With humanoid robots manning the turrets by 2028, yuuuuuup.

I could imagine both scenarios where he moves left or right after the election my comment didn’t necessarily rule one out. Why are you only imagining Talarico moving to the right? And even if he does move rightward, the makeup of the Senate will still be more pro-trans than without him.

Imagine a continuous fart going brrrrrrrppppppp out of your butt. It’s that, but out of Trump’s mouth and Ministry of Truth Social page.

I beg to differ, it is my opinion that not doing so is what got the USA Trump (if that’s what you mean by ‘us here’) twice.

It’s out of self-interest I agree. And now that it affects them, they are skipping the sanewashing on this one issue. If it didn’t affect them, they would be reporting on it like:

White House uses unconventional legal theory to revoke press access

I’ll be frank: I don’t think Paxton winning over Talarico will tell the DNC a single thing with respect to trans rights.

Whereas if Talarico wins, what is preventing him from changing his views in any way, at any point within the next 6 years? A Dem President in 2028, with the support of Congress including Talarico, can codify better protections for all humans, in all states despite any state like Texas’ objections. Paxton as Senator would be an active obstacle to that type of effort.

Can I have a source on the claim that the Equality Act was changed to redefine what it meant so that it could exclude trans people?

If a Musky PAC were to run ads saying how terrible Brown or another candidate would be for trans rights, in the same way Jewish and Arab voters were shown contradictory messages in 2024, would that influence how or whether you vote?

they are copying their talking points to demonize us

To be clear, I think that trans people should compete in sports according to their gender and be conferred the same rights as anyone else. But people that want to limit trans people’s participation in sports for flawed, scientifically refuted reasons while treating them as humans, I don’t think is the same, as wanting to ban them from bathrooms changing driver’s licenses and treating them as subhuman demon freaks. We should not equate the two.

To give a similar example, the fight for gay sex and marriage in Canada was fought over decades, and the stigma remains in small pockets. A progressive Prime Minister decriminalized it in the 1969 while not his entire Liberal Party was openly for it, and it was still in the decades after that a ban on workplace discrimination and in the 2000s when marriage was recognized. So we have to pull in the same direction, allow trans people the same basic rights as anyone else, then talk about competitive and recreational activites like sports later rather than just labelling it all as anti-trans sub-humanization talking points.

But just like Trump found out in Iran, power comes from how much you can get others to go along with your plan. He has power when people capitulate in advance to his illegal and unconstitutional orders. Sure, the way he operates will become more illegal and unconstitutional when you ignore him, that won’t make him powerful so long as nobody listens to him. The journalist boycot in response to the press pass denial was the first thing resembling a spine from the media.

Vote for lesser evil + organize, get loud and make being trans normal in red states. The American system is so screwed up with no ability to dissolve your legislatures before the 4 year cycle. If you live in a state of those races, it would be better to be ignored than your rights taken away. If you need anything go seek the support of a Democrat that is pro-trans from out of your state, with control of Congress they would be able to help you more if your state’s legislators are useless but of the same caucus rather than of a caucus that is actively blocking efforts. Sorry if I sound flippant about it, but I would tell moderate voters the same about a progressive candidate.

If you’re worried about the ratchet affect, the solution I don’t think is to turn the screws further in the direction of the ratchet. The UK example is weird, the Labour Party’s somewhat to blame but I don’t fully lay it at their feet, because their justice system is biased in very old ways, negatively affecting people’s rights to gender expresssion.

The USA has already tried in 2016 the “haha, let Republicans vote for Donald Trump, they’ll see how bad it is when they vote for racism rather than a milquetoast candidate and they will disavow it forever after” method, that didn’t work, only made things a lot worse, he got elected again. Even if you have the long game in mind, not voting appears to send, even if a Republican wins 49% to 47%, a signal that the people mandate that trans people should be hurt, rather than a more neutral signal. States that had been trending red turning blue signals nationally a change in the direction of trans acceptance, regardless of the willingness of the candidate to associate during the campaign with pro-trans advocates or not.

Seriously, Democrats should really play this up…

Republican PACs are flooding your state with cash to get its candidate elected, and they’re spending that money to put as many lies in your ear as possible. Where’s the same Republicans’ money to lower your gas prices, grocery bill and input costs for your livelihood?

Try our Argentinian mystery meat! 30% off!

I’m good with that, in fact if they do care about the rule of law, that’s what they should be doing.

House Republicans did the ‘smart’ thing and went on their umpteenth early recess, kicking the vote until after the midterms just so Democrats could hold it over their heads!

Yes, any Middle East issue is complex and unrest has been ongoing for centuries, but at least mass displacement, killing children and other innocent people, destruction and blockading of humanitarian resources, and incursion into sovreign territory should be condemned, don’t you think, Ed? And the words “Free Palestine” are not anti-Israel, no one seemed to have a big problem with any of Macklemore’s words, until some billionaire ten days later phoned him up about it.

I think networks should just start splicing in helicopter noises whenever this guy opens his mouth.

An awards ceremony thread will be coming in October, dw I haven’t forgotten about the promised prize

More and more I am getting the feeling that the USA is being ruled by NatalieGPT, which goes like this: Trump whines about something like not having potash, Natalie queries an LLM where else has potash then tells Trump that he just made a stupendous trade deal there so he can post about it or share some more AI slop.

Canada should charge an additional 0.1% export tax on potash every time Trump says or posts something dumb. Probably would be over 100% before the midterms.

Yep. Same guy said managers will ask why they can’t use AI for that job. It seems that he has answered that hypothetical question here.

A bit of cynicism and skepticism is healthy, but you don’t have to do the GOP’s job and manifest the outcome for them. I.e. do more to get out the vote for Talarico, and pre-emptively block or actively counter the methods used to help Paxton’s odds. Cook Political Report puts Texas as a Toss Up, so neither Paxton nor Talarico’s win is likely or assured.

If a county reduces voting locations in bluer districts, offer more services to transport voters to the polls in those areas. If there’s attempt at interference, put that to the courts. In fact draft up a suit that prohibits federal agents of any kind from “monitoring” poll locations, in case Trump decides to fart some kind of threat out in the next couple months.