DocWatts

Essentially, a white-guy as a DEI pick. Don't want to rock the boat too much with two women or people of color. (Not saying that I disagree with this tactic, since that's the political and cultural reality we're living in). In all seriousness though, AZ senator Mark Kelly seems like the best pick. If you're not familiar with him, look up his Wikipedia page, he's an incredibly accomplished person - almost the Platonic Ideal for what most people imagine as an 'All-American' Patriot. In addition to being a Senator who now occupies John McCain's former seat, he's a military veteran and highly accomplished astronaut. Additionally, he's a children author and a vocal advocate for gun safety reform, after a MAGA terrorist shot and almost killed his wife. Fun fact - he smuggled a gorilla suit into the International Space Station as a prank.

We're not living in the 1950s anymore. The whole world basically recognizes that what the Israeli government is doing is completely unacceptable. Israel should be treated as a pariah state on the world stage, similar to South Africa's apartheid regime.

People who try to defend the actions of the Israeli government by decrying that they're supposedly a 'democracy' probably would have tried to say the same thing about South Africa in the 1980s, or the American South under Jim Crow segregation, for that matter. At best all three of these governments were hybrid regimes, not full democracies. Sorry Israeli - you don't get to call yourself a full democracy when your government is systematically denying millions of people within your borders access to basic human rights.

If your aim is to steer the Republican Party away from MAGA extremism and back towards sanity and a respect for democratic norms, I wish you all the success in the world.

Proud of my local representative, Rashida Tlaib - and that he was snubbed by prominent Democrats like Bernie and Kamala Harris who chose not to attend this farce.

Ooof, I've had octogenarian grandparents whose health and mental acuity declined rapidly over a period of just a handful of months. It's sad to see. At the end of the day though, he was able to be persuaded to step aside for the good of the country - something that Trump could never do.

Dualities are only paradoxical if you presuppose that they are objective features of Reality - rather than anthropomorphized schemas that are created and sustained by our minds, for the purposes of making predictive generalizations. Taking everyday dualisms too literally is a good case study of mistaking the map for the territory.

In an alternate timeline where Arnold Schwarzenegger stayed in politics and had more influence within the Republican Party, the country would be in a much healthier place. So sometimes it can work out.

Kamala knocked it out of the park with her first campaign rally speech. She clearly and confidently called Trump out on his criminality, and elegantly articulated a vision of what this campaign is about and a vision of the country that people can be inspired by. 'We're not going back' is brilliant marketing, and something that this presidential campaign was sorely lacking. The contrast between Kamala and an aging Biden is night and day. Trump is right to be scared of facing her.

Thanks for the clarification, I can definitely appreciate that perspective.

Spotted in Pennsylvania. It's an angle that they should keep pushing. Kamala and Dems need to be relentless in hammering Trump on his criminality, and on the danger that he poses to American democracy. Due in part as a way of countering the media's irresponsible coverage of Trump, as a normal presidential candidate when he's anything but.

How would you differentiate your view from the perspective that Reality is 'experiential'? Like would this be a 'yes, and...' situation? Or a 'yes', but in a qualified way? Something more nuanced?

Source?

For what it's worth, I would caution against 'quantum mysticism' - where quantum mechanics is appended to spiritual beliefs in a sloppy, non-rigorous way. There are better, more epistemologically grounded ways to demonstrate that perception shapes Reality than delving into physics to try to prove the point. The problem with using quantum mechanics for this purpose is that you are trying to use an 'outside-in' vantage point to try demonstrate a phenomenological truth. When you would be better off using an 'inside-out' vantage point that begins by closely scrutinizing our direct experience, and the a-priori assumptions that we normally attach to that experience (for example, that Reality can be neatly divided into an 'internal' realm of thoughts and experiences, and an 'external' physical Reality - or that there's a single, correct god's eye view of Reality).

There are still plenty of low-information, disengaged Americans who aren't aware of Project 2025, or that a second Trump presidency would effectively be the end of American democracy. Having a presidential candidate who is able to confidently and articulately emphasize that Trump is not a normal presidential candidate is essential. Kamala has a background as a prosecutor - she should lean into that, since she's running against a criminal. Emphasizing that her administration is a vote for Law and Order, decency and sanity, while her opponent is a harbinger of lawlessness and chaos.

Trump's presidency is overtly racist to anyone who has even a basic understanding of dog whistle rhetoric (ie saying extremely bigoted things with the thinnest veneer of plausible deniability). We'll see what happens as Trump and the RNC adopts overt racism as it's primary campaign tactic against Harris, in place of emphasizing Biden's age and senility (let's be honest, they don't have much else to go off from other than that and sexism). Trump's base may love that, but it's likely to turn off apolitical normies who aren't already in his camp.

I mean, only a matter of time before Trump or someone else goes mask off and forgets that normal people aren't comfortable with overt displays of bigotry.

If you're going to vote third party, I appreciate that you're at least being strategic about it. In reality, if you want more choices push for Ranked Choice voting in your state.

If you're interested, this is a quick Claude AI summary of the phenomonology of Color Perception, from a book called 'The Embodied Mind : Cognative Science And Human Experience' (a book I'd highly recommend). Color is not inherent in objects, but arises from the interaction between an organism and its environment Color perception is shaped by our embodied experiences and sensorimotor capacities Colors are not fixed categories, but flexible and context-dependent Cultural and linguistic factors influence color perception and categorization The book challenges the idea of color as an objective property that exists independently of perceivers Instead, it proposes an enactive approach where color emerges from the dynamic coupling of organism and environment

Thing is, that's not the only empirical evidence that perception shapes Reality. Far from it in fact. I would encourage you to investigate the phenomenology of color perception, and how it challenges the outdated idea that colors are objectively 'out there' in some external Reality.

If they want to win this election, Democrats need to be speaking to the public with this level of conviction and confidence.

While it's correct to point out that US institutions are of course very flawed, people who use this as an excuse to disengage from politics are failing to understand or imagine how much worse things can and will get under a theocratic Trump dictatorship - both for Americans and for the rest of the world. Hate what's happening in Gaza? The Christian Nationalists that Trump has allied himself with will turbocharge Israel's genocidal ambitions. Planning on starting a family, or care about someone with a womb? Imagine them being forced to carry a non-viable fetus to term, with all the trauma and health risks that entails after abortion has been outlawed nationally. Concerned about a declining population? That is only going to get worse as theocratic policy makes it much more dangerous to become pregnant, where necessities like education and health care become unaffordable to the point where only extremely wealthy people can afford to raise a family. Concerned about climate change? Well, the largest economy in the world abandoning all of its commitments to transition away from fossil fuels is a near certainty under Trump and the Christian Nationalists. Know or care about an LGBTQ person in your life? Trump is an existential danger to their wellbeing and safety. The plan is to push gay and trans people back in the closet, and strip away all of the rights they've gained in the laat half century.

Honestly, this is a great angle that Dems should tap into more. ___________________________ The Cop Against the Criminal. Let’s Do This. https://nymag.com/intelligencer/article/trump-vs-kamala-harris-cop-vs-criminal.html

Hilariously, this now make Trump the oldest presidential candidate in US history.

I agree, but the time for that was 3 or 6 or 12 months ago. At this late stage in the game it's a logistical impossibility As AOC correctly pointed out, people think that this election is in November - when in actuality, the first ballots need to finalized by September. Additionally, changing candidates from Harris to anyone else would make it extremely likely that the election would be decided by the MAGA Supreme Court, since Republicans have been readying a bevy of 'lawfare' for this possibility.