything other than anti-capitalism is right wing.
NGL that’s pretty much how I view it now
It’s actually painful. The irony is physically painful.
Commission of a genocide? Wow that’s a step up from enabling a genocide. So Biden ordered it now? Wow
Of course I believe it’s financial ties
I’m not convinced myself, but I’m curious why it’s so outlandish.