volkris @volkris@qoto.org

@True_Heresy I mean the history shows that's factually incorrect. @HeavenlyPossum @CheapPontoon @dagb

@arth that has nothing to do with the election. If his passport needs to be confiscated but it hasn't been, well that's a failure for the Biden Harris administration.

If they suck so badly that they can't trap Trump, well what good are they.

@HopelessDemigod

@manton seriously? For the last week for campaign has been in freefall.

@anubis2814 ... The border conditions were mandated by legal agreements that predated Trump, they were Obama policies and the facilities were set up by Obama, and Biden has continued them.

This story just makes no sense. It's not how the US government operates, and it's not how recent history has gone.

Yeah, Trump is awful, he's a loser, but this kind of argument isn't convincing to anybody who knows what has happened in the last couple of decades.

Harris has openly promised to defy the democratic process, so when you talk about fascism, this story gets it wrong. Whoever told you this stuff was lying to you.

@drrjv firstly, it's not going to happen. Trump doesn't have the authority or the intelligence to gain the authority to make such a thing happen. Presidents just can't operate that way.

But more importantly, what Musk is pointing out is that the math just doesn't add up. The inevitability is mathematical, there's really no way around it.

It's as reprehensible as suggesting that somebody needs to take appropriate medications to address a health problem. Yeah, the meds might not be pleasant, but the alternative is even worse.

The math for the US government is pretty bad. Something will break. There's no option for just continuing like this.

So what do we do? Well we'll do nothing until it collapses on its own. Because without political will we will run out of runway.

@mhjohnson I actually had similar problems happen to me personally

@tuban_muzuru kind of proving my point there

@Darryl Yes she does!

I've heard her brought up that stuff on multiple occasions!

@newsopinionsandviews

@BrianJopek they're making fun of you...

@newsopinionsandviews It's so funny that Harris stands up there sounding like she's pretty obsessed with revenge and grievance talking about revenge and grievance.

@realTuckFrumper If you think they're fuming I think you're really not reading the room.

They're laughing at this stuff from him.

@cheeaun Yeah the way I always put it is that AP is engineered around instances while AT engineered around users and content.

I think that's the simpler way to explain the same thing.

@schizanon It's not a lie at all.

This is how the system is engineered, and whether or not that has taken off or not is a different question.

@cheeaun

@Hey_Beth But Obama had more to run on than just hatred for the other guy.

Again I'm just highlighting the contrast with Obama. I don't feel the similarity because Harris seems like such a weak candidate in all the ways that Obama was substantial and successful.

To me Harris feels more like Clinton 2016 in the way she seems kind of out of touch with so much of the public, except that Clinton communicated a better command of the issues.

Obama connected with the public in a way that Harris just can't.

@Hey_Beth I don't see it.

Obama was so much better at laying out policies, answering questions, doing press events, and generally engaging with the realities of the office of President.

We don't get that these days.

@mkb Yes, it is hyperbolic to say that.

And we've seen those claims made over and over, and they aren't any more true now than they were before.

It's just not how the US government works, how it can work. Neither option is on the table, and it cannot be on the table, and basic civics shows us that.

So the people running around making these hyperbolic claims before have been proven wrong. How many times are we going to keep repeating them until we dismiss them as the propaganda that they are?

Maybe the reason it's hard for you to even process is because you know in your heart that these claims are falsehoods promoted by people looking to profit off of spreading sensationalized claims.

@libramoon Well often enough when I see people complaining about what some representative is doing, I end up thinking yes, that person actually is representing how awful our society is, that put him in power.

There's an awful lot of people out there who basically are spoiled middle school brats, so why would we expect better out of our Representatives that are supposed to represent exactly those people?

But I'd say the important note here is to highlight how we really have to engage with our fellow people, try to lift up the people, because as a society we can do better, but that comes from the grassroots, not from hoping for better representatives of people who aren't actually that great.

@chessert I think this bear is bringing up the difference between wealth and bank accounts.

Wealthy people are often enough pretty cash poor, and measures of wealth often don't take into account liquidity, so they they end up being very misleading.

We see that confusion in political rhetoric all the time, in fact, so it's worth underscoring.

Even substantial discussions of public policy are often lacking in that distinction.

And so, just as a person can be a wealthy oligarch based on political connections without so much in the bank, so the distinction is important for talking about things like tax policy.

It's always worth keeping in mind how money works like that.

@paninid

@gearhead The problem is, this is about the general population. You can't solve the problem of racism and hate and all that stuff in the general population putting people in jail.

As we've seen, that can even promote those negative aspects of society.

No, this is a cultural problem to be addressed through engagement and understanding, not by hating on haters and bringing down the boot of the government on individuals. History shows over and over that the backlash to that can magnify the problem, in kind of a Streisand Effect sort of way.

The present moment emphasizes that, too. In my opinion there's no way Trump would be a viable candidate today, much less be within striking distance of being reelected, had we not treated him as such a baddie for the last 4 years. All of that rhetoric played into his hands and gave him the attention he needed to score the Republican nomination.

We should have just let him fade into the past as the loser that he is. Instead we gave him a center stage with giant spotlights, and as you probably agree, he has used that to promote a lot of really antisocial ideas.

It didn't have to be this way. But it was so predictably this way.