There were enough Republicans who voted for Biden in '20 to flip Georgia, which is solidly “mainstream” Republican (e.g. Reagan Republicans).
The article’s analysis of why Hillary lost is correct, and the diagnosis of the failures of Clintonism is also correct. They fail to point out that Clinton “won” '92 because Perot pulled away enough Bush votes in enough states to swing the Electoral College to Clinton, who only got 40% of the popular vote. That “victory” somehow convinced a bunch of Democrats that conservatism without bigotry (or at least less) was the key to electoral success. Clinton got reelected with the power of incumbency and BobDole being a fairly weak candidate. That cemented the conservatism lite in the Democratic Party for a generation, many of whom are still in the party.
It’s changing though. Biden is not a classic conservative Democrat anymore, or at least his team and policies aren’t.
One big thing they need to do is acknowledge that the system is rigged against the non wealthy, and that small-d democracy as it exists today in America is not up to the task of helping the non wealthy. Then they need to propose ways to fix our broken democracy, ask young people for suggestions for how to fix it, and write some binding policy proposals to implement those fixes.
Because right now Trump and the Republicans are acknowledging that our democracy is failing non wealthy (straight white Christian) people, and the solution they’re offering is to do away with it entirely in favor of Hungarian or Russian style authoritarianism.
The first part of that message will resonate, and the “help us fix democracy” part needs to be the 2nd half. Or Trump probably will get reelected.
The warning from the U.S. and its four closest intellignce partners follows several arrests of U.S. service members for allegedly trying to pass info to China....
This seems like a perfect opportunity for a counter intelligence operation, though. Yeah China wants our former military but since they’re military it seems like an easy lift to convert them into US assets either misinforming or sabotaging China.
Most of the military people I know took their oath to the Constitution seriously. I’m sure if the spooks at the CIA or NSA or whatever the new secret spy org is called asked, they could find some soon to retire guys who want to help out.
If Trump had allowed his lawyers to mount the best defense they could, he’d probably have a decent chance at complete acquittal or a hung jury.
Instead he forced them to perform a “defense” aimed at his base and maybe some people with “soft” dislike of him and most importantly aimed at hurting his “enemies” and puffing up his ego.
I did hear a persuasive argument that he might be acquitted on the charges related to checks he didn’t personally sign (his sons signed instead) but get convicted on the checks he did sign. From what was reported that means it’s possible the first 10 verdicts will be “not guilty” and the last 20+ will be “guilty.”
I actually sort of hope that’s what happens because 1) it will prove the jury wasn’t out to get him and 2) he’ll be feeling really good for those first verdicts then get gut punched for the last ones.
I wonder if this is the harbinger of a bunch of companies breaking up after decades of consolidation.
It would definitely be good to have a big round of breakups to get competition going again. Then we just have to fight against the consolidation that will start up in 20-30 years.
There was a part of me that held out hope that she would at a minimum just not endorse Trump. Seems like she’s decided to try to be his VP pick. Probably since Noem the dog slayer became unrealistic.
Indeed with Haley endorsing Trump now I think all the Trump cosplay idiots who’ve been showing up to court in Manhattan can hang it up.
What Republicans realized decades ago is this is fundamentally true. Every election is the most important election. They just leave off the “…so far” that should be at the end of the statement.
I think before Reagan (or maybe Gingrich) people could reasonably see some elections as less consequential than others. But the Republicans realized that it’s all about building. Build a bench of charismatic, intelligent, possibly sociopathic individuals. Get them in local government and then state government and then federal government. Tell your base voters that you’re building something that will one day pay off.
Just keep building, just keep building, and one day you have a juggernaut. Especially if your opponents didn’t build to match.
Democrats spent the 80s and 90s assuming the status was quo. They spent the last half of the 90s and the 00s living in the fantasy that what people liked about Clinton was the fiscal conservatism without the religion, so they should be more conservative.
Only very recently have progressives started breaking through.
Now we have to build.
Luckily the Republicans have hitched their wagon to a human wrecking ball. That might let Democrats catch up sooner than they otherwise would.
He’s doing what all the “everybody could be rich if they just did X” jackasses do: see some people who don’t have money make bad decisions and generalize it to all people who don’t have money.
Middle aged parents with 2-3 kids and jobs in the $40k to $60k range aren’t going out all the time, buying the latest gadget, buying new cars, etc. They’re scraping by.
They could do some “personal development” if they had the time and energy after working full time and caring for children. But they don’t.
Actually I’d like to see a comparison of the number of people in different income groups who “splurge” on the stuff Buffet is accusing them of versus those who have to “splurge” on an unexpected expense like a medical condition or fixing a broken car or an unexpected home repair. I’m betting people actually end up spending money on the latter way more than the former.
And it’s just disgusting hearing him complain about people using credit cards when he and all the other economic vampires in his cohort have been purposefully restricting wage growth since the 1970s when they introduced credit cards as a trap for young people who expected their quality of life to increase with increasing productivity the way it had for decades before.
Obviously this is a real and difficult neuro/psych issue to deal with, and I know some people who probably suffer (but aren’t formally diagnosed). Heck, I’ve been prone to letting certain negative comments send me on a spiral briefly myself.
Unfortunately like a lot of genuine neuro issues, this one seems like a really difficult one for typicals to interact with. Because there are people who react badly to genuine critiques, especially in regard to politics, religion, and tradition. Some of them probably are suffering from RSD but a lot aren’t.
We only know about when humans mastered fire or started using metal. But we know the exact date when the first powered flight took place. What are some really early “first ____” we know the date of for sure?
Have to be careful on this one as you don’t want to cause more harm than good. Make sure it’s all focused on disabling pumps and valves while not increasing the likelihood of releases.
Some idiots would go around blowing things up causing massive environmental damage when what we really want to do is just leave the stuff in the tanks it’s already in, or in the ground it’s already in.
It’s possible to build nice apartments that have a good amount of space to live in. But that’s not as profitable per sq ft for the property management companies that have been buying up all the land.
There’s also some minor regulatory reforms that are probably needed to allow a little more flexibility in building design, specifically around the required number/type/location of stairwells. But we have to be careful about that one because we don’t want to make death traps.
We need to go back to a 90% or higher tax rate on income over some threshold, and fix the loopholes that let wealthy people have income that doesn’t count as income. Especially the “take a loan and pay that back and all the activity there doesn’t count as income for tax purposes” bullshit.
And tax corporate profits more, and make a corporate tax system that rewards real R&D (while auditing to prevent fake tax shelter R&D), rewards higher employee salaries and better benefits (instead of taxing those), and rewards infrastructure investments like new factories but also investments in efficiency, water use reduction, etc.
I guess on balance it’s more important to me that the Democrats reject Greene than reject Johnson. It’s clear to everyone that Johnson is “weak” (in MAGA support) and dependent completely on Democrats to get anything done.
Now that that’s out in the open and he’s slightly a MAGA pariah, he’ll probably get back to more old fashioned Republican projects like destroying the environment, fucking over workers, giving billions to billionaires, and a blank check to the military.
Got a link for Biden calling them antisemitic (without also speaking against all forms of hate speech)?
I’ve heard Biden and others say that the protesters shouldn’t be using antisemitic, anti Muslim, or any hate speech. I haven’t heard him blanket call all the protestors antisemitic and only that. That’s what they do on FOX “News.”
no really how do we fix this?
Do you prefer Reddit or Lemmy?
Showing Contempt for Young Voters Is a Great Way for Democrats to Lose in November (www.thenation.com)
China wants to recruit military pilots from the U.S. and its allies to strengthen Chinese air power, bulletin warns (www.nbcnews.com)
The warning from the U.S. and its four closest intellignce partners follows several arrests of U.S. service members for allegedly trying to pass info to China....
Donald Trump jury "will convict" in New York trial, legal analyst predicts (www.newsweek.com)
Russia denies Trump’s claim he can free US journalist if he wins election (www.theguardian.com)
Spokesman says ‘there aren’t any contacts’ with former president regarding Evan Gershkovich’s release from Russia...
Dupont is splitting into 3 organizations. (www.cnn.com)
Justice Department sues to break up Live Nation, parent of Ticketmaster (www.cnbc.com)
Haley says she will vote for Trump over Biden (thehill.com)
Groundhog day (midwest.social)
squander rule (lemmy.blahaj.zone)
RSD is a bitch (lemmy.world)
superfile - A pretty fancy and modern terminal file manager (raw.githubusercontent.com)
github.com/MHNightCat/superfile
What are some of the earliest "firsts" that we have a definite date for?
We only know about when humans mastered fire or started using metal. But we know the exact date when the first powered flight took place. What are some really early “first ____” we know the date of for sure?
What are the most powerful climate actions you can take? The expert view (www.theguardian.com)
House quickly rejects Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene's effort to remove Speaker Johnson from office (apnews.com)
Voyager 1 (mander.xyz)
A YouTuber let the Cybertruck close on his finger to test the new sensor update. It didn't go well. (www.businessinsider.com)
Biden launches police state crackdown at US universities (www.wsws.org)
As Biden Plans to Reschedule Marijuana, Advocates Say 'Fully Legalize' It (www.commondreams.org)
More than 400,000 songbirds killed by organised crime in Cyprus (www.theguardian.com)
Report links rise in birds trapped for human consumption to cuts in anti-poaching resources in area of British military base...