roscoe @ roscoe @lemmy.dbzer0.com

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159

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1 yr. ago

As much as I loathe the guy, I think we all dodged a bullet.

If he died of natural causes last month I don't think the MAGAts would have rallied behind Desantis, or whomever got the nomination. I'm not saying they wouldn't have voted for them, just that the excitement wouldn't be there.

If this has succeeded, the supporters would have transferred and been even more pumped up. And sympathy from those weird fuck undecideds could make the difference, not just in the presidency, but both chambers of Congress, and for their policy goals too.

Riding the wake of an assassination the draconian shit they would push through could have been far worse than anything Trump would have been able to accomplish in a second term.

Take civil rights legislation in the 60s; a lot of what LBJ accomplished was credited to the national feeling after the Kennedy assassination. Would JFK have been able to accomplish all that if he had served eight years with public sentiment toward civil rights being divided?

It sucks that this is boosting his chances in November. But a martyr, a new figurehead, and a more energized base could have been far worse.

There were normal diplomatic disagreements that all allies have. And consider the source of that statement. Yeltsin's critics would have included any anti-democratic groups. This was a period of unprecedented cooperation and trust that was growing until Russia turned its back.

Before Russia did their heel turn in the aughts, they almost joined NATO after a period of significant cooperation. Russia seeing the U.S., or it's allies, as enemies is a symptom of Putin turning a fledgling democracy into a dictatorship, not the natural state of affairs.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russia%E2%80%93NATO_relations

Go to the "Development of post-Cold War cooperation (1990–2004)" section and check out "NATO-Russia Founding Act", "NATO-Russia Permanent Joint Council", and "NATO-Russia Council".

Back then the talk was pearl clutching over NATO with Russia being seen as some racist white alliance against China, MENA, India, and others in the global south.

Russia only sees us as enemies because Putin needed to create enemies to seize and consolidate power.

Nominal is more than inflation so real is above 0.

Real just has to be above 0 for inflation adjusted wages to be going up.

I still call bullshit though without knowing where the increases are. All the increases could be in the top 10% with everyone else going down and only the average is above 0.

Edit: I was wrong, the growth is actually weighted toward the lower end.

I'm just one person and my sample size is small. But judging by the number of right-leaning people I know that send me stuff from RT and other similar places, and the number of left leaning people who repeat dispiriting talking points I see in those pieces (They may never vote republican, but their enthusiasm is certainly being sapped.), I would say the percentage is quite high. That's just people being swayed like you asked, not necessarily convinced to vote or act a certain way.

Again, I'm just one person, but from what I see around me Russia and its allies are winning the propaganda war.

Just make sure you finish on the Bach. Never finish on Debussy.

The planet is great. It's the fucking occupants that are a problem.

I make a little more than double the cap. I'm in favor of increasing or eliminating the cap but that would double my check in the future. (Not quite, I haven't made double the cap my entire working life, but it would increase it a lot.) That would still help a bit because not all of our withholdings go to basic social security. Some goes to disability, spousal benefits, etc. Increasing taxes and benefits proportionally, which is the way benefits are structured now, doesn't solve anything.

I believe social security has a lot of value so I'm in favor of not just fixing the funding, but expanding it as well. But if you want to make it healthier just with payroll taxes they would have to be progressive, like income tax, without increasing benefits.

Bilbo is rich and Frodo is a nepobaby.

I guy I work with owned two condos in a development. The HOA passed a rule banning short term rentals. There were a lot of units being advertised on Airbnb and similar services so he put them on the market when he heard the rule was being proposed to beat the rush.

He managed to sell one at market but the second one didn't sell before all the other Airbnb landlords listed their places too. He had to take about 10% below market for the second one.

Now those two places are owner occupied, and one of them got a nice deal (I don't know about the ones sold by other people). And everything that sold in that area probably went for a little less for a while due to the glut on the market.

Making renting less profitable works. People aren't landlords because it's fun. They do it for the money. Take away the money and you have less landlords.

Exactly, charge me what you need to to pay your employees what they're worth.

Shit, I'd take paying them enough to go back to the way it was before anything less than 20% was taking food out of the server's mouth. 0% fuck you I'm never coming back. ~5% substandard. 10-12% acceptable. 15-20% excellent.

That's better. I guess the Aristotle helped with making coherent arguments.

Don't threaten me with a good time.

Yes, I did read it. I'm going to need a source that says that was written by Diogenes Laertius quoting sometime else, not a quote of him, and he was quoting Diogenes of Sinope and not one of the other "pretty much all of the famous Greek philosophers".

Maybe you should brush up on basic logic with Aristotle.

Wrong Diogenes.

Diogenes of Sinope

Diogenes Laertius

I agree it will take him some time, maybe not quite as much as you think, but my point was I don't think anyone else could even get there. Even Regan had limits in what the faithful would put up with, he wasn't teflon. But no matter what Trump does, the MAGAts will support him and the moderate republicans, if there is such a thing anymore, will go along to avoid earning their wrath.

There is only one caveat I can think of. Trump can do anything without losing MAGAt support, but he can't say anything. There have been scattered instances of Trump saying something that deviated from the MAGA ethos and actually getting booed. He can still do the things that would get him booed but say he's doing the exact opposite and those morons will never question it. He just has to keep assuring his cult he's hurting the people they hate.

As long as he keeps tossing red meat to those hateful scumbags by abusing our most vulnerable fellow citizens and increasing oppressive efforts on other groups they hate, they will cheer any and every thing he does even as they're being herded into forced labor ghettos.

The difference is republican voters gargle his balls to an extent I've never seen, not even with Regan. The whole thing about being able to shoot someone on fifth avenue might be the truest thing he's ever said.

What this means is, with the help of a willing Congress he can do anything. Even things previous republican presidents couldn't without losing support for themselves and their lackeys in Congress. Republicans in purple districts couldn't pass just anything and expect to get reelected, but with Trump taking the lead you hardly even hear about individual representatives so they're willing to vote for some crazy shit.

He can feed them shit and call it caviar all day, every day. Republican voters will eat it up and never question it no matter how much it harms them.

Republicans always do this to some extent, but usually there is a limit.

Trump has no limits.

Maybe at some point in the future someone will come up with a test that determines if you're high right now instead of our current test that only determines if you've used it in the past couple weeks. But until then prohibition for any safety related job is the only option.