AppleTea

@AppleTea@lemmy.zip

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AppleTea ,

You might as well refer to the Kardashian as a crime family. Donald Trump represents the fusion of reality television and spectator politics -- of course sycophants show up, how else are they supposed to get air time?

AppleTea ,

Hamas agreed to a ceasefire that would have released the remaining hostages. Israel turned it down.

AppleTea ,

It's kinda annoying how quickly he's been forgotten. If we're just looking at policy, Trump was a bog standard Republican. Dubba redefined national and international policy for every administration to follow.

AppleTea ,

Which part is the baseless claim?

AppleTea ,

If this were a parliamentary system, sure. But our constitutional framework does not produce overwhelming, consistent victory. Like, ever, in its history.

May I remind you after the Bush administration, Obama won both the primaries and the overall election by campaigning from the left, not the center. And he won by a very wide margin.

AppleTea ,

The meme oversimplifies what is happening. Our politics has been drifting further to the right with each election and the people in power are fine with that, regardless of whatever party they're a part of.

there you go

AppleTea ,

Biden isn't running against an incumbent, he is the incumbent. You want him to run from the center against an incumbent, OK. But then what? Run from the center again? That doesn't make sense.

Again, "consistent, overwhelming" victory is a fantasy. Control of the executive and legislative branch exchanges hands every few terms. That's just how this rule-set and this electorate play out.

AppleTea ,

  • affordable for senior citizens and Medicare patients (medicare is for people 65 and up)

  • Marijuana reclassified from Schedule 1 to Schedule 3

  • Something that needed to be done, but it's still falls short. We have miles of lead pipe that's going unaddressed and population centers with contaminated drinking water.

These are half-measures, tinkering at the edges of problems.

The insulin is especially glaring. They had the will to pass a bill and chose to ignore most of the population. I'm not saying that it's not a net positive... buuuut, it's a pretty damn small positive. Compared to the harm insulin prices cause every day? It's, like, an exponential difference in scope.

For marijuana, they have the presidency. They could higher staff and dedicate a workforce exclusively to generating the paperwork needed to pardon marijuana convictions. I'm not certain, but I think the executive can also just... decide not to prosecute in the first place. They reclassified it for the sake of a headline that sounds nice, not because they're serious about this.

AppleTea ,

There's a bit of a pattern of half-measures here.

Like, the last time democrats had the executive and legislature, we got the Affordable Healthcare Act -- which, yeah did help some people. But didn't change any of the underlying rot in our healthcare - 12 years on, we're still having the same conversations about the same problems.

Vote, it's the least that can be done. But don't kid yourself about what that does. Our problems require far more, far more citizen participation and far more work than merely voting.

AppleTea ,

There was some stuff for rehabilitating our rail corridors. Not enough, of course, but it was there.

AppleTea ,

Are you certain of that? In a country where half of the population consistently, chronically, for decades, doesn't vote?

Every election brings with it the chance of loosing. Seems to me that something radical is what tips the scales. What gets that checked out population to sit up and take notice. Play too conservatively (with a lowercase 'c'), and they stay checked out.

AppleTea ,

The Overton window is a cultural measurement, not a tally of recent political victories. It is a range determined by our media and our history, the sum of what people talk and think about, what they experience in the political economic and artistic worlds. It is a crude way of describing what is collectively believed to be possible. The spectrum doesn't just shift to the right because "conservatives won", it shifted to the right before Trump won -- that's how he was able to win. And the preceding administration played a big role in that shift.

After the recession, people felt like they had been left behind. The banks and the auto manufactures got a huge bailout, but there was very little help for the individuals and families caught in the downturn. Nearly all the economic growth through the recovery was happening for top earners, not median households. People's lived experiences didn't match the story of recovery that was described in the news and by politicians...

...which is why Trump's victory caught so many established Democrats off guard. They didn't notice the window shift, they thought it was still the same place it was four years ago when Obama won his second term.

...with everything that has happened recently, I have this dreadful sense of the familiar. Young people see lives being taken in Palestine and are angry. Old people see us lurching toward another conflict in the Middle East and are weary. Everyone is grumbling about the price of groceries. Democratic leadership keeps insisting that things are fine and actually getting better. Does that seem like a recipe for consistent, overwhelming victory?

AppleTea ,

I'm not saying election wins don't affect it, I'm saying how our elected officials behave while in office affect it even more, both intentionally and unintentionally.

If your opponents are talking about and implementing far-right nonsense, you push against the opposite edge of the window -- staying in the cetre just lets them push more to the right. Democrats always running to the center is primarily how we got here in the first place. You are inadvertently arguing that we follow Republicans further to the right as they continue to push against the edge of the window.

AppleTea ,

Why is it that you claim Democrats need "consistent and overwhelming" victory, when Republicans have managed to shift the Overton window without that?

AppleTea ,

I never said I wasn't voting, or that others shouldn't.

Or maybe because they obstruct fucking everything. JFC. And then they can stack the courts.

Or maybe because the Dems still try to reach across the aisle. While the GOP doesn’t.

This is what I'm saying! Democrats keep trying to meet Republicans in the middle, and Republicans just push further and further to the right. That is, regardless of intention, enabling! I feel like you are asking the world of voters, when the party itself won't even play hardball with the fascist nutjobs they're supposed to be opposing

AppleTea ,

now now, let's be fair

it's also so that evangelicals can ban recreational sex

AppleTea ,

It's the collaboration of the state and private contractors in documenting everything to computers. The process started around the 1970s - mostly with police departments using crimes of the past to, er, "predict" where future crimes will happen (ie, they put the number of incidents in a calculator and did an extrapolation).

Half a century latter, there's a lot of documentation. So much. In private databases, federal databases -- plus everything that's accessible online. It's impossible for a person to actually sort through, so we automate the sorting. It's like extrapolating from incidents, but also adding in keyword sorting and evolutionary trial-&-error algorithms.

AppleTea ,

Squidward is churlish and often over-reacts when his personal time is intruded upon. Maybe his neighbors don't recognize when they're being intrusive, but they do value Squidward's company. It took drastic conditions for him to realize he values their company as well.

AppleTea ,

the nice thing about drawings is that you can make them say whatever you like

with real people, there's all this inconvenient stuff. Like, for example, what they are actually doing and saying.

AppleTea ,

are... you talking about the elected officials, or the people who elect them?

AppleTea ,

Does it need to be instinctual, for some people's brains to be "wired different"? Seems to me that this phenomenon is more easily explained as learned behavior. Since people's behavior changes the environment, it creates a feedback loop; societies form a semi-artificial environment where people learn that domination is successful behavior, and are rewarded for continuing it. Thus, the behavior is propagated across generations, no instinct required.

...and neuroplasticity doesn't really fit well with the idea that people are "hard-wired" to certain behavior. The only thing we really seem to be pre-programmed for is language and communication.

AppleTea ,

neuroplasticity is limited to what our genetics will allow

sorry, what do you mean by this? Surely the benefit of a learning and growing brain is that it can respond and adapt to situations faster than germ-line genetics ever could. Why would there be a genetic limiter, what purpose would that serve?

AppleTea ,

Ah, I see, you just meant that other species don't share our capacity for learning and adapting. Although, why do you continue to describe exploitative behavior as an instinct if you agree that it is a learned trait?

AppleTea ,

Isn't "the state" just cultural mechanisms extended beyond familial or interpersonal ties? There's a threshold where the group becomes too numerous for a member to form social ties with all other members. At that stage, culture becomes a force unto itself, propagating further than the members that comprise it. That point, more than money, seems to be where exploitative behavior becomes more likely to take hold.

Like, feudal aristocracies were plenty exploitative, plenty domineering. But they didn't necessarily need money for it; a lot of them operated on barter economies. They just needed a knife-point and a cultural belief to justify the domination. Money is just an innovation on a much older process.

AppleTea ,

If that's how we're diving it up, then your vote only really matters if you live in a swing state.

Anywhere else and your pissing in the wind, no matter which way your facing.

AppleTea ,

and they're all facing to the right

Conservative Plan Calls for Dozens of Executions if Trump Wins ( www.thedailybeast.com )

A conservative plan for Donald Trump’s potential transition into the presidency calls for dozens of prisoners to be executed, according to HuffPost. An 887-page plan by Project 2025, led by the ultra-conservative Heritage Foundation, says that if elected, Trump should make a concerted effort to execute the remaining 40...

AppleTea ,

Trump’s approach to the death penalty stands in stark contrast to that of President Joe Biden, who has openly opposed the death penalty, but done little to move forward legislation to reform or abolish the practice since entering office.

So, it's saying his words stand in contrast. His actions, on the other hand, seem to say very little.

AppleTea ,

...you realize that still doesn't speak well to the Democrats ability to organize and pass legislation? The republicans are the threat that they are because Democrats leave this shit on the table. It's like abortion; there have been several occasions in 21st century where the Democrats had the legislature and the presidency, yet it still comes down to 9 unelected elders. They even had a month's forewarning of the Dobbs decision, yet no legislative fix! They didn't even try!

AppleTea ,

I'm not saying conservatives are good, I'm saying democrats are not very serious about opposing them.

Are you a child, or have you only recently started paying attention to yankee politics?

AppleTea ,

christ it's like i'm talking to 2016.

is it nice? moving through time without noticing or remembering it's passing? As static as a simpsons character?

AppleTea ,

How is any of what I've been saying "GOP talking points"? Do the conservatives in your life pay nearly this close attention to what the democrats do? Because all the conservatives I know are freaking out over Facebook stories of kitty litter in classrooms or Heather Has Two Mommies being available at the local library.

If your reaction to criticisms of the DNC is to immediately assume i'm some spooky agent provocateur, then you're approach to politics is just as mindless as the Facebook conservatives.

AppleTea ,

That is my primary criticism of democrats, yes

AppleTea ,

What mask? What are you even saying? You seem to only communicate in cliches

AppleTea ,

Oh, are you like, a bot trained on redditor's comments? Is that why you only have old memes to reference?

Like, do you have any response to what I'm arguing besides various iterations of "Nuh Uh!"

AppleTea ,

We're both doing now. That's how this tango works.

I pointed out Democrats are not particularly strategic or serious when it comes to wielding both the legislature and the presidency, you didn't have a response to that, here we are

AppleTea ,

Really, though, do you think Biden has the political willpower to pull enough swing states? People tend to vote how they feel; keep the incumbent if they're happy, kick 'em out if they're not.

The conservatives seem to think they have this one in the bag, they're already outlining their policy plans, as this article highlights.

AppleTea ,

Well, I admit I'm enjoying this on several levels. On the one hand, it's funny to collect downvotes. Half the time, it works like a little ticker that says, "Someone has acknowledged what you said, but doesn't have the time or capacity to reply"

On the other hand, I do genuinely enjoy talking about politics. I've been following US elections since I was in middle school. I like to remind people to think about more than this narrow view of this specific election; the reporting and posting and commenting all tends to have such a very short-term memory for these things.

AppleTea ,

im just typing

but sure, i'll cop to those labels, if you like. One Trolling, Nacissistic screed, mon sieur;

Let's talk about the Obama administration! What a campaign they ran, and what a voter mandate it got them to boot! Can you imagine if they actually used that mandate? If Obama had actually closed Gitmo and pulled out of Afghanistan, like he had said he would. The lives that would have been saved, the blood unspilled; it's beyond calculable.

And what was his legislative achievement, for all that mandate could have done? He passed the Affordable Healthcare Act. A bill modeled on proposals made by the Heritage Foundation. The very same Heritage Foundation that's giving us Project 2025. Imagine that.

AppleTea , (edited )

You seem to misunderstand the Dobbs decision. There was no law in the books, abortion was set by the decision of a previous supreme court ruling, Roe V Wade. Dobbs over-rulled that ruling -- if there had been an actual law, passed at any point in time the legislature, there would have been nothing the supreme court could do.

A month before the Dobbs ruling and until the following November, the Democrats had the house, senate, and presidency. If they had passed a law enshrining abortion as a right, then all court rulings would become moot.

And... the supreme court is already a captured body for the republicans. Too late. There is going to be a republican in office either next year or in another four. That's just how US presidencies go -- no party holds the wing for very long. Pearl clutching about the makeup of the court is a little late at this point.

AppleTea ,

i'm talking about the article, referencing things in it. Do you often classify conversation as 'deflection'?

AppleTea ,

for someone posting on a politics community, you seem to really dislike actually discussing politics

AppleTea ,

squatters rights take entirely too long to kick in these days

AppleTea ,

Neither candidate seems likely to do anything but perpetuate the genocide, that does appear to be the case.

AppleTea ,

Ok, I think Gaza will actually do better under a Trump administration because liberals actually scrutinize Trump and rally against what he does. Whereas, we get nothing but excesses for the failures (to say nothing of the humanitarian crimes) of Biden's administration.

AppleTea ,

"AI" will never shake the connotations science fiction has given it. The association is always going to skew towards positronic brains and Commander Data.

In the world of Actual Machines, "AI" is a term that should barely be tolerated in advertising departments, let alone anything remotely close to R&D

AppleTea ,

I'm not sure fascism is a useful word here. We're talking about a country with a global navel presence, military installations on every continent; a country that accounts for half of all incarcerated people in the world, that has for decades ignored unanimous motions in the UN, who's economy and politics revolve around the central productive pole of weapons manufacture. The tipping point between "stable US" and "fascist US" seems like an arbitrary distinction at this moment in history.

I'm not asking elections to do everything, I'm asking people to stop treating federal elections like some bulwark against evil. It's not a useful way to think about it. It's a hoop to jump through. The electorate decides, mostly by incident and the collective sum of vague gut feelings, where the hoop is and how high is required to jump. What power exists there is the ability to say, too bad, not you! Beyond that, it's a rubber stamp - about as significant to the running of things as the King of England is to Downing Street.

AppleTea ,

oh, uh, if i didn't make it clear, I'm just talking at the federal level here. Local elections are far and away more important for keeping regional laws and policies somewhat in check.

AppleTea ,

Let me put it this way: Biden is not going to win the electoral collage. That's forgone at this point. He did not win by a particularly large margin last election, and that was with the added pressures of both Covid and everyone being sick and tired of hearing about Trump on the news.

Now, people are either angry about the price of groceries, the genocide in Palestine, or both. The democrats do not have the will to flip enough swing states to secure the presidency. Unpopular candidate, unhappy electorate. 2016 all over again. They will loose.

...so, why not use that inevitable failure to make demands of the party? The DNC has done more to put vulnerable people in danger than anyone -- they've floundered the two years when they had both the legislature and the presidency. Are you going to let this party hide behind our vulnerable populations, like human shields? Or are you going to hold them accountable in the only way that they will listen?

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