trump literally doesn’t understand anything.

Take trade imbalances for a minute. As an contrived example, we buy $1m worth of steel from Canada, they buy $100k worth of steel from us.

There’s a $900k trade imbalance, and you can tell how trump talks about it, he thinks that means we just gave $900k to Canada for fun.

He completely ignores the part where we traded $1m for $1m worth of steel. We get the fucking steel, it has value, we know it has value because we were willing to pay for it.

But just listen to him talk about trade, he doesn’t understand that basic component of trade. He thinks a $X trade imbalance means we just give that country $X for nothing. He is the dumbest motherfucking idiot on the planet.

We will all get to be that strange old person who won’t discard an orange peel because we lived through the second Great Depression.

There is a death penalty you can actually execute against a corporation, you can dissolve their charter. For some reason this is seen as more extreme than putting a human being to death.

I mean I remember back in 2008 when dailykos would frequently say “elect more democrats and better democrats”

The idea being that we could fix the dnc from within. Progressives just needed to vote for better Dems.

The dnc realized that they had a real hard time beating republicans in the general but boy oh boy could they whoop the progressives in the primary.

Blue dog dem, here’s the dnc gold card and the PIN code.

Progressive dem, we will spend any amount of money to keep you off the ballot.

And we see where it’s led us, the dnc is now good at one thing and one thing only, raising money for the dnc. Oodles and oodles and oodles of money and losing the nation to autocracy

Short answer, yes.

Long answer, yes and also even if they weren’t it wouldn’t really matter.

One thing Americans are waking up to is how much of this system was based off of good actors obeying the constitution. The judicial branch is used to being respected, they are a coequal branch of the government theoretically.

We are experiencing a harsh lesson in real politics though. The Republican Party has decided that their party should win not the constitution. They are more than happy to go “some guy in a robe somewhere said we can’t do something? Fuck him”

The executive branch has the military and is just doing things. If those things are legal no longer matter.

We are currently existing in an autocracy, so rule #3 of autocracies applies

Rule #3: Institutions will not save you. It took Putin a year to take over the Russian media and four years to dismantle its electoral system; the judiciary collapsed unnoticed. The capture of institutions in Turkey has been carried out even faster, by a man once celebrated as the democrat to lead Turkey into the EU. Poland has in less than a year undone half of a quarter century’s accomplishments in building a constitutional democracy.

There’s no way this government would ever declare American citizens to be a part of this gang and sent to El Salvador. No sir. No need for Americans to be worried one bit.

Dude is this you too Mr UAW President?

https://www.freep.com/story/money/cars/2025/03/28/united-auto-workers-supports-donald-trump-auto-tariffs/82686652007/

Maybe you shouldn’t support someone when their policies just happen to accidentally line up with you on occasion.

What’s weird is he’s the ceo of replit.

Replit’s product is a website where you can write a snippet of code and run it without having to install anything. An activity that human developers would do to test out something.

So if his prediction comes true, his product will lose all value.

This is why putting money hoarders in charge doesn’t make sense.

They fetishize just building a gigantic pile of money. Governments should be using the taxes they raise to do things.

Yea, one of the items says that local bakeries don’t exist anymore? What? There are plenty of local bakeries.

Yea the part I’m talking about is when instead of just passing a bill to fix the problem they spent time negotiating with the GOP.

Instead of striking while the iron was hot, you know, passing a bill when they had a super majority. They waited until they lost their super majority, then decided that the filibuster was so sacrosanct that they had to pass a watered down bill that entrenches the power of the insurance companies.

Let not forget that at the time when the Dems were fucking around negotiating with the gop they had said publicly that their primary goal was to obstruct the Obama presidency. That’s also what literally happened.

This is the constant Democratic Party refrain. We sure wish we could have done {insert good thing} but when the iron was hot, by golly, we just couldn’t find our hammer.

Then the iron got cold so we had to, shucks, pass a version of the bill that was much more attractive to our donors and screw over the voters.

Golly gee willickers, what rotten luck.

Meanwhile the GOP with the slimmest majority and 3 turncoat Dems. “Time to rewrite the tax code, no need to type it up frank just scribble it in the margin, we will figure out how many billions to give the wealthy once it’s passed”

I imagine people share these for 3 reasons.

1. People encounter information at different times. Sure you’ve seen the article but someone else hasn’t (although for popular topics, this likely become near zero quickly enough)
2. People want to signal to their group that they are in the group. Why do people share anything with their little opinions attached. In part it’s so that they can cement their place in their tribe. Democrats or republicans or anything else, you are supposed to be angry about the things that anger your tribe and happy about the things that please your tribe.
3. Anxiety. Our brains are sorta wired for “stress -> action -> relief” cycles. We survive because we encounter a stressor, take some action to address it, and are then relieved of that stressor. Feel hunger, eat food, feel better. The current world has many stressors that can’t be meaningfully impacted in an individual level. You can read an article about something that outrages you or highlights an injustice you believe is occurring, but then there is no action to take. So sharing becomes an effective action substitute. Did it solve anything? Nope, but your brain doesn’t care, it’s just happy you took some sort of action.

If I were your partner, although it might not feel like it in the moment, the sooner the better.

If you aren’t going to commit to them, that’s your choice to make, but free them up to find someone that will. Every ounce of love and time and attention they pay you from the moment you make the decision to leave until you find the gumption to do it is a waste for them. The most respectful thing you can do is not waste the precious and finite moments of their life.

Let them know what you’ve decided. Have the courage to tell them plainly and honestly that you are leaving and that you won’t be the person to love them. Let them get over you so they can find the person that will love them.

And don’t you dare double back unless you mean to stay. If you stay do it because it’s what you want not because you feel bad. That partner is a human being, one that deserves the truth and to be loved. If you can’t do that, or don’t want to do that, that’s your choice.

This is the least we owe our partners, to be honest with them, to love them or let them find love elsewhere.

I know you are getting a lot of downvotes. Choosing to leave someone you love is not a popular opinion. I could not do it and I think most couldn’t. In time I suspect you will find one of two things to be true.

• You will find someone you truly love and you will recognize that this relationship had affection and care but was different.
• You will find that what was out there wasn’t worth what you gave up, that this was love, and you will wish you had it back

This is life though, the hard decisions, and only you get to make them. I hope you make a good one, and above all, if you want to be a decent human being, treat your partner well. If that means standing by their side in love, great. If that means being honest with them so that they can be happy, also fine. Just don’t lie to them, don’t be needlessly mean in ending it, have the courage of your convictions and tell them the plain simple truth. Don’t make up a reason that feels better, don’t blame them for the relationship falling apart, don’t trick them into hating you.

You owe them that at least.

Explain your situation then.

Sounds to me like you love your partner and they love you. You’d like to leave to go have other life experiences.

It’s pretty easy, which do you value more, the love you have for your partner or these life experiences you could have?

I don’t know you, but my guess is that if you are thinking about it enough to want to find an answer, then you already have your answer. You value the life experiences more, you care about your partner, and you don’t want to hurt them.

I’ve been married to my wife for over a decade now, I love her with all my heart, I can’t think of any kind of life experience that would make me want to leave her. I imagine that love is not a binary on or off type thing that there are degrees and kinds of love. It’s very well possible that you love your partner but not enough to want to stay together forever.

This is really a question that only you can answer. Which do you want to do, it’s your one life, you get to choose. But don’t stay with your partner because you are afraid of hurting them because if that’s why you stay, you will become bitter and resentful and the idea of “what could of been” will always be this perfect thing that they kept from you.

Stay because you want to stay or leave because you’d rather leave.

In general you can’t be responsible for someone else’s emotions.

If you were having a casual relationship and the other person has big feelings you don’t reciprocate, that sucks but it’s not your fault.

If, however, you reciprocate those feelings, or pretended to and led them on, then you do bear some responsibility.

The actual salient question though is if you love this person that loves you. If not, you aren’t doing them any favors stringing them along. That person deserves to be loved like anyone else and you will be causing them more harm than good if you pretend you love them just to save them some heartbreak.

The correct course of action is to be honest about how you feel and also recognize how your partner feels. Whether or not you intended them to fall in love with you, recognize that that is significant and your loss in their life will be painful. There’s no two ways about that, so be kind and compassionate to your partner.

But do not fool yourself into thinking that what’s right is to just keep them around because you don’t want to break their hearts. If they love you, they want to be loved back, and if you can’t do that that’s fine.

Pretending you love them so you won’t hurt them will cause the greatest pain of all.

Was going on tv and desperately pleading with Americans to pretty please buy something not an effective strategy?

Did people immediately wonder, “if this is so good why do all these politicians have to keep hawking this stuff?”

Tesla, much like Elon, is giving big divorced middle aged man energy right now. Like me, I’m cool, see I got this 78 year old orange dude to stand out on the White House lawn and say “hey kids, this guy is cool” so why won’t you believe me!!

Ok I got another one of my paunchy middle aged friends to go on tv and tell everyone how cool I am, did that work? What?! People think that’s cringe… oh boy, why won’t anyone think I’m cool anymore.

Remember like 10 years ago? I was Tony Stark! I don’t know why everyone thought I was so cool back then, but I would give anything literally anything to be cool again. Why don’t people like my shitty cars that I haven’t updated in over a decade. I mean they looked cool and futuristic in 2015, what do you mean they looked dated now?!

Did you see we made some gold, and I pinky swear that in 12 to 18 months, this time they will super seriously be self driving and you can just sit at home and earn money by turning your car into a taxi. It’s so cool!! I mean I know I’ve been saying for a decade now that this super cool thing is 12 to 18 months away, but this time I’m really serious.

Wait? Is that why you don’t think I’m cool, because I stopped doing cool things like make affordable stylish vehicles people want and I spend all day tweeting and making overpriced pieces of shit? I make promise after promise after promise and never keep it? You are sick of waiting around for the super cool things I say I’m going to give you that never materialize? I mean sure it’s not a hyper loop, but I have like 20 teslas slowly driving a mile long loop under Las Vegas. It gets rid of traffic jams for like 200 people per day, unless there’s a traffic jam in the one lane tunnel I dug.

Has everyone gotten sick of my schtick of promising the future only to deliver a wet fart and even the amazing star power of sex symbol commerce secretary Howard Lutnick can’t turn this around?!

Fine, I’m going to go dismantle social security and your grandma can eat cat food until she dies in the gutter. Maybe then you’ll think I’m cool. Now where’s that Ketamine at…

Brand that old uncool politicians go on tv and beg people to buy.

Good thing American consumers love desperation.

Headline makes it sound like they just plan to stab people.

I’m neurodivergent, let me take a crack at this.

First off, disclaimer, autism is a massive spectrum so this whole thing is a gross generalization.

Neurodivergent people act differently than neurotypical people for 3 broad categories of reasons

• different stimuli processing
• different thinking patterns
• different skills

First, is stimuli processing. Have you ever been in a crowded room and there’s lots of people talking but your brain does you a cool favor and ignores all that noise so you can focus on the person in front of you? Did you do anything to make that happen, probably not. It’s just a thing your brain did for you when processing all that stimuli, you placed your focus on the speaker in front of you and your brain filtered the rest. What if you couldn’t do that?

Stimuli processing issues can present in both dimensions, both over processing and under processing. Neurodivergent people are often placed into situations that are relatively easy for neurotypical people to process but can be very challenging for neurodivergent people to process. If you want to do a thought experiment (or actual experiment) select a stimuli you can’t ignore, pinch yourself hard every few seconds and try to carry on a conversation. You will notice it takes a lot more energy to focus on your tasks and ignore this unwanted stimuli.

Second, different thinking patterns. We all process the world differently. Neurodivergent people can have very different ways of processing information, I know first hand of three patterns that are common and that I exhibit.

• Perseveration. Perseveration is when you can’t stop thinking about a topic. Kinda like getting a song stuck in your head, but for me it’s having a difficult technical problem and literally being unable to carry out other functions because I can’t keep my brain from working on it. I wake up at 4am thinking about technical problems and then can’t go back to sleep. A puzzle might be a fun diversion for you, it can be a dangerous trap for me where I know my brain will continually turn it over again and again no matter what I want.
• Hyper literal thinking. I think about things in very black and white terms. It can be very frustrating for things to happen outside of the rules I’ve established. There are rules that make obvious sense and the contravention of those rules is distressing. For example, you aren’t supposed to hurt people’s feeling but you also aren’t supposed to lie, this makes white lies distressing (I find all kinds of deception distressing, and it’s amazing how much you are just supposed to lie to people in many social situations).
• Hyper focus. Neurodivergent people often have special interests that they can focus on for extended periods of time. If people were to leave me alone, I could write code for days, only stopping when hunger or some other undeniable physical pain occurs.

Third, different skills. Frequently neurodivergent people find social skills difficult. I said to someone recently that neurotypical people seem completely insane to me. The complex web of contradicting rules make little sense. On top of this, rules are often predicated on being able to ascertain the feelings of the person you are interacting with. Many neurodivergent people find this difficult to impossible.

The best I’ve been able to come up with is it’s like being color blind. I struggle with understanding facial expressions, body language, tone, etc. I also have problem displaying the correct things in kind. To operate in the world, many neurodivergent people adopt a system of “masking” where we learn what we are “supposed to do” and carefully study people and make sure to make our faces look right and make our bodies look correct. This is extremely taxing even if you get it right, so neurodivergent people end up sometimes getting it wrong and also spending a huge amount of energy doing this.

So to sum up. Neurodivergent people are asked to operate in a world that is constantly bombarding us with negative stimuli, spending extra energy trying to understand social signals that come naturally to others but our brains don’t pick up. Following these weird scripts requires a ton of energy and it’s easy to mess it up and then someone wonders “why are autistic people so weird?”

Is the red on the left should and lower back a skin condition or more shitty tattoo? I legitimately can’t tell.