Danny Dravot

Not sure I want to get into this, but what exactly would you prefer, Jack?

Whoo boy.

Like Badger said, fix the House and EC then. Each state gets equal voice in the Senate and SCOTUS judges are part of that. It's not a flaw.

I agree with that. So fix the House and EC. The system works, it just needs updates. I'm not a fan of the last two weeks. But I can't abandon my overall views just because the people who currently represent them "best" (I have ideological differences with Trump, not just character/moral ones) are all pieces of shit. It's a tough position to be in.

We are a union of states. What would motivate North Dakota to remain in a union where its voice is subordinate to California's? The House represents population differences but the Senate provides equal voices to all states. This is a basic foundational idea of this country and cannot simply be tossed out. I agree on gerrymandering, although it is a sin of both parties, not just one. They'll have to be unequally sized, but shape should be mostly uniform and consistent.

Greg, why do you think Puerto Rico would be guaranteed Democrat electoral votes? PR politics are a little strange, but as best I can tell, the current government belongs to the New Progressive Party which advocates statehood. Members are then split between those who affiliate with Democrats and those who affiliate with Republicans. The governor and resident commissioner to Congress are both on the Republican affiliated side. I'm really tired of this idea that brown people are a threat because they'll vote for Democrats. If the Republican party wants to survive (and I want it to survive), the key is basing itself on ideology that appeals to everyone regardless of demographic shifts. I want an unconditionally patriotic party that supports reasonably limited governmen and promotes liberal democracy around the world with military force as a last albeit unhesitant resort. There is NOTHING in what I just said that prevents "brown people" from supporting such a party. However, if the GOP insists on railing against even the possibility of demographic change, it will probably die off in popularity and power and shift the Overton window to the left. Seriously, think about it.

Eh. Bloviating on Twitter about electoral fraud lets him look tough in the eyes of his supporters and supports this mythology that he's a fighter. He doesn't care about processes and institutions because he's going to support them, no matter what! It is embarrassing but they eat that shit up. Same with mocking the disabled reporter and the name calling and "lock her up" chants, etc. Getting dragged out of the White House in handcuffs will qualify as embarrassing in their eyes too, though. That's the difference.

Part of being a little more likable than Trump is that they will not try this.

Honestly, it's a relatively standard Christian sentiment. "No other gods before me" doesn't just mean "don't go worshipping Baal". It means not to fall in love with anything in your life that distracts from the one, true God, be it money, America, your wife, whatever. So I get that he would say and believe these things and I don't begrudge him that at all. But he's not trying to be a pastor anymore. His beliefs will potentially impact the direction of the nation, including the military. I am opposed to Mike Huckabee announcing that gay marriage should be banned because it says so in the Bible, and I'm opposed to Warnock implying that you can either be a Christian or a soldier but not both. From what I've read, he has only attempted to clarify what he meant (which I personally understood) and has not stated, "I held those views ten years ago in a private position where they were appropriate, and will absolutely forsake them in a governmental position where they are not."

He's not going to be forcefully removed from the White House. There'd be no potential gain because it would be easily remedied by a couple of Secret Service agents and it would be more embarrassing than anything else he's ever done. It'd be a terrible look for tough guy Trump to get easily dragged out of the WH by actual tough guys. Worse, he'd risk getting hurt and/or arrested. And it wouldn't in a million years work. Do I think he'll go down to Mar-a-Lago for Christmas and never return to DC? Abso-fucking-lutely.

None of this makes any sense, honestly. If I were Donald Trump, I'd say (or tweet, or whatever), "I congratulate Joe Biden on being President-Elect of the United States and will seek to ease the transition to his administration in every way possible. We may have lost this time, but we turned out 10 million new voters including record numbers of minorities while very likely retaining the Senate. Conservatism will be back and better than ever!" Then I'd shut up, govern like usual, and look forward to golfing endlessly without being nagged about it. Of course, it's not about conservatism, or America, or anything else. It's about Donald Trump.

I’d add, as well, that I am a huge supporter of that separation because it helps both sides. Catholics haven’t really done it at all, thankfully, but evangelicals have done huge damage to their reputation by supporting Trump. FWIW.

I don’t like Kelly Loeffler but Raphael Warnock doesn’t belong anywhere near the senate unless he totally disowns his comment about serving God and the military. I know the retort will be something like, “Oh now you care about separation of church and state?” Well, I always have. My Catholicism informs none of my political beliefs. I am pro-LGBT and oppose abortion for entirely non-religious reasons. My Catholicism is something for me to follow and uphold in private. If Reverend Warnock wants to philosophize on the religious potential of US troops, he should remain behind the pulpit and leave politics to others.

Weir is getting a lot of shit from MAGAsphere right now, but I find this pretty funny. Misogynistic? Nah. Loeffler got a job at an investment bank and shortly thereafter married the CEO. Now worth $165 million. I'm all for the American dream and bootstrapping, but this isn't a good argument for it. FWIW, I was also one of the few conservatives who laughed his ass off when Pete Davidson said Dan Crenshaw (who I like) looked like a hitman in a porno.

Depends on the mask, honestly. That classic blue medical one? Give it a couple of wears and the frayed threads start drifting into your mouth every time you talk. The straps tug at your ears. Eight to nine hours in one is dreadful. But I've been wearing a cloth mask for months and my wife, who's a big advocate of them, makes fun of me for forgetting to take it off after I come home.

Mrs. Dravot fact checks this as “mostly false”.

Schilling would be my only vote. This year's crop is pretty uninspiring, to be honest.

Just curious, since I've already had COVID and recovered, assuming this is somehow confirmed, should I not get the vaccine because I basically already have a form of it and the dose would be better spent on somebody else?

That's just insanely sad. Shifting lanes a bit, if there's a 95% effective vaccine, how do we know who it didn't work for? Is there just going to be a slight chance that any of us still get it, and when that happens, a slighter chance that we still die? Do we get it and toss our masks in the trash or is this the new normal? Do we eat at indoors restaurants freely and pack jetliners on our way to vacations? Do we go back to Mass and drink from the cup like before? I'm happy to do whatever we need to do, but I'm also curious and totally unsure of what this looks like going forward.

There’s a lot that don’t. Bill Kristol, David French, Jonah Goldberg, John Podhoretz never did. Ben Shapiro didn’t in 2016 (although I don’t know where he’s gone since, I don’t pay much attention to him). Max Boot and Jennifer Rubin never did although I hardly see how they’re even still Republicans at all. All of these have lots of readers and listeners who have followed them into the Never Trump movement. RVAT has tons of subscribers and video producers, as well.

Oh, nice. I love the “stereotypes are bad unless they’re my preferred stereotypes!” crowd. I knew this thread was missing something.

Greg, you really need to understand the difference between meaningful opinions and non-meaningful ones. I’m sure I could search for @antifasbootyhole on Twitter and find a sixteen year old who wants to abolish prisons and mandate gender reassignment surgeries. That’s the beauty of social media- every idiot’s opinion can now be seen by everybody else. It doesn’t mean that stuff is going to happen, and shooting it down is still very much a straw man. Heck, even people in major legislative bodies can be insignificant. Take Ayanna wanting to abolish life without parole- she’s actually in the House and I would bet you $1,000 straight up that her proposal won’t even see a vote in the next thirty years.

No prisons? C’mon man. Off the top of my head, Pressley’s bill on criminal justice reform is one of the wildest out there and all it does is eliminate life without parole and the death penalty. I think that’s a dumb idea, but at least I’m arguing against something that has been credibly proposed (even that has slim chance of passing). What you are worrying about is not seriously proposed and is dead on arrival if it ever is. Even the mildest on your list of your fears, court packing, isn’t likely to happen since Joe Manchin has come out against it. Also, why will all the new immigrants vote Democrat? First off, nothing is monolithic, but I suppose it would lean heavily that way. Maybe that’s because Republicans have given up on winning immigrants. No matter what Tucker thinks, there’s nothing about being born in Tegucigalpa that makes you naturally favor big government.

I read Fox News. I don’t really watch any news. Scout’s honor, this is off the top of my head- socialism is the public ownership of industry. The USA uses some vaguely socialistic ideas but nowhere do we really get closer to true socialism than Iran’s nationalization of the AIOC’s oil wells in the 1950s or Venezuela under Chavez/Maduro more recently. Marxism demands the state disappear in order to form a classless, stateless society. This has never existed and is, honestly, out of touch with human nature. It has been tried, however, and inevitably leads to murderous totalitarian regimes. I could name the entire squad and provide their states and even reference a few proposed bills (like the one where Ayanna Pressley wants to abolish life without parole), but, overall, they’ll have no more impact on my future than Marjorie Greene or Lauren Boebert, so I’m not going to bother. There’s 435 members of the House and most people would be hard pressed to name 10 of them. They’re not as powerful as some voices would like to suggest.

I'd fight against all the things Greg fears if they existed anywhere other than his nightmares. Edit: also, pretty sure "fucking" isn't censored.