People just don't want to acknowledge the real problem here: inequality. When people feel left behind, they are much more likely to break either reactionary or revolutionary. Status quo politics are not going to appeal to either of these groups. At the same time, the people who are doing well for themselves within the status quo are going to be put off by both the reactionaries and the revolutionaries. The people who are doing well don't want radical change, one way or another. Why would they? They're doing fine and they don't want anything to jeopardize that.
So, if a politician moves to the center they will appeal to the pro status quo group, but they will lose both the reactionaries and the revolutionaries. Similarly, if a politician moves to either the reactionary side or the revolutionary side, they will lose the other two groups.
We are divided. There is no one winning strategy because there is no one, single group of American voters to try and appeal to, AND embracing any one group means alienating the others. And we're not just divided because we watch different cables news stations or spend time in different web discussion forums, we're divided because our lived experiences are different. Our divisions are not merely ideological, they are material.
They're doing exactly what they want while blaming the Democrats for all the negative effects, as is tradition
They're doing it because it works, alarmingly well. Sure, many Americans recognize that it's all just a dishonest tactic, but not enough of us. Many Americans fall for the con, hook, line and sinker.
Like the current administration gives a shit about what "experts" have to say. As far as Trumpers are concerned, they're their own experts, and their expertise comes from the fact that they believe they are smarter than everyone else. Or, more accurately, they're extremely insecure and they try to compensate by pretending - by faking it until they make it - at being smart. They do this by simply acting confident in their positions (even if their positions are complete nonsense and verifiably false) and refusing to back down.
The US has put or helped keep more kings in power than they have taken out of power. Also, I would like to point out that King George III did not die in the American revolutionary war.
I know, but I think Cuomo is much more representative of the Democratic establishment that has been in place for several decades now. Mamdani comes from outside that establishment. In any other democracy, the two candidates would not be in the same political party, since they are not ideologically aligned, but, because the US is a de facto two party system, they are both technically "Democrats."
I feel that establishment Democrats have often used Republicans as a threat in many elections, to basically extort their voters. Specifically, they have used the Republican threat as a way to keep the establishment Democrats in power. "If you nominate a progressive or leftist, you'll split the party and the Republicans will win, so best just to play it safe and fall in line behind the establishment." They're not necessarily wrong, but it nonetheless feels like extortion.
That's why I've often said the Democrats (remember, I'm talking about establishment, neoliberal Democrats) and the Republicans have been engaged in a kind of good cop/bad cop routine for many years. The Republicans being a party of violent lunatics has been useful to the Democrats. Whenever Democratic voters try to deviate too much from the neoliberal establishment, the Democrats have been able to say, "hey, if you're not willing to cooperate with us, we'll just send in the Republicans again, and you know those guys aren't as nice as us," kind of a thing.
I'm not a Gen Z voter, so I certainly can't speak for them, but I hate our country. I hate that so many Americans are being left behind. I hate that we are falling so far behind other democracies. I hate that our democracy is so flawed and corrupted, that I'm not sure it's accurate to even call it a democracy anymore. I hate that so many Americans believe that being greedy, selfish, and indifferent to human suffering is not only acceptable, but somehow "rational." I hate the manipulation and the misinformation that is very intentionally disseminated to the American people. I hate the violence, I hate the war mongering and war profiteering. I hate a lot of what IS right now, because I DEMAND better for myself and ALL other Americans.
This isn't the traditional "big corporation buys something and then makes changes" situation. For 25 years Unilever has been fine with B&J doing their thing.
Yeah, well, they're making changes now. So Ben and Jerry didn't lose their autonomy right away, but they lost it nonetheless.
In the acquisition agreement, Unilever agreed to carry on the company's tradition of engaging "in these critical, global economic and social missions".
Well, obviously Jerry has reached the limits of what Unilever is willing to tolerate. Or, Unilever has just reneged. Those kinds of things can happen when you sell away your independence and autonomy.
Isn't a child acting sexually often a sign they were sexually abused? Maybe the problem isn't gen alpha watching porn, but either more sexual abuse by their parents
The two things are not mutually exclusive. One of the ways a parent can sexually abuse a child is showing them porn. Porn is often involved in child sexual abuse.
I never said that the health professionals didn't consider the possibility that these children were themselves sexually abused. Of course they did. I never said that the health professionals asked only about porn consumption but not about past sexual abuse. They make both inquiries. I wasn't even necessarily making a causal argument, only pointing out the strong correlation. I can't tell you, because I don't know, how many of the children who consume pornography have also been sexually abused. I don't have access to that information, I don't work there. All I do know is that significant porn consumption (including kids being caught watching porn in school) is very common among these kids.
It's not fake, I'm telling you what I know, you can choose to believe it or not, I don't give a shit.
Edit: I would also like to point out that sexual abuse often involves porn. A sexual abuser will often use porn as a way to groom a child for sexual abuse. The two things are not mutually exclusive, the porn consumption can very much be a part of the sexual abuse.
I'm not sure about gen z, but I worry about gen alpha. My wife works in a hospital for behavioral health and she sees an alarming number of kids (as young as 6 or 7) who are acting out sexually, and most of them consume a considerable amount of online porn. Many of them are there because they've sexually abused a sibling.
This is anecdotal, and of course in a behavioral health hospital my wife is going to see only the children who are acting out the most, and those children are by no means representative of the average child. It is also likely that some children have always acted out sexually, for various reasons, long before Internet porn. But the number of children they see for sexual predation is very concerning.
That's just it, I don't think they see themselves as "good guys" or "bad guys" because that implies some kind of moral dynamic, and they see themselves as above such things. They're technocrats, I think they see themselves as scientists, in a way. I don't think they care so much whether or not a course of action is "moral" only that it achieves the desired results.
I think people misunderstand nihilism. It isn't the total absence of belief, it's a rejection of meaning and morality. It's not that the liberals don't believe in anything, they believe in free markets, they believe in the fully atomized, wholly self-interested, utility maximizing individual. They believe in those things, they just don't care if that individual, or, god forbid, a group of people, hold any moral positions, unless or until those moral positions start interfering with the functioning of "free markets.'
If you think the next US civil war will be fought between Nazis and Marxist-Leninists, you don't understand American politics very well. The US in 2025 isn't Stalingrad in 1942.
They don't want to admit that their precious rule of law is dead and buried. They want to keep a semblance of normalcy alive, in part because it helps their financial backers
It's because they're nihilists. They don't have a moral ethos. These are the same people who installed a ruthless dictator in Chile to protect liberalism from the Chilean people. They believe that the ends justify the means, the ends in that case being to bring neoliberalism to Chile. Remember what Friedrich Hayek, one of the architects of neoliberalism, said:
At times it is necessary for a country to have, for a time, some form or other of dictatorial power. As you will understand, it is possible for a dictator to govern in a liberal way. And it is also possible for a democracy to govern with a total lack of liberalism. Personally I prefer a liberal dictator to democratic government lacking liberalism.
People just don't want to acknowledge the real problem here: inequality. When people feel left behind, they are much more likely to break either reactionary or revolutionary. Status quo politics are not going to appeal to either of these groups. At the same time, the people who are doing well for themselves within the status quo are going to be put off by both the reactionaries and the revolutionaries. The people who are doing well don't want radical change, one way or another. Why would they? They're doing fine and they don't want anything to jeopardize that.
So, if a politician moves to the center they will appeal to the pro status quo group, but they will lose both the reactionaries and the revolutionaries. Similarly, if a politician moves to either the reactionary side or the revolutionary side, they will lose the other two groups.
We are divided. There is no one winning strategy because there is no one, single group of American voters to try and appeal to, AND embracing any one group means alienating the others. And we're not just divided because we watch different cables news stations or spend time in different web discussion forums, we're divided because our lived experiences are different. Our divisions are not merely ideological, they are material.