What you need to know is that the government is corrupt and works almost exclusively for the benefit of the wealthy few, which has caused considerable problems for everyone else, which problems they want you to blame on someone other than them.

It’s the state of mind caused by simultaneously believing two (or more) things that conflict with each other.

Like all conservatives, he wants to do unto others as he would not want done unto him.

Can’t starve people to death if other people are allowed to give them food.

And while they’re arguing about who’s causing the most chaos, the rest of us are left wondering—how did it get this bad?

Actually, that’s easy.

It got this bad because our system is so warped and corrupt that most politicians can no longer even pretend to run on policies and principles. If they get elected, they’re going to do one and only one thing - they’re going to serve the interests of the wealthy individuals and corporations that pay them the fattest bribes. They obviously can’t run on a promise to do that, but they can’t promise to do anything else because they’re not going to do anything else. So they run on hatred and fear - they run on things like “ELECT US BECAUSE THE IMMIGRANTS ARE EATING YOUR PETS!!”

It really is just that simple.

And if the world were a just place instead of a twisted shithole designed to maximize the privilege of a relative few wealthy and empowered parasites, you could work fewer hours, make the same or even more money and afford a house.

But instead the system has been warped so that you have to work long hours for insufficient pay and still can’t afford a decent life, and all so that a relative few executives, board nembers, bankers, investors and politicians can siphon off the bulk of the wealth you generate so that they can buy more houses and bigger yachts.

No - actually I was talking worldwide. Russia’s just a notable example.

And I would say that all of the things you listed are, directly or indirectly, consequences of the fact that wealthy authoritarian parasites have warped societies to their benefit regardless of the harm done to others, so are actually examples of exactly what I’m talking about.

News flash for wealthy authoritarian parasites around the world, because you all seem ignorant of this fact:

Declining birthrates are a direct result of the simple fact that more people all the time decide that they have no desire to bring children into this world, and that in turn is a direct result of the fact that you’ve turned this world into a warped, corrupt, toxic, authoritarian shithole.

You have no one to blame but yourselves.

Nice.

I’ve been threatening off and on all day to make this exact point and have even started a couple of posts to that purpose, but it never quite came together.

Now I don’t need to - I can just agree.

More than anything else - more than an opportunist or a hypocrite or a liar or a fraud - Vance’s primary attribute and defining characteristic really is simply that he’s an asshole.

And those are the people this whole thing is intended for.

You’ll note that none of the people involved responded to attempts to get further statements or clarifications from them. That’s because they know it’s indefensible bullshit. They said it just so that it would get out there so that the faithful would see it and add it to their credo, and now they’re going to ignore it.

She’s bludgeoningly obviously compromised. All the way through, her rulings, and the timing and circumstances of them, have not been made in the service of enforcing law, but engineered to benefit Trump.

So really the only question is whether or not justice will prevail. If this is still in any sense a nation of laws, she’ll be removed (and hopefully sanctioned for her rather obvious bias and/or corruption).

But to all appearances, this is not a nation of law…

And I guarantee that billionaire Larry Ellison blithely believes that he’ll be exempt - that all of this surveillance will just be used against the little people. And he’s almost certainly right.

It’s become obvious over time that one of Trump’s primary strategies in life is assigning his failures and faults to other people. He lives in a sort of permanent fog of projection.

I wonder who he’s trying to fool though. It’s so constant and seemingly effortless that I suspect that it’s really mostly for his own benefit - that it’s not just the story he’s telling other people, but the story he’s telling himself.

Well… yeah. Brazil’s the B in BRICS and Russia’s the R, so Brazil is officially pro-Russia.

And by the bye - China’s the C.

These groups understand the Republican voters, many of whom are not inclined to rank candidates. Ranked-choice voting favors the more malleable Democrat voters who will do so.

Or in other words, Democrats are more likely to actually think about their votes and find things to appreciate in multiple candidates, while Republicans are more likely to just slavishly vote for whoever has an [R] after their name and disregard everything and everyone else.

And arguably more to the point, Republican politicians count on that.

Pops gets confused sometimes …

Take note that this is from the government that the MAGA Republicans support.

This, to them, is honor and strength - to invade a sovereign nation, then threaten to drop nuclear bombs on them for daring to fight back.

That’s the world the MAGA Republicans want - one in which they and their allies are fully entitled to do whatever they want to whoever they want, and the only choices others are to be granted are to submit or die.

Yeah - I obviously don’t know, and it is possible that he’s just naturally and coincidentally so reminiscent of a tweaker, but still…

It just clicked when I thought of it. It’s all there - the constant effortless and entirely self-serving dishonesty and avarice, the revolving door of obsessions, the paranoia and the specific focus on (perceived) loyalty vs. (perceived) betrayal…

I’m not sure that it would be relevant anyway - the issue is who and what he is rather than how he ended up that way. Still though…

Mmm… possibly. Though I did know one flabby tweaker, years ago. I have no idea how he managed it - maybe he was just flabby instead of obese?

But yeah… as a general rule…

And it is possible I guess that Trump naturally developed a personality that just coincidentally is a spot-on match for a tweaker.

It’s just that thinking about Trump’s behavior of late, and particularly this thing with Loomer, put me so in mind of paranoid Hitler withdrawing to the bunker with Eva, and then it all just clicked.