pingveno

I'd like to see Idiocracy cited a lot less often, given that a good chunk of the plot boils down to eugenics from wealth (poor people had lots of kids, rich people stopped having kids).

Sex strikes have been used more recently as well to end gang conflicts, wars, and other violence.

During the Trump presidency, I read a book entitled "They Thought They Were Free: The Germans, 1933-45". In it, a journalist gives an account of his interviews with people who had been rank-and-file members of the Nazi Party in Nazi Germany. It really is remarkable what similarities there are.

There are some things that I think will keep the US safe, at least for now. One is that Trump himself is old and will slow down soon. The other thing is that Hitler came to power against democratic institutions that were much, much weaker and younger than what the US has. The Weimar Republic had been established just 15 years prior, whereas the US has had a continuous government for nearly 250 years.

Trump or anyone trying to follow in his stead simply has a lot more in their way. Of course, that's no reason for complacency.

The inflation will be yuge!

The only people who had those pagers were Hezbollah members. Hezbollah has been lobbing missiles into Israel, killing civilians including children and forcing an evacuation. They picked a fight, why should there be an expectation that Israel just sits back and takes it? Don't get me wrong about Gaza, they have gone way too far there. But Hezbollah seems at least somewhat justified.

A lot of what you're listing off is more a symptom of Harris entering the race so late. She's barely had the time to put together a campaign, let alone flesh out a real policy platform. That usually takes a long time, especially given that she has to show some level of independence from Biden while also

no healthcare reform mostly just give aways to insurance companies through tax credits.

What type of healthcare reform are you referring to? I don't think that anything terribly drastic is really going to happen within the foreseeable future. The Democrats burned a 60-40 majority in the Senate just to get the ACA, a relatively modest reform, through Congress. Something like single payer does poll well... until you remind people that there's no free lunch.

no minimum wage increase

She supports an increase to $15/hour, but that was pretty recent.

wont commit to keeping kahn the most effective FTC chair in more than 4 decades.

I won't defend her here, she should have the courage to tell her tech allies that she's not going to topple Kahn.

wont commit to supporting striking workers.

I'm not exactly sure what this means. The Biden administration has strengthened labor's hand on the NLRB, which marked a significant difference from the Trump administration. Are you referring to the railroad strike of 2022?

no mandated PTO/Sick leave for workers.

What left wing people are really telling you:

I would be fine if that was what everyone was actually saying, but I hear a lot of people encouraging not voting or voting third party this cycle.

let your reps know that your vote is at risk if the genocide continues post election. and then follow through in the next cycle.

Politicians are trying to paste together a winning coalition. That's why you'll see Kamala's platform roughly representing the center-left, that is a winning platform for a general election. The problem with having a hard line non-mainstream view on something like the Israel-Palestine conflict is that playing hard to get will only get you so far. If your opinion isn't supported by the majority, it's very, very hard to get a politician's support.

In the context of the US, it most certainly is. Other places, maybe not so much.

There are also some great ways to get written off by the Democratic Party. Frequently not voting or voting third party makes for an unreliable constituency. No politician is going to pay a group that plays hard to get much heed. But for a constituency that turns out and works to turn out others, they're going to be all ears. There's a reason causes championed by Black women always feature fairly heavily in the Democratic Party platform. They really punch above their weight.

All politicians meet with lobbyists. It's hard to get a handle on the needs of the nation (or state, or so on), and lobbying is how people inform their representatives of that need. Now whether those lobbyists are scumbags or saints, that's a different question.

I've heard it's also fairly easy to do security for.

Politician, perhaps. But I'm going to have to put a spotlight on Jonathan Mitchell, who came up with the structure behind the Texas Heartbeat Bill, which did an end run around judicial review by allowing enforcement via civil action by damn near anyone. The usual way to legally dispute a potentially unconstitutional law is to sue the government officials that enforce it, but because there wasn't a specific person there was no real way to bring it to the judicial branch.

Yup, can't get rid of someone like Trump if enough of the population is either willing or eager to go along with him.