I only partially agree. Yes, with the recent debates featuring Trump frothing at the mouth and saying completely insane and hateful stuff, if a debate doesn’t have that it’s worth connecting on. But people do care about content.

With this debate as an example, lots of people commented on the “sanewashing” that Vance was doing - trying to give plausible explanations for things Trump has said or done - but it’s just not as outrageous as what we’re used to. And the Republican base was largely happy with that he said, even when it was demonstratively false.

I think people care, but it’s twigs being added to a pile of logs.

Seems hard to believe that this debate moved the needle much on either side. They both performed well, there were no big gotcha moments, and each said the stuff that their base would want them to say. Neither seemed unhinged, both were well spoken.

Vance said some stuff that was total crap, but that’s not a problem for anyone considering voting for Trump. I just don’t see that there’s any way anyone’s mind was changed.

You know, it was very different than I expected. There were quite a number of times when one of them said “Well I agree with most of that he just said.” Vance is pretty smooth, too. Much of what he said was total crap, but it wasn’t the Trump-style hateful vomit. It was the most cordial debate I’ve seen in a while, though there were some strong disagreements.

I wish more thought had gone into the legend and the categories were either mutually exclusive or they used multiple dots. For instance, the very first item on the list -an Obama birtherism - is a blue dot for a public statement, but it also should have been a black dot for racism.

Yep, exactly. And Republican talking points encourage that kind of ignorance.

I’m not understanding. I’m saying there are people who think things are better now, and I think that’s crazy - the only ones who legitimately had it better before are insurance companies, who could just cancel you if you were costing them money.

It’s so crazy that anyone aside from the people who own insurance companies thinks things were better before the ACA. I had a friend who got bone cancer and had a leg amputated at 17. For that type of cancer, it’s nine years before they consider you in full remission, so he was essentially uninsurable for nine years because of the pre-existing condition.

There were people who had insurance that covered almost nothing because that’s all they could afford - the ACA got rid of plans that didn’t actually provide a benefit.

Our healthcare system is really, really terrible, but it’s so much better than before the ACA.

Exactly. He lies so much to inflate his “greatness” that it’s just a habit at this point. It’s never mattered to his base whether the things he said are true or not, never any consequences to him lying, so he just does it at every opportunity. If he was telling you that he took a dump, he’d add something like “…and all the people in the bathroom were very impressed - they’d never seen such a great dump before. They were cheering.”

Same with me. Well, that in combination with the way they treated the app developers. I honestly didn’t have an issue with Reddit trying to make money, or trying to prevent all the LLMs from skimming their content for free, but there was no reason to cut the app developers off at the knees.

I had already changed my relationship/view of Reddit years prior when the internet connection to Russia was severed for a day or so and so many subs (especially political ones) became fundamentally different. Hard to ignore that. But i just couldn’t continue to give free content to such an awful company.

I didn’t know it happened either, but I check the news a couple times a day to see if anything happened.

It seems like you’re being disingenuous. You said you need Twitter to find out about things like the assassination attempt, so obviously you check Twitter, but the concept of checking the news is apparently strange to you.

Yeah, over fifteen months since I created my account here for that reason

You could simply open a news site a couple times a day. They all had the assassination attempt up pretty quickly.

You could say the same thing about Reddit, yet a lot of us left there a year ago on principle. Sometimes taking a stand means doing without.

I’m not at all bothered by “swear words,” and I’ll use them occasionally (mostly when I think it’s funny), but it’s somewhat rare. I just don’t find it very necessary most of the time. I can usually make my point just find without, but sometimes the emphasis seems right out, again, it seems funnier.

I had heard there were shots, but this is the first I heard that it was an assassination attempt.

I wonder if it will make him stop playing golf.

I don’t believe Swift buys her own groceries, or that anyone on her staff takes a jet to the grocery store. That’s just dumb.

I think it’s ridiculous that we have a system where someone can make billions singing songs while people providing essential functions have troubles making ends meet, but I haven’t heard any credible evidence that Swift exploits her staff.

So if a group of guys came to your neighbors house and told the family that they’re going to move into it with them, you wouldn’t be for removing them, even if that meant a fight? It would be better to just let them move in because that way no one gets hurt?

And if they successfully move into your neighbor’s house, they might have eyes on your house next.

Russia is trying to take over Ukraine, a sovereign country, by force, and other countries are trying to help Ukraine fight Russia. Yes, people on both sides are dying. Ukrainians apparently overwhelmingly believe it’s worth the fight.

Not sure I’ve heard Swift described as “scummy” before.

And if you’re so against billionaires and politicians, why are you for the billionaire politician from the party who wants to cut taxes for billionaires, and not the candidate from a working class background who wants to increase taxes for billionaires?

Yeah, the Internet connection between Russia and everywhere else went down, and the number of right-wing trolls plummeted.

Trump worships the super rich and the fascist dictators, and is incapable of empathizing with people who feel differently.