No, of course not. Can’t have him getting distracted from advancing his handlers’ agendas by handing him a snack, now can we?

Metallicy

Says the guy backing the same group that lost 4/7 presidential elections since 2000, including two (against Trump) that people thought nobody could possibly lose, since he was that terrible a candidate. You guys are killing it at getting people to agree with your platform, and it’s totally in line with what the broader population wants.

Great stump speech for why your preferred party isn’t just a bunch of people hostile to anyone who disagrees with them. With people like you representing them, I’m sure they’ll be able to win consecutive elections, rather than just getting the odd touch of power when people get tired of the GOP’s nonsense. Keep telling yourself it’s the voters that are wrong and stupid, and not your party, buddy.

People just don’t like them because they aren’t good enough.

It’s more that they’re still all in on incrementalism, while the problems people face are worsening by leaps and bounds, and they’re actively hostile to members of their own party who advocate for advancing the sort of large-scale, structural changes needed to actually resolve the various crises bearing down on the working class. They’re also at odds with their base on major issues, such as healthcare reform, a robust social safety net that isn’t means-tested to death, and their obsession with supporting Israel, because they’ve been captured by the purse strings of their major donors. It certainly doesn’t help peoples’ opinion of them as embodying the out of touch elites who are deaf to the plight of the working class when party leadership comes out against [https://www.businessinsider.com/we-are-free-market-economy-pelosi-rejects-stock-ban-congress-2021-12?op=1](Congressional insider trading) that our representatives are notorious for exploiting to enrich themselves via privileged knowledge they gain through their positions.

If they didn’t dump millions of dollars into primary challenges to progressive candidates that represent a challenge to the prevailing neoliberal order the Dem leadership so dearly loves, even when it means ultimately losing the race to a Republican, I doubt people would be so hostile to them, and the party would probably be in a better place. When party leadership won’t resolve their issues in a satisfactory manner, won’t listen to and incorporate criticism from their base, and actively fight their efforts to get elected officials who more accurately represent their views and values, it shouldn’t be a surprise that people decide to go elsewhere.

You can’t publish enough TikToks and youtube videos to media manage your way out of a hostile, out of touch group having a death grip on the party and refusing to admit that, perhaps, the present situation is vastly different today than it was 3-4 decades ago when they were first elected.

There are plenty of people, both politically engaged and those who only show up to vote every 4 years, who are legitimately dissatisfied with the Democratic Party’s deafness to the problems facing the average voter, and as long as the Democrats and their supporters continue to stick their heads in the sand and pretend it’s all down to a hostile media environment, the further down the path to complete irrelevance they’ll find themselves.

You could probably make a big enough threat to the companies just by saying, “If our audit finds you are, in fact, sending meritless denials to try and pad your bottom line, you need to reach out to all those impacted and inform them that the denied services will be covered 100%, along with any follow-up care needed as a result from the treatment you denied. And the fine is 150% of the cost of all claims you denied.”

Shareholders ultimately don’t care about the CEO, they can get another one. Hit their bottom line hard enough, and they’ll take note, though.

Can’t be, I actually recognize all the sponsors as real brands with existing products, rather than shit I’ve never heard of that turns out to be crypto nonsense, shell companies, Philipp Morris in a mask, or some combination of the three.

Probably IndyCar, let’s go to the nose cam, brought to you by Verizon, for another angle on this one.

I think the biggest pro for me would be that sane policies at the federal level that are broadly popular in my region could stop getting blocked by yokels representing states that sometimes barely even have the population of the semi-rural county I grew up in in the Northeast. Ditto for not having to worry about corporate interests from those same states filing frivolous lawsuits that manage to block the implementation of the odd policy that does make it through, like student loan forgiveness.

Also, I’m not above admitting that there’s a great deal of appeal in the potential schadenfreude of all the “But I don’t want my taxes paying for the trans, minority welfare queens getting bottom surgery! Down with any social safety net!” Republicans from the South and Midwest being forced to reckon with the fact that they have actually been the welfare queens this whole time, and it’s only been by the grace of those dang liberal states paying in disproportionately high shares of taxes that get funneled towards red states that their shithole states haven’t yet collapsed entirely. Let’s see how Alabama fares with its whooping 1.1% of the national GDP when they no longer have federal funding to prop them up. Their top 5 employers are all public institutions that likely depend on federal funding to remain operational, and 2/5 of them are military bases. Good luck, guys, the South will fall again.

For cons, obviously it’ll suck for the people who still live in those states until they finally move, but that’s been the case for a long time. If the decent regions help finance the move for those who are willing to leave, but unable to for lack of money, I’m kind of fine with it. Same goes for overlooking criminal charges when people are unable to leave their state due to some BS non-violent crimes landing them on parole and being refused travel permissions. If Mississippi wants to lock you down as exploitable labor because you got pulled over with some weed, or loaned a kid a book that said gay people actually aren’t the spawn of Satan sent to destroy US civilization, come on over. They can keep their sex offenders and violent criminals, though. For the folks that don’t move because “Oh, but my family is here and I love them too much to move away,” or similar reasons, good luck with living through the second feudal age, but that’s your own choice.

Likewise, it’ll be sad to see them destroy national and state parks in the name of business, as well as visiting those places while they still exist being a much riskier proposition.

Honestly, I think most red states severely underestimate how poorly things would go for them if they were to be cut loose, while overestimating the popular support they would enjoy and their international appeal as trade partners. Even for the ones who are in a relatively favorable economic opinion, like Texas, would probably see absolutely insane levels of brain drain from industry and higher education that would leave them dead in the water, barring state-sanctioned violence to prevent people from leaving.

That said, their economies would be devastated. Arizona, New Mexico, Texas, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Tennessee, North Carolina and Kentucky would all see between 20.7%-30.7% of their overall revenues for state and local governments vanish overnight if they stopped receiving federal funding. States like New York and Texas could probably come away at a net profit just by retaining the taxes they’d previously passed on to the federal government, even factoring in how many new services would have to be provided for at the state/regional level that were previously financed by the federal government. For the states like New Mexico, Mississippi, and Alabama that manage to claw back almost all of what they contribute in federal taxes, if not get more back in federal funding, good luck. Somehow, I suspect their new, libertarian overlords in Texas aren’t going to be so keen on subsidizing their impoverished neighbors to any real extent.

I mean, white women were the single demographic group to benefit most from affirmative action, despite racists preferring to paint it as a program that only benefited African Americans in their reverse racism arguments, so yeah, they count in my book. Especially when you consider that a large portion of far-right white men want them to occupy the trad wife role and not been seen outside the home and church again.

Harris was no more of a crap candidate than Biden was in 2020.

Biden was able to get away with it in 2020 coming off Trump’s first term and the shitshow that was COVID’s handling under his leadership. Harris didn’t have this benefit, being second in command in the incumbent regime, was unable to capitalize on any of the points the Biden administration could claim as wins, while stubbornly refusing to put any distance between him and herself on his unpopular stances. Add in that this was occurring while popular sentiment was clamoring for an inspiring campaign that wasn’t the usual DNC paint-by-numbers, march to the right campaign of, “Well, actually, while I can appreciate Hitler’s passion for the arts, animal welfare and the health risks of smoking, you’ll find that we, uh… disagree about the best way to deal with the Jewish question. Thank you, you’re seen and heard, even you Jews out there. Vote for me, 'cause the other guy’s Hitler, and I’m not entirely Hitler.”

The entire Democrat effort (or lack thereof) was a massive unforced error on their part. Instead, they keep sidelining any candidate who seems to actually excite people and inspire them with hope for the sort of systemic change they want, unless they find they can eventually drag them into their usual shenanigans.

Personally, I think they’d also do best to drop their tokenism with candidates that trot out the same means-tested policy drivel. Rather than go harder on the adjectives next time and hope people show up to vote for, “The candidate who would be the country’s first female, Chinese, Navajo, amputee, Leprauchan president in history,” have policies that don’t include the means-testing and would broadly lift up the working class and poor voters, while also addressing historic inequalities for the many groups that have been disadvantaged and/or excluded from US society for its history. You can tick all the diversity boxes you want with the candidates, but it’s patronizing to think people will blindly fall in line for such a candidate assuming they’ll represent them, when we’ve seen that it’s mere lip-service paid to very real issues impacting the lives of millions of Americans, which will be promptly forgotten upon taking office, if it lasts that long.