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jfloyd314.bsky.social
MA student, early modern religious history at QMUL. Huge BYU fan living in London. BYU grad (political science '21). Latter-day Saint. Utah Jazz, RSL, Utah HC. I love politics (centrist), history, sports, aviation.
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It is genuinely frightening that avoiding war crimes is considered a "woke" ethical philosophy by this administration.

submitted 4 hours ago • 0 comments

This is especially important because I think there are observers on the left who genuinely believe the next Pope could be some hardline progressive. There's no such thing in the Vatican. But that doesn't mean the next Pope can't do a lot of good, and people need to be clear-eyed about his position.

submitted 16 hours ago • 1 comment

If Trump had never existed and Biden had still become president after Obama, I think he'd have been one of the more effective modern presidents thanks to his experience navigating the legislative process. But Trump exists, and Biden was totally unequipped to operate in the world he created.

submitted 1 day ago • 2 comments

This is what happens when you build a political movement on lies. Claiming that the VA is "in charge of payments for illegals" works on dumb people, but only when you're in opposition and can claim that the government is hiding the evidence. Once you're in charge and can't back it up, you're sunk.

submitted 1 day ago • 3 comments

This is a great way of putting it because by the standards of presidential success that Biden himself understood (from the 1970's-90's, predominantly), he was a *tremendously* productive and successful president. The problem is that those metrics for success completely missed the moment.

submitted 1 day ago • 3 comments

At the moment, barring a forced reversal, 2) and 3) are essentially dead already and 1) is hanging on for dear life only because the military chain of command is vast. We are rapidly losing everything we've ever valued from the government.

submitted 1 day ago • 0 comments

Another piece of "good" news is that that they had to dig this guy up out of retirement from a CIA job--there may well not be anyone in the higher ranks of the chain of command who Trump wanted and could get. Which suggests a measure of structural rigidity against his influence.

submitted 1 day ago • 1 comment

"Mad Dog" Mattis had his faults, but he was a heck of a lot better than most of the Trump 1 cabinet clown car. Gotta make sure that all of the reasonable people left in the chain of command polish up their audition tapes.

submitted 1 day ago • 1 comment

This is quite bad. Expected, yes, but bad. This is a Rubicon-crossing. It's one of those things that will have really crappy institutional consequences for a long time.

submitted 1 day ago • 1 comment

And as with the Kash Patel situation, that vicious cycle probably isn't avoidable. Because assuming the Constitution survives long enough for a Democratic administration to be installed, you can't have a bunch of MAGA goons gumming up the chain of command!

submitted 1 day ago • 2 comments

The fact that there is a subset of conservative Calvinists influencing the cabinet is a...fun twist on this.

submitted 1 day ago • 1 comment

A power struggle within the court of a soi-disant absolute monarch involving a faction of hardline Calvinists. More news from 16th century Scotland as we get it.

submitted 1 day ago • 8 comments

If Democrats were as effective in other areas of politics and party management as they are in regulating their House caucus, we probably wouldn't be in this mess.

submitted 1 day ago • 0 comments

My hope is that one takeaway the center/left commentariat will have from this nightmare is that the right has *zero* good-faith criticisms of the left. There's no need--and it's arguably morally wrong--to sit there nodding sagely when the GOP yells about "politicizing justice", for example.

submitted 1 day ago • 2 comments

THIS. I've gotten rhetorically body-slammed for arguing for "Rogan, but leftistly." I don't mean that the left needs a misogynistic scam artist, for pete's sake! I mean that the left needs voices that understand the current media environment and can connect with everyday people.

submitted 1 day ago • 2 comments

This is an important difference between the alt-right in Europe versus America. In Europe, memories of Nazism are still so fresh that actual Nazi imagery is deeply offensive to the point that even white supremacists don't use it. In America, it's a way of signaling that you're part of the club.

submitted 1 day ago • 2 comments

While I feel bad for the day-to-day employees who will lose their jobs because of this, I can't help but be satisfied at seeing society finally moving on from a deeply reprehensible bastion of "good ol' boys" culture.

submitted 1 day ago • 2 comments

This is true of a lot of Republicans--some of whom have since turned on Trump, but not most. Partisanship has become so intense in America, particularly on the right, that winning is the highest good for many Republicans *even if it comes at the expense of everything they actually care about*.

submitted 1 day ago • 0 comments

Being too Nazi for the party of Jean-Marie Le Pen (who, among other things, ran a music company that sold records of Nazi marches) is a truly remarkable achievement. Even the European far right is more clear-eyed about this situation than American media.

submitted 1 day ago • 1 comment

Minerva Teichert is a legend 🔥

submitted 2 days ago • 0 comments

Another example of voters constructing a fake and totally implausible version of Trump and voting for it. The right-wing media's hagiographical portrayal of Trump as a genius tycoon is one of the most successful large-scale propaganda efforts in history. Even then, this is some amazing delusion.

submitted 2 days ago • 0 comments

This gets a *lot* more complex when you consider that Elon has at least floated the idea of federal job applicants having to submit applications through Twitter, as well as creating a Twitter version of PayPal which could ostensibly be used for all government transactions.

submitted 2 days ago • 2 comments