domain:reddit.com
Rov_Scam
6m ago
I'd preface this by saying that since these "powers" were so poorly defined by the OP, speculating about who they'd find acceptable seems kind of pointless, since any discussion can elicit a response of "no, the powers aren't like that". Anyway, I'm going to proceed on the assumption that these mysterious overlords are left-leaning but not too far left, avatars for the man they're actually trying to keep in the White House. Which I guess makes me one of them, though I'm opposed to assassination and, in any event wouldn't know where to start, but I'll nonetheless use this as license to consider myself somewhat of an expert, especially since most of the people in my social circle are of roughly the same opinion.
Desantis was a credible Bogeyman two years ago but his absolute inability to outmaneuver Trump has rendered him impotent in the eyes of the Powers. And in the eyes of Trump supporters he's totally disloyal and probably a cuck, too for taking abuse from Trump and not bothering to fight back. Desantis's main advantages over Trump were that he was supposedly more competent and that he was actually willing to fight rather than get involved in messy political disputes. His campaign showed that he was totally uncharismatic and couldn't run a national campaign to save his own life, allowing also-rans like Nikki Haley to run circles around him. And he his profound unwillingness to attack Trump, even in the face of his abuse, didn't exactly project the image of a fighter. He's a guy most lefty Democrats would reflexively dislike and bitch about for his policy positions, but he isn't the kind of guy whom anyone would be concerned about the country over. If Trump, as charismatic as he is, was unable to cow the governmental apparatus into bending to his will, then Desantis sure as hell isn't a threat. He's also too much of a traditional Republican at heart to make any serious changes. He'll talk about ending woke but when he realizes that there isn't much he can do about it he'll just shift to enacting more tax cuts. PLus, the guy does have actual executive experience running a large state.
As for Youngkin, I've never met a Democrat who has strong feelings about the guy. I don't live in Virginia, but outside of there the man comes across to most Democrats as as somewhat moderate, the kind of Republican who can actually win a statewide election in Virginia. While he wouldn't be as acceptable as a guy like Phil Scott, he's not exactly the MAGA menace Republicans would need to nominate to really scare the lefties. For Trump to be assassination-proof his putative successor would have to be someone like MTG or Boebert, and there's no way in hell that's happening. And if it somehow did happen, there's no way someone like that is defeating an incumbent. And even if someone like that did beat Biden in the general, it would pose no real threat to any powers that be because these people are totally incompetent and more interested in soundbites than government.
This is totally anecdotal but it proves my point. A friend of mine has a winter house in Boebert's district in Colorado. Being in the West, there's some local water authority, basically a citizens group, that relies on the local rep to get Federal funding for their operating budget. This isn't exactly controversial politically, but they have to meet with the rep every year to go over the budget and whatnot so the rep knows how much to ask for and can justify the number if pressed. First, instead of attending the board meeting, Boebert wanted to do it over the phone for no plausible reason other than that she was too lazy to attend. Okay, whatever, but when she's on the phone it's clear to everyone involved that she wasn't actually listening. When she asks for clarification of something that she should have understood had she been paying attention, it's clear to them that she's either a complete moron or has such a short attention span that she can't even listen to the answers to questions she asked (Which weren't pointed clarifications of someone involved but simply asking them to repeat what they just said). Then she terminated the meeting early by actually telling them it was boring. These aren't the kind of people who are going to make any significant change if in the White House.
RegularlyExpressed
9m ago
Nothing particularly heavy or impressive: the Sabriel series (written by Garth Nix), which I first read in my early adolescence and for some reason felt a compulsion to re-read recently. Young adult fantasy is probably the best way to describe it; there are references to sexual themes and occasionally somewhat graphic moments of violence but it's all relatively tame. I really enjoy the world-building and the magic and death systems, the latter of which is really what the core of the franchise is based on. I'd also forgotten how nice it is for literary escapism to actually be relatively optimistic in tone and cheerful for once - I'm as much a fan of grimdark as the next fantasy reader but it can get depressing after a while.
hydroacetylene
18m ago
I mean I did say we had a relative increase; I've been here since before we left reddit.
hydroacetylene
18m ago
We don't have any socialists that I know of, but we've got some techo-optimist progressives. I think this is an expression of the IQ here; internet socialism seems like a phenomenon of just not understanding markets or capitalism, and techno-optimist progressivism has some of the same impulses towards utopianism and unlimited future progress, without the basic obvious factual errors and delusions.
We definitely have some prominent racists. And I'd definitely lean towards them being disaffected blue tribers- indeed, our white nationalist effort poster is explicitly so- but I'd dispute that far right wingers generally are opposed to being associated with guns, Jesus, casual homophobia, and beer-and-forklift-jousting blue collar America.
Stefferi
Chief Suomiposter
55m ago
The actual instability in many continental (ie. usually PR-using) countries is less due to the small parties (they're often easy to ignore - they're small!) and more because there are major parties that are politically toxic (due to being extreme right or extreme left, or separatists) and thus basically almost automatically out of the government, which thus forces the rest of the parties into ideologically amorphous, unstable coalitions, or alternatively leads o the creation of large ideologically amorphous, unstable "system parties" (like the Italian Christian Democrats, the hegemonic party due to the main opposition being the Communists who were kept out of the government) where political barons bring down governments and cut each other down due to byzantine political machinations or simply due to spite.
The reason why those parties exist is because there are or were deeper systemic factors in those countries leading to large portions of population choosing such extreme or separatist parties. The Weimar Republic was not unstable because of its electoral system but simply because huge portions of the German population distrusted democracy and supported antidemocratic parties like the Communist, Nazis and the DNVP. If unstable countries were using FPTP, the same factors would just express themselves otherwise; the extreme left and right would eventually affect and radicalize the mainstream parties, and separatist/ethnic parties are usually concentrated enough to elect MPs even in FPTP systems.
The main FPTP-using countries, ie. Anglo countries, have been stable because they have been wealthy and have had longlasting liberal democratic cultures with powerful mechanisms encouraging stability. Nevertheless, even they've seen increasing destabilization lately, and that destabilization has then channeled itself in different ways, so you have the Trump presidency, Corbyn leadership in Labour and the Brexit.
Well, it is now looking like Trump may have been right. We know Wisconsin election was illegally ran in a way that probably tilt the balance from Trump to a Biden. The recent Georgia inquiry likewise shows different shenanigans in favor of Biden.
Add to it the hunter Biden false prebunking annd the interesting J6 revelations …are we sure Trump wasn’t the legit winner and Bisen is the one who ended democracy?
More options
Context Copy link