domain:questioner.substack.com
SubstackNecron
21m ago
They didn't kill him with a heart attack post-2020 election for reasons I legitimately do not understand. I am not saying they should or shouldn't have done this, I am just confused why they didn't.
RandomRanger
Just build nuclear plants!
39m ago
OK but has the military been made to take a personal loyalty oath to Trump?
I swear by God this holy oath that I shall render unconditional obedience to the Leader of the German Reich and people, Adolf Hitler, supreme commander of the armed forces, and that as a brave soldier I shall at all times be prepared to give my life for this oath.
Or for the civil service:
"I swear: I will be faithful and obedient to the leader of the German Reich and people, Adolf Hitler, to observe the law, and to conscientiously fulfil my official duties, so help me God!"
Hitler would also give generals huge estates, pay off their debts informally, personally.
Not having some anti-fascist scholar show up at West Point or not giving Harris secret service protection is not the same kind of thing fundamentally as real fascism. The Secret Service are no match for random 20 year olds anyway, anyone who wants to kill her probably can if they learn how to shoot or use a drone. But under real fascism Harris would've been sent to exile, imprisoned, disappeared, Navalnyed... The anti-fascist scholar would be whisked away to a prison camp. There'd be paramilitaries under direct Party control like the Blackshirts, PAP or SS/SA muscling in on the Pentagon's domain.
Something can be unseemly, dubiously legal, illegal or authoritarian but not actually be totalitarian or fascist. And the latter is what many on the left get so hysterical about.
It's like the Trump-Russia collusion angle. Trump is slightly warmer to Russia than the Biden administration. But Trump is actively sending Ukraine munitions used to kill Russian troops in war. He's anti-Russian. He was anti-Russian in his first term too, sending Ukraine Javelins. I don't recall him providing sanctions relief, the Magnitsky sanctions remained. But the left doesn't care about this at all, they live in an alternative reality where Trump is a Russian stooge because he's not deadset on antagonizing Russia 24/7 and has other priorities besides that.
FirmWeird
Randomly Generated Reddit Username
1hr ago
I like this post and think that's a very good read of the situation - but I also think you're leaving out some of the things that got the Bernie base so pissed off. There was real malfeasance on the part of the DNC when it came to Bernie, especially in 2016. Wasserman-Schulz and Donna Brazile were forced to resign from the DNC after Wikileaks released the internal emails showing they were actually conspiring to fuck him over (and then Debbie at least immediately joined the Clinton campaign). The Bernie crowd really were taken for a ride by the DNC and the lawsuit they lost had the party make some really unpleasant (but legally excellent) claims to boot. I am honestly not sure if there was enough support for Bernie to get him elected, but there's no denying that the DNC put a finger on the scale in a way that torched their relationship with his supporters.
Skibboleth
It's never 4D Chess
1hr ago
Has Trump tried to encourage anything like this?
His actions in LA and DC immediately jump to mind.
Right-wing political violence in the US is almost always carried out under the guise of law enforcement, and at the moment the Trump admin is trying to build out ICE into a massive organization full of people who owe effectively personal fealty to Trump.
(Of course, I think it would be a mistake to attribute this to some sort of 4-D chess plan - Trump just has the mind of a thug and thinks having an army of brownshirts with a veneer of police authority is super cool)
FirmWeird
Randomly Generated Reddit Username
1hr ago
the one seal that hasn't been broken, is actually prosecuting and jailing the people who are best positioned to thwart his power.
Actually this seal has already been broken - but by the democrats when they prosecuted Trump multiple times. I'm on record (though maybe not on this site) saying that these prosecutions were a terrible idea and would be a horrifying weapon in the hands of a vengeful Trump administration. I'd say the DNC were lucky that he's so incredibly merciful, but I think the truth is that actually sending the entire democratic power structure to prison would make the left stronger once all those criminals and shysters were replaced by new blood.
OliveTapenade
1hr ago
I think this is fair. He's a powerful disruptor, but not a builder. It is safe to say, I think, that the old GOP is dead and gone, but Trump provides no central ideas or organising principles for the new one. The centre of Trump's movement is Trump himself, and his most distinctive policy preferences (e.g. tariffs) seem idiosyncratic to Trump, rather than penetrating more widely into the base. My biggest concern with the GOP or Red Tribe is what they will become after Trump. There is clearly a lot of energy and organisational power there, even if there is a void of actual beliefs. If anyone, after Trump, is capable to capture most of that energy - and that's a big if - then whatever direction it goes in will reshape America again.
haroldbkny
2hr ago
Honestly, though, you pretty much answer your own question in your opening paragraph;
Well, I can say I've paid about as much attention to Trump as I have to every other president, including Biden - which is not much. But it's taken significantly more effort to afford Trump the same level of indifference as I have for Biden and other presidents, and that's been true since 2015. I see that as indicative that information I shouldn't trust is being pushed my way, which reinforces my tendency to tune it out.
However, it's the fact that the Republican half of the government (and at least a third of the population) is either doing nothing to stop it, or even actively cheer it on, that really causes me to despair over the situation.
Your response hasn't given any consideration to the mirror image aspect of my original post. I encourage you to try to put aside your preconceptions and consider how the other side might have felt looking at the BLM situation of 2020-2021, and the power that mob mentality held at the time. Can you sympathize with someone else's fear of the lack of checks on that power, the same way you worry that the checks and balances in government won't be enough to stop Trump? Can you see how someone on the other side would have had similar reservations about those in power at the time doing nothing to curb that power, and to the contrary actually cheering it on?
I'm not asking you to agree that those concerns were valid or that the situations are equivalent - I'm asking whether you can see the structural similarity in how both sides experience fear when they perceive threats from power sources they believe lack adequate restraints. If you can only acknowledge that the other side had feelings while maintaining that your fears are categorically different or more legitimate, then you're missing the point about how these dynamics work. Your response kind of proves the point about us trusting different institutional mechanisms without engaging with it.
FirmWeird
Randomly Generated Reddit Username
2hr ago
I’ll assume for the sake of argument that Israel is trying to ethnically cleanse Palestine, that Harris recognized it, and that she also knew supporting them would lose her the election. Why, then, wouldn’t she say it out loud?
She actually did say out loud that she wouldn't do anything to stop them, and high ranking members of Netnyahu's government (Smotrich etc) were open about their plans for ethnic cleansing. If one person says "I think all the jews should be exterminated" there's not really much of a distinction between that and someone else saying "That person talking about exterminating the jews has an opinion that I respect and won't deviate from" - both of them are advocating for a holocaust, there's just a layer of obfuscation to gull credulous and stupid people in front of one of them. She didn't go out of her way to advertise her position on this topic because she knew it was politically toxic with her base, but you'll be hard pressed to find politicians who voluntarily run attack ads against themselves because they want to be honest with the people. I don't think the overton window really matters here because "just exterminate all the Palestinians so we can build luxury hotels" and "Starving those children to death is perfectly fine because they had pre-existing medical conditions" is still inside that window.
SubstantialFrivolity
I'm not even supposed to be here today
2hr ago
I think you're absolutely right. Of course, if the Democrats were capable of such introspection and smart politicking, they wouldn't have lost to Trump once, let alone twice. I firmly believe that the Democrats could've run basically anyone except Hillary "it's her turn" Clinton and beaten Trump pretty easily in 2016. And again in 2024, if they had bothered to consider that maybe just maybe people had legitimate grievances, rather than doggedly sticking with the "it's all a bunch of racist fascists" rhetoric that they continue to use to this day. There are a whole lot of people who don't particularly like Trump, and would gladly vote for another option that wasn't busy spitting in their face at every opportunity. But the party has consistently chosen to spit in those people's faces, so... play stupid games, win stupid prizes I guess.
lagrangian
2hr ago
High quality, low quantity. Just banflam and I.
lagrangian
2hr ago
In general, the handful of Mottizens I know well enough to share names and faces with have done nothing to disabuse my trust.
+1. We really are a magically small place.
WandererintheWilderness
2hr ago
To me the case for hope around Trump is that, in his corrupt flailing, he destroys that which ought to be destroyed, or inadvertently opens up a kind of space for new growth
I think the case for hope, and the reason I've never been much of a doomer about Trump, is that he's taking up oxygen that could be going to an actual fascist, or some other effective representative of the forces of evil. My bitterest political opponents have decided to spend all their energies pumping up a petulant old windbag who's all bark and hardly any bite. Not to mention his cult of personality becoming synonymous with their values means that his death - which is, in the grand scheme of things, imminent - will deal a tremendous blow to the entire way the Red Tribe is organized. Trump is not Hitler, and to the extent that one is worried about the prospect of an American Hitler in principle, one should therefore be very thankful that Trump is hogging the spotlight. He's like a kind of tyranny lightning-rod, collecting the loyalty of everyone who'd support an actual dictator while having very low odds of actually declaring a dictatorship. Long may he continue to do so.
Okay long summer outdoors stuff is winding down. Back to Tron bike lighting!
Seems like I fried my ESP32-C3 by over-tightening the adjustment screw on the 12v step-down converter. Apparently if you break the screw it just kind of wobbles and the "5v" you're reading right now might change in an instant.
Then I broke a second buck converter doing this same oven-tightening before realizing the ESP32 was already fried anyway.
Electricity is kind of unforgiving :/
I did one of these successfully for the proof of concept but I guess forgot or got sloppy in the intervening months. On the bright side, everything involved is only $2-4 each!
Nwallins
Finally updated my bookmark
3hr ago
Thanks for this. I grew up in the Deep South but with California parents, mostly irreligious and a mild political divide (red dad, blue mom). My dad the provider, my mom raised us to be broadly liberal, in maybe the best way. I grew up thinking of old stodgy conservatives and young fresh liberals, but not quite in those terms. Around 14 or 15 I had a heavy influence from a big leftist peer, though I didn't recognize this at the time, but also developed my libertarian instincts from a high school history teacher slash debate coach.
I went to college and 9/11 hit, and it was big rightward shift. Atheism, Sam Harris, Muslims, Terrorists. Sam Harris of course at this time is nowhere near the right and remains so IMHO. But I had never considered ROTC or CIA or FBI and all of a sudden these are interesting to me. At this time, I am starting to get psyched about shock-and-awe, learning about M-16s and M-4s and AR-15s, but also drinking Sierra Nevadas and going to Phish shows.
For lack of any wrap-up I'll end here.
JTarrou
3hr ago
Did Trump not accept it and leave office peacefully? I think it is you who is playing word games.
Mantergeistmann
3hr ago
Honestly, that's a good question. I have no idea how the president generally picks the top flag officers, or if he usually just lets a military board/his aides recommend someone and then says "yep, sure, I'll trust your judgement and nominate them".
Mantergeistmann
3hr ago
To me the more productive comparisons to Trump are more like a Latin American strongman, or perhaps like Jonah Goldberg's metaphor of Trump as a Mafia boss.
I've also generally considered that the best comparison. I've also thought that, at least in his first term, all the Hitler hysteria locked the Dems out from the opportunity of a lifetime: they could have had most of their wishlist if they'd just been willing to swallow their pride, flatter his ego, and let him take the credit. "Hey, President Trump, how does 'Trump Rail' sound? How about the 'Trump National Wildlife Refuge' or the 'Donald Trump Saves America' pro-union bill?" Other than the things he was opposed to on a personal level, like offshore wind, but even then I feel like they could have made an offer and gotten a deal done. But even if any of them were willing to work with him in the first place, once he's Hitler, there's no crossing the aisle.
Amadan
Enjoying my short-lived victory
3hr ago
When I fetched up in SSC's comments section, my previous-favorite blog had been Shakesville, and the political issue I had been most concerned with was a tossup between the burgeoning threat of Rape Culture and the idea that another fucking Bush was being nominated for the presidency.
Damn, Shakesville, that brings back memories. You must have been even leftier than me at that point, because even though I was more liberal then than I am now, I always thought the Shakesville crew was insane.
FirmWeird
Randomly Generated Reddit Username
3hr ago
But hey, public was dumb enough to vote him in again, so I guess it’s time for us to collectively reap the whirlwind.
I'm sorry but as someone else on the left the fault here is entirely that of the Democrats. Kamala Harris was one of the worst candidates I have ever seen, and it looks like Biden did his best to sabotage her as well. Trump didn't even need to bust out the worst of the attack ads because Kamala was so disrespectful and contemptuous of her own base - to say nothing of the genocide she ran on supporting (which multiple post-election studies have claimed was enough to swing the election itself). She hurt her numbers by refusing to go on Joe Rogan, but she was such a charisma void that refusing to go on was actually the right answer - she would have melted down and been unable to respond to basic questions about her past actions or present beliefs.
The problem with that election was not that the public was dumb. The problem was that the DNC ran a candidate that was WORSE than Trump - they ran a terrible campaign for a terrible candidate and got a terrible result. If you actually look at the results of that election in greater detail there's actually a lot to be hopeful for as a left-winger. When they weren't tied to the Democrats, a lot of leftist policy proposals actually went through. Left wing values are generally extremely popular with most people - but the DNC is a terrible expression of those values and so nakedly corrupt that anybody with a soul would find it extremely hard to vote for them in good faith. Remember how Schumer attacked Trump? By calling him a coward who chickened out of starting another war and murdering more people in the middle east. The public was actually doing the right thing in this case by voting for the less bloodthirsty candidate!
I agree that Trump term 2 has been very poor (probably for different reasons) but let's not try and blame the public for this happening. The blame for this result rests squarely on the Democratic party and if the public deserve any blame it is for not recognising that the ghouls in charge of the Democrats needed to be removed from power years ago.
TK-421
4hr ago
Thanks, I appreciate the explanation.
Combined, this was broadly seen as a two-part betrayal by the Bernie-left. It was a broader DNC betrayal of the Obama wing picking favorites to maintain its primacy in the party rather than letting voters pick via the nominal primary purpose, but it was also a betrayal by the more party-institutionalist Warren-left, who sabotaged a bigger left momentum in favor of selling out for postings and influence.
I think I can understand a feeling of betrayal from the process on an emotional level but I'm not sure I really get it. For instance, I didn't just donate to Amy Klobuchar, I made her tater tot hotdish recipe. It was pretty good. But I didn't feel like her dropping out of the race well before my state's primary represented the DNC betraying me or nefariously preventing me from picking my preferred candidate. Weaker candidates dropping out and consolidating behind a more popular candidate with similar views is just an actual part of the primary process as it exists. It would be interesting to see the effects of switching to some kind of one day primary-palooza where every state votes simultaneously but that is not, and never has been, how the primaries work.
Warren staying in the race through Super Tuesday probably did hurt Bernie. Presumably Sanders was the second choice of some fraction of her voters. But as you note, she represents a more institutional strain of the left and (although we'll never know) it's unlikely that enough of her voters would have gone with him to change the outcome. It's just as likely that the majority of her voters would have gone to Biden.
If primary voters wanted Sanders they could have had him. They did not. The fact that voters picked the more centrist candidate - and that there were other more centrist politicians in the race with non-negligible support in the first place - shows where the actual center of gravity was in the party. Bernie would not have won regardless of what the DNC did.
OliveTapenade
5hr ago
I'm not sure how much I qualify as 'scared' of Trump, but I at least dislike and oppose him, which I suppose makes me a minority here? The thing is, though I think he's a terrible president and generally a disaster for America, I spend most of my time talking about him trying to calm down people to my left, who I think have fixated too much on the wrong comparisons (re: fascism, Nazism, etc.). To me the more productive comparisons to Trump are more like a Latin American strongman, or perhaps like Jonah Goldberg's metaphor of Trump as a Mafia boss. He's corrupt, self-centered, unprincipled, and deeply transactionalist - he is motivated by Trump as a brand, not by any concept of American national welfare, or even American ideals.
I feel more 'resigned', I think, rather than afraid or indifferent. To me the case for hope around Trump is that, in his corrupt flailing, he destroys that which ought to be destroyed, or inadvertently opens up a kind of space for new growth. The case for fear or despair is that he destroys that which much must be preserved, or opens up a space for more organisedly malignant actors in the future. Personally I am not strongly invested in either reading.
That might give me a more mundane view of Trump, I suppose? What I see is a petty individual who has great talents for communication and self-presentation, but very little talent for organised governance, who's in power but doesn't have a strong vision for what to do with power beyond use it to establish "I am the greatest!" over and over. In a sense, I think many on the left and on the right make the same mistake in attributing him too much power, making him either devil or saint.
Of course, none of that means that he's not dangerous. There are a lot of things a venal egoist might do that are bad, even if he has no vision. But what I expect to see, I suppose, is more American decline, mostly in the direction that America was already going, while Trump and his allies try to stand on top of the scrapheap. I see a bigger risk in neglect than in sabotage.
Payback23
5hr ago
If you believe in what people say they do then how are you a "leftoid" in your own words
Once again "leftoids" have already done this in government. So I'm not sure why you care Trump is doing it?
Throwaway05
5hr ago
We called urgent care and could not obtain even an upper bound on how much a dx + rx would cost. Hundreds? Thousands? Who knows lol.
Note that an upper bound is an extremely difficult question.
If you worked with a realtor and said you wanted to buy a house but didn't know yet where you'd be buying and what your requirements were...the only reasonable answer to the upper bound is whatever the most expensive house ever sold is. An urgent care has some maximum limitation on available services (in comparison with an ED) but the situation is fundamentally somewhat similar. That number would be functionally useless.
"What will you most likely charge me as the cash price for a basic office visit" is something a PCP can easily do and generally do when they are allowed to do so.
However as this is America many places will prohibit providing this type of information as a matter of policy because of the risks associated with doing so (like being sued if the bill is higher than the estimated number). This is a general side effect of corporatized medicine as decisions are made by large inflexible organizations with massive legal and compliance departments and clinical and office staff with no independence and authority.
As you saw independent practitioners may still use common sense,* but they are being forced out of the market by things like increased regulatory burden.
This is what had me so incensed the first time this came up - individual requests like "provide prices" "you need an EMR" "have an HR department" have become so burdensome and accumulated in such numbers that private practice increasingly no longer makes sense and therefor flexibility is gone.
*And some types of interactions like this are strictly speaking illegal/fraud.
KingOfTheBailey
5hr ago
The online battlefield has shifted though. Would Trump 2016 have happened without Reddit and 4chan? Those don't exist in as usable a form these days. Twitter was a huge coup, but that's still "two steps back, one-and-a-half steps forward".
"Disabuse your trust"?
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