I hesitate to post this, but…

I actually have experience with that.

And unfortunately, nothing I did worked, and ultimately I had to get away to save my own sanity

The problem was that she had effectively perfect defenses. In most cases, she could twist whatever I said to further “prove” that she was right and I was wrong, and in the rare cases in which I managed to say something that finally backed her into a corner from which she couldn’t spin it back against me, that, to her, just “proved” that I (or, often, “everybody”) hated her / wanted to hurt her / didn’t care about her / wanted to see her suffer / etc.

I never once, as far as I could tell, actually got through to her.

Reminder that the President of the United States is profoundly mentally ill

No shit?

This, to me, is the most significant and most bizarre fact about the current era - the President of the United States is rather obviously deeply and profoundly mentally ill.

Which would be relevant if the goal actually was to cut spending, but it never was

The goal was to eliminate agencies and purge principled employees from surviving agencies in order to provide immediate benefit to the oligarchy, and to facilitate their longer term goal of institutionalizing their unchallenged dominion over the US. And at that, it was a resounding success.

I really think that, from Trump on down, they sincerely just don’t have the emotional maturity to act any differently.

Well noted, and yes.

That’s just the sort of thing that happens when spoiled, petulant children throw tantrums.

“Your decision to withdraw at the last moment—explicitly in response to the Center’s recent renaming, which honors President Trump’s extraordinary efforts to save this national treasure,” the letter, shared to the Associated Press, reads, “is classic intolerance.” And, Grenell continues, “Your action surrenders to the sad bullying tactics employed by certain elements on the left, who have sought to intimidate artists into boycotting performances.”

Grenell also took personal jabs at Redd in the letter, claiming that his show wasn’t popular. “The contrast between the public’s lack of interest in your show with the success we are experiencing under our new chairman is drastic,” Grenell wrote. Trump’s board elected him as chairman in February. “The most avant-garde and well-regarded performers in your genre will still perform regularly,” he added, “and unlike you, they’ll do it to sold–out crowds regardless of their political leanings.”

One of the most notably bizarre things about the Trump regime, to me, is how childish they are. From Trump on down, so many of them literally act like spoiled, petulant children throwing public tantrums.

Truly, the most accurate term for this government is kakistocracy

Of course they’re not releasing the autopsy - they’re already planning to continue using the same failed strategies.

The single most important thing to understand about the DNC is that their first priority is collecting enormous piles of soft money from corporations and billionaires. That’s more important to them than any other consideration, including winning elections.

Their primary purpose is not trying to ensure that Democrats win, but trying to ensure that leftists do not, because that’s the exact service their corporate and billionaire donors are buying from them.

And if that means running corrupt neolib hacks who can’t gain enough voter support to win, then that’s just the way it goes. They’ll just fold the fact of their loss into their future donation pitches - they’ll point to the harm the Republican winner has inevitably done, and say that that’s exactly why “we need your support now more than ever.”

So what the autopsy certainly points to as their failures are not, from the DNC’s self-serving viewpoint, failures at all. They’re strategies that they not only very deliberately pursued, but that they have every intention of continuing to pursue. Even if that means they’re going to keep losing elections. Just so long as the soft money keeps flowing.

He’s an unqualified, paychopathic piece of shit and a fucking war criminal and the best the US media can do is speculate that maybe the deranged toddler-in-chief might maybe not support him quite as much as he used to because maybe a few of the brazenly traitorous Republican scumbags in Congress might actually take issue with him.

2025 is going to go down in history as the year that the US dropped all pretense of being rational or legitimate and went full bug-eyed insane.

Never seen it.

Off to see why I apparently should…

…Ah. I see.

That’s a specific approach I’ve never seen before, though the broad strategy is tediously familiar.

I’m amazed and pleased. I almost never encounter anyone who shares my views, even among self-described 'anarchists."

Most of them carry around lists (figuratively at least) of all of the things that will be required and all of the things that will be prohibited in their “anarchism,” antagonistically immune to the fact that by doing so, they’ve already stipulated institutionalized, hierarchical authority and thus proactively eliminated anarchism.

I don’t think of it as a political philosophy but more just as a description of how I believe the world actually is when stripped of the systems we’ve laid on top of everything.

Very much yes.

My anarchism is rooted in my view that authority is a contrivance, and an ultimately unjustifiable one.

Tom lives alone on a desert island. That means that Tom, within the constraints necessarily imposed by simple reality (he can’t, for instance, flap his arms and fly) enjoys complete freedom of choice.

The only way that that freedom can be constrained is if another person is introduced and that other person acts to constrain Tom’s freedom.

So as you note, the state of affairs in which Tom’s freedom is constrained beyond anything determined by simple reality is some additional element that’s laid on top of the base state.

And as such, it’s the thing that must be justified. Tom doesn’t have to justify being free from constraint imposed by another - he already was so free, and would have remained so were it not for the fact that the other has chosen to try to introduce constraint.

Therefore, the introduction of constraint is the thing that must be justified

And there’s no possible justification for it that doesn’t ultimately establish a hierarchy by which the other person is seen to effectively be a superior being, such that their determination of what Tom may, may not, must or must not do is superior even to Tom’s

If the tacit presumption of innate superiority isn’t made, then any and all noninal justifications for authority over Tom’s decisions fail, since any argument by which any other party might justify imposing their will on Tom is also an argument by which Tom might justify imposing his will on them, and any argument by which they might claim to be rightly free of the imposition of Tom’s will is also an argument by which Tom might claim to be rightfully free of the imposition of their will upon him.

This is where and why institutionalized authority inevitably goes wrong, which in turn is why I’m an anarchist.

Without first hand knowledge, I couldn’t say in any detail, but I expect that ambitious, greedy, power-hungry psychopaths are already angling for Council positions, from which they’ll exercise tacit authority until such time as their positions and their authority can be institutionalized, at which point they’ll become the new generation of corrupt officials.

That’s not to say or imply I oppose the effort - if nothing else, they’ve gotten some breathing room. And hopefully the next time they throw off their tyrants, they’ll remember how they got their start and reject authority in and of itself and entirely, rather than deluding themselves that it can be constrained.

My anarchism.

Anarchism in general makes me the other when dealing with most people, but the specifics of my views on it also generally make me the other when dealing with most “anarchists.” (I oppose any and all attempts to institute anarchism - I believe it will arise organically or not at all - and I similarly reject any and all stipulations regarding what sort of standards, norms or systems may, may not, must or must not be a part of an anarchistic society),

So here’s how I see it:

Someone is goading/bribing Trump into acting so that they can take control of the Central and North American narcotics trade.

That’s why he pushed for invading Mexico to fight the cartels, and when that didn’t work out, he shifted to starting a war with Venezuela.

It’s obviously not a sincere effort to stop narcotics traffic, or he wouldn’t be pardoning Hernández. It’s much more likely that he’s pardoning Hernández because he either already is or is intended to be a well-connected and experienced ally to Trump and whoever it is that he’s working for/with.

No - actually that’s exactly what you voted for - you’re just too stupid and/or lazy and/or blinded by hate to realize that, or too dishonest to admit it.

And it’s not as if it was written by some schlub in a trailer park or something - the division of CNN responsible for that undoubtedly has a budget in at least seven figures and dozens of employees who are by definition professionals.

And that’s the best they could do? How is that even possible?

On a related note - I kept thinking, reading through that - how can something from CNN be that poorly written? It’s not as if it’s a jetliner or a bridge or a skyscraper - it’s an article and an accompanying set of news briefs that a high school English student could’ve knocked out in an hour, and the student would’ve done a better job.

How many employees does CNN have? And how is it that none of them could manage to make sure that that didn’t go out until it was competently written?

One would think that CNN could at least afford a proofreader.

Feeling a bit North Korea in here.

How perfect.

This is a great example of how it is that the right is always wrong, but always has followers anyway. It’s because they live in a doggedly self-affirming fantasy world in which they blithely believe unsupported nonsense like QAnon while just as blithely disregarding simple fact like the Epstein files, all based not on evidence or logic, but just based on whether or not it fits their preconceptions.

It’s a perfect little delusional universe where they’re free to be told whatever they want to believe and ignore whatever they don’t want to believe.

This is a large part of why Republicans love “privatizing” government services - so they can then collect bribes and kickbacks from the often nepotistic contractors who get the no-bid contracts.

And as always, the Trump regime does it more and bigger than anyone ever.