David Pecchia

A week ago, I received a text message from someone I was friendly with years ago. They are a self-proclaimed socialist & someone I met when I used to be a Democrat. It wasn't a negative text, just a "How have you been?" text. Because of our last interaction, I haven't replied. When we met several years ago, we were part of a group of left-leaning friends I genuinely liked at the time. It wasn’t always about politics. Many times, we just discussed life. However, COVID and the George Floyd riots made them even more radical and unbearable—especially since I wasn’t having the same social panic attack they were. One of the people in the group was someone I used to spend holidays with and talk to on the phone all the time. Suddenly, because I asked where the “15 feet” recommendation from Fauci came from, I became deserving of ridicule and disrespect. Despite the fact that our relationship had been built on questioning things, they all became extremely dogmatic. I refused to follow suit. One of the friends in this group posted on Facebook that Trump told Americans to drink bleach to get rid of COVID. I thought that was so insane that I wanted to see it for myself. Of course, Trump never said that. When I called him out on it, he acknowledged that Trump didn’t say it—and then proceeded to block me. I bring all of this up because this small group of lefty friends eventually dwindled to just one person who was still willing to talk to me, despite my willingness to question things and change my opinions. In 2021, I published my first book, Black Victim to Black Victor, and I told him about it. It could be seen as controversial, but he seemed superficially receptive. I figured that was better than him shunning me before even attempting to read it. It was either late 2021 or early 2022 when we decided to meet for lunch. I don’t remember the meal, but I do remember the need to talk about politics the entire time. It’s hard to explain, but he’s one of those people who argues with you through a smile and a laugh, yet it doesn’t feel playful. It wasn’t a terrible encounter, but I didn’t entirely enjoy it. I felt like I was constantly being put on the defensive or dragged into topics I didn’t care about. I thought maybe it was because we hadn’t hung out in a while. Not long after that meeting, we had a phone call, and the same feeling returned. I’m not argumentative, and frankly, I don’t like arguing about politics. I’m not a debater, and I have no interest in fighting with people over things I have zero control over. Even worse, I absolutely despise when people put words in my mouth or make assumptions about me. I don’t remember everything from that call, but one thing he said really bugged me: “Your boy, Tucker.” That bothered me because I didn’t watch Tucker Carlson’s show. I had never brought him up, and I wasn’t even particularly fond of him. So why did he make that association? It was because he had placed me in a box. Because I asked questions and pushed back against certain narratives for my own personal reasons, I must be a strident Republican and the right-wing caricature he could mock. Then I remembered how he used to talk about the Republicans he knew in his life. He would tell me how they were all racist and “what they really think.” He placed me in a box instead of seeing me as an individual with logical reasons for what I believe. He wasn’t inquisitive about me—he was assumptive. That statement made me want to end the call early, especially combined with his tendency to go on and on about politics in search of a debate. I haven’t replied to him, not because he’s a socialist, but because my instincts tell me he sees me as a fool and a punching bag. I can already picture him jumping straight into talking about Trump and putting me in a position where I’m expected to defend him—despite not caring about it at all. We should be able to have friends with varying viewpoints, but sometimes those people aren’t really your friends. You’re just a diversity avatar for the politics they hate. I’m not one for ghosting people, but I haven’t talked to this person in a long time for a reason. I don’t feel the need to force disrespectful people into my life. I don’t want to be anyone’s avatar to blame for all their political woes. Despite being in the political world, I don’t like talking about politics with people I care about. So, I’m not replying. I’d rather protect my peace of mind and move toward people who like me for who I actually am, instead of who they unfairly associate me with.

@DarrigoMelanie What's scary is that such a moronic proposal is being taken seriously by people in a position of authority.

If one of the scariest things you’ve ever seen is a tax on a second home that you don’t live in that’s worth over $5 million, then you’ve lived a very privileged life.

@JillFilipovic They already pay regular property taxes, don't they? And don't consume the government services those taxes pay for? Seems kind of perverse to tax people more specifically for not using government services.

@JillFilipovic Logically, they should pay less property tax since they make less relative use of public amenities.

What exactly is the argument against a pied-a-terre tax for second (or third / fourth / fifth) homes worth more than $5 million owned by people who do not even live in the city? It just seems like such a glaringly obvious common-sense policy.

@SAFCPaddy If a person becomes wealthy by making a product people want, everybody has gained from that. This is something to be encouraged, not punished.

I will never understand why working class people fight tooth and nail to defend billionaires

@jmt5050 @chadfelixg Small states would never have agreed to join without the current system.

@chadfelixg But it’s not proportional at all. Wyoming has one EV for every 193k citizens; Texas gets one electoral vote per 750,000 citizens.

It does not. It allows proportional representation for everyone. You vote in your state and representatives of your state vote for the President because the states elect the President. You vote to elect your representatives, in your state and in Congress.

@chadfelixg It's little use arguing with historical illiterates: The deal between states at our founding was the current system. It can be changed, the instructions are in the Constitution. Yes, it's hard to do, but a deal isn't much of a deal when one side can easily alter it.

@BXGD @echetus I've never been to a Cracker Barrel but my wife, who has been, assures me that it's very "mid" and I wouldn't like it.

@echetus I doubt praising Cracker Barrel will win over my fellow Americans. Should have picked a Buc-ee's or pretended to visit a Walmart for the first time. Cracker Barrel is for people on tour buses who can't decide where else to go.

Unbelievably humiliating for all these ex-Tory types to have to spend their time twerking for the Yankee. I hope their huge piles of money fall over on top of them.

All we really know about them is that they thought our country would be better than the one they're from. Their tendencies will be to act like they are used to acting. We will pull them towards our culture, but ours will will be diluted in the process.

@Justin_Schmidt1 @chadfelixg I mean encourages and discourages in the sense of it being easy or hard to actually do it. It's intrinsically harder to cheat when you share power with your opposition.

@dpecchia @chadfelixg This has nothing to do with the purpose of the electoral college or why cheating is discouraged. It’s currently encouraged in swing states for the exact reason you state.

Of course a majority will say, 'The person with the most votes should win.' Our system is poorly understood. This is why we don't allow huge systemic changes through pure democracy because majorities are stupid.

@xwanyex I've never worked so hard and had so little to show for it, than digging a stump out of a place which needed no stump.

I can sometimes display a kind of raw determination that would be a lot more lucrative were it applied to, say, business and not dumb ape stuff like digging out a tree stump with hand tools

@poppy1080 @MZHemingway @ABCPolitics TFW being totally incorrect is "hair splitting".

@dpecchia @MZHemingway @ABCPolitics The entire internet is in the room with you right now. They all want to give you a tin star for being the most hair-splitting dude that has ever tweeted a tweet. Find some other target. Not me.

Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas on Wednesday delivered a televised broadside against progressivism, a political philosophy he described as an existential threat to America and the principles that founded it 250 years ago. abcnews.link/vKHBiTS

@IMAO_ I got it. I had a WWF panda sticker on one of my snow skis. Then I thought of the World Wrestling Federation and thought of The Rock.

I always remember seeing that logo as a kid and expecting that panda to hit someone with a metal folding chair.

@xwanyex Even if everyone was obedient and tried their hardest to do whatever work the party assigned them to do, communism would still fail compared to a market based economy. Markets solve the problem of information asymmetry that top-down control cannot solve very well.

I’m very offered a very similar explanation on here many times! The fact is that enough people defect under communism that in order to make it work you have to become increasingly authoritarian, which of course pushes more people away. Communism is the ultimate, “if everyone would just.” But since everyone isn’t going to “just,” you either have to tolerate some of the people in society developing an alternative, illegal market economy, or you have to force people to do what you want, even though some of them really, really don’t like it.

@senatorshoshana I doubt we're missing much from "artists" who will only create art if they don't have anything else to do.

There's something i want to say about the fetishization of "art." I'm still not quite sure how to say it or what I'm trying to say. But I've seen so many pompous posts lately like "imagine all the art never created because people have to work" or "go *struggle* and make art instead of using AI which isn't REAL art." And these posts are never specific to any area of art. I feel like the people who say this stuff are the kind of people who could be fooled easily by a toddler's drawing as high end painting. Like I agree art made more directly has something AI art doesn't. Good art can also be made without struggling. And people can derive value from AI-generated art that they might not derive from other art. Also the idea that if we all somehow didn't have to work (get on it, Sam) that we'd all be creating and admiring one another's *art* is not real and so douchey. Regarding AI, people used to raise these kinds of objections to photoshop and even cameras too. All to say, you can like different art, enjoy things made by AI, and think about all these things without breathy, generalized defenses of "art" as a whole.

Democrats want to abolish the Electoral College because they assume they'll always win the Popular Vote. Otherwise they wouldn't be pretending this is an argument about democracy and civics.

You are not entitled to other individual’s money or wealth. If someone is more successful than you and earns more, the “fair share” that you are entitled to is exactly ZERO. If a rich person wants to give you money, that is charity, not state-sponsored extortion.

@dilanesper If someone gets voted out of office, they weren't much of an autocrat. noun a ruler who has absolute power. It seems like absolute would include staying in office.

2 things are true: 1. Orban was an autocrat, and losing an election doesn't prove otherwise. 2. A lot of "democratic backsliding political science" is just academics trying to transmogrify their left-liberal political commitments into a scientific-sounding theory.

@poppy1080 @MZHemingway @ABCPolitics Who's "they"? Are "they" in the room with you right now?

@dpecchia @MZHemingway @ABCPolitics I'm out. Thanks for playing. They'll give you some kind of prize, I'm sure.

Another point I’ve frequently made. The fact is that under capitalism nobody is stopping you from organizing a commune or operating a co-op. The reason so a few people do this and prefer instead to unionize or otherwise take over established concerns is obviously just that the hardest part about any operation is finding market fit and getting established. Another example where liberals want to privatize risk and socialize benefits.