Does anybody else hope (emphasis on hope lol) they’re just saying this out of spite? Perhaps they know he lost, and are just saying this because they know it will “piss off the libs?”

Maybe it’s naive, but while I am pretty liberal a-lot of my family is (unfortunately) republican and they all admit Trump lost, fair and square. They also say they’re sick of him, wish he would drop out of the race, and allow another, younger republican to be nominated. They’ve also not been contacted by any of these pollsters.

Admittedly, this is just my experience with a very narrow slice of republicans; outside my family, I don’t really interact with too many.

Thoughts? Am I just fortunate to not have to interact with the Trump cult on a daily basis? Or is the US just screwed? lol

I feel like on average their conversation quality is higher than the other alternatives. However, as you said, it is not very diverse.

Tildes also feels very “primp & proper” so to speak. While the conversations are generally very civil and of good quality, I also feel like the place is ruled with an iron fist; step a little bit out of line, and you’re pretty much gone. This is then coupled with the fact that you’re not able to make custom communities.

In the end, its good for civil discussion within the bounds of what is already considered acceptable by the admin. I almost feel like it has the opposite problem Reddit does - whereas conversations on Reddit are largely driven by bots and the hivemind, Tildes is controlled by Deimos and whoever Deimos approves of.

Checks out. The most stressful part of my cat's day is deciding which of her favorite spots is the most comfortable place to sit lol.

It's a tough life, being a house cat.

Seriously - the kid lost his hand, and they’re fined just over a grand?

I’m pretty sure some smart phones cost more than that. This might as well be pennies to the owner.

I’ve seen their brigading on lemmy communities before. They will also serial downvote anything they don’t like.

Personally, I would vote to defederate from both Hexbear and lemmygrad. Kbin is nice because it feels like the majority of people are posting, commenting, and overall discussing in good faith. It’s a nice culture. Neither of those two instances fit with it.

TIL that 40.5% of the world’s rice comes from India. That’s a lot of rice that’s no longer going to be circulating in the global market.

Seems like this is also going to have the largest impact on Africa, who have also been impacted by the lack of grain exports from Ukraine since Russia invaded.

Yeah, this is an unfortunate advantage republicans have over democrats - their constituents really do fall in line, even if they don’t like their candidate. Democrats constituents fall in love, and will refuse to vote if it is not their preferred candidate.

In fact, the only time I feel like democrats won without falling in love with their candidate was (ironically) Biden. I think he won because people were desperate for a sense of normalcy and to have new leadership because the Trump administration failed so spectacularly in their handling of the pandemic.

This time though, there is no pandemic to boost the democrats. I firmly believe that Trump probably would have won again were it bot for the pandemic, and I am worried he will win again.

You are correct that Hexbear does not, but lemmygrad does.

Both instances brigade and troll other communities that don’t align with whatever propaganda they are parroting. Neither instance has a culture that aligns with kbin.social.

As someone who never really used Twitter, I find this to be kinda sad. Everything is shifting to video, and I hate it lol.

Like, what is wrong with reading something? Is it really that hard?

That being said, on the list of stupid ideas Musk has implemented since he bought Twitter this actually seems to be inline with what the rest of the (social media) industry seems to be pushing. TikTok is obviously the first one that comes to mind, but Instagram and Snapchat have been pushing videos for years, too. Even Reddit started promoting a videos over text-based threads - it’s a pain in the ass to get to the comments on a video post with their official app!

I’ll keep my fingers-crossed that lemmy & kbin are able to sustain themselves, because right now its one of the only places where text-based forums are not being pushed off to the side.

While I think plenty of people have been standing up to him, it’s good to see someone like Jack Smith put a name to what Trump has been doing.

Trump’s strategy is to conflate the legal battles and the political battles, all the while having them reinforce each other. I wonder what a gag order would do to this strategy?

I feel like there should be a way to hold politicians like Tuberville in contempt. Not only is his cause complete bullshit, he is allowing domestic politics to get in the way of national security.

Of course, endangering national security seems to be a part of the republicans platform these days.

I am pretty liberal, but I have a-lot of family members who are republican and live in the midwest and they feel like they’re in the same boat as you.

I do have to wonder where he gets all his support.

I wish. Just looking at his whole career, it really seems like the law doesn’t apply to him. I really hope that changes with these indictments.

Anybody else would have been locked up. All he’s gotten were some very gentle slaps on the wrist.

"Almost all of these elections keep ending up different than what you would have expected -- in the same direction. And so, that, to me, suggests that there's some stickiness to this"

I am really hoping this holds true. The 2016 election left me extremely skeptical of polls lol.

Same - although I feel like there might be some growing pains with artemis.camp. Federation seems to be slow? Idk, I don’t really know how a-lot of this stuff works.

But I love the “CAMP” next to all the usernames for anyone in the artemis.camp instance!

I agree. I find the culture here to be significantly better than reddit, but it still needs a-lot of work before they attempt something like r/place.

I wonder how it would even work with other instances though? It seems like that might be difficult to federate…

Content:

In yet another major rebuke of Republicans over abortion rights, voters in Ohio on Tuesday handily turned down a GOP-led effort to make it more difficult to amend the state’s Constitution.
62 percent of Ohioans voted against Issue 1, when the Associated Press called the election with 36 percent of the vote in. Link: Ohio Ballot Measure Election Results 2023: Live Updates & Analysis (politico.com)

The measure would have raised the threshold to pass a constitutional amendment from a simple majority to 60 percent, as well as make it more complicated to get citizen-initiated ballot measures before voters in the first place. Both sides of the issue drew national attention and millions of dollarsduring the lead-up to what was expected to be an under-the-radar, off-year summer special election. Link: Ohio special election August 2023: Issue 1 is attracting millions - POLITICO

“Voters saw Issue 1 for what it was: a deceptive power grab designed to silence their voices and diminish their voting power,” Dennis Willard, spokesperson One Person One Vote, the main group opposing Issue 1, said in a statement. “We defeated Issue 1 because an enormous coalition that spans ideological divides came together to defend democracy.”

More than 600,000 people voted early on the issue, far outpacing past August elections in the Buckeye State, which had historically low turnout. The push to raise the threshold, initiated by the GOP-controlled state legislature, came as abortion-rights activists campaigned in support of a separate November initiative that would enshrine abortion rights in the state’s Constitution.

With the November vote on the horizon, the election became a proxy war over abortion rights — although proponents of Issue 1 insisted that it’s not just about abortion, but rather protecting the state Constitution from special interests.

Abortion-rights efforts prevailed in states across the country last year, as well as earlier this year in Wisconsin. But raising the bar would have created a new hurdle for the one on the ballot in Ohio this fall, as it’s unclear if it would pass a 60 percent threshold.
Opponents of Issue 1 rode those national successes from last year, and were bolstered by a cash advantage heading into the election. One Person One Vote raised $14.8 million, while Protect Our Constitution, the group supporting Issue 1, raised $4.9 million, according to state filings.

Issue 1’s defeat follows a streak of losses for Republicans looking to make it more difficult to put a measure before voters. GOP legislatures in Arkansas, Florida, Idaho, Missouri, North Dakota, Ohio and Oklahoma debated bills in recent years that would implement similar hurdles. Few made it into law, and some of those that did were later struck down by courts.

“Post-2020, there was so much interest in efforts around voting access, and I think it was a mistake not to include the attacks on the ballot initiative process, which were already well underway in that conversation,” said Sarah Walker, policy and legal advocacy director for the progressive Ballot Initiative Strategy Center. “This is the first time I’m really seeing that effort [to show] that these things are linked. And ultimately, it’s about removing checks and balances to unfettered legislative power.”

By MADISON FERNANDEZ
Ally Mutnick contributed to this report.

I will absolutely be biting my nails lol.

The food and water thing is so ridiculous and just piles onto a series of laws designed to make it difficult for urban Americans to vote. Wasn’t it Texas that decided there should only be one polling center per county? I’m not sure if they’ve actually enacted it, but good luck voting in person if you live in Austin!

Just the fact they feel the need to make it more difficult to vote speaks volumes about the mindset of republican leadership. I don’t think their party is really growing, but I think the smaller they get the more underhanded they will become in their efforts to cling to power.

Idk, sometimes I really wish I could be one of those people who is blissfully unaware of politics and the world at large. They really seem to be happier in their ignorance.

Exactly! I vote to defederate from them on our end, because otherwise they can just decide to federate themselves and brigade and troll their way through our magazines. Some Kbin magazines might not be prepared for that.

Nothing they do is in good faith, so why bother with them?

Just based on Queens, NY, I think the republicans in NYC capitalized on some of the things Democrats “beat around the bush” or avoided talking about. The Asian American population in NY is very anti-crime, and the dems perceived inaction on Anti-Asian Hate created an opening some I think local republicans capitalized on. Even the current mayor is a former cop.

Now, how they got to be die-hard Trumpers is not something I understand. He did, after all, cause Asian Americans a-lot of grief with his whole “China Virus” BS during the pandemic..