The US lost in both Vietnam and Afghanistan because occupation is hard. There isn’t an army on the planet that can even come close to taking on the US military in open combat, but insurgencies are a completely different animal.

Social media and AI mass surveillance might make a difference, but I kinda doubt it.

I don’t think this is where we are headed, but it wouldn’t be an automatic win for the military. Unfortunately, the people who end up in charge after an uprising usually end up being worse than the people they replace.

Carlin was great at spotting problems, but shit at recognizing solutions. He was an entertaining crank, not a leader. In the right category he was great.

I imagine it would feel a bit like punching a pile of dried leaves.

As a hopelessly straight American, I second the motion.

I’ll get downvoted for this

Damn straight.

It wasn’t rigged. Even if it were rigged, it should never have been close enough to be rigged, but it wasn’t rigged. If the DNC waited to say it was rigged, they are still waiting because they haven’t said they think it’s rigged, but their not waiting, because it wasn’t rigged.

They really thought she’d be worse?

For the love of God, please stop spreading this mode of thinking. Elections are won by enthusiasm, not an intellectual weighing of the pros and cons of each. This is the model Democrats have used for decades that got us here. Being the lesser evil is not a solid campaign strategy. The greater evil will always get more attention, and therefore enthusiasm.

I don’t think this is an exclusively American thing. Did Brits really think brexit was a good idea?

They might be the source, but a lot of Catholics have started imitating them. They are almost leading the pack now with Opus Dei. The new age “law of attraction” bullshit is also just a repackaging of the “prosperity gospel” that so many evangelical charlatans use to fleece their flocks.

That would seem much more to point towards polling using the word ‘liberal’ being more useful than trying to apply leftist definitions

Who’s trying to apply leftist definitions? There is nothing in any definition of “liberal” that aligns it with leftism. It gets misused constantly in multiple ways, not to mention being confused with neoliberalism.

Funny that polling on specific issues and particular politicians rarely if ever translates into actual voting patterns

Tell that to Andrew Cuomo, or Joe Crowley.

even in ballot initiatives

Not true. Republicans (and some Democrats) are working hard at removing ballot initiatives because they work so well for the left.

Bernie wouldn’t have lost two fucking primaries due to the more left-leaning of the two parties rejecting him by double-digit percentages

Why would you assume Bernie being left is why he lost? Clinton had way more large money donations than Bernie, and she had corporate media in her pocket. Bernie wasn’t even making a serious run until he started doing far better than he thought he would. Half way through he completely reorganized his campaign to be a real candidate instead of an issue candidate. The fact that he was able to make that a race against someone with Hillary’s name recognition and the party blessing shows just how powerful left messaging can be.

The issue against Biden wasn’t that left politics was unpopular, it was that left politics was perceived to be unpopular. The number one issue for Democratic voters in 2020 was beating Trump. Voters thought a centrist candidate had a better chance, even though Bernie and Biden pulled almost identically against Trump. The media kept pounding on the electability argument against Bernie, and it stuck. Polling on the candidates showed voters preferred Bernie’s policies, but they didn’t know if he could win.

“THE COUNTRY IS SECRETLY LEFT-WING”

Oh, fuck you, that’s not at all what I said.

Polling using the word “liberal” is pretty pointless. Leftists and centrists have completely different opposing definitions of what it means, and most Americans don’t have a clue.

Polling on specific issues or particular politicians is the only way to get an accurate picture, and Americans, especially Democrats, are far more left than they self identity.

Campaign money is important, but it also has it’s limits. At some point, more spending has diminishing or even negative returns. We just saw that with Elon in Michigan.

Yes, if only the liberals, who make up a plurality of this country

Not even close to correct. Who are the most popular politicians in this country? Every poll I’ve seen in the past 10 years has AOC and Bernie at the top, and the only politician who can even compete with their approval ratings is Mamdani.

Liberals make up a plurality of the news media and the wealthy Democratic donors. They aren’t plurality of the people. A recent poll has 62% of self identified Democrats saying they want new Democratic leadership, and only 24% saying they like the leadership they have. People are fed up, and they are not looking for more “centrist” Democrats.

As it stands, both sides think the other side is completely insane, and to some extent violent

Um, is it at all relevant that one side literally is insane, or that one side commits 99% of the violence? Where is the Democrats alligator Alcatraz for Christians? Where are the Democratic brown-shirt vigilantes running around with masks kidnapping people?

I think Republicans are insane and violent because I see it with my own eyes. Are we supposed pretend their not? Screw that, I’d rather punch a Nazi.

There were a million reasons that people didn’t show for Harris. Why do you scold only the people who were outspoken against genocide? Can you point to any evidence that this issue swung the election?

Biden put Harris in a terrible position by holding out as long as he did. Then Harris ran a horrendous campaign. That is why she lost.

People who care about Gaza are people who are politically engaged. That not who stayed home. Politically engaged people vote third party when they want to protest, and third party votes did not sway this election. Not even close.

People who stay home are normies who have given up. A lot of people need inspiration to show up, and centrist Democrats just aren’t inspiring.

I can only suppose that your fixation on the genocide issue is because you like the genocide and were pissed off that people objected to it. That’s the only reason to bring this trash up in every damn conversation about the Trump administration.

Months. Did you somehow miss black lives matter? The rapid growth of the prison industrial complex? This is just the explosive conclusion to a pattern that was well underway long before Trump.

Anyone who has ever used that phrase un-ironically is politically tone deaf, or a Republican agent. I get the sentiment, and even agree with it, but it doesn’t communicate what people who use it think it does. The kind of people who use that phrase are the ones I blame most for gestures broadly.

The left threatens power. MAGA doesn’t.

I didn’t claim otherwise, but your understanding of statistics is a little wonky. You can’t extrapolate from “white men” to my individual experience and say that minorities are getting it far worse. There are plenty of lucky minority members that never get a bad diagnosis in their life, and plenty of unlucky white men that are plagued by them.

Ever had a sinus headache that lated a real long time? I’m in my 11th year of one nonstop headache, and I still don’t know why the fuck it’s happening - even after seeing over a dozen specialists all referring me elsewhere after their one or two guesses didn’t pan out. Every new referral takes 3-6 months for a first visit.

This is my third such issue. I researched and diagnosed the second issue on my own and found out that my exact misdiagnoses was actually known to be incredibly common, but institutional inertia and specialist blindspots meant that it wasn’t being widely corrected despite being known for over 15 years.

So no, being a white man does not offer protection from our shitty healthcare system. Every societal flaw has it’s victims, and it’s almost always true that minorities and the disenfranchised get it worse. That’s no reason to disregard the experiences of non-minorities - many of whom will have it just as bad individually.

People are taking advantage of it to do those things. Most of them just get hired by ICE. A lot less personal risk that way.

I want to see the candidates also grilled on whether they condemn the Israeli government for the genocide in Gaza. Why isn’t that one being asked? (rhetorical - we all know why.)