Twitter death spiral and red trickle and weed

[rthstewart]

As someone who gets a lot of political news, reads a lot of political news, is married to someone who checks Real Clear Politics every day (spousal unit is far more conservative than I am and he's not having a good day), and who has sat in on dozens of meetings with highly paid political consultants going on and on and on (and on and on) about the red wave, I was happy with yesterday's results, even if I continue to be horrified that a full 49% of the American electorate are .... ahem... do not see the world as I do. Thank you Gen Z and I continue to be deeply embarrassed by white women generally and especially those in my age cohort. Old white lady Privilege. It's a helluva of a drug.

Why do people not yet realize 1) Rs are lying in their fake polls and 2) a significant cohort of the electorate will not answer phone calls even of people they know! Stupid polls.

I wish the Ds could have held onto the House but give the rampant gerrymandering that wasn't going to happen. I was very pleased to see Fetterman do so well and really wish that Senate wins could have been pulled out in WI and OH. Vance? Really? WTF? And I'm very sad for Texas and really wish that Stacey had been able to beat that snake Kemp.

Also, I'm shocked, really shocked that adult recreational use didn't pass in North and South Dakota or ARK.  I'd given several speeches predicting passage.  Oops.  I"m wondering if we're seeing the State Farm bureaus finally get organized.  Weed legalization ignores typical political boundaries.  It's hugely popular and SD had passed it in 2018 but then the bat shit cray Governor sued to stop it.  ND had a similar measure pass its lower legislative body.  So, I dunno.  But maybe it's a bit like what you see in Kentucky and Senator Mitch McConnell -- they don't give a damn about cannabis unless it's hemp -- they LOVE hemp and hemp derived cannabinoids.  However, due to poor cultivation practices, States like KY have a HUGE problem with "hot" hemp crop -- it's too high in delta-9 THC to be legal hemp (0.3% or less on a weight basis) but too low in THC to be marketable as marijuana.  it's basically just crap marijuana.  (I do a LOT of weed work).

In any event, I guess Elon Mush has been blathering in a Twitter thing all afternoon in a desperate attempt to keep advertisers. There's a whole thing where maybe you'll have to pay $8 a month for people to see your Tweets? Whut? I dont' even know. And now apparently they've decided to turn Twitter into... yes... a crypto Paypal or Venmo? But they promise returns! Fantastic returns! And debit cards!
I'm not a banking regulator -- but there's like -- A LOT.  Apart from the SEC, FTC Financial Services, Division and CFPB (you wanna bet Director Rohit Chopra has got staff on it already) and the assortment of federal and state banking authorities... I can't even imagine what this mess looks like.  Ponzi scheme comes to mind.  LOL.  it's pathetic.

Comments

[aurumcalendula]

I'm happy things generally went better than predicted, but I'm bummed out about Ohio.

[rthstewart]

Yeah. Agreed. The whole redistricting was in violation of Court order but the Republicans in the legislature just don't care. Absolutely lawless. And GA is in a runoff. I hope interest can stay high enough.

[autumnia]

I've been trying to watch the election coverage in tiny doses because I can only take so much of the depressing news of the state of this country (and the electorate). Not as terrible as it could have gone (touch wood) but still very sad. I'm also very surprised at how some of the results turned out here in NY (House Reps, I'm looking at you) but at least Hochul will remain in the governor's seat for now. I also blame the stupid redistricting that happened a few months ago (for which I think Democrats definitely share in the blame).

Also keeping a wary eye on Twitter though I don't use it too much so it's less impactful on me. I've tended to ignore what's on my feed these days because it consists of mostly retweets on things I'm not really interested in. And looks like Meta isn't doing well either with the layoffs.

All in all, 2022 has sucked less than expected but still, hasn't been too great a year.

[katharhino]

Living in Michigan, I feel quite a bit more relief/ hope than I expected to. Certainly still concerned about *gestures at everything* but it's better than I feared!

I've never been so happy not to have a Twitter account. Like.... what? What is he doing?

[izzy]

Sigh, we (WI) tried so hard. We held onto our governor (the last line of defense between the nonrepresentative state legislature and our human rights), and said nonrepresentative state legislature did not achieve veto-proof majority, so... it could have been a lot worse?