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.
On November 14 2025 01:21 Legan wrote: Is there some specific reason why I haven't seen a push for a No Kings like protest over the Epstein files?
There is not an Epstein party to protest against. Trump literally campaigned on releasing them. Everyone wants them released except for those that they incriminate, which is very clearly includes Trump, or the republicans would have done it by now. However they can't exactly say "We support pedophiles" so there's not anything to *protest* against.
Yesterday's e-mails and Maxwell living in a minimum security prison-resort as a result of her saying she didn't see Trump do anything wrong after Trump visited her would be enough to impeach any president in the history of ever until MAGA happened. Hell even Prince Andrew was stripped of his titles.
The protest would be simply about Trump's ties to Epstein and how protestors want pedophiles out of White House. You can, of course, throw in some ties to older or lesser-known cases. The protest would be more about forcing the issue into the mouths of politicians. Harder to claim that the protestors are antifa or hate America. Can't really post yourself shitting on them. Force the narrative. Create a scandal for Trump instead of waiting and reacting when one occurs.
Currently, the scandal has simmered for too long. If there are no photos of Trump raping someone in Epstein's presence, the scandal will dry out, and people will grow numb. "Just another stale talking point from the Democrats." If the photos exist, they are unlikely to pop out at this point. In my opinion, the way to go is to increase the heat and throw gas on the fire. What is already known should be sufficient.
The challenge is that the people obsessed with the Epstein files are the hardest core of MAGA, so they are going to have to unwind some pretty deeply held beliefs about the Dems being a ring of pedophiles and Donald Trump being the hero that was going to expose all of them.
Some of the MAGA pod casters are still on board with finding the files but they are walking a fine line on.l how they go about it given that it is very clear that Trump is one of the major players and not the hero they were sold.
For the rest of people it’s pretty easy, this is just confirmation of what has always been obvious. DJT is a guy who uses his money and power to bed women and when that doesn’t work he does it anyway and uses his money and power to get out of it. He has said as much, there is documented cases and that is before getting into all the ULTRA creepy sexual comments he has made about his own daughter.
My guess is the MAGA folks for the most part are in too deep and will move on to the next made up thing. But some will fall off, especially those with non cult member friends who can remind them of this over and over.
On November 14 2025 01:39 Mohdoo wrote: When the focus is "reform from within", all of that power remains in the meantime. Leadership within the party is very powerful because of the donor funding continuing to roll in while the whole "reform" process takes place. Simply walking away from the party and letting it crumble from being irrelevant is a better long-term solution.
For those of you who still insist on reform from within, I am curious how many years from now you would say is too long to wait. Lets say 10 years go by and we still have the same general dynamic we currently see, where party leaders are clearly corporate-focused and other such things. I think I can just vaguely gesture at what we all agree is not ideal about the democratic party and you all get what I mean. If 20 years ago by and its still like that, would you be willing to just walk away from the party?
Its kinda like the whole "I can fix her" thing. The booty is fat, and it always feels like progress is being made. Then she, once again, does something blatantly billionaire-aligned. Then its 10 years later and you're miserable and wish you just ditched her after the first time she voted for billionaires.
The overwhelming majority of non-Republicans are much more moderate than you are. Redrawing lines doesn't change that.
If reform doesn't happen it's because not enough people want it to happen, simple as. The leadership of the party was clearly against Mamdani and he won anyway, same with Trump in 2016. Bernie didn't because not enough people voted for him, donations and creme-de-la-creme staffers aren't an insurmountable obstacle. It's contradictory to act like the will of Chuck Schmuck is an unstoppable force you have to concede to, but the forces opposing a splinter progressive party or a revolution would somehow be smaller.
It's kinda like you're in a low sports car that struggles to clear a normal speed bump and you want to take it off road on the mountain. I'm not trying to stop you, I'm just explaining why all the Bernies, AOCs, Mamdanis are choosing the more logical challenge.
Things tend to... make sense. If the DSA's membership were to explode to 7 figures you'd have had your reform, if it were to explode to 8 figures you'd have had your new party, you don't because it didn't.
What you're describing is just a part of being a part of a coalition. I don't mind the coalition part of it. It is a beautiful part of democracy: needing to collaborate with somewhat-like-minded people to achieve shared goals. What I am describing is the strictly ethics component of the dynamic. many democrat politicians are great, ethical people. But those are not the people who are leading the party. So long as power is in the hands of people who misuse it, reforming from within is a losing battle.
Apparently the October jobs report and inflation data are so catastrophic that the Trump administration is trying to permanently hide that information:
White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said Wednesday that the October jobs report and inflation data will likely not be released even after the government reopens.
Trump is gay for Clinton. Now that's an arc I want to see happening. And then watch Republicans aggressively gaslight gay acceptance is something that was always part of their nature, lol.
Knowing US politics/media, I'd bet it's more likely that Hillary would get asked how she felt about Bill getting blown by Trump while he was signing DOMA and DADT. Maybe also how she feels about Trump trying to bring policies like that back.
On November 14 2025 01:39 Mohdoo wrote: When the focus is "reform from within", all of that power remains in the meantime. Leadership within the party is very powerful because of the donor funding continuing to roll in while the whole "reform" process takes place. Simply walking away from the party and letting it crumble from being irrelevant is a better long-term solution.
For those of you who still insist on reform from within, I am curious how many years from now you would say is too long to wait. Lets say 10 years go by and we still have the same general dynamic we currently see, where party leaders are clearly corporate-focused and other such things. I think I can just vaguely gesture at what we all agree is not ideal about the democratic party and you all get what I mean. If 20 years ago by and its still like that, would you be willing to just walk away from the party?
Its kinda like the whole "I can fix her" thing. The booty is fat, and it always feels like progress is being made. Then she, once again, does something blatantly billionaire-aligned. Then its 10 years later and you're miserable and wish you just ditched her after the first time she voted for billionaires.
The overwhelming majority of non-Republicans are much more moderate than you are. Redrawing lines doesn't change that.
If reform doesn't happen it's because not enough people want it to happen, simple as. The leadership of the party was clearly against Mamdani and he won anyway, same with Trump in 2016. Bernie didn't because not enough people voted for him, donations and creme-de-la-creme staffers aren't an insurmountable obstacle. It's contradictory to act like the will of Chuck Schmuck is an unstoppable force you have to concede to, but the forces opposing a splinter progressive party or a revolution would somehow be smaller.
It's kinda like you're in a low sports car that struggles to clear a normal speed bump and you want to take it off road on the mountain. I'm not trying to stop you, I'm just explaining why all the Bernies, AOCs, Mamdanis are choosing the more logical challenge.
Things tend to... make sense. If the DSA's membership were to explode to 7 figures you'd have had your reform, if it were to explode to 8 figures you'd have had your new party, you don't because it didn't.
What you're describing is just a part of being a part of a coalition. I don't mind the coalition part of it. It is a beautiful part of democracy: needing to collaborate with somewhat-like-minded people to achieve shared goals. What I am describing is the strictly ethics component of the dynamic. many democrat politicians are great, ethical people. But those are not the people who are leading the party.
So long as power is in the hands of people who misuse it, reforming from within is a losing battle.
On March 04 2025 13:29 Zambrah wrote: Ive watched a few Hasan videos recently and I dont really think your assertion that he characterizes Russia as anything but the villain in their invasion of Ukraine is correct, in like, any capacity. I will say I always roll my eyes at leftists who instinctually feel the need to defend the Chinese government, but frankly Im not actually educated enough about whats happening their to say anything for certain about it, the Chinese government is certainly capable of doing terrible shit though so I hardly find myself wanting to defend them.
Well partially the problem is he says a lot of stupid stuff, and just a lot of stuff in general, so it won't always sit together coherently. I'm sure he's made plenty of comments casting Russia as the villain, but has he not also made plenty of comments essentially blaming the whole thing on NATO aka the US, which culminated in calling it US disinformation that Kyiv would be attacked? Apparently he also said Crimea was a justified invasion, although that one seems greyer to me and I don't wanna take my own turn talking too far out of pocket so I'll leave it at that.
To Hasan's credit, I found out looking into this that he raised $200k for Ukraine, which sort of talks louder than any "take" on the issue.
As for the American federal government not killing the slavers and stuff, I'm just gonna have to hard agree with him there assuming he did say that like you're saying he did. I agree. We didnt press our boots down nearly hard enough after the Civil War, we let too many scum fuck monsters not only live, but assume power. I don't really think that killing monstrous oppressors who engaged in one of, if not the most, brutal forms of slavery in human history is a tankie authoritarian type thing to do or believe.
I wasn't objecting to his language there for the US, I don't consider myself informed enough to comment on "how hard" the South was stomped down upon, or should have been. Slavery is fucked though, I can comfortably say that. My objection was to comparing Tibet (and especially Taiwan?!?!) to this. That's the tankie part, as you say, instinctually defending the Chinese government. It's especially weird to me because China's got similar (slightly higher) wealth inequality than a bunch of countries nobody is calling communist (say Australia or the UK), so you don't even get the supposed benefits of communism from the "communist" government.
Anyways, that's all academic. The reason for bringing up Hasan was that maybe the people who have acquired a lot of both financial and social influence off of... let's call it praxis... should be the ones escalating when shit is apparently hitting the fan. If the left is to mobilise, and mobilise those not currently committed to their message, this seems to be the angle, not telling people working for the government that they're complicit in whatever Trump or Musk decided to do after the latest three seconds of thought if they don't quit.
Maybe Hasan should run, haha. Or be calling for that general strike.
I want to be transparent, I'm not going to pretend to be a leftist warrior, but this isn't all some concern troll either. Like,
I've already declared myself one of the cowards, and one has to think about their young children when it comes to things like striking, but I'd happily vote for a Sanders or a Corbyn. When it comes to the US, where income inequality is particularly prevalent, a hard kick to the left seems especially needed. This doesn't even need to be achieved from explicitly leftist theory either, like I heard something very interesting about how the unavailability of public transport in a lot of the US hits the poorest people the hardest, who are stuck relying on used cars that are more likely to break down. Better public transport would then be a lever that would remove one of the mechanisms through which poorer people are kept poor. And fuck yes tax the very rich harder to pay for that.
On March 04 2025 12:26 GreenHorizons wrote: But yeah, generally speaking, random middle class workers (along with people from every walk of life) will have to risk more than just their jobs to stop the rising tide of fascism in the US and globally. We should all be thankful we're only talking about participating in blogs, electoral planning, and refusing to forward a chain email instead of storming a beach in Normandy or digging a foxhole in Pokrovsk.
That's kinda what I'm getting at. Haven't a whole ton of your posts been about how that isn't enough? When you imply people should quit their job because Musk sent a dumb e-mail, you're (again) suggesting the time for talk in corners of the internet is long gone. Blogs and chain e-mails won't cut it, you yourself said this was all needed "yesterday". All GreenHorizons wants to say is "go try socialism locally" and when asked what that looks like says "using a socialist lens to realise that for example health care sucks", but okay, that was the past. LibHorizons is here now. What's LibHorizon's dot points of what a leftist Project 2025 might look like?
Seems like it'd do a lot more good than antagonising until political numpties like me are trolled into shitting up the thread.
primary Democrats that aren't showing sufficient will to fight/oppose the Trump admin's agenda a bit: Not every Democrat needs to be primaried. Those of us in safe blue states with Democrats unlikely to not clear the bar for not being primaried can direct resources toward places where the Democrats do need to be primaried. But we need a reasonably objective way to determine which is which.
Thus far Democrats and their supporters have failed to provide that. I'm open to hearing their ideas, but lacking that, I feel obligated as a progressive to present something that is better than nothing. Sooo...
Having a deliberate and executable plan (with a simple name like "project 2025" or "The New Deal" or whatever) and making support for it be the litmus test. You support it, no primary. You don't support it, you get primaried, and the party doesn't bail you out. The party should let Bernie, AOC, and The Squad lead the way in setting the terms, but they've all shown they can be very reasonable and show deference to the party generally. So it's not as if they would ignore the needs/preferences of the more centrist parts of the party entirely, or even to the degree they've been pushed to the periphery by said centrists.
(which is more than anyone else) I'd elaborate by saying: Beyond the basic outline of a plan of how to even get the opportunity to vote for people like Bernie I have provided, I presume you're asking what are Bernie/AOC/The Squad's positions I currently think should take center stage?
1. Medicare for all 2. Green New Deal 3. You can pick
There's a process to the electoral system in the US, and part of it is the primary. In order to have someone like Bernie to vote for in a general election against the Republican, they have to win the primary against the Democrats that "aren't willing to fight" sufficiently against the Trump administration's agenda.
But to know who those Democrats are we need some sort of fair/honest/objective metric. Since 0 libs/Dems/ilk provided anything resembling such a metric I provided the idea of making it essentially whether or not they supported the aforementioned 3 policies.
Winning such a primary also requires spending every possible second developing the opposition campaigns to any of these entrenched Democrats that are collaborating with or appeasing Trump/Musk.
Based on how aggressively the libs/Dems/ilk here are refusing to even try to work on how to improve the candidates Democrat voters have to choose from and/or ensure they have legitimate elections to engage in, I can't believe their rhetoric about wanting Democrats to be any better/more than they are being right now. Their inattentiveness is enabling the worst aspects of Democrats (and also the most fascist Republicans).
On November 15 2025 00:37 Uldridge wrote: Trump is gay for Clinton. Now that's an arc I want to see happening. And then watch Republicans aggressively gaslight gay acceptance is something that was always part of their nature, lol.
There would be something poetic if the perennial bullshitter, and accuser of ‘fake news’ for folks reporting well, news, got sunk by something that was itself complete nonsense. I’d be absolutely here for it
There’s almost no more apt way for Trump to be turfed out of frontline politics.
On November 14 2025 08:24 DarkPlasmaBall wrote: Apparently the October jobs report and inflation data are so catastrophic that the Trump administration is trying to permanently hide that information:
White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said Wednesday that the October jobs report and inflation data will likely not be released even after the government reopens.
The jobs report data was not collected. The data collectors were furloughed. We'll know if things are 'so catastrophic' in a few weeks. Automatically assuming catastrophy is a reach. "The truth is never far behind ... You kept it hidden well...", Madonna, 1985.
On November 14 2025 08:24 DarkPlasmaBall wrote: Apparently the October jobs report and inflation data are so catastrophic that the Trump administration is trying to permanently hide that information:
White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said Wednesday that the October jobs report and inflation data will likely not be released even after the government reopens.
The jobs report data was not collected. The data collectors were furloughed. We'll know if things are 'so catastrophic' in a few weeks. Automatically assuming catastrophy is a reach. "The truth is never far behind ... You kept it hidden well...", Madonna, 1985.
It is fun to get all emotional about the pending apocalypse though.
Karoline looks like she is 45.
If you've listened to any of Jerome Powell's talks after FOMC rate decisions, you'd know why they're only cutting 0.25 at a time. As he repeatedly says, they have one knob to turn and two competing issues. Poor jobs numbers and a slumping economy makes them want to cut rates aggressively. High inflation makes them want to raise rates. So they both want to cut and raise at the same time.
They've erred on the side of cutting because they are hoping the inflation is a one time thing based on tariffs and not persistent. Essentially, tariffs are causing inflation, but once they get priced in, they won't cause further inflation... everything will stay expensive, but not get more expensive.
He hasn't used the word, but what he's describing is stagflation and it's a brutal thing for the economy.
The only silver lining is that Trump could remove tariffs and prices should come back down. Then they could cut aggressively and pull us out of a recession before it gets too bad.
Stagflation wasn't a catastrophy during the Carter era... And it is not a catastrophy now. The result is a very slow decline in the standard of living for the average American.
Trump promised us Reagan... And we're getting Carter.
On November 15 2025 02:52 RenSC2 wrote: . Poor jobs numbers and a slumping economy makes them want to cut rates aggressively. High inflation makes them want to raise rates. So they both want to cut and raise at the same time... a recession before it gets too bad.
Consumer spending indicates the job market is weak not horrible.
On November 14 2025 08:24 DarkPlasmaBall wrote: Apparently the October jobs report and inflation data are so catastrophic that the Trump administration is trying to permanently hide that information:
White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said Wednesday that the October jobs report and inflation data will likely not be released even after the government reopens.
The jobs report data was not collected. The data collectors were furloughed. We'll know if things are 'so catastrophic' in a few weeks. Automatically assuming catastrophy is a reach. "The truth is never far behind ... You kept it hidden well...", Madonna, 1985.
It is fun to get all emotional about the pending apocalypse though.
Karoline looks like she is 45.
If you've listened to any of Jerome Powell's talks after FOMC rate decisions, you'd know why they're only cutting 0.25 at a time. As he repeatedly says, they have one knob to turn and two competing issues. Poor jobs numbers and a slumping economy makes them want to cut rates aggressively. High inflation makes them want to raise rates. So they both want to cut and raise at the same time.
They've erred on the side of cutting because they are hoping the inflation is a one time thing based on tariffs and not persistent. Essentially, tariffs are causing inflation, but once they get priced in, they won't cause further inflation... everything will stay expensive, but not get more expensive.
He hasn't used the word, but what he's describing is stagflation and it's a brutal thing for the economy.
The only silver lining is that Trump could remove tariffs and prices should come back down. Then they could cut aggressively and pull us out of a recession before it gets too bad.
prices going back down once tariffs are gone, now there is a good joke.
On November 14 2025 08:24 DarkPlasmaBall wrote: Apparently the October jobs report and inflation data are so catastrophic that the Trump administration is trying to permanently hide that information:
White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said Wednesday that the October jobs report and inflation data will likely not be released even after the government reopens.
The jobs report data was not collected. The data collectors were furloughed. We'll know if things are 'so catastrophic' in a few weeks. Automatically assuming catastrophy is a reach. "The truth is never far behind ... You kept it hidden well...", Madonna, 1985.
Guys, it looks like Trump has saved the world, again. Trump's team has declared that fentanyl has come to an end. "effective immediately, President Trump has shut off the pipeline that creates fentanyl... this historic achievement has saved 10s of thousands of lives" the quote starts at 5 minutes. the full speech starts at 2minutes 10 seconds
Tellin' ya, Mattel has got to make "Press Secretary Barbie". :D
On November 14 2025 08:24 DarkPlasmaBall wrote: Apparently the October jobs report and inflation data are so catastrophic that the Trump administration is trying to permanently hide that information:
White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said Wednesday that the October jobs report and inflation data will likely not be released even after the government reopens.
The jobs report data was not collected. The data collectors were furloughed. We'll know if things are 'so catastrophic' in a few weeks. Automatically assuming catastrophy is a reach. "The truth is never far behind ... You kept it hidden well...", Madonna, 1985.
On November 14 2025 08:24 DarkPlasmaBall wrote: Apparently the October jobs report and inflation data are so catastrophic that the Trump administration is trying to permanently hide that information:
White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said Wednesday that the October jobs report and inflation data will likely not be released even after the government reopens.
The jobs report data was not collected. The data collectors were furloughed. We'll know if things are 'so catastrophic' in a few weeks. Automatically assuming catastrophy is a reach. "The truth is never far behind ... You kept it hidden well...", Madonna, 1985.
It is fun to get all emotional about the pending apocalypse though.
Karoline looks like she is 45.
Who’s being emotional about the apocalypse exactly?
In fairness, DPB asserted the reason that the Trump administration doesn't want to reveal the info is because it's catastrophic. So the answer "DPB was being emotional about the jobs apocalypse" would've been a fair response: nobody really knows whether there's a jobs apocalypse/catastrophy, because somebody would have to curate that data and they were furloughed. Mighty convenient, but also true.
EPT
