When it comes to planning summer trips, my family has been in an ongoing debate between driving and flying. Thankfully, I booked some of the flights before the War in Iran started. The rest of the trips? It seems like they’re going to be costly no matter what I do.
I suppose the silver lining for me is that none of my personal journeys are to California, where gas just shot up to above $6 a gallon. Some of that has to do with the War in Iran and the rest with some quirks specific to California. Average gas prices are up everywhere, of course, and it doesn’t look like it’ll be great for anyone.
The Morning Dump this week has been more dominated by quarterly financial reports than the war, and that includes the first-ever quarterly report from Stellantis. It’s, uh, it’s not great other than a windfall from tariff refunds. Ford’s report shows the company doing better, though it, too, will benefit from getting tariff money back.
You know who did great in Q1? Škoda! I know you’ve all been missing Škoda content.
Welcome To The New Fuel Crisis, Just Like The Old Fuel Crisis
According to GasBuddy, the average price of gas shot up to $4.31 a gallon today. That’s high. That’s the highest it’s been since the last fuel crisis that peaked in 2021 following the pandemic and the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
That’s a national average, though, and your fuel cost is going to depend a lot on where you live and what type of fuel you put into your car. I won’t get into crack spreads, but it’s gonna be a hard and long road for diesel owners for a while.
It’s going to be worse in California. It’s already worse in California, with prices going above $6 a gallon. On a national level, this is a direct result of the Iran War, which was started for… reasons. And while the United States has a lot oil, it’s more complicated than that.
For California, it’s way more complicated as Bloomberg mentions this morning:
California’s product supply is more challenging than for most of the rest of the US. No pipelines carry fuels into the state from the Gulf Coast, and the state has also seen two refineries shuttered since October 2025, eliminating roughly 20% of its capacity.
California is a bit of an energy island, and even if the Strait of Hormuz opens up tomorrow, prices aren’t going to immediately recover, at least according to oil market expert Phillip Verleger on his Substack:
California and the US West Coast can expect gasoline and diesel shortages soon. Extremely high prices (possibly above $10 per gallon) could be coming.
Several refineries in California have closed in the past year. The shutdowns have occurred as the state transitions away from gasoline. The transition is not expected to be easy, however. California Energy Commission Vice Chair Siva Gunda relayed this news to an audience on March 4, as OPIS reported:
“As we go down (in California refining capacity), this is not going to be a smooth transition,” Gunda said. “Demand is falling very smoothly between 1 and 2 percent. But when a refinery leaves, depending on the size of the refinery, it could be 15 percent, so you have that sudden imbalance.”
This is important for consumers, obviously, and for carmakers as well. Stellantis, Ford, and GM are banking on full-size truck sales and large crossovers to be profitable this year. Is that going to happen if $6 gas or $7 diesel becomes the norm outside California?
Stellantis Reports Profitable Q1, Large Tariff Refund
Prior to this year, Stellantis only reported half-year earnings. This means this is the first-ever Q1 report from the massive automaker known as Stellantis. Cool! Even better, the company is profitable:
“As we initiate quarterly reporting, the first three months of 2026 reflect the early results of our actions to return Stellantis to sustainable, profitable growth. The products we launched in 2025 have been well received and we’re confident that the 10 new vehicles planned for 2026 will build on this momentum. Our priority is clear: to put our customers back at the center of everything we do and we look forward to sharing more on this at our Investor Day on May 21 in Auburn Hills.”
Earnings actually beat estimates, in part due to a $450 million tariff refund that the company is expecting this year. A lot of the rest of the growth came from RAM trucks and V8 Dodge Durangos. Why did the market seem to react negatively to this good news? Automotive News explains:
Shares in Stellantis on the Milan stock exchange were down as much as 10 percent in early trading, on weak cash flows and investors’ concerns about the sustainability of the turnaround in the North American market.
Industrial free cash flow was more than €1.9 billion negative in the quarter, although an improvement from a cash burn of more than €3 billion a year earlier.
It was “more negative than expected,” Oddo BHF analyst Michael Foundoukidis said, noting that it only included €700 million in charges out of a total of €1 billion expected for this year.
Stellantis will probably have to do more than pull a rabbit out of a hat one time to move the market.
Ford Also Profitable, Expects A $1.3 Billion Tariff Refund
The biggest tariff refund winner appears to be Ford, which is reporting a $1.3 billion expected return this year.
Our strong first-quarter results and raised full-year guidance reflect the momentum of the Ford+plan,” said Ford President and CEO Jim Farley. “We built the foundation for a more modern, resilient Ford, improving cost and quality and building our world-class team. We are well prepared to deliver for our customers and shareholders as we enter one of the most intensive product, software and physical services rollouts in our history.”
Added Ford CFO Sherry House: “The path to higher margins is clear, and the first-quarter demonstrates those building blocks in action. The strength in the quarter reflects strong execution in our profit pillars, and we remain on track to deliver our full-year cost reductions. When combined with accretive recurring revenue from software and physical services and decisive actions to improve our EV performance, we are driving a fundamentally more profitable business, allocating capital with extreme discipline, protecting our balance sheet, and positioning Ford to deliver consistently higher returns.”
Ford is, comparatively, in better shape than Stellantis. Margins are pointed in the positive direction, there are fewer drags on the business, and F-150 production should be able to kick up in the second half of the year.
Škoda Is The Second Most Popular Brand In Europe This Year
For all the troubles at Volkswagen, its Czech subsidiary Škoda is thriving. Would you believe that it’s the second best-selling brand in all of Europe, behind only Volkswagen and, as of Q1, ahead of Toyota? See, I’m not (that) crazy!
The company is also profitable, and just had its best quarter from a financial standpoint in its history.
“We carried the strong momentum of a record 2025 into the first quarter of 2026 to deliver the highest Q1 operating profit in Škoda Auto’s history. For the first time, Škoda has become Europe’s second best-selling car brand — a milestone we can be proud of in a highly competitive market.
Get down with your bad self, Klaus!
What I’m Listening To While Writing TMD
You ever discover a musician exists and you can’t imagine how you missed them? My new obsession is the latest album from the Icelandic jazz singer Laufey. That this is a thing, and that it’s apparently a thing popular with teenagers, is fascinating to me. I absolutely love it and have listened to the extended release of the album probably 100 times in the last two weeks. “Silver Lining” is my favorite track, which is very Patsy Cline in the absolutely best way.
The Big Question
How much did your last fill-up cost? If you have an EV, how much for your last full charge?
Top photo: DepositPhotos.com
Fuel in my part of Texas went back up from 3.39 to 3.69/3.79 at our local stations.
We charge our EV at DC fast charge stations almost exclusively. Those stations actually went down a bit in price the past 8 months as more stations opened and more competition has filled out.
I’ve been averaging 3.5-3.6 miles per kWh around town. with a $13 a month Tesla membership i can get prices as low as 16-17 cents a kwh at local stations, but 31 cents in the evening or 38 cents during the day.
I never completely fill the car, but my last 20-80% charge which is about 160 miles around town cost us about $7 with the tesla membership.
so my operating costs are running between 4.8 and 8.8 cents a mile since i avoid using the more expensive chargers that cost 50 cents a kwh or more, which would push my costs to 14.5 cents a mile. but our easiest to get charging usually runs 31 cents a kwh which is the 8.8 cents a mile.
so cost per mile as good as an 75+ mpg vehicle, or as bad as a 25mpg vehicle in my area.
I paid $2.54 for E85 in my truck the other day, and the price is basically unchanged now even sitting next to $4.99 regular and $5.99 premium.
Kind of crazy that my truck, which will struggle to reach double digit mpg on E85, is arguably the cheapest vehicle to drive per mile that I have right now.
E85! Living the Iowan dream.
Rarely makes financial sense, but when it does, it’s a nice alternative.
Having a stable alternative sounds pretty slick!
It won’t be stable for long. Ethanol prices tend to trail regular gas prices, but they’ll eventually catch up.
Prices for ethanol are based on corn and natural gas prices because those are the inputs. Natural gas is export limited so prices will remain low until heating season. Corn prices are still under $5 per bushel (enough to make 3 gallons) because there is a record amount in storage after farmers did not want to sell last year’s record harvest at a loss. The corn market is still over supplied. Eventually corn farmers are going to plant less acres and apply less fertilizer because of higher fertilizer and fuel prices, but not this year.
Looks like my last fill-up, on April 18, ran about $102. That’s 16.2 gallons of 91-octane premium at $6.30/gallon. It would have been $6.50/gallon without my Safeway “rewards” discount, which used to go as high as $0.40 off per gallon but has recently been capped at $0.20 off.
I haven’t checked today, but I’m pretty sure as of yesterday the price at that same station had gone up by $0.10/gallon or possibly $0.20. These are currently competitive prices for name-brand gasoline where I live in Oakland, CA.
We enjoy our Hyundai Ioniq 6 AWD EV. On the highway at 70 mph it gets ~3.5 miles/kWh and in town around ~4.+ We do most of our driving in town, so let’s call it 4 miles/kWh.
Our utility residential rate is a flat ~0,12 / kWh with no discounts or rate change based on time nor demand. Assuming you’re comparing it to a vehicle that gets a good 40 mpg…40 (miles) / 4 (miles) =10.0 kWh * 0.12 = .$1.20
$1.20 in electrical cost to go the same 40 miles that $3.00 – $5.00 of gas will get you. Cars and trucks that get lower MPG will cost even more, especially Diesel.
Residential rates vary greatly by region. High-speed level-3 charging can be equal or even much higher than an equivalent gallon of gas. We only charge at home. Some pay much more at home, some pay much less. I think our utility SUCKS (TVA-based) regarding incentives for clean energy, but I live in TN where the RWNJs run the government (into the ground). There’s also the annual $200 EV surcharge (which should be based on miles and vehicle weight and applied across all vehicles in lieu of a gas tax, if you want to be fair). Still cheaper than gas.
The TN EV registration fee is supposedly increasing to $274 per year in 2027 and will continue to increase yearly indexed to inflation. Yay TN!
https://revenue.support.tn.gov/hc/en-us/articles/360060541291-VR-5-Registration-Fees-for-Hybrid-or-Electric-Vehicles
That’s insane! If it were a straight gas tax replacement, the annual fee should be closer to $150/year since your state tax is 27.4 cents per gallon. Oklahoma at least did the math well. My annual fee is $112 which is very close to what I would have been paying in gas taxes at 20 cents per gallon.
Well at least your rates are decently low sucks no incentives it is the same for me in Indiana with NIPSCO they give no benefits for having an EV, don’t buy power back if you are on solar or geotherm and after all their BS fees we are averaging like 21-22 cents an hr. We also have a $221 fee each year for EV’s.
It went from $3.99 to $4.29 on Monday or Tuesday, and $4.99 yesterday here in Ohio. I filled up the GR Corolla this morning but it was around 1/4-1/2 tank, I was at Meijer and figured get it over with.
93 Octane was $5.99 but I redeemed $1/gal MPerks so it ended up $4.99 anyway. About $40 for 8 gallons.
I haven’t filled up in a couple weeks, but here’s my price update today from Michigan: In Oakland County, regular unleaded jumped overnight from $4.29/gallon to $4.99/gallon. On my drive south through various communities and to my destination in Royal Oak, I saw regular unleaded consistently at $4.99, while diesel jumped overnight from $5.19/gallon to $6.19 – $6.29/gallon.
Yeah I didn’t pay attention to diesel this morning but I saw the gas prices in my area NWI Indiana (Valpo) yesterday they were under 4 bucks like 3.89 or something today they were 4.99 that is ridiculous. Don’t think I’ll be driving my cummins or firebirds much this year or at least to work (96 mile commute) with those prices
Here it is $8.85/gal for what I guess is the equivalent of regular. And we are not even one of the most expensive countries in this continent…
About a decade ago on a trip to Norway, I remember the ~$10/gallon equivalent seeming like a lot, until I realized that since our rental car was getting ~50 mpg, the cost per mile was about the same as my old Jeep at home with $4/gallon fuel. I’m guessing the rental car would be an EV now if we redid the trip.
Funnily enough I was in Norway this week for work. It is now sitting at $11.5/gal. Of course the vast majority of cars are EV or HEV.
Here in Spain I drive a little hybrid supermini which basically gets 59mpg in mixed driving. Even a steady 75mph motorway cruise will still return 50mpg.
The last gas fill was ~$50 at almost $5/gallon for E0 premium is the FR-S. But that tank will last most of the Summer since it’s rarely driven. But that puts me at about $0.18 per mile.
Last charge up on the EV is just on home rates. Ignoring the solar panels (the house now uses more than it generates) based on my utility rate and the ~3.4 miles/kWh, it’s at ~$0.05 per mile.
That’s car versus car, but now that Spring is here, I’ll shift to cheaper options, the EV motorcycle or good old pedal power. Gotta pinch those pennies
I hear there’s an old 2CV out there whose owner keeps a can of gas in it. Next fill-up free for the first one who finds it!
Sounds like a lockpicking lawyer video in the making.
“The Big QuestionHow much did your last fill-up cost? If you have an EV, how much for your last full charge?”
Filled my regular-cab 2WD 5-speed GMC Canyon yesterday for $45 (from around 1/4 tank) while gas was still $3.99/gallon in my area. It went up to $4.21 today.
I haven’t filled up from empty since before the invasion, I fill up when I’m a bar or two off full since the price now is the least worse it’ll be for a while. Last weekend I drove from VT to NJ and back and averaged 41 mpg (2020 Honda Fit LX 6MT) over the whole trip which includes more driving around there than in past years.
I have my late father’s 7.3L Powerstroke F350. I put $100 worth of diesel at $4.79/gal. It gave me barely 3/4 of a tank. The next day, the price was $5.25/gal.
My other vehicle is a 2023 Maverick Hybrid. It’s been at the dealer for the past 43 days while they figure out a drive line vibration issue. I’d much rather drive the Maverick, as I can knock down 50mpg on my 22 mile daily commute. I was really thinking of selling the Maverick to get out from under the $500/month payment but that was before the “military action” against Iran. $500 in diesel doesn’t go very far right now 🙁
43 days at the dealer is lemon-law territory. If you can charge at home I’d look into cashing out of it and getting a Bolt or something so you can save the Powerstroke for occasional “truck stuff” use.
I looked into that. The lemon law only applies if it spent more than 30 days at the dealership within the first two years of ownership. I just hit three years the first week of April 🙁
I’m seriously considering buying like a first gen Leaf or something just to drive to work and back.
I think no car payment+reliable car is much even with high fuel prices is much better then unreliable car+ car payments even though it gets good mpg. Also is you commute 22 miles one way or total? If one way what is your 7.3 getting mpg wise probably about 15-16? So if one way that isn’t even 1 and a half gallons a day for diesel if it is one way that is still only ~3 gallons a day for fuel at ~15mpg so even then that is 15 bucks a day for fuel so 75 bucks a week if you work 5 days and that would be 300 a month is fuel at your current prices of 5.25 so still way less then you 500 a month car payment. Also this all just napkin math so do live by these numbers but I would say sit down and calculate things out.
My last fill up was a little over $8.
Motorcycle + cheap Oklahoma gas = Win!
$5.39/gal for 87 here in San Diego as of this morning which hasn’t changed since last week. The last fill up of my commuter Mazda 3 was about $55.
I have been driving my 2004 Sequoia so infrequently that the battery died and I ended up putting a solar charger on it (thanks Mercedes). I actually drove it to work today just to put some miles on it.
California at least is used to high gas prices and people are prepared for them and made vehicle choices around them (see DT’s latest report about babying with the i3). According to GasBuddyGuy on TwitSky the Great Lakes region’s skyrocketed in the last few days.
I paid $42 to fill up my Tucson a few days ago. The e15 88 octane was $3.599, but I had a 15 cent/gallon discount on my rewards card.
I just checked, and they are selling the same gas for $3.799 right now. Regular 87 octane is $3.999, premium is $4.799, and #2 diesel is $5.249. Just outside of the Twin Cities MN
EV charging is…..complicated. My utility offers a demand response program that I participate in. It rebates the difference between standard retail (not TOU) and wholesale rates for power for participation. That varies depending on the time of year. Right now it’s at a high because it’s spring and demand is low. The heat pumps aren’t as active and people haven’t begun cooling yet. A full charge of 75 kWh for about 300 miles of range would be about $15 at home at retail rates. About $10 with the rebate at the moment.
Yeah hard to say what it cost. I get to charge at work for free currently (that is changing later this year lame) but my NWI at home kWh rates are pretty ridiculous like we are at like 21-22 cents an hr after all the fees (my dad on the other hand in Illinois has like a set 10 cents all year) but my Polestar 2 has a usable 75kWh so if I were to go from 100 to 0 my cost would be about ~15.75. I am currently getting about ~32kWh per 100 miles so over 300 mile that would cost ~20 dollars.
~$9 but that’s because I just topped off the tank. 20 MPG average means I’m at around $0.17/mile in fuel.
I am always eyeing something electrified but I’m just too damn picky.
The “good” news though is that I calculated costs at $7/gallon gasoline compared to alternatives I was considering prior to purchase and the calculator still made a happy face so at least there’s room there.
I’m certainly tired of winning though, that I can declare.
Interesting just did the maths on my little hybrid hatchback and I am at €0,06/km, despite the much higher fuel prices.
Since the majority of giant truck owners voted for a PDFile and I still own a Honda Insight, lol. GOOD.
I got one as well now. Long-term, I am planning either a full EV conversion, or a plug-in series hybrid that uses a mechanically-injected Kubota tractor diesel. As an EV, driven conservatively, this is an honest 160 Wh/mile car on the highway. Outside of even smaller cars half a century old(or more!) such as Lotus Europas, Alfa Romeo TZs, Porsche 550 Spyder replicas, Saab Sonetts and 96s, and the like, you will NOT find a more efficient stock platform from the standpoint of aerodynamics and mass than a 1st gen Honda Insight.
Ooh, a Robot Cantina build! Nice!
Except with a lot more horsepower. Maybe a Tesla Model 3 motor and a 10-15 kWh battery pack making 300-ish horsepower. Keep the Insight at roughly stock weight and turn it into a track weapon that can also eek out 80+ mpg on long highway trips while having 50-100 miles all-EV range.
TBQ – $0 for my last EV fill-up. I had home solar installed last year. The net metering in my area is OK, but not great. I get 1:1 net metering during a billing period. Any excess generation I get credits for equivalent to wholesale rates. Any I draw beyond what I feed into the system I buy at standard rates.
Looking back at my 2022 gas data, We were paying about $350/month for gas during the peak prices. If we didn’t have solar, that would equate to ~$35/month in electricity.
…I’m not sure. About $30-ish for a bit more than a half tank. Having a 12-gallon tank is great when you have a tiny car with good mileage. And I have a sports car, so that’s premium. Lawnmower will also do my lawn three times on a tank, so a gas can of 91 Ethanol free will last pretty much all season. (Though I plan on dumping some of that into my Bug soon.)
While I do not make many decisions based on the price of gas, I won’t pretend that I’m loving filling up the Chrysler van these days.
The big silver lining: high fuel costs motivate EV sales, and motivate dumb voters to vote smarter.
People tend to pay attention when their choices jab their wallets hard.
EV: I pay about $1.80-$2/day in electricity for my ~40mi commute.
My “bicycle”(3-wheeled tadpole microcar) when it had a body on it, could travel 150-200 miles at 30-35 mph for about $0.20 in today’s prices. It’s now a quadricycle without a body on it, and it still gets ~30-50 miles range for the same cost and operating conditions.
I have a regular 2-wheeled eBike that I ride around for fun in the evenings. I can’t ride it to work or anywhere serious due to where I live so I’ve never bothered calculating how much electricity it takes to charge.
I built an electric motorcycle disguised as a mountainbike. It uses about 30 Wh/mile @ 30 mph with light pedaling effort. A 750 Wh battery costs me about $0.10 to charge, giving me a 20-25 mile range.
My long term plan is to turn it into a 10 kW e-moto made to look as if it’s entirely unmotorized.
Imagine how much better off we’d be if the Big 3 US automakers in the late 1990s started offering 150+ mile range EVs and 70+ mpg midsize sedans at affordable prices as they were capable of doing, made possible with aerodynamic streamlining, instead of forcing the SUV/CUV/truck zeitgeist on the buyer.
Not only would the planet be better off, but everyone would be saving so much money. The problem is, every dollar you don’t spend is a dollar corporations aren’t adding to the bottom line.
Instead, we get CUVs designed to get good fuel economy on paper via the EPA tests, that in reality don’t do as well as the official numbers indicate, wherein mission-critical components like oil pans are now made of plastic and maintenance/repairs are locked behind a dealership paywall and software gated.
Gas price surges are really the icing on this shit cake. Future generations of Americans may not be able to afford to operate cars at all. That would be all fine and good if Americans had practical alternatives to the car available, but the auto industry was one of the entities that made sure this would never be the case.
I got me a 1st gen Honda Insight while I still could. I see potential for a major upswing in value soon, especially if the crisis in Iran is prolonged.
I’m thinking of the alternate timeline where in 2003, GM still killed the EV1 but kept developing EV technology and platforms until NMC batteries became viable a few years later. They could have buried Tesla before the Model S ever hit full production. Then we wouldn’t have Elon to deal with.
GM should have made an elongated, 4-door EV1 with the same CdA value(or smaller), then shoved a 3800 V6 in it. Could have been the new Cavalier/Grand Prix/Ion/ect. and got 50+ mpg highway as an inexpensive non-hybrid, and helped get the cost of the EV down by increasing the production volume of the platform. Then built the EV1, later expanding its EV lineup.
They’d have done it the other way around, dropping the dedicated platform from the EV1 program and just shoving it all into a Saturn SC2 or Cavalier coupe.
Which is the backwards thing to do. When the platforms are inefficient, then EV tech is not viable and ICE will be less efficient.
But wouldn’t the economy absolutely crash without companies like exxon making up to $70 billion in annual profits? Think of how many less billionaires there would be. /s
Personally, I’m hoping to see some nutty, unexpected future turns in events that result in exxon and chevron and such going bankrupt.
It will be on the American people to either prevent a bailout, or impose consequences for said bailout.
In Europe you’ve got plenty of options that will easily get 50-60mpg. Hybrids rule here and I can see why.
My Mazda 6e EREV has a tiny 45L/ 12 gal tank, and it costs me 55 USD to fill it up where I live.
Good for 450 miles on the highway, and if I charge up the battery for 3 USD, it goes another 100 miles.
If Mazda offered it here in the US right now, it’s be a home-run (along with its CUV cousin). Been waiting and waiting for a Mazda E_REV, especially if they could pull off one with a rotary like the beautiful RX-VISON / ICONIC concept cars they’ve made…
https://www.cnet.com/a/img/resize/1395f28aa2f1b8fc174bf9afa0e80e9ac3575f7e/hub/2017/10/24/f50c67f3-e5fc-4291-8e49-0c6e9bd7e77d/mazda-vision-coupe-promo.jpg?auto=webp&width=1200
That’s reserved for OnlyFanbelts posts, of course.
Oh no that was legit accidental. I did, however, finish Heated Rivalry yesterday
Still, it’s so good.
Indeed, I’m keeping it!
Gas prices continue to surge because a bunch of pedophiles want to kill brown people/distract us from the Epstein files AND billions of dollars in tariff refunds are going right to car manufacturers, who weren’t even that affected by tariffs because they just used them as an excuse to jack prices even higher? Hell yeah, that’s capitalism, baby! Is this enough winning for everyone? The wealth is going to trickle down any minute now, I’m told!
Yes, this is the Golden Shower we’ve all been promised for ages now. It’s so close I can taste it.
And here I was thinking the billionaires wouldn’t piss on us if we were on fire! Silly me, they’re much more generous than that!
Problem is they are so drunk that their piss is mostly ethanol, and highly flammable…
It’s always fascinated me that a deranged man who just so happens to be a teetotaler due to his fear of the consequences of drinking decides to surround himself with a cabal of drunks….
Great, so I can fill up both my gas tank and my DEF tank! Thanks, billionaires!
Trickled-on economics.
I feel like a Russian hooker!
“can taste it”
Golden Shower… spaghetti?
Yeah, I didn’t buy a new car last year, so none of that is my money, per se, but man is it annoying to see “Hooray! We made an extra billion dollars last year with the tariff refunds!”
Nah, dude, you just benefited from the bullshit gilded age economic policy of the rich asshole who convinced a bunch of poor people that he cared about anything other than himself (and other rich assholes who can do stuff for him).
Hey now, let’s not forget that many oil companies are reporting record profits since the war started. That wealth should be reaching us at any moment …
Meanwhile, in Corpus Christi, TX, residents who use less than 10% of the water are being forced to cut back their water use, while the oil refineries use the lion’s share and don’t even have to pay the same rate as households. They’re draining Lake Corpus Christi dry and soon the city could be in such a crisis that water no longer comes from the tap.
IMO, the refineries should be cut off of water and forced to fund their own desalinization plants.
Wait why did AADvanced get modded? They didn’t say anything that wasn’t true….
Not sure I saw the modded comment.
They brought up the fact that the country run by the big Yahu has its fingerprints all over pretty much everything I brought up and uh…yeah, duh.
The big Yahu is a puppet. Get rid of him, and nothing meaningful will change vs the damage already done. A different puppet will take his place. The entirety of the government is the problem along with the corporations which have purchased it, without regard to party. I’d go so far as to say elections in the USA are rigged and the outcome meaningless. Something more drastic is needed to fix this mess, but this website is not the place to discuss that.
Doesn’t change how much of a piece of crap the big Yahu is, that all said. I considered him the “lesser evil” last time around, and have second thoughts now. Regardless, the “lesser evil” is still a hell of a lot of evil, and I never voted for it.
The big Yahu’s supporters among the working classes aren’t really the problem either. They’re needed in order to help fix this mess, like it or not.
The “big Yahu” does not refer to the fascist organge doofus in the Oval Office, it refers to his counterpart in the Middle East who we’re continuing to do the bidding of and funnel billions of dollars to
Thanks for the clarification. I’m not a fan of him either.
You are correct, though. We won’t win in the end if we don’t impart some class consciousness on Orange man’s supporters and give them a chance to atone for themselves…but that’s probably a discussion for another time.
To some extent, it already exists. The distrust of academia has its roots in this class consciousness.
He won some of them over by having a platform that was economically to the left of the so-called opposition party(a party that pretends to be left-wing), said opposition party which was more focused on identity politics. It doesn’t matter that he is a pathological liar, they believed him and had no one else talking about these things available on the ballot.
It was (mostly) off-topic. I kept your comment, which at least tied back into the post.
Concentrate the gains, socialize the losses.