@radoCurmudgeon@ironyabounds@mattyglesias Of course, McCain's vote wasn't expected, and it's entirely possible this was the Rs letting Collins and Murkowski vote performatively while keeping their margin intact.
@Todd_Cassan@radoCurmudgeon@ironyabounds@mattyglesias Yeppppp. McCain showed more courage in that one Obamacare vote than Collins has in her entire career. She was at no political risk by voting for a futile effort to convict Trump after he'd already left. On all his close-margin high-stakes SCOTUS nominees, she falls right in line.
@radoCurmudgeon@mattyglesias Well, no, that's a dumb analogy. Goebbels wouldn't vote with the Ds anyway. But I would take almost any level of scandal below literal murder or r*pe if it meant the person would vote with Democrats ~80% of the time, yes. That's the moment we're in. We need majorities to stop him
@radoCurmudgeon@ironyabounds@mattyglesias Collins only votes with the Democrats when a lot of her Republican colleagues have already decided to break ranks. In other words, when it's easy. She's never willing to be that 51st vote against an unqualified nominee or bad bill, and thus is worse than any Democrat.
@radoCurmudgeon@mattyglesias It shows that she's going to continue to be a Trump rubber-stamp, which is the entire case for voting for a scandal-ridden Platner in the general. If even a moderate blue-state R like Collins won't hold Trump to account, then truly any Democrat is better than any Republican.
@heavenly_otter@Timstillherelol there's a very funny but also apt arc in the Sopranos where they go to Italy and basically realize it's a completely different culture in which they feel alienated
@Timstillherelol Irish-American diaspora is its own completely valid cultural identity, but it is not the same as being Irish. they get annoyed at people from, say, Iowa speaking as though they were raised in Donegal, coming in hot w/ political opinions about the Troubles, + being obnoxious
@Timstillherelol in my experience if you're not annoying they really don't hate you and are quite friendly. often they'd ask about where my family was from.
just be cognizant that you're not Irish, you're Irish-American. you have more in common with an Italian-American than an Irish person.
@BillWiIdin kinda. it's less practical than an airplane when traveling across huge, mostly unpopulated regions like the Mountain West. but there are some corridors (like DC-Baltimore-Philly-NYC-Boston) where it would make a ton of sense.
@samstein you gotta think this one won't last. you can't astroturf this shit as easily as Bud Light, harleys are multi-thousand dollar purchases that people own for decades.