Same. The redneck stuff would be more concerning if I didn’t know how to fix redneck stuff.

Better yet, spread horrid disinformation about your elected officials on social media.

Yeah, but Lucy has been letting us kick a pretty good portion of them. Dems are abysmal at marketing, but this administration has actually accomplished a decent amount of actual good policy. There are obvious exceptions and shortfalls, but it’s not like every single football has been pulled away.

I mean, epistemologically we can’t know anything for sure. All we can do is try to come to reasonable conclusions with the information available to us.

The job of President is complicated. It is not remotely possible to go over every single detail of every single action. Every president makes whoopsies, I prefer to give benefit of the doubt between mistakes and malice. There are plenty of intentional things to criticize without sensationalizing this sort of thing

From what I read Biden didn’t seek that judge to pardon, he was just one person affected by some big mass pardons. In this case I think he was one of like 1500 people who were moved to house arrest for non-violent crimes during Covid, who Biden pardoned all at once.

Still not great, the administration should’ve reviewed the details of those cases first, but it’s not like he deliberately sought the guy out.

Looks like a straight cigar cutter to me

Perhaps. Keep in mind that’s assuming you could get half of the Democratic caucus to rally behind the same new party. Splintering is counterproductive. Additionally, that’s only enough to get an effort off the ground. Current Democratic and Republican votes are roughly equal, neither the remaining half of the Democratic party, nor the half that forms a new party, will have the numbers to keep Republicans in check. You’d have to grow this new party quickly, including peeling off Republican voters. This is not a trivial task.

We have dozens of new parties already. The problem is that none of them have the roughly 80 million voters necessary to win the general election, or the corresponding numbers to win a significant number of local and state elections. When, realistically, the single biggest issue is battling the slide into fascism, you need the numbers to stand up against the fascist party.

The DNC historically has the numbers, the marketing, and the resources to be contenders in that fight. Their platform is broad and vague enough to approximately appeal to a wide number of voters, both progressive and neoliberal. Displacing them in the minds of anti-fascist voters is a gamble, and requires a party with a similarly broad appeal, and the resources and track record to inspire confidence. These are factors that every existing third party lacks, and I see no reason why a brand new party could be expected to outperform them.

The only way I see it working would be a long, gradual promotion of progressives who caucus with Democrats, eventually displacing enough representatives to pressure Democrats into caucusing with them. But that’s a long process that would require an incredible amount of grassroots campaign support, both in terms of money and platform amplification.

It’s not impossible, but it’s an uphill battle and it’s useless to pretend it can happen in a single election cycle.

I’d wager the “Delay, deny, depose” part had less to do with her arrest than the “You people are next” part.

Or do you honestly believe he did everything he could?

In general? Definitely not. In this specific case? Yeah, probably. It’s not normal for appointees to be sycophant drones, and in terms of concentration of power it’s not even desirable. Concentrating total power in the President is not a good idea, and advocating it by blaming the President for things that fall outside the scope of their power only empowers the people who want a dictator.

He made his appointments to the Board. The decisions those Board members make are on them, if you have a problem with their decisions, criticize them directly and direct your correspondence to them. Concentrating every complaint on the President promotes an inaccurate, and therefore ineffective, conception of scope of responsibility.

Running for reelection.

I’m not making excuses for him, I’m discouraging an inaccurate conception of the division of powers. I’m fine blaming him for all the things that are his fault, but I don’t think reinforcing the idea that “the president is a king who has total authoritarian control over the federal government” helps anyone except the people who want to make that a reality. He appointed what he could to the Board, direct your ire, in this instance, at them.

Agreed, but it’s out of Biden’s hands now, I don’t like popularizing a unitary executive

Biden isn’t a king. Postmaster General is elected by the Board of Governors, which Biden did replace a number of. Also no more than half of them can be from the same party, so gridlock is natural.

Absolutely. I’m not terribly privileged, but while the difficulties of life are non-trivial, overall I’ve experienced enough joy to justify the expense.

Free speech means the government can’t retaliate against you for what you say. That’s it. Any other consequences are on you.

Eh, I doubt anyone who wasn’t already going to agree with him will be swayed by the" both sides". We should probably stop caring what arguments they’re going to use about stuff, no one’s on that side because of arguments.

Just a few things:

1. Bit presumptuous to assume I’m neurotypical.

2. I’m pulling my information from psychologists, like the ones who described the signs and symptoms of NPD in the DSM.

3. I have extensive experience with more than one narcissist. Failing to recognize their own abusive behavior, and the link to subsequent social fallout, is textbook narcissism.

4. I’m not trying to make judgement on their struggles, I’m stating that believing oneself to be unfairly targeted is a symptom of narcissism.

It’s more like someone who is nose blind to their own horrific body odor (thanks to my MtG phase, also something I’m quite familiar with) than race. They think they smell fine, yet people react poorly to them, some even suggest bathing or deodorant. Since they can’t smell themself, they interpret these comments as baseless. They think they smell fine, and other nose blind smelly people will only confirm their self-assuredness.

NPD is also typified by not recognizing your behavioral offenses, and reacting to criticism by claiming to be the victim. The narcissists in my life never think they do anything wrong, that their abusive behavior is normal or acceptable, that their critics are attacking them for no reason, out of unfounded hatred or jealousy.

That does not make for a reliable evaluation. Claims of baseless attacks from a person who thinks every attack against them is baseless, does not prove that those attacks are actually baseless.

And yeah, people with NPD are very often attacked by neurotypicals for their thoughtcrimes.

Source? I’ve dealt with more than my share of narcissists, and I’ve never seen this. They might say things like “You really do think you’re the center of the universe, unbelievable” but it’s not because of the thought itself, it’s because of a history of harmful behavior linked to that thought. Manipulation, verbal abuse, selfishness at the expense of others, etc.

If you somehow had all the non-behavioral traits, but were able to avoid all the telltale narcissistic behaviors, no one would attack you for your narcissistic thoughtcrimes.