ReallyActuallyFrankenstein

Its often more reflective of their incomplete thinking on a situation than it is reality, and cynically, its a kind of rhetorical slight of hand often used to keep a narrative structured in such a way that only certain outcomes are possible.

Nobody is saying that another outcome isn't possible, but no other outcome than Trump or Harris in this election is remotely plausible.

So my good faith question to you is, what do you think should be done in this election that plausibly leads to a better outcome than a Harris vote? Open-ended question, no barriers.

That's me, with a brief stopover on Fark before my brain was fully developed.

If he gets in, he'll have the full force of the DOJ to protect him from going to prison. This is a state crime, I understand that, but it flips an agency with enormous resources into his own personal defense firm.

They'll file appeals and briefs that claim his position prevents him from being taken into custody and at least delay any imprisonment while he's president. Courts, like his sentencing court, will not want to be involved in a "political" question and will kick the can on imprisonment. That will also provide a convenient motivation for Trump to not let go of the presidency after four years.

I guess if we didn't fight off the beating hard enough, we deserved it?

There are three practical reasons Trump does this:

1. Deflection: Trump doesn't have an affirmative platform. As a populist strongman, Trump's platform is situational and entirely based on what his supporters want to hear in any given moment. If health care is in the news, Trump will say his plan is coming in two weeks (it won't ever come). If immigration is in the news, Trump will say he will build a wall and get Mexico to pay for it (he won't). But what's even easier? Focusing on the shortcomings of the opponent's platform. Any time this works, Trump saves himself an opportunity to be put under the microscope.
2. Deflection: Manipulating the media works. Trump knows that the more ludicrous things he says about Kamala, even if the media then starts to talk about how he's wrong or fact-check him, the focus is still on the thing he said rather than Kamala's platform. It's subtle, but it really does focus the media effectively on whatever he says, and use his frame of that issue as the media's frame.
3. Filling the echo chambers and other spaces. We're in our own echo chambers like never before. Trump says these things so that the people in the right-wing echo chambers have a plausible response to Kamala's policies, or even just need filler for their broadcast/websites/Facebook groups. Ultimately there is only so much media people can consume every day. If Trump has filled all relevant supporter spaces with his own opinions & framing, there is no time or energy left to explore other opinions and framing.

Unrelated: are you really actually frankenstein?

I mean, I don't like to advertise it...

Hey, that was nice.

Also, unrelatedly: When did it become normal for old music videos to be swapped with blurry AI-upscaled versions? So distracting once you see it...

Yeah, honestly..."altered" in a headline is itself biased, when "corrected" is entirely plausible. The transcriber had no idea if Biden meant to have an apostrophe there.

Also, maybe spend the final week of what could be our final democratic election covering something of importance, AP.

I've not looked at 538 simulation predictions for the last month and a half until right now, and my anecdotal not-at-all-scientific feeling is pretty much exactly where the percentages fall. Slight edge to Trump thanks to the electoral college.

God I hope I'm wrong, but America is so propaganda-saturated and broken. If we would have imposed regulations on news media that would have reality-bound Fox News 4 years ago, maybe, maybe it wouldn't be close.

To be clear, we're not cooked yet, so please don't take this as a call to give up. I really hope everyone that's still sane and can vote is going to vote.

Why did I read this in Matt Damon's voice...

That's an excellent point, and since we know Musk has spent over $100 million so far trying to get Trump elected, it's a lot easier case to make (if there really was a quid pro quo promise made).

Also, have we talked yet about how RFK appears to have nearly - if not fully - admitted to illegal corruption?

Sorry to link to a PDF, but see p.8 of this government summary of corruption law: https://crsreports.congress.gov/product/pdf/R/R44447/9

While supporting a candidate is not illegal, and nor is offering financially valuable support if within limits or through a super PAC, providing value in exchange for a government position - quid pro quo - is illegal. RFK's exchange of value is not merely supporting Trump, but actively trying to remove himself from the ballot in swing states to materially alter the election. Not illegal except it appears RFK has just admitted he was promised a position in Trump's administration.

So how do we know it's quid pro quo? We know leaks before RFK's endorsement were that he was shopping himself to the Harris and Trump campaigns. He didn't explicitly say "in exchange for," but it's almost certain that's what happened, and that there are witnesses to it who could testify or be subpoenaed.