There is a famous saying: “the buck stops here”.

It means that when someone is in charge, they assume responsibility for whatever happens under their command, rather than whinging about it being not their fault.

Trump seems to have never heard of this quote. However, that is irrelevant now bc as a former President, what are we expecting of him? Rather, we have expectations for the current one, which are either being met or they are… not.

Your graphic does not explain why it is not the job of a leader to do things to protect the democracy of this nation?

Oh well, soon enough there may not be political parties anymore and we won’t have to worry about any of this.

She will never run, so moving on.

Could this be a good time to advance AOC? Probably the hit jobs done on her rep were too effective though.

What about Pete Buttigieg? Conservatives will never vote for him, ofc, but I don’t know about the handful of people that actually matter.

Hey, if we are swallowing our noses, would Liz Cheney have a better chance against Trump? It’s sort of like chopping off both of your arms but… given the alternatives facing us atm - Trump vs. hope against facts that somehow Biden will beat Trump, which is starting to look like just another road to Trump - it might be worth a gamble despite everything? Or fucking Mitt fucking Romney (fucking)? 🤮

Basically it’s Trump vs. whoever isn’t Trump. Then we re-do all of this over again 4 years from now, or really 2 bc of midterm elections.

People kept telling me that Trump will win and I kept fighting it, but it seems that you cannot escape facts: conservatives pull together, when it counts, whereas liberals eat their own.

I am not sure that I agree, but you clearly articulated your point so I am upvoting nonetheless:-).

For myself, it depends on the facts, which I am not in full possession of. Everyone has bad days imho - that’s not “news” at all - but more important is what that performance indicates about his current state. And more importantly, the state he would be in 4 years from now.

This puts the nail in coffin, so to speak, on the idea that he would even live through his Presidency, much less remain salient throughout. A vote for him is a vote for Harris, as the article suggests, and talks about how acknowledging that reality might help pick up more independent voters that could turn the tide of the election.

Oh well, it’s not like it is up to any of us.

Hrm, account that joined 36 minutes ago - and btw wow, what a username!!!:-P - what I actually said was:

Not good enough, and also btw a violation of the rules of [that other] community. Would you like an opportunity to change someone’s mind using logical articulation rather than merely emotionally venting your random surface thoughts? e.g., perhaps while doing that you could demonstrate that you actually read the article rather than merely the title? These are weighty matters, and not to be taken lightly. But perhaps I’m the horseshit for hoping that people could have rational and logical discussions on a social media website.

They spoke, and I spoke back. We are still not the same. But one thing I will hold to: the Truth. Which is that I am horseshit indeed, for hoping for more from this social media site where when users are blocked they simply make a new username and continue - bc other people’s “no” is just another opportunity to evade the block and turn it into a “yes”.

I’m so close to blocking this community. Its Rule #5 states:

Vote based on comment quality, not agreement. This community aims to foster discussion; please reward people for putting effort into articulating their viewpoint, even if you disagree with it.

Instead, it’s basically a leftist version of a right-wing echo chamber where if you don’t support your candidate hard enough then you get downvoted into oblivion. Which is meh personally, but on the wider scale also shuts down interesting conversations that could result, if people felt more free to actually articulate their positions, using coherent logical formulations mind you. And even that is fine I suppose, if that’s what this community wants to be, then it is on me to seek out what I want elsewhere.

I may not agree with someone, but I will defend to the death their right to speak.

Anyway, sorry OP that your The Atlantic article - a liberal media source if I ever heard of one - is getting downvoted to oblivion in spite of the rules of this community specifically asking for the opposite behavior. Fwiw I cross posted it to another news community in case that helps.

Right, we had a plutocracy, but even the fiction of the fraction of democracy that we used to have was fairly good - e.g. it took 400+ years but black people are now perhaps 4/5ths rather than a mere 3/5ths of a person. Man, politics is depressing:-(.

Still, I suspect we will look back and wish that we had kept it, as opposed to the alternative we are heading for.

Or those who simply enjoy contemplating the violence. Like, dang it, the Left capitulated, but are you sure we can’t kill just a few of them for uh… “demonstration” purposes?

We are doing a speed run:-P.

Also, Rome did not have the stock market. That has to have shaved off at least 100 years right there.

Tbf, Rome actually ended, whereas for the USA we might not “end” so much as convert from a democracy into a dictator with an emperor at the top. Now, why does that sound familiar all of a sudden…?

Why “fear” what would be a 100% established fact? Try “watch helplessly as” instead?

Plus they can receive bribes just like politicians too, so the “low” salary (far higher than most people will ever make, but tbf a significant amount of training required to reach that point) isn’t an issue.

Ironically, people fleeing persecution of the Anglican religion in England and wanting to worship God in their own way (still Puritan though) was basically the number one thing that gave America its start, and therefore formed the strongest core of its identity. You hear more about the “go west young man” type of independence loving peoples, bc it is more recent and there are TV shows depicting it made with less time intervening between its end and their construction - i.e. cowboy westerns. Shows that depict the former are much more rare though, e.g. Salem.

Until recently, the vast majority of Americans considered themselves Christian, at least in theory - like, even if they almost never went to church. And the stories we tell are full of Judeo-Christian themes of fairness and virtue and living “rightly”, like King Arthurian myths (as opposed to e.g. cunning and craftiness uplifted in other parts of the world, e.g. Aladdin or most Russian tales).

But the key is: who stands between you and God? Nobody? (=freedom) Or some old, rich, landowning white man? “Nobody” implies a terrible burden of personal responsibility, somewhat akin to running your own Linux server and even having installed Arch btw (at least once sometime, for the experience if not a daily driver), whereas “big daddy corpo-king takes care of you” seems to be the philosophy that rules the current day:-(.

Translation: we gave up our freedom for the sake of convenience. And now we are all too weak pushovers to be able to stand up to what’s coming next. Oh well, Rome fell too - it’s not like we were going to exist forever.

Yup, that’s exactly how I think they should be used as well.

Exactly. But when I said that, it was equally up vs. downvotes and that kind of rocky start can kill a post’s visibility in Hot. Now there’s 10x more up than down so it seems past that hurdle, but even so I figured it would be a good reminder overall.

Please remember to upvote if you want the message to be spread - downvoting just bc you don’t like the content will have the opposite effect. This fascist’s words and deeds should be seen by all, yes?

He is too smart to ever run though:-D.

But Jon Stewart still continues to try, thankfully! He is the hero that we need, even if not the one we deserve right now, or whatever (line from Batman) - I doubt he can save us from ourselves, but damn I’m sure glad to see him on the air again nonetheless.

“He is sick”

Bullshit, that’s how dementia works - first you have bad days, then you only have good days left, then… it’s just days.

I am no doctor, but I do worry about what I see, as someone who has eyes? 👀

Preemptive: take what I’m saying with a heavy grain of salt, obviously and as always.

The true liberals will vote Dem no matter what - Kamala Harris, Pete Buttigieg, hell this group would vote for Pete Davidson at this point!

The true conservatives… same, mostly. Unless the liberals advanced someone like Liz Cheney or Mitt Romney, who may be able to chip into that? (This is when we finally stop pretending that liberals have any options in this race, midway between neoliberalism and outright fascism.) Bc just like Dem != liberal, but differently, Repub != Trump-er.

There are probably like 5-100 people in the middle somewhere, but bc they live in swing states somehow determine the course of the entire nation. Would this be a time to be risky and advance AOC - as a young, passionate, genuine person, since the votes of neither liberals nor conservatives are likely to be affected either way? Except the old money probably worries too much that they could not control her, whereas both Trump and Biden have been vetted in this regard.

Okay but… worse than Biden is already doing?

At this point is there anyone, anyone at all, who isn’t merely voting for “not Trump” on the “left”?

Conversely, there are a few on the right who actively like Trump.

And there may be a handful of people - in key spots though - who may vote for a younger candidate?