So the first thing I'll say is that betting markets reflect the situation the bettors wish to wager on, not reality. You don't need to spend too long watching crypto options to see that those fuckers trade the second, third, fourth derivative of reality. Will Ethereum be worth $1000000000 in two weeks? No. But if you buy a billion options on it being worth that for 5.0000005 cents and sell them for 5.0000006 cents, you made a thousand dollars regardless of the worth of Ethereum. The next thing I'll say is that prediction markets reflect the common wisdom of the situation and the common wisdom is often wrong. Particularly when it comes to elections - Nate Silver went from prophet to pariah for fucking up the 2016 election and dug a deeper hole when his response wasn't "oops" but "I'm not wrong, you don't understand statistics." Not really his fault - the quality of the data he was using took an absolute dump between 2012 and 2016 as Facebook was completely co-opted but his inability to go "huh maybe my data is shit" and instead going "huh maybe my audience is shit" wasn't great. The third thing I will say is that the majority of effort expended by Karl Rove and the RNC in 2004 was gay marriage bans - the whole point being that they knew post "Mission Accomplished" there weren't going to be a lot of Republicans going "yay bush." Now - the Republican think tanks have since argued this was ineffective. They have not argued that they didn't do it. Ultimately it's going to come down to "who wants to come out to vote." Those on the left are clearly energized against Trump. Those on the right are much less clearly energized against Biden. And those in the middle have been experiencing stability, an improving quality of living and more savings than they've had in a generation. Here's the thought experiment: what massive missteps would have to be made in order for the disinterested center to turn out against Biden? A recession is a possibility, albeit an increasingly distant one. A broad war in the Middle East? Not without troops-on-ground getting their asses kicked; a recession is more likely. The Chinese invasion of Taiwan? Americans don't give a fuck if Americans aren't dying. Here are the facts on the ground: - Democrats want to fund the war in Ukraine - Republican want to fund the war in Ukraine - Trump wants to run on the lawlessness of the southern border - So the MAGA insurgents in the House of Representatives are holding up Ukraine funding for a ridiculous list of demands related to border security - So the Democrats and Republicans went "here's your ridiculous southern border package" - So Trump called up the MAGA insurgents and said "don't give Biden a win on this one" - So the MAGA insurgents went "well now our demands are even more unreasonable" - So the Senate went "jesus fucking christ" - And the Biden administration has been making much of the fact that, without Trump in the picture, even our deeply dysfunctional government is functioning after a fashion The current dust-up is the State of Texas arguing that they have the right to control their border, the Border Patrol does not. This has gone to the Supreme Court and now Texas (and a bunch of other states) are arguing they have the right to "repel invasions" and a bunch of Canadian truckers deciding they need to do performative bullshit. A number of individuals on the too-online Left have argued that a few drone strikes might remind the southern states who won the Civil War while a number of individuals on the too-online Right have argued that now is the time to reclaim the confederacy because certainly it'll be different this time but fans of stability and actually getting shit done have been pointing out that humoring the howler monkeys will only encourage them and that if you've got a bunch of feckless morons doing the dumbest shit ever in order to find a wedge issue to win on, pandering to their dumbness is not the correct move. Actually that last bit is a lie. There's nobody in the middle. It's fucking lonely here. "Florida picked a fight with Disney," you say, "so I don't really see this going their way long term" but everyone is too busy imagining the return of Johnny Reb.
It would appear that the more performative elements in the GOP, of which the MAGA extremists are the majority, really want to prosecute a war that exists purely on the internet. I think giving in to the border demands was Biden essentially calling their bluff. It's a way of flipping the script so that even a lot of the conservative media echo chamber is now screaming about how MAGA is bad for open borders (which is ironic in a way, since The Wall was the only consistent policy position Trump ever even sort of held). Sort of a brilliant move. And it exposes their fecklessness (as if there were any doubt). - So the MAGA insurgents went "well now our demands are even more unreasonable"
I think the Republicans imagine they're playing chicken, and the people who want it the most will win. Against a bunch of feckless Democrats who never know what they want, this is a viable strategy. I think the Democrats imagine they're in the bull ring and if they can get the bull to charge around until it's exhausted they can stab it in the side to the roaring applause of an adoring crowd. Against a bunch of charging Republicans who are 100% driven by opposition and rage, this is a viable strategy. Thing about a game of chicken? you need two players. Thing about the bullfighter? He can have a totally different conception of the situation than the bull and still come out on top. He can still get gored? He still needs to put in a fuckton of work? The strategy for bullfighting is substantially more nuanced than the strategy for chicken? But it presupposes a pretty brutal asymmetry of forces while also virtually guaranteeing victory. The minute the Republicans realize they're in a knife fight, though, Democrats better adapt to the new reality or they're screwed. I think Biden is a better bullfighter (and knife fighter) than anyone other than the old-school Democratic establishment understands. His career was ended - ENDED - in '88. Front-page plagiarism scandal, withdrew from the race, all of it. Didn't even come up in 2008. Didn't even come up in 2020. That, I believe, is because Biden was taken down by Lee Atwater, the Dracula to Karl Rove's Renfield, who died remorseful in 1991. I don't think there's a single political animal alive other than Biden who faced has faced true, limitless, intelligent evil. And I mean, once you've been bested by the Shogun some petty fucker with a switchblade isn't gonna get near you in a knife fight - you've learned a thing or two. Comparing Lee Atwater and Steve Bannon is like comparing Thanos and Eric Cartman. I think the Online Left are so salty because they want a fucking game of chicken.
Idk, the democrat's "game" of waiting things out and not accomplishing anything is pretty frustrating. There's been huge left wing movements with Obama, Occupy Wall Street, BLM, and all of them have been squandered when the democrats refused to do Anything Whatsoever killing all the energy and pissing off their voters.
Let's look at that through the cynical eye of the survivors, shall we? Obama is and was a textbook neoliberal. There's nothing left wing about a guy who wishes to control the global economy through liberal application of drone strikes. I voted for him twice and would do so again but Biden is substantially to the left of Obama, who was substantially to the right of Clinton, who was substantially to the right of Carter and now all of a sudden it's fucking 1980 do you realize how fucking far back we have to go. Occupy Wall Street petered out and died because neoliberalism has no room for lefty market outrage. It was a moment that the Bush and Obama administrations agreed would fuck with their donors so they pulled out all the stops to snuff it out. Had Occupy Wall Street become Occupy Main Street things might well have happened but Obama bought everyone a new refrigerator and gave them a rebate on a new Honda so that it wouldn't. It was like when Bush gave everybody an Xbox so they wouldn't realize that he'd given like $100b to the Walton family. BLM was driven in very large part by the African-American community pointing out that they experienced life-threatening racism in appalling quantities with shameful regularity in the modern United States. It was and is a movement of well-justified anger at the institutions of American culture, society and government. It could not and did not provide any solutions to the grievances beyond "stop doing that" which would be enough if there weren't broad sectors of American culture, society and government whose livelihoods are dependent on that racism. "Defund the police" is a hard sell even if you know and mostly agree with ACAB. It's a non-starter if you're more comfortable with the Thin Blue Line. The latter have so much more institutional power that it isn't even worth bringing up. As I mentioned elsewhere, the Obama administration pitched ACA to Congress by saying "this is something worth losing your jobs over" and an absolutely appalling number of them did. At this point in time, the Republicans want to repeal Obamacare, outlaw transgender everything, ban abortion in all cases, build a border wall and drill Martha's Vineyard for oil for all I know. They haven't really been successful at any of it. The Democrats want single payer, the universal declaration of human rights and a sparkling city on a hill and they haven't really been successful either. Democrats can point to polls and go "but but but everyone wants what we want" while the Republicans can point to electoral results and go 'but but but everyone wants what we want" and the way both things can be true? Is that the game is rigged heavily in the Republicans' favor and thank god they don't suck less.There's been huge left wing movements with
Obama
Occupy Wall Street
BLM
and all of them have been squandered when the democrats refused to do Anything Whatsoever
Obama totally ran on left wingism. Healthcare for All and "Change" and all that. That's obviously not how he turned out though. I guess I agree with you all all the facts but not really the conclusions. If the Democrats wanted to, they could tap into these sorts of movements and win handily. The only supermajority they ever got was on Obama's message. And they just don't! Biden may be more left wing than any other recent president, but when he was with Obama he was the boring moderate put there to prove Obama wasn't tooo crazy. And I don't know much of him before that but I'm pretty sure he wasn't a socialist. The Democrats ran Hillary (the apex neoliberal) who was pathetic and then Joe Biden who learned the absolute bare minimum of leftism needed to squeak a victory in the general. Biden also wants a border wall and to mine for oil! It really feels like the dems are leaning hard into there being only two options: Old-School Republican and Completely Insane Maniac as a way to keep the same failed status quo incrementalism going and its so sad to watch
Haha Obama ran against George W Bush. he was definitely left of Mr. Global War on Terror. The 2004 election was all about crushing the gays; it's not hard to appear leftist next to the man who launched the TSA. Did you vote in the 2008 elections? 'cuz I wanted Clinton; I saw Obama as a right-wing stalking horse most likely to preserve the New World Order the way Wall Street liked it and was absolutely and totally unsurprised by the outcome. "these sorts of movements" clearly and unequivocally picked the more conservative, more business-oriented candidate. Biden, for his part, was brought in to be old. He was the stabilizing force for everyone convinced Obama was too young and inexperienced. And, as with vice presidents since the beginning of the century, he was the more radical foil for the centrist signing the papers. Nixon was more radical than Eisenhower. LBJ was more radical than Kennedy. Humphrey was more radical than LBJ. Agnew was more radical than Nixon. Ford? Ford sucked but Bush was more radical than Reagan, Gore was more radical than Clinton and on and on and on. Hilary Clinton wasn't pathetic by any measure. She remains the most qualified individual to ever run for president. Clinton's weakness is she's shady. I have no problem with this because all politicians are shady, and often the shadiest ones are the most effective. However, Clinton was (A) shady (B) a woman (C) the Right's nemesis since Vince Foster (D) the subject of Vladimir Putin's personal beef so we ended up with Trump as president. But let's take a step back: To you, Hilary Clinton is "pathetic". Your beef? Democrats don't do enough lefty shit. The Clintons, by the way, also ran heavily on lefty shit - allow me to introduce you to Hilarycare. What did we get instead? Whitewater, Don't Ask, Don't Tell, and Newt Gingrich shutting down the government. So. As the guy who's been voting Democratic since 1992? What I see are (1) dems run on social reforms (2) reps immediately flood the zone with bullshit (3) lefties insist dems are happy in a zone flooded with bullshit, why bother voting. And that's entirely because paying attention to all the details is excruciating and dispiriting and most liberals would rather sulk. Republicans count on this. Republicans have always been perfectly content with a pyrrhic victory. And they know the way they win is through voter suppression because The Olds are always up for a trip to the community center.
Fair enough. My impression of Hillary was that she was a pro-buisiness war hawk, and in retrospect was the wrong pick given how the election turned out. I don't see how you're not dispirited though. Is it worse to run on Hillarycare and then accomplish nothing? Or to run on a platform of doing nothing and be truthful? I'm not sure, but either way nothing's getting done. Given that the house only passed like 40 laws last year I wonder if we could switch to the people voting on bills directly. Everything good that's happened in Florida is because they allow this.
I was stuck in traffic behind a Chevy Astro with a Florida plate when NPR announced that the Supreme Court had handed the presidency to George Bush. That was fucking dispiriting. I volunteered for the Kerry Campaign, which was so thick on the ground in Seattle that "undecided voters" got sick of us hounding them. Exit polls showed Kerry wiping the floor with Bush and the voting machines were garbage. Kerry rolled over within hours. That was fucking dispiriting. THE OCTOBER SURPRISE WAS FUCKING REAL AND NOBODY CARES. That's fucking dispiriting. Trump? Trump did exactly what everyone predicted he would do and the country largely went "what the fuck?" he was every bit as incompetent as everyone predicted, he was every bit as vainglorious and ineffective as everyone predicted, he tried to overthrow the fucking government of the United States and what he got was 300-something lost lawsuits and a bunch of poop-throwing idiots in Nancy Pelosi's office. "You go to war with the army you have, not the army you want" - Donald Rumsfeld Fuck yeah, let's switch up the parliamentary procedure. Let's switch up fuckin' whatever we can. Is it worse to run on Hillarycare and then accomplish nothing? In 2007 I lost my job. State law compelled insurers to offer plans at the same rates as they were available to corporations, but as then-insurance-commissioner future-governer Chris Gregoire told me personally over the phone, "all we can do is sue and it didn't work last time." So THERE WAS NO FUCKING INSURANCE AVAILABLE TO ME UNTIL OBAMACARE. Now? now we all gripe about how much it costs but that's a very different thing than it being simply un-fucking-available. Joe Biden, objectively speaking, is the most liberal president since Franklin Delano Roosevelt. And yet the Online Left is at "well he hasn't been able to control the Israelis just like every president since the fucking SS Exodus therefore I'm staying home." Backintheday? Back when we knew the election had been stolen and an illegal war was busy killing hundreds of thousands and fucking up two cultures for generations? When ISIS didn't exist but you knew it was around the corner because how couldn't it be? Duncan Black coined the term "WATB" ("whiney-ass titty baby") to describe the right-wing pundits and public figures who got absolutely everything they wanted and yet still complained about how unfair everything was. It's always been more satisfying on the tongue than "snowflake." Pick your pejorative. Either way, insisting on exactly the right conditions for your delicate ass to flower is for orchids, not politics.
I feel like I'm missing your point. I totally agree with everthring you've said - and for the record I do plan on voting downballot, and if I lived anywhere where my vote counted would have no trouble voting for Biden. To his credit, he has made solid picks for the agencies and in general they're running OK. And even if Jesus Christ Himself was elected he'd be blocked by Congress for anything important so while its easy to blame the Democrats for that its not really Biden's fault specifically. What he can do though, is rule a lot more via Executive Fiat, something Trump and the Republicans have already promised to do. For some reason he doesn't seem interested in this. He's also like, the most Democratic Party guy imaginable. So for anyone who is frustrated by them, he's just awful to think about. He is Very Explicitly not anti billionaire and is Very Explicitly for small tidy improvements to the status quo, which would be fine if the status quo wasn't so dreadful. Again, not that he could do anything more anyways what with congress but its just aesthetically bad. And what's happening in Gaza is absolutely not "failing to control" Israel but very actively supporting it. This is the most personally damning thing. He declared unconditional support, bypassed congress to get them bombs, used UN vetos to avoid allowing food water or medicine in to Gaza, and is pushing Hard for an aid (bombs) package even to the point on allowing a border policy stricter than trump's wildest dreams. This is fully 100% on him and another president could have managed it differently. And with your list of ways the democrats have failed, I agree? But I don't see why you think things are different now. I really do desperately want something to hope for but it doesn't seem like anything is possible.
My point is that you, among other liberals your age, have lofty goals for a system that has never once delivered the way you demand it must. Further, that rather than examine the failings of the system and the impediments to progress in order to better plot a path forward, the dreary majority of young liberals prefer to piss and moan about how "not good enough" is actually "worse." Kind of like how you insist that Biden should do more by "executive fiat" in one sentence while one sentence previously you observed that congress would block "Jesus Christ himself." Kind of like how you agree that Biden is the most liberal president since FDR but also "just awful to think about" because he's "the most Democratic Party guy imaginable." What are the alternatives? the "Give Ukraine to Putin" DSA? The Greens? If you hate the Democrats, and you hate the Republicans, what's left? Everything sucks, sure. What's your alternative? What's better? What gets the world closer to your goals? You're at "small tidy improvements to the status quo" about a guy who passed more social programs, funded more infrastructure and appointed more judges than anyone since the New Deal while insisting he's "Very Explicitly not anti billionaire" about a guy who's funding half his budget by giving the IRS teeth. Israel? Israel is a clusterfuck. Israel has always been a clusterfuck. Here's all you need to know about Israel: 1) Congress passed a law in 1976 allowing them to cut off all foreign aid to any nation seen to be developing weapons of mass destruction, specifically targeting Israel and South Africa. 2) Israel and South Africa tested a nuke in 1979. 3) The Carter administration covered it up so no one would have to pick a fight with Israel and South Africa. Okay, here's a little more about Israel: Israel would be much less of a clusterfuck if Benjamin Netanyahu hadn't used stochastic terrorism to assassinate Yitzak Rabin. The end effect of this, of course, was to make Netanyahu the longest-serving leader in Israeli history. His whole platform? Fuck Gaza. Here's a whole book, by the way, about the ways the US has failed to rein in Israel in no small part because they are, in the words of Bamford, "the most embedded foreign espionage power within the United States." The goal is to prevent a third world war in the Middle East, despite the best efforts of Russia and Iran. This goal is not enhanced by making Netanyahu more popular by giving him something to rail against. Every time Netanyahu has been in danger of getting ousted? he's railed against America and gotten right back into the catbird seat. I don't know much about Israel? I mean, from a "setting foreign policy" standpoint I don't know much about Israel. I'm maybe 30 books into Israel which is enough to know how much I don't know. However much I don't know? I know I know more than you, and I know it's a clusterfuck. Would I do things differently? Probably. But then I'm not in the position of knowing intimate details about Israel's nuclear arsenal, for example, or what heinous shit it's been wargaming in case we cut off its money. Did you know we had battle plans against the UK between the world wars? What sorts of contingency plans do you think we have around Israel? So if anything, my point is "it's complicated" and "it could be worse" and what I've found is that the most strident leftists I know have absolutely no patience for complexity or optimism. You don't "desperately want something to hope for" so desperately that you'll actually look. That's my point.
Ok, if I understand correctly, your point is that Biden is the best president we could have possibly hoped for. Which maybe is true, you know the system & history way better than me. I don't feel comfortable arguing that. I still don't agree with the conclusion that this is not incredibly sad, but I guess we'll just have to agree to disagree on that. If it's just how things be that the US is a vassal state of Israel and always has been and will be, and that the only thing we can do for climate change is a trillion dollars in handouts to billionares, and that only losing Some rights in Some states is a huge policy win, and that the most that can possibly be done against the ever increasing financialization and gutting of our economy is 2% more lawsuits from the IRS. Idk, can't I at least be upset? Why do I have to like the guy that utterly embodies business as usual? "If you hate the Democrats, and you hate the Republicans, what's left?" Nothing! That's why living in this country feels so awful and bleak. I don't think things are getting better under Biden. They're getting worse slower, for sure, but I'm not even convinced we're on an upswing. And you're right, I don't have any alternatives, and progress seems complicated, so much as to be impossible. "You don't "desperately want something to hope for" so desperately that you'll actually look." This is fair. I'll have to reflect on it more. It'd probably be good for my sanity to take the little wins when they come.
Here's another angle. It's not that I'm optimistic? It's that I've been so disillusioned for so long that the little things that feel so unsatisfactory for everyone who could have voted for the first time in 2016 but didn't are fucking monumental to me. Yeah. Biden used the word "anti-trust" in a State of the Union. Big whoop. It's not like he suddenly said "medicare for all." but no president has said "anti trust" in a SotU IN MY LIFETIME and I'm damn near fifty fucking years old! I'll level with you. I've been screaming about how the Republicans have been coming for Roe V. Wade since nineteen fucking eighty eight. They said they'd have vengeance for Bork and fuckin' A, that's one thing they've been clear-eyed about. So last year when everyone suddenly woke up and said "ZOMFG they took Roe!" my natural reaction is "fucking of course they did, you simps, it's been the one thing they've been un-fucking-wavering on since before you were born, where the fuck were you when we could have goddamn done something about it?" Look. I'ma show you a picture. No, first, I'ma set the scene. 1983? Reagan calls the USSR "the evil empire." 6 months later? we start some shit.. The next august? "We begin bombing in 5 minutes.". Now, are you ready for that picture? "Ooops, no, not that picture," he said disingenuously for effect. "I meant this picture." You want fucking hopeless? try living in a world on the razor's edge of armageddon with FIFTY NINE PERCENT of your countrymen cheering it on. Forty percent of Americans voted against Reagan, reflected as two. point. five. percent of the electoral vote. Do you taste it yet? Do you taste the bleakness? The utter, overwhelming despair? You're ten, by the way. And the TV wants you to know that eleven is doubtful. But hey, you make it to eleven and we're selling Stinger missiles on the down-low to the Iranians to buy weapons for the Contras and somehow the CIA is selling cocaine in Los Angeles and Ronnie is absolutely, positively, undeniably senile and they're already talking about putting his mug on Mt. Rushmore. Here's the difference between you and me. I'm grading on a curve because I've seen some shit. You demand purity because - to be frank - you haven't. You still could. But this isn't what it looks like. You wanna know why Biden is treating Israel with kid gloves? cuz nobody likes dead marines. And for the record, Palestinians were: - the direct and proximate cause of the Jordanian Civil War - the direct and proximate cause of The Lebanese Civil War - a complication and exacerbation of the invasion of Kuwait And, for the record, Palestinians support October 7 by a 4:1 margin. Shit's complicated. Shit's bleak. Shit's been complicated and bleak forever, though and it's hella less complicated and bleak than it has been and fuckin' hell, bubba, I legit didn't think I'd make it to 18 and instead I saw a piece of the Berlin Wall above the bar of a Bennigan's I was too young to drink at but got to anyway so quit fucking whining.
Yeah, that does sound pretty bad. I remember my mom telling stories of it, saying she was glad to live in DC because when the bombs fell she wouldn't even notice. GenZ has it's own crises though. The big one being climate change ofc. Which unlike the cold war isn't solved by Not doing something extremely reckless. Business as usual WILL WITH CERTAINTY cause catastrophe. It's staring into the barrel of a gun and the 40% of the country who's vote counts is cheering and the 60% who's vote doesn't is trying to find a clever compromise between your head and the exploded brain lobbyists. Its driving towards the edge of a cliff while the country argues whether to go at 20 miles per hour or 60. If you weren't born with a blind love of corporations, there's not much in the country left to care about anyways. Our culture has been 15 years of Ant-Man: Quantumania going on 20. Any company anyone ever liked has been bought up and gutted. Just yesterday saw they're trying to sell D&D to tencent for god's sake. The circuses suck and the price of bread just went up 20%. I guess that's my point, that shit still sucks, and with a different sort of vibe. I can't say which one is worse but you're jaded now and weren't then, I assume. And regardless, in this case it's not needed because i will certainly vote (and did in 2016 too, c'man now). But "vote for my guy because your problems don't matter and aren't going to be solved anyways" isn't a very inspiring argument even if it is true.
I'm dealing with global warming also. It's not like this is happening to GenZ alone. We're all in it. I'm dealing with the corporate hollowing-out of America also. It's not like this is happening to GenZ alone. We're all in it. Yes. Shit still sucks. And with a different sort of vibe. But I don't know how I can say this any clearer: Pessimism should never be an excuse for inaction. "your problems don't matter and aren't going to be solved anyways?" c'mon, man. I deserve better than that. Nowhere did I say that. Nowhere did I say anything CLOSE to that. What I said is "I've seen shit a whole lot more hopeless than it is now." I've said it a half-dozen ways. I've elaborated, I've elucidated, I've enumerated and you keep coming back with "but but but." You know what fucking sucked? TSR being bought by Wizards of the Coast. Fuck you. Magic: The Gathering is Bridge for dipshits and always has been. Pokemon is a fucking blight on the minds of children worldwide and the fact that the thriving community that so threatened the 'boomers that they held fucking congressional hearings about it is now owned by Hasbro means I don't now and never do need to give the first fuck about anyone buying dungeons and dragons ever again. We've gotten to the point where D&D nerds wonder why The Olds care about turning everything into Stephen Universe to which I say "let it all rot." You can't say which one is worse. I can. I can say it with no hesitation. And I say it with this level of stridency because every.single.mutherfucker.up.in.this.bitch is offended by my optimism and truly - y'all are a bunch of WATBs.