flipht

The only thing they actually care about is how they're perceived by the rest of the cult.

No, I read one of the many ridicule reviews that are quotes pieces. In this quote, she said that most of the good pics she has of her kids came from the nanny during the day.

She claimed she'd face undue hardship because it's during the school week.

What?

She's got a husband. I bet she still has a nanny - she mentioned having one in her book. She's got two brothers that aren't going to be testifying at the same time.

The kids will be in school for 8 hours, and literally any one of those people could watch her kids for the remaining time. Normal people have to deal with this all the time.

If and when he stops, whoever is in the next safest seat will just pick up the baton.

They operate under a thin veil of plausible deniability, but they're all aware of the game they're playing.

Republic refers to the method of representation. Democracy refers to how those representatives are selected.

They are not mutually exclusive.

I used quotes around that because I do not believe it.

But a bunch of idiots do, and politicians have to have some backing from those idiots, so even though everyone knows these people are shills and grifters, they have to pay lip service to the idea that they'll do the reasonable thing, and hope that eventually cultists start dropping out and realizing they've been duped.

You can lead a horse to water and all that.

100%. Most business is just advanced sophistry at this point. Marketing and advertising serves a useful purpose for new products, when the market isn't aware that it exists.

But by quantity and cost, most advertising is just social manipulation and is effectively an extra drain on the economy.

There's a thought experiment about babies in a river. Do you save each baby as it floats down the river, or do you go upriver to stop them from throwing babies in?

If you choose to stay, are you enabling the baby throwers?

If you go, are you consigning all the babies that are thrown to death while you search?

It's not black and white. There's no good solution when bad actors are doing bad things. A coordinated response would be great, but at the same time, this is a constant problem. It's not like Democrats haven't been trying to get "reasonable republicans" to handle their own shit for decades. It's not like republicans won't have another mole pop up after this one gets whacked back into his hole.

Propaganda, nationalism, and fear of what regressive shitheads will do if you vocalize any opposition

Jail or the front lines.

I leave when I want, and I almost always ghost if it's an actual party.

If it's a gathering with only my friend group, I will say bye to everyone. But if I don't know more than half the people there before that party, I'm just walking out when no one is paying attention.