mtutiger

Go to the bathroom, it will be OK?

Mace is also a performance artist whose entire MO since entering Congress is finding new ways to draw attention to herself. It's hilarious to see how people will wrap themselves around the axle going after the Eric Swalwell types in the D Party who will then turn around and take Nancy Mace at face value.... they are literally cut from the same cloth. It's horrible that she had to endure being raped; it just doesn't change the nature of who she is and the persona she has cultivated in her official capacity. And criticism of that is completely fair game.

Pretty sure the bluechecks are the ones obsessed with other people's genitalia on Elon's iteration of the app

You would acknowledge that a non-trans male could easily breach any restroom at any Walmart or Target in the United States without being noticed, correct?

Also, some of us who aren't die-hard Rs change our own oil and do most of our own car repairs, do our own projects around the house and have worked in physically demanding environments. Has Trump installed a ceiling fan in his life or switched out the alternator in his car? Or changed a flat tire? Hell, has he even driven a car in the past 30 years???

At the micro level (ie. not considering how we differ on actual policy), most all of us want the same things out of our lives as those we disagree with on this stuff.

Also would rather have my kids be in a bathroom with a trans person than the President-Elect's first nominee for AG

Don't remember this at all because it didn't happen... Also a little disappointing to see, after all the effort put into trying to have a good faith conversation the other day on this subject, you just come out and completely mis-characterize all of it. Hard to engage in good faith like this.

Generalizations for me, not for thee.... it's the postmodern conservative way.

To be clear, your position is that generalizing about people is OK? Per your opinion above, Joe Biden making a generalization about people is OK. Just trying to follow your logic.

Is this garbage really necessary?

Conservatism is basically a post-modern concept these days for sure

I would argue that being very much against public funding being used in an unaccountable fashion to go to private institutions is actually the conservative position.

History will judge on the scoreboard, it is what it is.... where we differ is in terms of viewing the full picture and how much different the downballot races look if she isn't ultimately elevated over Biden. Ultimately, if there is anyone to blame for all of this, it's him.

I don't think she was the ideal candidate and she did run a legitimately bad campaign in 2020. But the dye was more or less cast when Biden picked her to be his running mate in 2020. Where I differ with Tigeraholic is that I think she legitimately ran a better campaign this time than in 2020 and, in the process, her elevation likely made a difference in downballot races.... does anybody think, knowing what we know today, that Tammy Baldwin and Elissa Slotkin win their Senate races if they were sharing a ballot with Joe Biden, for instance? Does the Democratic Party gain a seat or two in the House if Biden is on the ballot? Doesn't mean she wasn't a flawed candidate or that she was the most platonic ideal, I just think a lot of the grousing about how terrible she and leaning it on her bad 2020 performance misses the forest through the trees... Trump winning sucks, but given where we all sat in Early July 2024, this thing could have been so so so much worse for the D Party. Even though some can't seem to acknowledge it.

Going for Pam Bondi after Gaetz withdrawing does make it seem like there isn't much a strategy behind these picks and that he's just picking cronies.

That would have been ideal.... honestly he could have did as late as Fall 2023 and it would have helped at least. But he didn't.

Elections in the United States are cyclical and dependent on a lot of external factors, including the economy, incumbency and many other things. Hillary and Kamala were put in tough positions in each of their elections.... I honestly didn't realize at the time when Hillary was running (in part because I was blinded by thinking we were better than electing the teevee star to become POTUS) at how, historically, difficult it is for a party to win three consecutive terms. That just doesn't happen in this country. She wasn't perfect, I voted for her and wanted her to win, but I understood that. Kamala's situation was much different... I think she did everything she possibly could but, after seeing how the results came in on election night and how uniform the swing was almost everywhere, it reads like she was pissing into the wind. And that if it were Josh Shapiro or JB Pritzker, they would have been pissing into the wind too. There's a broader global context here - inflation hit everywhere in 2022 and 2023, and in 2024, it has been lethal for sitting governments. And that's more likely than not what happened here. She wasn't the perfect candidate, but in terms of how she carried it out, I just cannot find a whole lot of fault (no matter how much some protest) I am 36 years old and I think we will get there, perhaps not too far into the future.... but I do think we need to note that Clinton and Harris both were in tough situations when they ran

Even setting aside the lack of experience, he's just a terrible politician.... in a year when row office holders in Ohio were running away with massive victories - he won by six points in 2022. And while I know he's getting a second look at the moment because Trump did win - I don't think he contributed much of anything to it. The biggest thing is that he's just a tremendous phony.... I read his book, the one that made him famous. He traded off of his background and his ancestors. And willingly did a 180 from what he wrote for power. On a personal level, it's disqualifying. On a political level, it clearly mattered in 2022, it mattered in this cycle. And whether he ends up being President and has to stand for reelection (nonzero chance) or if he has to run a Republican primary, he's going to have to answer for it a little more than he did as Trump's VP

It's very on brand for Tweedle Dee given how he runs his companies...

That's not exactly what I am saying - I think she ran the best campaign she could but was tied too closely to the administration. And she actually did do things to try and moderate and appeal to a broader base, which I imagine you don't believe she did as well. But she inherited the role with 107 days left in the campaign. And no, there wasn't an alternative because Whitmer or Pritzker or Shapiro or whoever weren't likely going to expend political capital trying to get around a sitting VP in an environment this bad. And as I keep saying, given everything that happened, they largely were able to limit their losses in Senate races and are likely going to force the House GOP to lose seats. Biden would have lost by even more than she did. The turnout issues felt mostly in blue states would have been felt everywhere... those Senate seats in MI/PA/WI and (maybe) AZ would have been long gone, and they would have lost seats in House. The good night they had in NC in state races, does that happen if he's there as well? Maybe Mark Robinson's toxicity would have won out, but IDK. We just fundamentally disagree here. This thing could have been much much worse for the Democratic Party had he not gotten out. There's a lot of time between them and now, and they will figure something out. Personally a fan of Ruben Gallego, although he needs to be inaugurated into the Senate still. Conversely, maybe the GOP needs to start thinking about life after Trump. He cannot run again, and they have yet to find a candidate that can be Trump without actually being Trump (and no, JD Vance ain't it)

Even setting aside the idea that he doubled (not clear that is the case at this point), he went from getting high single digit support to low teens support. In the context of the election, where it is fought over thousands of votes in seven states, obviously meaningful. Does it mean that he's popular with black voters? By any objective measure, going from 7% support to ~12% support suggests that he remains incredibly unpopular with black voters overall. So when you say things like "only lib SJW's care about whether Trump has representation in his cabinet", you can understand how it might be a little hard to believe given how little support he gets in terms of votes from the black community. Regardless of whether it was a small improvement over fours years ago or not. Possibly? I think what makes it hard to tell is the significant turnout drop in safe blue states.... without having the exact numbers in front of me, Trump garnered roughly the same support in terms of raw votes that he did four years ago in Illinois, yet Kamala Harris earned 500-600k less votes than Joe Biden did. Certainly that says a lot about Democratic enthusiasm in this cycle and the issues that Harris had outrunning the administration's issues, but 2028 isn't necessarily going to be a carbon copy of 2024. And Trump himself will NOT be in the ballot. Also think we need to understand that events happen during a Presidency that can impact their popularity... Biden had a positive approval and lost it in 2021. Don't be surprised if the same thing happens to Trump (as it kinda did in term 1 as well, though he never had a favorable approval rating) There were never going to be riots in the streets with his election this time. I'm not demanding talking points.... I'm trying to have an actual conversation. It's not about having differing opinions.

I've overall been surprised how much of a presence has been established by non-political accounts on the app versus journalism/political accounts. Personally noticed it early on This thread from Conor Sen was sort of interesting and I think gets at part of it... https://bsky.app/profile/conorsen.bsky.social/post/3lbdmpjo3lk2k; Twitter has in some ways become a place for people who heavy hitters who want to talk *at* people (because of it's reach) while Bsky kinda recaptures the old magic and fosters actual engagement in the comments (without being overwridden by bots). Like Ewsieg though, while the app will likely never outrun having a more left political lean, I do hope that it doesn't get too grifter-lefty or echo-chambery. I would like to think the people running it have learned from experience (having been born out of Twitter in the first place), but we shall see.

Yet when I try to talk about the winning candidate, you never engage.... there always seems to be a "whaddabout the losing candidate" pivot. Interesting.

From my perspective, Donald Trump is the President-elect now. A full understanding of how he got to this point and what he plans on doing going forward is far more pertinent today and will remain more pertinent than Kamala Harris will be. At some point, hiding behind and punching down on Kamala Harris is gonna have a shelf life. If it hasn't passed already. Put even more succinctly, congratulations, your guy won... to the winner goes the attention and scrutiny. That's how it works lol