No bipartisanship. First thing, they need to absolutely crush MAGA. Weed them out at every level and fix the broken bits of our democracy that allowed them to take root in the first place.
Then get to work on real reforms to help the working class.
The broken bits in our democracy that enable MAGA are not quick fixes. They're cultural shifts.
A) Thinking - We need to, somehow, get the populace educated, willing to learn, and willing to think. MAGA exists because most of its adherents are mindless consumers of what's being fed them by the media, not willing or able to understand and perform root cause analysis, and unwilling or unable to change their own patterns to make themselves competitive in failed markets. Thus they want the government to subsidize them (ironic given the R's proclaimed free market ideals, but not what the MAGA regime wants).
B) This may be exacerbated by government policies. i.e. if one has a high minimum wage one cannot expect to be able to compete with, e.g. China or India in non-perishable goods manufacture that require human input due to the human rights abuses in those countries. The country must be willing to accept the death of human-input-industry (it happened, MAGA has not accepted it) and conversion to service and perishable good sectors.
C) If you can’t or won’t accept the loss of human-involved manufacturing, trade systems must tariff countries that undercut on cost by exploiting labor and the environment. MAGA is attempting this, ostensibly and badly, and it isn’t working.
Related: a treaty system or larger world body (the WTO or a new treaty organization) could impose coordinated tariffs on countries that mistreat workers or pollute, with pollution measured at fossil fuel extraction using a VAT-like system to trickle down (and credit for uses that are non-carbon-dioxide/methane emitting) and revenue put into carbon recovery. Buy-in from a majority of importers would have to be secured before the tariffs take effect. With real enforcement, this is likely the only mechanism that could address global human rights abuses in labor and could also make a meaningful dent in climate change. Human rights (I consider CO2 buildup an impingement on future human rights) haven't caught up to globalization.
D) Illegal immigrants do a huge percentage of human input work on perishable goods in the US because its cheaper to deal with them than it is to pay human citizen workers. MAGA promises to fix this, but fundamentally cannot, as they serve those making money hand over fist (ab)using these illegals.
E) We must stop/counter Exclusionary Identity. This trade-decision-making-for-belonging has to be countered, and it harks back to thinking, above (A). It's one of the reasons of A, in my opinion.
> People trade independent judgment for belonging. Once that trade is made, the group’s contested beliefs become sacred: questioning them triggers threat responses instead of thinking, and offering reasons or money to soften them makes people angrier, not more flexible. Intelligence doesn’t help — it gets repurposed to defend the sacred belief more cleverly. Leaders get trapped too, because the constituency that internalized the message will replace anyone who tries to walk it back. The groups that play this hardest win local fights against the groups that don’t — and in winning, they tear down the shared institutions that make any of them viable. This is the antisocial contract: an unspoken bargain that buys you a place in a tribe at the price of your ability to reason in exactly the domains where reasoning matters most.
Exclusionary identity is a problem for any society, but it's worse in America than anywhere else. Which is good news, because that means it can be reduced.
If you want to reduce it, attack it at the source: dismantle American exceptionalism. Abolish the pledge of allegiance. Make free, quality movies/documentaries explaining in simple terms the true political motives for all the wars America has been involved in, all the way back to the war of independence. Spend money getting those movies into the zeitgeist, front and centre. Start by screening them in schools. Build a campaign to not just rebut all explicit and tacit claims that the US is better than other countries, but prove the opposite to every such claim.
If the Democrats can spend this much on a mid-term election they can spend it on fixing the culture instead, and save that money on future elections. Buy back the culture outright, instead of renting it every 4 years.
To fix the American spirit, break it yourselves. Trump has shown you that an openly corrupt autocratic regime can break it for you worse.
The new Democratic Congress can cement its control by working for the People rather than for the party. They should listen to the voters who gave them the majorities.
No, man, no. Write an actual paper letter with a stamp and list five or fewer things you would like to see this (new) person or persons do. Let them know you're watching, and that since the voters giveth, the voters can taketh away. Don't let up. Mail one every month, and watch what they do. Hold them accountable. Democracy is a participation sport, not a spectator sport. "We have a Republic if we can keep it." We keep it by participation. Voter turn-out is the demonstration of that. Don't quit.
um, no. the lobbyists spend millions. my handwritten letter isn't going to do anything.
we need more than 2 parties. we need ranked choice voting. any participation in our current system is literally just propping up the 2 major parties and the force feeding us with their chosen candidates because all that matters is their name has the D or R next to it.
I don't think that not voting at all is the best choice. Ranked choice is good. Let's see what happens in Alaska when all the votes are counted--they have ranked choice. That's a good change. With respect to letters written on paper and sent through the mail, staffers count each one of those as 10,000 other voters who were too lazy to write. I think e-mails easily can be written by bots, but hand written mailed letters actually come from people. That's what I do. I'm reading The Federalist Papers now, and I'm on Number Twenty Seven. There are several that explore the meaning of what they called back then "factions." We know them as parties now. You'd be amazed at how accurate they are when we look at what has just happened with this current president and this most recent set of midterms. Worth a read.
money is king in politics, undoubtedly. and it is bipartisan in its reach. everything they do is a business strategy to keep donations high and networks deep.
the social issues are just to appease us. business is only disrupted when the peasants revolt.
Surely they can now at least cut off funding for Trump's illegal war in Iran. Will they? That is a very expensive question that goes to the heart of whether Democrats are actually representing the voters.
JD Vance could be impeached too, since he publicly committed war crimes. I would wager there's not a single person in the entire organization who hasn't publicly committed a crime.
-Clayburn | 19 hours ago
No bipartisanship. First thing, they need to absolutely crush MAGA. Weed them out at every level and fix the broken bits of our democracy that allowed them to take root in the first place.
Then get to work on real reforms to help the working class.
strcrssd | 18 hours ago
A few things:
The broken bits in our democracy that enable MAGA are not quick fixes. They're cultural shifts.
A) Thinking - We need to, somehow, get the populace educated, willing to learn, and willing to think. MAGA exists because most of its adherents are mindless consumers of what's being fed them by the media, not willing or able to understand and perform root cause analysis, and unwilling or unable to change their own patterns to make themselves competitive in failed markets. Thus they want the government to subsidize them (ironic given the R's proclaimed free market ideals, but not what the MAGA regime wants).
B) This may be exacerbated by government policies. i.e. if one has a high minimum wage one cannot expect to be able to compete with, e.g. China or India in non-perishable goods manufacture that require human input due to the human rights abuses in those countries. The country must be willing to accept the death of human-input-industry (it happened, MAGA has not accepted it) and conversion to service and perishable good sectors.
C) If you can’t or won’t accept the loss of human-involved manufacturing, trade systems must tariff countries that undercut on cost by exploiting labor and the environment. MAGA is attempting this, ostensibly and badly, and it isn’t working.
Related: a treaty system or larger world body (the WTO or a new treaty organization) could impose coordinated tariffs on countries that mistreat workers or pollute, with pollution measured at fossil fuel extraction using a VAT-like system to trickle down (and credit for uses that are non-carbon-dioxide/methane emitting) and revenue put into carbon recovery. Buy-in from a majority of importers would have to be secured before the tariffs take effect. With real enforcement, this is likely the only mechanism that could address global human rights abuses in labor and could also make a meaningful dent in climate change. Human rights (I consider CO2 buildup an impingement on future human rights) haven't caught up to globalization.
D) Illegal immigrants do a huge percentage of human input work on perishable goods in the US because its cheaper to deal with them than it is to pay human citizen workers. MAGA promises to fix this, but fundamentally cannot, as they serve those making money hand over fist (ab)using these illegals.
E) We must stop/counter Exclusionary Identity. This trade-decision-making-for-belonging has to be countered, and it harks back to thinking, above (A). It's one of the reasons of A, in my opinion.
> People trade independent judgment for belonging. Once that trade is made, the group’s contested beliefs become sacred: questioning them triggers threat responses instead of thinking, and offering reasons or money to soften them makes people angrier, not more flexible. Intelligence doesn’t help — it gets repurposed to defend the sacred belief more cleverly. Leaders get trapped too, because the constituency that internalized the message will replace anyone who tries to walk it back. The groups that play this hardest win local fights against the groups that don’t — and in winning, they tear down the shared institutions that make any of them viable. This is the antisocial contract: an unspoken bargain that buys you a place in a tribe at the price of your ability to reason in exactly the domains where reasoning matters most.
chickenthinkseggwas | 17 hours ago
Exclusionary identity is a problem for any society, but it's worse in America than anywhere else. Which is good news, because that means it can be reduced.
If you want to reduce it, attack it at the source: dismantle American exceptionalism. Abolish the pledge of allegiance. Make free, quality movies/documentaries explaining in simple terms the true political motives for all the wars America has been involved in, all the way back to the war of independence. Spend money getting those movies into the zeitgeist, front and centre. Start by screening them in schools. Build a campaign to not just rebut all explicit and tacit claims that the US is better than other countries, but prove the opposite to every such claim.
If the Democrats can spend this much on a mid-term election they can spend it on fixing the culture instead, and save that money on future elections. Buy back the culture outright, instead of renting it every 4 years.
To fix the American spirit, break it yourselves. Trump has shown you that an openly corrupt autocratic regime can break it for you worse.
Easy_Interest_6832 | 22 hours ago
The new Democratic Congress can cement its control by working for the People rather than for the party. They should listen to the voters who gave them the majorities.
gh057 | 20 hours ago
yeah that would be cool if any political parties ever did that
Easy_Interest_6832 | 20 hours ago
Write your (new) congresscritter(s).
gh057 | 19 hours ago
oh i just need to send an email? why hasn't that been done already?
Easy_Interest_6832 | 19 hours ago
No, man, no. Write an actual paper letter with a stamp and list five or fewer things you would like to see this (new) person or persons do. Let them know you're watching, and that since the voters giveth, the voters can taketh away. Don't let up. Mail one every month, and watch what they do. Hold them accountable. Democracy is a participation sport, not a spectator sport. "We have a Republic if we can keep it." We keep it by participation. Voter turn-out is the demonstration of that. Don't quit.
gh057 | 9 hours ago
um, no. the lobbyists spend millions. my handwritten letter isn't going to do anything.
we need more than 2 parties. we need ranked choice voting. any participation in our current system is literally just propping up the 2 major parties and the force feeding us with their chosen candidates because all that matters is their name has the D or R next to it.
Easy_Interest_6832 | 8 hours ago
I don't think that not voting at all is the best choice. Ranked choice is good. Let's see what happens in Alaska when all the votes are counted--they have ranked choice. That's a good change. With respect to letters written on paper and sent through the mail, staffers count each one of those as 10,000 other voters who were too lazy to write. I think e-mails easily can be written by bots, but hand written mailed letters actually come from people. That's what I do. I'm reading The Federalist Papers now, and I'm on Number Twenty Seven. There are several that explore the meaning of what they called back then "factions." We know them as parties now. You'd be amazed at how accurate they are when we look at what has just happened with this current president and this most recent set of midterms. Worth a read.
lopix | 19 hours ago
Rather than the billionaires who funded their election?
Yeah. Right.
gh057 | 9 hours ago
money is king in politics, undoubtedly. and it is bipartisan in its reach. everything they do is a business strategy to keep donations high and networks deep.
the social issues are just to appease us. business is only disrupted when the peasants revolt.
jawdirk | 19 hours ago
Surely they can now at least cut off funding for Trump's illegal war in Iran. Will they? That is a very expensive question that goes to the heart of whether Democrats are actually representing the voters.
-Clayburn | 19 hours ago
Fuck that. Just impeach the bastard. Let the Republicans know they're cleaning house, and now is the only opportunity they'll get to jump ship.
KilowogTrout | 18 hours ago
I don’t think giving JD Vance the presidency is a good idea. Go after the cronies around him, though.
jawdirk | 18 hours ago
JD Vance could be impeached too, since he publicly committed war crimes. I would wager there's not a single person in the entire organization who hasn't publicly committed a crime.
scud_missile | 17 hours ago
Democrats take Congress. Here's why this is bad news for Democrats.
mcSibiss | 19 hours ago
They won’t do shit.