Dear "free palestine" whackjobs, you look like January 6thers, stop it

 So, Bibi the war criminal finally gave his speech at US congress. I'm not gonna discuss that so much because much like Bernie Sanders, Kamala Harris, and anyone with a brain, I'd prefer not to dignify Netanyahu himself. I think boycotting him is fine and I'll pass on listening to his speech.

But, I did see some pictures of the corresponding free palestine protests, and I was kinda horrified by what I've seen. The last time I've seen protests at the capitol. It was on Janaury 6th 2021. I remember angry trumpers storming it, having gallows outside that said hang Mike Pence, and yeah, it wasnt pretty.

Today, I saw pics of graffiti all over monuments, an effigy on fire, and an angry mob outside of and even inside of the capitol. Just seeing it kinda gave me January 6th PTSD vibes. Not gonna lie. 

Do you not realize you're turning normies off? Really. You are. You psycho from the outside. You make people wanna vote for Trump. Not gonna lie. 

I'm not saying all protest is bad. I respected harris, for example, for refusing to attend. Says enough about it to me. Heck, I even saw Rashida Tlaib quietly sitting in congress with a sign that called Bibi a war criminal. Now THAT is how you protest. You remain quiet and respectful, and you get your point across. Not sure why the left thinks literally being obnoxious jackbutts is the way to do things. It just alienates people. Hard. 

Anyway, that's all I wanna spend dignifying this topic.

Dear centrists, stop trying to ruin things with the Hillary Clinton strategy

 So, I keep seeing on the news, and occasionally online, that "Kamala Harris' path to the white house looks differently than Joe Biden's" followed by a news report talking about how Harris's path to the white house is through like North Carolina and Georgia and maybe Arizona on the basis of her being a black woman and being able to appeal to black women.

For the love of god, centrists, get out of your own way for once. Stop trying to make a democratic "southern strategy" happen. it's not happening. Harris's map looks literally the same as Biden's. If anything, Harris's map is more "Biden" than Biden's. Let me post what I mean by that.

So this is where my polling averages with Harris are relative to Biden's. 1/4/8 margins. I admit, it's early, I need more data for a comprehensive picture, but the picture I have speaks for itself. The path to the white house is through the rust belt. It always was. And right now, Harris's data favors the rust belt, and doesn't favor the sun belt. 

Now, admittedly, this can change. Again, it's still early, I have a very incomplete picture of what's going on. That Michigan data is old as fudge (as is NH's), and more polls might bring the polling averages down a bit, but yeah. Whatever trends were happening, are more extreme with Harris. Biden was down about 2-5 points in the rust belt when he pulled the plug. Harris is down 4, to being ahead by 2 in Michigan. Now, do I think she's really ahead by 2 in Michigan? No, I'd say she's probably actually behind by 1-2, similar to the Wisconsin numbers, but regardless, again, similar map.

Biden was down 4-7 in the sun belt. Harris is down by 5-10. Again, limited set of polls, but one of the reasons i was more reluctant to replace her was because of stuff like that. In some polls she does horribly at the state level, like worse than Biden. And now we can kinda see where she's strong vs biden and where she's weak. 

We know, from my election predictions on Biden, and to a lesser extent on harris, that the path to least resistance is through the rust belt. Wisconsin, Michigan, Pennsylvania, NE2. Get those, you get 270. Don't screw around trying to abandon the rust belt to pick up Georgia, North Carolina, Florida, and Arizona, that's where Clinton went wrong in 2016. Because she couldn't seal the deal in the south, and she ended up blowing her easy actual path to victory.

Now, I'm not saying any approach is easy here. I mean, Trump holds all the cards, kinda like Clinton did in 2016 and Biden in 2020. Trump is the presumptive winner and has to defend his lead in the swing states. He needs to lock down the democrats' easiest path to 270 and make sure they can't get past that mark. And that path is the rust belt. That's why he went all in with Vance. And that's probably why I think harris will inevitably choose josh shapiro as a running mate. All paths go through pennsylvania. Arizona, Georgia, and North Carolina dont have enough electoral votes on their own. You get wisconsin and michigan and you need 19 more votes. Pennsylvania has 19. Georgia has 16. North Carolina has 16. Arizona has 11. They're harder states to flip, and they're less rewarding. Why are news outlets so focused on the south?

Because that's what they want the democratic party to be. They want the party to reflect themselves. Full of corporate centrists who live in big city suburbs and then they make it up by playing to minorities. That's what Clinton did in 2016. Go corporate centrist, but then go woke. And then she went broke.

Harris has real energy. And wanna know why? it's not JUST youth and vitality. It's that she's PROGRESSIVE. She has a progressive record. She's more progressive than Biden. Even I'm relatively enthused over Harris. And it's because her administration actually has potential to make peoples' lives better while Biden's was dead in the water.

Nothing is more demotivating to democrats than combining wokeism with centrist economic policies. That strategy is what feeds the trump strategy. Because all these white working class people in the rust belt feel like the dems abandoned them, and then suddenly you get the teamsters showing up to give speeches at the RNC. That and a lot of the social justice messaging is extremely polarizing. It mgiht appeal to some demographics, but it repulses others and causes the other party to be a cesspit of racism, misogyny, and the worst aspects of the republican base. I mean, the GOP looks exactly as it does today, BECAUSE of this strategy. it was the original sin of Hillary 2016. And it (the GOP) is POPULAR. This crap ISN'T. No one likes this crap. You guys are weird corporate boardroom people trying to sell a product that no one wants to buy. It's inorganic, it's repulsive. No one wants it. STOP IT. If you want to not lose this election, STOP IT AND GET OUT OF THE WAY. 

Seriously. The rust belt is our best, easiest and most effective strategy to 270. It might make the party look more in the image of Bernie Sanders and my politics, but you know what? THAT'S WHAT PEOPLE WANT!!!!! Don't screw around with this.

I'll even compromise, make Josh Shapiro the VP. Of the boring centrists we could choose, Shapiro locking down PA maximizes our chances of winning the white house! RUST BELT RUST BELT RUST BELT. It's the difference between 270-268 Harris and 226-312 Trump. Your choice. Not saying we cant make a play for the sun belt, but come on, it's not happening.

This could be us:

Trying to do this:

Will probably lead to this:

Don't screw up. Don't pull a Hillary. 

What was:

What could have, and should have been:

Don't make the same mistake again, democrats.

(PS, yes those last two images are from my "bernie would've won" article, with the second one actually being the same as the first, but if the country voted 1 point more to the left)

Responding directly to JD Vance's "childless cat lady" comments on Harris

 So yeah, JD Vance is making the news for calling Harris a "childless cat lady" who "wants too force their misery on the rest of the country" a few years ago. And being childfree myself, I took that personally and wanna respond to it. 

The fact is, which side of the aisle really wants to push their views on people? I mean, SJWs can be obnoxiously pushy, but for the most part, it's the right. I mean, I'm childfree. I know how it goes for the childfree ladies. They're often told "oh having kids is so wonderful, you'll regret not doing so" and in reality....the parents are the ones who are miserable. Kids are a lot of work. And it's not all glamorous. It's sleepless nights, and cleaning up messes, and your body changing from pregnancy because that crap wrecks peoples' bodies. And a lot of women regret it. Men do too. Heck, I knew by the age of 12 i NEVER wanted kids. Nothing was appealing about it. 

Now, I recognize that we live in a pluralistic society. And people think differently. My parents genuinely loved kids. My mom wanted a ton of them but sadly she only ended up with me because she struggled to have them. Mustve been all those scars from abortions she had /s (really, these rightoids are deranged). And that's okay (having kids and loving them). It's a socially useful function that continues the species. I live on the impression that some people will want to live a certain way, some will want to live in other ways, and the total outcome is going to be fine. Some will have tons of kids, others will have none, and in net, we'll have a reasonable amount of them as a society. Some people wanna get married, some people don't, whatever. I'm for FREEDOM. As are most childfree people.

But conservatives, aren't. On the issue, they live by God's command in genesis: "be fruitful and multiply". They see people getting married and having kids as inherently positive. And they have a specific life script people should follow about how to live their lives. Go to school until 18. People get married, have kids, guy gets a job, woman takes care of kids. It's simple to them, and they glorify it. That is their ONE MODEL for how life should work, any anyone who deviates from it is bad and sinful.

And they really believe that last part. They see the left as waging a war on traditionalism...simply by daring to exist and supporting alternative ways of living. Heck, they see the alternative ways as sinful and an affront to god, and want to ban such behavior. No, really. That's what the modern republican party is about. And it's why they wanna ban abortion, gay marriage, and even crap like porn, contraception, and no fault divorce. They want EVERYONE to live their way. And see everyone else as sinful.

And if anyone is miserable, it's them. Misery likes company. And there's a real concept of resentment politics on the right. Because they see the life script simply as THE way to live. And they might have regrets themselves. They might regret having kids. And while they keep the social appearance of "oh well kids are so wonderful and blah blah blah", their internal mind is basically Till Lindemann's Praise Abort. "I hate my life....and I hate you..." And yeah. They actually do hate others for living differently. The thing is, these conservatives hate people who don't subject themselves to the same things that make them miserable that they do, and they resent people. They resent the childfree cat ladies, and the DINKs (double income no kids) for having no responsibilities, and actually being happy with their lives. And because they're miserable, and because they see the correct way of living as being THEIR way, they want to drag everyone else down into the same misery that they have. Because it "isnt fair" to them and their suffering if everyone else around them isn't suffering the same amount that they are.

It's literally the same thing that happens with work and resentment politics. Because let's face it, work is part of this christian life script of theirs too. We were punished for original sin and now have to work for sustenance. Men have to work for a living, and women have painful childbirth. It's not that childbirth was an unfortunate consequence of evolution, or that work is an unfortunate consequence of our natural selection driven world we live in. No, they have to explain why the world is like that and why it's not perfect because God is. And they literally put the blame on people. And in doing so, they create this is ought thing in which not only does misery exist, it's justified by this sin concept.

And they have this idea that people are at war with themselves. Like we're all sinful, so of course, we're gonna be lazy and not wanna work, and not wanna have kids. But, God's plan for us is to work and have kids. And humans need to be forced to do "the right thing" "for their own good." 

And that sums up the modern conservative traditionalist mindset. They force this traditionalist way of living on people, they're miserable with it, but they think that that's simply the way life is, and that that's the way it has to be, and people need to be forced into it. 

So no, it's not the childfree cat ladies who are miserable with our lives. It's THE RIGHT with their conservative BS. The left is, generally, crazed SJWs aside, just the side of being live and let live. We support pluralism and freedom and people doing what they want, recognizing that some will choose to live some ways, and some will choose to live others, and the public good will be served reasonably well enough with this arrangement.

THe right literally believes everyone should be forced to live in one specific way. And they want to force everyone into this. And to quote (hopefully) the next president of the United States, WE WILL NOT GO BACK!

And let me explain the phrase. The right literally wants to go back to the 1950s. Everything was great until the 1960s with this sexual revolution, and secularism, and even the civil rights movement basically changed society from what it once was, and they wanna go back. The childless cat ladies dont wanna go back to being breeding stock like in the fricking 1950s. Black people don't wanna live up their civil rights. Gay people don't wanna go back into the closet. Nonchristians dont wanna go back to being a Christian nation. And quite frankly, if we ever evolve past this nonsense protestant work ethic crap to humanist capitalism, I wouldnt wanna go back to that religiously inspired nonsense either. 

THe reason the childless cat ladies hate the right and are so bitter is BECAUSE YOU GUYS (the right) WANT TO FORCE YOUR WAY OF LIFE ON US, AND WE ARE TELLING YOU TO KINDLY SCREW OFF! We don't care (minus a few crazed SJWs) what YOU GUYS do with your life. You wanna be religious, go for it. You wanna live in a traditional nuclear family, go for it. It's kinda the default option. Vivek Ramaswamy was acting like "if you wanna be counter cultural be conservative on a college campus". Uh, I WAS. And I was a straight A student in the social sciences regardless. Why? Because i was willing to learn, and not just be stubbornly ignorant. Youre respected as long as you defend your views. The problem is, most don't. 

But anyway (to sound like Joe Biden), yeah. Any resentment we have toward you guys is because YOU GUYS WANNA FORCE YOUR WAY OF LIFE ON US. This is why we call you christofascist and make those memes about how you wanna turn us into the fricking Handmaid's Tale. Because you do. You even have a fricking 900 page document detailing how you wanna do this. 

As such, yeah, JD Vance can go screw himself. As can any religious authoritarian who wants to shove their crap down our throats. You can live as you want. I don't care. I'm not an SJW who wants to force crap on you either. But, you try to force your BS on us and yes, maybe we get kinda bitter and resentful about that. Just a thought. 

The republican attacks on Kamala Harris are disgusting

 So, it seems like the republicans are in disarray over Kamala Harris's nomination for the democratic candidate over Joe Biden. It reminds me of watching a DBZ villain freaking out when goku shows up or transforms. They were so firm and confident before and now they're just losing it.

And republicans gonna republican. While the GOP itself is apparently encouraging its members to not attack Harris on the basis of race or gender....that seems to be the most of what they're doing (or freaking out over how she might pass progressive things that help people). 

First, "DEI" is a common attack. Now, I'm going to be honest, I just called her a "DEI candidate" last week, but to once again clarify, that was not intended to be racist in nature, coming from me at least. I was criticizing those who wanted to push Kamala Harris as the nominee without question on the basis of her being a black woman...and noting how Biden nominated her...because she's a black woman. if your big thing for the job is being a black woman, yes, you ARE, sadly, a "DEI hire". Sorry, not sorry. That's literally what the point of DEI is. To promote "diversity, equity, and inclusion", which is a fancy term for hiring people of certain identities to do the job.

Now, that said, is Harris the "DEI" pick in 2024 and is she being pushed simply because she's a black woman? No. She's a black woman who happens to be the best person for the job (and democrats seem to broadly agree on that) and her nomination is 100% merit based as far as I'm concerned. Calling someone DEI when you dont know the context or simply because they ARE black, or a woman, or anything else, IS racist. There are plenty of qualified black women to do jobs, and Harris is more than qualified for this position as per my analysis last night. So if you're still calling her a DEI hire at this point, that IS kinda racist. 

But it also gets uglier than that. Some people are calling her a childfree cat lady, like, you have to have kids in order to be a good president, and that's BS. If anything, from a pure hiring standpoint, I'd take the corporate career women (which harris fits the mold of) over the mom who took time out of the work force and isnt dedicated to the job. Not that I would pass up anyone because they are a parent, but let's face it, a big part of the so called "glass ceiling" is the fact that pregnancy and raising kids kinda takes women out of the work force while childless women (and men) happen to keep growing their skills and climbing the ladder. So....if anything, the childfree cat lady might be more able to do the high pressure high intensity jobs like being president requires, not that most people who are president are actively raising kids at their age anyway (Harris is 59), and Harris was a step mom apparently, so, yeah, that doesn't count? Apparently it doesn't, because conservatives are so misogynistic to think that a woman who isn't a baby factory isnt a real woman or something (although dont get into their views on trans issues where they'll double down on the "birth gender" thing). And ugh. Like, really, who...does this? Wtf is wrong with people? These weirdos with their traditional values are just...ugh.

And of course, people are framing her as some sort of slut who slept with people to get ahead or something. Why the sex shaming? Why the suggestive logos suggesting that she puts out and sleeps with people? Also, republicans, have you seen YOUR candidate lately? Civilly liable rapist, convicted of 34 felonies for paying off a porn star, had 5 kids from 3 wives and often cheated on one with the next one? Literally the only reason Melania is probably with him at all still is for the money. There's no love in that relationship. It's obvious from a mile away. She's fricking miserable. Probably the only reason she won't leave is financial dependence.

And then they wanna crap on OUR candidate for being SLUTTY?! What?! Yeah, there is a massive double standard there. Ya know "great key vs crappy lock" kind of mentality. Trump is an alpha male for being that desireable apparently but Harris is "damaged goods". Very obvious sexism there. 

Stay classy, GOP. 

EDIT: And I didn't even get to the whole "she never had any kids because she had a scarred uterus from having too many abortions" argument. I mean, what the actual fudge? These people are deranged. Just....wow...

Harris's VP short list

 So, 4 candidates are emerging as being on Harris's VP short list. I kinda discussed these guys before but I wanted to name them. 

Josh Shapiro (PA)

Mark Kelly (AZ)

Andy Beshear (KY)

Roy Cooper (NC)

And...i dont like any of these guys. Think of it, if Harris is the successor to Biden, these guys will be Harris's successor. And all 4 of them are sucky centrist dems as far as I'm concerned. She's clearly going the whole "I need a moderate white male to balance the ticket" route. And I kinda hate it. keep in mind, even if I criticized Harris being nominated in 2020 as a "DEI hire", i didn't do it out of racism, but out of the fact that she literally was chosen for such reasons.

This ALSO feels like the same kind of thing but in reverse.

I just want the best person for the job, and clearly want the Harris administration to be as progressive as humanly possible. I really DONT want some boring centrist white guy here. I don't like choosing people who fit that mold even if it favors my demographic. I just want the best people for the job.

To be fair, if I DID have to pick, I'd go with Shapiro as a PA guy myself, although Shapiro has been a decent governor. Boring and centrist is fine for that kind of job. He's actually been lower profile than Tom Wolf was. In a sense I kinda wish we would keep Shapiro here for stability's sake, as i dont know who we'll get if Shapiro is chosen. I do think Shapiro would give us the best shot at winning the election though.

Second choice, Mark Kelly.

I dont know enough about Roy Cooper but being from NC I can imagine he's moderate AF. 

And 4th, Andy Beshear, I looked into him. He's one of those weirdo "why can't we all get along" style enlightened centrists. I DEFINITELY don't want him. 

As far as who gives us the best chance to win, I'd also say Shapiro. 

I mean, here's the states we really need. Wisconsin, Michigan, Pennsylvania. The south is riskier and southern states like NC and AZ give less electoral votes than PA anyway, not to mention that the voter margins Biden and now Harris have there make them significantly harder to flip. We get Shapiro and lock down PA, and then have WI and MI also shift that way as those 3 states seem to follow similar electoral trends, and it's GG. At that point unless we start losing blue states like VA like Biden was starting to do, or we somehow lose NE2 causing us to get 269, we got it locked down.

As said, I guess we can take one for the team and give Harris our governor. I dont dislike him, I would just rather him be our governor for the next 6 years, and not leave the seat open for a republican to possibly take. And I really dont like the idea of him taking over after Harris. Because he does kinda strike me as from the centrist wing of the party. And I don't really like centrists. They're okay for governor positions, because governors dont have abilities to enact massive economic agendas like I'd like. And if we havent noticed, Trump gets his strength from populism. And the reason harris is taking off like she is is the democrats finally have energy and enthusiasm. Like boring centrists dont win elections consistently. Dems dont understand that. You sit there in office doing nothing and being like "BuT wE cAnT dO tHaT" and watch your numbers get destroyed. it was a huge reason Biden's approval tanked. Yes, age was part of it too but let's not act like age was the entire problem. The left had no enthusiasm and the right had all of it. Now it's shifting. SO SOMETHING WITH IT. RUN WITH IT. Be the most progressive president since Johnson, if not FDR. And don't hand it off to some worthless centrist who will feel as out of place as Clinton was in 2016. 

Seriously, we had Obama, the hope and change guy. Harris kind of is rocking that Obama energy right now. Then in 2016 we get our 2008 sloppy seconds that no one wanted in the first place, and the environment was in the direction of MORE PROGRESSIVE. As such, running a "new democrat" type in 2032 is gonna look awfully awkward if Harris is basically the next "Obama" type president. 

So that said, I dont like ANY of these choices. But I think Shapiro is the one who would be best of the 4. Lock down PA, maximize your chances of winning the election. 

And yeah, looking into Roy Cooper I put him ahead of Beshear on age alone. He's 67, in 2032 he'll be 75. And will we really want another old centrist white guy? It would open up the party long term to choose him. Still, I'm not sure he's the strategic choice to win the election as a whole.

Either way, I don't particularly like ANY of these guys on the ticket. 

Rerating Kamala Harris

 So, I'm going to redo metric #1 for Kamala Harris given my current knowledge of her platform and past. 

Basic income support- 3/10

I mean, she supported the LIFT act in 2020 which was like a mini UBI. It was a tax credit conditional on work and earnings, but it kinda acted like a mini UBI in a way. Wouldnt be surprised if Biden's child tax credit was based on it. 

Medicare for all support- 8/10

Ok, so she doesn't support single payer but she supports the next best thing. An aggressive public option that achieves universal coverage, not unlike medicare for all.

Other economic issues- 9/10

I mean she ain't FULL student loan forgiveness, but on everything else, she's fairly based. 

Social issues- 6/10

Eh...not gonna lie, being reminded of her past as a prosecutor and AG in California make me not like her very much on that front. She was very harsh on criminals, including victimless ones, and often opposed stances like legalization of pot and prostitution that make me kinda cringe. She's also more pro gun control than I am. Still, other than that, she is a democrat, and I'd otherwise expect her to have the kinds of positions democrats often have on stuff like abortion, gay marriage, etc. 

Foreign policy- 10/10

So far she seems to be basically Biden but she's already snubbing Netanyahu a bit. So, she gets full credit.

Ideology/worldview- 13/20

I mean, she's in that same middle ground between centrism and leftism that Biden had tried to be in. She has a decent progressive record in the senate, especially on economic issues, having a voting record that is pretty close to Bernie Sanders. I think we have a lot of common ground on economic and foreign policy issues. On social issues, I'm a little cooler on her. I mean, here's the thing. I'm NOT an ACAB kind of guy. i can even respect her somewhat coming from a criminology background to some extent. Heck she actually reminds me of a former criminology professor of mine. I just think she's been a bit too harsh, even by that role's standards on criminals who commit certain victimless crimes. So all in all, she still gets a relatively good score given the lane she's in. But she does have flaws and we don't agree on everything. 

Dedication to progressive goals- 5/10

Here's the thing. How dedicated will she be to previous progressive stances? There's a lot about Harris that's kind of...iffy to me. She could go either way. She could be the most progressive president since Lyndon Johnson, even being more progressive than Joe Biden, or, she can end up being the most wishy washy centrist out there. She has a mixed record. She's done some bad things in her past (especially on social issues), but she's also been pretty progressive, and I actually think Joe being as progressive as he's been has not just been because of Bernie, but Harris in his administration. 

So idk. Idk how to read her, how to interpret her. She could go either way. And that's part of the reason a lot of us didn't trust her in 2020. She kinda has "hello fellow kids" type vibes as far as progressivism goes. Like, I called her a "fauxgressive" in 2020 for that reason. She could go the corporate way, or she could be the next best thing to bernie Sanders and Andrew Yang as we can get, and literally the best we could hope for in 2024. We don't know. So, I'm splitting the difference.

Experience/Competence- 9/10

If there's anyone beyond Joe Biden who I think can do the job, it's Harris. She's VP, she's ready to swoop in at any time and take over for Joe if he died or was incapacitated. She's been training for this. She's ready to go. I won't say she necessarily has as much wisdom or experience as Joe and is a little bit of an unknown element, hence why she gets a 9 and not a 10, but yeah, I trust her to do the job.

Isn't a spoiler- 10/10

This lady is now the only thing standing between us and a second Donald Trump presidency. She must be supported here. 

Overall- 73/100

Overall, she has the highest score of any viable candidate in this race. Biden was at 66 at his peak, and he got downgraded to 62-64ish due to age concerns and him just rolling over to netanyahu over palestine. Harris is more progressive so she gets a few extra points.

Jill Stein I think got a 55, Cornel west a 52. The thing is, these guys didn't really scratch an itch harris doesn't on economic policy, and they are woefully inexperienced and unqualified, especially with their crazy foreign policy positions. So yeah. There's no real argument for third party voting this time around on my end. On policy Harris scratches the same itch that they do, while not scratching the same itches that the third party guys don't. And where they do differ, I generally see the third party leftists as downgrades.

RFK I think had a 34. Seriously, he's not TERRIBLE, but I really don't see the point of that guy at all. he's just trump 2016 for people who want that vibe but who don't want Trump. 

Chase Oliver I gave like a 22. Compared to harris I would say I probably like Oliver a bit better on social issues as I lean libertarian and that was Harris's biggest weakness with me, but a LOT less on literally everything else. 

Trump. I gave like a 12 last time, and then knocked it down to a 9. If I had to evaluate Trump post convention, uh...just going over it in my head again, I'd give him a 6. Mainly because between his increasing age and questions of mental acuity, his convicted felon status, January 6th, and his first time looking like wheatley's tenure in charge of aperture science, uh....yeah, I'm revoking any points there. So maybe a couple points on economics if only for economic populism, maybe 1 point on social issues over guns and to a small extent immigration (WAY too hawkish but im a moderate on the issue so i aint totally against everything he does), 1 point on foreign policy, and yeah maybe a couple points on worldview, but yeah, like...a 6. Out of 100. 

Yeah. F that guy. 

So yeah. Harris for president by leaps and bounds. She's better than Biden in my eyes. She's actually the best nominee we could realistically end up with given the circumstances, and to be fair I like her at least as much as Dean Phillips all things considered. So yeah, upgrade over Biden. I'm totally coconut pilled on this one. Let's do this.

I really feel like I'm falling out with the far left here

 Look, it's been clear that I've been falling out with the left HARD this election cycle. Still, at the same time I've been trying to angle as being somewhat left myself. But yeah, just watching how some of these people are responding to Kamala Harris being the nominee now just makes me realize they're nuts. 

A lot of the disagreements I'll mention here aren't new. I've ripped on them before, but yeah, I really gotta bring them up here.

1) Anti Electoralism

Really, I get it. In 2016, I was there. Bernie got screwed, and I felt a need to punish the democratic party that election cycle for it. I admit, the party hasn't changed a ton. They have, however, shifted left on policy enough to satisfy some basic demands of mine somewhat. I still admit that if we were in a safer election cycle where the republican candidate wasnt a fascist and the dems ran a full blown centrist like Andy Beshear or something, that I would likely just go third party and not look back. But, as long as they're trying to achieve some of my goals somewhat, and they're TRYING, even if it's not as far left as I want, I feel like I gotta try to reward that somewhat. As such, in 2024, the democrats are finally earning my vote with this Biden-Harris style of liberalism. Would I want something more progressive? Sure. But let's face it, I don't think the country would accept it. It's not the democratic party. The dems are already pushing left to where the overton window is right now. We can keep pushing, but we gotta be cautious and not overdo it or we lose to the right and risk backlash. That's just the electoral realities. Again, my protest votes were based on the fact that the democrats weren't even trying. They were literally treating us like crap and banking on the idea that we would support them anyway, it was an abusive relationship.

I admit the dems still do a lot of weird screwery and I don't condone that. But these "leftists" have gotten to a point where i could flat out tell people all the good things dems actually are doing and wanna do and they're just so far gone that nothing will get through to them. They're a lost cause, and I really don't feel like I have much in common with them any more.

2) "Socialism"

The big thing about these guys is that everything with them is "socialism." Socialism this, socialism that, capitalism bad. Nothing can save capitalism, blah blah blah.

Now, in all fairness, I still maintain a bit of an anti capitalist streak to my politics. if anything, the more I research into the history of it and I formulate my own views, the more I realize that yeah, to some extent capitalism is just evil. The system was literally designed to keep us in a constant state of precarity to force us to work to generate ever greater levels of growth that most of us never benefit from.

But...and this is where I diverge from these guys, my own vision for solving the problem diverges significantly here. These guys are burn it all down nothing is ever good enough. Meanwhile my own attitude differs from them. I do think liberalism can properly reform capitalism. And I don't even think capitalism is the core problem, forced labor is. 

As such, you start moving toward a UBI, M4A, free college, housing plans, etc, you can win me over. And what are progressives doing? They're at least giving us some versions of some of those things. if anything their visions are more aligned with what "leftists' want with the green new deal and the like. You think that me, the anti work guy, wants a jobs program of all things? Please. 

But, leftists gonna left, and they're gonna simultaneously claim nothing is ever good enough because it's not socialism, even as a candidate gives them a large portion of what they say they want. Just because they're not ideological socialists. It's baffling. 

I even got banned from the anti work sub for these reasons. My great sin? "Right wing content". I dared admit things like maybe not all billionaires are inherently satan but that the system is the problem instead and they happen to be part of it, or that the housing situation could be solved by building more homes and sticking it to landlords ins't the solution, or that, maybe, god forbid, we can be for a basic income instead of a fricking JOB GUARANTEE. ON THE ANTI WORK SUB. Yeah, I'm still bitter over that one.

I'll say it, leftists poison everything they touch. Their cynicism and ideological extremism leads to levels of brainworms I can't even comprehend any more, and I'm just so done with them. They wanna scream into the void about that crap, so be it. But I'm gonna actually focus on improving peoples' lives, even if it doesn't solve the problems with the evil system overnight. 

3) Wokeism

However, the left has an even bigger problem right now. It's what Jordan peterson calls the "woke mind virus, and while I don't like peterson on much of anything, as an ex atheist and someone who still considers myself a bit of a skeptic and free thinker, I would agree, wokeism is a problem. It's a militant ideology that tends to spread in a way similar to fundamentalist religion, and whose ideology cannot be questioned. And leftists are infected with it to insane degrees.

There's nothing wrong with the ideas per se. Just as there isnt necessarily anything wrong with marxism in the right doses. But the thing is, these guys tend to take those views and make them their entire ideology with no counterbalances in their perspective. And at the end of the day, it just leads to a circlejerk of uselessness, a rejection of liberal ideals, and just this weird grievance politics which is use to bully people and push them around. Which brings me to the next point. 

3.5)  The Empathy circlejerk

In moderation there's nothing wrong with empathy. but due to wokeism and it being an underlying unifying ideology for the left, it's very quickly weaponized. "Care" is the only metric that matters. You have to care about the right causes. You have to show your support. Drop what you're doing and support the right things. And if you don't, you're a terrible person. Thankfully as an ex conservative I'm inoculated against such emotional blackmail and I don't care if people think I'm a crappy person. You can't shame a person with no shame. And if I have to be somewhat of a jerk to be effective at maintaining my own ideals and my own conscience without being manipulated then so be it. Btw, this is also why appeals to "vote blue no matter who" fell flat in previous cycles too. The dems thought they could use social justice politics and shaming to bully me into voting for them, and I'm just too strong willed for that. Appeal to me the right way, or you don't get my support, period.

4) The "anti imperialism" thing

Okay, so I'm going to level with lefties here. I hate the idea of imperialism. I hate the idea of having to oppress others overseas in order to further our own foreign policy goals. I actually, in terms of ideals, kind of agree with the left here.

BUT...the world isn't always fair. Morality is something that can exist primarily within states, but it breaks down between them. Because between them, you get lawlessness. You get the rule of the strongest and might makes right. And we have to be the one with the biggest stick, or whoever has the biggest stick will come after us instead.

And once we have the biggest stick, THEN we can afford to be multilateral and use soft power and promote a "rules based order" and the like. because we're the ones who have the stick to enforce it. And that's where I'm at. And what does that sound like? Liberalism. The idea that liberal democracies look out for each other and protect each other, and our ideals and way of life from those who think differently and who quite frankly, are the "barbarians at the gates." The powers of the east are authoritarian. They're autocracies, they're dictatorships. It's just the raw exertion of power for them. You have no rights, you have no freedoms, you do what we say or else. Life is cheap. Life is expendable. You should give your life for the glory of the country in these parts of the world. And then, you got the religious crazies, like Islamic extremism in the middle east. it's amazing how so many on the left fear christian nationalism, while being so soft on islam, which is just as bad or worse. 

But yeah, you get where I'm going with this. Due to the nature of the world, I'm a liberal through and through, and consider myself the "reluctant imperialist". It's not that I like imperialism, but again, the west and its way of life must be protected from foreign adversaries. Sometimes this, in practice, looks morally questionable. Sometimes it leads to crazy moral dilemmas and trolly problems that leftists dont have the stomach to handle. 

And maybe they end up just somehow being so anti west with their analyses they end up simping for our enemies. And cheering on the wrong side in various conflicts. Being more sympathetic to Russia than Ukraine, or PRC over Taiwan, or Palestine over Israel. 

Btw, I do think there is room to criticize Israel in my worldview. They are doing things that quite frankly, run afoul of our liberal values, the left are right on that. But do they overemphasize the problem and hyperfocus on it to unhealthy degrees out of their weird tendency to identify more with our enemies than our allies? YES! It's baffling to me. Even if you cant in good conscience support Israel, supporting Palestinian nationalism is just insane to me. But yet, many leftists are doing this. And they're STILL protesting in places like NYC. And they're STILL calling Biden "Genocide Joe", and they're still making this their ride or die issue of 2024 even if most of them probably arent gonna vote dems even if they do what is asked anyway. It's just baffling. 

Conclusion

But yeah. If I havent already, and perhaps I have, it really is time I put some distance between myself and these people. They're taking a bunch of crazy pills. They mightve had a point in 2016, the dems did screw us, but honestly, I'm gonna be frank, I identify far more with the progressive lane of the democratic party a la AOC, Bernie Sanders, Ro Khanna, etc, than actual online progressives. The weirdo leftists seem to poison everything they touch and are a massive liability. I'll support progressive leaders within the democratic party still, and even some outside of it like Yang, but uh...yeah. I think I'm done with the far left. I feel like I'm just becoming most hostile to them over time and listening to commentators I used to agree with on the left like Cenk Uygur, Kyle Kulinski, and others, I just feel like I don't fit with these people any more. Am I necessarily becoming more moderate? Eh, perhaps a little, I'd say a little more PRAGMATIC. I mean, my ideas, ideology, and convictions are about the same, but I'm a little more willing to compromise, and right now, I'm finding progressive democrats far more appealing and in line with me than the weirdo leftist whackos and their crazy views. 

And that's why I wrote this. I can't even really find myself agreeing with left wing commentators I used to agree with any more. We're just on different wave lengths now, with me being more willing to embrace the democratic party when they try to do nice things, while these guys just move further left and continue to just push grievance after grievance against the democratic party and liberals.

It's weird when I kinda start having more in common with democratic party loyalists than the left.

Now, to be fair, I don't think that I can maintain a long term coalition with those guys either. My support is contingent somewhat on them trying to embrace progressives and progressive policy. But yeah, I honestly feel like at least in 2024, that I'm aligning more with the party than the left. Then again, the party has shifted to meet me part of the way so I feel more comfortable responding to that than going with these wierdo far leftist radicals who can't be satisfied. Any alliances I have with anyone can be subject to change in the future depending on where things go from here.