I mean, yes…but I also see this as “The vampire party could be so much more popular if they came out in favor of a bloodsucking ban.”

They likely have their own objectives beyond getting elected. They might even prefer being in the losing position if “they are our only hope and we all gotta donate real hard”.

I’m reminded of a recent debate about fixing ICE, where someone said “What do you mean, fix them? They’re working as intended.”

To me, the Democratic party evokes a similar problem: I believe their goal is to maintain between 40-60% popularity. So, the champagne is uncorked at 40, not 50; because they don’t care about winning. They just care about people being scared of a loss, and viewing them as a strong-enough alternative to send them massive numbers of donations. If they were below 40, then people might lose hope in them or form an alternative. If they were above 60, then they could stand to cozy up to some corrupt billionaires, get away with some horrible legislative corruption for profit, and stand to drop a few points.

But the key here is, all of this only works because of fear of a far, far worse alternative. I’ve voted in elections where I had reasonable faith that every candidate on the ballet wanted the best for their constituents, and voted based on policy improvement and experience. As long as one party is so far below the basic standards that a corrupt career politician seems better if he can promise “No secret police”, then the Democrats’ way of maintaining 40-60 is easy.

So, next time they run a candidate that gets a “failure” of 45% of the vote, remember, they’re not your friends and they don’t care; they hit their goal. It’s still a failure of people that voted for a wolf in wolf’s clothing.

So, a bit of a spoiler, but…This is basically the plot of the ending of “The Boy in the Striped Pajamas”.

It is horrifying, and really sad. But the look of dismay on that officer’s face at the end gives a very small touch of karma to it.

It at least makes me very happy how plausible it is for a completely independent artist to make games on Steam or Itch that are universally enjoyed. Sadly there is a current trend of “NSFW” games getting banned on those platforms…

I wanted to plug one game that had been particularly victimized. It was an “unreliable narrator” game where you played as a stalker obsessively trying to find the real name of his favorite pornstar. It was uncomfortable, artistic, thought-provoking, and immediately tripped the ban filters. I thought I bookmarked it but if someone else knows it a reminder would be awesome.

Whenever I hear about these town halls, I’m really unsure if it’s actually Trump voters turning up. Chances are, if the cult “won” they’re celebrating and believing every paper-thin lie, right up until they suffer direct personal consequence, not attending town halls with a list of questions and concerns.

Much as Bernie will definitely continue to be the face of the movement, I have doubts he has many years left for politics. We’re in need of new faces for that same initiative.

Some context:

• https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c36e41dx425o
• https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2020/03/02/how-border-apprehensions-ice-arrests-and-deportations-have-changed-under-trump/
• https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/policy/immigration/3266633/biden-did-not-abolish-ice-not-problem-democratic-party/

The basic idea is, while Trump aims for very visible rhetoric to inflame his racist base, ICE’s presence has still gone up regardless of which president is taking the chair. In fact, Biden beat Trump’s deportation numbers (and I’m sure given his ego, he aims to inflate that further, and finds due process one of his obstacles).

One thing that can be said is that when ICE has been in the news, it was never visibly aiming for cruelty under Democratic presidents. But that’s also only accounting for the cases that we know about. And, the last article points out how even through a full term, Biden not only failed to address the growing worries of cruel behavior within ICE, but built them a new quarter-billion-dollar headquarters.

I mean, you have to go where the evidence takes you, even if you don’t like the results. The best thing you could perhaps say about Biden or Obama, was simply that any of their direct participation in border patrol activities followed rule of law.

Generally, CBP/ICE has stayed above much direct scrutiny or supervision, and if an individual doesn’t have reporters, lawyers, or family asking after them (sometimes even then) a lot can be hidden even from administration.

It’s very likely Trump did not do much to “push” ICE’s behavior, he just enabled them, and they reward him by threatening his direct opponents.

What might be scary is if America’s Auschwitz moment is revealed to be completely independent of administration. We’ve already heard many stories about ICE during each presidency, just that many details were hidden or unconfirmed.

It was the same way at the end of WW2. Even many Germans were aghast at what they’d been doing at the camps.

Politics is a form of negotiation with other elements of leadership to make a nation’s major policy decisions.

Musk, you never DID get involved in politics. You hired a private army and got involved in criminal intimidation.

It’d be very curious if there was literally no country on the planet that permitted him entry. I was about to say Russia, but he’s only been useful as a pawn in the US to them.

I’ve wanted this for ages. And it’s represented so well in Republicans having only one platform: “Oppose Democrats. If it makes a Democrat angry, do it.”

Cleanse - and I mean CLEANSE - the opposition party. No one here can claim the Democrats never have good ideas. And yet, we can definitely do better than them. A better party means having better ideas - not just “Stop them libruls”. Bernie just toured the States with a message of exactly what that would look like.

“In power”? In a perfect world he’d never again be on this side of a prison cell!!

The horrific absurdity is that even Trump was beginning sentences with “Somebody should …” AFTER he became president.

They are too used to the conspiracy-theorist, “humble-truth-finder” mindset EVEN when they are at the top.

One place that there’s still a lot of defiance is from lawyers and judges. There’s still scary stories there about attorney intimidation and even surrender, but courts are often winning against him. Brian Cohen recently interviewed Marc Elias who resolved not to cater to threats, and even Chief Justice Roberts gave a warning to Trump over his attempts to use bullying instead of normal appellate process.

It is in fact common for presidents to make up new advisory positions. If Trump wanted to make up an “Advisor of Best-Tasting Coffee”, there’s no problems there - they can help him make decisions with executive orders, or inform Congress about best steps forward for certain initiatives, etc. So just “making up a role” isn’t an issue in itself.

BUT, even the attorney general or SoD would not have powers to fire people at will all over the administration. In many court cases it’s been found even Trump himself wouldn’t have that power.

I learned about this only recently, and was very disappointed on this.

It’s made me examine my own biases that I’ve only “grumbled” about Biden’s relatively quiet acceptance of Israeli genocide, and now understanding he deported protestors. I’d desperately want to understand what drives the tacit support there. That said: The “Genocide Joe” tagline didn’t ever convince me.

EDIT: Wow, and now I’m being thrown back in a loop and wondering if the links I just came across earlier today were correct, or if I was reading info out of context. Sounds as though, yes, ICE kept deporting in often suspect circumstances under Biden, but those were unrelated to protests? I’ll…leave this comment up as a public lesson in how easy it is to be misinformed while I keep reading to understand as best I can.

I have not confirmed, but a post on BlueSky suggested this was just a postured threat and not taking place. I suggested to one of the threatened families that he should immediately file a Tort lawsuit against the administration anyway, just to make clear even threats won’t be accepted.

I’m the opposite. I know that snappy comebacks on live stages are not what make a presidency great. Even if someone can’t give immediate responses in a debate, I can respect them if they display anger and passion when appropriate, and reason and negotiation when that’s appropriate. You might be overestimating that a president needs to be an image of perfection all the time to every single person, when our current one survived conviction as a sex offender.

I’ve wanted to develop a conversation on this subject for a long time, because it’s a fallacy “both sides” have fallen for: The fact that illegal actions are often right, and legal actions are often immoral.

People will often harp on the fact that an act was “technically not legal”; yet throughout history, we have needed illegal acts to frame what’s right in the world. When we discuss these things online, it’s more honest to talk about “What the harm is” - a subject that often leans in favor of left-leaning opinions both for what’s illegal (living in the USA illegally, generally causing negative harm) and improperly using presidential powers to shut down government agencies (not just illegal, but also extremely harmful).

If you disagree and specifically want to harp on legality, then I invite you to see what happens if you start shooting jaywalkers in the street for their flagrant violation of the law. Prosecutorial discretion exists for a very important reason.