People who believe strongly in hierarchy, especially what they believe are “natural” hierarchies, are, obviously, opposed to democracy. Democracy is inherently egalitarian, because all voters have exactly the same number of votes: one. In a democracy, the billionaire CEO and the $30,000 a year cashier, have one vote each. No more, no less. The billionaire CEO is more likely to dislike this arrangement because it doesn’t properly respect his “superiority.” It’s ludicrous to the billionaire CEO that a mere cashier should have the same number of votes as him. He might even believe that it is “unnatural,” because he believes that his superiority is something that is innate. He was born superior and he will die superior, and his greater financial success is proof of that innate superiority, and it was inevitable, in his mind.

If I’m wrong then democratic socialist candidates should do well across the country in coming elections, so I would love to be wrong. We’ll just have to wait and see.

“I’ve been a DSA member for over 10 years,” said 40-year-old health department worker Will, at the Fort Greene party. “This just shows that our politics are not radical, that New Yorkers actually think what we believe is sensible, and maybe the rest of the country is ready for sensible, commonsense, Democratic socialism.”

I doubt it.

I still consider myself a democratic socialist. I left the DSA a few years ago but my ideal is still democratic socialism. I still believe in democratic socialism, but believing in something doesn’t make it true or viable. I think the chances of viability would increase significantly if a majority of Americans believed in it too, but that’s just not the case. Now, maybe that’s just because the American people have been conditioned by propaganda into opposing any form of socialism, and that may be true, but I don’t know how to overcome that.

But while democratic socialism remains a relatively fringe ideology, I think that social democracy is much more mainstream and I think it can become much more popular again. And, unlike democratic socialism, social democracy has actually been implemented at a national level and has a good track record. It’s still capitalist, but at least it attempts to mitigate some of capitalism’s more harmful elements and provide a solid social welfare base for the country. Social democracy definitely seems much more viable, at least in the near term. Though, getting a majority of Americans to embrace social democracy again will probably still be a tough row to hoe, due to decades of entrenched right wing libertarian and neoliberal conditioning.

My day’s already off to a good start.

The material difference isn’t left vs right, it’s status quo versus change.

Yes, but not everyone who wants change wants the same change, and so not every change candidate is going to appeal to every voter, even if most of them are looking for some kind of change.

I would agree that both Bernie and Trump were change candidates, but their differing levels of success shows which change message spoke more to the American people.

I agree that a political campaign promising change is the way to go (that’s been true since Obama in '08), but which one? I think it’s reasonable to assume that a change campaign built on economic populism is the way to go, but Bernie tried that twice and he lost twice.

People just don’t want to acknowledge the real problem here: inequality. When people feel left behind, they are much more likely to break either reactionary or revolutionary. Status quo politics are not going to appeal to either of these groups. At the same time, the people who are doing well for themselves within the status quo are going to be put off by both the reactionaries and the revolutionaries. The people who are doing well don’t want radical change, one way or another. Why would they? They’re doing fine and they don’t want anything to jeopardize that.

So, if a politician moves to the center they will appeal to the pro status quo group, but they will lose both the reactionaries and the revolutionaries. Similarly, if a politician moves to either the reactionary side or the revolutionary side, they will lose the other two groups.

We are divided. There is no one winning strategy because there is no one, single group of American voters to try and appeal to, AND embracing any one group means alienating the others. And we’re not just divided because we watch different cables news stations or spend time in different web discussion forums, we’re divided because our lived experiences are different. Our divisions are not merely ideological, they are material.

It always has been! Do people not read history books?

There will be.

Not if the United States collapses.

Not if there isn’t a US house.

Newsom is worried if they go all out that voters won’t approve the measure.

He’s probably right.

Yeah, IF the higher prices caused consumers to eat less beef, but that’s not necessarily going to happen.

The US is Israel’s sole benefactor, and as such Netanyahu has a strong incentive to influence US politics to support the Zionist cause.

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He probably wants to force them to sell the team back to Dan Snyder, too. Trump and Snyder do seem to be men cut from the same cloth.

I hate this country so fucking much.

It’s not just about winning, it’s about ideology. Embracing demsoc candidates wouldn’t just be a change in strategy, it would be a change in the party’s core ideology. Ideology is why political parties exist. Political parties are usually based in ideology, that’s why in other democracies there are liberal parties, conservative parties, socialist parties, Libertarian parties, etc. But here in the US we don’t have a system of political ideology plurality, so the two parties that we do have are often fighting internally to determine what the core ideology of the party will be.

You know why so many Democrats don’t like demsoc candidates? Because they’re not demsocs. They’re social liberals or neoliberals, and they want the Democratic party to remain an ideologically Liberal party.

If our democracy were more like most every other democracy on the planet, the neoliberals and the demsocs would each have their own party, and they wouldn’t need to be engaged in this constant, zero sum fight for control of one party.

Because the pro-Israel lobby in the US is just that powerful.

Get out your spray paint, kids.

“Democrats must be bold and meet this moment,” he said. “This is the urgent work in front of us: to stand up to authoritarianism, to protect care and dignity, and to make life better for the people who count on us.”

Sure, Democrats, be bold. Meet the moment. Stand up to authoritarianism…then immediately fold, faster than Superman on laundry day. But, I don’t doubt you will succeed at making life better for the people who count on you, who are of course your donors, and other elites and oligarchs.

Trump tells ABC he’s ‘not particularly’ interested in reconciling with Elon Musk, who appeared to say making peace would be in the best interest of the US

If you really cared about what’s best for the US, you and Trumpy would join hands and walk your asses into a volcano.