Nah he had a foundation too.

The absolute least surprising thing about that situation. He’s been so absolutely weird about her every time he speaks about her. Makes my fucking skin crawl.

Cynically that means that the spoiler effect might actually work in our favor if he does go through with it. I’m not gonna hold my breath for it, but it would be so funny if Musk’s ego actually leads to the Republican party splitting and losing because they can’t decide how many poor people and minorities they want to throw into a wood chipper.

Oh yeah, for sure. Personally I see Carter as the “good version” if you can call it such a thing of the “Do-Nothing Democrat” if that makes sense. The thought that basically all Democrats have to do is be faithful stewards of the status quo and allow the arc of the universe to slowly bend towards justice. To tinker around the edges letting incrementalism and institutionalism carry them forward.

Then as time wore on more and more the Democrats would start saying “why shouldn’t I enrich myself a little? After all, all we really have to do is keep the institutions going and they’re doing that just fine on their own,” until you get to the ghouls of today. Where they’re there because they deserve to be there, and they deserve to be there because they’re there. All the while lining their own pockets and saying “Fuck you, I got mine,” to everybody else.

H-how dare you speak ill of the uwu smol bean that is Jimmy Carter?! Something something peanut farm something something.

Seriously though, yeah. Carter’s historic unpopularity and unwillingness to step aside are a big part of why the loss to Reagan was so overwhelming and why Reagan was able to do so much lasting harm to the country.

Yep, they were so traumatized by losing to Reagan that they abandoned everything they ever stood for and started racing right trying to find the “center” and to this day think it’s the only way to win.

Not only is it real, I saw a video that his team cut together of the moment like it was a damn Play of the Game highlight of him “owning” the Republicans. Words cannot express the depths of my hatred for Democratic leadership at this moment. This bill is going to be one of if not the most catastrophic pieces of legislation ever passed and THIS is all their so-called “resistance” amounts to?

I hate them and their strategy of “Do nothing, give the Republicans enough rope to hang themselves, then make it the responsibility of the voters to get rid of them so they don’t have to promise anything or stand for anything.” They gave 'em though rope alright, except they’re not hanging themselves, they’re diving off a cliff and the rope is tied around our waists too.

B-but, if we stop rewarding seniority and nothing else even if we run terrible losing campaigns… Multiple times in a row… Th-then it’ll never be MY turn…

Didn’t Pelosi say she wasn’t going to run for reelection this time around? Or am I mistaking her for one of the other Do-Nothing Democrat Fossils?

At a minimum this guy won’t have the same level of intuitional clout Pelosi used many many times to hinder progressive policies and engage in political horse trading. So even if this guy is literally a 1-for-1 Pelosi clone he’ll be a much weaker hurdle to overcome than she was.

Less assuming it is one or the other than guessing which one seems more likely of the two. Probably I’m hoping that it’s just the pee tape because it’s the most funny option I’ve seen laid out. That all of this stems from an act that in and of itself registers at “okay, that’s kind of weird” but isn’t like omg your life is over y’know?

I still kinda want it to be the “pee tape” everyone was speculating about last time around. Because that’s the funniest possible piece of kompromat I can think of that Putin could have on ole Donnie Boy. Realistically though considering his longstanding friendship with Epstein…

It’s like the Old Man Yaoi version of Thanos trying to court Death by killing half of all life in the universe.

It was only supposed to be a little instability Donald! Give us a little dip that we could use to buy up another chunk of the pie. NOT BLOW UP THE ENTIRE FOUNDATION OF INTERNATIONAL TRADE DONALD!

• The Cato Institute, probably?

Anyone who listened to Trump and Vance explain them basically. For months they’ve been straight up lying to their voters that if they put a tariff on China, then China would have to pay to ship their products to the US. How they’re going to bring in all this money from China and the rest of the countries that had been supposedly “screwing us” in trade.

Literally from your link they quote him saying.

…but it does not have the right to use US dollars to kill thousands of innocent men, women, and children in Gaza.

But Oh No he didn’t say the Magic Word to the press 2 months in when we still have 0 idea what internal discussions were happening. Can’t give the guy with probably the longest track record of being on the right side of pretty much every issue any benefit of the doubt. Especially not when he has before been very vocal about Palestinian rights. Couldn’t possibly be any good reason he didn’t use the Magic Purity Word.

Color me surprised. A video with a hostile interviewer trying to bait him into making statements that paint pro-Palestinian sentiment as pro-Hamas and him predictably navigating the “do you condemn Hamas?” traps.

Of course that outweighs him using the power he has to try to block 20 billion dollars worth of weapons. Heaven forbid he try to be an effective advocate and not demonstrate perfect ideological purity in every interview and talk no matter how it might impede him actually trying to fucking do something about it.

More entirely missing the point. He was literally one of the only voices trying to block weapons to Israel. But no, he didn’t stop them entirely on his own or call Biden “Genocide Joe” so that must mean he supports the genocide.

It’s really starting to sound like there’s literally nothing he could have done that would have been good enough for you.

My Sibling in Satan, how do you think making these demands work? This is an asymmetrical fight. Most of the time you won’t get a direct answer because the politicians are playing a different game. By and large they won’t commit to anything before the election that might alienate large sections of voters one way or the other.

Electoral politics is about choosing your battlefield for the action to come. In a presidential election it is a mathematical fact that there are only two viable options. Yes, they’re both captured to varying degrees by capital. But you can get a sense of who is more likely to accept the things you want.

There was 0 chance of the Republicans stopping what’s happening in Gaza for example. Clearly the chance was at least close to 0 with the Democrats but they were more vulnerable on that front and almost certainly they at least wouldn’t be trying to send pro-Palestinian activists to a gulag in El Salvador. So given this context which is the more advantageous battlefield you try to advocate on? There is a correct answer here and it’s the Democrats.

Is it fair? Absolutely not. Are you running the risk of getting them elected and still not doing what you want? Yep. But a risk they won’t listen is objectively better than a guarantee the Republicans won’t listen. This is why electoral politics cannot be the only arena where we’re fighting, but it’s an arena we still have to fight on because it determines the battlefield other action takes place on.

You mean things like Single-Payer Healthcare, Housing as a Human Right, increasing the minimum wage, or any of the myriad of other policy positions that he talks about every time he talks basically anywhere? That thing he already does?