The Random, Meaningless Political post thread

[Wu Wei]

 

[Stevicus]

Far-right hosts are blaming the GOP's big election losses on Taylor Swift

Right-wing activist Jack Posobiec and commentator Charlie Kirk both blamed Taylor Swift's political power for electoral losses.

www.businessinsider.com

"THE CHILDLESS, UNMARRIED ABORTION ARMY MOBILIZED BY BARBIE, TAYLOR SWIFT, AND TIKTOK" was "CRUSHING REPUBLICANS AT THE BALLOT BOX."

 

[Wu Wei]

 

[Stevicus]

 

[Stevicus]

 

[Stevicus]

Donald Trump’s New Campaign Talking Point: Save the Donuts

The former president seems to be fixated on whether America’s favorite breakfast treat can survive.

www.thedailybeast.com

As with many Trump claims, however, there’s no evidence to support it. Making donuts does not require any special level of fossil fuel supply. And the latest public data shows the American public as willing as ever to load up on donuts.

In fact, the $7 billion American donut industry is projected to grow another $3 billion by 2027, which analysts attribute to “increased snacking and indulgence consumption.”

To Trump’s rivals in the Democratic Party, there is a fairly simple explanation for Trump’s newfound donut fixation.

“The thing about Trump is, the more you pay attention to what he says, the less any of it makes sense,” said Josh Schwerin, a Democratic consultant who helped run the party’s biggest super PAC in 2020 and now works on climate messaging.

Well, I'm glad to hear that donuts are not in danger of going away. I love donuts, especially the chocolate frosted ones. The donut industry is even expected to expand.

I guess the audience at his speeches don't really care if he makes sense, since once Trump mentions, they're all thinking about donuts. Mmm...delicious, freshly baked donuts.

“This is nonsensical from a climate perspective,” Schwerin continued. “Clean energy is creating jobs, not shutting down donut shops. The only real takeaway from these comments is that Trump has donuts on the brain.”

One Trump adviser told The Daily Beast that they had no idea where Trump had picked up the donut line. They didn’t even want to speculate, instead saying in a defeated manner, “I have no idea.”

The Trump campaign did not return a request for comment on the former president’s newfound preoccupation with donuts.

When it comes to the question of what he will do to save donuts, Trump often gets sidetracked. His rhetoric on the sugary treat sometimes ties to his complaints on rising food prices amid inflation, which some blamed on oil prices.

“The people that bake the donuts, the restaurants, everything requires energy. And it’s a very big cost,” Trump said during a July interview on the Fox Business. “Now, everything’s causing inflation. Now we have bad supply lines. Our country’s a mess. We’ll close up the border and become energy-independent. Then we’re going to be energy-dominant.”

But an International Monetary Fund study on food prices in 2022 found other factors to be far more influential on the cost of food than the oil market. The effects of climate change on crop harvests, the war in Ukraine, and interest rate hikes all accounted for a much higher share of the price hikes than oil prices did.

If anything, climate change is expected to jack up food costs globally—a development that could very well affect Trump’s beloved donuts. A new report from the European Central Bank found that food prices could increase as much as 3.2 percentage points through 2060 because of climate change and the increased droughts and storms it will cause.

I guess he also talks about bacon, too.

Still, there might be something to the recurring motif of breakfast in these more recent Trump speeches. Recently, he’s shown some love for another American morning staple when riffing on fossil fuels and the economy.

“They say bacon has gone up five times, meaning five times in the last year and a half, five times,” Trump said during the same speech in New Hampshire, despite bacon remaining at roughly the same price it was in the 1980s, when adjusted for inflation.

“Even I am cutting back on bacon, it’s too expensive,” Trump claimed. “I’m cutting back on it.”

 

[Revoltingest]

In field of MAGA, Haley gains ground... Consolidating 'Never Trump' vote...

 

[Stevicus]

Isn't our PM pretty, males of rf?

She's okay, although I think AOC is prettier.

 

[Estro Felino]

She's okay, although I think AOC is prettier.

What about in this clip from the nineties?

 

[Stevicus]

Most Liberal Countries 2023 - Wisevoter

A liberal country is one that adheres to the principles of liberalism, which prioritize freedom and rights for individuals. This means that its citizens enjoy a wide array of civil liberties, such as freedom of speech, religion, and the press. A liberal country typically has strong protections...

wisevoter.com

A liberal country is one that adheres to the principles of liberalism, which prioritize freedom and rights for individuals. This means that its citizens enjoy a wide array of civil liberties, such as freedom of speech, religion, and the press. A liberal country typically has strong protections for minority groups against discrimination based on race, gender, sexuality, or economic status. Liberal governments also tend to pursue progressive social policies that seek to improve the welfare of their citizens through initiatives like free healthcare and higher education access. Economic liberty is encouraged in liberal countries; citizens are allowed to set up businesses without significant interference from the government and are often rewarded with lower taxes than those found in more conservative nations. All in all, liberal countries offer their citizens an opportunity to live life with greater autonomy and personal freedoms than those afforded by more traditional systems.

#	Country	Liberal Democracy Index	System of Government	Human Freedom Index
1	Sweden	0.88	Constitutional Monarchies	8.83
2	Denmark	0.88	Constitutional Monarchies	8.98
3	Norway	0.86	Constitutional Monarchies	8.76
4	Costa Rica	0.85	Presidential	8.25
5	Estonia	0.84	Parliamentary Republic	8.91
6	New Zealand	0.84	Constitutional Monarchies	9.01
7	Switzerland	0.84	Parliamentary Republic	9.11
8	Finland	0.83	Parliamentary Republic	8.85
9	Germany	0.82	Parliamentary Republic	8.73
10	Ireland	0.82	Parliamentary Republic	8.9
11	Belgium	0.82	Constitutional Monarchies	8.61
12	Netherlands	0.81	Constitutional Monarchies	8.78
13	Portugal	0.81	Parliamentary Republic	8.69
14	Australia	0.81	Constitutional Monarchies	8.84
15	Luxembourg	0.8	Constitutional Monarchies	8.8
16	France	0.8	Semi-presidential	8.34
17	South Korea	0.79	Presidential	8.39
18	Spain	0.78	Constitutional Monarchies	8.56
19	United Kingdom	0.78	Constitutional Monarchies	8.75
20	Italy	0.77	Parliamentary Republic	8.49
21	Chile	0.77	Presidential	8.44
22	Slovakia	0.77	Parliamentary Republic	8.21
23	Uruguay	0.76	Presidential	8.36
24	Canada	0.76	Constitutional Monarchies	8.85
25	Iceland	0.75	Parliamentary Republic	8.77
26	Austria	0.75	Parliamentary Republic	8.67
27	Japan	0.74	Constitutional Monarchies	8.73
28	Lithuania	0.74	Parliamentary Republic	8.68
29	United States of America	0.74	Presidential	8.73
30	Latvia	0.73	Parliamentary Republic	8.67

The U.S. is the 29th most liberal country in the world. Why aren't we at #1?

 

[Revoltingest]

Cop is arrested & fired for alcohol fueled
crashes into multiple parked cars right
after graduating from cop school, &
before he'd have reported for duty.
Society dodged a bullet, eh.

 

[Stonetree]

Cop is arrested & fired for alcohol fueled
crashes into multiple parked cars right
after graduating from cop school, &
before he'd have reported for duty.
Society dodged a bullet, eh.

I doubt that he could shoot straight...

 

[Wu Wei]

 

[Revoltingest]

I voted for Jo Jorgensen (Libertarian
presidential candidate) in 2020.

 

[Wu Wei]

I voted for Jo Jorgensen (Libertarian
presidential candidate) in 2020.

you don't count...because you now have a thread demanding government intervention....therefore that cancels out the whole Libertarian thing.... even if the Libertarian was a Librarian from Liberia,....

 

[Estro Felino]

This journalist claims he is not Mussolini's illegitimate son.
Even if he is identical to him, and even if he was born nine months after Mussolini's stay in the ski resort named Hotel Campo Imperatore, after being arrested by the king.

But he says he is not Mussolini's son. Yes...sure.
LOL

 

[Stevicus]

I came across this article: The Washington Post is very worried that American women don't want to marry Trump supporters

Presumably the Post’s editorial board has a good reason for alerting us to this phenomenon. But what it doesn’t bother to do is tell us “why” it is occurring, and if what the editorial portends is true, Americans would be well served by knowing “why.” Had the Post bothered to provide some basic context, explaining that young American women, in particular, are loath to date right-wing (presumably Republican) men because they find some specific views, attitudes, and values they represent to be abhorrent, the editorial might live up to the serious social ramifications it implicates.

At least the Post’s editorial does a decent job in explaining the underlying issue. As the editors note:

The problem with polarization … is that it has effects well beyond the political realm, and these can be difficult to anticipate. One example is the collapse of American marriage. A growing number of young women are discovering that they can’t find suitable male partners. As a whole, men are increasingly struggling with, or suffering from, higher unemployment, lower rates of educational attainment, more drug addiction and deaths of despair, and generally less purpose and direction in their lives. But it’s not just that. There’s a growing ideological divide, too. Since Mr. Trump’s election in 2016, the percentage of single women ages 18-30 who identify as liberal has shot up from slightly over 20 percent to 32 percent. Young men have not followed suit. If anything, they have grown more conservative.

Maybe it’s just me, but is anyone else getting tired of hearing excuses about why “men” in particular are “increasingly struggling?” Higher unemployment? Really? It’s 3.9%. “Lower rates of educational attainment”? Nope. Those rates are higher than ever, for both men and women. Perhaps if the Post had acknowledged the reality of stagnant wage growth, out of control housing, and health care costs—which affect women just as much (if not more) as men—that might have proved a more enlightening exercise. As for the psychological traumas fueling drastically “more drug addiction” and “deaths of despair” among men (but apparently not as much among women)—it also might have been helpful to ask whether it isn’t more a case of the male ego and a wounded sense of their assumed primacy in our society that’s actually the root of these problems, which aren’t occurring to the same degree in other countries.

“According to a major new American Enterprise Institute survey, 46 percent of White Gen Z women are liberal, compared to only 28 percent of White Gen Z men, more of whom (36 percent) now identify as conservative.” Also, we learn that ”Whereas 61 percent of Gen Z women see themselves as feminist, only 43 percent of Gen Z men do.” The Post observes that as a consequence of this political divide, “A 2021 survey of college students found that 71 percent of Democrats would not date someone with opposing views.” Implicitly, then, this appears to be a Democratically driven phenomenon (Republican men, apparently, are still willing to mate with anyone who will tolerate them). Accepting that premise at face value, then, the question still is “why?”

Interesting that there seems to be a growing divide, where young men are tending towards conservatism, while young women are tending towards liberalism.

It also said that 71% of Democrats would not date someone with opposing views, although apparently, Republican men will date anyone who will put up with them.

 

[Estro Felino]

I came across this article: The Washington Post is very worried that American women don't want to marry Trump supporters







Interesting that there seems to be a growing divide, where young men are tending towards conservatism, while young women are tending towards liberalism.

It also said that 71% of Democrats would not date someone with opposing views, although apparently, Republican men will date anyone who will put up with them.

Europe is filled with Conservative women...
I mean...
Trump married one.

 

[ChristineM]

Europe is filled with Conservative women...
I mean...
Trump married one.

1 in 750 million... Filled?

Though it's true that female European leaders have always been from the right.


Edit. A little research and it seems conservative men are in the majority in Europe, women tend to be more left leaning

 

[Stevicus]

Europe is filled with Conservative women...
I mean...
Trump married one.

I get the impression that Europeans are, on the whole, more liberal than Americans. Of course, there are a lot of conservatives as well.