> Other people sharing their perspectives and stories is a big reason I'm no longer a Republican.
wow a developed pre-frontal lobe level of empathy, amazing. that isn't even a counterpoint without knowing what your affiliation became, because the whole point is that the crowd is leaving the parties. but thanks for sharing your journey.
> This assumes markets are fair.
doesn't assume that at all, it assumes I can extract value from them
> that isn't even a counterpoint without knowing what your affiliation became
In early 2017 I changed from Republican to Democrat.
> seemingly mentally incapable of noticing absolutely nothing has changed or will change in the composition of seats.
US Senate and House majorities have tipped over to the other party repeatedly over the past 20y. Surely that's more than 'nothing', even if not some overwhelming wave.
> wow a developed pre-frontal lobe level of empathy, amazing
Being condescending and suggesting folks are mentally incapable (in any sense) won't help you make friends or encourage readers to take your ideas more seriously. Unless perhaps your only goal is pumping prediction markets.
the parties are losing voters and unaffiliated (independent) is the largest voting bloc now while having nearly zero representation in Congress, I think there is 1 independent current seat the House and 2 independents in the Senate
partisans are loud, berating the unaffiliated for not adding power to their cause-du-jour as if the unaffiliated are the one other side themselves. loud enough that the unaffiliated may not actually know that they are in the majority now because most people are independently having the same reaction to partisans.
my goal is pointing out that its the majority opinion now.
but you might be on to something, both partisans and non-partisans don’t notice that partisans blocs are minority voting blocs now.
'Entirely' is unfair. I do learn from working with AIs. Yet in the production pipeline their output can be so entangled (especially for non-text) that it's difficult to decompose and adjust without great effort.
Just today I was toying with AI to make some bumper music. It came up with some great phrases and fragments. But its 'song' output is a hilarious mess, and feels like I'd be better off starting from scratch and taking only the bits that work.
Then there's the ethical question of where those clever lyrics even came from. Perhaps just lifted from niche works I never heard before.
Science has often been funded by private and state benefactors. Regardless of the source, it's most often successful when the funds have few or no strings attached.
Perhaps more political oversight will make research more accountabile to the population at large. In this era I suspect it's far more likely to benefit the few, those born into power and fame who are consolidating their power. Scientists with resources and accountable only to other scientists are uniquely dangerous to those unwilling to give up their power.
Congress won't stop the executive because the party that won the executive also won Congress by almost 4 million votes. That's not a sign of the system not working, it's a sign of the system working as intended.
No, that's not accurate. Trump has subverted Congressional leadership to his dictatorship, and they routinely abuse their power to stop Congress from voting on things Trump finds politically inconvenient. The House is in recess right now to dodge a vote on the Iran War that Trump would be sure to lose.
> Congress won't stop the executive because the party that won the executive also won Congress by almost 4 million votes
I remember when Nixon stepped down because his own party could not support his transgressions. The Republican party did this. That is a sign of the system working as intended.
You claim to be radicalized by a pair of lawsuits against Trump, like out of every legal issue he was entangled with it was those two that convinced you that the Democrats were evil?
Guess what? The Democrats suck and their party leadership is just as complicit in the protection of the oligarchy as the GOP's. But what happened with those Trump lawsuits wasn't a weaponization, it was blowback on a man who has been sued over 4000 times and has been shown to embrace criminal behavior when it suited him. Same thing with his two impeachments.
What I believe really radicalized you is the Federalist Society. And just in my other comment about how kids want to belong, so do adults (it's a human thing). And your desire to belong and be part of the elite power base you have put your lot in with the Monarchists.
Bear in mind that the founding-era practice originalism anchors to was voting rights for white male property owners. It took three constitutional amendments to override that. The Federalist Society's originalist framework treats those amendments as the ceiling — not a foundation for further expansion of rights. That's a methodology with predictable winners and losers, and I'd note you're unlikely to be among the winners.
This is one of many reasons why originalism is a weaponized mechanism rather than some noble hewing to principles.
The Constitution is what makes this country great -- being a nation of laws of mankind vs living under the whims of a monarchy of a god-gifted king.
This Congress has deferred to the president so hard, it's difficult to see where one ends and the other begins. Based on recent primaries the R party is only becoming more sycophantic.
At times they don't even cotify their subservience through the usual measures like legislation and committees, except where needed to slap down any roadblocks to the unitary executive.
They (Republicans in Congress) are all terrified of Trump, with some good reason (not that this excuses their dereliction of duty in any way).
It doesn't matter how aligned you are with his worldview, how much you vote alongside his wishes, if you aren't 100% loyal to him personally at all times you're politically dead in the Republican party in much of the US.
While Trump's ability to sway normal elections is next to non-existent anymore (see: the vast majority of special elections held since his inauguration where Republicans are getting roflstomped by Democrats), his endorsement still decides Republican primaries because there's still a lot of brainwashed Republican cultists on the Trump train.
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