I mean it’s quite different. Hitler wasn’t elected (at least not prior to seizing power and effectively banning all opposition). Instead the Nazis got a plurality of just 33% in the Reichstag election, which led to failure to form a government. Then Hitler somehow convinced the center right President to grant him powers which he promptly started abusing and the rest is history.

In other words, 1930s Germany can kind of defend itself in ways the US can’t.

What did the mobilization accomplish? I watched as police reform in my area, which seemed on the path to success pre-George Floyd, was killed off in a backlash to the protests and riots. Chauvin was convicted not on the protests, but because of the people who stood there and got the video. Beyond that, I can’t see a single point of lasting success for BLM. By embracing inflammatory but attention grabbing messaging like ACAB and defund the police, they got attention alright, but that attention ended up painting the whole police reform movement as a bunch of rabid psychos.

See this article for a more well researched take on what I’m saying. https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/how-views-on-black-lives-matter-have-changed-and-why-that-makes-police-reform-so-hard/

What we often call “the government” is actually many separate systems each with several moving parts. One man doesn’t control it, no matter what sentences are written on what pieces of paper. Trump has all the corruption he needs, but he’s not smart enough to know what he’s doing.

So to act like there’s no hope is just way too defeatist. Trump is gonna fail, and we can exploit those failures. But the last time we didn’t react to his failures correctly, because of course he just won again after what most historians consider the worst presidency in American history. So the first smart thing we can do is ask where the anti Trump messaging and media failed. And actually try to answer that question.

Many people vote based on identity and feelings, the only time they vote on policy is when it’s a specific policy issue like this one.

Ok everyone chill. Yeah, it sucks. But we kinda foresaw this ever since Biden decided to run again. Take a deep breath, think about it more later. The worst thing is to be angry instead of smart. Remember George Floyd. Remember specifically how everyone got angry and did dumb things about it, and today efforts at police reform are actually in a worse place than they were before he was murdered on video.

Think about ways to counter Trump that will be more effective and less just expressions of rage. I think the biggest problem is the media that really plays to Trump’s reality TV-style politics. It’s not enough to wine that the voters are too stupid, but what do we do about it?

Chris Young, the director and treasurer of America PAC, testified that the recipients are vetted ahead of time, to “feel out their personality, (and) make sure they were someone whose values aligned” with the group.

So it’s a scam designed to get ordinary people to align with the policies of the richest man on earth for the promise of monetary reward that never will actually materialize. Or, as it’s known in the US, Republican politics.

So as I understand it, overarching priorities of Trump supporters are:

1. ending sex trafficking
2. stop making the poor poorer and
3. fighting election fraud

So they’re excited about a guy who:

1. By his own admission/bragging, had a 15 year long friendship with Jeffrey Epstein.
2. Passed the largest corporate tax cut in history, and plans to eliminate income tax which is paid at a higher rate by high income individuals, replacing it with tariffs that fall disproportionately on the poor.
3. Made numerous fraudulent claims and tried to submit a fraudulent slate of electors after the last election in an attempt to subvert the will of the voters.

Wired headphones. I like that they just plug into whatever without syncing, are cheap, light, and last basically forever. Of course I need a dongle for the vast majority of modern phones, but I a have a sturdy solid dongle and other than the annoyance of having to carry it with me (and using the word “dongle” to describe it) it works quite nicely. A wire clip is also a necessity.

The Democratic nominee had an advantage of 19 to 29 points over her Republican rival, according to tallies by ABC News-Ipsos, New York Times-Siena College and CNN.

The lead is larger than the one Hillary Clinton had over Donald Trump in the run-up to the 2016 election when polls showed the Democratic nominee leading with 8 to 16 points.

Joe Biden had a greater margin in late 2020 polls when Democrats embraced mail voting, while Trump attacked it and persuaded his supporters not to do it.

Ok, so basically Democrats always have an advantage in early voting and it’s hard to know what to make of this. It’s pretty much exactly what you’d expect given that 2016 was before Trump heavily politicized early and mail-in voting and 2020 was during the pandemic when Democrats were less likely to want to go to crowded polling places because of the whole believing Covid exists thing.

This doesn’t bode well for my typewriting monkey startup