It's very rare that I see an article on a topic like this that seems to be succinct, not assume any existing knowledge, and make me leave feeling more informed in < 80 seconds. Maybe personal taste, but I love it.

This is about as close as mainstream journalism can get to saying "the President has made up the numbers".

It's also one of the rare articles whose NYT-style scroll-hijacking is a benefit rather than a nuisance.

This makes me so mad. Not just that DOGE and friends cut all sorts of important programs. And not just that the savings were routed directly into tax cuts for the rich.

I mean, yes, those things, but also the sheer disregard for the facts. "Those numbers make us look bad, so they're false. I can't provide you with any details, they're just wrong somehow. Don't worry about it."

So when things are grim in 2028 what’s the plan for the election? Blame Obama?

If we go by prior behavior, blame the Biden administration, blame our trading partners and allies (if we have any left by then), then democratic states, then immigrants, then minorities and the more vulnerable in society… eventually they may turn on their own escape goats.

It’s hard to believe a superpower could self-sabotage so throughly.

>what’s the plan for the election?

Boogeyman. It's always a boogeyman.

Recently, we've had transgendered people, antifa, DEI, migrants, and sleepy joe. As the acute impact wears off they switch to something else based on A-B testing of which generates the most fear.

It'll be something, but what?

Honestly my bet is on black people. They're going to go full-on racist. We'll probably see shit about phrenology, genetics, and degeneracy with the historically successful (to their target audience) descriptors of vermin and leeches.

All of this bullshit to lower taxes for billionaires and enable their successionist libertarian microstate fantasies.

The remarkable part: it's going to work.

It would have worked in 2020, too. It took a full-on global pandemic to stop it, and that only briefly.

The formula works, and it keeps on working.

It's going to be all of the above and they'll probably start talking about AOC's kill list again.

White House doing girl math now. In the words of Two Minute Papers, what a time to be alive

You leave girl math out of this.

'girl math'? really? It's literally a bunch of old men and always has been.