mtutiger

Just to clarify, a lot of conservative news sites have seen significant declines in traffic (places like Breitbart) as well.

I saw something yesterday (I'd have to go find it) that indicated that interest in news sites, particularly in the conservative space, is down considerably compared to four years ago. And on the GOP side in particular, the decline of small dollar donors into Trump's campaign is pretty stark versus four years ago. I don't know what any of it means, certainly the polls indicate a rosier picture than some of the fundamentals show for Trump (fundraising in particular), but I do think you are onto something in that engagement is just down going into this election versus 2020. I see it where I am and, tbh, I even hear similar sentiments to what you have said above from people in my life who have supported Trump in the past. People are exhausted, and I would not be surprised if this ends up being a lower turnout election overall (ie. attrition on both sides) versus 2020

They were already kinda going in that direction. It really shouldn't matter though.... they should be made to reap the wind considering they are the ones who sewed all of it.

Rest assured, now that Trump has released a statement saying he's in favor of IVF, the media will likely do their part and fashion him a moderate lol

Totally, it's a huge issue for Haley.... so much so that she's already walking back what she said the other day.

Yours points are all well taken

Also, do these people just not read or think through the implications of these bills they sign onto?

Seeing a lot of these sorts of comments from GOP lawmakers... but they really should not have been shocked. In fact, it was predictable as hell that stuff taken for granted by the general public would eventually be impacted by the decision. What's next, contraception?

Yeah, the grocery market leaves a lot to be desired here.... my understanding with Marianos is that they used to be better until Kroger bought them, but idk, we're still feeling things out. We're pretty far out, so we're mostly doing Aldi/Jewel.... occasionally Meijer or Target, or Tony's if we're looking for more ethnic options.

Umm, literally nobody is saying that at all.

Single income household with two kids, mid 30s.... we are affected by inflation. But when I see a viral post on social media about someone complaining that a Giant Size box of Cheerios is $8.49 (when there are multiple other stores in the same area that carry the same item for $6.49), that's a sign of intellectual dishonesty and/or a lack of personal responsibility for poor financial choices.

I do most of our shopping so I noticed the price of eggs.... last year. Those prices have come down considerably and have been down for a while and, yet, people don't recalibrate at all when discussing this stuff. My only real hot take on the inflation discussion is that, while it clearly has had an effect on people's finances (I know it did and still does with ours), I do think, at least on social media, that people who post micro-examples of how expensive things are seem to use it as a crutch for their own poor decisions. Because in most of these social media examples, there are clearly ways that said people could have spent less. For example, not Doordashing all of their takeout meals, downloading the app and clipping coupons, or in Chicagoland, choosing to buy their large box of Cereal at Meijer or Target vs. buying at Jewel, who has insane markups on dry goods like cereal and chips. It's also a good example of just sticking with macro data when discussing this stuff as well.... the data for the past couple of years showed inflation was high, that should be enough to make the case without getting into people's own personal choices in how they shop.

You'd think it would hit the feels of any self-professed "small government" conservative given how decidedly "big government" the idea of not turning over the remains to the family and the government keeping possession of them is. But I've given up on ideological consistency at this point. lol

Has Peter Baker walked into a grocery store recently?

And I thought he was an incompetent ball coach... Good Lord

Fully agree here - I think they did what they could with the free agent class they had this offseason. Only possible gripe there is maybe you could have considered dedicating money and years to Matt Chapman, but even there, it's not without risk. I suspect the fact that he's still unsigned at this point reflects some risk that teams see in giving out a longer deal to a guy on the wrong side of 30. I'll never understand the idea that not matching Miggy's contract value dollar for dollar is automatically a failure. At the end of the day, the goal isn't to meet a quota of money spent, it's to spend money to improve the ballclub. Which, by any objective measure, they did this offseason. Full stop, particularly given the state of the hitting market. I would like to see them spend money money in the future, and I expect they will (particularly with younger talent that will eventually need to be resigned if they continue to grow). But the total amount matters less than just improving the ballclub in the areas it needs it.

Clearly he's in DGAF mode.... but what's telling there is that, between the lines, he thinks a shutdown is gonna happen.

Last year was more about evaluation than this year IMO.... 2023 was literally an open tryout at multiple spots. This year's roster (plus signing Urshela) shows a much more stable group coming into 2024. That's the takeaway I have, I don't know that Urshela means much about Vierling/McKinstry/Ibanez more than it does about the likelihood of breaking camp with a relatively stable group of guys and not having to rely so much on AAAA/unproven types to fill out the back end of the roster (assuming JHM is out of the picture due to his defensive limitations)

It does make the bench a little bit righty-heavy for infield, assuming Ibanez/Vierling stick around and Urshela makes the team (which he should). I wonder if Urshela's ability to play SS makes the idea of bringing Kreidler with the team to Chicago less likely as well....

Yikes

I was building off your post.

This was overlooked at the time (and remains overlooked), but this is a good example of changes under the hood that can make long term differences as well. As you said, a lot of owners don't do this. You don't have to be a Pizza Jr apologist to recognize that.