David Atkins

The DOJ released evidence, which the FBI deemed credible, that the President of the United States sexually and physically assaulted a 13 year old girl AND she was afraid to talk about it because Trump would kill her—and it’s somehow not the biggest scandal in American history?

Yarvin is what passes for a thinker on the right.

wild that we spent years with a debate in Europe about whether governments can make the case to their populations to endure higher energy prices as part of collective solidarity against Russia etc only to watch Trump say "fuck it" and skyrocket energy prices overnight with no justification at all

They bought in a lot of narratives on social media, many of them coming from the left.

Also, just straight up lies from the Trump campaign, endlessly repeated in traditional media.

It is entirely possible that Trump thought he would make oil super cheap by kidnapping Maduro and assassinating Khamenei. Truly a world class moron surrounded by even bigger morons.

Still thinking back to my 2024 door knocking and canvassing where left-leaning indies and even a few registered Dems told me they couldn't vote for Harris because she "didn't understand the economy" and would "send our kids to war."

"Burgers were cheaper with Trump" and "he hates war."

Fun times.

Lol yes, please keep suggesting this. Republican candidates will LOVE taking questions about it all summer.

I've been thinking a lot this week about how Japan only has 11 months of oil reserves and gets 90% of their supply through the Strait of Hormuz.

Congrats MAGA. You put the biggest warmongering neocons in power again.

The story of the mid-2020s in a nutshell. People thought it was OK to let Trump take power again because someone somewhere would rein him in. They were catastrophically wrong.

a lot of discussion about how "cosmopolitan" urban dwellers are, but a really underdiscussed trend is the homogenization of culture across *rural* areas of the USA - replacement of once-distinct regional cultures with generic "redneck" accent and culture, regional religions with evanglicalism etc

This is no different from Putin saying MH17 was shot down by Ukraine or Assad saying rebels gassed themselves.

people still talking about how Democrats need to do more for the working class of middle America have to contend with the fact that we did exactly that and it did not work

Biden spent all of his political capital on bipartisan infrastructure and manufacturing bills and got nothing in return

Exactly. The DHS invasion of Minnesota and the murders of Renee Good and Alex Pretti had no impact on national gas prices or grocery bills. But people care about it, a lot, and the reaction against that invasion has had a major political impact.

Correct, yeah. And that is definitely a frustration. In the rightwing spin tumbler Dem candidates are painted as defenders of the most avant garde nutpicked people in left spaces.

Yglesias is mostly full of shit. But a lot of progressives still haven't come to terms with the core realities of the argument, especially as it relates to antisocial behavior, crime and education policy.

Yes and no. The steel-manned version of the Yglesias argument is in fact that a lot of what passed for identity politics involved a bunch of academic workshop notions, Standpoint Theory and other stuff directly at odds with what a majority of people with marginalized identities actually wanted.

Sure but....he's having nostalgia for something that is ubiquitous *today*

I have a dozen of these within a 10 mile radius. What is this even?

Also....what is this guy missing, exactly? I have a dozen of these generic playgrounds within a 10 mile square radius. What is he even on about?

So let me get this straight ...

1. US bombs Iran
2. Oil price goes up a bit, benefitting Russia's petrostate
3. Russia gives Iran targeting info
4. Oil price shoots WAY up
5. US unsanctions Russian oil

In the same way that if you were a hostile foreign power trying to destroy America you wouldn't do anything different from Trump, if you were trying to jumpstart a horrific global wave of antisemitism you would basically copy Netanyahu's actions step by step.

So according to the WSJ a US Senator conspired with another country to manipulate the US into starting a war, am I getting this right

Yeah that was Shakespeare's point. The kids are dumb, the feud is dumber. Tragedy ensues.

Please step away from the Congress

Yeah more power to you. To each their own fun!

I didn't that. But some of these defenses are definitely fash-adjacent.

Oooohhhhh....now that *is* an unpopular opinion. I get it, though. I love both those games but just could not get into BG3 at all.

Also a true statement

Ryan, red-brown alliances are bad. They've always been bad. They will continue to be bad.