Makeitstop
Trump is an idiot and a coward. He doesn’t give a shit about global security, he doesn’t get that abandoning allies only makes us look weak and unreliable, and he has no principles which could compel him to take a stand. He will decide things based on his own emotions and ego, doing whatever he thinks makes him look good. And his idea of looking good is less about being a leader or statesman and more about pretending to be a tough guy that gets respect by rewarding friends and punishing enemies.
Remember, this is the guy who, when faced with a choice between showing leadership in the face of a pandemic or downplaying the disease so that it wouldn’t be associated with him, went with downplaying the disease. If he can’t be trusted to make the right choice in a conflict between a virus and humanity, why would we ever expect him to make the tough call to defend an ally in a difficult conflict.
Honestly, I think if Trump had been president in 1941, he would have downplayed the significance of Pearl Harbor and would have used it as an excuse to stop aid to our allies. But I’m sure he’d still be all for internment, it’s very much his style.
Don’t knock it 'til you’ve tried. There’s nothing quite like feeling the breeze between your knees.
Question: How do you implement proportional representation without sacrificing the ability of the voters to choose specific candidates?
Primaries and/or ranked choice voting allow for people to know who exactly it is they are choosing to have represent them. Proportional representation generally means that the people are only choosing what party they want, and the party gets to decide who will be their representative. There’s any number of reasons why you might support a party in general but oppose a specific politician. I’d much rather have a system where people can potentially weed out terrible candidates, rather than leaving it to the party to decide.
I don’t think a fake assassination attempt makes much sense at all. He’s not losing to the point that he needs to take a big risk. It’s not close enough to the election for one big stunt to have a good chance of influencing the outcome. And it didn’t even happen at a time and place that would maximize the visibility.
The only thing I can think of that could explain this would be the recent trending of project 2025. But even then, if you need a distraction, the convention is next week, there’s plenty of opportunity to shift the narrative there. And hell, if you want to stage an assassination attempt for your own benefit, that’s the venue to do it at.
On the other hand, faking it requires conspirators who can make it happen, all of whom have to be able to keep it quiet. There will be an investigation that he can’t control. The smaller the conspiracy, the harder it is to pull off, but the larger the conspiracy, the harder it is to cover up. And unlike all his existing criminal cases, there would be no connection to his time as president in any way, so the immunity he just got handed by the supreme court wouldn’t apply. And obviously the shooter has to not accidentally kill Trump while he is shooting at him and killing an innocent bystander. Plus, you have to have a shooter willing to die for the cause, or a patsy who can plausibly take his place, which raises so many more questions and carries a whole new set of risks.
By comparison, someone looking at Trump and saying to himself “Well, if no one else is going to do this, I guess I will” is just a lot more plausible.
Well shit, I’m open to being his vice president too. Why wouldn’t anyone take the job? Now that being president surrounds you with a bubble of legal immunity, the vice president is free to grant himself a good old fashioned Klingon promotion. Stab him in the neck with a pen, sign some papers with his blood in an official act, and all the evidence is inadmissible.
If you have a majority on the court that takes this disastrous decision as seriously as they should and are ready to overturn it, then it’s fairly easy to get the case to happen. You just need to have a sitting president tell the justice department to bring a case against him. Doesn’t have to be for anything big, just literally any criminal offense that can be brought to trial and appealed. He can even appeal directly to the supreme court and ask that they expedite the appeal. They hear the appeal, issue a ruling, and the precedent is gone.
This from the same legal team that successfully argued that the president is above the law, including having the ability to assassinate his political opponents.
4x games tend to be functionally infinitely repayable, since a single game often takes an eternity and there are usually many factions to play.
I particularly like sword of the stars 1 & 2. Honestly don’t remember which I preferred but I know I got an insane amount of time sunk into both of them.