You seem to be operating under the misplaced assumption that Trump’s goal with the tariffs was to actually bring manufacturing back to the US or improve the US economy in any way. It’s understandable if you haven’t paid very close attention to Trump over the past 9 years. But whenever thinking about him or his policies, you have to keep one thing top of mind: Trump is a habitual liar who only cares about his own personal wealth and power.

He’s not trying to bring manufacturing back to the US or improve the US economy. He’s doing market manipulation to increase his wealth and that of those who helped get him into power. He doesn’t give a shit about you or me or any of the rest of us. He couldn’t care less if the US crumbled into dust tomorrow, so long as he’s still on top.

Trump has stated many times he’ll serve a third term. Told people they’d “never need to vote again.” He fully plans on being President untill he dies.

Hell, his official website is selling Trump 2028 merch.

I’m also so accustomed to his normal podcasting voice that when he does interviews where he’s just having a conversation with someone else it really weirds me out. Like, dude, you’re not supposed to be talking like a normal person just having a conversation. You’re supposed to be describing the most extreme examples of the human condition in poetic terms.

You’re right, but in the way Republicans/the right uses them, they are identical.

Every few years they change up the terminology. After PC it became SJW. Then it became CRT. Then woke. Now it’s transitioning to DEI. In a few years they’ll change to a new term.

But, to them it all means the same thing “anything supporting non-white people, lgbtq people, and/or women.”

Yes, they’re the same thing.

As others have noted, the original definitions and origins were different. However, both terms came to be appropriated by right wing politics to mean (generously) “too liberal” or (more realistically) “associated with non-white people and/or women”.

This has ALWAYS been a key feature of fascist regimes throughout history: operating as if you’re always running for election. Mussolini and Hitler both continued to hold big rallies even after they’d officially suspended voting. It’s a big part of how they keep their base engaged.

Coffee and bananas

The only reason I’d say they aren’t is because Dan Carlin doesn’t use a fully written script. A lot of history podcasters write out a full script and read it out, basically the same thing as an audiobook. Dan Carlin just has an outline with a bunch of notes and quotes he wants to use. When he records he does it off the top of his head.

I noticed a big difference a few years ago when he released an actual book, The End is Always Near. He recorded an official audiobook of it. You can really tell the difference in his style between the podcast and the audiobook.

Others have mentioned Hardcore History – probably the pinnacle of history podcasting, but the episodes are VERY long (a lot are upwards of 4 hours) and you’re lucky if he puts out more than 2 per year. He does other shorter Addenda episodes that come out more frequently, but they’re not the same format, usually interviews.

History of Rome – it’s older, but it basically started the “History of [nation/civilization]” podcast format. Does an excellent job tracing Roman history from the founding of the city up to the fall of the Western empire in the 5th century.

Revolutions – same host as History of Rome. After he finished HoR he started this one. Each ‘season’ tracks a different historical world revolution (English, American, French, Mexican, Haitian, Russian, and more). Overall, the entire series tracks large-scale western political history from the 17th century up to the early 20th. He ended the podcast after he finished the Russian Revolution. But then he restarted it a couple of years later, running a season on the fictional Martian Revolution of the 24th century. This is on going now, with 6 episodes left. He’s said he’s going back to pick up on historical revolutions after the Russian when he finishes with Mars, teasing Ireland and Iran as future seasons.

Behind the Bastards – Dives into various horrible people from history with a special focus on world dictators/authoritarians, cult leaders, grifters, and quack doctors. He tends to focus on more recent history (past 50-100 years) but sometimes goes into older history.

Cool People Who Did Cool Stuff – An inversion of Behind the Bastards from the same podcast network. Tends to focus on radical political history with a special focus on anarchists, women, and lgbtq people.

And once you’ve finished History of Rome, move right on to Mike Duncan’s next podcast, Revolutions.

It’s a similar format as HoR, except each ‘season’ follows a different historical revolution with the overall series roughly tracking large-scale wester political history from the 18th century to the early 20th century. He’s covered the English Civil War, American Revolution, French Revolution, Haitian Revolution, Spanish-American Independence, July Revolution, 1848 Revolutions, Mexican Revolution, and Russian Revolution.

He then officially ended the podcast, but a couple of years later he restarted it with a fictional Martian Revolution set in the 24th century. Again, same format as above, but entirely fictional and heavily informed by his study of various world revolution. This is currently ongoing with 6ish episodes left.

He’s also said that once the Martian Revolution is done he plans on starting back up with the historical revolutions, picking right back up after the Russian Revolution.

something like 10- 12 hrs a day

Where are you getting this from? I have several friends who have or currently do teach grade-school aged kids in China. Their school day is 7-8 hours with usually a 90 minute break for lunch. This is also what you find if you search for the length of a Chinese school day.

This is only about an hour longer than in the US, which has an average school day between 6-7 hours. Although American lunch breaks are shorter than those in China, so actual classroom time is virtually identical.

The school year is longer in China, running from September-July where US is usually August/September-May/June. But the actual school day is pretty much the same as the US.

Good lord, I hope you never have children, and if you do I really pity the life they’ll lead.

the growing sentinment amongst parents that video games should be banned for everyone under age 18

Where are you getting this from? I’ve literally never heard of anyone trying to do this. I don’t believe this is a thing.

More like Prime Day or Black Friday.

While Valentine’s Day is heavily marketed and focused on consumer materialism now, it was actually celebrated as a religious holiday for well over a thousand years. It’s more an example of an existing celebration that got turned into something commercialized by capitalism.

Where as the NFL Draft, Prime Day, and Black Friday are “celebrations” wholly invented for the purpose of commercialized consumerism.

I wouldn’t say “unaccepting”, but I really just did not like kids at all. I didn’t enjoy playing with them, or even being around them because I felt I had to moderate myself due to their presence.

Then I had kids and now I really enjoy being around kids, playing with them, and talking to them, even ones that aren’t my own.

The NFL preseason to Super Bowl lasts about 6 months. That means they were going about 6 months after the Super Bowl with no significant events or anything else to draw revenue. So the people who run the NFL wanted to do something that could drive revenue during that half-year when they aren’t playing games.

So they marketed the hell out of the draft. They turned it into a big media event so they could sell sponsorships and put it on TV so they can sell ads.

It’s entirely a manufactured event to drive revenue.

I think you have a much higher opinion of French political culture than is warranted.

I’m generally curious why people get married beyond the “because I love them” when it costs so much money.

Getting married doesn’t have to cost virtually anything. Really just the application fee to get a marriage license. The specific price will vary by state, and even by county (within the US, not sure how it works outside). Where I live, you can go to a courthouse and get married for $35.

If you plan to have kids, there are a lot of legal reasons why it’s just a lot simpler to be married. The same applies without them, to a lesser degree, but with kids it’s just so much more of a hassle to not be married.

You’re right that you can achieve most (maybe even all?) legal benefits of marriage through trusts, wills, etc. But that’s a hell of a lot more work, and the lawyer fees, filing fees, and application fees are almost certainly going to cost you more than a cheap courthouse marriage. Not to mention the added work for yourself.

Beyond all that, though, the single biggest reason I wanted to get married and have a wedding with lots of friends and family was to stand up in front of everyone and profess my love for my (now) wife, let her do the same for me, then have big party with all our friends and family to celebrate it. There’s nothing wrong with spending money to throw a party for something you want to celebrate.

It entirely depends on the specific company’s policies.

The company I work for hires people through a temp-to-hire program. As a temp, you are not eligible for benefits. The moment you get hired full-time, though, you are.

I’ve also worked for companies where you have to be employed for 6 months or a year before you are eligible for benefits.

It entirely depends on the company. This is not an question anyone here can answer. You need to talk to HR.

The idea of ‘trades’, as in construction trades like electricians, plumbers, carpenters, etc, has become pretty popular recently. The idea that you can get into a trade and make a good living without going to college has taken off as a response to the “forgive college loans” push. The right will often talk about trades as “real jobs” in contrast to people who go to college, rack up a ton of debt, and get degrees in fields that aren’t high paying or don’t directly translate into jobs right-wingers can easily understand. So talking about trades is a dig at ‘college educated liberals’. Among certain segments of the right, even just mentioning trades will illicit images of big burly men working with their hands doing manual labor raking in gobs of cash and lording their superiority over unemployed, highly-educated Democratic voters with liberal arts degrees and huge college debt. It’s become a meme they can use to quickly and easily convey that idea.

This is totally separate from the type of factory work they talk about trying to bring back to America by boosting domestic manufacturing. There’s really not a lot of construction trade work in factories. The type of factory work they’re talking about are typically unskilled jobs that pay much lower than skilled construction trades. But they also promised their voters they’d be creating high paying factory jobs. As much as they enact policies which suggest the opposite, the fascists running the government can understand simple economics. They know that an iPhone (for example) isn’t going to be built in the US by workers getting paid $30/hour. They know any factory manufacturing jobs their policies might create will be as close to minimum wage as possible with no benefits, ridiculous working conditions, and extremely high turnover. But they also know they have to promise the moon to maintain their sycophantic cult.

So they just words like “tradecraft” when talking about factory jobs because it illicits the idea of high paying skilled trades, but doesn’t actually outright say it. They want people to think electrician, plumber, carpenter, HVAC tech, etc, but also the deniability to say “I never said that.” If they came out and said “trade jobs” a bunch of industry and labor people would be like “uh… there are no electricians or plumbers working on factory floors.” Instead, if they get pushback they can just say, “I didn’t say that. I said ‘tradecraft’.”

It’s just Orwellian nonsense to obscure lies.

(Note: when I say ‘unskilled’ or ‘skilled’ here, I don’t mean to imply that factory work doesn’t require specific skills that can be honed and improved. I don’t mean to imply that any rando with no experience could do the job just as well as someone with a lot of experience. I’m using the terms to refer to the amount of formal training/licensing required to do them, and their relative pay levels. ‘Unskilled’ jobs typically require no formal training outside the workplace or licensing, and typically pay lower than ‘skilled’ jobs.)

This is entirely incorrect