i'm indifferent about whether to introduce impeachment now or later, but it's worth noting that everything they're saying about thanedar doing this to try to distract from a primary challenge he's getting is almost certainly correct, and that thanedar suuuuuucks
he's been bouncing around michigan politics for years, and i can confirm that he truly sucks.
Fundamentally these takes flow out of the reality that the vast majority of people are too stupid to understand other humans except in comically oversimplified ways
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also, there is no issue where a candidate can adjust their position by a couple degrees like a thermostat. issues are more like TV when i was young: there's channel 2, 4, 7, 9, 20, 32, 50, 56, and 62. if you're at 9 and you want to go higher, you have to go to 20 or then 32. there is no 15 or 25.
...maybe a candidate technically could with taxes or the minutiae of program funding - 25% vs. 28%, $14B vs. $15B, or whatever - but even those issues aren't argued about at that atomic level anymore.
What, precisely, is a culturally moderate position the Harris-Walz campaign should’ve taken but didn’t?
Because in practice the answer is to say “take more culturally moderate positions” and get kudos for that, or to chastise activists/posters who weren’t part of the campaign or within its control.
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yup. i doubt saying "the other guy is right on this" on maybe any issue wins you many voters, but especially about the anti-trans stuff. the moderate position is "leave them be," and there aren't a lot of voters to the right of that before you get "i just don't think they should be allowed at all."
...even if there are voters who convince themselves that they just don't want trans people in sports/bathrooms/whatever, it's not a stretch to assume they can convince themselves that the GOP only *really* wants to do the anti-trans stuff they personally feel comfortable admitting they agree with.
And when media folks get pressed on this they mostly defend the Biden coverage and basically refuse to engage in the Trump non-coverage. It’s appalling.
i think what pisses me off so much about any attention this tapper/thompson book is getting: yes, joe biden is fucking old. why does that matter anymore? they got him to drop out, and it's not like it's a criminal scandal. it's just beating a dead horse at this point.
I tend to agree, re: Hawley and Medicaid. I think worries about “a more competent fascist” are mostly silly, but it doesn’t take competence to realize, as Hawley seems to, that you lose the balance of your constituency if your whole program is just pain for everybody.
i know everyone thinks this is just cynicism and i am sure there’s some of that, but he’s been consistent on this for quite some time now and it seems pretty genuine.
i do think he still wants to be president someday, realizes the only way that happens is if he at least wins a republican primary, and knows that being the "i said, 'don't gut medicaid'" guy will be a lane in the event that it's not just going to be trump again or his anointed successor.
like, the "i'm just as authoritarian as j.d. vance, but i'm not 100%, comically shitty about every single thing" lane...
People counter that the league’s talent has never been higher and that’s true!
But that makes the problem so much worse. It’s a crime that talented guys like Ant or Tatum hoist up 3s like they’re Malik Beasley or Kyle Korver. Just a complete tragedy.
They have to do something about the 3 point problem. It’s unwatchable.
The way you know it’s out of control is the best teams fire up the most heaves, not the underdogs trying to leverage high variance like some 15 seed. Once you are there, the league is broken.
this is an important point. if you're like oakland university trying to beat kentucky, by all means jack up some 3's and hope you get hot and pull an upset. watching top NBA teams do it to the extent they do just gets boring. same shot, over and over. "team hits a ton of 3's" isn't novel, anymore.
They have to do something about the 3 point problem. It’s unwatchable.
the celtics really are the poster child for this, and it's why i hope they get knocked out. i get that they've been successful with their strategy, but it's just not fun when a team literally shoots like 60 3's in a game. it turns basketball into a math equation... just playing the odds.
