Totally agree. I find this one much less forced. Hopefully it doesn’t get taken up in the culture wars. It would just be nice to have an accepted neuter term for… latino/as.

Fair enough, but to be clear, the origin of latine isn’t from within the US. It migrated from Spanish-speaking countries (largely within the demographics we talked about earlier) as a corrective for latinx. I think you’ll find most people in the United States have not seen “latine” used before. It’s used more outside of the US than within it.

😉

For whom?

That’s kind of a “you” problem, no?

Have you considered why Poland doesn’t do anything unless the US allows it? When the command to jump is issued by NATO, Poland asks the US military “how high?” NATO is an extension of US global force projection that the EU benefits from through the deterrence the US military offers and by allowing dramatically lower defense-spending allocations to the member states. “NATO” is simply in no position to dictate much of anything to a country that has a defense budget that equates to roughly 40% of the entire planet’s defense spending.

But, hey. Good luck, I hope you’re right. Nevertheless, in terms of hard power, the EU is simply not a superpower on the global stage, especially militarily. If you think the contribution to NATO by the United States is easily dismissed, I think you’ll get the opportunity in the next year or so to see if you’re right. It’s worth noting that the majority of NATO member-state military leaders would strongly disagree with you.

If the United States were to withdraw from NATO, the alliance would face an existential crisis. Despite your vague posturing, the U.S. forms the backbone of NATO’s military power, financial resources, and strategic coherence. The U.S. contributes unparalleled military capabilities, such as advanced technology, global logistics networks, and nuclear deterrence. Without U.S. leadership, NATO would lose its primary deterrent against major threats, particularly Russian aggression, leaving Europe vulnerable and fragmented. Eastern European nations like Poland and the Baltic states, which rely on the U.S. for security guarantees, would face heightened existential threats, exposing NATO’s diminished ability to uphold its core mission of collective defense.

Additionally the absence of U.S. leadership would render NATO’s operations ineffective and its credibility irreparably damaged on the global stage. No other NATO member has the capacity to fill the void left by the U.S., either militarily or diplomatically. The alliance’s cohesion relies on the U.S.’s ability to unify diverse member states around shared goals and put power, funds, and assets behind it, something no European power can replicate. This would embolden adversaries, destabilize the European continent, and undermine decades of transatlantic security cooperation. In essence, NATO without America would become a hollow shell—an alliance in name only.

You should look up what “subtext” means.

The subtext here is brutally simple: Putin knows Trump is willing to withdraw from NATO, taking 70% of its defense budget with him, if Putin’s demands aren’t met. At that point, NATO becomes little more than letterhead, and new territorial “realities” manifest regardless of NATO’s protests. Putin’s saber-rattling serves a calculated purpose–he knows the actual foundation of NATO’s power is already compromised through Trump.

Expect this antagonistic posturing from Putin to increase. Trump is already looking for an excuse to leave NATO, and his staff have outlined the executive branch’s unilateral power to do so. Putin’s role, which he’s gleefully accepting, is to provoke NATO into actions that will give Trump his justification for withdrawal.

The withdrawal seems nearly inevitable at this point, especially given Trump’s planned purge of military leadership. While the EU is attempting to plan for this contingency, losing 70% of your military strength is essentially an insurmountable problem for a coalition that has structured its entire defense strategy around U.S. backing.

The numbers here are stark: the U.S. spends four times what all EU member states combined spend on military funding - not just NATO allocations but total military spending. This creates an irrefutable power imbalance within the coalition. When Trump previously threatened withdrawal, NATO’s attempts to develop alternative deterrent strategies went nowhere because the EU simply cannot afford to compensate for a U.S. exit. They essentially did nothing and hoped Biden’s election would solve the problem.

This allowed the EU economy to avoid difficult choices, as making up for a U.S. withdrawal would likely destabilize the European economy. But now they face an impossible dilemma: attempt to compensate for U.S. withdrawal and risk economic crisis, or maintain current spending levels and leave member states critically exposed. Many NATO states, like Estonia, have defense strategies that amount to “try to survive for two weeks until NATO arrives.” Putin understands the leverage he’s gained through Trump and the Republican party’s capture of the federal government. It’s tremendous leverage. The EU should be in crisis mode, but they seem unable or unwilling to fully grasp that U.S. withdrawal from NATO isn’t just possible but probable.

Pay attention. The tectonic plates of geopolitics are shifting beneath our feet.

The amount of white democrats that have as a subtext to their commentary about the Hispanic vote a “I hope Trump puts you in a camp and then kicks you out of the country for not voting for Harris” sentiment says a lot about the democrats.

Edit: angry white democrats downvoting. 🤣

Latine is more sensical in Spanish. You’re correct that it’s used more by young, urban, and non-male people. If by “out of touch” you mean it doesn’t cater to Latino men over 30, you may be right. If being “in touch” means exclusively catering to older Latino men, I don’t think that’s a long-term winning strategy. More inclusive Spanish along with non-inclusive Spanish can generally coexist. I don’t think it needs to be a universal decree.

Rhetorical impact.

Interestingly, research shows a surprising trend related to this topic: young adults today, on the whole, are engaging in less sexual activity than any generation for which we have data. Yet, this shift isn’t equally distributed across genders—where young men (ages 18-25) once reported slightly higher rates of sexual activity than young women, the pattern has reversed. Now, young women report engaging in sex more frequently than their male counterparts, with the gender gap widening now to a degree that significantly favors women in this area.

The reasons for this shift are still under debate. Economic pressures, the influence of digital media, and evolving social norms are all posited as contributing factors. But the data does suggest (this is based on CDC and JAMA studies) that a smaller subset of men are experiencing a larger share of sexual activity, aligning with certain internet memes and narratives about “Chads” dominating the dating scene. Whether these cultural constructs, such as the “MRA” or “Chad” phenomenon, are reflective of or reactive to this social shift remains unclear. Nonetheless, they generally resonate with the timeline of the observed trends around sexual activity. I’ll be curious to see how the trends indirectly the future of dating and sexual relationships among young adults.

But, all that aside, if more women choose to opt out of traditional dating or sexual encounters with men, more power to women. Coincidentally, it could begin to narrow or at least slow the widening gender gap in this area. I am unsure if that would be good, bad, or neutral. In general, a healthy sex life seems to be an important dimension of the human experience. I would imagine the fact that the overall trends are going down is probably a negative for the psychology of a generation, but I guess we’ll see.

This age cohort also drinks less, has more eating disorders, smokes/vapes less, is more sleep deprived, parties less, is more risk-averse, has shorter attention spans, experiments with drugs less, is more (prescription) medicated, is more depressed, is more socially isolated, and is more anxious than previous generations at the same ages. Looking at research on Gen Z is pretty crazy. And it can be depressing sometimes, but it’s a particularly unique age cohort. Scholars widely acknowledge Gen Z as being markedly different than previous youth generations.

I would never vote for the Green Party after watching two decades of their utter disregard for political calculus while being both supercilious and patronizing about it. If the party’s behavior wasn’t enough, their supporters are utterly obnoxious, self-congratulatory egotists.

I fully intend to support nearly any candidate running against a green party candidate at the local and regional level, and will happily make political donations to any organization running ads and/or mobilizing on-the-ground efforts against the green party. The green party has been one long abysmal failure after Nader/LaDuke.

They certainly don’t need my help to die, but I’ll help dig the grave anyway.

Remember how it took merrick garland two full years and an independently organized governmental January 6th committee forcing his hand before he pursued criminal charges against Trump? How investigations by the NYT and WaPo showed that, over a year onto Biden’s presidency, Garland had ordered no investigations into Trump at all? Yeah.

That dude is singularly responsible for one of the biggest law enforcement failures in the history of the United States and an extreme dereliction of duty. What a coward. Like most cowards, he hoped if he did nothing and stayed quiet no one would notice him. Unfortunately, now anti-Trump people hate him for his failure to meaningfully prosecute and pro-Trump people hate him for attempting to prosecute in the first place.

This dude is the squirrel that runs across the street, then gets scared and tries to run back, then gets scared and tries to run across again, then gets scared and tries to run back… and then gets run over by the car.

Yes, people did precisely that in this case. Or do you speak for all trans people and trans allies? I didn’t get the memo. You’re literally doing the thing being criticized. I explained to you that they were pushed out for defending the terms female and male for biological sex in her field. Your response: “yeah, that’s not what it was, it’s because she’s a crypto-conservative working for the IDF.”

It’s like, well. OK, but that’s not what happened. Many people on the left have gone on fox news to defend positions. Do you just assume they too are all therefore secretly conservative? What a silly worldview to have.

Regardless, I’m not going to bicker with you, I don’t want you hyperventilating again. I’ll block you and make it easier for both of us. Good luck with your video games.

Buttigieg/AOC 2028. Never forget that despite looking like a choir boy, Mayor Pete is a bulldog. Love watching him regularly demolish frothing Republicans. AOC is great at/for a lot of things, but at the top of the ticket, she’s got too many cheap, easy character weaknesses. Too young. Her voice. Her big-time speeches, like at the DNC, show she’s an unpolished orator. No executive experience.

Other than her voice (I like it, but many people find it annoying), all of those flaws would go away if she serves as VP for 4-8 years.

If Newsom is the democrat’s candidate, I will vote third party. Fuck that guy.

Ignoring most of the article, bringing up the fact that “Trump gained support from every racial group except white people, where he lost one percentage point when compared to 2020,” is a real and damning statistic for the Democrats. I’ve been saying for some time that I continue to be amazed as democrats turn themselves into the party of suburban and urban white privilege.

In the case of Dr. Hooven – the person being referenced here – her usage of binary biological sex categories was why she eventually needed/was bureaucratically forced to retire from Harvard. She never had issue with using people’s preferred pronouns or names. She taught a well-regarded course, “Hormones and Behavior,” and was attacked, in my opinion, for going on Fox News to defend the usage of “female” and “male” as categories of biological sex in medical classes.

While she’s a life-long Democrat, I suspect if she hadn’t gone on Fox & Friends to defend the position, the blowback would have been less targeted and vicious.

That being said, Harris’s piece is exponentially more troubling and offensive than anything Hooven ever did. In my estimation, it’s misguided, short-sighted, and poorly conceived. Worse, it’s largely wrong.

You’re a world-class moron.

😆