#screw everyone who voted for donald trump

[samasmith23]

George Lucas tried to warn us about this crap years ago, and y’all didn’t heed his words:

“Democracies aren't overthrown; they're given away.”

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Dan Pfeiffer at The Message Box:

It is a tradition among Democrats in the Trump era. Around the first couple of weeks of October, we lose our minds and briefly forget everything we have learned about politics. Democratic electeds and operatives start panicking about the polls and dial up every reporter in their contacts to offload their anxiety in the least helpful ways possible.

[...] On one hand, I get it. The stakes could not be higher and the race could not be closer. It’s equal parts mystifying and enraging that someone as dumb and dangerous as Donald Trump could win the election. However, to quote a famous meme from this exact moment in the 2008 campaign: “Everyone needs to chill the fuck out.” I am not telling anyone to stop “bedwetting.” And I am certainly NOT telling people that Kamala Harris will definitely win. Trump may still win this race. By some measures, Trump is stronger than he was in 2020. But the whiplash between the Democratic elation of a few weeks ago and the full-on panic of the last few days is detached from reality. This has been a remarkably stable race. The vibes changed, but the race hasn’t.

A Steady State of the Race

With three weeks to go, Kamala Harris and Donald Trump are in a dead-heat race nationally and in all seven battleground states. That’s where the race was before the Democratic convention, after the second debate, and after the second assassination attempt on Trump. For an election beset by a series of unprecedented events, the Harris-Trump race remains remarkably steady. [...] All seven battleground states are within two points — essentially statistical ties. If you squint, you can catch slight movement towards Trump over the last two weeks in the polling averages in the Blue Wall states of Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin. While there has been also  some movement in Harris’s direction in some other states., Maybe that’s real. Maybe it’s just noise. Either way, remember that polls are not predictive. They are imprecise snapshots in time. I bring up this imprecision not to suggest that the polls are “wrong” or “biased” or that the averages are irrevocably screwed because of a flood of junk GOP polls. Polls are inherently imprecise. That’s why there’s a margin of error. A poll with Kamala Harris up two and a poll with her down two say the same thing. This race is a toss-up. These dramatic mood shifts based on polling movement within the margin of error are understandable given the stakes, but they do not reflect reality.

[...]

Kamala Harris’s Upside

Trump has structural advantages. He is better known. The Electoral College has a Republican bias. People are unhappy with the economy, and President Biden’s approval rating is underwater. These are tough political headwinds to overcome. However, Kamala Harris has some real advantages over these final three weeks. First, Kamala Harris has a higher ceiling. Trump never received more than 47% of the vote nationally and tends to cap out at about 48% in the battleground states. That’s enough to win, but only barely. As evidenced by Biden’s numbers in 2020 and Democratic performance in these battleground states, Harris has the greater potential to grow her vote total than Trump. Second, Harris is the better, more popular candidate. She isn’t perfect on the stump, but her appearances in the media and on the campaign trail benefit her. Trump's — not so much. Blueprint, a Democratic research firm, tested clips from Harris’s recent interview with MSNBC’s Stephanie Ruhle and every clip was viewed positively by six in ten voters, and every clip made those who saw it more likely to vote for her. Next week, Harris is barnstorming six battleground states with at least 19 events. Finally, she has more money to spend over the last few weeks. In a close race, a better field operation makes the difference; and Harris has the better field operation.

Dan Pfeiffer writes in The Message Box today about why Democrats should stop doomering about the polls. The race is a close contest that either Kamala Harris (D) or Donald Trump (R) can realistically win.

It’s a close contest, but I think Harris has the narrow edge as of now.

[nodynasty4us]

Another letter from the October 13, 2024 mailbag:

D.T. in Columbus, OH, writes: I would argue that the (definitely real) bias in media coverage has a much simpler explanation than being some sort of conspiracy to help Trump. Simply put: Negative stories about Democrats are more "newsworthy". Keep in mind exactly how low the bar has been set for Donald Trump. He utters crazy, rambling nonsense every day. He says bigoted things all the time. So "Trump does something awful" is not really an interesting news story. It is very clearly a "dog bites man" event. This isn't a moral judgment, or excusing Donald Trump's behavior as acceptable. But if the purpose of news organizations is to provide people with information they did not yet have... well, reminding people that "Trump is still a crazy a**hole" is a waste of effort. Everyone already has this information. By contrast, when one of Trump's opponents screws up, it is quite noteworthy. Corruption, bigotry, or mental impairment are not expected from the Democrats. In the first debate this year, Donald Trump's rambling was actually way less coherent than what Joe Biden said. But the impact for Joe Biden's campaign was much more significant. Everyone knows Donald Trump is incapable of presenting a coherent argument. But people had higher expectations for Biden, so his bad performance was more newsworthy. This was a "man bites dog" situation. It was information that many voters did not already have. I don't like the imbalance in reporting, either. I wish the bar had not been lowered so much for Trump. But that's not something the news organizations can change by themselves. That can only be fixed by the voters, many who are inexplicably still willing to vote for Trump.

[terriwriting]

When Donald gets really mad about screwing up, he pretends to be happy about it. Take a look at this mess of a diatribe he posted to Truth Social:

I watched Joe Biden Monday night, and was amazed at his ANGER at being humiliated by the Democrats. I was happy to have played a part in his demise in that it all began on the evening of June 27, 2024, THE DEBATE, which I think was heavily pushed and promoted by Comrade Kamala Harris. She knew what was going to happen, and so did everyone else. It led to a first ever COUP of the President of the United States, who is now unhappily sunbathing on a Beach in California, watching the waves, and thinking how much he hates Barack Hussein Obama, Crazy Nancy Pelosi, and Lightweight Movie "Star" George Clooney, who failed to come to Crooked Joe's defense. The good news is that I believe Joe Biden, the Worst President in the History of the United States, who served with the Worst Vice President in the History of the United States, is now seething. I don't know why he gave up, I don't know why he quit. He got 14 Million Votes, she got NONE. He's an angry man now, and he should be!

Gif by Ann Telnaes.

[scarfacemarston]

Look, I love Sebastian Stan. He’s my face claim for my oc and DnD character, but I can’t stand most of his fans. They’re so childish. Not everyone, of course!

But I’m super peeved that so many fans are now talking about how hot Donald Trump is or how they want to screw him. I’m not surprised, it’s just annoying. But what DOES piss me off is when people are talking about voting for him now…because Sebastian played him. I’m hoping they’re joking because Trump doesn’t give a fuck about anyone. He’s literally destroying the country. Sadly, I know some people that aren’t joking and I hope they’re in the minority - but looking at tumblr and the shit people spew, who knows.

[misfitwashere]

Donald Trump has crushed his rivals in the Iowa caucuses. Should they drop out and let him take on Biden?

From Quora:

Let’s be honest, we all knew this was going to happen and the entire country and by extension the world were bracing themselves for it. However, the biggest news were the exit polls, 2/3 say they feel Trump won the 2020 election and the Biden Presidency is illegitimate, 44% said they were MAGAS and they would vote for Trump even if he was convicted of a crime.

DeSantis and Haley are road kill at this point. They had their chances, Haley could make it a little closer, DeSantis will stay in only for the inevitable losses to come and drop out within a month, 2 at the most.

The real issue is this one:

Joy Reid accuses White Christian Iowans of wanting to have people of color 'bow down' to them

Reid argued that evangelicals support Trump because they believe 'immigrants' and 'brown people' are 'illegitimate Americans'

Ok so what is it going to be folks. Trump has a 90% probability that he is going to win the Republican nomination, what are the Democrats going to do about it. Trump owns the evangelicals, all the mocking about him not being a Christian, the anti-Christ, none of them give a damn. He is their guy, their Jesus and he can say and do anything that he wants.

The General election effectively began last night.

The Republicans have made their agenda clear. Biden stole the election, doesn’t matter that everyone knows he did not, doesn’t matter how well he has led the country, doesn’t matter that Trump inspired and led an insurrection against the USA, what matters is what they believe.

Now what do the Democrats believe. Don’t even bother trying to convince evangelicals who have their Jesus martyr victim grifting them for money. Don’t think about those MAGA hatted folks, they want Trump.

There are 40% who are now ‘independents’ in the USA, they hold the balance of power. The Iowa caucuses have very few people but they have spoken for the Republicans, they want Trump, they worship and adore Trump. Trump could shoot them all on 5th avenue and they would gladly bow down. That is the GOP today.

Democrats, start your engines. No more whinging about Biden didn’t manage to overturn the Supreme Court decision to get your student loans cut, sorry kids you will have to pay, not as much as he did get you $50 billion back but not enough for you perfect kids. Millennials ditto, your raises were only 20% this year in your nice cushy jobs. Same for you African Americans, you are complaining the loudest, we hear you, you want more but you won’t get more if you don’t get up and vote for Biden, you will get nothing as Joy Reid has pointed out, you are illegitimate Americans to Trump supporters.

Same for you Latinos, you want to ‘bow down’ to Christian evangelicals. How about you classic Liberals, you like that Christian theocracy because if Trump wins it is surely coming. Oh and you Israel supporters bitching and moaning about Biden who is the strongest Presidential supporter of Israel ever, you don’t like him? Think about what Trump will give away.

Ditto to Ukraine and European supporters, you don’t want Trump, then you better wake up. How about those transatlantic Brits, you and the Aussies who are so dependent and deep in on AUKUS and everything else Biden has done for you, time to step up and support Biden.

I could go on but on the other side, the Saudis will clearly screw around with oil to raise the price of gas to push for Trump who will give them everything. They hate it that Biden is focused on renewables and the lies of Trump on Biden and oil? Hahaha what a joke, Biden is pumping more than Saudi the most oil pumped in the history of the world.

Putin is dancing in the street, he feels he just won the war in Ukraine. Make no doubt about it, Putin wants Trump as does Xi Jin Ping and every other authoritarian including Netanyahu. You like war, you like death you like the end of democracy on a global level, vote for Trump. He will take you down with him.

Oh and yes; Lies, lies and more damn lies you can see them coming. Daily, hourly ever more outlandish than the last ones.

This is the beginning of a 10 month campaign, buckle up, it is going to be the wildest and most important one in US history. Not hyperbole, reality.

Let’s get to work and make sure Trump gets crushed right back in November, 2024.

Henry R. Greenfield ·

Former Senior Consultant Global Digital Twin Technology at Integrated Facility Management (2019��2023)

[uboat53]

Hey look, another episode of "how the political media is screwing up", that didn't take long… All right, here we go.

So at the first night of the Republican National Convention, we saw a parade of black Republicans and other African-Americans who support Trump for president giving speeches and this was duly reported as the Republican outreach to black voters. Was it, though?

Look what those African-Americans talked about: they spent most of their time arguing that black voters had been brainwashed by Democrats and were on a "plantation" that they needed to escape from by voting for Republicans. I'm not sure if you know any African-Americans well enough to talk politics with them, but does this sound like it's speaking to the issues they care about? Do you think this line of argument went over well with them?

Assuming the people who programmed the convention aren't stupid (and Republican strategists generally do not have a reputation as being stupid), there must be another explanation for why they would devote an entire night to this because it definitely didn't gain them any serious amount of black votes. And here's the thing, anyone who is savvy about politics and has actually studied the history of race in politics knows exactly what they were doing.

You see, Donald Trump has a racism problem. He's promoted racist militias, tried to "both-sides" a major white supremacist terror attack, has embraced official hostility to civil rights policy, and has a decades-long business record of screwing over black people at his properties. More to the point, white supremacists LOVE him. I don't recommend going onto VDARE or Stormfront or other neo-Nazi/white supremacist websites but, if you do, you'll notice that they're overwhelmingly supportive of Trump. They believe he's advanced their cause immeasurably and moved openly racist ideas into the sphere of acceptable discourse in this country for the first time since the civil rights era, and they believe this because… well… he has. He and his allied media have promoted racist ideas like The Great Replacement Theory and moved it from a fringe idea that no one who valued their reputation would even acknowledge to something that gets discussed in respectable political shows.

And that's a problem for him. You see, there's not a ton of openly racist voters out there, but there are a ton of ordinary, button-down, "sensible conservative" types out there who would really love to vote Republican because they still hold to the Reaganomics orthodoxy but they're afraid of being labeled as racist. I'm sure you know a bunch of these people, they're all over the place.

That programming of black voices was for them. It had nothing to do with getting African-Americans to vote for Trump or vote Republican and EVERYTHING to do with convincing squishy conservative voters that "Trump's not racist, see, a bunch of black people said so."

As I said, this isn't mysterious. Everyone in politics or who studies it knows exactly what this is. I you don't believe me, e-mail any political science professor, they'll be happy to talk about it. Seriously, they'll be thrilled that someone is interested in their opinion, you should try it.

Except, apparently, the political media. And, look, it's not myserious why either. It's not that they don't know what's going on, but they're scared to say it. If they accurately report that Republicans are trying to tamp down accusations of racism to make white people feel secure in voting for them, conservative groups will scream bloody murder and claim that it really is an appeal to black voters (despite that fact that it, you know, has basically no appeal to black voters). At this point there are conservative billionaires on the board of just about every major media company, so those complaints will be amplified and passed down the chain of command. A journalist may not necessarily be fired for pointing out the obvious, but it's not a great career move.

And that, more than anything is the problem with the political media today.

(PS - If you're interested in good coverage of the Republican National Convention this week and probably the Democratic National Convention next week, I highly recommend The Daily Show With Jon Stewart. They're not actual journalists and, thus, are still producing great coverage.)

[ozma914]

Here's Who Will Be the Next President

 Yes, I'm going to tell you who will be named President on November Fifth, or possibly sometime in December.

In a minute.

I hate politics, and yet I follow politics closely. Why? For the same reason I used to pay close attention to where my dog did his business in the yard: The results could really screw up my day. Also, in both cases the results always seem to stink.

Every election the left gets lefter, the right gets righter, and the people in the middle question why we're giving so much power to a two-party system. It seems like the only people who want to start new political parties are even more extreme than the ones already there.

Then they wonder why everyone's so angry.

We should all be reminded of a song that might as well be about the present situation:

Clowns to the left of me Jokers to the right Here I am, stuck in the middle with you

Most of the little people are regular and overall decent folk doing the best they can. The worst problem they have is hypocrisy: The other guy is ALL bad, and our guy is ALL good. They refuse to except that their candidate isn't perfect, and that the other candidate may (gasp!) have some good points. The opposition isn't just wrong: They're demons who eat children and kick dogs, or possibly the other way around.

The truth is, once they've achieved a certain level in their political climb, both sides tend to turn into crooks working not for the people, but for their parties. All you have to do is look at laws they pass that don't apply to them, perks they get that no one else does, and the way the system is designed to make their reelection almost a done deal.

Term limits? "Sure, everyone else should be voted out, but not my guy!"

 The increased hatred of career politicians is what brought us Donald Trump. Love him or hate him, but pay attention.

Me, I don't like either candidate, although most of my political beliefs lean right of center. Some in the middle, a few left. Since I don't like any of the Presidential or Vice Presidential candidates, it's a lot easier to think more in terms of policies and records. In that, there's suckage on both sides.

What am I looking for somebody in Washington to do? Show me how they will:

Seal our porous southern border and stop the flow of illegal immigrants and various bad guys, and get those who are already here out.

Make the process for legal immigration more streamlined and easier for the people who get in line.

Balance the budget and start doing something about the approaching firestorm otherwise known as Federal Debt.

On a related note, shrink the government (which could be accomplished by deleting every Federal function that directly conflicts with the Constitution. Remember that thing?)

Maintain a strong defense in the face of our new Cold War with the Chinese and other challenges, while also controlling waste and costs in the military, and boy did I just ask for the impossible. Nobody said it was easy.

Get tougher on crime ... including crime among politicians. Find a way to make health care more affordable for everyone, without leaving the decisions in the hands of red tape bureaucrats in Washington.

There's more, and I may not have listed the more important ones, but you get the idea. I'm not looking for an argument, so don't bother: I'm just calling it as I see it. And speaking of that, our next President will be:

Kamala Harris.

Maybe I'd be more thrilled if she'd actually showed up for work in the last four years, but she has a lot of advantages. Being a Democrat, she naturally has the support of almost all of the mainstream media. She's already established as VP (which isn't as much of an advantage as you'd think: Only six have been elected to the highest office). She has the correct gender and skin color. True, some will vote against her because of this, but many more will vote for her because of it, regardless of other factors.

So Harris will win, Trump will protest, and life will go on. The size of government and the debt will continue to grow. The border situation will maybe get better, with so much light being shined on it. And everyone will continue hating everyone else.And then it'll be 2028.

We and our books can be found ... everywhere:

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Remember: If you don't vote, don't complain.

[tuxebo]

Same person who asked with the Kamala or Donald guy.

Sorry I forgot you pissed off, I’m rn doing research, this entire situation is just so wrong. I see posts taking Israel side and others taking Palestines side. Some saying they are both not in the wrong or right.

If you want to, may you talk more this situation? Also is there anything more about Kamala? Like what is she offering for your country, anything bad she has done?

No need for apologies, I just wanted to make it clear.

Liberals want Kamala Harris in to be the first "black" woman president. That's... about it. As a black-filipino girl, that is the most racist thing. We don't vote because of a person's skin color, screw that. She already lost. Plus, she wasn't black until recently. Where did the Indian go?

As a biracial, it isn't one on a Monday and the other on a Tuesday. I'm not black if I'm not filipino and white, I'm not filipino if I'm not white and black. I'm not white if I'm not black and filipino. Does that make me tri-racial? I don't really care.

She has nothing else, literally nothing aside from her race and sex. In fact, she wants to price gouge, which is the literal definition of communism. Everyone, left, right, and center have criticized her on this. Heavily. She failed at the border, we are involved in too many wars, jobs are being stolen from the American people and given to illegals that our taxpayer dollars ALREADY GO TO (we feel this in Cali,) illiteracy is too high (In California, only 58% of fourth grade students can read at a basic level based on the most recent National Assessment of Education Progress (NAEP)), inflation is way too high under Bidenomics, crime is at an all time high and she wanted to defund the police.

Look at Democratic cities, I'll put NY AND CA on blast here, now picture all of America like that.

A large part about picking a candidate this election, for conservatives, is feeling the effects of their time in office. You have to have commonsense and be here to truly understand this part. Under Trump there were no wars, lower prices and taxes, the border was in the process of being closed and secure. He brought jobs to the American people, crimes were lower. Don't bring up Jan 6 because I'd have to talk about the Democratic George Floyd RIOTS.

Hispanics, Blacks, Asians, Whites, ─ AMERICANS need to stop believing the lies of the Democratic Party, the media and Democratic Party keep spreading misinformation. Identity politics is complete bull.

Please research: watch Trump rallies, meet MAGA supporters, look at what he's done. Prove me wrong. We are not the stereotype, you'll be surprised just how welcoming and diverse the MAGA Party is. Unfortunately there is a lot of propaganda and media censorship, so I can give some bite-size places to start if you want.

There are extremist Republicans, but they are not the majority. Most of us don't even know what Project 2025 is, that is more left bs. Trump said he doesn't want to know what Project 2025 is. A lot of us are not old, white dudes. Not at all, we are informed.

And we just don't want an incompetent, DEI President. No thank you.

[hasufin]

Cross purposes

So, I think there are three facts which any rational adult can agree about WRT to the US Presidential elections

Either Donald Trump or Joe Biden will be elected POTUS for the next four years. Not voting does not "send a message", it just means one less vote.

Joe Biden is an imperfect candidate - he's too old, not progressive enough, &c.

Joe Biden could be clinically dead and still be a better choice than Donald Trump in pretty much every way.

These aren't really matters up for debate. Shrieking that you don't like any of them does not change them.

What I wonder, though, is if there exists a lot of disk horse which involves people being serious/unserious in ways which set off other people.

What I mean is, yes, there's a lot of frustration about these three points. None of them are great; they all mean accepting premises which while true say very bad things about the state of our society.

So, I think some people are venting that they don't want to vote because they hate all of this. And that's valid. But at least some of them are not serious: they actually know that not voting has the same prospect of effectiveness as it has in every previous election (i.e., zero) and will vote. They just want to talk about not voting and imagine having a world where that was a meaningful option.

But, on the Internet, this unserious venting looks exactly like someone seriously saying "Don't Vote! Everyone and Everything is Equally Awful and if you don't vote you get to unlock the Special Secret Candidate who is Better In Every Way!". And, well, not voting has kinda screwed us a LOT, plus there are in fact propaganda accounts which are pushing people to not vote, because the fewer members of the population vote, the more it supports oligarchic interests who want to see us all become serfs.

And that means there are people who immediately take the "I'm not gonna vote!" venting as a serious thing and start yelling at them. Nothing harshes the vibe of unserious venting quite like having some pompous person taking it seriously and trying to punish you for being upset about shitty stuff.

And that just devolves to a lot of people who are really all on the same side just yelling at each other.

[anthonybialy]

A Conviction That Trump’s No Felon

A show conviction surely won’t end up helping Donald Trump in the same way printing money made everything affordable.  Democrats have a plan to cope with how they screwed up their previous ones.  Planning ahead is for suckers who don’t have power to abuse.  Look at the thoroughly Third World conditions they’ve created and tell me they’ve thought out the next step.  

Donald Trump is a victim.  That’s quite the thing to be accurate.  The patron saint of the aggrieved now has the worst thing possible, namely a case.  The lousy verdict enabled his faction of aggrieved whiners with undeserved evidence.  Trump’s greatest weapon remains his enemies.

Learn from your own scheming scumbags.  Executive humping enthusiast Bill Clinton’s poll numbers went up whenever it seemed he might be removed from power over his fibbing about a special kiss from a seduced intern.  Democrats granted Trump the same opportunity to thrive off lechery, with the difference being he didn’t break the law by trying to evade sidepiece detection.  And you claimed there was no bipartisanship.

No one is above the law, declare those below it.  The debate about a smirking jury’s decision focuses on how a mock trial will harm the candidacy of an unctuous libertine who wasn’t guilty even if he kept on his wedding ring.  This is the system at its noblest.

If a lunatic’s shrieking that the system is corrupt, it shouldn’t prove him right.  A horrible yet innocent person hasn’t been punished this infamously since Freddy Quimby.

How couldn’t they find something Trump actually did?  That’s the worst part.  The party that can’t find peace or prosperity is thorough in obliviousness.  

The system’s busted.  And its latest victim is the least qualified person to fix it.  Ranting without results defined his term like it has his spectacularly hollow career.  The only reason it’s unsurprising that Trump got something right is that he’s dealing with shameful foes who seize autonomy in order to seize more of it.  There are adorably still a few holdouts who maintain the reigning party wants to confiscate stuff and rights for everyone’s benefit.

Liberals suddenly care about crime.  They seem to be fans of it based on how their policies treat perpetrators like victims.  New York City makes Batman movies look understated.  Gotham’s countless muggers are free to continue plying their trade.  A revolving door jailhouse applies to everyone arrested except for the reality show host president who’s applying for the job again.

Felon BFF Alvin Bragg finally decides to prosecute something, and it’s this.  A district attorney so preposterous that Tom Wolfe couldn’t have invented him as a character cracked down on the crime of being someone he didn’t vote for.

Trump’s zip-it cash labeling system is the first alleged violation that’s ever bothered Bragg, so nobody’s shocked he didn’t know what qualified.  It’s uncanny that he went after someone he campaigned on confronting.  Partisan pursuits make predictions true.

The only crimes in New York City are being Donald Trump and cooking pizza with coal.  The 1970s request you stop comparing the present regrettable time to it.  We don’t even get the decadence of disco or catharsis of punk out of the present bout with enabling barbarians.  But those who would’ve approved of the ostensible Republican’s deficit spending if his name had been taken off get the tawdry thrill of gloating about sentencing someone they just know acted illicitly somehow.

Pretending to go after white-collar criminals as the subways resemble a Charles Bronson reboot means he doesn’t care about real offenses.  The ode to North Korean prosecution wasn’t getting derailed just because nobody can list the alleged countless victims.  Many who constantly bitch about the justice system’s unfairness are gloating about Trump being found guilty despite the technicality of not committing a crime.

Those cheering for the previous president to do time will flip out when a Democratic candidate is prosecuted on fantasized charges.  You anticipate they might appreciate meeting their standards.  Spot who’s full of it by how they hate living under their own rules.

Republicans will either be at a disadvantage for not being as scuzzy as their counterparts or sink to their level for a muck fight. The media will condemn the latter without noting precedent.  And they’ll never determine why a raving madman rose to prominence in the first place.

Trump’s enemies kept him competitive so they can continue to have purpose in life. Or they didn’t plot out consequences, whatever.  Not thinking out things is so unlike the sorts who proclaimed not paying back loans would lead to widespread wealth.

If the goal was to allow Trump to portray himself as aggrieved, then the mission is accomplished.  The greatest businessman ever isn’t going to make money on real estate or selling steaks on television, but he can grift off the indignant.  Now, he doesn’t even need to invent a shaky reason.

Both sides predict this year’s most notorious conviction helps.  It’s the only agreement on anything.  The mugshot used as avatars by both his own cult and its zealous foes made social media even more confusing.  Now, conservatives who loathe the Republican option for his liberal tendencies and personality may as well cherish the chance to display principles.  I cannot offer enough middle fingers to everyone gloating about a garbage conviction for making me defend Trump.

Did the scoundrel actually commit a crime?  Everyone forgot to ask.  We can’t even get nice chinos at this banana republic.  Inflation applies to charges like it does garment budgets.  Making Trump look like he’s not the scumbag is the most astounding Democratic achievement yet.

[hewholivesinhisname]

Conservative Men are usually idiots

Would and should you support organizations that are easily infiltrated and taken over by your enemies and which promote all the things you hate including stealing your children, your money, sending you to war and letting your wife take all your money all while threatening to put you in a gulag?

This is how conservative men are. No one flies flags harder than these people even though it is the nations that typically fucks men over harder than anyone else supporting the most batshit crazy liberal policies you can imagine. Governments are usually spearheaded by a few corrupt, super rich, secret society members and then screw over the families of the nation. With trans people, minorities etc. they kind of get that if you have a police state that the police will kill you. However, for some reason most men are under the illusion that the police, the courts and the military industrial complex are their FRIENDS, even though it is these organizations which typically murder millions of men each year for little to no reason.

This has been REALLY consistent in history too. as far back as Pharaoh these "elite" men typically don't like men of the lower classes and tend to want to destroy them using any means possible and many states trend towards harems.

Why don't these men vote and work for their best interests then?

Well, I think the reason is that most men see themselves as in some fight with "the bad guys" who are always criminals and foreigners out for their women and want to become rich. They don't see the wealthy as their enemies even though they steal their money, lie to them and probably fuck their women and steal their livelihoods, because their dream maybe is to be "just like them" and also because they say the things they like to hear.

icky, touchy-feely liberals talking about full employment Or "intellectuals" don't really interest them that much because they don't get to tell themselves the stories they like to hear. That's as far as I can tell, because dudes like Donald Trump and Reagan were hardcore supported by the lower classes of men especially even though these guys had policies that destroyed their lives and continue to destroy their lives.

I mean I dunno, i guess donald trump did get rid of abortion rights which seems to be a big thing for most men because I guess the lower class girls, they go around aborting the kids of the lower class men if they can if you give them abortion rights. A big part of the issue is that a lot of these guys have a big "protect women and children" complex.

sigh, well, we're going to the gym now.

Take care everyone!

[dhaaruni]

I feel like everyone talks abt trump and trumpy candidates bringing out ""low propensity" republican voters but im in the great state of Blirginia and its been a HUGE slog to GOTV for like even normal rank and file dems!!! Do you think there is any way to get dem voters to view voting regularly and participating in local politics as a part of dem identity like the repubs?

The NYT agrees with you, which ironically makes me less inclined to agree with you lol. Like, voting against one party in a 2-party system because it is still led by Donald Trump and therefore needs to be defeated at all levels is actually a very rational approach to voting, and it doesn't matter if the actual Dem candidate is "boring."

I think the suburbs could go redder if Trump isn't a factor but currently, Trump is definitely a factor so I think we'll be okay with this particular race and the New Jersey gubernatorial race. Moving forward though, I do think Dems, especially white Dems, being too nice to and about Republicans is an issue.

I really think we need to work on GOTV efforts and part of that is getting swing voters to understand that the GOP is still the party of Romney who wanted to impoverish the working class and leave General Motors to rot but also, and it pains me to say this, we have to convince apathetic leftists to screw their heads on straight and stop bullshitting about both sides and how the Democratic Party is fascist, and vote for us. They're annoying but at least they generally don't vote Republican, they vote 3rd party or just don't vote, so getting them to vote Democrat is a lighter lift.

[popculturebuffet]

Ducktales: New Gods On The Block! Review or THE INCREDIBLE STORKULES: COCKBLOCKER OUT OF MYTH!

We’re back, and i’m doing away with intros, for now, i’m trying to see if offering people a bit of the review makes them more receptive to reading it and now we’re nearing the end of this hellyear, and the trump presdency, i’m going into this one with a ton of energy, so let’s get quackin!

We open with the Scrooge and Kids on a quest to get a golden helmet he’s been after for years and has been one of his lifelong goals using a carefully crafted plan with all the kids skills needed. Okay i’ll admit that last part is unique to this show: given how interchangable the boys are outside of this continuity,  I assume he’d just throw them at the monster like Pikmin as a distraction while Donald grabbed the helmet and just grow new ones in his vast venture bro style clone mine if they happen to die. Thankfully there’s no Child Death but there is Child Failure as the team comes back sad and defeated and doubting themselves.. Della having a confetti cannon ready to celebrate dosen’t help. Though it does bring me to the subject of Della being out of focus this season. It’s a mixed bag for me: On the one hand I do get it, as she was the main focus of last season, even more than Louie, and now we’ve gotten to know her, she can sit back and play more of a supporting role, especially since Donald , who himself was more of a supporting character the past two seasons, is now getting more screentime and Beakly’s getting fleshed out more. Their trying to balance a rather massive cast, so it’s natural the one whose already got a ton of focus at this point would take a back seat and all around the show’s done a far better job giving everyone screentime this season. Launchpad has been lacking of late but given a Darkwing Duck spinoff is probably in the cards, and he’s had tons of episodes at this point compared to Donald and Beakly, i’m understanding of it. 

On the other.. there’s still a lot of stories to tell with her: We still haven’t had her deal with Scrooge basically erasing her for a decade at all nor Donald hiding her past from the kids.. he had reason and all, but he still made their mother a stranger to them. They had no stories, nothing to really go on for 10 years. That’s gotta have impacted both the kids and gotta hit della hard at some point that her father-uncle and brother both just kinda.. erased her to the kids. Plus we don’t know how she’s been adjusting to have a life OUTSIDE the kids especially since she’s been sitting out so many adventures, likely to let Scrooge have time with them and be a good daughter and mother and what not, but still there’s a LOT of ground to cover they simply haven’t yet. The Donald and Della plot we did get, while glorious, didn’t really add anything to either’s likely strained relationship and it’d be nice to give the two a subplot to work this out. Granted this might all be coming in the Castle McDuck Episode for all I know, but I can’t pin all my hopes and dreams on that one. And this all COULD’VE easily happened off screen.. but it’s something the audience really wants and needs. I’m not sure if we’re getting it and that worries me. But again theirs a large chunk of the season to answer this if this is the last one, and another season possible if it’s not, so i’m willing to wait for it. I’m just getting impatient is all. 

That being said this episode makes up for the Della Deficet as she’s one of the main driving forces of this side of the episode. I’ll get into that more in a second but Della’s been on the rare misfire adventure and knows Scrooge’s stages of grief and that he’ll come out of it with a better plan. Unfortunately for the kids that plan dosen’t include them and Scrooge runs off to assemble a better team leaving the kids utterly devastated. One of the other main driving forces besides depressed children and the greek gods is scrooge being really bad with people, but i’ll get to that. 

Point is the kids understandable emotional devastation and Della trying to mom for all of them at once because Launchpad had to get to his other job and is taking Beakly this weak to teach him and Drake how to raise a child, is interrupted by said Zeus ASSHAT RAPIST OUT OF MYTH! Along with Storkules COCKBLOCKER OUT OF MYTH and Selene, DELLA’S FIRST TIME WITH A WOMAN OUT OF MYTH!  There here because Zeus has lost his powers, as the Gods all collectively decided he was a dick and voted him out of office.. er stripped him of his powers. Sorry an asshole, narcacistic, sociopathic racist getting removed from his position of power happening a few days after the election was called.. the timing just could not have been better. But yeah Zeus is out, roll credits. Join me after them and after the cut for the rest of the review. 

So yeah the Gods are fed up with him, and Selene and Storkules are there to pick a worthy inheritor to his Laurel Wreath, his lighting bolts, and his collection of playboys he keeps alphabatized in his mancave.. also his mancave will also go to the winner. Storkules however, having a one track mind, notices Donald isn’t there and goes to find him. The kids are all eager to try but Selene is there for Della, which they all agree makes sense: I mean she has the disposition and sexual appitite of a green god but without all the rampant sex crimes and murder, and given most of them have clearly copped to the times except Zeus, that’s a plus. Plus she and Selene have already been together before so the fact they can smooch into infinity along with all the fun stuff is a nice bonus. It’s not like Storkules isn’t selecting his candiate soley with his 13 inch penis, so ther’es a precident. But Della, seeing the kids clearly need this more than she does, convinces her once and future girlfriend to let them try out. I really do wish we got more of the two this episode but what we get is great, and Selene reluctantly agrees after Della makes the valid point their STILL more mature than her dad. The fact Zeus punctuates this by getting into a “No you” contest with an 11-12 year old probably helped.  As for where Donald is he’s preparing for a date with Daisy! Horay. I’ve been waiting for Daisy to come back since the last time she was here, and Donald has naturally been considerate: Setting up a bunch of hearts, flowers, some punch that is likely just box wine and sprite, he has a budget and throwing all his garbage in the pool with bricks because he’s still Donald. Romantic, a good dad.. but still a disaster of a person who dosen’t know quite how to live like an adult... which naturally I immensely relate to and hope i’m lucky enough one day to have a lady or fella to hide all my garbage from. I mean i’m probably dying alone, but that’s likely my old buddy crippling depression talking. Oh you old scamp.. please fuck off an die.  But enough chilling looks into my psyche, point is Storkules barges in to ruin it, and eat his carefully made grilled cheese. As though Storkules may be incredible he’s also STORKULES, GOD OF NOT REALLY READING THE ROOM. Daisy comes in, and we find out it’s their second date.. and i’m assuming their first wasn’t that time they ended up in a direct to video sequel to Die Hard that’s still far better than Die Hard 5.. then again a colonoscopy is preferable to that movie so I Dunno. But she’s nice, friendly, if put off by the big sweaty man suddenly in their date. Storkules COCKBLOCKER OUT OF MYTH, does not help matters by, upon hearing that seeing how in love they are, and finding out it’s the second date assumes their getting married and hugs them in THE SWEATY ABS OF STORKULES. Do me next. 

Back at the God Tests, god I love a job-ish thing that lets me say that, Louie is up first, and being Louie has thought up a plan that benifets him wether he wins or looses but one that has serious underlying issues he hasn’t thought of. Naturally it turns out to be a gold touch which, as with Midas, works out about as well as you’d expect.. with Dog Murder and mass murder to follow. Selene undoes it, So Louie gets nothing. And yeah this has been a major issue this season that while I talked about it back in “Let’s Get Dangerous” bares repeating:  Louie feels like he learned NOTHING from the events of last season. He still likes, he still dosen’t think plans through, and he still cheats. In contrast Dewey DID grow from his season.. it’s subtle, he’s still the same loveable trainwreck and pre-teen Hank Venture he’s always been, but he no longer hides secrets or family stuff and is more of a team player. Still an egotsitical one, but it’s there. But Louie.. hasn’t changed at all. He’s still conviving, still thinks only in short term.. it’s only once or twice like with the Impossibin the events of last year really seem to have sunk in. It feels like the writer’s couldn’t figure out how to write a smarter Louie and just gave up. It’s really disheartning especially when most other character development, subtle and otherwise, sticks. 

While Huey sweats over his turn and Della tries to encourage, we cut back to the date which is going okay, Daisy’s trying to roll with it but Storkules, TERRIBLE WINGMAN OUT OF MYTH really isn’t good at talking Donald up or letting them get to know one another. While things breifly get better when Daisy brings up her career and Donald talks it up like the loving soon to be boyfriend he is, Storkules FUCKUP OUT OF MYTH screws things up by saying, when she explains to him she hasn’t made any Toga’s because she works primarily in dresses that she can “work up to them eventually. “ As proof this is the best Daisy she dosen’t dump Donald immidetly despite none of this being his fault and him trying to explain he didn’t invite him, but instead just makes an angry, and understandably so , face and goes to powder her beak.. which is clearly code for “Scream Obscenities into Donald’s Mirror for the next ten minutes”. Which if it already wasn’t abundantly clear they were perfect for each other this would be the clincher. Donald wants Storkules to go and TRIES to tell him, but Storkules just assumes he wants him to make a big romantic gesture for them and goes to “let Cupid’s Arrow” strike her. Donald understandably wants conformation he doesn’t mean that literally. Spoiler alert: He does. 

IT’s Huey’s turn next at playing god and he decides to be God of Intuition, gaining future sight so he can know everything and prevent tragedy. We instead get a damn funny scene where after adjusting to his powers he tries to prevent a breakup.. only to play both parts himself and cause it anyway. Just some great acting from Danny Pudi there. We get some more as Huey slowly melts down from the information, traumatizing a kid and nearly getting beat up with a guy who wants to “Beat up the freak for making everyone uncomfortable” which.. 

Yeah it’s not acceptable for what looks like a grown adult, or even a Teenager if that was an intent, to whale on a CHILD, let alone ANYONE for being “a Freak”. I mean yes Huey did screw up big, not mass murder bit but still.. but he’s still a fucking child. As someone who was prone to breakdowns at that age, and up to present day... I take this personally, especially since I see Huey as high functioning autsitic. So this hits home as i’ve had many people just tell me to get over it instead of trying to help. So yeah fuck this guy, take off that Gizmoduck shirt you do not deserve it. We fans do though, I hope that becomes real merch. 

But yeah Huey failed and Zeus is gloating..mostly because in his already considerably warped brain, he thinks that if they all fail he dosen’t get it. Selene explains basic logic to him: If they fail to find a new god here, they’ll just keep looking. Zeus naturally has a tantrum as Scrooge enters, wondering why the kids care about god powers and Della, being a supportive mom, tries to get him to encourage them. He instead focuses on his team. Again, we’ll get to him trust me. Selene also calls her dad out on the fact he hasn’t done anything good since defeating the titans centuries ago.  Naturally being THE GREATEST SHITHEAD IN ALL OF GREEK MYTHOLOGY Zeus takes the exact wrong lesson from this and calls his brother Hades to whip up a titan for him to fight because that was her point and not that your an irredemible dick tip who their desperate to replace and who was dethroned because no one liked you, not even your horrible presumibly now ex wife. I mean unlike DC Comics Zeus he’s not planning a cou but only because he has no powers. Hades however is well aware his brother has no powers, as the gods have been talking about it and laughing about it because Zeus sucks eggs. Also Hades has a great goth look and personality here as well as muscular arms to hold my bi ass at night. A-Plus character design. I may also have a thing for goths and emos I never realized I had. Just an observation. 

Back at the boat Donald and Daisy are enjoying drinks, which again has to be wine.. I mean again box wine, Donald needs a lot of booze after a hard days nearly getting murdered and Costco has great deals on it, but still booze. They cuddle a bit and it’s fucking adorable.. and Storkules WHO JUST KIDDNAPED HIS COUSIN CUPID AND STOLE HIS SHIT naturally ruins this moment by first trying to fire one date rape arrow at them, then takes donald’s rampant headshaking no as a sign to fire all of the arrows... with Daisy ending up in the water and unsettling the garbage. Granted Donald COULD’VE prevented this by explaning things to her.. but i’m betting he didn’t simply because he’s.. tired of this shit. He’s tired of adventure, tired of it intruding on his life and just hoped Storkules was gone and out of sight and didn’t have a chance to prepare for that till it was too late. NOW Daisy storms off.. but unlike say Cabs Daisy, whose a living nightmare, or Comic Daisy, whose not a great person but has her moments depending on the comic, she has VALID REASON. Donald lied to her about garbage and dind’t just take it out like a normal Duck, and didn’t just outright yell at his friend to leave on their date, a friend who just attacked her and already insulted her. IT’s understandable, especailly given a line coming up she’d WANT to leave and leave Donald behind.  Donald however is naturally miserable and it finally gets through Storkules thick skull he messed up and he runs off to cry while Donald miserably floats among the garbage and my heart both relates to that nad breaks seeing it. I mean .. Daisy meant a lot to him: After years of presumibly avoiding dating, or if he did not doing so for long, to focus on the boys, after a year of putting their needs ahead of his and living with his demanding uncle, of being dragged out of a normal if miserable life and into a less miersable but adventerous one he didn’t want, of being stranded in space and on an island wondering if his kids would be okay.. he finally not only has time for himself, and his sister back after years of thinking her dead and thus someone else to take care of the kids needs for a while without feeling any guilt over it or worrying about them, but found someone special. She’s talented, beautiful, charming, and understanding. And most importanlty she LISTENS to him and throughly likes Donald for who he is. And he looses that only PARTLY due to his won incomptence but mostly because someone he already barely allows in his life came in and ruined it. Once again the adventure and everything took something from him and while not nearly as big as loosing his sister, it still fucking hurts to once again have one small bit of something just for himself, one bit of normalcy, one person who loves him for who he is now through and through.. and it’s seemingly gone. It’s why I like this relationship even if this part panes me: Donald can FINALLY be happy... finally have someone who genuinely cares about him.  This also boils down Storkules character and why I don’t ship the two of them: He’s a good god, he’s brave, compasionate, carring, and generally wants the best for donald and does genuinely love him.. but he also dosen’t care really what DONALD wants half the time. He’s the embodiment of Donald’s biggest gripe with his life: No one listens to or repsects him or what he wants. Storkules wants Donald the adventurer, Donald the brave, Donald the undaunted, DONALD THE IDEALIZED VERSION THAT ONLY EXISTS IN HIS HEAD. He dosen’t really get Donald isn’t the same person, and even that person wasn’t into him. Not because he’s a man, like his sister Donald could easily be bi or pan.. but because he’s just SO MUCH and Donald’s family is already SO MUCH.. and that was BEFORE the kids and the launchpad. Donald has made peace with adventuring but it’s still clearly not his faviorite thing while for Storkules adventure and experince is his life. Storkules needs someone like him and Donald needs someone down to earth, someone who can HANDLE the amount of chaos that follows him and the famly, but someone whose .. normal. And Daisy is that. If you ship then fine fine, but I just don’t because they just don’t go together and both deserve a partner they can truly be a partner with, not someone they clearly don’t understand or someone they DREAD visiting. They both deserve better than that. 

Back on the god plot, it’s Webby’s turn as she becomes Goddess of Friendship. And helps the mood at the pier by spreading sunshine.. and then deals with the pier’s greatest menace and my honorary uncle, because he’s really not much worse than some of my actual uncles...

GLOMGOLD, SCOURGE OF CHILDREN’S KIDDIE RIDES. Because of course a seemingly regular habit for Glomgold is hogging a children’s ride he somehow fits into. Of course it is. It’s cheap and he’s not the best human being but I love him anyway. Webby heats it up to scare him then tries to get the kids to hug before having a breakdown at everyone not being happy. This does fit with her personality.. I didn’t think so at first but thinking back her first response in any friendship crisis is to panic and overreact. Her reaction to her best friend telling her she may have to stop sleeping over with her and her sister/webby’s giflriend because of magic danger is an implied death threat. She’s getting BETTER with people, but she still dosen’t have the life experince to fully deal with it and naturally upon seeing things get worse and worse goes on a lighting filled rampage Selene thankfully stops and likely undoes. Though Glomgold is likely on the moon now. He’ll be fine. 

Dewey is last and auditions.. but forgets the god part and fails which fits him perfectly and is a great bit. The kids have all washed out and are depressed about it. While Della is hopeful when talking to Selene, Selene gently explains to her girlfriend she shares with a space alien that the kids just aren’t ready and that maybe the power of a god just isn’t the thing you give to a kid for a self esteem boost. Della MEANS well here, she just wants her kids, Webby very much included, to feel good and get their self esteem back after Scrooge swallowed it whole. But Selene is right that this is just too much power, and given it nearly drove Huey insane  and nearly made Louie and Webby murderers, she has a point. It’s a good thought, but Selene needs an actual replacement for her dad. Sadly though this breaks the kids further after this and they slink off and Selene gets she messed up.. while she was right to reject them, she missed WHY Della was trying so hard. However credit where it’s do unlike her brother, while she dosen’t try to fix her issue, it’s likely out of emotional maturity: she knows just saying nice things to the kids wouldn’t help them or would wring hollow and their mom is better for that. IT’s things like this that are going to make her a good step mom.. yeah i’m shiping Della with both her girlfriends at once. Just because I gave up on her and Launchpad dosen’t mean poly’s off the table, and frankly selene is strong enough to win Penumbra’s favor and Penumbra has the kind of pepper and violence a greek goddess likes in her women. They’d be cute all together. I likes it. 

Less cute is ZEUS, SCHEMING BOWL OF ELEPHANT PISS OUT OF MYTH!, who realizes his greatest gift isn’t his powers: I’ts manipulating his children. 

And since he found a sad STORKULES POOR SAD BOY OUT OF MYTH. , and hears his issue, with Storkules hilarious sitting in his poppa’s lap, he spins it into getting what he wants: Saying since he and his wife, and Storkules mother in this version apparently I dunno, fell in love with battle, summoning Chronos will do just that for Donsy. Granted for most people your dad’s tale about how he met your step mom who tried killiing you a bunch and who he’s cheated on dozens of times would raise a red flag, but STORKULES IS THICK AS A BRICK.. in both senses of the word and calls forth Chronus. 

Daisy meanwhile is driving her car away, but is battling with herself. On one hand she doesn’t want to play mother to a guy who can’t dispose his trash or his weird friends. On the other she admits she can really be herself around Donald. We then get the most telling line though.. “You do not need to fall for another man who needs saving!”

That.. is clearly setup for the future. It MIGHT be Gladstone but it could be anyone. Hell it could be someone entirely new. She also could have a kid like we’ve all wanted. We could get a canon version of Juinor.. not named Donald Juinor because 1) He’s not donald’s son and 2) that name’s been forever tainted and we all know which living bottle of axe body spray to blame. I.. genuinely can’t wait to find out who this is and I expect we will before the season’s up and i’ts nice to see Tress, like last time, get to dig into some emotional complexity with the character instead of just yelling at Donald or talking about bows and stuff. Here she grapples with herself as she does love Donald but the past has burnt her a lot. But as a wise pansexual once said “ But I think it's important for us to remember that sometimes, sometimes it does work out. And even though everything inside us is telling us to protect ourselves, when you've got it, don't let it go. And I am telling you, that you have got it, if you want it. “ Love is hard, love is messy, maybe that among many other things is why i’m alone. But it’s worth it when you take the time.. and upon seeing a giant monster heading for Donald’s house, Daisy realizes he is worth it.. or that frustrated with him right now or not she dosen’t want him to die. Either way she’s a coming and i’m gathering hornets in a box in ancipation of finding out who hurt her so I can mail them to him. I popped an H on there so I know it has hornets. 

Back at the mansion the mood is bleak as heelllllllllll with Louie ordering pizza minus the toppings and Della’s attempt to give the kids hot choclate just getting an ow from Webby. It does make sense: Scrooge and adventuring are their lives.. if he dosen’t need them.. how would they ever do it themselves? Plus their 11 and 13 and at that age kids are very fragile so having their mentor and grandpa reject them like this really hurts, not helped by Scrooge proudly announcing his new team and trying to awkwardly bounce not getting this is his fault, though Della is staring at him with a look that just screams. 

But before Della can stab her Dunkle, we cut to a depressed donald who switches from one natural state, Depression, to another, fearing for his life, as Chronus arrives and Huey rightly wonders how he’s here. The kids all defer to Scrooge while Della continues to just be the best. Seriously for the entire episode her only throught is her kids, and their emotional well being and had this crisis not popped up she probably would’ve stabbed scrooge then yelled him out for hurting her babies. She’s graduated from trying to be a mom but having issues with it due to mentally still being in her 20′s, to genuinely being GREAT at the job. Good on her.  Daisy is naturally horrified to arrive to find Donald being eaten while Storkules is overjoyed. I WOULD say his stupidity’s overplayed this episode.. but he’s never displayed good judgement before why start now? It fits his character and his joy turns to distress when Chronus eats donald.. and has a cage in his tummy. with glass walls. I dunno, it’s a cool design. Daisy is understandably pissed and yells at it for eating her boyfriend, which gets an adorable oh boy oh boy from donald> Again love is rough, but one jackass screwing with you does not equate to every man or woman or person you date being a jackass. Daisy has realized this. Storkules is overjoyed, but soon finds himself and his sister fihgting Chronus and honestly both are damn impressive doing so. Seriously when the justice ducks form.. give htem a call. I mean She has moon beams and he’s a greek god.. plus Drake and Launchpad could use a third.. I mean he fits better there and Drake is already dating one manchild, and is one to a smaller extent, another won’t hurt. Just consider it shippers.. or foursies with Morgana because as this episode shows Storkules is bi as he is mighty. he’s Bighty. But the god squad fails, and gets eaten and Zeus’ time to shine predictably ends with an “I’ve failed immediately”, to no one’s suprise. 

Scrooge starts working on a plan as he and Della, naturally scale the colossus. We then get the scene that’s been boiling all episode: When Scrooge wonders where the kids are, Della calls him out pointing out they’ve been plauged with doubts about him replacing them.. because he literally was replacing them, and when Scrooge is earnestly suprised by that Della points out the obvious: Their children, as I said their fragile and as Della puts it, Scrooge puts a LOT of pressure on them, something she likely knows from experince.  And this is what i’ve been leading up to and putting a pin in all episode: Scrooge himself. It’s something I thought of days ago but this episode hammers in heavily: Scrooge really dosen’t have a ton of personal social skills. Sure he can work a board room pitch, lead a team of adventuerers, and run a vast empire while never forgetting the human element, for a lack of a better term, he’s not lacking in empathy or the ablility to talk to people, but when it comes to reading them it’s just surface level. He’s genuinely been show to struggle with empathy, with feeling someone elses emotions or realizing them till they’ve already been hurt. He spent a good ten years desperatley trying to bring Della back, avoding his pain and guilt instead of talking to Donald and making amends with him. His relationship with Goldie took decades to get anywhere healthy as he just put his walls up and assumed she’d never change when, as we’ve seen now, she always could she just needed a push. And when confronted by the kids he lashed out and then pushed them away instead of mending the wounds he created. Even on a much smaller level, when Lena and Violet ended up along next week he’s utterly lost when Adventure isn’t on the menu and only picks up from being baffled by two normal ish (One’s a parnaomal expert the other is the paranormal) joining him once it’s clear at least one of them fits right in with his intrests. He can deal with people on a problem by problem basis, but he’s just not good at dealing with their emotional needs or opening up.  It’s why this works so well: his oblviousness fits. To him and the way his brain works, the crown is just a problem to solve and he just needs diffrent tools to fix it, not realizing replacing the kids for a mission would bother them or they’d ever think they were replaceable. Until now I hadn’t seen much similarity to Huey but both.. are just not great with PEOPLE. They put them in boxes, try to solve problems that way.. it’s just their specific issues that way are diffrent. Scrooge can anticapte the unknown and how people he’s fighting act.. but can’t anticipate personal hurt and pain well because he bottles all his up. When checking off a problem.. i’ts just something he dosen’t consider and thus his biggest blindspot, the thing he has to overcome time and time again: How his family feels and how he can deal with it.  Here however he deals admirably.. now he KNOWS there’s a problem, and in a genuine show of character development over the past three seasons, he apologizes fully, saying their the best team he could ask for, better than zeus and don’t need his powers and they can get the helm together. Instead of putting up walls.. he’s letting his in and showing humility, which given Scrooge’s ego.. is a tall order. But for those kids, for his strength, it’s no small feet. Of course said speech gets Him and Della eaten, but the kids, now reinegized, ahve time to plan, with Daisy further stalling by roaring at Chronus to stop. Because she’s fucking awesome and Storkules finally gets that. The kids however take the leaves and breifly retake their powers, Dewey’s is for dance naturally, and use them together to take down Chronus, freeing everyone else, defeating the titan and throwing him back into the pits.  Donald and Daisy reunite and get a RELLY sweet moment, blushing and looking lovingly at one another, getting lava on each other, before kissing. STORKULES, DOSEN’T GET THEY DON’T WANT A THIRD PARTNER OF MYTH, of course interrupts and hugs them hostage for the remaider of the episode. I’m assuming Beakly , when she got home, pried htem out and explained them not wanting a third int heir relationship to him, and it’s a weak end to the plot as Storkules learned nothing and one of the weaker parts of this episode. The rest is stronger as the kids and Scrooge plan to make another run at the helmet and Selene wonders off to “use your shower” and then order pizza.. so she basically just asked Della out. And has used her shower before. 

I mean again, she can have two partners. This episode alone has earned that and they seem like they’d mesh. Penny would just have to learn some lessons about sharing and godly vagina’s is all. Nothing wrong with that. And what about Zeus.. no one asked but he gets his wreath back only to fall in the pit, with Hades naturally laughing his ass off.. and likely also taking Zeus’ laurel back. So Zeus is trapped in hell with a goth mocking him. HORAY! HAPPY END.  Final Thoughts; This was a pretty good one. It does have it’s weak spots: Storkules learned nothing, the kids stories endings were easy to see coming and there wasn’t enough Dellene. But really despite that. .it’s still a solid episode mostly because it’s REALLY damn funny. The comedic timing is just pitch perfect and while like most of the plots I could see the rhythm of the donsy plot, the reasons for it were all funny and fresh and the scene with Daisy in her car was a nice bit of character building/clear setup for the future. And showing off Della’s own character developement and history with scrooge, the latter without ever having to mention it, really brought the episode up, as did the guest cast’s game voice acting and timing. This episode is far from perfect, but it’s still a fun episode that felt needed despite not being tied into the main plot: Bringing back some old friends, and having an intresting story to tell. Plus we got more Donsy so there’s that. Overall while not the BEST episode of the series, it was a funny, enjoyable half hour of television and sometimes, that’s enough.  If you liked this review follow me or more, and if there’s an episode of Ducktales from seasons 1 or 2 you’d like me to cover, you can comission it for 5 bucks, 5 bucks an episode, 5 dollars off your order when you comission more than one, via my personal messages. You can also follow me on patreon at patreon.com/popculturebuffet if you want.  NEXT WEEK: FLASHBACK EPISODE! BABY DONALD AND DELLA! BRADFORD ORIGIN STORY! POSSIBLE HORTENSE AFTER SO LONG! MY BODY IS READY!

[nikkoliferous]

Hey I got a question I’m not American so I don’t understand everything but why do you not vote Biden ?I heard that America has a two party system and the way it is built means that it’s almost impossible for a third party to win big elections like presidential .Are you not taking the risk of bein the few percents that end up letting trump win a second time?From where I am we are all pretty terrified for these elections,would Biden really be worse that all that happened in those past 4 years?

Forgive my long-windedness, but there's really no brief way to answer this question without being flippant.

So, there are a few things to understand here. The first is that, because of the way U.S. elections are set up, the results are really decided by only a handful of states. That "every vote counts" nonsense is bullshit when it comes to presidential elections. If you live in what we call "swing states", your vote may have an impact. I'm from a state that has gone to a Democrat literally only four times in its entire history. It is reliably Republican. My not voting for Biden will have absolutely zero impact on this election.

Secondly, more than 40% of the electorate (myself included) are registered as independents, meaning we don't identify with either major party. Many of those who are registered with one of the major parties don't even want to be and are only registered that way so they can vote in a particular party's primary elections. (I am fortunate in that my state holds semi-open primaries, meaning I don't have to be registered as a Democrat in order to vote in their primary. This is not true of every state, however). What I'm saying is that, if every person voted their conscience instead of voting out of fear of one major party or the other, it wouldn't be impossible for a third party to win. It's a self-fulfilling prophecy. Third parties can't win because the electorate believes they can't win and votes accordingly. Sadly, this logic even extends to the primary. Exit polling showed overwhelming support for Bernie Sanders' policies among Democratic primary voters, including among those who voted for Joe Biden. So why didn't they vote for Bernie? Because they were constantly being told by a disingenuous media that he "couldn't win", and the top priority for Democratic voters is ousting Trump. (This is, of course, to say nothing of the widespread election fraud that was reported throughout the primary, as was the case in 2016. Apparently, cheating is only bad when Republicans do it).

Thirdly, would Biden really be worse than all that's happened the last four years? The short answer, IMO, is yes. This is a controversial position to take because Trump is so awful, but I'm going to say it anyway: Joe Biden is not the lesser evil. Fortunately, I do not believe in lesser evil voting. I will not be held hostage by my own government. But even if I did believe in voting for so-called "harm reduction", I still would not vote for Joe Biden. Joe Biden has done more damage to this country in his career than Donald Trump ever has. That's not an endorsement of Trump; it's an indictment of Biden and the Democrats. Joe Biden is the reason America is the world's largest penal colony. Joe Biden has repeatedly taken credit for effectively writing the PATRIOT Act, which decimated Americans' basic rights to privacy. Joe Biden not only voted for the Iraq War but was one of its most enthusiastic proponents. Joe Biden helped strip bankruptcy protections from millions of Americans, including making it impossible for people to discharge their student loan debt. Joe Biden, as part of the Obama administration, built those cages at the border that everyone is so upset about. Joe Biden, as part of the Obama administration, kicked millions of Americans out of their homes. Joe Biden, as part of the Obama administration, waged an unprecedented war on whistleblowers. Joe Biden, as part of the Obama administration, allowed police to crack the skulls of peaceful protesters during Occupy Wall Street, Ferguson and DAPL. Joe Biden, as part of the Obama administration, brought open slave markets to Libya. Joe Biden, as part of the Obama administration, carried out extrajudicial killings overseas. Joe Biden, as part of the Obama administration, failed to prosecute war criminals. Now Gina Haspel, who was directly involved in Bush's torture program, is Director of the CIA. (Relatedly, Kamala Harris, Biden's VP, was encouraged to prosecute Steve Mnunchin after his bank illegally foreclosed on California homeowners. She declined to do so, and now he's Secretary of Treasury). Here is an article about how the Obama administration handed Donald Trump what is effectively a dictator's toolkit. Democrats in Congress have continued this legacy, even while screaming at the top of their lungs that Trump is an existential threat and a puppet of Vladimir Putin. People need to disabuse themselves of the idea that America is a two-party system. It's not. It's a one-party system. The Democrats and Republicans are nothing more than controlled opposition. It's a sideshow. Our true rulers are Wall Street and the military industrial complex, and they don't hold elections.

Finally, comedian and political commentator Jimmy Dore has frequently noted that, historically, Democrats are able to quietly pass horrible legislation that Republicans could only dream of getting away with. This is because when a Democrat is in the White House, the majority of the country breathes a sigh of relief and heads out to lunch. Joe Biden's legislative history of corruption, racism and imperialism makes this fact particularly concerning, because

Unlike Trump for the most part, Biden has a political core. I would rather pressure Trump, who at least occasionally stumbles on the right position by accident (as in the case of North Korea), than Joe Biden, who has a very set ideology which he largely refuses to be moved from. (Even in the midst of a pandemic that has resulted in mass unemployment, he's STILL arguing that employer-based healthcare is good, actually). Trump is more malleable, IMO, than Biden is.

Because Trump is so hated by the political establishment, the media, and quite frankly, a good chunk of the public, there's at least been a heavy degree of scrutiny surrounding him. True, a good portion of it is superficial (focusing on made-up nonsense like Russiagate instead of the actual horrible things he's doing). But people are paying far more attention to what their government does (or doesn't do) than they would have under a Hillary Clinton presidency. Most people still view Barack Obama as a good president because the mainstream media's failure to hold him accountable has convinced them that the most scandalous thing he ever did was wear a tan suit. If Biden becomes President, the vast majority of Americans will tune right back out while their government continues to screw them. And then, four to eight years from now, we'll be having this same conversation, only instead of Donald Trump, it will be Tom Cotton or Tucker Carlson who's the greatest threat our country has ever faced. Every single election in my lifetime, we've been told "now isn't the time" to fix what's wrong with our political system. The stakes are too high. The Republicans are an existential threat. You have to vote for the lesser evil. And guess what? The stakes have only gotten higher; the Republicans have only gotten more threatening; the country's politics have only shifted further and further to the right. What's that saying about the definition of insanity, again?

Lawrence O'Donnell, a media personality who used to work as a Democratic strategist, once said, "If you want to pull the major party that's closest to the way you're thinking to what you're thinking, you must show them you're capable of not voting for them. If you don't show them you're capable of not voting for them, they don't have to listen to you, I promise you that. I worked within the Democratic Party. I didn't listen or have to listen to anything on the left while I was working in the Democratic Party, because the left had nowhere to go."

I understand that you all fear what Trump is capable of. I sympathise with that; I fear it too. But what I fear more is what the next Trump is capable of. I fear what happens in four to eight years when we still haven't solved any of the problems that led to his election in the first place and the next Trump isn't an incompetent buffoon who announces every bad decision he makes via tweet. Kamala Harris is out here tweeting about how awesome things were under Obama and how Trump bungled it all. Joe Biden has already told his wealthy donors that nothing will fundamentally change for them if he becomes President. So my fear of a Biden/Harris administration is two-fold: one, I fear what they'll actually do while they're in office and two, I fear the inevitable backlash that will follow after they've done jackshit to improve people's lives. In other words, I believe dismantling the two-party system that put us in this position in the first place is more important than defeating Trump.

[anexplanationofunfortunateevents]

this is an alarmist post

This post might sound alarmist because I don’t know the respectable, non-alarmist way to put this. He’s going full final-days-in-the-Fuhrerbunker. I want to be alarmist. We need to be alarmed.

On one level, I’m pretty sure you know this. You can probably see a vague reference to “what happened in Portland” and know exactly what the writer means. Unidentified little green men in military-style fatigues deployed against peaceful protesters. Protesters kidnapped off the streets in “proactive arrests.” ordered by someone illegally acting as the head of DHS. Journalists attacked. Middle-aged women beaten and tear-gassed. The mayor of Portland tear-gassed. It was, of course, worse than it looked, and only the most telegenic of concurrent power grabs.

But it’s really hard to stay at the appropriate level of alarm for even three hours – and we need to stay there for the next three months. It’s exhausting no matter what, and nearly all of our current information environment makes it even more difficult than it needs to be.

Most of what the mainstream media has to say about the election isn’t reporting so much as it is fanfiction. Characters with familiar names and recognizable faces feature in an alternative universe where “normal” political forces (which were defunct ten years ago) apply. Sniping about “messaging,” pathologically boring lectures about “enthusiasm” – it would be annoying anti-Democratic concern-trolling in a world where a free and fair election could be taken for granted. In the real world of powerful and accelerating anti-democratic threats, it is both dangerous and bizarre, like dumping a fifth of vodka into a Super Soaker and trying to use it to put out a brush fire.

The mainstream conversation is so disorienting that it’s understandable why there are also a fair amount of influential progressive commentators who have burrowed themselves into the reverse narrative. It doesn’t matter what we do, Trump is just going to steal the election anyway; it doesn’t matter if he loses, he’s going to refuse to leave anyway. A subset of these fatalists swing all the way around to conventional Pundit Brain: Trump has already blown up all the rules of democratic politics because Democrats aren’t using the One Weird Trick that would make them good at democratic politics!*

Before jumping down the rabbit hole of whether these narratives are true, it’s important to emphasize that they are not constructive. We are in a crisis. In a crisis, you need to help people understand that something abnormal is happening AND that there is something they can do to make things better. Communicating to people that things are fine, as the mainstream horserace normal politics model does, isn’t helpful, because it helps people rationalize the false but comforting belief that everything is fine. Communicating to people that things are hopeless, as the doom-mongering counternarrative does, is even less helpful. If you’re acting normal about something abnormal, there’s at least the off-chance you’ll get lucky and unwittingly bluff your way through the short- and medium-term. But if you’re constantly getting the message that you’re screwed no matter what, it’s human nature to either a) go into denial and double down on an unproductive response, which is irrational but understandable or b) get cynical and give up, which is an entirely rational response to a situation that actually is hopeless.

Trump is already trying to steal the 2020 election. He has help from the henchmen he has put in charge of important federal agencies and from the white-shoe lifers in the Republican legal establishment. Anything you can imagine he might do, you should assume he has at least considered it. He will consider things that would never even occur to you.

He hasn’t succeeded yet. He can be stopped with overwhelming turnout. We know this because of the 2018 midterms. Autocrats who are successfully smothering a democracy do not allow the opposition party to win partial or full control in regional governments, take over half the federal legislature, and gain a foothold in the presidential line of succession. That’s not how autocracy works. If you come across a commentator who is under the impression that a burgeoning dictatorship just gives away that kind of power for the lulz, consider taking that person’s opinions on the subject with a grain of salt.

Thanks to the 2018 midterms, House Democrats have been able to foil some of Trump’s schemes and warn the public about others. Even with Individual 1’s desperate thrashing at the intelligence agencies, we’re getting a lot more specific information about Russian attacks on the election than we were this time in 2016 from the Obama administration.

One more important thing we learned in 2018: just because Trump would do something, doesn’t mean he will. Here’s the Once and Future Speaker a few weeks after reclaiming her title:

At least Trump “didn’t declare the election illegal,” Pelosi said. “We had a plan for that” — though really, she acknowledged, the only workable plan was “to win big. Had it been four or five seats, he would’ve tried to dismantle it.” In his news conference the day after the midterms, Trump spoke respectfully of Pelosi….

The Spectacularly Failed New York Times buried the lead as usual, but there are a few really important points packed in here. Democrats did, in fact, have a plan for that, which you’re going to need to remind yourself if you try to follow political commentary in the next few months. For whatever reason, a surprising number of supposedly anti-Trump writers are  eager to undermine Trump’s opposition with false claims that Democrats are bumbling naifs who in 2020 still haven’t realized that Trump might not respect the results of an election.** This demoralizing premise is, as you can tell from the Wayback Machine link, not true, but for some reason it remains a popular lie, so it’s worth debunking.

More importantly, we didn’t know about the plan until afterward because they didn’t need it. Trump has blinked before, so there’s no reason to assume he won’t blink again. We shouldn’t assume he will do the same thing in 2020 that he did in 2018, because it’s a different situation! Just that people who have assumed Donald Trump will act in a completely different way than he has in the past usually end up with egg on their faces.

My two cents – AND THIS IS JUST MY OPINION SO YOU CAN SKIP IT – is that any kind of post-election autocratic power grab would probably need decisive action from Trump within days, maybe even hours, of polls closing. That, in turn, would require Trump to absorb the narcissistic injury of a loss immediately, which he has been psychologically incapable of doing for the first 74 years of his life. Remember, he didn’t have to come to terms with the curb-stomping he received in the midterms right away. At first he could tell himself that Republicans holding onto the Senate (by the skin of their teeth when they should by all rights have swamped it, but whatever) represented a “split decision” and even a moral victory for him, so he could afford to go into, like, con man autopilot mode and try to charm “Nancy.” Everyone else adjusted to the Democratic victory the next day, and the next night, people got into the streets warning him not to try any bullshit. It was only after bigger districts finished counting and mail-in ballots were counted that it sunk in for him how badly he had lost and what the consequences would be. Then he soothed himself by shutting down the government indefinitely, which he seemed to feel was a display of his power – until “Nancy” pantsed and dog-walked him so he had to slink off and pretend it never happened.

If an election which was more or less as legitimate as the 2016 election (questionable but not Belarus) were held today, I think the most likely result would be a scenario a lot like the midterms: East Coast states make it clear which way the wind is blowing to most people, but Trump goes to bed at 3 AM thinking he’s close enough to fight it out in court. Over the next couple of weeks the mail-in ballots get opened, Miami and Philadelphia finish counting, and the real numbers start penetrating even his toxic bubble. Eventually someone reminds him that his armed Secret Service detail can escort him off the premises no matter what he does, so he loses what little nerve he has and skips Biden’s inauguration to go golfing at Mar a Lago. Or maybe Sochi.

But again, that is not a guarantee or even a prediction. The FACT is that anything can happen in the next three months, and Trump and his goons are putting a lot of effort into ensuring that everyone does happen. I spelled out my opinion of what seems most likely at the moment because it can get really easy to dwell on the worst-case scenario, which leads to fatalism and inaction. The least-bad scenario is actually more plausible than it’s been for the last few years, if we motivate ourselves to get it done. We can’t waste all our time and energy thinking about what he’s going to do, because we need to think about what we’re going to do. Voting is the core issue as always, but it helps to be more concrete.

If your state has early in-person voting, and if you can do so safely, vote in-person as soon as you can. Every state’s vote by mail infrastructure was going to be strained this year before these dirtbags decided to sabotage the postal service. If you can cast your vote early, you can help make the lines a little shorter on Election Day while leaving vote by mail resources for people who need them.

If you are a person who needs vote by mail resources for whatever reason, use them! Request your ballot now. Fill it out and return it as soon as you get it. You might not have to mail it back – your county may have drop boxes, or maybe someone can bring it to the local elections office for you. If that’s a safe option for you, please take advantage of it. If it’s not a safe option, mail your ballot back as soon as possible. You’re not helping anyone from the ICU.

If you and the people you live with are relatively low risk, or if you’ve survived COVID and your health care provider thinks you have immunity for the next few months, consider volunteering as a poll worker. Usually a lot of poll workers are retirees, who are by definition in a high-risk group. If enough of them decide to sit this year out – and that’s the smart, responsible choice – then polling places end up closing, which helps Republican voter suppression by making the lines longer. The more volunteers your area has, the more polls they’ll have open, which makes it that much easier to let people vote quickly and at a safe distance from each other.

This last one isn’t directly about voting, but it’s still pretty important: get used to pushing back on bullshit. There already is another effort to drive down turnout by inundating voters with disinformation. Last time we weren’t ready; this time, we have no excuse.

*Avoiding sources because this stuff is toxic. If you think I’m making this up because you haven’t seen it anywhere, good.

**Look, nobody*** is more sympathetic to The Men and their psychological frailties than me, but seriously, guys, some of you need to log the hell off for a few days.

***For certain non-traditional values of “nobody.”