Mini Election Update (5/31/24)

 I don't want to do a full election update, as that would take too much time, not a ton has changed, and I just did one a week ago, but there are some things I want to document, given that we are effectively at, possibly, the height of Trump's polling, and that things might go down HARD over the next couple weeks. 

2 Way: Trump +0.9%

5 Way: Trump +2.2%

Tipping point: Pennsylvania (Trump +2.3%) (71.9% Trump wins)

So not a lot changed. This is why i dont bother doing this constantly.But there are a couple changes I do want to discuss.

New York is now officially a "swing state." What the actual fudge? That isn't good AT ALL. In what world is it even remotely close for NY? NY is normally like an easy +20 state for dems or something like that. Why is it technically on the edge of my margin of error? To the point, it is on the edge. An 8.0% means theres roughly a 95% chance the result is somewhere between 0% and 16%, but there is that 2.5% (technically 2.3%) chance it could flip red. It's not a huge possibility, but just having it in play is bizarre.

On the flip side, it could be like South Carolina or Missouri or Alaska predictions in previous cycles where it was on the edge of being "swing state status" only for it to not be anywhere near as close. Maybe the polling being this close indicates a systemic polling error in trump's favor, the way 2016 and 2020 seemed systemically in the democrats' more so than the actual results.

Virginia is down to Biden +3%. That is kind of a warning sign. Virginia, Maine, and Minnesota, which we normally think of as "blue states" these days are roughly as "in play" as Pennsylvania is. It's crazy. This is why this election scares me so much. I've been following polling for four election cycles like this and I've never seen the GOP up so much. I do expect that to change now that Trump is a convicted felon, but the fact that people were leaning this way shows widespread dissatisfaction with the democratic party that could continue to dog them in future election cycles. 

But yeah. It is possible Trump being convicted changes things. I just wanted to outline how things have changed since last week since this will probably be the last week before his polls nosedive. I really do expect Trump to lose numbers here. Conservatives are acting like we just guaranteed victory for them but in reality, as I said last night, the die hard trump base cant vote harder or more than they already are. They only get one vote. It's up to the less loyal republicans who have doubts about Trump, and independents to ultimately get him over the finish line. And I do think this will erode his coalition somewhat.

We'll see. I like to do these predictions on Friday, and expect my next major update to either happen on June 15th or 22nd or so. And then maybe I'll schedule my next one after that for sentencing day around July 11th or so. Just telling you what my game plan is with those. 

EDIT: Forgot the map, but yeah, 222-316 Trump.

So...Trump's sentencing is right before the RNC starts...

 So, Trump's sentencing is on July 11th, and the Republican National convention is July 15th-18th. If Juan Merchan really wanted to, he could completely F over Trump and the entire GOP by throwing him in jail, which would probably throw the entire convention into chaos. It would demoralize Trump (or maybe he would do an address from jail?), and yeah this could throw a wrench into things. I love to see it. 

Or it's possible they work out some sort of deal that would allow Trump to go on and be the nominee, in which case this is a nothingburger, and he actually lets him out to play. I hope not. I really hate Trump. But yeah, I did make that connection, and I'm really interested in what will finally happen.

Discussing leftist defeatism/nihilism

 So, I've been encountering a lot of this lately, but whenever I post in leftist spaces I'm relatively welcome in, I always get this weird mentality in the comments in which anything we do under capitalism is bad and we can't do anything in the political system because millionaires and billionaires will always outfund us and blah blah blah.

This mindset is not helpful. heck, this mindset is harmful, if it encourages lefties to give up on electoralism altogether where they dont vote because what's the point? Yes, I recognize that things are stacked against the left as they are, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't try. The powers of the establishment are vast but not unbeatable. We just need to approach politics another way. 

To respond to the idea that FDR's new deal only happened under the threat of communism: yes, it was a political realignment. And the people really put the pressure on to either change the system or get overrun by fascists or communists. Not saying it's the only way we can get pressure, but yeah. We had a once in a generational shift sparked by the great depression and it shifted the country left. 

Then after that generation started dying out, the right took back the narrative and we got reaganism. Now we're basically trying to recover from Reaganism and shift the narrative back left, but we're failing at it. Part of this is simply because we lack the organization to be effective. Many of us are learning as we go. Bernie ran in 2016 and sparked a generation of lefties, but the lefties themselves have no organization without him. And that's the problem with all realigning figures. Once the original guy is gone, the coalition begins to falter until it collapses after around 36 years. Once FDR was gone in the post 1945 environment, truman wasnt as resonated, he barely won 1948 vs Dewey. Stevenson lost in 1952 to Eisenhower, and didnt take back power until the 60s. In the 60s, we had JFK, he was shot, we got Johnson, and after Johnson the coalition fell apart. 

In the Reagan alignment, Bush Sr went over like a lead balloon leading to Clinton winning in 1992. The GOP didnt get back in until 2000 with W Bush, he sucked, but due to 9/11 we stuck with him until 2008, and then ran McCain, and Obama won in 2008. And that's when the coalition of the GOP started changing. It actually started radicalizing. I dont doubt big money was part of it, and the presence of big money from the Koch brothers, etc. probably played a role, but as a frustrated conservative in that era, let me just say this: after Bush, a lot of us wanted a change. We held our nose for McCain and we kinda thought a return to a true to form version of conservatism was best. In 2008, I actually wanted Ron Paul because he represented that shift. I was initially supportive of the tea party, although after they retook congress in 2010 I quickly distanced myself from them and shifted left for reasons I've previously discussed on this blog. But you know what? The tea party's strategies worked. We had this "right of the establishment right" trend going, and we organized and took over the GOP. And then I left because I realized conservative ideals were cray cray, but honestly? The reason the right is so successful is because they ORGANIZE, they push their ideals, and they hold their politicians accountable.

The reason the left sucks is because the culture is different here, and it's quite frankly dysfunctional. And I never got into it personally. You wanna know what my response was the first time someone TRIED the blue no matter who crap with me? Basically F off. You're not entitled to my vote, the politicians are responsible to the voters, not the other way around, and you better appeal to ME if you want MY vote. And that's why I did what I did in 2016. I kind of understood that when the democrats try to bully voters, the voters can't just sit around and take it. They have to do what the tea party did. I mean, you can read all of this in the "what's the matter with Kansas" book but Thomas Frank, but Frank talked about how in the 2000s there was a similar tug of war between the conservative base and the establishment in the party. The establishment was focused on moderation and electability, and the base was like I'LL SHOW YOU UNELECTABLE and basically systematically purged their party of moderates. The establishment played chicken with voters and voters won. I was part of this myself, in the 2010 senate election here in PA with Arlen Specter. We basically ran that poor guy out of the GOP where he tried to run as a democrat, lost his primary because he wasn't a democrat, and then we got Pat Toomey in there. And that's why the GOP got so extreme. The voters pressured them to be that extreme. They wanted it. And the party became so afraid of the voters they shifted far right into dysfunction. And now they're ride or die on trump, and they've only gotten worse since then.

If anything the success of these guys is so scary I'm kind of scared of an actual leftist tea party forming. Because having witnessed the ideological purging these guys do online, even I'm not extreme enough. Which is why i butt heads with leftists so much on the internet these days. But at this point I'm trying to give the lefter than left some pointers for how to actually win in our democracy. 

And ultimately? We need a movement. It needs to believe in electoralism. We need large numbers of people, and we need to be willing, like the GOP, to be able to buck their establishment politicans and get in more left wing people. I'm not advocating we go as extreme as the GOP did, but I do believe if enough voters stood up and said "enough", it could happen. But we would need to fight back against this blue no matter who culture. And that's where the left differs. left wing voters, especially libs, have this weird "harm reduction" mentality where every election is a matter of "well we cant get what we want but we must vote against the republicans." I admit, that makes sense in an election year like 2024. We got a fascist on the ticket, he's now a convicted felon, he's desperate for power, project 2025 is a thing, and honestly, if Trump wins, it screws Biden's legacy and repudiates it to such an extent we might never have the coalitional might to even begin pressuring the dems to the left again. Because the majority of the country will be like "ew UBI, remember the Biden years? Do you want inflation?" It happened with Carter, it can happen again. So even I have some nuance here and my own reasons for backing Biden align with my own long term ideological goals.

But at the same time, we need a left wing tea party. We need to make demands, we need to get out there and pressure politicians to cave to those demands, and we need to be willing to accept the consequences if this backfires. it's a risk, it's a gambit, but power concedes nothing without the hard application of pressure. SOmething leftists understand, they just suck at actually understanding the nuances of.

Speaking of which, this weird doomerism instead has them basically acting like "yeah, we need to be annoying, we need to block roads, we need to occupy college campuses, we need to be annoying, power concedes nothing without inconvenience, so we need to be annoying." It's true that a general strike or something could work, but honestly, who are you kidding? This is just an annoying tantrum over issues that most people dont care about.

Which is actually the real problem with leftists. Leftists arent a majority. They're not a majority of the country. They're not a majority of the democrats. Even during Bernie's runs, his coalition topped out at 45% of the democratic party. And a lot of them werent full on aligned with "leftists". They were libs, and many of them went on to support Clinton and Biden in 2016 and 2020. In 2020, Bernie's coalition was only around 35% of the party, with candidates like Yang, Warren, and even some moderates pulling votes from bernie. 

And honestly? We've collapsed since then. This time, Biden has like 90%+ of the party backing him in primaries. It's mostly those less loyal independent leaning dems and genuine swing voters who are unhappy with him. Whereas the tea party, as it turned out was a majority of the GOP. So part of our problem, is we just dont have the numbers yet. We dont have enough people to actually throw our weight around and pressure people. And this is the big problem with leftists. A lot of them are this extremist, anti electoral minority, who is cynical and thinks the country is against them...because most people dont agree with them. Do they have a point about propaganda? Absolutely, but at the same time, they just dont support them. Like, this is the big thing, most people dont support leftists. Especially the radical ones. Even among the larger progressive left, we're only what, like 1/3 of the democrats? Maybe 2/5? That's around 15-20% of the country, assuming dems are half of it.

Now, and this is my thing, I think that if we all organized and rallied around specific issues, and formed interest groups and voting blocs and only voted for those who actually supported our policies, yeah, 15-20% is enough to throw our weight around. It's enough to throw elections for the dems if we organize and refuse to vote, and it's enough to make them give us concessions. It would drive the party left, it would force them to adopt at least SOME policies to satiate people, but the most extreme will never get all that they want. Leftists dont get all that they want because their ideas are quite frankly unpopular. And they need to coalition with progressive liberals and socdems even to get anything.

And I admit, progressives are a mixed bag too. A lot of them will, at the end of the day go for the dem nominee out of "harm reduction". keep in mind, a lot of them kinda fear the party, and the culture is different than on the GOP. Whereas I have a more bombastic in your face "ex conservative who brings tea party tactics to the democrats" mentality, a lot of them are just so defeatist and stuck in the failures of the past that nothing will ever shift them out of that. And that's a problem. We need to break that culture. We just cant do it this election when the situation is so delicate. But yes, blue no matter who every election is problematic and we need to get out of that sooner or later.

But yeah. I think a huge reason why the left doesn't get anywhere with politics is because they just are ineffective. The hard left ones are so far left and so cynical that they have all but given up on electoralism, so they larp as revolutionaries online and never do anything. SJWism is another big issue. A huge argument behind the harm reduction crap is the privilege stuff and a lot of people won't be willing to make the hard decisions to break the dems' coalition to force a change because omg what about the minorities and the women and the LGBT+, we can survive a trump presidency because they cant. Their value system is just based a little too much on consequentialism and harm reduction that they would rather just bumble their way through every cycle every 4 years electing the lesser evil, rather than being choosey and choosing the greater good. And this cultural imbalance is quite frankly why the right is so effective and the left isnt. The right will fight for what they believe in, and rock the boat and make those hard decisions to force the system to change to their whim, while the dems just end up devolving into various circlejerks of uselessness, whether it be the liberals' "lesser evilism" or the leftists anti electoralism. 

No. Learn from the tea party (but dont learn too much, moderation is obviously needed), organize, and force the dems to change. That's how we accomplish change on the left. Yes, power concedes nothing about a fight, but a fight within the confines of electoralism is more than possible if the left gets their heads out of you know where. Progressive libs, get out of the harm reduction mentality and be willing to tank dems' electoral changes at the right time to be able to exercise power over them. Leftists, fricking register to vote, AND VOTE! If youre voting for jill stein, you're already ahead of the curve, and while i may not agree with that decision this time because this really is a lesser evilism election, I appreciate the spunk here. Ya know what I'm saying?

And that's my view on that.

Explaining why this conviction probably hurts, not helps Trump

 So, I'm already seeing a narrative form, that this conviction is gonna help Trump, and not hurt him, because it's going to galvanize his base. Explain exactly why this is a wrong way to look at this.

Here's the thing about Trump's coalition. It's pretty large, not amazingly large, but it's PASSIONATE. Theres like 40% of the country that is ride or die on this guy. They're very passionate about him, it doesnt matter what he does or what happens to him, they're with him through thick and thin, they drank the kool aid. BUT....there's also about 60% of people who ARENT ride or die on him. Many of them  are democrats, who have their 40% who will stick with Biden through thick or thin, theyll prop up his dementia riddled body weekend at bernie's style, and they will crawl over broken glass to avoid a second trump term. Most elections are decided by the other 20%. And in this other 20%, you got, I'd say, broadly speaking, 3 different groups of voters. You have your less loyal republican voters, your less loyal  democratic voters, and then you have your general swing voters. And by the way it might not be exactly 40%, its anywhere from 35-45% per side generally, and this is how it's always been. Roughly 1/3 of people supported remaining British in the 1770s, roughly 1/3 of people (or maybe a lot more given the civil war) were probably pro confederacy in the 1860s, like 1/3 of people were probably conservatives during FDR's new deal stuff, and like 1/3 of people were liberals when Reagan was going on. You always have that passionate 1/3 or so of people, maybe a little more, like 2/5, who are just so ride or die on their side that they will  come out for them no matter what. Elections are won by the margins.

You got some less loyal republicans who might have not drank the trump kool aid, who may come out for the republicans but dont actually like them. Think the nikki haley crowd, or libertarians.  Some might be relatively apolitical and not ideological but some also might be SUPER ideologically rigid  and think trump isn't conservative ENOUGH. Or isnt libertarian enough.

Same with the dems. You got people who might be democratic leaners but might not come out every election like college kids. You got people who might be super  ideological like me, or the free palestine people, who are intermittent democratic voters. And then you got "the normies". Ya know, your typical middle  of the road centrist, who mightve gone obama  in 2008 and 2012, then trump in 2016, then biden in 2020, and now they're leaning Trump in 2024. Or the opposite pattern. Maybe they voted for McCain and Romney in 2008 and 2012, and then Clinton in 2016, Biden in 2020, and Trump in 2024 or something. Im kind of assuming most of these guys were leaning to trump based on polls. And this is the group to watch out for.

Okay, so a conviction galvanizes the base. Cool. They were gonna vote for Trump regardless. They cant vote twice, although a handful of them might try to commit voter fraud thinking the libs do it and that's how they win. So....what is this gonna do to his margins? NOTHING. It also won't rile up the Biden people to vote harder for Biden if they're gonna vote anyway. What this impacts is that 20-30% of swing voters. The less loyal members of the parties' coalitions who don't show up every election cycle, and the genuine swing voters.

Trump has always had a problem with swing voters. His base loves him, but the reason he had some weaknesses in 2016 and 2020 was, to some extent, because he turns off normies. He's too extreme. He's too ideological. He's a loose cannon. He's uncouth. And now, he's a literal felon. Among his base, sure, he could shoot someone on 5th avenue and not lose any voters. But he CAN lose normies, and drive them into the arms of the democrats. 

In 2016, his victory was unexpected, it's like people decided to come out for him  last minute. The democratic base we demotivated due to  voters like me being pissed off at hillary, and the swing vote swung hard for trump. 

But in 2018, 2020, and 2022, things went the other way. In 2018 it was a normal blue wave mid term election year. 2020, COVID and Trump's extremism turned off normies to a point where Biden could win again. Still it was a narrow win, because Trump's base was still formidable,and more formidable than I expected.

In 2022, it was looking like it was gonna be a blowout for team red as dems were demotivated, republicans were fired up, and the swing vote was expected to lean red. But then overturning Roe v Wade happened and things swung blue REALLY hard as people got pissed off over losing abortion rights.

That has died down a bit, and now we're back to apocalpptic numbers for Biden. Inflation is #1 in everyone's minds. Immigration is too and even some dems are unhappy about it given the GOP had the politically brilliant strategy of dropping off tons of illegals by the busload in deep blue cities, creating a crisis of taking care of these people, which is causing the dems to sour on the liberal immigration narrative. And third, let's face it, no one likes Biden. He's old. There's been questions about whether he has dementia (I dont think so but i get the optics here). He hasnt been able to do much. Is he a good leader? I think he is, but honestly, there are questions and he doesnt LOOK good. So, a lot of dem voters have been demotivated (and yes gaza is an issue too but lets face it, leftists arent gonna vote democrats anyway). And normie swing voters, well they're swinging to Trump. They're unhappy over inflation. They're unhappy over immigration, and it seems like whoever is in office, just loses support, and the other side gains support. And given how dems are in office, and prices were cheaper under last guy who is running again, they're thinking of voting against current guy to bring back last guy. 

And that's what the polls are reflecting. That's the environment we've been in for much of this election cycle. The GOP is fired up, although there is some question as to whether the haley voters will fall in line. The dems are demoralized. Swing voters are leaning republican. 

So what does this conviction change? Well, first of all. Trump being a convicted felon might demotivate some of the less loyal Trump guys who havent drank the kool aid, they dont like trump, but they tolerate trump, but they really wanted Nikki haley this time or something like that. Those guys might distance themselves from the party. There are questions within the right about whether trump is the guy who should lead the GOP and while the majority of voters, that 60-70% that's ride or die on him, that other 30-40% might start to defect. Not all of them will. Some will support the republican nominee for ideological reasons no matter who it is, but even if Trump loses 5-10% of his voters, that's gonna translate to a 2.5-5% shift in the polls roughly assuming his voters are half the country. And then you got independents. A lot of them might start thinking "yeah inflation sucks, biden sucks, but now trump is a convicted felon, do we really  want this guy again?" Again, previous polling seemed to indicate a conviction could shift the polls by 7 points. Not saying it definitely will happen. People are fickle. Now that we're at this bridge to cross, some might have second thoughts, but even 5% would reverse the entire election here. Trump is up by about 2.3% in the electoral college as of last week. A 5 point shift would shift it to  2.7% in Biden's favor. And then we're winning again. Heck, all that really has separated 2024 from 2020 is about 4-6% of the electorate. It was closer  to 6,  now it's like 4-5. And yeah. That's all that we need. We're not gonna see that 40% or so of Trump's base that's ride or die defect from him. It's about winning a slice of that 20% wedge that's really the swing vote.  Now, youre not gonna see the entire wedge defect from one side unless we're  doing a realignment. That normally indicates one side has a winning strategy, the other side is losing badly, and its up to the losing side to adjust its entire politics to meet the other side half way. And while we are undergoing a realignment, things are divided enough in the country  where things arent as fluid as they were previously where a 60-40 victory  in the popular vote is all  but impossible. But if one side can still leverage the electoral college  in a way where they win multiple elections in a row, it will eventually force the other side to shift its strategy. It's been speculated that the republican party has been in trouble for a while,but they just keep hanging in there,  in part because the dems suck so much. And again, part of my fear  of 2024 is things could shift back toward the GOP in such a way it forces the dems to  moderate to remain relevant. hence why I feel a need to defend Biden.

But yeah. Anyway, as I see it, this COULD be our 2024 "roe v wade overturned"  moment. We could suddenly, in the next couple weeks, see monumental shifts in the polls. And trust me,it's been needed. The polls have been horrible for dems this year. I havent seen polling like this since i largely started following it back in 2008 when i was in college. Normally dems are ahead every election cycle, with the GOP coalition floundering. This time, the GOP coalition looks  healthy and the dems have been floundering. But now, we might see things reverse as the GOP starts to flounder as swing voters and less loyal parts of his electorate swing away from him. The trump  cultists will always back the guy. he has a solid base that will go ride or die on him. But he cant win with that alone. He needs those less reliable voters and swing voters and that's where he tends to struggle. Because Trump is very polarizing, and a lot of people are massively turned off by the guy. They're just thinking he's a good idea because the democratic nominee is an old guy who acts like he doesnt know what he had for breakfast half the time, he never seems to do anything, and inflation and immigration concerns run rampant. But again if he's a felon, people might give the ancient and ineffective guy another chance. And the GOP will need to get someone else in 2028 to shift things back the other way. 

And yeah. Keep in mind, all we need to shift the election as of now, assuming polling is accurate, is about 3-5 points. This conviction could easily deliver that. Sure,  most cultists will support him, we're never gonna get a 60-40 landslide like during the reagan era here. BUT, I think that enough normies will be turned off it could shift the election. Keep in mind, elections ultimately come down to  relatively small  voter margins in relatively small numbers  of states. 2000 was decided by 500 votes. 2016 was decided by around 40,000. 2024 could be an election like that. We need every vote we can get. And this might drive our margins up and hand the election to the dems on a silver platter. That's what I'm hoping at least. We'll  see in my next election update in mid-late June. 

IT'S HAPPENING: DONALD TRUMP IS OFFICIALLY A CONVICTED FELON!

 WOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

And of course the dude is already whining "it was rigged", and you know what? Screw you, Trump. You said that in 2020 too. You got your just desserts here and I look forward to you facing the consequences of that.

 Now what will be the consequences? I don't know. Normally felonies come with lots of prison time.  Looking into it online, it looks like he could get anything from probation to 4 years in prison for each offense (and theres 34 of them). They could also make him serve all of them concurrently, which would mean he would only serve 4 years. Now, that means he probably wouldn't run in 2028, if he would only be getting out of jail NOW, but we don't know. 

Polling wise, I've seen it said that a conviction could shift polls toward Biden by up to 7 points a while back. Going by my most recent prediction, a 7 point shift would lead to a decisive 319-219 Biden win. Pennsylvania would remain the tipping point, but it would be expected to go 4.7% Biden, not 2.3% Trump, which would lead to an 88.1% chance Biden would win and a 11.9% chance Trump does. Of course, that assumes that tidbit of information is true. 

 It also assumes Trump will remain the GOP nominee. He got the nomination via voting already, but just like the results of the 2020 election werent certified until January 6th, the results of the primaries won't be official until the Republican National Convention in July. And given that the parties don't technically have to abide by the democratic results, and given the situation is unprecedented territory as we've never had a convicted felon as a major party nominee before, we could see the parties just throw out the rulebook and nominate whomever they chose. Maybe Nikki Haley, as she had the second most amount of votes and delegates. 

As for Nikki Haley vs Biden, this hasnt been polled in a while, nor has it been extensively polled where I have a solid prediction, but Nikki Haley vs Biden actually looked worse for the democrats. At least Haley isn't fricking insane and wouldnt overturn the election. But still, the GOP is still kinda insane and she would be fronting some pretty crazy policies. And given the issues with Biden's economic legacy if he loses, it still might be a good idea for me to back Biden here. Still, we won't know what will happen from here.

And that's the thing, we really don't know. We're totally in unprecedented territory here and there's so many variables that suddenly just threw this election up into the air. We will find out over the upcoming days and months, but yeah, we're all learning as we go I think. I'll update if I have anything major to discuss. 

EDIT: It looks like Trump's sentencing isn't until July 11. Ugh, why does this take so long? I thought we'd get something like tomorrow or next week or something. I guess given the complex circumstances of the case it makes sense though.

Does the fact that I live in a swing state impact my decision to vote for Biden?

 I saw some discussions on third party voting and some people mentioned they live in a safe state so it's okay to do it. As such, I wanted to address the question that does the fact that I live in a swing state affect my decision to vote for Biden? And in short, yes. It does. Just like, if I lived in a ranked choice voting democracy, I'd likely vote for Stein at this point, I'd also consider such a thing if I lived in a safe state. How would I define a safe state? Well, anything with polling above +12 in either direction. I mean, you could argue even +8 is safe, but idk, there's still that 2.3% chance, and seeing Illinois and New York as close to swing state status as they are, I'd prefer something like +10 or +12 to really keep things safe. 

Normally, I'm not big on the whole "well vote your conscience in a safe state but vote for a lesser evil in a swing state" argument, I mean, in 2016 and 2020, I voted for the greens and I gave no craps about it. i think if youre that firm in your principles you should do what you want. But...this isnt a normal election cycle. 1) Trump is literally a threat to democracy, 2) Biden is okay, and 3) there isn't a left wing candidate that I'm really firmly enough in support of that I would like to vote for. Stein and Biden are kinda in the same territory, and I guess that push comes to shove if I lived in a system where I could safely virtue signal on economics, I still would, but again, I don't feel strongly enough about leftists this time around, and I do consider the GOP to be more of a threat. I mean, I did read a bit more into Project 2025, and I know I downplayed it before, but jesus christ, yeah that's some scary crap. And again, we're in a position where if Biden loses, it's gonna be primarily over the economy, and the signals sent to the dems are they need to move further RIGHT, not left. 

So...I kinda feel like voting third party in a swing state is like electorally shooting myself in the foot. I'd rather not do that. I do believe the situation is dire enough to justify a more "strategic" vote this election, and I really feel like stopping Trump and the GOP and defending whatever flawed legacy the democrats have is more important than whatever virtue signal I can send. At least this time around. 

You know, I heard Kyle Kulinski on his program today say that people will ask 20+ years ago where we stood today on the gaza genocide. And I have to say...no, no they won't. No one will give a flying crap where you stood on gaza in 2024. Do we really make a big deal about where people stood on vietnam in the 1960s? Sure, we can say the "anti war" people were right, but is anyone gonna care if you didnt vote for Humphrey because vietnam in 1968? No. Actually, we might, but not in the way you'd expect. 

You see, Vietnam was a blight on an otherwise solidly progressive johnson administration, but the johnson administration was solidly progressive on the domestic front. Dude got crap done. He was probably the second most progressive president of the 20th century and my example whenever the dems pull the "most progressive president ever or since FDR" thing. Nah, Johnson was based. He knew how to use the bully pulpit, he knew how to assert his authority over congress. And he got things done. And you know what? If anything, I felt his frustration, when he said something along the lines of "I gave them everything they wanted, why are they still hating me?" or something to that effect. And you know what? I get that frustration right now. Imagine having fricking LYNDON B JOHNSON as president, the dude gets civil rights for blacks, desegregates the schools, fights a literal war on poverty, leaves office with the best economy we could have, with the next dude thinking about implementing a UBI to finish the job, and these college kids get all uppity over nam. If anything, I feel more about the college kids given the draft was a thing at the time, but otherwise, yeah. 

And now, vietnam is all water under the bridge. Maybe the anti war side were right in the end, but I do think that their crappy behavior did lose the country and shift things to the right. 

When I look back at that era, and I really think about where people stood at the time, it mostly seems abstract to me. It's history at this point after all. I dont think anyone cares. And looking back the only things that ultimately mattered are related to the realignment going on under their nose. In 1968, it was the year the new deal coalition fractured. Some of it was uppity college kids over humphrey, but the big cause was the dixiecrats defecting over civil rights.In 1972 those guys became the ones who became part of nixon's silent majority and went with his dog whistle politics. Then in 1976 things swung back to carter because nixon was corrupt, and in 1980 things swung back to reagan. 

When I think about where people stood, the most important thing to me would be derailing a right wing movement. I'd want to stop reagan before we got to 1980. I'd want to support the dems through 1968, through 1972, through 1976, and 1980. Those were the most important elections of our lifetime. And what happens 36 years after a realignment? Another realignment.

We are in that moment now. We have been since 2016. Now, 2016, I was fine virtue signalling a support for Stein. Clinton was an entitled POS, and I thought that Trump winning was a fluke, and perhaps, at the time, it was. I really do think clinton losing was more about a rejection of clinton than an endorsement of trump, and I really believed that it was a condemnation of the democratic brand. ANd you know what? I still believe it to some extent. But regardless, 2020 taught me something else. That Trump STILL "had it" in 2020, and we barely avoided a second term of the guy. How do we barely avoid a second term of the most woefully incompetent president in modern history? This dude made Dubya look like a genius. Biden deserved an easy lap, and even if I didnt vote for him, the numbers at the time seemed to tell me he would comfortably win. But he very much UNCOMFORTABLY won.

And while I knew Biden in 2024 would probably crater, seeing how things have unfolded since 2020 have concerned me. We had january 6th, where the sore loser incited an insurrection over losing the election. We had the dude take a hard authoritarian turn where he and his supporters start openly flirting with autocracy and christian theocracy. We've had a spell of inflation that's causing deep dissatisfaction within the country and driving people away from the democrats and toward trump. Biden actually ended up being objectively more progressive than i thought, he hasnt been AMAZING, but he has been aight. But he was railroaded by congress at every turn, and now people are turning on him, saying he went too far left and that's why the inflation happened.

In short, we are in trouble. We are kind of screwed if Biden doesn't win. This could be a BAD election. Like a 1968 or 1980 style election. Something that either completes a realignment that's been happening since 2016, or shows a disturbing trend in the democrat's future electoral capabilities and coalitions. Either way, it's BAD NEWS for us. And if we want the best outcome for the country possible, Biden HAS to win here. That's how I see it. 

And you know what? Living in Pennsylvania, the battleground of battlegrounds, the current deciding state that decides the fate of the whole country, with the state possibly being decided by a few thousand votes, my vote has an outsized influence on the fate of the country. I am THE ultimate swing voter. I am THE GUY who decides elections. Or I can be one of a few thousand guys who determine the fate of the whole country.

Given this could have an outsized influence on the state of the country for literal decades, do I want to be the guy who didn't back Biden and led to the rise of Donald Trump and his GOP? We could be feeling the effects of this election until the 2060s. Just like the country is still reeling from the decisions made by those in that crucial 1968-1980 time period.

If I don't want ANYTHING on my conscience, it's getting trump elected to a second term. First term, okay. First term, I had to send a message to the dems that their strategy sucked, that they were abandoning white working class voters, and that they had to do better. I dont regret that. In some ways, I feel like 2016 was one of those fateful elections too, but i ultimately put the blame on clinton for that one, for being such an insufferable person and alienating hundreds of thousands or even millions of voters and driving most of them into the hands of Donald Trump. She decided it was her turn, she derailed Bernie Sanders, who would've been our new FDR, and she decided to run a crappy campaign. She deserved to lose, she really did. But Biden, well, he's tried. He's worked with Bernie, he's proposed and pushed light versions of his policies, he's tried to do good things, only to be stonewalled at every turn, and now he's facing frustration as the country turns on him over inflation, and to a smaller extent, gaza.

I dont think gaza will be the ultimate decider of this election. I think it's mostly a handful of lefties being annoying and obnoxious over it, a "vocal minority" so to speak, but it still could have an impact. Still, the big issue is INFLATION, and that will be what will be written in the history books. That Biden lost because of inflation, and the country shifted right, and we never got good things for the next 30 years because the dems had to run hard to the center just to get elected after that. 

And with that, that's what scares ME. I don't want to be complicit in reelecting Donald Fricking Trump under these circumstances. No. He's too dangerous, and the state of the democratic coalition is too fragile to risk a second Trump presidency. So no, I can't vote third party this time. I'll consider it in future elections if the stakes are a bit lower, but not here. Not now. 

It's not gaza that will remain on my conscience 20+ years from now. it's the stuff that's going on right now, in this decade in this election cycle. As I said, I'm treating 2024 like 1968 or 1980. I wouldnt wanna be complicit in the rise of the right back then either. So I'm making sure to remain on the right side of history here.

Oh great, GPU prices going up again!

 So, apparently some Trump era tariffs are being put in effect on June 15th for some reason. It affects electronics from china, with the GPU market possibly being hardest hit. And I'm just gonna say it, F trump, who came up with this idea, but also F biden, who has decided to implement it. I mean sure Biden kinda delayed implementing it due to inflation, but now that prices are stabilized, he's doing it. And this is something that's gonna be popular with no one. As we know, the GPU market has been a complete and utter dumpster fire since Nvidia released turing back in 2018. The market has been screwed, and we JUST FINALLY got back to some semblance of "normal" and now they're pulling this crap. 

For reference, back when I got into gaming, you could get GPUs as low as $50, they wouldnt be good, they'd be entry level, but you could get one. $100+ used to get you something decent. $200 got you something good, and the crazy enthusiasts used to go up to like $500. And even $500 was insane back then. 

Even as recently as 2017 with Pascal, you could get something okay for entry level for $100. Something like a GT 1050 or RX 560 or something. Of course, most mainstream mid range buyers went for stuff like the venerated 1060 or RX 480/580 for around $200-250. And that was normal. Spend under $300, the enthusiasts spend more. But yeah, best bang for your buck was around $200-300ish. 

Then Nvidia got greedy. 2000 series offered little price/performance and suddenly "60" cards cost "70" level pricing (around $350-400). The 1660 series was offered for normal 60 buyers, but let's face it, it was a mild generational uplift after 2 years and it was clear nvidia was yanking our chains. 

3000 series, same crap. Wasnt even a good buy under $300. 3060 was $330, 3060 ti was $400, and good luck getting either at that price because we got hit with covid and a crypto boom simultaneously. Suddenly you were spending $400 for a fricking 1050 ti, which normally cost around $140-180. Everyone was buying 1650s for like $400 just to hold them over and that was worse than my 1060. 

And then, after COVID, prices slowly crept back down, with the dam really breaking in late 2022 as AMD wasn't selling cards well so offered practical fire sale prices on their 6000 series. We were talking down to $190-210 for a 6600, $230-270 for a 6650 XT, and $350 for a 6700 XT. And that was decent. Like what that stuff shouldve cost in the first place. The 6600 was basically like a modern 570, with the 6650 XT being more like the 580 type model. Ya know? Decent.

But...that's where the market has been since. The 6600 is still, today, the cheapest card worth buying at $190. The GPU market below that point has been decimated, with $150 6500 XTs and 1650s and $130 6400s, and the 1030 still going for almost $100 for some reason. It's like that part of the market hasnt moved since 2018. The 7600 is now the same price, with around the same performance, as a 6650 XT (around $250), and Nvidia is still charging almost $300 for a 3060 and exactly $300 for a 4060.

And that's the bottom end of the market. Now "mid range buyers" are expected to shell out $500 for a fricking 4070 or 7800 XT. The top end of the market instead of going up to around $600-800 now goes up to $1600 for the 4090, and people cant even get it for that price. It's actually like $2000+ from what I understand.

And now the government wants to put a tariff, basically a 25% tax, on all of these things? The point of this tax isnt to raise money. it's to punish buyers from buying a foreign product. That's why trump pushed this crap in the first place. Because his idea of "make america great again" is to tax foreign made goods to encourage domestic production. Because "jobs". Screw that guy. And screw Biden for going along with that. I mean, if GPU prices go up 25%, this is what the product stack will now look like:

6600/3050 6 GB- $240

6650 XT/3050- $290

7600- $310

3060- $350

4060- $375

6700 XT: $390

4060 Ti- $500

And yeah that's just some of the more reasonable models out there.

I aint even talking about the high end of the market. This is mainstream normie 1080/60 FPS stuff. We're crowding out the low end of the market already. Even with inflation, a $110 1050 should cost like $150 today.

I mean if you asked me this is what the market SHOULD look like today:

6400- $80

6500 XT- $100

1650- $100

3050 6 GB- $125

3050- $150

6600- $150

6650 XT- $175

7600- $200

3060- $200

4060- $230

6700 XT - $250

4060 ti- $300

 That's what the market SHOULD look like if it looked anything like it used to back before 2018. It doesn't. We still suffered from inflation. prices are better than they were, but keep in mind when "inflation" raged we were back to like 2012-2013 era price/performance here for a while. We finally got back and track and now we gotta push a 25% tax because "jobs". 

I mean, if we were doing this to fund a UBI, I might look the other way. a 25% consumption tax isnt my ideal UBI funding mechanism, but at least it would put money back in people's pockets. This is just taking money out of them, and screwing over people who have been dealing with inflated prices since BEFORE COVID. Not good, not good at all. And honestly, i cant just bash Biden for this, it was Trump's idea, but Biden never should've re-implemented this. Terrible idea.

Well, at the very least I won't be buying a GPU in the next year probably since I jumped on a 6650 XT the second we hit "the new normal" in 2022,  but still, this really sucks for people who do. Especially with the 5000 series from nvidia and the 8000 series from AMD around the corner. 

EDIT: It looks like they will be delaying the implementation to give companies more time to shift away from china. Still, it's only one year. 

Why I am not in favor of an NHS/Beverridge healthcare system

 So, this is just a blurb, but I did see a discussion on healthcare today and the different options, and I just wanted to explain why, as someone who is more hard line and on the progressive side of the aisle, am not for a full on NHS style healthcare system. 

Ironically, it's not because I don't LIKE such a system, or the idea of it. I think the NHS is one of the envies of the world in terms of healthcare. I just don't think it's a good model....for America. And here's why. 

First of all, cost. It kind of runs into the same issue single payer does, super high costs. And while a normal progressive who does NOT support a $4 trillion UBI can go crazy on healthcare, I'm kinda pinching our pennies after funding UBI, designing systems that work around UBI, without compromising UBI. I still nominally support single payer in principle, and I would support NHS as an option in principle, but I understand a fully paid model of healthcare by the government is going to be expensive, and it's possible we can't fund both. So that's reason #1, even though any single payer program I come up with could be used to fund the NHS in the same way.

So what makes NHS so further beyond the pale for me than even single payer? Well, it's because of this. On top of everything else, the NHS type system wouldnt just be fully government funded healthcare, but fully government RUN healthcare. Single payer has the government be the single payer for healthcare. Healthcare is still run privately, it's just that providers now have to negotiate with the government, as a single payer and monopsony on healthcare. If we ran the healthcare ourselves, we'd have to design all of this bureaucracy ON TOP OF just funding the healthcare, and that's a bit out of my expertise, and I'm not sure if it can be done.

The US government seems notoriously bad at bureaucracy. It's one of the reasons I have my own approach to government, which isn't all that different from Yang's idea of "modern and effective government". The government isnt necessarily good at running things, the government is good at moving large sums of money to where they need to go. Just as I dont want a welfare system where the government determines what in kind aid people need instead of cash, I'd rather have the government...just fund things with cash. That's what it's good at. If the government ran healthcare directly, it would have to figure out what services it provides, what limitations there would be, etc. They effectively run into the problems of command economies. They have to adequately centrally plan all of this crap out and account for every item they need, and if they miscalculate, we could have shortages.I'd much rather just have the government pay for things and let the actual healthcare market figure things out. Let the government pay the bill, and let people get what they need. 

Also, because NHS style healthcare is so dependent on bureaucracy, and that's what the US is bad at, it's also open to sabotage. The right could just implement literal death panels limiting what services people can get, and then go "SEE WE WERE RIGHT ABOUT DEATH PANELS AFTER ALL". We kinda gotta worry about that in the US. Any system we set up can be sabotaged through underfunding.

Meanwhile what would sabotage look like with UBI? Well, you'd get less UBI. Or you'd get inflation if the right decides to pump tons of money into the economy without paying for it first. With single payer, they could try to refuse services to pay money, but in both cases, if sabotage occurs, the left could clearly say, much like with social security and its fiscal crisis today, that hey, this is underfunded, we need to raise taxes on the rich to pay for this. I mean, because the system is simpler, there's more accountability. The US has a habit of just making things intentionally difficult to sabotage things, and then we say government doesnt work. And because the success of NHS depends on its bureaucracy, and that's what the US system is particularly bad at, I'm not sure we can 1) set up a good system in the first place, 2) maintain it, or 3) reform it properly if broken. 

It's a great idea on paper, and if it works it works. I'm just not sure the US could make it work.

Either way, I think either single payer or a robust public option would get the job done. Philosophically I like single payer more as I AM progressive, but if I need to develop an alternate framework based on a public option instead, I know how we can make it work, and how we can scale it to different funding levels. obviously more money is better, since more tax money put into the system reduces the private costs on people, and the private costs are what's the killer in the current system, but yeah, we can make it work.

As such, I'd rather just focus on getting people insured, and getting the government to pick up the tab. Whether we have a public option free for low income people and that scales with income, or a single payer system funded purely with taxes, I think we could make that work. I just think an NHS system goes a bit too far, and there's too many moving parts where we're at risk of making something that just doesn't logistically work. I'd rather just fund single payer if we can, and a public option scaled up to the affordability levels we can afford if we can't.

In retrospect, maybe Trump handled third party voters pretty well

 So I watched Kyle's video on Trump's libertarian convention speech, and while it was a faceplant as I pointed out myself yesterday, idk, in some ways, I kind of the way he should handle third party voters, and the way the dems should handle them.

I mean, Kyle kinda pointed out something I overlooked in my analysis. Libertarians are highly ideological. That's why they arent republicans. Because they are the kind of people to put ideological purity above working with imperfect organizations or candidates who might not give them everything they want. And this reminds me of how many left wing third party voters are. Whether it be me in 2016 and 2020 with my economic concerns, or the gaza people in 2024, left wing purity testers exist too, they're highly ideological, and they would rather vote for what they want and not get it, than what they don't want and get it. I myself have used that line before. Btw, do I still believe that? Yes. I just believe that supporting Biden is in my best long term ideological interests given the current political environment. 

But, as we know, voter shaming is big on the left. If you arent for Biden, or Clinton in 2016, the dems seem you like a traitor. They call you out and shame you for not voting for all of these other issues that you might not care about and does this actually influence people? No. Because those people are highly ideological and they have their priorities and dont care what you think. Sometimes their approach might come off as straight up suicidal, as voting third party in 2024 seems to me, but ultimately, we live in a system where politicians are beholden to the voters, not the other way around, the voters are ultimately the boss, and while we can criticize their decision making at times, politicians have to work within that really. Getting uppity in peoples' faces because they wont just vote for a major party candidate is not only ineffective, it's counterproductive. It's a lot like what Yang said about trying that on politicians in DC. You're just burning a bridge and it doesnt actually help you.

So what did Trump do differently? Well, again, he told them "maybe you dont wanna win, maybe you're fine just getting 3% every election, have fun with that." He didnt' shame them like YOU BETTER VOTE FOR ME OR YOU GET BIDEN, he's like, look, you can either vote for me, and Ill nominate a libertarian in my cabinet and give you something, even if it's not everything you want, or you can do youre purity schtick and get 3% of the vote. And then he just left it up to them. he didn't shame them, he didnt bully them, he just implied that they're a bunch of losers who will never accomplish anything and let things speak for themselves.

Was this effective? No. he got like 6 votes at the convention. That's it. If I recall they nominated Chase Oliver, who was the frontrunner who I did review once before on my metric, but yeah, I kinda have to respect Trump for not full on voter shaming. He just said "look this is what i wanna do for you, take it or leave it, and maybe if you dont wanna vote for me, maybe you don't wanna win." 

And that's kind of how I see the 2024 gaza people. So many liberals are like "how do we reach these people?" and think voter shaming is effective, when I'm like, nah these people ARE that ideological and extreme, and we should just let them do their little sidehug of uselessness while we focus on appealing to voters who will play ball with us. The liberals want the leftists to abandon their ideological positions to see things on their terms. Me, I'm fine with just letting letting them scream into the void on gaza. Because lets face it, neither side is gonna budge, and neither is particularly ingratiating to me. The gaza people and the blue maga libs both believe in voter shaming and harassing people who dont think like them, and neither are effective at changing each other's minds. And that's why I'm an enlightened centrist this election between these two guys. I still got my priorities, and while I admit the leftists do a little better on my economic priorities, I also recognize that strategically, not backing Biden is a blunder. Because he did put some things on the table that I like. And while it's not everything I want, I do wanna win. I would rather see Biden accomplish everything he wants to accomplish than to get 1% doing nothing. And I would rather see Biden win and defend his legacy than to see Trump get in and tarnish it. Because if Trump gets in, the ideological ground may shift AWAY from me. And I recognize that. 

So yeah. In a sense I kinda am thinking like the more liberal version of that kind of protest voter. I kinda realize that I DO wanna win, assuming Im actually accomplishing and furthering my own goals, and my behavior in 2016 and 2020 was more because I believed the dems were slamming the door in my face, not letting me in. But Biden has let me in enough where yeah, I do feel justified in backing him. Will I do this every election? Depends on whether the 2028 candidate earns my vote. You all know my purity tests. I admit I might change a few things by 2028 if I've deemed myself fit to do so, I'm not necessarily gonna stick with the same exact tests every cycle, but you already know my overall priorities. Act on them, get rewarded, ignore enough of them and I might decide I'd rather take my 1% and stand on my values. Totally up to who runs, and what position we're in, and where we stand. I'll make the calculation probably around 2027 or 2028.

And yeah. I just wanted to highlight that since I think it's a metric crapton better than voter shaming people.

Discussing Yang's behind the scenes work on UBI

 So I watched a part Yang's latest podcast which was some talk he was doing on UBI, and there was a couple things I wanted to discuss with this. 

I've been critical of Yang in recent years due to the fact that with him UBI ISN'T front and center any more and his forward movement is no longer about UBI. I mean, with me, I'm a purity testing motherfricker on my top priorities. I believe you find your niche issues and your philosophy, and you basically push and push and push on your top issues. I do believe in putting pressure on people to adopt positions that I like. I don't necessarily mean do what the palestine protesters are doing which would amount to me literally screaming in peoples' faces that they support wage slavery, but I'm not above applying political pressure with my votes and encouraging people to do the same. 

Of course, I often forget, I'm an outsider to the political and Yang...isn't. He has a lobbying organization, humanity forward, where he is trying to push for UBI and UBI like ideas. He's still passionate about the subject, and you see that here, but he has a certain level of tact that I do not. He basically said that if you run a lobbying organization, you cant just go after people and shame them or attack them in order to bully them into your position, and that doing so just shuts down all progress and moved them the other way. People often forget that the rules within Washington DC arent the rules outside of it. There's a lot more civility and quid pro quo within the beltway, and while I don't like that, and I understand why voters don't like that, I do understand where Andrew is coming from. If he's trying to appeal to people directly, he has to kind of butter them up and be nice to them. So he's working with a different set of incentives there. I still criticize him on this at times as I feel like if you arent careful you can lose yourself to this kind of culture and become part of the problem, but at the same time, eh, someone has to do it. And I suck at that sort of stuff. I am more like this Bernie Sanders type "we gotta take the fight to them, blah blah blah" type of person, and I do believe in fighting fire with fire. I'm more like "we need a tea party movement based around UBI", and he's more like "pretty please Joe Manchin think of the children with the child tax credit". I mean, I might not LIKE his approach, but I do understand where he's coming from, I understand someone has to do it, and yeah I don't really think he's a sell out on UBI.

Still, give Yang does come from a much different culture than myself, I do think he underestimates the extent of the problem. I mean, he thinks of it from the perspective of we know what the problems are but the system is ineffective and everything is rigid and broken. 

With me, I look at it this way, theres a lot of powerful interests that don't want UBI to be a thing, and many of them are what's breaking the system in the first place. I mean, I recall once he was on TYT's program with Cenk Uygur, and Cenk (who also tried to get people from the outside to work inside the system like AOC and have since become disappointed with what they had become), pointed out that the problem is money in politics, and Yang kind of disagreed. Yang does come at these issues from the perspective of one of the elites. And that's why I lot of leftists cant stand him. I give him a break because I understand this guy is doing more to advance my ideology or a variation thereof than anyone else. I mean what am I doing other than arguing with people online and screaming into the void? I mean, I guess that has some usefulness. I still see some of my stuff in Yang's philosophy, and I do recognize that he basically got his ideas from the head mod on r/basicincome, someone who I basically have discussed stuff before, so I guess there is room for both, but yeah, he's using his position to actually do a lot of good in the system. Still, at the same time, the left has a point. And I kind of look at Yang's exact perspective, which is informed by a more "bourgeois" way of looking at the world, and sometimes I see the deficiencies of that, including him underestimating the extent of the problem.

I mean as I discussed last night, there is a whole ideological dimension of this. People arent just nonpartisan and centrist here. They see the world through ideology, and most mainstream ideologies are pro work, with the conservative right, the most dominant force that sets the terms and tone of the debate in the US, being very anti UBI. And I also understand that these guys are quite cut throat in keeping things the way they are. They are very machiavellian and will use any means necessary to achieve their goals. And this is why I have the more hard nosed purity testy mindset I do. Because I fully recognize if we want UBI to succeed, we need to have a bit of a culture war and ideological war, that I'm not sure Andrew is willing to admit we need to have. We need to take on the cult of work and jobism. We need to take on the protestant work ethic. We need to take on meritocracy itself. We need to take on property as a natural right. We need to take on the entire link between work and income. Yang already is a step ahead, he's already at a point where he admits that this isnt working. he comes from a place of pragmatism, not sharing the ideology of work that most people have. And I respect that. heck, recognizing that in 2020 is what caused me to be a supporter of his to some degree. He literally is doing more to advance my ideology than anyone else in this country. But at the same time, he's also kinda missing the point that he is one step ahead of the rest of the country, and the rest of the country needs to get there. Not just for pragmatic reasons, but ideological reasons. We need to take on the cult of work directly. And that's MY job, to convince the masses that shifting away from how we do things is a good thing. And that's where Yang's activism falls flat. To some extent he is trying to pull the cart before the horse. And im sad to say that the country isn't there yet.

Heck that's why Im fighting so hard for Joe Biden lately. It's not that I LIKE him. He's okay, but that's all I think of him. I just recognize if he loses that our movement will be set backwards, not forwards, and that rocking the boat when sharks are in the water and they smell blood (sharks being republicans) isnt the best of ideas if you care about your long term survival. I might be willing to rock the boat if there arent any sharks, or if the sharks arent dangerous for whatever reason, but the MAGA movement is like blood lusted psycho sharks, so we can't risk that strategy at this time. "Teaching the dems a lesson" this time will just teach them that they gotta move further right and away from the crazy boat tippers. 

And yeah. It's hard either way. Making progress in this country is difficult, because our country isn't set up for that in many many ways. Whether it be the structure of society, its ideological divides, the incentive system, etc., it's hard to just get what you want. It literally is like pulling teeth out of the mouth of a blood lusted shark trying to rip your arm off. It's frustrating. Anyway, I do wanna try to dial back criticism from here on with Yang. He's trying in his own way. I disagree with his strategy to some extent, but at least I know he hasn't lost himself. He's still advocating for things behind the scenes and he's a really good guy. And yeah. Just wanted to say that.

Why are conservatives so intent on banning basic income programs?

 So, I often hear of conservatives looking to ban basic income programs at the state level. As I've indicated before, these bans are nothing more than virtue signals, as only ban stuff at state levels, and often in states where not much UBI stuff is happening regardless. But why are people so intent on doing it?

And I have an answer to that, they're scared. They're scared what UBI will mean in terms of its cultural impacts. At best, this fear is misguided. Perhaps they really do live in a scarcity mindset where we all have to work and if we don't society will collapse, it makes sense in this context to ban anything UBI like because you'll think it will bring ruin upon us, but you know what? I think it's a different kind of fear. I think it's a fear of losing control. 

As I see it, we've been finding a second front to the culture war than the one everyone focuses on since at least 2020, and probably since 2016. And that is a culture war over work and the future of work. COVID really let the mask drop that we didn't have to live like this any more, with us shutting the economy down, laying off a third of the economy, and just ensuring people could meet their needs. If anything, we didn't do enough for people during COVID, as our responses were slow, often the bare minimum, and kept people in a constant state of stress and precarity, but you know what? I actually LIKED the lockdowns. I LIKED the simple life. I'm not an extravert. I don't need fancy vacations, and going out all the time. I like staying inside and playing video games and stuff. COVID lockdowns are how I view my ideal life. I wouldnt force such changes on people, but I would encourage a shift that way. And I think I'm not the only one.

Even if people don't wanna sit in the couch doing nothing, a lot of people liked the changes that came with COVID. They liked working from home, for example. They liked not having to get dressed up. They liked not having to commute. They liked possibly working less than 40 hours because their work loads dont require that amount and they're forced to look busy for the sake of appearances. COVID actually broke a lot of control employers and work had over peoples' lives, and people LIKED it. BUT...the louder conservative voice saw this as a threat to their way of life, so they opposed it. And they fought tooth and nail to go back to normal, even dragging the left into supporting their position for fear of losing elections. Basically, we could've had a cultural revolution and won.

Why do you think when Yang ran for president they didnt give him air time? Because they didnt want to give the free money guy attention. They wanted to control the narrative and focus on the dog and pony show THEY want you to focus on. Who are they? The political parties, the monied interests, and the networks. Why do you think after Yang spoke that one time they got Kevin O Leery to give a speech about the dignity of work or whatever? Because they didnt want us to focus on UBI. They had to push their own culture war in response. They HAD to give yang some air time in fairness, so afterwards they scheduled a virtue signal about work.

And that's also why republicans are trying to ban UBI trials. Because they kind of open pandora's box. At any specific moment, tons of worker bees who have been heavily brainwashed into this cult of work might suddenly realize that hey, we really dont have to live like this, and maybe we should have a society with a UBI, where people have freedom as the power to say no, and where people have the power to make work less of a focus in their lives. But maybe there are powerful interests who DONT want that, so rather than allow us to play with fire so to speak, they ban it before it gets off the ground.

Basically, they want us in a position of realizing that this is the best we can ever do, and even that is too good. because let's face it, if republicans had their way, they'd ban all safety nets, they'd go back to like the 1870s, and we'd all work like 15 hour days with no worker protections, and that would be life. I'm not kidding, these are the psychos who are trying to make child labor legal again and who recently undid regulations in florida that mandated water breaks for outdoor workers in a hot southern state. They're psychos, they're ghouls. And that's who we're dealing with.

Make no mistake, if you're for UBI, youre on the right side of history. These psychos arent. And they will do anything to stop the american people from being enlightened and pushing for changes that actually improve peoples' lives. So keep pushing.

Battle of cringe: Round 5

It's been a while since we have had a battle of cringe, but we just got round 5 last night. In one corner, we have one beach blonde, bad built, orange boi, and on the other side, we have the whole libertarian national convention. 

Trump just exudes cringe no matter where he goes. He's delusional, he's psychotic, and he's dangerous. He's basically American Hitler, and I dont think that's much of an exaggeration at this point.

On the flip side, the libertarian national convention is kind of a hot bed of cringe itself. In 2008 (when i went through my cringey college era libertarian phase), the phrase that said it all was "bring in the clowns." And then in 2016, we had the naked guy dancing around on stage. Libertarians are known to be a joke, and sadly, their standing hasnt improved much for me in 8 years, if my rant on their perspective yesterday tells you everything.

"But outofplatoscave2012", you might ask, "if the libertarians protest and heckle Trump, can't you just let bygones be bygones? I mean libertarians are cringey, but protesting and heckling trump is practically your civic duty at this point!" And you would have a point, but it depends on WHY they're heckling him. Are they doing it because he's a fascist who committed January 6th and the constitution worshippers didn't like that? Are they doing it because of project 2025 or any of that crap? if so, heckling is well justified and well deserved. Well....no. And that's the issue. 

Why did the libertarians boo and jeer Trump? Because he supported COVID vaccines and lock downs. Yep. 4 years later and they still can't let that crap go. The one thing that Trump did, that I agree with, Trump's literal broken clock moment, and these guys are booing him for it.

Heck, you might wonder why Trump is even there at the libertarian national convention. it's because he's sweating about RFK and RFK is there. And that's RFK's pitch to libertarians. RFK's entire cult of personality among weird centrist types is mostly about people who cant let covid go. He's an anti vaxxer, he's been outspoken of lockdowns. That's one of his big appeals and most weirdos who like him seem to like him because of that.

Me, I supported lockdowns and vaccine mandates. If anything, as a libertarian myself (although a more moderate, reasonable, social libertarian), let me explain to you in your terms why this stuff isn't bad. 

My libertarianism is based on John Stuart Mill's Harm Principle, ie, the idea that youre entitled to do whatever you want until you harm others. You know? Youre free to swing your fist until it hits the end of someone else's nose. The problem with COVID was that in a time like that, with a deadly pandemic killing hundreds of thousands and eventually millions in the US, merely breathing is an assault on another person's security and well being. 

The answer to this was to reduce contact between people. Hence why we basically shut down the non essential sectors of the economy. As an anti work libertarian myself, trust me, for capital to shut down the economy like they did, it mustve been seriously, they dont just do that for no reason. Their hand was forced. If they did not, the virus wouldve ripped through our population very quickly, overwhelming our healthcare system, which is only designed to handle so many people at a time, and millions would've died. Yes yes yes, 1-2% fatality rate. That's 3-7 million Americans. And imagine that happening within a couple of months. it could've happened. 

So we had to shut down the nonessential parts of the economy, and encourage people to stand 6+ feet apart, and do social distancing, and wear masks, and eventually, get the vaccine so we could go back to normal. Every step of the way, these right libs, these immature right libs decided that they didnt wanna do this stuff, that it was an infringement on their freedom. Well again, youre free to swing your fist until it hits someone else's nose. And during a deadly pandemic, merely breathing is swinging your fist. Of course, we cant stop people from breathing, so we did all the stuff to limit the spread of the virus. 

As I said in previous articles, even in natural rights theory, at least my own "unnatural" aspect of it, life is more important in some cases than liberty. Sure, it's a balance, and that's the eternal debate for people who care about both priorities, but libertarians just dont care about life. They dont care if people die because of their ideas. They're like 4 years olds, they just wanna do what they wanna do and they throw a tantrum if you try to stop them. 

Now, back to the issue at hand. So they booed and heckled Trump over this. Well, to be fair, they also booed and heckled him over everything he said. They actually had the words "be ungovernable" behind him when he spoke so it seemed like the goal was to get the crowd to give him a hard time. I just don't like the reasons they focused on. 

And as for Trump, at one point he fired back and said something like "well maybe you don't wanna win, maybe you're fine with just getting 3% every election", which was a sick burn. I mean, libertarians are the right wing version of the greens. Theyre principled but sometimes they just end up being electorally irrelevant. Worth going that way if the two candidates suck and you wanna make a point, but they ain't gonna win.

In some ways I blame Trump for not even appealing to them on their terms. I mean who goes to the libertarian convention, isnt a libertarian, and then berates them for being losers who never win elections? That guy does.

As such, who won this battle of the cringe? In terms of the cringe, probably Trump. Make no mistake, I have no love for right libs here, but Trump thinking this was a good idea? congrats, he played himself. 

So apparently I do have new arguments against ancaps after 8 years...

 So I read my old post on anarcho capitalism after cutting off a debate with a very pushy ancap (by the way, I still don't recommend debating them), and I kind of realized that I have gotten more sophisticated in responding to them in recent years due to my growing indepentarian ideology. They still won't respond to them well, as they still are stuck in their own heads in terms of morality and can't comprehend someone not simply agreeing with their premises, but I did want to outline a few new arguments I have.

If I had any pet peeve with my original article on them, it's this. I kind of gave ancaps the high ground on the use of violence. I said it was okay to sometimes use violence to achieve positive goals, in terms of how they frame it (any mandatory state action), when in reality, my evolving perspective on property rights and their origins, as well as the origins of capitalism, have kind of made me realize that capitalism itself is backed by violence. It can't really exist without it.

As a matter of fact, let's go back to more minarchist theory. To them, the role of the state is to protect their natural rights of life, liberty, and property. For them, these rights just exist, as ordered by God, and were "discovered" in the 17th century for some  reason. The concepts never existed before that point, but now they do, and anyone who violates their rights is evil. This is why these guys are so hard to debate. Youre literally dealing with people who have views that are backed with the zeal of religious extremism. 

But...lets face it. Despite all of their theory, their worldview didnt exist until the enlightenment. And it didnt go mainstream until the rise of liberal democracy and capitalism. And what do we know about the rise of capitalism? Well, it didnt emerge peacefully, if that's what  we're asking. My historical ventures to find out the truth on that have indicated to me, both from Widerquist's works, as well as the Elizabeth Anderson work ethic book, that capitalism arose violently. That it was forced on people. That people were FORCED into working, FORCED into servitude. That the work ethic was imposed on them with great violence and cruelty. And now we live in this system, and we act like all choices are "voluntary." They're not. As Widerquist pointed out in books like the prehistory of private property, hunter gatherers had no concept of property. They couldnt even develop one until they developed states and were able to use violence to enforce their ideas of property. And then, they basically forced people to work and be part of their projects. Some people resisted this with great vigor, but eventually the whole world and all habitable land was conquered, giving people no place to go, and forcing them to be part of their system.

Ultimately, capitalism is based on violence. It is backed with violence, with a state that establishes a certain perspective on property, and violently enforces it. And everyone is forced to play by the rules, whether they want to or not. Everyone is forced to work, within these systems, indirectly of course, via the use of violence to defend this system and property rights regime. Leftists kind of have it right. I just dont agree  overthrowing this system is the way to go. Much like with states themselves, the answer is reform. 

And this is where these ancaps get uppity. They think taxation is evil, that it's slavery. Except, taxation is literally as old as property is. And in my view, its fine to use this form of violence to right the wrong of wage slavery. Giving people a UBI via taxation is a way to free people from coercion. But for these guys, literal wage slavery isnt slavery, but somehow, forcing them to pay taxes is. Even if the labor that the taxes come from is voluntary, because of the UBI itself.

But they just have this idea that everyone is to work and provide for ourselves and no one should be forced to provide for another. Even though their system forces people  to work for people with property, and that system is backed with violence. It's a joke, it really is. 

Oh, and while ancaps wanna get rid of "the state", i dont know how this would actually function in practice. It sounds like the corporations would run everything directly in practice, making it look like Neon in Starfield where the entire thing is owned by some rich dude who "owns" the place takes a cut of everything (basically taxes), or it would devolve  into chaos, similar to like fallout or  something where you got raider  gangs ultimately taking up the role of the state.

It's like these guys have no idea how we got states in the first place. But this is how. They basically evolved out of strong men just taking land and subjecting people to their rule. It took centuries of evolution to reform states into the more just state that they exist in today (in the west at least). And these guys just wanna abolish them and their progress to go back in time because they dont like taxes. Whatever dude. I don't care. Pay your fricking taxes to the entity upholding your property rights to begin with. because without them, people would just be taking what they want in the first place. Instead of the emissary in starfield, you get the hunter. Is any better?  No. It's a step back, really. 

I mean the more I think about their ideology the more nonsensical and incoherent it is, but don't tell them that. They can't be reasoned with. 

Dear leftists, no one cares how "left" you are

 One thing that annoys me about leftists is whenever people mention they're on the left, they love to get in a you know what measuring contest with people over how left they are. And at this point, I'm just gonna tell these people the truth. No one cares, but you guys. When we talk about the political left in America, that includes pretty much everyone up to and including Bill Clinton. Is that a sad reality? yes. Am I significantly left of bill clinton? Yes. Am I a "leftist"? No. 

The fact is, in western nations, liberals ARE the left. And by liberals i mean reformist capitalists. I admit the more moderate wing of the "left" is actually quite conservative, but the more left wing of liberalism, ie, social democracy and its derivatives (including social libertarianism/human centered capitalism) are pretty progressive. And that's what my goals are, progressivism, not revolution.

The fact is, what "leftists" call left is what we call "the far left." Ie, that dark place where Simba isn't allowed to go. Because Stalin and Mao live there and they wanna get another purge going. 

I mean, really. It's not worth getting in a you know what measuring contests with leftists. being more left isnt better. Sometimes being too left is worse. Because you replace practicality with ideological brainrot. 

Really, I cant stand the far left. I mean, they're pretty much about as detestable for me as neolibs. Keep in mind my "enlightened centrist" status on the left. Too liberal for the leftists, too left wing for the liberals. And I tend to strongly dislike both factions at this point. 

But yeah. These leftists like to come along and say "no one is left but them." Okay, so what are we. "Liberal". Okay, and yeah, whats wrong with that? other than potentially being pigeon holed into being a literal bill clinton supporter.

I mean, you guys do realize liberalism is a broad ideology that ranges literally from bill clinton on one end to the likes of Bernie on the other end, right? And before you claim him as a leftist, his policies are just social democracy and aligned with my views mostly. So...what is leftism other than weird ideological gatekeeping and purity testing?

Anyway, i do wanna respond to some comments I saw on a thread about this. The OP basically said:

If you don't support the liberation of all peoples, you're not a leftist, you're a liberal

Followed by:

Palestine is dividing the left? No, it's defining the left, and you're not on it.

And yeah, I kinda hate this crap. Because I dont see this as a defining issue at all. By "left" we mean political coalition ranging from liberalism to what these weirdos call leftism. And then they're just like "BuT BuT yOuRe NoT rEaLlY lEfT!!!11!" No one cares dude, no one cares. You're that annoying "well ackshully" guy who is taking a broadly understood definition and gatekeeping it around your pet cause. I understand that at some point we gotta draw the line on what's considered left in some way, and at some point, you ARENT left any more. That's not necessarily a bad thing in some cases, but yes, we need SOME standards. I'm not andrew yang with forward after all where I think holding any position on anything outside of ranked choice voting is divisive and bad. But...again, liberals are generally left in the US. You can dislike it, but it doesnt mean it isn't true. This is trench coat and fedora crap guys. 

Anyway, to react to responses:

This sub is definitely in the toilet.

 I agree. I aint saying crap on there since i dont wanna get banned. But the whole mod enforced leftist circlejerk there is BEYOND toxic at this point. And after getting banned there once i dont even wanna risk commenting and getting banned again.

And then this one got a lot of responses:

Yeah we should totally be bickering amongst ourselves and tossing out the left equivalent of rino.

 I get that reference, and to be fair, I am for throwing out "dino" types on the left. But by that, I mean centrist craplibs who literally LIKE Bill clinton. These guys basically seem to wanna purge anything up to and including me, and even I'm in this weird thin ice grey area at this point. hence why I'm taking this here rather than there.

Only an American would be reactionary enough to get offended at the Left purging itself of other reactionaries who care more about their precious institutions more than they do victims of a genocide.

 Ok, can we stop calling each other reactionaries for not being pure enough and pushing back against the circlejerk? Let's remind ourselves of the definition here according to google:

(of a person or a set of views) opposing political or social liberalization or reform.

"reactionary attitudes toward women's rights"

 I'm pretty sure that explicitly EXCLUDES most liberals. 

Just saying. 

It has nothing to do with people reacting negatively to leftists being self righteous jerks.

Damn, what are the chances an American would be on a subreddit from an American podcaster? You read a whole bunch of shit into this that isn’t me. But your high horse condescension has got you high as a fucking kite. I understand.

It’s not all that bad that “purging” is happening on the sub. I appreciate the reflections on a current day front and center coverage of an amoral, decrepit, colonialist project. I just think the whole project of purging is off topic for this sub. Just instead of hearing about news and current events, organizing and strategies, philosophy etc, from a leftist perspective it’s sophomoric foaming at the mouth at l*berals. I get it, we hate liberals. Yeah, got it. But it’s all very performative.

 THANK YOU. Finally, some sanity. Idk how long this guy is gonna last giving a hot take like that, but yeah. It's ridiculous. And the worst thing is, i dont even consider the podcaster in question a "leftist". Like me, he's in that weird social democratic adjacent umbrella.

You do realize that "liberal" subreddits such as worldnews have been kicking out leftists as well, right?

 Ok i dont go to those kinds of subs because they're TOO lib for me (like, democratic party sycophants), but i dont post on them for a reason. Because the amount of gatekeeping and obnoxiousness there too is problematic. Thats why im an enlightened centrist, i hate BOTH of these guys. 

Either way, its very well possible they deserved a ban if they act like they do everywhere else they're in mixed company with people who dont think like them.

Watch me contribute anything to worldnews, lmao /s. My point in kind.

 Me too buddy, me too.

Your point is moot. The liberal subreddits started this shit, so the leftists don't think liberals should get to contribute to leftists subreddits either then.

 As the enlightened centrist, this is where I end up not being able to contribute ANYWHERE because both factions are acting like mental children. 

I mean this is the exact problem with reddit these days. Youre either a liberal, or a leftist, and often not in between. I guess im allowed on that sub as the mod recognizes me as that weird in between. but yeah I fail these gatekeepy purity tests too. 

It's just obnoxious. Even with this community splitting in two with libs making their own sub, i mean, i post MORE on that as im less afraid of mod reprisals, but let's face it, i dont get along with either. it's why i started calling myself the enlightened centrist. One person called me that since i kinda sit literally like 50% between each of these guys and I just stand by my opinion.

My point stands. When joke of a subreddit worldnews went militantly pro-Israel I no longer engaged with it and didn’t turn every other subreddit into my reaction to that.

 Yeah i dont even know about that, because i dont post on mainstream subs. I kinda stopped after they were all astroturfed after 2016. Enlightened centrists seek safe harbor from astroturfing too. Communities like this should be, and used to be inclusive, ya know?

You should've seen the anti war, and endless war subreddits. After October 7th they were all over them it was unbearable. They finally cleaned it up though.

 Yeah, again, I hate both sides.

 A new comment thread:

Liberals should even support the Palestinian cause

  Not really. Palestinians are illiberal ideologically. We dont really like them or their belief system much. We actually kinda feel more sympathetic to israel. However, I would agree that any sane person should be anti genocide and anti war crimes. Seriously, we need to hold our own accountable for this crap, and this is where we need nuance.

Still, these leftists go WAY further into full on support for palestinian nationalism and terrorism apologia, and it's cringe. And the liberal left should oppose that.

Exactly. Leftism (and even liberalism, when applied correctly) are inherently universalist.

We see this beginning all the way with Kant's writings on perpetual peace and global cooperation. When one group can be so dominated by another, then we're excluding that principle of universal human rights. And that's a posture that only fascists should be willing to take.

 

 I mean in principle, most of us are for everyone having rights. I just also understand that foreign policy is one big trolley problem and while I would ideally save everyone, I do take a side of who I would support if I have to.

And thats why I have the views I do. In the larger conflict I am pro israel over pro palestine. HOWEVER, this does not exclude the possibility (and at this point the moral imperative) of criticizing the current regime in israel for their super uncool war crimes. 

Ya know? And that's where i think the liberal position is. It's like, okay, so we support israel in theory. But that doesnt excuse netanyahu of war crimes. You know what I'm saying? This conflict is complex in that sense. It's like...with the war on terror, the behavior practiced at abu ghraib was horrible and shouldnt be supported. But that doesnt mean im gonna stop supporting the US and start defending fricking al qaeda, ya know? There's so much room for nuance its intellectually dishonest to pigeon hole people here.

Liberals absolutely love claiming they are the left, masquerading as the left.

Liberals are conservatives, not the left.

 Liberals are left in western society. Yes, some liberals have more in common with conservatives than even socdems on some issues. Ive criticized and gatekept them too. But again, leftist gatekeeping is irritating. We're clearly using two definitions of left here. Left generally means associated with democrats. Liberals is considered the opposite of conservative. Id prefer the term progressive as a more direct foil to the term conservative, and that's where I gatekeep. I mean, we should be for progress. Liberals can be conservatives if they support the status quo. Progressives are never conservative. And leftists are so "progressive" they're off the scale and dangerous. 

That's how I see it. So can we stop this crap now?

To this day, one of the simplest ways to tell the difference between a liberal and a leftist is to ask the person you're talking to how they feel about capitalism and America's foreign policy.

If they sound similar or fundamentally identical to a Republican on these two subjects, you're talking to a liberal.

I swear, in a hypothetical presidential election where the two candidates were Donald Trump and a generic communist, most liberals would yank the (R) lever so hard it would break.

  I mean if the communist wanted to overturn the system and purge everyone maybe that's warranted, because such a communist is illiberal. 

And thats the thing. Yes, we're reformists. We dont want so much change it breaks the entire system, burns it down, and leads to purges. We think your behavior is quite frankly "illiberal". 

Again, you're not just "left". You're "far left". You're the part of the political spectrum where the horse shoe makes you closer to trump than it does to us. 

But anyway thats they dont like us, they think that we're closer to the GOP than to them. In some ways that's an indictment of their positions on things and how extreme THEY are. 

And this is coming from the dude who has made this exact argument that centrist dems are closer to the GOP than to me...a "socdem." 

Like, really. On economic policy, yeah sometimes libs ARE closer to them than to us. Remember clinton's welfare reform? Sure, sure. I can concede that partially, but at the same time it's like....you guys are so so fricking far left that you're just on some other plane of existence. I mean remember my likert scale. Conservatives, 6, liberals, 4, leftists, 2. But if you're a 1 (what id call a communist), and im a 3, and then bill clinton is a 5, and reagan is a 6, then yeah we're kinda gonna be pushed to support reagan over you. That's not necessarily an endorsement of clinton, it's just a rejection of your extremism. We're gonna wanna protect democracy from the illiberal forces at the gates no matter who they are.

The immoral are showing their ass all over the place smdh. Excusing the purposeful targeting of children is evil and no POS politician who does it deserves any credibility

 Is anyone actually doing that? I don't think so. Maybe some weird zionists exist but they get crap even from us. Like seriously, i consider myself nominally pro israel in the greater conflict in the region at this point but even im like "yeah no this bibi guy is committing war crimes arrest him." Again, you can walk and chew gum at the same time. 

Again, here's the big problem with politics. These guys have no NUANCE. They're just so extreme and beyond the pale that they're an echo chamber of ever increasing political extremism. They keep purging their more moderate members to the point they're either too afraid to speak up, like me, because I WAS the asch experiment dude trying to bring these guys back to reality, or they're banned for being too lib. Either way, this isn't a healthy environment any more. its a echo chamber. And these guys are radicalizing themselves into irrelevance.

At the very least, at least they are becoming irrelevant. Because once you get this far left, no one cares any more. They're so extreme not even I wanna deal with them and i consider myself to be on the very left flank of liberalism. I go as far as is reasonable, and then no more, because going further is insane and harmful.

Just understand this. When we call ourselves left. it's not because we're literal socialists, or anti imperialists, or marxists. it's because we're "the left half of the country on most issues." Again, left is broad in the US. It extend way from that tiny irrelevant far left through social democracy, and into liberalism, all the way to the "third way." It's a huge big tent political coalition, and even i fight with these guys. Do you think i like centrist libs and democrats? NO. But at the same time, I also don't like extremely gatekeepy leftists who have a radical illiberal ideology and lump me in with the other group. 

Honestly, as I see it, we need coalitions to win elections. We're not all gonna get what we want. We're gonna have to make deals with people who we dont necessarily like. And that applies to me too. My ideas are so special snowflake no politician on earth represents what im for, except maybe some hypothetical mix of bernie sanders and andrew yang. But each of those individually? Even i have disagreements with both of them. And from there, it's like, okay, leftists have this, liberals have that.

That's why I have my purity tests. And keep in mind the most compatible candidate on them is like in the ballpark of 63% of my views weighted by priority at this point. With the competition to that being in the 50s. So not great. No one is really moving my heart here. But hey, im gonna vote for one of them regardless. 

I just wish everyone understood that. We can crap on centrist libs all we want. I mean i dont like them either. That doesnt mean im a communist. We can crap on bibi netanyahu, that doesnt mean im pro palestine or about to go to protests and scream that everyone else is a genocide supporter. 

I mean, nuance exists. Rejecting one extreme doesnt mean support for the other. And like always, my views are what they are, take them or leave them, I don't care any more.