Hardkill

That's why I don't get why there is a sizable amount of Americans who wants us to stop funding Ukraine for this war. We have way more than enough aid available for the Ukranians and no American soldier or US citizen is getting hurt by this at all.

It really does seem to be the case that if progressives want the level of transformation they seek for our country then we really are going to need have: 1. The supermajorities of liberals/progressives that presidents TR, WW, FDR, and FBJ had. 2. Much greater political bipartisanship consensus and unified political climate that TR, WW, FDR, and FBJ had. 3. Historic levels of violence in our country like in the Civil War, Gilded Age, Great Depression, and Civil Rights movement. 4. Extremely powerful nonviolent mass protests and civil disobedience like the Civil Rights movement or Abolition movement. 5. Liberal/progressive media outlets with political influence that rivals or surpasses all of the right-wing echo-chambers in America. Plus, for extra push, we could use another brilliant and charismatic liberal/progressive president who is not too deep in the pockets of their corporate donors. With the BLM riots, abnormal levels of mass shootings, occasional racial unrest, growing anger and resentment over the growing economic inequality problem in our country, increasing amount of calls for tackling climate change, it really is looking more and more like widespread riots in America are inevitable. I wonder how we should all prepare for that.

I mean that in the US, third party votes are a complete waste of votes. They cannot be used to add on to any other major party ticket, not like in a multi-party system? Now, if enough democrats, liberals, poor, working class, and people of racial minorities created a nationwide movement on stopping the rich and corporations from stealing endless amounts of money then that would probably generate enough pressure on Congress, the presidency, governors, state legislatures, and the courts to enact policies much needed liberal/progressive legislation for the country.

What Leo said below are key factors to choosing the right side. Also, the more spirally developed the person or party is the wiser and more sophisticated they are. There is a reason why there are more intelligent and more compassionate people per capita in the higher spiral stages of the spiral than in the lower spiral stages.

Wait, you actually consider him center-left, not hard left? I never thought that a socialist could be considered as someone not far-left even though socialism is inherently an extreme left-wing ideology.

Are there some progressives out there who are actually not necessarily far left like Bernie or AOC are? Also, were FDR and LBJ actually far left wing Democrats during their times? Or were they still center-left Democrats for their times?

Does that mean that no amount of Americans who are against funding this war will be able to dissuade the government from continuing to fund Ukraine?

That's really tragic.

Yeah, that's generally true. Although, that didn't seem to be the case with FDR who was president for 12 years followed by his Democratic VP Harry Truman for another 8 years. Also, most people apparently weren't tired of 8 of years Ronald Reagan as presidency and his Reagonomics, which is why his VP H.W. Bush got elected in a true landslide and immediately succeeded Reagan. If you go even way back to the early 1900s, after Teddy Roosevelt was president for 8 years, Taft, who was TR's Secretary of War, succeeded him as the next Republican POTUS. So, why did such instance of multiple successive terms in a row for the Democratic Party or Republican Party respectively happen in US history? In fact, why do Republicans and conservatives even still to this day still idolize Reagan as their messiah more than 34 years after he left office? Even with Obama and Clinton, who were two charismatic and successful Democratic presidents, most Democrats and liberals in America have never even worshipped those as saviors or even recognize them as one of or two of the greatest presidents to the extent that Republicans and conservatives have with Reagan. Is it because TR, FDR, and Reagan were the most transformational presidents ever since 1900, whereas Obama and Clinton and the rest of the presidents since 1900 were not?

Wow! It's amazing that the legalization of psychedelics is really beginning to happen in the US.

Was one reason why Trump won was because people were tired of 8 years of Obama?

I am sure that women feel that men are often a burden on them. lol I get that women can really feel like a pain in the ass a lot of times and men have of course become increasingly insecure about their power and status in the world with the continuing rise of feminism in the world. Honestly, a lot of days, I get very irritated and frustrated with women and sometimes get insecure about my power and place in the world as a man. But according to history, even though there have undoubtedly been more men than women who have made positive contributions and constructed all kinds of great new things for the world, there have also been undeniably more men than women who have committed atrocities and destroyed countless things throughout the whole world. There have always been way more men than women in history who have done all kind of monstrous acts such as excessive violence, physical and verbal abuse, assault, rape, murder, genocide, annihilate civilizations, join or lead a racist/hate organization, join or lead an extreme right-wing organization or a violent extreme left-wing organization, join or lead a criminal gang or scummy cartel, sell illegal drugs or illegal arms, steal money, commit fraud, evade taxes, contribute and facilitate corporate greed, gamble away money and other resources that belong to or that was supposed to be for their whole family and/or relatives, and so on and so forth. There are still more women who have been murdered or at the very at least whose lives have been ruined by horrible men than vice versa. Plus, there must be a reason why even in developed country such as the US approx. 9 out 10 prisoners are men.

So, then why are progressives like Bernie bothering to fight like hell for greatly increasing labor power in the US?

Ohhh...... what about labor unions? Progressives such as Chomsky, Bernie, Warren and AOC and top economists talk about the great urgency for much greater labor power than we have today. Is there any hope that labor unions in the US will ever regain the size and power they had in the early to mid 1900s?

Well, I don't know what they minimum wage is in the Uk in the UK or in any other European country, but the federal minimum wage here in the US is 7 dollars an hour. Now, employees in the East Coast, West Coast, Northern States, and some Midwest states such as Illinois do have state laws that have made the minimum wage in each of their states be about 11 to 15 dollars an hour. Also, some big banks like Bank of America or JP Morgan Chase actually have made their minimum wage policy to be 20 dollars per hours and have committed to increasing it to 25 dollars per hour eventually. However, most employees in the Southern states, states in middle America, and several areas of rural America have been paid unacceptably low minimum wages ranging from about 7 to 9 dollars per hour. If you visited any of the states including Mississippi, Louisiana, West Virginia, Kentucky, Alabama, South Carolina, North Carolina, Tennessee, Georgia, Kansas, Nebraska, Indiana, Texas, Wisconsin, Wyoming, Utah, Idaho, Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota you would meet tons and tons of people suffering from either homelessness or not being able to make rent or living paycheck-to-paycheck.

When do you think there will be widespread labor strikes for higher pay like what happened in the 1800s?

I think that most corporations have been using that excuse too many times. Too many people out there are getting very angry about being able to barely survive while the fat cats at the top keep stuffing their pockets with way too much money for themselves. Corporations are indeed essential for every society, but they must all be held accountable much more than they have been.

How about an honorable, hard working, successful conservative like Mitt Romney vs. a hippie who is a lazy loser and has impractical ideas? Would the hippie still be more mentally developed than a Romney-like conservative?

But aren't there several millions of poor, working class people, and middle class in the country who are really getting fed up with not being paid a living wage? Do you think that there will be widespread angry labor strikes within the foreseeable like what happened during the Gilded age?

I agree. All big companies should pay their employees a living minimum wage.

Well, I am kinda disappointed that he is running, but most people were already expecting that he would. He actually has already stumbled out of a gate with his "disastrous" start of his campaign on twitter. https://www.npr.org/2023/05/24/1178070208/twitter-glitches-mar-ron-desantis-debut-as-presidential-candidate

In case any of you wondering if or worried about Tucker Carlson possibly running for president in 2024, his lawyer seems to have made it clear that Tucker is not interested in doing so. His lawyer has already a sent cease and desist letter to a PAC that has already been trying very hard to convince him to run for president in 2024: https://www.huffpost.com/entry/tucker-carlson-2024-race_n_646c3053e4b0355739387b23 https://www.thedailybeast.com/tucker-carlson-hits-super-pac-trying-to-draft-him-into-2024-race-with-legal-complaint https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2023/may/22/tucker-carlson-shuts-down-draft-tucker-pac-2024-ta/ I think that's somewhat a relief for us for 2024 given that his appeal over Republican and conservatives, especially those at the far right, throughout the whole country has been very much on par with Trump's, but unlike Trump is still well in his prime and comes off as a bit more disciplined, a little bit smarter, less crude, and less chaotic than Trump. Of course it's always still possible that he might make a run in 2028.

Dude, you're getting into the territory of conspiracy theories. What proof do you have that Trump was able to win the GOP nomination by cutting a lot of deals with the RNC? Also, the RNC and the Republican establishment has always thought since 2016 that Trump will one ruin the Republican Party. Biden and the Democrats in Congress didn't have the votes in the Senate to fully bring back all of the laws that were removed from Trump.

Absolutely, there should be barriers to who should be allowed to run for president. It should only be those who are wise, compassionate, moderate, temperate, push for good practical reforms, have solid experience and competence in governance, well educated, well read, sound intelligent, and haven’t been involved in any serious wrongdoing. Presidents Washington, Jefferson, maybe Jackson, Lincoln, Ulysses S. Grant, Harrison, McKinley, Teddy Roosevelt, Woodrow Wilson, FDR, Truman, Eisenhower, JFK/LBJ, Obama, and Biden had all of the abovementioned qualities and that’s why they were all totally qualified for the job of being president went down in history as being the presidents ever in US history. The consensus amongst all top historians and political experts in the US is that Trump is one of the six worst president ever in us history. Trump furthermore has been the only US president ever who threatened to destroy our democracy. Osho was right when he said that democracy often results in "rule by the retarded for the retarded....." and that what we really need is ruling based on meritocracy. If you need serious medical help then why would you consult someone who did not earn a medical degree and a medical license to practice medicine, let alone doesn't have sufficient experience with competently diagnosing, treating, and curing a patient's illness? What if you are in trouble with the law? Wouldn't you hire a lawyer who has a law degree, license to practice law, competence and skill in legal matters, and has been successful with representing clients?

I already told you some of my reasons in my OP. Additionally, I really think that the fact that anyone in the US allowing practically ANYONE born in America and is over the age of 35 year to run for president, even if you don't have ANY experience at all in serving in the government as a state level, or at the federal level, or even in the military has been a terrible mistake. Even if have a history of having been an incompetent manager of a business with much less than honorable circumstances like Trump you can still be elected president. Even, if you have only had 5 years of working for the US government as an incompetent governor of a state, was a party boy who wasn't a great student in college or even in grad school, but just got by because you had a dad who paid your way through school like W. Bush you can still be elected president. You spread all kinds of dangerous conspiracy theories, particularly those from the right-wing, as a hyper-materialistic, narcissistic anchor for decades on Fox News like Tucker Carlson? No problem. You can be the next president of the United States if you are as popular, as charismatic, and as a well-spoken as Tucker Carlson. If like Reagan, you only graduated high school and a mediocre college as a C average student, were a Hollywood actor who played in a dumb comedy movie called Bedtime for Bonzo, and have only 8 years of working for the US government as a mediocre governor of a state? Not a problem at all, if like Reagan, you are a once in a generation charismatic individual who is able to pull off an Oscar winning performance as a presidential candidate, you can become one of the most iconic US presidents ever. I mean look at what happened when Trump got elected. He became one of if not the worst president ever in US history. He also will go down in history as the most undignified and the most dangerous president we've ever had. Reagan and Bush also ruined our country for the long-run.