Swatra is reading a book about the Habsburg empire, which contains this brilliant oath of loyalty, issued by the city of Aragon in Spain toward King Philip II in the 1580s: "We, who are as good as you, swear to you, who are no better than us, to accept you as our king and sovereign, provided you observe all our liberties and laws, and if not, not."
@janisf Well, it's been less than a week, and already some randos on social media have been suggesting that "Elon Musk wrote the software for the voting machines used in the swing states"... with some dude claiming to be the hacker who actually did this. I'm sure the MAGAts have some leftover copium that they'd be happy to share.
@foncu I've already started a Google Doc that's got 18 different links on it --the slightly smarter pundits give multiple reasons. It's Monday night quarterbacking all over the place.
It's nice to see that on top of all the small, insignificant stuff that's depressing us, like the collapse of American democracy, the New York Times highlights some actually relevant depressing information as well.
I heard this term mentioned by one of the hosts of the excellent "If Books Could Kill" podcast (when talking about Sam Bankman-Fried, who's like the quintessential case of this), and my god does it clearly define something I've been needing a term for since forever. This phenomenon explains like half of what's wrong with the world today.
Is anyone keeping a running tally of reasons why Trump won the election? If not, I think I'm going to be collecting them. There are so many to choose from, and every journalist writing about one pretends that their reason is the only reason.
There really should be a word for the skeptical feeling everyone experiences whenever someone on the internet quotes (or rather claims to quote) Einstein.
Among the arguments being raised about why TFG won is the idea of "low-information voters": people who don't follow politics.
By this argument, your reason for deciding that a politician has your best interest at heart is that they tell you, and you hear them and believe them.
Here's a thought: what if politicians enacted policies that actually made these low-information voters' lives better? If they did that, they wouldn't have to _tell_ them anything. Actions speak louder than words.
I remember damage. Then escape. Fan of #crows, #StarTrek and the #Japanese language, among many other things. Currently posting one frog species per day. If I keep this up, I should be done in about 20 years. My toots are searchable.