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Political Memes @lemmy.world Lauchs @lemmy.world

I'd like to think they're all just Russian trolls but increasingly, I think some people are just selfish or dumb.

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  • The only way you can look at the world right now and say "we're doing the same thing over and over" is if you choose to ignore unfathomable swaths of nuance in some reductionist attempt to protect your own sense of self-righteousness.

    • Electorally, I disagree. The Democrats have been triangulating towards the "center" since before I was born while the Republicans keep tacking right. When Trump loses and the post-election, post-failed-coup-part-deux infighting tears the Republican party apart, the Democrats will be the new right-wing.

      • I don't really disagree with this, and in fact it sounds optimistic to me, provided you're asserting that a new party will be born from the broken duopoly that your prediction will cause. Which you may not be. I'm not trying to put words in your mouth.

        Edit: On second thought, I do somewhat disagree, as watching the democratic party flirt with and ultimately push back against a Candidate Sanders in 2016 definitely seems like a deviation from the plot-line you've presented. I can envision a future in which the Dem party is captured by further left factions as young people grow up and become more and more engaged with electoralism.

        • provided you're asserting that a new party will be born from the broken duopoly that your prediction will cause.

          That is indeed the case. The new left will come out of the growing union movement, the existing third-parties aren't capable of filling that niche.

          I do somewhat disagree, as watching the democratic party flirt with and ultimately push back against a Candidate Sanders in 2016 definitely seems like a deviation from the plot-line you've presented.

          Nah, Bernie Sanders was the last off-ramp away from this future. There was a chance the DNC could have embraced a left turn, but when instead they started openly conspiring against Bernie in 2015, they locked us into the path they put us on now. They'd ratfuck him in the primary, Trump was going to win 2016, that was going to suck badly enough that any Democrat could win 2020, and the "moderate" they'd pick for the job would be so milquetoast that the party would have to drop them from the ticket to keep Trump from winning 2024.

          Now all that has come to pass, and the Democrats are positioning themselves to be the new business-friendly, pro-genocide bad guys for the unions to organize a party against. We might be getting the "good" future after all.

          • Sounds like you've got it all figured out.

            Good luck out there, and keep an eye out for that hindsight bias, it'll creep up on ya'.

            • This isn't hindsight, it was foresight. I posted these specific predictions on Twitter in 2015.

              I figured the Democrats would be unlikely to convince the incumbent to drop out of this election, but if they did it'd swing the entire race. Literally nothing that has happened in the last 9.5 years surprised me more than Nancy Pelosi successfully talking Biden down from the campaign.

              • Alright. Given that you've said when Trump loses, rather than if, I'd love to get some insight into why it is you predict that he's going to lose.

                • I have a hard time explaining this succinctly because a full understanding requires a deep knowledge of history, political theory, economic theory, the character of the DNC and RNC, the newsmedia ecosystem, and literal years spent obsessing over the weediest of discourse to parse out all the relevant bits and vibes.

                  The single biggest factor here is the "Business community", the C-suite class that controls the lion's share of political power in America. Very few of them saw much benefit from the Trump administration beyond the tax breaks, and the chaos of those years was generally bad for business. Harris promises to be a stabilizing influence for them, to the point that even some "moderate" Republicans have switched sides and openly endorsed her.

                  Next up is the demographic factor. Republican attrition due to their higher rates of Covid casualties, an older electorate, and lack of youth appeal means they are starting from an even weaker position than when they lost in 2020. So much so that even their lead in Texas has fallen below the margin of error. I couldn't have predicted Covid back in 2015, but it has only accelerated the rate of decline.

                  Lastly, I'll detail the "break from the past". Obama cruised into office with record turnout for a campaign of hope and change that still resonates deeply with voters of both parties. Ditching the incumbent and running a first-term VP instead is seen as a signal of generational turnover, one that the GOP can't claim while re-running a septuagenerian. Even without explicit promises of hope and change, a young new candidate still represents that desire.

                  There are obviously dozens more factors that go into this calculus, but this should suffice as a starting point.

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