It’s frustrating how many people are responding to this with stuff like “we’re doomed” or “society is screwed” and it’s like... you can literally fix this in an afternoon. You just need to have the wherewithal to pass a vacancy tax.
Yes, on a procedural level, I understand that’s a long way of saying “we’re screwed” because of how unlikely it is. But it’s not like, you know, a meteor hurtling toward the earth or something. There is literally a tangible way to fix this, almost instantly.
A major and cruel contingent of this country has done a masterful job of creating this illusion that even suggesting you raise taxes on something to help regulate it is some impossible fantasy. It’s not. You just need to actually do it.
A lot of folks really hate to talk about this, of all economic levels and political stripes, but an astonishing number of problems in this country would actually be solved by raising taxes on things!
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I just finally saw the Space Jam trailer and frankly I’m kind of stunned by how much it just... depressed me. Just utterly taken aback by the sheer corporate-synergy-per-square-foot of it all, and that’s even factoring in that it’s SPACE JAM.
Like, even by “well every movie is just a brand vehicle now” standards, it’s sad to be in this era where four companies own all of our media and their response to that is to just go “every movie is now Referencing Our Brand: The Movie”
This makes Ralph Breaks the Internet look subtle. Christ, this makes Mac and Me and The Wizard look subtle. Why are characters from A Clockwork Orange watching Bugs Bunny play basketball? “Because Time Warner owns it” is literally the sole reason and that’s heartbreaking.
Look if conservatives want to own me by reminding me that Ben is a very successful conservative, cool, he still looks, sounds, and talks like the “let me at ‘em” cartoon puppy with this stuff
I refuse to believe Ben owns and is well trained with a semi automatic rifle, and even if he did the government does not have to come to take it away from him, they simply need to put it on a higher shelf
It’s weird how many people think when I point out the Democrats are going to be annihilated in 2022, they think it’s just pessimism or doomsaying or something like that. And that’s on them. From an actuarial perspective, Democrats have already lost Congress:
First of all, basically every state where Republicans control the legislature will be redistricting this year to guarantee as many Republican pickups as possible. That is baked in. There is no way to stop this other than federal legislation, which can’t pass, because filibuster.
Second, the incumbent party historically loses seats in the first midterm. Again, this is a natural flow of societal mood. The one time in decades this didn’t happen was the year after terrorists attacked the country.
I keep seeing people argue that “Democrats failed us again” and man, I’d LOVE to see Democrats actually fail us. Failure implies trying to do something and not succeeding.
Democrats didn’t fail us, they abandoned us.
I have no idea what’s going to happen in the runoff next week and honestly as of this morning I no longer care. If the Dems win it will quite literally change nothing, and if they lose after their stunt last night it will be, to be clear, incredibly fucking funny
I don’t know what else has to happen after all but six Democrats teamed up with McConnell to kill the $2000 checks to make you understand they care only about having power and not actually doing anything with it.
A lot of people have made the no-shit observation that this is the start of Hawley’s presidential campaign, but color me pessimistic—he’s pretty much in a 24 hour period made enemies with the entire Republican Senate caucus and look how well that went for Ted Cruz
The entire strategy here appears to be make the headlines and make money first and as fast as possible to shut out other nominees which is of course a doomed idea, at least 20 Republicans are running in 2024, minimum
This of course does not even consider the possibility that Trump himself will simply run again, which, for the record, he is absolutely going to do, if only to raise money as well
I’m going to be honest here, these numbers appear good but at the same time they… Don’t really appear good enough. Perdue beat Ossoff by 88,000 votes in the general.
Let’s say with 80k new voters and a very generous pro-Dem lean of 75%: that’s a 40k net gain for Ossoff. Barely half of what he needs.
This is just the back of the envelope stuff, but what that would mean is that at the rate of new registrations, Democrats would basically have to be matched on LACK of enthusiasm from Republicans at the same rate.