Well, “just asking questions” is different from asking questions - the one in quotes isn’t actually a question, it’s a dishonest way to slip in a point and (at a vibes level) “win” a debate with no desire to learn or seek truth

The term comes from Tucker Carlson I think, he’d make baseless accusations against people but phrase them as questions

And unfortunately, things are just that fucking crazy these days. Most political discourse (in general, it’s somewhat better here) is done in bad faith at this point, I think your question would have been interpreted differently not that long ago

People are scared and angry. It helps to proactively signal you genuinely want to engage… At least somewhat

Yes, the royal families in countries like them and the UAE are absurdly rich and like showing off. They flex on the richest billionaires, because not only do they have a net value that is thought to be higher then Musk, it’s not just on paper - they can spend insane amounts without worrying about hurting stock prices

They probably have food trucks like this for all kinds of restaurants, just sitting on standby. There’s no way they’re not legit - the whole point is to flaunt. This is probably normally used for like their kids pool parties or something

Or maybe they really did get this set up for Trump, in which case it’s still definitely legit. It even has the new decor they’ve been bringing to their restaurants

Remember, with the super rich the inefficiency is the point. They’d probably flog everyone for shaming them or something if it came out this wasn’t “real” McDonald’s

“Just asking questions” is a dishonest tactic the right has been using for a long time now. You asked “how did they subvert the will of the people if they won the vote?”

That question contains multiple assertions. For one, it’s repeating the mandate of the people narrative - the actions of an elected official are not the same as the will of the people. Democracy is a political system meant to serve the will of the people, it’s not itself the will of the people.

It also assumes that no subversion took place… And you can’t know what you don’t know, but it’s giving “change my mind”

That sets the starting line for arguing the will of the people wasn’t subverted by disputing facts, moving goalposts, or some whataboutisms. It frames the conversation in a way that sneaks things in as default assumptions

If you don’t want to be mistaken for doing this, you can word your questions more neutrally/open ended, or be more explicit in requesting information. Adding “am I missing something?” To something that isn’t adding up makes it come across far more neutral and good faith. It’s also just less confrontational, which is good if you don’t have the full picture yet

The Canadian boycotts are not “voting with your wallet”, they’re collective action.

Canadians, together, decided to boycott American goods. Their leaders cancelled deals. Their local stores and suppliers decided they’d rather source from anywhere else. The Canadian government started working on trade deals with everyone else

The nation of Canada as a whole is boycotting American goods. They’re not doing this individually, they have an organized response

You cannot join hands with fascists. Ever. For any reason. It’s a completely braindead move, look at history

Joining hands with fascists is empowering them and volunteering yourself as the next enemy. They’ll turn on you long before they finish with their current enemy

Voting with your wallet is a lie, like recycling plastic

You can’t do collective action individually. You can make the house hurt a little bit, but you’ll never force them to change through what you buy. The house always wins, unless you get together to change the rules

People say that because going to college is becoming exponentially expensive. It gets meaningfully worse year over year

Education is great, learning is more then half of the joy of life. The education system in our country is absolutely broken. Both these things are true

You can still come out on top in a broken system. I did. I have no regrets, no debt. But as a whole, it’s just getting worse all the time

Does anyone else not feel the humiliation of a foreign country trying to gift us a new command center? Corruption aside, this is incredibly humiliating

What I mean to say is the recycling isn’t possible. It just never worked, from the beginning the best they could do is add a little old plastic to the new plastic… You never end up with the same amount of plastic though, you always end up with way more plastic

Limiting plastic on the other hand? That’s doable, we can’t start soon enough

It wouldn’t. It’s like banning decomposition… Good fucking luck, you can play with it a little, but ultimately it’s just not possible

No, it’s because consulting companies like McKinsey tell Microsoft, ea, and Ubisoft that micro transactions will make stock go up, then they go to investment groups and say micro transactions are the sign of a gaming company about to make money

They have all the metrics, they aren’t doing what makes them the most sales or revenue. They’re doing what makes the stock price dance

It honestly wasn’t. Like yes, it was a real problem, there was a lot of bad, often legacy, code that had to be reviewed and maybe patched. Industrial control code tends to be notoriously bad, and so you never know if this traffic light or that power station is going to glitch out until you dive in

But even as a kid who just knew how to take things apart, I knew it was a nothing burger. Real work went into it, but the fact people in the industry were taking it seriously means there was little actual danger

Yes. Literally brain dead.

When you collaborate with fascists, it always goes one way. They use you, then they turn on you. Every single time.

They must always be the victims. There must always be new enemies. If you join hands with fascists, you’re just empowering them and volunteering yourself as the next enemy

What do you think this would even look like? They like the trappings of Christianity. They’re not going to give up religion. They’re just going to pick or create a more convenient hate-filled flavor and try to make it the national religion

There’s a word for that. It’s called collaboration.

I don’t care what you want to do, working with fascists is the stupidest way to do it.

I read it and I still have no idea what this is

No fucking duh. Recycling was always a lie. Especially single stream recycling

Plastics can be recycled… It’s just never viable to actually do it

You’re like… Half right.

History is packaged as a story about movements and ideals. The truth is it’s always people, and infinitely messy

My understanding is he told them to work through the local authorities

Which…I mean… Do you want the Catholic Church doing the investigation?

It’s really not. The name Leo is associated with workers rights and human dignity, the guy has been directly calling out Vance and Trump, and the guy has strong ties to south America and was Francis’s right hand man

The guy gave his speech in Italian and Spanish, not English. This is not a maga pope

You’d join hands with fascists against a pope put in place to oppose it?