okay so i was thinking of a joke earlier about how in DPDC Amity Park's slogan "a great place to live" is not only city propaganda but also the city lording it over the rest of America for being normal. But then I remembered that, despite how many DCU Cities with heroes in it there are, the amount of cities in America without heroes still far outnumber the amount of cities in America WITH heroes.

So I did a little digging so the joke would still land. Something most heroes have in common is that they operate in major cities. What makes a major city? I found that the general consensus is that the population is roughly over or around a million. THEN I looked up the populations of cities in the DCU that I thought of off the top of my head. So Gotham, Metropolis, Starling City, Central City, Jump City. All of them ranked up to millions in population (most of them were in the tens of millions).

Amity Park's wikipedia describes it as being similar to specifically Philadelphia, Chicago, and San Francisco.

Philadelphia's Population: 1.576 million as of 2021 Chicago's Population: 2.697 million as of 2021 San Francisco: 815,201 as of 2021

Whiiich means that Amity Park if we take that from canon, is probably a major city. There are approximately 19,000 cities in America with probably less than a hundred that are major cities. Adding the DCU major cities wouldn't skew the data too much.

Which MEANS that I can make the joke that Amity Park's "great place to live" is not only just typical city propaganda, but also its Amity Park lording it over the other major cities for being one of the only major cities that doesn't have problems bad enough to warrant a superhero or a vigilante. Cue stage left the Fentons and Phantom :)

Amity Parkers were probably SO proud that they didn't need a superhero. They didn't have to worry about things like 'world ending threats' and 'super-powered individuals' and 'staggering property damage'. And then enter Fentons.

It also could be used as an excuse for why nobody took notice to Amity Park getting ghosts if folks like me aren't huge fans of the notion of a media blackout via Tucker, Technus, or the US Government. Or if you want to keep Amity Park as its urban city self. Amity Park's news on ghosts gets drowned out in a week because there's news on more popular, well-known cities going on every other day. The shit going on in Amity Park is every other major city's regular Tuesday and it gets filtered as such.

The vast majority of House Republicans still support Kevin McCarthy as Speaker, so do you think they'll try to re-elect him? If so, will the dissenters cave in again or will they hold the line and keep voting him down no matter how many ballots? If they really want him gone, he's gone, so who will replace him? it won't be a freedom caucus nazi like gaetz or green or boebert, they won't be able to scrounge majority support from McCarthy's wing, but it certainly won't be someone good. it won'[t be someone sane, it won't be someone level-headed, it will pretty much have to be someone even more willing to bow down to the far-right extremists because they hold all the cards.

I thought for sure back in January that Democrats would cave and help the majority of the Republicans elect a "compromise" candidate, but not a single one voted against Hakeen Jeffries, so I feel confident that they'll hold the line now too. Question is, which faction of the Republicans will cave? If the far-right gives in again, they'll be national laughingstocks for electing someone they hate twice (not that they care about personal embarassment). Ultimately, I don't care who the GOP picks because I will never support them anyway.

Do we think any GOP "moderates" would be willing to back a Democrat? No Hakeem Jeffries, I know that for sure, but any House Democrat? Who is the most conservative Democrat? Would they back them? Would the rest of the Democratic party be willing to back their furthest right member with GOP support? I'd hope not. It's more likely than the alternative; if the freedom caucus keeps delaying shit and making the rest of their party look bad, the party could unite with Democrats to vote to expel them from the House entirely, but the number of vacancies this would open would lead to a Democratic majority, so they'll never go for it. Maybe they could selectively expel one or two just to show they mean business, to get them back in line so the adults in the room can get back to governing instead of wasting time with a circus. It'll never happen. The clowns run the show, and they'll all coalesce behind someone who is nearly industinguishable from McCarthy but more willing to do what gaetz and green and boebert say. Impeach Joe Biden three times? Sure! Shut down the government in November? Why not!