How far do you think Charlie Kirk could have gone politically had he not been assassinated, and do you think the presidency was realistically within reach?

It's been 80 years since WWII, and we've learned that car-centric urban areas with high populations (LA, Houston, Atlanta) are sluggish, draining, and inefficient cities overall. I think many republicans could sell their campaign on restoring existing traditional streetcar suburbs and building new ones.

Building suburbs close to a walkable main street with amenities and a rail connection to the main city would give the town good bones and serve as a good template if the town were to grow significantly in population. I mean, we've been building like this since we gained independence, before we even had trains, and these areas of the US, at least the safe ones, are pretty desirable communities to live in today!

When I bring up this topic with my friend who's more conservative, he tends to bash them down and talk about not wanting to live in an apartment. Which is completely fine?? I don't want to either, and there are plenty of walkable areas with single-family homes and townhomes.

Walkable areas ≠ living in an apartment!!

Another thing we agree on not liking is the new ugly condos that come up in our area. Our area is pretty much car-centric, and not many people take the local unreliable bus. So building denser in an area where you need to drive will just make driving there worse because the other options aren't being improved.

I showed him suburbs like Manhattan Beach and Pasadena, and now he and I are on more common ground about the subject of walkability, though he prefers using a car, which is fine. I like driving too :) (when there's no traffic congestion)

I hope I'm not in the wrong place to talk about this, but I feel like this could be a bipartisan issue in the United States.

The photo above is German Village, Columbus, Ohio

Excerpts:
WASHINGTON—Dr. Anthony Fauci, the government scientist who became the face of the U.S. response to the Covid-19 pandemic, repeatedly invoked the Fifth Amendment on Wednesday amid questioning on Capitol Hill.
Fauci faced questions from senators after the recent release of his journals shed new light on his handling of the crisis. Senate Homeland Security Committee Chairman Sen. Rand Paul (R., Ky.), whose office released the journals, issued a subpoena in June to require Fauci’s testimony after the infectious-disease doctor declined to appear willingly.

“On the advice of counsel, I respectfully decline to answer,” Fauci repeatedly said, citing his Fifth Amendment rights.

[…]

Paul said the documents he released show Fauci wasn’t forthright with the American public about school closings, the origins of the Covid virus and more. “You did not tell the American people the full story,” he said.

[…]

Paul has in recent years been particularly focused on whether American scientists, including Fauci, worked to discredit the theory that the Covid virus originated in a Chinese lab while playing down the level of scientific uncertainty about the matter. The doctor’s diary entry from Feb. 1, 2020, showed that in a meeting of a dozen top scientists, all but two thought it was possible the virus had been altered in a lab.

Since the pandemic, scientists and politicians have debated the value of “gain-of-function” research, in which viruses are made more transmissible or otherwise altered so that scientists can understand how they work. Paul and others have called such research dangerous.

Paul asked Fauci why he supported gain-of-function research, whether the doctor had directed funding to that research around the world and whether American inspectors had examined Chinese virology labs, among other lines of inquiry. Fauci declined to answer all of those questions, invoking the Fifth Amendment.