then proceeds to recklessly dismantle huge parts of the US government

Just give him a few more weeks.

When I was young, you (supposedly) could still buy WWII-era original Jeeps disassembled and packed into crates in cosmoline. I always wanted one of those but never had any desire to own a modern one.

I’m a school bus driver - kids love the things and go apeshit whenever they see one. Fortunately, not many elementary school kids can afford one.

I read a reddit post recently by a guy who had bought one for $135K after shelling out $50K to a broker to find him one. He was wanting to sell but couldn’t get more than $70K for it lol.

the white flag stereotype for France comes from 2003

It actually comes (unfairly) from the French army mutinies of 1917 and (also unfairly) from France’s surrender to Hitler in 1940, in addition to their not joining in the fun in Iraq. All of which obscures a prior thousand-year history of kicking the shit out of people.

My brother gave me his Facebook credentials so I could use marketplace without bothering him all the time. He’s been a liberal left-winger all his life but for the past few years he’s taken to ranting about how awful Democrats are (“Genocide Joe” etc.) while mocking people who believe that there’s a connection between Trump and Putin. Sure enough, his Facebook is filled with posts about how awful Democrats are and how there’s no connection between Trump and Putin - like, that’s literally all that’s on there. I’ve tried to get him to see that his worldview is entirely created by Facebook but he just won’t accept it. He thinks that FB is some sort of objective collator of news.

In my mind, this is really what sets social media apart from past mechanisms of social control. In the days of mass media, the propaganda was necessarily a one-size-fits-all sort of thing. Now, the pipeline of bullshit can be custom-tailored for each individual. So my brother, who would never support Trump and the Republicans, can nevertheless be fed a line of bullshit that he will accept and help Trump by not voting (he actually voted Green).