Outlaw83
1mo ago
As a leftist/social democratic, there are no puppet masters. It's always weird when people assume the other side are these insane puppet master, wielding superpowers that can't be stopped. The left was like this for a long time as well, and it was annoying then. Karl Rove wasn't some Sith Lord, he was just pretty good at his job.
Like guys, there is no secret decoder ring. If anything, we on the left complain about how bad we're at politics as much as you guys do, because neither side thinks they're winning.
it would have been 2008 with Trump taking the L for COVID happening in his watch just like 2008 was a blowout
I'm always interested when people assume this - in every other country, regardless of ideology, the incumbent leadership gained a huge advantage, and many of them won big electoral victories. Now, inflation and other issues have run some of those politicians aground, but in 2020, they were all very popular. The only reason Trump didn't get that was not that the left would not give him any credit (see various Republican governors who had insanely high approval ratings during COVID), it's he did a terrible job, outside of the one thing his base now hates (Operation Warp Speed).
I do think a non-COVID 2020 election would've been interesting, because Trump would've had a good economy, but it was basically just the late-era Obama economy continuing, there would've been no checks going out to low-info voters, and many things people on this forum like Trump that normies don't would've been a bigger deal. I also think there might've been a bigger move among the center-right to basically sit out things, especially the people who got radicalized by COVID and then supported Trump/DeSantis/etc. harder than they would've before.
I don't mean famous people, but the owner of a HVAC company in suburban Michigan whose kind of annoyed by Trump, dislikes immigration, but also dislikes that he tired to repeal Obamacare, but hated that the country was shut down, and like the PPP loan he got. Without the latter, maybe he doesn't vote for Biden, but does he turn out for Trump?
Outlaw83
1mo ago
Interesting polling shows weirdly, conservatives are most likely to think Israeli civilians are valid Hamas targets, conservative students are more likely to avoid Jews because of Israel, conservatives are less likely to see anti-semitism as a problem in American society. Now, there's some interesting stuff about how Jewish students feel on campus, but the idea it's progressives are the leading edge of general Jewish hatred.
Outlaw83
1mo ago
I mean, the pro-life side has tried the whole "show pictures of fetuses after abortions" in ads and such, and it hasn't seemed to work. Even low-info people understand that medical procedures are messy. Hell, if I was an enterprising liberal media type, I'd take a video of some perfectly benign medical procedure, chop it in a way it could be seen as possibly a late term abortion, then go to a pro-life rally, and see what reactions I could get.
Because once a baby is born, the rest of society can step in, not while it's still in the mother's womb, and we've decided it's bad to force a woman to go through a pregnancy when it might affect her mentally or physically, only for a child to barely survive or only survive for hours or days.
Well, I'm not a doctrinaire libertarian, but neither are most American's, but most Americans have an undercurrent of 'don't tell me what to do', which makes life difficult for both lefties like me and social conservatives. But, I'm happy to use the libertarian-style argument when it's to my advantage.
Ironically, though, government licensure is why people both want the government to make sure a hairdresser isn't a fly by night operator (especially for more complicated things a guy like me with short hair doesn't understand) and why they think it's OK for a doctor, who has been licensed by the government to make a decision, with a woman when it comes to reproductive choice, instead of getting the OK from a panel of conservative politicians who were formerly used car salesmen, dentists, and McDonald franchise owners.
Outlaw83
1mo ago
This is sort of the problem for the pro-life argument. There are basically zero 'oops, let's not have a baby' decisions in month eight of pregnancy, and as you said, there are basically no doctors willing to do that. Almost all late term abortions are terrible tragedies and incredibly sad situations, and pro-lifers look bad when they try to make some poor woman jump through a bunch of hoops to appease their religious beliefs, instead of trusting a couple (far more women with partners have abortions than you think) and a doctor all not to be blood hungry monsters desperate to kill a baby.
Even most second trimester abortions outside of medically necessary ones are because a lack of money to afford the abortion in the first trimester or some sort of waiting period or lack of access, as opposed to somebody suddenly deciding they don't want a baby after four months.
Outlaw83
1mo ago
The problem is Trump regularly talks about being the one who put the three judges who turned Roe on the court during speeches, since he's been told it's a big deal, and he like that he did a big thing. Not because he's a committed pro-lifer, but because he likes having accomplishments. It's why he still talks about the vaccine, even though it's unpopular among his own base.
Plus, to a certain extent, it's actually the reverse, among say, secular non-college educated Obama/Trump voters in the Midwest. You remind them a lot of the Republican Party they're now voting for are weirdos who want to stick their noses in your sisters or daughter's personal life, and go from there. Maybe you don't get them to vote for Biden, but you get them to stay home.
Outlaw83
3mo ago
Yes, this past decade or so has been that very specific political moment I'm talking about. By 2028, it'll be over, outside of Trump.
If Hillary had done a little better on Super Tuesday in '08, maybe she's the nominee, picks Obama, and either she loses in 2012 in Romney and Obama comes back to win in 2016 or she's a two-term incumbent, Obama's the obvious nominee, and so on.
Outlaw83
3mo ago
There won't be nostalgia for the bad things, just like there's no nostalgia over the Rodney King riots or the OKC bombing, but for the aesthetic, and how it was better for reasons. It'll just be nostalgia for Fortnite, whatever shows on Netflix teens like these days, maybel Marvel, and the styles of the time.
As a side note, nobody was under lockdown for 3 years in the US. I'm in one of the most blue parts of America, and even here, things were fairly normal by summer/fall of 2021 as far as places being open and being able to go to them. Yes, mask mandates were longer and concerts checked for vaccines longer, and you can dislike that, but saying there were three years of gov't lockdown is just a lie.
Outlaw83
4mo ago
I mean, even if this is true, the main reason isn't some evil feminists being in charge, it's that it's far easier to garnish a person's wages than to pay enough people to make sure all visitation rights are followed to the letter. You could put this message board in charge of America, and guess what, you'd still see this.
Outlaw83
4mo ago
No, like JD Vance & Josh Hawley have ideas, too. They're dumb ones, but they do.
But, folks like Tuberville, MTG, Boebert, and the rest of the newly arriving Trumpian Senators and Representatives just don't. Like, at the top of each party, the knowlesge level is similar, bu even the most down the line hacky Democratic politician could tell you a decent amount about their pet policy, whether it's ya' know, health care or child care or taxes or whatever.
Outlaw83
4mo ago
Eh, this whole talk of 80% of men being sexually invisible is incel/PUA bullshit. Again, if you look at actual studies of this stuff, yeah, the top 20% are having a lot more sex, but it's with each other. Which hey, be jealous, but this hasn't really changed since the 60's when the Pill was invented. This idea of some random guy with a six-pack swiping right and banging a a homely girl with a low body count who'd be married to a normal nerdy guy if only society was framed differently, doesn't exist, except in very anecdotal evidence. 80% of people continue to have, I think, less than five partners lifetime and that's both sexes (so in that sense, 80% is invisible, but it's 80% of women too), and if we look at the kind of bad data set of the GSS, the percentage on younger people having sex is back to even between the genders after a few weird years probably caused in part by #MeToo backlash, younger single women being more COVID-averse, and frankly, probably some not great data.
I think what's happened in the middle is what has happened with both genders - there's easy access to entertainment that's better than dealing with a bad match. On the male side, why waste a night going out, buying women drinks, to end up with a girl who will be a dead fish in bed who you're not overly attracted too, than who will still either ghost you or be clingy, when you can play Baldur's Gate for 6 hours, then masturbate to high quality OnlyFans/amateur HD porn of any kink you have. On the female side, why waste going out, getting hit on by a bunch of weirdo and douchey guys, maybe end up going home with somebody who won't try for an orgasm or will only not last that long, and then either be really weirdo clingy or stalker-ish afterwards, when you can just watch six hours of Real Housewives, then pull up some Amazon Kindle smut and get off with a really high-quality sex toy?
As far as the CW goes, Second-tier network that was full of dramas full of pretty people - it was the home of Gossip Girl, Riverdale, all of the DC Comics superhero shows, Supernatural. If you were insanely good-looking but mediocre as an actor, it's where you ended up until recently when many of those shows ended due to a change in ownership. As another example, look at Hallmark Christmas movies - all very pretty people, many of whom are objectivally better looking than many celebrities were in the 70's and 80's, because they all do yoga, don't eat steak five times a week, don't smoke, et al, but they also aren't giant stars, the same way a relatively untalented, but very pretty person like say, Farrah Fawcett was in the 70's.
Outlaw83
8mo ago
I mean, yes, and if that girl is charmed by you at all, she'll have to pretend to care about whatever niche interest you're into. Welcome to normal human relationships.
If you want to be an introvert, the price is, yes, it'll be harder for you to build those initial relationships.
Honestly, a lot of complaints from people in general, but mostly men, when it comes to the dating scene seem to basically be a lot of the time, "I can't act exactly the way I want too, and get exactly what I want." No, but 90% of people in general can't, at least for the person they want.
Outlaw83
1mo ago
Depends on your definition of didn't follow up. Also, it's bad politicking to say, "if we get elected, and a big enough majority, and nothing changes economically, we're going to do x and y." This is true for Republican's and Democrat's - I'm not being partisan here.
Now, do politicians sometimes sign on to various things from pressure groups in a primary, then basically ignore or hope it doesn't come up? Yeah, but again, it's still better than in the past, when politicians were supposedly better. No, there's just more coverage of it than there was in 1986.
Like, personally, as somebody very rare here - a pro-Democratic Party partisan social democrat, I'm basically fine with everything Biden did, as everything he said he'd do, but couldn't was a combination of Manchin & Sinema, or factors outside of his control. Maybe is there stuff at the edges, that lefties on Twitter sometimes claim he'd be able to do, but most of that is wishcasting.
Outlaw83
1mo ago
Sure, but the issue is there's evidence like I pointed out above that's even fallen off - see Trump's small donor donations, etc.
Now, yes, the person still posting about how the 2020 election is stolen, etc. he's obviously showing up, but not all the non-college educated Trump supporters he brought out in 2016 or 2020 are as connected as people assume, and for all the talk of Biden needing every vote, so does Trump. It turns out that you do need money to actually get lower propensity voters to turn out, and the state parties in many places are in state of disaster, Trump's focused on his legal bills, and so on.
Again, Trump could still win. I'm not denying that. But, his mythical ability to turn out non-voters is slightly overrated. Especially if his campaign, instead of being about immigration and closed factories, becomes obsessed with 1/6, his trials, and so on, as appears to be happening with his current speeches.
Outlaw83
3mo ago
I'm going to be blunt here - the reason why there's current nostalgia for the 90's, is that is now the age where middle-aged people were now children. Shockingly, about a decade ago, there was nostalgia for the 80's, including I'm sure paens to how the culture was better then as well, because everybody, even libs, didn't like the Commies or whatever.
Also, as somebody who was alive during the 90's, there were many, many, many, many social conservatives upset about the current state of things at the time, and looked toward the prior generation of pre-11/22/1963, just like the current middle-aged people look to a pre-9/11 age. Oh, wow, groups of people looking back around 30 years to an imagined past. Weird how that continually happens.
There will be people upset about whatever in 2050, who will talk about the 2020's as a golden time. Hell, there was nostalgia for the Depression as people freaked about how teenagers had freedom and such in the late 50's and early 60's.
Outlaw83
4mo ago
Yeah, it's interesting that a lot of people's annoyance with a rematch and politics being dominated by old people will basically be done by 2028 - regardless of your views of any of them, all of the possible 2028 candidates in both parties (except for I guess Trump, if he loses in 2024), are all of normal politician age (40s to 60s), and even Congressional leadership will be younger as Pelosi has been replaced McConnell has been replaced, and there's a decent shot Schumer may retire in 2026, or step back from leadership.
Outlaw83
4mo ago
I mean, as long as there's an agreement on the decline of Western men as well.
What's happened is the end of the middle in both genders. People who would've been, to use the 1-10 scale, many, many 4-7's in 1985, and been perfectly happy either got fat, hooked on Oxy, stopped going outside, got hooked on the Internet or got absolutely ripped/in-shape doing yoga, can do much better makeup/dress better, and so on, and can be seen by more people because of social media. Like in many thing is in life, there's now much less of a middle.
Like, there are random side characters in CW dramas of both sexes that would've been top-tier heartthrobs in 1987.
Outlaw83
4mo ago
Much like poor white Confederate soldiers could've ended the rich planter's war very quickly, Russian conscripts could've ended the oligarch's war very quickly as well.
Any soldier that did not immediately surrender to the first Ukranian he saw, I feel no sympathy for. I'm sure there is a small percentage of soldiers who did legitimately hate service, and got killed before they could do anything, but outside of that, the reality is the same - just as the vast percentage of poor Confederate's preferred the system with rich planters in charge, with African-American's in bondage and aren't victims, the vast majority of Russian soldiers are OK with this war, and want Ukraine back in the Russian fold.
Now, brokering for peace is fine. A cease fire or halting hostilities is not.
Outlaw83
6mo ago
Why do school libraries need explicit sexual material?
There are probably hundreds, if not thousands of books in every single school library with graphic descriptions of physical violence, blood, gore, and destruction. Yet, somehow, reading about two gay people having sex is more explicit? As long as kids can check out a book and read about the aftermath of World War II in Europe, the world won't end if they get some masturbation instructions as well.
Outlaw83
1mo ago
That's the other thing - the most movement is among basically, the exact profile of people most likely to not vote.
As I said, according to Catalist, which is the best voter database showed Biden got 62% in 2020 and Democratic candidates got 62% in 2022 among Hispanics - if that number is 55% or 57% in 2024, would not be a huge shock. I just don't think the polling showing Trump winning Hispanics by 15 or 20 pass the smell test.
But, as been pointed out by many, because of the actual demographic makeup of voters, if Biden does a point better among white voters because college educated whites move even more in his favor as a result of Dobbs and Trump focusing on 1/6 and 2020, that basically evens out, and ironically, probably helps Biden more in the blue wall states of WI, MI, and PA.
Outlaw83
1mo ago
I think the number of women and doctors who would both agree to say, in week 38, to randomly decide to do an abortion is basically zero, and basically all Republican-led abortion restrictions put far too many hoops in front of couples in the middle of the worst moments of their lives, just because of a lack of trust of women, doctors, and random religious beliefs.
As I think I've said before, actual European abortion laws (appx. 15-weeks plus exceptions you can drive a truck through) would probably be fine with a mass majority of the voting public. But, Republican's even when they claim they are, don't actually put forth France-style or German-style abortion laws, so that's led to a massive reversal in support for said 15-week abortion bans (they're now underwater in the US), and much increased support, with 55% noow believe women should be able to get an abortion if the woman wants it for any reason, up from 38% in 2006.
If there was some indication of some large numbers of women having abortions at 37 weeks willy-nilly, my view might be shifted, but even the case people like to trot out - Kermis Gosnell - was mainly women who only went to him, because of restrictions put upon earlier abortions that made it harder for those women to get them then. Obviously, still terrible what he did, but these women were not coming to him at week 37 going, "y'know, baby seems kind of a drag now."
There's a reason 90-something percent of abortion are in the first trimester, and even then, most of those in the 2nd trimester are more, "I didn't have enough money/time to wait out the state-mandated waiting period/etc." than "I decided 4 months in babies are no fun."
Outlaw83
1mo ago
It's easy to say that when you know you'll always be on the side of the 20:1.
Also, I just do think it's true. The smartest left-wing person with immense writing talent could show up here, and honestly, I don't think a single mind would be changed. Now, I know the response to that is, "that's just because progressivism/leftism/wokeism is such a weak ideology, that even a genius-level intellect can argue for it, and the only reason it wins today is the rich, powerful blah blah blah."
No, I think it's because most people here are right-wing. Which is fine to have solid views - God could come down from Earth, say, "actually, all abortion is evil according to your Creator, and all aborted babies end up in Limbo forever" and I'd say, "cool, I don't care. Sounds like you have a shitty ideology." But just admit that, instead of just being, "well, I've heard all the arguments and mine were the most logical and true."
That's the reason I only comment here to put forth the actual left-wing view on stuff, instead of the imagined one, to push back against obviously incorrect stuff, and stuff like this, where it's not really a political issue mostly,
Now, the other thing is, I don't get when it became conservative/right-wing/etc. dogma that liberalism means anybody can say anything anywhere and if you don't want to argue that issue or point, that's censorship and the death of liberalism. Like again, I'm almost middle aged. I've been arguing on the Internet for a long time - even in the early 2000's, there were still TOS and yes, they were maybe more free-wheeling than 2021 in what you thought Twitter was then, and obviously, some politics has shifted, but you could always get banned, and while people may have argued person x didn't deserve a ban, the argument was never, 'banning people is wrong and against free speech,' because even the right-wingers understood there were rules, and if they didn't like the rules, the door was over there. If mods went too far, obviously there'd be a mass dispersal, but the secret was, in most cases, most people who got banned deserved it.
I know the response will be 4chan and it's antecedents, but 4chan was always the place for edgy losers who couldn't follow the relatively loose standards of the Internet, and the fact the young Right is basically all 4-chan adjacent is probably why all decent youth polling still shows them as overwhelmingly left-leaning, because the alternative is the people who were seen as edgy weirdos in 2004, let alone 2024.
That's why even though I dislike it, I'm fine with Elon changing the rules on Twitter/X. Now, he's currently paying the price for it, because it turns out people don't like 'nudes in bio' bot responses, and all the other stuff that has bubbled up, but it's his house, his rules, as long as he's not breaking any other laws. Now, the way he has happily limited the free speech rights of certain groups when certain governments come calling makes him a hypocrite, but that's another story.
Outlaw83
1mo ago
Hey, as a leftie social democratic, I'm happy the right now seems to think they can win elections without money, without state parties, running specifically on things normies despise or think is highly weird, all depending on the greatest racial realignment in American political history since the Civil Rights Act, that has not shown up in any actual elections, including in 2022.
Again, Trump can win.
But, as I said, I firmly believe a Biden 54-45 win where the bottom falls out of the college educated vote for the GOP, and the non-white basically stays stable or drifts to Trump by a point or two, but also, the non-college educated vote for Trump also falls, ironically, in part due to some of the restrictions against mail-in voting passed in GOP-controlled purple and light-blue states, is more likely than a Trump win that's more than 2016 redux.
Outlaw83
1mo ago
I guarantee you that almost every swing Tory-Labour in the UK, Liberal-Conservative in Canada, or Labour-National in the New Zealand hasn't suddenly decided COVID policies were the wrong way to go.
They think, "it was good we got checks and didn't go crazy like the American's did opening up so soon, but bad prices rose."
Meanwhile, part of the reason, outside of general two party dominance that despite his current not great approval ratings, Biden is still outpacing most other incumbent world leaders is because regardless of what the Right and Left both think, the economy is currently the best in the world and inflation is amongst the lowest.
He is a public figure, due to the coverage of what happened. Like, I'm sure there were parodies, TV films, and episodes of TV based off Scott & Laci Peterson. Those were not public figures initially either, and I'm sure not all of the above took great care, but they were OK. Ironically, if the right-wing press hadn't made such a martyr out of him, there'd be a slightly better case. Not enough to do anything about it, as 1st Amendment laws are fairly clear about this.
Sure, but if those parties had done what people here would've wanted on the pandemic, they would've likely lose elections in the 2020/2021 era, so at worst, they got three extra years in power, so they got to do what they likely thought was right, get celebrated for it politically, but then they lost as all politicians do.
Like, I know parts of this site likes to engage in conspiratorial-type thinking, but in reality, most politicians actually say and do what they believe on the big stuff. Poltiicians are actually far more honest today in 2024, worldwide, than they ever have been in history, because there's more feedback loops than anytime in history.
If you were a random Dixiecrat from North Carolina in 1966, you could go to DC, actually work well with your African-American colleagues in the Democratic party, vote for big-time spending bills that pushed a lot of money to inner cities, but also your district, then go back to your district, say some race-baiting stuff in some speeches, go to the opening of the bridge you got money for, slam the spending in Harlem, and easily win reelection, because nobody cares about a random House race in North Carolina.
Now, for good and ill, no politician can really pull that two step.
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