AFAIK there's no game mechanic differences between Steam and Free, it's just the graphical/menu overhaul.

cried for a week straight

They're still crying about it!

Trump is playing the hits I see.

Same thing with how normalized a bunch of therapy speak has become, but of course that has the additional wrinkle of everyone misusing it because they're not licensed therapists.

After reading through a bunch of the Game Freak leaks, I am now 100% convinced that the Vaporeon copypasta came from a Game Freak dev.

Dunkelzahn (circa 13,000 BC – August 9, 2057) was a Western Great Dragon. He was the 7th President of the UCAS elected, during the UCAS Special Presidential Election of 2057, but was assassinated on the night of his inauguration, later believed to be a self-sacrifice ritual to prevent the Horrors from crossing over into the Sixth World early. The policy led by his successor Kyle Haeffner can still be considered as marked by Dunkelzahn's ambitions to fight racism, exclusion and poverty and renew UCAS international relations.

the bit about fighting racism, exclusion and poverty made me actually laugh out loud when I read it. Even in the cyberpunk future with elves and orcs libs talk like libs I guess.

This is why the industries expansion works the way it does, with the state completely owning and operating the industries in question. The devs realized that even in virtual worlds Dengism is the only sane path.

A tax strike in the US is unthinkable

Like 90% of US taxes are collected automatically, I don't think it would work even if people were into the idea. A little over half of Americans get money back on their taxes when they file them, because the government automatically took more than it should have from their paychecks.

But yeah it is a huge contradiction that Americans seemingly don't trust their government, but love their military and police. Personally I think the rhetoric around not trusting government is just a cultural shibboleth that right wingers hijack to justify reducing social spending and not a real thing that people believe.

Taken on its own, the first scene of this movie - where Team America blows up France for basically no reason - could be read as a critique of American interventionism. "This is what we do to other countries, imagine if we did it to white people!"

Also, if you were to take the final monologue, and put the text "THIS IS WHAT AMERICANS ACTUALLY BELIEVE" under it, it would actually become really funny.

NEDM