Thanks every bit of encouragement helps when I’m wading through this echo chamber of ineffective commies and bots. I got banned from reddit for similar. I think the fascists are taking over the communities of naive lefties and turning them against the DNC so they can consolidate power. To be clear: I’m not a Democrat and I don’t particularly like the Democratic Party, but incremental change isn’t the same as Literal Fucking Fascism. If we can oust Democrats in primaries, we should. If we can’t, we should vote for the next best thing. Or sometimes the next not-worst thing. It’s not a hard concept.

Cheers I took the week off to prep for a big social event so I’ll have an IPA in your honor!

Instead we got “Fuck you we don’t need you”

Can you provide some examples? I don’t think you live in objective reality if you believe that. There was good and bad, but mostly good, and we saw an administration that was trying to do what it promised to do, even if it didn’t always succeed. There was a massive infrastructure bill, healthcare disability for veterans affected by toxins while serving, a bill that reduced child poverty by half until Manchin decided a year’s worth was enough, subsidies for union-made appliances, a plan that would have reduced GHG emissions by 40% by 2030, negotiated drug prices starting with insulin, etc. He tried to forgive student loan debt but the courts blocked it. They granted pardons to a bunch of low level drug offenders.

None of this sounds like “fuck you.” It sounds like a government that was trying and accomplished a lot, but then you rewarded those efforts by failing to show up for the midterms, and then Republicans stopped any remaining momentum. Elections have consequences.

Oh good thing we have Trump now.

Looks at reality you created

Still genocide, but now it’s a regional war with Iran and people are talking about ethnically cleansing Gaza so Trump can build the “Riviera of the Middle East.” Good going. You really stopped that genocide by electing people who hate Muslims.

What would it take for you to admit your decision was stupid? If Trump drops a nuke oh Tehran, would that do it?

It’s still much better than what we had before, which was:

1. You get sick.

2. You try to see a specialist, but your insurance sucks and doesn’t cover being alive.

3. Oh well. You pay to get that CT Scan and it turns out you have cancer.

4. Sounds expensive. Your insurance calls that a “preexisting condition” and drops you. You can’t buy insurance.

5. Oh well at least you still have a jo–FIRED lol

We all get it. Healthcare in the US is still a clusterfuck and we need a nationalized system, but writing off ACA is childish bullshit. There’s a reason the vampires in the GOP tried to repeal it over 60 times over the course of 10 years. If the GOP is against it, that’s usually a good sign that it’s good, even if it’s not great.

Primary them.

Withholding your vote in the general election is a great way to elect Republicans. How’s that been going? Oh I know! I’ll ask Alex Pretti and Renee Good if they think it’s working.

Blue while in power:

Obama

Recovered from the largest economic crash since 1929, passed sweeping healthcare reform, saved the union-heavy domestic auto industry, established the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau to protect borrowers from predatory lending practices and prevent another Great Recession…

Biden

Passed law to build infrastructure and green energy, funneled subsidies only to companies with organized labor, made it possible to negotiate the price of pharmaceuticals starting with insulin, enacted a measure to reduce GHG emissions by 40% by 2030, actually pulled out of Afghanistan, finally, passed healthcare and disability for service members and their families for injuries caused my toxic chemicals, stimulated domestic semiconductor manufacturing, appointed trans and BIPOC in his government, wielded antitrust action to get rid of junk fees and hidden fees, blocked several harmful corporate mergers, recovered the economy after COVID and brought down inflation without triggering a recession, which economists thought was impossible…

Yeah they don’t do anything guys…

Both of these were in spans of two years because the people who elect Democrats are too lazy or stupid to vote in midterms.

Yes. I think Democrats can be influenced, and by this point I believe Harris’ state department would have been conditioning arms and aid to Israel on a real and meaningful ceasefire combined with allowing aid groups access to Gaza. This is consistent with 1) the end of the Biden administration and its efforts to end the conflict and bring humanitarian aid to Gazans and 2) the current stance, however late, of the majority of Democratic politicians.

Republicans, on the other hand, would never even think about doing these things. There is no doubt in my mind that shit is worse in Gaza and Lebanon because people failed to elect Harris over Trump… To say nothing or life in Iran or the rest of the Gulf.

lmao I got called “Blue MAGA” for encouraging strategic voting just yesterday. I was a card carrying member of DSA before it was cool.

You can tell an election is coming up because all the bots and shills crawl out of the woodwork to start arguments between centrist Democrats and progressive leftists. I’m often disappointed by Status Quo Democrats but I’ll take a status quo that doesn’t work well enough for everyone over a lurch towards fascism that intends to claw back every right we’ve secured since the 1860’s and eagerly steal the territory and resources of middle powers… and do it all fucking incompetently.

That question reveals the extent to which MAGA is a cult of idiots. They expect people to be falling over themselves to defend Clinton because he’s “one of us” and that’s what they do. We don’t care. Lock him up if he’s guilty. Our ideas are not attached to any one person, so individuals can be held accountable for their actions.

He certainly doesn’t, but

• He hasn’t held office for 26 years.

• He’s not the individual currently covering up the files.

• He’s said he wants them released. Defensive strategy? Maybe.

• To my knowledge, nobody has ever come forward to accuse Slick Willy of raping them as a minor.

Don’t be silly. I don’t wonder why naive leftists don’t vote in their best interests. It’s because they’re immature and unable to come to terms with doing something positive for themselves that doesn’t feel good at the time.

A lot of the traditional anime tropes exist explicitly to lower the cost of production. The artists may be skilled, but there’s a reason you see a lot of still frames where only the character’s mouth moves and stuff like that. It was necessary in the 90’s. Now it’s what you expect from the genre.

That doesn’t really answer my question. If Democrats win majorities in the House and Senate in the upcoming midterms, what should they do? I’m assuming they won’t have enough votes to remove Trump from office, just like last time.

I’m sure they want to do that. They tried twice already. The votes aren’t there in the Senate.

lmao

What should they do instead?

This goes for a lot of genres. Metalheads are like, “dude listen to this ultra black metaldeathcore album my favorite bad just dropped!” and it’s nails on a chalkboard, but also incredibly technically impressive with shifting time signatures and somehow if you play it backwards through a filter it sounds like Flight of the Valkyries. If you enjoy that, power to you, but most don’t.

A lot of all entertainment media is garbage. Maybe anime has a lower barrier to entry, so the signal to noise ratio is worse, but then again, the big movie studios are so risk averse that they mostly pump out boring, focus-group-tested sequels and reboots. Wait maybe there’s a barrier-to-entry vs financial-risk sweet spot that produces the greatest share of good stuff? Hmmm…

Now this is a memeable format if I’ve ever seen one. YoooOOOOOINK**!**

I haven’t used Linux regularly since 2006, which either means I’m out of the loop or an ancient bearer of lost knowledge:

I think it’s “G’noo” like “G’day” or “G’night.”