Even if there were a magic politician who did everything right…

And even an apologist for Adolf Hitler might fall back to this vibe based argument.

Things can decline and progress at the same time.

Which is explicitly in my comment that you replied to.

The average american has access to far more luxury than ever before.

TVs are thinner (and cheaper), computers are faster and fit in your pocket. Technology moved forward, and you could even try to wrangle that into an argument for capitalism. (Which I would reject, but the bones of the argument are at least there). How you tie that to anything Democrats have done, I have no idea.

but I think on average things have improved

And you are delusional. Many things have gone well for some people, and some things have even gone well for almost everyone. That doesn’t change the fact that the vast majority of working Americans are in way worse shape than they were 50 years ago.

You haven’t wrestled with any of the facts above, but here are some more. The average personal savings rate in 1975 was over 12% and today it’s below 6%. Nearly half of American households today have no retirement savings at all. Appliances now last less than half as long as they did in 1975. Jobs are far less secure than in 1975. Educational requirements are far higher than in 1975. College costs are way higher, as are medical costs - even for those with insurance. Even streaming media has been enshitified to where cable TV was cheaper and more convenient.

These are the kind of conditions that reliably turn neoliberalism into fascism.

Really? I think you might be the only one that doesn’t see the decline. I’ve been making these points for years, and I’ve never had to defend the notion that things have gotten worse for workers. Sure, there are specific things tht have improved, but not the whole. Even a lot of the big improvements like the ACA have made the economic picture worse overall.

Union membership in 1975 was around 25% compared to 10% today. Wealth inequality has absolutely exploded, as has the percentage of Americans living paycheck to paycheck. Personal debt has also exploded. People used to borrow to buy a house. Then they started borrowing to buy a car. Then they started paying for college with debt. Now people are financing their groceries.

By every relevant measure, economic outlooks for everyone but the wealthy have crashed in the past 50 years, and Democratic solutions have done dick to stop it. In many cases it was even Democrats making things worse.

You are right, but the problem is less about corruption in politics and more about the weakness of voters. As bad as shit is, it’s pretty much exactly what we voted for.

I used to want them to give some ground. Now I want us to take it. It’s become absolutely clear that they don’t just beat us down for advantage, they hate us and want us dead or suffering.

We have the power, but they have us using it to fight each-others. It’s time for the people to unify and use our power to tell the wealthy what the new rules are going to be.

Really nothing. It has to do with fascism. Neoliberalism is losing to it all around the globe. Only Brazil and Mexico are bucking the trend, and they elected leftists.

Let’s just put our heads in the sand and pretend that Democrats didn’t lose the entire fucking country. They did everything right, it’s just dumb luck.

It’s not even just the federal government. Not only did Obama lose the House and the Senate, he also lost the Democrats over a thousand statewide seats. At some point there has to be a come to Jesus moment. If things haven’t gotten bad enough now, what will it take?

Not just Obama, but he is a perfect example of the kinds of Democrats that made fascism inevitable.

I don’t give a shit about Obama being black. We elected a black president so apparently we were ready for it, and that’s great. I blame Obama for selling us out to Wall Street on multiple occasions. I blame him for perfecting Clinton’s triangulation politics that replaces substance with flowery rhetoric. I blame Obama for redirecting funds traditionally used for congressional races to his own campaign chests, then blaming the Republican Congress when he couldn’t get anything done. Should I go on?

Americans have had 50 years of “progress” where all the great things Democrats say they do don’t seem to help. Technocratic improvements and even material improvements don’t even register with people anymore. Voters (regardless of what they might say) want transformative change. Forgiving some student loans is good, but free college is transformative.

Republicans offer transformative change. In the absence of anything on offer from the Democrats, the culture moves right. 50 years later and here we are.

What does the left have to do with it?

So was Obama, who led us directly to Trump. At some point, Democrats have to actually stand for something more than mere competence and being the lesser evil.

Voters vote in primaries too you know. Biden beat Bernie almost entirely on a myth that he was the most electable. That shit has to go, and Rachel Maddow and Chris Cuomo aren’t going to do that for us.

Also, her interview answer about not doing anything different from the Biden administration was political malpractice of the first order.

If “best” means technically proficient, then sure. He does the politician thing better than any other establishment Democrats I can think of. If “best” means good for the country, then I have some notes. Obama was the same kind of character, and Trump was the result. I’m not sure I want to go down the highly charismatic Wall Street bitch route again.

Thus my note about “social media and AI mass surveillance”. What makes insurgency so effective is the enemy of the occupier could be anyone.

The US lost in both Vietnam and Afghanistan because occupation is hard. There isn’t an army on the planet that can even come close to taking on the US military in open combat, but insurgencies are a completely different animal.

Social media and AI mass surveillance might make a difference, but I kinda doubt it.

I don’t think this is where we are headed, but it wouldn’t be an automatic win for the military. Unfortunately, the people who end up in charge after an uprising usually end up being worse than the people they replace.

It wasn’t rigged. Even if it were rigged, it should never have been close enough to be rigged, but it wasn’t rigged. If the DNC waited to say it was rigged, they are still waiting because they haven’t said they think it’s rigged, but their not waiting, because it wasn’t rigged.

They really thought she’d be worse?

For the love of God, please stop spreading this mode of thinking. Elections are won by enthusiasm, not an intellectual weighing of the pros and cons of each. This is the model Democrats have used for decades that got us here. Being the lesser evil is not a solid campaign strategy. The greater evil will always get more attention, and therefore enthusiasm.

I don’t think this is an exclusively American thing. Did Brits really think brexit was a good idea?

This isn’t the first Trump administration. This administration doesn’t concern itself with civil service protections.

Probably a blessing in disguise. If they were funding climate research it would almost certainly be fraudulent science.