Discussing the new Michigan senate debate

 So...as discussed the other day, the Majority report covered a debate and trashed Mallory McMorrow on healthcare. Well, I went back and watched this debate...and uh...it's a dumpster fire. Like, I'm going to be honest, I'm TIRED of "normal" politics. I'm TIRED of normal political answers. And this debate....is mostly that. Most questions are right wing coded. They focus on the same old crap. How are you going to compromise? I don't want a candidate that compromises. Can we stop fetishizing compromise? We compromise when we have to, but we push for solutions when we're able to. Why do we need to fetishize moving to the center? What about the budget deficit? Stop electing republicans who wanna cut taxes while getting us involved in unnecessary wars. What about growing the economy? Growth growth growth, but how does this impact normal people? What about job creation? Ffs, can we stop talking about jobs jobs jobs and start talking about ensuring people have their needs met regardless of income? All of these questions assume a certain worldview that tends to favor moderates running on moderate platforms, giving politically correct non answers that are what voters apparently wanna hear, but dont really contain substance. I've heard this crap all my life. The world never changes, it never gets any better, and all of these answers are, quite frankly, BULLCRAP. 

With that said, El Sayed nailed it. He clearly stood out, offering progressive answers to questions that broke the mold the most. He framed things well, all things considered, but still maintained that progressive flair. He was very dynamic. He was very on top of things, and while I cant say I always agreed with him on substance, he definitely won on style.

With that said, the other two candidates were....middling. Sometimes Stevens came off better, sometimes McMorrow came off better, but honestly, I didnt like either. Stevens came off as extremely experienced, acted like she knew what she was doing, and generally seemed to be a seasoned establishment democrat. I cant say I always liked her answers, as a lot of what she was selling was the same milquetoast bullcrap I just railed against, but she was relatively convincing for what it was and she did seem to play the whole "jobs" and "union" angle well, for all of her warts and flaws in my view. 

Mallory McMorrow was more all over the place. One minute shes saying that we need change and blah blah blah, then on healthcare she pulled this weird Hillary 2016esque answer about how we cant wait for some revolution thats never gonna happen on healthcare and we need solutions now. Well, Im gonna be blunt. The best solution is...medicare for all. Even as a public option supporter myself, I will concede that. It's the best, most elegant solution on that issue. My only reason for not still being a full M4A guy is wanting a different revolution on UBI, and offsetting my fiscal ambitions on that proposal by cutting back elsewhere to make it happen.  But yeah...again, McMorrow is just...bad on healthcare. I cant say her other positions were always bad. But to be fair, I can barely remember much of what she said because so much of it was rather uninspiring. It was in one ear and out the other.

With that said....while I would say El Sayed bad by far the best performance and answers in line with my whole "OH GOD CAN WE NOT HAVE THE SAME OLD HO HUM BULLCRAP?!" perspective, if you actually like that bullcrap, Stevens was very polished. She was a good bullcrapper in my view. She's a very politician-y politician. I didn't like much of what she actually said, but she was very polished and relatively charismatic for what she was. Love her or hate her, she shows a command of the centrist lane of the democratic party.

So where does that leave McMorrow? Being a middling candidate with a middling performance, not really standing out in any way, kinda being all over the place, offering politician-y answers too but them not really landing, and just...not standing out as a candidate. She was out centristed by Stevens, she was out progressived by El Sayed, and yeah, I'd say she just...imploded. I mean, that might not be fair to her. She didn't do that bad. It's not like she went all biden 2024 or something and had a brain malfunction on stage. BUT....she didn't stand out either way, and given that's something you gotta do in debates between multiple people, it's actually worse in some ways to be the person who no one remembers than the person who did bad. This isn't to say that she isn't still my second choice given I certainly aint interested in what Stevens is selling, but yeah. Her debate performance was kinda weak here.

So...yeah. That's where I stand on that. El Sayed > Stevens > McMorrow as far as this debate goes. 

Discussing "political adultery"

 So...this is a train of thought I've been having since the Platner story broke. As I said, I don't see why I should care about whether a political candidate engages in adultery. I don't care that Bill Clinton got a blow job. I don't even care about some of Donald Trump's lighter indiscretions like cheating on his wives and remarrying the people he cheated on his wives with, what have you. I don't care about Graham Platner's discretions either. And yet, some are making these out to be huge issues. Like OH MY GOD I COULD NEVER VOTE FOR SOMEONE LIKE THAT, IT SPEAKS BADLY TO THEIR CHARACTER! And I just dont get that mindset. How does someone's sexual indiscretions in that regard impact their ability to do the job. And how does it speak to their character. Is the idea "if they cheat on their wives, they'll cheat on the American people"? Is that what you're worried about.

But then I thought, wait, in a way, these guys DO often cheat on the American people. They cheat on the American people when they take corporate pac money. They cheat on the American people when they promise one thing, and flip flop on it and deliver another unnecessarily. In a way, this is political adultery. And it's extremely common, regardless of whether candidates cheat on their spouses.

In a way, my own metrics for screening political candidates attempt to detect for this. if you guys notice, I have the following metrics in my core metric for judging candidates. I have one called dedication to progressive causes, in which I measure their consistency over time on issues, and whether I trust them to actually try to deliver. Like, take Bernie. He has the most unimpeachable political character I've ever seen. 45 years in office and the dude almost never wavers from his convictions. There's a reason many of us are so ride or die on that guy. He's politically LOYAL AF. Compare this to say, a Hillary Clinton. A "pragmatic progressive", the type to promise one thing but deliver another. Take Kamala Harris, aka, Kamala Chameleon as I sometimes call her (she comes and goes....she comes and gooooeeesssss!) Promises one thing in 2020, delivers something else when she runs in 2024. A shapeshifter. Literally a political chameleon who will abandon all convictions and political positions to appease the party and her donors. She's literally the reason I invented the term "Fauxgressive", because it was obvious she was doing this in 2020, positioning herself as Bernie lite, only to end up sheepdogging us back into the democratic party establishment where good ideas go to die.

The second attempt for me to detect honesty and consistency is by judging their underlying worldview. People might wonder why i care so much about ideological worldview. It's because worldviews are literally the ideas behind the ideas. They're the underlying philosophical justifications that get us to the ideas. I would suspect someone who has the same overall worldview as me to actually share my convictions and be as genuine in those convictions as me. But someone who DOESNT share my worldview? Well, they can't be trusted to stick to the same convictions as me. Even if they're genuine, they might come to the same conclusions as me from a different set of philosophical principles, which could lead to an abandonment of support in practice as they find different compromises acceptable, or support different versions of the policy than me. 

No one matches me completely. Even high ranking candidates like Bernie Sanders and Andrew Yang. Yang is especially weak on convictions at times, and Bernie, as firm as he is in his, sometimes we just differ. But you know what? I'll go for the candidate that I deem to be closest to my views. And ultimately, I DO care about a candidate's political convictions and loyalty. 

And here's where we run into a no win situation with the centrists. I'm simultaneously told that if I care about all that ideological stuff and stuff like consistency and political convictions, that I'm a purity tester and I need to lower my standards. As if....expecting a candidate to actually represent me is a bad thing. At the same time, if I don't care about whether the same guys cheated on their life, I'm told that I'm like "MAGA" in that I'll vote for a candidate even if they lack good moral character. 

In reality, it's just...bad faith argumentation. I don't care about the character issues that dont affect how they govern in practice. Literal real world adultery is like that. But political adultery? Ie, taking money from some corporate pac or lobbying group opposed to my policy interests? Yeah, I DO care about that. Not having the best track record or consistency on representing issues I care about? I DO care about that. Because that's ultimately what politics is about. Exercising power to achieve some vision. The problem with centrists...they fundamentally dont care about the same things I do, and then they try to shift my attention to these other things i dont care about. And then they shame me for not caring about the stupid crap they care about, whether its identity politics, or some sex scandal, what have you. 

And, idk, I get it, some leftists can be overtly obnoxious about it. Sometimes they're TOO rigid where no candidate ever matches them, or they go all in with ERMAHGERD ISRAEL for some reason when that's just...one issue out of hundreds and i dont care about it more than I have to. I get that, there are times where people should be critical of some voters weird ### priorities. But if an issue is important to you and directly affects your life, no one should ever give you crap about you prioritizing those issues. Ultimately, candidates do have to earn your votes. And if they don't, that's mostly on them, 90% of the time. 

So...be purity testy...within reason. Take those 5-10 issues you care about most and hold the candidates accountable to them. Dont sweat the small stuff, but yeah. Focus on issues, focus on policies. Those are the meat and potatoes of politics. A sex scandal is that weird piece of parsley off to the side that people care about for some reason but no one actually eats. Hold candidates to account. Expect them to have answers for how their views changed over time. And stop caring about the stupid spectacles bad faith actors WANT you to focus on. 

Seriously, the reason this is an issue is because centrists dont want YOU to vote for graham platner. They want you to be offended by this scandal and to go off and vote for someone else like Janet Mills and Susan Collins. Ya know, someone who represents CORPORATE interests, and not YOUR interests. So dont buy this crap. it's literally political theater. Or to make a reference to the name of the blog, it's the shadow puppet theater, they WANT you to focus on, not the fact that there are puppet masters behind those puppets attempting to persuade you to stay in the cave. 

And yeah, that's my view on this matter.  

The more I think about it, the dumber progressive derangement syndrome gets

 So, I discussed the idea that I'm "like MAGA" if I overlook the Platner sexting scandal recently. And I completely dismantled it, showing that basically, you would need to run a literal Stalinist to get anything remotely close to Donald Trump right now. Like, the two aren't even close. And apparently someone tried the same argument on Kyle Kulinski today, and Kulinski smacked it down in his own way. I swear man, these guys get their talking points from some centralized source, because they all come out with this stuff at the same time, and they all sound the same. Anyway Kulinski had good points too. Like...okay, but what about policy? We're getting all hyped up over superficial issues like OMG A SEXTING SCANDAL when, as Kyle pointed out, his wife broke the scandal to a staffer confidentially, and then the staffer ran with it, leaked it, and betrayed the campaign. Like that's the thing. It happened years ago, the wife knew about it, and was just asking "hey this wont hurt my husband will it?" And then it leaked. And we're supposed to care about this over policy?

Here's the reality. These guys dont wanna talk about policy. Because they get completely bodied on the topic. AT BEST, the people displaying so much faux outrage are centrists who viscerally hate platner for his positions, but they cant debate those positions because they know they'll lose. And at worst...well...they can't debate their way out of a paper bag. Seriously.

I had a guy freaking out over Abdul El Sayed today. First, they compared him to a maoist. I pointed out he wasn't a Maoist, and asked them to defend that point. Then suddenly they're talking about how he didn't say anything bad about the Ayatollah. I mean...what does that have to do with the topic at hand? Iran is an islamic theocracy, and while I certainly dont endorse that, i dont see why he should have to virtue signal about it. Not do I even understand how it's relevant. So pointing out that this had nothing to do what we're talking about, some other guy jumped in and pointed out that communists supported the Islamic revolution in the 1970s. Okay...but why did that happen? Could it have been because we supported a coup in that country in the 1950s? I mean, no wonder they hate us. Doesnt mean I support Iran's government. I think they're crapbags too, but uh...I understand why they dont like us very much. I mean, would you like it if they overthrew OUR democratically elected government? 

Anyway, then the guy started calling me an R slur, going on about some weird grand alliance between islamists and communists, and asking me for scholarly sources on the iran coup thing, despite it being rather common knowledge. I provided a source anyway, but this whole line of discussion is just so off topic that it's just...no. 

I mean...these people are so dumb. This is why I dont debate conservatives much. They basically schizo post. First youre talking about one thing then they start going off topic and going on deranged rants about topics loosely related at worst, and not related at best. And honestly...let's go back to the original point. IS Abdul El Sayed a communist? No. He's at most a democratic socialist. He is a muslim, but that doesnt mean much. He's been critical of Israel. He largely doesn't seem to wanna separate church and state, but remember when I've been talking about lately. A lot of Americans seem deeply racist toward muslims and automatically view them as radicals for not having the "right" judeo christian belief system, even if they dont want to, in any way, impose their beliefs on the rest of us. I mean, it ultimately is a policy and worldview discussion. It's the judeo christians vs the world. And they think if you're not on their side, you're evil. But they say that because they know they cant control you. That belief system a tool of the wealthy to control the masses so they screech THEYRE NOT LIKE US! and attempt to appeal to a common set of values.

But that's the thing. I might be white, male, and of a judeo christian background, but being an ex christian, I dont have that worldview either, and I believe that worldview is fundamentally evil. I mean, I dont like islamic fundamentalism either, i wanna make that clear, but my view is this, i'm a secular humanist, I want a world based on freedom of thought, freedom of religion, freedom FROM religion, and right now I'm far more scared of the christian nationalists than I am of islamic extremism, which largely doesnt exist in the US. Just as you can be a christian and still be a rather chill guy who doesnt wanna shove that crap down everyone's throat (see james talarico or the pope), you can also be a muslim. And I'll work with just about anyone who has common goals. 

And thats the thing. You leave that christian worldview, and suddenly progressivism makes sense. Suddenly you see the world for what it is, understand that the people screeching loudest about western values are actually some of the most deranged people on the planet right now, and basically ARE the american version of the taliban, and that if anyone are the bad guys, it's them. Which is why they're trying to declare anyone who doesnt embrace THEIR worldview a terrorist. They literally view half the country as terrorists, and they're scared of actual progressives getting into power.

But that's the thing. Being a secular humanist, and a veteran of online debates, i mean, my political views were literally shaped by intense debate in the early-mid 2010s, I see through this crap. And at the end of the day, again, keep in mind what I said, what these guys care about at the end of the day are white, judeochristians who embrace right wing economic views like the work ethic and a strong ideologically positive view of capitalism. 

So when you got some brown guy who isn't christian talking about giving everyone free healthcare, these guys lose their crap. But you know what I say? your boos mean nothing, I've seen what makes you cheer. And these guys literally can't debate properly. AT BEST all they're doing is offering a masked appeal to their value set, thinking that the people they're debating actually SHARE their values. And at worst, they just sound like unhinged morons. 

Really. It is as kyle said. At the end of the day they'd choose susan collins over graham platner. Because a literal republican has values closer to them than platner does. Platner is a threat to them, despite being a white guy running for congress. And the same with el sayed. These guys love to play the blue no matter who card to get us to support centrists who dont represent us, but when the shoe is on the other foot, i swear these guys would probably support mike rogers over el sayed if he got the nomination. 

And then in texas, well...the attacks against James Talarico are even worse. They tried painting him as a vegan, only for him to take a nice big bite of meat at a barbecue. They tried painting him as gay, only for him to have this hot latina girlfriend. I mean, it's pathetic. These guys attacking progressives are really pathetic people. 

And I'm not gonna say any of these people are perfect. Quite frankly, I'm put off by james talarico's explicit christianity and believe that that mindset is going to cause artifacts in his worldview that cause him to oppose several goals of mine. I dont like graham platner's reddit communist past and think that's a red flag. I question of El Sayed can even win in Maine given polling, and I think he's a lot more abstract on policy specifics than say, mcmorrow was, and I actually do support a public option due to my own ideological and policy based nuances. So let's not act like I agree with any of these guys completely. But here's the difference. I offer minor POLICY and IDEOLOGY BASED criticisms. I look at what they wanna do, what they actually believe,  and I evaluate them based on that. And again, I certainly dont agree with them 100% of the time. I'm NOT some "MAGA like" guy. Im NOT uncritical of people I support. I just understand my own views are so niche that no one really matches me 100% of the time. But you know what? I'll support the people who get me closest to where I wanna go. 

Centrists dont cut it half the time because they dont actually wanna go there. And I've seen through their act for years, and now it's blunt now that progressives are actually winning primaries. These centrists HATE progressives on a pure value level just like we progressives hate them. I've said it for years, these centrists are about as far away from us as they are from republicans, and some of them seem to actually prefer the republican over the progressive. So much for party loyalty and voting blue no matter who. And all this stuff has always been in bad faith. Called it since 2016. Not sure why so many people bought into the blue no matter who crap. Maybe we need it now given trump IS literally as bad as he is, but again, trump is a special case. He's the exception to the rule, not the rule. The rule is you vote for whomever you want and candidates earn your vote. You suspend the rule when a fascist tries to destroy democracy itself. 

And youd think, for all the western values screeching, these guys would care more about that. But no, it seems like they'd rather openly embrace a fascist actively destroying this country from within than vote for someone who wants to give people free healthcare, which is fricking disgusting. Again, all the western values virtue signalling these guys do is a scam. They dont actually care. At the end of the day, they care more about the conservatives' values than actually promoting an alternative.

Which is...quite frankly, what caused me to not wanna vote for them anyway. I wanted an oppositional force to the republicans, not just a diet version of them. These people are a diet version of them. And they're the ones screeching about this stuff. Screw these people. Seriously.

It'll be glorious if we see El Sayed, Platner, and Talarico all win their elections this fall. I love watching these guys crash out. And I hope in 2028 we get someone actually good. Because guess what, I DO wanna beat trumpism, but we need to do it with a progressive, not a diet republican who is gonna be so weak he's gonna breathe new life back into MAGA.  

Why is Mallory McMorrow so bad at this?!

 So a new poll came out today and McMorrow dropped to a distant third place finish, Womp Womp...

Yeah...she's getting eaten alive. Now, to be fair, michigan primary polling is extremely volatile. For a while el sayed was way down and haley stevens was the presumed nominee. Then Stevens dropped off and it appeared to be McMorrow vs El Sayed. Now it's more Stevens vs El Sayed. 

Well....I have a few answers. First of all, it's hard to represent a middle ground between the two democratic "lanes." You got centrists (Stevens), and progressives/leftists (El Sayed), and then you have McMorrow, which is this weird awkward middle ground. Now, given my own nuanced takes, sometimes I like middle grounds. I'm not a socialist and while progressives and leftists talk a big game, sometimes their proposals are more bark than bite. Sometimes they're just too expensive to reasonably implement to the point of not being worth it. So sometimes that more center left ground is better to be in. And McMorrow did...at first, come off as the best candidate policy wise. El Sayed had platitudes with little data (although he did write a book on M4A, but most voters probably havent read it), Stevens is just...no. And yeah, McMorrow could have had potential as being the more "pragmatic progressive." Im not sure it ever could have worked. Again im a minority and I know most voters are gonna probably go one lane or the other. That's how these things work. That's the problem Yang often had too. 

But McMorrow was ahead for a while, and she was in a strong position. So what happened? Well...she's a really REALLY bad politician. She made a HUGE mistake picking on El Sayed and going full negative against him with the Hasan smears. Not only did it streisand effect  El Sayed by putting more of a spotlight on his campaign, but it also made HER come off as some bad faith centrist. Rather than running on her own strengths, she went negative, and did the kinds of tactics from centrists who themselves have nothing to run on. She came off as like, Hillary Clinton, or even like Elizabeth Warren, who also had that kind of role in 2020, not being quite as far left as bernie, but then going full HRC mode, attacking him, and invoking the perpetual wrath of his supporters. Seriously, dont do that. Stick to policy, PLEASE. If youre gonna run against a progressive, beat them with facts and numbers not this bad faith bullcrap. 

But that's the other thing about McMorrow, she's just...genuinely bad at her job. Like the majority report discussed a debate they had and she ONCE AGAIN failed to properly defend a public option, coming off as tongue tied and all over the place. So...she implodes! No one wants her, the centrists are fleeing back to Stevens, and El Sayed is more emboldened than ever.

Honestly, at this point, Im pro El Sayed, but I really wanna keep harping on this because seriously, McMorrow could have been a better candidate, had she just played it cool, not gone negative, and played her hand better. Im kinda miffed because I just genuinely dont like stevens and I prefer mcmorrow SO MUCH MORE over her. And I honestly wonder if El Sayed can even pull off a win. He has persistently been the worst poller of the three primary candidates. Stevens is somehow the best, idk why. I dont think she's a compelling candidate at all. But at this point, it's like the president xi memes. Do nothing. Win. All she had to do was just....sit out the mcmorrow/el sayed cat fight, watch mcmorrow implode, and now she's getting her voter base back. 

*sigh*

Did Bernie Sanders just propose a UBI?

 So...Bernie Sanders today proposed a one time tax on the AI industry of 50%, to create a structure of public ownership of the industry, allowing widespread public accountability, and opening up the idea of an alaska like Sovereign Wealth Fund. The idea is basically this, given AI is basically reshaping our economy on a mass scale and has the ability to massive change the economy and job market, all citizens should have a say in how the industry is run, and everyone deserves a share of the profits. I largely support this in theory, and this is theoretically one of the most based ideas Bernie has come up with. 

However, digging into the proposal, the cracks do form. The article mentions some cracks like the fact that AI isn't profitable currently. THere's the potential for capital flight if we start just socializing the assets of the industry.

I asked chatgpt how much in profits this would generate a year. Currently it's close to around $50-100 billion....not enough to fund a UBI. With 250 million adults, that's $200-400 a year per adult. It could become MUCH larger over time, reaching over a trillion, but even with a trillion, that's only $4,000 a year, and by then with population growth it might only be closer to $3,000 if there are say 333 million adults by then (assuming around 400-450 million people in the country, this is decades from now).

The point is, this idea sounds a lot nicer in theory than it does in practice. I love the idea aesthetically, but the reality of it wouldnt be able to fund a UBI, let alone a hypothetical "universal high income." At least not any time soon. So....nice proposal, but eh....not super workable if the idea is to provide an income stream for the masses to live on without working. 

Discussing Hasan Piker being banned from the UK

 So, Hasan Piker and Cenk Uygur have been banned from the UK for "antisemitism" apparently. *sigh*

So...I'm not gonna lie, I aint surprised our government is acting in authoritarian ways, but the UK? Really? It seems ridiculous to me. Criticizing Israel is NOT antisemitism. You can be for freedom of religion and discourage hate actions against individual groups while still criticizing a government doing bad things. In my case, I dont like Israel OR palestine. yes, I do condemn Hamas. I dont believe in "from the river to the sea", but that doesn't mean what Israel is doing is morally correct either. Just because one side is bad doesnt mean the other is good. And I cant in good conscience support a faction of Jewish radicals who think bombing another people into oblivion on an industrial scale is acceptable. Nor can I support their massive lobbying efforts to influence western governments into...taking away peoples' free speech rights.

I mean, we love to talk about western culture this, liberal democracy that, but Hasan touched on this in his video and I wanna say I've been noticing the same thing here...nothing we're doing here is liberal. The highest virtues of liberal democracy are that of freedom of speech/thought, and limited government to stop tyrants from restricting peoples' freedoms and rights. Some might ask where those rights come from, citing 'god", but they're just human concepts that are good ideas. They dont have to come from religion. I justify many of them through structural functionalism. 

With that said, we are massive hypocrites as far as how we talk about those values. Hasan called our dedication to them a "sham" in his video, and he's right. The longer this goes on, the more it seems like we care about when we talk about western culture is white people, christianity, and work ethic. We seem horribly islamophobic, tbqh. If anything is an issue its that. We seem to be expected to foam at the mouth at muslims and those from islamic cultures existing and having opinions (like hasan and cenk), but then when it comes to judaism and christianity its like HOW DARE YOU CRITICIZE THINGS DONT YOU REALIZE THOSE ARE OUR CULTURE?! Now, the UK does claim to be a more overtly Christian country where the US is more secular, so maybe it CAN actually claim a higher level of cultural affinity there, but Americans kind of do this stuff too. And it irks me. Because we're supposed to have freedom of speech, freedom of thought, and freedom of religion. And if we wanna invoke the paradox of tolerance on anyone, let it be on the TRULY intolerant. Those who actively wanna take rights away from others. But does Hasan do that? or Cenk? Or me? (I didn't get banned but I also didnt apply for a visa). I dont think so. I never got that vibe from them. And in my own case, I view it like this. Everyone has the right to their own opinion, unless your opinion harms others, I don't see why we should regulate everything. And even with opinions harming others, i tend to have a relatively maximalist approach to free speech due to my American heritage. It's only in narrow cases that I would actually invoke some sort of restriction or punishment. Even if it comes down to cancelling people, I only believe in doing so if the offense is extreme and blunt. Like outright calling for concentration camps or something. Ya know?

So it comes off as hypocritical when western governments these days ride this high horse of western cultural superiority and the demonization of "the other" when "the other" are just peacefully expressing their views, while those screaming so loudly about western culture are themselves violating the most core tenets of it while pushing the parts of it that are either not that important, or even harmful. Like religion. I dont hold a judeo-Christian worldview myself. My views are closer to secular humanism. I have no inherent sympathy to israel. They're just another country. And they're a country for as much they scream about being western, the only thing 'western" about them is aesthetics and their obvious "colonizer" attitude. Meanwhile they're killing journalists and committing war crimes on a mass scale. Basically, they're not much better than Russia at this point. And that's the thing. if we wanna hold ANYONE accountable to western moral standards, it should be Israel. After 1945, we said "never again" (and to ask rhetorically, who were the ones genocided in 1945?....duh).  We established all of these international criminal courts and international organizations against genocide. And then....we just...look the other way when the shoe is on the other foot. It's fricking bizarre, man. 

Like, that's the thing. Not being a Christian, I have no special empathy for Israel. I dont see them as this "chosen people" elevated above other people. They're just...people. And are subject to the same morals and standards as the rest of us. So why the insane double standard? 

But this is what happens when we seem to define being western as...having the right religious outlook, and having the work ethic...which is...associated with said religious outlook. Again, it seems to come down to "judeo christian good, everyone else is bad." And that's not what western values are supposed to be at all. Western values are supposed to be secular and based on freedom of religion, freedom of thought, and freedom of expression. 

So yeah, I do agree with Hasan that there seems to be a weird double standard here, where the ones who scream loudest about western culture seem to support all the worst elements of it, while apparently being willing and able to rip up the best of them and pretend they dont exist. It's messed up, to be frank. Like they dont actually care about all that crap about freedom and democracy, and now that the facade is failing, we're seeing the evil racist colonizer narratives underneath it all. Again, it's like it's all about being white, judeo-Christian, and has the work ethic. That's all these guys seem to really care about. I throw in the white stuff because let's face it, you end up being brown and of muslim heritage? Suddenly these guys seem willing to scream about how you're an extremist when they're as normal as any one of us. Cenk certainly aint extremist. Hasan is cringey at times dont get me wrong, but he aint some nick fuentes type either. But yeah people act like these guys are ISIS or something and they're not. It's crazy. So...yeah.

Anyway, that's enough ranting, it should be obvious I'm against this and pro free speech. Because that's what being "western" is ACTUALLY about. If we wanna represent the actual good and moral version actually. It's like what Jon Stewart said once. When we think western values we think freedom and democracy, and they? Well, they're thinking knights templar.  

Am I "like Trump supporters" for ignoring Graham Platner's scandals?

 So...more stuff came out about Graham Platner lately. Apparently sexted people who werent his wife or something and of course, the progressive derangement syndrome is coming out again. 

And yeah, I do wanna point out: THIS IS PROGRESSIVE DERANGEMENT SYNDROME. You got these centrists who have this crazy, irrational hatred toward progressives like Graham Platner and Abdul El Sayed, and who are taking every minor thing and making a mole hill out of it. OMG EL SAYED APPEARED WITH DOG ABUSER/LEFT WING RADICAL HASAN PIKER AT A RALLY! And then basically you watch an El Sayed rally and it's clear these guys just wanna make peoples' lives better and the middle are taking seemingly irrelevant issues and blowing them up. Why are they doing this? Because they wanna tank these candidates and get the median voter to support some uninspiring centrist instead. It's the same with Platner. 

Now, Platner IS a colorful fellow, and he isnt above criticism. But we discussed his nazi tattoo. The dude ain't actually a nazi so I don't care. He was a reddit communist on r/antiwork in 2020, which....should appeal to me, but keep in mind i got banned from that sub for arguing with said reddit communists who place their hatred of capitalism above hatred of work. And Im not big on communism. But, the guy has distanced himself from that, and is running mostly as a democratic socialist type akin to other progressive left candidates. Since then the controversies are getting more pathetic. It's stuff like him using the R slur in like 2010, or him cheating on his wife, or him pleasuring himself in some shady marine corps porta potty in like 2005 or some crap. It's like...who cares? This dude is still way better than the other candidates, and if you'd abandon Platner over these nothingburgers to vote for Susan Collins, that says more about you and your politics and morality than it does about mine.

The reason, I support progressives is this: I want change. I dont like the current right wing status quo as it exists, and I want people who break the mold, flip the script, and shift the overton window left of where it is to accomplish changes that make my life better. I admit, Platner might be...ahem...TOO far left if he still holds reddit communist views, but he aint coming off that way in his campaigning. He's running on a more acceptable socdem platform, not some weird niche reddit communist crap, so let's hold him to that. Hasan Piker is also too far left for me, but I often find myself agreeing with him more than liberal counterparts as well. 

And honestly, what are these scandals supposed to signal to us? How does Platner cheating on his wife impact me as a constituent? Is the message "if he cheats on his wife, he will cheat on America?" Okay, so what does that mean in practice? is he gonna sell out to corporate PACs? I got news for you, in that regard, I still trust Platner more than I trust Mills or Collins. Like that's the thing. The people cheating on us, the American people, are the same people putting out ads bashing progressives like Platner and El Sayed. They're the ones who can be bought. They oppose those candidates because they CAN'T. They CAN'T be controlled by corporate interests, and that's why those interests are so invested in tanking their campaigns. It's why McMorrow, herself not a bad candidate on paper, went so hard with the negative attacks on El Sayed. And what did THAT do? It spoiled me on McMorrow and made me want to support El Sayed. Because if she's putting out those kinds of attacks, can I trust her? I mean, this was the same playbook centrists always use, and I hate those guys for a reason, because they're anti progress. 

Same with this. Am I supposed to look at this and suddenly be like "gee, Janet Mills is looking like a good candidate about now"? Becuase Im not doing that. Id still find Platner as a senator more appetizing than I would some milquetoast centrist who I know isnt gonna do anything and who I know can't win. Or Collins for that matter. Why would I vote for ANY republican? Even though collins is a moderate,  she still votes with Trump a lot more than she doesn't. Even if she breaks with him on some key issues showing she has SOMEWHAT of a conscience, doesn't mean I like her, or that I'd support her over Platner. Why should I give up supporting a candidate I agree with 80% of the time, for someone who I agree with maybe 20% of the time? 

Of course, this is what got me nailed by some neocon type as being "like a Trump supporter." Ie, they support their guy no matter what, no matter how bad he is. Well, not really. And I wanna use my past conservative self as an example. 

If I were a conservative in the Trump years...

So....when I was a conservative, when I was a teen, yeah, I basically was a full blown Reaganite, agree with republicans like 96% of the time, whatever. But I was mostly too young to vote in that phase, and when I could vote starting in the 2006 mid terms...I voted split ticket. I'd vote republican by default, but I also voted for quite a few dems. I honestly was in a position where I didnt feel the republicans were in a good position under Bush, and I thought split government would do Bush some good. I ended up regretting that as the house dems were very obstructive of Bush in ways I didn't like at the time, but I still voted for McCain in 2008, even though i didnt really like him. I thought the republicans were in a bad place. I didnt like the war in Iraq and thought it was a mistake. i didnt like the national debt increases to pay for said war. I wanted Ron paul in 2008, and considered crossing over for Clinton, but not Obama. I considered voting for Bob Barr, the libertarian candidate at the time. The fact is, I didnt like McCain OR Obama, and I temporarily found my home in the tea party, before realizing I no longer aligned with conservatism at all. 

But let's say I didn't align with the democrats and I still had conservative views in the modern era. How would I view Trump? Not well at all. Sure, a lot of the relatively minor scandals, I wouldnt care about, same with Platner. I wouldnt care about, say, Trump cheating on his wives. Or him being a bit vulgar once in a while. But you know what? There would be SEVERAL support breaking problems with him:

1) His authoritarianism- He clearly wants to act like a dictator. Putting people who disagree with him on lists. Deporting people for being outspoken on Israel. Hell, his deportation policy in general would be too extreme for me. Again, he's doing nazi type crap with that one. He's putting people in concentration camps, holding them without due process. You think I, a formerly Ron Paul style libertarian, would sign off on that? No, I'd be more aligned with the likes of Thomas Massie on that one.

2) January 6th- You incite an insurrection, you're done. Period. This isn't a partisan issue. I mean, again, it's basic constitutionalism. I was a bit of a constitutionalist back in the day. The constitution was designed to constrain would be autocrats. I would support checks and balances against him. Heck, based on how I voted in 2006, I'd be inclined to support moderate democrats to control Trump, since the republican party sure as heck ain't doing the job. 

3) The Iran War- Let's face it, his foreign policy is a disaster. he's destroying our international alliances, the greenland thing was just...no. Bullying other countries is just...no. And then he goes into Iran on some faked up pretext that was flimsier than Bush's in 2003, and we're supposed to just go along with it? Let's face it, he distracted from the Epstein files. It's blatantly obvious.

4) The epstein files- I mean, okay, you do weird crap with consenting adults, but with kids? No. Just no. I'd be in with the massie/MTG types on this one. 

5)  The economy- Look, I dont normally blame presidents for the state of the economy. I remember when prices went up around 2005ish under Bush and I was like "what, do you expect the president to control the gas prices?" But invading Iran was an unforced error driving prices higher than they've ever been and his tariff policy is disastrous. Quite frankly, Reagan always opposed tariffs and Trump's interventionist policies are clearly contributing to inflation. All of this are unforced errors. Trump screwed up. And honestly, we should oppose him.

With that said, I'd be inclined to be anti Trump even if I were a republican. Maybe I'd find Susan Collins palatable in such an environment, she would be up my alley at the time, actually. I probably would support Collins over Platner with those convictions in maine. But if my choice was Trump vs a moderate democrat, say, a Hillary Clinton type...eh I'd probably break Clinton just to get Trump out. Id probably find Harris or even Biden acceptable. Not because I like them, but I can tolerate them...to get Trump out. 

Back to Platner

What would it take for me to vote for a Collins type over Platner? Well, my beliefs on the left are a bit more extreme than my views were on the right, outside of my early pre voting years. Given I can barely tolerate a Mills type from the left, a Collins type aint gonna work for me. But yeah, he'd have to be pretty bad. Like run on a literal communist platform. Let's imagine that. Let's imagine Platner was actually as extreme as Trump. Based on the above:

1) he would be flirting with implementing literal communism in the US. He would be adding anyone who doesnt agree with him to an enemies list. he'd be illegally detaining people who criticize him or show any signs of right wing thought, especially immigrants. 

2) He's refuse to accept election results and incite riots in response to losing.

3) He would support interventions overseas to spread communism.

4) He'd diddle kids

5) His policies would destroy the economy, leading to high prices and supply shortages. 

Now...is platner gonna do ANY of that. IS he that extreme? no. Hell no. If Platner WAS LITERALLY a left wing Trump, would I vote for him? Also hell no. I would tolerate Susan Collins in such a situation. Just to get Platner out. But we would need to talk him being that extreme. Not even getting into his massive corruption, the ball room crap, yeah, if we had this dude act like a wannabe Stalin, yeah, i WOULD vote for Collins. But that's what you'd need to make an analogue to Trump that works. Given Platner is still within the realm of normal scandals and normal politics, I see no reason to drop platner for a moderate candidate who represents my values in objectively worse ways. Sorry, not sorry. Platner being elected isnt gonna cause a massive constitutional crisis like Trump's presidency currently is. Hes not gonna be a tyrant. He's not gonna destroy the constitution. He's not gonna create artificial disasters based on his policies.

And given the nature of the subreddit I had this convo on, I know they dont wanna hear this, but yeah, Trump literally IS that bad. He IS acting like a full on fascist. He IS a threat to our national security and constitutional rights, and he is making tons of unforced errors that are destroying the country and international order as it exists. You cant even remotely compare Platner to that. If he goes full reddit communist mode, well, we can have this discussion. But he would need to go full communist to make the comparison even remotely FAIR. That's how bad of a situation we're in with Trump. 

How would Platner's scandals even affect governance anyway?

 So I actually pressed the guy on this, and didn't get convincing answers. Basically, they gave me three assertions, none of which I agree with.

1) No one wants to work with someone with a nazi tattoo

I hate this idea that we should elect people because other want to work with them. it's this weird centrist hugbox thing. like we should elect people who work with other members of congress pushing compromise, incrementalism, what have you. No, I want someone who has different ideals. And I admit, maybe others in congress dont wanna work with them. But does that mean I should change my ideals? No, I wanna elect who I wanna elect, and if others wont work with him to accomplish goals, that's their problem, not my guy's problem. I also doubt the tattoo is that disqualifying. What is potentially is the fact that centrists hate the guy and might wanna isolate him to ensure they cant get crap done, ya know, like Bernie in the senate for 40 years, but ultimately, I want more bernies and less smarmy centrists. 

2) It's hard to replace Susan Collins' experience

I dont give AF about experience. I mean, more experienced candidates arent necessarily better. More experienced candidates might have more institutional knowledge, but if I vote the current institutionalists as corrupt and not serving my interests, I want them out. There's been talk in recent years of wanting to get rid of all these old people in congress who have been there for decades with term limits. Given Susan Collins has been in office for literally 30 years, yeah, it's time for her to go. I dont care about her institutional knowledge, especially since she doesnt ideologically agree with me anyway. 

3) She knows how to bring money into Maine

HOW?! What is she doing here? I can only think of two responses (I didnt get one from this user), either a job creation narrative, which, given my ideology aint gonna go over with me. Or she's for pork barrel projects, which I'm fine giving up to accomplish my actual goals. Either way, I see it as nonsense job creation schemes, either from trickle down economics or pork, and...yeah. I'd give that up to get universal healthcare, or a UBI. Like, i don't care. That's the thing. This isnt attractive to me. And I even pointed it out after they said I made assumptions, I pointed out that their idea of what I should want is themselves ideological. Yeah, if I wanted a steady hand who was sociable with others of a similar ideology who knew how to give a tax cut to jeff bezos to "create jobs" in my state or something, sure, susan collins would be my candidate. But you know what? None of that is attractive to me. Maybe that's what ideological moderates on the fence between centrist dems and centrist republicans want, but I DONT want that. You see where I'm coming from?

So yeah....once again, why should I see Platner's scandals as deal breaking? You see why I'd care more about ideology and policy than this, right? Because I ain't being sold on Collins here. I dont share centrists' values on what I want from a candidate. 

And I'll be blunt. If their candidate had a scandal, they'd still support them over a Platner type. Because the real reasons these centrists hate El Sayed and Platner is because they dont ideologically agree with them. They want some ho hum centrist type who wont rock the boat and who will use their sociability and institutional knowledge to pursue mainstream goals that dont do much for the state. But I dont want that. I want progressive change agents. Not necessarily communists, again, if you had someone try to be a left wing equivalent to Trump, you'd get a Stalinist type. But again...Platner isn't that. So...I ain't seeing the problem here. 

The fact is, centrists, your boos mean nothing, I've seen what makes you cheer. We dont have ideologically similar goals, even if we might find common ground in removing some common enemies like the Trump regime. Stop trying to talk to me like I care about your stuff and your values, because I don't. If I have to hold my nose for some centrist to get republicans out, fine, I'll do that this time. But that doesnt mean I LIKE your crappy warmed over candidates who dont stand for anything. They're about as appealing as unseasoned chicken....that's been left in the fridge for 3 days. Yeah... 

Anyway, you guys always tell us to vote blue no matter who, if you cant do that when the shoe is on the other foot, you lost all moral claim to push me toward doing so in future elections. You're on your own.