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President Sanders is signing the $30/hr minimum wage into law as he’s looking towards the end of his second term

Since public funding of elections, the normal avalanche of TV commercials and social media bullshit is being replaced with a coordinated YouTube, TV, and Insta/TikTok/FB daily release of a video where the main candidates can discuss a rotating list of major or minor issues in a relaxed format with real time fact checking and anyone who just starts yelling like a crazy person or telling random lies sticks out like a sore thumb

Covid is still a problem, but since the US reacted quickly and decisively we were spared a lot of the worst of the impacts and the resulting science-policy quick response framework is now making some significant progress on climate change. Although there hasn’t been time yet for all the crazy weather to be any different, the heat waves are serving as a firm reminder to everyone of how important it is and is a frequent topic at the mini-debates

Netanyahu’s last appeal has just been denied

Ukrainians are still dying but the front line is holding

Hillary Clinton is still salty that the DNC betrayed her so badly, but as Donna Brazile told her bluntly: Senator, listen. I love you, I want to to win, but at the end of the day it’s up to the voters, and I’m not going to put my foot on the scales for you.

🥲

I mean the literal text of the statement is, with some very minor quibbles, fine.

I think the telling point is, just ask “So would you support jail time for anyone in politics who incites violence?”

If the answer is “fuck yes” then you are talking to a potential ally, even if they may be confused by some crazy pants media (of which there is plenty) about where the source of the problem is. If the answer is any kind of hesitation while they try to figure out how to carve out an exception for their side, then they know what’s up and what they’re doing, and fuck ‘em.

Hey, why isn’t the Black Sea fleet represented here?

They, uh, they don’t need any training right now.

Short answer: Yes

Long answer: Yeeeeeeeeeeeeyfuckthenewyorktimeseeesssssss

I'm betting by Monday 12 points.

Will you bet with me? We can use fivethirtyeight.com as the agreed source; just whatever national poll gets posted there first, starting as of Monday morning. I’ll bet any amount up to $200.

Two answers:

1. Taken as a straight question, probably. The allies evaluated the Nazis and determined that Hitler was so staggeringly incompetent at actually running the country and the war, and had such a lock on power, that getting rid of him would make defeating Germany infinitely more difficult, as more competent people took over. The exact motivations of the actual 1944 plot are still debated, but whatever you can say, the people involved were fiercely loyal to Germany and wanted to do it because they wanted good things for Germany in the war. That aspect of the question, weirdly enough, actually does have a strong parallel to the machinery of neo-fascism in America and Trump's incredibly fortunate position at the head of it, hijacking and mismanaging and squandering all the more competent people's effort that's been invested in it up until this point.
2. Taken as an obvious parallel with the attempted assassination of Trump, political violence in America is very clearly a bad thing at this point. We're not in 1944; we're at the stage of the Reichstag Fire and Enabling Act, when it's still not clear which way it's gonna go. If we were a couple years from now in 1944, when millions of civilians of the wrong designations had already died in the camps and millions more soliders and civilians in the concurrent hot war, then sure, knock yourself out. But trying to stop looming fascism through random political violence is like trying to stop a bear attack by covering yourself in steak sauce.

I am interested to see how the unanimously in favor of this voting pattern that I’m currently seeing will change, as the Americans wake up.

The idea that it will lead to open war in the streets? I don't think so.

Well, glad we cleared that up. I would recommend to watch the news for historians who study this type of thing; I would expect that you will see some who predict exactly that. Or, well, more of it, since there’s already a little bit of it.

I mean the proof is in the pudding. We’ll see what happens.

So your worry here is what?

That his followers will be inspired to acts of violence they otherwise wouldn’t have been

Blind panic and condemnation of people who would otherwise be your allies is a choice though.

I’ll "condemn" people who I disagree with, and explain why I disagree with them. I plan to continue to do so. If that is wrong in your world, then it makes some kind of sense why you think assassination is right.

If you like assassinations, and aren’t panicked about further erosion of democracy, you already won’t be a potential ally of mine for two big reasons. The issue wasn’t created when I spoke up about those reasons.

I’m not saying nobody should make edgelord jokes in general. I’m saying that no one should be speaking approvingly, whether joking or not, about something that is such a mind-bogglingly terrifying development.

If someone went into a mosque and shot up the place, but missed a bunch of kids, and someone posted a meme suggesting they needed to do better because their score was way down in C tier, I would be appalled for the same reasons I am appalled by this.

Meaning, “this century”, since the year 2000. But, since you asked, yes. This is infinitely more dangerous than the attempt on Reagan, and significantly more dangerous than even January 6th.

If you went back to something like World War 2 or the Cuban missile crisis you might be able to find something more dangerous. Although, check back; depending on what happens at the RNC this might wind up eclipsing the missile crisis by a few months from now.

Yeah. I have no interest in trying to talk these people into being different. I wanted more to point out to everyone else how hilariously wrong they are, and also, hey maybe we should defederate from these guys if their consensus view is on the pro assassination side in a big way.

Read “How Democracies Die” for a pretty good breakdown. The question isn’t really violence versus non violence, but escalating the breakdown of democratic norms versus trying to maintain them.

I don’t care how oppressed you think you are right now; this has the potential to make it much, much, much worse.