Well I suppose not always. We did have a revolutionary war and a civil war.

But anybody alive today? Less bite than a newborn.

I dunno man. It could be a 33 yr old sharing their experiences.

So young, so precious those 33 year olds, so full of optimism.

Mostly because Netanyahu has been souring on Biden real fast. Biden held up a delivery of bombs to Israel back in May, citing Israel's plans to bomb Rafah. Netanyahu announced he was pushing forward anyway, and there was a big public spat about it. That sort of thing has been happening since Oct 7.

I mean one could say it's all an act or something, but that strains credulity to me.

I'm not saying Biden is doing great here, I'd much prefer he take Bernie Sanders' advice on this and stop weapon deliveries altogether. But it's certainly fair to assess that Biden wants the genocide to stop, but is not doing enough to stop it.

I'm one of the "company-provided-phone-only" folks. Thankfully, I work for a pretty decent employer who has never abused that in the nearly 10 years I've worked there. But I realize that's a pretty rare privilege.

That's true, it could be racism, it could be both.

God, if Taylor Swift runs for president I'd be stunned. I mean, given the circumstances I'd vote for her, but geez Louise.

The only outcome that might suck even more is if Biden did step down, Kamala steps up, and she still loses. Cuz then it's like... oh so we're just gonna be misogynistic as a voter base now, great, thanks fellow Americans. Like, we were ready to vote for a shambling shell of an old man but not a lady with Hillary Clinton energy, okay. 🤦

Same.

I wouldn't equate voting for the lesser of two evils with "blind allegiance".

For all of Biden's faults (of which there are many) he's still the better candidate on offer.

All the issues you bring up are valid, of course, but unfortunately there's a lot at risk should Trump win. And voting for a senile old man is still preferable to voting for a fascist who is primarily running as a way to stay out of prison.

I'm not sure how we can hijack the DNC primaries to get a real quality candidate, but as far as improving our elections overall, that's where I'd like to see some progress.

Well, in the current economy, the statistical indicators that economists rely on are booming. GDP, etc. What folks on the left like us are saying is that those indicators are easily measurable but do not paint an accurate picture of what most Americans are experiencing. It doesn't feel like a boom out here because, well, it ain't.

It's not like we're sipping champagne, kicking it at the beach, and complaining that the guy next door has a nicer beach. We work just as hard as other generations and get a lot less to show for it.

Acknowledging that is important, but corporate politicians in either party seem like they just don't want to anything about it.

Still voting for Biden, but yeah, not enthusiastically.

Yeah it's not great, but like... coming across as coherent is important no matter the position. Biden kinda failed that basic competency test, probably just due to his age and not like, stupidity or a personal failing of any kind. I'm still voting for Biden, but yeah it's not exactly an enthusiastic vote.

So, speaking from a purely pragmatic perspective, voting for Biden is better than other US electoral choices for the purpose of trying to help Palestinians.

I understand your reticence and moral indignation, I largely feel the same.

But the biggest reason Trump won in 2016 is because voters were not particularly enthused with their choices, and a great many decided not voting at all (or voting for Trump as a protest against the establishment) was preferable to voting for HRC.

I have to imagine that we both believe that Trump is worse than Biden when it comes to the Israel-Palestine conflict.

Given that we're already in election year, it's down to Biden and Trump. One of them is going to be president come January next year.

Taking all that together, if we want things to get better for Palestine, we should vote for Biden because the alternatives are much worse.

Granted there is a lot you can do outside of elections to help, and I wouldn't recommend ignoring those. But given that voting for the US president takes a few hours out of one day every four years, it's not a good idea to ignore that either.

I hope this helps you understand those of us who don't really like Biden but will vote for him regardless.

It's entirely possible I'm only familiar with the far right, and not so much the average mainstream conservative. Which is a wild thing to think about my life, but I suppose I shouldn't be surprised.

I presumed the promise hinged on having a Democrat Congress to work with, hence post-election. But to be fair I am assuming that.

You have not been listening to conservatives, then. I grew up on a steady diet of Rush Limbaugh and later Fox News. "Activist liberal judges" has been a decades-long refrain on the right.

He was kind of a wet paper sack sitting the primaries, if he'd come in with this energy he might've gotten somewhere.

You're not wrong.

At this point I'm not sure what's newest, since my kid just watches everything streaming.

I do have to say the newer 2D animated shorts, The Wonderful World of Mickey Mouse, are a fantastic return to form.

Like most really early animated characters, Mickey Mouse was a lot of things over a long period of time. And as far as American animation goes, Mickey Mouse has been a staple for the childhood of literally every generation. Younger millennials and zoomers grew up on Mickey Mouse Clubhouse. Children in decades prior watched Mickey be a musketeer in one short and starving due to poverty in the next.

So while the rough edges of the character have been sanded down over time, he's still very much a plucky, brave, kind, and helpful protagonist in most of the media he's in.

Which to your average adult viewer means... he's a bland and uninteresting character.

That said, he's still an icon of animation as a whole, and most things with Mickey in them are doing some new and novel something (design, production pipeline, whatever) that pushes the whole industry forward in some way.

Pseudoregalia is a PS1-eta low-poly aesthetic 3D metroidvania with really, really slick movement mechanics. It's the kind of game that really could've existed back then, had developers just known all the little quality of life design choices we have these days.

On the one hand, if the people are armed, the government should theoretically fear the people and want to keep them happy.

But even with millions of armed citizens, nobody is even close to putting up a fight against the US. And they know that. And they keep shitting on you because they know you ain't doing shit about it.

And then you look at the countries that are more democratically reflective of the will of the people... and they have strong gun regulations. It's almost like maybe governments that at least work even a little don't need the fear of popular revolution to keep them in check.