For eight years we’ve been told we’re overreacting as we predict all this stuff like Trump stuffing the courts with conservative activists, overturning Roe, killing chevron deference, and generally legislating from the bench. Poorly written law can be interpreted however they like. True or not, the SCOTUS majority has proven that they don’t care what’s written in the constitution, law books, etc. Whether or not you think the law can be interpreted a certain way, they are now set up to do whatever they like because even though they don’t make the laws, they actually, implicitly do.
The issue I have with Dems NOT stacking the court given the chance is that the GOP absolutely would - and might still if they wanted to future-proof their stranglehold. Stack the court. Get a shim in place (SCOTUS term limits, oversight, anything). Don’t worry about what the GOP might do, worry about what they ARE doing and maybe try getting ahead of the problem for a change.
People demanding better is not a side, and thus cannot win. The let’s not bomb kids side has zero power. Your choice is between bombing kids and bombing more kids. Enabling the bombing more kids side means your fake morals outweigh the sloppy real-world political situation that actually exists.
Your house is on fire. You are standing equidistant from a full petrol can and a bucket of water, and you’re deciding not to act because neither is the perfect solution.
You’re not wrong, but it beats the GOP’s playbook, and it’ll buy us some time to do the actual work of building a viable third party that might have a chance after 20 years of constant support from local elections on up.
Not voting sends no message other than you’re fine with how things are so you can’t be bothered. Threatening a comfy 2-party system with a solid alternative will make them sweat.
This is true. Sadly, our system of representation is limited to two viable parties, one that’s Not Great, and one that’s Demonstrably Evil. If you send the message that you dont support the Not Great party by not re-electing them, the only thing that benefits is the Demonstrably Evil party.
Both parties have proven historically that they dont care about people who won’t vote for them by simply not engaging with groups they consider a lost cause. This frees up their time and money so they can gin up the groups that do (or might) support them.
The ONLY way to make sure you have the representatives you need is to start now and hope future generations will benefit. Establish a viable independent party starting in local elections - school boards, city councils. These people make decisions about local education and infrastructure that will directly benefit people in your community and prove that this new party truly has their backs. From there, this party and their reps will move higher up into state and federal governments with recognition and an established voting record.
True representation takes a lot of time and effort, and if we start now, maybe our grandchildren will have a better life. It’s a long game, like it or not.
I haven’t seen anybody mention failing systems. These consoles are all old enough that some TLC may be required soon to replace failing capacitors, etc. If you’re good with that and the (light) headaches involved in connecting old consoles to new TVs, there are solid recommendations in this discussion.
If you’re okay with emulation, the Anbernic RG351MP (or the newer 353) will play games from Atari 2600 through PlayStation 1, including arcade machines and old DOS games. The Anbernic hardware is very nice and exceptionally portable.
Steam Deck and Nintendo New 3DS are also phenomenal emulators for old games, but require some setup.