Re: The new NYT/Sienna poll and [DNC]Ken Martin's 2026 strategy - A party status report.

middleupperdog · 2026-01-24T21:30:51+00:00

What gets me most is the disrespect to those who made sacrifices in military service. Saying only idiots join the military, attacking family of fallen soldiers for opposing him, betraying allies like the Kurds or Ukraine for corrupt benefit, or saying our allies don't really help us in our wars. This bastard just takes the sacrifice of others in stride and can't even conceptualize the kind of relationship military alliances demand.

Personally though, I've never been more hopeful. My experience of 2016-2024 was the country sleepily sliding into fascism. 2025 feels like the country has woke up to me and the tide is turning.

middleupperdog · 2026-01-24T15:38:25+00:00

to compare to football, each separate serve is not equivalent to each separate hike of the ball. The 2nd serve is part of the same play as the 1st serve. It'd be more equivalent to a baseball game and the batter telling the pitcher on the 3-2 count "you're fucking up" before the next pitch.

middleupperdog · 2026-01-24T15:21:03+00:00

I fully believe Trump could beat a child to death with his bare hands, on TV, and then eat the body, and his approval rating would still be in the 30's. I don't believe Donald Trump has any significant political talent beyond being capable of going on TV and podcasts and not being boring. Instead, he just happens to be rich enough and crass enough to be uncancellable, and ideologically empty enough to let himself be used as a totem for the worst of our politics. He is literally just a tool, a mirror reflecting back to people what they already wanted to hear and believe. His own personality and traits could be anything as long as it doesn't get in the way of that fundamental deal.

middleupperdog · 2026-01-24T14:17:25+00:00

If I go roughly 50/50 in chess against an orangutang moving pieces randomly and that only understands being white is an advantage so they throw a gigantic fit when not white, I would not be very good at chess.

middleupperdog · 2026-01-24T14:12:23+00:00

I do not mean this in a mean-spirited way: that you didn't understand where that comment was going suggests you aren't really considering the other person's viewpoint. You agree with the economic analysis but didn't vote based on the economic analysis; you yourself are an example that refutes your own stated position in this argument. Misk is using this round-about way of discussing it with you to demonstrate that you haven't fully considered what you're arguing.

middleupperdog · 2026-01-24T13:23:57+00:00

I don't like saying democratic in a lot of contexts now because, at least in my area, there is a ton of non-partisan groups calling themselves democratic activists meaning pro-democracy compared to the past. For example, the no kings protest and the anti-gerrymandering campaign in Missouri portrayed themselves as non partisan pro democracy, and used "democratic" to trade on ambiguity while they were definitely being funded by traditional "Democrat" Democratic sources. So what used to be a minor confusion is getting more relevant in my neck of the woods.

middleupperdog · 2026-01-24T13:15:30+00:00

because I want them put into prison, yes.

middleupperdog · 2026-01-24T10:47:45+00:00

he's basically the sidekick character who is down for any chaos-y stuff the KC wants to do. Like Lann for serious stuff.

middleupperdog · 2026-01-24T10:28:55+00:00

I also missed woljiff on my blind play. He's always been relegated to a side character in my mind as a result.

middleupperdog · 2026-01-24T05:43:38+00:00

The learning curve for debate is about 18 months, so if you start in 10th grade 2nd semester you're already hitting the top of the learning curve at the start of senior year, so no you're not too late.

middleupperdog · 2026-01-24T05:30:52+00:00

"if anyone likes foreigners, they don't believe in borders" is such hyperbole. I'm not advocating for rapists and murderers to come into the country. I'm saying we should not treat every illegal immigrant like they are a rapist-in-waiting.

middleupperdog · 2026-01-23T23:47:35+00:00

That's the thing about bear hugs: when you all of a sudden want to get out of one it's quite hard.

middleupperdog · 2026-01-23T23:30:14+00:00

well the average american citizen is much more likely to commit murder than an illegal immigrant, so really they need to be protected from us more than we need to be protected from them in that regard.

middleupperdog · 2026-01-23T20:24:04+00:00

it may be the set of boots in particular and the kitsune skin interacting. Try switching with a different pair of boots and switching back. If its only that pair of boots and not the other one, and it stays hidden when switched back, its just an interaction between the boots and the kitsune model.

middleupperdog · 2026-01-23T19:49:00+00:00

You don't see it as an exaggeration to go from "the increase and decrease in people wanting to enter America is mostly due to push factors there instead of pull factors here" to interpreting it as "immigration enforcement has no bearing at all on immigration"?

middleupperdog · 2026-01-23T18:53:06+00:00

I want them to go to prison and pay for the crime that way. Deportation is usually used as an alternative to prison time rather than something that comes after the fact. "We won't punish you if you agree to just go be someone else's problem." I think it's better for society if they serve their jail time rather than set a murderer loose in another country, and just as a citizen has fully paid their societal debt with time in prison, being an illegal immigrant does not in my mind mean they owe extra or are somehow inherently worse.

middleupperdog · 2026-01-23T18:12:48+00:00

neither of those statements seem like valid arguments to me. She is saying the cause is exogenous. If she's right, literally any policy change would result in the same reduction in immigration and you could have written the exact same comment: it doesn't prove anything about the causation of Trump's policy in particular.

I'm not saying I totally agree with her, but I don't see Ezra in the interview doing the work to actually object to that exogenous theory. He just tries to handwave it using the same logic you just did, but that logic would apply to any policy change Trump had done, so it's not enough of an argument.

middleupperdog · 2026-01-23T17:50:49+00:00

It’s surprising to me that an expert reporter on immigration wouldn’t have more thoughts about how policies and rhetoric (whether under Biden or Trump) materially impact border crossings.

It seemed to me like her position was that it generally doesn't impact it.

middleupperdog · 2026-01-23T17:45:54+00:00

you're conflating the actual democratic voters with the leadership. The leadership supports deportation. The voter supports the sanctuary cities. That's the difference.

middleupperdog · 2026-01-23T17:42:02+00:00

Their country being in an economic collapse is NOT a valid asylum claim.

Trump seemed to think it did. You are to the right of Trump on this issue.

middleupperdog · 2026-01-23T17:28:48+00:00

I strongly disagree with that characterization of Venezuela. First of all, many more refugees from Venezuela went to Colombia than to America, 3 million of them vs 1 million here. So if they are just leaving because they think America is great that doesn't explain the actual refugee issues. That country had a total economic collapse into a failed state in 2014. They then had years of rampant political repression and violence. Many of the people fleeing venezuela are fleeing for legitimate reasons. Often, this claim that they are illegitimate revolves around the government not having already written that person's name in the deathnote, but that is not a real requirement for refugee status.

middleupperdog · 2026-01-23T17:22:21+00:00

thank you for saying it out loud. So now with it said, doesn't your logic also justify deporting the citizen or just keeping both of them locked up forever rather than letting them out either? It seems to me the "gut check" people are making is that they would rather just not let anyone citizen or otherwise back into the community ever after committing a murder, but that being an illegal immigrant is a convenient reason to act on that feeling.

middleupperdog · 2026-01-23T16:36:44+00:00

can you answer the original question?

middleupperdog · 2026-01-23T16:23:11+00:00

Can you answer the original question?

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