Outlaw83
11mo ago
Here's the thing - as a left-winger, I agree there's wasteful spending in the federal government and bad regulations. We might even agree, if we went line by line on some. But obviously, there's a lot we would disagree on.
But, what I would agree too is a commission with equal numbers of liberal, libertarian, conservative, and left-wing economists. Of the regulations or spending, if a supermajority of all four groups agree a regulation or spending line on the federal budget is inefficient, they all go to an immediate up or down vote in both the House & Senate immediately after the end of the commission, if a supermajority of three out of the four agree, it's put forth in the pertinent committees, etc.
Outlaw83
10mo ago
Except some currently high skill American residents are the descendants of low skill immigrants and refugees. If you actually want long-term dynamism and growth, you actually have to roll the dice on people without the right papers and hope for the best. Worked pretty well the first 250 years or so.
Outlaw83
1yr ago
I mean, this is how minorities of all kinds have eventually grown their public support, even as people opposed to it are upset - by being parts of various communities, big and small. In a world without an hierarchical society imposed on-high from either an authoritarian government or religion, it turns out continued interactions with people different from you tend to make you friendlier to that group of people.
The big jump that eventually causes the loss of widespread opposition to a minority groups isn't "I love these group of people and embrace them" grows to a majority, it's "I met x, they're a y, and they're fine, so you're weird for being so freaked out" grows to a majority.
That's why even among Trump voters, their actually less harsh on immigration than even some centrist Europeans, because they've grown in a far more multicultural society than most Europeans have.
Outlaw83
9mo ago
There's literally a whole society of conservative lawyers. There are indeed plenty of Federalist Society lawyers out there. They likely didn't take the case for the same reason there were people in Trump's White House telling him he lost the election.
Beyond that, the main reason it seems like Trump has had issues keeping good lawyers pre-President is just like in the rest of his business dealings, he's terrible at actually paying people.
Outlaw83
9mo ago
Easier mail-in voting + COVID meaning there was literally nothing to do except get sucked into politics.
Outlaw83
11mo ago
I mean, any resident of Pennsylvania, Georgia, Michigan, Arizona, or in past elections, Florida & Ohio can tell you that TV stations have no problems taking anybodies political ads and running them.
As far as memes go, I thought with Musk in charge, X was now the land of free speech where the true non-restricted views of the people can run free.
Outlaw83
10mo ago
I mean, I'd actually bet that in 2024, the life of say, a 19-year old female psychology major at a mid-tier state school (aka, the average American college student) is actually less hedonistic in many ways the median non-college educated 19-year old in the United States, working a low wage job.
Also, well I'd question the actual type of person you described actually has the qualities you describe of if it's all anecdotal just-so stories based on cultural preference, the reality is by time those rural farm kids hit 40, it's extremely likely the supposedly hedonistic college kids are ahead of them by every standard that matters, including a lot of hedonistic measures, outside of those that increasingly smaller amounts of social conservatives care about deeply - ie. how many kids you have.
Now, I do think in reality, the actual best preforming person is probably the type of person much of this comment section would despise - a serious female high school athlete who goes to college but stops playing athletics and ends up being the type of corporate girlboss that has her eggs frozen at 40, but is married and successful economically, and indeed, probably doesn't have much of a hedonistic life unless not having as many children as you can is now considered hedonistic.
Outlaw83
11mo ago
Sure, because ironically, the 'moderate Republican' was really an Obama-era Democrat who would've actually won by a wider margin if she had stayed as a Democrat, but I legitimately think didn't understand the Top 2 voting system in Washington, so thought she had to run as a Republican to be in the general. Like, if she'd just been the normal Democrat she basically was, she could've won with 65% of the vote instead of allowing said police abolitionist to run as the only Democrat in the race, and probably getting the votes of plenty of low-info normie voters.
Like I said, voters will vote for tough on crime Democrat's, but they're not going to vote for Guiliani-style Republican's as long as crime is still far below 90's levels.
Outlaw83
8mo ago
There has been noticing, if you wanted to notice.
There was a recent poll showing Trump only up by 5 in Kansas, in the polling no matter the result Kamala has been consistently doing better among white voters than even Biden, and in general, the Blue Wall state have been holding up better than Arizona, Nevada, and Georgia.
Now, I, a party hack social democratic Democrat don't actually think Kamala is up by 3. But, if it's off by let's say 150% of Selzer's worst result ever in the past basically 20 years - 5 points. So, let's say 7.5 points.
A Trump +4.5 in Iowa would be disastrous., as personally in a busy election-related Discord, Trump +5 was our hope for the poll.
Outlaw83
10mo ago
I mean, to be fair, it's easy to be cheap when the kid has no real personality or interests yet.
Outlaw83
11mo ago
He just called in via phone during Kamala's first speech in Wilmington. Ironically, sounds the best he has since the SOTU.
Outlaw83
11mo ago
No, it's even easier - Kamala can say she's prosecuted sex criminals and frauds like Trump before, and no, the Willie Brown attack is not going to work outside of the Republican base.
However, if you want suburban women to vote 75-25 for Harris, then go ahead and do that attack.
Outlaw83
1yr ago
I mean, here's the issue for the far-right - there is majority support for their harsh treatment of immigrants (and I say that openly as a dirty soft hearted liberal), but even in Europe, the far-right is dominated by weirdoes and people with reactionary social views people don't want to vote for.
An actual successful anti-immigration party would be basically be moderate to center-left or center-right on most issues, while also being wildly far-right on immigration, but of course, most of the people who deeply care about immigration are also right-wing on other issues.
Outlaw83
10mo ago
Freedom from consequences is axiomatically harmful to human actualization and that's half our politics.
Again, people say this, but all of society is basically to find "freedom from consequences" whether it's penicillin, germ theory, or better ways to keep a building warm or cold. You just don't like this way of a avoiding a consequence. You take antibiotics? Why are you trying to avoid the consequence of dying of a minor cold like millions, if not billions of people had to do for the entire history of the world until incredibly recently?
Outlaw83
10mo ago
I mean, I guarantee there were parts of the country that accelerated a similar rate, when you account for a much bigger immigration wave nationally.
But putting that aside, once you're in the United States, you're allowed to live where you can get housing. That's it. The community doesn't get a veto.
Outlaw83
10mo ago
I mean, one should be able to look at the crime rate of Springfield, Ohio over the next few years and see if things shift that much. Of course, history shows that at least w/ the first generation of immigrants, crime is likely to go down.
Outlaw83
10mo ago
Yeah, Detroit had a bad run with a combination of the capitalistic incompetence of the Big Three ownership + corrupt leadership + the general Sun Belt migration.
Meanwhile, the vast majority of the most economically dynamic and innovative and growing regions of the US are far more diverse, with the places that are less diverse mostly slowly dying out. This includes red states too - Houston, Miami (weird how the amount of Haitians wasn't a worry for all the VCers and blockchainers a few years ago), etc. There aren't a ton of super-white areas of the country with massive growth. Even a place like Nashville is diversifying as it grows.
Outlaw83
2yr ago
When it comes to stats like this, I think people are missing two obvious possibilities -
1.) The data is just bad
2.) Men and women's definition of relationship are different. So, yes, the dude that has a FWB he smokes pot with and watches Netflix before having sex isn't a relationship, but she isn't dating anybody else, and they hang out regularly so...
Also, he whole "they're all dating older men" argument could be figured out, by just looking at the data, because if it's true the women are just dating older, there'd eventually be gaps between men and women, where men would have the advantage. I'm going to guess that the worry all the 33 year olds are dating the 22 year olds isn't really true. Some 26 year olds might be, but that's been what happens even in the 90's.
Hell, in 1993, I'd actually bet more 18 year old high school senior girls had sex with adult males than in 2023.
Outlaw83
10mo ago
It made it much worse among a very small segment of people who became obsessed with it, as opposed to being front-page news the day after it was found.
Outlaw83
11mo ago
Because J.D. Vance's weirdness, whether it's banning abortion, attacking childless women, and the various stuff included in Project 2025 and so on is something median voters care about. They don't care about transgender issues or whatever the Culture War issue of the day really is, as the 2022 midterms showed, when even GOP voters put it at the bottom of their concerns.
Transgender issues are very important to Republican's and centrists who still live in deep blue cities or your typical reactionary Christian's who hate all social liberalism, but the median swing voter in Wisconsin doesn't give a damn, whether they do end up voting for Trump or Kamala in the end, and actually, focusing on transgender issues as your comeback will just make you look more weird.
The median voter's view is, "look, I don't get it, but why are you so obsessed with it, weirdo?"
Outlaw83
9mo ago
It was easier to convict J6 people for the same reason it's easier to convict people who then livestream talking about how they just held up a liquor store.
Outlaw83
9mo ago
Yes, if you have a good lawyer and good argument, it would've gotten past one of the dozens of judges, including Trump-appointed ones. One or two, OK, a grand left-wing conspiracy. But, every single election lawsuit failed because there was nothing there when it came to actual evidence, as opposed to some very well-made strings on cork board.
Again, why if the elections were so obviously stolen in 2020, is Kari Lake the only person to say her election was stolen in 2022? Even in states where no changes to the law were made. Did the Democrat's not steal them this time, after stealing them in 2020?
Outlaw83
9mo ago
It's very interesting how the belief in meritocracy falls away when advocating for Low Human Capital beliefs like election denial. Why can't people who think Biden stole the election live by the same laws I do, when it comes to civil lawsuits? If you can't prove standing, either you have a terrible case or a terrible lawyer.
Outlaw83
1yr ago
So, there was some talk in this thread (or the previous one) about why the Israel/Palestine issue is such a big one in progressive circles, as opposed to country x, y, or z. Well, there were some decent historical and cultural explanations, I think one reason that really didn't get brought up is because there's actual disagreement within the wider left-leaning coalition is why there's more fire, on both sides.
So, as an actual progressive Democratic partisan, let me explain a bit.
Putting aside actual tankies or the 11 Lieberman Democrats left, if you put the median Bernie & the median Biden primary voter in 2020, and had them talk foreign policy, there would be wide agreement - Iraq was a mistake, we were in Afghanistan too long, Russia is bad and Ukraine needs our defense, but American foreign policy has been too hawkish in general, and so on. So, there's no spice, outside of the occasional Twitter dunk of somebody who had a bad take on Iraq in 2004, but even that's kind of hackish and old news to most Democratic voters at this point.
But, there would be actual disagreement on Israel & Palestine, especially if both sides were intelligent median voters because it's an actual complicated issue. At the moment, polling shows the median Democratic voter view is along the lines of, "the Israeli government are a-holes, Hamas is terrible, and the hostages need to be released, but Jesus, the IDF seems to be going overboard on this, and oh yeah, the surrounding governments are full of instigators."
Now, the more progressive voter would be more harsh on the Israeli government, more friendly to the Palestinian population, and so on, but the polling that showed 50/50 support for Israel vs Hamas among younger voters, was likely bad polling. The reason why Democratic views used to be more pro-Israel, is because the Israeli population used to reflect a more liberal view of the conflict, and now it really doesn't, plus wider changes in the makeup of the Democratic coalition.
Finally, the "but Palestinians have bad views on x, why do you support them," is a bad argument, because as progressives, we believe even terrible have the right to vote, and self-government. Only letting people with the right views (or the right amount of land ownership) is the reactionary view. Now, if said Palestinian government passes anti-LGBT laws or whatever, then we'll treat them like we do other countries with no leverage on us - sanctions and such until they embrace the loving arms of deviancy, or whatever.
In the long run, if this is all old news by Election Day 2024, it'll likely be forgotten, and more importantly, the vast majority of even young SJW left-wing Democratic voters are self-centered voters, like 95% of all voters, and will be reminded that Trump wants to put more reactionaries on the court, cut taxes for rich people, limit trans right, etc, make student loan payments higher, et al, and vote accordingly. I'd make a $1 bet w/ anybody here, that as long as the Israeli situation is basically back to some form of status quo, there will be no real movement of the youth vote, or a lack of turnout, beyond the lack of turnout there always is.
After all, Gretchen Whitmer actually lost ground among Muslim voters in 2022 in her re-election campaign (probably due to LGBT issues), but won by wider margin. Which is the only real trouble spot for the Biden team in 2024, since they literally do not care if some college-educated 2nd gen Muslim immigrant in Los Angeles doesn't vote.
Standard Disclaimer: Yes, lots of people are dumb, and will have simple reasons, and weird views.
The people who will stop Chinese hypersonic missiles will be, and I am only slightly being hyperbolic, are trans furry military members in some bunker in Nevada piloting drones or other military gear, not some guy who signed up for reasonable reasons like access to college or career training or the darker reasons.
We already saw this in Ukraine - lots of hype over the true non-woke military, and it's regularly getting shredded by missiles that are largely being guided by a they/them army.
The actual thing that'll probably stop Chinese hypersonic missiles is a combination of they probably don't really exist in the way that anti-woke people hype them up online in the obsessive way they tend too, a corrupt Chinese procurement process that makes the US process look clean and normal, and the fact we've probably got stuff we're working on that we don't have to hype up the way the Chinese do to look strong.
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