Wednesday's Most Active Thread

Yesterday was another day in which politics dominated the most active topics. In fact, eight of the top ten most active threads were political. One of the two exceptions, however, was actually the most active thread of the day. That thread, titled, "Dad leaves toddler to die in hot car while he plays games on Play Station", was posted in the "Off-Topic" forum. The original poster linked to an article about an Arizona man who was charged with murder after leaving his 2-year-old daughter in the car. After several hours in the hot Arizona sun, the child died. The father apparently had a habit of leaving his kids — he has three including the child that passed away — in the car. While he would leave the air conditioning running, it would stop after 30 minutes and he routinely got distracted and forgot about them. In this instance he is alleged to have been playing video games and putting away groceries. The original poster is critical of the father due to his irresponsibility, but also blames his wife who was aware that he frequently left the kids in the car but still allowed him to care for them. The original poster believes the mother had a duty to make alternative arrangements due to her husband's negligence. I'm a bit surprised that this thread — which is currently 22 pages long — has received so much engagement. Of course everyone is appalled by the father's behavior. Several posters say that they are generally sympathetic towards parents whose children die after being inadvertently left in the car. But they consider this instance to be different because the father purposely left the child behind and neglected her for so many hours. There is some difference of opinion about the mother's culpability. Many posters agree with the original poster that she should also be charged. A number of posters say that women like the mother in this incident who have irresponsible husbands are in a no-win situation. If the couple divorced, the father would likely have at least part time custody and the kids would be in even more danger of his neglect. Staying together allowed her to have more responsibility for the children, but she appears to be the family bread winner and, therefore, needs to work. As such, the mother was left with no good choices. However, because the mother has strongly defended her husband in court, several posters are unsympathetic to her and more willing to see her punished. A lot of the discussion in this thread approaches the story as if it were a soap opera. Posters dig into court documents to learn that the father has children with a previous wife and has apparently stopped paying child support. They speculate that he is a "stay at home dad" only for purposes of avoiding child support payments. Posters explore the couple's lifestyle, determining that they appear to have plenty of money. Other posters discuss how technology might help to prevent children from being left in cars. But others argue that since in this case the child was left intentionally, such systems would have been overriden.

The next most active thread was, like the remaining threads that I will discuss today, posted in the "Political Discussion" forum. Titled, "Biden has COVID", the original poster simply writes, "Now Biden has COVID!" as the entire text of her message. Discussion in this thread goes a few different ways. Much of the focus is on what this means for President Joe Biden's political future. Biden has been under considerable pressure to withdraw from the presidential race. In that regard, yesterday had already been a bad day for him as news leaked that Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, and Speaker Emerita Nancy Pelosi had all pressured Biden to withdraw. In addition, Representative Adam Schiff, the Democratic nominee for the U.S. Senate in California, also announced that he believes Biden should withdraw. Biden has been defiant in the face of such pressure, but there has been considerable demand for him to publicly demonstrate that he is fit to serve as President. Now Biden has returned to Deleware and will isolate. That is the exact opposite of what he needs to do to quell doubters. Therefore, several posters speculate that Biden's illness will contribute to his withdrawing. Moreover, several posters noted that when asked under what conditions he would step down, Biden cited medical reasons as one of them. A handful of posters didn't believe that Biden has COVID. Some insist that "COVID is only a cold" and, therefore, don't see any reason for him to interrupt his schedule. Posters argue that Biden is simply not capable of campaigning and that any attempt to do so will only reveal his physical and cognitive problems. As a result, they speculate that COVID is being used as an excuse for Biden to escape public scrutiny and essentially hide out until he is officially nominated. Other posters see something else afoot. They believe that Biden is isolating as a result of plans by Schumer, Jeffries, and Pelosi to replace him at the head of the ticket and that illness may be an excuse for his withdrawal. Other posters assume that Biden indeed does have COVID, citing the current surge in most parts of the country and the fact that Biden has been spending more time in public. There is discussion about how serious the infection could be for him. While some posters are concerned about the danger of COVID to those of Biden's age, others assume that he will be given the best care and recover quickly. Whatever else is true, this is shaping up to be a presidential campaign unlike any other in history.

Next was a thread titled, "Crunchy MAGA: The New Right of the 2020s." and, of course, posted in the "Political Discussion" forum. The original poster started out by writing that "This will be a long post" and she wasn't lying. Even summarizing the post wil be somewhat lengthy. The gist of it is that the original poster's best friend, who has been her best friend since high school, is a very "back to nature" sort of person. Her friend is mostly vegetarian, obsesses over recycling, buys food from local organic farms, installed her own solar panels, and generally fits the description you might picture of a hippy Takoma Park resident. But, in fact, the original poster's friend is supporter of former President, current cult leader, and convicted felon Donald Trump and fairly far right politically. The original poster attributes her friend's political leanings to a natural anti-government and anti-establishment mind frame which was especially triggered by the government's reaction to the COVID pandemic. Her friend opposes the COVID vaccine and has avoided taking it. She considered many of the actions taken in response to the pandemic to have been heavy handed and intrusive. The original poster says that her friend was so alienated by the Democrats whom she holds responsible for COVID measures that she has aligned solidly with Trump despite the obvious issues with which she disagrees with him and other Republicans. Several posters respond saying that they either agree with the original poster's friend or that they can relate to her. I wrote the other day about trans gender issues being a sort of gateway drug to the political right. The same is true in many cases of the COVID pandemic. Whether the motivation was vaccines, lockdowns, or school closures, the original poster's friend is not alone in making that political journey. One irony of this is that Trump takes tremendous pride in the fact that his Operation Warp Speed led to the quick development of a COVID vaccine. Had Trump won in 2020, I am fairly certain that vaccines would have been more popular among Republicans than Democrats. As a generally older population, Republicans had more to gain from vaccines and Democrats would be reluctant to trust anything coming from Trump. But since Biden won, those who oppose anything Democrats or government do naturally rallied to Trump. If there is any silver lining in a potential Trump victory, it is that he will become the establishment. When prices go up, things break down, and government doesn't work, the anti-establishment types such as the original poster's friend will have to look to Trump to fix things. Since I wouldn't expect them to find much satisfaction in Trump's response, they will likely soon be taking their political allegiances elsewhere.

The final thread that I will discuss today was, just as the two previous threads, posted in the "Political Discussion" forum. Titled, "The republicans have a lot of nerve", the original poster notes the irony of Republicans demanding that "the temperature be lowered" after the attempted assassination of former President, current cult leader, and convicted felon Donald Trump given that Republicans — and especially Trump — have primarily been responsible for raising the temperature in the first place. The original poster also commented on Arkansas Governor Sarah Sanders' suggestion that God wasn't done with Trump yet and had intervened to save him from the bullet. Based on this thinking, God was apparently done with Corey Comperatore, on whose behalf God didn't intervene. Basically, this thread is just posters of opposite political views yelling at each other about how terrible they and their political party are. I don't really have the energy to wade through it. But, if you can think of any insult of either Democrats or Republicans, it is probably in here. As for "lowering the temperature", I have commented on both of the past two days that this is a trap for Democrats. Democrats are asked to drop the most mild of criticism while Republicans go on national television to attack Democrats in the harshest of terms. Lowering the temperature is essentially a demand for Democratic surrender. Hopefully, Democrats will ignore the request. As for Sanders and her explanation of God's plans, this is just an indication of the cult behavior we should expect from MAGAs. In a cult, the only one who matters is the leader. Everyone else is expendable. Trump's only interest is himself and he will do nothing with regard to others unless there is personal benefit to him. He has so far failed to call the Comperatore family to offer condolences, despite having time to call Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. and talk to him about their apparently shared fears of vaccines. More than likely, Trump wants to keep the attention of what happened Saturday on himself. If or when he believes he can benefit from contact with the Comperatore family, he will engage with them. As the cult followers at the convention don gauze bandages over their ears, they further demonstrate the cultish nature of MAGAs. Nobody wants to adorn themselves with a fatal head wound in recognition of Comperatore who will be forgotten until it benefits Trump otherwise.