I still wish more alternative voting systems were being considered. RCV is the conversation-dominating option, but it’s a far cry from the best, and I’d much rather Score or Approval Voting got passed than RCV basically anywhere.

Is the judicial system different if a convicted felon’s base is energized?

Technically yes, since the convicted felon is the president-elect and has literally changed the power balance of the judicial system already.

Really though, it all comes down to risk. The more frenzied his base becomes, the more they let him get away with, and thus the more he will take advantage of that. Normally, I wouldn’t care about this, because if Republicans aren’t given this “feral consent” they’ll manufacture it themselves. But I pause because the actual benefits of this are so slim as to measure up poorly against even this low-level con. I mean, he’s in jail for a couple months — so what? Does that stop him from doing much of anything? Will he even care, when he knows he’ll leave it with just as much power as he had when he entered?

Were it that he’d lost the election, I’d feel differently. But we don’t live in a sane world. What do we actually get out of this?

Trump is in a position where the rule of law scarcely affects him, regardless of what a judge sentences him to, because of the sheer quantity of political capital backing him. If this happened, he would spend a couple months in a cell and nothing else, at best. So if you think he should be arrested based exclusively on the law itself and no other reasons, sure, that’s justified. But I’m talking impact, here.

I think the overall impact would be negative for the reasons given above. He’d face scarcely any truly proportionate punishment, would learn nothing, would lose nothing, and his supporters would become even more rabid. And all that would mean the political calculus for “is it worth it to commit fraud” either doesn’t change or goes even further in favor of “yes.” What’s the point, then, besides to make us feel a bit better until he inevitably gets released?

I suspect that even if this did happen, it would mostly just energize his base. It’d help him make a faux martyr of himself and rile up all of his worst supporters. It’s not like he’d stay in that cell, after all.

Nobody’s obligated to continue a debate ad nauseam. Bowing out is a healthy skill, and we should not be shaming that.

Besides, if your interlocutor leaves the discussion, that means you got the last word. There’s no need to sling mud. Just take the win.

I’ve always trusted games published by Annapurna to be something exciting, new, and high quality.

That didn’t make them good either, though. Companies like them and Devolver Digital have had a bad habit of, for lack of a better term, using up developers and throwing them to the curb after. You’ll notice that a lot of stuff they publish get marketed as though Annapurna made them, which ends up hiding the actual developers behind the curtain, thereby robbing them of fans and thus seriously hurting their long-term prospects.

I’m assuming that “The Not So Tolerant Left” is a parody account of conservatives? Because if not this meme just looks like genuine right-wing garbage.

While I’ll agree that even focusing on votes is healthier than constantly worrying about how the terrible guy continued saying terrible things, there are better tactics than that available to us. If folks here want to worry about votes though, I’d recommend things that fight voter disenfranchisement, like ensuring polls have sufficient volunteers, or helping ensure people in line to vote will have enough time, food and water to wait out a long line.

(It should be noted though that it is unlikely he will be convicted, even if the Dems win, so don’t get your hopes too high.)

A regular reminder to everyone here that they do not actually have to care what Trump says. You already know he’s shit. Focus on something healthier.

Organization (protests, unions, joining a local political movement), education (yourself or others), pressuring candidates (call your reps, protests), mutual aid & voter enfranchisement (food banks, clothing donations, volunteering at polling stations, any effort to protect the homeless). All of these are options, and this is just what I can think of off the top of my head. If you’d like, here’s a page with a gallery of 346 nonviolent protest tactics.

Much of America has become trained to think only in terms of a vote – a vote in a system that was deliberately unequal from its founding through to today – to the exclusion of all other action. To say this is suffocating to any effort to enact change is an understatement; it is self-defeating in the extreme, serves only to perpetuate the status quo or worse, and yet time and time again I see so many people who have spent next to no time thinking outside these terms.

Absolutely none of what you just said justifies Israel willfully bombing hostages.

It is, but DdCno1’s been taking a pro-Israel stance into a very, very pro-Palestine site. I really don’t know what else they’d expect besides pushback, honestly.

Why do you think voting is your only option?

So you believe that erstwhile hostage rescuers have no responsibility to actually keep the hostages alive, then? Because you’re writing apologia for that.

a ruthless movement that would rather sacrifice every single Palestinian man, woman and child than surrender

You know, I’ve no love for Hamas whatsoever, but I can’t help but notice you consider “willingness to sacrifice civilians” to be somehow worse than, say, “actually, literally sacrificing civilians right now.” That’s not a very good look.

How would abstaining or voting for Trump help the situation in Gaza at all?

Why do you think these are the only options?

Can we pack the court yet?

On the presidential ticket for 2024, yes, harm reduction is the only option. But I don’t have to like it, and it’s not gonna mean that I’m not going to criticize and protest the genocide she enables.

There’s more to politics than just voting in an undemocratic system.

And folks wonder why I’m not optimistic for a Harris admin.

I can’t understand how anyone could see a vote for her as anything other than harm reduction.

but sounds like a reasonable amount for anyone except the most marginalized groups

I know several people for whom $167 per month would be a big problem. Considering how many people struggle to get by on incredibly low wages, with ever-increasing rent, I really don’t think it’s fair to suggest that this would only be a problem for “the most marginalized groups.”

And that’s all ignoring the fact that “being unable to afford medicine” is not a problem anyone in such a rich country should ever have to face, regardless of income. Frankly, I really don’t care if it upends industries; people’s lives are more important than that.