Disqus - Latest Comments for rhysem

Re: Congress Has Lost Its Grip on Funding Government

Rhysem — Sat, 13 Jun 2026 18:42:33 -0000

Since 1997. That includes 2009 and 2010.

Re: The World’s Wealthy Are Migrating Like Never Before

Rhysem — Sat, 13 Jun 2026 17:19:07 -0000

The poor are well off. I mean any reasonable analysis of modern quality of life compared to even 100 years ago shows how utterly devoid of intellectual heft a lot of these arguments are.

Re: The World’s Wealthy Are Migrating Like Never Before

Rhysem — Sat, 13 Jun 2026 17:16:36 -0000

I don't think there's enough lift capacity to do it right now, none-the-less construction time.

Re: The World’s Wealthy Are Migrating Like Never Before

Rhysem — Sat, 13 Jun 2026 17:14:58 -0000

There is, but they don't need either to "win" their arguments. It's the part our side continues to fail to understand. It doesn't matter if they are xenophobes or racists or bigots. So long as countries continue to allow state aid to non-citizens (and I'm not making an argument for or against here) while citizens are struggling to put food on the table or find jobs these arguments will win with enough voters to drown everyone else out.

Re: The World’s Wealthy Are Migrating Like Never Before

Rhysem — Sat, 13 Jun 2026 17:10:00 -0000

On that front it's not confused at all. They are against immigrants that can't support themselves and need state assistance. They're assholes, but they are politically/idealogically consistent in that sense.

Re: The World’s Wealthy Are Migrating Like Never Before

Rhysem — Sat, 13 Jun 2026 17:08:13 -0000

It is, if you can get there. They're one of the harder countries to get permanent residency for.

Re: The World’s Wealthy Are Migrating Like Never Before

Rhysem — Sat, 13 Jun 2026 17:05:05 -0000

Albania is apparently the new "it" who knew.

Re: Algae Resurfaces in Reflecting Pool

Rhysem — Sat, 13 Jun 2026 17:01:58 -0000

The water comes from the Tidal Basin.... of course it was going to come back.

Re: Trump Is Losing His Base

Rhysem — Sat, 13 Jun 2026 17:00:37 -0000

I can't stand Gillibrand and even I'd give her 70/30 odds against Mamdani in New York. Cuomo is an asshat and has been roundly rejected by the party as a whole. Schumer is Schumer, but I'm not even sure I'd give it even odds against Mamdani.

Re: Trump Is Losing His Base

Rhysem — Sat, 13 Jun 2026 14:54:14 -0000

Mamdani is a slight improvement on Bernie in that sense, but still will alienate large parts of the Democratic base. Platner... I suspect will be Fetterman 2.0 or completely forgotten if he loses. Talerico has potential or could be another Beto.

Re: Trump Is Losing His Base

Rhysem — Sat, 13 Jun 2026 14:52:59 -0000

I would argue that is how we got to here to begin with :)

Re: Trump Is Losing His Base

Rhysem — Sat, 13 Jun 2026 12:01:48 -0000

While not alienating the rest of the base if you're referring to Bernie.

Re: Trump Is Losing His Base

Rhysem — Sat, 13 Jun 2026 11:00:28 -0000

It's an option, anyway. I'm not convinced it would work though. You could get Great Society 2.0 (but post Great Society actually saw one of the longest sustained conservative governance runs in the modern era) or you could get the UK post WWII (which was just a shitshow). But the alternatives don't seem to have much traction either though.

Re: Trump Is Losing His Base

Rhysem — Sat, 13 Jun 2026 10:03:12 -0000

You're missing the point entirely. Democrats failed to address these voters issues and they voted for a second round of Trump instead of four more years of the same. They will do the same again in 2032 and that pattern will continue until somebody starts answering their concerns.

Re: Trump Is Losing His Base

Rhysem — Sat, 13 Jun 2026 09:57:59 -0000

The problem remains that negative-partisanship and winning this cycles haters is no way to govern. They aren't voting for your policies. They're voting against the policies of who's currently elected. Somebody needs to find a way to connect to these voters and address their actual concerns or we'll just continue bouncing back and forth indefinitely.

Re: 2026 House Overview

Rhysem — Thu, 11 Jun 2026 19:55:02 -0000

Won't be sad to see her gone to be honest.

Re: Where Do Your Politics Fit?

Rhysem — Thu, 11 Jun 2026 19:54:06 -0000

Interesting, I mean I could see a mass deportation from the West Bank to Jordan at some later end state for probably all the same reasons you do, but I had never really envisioned it in my lifetime.

Re: Where Do Your Politics Fit?

Rhysem — Thu, 11 Jun 2026 17:39:54 -0000

Oct 7th was another major break point, as well. I still can't believe anyone thinks Israel can afford to tolerate Hamas/Hezbollah's existence after that. I had always hoped Egypt and Jordan would step up and take control of their respective territories (pre-1967) in some kind of grand compromise dealing with the right of return, but it never happened and pretty clearly won't at this point. A discontinuous state will never work no matter how hard people try to pretend otherwise. At some point, Israel will fully annex Gaza and there will be some kind of mass deportation to the West Bank. Ugly, unpopular, and wholly avoidable if Egypt would have stood up, but it's where things are going.

Re: Where Do Your Politics Fit?

Rhysem — Thu, 11 Jun 2026 17:33:48 -0000

That's a fair point, but it's mostly the behavioral that's noticeable on PW.

Re: Where Do Your Politics Fit?

Rhysem — Thu, 11 Jun 2026 16:21:46 -0000

PW has always had a leftward tilt, but 2008/2009 I would have pegged it at center-left, by 2016/2017 it was pretty clearly moving to further left and the last several years there's been almost no room for anything but hard-left progressive dogma. A good example of this was just this morning. Somebody posted a Tweet with a quote from Hegseth bashing on a reporters question. Hegseth is a douchebag and the amount of things I agree with him on are likely in the single digits, but he was correct in this particular case, but the community was all "RARRRRR!!! HEGSETH BAD!!!! RARRR!!!" it was little better than a MAGA feeding frenzy. As for where I came in on the Pew report, I landed at "Unconventional Right," which if PW is any measure of where the base of the Democratic party is today... might not be that far off. Overton windows move. In 2008/2009, I would have considered myself a solid liberal, by 2016 the Bernie Bros had really started turning me off and I was probably more of a centrist.

Re: What Is the Democrats’ Answer to ‘America First’?

Rhysem — Thu, 11 Jun 2026 12:33:41 -0000

I do not understand why Democrats haven't been running on that one. It's not a lot of money in practice, but it completely plays into the narrative that the uber-wealthy are allowed to play by different rules than the rest.

And honestly I'd be even more restrictive. Tax all collateralized loans as constructive income, just with an annual cap something on the order of $100k/$200k single/married.

Re: Trump Has Seen 22 Medical Specialists

Rhysem — Thu, 11 Jun 2026 12:25:43 -0000

Do they support Iran's military capacity? If yes, then yes, if no then no. It's not a complicated formula.

Re: Where Do Your Politics Fit?

Rhysem — Thu, 11 Jun 2026 12:20:32 -0000

Well then, that explains the change in PW over the past 10 years in a rather stark way.

Re: Trump Has Seen 22 Medical Specialists

Rhysem — Wed, 10 Jun 2026 20:49:10 -0000

Troops or supplies, but yes.

Re: Trump Has Seen 22 Medical Specialists

Rhysem — Wed, 10 Jun 2026 20:48:19 -0000

I can't stand the guy and I think he mishandled the response, but he's not wrong either. The question was disingenuous.