The “the economy was better under Trump” segment of voters is so depressing.

His policies were basically tariffs and random shiny object populist issues. His policies raised prices regressively while creating entire foreign industries that didn’t exist before that now price-anchor US products through his tariffs and trade restrictions, such as soybean. Blew up NAFTA just to replace it with an almost identical arrangement. He alienated our biggest allies and trade partners. He pushed down interest rates even when it wasn’t needed, ignoring the housing and stock bubble it created, because it made him look good.

It always reminds me how effective repeating a lie is - their “vibe” is that he’s some great businessman, and it’s enough to get their vote. They never check the sources for that “fact” (which are all Trump’s own self-aggrandizing statements).

That’s me, with a brief stopover on Fark before my brain was fully developed.

There are three practical reasons Trump does this:

1. Deflection: Trump doesn’t have an affirmative platform. As a populist strongman, Trump’s platform is situational and entirely based on what his supporters want to hear in any given moment. If health care is in the news, Trump will say his plan is coming in two weeks (it won’t ever come). If immigration is in the news, Trump will say he will build a wall and get Mexico to pay for it (he won’t). But what’s even easier? Focusing on the shortcomings of the opponent’s platform. Any time this works, Trump saves himself an opportunity to be put under the microscope.
2. Deflection: Manipulating the media works. Trump knows that the more ludicrous things he says about Kamala, even if the media then starts to talk about how he’s wrong or fact-check him, the focus is still on the thing he said rather than Kamala’s platform. It’s subtle, but it really does focus the media effectively on whatever he says, and use his frame of that issue as the media’s frame.
3. Filling the echo chambers and other spaces. We’re in our own echo chambers like never before. Trump says these things so that the people in the right-wing echo chambers have a plausible response to Kamala’s policies, or even just need filler for their broadcast/websites/Facebook groups. Ultimately there is only so much media people can consume every day. If Trump has filled all relevant supporter spaces with his own opinions & framing, there is no time or energy left to explore other opinions and framing.

Classic “the beatings will continue until morale improves” corporate energy.

I appreciate your dedication to skelposting the heck out of this Halloween season.

I hope you’re right.

I’m not that optimistic. Like the “object to counting and send it to the House where they pick Trump” option, there was a spurious but plausible “legality” to Hitler’s rise.

In Russia and China, the institutions still exist, and probably still pass general laws and adjudicate day-to-day matters with apparent legitimacy. But once Putin or Xi expresses his respective will, they are merely intermediaries and there is no independent check on their power.

Similarly, the press in Russia or China presumably isn’t micromanaged at every level, but instead, like we’re already seeing the first signs of with the Post and LA Times, preemptively compliant with propagandistic goals, with occasional punishments and examples made to keep everyone afraid of crossing the line (which is intentionally never clearly defined).

There are lots of ways that institutions are the illusion. Those institutions are just collections of people. People are flawed, open to intimidation. When Trump sends in deputized posse to arrest or beat non-compliant politicians, or editors, or judges, sanctioned by the Supreme Court as an official act because he makes some argument they were interfering with executive duties, the rest of the politicians, editors, judges will fall in line. They won’t save us if Trump is in power.

It was a big part of what led a fairly democratic state to freely choose to elect a person who literally went on to kill millions, on purpose, when anyone who had a clear picture of reality would have been able to see it coming a mile away.

Just to be clear, though: Germany didn’t elect Hitler. He was appointed by the President at the time, Hindenberg, on the advice of the ex-chancellor Papen (who believed he could “tame” Hitler in his post as vice-Chancellor). See the wiki. Something I’ll find interesting if Kamala wins the popular vote and loses the electoral college.

Another quote from the same article, which has no relevance whatsoever to America and the GOP today:

Both within Germany and abroad, there were initially few fears that Hitler could use his position to establish his later dictatorial single-party regime. Rather, the conservatives that helped to make him chancellor were convinced that they could control Hitler and “tame” the Nazi Party while setting the relevant impulses in the government themselves; foreign ambassadors played down worries by emphasizing that Hitler was “mediocre” if not a bad copy of Mussolini; even SPD politician Kurt Schumacher trivialized Hitler as a Dekorationsstück (“piece of scenery/decoration”) of the new government. German newspapers wrote that, without doubt, the Hitler-led government would try to fight its political enemies (the left-wing parties), but that it would be impossible to establish a dictatorship in Germany because there was “a barrier, over which violence cannot proceed” and because of the German nation being proud of “the freedom of speech and thought”.

Impressive how quickly things when from “this is fine, we have this under control” to Hitler assuming permanent, unchecked, dictatorial power, he was sworn in as Chancellor on January 30, 1933 and the Enabling Act was passed March 23, 1933 - less than 60 days. By December, 1933, all other political parties were prohibited.

Ah, I see. Yep, the Statute of Anne broke up the Shakespearean monopolies and after that brief high point, it was all downhill.

Are you referring to the DMCA? That was never to help the little guy.

Yeah, of course he’s just a dude. He’s one of the least worthy dudes out there, for all the attention he’s getting. He didn’t justifiably earn any of that.

But nonetheless, he is a key that happens to be shaped perfectly to unlock, exploit and exacerbate populist anger. It could have been anyone else if the conditions were different, but it is uniquely him in this history. That’s all I’m saying, but it a very important detail.

I know what you’re saying. That the environment that gave us Trump would still exist. Sure. All the issues, both illegitimate (white resentment, racism, propaganda) and legitimate (wealth disparity, disillusioning political figures, late stage capitalistic despair), would still remain.

But that also gives too little importance to Trump’s unique place in this. He is a uniquely cynical, sociopathic trigger that is exploiting this populist anger, while being so incompetent that he fails to solve any of those issues underlying it.

He thus is simultaneously perpetuating those issues, while feeding off of them - both creating and burning the fuel of populist anger. DeSantis, Vance, Hawley, all the other toe-headed power-simps who would step in to take his place would fail to hold that paradoxical balance for long - they think they can learn it, but Trump is built for it. That is Trump’s unique skill, his singularly destructive, delusional, sociopathic egomania.

Like a wildfire - yes, when there are dry hot conditions, many things could start one. But it’s also true that you may have been almost through the dry, hot season when a wildfire hits. And if you could have prevented that first fateful spark a week - maybe a day - longer, you could have avoided catastrophe and tragedy.

I think that’s where we were in 2016, and we failed to contain it. It spread so far, that we were barely able to contain it in 2020. But if we can avoid it in 2024, if we can prevent Trump from sparking another wildfire, maybe the season could change.

Yup…Windows 12? The evil monkey’s paw demon is like, “I’ll give you that wish for free.”

You can bypass the requirements since yeah, they were always artificial. I believe Rufus has an option when creating Win11 install USBs to remove the TPM and other requirements.

But then again, it’s nice, because all I need to make sure Microsoft doesn’t secretly update my Win10 machine in the night to Win11 is to turn off the TPM in the BIOS.

Unless you killed somebody, the statutes of limitations have run.

I still remember the “dumb” tech was AOL warez chatrooms where you interacted with a chat bot to get an email with lists of scene games, movies and other stuff in the traditional multi-RAR parts, and you’d individually request them a few at a time to be emailed. Then you’d move to IRC when you found out could be done faster, or BBSes.

I’ve probably forgotten most of how things worked.

Hmm, it appears if we squeeze tighter, more blood will come out. Surely there is no natural limit to this principle.

The earth’s orbital speed around the sun is 67,000 miles per hour. So this is really gravity’s fault.

Are you Taliban and want someone dead, but frustrated with your fundamentalist movement’s pesky adherence to the rule of law? Upset at the heretic you can’t quite get proof of? Overbearing parents trying to arrange another marriage?

With new Taliban Ban on Images of Living Things®, you are back in the driver’s seat. Just take a picture of your target. After it’s done, the authorities will be practically begging you to murder that person to prevent the inevitable consequences, including the collapse of society and the rending of the fabric of space-time.

It can be hard to find a site that isn’t shareware spam. Try this list, find a freeware you like that hopefully uses FFMPEG, and bookmark the site for next time you need a pre-vetted list of good tools:

https://www.videohelp.com/software/sections/all-in-one-video-converters

Conjecture: I wouldn’t be surprised if the TeraLeak in question wasn’t planned out by Nintendo and Game Freak, to distract people from the fact that Nintendo is trying to harass a competitor out of the market and suing emulators back and right.

Sorry, but at its worst, Nintendo is lawful evil. There’s no way this is intentional.