volkris @volkris@qoto.org

Watching the screw-ups in the Comey prosecution right now I'm just thinking #TACO , #Trump Always Chickens Out, should be joined by #TOFU , Trump Only Fs Up.

Because seriously... OK his supporters claim that he's not chickening out, that was the plan all along, but there's really no way to get around the F ups.

And this is a historically giant screw up.

#USPolitics

It's a know your enemy sort of thing to say, no, #Trump is not a king. He's a stupid brand. And recent events just highlight that as he slapped his name on the #Gaza agreement.

I keep thinking of the Trump brand of wine.

Trump didn't make that wine. I doubt he knows how wine is even made at all. He's notorious for not drinking, so how would he even know if the wine is good or bad? He doesn't know anything about it, he just slapped his brand on it.

To counter Trump it's foolish to approach him as a king. In fact that might might make things worse because it brings more attention to his brand.

The #nokings stuff is foolish because it misses what's going on here. And it will serve to actually embolden and strengthen Trump.

Know your enemy. He's not a king, he's not that smart, he's just a brand hopping from issue to issue the same way he hops from crappy wine to crappy steaks.

#USPolitics

Lately I've been thinking about how the #Republican party has evolved over the last decade or so as viewed through the lens of the games that major voices in the party play.

Previous generations of #GOP speakers were proudly golfers, but lately major voices are football fans. You can hear them make that shift from talking about golf to talking about football.

Well, over the years Republicans have made this marked shift from looking to work together and build consensus to just looking to fight their opponents. And it strikes me that that's also a difference between golf and football.

The new generation of conservative speakers don't understand the realities of political systems where they have to work with others, convince others, to get things done. It's as if they are projecting philosophies from football on to their politics in ways that didn't happen previously.

And that's a shame for us all. That's how you get #Trump... and #Harris.

#USPolitics

There's an old idea of fairness that when cutting a cake between two people one person cuts and the other picks the piece they want.

This method aligns the interests of both parties, no matter how corruptible and *human* they may be.

I think it's underappreciated how often the US government design has a similar method in its checks and balances: one group can reject an official, but they don't get to choose the replacement.

See, for example, impeachment proceedings.

After all: "This policy of supplying, by opposite and rival interests, the defect of better motives, might be traced through the whole system of human affairs, private as well as public."

--Hamilton (maybe)

#USPolitics #politicalscience #federalistpapers #hamilton

Sadly, this keeps coming up in case after case on this topic: NO the courts didn't ban mailing of abortion pills, and the banning of abortion pills is not what's going up to the Supreme Court.

What happened was that the FDA seems to admit that it acted in violation of law, and courts are grappling with how to respond to likely illegal agency actions as the legal process moves forward.

All of this other stuff surrounding RvW and abortion access are secondary to the core case about an agency acting illegally.

And that's acting illegal in the context of drug regulation at that. It's probably kind of imporant! but getting lost in the drama and sensational political rhetoric.

https://assets.aclu.org/live/uploads/2026/05/2026-05-01-Fifth-Circuit-Order-Granting-Stay-of-2023-REMS.pdf

#USPolitics #SCOTUS #abortionmedicine

This is the mindset of the children that drove #Trump into office and continue to support him even now.

They don't understand anything past the most superficial, "He spends time with me so he must like me!" level. And they apply this to international foreign policy.

They believe flattery must be honest, and this example shows that they think that way.

#USPolitics

It's unfortunate, but so many people with STRONG opinions on and reactions to the SCOTUS ruling on districting aren't familiar with either the background of the case or what the ruling actually said.

That's understandable as so many influencers are writing completely false stories on background and analysis.

Start with the background. LA drew a map but was ordered by a lower court to draw a new one. So it did. And then a different lower court said it could not draw a new one. It both could and could not act based on the exact same legal reasoning.

THIS is the mess the SCOTUS needed to clean up. VRA was already unworkable long before this case.

#USPolitics #SCOTUS #VRA

The big argument surrounding Temporary Protected Status is that the home countries remain as dangerous as before and so the administration can't legally send folks back to it.

In making this admission these major #MAGA commentators give up the game. They immediately lose the case.

And here they feel so smug about how they're obviously in the right.

They have no idea how any of this government stuff actually works.

#USPolitics

So often the influential #MAGA outfits come THIS CLOSE to facing the contradictions in their perspectives...

Intellectual maturity would have them reconsider their assumptions when faced with unexepected outcomes.

Well, that's idiocracy for you.

#USPolitics

So often the influential #MAGA outfits come THIS CLOSE to facing the contradictions in their perspectives...

Intellectual maturity would have them reconsider their assumptions when faced with unexepected outcomes.

Well, that's idiocracy for you.

#USPolitics

It took Trump's people way too long to discover the phrase "nuclear dust" but here we are.

For all these weeks they had to grapple with the contradiction where he totally and completely destroyed Iran's nuclear program, but now the US needs to go spend serious resources because Iran's nuclear program continues.

If only someone had thought of "nuclear dust" weeks ago they could have squared that circle.

#USPolitics #Iran #Trump

#Trump often acts from a paternalistic mindset.

There's a trope of a father threatening, Do x or I'll do it for you, as in, Shut your mouth or I'll shut it for you.

Well I think Trump gets this one backwards.
His latest rhetoric seems to be, Open the straight or I'll close it for you!

Siiiigh

I really do think he sees himself as something like a father to all, someone to give everybody advice and take care of everybody and end all the suffering and all of the other stuff.

He's just a really bad father though.

#USPolitics

#Trump often acts from a paternalistic mindset.

There's a trope of a father threatening, Do x or I'll do it for you, as in, Shut your mouth or I'll shut it for you.

Well I think Trump gets this one backwards.
His latest rhetoric seems to be, Open the straight or I'll close it for you!

Siiiigh

I really do think he sees himself as something like a father to all, someone to give everybody advice and take care of everybody and end all the suffering and all of the other stuff.

He's just a really bad father though.

#USPolitics

Conservatives trying to square their circles...

#USPolitics

MAGA, for years: #Iran is a death cult. They don't value life, and 42 virgins and etc.

MAGA, today: Why doesn't the death cult bow to our demands as we threaten death?

#USPolitics #MAGA

#Trump supporters keep suggesting that critics of the guy have a knee-jerk reaction against any position he takes, because it couldn't possibly be that the criticisms were founded.

But it's funny to realize that so many of his supporters have a knee-jerk reaction to assume that he's right. In fact, they are explicit about this, talking about having faith in his judgment even if they don't understand it.

Funny how that works.

Maybe in the back of their minds they recognize their own prejudices and just project that onto everyone else.

#USPolitics #GOP

Every once in awhile Trump's die hard supporters accidentally lay out the case for him being a failure and a loser.

They just lack the self-awareness to hear themselves saying it, as they only interpret things as confirming their biases.

It does remind me of the moment in Arrested Development where Lucille says her husband is no criminal mastermind as he can barely operate the paper shredder.

#USPolitics

I've said #NoKings is terrible branding because the other side gets to just say, well right, we don't have a king. It's so easy to brush off.

So what are alternatives?

Well I think I would start with No Felons off the top of my head...

#USPolitics #Trump

This is why I've been saying #NoKings suffers from terrible branding.

The branding makes it incredibly easy for folks outside of the choir to brush it off.

#USPolitics

The high profile conservatives setting policy for the US right now are just this stupid.

He really didn't realize that an island has set coordinates, that #Iran doesn't have to go to the Russians to figure out what the coordinates are.

#USPolitics