I mean the country just hasn’t been that progressive until a little over a decade ago and a half ago tbh. Most of the other generations were not progressive, they were pro-business at most and fine with whatever the status quo was because they were profiting.

The Hippies for instance were a vocal minority of their time. Bernie was a huge inspiration for many and helped to energize the youth. Bernie helped to teach a lot of us what progressive politics was about and about what our country could be. Unfortunately, the majority of Boomers and Gen X are too conservative and voted at a much larger scale than the younger generations. I believe as new voters continue to enter the voting pool that we can educate them about progressive politics, but it’s not as possible to convince the older generations to change course.

Personally I’m trying to bring the country more left with everything I have. Even if I die and it is a fruitless endeavor to show people why it matters, I’m okay with that since I think the cause is just. I do think success can be found, even at the small levels. Changing a country is not possible for any one person, but I can help change my community for the better.

It’s tough for sure since the cards have purposefully been stacked against us. I think there’s definitely room for optimism, since grassroots organizing is effective at bringing change.

Personally I would be happy if we can just get it so our states can go into debt to implement progressive policies such as Universal Basic Income, Universal Healthcare, and more public housing.

I think the state should be the one owning all of these apartments since why should property be a for profit enterprise?

Yet there seemed enough votes to spend more money on foreign wars, and bailing out their rich friends. There also seemed to be enough political capital to take away the highly popular covid-benefits.

You’re right, as there is always funding available when it comes to international conflicts that relate to US interests, especially when certain Congress members districts make money hand over fist from those deals.

2020 is a prime example of Republicans bailing out their rich friends since they demanded that there be zero oversight for the several trillions of dollars going out to stimulate businesses.

The public is the least likely to get any assistance if there is not a Democratic trifecta, since Republicans notoriously will not cross party lines if it means giving Democrats a “win”. Because Democrats did not have big enough majorities in 2021, they were unable to secure additional Covid aid for people. Namely, having Sinema and Manchin, who are both Independents, did not help as they both refused to join with Democrats on bringing more aid. Meaning it was 48 D - 52 R in the Senate. This gridlocked meaningful legislation from passing.

That’s why he took that route: So that he could look like the good guy, while not actually fixing the problem.

They tried to pass regularly in the House and Senate, but they didn’t have the votes because Republicans voted against it and Independents like Manchin voted against it. That vote was 49 D - 50 R in the Senate.

So Biden was trying any way he could to get it passed. Biden actually did manage to get some student loan forgiveness passed, but not the mass amount that was hoped for because of the conservative Supreme Court.

Only if you think there is nutritional value in the Dems. I sure don’t see any.

I see that there is some value because they are trying to vote in policies that would actually help people, but they lack the votes to actually pass these things. I don’t see that as a fault of the legislators so much as an issue of us previously having given land so much more power than people in this country. When small states like Wyoming have as many Senators as big states like New York or California we end up in these situations where your voice matters more based on where you live.

I do see the Democratic Party itself slowly becoming more progressive as well as with the new influx in voters generally being more progressive than their parents or grandparents. Establishment Democrats are trying to push back against the progressives, since they see it as a threat to their seats, but frankly many of those politicians deserve to lose their seats for being actual do nothings.

Why would you expect any of that to happen? They’ve had the chance to fix these things in the past, and chose not to.

Mostly because the circumstances have changed. There used to be more buddy, buddy-ness in Congress, it wasn’t so hyper-partisan or was not visible to the old guard Democrats in Congress. Any guise of playing by the rules disappeared when Republicans broke their own made up rule to let a Supreme Court justice be added to the bench during an election year.

They didn’t have the votes to change many of those things in the past, and up until more of the early-2010s Democrats were still doing Gerrymandering themselves at times.

I think a big issue is that money and religion have deep ties in the US. Taking a hard stance against Israel at that point in time would cost votes in purple states; it was the right thing to do, but it would have lost votes. Given there are full on pacs that track each candidate on how much they openly support Israel I have no doubt they would have used money and influence to push them on it.

I think the issues with the economy were that it was still rocked by Covid and the after effects of it. Not having enough votes in the Senate meant nothing could get passed to help the people. Having the Supreme Court stacked by Republicans meant that even student loan forgiveness was shot down.

Really it’s more like a burger that covered in crap. If we want the burger remade to taste right then Democrats needed to win big in 2024. The opposite happened. Democrats lost House seats, Senate seats, and the Presidency. Any positive change now pretty much requires big wins now in 2026 and 2028 to be big wins for the Democratic Party.

For some perspective on how bad the losses for us were: if Democrats won a big trifecta in 2024, we could have uncapped the House, expanded the Supreme Court and set term limits, done away with the Filibuster to get important legislation passed, and even implemented legislation to tackle Gerrymandering across the nation. Just the uncapped House bit would have made it so elections are won by the Popular Vote.

That will probably be the case for at least another decade. The facts of the matter are that Boomers and Gen Xers are not very left leaning at all, but they show up to vote the most are thus hold the power in this country. Until the demographics themselves change and progressive Millennials and Gen Z voters make up a majority, I don’t expect giant changes any time soon.

The best bet we have to make an impact is by trying to change the voting system at the local level to us. If enough people do so, we can have more progressives like Mamdani in office. If the alternative system is popular enough, we can change the voting system itself at the state level like Maine and Alaska have done.

Also, continuing to educate the youth on why progressive policies matters is vital to the future. We need to keep people interested in bringing positive change, else the younger generations may end up disinterested in helping to elevate their peers.

The voters are often just as behind at times as the politicians they put into office. The lion’s share of the voters are neo-liberal Boomers and Gen Xers, of which the Gen Xers are more conservative than the boomers as of 2024.

We’re not going to look much different for ant least another decade unless suddenly a ton of Millennials and Zoomers show up to vote in record breaking numbers.

Changing our voting systems locally and on the state level is the best chance we have at making a difference within the next 10 years, imo. It opens up access for third parties to grow and it lets progressive have a better chance of squeaking out wins against the neo-liberal incumbents.

Functionally, things are the way they are because the people that want to change things for the better do not make up the majority of people yet. Plenty of the boomers are still happy with the status quo since most of it doesn’t directly impact them. Gen X even was more right leaning than the boomers in 2024.

Just looking at the number of people that actually vote, neo-liberal boomers and Gen Xers will still be dictating policy for another decade at the least. If they aren’t progressive, most of the policy getting passed will not be either.

This isn’t even taking into account the way that land has more power than people in the US either. Sparsely populated red states hold just as much power in the Senate as New York or California. The House is currently capped on the number of Representatives as well, meaning that those small red states are over represented and larger blue and purple states are underrepresented.

The best shot at changing anything before another decade passes is by starting locally to each of us. We can try to do what New York City did and implement an alternative voting system in our own cities, that will help immensely to get more people like Mamdani in office. If we garner enough support at the city and local levels, we might even be able to be like Maine or Alaska and get an alternative voting system in place at the state level.

Alternative voting systems are pretty much the only real way third parties will have a chance to get off the ground and have a seat at the table on a national level. The main reason for that is because it helps mitigate the spoiler effect; where your preferred candidate and the safe candidate knock each other out allowing your least preferred candidate to win elections.

Want to help? Get the word out about alternative voting systems and organizations that promote them. Get involved locally.

Underrepresented Fediverse Social Media Accounts:

• Equal Vote Coalition - Social Media
• STAR Vote - Social Media
• Fair Vote - Social Media

Involvement Links:

• Equal Vote Coalition
• STAR Vote
• Fair Vote

Some of it had to do with there not being enough admins to go around afaik. Lemm.ee for instance couldn’t find enough admins so they shut down. Moderating an instance seems like one of the hurdles that go along with running an instance. I could imagine some people dipped out of Lemmy for a little while if their server was deleted since they’re starting from scratch again. It took me a good month or so to make this account and ramp back up my own activity here for instance.

The admins across the servers do a good job of keeping bots out imo. If it ever becomes a problem the admins could look to adopt BlueSky’s moderation tools down the line, I feel. As BlueSky makes it easy to filter bots, misinformation spreaders, and have user level content controls.

I believe we’re at least a decade out from progressives being the main front runners for the party. The baby boomers are still in power because they vote the most, followed by Gen X who is even more conservative than the Baby Boomers based on the 2024 voter data.

When Millennials finally start getting into power and make up more of the voter share I could see progressives being the majority.

Alternatively, if we change the voting system in more states, like Alaska and Maine did, then we could have more candidates winning elections that are closer politically to Mamdani, AOC, and Bernie. It would enable third party candidates to have a much greater chance of winning elections as well.

I would say the main hope is that he doesn’t win the primary; if he does, it’s a sign for how bigoted the country is currently at that point in time.

The boomers and other older generations are a lost cause imo. There is still time and ways to show the younger generations that you’re not this made up concept of whatever the hell the Right says. I feel the best way of doing that is by trying to safely show others you exist.

To me, this current time period looks eerily similar to the Civil Rights era because it is about rights. I believe it will be an uphill struggle to protect trans rights. I feel calling out this reactionary anti-trans messaging is important.

The Right are definitely trying to pull ‘the conversation’ on both mainstream media and social media to the most extreme ends of anti-trans propaganda. It’s a red flag moment nationally that even some left-of-center politicians, such as Newsom, are flirting with that messaging. I feel that for an ‘ends justifies the means’ person, like Newsom, to be doing that, it means that the there isn’t enough public support for trans people being done. There are people right, center, and just left of center that are being swayed by this propaganda, and pushing back is what needs to happen now.

Specifically, I feel that getting that conversation focused back on individuals hurt by these anti-trans messages matters, such as Nex Benedict who you brought up. I feel it involves supporting trans celebrities, influencers, and artists so that people can have a face or a name they think of when talking about trans people. I feel more that bigots are forced to acknowledge you, as you are, the less power they have and the less effective their lies become.

My hope is that people like Newsom, that people that are ignorant, and that those not fully bought into the bigotry can be convinced to change their stance.

I agree that this type of rhetoric is bad for the long term health and safety of trans people. I believe the move was done to boost Newsom’s own presidential chances in red and purple areas by creating a scapegoat of trans people.

I feel bad for my friends that are trans because the culture in America, mostly outside of younger generations, has many bigoted attitudes towards trans individuals. I think hearing Bill Maher talk about his bigoted views on people transitioning shocked me at how slow/little the older generations have moved on being accepting of trans people. Maher being a left-of-center boomer too didn’t give me much confidence that there are not swaths of people with even worse takes.

Unfortunately I believe you are right that it will take decades for things to truly get better for trans people since many of these older generations seem gridlocked in their views. I feel educating younger generations is what is most important in the push back against bigotry, since people are not born bigots but become that way.

Edit: I don’t think it’s a good thing that people hold these views. Personally, when I see anti-trans bias I call it out in that moment.

I feel that many of these bigots have not met a trans person before, so they feel emboldened to strawperson trans people as boogeymen.

I think he’s left-of-center leaning, but postures in a way that is throwing trans people under the bus to win votes from bigots that may lean left, center, or right. Do I think he personally would push for any trans sports ban? Not really, but he is playing it up to win over the voters that for some reason are treating trans people in sports as a hardline issue they are against.

It’s one of several reasons I wouldn’t want him specifically to win the 2028 primary; since I would like to believe our country still has enough kind people that we don’t need to step on each other for us to all get ahead.

I’ve agreed a lot with Newsom over the years and I’ve disagreed with him just as much. At this moment, I would say he’s got the right intentions to do good here. He would not be my personal primary choice, but he would at least would be willing to press states for better standards and would help stand against corruption. In California he’s at least pushing for the state to use more electric vehicles.

It is with my in-laws at least; well for some of them. It’s how they envision coming on top in their American Dream. They get to spend their weeks pumping themselves up thinking it’s their turn next to win and envisioning all the things they’ll get to do with all that money.

I would say the scam is convincing people that they are lucky and that they specifically will eventually hit it big in their lifetime. This exact gimmick is what prevents some people from voting against their best interests because they could one day hit it big at the lotto and be in the big leagues! Assuming they don’t blow all that wealth on poor financial decisions in the few years thereafter or win at all for that matter.

Assuming that the capitalists do not flee this country, wouldn’t they work tirelessly til the end of time to erode these regulations? What is to stop them from using illegal avenues to do so? Sure you could catch and jail some of them but under capitalism we require capitalists to exist so you can’t jail all of them. Effectively what you require are all capitalists to be good people forever which is unreasonable.

What the capitalists are currently doing to erode regulation is by gaining power in red states and stripping regulations in those states. I believe stronger unions that have federal protections would go a long ways towards keeping the capitalists in check. Not every business is necessarily going to skirt legislation, but any business big enough to afford it will try to lobby or just pay off the fines.

I think making it so the public has a share in the stock of publicly traded companies can keep them in check, as the executive officers and the board should face financial and criminal penalties based on the scale of them breaking the law. The government could then step in and replace the board and/or executive officers, or close the company entirely. Harsh penalties and punishments are how we should best try to keep bad actors in check.

Creating a culture around more ethical business practices is how you change things for the better in the long run imo. Our current system rewards the greediest actors and consolidates wealth to the select few. I would say that actually having a culture that holds leaders to higher standards and harsher punishments would go a long ways to creating a more ethical society.

If anything, I think creating a seat in government for union leaders to collectively vote on the House and Senate bills could be a helpful check by the people. If they had seats of power at the state house level as well it would be an extra layer of protections for the workers in our country.

Come to think of it, I believe it’s entirely possible to do something like this at the state level with either a simple majority or 2/3 majority depending on the state. It could be a helpful protection for the people in blue states and help build up unions. We could even give the union leaders the ability to draft legislation to pass along to the House and Senate within the state legislatures.

Imperialism is actually just as bad as its always been maybe worse. It just looks different. There is a vast system of unequal exchange between the imperial core and imperial periphery. We still go to war to maintain our grasp on key resources. We still overthrow governments that try to nationalize their resources. We still influence foreign elections to get politicians elected who we can control. We still commit genocide in the name of profiteering. We just don’t rule over them like we used to because that was too blatant.

I agree that there are still cases where our actions were plainly imperialistic from the government side, such as the war in Iraq. I would say we lean more on our alliances for extracting resources, but that’s not to say we aren’t doing things that are imperialistic in nature. We’re more just doing it from every angle these days; from the business side, to strong arming countries.

Ultimately what you want is great and I agree that it would be cool. But there are contradictory interests between the working and owning classes that always eventually lead to a necessary system change within production. Capitalists have a material incentive to do what they do and they are gonna keep trying to do it. It happened to the feudal order and it will happen to capitalism too. I only hope we survive the process.

I would say that incentives for the owning class are to make as much money as they are allowed to make. For some reason that is deemed acceptable legally and culturally since we let individuals have more than $1 billion in actual money and in wealth. Until those things are changed, individuals will continue to push to for maximizing their wealth. Things need to be reined in. If anything, wealth could be taxed to such an extent that these wealthy individuals can’t afford to do these forever legal challenges or to be buying lobbyists. Plus it would help our system as a whole since if people reach the maximum income threshold, they may not care to expand their business much more since that extra income will be taxed at 95+%. This would leave holes in the market for other businesses to pop up and create competition.

If we change the rules, they will have no choice but to either play by the new rules or leave the system and let new players take their place.

This requires reversing a supreme court decision that benefits capital. This means 5 members of the supreme court must vote to end something that vastly benefits them and the people who got them appointed to that position. You do not get that high up in our judicial system by consistantly ruling in favor of the working class. You simply won’t get appointed with that kind of track record. I’m sorry but the odds are really stacked against us here.i’m not saying its impossible but I am saying that its close. Even if it were to happen I am almost certain corporations would find other avenues to control our political establishment.

It’s possible to reverse Citizens United if we expand the court, that would at least make it so we wouldn’t have to wait a whole lifetime. That has its challenges to do, but theoretically it’s possible with a simple majority in the House and Senate + the Presidency. We would want to do it after getting rid of the filibuster in the Senate. Alternatively, if we already have a filibuster-proof majority in the Senate and a majority in the House, we could pass a new law that puts limitations on Citizens United. Implementing term limits on the Supreme Court would make sense as well if we had those capabilities.

I do agree that finding suitable judges to be appointed that would overturn Citizens United would be challenging, we would also need a progressive President in power that would nominate those kinds of progressive judges and enough Senators to support those nominees.

I agree corporations will always look for ways around it, especially if they have the funds to spend buying influence.

Implementation is once again very difficult here. This requires incumbent politicians who see their positions as a career to intentionally put themselves at a disadvantage. This isn’t impossible and i am certain it will happen in some places from good faith actors but nationwide? Idk if that is feasible and who’s to say this wouldn’t eventually be reversed by new incumbents looking to hold on to power and their career? Essentially this requires politicians to act against their own interests on a large scale

Alternative voting seems to have the highest chances at success at the local level. The more cities that adopt it, the higher chances it has at taking off at the state level. If it’s adopted at the state level, then there is higher odds of that state wanting it implemented at the federal level elections for elections. For instance, Alaska and Maine are two states that already use an alternative voting system for their state and federal elections.

I believe off year elections are our best bet at passing an alternative voting system, as the voters in those elections are often more informed. Any alternative voting system will struggle to pass in a presidential election year imo.

To a degree, most states can implement an alternative voting system without needing to rely on the state legislature. Through ballot initiatives citizens can directly vote to pass an alternative voting system. Currently no blue states have banned alternative voting systems from being voted in, meanwhile several red states have already banned Ranked Choice Voting since they know they would lose power if it were to pass. Overturning an alternative voting system that is passed by a ballot initiative has a higher barrier to remove. Most states allow citizens to gather signatures to overturn a veto on ballot initiatives.

Misinformation is currently very beneficial to the political establishment. It allows them to spin whatever narrative they want through whatever avenues they want. This goes for both sides of the american political dichotomy. If the people cannot trust anything then they will only trust what reinforces their already held beliefs. Meaning they won’t differ from the party line they already subscribe to. It allows political parties to isolate their members from external narratives highly effectively. From the perspective of the bourgeois rather than the political class they use, misinformation allows them to keep the working class divided. Instesd of the working class recognizing our common enemy we are kept busy fighting eachother through whatever narratives can be whipped up by the slim few who control all of our media services. To put shortly, neither the ruling economic class nor the political elite have a material interest to reduce misinformation. We are post truth.

I agree that it is difficult to break through in our age of misinformation. I would say the incentive to change things are for those struggling to break through currently. Corporate news is almost completely controlled to drive narratives, at the very least certain stories are stopped from being pushed by the editors and owners. While those owners may not want things to change, I believe the constituents may still want a fuller picture.

At the very least, I think conceding this fight for information is not one we should ever back down from. It’s not even just misinformation being spread these days, but the fact that bots are pushing the same misinformation everywhere all day, every day makes it more difficult each day to combat it. Either we need to be building bots of our own to respond to the misinformation by other bots in real time or we need to rein in the media system itself.

The media sphere is perhaps the most frustrating issue to deal with. I firmly believe bots and paid propagandists are propping up many of the most toxic content creators on say Twitter, YouTube, and Twitch. They make it appear as those views are more popular than they are, which in turn makes some real people that are fence sitters or young adults give their opinions equal weight to real experts or people with more reasonable takes.

Okay so let’s say we have a perfectly regulated system where our politicians legally cannot own businesses, be landlords, or accept money from corporate interests. Why wouldn’t the capitalists just leave? Fuck off to some place where they can do that. Then what? The vast majority of our wealth just gets transferred to another country where we cannot siphon some of it off as taxes for the public good. Now we are a country of workers entirely dependant on a foreign ruling class for jobs who have no interest in improving or maintaining our infrastructure. Capital flight is a real thing and I encourage you to look into it. Regulating capitalism is not feasible at this point, not in any way that matters. I guess we could stop them from flering the country through the threat of violence but I don’t think you are in favor of that.

If the current capitalists in power leave, others who are not well off will take their place overnight. Capitalism is a beast of competition, any perceived weakness or market that is left open will be a void that becomes filled by entrepreneurs looking to make a profit for themselves. The billionaires are more than welcome to go where they want, but their assets and wealth are tied to the US currently, especially for the company stock they own. If the billionaires want to transfer their wealth, then they will need to cash out their stocks which is the one thing they would hate to do.

Billionaires pay for everything with their stocks so it doesn’t get taxed and they get treated as though they have no income. Currently, we can’t tax their wealth unless they cash out their stocks which or unless it is sold to go to their next of kin. Now, if they did decide they wanted to sell their stocks, while paying moderate taxes in doing so, and then leaving the US after, they will have to convert US dollars to another currency. There is no guarantees that where they go will be as profitable for them.

The issues they would face of a new market are the following: the market is already dominated by another local company and the new company struggles to compete (like Starbucks failing in Italy), the business owners may not know much about the market they are entering and do not understand the wants/needs of the locals, and the owners would lose out on the US market which is one of the largest economic markets to sell to.

The US is mostly a service economy that is hard to replace in full. I would say our current predicament is close to being that of one where there is little interest in improving or maintaining infrastructure. I believe we can still regulate capitalism, it just takes a majority of the states to want that as well. Many blue states do regulate capitalism in their own states, but there could be more done such as public utilities and more public housing.

I disagree that they are impossible; hard to do yes, but not impossible. They require the political power to implement those things is the key thing, but that goes with everything. In the US for instance, if it was just the blue states voting for those things to be implemented in blue states and if the blue states funded it then I think would be possible to implement some of those things even in our current political climate.

There’s a few things you need to make it possible though:

• Ending Citizens United, as it is much harder to implement these changes when politicians can be bought by corporate interests.

• Alternative Voting systems in place at local, state, and federal levels. As progressive politicians sometimes have a higher barrier of getting off the ground verses incumbents due to vote splitting.

• Reimplementing and expanding the Fairness Doctrine to include all traditional media, social media, and apply to online influencers. As misinformation is currently allowed to be spread without audiences being presented a more well rounded picture.

I will add that the monopolies are inevitable if the system is unregulated. Same thing with cartels. Capitalism only works with regulations to keep the system working. As the entire benefit of capitalism, innovation, all but stops when competition is not allowed to happen with big companies. That is why we need regulators that are not able to be influenced or bought out by corporate lobbyists.

Imperialism is less a feature these days, more globalist multinational conglomeration. It’s cut from the same cloth though, with unscrupulous companies seeking to exploit locals in international markets. The answer to dealing with these entities is that we need a multinational trade deal with our allies.

Namely, we need to punish companies and countries that try to exploit locals in other counties for cheap/exploitative labor practices. Any country or company that doesn’t do business by the agreement should be met with steep tariffs, ideally with some of those funds set aside to go back to the workers who were robbed of the fruits of their labor. I believe the agreement should require that resources be collected in a way that is sustainable, implementing green practices, and non-exploitative.

I think you have definitely nailed the issues of most of the Democratic Party politicians in power. The Democratic Party Politicians don’t necessarily represent the interests of their leftist-liberal voters. They probably will continue to not do so if they are in safe seats and funded by corporations.

What needs to change at the local level, state level, and federal level is implementing an Alternative Voting system. As this is the key way we will be able to get progressive politicians, that support progressive policies, into power.

NYC had Ranked Choice Voting and it likely contributed in part to people feeling safe to vote their conscience and list Mamdani at the top of the ticket.

I disagree that there is a strong divide ideologically speaking. I think regarding the liberals in Congress this holds fairly true for their more conservative approach to progress, but I wouldn’t say it’s the same for what leftist-liberal voters want.

For instance, I’m in favor of Universal Basic Income, Universal Basic Services, union support/collective bargaining, Universal Healthcare, universal daycare, free college/trade school education, and support for nuclear power & renewable energy solutions.

I believe the capitalist system needs to be reigned in entirely where there should not be any billionaires. Tax loopholes need to be closed on corporations that allow for the billionaires to take loans on their stock. There should be no monopolies or big conglomerates as they prevent competition.

Furthermore, we should change the reward structure of our economy by highly subsidizing jobs like teaching, researching, and the arts as I believe these sectors are what help a society to flourish yet are underfunded/underpaid.