It is surprising how in every single situation in life, I can respond to it with a Ryan George video that’s recorded years ago, but somehow still relevant to the current conversation…

Me 2001: Mcdonalds is running an anniversary special. Cheeseburgers are $0.10. Fuck yeah! I’mma order 20 them sumbitches!!!

Me today at age 41: I haven’t had Mcdonalds since before the pandemic.

“Hi, I’ll get a double quarter pounder with cheese meal, large, and I’ll wait for new fries.”

“That’ll be $26.69”

“HAHAHAHA, right??? Could you imagine??? what’s you’re name? James? Could you imagine that James? Charging that much for some Mcdonalds? HAHAHAHAHA!!! Ok James. That’s a good one. Now what’s the actual price?”

“$26.69”

“HAAAAAAAA, ok, ok, funs fun, but c’mon. I gotta pay for my food. What is it really?”

“$26.69”

“Wha—are you being serious?”

“Yes.”

“ARE YOU HIGH???”

“Yes.”

“Well…uhhhhh…”

checks the board and does the math

“WHAT THE FUCK??? IS RAY CROC HIGH???”

“He’s dead.”

“WELL I DON’T THINK YOU CAN BE HIGH WHEN YOU’RE DEAD JAMES!!!”

“I know. That’s why we gotta spend the time that we’ve got on this planet doing what we love, with the people that we love. We don’t have a lot of time on this planet, and someday, maybe someday soon, something could happen. Then your best friend is just taken from you. With no warning. Maybe a lightning strike. Maybe hit by a drunk driver. You never know. So you gotta live your life doing what you can while you can to make sure that you have no regrets. Last thing you want is for someone to die before you can tell them you love them.”

“Wow. That was beautiful. I’m sorry about your friend.”

“Oh no. All my friends are still living. I tell them I love them all the time. And they love me too. Not in a romantkc way, but in a pure of heart real human connection kind of way. We love each other like brothers.”

“That is a surprising level of introspection from someone of your age. You have a real sense of emotional maturity.”

“Hey, thanks! That’ll be $26.69”

“FUUUUUUUUUUU-----”

…at this point, I’ve mentally checked out. I know that doesn’t carry much weight since you don’t know me, but I’m someone who’s 41 years old and turned down higher paying jobs to keep the low paying job I have all because the job I have now actually helps people rather than profits. I work at an airport, as a mobility assistant. It pays a low wage. However, if your 95 year old grandma wants to come visit for the holidays, or if your dementia riddled father needs to come see you, I’m there with a wheelchair and make it possible for them to navigate these long hallways. For YEARS I’ve taken the financial hit, knowing I’m making the world a better place. Tuesday was like being hit in the balls. I make the personal sacrifice to not be able to do certain things I want in life, so others can enjoy a better life. In my mind maybe that will inspire other people to help others. And if everybody begins to think of everyone else, maybe we can have a world that isn’t so full of shit.

No.

Instead, I’m shown county by county, which areas in Florida are most heavily occupied by Latino-American citizens, heavily voting for trump. It wasn’t some “some like him, some don’t”. No, this is in those counties a landslide. The man who said in 2016 that he wanted to build a wall to keep Mexicans out. The man who used ICE to seperate and kill families in metal detainment boxes in 115 degree weather. The man who is openly racist on TV. THAT’S who they voted for??? The man who isn’t even hiding it. He’s outright been telling people that he’ll make 2024 the last election you need to vote in. His PUBLIC words, not mine. And it’s not just the Latinos. It’s ALL of America. Of every race. I just picked Latinos as the example because it’s absolutely baffling that they of all people picked him. It would be like Jews voting for Hitler.

So now, I’m looking at this world, and thinking "THIS is the world I’m trying to make a better place??? I’m going to stick my neck out and try to help an entire nation that just overwhelmingly picked racism, facism, and a dictatorship as part of the campaign promises??? Ok. Fuck it. I guess maybe I should have been selfish all along. I guess when I looked at the rest of the world, being selfish the last 20 years, I thought maybe I could inspire the world to be better when I died, and less selfish. Nope. I’m wrong. Fuck Earth, and fuck humans.

I’m not sure anyone besides your ex-boyfriend would defend his actions?

Size doesn’t matter. Let’s say you’re a female body builder, and you’re 7’5, 300lbs of muscle. And he’s 4’2, 60lbs. Once he decides to get physically abusive, you have the right to defend yourself.

Now back to reality, your size vs his size means you’re not winning a physical battle in an even fight.

It requires you to have a weapon. Even after stabbing him he didn’t let go. Think about that. In order to get out of his grip, you HAD to go as deep as you did.

It’s the same reason I defend the Hiroshima & Nagasaki bombings in WWII. One atomic bomb wasn’t enough for them to surrender. Two atomic bombs weren’t enough for them to surrender. It was only on the promise of the future 3rd atomic bombing that they surrendered. So we HAD to go that far.

Some justified actions feel bad that they had to go that far.

The 2016 republican primaries were like a game of plinko. I forget the exact number, but it was something like 40 people trying to get the nomination. And they were all mostly heavy hitters in the republican world. My guess before everything played out, was it would be Jeb Bush. I thought that made the most logical sense. My mistake was thinking the 2016 republican nomination had any logic involved. People kept dropping out, and eventually trump was the only one not stubborn enough to drop out. He had no political career it could harm, and he wasn’t expecting to win. So fuck it. Go all the way, lose, and you still made a bunch of donation money. Do it again in 2020. Just as he had already done in 2000 and 2008.

Except this time…he won.

And then the democrats went with Hillary of all people. Which everybody hated. So trump won.

And 2024, the democrats went with Harris, which large important groups hated. She used to be district attorney, in charge of punishing people for having weed. She also was tied at the hip the last 4 years to Biden, whom everybody hates, and mostly for his stance on Israel. So, she got lumped into that camp. So while EVERYONE didn’t hate her, a large group did. And you run the same formula. Trump running against a woman who a large number of people won’t vote for. 2016, and 2024.

Thats the part that confuses me

See, I’ve completely checked out at this point. It’s not because of trump. Trump is the symptom. If it weren’t him, it’d be some other asshole. For me the cause is this overwhelming notion that it’s us vs them. Where every issue needs to be seperated by culture. Lets take one example. This isn’t the defining example. The concepts apply to all examples, but we don’t have time on Lammy to read millions of examples. So we’ll look at this one example to get the idea.

Let’s look at abortion. The left says it’s a necessary tool of health care to protect the lives of women nationwide. And the right says it’s an evil tool of the libs to murder babies.

And so you say “Wow, those are some widely polar opposite stances. Ok, so let’s see if we can find some middle ground to work towards a peaceful agreement.”

And the most basic, fundamentally agreeable stance that requires no risk of being morally wrong, would be an incest rape baby. A father rapes his 12 year old daughter. Surely THAT baby, which by definition is inbred, and will likely require a lifetime of medical treatment to care for all sorts of medical mutations, not to mention a lifetime of mental health issues caused by the bullying that comes from a lifetime of being inbred. Surely THAT baby should be allowed to not exist a lifetime of pain.

And the reaction we’ve seen both verbally and by law, is, no. No abortions. No exceptions. It’s the womans fault for getting pregnant. This is god punishing you.

Because anytime there’s a disagreement, they pull the god card. When they can’t logically justify their behavior, god works in mysterious ways. So bow down and bend over.

And somehow, these decisions that god made ALWAYS benefit rich billionare assholes. Because god is an all seeing, all knowing, all loving omnipresent being with control of the entire universe…and yet he just can’t seem to manage his money on earth. So he needs you to donate to his churches, and he needs you to donate to the politicions who use his name in political campaigns. And he needs you to understand that even incest rape babies need to grow up, and give their money too. No child left behind…or something along those lines.

And so you begin to realize there is no compromise with these people, because they don’t WANT compromise. They don’t want peaceful. They want to attack any belief you have. They want to find out what you stand for, so they know how to stand for the opposite of that. Whatever it is.

You could say “I want to be a good neighbor, and follow in the footsteps of Mr Rodgers.”

And they’d say “FUCK YOU!!! YOU’RE A TERRIBLE NEIGHBOR!!! I HATE THIS NEIGHBORHOOD, AND ALL WHO LIVE IN IT! I’M GOING TO BLAST MUSIC AT 3AM, AND RUN CHAINSAWS JUST OUTSIDE YOUR WINDOW, AND LOWER PROPERTY VALUES ON BOTH OUR HOUSES BY NOT TAKING CARE OF MY PROPERTY!!!”

So trump will pass. 2028 trump will be gone. Just as reagan is gone. Just as nixon is gone. Although to be fair to nixon, had it not been for the scandal, he actually had SOME decent policies. Whereas reagan was just one big ball of hate. But, reagan is gone, and his policies still haunt us. Ready for the next asshole to take the reigns. And he’ll have full control of the government. He’ll be able to reign supreme. I’m 41. His policies will affect me at 71. Long after he’s dead, and I’m old. His actions now will do nothing to slow global warming. He’ll speed it up. But again, he’ll be gone. The next asshole after him will do the same. Then after him the next asshole will do the same.

So I’m at a point where I’ve lost my empathetic duty to protect anyone from themselves. I’ve lost any patriotic duty that this country is great, or ever will be great. Because if republicans are going to be this ultimate source for evil, then democrats need to be an ultimate source for good. And they’re not. This isn’t a “both sides” issue. This is “republicans are organized and meticulous with how evil they are, and what they want to accomplish” whereas democrats have their finger up their own ass, don’t learn from history, and lack the balls to take stern action. So the republicans gain power, march 5 steps to the right, then democrats march 1 step to the left. They aren’t both evil, but one is clearly making permanent progress.

So I’ve come to the conclusion that this is what our country is. Our country is racist. Our country is an asshole. Our country is willfully ignorant. Our country is unaccepting of others. Our country historically has killed opposition in ways that were no better than the nazis. In fact, the nazis cited Americans genocide towards native americans as inspiration for their camps. And our country has a leader that campaigned on the concept of cruelty. He campaigned on the concept of racism. He campaigned on the concept of hate.

And America made a choice. They said “Yes.”

Trump is not the problem. If America wasn’t into it, they’d have said no. If trump came in, and spouted hate, and won only states like idaho, and nebraska, while Harris won 40 some states? Then the next republican would know “I can’t use that platform.”

But now, whoever is after trump, will know that hate works.

This is our fault collectively. This is Americas fault.

See…I’ve never understood what being a Jew is. Not saying I hate Jews. For me Jewish people are like if you discovered a new kind of fish. And this fish was long and skinny like an eel today, and kind of blue tinted. It’s the only fish in the aquarium. But the next day, it’s round like a ball, and red. And has 16 eyes, when yesterday it only had 2. Then the next day this fish is green, and looks more like a shark.

So you’re left asking “Ok…what is this thing???”

A Jew is somehow a religon, but also a race, but also nationality, but also a culture? And each one of those things has nothing to do with the other, but also they’re all interconnected?

In this example, you’re an Athiest Jew. And my brain is like “How is that even possible??? It would be like a white person telling me they were an Athiest Christian”. I thought Judiasm was a religion, so from my perspective, you’re saying “I believe in things that I don’t believe are real”.

Like I said. I’m not hateful. I’m just really really confused. Jewishness: what IS it?

Yes, and the policies set by trump ALSO were set in 2020.

Do you have a calender?

Do you have a point?

…uhhhhh, so you’re just going to pretend like trump didn’t just completely ignore the pandemic, which directly led to over a million deaths in 2 years?

So yes. We DID die. A large number of people died.

…you uh…you gonna throw an /s in there?

Removed by mod

Ok. Based on this, it appears there’s roughly 1 million people who didn’t vote early in 2020. It’s impossible to really get any solid trends with this info. I was hoping to get some non-biased trends, just based on facts. But the facts show the numbers, but the numbers don’t really show any way to predict the state early.

Ah well. Guess the next 5 days will be the longest 6 months ever.

…yeah, I know it INCLUDES early voting, and it also includes mail-in voting.

What I’m asking is if it also includes ALL voting. Do those ticks include people who went to the polls on Nov 5th 2020, and thus wouldn’t be counted fully for a few days?

Uhhhhhh…are you talking about the Bill O Reiley outburst about Sting? Then he’s yelling at the teleprompter guy, because he’s an idiot who works in television who doesn’t know the phrase “play us out”?

Because that had nothing to do with Fox News…or Satalite broadcasts. Those were supposed to be pretaped bumpers for the closing segment of Entertainment Tonight. But he goes off on a hissy fit, and then starts yelling “THIS THING SUCKS! IT SUCKS!!! PLAY US OUT!!! WHAT DOES THAT MEAN??? FUCK IT!!! WE’LL DO IT LIVE!!! I’LL WRITE IT, YOU SHOOT IT!!! FUCKING THING SUCKS!!!”

This was the 90s, before Bill O’Reiley was a Fox News talking head.

Unless you’re talking about something else. Which could be the case.

The purpose is to rate the users. If you regularly contribute good quality content, you’ll have a high score.

If you regularly engage in trolling, and harassment, and other shady activity, you get a negative score.

Individual communities can set up guidelines, that if you have a new account under 6 months, and you have a negative overall karma, you’re banned from that community until a human can look through your post history to see if you should be unbanned.

“Welcome back to the BBC…”

proceed with 7 minutes of on-air staring at the camera in silence as intense looping breaking news music plays. Then the camera just starts drifting around the studio showing the floor, and ceiling. All while the anchorwoman remains still, silent, and emotionally dead inside.

If you don’t know what I’m referencing, just watch any youtube video called something like “news fails compilation”.

They’ll just be 30 minute videos, with 7 minutes being one continuous moment as I’ve described. It’s so hard to watch because it just KEEEEPS ON GOOOOIIIIING!!!

Good lord that was midleading for a second.

If you click a state, you can see the states individual results. In my case Ohio. So even though the counting hasn’t started, I could see Kamala Harris, and 3 independant nominees. It did NOT show trump.

I was thinking “wait, is he somehow disqualified from running in Ohio??? Is that why he’s been pissy about Ohio??? You’d think this would have been well talked about news!!!”

Nope. None of that. There’d just a push button expanding page. Why would you use an expanding page when there’s only 5 items on the list??? And if you ARE going to cut off one candidate in the expanding list, why not one of the three independants who may as well all be named “Why bother???”.

But then you expant the list, and trump is number 5 in the presidential race in Ohio…with all 5 sitting at 0%.

Of note, Kamala is #2.

But it has other negative side effects if we scaled Lemmy up in scale.

For example, it doesn’t matter if you downvote me if I called you a big stinky poo poo face. Because without a larger pool of karma to detract from, it doesn’t matter HOW unpopular any singular post is.

…you big stinky poo poo face!

Had to zoom in. Looked like it said “I have the boner of god and anime on my side”

Didn’t know the pope liked hentai.