This is what happens when the Trump cultists refuse to acknowledge anything outside their extremely insular bubble: they can’t grasp that the majority of the country thinks he sucks and voted him out.

Not once in 4 years of Gallup’s 3-day tracking of Trump’s approval rating was it ever higher than 49%.

He was the least popular incumbent since Carter to run for re-election. It’s not shocking that he got his ass kicked in the election. https://t.co/7BSCQR2vI2
But if you do nothing other than consume conservative media, you’d be under the false impression that he’s popular, that his ideas are popular, and that the people who oppose him are a small group of haters.
In Gallup’s last update before the election, Trump had a -6 net approval rating. The last time it was a net positive was in May when it was +1.
And here’s how you get numbers like that: you do absolutely nothing to try to win over people who aren’t already part of your base. Look at those numbers among independents.
Just look how he compared to each of the previous 3 presidents at this point.

He banked on the Electoral College being tilted enough in favor of red states to get him re-elected. Turns out that it’s not “get 39% approval rating POTUS re-elected” level tilted.
Each of these “can you BELIEVE Biden got x number of votes more than Obama?!” takes ignore a.) population growth, and b.) highest turnout ever because people really, really wanted to kick him out of office because he’s wildly unpopular
You could tell me that a ham sandwich got 85 million votes, and as long as it was running against Trump, I’d think, “Yeah, that tracks.”
A few months ago, I wrote a piece that just took stock of how a.) Democratic policies tend to be much more popular than Republican ones, and b.) how despite this, Dems are the ones more often referred to in mainstream media as “extreme.” https://t.co/e6sZWFm45C
On this point, I think it’s worth exploring why it is that the press constantly scolds Democrats for supporting progressive policies are “out of step with America,” while those are policies are actually pretty popular. https://t.co/4KGMzeOuFV
Trump spent his time in office fighting for policies that *barely* even played well with Republican voters. For instance, he devoted time and resources to enacting policies about trans people in the military or accessing healthcare. https://t.co/CV3871q9Ai https://t.co/6qKK7wq023
The tl;dr is that Trump probably would have done better had he not obsessed with right-wing culture war crap and instead just worked on, you know, trying to govern as though he wants the support of everyone.
Like hey, you know what's actually really popular but is constantly treated like the most extreme policy on the face of the earth? Taxing the rich https://t.co/bQVPLiFrKb
And you know what wasn't popular? Trump's tax cut. https://t.co/e6sZWFm45C

If you're wondering why the framing of these things are often so tilted to show GOP policies as mainstream and Dem policies as extreme, it's media decision-makers looking out for their own interests.

More from Parker Molloy

This is trash, @AP. Utter garbage. Shame on the “journalists” who wrote this (really? You needed 2 people to report out this garbage?) Also, you don’t even make clear that this lady is wrong. You treat it as a legitimate position. What the fuck is wrong with you?


Look at this. This treats both views as legitimate. Fucking garbage.


Have you learned nothing?! This is such bullshit. Why the fuck do I even bother trying to push back on bad journalism? No one in positions of power ever listen.

I used to think that bad journalism was mostly the result of honest mistakes, but the past few years have really hammered home for me how much it is intentional trash. Shame on @AP for that bullshit. Shame on @ABC for letting Rand Paul rant about his election conspiracy theories.

Seriously, @AP @ClaireGalofaro @JulietLinderman? You didn’t even bother to note that this lady’s delusions are false.
This is a good piece by @AaronBlake. I've been scratching my head over claims that there was something in this trove of emails that implicated Fauci in something bad because pretty much everything matched up with what was being said publicly at whatever time the emails were from.


One thing that's occurred to me over the past few years is that there's a sense that the mere *existence* of emails is seen as evidence of wrongdoing, which is obviously nonsense.

It played out that way when it came to the DNC and Podesta emails in 2016, the Hunter Biden e-mails in 2020, these e-mails in 2021. It wasn't that there was much that was damning in, say, the DNC emails that helped sink Clinton's candidacy, but just their existence ...

... gave off a sense of corruption/scandal/etc., that weighed more heavily on people's perception of them as the result of them taking the form of a leak/data dump.

And it's kind of similar with the Fauci e-mails (which weren't leaked, but were FOIAed).

Anyway, again, @AaronBlake's post is a good and methodical breakdown of some of the bizarre claims being thrown about. If there's anything we didn't already know contained in those e-mails, I haven't seen it.

More from Government

The Government is making the same mistakes as it did in the first wave. Except with knowledge.

A thread.


The Government's strategy at the beginning of the pandemic was to 'cocoon' the vulnerable (e.g. those in care homes). This was a 'herd immunity' strategy. This interview is from


This strategy failed. It is impossible to 'cocoon' the vulnerable, as Covid is passed from younger people to older, more vulnerable people.

We can see this playing out through heatmaps. e.g. these heatmaps from the second


The Government then decided to change its strategy to 'preventing a second wave that overwhelms the NHS'. This was announced on 8 June in Parliament.

This is not the same as 'preventing a second wave'.

https://t.co/DPWiJbCKRm


The Academy of Medical Scientists published a report on 14 July 'Preparing for a Challenging Winter' commissioned by the Chief Scientific Adviser that set out what needed to be done in order to prevent a catastrophe over the winter
They shouldn't be.

The pattern is:
GOP in power - GOP dictates policy

Dems in power - GOP dictates policy


The Dems shouldn't legislate toward the GOP.

The GOP doesn't represent its constituents.

The GOP can push it's agenda on its own time.

If Dems push an agenda that actually helps people, it'll also actually help the GOP constituency.

The GOP won't. So give them nothing.

The Dems should ignore the GOP just like the GOP ignores the Dems.

Make them pay for every moment of obstruction.

Just a hard press on legislation that is unassailable and shine a light on the GOP.

Constant. Relentless. Unyielding.

Shut them out and shut them down.

The GOP is not a legitimate political party. It is an anti-democratic, fascist criminal syndicate with no interest whatsoever in governance.

Nobody should give them the slightest bit of credit or legitimacy ever again.

Not a fucking ounce.

Nobody should engage them in legitimate debate in Congress.

They should be pariahs and treated as unserious occupants of Congress.

Because these people were totally ok with their colleagues being killed in furtherance of the destruction of the insitution.

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Great article from @AsheSchow. I lived thru the 'Satanic Panic' of the 1980's/early 1990's asking myself "Has eveyrbody lost their GODDAMN MINDS?!"


The 3 big things that made the 1980's/early 1990's surreal for me.

1) Satanic Panic - satanism in the day cares ahhhh!

2) "Repressed memory" syndrome

3) Facilitated Communication [FC]

All 3 led to massive abuse.

"Therapists" -and I use the term to describe these quacks loosely - would hypnotize people & convince they they were 'reliving' past memories of Mom & Dad killing babies in Satanic rituals in the basement while they were growing up.

Other 'therapists' would badger kids until they invented stories about watching alligators eat babies dropped into a lake from a hot air balloon. Kids would deny anything happened for hours until the therapist 'broke through' and 'found' the 'truth'.

FC was a movement that started with the claim severely handicapped individuals were able to 'type' legible sentences & communicate if a 'helper' guided their hands over a keyboard.
First thread of the year because I have time during MCO. As requested, a thread on the gods and spirits of Malay folk religion. Some are indigenous, some are of Indian origin, some have Islamic


Before I begin, it might be worth explaining the Malay conception of the spirit world. At its deepest level, Malay religious belief is animist. All living beings and even certain objects are said to have a soul. Natural phenomena are either controlled by or personified as spirits

Although these beings had to be respected, not all of them were powerful enough to be considered gods. Offerings would be made to the spirits that had greater influence on human life. Spells and incantations would invoke their


Two known examples of such elemental spirits that had god-like status are Raja Angin (king of the wind) and Mambang Tali Arus (spirit of river currents). There were undoubtedly many more which have been lost to time

Contact with ancient India brought the influence of Hinduism and Buddhism to SEA. What we now call Hinduism similarly developed in India out of native animism and the more formal Vedic tradition. This can be seen in the multitude of sacred animals and location-specific Hindu gods