volkris @volkris@qoto.org

Many here joined the bandwagon of outrage over #Trump's use of the word bloodbath, but I don't think many realize how counterproductive that was.

#Conservatives have been milking that outrage to their benefit, using it to frame anti-Trump speakers as out of touch or flat out duplicitous, saying they're intentionally misunderstanding or misrepresenting what Trump was saying.

The thing is, what Trump was [apparently] saying is actually idiotic. THAT is what needs to be called out.

It's just the sad norm of strategic misstep: Trump will say something really stupid, but instead of pointing out how dumb he is, folks give him not only a pass but actual ammunition through unfounded attacks.

And that's how we got and may get President Trump.

#USPolitics #bloodbath #GOP

It's instructive that the most rabidly anti #TikTok conservative figures seem to be coming from a place of being completely out of touch with and misunderstanding the youths.

I keep hearing them say, Where did [insert idea] come from? Nobody was talking about that before the Chinese started manipulating kids through the TikToks!

But of course, they were talking about it, just in different circles that the speaker wasn't aware of.

This says a lot about many topics and many sides, but generally:
Echo chambers promote ignorance that leads to assumptions that manifest in heavy handed non-solutions to misidentified problems.

And all too naturally, those proposals will tend to be rather authoritarian efforts to fix people.

Implementing a “Share on Mastodon” button for a blog
Normally, adding a share button to a blog is a trivial task. In case of Mastodon, it is complicated by the fact that you need to choose your home instance. And it is further complicated if you decide to support further Fediverse applications beyond …

https://palant.info/2023/10/19/implementing-a-share-on-mastodon-button-for-a-blog/

#Fediverse #Mastodon

These days the phrase "you can't make this stuff up" is so overused that really it comes across as,

Oh no, I CAN make this stuff up, and I can make a lot of other stuff up too.
You can't?
Are you really so low functioning that this is beyond your imagination?
Well that explains a lot of the other dumb ideas you have.

You can't make this stuff up has become a brag from people who, well, honestly probably aren't smart enough to make such things up on their own.

Apparently this is a website demonstrating #Fediverse / #Mastodon and #BlueSky interactions all being intermingled as they engage with the post.

I'm not sure exactly what's going on, but at first glance it's pretty interesting to see.

https://nerdy.dev/this-site-now-supports-at-protocol-mentions-and-interactions

The big problem with the #Biden State of the Union speech was that instead of speaking to the whole country about the whole country, it focused on speaking to his own choir about himself and his reelection.

That's why people are criticizing it as a campaign speech.

If you're a Biden supporter, realize that the speech did not invite non-supporters, including independents, to join in his efforts. It appealed only to those already on board, which is not productive in terms of actually getting those efforts done.

In other words, if you're in favor of what Biden was calling for, you too should be critical that this #SOTU won't help get those things done.

The speech seemed focused on helping nobody... except Joe Biden's personal reelection.

Growing up in the US, decades ago, I was cautiously optimistic about the future for the US government:
Sure, folks had ideological, philosophical, and political differences, but we'd keep on having a big social conversation, challenging each other, to come to a positive consensus, all as the government itself continued to maintain its core functions, shaped by the ongoing debate.

It seemed at the time as if we were working with a rough draft, and things would keep getting better. The government had good bones, to borrow an analogy.

The thing I find so depressing about #Trump as the #GOP
nominee isn't ideological. It's that we're now facing a race where the idea of actually administering a functional government isn't even a significant issue to voters. I never see it coming up in mainstream conversation from either the left or the right.

This is one reason I'm so obsessed about #USPolitics, because in my lifetime it's regressed so terribly, from a functional government that's responding to productive debate to one where functionality isn't particularly interesting to the average voter.

The US population has lost faith in government over this time, but the problem is, well, that's what they voted for by nominating people like #Biden and Trump.

It's why Super Tuesday was a symbol of this regression of the US government to me, even if it had become inevitable.

I remain struck by hearing a #GOP voter say he would be voting for #Trump over #Haley in the primary purely because Haley can't win the primary.

Not the general election, the primary.

That he was voting in.

The most charitable interpretation I have for this is that he wanted to feel good about having voted on the winning side of the primary, fitting in with the crowd.

But really, I think so many voters simply don't know how voting works.

#USPolitics

It's something to think of a #Trump nomination as a team hiring a coach who doesn't know the rules of the game and so can't explain them to the team, leaving them at a self-inflicted disadvantage.

Trump failed so badly during his first term because he didn't know which procedures to use to really press forward with his agenda, and there's little reason to believe he's learned anything since then, and he certainly hasn't been informing his sadly ignorant listeners.

Unfortunately, so many on the other side don't know the rules either, but their coaches do, so they're able to play the game.

We'd all be better off if someone was out there actually explaining to the general public how government works, so we could elect better officials left and right, and fix the derailment.

#USPolitics #Democrats #Republicans

Ah: No, the #Alabama ruling didn't declare embryos to be children, as any reading of the actual ruling would easily show.

In fact, the ruling went out of its way to stress that it wasn't making any deep or broad declaration.

Once again, there's social turmoil over what's either misunderstanding or misinformation. Sadly, I suspect there are plenty of bad actors who know they're spreading lies, but find the drama to be in their own interests.

https://publicportal-api.alappeals.gov/courts/68f021c4-6a44-4735-9a76-5360b2e8af13/cms/case/343D203A-B13D-463A-8176-C46E3AE4F695/docketentrydocuments/E3D95592-3CBE-4384-AFA6-063D4595AA1D

#law #USPolitics

I think a major factor in the state of #USPolitics comes down to a generational shift in mainstream conservative media around the passing of Rush Limbaugh, as the void he left was filled by new figures with a different attitude, one that wasn't so much full-throated promotion of conservatism itself but rather aggressive promotion of superficial fact that happened to be simply incorrect.

Whether one agrees with the conservative ideology or not, this has made a stark difference.

For example, the border compromise legislation weeks ago was sunk not by what was in the bill or by ideological disagreement, but by flat out misinformation about what the bill contained, as that information was emphatically promoted to the huge audiences that these outfits command.

I think if people understand that shift in #GOP rhetoric they can have a better understanding of the state of the world.

One really sad thing is that this change is even bad for #Democrats as it means there's less solid skepticism to weed out bad actors in that party as well.

Of course, this also points to the way #journalism dropped the ball and let that void remain empty to be filled by idiots.

I often stay up to date with #conservative media in #USPolitics just to keep apprised of what the #GOP is talking about, or to put it in a different way, so you don't have to, but lately it's getting just two much even for me.

It's one thing to disagree with facts that #Republicans are working with, but lately they are getting more and more unhinged in their actual arguments, contradicting themselves but seeming oblivious of it.

For example, this week I heard the line that progressive attacks against #Trump are good for him because they will make him seem moderate to voters. If the ideologues are attacking him, then he must be moderate, right? But then the next moment that same presenter started talking about progressive attacks against #Biden without applying the exact same reasoning to that case.

In the past few weeks mainstream conservative talking points have just gotten ridiculous in their blind support for Trump. They've stopped talking about policy, or their claims about accomplishments, or anything like that. Now it's just getting into chanting that really didn't exist before.

On one hand, it's sad to watch, it's pathetic, and on the other hand it's boring.

So I figure they are setting themselves up for a repeat of the red wave that never showed up during the last election. They are not setting themselves up to win.

Sigh. I wish they would at least make it interesting to watch.