Hardkill

One the other hand I do agree with that. Although, I do wonder if these protests will end up doing anything good over time. Well, yeah she didn't have to pay a really big fine and I don't think she will be going to jail or prison for what she said, but this was an act of civil disobedience, which is technically against the law. However, what progressives like her are doing are fighting against unjust laws. Then again, maybe you're right about this protest not getting anything done.

I just realized something. With the rise spike in gun ownership and gun sales over the past couple of years and the GOP having constantly promoted gun rights like crazy for decades aren’t Republicans essentially signing their own death warrants? Don’t you think that rich white conservatives and Republican politicians should especially be very worried about getting shot by some disturbed individuals or by some very disgruntled poor people or by some highly indignant black and brown people? I of course don’t care if they did get hurt in some way from a gunshot. In fact, I would probably laugh at them for being such dumbasses who got what they deserved.

I am getting really tired of hearing others who give these kinds of advice: "Stop trying so hard to look for a girl. You will find the one when you focus on succeeding in your career or life purpose, having a happy and positive outlook on life, and just enjoy being with your friends. The right woman will then naturally gravitate to you." "You will meet the right woman when you least expect it." "You will get results with women when you finally learn to stop caring."

Because they are stupid and irrational. I mean I can already imagine some psycho going to a gun convention, trying out a bunch of guns there for shits and giggles, and then many people dying there because of that. Okay, gun sales did go down in 2021 compared to 2020; however, the total gun purchases throughout the whole country still was significantly higher than the pre-pandemic record of 16.7 million gun purchases in 2016. https://www.forbes.com/sites/joewalsh/2022/01/05/us-bought-almost-20-million-guns-last-year---second-highest-year-on-record/?sh=6ceb318f13bb

Generally yes. However, because we have a 50-50 senate and a 3 seat majority in the House, king Manchin, queen Sinema, and the right-wing democrats of the House of the Representatives actually hold the most amount of power in Congress. The progressives in Congress tried standing up to them, which they were able to twice in a row, but in the end they lost to the right-wing Democrats. Okay, that is true. Though, if they push Democratic Party too far to the left then couldn't that make a lot more Democrats unelectable? Well, we were so close to getting all of those much needed and popular provisions from BBB......but sadly it wasn't close enough. You're right, we need to figure out some way to elect way more progressives or left-wing Dems in Congress.

Which is why I think that progressives should just throw in the towel with their whole movement and maybe try their luck again 10 to 20 years from now. In the meantime, why don't they work on making their ideas much more emotionally appealing. Like why don't they try coming up with very catchy slogans, pithy sound bytes, cool logos and bump stickers, symbolic flags, or identifiable songs about saving the environment? Those have all been good policies that Biden and the centre-left Democrats in Congress have gotten done but what the progressives done to make any actual progress for our country?

For all of their efforts of constantly trying their very hardest to pressure the Biden Administration and Congress to get any of the progressive or even moderately liberal policies they wanted for the greater good of the country, they got ABSOLUTELY NOTHING. Even the BBB bill, in truth had many strong, but reasonable and popular centre-left policies. The progressives fight like hell for over the past year to get as much as they could get out that bill, and in the end, they failed to get virtually ANY of the provisions in that bill passed. The progressives were even't able to persuade Biden and the Dems in Congress to appoint and confirm anyone who was not a neoliberal for any key positions in the Biden Administration. They totally failed with pressuring Biden and the Dems in Congress or even moderate pro-environmental Republicans like Susan Collins to get anything significant done with fighting climate change. The only thing that I can think of that the progressives were perhaps successful with was being able to convince Stephen Breyer to retired and help to make sure that Jackson gets confirmed as the first black woman ever on SCOTUS. That was great, but in the grand scheme of things, that's not much of a win for progressives. Also, the new SCOTUS justice undoubtedly eminently qualified for the job and seems to have a really great character, but she sadly isn't going to be able to get much for black and brown people in our country, because of how unusually far to the right our US Supreme Court has become. Yes, they have been able to push their Democratic Party as a whole even to further to the left, but how has that helped get anything materially done for the working class people, middle class people, poverty stricken people, and underprivileged minorities in America? I understand that major progress does indeed take many years if not decades to achieve, but I don't see what significant progress the progressive coalition have really accomplished with their whole movement, even INCREMENTALLY, since the 90s. I am having trouble seeing how they will one day turned out to be successful like the civil rights movement, abolition movements, or early 20th century progressive era movement were. In fact, the progressives in my opinion seem to have already done more harm than good. If it wasn't for their Bernie or bust attitude Hillary instead of Trump would've been president. Even still to this day they keep hurting the Democrats electorally with their moronic divisiveness and constant blaming of the establishment Dems. So, why should any of us continue to have faith in the progressive coalition going forward?

No look, I am not saying that Biden himself hasn't done any good. I think he has done a good job overall as President. He's undoubtedly an order of magnitude better as president than Trump was all around. DeSantis or any other Repubs like him becoming the next president would of course be much worse in every way possible than Biden leading our country. Btw, I do think that while he may not be a natural political genius like Bill and Hillary Clinton or Obama were, I actually think that in some respects, Biden is wiser than Obama and the Clintons were. In any case, I wasn't asking about Biden or trying to trash him. What I am trying asking is what have AOC, Jayapal, Sanders, Warren, and all of the other progressives out there actually accomplished ever since Biden took office? What has the been the point of having any of them in Congress when none of them had ANY leverage over the right-wing democrats? Wouldn't Biden, Harris, Pelosi, and Schumer have achieved the about the same results they've already gotten if all of the Democrats in the House of Representatives were regular centrist Dems and if Bernie and Warren were also regular centrist dems in the Senate?

I understanding what you're saying with regard to progress in the grand scheme of things, but what for example has Bernie Sanders been accomplished materially for the country ever in his entire life as a progressive? Yes, he has successfully "shifted the arena" of debate and discussion more towards crucial issues that were previously unthinkable several years ago. Yes, he has inspired even more popular left-leaning movements to fight for more progressive policies. Yes, he was able to convince Biden to be much more supportive of more liberal leaning positions. But what good did anything of that do when all of the Republicans, Manchin, Sinema, and all of the other right wing democrats in Congress altogether stopped practically all of the things that progressives demanded to get passed in Congress? Progressives are now not even going to get even ONE of things they asked for. You said before that when Republicans and right-wing democrat block any good liberal/progressives policies that makes them look bad. Yet in actuality, Biden and Democrats are the ones who are looking embarrassing because of their failures to get much done through Congress, let alone get any of those good polices passed. There has even talks amongst a number democratic pundits who think that the people working in the Biden Administration, including White House chief of staff, Ron Klain, who made the mistake of letting the progressives influenced them. That's one reason why the electorate as a whole is swinging back towards the Republicans. So, what has been the use of the progressives?

Well, the political positions of the Democratic Party as a whole have shifted more to the left since around 2016 in the following ways: - Has swung back more towards pro-labor union stances. - Have become even more supportive of the idea of using the government as an agent of human welfare. - Has become less supportive of the exploitative aspects of free trade. - Has become more pro-environmental. - More willing to call out the corruption of corporate financing than before. - Have become more supportive of the LGBTQ+ community - Even more supportive of racial minorities than before. - Have become more dovish. I can't think of anything off the top of my head at the moment. Nevertheless, shifting the whole Democratic Party more to the left still hasn't done much more good for the country, from a practical standpoint.

So guys, since Biden first took office, what exactly have the progressives and climate activists achieved? Should every progressive and climate activist out there just give up on their efforts altogether for fighting climate change given the fact that they totally failed to pressure Washington to do anything about it? Or should they perhaps fight back in another decade or so?

Of course it can't be prevented. It's already been here for many decades. But what hope is there that we will be even have enough political will to develop the kind of new technology and infrastructure we would need to be able to prevent the catastrophic levels of environmental disaster that experts have been sounding the alarm on? Also, how are we going to live through the next decades of much worse environmental conditions? Will the US become a much more hazardous country to live?

On what alternate reality would China ever lead the world in fighting climate change? They are about 50 years behind in overall societal development and for several years it has produce the largest amounts of pollution in the world. You think Xi Jinping or anyone will care at all within the next few decades about combating climate change?

Yes, I definitely think that along with what's going to happen to our natural environment are cause for real concern. This is all because both the Democratic Party and Republican Party shifted to the right. The majority of Democrats became Neoliberals starting in the 70s and then by the early 90s shifted even to the right economically and militarily by becoming the centrist corporate Dems that still exist to this day. This is due to both the exponential increase in corporate lobbying within the Democratic Party since the late 1900s and the Party having to shift more to the center in some way in order to compete with Republicans on a national level after being dominated by the conservative resurgence and Reaganism within the country for over 12 years. The GOP particularly shifted so far to the right both economically and socially, starting in the late 60s to early 70s, beginning with the Nixon campaign's racist southern strategy after LBJ, the Democrats, and the civil rights movements successfully ended all segregation, won real full US citizenship, major reduction in racial discrimination, and real equal voting rights for all colored people throughout the entire country. The southern strategy worked by using racist dog whistle statements that won over the racist southern and rural democrats who already were prepared to leave the Democratic Party out of resentment for the passage of the Civil Rights and Voting Right Acts and their own party's increasingly liberal stance on racial integration since the late 40s. Then in the mid 70s, the party shifted even further to the right by appealing to even more swaths of conservative voters on conservative cultural issues including anti-abortion, pro-gun rights, and climate change denial. The party shifted even further to the right economically, militarily, and socially during the late 70s to early 80s due to the rise of conservatism and Reaganism all over America. Afterwards, Newt Gingrich and his followers in the 90s took Republican Party even further to right with his Contract with America agenda and pre-Trumpian way of undermining democratic norms and making his party even more noticeably polarizing and hostile than before. At the same time, the voter demographics at the state level in the southern and rural areas of the country became even more Republican. During Obama's presidency, the Republicans particularly those such as McConnell, significantly increased their obstructionism by vowing to stop as much as of Obama's centre-left agenda as possible. Finally, Trumpism as we all know took right-wing extremism in the party to a whole new level with his racial demagoguery and fake right wing populism. As result, the vast majority of Republicans are not willing to do anything save our natural environment from climate change and provide enough funding for social safety nets such as social security. The conservative justices in SCOTUS and in many of the other federal courts out there have currently greatly limited the government's ability to fix these issues. What makes this even more depressing is that we still don't have enough Democrats in power who are willing to fight against climate change.

I get that devilry doesn't win in the long-run and there is hope that democracy in America will eventually be fully healed decades from now. However, given that the right wing has already significantly damaged the democracy of the US and they will continue to damage it even further and further and further over the next few decades, should most Americans who are not rich and not white expect that A LOT more of their rights will taken away from them over the next decades? Will something like the Jim Crow laws or nationwide ban on gay rights return in America for about a decade or so? Will social safety nets such as Medicare, Social Security, Obamacare, etc. all be gone within the next few decades?

Actually, you're right about social injustices such as Jim Crow laws or bans on gay rights largely not coming back ever again. After contemplating more on this issue over the past week and having brushed up on my history of politics and US history, it would be impossible for something like to ever to come back. It would also be impossible for most of the equal voting rights for non-white Americans to ever be abolished. This is because unlike the nationwide abortion rights, desegregation and equal voting rights for Americans of all races were codified by Congress during the 60s. Also, the 1964 civil rights act which outlawed segregation everywhere in the country (except in schools) at the time needed a two-thirds majority in the Senate and a simple majority in the House to pass. Ultimately the bill was passed with overwhelming majorities and a significant amount of bipartisanship in both chambers of Congress. The Senate voted for cloture by a 71–29 vote, which was more than enough to overcome the filibuster and passed the bill by a 73–19 vote (which includes 47 Democrats who voted yes, 16 who voted no, 30 republicans who voted yes, and 2 republicans who voted no. As for the House of Representatives, 290 Democratic and Republicans representatives in the chamber voted yes, and 130 representatives who voted no. The 1965 Voting Rights Act, which prohibited the federal, state, or local governments all over America from having poll taxes, literacy tests, and many other racist bureaucratic restrictions on all black and brown voters in the south and anywhere else throughout the whole country was also passed with overwhelming majorities and a significant amount of bipartisanship in both chambers of Congress. The Senate voted for cloture by a 70–30 vote, which was more than enough to overcome the filibuster and passed the bill by a 77–19 vote (which includes 47 Democrats who voted yes, 16 who voted no, 30 republicans who voted yes, and 2 republicans who voted no. As for the House of Representatives, 333 Democratic and Republicans representatives in the chamber voted yes, and 85 representatives who voted no. Plus, there's the Twenty-fourth Amendment (Amendment XXIV) of the US constitutional amendment, which bans Congress or any of the states to enact any kind of laws that allow any of kind to occur poll taxes on any one throughout the entire country no matter what any one's reasons or argument for having poll taxes are. This amendment was ratified in 1964, which needed the requisite two-thirds majorities in the House and Senate two-thirds of majorities in the House and Senate. After that, it needed a solid majority of each of the state legislatures to sign off on it as well. It got passed in the House with 295 Dem and Repub representatives who voted yes and 86 Dem and Repub representatives who voted no. It got passed in the Senate with 77 Dem and Repub senators who voted yes and 16 Dem and Repub senators who voted no. Afterwards, each of the states ratified the amendments with overwhelming majorities and great bipartisan support within each of the state legislatures throughout the whole country. Plus, all of these laws have been amended several times over by Congress and president several times within the last 5 decades. Furthermore, there probably have already been way too many courts cases over the past 50+ years that already been ruled in favor by countless courts from the local level to the highest level of the courts throughout the whole USA for keeping all of the major or core provisions of each of these laws. Plus, with regard to the culture of current society, even though there are still a lot of racists in America, I believe that a solid majority of people in the US don't believe in racial desegregation or having the levels of racial discrimination that occurred in the mid 1900s or any time before that. We of course can't forget that America already twice elected the first black POTUS in all of US history (Obama even won his first presidential election in a landslide, and his second one decisively), and just elected the very woman of color VPOTUS in all of US history about a year and a half ago. Not to mention that the amount of other non-white people that having been holding all other various kinds of high level government positions has kept growing even after Obama left office. Lastly, conservatives have never in US history ever had a massive majority in either chamber Congress (Except in the House during one 2-year period in the early 1920s). Therefore, there's absolutely no way that any conservative or Republicans fascist would ever have anywhere near the level of support they would need to be able to bring back Jim Crow to level that happened long ago. As for nationwide gay rights, Congress never codified that into law. So, that still vulnerable to being struck down by SCOTUS. Regarding, Medicare and Obamacare, I am no longer worried about those being totally eliminated. There was always way too much support for Medicare since the 60s and conservatives have proven for well over a decade that they are unable to repeal it all through Congress (except for the individual mandate) or get it struck down by any of the courts. Even SCOTUS last year, which had 6 conservative justices on the bench, ruled 7-2 in favor of keeping it. So, there's no way that the core of that act will ever be gone. I am now very worried about what the EPA can do now and what will happen to it in the future.

So, then what should Americans like me do for the next decade or two?

Tragic news. Don't know much about Abe, but he seemed like he was a good guy.

Okay, with regard to the monoclonal anti-body treatments and DeSantis, I would have to say that was actually a good thing that he did. So, credit where credit is due. However, you are totally mistaken and short-sighted regarding the vaccine mandates. Bodily autonomy is one thing, but you do not have the right to infect others with a deadly virus. Vaccine mandates are a necessary part of law and order (which Republicans and Conservatives always tout as one of the essential tenets of American life) for the safety of everyone in the country.

The constitution of Russia was supposed to grant freedom of speech and press for its people, but of course the reality is that hardly any Russian citizen has any true freedom of speech and press. Likewise, the constitution of China was supposed to grant freedom of speech and press for its people, but obviously the reality is that there is very limited freedom of speech and press for all Chinese citizens. Do the people of Russia and the people of China not really care about having any kind of freedom speech that 1st world countries have?

Okay, that’s what I thought. Just wanted to make sure. Now, what about what the progressives have saying about this issue? TYT and other progressives out there have been hurting have been screaming at the establishment Dems in Washington for “doing nothing” about this issue, even though we know that in reality that is there absolutely nothing they can do to get the votes they need to codify nationwide abortion rights into law. Cenk and Ana even yelled on their channel to not support any of these. “loser Dems” in Washington anymore. Aren’t the progressives hurting the Democratic Party politically with their stupid blaming their own party for failing to protect abortion rights?

I just thought of something. If most voters are generally ignorant and dumb then will enough of the general US population realize or understand who were truly responsible for ending nationwide abortion rights? Do or will most adults even know about roe vs. wade having been overturned by the conservative majority in SCOTUS? What if the right-wing media like Fox News is able to spin it in a way that actually persuades at least half of the entire population that it wasn't the right-wing who were at fault? Or as crazy or stupid as this may sound, what if they scapegoat Biden and the Dems in Congress for ending the right to have an abortion in most states because "it happened under their watch"?

It's kinda creepy when you think about it. I wonder how some people who grew up in a fundamentalist religious environment like in those Mormon sects or Amish areas were actually able to save themselves by leaving their religion and becoming so liberal.

Ah, so JP and Shapiro were born and raised in cultures that influenced them with a less developed set of ideas and memes, whereas people like you and me were born and raised in cultures that influenced us with a more developed set of values and ideology.

But what exactly is the root cause of their terrible epistemology, great self-bias, and need to preserve their ego at all costs? Why do everyday liberals like me have less of an inherent self-bias and rigid survival mindset?