volkris @volkris@qoto.org

It's always striking to hear a self described liberal in the US praising feudalism and sounding like they wish we could get back to that sort of system.

That's just how it's going over here.

#USPolitics #liberalism #democrats

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

A lot of people don't understand this, and I think it's an interesting factoid, so without trying to make any particular point I want to repeat that the #SecretService works for the current president, whoever they may be, and not for the person they are protecting.

They aren't private security hired by the person. They are a police force, basically, operated by the executive branch.

And it's protection that the executive branch can choose to discontinue. Again, I'm not trying to make a point or say that it should or should not be discontinued, I just think this is interesting and a lot of people don't understand it.

It's back in the headlines with another #Trump assassination attempt, so when people start thinking about the Secret Service, I think it's useful to keep them in context.

I've heard it said that if you don't vote with whichever party then you are a coward. I think that's exactly backwards, and even reflects poorly all the person making that argument. It doesn't take much courage to go with the group.

Instead I go the other way: no matter which party you might prefer in general, it takes courage to say they nominated a moron, and fortunately the other party also nominated a loser, so no matter what the US is going to slog through these next few years.

In my opinion the courageous position is to say no, you nominated a moron, and I'm not going to give you my vote. We're going to be okay I guess, whether you win or not, but I'm not going to let you assume that you have my vote if you insist on nominating a moron. You should have nominated someone better. You should have nominated someone worthy of my vote. Do better next time.

That's the state of #USPolitics . As South Park said, big douche versus turd sandwich. So screw both #Democrats and #Republicans. Neither of you managed to nominate someone worth voting for, so I'm voting for my dog.

To give either party our votes is to sign on to their nomination of garbage people. Let's not. Let's say that they need to actually nominate worthwhile administrators.

But more practically, let's focus on #Congress. No matter who wins this election, they're going to suck, but we can still express ourselves through our representation in Congress, and that's honestly how it should be anyway.

Check out your representatives. See how they have actually been voting, and vote them out if they have been letting you down. That's really where our focus should be anyway.

Not on which jerk ends up in the Oval Office.

(But thank God #Biden is on his way out, as he has been terrible for #science in the US, which has not gotten nearly enough attention from the press.)

#KamalaHarris is such a flawed candidate for #Democrats, one with so much baggage and historically bad choices that to nominate her is to risk giving #Trump another term as president.

Almost any other candidate would cinch the election, so why risk it with Harris? Do Democrats not want to win?

We've already seen that Democrats can choose a different candidate. All the folks insisting over and over that it has to be Biden have been shown to be wrong, so let's not believe the new chants that it has to be Harris.

Democrats need to nominate someone more electable, someone that more voters would get behind. Because that's just how this works. Whatever you think of Harris, to put her forward is to take a risk that Democrats don't have to take.

To paraphrase Archer, You like Trump? Because this is how you get Trump.

The DNC needs to nominate somebody more electable.

#USPolitics

Folks upset that the #SecretService may have denied #Trump more security resources for his events need to think about it the other way around:

If his events were getting so dangerous, then they shouldn't have had the events.

At that point it's really about questionable judgment on the part of Trump's team, and it's fair to call them out over that.

#USPolitics

Watching some videos of #Biden speaking over the last couple of years, and seriously you guys, you're misidentifying the fascist. Biden insists on claiming more power, insists on holding down the little guy, insists on imposing his personal unilateral will.

If anyone is fascist in this arrangement, it's Biden.

The Supreme Court in this term has ruled against him over and over, diminishing his power, opposing fascism. It said he can't prosecute people illegally, he can't redefine the law without democratic process, he can't violate due process just because he's president.

So much reporting is getting all of this exactly backwards.

Biden is the problem. We need to get rid of him. #Democrats please give us someone better to vote for.

I, for one, will not vote for the fascist Biden.

#USPolitics

For folks upset about the #Trump case being thrown out over the unqualified prosecutor, remember that it was Biden's administration that screwed that up by not having any of their properly appointed and qualified officials lead the case.

We really need to be holding folks like #Biden accountable for their screwups, and it's just one more reason Democrats should dump him as their nominee.

But no, so many that are most disappointed in the guy's performance are going to vote to keep him in power.

#USPolitics