How about talking about politics in this thread?
I hadn't watched Kimmel before, but with all the noise about his cancellation and return to the air I decided to check out his monolog last night. As he mentioned in the broadcast, it seems like the Trump administration's attempts to silence him backfired because his ratings were higher than usual. I actually thought he handled the whole thing pretty well, acknowledging why some people may have taken what he said the wrong way but explicitly without apologizing for it - as he didn't say anything he should apologize for. Talking about the importance of an independent press that is able to criticize the president and Trump's unfriendliness toward the 1st amendment being anti-American behavior really hit the nail on the head for me and is why it bothers me deeply that even a single American would vote for him. This guy has no respect for his country or appreciation for its values. He is as unAmerican as electric cars (because, thanks to his policies, we will likely be buying them mainly from China).
I've expressed in this thread that corporate America's willingness to easily bend over to Trump in the second term being something that concerns me. It's pretty silly in the grand scheme because a talk show host is not top of the priority list, but seeing Disney bend to public pressure in this way gave me more of a shred of hope than I've felt since last November. It also goes to show, as I tried to explain in an earlier post, if there was an actual public resistance to Trump he probably wouldn't be in office anymore. I hope that boycotts like what Disney experienced over the weekend continue and people start to wake up to the fact that their spending decisions can enable/disable fascism.
I still believe that America has institutions that can curb Trump's fascism, but those institutions aren't really working right now. The Democratic party is, if it's even possible, handling Trump even worse the second time around than they did the first time around. I'm extremely worried by the fact that there is no central message going into 2026. Everyone is so easily distracted because of all the noise and Trump's strategy of "flooding the zone with shit" is working because instead of focusing on the economy and the Epstein files... well take a look through the last few pages of this thread if you dare. I think Democrats are strong contenders to take back the house next year just because of geography alone, but it's by no means a sure thing especially in this modern climate. Trump is going to try every extralegal measure he can to steal the election, but he might not need to even do that. If he can intimidate the press, would be donors, or other groups from supporting Democrats the party might not be strong enough to win elections. This isn't something that is getting talked about much as I think everybody's idea of Trump going full dictator is him literally cancelling elections, but he can shift the balance of power in favor of Republicans for the next decade just by depriving the Democrats of their fundraising sources.
This is all to say I hope the party gets its act together and figures out a central message for 2026 soon (ideally one focused on economics). Right now it's not looking good.