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Small-Scale Question Sunday for October 26, 2025

Do you have a dumb question that you're kind of embarrassed to ask in the main thread? Is there something you're just not sure about?

This is your opportunity to ask questions. No question too simple or too silly.

Culture war topics are accepted, and proposals for a better intro post are appreciated.

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Don't you find it amusing that some people are trying to stop Mamdani with the same toolset that hilariously failed to stop trump for 10 years straight and are surprised at their failure.

There are extremely long think and hit pieces and lots of snark, refutals and zingers. And none of them are in format or place that are engaging to the people that will vote for him.

IMO there is so much implicit bias favoring a young brown socialist Muslim candidate against an old white candidate, that if there were definite proof Mamdami is a genuine radical Islamist, he would still win the election. The only thing I can imagine reducing his chances if it came out that he’s really an Italian putting on makeup pretending to be a brown Muslim. I just get the sense that the implicit bias runs this deep.

Didn't he get outed for applying to colleges as black?

But yeah, the dude could openly say "9/11 was great and I'm going to do it again" and win large portions of NYC immigrants and Democrats.

The college application thing not really hurting him, I'd chalk up to a loose combination of:

  • People don't really care all that much about a one-time mistake from several years back.
  • The application box said "African American", not "Black", leaving some wiggle room for non-black Africans to claim confusion, and for others to believe it.
  • Brown Muslim is still generally regarded as a somewhat oppressed class, so it's not the same level of "stolen valor" that a white guy in his place would be guilty of.