I don’t know about “loving” NATO, military alliances aren’t the most loveable things. They’re necessities for protecting from our thousands of years of conquering each other very, very frequently, unless you’re a believer in that neo-lib idea of free trade preventing war.

Understanding NATOs importance is the more important thing imo.

edit: Loving NATO is like loving your car insurance. Do you love it? No, probably not. Should you just get rid of it? No, probably not, unless you just never drive.

Any significant injury that results in paralysis would be a potential candidate. These become possible as soon as you become old enough to climb things like trees.

As long as spreading lies is lucrative, it will be hard to get a serious handle on the flood of disinformation that plagues our current system.

There’s the crux of it. How can this be realistically addressed? We’d require a filibuster-proof 60 seat Senate majority to get legislation passed, and control of the Supreme Court to ensure it stuck around.

“And if that is your priority of getting Crimea back and having American soldiers fight to get Crimea back, you’re on your own.”

You don’t need that propaganda line anymore, you already won. Or did you actually start to believe it?

I didn’t say 330 million registered voters. I said 330 million people, as in total population of the country including all nonvoters and ineligible.

At any rate, I don’t think any singular factor dominated, each person has their own mix of issues. Economy was a big one, including things like rent prices that the feds have little control over in our system. Gaza was a smaller one, definitely. There’s at least a dozen more.

Polls cannot really accurately capture this, they’re too clumsy a tool. Focus groups can though.

There are around 50 million registered dems in the country and Harris is currently sitting at around 70 million votes. Our problem is everyone else in a country with 330 million people.

Keep the faith, Brits. Perhaps Brexit washed some of the insanity out early enough that the far right continues to struggle there.

Hopefully we’re not slowly returning to the Napoleonic Era, I’m not sure you guys could withstand all of continental Europe a third time.

Who was I pointing a finger at?

There is a tremendous amount of mostly empty Ukrainian land left. If Russia wants it all, their casualties will end in the millions, even without additional US aid. We’re not the only suppliers, after all.

I think this is fairly accurate. Only major disagreement is on Ukraine, where Trump can cut off our aid, but cannot actually force the Ukrainians into any sorts of negotiations. As European production continues to increase, it’s not a foregone conclusion that US withdrawal will necessarily result in Ukrainian defeat. Lost ground, certainly, but Ukraine has quite a lot of ground and could continue to make Russia pay for their gains.

If you reread what I wrote, you’ll see that I was not saying the international community was responsible for the genocide.

Israel would quickly go the way of south africa without US support.

This is nothing more than faith. Israel trades with many countries, including India, where anti-Muslim sentiment is very strong among the ruling Hindu nationalists. US contributions are only a small fraction of their total annual budget. All they would really lose irreplaceably is advanced weaponry.

I somewhat agree, though I’ll point out people were doing quite well at the end of Clinton and Obama’s presidencies. They flipped to the other party anyway.

Actually, 90 dems boycotted that speech. This also deflects from my argument that the situation in Gaza is going to become far more dire in a few months.

To answer your question, though: You know how there’s around 2 million Gazans still alive? Starving and desperate, but still alive. It’s not just us, but the whole international community that is responsible for that, otherwise Netanyahu could’ve implemented his “General’s Plan” six months ago. Nothing except international leverage can maintain those lives. Leverage is not free, though, it must be purchased somehow. People do not just listen to you otherwise, unless they get something from it. While it would be theoretically possible to attempt sanctions, doing this to an ally during war would be political suicide domestically, resulting in a different administration and reversal of the policy. This would result in their eventual deaths anyway, simply after a delay.

Not that our current timeline is looking any differently, admittedly. But actually saving them is not nearly as simple as everyone seems to think, as if some total boycott of arms to Israel would somehow quickly lead to an Israeli military defeat. Advanced munitions are not necessary for a genocide, it can be done with napalm and the withholding of food. This would not be expensive. Nor are advanced munitions necessary for the continued survival of the IDF, which numbered around 400k strong in the initial stages of the war.

Defeating this genocide is unfortunately far, far harder than people make it out to be, due to a powerful faction of domestic support among American citizens and AIPAC lobbyists.

We’ve been seeing a see-saw effect for awhile, where without incumbency, the party last holding the Presidency loses. This reflects a general, vague dissatisfaction with the status quo, mostly felt at the emotional level instead of intellectually reasoned. The world is too complicated for the average person to really figure out, and they don’t like that. While you can distract yourself from this in innumerable ways, or paper over it with something like religion, it’ll surface when it comes time to consider new leadership.

Then, in addition to the various issues people will discuss, I think being a woman hurt Harris somewhat with latinos, where the culture prizes a more Trumpian machismo.

You ain’t seen nothing yet. Trump’s most loyal base is Evangelical Christians, and they widely believe in Greater Israel. They also tend to dislike nonwhites. He may not give a rats ass about Israel, but his advisors do, and he personally likes Netanyahu.

You could easily direct towards this evidence of specific solar companies, that would not be personally identifying in the slightest. You cannot because you are fabricating.

Failing to support your arguments is a fundamental failing of intellectual honesty, which is fully in-line with the goals of a propagandist. You are ceasing the conversation because I easily backed you into a corner you cannot escape from. Buh-bye.

Hey, you said you had insider knowledge you are seemingly reluctant to share. That’s a “trust me bro” when only a fool would trust an anonymous person on the internet.

Yes, “go look into specific thing” is a re-wording of “go do your own research”. The goal is “find and believe the same bullshit that manipulates me”.

Like I said, demand has increased. Supply is following it. This is the intended function of capitalism, for better or for worse. Supply follows demand, because, sadly, personal profit is a powerful psychological motivator.

The signs of conspiracy theory are “trust me bro, totally got insider knowledge here” and “go do your own research”.

These are both convenient evasions performed when someone is lying.

Or, y’know, you could just support your claims instead of tossing out a right wing nutjob-style “do your own research”. Fortunately I’ve been around enough conspiracy theories in my life that they’ve become pretty easy to see through.

Very convenient. You duck requests for evidence very fluidly, like a true propagandist. I imagine your parents must be very proud of your abilities at manipulation.