I’m not a Minnesota resident, but it sure looks like he’s taking direct and local action as the governor of Minnesota. The guy seems to have done a lot of good work for his constituents. As a governor, that’s really the most effective action he can take right now.

I don’t know if I follow your argument here. Kennedy had already rejected the plan, more than a year and a half before his assassination.

They are cowards and weaklings who have no conviction in their actions.

This exactly. They want all the power that comes with being in a successful coup but none of the risk of being in an unsuccessful one.

Very much. I was shocked, listening to their podcast, how much Angela is a Pam and Jenna is a more easygoing Angela.

Counterpoint: Giffords was shot, and nothing changed.

it was a setup. Not an organic shooting

Is there any evidence for that? I haven’t seen any.

Despair asserts omniscience. Don’t carry water for their narrative. Hope is spite.

So the last one there–whether or not it’s a moral idea, it’s important to remember that Trump was shot. Eleven months ago today, actually. It did nothing to stop this, and it did nothing to slow down his followers. Now, I don’t think that it particularly galvanized them, like some people say; but I also don’t think it did anything to remind him of his own mortality. To the contrary: he talked about his survival as if it were the will of God.

In February of 2001, the White House was shot at while Bush II was inside. Everything in the next seven years happened anyway. It doesn’t seem to have made him any more receptive to the will or displeasure of the people.

In 1994, something similar happened while Clinton was in the White House. He still served two terms, and not much seems to have changed about his demeanor or policies.

Ronald Reagan was shot at and hit in 1981, but it took the nuclear near miss in 1983 for him to de-escalate his rhetoric.

The attempted assassination of Nixon in February of 1974 doesn’t seem to have done anything to speed up his resignation that August.

For that matter, the successful assassination of JFK didn’t stop Johnson from handling Vietnam so poorly, and didn’t stop Nixon from being Nixon to begin with.

So I’m frankly doubtful that assassination attempts–successful or otherwise–are at all effective in giving politicians any feeling of mortality.

They don’t want to be in the background of the photos in all the history books. It’s not going to go well for them.

Honestly, we’re in such uncharted waters that I couldn’t venture to guess. It may well be that Trump will be so unpopular in 2028, and his anointed replacement so uninspiring, that the MAGA demonic pact breaks. This has precedent; pretty much nobody who tries Trump’s tricks in anywhere but the deepest of red areas gets any traction. It seems like it might only work for him.

Then again, it’s also entirely possible that he comes out of this whole thing smelling like roses (I can’t even venture a shred of a guess as to how, but he’s weathered some really unpopular press, so who knows) and so whoever he puts his political weight behind goes the distance. In that case, especially if his replacement is a “moderate” MAGA (the Overton Window is stupid far right at this point), I think Newsom gets absolutely trounced in 28.

All of this assumes that Trump doesn’t succumb to his clogging arteries, that he doesn’t have Newsom killed, that he doesn’t “cancel” the 2028 election altogether because of “something something rigged something something,” that he doesn’t actually just get himself back on the ticket again, that the Dems don’t win a supermajority in 2026 and give him the heave-ho…a whole lot of things can happen between now and then.

Honestly one of the most infuriating things (though far from the most damaging thing) that Trump is in the process of doing is making Gavin Newsom into a legitimate 2028 presidential candidate.

Yeah, I’ve definitely been coming at this from a perspective of why they don’t. I absolutely think they should, even with all of the reasons that I’ve stated; though I acknowledge that it’d take a while and a lot of money to make the shift.

Yep, the federal highway subsidy is definitely a big factor here, too (though I don’t think that’s as big a deal as it might seem; numbers that are too big just become part of the marketing in the campaign to replace you. “outhouseperilous voted to spend $450 million on transportation last year!” becomes the soundbite, and your protestations that subsidies covered the entire cost won’t get any traction).

To say nothing of how it’s “woke” to not worship at the feet of the automotive industry.

Induced demand is a good point, but the cost of building new lane-miles of road is “only” about $5 million per mile. (In Florida; I can’t find exact numbers for Michigan, but the variance is unlikely to be dramatic.)

Plus im guessing that rail cost includes power delivery infra and actual engines/cars.

Power delivery, maybe. Engines and cars, probably not (at least not meaningfully), since the numbers I’m seeing are for extensions to existing lines. But we don’t need to worry about adding gas station costs or the costs of car ownership to that, because those are privately-owned (and thus privately-borne costs).

We’re not talking about societal cost here. We’re talking about why localities don’t do this. And the answer is, because it’s expensive: the upfront cost for a massive public works project that won’t be finished until after the current office-holders are no longer in public service would be at or above a billion dollars.

Added bonus: private ownership of some portion of transportation costs means that the localities can offload a good chunk of the cost to the people in a way that makes them feel like they have “freedum!”

The state of Michigan expects to spend $24,093 per lane-mile to maintain their roads. By contrast, the cheapest light rail line in the world costs $150 million per mile to build. Assuming that new rail line lasts for 6,000 years and never needs a single cent of maintenance, it might just barely break even with the financial cost of maintaining an existing road.

No, of course they don’t stay the same. I’m not asserting that at all. In fact, that’s a big problem in a lot of places with huge road networks and proportionally too-small tax bases. But they’re already there, and upkeep is cheaper than building new.

Yeah, I know. But the last two were accomplished largely by fiat. Which should be impossible in the US, though…you know.

And the pre-WW2 US had the advantage of essentially being pre-suburbs. Now sprawl means that the cost of adequate rail connections increases exponentially while the tax base increases linearly.

Again, like I said before, this is not impossible. But it will require a concerted effort to reverse a century’s worth of underinvestment in urban areas, white flight, and stigmatization of multi-family living; and right now, we’re doing the opposite of all of those things.

That’s potentially another objection, I guess–“they’re going to run us over either way, why bother inconveniencing us with unprotected bike lanes as well?”–but I guess that feels to me like perfectionism.

Trains would definitely be a great choice. But in a lot of places in the midwestern US, the economic realities of fixed transit infrastructure are tricky.

Not impossible. I’m definitely not saying that. But they’d require more regulatory steps than a robust bus network, for instance.

/s, but seriously, this guy lies a lot.

Hm. Well, before Musk said this, I 110% believed for certain that Trump was in the Epstein files. Now that he’s the one who’s saying it, I’m…not so sure.

Oh yeah, but what I’m saying is I don’t get why this would be “woke” since it’s the most basic of motor vehicle laws in even the least pedestrian-friendly places.