https://www.lgbtqnation.com/2023/11/republicans-are-now-mad-that-pete-buttigieg-drives-his-family-around-in-a-minivan/
Chasten had the best response...
It's because he's gay and homosexuality is a moral choice. Did that piss you off? Read on...
Credit where due, the Republicans knocked it out the park with the whole, "Anyone non-cis is an active pedophile or grooming a target!"
They kinda got fucked using gays as a wedge issue. Worked in its time, but once gays started coming out the closet en masse, and we collectively realized they were nothing to be afraid of, meh, the hate fell off the charts. Losing this issue was alarming as hell! Best they could do was drop gay rights in the culture-war bucket. Liberals and conservatives alike found the water rather tepid.
Now I don't think there was any sort of organized, cartoonish, "evil master plan", but conservatives saw they were getting attention with the groomer talk, and it snowballed, fast. Target reacquired! And man, what a perfect target. Go after a minority that the rest of us can't emotionally relate to, even given zero problems with homosexuality, and who could be anybody!
To back up the truck, remember they went after trans folks to begin this new pogrom. An even tinier minority! And those people are grooming your kids into changing into something else, just like they did to themselves! Think of the children! LOL, it's some Invasion of the Body Snatchers kinda paranoia.
Seeing some outrage on social media? ROLL WITH IT. No grandiose, back room, cigar smoking plan required. Conservatives simply roll with what works. Backed into a demographic corner, necessity is truly the mother of invention.
This is all so easy if you frame non-cis people as having made a choice. Now you can point your finger and legitimately call them bad guys. This is Fascism 101. Minorities, out groups, focus of hatred, both powerful and weak, all that.
Liberals: "But, but, but... Facts and reason and ethics and morals are on our side!!!"
What if I told you; Emotions sell, facts do not. Sales 101, first day of class, before lunch kinda instruction.
Not going to appeal to the, "I'm old, therefore wiser than you." boolshit. But I've watched all this unfold over 5 decades. It really is this plain.
I don't know the answer, but Jesus, look at the tweets in the story. We're not winning hearts and minds by being logical, moral or right.
Meh, Cold War kid here. We likely made it past the daily threat of nuclear Armageddon, a likely contender for the Great Filter solution to the Fermi Paradox.
WWIII is almost certainly off the map, let alone an ICBM nuclear exchange. Our peoples, and more importantly our economies, are too interrelated to rage that far and wide.
Think Ireal and Palestine are setting a dangerous stage? Despite the strategic and religious importance of that land, first-world nation-states ain't gonna throw down like that. It's a proxy war.
Think Russia and the Ukraine are throwing down? Another proxy war. Writ large, yes, but still a proxy war. (And Slava Ukraini! my friends. Kill ever last motherfucking Russian you can get your hands on.)
Neither war is worth risking nukes. We old folks grew up knowing exactly what's on the table once the bombs drop. I'll grant; We do risk forgetting.
As fucked up as the world seems, and is, to young folks, we don't have two superpowers with a hair-trigger on planet-crossing, missiles capable of disgorging multi-megaton MIRVs.
Those are old concerns, as you say. But just because you survived and just because those are not realistic threats today doesn't mean all ok. There are different and even worse concerns today.
having made a choice
It's pretty hilarious that the celebrants of freedom use choice as grounds for persecution.
Now I don't think there was any sort of organized, cartoonish, "evil master plan", but conservatives saw they were getting attention with the groomer talk, and it snowballed, fast.
There's at least a tacit conspiracy between the right and Russian oligarchs to amplify this sort of messaging. It's why Elon bought Twitter and unbanned all the hate mongers.
Fellas, is it illegal to have a family ride in a single vehicle? Holy shit I'm fucked.
You're obviously gay and therefore a pedophile groomer. See how easy that was?
Did that seem like a crazy leap of logic? I know this meme has been beat to death, but this kinda story was a The Onion article 10-years ago.
Pete would probably be a top ten President of all time. Extremely smart, likeable, and handles himself well. He already is the best Transportation secretary in my lifetime, though the competition wasn't very strong.
The guy was a total cypher with no discernible policy positions that were actually 'his own'. He did his job at preventing us from getting Bernie elected, and got compensated accordingly.
Yeah unfortunately I totally agree. He was really careful not to take any actual positions. He’s articulate, and obviously very intelligent, with a somewhat unique identity. But that’s pretty much it. The first time I saw him speak, I remember being really impressed with his overall demeanor and the fact that he’s comfortable talking about complex topics, but I went back and rewatched it shortly after and realized he didn’t actually say anything at all, it just seemed like he did. He’s a master talker, but very little substance.
Pete would be an ok President. He is definitely aware of the politics around him and can leverage that to his favor. I just haven't seen the long term thinking you need in a President. Pete seems far more transactional for now.
Like that transaction when he traded Biden: drop out of the primary so voters would coalesce around Biden and away from Sanders in exchange for a cabinet seat. The 3rd 4th and 5th place candidates coming into Super Tuesday all announced within a few days they were dropping out and endorsing Biden.
He strikes me as a shrude pragmatist and I'm not a fan of that, nor of ex CIA agents going into executive politics.
This comment just made me throw up in my mouth a little bit.
But I guess you know your….. checks notes….. transportation secretaries? The actual fuck. Did you really just say that this mumbling neoliberal corporate whore is the best transportation secretary in your lifetime?
How far up your ass did you have to reach to pull that bs statement out?
Ok but low-key, I hope the op has like, a 60 minute video ranking the last 50 years of transportation secretaries.
Obviously Alan S. Boyd would be the only S tier. Buittigeg would maybe get to B tier.
I mean if he did his research lol.
Come on now, Federico Peña has to at least make the top 5. Just kidding, I just chose him randomly.
Federico Peña
Let me guess you only watched the netflix adaptation and probably not even the sub.
:sheesh:
Everyone knows the real GOAT Transportation Secretary is the only one we know has fucked Mitch McConnell:
Elaine Chao
As someone following USDOT socials, it is crazy how much Pete has posted more than Elaine.
Okay mofo you wanna go there? Cuz I’ll take you there! You don’t know jack about transportation secretaries! You probably think light rail is something they have in Europe!
Oof. Unless he’s trying to make a pro union statement, I think he got the wrong van. I would never buy a Stellantis product. He should have gone with a Sienna or Odyssey
Up until a couple years ago, the Pacifica was the only hybrid available. The Sienna has a hybrid now. But that's it.
I'd never buy any Honda with the 3.5V6 with eco mode. At least not without also buying an aftermarket harness to disable eco mode.
Honda eco mode shuts off one bank of cylinders in cruising and coasting conditions. In a very short period of time (60K miles for ours, I've seen reports of it happening earlier), those cylinders running without combustion will eat the piston rings. If you drive less aggressively, this happens sooner. Honda may or may not pay for the several thousand dollar repair, depending on which corporate warranty adjuster you happen to get.
There was already a class action for certain model years, with a TSB. But they didn't actually change anything about the design, so it does happen in any 3.5V6: Odyssey, Pilot, whatever.
The Hellsite has hellions acting hellish for the hell of it.
Here’s Tom with the weather…