#if we have a democratic president we have a better chance of improving this country

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Dan Pfeiffer at The Message Box:

Poring through the aftermath of a brutal defeat, Democrats are now in their worst position in at least 20 years. Republicans have the White House and the Senate and an excellent chance to capture the House. Trump is only the second Republican since 1988 to win the popular vote, and he made huge gains across the country, building a multi-racial working-class coalition.

For many of you, I imagine this is painful to read. Trust me. It is even more painful to write. Most of my career has been spent within the machinery of the Democratic Party. I worked in the White House and Senate leadership. I worked for Democratic governors and other party organizations. It pains me to see the party in this state of disfavor only eight years after Barack Obama left the White House. The coalition that Obama built has crumbled. There are millions of reasons why we are in this position — COVID, inflation, an unpopular President, several political miscalculations, and a failure to adapt to a changed media environment. Ultimately, I am less interested in how we got into this mess than in how we get out of it.

The press continues to second-guess and Monday-morning quarterback various tactical decisions of the Harris campaign. I am also not particularly interested in that debate. Two things can be true at the same time. Kamala Harris ran a great campaign in a brutal political environment under an impossible timeline, and Democrats just got their ass kicked by a failed President and convicted criminal who could have been sentenced to jail if he lost the election. Where Democrats go from here is a conversation that will be an ongoing part of this newsletter in the months to come. There is no singular or simple answer, and many strawman arguments are being offered up on Twitter and cable. The solution is more complex than being more left or centrist or less woke. I don’t have the answers. Like the rest of you, I am still processing what happened on Tuesday. As part of my personal therapy, I wanted to do a bit of brain dump on the road ahead for Democrats as we confront another four years of Trump.

1. Recognize the Scale of the Problem

On one level, Trump’s win isn’t that big. His popular vote margin will end up being lower than Hillary Clinton’s when she lost the Presidency. This was far from a landslide. It looks nothing like Reagan’s victories in 1980 and 1984 or Obama’s win in 2008. But we shouldn’t sugarcoat the size and scope of Trump’s victory. Trump improved on his 2020 performance nearly everywhere in the country and with every type of voter. There was a six-point shift to the right in the country from 2020. Trump did 10 points better in Democratic strongholds like New York, New Jersey, and Rhode Island. He gained ground with men, women, Latinos, Black voters, and voters under 30. If the GOP can maintain that coalition post-Trump, Democrats will have no shot at the White House or the Senate for the foreseeable future. We are in a deep hole, and because of that, it is essential that we contemplate radical solutions about how we communicate, campaign, and govern. Every option should be on the table and every prior should be questioned. Yes, it was a brutal political environment, but this failure was a long time in the making.

2. Understand Why We Keep Losing on the Economy

Post-COVID inflation is the biggest factor in this election. It’s why incumbent parties all over the world have been getting slaughtered in election after election. It’s almost impossible to win an election when, according to the exit polls, 68% of voters rate the economy negatively, 75% say inflation caused them harm, and only 24% of voters say their financial situation is better off than four years ago. But if Democrats just blame inflation for voter distrust on the economy, we will be whistling past the graveyard. Democrats have lost economically-focused voters in every election since 2012. Even in the 2018 and 2022 midterms, which saw huge Democratic gains, we lost the voters who said the economy was their top issue by an average of 36 points!

President Biden passed a bunch of very consequential and popular policies. Yet, his ratings on the economy worsened over time. While I think we should revisit our policy agenda to look for new, bolder ideas that better speak to people’s concerns, this is largely not a policy problem. It’s a brand problem. When you do a blind taste test, our policies are more popular. This is why ballot initiatives like raising the minimum wage and allowing collective bargaining often pass in very Red states where Democrats have no chance of winning elected office. On economic issues, Democrats have a cultural problem; regardless of our policies, voters in the toughest economic situations simply don’t think Democrats care about them, and they haven’t since Barack Obama left office. Republicans have done an excellent job — with some inadvertent help from Democrats — branding our party as the party of elites even though the GOP standard bearer is a wannabe billionaire who offers tax cuts to other billionaires in exchange for campaign contributions. There is little question that we would benefit from more full-throated populism.

3. Close the Communications Chasm

Democrats are losing the information war. Trump and the Republicans are relentlessly communicating their narrative to a wide swath of the electorate, while Democrats are mostly still playing by an old set of rules. The Right is dominating the information space. In the battleground states where Democrats could spend more than a billion dollars communicating to voters on TV and digital platforms, Trump gained three points over his 2020 performance. In the rest of the country, which saw no paid Democratic messaging, Trump gained six points. This means that Democrats got absolutely battered in earned and social media. An average American who just turned on their TV or unlocked their phone or tablet was getting much more pro-Trump and anti-Democratic messaging. This situation is not unique to the Harris campaign. It’s been a problem for Democrats for more than a decade. Democrats cannot reach the wide swath of voters who don’t actively consume political news. According to polling from Data for Progress, here’s the statistics showing how people voted based on the amount they paid attention to political news:

a great deal: Harris +8

a lot: Harris +5

a moderate amount: Trump +1

a little: Trump +8 -

none at all: Trump +15

If you read the New York Times or watch CNN, Democrats know how to reach you. The problem is that we already have those voters. It's very clear that most of Democratic communications is a circular conversation with the people who already agree with us on everything. The rest of the electorate can’t hear us. They are getting no countervailing information to counter the Right Wing caricature of Democrats. Because of Fox News and other Right Wing outlets, Republicans have long had an asymmetric media advantage. However, in recent years, Right Wing messaging has come to dominate non-political online spaces centered on topics like comedy, gaming, gambling, and wellness.

Most Democrats continued running the same communications playbook for the entire Trump era despite massive changes in the media ecosystem. We haven’t incubated our progressive political media enough nor have we been willing to go into the non-political spaces where the most critical segment of voters are getting their info.

Dan Pfeiffer has yet another home run column on how the Democrats can roar back from their shock 2024 losses.

[vampirecatboy]

and for the love of god, do not vote third party, that is a waste of a vote

the current electoral system is an unfairly weighted corrupt mess that will not save us, but

abstaining from voting does nothing to destabilize or replace it

participation can reduce harm and be strategically applied to your larger more revolutionary goals

(plus following electoral politics just keeps you aware of what specifically to expect from The Powers you oppose)

there is no materially revolutionary argument against voting if you are at all able.

[kanagenwrites]

So. Tuesday sucked.

We've all had a chance to come down from the "what the fuck" of it all, and we're starting to see the usual circular firing squad. Lots of lib centrists are doing everything they can to throw trans people, minorities, and basically anyone who isn't a finance bro under the bus, as is (very tiresome) tradition after both victories and defeats in the Democratic Party. I will be 42 years old in a few months, so this is far from the first time I've seen it, and sadly, I'm sure it won't be the last. To the lib centrists and those carrying water for them: This never works. Please stop trying it. Trans issues were not a major motivator; I'll get into that below. Sit down, kids, it's time for Auntie Kana's Fireside Dialectics.

One thing I've noticed is that a lot of my followers are significantly younger than me. (Imagine that, an audience that skews young on Tumblr.) A lot of you folks probably haven't been following politics for very long, and you've been able to participate in them for even less time than that. For some of you this is probably your first election as an adult, and it kinda feels like everything blew up in your face, doesn't it? I was about your age for 2000, when the election was nakedly stolen by George W. Bush, and not much older for 2004, when despite his disastrous presidency Bush the Younger rode a wave of 9/11-brained racism to the last popular vote victory the GOP had prior to (likely) this year. So I get it. I really do.

If you're living in the USA you have probably had a subpar education in politics and civics. This is largely by design - education is horrendously underfunded and there is a sustained attack on the ability of teachers to even discuss things like the Civil Rights Movement, the legacy of slavery in the United States, the genocide this country was founded on, and so on and so forth. Economic education isn't much better; you very likely got a short lecture on basic supply and demand and an argument-from-authority that "socialism doesn't work." All this combines to leave a lot of folks totally baffled as to how something like this election happens.

But it's pretty simple. It's just material conditions. That's it. What the media isn't telling you (because there's no profit in it, and the media is nothing but a clickbait engine when they aren't open propagandists) is that there has been a massive anti-incumbent wave of elections across the world. How massive? Japan's LDP, which has held power almost uninterrupted since the establishment of Japan's postwar democracy, managed to lose their recent election.

And why are material conditions so shitty? That's a complicated question, but a lot of it is the fact that we had a lengthy period of low inflation followed by a period of extremely high inflation due to the absolutely botched response to the Covid-19 pandemic. A bag of Doritos used to be 2.50, and now it's like 6 bucks. That's worse than all the inflation (and naked price-gouging, because there's a lot of that going on too) I experienced in my life prior to 2020, squeezed into the space of a year or two. This smacks everyone in the face every time they buy groceries, and while the government and the Federal Reserve were doing everything they could to manage inflation (and understand what a big deal it is for me, the anarcho-communist, to say that the US actually did an extremely fucking good job of doing it, because every other country on Earth had it worse than we did), they did fuck all to actually improve the material conditions people were experiencing. Wages were not keeping up with the cost of living, and price-gouging wasn't being dealt with.

Remember the 600 bucks Joe Biden still owes you? The American electorate sure the fuck does. Invisible backrooms liberal wonkery does not connect, regardless of whether it works or not, but going back on a promise? People remember that shit.

It's a rare incumbent that could win in an environment like this, especially when tied to a track record of doing exactly fucking nothing to actually help people from the perspective of the vast majority of the population. Kamala Harris was not that incumbent. She was a singularly uninspiring candidate who failed to connect with voters so thoroughly that she was on track to lose her home state in the 2020 Democratic primary. Nobody liked her (except a few very eager and very loud fans in the K-Hive), and speaking as someone who lives in California, I am not surprised she ate shit. She was a terrible choice for VP and a terrible choice of successor for Biden, but because Biden('s handlers) insisted on pretending he wasn't obviously declining before our very eyes, Harris, a singularly uninspiring candidate, had three months to build and run a campaign.

And it was still weirdly close.

Now, there's two possibilities: Either she actually ran an amazing campaign and it's incredible that it was even this close, or Trump is just so loathsome that even in a massively anti-incumbent environment he didn't bring anyone new to the table. Given that Trump is on-track to receive less votes this time than he did in 2020, and how many of those votes seem to have been cast for Trump and no one else down-ballot, I think it's more of the latter than the former. Trump brought the usual suspects, while Kamala successfully drove away voters that even Joe fucking Biden and Hillary fucking Clinton were able to bring home. Not on the left, not in minority demographics, but across the board. After all, if things are horrible and you're being promised that "nothing will fundamentally change," (literally an early-presidency quote from Joe Biden, whose agenda Kamala Harris 100% aligned herself with) and keeping in mind that the average American voter is not nearly so plugged into the minutiae and the day to day of politics (as evinced by the sudden peak in google searched for "Did Joe Biden drop out?" on Tuesday), why the fuck would you bother to vote?

Hopefully you have a better idea how we got here now. The question, of course, is where do we go from here? I will probably continue posting about this from time to time, especially if there's interest, but my advice is this:

We are still here. We will be here tomorrow, and the day after, and the day after that, and so on. Plan accordingly.

Things will get fucked up. Things will always get fucked up. That is the nature of things no matter who is running the government. Plan accordingly.

Organize. Develop parallel structures of power and assistance, because the government is likely going to be even more useless to directly assist you than it already was. Our greatest strength is each other, and our ability to care for and help one another.

I have been here before. You will be here again. It always feels like it's the worst thing ever to happen. That never really goes away, but your ability to deal with it, to plan around it, to endure it, and to rise up again on the other side of it and say "No, fuck you" is entirely under your control and within your capabilities. And you will get better at it as you do it. And you are not doing it alone. None of us are.

Do not give up. Do not surrender. This isn't the end, or the beginning of the end, or even the end of the beginning: it just is.

Now go watch a video of a cat doing something cute, or read some smut, or whatever gives you joy. You can't take care of others unless you take care of yourself. That's General Order #1: Take care of yourself.

Solidarity, y'all.

[maybe-boys-do-love]

So related to the news about Thailand today, I want to detail a thing i noticed when writing a longer piece about Boston on Only Friends, because I think especially watching as foreigners, we can forget or ignore some really cool subtextual commentary that's happening in the QL shows we're watching.

We learn a couple episodes in that Boston's dad is running for office. When we first meet Boston's dad, Nick is working on his campaign flyer, which reads among other slogans, "Give me a chance to improve." (Thanks to @thaisongsengsub for the translation). Boston enters the scene wearing a graphic tee that says 1998. In 1998, the Thai Rak Thai party was founded in Thailand by Thaksin Shinawatra, who would become the first democratically elected prime minister of Thailand to serve a full term in 2001. According to the Guardian article where much of my info's coming from, he "introduced a universal healthcare scheme, village funds to stimulate growth, as well as policies to boost entrepreneurship and help the country recover from the Asian financial crisis. He also presided over the repayment of the debt Thailand owed to the IMF ahead of schedule."

In 2006 Thaksin Shinawatra was deposed by a military coup and his party was outlawed. Only Friends spoiler alert: Just as Boston lives in exile from his friend group and from Thailand by the series' end, Shinawatra would live in self-imposed exile beginning in 2008 and lasting fifteen years to avoid legal charges. Interestingly the former prime minister returned for the first time the same month that Only Friends premiered, August of 2023 (upon his return he was promptly put into custody).

A new incarnation of this populist neoliberal party formed after the dissolution of Thai Rak Thai, the People's Power Party, followed by Pheu Thai Party when the PPP was dissolved. Shinawatra's younger sister, Yingluck Sinawatra, would take on leadership of the party and become the Thailands first female prime minister from 2011-2014, when her tenure was also ended by the courts and a military coup from which she fled to exile. The party is currently being run by Shinawatra's daughter, Paetongtarn Shinawatra.

The Move Forward Party, a more progressive Thai party, that was dissolved by the courts yesterday had previously been part of a coalition in Parliament with the Pheu Thai Party but decided to not vote for its candidate for Prime Minister after the PTP decided to include more conservative parties that supported the military junta in its coalition also in August of 2023 (you know, the period Only Friends was being written), as reported by Bangkok Post. All this is to say that there were a lot of politics in Thailand happening around the time of Only Friends.

For those willing to observe Jane Austen's "fine brush strokes" that she uses to offer portraits of romance, you'll find observations that would've otherwise been censored on slavery, the military, estate law, and most obviously, marriage law and female citizenship. Thai BL series don't have to be as explicit as Not Me to comment on political affairs. In fact, because of the political situation some of their commentaries require a deft touch like the one we see in Only Friends. I don't want to say exactly how I think Only Friends interprets the political situation it hints at here. Hopefully you can at least see that this idea of improvement, inclusion, and exile is as tied to the concept of friendship on Only Friends as it is to Thai politics. I only want to recommend that you watch for how QLs address class, political actors, geopolitics, and condemnation more broadly because to my eyes, they are doing some of the most subtle but radical commentary happening in any contemporary media, which I won't say makes them better or worse, but goddamn does it make them interesting.

[agentperezbian]

you don't have to answer this if you don't want to but for MONTHS people on this site have been making me terrified that trump would win this election because they're always saying they won't vote for harris because of palestine and "if you vote for her then blood is on your hands". but none of them EVER explain what good they think letting trump win instead will do for palestine, or how blood isn't also on their hands if they let him win. i also see some of these same people going "lol my vote doesn't count anyway because i'm in a red state" and it drives me insane because i've ALSO lived in a red state my whole life and i feel like other people who are in red states should understand how bad things are for those of us with republican state governments and how much worse they could get if we let trump win. i mean, my 65 year old dad understands these things but somehow 25 year olds on tumblr don't?? you have been one of the most sensible people on my dash this whole year and i hope you're doing well and aren't stressing too much over the election results.

That's the thing - these people aren't actually concerned about anything other than making themselves feel good. Anyone who pays attention to American politics knows that Trump will make things worse. That's just a fact. He has been telling everyone that he will give more money and support to Israel and has stated that he wants to burn Palestine entirely to the ground. Netanyahu WANTS Trump to win. Harris' plan for Palestine right now isn't ideal, but at the very least she has stated that she wants to negotiate peace in Palestine. She still supports Israel as an ally unfortunately, there is no outcome where we get a US president who wants to destroy Israel. But when Trump has admitted, proudly and publicly, that he has been working behind the scenes to sabotage the Biden administration's efforts to negotiate a ceasefire with Israel, that should tell you who the obvious choice here is.

I've grown increasingly frustrated with the people who say that we shouldn't vote for Harris to "teach the democrats a lesson" because all this does is allow even more zionist politicians to gain power, not teaching the Republicans anything, while also likely not changing anything about the popular Democrat stance on Israel. It does nothing. And it should be noted that "teaching Democrats a lesson" mainly serves to use minorities in the US as collateral to "own the dems." Because who cares if abortion becomes even more restricted, LGBTQ rights become even more dire, immigrants are even more endangered, and POC are even further targeted, as long as we can show the Democrats, right?

A lot of people will say "so you think people in the US are more important than people in Gaza?" When you say you're voting as harm reduction and it's just a bad faith argument, because it implies there's an option to sacrifice American rights to get a better outcome for Palestine. There isn't. Our current options are: minorities and women in the US lose even more rights while more people in Palestine die, or: minorities and women in the US keep their rights and potentially gain more while things in Palestine have even a slight chance of improving. And a lot of people think you shouldn't vote for the outcome where things could get slightly better because it doesn't fix everything, therefore you should sit back and allow both Americans AND Palestinians to become worse off. It makes no sense, it's politics based purely on vibes instead of outcome.

Last thing I will say: the United States as a country has blood on its hands. If you live in the US, I believe it is your responsibility to do whatever you can to mitigate that. Not one person living here can say that their way of life hasn't, in some way, contributed to atrocities somewhere in the world. To sit back and disconnect yourself from politics isn't keeping blood off of your hands, it's just resigning yourself to it.

[iam-the-wild]

Gonna hit this once more, and you don't have to post/respond if you don't want to- no worries. I just don't want to litigate this further on my blog since I think it was pretty streamlined there, but I'm willing to try again here, if you want. Do-what-the-knight-tells-you

I hold no ill will towards you because you are not wrong to be sick to your soul (if we have such things) about the genocide in Gaza and the broader region, as I am too, and you're not wrong to not trust Harris or the Democratic party with a 10 foot pole. I also agree!

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If both candidates are the same on an issue, then I look at other issues to decide who is the better option. That doesn't say anything about whether that one issue is serious or not.

If there was a candidate who stood a chance of winning who was currently calling for an arms embargo, that would be a different conversation, but there isn't.

In other elections there have been pushes to vote 3rd party, and it has not improved the standing of third parties yet-

And elections with low turnout have historically 1. Not benefitted lefty folks, nor 2. have they inspired much change at the national level.

So knowing that not voting or voting 3rd are neither effective "protests", then there remains no reason not to try to pick the lesser of two evils.

(which in this case is the person who isn't planning on dissolving the department of education, who does believe in science-backed public health, who is more likely to continue backing antitrust work, who admits climate change is real and a problem it behooves us to take seriously, who is not planning to legislate trans folks out of existence, who is not planning to kick all undocumented folks out of the country, etc)

again, if I agree with the position that Harris is an equally bad option for the Palestinian people, then that means that no vote I do or do not cast in this cycle will improve that situation, so I must evaluate on other grounds, and those other grounds indicate that Trump (the person Netanyahu wants to win) will be terrible for gazans, and Also terrible for millions more.

And I agree that the US is not great and is getting worse about protesting, and what an acceptable "form" of protest is (which is really more about how threatening they find the subject of protestingnand who's doing the protesting), but it is not accurate to say Trump won't be worse than a Democrat on this front- famously he once asked if it was legal, if the national guard could just shoot out the legs of protesters to get them to leave, "just the legs".

Walz has been criticized from both sides of the aisle for how he handled the George Floyd protests, and the fact that he repeatedly gets flack from the right, his own legislature censuring him for not calling in the National Guard sooner, for not being harsher, for not stepping in on the city response Before most of the arson etc, for prosecuting those officers involved, says more about where the republican position on protest is, and how much more dangerous (and less useful as far as moving their opinion) it would be to protest under their control.

But even if I were to grant that the Harris/Walz stance on protest being part of democracy and the utility of the police state are the same as Trump/Vance...

That Still would mean that that's a subject that's a wash between them, and so my vote has to be cast on other grounds.

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Again, none of that has anything to do with how bad things are in Gaza, or valuing american lives over Gazans, or anything. The Biden Administration will forever be remembered for it's aiding and abetting a colonial apartheid state in committing genocide, and this will rightly outweigh a lot of the good the administration has done, even in the face of the supreme Court and the house both curtailing the scope of what the presidency even gets to do at this time.

But if no vote or non-vote in this election can help them, then I have to do other things to help them (like protesting. Like donation. Etc) and I also have to set that aside as not a useful tool to use to make a decision about voting.

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Now, if the actual goal is to get Trump elected, because people have wagered that another trump presidency will break down the system, will punish the libs, and will hasten the collapse of the political structure in the US, and that all the additional people in the US and elsewhere who die and are harmed in this process are acceptable casualties for the greater good of starting a new and better system, then that's a separate conversation (which also does not help Gazans in the meanwhile).

(addtnl note, the Stein campaign have said this is their goal, to make Harris lose and trump win)

But if the goal is to help Gazans, and the argument is that Trump is not worse on this than Harris is, then that means no act of voting or not voting will help Gazans, and therefore the decision to vote or not vote should be made on other grounds.

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And the following is not intended as a defense of Harris as a person, or of her campaign's choices, or of Democrat priorities, but rather an explanation of the political calculus as I understand it-

The Harris campaign is making the choices they think will lead to them getting elected.

All campaigns at this level who are serious about actually getting into office must do this.

For her own political success she obvs wants to win, but also another Trump administration is an existential threat to democracy, and so she feels she absolutely must win.

And she and her team sat down, and ran the numbers and have come to the (right or wrong) conclusion that things like boycotting Netanyahu's speech and agreeing with someone's assessment of genocide without saying the words herself etc are as close to coming down on the situation as she can get, and so she's hoping that that little bit of light between her and the idealogically Zionist Joe Biden will convince enough folks that she will be better, without loosing the Zionist faction of the Dems or the middle/middle-right vote she calculates she needs to win.

(and, in the wake of AIPAC money amongst other stuff, successfully primarying more outspoken leftists like Cori Bush, Harris didn't want to risk inspiring additional funds to be spent against her on this front.)

I think you said something like "if Harris can't even call for an arms embargo while running, why would she in office", or something to that effect?

I argue that her campaign has calculated the opposite- that Saying she's for an embargo would lose her more votes than it would win her, and would be against the policy of the admin she is currently VP of, but that if she is elected, she can do it then if it seems the appropriate move (which it obvs does) when she's less vulnerable to loosing the country to Trump

And I'm not saying their numbers are right, but that seems to clearly be the calculation they are making.

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To make more change, to get a national candidate who's actually a leftist and also stands a chance of winning, either the system has to come down, or we have to reform how voting and governing happen in this country (likely through things like ranked choice voting, etc)

But until that happens, until the two-party grip is broken or we start doing coalition governments or something, (and also improve our voter education ) the choice will probably continue to be a Lesser Of Two Evils calculation. Because as long as large enough segments of the voting public hold bad and dangerous views or positions, as do the monied backers of campaigns, then a representative leader will try to represent them too.

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And all of the above is why folks who are formally part of uncommitted have said things like "I don't endorse Harris, but I will vote for Harris". They are not signing off in support of how moral her choices are, but they do acknowledge that a Trump presidency will be materially worse, and that they will be more effective continuing their work/protest/activism under a Harris administration than a trump one.

I get it if you want to vote for Harris because you think she's better than trump.

To me, when you actually take the time to look at her policies, I don't see how they're any different than Trump's. She wants more police, she wants a stronger border, she can't even say she wants transgender rights. She's campaigning with the Cheneys, and refuses to condemn genocide. None of these policies make abandoning my morals worth it. I don't know if trump will be better or worse, I think he'll be the same as Democrats on their fundamental policies, but he just won't lie about it. That's the only difference in parties to me, one parties co-opts progressive language and pushes better propaganda and the other party just tells the truth. Either way, they both support genocide. There is no policy that would make me accept and normalize genocide to protect myself because that's a lie!

If Harris can't condemn a genocide because she values her position of power too much then I don't have any hope she'll be any different in office when war profiteers are gearing for her to continue to commit genocide, which she's been actively apart of.

There is no democracy worth saving if it forces you to choose genocide to protect yourself. There's no democracy if your only options are genocidal candidates.

More people were killed by police under the Biden administration! There is no difference in the parties.

Also that's great Kamala says she believes in climate change, that means nothing when she talks about how she's in favor of fracking and the Biden administration has continued to approve large oil and gas projects.

Biden even ended covid restrictions in the name of profit. I'm disabled so either way both parties want me dead, they're not different, they're two different sides of the same coin bought out by war profiteers and corporations.

How many more elections are we going to put genocide aside so we can stay comfortable? How many more genocides are we going to accept before we finally realize it's time to abandon the system? How many more genocides will we decide is inevitable and not the time to do anything about? I'm done pretending that the parties committing genocide care about human rights, the only rights they care about are whoever's filling their pockets. So vote or don't, it won't change anything, the people still can't afford rent or to eat. The systems collapsing regardless of who wins.

If democrats want my vote they'd have to actually earn it, fear mongering doesn't work when the population has run out of energy to be afraid.

Also I don't know how I'm expected to believe the party starving millions of people and killing children and bombing hospitals and schools and kidnapping healthcare workers gives any shit about the value of human rights. Why should I expect the party committing genocide to view me as human? Why should I validate the party that says my human rights must come at the cost of others? How long until they decide our rights are going to be on the chopping block next? There is no difference between us and Palestinians, just where we happened to be born. I refuse to normalize and accept what's happening to them.

2023 was the deadliest year for homicides by law enforcement in more than a decade!!!

How is either party any different? They work for corporate interests, they don't give a fuck about anything but money and power, and they'll sacrifice whatever they have to for it.

[dreadfutures]

we are pissing away every chance to combat global warming and direct much needed federal funds to clean water and housing and food security for the most vulnerable in our country

for the fucking military industrial complex and anti Arab racism

I fucking hate this place and every old white guy in politics needs to GTFO. all of them. I would use stronger language except if the government ever links me to this, which could totally happen if the next person in charge decides to crack down on that and spy on employees, i don't want to go to jail lmaooooo

there was so much that got fucked over by trump and the GOP and so much that has been not only reversed but so vastly improved under this administration, such truly truly progressive fucking revolutionary uses of government to make real much needed progress for citizens. and it's all getting fucking pissed away by one stupid man's commitment to Israel. a majority of his own administration is against him on this and he is just torpedoing any chance of reelection, and the first thing Trump's gonna do is a) tell Israel to nuke whoever they want and b) replace the head of every government agency to do with energy, the environment, human support, and infrastructure, with embezzling cronies obsessed with oil and nothing else, just like last time, which fucking. ended up with literally an embezzlement scandal, and huge budget cuts that set back science and welfare decades.

pissed away.

trump is gonna win because no one wants to vote for the CURRENT genocide supporter and when we don't vote for a blue president we don't get a blue president. I so look forward to enjoying the 100fold increase in military spending and the next world war that Trump will start.

every person who will ever run for president is gonna be a murderer and an awful person, you don't get that much money behind you without it. We are always gonna be faced with the "lesser of two evils means you're still voting for evil" argument but genuinely, genuinely, I would still rather have an inch of progress than 4 steps backward.

the world gets better, the world gets less capable of mass awfulness, when we are able to build up structures and maintain them for good. Inch by inch. But the GOP has and will continue to fucking dismantle them and set up and reinforce the structures that allow the military industrial complex and big oil and other evils to thrive, and the more entrenched they are, the less progress the next "lesser of two evils" will be able to make.

I want to wave my wand and give us an entirely new form of government and governmental priorities and the way that government money is spent, but we can't do that before November. this is the awful hellscape we live in and sitting out en masse is an active torpedo.

I wish our primary system wasn't a joke I wish we had actual candidates I wish we had no lobbyists I wish we had no corporate money in politics but that's not the world we live in and it never will be if the GOP gets to have another chance and another chance and another chance and continues to dismantle what little democratic power we have lmaoooo

I hate this place I hate this choice.

can't convince anyone of that and the choice makes me want to throw up anyway. so we're fucked! we're fucked. didn't even get the senator I wanted. fuckers.

[pluralsword]

we a collective anarchist pacifist system have to agree in the sense that, as some of the more left winged members of Congress have expressed, the big money donors who wanted someone else than Biden or Harris would have likely favored a more right winged candidate than those two, and despite our misgivings over the Biden administration it has made the biggest amount of positive change for the country in some sectors of the economy and society since FDR. Even though we as a xenogender transfemme have not benefited as much as we hoped from this admin due to the positive changes being hampered in making a direct difference for our life due to systemic transphobia, transmisogyny, and sysmed stuff not being tackled as much as we would like and also due to pressure from the Republican violations of the constitution, there is a stark difference between this and the Trump administration during which we actively lost civil rights and socioeconomic protections on the Federal level, and all of this can be said for a lot more people than just trans gals. And it is very clear by the stances of Republican party leadership that they will try to suppress and exterminate anybody who is a target of their neofascist doctrine.

This isn't bout harm reduction, it is about hope. In this light, though we take issue with Harris, there wasn't going to be a better candidate more in tune with our values (we can name plenty of politicians in the USA who are! they are not in the same political position! yet. someday if democracy survives). If we want any semblance of elected government to survive and to not end up living in more of a police state than we already do, voting for the vice president is going to be the way to go to have a better chance of that. if we want to see an administration that will pave the way for the end of neoliberalism later on in our lifetimes and a return to the USA being on track to becoming a social democracy that one day doesn't engage in neocolonial affairs abroad as much, where we can match the several dozen countries that have made trans rights country level law and gender liberation and accessibility a goal of their regimes along with attempting alternatives to punitive justice, if we in other words want to oppose the ramp up of genocide that her Republican opponent has made clear he will try to carry out with the support of the national level of his party, then we don't see another option besides Kamala Harris. We have a much better chance of getting actual improvements with her than her main opponent.

There isn't a significantly supported third party candidate who is a realistic option, and radical third party politics on the left have shifted towards endorsing likeminded candidates among the Democrats anyways in part due to the fact the duopoly has actual laws that would need to be overturned regarding third parties in many places. With that in mind, the criticism of policies and proposals of better ones, the protests, schmoozing, voting, and direct enactments in community or lower-level government form for them, is something that would be on the table with a greater chance of agreement than we would have with the reactionary running to further destroy electoral institutions and what rights and support networks people have in the USA, along with supporting far right movements abroad. As others around the world have done this year and years before, we must come together to reject fascism and other reactionary movements. Having such in office is a threat from the local level to international menace, and I would like to hope that (and may actually go out of our way to call for in aspects of our life we don't discuss on social media) that a commitment to refunding defascification would actually happen with her administration, and that from there there might be an actual reckoning over the hierarchic history of the USA and what to do about it beyond the admin's vision.

Choose hope. It's not just a vote for not the fascists. Its a vote for a better chance of being listened to for our needs.

For people who didn’t want a repeat of the 2020 election, it looks we’ll have something similar to 2016. Trump vs a female Democrat candidate.

Clinton one of the reasons lost in 2016 is because at the time people thought their votes didn’t matter and avoided voting. 2020 and 2022 proved them wrong. Our votes do matter. In 2022, we prevented a Red Wave from taking place and recent races have been decided by just a handful of votes.

If voting weren’t important why do you think Republicans are trying so hard to make harder to register or access the polls or mail in our vote. They’re afraid of losing their power because that’s all they care about.

Let’s not repeat 2016 and finally put a woman in the Oval Office. After all, you couldn’t ask for a better candidate than our current VP who is also our first female Vice President.

[findingjoynweirdstuff]

Dream SMP Recap (May 31/2021) - Deck of Cards With a Green Smile on Them

Wilbur and Tommy visit Las Nevadas to have some words with Quackity. 

---

VOD LINKS:

Punz

Ponk

Foolish

Tommyinnit

Wilbur Soot

Captain Puffy

---

- Punz mines out an entire chunk of the server

- Wilbur and Tommy meet at L’manhole. Tommy brings Wilbur to the quarry and shows him the Tommyboxes full of stone

- Tommy and Wilbur walk down the Prime Path and Wilbur notices all the new changes in the builds, including that Purpled’s UFO has been destroyed. Wilbur claims that someone’s being “a copycat” with TNT, figuring out exactly how it was destroyed

(Wilbur is also repeatedly puzzled by the appearance of Oogway throughout the server)

- Wilbur tells Tommy that he received a book: “PROJECT NEVADAS.” It rings a bell, and Tommy says it’s Quackity’s new place that he’s been staying out of

- Wilbur tells Tommy that the book says to come to Nevadas (not saying what it actually reads), and Tommy leads Wilbur there

- The last time Wilbur saw Quackity, they were fighting together for L’manburg -- but he gets the impression, judging by everyone else aside from Jack Manifold, Tommy and Phil, that everyone probably dislikes him. He assumes Quackity won’t have the best impression of him

- Tommy’s never been to Las Nevadas, but the person who told him about it said it was just a little town. They’re awestruck by it as they arrive

- Quackity comes up to meet them, surprised to see Wilbur alive. Tommy asks what happened to his face, but also notices that his piss neck is gone

- Wilbur says he’s glad to see Quackity out of the presidential outfit, and he never thought Quackity was fit for the Vice President role anyway. Quackity tells them that he owns this entire place

Wilbur: “Oh, so you’re -- you’re like a -- a President, then!”

Quackity: “I’m the President, man!”

Wilbur: “...You’re the President.”

- He shows Quackity the book and accepts Quackity’s “invitation” to work alongside him. Tommy asks to move in as well

Quackity: “Wilbur...That was not an invitation, I’m sorry Wilbur...That’s not an invitation. Wilbur, my nation will not be subject to your unpredictability.”

- Wilbur tells Quackity that while he may have been unpredictable in the past, he’s turned over a new leaf and doesn’t lie anymore, he’s forgotten everything he knew about TNT

Wilbur: “Quackity, look me in the eyes...I am your servant. I am at your service, I have run countries, I’ve won elections, I’ve done everything you would need in a leadership role, Quackity! Even not in leadership -- I can be, you know, assistant to the President! Just, I...Quackity, this is everything I’ve dreamt of in a solid marble and quartz...Quackity, you’re making a mistake, man, you need to let me in--”

Tommy: “Wil, this is so cool!”

Wilbur: “TOMMY, SHUT UP! I mean -- Tommy, come over here.”

- Quackity tells him he’s not going to let the same thing that happened to L’manburg happen to Las Nevadas. Tommy points out that it looks like they’re kissing. 

- Wilbur walks around the sandy area asking what Quackity owns, and Quackity owns all of it. Quackity still means to discuss things with Tommy. Wilbur makes his way to the forest next to Las Nevadas

Wilbur: “What’s the point in capitalism without healthy competition?”

- Quackity asks what Wilbur’s about to do. Wilbur leads them over to a nearby spot and welcomes Tommy to their new “headquarters” as they “break ground” there.

- Tommy doesn’t want to start a new country, preferring Las Nevadas. He also repeats that Wilbur and Quackity looked like they were kissing and he feels like he’s getting third-wheeled

- Quackity and Tommy talk one-on-one and Quackity reminds Tommy about how they spoke about the hotel and possibly working together. Tommy brings up Quackity’s eye again, remembering how Quackity has had many “conditions” for a long time

Quackity: “You ever hear about the Butcher Army, Tommy? One day, we were going to execute Technoblade, and we got in a...we got a fight. And this is how this thing showed up on my face.”

- Tommy is surprised that he went to kill Technoblade and asks when this was, if this was during his exile

Tommy: “You’re meaning to tell me that you put in all of the effort to kill Techno instead of helping me?”

- Quackity says he’d be happy to sit down and discuss it, that he’s not Tommy’s enemy. He gives Tommy the choice: Tommy is welcome to join him, even if Wilbur isn’t. He can offer Tommy a management position, a job

- Tommy goes to speak with Wilbur and leaves Quackity, noticing what Wilbur’s built

Wilbur: “It’s a penis of safety!”

- Wilbur asks Tommy to work with him. He won’t stop Tommy, but Tommy is all Wilbur’s got. Jack Manifold’s busy and Phil has ideas about authoritarianism Wilbur disagrees with

Wilbur: “Tommy, I don’t want to make a country. I’m past that, man. I want to make an HQ. I want to make a place where we can be safe for once. Tommy, it’s been so long since we’ve been safe. And man, you deserve it. You’ve been through so much, done so much. Tommy, you’ve changed the world, and all you have to show for it is some scars and some trauma. Tommy, you deserve this safety and this sanctuary, and that’s what I want to make with you, and you won’t get it over there. You know what they say about casinos? It’s all lights and it’s all plastic, it’s all glitter, that there’s nothing of substance. Do you know what has substance, Tommy? Family. Blood. Please stay with me, Tommy.”

- He tells Tommy he needs to make a choice now. 

Wilbur: “I’m not gonna hold you back. If you pick Las Nevadas, what am I gonna do, man? What am I gonna do? I’d never hurt you. I’d never want anything bad for you, Tommy. You can go with whatever you want, but...Just know what you’ll be doing to me. That’s all I wanna say, man.”

Tommy: “There was a time when you weren’t here on this server, this SMP, when I went against...put a lot of things to the side that I shouldn’t have. I prioritized a lot of things -- I put revenge over humanity, humaneness. I guess all I’m seeking now is just someone that’s gonna be honest with me and a place that I can feel safe. I...I betrayed Technoblade, and I just couldn’t admit it. And I did the wrong thing with Tubbo, but...”

Wilbur: “This can be a safe place for them.”

- Tommy agrees to stay here, but dislikes that Wilbur has built the penis into a wall. The two start building a penis in the lake and Quackity comes over. 

Quackity: “History repeats itself, Tommy. You’re just letting this guy use you. You’re letting him emotionally manipulate you.”

- He and Wilbur start talking over each other, bickering

Quackity: “WHO DESTROYED L’MANBURG, TOMMY? THINK ABOUT THAT. THINK ABOUT THAT FOR A SECOND.”

Wilbur: “WHO RAN AGAINST YOU? WHO LAUGHED AS WE WERE EXILED? WHO CHEERED AS WE WERE THROWN OUT OF OUR NATION THAT WE BUILT? THAT WE BUILT?”

Quackity: “Who wanted a better outcome for L’manburg, Tommy? Who did? Who wanted to run a ‘democratic election’ with just one party? He’s right up there, Tommy! He’s right up there above you--”

Wilbur: “Remember the pit, Tommy. Remember what happened in the pit. Don’t. Trust. People. Who would’ve fought you in the pit.”

- They continue arguing. 

- Tommy gets a chance to speak and says none of that made him feel safe. Quackity apologizes and offers them a tour of Las Nevadas. They head over and Wilbur apologizes as well

- Quackity shows them around, including the restaurant that they’ll need to hire people for (the villager is no longer there). Wilbur tells Tommy he’d be fine with Tommy working here as long as he’d still hang out with Wilbur too

- They start going to the casino (Wilbur and Quackity both hurry to block off the strip club) and Quackity brings them into the gambling hall, giving them diamonds to try out the machine with

- After using the diamonds, Tommy puts Linda the shovel into the machine and loses the shovel in the machine. Quackity takes them out of the building and to the top of the Needle. Tommy remarks that it would be a good place to jump off of

- Quackity turns to Wilbur and asks how he’s alive. Wilbur explains that he was swapped with Ghostbur

- Quackity remembers the last conversation he and Wilbur had together, just after the elections. The conversation they had after the debates. (Wilbur looks at the “PROJECT NEVADAS” book again) 

Quackity wants to “pick Wilbur’s brain” again

- Wilbur’s lost everything. He’s lost decades, he’s lost most of the people who cared about him and many don’t even know he’s back yet

Wilbur: “Life is paved with the mistakes you make, and it’s not about when you made the mistakes or what you did, it’s about how you can improve from them, and...I guess that’s what I’m trying to do.”

- Wilbur’s seen Jack Manifold, Phil, Ranboo, Tommy and now Quackity so far, but there are a lot of other people who he’d like to talk to and apologize to and thank them

- Tommy tells Quackity he doesn’t want to sit back and run a food stand. Wilbur gets things done. Quackity respects his decision, but this is something else, not another L’manburg

- Quackity asks Wilbur about the revival again, and Wilbur admits that it was Dream who brought him back. Wilbur has many people he wants to thank and say sorry to, and Dream is one of them, as he saved Wilbur’s life. Dream is his hero.

- Quackity asks when this happened, and Wilbur says it’s been a while since, that hopefully Ghostbur isn’t too lonely in Limbo

Quackity: [About Dream] “He’s not been lonely. Wilbur, Wilbur, I think his loneliness is the last of his concerns. I’ve been keeping him company, uh...as he’s been there. I’ve been visiting him quite frequently.”

Wilbur: “What, Dream or Ghostbur? I’m talking about Ghostbur.”

Quackity: “I’m talking about Dream.”

Wilbur: “Oh, gosh! You’ve been visiting him? Oh, he must love that!”

Quackity: “Yeah, no, he likes the company. He likes the company for sure. Uh...it’s a cool little thing, uh...Tommy, you know about this, right?”

Tommy: “Yeah, yeah, Wilbur -- that’s how I got to go and see Dream."

- Tommy tells Wilbur that Dream killed him, to which Quackity says Sam’s bettered the security system (Wilbur’s surprised to hear the prison has a warden and a system to visit) 

Tommy: “Why would anyone want to go to the prison? You’ve been going, Big Q, to torture the shit out of him, I’ve heard...”

Quackity: “Tommy, what? Tommy...Tommy, where did you -- where did you get that from? What are you talking about?”

Tommy: “Well that’s how -- I assumed, ‘cause of the scar, you’ve been going to beat the shit out of him?”

Quackity: “Tommy, Tommy, Tommy, don’t say that -- not even as a joke, Tommy, come on.”

- Wilbur says goodbye to Quackity (he has “work to do”) and leaves with Tommy. He’s overjoyed that he can meet Dream through the visitation system, while Tommy protests

- Wilbur throws Tommy the “PROJECT NEVADAS” book, saying that Quackity was writing about the old Wilbur, that Tommy made the right choice in not joining him. 

- Wilbur promises Tommy that going to visit Dream to thank him isn’t a bad decision. He wants to tie up loose ends. Dying is a big deal. This is like a funeral, saying goodbye

Wilbur: “Tommy, all I’m saying is, you know...what could go wrong in a prison?”

- Wilbur leaves. 

- Tommy asks Quackity for an Ender Chest

- He listens to “Cat,” alone in the rain, on a small wooden bench by the lake.

---

Upcoming Events:

- The final Egg lore stream

- Puffy’s lore

- Tales From the SMP: “Space Race”

- Ponk’s lore stream

- Dream’s lore video

- Sapnap’s possible lore stream

- Awesamdude lore stream

[mariacallous]

NYT On Politics: How Democrats can stop a red wave

‘The script’s not written yet’

A “red wave” is building this year — or so we’re told.

Republicans are confident that the country’s sour mood will sweep them back into power in Congress, mainly because Americans are fed up with the coronavirus and inflation. They think they’ll pick up 30 or so House seats and four or five seats in the Senate.

“It’s crystal clear,” said Corry Bliss, a partner at FP1 Strategies, a consulting firm that helps Republicans. He added: “The red wave is coming. Period. End of discussion.”

But what if that’s wrong? We asked about two dozen strategists in both parties what would need to happen for Democrats to hold the House and Senate in November. And while we’re not making any predictions, it’s possible that Democrats could retain control of Congress. Difficult, but possible.

Democrats have 222 seats in the House, and 50 seats in the Senate. That means Republicans need to pick up just six House seats and one Senate seat to take full control of Congress.

Here’s what needs to happen for Democrats to pull off an upset in 2022:

Biden voters show up

Pundits often make it sound like voters are judiciously studying each party’s arguments and forming conclusions. But that’s not really the way American politics works. Modern elections are much more about mobilization (getting your supporters to the polls) than persuasion (convincing the other side’s supporters to switch), though both matter.

Joe Biden beat Donald Trump by more than 7 million votes in 2020. So for Democrats, winning in 2022 means figuring out how to get as many of those people as possible to vote, even though Trump won’t be on the ballot this time.

“Their primary motivation for voting in the last election was defeating Trump,” said Guy Cecil, chairman of Priorities USA, which on Monday announced a $30 million program of digital ads aimed at reaching what he calls “new Biden voters” in seven swing states.

The last two elections — the 2018 midterms and the 2020 presidential vote — saw the biggest turnout in history. That means there’s an unusual amount of uncertainty among insiders about which voters will show up in 2022.

Regaining a sense of normalcy

Every person we spoke with agreed: This is the biggest unknown.

While voters are upset about high prices today, inflation and the coronavirus could be down to manageable levels by the summer. Several strategists say it is also essential, politically speaking, that schools are fully open in September. If all of that happens, Democrats could enter the midterms as the party that defeated Covid and brought the economy roaring back to life, or at least fight Republicans to a draw on both issues.

But the White House is well aware that it’s not really in control — the virus is.

“The script’s not written yet for the remainder of the year,” said Representative Brad Schneider of Illinois, chair of the New Democrat Coalition, a group of House moderates.

Biden finds a winning message

For months, Democrats have fretted that the White House was too slow to recognize inflation as a political problem, and was too mired in endless congressional negotiations. That’s changing.

President Biden has been speaking more frequently about the issue, at the urging of moderate Democrats. “The president is recognizing his superpower, which is empathy,” said Representative Dean Phillips, a Democrat in a swing district in Minnesota.

Sean McElwee, executive director of the group Data for Progress, told us that the president should embrace what he calls “solverism” — basically, being seen on TV every day tackling the problems that voters care about.

After a fall characterized by damaging infighting, Democrats have been working to bring more harmony to their messages. With the State of the Union address coming up, President Biden has a chance to rally the country around his vision and the improving economic numbers. But with the fate of Build Back Better now in question, what will he talk about, exactly?

Redistricting being more or less even

Democrats feel good about the maps that have been approved so far. For now, there are only three Democrats running in House districts that Trump won in 2020, and nine Republicans in districts that Biden won.

But a few unknowns remain. The Democratic-controlled State Legislature in New York is still weighing how aggressively to redraw the state’s maps. Courts have yet to render final judgments in Alabama, North Carolina, Ohio and Pennsylvania. And in Florida, Republicans are divided between Gov. Ron DeSantis’s maps and those proposed by the State Senate.

We do know that many of the House districts that are up for grabs in November are in the suburbs, which have shifted left in recent elections. That could help Democrats. Liberal strategists point out that Republicans won’t be able to benefit from the massive margins that they run up in rural areas and they also note that the seats Republicans picked up in 2020 were the easy ones.

To which Republicans counter: Look at what happened in suburban Virginia, where Glenn Youngkin pared back the party’s past losses to win the governor’s race.

The Supreme Court overturns Roe v. Wade

In that Virginia race, the Democrat, Terry McAuliffe, spent millions of dollars portraying Youngkin as an extremist on abortion. Democrats were convinced that the issue would help them with suburban women in particular, and McAuliffe predicted that abortion would be a “huge motivator” for voters. His campaign ran three different ads on the subject, which collectively aired more than 1,000 times.

It didn’t work.

Youngkin danced around the issue, while saying he preferred to focus on the economy, jobs and education. According to exit polls conducted by Edison Research, just 8 percent of voters said abortion mattered most to their decision, the least of five preselected topics.

But abortion could come roaring back as a voting issue if the Supreme Court issues a clear repudiation of Roe v. Wade this year. Should that happen, many Democrats say it could help their candidates in Senate races, where they can highlight Republican positions that polls suggest are out of the mainstream.

Republican candidates go hard right

Democrats are watching Republican primary campaigns closely, clipping and saving remarks that the candidates are making that could prove hard to defend in a general election. The need to cater to Trump’s hard-line base of voters has made the Republican brand toxic, they say. But that’s where the consensus ends.

Endangered Democrats want to localize their races as much as possible, and prefer to talk about kitchen-table issues like jobs and the economy. Nationally, Democrats are still debating how to communicate their alarm about the state of American democracy, which can come across as either abstract to voters or simply more partisan noise.

For now, Democrats are planning to use Jan. 6 as just one of several data points to portray Republicans as extremists on a range of issues, including abortion and climate.

“I don’t think this election is going to easily fall into the traditional pattern, and it’s because of the radicalization of the Republican Party,” said Simon Rosenberg, the head of the New Democrat Network.

Trump seizes center stage

After the Virginia governor’s race, Democratic strategists launched various efforts to study the lessons of that campaign. One takeaway: Talking about Trump also energizes Republicans, which makes it tricky for Democrats to make the former president a central issue in 2022.

Democrats have also found that it’s not effective simply to associate a Republican candidate with Trump, as McAuliffe did in Virginia. They believe they need to indict Republican candidates directly. But there’s an ongoing debate about whether Democratic candidates need to do this themselves, or have outside groups run attack ads on their behalf.

The former president has endorsed dozens of candidates who in one way or another agree with his false notion that the 2020 election was stolen. On Sunday evening, he said it outright — claiming, falsely, that then-Vice President Mike Pence “could have overturned the election” on Jan. 6, 2021.

If Democrats manage to hang on to their congressional majorities, Trump will be a major factor.

[ask-commie]

Commie, ¿qué piensas del socialismo del siglo 21? 😳

//For the gringos: Commie, what do you think of socialism of the 21st century?

This is a complex topic, and I have created what Ancom says is a “wall of text” in response. I have placed it after the line break.

Unfortunately, the world has long since passed the golden age of socialism. The five socialist countries that remain (China, the DPRK, Laos, Vietnam, and Cuba) are shunned in the international community and are unfairly sanctioned and embargoed.

Propaganda from the bourgeoisie has made even staunch rightist politicians (Joseph Biden, for example) seem like viable options for the left. Politicians that are center-left at most (Bernie Sanders, for instance) are seen as radical leftists. This cements even the most moderate forms of leftism (Market socialism or actual Democratic Socialism, for instance) as naturally insane, with radical forms of leftism being unheard of.

Yet despite the constant effort of the bourgeoisie to crush the working class, class consciousness is rising. We can see this in the current political world with the recent election of Gabriel Boric, a socialist that has recently won Chile’s presidential election. While the most he will be able to do is social democratic reform, the fact a candidate with Communist ties has been able to win the presidency democratically is proof that class consciousness is slowly being gained among the masses. I am not for social democracy, but it is the most Boric can strive for until more revolutionary action can be taken. Just the fact that a Communist is going to become the president of Chile (Unless the CIA pays him a visit, of course), despite the remnants of the Pinochet era, is groundbreaking.

The internet is also helping increase class consciousness. More people than ever are being introduced to leftism through social media, with easy access to theory and information only strengthening the anti-capitalist views of new comrades. While many of these newer leftists are exploring anarchism instead of Marxism, many of them end up becoming Marxists later on, and even if they do not, it is better than them being capitalists.

I know that I rant a lot about communism being a lost cause. And in many ways, it is. The bourgeoisie has even more power than it used to. Most people do not even know what socialism actually is. But there are some small improvements, and we can celebrate those, can’t we? Don’t we have to start somewhere? Is that not how revolutions in the past happened?

Despite the glimmers of hope I have described, I am still generally pessimistic, as my posting on Tumblr will show you… With my country, the product of the first and most successful communist revolution, gone, it is difficult to look on the bright side. If the USSR was still around, we might have a fighting chance. Now it seems as if all one can do is hope. I’ve generally resigned myself to living in a capitalist hellscape until my ideology dies out and I die with it, but a man can dream, I guess. Maybe this younger generation of leftists can figure something out, and I sincerely hope they do. The country I fought for is gone, and it seems like the revolutionary cause I fought for is gone as well. If the cause is not gone, then I hope the next generation of leftists can rekindle the revolutionary flame to what it once was.

[ronkosis]

No? I don't care that you're jaded and tired of a government that sucks that you have barely any power in. You should still be using your little sliver of 'number that appears on tv once a year' to move a little less far right. Yeah it's not much, but fucking neither is abstaining. When your choices are "accelerate the slide ever-further right," "barely slow the slide at all," and "do nothing within the system to change this process for fucking moral purity points," you pick the middle option AND you work outside the system to change things. You don't throw away your little bit of in-system power just to make a point to...no one. Abstaining will simply mean your vote is not counted. It will do LITERALLY NOTHING. That is the point of abstaining. Doing anything that makes things slightly not as bad as they could be with your vote is better than using it to actively do nothing. And mentioning that you should be doing things other than voting doesn't absolve you from saying people should do nothing with their vote. Voting democrat is the least nothing your vote can be. Voting democrat in large numbers has the power to massively improve shit over the alternatives. Voting democrat in local elections and everywhere else you can has the power to just fully stop sliding further right. Will that mean that the nation is fixed? Will that mean that the common people now have representatives that represent them? Not really, no. But it is still a massive improvement and to try to get people to abstain instead of working towards that is ridiculous??? Letting the country move Republican instead of Democrat will not help you, and anyone who says you should do that is in favor of making the current situation as bad as possible. YES, you should protest. And YES, you should vote democrat. Because both things could slightly help! And a large number of people doing things that offer slight improvements of the nation is better than any alternatives! Not doing that is not at all better, why the fuck would it be?? Just because protesting is a lot more effective than a single vote doesn't mean actively discouraging voting isn't fucking awful. Get out and vote! It does change things! I know it feels like it doesn't do anythign, I know it feels like you have no power! That is the point. You feeling powerless is the point. That is part of what disenfranchisement is. You have to fight that feeling no matter what. You have to vote democrat. Yes, it's not really a choice at all. But it still makes things marginally better. It still really helps people who otherwise would've been harmed.

There was no chance of electing a pro-Palestine president. That the president is performing as expected in response to this genocide doesn't mean that you should have let the even more pro-Israel president that also has worse domestic and foreign policy on other issues get elected. Now people are using the fact that the not-what-we-actually-wanted president is doing things we don't want to try to say that not having this bad president would've somehow turned out better. Yall know full well how trump would be praising Israel! Trump is praising Israel! Not voting for Biden or whoever else the democrats hand-wave in wouldn't make anything better it would just make things worse. Just because our political system sucks and we have little to no power doesn't mean you abstain to protest that. Asbtaining from a vote is not a protest, it's just fucking doing nothing.

Please don't do nothing in response to not liking your politicians. Please don't do nothing in response to hating your politicians. Please don't do nothing in response to your politicians actively murdering your relatives. Do SOMETHING. And that includes making sure the next politician in line is equal or better or at least not the most worst compared to the current murderer! YES voting for equally-as-murderous year after year is a horrible choice to make. NOT VOTING IS ACTIVELY A WORSE ONE.

sorry but i want to hit every american talking about not wanting to vote democrat anymore with hammers. lol

[livethinking]

A new world: a year of pandemic

The pandemic spread last year and occurred ‘till today has scared us, made us all victims of a shared existential vertigo, shaking the foundations of those were our convictions. In other words, it has shown us that values and norms – i.e. the culture –, which political rhetorics tried to preserve, are now problematic, that means they’re not able anymore to answer those questions future asks, to find a solution to the serious issues of the present. Pandemic has shown us, with painful cruelty, that the ways with which we were dealing with the (environmental, economical, financial, social and cultural) crisis weren’t the right ones; on the contrary, they were worsening the already fatal condition the whole world was throwing itself into. However, at the same time, the pandemic has given us time, slowing down our lives (more and more hectic due to the needs of the capitalistic system, whose first value is the consume, so that a production based on quantities), to turn our look onto what’s happening and making a deeper judgement on the events, on problems and issues of our time, and then find solutions, gather energies to make a change in history and courage to take also definitive decisions, to sacrifice our system of ideas and values we, choose which of them to save and which taking from other normative systems, if not even cultural. Like the victory of the democratic Joe Biden against the republicans Donald Trump at the 2020 elections that suggests us a more and more distancing of society from populist ideas and strengthen of minoranze in politics; like Black Lives Matter manifestations as consequences to the murder of George Floyd, an Afro American citizen, committed by two police agents, and an almost global mobilisation in supporting the now famous Movement for the defence of Black people rights and battles against structural racism, developed as emulation of the protest occurred in the US and in some Foreign nations, such as France and Italy. There were environmental actions as well, the total lockdown of the last spring demonstrated how nature can regenerate very quickly when polluting industrial productions and the extensive use of gasoline cars stop; indeed, Countries like Italy has been planning projects for a more sustainable development, such as governmental bonus for the rebuild of housing buildings in order to reduce the impact on the environment, that are also a response to a more and more unrecoverable economic crisis. Surely this is little compared to upheavals provoked by the pandemic, to the getting worse of already serious conditions, to the tragic contingencies that the whole global population is facing. In many Countries, the percentage of people on the verge of poverty increased, many people were fired and many enterprises closed down definitely. In other Countries have been coup-d’état or, like In Italy, occurred serious government crisis.

The election of Joe Biden is due not just to the ability of the new president to grado those that are the current needs of a nation like the US, but also due to the incapacity of populism (the ideology behind Donald Trump’s politics) to read the reality and consequently to plan strategy to solve the most urgent issues, as a worsening economic crisis and improving sanitary facilities in order to deal with Covid-19 pandemic. Incapability hidden with galvanising the gut feelings, that increase the hate against minorities, which are already consider the scapegoat for problems caused actually by an inefficient politics or by issues occurring in every Western society. This hate against minorities that wasn’t prosecuted by institutions and Trump’s administration (and thus justified) brought those minority communities to ally and strengthen each other, and so influencing the election of the last Fall. The culmination of this sensation of insecurity and inadequacy perceived by minorities, especially by the black people, was the great manifestation of June 2020 as consequence to the killing of George Floyd perpetrated by a white policeman, not last, neither the first murderer of this kind; indeed this one was just another in that long list of black American citizen killed by the police. Murders that are rarely prosecuted and seldom the perpetrators are brought in a tribunal. A scary phenomenon that has increased especially during Trump, just because the former president wasn’t able to condemn these action of racist violence, and that has lead a popular indignation, since it’s clear and evident these crimes is provoked by systematic hate, and not as a tragic consequence to the necessity to protect the people. These behaviours aren’t tolerable anymore, especially after years and years of battle for black people’s and other minorities’ rights and this unacceptability leads to Black Lives Matter movement manifestations bursted in biggest cities of the US and the world. Manifestations that were threatened by Donald Trump through the idea to bring the army to stop those that were just pacific riots. Thus, if we suppose these manifestations, along with the distress lived by the other ethnic, sexual and gender minorities because of a governement whcih closed the eyes before these clearly episodes of systematic hate, brought to the victory of Joe Biden, to these we can add the battle of Jacey Abrams, who proved that were racial reasons for exclude people from voting. Her battles helped more people from a minority to vote, who preferred, as polls proved, the democratic candidate because Joe Biden, just taken office, aims to support better the minorities, with the collaboration of Kamala Harris, the first black woman as Vice President , who has always highlited his will to support to the battles for civil rights and create a more equal society during his electoral campaign.

Black lives matter. And much.

The election was also affected by the inefficiency of the past administration to handle the spread of the virus, sharing anti-scientific beliefs and a lack of strategy for strengthening the medical and scientific field while, on the contrary, Joe Biden has already planned.

In other words, this global pandemic revealed the real face of populism, a political and ideological movement that gives voice to the most visceral feeling of the people, capable to convince through a fallacious rhetoric but actually it can’t hold the reins of a nation which is irremediably changing and such ideology doesn’t manage to read the mutation of our societies (so that’s mute and deaf to the new generation). Moreover, the tendency of populism to go against the so-called technicians provoked not few troubles: many government of this kind didn’t follow the suggestions of the scientific community to contain the contagion. A tendency that was followed by tragic consequences, as thousand of deaths and many people who got a permanent damage to lungs, and that teaches us to give more attention, even mediatic, to scientists, researchers and the research for a vaccine shows us the quick progress of medicine and science made, if institutions support them. Institutions that prefer to sacrifice the scientific research, more and more necessary, in order to meet other economic requirements in a world based on epistemological thought and that demands more technical and sanitary innovations. Next to the issue of scientific research, there is that of technology: Countries like Italy and others have noticed they need a more efficient national telecommunication system and give support so that everyone can use and get electronic devices and a good internet to follow lessions and working from home. 2020 and Covid-19 pandemic showed us Greta Thunberg was right: it’s needed to slow down and reduce the environmental impact. The strict lockdown of the last Spring proved how quickly nature can regenerate itself and so that it’s needed little to deviate our path to the irreversible process of deterioration of the planet. This time, it’s the nature itself that gave us a second chance.

Coronavirus pandemic has been having a great impact on our lives, on our society, culture and economy. It has pushed us to reevaluate our values and believes, to reviews our strategies and ideologies. It gave us the time to slow down, give each other a look, observe the world and it’s thousands of societies, think about our era and helped us figure out what would have been dangerous for the development for a more right and equal world, our mistakes and gave a chance to remedy. These were, are and will be painful, tragic, scary moments and we are all victims of a serious existential crisis because we’re aware that we aren’t going to be same as before, that the world is different and in our future this will be evident. We are in a new world and we’re different as well.

Viviana Rizzo @livethinking

Article in Italian here

[songtoyou]

Mr. Evans and the Congresswoman - Part 2

Paring: Chris Evans x Politician Reader

Rating: PG

Word Count: 1,858

Warnings: Political topics such as Biden, Harris, our current White House occupant and the current administration. 

Description:  It is the week of the DNC and Chris is once again interviewing you for A Starting Point. 

A/N: The DNC inspired me to write a second part for this story.  This is pure fiction as I do not know what Chris believes when it comes to politics and policy issues. This is a complete work of fiction.

I do not permit my work to be to be posted on any other site without my permission.

Note: Updated for grammar and punctuation edits.

"Hi, Congresswoman Y/L/N?" Chris Evans asked with a smile.

He was once again interviewing you for ASP. This time it was during the week of the Democratic National Convention. Chris and Mark had already talked to other politicians such as Senator Cory Booker and Representatives Ro Khanna and Alma Adams. You were the last elected official he was slated to interview to wrap up the DNC week.

Truthfully, Chris was happy to get the chance to talk with you again. Your previous interview for ASP was such a hit that it garnered a lot of attention from fans and the media. However, it was not because you helped bring more legitimacy and attention for ASP, but instead, Chris found himself genuinely admiring you.

"Hi," you said to Chris, giving a small wave through the Zoom screen. "I told you to call me by my first name."

"I know, but I still want to show respect," Chris responded with a teasing smile. Was he mildly flirting with the congresswoman? Yes, but he had no shame in doing so. "How are you? You are looking well."

"I am doing well. Thank you. How about you?"

"Same. Just trying to stay sane through everything. I'm actually currently in London. Working on a project." Chris admitted.

"Uh oh. You better be staying safe and following the right procedures and protocols," you lightly reprimanded him.

"My fans ratted me out. They found where I was just by the hotel door. Can you believe that? That is some FBI-level investigating, right there. I'd be impressed if I weren't also terrified of the lengths some of these fans will go to scout my location," Chris ranted. He did not understand why he was sharing this with you, but a part of him felt comfortable doing so.

"That…is quite impressive, I must say. Creepy. Scary. But impressive. You need to learn how to put in a Zoom background. It would solve all of your problems," you suggested to him.

"I would, but I'm technology deficient. Maybe I should look up some Zoom tutorials on how to do it. Give it a try."

"There is no try…only do," you advised cheekily.

"Now you're quoting Yoda. A woman after my own heart," Chris replied. He knew he needed to refocus. "So, as you can tell, Mark won't be joining us for this interview. I'm going to hit record if that is okay?"

"Okay. I'm ready when you are," you said.

When the record notification appeared on screen, Chris introduced you and immediately went into the first question.

"How do you think the DNC is going so far, particularly how this year is more of a virtual setting rather than in-person due to COVID-19?"

"Despite not having the big in-person celebration/gathering, I think the virtual setting is working very well. Better than I expected, actually. It gives off a more inclusive and intimate vibe to the DNC that we haven't felt before. I like the whole documentary approach and feel to it," you replied honestly.

"Were you excited that Joe Biden chose Senator Kamala Harris as his running mate?" asked Chris.

"Oh my God! I was so happy that Vice President Biden chose Senator Harris as his running mate. Like, my staff and I were beyond ecstatic. There is no one better to be Biden's running mate than Harris. She is amazing. Such an inspiration. I'm not going to lie, but I'm really excited for the debate between her and Pence."

That made Chris laugh. "Yeah, me too. Senator Harris really knows how to pull all the punches. Her nomination as VP has been met with overall positive response. The Trump Administration and Republican pundits appear to have a hard time painting a negative image of Harris. Why do you think Trump and Fox News are struggling to provide a negative image for her?"

"That is an excellent question. The public's overwhelming response to Harris' nomination is because 1.) she is the first black and south Asian woman to be on a major presidential ticket, and 2.) she is likable and charming. She has this exuberant energy that attracts people to her. You know, black and brown women and girls finally have someone that looks like them running for the second-highest office in the land. That is huge!

"I also have to wonder if people have smartened up in the last four years and won't tolerate the…hypocrisy, sexism, and misogyny…in this case misogynoir that is thrown towards Senator Harris from the media, political pundits, social media bots, etc. So, what we are seeing with Trump and Fox News struggling to attack her is because…well…they just aren't smart. All we have seen from Trump in his attacks against her is that she was mean to Kavanaugh when questioning him during his nomination process. But none of what Trump says holds up because we all know that smart, confident women intimidate him," you finished off your point.

"There is also the left…or more of the progressive left who are unhappy with Biden choosing Harris," Chris spoke up and continued, "They say she is a cop and put people away for weed. That she took kids away from parents when the kid didn't show up for school. That Harris is too conservative. What do you say to that?"

"All of that is…you know…. Senator Harris one of the most policy progressive senators we have. Her voting record is more progressive than Bernie Sanders. All people have to do is research her time as a district attorney and Attorney General for California to find out what she actually did concerning policy. But as we both know, people nowadays don't know how to critically think, which scares me. Progressives need to look at the overall big picture. This election in November is crucial. We are in the fight for our democracy, for our country, and for our lives…literally."

"I talk with my brother, Scott, all the time about certain political issues," mentioned Chris. "He is a tad more progressive than I am. I can admit that I tend to be more centrist. The district you represent is a mix of blue and red areas; how do you balance opposing views from your constituents?" 

You took in a deep breath before you answered. That was a loaded question. Representing a district that was not solely red, or blue could be difficult from time to time. You wanted to be respectful of the different viewpoints from constituents, but maintaining a neutral balance was hard and frustrating at times. 

"The majority of Americans are centrist/moderates. You need a balance of both liberal and conservative policies. Bipartisanship is crucially important when developing and passing laws. We are currently seeing an overt of one-sidedness while sabotaging the other side, which is detrimental to our country's growth. It is important to reach across the aisle to talk with those who may have opposing views than you. At the end of the day, people just want to feel that their concerns are heard and valued. We all want to feel that way. So, as an elected official, I make sure to take the time to talk with those in rural areas, along with urban areas, about their issues and concerns," you shared.

"Do you ever get any pushback from Trump supporters in the red areas?" Chris inquired.

"Well, it is important to note that not all residents in rural areas are Trump supporters. They just tend to keep that to themselves. I have actually talked to Trump supporters in blue areas. We can never and should never assume that one area has this type of person and vice versa. I learned that the hard way when I was campaigning for city council early in my career," you revealed to Chris with a small chuckle. "But overall, my constituents will talk with me and have been respectful. Some of the concerns that have been shared with me do fall under the QAnon conspiracy theories, which do disturb me, I'll be honest. Um…when being confronted with someone who has that extreme of ideals, it is important to remain calm and not to come off combative. Meaning that I have to remind myself that I am not quite dealing with a rational person. The only thing that I can do is calmly talk to the person and respond back with facts. Either they listen or brush me off and call me a radical lefty."

"The majority of people are good, like you said," Chris reminded you.

"That's right. It's a good mantra to live by. I think the American people are tired and have been tired for the past four years with this Administration. We need a sense of normalcy and decency. Compassion and empathy, which were two of the big themes during the DNC. This week was a nice reminder that we, as a country, can have that again."

"I agree. Very well said. You always end on a positive. I appreciate that. Thank you, Congresswoman Y/L/N, for taking the time to talk with me. You always provide great insight into the world of politics and your experience as an elected official," said Chris and ended the recording. "That was really great, Y/N. I know Mark, and I really appreciate you taken the time to do these interviews for ASP," Chris added.

"Oh, it is no problem. Like I said before, I like what you both are doing with the site. Are you happy with how everything turned out?" you asked him.

"Yeah… it's…it took a while to just get the website up and running. I know there is still work that needs to be done. Some areas need to be fixed, but with a project like this, we can adjust. There is more room for improvement and growth," Chris communicated to you.

You nodded in agreement. "Politics is a whole different ballgame. Not many people are willing to venture into the field. It can cause a lot of annoyances and headaches. So, hats off to you, my friend," you said, giving Chris a salute.

"Thank you. Well, I better let you go. I know you must have a million things on your plate."

"Ah yes, I have to go and save the United States Postal Service from corruption. Talk to you later, Chris. Take care," you waved goodbye and signed off.

Chris had to admit, he was in awe of you. There was something about you that fascinated him. None of the elected officials he and Mark talked to for ASP had the liveliness you had. You were not jaded or defeated by the system, at least not yet, since you were still considered a junior member of congress. Chris hoped that the energy and enthusiasm you had for politics and helping people would not diminish. When his Uncle Mike was still a congressman, he shared with Chris that D.C. can cause a lot of strain on a person's values and beliefs. "I have seen too many of my colleagues succumb to the pressures of dirty politics," Uncle Mike once said.

Chris just hoped that you would not succumb to those pressures.

[robertreich]

The Democratic Establishment is Freaking Out About Bernie. It should Calm Down.

The day after Bernie Sanders’s big win in Nevada, Joe Lockhart, Bill Clinton’s former press secretary, expressed the fear gripping the Democratic establishment: “I don't believe the country is prepared to support a Democratic socialist, and I agree with the theory that Sanders would lose in a matchup against Trump.”

Lockart, like the rest of the Democratic establishment, is viewing American politics through obsolete lenses of left versus right, with Bernie on the extreme left and Trump on the far right. “Moderates” like Bloomberg and Buttigieg supposedly occupy the center, appealing to a broader swath of the electorate.

This may have been the correct frame for politics decades ago when America still had a growing middle class, but it’s obsolete today. As wealth and power have moved to the top and the middle class has shrunk, more Americans feel politically dis-empowered and economically insecure. Today's main divide isn’t right versus left. It’s establishment versus anti-establishment.

Some background. In the fall of 2015 I visited Michigan, Wisconsin, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Kentucky, Missouri, and North Carolina, researching the changing nature of work. I spoke with many of the same people I had met twenty years before when I was secretary of labor, as well as some of their grown children. I asked them about their jobs and their views about the economy. I was most interested in their sense of the system as a whole and how they were faring in it.

What I heard surprised me. Twenty years before, most said they’d been working hard and were frustrated they weren’t doing better. Now they were angry – at their employers, the government, and Wall Street; angry that they hadn’t been able to save for their retirement, and that their children weren’t doing any better than they did. Several had lost jobs, savings, or homes in the Great Recession. By the time I spoke with them, most were employed but the jobs paid no more than they had two decades before.

I heard the term “rigged system” so often I began asking people what they meant by it. They spoke about the bailout of Wall Street, political payoffs, insider deals, CEO pay, and “crony capitalism.” These came from self-identified Republicans, Democrats, and Independents; white, black, and Latino; union households and non-union. Their only common characteristic was they were middle class and below.

With the 2016 primaries looming, I asked which candidates they found most attractive. At the time, party leaders favored Hillary Clinton or Jeb Bush. But the people I spoke with repeatedly mentioned Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump. They said Sanders or Trump would “shake things up,” “make the system work again,” “stop the corruption,” or “end the rigging.”

In the following year, Sanders -- a 74-year-old Jew from Vermont who described himself as a democratic socialist and wasn’t even a Democrat until the 2016 presidential primary -- came within a whisker of beating Hillary Clinton in the Iowa caucus, routed her in the New Hampshire primary, garnered over 47 percent of the caucus-goers in Nevada, and ended up with 46 percent of the pledged delegates from Democratic primaries and caucuses.

Trump, a 69-year-old ego-maniacal billionaire reality TV star who had never held elective office or had anything to do with the Republican Party, and lied compulsively about almost everything -- won the Republican primaries and then went on to beat Clinton, one of the most experienced and well-connected politicians in modern America (granted, he didn’t win the popular vote, and had some help from the Kremlin).

Something very big happened, and it wasn’t because of Sanders’s magnetism or Trump’s likeability. It was a rebellion against the establishment. Clinton and Bush had all the advantages –funders, political advisors, name recognition -- but neither could credibly convince voters they weren’t part of the system.

A direct line connected four decades of stagnant wages, the financial crisis of 2008, the bailout of Wall Street, the rise of the Tea Party and the “Occupy” movement, and the emergence of Sanders and Trump in 2016. The people I spoke with no longer felt they had a fair chance to make it. National polls told much the same story. According to the Pew Research Center, the percentage of Americans who felt most people could get ahead through hard work dropped by 13 points between 2000 and 2015. In 2006, 59 percent of Americans thought government corruption was widespread; by 2013, 79 percent did.

Trump galvanized millions of blue-collar voters living in places that never recovered from the tidal wave of factory closings. He promised to bring back jobs, revive manufacturing, and get tough on trade and immigration. “We can’t continue to allow China to rape our country, and that’s what they’re doing,” he roared. “In five, ten years from now, you’re going to have a workers’ party. A party of people that haven’t had a real wage increase in eighteen years, that are angry.” He blasted politicians and financiers who had betrayed Americans by “taking away from the people their means of making a living and supporting their families.”

Trump’s pose as an anti-establishment populist was one of the biggest cons in American political history. Since elected he’s given the denizens of C-suites and the Street everything they’ve wanted and hasn’t markedly improved the lives of his working-class supporters, even if his politically-incorrect, damn-the-torpedo’s politics continues to make them feel as if he’s taking on the system.

The frustrations today are larger than they were four years ago. Even though corporate profits and executive pay have soared, the typical worker’s pay has barely risen, jobs are less secure, and health care less affordable.  

The best way for Democrats to defeat Trump’s fake anti-establishment populism is with the real thing, coupled with an agenda of systemic reform. This is what Bernie Sanders offers. For the same reason, he has the best chance of generating energy and enthusiasm to flip at least three senate seats to the Democratic Party (the minimum needed to recapture the Senate, using the vice president as tie-breaker).

He’ll need a coalition of young voters, people of color, and the working class. He seems on his way. So far in the primaries he leads among white voters, has a massive edge among Latinos, dominates with both women and men, and has done best among both college and non-college graduates. And he’s narrowing Biden’s edge with older voters and African Americans. [Add line about South Carolina from today's primary.]

The “socialism” moniker doesn't seem to have bruised him, although it hasn't been tested outside a Democratic primary or caucus. Perhaps voters won't care, just as they many don’t care about Trump’s chronic lies. 

Worries about a McGovern-like blowout in 2020 appear far-fetched. In 1972 the American middle class was expanding, not contracting. Besides, every national and swing state poll now shows Sanders tied with or beating Trump. A Quinnipiac Poll last week shows Sanders beating Trump in Michigan and Pennsylvania. A CBS News/YouGov poll has Sanders beating Trump nationally. A Texas Lyceum poll has Sanders doing better against Trump in Texas than any Democrat, losing by just three points.

Instead of the Democratic establishment worrying that Sanders is unelectable, maybe it should worry that a so-called "moderate” Democrat might be nominated instead.  

[foreverlogical]

A few months after losing the White House, Republicans across the country have had a revelation: The Electoral College could use some improvements. The problem is that they have contradictory proposals for how to fix it—and contradictory arguments for why those proposals would help Americans pick their president. In Wisconsin, Michigan, and New Hampshire, GOP lawmakers want to award Electoral College votes by congressional district, just like Nebraska and Maine currently do. But in Nebraska, Republicans want to do the opposite, and return to the same winner-takes-all method used by, well, Wisconsin, Michigan, New Hampshire, and almost every other state.

These Republicans do agree on one thing, however: They insist that their proposals have nothing—absolutely nothing—to do with Donald Trump’s defeat in the 2020 election.

“I think people would just feel better knowing that their vote went to the candidate that they chose in their area,” Gary Tauchen, a GOP state legislator in Wisconsin, told me recently. Tauchen is 67 and retiring next year, and the measure he’s introduced, which would split Wisconsin’s electoral votes by congressional district, could be a capstone to a 16-year career in the legislature. Under his bill, even if deep-blue Milwaukee and Madison pushed the state into the Democratic column—as they have in eight of the past nine presidential elections—shutting out Republicans entirely would be virtually impossible. Tauchen said he would have introduced his bill even if Trump had won Wisconsin last year. Why, then, didn’t he push it after 2016, when Trump narrowly carried the state? “The timing wasn’t right, I don’t think,” he said. “This just seemed more appropriate for right now.”

In New Hampshire, Bill Gannon, a Republican state senator, has proposed similar legislation. He told me he got the idea from his son, a college student who had read about how Maine divvies up its electoral votes. Republicans control New Hampshire’s governorship and legislature, and if they pass Gannon’s bill, the GOP could wind up with an extra electoral vote in 2024 even if Democrats carry the state again. Around the time Gannon offered up his proposal, a prominent Michigan Republican suggested that his state do the same.

Meanwhile, in Nebraska, a 24-year-old Yale graduate named Julie Slama wants her state to go in the other direction. A state senator first appointed by Governor Pete Ricketts in 2018, Slama has introduced a bill that would award all of Nebraska’s electors to the winner of the statewide vote. The last Democrat to carry the reliably red state was Lyndon B. Johnson. Trump won the statewide vote last year by nearly 20 points. But Joe Biden, like Barack Obama before him, walked away with one of Nebraska’s five electors by winning a district that comprises Omaha and its suburbs. Had Biden won about 44,000 fewer total votes across Wisconsin, Georgia, and Arizona, that single electoral vote in Nebraska would have decided the election.

Yet when I raised this with Slama, she never mentioned the advantage her party would gain. Instead, she drew her argument from the Constitution. “The Founders and the Framers made it very clear that states, not segments of states, were intended to determine the president,” Slama told me, “and we really shouldn’t have presidential elections determined by lines drawn by politicians.”

[Read: The secret to beating the Electoral College]

Taken together, the changes these legislators are seeking would likely ensure that the next Republican presidential nominee wins at least a few more electoral votes in the race to 270. But the proposals could also backfire. All of the states trying to imitate Nebraska are battlegrounds; Trump won Wisconsin and Michigan in 2016, and he came within 3,000 votes of carrying New Hampshire that year. All of them could be competitive in 2024. “At the end of the day, I think that they might live to regret those things,” warns Ryan Hamilton, the executive director of the Nebraska Republican Party.

The desired result of the proposals, however, is clear: These bills are aimed at making it harder for Democrats to win. At this point, they are all long shots; none of the proposals currently has the votes to pass. But Democrats are taking them seriously, seeing the attempts to tweak the Electoral College system as linked to the GOP’s much more widely publicized efforts to suppress voter turnout.

If Republicans are trying to tinker with the Electoral College to boost their chances, many Democrats want to go much further to strengthen theirs. Some have long wanted to abolish the institution altogether. Others are pushing legislation that would effectively neutralize the Electoral College by creating a multistate compact to elect as president the winner of the national popular vote, an idea that arose in response to the disputed 2000 election of George W. Bush. Fifteen states and the District of Columbia—all controlled by Democrats—have endorsed the measure over the years, but few supporters believe that it will win over enough states to succeed anytime soon.

Unlike in Wisconsin, Michigan, and New Hampshire, the push to change Nebraska’s system isn’t new—Republicans have been trying to abolish the state’s Electoral College split almost from the moment it was enacted. Nebraska has the nation’s only unicameral, nonpartisan legislature, which requires legislation to muster a supermajority to pass. A Democratic state senator succeeded in winning bipartisan support to implement the Electoral College change in 1991, and Nebraska’s Democratic governor at the time signed it into law. Hamilton, the state GOP executive director, concedes that his party’s desire to return to the winner-takes-all system plays to its advantage, but he has a tough time accounting for the fact that Republicans in other states are moving in the opposite direction. When I asked him about this contradiction, he paused for a few seconds. “I’m trying to answer judiciously,” he told me. “I respect what they’re trying to do.”

Nebraska Republicans likely would have succeeded already if it were not for Ernie Chambers. A Democratic 46-year veteran of the legislature from Omaha, Chambers mounted a days-long filibuster in 2016 to preserve the current system. Republicans at one point had the votes they needed to adopt the winner-takes-all method, but a couple of members peeled off after Chambers commandeered the floor and jeopardized the passage of other bills before the legislative session expired. Chambers, who is Black and has long described himself as a “defender of the downtrodden,” argues that the change would silence the voices of nonwhite citizens in Omaha, Nebraska’s biggest city. “There is very little impact that the people who are not white and Republican in Nebraska can have,” he told me. “But that doesn’t mean people will not do with the  little they have to work with.”

Chambers, 83, is now out of office, having been forced to leave last year for the second time in his career because of term limits. When I spoke with him recently, he said he didn’t know if the defenders of Nebraska’s unusual approach would prevail again. But he was unsentimental. “Politics is a dirty, backstabbing, double-crossing racket,” Chambers said. “If you’ve got the numbers, you want winner-take-all. If you don’t have the numbers, you want to at least have a little bit of an opportunity for your voice to be heard.”

“There’s nothing mystical about it, nothing philosophical about it,” Chambers said about the fight over the Electoral College, both in Nebraska and elsewhere. “It’s politics, pure and simple.”