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Stabbey_the_Clown posted:If you have to be undercover, it probably means you're outnumbered. It's absolutely the duty of an undercover informant or agent to pass the information along, sound the alarm bells, request backup. So for me the question isn't "why didn't they stop it", but instead "did the undercover informants pass the information to their agencies?" If not, WHY not? If so, what did the agencies do with that information? In the latter case, I'm sure the information passed on, and the answer to your question is 'approve wholeheartedly'.
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Apr 8, 2023 04:39
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Very good https://twitter.com/nytimes/status/1644505374194561024 They drank their own Kool-Aid on this one and didn't think there would be a meaningful voter reaction. https://twitter.com/nytimes/status/1644458795920240642
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Apr 8, 2023 05:07
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Honestly I can’t tell anymore if all this poo poo is the natural conclusion of 50 years of GOP claws closing in on the US, or the final, diarrhea-laden tantrum of a literally dying minority. I used to exclusively think the former, but the sloppy chaos lately has me hoping the latter.
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Apr 8, 2023 05:15
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HD DAD posted:Honestly I can’t tell anymore if all this poo poo is the natural conclusion of 50 years of GOP claws closing in on the US, or the final, diarrhea-laden tantrum of a literally dying minority. It’s both. They summoned a monster and nobody really knows what it’s going to do next.
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Apr 8, 2023 05:22
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I AM GRANDO posted:It’s both. They summoned a monster and nobody really knows what it’s going to do next. They directly impacted too many complacent voters and it turns out their ideas are a lot less popular than they thought haveblue fucked around with this message at 05:34 on Apr 8, 2023 |
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Apr 8, 2023 05:28
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haveblue posted:They directly impacted too many complacent voters and it turns out their ideas are a lot less popular than they thought I don’t think they ever thought their ideas were popular. But they did think that they had seized enough institutions to maintain control. But their base of lead-brained seniors and weird kids raised to believe the lies were true got out from under them and now we’re having a very interesting time.
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Apr 8, 2023 05:33
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Charlz Guybon posted:They drank their own Kool-Aid on this one and didn't think there would be a meaningful voter reaction. They knew, which is why they purposefully didn't do it for almost 50 years. The problem is that they failed to ensure the subsequent generations of leadership realized what the actual point of it all was. So now there's a handful of dudes desperately trying to do the bidding of mammon, who're surrounded by grifters cashing in on the distractions and true believers who are burning the plan to the ground.
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Apr 8, 2023 05:34
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nobody told the new crop that they're supposed to be pretending
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Apr 8, 2023 05:45
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Looking at my kids trapped in the beating blue heart of a red state, just like Nashville and Memphis, a small bit of optimism is that minority governments never last, even when they “win.” They are long-term doomed even if all of us die off first. Most Americans are far more progressive than most American politicians, even here in the south. We will win.
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Apr 8, 2023 05:55
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I AM GRANDO posted:It’s both. They summoned a monster and nobody really knows what it’s going to do next. Well, created a monster. They have been providing it a constant diet of hate and fear, after all. Things are going to be very interesting when/if the crazy sect manages to take over completely. And by "interesting" I mean "I hope I have secured an imminent plan to leave the country forever".
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Apr 8, 2023 05:57
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HD DAD posted:Honestly I can’t tell anymore if all this poo poo is the natural conclusion of 50 years of GOP claws closing in on the US, or the final, diarrhea-laden tantrum of a literally dying minority. I’ve been hearing the bolded poo poo for decades and yet the republicans have more power than ever before and are on track to have a competent fascist in the presidency (DeSantis) with the most ineffectual Dems in modern history. It feels like libs and Dems huff their own farts instead of reacting to reality.
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Apr 8, 2023 05:58
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I AM GRANDO posted:I don’t think they ever thought their ideas were popular. But they did think that they had seized enough institutions to maintain control. But their base of lead-brained seniors and weird kids raised to believe the lies were true got out from under them and now we’re having a very interesting time. It's more that, they didn't think their ideas would generate as much of a backlash as they did, especially in the voting booth. That's the thrust of the opinion piece in the tweet- they thought the outrage over Dobbs would be regional and short-lived, because they were too deep in the right-wing bubble to recognize that they were messing with what a large swath of the population considers fundamental human rights, or that it would generate an unending flood of horrifying news stories There's certainly a core of sociopaths who are fully aware and enthusiastic about undemocratically forcing their views on others, but wrapped around them is a supporting infrastructure of kool-aid drinkers who they need to actually implement it. And these are the ones like Coulter who are starting to notice things are not going according to plan Zamujasa posted:Well, created a monster. They have been providing it a constant diet of hate and fear, after all. The crazy sect has arguably taken over already- it is no longer possible to be a pro-choice Republican or even a pro-ban-with-exceptions Republican. It's fetal personhood or you get drummed out of the party haveblue fucked around with this message at 06:05 on Apr 8, 2023 |
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Apr 8, 2023 06:02
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To be fair when I think of "crazy" I mean the literal crazy people like MTG and the other Q cult clowns, not just death cult. E: Though the average has absolutely been trending far righter, to be clear. The fact we even have the literal crazy people is just 
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Apr 8, 2023 06:05
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Kith posted:nobody told the new crop that they're supposed to be pretending Making those empty promises for so long without ever intending to actually fulfill them is exactly what sowed the seeds of this new crop in the first place. They weren't pretending to be anti-abortion just for the fun of it, they were pretending because there was a diehard segment of their electorate who genuinely wanted to ban abortion. But pretending only works for so long. Eventually, that diehard base rose up and started running their own candidates, and by then the GOP had driven out so many other groups that the anti-abortion diehards were a substantial force in the primaries. Their overdependence on making empty promises to fringe groups came back to bite them when the fringe groups started demanding their own seat at the table.
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Apr 8, 2023 06:16
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virtualboyCOLOR posted:I’ve been hearing the bolded poo poo for decades and yet the republicans have more power than ever before and are on track to have a competent fascist in the presidency (DeSantis) with the most ineffectual Dems in modern history. 1) In no way is DeSantis on track for anything more than Florida Politician. 2) The repeated insistence that DeSantis is the competent fascist we've been warned of is ridiculous. Doing fascisms as the Republican Governor of Florida hardly takes competence.
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Apr 8, 2023 06:17
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Gyges posted:They knew, which is why they purposefully didn't do it for almost 50 years. The problem is that they failed to ensure the subsequent generations of leadership realized what the actual point of it all was. So now there's a handful of dudes desperately trying to do the bidding of mammon, who're surrounded by grifters cashing in on the distractions and true believers who are burning the plan to the ground.
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Apr 8, 2023 06:40
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HD DAD posted:Honestly I can’t tell anymore if all this poo poo is the natural conclusion of 50 years of GOP claws closing in on the US, or the final, diarrhea-laden tantrum of a literally dying minority. Back in 2015, I thought it was like a kind of extinction burst, but this has a lot of staying power.
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Apr 8, 2023 06:58
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Zamujasa posted:"I hope I have secured an imminent plan to leave the country forever". Friend, between me and my wife our family has achieved a mighty four citizenships and a visa for just me to Canada that lasts a decade. We could go to France legally tomorrow if really necessary. Salvation isn’t going to come from moving to fantasy perfect foreign country. It’s the same poo poo or worse, and the few countries that will make your life better conveniently are really hard and expensive to immigrate to. I mean in goon world yeah sure Sweden will prolly take a 100k salary computer toucher to touch computers in Norrköping and pay twice with healthcare but that’s not normal and if it’s even an option, congrats, you’re closer to Elon than to the rest of us Edgar Allen Ho fucked around with this message at 08:13 on Apr 8, 2023 |
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Apr 8, 2023 07:11
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virtualboyCOLOR posted:I’ve been hearing the bolded poo poo for decades and yet the republicans have more power than ever before and are on track to have a competent fascist in the presidency (DeSantis) with the most ineffectual Dems in modern history. 1) The republicans have more power now than when they controlled the White House and all of Congress? 2) Trump is leading the in the chud polls. DeSantis won't get near the presidency. Perhaps you need to adjust your view of reality?
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Apr 8, 2023 08:03
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virtualboyCOLOR posted:I’ve been hearing the bolded poo poo for decades and yet the republicans have more power than ever before and are on track to have a competent fascist in the presidency (DeSantis) with the most ineffectual Dems in modern history. Eh, both are true though. At the least they're a dying minority but also history shows dying right wing movements becoming stronger after being consolidated down to the most extreme members who are then willing to seize power from the majority that opposes them. Their two options are getting weaker or competent fascist who wields power while being unpopular. The fart huffing is definitely there though in people who think the right will just step on their own dick until it's all over. There needs to be strong and swift opposition and counters or else you end up with a fascist minority running things.
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Apr 8, 2023 10:33
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^^^^^ Also this above, yeah. Those worrying about a 'competent fascist' should probably examine their filters and metrics for 'competence', among other things. It's not like there's much competence anywhere on the political spectrum of the ruling class nowadays, if you look at actual material accomplishments and the global picture. And what competence there is... it's not in the USA. Doesn't help that the old playbook still used by Democrats and the remaining Republicans that haven't been hunted for sport yet is basically presenting the trappings of competence, of giving an expression of vague concern and speaking in a calm voice and looking like a Serious And Professional Grown-Up. Which seems to impress a certain class of voter- and definitely media- regardless of what the actual results are. The right are grabbing literally every lever of power they see down to dogcatcher and using it to hurt their perceived enemies at every opportunity, and do not give the slightest poo poo about any rule against them until someone points a gun at them to enforce it. Thinking that shame, standards or morals is even in play here is giving them more time and energy to do that harm. And it doesn't need to be sustainable, or even to last long at all. It only needs to outlast you.
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Apr 8, 2023 10:43
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Ghost Leviathan posted:And it doesn't need to be sustainable, or even to last long at all. It only needs to outlast you. What is that old line "the market can remain irrational longer than you can remain solvent." That, but as applied to human rights.
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Apr 8, 2023 11:12
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Fascists are never not a minority and thus even if they are dying (debatable) minority their lack of majority support has never been the deciding factor in their success. Either the government defeats them because they are viewed as a threat to their power or the opposing political party defeats them because of the same. If they fail in that, they gain power and it is left for society or a foreign power (or former with the help of the latter) to defeat them after they do enough poo poo. They never just go quietly in the night and everyone who counted on that historically did not end up having a lot of fun. Fascists are mainly incredibly incompetent people, they win when the opposition is more incompetent. Establishment Democrats can eke out comfortable blue islands to sustain their careers until the end of time and I am pretty sure that is their actual goal so they are competent in that. The Left Democrats and competence don't exist in the same hemisphere. DarkCrawler fucked around with this message at 11:47 on Apr 8, 2023 |
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Apr 8, 2023 11:40
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Has McConnell made any appearances since he was released from the hospital? It's been like two weeks.
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Apr 8, 2023 11:48
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Main Paineframe posted:Making those empty promises for so long without ever intending to actually fulfill them is exactly what sowed the seeds of this new crop in the first place. The issue is that both parties as they are now divvied up their their factional issues and priorities post Carter, and haven't really changed much since Clinton. The calcification of which groups and ideologies align with each party naturally led to position homogeneity of the parties. While the GOP is still an unholy alliance of Bible Trumpeters, Libertarians, Racists, Fascists, and the Chamber of Commerce, decades of alliance and proximity have lead all the groups to largely believe the same things. The end result is that instead of throwing sops and platitudes to disparate groups, they're throwing sops and platitudes to a single group. What once was a collection of factions making up a party has instead become a party with factional subdivisions. Similar to the difference in outlook of the US pre-Civil War and in the modern era, where people went from seeing themselves as citizens of their State first and Americans second to American first and State nearing incidentally. At the same time, the way that things fell as the parties solidified from group alliances to united fronts left Republicans with a bag of issues that are popular predominantly with those born before the end of the Vietnam War. As such their base is faced with declining membership as it is harder to find young people who agree with their issues. This further encourages the various factions to both radicalize and more closely merge. The end result is that what was once a headlining group of assholes appeasing and hoodwinking opening acts of dickheads into continued support, has become instead a single entity of bastards. Abortion isn't just something the Jesus freaks care about, deregulation isn't just the opiate of the Libertarians, and dog whistles aren't there to keep the racists following along. Now the average member of the base believes in wacky poo poo from all the factions. Instead of letting the factional dogs hopelessly chase the cars as a distraction, now everyone is working together as the main focus to catch that loving car.
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Apr 8, 2023 12:26
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When we last checked in on the DeSantis-Disney feud, Disney had used their final moments of full control of the Reedy Creek Improvement District to have the district sign over every power and right that it could to the Disney corporation directly, leaving the new toady administration with almost nothing to do and few ways to interfere with it. But DeSantis has vowed not to give up trying to gently caress with one of the largest employers and revenue generators in his state:quote:In his latest remarks, DeSantis appeared irritated by media reports on the battle with Disney and the idea that the company “pulled one over on the state.” The sacrifice of Florida on the altar of a most likely doomed presidential run continues. "Competent fascist" really starting to look half-true at best haveblue fucked around with this message at 14:45 on Apr 8, 2023 |
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Apr 8, 2023 14:18
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"Competent fascist" was always the wrong framing for DeSantis. It should be something more like "guy who appeals to the MAGA base but is still friendly to/controlled by the Republican establishment." Which is turning out to be his undoing. He can only appeal to the MAGAs through his pre-planned stunts, but when you hear the guy actually talk it's clear that he's a donor-pleaser and a sniveling ladder climber. His attempts to triangulate a position where he pushes back on Trump's insults but never actually attacks him is the exact kind of weakness that the MAGA base hates.
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Apr 8, 2023 14:44
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Competent fascist itself is an oxymoron because being a fascist requires willful ignorance and an ideology that does everything in its power to prevent people within it from enriching and improving themselves in exchange for perceived grievances and scapegoats. DeSantis and his ilk have gotten as far as they have not through calculating, methodical strategy but by a combination of dumb luck, brute force, and billions of dollars from rich sociopaths.
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Apr 8, 2023 15:42
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Dick Trauma posted:Has McConnell made any appearances since he was released from the hospital? It's been like two weeks. Congress is on one of their multi-week vacations, but when the Senate resumes I think McConnell & Fetterman are both expected to return. No word on Sen. Shingles (D-CA), though.
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Apr 8, 2023 15:44
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is pepsi ok posted:"Competent fascist" was always the wrong framing for DeSantis. It should be something more like "guy who appeals to the MAGA base but is still friendly to/controlled by the Republican establishment." The "competent fascist" thing is just cope by people who are still desperate to convince themselves that Trump was some sort of wild outlier and fluke that could totally never happen again.
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Apr 8, 2023 15:51
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"Competent" was always only in relation to Trump, who was so incompetent it basically requires a different word altogether. And the same applies to DeSantis in general; I was worried about his potential to carry the torch of Trumpism with the benefit of "at least he isn't Trump", but that would've required Trump to be a non-factor, which so far doesn't seem to be happening.
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Apr 8, 2023 15:51
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the_steve posted:The "competent fascist" thing is just cope by people who are still desperate to convince themselves that Trump was some sort of wild outlier and fluke that could totally never happen again. No, it's not this doesn't make any sense. The reason people call him a competent fascist is because people are worried he's Trump but less likely to get in his own way to enact his agenda.
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Apr 8, 2023 16:08
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socialsecurity posted:No, it's not this doesn't make any sense. The reason people call him a competent fascist is because people are worried he's Trump but less likely to get in his own way to enact his agenda. If you think that DeSantis' agenda is actually doing things, then he's kind of poo poo and has only been as successful as he is due to the unique nature of it being Florida, Jake. If you think that his agenda is performative actions that are undercut as soon as the sound byte ends, then he's hyper competent. He would be more successful than Trump at being an effective shithead. But that's only because Trump is uniquely incompetent at governing, and hyper focused on mainlining attention and grifting money. DeSantis is a dumb gently caress who will do a lot of really dumb things and trip over his own shoes, but it won't be because he tied the shoelaces together in an attempt to show how cool he is. Most of DeSantis' poo poo has gone off like his tangle with The Mouse. He passes a terrible bill, he prances around touting how big a culture warrior he is, and then it immediately starts falling apart. The crumbling has been much slower for everything else, but that's because one of the largest multinational corporations isn't actively disintegrating everything else. For instance, pretty much all the people he had confused cops arrest on camera for voting had their charges thrown out. He's good at getting that media cycle, and that first move is absolutely a devastating and destructive blow to whichever innocent bystander gets hit, however he hasn't been successful at creating a sustained action after that. Florida is a run of the mill Republican run hellscape, not a uniquely dystopian hellscape. We're still sinking beneath the waves, but governor Meatball is mostly just performatively worse than any other Republican governor. As a hypothetical President he would probably largely be approximately as competent as Trump in actually turning the country into a fascist nightmare. He would get extra leeway because he doesn't poo poo on decorum like it's an adiction and he isn't as surface level a clown. However where all Trump wanted to do was get his adulation fix and sell as much copper wiring as he could find, DeSantis would be out trying to find new ways to be a caricature of a cowardly bully. The main thing to ask yourself is how much dumb poo poo is uniquely due to DeSantis, and how much dumb poo poo would have been passed by our dumbfuck Republican Legislature regardless of who was in the Governor's mansion. Is Florida actually on a unique course of idiocy outside it's normal orbit of stupidity under JEB! or Christ? Gyges fucked around with this message at 16:35 on Apr 8, 2023 |
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Apr 8, 2023 16:31
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the_steve posted:The "competent fascist" thing is just cope by people who are still desperate to convince themselves that Trump was some sort of wild outlier and fluke that could totally never happen again. I just mean it as a successful fascist. If you keep handing the ball to violent idiots you're still giving them chances to win. We keep giving them chances to win. My whole point is that Trump isn't an outlier and was mostly unlucky and unfocused.
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Apr 8, 2023 16:47
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Does DeSantis making individual people (specifically kids) cry and suffer play well outside of dementia and lead-ridden boomers and other deplorables? I feel like a grown man bullying specific children as individuals still doesn't play that well, even for people who are fine with making an abstract class of people suffer. I don't even remember Trump doing that too often.
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Apr 8, 2023 16:55
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Quixzlizx posted:Does DeSantis making individual people (specifically kids) cry and suffer play well outside of dementia and lead-ridden boomers and other deplorables? I feel like a grown man bullying specific children as individuals still doesn't play that well, even for people who are fine with making an abstract class of people suffer. I don't even remember Trump doing that too often. Trump had no issues bullying children, he bullied everyone equally. DeSantis can only literally bully children so that's what he goes after.
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Apr 8, 2023 17:00
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People who think bullying children and punching down on minorities and the socially vulnerable is cool and good vote at higher rates than people who don't. No, I don't have data to support that, don't ask, but based on the confluence of everything else I know about our political culture I know it to be true
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Apr 8, 2023 17:13
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"competent fascist" in this scenario is cold, calculated and efficient not loud, inefficient and farty like Dumb Donnie
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Apr 8, 2023 17:20
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Judgy Fucker posted:People who think bullying children and punching down on minorities and the socially vulnerable is cool and good vote at higher rates than people who don't. But a school tax referendum here, just this past week, brought out enough blue-tinted voters that not only did the tax referendum pass 60/40 but the town council's worst chuds all lost and the school board got good folks.
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Apr 8, 2023 17:21
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I'm not even trying to assume the inherent goodness in people, I meant that a grown man who focuses on bullying children comes off as weak and pathetic to anyone who isn't completely submerged in the cool zone.
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Apr 8, 2023 17:29
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