I always look at foreign policy to judge any domestic or foreign politician/leader's REAL identity and impact. When you look at Milei's foreign policy positions you will find they track nearly identically with the foreign policy America's foreign policy blob (the overarching regime that runs Washington whether you elect Democrats or Republicans). He also is 100% beholden to Israel. So as a so-called Libertarian he is a complete fraud. Argentina is only a testing ground for his apeish personality-type. Trumpers like him because, well, they're idiots who think the foot embedded up their collective asses is agreeable as long as its toenails are painted MAGA red.

"But also, how can reality compare to the world of fantasy provided by social media and video games?"

People have historically taken refuge in anything. A cave, a castle, a bottle, a needle and spoon, between another's legs, or in a VR universe. Trying to escape one's current reality is nothing new.

I was born in 1991 so I really never remember a time when there wasn't an internet connection or a computer at home or even a PS2. When I was 6 we moved to London for a few years and Dad got one of those original StarTacs you could put a credit card into do I always was around mobile and smartphones. So I relate more to teens now than those only a few years older than I. Anyone else here not a boomer or Genx?

Make reality more palatable to them and maybe they'll come back.

"I can't believe how far we have fallen"

Perhaps because you were long under the illusion that we as a country were so magnificent in the first place?

I spent the first 17 years of my life living in 5 different countries- 8 years in America, 5 years in Switzerland, 2 in England, 2 in Pakistan and 1 in Italy. For the past 15 years I've split time between Baltimore and Zurich but now I've settled in Halifax, Nova Scotia and its great. I never had the opportunity to develop such illusions about America. I'm sure it was much better before I was born. At leas the music was.

"They didn't make it to the World Series, pal."

But Soto did with the Yankees, dumbass. They lost, just in case you weren't paying attention.

Soto won in 2019 with a team that had three strong starters that kept their ERAs under 4. The Yankees tried to play a stupid model-- one really good starter and a bunch of pitching fools. Gerrit Cole held up his end of the bargain but the other guys had an ERA over 10.

The Mets aren't winning a World Series with Soto because they are pursuing the same stupid model as the Yankees. They might lose one, though. Maybe 2. The might be good enough for that. Shohei Ohtani gets paid 700mil for a 50/50 season, an MVP, maybe even a CY Young, and let's not forget- the entire Japanese market buying Dodgers gear for the next dozen years.

Soto on the other hand will get paid $765 million to finish runner up in MVP voting to Ohtani, hit .300, drive 35 HR, 120 RBI (150 BBs cuz he'll get pitched around- a lot), be a liability in the outfield, and perhaps, if he ever gets a more complete team around him, lose to Ohtani in the NLCS. The Mets also might sell a few more jerseys to low income Dominicans.

"Unfortunately the UN is completely toothless and worthless."

Unfortunately, America made it that way.

Israel is committing genocide, has committed and publicly documented (and continues to commit and publicly document) untold numbers of war crimes, atrocities, rapes, assaults, murders and other perverted acts of terror on women, children, babies and the disabled and has completely exposed itself as an ethno-supremacist, fascist pariah state run by a bunch manipulative psychopaths. And now the whole world knows it, forever.

It also has exposed the entirety of the American political and media establishment as nothing more than a spineless bunch of Zionist bootlicking simps and has completely annihilated and reduced to a complete fraud the whole notion of a western "rules based international order."

Talk about miscalculations!

"Can't get away with anything anymore"

There are still those in the world who will willingly sacrifice their lives in order to make others pay for their heinous crimes.

I find it amazing how aggressively stupid people become on foreign matters when beholden to either the Biden or the Trump world-view.

"Because Trump cabinet choices have signaled they'll flood Ukraine with arms if the deal is rebuffed.

-Posted by sitz-bath"

Worked for Biden.

"Suspect is named in breaking stories as one Luigi Mangione."

"Why would he have to show ID in a McDonalds? I'm sure there a many people at McDonalds with guns, knives and writing manifestos. Why single him out?"

Because it will make for a suspenseful scene (and convenient product placement $$$) when they finally make a movie out of all this. It's all part of the narrative. Play along with it.

That's an awful lot of money to pay to be just good enough to lose a World Series.

Meanwhile, none of the world's worst people are being hunted down, or on trial, or in prison.

Our society is fed a steady diet of movies and television shows depicting masked superheroes fighting villains who abuse and murder people in illegal ways. Billions of dollars are made on these spectacles.

But then real life shows up and we see that the actual villains of our society murder people in ways that are completely legal. None of their abuses are against the law, or if they are, they somehow escape trial or punishment.

Those that wear masks and protest or try to even try to hunt them down become themselves the hunted. There's no money to be made in Truth, Justice and what's touted as "The American Way"

"Assad Possibly Dead"

What a -------- of misinformation.

The "rebels" have made a wise move and decided that they want a Russian military presence in Syria after all-- just in case, LOL.

Erdogan wins big. New Ottoman Empire slowly taking shape.

The Sunnis have surrounded Israel once again. Next stop, Golan Heights- that's where the new Syrian leader is from

The biggest failures are those who allow even bigger failures to succeed them.

Where's TonyRoma to gloat?

"I've gotten more racial insults from Democrats than anyone else."

I would never call you an Uncle Tom, Boaz. You see, I've actually read "Uncle Tom's Cabin" so I know that the character of Uncle Tom was considerably more Christian-like, more nuanced of intellect, and more worthy of sympathy than you will ever hope to be.

"Jimmy Carter - over 200,000 pardoned for Vietnam draft evasion"

The reason why my father, even though he was a Vietnam vet who received multiple, combat-related injuries, always had the highest regard for Carter, even though many of his compatriots felt the opposite. He said it was one of the first things Jimmy did when he assumed office and was part of the reason he ended becoming a Catholic Worker later that year.

Putin? I thought he already died of blood cancer two years ago.

"That's not a malfunction- that's a feature" -Israel.

-George Washington spent 40 years of his life with raging, pus-filled abscesses and raw, exposed nerves in the gums and remaining teeth in his mouth and blinked nary an eyelash.

-James Monroe took a partial musket ball to the shoulder and then sat calmly and smoked hashish with his boots splashing in a growing puddle of his own blood while a military doctor removed shards of metal with his dirty fingernails and then tied a catgut ligature around the partially severed circumflex artery that still protruded from the wound.

-Andrew Jackson walked around for 40 years with a lead bullet lodged in his left lung after shooting the man who fired it down like a dog in a duel. He would constantly wheeze and clear his throat while he spoke and occasionally hack up huge clots of congealed blood during speeches.

None of those fine Americans and notable Presidents needed anesthesia, and neither do you!