That seems like a convenient excuse for him to bear less, or none of, the guilt for his actions.

Does Agent Smith have autonomy?

Or the definitions of what it means to be conservative or liberal have changed, and that’s altered the conscious and subconscious calculus for people.

I would also add the ratcheting up of political identity as personal identity, and an intensification of tribalism.

Then again, that’s all tied up in my own confirmation bias.

Being loud and given attention, they can be the only example of “leftists” some people knowingly interact with.

Another way of thinking about it:

Numbers offer a sense of scale. As numbers go further left from the decimal, they get bigger and bigger. Likewise, as they go right from the decimal, they get smaller and smaller.

If I’m looking with just my eyes, I can see big things without issue, but as things get smaller and smaller, it becomes more and more difficult. Eventually, I can’t see the next smallest thing at all.

But we know that smaller thing is there— I can use a magnifying glass and see things slightly smaller than I can unaided. With a microscope, I can see smaller still.

So I can see the entirety of a leaf, know where it begins and ends, even though I can’t, unaided, see the details of all its cells. Likewise, you can see the entirety of the line you drew, it’s just that you lack precise enough tools to measure it with perfect accuracy.

Eh, there’s also a decent chunk of non-native English speakers who might have a harder time with written sarcasm, and Poe’s law, I don’t doubt, accounts for more.

I would say that’s still a manageable temp to go vote in, if you’re spending little time out of doors, rather going house-to-car-to-building. Any significant requirement of time spent outside, particularly idling in line; changes that.

That answer is also changed depending on the state of the ground/roads. Is there a significant amount of ice about? In neighbouring Wisconsin there is.

Also, a lot of voters, particularly conservative ones, are older, and the perils of the ice and deep cold are greater for them, and likely considered as such.

So… yeah. I can see weather dampening turnout at this quite a bit.

It is also freed from its original form by being nearly eighty years removed.

I don’t have the time to stay angry forever, let alone against an organisation several generations removed from its foundational sins.

That seems pretty bonkers, with the barest minimum knowledge of geography.

Like, look at a map level of bonkers.

Believing this account outright is just as foolish as dismissing it outright.

There’s a reason “the first casualty of war is the truth” is a cliche— it’s because it’s very hard to know exactly what’s going on when there’s so much chaos and impetus for people to push agendas.

I have some assumptions I’m confident about, but those are fairly broad, and based on the nature of what happens in any war. Specifics I’m trying hard to slow-roll my reactions to and full acceptance of— I’ve seen way too many news stories about active situations be proven in part or in whole false, and most of those aren’t in war zones.

I mean, you’re not wrong. Neither of you are.

It is scary, and the precedent in the world is not for long-term national stability. Even setting aside invasion and occupation, dynasties end, governments fall, and a country’s name might be among its only bits of continuity to the past.

Betting on a country maintaining a continuous government for a hundred years is taking the long odds. Those odds become even worse if the government is relatively new. The USSR lasted less than 70 years, and the current Russian government has only been around a bit over 30(less, if you’d argue that Putin has fundamentally changed it). Stability is truly a bad bet for them in particular.

And they have a giant arsenal of weapons, nuclear and otherwise. “Worrying “ is a fully reasonable response.

You gave a perfectly reasonable answer to the question in eight words. No evasion.

With a fair cohort moving here to escape the creep of corporate internet, it doesn’t seem, on the face of it, like they’re looking for drama. Saying they are is a handy way of dismissing them out of hand, though.