If so, then to which specific instance(s) (or more precisely, local mirrors of instances) would replies be sent?

But it’s been about six months since Schumer decided that it wasn’t the time for a fight, that neither he nor the country was ready. Democratic leaders have had six months to come up with a plan. If there’s a better plan than a shutdown, great. But if the plan is still nothing, then Democrats need new leaders.

We already know the Democrats need new leaders. Or more precisely, they need leaders, period.

Schumer and Jeffries aren’t leaders - they’re high-ranking tools.

That’s what they’ve demonstrated with their treatment of Mamdani. They hold the positions they hold because they have no principles and no integrity - because they’re owned by the donors and can be counted on to serve the interests of the donors regardless of any other considerations.

And for the time being at least, the donors - even the most generally leftist of them - aren’t sufficiently opposed to what Trump is doing. They’d probably rather the tyrants have [D]s after their names than [R]s, and they’re undoubtedly personally offended by Trump, since he’s petulant and gauche and gross, but they don’t have any particular opposition really to a program to benefit the wealthy few (which necessarily includes themselves) at the expense of the common people (which is just a bunch of shabby people they don’t know), so while they’d certainly welcome efforts to make Trump look bad, they’re not really committed to stopping him. And I guarantee that some significant number of them are already daydreaming about what they’ll be able to do if/when the power that Trump has accumulated falls into the hands of a Democrat.

And again - Schumer and Jeffries are their tools. We already see that with their refusal to support Mamdani.

And I have little doubt that we’ll continue to see it in their failure to meaningfully oppose Trump.

Yes - that’s another good example.

Even on a very simple level, that’s harmful to oneself, because all time and energy spent vainly trying to control things one cannot control is necessarily time and energy not spent on the things one can control.

Stoicism, properly understood, is in my opinion the only possibility humanity has for survival.

Unfortunately, stoicism is rarely properly understood.

Virtually every institutionalized societal evil exists at base because some number of people are stubbornly clinging to the delusion of control over others.

As but one example, while the wave of trans bigotry exists because some number pf people believe that they should have the authority to control other people’s gender identifications, at heart it exists because those people believe that they can do so. That’s the foundation upon which their ever-more aggressive attempts are built. It’s really not a matter of whether they should or not - they literally can’t.

Stoicism would’ve already informed them of that fact, and would’ve informed them of the harm that’s done - not merely to others but to themselves - by ignoring that fact.

Huh… I should try that.

My standard response is to just leave the room.

The one that kills me - my brother does this - is framing it as a response to imaginary opponents.

He does these monologues about the libs or the woke mob or the city people or whoever in which he first mimics what they’re supposedly saying, then responds to it with some copy and paste bit of MAGA dogma.

He doesn’t even engage with actual people - it’s just the strawmen in his head.

Of course.

Even amidst the overt efforts to eatablish an authoritarian police state, this administration is most notable for being petty, vindictive and wantonly destructive. It’s as if even instituting neo-feudalistic/fascistic/plutocratic oligarchy is a secondary goal, and the primary goal is simply to be cruel, selfish, petulant and mean.

So of course those are the qualities one will find in its supporters. Most of them don’t even have a coherent ideology - all they have is hate and a petty and childish desire to make those they hate suffer.

Ahhh… imagine the truly epic temper tantrums she’s throwing…

By design.

This is a deliberate offensive in the class war the wealthy snd empowered few are already fighting, and that we’re losing by forfeit.

I am so fucking tired of this government of not simply the most corrupt, but the most stupidly corrupt.

The kakistocrat.

Best guess - is he so stupid he believes this or so dishonest he pretends?

Yes, he lies literally non-stop, so that’s always the safe bet, but with this tariff thing in particular, he seems to sincerely believe that they’re some kind of magic, and he fairly obviously has no idea how they actually work. So it seems at least possible that he genuinely believes this.

Which would take a special kind of stupid, but if there’s anyone capable of it, it’s Trump.

Where did I say that others do deserve to?

Yeah… somehow I can’t be arsed to care about the supposed threats to someone who oversees an army of masked thugs who black bag people and send them to concentration camps and foreign torture prisons.

Seems to me that if that’s the kind of world she wants, that’s the kind of world she, more than anyone else, should have to live in.

Politics, in any form.

Corporate, in any form.

Police, in any form.

Military, in any form.

They all - I believe that institutionalized, hierarchical authority is rather obviously inherently destructive, and I couldn’t willingly take part. In fact, one of the things that perplexes me the most about politics in particular is that there are people who do willingly take part. I can only conclude that their brains are broken in some fundamental way such that they don’t see or don’t care about the harm they inevitably do.

I just think it’s funny that “AI” (which is “artificial intelligence” not in the sense of “human-made” but in the sense of “fake”) is contemperaneous with Trump.

This is going to go down in history (if humanity survives long enough) as the Idiot and Lunatic Age.

From what I’ve gleaned of the ravings of the angry stupid right blogosphere, a lot of people actually do think that only tree huggers want green energy.

And I have little doubt that that’s an opinion that Trump shares, but that’s not his main motivation in all of this. His main motivation is big fat bribes from the fossil fuel industry.

And thanks to Trump, the US is perfectly placed to be entirely left behind.

The more I think about it, the more confident I am that at least the basic outline is actually the truth - that “Big Balls” - entitled, sheltered 4channer that he undoubtedly is - got his ass kicked for being a racist dickhead and/or creepy pervert.

Okay - as of right now, I think there’s much more to this story that we haven’t been told and this is all damage control.

Like it wasn’t actually a carjacking at all, and instead, for instance, “Big Balls” tried to buy sex with one or the other or both of them, then when she/he/they not coincidentally refused, he went on a drunken racist tirade, so they kicked his ass.