Btw what’s up with all these states up and banning Ranked Choice Voting? Most of them in the past 1-2 years too. I’m not exactly sure of the context, like if there was a bill or a referendum, but with a referendum I would have expected it to say “rejected”/“not adopted”, instead of “banned”. Definitely seems like RCV needs to be really fought for, and seems like the major parties are afraid of it.
I agree, but I have to say, the term “duopoly” doesn’t ring the same in this environment where Republicans are frothing at the mouth to mass arrest the Democrats.
Sure, but your conflating the common man who votes that way and who we also prescribe the same labels to with the actual representatives with power. Chuck shumer and Nancy pelosi do not want the Bernie’s of the world getting power. They like being the lesser of two evils because they can do almost as much as the trump admin does and be praised for it when in reality it’s still evil. You really think they want citizens United repealed? The patriot act repealed? Federally elected officials banned from buying investments? Fptp voting changed to ranked choice means independents can win and actual implement change.
That’s true, I was just pointing out that the Schumer types at the DNC really don’t understand that their Republican “colleagues” are taking active steps to throw them in jail or worse. In this sense it feels weird to call it a duopoly given that the only ones giving any direction the whole time were the GOP, while the establishment Dems were their useful idiots, always following their lead and trying to triangulate their policy and rhetoric between status quo and fascism, you know, to appeal to the “middle” and the “moderate Republican”. It’s absolute madness! And you might say they know what they’re doing, that they planned this like a good/bad cop routine, but honestly… I find it much easier to see them as old stupid out of touch aristocrats with big piles of money going blindly wherever capital leads them, than as scheming double agents, because the latter would imply some actual awareness of their surroundings, which they don’t have! They’re totally blind to the fact that the only logical conclusion to their triangulation strategy with fascists is them in a gulag. It’s plain as day, it’s happening right now under their very eyes, but their priorities are… fighting David Hogg??
I’m referring to the politicians here btw, not the voters. I think the voters are really mad at Schumer and the DNC right now, and I think they’re looking for new leadership. In that sense, AOC has risen in popularity recently because she’s been engaging with people directly both IRL and on social media, but I’m not getting my hopes up until I see something real actually happen, and I mean nothing short of seeing the establishment Dems gone. Because even now as the world burns, the DNC is fighting tooth and nail against anyone challenging them from the left. And honestly, it may already be too late as it is, like for the whole country. I hope not, but I don’t have much hope left tbh.
I can’t argue with that angle tbh, they really might just be that stupid lol
It’s really down to the individual as to what they believe the Democrats are really up to. It certainly isn’t helping the middle and lower classes. The bar is so low right now…any change that drags us back to the left at all would be mind blowing at this point.
I’m hoping for someone like mayor Pete in 2028 if we are lucky enough to have a fair election by then, he’s a great speaker and likeable to a ton of people I think. He has a shot at uniting the voters.
Pete would be a kind of Obama. But remember that Obama created the conditions for Trump. Honestly, people like them are worse because they get people’s hopes up and then crush them with their (in)actions.
The only way to escape the cycle of neoliberalism (sham democracy, fascism, sham democracy, fascism, etc.) is to elect someone who is not a neoliberal. Someone who has a socialist mindset and can put democracy above capital. Someone who can acknowledge and attempt to fix real systemic issues which keep people down. Someone who is willing to tackle wealth inequality head-on through unapologetic redistribution. And maybe this should be first: someone who actually cares about workers’ rights and wants to make it so that all the technological advancement benefits them too, through shorter workweeks and shorter workdays. We need a kind of person similar to people in the past generation who never stopped until they got the weekend and 8h workweek, that kind of character, someone who dreams big and fights for like a 3-day workweek of 4 hours each, and mandatory shares for each employee same as minimum wage, which btw should be like triple what it is now. And someone who believes that billionaires should not exist, i.e. can tax them to sub-billion wealth. (I know, craaazy.)
And of course to actually apply the law and prosecute the fascists and their propaganda machine (media, think tanks, billionaire donors) the way it always should have from the beginning since they’ve been conspiring and committing treason for decades. Sedition I think is the word. (And if this sounds like an exaggeration in the style of MAGA pundits, that’s because every accusation is a confession with them. They preemptively accuse their enemy of doing the same thing they’re doing so that it sounds crazy or at least unoriginal when they get accused of it later.)
Without very bold changes like the above, we are doomed. Mayor Pete cannot do that. He’s a neoliberal with maybe one good idea, like abolishing the Electoral College or something. But it’s not enough. The US needs Reconstruction.
Obama had 60 Senate votes for four months and that’s when the ACA was passed.
It seems to me a bit too reductive to say that he was not doing anything. The system is too complex for that. People think the president has a lever that controls gas prices though, so I don’t expect this fact to matter to a lot of people.
i believe that someone like Pete will respond to pressure as well as appeal broadly, so we voters have a chance to put him there first.
Yeah, don’t get me wrong — it’s not that Obama/Pete types don’t do anything. Generally they do things, and those things are good. (I’m simplifying for the sake of argument, since there are also bad policies that liberals engage in, obviously.)
The problem is that the good things don’t go far enough — even ACA was based on the Mitt Romney plan drew up by the goddamn Heritage Foundation! It was a compromise of a compromise. All other developed countries have some version of universal healthcare, while the US has preventable deaths and medical bankruptcies and Blackrock suing United Healthcare for breaking fiduciary duty by not refusing enough clients, a thing it did so often that its CEO got merced for it.
Or, take education: as someone from an EU country, I have a master’s degree and zero debt — it was all free although I did have to pass an exam ahead of a hundred others, but if I needed to pay, it would have been like 1-2k USD per year, with a chance each year to get into the free tier next year if I got good grades.
Anyway, my point is that when people get too many small compromises for a long time, they start to feel duped, they get uneasy, then frustrated, then angry (disinformation contributes a lot to this process), so next thing you know they begin to reject “not enough” in favor of “burn it down”. People yearn for fundamental changes, this is why they’re voting Trump types all around the world: they promise big change, they promise to move fast and break things. People feel like nothing ever happens, so the promise of any change gives them hope. Ironically, the fascist appeal is just a bizarro version of “hope and change”.
And here’s the darkest part: despite the differences I outlined above about healthcare and education, EU countries still have the same systemic problems. People still feel duped. People are still frustrated. People still choose fascists here. Because the problems are very deep: inequality, alienation, disinformation. And neoliberalism doesn’t have an answer to any of them: you need a democratic socialist for that, i.e. someone who’s willing to reject capital to put people’s needs first.
RCV experiments have gotten a lot of backlash from establishment parties, usually because they lost and they want to blame the “new process” instead of their platforms, policies, or actions.
Btw what’s up with all these states up and banning Ranked Choice Voting? Most of them in the past 1-2 years too. I’m not exactly sure of the context, like if there was a bill or a referendum, but with a referendum I would have expected it to say “rejected”/“not adopted”, instead of “banned”. Definitely seems like RCV needs to be really fought for, and seems like the major parties are afraid of it.
It’s almost like it threatens their duopoly power
I agree, but I have to say, the term “duopoly” doesn’t ring the same in this environment where Republicans are frothing at the mouth to mass arrest the Democrats.
Sure, but your conflating the common man who votes that way and who we also prescribe the same labels to with the actual representatives with power. Chuck shumer and Nancy pelosi do not want the Bernie’s of the world getting power. They like being the lesser of two evils because they can do almost as much as the trump admin does and be praised for it when in reality it’s still evil. You really think they want citizens United repealed? The patriot act repealed? Federally elected officials banned from buying investments? Fptp voting changed to ranked choice means independents can win and actual implement change.
It’s a duopoly.
That’s true, I was just pointing out that the Schumer types at the DNC really don’t understand that their Republican “colleagues” are taking active steps to throw them in jail or worse. In this sense it feels weird to call it a duopoly given that the only ones giving any direction the whole time were the GOP, while the establishment Dems were their useful idiots, always following their lead and trying to triangulate their policy and rhetoric between status quo and fascism, you know, to appeal to the “middle” and the “moderate Republican”. It’s absolute madness! And you might say they know what they’re doing, that they planned this like a good/bad cop routine, but honestly… I find it much easier to see them as old stupid out of touch aristocrats with big piles of money going blindly wherever capital leads them, than as scheming double agents, because the latter would imply some actual awareness of their surroundings, which they don’t have! They’re totally blind to the fact that the only logical conclusion to their triangulation strategy with fascists is them in a gulag. It’s plain as day, it’s happening right now under their very eyes, but their priorities are… fighting David Hogg??
I’m referring to the politicians here btw, not the voters. I think the voters are really mad at Schumer and the DNC right now, and I think they’re looking for new leadership. In that sense, AOC has risen in popularity recently because she’s been engaging with people directly both IRL and on social media, but I’m not getting my hopes up until I see something real actually happen, and I mean nothing short of seeing the establishment Dems gone. Because even now as the world burns, the DNC is fighting tooth and nail against anyone challenging them from the left. And honestly, it may already be too late as it is, like for the whole country. I hope not, but I don’t have much hope left tbh.
I can’t argue with that angle tbh, they really might just be that stupid lol
It’s really down to the individual as to what they believe the Democrats are really up to. It certainly isn’t helping the middle and lower classes. The bar is so low right now…any change that drags us back to the left at all would be mind blowing at this point.
I’m hoping for someone like mayor Pete in 2028 if we are lucky enough to have a fair election by then, he’s a great speaker and likeable to a ton of people I think. He has a shot at uniting the voters.
Pete would be a kind of Obama. But remember that Obama created the conditions for Trump. Honestly, people like them are worse because they get people’s hopes up and then crush them with their (in)actions.
The only way to escape the cycle of neoliberalism (sham democracy, fascism, sham democracy, fascism, etc.) is to elect someone who is not a neoliberal. Someone who has a socialist mindset and can put democracy above capital. Someone who can acknowledge and attempt to fix real systemic issues which keep people down. Someone who is willing to tackle wealth inequality head-on through unapologetic redistribution. And maybe this should be first: someone who actually cares about workers’ rights and wants to make it so that all the technological advancement benefits them too, through shorter workweeks and shorter workdays. We need a kind of person similar to people in the past generation who never stopped until they got the weekend and 8h workweek, that kind of character, someone who dreams big and fights for like a 3-day workweek of 4 hours each, and mandatory shares for each employee same as minimum wage, which btw should be like triple what it is now. And someone who believes that billionaires should not exist, i.e. can tax them to sub-billion wealth. (I know, craaazy.)
And of course to actually apply the law and prosecute the fascists and their propaganda machine (media, think tanks, billionaire donors) the way it always should have from the beginning since they’ve been conspiring and committing treason for decades. Sedition I think is the word. (And if this sounds like an exaggeration in the style of MAGA pundits, that’s because every accusation is a confession with them. They preemptively accuse their enemy of doing the same thing they’re doing so that it sounds crazy or at least unoriginal when they get accused of it later.)
Without very bold changes like the above, we are doomed. Mayor Pete cannot do that. He’s a neoliberal with maybe one good idea, like abolishing the Electoral College or something. But it’s not enough. The US needs Reconstruction.
I agree with you on all that but 1 thing.
I don’t see obama as a problem for progress. The executive is always fighting with the legislature in our system.
https://www.beaconjournal.com/story/news/2012/09/09/when-obama-had-total-control/985146007/
Obama had 60 Senate votes for four months and that’s when the ACA was passed.
It seems to me a bit too reductive to say that he was not doing anything. The system is too complex for that. People think the president has a lever that controls gas prices though, so I don’t expect this fact to matter to a lot of people.
i believe that someone like Pete will respond to pressure as well as appeal broadly, so we voters have a chance to put him there first.
Yeah, don’t get me wrong — it’s not that Obama/Pete types don’t do anything. Generally they do things, and those things are good. (I’m simplifying for the sake of argument, since there are also bad policies that liberals engage in, obviously.)
The problem is that the good things don’t go far enough — even ACA was based on the Mitt Romney plan drew up by the goddamn Heritage Foundation! It was a compromise of a compromise. All other developed countries have some version of universal healthcare, while the US has preventable deaths and medical bankruptcies and Blackrock suing United Healthcare for breaking fiduciary duty by not refusing enough clients, a thing it did so often that its CEO got merced for it.
Or, take education: as someone from an EU country, I have a master’s degree and zero debt — it was all free although I did have to pass an exam ahead of a hundred others, but if I needed to pay, it would have been like 1-2k USD per year, with a chance each year to get into the free tier next year if I got good grades.
Anyway, my point is that when people get too many small compromises for a long time, they start to feel duped, they get uneasy, then frustrated, then angry (disinformation contributes a lot to this process), so next thing you know they begin to reject “not enough” in favor of “burn it down”. People yearn for fundamental changes, this is why they’re voting Trump types all around the world: they promise big change, they promise to move fast and break things. People feel like nothing ever happens, so the promise of any change gives them hope. Ironically, the fascist appeal is just a bizarro version of “hope and change”.
And here’s the darkest part: despite the differences I outlined above about healthcare and education, EU countries still have the same systemic problems. People still feel duped. People are still frustrated. People still choose fascists here. Because the problems are very deep: inequality, alienation, disinformation. And neoliberalism doesn’t have an answer to any of them: you need a democratic socialist for that, i.e. someone who’s willing to reject capital to put people’s needs first.
“I’m scared of the bad cop so I will put my trust in the good cop”
This is a torture/interegation tactic to manipulate you.
I’m not having this conversation. Good luck.
RCV experiments have gotten a lot of backlash from establishment parties, usually because they lost and they want to blame the “new process” instead of their platforms, policies, or actions.