I love your optimism.

And, to be clear, we achieve that by changing local election laws to use some form of Rank Choice instead of First Past The Post.

The two party system is an organic result of FPTP voting. If we change to Rank Choice, the two party system will crumble.

It’s worse than that. Any historian will tell you that the work of historians is basically gathering clues and hints to piece together a coherent story that fits all the data. Which is fine, except when you’re using that story to interpret legal doctrine. The very foundation of originalist philosophy, that we should interpret law according to history, is flawed because history can never be perfectly known or understood. We might have extremely good data and knowledge, we might have a NEARLY perfectly accurate story of what happened. But “nearly” isn’t enough, and it’s that very flaw that fascists use to exploit originalist philosophy to push their own agenda.

Exactly. Fascists very rarely operate in good faith.

Yeah well, it’s not their job to keep fascists out if power. It’s OUR job. Us, the voters.

Voting works. If it didn’t, they wouldn’t be trying so hard to stop us from doing it. And once we have Rank Choice we’ll be able to move beyond the “an actual fascist/not an actual fascist” dichotomy. But until then, for fucks sake, vote “not an actual fascist” even if you don’t like the person you’re voting for. I don’t care how terrible they are, if they’re not an actual fascist then you vote for them. THAT’S how you keep fascists out of power.

This is why I’m giving up on changing the DNC and refocusing my efforts on changing the voting system from First Past The Post to Rank Choice.

But we also need the fascists out of power, and kept out of power.

These two things have to be achieved in parallel. That’s why I vote Democrat, but only until I have Rank Choice at which point the Democrats will become my second pick (and then eventually third pick, and hopefully someday not one of my picks at all)

Your right to self identify doesn’t exist under fascist rule. Identify as you’re told, or face the consequences.

Today it’s gender. I wonder what facet of identity they’ll seek to control tomorrow. Sexual orientation? Religion? Political affiliation?

The mirror test is frequently cited as a means of testing sentience.

OP I think you hit the nail on the head.

This is why the rumors of there being a Department of Remigration is so alarming. It really looks like they EVENTUALLY want to get rid of all non-white people.

Which won’t come as a surprise to anyone paying attention, but there’s a depressing number of people who insist on keeping their heads in the sand.

The Emperor Calígula declared war against Poseidon, had his army march to the English Channel, and ordered them to strike the water with their weapons and collect sea shells as spoils of war.

So yeah, I think you’re on to something.

It doesn’t matter if it’s a blue or a red state if there aren’t any more elections because they’ve been suspended because of war with, say, NATO.

The absolute least we can do is force them to jump through the hoops. Like, I get that it feels pointless but it’s better than just giving up and letting them do whatever they want.

They WANT you to feel like there’s no point so that you’ll give up. They want you to give up because that’s the easiest way for them to win. Why give them the satisfaction? They haven’t actually won yet, but even if I can never win I’ll won’t give up no matter how impossible the victory, and neither should you.

Just because they mandate body cams doesn’t mean the agents are 1) wearing body cams, or 2) turning them on.

This is a fascist regime, they’ll say anything and do whatever they want. Policy and reality aren’t connected in any meaningful way. All you’ve pointed out is that they’re either lying or ignoring policy, both of which are par for the course.

Fascists weaponize hypocrisy to get what they want: power. Is anyone surprised anymore?

No court in the country would uphold Stand Your Ground used against a law enforcement officer of any kind, no matter what.

“Yeah but what if–”

“Except ICE doesn’t–”

“The person in the house doesn’t know–”

No Matter What

I mean, those two things aren’t mutually exclusive. I can believe the science AND ALSO engage in behaviors it says are unhealthy for me.

It was 14 sheckles, but they had to divide them between the eight of them.

You’ve successfully and correctly identified the problem with using the “left-right sliding scale” to describe America as being that there is no left.

You don’t even understand enough to get why the comparison is relevant.

People said LITERALLY the same thing about ADHD. You’re straight up mistaken in your thinking, and you need people like me to tell you that because you refuse to learn about the things your criticizing on your own.

But you’re probably just going to accuse me of bias and ignore me. That’s what all the other science deniers do, too.