There it is — finally! All the rigmarole over declining poll numbers and no one — save Finnegan — addressing the real issue: an intransigent core on the right willing to see the US go down in flames — and it won’t be a blaze of glory. I have dual citizenship, as do my children, and I wake up every day wondering if this is the day. I feel a duty to my country and responsibility to my countrymen who can’t just pick up and leave. Yet I’m still not willing to accept the nihilists and those who just muddle along and refuse to stand up even for themselves. My mother lost her country and pined for it til the day she died. I’d prefer not to suffer her fate, but it may be inevitable.
Living in the South I see this in the comments on social media everyday. People willing to cut off their nose to spite their face as long as it owns the libs. And not all of them are the typical mouth breathing Trumptards either. Many are educated, successful business people who should know better.
Right? That's the mystery I struggled with for so long.
Take Pillow Clown... Mike "Bankrupt as shit now" Lindell.
I had that guy as a client for a while. A complete huckster. Mister "I found religion and turned my life around." Was a drunk, cokehead, etc., but then realized he could sell pillows versus humpin them... became a millionaire. Employed almost a thousand people at that pillow facility in Chaska, MN.
That assclown destroys his entire fortune engaged in sedition, fraud, and stupidity, over what...
Trump?
"Owning the Libs?"
I mean that seriously. Now the guy can't even pay his lawyers.... he's broker than broke. Sold his birthright for a bowl of pottage in the extreme.
Over what... a lie?
Why would THAT GUY want to change the republic? Ask yourself that question.
I don't have a good answer beyond these people are batshit bonkers and highly committed. They're the "American Taliban" - hating modernity, equality, and change. That makes them no different from the Taliban in Afghanistan... quite frankly.
As I told my sister in a text discussion about trumper family members, I think racism is the one thing that attracts most of the cult members. Their Orange Jesus gives them permission to be racist assholes in the open instead of having to be quiet about it.
The Democratic Party in my congressional district (Alabama's 3rd) did not even bother to run a candidate against the Neanderthal MAGA Mike Rogers in 2024. As far as I know, they have no plans to run anyone against him in 2026 either. Hard to know for certain since their website and domain have gone black in recent days.
This perpetual stalemate is intolerable. I know it's unrealistic, but I say cut the rigging, cut the tow lines and let the red states drift away. If they survive without blue state money, fine; if they can't fine. I can't stand this endless idiocy.
My people came ashore at Jamestown. The South and its legends were a big part of my childhood. Then, they were a charming mythology. As an adult who gradually moved north and west - until I got to the Pacific coast - I found that when I returned to visit, I realized that they had never buried their dead. All the resentment and injury was alive and real and even personal. I came to admire greatly anyone who left and let the door slam behind them. This MAGA division will also survive for generations: it’s fueled by the same degree of intense resentment. In the short term, I dread the orange turd’s state funeral. He will be too ill and demented to prosecute. He will go to his tomb a hero to that 41%.
One of my kids went to school at Washington and Lee University - a “heritage” student. His freshman year roommate was named for Jefferson Davis. His best friend to this day was named after Robert E Lee. Thank God my kid survived the culture. I attribute that to the facts that 1) his dad is an immigrant and 2) growing up, the kid was given a strong dose of the wonderful diversity of California neighborhoods and schools.
More than half of 'those' voters cannot even read this post, and those who can won't understand it. They are ignorant of the consequences of this administration other than the price of eggs and gas.
Black Americans have been surviving, not thriving, in any sense, for 249 years with these lunatics. The remaining fractions of America should seriously take the lesson of the resulting political, economic, and social discord in that community and decide if they want to go down the same path. Maybe that will move their asses towards serious resistance.
FWIW - I'm pretty certain the reason why "The Matrix" in "Zion" was composed mainly of black and brown people was a commentary that these were the people who had already figured out the system of control and thus learned to navigate it first.
Well thanks for the Debbie downer summary. Although to agree, I understand where you’re coming from (and I’ve been a conservative voter until 2018), my question is why are many of these special elections flipping if such a large number still support him? Further, we have seen poll numbers since Trump came onto the scene that were blatantly false. Hillary had the polls in her favor and she lost. Trumps polls were not underwater when he lost in 2020. Furthermore, and this is the kicker, these “polls” always are based off a small population of voters. How is that a great representation of the number of people that may make that number less attractive? Serious question. I believe, polls are a sham. And regardless of how they are conducted, with all the misinformation out there, I don’t believe in them as they have been wrong time and time again.
I am in agreement that the democratic side has no strategy at all. Sadly, I feel that some of the left leaving podcasters and once well know journalists (Chris Armatage) have a better idea to fight back than our senators. It truly shows how big our issue is in this country. The fake news campaign to discredit career journalists who covered the truth, as well as the pedophiles in churches (and let’s not forget it was first exposed in the Catholic Church, but has ALWAYS been present in the Evangelical churches) spewing his hatred shows to me, end of days are in fact here. The more the Epstein files are discussed to be released, the more chance a flash point across the globe will hit. And not for nothing, this country is ill prepared for any type of world war. Other countries have prepared for it while we were just too arrogant to believe it would happen (unless you’re rich and have fully sustainable bunkers built). THAT is the real story here. Forget can we live with one another.
Special elections, in general, typically favor anti-establishment movements. They're more motivated. Their electors are more motivated. Generally, off-cycle elections tend to favor the counter-cultural candidate. That's just an observation on my part.
And if you're thinking of the most recent one... while a special election, that district wasn't going to suddenly go MAGA. Adelita Grijalva won her father's seat. Arizona 7 has been nothing BUT Democrat since it was gerrymandered into existence in 2000. So drawing a conclusion going "well Democrats are winning... because look at what happened... and if MAGA is so strong..."
Yeah... when you get into the granules on that particular election, the argument falls apart pretty substantially pretty quickly.
As for polling... done properly, polling can reflect the attitudes of the body at large. That said, polling as of late probably isn't being done properly, since the sample sizes (in my opinion) need to be substantially larger than 1000 LV or 1000 RV. I think to do a proper poll, under the current conditions, you need to do a sample of roughly 20K people, and a mix of LV, RV, and people who haven't voted ever (new voters or eligible but not voting). You then need to correlate their opinions against the likelihood they'll actually go to the polls.
I won't go deep into stats and stat methodology, but none of the polls do what I just recommended. As a consequence, it's why I think they're deeply flawed despite having "statistic rigor" in their alleged conclusions. If the idea is to predict behavior, then you need to also sample measure the predicted behaviors, not just the underlying opinions. Back in the day when we had everyone go to the polls on election day, that was a bit easier to control. Back in the day when the people who were likely to be sampled (predominantly via telephone) were also the ones most likely to go to the polling, I think it was a bit easier to control. As of now, I think the electorate is too balkanized in their views and in their habits to allow a 1K or 3K sample size. And even if we want to state for the sake of argument those sample sizes are big enough, I can assure you nobody correlates for the behaviors of whether or not those sampled will actually vote. As we know, who goes to the poll is actually more important than what views the electorate might hold. In both Harris and Clinton's cases, it was a lack of turn out, not a lack of support, that decided their fates.
And that also points to the basic premise I've made here, which is that roughly 80 million Americans are active, decisively against the current trajectory of the Republic, and willing to spend time, effort, capital, etc., to mold it into some new image. That's a much larger percentage than Democrats. Yes, Democrats are winning state elections, and some Congressional ones, but they are not prevailing at the national level because they do not have widespread support that is motivated enough to go to the goddamned polls when it's needed.
Harris' turnout numbers (despite blaming everyone but herself in her book) demonstrate that.
Finally, with no coherent opposition from Democrats, it really doesn't matter if the polling is wrong, or if anything else is as it seems. If there is no coherent opposition to the authoritarian streak to undermine the founding, then it really doesn't matter how it's measured... does it? :)
First, thank you for your well written and detailed response. Didn’t expect it but appreciate it.
Secondly, your dissecting of the polls and how there done is exactly my point about the pitiful population of so called voters they reach out to. The reason (my opinion) they don’t get more is because they’re afraid of what they’ll learn. Furthermore, using percentages to explain where people stand on issues is like going to the grocery store and paying for your carriage with percentages instead of dollars. Percentages do not tell the story. Data does. So thus why I detest using polls to see where we are. So who’s to know where the public sits when our voices are being silenced. This administration doesn’t want people who “may” be on the fence to hear what is really going on from ICE to the economy. The dems need a true leader and there are some who have potential, but it’s not organized and quite frankly…what should the strategy be? We have never seen anything like this happen in the US in a long long time, at least not to this level. It’s easy to direct the narrative and have a plan when everyone in power is complicit in the actions of the sole person who believes he is supposed to call all the shots. I know there is a ton of criticism and I get it (hell I never thought I would be agreeing with the left consistently about all of what’s going on). But when these states that receive more than they give, have people who’s IQ is about as high as the first number in a sequence, believe they are under attack never realizing it’s their own ignorance that have led them down their beaten path, what can the dems do? Seriously? It’s the people that can make the change in the country cause I refuse to believe that he even won the election based on many reports of the massive inconsistencies in all the swing states, as well as NY, that even those 90,000,000 votes he got were actually real. But even IF that were true, there are people in masses that didn’t vote for this behavior and these policies. Call me too optimistic. And I agree, is the country or the world for that matter WORTH saving? If I had know this is where we would be at, I wouldn’t have tried to bring kids into this pergatory. But what is the action you are expecting from the left? I’m all ears because we are close if not already at a point of no return.
There were 90,000,000 more people that didn’t vote. These people decided the election. Those people that said “I don’t like either so I won’t vote” are why we’re in this situation. I don’t believe the MAGA movement is as large as we are led to believe. I refuse to believe that almost half the country is ok with everything this admin is doing. If what you say is true and that is a REAL possibility, we won’t survive this like you said.
We need a leader and it needs to be someone that represents something both sides need. For too long democrats have pushed policies despite frustrations by ALL voters. Republicans constantly chime that they are the fiscally responsible yet we see the deficit rise every time they have power. We missed the opportunity to identify what the repercussions of these bad actors do. Not once has someone made it real to me in my situation. Especially in the MAGA base, the cause and effect should have been shown a long time ago. But it wasn’t and here we are.
Anyway, ranted there for a bit. Thanks for the engaging discussion.
FYI - the primary reason why polling is done the way it is done is cost and logistics.
Your average poll costs about $30-40K to conduct. That’s for a 1K sample size (on average). So figure about 4 bucks per respondent.
If you did a 20K sample, with the level of correlation I’m talking, that would be a 100-150K poll, something that most news agencies aren’t going to do. I haven’t even seen inside polling in campaigns do something like that.
Again, it used to be relatively reliable, but that was when things were considerably more condensed and collapsed than they are now. The level of fragmentation causes the difficulty.
Honestly, a 20K sample poll might cost as much as a quarter of a million do to the way I’m suggesting. Because ultimately you’d be polling people who are and are NOT going to vote. Then you’d have to gauge their probability they’ll follow through (on either voting or not voting), and then weight their responses.
Again, not to go all stat math nerd, that’s a dramatically more difficult problem to model than “so, do you love fearless leader and think he doesn’t have a tiny dick or hands?” type questioning.
I believe an economic collapse akin to January 1933 (25% national unemployment) would peel away MAGA-curious and MAGA-adjacent and leave a core of some 5-10% of true believers. 25% unemployment will represent suffering on a scale unknown to most living Americans. (My Dad was born in 1930 and passed away in April 2024.)
Thanks for sandpapering my already hopeless ass. As usual, trenchantly argued. FFS, the Democratic braintrust is living in a parallel political dimension, eyes glazed, and shoeless. They could no more comprehend the reality of MAGA as a galvanized polity than my dog could cook dinner. At least you saved me from having to craft an operational definition of MAGA that would give me some clarity about however the fuck they navigate the mess they've made. And fuck Ammon Bundy, too.
Hard to disagree with your over the top take this time around, sadly. After what we’ve seen right in front of our eyes, most recently the monstrous lunatic ignorance on full unfiltered display before the UN General Assembly, that a decisive majority of Americans are not clamoring for immediate impeachment and swift removal is a painful indictment. The problem is not the president, the problem is the American people, or a persistent critical mass who cannot see the conniving idiotic criminal picking their pocket, undermining their future, and jeopardizing the fate of the world. As someone else might say, God help us.
Has this not been the case for decades? It's now just amplified, podcasted, sold, and without any sort of shame or veil of honesty. Watch news clips from years ago — "the division within America", the media "is clearly on the side of the other ticket", etc etc. Tale as old as time, just blasted out relentlessly at high volume. Doesn't make it any better, and all signs definitely point to it getting worse.
Those in power will ride the wave as long as it is profitable.
BTW - it's ironic that the very structure Disney set up (Disney+ subscriptions) is likely what helped reverse course on Kimmel. It wasn't profitable to stick with their decision (or fall to the coercion). That method of people protesting (cancelling) did not exist years ago. If you didn't agree with a show or network, you had to figure out the advertisers and not buy those products ("I guess no more Palmolive for us!").
There it is — finally! All the rigmarole over declining poll numbers and no one — save Finnegan — addressing the real issue: an intransigent core on the right willing to see the US go down in flames — and it won’t be a blaze of glory. I have dual citizenship, as do my children, and I wake up every day wondering if this is the day. I feel a duty to my country and responsibility to my countrymen who can’t just pick up and leave. Yet I’m still not willing to accept the nihilists and those who just muddle along and refuse to stand up even for themselves. My mother lost her country and pined for it til the day she died. I’d prefer not to suffer her fate, but it may be inevitable.
Living in the South I see this in the comments on social media everyday. People willing to cut off their nose to spite their face as long as it owns the libs. And not all of them are the typical mouth breathing Trumptards either. Many are educated, successful business people who should know better.
Right? That's the mystery I struggled with for so long.
Take Pillow Clown... Mike "Bankrupt as shit now" Lindell.
I had that guy as a client for a while. A complete huckster. Mister "I found religion and turned my life around." Was a drunk, cokehead, etc., but then realized he could sell pillows versus humpin them... became a millionaire. Employed almost a thousand people at that pillow facility in Chaska, MN.
That assclown destroys his entire fortune engaged in sedition, fraud, and stupidity, over what...
Trump?
"Owning the Libs?"
I mean that seriously. Now the guy can't even pay his lawyers.... he's broker than broke. Sold his birthright for a bowl of pottage in the extreme.
Over what... a lie?
Why would THAT GUY want to change the republic? Ask yourself that question.
I don't have a good answer beyond these people are batshit bonkers and highly committed. They're the "American Taliban" - hating modernity, equality, and change. That makes them no different from the Taliban in Afghanistan... quite frankly.
As I told my sister in a text discussion about trumper family members, I think racism is the one thing that attracts most of the cult members. Their Orange Jesus gives them permission to be racist assholes in the open instead of having to be quiet about it.
The Democratic Party in my congressional district (Alabama's 3rd) did not even bother to run a candidate against the Neanderthal MAGA Mike Rogers in 2024. As far as I know, they have no plans to run anyone against him in 2026 either. Hard to know for certain since their website and domain have gone black in recent days.
This perpetual stalemate is intolerable. I know it's unrealistic, but I say cut the rigging, cut the tow lines and let the red states drift away. If they survive without blue state money, fine; if they can't fine. I can't stand this endless idiocy.
I agree. The division is permanent.
My people came ashore at Jamestown. The South and its legends were a big part of my childhood. Then, they were a charming mythology. As an adult who gradually moved north and west - until I got to the Pacific coast - I found that when I returned to visit, I realized that they had never buried their dead. All the resentment and injury was alive and real and even personal. I came to admire greatly anyone who left and let the door slam behind them. This MAGA division will also survive for generations: it’s fueled by the same degree of intense resentment. In the short term, I dread the orange turd’s state funeral. He will be too ill and demented to prosecute. He will go to his tomb a hero to that 41%.
As did Lee and Jefferson Davis. :P
One of my kids went to school at Washington and Lee University - a “heritage” student. His freshman year roommate was named for Jefferson Davis. His best friend to this day was named after Robert E Lee. Thank God my kid survived the culture. I attribute that to the facts that 1) his dad is an immigrant and 2) growing up, the kid was given a strong dose of the wonderful diversity of California neighborhoods and schools.
Yikes! Only time I have been glad I am 69. Though I am pained and sorry for my children , all the children.
Exactly right.
More than half of 'those' voters cannot even read this post, and those who can won't understand it. They are ignorant of the consequences of this administration other than the price of eggs and gas.
How many of the 41% polled strongly approve? How many are scared to say they disapprove with the ICE gehiemstadtspolitzei lurking around?
Black Americans have been surviving, not thriving, in any sense, for 249 years with these lunatics. The remaining fractions of America should seriously take the lesson of the resulting political, economic, and social discord in that community and decide if they want to go down the same path. Maybe that will move their asses towards serious resistance.
Lol. Amen, brother, testify! :D
FWIW - I'm pretty certain the reason why "The Matrix" in "Zion" was composed mainly of black and brown people was a commentary that these were the people who had already figured out the system of control and thus learned to navigate it first.
So the symbology isn't entirely lost on me. :)
Here. Here. I absolutely agree.
Well thanks for the Debbie downer summary. Although to agree, I understand where you’re coming from (and I’ve been a conservative voter until 2018), my question is why are many of these special elections flipping if such a large number still support him? Further, we have seen poll numbers since Trump came onto the scene that were blatantly false. Hillary had the polls in her favor and she lost. Trumps polls were not underwater when he lost in 2020. Furthermore, and this is the kicker, these “polls” always are based off a small population of voters. How is that a great representation of the number of people that may make that number less attractive? Serious question. I believe, polls are a sham. And regardless of how they are conducted, with all the misinformation out there, I don’t believe in them as they have been wrong time and time again.
I am in agreement that the democratic side has no strategy at all. Sadly, I feel that some of the left leaving podcasters and once well know journalists (Chris Armatage) have a better idea to fight back than our senators. It truly shows how big our issue is in this country. The fake news campaign to discredit career journalists who covered the truth, as well as the pedophiles in churches (and let’s not forget it was first exposed in the Catholic Church, but has ALWAYS been present in the Evangelical churches) spewing his hatred shows to me, end of days are in fact here. The more the Epstein files are discussed to be released, the more chance a flash point across the globe will hit. And not for nothing, this country is ill prepared for any type of world war. Other countries have prepared for it while we were just too arrogant to believe it would happen (unless you’re rich and have fully sustainable bunkers built). THAT is the real story here. Forget can we live with one another.
Special elections, in general, typically favor anti-establishment movements. They're more motivated. Their electors are more motivated. Generally, off-cycle elections tend to favor the counter-cultural candidate. That's just an observation on my part.
And if you're thinking of the most recent one... while a special election, that district wasn't going to suddenly go MAGA. Adelita Grijalva won her father's seat. Arizona 7 has been nothing BUT Democrat since it was gerrymandered into existence in 2000. So drawing a conclusion going "well Democrats are winning... because look at what happened... and if MAGA is so strong..."
Yeah... when you get into the granules on that particular election, the argument falls apart pretty substantially pretty quickly.
As for polling... done properly, polling can reflect the attitudes of the body at large. That said, polling as of late probably isn't being done properly, since the sample sizes (in my opinion) need to be substantially larger than 1000 LV or 1000 RV. I think to do a proper poll, under the current conditions, you need to do a sample of roughly 20K people, and a mix of LV, RV, and people who haven't voted ever (new voters or eligible but not voting). You then need to correlate their opinions against the likelihood they'll actually go to the polls.
I won't go deep into stats and stat methodology, but none of the polls do what I just recommended. As a consequence, it's why I think they're deeply flawed despite having "statistic rigor" in their alleged conclusions. If the idea is to predict behavior, then you need to also sample measure the predicted behaviors, not just the underlying opinions. Back in the day when we had everyone go to the polls on election day, that was a bit easier to control. Back in the day when the people who were likely to be sampled (predominantly via telephone) were also the ones most likely to go to the polling, I think it was a bit easier to control. As of now, I think the electorate is too balkanized in their views and in their habits to allow a 1K or 3K sample size. And even if we want to state for the sake of argument those sample sizes are big enough, I can assure you nobody correlates for the behaviors of whether or not those sampled will actually vote. As we know, who goes to the poll is actually more important than what views the electorate might hold. In both Harris and Clinton's cases, it was a lack of turn out, not a lack of support, that decided their fates.
And that also points to the basic premise I've made here, which is that roughly 80 million Americans are active, decisively against the current trajectory of the Republic, and willing to spend time, effort, capital, etc., to mold it into some new image. That's a much larger percentage than Democrats. Yes, Democrats are winning state elections, and some Congressional ones, but they are not prevailing at the national level because they do not have widespread support that is motivated enough to go to the goddamned polls when it's needed.
Harris' turnout numbers (despite blaming everyone but herself in her book) demonstrate that.
Finally, with no coherent opposition from Democrats, it really doesn't matter if the polling is wrong, or if anything else is as it seems. If there is no coherent opposition to the authoritarian streak to undermine the founding, then it really doesn't matter how it's measured... does it? :)
First, thank you for your well written and detailed response. Didn’t expect it but appreciate it.
Secondly, your dissecting of the polls and how there done is exactly my point about the pitiful population of so called voters they reach out to. The reason (my opinion) they don’t get more is because they’re afraid of what they’ll learn. Furthermore, using percentages to explain where people stand on issues is like going to the grocery store and paying for your carriage with percentages instead of dollars. Percentages do not tell the story. Data does. So thus why I detest using polls to see where we are. So who’s to know where the public sits when our voices are being silenced. This administration doesn’t want people who “may” be on the fence to hear what is really going on from ICE to the economy. The dems need a true leader and there are some who have potential, but it’s not organized and quite frankly…what should the strategy be? We have never seen anything like this happen in the US in a long long time, at least not to this level. It’s easy to direct the narrative and have a plan when everyone in power is complicit in the actions of the sole person who believes he is supposed to call all the shots. I know there is a ton of criticism and I get it (hell I never thought I would be agreeing with the left consistently about all of what’s going on). But when these states that receive more than they give, have people who’s IQ is about as high as the first number in a sequence, believe they are under attack never realizing it’s their own ignorance that have led them down their beaten path, what can the dems do? Seriously? It’s the people that can make the change in the country cause I refuse to believe that he even won the election based on many reports of the massive inconsistencies in all the swing states, as well as NY, that even those 90,000,000 votes he got were actually real. But even IF that were true, there are people in masses that didn’t vote for this behavior and these policies. Call me too optimistic. And I agree, is the country or the world for that matter WORTH saving? If I had know this is where we would be at, I wouldn’t have tried to bring kids into this pergatory. But what is the action you are expecting from the left? I’m all ears because we are close if not already at a point of no return.
There were 90,000,000 more people that didn’t vote. These people decided the election. Those people that said “I don’t like either so I won’t vote” are why we’re in this situation. I don’t believe the MAGA movement is as large as we are led to believe. I refuse to believe that almost half the country is ok with everything this admin is doing. If what you say is true and that is a REAL possibility, we won’t survive this like you said.
We need a leader and it needs to be someone that represents something both sides need. For too long democrats have pushed policies despite frustrations by ALL voters. Republicans constantly chime that they are the fiscally responsible yet we see the deficit rise every time they have power. We missed the opportunity to identify what the repercussions of these bad actors do. Not once has someone made it real to me in my situation. Especially in the MAGA base, the cause and effect should have been shown a long time ago. But it wasn’t and here we are.
Anyway, ranted there for a bit. Thanks for the engaging discussion.
FYI - the primary reason why polling is done the way it is done is cost and logistics.
Your average poll costs about $30-40K to conduct. That’s for a 1K sample size (on average). So figure about 4 bucks per respondent.
If you did a 20K sample, with the level of correlation I’m talking, that would be a 100-150K poll, something that most news agencies aren’t going to do. I haven’t even seen inside polling in campaigns do something like that.
Again, it used to be relatively reliable, but that was when things were considerably more condensed and collapsed than they are now. The level of fragmentation causes the difficulty.
Honestly, a 20K sample poll might cost as much as a quarter of a million do to the way I’m suggesting. Because ultimately you’d be polling people who are and are NOT going to vote. Then you’d have to gauge their probability they’ll follow through (on either voting or not voting), and then weight their responses.
Again, not to go all stat math nerd, that’s a dramatically more difficult problem to model than “so, do you love fearless leader and think he doesn’t have a tiny dick or hands?” type questioning.
I believe an economic collapse akin to January 1933 (25% national unemployment) would peel away MAGA-curious and MAGA-adjacent and leave a core of some 5-10% of true believers. 25% unemployment will represent suffering on a scale unknown to most living Americans. (My Dad was born in 1930 and passed away in April 2024.)
Essential Reading.
Thanks for sandpapering my already hopeless ass. As usual, trenchantly argued. FFS, the Democratic braintrust is living in a parallel political dimension, eyes glazed, and shoeless. They could no more comprehend the reality of MAGA as a galvanized polity than my dog could cook dinner. At least you saved me from having to craft an operational definition of MAGA that would give me some clarity about however the fuck they navigate the mess they've made. And fuck Ammon Bundy, too.
Hard to disagree with your over the top take this time around, sadly. After what we’ve seen right in front of our eyes, most recently the monstrous lunatic ignorance on full unfiltered display before the UN General Assembly, that a decisive majority of Americans are not clamoring for immediate impeachment and swift removal is a painful indictment. The problem is not the president, the problem is the American people, or a persistent critical mass who cannot see the conniving idiotic criminal picking their pocket, undermining their future, and jeopardizing the fate of the world. As someone else might say, God help us.
We’re really in a mess.
Has this not been the case for decades? It's now just amplified, podcasted, sold, and without any sort of shame or veil of honesty. Watch news clips from years ago — "the division within America", the media "is clearly on the side of the other ticket", etc etc. Tale as old as time, just blasted out relentlessly at high volume. Doesn't make it any better, and all signs definitely point to it getting worse.
Those in power will ride the wave as long as it is profitable.
BTW - it's ironic that the very structure Disney set up (Disney+ subscriptions) is likely what helped reverse course on Kimmel. It wasn't profitable to stick with their decision (or fall to the coercion). That method of people protesting (cancelling) did not exist years ago. If you didn't agree with a show or network, you had to figure out the advertisers and not buy those products ("I guess no more Palmolive for us!").