It’s the structure of our “first past the post” system. Basically, each party gets one representative on the presidential ticket. The two major parties have primaries where the top candidates compete in a vote within themselves, and the winner gets put on the presidential ticket for that party.

The obvious problem with that is that the party convention picks the candidate, not the voters. So it’s possible to buy a party’s candidate or for the conventions to snub popular choice in favor of not shaking things up too much in the status quo.

The latter point, the democratic party picking lukewarm candidates that are moderate at best because the establishment doesn’t want to disturb the status quo, has been a problem for a long time and is a major reason democrat voters don’t go to the polls.

Not for the corporations that make money off of extorting a basic necessity from poor people! Won’t someone think of the corporations?

Or Woefully ignorant. I know some of those

There is a voice I consciously control, and there is one that I don’t. They kind of intermingle into a single monologue, but I can still hear the one I don’t control when I consciously turn off my monologue. It’s still a quiet presence almost in the back of my mind.

One way I’ve rationalized it, it’s like when you meditate and your thoughts still flow over you. You don’t actively control those thoughts, that’s kind of the point. I’m finding that those thoughts have a coherent voice for me. They speak through my monologue, but they are still there when I shut my monologue off. Under the surface, quieter, with the rest of the thoughts I don’t control.

One of the “constantly” group here. It’s a bit more like having someone to talk to all the time who is also me. I can turn it off, but it has to be a concentrated effort and as soon as I’m not concentrated on keeping it silent it comes back.

I’ve spent many years wondering at the nature of the little voice, especially after I learned that not everyone has it. It’s not controlling or contradictory, it’s a bit more like a narrator for my feelings and a driving point for logic.

I’ve come to the conclusion that what it actually is is my subconscious manifesting as a conversational partner. Kind of like an avatar that represents the part of me that isn’t the literal point of consciousness inside my head. Make of that what you will.

Don’t get me wrong, I still think in pictures and non-verbal inclinations. That doesn’t really go away either. But it’s like having a narrator alongside it that also speaks in the first person.

As a fellow Louisianian, I’m here for it too. But I have strong doubts about it going anywhere.

Infrastructure expansion like trains

We’ll see. Congress doesn’t like the president spending money without their explicit approval. At this stage of planning, it’s little more than grandstanding by the president.

investing in education

See above. Congress undid Biden’s first attempt at debt relief. It’s still unclear if the second attempt will pan out. Cool if it does though. Still an if.

healthcare plans

The ACA really only pays out for people far enough below the poverty line that they basically don’t have income. My wife and I make $50k/year. Not even enough to own a house here. I still shell out $600/month for basic healthcare for two, with a $1000 deductible we each have to pay before the insurance even starts covering costs. And that’s considered a good plan. Deductibles can legally be as high as $10,000 per person before insurance starts paying anything.

The ACA isn’t exactly a shining achievement for democrats.

environmental programs

I’ll give you that one. My state is building and opening the largest carbon capture facility in the world so far, because of democratic policy.

etc

Etcetera is what people say when they run out of examples. By my count you’ve got 1 (one) example of good that democrats have done that has actually materialized and isn’t in jeopardy of failing as soon as someone actually has to approve the funding. Most democratic policies die in congress.

But of course you already know of all these so why do you need to ask the question?

No need to be an asshole, I’m just here demonstrating for you that the broad strokes you’re painting are not even close to the actual situation.

(I’m not even from USA myself, but your Republicans have such deranged policies that it spills over to us in impacts on trade, etc)

I’m with you on this one. Republicans are deranged in general. But it’s abundantly clear that you do not live here. Democrats had 3 years to do something constructive, and they mostly haven’t even managed to undo the damage Trump has done, let alone enact policies that benefit the majority of Americans.

In fact, democrats lost a major civil rights battle during their tenure (Roe v Wade) without even putting up a fight. I absolutely cannot blame democrat voters for being disappointed.

Bro, you dodged his question. He answered yours.

So how about instead of brushing him off with an insult, you actually pony up some good things you think democrats are doing that doesn’t just boil down to “well republicans would have done it worse”

Frankly, I’m on the side of voting democrats with the exact reasoning that Republicans will steer us into fascism. But I wouldn’t go so far as to say that they’re doing good, they just aren’t doing as much bad.

I can’t blame people who are disappointed with democrats as a whole, and I think it’s a reach to unironically take your position of voting for them because you think they have good policies.

My argument was that you can’t claim the moral high ground based on legality alone. I understand that nuance exists in the context, but moral high ground does not come from whether or not it’s legal.

I see what you’re getting at, but I think ‘moral high ground’ might not be the phrase you’re looking for.

Laws and morals are explicitly different. That’s why juries exist, so that a law may be put against the morals of a situation and the morals may prevail if need be.

Breaking the law isn’t necessarily immoral. It’s just illegal. So it isn’t like someone breaking the law is seeking to take the moral high ground in the first place, nor does that mean that someone who only ever follows the law always has the moral high ground. Lawful-evil does exist.

Precedent is nothing more to them than a tool to keep democrats down. Show me the last time a republican respected precedent when there was nothing in it for them.

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Maybe that’s the point. Unity caves immediately to the big lawyers and says “Sorry guys, we tried. Looks like all you little studios will have to pay up after all. Blame Sony/Nintendo/Microsoft”

Let’s go a step further and analyze exactly what this graph is saying:

There’s only about a 20% distribution difference in the “never” sections between Christians and atheists. So on average, 4/5 atheists would answer the exact same as Christians. All this graph says is that Christians are barely more tolerant than people who identify as atheist. Barely is the key word. If anything, this graph proves that tolerance levels don’t fluctuate that much for the individual between differing religions.

But Bible thumpers need any win they can get, so they don’t read the data for what it is, they just see one bar longer than the other and declare victory.

Greed comes for all companies eventually. That doesn’t mean they always fail, it just means they aren’t going to act ethically over potential profit. That can cause companies that are held afloat by a community to fail (like reddit). It has already happened to Nestlé. They crossed that line a long time ago, they just have better PR.

I bought my oneplus 10 pro for sub $500 during a sale, and it has usb3.1. It’s last year’s model. You can get a pixel 6 with usb3.1 for less than $400. A Galaxy S21 has usb3.2, less than $500.

That’s almost every major android brand for $500 or less with 3.1 or better. The cheapest you can buy an iPhone 15, the one with usb2.0, is $800. What are you on about?

Greed comes for every company eventually.

And soon, the carrier pigeon breeders will start tagging them with tracking chips…

Maybe I framed that statement wrong. Of course they are the ones that say it the loudest. But it’s not them who introduced that mindset into conservative crowds. Just like the recent flare up of transphobia. They hear it from the top that trans folk are molesting children, or that immigrants are taking jobs, or whatever the thing is that keeps their ire off of the rich, and they spread it around their own circles because they need an out group to villify.

You haven’t noticed that hatred for these groups tend to be a conveniently-timed deflection from actual problems?

You’re describing the average conservative. The people who push the view that immigration is ruining the US aren’t average conservatives. They’re the ones who lie to conservatives to spin them into a rage in order to manipulate their vote. Those people are not themselves conservatives, but figureheads that collect a nice pretty penny from the rich folk to make sure the anger of their base never turns against the class whose fault everything actually is.

In short, as long as conservatives keep letting their talking heads tell them who to be mad at, they never will be furious at the ultra wealthy. And that’s by design.