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.

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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.

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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.

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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

One of the biggest conservative megaphones, shaping US policy, rejects things like polling of public opinion and ignores losses in elections because the frat boys they see at football games cheer for #Trump.

With their biases confirmed, anyone they hear not supporting the guy's actions are clearly dishonestly playing politics.

So why should they change course?

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With geniuses like this setting US policy is there any surprise it's such a mess?

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What does a quote post of a quote post do? Well, we'll see.

Well, this aged. Less than a week ago Kilmeade was yelling at an administration official who dared say that #Iran still had a nuclear program: "Everyone knows #Trump destroyed that!"

Now he's embracing the existance of the program as [one] justification for the attack on the country.

These idiots don't know what they're doing.

#USPolitics #war

I repost these to really illustrate how incredibly stupid the people driving public policy in the US are these days.

People with such superficial, black and white thinking that they can't even imagine that there might be something in between all or nothing.

I honestly think these people with such influence on US policy don't have the intellectual resources to do any better.

No Grand conspiracies, no deep strategies, just really really dumb people at the helm.

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The news juxtaposition is pretty funny.

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It's just an example of how #Trump is not the leader that folks hold him up to be. His supporters pick and choose what they believed from him, and he follows what he sees from them on Fox News.

He's the effect, not the cause.

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Mainstream republicans actually believed that the tariffs would be GOOD for the economy and for business.

To the point where they were surprised that the stock market reacted positively to the Court ruling against them.

Not that this will have them question their assumptions... but it should!

#USPolitics #tariffs

Mainstream Republican response to the tariff ruling about as expected...

Confirmation bias on display from some folks who used to know better. I think a lot of that echo chamber are just aging out along with #Trump.

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It's sad-funny how both the left and the right think that #SCOTUS is corruptly ruling for the other side.

Republicans are saying that the Supreme Court ruled against Trump on the tariffs because they are playing politics so they can rule in his favor on other things.

It's important to realize this is a mainstream #GOP approach to the legal situation surrounding #ICE actions, and responses to it.

Confirmation bias is running rampant in the #Republican party that has lost all intellectual rigor, and that is now lead by sportscasters and other shallow thinkers.

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This has long-been the depth of argument in mainstream #GOP thought with a few outright calling to start a war because, well, they're saying mean things.

They really are children.

And reference to the article, The President Who Never Grew Up

https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2025/12/04/trump-presidency-child-renovations-entertainment-attention-00676183

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It's important to realize that Trump's people blindly believe they are on the right side too winning bigly, no matter how many signs there are that they are pretty weak if not already underwater, and they will continue to act like a giant movement for as long as they are legally in power.

A group that realizes that it's failing will alter course. Trump's base is out of touch, though, so they are forging ahead.

As usual we should be emphasizing what losers they are to pierce their echo chambers. No easy task, to be sure, but can be done. Unfortunately, too many of us run around as if the opposite is true, though.

And so we feed their egos.

#USPolitics