Hardkill

True. I, of course, am primarily for progressivism and liberalism. However, I also understand the need for centrism in the country. So, is the only way to energize moderates and centrists through some kind of crisis that forces them to push back against the excesses and dysfunction of extremism? Or does there need to be a powerful centrist movement that can unify the country and restore a sense of normal, functional politics?

Agreed: “centrists = GOP” harms the coalition. My plan is credit + demand: praise real wins, push for more, keep sharp contrasts to primaries, and close with unity in generals. That’s leverage without handing victories to the right.

I see your point, Leo — that progressives often get trapped in moral idealism and utopian thinking. I think that’s exactly the dilemma behind my question: How much is progressivism backfiring? Should the movement stop or should it change to a new strategy before it ends up doing more harm than good? On the one hand, you’re right that not everything about progressivism is stupid. Certain progressive ideas are genuinely important and resonate with people — healthcare, unions, climate, fair taxation, etc. But as you said, it’s about how those ideas are presented: with intelligence, proportion, and strategy, rather than just moralizing or selling pipe-dreams. I get that progressives too often default to moral purity, purity tests, or culture-war distractions instead of crafting persuasive, pragmatic messaging that gets people onboard. That tendency has arguably made it easier for Trump and MAGA to win. So maybe the real answer isn’t for progressives to stop, but to pivot: keep their best ideas, but ground them in practical strategy and messaging that unites people against oligarchy, instead of alienating them with utopian moralizing. Of course, if they don’t, they risk sabotaging their own movement and unintentionally empowering Trump again.

Yet, aren't the majority of American citizens still moderate?

You're repeating left-wing talking points that already been said on this forum a number of times.

It’s becoming more and more clear to me that the rise in sexual inequality we’re seeing—especially in modern dating—is deeply connected to broader systemic trends that began around the late 1970s and early 1980s. Just as neoliberalism deregulated markets and led to massive concentrations of wealth and power, decades of sexual libertinism—removal of norms, expectations of commitment, and male responsibility—have created a deregulated sexual marketplace. And like the economy, it’s ended up concentrating power in the hands of a small elite: mostly high-status men and, to a degree, some high-status women. Both systems—neoliberal capitalism and post-sexual revolution dating culture—promised freedom, choice, and personal autonomy. But in practice, both atomized society, undermined community values, and left many feeling powerless, isolated, and unfulfilled. And in both cases, if you're struggling—financially, emotionally, sexually—it’s framed as your own fault. “You just didn’t play the game well enough.” It’s sad how far we’ve drifted from collective well-being, serious structural analysis of power, protection for the vulnerable, and any real sense of solidarity. Especially in America, these values have been almost entirely displaced by hyper-individualism and commodification. We’re now dealing with the psychological and spiritual consequences of both revolutions—economic and sexual—happening in parallel.

Yeah, women by nature tend to be more LTR-oriented than men and yeah I do believe that most women, especially those in their late 20s to 30s, want to try to lock down a man they have enough interest in. However, if you approach and ask out enough women out there like crazy, then you will be surprised by how many women out there will just want to use a guy just for sex, even if you don't feel used, or even if you wanted to see them again for something more.

Obama didn’t win more than about 9–10% of voters in the U.S. who identified as Republicans in 2008. However, his charisma was truly once-in-a-generation — strong enough that he managed to win around 20% of voters who identified as conservatives. That was an unusually high percentage for a presidential candidate from the opposite party or ideology during that era. That being said, Obama didn't run as a left-wing idealogue or as a self-described Socialist like Mamdani. In fact, Obama was eventually accused by Leftists and progressives for not being "progressive" or "liberal" enough. So, it's hard for me to believe that Mamdani would ever have as much broad appeal throughout the entire country as Obama did.

Sadly, yes. Thanks to big money and even bigger money being allowed in politics. It's also because how brainwashed too many Americans are by this horrible media environment we are in. Also, how do we get most people to trust the government to help them or that it can truly be an agency of human welfare?

Mamdani is running on standard Democratic policy?! He's running on a very socialistic platform and the most left-wing agenda compared to any other NYC mayor since LaGuardia in the 1940s, if not ever in the history of the city. Please tell me that you're trolling.

That being said, Biden turned out to be the most progressive president since LBJ in the 1960s and the most pro-union president since FDR/Truman.

That’s very true, OP. It ironically has been sorely misunderstood and/or in acknowledged by most people in the world since the dawn of mankind. Sadly, most people in the world haven’t ever been ready to believe that. Hence, improving the material needs of the general population of any society in a fair and sustainable manner is a major factor for getting through to people about this.

I sometimes wish that America wasn’t as diverse and as large of a country as it is.

Democrats today have too many morals when it comes to social issues. They need to let go of a number of their principles if they ever want to survive in the future and if they want the country survive from the authoritarian threat. At the same time, they are too corrupted by the wealthy donors to really care enough about coming up with a strong unifying messaging on economic issues. What would FDR do? What would TR do? What would William Jennings Bryan do? What would even Woodrow Wilson do? I think they would have to realize that they are going to have to turn their backs on non-whites, immigrants, women, etc. unless there is enough support from at least 3.5% of the entire population for any more social justice. They would focus exclusively on helping white men, particularly white men in every rural area of the country in a very quiet and subtle manner. They also have to show young men, especially young white men, that they have enough of a spine to lead to them for any kind of war.

Needless to say, we told you so before Trump got elected last year

We gotta take care of more of our citizens first before we can return to a more global-oriented kind of agenda.

He engaged in a kind of faux right-wing economic populism while appealing to about half the country on conservative cultural issues, including racism, xenophobia, sexism, and Christian nationalism. I hate to say it, but I feel like the Democrats may have no choice but to return to their more pro-white, pro–Judeo-Christian, more patriarchal, and more nationalist roots—albeit in a subtler way than the modern Republican Party—even though it seems unlikely the party will truly drop its support for civil rights, women’s rights, or immigration rights anytime soon.

I totally agree that they need to do that! However, I’m not sure the party elites — along with their special interests, corporate donors, “woke” activists, and out-of-touch consultant class — will allow it. Independent pundits like David Pakman and Anand Giridharadas have recently said that the Democratic Party still hasn’t had its reckoning, even though it should have happened months ago. They’re pessimistic about the party making enough changes to its messaging strategy in time for 2028 — or even 2026 — because the leadership seems so stubborn and entrenched in its current approach to communicating with voters. An arguably bigger question is: how does the Democratic Party get voters to focus on fighting oligarchy and an anarcho-capitalist dystopia when the culture war has distracted most voters — particularly low-information and low-engagement ones — to an insane degree?

However, culture-war identity politics in the 20th century was never anywhere near as bad as it has become in recent years. It wasn’t even this bad in the early 2000s—things have escalated dramatically since the 2010s. At this point, it feels like the worst it has been since the antebellum era before the Civil War. There used to be much more reasonable debate over issues, including economic ones, during the 20th century. The 1960 Nixon–JFK presidential debate is a prime example of classy, substantive discourse on both political and economic topics. In fact, the mid-1900s marked the peak of political consensus and unity in the U.S., and a time when most Americans were more deeply engaged and enthusiastic about economic issues than even social ones. The early and late 1900s were a close second.

I’ve been told to try to enjoy the next few years and not get consumed by 2028 or even 2026, but that advice sits on top of something more volatile: it’s not just worry and hopelessness anymore—it’s anger. I’m angry at how the political system picks its leaders, how power gets filtered, how reform feels like shouting into static, and yet I also feel small, exhausted, and stuck. I care so deeply that I’m emotionally frayed, and that caring turns into despair when the mechanisms meant to channel collective will feel rigged, opaque, and unresponsive. I’m in this vicious feedback loop: I get angry because things are broken, I try to engage to fix or push on them, I burn out from the mismatch between what I want and what I can actually influence, and then the hopelessness deepens—making the anger bitter instead of productive. Stepping back feels like surrendering to a system that deserves the critique, but staying in feels like bleeding out emotionally. If anyone here has navigated that triple bind—anger at systemic dysfunction, genuine care for the country, and the emotional collapse that comes from feeling powerless—what helped you redirect the anger into something sustaining instead of self-destructive? What concrete mental models, small-leverage actions, or community practices let you keep integrity without getting hollowed out?

I know that most single men in their 40s usually don’t go to bars, clubs, chaos-driven parties, or wild places like Vegas or Cancun to meet women—at least not the way younger guys do. Either they’re just not interested anymore, or they have a harder time relating to those environments, especially when most of the women there are in their late teens to 20s. So, do you still meet girls in any of those kinds of places, Leo? Or not so much anymore? I’m asking because I only have a couple of years left before I turn 40, and I know I won’t be ready—at least for another year—to fully commit to consistently cold approaching, especially in nightlife settings. I still need to focus on finishing my doctoral degree in physical therapy, figuring out how to get my own place, and getting other parts of my life in order. I don't see meeting women just through social circle ever working for me unless I get really lucky.

If only Democrats didn’t have to cater to every race/ethnicity/gender, then their messaging would be so much easier.

That’s fair to say. Progressives definitely need to step outside the bubble and learn how to appeal to a broader audience. But I’d argue their biggest weakness isn’t their ideas, it’s how they present them. I agree they shouldn’t blame centrists for everything, but it’s also true that some centrist messaging has felt outdated in a populist era. Maybe the key isn’t to ‘ditch progressivism’ but to evolve its delivery — make it more culturally relatable, less activist-niche, and more grounded in shared values. After all, Biden had to shift toward progressive populism just to energize his 2020 campaign and appeal to both moderates and progressives during his presidency. That really was not an accident. All transformational movements begin as minority positions. Civil rights, Social Security, marriage equality, etc. had all started there. The issue is how to scale up without alienating, not to abandon the ideas altogether.

I get your point. You're right that winning matters more than just being morally 'right.' And yes, a lot of progressives have fallen into the trap of being critics rather than coalition builders. But here's my question: If progressives have struck a nerve with younger voters, working-class frustration, and bold vision, but still struggle to win power, then what exactly do you think they should do differently? Should they water down their vision? Change the messenger? Shift the tone? Or just wait another decade?" Because if the only answer is “act more like centrists,” then that defeats the whole purpose of running with a bold alternative in the first place, and Democrats may never win major elections again. So what’s the actionable path forward, not just the critique?

Yeah, there are some good things that China is doing that the US is not doing and I must say that China truly has come a very long way since the late 1900s with improving its economy overall. However, if China is doing so great, then why has it still been suffering from a serious deflation crisis for over 2 years now? Why are they still suffering from a serious property sector crisis in their country? Why don't they have as much of a social safety net as America does?