If their candidate is the only thing standing between a half-assed working system of government, and an outright dictatorship- and you don’t vote for them…

I did, so put the straw man away. In a swing state, because I understand that at a minimum I’m negating someone else’s R vote. I’m following politics outside the election cycle and aware of the FPTP game. You can make the “less shit” argument to me, and have it work because I recognize it’s true.

But that’s exactly my point about the apolitical and/or low propensity ‘normie’ voters - Trump has confidence and an answer for everything, if you ignore the absence of details. Harris struggled/refused to define herself and her platform - effectively giving that job to the media and the opposition. “Everything will stay fundamentally the same” was a vote loser for most of America this cycle, and that was the Democratic platform.

I don’t know about you, but I sure as shit am glad we dodged that “no policy having, pro-democracy” bullet, eh?

In a way, kinda? Trump is on a fascism speed run through the Project 2025 goals, and has a sycophantic circle of incompetence around him that keeps making blunders atop his own. Going this hard and this fast has had blowback, with him tanking his approval rating accordingly in record time.

Were he an actually steady hand that could play long chess, build coalitions, and quietly place plans in motion? Deport worst-of-the-worst criminals instead of literally whoever is brown, quietly subvert NATO and hamstring the unified command instead of JD and Hegseth chastising Europe and openly questioning Article 5, give Israel/Saudis a browbeating in public whilst increasing arms sales instead of ‘hell yeah, kill them all’ tweets, etc

Effective dictatorship I fear a lot more than an incompetent strongman. People bend and mold themselves to the former over time, the latter rips off the bandage too fast and pisses off voters who form resistance coalitions.

Or, here’s the apparently radical third option… do what the voters want and reel Bibi/Givir/Smotrich in, or at the very least stop giving Israel outright political cover. “Israel gets to do war crimes and/or genocide… and you pay for it” was a uni-party stance in the 2024 cycle, and it’s fucking infuriating. I expect the right to back Israel reflexively, but I did NOT expect to see y’all pull the mental gymnastics make yourselves be okay with it. And then have the gall to shout down and bully away criticism of the party’s complicity.

If your candidate can mostly be summed up as “less shit” then that damning sales pitch to get the ‘apolitical normie’ vote out to win elections s. Kamala barely stood tall on any firm policy - let along a coherent platform, didn’t distance herself sufficiently from Biden, and didn’t respond to voters’ legitimate economic anxieties. At that point a demonstrable lies become the sound bites differentiating Trump from Kamala.

I have heard multiple firearms trainers give statements to the effect of

If your open hand skill [unarmed fighting] sucks, you will rush to the firearm instead of other options because you don’t have faith in yourself. And when the first bullet doesn’t do the magic of an ‘instant stop’ like people pretend, you’ll end up mag dumping.

And if you watch police body-cam footage, you can see their panic switch pull the trigger, and then the cadence of gunfire rapidly picks up after that first shot.

Go look at any police force in Europe where the ‘suspect with a knife’ gets vastly different treatment.

• Police gang up and tackle them
• Nets/bolas style deployable restraints
• Low speed vehicle ramming to get the suspect on the floor and dazed
• Beanbag/less lethal shots to the body for pain compliance/muscle shock so they drop the knife

Euro cops almost always have a pistol, but the mentality is completely different regarding shoot v no-shoot

That’s American, Jewish voters surveyed last fall. 68% support land swaps, an independent Palestinian state based on the 1967 borders, Palestinian return from the diaspora, and financial/population restitution.

A lot of regular people get swept up into the default of supporting the concept of Israel and protecting the lives of the 6-7 million Jews living there, but the topic has so many land mines and risks of misunderstanding that people don’t delve into the topic openly. But if you look for it, there’s a lot of silence from folks who are uneasy about the direction Israel is headed.

Reading the ad’s comments gave me immeasurable hope for the future tho - ain’t nobody except the most lost in the sauce reactionaries/zionists are buying the Likud/Khanist narratives being pushed.

Let the ‘hog die the graceful end it deserves - in the hearts and memories of ground pounders. The Frogfoots are getting wrecked in Ukraine when they try to do CAS, that mission is over unless you’re splattering goat herders, and even militants have MANPADs now.

Super Tucano is all you need for low intensity/asymmetrical conflict and COIN, otherwise busting tanks is better done by ATGMs and AT mines.