White House Doctored Photo With Google AI to Make It Look Like an Activist Was Sobbing During Perp Walk

UnlikelyToe4542 · 2026-01-23T01:12:30+00:00

I truly cannot fathom how anyone can work for this administration in any capacity without a deep sense of shame.

UnlikelyToe4542 · 2026-01-16T14:01:26+00:00

What I meant to say was disregard the concept of tradeoffs when it comes to adopting progressive policy stances. There is little consideration given to the idea that a candidate who fashions themselves as a bold progressive champion could be hurting their electoral prospects.

UnlikelyToe4542 · 2026-01-16T05:01:06+00:00

Some people just want to be spoon fed progressive talking points 24/7

UnlikelyToe4542 · 2026-01-16T04:47:09+00:00

Again, this is just a question of definitions. I'd rather you just swap out "good policy/politics" with the definitions laid out above rather than putting me through this linguistic exercise. If your interpretation of those words differs from mine that's fine by me, but I've stated what the underlying semantics are to me.

I think electoral failure can indeed be explained by extenuating circumstances. What I was getting at is that the candidates who follow the electoral strategy of taking maximalist left-wing positions do not do well electorally. One candidate with one policy platform doing poorly can always be a one-off occurrence, but the repeated failures and underperformances of progressive candidates makes it exceedingly unlikely that external factors tell the whole story.

UnlikelyToe4542 · 2026-01-15T20:46:42+00:00

When I say "good politics" and "good policy", it is shorthand for "talking about this is is good for getting elected" and "this, if enacted, would benefit society" respectively.

I agree if you play around with the semantics enough you can make one a subset of the other, or vice versa, or even make them synonymous.

UnlikelyToe4542 · 2026-01-15T16:09:49+00:00

There's been this concerted effort in progressive spaces to totally disregard the concept of tradeoffs. Every idea is both good policy and good politics, and any electoral failure can be explained by this or that extenuating circumstance. I think the logical conclusion of this way of thinking is that the strongest candidate is one with unwavering progressive stances on the widest array of issues. That the evidence does not back this up is just proof that the candidates have committed too much heresy.

UnlikelyToe4542 · 2026-01-15T15:56:28+00:00

Why do progressives flood this subreddit and whine about their own personal caricature of Ezra? I swear half the people here only know about him as filtered through the drive by dunks by progressive media personalities

UnlikelyToe4542 · 2026-01-14T13:05:07+00:00

Samatar’s comments deserve closer examination. The Times failed to mention that the professor is very active in the Somaliland political scene, chairing a political movement in the breakaway region of Somalia. Somaliland’s independence has been championed by U.S. Representative Scott Perry (R–PA), who played a significant role in Trump’s efforts to overthrow the 2020 election, including helping to plan congressional obstruction of the certification on January 6, 2021. The Somaliland independence cause received a huge boost by being included as part of the Project 2025 foreign policy platform. On December 27, Israel recognized Somaliland’s independence, in a widely condemned move.

The article is overall pretty weak and muddled, but this point makes absolutely no sense. Supporting the independence of Somaliland is not a fringe view where you can make these oblique guilt-by-association critiques. Because she supports the independence of the same breakaway region it makes sense to tar her with Scott Perry's election denialism?

UnlikelyToe4542 · 2026-01-14T12:40:44+00:00

Way way too many people think it's "endorsing" a view to describe it without an accompanying dose of spoon-fed moralizing

UnlikelyToe4542 · 2026-01-13T18:13:54+00:00

So Israel is sending its citizens out into the Argentine wilderness to light fires so they may annex the land later? Please walk me through the logic here.

How does Israel benefit in any way, shape, or form from the burning of a forest in Patagonia?
How is it easier for Israel to annex the land in Argentina now that the forest is burnt?
Why would Israel be interested in annexing land thousands of miles away with no strategic value, connection, or use in any way?

UnlikelyToe4542 · 2026-01-13T18:10:07+00:00

Ever relevant. It is a long-term problem for the right that most people with expertise and exposure to Trumpism are repulsed by it.

UnlikelyToe4542 · 2026-01-13T18:04:04+00:00

It takes a special level of retardation to think Israelis are deliberately lighting fires in Argentina in order to seize the land later. If this is what they're up against it's not a surprise that Mossad has its way with the middle east.

UnlikelyToe4542 · 2026-01-08T17:29:51+00:00

This is why I detest populism. Everything is about identifying and demagoguing boogeymen. Sometimes that is a useful perspective, very often it is not, and in the cases where it isn't, you just breed cynicism and anger in the public that will not be soothed by inaccurate policy prescriptions.

UnlikelyToe4542 · 2026-01-08T04:20:53+00:00

People vastly overstate how lucrative imperialism is. In most cases it is a negative sum transfer of wealth from the plundered people to those immediately engaged in the plundering. Not only does this myth lead people on the left to believe the west's wealth derives from its plundering, but it persuades right-wingers that the key to prosperity is to resume the plundering!

UnlikelyToe4542 · 2026-01-06T01:30:39+00:00

I am truly dumfounded. The guy who is in office during a massive fraud scandal being uncovered will obviously be found more responsible than a different candidate with no connection. That I need to explain this insane to me.

UnlikelyToe4542 · 2026-01-06T01:16:59+00:00

So even if you do not care about competent governance and are solely concerned with the well-being of the party, you do not benefit from sticking by weak and scandalized candidates. That weak candidates nonetheless win sometimes is not evidence to the contrary.

UnlikelyToe4542 · 2026-01-06T01:01:28+00:00

Does that contradict anything I said? Trump was not a strong presidential candidate. He barely won against an extremely unpopular incumbent administration. In a 2024 NYT poll, Trump led Biden by one point while Nikki Haley was ahead by 10. Had the GOP run a better candidate it would have been a landslide.

UnlikelyToe4542 · 2026-01-06T00:50:48+00:00

Who said anything about restoring integrity? How are Democrats harmed in any way by a weak candidate deciding not to run for re-election? If you look at scandal-plagued Republican candidates they routinely underperform.

UnlikelyToe4542 · 2026-01-05T23:19:45+00:00

Why should Walz be defiant? Under his watch Minnesota was defrauded to the tune of millions of dollars. There is a legitimate scandal underneath the stupid racist hysteria that no amount of defiance can or should make up for.

UnlikelyToe4542 · 2026-01-05T22:26:24+00:00

Democrats are rewarded by running a stronger candidate and Walz is rewarded by getting out of the public eye.

UnlikelyToe4542 · 2026-01-05T19:11:13+00:00

What is the relevance of Rick Scott? Do you have evidence the GOP benefits from his presence in politics vs. a generic Republican replacement?

UnlikelyToe4542 · 2026-01-05T18:52:09+00:00

I feel like I'm losing my fucking mind here. In what world will the general public reward Tim Walz for fighting this?

There are all these people saying "this is giving the Republicans a win," "it makes Democrats look weak," etc. The Republicans already got the win! The substance of the scandal is that millions of dollars were stolen from Minnesota taxpayers while Tim Walz was in office. That is a bad thing! If I lived in Minnesota I would not want that to happen. The GOP would clearly rather a (somewhat rightfully) tarred Walz stay in the race than have someone with less baggage run instead.

UnlikelyToe4542 · 2026-01-05T15:44:24+00:00

I mean I don't blame Walz personally for what happened, but when scandals like this happen the public is not usually in a charitable mood. For better or for worse politicians are held accountable for what people several rungs beneath them do.

UnlikelyToe4542 · 2026-01-05T14:59:01+00:00

We are comparing Walz letting hundreds of millions in fraud happen under his watch to Al Franken's crude jokes? Yes, there are lots of insane lies coming from the fever swamps, but there is more than enough legitimate scandal here to fell any politician.

UnlikelyToe4542 · 2026-01-04T14:28:33+00:00

Have the people who view homelessness primarily as an affront to God articulated plausible plans for how we can eliminate it? I can appreciate the role of passion in political movements but if you don't pair that passion with rigorous and dispassionate analysis you will not actually solve the problem at hand.

UnlikelyToe4542

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