Well that’s a relief.

It’s more like Reddit is a bunch of edgy teenagers who already skew in favor of liberal ideas far beyond that of the regular voting public. It’s why atheism is wildly popular on Reddit as well as issues like abortion or trans rights, when the American public is far more evenly split.

Yes there’s some campaigning going on on Reddit as well but it’s dwarfed by the left wing base already on the site. The swell in anti-Biden posts make this split all the more obvious.

We all know Trump doesn’t actually want to serve his country. During a Hannity interview Trump couldn’t name a single thing he wanted to enact in his second term. It’s all about keeping himself out of prison and helping heal his wounded ego for losing in 2020.

The problem is that the debate doesn’t really change much… except for low information and undecided voters. They don’t know what Trump is spewing and whether it’s a lie or not. When he makes up wild claims that Biden is unanimously declared worst president in history, they don’t know that’s a lie, or that Trump is lying about capping the price of insulin or the existence of 9 month elective abortions, etc. Trump’s confident lies actually win over a lot of undecided people who don’t do any research into the topic.

I'm not too worried about the dyed-in-the-wool Democrat from California upset that we change from Biden

Californians don’t matter here. Voters in swing states like Pennsylvania do. Ohioans are less likely to vote for Gavin Newsom over Biden. If you magically think that Newsom can ramp up a presidential campaign from scratch and beat Biden’s name recognition and win Wisconsin in only 6 months, you’re being insanely optimistic.

Look, I despise Biden since he ignored all his advisors and set a disastrous Gaza policy, and want anyone but him. He was one of the worst candidates of 2020 but since he was “the most electable” we were told to shut up and fall in line. His electability has faltered. But it’s almost July, the window of time to replace him and win already closed. I’m not going to keep arguing, we’ll agree to disagree.

And 15% of the world’s prisoners.

The Israeli military is throwing out a ton of excuses rather than even give someone a mild punishment. They claim it was his idea, that they were transporting him to a hospital and no room in the car, etc. The video shows this is a lie.

This is idiotic. Gandhi hated that Pakistan split off and said that he recognized their existence but would never recognize their “right” to exist.

That’s not even an international policy. Does Castile have a right to exist? Does Kashmir? Does Kurdistan? Why doesn’t Germany demand the same for others?

Jon Stewart last week pointed out the irony of Fox News being unable to handle this data, despite pushing the “facts don’t care about your feelings” mantra for years.

No. Germany can recognize Jewish lives and the worldwide Jewish community without needing to play into the hands of a rightwing apartheid state and getting involved smack in the middle of their political dispute. This isn’t hard; it’s like being able to say Black Lives Matter without having to support and endorse the controversial policies of Louis Farrakhan.

We all know that Biden is a liability. BUT WHO WILL REPLACE HIM? I don’t like the man but who else in the party can take his role? Nobody credibly challenged him during the primary. Harris doesn’t poll as well as Biden and does worse. We’re stuck with him because nobody stepped up all year or last year, and everyone who wants him to step down thinks some magic TBD savior can show up out of nowhere and magically do better. Heck, Dean Phillips tried to run for president on the exact same issues and promised identical policies just in a younger person and he lost the race badly.

We’re stuck with Biden, and likely will lose.

a President who is predicted by polling to lose to Donald Trump.

Biden’s numbers are baked in.

No, we have a president who is ahead in some polls and behind in others, 6 months before an election (which is generally unreliable since the polls fluctuate wildly this early). Pollsters and political scientists unanimously report polling in June is not reliable this soon before Labor Day. Look back and you’ll see HIllary, Romney, and Dukakis all ahead at this point in previous elections. The reason we are having this conversation is because people got skittish about the Debate, but we don’t even have accurate post-debate survey data at this time. The snap surveys by CNN and others showed a muddle of some people claiming Biden won anyway and others not. More data will come in next week.

And don’t forget the counterfactual; if you replace Biden despite winning the primaries in a landslide, you will anger many voters. Millions of people voted for Biden and this was not close; they rejected Dean Phillips and alternatives. People voted for Harris as a known backup; skipping her and having Newsom take over will cause a storm and backlash of a size we can’t quantify yet. There simply isn’t any data on Democratic voters that show any Biden remorse; you’re operating on the vibes from social media and some pundits.

In truth, we really haven’t been through this already.

Correct, and replacing Biden is a huge risk. It could cost the election the same way John McCain took a gamble on Sarah Palin and lost.

We already have Newsom vs Biden and Newsom vs Trump polls. And the pundits talked endlessly in 2020 about the shortcomings of each candidate and why they’d struggle against Trump. We’ve been through this already.

If Biden steps down then of course whoever gets nominated will get a bump of course, but like we discussed collectively in 2020, they’d have their own separate hurdles. Bernie Sanders would energize many voters but his socialism talk would turn many voters off. Pete Buttigieg struggled to connect with voters of color. Warren had some political flubs and Trump launched many attacks on her etc. while there’s concern many Americans still won’t vote for a woman for president, and so on. The point I’m making is that you may find yourself in a situation in October where you WISH Biden was running again with his high poll numbers and solid national record that other candidates lack.

Show me one with higher poll numbers than Biden. When they were head to head in 2020 each polled lower than Biden against Trump.

I don’t want to defend Biden. He should go. He is a corrupt old man with a ton of baggage and his Palestine policy was atrocious. But I don’t see any of those people beating Trump based on the data we have.

Musk screws him over and yet he continues to use the service?

People are so stupid these days.

I don’t want to give Reddit any traffic so I’m reposting the content here:

Hi all,

I’m u/venkman01 from the Reddit product team, and I’m here to give everyone an early look at the future of how redditors award (and reward) each other.

TL;DR: We are reworking how great content and contributions are rewarded on Reddit. As part of this, we made a decision to sunset coins (including Community coins for moderators) and awards (including Medals, Premium Awards, and Community Awards), which also impacts some existing Reddit Premium perks. Starting today, you will no longer be able to purchase new coins, but all awards and existing coins will continue to be available until September 12, 2023.

Many eons ago, Reddit introduced something called Reddit Gold. Gold then evolved, and we introduced new awards including Reddit Silver, Platinum, Ternium, and Argentium. And the evolution continued from there. While we saw many of the awards used as a fun way to recognize contributions from your fellow redditors, looking back at those eons, we also saw consistent feedback on awards as a whole. First, many don’t appreciate the clutter from awards (50+ awards right now, but who’s counting?) and all the steps that go into actually awarding content. Second, redditors want awarded content to be more valuable to the recipient.

It’s become clear that awards and coins as they exist today need to be re-thought, and the existing system sunsetted. Rewarding content and contribution (as well as something golden) will still be a core part of Reddit. We’ll share more in the coming months as to what this new future looks like.

On a personal note: in my several years at Reddit, I’ve been focused on how to help redditors be able to express themselves in fun ways and feel joy when their content is celebrated. I led the product launch on awards – if you happen to recognize the username – so this is a particularly tough moment for me as we wind these products down. At the same time, I’m excited for us to evolve our thinking on rewarding contributions to make it more valuable to the community.

Why are we making these changes?

We mentioned early this year that we want to both make Reddit simpler and a place where the community empowers the community more directly.

With simplification in mind, we’re moving away from the 50+ awards available today. Though the breadth of awards have had mixed reception, we’ve also seen them - be it a local subreddit meme or the “Press F” award - be embraced. And we know that many redditors want to be able to recognize high quality content.

Which is why rewarding good content will still be part of Reddit. Though we’d love to reveal more to you all now, we’re in the process of early testing and feedback, so aren’t ready to share official details just yet. Stay tuned for future posts on this!

What’s changing exactly?

Awards - Awards (including Medals, Premium Awards, and Community Awards) will no longer be available after September 12.

Reddit Coins - Coins will be deprecated, since Awards will be going away. Starting today, you’ll no longer be able to purchase coins, but you can use your remaining coins to gift awards by September 12.

Reddit Premium - Reddit Premium is not going away. However, after September 12, we will discontinue the monthly coin drip and Premium Awards. Other current Premium perks will still exist, including the ad-free experience.

Note: As indicated in our User Agreement past purchases are non-refundable. If you’re a Premium user and would like to cancel your subscription before these changes go into effect, you can find instructions here.

What comes next?

In the coming months, we’ll be sharing more about a new direction for awarding that allows redditors to empower one another and create more meaningful ways to reward high-quality contributions on Reddit.

I’ll be around for a while to answer any questions you may have and hear any feedback!

Veterans can’t bring guns wherever they want either. There’s signs on every hospital in Ohio.

I suspect half that drop is from me alone, lol.

Reddit lost a LOT of their power users. Even if the general traffic isn't that badly dented, it means a lot of the best content and conversations will not go back. Reddit will spiral down to a 9gag clone.

Going just on headline (paywall) this isn’t a surprise. Even astronomers will tell you they see things they can’t identify right away. Some are birds, some are balloons etc. it doesn’t always mean every UFO is an alien.

Trump was going to push and threaten until this happened. It shouldn’t be a surprise after all this time and all his ranting and it should be granted. He’s accused of using his followers to stage an attack; of course he shouldn’t be allowed to again.

Twitter CEO Linda Yaccarino has not tweeted publicly about the delay.

But Musk has. It’s clear who is running things.

Again? How many times will Musk try to sneak this through? Eventually he will stop pretending and just block it.

NYT should just leave the service like other media sites.

I’m more worried than usual, because the GOP is backing him so hard. He’s going to try and delay all verdicts until 2025 by having his lawyers issue motions and objections. If Trump wins, it’s without question he’ll try to pardon himself (and likely fail) or will direct the attorney general to drop all pending cases. We literally could lose American democracy this time around.

Meanwhile Israel unequivocally killed a journalist with a tank shell. https://www.reuters.com/graphics/ISRAEL-LEBANON/JOURNALIST/akveabxrzvr/

Israel is not investigating nor punishing, so it’s an actual war crime then. Will Biden put ANY restrictions on weapons to Israel?

He claimed the gun just went off when he tripped and fell. Fortunately the jury didn’t buy his defense.

Israel dismisses any and all criticism, and always complains about medieval history as an ad hominem attack. Turkey complains about Israel killing Turkish civilians? Israel replies something about Turkey mistreating Armenians. German government complains about mistreatment of Palestinians? Call them modern Nazis. Now Spain gets derided as something from nearly 600 years ago.

This is not a religious struggle. It’s a political struggle, just with religious overtones.

The article pointed out that his excuse is weak:

tens of thousands of diabetic Californians trapped in the terrible choice between buying insulin and buying food.”

“This is a missed opportunity that will force them to wait months or years for relief from the skyrocketing costs of medical care when they could have had it immediately,” Wiener said in a news release.

He’s a legitimate blue belt in ju jitsu. Musk x’d that he’s been lifting weights in the office because of how busy he is he can’t train.

They’re too embarrassed by this point to admit they made a mistake (and they see what happens to people like Chris Christie) so they stay with the cult.

It’s also a Reverse Cargo Cult:

In a regular cargo cult, you have people who see an airstrip, and the cargo drops, so they build one out of straw, hoping for the same outcome. They don’t know the difference between a straw airstrip and a real one, they just want the cargo.

In a reverse cargo cult, you have people who see an airstrip, and the cargo drops, so they build one out of straw. But there’s a twist:

When they build the straw airstrip, it isn’t because they are hoping for the same outcome. They know the difference, and know that because their airstrip is made of straw, it certainly won’t yield any cargo, but it serves another purpose. They don’t lie to the rubes and tell them that an airstrip made of straw will bring them cargo. That’s an easy lie to dismantle. Instead, what they do is make it clear that the airstrip is made of straw, and doesn’t work, but then tell you that the other guy’s airstrip doesn’t work either. They tell you that no airstrips yield cargo. The whole idea of cargo is a lie, and those fools, with their fancy airstrip made out of wood, concrete, and metal is just as wasteful and silly as one made of straw.

1980s Soviets knew that their government was lying to them about the strength and power of their society, the Communist Party couldn’t hide all of the dysfunctions people saw on a daily basis. This didn’t stop the Soviet leadership from lying. Instead, they just accused the West of being equally deceptive. “Sure, things might be bad here, but they are just as bad in America, and in America people are actually foolish enough to believe in the lie! Not like you, clever people. You get it. You know it is a lie.”

Trump’s supporters don’t care about being lied to. You can point out the lies until you’re blue in the face, but it makes no difference to them. Why? Because it is just a game to them. The media lies, bloggers lie, politicians lie, it’s just all a bunch of lies. Facts don’t matter because those are lies also. Those trolls on Twitter, 4Chan, T_D, etc. are just having a good laugh. They are congratulating each other for being so smart. We are fools for still believing in anything. There is no cargo, and probably never was.

Nurses who accidentally poison patients go to jail, but cops get nothing but community service?

Interstate commerce is regulated by federal government; they could block this easily but Republicans are filibustering any attempt.

Anti-semitism is evil and should be eradicated. So is Islamophobia. Both of these are out in full force and neither is justified no matter how you feel about Israel and Palestine. It doesn’t help that you have politicians feeding into these.

I’m strongly opposed to Zionism in its present form, but doesn’t mean anyone can cross the line into anti-Semitism. Also, criticizing Zionism is NOT anti-semitism no matter how often the far right tries to claim otherwise.

Republicans will fight him on this, because somehow they’ll find fault in this if a DEMOCRAT does it.

Your memory is faulty. In summer and fall 2020, Trump was indicating to staff he may try to force the FDA to approve a vaccine without completing the required tests, just so he could claim that vaccines were out before the election. That would have been catastrophic and stretched the pandemic out for years. Biden and Harris said clearly and publicly on TV that they do not trust Trump and would only trust vaccines approved by scientists. The Pfizer and Moderna vaccines both completed phase 3 trials and got FDA authorization in December 2020, and both Biden and Trump got vaccines to show that it was safe.

Hardly. Israel has been running an apartheid system for decades now, but only now that Netanyahu is going to influence the courts to negatively affect Israelis and not just Palestinians, suddenly Israelis are up in arms.

Netanyahu’s plans are bad and will worsen everything, but the system was already undemocratic to begin with. Courts already denied rights to Palestinians and held minors without access to lawyers, detaining some Palestinians for years to decades without trial. The courts upheld demolition of Palestinian families homes without due process and then when Palestinians petitioned for the same punishment for Israeli terrorists the courts declined to intervene.

Edit: also this judicial change opens Israel up to even more charges of crimes against humanity, as judicial checks and balances are eliminated it means the government is more strictly responsible for human rights abuses.

According to the comics, webbing dissolves and fades away after a day.

They don’t actually care about Hunter or even the charges; heck they probably don’t even agree with the gun background check law he broke. They just want a way to go after Biden and take him down. They want something to make him unpopular and rally the rest of the normal public behind so they can get him to lose. Once he’s out of the picture they can have their way on Abortion or Immigration or whatever their single issue voting topic is.

There’s just so much horrifying stuff about this story. The heinous stuff that he said, the fact that these videos clearly were recorded on different days so he had been at it for a while, or the fact that he was high up in the state department working on US-Israeli and US-Afghanistan policies while having such terrible views.

It’s also weird that he’s trying to insult this poor working man about his religion but not even pronouncing his Arabic evidence properly.

The data is not back yet, but some of the power users left. It’s said only 1% of users submit posts, and if they leave the rest of the community stagnates. Many mods left, which means spam and reposts and low quality content will fill the site. It’s going downhill, how fast is up for debate.