...after all, those things are part of what inflation is adjusting for. (I'm open to being wrong about this).

I'm going off back-of-the-envelope math here, but if inflation-adjusted income is higher, then shouldn't that mean the median person is actually economically better off over the course of their life, even if there might be particular things like housing that seem bad on their own?...

Yeah, but against a higher median income. Also, rents aren't that much higher (on average, there are places where they've gotten bad). You're chart shows they've only beat income by ~15% since 2000.

...compared to your parents owning a house in the suburbs.

Housing is a factor, as is school costs. Both of which can squeeze you in your 20s a little harder than at later ages, but I think a significant part of it is point of reference. Having to get a small apartment shared with roommates is a pretty normal part of life but feels bad when...

Basically every generation has been better off (at least economically) than the last. It's just that your 20s is a period of your life where everyone is relatively poor, so it seems rougher than living off your parents during their peak earning years.

Seriously, it doesn't matter and doesn't make you special. You might as well be talking about what Hogwarts house you belong in.

There's some room for placing some limit on immigration, but if you're a citizen, you're a citizen. There should be no second-class citizens.

I've been known to "interact" with nachos.

Of course, maybe some of them have already beaten me to it.

...much of a difference it really makes.

There are some distinctions here - the Guard was federalized during those prior instances, it was the Guard from the state in question - but while those do make it feel a little better than unfederalized TX troops invading IL, if they are doing so at the request of the Fed Gov, I'm not sure how...

This feels right-ish to me but @stevevladeck.bsky.social made the good point yesterday that it makes sense for the Fed. Gov. to have had the power to use federalized Guard to enforce desegregation during the Civil Rights era.

If I've learned anything from the last 10+ years of Trump it's that no conviction means that they are a great guy and did absolutely nothing wrong.

MIAHM is maybe a libertarian utopia, but not a lot if traditional family values in Heinlein.

What, exactly, is Khorne harvesting over there and why do those plants look so much like skulls?

This was actually hurting support for Trump's immigration policies, and causing him to pull back - he just recently brought Abrego Garcia back. Now he's getting photos of people holding Mexican flags on burning cars, which are the exact images he needs to sell his crackdown.

We still have a mostly functional judiciary and a mostly functional media. The judiciary was successfully shutting down Trump's unlawful anti-immigration activity. The media was highlighting some of the more outrageous things he was doing, like deporting law-abiding mothers.

This is essentially the Politician's Fallacy - "We must do something. This is something. Therefore we must do this." The way Trump is handling immigration is bad, but the question is whether protests will help. They almost certainly will make things worse as they give him an excuse.

I'm not providing fodder for Trump's political message and machinations. First do no harm.