hydrospanner @ hydrospanner @lemmy.world

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2 yr. ago

Why does anyone presume that his opponent will be the orange guy?

Why do you assume that he will suddenly begin seeing proportionate consequences for his actions in the next 12 months when it's never once happened in his life before this point?

I agree with your disposition toward him and admire and envy your optimism...I just don't share it.

We are the Dontgiveashiteriat.

I mean, with Russia, it seems like it's just been constant: WW1, revolution, WW2, Stalin's reign, now this.

If anything, rather than WW2 and this being "in a row", that time frame includes probably the biggest gap in the past century without a grievous population loss.

For as much as we (Americans) regard Russia (as a state) with an adversarial eye, as far as Russians (the actual common people) are concerned, I kinda feel for them. Seems like their entire history is dominated by difficulty, hardship, and death.

Then again maybe that impression is precisely the impression that the American education system has very carefully cultivated...

Because Trump, as weirdly as he may go about it, has made his way through life on his (inherited fortune from his from his crook of a father and) force of personality.

He gets people to do what he wants them to do by projecting an image, a brand, through the way he acts and speaks. Look at The Apprentice. He's playing this role that says (without saying out loud), "Look at me. I'm a straight shooting, no nonsense business leader and my personality and business sense have brought me success, money, fame, luxury, and power. You want that too? You want to be like me? Then do what I say."

Not saying it's authentic or that it should work, but Trump's entire existence is based on this tactic. He's constantly projecting an image, and it's that projection of that image that gets him his way. His force of personality is just as, if not more central to his power as his money (make no mistake, the money is necessary too).

This, in contrast with Musk, who's typically cultivated his following based on ideas and drive. He gets people to go along with him because he's seen as a modern day Edison (and to be fair, the comparison, in some ways, is apt... especially the less flattering ones), a groundbreaker, rules breaker...a visionary.

Simply put, among the people who follow these guys, people follow Musk for what he says (in terms of his big ideas), people follow Trump for the way he acts (in terms of the image he projects). It takes a strong set of blinders to ignore Musk's sharing of his worse ideas and Trump's less than impressive antics, but their respective cults have had plenty of practice in those mental gymnastics.

Thus you're left with the mind boggling (to the rest of us) situation where Musk's followers don't care how he acts, because they are laser focused on his ideas, while Trump supporters couldn't care less about the crazy or incoherent stuff he says, so long as he keeps projecting that macho, confident persona.

So that's how Musk gets away with being "Trump, but more childish": he's not depending on the personality like Trump, so he can act that way without turning his supporters off, because they don't care about that in the first place.

Musk's entire angle is "it's okay to be a humongous asshole if you achieve your goals.

Trump's is, "It's okay to be a humongous asshole, as long as you can sell it as arrogance bred from success."

Preaching to the choir, I know, but you'd think it'd be pretty fucking telling to American voters when there's always one party, the same party, fighting against any efforts to make voting and elections easier, more accessible, more transparent, more representative, and more able to accurately reflect the true will of the people.

Not saying that either side is perfect on that scorecard, but one party, over and over and over again has tirelessly worked to prevent any sort of measure that might allow the American people to have their wishes and interests reflected in their elections.

Really?

You make a good point.

The person you responded to also makes a good point.

There's no one-size-fits-all (all voters or all elections) solution on this one.

All we can ultimately do is encourage our fellow voters to open their minds, learn all they can about the issues and candidates, and make the best use they feel they can with their right to vote.

Shaming someone for not voting for your candidate is a great way to repel them from your camp long term. Respecting their decision, even if you disagree with it, sets a much better example of the sort of level-headedness you'd likely want people to associate with your causes.

Pick the worst offender corporation, invite their whole executive board to DC, and when they arrive, guillotine them on the white house lawn.

...then repeat this request.

There's tons and tons of reports of fingerprint sensor issues with pretty much every pixel model since they went to the in-screen reader.

If you've had good luck with yours I guess congrats on the good luck.

Mine pretty much only serves as a negative. Any time face unlock can work, it does. Any time the face unlock doesn't work, the fingerprint sensor also doesn't work...but it forces me to try three times before giving me the option to enter my PIN.

So all summer, when I'm wearing sunglasses, every single time I want to check my phone, I have to hit the fingerprint sensor three times then enter my PIN. Google should be embarrassed by how awful it is.

Oh shit I was thinking of the wrong TNG parasites, yeah those were creepy AF.

I had a roommate in college who just never washed his towel (singular) all semester.

It was fucking disgusting and made the whole bathroom smell like BO, to the point that every time I needed to use the bathroom, I'd put on my trusty rubber gloves and throw it up against his door.

His argument was that he only ever used it after he showered, on his clean body, so using it to dry a clean body was effectively washing it too.

It became routine for me and the other roommate to warn him when we were bringing a girl over that if he didn't get his towel out of the fucking bathroom, we'd exact nuclear revenge.

Also, I think there's a very real effect in early polling due to trumpers being as rabid as ever, while most Biden voters don't even really like the guy, so they're less likely to bother with these polls.

Trump and his supporters are the quintessential smol pp competitive morons. They want to "win" at any cost, all the time. So you can bet your ass they're going to participate in these polls. Every time their orange leader polls better than Biden they get that dopamine hit. Meanwhile Biden voters don't even want to do it in the election much less in some poll. They will, next November, but they're sure as hell not giving it time or thought now.

Further, since the debacle of 2016, it seems like polls have consistently overcompensated for that miss, and now tend to favor Republicans and their candidates and causes.

I think that MAGA-ism has led to a dangerous amount of rose tinted glasses with regard to the pre-Trump GOP. Even the pre-Tea Party GOP (which was the real start of this latest flavor of rot)...

...buuuuuuut

You do make a very good point in the difference between a Romney and a Jordan.

The Romneys of the world may indeed want small government, hell some of them may only want a smaller government...but they still want some degree of government, and by extension, they're still interested in governing. That is: doing their job of steering the nation toward some sort of goal that they feel is a worthwhile betterment of the country.

I may not agree with their goals or the ways they try to get there, but they do in fact have a goal and part of that end goal includes an intact, functioning country with an intact, functioning government.

The Jordans, however, have a fundamentally incompatible end goal: they don't just want small government, they want no government. Any level of government would serve as a check on their power to enforce their ideals, so their constant goal is simply to dismantle any bit of the government they can.

So they literally use their position as a chosen caretaker for the government as a platform to destroy the very thing they're supposed to be managing.

I bet trump would love to have a few of those binders

In these areas where bribes are so commonplace for all manner of interactions I just can't help but wonder how it goes on so long without anyone being desperate enough and wild enough to just pull a gun or a knife and basically say, "My bribe payment to you is just do your damn job and I let you live."

Or I guess maybe that does happen and then those people get disappeared.

"Be happy about your horrible situation because there are more horrible situations out there" is such a shitty take.

Basically you're saying "unless you're the single most unfortunate person on the planet, maybe even throughout all of human history, you should be happy", which is obviously nonsense.

I don’t even know what my grandparents did for a living.

I mean, if it was your great grandparents that's different, but your grandparents?

Honestly that's a little bit sad that you don't even know that much about them.

Also, you not knowing or caring doesn't mean that's the case for everyone...though it does shed light on why you may not understand the significance of coal mining on the coal region of the US.

It was more than simply an occupation.

I mean...the moment any large corporation figures out a way to replace human workers that need things like bathroom breaks (and basic human rights, and paychecks) and do the same work with robots and AI... literally the next moment, they'll have the AI start generating layoff notices.

It's just less flashy when it happens that way because there's no need for that AI to look like a beautiful young person.

(found in flak and some other seeds)

How much anti-aircraft fire do you have to take to get that 12mg though?

Now is all that smoke obscuring or revealing?!

Make up your damn mind!