good point

Judge Alvin Hellerstein, a 92-year-old judge in the Southern District of New York

it’s not even the point, and he’s not wrong, but jesus christ how is a 92 year old still a judge

OK so I’m probably borrowing from the Alt-Right Playbook here, but it’s been long enough that I don’t remember which ones. The wink-wink, nudge-nudge references to nazi catchphrases and imagery are deliberate. They serve three key purposes:

1. They let the nazis know that they are seen and valued by the administration. This is critical, because Trump’s success has depended upon keeping extremists happy rather than appealing directly to neoconservatives.

2. The neocons like the message but will usually miss the references. They will get angry when the nazi undertones are exposed, because they feel they are being called nazis for agreeing with what they see as standard conservatism.

3. It “triggers the libs,” which everyone still seems to think is hilarious.

All of which is irrelevant, because there is no useful distinction between nazis and people who participate in nazism because it advances their agenda.

They blame Trump for 5 minutes, until he promises to treat immigrants, trans people, and women worse.

It is starting to feel like Meta is actively catering to the contrarian douche market, like the idiots who bought Cybertrucks. This also increases the likelihood of creep shots because there is bound to be a lot of overlap there.

This is distressing but not at all surprising. Real polls take real time and real money. Journalism is dying. If someone offers up a poll that looks ok enough, some desperate media companies are going to take the bait. Once one does, others are more likely to follow.

As a related aside, remember it was just a few months ago or something that we found out that some media are using AI to “simulate” polls and reporting on that.

literally the entire article