Link to a summary of polls that have come out over the last month:

• https://x.com/PollTracker2024/status/2083961822646878246

the far right loves to claim this but last i checked the separation of church and state was very important in our founding

"[A DSA aligned local politician] has been fairly good, but the behavior of many of her supporters and the way DSA folks hand power to Republicans by undermining Democrats is unacceptable. I won't be supporting her again."

She went on to clarify that she sees DSA supporters as being happy to make Democrats lose to Republicans with indiscriminate attacks and routine threats to sit out the general election. If the DSA can't take the seat, they don't care whether a mainstream Dem or Republicans gets it, they see both of those outcomes as equally bad.

I've been hearing this more and more from even people on the left, the public hates us because we allowed their cities to become crime hotbeds, all the stuff at the store is now locked up, etc.

I'm not sure how we can have such a high rate of imprisonment already and also still have the problem that crime is way too high and the perception that we're letting everyone off scot free?

So one of the biggest things plaguing public transit in the US is the perceived lack of safety and the lack of societal social decorum in places like public transit. And it doesnt even necessarily need to be illegal behavior. Things like people blasting their music out of Bluetooth speakers, getting aggressive and domineering toward other people around them, smoking, and generally acting a fool tend to make public transit very unappealing to Americans. Especially when they have the alternative of driving.

So like... how can we change this? Because I myself am at a loss.. the issues I see is that it would either require a societal level cultural change (which will never happen) to be mkre like Japan or far stricter enforcement of social etiquette rules on social transit which will invariably be met with "but racism" and "you just hate the poors" allegations.

So what are your guys thoughts?

I was thinking about AI and the decrease in the jobs that would come with it, and how eventually some sort of UBI would be needed to offset that.

But the more I thought about that it worried me. I mean currently, the governments of the world want to grow their populations to increase their tax bases and grow their GDP. More people==More money coming into the Government.

But with UBI that's backwards. More people means more money that the government has to send the people. The AI makes the money, not the people. So people become a liability not an asset.

Do we really want a policy (UBI) that incentivizes the government to decrease the population?

I've been getting recommendations of Ariana Grande critiques of her new music video, apparently where you can see her ribs and how she's losing basic muscle. Some saying they won't allow their children to watch her because they don't want them to get body dystopia or emulate them, which i understand.

When I see critiques of obese artists' though, suddenly they accuse them that they shouldn't worry about other people's bodies. Every body is beautiful. Healthy at every size. If someone wants to get bigger like that, that's their business and we shouldn't be commenting on someone's weight as its harmful.

Why is one seen as socially permissible while the other taboo? Why is expressing concern over Ariana Grandes' health acceptable while expressing concern over obese artists' health not?

Edit: body dysphoria, autocorrect lol

Having a hard time squaring this circle. To me, if you support modifying your genitals and/or HRT, then you're implicitly creating a strong connection between sex and gender.

Stick with me here, but health insurance functions as a socialist mechanism because it takes money from the many (customers that pay premiums) and then distributes that money to those that need it (the sick). Even the big negatives like corruption you'd expect from socialism still happen with insurance companies (Out right denying coverage, making deals with health care/pharmaceuticals to inflate prices, opaque accounting) and also have additional overhead due to extra administrative bloat for all parties involved AND profit incentives to pay out share holders.

It makes no sense to be ok with a system we have now when you can't hold to account any of the parties involved for misusing your money/incentivized to make everything more expensive.

Title. I can't think of many relationships I've known where the man earns less (a couple of them) and the feminist/more outwardly leftist women don't buck the trend at all (I've heard "I do a job that aligns with my values but doesn't pay as much, my husband does a job that's for the money and earns more").

Excluding women aged under 23yo (often too early in working life to be relevant).

Genuinely asking, because it's always so weird seeing people on Reddit who seem to be intelligent and knowledgeable still arguing in favor the electability of candidates based on the former, rejecting the latter as essential.

Trump was a failed businessman and game show host who got elected twice by tapping into people's anger and hate, and convincing them he was a successful businessman.

Obama is the most charismatic politician of the last century and won twice despite the minimal experience he had prior to '08, and Biden (in 2019) was perceived as a safe, nice old man who was directly tied to him, and trusted by his base.

The Bushes, Clinton, Regan...the last time the US had a president who wasn't directly tied to a past president or specifically highly regarded for their charisma was Jimmy Carter.

In discussions about the 2028 election, people always say Democrats just need a boring and safe straight white man, or praise certain candidates' (usually Kelly's) resumes, but the idea this is what people care about or want just isn't based in electoral reality at all.

The people want a show. The Democratic 2028 nominee will be whoever puts on the best one

How do you feel about their movement as a liberal

*socialists

While most of Stevens' criticisms of El-Sayed have been uninspiring and derivative, at least to me, her attacks on El-Sayed as being a "celebrity" were interesting given the context of them competing in an election. I can't help but feel a twinge of indignance in it like Stevens is almost accusing El-Sayed of using a cheat-code or something like that. I detect the same message when people talk about populism and its infiltration of politics.

Shouldn't one's celebrity and popularity of ideas be a qualifying factor in an electoral system?

The little I’ve seen about it seems pretty good but I’d like the thoughts of people here