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Culture War Roundup for the week of November 14, 2022

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It seems like Trump is getting his twitter back. The weird thing is I think red tribe doesn’t want him to get twitter back. I don’t. Blue tribe will put up a big fight over it but actually be very happy if he got twitter back. Then they get his tweets to rally against. For now Musks says he’s thinking about it. From a free speech absolutist view he does have to approve it. But I still want him to say no.

https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1593673844996288512?s=46&t=o4yJPOOQnQoAxYXvJuPdlQ

It seems conceivable that letting him back on after the midterms might work to Republicans' ultimate advantage. It feels like the electorate has turned against insane clown shows, so Trump putting on his insane clown show might actually move the primary toward DeSantis, and render hollow further attempts by the Democrats to pin Trump to the modern GOP.

But if I had my druthers, he'd stay off -- or better yet, die peacefully in his sleep from natural causes.

I used to think he'd die of a Wendys induced heart attack while in office. For narrative reasons, the media would have no idea what to do with it.

Now I think he's going to die doing something genuinely heroic. Like, a Nazi or otherwise right wing terrorist will take an event he's at hostage and he'll get everyone else out saying "it's me you want, The Donald, not the waiters and these bozos" before getting shot. Because they would produce maximum confusion.

His dad lived to his 90s only succumbing to Alzheimer's, not something like heart disease or stroke. Trump has good genes for life expectancy, so he may stick around despite being overweight, ,not exercising much, and other risk factors.

Boy you sure have a different mental model of Trump's psyche than I do. I can't think of any public figure more demonstrably willing to throw his loyalists to the wolves for momentary personal advantage. Why do you imagine, under your framework, he didn't pardon the January 6 crowd before Biden was sworn in?

he didn't pardon the January 6 crowd before Biden was sworn in?

to not be impeached, removed, and barred from running again which was the explicit threat made by turtle Mitch?

could he have pardoned individuals not yet indicted? Jan 6th people were being arrested long after he left office.

He could have, yes. If he did, Turtle Mitch was threatening him with a "removal" vote which may bar him from running again. Would that "removal vote" be Constitutional? In my opinion, it would not be but the SCOTUS had already failed spectacularly to defend the constitutional order throughout the entire election.

could he have pardoned individuals not yet indicted?

Yes.

I believe Trump would throw himself on a bomb under the right circumstances. Of course, he would be thinking of how heroic and awesome and beloved he was, and how this would prove the Haters and Losers wrong, and of the yuge monument that would be built to honor his courage (bravest President ever? many are saying so), and probably not thinking about saving people. But Trump is capable of very self-destructive behavior, so long as it's in service of his own ego.

This isn't a model of how trump thinks or acts, I'm just riffing on how the universe seems to always produce max chaos around him. He's the Jungian incarnation of Loki the trickster God.

I want Maxx confusion. I want trump to die pulling trans kids out of a burning building, leave a will with money towards a giant gold pyramid on the mall, and no one will know what to do.

Consider the 1/6 stuff. If he had clearly said he supported the shaman dude in overthrowing the us government, he'd either be president for life or dead. If he'd clearly repudiated them and their election theories we'd be done with it. He did neither.