docAvid

The Senate is affected by the OG of gerrymandering, giving an enormously greater weight to votes in less populous states.

Most people are not as informed as you. They aren't analyzing their views on specific issues and voting for the candidates most in alignment with that. They're voting based on single hot-button issues like abortion or gun control. They're voting based on the way they feel about a politician. They're scared of terminology made up to scare them, seeing the Democrats as representing "cultural Marxism" and "critical race theory". They are in an information bubble that builds a worldview which is complete, compelling, but incorrect, and their votes reflect that.

People argue against a livable wage all the time, though. They just say that those jobs "were never meant to be a career", that it's "supposed to be for kids earning extra spending cash", that "if people want to make good money they need to develop skills". They'll tell you that if we interfere in the "free market", it will wreck the economy, and we'll all be starving. They're thrilled to tell you how they, or their parents, made sure to be in a good financial position before having kids, and if people have kids who can't afford the costs including time off to be good parents, that's because those people are irresponsible. And on down the line. They'll shame you for "demanding free stuff", and walk away feeling smugly superior.

It's just fundamentally not how human psychology works to publicly acknowledge what you think is good, and then privately work against it. People who do the worst and most selfish things always have a justification for it.

Insert "always has been" meme here.

Wait did GitHub retroactively change existing master branches to main, or was your stuff insanely fragile?

The only reason you think "master" makes sense is because you're used to it. It's actually quite a weird connection to make, if you aren't used to it. "Main" is much more straight forward. And nobody is really demanding people stop using "master", so far as I am aware, it's just that people are making that choice themselves.

That's kind of inevitable, and not such a bad thing. The president is one person. One person shouldn't be deciding what is right arbitrarily. For the president to be looking at what the people want, that's a good thing. Now, our democratic systems are deeply flawed, so that "what the people want" and "what improves electoral chances" are not as closely tied as they should be, but that's another matter.

Interesting assumption that the military would not be divided.

That's not how things work, though. Sure, some of them would wind up in prison. So? A negligible impact.

Do you think January 6 was organic? If so, you haven't been following the investigations. It was an attempted coup, and the more people the extremist right can get riled up and ready to commit violence where directed, the more likely the next attempt is to succeed.

Who said they weren't?

If some fool killed Jones, his followers would say his name for generations, talking about how he was killed by the deep state for telling the truth. They would spread his words further and more than they do now. People who don't think much about him, or people who think he's probably full of shit but like to listen to him for fun, and entertain his ideas a little, would suddenly take him more seriously, becoming followers as well. People who would argue against his lies now, will feel uncomfortable speaking out. For at least a while, anyone who tried to debunk his views would suddenly be painted as disrespecting the dead, at best, and viewed with suspicion. What it's possible to talk about would shift right, extremism and conspiracy theories becoming more acceptable, facts and reason becoming less so. In the midst of it all, some new spokesperson for the lunatic fringe would rise up and replace him seamlessly.

And maybe they are cowards, but cowards are motivated by fear, and people motivated by fear often lash out violently.

It is, and this kind of thing is a big part of why Trump's cultists love him so much. Every time they see us all making fun of something like this, they feel like they're being attacked, like "liberal elitists" are looking down on their guy, and by extension on them, for no good reason. Instead of talking about how he's a dangerous authoritarian nationalist, a pompous rich man who despises his own voters, and a threat to the future of democracy, we look like a bunch of bullies forming a circle to point and laugh at the kid who doesn't test well.

I dunno, I'm probably not gonna remember those words in five minutes...

I get it. I'm frustrated, too. I've tried so many times, too. If you think that somebody can't be swayed, then it's probably best not to waste time on them at all, but think about the other people - the ones watching the conversation play out, who may never say a word - what will move them? Sometimes, I do think being confrontational and telling someone off can be the best option, because other people are watching, and it's what they see that matters. Other times, for the same reason, it's not a good choice. And sometimes I just get mad and I say what I say, even though it might be doing more harm than good. And still other times, I don't say anything at all, because I don't know how to say something useful. It sucks. Giving a shit really sucks sometimes.

I try to remember how Hillary Clinton said "basket of deplorables", absolute political malpractice, that was. When you give someone a choice between thinking of themselves as being bad, and thinking of you as being wrong, they'll always make the same decision.