If it’s an official act, yes. It’s not hard to tell a story where it becomes an official act. I I think he could still be impeached FWIW.

Because of Trump’s unhinged tactics, we know that top military leaders and (presumably) TLA bigwigs have discussed what they would do in situations like this. What you’re describing is very close to a coup d’etat, and in a situation where they get ordered to perform such an action, do they do it? What was framed as a question of SCOTUS rulings becomes, in reality, the question, “Am I willing to throw this entire democracy away on this President’s absurd orders?” Every high-up in government knows this… They signed up to serve the people, not a dictator.

Of course we have no idea how each person would act, but my point is that pure legality is only one challenge Biden would have to overcome if he wanted to do such a (horrible) thing.

Your second question has a general answer. Most languages use tones, which means tones change in the course of a sentence. If the tone changes for all sentences, then it also changes for questions. I know that’s not what you were trying to ask, but that’s the answer to the question you did ask.

If you need a way to indicate that something is a question, you could do what English does… You could use question words at the beginning of the sentence. You could change word order. You could add extra words… Which is to say, you’re not dependent on intonation, though you could use it if you want to.

I understand that you want to think that, but all political reporting currently happening is based on the premise that you’re wrong.

After the pandemic I think a lot of teachers changed our lines. The reality is that people have a lot of reasons to be late or absent. It’s the people who are chronically late who have issues, not because the tardy count is important, but because they didn’t learn the material that was covered when they weren’t in class.

All of which is to say, it doesn’t matter if you have a good excuse or a bad excuse. It matters if you’re learning what you’re supposed to learn.

How much effort does it take to pay your staff more? Almost none. You don’t even actually have to do anything except tell your accountant to raise their pay.

Let’s run with your hypothetical. Let’s follow it to the logical conclusion… The election is going to come down to swing states, and the only voters that could possibly affect the result are the Muslim voters mentioned above. Magically, nobody else exists or matters. Don’t worry about how. If they vote third party, Trump wins, and it’s all their fault… That’s your scenario.

Except wait. Today isn’t Election Day. Harris could do a 180 on her stance this evening. She has the ability to act now to change the future, to get those precious votes, the only votes that matter. But for some reason, she really doesn’t do it, she doesn’t care… And that’s the problem your hypothetical has.

In reality, her campaign staff made their own choices, and they still have the power to adjust course if they feel like it. Or not. Whatever they like. But somehow you think it’s the Muslim voters who are in control here.

Single issue voters and third party voters have always existed, and always will. If your political strategy is to blame them when you lose, you deserve to lose. Make a halfway decent campaign strategy. Or don’t.

Kamala knew how to get their votes, and she decided to support the continued violence instead. Maybe she had good reasons, maybe not, but it was a clear calculation and choice. Why would you insult her intelligence? Why would you undercut her campaign so close to election day? How dare you endorse Trump!

That’s you trying to blame someone other than yourself. You knew what could happen. You could have volunteered more. You could have donated more. But none of that matters compared with finding a scapegoat.

Patriotism leads to xenophobia, in the medium run with a large population. Xenophobia leads to racism. That’s not the same thing as fascism, but fascists are happy enough to take advantage of it.

That’s true but I think irrelevant. People are posting examples of things that used to be bad and have improved. If you want your science fiction framing, just consider the timeline where those things didn’t improve, and you have your answer.

Because so many of us didn’t interpret the question properly at first, maybe the question could have been written more clearly, and it wasn’t and that’s okay, but I hope people looking for answers would be willing to do a little bit of logical reasoning.

Many of us realized that the simplistic labels don’t apply. We have views on issues, some of those views are quite clear and others less so, but you can’t capture our positions in a few words.

Honestly, you just become more protective of your stuff and things you consider yours as you get older.

Isn’t that plainly false? When I was in college, and just after that, I had almost no money, so I was incredibly protective of my stuff and things I considered mine. Later my income went up, so I didn’t need to worry about it as much. Surely many other people have had similar experiences.

You’re bringing up a good point. People who say we’ll become more “conservative” are usually equivocating on the meaning of the word. It’s not like we’re going to wake up tomorrow and decide that global warming is a hoax, or that we should stop eating cats and dogs. Of course we’ll keep doing those things.

I think this is going to be great. Vance can’t control himself, and with no one fact checking him, he’s going to make up even more ridiculous s***. Just think of all the entertainment we got from the sofas and the cats and dogs. He’s just a walking meme machine.

(Yes, the cats and dogs story did lead to violent racist assholes trying to do bad things, but that was caused by Vance, not by us mocking him.)

What if we change your question. What if we ask about asylum seekers? Does that make it any clearer?

If you spend about 20 minutes online, you will find out that many people are fleeing their home countries because they don’t want to be killed, forced into slave-like conditions, or forced into occupations such as prostitution. Or they want to prevent that from happening to their children.

If you were to ask people in situations like this what country they’d like to go to, in the abstract, they might not say the United States. But their options are limited. So, what country are you suggesting as an alternative? If someone is starting in El Salvador, to pick a random country in Central America, where do you think they should go?

There are books written about this exact topic. The most famous in recent years is Factfulness.

I think other people covered the main points, but when I haven’t seen mentioned yet here is the fact that, for the news to catch your attention, it has to be something exceptional. That shouldn’t be true, but many publishers believe it. They compete to have what’s new or different or exciting.

I blame this mostly on the big media companies, and also partly on consumers who believe that consuming news is a passive activity when in reality it’s an active choice. They could go find online websites and create their own RSS feed, for example, and then they wouldn’t be stuck listening to drivel. But it does take some work and some awareness.

For example, and I don’t want to go into details about specific political parties, think about all of the polls about the election. Those are mostly meaningless. We’ll find out exactly what public opinion is on Election Day. It’s not that you couldn’t have a poll, but if you’re posting new polling data every day it’s because you’re desperate to cover up for the fact that you don’t have anything new to say.

Are there books in libraries? Yes, and the publishers don’t have to do a thing. And it is good for society. Similarly, can you fix an old car, even if the manufacturer went bankrupt? Of course you can.

We have precedent, my friend.

There are two different problems. One is easier to solve.

To think they found a position that is morally reprehensible from every possible angle, under all interpretations, and also involves bodily fluids, that’s somehow amazing.