Jman

Ramble. I'll put it under the spoiler tag to not clutter the page.

Tarrifs would hurt his donors too, destroying the supply chain and killing their profits. It’s why I see him being talked back from them. The House and Senate will have very tiny majorities either way. I hope the Democrats just do the same playbook as the GOP since Gingrich. Nothing happens, nothing gets passed, filibuster forever. That leaves it to executive orders which only have so much reach, and will be clawed back come midterms.

Well they’re about to get it on the other side if that idiotic tariff plan goes through. Which is why I think it won’t.

Waid is something of a shock jock and a crybaby. But this is what I mean. Everyone’s assuming the problem was racism and not cost of living.

The MAGA cult likely dies with Donald, and that’s coming sooner rather than later. It’s cleaning up the mess of disinformation and bad policy that worries me. Someone needs to run on re-installing the Fairness Doctrine and restoring trust in our checks and balances. Only with that trust restored can we move forward from politics as sports teams nonsense that motivates so many low information voters. People have legitimate concerns and in a vacuum, as I’ll keep pointing out, progressive policies did well. Very well. It’s what makes the Dems so damn frustrating.

A post-Trump cult GOP is going to collapse in on itself, because no one here has the media backing or sociopathic skill to create the "Just joking!" atmosphere Trump has. So look forward to that, and the inevitable mess cleaning in 2026 and 2028. If the Dems could learn something, that would be great, but I doubt it. Then again I remain convinced Vance will be president sooner rather than later at which point he'll be a John Tyler style-pariah.

Speaking of, the sticker shock from the mere threat of tariffs will likely convince Trump to back off, like so many of his other plans. Prices have to go down for him to be popular, plain and simple.

In six months, everyone is going to remember exactly why this sack of shit was so unpopular. Kind of a shame that the current administration couldn't offer something better, but unfortunately, some people need to learn the hard way.

COVID screwed over a lot of people on education and we need to fix that if we're going to be competitive in the workplace. Increased funding for those schools, trade schools for people who can't afford college loans (themselves a punchline in the modern day), etc. There are solutions, but we need to implement them on the local and state levels. The late 90s and early 2000s made reading seem cool to people. We had constant adaptations of the classics as teen dramas and romantic comedies (Ten Things I Hate About You being a teen romcom version of The Taming of the Shrew) and a lot of children's visual media made it a point to encourage kids to read. We don't have that now, not helped by a lot of authors in the kid and YA spaces complaining about being stifled with their writing. You have to make reading cool again by taking off the handcuffs. Reina Telgemire and Dav Pikey can't carry the load themselves.

We’re not heading into an Idiocracy, we’re being drowned out in the new media spheres because the Dems didn’t invest in them and let the manosphere develop uncontested. What the left needs to do is what the right did, find the inevitable grievances, and build something to fill that hole.

They won't be singing the same tune come April, and that's going to be the funny part. This will always be the fundamental weakness of Trumpism. The personality smokescreen only last so long as the personality is alive. When the dementia fully takes hold and JD Vance is president, well, do you really see Vance inspiring the same level of fervor? It'd be like watching a really bad cover band of the Rolling Stones after seeing the Stones the night before.

No it does not. I also expect the protestors to say nothing.

There was definitely fuckery, even if the world seeing Hezbollah crippled isn’t exactly a big loss.

Yup. It’s the Iranian hostage deal all over again. That said they also got the bonus of completely dismantling Hezbollah. Which given the Mideast’s desire for normalization, is an inadvertent positive. A dot in the sea of senseless bombings.

And the cosmic ballet goes on. I know the idea of what these idiots wants to do is terrifying, but in much the same way old people like Social Security and vote in record numbers, so many green energy policies benefit red states and their job markets, and that is likely what will prevent the worst from happening. Pushback on the local, state, and federal level via a filibustered House. How is the Wall doing anyway?

My vaguely optimistic looking at the policies that passed says we’re not terrible, just ignorant. Which is better because you can fix ignorance.

It’s in the best interest of the Saudis to have friendly relations with the West, given the money spent on tourism and sportswashing. They just might. God, if we live in the reality where we have to thank the Saudi kingdom for keeping Putin down I might gag.

It’s doubtful, but it would also be fucking hilarious if Trump sends Ukraine more weapons just to get back at Putin for making him look weak. ”Let’s see who laughing now Vlad!”

https://www.cpr.org/2024/11/05/amendment-j-same-sex-marriage-results/ Colorado formally removed a gay marriage ban. Just in case. Another small notch on my hopium that progressive policies are actually kind of popular.

The majority of his voting was still from white men and women. Hell, he looks on par to get two million less votes than last time. It’s just that no one showed up for Kamala. Like, at all.

He knows Trump has the memory of a goldfish. If he keeps fellating him, he keeps getting weapons.

Vance has a tenth of the charisma but also a much more even temperament. I imagine what he does will be much more subtle. It’s why his debate with Walz was so weird. Both of them came off as relatively normal.

I’m sort of in the “depressed but not despondent” phase. My main concern is hoping they get as many environmental protections etched in stone, same with the Dept of Education. I don’t think Trump is going to dissolve them or let RFK run roughshod with our health (what’s the point of running a country of dead people?) but they will be facing cutbacks.

https://www.nature.org/en-us/newsroom/state-ballot-measures-2024-election/ Nature conservation and climate adaptation bills passed to the tune of billions, because people like clean environments and don’t want the world to be inhospitable.

More food for thought as we wind this down. Bernie is right. The issue here isn’t policy, it’s delivery and how people were feeling.