Do you blame Trump or the democrats who force candidates like Harris or Clinton as choices? The blame lies just as much with those who have an entirely unpopular view of how the country should function, forcing those in the middle to Trump/etc.
Of course, much of this is due to continued polarization, notably in cities where socialism has grown popular and in the rural areas, where MAGA is rampant.
Clinton, who won the majority of votes or Harris who in a few months forced Trump to a plurality win?
Both were admittedly weak and forced, but Clinton would have won had any one of number of factors been different, and Harris walked into a tire fire and wasn’t the right candidate no matter what.
Democrats certainly need to field a better slate, but the fact people voted for self immolation can’t be attributed to a lesser of two evils argument - because Trump was never a compelling leader, and he has never been popular - hence his inability to ever secure a majority and operating the two most unpopular presidencies in modern history. He was voted into power by people who were sold on “at least he’s different,” which is more of an idiocratic solution to the current politic than anything else.
The answer is as the article says, it’s both national suicide and murder by the administration. There is no point in second guessing it, a technical victory and a plurality chose a national policy of global stupidity, taking a wrecking ball to the complex international system.
The hope I hold is this weakens the presidency irrevocably as Congress takes control again and places the executive in its proper functionary role. It’s abdication over history as Washingtonian presidents set a higher and higher bar of relative trustworthiness was fraught and stupid, and is IMO the actual manifestation of exceptionalism. And we f’ed around and found out, as MAGA is so fond of.
Nope. Just people who want candidates who can beat terrible people like Trump. It really isn't that hard. Biden did it.
We live in a two party system. Winning elections is important. Fielding left-wing candidates with no accomplishments makes Trump happen. It's not that complicated.
>Fielding left-wing candidates with no accomplishments makes Trump happen. It's not that complicated.
Hillary Clinton was Secretary of State and a Senator from New York, while Kamala Harris was a District Attorney and Attorney General, and then Senator for California before serving as Vice President.
Also only in the fetid delirium of Republicans and Trumpists are either of them even remotely left-wing.
The typical American views a businessman who built (and lied and stole) a company as more experienced than senator who signs mostly bills that rename post offices.
The Democrats continue to insist that this isn't the case. And keep losing.
So the typical American, when selecting for a political job, holds a man with no political experience but who was so corrupt and inept as a businessman he managed to bankrupt a casino in higher esteem than candidates with actual success and experience in the field selected for?
Fine. The typical American is an idiot and they get what they deserve, then.
>The Democrats continue to insist that this isn't the case. And keep losing.
It shouldn't be the case, the Democrats are correct (at least about that, although I suspect they never actually "insisted" on anything of the sort,) Kamala Harris and Hillary Clinton were more qualified than Trump and deserved to win, and I hope this whole clownshow of a country burns to the ground.
I leave the floor to you, matchbok3. I've exposed myself to Hacker News for too long and I need time in the screaming box.
Given a choice between Trump and Clinton, or Trump and Harris, the best choice is extremely obvious. A sack of pet rocks would do better than either Clinton or Harris. That doesn't mean Trump would do better than them.
Nothing demonstrates more how the Verge has veered into la-la land leftism than this article. This new advanced technology stopped some criminals from carrying a gun and probably killing someone and this article basically anti-waymo claptrap.
The sanctimonious arrogance from the left is a thrill to read about.
From a simple thing, the downside of covid lockdowns are not about missing your favorite restaurants or a "haircut" or some other casual hobby. It was the difference between working and getting money to feed your kids and not doing that. Because believe it or not, some people have to go do real work everyday.
You, as a member of the laptop class, simply have no idea what that is about. Saying people should be locked down, even when we have vaccines/treatments for something comparable to the flu is embarrassing.
There are many, many examples of left-wing ideology causing harm to researchers, professors, and the like. If you are in academia, you must submit to the left-wing group think or you will be cast away. Literally takes 10 seconds to research.
Sorry, nobody serious actually thinks the lockdowns were too short. Only the laptop class who were insulated from the economic effects. Once the vaccines were available there was no rational purpose for any lockdown. Even authoritarian China had to relent once it was proven they simply don't work.
People who post lot on hacker news during the work day aren't "working class", nor do their politics align with a low/middle income worker, at all. This is like the DSA claiming they are fighting for the "working class". It's laughable.
What fantasy world is this in which a government is able to keep every human locked in their house for 5 years? What are you smoking lol.
As someone who struggles with my position on some of these topics, one of my major self criticisms/fear is the tyranny of the majority. Even if (and that's a hypothetical if) my values would reject transgenderism, my values of freedom and fairness conflict with forcing another human being onto a specific path, especially with the use of force (government). So even if 90% are cisgendered (I didnt look up the real stat), that doesn't mean we vote to make our world cisgendered... A right and fair leaning is to create the freedoms we'd want if the tables were turned.
I say this all to say it surprises me how many republicans I know are pro freedom until it hits certain topics... Pro 2A and anti-(an adult can choose a different hormonal profile for their own body) is an odd pairing in my mind. Pro free-speach like Alex Jones / Citizens united but anti-(choosing to wear clothes or other adornments/appearance of the other gender) is an odd pairing in my mind.
The number of people abject enough to end up with transphobic views is thankfully nowhere near that. Most people, as it turns out, are not creepily obsessed with other people's genitals. Most people also aren't driven by a horrible urge to find minorities to torment. Though those who are would sure claim otherwise, of course; trying to normalize their awfulness is part of the playbook.
Yeah, I don't get this. If they're niche irrelevant issues that affect ~nobody, why not just concede them? Republicans could hardly dominate the discourse with these topics if there was nobody to discourse against.
This isn't a fight we can avoid by retreating. They would just advance and the same battle would happen on different ground. If we abandon the trans, the culture wars will be about the gays. If we abandon the gays, the culture wars will be about blacks or hispanics or jews or god only knows. There's something to be said for picking firm ground to fight on, but there will be a fight and it cannot be won by retreating.
Why am I being interpreted as advocating for abandoning the trans? I don't want to do that and I don't need to be convinced by my empathy for gays or blacks- I care about trans people themselves! I'm saying if an issue doesn't matter- according to the trans people in this thread- and it's a losing issue, why are we insistent on fighting it anyway? Who benefits from this?
Hmm, yes, I see that and that the person I was responding to is getting read the same way, but not clear why that's the case. We're both in this conversation under [1]. The sports issue is the one that's 90/10 [2], while the bathroom one is maybe in the neighborhood of 60/40 [3]- I do think there is a chance of winning ground on the latter and should have been more specific. But nobody is saying there's 90/10 in favor of transphobia- a substantial majority views trans people favorably[3].
> Yeah, I don't get this. If they're niche irrelevant issues that affect ~nobody, why not just concede them?
Because there's about 1% of people who are trans in the US [1] and most other populations, on top of that come a further about 1.7% people who are somewhere on the intersex spectrum [2].
Democrats aren't willing to throw literally millions of people under the bus. Republicans aren't just willing to cast them aside - they are knowingly driving trans people to extinction.
But this is not throwing millions of people under the bus. At least according to this thread, there are fewer trans women in sports than bills stopping them. If this issue does represent throwing literally millions of people under the bus- driving them to extinction-, why are you saying upthread that it's niche and irrelevant?
Bostock affirmed core civil rights to transgender people in housing, employment, etc. The fights now are about other things (not "rights") and as such, are much more unpopular. In fact, a majority of people, even on the right, support the core rights affirmed by Bostock.
> In fact, a majority of people, even on the right, support the core rights affirmed by Bostock.
A majority of people support wage hikes [1], anti-trust laws [2], higher taxes for the rich [3], at least a general responsibility of the government for healthcare insurance [4] and even a full or barely restricted right to abortions of pregnancies [5].
But neither of this gets done despite bipartisan support, because Republican megadonors and their networks heavily keep the GOP in line. And for trans people, it's the same. The anti-trans rhetoric in the GOP gets pushed primarily by Evangelical influence groups, the rest of the GOP does not care, and neither do the voters.
Because then they'll move on to the next victims and in having surrendered without even a fight you've granted them momentum for no good reason whatsoever, and you'll have fewer allies left too.
Is there a reason to believe this is how things work? Rather than "within a democracy as long as 'trans rights' means something that most people disagree with, it will be harder to advance the pro- side of the issue"? Is there evidence of 'momentum' being a real thing in politics, as opposed to the 'pendulum' that I've witnessed over the last decade?
Everything related to the right wing and fox news? We never had a big "swing left" - clinton was the democrats showing they can do economic conservatism as well. Modern acceptance of trans folks isn't a pendulum, most of the people espousing anti-trans views weren't pro trans 5 years ago.
Trying to abstract history into major shifts that are attributable to inanimate objects is just very ludic fallacy.
I'm confused by this. Are you saying that everything related to the right wing and fox news is evidence that momentum is a good model or that trying to model history with momentum is fundamentally fallacious? If the former, you've really got to be more specific- was firing Tucker Carlson evidence for momentum somehow? Did Republicans conceding gay marriage or Trump conceding abortion give Democrats momentum?
Sorry for being confusing, I was saying the latter - that these are reducing history to some game that can be understand with rules when it is nothing like that.
If you go back 15 years or so, you hear the exact same "concerns" about gay people pretty much word for word. Now that they're no longer an acceptable target for most people, they've moved on to regurgitating the same baseless fear mongering but targeted towards trans people. If society manages to progress further, they'll eventually come up with another group to serve as the "other" that they can blame everything on.
Years and years of dependence on the US for financial, technology, and military advancement + protection has come to this. Happy to see they are waking up, but is it too late? Will their nonsense labor laws curtail such developments? Only time will tell.
Those "nonsense labor laws" are immensely popular. They aren't so nonsensical either, they've served Europe as well as the alternatives have. And, given how few jobs are in the DC build or operate phase, I don't see how they are relevant anyway: if AI is net jobs positive, they will be good jobs on European terms and if AI is jobs negative then the labour laws are irrelevant.
What % of people replace a battery over the lifespan of an item? Does the increased complexity and size of the unit make up for the slightly longer lifespan? What makes it "better" for the environment, exactly when it all ends up in a landfill after 5 years anyway?
Of course, much of this is due to continued polarization, notably in cities where socialism has grown popular and in the rural areas, where MAGA is rampant.
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