It's an uncomfortable tension related to the "touching the stove" debate. If things limp along, we put off The Bad Thing that will reset/improve balance (The Civil War, WWII, mass unrest of the 60s). But I don't want to root for The Bad Thing...

HOWEVER...Trump & company are making such a mess that the "authentic" D message for 2026/2028 is going to be "This is all very horrible and I will clean it up." I suspect voters are going to be here for it.

D voters have a larger array of concerns and so it's not possible to craft a message that appeals to all. Sometimes D politicians *aren't speaking to you* and thats ok. Trump creates so many fires it's not possible to yell about each one all the time. (No wonder we're all exhausted.)

Yes, this has been driving me bananas. Trump's voters do read him as "authentic"...authentically aggreived by cultural elites and social progress! He really does want to "own the libs" and his voters are (so far) willing to pay whatever price to go along with that. D's can't follow this road map.

Relatedly, the size of the coverage made it seem like a huge, terrible scandal to those paying minimal attention. Surely the NYT would not be doing all those headlines over nothing!

The NYT, meanwhile, thought they were "balancing" coverage against whatever Trump scandal of the day.

Most voters didn't give a crap about email security. It was a stand-in for "Hilary is corrupt," a thing they already believed because 1) Rs & the press spent decades hammering the idea; 2) for a lot of people, just being a woman who wants power makes you corrupt.

It was never about the emails.

My kid left school at 10 and didn't return fully in-person until age 12. She lost 1.5 years of math. During this period, 7 kids in her social circle were hospitalized for suicidal ideation/attempts. Some multiple times. Parents' concerns were legitimate!

The ppl arguing "Spoiled laptop parents couldn't be bothered to parent their children. They didn't care who got sick as long as their brats were babysat by the state!" are ignoring how awful the "at-home" learning was for most kids. (cont.)

The ppl arguing "The schools should have stayed open!" ignore the periods where up to 1/3 of any given school was sick at one time. There weren't enough teachers to teach! Hundreds of kids absent! (cont.)

Both sides make me crazy. "Horrible lockdowns" are absolutely standing in for school closures and the bad faith on both sides is enraging. 1) Closures were largely driven by the virus ripping through society; 2) They were actually really bad! (cont.)

1) they take the less-exciting but sure-thing entertainment of YT or TikTok on their phones vs the "risky" in-person gathering that might be boring or awkward. (Who will be there? What should I wear? etc.) 2) maybe some pandemic atrophy; these kids were 10 when the world shut down.

My daughter is 15. She and her friends rarely socialize together outside of school. Maybe 1x/month compared to me at her age which was almost every weekend + all summer long. They simply do not have the drive to see each other in person. I think this is because..

Super congrats! 🎉

Like, it was a problem for T1 when they hired ONE obvious Neo-Nazi, so T2 is getting around that problem by hiring LOTS OF THEM...including that guy they had to fire the first time. Yikes on bikes, as they say.

Thank you!

Thank you!

Oh, I know how it is. This is my view from the shower every day.