7 ms·

This is unfortunately probably going to be necessary, and should start happening soon while they still have any power. It's been going on like this for decades,

by rapind 1y ago

This is unfortunately probably going to be necessary, and should start happening soon while they still have any power. It's been going on like this for decades, since Gingrich IMO. It feels like the idealism of some on the left is failing to understand the prisoner's dilemma, and so they just keep losing. There's probably as many or more people from centre right to far left who'd be just as interested in sticking it to the right (let's just call it MAGA), as the right has been interested in owning the libs. I get that the election says otherwise, but I have a hunch that MAGA isn't nearly as popular as they think they are. I suspect a lot of people are just tired of the wet noodle Kumbaya politics from some on the left, upset with the status quo, really upset with the economy, etc. Do you ever come back from this though? No idea...

JumpCrisscross 1y ago
> the idealism of some on the left I’m generally critical of the left. But this is one game they got right. It’s imbeciles hiding behind the cowardice of aimless moderation who are sinking America. The left is ready to fight. > Do you ever come back from this Yes. See: Andrew Jackson. The American Whigs. The British Whigs. The New Deal. What you don’t get back from is a lack of opposition. [1] https://www.nytimes.com/2025/09/29/us/politics/russell-vought-trump-budget.html https://www.nytimes.com/2025/09/29/us/politics/russell-vough...
- rapind 1y ago
  > The left is ready to fight. I hope you're right. By idealism, I meant not fighting dirty. There's this moral superiority / higher ground thing with some politicians, that while I admire it, I doubt it's the right attitude for the moment. For example, the retaliatory gerrymandering proposed by some democratic states is the right response IMO, as horrible as gerrymandering is. In fact, they should probably stop apologizing for it and just take a page from MAGA and sell it as "sticking it to MAGA" instead of calling it a necessary evil.
  - JumpCrisscross 1y ago
    > There's this moral superiority / higher ground thing with some politicians Honestly, whom? Because I mostly see cowardice being draped in morality.
    - rapind 1y ago
      Maybe I'm being too generous then. I suspect it's a mix of both and I'm even a little cynical that there are plenty on the left who secretly like this new age of grift. /shrug
  - pibb_xtra_ 1y ago
    > For example, the retaliatory gerrymandering proposed by some democratic states is the right response Is it, this is just a hunch, but I’d imagine Texas or Ohio republicans stand to gain a lot more from redistributing districts than democrats in California do.
    - JumpCrisscross 1y ago
      > this is just a hunch There is a lot of informed vote counting on this question. Going off a hunch is unnecessary. Commenting off it a waste of time.
      - pseudalopex 1y ago
        Every informed analysis I saw said Republicans would gain more seats than Democrats probably.
pibb_xtra_ 1y ago
Enlightenment era philosophy is dying. Powerful people are rejecting it in favor of more darwinian ideas of society (maybe not directly Darwinian) that will allow them to consolidate their personal power. The democrats are simply too weak willed and divided to survive in that environment.
- JumpCrisscross 1y ago
  > Enlightenment era philosophy is dying. Powerful people are rejecting it in favor of more darwinian ideas of society What Enlightenment-era philosophy? (Political civility is not an Enlightenment value. If anything, it was the opposite.)
colechristensen 1y ago
>It feels like the idealism of some on the left is failing to understand the prisoner's dilemma, and so they just keep losing. The "idealism" of the left is increasingly just bigotry. There is a small set of people and problems they like and a large set they dislike or are simply disinterested in. This becomes indistinguishable from fascists who seek racial superiority for a particular group. It's not there yet but it's certainly going in a direction. The left hates the south, hates poor white people, hates rural people, hates men. The left is comfortable with open expression of this hatred. The left has a severe sense of "we know better than you" superiority and confusion as to why folks "vote against their own self interest". The left forgot that they made most of their societal progress by slowly normalizing things instead of loudly shoving changes in people's faces. The left wants to fight a culture war and when they win something they look for more things to be angry about accelerating divisiveness instead of slowing it down. The left doesn't want everyone to just be people, they've grown increasingly obsessed with categorizing people and then demanding performative celebration of new categories, you can't just be a person you've got to have a collection of adjectives. The active left are mostly bored people who want to fight for other people's problems and feel inadequate letting those people do it for themselves. The bigotry and divisiveness of both active sides of the political spectrum are becoming indistinguishable, the silent majority is leaderless. There is no one standing up rejecting both extremes arguing for sanity, rationality, and fairness. Liberté, égalité, fraternité should be the goals we're fighting for In the Weimar Republic there was the Iron Front with this flag with three arrows representing opposition to monarchy, fascism, and communism and what we need is some modern version of this opposed to the divisiveness, authoritarianism, and rejection of reason common across the political spectrum of America. We need the center to unite and reject both poles and return to a sense of individual thought and decision-making in our leaders instead of one thought per party.

by rapind 1y ago

JumpCrisscross 1y ago

> the idealism of some on the left I’m generally critical of the left. But this is one game they got right. It’s imbeciles hiding behind the cowardice of aimless moderation who are sinking America. The left is ready to fight. > Do you ever come back from this Yes. See: Andrew Jackson. The American Whigs. The British Whigs. The New Deal. What you don’t get back from is a lack of opposition. [1] https://www.nytimes.com/2025/09/29/us/politics/russell-vought-trump-budget.html https://www.nytimes.com/2025/09/29/us/politics/russell-vough...

rapind 1y ago
> The left is ready to fight. I hope you're right. By idealism, I meant not fighting dirty. There's this moral superiority / higher ground thing with some politicians, that while I admire it, I doubt it's the right attitude for the moment. For example, the retaliatory gerrymandering proposed by some democratic states is the right response IMO, as horrible as gerrymandering is. In fact, they should probably stop apologizing for it and just take a page from MAGA and sell it as "sticking it to MAGA" instead of calling it a necessary evil.
- JumpCrisscross 1y ago
  > There's this moral superiority / higher ground thing with some politicians Honestly, whom? Because I mostly see cowardice being draped in morality.
  - rapind 1y ago
    Maybe I'm being too generous then. I suspect it's a mix of both and I'm even a little cynical that there are plenty on the left who secretly like this new age of grift. /shrug
- pibb_xtra_ 1y ago
  > For example, the retaliatory gerrymandering proposed by some democratic states is the right response Is it, this is just a hunch, but I’d imagine Texas or Ohio republicans stand to gain a lot more from redistributing districts than democrats in California do.
  - JumpCrisscross 1y ago
    > this is just a hunch There is a lot of informed vote counting on this question. Going off a hunch is unnecessary. Commenting off it a waste of time.
    - pseudalopex 1y ago
      Every informed analysis I saw said Republicans would gain more seats than Democrats probably.

pibb_xtra_ 1y ago

Enlightenment era philosophy is dying. Powerful people are rejecting it in favor of more darwinian ideas of society (maybe not directly Darwinian) that will allow them to consolidate their personal power. The democrats are simply too weak willed and divided to survive in that environment.

JumpCrisscross 1y ago
> Enlightenment era philosophy is dying. Powerful people are rejecting it in favor of more darwinian ideas of society What Enlightenment-era philosophy? (Political civility is not an Enlightenment value. If anything, it was the opposite.)

colechristensen 1y ago

>It feels like the idealism of some on the left is failing to understand the prisoner's dilemma, and so they just keep losing. The "idealism" of the left is increasingly just bigotry. There is a small set of people and problems they like and a large set they dislike or are simply disinterested in. This becomes indistinguishable from fascists who seek racial superiority for a particular group. It's not there yet but it's certainly going in a direction. The left hates the south, hates poor white people, hates rural people, hates men. The left is comfortable with open expression of this hatred. The left has a severe sense of "we know better than you" superiority and confusion as to why folks "vote against their own self interest". The left forgot that they made most of their societal progress by slowly normalizing things instead of loudly shoving changes in people's faces. The left wants to fight a culture war and when they win something they look for more things to be angry about accelerating divisiveness instead of slowing it down. The left doesn't want everyone to just be people, they've grown increasingly obsessed with categorizing people and then demanding performative celebration of new categories, you can't just be a person you've got to have a collection of adjectives. The active left are mostly bored people who want to fight for other people's problems and feel inadequate letting those people do it for themselves. The bigotry and divisiveness of both active sides of the political spectrum are becoming indistinguishable, the silent majority is leaderless. There is no one standing up rejecting both extremes arguing for sanity, rationality, and fairness. Liberté, égalité, fraternité should be the goals we're fighting for In the Weimar Republic there was the Iron Front with this flag with three arrows representing opposition to monarchy, fascism, and communism and what we need is some modern version of this opposed to the divisiveness, authoritarianism, and rejection of reason common across the political spectrum of America. We need the center to unite and reject both poles and return to a sense of individual thought and decision-making in our leaders instead of one thought per party.