Reacting to the Dr Disrespect allegations

 So, this is a little out of character for this blog, since I focus on politics, but I do occasionally make articles about other things. This time, I do want to wade into the Dr Disrespect thing.

I actually used to be a fan of his a while ago. During that hiatus I took from here during the Trump years, I played A LOT of video games. And I played A LOT of PUBG in 2017. In retrospect, this is when gaming changed and went to crap, and PUBG and streamer culture has a lot to do with it, but at first, I kinda liked it. I played PUBG obsessively in 2017, and when I wasnt playing, I watched streamers...like...Dr Disrespect. If anything, he was one of the more entertaining streamers, given his...unique personality. He tried to be like this 80s style macho man type of guy, and it was kind of entertaining to watch.

But then I kinda drifted away from PUBG, and that culture, which I deemed as toxic. Had nothing to do with Doc btw, I just couldnt keep up with how try hardy the streamers were making BR games, claiming things like the recoil was "too easy" so we needed to make the game cater to the top 0.01% of the population who were hardcore streamers and blah blah blah, and ya know, I'm just a normie gamer, I'm nothing special, I found the changes too hard and got burned out and quit PUBG in 2018 as a result. I did go back to try a few other BRs like Apex and Warzone in 2019, but mostly I've since returned to more traditional FPS games as they're less stressful and more casual. 

But Doc stayed with it, and I did remember him getting banned in 2020. But before I get to that point, his controversies. I did remember him admitting to cheating on his wife in like 2017 and remember the community being supportive of him for that. If anything I respected the honesty, and thought he deserved another chance. I recalled he got banned over streaming in a bathroom. I thought it was a minor mess up on his part but given how private bathrooms are and the obvious issues, i can see why he got in trouble for that. 

 And then I remember the ban in 2020. The final ban that got him banned from twitch. It was weird. The last stream was up, and he looked at his phone, he started acting weird like he knew he was banned, he started going on about David Ike or something, and then he logged off. People went over every second of his stream and thought maybe something happened where he was being arrested, like someone was reflected in his sunglasses. But nothing happened on the legal front, and it seemed like they just banned him for some unknown reason.

If you asked me, it appeared, at the time, that it could've been contract related. Maybe he broke his twitch exclusivity contract and was punished for that. Who knows. It seemed to be the kind of hush hush thing that seemed to be business related. That was my impression of it. I mean if he did something like WRONG WRONG, he would've been arrested right?

I did follow him in YT briefly after that, but got bored and unsubbed at some point. I kinda got out of watching streamers by this point and would rather play games myself than watch someone else game. I did recall news came out some time after where he basically was talking about how he knew why he was banned, he couldn't talk about it, and he was "suing the #### out of them." He apparently won that suit too, and the two mutually parted ways.Okay whatever.

And then lately, news of his ban came out. An ex twitch employee claimed he sexted a minor on the platform, and I didn't know what to make of it, if the allegations were credible, etc. There was a lot of debate about it, but it kinda looked questionable. Anyway, he was on his stream again and much like in 2020, he looked at his phone, and talked about wanting to ride off into the sunset. Apparently his own game studio burned bridges with him because of whatever he did. Like something was so damning they had to cut ties with him.

Well, this led to him finally giving his side of the story, admitting to having an inappropriate conversation with a minor, but the wording was very carefully chosen and even edited a bit. A lot of people pointed out that it's the kind of language you would use if you were caught by Chris Hansen. Ooops...

By this point, I was thinking of making a blog on this speculating about it, but I didn't really knew where I fell on it. How serious the allegations were, whether he knew it was a minor, etc. But it didn't look good.

And then this article comes out stating he knew what he was doing, he didnt change the convo direction after finding out that the person in question was a minor, and yeah. So yeah. The Doc was apparently KNOWINGLY having an inappropriate conversation with the person. 

And yeah. That's that. Can't support the Doc now AT ALL. He kinda screwed himself.

Idk why this is so hard for people. Don't do inappropriate crap with kids. This dude was like my age at the time of this happening, he's a bit older now, but yeah, mid 30s at the time? Close enough. Why is it so hard for some people to NOT do this stuff around children?

I don't care about his extramarital affairs. I'm not the moral police here. You do crap that's legal and it's like whatever. Same as the Rammstein situation. Some people keep saying it's creepy for someone in their 30s to message like 18-19 year olds. Eh, if they groomed them, yes, if it's a consensual convo between consenting adults, whatever. Dont care about age gaps. It's up to the people involved. But you don't do that crap with minors. Jesus. Wtf is wrong with this guy?

I could even give him some leeway if he didn't know and found out later. In that case it's like okay be more careful next time. I personally dont like to deal with under 18s in general personally as an autistic guy who lacks a filter. I try to make sure all of my friends are adults. if you're below 18, i don't even wanna know you. I intentionally try to avoid people like that, even for "just friends" type of situations (and if i was interested in anything NSFW im DEFINITELY asking for age first). Because you never know how crap will be construed after the fact. Not that it matters, it's not exactly common for teens to try to approach people well into adulthood casually, and most who do tend to lie about their age to fit in. Although I guess in the doc's case, it's different as he IS a streamer and he IS famous. Still, how hard is it to like, avoid this situation? Holy crap. 

Really, at this point there's just no defending this. This dude is DONE. He's damaged goods. For all we know he might even face criminal charges. I know even fricking Chris Hansen himself has weighed in on this which is how bad it is. But yeah, this is just inexcusable. Wtf.

Reacting to "the real debate"

 So....last night someone asked me if I was gonna watch "the real debate", and provided a link to...a version of the debate where RFK would respond to questions. I basically asked "why should I listen to captain brainworm?" but after watching last night's dumpster fire, i decided to give RFK a chance. So I'll grade his performance, just like I did Biden and Trump.

Style

YIKES! I didn't think there was much you could do to make Biden look good, but I kinda wish they put RFK on stage next to Biden. He made Biden look more normal, and more forceful. Sorry, but RFK is just AWFUL on style. It's the voice. I can't get over that voice. It's like nails on a chalkboard to me. It just detracted from everything that he said to a point that I was like "you know, Biden didn't do that bad." I mean, that's bad when he actually made BIDEN look charismatic. 1/5

Substance

While he had some populist rhetoric and the whole "the two parties aren't doing enough to address the issues", I heard little of value from him that I couldn't get from the other candidates. He wasn't as bad as Trump who lied endlessly, but honestly, Biden was better on policy. RFK would go off into random questions going on about how shutting down the economy during COVID was the worst thing ever and how his answer to abortion was...job creation...and yeah he didn't do it for me. He had a couple points later on where he might've made sense once in a while, but I can't even remember what they were mostly.Again, he didn't stand out. He was meh. Better than Trump, worse than Biden. 2/5

Overall

Overall, the guy gets a 3/10. I gave Trump a 4/10 because even if he lied, he was relatively pleasant to listen to, and Biden got a 6/10, where he was lacking on presentation, but solid on substance. This guy had neither. His voice is like nails on a chalkboard. And on policy and rhetoric, he just does nothing for me. I mean, he wasnt as bad as Trump, but having watched his segments, and listened to some of Biden and Trump's stuff again, honestly, Biden wasnt that bad the second time around. I admit I focused more on how they sounded as I was gaming while watching this, but honestly? Yeah. Biden won the debate. I know it's an unpopular opinion today, but sorry, not sorry. Trump sucked. RFK sucked if we include him. Biden sucked too but like everything Biden he manages to suck less than the competition. So there we have it. Joe Biden for the president! I'm not backing down from my Biden support. Sorry, not sorry.

Reminder: as much as Biden sucks, replacing him will likely hand the election to the republicans on a platter

 We had this debate months ago, and with people now on the "replace Biden" train following his trainwreck debate performance yesterday, I'm gonna talk some realism into you guys again.

I never liked Biden. I mean, I've come to tolerate him and think he's okay, but I never wanted him for president. The DNC forced him on us. And I voted for Hawkins. But, as things evolved, I felt a need to defend him with great urgency, Trump and the GOP are increasingly dangerous, and the democratic situation is deteriorating fast. It's been deteriorating. This entire time, from October 2023 on, Biden has NOT ONCE reached even a 50-50 probability of winning in my models. It was normally like 30-70 in Trump's favor or worse. 

There have been calls to replace Biden for months. Cenk Uygur, the host of TYT, ran an entire campaign against him on this idea. Progressives have been wanting him replaced for months. We wanted a fair and open primary with candidates like Dean Phillips and Marianne Williamson making their case against him. But, nothing stuck. nothing gains ANY traction. Biden won overwhelmingly in the primaries, by such a margin that no one had a chance. It wasnt even close. Gone were the 45-55 days of Bernie 2016. Gone were the 35-65 days of Bernie 2020. How about 2% of the vote? 3%? While Biden walks away with 85%+, often 90%+. 

Even worse, when DNC alternatives to Biden were approved, they did far worse. Kamala Harris did anywhere from 2-6 points worse than Biden. We went from a roughly 31% chance in November 2023 to a 16% chance if we replaced him with Harris. If we replaced him with Newsom, we were talking a 0% chance as state level polling gave Trump overwhelming double digit leads.

As such, I've given up on replacing Biden months ago. it's a nice idea, but right now, we got a 24% chance of a Biden victory. If the scaling remains similar, his replacement expects to have at most a 12-13% chance. We go from 1 in 4 to 1 in 8. 

If people REALLY want Biden replaced, polling companies better get off their butts and start polling people on this matter. And I'll follow the data, but so far, the data suggests to me replacing Biden would lead to a far worse outcome than sticking where we are. I know that this isn't an outcome many are comfortable with, but you'd need to get a new candidate out there, and hope that they stick and hope the voters go for them. And they very well might not. We would be losing whatever incumbency advantage we have by throwing Biden away and as it stands that advantage is more valuable than his age is a liability. 

We're literally about 4 months out from election day. This is, effectively, going into the final stretch. The conventions are typically in July, although the democratic convention is in August. If the delegates and superdelegates go for someone else, they'd only have about 2.5 months to get their candidate to the finish line. As George W. Bush said in 2004, you dont change horses mid stream. We're crossing the fricking river at this point. We could've entertained this discussion in late 2023, or early 2024 even when primaries were actually going on, but doing this now would be chaos for the dems. And unlike the GOP side, we wouldnt even get a polling bump for ditching our candidate. Sure, replacing Trump with say, Haley, would give the GOP a huge bump. But replacing Biden with harris or someone else is likely only to hurt.

That's just what the numbers say. I'm leaving my own personal opinions out of it, because my heart says draft Dean Phillips or Nina Turner or something. But if you wanna convince me that replacing Biden is a good idea, I need hard data to justify it. Until then we're stuck with the 82 year old guy who looks like he just escaped from the nursing home. That's just how it is.

And yes, I still blame the DNC for this. They forced Hillary on us in 2016, they forced Biden on us in 2020, they didnt allow us to have an actual FAIR primary in 2024. They just decided they wanted what they wanted and seem to systematically try to run progressives out of office. And their leadership is what  brought us to this point. I do 100% blame them for everything. Bunch of rich out of touch old people who are perpetually stuck in the 1990s. It's not 1992 any more, and they're not in their 40s and 50s, but their 70s and 80s. And this centrist strategy of theirs is a fricking failure in the modern environment. Sorry, not sorry. 

But yeah. Still, we're stuck with this guy, and we gotta rally behind him or we're risking our democracy falling to the fascists and religious nutcases, so...what can we do about it now?

The democrats dug us into this hole

 So, with all of the talk of who to replace Biden, many are coming to grips with the fact that they have no one to replace Biden with. Harris is boring. Buttigieg is boring. Whitmer and Newsom are boring. The dems literally spent so much effort sabotaging Bernie and forcing milquetoast centrists on us that now they have no one to run. And because Bernie is too old, neither do we. I'd love to throw Yang or Dean Phillips into there right now, if it proved to be effective polling wise, but they won't go for them either.

The thing, is, the dems sabotage any candidate they dont approve of, and the candidates they do accept and try to foist onto us suck. And now we're stuck in this hole where despite Biden sucking as bad as he does, he's our only hope. I've spent hours watching people responding to Biden's debate performance at this point, and everyone agrees. He SUCKS. I still maintain that between the two, Trump sucks worse, at least Biden was honest, but I can't help but feel like the dems completely and utterly ####ed us. 

We could've had Bernie, or someone else, if they didn't basically force us into this weird neoliberal lane of the party, but now we're here, and we're so screwed. Really, I blame the DNC for this. I blame them for ####ing Bernie in 2016 and 2020. And Yang in 2020 too. But especially Bernie. Let's face it. Bernie had the real energy. He was the democratic trump. The populist candidate who could bring out massive crowds, who was loved by the masses. In 2016, he outperformed Hillary in the polls. In 2020, he admittedly performed worse than Biden, but only by a little, and it would've only cost us Georgia and Arizona all things considered. 

And Bernie aint a spring chicken either. But if he won in 2016 with VP Nina Turner, maybe we'd be running Nina Turner in 2024. We'd have a progressive bench. But the dems basically ####ed us over by destroying our bench because they care about loyalty to the party above all else. They screwed Bernie, they screwed Turner, etc. And now we have no one. The centrist bench isnt any better. We dont have anyone who can poll better than Biden. People are once again already trying to draft fricking Gretchen Whitmer, despite her polling Newsom levels of bad only a few months ago (and let's face it, she's just another centrist third wayer who has the same policy weaknesses of Biden or worse). 

The dems did this. They did it. I actually was calling this back in 2020. That if Biden won, he'd probably lose 2024 because no one would like him. I admit i didnt think it would be THIS bad. I mean, the challenges Biden faced, like inflation, were different than I expected. And I didnt actually expect Biden to age as badly as he has. Seriously, dude looks HORRIBLE. But....the dems insisted on this. They were the ones who put their finger on the scale to make this happen, and now the party ####ed.

If we werent dealing with a fascist who wanted to drag us into christian theocracy as an opponent, I'd just wash my hands and let the dems fail, but that isn't an option when Trump doesn't value the rule of law or the peaceful transfer of power. The GOP is too dangerous this time to be allowed to win, and now we're screwed and all of those chickens the dems cultivated in 2016 and 2020 are coming home to roost. They're collapsing like crazy, and it's actually scary. This is the worst possible time for this, and we're really at risk of a fascist takeover, or more benignly, a 1980 scenario where the GOP exploits the situation to push their agenda making the left unpopular for a generation. 

Seriously. These fricking idiots in DC, they ruined everything. They wouldnt let the party evolve organically, they had to do this risky sun belt strategy out of hubris, and now we're literally on the verge of collapse. The party is literally on the verge of imploding right now. It's not just Biden. It's everything. Because anyone else we can throw in there instead of Biden who thinks like Biden isn't gonna fundamentally be better than Biden. 

We're screwed. Idk how else to say it. We are SCREWED.

For people wondering why Trump "won" the debate....

 So, I'm looking around the internet, and everyone's freaking out. People are saying in overwhelming numbers Trump "won" the debate. To me, this is baffling, because the guy didn't even say anything. But then I'm reminded of this family guy clip, and...yeah. That's where we are right now. People are literally that dumb. And that's why Trump is popular. And that's why he's winning. It's all vibes and feelings, and even if Biden is 100x better on substance, people just like Trump and whatever incoherent garbage he says. I'm very quickly losing faith in this country. People are fricking dumb. I'm sorry, they are. I know I tend to have a "the voter is always right" mindset, but no, voters can be wrong when they're too dumb to pass a basic competence test on the subject. Not that I'd encourage competence tests for voting, we all know how that turns out, but yeah. 

Anyway, if you fricking morons wanna vote for this idiot again, I guess we're stuck with him. but if democracy fall, it's on fricking you guys. Biden aint perfect. i don't even like the dude, and I kind am with the rest of the country in that he looks weak, pathetic, and too old to be on that stage. But trump is a psychopath and he's a serial liar. Biden 100% was a better candidate tonight if you actually care at all about substance. It's not even close. But sadly, people don't care about substance, they care about who has more charisma, and that's trump for better or for worse.

I'm really getting 1980 vibes here and not in a good way.

So...honest debate thoughts....

 So....I'm just gonna come out and say it. This debate....was a complete and utter dumpster fire. Who won? I'm going to say Biden, but it wasn't a really clear victory. I'm gonna rate both candidates out of 10, with 50% being on style, and 50% being on substance here.

Biden

Man...he came off as weak. it was rough to watch. He clearly had a frog in his throat, he couldnt clear it, CNN later said that he had a cold. Still, it wasn't just that. He also seemed to be glitching...like android...glitching...like an android *blinks and makes jerking motions with head.* Yeah...that happened. Biden was terrible, at least at first. Still, he got better over time, he got some zingers in against Trump, taking advantage of his convicted felon status and the like. So...I give Biden a 2/5 on style. 

On substance....Biden was pretty good. He had a few flubs here and there, and let's face it, he's kinda moderate for my tastes, but he was spitting facts the whole time. If anything i got frustrated when he ran out of time responding to trump's BS because he was on a roll a few times there. But yeah, on substance, 4/5. 

So that means Biden's performance for me is a 6/10. It wasn't a clean win, but given Trump's performance he kinda won by default.

Trump

On style, Trump came off as better than Biden. Still, he didn't come off as great. He didn't really seem very persuasive. He just went on incoherent rants about whatever he wanted to talk about and dodged virtually every question. it was painful to get a meaningful response out of him. he just wanted to go on about how he left the country in such great shape and Biden ruined it, while really not offering anything of value. Still, he was able to project some level of confidence. Not a ton. He ALSO looked way too old and past his prime too. But he did come off better than Biden. 3/5 on style.

On substance. Trump was a dumpster fire. He had like nothing. I think maybe he had a good point on like one or two subjects like immigration in small ways, but beyond that, he was terrible, and even then he was just playing the "dey tuk r jerbs" card way too much and yeah. he had nothing. He lied the whole time. It was a total joke. 1/5. 

As such, Trump's performance gets a 4/10, and I feel like that's generous. But still, that is what I decide base on my rating scale, so yeah.

Overall

This debate encapsulated this election in general. We got a semi competent old dude who doesnt LOOK semi competent and looks HORRIBLE on stage in practice. And we got the psychopath who lies about everything but looks just marginally better. Both of these candidates are horrible. Both are a joke. After watching this, I wanna vote for Jill Stein or Cornel West so bad. But given what's at stake this election of Trump wins, I'm stuck defending the nursing home guy. I hate this. I really do. I'm not gonna pretend to like it. 

A lot of people in the dem sphere are freaking out right now. They KNOW Biden looked bad, and theyre talking of replacing him. I'd be for that...IF it would improve our odds, I'm still not sure it would. We analyzed Kamala Harris earlier this year, she had a 15% chance to Biden's 25-30. Gavin newsom and gretchen whitmer were down so much that their chance was virtually 0. So...we're stuck weekend at bernie's-ing this guy. 

Still, I am going to say Biden won here. It wasn't a clean win, I get the concerns and the freak outs, but yeah, at least Biden was semi coherent and actually truthful in his responses. Both sucked, but I still think Biden is a lesser evil here, if nothing else.

As for how normies will interpret it, idk. I mean, your average voter is DUMB. I was gonna say after this if Trump still wins ive lost all faith in this country, but yeah I've already lost faith and I think trump's message will resonate even if he's full of crap. Keep in mind, he was full of crap in 2016 and still won. And people still liked the guy. This might be 2016 again. 

Idk what else to say here. We might be screwed. Still, I'll stick with my opinion. Both sides were terrible, trump was worse.

Election Update 6/27/24 (Abridged)

 So, with the debate tonight, I figured I'd let people know where things stand. This won't be a full update. Not enough has changed for me to do one of those, but I did want to have something to go by because the first debate is tonight.

2 way: +1.5% Trump

5 way: +2.6% Trump

So 3rd party candidates are pushing things one point in Trump's direction.

The tipping point: Pennsylvania (Trump +2.8%)

This gives Biden a 24.2% chance of winning and Trump a 75.8% chance.

What changed? Nothing really. RCP dropped some old polls and it made Trump's advantage go up. This is actually a relatively mild fluctuation, but I did feel a need to update the probability based on that. 

If we want a more detailed idea of what's going on with what I consider the hottest swing states:

New Hampshire: Biden +5.3%

Minnesota: Biden +3.0%

Virginia: Biden +2.2%

Maine: Biden +2.0% 

Nebraska CD2: Biden +1.0%

Wisconsin: Tie

Michigan: Trump +0.2%

Pennsylvania: Trump +2.8% (Tipping point)

Georgia: Trump +4.0%

Nevada: Trump +4.0%

Arizona: Trump +5.6%

North Carolina: Trump +5.8%

Not as detailed as the chart I normally do, but it gives you an idea. In other words, not a lot has changed, a lot of movement around the edges. Georgia and Nevada are technically lean now, but just barely. Seems more a technicality than anything. 

Overall electoral map is largely unchanged minus a couple shading changes that don't mean a ton in practice. 226-302 Trump is where it stands right now given Wisconsin is literally tied. So could mean 236-302 or 226-312 in practice. Still, keep in mind it was +0.1% Trump or something in my previous prediction so this doesn't mean much.

How is the left so bad at politics?

 I mean, I've been kinda having this thought today with the whole Jamaal Bowman thing, but why is the left so bad at politics? it baffles me. 

I know, I know, we can say the DNC screws us, big money screws us, it's true to some extent. But no. The left just seems uniquely bad at just doing anything political. The other parts of the spectrum ORGANIZE. They do get out the vote efforts. AIPAC just got tons of jewish voters out in NY16. Why can't we organize around a handful of issues and get people out to vote? Why can't we be a bloc of voters like the religious right is which is obsessed with abortion or gay marriage? Or the tea party obsessed with national debt. No, it's not just money. It's the fact that we don't seem to have our crap together.

Like this election. We couldnt get organized around a single candidate. We didn't organize around williamson. More people voted for cease fire now than marianne williamson. It was a joke. She wasn't even on the ballot in my state. I had to write her in. Even dean phillips got on the ballot here. 

Normally, you got these groups, like say, Moms Against Drunk Driving, who get really hyper focused on some issues, and manage to do political hardball to change things. Those guys are why the drinking age is 21. They basically leveraged things to ensure it was 21 and got any states punished for NOT making it 21 by withholding highway funds from them federally. We had the prohibition party eventually make prohibition a literal constitutional amendment once. How come we arent organizing for medicare for all? Or a green new deal? (since I know that that's more popular than my UBI idea). Most of these groups get out the vote for candidates who do what they want, and tank candidates who don't. But we just end up not playing hardball and falling for the "blue no matter who" stuff, and we end up just not even doing anything.

Part of it is communists are just losers. I'm not a communist but I've kinda seen that a lot of people who end up being progressives end up becoming "leftists" over time, and a lot of those guys are anti electoral. They give up on the system, and larp as revolutionaries, which is how we get stupidity like the free palestine crap in the first place. They have to be offputting and alienating since it's the only way they think people will listen to them.

Then you got leftists like in the anti work community who read theory from 150 years ago, but then ban anyone who actually proposes realistic solutions like UBI. Still kinda bitter at fricking r/antiwork for that one. Leftists seem to ruin everything honestly. 

I mean, someone said it today, the message should be simple, "you're being ####ed, we want to help you". It should be an easy winning message. 

And the thing is, we've done this before. We've organized during the new deal. We got the 40 hour work week, FLSA, social security, etc. We had people like huey long going on about sharing the wealth. I do admit the government did eventually infiltrate that stuff and break it up starting in the 1950s, cracking down on literal communists, because again, literal communists are at best losers and at worst national security risks. They kinda bring it on themselves by wanting to fricking overturn the system rather than just reforming it. And when your existential enemy after WWII is the communists, yeah, identifying with those guys is kinda a bad thing. 

But that doesnt mean there isnt tons of room to be like...a social democrat or social liberal or social libertarian. Ya know, some sort of reformist. Again, why is it so fricking hard?

Ive noticed this since 2016 itself. Someone said Bernie must be livid. He pushed to start a political revolution and now those who came after him are already getting wrecked over the free palestine crap. And I'm gonna be honest. I'm kinda pissed, as someone who was with bernie in 2016 and 2020, I'm really kinda scared for the left's future post bernie. We dont have anyone else. The movement is going insane, and they're already starting to make all of the mistakes previous waves of the left made.

I really do think part of the mistake is the nature of leftism. It's like those who are more moderate are being absorbed back into the democrats for better or for worse. I've resisted doing this, but even I'm having to do it this time, and given how radical "the left" that hasn't is getting, it's like I'm forced to choose between the neoliberals that I hate and these whacko communist types who fricking act like doomers and never do anything productive and seem to jsut make the situation worse because they have the energy of incels and nice guys. Like that's basically what leftists are. They're the political equivalent of incels. They've given up on themselves, they've given up on society, they're bitter, and their bitterness and crappy attitude toward everything makes everyone hate them and makes the situation worse. Which just confirms their presuppositions on the subject to begin with. 

Idk, maybe it's the fact that I came from the right originally, but I do think the left should be able to get somewhere if they wanted to. They'd have to drop the "incel crap" type stuff (like literal communism), but they could probably organize and get some stuff going. The unions did it in the early 20th century. Why can't we get something like that going again on a political level? I'm not saying it's gonna be easy. There is generally tons of opposition to left wing movements. We dont have the money and resources, and there is that whole history of mccarthyism, cointelpro, etc (although tbqh, i think that simply avoiding LITERAL COMMUNISM would probably help a lot), but still. We have some play I think.  

For a while I've been saying we need a tea party of the left. I did this recognizing that the organization the tea party engaged in worked. Now, I'm not sure about that because ive kinda realized the modern left is batcrap insane like the tea party is, but we still need something tea party LIKE. We need an organization based around a set of principles and who just keeps fighting for these changes and hammering away. Who acquires voters, does get out the vote efforts, shifts elections, and sends a message to the dems that they can't win without their help. That's how we win politics. We need to play it the way everyone else plays it, from the right, to the center to aipac. It's only the left that seems completely inept at this and it baffles me why. It's not just the matter of the opposition crushing them. The left literally has a competence problem.

Can we get rid of the stupid suffering olympics regarding work already?

 You guys know what I mean. "Oh you work 40 hours a week? I work 50." "You work 50 hours a week? I work 70, AND I have a newborn meaning i do it all on 3 hours of sleep". STOP MAKING YOURSELVES OUT TO BE MARTYRS. YOU'RE NOT COOL, YOU'RE NOT BAD###, YOU'RE OPPRESSED AND BRAINWASHED, AND IT'S REALLY FRICKING SAD. 

I tried to watch an asmongold video on this subject. It started off with some younger upper class girl going on about how she thinks the fact that we're forced to work 40 hours a week to survive is F-ed up. And then it eventually cuts to some oil rig worker and how they have it worse so stop complaining. Uh, no. It's F-ed either way. Let's stop pretending it isn't. Modern society is sick. We literally enslave people for the sake of maximizing growth and then brainwash them to redirect their anger about the system toward the people who point it out, rather than the people who perpetuate it. Stop going after the people who complain about it on the basis that others have it worse. I don't fricking care. The fact that we live like this is insane, and I'm tired of pretending it isn't. Stop this stupid suffering olympics crap. If we ever want to improve this system, we gotta get away from this weird crab mentality that keeps perpetuating the issue and making things worse. The way to improve things is to acknowledge that we have a problem, and then change how society operates to solve it. But first we gotta admit we have a problem. Gaslighting people into thinking this is okay by minimizing their concerns when they bring them up is sick. Stop doing it. 

Fricking morons. This is why I normally stick to watching left wing streams. 

EDIT: Okay the stream isnt that bad as it goes further on but the first few minutes were cringe. 

EDIT2: eh, I'm mixed on it. Dude came out in favor of UBI at the end but he still kinda seems to be leaning into the "get over it" vibe and I hate that crap. Complaining about things is the first step to improving things, because you need to admit we have a problem.

Responding to "how can you support a president that's funding a genocide?"

 So, someone literally asked this in an attempt to voter shame me, and I figured I would explain the process:

1) Request my mail in ballot. I live in PA. We can all vote by mail now starting in 2020. I love it. I already did this step for the primary where I'm signed up for the rest of the year.

2) Vote for Marianne Williamson in the primary. I admit, I didn't do it over Israel, more over UBI, M4A, and my economic ambitions, but I did it. Im standing  on  principle at  least  once this election cycle.

3) Get my mail in ballot in October.

4) Fill in the circle next to "Joe Biden"

5) Put the ballot in the secret envelope

6) Put the secret envelope in the other envelope

7) Return my mail in ballot to the post office

8) ???

9) Profit!

And that's that. Seriously though, can we stop this BS voter shaming? As I've pointed out before, I don't really care about the conflict. I dont think this is a hill worth dying over. There are hundreds of political issues out there. Palestine isn't the only one deserving of attention. Heck, based on the Bowman thing, I think this is a loser for us. If you wanna waste your vote on this, go right ahead, I won't stop you. But I'm voting based on other issues mostly. I have my economic agenda, which Biden very imperfectly represents, and I feel morally obligated to defend him this time.  We have Trump wanting to overturn democracy, we have project 2025, there's more at stake this election cycle than Israel.

I understand that this will offend some people, and people might think I'm horrible for even making the above joke, but ya know what? Screw your feelings, I'm tired of this  crap. You ask a stupid question, you get a stupid answer. You can't shame me into things. I literally don't care if you think I'm a bad person. Deal with it. 

Responding to Kyle's reasoning for why Bowman lost

 So, Kyle Kulinski covered Jamaal Bowman getting destroyed politically and his take is  parallel to  mine, but there are differences. I felt like his reasoning was worth responding to.

The "AIPAC money cannon"

I mean, it is true that AIPAC spent INSANE amounts of money on this race. It was the most expensive house race we've ever had. And you cant outdo the sheer amount of cash that AIPAC spent on crushing Bowman. Bowman never had a chance. I'm  not saying it's right. I said it myself, I  dont think Israel should be able to spend this much money influencing our politics. We freak out because Russia spent a few million on troll farms but Israel can just throw tons of money to oust politicians critical of them? 

But at the same time, I do want to say that in a sense, Bowman did bring about the "wrath of god" so to speak by being so critical of Israel. And knowing that this could happen, was it worth it? This is where I'll flat out disagree with Kyle. I respect Kyle on many things, it's why i still watch and respond to his segments  so much, but on Israel and foreign policy? No, he's flat out wrong. He has a good heart, but going all in on this issue is political suicide and now we're  literally losing people in congress over this. And it's not worth it. What do we gain from this? NOTHING! 

So, Kyle aint technically wrong, but we have a clear disagreement about morality and how much this issue should be prioritized. 

Redistricting screwing him

So, Kyle used to live in Bowman's district in NY, and his argument is the 2020 redistricting screwed him. It made him a lot more vulnerable as it shifted him north into NYC suburbs and those voters are a lot more  moderate. However, I am going to go against him on this one.

First, this is the same district he won in in 2022. Yes, they did shift the map a bit for 2024, but Bowman's district is unchanged. It does seem like his district did shift from his original district in the 2010s, but even then his district was mostly just made bigger for some reason, with him having most  of the same voters, but then getting those suburbanites kyle talked about on his show. It was largely kept intact and there was little negative intent demonstrated in the redistricting process. The map was fair, and while a little harder for him to win, he DID win in 2022 there. 

He had little to no excuse to lose this time. Something clearly changed in the past 2 years to sour the public's opinion of him. Most likely reasons are  once again, opposing Israel, and his fire alarm stunt. 

The fact is, if he didnt go so hardline against Israel, he wouldve been reelected. He screwed up. He should've never done it. It wasnt a fight worth having. And he's paying the price for it.

Kyle talks about this having a chilling effect moving forward, and to some extent I hope it does. Not because I like Israel, but because I want progressives to actually win. Stop committing  political suicide over this crap. Unlike Kyle I dont think this issue is worth invoking this much backlash over. This is an issue to just let go. Spend that political capital on UBI or medicare for all or something. THAT'S worth fighting over. This crap isn't. 

Being fair and balanced about Jamaal Bowman

 So, as you can tell I've read some centrist democrats doing their stupid little victory laps about how Bowman sucked and progressives suck, and I do despise those guys, but in the name of fairness. I do think that some of what they say about Bowman is valid. 

The fire alarm stunt

I covered this on here when it happened, but remember when this dude pulled a fire alarm to delay a vote? Yeah, that happened. And it was cringe. And I was very critical of it. It did come back around to bite him, because a lot of the centrists in his district are the civilteh types who cant stand that crap. I didn't like it either to be fair, but it also wouldnt have deterred me from supporting him. But yeah, it's a fair criticism and he was stupid for doing it.

That rally

So he held a rally over the weekend in the Bronx where he cursed and actually acted like a real person, and got crapped on for it and called "unhinged." And Im gonna be honest. While I get how it's not everyone's cup of tea, this is where I diverge from the dems. The dems are anti populist. They like everything buttoned down, prim and proper. How dare this guy use words like that. How dare he appear human in front of other humans. I've heard some to go so far to say that he sounds like Donald Trump. Given how Trump is beating our #### right now in the polls, that's a good thing. We NEED to be more like Trump, at least in the small positive populist ways. Dems are boring, stuffy, and perpetually stuck in the 1990s. And I get it, different demographics like different things, with Bowman's district also having a lot of suburbanites who dont like that sort of thing. But this as nothingburger as the "Dean Scream." I've seen clips of his rally, I LIKED his rally. I wish more politicians would act like this. Makes them seem more human and less corporate automaton.

9/11 conspiracy theories

Given how he represents freaking New York City (the Bronx and suburbs like Westchester), I can see why this doesn't land. I think he disavowed such positions, but still, it's cringe. I wouldnt hold it against him given he has distanced himself from such views, but some still are susceptible to being turned off by it. To be fair, it was a crappy position.

The anti Israel thing...

Now, I might be critical of Israel and their war in Gaza, but it should also be clear that I'm effectively pro Israel in terms of the conflict at large. I was with them after October 7th, and shifted away from them as the war got a bit too bloody and brutal. But still, Bowman takes it to cringe levels. He voted against Iron Dome, he denied that people were raped on October 7th, which is Brianha Joy Grey levels of cringe. 

Above everything, this is the real reason he lost. He actually had a large Jewish base in his district, and they were heavily mobilized by AIPAC to get to the polls. And it's like, dude, wtf are you thinking? Maybe if you represented Dearborn Michigan you could get away with this crap, but not NYC in a district full of Jewish people. He just was wildly out of touch for what his voters wanted.

It's a shame. I like Bowman in a way. I obviously dont agree with him on this issue fully, and I already stated I wish progressives would keep their heads down on this issue and NOT make it their red line. But yeah. We just lost one of our most progressive members of congress, over this issue. It's losing issue for us. Hammering it hard so much is political suicide. We can't do this. We will destroy what little influence we've amassed in the past decade if we don't play ball at least some of the time. And this is an issue to just concede IMO. The anti Israel left is being very electorally stupid. And I aint with them on this one. 

As such, that's my analysis. Bowman was a decent congressperson IMO, but he had cringe moments. He mightve withstood a primary challenge if he didnt go full anti Israel in a district full of Jewish voters. I think that's what demonstrably killed him. I know a lot of centrists are talking about the other stuff like the 9/11 conspiracy theories, and the fire alarm, and his profanity laced rally, but eh, a lot of that doesnt bother me much. If anything, I thought the rally was based. I hate the decorum people on that one. The fire alarm and 9/11 stuff was cringe but it's also, eh...whatever. 

But yeah. Don't go all anti Israel in a district full of Jewish people. Lesson learned. Heck, if anything this is why ive been reluctant to embrace a more pro palestine narrative, polling doesnt indicate it would endear the population. If anything dems are more likely to lose voters on this one and the free palestine people are an electorally insignificant minority of people for the most part. Maybe they could cost Biden Michigan narrowly, but other than that, it's like, why even talk about this?

So yeah, the left's out of touch on this one. But upon reflection, they'll just say everyone else is wrong. Kinda makes you realize why AOC voted for Iron Dome that one time. 

Dear centrist democrats, please shut the heck up

 Okay, so I'm watching the centrist dems gloat over Latimer beating Bowman and honestly, it kinda incenses me. Y'all realize you still need progressives in november right? For all you talk about how progressives "aren't real democrats" you sure AF talk like you need us to support you in November. You always tell us to vote blue no matter who and crap. So why antagonize progressives so much? This is why we hate you guys? You're actively hostile to us, you crap on our candidates, you effectively put your finger on the scale to get the result you want, and then you have the gall to do this obnoxious victory lap telling us how much we suck and blah blah blah.

You realize this crap is what made me NOT vote for you in 2016, right? How after you pulled all this crap with screwing Bernie there was no way I was voting for Hillary in November right? You treat your voters like crap, don't be surprised when we don't bail your butts out in November. You guys make me wanna go full PUMA on this crap (party unity my you know...). 

Thankfully for you guys I'm not really super on board with the far left and their anti israel antics and I have a lot of criticism to throw their way too. And I a supporting Biden for reasons on this blog. But yeah. I have gone third party before. I'm  not opposed to doing so in the future, and a huge reason I've never wanted to unite with you guys is because you DO treat us like this. And I DESPISE you guys for it. 

You realize the left might be a lot more cordial if you guys werent causing such obnoxious infighting with us in the first place? When you crap on us and attack our candidates and tell us we're not welcome in your party, don't be surprised when some of us decide we're not part of your party. You can't it both ways. If you really want people out there voting for Biden, and trust me, you need every vote you can get, you can't afford to piss us off. You wanna play your stupid power games with us, feel free to F around and find out. Again. Because how did that work out for you in 2016? Don't be stupid. 

How to decide who to vote for

So, I figured that it might be good to make a little handy dandy guide to determine who one should vote for. Now, I'm not JUST talking republican and democrat here, since given this blog is mainly aimed at lefties, I'm also talking about third parties vs democrats. 

I look at it like this. I figure out what my top issues are and make metrics to weigh my priorities accordingly. And then I look at all candidates that might catch my eye and attempt to measure them. And in theory at least, I go for the highest scoring candidate. 

Now, when measuring third parties vs democrats, this metric might need to change a bit. After all, democrats are the "default option" for the left, with the actual chance of winning, while the third party candidate is more a virtue signal. Unlike "pragmatic" voters I'm not gonna say always go for the democrat. I do think sometimes a virtue signal is worth it. How do I decide that? Well, it depends.

If the democrats and the greens get similar scores on my metric, kinda like they're doing this election, a protest vote isnt worth it. I mean, if youre gonna do it, the democrats kinda have to suck and the third party candidate has to be significantly better. That's why I have that 10 point metric for the dems in there now. And then on top of that I'd still expect the third party candidate to be significantly higher than the dem on top of that.

Like, if the dem absolutely sucks, they score like a 40 or 50 on my metric, and then the third party candidate scores like a 70, yeah, third party can be worth it. But if both kinda sorta score around 60, it's like...what's the point of a third party vote? Ya know? just go for the democrat?

To me, it's really a matter of whether the dems' flaws are dealbreakers and if we actually have a better alternative. If the democrat is almost as good as the third party candidate, you might as well just vote for the democrat. Going for the virtue signal is only worth it if the democrats are just so bad that they are actively alienating you, and if you have a third party candidate with a significantly better platform.

like, in 2016, I went third party, and even then I did entertain voting for Hillary. I just didnt do it because the dems had this mentality of just actively offending me while taking me for granted and trying to bully me into voting for them. It really took a lot of effort for them to alienate me as hard as they did. it was almost as if they were trying to.

And stein wasnt really amazing. I kinda held my nose for her.

In 2020, I kinda treated it as a 2016 repeat just with biden instead of hillary, and hawkins was like a better version of stein. 

In 2024, Biden shifted enough to make me less hostile toward the dems this time, while the greens really arent doing it for me with the big issue of the day being gaza and palestine for them. 

Like, if anything, i actually like the dems better and Stein does worse than Biden. Even within the built in dem advantage, Biden and Stein are kinda neck and neck, which in and of itself tells me it's not worth voting for Stein. 

Again, I wanna repeat, in 2016, I felt like hillary's behavior was so bad it was practically an affront to my values, and I felt very strongly about making a point to NOT vote democrat, and in 2020, that behavior and mindset carried over. This time around things are a bit different where the dem vote seems more justified. 

And yeah. I just felt like I should write this guide to give people an idea on how I view these things.

Ultimately, a third party vote should be seen as a rejection of the political status quo and a call for some sort of political change. It should be calling for the party closest to you to adopt some policies that they're neglecting, or simply to stop running such crappy candidates.

Okay, seriously, stop focusing on the sun belt

 So, I've seen this chart today from yet another model. I forget from where (I think it was NYT), there are so many of these election models coming out that it's getting hard to keep track of them all, and I really want to back up what it says.

As we know, I recently went over my own predictions and found most flips happen within 4 points. GA, AZ, NV, and NC aren't REALLY in play this election. They CAN flip, but I wouldnt count on it. My bell curve based model has them at a 10-16% chance for the most part, and if we go by my real world data of flips, we get a dismal 4%. So don't count on it. Biden's best shot is defending the states he's ahead in, and making inroads in the rust belt taking back Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania. 

Seriously, NE2, Maine, Virginia, and Minnesota are more in play than the sun belt. And I'm tired of pretending they're not. People keep acting like these arent swing states and they can't flip, but if you operate under the assumption that the map shifted 4-6 points to the right from its 2020 baseline, them, being D+2-4 or so makes perfect sense. That's where we are right now. And that's a dangerous place to be in, as those states have a roughly 1 in 4 chance of flipping on average, in both probability models I use. 

The sun belt strategy has always been ill advised. Clinton pursued it in 2016 out of hubris. Not only did it not work, it actually backfired because the coalitions required for dems to even have a chance down there require alienating rust belt voters. Which is how she lost. 

In 2020 Biden barely won those voters. AZ and GA NARROWLY went blue. 

And again, now he's down 4-6 points vs then. 

The thing is, such a strategy relies primarily on winning over minority voters like blacks and latinos in overwhelming numbers, and focusing on upper class suburbanites in cities like Atlanta, Raleigh, Phoenix, and Dallas. I've seen numbers lately implying that the dems advantage among minority voters is actually cratering because as it turns out, their politics are more complicated than the dems think they are, and honestly, suburban voters have always been an iffy go.

If anything, the dems pursuing this strategy is why our coalition is so screwed. We were winning during the Obama years. Clinton literally blew that coalition up, driving white working class voters out of the party, and actually breathed new life into the GOP's coalition of voters. Seriously, the GOP was dying until the dems started messing with this.

If the dems wanna focus so much on "electability", and believe me, this is an election for that, they need to double down on the rust belt and maintain states they risk losing like virginia, minnesota, and maine. Stop focusing on winning these R+5 states that have very little actual chance of flipping. It's a fool's errand. They might be better to go for some time in the 2030s, but not now. This isn't the election cycle to even attempt something like this.

See the writing on the wall, cut your losses, and focus on winning where we can actually win.

Jamaal Bowman lost primary, reactions and a warning to progressives

 So, Jamaal Bowman lost his primary against George Latimer. I know I havent covered this story much, but this is what happened. Jamaal Bowman is a progressive in congress. He's a member of the squad, and more recently, he's been a thorn in the side of the democratic party, and especially Israel. 

Now, there were a lot of conspiring interests that wanted him out. You had the DNC who doesnt like progressives in congress in the first place and likes corporate democrats, and you had AIPAC, who REALLY wanted him gone because they apparently have insane amounts of power and can run people out of office who dont toe the party line. Anyway, establishment dems fell in behind Latimer with Hillary Clinton endorsing him, and then again, AIPAC threw tons of money at Latimer to get him to dethrone Bowman. And it worked. We just lost one of our most progressive members of congress. 

As you can imagine, I'm understandably kinda pissed. As we know, I'm typically on the progressive side of the democratic party. I hate the establishment, I hate corporate influence, and them displacing a progressive to get a corporate dem in makes my skin crawl. it's that sort of crap that makes me not wanna vote for them in November. Not that I'm in a position to withhold my vote this election with donald trump and the religious nutcases on the ballot on the right.

And on the Israel thing, look, my views on israel are nuanced, but as far as AIPAC goes, I DONT like how much power a foreign government wields over our own politicians. I mean, in Washington, Israel is so aggressive with lobbying that it seems like going against them is pretty much political suicide. I'm not saying this is right. I actually hate this and wish we could curtail this influence. I think it's unhealthy for our democracy. 

But, at the same time, I also have to project some ire at my fellow progressives. Look, it's been quite clear that since 2016, we've been fighting an uphill battle to gain influence within the democratic party. And we havent gotten much of anywhere. There's like 9 people in the squad, we just lost one of them. Some of the others like Rashida Tlaib are fricking hated over this Israel stuff, and we're spending all of this political capital on this Israel issue, for what, exactly? What is this getting us? NOTHING. ABSOLUTELY NOTHING!

Yet, for some reason, the left seems to be deciding that THIS is the hill that we must die on. That we must go all in against Israel to save Palestine and honestly? It's just destroying our credibility and setting us backwards. I'm actually pissed at my fellow progressives this election cycle for being so narrow minded on this issue. I hear it again and again about how this is our red line of red lines and this is the only issue that seems to matter this election cycle.

And in doing so, we're literally shooting ourselves in the foot, destroying any influence we have in congress, and getting the wrath of fricking Yahweh brought down on us....over this. 

I've always said it with the purity testing thing. Sometimes you gotta figure out what issues youre willing to stick your neck out on, and stick to those, but on other stuff, you gotta give a little. You're never gonna get your way 100% of the time. You gotta prioritize what issues you're for. Like with me, I'm for UBI, universal healthcare, free college, a climate bill, reducing the work week, that sort of thing. I have a clear vision with a clear set of issues that are "my issues". And then on other issues, I'm more flexible. I'm willing to bend on things for electability. Some examples of this are on immigration, where I'm perfectly fine going along with Biden basically being a trump lite to get reelected. Or alternatively, I'm willing to overlook a lot of pandering on the issue from the left that I find cringe as well. Or on israel, you think I like what Israel is doing? Because I really don't. But am I gonna stand up to Israel and get thrown out of office over this crap? HELL NO!

And that's something I wish the left would learn. The left is being irrationally morally inflexible this election cycle. And it's actually problematic for us. We're literally LOSING ELECTIONS over THIS crap. And I wish that we'd stop and back off and stop being such morally self righteous morons over this issue. Out of all of the issues in the world, THIS IS THE ONE WE CHOOSE TO DIE ON THE HILL OVER? REALLY? Come on. 

I hope the left gets its crap together, fast, realizes that this is literally a LOSING ISSUE for us, and gets its head out of you know where. Because we could literally be purged from congress in a systematic fashion over this. For as much as you guys care about this issue, so do the zionists, and they have far more money and resources and organization to get us thrown out of power over it. So just keep your heads down, concede on this one, and live to fight another day.

And that's what I'm going to say on this one. I expect this to be yet another unpopular take among the modern left, but someone has to say it, because you guys are like a suicidal cult on this issue these days.

In war, no, not all lives are equal

 So, this is gonna be a relatively spicy hot take, but I watched Kyle Kulinski again today, and he was commenting on some interview between Medhi Hassan and Dean Phillips, in which Dean Phillips was asked about the morality of saving 6-7 American hostages at the expense of 200 Palestinians. And he just seemed taken aback when Dean Phillips said he would be okay with such a trade. And, to me, this came off as kinda cringey, as I kind of agree with Dean Phillips, and I wanted to explain the logic.

Lefties don't seem to understand that when you're at war, the goal is to win. And the goal is, as George S. Patton would say, "not to die for your own country, but to make the other bastard die for his." PERIOD. 

In a state of war and foreign affairs, no, the lives of our own citizens are decidedly NOT equal to that of the enemy. And Dean phillips talked about things we did during WWII that werent nice, like the bombing of Dresden, the fire bombing of Tokyo, nuking Hiroshima and Nagasaki, as things that were necessary that helped us win wars. ANd he's right. You realize if we didnt do those things, more AMERICANS would die? We had this whole suidical frontal assault on Japan planned called Operation Downfall. It would have killed hundred of thousands of our own people to pull off. But because we bombed them into submission, we ended the war on relatively amicable terms. It wasn't a clean win. Yes, we killed tons of people. but we did it because better them than us!

I mean, I've been saying this a lot since October 7th, and it's true. The left doesnt know how to fight a war. They dont have the stomach to fight a war. They are dangerously inept at foreign policy. For however good I think they may be on economic policy at times, on foreign, they suck. Majorly. And they would be the downfall of the US to our enemies. 

When we think about foreign policy, there is a hierarchy of how lives are prioritized.

First, I'd say you look out for your own people.

Second, you look out for your allies.

Third, I'd say you look out for friends who you don't have any obligations toward, but you share mutual interests and culture.

Fourth, you look out for people who are neutral.

And THEN you start worrying about your enemy at the bottom of the list. And yes, the civilians of the other side are technically the enemy. Yes, we should try to be relatively humane toward them. And that's why I tend to criticize Israel as much as I do. I think they have not even attempted a good faith effort at TRYING to avoid civilian casualties, and I do think that their actions are done with the intent to have a genocidal effect. They want the land, they want to clear the people off of it, so they intentionally inflict maximum civilian casualties to do this. I don't think that's right.

But if we happen to kill a bunch of civilians trying to achieve legitimate military objectives and there's no way around it, then so be it. Ultimately, it comes down to intent for me. Try to minimize harm, but push comes to shove if that's what it takes to win, do what you have to. Just, try to be as humane as reasonably possible under the circumstances. 

I'm not expecting perfection here. Just effort to not be extremely crappy, and my criticisms toward Israel are over their failure to achieve even that low bar. 

But make no mistake, push comes to shove, yeah, American lives are worth multiple palestinian ones, I would say. I won't set a hard rule, if I did I'd probably say something like 10:1 (meaning that 200 for 6-7 is a bad tradeoff), but honestly, that's also why I'm kinda leery on a hard rule. It is subjective, isn't it? And it is a dilemma or trolley problem either way.

Still, at the end of the day, I expect the American government to support Americans over Palestinians. If they don't do that, they're abdicating their role as being the protectors of their citizens, which is one of the key responsibilities of a nation state. Sorry, not sorry. I know this isn't the politically correct answer lefties like to hear, but it is the correct one as far as warfare goes.

Applying lessons from past predictions to 2024

 So, I've had a few days to reflect on the lessons of my previous post reviewing the accuracy of my past data, and while I won't change my official methodology for now, keep in mind, even with a sample size of like 80, or even over 100 with the 2004-2012 data, it's not enough to draw any massive conclusions. However, this did give me some insight into how electoral probability actually seems to work, and how I should approach 2024 polling wise.

I think the idea that any state up to 8 points is in play technically is a good one. My worst error was Wisconsin in 2016, I had Hillary at 6.5% estimating a 5% chance of flipping and it flipped. I also think it should be noted that Wisconsin and Michigan did have wild swings in the 6-8 point range in 2020 that could have made them flip if they werent literally hard blue for me. To be fair that's in part error on my part, remember my 2020 prediction was just off in general, but yeah, its worth considering.

Then we have 2016, where a lot of those states in the rust belt were off by up to 6-8 points. Just because WI/MI/PA were the only ones to flip didn't mean that states like Ohio, Iowa, and Minnesota didn't have similar fluctuations. They just happened to go the direction they were supposed to. My success and error rates were completely based on whether I guessed the correct outcome. In a lot of cases, I did predict the right outcome, but I was wildly off by the margins. I only recorded flips from the predicted outcome as being wrong. 

Still, in the official predictions on that front, I did notice a weird trend. States up to 4 points or so, all seemed to perform roughly the same. I had this roughly 70% probability no matter what I did. Now, normally, I'd expect like a 55% probability for "tilts", 65% or so with 1-2% leans, 70something with 2-3% leans, and around 80% with 3-4% leans, but yeah, it was actually all over the place and I did do more analysis on the leans that I didn't post. Basically I find that 0-2% predictions are typically all about 70% accurate. Then 2-3% leans will actually GO DOWN for some reason, and then I'd go back up to 3-4%. It's weird. Really weird. Normally, I view election probability as a bell curve, but based on my actual results, I get something kinda like a top hat, where stuff within 4% has a roughly 30% chance of flipping, and stuff beyond 4% has a 4% chance of flipping so far. it's weird.

Part of this could be margin of error being a bit too generous, maybe reducing things to a 3 point MOE would make things tighter and more accurate, but again, I feel like if I did that I'd be wrong too much, given how there were tons of fluctuations in that range that just happened to not flip anything. So idk. 

Either way, the fact that the overwhelming majority of flips are within 4 points does tell me something. It tells me that most people are reading the election wrong. For the most part, the media and most people online are framing the big swing states as the following: Wisconsin, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Arizona, Nevada, Georgia, and North Carolina.

I think this is wrong. Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania, yes, but again, the other four have been consistently above 4 points. They're not really in play. They're kinda lost causes for the democrats. I think people include them since Biden won 3/4 of them in 2020, but again, if polling is accurate, public opinion has shifted roughly 6 points to the right since then. Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania seem to be in that zone where things can flip, but the other four arent. 

On the flip side, there are a lot of states in play that no one are really talking about. We're starting to see discussions now on them, but there's a lot of skeptics saying "no way will they flip" because they typically went Biden +6.5-9.5 last time. BUT...if public opinion has shifted 6 points since then, they're now in that 0.5-3.5% range, and that's what polling confirms. Of course, we're talking about NE2/Omaha, Minnesota, Virginia, and Maine. TAKE THESE STATES SERIOUSLY. They are statistically as much in play as the rust belt. They literally have the same chance of flipping as the rust belt. if Trump overperforms the current polls THEY CAN AND WILL FLIP. Everyone is just assuming the polling is overestimating Trump and underestimating Biden. And that can be true. And if I had to predict which direction any purported error will go, I would be inclined to say Biden will overperform and the rust belt is where the election will be won or lost for him. I do think him eeking out a 270-268 win is very well possible if he overperforms like Trump did in 2016, or like how the dems did in 2022. 

But at the same time, to be intellectually honest, i gotta view it the other way too. Because statistically, the opposite outcome is literally just as likely. We could see those other 4 battlegrounds flip as well. And any of them doing so means Biden pretty much isn't gonna win. He needs EVERYTHING. He needs to run the board here. 

So yeah. I'll say this. Biden CAN win. I do think it's possible for him to win, and if I had to guess it going either way, I do think that the outcome where he DOES win is very well possible. BUT....I do think the idea that his chances are roughly 1 in 3 are accurate. I would favor trump, he simply has more paths to the white house here and the statistics favor him. And considering that, yeah, I would say that Biden should shift some attention to MN/VA/NE2/ME. I feel like these are being taken for granted like the rust belt was in 2016, and yeah, Biden CAN lose these to Trump.

So how accurate are my election predictions?

 So after seeing betting odds sites go on about how things happen about as often as they say that they do, I figured I'd go back and measure  my own track record here, and whether things happen about as often as I  predict that they do. I'll be using only my official final forecasts from 2016, 2020, and 2022 here. Not my  revised 2020 forecast to correct for my  errors made that election cycle (I'm owning up to my mistakes), or my hypothetical 2004, 2008, or 2012 predictions (although I did predict 2008 and 2012 at the time, I just didnt use as sophisticated of a system as I do now so even if i reported the results it's like apples and  oranges here). 

With that said, here's the results of this analysis.

I predicted a grand total of 80 races between my senate, gubernatorial, presidential predictions. 

Of those, I predicted 62 races correctly. This translates to an overall correct prediction rate of 78%. 

Of course, my predictions ranged in certainty from around 50% to up to 98-99%. For the sake of gauging the accuracy of specific predictions, I'm going to split them up the way I shade my forecasts into three groups. "Tilts" (<1% margin, or 50-60% probability), "leans" (1.1-4% margin, or 61-84% probability), and "likelies" (4.1-8% margin, or 84-98% probability, although I did include a couple "safe" predictions here as well, or those with above an 8% margin or 98% probability  here). 

Of the tilts, I predicted 17 races, and got 12 right. This gives me a 71% correct prediction rate when I'd only expect around 55% or so. 

Why did I get the tilts right more often than average? Sheer luck, honestly, although I do think the "wave" theory of elections has to do with it somewhat. I mean, if one can guess the side the "energy" is on correctly, you can potentially get more predictions right than probability would indicate. For example, in 2016, there were 5 races. I guessed 4 of them would go Trump and 1 Clinton. 3 went to Trump and 2 went to Clinton. The 2020 Senate race might have also somewhat distorted results as my "poll corrections" brought down the odds of some rather safe states to tilt category, causing those states to go the direction they were supposed  to by much higher margins, and making my predictions more correct. So if anything, to  some extent, some states should have never been included there and as such, I overpredicted. Correcting for that, I would have only gotten 9 right, which gives me 60%, closer to what I would expect. 

This is also what happens when you have a smaller sample size. Sometimes you get a couple outliers throwing off your entire average. But yeah, I predicted at least as well as I should have, if not better by incorrectly labelling some races as "tilt" that never should have been tilt. 

Of lean races, I predicted 33 races, and only got 22 right. That's a probability rate of 66%, when I would have expected something closer to 72%, given that the probability range of these predictions would be between 61%  on the low end, to 84% on the high end. 

Why was I off more than I expected? Much of it is simply an underperformance due to how 2016 seemed to systematically underestimate Trump and the republicans. I got Pennsylvania and Michigan wrong on the presidential level, and on the senate level, I only got 4 out of 7 correct. Wisconsin and Pennsylvania were two of them, and I also got New Hampshire wrong, which was genuine polling error, and I expected it to go republican. 

So to some extent I was just unlucky. The other race I seemed to perform below my expectations in was the 2020 senate forecast, where I got 1 out of the 3 races correct. Of those races, I got georgia's special election wrong, and North Carolina. I just was wrong on North Carolina in general and this is how culling polling averages caused me to be more off than I would otherwise. Georgia, I chalk that up to not knowing how to predict that popularly.

Still, all things considered, I only missed a few more races than I should have. If I expected a 72% success rate here, I should have gotten 19-20 correct, and I got 17, so I only was off a little more than expected, and still fell within the expected probability range, just on the very low end of it. It might be interesting to throw in the 2004, 2008, and 2012 data just to get a larger sample size here.

As far as likely races go, I predicted 30 races and got 28 right. That's a probability race of 93%. The expected probability rate was 91%, so this was right on target. For anyone curious which races I got wrong, I got Wisconsin wrong in 2016. I had it at Clinton +6.5% with a 5% chance of flipping and it flipped. The other likely I got wrong was the Maine senate race in 2020.  I expected it to go democratic by  5 point margin, with only an 11% chance of flipping, and it flipped, probably once again because my methods of culling the polls was unreliable. Yeah, I screwed up in 2020 a lot. I own up to that. That was on me, not on the polling averages themselves. 

Still, I ended up being right where I expected to be. 

As such, for close races, I actually predicted things more correctly than I should have. For distant ones, I was on par with probability. With those in between, that's where I made the most errors, in part due to bad luck, and in part due to my own incompetence in 2020. Yes, we get it, weighting averages is bad. Just let the data speak for itself next time. 

So that's my actual track record with actual predictions that I actually made on this blog at the time, with no hindsight. Am I pleased with myself? Well, I would hope I get "leans" a bit better in the future, but otherwise I don't think my predictions were far outside of expected parameters. We have a relatively small sample size where even being off from the expected norm by 2-3 races can make me look better or worse than expected, and that actually does account for the entire divergeance fromBut expectations, I got 2 more "tilt" races right than I expected, and got 2-3 more "lean" races wrong. Much of this is due to my own screw ups in 2020. Again, don't weight the polling data and I'll be fine. 

Adding in 2004, 2008, and 2012 data

So,  adding in the more  recent retroactive 2004, 2008, and 2012 predictions using the same methodology of my current one, I get a larger sample size.

I get 26 tilts, 18 of which I got right. This leads to a 69% success rate, higher than the 55% or so that I'd expect. 

I get 53 leans, of which I got 39 right. This leads to a 74% success rate, which is slightly above the 72% that I'd expect. It really was mostly bad luck after all.

I get 50 likelies, of which I got 48 right. This is a 96% success rate, higher than the 91% that I'd expect. 

What does this mean in practice? Well, it means my tilt predictions are far more accurate than I would expect, in line with what I'd expect from lean predictions. 

Lean predictions are generally dead on with the expected probability. 

Likely predictions I tend to once again overestimate the odds to. This could mean that my my margin of error is too generous and perhaps a 3 point MOE would be more in line with the actual data. Still I'm kind of reluctant to change things this election cycle.  

Estimating my 2024 success rate

Currently in 2024, I have 3 tilt predictions, 4 leans, and 11 likely ones. Of them, I would expect to get 1 lean wrong, 1 tilt wrong, and probably get all of the likely ones correct. If anything, this could be good news for Biden, as if I had to guess, the ones I'm likely to get wrong, and that I'm least confident in,  are those rult belt predictions. However, I'd have to be wrong on two tilts and one lean for Biden to win there. I could just as easily be wrong in the other direction, with NE2 going Trump, as well as Minnesota, Virginia, or Maine. But such is probability.  We  don't know where the polling is off and we won't know until election day. It gives us an idea, and based on my track record, it gives us a reasonably good idea, but it's  not 100% accurate. Still, it doesn't pretend that it is. Those  probabilities exist for a reason, they're  not expected to all be correct. But the fact that I get things as or more correct than expected seem to indicate that I'm either doing something right, or should tighten my margin of error somewhat.

Either way, I hope the people who insist the polls are "wrong" realize that they are themselves wrong. Polls have a pretty reasonable track record, and things happen roughly as often as expected. I'm mostly happy with the current state of my predictions. 

Can we just talk about how dumb this AI trend is?

 So, I've discussed this before, but not in this exact way. I have mixed views on AI. On the one hand, I see AI as potentially very useful in the future. I like technology. I like automation. I like this stuff bringing society forward. I'm not a luddite. 

BUT....I'm developing quite strong negative opinions about the current "AI" trends. I dont have the same opinions as others, like vaush, who hate AI because they hate the idea of a  machine doing what they view as something humans should do. I hate it because it's just so artificial. It's not organic. AI is being sold as this end all be all thing that needs to be integrated into everything IMMEDIATELY and  honestly, I'm going to be honest,  I don't really think  it's that useful.  AI is actually kinda dumb. It doesn't pass a turing test. It's being integrated into everything,  from google, to facebook, to windows, and honestly, do we NEED this?

I was trying to find something on another site earlier, and instead  of finding the thing I wanted, I found an AI response describing the thing I wanted. Gee thanks, but no thanks. An old fashion search is fine. I don't an AI trying to chat with me about said thing, screw off,  I didn't ask for this. But because AI is integrated into these things with no way to turn it off, it's actually making it harder for me to use the service in question. Screw off with integrating AI into everything, it's not that useful.

We discussed CPUs earlier this year and how right after I bought my CPU, now the next gens they want AI integrated into everything, that's proving to not even be useful for anything but laptops and mobile devices since GPUs are better at AI anyway. 

It's just dumb. Who asked for this? And before I get a snarky and contrarian answer that's technically accurate, this is rhetorical, and I'm asking FROM THE CONSUMER SIDE, who ASKED for this?  No one! It's just these weird techno billionaires looking to profit off of this trying to make  it the next big thing and then when you try to shoot down their delusional ambitions, they just lecture you about how "this is the future" and how we have to "get with it", and how they're gonna force  it down our throats whether we want it or not. It's just this weird economic bubble where everyone is investing hard into this and trying to force it to be the next big thing, but it's really just a bunch of really rich and out of touch guys who wanna make tons of money off of it.

I'm not gonna say that there arent some benefits to it, and it's not gonna be cool at some point in the future, but right now, this ain't it. It's just the next "ray tracing", remember how nvidia made that into this end all be all thing only for it to, even now, 6 years later, be this incredibly niche thing that only rich people can enjoy, especially given how entry level GPUs are apparently like $300 now?

Speaking of which, I'm just gonna say it, F nvidia. This is a topic near and dear to my heart, but I liked it so much better when GPUs were used for GAMING. Now the prices of the things are going wild because of crypto miners and now all of this AI crap. I saw a thing recently saying that Nvidia is not the most profitable  company in the world.  Gee, I wonder why. It's because they're a de facto monopoly massively inflating their prices because they got 88% market share, and they're cashing in on this like crazy. It's like the people who sold shovels during the gold rush. And they're encouraging this, because it's their bottom line too.

And while prices are going up by insane amounts, they're posting record profits. So the next time you're in the market for a new GPU and you wonder why the everloving fudge an entry level product is $300, a "midrange" one is $600, and something high end is $1600, or maybe even $2000, just know that your benjamins are being used to light Jensen Huang's cigars. And maybe consider the competition, like AMD. You might not have as advanced of a "feature" set like AI driven stuff or ray tracing, but who needs fancy technology trends when you just wanna play your video games at 60+ FPS? So consider giving the competition a chance. 

Honestly, it would be one thing if this was organic, if this stuff was genuinely useful, and it actually was life changing. But at best, it seems to be a flawed and imperfect tool with some legitimate uses, and at worst,  it's just an annoyance, with how aggressively it's being pushed. I'm all for "the future", but not necessarily the vision these rich a-holes with Elon Musk complexes want the future to be. There is something to be said of the weird rich silicon valley tech bro stereotypes here. No one seems to want this stuff but those guys. Let things be judged on their actual utility and not how they make a handful of people metric craptons of money while providing little actual value to society. 

The difference between progressives and the "woke"

 So, the term "progressive" gets thrown around pretty loosely these days, but there is ultimately  a difference between being progressive and being "woke."

Being progressive just means youre for  progress.  What's "progress", I'd define it as a state of gradually improving life for people over a previous state of being. Every generation needs to grapple with its social institutions and laws and being progressive is about changing laws to move in positive directions that improve life for people. 

Woke people are a specific kind of progressive. They hyperfixate on identity and critical theory issues, trying to specifically improve things within the realm of social issues for "underprivileged" races, genders,  and sexualities. 

However, I would say being progressive isnt the same thing as being woke. You can be progressive without being woke.  Doing so just means you tend to have a different metric of progress than "woke" people do.  This is what I basically am. I'm a more traditional modernist "progressive" with a more old school focus on what improves human life. My ideal of progress is different than a "woke" person's. Woke  people tend to reject modernism. They are POSTMODERN, believing that the modern is defined too much by white europeans and how we need to listen to people of other cultures. I may, in many instances, define those "other cultures" as regressive as many of them have roots in primativism, traditionalism, religion, and authoritarianism. They might also, at their core, reject the liberal idea of social equality, and it baffles me that "woke" people will defend that stuff.  Case in point, those guys defending Islam so much. 

For me, my idea of progress is tied to liberal democracy. Social  equality is part of that, but only the more moderate liberal approach that focuses  on legality. I have no intention of really untangling all  of their privilege  driven crap in practice or championing those social causes in more than mild ways compatible with my own ideology. 

I also think that economic progress  entails  improving life for everyone and doing it in ways that helps everyone. Woke people are literally only interested in improving life for  certain  people. Take their call  for reparations, a policy specifically targetted at descendants  of former slaves, whereas I want UBI, a policy that helps EVERYONE.

But yeah. Woke people are a form of progressive, but they're just one form of progressive in the umbrella of progressivism. They have one definition of what progressivism looks like and that doesnt necessarily align with other versions of progressivism. 

Explaining what conservative end goals are with the Louisiana 10 commandments law

 So, I'm not going to be posting as much over the next few weeks. As some may know, we are experiencing a heat dome in the northeast. What does it have to do with me posting? Well, my PC is in an un air conditioned room, and I am basically writing this on my tablet. My tablet has more limited capabilities than my desktop  does, and I  produce inferior articles. I'm basically writing this on a keyboard with a semi broken spacebar. So yeah, this leads to less content, both in size and frequency. 

But I did see Kyle Kulinski and Krystal  Ball cover the story of Louisiana mandating the 10 commandments in every classroom, and they seemed a bit confused by it.  They dont seem  to see the end goal  of it and wonder why the right would explicitly go against previous court rulings on the matter knowing it will be shot down, as this is settled law.

But that's the thing, is it really settled? And as an ex "Christian nationalist",  let  me  explain the end game hear. In the fundie Christian worldview, society was great until the 1960s. In the 1960s, according to them, these liberal activist judges put in place by FDR and other progressives decided to take God out of schools, and forbid god from being mentioned in schools, and this is bad, because God needs to be in schools,  and yeah, we need to pack the supreme court so we can overturn all of ths judicial precedent that we (they) don't like. 

And they've been trying to do this since at  least the 1970s. Pat Robertson's "moral majority" as part of Reagan's coalition is coming home to roost here. They've been pushing this for DECADES. They dont believe in separation of church and state. They believe the US is a fundamentally Christian nation, and that the point of the establishment clause was explicitly to forbid a state church similar to the church of england. They believe that the US was supposed to be Christian, that's what the founders wanted, and that secularists are just activists who want to  push their vision  on us instead.

As someone who has been on both sides, here's how I see it. Yes, the 1960s represented a newer shift in judicial precedent that tended to remove religion from schools and government, BUT....having studied it from both perspectives, I tend to believe in the secular argument. Schools  are no place for religious indoctrination. If you want to teach kids that, take them to church or put them in private school. Teaching religion to people in public schools  is  discriminatory toward those who  don't believe in that religion for various reasons. It could lead to an uncomfortable  environment where those who dont believe in the religion are singled out, and under the establishment clause, why are public tax dollars going to religious purposes in the first place? Again, the point in taking religion out of schools is actually to provide a neutral environment for everyone. 

This is also why you see satanists challenge these religious incursions into the public space.  The alternative to having no religion is to value them all equally, and that includes the satanists. So in a sense, satanists legally troll the christians by pushing their own monuments and classes, which pisses  off christians majorly, but the moral of the story is, well, you take your crap down, we'll take ours down. But if you wanna push you crap  down kids' throats then we're gonna do the same, your move, Christians (I love this tactic, btw). 

But...again, Christians have been wanting to push their crap since the 1960s, and why are they doing this knowing it will be shot down? Because they want it to be shot down. Because this will  create a legal challenge. And it will go up through the courts. And hopefully, in their eyes, hit the supreme court where now because there's a conservative majority on the court, they can overturn the precedent that banned this stuff in the first place.

This is what they've been trying to do since the 70s. They hate the liberal legacy in legal precedent. They hate griswold v connecticut, and roe v wade, obergefell, etc. They wanna go back to when homosexuality was illegal, abortion was abortion was illegal, CONTRACEPTION was illegal (thats crazy even for formerly christian me, but given roe came from griswold it makes sense), they want PORN to  be illegal.  They want "God back in the schools", they wanna overturn engel v vitale and all associated court cases that took bible study,  prayer  etc out of schools. They want christianity to be openly taught in schools. This is their idea of a christian nation. They want to overturn over a half century liberal  legacy and return religion to being paramount in peoples' lives. They wanna force this crap down our throats. And the supreme court might let them. That's the scary thing. They've been planning this for 50 years and they're finally succeeding. And this is what the right stands for.

And I know this is new now to many with people calling them christofascists and christian nationalists, but no,  they were pushing this stuff back when i was in high school in christian school. They'd teach me  all  about this stuff as a young adult. Heck, they were basically trying to brainwash us into being able to function as ideological fundmaentalist christians in a mainstream society that rejected them. It didn't  work on  me, because i did go on to study this stuff from other angles and i eventually found my way out. But yeah, this stuff is disturbingly common on the right. And it's actually been a thing going back to the 1970s and 1980s. Reagan mobilized these people to win elections. And those chickens are still coming home to roost. 

We gotta  oppose these guys. if we want us to remain a free, secular nation,  these guys have to be told no, and they have to be shown the door. Coalitionally, I think fundamentalists are on the decline. People have been leaving religion for decades, although it is kinda bottoming out with gen z it seems as the political divide shifts from religion vs secularism  to woke vs alt right. But, despite that, trump and the republicans remain popular for various reasons, and democrats are unpopular for various reasons. And when democrats lose elections, these nuts take the opportunity to push their insular views on the rest of the country. 

In a sense,  if Hillary was right about anything in 2016, it was the "but the court" argument. Not that it was the election cycle to lean into the court, the public was more  pissed off about neoliberalism and economics. Moreover, I blame Clinton first and foremost for holding the court hostage to force people to vote for her.  But yeah, Trump was able to pick up 3 justices because  of this. And we're seeing the consequences  of that. 

I dont think this is the end of the world itself. I mean, Clarence Thomas is  getting old. So is Samuel Alito. They'll likely be up for replacement in the next 10 years. And then things can swing back. But yeah, of the 4 justices clinton talked  about dying or retiring in 2016,  3 of them did, and thats why the balance of the court shifted so hard. 

So yeah, we're gonna have to vote for  democrats to shift it back. Even if the public downplays this, this election cycle, I  do think that ultimately, demographic shifts will make what the court is doing quite unpopular. And the GOP might see the public shift away from them if they start pushing this nonsense. Sure, like 35-40% of the population might love this, but the other 60-65% isn't going to, and theyre gonna turn on the right HARD. Or maybe be apathetic. Who  knows.

But yeah. That's what these guys' goals are. They basically want a theocracy except we dont call it that. And they've been pushing this stuff since at least reagan. They're just finally getting away with it because they got a SCOTUS majority. 

How relevant is the 2008 recession in 2024?

 This is a question that was asked in a subreddit that I frequent and I kind of felt this deserves as a response, as it does kind influence how I think about 2024.

In terms of electoral politics, not at all. While it was still very relevant in 2016 as many of us still felt like we never recovered from the great recession, for better or worse, I do not believe that it's still directly politically relevant. It may have given rise to this populist era of politics that gave rise to Trump and the Bernie wing of the democratic party (as well as Yang and my own takes on things, being more aligned with him), but since 2021, we've been experiencing the EXACT OPPOSITE problem.

I mean, again, keep the phillips curve in mind. Inverse relationship between unemployment and inflation. For a while, we had low inflation and lingering unemployment. Then suddenly after COVID we're experiencing inflation and a "worker shortage". It's not that life is any better than it was before COVID, or worse, but the issues are different. I personally decided during the "recession" that economic metrics didnt matter and what makes a good economy is flawed, recognizing that if we did not experience the recession's set of problems, we would be experiencing a different set of problems more reminiscient of the modern day. That the problem WOULD be inflation, and then people complaining about shortages and "no one wants to work any more" and blah blah blah. You can't win in our economy. And I guess that "down on your luck" spirit still remains in our politics as the recession did break the vision of a good economy in our minds where we realize that hey, maybe this system just kinda sucks, but again, American people  aren't that deep of thinkers. As some said in that thread, and as a political science professor told me  once, they have the memory of a goldfish. And all they can think about right now is INFLATION, INFLATION, INFLATION. 

So in a sense, the great recession is finally in the rear mirror, and the economy has "recovered", if anything the economy is too strong, and that's what people  complain about. Because now they're being screwed the other way, while still feeling screwed in general. Again, I guess 2008 was indirectly responsible for this era of economic populism with many wanting change, but people havent agreed on what that change should be. If anything, now the country is turning on the left, blaming them for causing the inflation, and calling for economic conservatism. Which is...again, why I'm kinda stepping off the gas in pressuring the dems. And this is also why for the first since since the Bush era that the republicans are leading the polls. Because they're souring on democrats. Because while normal progressive economic policies do tend to resonate when the country is in a "recession mindset" and worried about jobs and joblessness and the like, progressives do bad during periods of high inflation. because their policies are perceived as causing it, and sometimes DO cause it depending on the situation. I think this inflationary cycle was sparked by COVID and supply chain issues, and then driven up by sheer corporate greed, but voters dont know that, and all the GOP has to do is say it's all of the democrats' stimulus, and this is why government doesnt work, and BOOM, we're DONE for a generation.

Heck, that's how we got Reagan and trickle down in the first place. As I see it, there is a once in a generation economic crisis that does scar the people and decide their economic views. For the new deal people it was the great depression. For the boomers, what drove it was actually carter and stagflation. And then in 2008 things swung back due to the great recession, but because dems dropped the ball, trump happened, and then we had the SECOND "once in a generation" crisis with COVID and its associated inflation, now people are swinging back to the right.

And this is also why I have to say, yeah, to some extent politically, the recession era is over. We have a new normal now, COVID kinda set the bar, and right now, that kinda takes the bite out of progressives and their policies. And this is why I've been able to be more lax and lenient in 2024 than I was in 2016 and 2020. Because I kinda recognize that the game has changed, that now we on the left have an uphill battle, and for now, what we need to do is hunker down and survive the conservative onslaught. We are in a very precarious position now and could end up losing to the right for an entire generation again. 2024 could potentially influence our politics well into the 2050s or 2060s. And if the dems end up falling apart NOW, and conservative ideas become popular and the standard bearer for this generation's politics, we are screwed.  We're gonna be the so called "moon" party again and never be able to actually accomplish change. We were in trouble before if only because the democrats are an oligarchy and they were artificially stopping the left from gaining the popularity i think they would've otherwise gotten in 2016 and 2020, but now the country IS shifting to the right. And we kinda gotta operate in that environment for better or for worse.

So yeah. The 2008 recession era is over. It's been over since 2020-2021.  We're now in the post COVID era, and that's gonna dictate a lot of our policies and economics until we experience the next crisis. Maybe experiencing a recession some time later this decade will shift people back left again. Economics is cyclical. Recessions happen on average once every 5-10 years. We're likely to experience another one for SOME reason by 2030. And maybe by then, left wing economic policy will be back on the table. But for now, the left has to do what it has to do to survive, and if that means moving to the center and backing up the 82 year old  "nursing home grandpa", then we gotta do it. We need to understand the predicament that we are in and adjust accordingly. That is all.