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The Blog of ANDREW sYRIOs

Breaking Down Whether to Hire a Property Manager or Manage Yourself

12/25/2020

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Investing in rental real estate is one of the best investments you can make with your money. However, it comes with some hurdles around managing properties and looking after the tenants. It can often get difficult dealing with the tenants – especially if it’s not your cup of tea. At the same time looking after all the other technicalities such as managing a property’s maintenance and making sure the occupancy rate stays high can get difficult if you have other things to look after.

This is where a property manager truly helps! You can look for a property manager to aid you with finding tenants, bookkeeping, maintenance work and almost every other thing related to your rental property.

In-House vs. Third-Party Management
Just like other things in life, each strategy has trade-offs. Managing properties yourself saves money you would have to spend paying a property manager. Most property management agencies bill 10 percent of the rent collected from the property.

With that said, as any business book would tell you, time is money! Employing a property management firm saves you time, so you'll get a chance to focus on expanding your portfolio.

Yet, the expenditures are more than just the money exchanged. Managing yourself reduces the risk of fraud and cheating as well.Managing the ManagerEven if you hire a property manager, you will have to manage the manager. You will have to request monthly income, vacancies, and receivables reports. If something isn’t going well, make sure to ask them about it. Be a little firm. The squeakiest wheel, after all, gets the grease.
Which Should You Choose?It probably makes more sense to do it yourself if you only have one or two properties, particularly if you're house hacking. For a property management company, you will not be a high-value client.

If you have reasonable amount of properties, for example, 5 or 10, then hiring a property manager will likely be more beneficial for you. Such a portfolio will take a large amount of time but will rarely produce ample profits for you to leave your job, so you need to prioritize whether you want to keep up with your job, the investment business, or juggle both.

If you go really big (50+) then starting your own management company is, in my opinion, the best option.

Previous Episodes
- How to Manage Collections and Delinquency
- A Guide to Due Diligence for Buying Houses
- How to Find Banks for Your Investment Properties
​- A Crash Course on Building a Buy and Hold Real Estate Business
- Is the Economy on the Edge of a Cliff??? How Should Real Estate Investors Respond?
- An Introduction Into Buying Portfolios
​-Why Buy and Hold is So Powerful
- Doing Maintenance Right
​
- Moving to California?
-How to Scale a Real Estate Investment and Management Company | Interview with Douglas Skipworth


And don't forget to subscribe to our Youtube channel!
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A Covid Tax is in Order

12/24/2020

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I'm not a big fan of taxes, but after the latest (now vetoed) stimulus bill that would borrow/print another $900 billion and give Americans a whopping $600 one-time "stimulus," it would seem that a one-time Covid tax is called for.

Many Americans are struggling and something like 400,000 small businesses have closed with many more at risk of failing. At the same time, the national debt is 20 trillion and our deficit this year will be more than twice what we bring in. Yet, many giant firms have had record years with Amazon, Facebook, Microsoft, Apple and Netflix are all up 20 to 60% YTD.


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I think the lockdowns were overkill, but whatever you think about them, it's undeniable that the government enacted them and the winners were big business (and the government itself of course) and the losers were basically everyone else. A one-time Covid tax on those winners with subsidies to struggling small businesses and working class and middle class Americans on the edge as well as, I don't know, maybe a little bit for the deficit would seem be in order.

Yes I know the rich pay the large majority of income taxes (the top 1 percent pays 39 percent). Although they pay much less so with sales taxes, payroll taxes and property taxes. But what I posted was about corporations and what would amount to a corporate tax. For example, Amazon's market cap went from $890 billion to $1.6 trillion this year. The large majority of that almost doubling was because of the lockdowns.

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See the lockdowns as a form of indirect but massive corporate welfare. I recommend clawing some of that back.
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Let Them Have $600

12/22/2020

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Given the United States has such an enormous amount of money just sitting around in the Treasury, there's no harm in "making it rain" on the American people. (Please go ahead and ignore the following chart.)
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Members of Congress had about nine hours to review the 5,593-page bill that allocated $2.3 billion spending bill. But that's fine. It's only 10.4 pages per minute? What have you never heard of speed reading?

The bill contains all sorts or provisions. Some good (money for small businesses that were hurt by the lockdowns), some bad (corporate welfare, pet projects) and some absurd. The most absurd being the foreign aid. I will remind you, this is a stimulus bill for Americans.

  • $500 million to Israel
  • $1.3 billion to the Egyptian Military
  • $453 million to Ukraine (presumably so they can fight Russia"over there" instead of us having to fight them here)
  • $700 million to the Sudan

Overall the bill has $4.7 billion in foreign aid which is all a joke. But some of it is even more of a joke. Most notably the $10 million in foreign aid to Pakistan for "gender programs." 
Long Day Emoji GIF from Longday GIFs
But don't worry folks, Americans get $600 (in highly depreciated dollars that have just been printed). That will go a long way I'm sure...
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Stimulus Bill Passed... Let's See What I Got

12/21/2020

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So Congress finally got around to passing another stimulus bill, this time for $900 billion. And since we can just print infinite money with no consequences, that's a great thing.

Oh boy! Let's take a peak at the IRS website and see what I got... 
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Ohhhh......
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New BiggerPockets Article: How to Handle Emergency Maintenance Over the Holidays

12/20/2020

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Picking up off from my previous article on emergency maintenance in general, my latest piece for BiggerPockets discussed the specific problem of emergency maintenance over the Holidays. In other words, the fear of every real estate investor and landlord [emergency maintenance] compounded to its highest and purest form.)

But just like with "regular" emergency maintenance, most of what trips up investors is just in our heads. The key is to have a plan and execute it on the very rare occasions emergency maintenance on the Holidays is necessary,
Emergency maintenance does not happen often. For each unit, it will happen, on average, less than once a year. Just make a plan and follow through on that plan.

But even still, the fear of middle-of-the-night emergency maintenance "is so paralyzing, in fact, I've heard stories where people eschewed becoming a landlord just to avoid it." This is completely unnecessary. And luckily, holiday emergency maintenance is even rarer.
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That being said, it does occasionally happen. Have a plan for extreme issues, and stick to it. Don’t let the paranoia consume you. You will be fine.
Check out the full article here.

Also, it features our video on emergency maintenance which you should watch as well:
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How to Keep Your Tenants Happy?

12/17/2020

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A potential tenant might be super excited for a house or condo before signing the lease. They may move in as cheerful as a child on a summer afternoon. Yet, sooner or later, that sheen will wear off.

Not long after moving in, their sole experience with their property manager or owner, apart from rudimentary upgrades, will be the monthly rent collection. This, obviously, isn't the most ideal approach to win somebody's heart.

The only other major interaction you can have with an occupant is maintenance and it is here where you can have a significant effect.
The greatest cost that you can control as a landowner or property manager is decreasing your turnover. Less turnover implies fewer vacant properties and fewer turnover costs.

Things being what they are, how might you achieve this? Great customer service. And the absolute best customer service you can offer an occupant is quality maintenance. Consider your occupants your customers, and your maintenance as customer service!
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There are various approaches to complete maintenance. What direction is the best depends significantly upon your circumstance and goals. Generally speaking, the best approaches for different circumstances are as follows:

1. Do It Without Anyone's Help In the event that you have only a couple of rentals and are overseeing yourself, this is certainly not a bad approach. That being stated, you must be mechanically adept and have the time to do the work. Time is money after all.

2. Hire Contractors You can also hire professionals to do your work for you, although this approach might be a bit tricky, as contractors might not be keen to work on such small projects.

3. Maintenance Companies There are also companies that handle all the day-to-day maintenance jobs, as well as emergency maintenance. This option is a bit expensive, but is certainly something to consider. 

And of course, you can hire a property management company to oversee your portfolio’s maintenance or, if you grow enough, hire your own employees.

Previous Episodes
-
How to Positively Resolve Tenant Disputes (Property Management)
-How to Manage Collections and Delinquency
- A Guide to Due Diligence for Buying Houses
- How to Find Banks for Your Investment Properties
​- A Crash Course on Building a Buy and Hold Real Estate Business
- Is the Economy on the Edge of a Cliff??? How Should Real Estate Investors Respond?
- An Introduction Into Buying Portfolios
​-Why Buy and Hold is So Powerful
- In-House or Outhouse Management
​- Moving to California?


And don't forget to subscribe to our Youtube channel!
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Hmmm... Part II

12/17/2020

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In continuing my series (???) on terrible home remodeling decisions, I present you with this gem I came across on the BRRRR Invest Facebook group:
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As incredibly stupid as that looks, it would have taken a lot of time and energy to put together. And it was done well for it's worth.

So much time and craftsmanship for such madness. While Donald Trump is still in office, I should probably end this with a SAD!

...But it kind of reminds of this house we bought from a bank after they foreclosed on the guy who I presume was a meth head. I mean, this is a lot of work. And yes, those are all those little wood pieces you find in wood pallets and what not:
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And no, that's not the standard way to do drywall. Nor is this the standard way to make a shed:
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Finally Some Unequivocally Good News (hopefully)

12/16/2020

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With all the partisan bitterness interspersed around this never-ending pandemic and its concurrent economy-destroying lockdowns, we've been at a loss for good news for quite some time.

While this study is only regarding mice, it may be that we end this godawful year with some unequivocally good news. From the University of California San Francisco,
​Just a few doses of an experimental drug can reverse age-related declines in memory and mental flexibility in mice, according to a new study by UC San Francisco scientists. The drug, called ISRIB, has already been shown in laboratory studies to restore memory function months after traumatic brain injury (TBI), reverse cognitive impairments in Down Syndrome, prevent noise-related hearing loss, fight certain types of prostate cancer, and even enhance cognition in healthy animals.
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In the new study, published Dec. 1, 2020, in the open-access journal eLife, researchers showed rapid restoration of youthful cognitive abilities in aged mice, accompanied by a rejuvenation of brain and immune cells that could help explain improvements in brain function.
Of course that's a long way from being a cure for humans, but it's quite encouraging.

I would definitely be a huge game changer if brain injuries and age-related cognitive declines could be reversed or even stopped entirely. Hopefully something big will come of this research. We shall see.
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New BiggerPockets Article: The No. 1 Thing You Can Do To Improve Everything in Your Life

12/16/2020

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Spoilers: It's sleep.

Sleep more and sleep better.

That's the topic of my new article for BiggerPockets, which admittedly, doesn't have a lot to do with real estate investing. But regardless, better sleep will improve every part of your life, and if part of your life is investing in real estate, than that part will be improved too.

The article reviews the great book Why We Sleep by Matthew Walker. Page one basically explains why this is so important,
“Two-thirds of adults throughout all developed nations fail to obtain the recommended eight hours of nightly sleep.
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“I doubt you are surprised by this fact, but you may be surprised by the consequences. Routinely sleeping less than six or seven hours a night demolishes your immune system, more than doubling your risk of cancer. Insufficient sleep is a key lifestyle factor determining whether or not you will develop Alzheimer’s disease. Inadequate sleep—even moderate reductions for just one week—disrupts blood sugar levels so profoundly that you would be classified as pre-diabetic. Short sleeping increases the likelihood of your coronary arteries becoming blocked and brittle, setting you on a path toward cardiovascular disease, stroke, and congestive heart failure. Fitting Charlotte Brontë’s prophetic wisdom that ‘a ruffled mind makes a restless pillow,’ sleep disruption further contributes to all major psychiatric conditions, including depression, anxiety and suicidality.”
So make sleep a priority folks! (But while awake, check out my article. Thanks.)
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Many on the Left Don't Realize How Radical They Are

12/15/2020

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So I had this absurd conversation on Facebook with this Leftist who is always in muh mentions. This guy has said the statue of Thomas Jefferson should come down and defended the softcore pedophile porn movie Cuties, but somehow thinks it's just everyone else who's being unreasonable. My first post was just mocking the failed experiment of CHAZ and the new one in Portland some nutjob leftists are setting up.
Mainly I was just noting it was nice moderate liberals could finally act that way now that they didn't have to countersignal Trump as Ted Wheeler promised not to tolerate "RHAZ." (Although Wheeler isn't that moderate, but he did beat a communist, so there's that.)

First I got a response from a hardcore, but still reasonable liberal,
Id like to think moderate republicans could act as such too, but at least in my social circle, they all changed their party affiliations because of Trump.
The fanatical liberal then chimed in "There are no moderate Republicans." This seemed so obviously false I (unwisely) chose to chime in,
​As far as politics goes, both sides are moving further apart, which is a bad sign. but it would seem the left has moved a bit further away from the center than the right. The chart below is from Pew.

After all, in LA, illegal immigrants (err, undocumented workers) have been elected to public office while members of congress and the Senate have called to abolish ICE which is at least as over-the-top as the "muslim ban" (which as implemented was a terrible law, but not a muslim ban).

But coming back to this, I don't think a conservative mayor in a conservative city would have ever let a fascist or neo-confederate "South is rising again" autonomous zone in their city for a day. Seattle's mayor let it go on for well over a month.

As far as politics goes, both sides are moving further apart, which is a bad sign. but it would seem the left has moved a bit further away from the center than the right. The chart below is from Pew.

After all, in LA, illegal immigrants (err, undocumented workers) have been elected to public office while members of congress and the Senate have called to abolish ICE which is at least as over-the-top as the "muslim ban" (which as implemented was a terrible law, but not a muslim ban).
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But coming back to this, I don't think a conservative mayor in a conservative city would have ever let a fascist or neo-confederate "South is rising again" autonomous zone in their city for a day. Seattle's mayor let it go on for well over a month.
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Thankfully, the fanatical liberal was there to enlighten me.
cool graph.

Let me explain to you the reality though.

The nation has moved much further to the right the last 40 years. Things like the New Deal, Great Society, Medicare, Medicaid, Voting Rights Act, etc, all these things are looked down upon. The Right is trying their best to systematically take away voting rights, take away women's right, normalize right wing fanaticism.

Now "undocumented" worker has been elected to a public office. The one person I've heard about was APPOINTED to a BOARD that relates to immigration. She's an attorney! She was brought here by her parents when she was like 12 years old. What's your expectation? Why is this an issue?

As for the Conservative Mayor argument, you must be kidding. Have you lived in the south? They don't need a zone: IT'S THE STATE.

You think shooting a dude and "standing your ground" is moving left? Do you use unions with any power? Do you see union membership on the rise? Do you see environmentalists really getting their way (that it's even a left issue is super fucking embarrassing)? Do you see corporations LOSING POWER? Or do you see a corporation being given the rights of a man?
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Not sure what you're looking at, but the world has MOVED RIGHT because of the courts and the deference to corporations. Liberals are fighting for human rights, and it's not because they've gained them. Conservatives are fighting for making sure someone with less than them doesn't get more.
Why do I feel the need to argue with such idiocy? I don't know, but I do I guess. My response,
Woah bud, thanks for explaining reality to me.

Anyways, the idea that conservatism is just being a prostitute to corporations is, well, kind of a caricature. Indeed, both parties seem to be prostitutes to corps (with Republicans being especially whorish to oil, Dems especially whorish to Silicon Valley and both exceptionally whorish to Wall Street). Both bases tend to be anti-Wall Street. And the populist right is definitely anti-Wall Street. So what does it mean to be moving toward the right if that "right" is populist?

And all the South is a "conservative autonomous zone " (including Georgia and Virginia, which went for Biden). Uh huh... But California, Oregon and Washington are just moderate, right?

I would say things are moving in three directions simultaneously; 1) more establishment power, 2) increased local partisanship, 3) cultural leftward shift. There is no general shift to the right.

As far as establishment power; this is obvious. NSA and CIA spying run amok, endless wars, massive consolidation of wealth in Silicon Valley/Wall Street, etc. I've seen opposition to this across the spectrum and Trump even broke the mold by harshly criticizing some of this ('Iraq war was the worst mistake in US history" etc.) Populism itself is generally anti-corporate after all. (Although I think Trump just used populist rhetoric and governed like Bush.)

Major entitlement programs are not under threat (other than solvency). The Republicans want to get rid of Obamacare, not Medicare. That's the reactionary idea of going back to 2009. Bush's attempt to partially privatize social security went nowhere and was pretty much dropped. As far as attacks on voting rights, I don't know. There seems to be so much bullshit here with gerrymandering and lawfare nonsense. I will say that ballot harvesting is ripe for abuse. It also didn't seem like anyone had any trouble voting in 2020.

- But just go down the issues:
- Gay Marriage: Legal and Republicans have pretty much accepted it (under Trump no less)
- Transgenderism: Not even on the table 10 years ago, now we're "transitioning" 7 year olds.
- Immigration: Record levels, mainstream won't even call illegal immigration "illegal immigration" anymore. Trump made a few cuts around the edges but Biden will undo those.
- Diversity Stuff: All sorts of government, corporate and university initiatives
- Eduction: Pretty much dominated by woke, postmodernist nonsense
- Marketing: Woke capitalism is about as annoying and shallow as it gets.
- Environmentalism: Lots of subsidies to green tech and grants but only mild progress on legislation. That being said, the main stuff people care about (clean rivers, air, etc.) was mostly taken care of decades ago. The issues now are more abstract and "out there in the distance" i.e. global warming and soil depletion
- Christianity: Fading in importance both politically and civically
- Drugs: Many states have legalized marijuana, the Congress voted to legalize it and Oregon decriminalized drugs.
- Criminal Justice Reform: The bipartisan agreement to get hard on crime (which most black leaders also approved of by the way. Now there's actually bipartisan agreement we have to go the other way and Trump actually took steps in that direction
- Government spending: About what it was in 1950 as a % of GDP
- Federal Taxes: The top tax bracket is about what it was in mid-80s
- The Deficit: A Bipartisan trainwreck (although I blame the Republicans more)

It's true that unions are down and inequality up. And part of that is the pro "business" Republicans. Much of that was driven by globalization, which was a bipartisan consensus. And much by technology's ability to consolidate wealth, which just hasn't been addressed. But another part of it is because the Democrats seemed to give up on the working class and focus exclusively on wokeness and hating Russia.

The rest is red and blue states moving further apart. So gun laws get stricter in blue states and looser in red. Abortion laws get stricter in blue states and looser in red [backwards, sorry], etc. This is more a sign of the increasing partisan divide in the country that I don't see getting better anytime soon.
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Sorry for the length. This post really got away from me.
It takes a rather enfeebled mind to believe that someone pointing out trends thereby approves of them, or in this case opposes them. I oppose some of this (like "transitioning" seven year olds) and support some (like legalizing marijuana). But any challenge (even observational) of leftwing hegemony is heresy. His unhinged, semi-coherent response:
Holy shiz, I have to stop you right from the jump!

Gay Marriage? Why is that a "liberal" concept?

Transgenderism? Same question.
​

Diversity "Stuff"? AGAIN, Why is this LIBERAL?

"Eduction" - love that you spelled that wrong, so I'll let it sit.

Christianity - Republicans don't even care about it. They voted for Trump. They don't care about Jesus - they care about cults. No one is stopping anyone from being a Christian. Sorry it doesn't dominate our life, like in the classrooms, or in the LABS or in the HOSPITALS. Bush made it so you can consider Christianity with "Faith based initiatives." There's practically a Christianity test to a congress person in 40+ American States.

Drugs - Sure, that's liberal. Thank goodness. But Republicans only supported drug reform when White kids started using oxycontin, etc. They never gave any fucks when it wasn't their kids, or the kid from the church. This gets back to them only really give fucks about their thing, which was an original point. This is also the "criminal justice" thing. So, yeah, this isn't a Democrat/Liberal wind. It's Republicans getting on board because it helps their constituents now. You must not remain Crack cocaine vs cocaine.

Government spending? See WARS. See deficits under all presidents. Tell me what you come up with. Yes, you got it right, Republicans. Liberal programs are designed to help. What are Republican programs for? Wait, what are their programs?

Yes, red and blue further apart. Red pretending they can't own machine guns and show up at Governor's mansion. Blue upset innocent people get killed and rightwing groups raise funds to help that person, aka, The George Zimmerman Effect.

Love ya.
This guy later accused a conservative who jumped in of lacking empathy because he made fun of equating cutting a kid's penis off with "human rights. 

A friend pointed out to me during this that there is absolutely no point to argue with such idiots. It's just a mental suck. And it is. It's infuriating. "Why is gay marriage a liberal issue?" Uhhh, because it has been you fucking idiot. Why is "preserving our God-given right to bear arms" a conservative one. Because it has been.

You just have to let it go. Indeed, I've gone round and round with him on Hillary Clinton's emails (he's always the one who brings them up) and he always talks about Colin Powell. I've repeatedly shown that excuse fails, but he just ignores it and brings it up again. He did the same thing here with the crack/cocaine difference in sentencing. Black leaders supported that discrepancy as did white leaders as the book I referenced showed. But just ignore evidence and ragepost appears to be the far left modus operandi these days.

My glib response.
Good God David this is such shill partisan hackery it's embarrassing. I think I'm gonna go ahead and disengage before wasting anymore going around in circles on this.
Then came the kicker:
Sorry to tell you, but the things you're claiming are "liberal" ideas are quite often just human rights.
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Check the most recent SCOTUS decision on religion. Y'all be fine.
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While this conversation wasn't enlightening at all because of the incoherence of my debating "partner," this line was worth it.

It's an admission that I was right. We are moving to the Left culturally. But because the Left is good (and just wants "human rights") while the Right is bad (and just wants people to die in the streets or something) then we can just take for granted that any Leftwing victory is pure good with no possible objection and any Rightwing victory (real or imagined) is 1930s Germany all over again.

Unhinged stupid bullshit, yes. But that seems to be the growing consensus of how to think on the Left.

​I wisely turned to simply mocking him with a well-timed laughing emoji and turning his script around:
Sorry to tell you, but conservative ideas are quite often just muh freedom and loving 'Merica.​
Needless to say, the partisan disconnect in the United States is getting worse and dialogue is becoming more and more difficult. It's basically impossible with the likes of these people.
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    Andrew Syrios

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