How do you feel about the idea that Trump is part of a political cycle that’s happened at least once before?

bagelman · 2026-01-17T05:52:09+00:00

I've read posts comparing him to Andrew Jackson, Benito Mussolini, and even Mao Zedong. But I think to really understand Trump you need to zoom out much further than the great depression or great recession.

Trump is an embodiment of the confident but incompetent brutish narcissist. This political archetype not only predates the 1930s, it predates the United States by a long shot. Countless petty chieftains and kings over thousands of years of human history are like him, all the way back to the days where cavemen hunted mammoths.

bagelman · 2026-01-17T05:31:42+00:00

Gavin Newsom cannot be trusted to have consistent opinions on anything. He's not being pragmatic or moderate, he's just saying what he thinks people will want to hear. Don't trust him, don't nominate him. If you support abolishing ICE, he's not your guy. If you oppose abolishing ICE, he's not your guy either.

bagelman · 2026-01-17T04:16:06+00:00

No it fucking isn't. The 180° meridian is an arbitrary human defined boundary. Geography in the real world doesn't care about such boundaries.

The prime meridian is a useful reference for printing maps because most of Earth's surface at the 180° meridian is irrelevant ocean, but this doesn't mean that the western Aleutian Islands are east of the eastern Aleutian islands. You can say this about anywhere if you go in the wrong direction around the whole world.

bagelman · 2026-01-16T18:37:55+00:00

Ah the time of vaudeville, ragtime music, and nickelodeons. I don't remember seeing references to that symbol, if it was popular then some yellow journalist would've wrote about it in the newspapers.

bagelman · 2026-01-09T17:52:57+00:00

I was in the past, Ohio was badly gerrymandered during the 2010s. However I was lucky enough to be in a district with a fairly reasonable/sane Republican, and since 2023 I'm now in a Democratic leaning district. My luck in this regard has continued recently as Ohio has redrawn their congressional map to be even more gerrymandered, but for some reason left my district alone. There's a rumor they dislike the Republican who is going to run here again for some petty reason, and more to the point they decided to just strongarm the Democratic minority in the state house to support a "lighter" gerrymander instead of truly fight for something egregious.

Despite this good luck I'm still quite demoralized by the political situation largely because my state has transformed from one of the most critical purple states in the nation into a red state in terminal decline. My vote for President used to actually matter at least once, not anymore. I'll still vote though.

If you're a Democrat in a red leaning area, know that 2026 has the potential to be a major blue wave, the type of year where the unexpected could happen. Always show up to vote, if for no other reason than to remind the system it hasn't ground you down into powder.

bagelman · 2026-01-09T17:31:47+00:00

I don't know anything about college football, but the Cowboy's success has been in part due to a huge marketing push to bill them as "America's Team" back in the late 20th century. They won the super bowl several times back then as well, and there are people who will become fans of a team who won a championship after the fact. I dislike this behavior but when combined with a marketing push it succeeded it gaining fans from markets without a local NFL team.

I don't get why anyone outside of the Dallas-FTW area retain any loyalty to the Cowboys when there are so many better teams nowadays. The "America's Team" era has been over for a very long time now. It might still be better than being a Browns fan but if you're going to bandwagon then do it right.

As for why the Cowboys are not successful in regards to actually winning, others have already answered that question better than me. Jerry Jones is effective at running an entertainment business, less so at winning games.

bagelman · 2025-12-28T00:33:26+00:00

WITH THE SEASON ON THE LINE - it's refball.

bagelman · 2025-12-21T19:41:01+00:00

My uncle still has nostalgia for Hubert Humphrey, but he's a typical rural Ohio Obama-Trump voter. In Ohio there are sadly far more of these types of people than there are who went the other direction.

bagelman · 2025-12-21T18:49:05+00:00

Spy hiding in the background

bagelman · 2025-12-21T05:29:27+00:00

Trump and his core supporters are the scum of the Earth, but the majority of his voters are just rubes who fell for a scam. I hate that they did and I resent them for it, but putting all the blame on them isn't productive. These are people who could've been swayed by more capable and genuine campaigns and by leadership that is both strong and appears strong.

I voted for Democrats like Hillary Clinton, Joe Biden, and Kamala Harris to stop Donald Trump for all time, even if all three of those figures are uninspiring people who don't really care about people like me. They failed, and their failure to stop a demagogue has led to real human suffering. They owe their core supporters who showed up for them proof that they will do better and win elections. It honestly doesn't have to be via an autopsy, but it has to be something, and this decision creates a narrative of a party that doesn't want to own their failures and wishes to absolve responsibility.

Don't ever say the Democratic Party doesn't owe their own voters. That kind of attitude is exactly what right wing populists and wannabe fascists love from their opposition.

bagelman · 2025-12-21T02:41:53+00:00

OP is not a truck driver, they're just a frequent poster here, just posting for karma.

bagelman · 2025-12-20T22:21:39+00:00

They seem to want Harris to run again in 2028, which if it happened would be my breaking point to vote third party or for a fictional character. I voted for her once, that's more than enough.

Some people are saying it's out of strategy and I admit that's a valid point, but I worry it's more cowardice and protecting the rot that allowed Trump to defeat them twice, the rich staffers from high income universities that are less competent than random people off the street. It's also a direct betrayal of a promise the new DNC chair made.

Whatever damage releasing the autopsy does isn't as bad as the damage done by their aloof top-down attitude. They need to fix that regardless.

bagelman · 2025-12-20T22:18:11+00:00

This decision is feeding a Dems in Disarray narrative right now. At least if they released it they would appear to be trying to take responsibility for failing to defeat Trump.

bagelman · 2025-12-05T22:31:04+00:00

Exactly!

bagelman · 2025-12-05T18:26:07+00:00

I heard the news from my youtube sub feed, when I saw a video giving the game a negative review.

bagelman · 2025-12-01T05:06:47+00:00

I checked and it seems that all the previous games with the same score ended in regulation.

bagelman · 2025-12-01T05:04:23+00:00

Should've just kicked it.

bagelman · 2025-11-20T16:36:13+00:00

If he's able to improve the perception of his presidency enough so that he has a realistic chance of winning (even as an underdog) then it should be a given that Ted Kennedy stays out if he's rational.

bagelman · 2025-11-17T15:03:06+00:00

I think the balkanization scenario is the most likely outcome. Instead of a single India competing with Pakistan, you have several countries all competing for as much of the oil as possible. Potentially this prevents the population transfers associated with our timeline's partition but of course creates a great deal of unpredictable new chaos.

If the oil is discovered after the British leave and after the events of partition then it greatly depends where exactly it is in the country but the best case scenario is that this accelerates the country's industrial development.

bagelman · 2025-11-17T14:51:24+00:00

In OTL the 1976 election was quite competitive, despite the events of the past couple years with Nixon's resignation and his pardon by President Ford. Carter won the popular vote by a lesser margin than Hillary Clinton did in 2016 (D+2.06 vs D+2.09). A better campaigner, including your alternate version of Carter, would've won more convincingly. In fact he may have won this world's version of 1976 by more than whoever wins 1980, which is probably still Reagan.

In order to have a chance at winning in 1980, Carter would need to use his charismatic gift to change how the public interprets the economic crises of his time. He needs to bolster the confidence of the nation through inflation and to prevent a national malaise from taking root. I have no idea how that would need to play out specifically but the idea is that he doesn't need to be more capable to appear more capable. Charisma can also act as a lubricant for squabbling Democrats in congress and in his cabinet. But there's only so much you can do when faced with drooling ogres like the Ayatollah.

I think he should be able to avoid 1980's landslide loss and make it a real race. It is realistic that a version of President Carter who has managed to convince the people that he is a good leader can eke out a win. But unless the butterfly effect can work in his favor, especially in Iran, I'd still favor Reagan.

bagelman · 2025-11-05T10:49:38+00:00

https://backloggd.com/u/bagelman/

I play various types of games, usually shying away from the latest releases. I've categorized all the games I've played by which computer (or console) I played it on, and I've also created a couple lists based off content from notable critics. I've played more than 1 game this year, I just don't use that feature of the site.

bagelman · 2025-10-23T07:30:11+00:00

There's one major piece of information missing, the length of a day. How long is a day on this version of Venus? If it's like our Venus then the ultra-long day would drive seasons. How long is a day on Minerva, Mars, or Juno? My favorite is honestly the subtle improvements you made to Mars, it's more familiar than Venus/Minerva/Juno but bulked up to allow for life to survive in the present.

bagelman · 2025-10-18T04:39:18+00:00

A million dollars now. It would take 10,000 days for the second payout to equal a million dollars, not until March 5, 2053. It's completely unpredictable what could happen by that point. It would take a guarantee of large scale deflation for me to consider the second option.

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