volkris @volkris@qoto.org

@mral No, that's not how the federal government functions.

It was specifically set up to not have to rely on a few loyal folks. In fact it was set up with the assumption that people would not be particularly loyal, the checks and balances and the different branches of governments were set up so that personal incentives would have people reject others when they started trying to take more power than they had.

No, it's not about loyalty and it's critical to understand that if you want to understand current events.

The US government was designed specifically to keep disloyal people in check, and we saw that play out.

@realTuckFrumper

@miriamrobern Yeah, it's just part of the design of ActivityPub: every single thing that anyone posts here is broadcast publicly to the entire network, without really any restriction, just suggestions as to whom it should be displayed to.

I'm always very critical of this because a lot of people here don't realize that they are publicly broadcasting content that they believe is private or at least controlled or restricted.

That's just the way the system was engineered. It's not how I would have done it, but people just need to realize it when they are putting content into it.

@Mediagazer The problem is, they both do.

If WaPo columnists don't realize that both major candidates threaten freedom of the press, then at that point, they probably shouldn't be members of the press since they don't know what's going on.

@steter No, this is not about what Republicans have done, this is about what the Democratic Party powers have done in nominating a candidate that was so clearly weak from the beginning.

Don't blame the Republicans for that.

Don't blame the papers for recognizing that Harris is just a shit candidate.

This is on the Democratic Party.

They think they are entitled to our votes, but they're not. They think they are entitled to papers endorsements but they're not.

They screwed this one up, and hopefully 4 years from now they'll do a better job, but only if we send that message of accountability and recognize that they really screwed up by dominating Harris.

@dangillmor they're not capitulating to Trump.

Harris is clearly awful, she has sunk in appearance after appearance, she's just not a good candidate, and powerful Democrats screwed up in tapping her to run without consulting the rest of us.

They're not capitulating to Trump. They're just pointing out what is obvious to so many of us, that Harris is not fit for presidency.

Trump isn't either, to be clear, but that's why they're staying out of it, neither of these idiots are worth backing.

@msifry

@anubis2814 that makes for a nice conspiracy theory, but consider the Occam's razor here: maybe they don't support Harris because she's just not a good candidate?

She's not.

The Democratic Party really screwed up nominating somebody that was such a weak candidate. It was obvious from before the nomination that she was not a good person to run for president. She has lost over and over again.

So maybe these papers are refusing to support her not because of anything Trump said, but because she is honestly rubbish, and the party screwed up.

@GatekeepKen Right, but Republicans are supporting abortion rights.

@old_hippie

@old_hippie I see that kind of sentiment a lot, but the reason it doesn't work is because it appeals to democracy to say that democracy can't survive.

It just doesn't make sense.

If the GOP gets those votes, well that's democracy. That is democracy surviving.

@_dm Well I think you should.

It is what it is.

Is Trump president right now? No. Why not? He seemed to really want to be. It seems like all of his supporters wanted him to be. It seems like they would all move heaven and Earth to have him be president right now.

And yet he's not, and it's all because the system is robust.

We keep having people claiming that the sky is falling, but we can look around and see that it's not. Those sensationalized stories promoted by people with special interests, reasons to promote those sensationalized stories, people who profit off of those sensationalized stories, often conspiracy theories, they're just wrong.

Often they are powerful people trying to get you bought into their myths because it benefits them.

But at the end of the day, we can look around and see that the story they are selling is just false.

Yeah, the system is robust. If it wasn't robust Trump would be president at this very moment. He's not.

And that really proves the system.

@_dm But the thing is, it doesn't matter what people say because we have a system that makes sure that presidents don't have unilateral power.

Both Trump and Harris promise openly to do illegal things. Both of them promise unconstitutional things. Fortunately, we have a system that prevents presidents from doing things that they don't have authority to do.

And so, let's send a message to the party bosses that they need to nominate people worth voting for.

Both of these will have failed presidencies. That's just the reality. It sucks. But hopefully in 4 years parties might get the message that they should nominate better people.

In the meantime, the system will not let either of these morons do the awful things they promise.

#Harris is a cop that the #DemocraticParty nominated without the input of all of us in an era that is marked by the public being skeptical of cops.

Why is it a surprise that she's struggling? The people in power screwed up here, and they need to be held accountable for their screw up.

We need to be very clear about that even if you want to vote for her for some reason, the party elites have disrespected us.

Hopefully things will be better in 4 years, but for now we're just screwed.

#USPolitics

@moira Well, how about making your case?

Instead of shaking with rage, lay out the case that she is particularly better.

We don't need rage. We need honest discussion and reasonable arguments, reasonable evidence.

Shaking with rage just gives up the game.

@joeinwynnewood That's the opposite of what's happening.

We've seen event after event where Trump, the moron that he is, did his best to mumble out some response to critics of his, while Harris refused to engage in events that weren't prescripted, and dodged questions put to her from non-friendly outfits.

It was really notable that Harris went to town halls that didn't allow pre-screened questions.

Both of these candidates are garbage, and we shouldn't pretend otherwise, we need to hold the parties accountable for nominating garbage candidates.

@benroyce exactly.

@EricChrSmit The guy is being roundly criticized for things like transferring Federal powers to the states, talking about closing departments, and all of these other things that would diminish the president's power.

So it's ridiculous to call him fascist. And at the same time criticize him for giving up power. That's not what fascist people do.

A whole lot of us notice that contradiction and ignore people trying to sell this line. It doesn't make sense.

@_dm The problem is, no vote can help the civilians in Gaza.

That's just the unfortunate reality.

However, a vote for Jill Stein can sent a message that the Democratic Party might want to nominate someone who actually could help next time.

But for now, Harris is awful and will not help civilians in Gaza. So that's not even an option.

@fraying Well more importantly, Harris is awful.

It has nothing to do with her color, she's just a rotten candidate, and it was obvious since before the Democratic Party powerful decided to nominate her for some reason.

Sometimes people don't support people who are simply not worth supporting. It doesn't have to be any more complicated than that.

Harris has been unable to show that she has any idea how to be an effective president, she has botched interview after interview, she did poorly in the debate, and she has just generally been an awful person.

Has nothing to do with her color, she's just an awful person not worth standing behind.

We need to hold the Democratic Party responsible for their bad choice.

@stefan

.... What?

I've absolutely seen feddiverse admins asking for help paying back the debt they took on.

@benroyce No I don't think you're that interested in knowing how the world works. You seem pretty comfortable in your ignorance.

But it does amuse me that I'm inviting you to well actually me, but you're too busy being disconnected from the world to notice.

It just really captures what I'm saying, so your responses are giving me a nice warm glow of approval.

The affirmation is nice.

@benroyce

Oh I'll be okay. No it's up to you whether you actually want to be informed about the world, but I'll be okay either way.

Check out the ruling if you care about the world.

Again, I'm inviting you to quote from the ruling to prove me wrong. But if you don't care, hey that's your call.

No skin off my back, but hey here's an invitation to prove some random person on the internet wrong.

@mastodonmigration @briankrebs