Nope, I’d rather we descend into full fascism and this country tears itself apart.

That’s your right, but I hope you understand why that’s completely irrational and nihilistic. That scenario involves likely civil war and thousands, tens of thousands, or millions of innocent deaths, at a level none of us can fully imagine.

I’m writing this now because I’ve seen way too many of these litmus purity test debates in 2024. If you care about people, vote in the way that helps them the most, even if imperfect. It should be that simple.

Yes, they resisted for now. But respectfully, I think believing in some magical power of the parliamentarian epitomizes institutional thinking, and ignores asymmetric problems in fighting fascism. A democratic institution has to resist every fascist attempt at takeover to survive; a fascist attempt to take over only has to succeed once. And the parliamentarian is an incredibly weak link in our institutional chain, while other stronger links like an independent DOJ and Supreme Court, have already fallen.

Thune didn’t fire her yet because he is an old-school Republican trying to maintain traditional GOP power structures. But think back: in 2020, even the House was not overwhelmingly MAGA, with traditionalists holding power, and the Senate was barely Ted Cruz. By 2024, the House was overwhelmingly MAGA, and the Senate had plenty of MAGA. The Senate GOP now thinks they retain independence but fears the bad polls, and shows how afraid they are by still hiding behind Thune who is the lighting rod for Trump. And Trump will keep pushing, endorsing opponents, and sic-ing MAGA’s base on resisting senators. He’s a narcissistic sociopath and will never accept, “no.”

Eventually Trump will push hard enough and the Senate will be weak enough to elect a Mike Johnson figure who is as completely broken and spineless. We have to hold out until 2028 before the GOP loses the Senate, most likely. Then they will do what Trump does via his other captured institutions - break the law and let others fight about it in court while he wields and consolidates power. A parliamentarian isn’t even a speedbump at that point.

What every traditional politician aspires to is to transcend any actual effort and just become the brand, while everyone else just maintains it (i.e., them).

That explains why the overwhelming majority of politicians are so much more concerned with narratives and PR optics. It’s not because it’s inherent to politics, though we certainly can be forgiven for thinking that having seen it all our lives. Branding and PR is important in modern times, sure, but really only in service of the work. It’s never, ever more important than the actual work.

No, politics should be the art of negotiating differing opinions to get things done on behalf of communities of people. But instead it’s just people who probably have spent their whole lives thinking about marketing, but instead of going to work at ad agencies to advertise other companies and people, they advertise themselves.

It’s why Mamdani, at least as he exists today (and god, I hope in the future) is so refreshing. He just seems to want to get stuff done.

Yeah, exactly… The parliamentarian is relevant to democracy, not to fascism. They will ignore whatever they need to to remain in power.

Have you not had a job, or somehow they’ve never been allowed to fire you? I’m not playing dumb, I may actually be dumb - I just can’t imagine what job doesn’t carry a risk of being fired (except maybe tenured professor)?

Her and Julia Roberts have nightmare mouths.

Edit: I regret nothing.

I would usually give a lot of credit to someone trying something different, but I’d drive a 1971 Ford Pinto before I ever intentionally get within photographable proximity to a Cybertruck.

“Republicans can’t be allowed to have a monopoly on evil.”

“We need to sort of take a close look at spending and make sure that money is being spent in sensible ways and that it is not wasted or spent on fraudulent activities. And I got a lot of flack for this, obviously,” he said.

Really? That’s why you got flack?

Well, I can’t speak for everyone, but you got flack from me not for making sure money is being spent in sensible ways. I gave you some flack for being a self-dealing, child-killing, own-fart-smelling, public data-stealing, ketamine-addicted Nazi fascist sociopath who not only wielded your deluded political persecution complex as a weapon for punishing innocent people, you did so without even giving them the dignity of your actual attention unaided by AI.

It’s true, but the value is diminishing. I’ve tried that and more than once in the past half year, the advice within reddit posts were clearly astroturf AI-generated slop, and some of them were upvoted in similar amounts to apparent real recommendations.

Companies know Reddit is a recommendation hotspot, and stealth advertising is becoming typical business practice.

I remember when I first heard it and was like, “Ugh, it’s so generic, I wish Radiohead/alt rock was more innovative.”

To this day I’m not sure how I could have been a more clueless, overconfident idiot at the time. It’s a masterpiece that has never stopped getting better, on an album that is essentially perfect.

It’s precisely because they know it’s illegal that they aren’t saying anything. If they don’t overtly lie and just refuse to talk, they won’t obviously open themselves up to prosecution by a later administration (in theory, though I am sure a motivated prosecutor will be able to make a case either way).

I agree, sorry for my poor writing. I mean to say, the dollar value and decision to settle at this stage on such a fundamental dispute to their business is atypical, and they only agreed to it because of their absolutely nonsense valuation and the IPO plans.

Welcome everyone to the fashion police state.

Ok, but the alternative is every male in the Pentagon doesn’t get testosterone supplements, so we all gotta pitch in.

They probably truly believe the line, but just with a heavy accent on the “me.”

Not even a tax. A double tax.

We pay the tariff when it’s levied in higher prices for goods.

Then we pay the tariff in reimbursements from the government to the corporation after the tariffs are struck down.

And Trump. Just. Keeps. Doing. It.

This is a guy playing poker with other people’s money with his cards facing the wrong way, and he just keeps doubling down.

I wish there was a way back to a reality run by (1) adults who are (2) not gaslighting psychopaths.

Not favorable terms to them but…Gotta settle that suit quick so you can cash in with an IPO, before the bubble pops.

Right now they’re settling at their inflated valuation so it’s all Monopoly money.

Great! I can now enter a prompt into a data-center-hosted LLM, “do my job,” and the data center will conveniently also store the resulting fraudulent work product in the same location, while I relax at home on a permanent unpaid vacation! So convenient!