How often has either side had a filibuster-proof majority in the last 30 years? Once. Democrats had it in 2009-2010 for 72 working days. During that window they passed the ACA sans a public option thanks to Joe Lieberman. They have not had an opportunity like that since. And we live in a time when Republicans explicitly state they will do everything they can to oppose a Democratic president. Even filibustering their own bills.
Now take a step back and consider what each party is actually trying to accomplish and the mechanisms available to them. Budget reconciliation only requires a simple majority, but it's limited to taxing and spending. Tax cuts, the core of the Republican agenda, fit neatly into reconciliation. They don't need 60 votes for their top priority.
Democrats' goals... expanding healthcare, strengthening labor protections, voting rights, are substantive policy changes that don't fit reconciliation's rules. They need 60 votes they haven't had. So when you say "both parties enabled the wealth gap," what you're really describing is a system where one party can pass tax cuts for the wealthy with 51 votes while the other needs 60 to do almost anything about it.
when you couch it as a left vs right instead of a top vs down problem you will lock yourself (and your immediate circle) up in the hardline media items the people who lobby both sides will control.
as disclosure: i am socially liberal and fiscally conservative except in matters relating to education, which i believe should be free (and tuition rate controlled). never voted for trump, never will. wanted to write in bernie for the first pass until he dropped, then threw for the queen of england. i didn't vote in the last election. i consider ice to be an illegal and fascist arm of too large a state.
the most arresting argument i've heard a leftist say (which i agree with) is: there is a distribution of wealth at which a free market fails and we are long past that, especially given our failure to bust monopolies and enforce antitrust law.
that enables entities who lobby both sides of the policy spectrum to position us against each other. epstein played this well: how else do you get neoconservatives bubbling out of 4chan as an answer to thundercat tumblr kids? it's all divide-and-conquer (and over the most inane issues).
now, tell me: do you want to support eurasia or oceania? or do you want to put the puppeteers in jail?
you flip on the news and you see the fat red faced wal-mart alcoholics raving about the latest ice raid and iran bombing. it's a pretty disgusting thing, isn't it? but count that number of people you see on the news and compare it to the number represented by 49.81 percent of people who are duped into leaning right in a two party system. then what you see on the news is an insipid and vocal minority by comparison.
they seem loud because they were born and raised in a 4chan cesspool, and relative to our ears (as we see them online), the 'enemies' are everywhere (ie overrepresented by our algorithms, since our outrage makes them money).
meanwhile both parties (in various states and layers of government) have made ranked voting either illegal or impossible to implement.
both parties (as well throughout the world) have pushed for greater government surveillance technologies and laws.
both parties have gone to the island, shot kids in sarajevo, staged military coups throughout the world, destroyed democracies, left migrant children starving at night in detention centers, sleeping on mattresses thrown into the mud. you think biden was blameless in that? i've seen those kids.
i hear you, and i am just as angry. but remember that there are a variety of reasons why people vote in the way that they do. they may come to regret those decisions when they send their kids to war, and perhaps that is some apt and just punishment.
however, don't fall into the trap of mistaking those people in your relative socioeconomic group from having entirely different needs and wants as yourself and your family.
if you vilify them, you will have aided and abetted in our dividing. the people needing to be put in jail are outliers in our system by far. they corrupt the islands, stage sarajevos, trade diamonds in war torn villages, and laugh their way to the bank while we squabble with ourselves as to 'whodunnit'. don't fall for it.
The US government in general is not prioritizing the reality and needs of the people, it is supposed to be in service to. Instead it is serving the needs of the few, but there are many many fronts of injustice, as there are many different people in power with their own agenda. It's not necessarily a single unified agenda.
Edit: The astro-turfing in this thread is going to be interesting based on the bot comment just below my comment...
https://theonion.com/this-war-will-destabilize-the-entire-mi...
Amongst the countries attacked by Iran now are Qatar, UAE, Bahrain, Jordan, Oman, Kuwait and Saudia Arabia; indirectly, it’s dragging kicking and screaming into the conflict also Yemen (surely soon), Lebanon (already) and Iraq (already).
I'd say AI is the new AI.
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2026/mar/03/iran-war-...
"That government of the rich, by the rich, and for the rich shall not perish from the earth."
Or, is it fine when I do it, but not when others do it? Where do I draw the line, between what association for the purposes of political advocacy is fine, and what association isn't fine?
But this rant's "solution", which seems to be "let's empower the police state to do more excesses" - yeah, no. Maybe let's just ensure that everyone gets the same due process?
What led you to believe this is the solution presented in the article? Much less try to pass those statements off as quoting or paraphrasing.
> Maybe let's just ensure that everyone gets the same due process?
That is the actual solution presented in the last two sections of the article.
I mean this with no direspect or cynisism, and hope I'm wrong, but I think that country has rotted too much for saving. You let it go too far for too long.
Then again the UK (repeatedly) went through some very dark times, and whilst not exactly a bastion of justice, we're doing a lot better now.
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