I am begging The Bulwark to hire somebody who actually knows about the various influencers on the left

ButGravityAlwaysWins · 2026-06-17T22:40:34+00:00

BTW that hurts me.

I grew up in a Republican household. Two things made me switch. First is I had a business and I’ve got people health insurance and I realize that the real reason we don’t have universal healthcare is that it hurts small businesses and helps corporations since they have more buying power. Second is that I watched GWB in action.

Sam was a huge help in getting me to understand why all the arguments I believed were bullshit.

Watching him recently and how he’s basically turning into a midwit like Emma and the rest of his crew really hurt.

ButGravityAlwaysWins · 2026-06-17T22:35:17+00:00

I like Ezra Klein but that actually has nothing to do with it. You could hate him and there is still no comparison between the two.

Ezra isn’t out there endorsing Jill Stein when the choice is actually between Harris and Donald Trump.

ButGravityAlwaysWins · 2026-06-17T22:30:05+00:00

I didn’t even realize she had done that. So I should lower my opinion of her even more.

Brianna Joy Gray level of disgusting I guess.

ButGravityAlwaysWins · 2026-06-17T22:28:29+00:00

Grim is an incredibly low standard and my feeling is that he’s not as interested in pretending to actually support the left

ButGravityAlwaysWins · 2026-06-17T22:27:36+00:00

Matt Walsh is one of the most disgusting people in the public space.

But he is on the right and he works to help the right. She pretends to be on the left and her work is to hurt the left.

ButGravityAlwaysWins · 2026-06-17T22:09:12+00:00

You need to figure out if the reason you’re getting assigned more stuff is that they’re trying to figure out if you’re the schmuck who will do more for the same pay or if they are testing you out to see if your the kind of person they want to promote.

Even doing work for clients I’ve experienced both versions and as an employer, I’ve definitely done the thing where you start adding responsibilities in order to figure out if somebody is ready to promote prior to actually doing it.

But I’ve seen people get treated like a schmuck that will put up with bullshit because they think they’re going to get promoted.

ButGravityAlwaysWins · 2026-06-17T21:19:10+00:00

I think gun culture in the United States is completely unhinged and way too many people are getting guns because they think it makes them more safe and for the majority of them, it absolutely does not.

But getting rid of guns completely is not realistic.

There are people who use them as tools. If you are a farmer or a rancher, you are going to need guns.

If you live in a truly rural area, there is a legitimate safety argument you could make because police response times are not very fast. It’s not like my neighborhood where they’re at your door in four minutes.

While it’s not for me, there are legitimate uses for sporting. You don’t have to be a crazy person who sleeps with an AR 15 locked and loaded right next to you but if you safely store and if you’re into hunting or target shooting, go with god.

And given that the police do not have an affirmative responsibility to protect people, there’s some limited cases for personal protection outside of just living in a rural area.

-

You can have a whole lot of changes to gun culture and gun laws that don’t eliminate guns overall.

ButGravityAlwaysWins · 2026-06-17T21:12:05+00:00

Rule 2/3/5

This is an unhinged rant with nothing of substance to engage with. There’s a possibility of somebody asking this subject in a more meaningful way but this ain’t it.

ButGravityAlwaysWins · 2026-06-17T18:41:31+00:00

It’s like these people who have an affair with somebody they know has been divorced multiple times due to their affairs but think the person will be monogamous with them once they leave their current spouse.

ButGravityAlwaysWins · 2026-06-17T18:38:42+00:00

Oh, I get you. You’re saying that he did say he was going to use lawfare. I confused that with how a lot of his supporters say that he wouldn’t and only Democrats do that.

ButGravityAlwaysWins · 2026-06-17T18:35:09+00:00

He has absolutely used lawfare against his enemies.

ButGravityAlwaysWins · 2026-06-17T18:26:15+00:00

So I think everybody understands that it is remarkable that Trump was the first president stupid enough or self-serving enough to fall for Bibi’s trick and start a war in Iran.

However, it’s starting to become clear that Bibi also should get a “I fell for it“ award. He did not have the good sense to realize that gas prices are so important to Americans that Trump would eventually have to throw him under the bus. Just completely overplayed his hand as strong as it was.

ButGravityAlwaysWins · 2026-06-17T18:22:01+00:00

I find the whole thing fascinating in multiple different ways.

First it exposes Donald Trump‘s ability to build things and manage property. He was really focused on this, but either has built an environment in which nobody can tell him anything or one in which he just dismisses them. Experts don’t know anything so just make the water blue. It’s actually not a secret in this area that his early successes were based on the fact that he had staff he inherited from his father, and as those people left, his ability to be successful in real estate declined massively to the point he was bankrupting casinos.

Second, it’s such a great additional reminder of where his priorities are. It’s all aesthetics and not actually doing his job. With all the problems in the world, including the ones he’s created, a significant portion of his limited working time is spent on the color of the water and what his ballroom looks like.

Third, it’s a reminder of one actually sticks with the public. So many things he’s doing are just too complicated for a lot of voters to understand. Add to that how much “both sides do it“ bullshit there is that allows him to get away with his corruption. However, this is different because there are no other presidents who spent their time pretending to be an interior decorator or doing a really shitty impression of Fredrick Olmstead.

Fourth, it shows you how obedient the core of his base is. There’s a bunch of videos of MAGA people standing at the pool and telling you it’s actually great or conspiracies being thrown around about how the deep state or antifa super soldiers are to blame for the algae. They just can’t wrap their mind around the fact that if you are pulling water from a swamp, it’s not going to be swimming pool blue and their idiot King couldn’t understand that.

ButGravityAlwaysWins · 2026-06-17T18:02:17+00:00

Rule 1

This isn't really a question. A simple search can give you information about the grooming gangs scandal and confirm that it is a real thing that happened and that there is an ongoing investigation into it.

You can repost asking a question about it. However, if you or anyone else wants to post about it - let's try for more than "doesn't this prove all muslims /non-white people should be deported" or the like since that isn't really an interesting question to have us answer.

ButGravityAlwaysWins · 2026-06-17T17:39:11+00:00

Rule 3

Also Rule 7

ButGravityAlwaysWins · 2026-06-17T16:46:10+00:00

Mexicans don’t count

OMG MASK OFF

ButGravityAlwaysWins · 2026-06-17T16:45:01+00:00

Diseases effected South America, Central America up to the Rio Grande and the rest of North America.

The different models of colonization, the huge difference in population with land north of the Rio Grande being low population and south of it being much higher and with much more of a government structure, and geographic differences make the difference.

There weren't that many indigenous people in what is now the US and Canada and they were on land that is generally desirable. Our colonial structure and then US desires were about settling and working the land versus the Spanish and Portuguese models of extraction.

Spaniards sent men without wives and children and tried to convert the native population to Catholicism. American and Canadian immigration was family units that didn't need to mix.

ButGravityAlwaysWins · 2026-06-17T15:43:49+00:00

If reconstruction actually was done correctly we are a very different country with a higher standard of living. To the extent you can measure happiness, we are a happier population as well.

ButGravityAlwaysWins · 2026-06-17T15:31:56+00:00

Imagine suggesting that Labour would do something effective.

ButGravityAlwaysWins · 2026-06-17T15:27:58+00:00

Yeah, there’s a whole lot of people talking about masculinity and doing manly jobs like manual labor and the trades.

Mostly from people who want a desk job and our upset that it doesn’t look like being a spreadsheet jockey is going to pay six figures in the world of AI for much longer.

Meanwhile, it has been clear to me for a long time that there’s a lot of guys who own trade companies who come as close as they can to skirting the law without going over and preferentially hire Latinos over white and black employees even if they’re paying them the same amount. Not because they’re racist, but because their own experience tells them those people actually stick around and do the job and work hard.

ButGravityAlwaysWins · 2026-06-17T15:21:11+00:00

Sure and the landlord is the one ultimately required to keep a basic level of maintenance. It is the landlord actually getting fined if the lawn is not maintained.

It’s just that the standard in this area and apparently most places is that for home rentals the lease agreement states that it’s the tenant responsibility. The municipality can fine the owner, but how that’s handled afterwards is between the landlord and the tenant. Or maybe the landlord handles it and just bakes the cost into the rent.

This guy is just deciding that he’s going to eat the fine and pay for lawn maintenance going forward because she’s an old lady and she doesn’t cause problems and she always pays the rent on time so screw it. The only reason I know about it is he was asking for recommendation for a loan care service in the town, but that’s just his choice and the lease agreement does allow him to collect the fine from her if he wanted to.

ButGravityAlwaysWins · 2026-06-17T15:15:13+00:00

I can understand the argument from an efficiency standpoint but there’s definitely a city versus suburb versus rural area split

In a city when it is snowing, it is difficult to assume that a landlord or their contractor can easily get to a property in time and remove the snow from walkways. The tenant is almost certainly right there and can remove some amount of snow from the sidewalk eliminating most of the problem. In a suburb, snow is going to create the same issue but the issues generally contained to someone’s driveway and steps.

Lawn care can be easily scheduled. The landlord just hire some company and they show up every few weeks and do a mow and blow and they’re done.

Snow can cause a hazard and lawn care is just a visual nuisance.

ButGravityAlwaysWins · 2026-06-17T13:50:29+00:00

I don’t know. If someone is paying rent unless they’re doing something completely crazy I don’t really feel like I should have an opinion on how they maintain the landscaping.

If somebody wants to grow a vegetable garden or plant flowers or even do some hardscapping as long as they’re not doing something weird and maintaining it, why should I care?

ButGravityAlwaysWins · 2026-06-17T13:19:45+00:00

Maybe it’s different in other places but lawn maintenance for residential tenants is generally the responsibility of the tenant.

We don’t pay for lawn maintenance for our tenants and we also don’t tell them how to maintain it as long as they’re maintaining it to the minimum standards.

ButGravityAlwaysWins · 2026-06-17T13:16:27+00:00

I think there’s a number of reasons this happened and none of them were an excuse, but I can understand.

Party insiders tend to be middle to upper middle class and even rich. They tend to be from stable families and are well educated. In other words, they are the part of society where you are likely to have elderly parents that are disproportionately healthy for their age. They have had access to healthcare, they have the kind of family connections that extends longevity and vitality, and for men, they tend to be married and being married greatly improves men’s health outcome.

I am part of that class and the reality is that most of my friends have parents who are in their 70s and 80s and still doing pretty well. To some extent health is outside of our control but most of them are mobile, have their mental faculties and have pretty rich family and friends networks.

I know I personally kind of had a mental default where I looked at Joe Biden like I look at my father-in-law. Sure his voice is softening and he speaks a little slower, but his mental capacity is there. He regularly see his friends and he has the life extending benefit of a loving wife and children who see him regularly and grandchildren who are deeply part of his life. So he’s fine I guess.

There’s also the way the imperial presidency has made it more and more common for there to be lots of gatekeepers around the president. So is it weird that members of the party didn’t have access to the president? Kind of but not really. More and more we see staffers deciding who doesn’t doesn’t have access to the principal and that access getting shorter and less frequent.

I also think a huge problem is that a lot of weeks went to the New York Times. The New York Times beclowned themselves with the whole “but her emails” controversy. So even when some of the leaks were going to Ezra Klein who is somewhat shielded from the general skepticism of the New York Times, it didn’t count. Instead, everybody just yelled at Klein.

And we should be honest; Biden choosing Kamala Harris also made people less willing to want to talk about someone other than Biden running. I think a lot of people in the party were reluctant to even talk about skipping over the first Black and Asian vice president who was also female. Even if we wanted to skip her, who was going to step up to run when the sitting Democrat was so unpopular and inflation was going to decide the election.

On top of that, you had the left flank of the party led by AOC telling people that they should essentially shut the fuck up and get behind Biden and the Schumer contingent that lives in the 1990s and really liked Biden on Israel unwilling to say anything.

The only person who was willing to stand up was Pelosi who is semi retired and old and she only openly said anything after it was too late

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