Imagine screwing up on the job so much that you get the money and no longer have to work

Former Senator from Nebraska finished his first of four years as president of University of Florida and decided to call it quits under the fig leaf to take care of his family, but continue with his million dollar a year compensation as President emeritus. This week it came out that he spent $1.3 million in catering in that truncated university presidency that is 3 times what the previous president spent on average for the 8 years prior to the pandemic. Failing up is once again not for the everyman, just the few people who are the ones that are intrinsically worthy because they are members of the elite. Why are they worthy to be members of the elite, they are the ones who given the station in life where failing up is tolerated, of course. This circular logic is the underpinning of the satirical term meritocracy when coined by Michael Young's The Rise of the Meritocracy, but that term has lost lost all of its intended meaning and now is the sincere definition of deserving of one's position because of effort. 

French center allies themselves with French left, instead copying a winning strategy US Dems surrender to MAGA fascists

From NPR:

But in the month between the dissolution and Sunday’s vote, a coalition of left-wing parties and Macron’s own Ensemble movement struck a series of local “hold your nose” deals, whereby whoever was most likely to defeat the National Rally candidate would get the full support of the other party. The deal was called the “Republican Front,” after the 1936 pact between communists, socialists and others to keep the far right out of power.

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What likelihood of centrists coming to the left to prevent Trump election? I would venture a guess that most within the political consultant industrial complex would rather lose to Trump rather than win with popular policies that are at the detriment of their patrons in the donor class. In 2020, Florida voted overwhelming for an increase of the state minimum wage but Biden who had white papers supporting increasing the federal minimum wage and tying it to inflation didn't campaign on it to make his name synonymous with increasing the minimum wage law losing the state by nearly 10%. A 30% swing of the same voters were lost because employers and Wall Street are vehemently opposed to increasing the floor of what working people get for their labor. This is but one glaring example of how the centrist neoliberal Democrats would rather lose than win with progressives/Leftists. 

The US is very likely to see a second dose of a Trump administration, but this time there will be far more prepared, far more sycophantic, toadies and as often is the case personnel beats policy.