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Reposted by Martin #509

Boo-is @louisevans.bsky.social · 16h

Ultimately it's the yawning moral void at the heart of this type of writing that baffles me. "Oh, the best data suggests that most voters feel that—" YOU ARE THE NYT EDITORIAL BOARD. I AM READING YOU FOR YOUR OPINION. TELL ME WHAT IT IS.

rev. howard arson @theophite.bsky.social · 17h

i would absolutely be willing to screw over the, like, nine trans high school athletes in america in order to get workplace protections for other trans people, except i know that doing so would only show weakness and i wouldn't get the other thing anyway. also no one votes on that basis.

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Martin #509 @martin509.bsky.social · 16h

Yep, I've noticed that Americans have completely lost any drive to discuss the federal legislation being passed, which is very, VERY different from, say, the Canadian political environment, where individual bills are very often the subject of right-wing outrage.

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Martin #509 @martin509.bsky.social · 17h

The current US president is a billionaire lord, and is objectively not fulfilling any of those functions.

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Martin #509 @martin509.bsky.social · 17h

Yes, if no one abuses the obviously massively abusable legislative system, it won't be abused.

Other countries don't have the US' problem, and they absolutely elect plenty of eager would-be obstructionists.

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Martin #509 @martin509.bsky.social · 17h

Events that have reliably happened with every admin since 2010?

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Martin #509 @martin509.bsky.social · 19h

In large part I think a reason why fascism has fallen so flat in Canada is, despite everyone being pissed off with Trudeau, he *did things* and people could be assured a Liberal government would actually govern.

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Martin #509 @martin509.bsky.social · 19h

Even 90s Clintonism would probably do better than nothing if they actually managed to nuke the filibuster, just by virtue of people living under a government that can pass a budget again

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Martin #509 @martin509.bsky.social · 19h

I think something uniquely corrosive to the US, and not other countries, is that their legislature *effectively does not pass new legislation anymore* and the electorate has spent the last decade plus going absolutely stir-crazy from that fact.

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Martin #509 @martin509.bsky.social · 19h

It's funny that even the clods at the NYT can kind of grasp at the basic idea, here, that people want to vote for a politician who actually believes in something and passes laws to that effect

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Martin #509 @martin509.bsky.social · 19h

"Maybe this is an artifact of Elon's stewardship but"

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Martin #509 @martin509.bsky.social · 22h

I wonder if the equivalent of e.g. the Tea Party primarying arch-Republicans would work in this case

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Martin #509 @martin509.bsky.social · 23h

"How dare you say the president has or wants absolute power. Anyways if the president had absolute power he would outlaw you fucking commoners protesting his rule."

Aaron Rupar @atrupar.com · 23h

Mike Johnson: "The irony was that they called it the No Kings Rally, but if President Trump was a king, the government would be open. If President Trump was a king, he would've closed the nationals parks and the National Mall so they couldn't of had the rally out here."

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Martin #509 @martin509.bsky.social · 23h

I like how prior to the rally they tried desperately and sweatily to frame it as No Kings, No Paychecks, and now they're trying to backpedal while simultaneously sticking to that same "let me be king and I will bribe you" slogan

Martin #509 @martin509.bsky.social · 23h

The blatant illegality is because they want to deprive their enemies of judicial tools, sure, but also like... the opening months of DOGE were spent ripping all the copper out of the walls trying to turn off The Democrat Machine, because they think all political movements work like that.

Martin #509 @martin509.bsky.social · 23h

I think the thing is that they view demolishing state capacity as *the same* as exercising power. In their minds all those government services inherently turned people against them, and if you shut those services off they will win politics forever.

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Martin #509 @martin509.bsky.social · 23h

A useful perspective I think: in uni I took a course labeled "compiler construction" that was entirely just very interesting finite state machine math. No compiler was constructed in the course.

LLM coding is compiling, and what compiling *actually is* is grammar and linguistics.

Martin #509 @martin509.bsky.social · 1d

nothing makes a nation in the grip of a gambling frenzy mad at someone like *checks notes* talking about how great he is at blackjack

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Martin #509 @martin509.bsky.social · 1d

98% of the soup I've had in my life is palatable at best and then the top 2% is *unreasonably* delicious

Martin #509 @martin509.bsky.social · 2d

No as in like, the modern return of the PLC looks like the A90 Supra and the Hyundai N 79 and the Nissan Z

Martin #509 @martin509.bsky.social · 2d

*whispers*

the modern version of a PLC is a retro 80s sports car, PLCs only existed as long as 'retro throwback to 1930s luxury' made sense to people

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Martin #509 @martin509.bsky.social · 2d

as far as '70s luxury coupes go, it's that or the Lincoln Mark V

a Lincoln Continental Mark V, a large, rectilinear coupe with hidden headlights, a vertical grille, a Landau top, opera windows, fine white upholstery, silvery blue paint, and wire wheels

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Martin #509 @martin509.bsky.social · 2d

f i n e

c o r i n t h i a n

l e a t h e r

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Martin #509 @martin509.bsky.social · 2d

What I think will be a critical point is where this turns from one-offs to a sustained, day in day out protest.

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Reposted by Martin #509

olive consumer's ambulatory skeleton @machete.gay · 2d

This appears to be the current tone and tenor of broad American Liberalism. What I will call the re-cooption of patriotic symbolism is noteworthy and speaks to what anger you find in people at events similar to this one.

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Martin #509 @martin509.bsky.social · 3d

Donald Trump was actually a colloquial term to refer to several prominent figures (JD Vance, RFK Junior, Stephen Miller and Elon Musk), also known as the Redhats, who collectively closed off US culture to outsiders during the 21st century

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