Not just the Midwest - there was one weather station in WV that was reporting a colder temp than one of the stations in Antarctica for a bit earlier this week.
History. Since 1972, the Iowa caucuses have had a 55% success rate at predicting which Democrat, and a 43% success rate at predicting which Republican, will go on to win the nomination of their political party for president at that party’s national convention. Source: Wiki
netherlands, denmark, maybe germany, maybe finland. i’d most rather live in the netherlands or possibly denmark, although it’d probably make more sense for me to want to live in germany or finland because i don’t speak dutch or danish lmao. regardless though getting permanent residence in denmark or finland is practically a hopeless goal for a majority of people, so they’re basically out of the question
i can get slovak, maybe german citizenship based on descent (i’m in the process of getting the stuff i need from the slovak government to apply for citizenship but they really take their sweet time) and i’m mostly a software guy so it’d probably make the most sense to move to one of those, however the netherlands probably holds way better opportunities for me
for most people getting into another country (especially europe) is out of the question though, you either have to have extremely marketable work experience (like 3-5 years as an engineer or developer) or you have to happen to qualify for citizenship by descent and have the birth/marriage/death/citizenship/residence documents for it (e.g. anyone who had italian citizenship since 1860, anyone who lived in an area controlled by hungary ever since hungary existed, anyone who was polish 1920 or later, anyone who was czechoslovak or german for the past century, an irish grandfather)
Desantis has the veneer of sanity, and actually has a clue regarding how to make things worse. He knows exactly what he’s doing. Trump just flails about and expects underlings to figure it out.
My only hope is that people as morally insane as Trump are rare, and there may be a correlation between his sociopathic traits, and how seemingly incompetent he is.
What this hopefully means in practice is that even though this time around he will surround himself with yes-men over which he will have more control, few of them will be precisely like Trump and so not immune to actual concern for the future, and to Trump’s surprise will not all follow his insane ideas without question, as Trump clearly wants everyone to do. He can’t rule on his own. He does need some people, and people needing people requires at least a semblance of regard for others.
In this same way, even his stacked Supreme Court I think will still be likely to put America itself ahead of Trump and a victory that would make a mockery of their own institution, the constitution, and just general common sense.
It’s only a shred of hope, but one which might enable civil society to survive another Trump presidency, and if we’re really lucky, avoid it.
I know nothing of DeSantis outside he’s running. Can you or someone share a tl;dr. It’s hard for me to imagine someone worse than Trump. But then again, never thought we’d have someone worse than George W…
Desantis is basically a competent Trump. They both have terrible ideas but Desantis would be able to pull it off because he already has in ruining Florida.
The short version is that he’s gutted public services in Florida and made life worse for nearly everyone there - while engaging in massive culture war bullshit to distract his base
Not to downplay that, it includes laws and discourse such as ‘Dont Say Gay’ and attacking school curriculums that are incredibly damaging. He’s the guy that flew refugees to Martha’s Vineyard to ‘make a point’
Yes. we are the point that both parties are Nazis’s.
Following this course of sliding right into Nazism we’ll have Adolf Hitler running for the Republicans and a Trump figure running for the Democrats. And then you’re all going to vote for the Trump guy because he’s not the Hitler guy.
this fucking guy again. every single comment is some form of Biden genocide. we get it. we don’t like it either. but we aren’t so stupid that we think trump would be better. he would be so much worse. he would probably be genocide plus fascist.
You’re all sticking your head in the sand pretending that only Trump would do genocide while Biden is actively committing genocide. It’s real time Holocaust denial here.
trying to sound cool isn’t exactly an argument-winning tactic. you have no leg to stand on when the simple fact is that one candidate is FAR worse than the other.
yes the suffering in Gaza is severe. but gazans are not more important than everyone else and there is plenty of evidence to support the claim that trump in power will harm many more people than gazans.
unfortunately your skull is too willfully thick to accept or at least address this obvious point. so why not just resort to more insults if that’s all you got?
Oh right, let’s support Republicans, they are the party of peace!
GTFO with your disingenuous bullshit. Republicans started TWO illegal wars, killed hundreds of thousands DIRECTLY and have supported Israel’s bullshit just as fervently.
Pretending like if Trump was in office he’d be stepping on Israel’s neck to stop is some of the biggest bullshit I’ve read online in a while.
Not to mention they Trump supports Putin a full on dictator currently engaged in ethnic cleansing.
I don’t know if you are a troll or just incredibly ignorant.
That’s an accelerationist or a nihilist. If the status quo is pro-immigration and pro-LGBT rights, wanting to keep this status quo will make you a “conservative” because you want to conserve the status quo.
“Conservatives” haven’t wanted to conserve anything in a very long time. They want to prop up the rich with government subsidies, hurt the poor, control the women, and hopefully kill some sick people along the way. That’s a damned far sight from conserving traditional American values.
i’d imagine a part of the problem is that at least some of them do in fact see those things as “traditional american values” so from their perspective they are conserving their version of reality.
Genuine question as i don’t actually know the answer, is conservatism considered to be the conservation specifically of “traditional” values. Like, is there an agreed upon timeframe in which these traditional values were held or is it more of a moving target sort of thing ?
I’m no expert, but I always thought the American brand “conservative” stood for “fiscal conservative”, as in, to save money by limiting government spending.
That definition lines up well with their actual policies which tend to be cutting government spending, tax cuts, downsizing government jobs, etc.
Not really conserving traditions. Although there’s plenty of that in their cultural identity.
Edit: to be clear, the party has long since moved past being actually conservative. The most accurate description they might have now would be the party of spite.
This though. People love to harp about the good ole days but leave out that the good ole days were good cause only cishet white men could participate in the economy
Please learn to identify and complain about the things that are actually increasing fascism and not just be like “bad people might make the country bad if they’re in charge” Trump is a symptom not the disease.
As empires collapse imperial violence turns inward. For a more in depth analysis I would read anticolonial theory or Marxist analysis of Nazi germany, like “economy and class structure of german fascism”
It’s possible to be more than one thing driving fascism.
In the absence of a general worker uprising to bring about revolution (this isn’t going to happen before the election) stopping Trump is a fine alternative to stem fascism.
We know that fascists need a charismatic leader with unquestionable authority (Trump) may as well cut that head off the snake now.
Does that stop capitalist interests? No, their money and power is still there but it at least won’t be manifesting through a dictator.
Capitalist interests have operated just fine without a dictator.
I mean we don’t have a dictator and we’re involved in killing tens of thousands of Palestinian civilians over the course of a month. Even if Trump is never elected again we keep sliding into fascism, and liberalism doesn’t really have a response to that besides to join in.
So…threatening to retaliate against those who didn’t vote for him last election? Removing rights from various classes of people? Those kinds of things?
There is almost no chance they are gonna lock him up. He could openly murder someone with his own hands, on stage, and he would still be able to run in the elections.
Unfortunately, I think you’re probably right. We keep seeing it over and over again. The judicial system continues to move slowly with as many delays and roadblocks as possible. When judgements are made, they are stayed during an appeal so they have no teeth. The farce of the Supreme Court will never let anything bad happen to their dear leader. They will delay, delay, delay until Trump is either reelected - in which case he’ll pardon himself. Or until a new president is elected in 2028. If it’s a Republican, they’ll pardon Trump on day 1. If it’s a Democrat, the Republicans in Congress will find some way to force a presidential pardon in order to keep the government funded or some other bullshit.
I think there’s a 0% chance Trump ever sees a single day in prison. Even if none of what I said above happens, he’d get a slap on the wrist at worst. I would LOVE to be proven wrong. But I’m not holding my breath.
At this point the only things between Trump and a jail cell are:
The courts must rule in the coming days (probably this month, Jan 2024) that Presidents are subject to criminal prosecution. We know Presidents are not subject to civil prosecution, but the courts are deciding about criminal prosecution now. (Trump argues it would be “bedlam” if Presidents were subject to the law).
A jury decision in mid 2024. If that jury says “guilty”, it’s over, Trump is a convicted felon.
Oh, you mean the court that trump himself stacked in favor of the GOP? The same court that has voted along party lines in like 98% of their rulings? Impartial my ass!
The case I’m referring to in #2 has a judge that was not appointed by Trump. (Tanya Chutkan)
Case #1 might eventually be considered by the Supreme Court though, and your criticism would apply there.
Also, Trump’s trial over mishandling classified documents is overseen by Judge Cannon, who Trump appointed, which is a sham. Cannon should have recused herself.
Trump may or may not eventually end up in prison, but it’s naïve after the past 8 years to assume that there are only two ways this could all shake out, and that you can predict them.
A possibility that will almost certainly be less absurd than whatever actually happens:
Trump wins a second term, manages to get the FedSoc 6 to rule that a sitting president can’t be imprisoned because it would violate separation of powers. So multiple states are just waiting for his term to end so they can actually arrest him. (Feds can’t arrest him because he has pardoned himself for all past, present, and future crimes)
Then in the last month of his presidency he takes a diplomatic trip to Russia and just never comes back.
I don’t mean there are 2 ways this can shake out. I mean there are 2 legal barriers in the way. Once the courts rule that Trump can be prosecuted, then the trial date is set for spring. The judge is motivated to hold to that trial date. The prosecutors have their evidence and arguments ready for the jury.
On the possibility of Trump pardoning himself, it’s not clear that a President can pardon himself and the supreme court would probably end up having to rule on that.
If Trump is a convicted felon, then he probably can’t get enough votes to win, but I don’t know, the cult is strong with this one.
Trying to prosecute him for his real crimes is honestly damaging the election chances of Biden, lots of voters with a vicarious persecution complex through Trump.
Most of the people I know who plan to vote for him think of that as a good thing. It’s the whole “drain the swamp” thing that he’s been rallying people behind for years; they think bad actors in the government are trying to hold Trump down, and him being in jail is just another attempt to do that - from their perspective, electing him even while he’s imprisoned would be a big “fuck you” to those bad actors.
It’s sad that they can’t see that Trump himself is the bad actor, but to most of them, Trump is their last hope to hold on to their beloved world of racism and misogyny, free of any “woke bullshit.” They’ll overlook anything he says or does at this point, since they don’t see any other way forward than through Trump.
Yeah right. If he wins, he’s free. Shame on the justice department for not completing a single trial in FOUR FUCKING YEARS. Have they even started any of them? No way any of them are wrapped up before the election. The wheels of justice turn slowly. Yeah, yadda yadda yadda. They’re barely turning at all against this fat fucking loser.
His lawyers have run out pretty much every option to delay trials, although several judges have seemed pretty damn complicit as well. I get wanting to make sure the case is as airtight as possible, but…the people they’re worried about pissing off with a case that isn’t entirely formed, were just going to be pissed off anyway.
Honestly, if you’re a republican, Trump is the only pic. I’m no fan of Republicans, but this is clearly the Republican party punching the Republican populace in the face.
Best polling to beat Biden. If you want to win or to get conservative laws passed, that is the way. Last time Trump was president, he put in a bunch of conservative judges, he has a track record.
You haven’t been paying much attention to the Republican party as of late, have you? “Circle the wagons and toe the line” has been their schtick for a while now.
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