Genuine question. This is a surprising opinion to me because I see the democrats as a center left largely moderate party. Agreed that the democrat candidates are appalling and generally show no conviction.
- Prosecution of criminals.
- Free market economics.
- Freedom of speech / privacy / assembly
So people get frustrated with the hamfisted top-down plans tailored for those deeply wed to the system, tire of the hypocrisy, and then either stay home or vote for the alternative that doesn't even bother promising to try and constructively fix anything. It's a game of bad cop worse cop. We desperately need ranked pairs voting.
ACA has survived 12 years and enabled a lot of people to obtain health insurance that would not have been able to otherwise, with Republicans wanting to kill it that entire time but failing to do so. Do you think there was any other system Democrats could have passed instead that would have lasted that long?
My insurance is more expensive than ever and quality of care lower quality than ever.
>Do you think there was any other system Democrats could have passed instead that would have lasted that long?
Medicare for all. Or lower the age gradually (cover kids and elderly first). They should have voted on it during the pandemic but Pelosi blocked it and AOC wouldn't do anything. They're all fakes.
You're buying into the paradigm wherein sandbagging it was necessary for pragmatic reasons, and justifying within that. While this is true to an extent, it doesn't really change my overall point.
I do get that the ACA was a significant piece of legislation that has helped many people. And if you want to talk system design, such a mandate might make sense in a system with much much more regulatory bandwidth than ours, where it's not just forcing people into a corrupt system. But as it stands, they didn't even address the antitrust issues of bundling healthcare plans with employment or price fixing between insurers and providers. So I stand by my characterization of the dynamic as brazen regulatory capture.
-Medicare for all
-Lower income taxes (federal and state) cut all the useless bloat like the $20B in homeless spending we can't even account for in California
-Free state college tuition for local residents (we need to significantly decrease cost of college)
-Universal background checks on guns
-Ban abortion after 20 weeks
-America first and only (stop being Israel's bitch)
-Strong on crime laws (none of this bullshit we deal with in blue states where we catch and release violent offenders constantly and let people run over and kill entire families with ZERO consequences)
-Having no stance on DEI, LGBTQ, or other cultural issues that serve only to divide and distract
I don't agree on all the specifics, but I think that's the absolute right way to be thinking about this. If you actually want to make things better, you need to have empathy for people who aren't like you. Despite their self-image, I don't think liberals are actually any better at empathy than anyone else.
> -Having no stance on DEI, LGBTQ, or other cultural issues that serve only to divide and distract
This is a key point. The focus on those issues is probably the only reason the plutocrat/big business Republicans even have a chance.
The right spends *far* more money and airtime on these issues than democrats actually do: https://abcnews.com/US/trump-spends-millions-anti-trans-ads-...
In other words, it is largely a moral panic manufactured by the right. If democrats give in, the right will concoct a new one, ad infinitum, until democrats and republicans are indistinguishable.
Who cares? It works, and why does it work?
I tell you why: it works because the Democrats give them the ammunition.
Edit: I see you edited the line I quoted to:
> In other words, it is largely a moral panic manufactured by the right. If democrats give in, the right will concoct a new one, ad infinitum, until democrats and republicans are indistinguishable.
I don't think that's true, it's just a story to discourage effective change to keep some faction happy.
Democrats used to be able to win in so-called red states, because they used to be able to adapt to local conditions. Following your line of thinking just means they'll keep losing.
If the democrats acquiesce to the republicans, they will likely lose even more people than they already have, while gaining absolutely no one from the maga camp. I think the real strat is to go full Mamdani across the board. Unapologetic, compassionate leftism.
The "the left is shit at messaging" is an excuse to distract from having a bad message (or at least a message with bad parts), so that message doesn't get revised into something better. Basically: "we don't want to change so we can win, so lets hope all we have to do is say stuff better."
Here's something to think about:
> And the stakes of politics are almost always incredibly high. I think they happen to be higher now. And I do think a lot of what is happening in terms of the structure of the system itself is dangerous. I think that the hour is late in many ways. My view is that a lot of people who embrace alarm don’t embrace what I think obviously follows from that alarm, which is the willingness to make strategic and political decisions you find personally discomfiting, even though they are obviously more likely to help you win.
> Taking political positions that’ll make it more likely to win Senate seats in Kansas and Ohio and Missouri. Trying to open your coalition to people you didn’t want it open to before. Running pro-life Democrats.
> And one of my biggest frustrations with many people whose politics I otherwise share is the unwillingness to match the seriousness of your politics to the seriousness of your alarm. I see a Democratic Party that often just wants to do nothing differently, even though it is failing — failing in the most obvious and consequential ways it can possibly fail. (https://www.nytimes.com/2025/09/18/opinion/interesting-times...)
I lived in Texas for 5 years and I have heard people saying this kind of things first and second hand during his first term and also after his defeat.
Obsession with the end times stems from a particular Biblical interpretation called "dispensationalism" that was introduced into America in the 1800s. If you're wondering why certain Christian sects became more obsessed from retreating from society than improving it, these are the head waters. It's a successful theme that took off on radio, then with televangelists, and now on social media.
The New Apostolic Reformation is kind of the ultimate culmination of these beliefs. It's one of the key components of what is being called Christian Nationalism.
It's not even clear what parts of the movement are earnestly held and which are purely opportunists trading on the fears of the naive. Many Christians may cross-pollinate in these circles without knowing it - but it takes a very specifically indoctrinated person to think Trump is divinely anointed
sleepyguy•2h ago
tstrimple•2h ago
toomuchtodo•2h ago
denkmoon•1h ago
Of course, change is impossible without a complete dissolution of governance in the US.
toomuchtodo•1h ago
So if you didn’t vote, or you voted for this, you voted for this. Enjoy the ride.
https://www.usnews.com/news/national-news/articles/2024-11-1...
fzeroracer•1h ago
Our electoral system is designed to disenfranchise the most populated areas.
hedora•1h ago
You can try getting your incumbent kicked out in the primaries, but that’s a dangerous game in swing states. In your case (WA) you absolutely should vote in the primary for the farthest left democrat possible.
We probably should switch to multi-party proportional representation at some point.
toomuchtodo•1h ago
denkmoon•1h ago
Here in the authoritarian hellhole that is the Commonwealth of Australia, showing up to the voting booth is mandatory. We also have preferential voting, and in a few jurisdictions we even have proportional representation.
ggm•1h ago
In these times, I think humour does not work well in written communications without a flag.
It's not a hellhole, and it's no more authoritarian now, than it was when I came here in 1988.
fzeroracer•1h ago
Unfortunately Christian nationalists happen to be extremely wealthy and extremely stupid.
diogenescynic•1h ago
It's happening on both sides. https://www.npr.org/2026/01/14/nx-s1-5647442/midterm-electio...
We the public should be rejecting it, but we're idiots and keep falling for 'but they're doing it!' and then undermine our own political power to 'own' the other side. We're being played for fools.
fzeroracer•1h ago
tzs•1h ago
It was specifically proposed to counter the Texas special redistricting which was done by the Texas legislature and government with no concern over whether or not Texas voters approved (and polls show that more Texas voters disapprove than approve).
awnird•1h ago
I don’t think hundreds of millions of Americans are continually being duped. I think they actually like the system they’ve built, and the outcomes that system produces.
DougN7•59m ago
ggm•1h ago
I don't know them, and I don't see a reason to call anyone stupid. Turkeys voting for thanksgiving is not "stupid" it's normal. Turkeys do what turkeys do.
I would have said "Unfortunately Christian Nationalists want what is being offered them by this administration, are extremely wealthy and fund PAC accordingly." but even "unfortunately" is argumentative. Of course to ME it's unfortunate, but thats me.
apothegm•50m ago
palmotea•15m ago
That's not a bad thing. The bad thing happened when the Democrats decided to alienate those areas and lost them. You may forget, but a lot of those "small right-leaning states" were solid blue until relatively recently. For instance 100% of North Dakota's congressional delegation was Democratic until ~2010, Iowa was the quintessential purple state, the Senate majority leader was from South Dakota (but unlike today he was a Democrat), and I could go on.
JumpCrisscross•1h ago
We have less of a problem with crazies voting for crazies than non-crazies not voting. Because if the crazies can find compromise with someone approximately as crazy as them while the non-crazies are either too lazy to turn out or unable to get out of stitches because the less-crazy candidate disagrees with them on two issues, the crazies win.
gruez•1h ago
treetalker•1h ago
impossiblefork•1h ago
They have Amos, which reasons out the problems of wishing for the Day of the Lord, and I don't understand how they can ignore it. Internalizing this idea should rather lead to a profound dislike for destabilizing the world, push the Day of the Lord as far into the future as it can be, to save all the people who can be born. I can understand how one can be a madman for a while, when one is full of grief. That's fine, but when one returns to normality one should realise that not destabilizing things is a moral duty.
mindslight•1h ago