I’d sure be happy if we were just starting Bernie’s second term. With third way neoliberalism still firmly in control of the Democrats, an eventual fall to fascists was inevitable. It just happened to be this election.

This might come off as funny if it weren’t for the fact that “genocide Joe” is entirely fair.

After literal decades of trying to convince the Democratic establishment that being marginally better than the fascists isn’t “good enough”, I don’t personally have much tolerance for scolding voters. Maybe this election could have been won, but the eventual outcome was inevitable. Neoliberalism is woefully incapable of restraining fascism.

That’s not a new war. It’s the war behind all the other wars.

you prioritizing your own kids futures over that of kids more in need is shitty.

Aside from this just being normal human behavior, I never actually did this.

You think the policy debate matters anymore with our soon to be christened God Emperor trump?

I think policy is everything important about politics. But no, I don’t think it matters much under Trump, except as something to criticize him about. But Trump is your strategy, not mine. That’s where accelerationism got us.

Grow up.

…says the guy who’s “arguments” are almost entirely insults and hand waving.

I care about my kid’s future, so therefore I don’t care about kids in the global south? LOL Wut? I’d love to see you walk through the logic on that one.

Long term the American empire getting knocked down a peg so they’re not the only game in town is going to be a good thing for the world.

Well, that kind of depends on who takes America’s place. Right now it looks more likely to be China or India instead of local control. Local control is what I’d like to see, but I don’t see that as any more or less likely if SHTF in America. If anything, the people who just took control are going to go even harder at extracting every bit of wealth from the globe as they possibly can.

your kids are going to be fuckwits if stability and long term collapse is better to you than short term collapse and maybe picking up the pieces.

So much to parse here. On the topic of lead levels, it would have to be me (and you) who are the “fuckwits”, since atmospheric lead levels have fallen by over 97% since 1977. The choice between long term and short term collapse is a false one, and America has chosen reform in the past and can do so again.

You know how we get a party that’s not dem or repub? By shit hitting the fucking fan.

Is that the objective? Your goal is a change of branding? My goals are related to policy, and I don’t give a flying fuck about political parties. How exactly do you think you can prevent the replacement party from becoming just as corrupt as the Democrats and Republicans are? I don’t even think you can perfectly vet an alternative presidential candidate, never-mind the thousands of offices you would need to take at both the state and federal levels. We’ve moved on here from a SHTF strategy to a third party strategy, but that’s hardly a move towards sanity.

There is no shortcut for organizing and educating voters. If you can do that, then you can fix the existing parties. If you can’t do that, then even a replacement party will end up controlled by oligarchs. Both organizing and educating are significantly more difficult under autocratic regimes, which is why your “let it burn” type strategy has never worked anywhere.

And China DOES have the whole “lifting the most people out of poverty in the last 30 years by a huge margin” track record.

Well, they did shift from being a developing country to being a middle-income country. Falling poverty rates are what happens in every country when it becomes industrialized. China industrialized quickly, so their poverty rate fell quickly. Still, it was a big accomplishment, but I don’t think it says what you want it to say. Their poverty rate of 13% is still higher than the US rate of 11%. China ranks better than the US in overall wealth inequality, but isn’t nearly as good as it used to be when poverty rates were higher.

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You have no clue how bad this can get, or how uncertain the outcome is. Historically speaking, the change that comes from a societal breakdown is almost certain to be entirely bad. He’s just removing what little restraint there was on billionaires and corporations.

The pipes don’t burst. Look to modern Russia if you want to know where we are accelerating to. We’re already halfway there and moving fast.

The Soviets lost to fascists first. Now we’re falling to the Soviet fascists.

You think billionaires and their private armies and vast disinformation networks won’t come up with even more control from a constitutional convention or violent revolution? Fucking delusional.

A government is only legitimate if enough people believe it is legitimate. Don’t underestimate how easily fake government can become real government, especially with the national press bowing and scraping before Trump.

It’s a “chicken or the egg” question. We have the Democrats we have because of the voters, and we have the voters we have because of the Democrats.

It’s a responsibility of the citizenship to be aware enough to make informed decisions and not be led by the nose. Americans in general are pathetically ignorant and disengaged.

Watch some random street interviews with average voters and it becomes crystal clear that fascism is what we collectively deserve.

I’m more concerned with what our descendents are going to think.

So what? It’s not like there is much of anything to be done about it. On the other hand, Democratic primary voters (in the instances where the establishment allows us to have primaries) could get their heads out of their asses and actually nominate somebody who isn’t a damn corporate bot.

Your link is to one study at one point in time with the mutations that were currently prevalent and the vaccines at that time. Beyond all those limitations, it was also only looking at identified breakthrough infections.

Here is a counter example study.

People have a tendency to cherry pick and misinterpret studies. That’s what experts are for.

Laboratory conditions? How exactly do you think trials are carried out?

The question is, does “glorifying violence” encourage people to be violent? Barring other factors, studies have not found that to be the case. There are some studies that show video games actually reduce stress hormones by giving people a release, and this might actually lower violence.

It’s a lot different to connect violent rhetoric with gay bashing, refer to gays as predators, then provide a template for how to ambush them.

Not true. No body ever claimed 100% effectiveness. Effectiveness claims were never once shown to be dishonest or incorrect, though they were often misinterpreted. Vaccine effectiveness also went down as the virus mutated and the formulations had to play catch-up. Even so, they were always highly effective (not 100%) at preventing hospitalization and death.

What fucked up the communication was a boatload of misinformation and distortions from the usual right wing conspiracy theory sources.

It’s not even going to be a fine. The indications the judge has given are that it will be a felony record and nothing more.

What your saying, no. Your basis for saying it? Absolutely. You have made zero arguments for this interpretation of the constitution beyond an appeal to the authority of “the courts”. When “the courts,” is actually"one court" that we all know is beyond corrupted by the corporations who benefit, your appeal to authority becomes meaningless.

Trump isn’t eligible either under the 14th amendment. So what? There are no laws anymore.