SE Hoya Containment Thread (aka Politics)
Welcome to the Official SE Politics Thread. The aim here is for high quality political discussion and debate. The concomitant aim here is for that high quality discussion and debate to NOT devolve into MAD posting, BAD posting, trolling, name-calling our community fracture.
We embark on this project hoping to encourage fair and thorough exchanges of views, and also fair and thorough advocacy for positions. We should learn a lot.
Rules
1. Posters are required to have 50 posts in SE over the last 365 days. This thread is not a proxy for the Politics forum, or an arena for goal-based issue advocacy from people we don't even know.
2. Pure devil's advocacy will not be tolerated unless it is identified by that poster as the aim of the particular post. There will be no run of the mill nitpickery for the sake of nitpickery.
3. This will be enforced loosely, but you are obligated to outline your basic position on whatever issue you're debating. We will not have loaded, gotcha-style internet-standard race to the bottom terrible posting in this thread. That does not mean you have to state every closely-held belief in every debate. You just can't hide the ball. "I'm not sure what my position is" is a completely valid position to hold.
4. Insults are out. You will not resort to that in this thread, because that will ruin this thread.
5. If you demonstrate an ongoing commitment to lowering the quality of discourse through incessant trolling or simply being really terrible, you'll be removed from this thread.
6. These are subject to significant revision as this thread develops.
There is a tradition in SE of better, fuller, funnier discussion of a really wide range of topics. Let's continue that here.
lol I remember this dude from the Bernie era. wtf did he do to his hair?
I would just say dont listen to Kyle Kulinsky and take anything he says seriously.
Starts at 6:47 WRT to my post
https://youtu.be/QwxkSYHB7zU?si=WcwNR9br...
I'll see if I can piece more together.
Basically, US elections work because there are checks at even the smallest levels. When votes are being counted, republican and democrat representatives are in the room together to contest anything odd going on. One side can't just "challenge everything" for example because it would quickly wind up in front of a judge or magistrate who'd tell them to cut the ****.
Likewise, at the county and state level, election commissioners and Secretaries of State have toncertify their municipality's vote counts. This was a big deal in a place like Gerorgia where Trump asked Raffensberger to "just find" ~12,000 votes and then certify him as the winner. The SOS refused, maybe because he's a good person or maybe because it's really ****ing hard to do that in US elections, and certified Biden the winner of GA.
What they're talking about is putting MAGATs in positions locally to just...not certify the votes if they go Harris' way. They can try, and it will likely cause some issues if it's widespread enough, but there are two major problems:
1) Those are often elected positions, and blue areas don't elect election deniers often.
2) Any attempt to do that ends up in the courts, the same courts where Trump went 0-for-life in his previous bullshit election claims.
Yeah, SCOTUS is rigged and all, but even the 8 non-Thomas judges aren't terribly likely to openly say "votes just don't count any more" since that's the kind of stuff that leads to the actual breakdown on the civil order on which their power rests.
I think alito is down for it
Granted I think it’s extremely unlikely SCOTUS falls for trump’s 2nd attempt at subversion if it comes to that but it’s definitely a cause for concern that 2 justices on the SCOTUS can be relied on to say **** them votes
the whole empire riding on a couple of corrupt judges doing the right thing is literally the cheeto as a doorlock meme lol
It is hilarious to realize literally all of American democracy has zero safeguards other than people acting in good faith. And these *******s get lifetime appointments
Play stupid games win stupid prizes
It is hilarious to realize literally all of American democracy has zero safeguards other than people acting in good faith. And these *******s get lifetime appointments
Play stupid games win stupid prizes
Literally no system can overcome a certain number of bad actors.
Oh you want term limits for Judges? That doesn't stop the bad guys from having a majority at any point
Oh, you want to be able to remove the bad judges with a lower threshold? What if you don't have the 51% needed? (Not to mention the obvious problem that lowering guardrails makes it easier for the bad actors to more quickly to bad ****).
Governments and laws are made by men agreeing. If some people stop agreeing, the system breaks down. It's not as if switching to a parliamentary system or proportional representation or whatever would somehow fix the issue.
Fundamentally, it's about the losers accepting their losses. It's why Trump's behavior in 2020 was such a huge deal. If the guy that loses doesn't agree he lost, we're ****ed. You either erode his power base (and they're a cult) or there will be violence
Big Business Brain Elon is about to get Twitter 86ed in Brazil. Brilliant gambit sir
in simpsons there's a throwaway joke about a real-life noah, only this noah has been accused of killing two of every animal. anyway, that's rfk jr
there's little doubt in my mind that he has also killed people, and hunted them for sport. he's like if dexter was a braindead rich guy, and real
So very well done Elmo
Ellen with a masterful gambit
Please state your reasons as to why you shouldn't listen to Kyle!
I only follow his Twitter and YouTube and seems to have good opinions/style of presenting.
I mean all the mega creators are kind of bozos. You have to be
Id prefer a reeducation camp for him
your fantasy of putting everyone in camps will never come true
Zionists seemed to have figured out how. You must be so proud.
GENOCIDE!!!!!!!!
I try not to
Truly masterful
The New York Times recently reported that X made only $114 million in revenue in the U.S. during the second quarter of 2024, according to the documents they obtained. This is a massive drop compared to $661 million in the same quarter in 2022 before Musk took over. When we account for inflation, that’s a drop of a whopping 84%.
tbf it's now a private company so the math behind profits is going to shift dramatically
also unclear how nyt got that info and/or if they just estimated
