After careful examination, I have determined it can’t be set to Mr. Brightside.

Is every authoritarian strongman a catty old bitch, or is it just ours?

I mean, that depends on the age. If that kid is 7 or older, yeah, you should probably look into therapy to figure out where that behavior is coming from. 5 or 6, well, kids are still developing emotional regulation at that point. I’m not saying the reaction should be, “OK, we packed a banana,” but probably something more like, “Oh no, I’m so sorry, we’re going to have a talk about how it’s never OK to hit, have you witnessed this kind of behavior before?” then offer to pay for the glasses. (Also, packing a banana isn’t a bad idea, as well as making sure he’s getting enough sleep. 9 times out of 10, when young kid gets disregulated, they’re over-tired or hungry).

“You Europeans need to learn how to stand up to Trump and the far-right fascists! Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to get back to my podcast, where I platform people like Steve Bannon, Ben Shapiro, and Charlie Kirk, rest his soul.”

No. Facism rewards loyalty and cronyism, not competency. We have the most powerful military on the planet, but the regime is full of bumbling idiots whose only skills are flattering the president. For now, there’s enough brainpower left at the Pentagon to pull off the Maduro abduction or invade Greenland, but after a few years of Trump/Hegseth/Miller calling the shots and firing anyone who points out their mistakes, we’d be toast.

The civil war has debatably already begun in Minneapolis, and anyone not swayed by the footage of Renee Good being murdered by ICE isn’t going to be swayed by a common ground on healthcare costs.

There are pretty good odds you’d get shot for ringing the doorbell.

The other 40% are independents. Difficult to say which way they lean, but we’d need almost all of them to oppose the regime to stop being the minority. I assume you’re being tongue and cheek about the, “two arms,” thing, but in case you’re not, having multiple guns would make it easier to arm friends/family who share their ideology and create a paramilitary force (although, right now, if you wanted to join a right-wing paramilitary force to enact violence against your perceived liberal enemies, you could just join ICE).

OMG, yes, thank you, that was a pretty big typo.

It’s worth looking at the framing of this. CNN asked, “Would you (favor) or (oppose) the U.S. attempting to take control of Greenland?” A poll from 4 days early found, when specifically asked about taking over Greenland by force, found it was a 86% support, 9% oppose. [86% oppose, 9% support] (https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/86-percent-in-new-poll-against-us-taking-greenland-by-force/ar-AA1Udv9k). (I was very tired when I wrote this. Most Americans are very, very tired right now.)

Trump has made several bids to buy Greenland, and I think most of the support in this poll is for that option. I think the majority of Americans really don’t believe he’ll send the military to Greenland and destroy the NATO alliance. They think this is a negotiating tactic, and they are seriously mistaken.

How bout that precious second amendment you guys always go on about?

32% of Americans own guns. 45% of those gun owners identify as conservative, while only 15% identify as liberal. The U.S. population is around 350 million people, while there are an estimated 500 million guns.

So, assuming a roughly even distribution of guns per household (although my gut says the conservatives are more likely to own multiple guns), we can estimate about 48 million Americans who support the Trump regime holding on to about 225 million guns, while 16 million people with 75 million guns oppose him. Those are pretty rough numbers, but they’re close enough to illustrate that the 2nd amendment won’t help us. The majority of Americans oppose Trump, but the vast majority of guns support him.

Yes, I seem to recall some kerfuffle between LA citizens and their local authorities over a fellow named Rodney King. If I remember right, things got pretty rowdy

A recurring criticism of Data’s art is that he could masterfully reproduce other works, but his creativity was limited to borrowing elements of other people’s art and recombining them. It’s why he is often told his art lacked soul. The advice his friends repeatedly give him is to try to use art to express himself as an individual, not to feed more works into an algorithm until he produces a better art slurry.

I grew up in NYC, live in Boston now. I would say that New Yorkers are rude, impatient, and short-tempered. Bostonians are mean, with a deep-seated rage that’s always threatening to burst to the surface. I don’t know much about Minneapolis, but if they’re anything like the midwesterners I’ve known, they’re kind, polite, and helpful folks. If a large-scale ICE operation provokes that kind of reaction from them, they are not prepared for what they will receive in the Northeast.

He can’t pardon them for state crimes, only federal.

That’s not what the special elections are showing. In last years special elections, Democrats have gained, on average, 14 points in districts that Trump won. Miami elected a Democratic mayor for the first time in 30 years. At the beginning of 2025, people were wondering if Republicans could hold on to the House. In 2026, they’re speculating on whether or not Democrats will retake the Senate.

And this is all happening while Democrats have hit historically low approval ratings. Only 18% of voters approve of the job they’re doing in Congress, including -6% approval in their own party. And still, voters want Democrats in charge of Congress, 47% to 43%. People hate Democrats more than they have ever hated Democrats in the history of Democrats, and they are still hate Trump more.

LOL, no. As I already said in this thread:

Trump is increasingly unresponsive to polling, even within his base, and it seems like the Pentagon really is planning an invasion. It would fracture his own MAGA movement, completely destroy NATO, make America a global pariah, and potentially start WWIII, but it seems he is seriously considering it.

Approval isn’t changing Trump’s actions, and he’s actively talking about canceling the midterms (though using his ICE for voter suppression is more likely). The only hope is that enough neocons tell him that they’ll support impeachment if he fucks up NATO.

They’ve done two big, “operations,” in New York, and both of them failed spectacularly and immediately. The population density of that city basically means, no matter where they show up, within minutes there will be several dozen angry people chasing them down the street. They’re getting constant harassment in fucking Minneapolis, they’ve got no hope of getting anything done in NYC.

Maybe. MAGA is fracturing right now. Withholding the Epstien files really was too much for some of them, and Marjorie Taylor Greene’s defection gave a lot of them permission to question and criticize him. Invading an ally for no reason might actually break through to good chunk of the average red hats.

I read an article that claimed some top Generals are trying to distract him with an invasion of Iran (which is also really, really bad). Traditional neocons certainly don’t want this, though; they don’t want to throw away 80 years of military alliances. Still, if the president tells the Pentagon, “make me a Greenland invasion plan,” they’re gonna do it.