Inasmuch as it was about “high costs” or “inflation,” it was not really about inflation, but what people heard about inflation & about a global anti-incumbent backlash:

The trolling works because our news media absolutely will not accept the evidence of their eyes and ears, and feels compelled to avoid any accusation that the accused party denies. The idea that these guys are simply lying - that the news is simply getting worked - never seems to cross their mind.

The way you defeat them is to STOP BEING A STUPID SUCKER, and understand that they will NEVER admit to what they're doing, because THEY ARE LYING TO TROLL YOU. At some point you have to accept the evidence of your eyes and ears and not play the "some allege, but others disagree" game.

These people do as they do because they enjoy defilement. They select the most viscerally abhorrent statements and stances because they enjoy our distress and find power in usurping and defiling symbols and figures that are higher and nobler than anything they could produce.

The whole government just playing smirking word games, where they say and do something that clearly codes as fascist, waiting for you to accuse them of it so they can say "How could you possibly object to the word 'Americanism'? The other two stars are behind Lincoln's head! It's just a font"

The US government is totally audience-captured by a tiny faction of internet fascists, and spends huge amounts of time trying to impress them, dedicating official communications channels to barely-concealed in-group references, and making horrific, murderous policy decisions to thrill this group

The first woman with a PhD in computer science was a Catholic nun.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Ke...

We need to start to understand that “respecting people’s beliefs” means giving the people holding anti-society beliefs what they want, which is separation from society. Respect their agency that they want what they say they want. Give them credit for the natural logical effect of their belief.

2/2 link:

Statement of the “Former JAGs Working Group” on Media Reports of Pentagon “No Quarter” Orders in Caribbean Boat Strikes

www.justsecurity.org/wp-content/u...

As someone who does a fair amount of looking at death certs in doing genealogical research, I can count on one hand the number of “death by horse” certs I’ve seen (going back to late 1800s) versus car accidents and pedestrian vs car deaths, of which there are A LOT. Not scientific of course.

The media and political class has been completely narcotized by their obsessive, solipsistic need to signal that they “get it” and aren’t going to say anything silly and over the top about Trump, and have maintained that pose as Trump has leveled the constitutional and international order

Feels among other things like just a broad-beam declaration that America is sovereign over the entire planet, no? "We can close sometime else's airspace if we feel like it, because we're in charge and they're not"