Hardkill

Hopefully, this becomes another political gift for the Democrats and for all other left-leaning parties throughout the rest of the world.

Yeah, I agree with your points. The question is how to make the voting power you're suggesting happen.

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.

I know. Yet, the current system isn't working so well for the people. I don't buy the part that neoliberalism has greatly helped technological progress due to the principles of free market competition and the rapid commercialisation of new products. I believe that could've happened under a more modern newer kind of Keynesian model. I think that the neoliberal philosophy has become a bad excuse for corporate elites and the wealthy elites for getting away with increasing concentration of wealth for the very rich and corporations at the expense of everyday people and small/mid sized businesses. Neoliberalism has never really promoted free markets. It has really promoted private enterprise too much, which has allowed the corporate and wealthy elites to have way too much money and way too much power. It's not like the traditional Keynesian model during the mid 1900s involved the government controlling the entire US economy like Communism. It had a healthy mix of socialistic and capitalistic elements for the US economy. In fact, technology was rapidly developing back then including: 1. Antibiotics, vaccines, sanitation, and safer public health systems. This was not just “better gadgets.” It radically changed whether people lived or died from infectious disease. CDC says U.S. life expectancy increased by more than 30 years over the 20th century, with 25 years of that gain attributable to public health advances; it specifically highlights vaccination, clean water, improved sanitation, and control of infectious disease. Penicillin was scaled up in the U.S. during the 1940s and helped open the antibiotic era 2. Air conditioning and refrigeration becoming practical and widespread. This sounds less glamorous than smartphones, but it changed homes, factories, offices, retail, hospitals, migration patterns, and the habitability of huge parts of the country. DOE notes that modern electrical air conditioning began with Carrier’s 1902 system, and its later spread became one of the major quality-of-life and economic shifts of the postwar era. Gordon also specifically points to air conditioning and home appliances as part of the mid-century transformation still remaking the economy in 1950–70. 3. The interstate highway system and car-centered logistics. The 1956 Interstate Act created what the National Archives calls the nation’s biggest public works project. That was not just about driving faster. It reorganized freight, commuting, military mobility, warehousing, retail geography, tourism, and suburban development. In terms of physically reshaping American life, this was enormous. 4. Jet aviation. The jet engine did for long-distance movement what the internet later did for information: it compressed time and distance. The Smithsonian notes that jets made airliners bigger, faster, and more productive, transforming air travel. That was a major shift in business, tourism, diplomacy, and national integration. 5. Semiconductors and the integrated circuit. This is especially important because it shows the line between the “mid-century” and “post-1980” eras is not clean. The digital revolution did not just appear in 1980. The Smithsonian notes that in 1958, Jack Kilby demonstrated the integrated circuit, calling it a revolutionary enabling technology. In other words, one of the central foundations of the later computer/internet age was itself a mid-20th-century breakthrough. 6. The space program and systems engineering. Apollo was not only symbolic. NASA describes it as a defining event of the 20th century and a triumph of meeting extraordinarily difficult systems-engineering, technological, and organizational integration requirements. That mattered for electronics, materials, aerospace, computing, and engineering practice more broadly.

Right, but I wonder if the people should have a lot more power or say as to how the government should run the country, after really seeing how idiotic most people in this country are.

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.

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!

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.

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.

It has to be a good mix of capitalism and socialism. That’s why I still support either social democracy or democratic socialism—unless someone comes up with a genuinely new economic system that is proven to work even better than either of those two.

I really disagree with this. I have a bachelor’s degree in Visual Fine Art. My father has a master’s degree in Visual Fine Art, was an assistant professor of art at a top art university, is an architect, has read countless books on art and art history, and has visited many museums and attended many art exhibitions in different parts of the world throughout most of his life. He has always been a very tough critic. We both agree that nearly all commercial art ever made, as well as virtually every video game and computer-generated artwork, has been highly overrated. In fact, we believe that the vast majority of art ever produced—across photography, painting, ceramics, sculpture, drawing, and mixed media—especially in this day and age, has not been good. However, artists such as Van Gogh, Dalí, Picasso, Marcel Duchamp, and so on were true artistic geniuses. They did what was genuinely unthinkable and radical for their time. Each of them revolutionized art in their own way. They were the epitome of creativity. Most people were not even capable of understanding their work while they were alive because their works were way too ahead of their time. Their works only gained true widespread recognition and value after their respective deaths.

Yeah.....that's honestly one of my main worries. However, if say Newsom were to become president in 2028, he undoubtedly would be a much stronger communicator for the country than Biden was during his presidency. So, if he governs successfully like Biden did, but is also able to win the messaging war unlike Biden and Harris who failed at that, then he would have a much better shot than either Biden or Harris did in winning the presidency again in 2032. It would be like how Obama won re-election in 2012. Nevertheless, the fact that the Democratic party are still struggling to win the messaging war because of the dominance of the right-wing propaganda and how behind the development of the liberal/progressive media ecosystem, deeply worries me about the future of elections.

I thought you were feeling hopeful before about Republicans losing badly and were starting to like Newsom:

I've now largely agree with that after reading up on more facts and history of the US and the rest world. This is something I’ve been trying to understand. By most objective measures, the United States today is more socially fair and more materially developed than it was in the mid-1900s, and arguably even more so than in the late 1990s or early 2000s. We have far stronger civil rights protections, much less overt discrimination, dramatically better technology, medicine, and safety, and vastly more knowledge and opportunity than earlier generations had. And yet, despite all of this, most Americans seem far less satisfied with the system than they were during the post-war era or even during the late 1900s/early aughts. Many people feel the country is “going in the wrong direction,” that institutions are broken, and that the system no longer works for ordinary people. What’s puzzling is that earlier generations lived through far worse objective conditions: world wars, the Great Depression, much higher levels of violence, explicit legal discrimination, and existential Cold War threats. And yet, broad trust in institutions and belief in the system’s legitimacy were often higher than they are today. So what explains this gap? Is it: changes in expectations rather than conditions? the modern media and social media environment amplifying negativity? rising economic precarity despite overall wealth? loss of shared narratives and social cohesion? the decline of collective institutions (unions, churches, civic orgs)? or something deeper about meaning, identity, and modern life? I’m not arguing that things are “fine” or that real problems don’t exist — clearly they do. We still have Trumpism, SCOTUS controlled by corrupt conservatives on the bench, economic inequality and affordability issues, climate change, lost of abortion rights in various parts of the country, a lot of people losing their healthcare coverage, AI fears, etc. as major problems in our country. But I’m now genuinely curious why subjective dissatisfaction has grown even as objective conditions (and fairness) have improved on net. Would love to hear how others here think about this paradox.