JubilantJaguar

It was never popular even in France, for a simple reason: the week became 10 days but the weekly rest day was still only 1.

Of course you're entitled to your view but I consider that an egregiously cynical take, not to mention a bit convoluted and with a hint of conspiracism. The fact remains that the Republicans are offering more money to them, up front, now, so the simplest explanation is that they are motivated by higher ideals than just money.

Donors, who add to that lack of understanding an explicitly hostile attitude to anything left-wing if it will cost them or their clients money

If that is their only concern why are they not supporting the party that wants to tax them less?

Vocabulary is loaded. The words "rich" and "poor" conflate munificence with success or happiness. When we see an injured animal and say, "That poor creature!", we are obviously not talking about its bank account. By the same token, being short of money is a problem but it absolutely does not make you a "failure".

Same experience. And it's a shame.

And yet I've found that, occasionally, after I brace myself for the blowback, instead there comes a thoughtful reply which assumes good faith. It's those occasions which keep me coming back.

All the people here saying, "Just block them" - personally I just can't help suspecting that these are the same people who themselves are insulting and abusing others, who in turn are saying "Just block them".

The solution is not that everyone blocks everyone else. The solution is that we behave civilly and respectfully to each other.

IIRC a quarter of the Republican ad spending was on that single ad, "The Democrats are for 'they/them', Trump is for YOU". It was that effective.

I don't care much who is right morally. America's culture wars are almost an irrelevance to me as a foreigner. I care because it's skewing American elections. Trump is about to pull out of the climate accord and it will be partly because of this. That is just a crazy situation. You guys need to turn down the temperature. On the Democrat side that means less moralizing and hectoring because it is very visibly driving the other side crazy. It's not worth it.

In polls and focus groups, the voters themselves say otherwise.

If you tell Americans outside cosmopolitan cities they must declare themselves publicly as "cis het" or else they're a bigot (I caricature but only slightly), then you should expect to lose elections.

And American elections tend to affect other people in the world. That's why lots of us wish you would let up a bit on this nonsense.

That's an interesting take. Declaring one's pronouns as a way to announce one's presence (or not) in a dating pool. Okay, but personally I doubt that's the main driver. After all, in the internet era, finding one's tribe is as easy as two taps on a screen. Gay guys can now have as much sex as they want without any third party even knowing, as you must be aware. I certainly am, indeed I speak from experience. So this phenomenon of needing to wear jargon and pronouns on one's sleeve, I think it has other causes, mainly.

You seem like a likeable person who's trying to the do the right thing.

Personally, I would prefer a world where people did not feel obliged by social pressure to announce such details about the minutiae of their private lives. I would prefer that individuals saw themselves first and foremost as individuals and not as representatives of this or that group of (supposed) oppressor or (supposed) victim. This whole situation looks to me transparently like the result of overreach by an advocacy class that needed to find a problem that it could solve. IMO most people are not, and never have been, bigots. They're usually nice folks trying to do the right thing, like you. And it feels to me like they are being manipulated.

I'm hearing lots to vituperation and, well, anger but no actual plans about how to solve any of this. If you're advocating a bloody revolution, then fine, but that will be the end of this conversation. Otherwise you have no choice but to engage in the democratic process. And that will mean a choice between compromising with your fellow citizens or losing elections. There is no alternative. If you keep asking for what they don't want, and they are in the majority, then you will keep losing. It's that simple.