Elon replied with 100 emoji to a post that said “If White men become a minority, we will be slaughtered. Remember, if non-Whites openly hate White men while White men hold a collective majority, then they will be 1000x times more hostile and cruel when they are a majority over Whites. White solidarity is the only way to survive.”
I wonder if Trump pardoning multiple drug dealers will also help. MAGA doctors must have figured out that drugs from political allies or “donors” are doubleplusgood for Americans. /s
That’s fairness to a new employee. Does the multibillion company of a widely-deployed sensitive product deserve a pass for having poor or nonexistent employees doing security previously? Not really IMO.
Not always, sometimes they like to role-play as fallen angels from fantasy books (see Palantir.) (Edit: upon review, the metaphor is strained because Sauron didn’t create the palantíri… he did control them later, and there is deeper metaphor that they are unreliable.)
Right, you don't just "good person" yourself into billions of dollars. There will always be a trail of people screwed over, or taken advantage of along the way. Or you can go the more modern way and externalize all the negative impacts of your business (e.g. scooter rental companies).
I think there is a disconnect in meanings of trigger-happy. Yours seems to be what people familiar with guns mean, and the other was colloquial “too willing to use a gun.” So you disputed both meanings, but you’re not going to persuade the other side by saying he was actually very trained and skillful in what they see as an unjustified killing. (Not really taking a side personally as I haven’t watched or read much about the death.)
Having watched the videos now, he appears to shoot 2 rounds through the drivers window, after whatever amount of personal danger he was in while in front. That seems closer to mag dumping and poor discipline than not.
I’m sure some people could tiptoe through minefields daily for years, until they fail. Nobody is perfect at real or metaphorical minefields, and hubris is probably the only reason to scoff at people suggesting alternatives.
Of course. My sense is there are a lot fewer in of out-of-bounds accesses and use after frees. Maybe a world-class programmer can go several decades without writing a memory error in C/C++, but they will probably eventually falter, meanwhile the other 99.9% of programmers fail more often. Why would you decline a compiler’s help eliminating certain types of bugs almost entirely?
I’m not so sure. After years of ignoring every other sign, what would it take for them to believe? His suggestive comments about his own daughter on multiple occasions, his opinion of 12-year old Paris Hilton, his mentioning 12 years old as a limit with Howard Stern[1], turning up in beauty pageant changing rooms, the “grab em by the p*ssy” tape, the swerving between Epstein case is a hoax to frame him vs. it’s real but only implicates Democrats.
I think of JD Vance, when Trump’s Epstein birthday card had been described but not released, he scoffed they didn’t provide an image. Weeks later, we had an image released by Congress, so then JD Vance tweaked his arguments a bit but still denies basically everything. The evidence he requested did not change his mind anyway. Trump’s supporters, for the most part, will say it’s AI, faked images, paid liars, mentally ill accusers, Trump haters, fake news, Trump was only there to inform on Democrats, it’s not what it looks like, the media is lying about girls’ birthdates, etc etc before they’ll ever admit he’s a sick man. If they wanted to believe that, the evidence is already there.
Personally I have a fair amount of doubt that he has committed a crime against a minor, but he is obviously lecherous and well below the supposed moral sexual standards of many of his supporters. It should not matter to them whether a 60+ year old married man only peeks and banters about young girls or if he has actually touched them. If they’re still around, it will take a lot to snap them out of it.
[1] I know he didn’t actually say that 13 is okay or whatever, but what kind of pervert or fool jumps all the way down to 12 when asked? Way below the lowest age of consent in the States. This should be disqualifying on the grounds of horrendously bad judgment to phrase it that way in public, let alone what it may or may not reveal about his criminality.
I agree many Trump supporters will be able to spin -- even if just to themselves -- any damning news no matter what (especially in this age of easily spoofed photos and videos) but still, puzzlingly enough, his voting fanbase actually made the Epstein files a thing, so much that he publicly lashed against them when they wouldn't let go. It was the one crack in his armor, the only (mild) falling out with them he's ever had. Do you remember this?
I think Trump made the Epstein conspiracy such a thing, it's now hard to disentangle from the minds of his MAGA supporters. All it takes is for some of his political rivals (from within the party) to fan the flames.
I'm not sure about what Trump actually did, and we have no solid proof. I can only guess, judging from how the man behaves, and his general attitudes toward lying and women.
It does seem like the most significant schism he’s had, with Massie, MTG, and some podcasters etc defecting over this. I may be out-of-date. But I don’t think it’s gone very far though, considering some of these defections are considered to be career suicides, and that he got away with reneging on one of the party’s big bogeymen that just happened to be his former best friend. If this was a big weakness, there would be screams for impeachment and ditching him.
Agreed on the general principle of building your movement on conspiracy theories of the elite and then becoming elite. The situation is even worse for him; he was already friends with the subject of the conspiracy theory long before the public at large even knew about it, and then by some combination of bad luck and hubris he let the party chase the conspiracy. We’ll see if there’s anything bad for him in there that sees the light of day, and what his opposition makes of it.
This is pretty easy to summarize from my point of view.
1) There is 0 non circumstantial evidence that Trump had a sexual encounter with a minor. There is 0 evidence (circumstantial or not) that there is any prepubescent children involved.
2) Calling anyone who voted (past tense) for Trump a "pedophile supporter".
Combining these two things togtheter seems pretty obvious why Maga supporters dismiss most of what the public outrage, in fact they will dig their heels in even harder since the "other side" is just attacking them personally.
Agreed. I would add to the mix, however, that MAGA and adjacent groups made the Epstein scandal a big deal. Remember among them you can count QAnon, the Pizzagate, the people who believe the elections were "stolen", the Capitol stormers, etc. Some of them are conspiracy-oriented people, fueled to rage by conspiracy oriented alt-right influencers. So they are very eager to call others cannibals, traffickers and pedophiles wihout a shred of evidence. It's just when someone they respect is in the eye of the storm that they reel and engage the reality distortion field.
Remember that even less than "circumstantial evidence" is what fuels 90% of Trump's bold assertions. And they lap it up. Even now they are trying to make this about Bill Clinton! (Can you imagine what would have happened if Clinton was Epstein's friend but Trump wasn't? Or if Hillary was in some photos? I can guarantee there'd be no redactions at all).
So now MAGA voters cannot complain when Trump is the target of unconfirmed rumors.
And indeed, even a portion of MAGA is susceptible to this particular scandal: Epstein. They had a minor falling out with their leader over this!
I do agree attacking all of MAGA is a counterproductive tactic though, because it puts them on the defensive. Mounting evidence against Trump without attacking his voters is more sensible.
>> nothing has ever been proved by the standards of the criminal justice system
This flabbergasted me at first. Admittedly I had to refresh my memory that he died in jail awaiting trial, but he was still convicted once before that! The fact it was pre-MeToo should make it more damning, per his logic. I guess he’s saying there were no convictions after he became infamous, but there’s a caveat that he died awaiting trial, and that plus the prior conviction just makes this statement seem disingenuous or sloppy at best.
Ok then, I look forward to my tax breaks and refunds enabled by cutting this program. I’m sure it’s in the mail with all the other dividends for citizens that Trump mentions every few months.
Again, this would be the Legislative branch. Your right to vote has not decreased, and you can absolutely contact your senator to introduce a bill for what you stated. I mean, you have a representative. Absolutely use them if you dislike something.
However, disagreeing with the Legislative or Executive branch in no way erodes your democratic rights.
Well, your democratic right would be to vote. However, as you said we are in a democratic republic where we don’t vote to make the laws but rather vote for representatives.
Elon replied with 100 emoji to a post that said “If White men become a minority, we will be slaughtered. Remember, if non-Whites openly hate White men while White men hold a collective majority, then they will be 1000x times more hostile and cruel when they are a majority over Whites. White solidarity is the only way to survive.”
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