<Snipped quote by Vilageidiotx>

The Simpsons made their Trump episode after Trump already announced he was going to run. It wasn't a "wow the Simpsons predicted it" thing, though people tried to make that a meme.

But let's be honest here: Trump is famous for far more than his time on Celebrity Apprentice. He was practically the king of NYC in the last couple decades of the 20th century. He was invited to numerous talk shows to explain business, economics, and success. He was getting along with the common man long before he was ever running for President. He's been a household name since the 70's. The only people who see him as a punchline are people who don't know his history outside of the media narrative.

<Snipped quote by Vilageidiotx>

What I meant regarding the collision of cultures was that people allowed for too much interconnection between races/ethnicities which resulted in a society where none of the participants can be truly happy.

While it may be true that culture itself changes, it should change naturally in an attempt to serve it's people. Culture is a representation of a certain racial/ethnic identity. As soon as the identity outpaces the culture or vice versa, there begins a stagnation and decline in society. You see this with the Roman Empire, where it eventually became flooded with individuals who were decidedly not Roman and did not conform to the practices of the Romans to such an extent where it preserved peace.

To say that a people and their values can be so malleable that they should not be preserved is a dangerous path to tread.

And it makes America the punchline of a very unfunny joke.

<Snipped quote by j8cob>

I am aware that he isn't simply his public persona, but the reality is that he was primarily known as his public persona. The "Guy from the Apprentice" narrative wasn't sewn from whole cloth in the last fifteen months by the media to smear a guy who had previously been seen as an Alan Greenspan type figure.

You go back six years ago when we didn't consider him a mostly political figure and you'd find people looking at him as that guy who builds flashy casinos with his name on it and yells at Gary Busey on television. Imma assume that most people haven't exactly read his book, for instance.

<Snipped quote by Didgeridont>

Well, first and foremost I think your reading of the situation between races isn't quite true. There are still racial divides in this country this is true, but it doesn't tell the whole story. I live in a pretty mixed working class area and, everyone here being part of the same regional class culture, we get along pretty damned naturally despite race. If I drive downtown into the ghetto, or conversely if a black neighbor or co-worker went to a small town in the hills, then yeh, there is problems. But speaking of the part of the city I live in, I have more in common with a black neighbor than I do with a white man from Beverly Hills.

And I agree, cultures should be allowed to change naturally. That's kind of what I am saying actually. What I have just described is my natural cultural condition, but your theory seems to assume it is invalid and that I and my neighbors need to be artificially segregated so that I experience my culture more in line with your idea with what it should be than what it actually is. Which is to say simply that I find your concept too bizarre and rigid to ever allow me or those around me to experience culture naturally. There would have to be a culture Gestapo around telling me what Didgeridont requires my culture to be. Historically some regimes have tried it, and historically it doesn't work. The Soviets tried to enforce a culture and the people rejected it a few generations later. Franco attempted the same thing in Spain and the people rejected it only a couple of generations later. Culture is a moving thing, and if you put it behind a dam it only cracks the dam and floods outward on it's own.

And the Roman Empire doesn't work as an example. In the Mediterranean, particularly the eastern half, they absorbed cultures that were decidedly unroman and allowed them to practice their culture, and even their religion, so long as they followed civic law and refrained from converting people to cults. These places Romanticized slowly through a natural process of cultural drift. They had divisive citizenship laws this is true, but as time went on citizenship laws, for your average person, mostly just affected where you sat on the tax base. It's in the decadence of the post-Severan collapse that they begin to hold Germanic tribes introduced into their borders at arms length instead of integrating them, dividing the Empire into increasingly competitive power bases in the last century until those power bases basically tear the thing apart. They couldn't have kept those barbarians out because... well, they tried, they simply couldn't afford to. But by holding them at arms length instead of integrating them, they created the conditions for the empire to fracture as those Germanic power bases became independent.

Job searching anxiety, seasonal depression, plus the aftermath of the election. Came out and told my sister that I was bisexual, but she called me "traitor to the LGBTQ" for wanting to take a more Libertarian approach on the subject of marriage equality. To top it off, I think I've lost another friend who is just so angry and bitter that she would sooner busy herself reaffirming her regressive leftist views on Facebook than to even acknowledge me.

I want to say that I am sadly depressed, but I laugh when I watch the violence being inflicted upon on both Trump supporters and those who opposed him. I want to say I am cynical, yet I long for a more unified America where everyone can find some common ground despite their differences. I want to say I love my country, but for fuck's sake I voted for Char Aznable.

I want to weep for hours when the most honest thing I can say is "I am dead inside."

but for fuck's sake I voted for Char Aznable

Jesus people don't shit on about the Brexit half as much as Americans and their election.

Can the bitch tread be turned back into a bitch thread please? Make a Trump thread for this political bullshit or something.

Jesus people don't shit on about the Brexit half as much as Americans and their election.

<Snipped quote by Spud>

Sure.

But really, wasn't Brexit all we talked about for a couple of weeks? It's only been four days since the election.

That feel when someone approaches you for a commission, you give them the price, they say it's good, and you ask for half up-front so I know this is serious and I get the green light to go. I get the half half on completion and satisfaction.

Still haven't gotten paid. It's been several days, and we were at a clip of a message a day between the two of us. I just had to remind him I'm waiting.

@Dinh AaronMk
That really sucks :/
Not being paid is one of the reasons I'm afraid to take commissions. No matter the art, we pour our hearts and souls into our work, and then more often than not, the requestor bails. Now I'm not familiar with your medium, but as for myself with my knit and crochet work, it's easier on me to make something and then sell it. It's probably what I'll stick to. If I did a commission, I'd probably ask for 75-100% up front to check their seriousness.

I really hope your requestor gets back to you and pays you.

<Snipped quote by Dynamo Frokane>

It wasn't a jab. Sometimes you gotta relax, friendo.

I don't use nearly that much profanity.

That feel when someone approaches you for a commission, you give them the price, they say it's good, and you ask for half up-front so I know this is serious and I get the green light to go. I get the half half on completion and satisfaction.

Still haven't gotten paid. It's been several days, and we were at a clip of a message a day between the two of us. I just had to remind him I'm waiting.