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Joined 2 years ago
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Cake day: June 30th, 2023

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  • There was a lawsuit from the AFGE (federal employees union) I think that they had to drop because it relied on the assumption that DOGE was a federal agency. When it was revealed that DOGE was just a renaming of the US Digital Service, that invalidated the premise of the lawsuit. Idk how the USDS had money lying around in its budget for a bunch of new and unqualified GS-15s to just be added to the payroll like government billets aren’t painstakingly difficult to establish, but that is another question, I suppose


  • Fair, I just think jumping to the conclusion that those folks would have come out to vote for Biden is a stretch when you look at how well his campaign was going. Worth remembering that Harris way outperformed Biden in terms of approval rating, which is a very imperfect metric, but the best one we have for guessing if folks would have come out to vote for Biden but stay home for Harris. In 2020, Biden was a challenger to an incumbent who was botching Covid from both a health and economy perspective. In 2024, he was an incumbent struggling to get out of the shadow of the global post-covid recession and some very unpopular decisions in foreign policy regarding the Middle East. Assuming he would have received 2020 levels of votes is not congruent with those facts


  • How do you figure? He was looking at potentially losing Minnesota, New Hampshire and Virginia when he dropped out, and showing no signs of being able to campaign his way out of that hole. One of the Harris campaign’s “gaffes” in the late run was when he went and called Trump supporters garbage (or at least, said words that sounded like that) after the Puerto Rico thing at MSG). Maybe 2020 Biden could have pulled it out, but 2024 Biden, both in the sense of his current mental and social capabilities and in the sense of the baggage he had as the incumbent president, didn’t have a lot going for him











  • From memory and a couple quick Google searches

    • January 6th, including both the violence at the national Capitol and related, often violent protests outside verious state capitols
    • Death threats to election count and poll workers
    • Republican legislator invites armed men into the Oregon State Capitol during a protest
    • Armed protestors rally around the tallying center in Detroit while the count was ongoing
    • Brawl with counterprotestors at the “million Maga march”
    • Violent “Stop the steal” protests in Sacramento

    I wouldn’t say there was just a little violence after the 2020 loss



  • That’s not right wing. Do not allow right wingers to hide in the shadow of your reasonable political views by assuming their identity. Call yourself a market capitalist, a liberal, or even a Reagan-era Republican if you believe that is what your views align to and are speaking in an American context, but don’t let yourselves be used to rehabilitate the image of the right wing. They will only take that as a permission structure to hold more and more heinous views while pointing at you and others like you and saying "see, we are reasonable people with serious political positions that deserve a voice at the table. They don’t represent you, so why give them leverage to claim that they do?