Hardkill

Yes, corporate interests and wealthy elites have greatly undermined our democracy and have played a major role in killing many good bills that would have improved our society in countless ways. However, too many people are too stupid, too uninformed, too disengaged, and too easily manipulated to elect the right leaders. Corporate elites are smarter than most people, so why not let them govern alongside political elites on behalf of the people? I’m not really saying that we should allow an oligarchy or corporatocracy to rule over the people. I’m raising this point to invite a response and to probe whether true democracy is really what is best for the country.

Leo, in your post about how right-wing media dominates social media, you argued that the left often turns into a circular firing squad, whereas the right is usually much better at rallying around one leader, one message, or one coalition. That got me wondering: have there been important examples where the right-wing coalition did fracture badly enough to cannibalize itself? I do not just mean ordinary disagreements or factional tensions. I mean situations where the right became so divided internally that it seriously weakened its own political power, media ecosystem, electoral performance, or ability to govern. A few possible examples that came to mind: 1912 Republicans splitting between Taft and Roosevelt Hitler turned Fascist Italy into a German-controlled puppet zone after Italy broke with Germany in 1943 The far-right ruling bloc turning on itself during the Nazi regime’s end 1976 Republicans with the Ford vs. Reagan divide 1992 with Bush weakened on the right and Perot disrupting the broader anti-Democratic coalition Tea Party vs. GOP establishment in the 2010s Somewhat in 2020 What's going on now between the anti-war and pro-war MAGA Republicans Never Trump conservatives vs. MAGA, although MAGA seems to have mostly won that fight So my question is: What are the best examples, historically or internationally, of the right actually behaving like a circular firing squad? And in those cases, what caused the fracture? Was it usually: class/economic divisions? establishment vs. populist conflict? personality/ego clashes? foreign policy splits? religious vs. secular tensions? regional divides? media ecosystem fragmentation? I am also curious whether people here think the right is inherently more coalition-disciplined than the left, or whether it only looks that way during certain periods because it has stronger hierarchy, clearer enemies, and a greater willingness to suppress internal dissent. Would be interested in both US examples and examples from other countries.

I don’t think that any of those boys and girls represent the full potential of an elite male athlete vs. an elite female athlete. look at the top men in the world vs. the top women in the world

Serena may be physically the most muscular female tennis player in history, but like Leo said, and even she herself said she’s still not a man. Men have many times the level of testosterone that women have, except compared to a very small percentage of women who take some kind of heavy doses of anabolic steroids like those extremely competitive female bodybuilders or female strength/power type athletes. Moreover, there are other reasons as to why not even an elite pro female bodybuilder, an elite pro female strength/power athlete, even an elite pro speed female elite, or even an elite pro endurance athlete can ever get nearly as muscular, nearly as strong/powerful, nearly as fast, or have nearly as much stamina as those of their respective elite pro male athlete counterparts, no matter what kind of PEDs she takes, no matter how much of those PEDs she takes, no matter how genetically gifted she is, no matter how great her diet regiment is, no matter how great her training regimen is, no matter how well she recovers from her training regimen, and no matter how hard she works. Men generally start from, and continue to maintain, a higher baseline and higher ceiling. Even when training adaptations are similar in relative terms, males generally have more total muscle mass and larger body dimensions to begin with, so equal percentage gains still leave them with higher absolute strength and size. And why is that? It's because adolescent boys go through puberty later and for a longer period of time than adolescent girls do, which means that boys/men have a longer/later growth spurt than girls/women do. Therefore, male puberty brings much higher testosterone exposure and growth hormone exposure, which produces lasting differences in size, muscle, strength, power, and oxygen-carrying capacity. Moreover, some experts say that androgen-receptor differences between males and females contribute, which is why boys/men respond more positively to androgens, including testosterone, better than girls/women do. This is why not even most genetically gifted female bodybuilders or most genetically gifted female athletes in the world will have nearly as many androgen receptors as men do, particularly compared to the most genetically gifted male bodybuilders and most genetically gifted male athletes in the world. Again, the reality is that late-teen boys and adult men generally have a large physical advantage over late-teen girls and adult women in many sports because male puberty occurs later and with a longer/later growth spurt, but above all because male puberty brings much higher testosterone exposure, which produces lasting differences in size, muscle, strength, power, and oxygen-carrying capacity.

Mark Cuban doesn't want to run for president. I'd like to see Jon Stewart run for president, but I don't see any real signs of him intending to. I guess no liberal celebrity out there really wants to be president because they may not really care about saving the country. They are probably too comfortable with the benefits they get as wealthy/high-status individuals themselves from the status quo of the economic system we live in.

That's why I've been sharing the same worry that progressives like Cenk have had about the 2030s. Even if say someone like Gavin Newsom wins the presidency in 2028 and the Dems also take back both the House and the Senate by then, Democrats could lose the entire government trifecta again by 2032 if Democrats don't enact enough new policies that will truly address enough of the working class and middle class to stave off another entertainment/business celebrity like maybe a Joe Rogan, Jake Paul, Tucker Carlson, or Dan Bilzerian from becoming another charismatic demagogue who could deceive enough desperate working class voters, middle class voters, and anti-establishment voters into electing them president to burn it all down and save America. In fact, this is why the more I think about it, more uncertain that Newsom is the best candidate for 2028 because he's already too much of an establishment Democrat instead of a charismatic outsider like Bill Clinton in 90s was or Barack Obama was in 2007-2008. Most people in the country hate and distrust the entire establishment more than ever before and are craving for someone who not only doesn't sound like another career politician, hasn't been corrupted by the political system, but also will truly be a fighter for the working class very much like FDR or a New Deal Democrat would.

I hope this turns out to be a real political gift for the Democrats in the 2026 midterms and the 2028 presidential election.

That's quite a shock. Maybe the district has gotten so blue that it gave Mejia, the anti-israel progressive candidate, enough of an advantage over the more moderate Democratic candidates in the race. What I don't get is why AIPAC didn't go after her with a lot of attack ads on her when she was the main threat to them?

We don't have a recession yet and unfortunately it doesn't look like we will be having one this year. I hope that I am wrong.

It’s not just the donor class that’s contributing to this. It’s really that they are just too afraid to let go of catering to too many different groups of people unlike the Republican Party which has had no problem catering to a much less diverse coalition of interests.

We can’t save the voters who are already too far gone because of the right wing media. However, if we lost too many moderate and Independent voters because of this terrible media environment then we are doomed. A grass movement for this is crucial but I don’t see how that will be enough to save our country. Approval for the Democratic brand is at an all time low.

I haven’t yet, but I want to one day. Maybe I will. Both parties are already greatly disliked and the establishment Democrats are the most unpopular they’ve ever been. Plus, clearly nobody really cares enough about authoritarianism and democracy. Otherwise, Trump never would’ve been president again in 2024. People today care more about affordability and holding the rich, corporations, and the elites accountable. Moreover, Democrats are losing the messaging war and need to figure out a way to spread this cancerous spread of all of these falsehoods and false equivalencies. Otherwise, we could be facing the end of country before we know it.

With the Democratic aligned media environment having become so outgunned by both the right-wing media and the legacy media, the entire Democratic party should do a major war on misinformation. They should constantly call out the mainstream media for their bothsideism and excoriate Fox News and every right-wing media outlet out there for all their lies and devilry. Every Democratic candidate for every election should say that the right-wing media has always been out to get them and everyone who is not as far to the right as they are. They should say that Fox News, Breitbart, the Daily Wire, Turning Point USA, InfoWars, and what have you have been run by Neo-Nazis, secret members of the KKK, and all other kinds of White Supremacists who want to take over the country with their radical right-wing agenda. They should run on suing and cleansing all right-wing outlets non-stop when they gain enough power. The Democratic aligned activists should generate mass protests at every right-wing media company headquarter IRL and have pickets saying that "Truth Not Tyranny!" They all should talk about how the mainstream media and no longer really cares about democracy, no longer really cares about your freedoms, no longer really cares about the welfare of the people. Some of you may think that what I am saying is crazy and goes against freedom speech and democracy. Well, Trump and his party already have been threatening both the legacy media and every Democratic aligned media ecosystem. Democrats gotta stop worrying too much about offending anyone and protecting norms because it's not working and the system is already getting fucked! This is now war. So, Democrats need to fight fire with fire!

Yeah, and a number of successful politicians are introverts too. Barack Obama is fundamentally an introvert even though he presents himself as being highly introverted in public settings, other big events, and interviews.

But it's not about just the complexity of making something that necessarily determines how brilliant something else. In true art, it's about how original or radical a concept or idea is in a forward-thinking manner. Van Gogh painted The Starry Night in June 1889 while at Saint-Rémy, using a radically expressive, non-naturalistic handling of paint and color to convey a psychological and spiritual “night” rather than a literal one. The key point isn’t that “everyone back then called it insane” (most people never encountered this specific canvas), but that this kind of heightened, subjective visual language sat outside what mainstream academic taste rewarded—and even beyond what Impressionism aimed for. Impressionism itself had already been a rebellion against official channels since the 1870s; Van Gogh is part of the next wave that pushes further toward modernism. And while Van Gogh did gain recognition in small avant-garde circles late in life, his large-scale canonization was driven after his death through exhibitions and advocacy by those managing his estate and legacy. I agree that shipping a game/film is massively harder logistically. But that’s a different axis than aesthetic invention. “Hard to ship” measures coordination/engineering; “genius” in art often means creating a new visual language that changes what becomes possible afterward. Many games ship and are derivative; many paintings get finished and are mediocre. Execution difficulty doesn’t automatically convert into conceptual brilliance.