Don’t get it twisted. I am not letting McConnell off the hook either. Just that Trump deserves a not-insignificant amount of the blame as well, and perhaps it is time to move onto DeSantis. Since he is effectively “Trump with a filter”, as well as having shown an ability to wield executive power to actually enforce his will
The difference between the performance in Governor vs Senate was in the rural counties, where there's a general sense that the Evers is doing okay (better than Michigan anyway).
I think that happened in a lot of places. Here in my state of Kansas, Republicans did extremely well in the State House, Moran absolutely skated to reelection in the Senate(over 60% of the vote), and the Republicans won every Executive office up for election, save perhaps Governor. Hell, Kobach managed to win AG, which was a real surprise for me. But if Kelly remains governor, I am not going to be totally surprised.
She managed to not do anything aggressively Left-Wing and avoided making many of the mistakes other Dem governors did during Covid (whether because she knew it wouldnt fly or because she actually didnt want to is unclear), and there was no real enthusiasm for Schmidt. So combine that and you get her squeaking out a win. in a damn near 50/50 heat, with the current chance she may still lose, barely. And once again will be kept in check by the overwhelming R majority in the State and the Executive.
Honestly, I am coming around to that stance too. Once is something that can be speculated on. But a twice loser is a trend, and it pales to the absolute smackdown DeSantis committed (My man really flipped Miami-Dade?!) and his picks that were not in safe areas did poorly even if they won. I think the only one of his picks that did well was Vance, and there was a certain someone missing when Vance was saying his thank you's.
The random petty attacks on others who share his ideology is also something that is starting to turn me off. I liked his disrespect toward Dems and the Media, but he has been turning those guns rightward for strange reasons way too often now. And he is now officially at the point of tactics getting in the way of strategy, and I will not stand for it.
My one fear is that now, the McConnell types are going to use this to try and push for a "We need to go back to the before-Trump times", even though that is not something that would work either, and would be a great way to screw themselves over.
Although I must say: Last nights results back up my "Trump as Nixon, Biden as Carter, DeSantis as Reagan" theory.
Governors also went our way, as well as a lot of state level races (which are more important than you would think). This was also a bad Senate cycle for the Republicans. 2024 its bad for the Dems in terms of who is up.
Seconded. For all of the dooming, the Republicans (namely the MAGA types) have done a very good job of clamping down on the voting and taking over shit that matters in order to keep the elections from being "fortified" again outside of some extremely limited areas. And then we have the fact that the Dems are poised to get BTFO'ed in so many different places that they are going to have to chose who lives and who dies because they dont have the resources, and even after saving who they can they will still probably come up short to keep power.
Incidentally, this follows the trend of US Elections where irregularities and fraud happens. It will always exist in a handful of entrenched areas (New York, Chicago, LA being the prime examples). But when you try it on a larger scale, the person who got screwed has a tendency to come back pissed off and full of rage, and eat your gains as they run you down. So you only have a few years to plunder anything you can before they come and crush you (see also: the Andrew Jackson vs. Quincy Adams election of 1825).
Im'a be honest: The Aspergers rant offends me far more than anything she said about Kanye.
But these are people who distrust the media and wouldnt piss on a reporter if they were on fire. It has nothing to do with Ukraine being the Current Thing. It has to do with people genuinely enraged, mostly driven by them seeking out their own information with direct battlefield video and reporting (that never even touches the media in many cases), Many of them even go further than what the Media says.
In fact, I know people who were being tepid in the days before the invasion saying that it was a bad idea to keep poking the bear and that we should back off. Then the second Russian tanks rolled across the border, they said "I changed my mind. BURN RUSSIA TO THE GROUND!" I have also heard many a "the line must be drawn here" and comparing it to the Nazi's invading Poland, and how the French and British were cowards for not doing more and "We are going to show those Limey bastards and Frogs what a real ally looks like."
Same with the polling and surveys on the matter. Its one thing when you get a contentious issue, or one that is controversial. But when there is almost 70% approval across the board, that is not controversial and shows a definitive political direction.
I know its not what they want to hear, but the people on here are actually in the minority on the issue, by far.
EDIT: Another thing I just thought of. The media has been through about 3 or 4 different "Current Things" since Ukraine was invaded, but the support for Ukraine has remained high. Which tells me that rather than it being a media propped up "Current Thing", it was a genuine reaction that the media just happened to be on the same side as the general public on.
Getting the US out of a proxy war with Russia will be a successful campaign, and he's one of the only presidents in recent history with a real track record to prove that he can avoid war.
This one might be easier said than done, due to the strangeness of the issue. Basically, everything we have seen thus far show that the majority of people, Left, Right, and Center, acknowledge that we are in a proxy war with Russia, but also say “That’s a good thing.” Their only real concerns I have found come from “What if it goes nuclear?” and “I like weapons, but why so much money?”
It’s one of those that I know rankles people on this board, but all of the evidence show the average American is very much on team “Fuck Russia, Slava Ukraine”. Before we continue, it is worth pointing out that while feelings are strong, it’s not so strong it will ruin anyones support. Which is why Rand Paul can take the radical (to the average) opinion of stopping support and not really move the needle on his popularity.
If Trump, or anyone else, wants to fulfill the standard of stopping the war, they would have do these things (as I have found):
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Continue the weapon shipment, or even increase them. As most people I have talked to are in favor of even heavier firepower like tanks, jets, and cruise missiles. One absolute mad lad I met even suggested giving Ukraine their nukes back, but that was radical in the other direction from what I have found.
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Stop money payments. It’s easy to corruption away money, a lot harder with physical supplies.
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While finding peace is preferable, not at the expense of throwing Ukraine to the wolves. So any peace can’t let Ukraine just be turned into some rump state, and must be allowed to be a threat to Russia long term.
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Russia must bleed. As long as Putin is in charge, people want to see him swing from a post, and won’t take no for an answer. Or at least isolate him from the global community (which I am sure the Ruskies are also fine with).
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Make it obvious to China that if they try anything with Taiwan, they will suffer the same fate as above, or worse. Since most people still see China as the larger threat.
Very tall order, might be impossible. But if anyone can do it, it would probably be Trump (since he calmed both N.Korea and the Middle East), and not enough people think he is some Russian puppet to keep him from election.
Another thing that I am unsure if it was an accident or not but is still quite useful:
He went and met with groups like the ADL and SPLC to talk with them about the "hate speech" policy of his new Twitter. A lot of the Dissident Right and others allied with us started going full blackpilled (like usual) and started dooming that it was all in vain and he was just going to be the same as the old regime. But like usual, I decided that I dont really care about what his lips are saying, but what his hands are doing. And his hands were not moving at the same dance as his lips, so I decided to wait and see.
What we saw actually happen was that the second the advertising left (while he was still negotiating), he finally showed what his hands were doing. He pointed at them and said "I try to work with you and this is how you repay me?! Well, you can forget it! I am never speaking to you again if this is the kind of disrespect you will show me!"
Now, to the average normie who is unplugged from all of this stuff, Musk looks like the reasonable and rational one, and they are going to be scratching their heads and wondering what the problem is. And that may lead them to conclusions the Fabians would consider....unfortunate. But that we would be happy about. Like I continue to say, I continue to use my fiancé as the Normie yardstick due to her being actively hostile to politics. And the things she considers to be non-political opinions, if we are being frank, back up that Lenin quote you always throw around (about how the proletariat are the most reactionary force of all).
Especially when you consider that Lex Luther is probably the most reasonable DC villain. He just has a tendency of going too far (see also: J. Jonah Jamison for Marvel).
It was either Top Gear or the Grand Tour, I think it is the latter.
You are correct. It was Clarkson who did the whole segment, and it was great in his usual way.
I think my favorite one of the bullshit Lancia did is still the one where they only made half of the Civilian-spec cars they were supposed to, but managed to bullshit the inspectors long enough to move the cars from one lot to the other and change their VIN numbers to make it look like they made enough.
If you aint bending the rules, you aint truly racing.
Still, being the guy had to have a rule made to hold you down is in win all of its own.
Along those same sort of lines, I remember seeing a documentary about Lancia being the last team to win the WRC with a rear-wheel drive vehicle (the Rally 037).
They were having to do a race at Monte Carlo where part of the track is icy while the other part is dry road. So no matter what tire you use, you are giving up time in the other part (treads=slow on ice, studs=slow on pavement). But Lancia needed every last second they could get because of how tight the competition was and the downsides of their car.
So on a corner just after they got past the ice on the downhill, they had a team van waiting for them. Once they got there, they stopped, quickly switched tires, and then kept on running, losing only a few seconds due to the fast change over. After the race, other teams complained about them doing this and said they cheated.
After further review, WRC concluded that while there was no rule saying they could do this, there was also no rule saying they couldnt do this. So WRC allowed it, but clarified that such a move was off-limits from now on. Didnt matter though since Lancia placed high at Monte Carlo, which kept them in the running for later races and would allow them to win in the end.
And even if they did: So? Ben would absolutely give him a fair shake. He has interviewed people far more controversial than Kanye and let them speak their piece.
They also dont understand biomes (ironically enough). Here in Kansas, we have the last of the Tallgrass Prairie that exist in any sort of major quantity. The prairie used to extend all the way up to Illinois from Colorado, but almost all of it has either turned into forest because of well-meaning people wanting to let trees grow, and more often because it has been plowed under for farmland.
Meanwhile, our soil was too tough and rocky to plow with old iron plows, and by the time steel plows came conservation efforts were already underway to protect it. So what did we do with it instead? Cattle. Lots of Cattle. And it turns out, domestic cattle and the bison before them have very similar grazing patterns. So parts of the prairie that had been falling into disrepair sprang back into life as the cattle took their place in the circle of life.
Whenever I try to explain that to the eco-nuts, they look at me like I am speaking Greek, because they can not comprehend it.
It’s not about the size. It’s about the attitude.
Signed, a fellow very tall Dwarf
I am going to be having to thoroughly disagree with him. I have been having a blast and consider it to be a massive step forward from Vicky 2. And having listened to his complaints, a lot of it comes off as nitpicking over minor things. For instance, he said "There is no difference in playing as different nations now." But I had a very different game playing as Sweden, which was different from Belgium, which was very different from playing Chile, which was very different from playing Vietnam.
He can hate it all he wants. I will be over here loving it.
Not only that, Hitler wrote extensively about how much he hated Christianity and thought that it was a weak religion that made you a cuck. And the only reason he couldnt get rid of it was because there were so many Germans who were worshippers that it would be more than a little obvious.
Its also funny because while Hispanics in Cali and New York are still playing ball with the Left as their new personal pets, Hispanics in most of the rest of the are flipping hard to the Right, and are placing a ton of zones into play that were not expected and/or making areas that were already Red even more solidly red.
Literally a scapegoat.
while Captain Marvel flies through everybody then gets bodied by Thanos anyways.
You want a true sign of how unpopular Captain Marvel was/is? When that scene happened in the theater I was in, it was met with laughter and cheers.
More importantly, they are still operating under this irrational idea that women only care about female heroes. You want to know what most of the normie women I talk to like as heroes? Capt. America, Iron Man, Super-man, Spider-man, and Thor. If you ask them to name a female hero they like, you will be hard pressed to get anything other than Wonder Woman, Scarlet Witch, or some of the members of the X-Men like Rogue and Storm.
Because, and I know this is going to be shocking for the SJW's so I hope they have a seat, they care about the CHARACTER! They couldnt give less of a god damn if its a woman or not. They like Thor because Chris Hemsworth is hot and Thor is fairly witty. They like Capt. America because they like his optimism and never give up attitude. They like Iron Man for the same reasons they like Thor. And on and on. None of them give even the mildest of a damn about this modern Marvel stuff. In fact, some of them who were fans are now turning off from it.
And it confuses me to no end that Hollywood keeps having this happen, and they STILL refuse to admit that average women are not behaving like their Diversity Chief said they would, and maybe they should stop listening to them.
It’s a worthwhile worry. But I am less concerned for two reasons:
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Biden has been attempting to fuck with Florida and Texas for years for defying him, and has found that much easier said than done. And it’s also resulted in more states taking up the banner making it that much harder.
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If he does try something unprecedented and forces a Fed crackdown, then he gives Red America carte Blanche to fuck with him and not get in trouble. And the new Populist fueled Republican Party has shown a willingness to engage in turnabout when they get the whip hand.
Bold of them to assume anywhere outside of their hard Blue enclaves will do anything other than tell them to piss off and keep living their lives.
Even what they do with media and games is a continuation of this. “Hey! Hey look! I broke your favorite comic book! Suck it nerd!!”
After all: when you look back far enough, you usually find out that these SJW types where the one bullying you in school before it became cool to like games, anime, and comics.
Honestly, I dont get all of the dooming happening in here. The results, while mediocre, are nowhere near as bad as a lot of the goons on here say it is.
As for Trump: I wanted him to run again in 2024. But I have long been an advocate of not letting the Perfect be the enemy of Good when it comes to politics, so I will advocate for a RINO over a Dem in almost all cases (outside of extreme cases like Cheney or Murkowski, where an alternative can be found). But now, Trump himself if allowing that very issue to happen, as he demands those who are loyal to him rather than those who can do work.
Therefore, its time to thank him for his absolutely brazen kamikaze run to kill the political legacies of numerous different dynasties, as well as expose who we are up against. But now we need someone who can take that information and run with it. And it data is increasingly showing that is DeSantis.
I am just getting sick of the blackpilled among us. Maybe its because I diversified my news feed and info intake, but all of the data I see across the board is moving in our direction. It will just take more time.