That is what our conservative parents and teachers taught us. In reality capitalism cares only for the owning class.

Which isn't to say capitalism is worthless, it can be a powerful force when regulated for the benefit of everyone.

Which is why i say in theory, yes. If there are no regulations the ideal job for a capitalist to take is robbing people!

The DOJ, DHS, ICE, and judicial processes are losing credibility quickly. If ever they deserved the benefit of the doubt, I would say that time has passed, at least at national level.

I thought Nadella fired all the QA in favor of outsourcing to the different "rings" of beta users. Do they have any significant QA in house anymore?

Trump was born rich to a father who taught him cruelty and insulated him from consequences. It was a golden ticket.

He still managed to go bankrupt 6 times, and couldn't get financing. He had to resort to selling his name or getting money from one of the most corrupt banks in the world.

He's rumored to have been despised in the NY social scene since his youth and up to the present.

He's been accused of rape by his own ex-wife and SA by more than 20 others. He bought pageants so beautiful women would have to interact with him. His longest relationship is with an illegal migrant (possibly trafficked) escort whose visa he had to pay for.

He gained no following during his time at the head of the Reform party.

Since 2015 his political base, like Nixon's, is largely built on white grievance and fear. It's incapable of building much once in power.

Now the Trump family accumulates money by selling power, hot air, and fleecing fools.

When was he at the head of the Reform party?

In 2000, with the help of Jesse Ventura.

I'm having trouble finding any evidence for that. E.g., https://web.archive.org/web/20030808111721/https://edition.c... -- here's a thing from February of that year that (if I'm understanding right) reports Ventura leaving the Reform Party because he didn't like its endorsement of Pat Buchanan for president; it mentions Trump, but only as one person Ventura might have supported as a presidential nominee, and it actually quotes Trump saying to Ventura "you're the leader". Trump was never the Reform Party's nominee nor anyone else's. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donald_Trump_2000_presidential... says that "he never expanded the campaign beyond the exploratory phase".)

It's not entirely clear to me that there was actually such a thing as the leader of the Reform Party, especially in early 2000 when there was a lot of infighting, but if there was one it seems to me that it might have been Ventura but certainly wasn't Trump.

What am I missing?

Or perhaps insert favorite controversial world leader will insert themselves into the real facts of the story behind the title

Dwelling on the negative is one thing. Acknowledging the bad with the good is often the point of obituaries and threads like this one.

We don't need to whitewash the world to enjoy the good parts.

Is that really true? Young children perhaps. IME most folks learn that people are complicated at least by adolescence once they realize their parents are imperfect.

Of course there is the ever present temptation to resort to tribalism, which is pretty binary: in or out.

For example, the general attitude shift about Elon Musk following that cave rescue incident. Before that he could do no wrong, and after that he could do no right.

I'm struggling to think of anything he did after the cave incident that could be construed as right?

I don't think this is an interpretation problem. I think he genuinely started going down a path that most of us disagree with.

If taking heroic doses of ketamine on a regular basis is wrong, I don't want to be right.

Neuralink is incredibly cool and that's just the first thing that comes to mind. You might be struggling to realise people aren't binary.

He’s providing starlink for free to Iranians right now afaik.

Fair point. And he provided free coverage for a long while with Ukraine [0].

I'm tempted to speculate on reasons, but I think I'll just leave it and admit that yes, he did a good thing here.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Starlink_in_the_Russian-Ukrain...

He was just better at his PR and kept his filter running. Once he hit a critical mass of money and influence, he let the mask slip.

Gold is heavy and difficult to verify it's purity and authenticity

This isn't accidental. Religious indoctrination literally teaches generations to make special loopholes in critical thinking and healthy skepticism to maintain their faith. And it has paid off in easy to manipulate masses for centuries.

The more religious people I know are some of the best critical thinkers. Especially those types who enroll their kids in the 'classical' education model. With the decline of religion in the USA, I don't think this is a very coherent scapegoat.

Religion isn't the only factor, nor did I claim it was.

But it's the only one I've seen convince PhDs to believe self contradictory "scriptures", cherry picked "evidence", appeals to authority, parrot useless platitudes, indoctrinate their kids, dismiss injustices, other people even for the most trivial differences in doctrine, and consistently vote against their own interests.

They actually have offered policies along this line but their messaging is weak at best.

It also competes with an opponent (the GOP) that is more than willing to outright lie to sway voters. This isn't to say that the DNC is beyond reproach but we're way past "both sides" at this point.