domain:alexberenson.substack.com
I might be confusing a lot of things, for a lot of other things. For instance, I might be confusing the abrupt breakup for an indication that Musk needed and didn't get a bailout, but I'm not confusing anything for Twitter drama.
Skulldrinker
7hr ago
I assume she was convinced I was up to no good, as an unattended male.
I was new to the city and was at the event precisely because I hadn't made friends yet.
I've been specifically trying to to be more outgoing lately, I just keep getting anxious flashbacks to shit from almost a decade ago.
2rafa
8hr ago
Yes, I also thought Bannon was irrelevant but a lot of moderate Trump supporters listen to his radio show pretty religiously.
2rafa
8hr ago
Yeah because it turned out that most of USAID’s budget was bribe money to local elites in the third world so they don’t defect to China, which Trump is set on antagonizing and competing against.
2rafa
8hr ago
If Trump was smart he’d cut a deal with enough Dems who genuinely want infrastructure / railroad / whatever funding to pass a bipartisan budget that raises taxes somewhat on everyone (but especially on ‘the rich’) that can be framed as an ‘emergency national bill’ by all parties.
ChickenOverlord
8hr ago
And that's also assuming that cutting spending so drastically wouldn't have negative second and third order effects on the overall economy that lowered tax revenues in the process.
AlexanderTurok
Alt-MSNBC
8hr ago
Only if you confuse getting attacked by a bunch of Trump accounts on Twitter with "going down in flames."
ArjinFerman
Tinfoil Gigachad
8hr ago
State of disbelief?
I'm actually somewhat worried he'll tank the whole MAGA thing by using his connections to Trump to try to save himself.
Since the whole "save yourself by using Trump" plan didn't pan out, looks like he's determined to drag them down with him. Hopefully they can cut him loose before he does too much damage.
Pigeon
coo coo
8hr ago
I’m guessing this is a reference to the early Ming treasure fleets, in which case this is inaccurate as the treasure fleets were not exploring as much as they were re-establishing relations, and the ships were built for such.
Or this could be a reference to a brief period of theoretical Chinese naval superiority in technology between the Song and the Ming, before the Ming went all sea-ban and lost a lot of knowledge about building seaworthy ships.
Probably referring to the Ming treasure voyages. It's a fun little meme but I don't think it seriously applies. Chinese civilization is not going to randomly commit suicide in this era, certainly not more than everybody else is.
pataTactician
8hr ago
Insult to human dignity? Elon basically asked for this; he loved it until he realized that he was just a hype man. There's a reason the DOGE Twitter is spilling digital ink crowing over defending legume studies instead of posting sober cost/benefit analyses of Social Security.
sarker
It isn't happening, and if it is, it's a bad thing
8hr ago
I (male) shared a bedroom with my sister (female) for a pretty long chunk of time. It's really not such a big deal.
ArjinFerman
Tinfoil Gigachad
8hr ago
To be fair, it takes a really high IQ to watch a man go down in flames and say "I want in on some of that action!"
pusher_robot
PLEASE GO STAND BY THE STAIRS
8hr ago
Agreed. Forcing cities into receivership that puts state legislatures into an oversight role can only help Republicans. Even in Illinois, the Democrats don't control the state as strongly as they control Cook county.
Jazzhands
8hr ago
The Abundance Dems aren't even real. Let us know when they pass anything of substance in a blue city; until then it's pure marketing.
roystgnr
8hr ago
I'm living the dream!
We don't have them often enough, since my youngest isn't as big a fan as the rest of us, but variety is good too.
oats_son
8hr ago
Well, then! I guess those are more achievable than they sounded. Now I guess it's up to whether you actually have enough free time and willpower to do them all. If you have 8 hours and don't spend much time cooking/eating dinner or on hygiene or on other pursuits, then probably possible. If you have 4 hours after work and after your PhD efforts, and you have those other pursuits to contend with, maybe not. I can't tell you what you should value more, though to be honest, reading this site and others are a huge sink on my time, personally, so cutting those out would give me a huge boost to doing more stuff without having to cut much important. Anyway, you can do it!
... I'm not sure how that relates?
I'm asking why the contemporary Democrats would expect that to work in the first place. I think you've restated your first post?
Stellula
8hr ago
Bannon does a daily podcast with an extremely active base of people. It's not like anything else that I know of.
As much as he doesn't really have Trump's ear anymore, he does have the ear of a lot of MAGA.
ABigGuy4U
8hr ago
They don’t necessarily have to frame anyone though. Just announce a fictitious perpetrator.
Shrike
9hr ago
I think it's easy to see infighting and assume it's a sign of weakness. It's only a sign of weakness if it isn't handled properly. If Trump publicly "wins" the fight, it consolidates power around Trump as The Sole King. (And I think this is what will happen - Musk is definitely a live player but I don't think he has the proper levers in this situation).
Over the longer term, Trump consolidating power into the party could prove to be a weakness, simply because he's not going to be around forever, and after that the party could devolve into infighting. So perhaps the Western Right is in trouble over the long term. But this was always a possibility, and getting some of that infighting "worked through" now while Trump is still around to dictate winners and losers might actually help the right get some of that infighting sorted out before, making them stronger in the post-Trump stage.
Elon calling for a party that supports the 80% of Americans is sort of funny - balancing the budget [inevitably: by nuking Social Security/Medicaid/Medicare] might be good and necessary, but it's not an 80% position. Socially conservative and yet fiscally liberal is actually the closest thing there is to an American consensus, and right now Trump occupies that high ground.
TheAntipopulist
Formerly Ben___Garrison
9hr ago
there's nothing to be done about it.
This wasn't true for the first several hundred years of the country's existence. Heck, it wasn't even true in the 90s.
Nihilism like this is just a demotivational DDOS.
Yeah but everyone knew USAID was just a regime change operation and wanted it cut for that reason. That was the whole point. Neocon Rubio swept in and pretended like we really cared about mosquito nets to Africa or w/e
More options
Context Copy link