Conservatives have a serious problem America is NOT a constitutional republic, it has slowly transformed into a mass democracy in which the optimal electoral strategy is vote buying Everyone, philosophers from antiquity all the way to our own Founding Fathers, warned that this form of government was to be avoid at all costs because it would be easily subverted the moment the masses realized they could vote themselves money The principles of progressives tell them that taxing people and giving their money away is good, the principles of conservatives say that giving money to people, even for very good causes, is bad This means progressives have access to the winning strategy and conservatives don't, conservatives literally have principles that say they lose long term in mass democracy Trump knows this and simply rejects that principle, buying votes wins, so we buy votes, simple Now is this a good idea long term? No, it's a disaster that will cause massive inflation just like it did during COVID and push us toward fascial collapse, but in the short term it is the winning strategy, and mass democracy incentivizes leaders to sacrifice tomorrow for today because if they don't buy votes now someone else will buy votes and they will be in power anyway Failing to buy votes makes you a loser and losers don't get to set the budget, so there is no winning formula for austerity in American politics, even thought you're factually correct you will lose If you're playing a game and your principles prevent you from winning you need to change your principles or play an entirely different game, but one of the principles conservatives have added to their slate is that the current system is good and should be maintained Even thought the founders rejected mass democracy, conservatives have made the preservation of a system they are doomed to lose in one of their core principles So because conservatives refuse to make the changes necessary to end mass democracy they will have to choose between maintaining their principles and watching the voter buyers win and spend all the money anyway, or abandon their principles and buy the votes themselves I would prefer we end mass democracy and play a different game, but we aren't going to do that, so these are the political realities before us and no amount of screaming SOCIALISM will make them go away

A juror from the Lindsay Clancy trial says the lone holdout shocked the panel during deliberations by using an exercise band and water bottle to mimic how Clancy killed her children. Nick Dargie, 25, told “Good Morning America” he was stunned by the demonstration, saying, “We’re not in here to play detective.” He said he believes a retrial would find Clancy not criminally responsible “nine times out of 10.”