You don’t see the overlapping appeal? It’s about authenticity - not policy. Bernie is as authentic as they come. If he’s not running, the Libertarian party is a natural second choice - you have to be pretty sure of yourself to stand on a debate stage and argue for letting people die in the street. Trump had that same energy in this last campaign, so in hindsight I’m not surprised that he won over these people.

I get the impression that Harris plans to drag out the war in Ukraine with continued US support while Trump plans to end it quickly by withholding support. That’s a consequential difference as far as I’m concerned. If Trump were in charge now I expect we’d already be at war with Iran. Remember when he had Soleimani killed in 2020? I don’t think he’d be nearly as reluctant about supporting Israel if he were in charge. I agree that Taiwan is a powder keg, but I’m not sure what we should be doing differently there - curious what you’re getting at there.

Isn’t Trump like super isolationist? Ask a Ukrainian who they prefer to win and I think they’ll have a pretty consistent answer.

I think I’m just sensitive because I’m pro-choice but constantly get painted as heartless and uncaring by my pro-life family. Viable or not, I feel something for these unborn things, just like my family - the only difference is that I don’t prioritize my feelings over the rights of other people, nor do I shy away from the fact that abortions can be necessary and merciful. I am an ally in this fight, but if you’re dismissing the miracle of life as nothing more than a medical condition, you’re not helping the cause - to some extent you’re a liability to those of us trying to actually win people over.

I don’t know why but “person” in quotations just rubs me the wrong way. I don’t think we have to dismiss the value of an unborn life in order to support abortion - they’re not mutually exclusive. In this case I would argue that there were two tragedies, one committed by “God” and the other by the state of Texas.

I do find it interesting that the “actual” employment rate was 7% higher in 2000 than it is now. I get that we have an older population now, and proportionally more retirees as a result, but isn’t that relevant to our economic health? Rather than patting ourselves on the back for doing a good job despite an aging population, shouldn’t we be talking about how to turn this trend around? Italy, Japan, and China are about a generation ahead of us on this issue, and they’re totally freaking out - maybe we should too.

Private insurance used to offer flood insurance like 100 years ago, but to stay in business they had to raise premiums to a point where no one could realistically afford it (which is to say that living in a flood zone is not financially feasible for most people). The government had to step in with their own flood insurance program, which was tied to regulation intending to minimize the risk of flooding in at-risk zones so that premiums could remain affordable. Even these measures haven’t been sufficient to keep the program from running out of money, and we’ve been subsidizing it with taxpayer bailouts to keep it afloat.

All this is to say that private insurance is literally incapable of insuring against flood damage, so you can’t blame them for any of this. If you want to blame someone, blame Trump for rolling back standards that would have allowed FEMA to consider climate change in their risk models.

I’m torn. If our country ever goes back to normal, I’d love to be able to show my grandkids a Trump Bible 50 years from now. I like to think that they’d be shocked by the audacity of it - by the fact that a guy peddled something so blasphemous and still locked up the religious vote. But I know Trump is probably getting royalties on the sale, so I guess they’ll just have to take my word for it.

Make our country 100% reliant on domestic supply, and deport the immigrants who are helping to harvest said supply. I don’t see how this can possibly lower prices.

They fact-checked constantly during the first half, which was a huge improvement over former debates. Honestly I thought this was better moderated than any previous debate involving Trump.

Harris campaign requested unmuted mics - it was Trump’s team that was worried about him making an ass of himself with interruptions. With that in mind they might be letting him talk because it’s what Harris wanted in the first place.

When my wife told me what he said I assumed it was an onion article. When she said it was real I assumed it was taken out of context - surely there was some policy proposal behind these comments, like a new federal stipend for caretakers. Nope - he genuinely seems to believe that the government’s role in childcare is reminding parents that they can ask friends/family for help, as if there’s a struggling parent out there who needs to hear this. I really don’t understand who he’s trying to reach with these comments - it’s like reminding homeless people that they can panhandle if they’re struggling, which is an obtuse way of saying “fuck you, you’re on your own.”

I’m torn on this issue. I want the sort of gun control that you’re describing, but I really don’t know if it would be constitutional, and defying the constitution is a slippery slope that could cause more harm than even gun violence. The problem in my view is the second amendment itself - it’s vague, outdated, and in desperate need of clarification. The fact that it deals with possession of technology but hasn’t been updated in 250 years is insane.

I’m with anyone calling for gun control, but we really ought to be demanding constitutional revision to address this issue.

Cheney is a fascinating example of how you can support every conservative policy and still be considered a RINO for suggesting that Trump shouldn’t be in charge. She’s proof that you can’t be a Republican today without kissing the ring.

A lot of people are doing work that can be automated in part by AI, and there’s a good chance that they’ll lose their jobs in the next few years if they can’t figure out how to incorporate it into their workflow. Some people are indeed out of the workforce or in industries that are safe from AI, but that doesn’t invalidate the hype for the rest of us.

This is like saying that automobiles are overhyped because they can’t drive themselves. When I code up a new algorithm at work, I’m spending an hour or two whiteboarding my ideas, then the rest of the day coding it up. AI can’t design the algorithm for me, but if I can describe it in English, it can do the tedious work of writing the code. If you’re just using AI as a Google replacement, you’re missing the bigger picture.

My understanding is that there was no hard evidence and the witness did not wish to testify, so this was a plea deal to make him confess and give the victim closure. Still feels wrong given that he did confess, but if the alternative was no probation I guess this is better than nothing.

I feel like an asshole for saying this but I tend to agree. I relate to every meme/post about ADHD I’ve ever seen, and most people I know do as well, so either we all have ADHD or, more likely, it’s being misrepresented.

Trump’s cognitive deficiencies are old news, whereas the Biden we’re seeing now is unrecognizable from the last campaign. Given the narrow margin Biden won by last time, that should be concerning to his supporters. You really think this is a media conspiracy?

Remember when they snuck off on some escape ship to go get help for their crew in imminent danger and then decided to dick around on some horse racing casino planet? It’s like they completely forgot why they were there. I thought TLJ had some neat ideas but I don’t know how anyone can overlook that weird loss of urgency in the middle of the film. It’s like your house is on fire and your family is trapped upstairs, so you run over to a neighbor’s house to call the fire department, but you discover that they got some dog fighting thing going on in the backyard so you decide to go deal with that first, then you call the fire department but it turns out the dispatcher was in cahoots with the arsonist who started it in the first place, and then you return home with your tail between your legs and your mom didn’t even know you had left. The whole second act could have been a dream sequence and it wouldn’t have changed a thing.