Nah, there’s no mention of 7 silver coins and the death of the business entity created by the government in their name.

The alternative is do nothing and then act surprised when the GOP do whatever the fuck they want anyway, regardless of Democrat high-road stances.

I wouldn’t go that far…

I thought it was “nip it in the butt” as well. Listening to Les Mis 10th Anniversary Edition, the way the gentleman who plays Javert always sounded like “butt” to me as well.

To answer the other commenters question of what would that mean: for years, I thought it meant “nip” like a dog will nip your finger, and “in the butt” was like, “you’d pinch em in the butt” to get them to stop whatever they were doing.

Also thought the line “Burnin’ up his fuel, out there, alone” in Rocket Man was “Burnin’ up the atmos-PHERE, he’s gone” for years before a friend corrected me.

American’s inability to responsibly inform and engage themselves in our political affairs.

I don’t agree, I still put the majority of the blame at the feet of the DNC. They wouldn’t run on progressive policies, but also refused to compromise with the electorate on anything.

Almost 66 million people voted for Hillary in 2016. Over 81 million voted for Biden in 2020, the campaign where Biden’s team worked with Bernie’s team to bring some progressive-policy to his platform. Yes, four years of Trump and the pandemic helped that voter turnout, but I’d argue it was more the progressive platform.

And in 2024, just under 75 million voted for Harris, who ran a centrist, status quo campaign, and thought “We’re not Trump” was enough to engage voters. Bernie was right, Americans want change, and being promised nothing more than a continuation of the status quo, people stayed home.

And before anyone says “The voters knew the price and their hubris cost all of us, I hope they’re happy!” Why couldn’t the DNC compromise? Harris lost Michigan by less numbers than protest voted in the primaries, so why couldn’t the DNC change course on Gaza? They were the ones telling us the threat that Trump is, they were the ones urging us to give them money to fight (and as soon as they lost, stopped fighting), they were the ones telling us they know best and that they’re going to shift right when we were asking them to move left.

I get it, 77 million people voted for Trump, and that is a problem. But, roughly 90 million Americans didn’t vote, so instead of pushing the party right and parading around with Cheney in an attempt to win over Republicans, then demanding our vote anyway (I voted Harris, fyi) because “Trump fascist, Harris not fascist”, maybe they could try… Popular, progressive policies that will resonate with all Americans? Policies that may actually make those in the “both sides are the same” camp to say, “Y’know what, they’re actually not the same!”

It’s a crazy thought, but it could work.

To win an election, you have to convince the conservatives that it is in their best interest to vote for the progressive candidate.

I disagree with you, to win an election, you need to convince voters to vote for you. That’s it. Democrats have tried to win over conservatives in at least 2024 and the start of the 2020 campaign (before Biden worked with Bernie’s campaign to run on more progressive stuff).

And they keep losing. If what everyone on Lemmy keeps saying is true, roughly 1/3rd of the country voted Dem, 1/3rd voted Rep, and 1/3rd didn’t vote. And if we’re to believe people who say “both parties” genuinely feel that way, and those people are likely to belong to the 1/3rd who don’t vote…

Why are Dems trying to win over the conservatives at all? Show the 1/3rd of the populace who doesn’t vote that you’re not both the same. No, you’re never going to get 100% voter turnout, but if 77 million (Trump’s popular vote count) is 1/3rd, that means there’s roughly 77 million people that can be won over to vote.

So the Dems need to go after them, and they need to start running on actual progressive policy and positive change for the average American. They need to stop letting Republicans control the narrative for them on their ideas and policies. Obama won on the message of Hope, Biden won on the back of Bernie’s progressive policies, and Trump has won twice now on change.

The common denominator is change, the current system isn’t working for the average American, and people aren’t going to support the status quo. We can sit here and insult Magas and conservatives and comment on how empty their brains are or how selfish they may be or ignorant or incestual or whatever. I get it, I’ve done it, but I bet you at their core, they want something in this country to change for the better.

So they gambled on Trump in 2016, and regardless of your opinion on it, Trump spent four years showing people that you can change things, you can get things done, you just have to break all the rules and norms to do it. Biden gave people hope in 2020 (plus the COVID handling by Trump) so they rebuked Trump.

After four years of the average American seeing no material improvement to their lives (that’s all I’m arguing here, not whether or not Biden actually got anything done), and the Dem candidate running on “I’m going to maintain the course,” people stayed home. They showed the Dems in 2020 that progressive policies win, and yet the Dems still tried to win over voters from the other side as opposed to winning over the roughly 77 million who stay home.

It almost feels like willful ignorance on the behalf of these so-called liberal elite. The simpler explanation, though, is probably money, and that’s why people say “both sides are the same.” It’s because money: both sides of the aisle still insider trade despite it’s unpopularity with Americans, both sides of the aisle still hold expensive campaign dinners with the wealthy elite, and both sides still accept billions of dollars in campaign funds from the oligarchs. My cousin supports Bernie with his heart of hearts, but will not vote because “both sides are the same, I want actual change.”

Progressives need to take the helm from the liberals of the DNC and get PAC and oligarch money out of their organization (which will never happen). They need to show the American people that they not only believe in change, they will get it done, and it will benefit the people. They need to ditch this air of superiority and moral enlightenment and just get things done, stop condescending to your voting base, and make your constituency feel like you hear them.

Anecdotally, my dad and I were talking the other day about the election. He supported Trump in 2016 with some enthusiasm (just because Trump wasn’t a politician and “I make more when Repubs are in office”). Him and I stopped talking for almost 2 years after the election. But the other day, he kinda surprised me by saying, “Y’know, I don’t like Trump, I think he’s an asshole, I didn’t want to vote for him… But I just can’t vote for those pompous Democrats.”

I told him how disappointed I was in the DNC, and he said he liked Kamala, but didn’t trust the Dems (I know, the irony is not lost on me). I asked him how he felt about Bernie, and surprisingly, he made a joke about how we’d all have to learn to talk with our hands if he won. But talking policy ideas, my dad supports all of Bernie’s stuff, he just thinks the Dems are out of touch with blue collar folks like himself.

He doesn’t care that you’ve written a letter condoning the breaking of precedent to the Parliamentarian, and through the process of Habeas Corpus and Secretariat, after 12 years maybe they’ll acknowledge they did wrong. Doesn’t make sense to you, right?

Well, that’s because it’s nonsense, which is basically what the average American hears whenever the Dems get on their pulpit and start finger pointing and blaming everyone but themselves about why they couldn’t get things done. The average American living paycheck to paycheck, who doesn’t have a college degree, and likely hasn’t taken a civics class since high school, doesn’t care about all of these little caveats and the intricacies of an arbitrary system of rules and norms that they created. They aren’t going to sit down and research various political theories and then do a deep dive on the various roles and powers each different tiny figurehead amongst the federal government has and does not have, rounding out the night with a hefty portion of the history and precedent surrounding constitutional law.

They’re just not, and we need to stop pretending they will, or that people will even do the bare minimum of understanding how a bill becomes a law. So run on things they understand, and then actually get them done.

But lying? Nah, look at the division Biden pardoning his son has caused on Lemmy, lying isn’t the answer. They need to run on actual, positive change, and then work to actually make it happen, not these half-assed attempts we keep getting like the ACA.

This turned into a book, but I liked your write up.

it should be “Trump returns to White House despite the 14th Amendment saying he can’t.”

I agree, if only there had been someone in charge of a government agency with the mandate to go after people like that, using a system of laws and justice, administered in some kind of court… Ideally someone the offender didn’t appoint themselves, with a time period of roughly, idk, 4 years to get it done?

Minus the 2+ weeks they take for the holidays.

Correct: I have had two jobs where I only worked 32 hours/week, but was considered a full time employee with benefits and all that.

However, just because your employer considers you full-time doesn’t mean other organizations will. When I was getting my mortgage, it was with one of those 32 hr/week jobs, and my loan company would not sign off on an approval until I could show a paystub with 40 hours/week.

I told them I’m considered full time at my company at 32 hours, and they basically said that’s great, but their policy is 40.

I agree, but it’s up to those in charge to deem who are the conspiracy nuts and neonazis, right? And that quickly becomes a slippery slope.

The solution isn’t taking votes away, it’s getting more people to vote.

America has a long history of trying to figure out how to make the votes of certain groups fractional of “true” Americans, the whole 3/5ths compromise and all that.

I don’t think we should be trying to introduce modern day versions of that. I’d much rather see voting day be made a federal holiday, and voting become mandatory.

As Jon Stewart put it: Republicans rely on loopholes, Democrats rely on norms.

Cox did this with my dad, fucked around and found out. To this day, if you bring up Cox Cable, my dad goes, “OH, you mean the company I was a loyal customer to for 32 years, 10 months, and 17 days?!”

He had one of those cable-internet-landline bundles and was paying something like $150/month for it, something about he just had to call every renewal or something like that. Well, him and my mom fell on some hard times and forgot/missed a payment/something happened with Cox.

My dad gets the bill the next month, and it says his package is now $300/month (or something ridiculous like that). He calls Cox and wants to know what’s up, why his bill doubled in a month, etc They told him he missed his renewal and thus his promotional price was lost, and now he’s got to do the regular price. He explains what’s been going on and how they’re doing their best, they want to remain a customer, but they’re not paying $300/month for something they were paying $150/month for.

Cox refused to budge, offering a like $25/month discount at best. So my dad goes, “So, I just want to understand… If I was a new customer creating a new account, you’d give me my old rate? And if I hadn’t missed the thing last month, you’d give me my old rate?” Correct. “So my being a customer of yours for over 32 years… That gets me nothing?!” That’s correct, Sir, so would you like to renew, make any changes, or make a payment?

“Oh, you can close the account, I’ll be dropping off your equipment in about 3 hours, thank you.” And they still argued with my dad, I think they moved up to $50/month discount, and he just told them to kick rocks, he would rather have no internet, cable, or telephone, than give Cox his money ever again. And to this day, he refuses to recommend Cox to anyone, and tells them to check his file whenever they call or come to the door trying to get him to come back.

I personally believe we should have the right to die, moreso as an individual choice than one a relative should make. We as individuals, who did not consent to living in this absolutely broken society, should have every right to just say one day, “Y’know what, I’ve had enough, I’m done.” This comment will likely be controversial, and I am not encouraging anyone to commit suicide, seek help where and how you can, suicide can be a permanent solution to a temporary problem.

A friend of mine told me once she considered those who commit suicide (outside of terminal illness) to be cowards, taking the “easy” way out and leaving their loved ones to suffer. I argued back that how is it unacceptable for loved ones to suffer, but it’s perfectly acceptable for the individual to suffer to keep the loved ones comfortable? And that’s what mental health (tin foil hat time) is entirely about: not comfort for the individual, but comfort for the society.

It doesn’t matter if you are completely disenfranchised with society, struggling to make ends meet, working multiple jobs with no benefits, eating the same meal 2-3 times a day every day to save money, none of that matters because you’re not contributing to society/capitalism they way you’re supposed to. When the VA was trying to force me onto SSRIs despite my objections due to the side effects they can have, I told them flat out I wasn’t taking a pill just so I could be “productive” for a society that will let me die in the streets at the earliest and cheapest convenience. And no “pill” is going to fix how sick and broken we are as a society.

We as a species weren’t designed for this kind of society, we’re an analog species trying to adapt to a digital world we haven’t had time to properly adjust to. We aren’t designed to work 40 hours/week, 8 hours/day, 50+ weeks per year. We aren’t designed to work ourselves to exhaustion and forego social interactions in the pursuit of more money to try and keep the lights on. And we are watching the largest transfer of wealth to the ultra-wealthy, making the Gilded Age look like child’s play.

So I guess, to sum it up: I think everyone should have the right to end their own life, regardless of the reason, but I don’t believe anyone should have the right to end someone else’s life outside of already-established practices (DNR orders, “pulling the plug” as PoA, etc). We are too broken as a society to trust ourselves to choose when others should die, but we should absolutely be allowing individual’s to end their own lives.

I would say rightfully, yes.

Ringo Starr: “And Henry would stay there, forever and for always. I think Henry got the punishment he deserved… Don’t you?”

Thomas the Tank Engine music plays as credits roll

Hell, they’ll probably make us pay back the economic impact payments we got during the last pandemic.

Did the Confederacy actually lose, though? Or did the Union just suffer a pyrrhic victory?

Edit: Just saying, the Confederacy lost but their flag is still flown on the state flag of Mississippi, Reconstruction didn’t go far enough and failed, sharecropping, Jim Crow laws, segregation, civil rights movement opposition, systemic and societal racism is still rampant and accepted (Trump), hell, the “state’s rights” arguments is still one of the first reasons people give for the cause of the Civil War. Fuck, we still have legal slavery via our prison system.

So… Did the Confederacy actually lose? Cause they’re ideology, beliefs, and the consequences of their hate is still rampant, and we’re still dealing with their bullshit.

But Hamas settled in Israeli land, robbing it from Israeli families who held it for generations!

Wait, that was Israel settling Palestinian land…

But Hamas has spent decades walling off Israeli neighborhoods, essentially creating ghettos where residents may be restricted from leaving their own homes and are essentially isolated from the world and their communities!

Wait, that was Israel again…

But Hamas has been treating Israeli’s as second class citizens, throwing their garbage onto their heads from the streets above, and forcing them to live under military-law with no protections since Israelis aren’t citizens of Hamas!

Wait… That was Israel, again…

But Hamas killed over 43,000 Israelis over the course of the last year in response to Israel killing 1200 of their citizens and taking several hundred more hostage!

Fuck, that was Israel too… Shit.

From the party that just rubbed elbows with every Cheney to try and shore up moderate-Republican votes for “I have a Glock” Harris?