“I don’t think anything went wrong. We just needed more votes,”

Nothing went wrong except the most plainly important thing to go wrong. Further something that could have actually gone right if they just planned better around one of their members.

“It was a win-win either way.

Losing is ok because the Republicans will get blamed… Except this very article where they actually had enough Republicans to get a win and they still boffed it. A rare opportunity for substantiative progress to prove that even as a minority party they can drive common sense legislation and they totally screwed up.

I mean, would he even notice? I’m not so sure that he has reliable bowel control on a good day…

Approval ratings get weird, someone with a lower approval rating can beat someone with a higher approval rating.

So relatively fewer people are “excited” about a democrat candidate. If they have to pick between that candidate and Trump, they may still pick the candidate as the best practical option available, but they don’t necessarily “approve” of the choice they are making. People have a hard time mustering “approval” for a milquetoast candidate, even if that person is the least objectionable to a broad set of folks.

Meanwhile Trump is making a particular sort of folk very happy, in a way no other modern politician has dared to do. Most people may find it highly objectionable driving a lot of disapproval, but you will have the die hard MAGAs ecstatic about stuffing those brown people into vans and locking them up in El Salvador without any due process.

Since his term began, my retirement has probably slipped about a year or so, and so much further to go.

Campaign ads have already started for the Senate race in my state.

Interestingly, it may backfire on them. For example they cite Real Id or passport.

So passport only people who travel internationally bother to get. The rural MAGAs are less likely to get this.

For Real Id, it’s more likely since that can be done with your license, however most people I know who do not fly have not bothered, because it’s a hassle, they have to find DMV acceptable materials for a feature they don’t even need (if you aren’t flying, you still won’t need real id for much of anything).

Because it is, they decided that AI upscaling is a good “enhancement” to digital zoom.

Moscow has been very friendly to him consistently since the 80s. All flattery and benefit, with zero demanded of him.

Ukraine is that country that declined to make up stuff about Biden in an incident that blew up into his first impeachment.

So I didn’t have high hopes

There’s a small chance that this time could be seen as different as Putin broke a “deal” with Trump.

Putin breaking agreements with other people, ok, but Trump considers himself different and those don’t count.

Having Trump be directly involved in a broken deal might be enough of an affront to bother Trump.

Long shot, more likely Putin rationalizes it away to Trump somehow

The thing is I actually know some “conservatives” that did appreciate seeing Republicans coming over.

However, as far as I’ve seen, the only conservatives that appreciated that had already decided to be firmly anti-Trump without any help.

I suspect everyone knows better than to tell him not to do it. That’s likely as anything to make him decide he will do it.

But they also know if they don’t press the issue, Musk will always flake on any thing like this.

Note that Musk was not a PayPal founder, he helped found “X”, a PayPal competitor that wasn’t really doing that well, but managed to merge with PayPal after PayPal was winning the market.

Musk was also the one who about ran PayPal into the ground with incompetence and he was forced out of decision making to save the company.

Don’t know if this changes anything relative to Thiel, but just wanted to highlight that Musk gets credited with PayPal but his history is first losing to them as a competitor and nearly ruining them as a leader, and finally getting a big sum off money for eBay for his failures…

I think it means more for a lower class/middle class person, where it really takes dedication and resourcefulness to get through such a program.

For upper class, you can get that degree regardless.

A college degree just means you could afford the time and money to stick around until an institution gives it to you.

Unless you are a celebrity, then some glory seeking institution will just give you an “honorary” degree.

College can be an enriching experience, but the degree itself doesn’t prove you actually availed yourself of that enrichment or proved your capabilities.

The thing is they might be passable as random folks. The problem is their power and aspirations far exceed random folks, and so, compared to what you’d want to see in those positions, they are very dumb, but exude so much confidence that people have a tendency to assume that confidence must be somehow justified.

And yet executives in your career field probably would have nodded sagely, assuming that affinity to Musk would confer an appearance of intelligence to them, because they have no idea about the field either.

After spending some time in that circle, it drives me insane that the biggest idiots in various fields are the ones ostensibly in charge of them. They toss buzz words with confidence each other in a great circle jerk of money while their results are frequently no better than luck.

About the only consistent ability they have is to be complete sociopaths to screw over customers, employees, and shareholders alike. Which admittedly is a pretty powerful ability…

Frankly Hilary wasn’t a good candidate, Elizabeth Warren would have been better, to illustrate it wasn’t about her gender, but her specifically.

Hilary campaign was largely based around:

I’m a Clinton, remember us from 16 years ago, when my husband was president and I had nothing to do with policy, and mostly remembered as the woman who got cheated on? Clinton was remembered fondly enough I suppose, but that was 16 years ago, and any momentum from that had evaporated. The youngest voters were toddlers when that ended. If they wanted a bit of credibility by affinity to an administration, should have been Obama.

If you don’t vote for me, you are a terrible person.

“I’m with her”, which is just a terrible slogan that indicates a backwards relationship between a candidate and electorate. Even the megalomaniac asshole Trump managed to focus on “America” rather than himself with his slogan.

She didn’t do much to energize anyone, and despite lacking substance she still managed to have folks dislike her candidacy. Whether it be by ditching her home state to go somewhere that would give her a government position or by pissing off the Bernie wing, or, as stupid as it is, I even heard some Democrat mad at her for embarrassing Bill Clinton by “making” him cheat.

They name it in the first sentence, and at least for me, given it’s longevity and word of mouth I know what Joe Rogan implies, but if you said “MeidasTouch” in the headline, I’d have no idea the implication of that shift, since I haven’t listened to either of the two.

I’m largely inclined to agree, but his point stands that the Democrats are completely impotent in the current situation (at least legally). Whatever slim chance there is rests with Republican infighting.

I suppose if I try hard I can cling to a hope. He indirectly threatened their lives whole going out the door. A lot of the stakeholders likely genuinely thought he was going to go away without them having to alienate the Trump fanatics. So opting out of second impeachment they perceived as their best shot at retaining power.

Now Trump is quite directly doing everything to render the legislature powerless. Threaten their lives, that’s one thing, but to deny them the power they won, well maybe that’s a different thing…

Interesting move, to surrender all your power to the executive branch in hopes of keeping your power…