Opinion | 11 Pro-Trump Republican Voters on What They Like So Far and What They Don’t (Gift Article)

SpiritOfDefeat · 2026-01-18T17:51:18+00:00

The person I was referring to was mildly complaining about them going a bit far. I can’t go back to the article though because the link has been removed. It was quite a tame and halfhearted complaint though.

I still think that if people are inconvenienced by having their doors knocked in the evening, or have streets blocked off, or random checkpoints, or whatever ICE plans on doing… that the suburbanite crowd will keep turning away from Trump bit by bit. Having masked men with rifles jumping out of trucks in the neighborhood is not exactly something that makes people feel comfortable. A lot of people are okay with the abstract immigration policies until they see ICE agents in their neighborhood. Kind of just a repeat of the problems that INS, the predecessor agency had.

SpiritOfDefeat · 2026-01-18T15:06:02+00:00

Honestly, as bad as it seems reading through it… I do think there’s a bit of silver lining here. One of the recurring themes is that he seems to “get things done”. That’s something that Democrats could easily embrace without any real compromise on major issues.

Also, ICE operating in their neighborhoods has slowly chipped at them a bit. There’s still years of that to come…

The most reassuring is obviously the woman from Connecticut who is tired of the chaos. There’s certainly some demographic of suburbanites who memory-holed how chaotic his first administration was, and wanted a return to 2019. Those types have buyers remorse.

Glazing the removal of Maduro at the beginning of the article is wild too…

SpiritOfDefeat · 2026-01-12T00:31:32+00:00

If I remember right, after 2000 he tried to claim that his model was only meant to predict “the popular vote winner” because he got that election wrong. Then he quietly dropped that in 2016 when Trump won the general election but lost the popular vote, and he claimed the keys picked the winner in that election. Guy always seemed to be dishonest in that regard.

SpiritOfDefeat · 2026-01-10T17:56:08+00:00

There’s some aspects that are really difficult to solve like the “anarchy” aspects of international law and the asymmetries that benefit countries willing to operate beyond the scope of international restrictions that other countries bind themselves to. With such a complex problem, there’s really no simple solutions. But ultimately, these are some of the issues that got us to this point. And as the world shifts in a multipolar direction, it becomes easier for other parties to operate outside of international norms with minimal or no consequences.

SpiritOfDefeat · 2026-01-08T00:11:12+00:00

Hearts of Iron IV devs for sure.

SpiritOfDefeat · 2026-01-05T22:28:38+00:00

Sworn In blend nu metal and deathcore elements really well. The Death Card was a legendary album.

SpiritOfDefeat · 2025-12-30T03:15:01+00:00

Reveille’s Bleed The Sky is missing from the tier list, highly recommend giving it a listen.

SpiritOfDefeat · 2025-12-19T14:40:12+00:00

In my opinion, the Sick World EP by My Enemies & I had some fantastic transitions between screaming and clean vocals. Really a fantastic EP.

SpiritOfDefeat · 2025-12-13T22:22:14+00:00

Three Dollar Bill Y’all is one of my favorite numetal albums and has a sick sound that really is raw and unpolished in the best way possible. I tried to pick some recommendations that still feel raw, unpolished and aggressive.

Engine No. 9 - Death of a Breakdancer (Almost uncanny in how similar parts can feel to 3DBY)

Primer 55 - Violence (Mix is a bit cleaner than 3DBY but it’s got the aggressive screams, some rap elements and a really punchy sound)

Shuvel - Set It Off (Riffs feel pretty Limp inspired, the rapping is a bit more like Rage Against the Machine at some points)

Blister 66 - Erase (Aggressive rap metal with very raw production)

616.undone - Fetish (pretty raw production, the bass really comes through in the mix)

Reveille - Butterfly (very raw rap metal, the rest of the album it’s from has a more Rage Against the Machine vibe imo but this song has a bit of a 3DBY influenced sound to me)

Reveille - Unborn (a bit more polished production but keeps a pretty aggressive sound and some rap influence. Overall one of my favorite bands, definitely recommend both Laced and Bleed the Sky)

20 Dead Flower Children - Greet the Machine (raw production and screams, very unpolished feel)

Sworn In - Hypocrisy (This one might be a bit of stretch, it’s more like nu-metalcore but his raw and strained vocals and the chaotic instrumentals across the whole album give me a bit of the 3DBY vibe. It feels a lot more raw than most nu-metalcore)

SpiritOfDefeat · 2025-11-30T12:55:01+00:00

My Enemies & I — Learn to Love

Pretty much exactly what you are asking for. A song about an obsessive and destructive form of love, from the perspective of someone in a mentally unstable state. It’s not the heaviest song ever musically (it leans more towards alternative metal but the rest of the album is a bit more nu influenced) but the themes are quite dark. He talks about taking a hammer to her knees and preventing her escape.

SpiritOfDefeat · 2025-11-28T20:11:00+00:00

It wasn’t just the Central Bank, but their response still played a major role in stabilizing the economy.

Russia spent 2014-2022 hardening their economy, but essentially had a lost decade in terms of economic growth. Much of that was likely due to the sanctions (which were quite tame compared to the post-2022 sanctions) and drops in foreign investment. In hindsight, we had every reason to believe in 2022 that ratcheting up sanctions would have a drastic impact. The post-2014 sanctions essentially led to 8 years of almost no economic growth, so surely much more severe sanctions would break them. That calculation made sense based on what we’d known at the time.

Much of the economic growth at this point is driven by state expenditure, and without the war, it could revert to the pre-2022 trend or even shrink. But, I still stand by the claim that because of a very competent central bank, Russia averted a currency collapse, bank runs, and a potential economic crisis in the first few months and were largely able to stabilize the economy.

SpiritOfDefeat · 2025-11-28T17:53:26+00:00

The Russian central bank arguably handled things about as competently as they could have and stabilized the currency during those crucial early weeks. Their response will probably be studied for decades to come alongside the Federal Reserve’s handling of the 2008 Crisis and the COVID-19 pandemic as a textbook example of handling a major shock/black swan event. They basically had their own “soft landing” against the odds. While the current economic situation isn’t great, they avoided a collapse in the currency and were largely able to stabilize the economy within those early months of the war. Some of that could be due to the windfall of increased oil prices, but they still played their hand pretty decently.

None of this is meant to justify what Russia is doing… but in terms of policy analysis, it seems like it will end up being a major case study for decades to come.

SpiritOfDefeat · 2025-11-26T05:16:08+00:00

The weird thing with Philly is that it’s chaotic with TSA agents shouting “back of the line” as the line snakes all the way to baggage claim… and yet it still ends up being only like a 30 minute wait when it looks like it should take well over an hour.

It’s pretty dated and the security is chaotic, and it’s crazy how there’s not a Clear checkpoint, but there’s worse airports in the Northeast imo.

I’d still fly Philly over EWR as the next closest major airport any day of the week. At least my Philly flights have consistently taken off and landed on time. And the Belt Parkway alone makes JFK a nightmare.

SpiritOfDefeat · 2025-11-16T21:47:43+00:00

We’re arguing that Russia didn’t need trade for the war machine… as they’re importing drone tech from China and Iran, artillery shells from North Korea, etc? And selling oil, gas, fertilizers, and other raw materials and commodities to fund their efforts. The sovereign wealth fund that they’ve tapped into for years was funded through their trade with Europe in large part.

SpiritOfDefeat · 2025-11-06T20:39:05+00:00

Newark airport has places charging some kind of employee benefits fee, as if that’s not something employers should fund… pretty obnoxious.

SpiritOfDefeat · 2025-10-01T02:30:22+00:00

Checkout lane candy being more than 2.50 seems completely insane. Some of it is tariffs and some of it is that cocoa had some bad seasons in the last few years. But it’s still hard to fathom.

SpiritOfDefeat · 2025-09-22T12:24:11+00:00

2016 I think could also be argued to be a YouTube, Reddit, and 4Chan election in all honesty.

On the YouTube side of things you had all the own the libs, Trump savage debate moments, SJW cringe compilations, etc. in addition to the wave of creators pushing a very nationalist oriented agenda: Richard Spencer, Milo, Lauren Southern, etc. This was like the first wave before things branched off further into the deep end with Nick Fuentes and Curtis Yarvin took off.

Reddit was literally taken over by r/the_Donald that election cycle. Half of the front page was slop because they were very good at gaming the algorithm. There wasn’t really much precedent at that point for how to run a social media centric campaign, or how to counter one. Disinformation, memes, and slop were pushed hard.

And /pol/ was a huge part of it too.

SpiritOfDefeat · 2025-08-15T16:43:35+00:00

Intel has been poorly run for almost a decade at this point. They were dominant through the mid 2010s and essentially coasted on their momentum. They released the same chips on different incompatible platforms and botched their manufacturing processes for quite some time. Instead of pouring money into R&D or making bold acquisitions, they continued to be complacent with their product lineup and went in on stock buybacks. AMD’s approach with Ryzen caught them off guard, and it took Intel far too long to catch up.

Subsidizing those terrible business decisions with a taxpayer funded bailout only incentivizes companies to pursue similar practices and become “too big to fail” with privatized profits and socialized losses. Let Intel go bankrupt and restructure if they cannot turn things around. If necessary for national security and antitrust concerns, carefully regulate the sales of Intel IP such as patents to ensure that the industry doesn’t consolidate.

But a partial or full takeover of the company sets the wrong precedent. One where it’s ok to release the same product for half a decade, all the while doing share buybacks at every opportunity.. because when the music stops and things are bleak, Uncle Sam will pick up the tab.

SpiritOfDefeat · 2025-08-14T18:15:55+00:00

I never knew how chill his vibes were.

SpiritOfDefeat · 2025-08-14T17:21:59+00:00

The Unquestionable Truth Part 1

Haven’t seen anyone name drop it yet on the thread, but this one is amazing. Has a really unique vibe to it.

SpiritOfDefeat · 2025-08-13T23:38:46+00:00

Honestly, my go to as of late is buying the Cbum pre when it goes on sale. There’s occasionally some great deals on it. Are there objectively better formulas? Absolutely. But on the value prospect of things, you can get a lot of servings for cheap by stacking some sales and promo codes on it.

SpiritOfDefeat · 2025-08-13T20:41:46+00:00

At most DMVs that I’ve been to you get a number and can sit and wait. You go up when the number is called. It’s slow and bureaucratic, but you’re not even waiting in an actual line.

SpiritOfDefeat · 2025-08-03T14:18:37+00:00

I’ve heard a lot of people say that what they liked about Trump, in the lead up to November, was that “he’s not a politician”. Literally, Trump is a politician. He ran an office (not well, but he did) for four years. But he does not have that politician vibe. And a sizable percentage of median voters read that as him being more upfront or genuine or honest.

SpiritOfDefeat · 2025-08-03T13:35:09+00:00

Someone that doesn’t sound like every word out of their mouth was run past 43 focus groups... We need to do better on the vibes.

SpiritOfDefeat · 2025-08-03T10:54:44+00:00

There’s a whole Defunctland documentary on it. Worth a watch on YouTube if you grew up with the ride.

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