I think the miscommunication is that you’re looking for a game-theory explanation for the best way to vote given a desired outcome, and TDD (forgive the shorthand) is doing a higher-level analysis on large-scale electoral trends and demographics that explain a shortcoming in the democratic campaign strategy.

This is a very insightful comment and helps me understand why TDD seems to be responding with intensity while not hitting the points I (at least think I) am making.

And there is an important proviso: I don't consider the "game theory explanation for the best way to vote given a desired outcome" to be "the point" so-to-speak of my comment, but just a premise. I do consider that "game theory" voting (a) results in a definite single rational course of action for this election for anyone who favors democracy or left-leaning policies. But I also, it (b) is not be the endgame and just a mitigation until we prioritize ranked choice voting and other structural reform.

I guess I'm confused by this response. So you do think that one should vote for a third-party candidate in this election? Or not?

That's me, with a brief stopover on Fark before my brain was fully developed.

I guess if we didn't fight off the beating hard enough, we deserved it?

There are three practical reasons Trump does this:

1. Deflection: Trump doesn't have an affirmative platform. As a populist strongman, Trump's platform is situational and entirely based on what his supporters want to hear in any given moment. If health care is in the news, Trump will say his plan is coming in two weeks (it won't ever come). If immigration is in the news, Trump will say he will build a wall and get Mexico to pay for it (he won't). But what's even easier? Focusing on the shortcomings of the opponent's platform. Any time this works, Trump saves himself an opportunity to be put under the microscope.
2. Deflection: Manipulating the media works. Trump knows that the more ludicrous things he says about Kamala, even if the media then starts to talk about how he's wrong or fact-check him, the focus is still on the thing he said rather than Kamala's platform. It's subtle, but it really does focus the media effectively on whatever he says, and use his frame of that issue as the media's frame.
3. Filling the echo chambers and other spaces. We're in our own echo chambers like never before. Trump says these things so that the people in the right-wing echo chambers have a plausible response to Kamala's policies, or even just need filler for their broadcast/websites/Facebook groups. Ultimately there is only so much media people can consume every day. If Trump has filled all relevant supporter spaces with his own opinions & framing, there is no time or energy left to explore other opinions and framing.

Unrelated: are you really actually frankenstein?

I mean, I don't like to advertise it...

Hey, that was nice.

Also, unrelatedly: When did it become normal for old music videos to be swapped with blurry AI-upscaled versions? So distracting once you see it...

Musk repeated the DDOS claim when the Space finally began around 8:40PM ET. “As this massive attack illustrates, there’s a lot of opposition to people just hearing what President Trump has to say,” he said.

So not only is he fabricating the DDOS out of thin air, but he just assumes out of nowhere that it's politically motivated by the "opposition" to silence Trump - when Trump is vomiting nonsense that blankets the media 24/7 and this would do absolutely nothing to prevent Trump from exposing himself to the unwilling public. Galaxy brain genius logic right there.

I'm confused, isn't this a better spot for the drain hole? When you sit facing the wall? So you have a shelf for your comic books and chocolate milk?

The latest cuts come as the company enjoys its fastest growth rate since early 2022, alongside improving profit margins. Last week, Alphabet reported a 15% jump in first-quarter revenue from a year earlier and announced its first-ever dividend and a $70 billion buyback.

Repulsive.

Graphic designer Constantine Konovalov calculated the number of characters changed between Wikipedia RU and Ruviki articles on the same topics, and found that there were 205,000 changes in articles about freedom of speech; 158,000 changes in articles about human rights; 96,000 changes in articles about political prisoners; and 71,000 changes in articles about censorship in Russia. He wrote in a post on X that the censorship was “straight out of a 1984 novel.”

Interestingly, the Ruviki article about George Orwell’s 1984 entirely omits the Ministry of Truth, which is the novel’s main propaganda outlet concerned with governing “truth” in the country.

That last detail...wow. They really don't want to leave any doubt about what they're doing, do they?

So, just a general message to all the commenters who are eye-rolling this:

Viruses mutate, and COVID has mutated continuously since it has been in the wild. All those shots did serve a purpose to continue to provide protection, and that this one will too.

You're tired? Viruses don't get tired. It's not only a good thing, it's a miracle that we even are able to keep up with these mutations and almost completely mitigate the risk of, oh, just death and life-long debilitating symptoms with a 15 minute visit to the doctor to get a shot every so often.