Only three, huh? And people say he can’t change.

I don’t think this is true at all. She has a lot of media appearances coming up, as does Tim Walz.

But as other people have said, if you’re worried about, you can do something about it!

But he voted Trump in 2016. I think that’s what @[email protected] meant by a ‘historical conservative’.

Further thoughts on this:

Criticising the Democrats as merely a type of Republican has other downsides: it effectively takes the Republicans as the standard type of politician, i.e., it turns every argument into an argument on their terms.

This also means that we don’t effectively criticise the Democrats, who are best criticised on their terms, not as merey lesser or mutated Republicans.

The “lesser” fascist is still a fascist, and fascists spend much more of their time attacking us than attacking each other, and on top of that even if they do attack each other it’s through attacking us.

But the Democrats aren’t fascists, lesser or otherwise. They’re not ‘the Republicans, but less so’; they’re a different organisation with different histories and philosophies, different people and different priorities. The Democrats, for example, are not promising to overthrow the constitution, but overthrow it a bit less than the Republicans; they’re not planning to overthrow it at all. Degrees of evil are not possible in this case, nor in many others. The Republicans are straight up wrong in a way that the Democrats just are not.

For these reasons, I don’t buy the framing of lesser evil at all. If I did buy that framing, I would still wholeheartedly vote for the lesser evil, because it would still be better than more evil, by definition. Even your definition of ‘the same amount of evil, but slower’, would be better.

Seems like a good choice from where I am (which is, granted, the other side of the ocean). Republicans want to depict Democrats as dangerous extremists, but Walz comes across as a friendly dad, so that just won’t stick. No one will care about his policy record, they’ll just sound weird talking about that stuff.

The thing is that when Americans voted for the oldest Presidential candidate ever, with Harris as the VP, they were effectively saying they were okay with her as President. So, it’s safe to have some faith in Americans on this one!

Absolutely correct. And Trump is very beatable. The Democrats have loads of candidates who could beat him (including, IMO, Biden, but that’s in the past, now).

This is another version of the comment people are mocking. ‘Ah, but in this incredibly extreme situation, bikes are inefficient!’ Yeah, I know, mate. I wasn’t planning on biking to the south pole with a fridge on my back, was I? The point is not that bikes are the best solution for every single journey any human has made or will ever make, but that cars aren’t the best solution the vast majority of the time.

Once had a motorist furiously shout, wave and honk his horn at me because he hadn’t checked his mirrors to see that his generous offer involved me cycling directly under the wheels of a bus. I live in London. It was a bright red double-decker. He hadn’t seen it.

Unbelievable. And she only stopped ‘after the car became too damaged to drive’!

I agree with your description of him, but the only thing that’s relevant here is the insurrection. It’s important not to muddy the waters with the other stuff!

Prior to the election, Donald Trump incited the Proud Boys specifically and other militant groups to insurrection with his ‘stand back and stand by’ comments. These were taken by many observers and the Proud Boys themselves as calls to seditious conspiracy. Members of the Proud Boys then planned the 6 January attack, including planting bombs around Washington DC, and were involved in the attack on the Capitol. Many have been convicted of this conspiracy, so there’s no legal question as to whether it happened. I don’t know if incitement to an insurrection counts as insurrection in and of itself. It might do, but I’m not a lawyer.

Having lost the election, Trump knowingly engaged in a conspiracy to undermine a free and fair election, which he knew he had lost, in order to keep himself in power. Some aspects of that conspiracy have gone to trial and defendants have been found guilty. So, there remain some legal questions as to the extent of the conspiracy, but it is quite clear that people involved broke the law in the pursuit of the conspiracy. The conspiracy constitutes an attempted insurrection in itself.

When his conspiracy failed, he then incited a violent attempt to overthrow the election (the ‘fiery stuff to a rally’) and allowed it to continue as people were violently attacked. This also constitutes an attempted insurrection.

Ignoring elections, banning opposition parties and turning the guns on striking workers all happened under Lenin. Stalin was worse but Lenin doesn’t get off the hook by a long shot.

You’re probably right about the post-COVID thing of not wanting to be in enclosed spaces, actually. There was also a big increase in cycling right after the 7/7 bombings, for similarly depressing reasons.

Yes, I think the increase in WFH is likely the biggest factor. Still, the bike lanes are probably helping more people make active travel decisions and keeping them safe when they do, so it’s all good!

I mean, just google what a Ulez camera is, man. It’s to enforce a low-emissions zone, so that cars don’t kill people with air pollution. It’s an expansion of the already successful low and ultra-low emissions zones in London.

The explosion didn’t hurt anyone but that was pure luck. You cannot safely blow something up on a public road. Anyone who’d been walking, cycling or driving by at the wrong moment could’ve been seriously injured or killed. Again, this is obvious.

And, yes, anyone who responds to a public health policy with explosives is an extremist.

It makes the roads safer and that saves lives. It reduces pollution, saving more lives. It also saves space. That doesn’t save lives, granted, but it’s still a good thing.

If we accept any use cases for cars (and I do, personally), even if it’s primarily in the short to medium term while we build better urban infrastructure, then we should also advocate for those cars to be as small, as safe and as clean as possible.

Exactly this. There are some clear use cases for cars and even for SUVs (possibly only if you literally live or work on a large farm). There’s no case for driving an SUV in a city. It’s antisocial behaviour at best and actively threatening at worst!

This will help to ameliorate that!