The fact you’re willing to list the ACA as progressive when the only reason it was passed was because yhe Dems let the Republicans kneecap it as a “progressive win” is fucking laughable.

And it shows the exact problem with the DNC, and why they lose: they can’t just be progressive, they have to work across the aisle, and have to compromise, no matter what.

And to be clear, I’m not playing both sides, what you’re listing as “progressive” is so laughably not progressive by any metric of the word, that it’s almost funny. The “progress” has been returning to the status quo, every fucking election cycle, and yet you guys bitch and moan the left don’t show up. Why would they, the candidates you’re listing have one progressive policy you’re attributing to them

And wow, cool, you listed Gore as the “progressive” candidate, and then list a single progressive policy he had while dismissing that the Dems gave up the fight for him and let the SCOTUS give it to Bush. Then you talk about one policy Obama had that was progressive and then claim he’s punished for it: it clearly didn’t have anything to do with the fact the ACA wasn’t what the Democrats promised at all, and then they let the Republicans control the narrative on it.

There’s no point discussing further with you, clearly Harris and Biden were the golden children, and all the voters, the people politicians fucking work for, they have to change and get over it. No no, it’s not the Democrats who need to change, no, they’ve only lost 4 out of the last 7 presidential elections, they’re completely right.

So let’s keep voting them in so they can see that their centrist policies work and they don’t have to change everything. Oh, you’re going to change their mind after they’re elected? That’s cute, they already got your vote, what does your opinion matter anymore? You gonna protest? Yeah, ask the Anti-Genocide protestors how that was handled under the Biden admin, and how open they were to changing their stance on that after the fact.

What a fucking joke. 🙄

Yep, let’s blame the person who A. Told people to vote for Harris leading up to the election, if you check my comment history, and B. Voted for Harris.

The Democrats lost because of their own hubris, Drag, and their own entitlement and arrogance. My words made no difference, especially considering Harris lost Michigan by less than 100,000 votes. The same state that launched the Palestinian Protest Vote movement, where over 100,000 people cast uncommitted votes to protest the Biden admins stance on Israel.

So maybe the Democrats should listened to the voices of their constituents, Drag, and maybe people like me would have less to complain about.

But your friend’s blood, and mine (I’m trans, drag, you’re not the only one that exists on the queer spectrum), is on the Democrat’s hands, and no one elses. They reran their playbook from 2016 and it cost them, maybe they’ll finally learn their lesson.

Ok, but think about those policies, and think about how much they actually affect the average American. Not the white collar worker making clost to six figures working from home with solid benefits, retirement, etc.

Green energy

He’s done a fair amount, but Harris blew this when she reversed her stance on fracking. We’re using more renewable energy, but we’re still heavily dependent on fossil fuels.

EVs

Biden did EVs? Idk what that means, but, ok, first, most Americans still can’t afford an electric vehicle, and the charging infrastructure is incredibly lackluster outside of major metro area. Even with any rebates or tax incentives, I don’t know anyone in my social circle who can afford a new EV, and we’re definitely all average American.

So the average American wasn’t affected by this, at least not in a way that they can directly observe, which is important.

IRA

40% of Americans can’t afford an emergency car repair, and over 30% have a negative net worth. Doesn’t sound to me like a good number of Americans can afford to contribute to an IRA, but even then, I haven’t heard about this or at least don’t remember, and I actually pay attention to politics. So it likely wasn’t on the minds of most Americans.

Student debt relief

This one I thought would carry him more, but I don’t remember the Dems pounding this home the last few weeks. Regardless, yes, Biden has done student debt relief, but not to the extent he promised, and regardless of the reasons, that’s what voters remember.

Could also throw in there that there was a lot of animosity around student debt relief when no relief has been offered (or even really discussed) for credit card debt incurred during the Pandemic. That’s something Biden could have addressed and didn’t, and neither did Harris.

non-compete clauses being banned via FDA

This was a win, I’ll give Biden that, but this doesn’t affect the majority of average Americans. I’ve never worked a job where I signed a non-compete, and the only people I do work in tech or engineering.

Again, a win for Biden, but not a flashy one, and one that people clearly quickly forgot about.

Pact Act

My only criticism of this one is the fact it was passed, and then disappeared from public discourse. It’s been at least a couple years since it was passed, so it likely just fell from people’s memories, which is unfortunate.

supporting Ukraine

There was congressional fuckery around this though, and the support hasn’t always been as much as the American people want to provide.

Though, I think alongside Israel, aid to Ukraine was actually a detriment. Why can we send Israel whatever with no strings attached or Congressional approval, but we can’t send a bolt to Ukraine without a majority across the government?

I understand the intricacies of those two aid situations, but does the average American? Probably not.

The left is done. No one is going to run a left platform for fucking decades. Because the left never shows up, or doesn’t exist.

I find this funny, that it’s always the left’s fault for not supporting centrist, status quo candidates. I’m genuinely asking, has the DNC ever, ever, run a true, progressive candidate for the presidency? I mean, seriously, have they ever done it?

Because in my memory, they haven’t, they just keep trying these centrist candidates, and they keep losing, but then keep blaming the left for not supporting them while they move slightly more right.

Why am I such a radical on this platform for thinking, or even suggesting, that maybe the Democrats need to move left for once. Maybe try a progressive candidate and see if you motivate people to vote for someone, instead of expecting them to come out and vote against someone.

That could’ve been a typo on my part, but in that sense, I meant the constituency of the Democrat Party didn’t want Kamala.

Biden didn’t drop out until well after the primaries had begun, do the members of the Democrat party weren’t given the chance to choose their candidate. A few names were floated around for a week or so, and then the party establishment basically all got behind Harris.

So we don’t know who the voters of the Democrat party would have wanted, they were having Biden forced on them until they moved to Harris.

I’d say the idiot is the career politician who lost to a fascist, convicted felon who gained votes by insulting his base. 🤷‍♀️

And instead of reflecting on her own shortcomings and those of her political party, we’ll blame and insult those who supported her regardless of her lackluster campaign and policy promises.

And huh, 98% of Michigan is in, and Harris is behind by about 100,000 votes, roughly the same amount as those who protest voted during the primaries… Good thing we completely wrote off that entire demographic of our party in a key swing state, fucking voters should have known better.

First of all, Drag, I voted for Harris, and actually voted Democrat down ballot. So from this trans veterans lips to your ear canals: Drag can go fuck Dragself for calling me a Nazi for having the audacity to criticize the party I’m forced to vote for that doesn’t represent any of my interests.

And that right fucking there is why Democrats lose, and Democrats are to blame: they can’t do anything but give us a candidate to vote against, and not one to vote for.

How many voters do you think they would have pulled running on an actual, progressive platform instead of the status quo bullshit we’re all clearly tired of? Medicare4All, free tuition, free school meals, actually funding social welfare programs, actually enshrining LGBTQ+ and bodily autonomy rights into law, expanding the supreme court to actually reflect the country’s wishes, abolishing the filibuster so progress can potentially start again in the Senate, stopping weapons shipments for the Palestinian genocide (or ffs, even taking a stance on the genocide)?

The Democrats lost, and fascism won, because the Democrats refuse to listen to their base. Dem voters stayed home because their party leadership failed to inspire them, and I’m sick of the people asking for policies that will actually benefit them instead of some billionaire oligarchs (where’s the blame pointed at the millions they funneled into the elections) being blamed for everything. This isn’t even considering the four years Biden had to show the American people any progress, any discernible improvement in their economic lives, and failed to do so.

Just like in 2016: the DNC forced a candidate onto the party they didn’t want, refused to listen to any vocal portions of the party while condescendingly telling them that party leaders know best and they need to fall in line, campaigned on uninspiring centrist policies and a return to the status quo, keep preaching about working across the aisle while being slandered and shit on, and then assume the race is in the bag because the other candidate is a fascist reality star.

And just like in 2016, they lost, and they have no one to blame but themselves.

Bodily autonomy of women.

The same bodily autonomy Democrats failed to enshrine in law at any point in the decades following the initial Roe v. Wade decision? Or the bodily autonomy that Harris and the dems wouldn’t have had the votes to pass anyway even had they won? Or do you mean the bodily autonomy that Biden has done nothing meaningful with since he took office four years ago?

Gerrymandering

What specific policy platform did Harris put forward and advertise to the American people regarding gerrymandering? I don’t recall anything specific beyond “we need to stop it.” Ok, how? How do you plan to do that when, once again, you won’t have majorities in both houses, and SCOTUS is corrupt and you/Biden refuse to do anything about that, either, like pack the court?

Climate change

She reversed her policy on fracking a couple weeks into her campaign, might make voters think you can’t trust her and her commitment to the climate crisis, which Biden has shown to also not be doing great on.

Land grabbing

I’m assuming this is related to housing? Yeah, Harris said she wanted to build 3 million new homes and offer first time homebuyers down payment assistance. This doesn’t address all of the corporate consolidation of housing, and it doesn’t prevent these corporate entities from gobbling up huge amounts of these new homes.

Corporate tax evasion

What has Biden done in regards to this? Have the tax breaks put in place by Trump been reversed? No? Because they have to be undone by Congress? Cool, so what’s Harris’s plan if she doesn’t control both houses of Congress, send me 8 emails a day for the next 4 years begging me for money while not raising the minimum wage in any meaningful way?

I voted Harris, to be clear, but her policies were centrist at best, and that’s why she lost. Regardless of what the stats and polls show, Americans don’t feel better off than four years ago. Americans want change, and if it’s not going to be progress, then I guess it’ll be regress. And the Dems have no one to blame but themselves.

No, the Democrats let their base get rallied by the Republicans, I don’t blame the voters at all.

And you’re acting like people voted for Trump instead of Kamala, when it seems more like a lot of people who would have voted Kamala stayed home. And that’s thanks to the Democrats running a centrist platform that didn’t inspire anyone, Biden being a centrist Status-Quo democrat for four years, ignoring the Palestinian Protest Votes during the primaries, refusing to let any Palestinians speak at the DNC but allowing numerous Republicans to, while their best piece of policy to the average American was, “Hey, we’re not Trump.”

I voted Harris, btw, but not because I liked her particularly much, and I think that’s a big part of it. Democrats don’t listen to their constituents, so their constituents stay home due to apathy. That’s on the DNC, not the voters.

So, her failing to be more popular than fascism is the fault of the voting base… Makes sense.

Tell me again how you fail to clear that bar, and how that’s the voters fault?

What the fuck happened?

Four years of a milquetoast, centrist Democrat telling the American people what they’re living isn’t the actual reality of the situation. Biden’s admin kept rolling out the “soft landing, economy is doing great,” schtick despite numerous news outlets reporting Americans don’t feel like it’s an economy working for them.

Then that Democrat finally stepping aside, too late for his constituents to have a say in who they want representing them. And then she ran on a centrist, return-to-the-status-quo platform that didn’t inspire the majority of Americans, who are so apathetic based on decades of being ignored by politicians they just don’t vote. Because what’s the point?

And if they weren’t willing to choose the least bad option, I think that says more about the least bad option than it does about the worst option.

Or maybe, like they normally do, the Democrats failed to rally their base to vote, or didn’t give them enough incentive to get out and vote.

Biden had 4 years to make meaningful progress for the American people, and whether or not he did is irrelevant because Americans don’t feel better off than 4 years ago. Democrats spent the last year screaming about the economy doing amazing, while ignoring all of the polls showing Americans don’t feel that way.

Democrats spent the last year sending weapons shipment after weapons shipment to Israel to bomb Palestinian children, despite polls showing the majority of Americans wanted contingencies on the shipments. And the Democrats instead lectured their constituents about how what they’re seeing and hearing isn’t actually what it is, and it’ll be worse with the other guy!

Democrats spent the last 4 years doing nothing but try to return to the same status quo that isn’t working for the average American anymore. Biden’s hubris took the decision out of the people’s hands, and we were given a candidate we didn’t choose and told to shut up and like it because “fAsCiSm.”

Well, congratulations Democrat Party, we fell to fascism because that’s obviously a better alternative than actually putting forward progressive policies. And whether you like to hear it or not, the Republican voter supporting this fascist movement is doing so because they want change in this country too.

Only difference being, the Republicans are actually “progressing” their party along like their constituents want. Maybe the Democrats should try listening to their constituents for once and, idk, see if that maybe works in their favor for once?

Idk if I have ADHD, but I have been diagnosed with depression, and I’ve said this almost verbatim to my therapist several times over the years, including yesterday:

Life is too overwhelming and I’m always burnt-out. Every single day. Even if I’m doing absolutely nothing, I’m tired all the time and never have any motivation ever.

I’m depressed and miserable because society is set up in a way that my brain just doesn’t work with. I’ve dropped out of college twice, and my work history is like a hopscotch board of different employers across various industries. I get burnt out at a job (the workload increases too much, the pay is too low, management ruins it, etc), end up quitting to try another industry, usually taking a pay cut because I physically feel like I’m going to explode if I even step foot in the old job again. Spend indefinite amount of time unemployed before taking some other job I’ll grow to hate and resent in less than 6 months.

Even my current job, I’m probably going to quit this week because I’m so fed up with life I’ve called out for basically three weeks straight. It cost me a raise I needed badly, but the whole time my friends are telling me to do what I need to do to take care of my mental health… But now I can’t pay my bills, and they’ve got overdue and overdraft fees because they’re late because I’m not making enough to keep up.

And I’m just done, I’m tired of it. I’m put on meds so that I’m not an inconvenience or burden to society, that’s it. It doesn’t matter if they fix anything or help, just so long as they make it so I can wake up and go to work and make money for the system that is actively leaving me behind. And I’m expected to be nice and pleasant and shit rainbows and sunshine while suffering day in and day out, because the idea of death makes people uncomfortable, because the idea that life isn’t working for someone else lile it is for them is just nonsense, it’s impossible.

And I fucking hate it.

Blazing Angels. Amazing flight simulator fighting game that I still have the discs of for either XBox or XBox 360.

The game is still listed on Steam, but you can’t buy it. I absolutely loved that game growing up, making your way through the ranks, taking part in some of the biggest air battles of WWII.

When it stands up, it made me think that RoboCop and the Pixar Lamp had a baby 😱

Not a motorcycle, but my car was hit (along with several others) by a guy evading the police. I wasn’t even in it, we were in a city and cars were parked along the street, and he came over a hill, ran a red light, t-boned someone, and then bounced against a bunch of cars down the street.

When I got the police report, I filed a claim with my insurance, which was the same insurance company as the criminal. They originally told me that, “There were 7 vehicles involved in this accident, and other vehicles were damaged much worse than yours, so we’re not sure if his policy will cover all of the damage… So we’ll have to file the claim under your policy, you’d just have to pay your deductible.”

Absolutely not, I told her. “Well Sir, you have to unders-”

“No, ma’am, YOU need to understand that your customer’s inability to be a responsible citizen is NOT my problem, and I am NOT having my premiums go up, or paying my deductible, when I did absolutely nothing wrong.” After escalating to a manager and giving her an earful while threatening to drop my policy with them effective immediately, they miraculously realized his policy would cover the damage to my car. Easy day, right?

Now, I’ll be honest: The damage to my car was completely cosmetic, but I was poor and could have really used some extra cash, hence why I was pursuing it. Well, brought the car in to be looked over by the insurance folks, and the assessed damage was like $800. Cool, I asked her for my check so I could go home.

“Oh, well, Sir, you still have a lien on the vehicle, and normally we would send it to your bank, and they would tell you where to go and then pay the repair shop.”

Oh, cool, well, that’s not what we’re doing, I already have a shop lined up, I said, but needed the money for the parts.

Big tall dude comes over, also an insurance employee, as the woman and I are going back and forth, and he chimes in and goes, “Well, Sir, y’know, typically the bank holding the lien wants to handle these things, and, y’know, if the repairs aren’t made and they repossess the vehicle, you could owe the repair costs.”

My response: “Huh, fascinating. Sounds like a conversation between my bank and I, and with all due respect, I don’t understand who you are to have that discussion on their behalf.”

“Just cut him the check,” as he walks away.

I fucking hate insurance companies.

It doesn’t.

I didn’t want to use a credit card, that doesn’t mean they don’t accept them. They made that clear they do.

So no… Your point does not still stand.

Yep, that must be why I walked into a dispensary, that sold only recreational and medicinal marijuana to adults aged 21+, that checked all IDs at the door, and reverified them by the cashier. Then, after completing my transaction using a debit card, and having my aforementioned conversation with the cashier, who was wearing the identification as is required by all states with recreational marijuana on a lantern around their neck, and proceeded to leave with legitimate marijuana…

I know delta 8 and all those substitutes. This was a legitimate dispensary advertising and using Visa for credit transactions for their purchases.

Hence why I said they’re very barely doing so, but Visa appears to at least be starting to, and that your statement of “no store selling marijuana will use a credit care” was false.

Not a single cannabis store that I know of in the US accepts credit card.

False. Went to one in June, 2024, in New York City, right around Time’s Square, and the guy behind the counter asked if I was paying via cash, debit, or credit.

I asked him about the credit option, and he said Visa has started working with some dispensaries and offering their credit services for payment. I even mentioned it to a dispensary employee in Maine (they only accept cash), and he said the same thing: Visa is the only one that’s barely starting to offer credit service for dispensaries.

There were also the Order of the White Feather during WWI in the UK (and I’m sure other variations in other countries at the time). They were women who would walk around and try to shame young men into enlisting, or they would present a white feather to men who weren’t in uniform to highlight their “cowardice.”

Some of the men these women gave feathers to were on leave from the front lines, or even home after being discharged from some horrific injury sustained on the front. My personal favorite: article.

[…] none more so than Seaman George Samson who received a feather when he was on his way to a reception held in his honour to receive the Victoria Cross as a reward for his bravery at Gallipoli.