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.

#USPolitics

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.

#USPolitics

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

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

Every once in awhile Trump's die hard supporters accidentally lay out the case for him being a failure and a loser.

They just lack the self-awareness to hear themselves saying it, as they only interpret things as confirming their biases.

It does remind me of the moment in Arrested Development where Lucille says her husband is no criminal mastermind as he can barely operate the paper shredder.

#USPolitics

I've said #NoKings is terrible branding because the other side gets to just say, well right, we don't have a king. It's so easy to brush off.

So what are alternatives?

Well I think I would start with No Felons off the top of my head...

#USPolitics #Trump

This is why I've been saying #NoKings suffers from terrible branding.

The branding makes it incredibly easy for folks outside of the choir to brush it off.

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The high profile conservatives setting policy for the US right now are just this stupid.

He really didn't realize that an island has set coordinates, that #Iran doesn't have to go to the Russians to figure out what the coordinates are.

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US conservatives are convinced that protests against #Trump are staged by people being paid to protest, but pro-government demonstrations in #Iran represent the legitimate feelings of the country.

(nevermind the dissonance of then expecting the country to pivot after regime change)

The conservative movement is being run by some of the dumbest people these days.

And that's how we get folks cheering on the idiocy that Trump engages in.

#USPolitics #GOP

It's striking how smallminded and myopic it is for mainstream #Trump supporters to laud a history of attacking during negotiation as a way to get future negotiation.

Reporting suggests #Iran isn't negotiating this time. For SOME reason.

#USPolitics

Idiots advising #Trump on US policy are at about this level, completely unaware that these terms and determinations have real, significant legal implications.

Kilmeade being so low key about giving up the imminent argument shows he has no idea how important that concept is in the US system of governance.

#USPolitics

With the #Iran adventure turning into such a mess, I just want to repeat my call for promoting #TOFU -- #Trump Only Fs Up.

#USPolitics

With the #Iran adventure turning into such a mess, I just want to repeat my call for promoting #TOFU -- #Trump Only Fs Up.

#USPolitics

The biggest #Trump supporting influencers helping shape conservative thought and US policy, ladies and gentlemen. God they're morons.

Right now the US is caught between senile boomers and young people who are more interested in taking shots of Fireball at tailgate parties than knowing how the world works.

Pretty much explains the whole situation.

#USPolitics

Understand that this administration, and much of the #GOP that's setting US policy, is driven by boomer nostalgia based on naive misundertandings of history.

From wanting to bring back battleships through wanting to return to good ol' days of white picket fences and family values, that's why they constantly refer in rosy terms to irrelevant scenes of times that never were.

And all of that while these authorities age into senility.

#USPolitics

So interesting to see some of the biggest #Trump proponents starting to talk bad about his lack of a plan for #Iran like this!

#USPolitics

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?

#USPolitics

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.

#USPolitics