Obama won pretty hard though despite the racism, there were more people excited to see a black president than there were racists (although obviously there as a lot of vocal racism as well).

If Kamala tells a convincing story, I could see it working well.

True

🙄 there are communist countries that are not Russia or China, just like there are capitalist countries that aren’t the United States.

I feel the same way. I put off purchases for a looong time. My biggest example is using my bed, household furniture in gerry-rigged ways instead of buying a weight bench for $200 for a couple of years. I don’t like accumulating too many things, and it is often true that you can do without buying a specialized item.

I think I am moving through this mentality a bit though, if there is a tool that will fundamentally improve my life in tangible ways, I try not to hesitate to buy it, because these kinds of things can make me more willing to actually do stuff. Most recent example for me is buying a thick kitchen apron, so my clothes don’t get wet when I’m washing dishes. Hate the feeling, but it inevitably happens, so then I would end up avoiding dishes.

Other things though, I have pretty cheap guitars and it’s fine because I’m not very good at guitar anyway. I don’t feel a need to buy lots of gear, but bought things for specific tasks like “I want to play standing up” so I got a mic stand.

I think you can have this utilitarian approach to purchases simultaneously with an anti consumption mindset.

Feel like I mentioned again and again that I’m talking about his campaign politics. I took a look at his 2008 campaign policies to see if I was misremembering anything and it’s pretty centrist to me, even his health care plan. And like I mentioned, he explicitly did not support gay marriage which at the time would have been an easy progressive signalling, but he either truly opposed gay marriage or he was trying to cater to a broader audience.

Like I said, he had a convincing image of idealism but not the politics to back it up, and you are saying AOC could win because she has progressive politics. She would need the flashy campaign to back it up, and so many people just hate her I don’t think it would work.

Anyway I’m just saying the same things over and over again in different wording and it’s getting tired, respond if you want, idc, but I’m going to stop here.

I think I was pretty clear saying his campaign was based on the idea and image of idealism, but his politics did not reflect that, not his actual politics or his promised politics in 2008. You’re showing me this poster as if I didn’t directly mention the art and sloganing as a major reason for his win.

AOC may have idealistic policy positions, but her public image is so meme-ified I don’t think she could successfully do the Hope thing that Obama did. Obama was much less well known of a politician when he ran.

I’m not talking about catering to Conservatives, I’m talking about the cultural campaign of meme-ification of AOC that conservatives have been waging for years, that could be convincing to moderates and moderate Democrats.

The only successful Democratic presidential candidates in the last twenty years have been Obama and Biden. Obama won because he has a lot of natural charisma, and came along with a story of having our first black president. Biden won as a reaction to the first Trump presidency. Neither were really particularly idealistic Democrats… Obama did not even express public support gay marriage when he came into office, he had pretty centrist positions overall and gave off an idealistic message with campaign art, speeches and slogans, but his actual policy was not especially progressive.

So Obama won as a biracial black man with the conservative stance against gay marriage, and overall very center-liberal politics, but flashy idealistic messaging.

If progressive idealism had been working, we would have had Bernie presidency by now tbh

AOC is a lightning rod for conservatives, moreso due to sexism imho than her politics because she gets way more hate than Bernie even though they’re politically very similar. She’s not a good choice just because of that. I don’t think the general population of the US is ready for two women on a ticket, esp two women of color. Could make an exciting ticket in the way Obama was, but only if Kamala proves to be as engaging of a speaker. Which, honestly I think she’s a good orator but a lot of people will have trouble seeing past the fact she is a woman, and Kamala will unconsciously or consciously have all the usual biases against women in power (bossy, crazy, etc).

I honestly had no idea who Beshear is but just looking him up, I think he’d be an okay pick. Looks like a boring white guy, has solid liberal track record. I feel like a white guy who supports Palestine would be better, Kamala has a lot of pushback from leftists from her time as DA in CA. Idk who that would be.

Kicks in the door, guns blazing … official presidential business 😎

Just because someone has a personality disorder doesn’t mean they are incapable of doing their jobs. That’s an ableist assumption.

Don’t take it as an insult, if you keep being ableist that would be grounds for insults, but I’m honestly just letting you know.

Oh no

So you’re kind of just imposing your opinion about the “life or death” situation thing. I see tons of posts advocating trans-medicalist views, that I would consider a life or death situation… but the comments removed are the ones using appropriately harsh language to call them out.

And yes, esp w the recent news that the shooter was a conservative. It makes sense to speculate.

So there is no available form of public accountability for comments? I have had mixed experiences in the past with DM-ing mods and I do not trust private communications.

Removed by mod

Also, I am not really seeing a personal insult? Criticism of personal dissonance, yeah, but is that an insult?

How does one link a specific blocked comment in the mod log? I don’t see any way to do this?

PugJesus is like the Ur-Liberal (derogatory)

We are not restricting discussion (those are your words) because this is a life and death situation.

we are removing purely speculative and baseless assertions of fact, because this is a life and death situation.

So one, like I said, it’s not really a life and death situation. And secondly, in the immediate aftermath of an event, practically everything is speculation.

You are just lying about your class status, you already admitted to living a lifestyle that matches with the upper percent of people.

Yeah, it’s notable that computer programmers are also over-represented in this survey.