Enjoy your fascist dictator then

Yes? I’m not saying Michigan handed him the election, I’m saying protest votes and no-votes played a big role. We’re fucked due in part to people who say “ooh that will show the DNC”

Look, it’s such an exhausting night, and I really do believe that you want to see a better world. I do too.

I’m just so shattered that we’re looking at four years of chipping away at the rights of women, LGBT, and transgender people. Four years of degrading all the checks and balances against the president. Four years of political retaliations going unchecked. Four years of aggressive anti-climate policy, inhumane border policy, and pandering to a Russia (and now North Korea!) that is also slaughtering innocents in Ukraine. Four years of middle east policy that is at least as bad as Biden/Harris’s, but likely far worse. And four years of slamming our economy with tariffs to “own the Chinese” I guess.

A vote for Harris was a vote to make things better. Not everything. Good lord she wasn’t the answer to so many major issues facing the US and the world. But it was an objectively better vote, by every metric, than a vote for Trump, or a no-vote. I just can’t argue any more on that.

In many elections, that would make sense. But in this election, there was a sizeable group of Nikki Haley Republicans up for grabs, who clearly didn’t want to vote Trump if they could get an alternative. Is there a group of leftists who may have turned out in larger numbers if Harris had swung left? Yeah, maybe. But is that group anywhere near as large as the Haley Republicans, and are they present in swing states? No and no.

One Cheney convert in a swing state is worth a dozen liberals like me in California lol. Swinging right is the rational political move for the leftmost candidate. Swinging left is the rational political move for the rightmost candidate, which is why we saw Trump clumsily try to soften his stance on abortion.

I mean, I do? Trump massively outperformed Harris in swing states, so clearly Harris’s campaign wasn’t able to meet swing state voters where they are. Literally, these were the only people who matter in the US election under the current rules (sadly). Of course Harris swung right, and of course it didn’t work well enough, but not doing it would have been worse…

I hate politics as much as the next person, but god damn. Recognize the game is what it is, play it as necessary, and then move the needle where you can. Sheesh.

Watch an episode of DS9 maybe? Sisko is the literal embodiment of a person who is willing to make the tough choice that he personally finds unethical, but knows will be better for the world as a whole.

So then the logic here is “vote for a candidate who is at least as bad for Gaza, but will also fuck up the rest of the world”. Or “don’t vote for the candidate who will be obviously less damaging for the rest of the world, even though my action won’t help Gaza at all”.

Even if you assume Harris would have been just as bad for Gaza… I mean it’s patently clear that the only choice is to vote for the lesser of two evils and then raise hell that you need better policies from them.

The one thing I’ve learned from experience w/ Donald Trump is that he finds a way to make things worse.

Anybody who failed to vote Harris shares the blame, it’s fairly obvious lol

Florida’s cannabis legalization ballot measure failed…

And thanks in part to Michigan voters, we have a president who will fuck over Gaza even more. Great success.

I have an air compressor which is powered by the 12V DC outlet in a car. They are quite cost effective and easy to buy. I use it all the time to refill my tires. Much better than some odd exhaust pressure solution.

Don’t hate the player, hate the game.

It’s not even close!

What you’re saying is you wish Ira Steven Behr ran the show instead of Rick Berman. And really, don’t we all wish that?

Yes!

Or her usefulness to the episode could be that Edgar Alien Perv has a crush on her.

Yeah that was a super rough episode.

We just are taking two different perspectives about being essential. Uhura was like an organ: quietly essential to the regular operation of your body. Whereas Hoshi is like hands or maybe ears or something: very important for achieving your body’s goals, but you can compensate for them not working. You’re right Uhura is more essential. I just think it’s more interesting watching the hands / ears of the ship helping achieve the mission.

At least it wasn’t as bad as Mayweather’s character arc of becoming a background extra.

😭😭😭 so true

It’s funny because I have the exact opposite opinion! I feel like in TOS, Uhura just relays messages and presses buttons on her console. Maybe I’m missing something though. Maybe she’s critical to the intra ship communications as the “telephone operator” but she never seems to be critical to the mission.

On the other hand, ENT spends a lot of time building up how many languages Hoshi knows, and how quickly she can pick up new ones, even alien languages. She definitely has her moments where she just struggles until the UT works. But in several episodes they rely on her to translate alien writing, and in at least one or two, she learns to speak a whole new language to communicate. She’s also shown to have developed major improvements to the UT. My impression of her, even from Broken Bow when Archer recruited her, was that she’s a freaking language savant, operating and developing very new experimental tech. It is sad she didn’t get to fully realize her transition from timid linguist to badass crew member (and still linguist). But I always felt like she was doing something critical for the mission, whereas I felt Uhura (in TOS) wasn’t.

SNW Uhura is very different in that regard, she does a lot more “mission critical” stuff and she’s getting an arc that’s very reminiscent of Hoshi (totally a savant, hard working, starting out timid but growing). So I love that for her!

I appreciate the recognition, finally!