I don’t know if you actually believe that repeating a lie does not increase the number of people who believe it or if you’re saying you don’t think it should work that way. Either way, I think the state of this country proves pretty decisively that it absolutely does work that way.

So do I, but this problem is much bigger than one man. He could not do what he’s doing without support from many rich donors and his party (which in turn relies on the support of the 30% of the country that reliably votes for them). Trump and many of his voters may be idiots but most of those other people are not, at least not in the intellectual sense of the word. They are making a calculated choice to enable fascism because they think it’s better for them personally than democracy. That belief and it’s associated threat to our country isn’t going away when Trump dies. In fact, it might get much worse if they can find someone who can advance that agenda without being a bumbling fool most of the time.

You can lock other file formats too though

PDF is a pointless file format that should not exist. Come at me.

Fuck me I’m not ready for that. You expect it from the old people but I might have to leave the room if a young person asked me something like that.

What is that thing in the sky? It looks like a huge…

JOHNSON!

Yes sir?

Not these globalists though, it’s the (((globalists))) they’re afraid of.

I’m pretty sure that’s the “secret” notation for Jews these days but I don’t run in those circles so I could be wrong about that.

I have serious doubts that fear of reprisal or consequence from voters is a serious motivating factor for just about any Republican in Congress. Their voters have made it abundantly clear that they will never consider voting for a candidate from a different party. Until that changes, and of course assuming that elections still matter, then this is all just noise from the handful of Republicans left in relatively competitive districts.

Surely there’s a middle ground between “laws don’t matter” and “it’s too bad we can’t do anything at all”. Dems don’t even pretend to try.

You mean like all the other recently removed bureaucrats that couldn’t be removed?

He’s not wrong for being pissed at rural red voters. They voted for this more than any other group and they’re going to be negatively impacted by this more than any other group. Causing pain to others is a primary motivation for many of them. Knowing that, it’s only natural to hope they feel that pain acutely.

I wish we could say that about Donald and the rest of the old fucks in Congress

Undeveloping? Regressing? Devolving?

Why didn’t you try harder to stop this from happening if that’s all it takes?

To be fair to some of those people, they’re not all being unintentionally malicious. I used to call myself a centrist but that was in the transition phase between “conservative because everyone I know is” and “I have formed my own beliefs”. For most people that’s what the process of developing their opinions looks like. You don’t swing right from one extreme to the other. You take baby steps along the way. You start to see the cracks in what people around you are saying but you still mostly hear exaggerated caricatures of what the alternatives are so you’re sort of stuck in the middle because you don’t know where else it’s even possible to go.

The problem is not the minority or gender association, it’s the platform. People said a black man couldn’t win the presidency until Obama ran as a progressive and won handily. I don’t give two shits that Kamala Harris wasn’t white or a man. Biden was both of those things and I didn’t like him any better. I still voted for both of them because even a wet dog turd is better than Trump, but we need people to get excited about an alternative, not just vote against Trump.

We’re still paying income taxes.

Seems like an easy, non-confrontational response.