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[delphonso]

Gasp! Someone who profits off religion is morally bankrupt?! I'd never!

[JoshuaFH]

You know, if the election is delayed due to the virus, and Trump is kicked out as the constitution requires, and we're just left without a president for a while, I wonder if people will think that not having an commander in chief will be a breath of fresh air! Finally, noone to give daily anxiety, no eminently unqualified face to revile or glorify, no executive branch drama to worry about! Boy that'd just be the greatest.

I wonder how the already barely functioning checks and balance system of the three branches will distort and fuck up even more though.

[Rolan7]

What I heard from Legal Eagle is that there'll still be a president, following the line of succession.  It gets kinda tricky because a lot of the line of succession will also be sitting open, though.  No vice president, no one in the house of representatives (so no speaker of the house). 

Apparently it ends up going to the "president pro tempore" of the senate - the senator of the majority party who's been serving longest.  Lovely, huh.

That probably ends up being a Democrat though, based on state Governors having to appoint replacement senators for their 1/3 who faced reelection.  People have done the math and that leads to a Democratic majority, which is kinda interesting.  Apparently that leads to Senator Pat Leahy becoming president.

But... that's weird, because the governors would take time to appoint the senators.  So I looked up another source about this.  This article's take doesn't include governors appointing senators, just the 65 who'll remain.  The answer remains the same:  A Democratic majority, still making the President Pro Tempore (and thus the President) Leahy.

BUT apparently that title isn't legally defined (hilarious for a position that's third in line to the Presidency) so the article suggests the senate Democrats can choose anyone, even a non-senator.  (one sec, weeping for this country)

I do take some solace that Trump definitely doesn't remain president without the Electoral College saying so.  I'd love to see him get removed by secret service on national TV.  I'm sure the fallout in the streets would be horrible, but it's nice to imagine him resisting arrest.

Whereas my dad relayed some theory that the electoral college will convene and vote by delegation, such that California gets the same voting power as Oklahoma, and thus Trump gets elected.  I am too exhausted to even puzzle that out.  I *think* the process he meant was for a tie situation, whereas he thought it applied to any election still contested at the inauguration.

[Reelya]

Yeah, I watch that video too. If there's a President Pelosi then some people will have a brain aneurysm.

EDIT: the bit at the start of that video about things getting cancelled reminded me of the Paw Patrol fiasco. It's a surprisingly entertaining deep delve. Google "paw patrol fascist"

https://www.vulture.com/2020/07/paw-patrol-is-the-worst-kids-tv-show.html

and even the openly fascistic Thomas & Friends

Don't let your kid watch Thomas the Tank Engine or they might turn into a Nazi (I'd argue the show isn't remotely fascistic, but the trains are depicted as children and the controller as a parent, something the kids can relate to).

https://www.forbes.com/sites/danidiplacido/2020/02/24/the-problem-with-paw-patrol/#4c76d3161ad0

I would argue that the Paw Patrol, as a private corporation, is used to help provide basic social services in the Adventure Bay community. That's problematic in that the Paw Patrol creators are sending this message that we can't depend on the state to provide these services

Don't let your kid watch Paw Patrol or they might turn into Ayn Rand loving Libertarians.

And more
https://medium.com/s/story/paw-patrol-is-a-republican-dystopia-f178161fce54

And these all predate the current Paw Patrol thing.

[dragdeler]

-

[Iduno]

If there's a President Pelosi then some people will have a brain aneurysm.

More like a lethal laughing fit. Sorry for the passive agressive flavor, too easy  . TBF though, both presidential canditates are pretty old and there is a global pandemic.

The UK did fine with her less hateful clone.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

[hector13]

Um.

Please elaborate?

I feel you’re being mightily unfair to Pelosi.

For example, Pelosi is willing to spend trillions of dollars on keeping people in the black during covid, Thatcher was willing to effectively fire 20k coal miners because their mines weren’t economical, resulting in a year long strike by coal miners in Britain. She later privatized coal mining, reducing the number of collieries in the UK, and losing upwards of 200k coal miners their jobs.

There’s a reason that when she died “The Witch Is Dead” was number 2 in the UK music charts.

[Reelya]

History professor who has accurately predicted every election since 1984 says Trump will lose

https://edition.cnn.com/2020/08/07/us/allan-lichtman-trump-biden-2020-trnd/index.html

Which doesn't actually mean a whole lot however. Since there are two choices then everyone could flip a coin each election and say that's who they think will win, and after 8-9 elections, about 1 million Americans would still have correctly called every election. Even history professors, I'm guessing there are hundreds of those in the USA, so if each one of those flipped a coin each election and made a prediction, you'd still have a couple who got every election right by pure chance. Apparently there are 5000+ colleges in America so what's more noteworthy here is that so few professors have correctly guessed every presidential election that occurred in that time: a lower proportion than you'd think from just flipping a coin each time.

[lemon10]

and even the openly fascistic Thomas & Friends

Don't let your kid watch Thomas the Tank Engine or they might turn into a Nazi (I'd argue the show isn't remotely fascistic, but the trains are depicted as children and the controller as a parent, something the kids can relate to).

Once you discard the very obvious trains=children the show is actually pretty horrifying.
If you assume that the controller represents a private individual then its some kind of argument in favor of benign slavery.

Otherwise it *is* pretty transparently fasism with the government (represented here by someone who is literally called controller) possessing absolute control over a group, using reeducation, social humiliation and the removal of privileges to ensure compliance.

Since they obviously represent children (where its totally okay to use all of this coercive and manipulative behavior) its okay, but if you take a literalist interpretation of the show/books? Yeah, its pretty horrible and messed up stuff.

[Bumber]

Once you discard the very obvious trains=children the show is actually pretty horrifying.

[ChairmanPoo]

Once you discard the very obvious trains=children the show is actually pretty horrifying.

https://youtu.be/sOTBU5QJJWM

[Starver]

Which doesn't actually mean a whole lot however. Since there are two choices then everyone could flip a coin each election and say that's who they think will win, and after 8-9 elections, about 1 million Americans would still have correctly called every election.

But what if you use proven Presidential precedence?

(Though that was created in the run up to 2012. And the hovertext - assuming it was not sneakily changed much later to make it also an 'until' - turned out to obey the same form of failure in 2016. As was probably trivially predicatble, though as back in '12 there was little reason to it think it would nearly stay true.)

[scriver]

and even the openly fascistic Thomas & Friends

Don't let your kid watch Thomas the Tank Engine or they might turn into a Nazi (I'd argue the show isn't remotely fascistic, but the trains are depicted as children and the controller as a parent, something the kids can relate to).

Once you discard the very obvious trains=children the show is actually pretty horrifying.
If you assume that the controller represents a private individual then its some kind of argument in favor of benign slavery.

Otherwise it *is* pretty transparently fasism with the government (represented here by someone who is literally called controller) possessing absolute control over a group, using reeducation, social humiliation and the removal of privileges to ensure compliance.

Since they obviously represent children (where its totally okay to use all of this coercive and manipulative behavior) its okay, but if you take a literalist interpretation of the show/books? Yeah, its pretty horrible and messed up stuff.

If you take a literalist interpretation of the books yet conclude that it's slavery you forget that it's literally a bunch of trains and you are not taking a literalist interpretation

Since they obviously represent children (where its totally okay to use all of this coercive and manipulative behavior)

Well it is a book for the children, not the parents. Children tend to have a very biased view of how badly they are treated just because the BADEVIL CONTROLLER wouldn't let them have yummy looking bright blue soda for lunch

[Eschar]

IIRC the Thomas and Friends writer did actually have those attitudes about children and/or fascism, so it's not actually a misapplied interpretation as scriver said

[Starver]

Because the particular mode of authority/subservience on Sodor is the big proble

See here, scroll to Thomas, about ⅓rd of the way down.

(Or listen here, when availability allows. But that isn't right now, and though I'm sure it's out there in other forms I shouldn't promote most of them.)