LOGIC💣

I made a decision about how to approach this situation. I’m not going to uninvite people and I’m not going to keep my opinions to myself if the topic comes up. But I’m also not going to proactively bring it up.

If politics does come up, then I will mostly ignore them until they inevitably say something super dumb and provably false, or completely immoral, at which point I will say something. I will call them on it, confronting them with things that are extremely difficult to argue against, and I won’t let them change the subject unless they concede or shut up. If they concede or stop responding, then I’ll change the topic to something non-political.

I will not talk about various political subjects, nor will I let them move the goalposts. I will simply argue the dumbest thing they said when they thought it was safe to say something dumb. I will not try to convince them, but I will use the truth to embarrass the shit out of them until they decide it’s just easier to make a truce and agree to keep quiet.

The point is just to take them out of their comfort zone so that they think before they speak for once. I ignore them unless I know I can win. I’m fairly lucky that I only have one MAGA relative who won’t listen to any reason. The rest of them, most of their problem is that they never hear an opposing view, and never thought about what they’re saying. As long as I stick to one point and don’t reject their entire belief system, I can win small battles.

Trump reads at an extremely low level compared to his position, so I think your explanation is probably most consistent with Hanlon’s razor.

I especially liked how he said that there was a new word for Trump Republicans, but then he had no idea what the actual word was.

I thought that was significantly stupider than average for Trump, and wondered whether the quote was made up. Guess not.

Bubba is definitely a stud.

DOGE couldn’t have possibly worked, ever. I think everybody knows a situation where there’s an employee who is contributing far more than their own manager knows. So the point is that even if you asked everybody’s immediate managers to decide who to lay off, you’d have huge mistakes being made.

A central bureaucracy like DOGE is so much farther removed from that situation that it’s not even funny. There is simply no way that it has the expertise to conduct layoffs, and it was obvious from the beginning. Companies facing layoffs know that they will lose unreplaceable employees, but they have to do so due to immediate financial pressures, nothing like what the government faces.

So, DOGE was either a stupid idea created by absolute morons, or it was a cover for bad actors who never intended to do what they claimed. Or a little from column a, and a little from column b.

The other world leader famous for killing journalists is Trump’s buddy Putin, who I think we all suspect has a copy of a picture of Trump blowing some dude called Bubba.

I agree that they won’t be refiled, and that MAGA will probably act like it’s some conspiracy, that the rulings were fake or something, just like any election that MAGA doesn’t win must be fake.

One other reason that they won’t be refiled is that these cases have now been analyzed in public pretty thoroughly now. Any lawyer who is offered the job now knows for sure how high profile it is, and as a result, how likely they are to face some consequences for their actions.

his latest move could kill us all

This phrase could literally have been said at any point during Trump’s current term, and it will continue to be true for the rest of his term. Trump is regularly doing things that could kill us all.

she decided to spend the last few months trying to save some face so she can try and retire peacefully

This part doesn’t make sense to me. It’s not like people on the left are going to forgive everything she’s done because she did the absolute minimum necessary to call herself a human for a few months. She’s just making enemies of people on the right, as well.

will qualify for her pension just couple few days before

This part makes a ton of sense to me because it’s about money. I don’t know whether it’s true or not about the timing of the pension, though.

Actually, money might be the entire explanation. Let’s say that she’s getting a windfall after she leaves. Like, maybe somebody has paying her to vote a certain way, but they can’t actually give her the money until she leaves congress because then the bribery would be so obvious, then she might have no reason to lie and say that she supports everything Trump does.

The red is probably chronic alcoholism or sexual arousal.

I still can’t figure out why Greene resigned and talked about someday coming back to help her constituents. Like, lady, you’re literally already in the best place to help your constituents. You have a whole year left in your term. You don’t even have to get primaried if you just choose not to run again. What’s the deal with Republicans just deciding not to do the job that people voted for them to do?

Yes, it’s basically the difference between nationalism and patriotism. Nationalism is mindless. A tiny bit of it isn’t too dangerous, but in large doses, it is the end of thought.

If you ever have the chance to make those types of changes to existing governments, it would be right after a major war when public sentiment is united. But I don’t think that’s ever happened for the reasons you say.

I don’t doubt that Musk is better than Trump at any sort of intellectual pursuit, but that’s only because Trump is that much of a dumbass. I mean, Musk seems to be able to read at a reasonably adult level.

Musk frequently says and does quite stupid things that involve him or his companies in legal peril. He’s famous for over-promising and under-delivering, and not via weasel words, but being specific. I think he gets away with it more from having good lawyers than from him acting any more intelligently than the average person.

Musk had not been just their visionary leader. For them, he was their protector: the man who had a direct line to Trump, who they believed could pick up the phone and secure a presidential pardon if the worst came.

Now, that seems not to be a quote from somebody involved, but a quote from Politico, but with that in mind…

What kind of person does something with the expectation that they might need a pardon? Only people who think they might be committing a crime. You know, criminals.

And I would argue that if they were committing crimes with the expectation that Musk would secure them pardons from Trump, that is describing a conspiracy that includes Musk himself. (As well as Trump, but it wouldn’t be possible to charge him with that, given a recent Supreme Court ruling.)

If I was the next president, I’d have everybody from DOGE on federal charges as soon as was feasible, including Musk… Although given Trump’s health, the next president will likely be Vance. I wonder what the odds makers put on Vance being the next president.

Everybody must have their own perspectives, but I was speaking more of societal and governmental changes.

Like ensuring that everybody is treated equally by governments. WW2 ended in the 40s, but the civil rights fight in America kept going into the 60s and beyond.

Like ensuring that everybody has the best education that we can afford. That children are taught to tell when something is misinformation. That children are taught to be skeptical of easy solutions, or of blaming others for all of our problems.

Like amending the Constitution further to reduce the power of an authoritarian politician. Severely limit the power of the presidency. Remove the president’s power to pardon, for example. Specifically say that a president has no immunity for crimes he commits as president. Specifically limit the power of executive orders. Require that all presidents give up their ability to amass wealth, and that they must live on a presidential retirement and work as public servants for the rest of their lives.

That sort of stuff. They did look at the underlying issues that led Germany into the war, but they didn’t apply fixes to the rest of the world.

Behold! A dimension where they defeated the Nazis using the combined forces of the wealthiest nations, and then just called it a day. But they didn’t completely finish the job because they didn’t put in place the processes necessary to prevent the Nazis from coming back into power 50 years later.

with great states rights comes great states responsibilities

I get the impression that you think you disagree with me much more than I think you disagree with me, at least from what you’ve said here in your comment. I basically agree with everything you’ve said, apart from these two points, which I think you implied more than outright said:

First, I think you are implying that “more educated individuals than [yourself]” is a group that includes theology majors, but does not generally include “other technically minded people,” which is something I disagree with.

And second, I think you are implying that the study of theology is simply an academic effort, like any other major. But the basis for my comment was the assertion that most people major in theology because they are already religious. They believe their own religion to be correct, and other beliefs to be incorrect, and therefore wish to study to further their devotion to that religion. Perhaps I am mistaken in that assertion, but that was the basis for my saying “they’ve already decided” the answer.

I think that a person who has decided to major in Theology has already passed the point where they’re soul searching for the most part. They’ve already decided to dedicate a lot of time to studying the thing they’ve already decided is the answer.