aurum

That's not how it works. I think there's space for life purpose and conscious people taking some action in the world. But why rationalize power / money seeking? You don't need to save the world.

They don't. Expect that you will probably die without seeing deep change.

@Hardkill Isn't it obvious? People in red states don't hold their elected officials "accountable" because their elected officials already represent their collective level of development. They are getting what they want overall.

@Hardkill good addition. Lots of different factors at play. From what I've read, they were printing too much money for interest rates to really have a positive effect on inflation. Also, their central bank and currency in general were not trustworthy. It will be interesting to see how dollarization works out for them.

@Daniel Balan I don't really see a contradiction here. We already knew that Nazi Germany was a heavily authoritarian regime under state control. Obviously it was not libertarian. I'd say this is also wrong within the context of spiral dynamics. Mysticism is not just found at stage purple. You can easily have mysticism at stage Blue. And of course Blue will treat people as inferior! Their entire perspective is that they have the absolute Truth, therefore all others must be flawed.

Austerity. He's essentially just doing neoliberalism. Nothing new here.

Double-standards. Corruption for me, but not for thee.

People don't seem to grasp that many big corporate CEOs are essentially just employees of the Board and shareholders. They are hired and fired based on performance. If you're not willing to maximize profits for the company, you won't last long.

@integral Grok will be badly corrupted by all Elon's right-wing nonsense. X itself has already become a breeding ground for right-wing propaganda.

Things may have become more unhinged. ButI think you may also be seeing the past through rose-colored classes here. These sort of tactics were always used and were always effective. Just go look at old political ads. Shameless click-bait / emotional manipulation through and through.

Both of you, make your choices wisely.

If you want war so bad, then don’t cry when Trump’s goons start raiding people’s houses in the middle of the night and throwing them in prison. All is fair in war.

Nothing solves corruption like more corruption, huh? What could possibly go wrong?

Yes, corruption can be extremely effective at getting your survival agenda accomplished. That's the whole reason it's so prevalent. In actuality, we will have to judge ethical situations on a case-by-case basis. More minor forms of corruption are likely necessary and can potentially be overlooked. But be careful, because it's a slippery slope. The absolute #1 trap of corruption is that you will attack your opponents corruption while overlooking / justifying your own. If you care about conscious politics, being mindful of this must be your priority. All evil deeds are done in the name of extinguishing evil.

You are describing corruption. This is what these "hardball" tactics amount to. You want the democrats to be more corrupt to get their agenda passed.

Vigilante justice is not a solution.

I mostly don't agree with these narratives. It's not that the democrats lack "spine". It's that the democrats play more by the book, which is not a bad thing. People want the democrats to stoop to the level of republicans.

It's not so much that republicans have superior communication abilities. It's that what they are selling is more accessible to the average person. And they are often more willing to play dirty.

1) The democrats focused plenty on economics 2) Identity politics IS the heart of progressivism! To be a progressive essentially just means you care about marginalized, oppressed groups and making things more equal for everyone. That’s it. To do that, you necessarily divide people into different identity groups based on relative oppression. 99% of the complaining about identity politics is just people who can’t handle the progressive value system. Ironically, you yourself are not appreciating what progressivism means when you say you should not focus on IP and just do economic populism. There is no economic populism without IP. It’s like you want progressivism without all the things that actually make progressives. So the fact that people can’t handle IP is exactly the reason it’s incorrect that the dems needing to push even further left. He was still plenty centrist. And that should give you a clue about how unfeasible being a progressive is. Consider the reason that leftists end up pivoting center at some point is because that’s what is feasible.

My dude, this whole election was a backlash to Stage Green, progressive values gaining too much ground. The idea that pushing harder into Green progressivism would have been better is absurd. Democrats don't campaign on progressivism because progressivism IS NOT popular or often even feasible. She would have fell in the polls anyway. Don't blame it Liz Cheney. I agree they may have pushed that angle too much, but the idea that Liz Cheney was her downfall is equally absurd.

That assumes: 1) People care enough to educate themselves about the proposals 2) People are developed enough to see the value of the proposals 3) People are ready to embrace economic egalitarianism 4) People vote on policy 5) People are willing to look beyond culture war issues 6) People care about what's true This is nonsense. Tim Walz was basically Minnesota Bernie Sanders. If people wanted progressives so badly, they could have voted him in. Maybe he would have been president at some point. And to the degree that the system is rigged towards the center, that's because most people resonate with the center. Yes, it's a collective paradigm lock. But that collective paradigm lock shows you what people are actually interested in. Of course, this could theoretically change in the future. Things are paradigm locked until they aren't, and then things change. Maybe we will have some sort of backlash to Trump and vote in a far leftist. But I won't be holding my breath for progressives to be dominating elections any time soon.

How are they going to vote progressive with any sort of consistency when they are not progressive? This is a fantasy. You can make whatever excuses you want. At the end of the day, if progressivism were popular, they would be winning. That’s the bottom line that progressives refuse to accept.

To a degree. It's easy to agree with some populist, progressive ideas when you feel like you're being screwed. That doesn't make people progressive. Cornell West. Hard to lose an election when you're so unpopular you aren't even invited to participate. The only baseless speculation is that a serious progressives is what people want. Centrists win all the time. Centrists have proof of concept, progressives do not. I'm not saying it's impossible. But overall, this narrative that Kamala made a grave mistake by also trying to appeal to the center is dead wrong.

That means nothing.

Better than if they had been progressives.