Why Dems lost in 2024
A recent Bill Maher show interviewed physicist Neil Tyson and former DNC chair Donna Brazile. Maher mentioned to Tyson a Dem argument that men and women are treated differently because of social structures, not because of biology. Maher said "that's nuts." After multiple attempts by Maher to explain the problem, Tyson refused to agree the Dem dogma-reality disconnect is real. Maher ended that bit by saying "OK, I'll put you down as part of the problem." I agree with Maher on this point.
When asked why the Dems lost the 2024 elections, Brazile was far worse than Tyson. Her answer (paraphrasing), "inflation was a beast we could not slay", was right for the wrong reason and it ignored the rest of the answer. The data I've seen so far indicates that inflation, illegal immigration at the border and aggressive wokeness, including like what Tyson was trying to assert, were the top three reasons the Dems got blown out.
Regarding inflation, the GOP effectively put all blame for inflation on Biden and Harris. The beast the Dems could not slay was the false narrative that inflation was all Biden's and Harris' fault. The data I am aware of indicates that the top three causes of recent inflation were mostly (i) serious supply chain problems due to COVID (that is the reason I wound up with a Tesla instead of something else), (ii) Russia's war on Ukraine, and (iii) corporate greed. Biden's spending bills (mainly COVID relief and infrastructure bills) came in a distant 4th, not a close 4th. In other words, Brazile let the false MAGA narrative stand unchallenged. Worse yet, she did not even mention illegal immigration. Even worse than that, when the Republican in the interview mentioned aggressive wokeness was one of the causes, she simply denied it was a relevant factor.
In my opinion, as long as Dem and liberal elites stay so shockingly wrong, clueless and rhetorically ineffective, they will remain out of power. They are not woke about themselves or American society generally.
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Democracy vs authoritarianism wars
In my opinion, there is a massive, ongoing attitude shift from staunch support for democracy to support for both authoritarianism and corruption in government. From what I can tell, a significant amount of rank and file support, probably most, comes from ignorance about what is really going on. The rank and file vigorously say they are pro-democracy and anti-corruption, but in my opinion, their votes say the opposite with equal vigor, but a lot more political impact.
Authoritarianism or kleptocracy is not producing current excesses. Instead, the main culprits of widespread discontent and anger are a combination of American culture, skewed distribution of income and wealth, abuse of public and personal budgets (debt), and a poor alignment of education with available jobs. That situation in America produces a negative feedback loop leading us into deeper debt to keep people afloat while worsening the money gap (federal debt). That is an outcome of democracy, which isn't perfect, because people aren't.
How one can reconcile support for (or neutral acceptance of) authoritarianism and deep corruption (kleptocracy) with support for democracy and service to the public interest is beyond me. I do not know how to pound square pegs into smaller round holes. Is that the wrong way to see it?
Although people and democracy are not perfect, I also cannot understand why necessarily imperfect authoritarians and kleptocrats would not lead to worse income skewing and debt than our necessarily flawed democratic system. Again, I see square pegs and smaller round holes. Things can be a hell of a lot worse than they are now. In terms of fiscal policy, the Dems have been far less pro-debt than the Repubs at least since the 1990s. Compared to the Dems, the Repubs stand most solidly for federal and personal debt, authoritarianism and deep corruption.
What am I not understanding here, if anything? I really do believe there is a lot of ignorance and false beliefs going on here. I recently tried to make it clear that too many people do not know the difference between democracy and authoritarianism. I still stand by that belief and the facts and reasoning that support it.
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The effort to get official party status for the Common Sense Party of California has more or less ended in failure. The group could not get the ~75,000 signatured needed to qualify for official party status. I ended my affiliation with the group. Lots of people bitch and whine about how horrific the two parties are, but they are either ignorant about politics and opposition, or they won't or can't lift a finger to even try to put up a fight. So, the status quo remains in serenely place unchallenged, fat, lazy and happy.
Double nuts
Summing up the nut harvest: In California, the Green Party is socialist. That's nuts. The Dems are clueless woke. Nuts. The Libertarian Party is enslaved to its sacred property and personal rights crackpottery. The LPs are completely unaware that there even is such a thing as the public interest. Double nuts. The California GOP is just as double nuts as it is in other states. The Peace and Freedom Party ("California's Feminist Socialist Political Party") is more aggressively and cluelessly woke than the Dems. Double nuts. The American Independent Party is hard core Christian nationalist theocrat, and it tries to hide that fact from the public. Triple nuts.
My goodness gracious, there a lot of nuts in the harvest this year. And last year. And next year. . . . . . .
Double nuts
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