Only because our “representatives” let them write the law entirely. Imagine if Congress wasn’t filled to the brim with 80 year old fundraisers…

I don’t think you understood my reply. You asked how, and I gave a solution that would work.

As an aside, especially if you aren’t a US citizen, you might fall victim to some of the same liberal propaganda that many Americans do concerning the motivations of Trump voters. The vast majority of Americans of all political stripes are simply fed up with lack of representation. Give them a candidate who puts the people’s interests before those of corporations, and you might be surprised by the broad coalition of support which emerges from the woodwork. This is why any time a leftist outsider enters the political arena, they’re immediately subjected to bipartisan dogpiling. Trump is accurately considered an outsider, it’s just that he’s a right wing grifter and thus a fake populist. Consider that 2020’s record voter turnout was comprised of only 2/3 of eligible voters, and imagine a better world with a better candidate leading the charge. This is how we dispense with the “lesser of two evils” Hobson’s choice

This would hurt dem fundraising prospects over the next 4 years, so it’s not going to happen. (Unfortunately for us, because as you state it would certainly result in a landslide win of historic proportions.)

God bless the onion.

There are several viable alternatives.

Personally, I’d like to see the public rally around a 3rd party candidate who’s focused on getting money out of politics (stop the legalized bribery), and ending FPTP in favor of ranked choice or star voting. Then we could actually let democracy play out, and wouldn’t have these terrible candidates foisted upon us time and again.

I strongly believe both the major parties would crumble within 1-2 election cycles if this happened, and it could lead to the dawn of a new age of prosperity for our people.

Surely this will work, eventually!

Uh-oh!

Brain worm

Thanks for the correction!

Couldn’t tell who was first, made a best guess on the article dates I dug up. Thanks!

Are you claiming he announced this as part of his campaign? The misinformation around this brain worm stuff is pretty astounding, as are people’s glee in dogpiling over it.

Because facts do matter:

• RFK Jr found and removed the brain worm 15 years ago.
• It’s an incredibly common parasite which most often is contracted in large scale livestock farms, the kind of which he was litigating in the 2000s.
• Almost 2 Billion people have or have had this same parasite in their lifetimes.
• The story was resurfaced earlier this year in May once it became apparent he was a threat to the Trump campaign, by the New York Post (owned by Fox News Corp).

You’re right that we need to vote in all elections to enable more progressive politics. The problem is even when we try to do that, establishment democrats come in with millions of dollars in PAC money to back the establishment candidate instead and keep the political outsiders out. Jessica Cisneros would have been amazing, but Pelosi did everything she could to keep the corrupt goon Cuellar in place, who is now indicted on 14 federal corruption charges. Of course Pelosi still backs him, full-throatedly.

It’s not going to get better until we stop the corruption and end the legalized bribes by getting money out of politics. Until then it’s just a dog and pony show to keep us distracted enough to not be in open rebellion in the streets over how badly the working class is getting robbed. And the elites are in a panic because they are losing that grip…it’s going to be a wild election season in America to say the least.

Dems do have an amazing ability to learn the exact wrong lessons from situations such as this. It’s also mildly infuriating that most attempts to point out these shortcomings are met with shaming or outrageous claims of nefarious intent instead of a modicum of introspection. Those are the interactions that make it hard to hold on to hope for me.

You’re totally right about the distinction between campaign and official polling, fair point.

Still, I do think there are means available for pollsters to get more accurate results from younger voters if they so choose. MFA can solve the identity problem well enough, but there are better solutions if we want them. For example, I’d love to have an anonymous, secure, unique voter id which could be used by individuals to verify voting results independently after an election concludes. If we had it, we could use that instead.

Well they could try to not be so daft about these challenges and act in acccordance with living in the 21st century. (I know, very difficult for Biden and his team, but it is possible.)

Phone-based MFA, spend a tiny fraction of campaign dollars to advertise on social media platforms so respondents can opt-in for the poll, applied stats to randomly select for the target demographic you’re after. This should satisfactorily solve for the above and improve poll quality.

Devastating facts, I actually wasn’t aware of Kazenberg. Damn. Most important election of our lives though folks. Promises to keep, to the donor class.

Yeah, this is why it’s time we have an honest conversation to seriously consider a 24 hour work week.

Productivity has gone up consistently since the 70s while wages have stagnated. It’s going up at an even faster rate now with AI assistant tooling. Workers deserve to enjoy some of the rewards from that increased output, and I can’t think of a better way than letting them enjoy life more outside of work.

Yeah, wouldn’t be nearly as much medical debt if Biden hadn’t preemptively given away the public option. But the Dems seem to only be interested in tiny little baby steps, so if that’s all that’s on offer this is technically a win.

Gotta give credit where it’s due - this is a great move by the Biden administration. More like this please!

That’s really interesting you bring this up, I was already thinking about mentioning this factor. The reason a recession never materialized is because the Biden admin literally changed the formula for calculating inflation. Since he took office, real inflation (CPI) has risen anywhere between 15 and 20%.

These cost of living increases are not sustainable for America’s working class, especially considering 40% of Americans cannot afford so much as an emergency $400 expense, as they’re literally working paycheck to paycheck.

I absolutely agree with you - we should keep going with wage increases for all workers, and they this should be incentivized by changes to federal policy. But instead of this, Biden seems to be blind to the realities many Americans are facing. So much so, that instead of addressing the recession head-on his admin simply changed the formula for how we calculate it so that we didn’t technically have one per the new formula. This isn’t helping the working class, it’s covering for irresponsible business practices of the ruling class (the corporate oligarchy), and that’s a huge problem that isn’t being addressed in any meaningful way. Do this, and we will see some real benefits to the workers, like what is happening thanks to organized labor efforts such as UAW pushing back on corporations trying to pay bottom dollar.