Implanting Bill Gates's Micro-chips In Brains For Over 20 Years!

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally Posted by sebastian_dangerfield

I think some think that. I think a lot of others, however, think that "democracy" is their side having rights and the other side not having rights. The right and left both seek to curtail the powers and rights of the other under the bizarre reasoning that the other side's use of such rights is somehow an infringement on their rights. It's a childlike logic game. "Mind your own business" is anathema to both.

Speaking of childish logic games, I don't understand why you like to play this game of thinking of something stupid that someone has said somewhere, elevating it as if it's worth responding to, and then explaining that both the right and left do it.

Like, who thinks "that 'democracy' is their side having rights and the other side not having rights"?

Setting the concept of "democracy" aside, there is a strong impulse across the land to talk about interests as rights. Conservatives who disagree that, for example, gays and lesbians should have equal rights have created bogus religious rights to entitle themselves to discriminate. Progressives who want to change the culture around race and gender and other norms have advocated for rights to safe spaces. Obviously, the reason for this is that you can articulate your own interest as a right, you have a legal and political grievance that becomes more actionable. But it doesn't have anything to do with "democracy."

I can because I know dozens and dozens of Rs who would love to do exactly that. But that imagining becomes a mere pipe dream given the reality of the primary process and the size of the cult that Trump has behind him.

They need to do the politics to win people over.

Or, we could wait for Trump to die. I don't want to be overly optimistic about this, but I do think that a lot of his legitimacy is charismatic, and that it will be very hard to anyone else to replicate it. He's not going to live for ever. What happens after that? (Or if he loses another time?)

The GOP is gone. I don't know what the party is today. I don't know if it's even really a party anymore. It looks like a playground for dead enders with a few sane voices trying to right a sinking ship.

I really thought that the GOP would lose more people in the middle as it lurched to the crazy right, but there are a lot of Republicans who have just recalibrated and stayed the course.