User:Woozle/LwaC/2025/03/23

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he wrote

response

So, Mom was suggesting that maybe you and I should just always avoid talking politics. It seems kind of unavoidable to me, though; politics seems to be one of your few forms of entertainment or diversion, these days...

...so maybe the thing for me to do is to try to be entertaining in my response, rather than focusing on silly stuff like facts and policy outcomes.

My response to your link, then:

There's a current TV series called "What If...?" which explores alternate realities within the Marvel Cinematic Universe, or "MCU" -- all the comic-book characters owned by Marvel: Captain America, The Hulk, Iron Man, Spider Man, etc. Each episode starts with a premise in which in-universe history is changed somehow: "What if Captain America's superpowers had gone to Peggy Carter instead of Steve Rogers?" "What if Agatha Harkness (immortal witch) teamed up with Howard Stark (Iron Man's millioniaire industrialist/inventor dad) in Hollywood in the 1930s?"

I'm thinking this piece might be the seed of a "what if" type exploration of an alternate reality, given that the central narrative -- that the EU's social safety-nets had actually been paid for by US defense spending all this time -- is clearly fiction. That would be pretty surprising and funny!

Taibbi doesn't seem to do a lot of world-building to explain this odd plot-twist, but I can imagine a lot of "what if"s that might have gone into it:

  • What if... US healthcare was only terrible because all our public money was being put into building weapons, and not because of profiteering by insurance companies?
  • What if... the US was mostly giving those weapons to Europe for free, or at a steep discount, instead of selling them?
  • What if... for-profit healthcare is actually more efficient than government-run?
  • What if... most of our overseas money was going to Europe, and not countries like Ukraine and Israel?
  • What if... Ukraine was a member of the EU?
  • What if... Ukraine actually deserved to be invaded, because they really were harboring fascists?
  • What if... Russia really was the victim of Ukrainian hostility, and Ukraine's nuclear disarmament in the 1990s was just a ploy?
  • What if... The only reason the US hasn't been able to balance its budget is because we're spending so much money defending other countries, and not because we somehow can't tax billionares?

I could see a whole series of stories set in this realm -- call it the "MTU" (Matt Taibbi Universe) -- featuring other amazing and unbelievable circumstances and characters:

  • Donald Trump as a competent businessman and self-made millionaire who just wants the best for America!
  • Elon Musk as a the brilliant and innovative entrepreneur who cares deeply about government efficiency and the welfare of his employees!
  • (((George Soros))) as the conniving billionaire who is covertly helping the woke anti-Trumpists to lawyer up!
  • Bill Gates as himself!
  • Kristi Noem as the dedicated veterinarian whose loyal army of superintelligent cyberdogs (brain interfaces by Neuralink™) helps find and rescue wounded soldiers (and their therapy animals)!

I'm imagining the big denouement scene in which Supreme Commander Trump, with a monumental flex of his Supertruth powers, restores Greatness to America -- receiving a brief misty-eyed head-nod from the ghost of SuperLBJ, Eternal Custodian of the Great Society.

Anyway, enough fantasy... I can't remember if you like trains or not, but I've always found them really interesting, and I enjoyed watching this video: This Railroad Could Cripple America's Economy: it's all about Amtrak's northeast corridor, and the long-overdue repairs currently underway.

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