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Mustang posted:It kills me how I can ask literally any right leaning person what exactly voting for Republicans is going to do to improve their lives and they just stare at me blankly or mumble something about the government not wasting our hard earned tax dollars. I'm originally from the South and in those parts its just an accepted fact that Democrats are evil socialists out to destroy America. To them Republicans might suck too but at least they aren't Democrats. A huge swathe of the country just constantly marinating in Fox News and conservative talk radio. I'm reminded of a sports team-themed lottery commercial that runs a lot on TV down here in South Carolina. In the commercial, a family moves into a new house and is greeted by their neighbors, they find out their neighbors are fans of the wrong sports team, and they pack up the truck and drive off. It's 100% a team sport. The actual personal platforms of the candidates don't actually matter all that much to a distressingly large number of people, and the Democratic party is the "enemy" team to large segments of the populace. In many places a Democratic candidate could run on a platform of prayer in public schools, legalized machine guns, and tax breaks for truck owners and they'd still be viewed as the enemy to many voters because of the D by their name.
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Oct 23, 2022 17:31
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the_steve posted:That runs into the same problem that Dems have when they think the sensible solution is to campaign towards the Right: You can't out-Republican a Republican. I don't think this is necessarily true, given that nakedly opportunistic remora eels like Lindsay Graham and Ted Cruz and pathetic empty suits like Marco Rubio can get elected and re-elected. The Republican voter base has consistently and regularly proven itself to be incredibly susceptible to liars, grifters, and con artists.
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Oct 23, 2022 18:52
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Once your net worth is in the billions, I feel like the very concept of money as a unit of value is basically out the window because basically anything you could desire is pretty much at your fingertips and you're effectively just running up the scoreboard for the hell of it. If Jack's net worth is $4.5 billion, he can very easily light a billion dollars on fire and it will have absolutely no direct effect on him in any meaningful way beyond his high score number being lower.
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Nov 2, 2022 20:05
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Mendrian posted:Yeah it's this. This is borne out neatly by Musk's twitter deal, where he managed to convince banks to give him billions of dollars to close a deal that literally everyone, including Musk himself, knew was an incredibly stupid idea. It's also why Musk himself won't really care if the entire thing implodes. It will hurt his high score number a lot and might have consequences for his other companies, but the man is still going to be rich beyond the wildest dreams of avarice and live a pampered life of luxury until the day he dies.
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Nov 2, 2022 21:17
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Push El Burrito posted:Not believing Republicans hold positions they publicly state they believe is a key component of being a Republican voter. Yeah, this is the key for the huge portions of the bloc that votes Republican without being rally-chasing MAGA hat January 6ers, particularly the ones that aren't constantly tuned in to news and politics. They construct a mental image of their chosen Republican candidate as a good person and then just simply refuse to believe any evidence to the contrary, even when that evidence comes directly from the candidate's mouth. "Oh, [x congressman] would never vote to ban abortion for rape cases." I have a Republican-voting relative who would adamantly insist that the Republicans didn't actually want to dismantle the ACA for years because "there's no way they'd just tear down the whole thing and replace it with nothing", and who somehow used the time when it only escaped repeal due to McCain's spite vote as proof that the Republicans didn't actually want it gone.
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Nov 7, 2022 20:46
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I AM GRANDO posted:If the workers’ demands must be agreed to in order to avert catastrophe, it seems like the logical thing to do is agree to their demands. But if we give into their demands, they might make more demands! Those greedy railway workers, how dare they demand such largesse? Also it's vitally important that those railway workers continue working or else the entire economy explodes in two days, all the power plants shut down, and all the drinking water becomes undrinkable. It always, always, always blows my mind how politicians and experts can simultaneously publicly acknowledge that specific types of workers are so important and vital that the entire world revolves around them continuing to work but also somehow not believe that those positions deserve to be well compensated for that importance. We saw the same loving poo poo with "essential" workers during the pandemic.
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Dec 1, 2022 14:20
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skylined! posted:I think it's reasonable to assume that The Merchant of Death has more tracking chips under his skin than your local Humane Society and will be functionally useless in his old gig for the foreseeable future. They clearly see some utility in getting the guy back if they were willing to trade for him, at least.
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Dec 8, 2022 20:14
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As Leon said, Griner broke the law in Russia, but it's pretty much impossible to argue that she didn't receive enormously trumped up charges completely out of proportion with the crime committed entirely in order to hold her hostage as a political bargaining chip.
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Dec 8, 2022 21:10
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FlapYoJacks posted:And it worked. It sends the message that other countries can do the same and use Americans as loot bags. Okay, is your solution to the problem to let the woman rot in a prison camp for a decade on clearly trumped up charges(assuming that they don't just keep finding reasons to keep holding her once her sentence is served)?
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Dec 8, 2022 21:19
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Gyges posted:I'm still amazed that structuring an economy on playing hot potato by quarter with necessary expenditures somehow became the dominant ideology of the planet. Especially since everything is further underpinned by the religious devotion to the belief that economic growth is eternal and unfailing under the benevolent invisible hand of the market. That's what happens when no one in charge ever suffers any penalties or backlash for doing this over and over and over. We'll never, ever nationalize offending companies or directly penalize the people responsible when the jenga tower inevitably collapses, so there's literally no incentive for the executives in charge to not just keep slashing everything to the bone and making incredibly short sighted decisions to make number go up this quarter. It will only end when the people pushing the policies start suffering meaningful consequences for doing so, and that's not going to happen any time soon.
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Dec 29, 2022 01:17
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Kalli posted:Hey if anyone wants a fun quick read here's a 3 page letter from 38 states Attorney Generals begging Congress / the Department of Transportation to please loving do something about systemic failures with the airline industry from August. Christ, you know a situation is disastrously, comically bad when you get broad spectrum bipartisan agreement on it in 2022. The airline industry has grown especially pernicious in recent years because they've realized that they're considered critical load-bearing infrastructure that cannot be allowed to completely fail, so they can basically deliberately run their companies into the ground and gently caress over every customer they possibly can because when poo poo goes south the government will almost assuredly bail them out. Again, the normal solution to an issue like this would be to nationalize the offending companies to clean them up, replace the offending executives, and ensure uninterrupted service continues, but that's icky socialism so we'll just let them keep issuing billion dollar stock buybacks and then sobbing about how they have no liquid cash available to handle the slightest downturn in business so can they please have a bailout?
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Dec 29, 2022 01:48
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Shammypants posted:It's just a general strategy of testing the waters. If he isn't kicked out, Republicans can run people on fake backgrounds, fake financials, whatever. I think it's both. The guy seriously looks like he has some kind of weird compulsion given the fact that it seems like he's lied about functionally everything, even things that are extremely easy to disprove. The Republicans probably figure he's worth a punt because if weirdo compulsive liar guy who artificially constructed an entire life out of thin air can skate into and hold office with no consequences, the last vestiges of the need to pay lip service to objective truth just kind of go away.
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Dec 30, 2022 09:33
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bird food bathtub posted:I don't see there being anyone twirling their mustache saying "Nyeh, let's see if today's evil plot works!" but I will absolutely believe there are people taking careful notes on what's happening now that they can see it. Oh yeah, to be clear I'm not meaning to claim that there's some evil cabal who went "Initiate Operation Ultra Liar Man", I mostly mean that Republicans will most likely circle the wagons and protect this guy from consequences as much as they are able to without putting themselves out there because if the guy ends up keeping his seat and not getting arrested it provides them with a useful precedent for the future.
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Dec 30, 2022 19:40
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