mozz

Yeah. Who gets to be a political party isn't written into the constitution; we've had big parties come and go before. It's been stable for so long that it's started to seem like part of the fabric, but it's not.

If the RNC becomes unable to fund or organize any downballot races at all, so that at the end of it all Trump brings about the collapse of the GOP, then I'd be okay with that.

Of course, there's also an option that his seizure and mismanagement of the whole Republican machinery means that they suffer a bloodbath in congress, but he wins the presidency, and then like so many dictators before him he simply declares that congress doesn't count anymore and he's not bound by them, with the supreme court majority behind him and his violent supporters ready to kill to back it up. That's a possibility.

There could be a nice synergy that we could use the collapse of the GOP to enact something like proportional representation in congress, which would be kind of an easy sell at that point if the left wing is okay with it, because it's a way for conservatives to hold on to some level of power instead of none.

But the first possibility is much, much more plausible to me unfortunately

I've had this conversation so many times that I'm just gonna link to earlier responses that apply to this message (edit: I screwed up my links initially; they're fixed or the messages just pasted now). You said none of my points were true, so I'll actually give a response to each and every one:

America has literally never produced as much fossil fuels as we have when Biden has been president.

How I feel about this argument (edit: fixed the link)

How I analyze Biden's climate performance (on track for 40%) is in the message you're responding to; you can disagree with that number obviously but please either address the actual relevant performance-measurement number, or explain why you think that's not a good way to measure a climate bill.

Sounds like a lot, but not even a rounding error in total student loan debt, and the system is still broken.

(Edit: I can't link easily to the deleted thread. Response:)

That’s an excellent point - it is absurd to talk in terms of “I can’t support Joe Biden because there are still items on my progressive wish list where he isn’t a clear enough improvement over the historical norm.” The fact that he’s objectively a huge step forward as pertains to climate change / student loans / marijuana legalization / etc, is a good reason to vote for him for as long as he’s a clear improvement (over the norm, let alone over the horrifying alternative in this particular election). While yes obviously continuing to work to move things forward towards real continued progress because we need more on top of that.

It’s a good point, and I’m glad you brought it up.

He could order it descheduled and be done before the week is over... That's what he said he'd do, he hasn't done that.

(Edit: Pasted response:)

Good spot! I did in fact fail to mention that in addition to the federal marijuana legalization bill, and pardons for anyone in federal prison for possession, Biden did in fact do exactly what you're not holding your breath for, ordering a reevaluation of the scheduling of marijuana. It's a little bit of an empty priority, since just lowering its classification level would still leave it on the "illegal drug" list and doesn't do much for anyone who's in a state prison for breaking a state law, i.e. the DEA dragging its feet on actually doing it isn't enough of a priority to spend time and political capital on.

I could go on about how numbskulled it is to give the Biden administration a hard time for not doing enough to overcome Republican resistance to the big progressive steps they are taking, while simultaneously claiming that he's deliberately doing nothing and that he's functionally the same as the party that's fighting to obstruct him (with some level of success). But I already made that point.

Most of "the economy" is about the wealthiest accumulating a shit ton of wealth and record fossil fuels.production, that doesn't help the working class, we're still all fucked.

I'm gonna make a "bad faith bingo" game where one of the squares is labeled "nihilism".

It's actually exactly the same as the month before Biden took office...

https://www.bls.gov/charts/employment-situation/civilian-unemployment-rate.htm

...

It's exactly the same as 6.7% in December 2020?

And Biden deserves no credit for unemployment returning to pre-Covid levels after the economic apocalypse which was 2020, down to a low of 3.4% which was never seen on that particular chart previously?

You're gonna have to give me some more details on what you're claiming here.

No, I'm explaining why Biden doesn't have the support he had 4 years ago...

While we still have time for Biden's campaign team to do something.

If you plan a picnic and it rains, are you going to go yell at the weatherman who predicted it because he said it was going to happen?

He tried to warn you. And by your logic that means he not only wanted it to happen, he somehow caused it to happen...

I thought about including "I'm on your side, I'm helping!" in Bad Faith Bingo. I had decided it wasn't worth including but maybe I should include it after all. If you are trying to help the Biden campaign, a good start would be to stop lying in this particular engineered-talking-point way about what he's accomplished with his time in office.

Yeah talking to them is a blast 🥲. The message he was responding to with the linked monologue actually also asked how much money went to oil and gas companies, and instead of answering he did that. When I distilled it down into only asking again a relevant question about what he was claiming had happened, he fell silent.

Yeah, I agree with this. There was a meme that one of the handful of accounts posted to politicalmemes where we had a big argument about Biden's marijuana legalization, and it was removed as misinformation (which, it absolutely clearly was; the OP couldn't in any way justify in the comments what the meme said had happened, and just went silent). I feel like maybe removing it is not a good thing though... like let us talk about it, and if the general consensus is that certain arguments are bullshit, people will figure that out, and it's actually a good thing if they can repeatedly read those bad arguments but then see alongside them why they're bullshit, or make up their own mind what they believe out of what they're seeing.

I can only speak for myself but I've learned a lot about what Biden's accomplished by arguing with the propagandists. They say he failed on something, I go and look it up and learn that it's either not true or not the whole story, and after doing that a few different times I started to realize holy shit he actually did a whole lot of stuff.

And they like bringing up certain points over and over in comments, but they tend not to want to answer simple questions about the narratives they're constructing

I don't think it's that -- I can only speak for myself but my instant reaction to bad news about Biden from one of a handful of specific users who tend to post it several times to day come rain or come shine is "bro just give it a fucking rest and let the rest of us organically talk politics."

There's a lot of propaganda surrounding how badly Biden failed on his agenda (on purpose apparently, constituting a betrayal of everyone who voted for him which justifies not voting for him in the future).

The thing is, it isn't true. He took the biggest action on climate change in American history, he forgave $138 billion in student loans, he put in a bill to legalize marijuana federally (which the Republicans defeated) and pardoned anyone in federal prison for marijuana, he took massive action on the economy that was focused on the working class instead of Wall Street (to the point unemployment is the lowest it's been in 20 years even though we were still digging out from Covid when he took office). The talking-point version is, more or less, simply made up.

You're saying that because Manchin blocked the original half-trillion dollar climate bill, and we then did a second round and passed a modified climate bill which still treats the issue as a genuine priority for the first time in American history and attempts to put us on track for a 40% reduction in emissions by 2030, that Biden "ran around" and lied and betrayed the voters of Georgia and doesn't deserve a vote. Yes? Is that what you're claiming, do I have it right?

"If, let us say, the gassing of the Jews in ’43 had come immediately after the ‘German Firm’ stickers on the windows of non-Jewish shops in ’33. But of course this isn’t the way it happens. In between come all the hundreds of little steps, some of them imperceptible, each of them preparing you not to be shocked by the next. Step C is not so much worse than Step B, and, if you did not make a stand at Step B, why should you at Step C? And so on to Step D."

-Milton Sanford Mayer

Yeah, I mostly agree... but at the same time, part of the issue is that in Trump's situation it's maybe not necessary to have a political machine in the first place.

The Republican establishment already tried to kill him politically in the beginning, but in the end if people vote for him, it doesn't really matter what any DC organization says. No one needs to see a TV commercial to know who he is. No one needs to have a debate organized in order to hear from him. He's immune to a lot of the survival requirements that would usually take money and organization in order for someone to meet. It's still useful to have an organization and get stuff done, but not having it doesn't make it impossible for everyone to vote for him.

(And, of course, it works the other way too -- progressive candidates with a sizable enough how-many-votes advantage can still win elections, even if the media / DNC / all usual advantages are stacked against them, because in the end the votes are what actually matter) (Nevada ratfuckery notwithstanding)

This is fine and I’m sure this particular event did happen this particular way, but “businessman” and “sensitive” and the overall bland presentation is understating the urgency of the overall situation to the point of criminal journalistic malpractice.

Not that this isn’t a terrifying harbinger of things we already knew about what a Trump future might hold

But it’s also not a real strategic idea. If you’re gonna remake the whole organization under the authority and will of one guy, that guy should be more capable than a drunk toddler

I eagerly await stage 2 of the cycle where everything goes to shit and Trump starts raving about how the RNC is a useless organization, and throwing under the bus everyone who was loyal to him

Apologies if you know all this stuff already; I just like talking about it:

NES has more genre creating games than any console in history. PlayStation 1 was a similarly seminal thing, but NES was when the deep magic was written. A lot of its games simply had no predecessors; they were invented from first principles.

The exact choice of titles will depend on your enjoyment level for games that are pretty unpolished from today’s POV, but many of them are good enough to still hold up even now.

History factor: Metal Gear, SMB1, Double Dragon, Metroid, Castlevania

History factor but also still fun: Contra, Legend of Zelda, SMB3

Still fun but also hard as balls: Ninja Gaiden

Wild card: Bionic Commando