Hardkill

During the Progressive era, Muckrakers, people who were reform-minded journalists, writers, and photographers, were able to effectively expose corruption and wrongdoing in established institutions to all Americans. This majorly helped the progressive movement back then to put enough pressure on the government to fundamentally reform the entire system in order to strongly curb monopolies, the growing power of big businesses, stop employers, and political machines, stop employers from abusing and exploiting their employees in various ways, meaningfully address the uncertainties in the economy, give women voting rights, regulate the health and safety of working conditions and goods, etc. I know that liberals have already been trying their hardest bring public awareness on all of the systemic corruption we've had since over the past 50 years such as the corporate lobbying, military-industrial complex, growing economic inequality, voter suppression, gerrymandering, our democracy declining, racial and gender discrimination, etc. But it seems to me that no matter how much the progressives and even some establishment democrats publicly shout out to the American people about all of the serious problems that have been created by all of the corporate lobbying we have had in this country, it still seems like most Americans are either still not truly understanding it well enough or they simply don't really care. So, what more can be done to show all American people how atrocious something like corporate lobbying or the military-industrial complex has become?

It looks like though that those movements sadly didn’t end up working for them.

Then how come the muckrakers' widespread exposure of the systemic corruption in America were successful back then? Why was witnessing enough of the evils of slavery during the abolition movement able to successfully compel enough of the public and the political elite in America to quite literally fight like hell to outlaw slavery forever? Why was the national coverage of all of the nonviolent protests, marches, and sit-ins for the civil rights movement all worked to successfully pressure LBJ and enough Democrats in Congress to pass the historic 1964 civil rights act, 1965 voting rights act, and Civil Rights Act of 1968 for all black and brown people?

I agree with all of that. So, do you think that the reason why the progressives haven't been able to succeed yet is because their movement is still way too small and weak?

I am not just worried. The more I realize how many problems our society has the more depressed I become. Plus, the more I follow politics the more upset and indignant I become with conservatives as a whole for constantly trying to stop any kind of progress from happening and for causing way more lives to be lost in America in the long-run than liberals. Also, I am feeling very discouraged by the fact that the progressives have never been able to get anything done for our country and that we are still living through a painful regressive period.

It is sad that the US has so many roads that absolutely need to fixed and improved. Hopefully, the new BIF law that just got passed will be able to help solve much of this issue.

Yeah, but from what I understand movements like the abolition movement were able to incrementally make some kind of concrete progress for society in some way every 5-10 years until they successfully completed their ultimate objectives. The progressive faction in America was established in the early 90s back when Bernie first became a far left member of the House of Representative chamber, and so far I haven’t seen or learned of any real incremental progress that any of the progressives have ever made since then. Am I wrong?

I guess, he has become a double edged sword.

Idk. No offense, but that kinda sounds like a cliche.

Jordan Peterson and others like him must be so proud of themselves for being to successfully help stop much needed progress in 1st world countries, while millions of people, especially countless Americans continue to suffer or die unnecessarily because of what they have been listening to from figures like JP.

I know that it’s already been mentioned here on this forum that rural areas generally are more conservative than urban or even suburban areas. The reasons for this have already been mentioned in both this forum and in some articles out there online. One of the reasons this is the case is because rural dominant states have less cultural and racial/ethnic diversity than Urban/Suburban dominant states do. Another reason for this is because folks in rural states have a lower level of education per capita than urban/suburban states do. However, there are three New England states in America, that are mainly rural and lack cultural and racial/ethnic diversity. New Hampshire is a fairly rural dominant state and is one of the least diverse states culturally and racially/ethnically in the US. Vermont and Maine have been arguably considered to be the two most rural and the two least culturally and racially/ethnically diverse states in the entire country. Yet, New Hampshire, Vermont, and Maine have been liberal if not very liberal states for about 3 decades. Plus, the states have been continuing to trend more towards liberalism as time goes on. They say that there are two reasons for this. One reason is that each of these three states have become mainly liberal is because the overall level of education in those states is actually grater than in most other rural states in America. In fact, Maine is considered to have a higher level of education than a majority of US states, Vermont is ranked as the fifth most educated state in the country, and New Hampshire is ranked as the 8th most educated state in the US. Another reason is that these states are much less religious and traditional than all of the other rural states in the US are. But why have those states had a higher overall level of education and less tradition oriented environments than all of the other rural states? How can other rural states like Montana, Iowa, Montana, Idaho, etc. transition from being conservative to being liberal like the rural and white New England states have been?

Do you think that labor unions will one day regain the kind of influence and power they once had several decades ago?

I really can't stand this guy. You know, I knew that he was always a libertarian leaning kind of a person, but I never realized until last year how much he was against any kind of liberal or Democratic agenda. Also, he must be fucking kidding me when he says that the Democratic Party has "....become the party of division & hate.." and that's why he "can no longer support them and will vote Republican." Is he saying that Democrats like Biden is more divisive and hateful than Trump? Is he saying that most Democratic politicians, who have already been accused by progressives, minorities, and many democratic voters in the country for being too moderate/establishment and placating Republicans too much and have been legally bribed by corporations have become too divisive and haven't ever tried to work in a bipartisan manner?! What about all of the increasing amount of unilateral right-wing extremism in the rhetoric and actions of the Republican Party since the 70s?! The crimes that Nixon committed and his very racist Southern strategy campaign strategy and racist law and order policies all of which began the political polarization between both parties after the Civil rights movement. Then came Reagan's racist extreme right-wing economic policies and more racist law enforcement policies. Followed by the Bush's war on Terror. Last but not least, Trump, the epitome of American ethnocentrism, hatred, and authoritarianism. There of course have been countless right-wing GOP Congressmen and state officials since the 70s who have greatly responsible for fanning the fires of hatred, racism, and societal division. Newt Gingrich is a prime example of a Republican congressman who in the 90s very much contributed to the polarization of American politics, undermined democratic norms, and helped complete the permanent Republican takeover of the South. Republicans are the ones that actually hate this country. Not only have the long abandoned the blacks and other ethnic minorities for well over a century, most of them no longer genuinely believe in having a democracy in America. I know that Musk is not at all a stupid person, so this must mean that he has either become a very corrupt businessman or there is something wrong with him psychologically.

I figured that she was more of a moderate Democrat. Also, it looks like the state legislature of Maine is also controlled by Democrats. Would you happen to know why your state has almost always been lead by moderate to liberal leaning politicians despite it being the most rural and the most white state in the country? Like why does Angus King, a current US senator and former governor of Maine, and the voters he represents are definitely in favor of eliminating the filibuster to pass better voting rights for black and brown people in America, whereas someone like Senator Manchin, who is a Democrat, comes from West Virginia, a state that is almost as white and as rural as Maine, has always represented people in his state who probably don't care much about voting rights for minorities?

So, there is nothing that can be done about anything of this? It's only to keep getting worse and worse and worse until what?

Damn it! How longer much will the alt-right echo chambers be allowed to continue spreading their cancerous messages around the US and the rest of the world?!

Then, why has that state always voted for a Democratic presidential candidate soccer 1992, has had moderate Republicans US Senators since the late 70s (Susan Collins has been arguably the most centrist Republican in Congress for several years), currently has a liberal leaning independent US Senator, currently has a Democratic governor, and has had mostly liberal or Democratic governors since the mid 1990s (except from 2011 to 2019)?

I get that Medicare For All won't ever be passed by the US Congress for the foreseeable future because there's not a broad enough support for it by the American constituents for a numbers of reasons and because of the massive amount of corporate lobbying by all of the healthcare insurance companies around the country who have always been totally against any kind of single-payer healthcare system. So, how did the Democrats in Congress and Obama successfully pass Obamacare in 2010 even though the healthcare policy never became popular amongst the majority of American voters until sometime after 2017 when Obama was no longer president? Also, why weren't any of the healthcare lobbying groups or any of the special interest groups able to persuade enough Democrats in Congress to not support or vote for the Obamacare legislation? Does the popularity of a certain policy actually matter all that much for getting it passed?

Sure, there a lot of bipartisan bills that do get passed, but since the late 90s to early 2000s, every new enacted by Congress that resulted in real major national policy change for the entire country to the level of Obamacare or the Trump Tax Cuts have never gotten passed through bipartisanship. Which conservative Democrats in history for example have voted for any of the liberal or progressive legislations that got enacted?

Conservative Democrats such as Manchin and Sinema, don’t seem to care at all if any gets passed in Congress. They seem to care the least about their own constituents compared most other Democratic politicians who at least some varying degree of real care about their own constituents. I also recently read up some US history on conservative Dems going all the way back to the pre Civil War era and from what I’ve understand virtually every conservative Democrat in all of US history never gave a shit about their own constituents or making any significant progress ever in any way for the people or for the country. In fact, in most cases they would try to block any kind of legislation that would create any kind of necessary reform for anything pertaining to the government, the American economy, the legal and justice system, the natural environment of the US, racial issues, immigration and border security issues, the military, etc. So, if these conservative jerks have always totally okay with the status quo, what use have they ever been for the Democrats and liberals? What’s the point of the idea of needing more conservative Democratics to help increase the size of the congressional seats in each chambers of Congress or in both chambers in any state legislature assembly if none of them will ever be willing to work alongside all of the other Democratic Congressmen or state legislatures to enact any new kinds of essential reforms needed for our society?

Yes, most voter are idiots, but that's not what I am trying to get at. The question I am asking is can we ever count on conservative Democrats to vote for any pieces of liberal or progressive legislation alongside the rest of the Democrats in Congress, most of whom are liberals to varying degrees? Or do conservative Democrats never vote for any pieces of legislation that is liberal or progressive?

Everyone in the Kardashian/Jenner family all claim that they've never had any kind of plastic surgery done on them. All of the girls say that they all consistently workout hard and eat well to improve and maintain the shape of their bodies and faces. However, both Kylie Jenner's face and Khloe Kardashian's face both look way too different compared to how they used to look in their younger years. Also, around the mid 2010s both the size of Khloe Kardashian's ass and Kylie Jenner's ass blew up from being average to being so huge and maybe out of proportion like Kim's Kardashian's ass. What are your guys thoughts on this?

Are you a top economist, who have top academic credentials including a PhD from an elite level institution such as MIT or Harvard like well renown Paul Krugman or Larry Summers and many others like them, who strongly support Build Back Better? How the hell would someone like you who probably isn’t anywhere nearly qualified to give their opinion on this economic matter know what they are talking about? Here’s what Krugman said in one of his NYT op-Ed’s on December 2021: “....there’s a lot of talk about how Build Back Better might worsen inflation — talk that mainly seems to involve failure to do the math, for example, by confusing decades with single years and failing to divide by gross domestic product. It’s true that the bill’s $1.75 trillion price tag is, on the surface, a lot of money. But that’s spending over 10 years, which means that annual outlays would be far smaller than the $1.9 trillion rescue planpassed this year or, for that matter, the $768 billion annual defense bill the House passed last week. Also, much of the spending would be paid for with new taxes. Furthermore, you should never cite a big-sounding budget number without putting it in context. Remember, the U.S. economy is enormous. The budget office estimates that in its first year Build Back Better would expand the deficit by 0.6 percent of gross domestic product, a number that would shrink over time. I’m not aware of any economic model suggesting that spending on that scale would make much of a difference to inflation. And because much of the spending would expand the economy’s productive capacity, it would probably reduce inflation over time.” Larry Summers said in an article from the Insider website that Biden and the Democrats in Congress both should've passed both the BIF bill and the BBB social spending bill because "Together, they are smaller over 10 years than this past year's stimulus was over a single year, and in addition, they are substantially paid for." Furthermore the BBB bill would raise taxes on the rich and Corporations which further would significantly reduce inflation. Btw, why has Manchin been totally okay with spending over $700 billion a year on military budgets, which I am sure has contributed to inflation over the years. Also, why are the other 48 Democratic senators not as concerned as Manchin and Sinema about being voted out of office if the bill possibly causes inflation?

Top economists, including those who are noble prize winning economists, said that according to their calculations, build back better would not in any way significantly increase inflation in the issue. In fact, the economists argue that the provisions in the bill could very well decrease inflation.

No, I know that most Democrats in America, especially those in the South, are still culturally tradition oriented and that someone like Manchin’s constituency are actually mostly conservative Democrats. But what I don’t get is don’t conservative leaning Democratic voters want some kind of change made for them? Like most other Americans they too, have complaining that politicians and the government have been letting them down constantly with all of their false promises of being able to help them improve their lives materially. Even though Manchin comes from a deep red state, most voters of West Virginia still wanted the pretty much all of policies that were in the build back better bill. Yet, Manchin betrayed his own constituents by killing the bill because he’s a very conservative corporate Democrat. Furthermore, I still don’t see what any conservative Democratic politician throughout US history has ever gotten done that has materially helped out their own constituents’ needs and demands.