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InMD's avatar

I've come to believe that in the post 2016 world we are watching less a contest of who is trying to win, but who is trying harder to lose. The funny thing is there probably is a pretty hard to displace Democratic majority out there. It's just that it's composed mostly of people who think everyone should have social security when they get old, healthcare should be affordable (however we get there), needy children should have free lunch at school, and that sort of boring stuff. They're live and let live and support the social changes of the 60s and 70s but are not animated at all by the identitarian and other more out there theories coming out of universities and grad schools, that are... well self evidently stupid.

These people are of course available to the GOP as well, which is doing its own disservice by putting itself in thrall to a megolomaniac who wherever possible gets crazy, clearly incompetent people nominated. However as long as the GOP's core commitment as a party is to gutting the welfare state I think it would be harder to sustain.

What's baffling to me is that no one seems ready to pivot despite how obvious this is.

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Binya's avatar

It baffles me that progressives aren’t being more cautious given the US’ status as a democracy is literally under threat (and in states like Wisconsin is already significantly eroded). There’s a massive risk impatience over social progress irrecoverably sets us back. By contrast a more incremental approach seems to have been working pretty well in recent decades.

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