On November 20 2025 01:53 KT_Elwood wrote:Show nested quote +On November 19 2025 23:01 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:
I agree with much of what you wrote here, but Mamdani does not love capitalism. I am sure he does, but in a twisted way, any form of capitalism that is moderate and regulated is viewed by todays americans, 50 years high on the reagonomics, the same as socialism. It was the GOP that trustbusted the robberbarons and who set income tax to 60,70,90% for income 50x higher than the average to pay for war-time production and even the years after. It was also the GOP that founded MASSIVE housing programms for Veterans, who could buy a house for basicly $10. Today people automaticly side with the extortion businesses. - Yes to Me needing a Microsoft account to install windows - Yes to crack-meth social media that blasts away sanity with engagement bait, please do not regulate! - Yes to Zcukerborg taking ALL MY DATA! - Yes to Software as a Service - Yes to microtransactions - Yes to supersizing - Yes to double the price, half the dorritos - Yes to farmequipment only to be repaired by the JohnDeere subscription service technician, and immobilized shall you attempt to repair yourself - Yes to I need an account - Yes to I need an App - Yes to cookies - Yes to tracking - Yes to 5 Streaming Services that each have exclusive content for video.. but somehow Spotify and Apple Music have the same and are 3 times cheaper. Capitalism needs Competition. Competition breeds innnovation. Regulators and Consumers have become complacent and lazy and ineffective, and with Trump Regulation in the US just a tool, and shall the EU impede the US-Monopolies, His orangeness will hit us with tariffs. FTC now ruled that Meta owning FacebookAds+Facebook+Instagramm+Whatsapp isn't too much consolidation FTC also ruled that One Bazillionaire owning 70% of US Broadcast stations for cable is only a monopoly, if Jimmy Kimmel is allowed to play videos of TRump not giving a shit about Kirky Charles. If he gets offed-aired .. than it's okay. Play some bible tv about underage marriage not being a sin because Baby Jesus didn'T say anything... not Don.T. Care </rant> I guess Mamdani is for people owning businesses and reaping their profits - but he is not for people inheriting 12 blocks of manhattan and scalping the living shit out of everyone.
No... Mamdani does not like capitalism: https://youtube.com/shorts/vik8HbWnZ68?si=g7wSQ1hUDMeInPml
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On November 19 2025 15:37 ChristianS wrote:Show nested quote +On November 19 2025 07:34 GreenHorizons wrote:On November 19 2025 00:14 ChristianS wrote:On November 18 2025 19:28 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:On November 18 2025 15:10 ChristianS wrote:On November 18 2025 09:32 GreenHorizons wrote:On November 18 2025 08:09 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:On November 18 2025 06:03 GreenHorizons wrote:On November 18 2025 05:01 WombaT wrote:On November 18 2025 04:10 GreenHorizons wrote:
[quote]I think you misunderstand.
I'm asking if we can turn your assertion that [quote] into a metric for who to primary in 2026.
As in, can we look at who is doing which and use that as a reasonable metric to determine which Democrats need to be primaried in 2026? I'm also curious if you (or any Democrat supporters) can identify any Democrats that need to be primaried in 2026 based on that or any other metric? Why do you want to primary them? Do you want to do so because you think it’ll make a vaguely similar platform win with a better quality of candidate, or do you want a completely different platform that you think can also win and is a better platform? Those are good questions for DPB and other people who believe it is a viable strategy moving forward. I look forward to seeing their answers... On November 18 2025 05:22 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:On November 18 2025 04:10 GreenHorizons wrote:
[quote]I think you misunderstand.
I'm asking if we can turn your assertion that [quote] into a metric for who to primary in 2026.
As in, can we look at who is doing which and use that as a reasonable metric to determine which Democrats need to be primaried in 2026? I'm also curious if you (or any Democrat supporters) can identify any Democrats that need to be primaried in 2026 based on that or any other metric? + Show Spoiler +Yes, I think we can use it as a metric for who to primary in 2026. In my opinion, just because a seat is already blue doesn't mean it can't be a better version of blue. I hope that more left-wing progressive politicians are willing to challenge moderate-left incumbents, and if that happens in elections that I can vote in, I'll happily support those further-left progressive challengers. I don't have the time or bandwidth right now to look into future seats that I hope will soon be challenged + Show Spoiler +during the next election cycle, but when they do happen in spaces where I can vote (local, state, national), I pay attention to who's running and try to help whoever I consider to be the best option. You're not alone. Which is a major contributor to why it doesn't happen/hasn't happened often enough to work at scale. It takes people like you (who already spend more time and bandwidth than most investigating and discussing politics) making time and bandwidth for it. It's also part of why I've been asking you about Booker. How does he score on your metrics for if he needs to be primaried or not? Your metrics are pretty useless/hopeless if you can't/refuse to apply them to your own Senator in 2026. Otherwise it's basically just another iteration of the hollow/useless rhetoric I described before This question is irrelevant because I'm not in charge of whether or not a candidate gets primaried. I don't get to choose who gets primaried and who doesn't. When the time comes for him to run for re-election, and if/when he has to run against an alternative primary challenger, I'll assess how he "scores on my metrics" and compare that to how his opponent "scores on my metrics" in 2026. It's on a relative scale, between two or more actual candidates. I'll cross that bridge if/when we come to it. And as I said at the very beginning, this should be done "for both the primary elections and the general elections". (This also is nothing new, and it's what all of us have been doing for years already.) That failure to recognize where those "alternative primary challengers" come from and when/why they are necessary is part of why your rhetoric about your metrics are really just empty clichés that are hopeless at actually making the changes in the Democrat party that you ostensibly want. It's not just you that thinks like this. It's basically every "improve the Democrats from within" type I've ever encountered (that hasn't abandoned the party at this point) that is waiting for a "bridge" to cross, instead of doing the obviously necessary work to build it. Then when the bridge doesn't magically manifest or (despite other people's hard work) is less prefered than the established road (to apocalyptic climate catastrophes among others), the "only rational choice" is to choose the scenic route to apocalypse over the shortcut offered by the other party. As ChristianS suggested, ...In more stable times maybe that could be tolerated, but in this moment we don’t have room for complacency. If someone can fight, they should do it, if they can’t they should retire. I'd add (and I think ChristianS might agree?) that we all have to work on identifying who these politicians that aren't sufficiently fighting are prior to the date to file for a primary so we can plan accordingly. If they don't/won't retire, then they should be primaried. I also think I might agree! I mean I don’t begrudge DPB wanting to focus on his own representatives and/or specific (rather than abstract) candidates, but at the same time I think it’s perfectly valid for me to say “Chuck Schumer should be replaced as caucus leader” even though I don’t have an alternative leader in mind and I’m not one of the people who gets to vote on that. And if I ask someone if they agree and they say “well, I don’t get a vote on that” that feels like a dodge. Sure. And if you ask a voter what their perspective is on politician X and the voter tells you that they honestly haven't yet had a chance to research the politician to the extent they're satisfied with / to the extent you're looking for - but that the voter is definitely going to do a deep dive into politician X soon, and the voter would be happy to get back to you with their thoughts on politician X when they have more time - it might not be the most persuasive move for you to then condescendingly lecture that voter on how the voter's eventual assessment is probably nothing more than "empty clichés that are hopeless" and that the voter is actually "refusing to apply metrics" just because they don't immediately have an answer the moment you asked them a question. (When I write "you", I'm not referring to you, ChristianS.) Sure, I get it. GH comes across as a scold, and it’s completely reasonable to say “I haven’t done the research to have a full answer to that question right now.” I don’t even know how many Dem Senators I can name off the top of my head, I certainly don’t have pro and con lists for each one, and I’m not more motivated to do that work because, like, what am I gonna do with it anyway? Write about it here I guess? That said, I shared that Josh Marshall piece talking about more or less this issue. Something he’s enthused about is that despite the fumble at the finish line, the Dems at the end of the year were still night and day from the Dems back in March or whatever. Back then Schumer made them agree to some bullshit CR because he didn’t think it was the right time to fight or something. That decision got ridiculed all year, and that crowd got so spooked they waited more than a month to cave, and created all this theater around it when they finally caved because they’re scared of the blowback they’ll get. So to me what GH (or if you prefer, Josh Marshall) is talking about is just follow-through. We’ve got them running scared, now we need to track them to their hidey-holes – if they’re not willing to fight, they need to give up their seat to someone who will. This political moment requires an opposition that’s willing and able to fight back. I mean, thinking about the endgame here: the only constitutional remedy to most of these abuses is impeachment. Of course we all know GH is not putting his faith in “constitutional remedies” – he’s hoping we all see the futility of that and join his revolution – but something I think he’d agree with me on is that a large majority of Americans (including the ones he’ll need to persuade for his revolution to work) still believe in the power of those systems. They’re going to need to see them fail before they’re willing to entertain his ideas. So either they mobilize and the constitutional remedies succeed, or they fail and people become open to more radical solutions (maybe his solutions, maybe not). What I’m scared of (and maybe he is too) is that people are already too jaded to mobilize in the first place – they vaguely believe in the abstract that electoral solutions are the “right way” and reject his revolutionary talk, but then they turn around and don’t do what the electoral solutions would require either. That’s the loss condition here, imo. Yup! I struggle to comprehend how anyone could possibly come to any other conclusion based on their behavior since Trump got reelected. You've endured as much of my abrasiveness as anyone. You also have demonstrated basically the best understanding of my points (even ones you may disagree with) recently. Clearly they aren't fans of my communication style, so I think this is the part where you experience the kind of interactions that tends to inspire it among socialists. EDIT: I would add that removing Schumer from leadership immediately is pretty straightforward. Any Senator in the caucus can call for a vote and it's done. Anyone that doesn't want to do that can be marked to leave the Senate with him imo. What this means is that any member of the Senate Democratic caucus can bring a challenge to Schumer’s continued leadership up for a vote. They would only need a majority of the caucus, or 24 of the 47 members, in order for the vote to succeed. Unfortunately that might be a lot of them... The Prospect asked every senator, except for those who negotiated and voted for the continuing resolution, if they would bring a motion to remove Schumer or support one brought by a colleague. None responded. prospect.org Something I’ve always liked about both you and Kwark (and I know I might be alone on this) is that you’re not really concerned with couching your opinions for the sake of persuasion. It means you both come across pretty aggro sometimes, but I’ll take it over a slick used-car-salesman “what can I do to put you in a socialist revolution today?” vibe. It’s easy to lose sight of how much calibrating and temperature-taking go into how we talk and think about politics. I first thought about this for you a long time back when there was a discussion of legalizing marijuana, and people were saying well, of course, if somebody gets behind the wheel we’ll still lock them up, and you said why? Does it actually impair driving very much? That hadn’t even really occurred to me to question. Advocates of legalizing marijuana always enthusiastically emphasized that driving under the influence would still be illegal, which was probably smart politics because their opponents were looking for any reason legalization would be a threat to society, and neutralizing the road safety angle cut off that line of attack. But somehow that same calculation trickles down to us, a bunch of randos talking politics on a Starcraft forum, as though we need to modulate our opinions and stay on message like we’re holding a press conference or something. We don’t even realize we’re doing it. With that said, you do remind me sometimes of Ignaz Semmelweis (the so-called “father of handwashing”). He’s a rather famous case of someone trying to advocate for a moral cause by making extreme moral condemnations of nearly everyone (in his case, “you’re all mass murderers because you don’t wash your hands before delivering babies!”), and engendering extremely defensive resistance as a result. It’s not necessarily that you’re wrong, but there’s gotta be some way to talk about this that doesn’t make people feel like whatever you say the subtext is “everybody but me is completely evil and depraved” and if they give you even an inch they’re conceding that’s true. Re Schumer: I mean, I think it would kick ass if they booted Schumer ASAP. My read, though, is that for that to be politically feasible they would need to form an intraparty coalition that agrees not only on firing him, but who to replace him with. In the meantime everybody’s likely to keep their powder dry because they don’t want to declare allegiance before they know what the factions are. That’s certainly annoying, but I don’t think I’m ready to declare every one of them unrecoverable because they’re not going on a solo crusade against Schumer. I think his support is pretty weak and a lot of his caucus is in a “not if but when” mode on replacing him.
Fair. I think we've seen a fair amount of the 'Semmelweis reflex" too though 
I'm hoping you have more success than I have in finding a way to not just talk about it, but spur people to the necessary actions, without leaning on the moral depravity/catastrophic consequences of failing to do so. I'll be looking to learn. Though, I should note that part of why I went that direction is because of how those same people interact with others they disagree with. It's a lot of moralizing, condescension, etc. There's clearly some contradictions going on if they don't believe that's how you're supposed to do this.
On Schumer, this is part of why I did the "LibHorizons" thing. It's confusing distinguishing my preferences or whatever from what I'm saying reasonable liberal/progressive preferences should look like based on their espoused beliefs. That Schumer bit was my preference, but my point was that they can replace Schumer (and identify more of the Complicity Caucus) if/when they want, and every day they wait is a day too long from a practical (as well as ethical pov) imo.
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On November 20 2025 02:13 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:Show nested quote +On November 20 2025 01:53 KT_Elwood wrote:On November 19 2025 23:01 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:
I agree with much of what you wrote here, but Mamdani does not love capitalism. I am sure he does, but in a twisted way, any form of capitalism that is moderate and regulated is viewed by todays americans, 50 years high on the reagonomics, the same as socialism. It was the GOP that trustbusted the robberbarons and who set income tax to 60,70,90% for income 50x higher than the average to pay for war-time production and even the years after. It was also the GOP that founded MASSIVE housing programms for Veterans, who could buy a house for basicly $10. Today people automaticly side with the extortion businesses. - Yes to Me needing a Microsoft account to install windows - Yes to crack-meth social media that blasts away sanity with engagement bait, please do not regulate! - Yes to Zcukerborg taking ALL MY DATA! - Yes to Software as a Service - Yes to microtransactions - Yes to supersizing - Yes to double the price, half the dorritos - Yes to farmequipment only to be repaired by the JohnDeere subscription service technician, and immobilized shall you attempt to repair yourself - Yes to I need an account - Yes to I need an App - Yes to cookies - Yes to tracking - Yes to 5 Streaming Services that each have exclusive content for video.. but somehow Spotify and Apple Music have the same and are 3 times cheaper. Capitalism needs Competition. Competition breeds innnovation. Regulators and Consumers have become complacent and lazy and ineffective, and with Trump Regulation in the US just a tool, and shall the EU impede the US-Monopolies, His orangeness will hit us with tariffs. FTC now ruled that Meta owning FacebookAds+Facebook+Instagramm+Whatsapp isn't too much consolidation FTC also ruled that One Bazillionaire owning 70% of US Broadcast stations for cable is only a monopoly, if Jimmy Kimmel is allowed to play videos of TRump not giving a shit about Kirky Charles. If he gets offed-aired .. than it's okay. Play some bible tv about underage marriage not being a sin because Baby Jesus didn'T say anything... not Don.T. Care </rant> I guess Mamdani is for people owning businesses and reaping their profits - but he is not for people inheriting 12 blocks of manhattan and scalping the living shit out of everyone. No... Mamdani does not like capitalism: https://youtube.com/shorts/vik8HbWnZ68?si=g7wSQ1hUDMeInPml
It's worth noting that if he wants to end it (which Democratic Socialists ostensibly do), that puts him in direct conflict with the party, which is a capitalist party. Even progressives are supposed to be in support of capitalism.
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On November 20 2025 02:13 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:Show nested quote +On November 20 2025 01:53 KT_Elwood wrote:On November 19 2025 23:01 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:
I agree with much of what you wrote here, but Mamdani does not love capitalism. I am sure he does, but in a twisted way, any form of capitalism that is moderate and regulated is viewed by todays americans, 50 years high on the reagonomics, the same as socialism. It was the GOP that trustbusted the robberbarons and who set income tax to 60,70,90% for income 50x higher than the average to pay for war-time production and even the years after. It was also the GOP that founded MASSIVE housing programms for Veterans, who could buy a house for basicly $10. Today people automaticly side with the extortion businesses. - Yes to Me needing a Microsoft account to install windows - Yes to crack-meth social media that blasts away sanity with engagement bait, please do not regulate! - Yes to Zcukerborg taking ALL MY DATA! - Yes to Software as a Service - Yes to microtransactions - Yes to supersizing - Yes to double the price, half the dorritos - Yes to farmequipment only to be repaired by the JohnDeere subscription service technician, and immobilized shall you attempt to repair yourself - Yes to I need an account - Yes to I need an App - Yes to cookies - Yes to tracking - Yes to 5 Streaming Services that each have exclusive content for video.. but somehow Spotify and Apple Music have the same and are 3 times cheaper. Capitalism needs Competition. Competition breeds innnovation. Regulators and Consumers have become complacent and lazy and ineffective, and with Trump Regulation in the US just a tool, and shall the EU impede the US-Monopolies, His orangeness will hit us with tariffs. FTC now ruled that Meta owning FacebookAds+Facebook+Instagramm+Whatsapp isn't too much consolidation FTC also ruled that One Bazillionaire owning 70% of US Broadcast stations for cable is only a monopoly, if Jimmy Kimmel is allowed to play videos of TRump not giving a shit about Kirky Charles. If he gets offed-aired .. than it's okay. Play some bible tv about underage marriage not being a sin because Baby Jesus didn'T say anything... not Don.T. Care </rant> I guess Mamdani is for people owning businesses and reaping their profits - but he is not for people inheriting 12 blocks of manhattan and scalping the living shit out of everyone. No... Mamdani does not like capitalism: https://youtube.com/shorts/vik8HbWnZ68?si=g7wSQ1hUDMeInPml
the great irony is that "socialists" are way more on the money preserving and saving capitalism from itself than the laissez faire ideologues who also happen to live in lala land, as a sufficiently large amount of money compared to a very small mind and narrow view of reality allows you to do that.
or building an exclusive zoning area or a big fence with a gate around their community to keep the undesireable and undeserving ones out to keep it that way.
works great in nature too where mono cultures are known to thrive the most.
another great irony is that the ChinaComs are kicking our "collective capitalist" asses in the West - as we flipped the script so stupidly that it works against us.
but hey Trump is our champion, what could possibly go (even more) wrong?
you asked a question I don't like? shut up (piggy! [sic!] in a different instance he literally said it), I am gonna take a look at taking away your broadcasting license.
I mean... it's already half-way joever.
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EPT
