I know plenty of people with technical smarts and high IQs who regularly fall for disinformation scams. Lots of smart people are as prone to believing what they want to believe as complete idiots.

People with strong intuition often make it through life without ever seriously developing critical thinking skills because they simply don't need them.

There is a ton of academic interest in the relationship between sexuality and fascism. It was first noted in "The Mass Psychology of Fascism" by Wilhelm Reich after WW2. My comment is, of course, a massive oversimplification of a complex social dynamic.

It's the same dynamic that made US racists paranoid that black men wanted to rape white women when, in fact, their deeper fear was that white women wanted to have sex with black men. Fascists are particularly sensitive to sexual relations between "their women" and whomever they have chosen to blame for all their misfortunes.

Fascism is sociologically rooted in the sexual insecurity of men. That's why it's always men driving it.

Sarah Palin was really a trend setter for congesional Republican women.

The big oil corporations have been busy buying up all the competing charging networks, so that much tracks.

There are several places it comes from.

First, there has been a meme campaign about Biden being better than Trump that seems to go out of it's way to "call out" those of us who are fed up with the behavior of the Democratic establishment (DE). They imply we are fools who don't comprehend how bad Trump is. The people those memes are directed at don't really exist. They are a myth put out by the DE to sideline progressives. There has also been a recent wave of right wing bots that perpetuate the myth to further drive the wedge between progressives and the DE. Those bots aren't going to be convinced, and progressives don't need to be.

The second is that it is nearly impossible to criticize the DE without getting lectured about how much worse Trump is. Being a tiny bit better than fascist is apparently enough for Democrats privileged enough to not suffer under even Democratic policies. I think this video shows a great example. I try to always mention that Republicans are worse when criticizing Democrats, but that rarely makes a difference.

The third place is from old timers like me who have watched Democrats coddle fascism ever since Reagan. What we are living through now didn't start with Trump, and it wasn't just the fault of Republicans. Many of us have been fighting Democratic mediocrity since before most Americans ever heard of Bernie Sanders. The DE is routinely snide and dismissive of the left, even as they fail to grasp the Republican threat. They say the country wants centrists, but run to the left with their rhetoric before every election. In that context, both of the previously mentioned items tend to strike a nerve.

Just wait for what's coming. The ACA set us up for monetization of healthcare on steroids, and it's just about to hit critical mass. I think anyone engaged with the healthcare system today can see the enshitification accelerating.

For just a sampling of what's to come, there is a projected shortage of up to 86,000 physicians by 2036. It seems like doctors aren't interested in joining the rest of us in working for slave wages to benefit Wall Street.

LOL, read my post again. My entire point was that Biden used a clever ploy to give control back to the EPA after the SC killed it. Making CO2 a pollutant bypasses that ruling.

Don't leave out healthcare inflation. It's as bad or worse than housing inflation, but it's easy to forget until you need it.

Well, if Ukraine didn't stubbornly insist on remaining a nation, there wouldn't be any fighting. Checkmate western scum. /s

I know how we could short circuit the "both sides" arguments. Let's reform the Democratic primary process into something actually democratic.

• Everyone gets to vote on the same day.

• Replace "first past the post" with any of the more functional systems for all elected offices.

• Let a neutral organization manage debates as an open and consistent process.

The Democratic party has total control over their primary process. Presenting themselves as the "defenders of democracy" while continuing to subvert democracy is a losing strategy, and no amount of complaining about "both sides" arguments will change that.

Some of them are complete idiots though. Boebert isn't exactly playing 5d chess.