Um… why is this difficult for some people. “Hey, what pronoun do you prefer? Okay! Thanks!” “oh, sorry, I did not mean to use the wrong pronoun! I’ll do better!”
BOOM. done. 
Yep. He absolutely is.
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XKCD, man… Randall should be running the show. He clearly has a snark for every situation.
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when you, years out from an election, say “i will vote for that triangulating shitbag throwing minorities under the bus because they’ll still be better than the other guy” you need to understand that the triangulating shitbag is Watching You: “they’ll still vote for me! no need to change course!”
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As always, there are primaries for a reason. We need to be active in those. Usually only the party loyalists seem to vote in primaries, and the result is centrist assholes like Newsome. But in the general, I will absolutely vote Blue no matter who. I may well not do so happily, but I will. If people like Newsome get through the primaries, we will have only ourselves (Dems, that is) is blame. I will say, if he runs for pres, as I expect him to, I will vote for a pile of rancid dingo kidneys int he primary before I will for him.
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I don’t get the difficulty either, for the most part. I have even seen nonbinary folks say they don’t want to use “they” because it sounds awkward. :shrug:
Singular they was first found in 1375 and was used by Shakespeare (as well as Dickens, Austen and Fitzgerald). Despite 18th century efforts to replace “they” with a universal “he”, it’s remained in common use where a person’s gender is unknown. It is recognized as correct grammar by the AP, MLA, and the Chicago Manual of Style.
Meanwhile, singular second-person pronouns came and went from various dialects of English throughout history, with singular you only becoming a more universal standard in English in the 18th century. But people rarely get confused about “you” being both singular and plural. Context works.
E/em date to 1890 (although eir/emself were 1970s additions) and are also pretty simple to use. “Thon” is from Scottish but was also used as a singular pronoun in the 1850s. Most other pronouns aren’t actually difficult to use – but admittedly, if you’re in a community with a bunch of nonbinary folks that you don’t know very well it can be tricky to remember who prefers which pronouns.
Most people who use they’them or neopronouns tend to be really understanding about it when people mess up, as long as it’s not an obviously intentional dismissal or microaggression. (Which it often is.) Frankly, if you’re nonbinary and immediately react with rage to someone “sirring” you or using “she” when you haven’t even told them your pronouns, you’re just an asshole 
But for the most part it’s like the “cis people think more about my gender than I do” thing.
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I will not vote for Gavin Newsom or any other transphobe.
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I’m not always good with remembering names, but I can’t recall ever saying “I’m trying to understand as much as anyone the whole ‘name’ thing.”
Activate: Sarcasm Mode!
“I mean look, I get that ‘some people’ think they’re special and can make up their own names, but I don’t see why I should have to play along with it. I’m just going to call everyone Bob and they can just deal with it.”
Deactivate Sarcasm.
(Of course it occurs to me that some of these fools do more or less follow this already. 
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Just what we need: another Trumpian politician that spends his time trolling and hurling crude insults.
https://www.axios.com/2025/07/18/gavin-newsom-trump-trolling-social-media
(The insults against Trump and Miller are well-deserved, of course, but any prominent politician who likes to throw around the word “cuck” in an attempt to attract toxic supporters is someone I don’t have a lot of respect for.)
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I’ve never understood why it’s any more complicated that referring to someone by their nickname. Johnathan might prefer to go by the name John. Karen may prefer Kay. I grew up with someone named John, but only knew him by his middle name, Micah. None of this is new or complicated, at least not significantly more complicated than remembering unique(ish) names for everyone anyway.
- If you are unwilling to at least try to get someone’s name right, you’re just being an asshole.
- If you are unwilling to at least try to get someone’s pronouns right, you’re just being an asshole.
These are the same thing. Just because one of them happens to be attached to a current culture war does not make it more valid than the other.
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As far as I’m concerned, what you tell me to call you is your name, regardless of how I might personally feel about it. There are people I’ve known for years, close friends, and even dated, that I know the name they use is not their “legal name,” but unless we’re entering into a contract, I don’t care. That’s just a name used for paperwork, that’s not their name!
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So to be clear that “process of getting to the answer” is learning to ask the chatbot a question in a very specific way, right? Thus training the user of the plagiarism machine in the valuable career skill of being a “prompt engineer?”
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I mean… can’t people see this? He’s found a wedge that’ll give him a greater share of power, criticizing Trump…
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Again with this shtick? He’s been doing it for days now. I’m not sure how appealing this is to the general public but aping Trump hasn’t been funny to me for a long, long time.
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I admit, I am just happy to see mainline Dems taking to the offense rather than staying curled in a defensive crouch all the time. Is it attractive? Maybe not. IMHO, it is kinda funny, and we all know how allergic fascists are to being the butt of the joke. But mostly it is finally taking the fight to the assholes in a very public way, that draws some actual media attention. I am not a fan of Newsome, and God help us if he is the nominee, but someone is punching the bully in the face, and I am here for it.
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