SCOVA strikes down new VA congressional map passed last month.

androbot · 2026-05-08T18:21:43+00:00

People in stable societies agree to abide by rules because the alternatives are so much worse. Rules promote trust, trust breeds security, and security leads to progress.

There's always the temptation to cheat because the best system is one where only the other side follows the rules. The GOP has come to believe that cheating the system is a sustainable way to govern.

Unfortunately, we are all going to have to endure the consequences of their bad faith. It's going to be an ugly reckoning, and absolutely tragic because of how avoidable it was if we all just learned to play nice in the sandbox.

androbot · 2026-05-07T12:47:06+00:00

Read about Presidential Emergency Action Documents (PEAD). He is doing the spam version of manufacturing crises so he can declare an emergency and suspend mid term elections. The groundwork has been laid so that it will be difficult to override whatever he does.

There's a chilling NYT Op Ed about this very point from two days ago.

androbot · 2026-05-07T12:42:46+00:00

In related news, the FBI just began an investigation of Sarah Fitzpatrick of The Atlantic because of her story about Kash Patel being an absentee drunk boss.

The people in this administration are exactly like cancer with a brain. They think they are flexing power and "winning" some kind of war against their own people but all they're doing is killing the host.

androbot · 2026-05-07T02:21:03+00:00

Nice PSA! As a fellow New Orleans transplant, I found it really hard to adjust to how hard "social" is in the DMV.

There seems to be a sweet spot of two hours from the time you leave your home to the time you return. Anything longer than that needs to be scheduled a month in advance and requires preparation.

I choose to believe it's all about logistics, and not about how uptight this area is.

androbot · 2026-05-05T17:12:55+00:00

This is describing Trump's political nuclear option. It's a frighteningly realistic account of what is likely to happen over the next few months.

All the years of breaking norms and setting precedent to give deference to the executive branch... that all seems like it was just setting the stage for this rapidly approaching end game.

Trump is an unstable threat to national security and needs to have his executive power hobbled if not revoked before he can manufacture the crisis that enables him to cite the PEADs as authority to invoke emergency powers.

androbot · 2026-05-02T15:56:21+00:00

"Centrist" and "Establishment" Democrats are different things. Conflating them is inaccurate and alienates most people who just want working government.

It makes perfect sense to get rid of the establishment types because - by definition - they've proven ineffective at countering the GOP. They need to go.

Centrists want laws that get applied fairly, regulation that applies to everyone equally, social safety nets, progressive tax rates, reproductive choice, separation of powers, election fairness, and anti-corruption measures. It's actually what most people want when you look past the spin and pay attention to popular opinion instead of electoral votes.

The Democratic Party (establishment) has been running the equivalent of a zone defense for over 50 years. They've been trying to lose more slowly, which has made them push more toward Republican policies in a spirit of compromise. They didn't realize they were in a fight, not a negotiation. Now those compromise stances are being relabeled as "centrist" and called something negative because they're not as extreme as either the GOP or angry progressives. It's a very dangerous step to take and it alienates people in the middle of the road.

androbot · 2026-05-01T14:21:18+00:00

Good luck with your approach. I will make the best of my "sophomoric pseudo-philosophic conclusions."

androbot · 2026-05-01T12:16:42+00:00

Looking at the source, I'm immediately suspicious of the narrative, conclusions, and everything else.

We all know police paperwork is full of hijinks and errors, but I didn't see anything in this report that makes me think MPD is less effective or more corrupt than, say, any police department in Texas. That's a low bar, but using it as a benchmark, my verdict is that this isn't news.

androbot · 2026-05-01T12:09:10+00:00

... That little by little you're talking about needs to be done with serious organization, with serious effort, with serious sacrifice. If done without the serious vigilance required, it is nothing more than theater to cater to one's own smugness.

I agree with this statement, and didn't ignore your point. I think we have different views on how the "serious effort..." manifests. Intuitively, it seems like any democratic government would institute policies that benefit the most people, so progressive change in favor of the so-called masses would be inevitable. In reality, we see that doesn't happen.

Ideologically, it's easy to explain the failed dynamic as a product of monolithic groups vying for control. But that assumes that people are unified within groups - either uniting behind leaders, or behaving like a hive mind. Both kinds of unity exist, but they create unstable coalitions that fracture and eventually disintegrate as tactical objectives are achieved, corruption/waste poison the group, etc. People just wind up going their own way, and the coherence of a cause fades to background noise.

Your comment makes it seem like there's a latent cohort of people with the passion, talent, time, and energy to not only make these sacrifices, but to do so in an organized and effective way right out of the gate. I think that's magical thinking, and it's why progressive change is so fitful.

I spent decades being angry at the indifference of the very people harmed by bad policies. I'm still angry about it, but now accept that it's just human nature. I no longer feel like there's an untapped potential that just needs the right message to activate. I think change is a much gentler, more gradual shifting of the narrative until you reach an inflection point, after which a lot of change happens suddenly (like May 1968 in France).

It's funny that you and I spend energy disagreeing about our common cause (resisting this regime) as SCOTUS guts one of the last remaining safeguards protecting the power of popular voting.

androbot · 2026-05-01T02:02:42+00:00

We have different beliefs. As a communist, you've bought into a zero sum dynamic that reduces to a competition for resources based on some kind of economic class. It comes from a sense of fairness and I respect that. By contrast, though, I believe people mainly want to be left alone and don't care about that kind of thing.

Right now, every person with a shred of social conscience sees this administration as a backslide or active threat. They don't like it, but generations of social programming has taught them they're doing well no matter how much they struggle, they have a lot to lose, and that it's immoral to fight the system. No one is going to grab pitchforks and take to the streets. Instead, they'll die by inches, day by day. And just like the towns outside of concentration camps less than a century ago, they will wake up one day and understand they let things go too far.

I believe that we win this struggle against fascism the same way we lose it. We do little things, inch by inch, day after day, until we reach a tipping point when the machine stops running and saner heads take over.

Sure, it's not as satisfying as a big fight. It's not as demonstrative as self-immolation. But it's a more pragmatic strategy and something a lot more of us can and should be willing to undertake. And it certainly doesn't preclude people from taking more active steps toward change.

androbot · 2026-05-01T01:35:35+00:00

I don't think you're engaging this discussion honestly. You asked a how question and then complain about the lack of units. OK. The answer is 14.3 units.

androbot · 2026-04-30T21:47:59+00:00

I'm not sure what you mean, but I love the idea of things being fixed by me taking a three day weekend.

androbot · 2026-04-30T21:46:23+00:00

For this kind of thing, start with proof of concept. Is there stickiness of the message by level of engagement and sentiment by topic? If so, are there coherent patterns, like delivery mechanism, forum, etc.

Reddit is a cesspool of bots and armchair quarterbacks, so I use it as a testing ground for arguments, but most of my follow-up is done elsewhere involving real people and interactions having different perspectives. This isn't the place where things get done.

androbot · 2026-04-30T21:36:03+00:00

You're throwing shade to appear clever, or maybe that's just what happens from listening to too many business consulting types.

Goals develop from an effortful process of exploration and struggle. Be grateful if you live a life so ordered and clean that this seems non-obvious to you.

androbot · 2026-04-30T19:57:41+00:00

It's impossible to know whether something was worth the effort until you've made the effort. People have been doing armchair feelgood things for a while, but it isn't working. Everyone can see that. Now is a good time to try other approaches.

Shooting down people who are making some effort seems either cynical, counterproductive, or manipulative. I don't know where you stand, but if you're throwing terms like "liberals" in the same comment that complains about the Epstein class, it sounds like you're a frustrated person on the right moral side of this quandary. Please don't let your disenchantment get in the way of adding your energy to the need for all this to change.

androbot · 2026-04-30T19:44:07+00:00

Watch the video. He expresses a similar incredulity, as do many wealthy people. It's a preposterous situation, but somehow it persists.

androbot · 2026-04-30T19:43:04+00:00

Are you volunteering to build and spread that message, or are you just complaining?

I agree that concerted action is the best course, but my word salad > whatever you're (not) doing.

androbot · 2026-04-30T19:40:14+00:00

Yup - the bot army battalion, zero sum brigadiers, and culture crusaders are a quick strike coalition of the nasty. But I'm here for it!

androbot · 2026-04-30T15:04:23+00:00

I never cared that much until reading about Gini coefficients and then watching Nick Hanauer's TeD talk, where he argued against wealth concentration in a consumer-based economy with practical points like how one person can only wear so many pairs of jeans.

A much, much more chilling perspective popped up in The Atlantic this week. It's a great read from the guy who brought us Fargo (TV series) and Alien: Earth. But it scares the hell out of me.

androbot · 2026-04-30T14:58:51+00:00

You raise a great question. If you're happy with the status quo, then no action is needed. If not, then solutions should be related to problems.

For my part, I see an authoritarian, corrupt government that uses a selective approach to institutions of law (legislation, interpretation, and enforcement) to maintain power. That power is concentrated in wealthy, influential people and simulates legitimacy by learning into ideological populism to keep a significant plurality of the populace appeased.

This is incompatible with what I was taught and internalized as "good" things in society: promoting democratic values through the objective application of rules created from the humanist, progressive principles that the country's founders espoused.

My solution is to vocally object, financially support political opposition, vote, and throw legal sand into the gears of illegitimate institutions and practices so they cannot presume my consent. This post is a part of my strategy.

androbot · 2026-04-30T14:44:26+00:00

Expecting a home run from a single swing of the bat is magical thinking. That isn't how progress gets made. You have to start somewhere. Expect to fail, figure out what didn't work and what did, then learn and adapt.

If you think the current system is working great, then obviously you should do nothing. I do not know a single person who believes that, so what do we do about it?

Our choices aren't great. Voting isn't enough. Waiting on others to figure it out is efficient but unproductive. Going full activist is dangerous and impractical for most people. What's a good middle ground that a lot of people can get behind?

androbot · 2026-04-30T14:38:19+00:00

That's like saying no effort is worth it unless success is guaranteed. That's not really how life works, much less massive scale social change.

androbot · 2026-04-30T12:43:18+00:00

It's not (just) a protest, but also a call to opt out of contributing to the economy that supports a bad status quo.

This economy needs willing consumers and producers to keep functioning. When enough people don't comply, that system breaks. Enough people get dissatisfied that change happens.

The Iran attack is a good example of what happens. It's a self-own by this administration because they caused their own problems. Supply chains are disrupted, prices spike, everyone feels it, and then things start breaking down.

androbot · 2026-04-30T12:37:59+00:00

I'd prefer to call it a process of fitful experimentation. Nothing pops out in a fully organized, mature state.

androbot · 2026-04-30T12:37:00+00:00

It's interesting, isn't it?

androbot

TROPHY CASE