Makeitstop @ Makeitstop @lemmy.world

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2 yr. ago

A lot of people have a political party woven into their identity. It's hard for them to accept that their party is no longer aligned with their views. If they still identify as Republicans but oppose Trump, they might just avoid confronting the cognitive dissonance by staying home or writing in a candidate for president. Plenty of others will pinch their nose and vote Trump because they just can't escape seeing it as R vs D.

By appealing to them as Republicans, the Harris campaign is able to basically say that it's ok, you don't have to choose between being a Republican and voting against the insurrectionist would-be dictator.

The strategy that will pick up those stray Republican votes isn't going to moving to the right, it's going to be focusing on the things that shouldn't be partisan at all. Despite cosplaying as patriotic Americans, the MAGA crowd routinely positions itself in direct opposition to the core values and principles that America is supposed to stand for: liberty, equality, democracy, truth, justice, and the rule of law.

She doesn't have to run to the right, she just has to run as someone that's normal and point out how far from normal Trump and pals really are.

Remember, this is the same guy trying to sue to the National Labor Relations Board out of existence, because things like workplace safety and overtime pay and not having racist workplaces are inefficient.

This is a guy who was willing to compromise workplace safety simply because he doesn't like high vis colors. Who fired an entire department that was in the middle of work that's critical to the future of the company, simply because he was upset that their boss tried to argue that they shouldn't gut the team arbitrarily.

Efficiency I can understand, it's a rational priority to pursue. Elon is a mentally unstable weirdo who either doesn't care how much damage he does to the business, or is so disconnected from reality that he can't really understand what he's doing.

He's not just a typical corporate scumbag doing greedy things. He's basically an aspiring Bioshock villain. If he was half as competing as he thinks he is, he'd be ruling a dystopian nightmare city on Mars by now.

Insert "Why is it always you three" meme here.

RIP Trevor Moore.

I can't scroll by this post and not mention Dungeon Crawler Carl. Though, it may not fit this thread, seeing as it is a goddamn masterpiece. Particularly the audiobook.

You think he's ashamed of the fact that his kids are bi-sectional?

Is anyone else tired of reality outpacing satire?

That same logic applies to everyone else too. If Batman has some obligation to play judge, jury and executioner, so does anyone else who gets the opportunity. By that reasoning, cops who see criminals getting back on the street again and again should take matters into their own hands and just kill suspects who they believe are too dangerous to entrust to a broken system.

Batman isn't just trying to beat up every criminal in Gotham, night after night, one by one. He's trying to clean up the city, take down organized crime, fight corruption, and help fix the system so that it can deal with crime. Killing people prevents him from being able to work with people like Jim Gordon. And it forces the authorities to redirect resources away from fighting other criminals and instead use them to hunt down Batman because he isn't just a vigilante trying to help, he's a mass murderer.

And while that may prevent his victims from coming back to commit new crimes, it won't prevent new criminals from taking their place, something that's going to happen when he creates a power vacuum by killing a major crime boss. Plus, the calculus changes for any criminal he faces, because they have far less to lose by doing something stupid or desperate when their lives are already on the line. It destabilizes every situation, and makes dangerous people even more desperate.

Any lasting solution for Gotham has to involve fixing its failed institutions. That's a long term goal, and one which Batman can't do by himself. He can make a difference, he can protect people on a daily basis, and fight corruption wherever he's able to find it. And he can inspire others to act, coordinate with them, and support those who try to create a real change.

Now, will he ever actually clean up Gotham? No, because then we wouldn't have a story. Of course, that would be just as true if he killed people. I mean, Frank Castle has been gunning down criminals for decades, and yet, that doesn't seem to have eliminated violent crime either.

I would absolutely watch a version of Star Wars that replaces R2 and C3P0 with Crow and Tom Servo.

• enough money, highly qualified personnel, and connections (both legitimate and clandestine) to bring real change to a blighted city
• does none of the sort

He does use those resources to make change through charity and programs designed to improve the community. But that doesn't instantly solve existing crime, particularly organized crime and corruption.

Plus, it will never actually fix Gotham because Gotham being shitty is part of the premise.

• brutalizes mentally ill people (but it's okay because he doesn't kill)

He beats up violent criminals, generally when they are in the middle of either attacking him, or attacking someone else, or otherwise doing something that would harm or endanger innocent people. That some of these people have varying degrees of mental illness is unfortunate, but they doesn't mean they don't have to be stopped.

• crime lords and terrorists walk free because of notoriously terrible corrections system and no-kill policy

Everyone of those criminals who walks free could have just as easily been murdered by any number of people during their time in custody. Why is it Batman's responsibility to decide who lives and dies, and not any given cop or prison guard? And even if the system is broken, is it really better to have a masked vigilante killing people without trials (and appeals, and evidence, and oversight by some kind of authority)?

Also, let's be real here, the reason they get out so predictably is not because of in-universe reasons, it's because they want to keep bringing back villains. He could kill every supervillain in Gotham and most of them would be back in six months.

• main appeal is cool gadgets made by other, more qualified people

He's the world's greatest detective, a ninja, a world class martial artist, a scientist, an inventor, and one of the greatest strategists who ever lived. If he's not qualified, who the fuck is?

You mean JD Vance, the man who wrote Wet Goddess: Recollections of a Dolphin Lover under the pen name Malcolm Brenner?

According to the New Zealand Herald, the two women took some children to see Despicable Me 4 at Cinema 3 in Pukekohe, North Island.

I read that as Pukehole at first and thought "that was uncalled for."

Dan Quayle helped save democracy!

Seriously, Pence called him looking for guidance on the electoral college certification, and it was Quayle who convinced him that he had no choice but to certify the election. He's earned the right to spell potato however he wants.

Just what we need, more walled gardens and exclusivity deals. And of course, another way of monetizing your data, because we don't have enough of that already.

Search results are already fucked enough as it is. We don't need to start carving up the internet and and dividing it among different search engines.

JD is much worse.

When Palin first joined the McCain ticket, she boosted his poll numbers and none of the criticism she got seemed to stick. It was only when SNL started parodying her that public opinion shifted. On paper she was exactly what McCain needed, both to shore up his base and to add some much need youth and energy, and having that whole family image that polled well with women.

Obviously we have a lot more information to go on now, but at the time Palin made sense.

Vance was a terrible pick from the beginning. He's a nut job that even Republicans aren't happy with. He appeals to nobody that wouldn't have already been a Trump supporter. He adds nothing of value, just more shit that people can easily mock and/or be terrified of.

How often do you have to refill your gas tank? If it's damn near daily, then your ability to rely on an EV is going to be much more limited than if it's closer to once or twice a week.

If you have an outlet at home that can be used to charge an EV, and you don't regularly drive hundreds of miles in a day, an EV is likely a viable replacement for an ICE car. If you do make long distance trips regularly enough for that to be a concern, you will probably be more dependent on the availability of charging infrastructure in your area.

There were a lot of memes involving mike pence having lightning powers, and often fighting anything gay with electricity. IIRC this all came from him allegedly advocating for electroshock therapy as a method of conversion therapy (which snopes said is false, and that's as much research as I'm putting into a tangent on meme history)

They literally made "when the president does it, it's not illegal" the law of the land.