I grew up in a rightwing household, and unquestioningly drank the koolaid until my late teens. The right’s bullshit eventually became impossible to ignore, so I dove right into the ‘both sides!’ trap and rode the Libertarian train for a while.

It became really easy to articulate what I didn’t like about the right; describing what was bad about the left was just echoes of Fox bitching about things like them voting on emotion instead of logic… but no real examples.

Around my mid-twenties I finally realized ^that was projection; then 2016 happened and holy shit they’re running Trump and Hillary?? Easily the two most hated candidates in my lifetime… against Gary Johnson - an admittedly goofy personality but likeable and most importantly not crazy, THIS IS THE LP’S TIME TO SHINE! …yeah they got 3% of the vote. We won’t ever see better conditions for a 3rd victory, so, pipedream shattered.

Guess I’ll have to just pick a lesser evil, so let’s see what we have to work with…

• there’s the red team. Burn through our fossil resources with reckless abandon. War, war, war, and more war. Shave social services down to nothing so we can claim ‘fiscal responsibility’ which is good I guess (hey! eyes down here, we’re done talking about the war part), a blatant integration of religion and politics, and they want to make life as miserable as possible for my gay/colored/female/nonchristian friends. Fuck, that’s pretty bad…

• Alright, next we have the blue team, which is the opposite of all those things, at the exceedingly high cost of… getting cockblocked by the red team when they try to implement those things… and… well there was that time Bill lied about getting a blowjob- outrageous! Surely the red team does a better job of keeping it in their pants… *checks* …uhh, nope! Fuck, I’m starting to become aware of my own cognitive dissonance and it feels like absolute shit.

So I start voting one issue at a time, crunching both options against eachother and choosing the one that’s best for the US. That way there’s no bias and I won’t be part of this tribal bullshit plagueing our politics… Weird, when I ignore affiliation and vote on policy alone, my ballot becomes solid blue. What are the odds of that?! Next election, solid blue again. And again.

My desire to be ‘independent’ on label alone is pretty much gone at this point, and I’m being more and more vocal about supporting leftwing policies. Family isn’t a fan, but they hit me with the shit OP is poking fun at - I only shifted blue because I’m poor! Once I make more money, just you wait and see, I’ll come crawling right back.

Now, I’m not rich or anything, but I’m (finally!) not living paycheck to paycheck. During all ^that I wandered into the military which gave me access to all kinds of socialized resources which have enabled me to get where I’m at now and have made a pretty significant improvement on my life. The thing that pisses me off about those socialized services is WHY THE FUCK DOESN’T EVERYONE HAVE THIS?! So wearing camo for 4 years for some reason got me this VIP tour of what we should should be doing for everyone.

I was a late bloomer, I got there. I haven’t missed a single election since 2016, big or small. Solid blue. I’ve gotten to the point where I’ll even look up the voter registration of candidates for nonpolitical positions like judges, and red is a deal breaker.

The better off I become, the more blue I get. The notion of red-shift with income is trash.

*abdomen bursts open and thousands of hatchlings scatter in every direction*

Here, take these bombs.

WHOA WTF MAN, I DIDN’T SAY USE THEM!!

Also here, have some more bombs.

Okay grandpa, let’s get you to bed prison.

I propose a new standard practice during debates: At some point, open a box in the center of the stage with 100 or so flies in it, then keep a tally of how many gravitate to each speaker.

Most docs have some kind of internet presence nowadays, so definitely look them up. Also in the later preop stages when you talk to your OR nurse, look your nurse in the eye and just straight up ask “Would you be comfortable with this doctor operating on you?” They won’t be actually allowed to talk shit on their surgeon, but the second of panicked silence as they try to come up with some kind of non-answer without blatantly lying will tell you everything you need to know.

This might be like 30 mins before your surgery - you have the right to refuse up until you go unconscious. It’ll feel dirty, but those standards exist for a reason.

Oh, well shit. Dr Death was before this shit, but it sounds like basically Dr Death 2.0.

…kinda makes me wonder how common this is.

No, he never got any media attention that I’m aware of. My concern is that he’s just hopping from hospital to hospital - hiring on, fucking up, killing someone, getting fired, hiring on, fucking up, killing someone, etc.

Hospitals are pretty protective of their reputation and their doctors; and death is a thing that can happen in surgery so it be swept off as a “Oh well, patient signed off on the risks; and oh hey, this Dr said some mean things to our staff, so let’s fire him for that and hope we don’t make national headlines…”

I’ve worked with a lot of good and a lot of bad surgeons, but even the bad ones aren’t usually dangerous bad, but like slow af, sub-optimal but passable outcomes, shit like that.

I’ve worked with ONE who was just absolute shit at his job… and his incompetence got at least one patient killed.

He got axed pretty quick… hopefully his license was revoked and he got charged with murder, but I never got any details of post-firing.

“Your Nazi coworkers/family don’t have to know you voted to save the US. Harris/Walz 2024”

Crazy that these reporters can understand what Trump is trying to articulate around that mouthful of Putin’s dick.

Trump-Zelenskyy feud

Which is synonymous with Putin-Zelenskyy feud. I don’t think anyone is surprised that Putin’s bitch is doing Putin’s biding.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stochastic_terrorism

Oh for fuck’s sake. It’s time to just rip the bandaid off of this one.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YeyOBAra014

…yeah this is the GOP - women suffering/dying is a feature, not a bug.

Never forget that the cruelty is the point.

Three more. Then we’ll have 53, a prime number, and truly be one nation indivisible.

How would this look in actuality?

Probably a bit like this,

https://www.opb.org/news/article/federal-law-enforcement-unmarked-vehicles-portland-protesters/