You should work more so that the 1% can buy more mansions and bigger yachts.

Duh.

Presumably his advisors determined that he needed to Overton more and faster if he wanted to ensure that he'd be the neolib weasel the DNC shoves down our throats in 2028.

Yes.

I'd go even further - get them from people who emulatecthe games rather than people who play them on (or merely buy them for) the original hardware.

People who emulate retro games are demonstrably SOLELY interested in playing the games, without any of the collector cachet getting in the way.

It's just one tantrum after another for the Toddler-in-chief.

So that means another important threshold is coming.

Trump and Musk, being the psychopathic pieces of shit they are, are going to want to treat their growing unpopularity and ever-stronger opposition as some sort of conspiracy rather than an honest expression of popular opinion, and they're going to try to clamp down on it - to start arresting and silencing people for the "crime" of opposing them.

And the question is going to be, will Americans again just roll over and take it as a couple of psychopathic dickweeds with daddy issues systematically destroy everything the US has ever stood for?

Even a year ago I would've said no, but now...

That's Dictatorship 101 - if the experts say you're wrong, get rid of the experts.

As if it wasn't bad enough that the Democrats were being passively complicit in Trump's fascist coup d'etat, now they're being actively complicit in it.

I can do a spot-on impression of the standard deep, booming monster-truck rally advertising voice.

"This FRIDAY! (Friday... Friday...) Only at the Gigantodome! Beer Swiller Productions presents MONSTER TRUCK MAYHEM! You'll pay for the entire seat but you'll only need the EDGGGGGGGGE!"

Well... of course you can't hear it, but if you could, seriously, it's dead-on.

Yes, because if it was more open, there would be a risk of leftists gaining influence.

There are no depths to which he will not stoop.

And that's part of what his fans like about him.

I wonder if there's been any scholarly research on that? It seems on reflection that it's actually fairly common for autocrats to not only be foul, destructive, self-absorbed pieces of shit, but for them and their supporters to treat that as some sort of badge of honor.

More broadly, it's striking me that there are likely dominant moods in countries - periods during which for instance, a plurality of progressives elects a progressive or a plurality of patriots elects a patriot or a plurality of warmongers elects a warmonger.

And the current US is a plurality of assholes who elected an asshole (two for the price of one even).

I sincerely expect future historians (if there are any) to have a specific name for this particular period in American history - something like "The idiot Age" or "The Faceplant Years."