A recession 50 years ago would make for a rough year. A recession in today's world could make for a rough *decade* if not more. 2008 taught us that.

It's like I tell my kid; my life wasn't *easier* than his at that age, but it was *simpler.*

Complexity breeds anxiety, especially with so much risk.

In 1930 you mostly worried about basic costs of living. Nowadays it's not just food and housing, it's car insurance and health insurance and the phone bill. Not to mention things like student loans. That shit didn't exist back when.

And debt. Fuckloads of debt to service. Consumer and corporate.

Well Americans' relationship to the economy and their job and income has become more complicated than it was 100 years ago or even 30 years ago in many ways.

And the crises we've faced the past 25 years are different. Yes, people don't have the "grit" they used to, but also our lives are different.

People sort of instinctively hate the term "welfare state" and proponents think they can rebrand it small-s "socialism" which is probably an even worse marketing failure.

No takesies backsies.

The HW Bush team with Baker and Scowcroft and Webster et al never getting the recognition let alone the major award they deserved for '89-92 is, IMO, one of the things that allowed the wolves to eventually eat the GOP.
It was probably the greatest act of diplomacy since 1945.

I've heard and read similar from Russians and all I could think was Mondale's "Where's the beef?" schtick really resonated with them.

I can't remember exactly, but weren't the CIA estimates of Soviet military expenditure something in the 20%+ GDP range (REALLY bad) while the actual number was well north of 50% (catastrophic)?

And the economy didn't properly prepare for Boomers entering adulthood; 10 million new drivers and renters/homebuyers entering the market every year doesn't help inflation. Took a decade+ to really accommodate.

Pretty typical, tho. Society loves children but then kinda loathes the young adults.

It was like something you'd hear in Dr. Strangelove.

"Stick to issues of morality and shut up about war!"

They can't get past the Dotcom boom of the 90s, which they view as some victory of Neoliberal aristeia and the result of their grit and boot-strapping ingenuity as the "neglected" generation and not the accident of timing and history that it actually was.

Been saying it for a long time now, but it really is that for people with certain goals and ambitions etc, being a college Republican and FedSoc member just makes it... easier. Same with poli sci students looking to get into campaigns etc.
Then when you get power it's like The Godfather -- you owe.

And it's hard to remember now given the past decade, but the Dems and especially Obama apparatus was orders of magnitude better in the digital space at the time than the GOP's machine was. I mean, I remember the brain trusts debating whether Obama's investment and emphasis online was even worth it.

But yeah, 2024 it was all just out in the open, but that was after about a decade of ratfucking the media ecosystem and slowly cooking these dudes' brains.

2010 was a conventional media ratfuck job à la Fox News et al. (euthanizing Grandma) taking advantage of the midterms, which was typical...

Eh, they became political dipshits a lot earlier than 2024.

The GOP realized after '08 and '12 that "the libs" were better at The Internet™ than they were and so CPAC-type money started getting pumped into YT channels and other new media, which you really started seeing around Fall 2015.

It's fascinating watching middle-aged adults develop a modicum of theory of mind in real time and learn that other people -- especially enemies -- have agency, too, and are capable of tactics and strategy.

Besides this being an incredibly weird and clunky analogy, it really shows the world in which these goobers live where they conflate capacity with right.

It illustrates A LOT about our current situation.

Well and $2m in extra costs for a VLCC is A LOT, especially when you also factor in skyrocketing insurance for the whole operation and increasing crew compensation, overhead, etc, not to mention the tankers also run on a fuckload of oil themselves.

Shipping oil at ~3 cents a gallon is no more.

A lot of these kooks are just like the congressional GOP, who actually *want* to be voted out or at least voted into the minority again because that's become their natural role. It's easier, more fun, and often more lucrative with far less responsibility.

This is like my 7th grade book report presentation that I neglected for weeks and put together the night before.

Stuff like this makes me very encouraged for this November, but at the same time makes my belief that DJT and Co are going to try to pull some utterly batshit destructive shit during and after the elections even stronger.

I thought you were a Superman guy

Well yeah, and operationally I'm seeing something akin more to Guadalcanal -- Marines getting marooned in a terrible environment with very tenuous supply lines while getting pounded by enemy guns. Except this time with zero strategic coherence let alone public support for the war.

I mean, the 24th Amendment strictly forbids any tax to vote. Paying the government $200 for a passport or $30+ for a DL, etc, amounts to a (legal) poll tax. If the federal government were to issue passports or IDs to *all* citizens when they turn 18 -- free of charge -- then you'd have a point here.

They're in the "content" business. Plain and simple. It's like a Renaissance guild/patronage thing.

It's not about "journalism" or at least not when it may conflict with their need for exposure and easy content creation and thus income potential.

Trump makes their lives easier and more profitable.

Ground and pound mafia capos during arrests. I'm sure federal judges and AUSAs would love defendants showing up to the arraignment looking like hamburger.

Just drag them across the peninsula like the Vikings. The white nationalist dudebros with the Aryan Brotherhood tattoos currently running this operation should totally approve.

Not at all. It was too close. The neocon GOP took it as a mandate that the country wanted to return to the halcyon days of 1985, so much so that the incoming Bush admin disregarded A LOT during the transition, while the Dems said "we won, actually" and leaned harder into what made them lose.

I had to bring them back this year. Glory to the writer's bump!

Way back when as an undergrad I used a felt tip in a blue book for an Italian medieval lit midterm. It looked like a palimpsest by the end.