|
Now that we have a new thread, in order to ensure that this thread continues to meet TL standards and follows the proper guidelines, we will be enforcing the rules in the OP more strictly. Be sure to give them a complete and thorough read before posting! NOTE: When providing a source, please provide a very brief summary on what it's about and what purpose it adds to the discussion. The supporting statement should clearly explain why the subject is relevant and needs to be discussed. Please follow this rule especially for tweets.
Your supporting statement should always come BEFORE you provide the source.If you have any questions, comments, concern, or feedback regarding the USPMT, then please use this thread: http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/website-feedback/510156-us-politics-thread |
On August 07 2025 22:13 LightSpectra wrote:Show nested quote +On August 07 2025 20:45 Uldridge wrote:
Ban social media. The echo chamber is too strong. Left people seem more unhinged because they are so... visible. They shout and do weird things. While fascists... they just kinda like uniforms.
But the right wing is just much better in using the medium to capture negative sentiment towards their ideological enemies (i.e. everyone not them). IMO: social media is not inherently the problem. The problem is they're tuned to reward people for saying the most infuriatingly stupid and mean-spirited shit imaginable. It's literally paying people to have the worst vices of humanity.Now add into the equation how easy it is for troll farms owned by nations or wealthy partisan malefactors to flood the zone. We're never going back to a world without social media, but it can be regulated back into the pre-Facebook/Twitter era to stop encouraging extremism and disinformation.
That's capitalism. If people don't want that, they don't want capitalism.
It's businesses believing they can exploit those vices/algorithms for profit (knowingly/intentionally at the expense of society) which is an indispensable step in the cycle.
Might as well try to regulate away profit while maintaining capitalism.
|
On August 07 2025 23:15 GreenHorizons wrote:
..
Might as well try to regulate away profit while maintaining capitalism.
Uhm... Are you of the imagination that everyone here is against taxes, social systems, regulations and goverments setting the rules for trade/business?
Because else your post makes not the least bit of sense or I have missed all the anarcho capitalists constantly posting about how the marked will solve everything in here (and pretty much anywhere else)....
|
Northern Ireland26036 Posts
On August 07 2025 19:21 Uldridge wrote:
Once you've lost the optics game towards your base: spineless, pocketed, donor class puppets, ... it's going to be a very difficult road to redemption imo.
People don't tend to grab the hand that did't reach out to them because it was too busy admiring the golden rings it's wearing and worrying how mangled it might be if they'd actually reach out.
Time for Wombat to come out and rightfully point out how bad my analogy game is lol.
Your analogy game is grand, I mean it ain’t mine but few’s are :p I kid
My issue with the one prior wasn’t the analogy, but I felt you misidentified the phenomenon. I felt it was a good analogy, attached to the wrong thing was all!
|
Northern Ireland26036 Posts
On August 07 2025 20:01 LightSpectra wrote:
Republicans can be child rapists and murderers and Democrats are annoying. Tough choice.
It's honestly surreal listening to political discourse these days. I wonder if there's any records of people in Nazi concentration camps saying "at least the SPD didn't win".
Zam-bro somewhat wears their hearts on their sleeves with their posts, one can almost feel the frustration dripping out of the screen. But, combined with their general history of posting, I think their point(s) can be dismissed due to their tone, despite having more than a grain of truth in them.
It’s been Shrodinger’s leftist for as long as I’ve been vaguely political conscious. Simultaneously not important enough to seriously court, but important enough to lose you elections. Not just in the States by any means either, seen it plenty in the UK and elsewhere.
Allied to that, and the bigger problem is the centre will frequently throw the left under the bus, and still lose.
If this isn’t a one-cycle thing, but a consistent pattern one observes over a longer span, decades perhaps for me now, it does become rather irritating, insufferable one might even say.
Not on here thankfully, but where was all that #MeToo energy in the New York mayoral primary for the Dems? Oh yeah, it totally dissipated in some quarters when a spooky democratic socialist was on the ballot.
I’d also wager just from snippets of what various folks do for a living here, that many are personally isolated from some of the main failings of the centre left in the past wee while. Not just from when they’ve failed to stem the right, but also when they wielded the reins/rains/reigns of power themselves. Those bite way fucking harder when one is living it, although I think it is to the credit of most here that they’ve clearly got the capacity to care about issues for other reasons other than self-interest.
|
This centrism vs. progressivism war is entirely overblown on social media compared to real life. Pro-Palestine voters largely showed up for Kamala Harris, just like pro-Sanders voters largely showed up for her, Biden, and Clinton. On the converse, we can see that after Zohran Mamdani won the NYC primary that a lot of Cuomo and Lander supporters have decided to vote Mamdani for the general, just like the centrists that previously supported Joe Crowley are now mostly happy with Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez.
The "both parties suck" independents aren't mostly hyper-progressives just waiting for their own Vladimir Lenin to turn out for, so framing progressivism like an easy lifehack to win elections is pretty dumb. They like anti-establishment rhetoric while not actually understanding what "the establishment" is or what benefits them. They don't know what tariffs are, but they like unrealistic promises, such as taxing foreign countries for some perceived grievance. So there's no long-term way to win any of their votes that doesn't involve buying all the news and social media up, like conservatives have been doing the past twenty years.
One thing I've found talking to my conservative relatives is they all fucking HATE taxes. They will literally never vote for anybody that promises or even suggests to raise taxes on them by a penny, even though Republicans have quietly done so many times, and Trump has already done so both during the current and previous administrations. Obama and Biden promising a middle-class tax cut was pretty much the most important thing in the universe to win independents, but a lot of progressives who have this "I'm fine paying more taxes if it saves lives" mentality (which I happen to share) often don't seem to understand that.
|
I think the fundamental problem is that what humanity objectively needs to do and what it is willing/capable of doing as it is organized simply don't overlap.
We could give Democrats 60 seats in the Senate and a 40 seat lead in the house for decades and they wouldn't even be able to undo the damage Trump has done in 6 months with far less, let alone actually address the existential threats we face.
ChristianS pretty much nailed it ~4 years ago: On September 26 2021 11:52 ChristianS wrote:+ Show Spoiler +On September 26 2021 06:39 Belisarius wrote:
All of which is why the voting rights bill was so important. If the US is a full neofascist state in 12 years time with a 43% R popular vote, I think this year will go down as the last chance you had to hit the brakes.
Gerrymandering is just so unbelievably poisonous to democracy. To stop it, you have to overtake it. Biden came alongside, but then he chickened out and let two random senators decide the trajectory of the next 20 years.
The R's now seem free to accelerate into the distance, limited only by the sheer incompetence of the candidates they're cheating into office. Does a voting rights bill fix it? The nature of US politics is that Republicans will inevitably be back in power sooner or later, and so far they don’t seem to face any penalty in public opinion to openly despising rule of law and aspiring to violent takeovers. Gerrymandering is fucked but it’s a pretty slow way to seize power compared to, you know, just doing it. I mean, GH pointed out that “we need the Republican Party actually” is ridiculous for a Democrat to think. Which seems right to me. Nothing about the modern Republican Party seems capable of becoming compatible with democracy, let alone interested in doing so, and the public seems apathetic at best. Gorsameth pointed out we need two parties in our system, which seems right to me too. What disturbs me is that “the Republican Party is irredeemable and cannot realistically be reformed or replaced” and “our system cannot function without 2 parties” aren’t incompatible statements, but the implication of both being true is catastrophic. It feels like we’re all doing the math on our current velocity toward the cliff and distance from it and maximum braking force, but the math isn’t actually very hard. We just keep recalculating because the result we keep getting is unfathomable.
|
Well, that is all pretty accurate and very depressing.
Biden letting Manchin and Sinema block and blackmail their way through any real progressive agenda (or using them as an excuse, depending on your point of view) was one of the nails in the coffin of the US democracy.
Other ones, like the minimal wage being blocked by "the parliamentarian" and a bunch of other things Democrats were unwilling to get over because they don't really give enough of a fuck to try were also pretty instrumental.
I know it was never an actual democracy, it's a republic with a political system that has been out dated for more then a 100 years, and Republicans have finally decided to take full advantage of that empowered by Trump and the oligarchs and fascists behind him.
|
On August 07 2025 09:20 Zambrah wrote:Show nested quote +That you see it as menial would be hugely insulting if you were actually doing anything other then typing angry shit into the abyss and talking real tough. No one has asked you for what you have claimed they have, they have asked you for some real basic shit that if you had done ANYTHING you could easily answer. Your just to disaffected to do anything at all, or plain old lazy. And coming on here and insulting people actually trying I guess makes you feel superior or some other lame shit. What is the plan to make sure the violence works and is not just an excuse to do everything that people are scared of? How many people required? Who is organizing? What is the plan to get the military and police on board? What percentage of those organizations do you think would support vs fight against your proposed solution? How do you over power the rest? This is literally you asking for an extremely in depth plan from someone who has never claimed to have a plan or be a leader, lmao. Sorry if I find the idea that knocking on people's doors to be wildly ineffectual in the face of a movement known for its violent action like disappearing people off the streets and putting people into fucking concentration camps. I look at WW2 and definitely ask, "why didnt they just knock on more German doors to stop the Nazis?" Show nested quote +If you really believe America is that dire and that is all that will work, then WTF are you not doing it? You would need to get some other people with you, but you would probably need to at the very least stop insulting anyone who asks you, what now? Because lone actors arent going to do shit, fascism is either going to spontaneously combust because American fascists are unfathomably idiotic, or its going to escalate to a point of a mass mobilization and any violence before enough people are participating in violence is just going to be pointless, imo. No lone actor is going to take on the American police or military state with any degree of success, lol. Show nested quote +If you wonder why you to lesser a degree and GH all the time gets accused of play acting on the internet, it is because if anyone remotely competent thought the things that were written FOR REAL, they would do something, anything about it. That you think my questions are hard only shows that you have done absolutely nothing. And all these people that are not saying what I am, either don't believe you actually believe it, or do not think you are competent enough to accomplish anything. Sure they are being "nice" but they are not being kind. Noone accuses me of that because this thread doesnt have the same baggage with me as it does with GH. Ive tried showing up at protests, and its worthless and pointless. People have learned that protests without the threat of violence have a really, really easy counter. Ignore them. Wait and do nothing because people cant support long term protests under a capitalist society with a hyper aggressive police state. Voting is obviously a stupid fucking plan, voting has produced one result, and its the electing of fascists. That plan is actively failing. Can't rely on an opposition party because Democrats are weak and spineless and more attached to their donors than they are to democracy, they, like you, would rather punch left and complain that people arent voting for them hard enough. So uh, why should I believe that anything other than that the US will succumb to fascists or that the fascists implode? At this point either violence or the fascists themselves will be responsible for the downfall of fascism.
I asked you very very basic questions, not for a in depth plan.
If you are wondering why people are frustrated it is because the loop I'm about to describe is what has happened 100 times.
Regular conversation goes on.
Revolutionary socialist jumps in "capitalism is evil, Dems are the worst, you are all complicit in genocide, fascists are winning and they have defeated democracy so violent revolution is the only option".
Other people "what is the solution then"
Revolutionary socialist "socialism"
Other people "How does that work?" Or "How do we use this socialism to win?"
Revolutionary socialist "why are you attacking me I already told you"
other people "Well then what are you doing?"
Revolutionary socialist " OMG you are so disingenuous"
Other people "WTF? How can you be so certain of the collapse of democracy to fascist and not be willing to even discuss anything other than "we need revolution and I'm not doing anything, but you all are the problem"?
Revolutionary socialist " YOU ARE A FASCIST".
Other people move on and then we rinse and repeat for the 100th time.
At some point move past the slogan or title page, or 7 second elevator pitch and be a grown up and have an actual discussion about what you are going to do. Or at least link me to the story of you bettering ramming some fascists door. People are trying to discuss with you because obviously GH is a not serious person who is just here to talk down to people to make himself feel better or some other strange shit. People here actually want to discuss ways to make it better not just point out the problems and claim there is no hope over and over and over.
|
fascists are winning and they have defeated democracy so violent revolution is the only option
what is the solution then
fascists are winning and they have defeated democracy so violent revolution is the only option
The only thing I'd change is that its the only likely option, you saying I think its the only option is dumb because I dont think its the only option, I just think its the only likely option.
Other people "WTF? How can you be so certain of the collapse of democracy to fascist and not be willing to even discuss anything other than "we need revolution and I'm not doing anything, but you all are the problem"?
We didnt even get this far because you didnt even try to convince me of reasons why the collapse of democracy to fascists is going to be substantively prevented by way of voting or the Democrats or any of these other fundamental institutional structures in the US.
I gave you reasons why I don't believe that these institutions will be responsible for the defeat of fascism, I told you why I think either fascists win, fascists implode from stupidity, or fascists are defeated through violence.
Keep strawmanning though, I have plenty of problems with GH and his beliefs and how he engages with people, but he feels far less disingenuous than the people who strawman him.
At some point move past the slogan or title page, or 7 second elevator pitch and be a grown up and have an actual discussion about what you are going to do. Or at least link me to the story of you bettering ramming some fascists door. People are trying to discuss with you because obviously GH is a not serious person who is just here to talk down to people to make himself feel better or some other strange shit. People here actually want to discuss ways to make it better not just point out the problems and claim there is no hope over and over and over.
This is so fucking stupid, I have discussed plenty in the past about the things that Democrats could do and should do, including,
Listening to people and implementing popular policy based on their wants and needs,
Abandon their absurd obsession with fundraising and their donor class in favor of stronger grass roots connection,
Give people a positive vision of hope and change, not just lip service, actual hope and actual change for the betterment of the average person's lives, and to stop chiding everyone who wants them to do better as though expecting anything from a Democrat is some unreasonable thing.
Wield every fucking ounce of power aggressively, expand the Supreme Court, make Puerto Rico and DC into states, every single thing they can possibly do to obstruct Republicans and to take power should be done because the opposition is fascists and "its only four years and hes good for our fundraising, shrug" is not acceptable opposition to fucking fascists.
I have talked about the difficulty of actually doing this because Democrats have dug themselves deep into a pit with the public for their wide array of inadequacies, but if they did want to actually combat fascism there is/was a path they could/could have taken.
But you don't care, there is no ground to gain between us, you will advocate and do what you think is adequate, I will continue to think its wildly inadequate and continue to do my own thing while I wait for one of the three outcomes of American Fascism to happen. I will never go towards your position and you will never go towards mine, any conversation between us is pointless and if you genuinely wanted any answers to the shit youre asking here go find one of the innumerable posts Ive made reiterating my beliefs, the problems I see and the potential avenues that the problem could be dealth with.
I’d also wager just from snippets of what various folks do for a living here, that many are personally isolated from some of the main failings of the centre left in the past wee while. Not just from when they’ve failed to stem the right, but also when they wielded the reins/rains/reigns of power themselves. Those bite way fucking harder when one is living it, although I think it is to the credit of most here that they’ve clearly got the capacity to care about issues for other reasons other than self-interest.
@Wombat, I believe this is very much a problem, as someone in a relatively comfortable position right now, I make an effort to remember that struggling is very hard and while four years probably doesnt feel like that long to the comfortable, four years of struggle is brutal. Its a big part of the out of touch nature of Democrats, they're isolated from struggle, they dont connect with those who do.
|
On August 08 2025 03:27 Zambrah wrote:Show nested quote +fascists are winning and they have defeated democracy so violent revolution is the only option Show nested quote +fascists are winning and they have defeated democracy so violent revolution is the only option The only thing I'd change is that its the only likely option, you saying I think its the only option is dumb because I dont think its the only option, I just think its the only likely option. Show nested quote +Other people "WTF? How can you be so certain of the collapse of democracy to fascist and not be willing to even discuss anything other than "we need revolution and I'm not doing anything, but you all are the problem"? We didnt even get this far because you didnt even try to convince me of reasons why the collapse of democracy to fascists is going to be substantively prevented by way of voting or the Democrats or any of these other fundamental institutional structures in the US. I gave you reasons why I don't believe that these institutions will be responsible for the defeat of fascism, I told you why I think either fascists win, fascists implode from stupidity, or fascists are defeated through violence. Keep strawmanning though, I have plenty of problems with GH and his beliefs and how he engages with people, but he feels far less disingenuous than the people who strawman him. Show nested quote +At some point move past the slogan or title page, or 7 second elevator pitch and be a grown up and have an actual discussion about what you are going to do. Or at least link me to the story of you bettering ramming some fascists door. People are trying to discuss with you because obviously GH is a not serious person who is just here to talk down to people to make himself feel better or some other strange shit. People here actually want to discuss ways to make it better not just point out the problems and claim there is no hope over and over and over. This is so fucking stupid, I have discussed plenty in the past about the things that Democrats could do and should do, including, Listening to people and implementing popular policy based on their wants and needs, Abandon their absurd obsession with fundraising and their donor class in favor of stronger grass roots connection, Give people a positive vision of hope and change, not just lip service, actual hope and actual change for the betterment of the average person's lives, and to stop chiding everyone who wants them to do better as though expecting anything from a Democrat is some unreasonable thing. Wield every fucking ounce of power aggressively, expand the Supreme Court, make Puerto Rico and DC into states, every single thing they can possibly do to obstruct Republicans and to take power should be done because the opposition is fascists and "its only four years and hes good for our fundraising, shrug" is not acceptable opposition to fucking fascists. I have talked about the difficulty of actually doing this because Democrats have dug themselves deep into a pit with the public for their wide array of inadequacies, but if they did want to actually combat fascism there is/was a path they could/could have taken. But you don't care, there is no ground to gain between us, you will advocate and do what you think is adequate, I will continue to think its wildly inadequate and continue to do my own thing while I wait for one of the three outcomes of American Fascism to happen. I will never go towards your position and you will never go towards mine, any conversation between us is pointless and if you genuinely wanted any answers to the shit youre asking here go find one of the innumerable posts Ive made reiterating my beliefs, the problems I see and the potential avenues that the problem could be dealth with. Show nested quote +I’d also wager just from snippets of what various folks do for a living here, that many are personally isolated from some of the main failings of the centre left in the past wee while. Not just from when they’ve failed to stem the right, but also when they wielded the reins/rains/reigns of power themselves. Those bite way fucking harder when one is living it, although I think it is to the credit of most here that they’ve clearly got the capacity to care about issues for other reasons other than self-interest. @Wombat, I believe this is very much a problem, as someone in a relatively comfortable position right now, I make an effort to remember that struggling is very hard and while four years probably doesnt feel like that long to the comfortable, four years of struggle is brutal. Its a big part of the out of touch nature of Democrats, they're isolated from struggle, they dont connect with those who do.
If there is strawmanning going on it is not from my end, because I neither asked you for a detailed plan nor did I try to convince you of electoralism as a solution to your problem. I asked you what your solution would be, you then raged at me and asked me mine, so I gave you what I am doing in my different situation where I have a different set of assumptions to try to indicate both what I was looking for, as well as, to show you I was not asking something I was not willing to do or share.
So let me try again in a different way. I'll start will what I think you believe (please correct what is wrong) and then ask you both practical and theoretical questions.
My presumption of your position:
That Trump and the Republicans have brought the US to a point of fascism that electorally can not be challenged or defeated. That this is a very bad thing and very important to stop.
The practical questions:
What have you done since you came to this conclusion to try to fight it?
What will you do in the near future?
Theoretical questions:
What are strategies that you think will work? How is it best to organize? What sort of numbers or whatever do you think will be needed to be successful? What does success look like?
Once successful what safe guards or changes from past socialist revolutions will be needed to stop them from turning into branded as socialist but actually Neo Fascism (China), Narco Kleptocracy (Venezuela), Totalitarian dictatorship rot with corruption and nepotism (USSR)?
The questions are intentionally vague because I'm not looking for a detailed plan, but rather moving on to page two. I also have no illusions that you are the leader of some movement (however that would be cool), but from your passion and frequent posting on political page on a video game site, I assume you have put a fair bit of thought into it.
|
Northern Ireland26036 Posts
Why does Zambrah have to do necessarily do anything?
Trump didn’t ascend to his throne in the aftermath of some abortive attempt at socialism, he did so versus status quo, centrist politics as usual.
If one has faith in those said same institutions to redress this state of affairs, after some demonstrable failures, shouldn’t there be as much onus on one to have a detailed plan of what’ll be different this time?
Like I’d maybe hold the Mayor from Jaws to a higher degree of scrutiny on his ‘shark attack’ policies after a bunch of shark attacks, than x concerned citizen who warned about sharks incessantly (deleted scene I presume). They mightn’t have any kind of plan whatsoever, but they were kinda right on the shark bit
|
On August 08 2025 10:47 WombaT wrote:
Trump didn’t ascend to his throne in the aftermath of some abortive attempt at socialism, he did so versus status quo, centrist politics as usual.
That's assuming that prolonged COVID lockdowns and vaccine mandates, letting millions of immigrants into the country through an open border, defunding the police, rewriting our understanding of biology and pronouns, obsessing over race, and having revolving doors on jails was part of the "status quo."
Then in the 11th hour Dems tried to pivot to the center which pissed off the people on the left and the people in the center simply weren't buying it.
The good news is that Trump's policies are equally unpopular. They are picking the 20 side on the 80-20 issues of prosecuting women who seek abortion, deporting law-abiding people who have been in the country for years, etc. Meanwhile prominent Dems are signialing that they are turning away from woke, e.g. Gavin Newsom saying men in women's sports is unfair, Rahm Emanuel saying a man can't become a women, etc. i.e. things that would have gotten you excommunicated a year ago. So I predict a Dem win in 2028 and I wouldn't be surprised if we continue to have stints of 4-year Presidents for the time being.
|
On August 08 2025 11:49 BlackJack wrote:Show nested quote +On August 08 2025 10:47 WombaT wrote:
Trump didn’t ascend to his throne in the aftermath of some abortive attempt at socialism, he did so versus status quo, centrist politics as usual.
That's assuming that prolonged COVID lockdowns and vaccine mandates, letting millions of immigrants into the country through an open border, defunding the police, rewriting our understanding of biology and pronouns, obsessing over race, and having revolving doors on jails was part of the "status quo."Then in the 11th hour Dems tried to pivot to the center which pissed off the people on the left and the people in the center simply weren't buying it. The good news is that Trump's policies are equally unpopular. They are picking the 20 side on the 80-20 issues of prosecuting women who seek abortion, deporting law-abiding people who have been in the country for years, etc. Meanwhile prominent Dems are signialing that they are turning away from woke, e.g. Gavin Newsom saying men in women's sports is unfair, Rahm Emanuel saying a man can't become a women, etc. i.e. things that would have gotten you excommunicated a year ago. So I predict a Dem win in 2028 and I wouldn't be surprised if we continue to have stints of 4-year Presidents for the time being.
There ought to be a difference between what Democrats actually did and what nonsense Republicans pretended that Democrats did, but I suppose that Democrats are bad enough at communicating/counter-messaging that people can just make up shit, attribute it to Democrats, and get away with it.
|
Northern Ireland26036 Posts
l mean anyone with a Twitter account, local Democratic politicians, and the Democrats in the national legislature or executive are all the same thing right?
|
On August 08 2025 12:12 WombaT wrote:
l mean anyone with a Twitter account, local Democratic politicians, and the Democrats in the national legislature or executive are all the same thing right?
Totally!
My favorite part was that protecting people from xenophobia and bigotry is "obsessing over race" lol. What a spin, to side with the racists.
|
Double, because I am bad at posting.
|
On August 08 2025 11:49 BlackJack wrote:Show nested quote +On August 08 2025 10:47 WombaT wrote:
Trump didn’t ascend to his throne in the aftermath of some abortive attempt at socialism, he did so versus status quo, centrist politics as usual.
That's assuming that prolonged COVID lockdowns and vaccine mandates, letting millions of immigrants into the country through an open border, defunding the police, rewriting our understanding of biology and pronouns, obsessing over race, and having revolving doors on jails was part of the "status quo." Then in the 11th hour Dems tried to pivot to the center which pissed off the people on the left and the people in the center simply weren't buying it. The good news is that Trump's policies are equally unpopular. They are picking the 20 side on the 80-20 issues of prosecuting women who seek abortion, deporting law-abiding people who have been in the country for years, etc. Meanwhile prominent Dems are signialing that they are turning away from woke, e.g. Gavin Newsom saying men in women's sports is unfair, Rahm Emanuel saying a man can't become a women, etc. i.e. things that would have gotten you excommunicated a year ago. So I predict a Dem win in 2028 and I wouldn't be surprised if we continue to have stints of 4-year Presidents for the time being.
Bolded - thing is... it doesnt matter. Simply because TikTok and YouTube exists and left is for all means and purposes being farmed. Type deranged left in search bar and you will see gazillions of channels about deranged leftist, same with unhinged. Issue of the left is, that there is loud minority of legitimately insane people making lots of noise, and right just amplifies it, or actively provokes it, by for example behaving calmly and showing only actually unhinged people reacting.
I mean, literally what left had to do was repeat "Epstein" ad nauseum and they would have won midterms (exactly what Trump did with illegal immigration), but some of them saw jeans, and went all DeeDee "Ooooh What Does This Button Do?"
Italic - That was my initial assessment after Trump won (he obviously wasnt able to fix economy), now I doubt it. Democrats doubled down on fascist/dictator stuff and if Trump just steps down in 2028 and let somebody else run, they have nothing.
Edit: some formatting, because it went weird.
Edit2: wow, I am really bad at formatting posts.
|
On August 08 2025 11:59 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:Show nested quote +On August 08 2025 11:49 BlackJack wrote:On August 08 2025 10:47 WombaT wrote:
Trump didn’t ascend to his throne in the aftermath of some abortive attempt at socialism, he did so versus status quo, centrist politics as usual.
That's assuming that prolonged COVID lockdowns and vaccine mandates, letting millions of immigrants into the country through an open border, defunding the police, rewriting our understanding of biology and pronouns, obsessing over race, and having revolving doors on jails was part of the "status quo."Then in the 11th hour Dems tried to pivot to the center which pissed off the people on the left and the people in the center simply weren't buying it. The good news is that Trump's policies are equally unpopular. They are picking the 20 side on the 80-20 issues of prosecuting women who seek abortion, deporting law-abiding people who have been in the country for years, etc. Meanwhile prominent Dems are signialing that they are turning away from woke, e.g. Gavin Newsom saying men in women's sports is unfair, Rahm Emanuel saying a man can't become a women, etc. i.e. things that would have gotten you excommunicated a year ago. So I predict a Dem win in 2028 and I wouldn't be surprised if we continue to have stints of 4-year Presidents for the time being. There ought to be a difference between what Democrats actually did and what nonsense Republicans pretended that Democrats did, but I suppose that Democrats are bad enough at communicating/counter-messaging that people can just make up shit, attribute it to Democrats, and get away with it.
Right down the memory hole. That's the spirit.
|
you are perfectly describing the Dems messaging problem.
Trump locked down the country as people panicked with the then novel virus. only no one associates him anymore with it, the economy tanked and his supporters in particular turned on him. and turned exceedingly stupid in the process regarding important health issues (anti vax - anti science - conspiracy up the wazoo).
and Republicans indulged them and their idiocy, HHS secretary RFK. Jr. is not a coincidence. killing mRNA funding is messaging to them. it most definitely is not about the money.
regarding the gender/biology. these are absurdly hard discussions to have in academia. some of it spills over into the public sphere and Dems again are on the losing side. it is just so much easier to plead "common sense".
challenging what "feels intuitive" and went unquestioned for basically millenia, you are setting yourself up for failure with average Jane and John Doe.
Newsom/Emanuel pivoting and trying out what they perceive as "new material" for their party after a shock that was Trump once again triumphing is not surprising. I reckon their voters - especially young ones - will not appreciate it very much but then again Emanuel is a dinosaur and Newsom gruesome.
I mean making life hell for Trans people because a hand full of cases in some sports brought out the worst in people and a lot of media fuss and good old right wing propaganda? priorities set straight.
the latest example - US Air Force to deny retirement pay to transgender service members being separated from the service
Officials have said that as of Dec. 9, 2024, there were 4,240 troops diagnosed with “gender dysphoria” on active duty, National Guard and Reserve. Pentagon officials have decided to use the condition and its diagnosis as the main way to identify troops who are trans.
However, the two are not an exact match — not every transgender person has the condition. As a result, there is an understanding that the actual number of transgender people within the military’s roughly 2 million troops may be higher.
Under the latest policy, active duty troops had until June 6 to voluntarily identify themselves and receive a payout while troops in the National Guard and Reserve had until July 7. Pentagon officials previously told reporters that they plan to lean on commanders and existing annual medical screenings to find any transgender service members who do not come forward.
special discrimination for a couple thousand people out of 2 million.
at least the lawyers will be busy.
|
The world's economy tanked in 2020.
$500 million is pocket change to Big Pharma. If mRNA research is so promising and can cure cancer and everything else, they should be able to scrounge up the money to fund it themselves. The only approved mRNA vaccines we've had are ones where everyone got the disease anyway. The government does not have a secret infinite money tree to spend from. It has to weight cost-benefit. Rich people do not secretly have a tree of infinite stuff they are refusing to share with society either.
If Democrats, and their supporters, had such incredible ideas, and ways to implement them, they would be communicating the ideas from dawn to dusk instead of constantly complaining that their incredible ideas get lost through messaging issues or get drowned out by fascism.
|
|
|
|
|
|
EPT
