Said another way, I think a young Jimmy Carter type candidate would have wiped the floor with either side this election.
they are there and they always run the show - all else as always just smoke&mirrors
In what way? If anything, Democrats have moved to the right on topics like border control and immigration, and haven't really moved strongly to either side on social issues like abortion or drugs, on education, gun control, campaign finance, trade, healthcare, or foreign policy.
> Democrats have moved to the right on topics like border control and immigration
Yes, because it's become such an apparent clusterfk they had no choice but to. It's not much different than a child covered in Nutella, with Nutella all over the table and floor telling their parents maybe no more Nutella. It wasn't a policy shift, it's attempting to save face. To this day some areas are claiming to be sanctuary and will fight it all.
Trans issues. Men in women's sports, tampons in men's bathrooms. Sex ed in elementary school? Kid's books about gay or trans parents and sex. Kids on puberty blockers? All would seem insane to Carter democrats.
DEI. BLM. Affirmative action The whole equity explanation and movement. To my knowledge, they still want reparations, which are hugely unpopular.
Economy. UBI? The whole antiwork movement? The open rise of communists/socialists in citizens.
Biden and Kamala are pretty far right of the left, as many pointed out. It doesn't mean the left as a whole isn't moving further left.
Maybe to leftists things feel like they are moving right, but they absolutely aren't. The candidates representing them, poorly, are trying to salvage any votes they can and shy away from the movement of the members at large because they know they're not popular.
Trump is in many ways the same. Well, I have no idea what he is, he's a smooth talker and probably far to the left of whatever the MAGA movement is. Which is itself moving continually to the extreme right, to some fanfare.
People will probably link to some enlightened centrist meme. I don't care. I don't think I'm smarter or know policy better than anyone. I mostly want to be left alone, and draw ideas from both sides. I think the base for each is moving further apart. I don't care if it's downvoted, don't tell me my own eyes deceive me.
Edit: Please don't waste energy telling me why I'm wrong. I'm used to it. I likely won't read it. Read the end of the last paragraph again.
In particular, "Comments should get more thoughtful and substantive, not less, as a topic gets more divisive."
I'd meant to indicate I was answering a question without interest in further political debate, but it came across very dismissive. Apologies.
I’m not even American but just making a note as an outside observer.
I guess in hindsight they weren't even necessarily stating their positions on these things (although I think the way some of it is talked about is revealing).
Honestly I don't even know that I disagree that the left has moved left, but I don't think I'd express it without some major caveats, because politics feels very convoluted right now.
Generally, I think id agree that the democratic parties positions haven't shifted much and that there's a greater visibility of things I'd consider far left, but I don't know to what degree these are just shifts in visibility and how closely tied the party is to the base, vs which are actually tied to underlying changes in views.
Having said that, age-appropriate sex ed in elementary school (e.g. talking about bodily autonomy and consent) is actually a good idea, since children at that age are often victims of sexual abuse and don't understand exactly what is happening to them.
And if you genuinely get bent out of shape about tampons in mens bathrooms, I'm really happy for you. Your life must be genuinely amazing that something so meaningless even warrants being mentioned as a point of contention. Personally, as somebody who sometimes purchases tampons for his wife, it seems at best marginally useful, and at worst completely irrelevant to me.
The economy topic is hardly a left-wing issue. People on the right cheered for Luigi just as much as people on the left, because they're suffering just as much, or more. What is happening here is not the left moving to the left, it's poor people being disenfranchised and reacting to it. This is also a major reason why Trump got elected: people have so little trust in the current system that they'd rather vote for somebody who promises to break it, than for somebody who promises to improve it.
I'm not sure what exactly you mean by "communists/socialists", since those two words have been stripped of all meaning in the US.
"It wasn't a policy shift, it's attempting to save face"
You're just using different words, but you're saying the same thing I did: it's a shift to the right. It's also dumb and counterproductive, because immigration is not the source of people's problems, and curtailing immigration in the way it is currently being done will only make things worse, but that is besides the point.
The idea of "gender identity" as based on a subjective inner sense of self, and that "gender identity" must supersede sex, fundamentally reframes a core characteristic of the entire human population.
When implemented in law and policy, this affects everyone.
The impact is mostly on women and girls, for whom female-only spaces are essential for their safety and dignity. Allowing any man who says he's a women into such spaces undermines the very reason they exist in the first place, and effectively destroys them.
This isn't progress; it harms women and girls. It shouldn't be a surprise why so many people are against such changes being imposed.
Your priorities might be considered a little slanted.
Gender identity is used by the right because - like most sex-related issues - it's emotive and triggering. It's a single issue dog whistle.
Given the evidence, there is no reason to believe that anyone who uses it for political gain actually cares about women or girls.
This is an inherently self-contradictory position, because it implies that trans men must be forced into women's spaces.
Your position is also that somebody like Buck Angel must use the women's bathroom, because he is "in fact still a woman."
My assertion is that this is contradictory, because forcing somebody like Buck Angel to use the womens' bathroom will make women and girls feel less safe, not more.
Consider prisons, for example. There have been many cases recently of male criminals being transferred to the female prison estate, on the basis of their self-declared so-called "female gender identity", who have then raped and in some cases impregnated women incarcerated with them.
It should be obvious that the same risk is not present from other female prisoners. Even if they happen to look very butch and/or hirsute. So keeping prisons single-sex is clearly a much better policy for incarcerated women.
Even for bathroom spaces, the prospect of laws that penalize males who decide to use female bathrooms is good news. This is because the threat of negative consequences for such behavior makes it much less likely that any such males will even bother trying, which means that women in general will not only be safer, but also can feel safer, because they know that any individuals encountered in these spaces are almost certainly female. Even if, like Buck Angel, they don't conform to feminine stereotypes.
This is false. Female inmates are raped by female inmates, and male inmates are raped by male inmates. This is a "rape in prison" problem, not a trans women problem. In fact, rape of biological women by trans women in prison is extremely rare.
And, again, your stated hypothesis is self-contradictory, because it implies that the problem of inmates getting raped is solved by putting trans women in male prisons, which is plainly false. It will likely increase the number of rapes.
"the prospect of laws that penalize males who decide to use female bathrooms is good news"
I remember tiredly accidentally using a women's bathroom after a long flight. I'm not looking forward to being punished for it because of the latest moral panic. I'm sure all of the women who are falsely accused of being men because they don't conform to societal stereotypes of what women look like also feel much safer.
Meanwhile, there are, as far as I can ascertain, currently no cases of trans women assaulting biological women in women's bathrooms. I'm sure cases exist, but they must be exceedingly rare.
There are, however, plenty of cases of trans women being assaulted (and, in some cases, murdered) in men's bathrooms.
This is why we have single-sex prisons in the first place, because of the inevitable harm to women, through violence, sexual assault, rape and unwanted pregnancy, that was committed against them by male prisoners in mixed-sex prison systems. Look up the work of Elizabeth Fry: she and other prison reformers extensively documented the horrors of prisons in Victorian England and in particular the awful impact upon women of being incarcerated with men.
Exactly the same is happening now, in the 21st century, because of these misogynistic "gender identity" policies that benefit males while deliberately ignoring the risks and harms inflicted upon women.
The truth is that most of the people currently stirring up a moral panic around gender are barely even aware of the existence of trans men and simply haven’t thought this through properly. Which isn’t surprising, as they don’t care about the issue itself, but only its potential as a political wedge.
This is not a reasonable assumption based on my experience talking to women, and if it was, I don't understand how it would work in reality. Even if biological women preferred sharing the women's bathroom with trans men, rather than trans women, how would biological women know whether they were sharing the bathroom with a trans man or a biological man?
It seems much easier for trans men to pass than for trans women, so allowing trans men into women's bathrooms basically ensures that all men can freely enter them, claiming to be trans men.
Any examples of this hypothetical situation actually happening?
If these spaces were regulated by law, and there was a realistic prospect of penalties for males who choose to impose themselves on female spaces, then this would have a significant deterrent effect. The males who say they're women (including males with a transwomen identity and your hypothetical set of males who claim to be transmen) would refrain from intruding.
I'll also leave this comment for thought. You're arguing that allowing transgender women into spaces reserved for women (unqualified) degrades the utility of them. I'm actually somewhat sympathetic to this argument, but not universally. I think allowing transgender women into women's sports is maybe not right, because transgender women don't have the same underlying physicality as women who have grown up with female hormones. I think it's an interesting discussion about why we perhaps somewhat arbitrarily segment sports in this way but not others (why no under 6 ft basketball leagues?) and the role that genetics plays in sports vs training and practice, but I think it's a generally effective means of allowing a group (generally women) to have meaningful leagues where it's not just women + men who aren't very good but have a genetic advantage. As well with regards to prison, since this is already a segment of the population (people in prison) who have committed some crime, so trusting them in the way we might trust random people from society to act may not be the right choice.
That said, your comments make it sound like you don't respect the existence of transgender people in general.
In particular, "I don't see how this is a self-contradictory position. Women who've decided to call themselves men are in fact still women.", and "It's a reasonable assumption that most women prefer to share female spaces with other women, regardless of how they look, and not with male intruders who have decided to disregard women's boundaries for their own pleasure while falsely identifying themselves as women.".
The first is I think clearly denying the right of someone to identify as transgender, and the latter is a fallacy. I agree that women would not want to share the bathroom with "male intruders who have decided to disregard women's boundaries for their own pleasure while falsely identifying themselves as women.", but this is not an accurate description of transgender women.
If you think it's an inaccurate description of how you feel (that you do in fact respect transgender people) I would suggest that being more careful in your debate might help you to convey your arguments effectively.
How is it not accurate? They are male (by definition), so when they decide to impose themselves upon a female space this means they are doing so with a disregard for women's boundaries.
Based on your comment, you seem to believe that "woman" is just an identity, that any male can choose to adopt if he desires so. If that is the case, why do you believe this?
I agree this is what appears to have happened but I still can’t follow the logic. What happens next? Who builds the next system and why should we expect it will be any better?
I'm not sure if this is evidence of how bad people think the status quo is, or if it is evidence of how naive most people are.
That rarely works out. When a country collapses the ensuing is chaos going to be a very rough time. Recent examples include the collapse of the Soviet Union. The 90s were really bad for people there. A lot of them moved here to the US to escape that and try to find a better life. I worked with some of them. And now what do they have in Russia? A dictatorship that's not any better than what they had in Soviet times - certainly worse than what they had under Gorbachev.
People who assume that something better will rise out of the ashes of collapse, but that rarely happens. Better to try to work to make the system you have better even if in small ways.
This is the part that confuses me. I have met a few “burn it down” types but never heard one articulate why that would work out well in the long run. I’m only assuming they even thought that far ahead.
The only people who can tell me why they voted for Trump are people who want his specific brand of incremental change.
I don't disagree. It's a matter of degrees, though. The post-WWII era was always going to go away when everyone who remembered WWII (or were children of those who fought it) passed away. That's kind of where we are now.
The only leftist pandering that Kamala offered was getting rid of taxes on tips (something that Trump offered first, actually), she seemed fairly center, or even a bit right of center (putting off far lefties) as Democrat presidential candidates are usually these days. Trump, likewise, didn't really veer right, he actually veered a bit left in offering to lower prices, make life easier, less wars, and stuff that you would not really hear from a far right candidate either (well, except for the ultra nationalism). I don't think left and right really describes our parties anymore.
> Said another way, I think a young Jimmy Carter type candidate would have wiped the floor with either side this election.
I don't think someone like young Jimmy Carter could get elected today, he is just too honest and wouldn't be promising enough short term juice. Most Americans are too inward focused for that kind of politician right now.
and also excepting the fact that he wants to end abortion, be a dictator, end elections, and drill babay drill.
Other than that he's very left. Very.
That’s because most Americans believe we were in a recession.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/article/2024/may/22/poll...
No voter likes to know that they're dumb - but the fact that Donald Trump is soon the ROTUS implies they are.
Maybe more should be invested in education.
The opposite of inflation (when prices go up), deflation (when prices go down) is never a good thing. But explaining that a bit of inflation is a good thing is something all economists agree on but most normal people can't understand. The fact that velocity should always be positive, and that "lower inflation" means lowering the rate of price growth, not deflation, is also something they don't get.
Deflation, in the abstract. is about as good or bad as inflation. Slightly better because a serious deflationary crisis is much less damaging than an inflationary one. You go to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deflation#Historical_examples and it is a whos-who of countries who then went on to be successful and prosperous and a few TBDs in the 2010s - there might be examples of catastrophic deflation but they haven't made it to Wikipedia yet.
May as well say the problem with inflation is people stop consuming because things cost more, like Tuvalu. You've picked a random high performing economy and claimed that its existence shows that people buy less when prices drop (an exotic claim). It is an unusually weak argument because it contradicts basic supply-demand logic and you've put your fingers on no evidence.
One of the reasons democracy works so well is that voters ignore that sort of unsupported just-so economic mumbo jumbo and vote for change when their living standards drop. It isn't a great algorithm but it is a lot better than the alternatives.
so if we have high inflation say due to global pandemic's effects on global supply and in response we get say 40-100% price increases (say milk was $1.00/gallon and now it is say $1.50/gallon, a modest 50% increase).
so now inflation eases, global supply chain in back to normal etc etc... we should expect now that milk prices will stay forever at $1.50/gallon (or higher) because now that would be deflation if the prices eased…?! :)
however, when you are up for re-election (and midterms as 1/2-way gauge of how the country thinks you are doing) the buck stops with you. there is no “booo, it is not my fault” etc - american voter is not dumb in this regard.
- responsible for deaths of 100’s of thousands of people - you, the President
- locked everyone up for months in their homes for months, you, the President
- locked kids out of school for months - you, the President
- high un-employment - you, the President
- increased deficit more than anyone could even possible fathom - you, the President
- …
the buck stops with you. core MAGAs might still fall for “anti-wokeness” but that will get you a loss by many millions of votes to an already half-senile grandpa (see 2020) :)
But I've thought about it a lot, and I'm still clueless. Something to do with lots of people getting screwed, I guess. But why ordinary folks switch their vote from a party that serves the top 20%, to a party that serves the top 0.01%, that is still mysterious to me.
A. you are voting FOR one of the options.
B. you are voting AGAINST the other option - hence by default you must choose the other
there is a significant number of people that are in the B. bucket (in my personal circle 9 out of 20 people fall in B. bucket, 8 of which NEVER voted for a Republican in any election prior to this one) and democratic party needs to think looooong and hard about that before midterms and especially next Presidential election
The million-dollar question is: How to you make Joe voter be less dumb?
Biden was past his prime and it showed during the campaign, though.
For who exactly? The $1.5T tax cut (deficit spend) for billionaires was advertised as a “bill for the middle class” [1] under the assumption of idiotic “trickle down economics. Trump administration at the time even promised a “$4,000 raise” to the middle class. [2]
In reality, in the short term, billionaires able to afford another stupid yacht or pad some offshore accounts. Corporations buying back their stock. In the long term, deficit spending, increasing national debt, jobs lost, cuts of public programs, and further decimation of middle class.
[1] https://www.npr.org/2017/12/20/572157392/gop-poised-for-tax-...
[2] https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2018/04/10/donald-tru...
As relevant here Carter proposed to make it unlawful to hire illegal immigrants and to impose penalties on companies that did so: https://library.cqpress.com/cqalmanac/document.php?id=cqal77...
Immigration has provided cheap labor, but at the cost of degrading our social and political systems. Irish and Italian immigration, for example, destroyed the founders’ vision of self governance and replaced it with political machines that mobile masses of low information immigrants to legitimize top-down authoritarian systems.
You think it was a mistake to allow you in and are a net negative to your country?
- We have made their schools and jobs more competitive. We don’t have the taboo on open competition like British Americans, and don’t have the same idea of raising “well rounded” kids. My dad grew up in a village where 20% of kids died before age 5. He got out because he is a grinder. My parents socialized me to work 16 hours a day, discouraged dating, or having any hobbies that you couldn’t put on a resume, etc. I went to a STEM magnet school that went from 20-25% asian when I was there to 70% asian at the peak, and we completely changed the culture.
- We have facilitated societal changes, because we don’t value individual liberty as highly but place more value on social order. We don’t value common wisdom the way British Americans do, but place more value on formal education and credentials.
- We have reduced social cohesion. My family feels no personal solidarity with poor Americans. My family is economically liberal in a generic sense, but only insofar as they don’t personally have to pay more taxes.
A bunch of plumbers and landscapers and other blue collar types move to small town Idaho and it's business as usual, maybe Spanish pops as a subtext on more public facing signage, the local diner expands, etc, etc.
A bunch of doctors and lawyers and techies and MBAs move to Idaho and it's mayhem, local politics get turned upside down, house prices off the charts, etc, etc.