I've yet to meet anyone who wants AI added to anything. If they released a version of windows+office tomorrow that was "guaranteed free of AI" it would be their top seller
But, then all Microsoft's top managers, who apparently have bonuses based on how much AI is shoved down our throats, wouldn't get those bonuses. Nobody's cares whether or not something is a top seller because their incentives are obviously aligned toward cramming AI.
Agreed but we also have to stop saying "the majority support this" or "half the country supports this" it ain't true and leads people to feel hopeless.
Yet, if we re-did the election today, we'd have the same outcome. People might not support what is happening but they will never "vote for the other guy." I personally know people who disagree with everything that's going on, but they'll still vote (R) next time "because I'm a (R)," as if it's their intrinsic physical trait like hair color.
The special elections that have been happening don't agree with this hypothesis. Dems are currently outperforming Harris by 30+ point margins even in places like Texas
This is a good analysis but I’ll say at least for me, it has been a lesser of two evils scenario. Both parties have some really crazy ideas and platforms. I loathe the two party system for this reason.
Like you will go to an election, and your choices will be
Republican candidate: "I support deporting your family, I will not only not support cleaner energy but will actively work to increase coal usage, and I think your trans cousin should be forced to transition back even if it makes them commit suicide."
Democratic candidate: "I think all of that stuff the Republican candidate said is crazy and wrong. If elected, I will strive to make all your guns illegal, so that eventually Republican-supporting institutions like the police and military, and Republican states, are the only ones with guns."
“I like taking the guns early, like in this crazy man’s case that just took place in Florida … to go to court would have taken a long time,” Trump said at a meeting with lawmakers on school safety and gun violence.
“Take the guns first, go through due process second,” Trump said.
Because you presented a dichotomy in which the Democrats are a party intent to "make all your guns illegal", yet that is not their position as a party. Indeed the last Democratic presidential nominee made very clear she owns guns and likes the 2nd amendment.
The opposite is true of Republicans: their party platform is literally "whatever Trump wants", and Trump has actually articulated circumventing the second amendment entirely by "taking guns first".
Moreover, his current administration's stance is that lawfully carrying citizens protected by the 2nd amendment who are obeying the law are at risk for summary execution if his agents feel threatened enough. This makes the 2nd amendment inoperable (no need for a second amendment at all if they can just say they were scared and kill you for having a gun).
If you're going to characterize Democrats as (a lesser) evil, at least be honest about why.
Ah yea sorry, I meant literally my guns, as in the ones I use for service rifle competition. Those guns specifically, like the practical ones, are definitely on the docket. In fact if I moved to my current state today, I wouldn't be able to bring my guns.
Yes they will allow me to have a deer rifle with a 5-10rd capacity.
Nice try, but you went on to say "eventually... police and military, and Republican states, are the only ones with guns."
So you were not talking about your guns, you were talking about all guns. You can amend your position if that's really what it is, but that's not what you said.
Ok I will endeavor to be more precise when I'm talking about modern/practical rifles, and not just like literally any gun at all.
The relevant point is that the line for gun ownership pushed by the Democrats (at least where I am) is way far away from the line for gun ownership pushed by Republicans.
And when stating that line, it strikes me as an odd position to take when I'm also simultaneously being told that Republicans are going to go even farther hard right / authoritarian/ take-over / w/e, while also keeping the fairly pro-Republican police armed to the teeth (again, with modern rifles).
Trump supporting red flag laws or not seems kinda like a distraction. Trump supporters saying they can shoot protestors is exactly what I'm pointing out - if that is what we're scared the future will hold, why push for giving up modern rifles?
Kinda goes against gun rights as being part of his platform at all. At least with the "gun control" laws they still try to maintain some gun rights. Whereas the Republican playbook now is just "oh you shouldn't be allowed to carry unless I think you're a cool person." Like that guy that got shot in MSP. He had a concealed carry permit and he was disarmed. People in Trump's administration were still saying "he shouldn't have had a gun at a protest." Where were they when we saw hundreds if not thousands of guys with AR-15's and plate carriers flanking the BLM protests?
I don't think trump has gun rights as a big part of his platform. I guess they got rid of tax stamp fees but that doesn't really mean anything.
But again, that doesn't really have much to do with what I said?
However minimal Republican support of gun rights may be, they don't have increasing gun control as a major part of their platform like the Democrats do.
Right. I realize Australia is not perfect, and from my visits back there to visit family, I know it's gotten more polarized, but when I moved to the US at 28, in the early 2000s, there was still the prevailing opinion that you could go to the pub, argue all night long with some bloke about politics while drinking beers together and still be mates, while here...
"I'd rather be dead than friends with a liberal", and such tropes.
I am not confident that is as cut and dried as you are putting forth, there have been massive swings in heavily red districts the other way for special elections in the last few months and Republican polling is abysmal.
Right, turning out your people is huge, and it becomes more rather than less important as margins are thinner which is a consequence of trying to gerrymander a thinner majority.
If Republicans turn 2 places they win by 130:100 plus a big city they lose by 100:130 into three they expect to win by 120:110 then if on the day Democrats turn out as usual but about 10% of the Republicans stay home across the board they lose all three 108:110.
My concern in the 2026 cycle is that there just won't be fair elections, and so this doesn't end up mattering.
> if we re-did the election today, we'd have the same outcome
Doubtful. The faithful will always be idiots. But around them are vast seas of folks who change their minds and even switch parties. Between foreign policy, vaccines (weirdly, not being nutter enough) and Noem turning ICE into a pageant show, a lot of Trump voters feel betrayed. It’s why the House flipping is almost a given.
"The majority" I'll grant you, but I'd say 43.4% is close enough to "half" for these purposes. It's only a touch lower than his poll numbers right before the election.
Compare with Kier Starmer, who as of this writing has not sent armed goons into his own cities, wrecked all of his international trade and tourism, alienated his allies, or once again invaded the Middle East. His approval rating is about 20%!
If you had 1000 coins and put them into two piles one of 440 and one of 560 it would be "about half"
But if your argument is that only 154 million people support this government and that's fine because if it was 174 million there'd be a problem, then sure.
Is any other US company making a play for putting these shiny new AI's in bots like Musk is trying to do with Optimus or has society just resigned itself to shovelling money on to his doorstep?
But that really is a false equivalence, as you state. Hawaii created a slate of alternate electors, in case the recount changed the result. But only one slate was endorsed by the governor; only one slate was presented at the Electoral College.
Having "alternate electors", who were not endorsed by the governor, and who didn't win the recount (or the court case), show up at the electoral college anyway, claiming to be the real thing... that is a whole different deal. It's not a good-faith contingency plan for if you win the recount; it's a bad-faith attempt to overthrow the vote after you lost the recount.
Wikipedia is an aggregate of "reliable sources" (read: left wing media outlets) and as such cannot be trusted as a source of fact in political matters. My spin is that I don't trust most of the claims made in the article.
For the sake of argument I will assume the article is entirely accurate. I don't care overmuch, honestly. I am not the biggest fan of democracy in general. It doesn't seem to work very well. China is running circles around us and they are not worried about voting for parties.
There is literally no legal vehicle to uproot it, so, sure. If the law gets in the way of arriving at a functioning government, then breaking the law is what needs to happen. Not that I think what we have now is "functioning" either, but the act of subversion itself is not a big issue for me. Trump's stupid actions are an issue for me, but not so much the legality of them; if he were illegally improving the country that would be welcome.
Not a supporter of him, but fairly conservative, in a very red, very pro-Trump area. Really wouldn't even consider myself a Republican. But until someone decent on the Democrat side comes along I'll probably hold my nose and vote red, and I can honestly say I've never voted for Trump.
Trump appeals to a large swath of the disenfranchised. Mostly white (though quite a few black and latino - at least in my area), blue collar, conservative, Christian, mostly middle class. In the mid to late 00s the Democratic party had built a minority coalition with support from upper middle class white people. And it worked pretty well for about a decade. But they took it too far. I think Obama is largely to blame for this - his 2012 campaign was seen as being based entirely on denigrating middle class white people (not my words - the sense I've gotten talking to neighbors and from listening to talk radio). Then it compounded with Hillary's run in 2016. "A basket of deplorables" and so on. So all those middle class white people - they got fed up with constantly being called racist, sexist, transphobic, homophobic colonizers. They got angry. Trump was the response to all that.
The other thing you should know is that Trump is an insult comic - same beats, same tenor. You probably don't think he's funny but if you talk about him he's going to come back and insult you in the worst ways possible (which can be funny if you like insult comedy and aren't the target). Not presidential AT ALL, and most on the left don't know how to handle that. But the disenfranchised he's catering to - they are eating it up. Thus he's built an army of diehard supporters. He's saying the things they like to hear, making fun of the people who have made fun of them, coloring the landscape with the right things (a decent economy in his first term, highly patriotic themes like renaming DoD to DoW, hating on the left, etc). THEN you had the insanity of draconian and unscientific COVID responses, BLM riots, trans issues, safe spaces and micro-aggressions, and a Democrat president that was sadly and effectively a dementia patient. The response to the first Trump term by the left was not healthy. All they had to do was not go insane, but they did, and now you get him again.
All that to say that his base is going to back him up. If Trump says that there were fake electors his base is going to believe him. He could say (and has) just about anything and a large MAGA contingent will happily follow along. Not only do they feel represented by him but the left has acted so foolishly in response they feel justified in doubling down on that support.
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