Rottcodd

The thing that amazes me the most about Trump is that he’s so ridiculously cartoonish.

Who’d’ve thought that the most determined assault on American democracy would come from somebody who appears to be straight out of an Austin Powers movie?

I prefer “used-to-be-twitter.” I think it captures the context better, and it’s clunky, as it should be.

Of course they are - they’re psychopaths.

They’re each and all people who, in a sane society, would be institutionalized in order to protect others from the harm they inevitably do as a consequence of their complete lack of principles, morals, empathy and remorse. But instead they’re allowed to run free, and this is what we get.

Of course they did - that’s the point.

And it doesn’t matter in the slightest that there’s no substance to any of their allegations, because the entire purpose is just to get the idea that there’s something there to investigate out into the world.

And it’ll likely work, no matter what, because Republican voters are angry morons, so all they’re going to get no matter what is “investigate the Jan. 6 investigators because [words],” so it really doesn’t matter if those words make sense or not.

The “why” is certainly that someone in the state beef industry gave him a pile of money.

A Supreme Court justice, on the other hand, costs as much as a luxury motor home.

Exactly as much as a luxury motor home in fact…

This whole thing is just creepy as hell. This guy has some serious and disturbing psychological issues.

And he’s a fucking politician. People actually decided that they wanted him to represent them in government.

More all the time, I feel like I’ve somehow been trapped on an alien planet, surrounded by a bizarre race of inexplicably stupid lunatics.

So at this point, I’m just wondering - traitor, lunatic or moron?

He’s obviously at least one of the three, but which one(s)?

I don’t really blame them, or at least not primarily.

They’re just desperate and frustrated and looking for someone or something to blame for the fact that what should be a great nation is instead a festering cesspool of greed, corruption, violence and stupidity. Like most, they won’t or can’t consider the part they play in that, so they look for some “other” to blame.

There is actually an “other” to be blamed - the wealthy and politically powerful few - but most of American history, and human history for that matter, has been built around establishing and protecting the privilege of those few, most often by manipulating public sentiment in such a way as to direct anger and frustration away from them and instead towards others of the common people.

So they’re really just the latest in a long line of people feeling wholly justifiable anger and frustration that’s been misdirected by self-serving shitheels. I guess they’re rightly faulted for failing to recognize that they’re mad at the wrong people, but really, that’s true of far too many people.

Now all that said, on a personal level there’s almost nobody that fills me with more rage and disgust than the bigoted right.

Still though…

Not that it makes any real difference, but I wonder how many of them are so stupid and/or blinded by ideological bias that they voted that way because they sincerely believed that the election was invalid and how many of them voted that way because they’re cowards with no principles or integrity who were trying to suck up to Trump and his army of violent morons.

At this point, that’s one of the only things that provides even a hint of interest about an American right-wing politician - wondering if they’re an actual delusional psychopath or if they’re just LARPing as one to get votes and/or not get death threats.

Again, not that it makes any real difference…

I prefer a much simpler solution: the threadiverse remains decentralized, with all that that entails, and all of the people who can’t cope with that leave.

And right on cue, unintentional irony.

This from someone who self-evidently thinks that labels and stereotypes are fit substitutes for arguments.

Yes - I understand that your blind partisanship requires you to believe that opposition to one party requires absolute, unqualified, uncritical and unthinking obedience to the other, but though it’s apparently beyond your own grasp, it is possible to both support a party and criticize it.

In fact, in a healthy representative democracy, that would arguably be the norm - the parties would be shifting to accommodate the criticisms of the people rather than presenting themselves as fait accompli and demanding unthinking loyalty and condemning criticism.

But of course, this is anything but a healthy representative democracy.

And that’s not a coincidence.

But unlike Republicans, Democrats have a vested interest in a functioning government and serving the people.

I don’t think that’s true.

Exactly like the Republicans, Democrats have a vested interest in just creating enough of an appearance of serving the people to get re-elected, but not so much that it interferes with their actual goal of benefitting themselves and their wealthy cronies and patrons.

Republicans can do that fairly straightforwardly, by spinning lies about “deregulation” and “privatization” and such - by overtly pushing for legislation that will benefit the rich and just dressing it up in a sort of costume.

Democrats have a harder time of it because there’s no easy way to make legislation explicitly designed to benefit the oligarchy look like it’s designed to benefit the people at large. So Democrats’ role is mostly just to provide the illusion of opposition - to stand against Republican proposals but not quite manage to defeat them, and to make proposals of their own but not quite manage to pass them.

And as far as that goes, this is a perfect opportunity for them. They can, and certainly will, just make ineffectual noise and accomplish nothing of substance, then blame the Republicans for the failure to accomplish anything of substance.

Or you could just not care so much.

If you post memes that are likely to offend someone somewhere, then there’s a risk that one of those someones is going to be a mod, and they’re going to delete it. And really, that’s just the way it goes.

Certainly you might prefer that they have explicit, precise and closely followed rules so you can accurately predict what they’ll do, but there’s really no requirement that they do so - if they want vague rules arbitrarily enforced, that’s their prerogative.

And really, what are you out if they do delete a post? It’s not like you paid for it or you have some sort of quota you have to meet. You just toss things out into the internet, and some of them float and others sink.

And the GOP has gotten so bad that they don’t dare appear on Fox because it’s so certain that it’ll just make them look bad.

Shame that that’s still undoubtedly not going to be enough to make their angry and/or moronic supporters step back and take a good look at who it is they’re voting for, but at least it’s cynically amusing for the rest of us.

It strikes me that, sort of ironically, “infinite” is only a difficult concept to grasp if you’re smart enough to understand it.

Stupid people just sort of take it for granted. “Finite” is the thing they can’t seem to wrap their heads around.

I’ve suspected it’s largely performative. I still don’t really get it though.

And I have the same reaction I have to most of these types of things - I wonder what it tastes like, and wish I could try it.

I’ve never understood why these things trigger such uproar. It’s not like it’s poison or some sort of bodily secretion or something - it’s just a somewhat unusual but entirely edible ingredient. And it could be good. So what’s the problem?

Yes - he must face whatever penalties are appropriate and justified.

Exactly as the Jan. 6 participants and organizers must face whatever penalties are appropriate and justifed.

Pleased (if surprised) to see that we’re in agreement on that, Donny.