Wow this administration is f**ing batshit insane. I thought the tariffs would be on raw metals, not anything at all that happens to contain them.
It's reasons why this that I refuse to associate with Republicans in my daily life anymore. They are undeserving of respect or decency for how they continue to make our lives worse.
The tl;dr of the current conundrum is that we have two corrupt political parties, and a system that's so rigged that it's nearly impossible to elect someone outside of them. Modern society's problems are complex to reason about and nearly intractable to solve. The people in power are not capable of even trying to reason about, let alone solve them.
I grew up in Nevada. Most of the people I grew up with are lowercase-L libertatian: they believe the government exists to arbitrate between the conflicting rights of individuals; that it should be as small as possible and let them do what they like unless they're harming someone else. Because of the aforementioned duopoly, these people tend to count as Republicans (in the style of Reagan). (This is true generally - the more geographically isolated a place is, the more it skews libertarian. The more urban, the more it skews liberal.)
The national Republican party was weak after Bush and got taken over by the Trump personality cult. The people I grew up with don't believe in instituting tariffs and arresting immigrants; yet if you force them to choose an R or D label, most of them are still going to count as R.
The world is a nuanced place. If you ignore that nuance and force everyone you're willing to converse with to pass your litmus test, you end up with two tribes ostriching themselves into bubbles of partisan-approved groupthink. That begets more yelling, less mutual understanding, and makes it even harder to solve problems. All of this empowers the extremists who control the major parties to continue making the world a worse place in service of their own power.
Yes, everything about politics sucks, and the people in charge are unfathomably awful. But if you refuse to share ideas with people you might disagree with, you're contributing to making that even more true.
Maybe not "as a whole" but the majority of Republicans voted for this so at least those need to be written off. The rest have an opportunity to claim that they oppose the takeover by the personality cult. A great way to do it is to change their voter registration to anything else.
At this point, ever Republican has absolutely opted in to the current leader and platform.
He told them what he wanted to do, over and over and over again. Now that he's doing what he told them he was going to do (again over and over and over again) they want some respect for their objections? They voted for him knowing what he was going to do. Exactly what is there about these fucking morons that I shouldn't write off?
> Division is a core technique of erasing liberty
Seems like embracing a self-coup is also a core technique of erasing liberty? Maybe both of these statements are so broad that they are meaningless.
You chose your lesser of 2 evils, and others chose theirs. There is no acceptable choice in American presidential politics.
If, in their minds, Harris and Trump are somehow equally implicated in the Epstein scandal, all I can say is "lol, have a good one".
1. Biden was old and everyone knew it. He still got shit done. The idea that everyone thought he was great and fine is not true. That's what Republicans claimed people thought.
2. Primaries are not an official part of the election process. They are a party matter. The whole weird Republican meltdown over it is not based in fact or history.
3. Russia did interfere with the 2016 elections. There's a whole congressional report on it, by a majority Republican committee. [0]
4. I don't even know what this means. If someone did crimes, they should be held responsible. The idea that we don't want that is, frankly propaganda.
[0] https://www.intelligence.senate.gov/wp-content/uploads/2024/...
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i think people pick by name recognition rather than by lesser evil. if folks think trump is less evil than harris, theyre probably far beyond any conversation i could have. as south park puts it, not even satan wants to have sex with him.
My argument here isn't moral. It's that this class of strategy simply cannot be effective. I'm not claiming a better one, only that it's on all of us to look.
You need to build bridges with people that you disagree with
Casting somebody out of "the big tent" because of how they voted works towards increasing division. Increasing division, especially between majorities and minorities, is a time worn and effective tactic to create the conditions for authoritarianism.
If you favour authoritarianism over liberty then I am not talking to you.
If you favour liberty, support it, do not work against it
2. I'm not a Republican and I like the idea of the people getting to have a say in their leadership.
3. The claim I mentioned was that Trump was a Russian agent. Where's the evidence for that one?
4. This means the blue team had plenty of time to do something about the Epstein files and didn't. We'll never know what kamala would have done about it, but my money is on jack and squat.
Again, I'm not a republican. The red team sucks, and still the blue team wasn't good enough to beat them.
I'm not talking about Harris specifically re Epstein, no idea what her involvement is. I'm saying the blue team in general. And is it really a good defense to say "my team was less involved with Epstein"? I'd humbly submit that it's not.
This is why we live in different realities.
2. It doesn't matter if you are or not, you're parroting the propaganda lines. Primaries have always worked like this. Anyone who passed high school civics should know that. I did and I do.
3. "Russia, if you're listening..." lol
Anyways, people don't think Trump is an "agent" like a spy. The issue is his campaign and office are compromised and Russia has leverage on him. That's the real issue.
4. I still don't know exactly what you're talking about.
Y'all do know the "Epstein files" are mostly imaginary, right? I mean, obviously he existed, he trafficked teenagers for sex, and he kept records and such. And yeah, we already knew famous people tagged along with him.
But the idea that they're this spooky secret special trove of famous pedophiles that everyone in power is desperate to hide is straight out of QAnon baby eating fantasies.
Nobody did anything about it because there was nothing to do. Basically everything was mostly released years ago. Trump flogged it because it got a reaction and now he has nothing to show. It's honestly hilarious to watch it bite him.
Different realities indeed. The dems didn't even do that first part of promising to release things before "failing" to. Nobody in charge wants this stuff out.
This is why our system is fucked. You just have to convince people you're not as bad as the other guy, and you get carte blanch to do pretty much whatever.
Hahaha so instead of voting for 60 year old you voted for the almost-octogenarian who thinks there were airports in the revolutionary war, representing the party that has absolutely never hidden the neurological decline of a sitting president. My guy.
Also, is anyone claiming that Trump isn't steering the ship? The people elected him and he seems to be the one at the wheel. The people elected Biden, who may have been steering the ship in his good hours of the day, but who knows who made the decisions the rest of the time.
Once again, because being in a political party that has rapists is not the same as committing rape. Do I need to explain this further?
> The dems didn't even do that first part of promising to release things before "failing" to.
So then don't vote for them? Though if you are voting based on this issue and have a choice between a man who is in the files and has a documented history with Epstein or a woman who is a former state AG and didn't run in the east coast Trump/Epstein circles, please tell me you aren't as naive as Joe Rogan.