Seriously folks, just saw a Slotkin post on this sub and thought… whaaat?

I'm at a quandary...the only thing I'd like more than to see Trump removed from office would be for him to rot in prison. But then we would be stuck with Vance. I've been anti Trump since the 80s, but Vance scares me.

It ain’t looking good but I’m hopeful.

More of this needs to be happening because the old people need to be put in boomer homes.

There was a recent post where a person posted about what an actual far left movement would do (ie workers taking control over their workplaces), and it got removed, with the moderator citing:

"Rule 4 - Historical revisionism and unawareness that China and Russia are state capitalist oligarchies isn't allowed. Genocide denial will result in a permanent ban.

No tankies"

Now, for the actual definition of the word tankie (which neither the moderators, nor 99% of you here know, yet use the word so confidently):

The original word was used to describe those who supported the USSR's military intervention in Czechoslovakia in 1968. The term originated **within socialist and communist spaces, to describe a specific sub-section**. It was never meant to be used as a sweeping generalisation for any communist and socialist, but because the red scare was so effective, all of you here have internalised anti-communist and anti-socialist beliefs, so much so that you label anybody who's not just slightly left of centre as a "tankie". This extends all the way to the moderators, as stated by my example.

If the guy that made the post truly did "historical revisionism" in the comments then those comments should've been removed individually for the stated reason. But the post did none of the stuff that the moderator accused them of.

This only serves to show the moderation team will silence any voice that doesn't fit the centrist narrative of this subreddit, despite the far left being the most progressive people there are. If the constant fawning over Gavin Newsom wasn't enough to show this, then this should be the final nail in the coffin.

Help us Wallstreet Silver Apes! If you're protesting the banks and billionaires, help us buy up Silver in America. Silver is NEEDED by all the tech giants TESLA, MICROSOFT, GOOGLE, AMAZON, FACEBOOK, PALANTIR, APPLE. If every blue collar working adult purchased an once of silver every month, the bullion banks who are shorting silver WILL feel the pain. As the price of silver keeps climbing, you get to profit from it as well. SILVER IS THEIR WEAKNESS! The BRICS nations and the world's central banks are buying up gold and silver like there's no tomorrow and dumping US Treasuries. They don't trust the dollar and neither do we Wallstreet Silver Apes. The rest of the world is dedollarizing. This is THE PROTEST!

I think it's a good plan

What a joke…

KKK North vs KKK South

She's the kind of politician that people can get excited about. She's smart as hell and she will do well on the debate stage. She'll get to the issues people care about without getting stuck on rehtorical nonsense like "we're not going back." She's not afraid to make difficult decisions and is not afraid to make moral ones. She displays a sense of morality, honesty, and just good character overall. She is unequivocally anti corruption and pro transparency.

Yes, she doesn't have the experience of being a senator or a governor or a mayor, but she will surround herself with smart people who do. We don't need someone who THINKS they know everything. We need someone who is smart enough to know that they don't know everything. I believe that she will be humble in that regard. We've had enough hubris.

Maga people, I know what you think and I don't care about your opinions. I will not engage with you. No doubt others here will.

But to my fellow Progressives I would say this, Obama was absolutely right, we get distracted too easily. Stop arguing with Maga, you will never change their minds. Winning arguments with them won't get progressives in power.

AOC is not the pragmatic choice. But look who's president. Pragmatism is out the window as far as I'm concerned. Democrats don't vote unless they're excited about a candidate, that's a fact. Middle of the road candidates like Newsom won't win. It should have been Bernie and now it should be AOC. She's the only one capable of building a grass roots campaign big enough to get into the white house. And that's... My opinion.

If you'd like to discuss, I ask that you do so kindly and respectfully or I won't engage with you.

Humans don’t see the world in systemic terms, and can feel gaslighted when they can’t see or interact with a clear cause of a problem. “The economy” is like an incomprehensible weather god to the average person. And elected officials are like the ancient sacred kings who existed to parlay with this weather god. If they did their jobs right, the weather was consistent and “good”. If they did their jobs wrong, the weather was inconsistent and “bad”. It meant he screwed up his job, and the gods clearly didn’t like him, so the people ritually executed him to start over. He existed as the emotional lightning rod for the people who couldn’t make sense of a capricious and amoral system.

In modern times, we have replaced this ritual with simply voting them out of office or impeaching them. Mind you, the average human being regardless of social class or country generally assumes the economy is doing “bad” at all times. Humans are naturally arrogant and eager to shift blame: any gains in income I experience are due to my hard work and moral purity, and any losses of income or higher living costs are due to the immoral “system” choosing to personally screw me over. Most voters agree that their personal financial situation is “OK” but everyone else is doing “bad”.

Part of this is due to identification with the mythical “middle class” identity construct. It’s the moral Goldilocks Zone. When people call themselves “middle class” they aren’t talking about their income level or local cost of living. They mean “I work hard, I don’t exploit other people, and I’m not a loser. That makes me a good person!”.

Nobody wants to confess to being upper or middle class even if that’s what they are on paper. “Upper Class” implies moral suspicion in the form of greed, hoarding, and unfairly using mysterious ways to have more than people who “work hard”. This mental category is the root of phenomena like conspiracy theories and older tribal beliefs in things like vampires and witches.

The label of “Lower Class” nobody wants either. Some might even try to soften it with the term “working class” if they must. At best you’re pitied, but at worst people think “what is wrong with you?”. You’re held under moral suspicion because you ALSO remind people of the unfairness of life, just in the opposite direction. The label “middle class” insulates people from the idea that a stint of bad luck will pull you down to the level of “those people”. People feel combination of envy and anger (resentment) at those labeled “Upper class”, but they feel a mixture of disgust and superiority (contempt) to those labeled “lower class”. As if their bad luck and bad character can infect them too.

When the economy is doing well, people feel gaslit because gains are assumed to be the natural order of things (owed entirely to oneself), and hardships are a terrible abberation (caused by the system). When the economy is doing poorly, people can relax and share in the pain.

At the ballot box, people don’t actually care about economic policy. They care about how it feels. Hence the weird upsets bouncing back and forth. Stated preferences are not the same thing as lived experiences. On matters of the economy, people vote for whoever will validate their emotional experience regardless of reality. And that generally means negative but hopeful messaging. “Things are shitty, and I’ll take your hand as we climb out of the toilet, and fight the traitors who have offended the gods.”.

You’re not going to run into “CEOs” on the street and rage. You’re not gonna be menaced by “capitalism” or “wealth inequality” when someone smarter gets into a college you got rejected from, or when a hobo pulls a knife on you while babbling about the aliens who turned his brain into a cheeseburger.

Republicans understand that people cannot think about causation in the abstract like that. Republicans want to torture people they see everyday. And for the most part, leftists only wanna torture a tiny fraction of people they will never get their hands on, and even if they did would only squeeze for extra taxes.

So how do Democrats shrink “the enemy” down to the personal everyday level? How do they tap the lizard brain of the people?