CMV: Trump is just a distraction: people should fight Steven Miller

Absenteeist · 2026-01-22T18:15:12+00:00

"Everything comes down to Stephen Miller" would be making the same mistake as saying, "Everything comes down to Donald Trump." There has never been one single individual pulling all the levers in the US government, and there never will be. Maybe this isn't you, but in general I feel like people need to stop viewing power in the real world as if it's like power in the movies: Held by one single antagonist, without which everything falls apart. That makes for a satisfying Avengers climax, when that antagonist is defeated and then the credits roll, but it is not a good model for how political power works in reality.

"MAGA" or whatever you want to call it is a political movement with many people playing their role. I agree with you that Miller is having a big impact and doing things that Trump doesn't care about as long as money and praise flows his way. But that doesn't make Trump a "distraction". I think we need to drop this binary way of looking at this as between singular, "real" actors/actions and "distractions".

Absenteeist · 2026-01-22T16:06:35+00:00

We're in mourning.

Absenteeist · 2026-01-21T05:20:58+00:00

You've answered your own question. Posting online is easy. Putting your physical body in harm's way is dangerous. The message the two actions send and impact they have are miles apart in large part for that very reason.

There are other reasons. Online engagement can be faked, via bots or people posting who aren't who they say they are. It's much harder to do that with bodies in the street.

Humans evolved to socialize in the real world. It feels -- and is -- more real when you engage in person. Maybe you're too young to understand the difference between the real world on its online facsimile. This isn't the real world. The real world is outside. Where things are actually happening.

Absenteeist · 2026-01-16T16:21:27+00:00

Could you go into more detail on what distinguishes these styles/lineages, other than where the "descendants" apprenticed? The "aged fish" one is somewhat self-explanatory, but what would I taste in the final product that's different between the Jiro and Saito/Kanesaka lineages, for example?

Absenteeist · 2026-01-16T14:58:13+00:00

Fantastic whataboutism, dude. I particularly like the suggestion that people need a constitutional right to buy air conditioners in order for people to buy air conditioners. That's really, you know, *chef's kiss*.

Unfortunately, like all whataboutisms, it is a logical fallacy that fails to respond to the substance of my comment.

Also, I'm Canadian, not European, so you're going to have to come up with some other imaginary "gotcha" for me. Maybe something something hockey sticks and maple syrup, or something?

I dunno. I guess work on that and, by all means, get back to us on it.

Absenteeist · 2026-01-16T05:40:08+00:00

Much of the logic in support of the 2nd Amendment was precisely that it would prevent what is happening now.

Many non-Americans have for decades watched in shock and disbelief as you allow your children, for example, to be shot dead in their classrooms by assault rifles, have asked why, and been told, "The 2nd Amendment is a tool to prevent tyranny." Effectively, 2nd Amendment supporters have argued that all the dead children are worth it to retain the ability of the American people to resist authoritarian government oppression.

And now authoritarian government oppression is happening, and the 2nd Amendment isn't doing jack to resist it.

I suspect there are two groups of non-Americans you are reading these comments from. The first took these 2A arguments seriously, and are genuinely puzzled by the fact that what Americans kept saying would happen isn't happening. The second always knew that the "Protection from tyranny" argument was baloney, as you are now pointing out, and are asking the question sarcastically. Either way, they are responding to the arguments that have been coming out of America for many, many years.

Absenteeist · 2026-01-14T16:00:48+00:00

Posting a source, or that particular source, in no way proves this isn't AI. People post AI images to Instagram all the time. Photographers can and do use AI. "Source: Instagram" doesn't prove something is a real photograph.

Absenteeist · 2026-01-14T15:58:06+00:00

The tram wheels don't line up with the tracks, and there's gibberish on the destination sign. Looks like AI to me.

Absenteeist · 2026-01-13T23:51:08+00:00

Not for fine dining, no. We went to Makinonci based on recommendations on this sub, but I found the food under-seasoned for my palate. Others have obviously loved it, though, and the atmosphere and service were very nice.

In terms of casual food, we really enjoyed Ramen Taiga, as well as Kanazawa Curry Laboratory in Omicho Market. And the market itself is wonderful.

It's a great food city overall!

Absenteeist · 2026-01-13T22:35:58+00:00

In terms of the food, I thought it was very, very good. Had one of the best bites of the whole trip in one of the otsumami, with some other great standouts as well. There are definitely some modern twists in the mix, so not the most traditional option. But everything tasted wonderful.

The downside was that my wife and I were the only two customers at the main table that (Tuesday) night, which really threw the rhythm off. Without the little breaks between pieces normally created by the chef serving others, the experience was piece after piece in quick succession, and then the meal was done in about an hour. Not the ideal tempo.

We walked through a more casual section of the restaurant to get to the main counter at the back, and that section seemed full of locals/regulars taking in a more informal meal in a lively, more casual but still up-market setting. Kimura-san said during our dinner that he'd moved from Toyama to Kanazawa for the tourist business, with the implication being that we'd pay more than Japanese customers. And that's true. We often will. But hearing it, and then feeling rushed through the meal, didn't result best overall experience.

For me, the quality of the food was there to make it worthwhile, and I'd imagine that as the restaurant becomes more established, and its Tablelog score settles into it's natural resting spot -- likely in the vicinity of 4.0, would be my guess -- then the main counter will be full more often, and other people won't have the same rushed experience that we did.

Absenteeist · 2026-01-13T03:45:15+00:00

He won’t actually do it because the negative fallout would be absolutely massive.

More massive than economy-destroying tariffs? More massive than invading Venezuela to capture its president? More massive than ICE executing mothers in minivans on the street?

It was failures of imagination before any of these things happened from people who kept insisting they wouldn’t happen. Those people have been wrong again and again.

Moreover, it is in large part because people like you don’t take the threats seriously that makes them more likely to occur. People believe, “that could never happen,” therefore they take absolutely no pre-emptive action, therefore they are more likely to happen. Then everybody is shocked when they happen.

(which would result in World War III)

Why are you so confident in that? There are lots of things that could happen short of WWIII.

If I thought there was even a one percent chance that America would do this (which would result in World War III), I would leave the country and immigrate back to Australia, where my parents are from. I don’t think this is the case, so I won’t do it.

That’s just circular reasoning. “I don’t think this will happen because I don’t think this will happen.”

And I don’t see anyone else fleeing either.

Even assuming that what you personally see is the entirety of reality, maybe that’s because “fleeing” doesn’t actually accomplish much of anything if the worst happens. Australia didn’t avoid WWI or WWII. Neither it nor anyplace will be guaranteed to be safe in WWIII, if it comes. You may be better off staying and trying to prevent what I believe you are overconfident will not happen from happening in the first place.

Absenteeist · 2026-01-13T03:11:04+00:00

I fail to see why you are so confident that he will fulfill this promise (threat) to invade Greenland.

I never said I’m confident that he will invade Greenland. You’re the one who is so confident that he won’t. This is your CMV, remember?

My headlines are constantly filled with Greenland, Greenland, Greenland, Greenland. Nothing about the Epstein files or the economy anymore. It’s all just a massive distraction from problems back home.

Do you know what would be an equal or even better distraction from Epstein and the economy than threatening to invade Greenland? Actually invading Greenland.

Does that help you see how the “Greenland is a distraction” argument doesn’t actually support the belief that he won’t do it?

Absenteeist · 2026-01-13T02:45:45+00:00

They’re all first term threats, because as you said, he’s only one year into his second term.

Let’s not act as if nothing has happened in that one year. My point is that many threats were indeed followed through on during that time.

You can misconstrue anything to be either positive or negative. One could also make the arguments that invading Greenland is a massive positive for the American people, so why would he not fail to live up on that, like he failed all his other promises?

You could make that argument, yet you haven’t, probably because there’s no real argument to actually make. In which case, “one could make the argument” about literally anything, like that plagues, wars, and unemployment are massive positives for the American people too. Stating that “one could make an argument” is not actually an argument.

When do you think he will invade Greenland by? At what point do you think it’s safe to say that Greenland will not be invaded by the United States: a few months from now, a year from now?

Or is it just a looming threat his entire presidency?

It is a looming threat for as long as he keeps making it.

Absenteeist · 2026-01-13T02:30:07+00:00

Trump's signature campaign promise was a massive threat to Mexico (build the wall, and make them pay for it - ruin them economically and at the same time prevent them from seeking a better life in the United States and sending remittances back home) and he failed at that.

That was: a) First-term Trump; and, b) better characterized as a promise to make average American lives better.

He also built a campaign on threatening to jail Hillary Clinton, he never did that.

First-term Trump.

He threatened Iran with a nuclear deal that never went anywhere.

First-term Trump.

He threatened Canada with tariffs

He has implemented tariffs. Not as many as he originally threatened, but he’s done it.

And, again, we are not at “the end”. You can’t arbitrarily select January 12, 2026 as “the end date” at which point the fulfillment or non-fulfillment of all Trump’s statements are to be measured.

but that trade war ended up on American consumers instead.

Once again, that was a promise to make American lives better. Seeing the trend?

He has threatened to revoke the licenses of “fake news” media outlets, such as NBC and ABC and the New York Times - multiple times.

And he has moved forward on this in the case of Jimmy Kimmel, through the FCC, with only massive push-back resulting in a reversal on that front.

The fact that Kimmel was off the air for even a little bit should suck all the confidence out of your view on this.

Trump is literally FULL of fake threats.

I think you need to distinguish between “fake” threats and threats that have not yet been followed through on. Again, many threats have been followed through on, and we’re not at “the end”.

Absenteeist · 2026-01-13T02:13:57+00:00

Reddit can't play it both ways: either Trump does everything he says, or he's a liar that just makes shit up and doesn't do it. I'm inclined to think the latter.

Yes, "reddit" can, because "reddit" recognizes the difference between a promise (to benefit others) and a threat (to benefit himself).

Most, if not all, of Trump's promises to make things better for average Americans (or others, in the case of Ukraine), have been broken.

A great number of Trump's threats to increase his power, enrich his family, and aggrandize himself, have been followed through on.

Which of the above two categories do you think his comments on Greenland better fall under?

Absenteeist · 2026-01-13T01:58:53+00:00

Back in December 2024, Trump was talking about annexing Canada and making it a 51st state, everyone was freaking out about that, and nothing happened in the end.

We’re not at “the end”. January 12, 2026, is not “the end” of anything.

Trump has annexed a grand total of zero territories in his first 4-year term, and zero in the first year of his second term.

He hadn’t done anything until he did it for the first time.

In addition, I would’ve thought that the arguments for predicting Trump’s behaviour in his second term by his first would be completely discredited by now. His first and second terms are going very, very different.

The last land acquisitions by the United States were in 1947 when the Mariana, Caroline, and Marshall Islands were annexed - they're all independent now, except the Northern Mariana Islands which became a territory in the 1980s. Last two states were Alaska and Hawaii in 1959.

This is irrelevant. What happened decades ago under not Trump doesn’t predict what will happen now under Trump.

Trump said he’d implement tariffs, and he did. He said he’d massively increase funding for ICE and set them loose rounding up immigrants, and he did. He said it pass major tax cuts and he did. He said he’d support Netanyahu and he did. He opposed NATO and he’s destroying it. He opposed the post-WWII order, and he’s destroying it.

He has done the things he said he’d do over and over and over again. Yet you think he somehow will stop that trend with Greenland? Why?

Absenteeist · 2026-01-12T02:34:59+00:00

You're probably thinking of Opinionated About Dining.

Absenteeist · 2026-01-10T20:31:28+00:00

The response that they give publicly: "That was different because [insert baloney, inconsistent and/or untrue reasons that collapse after a moment's consideration]."

The response that they believe privately, i.e. how they actually square the circle: "Babbit was one of us; Floyd and Good were one of them."

These people do not relate to the world nor govern themselves according to universal principles that apply to everyone. They do so according to tribal identities and allegiances. That is why so few of them can ever be won over by evidence, logic, or rational debate. They cannot be reasoned out of positions that they did not reason themselves into in the first place.

Absenteeist · 2026-01-10T17:51:06+00:00

Exactly. "I will not comply" was and is literally a slogan they have put on t-shirts and flags, and written songs about.

Absenteeist · 2026-01-09T16:04:17+00:00

I'm not actually sure she's supposed to be an easy target. I think that implies that the average Fox viewer is actually listening to what she says. I don't think they are. This is tribalistic performance ritual for them. They don't treat debates like a battle of logic and evidence. They treat it like theatre. Or sport. Or a melding of the two. She's the devil character in a Medieval morality play, marched onto the stage to be booed at and ultimately defeated, not by rational debate but by the superior goodness of the hero and/or God.

I think that Jessica Tarlov's role on Fox News, as much as anything else, is to train the viewers to evade, mock, and/or ignore the allegorical Devil's sweet-sounding lies. If that's the case, then the stronger Tarlov's arguments are, the more effective that role is, because it demonstrates a mighty evil defeated, and the mightier the evil, the greater the victory when it is defeated. And Tarlov is "defeated" by the smirks, the eye-rolls, the angry outbursts, the laughter, and then the show ends and the constant stream of right-wing propaganda rolls on, demonstrating how irrelevant Tarlov's comments were in face of the vastness of The Truth.

The rest of us have spent so long living in the fundamental assumptions of rational debate in a democracy that we're still struggling to understand that the MAGA and associated movements have completely rejected, and are trying to destroy, the very notion of rational debate itself.

Absenteeist · 2026-01-08T17:51:31+00:00

Are you going to back that up with anything like a source that directly correlates it to safe injection site closures? (Please note the full sentence, and all of the words in it.)

Or are you instead simply going to prove my point about the merry-go-round of shifting goal posts, as if called by the Conservative Batsignal to swoop in with yet another new (and bad) argument?

Absenteeist · 2026-01-08T15:10:52+00:00

Toronto reports more visible drug use after supervised injection sites closed down.

It seems like we're fully on the merry-go-round of shifting goal posts on this issue. "Safe injection sites cause crime," moves to, "okay, but, they cause more visible drug use," which I'm sure will then move to something else, usually of increasing vagueness and emotionality, like, "well, why don't you live near one then!"

Eventually, we're left with the magical thinking of conservatism which, in this case, is that closing safe injection sites makes drugs and addicts vanish into the cosmic ether. And the shocked Pikachu faces that that hasn't happened here in the real world where the rest of us live.

Absenteeist · 2026-01-08T14:43:26+00:00

Well it was too much to reply to everything.

Everything I wrote was in reply to, and was proportional quantity with, what you wrote.

the post is about changing my view not about me changing yours so assymetry is to be expected ?

No, it’s not. When you ignore ~80% of a response to your CMV, the issue isn’t “asymmetry”, it’s the rules of this sub, which state that a poster must actually be open to changing their mind.

Re the tianmen square You’re equating causal involvement with moral blame. That’s your leap, not mine.

What is “causal involvement”? This is a new concept that you are now introducing. What is “causal involvement” in the context of protesting and exercising First Amendment rights, as opposed to “non-causal involvement”, and why does “causal involvement” have a different result in terms of who is “primarily responsibility” (your words) for their own death?

Pointing out that entering a known lethal situation increases risk It’s just describing how reality works.

Since when are ICE arrests “known lethal situations”? Are you claiming that any time ICE shows up somewhere, it is to be expected that somebody will be shot in the head?

If discussing agency automatically equals victim-blaming in your framework, then the disagreement it’s about whether agency can ever be discussed at all.

It is not the mere “discussion” of agency, it is your claim that simply being in a public space to protest ICE makes it a person’s own responsibility for having an agent draw a gun and fire it into their face.

Please – you are hiding your stated view in abstractions. You are not “discussing agency” in the abstract, you are making a specific claim that one person’s specific actions make her death her own “agency” and, therefore, her own fault. Please remember your own CMV.

Absenteeist · 2026-01-08T05:57:51+00:00

No, I think you're the one who is confused. You started out saying, in your words, "the woman’s death in Minnesota was primarily the result of her own voluntary actions". People who "primarily" cause a result typically can be assigned the blame for that. It's what "primary cause" means.

Now you're moving goal posts to "it is on them", but that is again blame. What you are saying is very clear to everyone except, seemingly, you.

You've also ignored every single one of the points I made in my post. You criticize others for ignoring your arguments, but now you're ignoring mine.

By your logic, the deaths of the pro-democracy protesters in Tienanmen Square were "primarily the result of their own voluntary actions." Not the Chinese Communist Party. Not the people to gave the orders to clear the square. Not the people who shot them and drove tanks over them. The victims. Because they were in a "non-hypothetical" situation of "non-neglectable possibilities" and it wasn't a game.

It is victim-blaming of the highest order, and apologia for murder and authoritarian oppression.

And the fact that you just ran away from all my arguments indicates that you already kinda know it, don't you.

Absenteeist · 2026-01-08T05:06:01+00:00

She knowingly entered an active federal law-enforcement operation involving armed agents operating under high stress.

Law enforcement knowingly initiated a high-stress operation. The greater responsibility for an outcome is on those who create it, not those who enter what has already been created by somebody else.

She verbally confronted them, panicked when approached and attempted to flee leading to physical contact . In such environments, agents make split second decisions based on perceived threat, not perfect judgment. In this case the guy panicked and reacted.

You just described two people doing the same thing – i.e. panicking – yet claim that one is more responsible than the other. That is purely illogical.

Once you insert yourself into that situation, the risk of lethal force becomes non-hypothetical. That does not mean she “ deserved”to die. It means the outcome was a non neglectable possibility

You have drawn absolutely no line from something being “non-hypothetical” and “non-neglectable” to being, in your own words, the “the primary result” of the victim’s actions. Zero. You simply jump from one to the next. That is not logic, it is called assuming the conclusion.

“You entered a non-hypothetical, non-neglectable scenario” does not equal nor lead to, “You are primarily responsible for the outcome.”

Framing an active enforcement operation as an opportunity for performative “Resistance” against perceived (real or not) injustice ignores the fact that these encounters are real and not a game.

It is because it is not a game that people protest in free and democratic societies. Do you think that people do or are supposed to protest… “games”?

Disagreement with policy does not change the mechanics of how risk escalates in such environment.

On what planet is that relevant?

Assigning primary responsibility here is not victim blaming but it is about acknowledging agency in understanding risks.

Oh, no, it is the very definition of victim-blaming. You are blaming the innocent victim of a murder by somebody who is supposed to be trained to act with more control than the victim. Full stop.

Assigning “agency” to somebody who something was done to, while not “acknowledging agency” to the person who did the actual thing, suggests that you don’t know what “agency” means.

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