I totally agree, broken system and all. Still a free market. The free market is inherently a broken system.

So the fact that “more stats abt people living paycheck to paycheck” would convince you strongly, strongly indicates that I’m not explaining myself well enough. I’m not under the impression that if I did communicate effectively you would magically be convinced. And that’s not necessarily my goal, but I would like to be able to have a productive convo with you, so I’m gonna give it another shot.

Here’s two facts that I’m convinced of:

• if a consistent set of policies/campaign promises enjoy massive popular support across the aisle, then making such positions a core part of your campaign and your efforts when elected will give you a much higher chance of getting elected
• progressive policies (i.e., paid sick leave, parental leave, union-strengthening laws, universal health care, antitrust legislation, increasing solvency of social security, and so on (note that I do not mention culture war stuff)) enjoy broad popular support, across the aisle, in all states

If you believe these facts (and you don’t need to), then an unavoidable conclusion is that if Harris would’ve run a progressive campaign, she would’ve had a much higher chance of winning.

The weakness in my argument is the two facts I mentioned. They require evidence. I’ve given a smidge of evidence for the second fact (the smoking gun of the ballot measures in Missouri). A better way to go about it is to find some policy oriented polls targeting a good cross section of the electorate which show that people (R, D, and I) generally support progressive policies (think paid sick leave, think universal health care).

The first fact is much harder to prove, but I would argue that common sense gets you a long way here. But for a more empirical approach, look at the Sanders and Obamna campaigns and the fairly broad and enthusiastic support they enjoyed.

The reason I think I wasn’t explaining myself well enough is because the stats you’re asking for do almost nothing to support my argument. At best, they’re indirect, weak, evidence of the second fact. It shouldn’t convince you if I find you some stats about the working homeless and paycheck-to-paycheck livers.

EDIT: I feel like I understand a bit better where your response is coming from. You think that I’m arguing in favor of the effectivity of progressive policies, rather than the popularity. I happen to believe both, but we’re talking about why the dems lost, and in a democracy, the popularity of policies is what matters un such discussions, not their effectivity. Again, it’s a bit off topic, but for the effectivity you could look at the rate of homelessness and paycheck-to-paycheck situations in more progressively legislated and often poorer countries in western Europe. You’ll find that aside from popular (which is what matters here), these policies are also crazy effective.

The point that I’m making is that across the board, progressive policies are popular. And that does win elections, just look at Obamna’s and Sanders’ campaigns. That one state was just one extreme example of this fact.

If only someone had warned us in 1867, 1885, and 1894!

I completely agree with you that the results (monopolies and oligopolies) are undesirable, and you’re doing a great job of explaining why the results are undesirable. But you’re not explaining why you think monopolies and oligopolies are not the natural outcome of a free market. The free market is not a good thing.

💩

What are you talking about, this is the natural conclusion of a free market.

Parent comment: this is culture war libertarian agitative propaganda

You: yeah but don’t you feel agitated? Please debate me on culture war shit

I think the only response you deserve is a poop emoji.

as far as economic measures go, it is. Inflation is still fucking people over, but the popular sentiment sort of lags the economy. But just because inflation is brutal on goods, doesn’t mean that inflation is high, or that the economy is “struggling” it’s just that people don’t feel good about rising tides.

80% of people live paycheck to paycheck. Don’t bullshit me.

This is reason.com, famously a libertarian propaganda mill. Safe to completely ignore.

I really fear for the family lives of folks living in liberal strongholds like Georgia.

You understand we’re talking about messaging here, and that most of the electorate does not read the policy pages. I guess you don’t actually otherwise I wouldn’t have to write this. The electorate sees the ads, the debates, and if they’re really engaged, maybe the interview. Compare those with Obamna’s interviews and so on. His were inundated with references to health care and the like. Hers with quaint stories about how she was a small business when she was growing up or some shit, and maybe uncritical support for apartheid.

Two things:

• that’s literally what you did, assert some claim about her campaign without providing any evidence
• you’re asking me to prove a negative

If you have any leg to stand on, it shouldn’t be hard to come up with a concrete example of what you mean.

No she hasn’t.

Name them.

It’s incredibly infuriating. And the worst part is you already see democrat mainstream media types setting their crosshairs on trans people. In 2028, the democratic party will run on the 2024 republican platform, just like they ran on the 2020 republican platform today, and there’s nothing we can do to stop it, because of these idiotic shitlibs.

There’s nothing to abandon the alt right for. If the democrats decided to run on a platform that was even remotely progressive, do literally anything for worker’s rights, they’d win a lot of disenfranchised voters. Obama won, and that’s not because all of a sudden, just for a moment, America wasn’t racist. No, it was because he promised to solve one of the problems that’s killing Americans in every stratum: healthcare. Instead, we get fracker and border wall builder Harris.

They did vote in a way that makes sense. The Harris campaign offered nothing in the way of economic relief, while committing genocide. That’s an insanely bad proposition. Stop blaming voters and look at your dogshit candidates.

This is maddening. It will never stop. The democrats refuse to campaign on progressive policies, which are incredibly popular among the entire electorate (yes, also among republicans, see the recent ballot measures in Missouri on paid sick leave and higher minimum wage, for example), instead opting to position themselves as “republican light”. They completely capitulate to republican messaging on pretty much every issue (border wall, fracking, pro war, etc), and predictably lose to the people who invented this messaging. And then comes the worst part: angry libs start blaming the electorate instead of the people who lost. It’s not the lack of the dems even mentioning universal health care, no it’s the trans people. It’s not the genocide that the current democratic regime is committing, no it’s probably actually latino voters. It’s not the fact that the Harris campaign asks us to pretend everything is hunky spunky with the economy, offering nothing to relieve the 80% of the population who live paycheck to paycheck. Noooo you know what it’s actually white women and muslims faults. You fucking morons.

Can’t wait for the 2026 anti-transgender dem ticket, and the anti gay marriage ticket in 2028. It’s gonna be great.

If candidate 1 is garbage, and candidate 2 loses to candidate 1, what does that say about candidate 2?