Both sides are not the same. Republicans are the ones who don’t want to help the workers and lower/middle class. Tax the rich and the big business. Make public college free, make healthcare free, make child care free. How? Tax the rich and big businesses. They have hoarded all the money we generated for them. (They are using it to create space ships for fun and buying up EVERYTHING). If they want to do business in the USA tax them. Stop voting for republicans, they don’t care about our democracy. Get more liberal justices on the supreme court to fix what republicans have done to our rights. Money shouldn’t be speech and corporations are not people.
I’m sure that Republicans right now are trying to stop student debt relief, again. Stop voting for them. They have no policies to help the workers. Only tax cuts for the rich and hate, i.e. woke, i.e. minorites, LGBT, women, non Christains, and diversity.
There is one party that’s literally, not metaphorically, trying to get student debt relief. And reproductive rights. Other isn’t.
They say that and do nothing when it’s slapped down. Do you honestly think they care about that? It’s like a fucking abusive relationship where they tell you what you want to hear, spend one day doing said thing and then completely drop it until you kick up a fuss at election time, then they say more words you like to hear and dont follow it up with any action. rinse and repete. Republicans are such an easy scapegoat, and you lick it up like the good little dem you are.
Like at some point you have to realize that they won’t do what you want. They’re full of fucking air.
Remind me cuz I seem to have forgotten which party recently busted up a union strike, which one refused to repeal Trump’s tax cuts for the wealthy, and worked directly with McConnell to make the bush tax cuts for the wealthy permanent, who was the one that forced for profit health care system on us and then mandated everyone participate? Which one was it? That should have gone through the higher education act to eliminate student debt but followed a route that was destined to fail? Which one is it that is now overfunding cops to the extent of pushing and funding cop city in Atlanta, to further subjugate minority communities, which party passed a far overreaching crime bill that specifically targeted black males, and the for-profit prison system that he’s used to house them in? Which party had the crime bill that was so restrictive that it went too far for even Reagan, and he had to insert it into the violence against women act so people would not vote against it, which party was that?
All concessions to Republican control. Don’t blame the party stopping progress, blame the progressives. What a joke.
I blame the party, they are the ones in control, or in most cases, not in control. They are shit for governing while blaming everyone but themselves for incompetence.
You right, let’s get rid of all the conservatives from the Democrat party.
I’m all for it
That would result in the elimination of the DNC, which Im all in favor of
No, no, see, we should just roll over and take all that with our asses up because they’ll maybe try and throw a measly attempt at giving us back federal abortion rights and student loan forgiveness, maybe. And they can’t do anything but give up if the Republicans slap any of that down. “oh well, we tried! But now we’re busy starting proxy wars and throwing our young men and women into decade-long wars, so stfu and take what we give you and be thankful for it.”
"Oh,it’s election time? No, no, don’t withhold your vote from us, if you do that, abortion will be federally banned this time around, probably! Listen, we’ll do you a solid and attempt to throw another half-assed bill at the Republicans. Yeah, they’ll slap it down, and no, we won’t push back or anything, we’ll be too busy funding more wars that we don’t call wars, but, you know, at least we’re better than them. So be a good little removed and roll over and stick your ass up.
Inb4: “BoThSiDeIsM” and “nAzI!!!”
What should the Democrats do? Pass legislation with 48/100 senate votes (first two years) or without control of the house (now)? Pass things unconstitutionally via executive order and hope that the ideologicaly opposed supreme court allows their illegal action to slide? Should they tear the whole thing down and install a dictatorship like Trump wants to do?
Start holding individual representatives accountable for their actions and votes. Not one republican was willing to cross party lines to put their country first, yet people like you blame the politicians who tried to help and either withhold the votes they need to get stuff done or outright give their votes to the party whose platform is literally to harm us.
Y’know, the only reason the Democrats struggle to win at all is that sometime in the post-Nixon era they collectively decided to stop standing up for labor’s buying power. When they did this, (which helped them a lot in terms of their ability to get corporate donors to finance their elections), it meant that working people would go from having 1 party represent labor to 0 parties doing that.
In the 50s an entry-level job that a high-school graduate could get would support a family, buy a home and a couple of cars, and pay out a retirement. Today, that job won’t even pay for an apartment without roommates.
That right there is the whole reason the GOP is a viable political party at the federal level- with both parties beholden to corporate donors, winning elections is more or less a matter of spending money on campaign ads attacking the other party because neither party has to do anything that voters want
As things stand right now, the GOP’s platform is “let’s pick a scapegoat to exhume the lower classes’ frustrations”, while the Democrats’ is “let’s not do that”. It’s no wonder why the Dems can only garner around ~27% of all elegible votes (vs the Republicans’ ~25%), most of their voters don’t particularly like their politicians nor their policies, they just don’t want to be governed by fucking crazies.
In the 50s an entry-level job that a high-school graduate could get would support a family, buy a home and a couple of cars, and pay out a retirement.
While I agree with the general thrust that more needs to be done for the average worker, your comparison of these times completely falls on its face if you speak to anyone with firsthand experience. It shouldn’t be used because it is just noise, not relevant to the world we live in.
My dad grew up in the 50s and lives with me, due to his age/health. Here’s a mix of his take and current data:
Homes have tripled in size on average. Providing for a family involves machines that take on 16 hours per day of household chores, which are expensive and taken for granted. Electricity and television, to say nothing of the internet, are taken for granted. Cellular phones are taken for granted.
6 children would live in a 3 bedroom house - I know this because this is how my uncles grew up in the 50s. The vast majority of people did not have a “couple of cars.” They had one car and the entire family packed into it without seatbelts.
You can absolutely live like it’s the 50s right now. Cancel your cable, internet, and phone. Do not own a dishwasher, wash your laundry by hand, and only bulk-buy groceries in the forms of cereal grains, meat, eggs, and vegetables. Buy nothing pre-made. Mend your own clothes. Cook everything from scratch. Don’t have air conditioning.
If this sounds like a poor, miserable existence, it’s because almost everyone lives a standard of living unimaginable in the 50s except in science fiction, and that standard is expensive.
That’s why we should help people - because our standard of living rose and we no longer see the 50s as acceptable, not because tradwives and nuclear families made the world safe for one white guy to provide for his family. We are the richest country in the world and our standard of living should be a cudgel we wield in soft diplomacy.
As my dad said when I read him this post: “this going back to the past shit is about the stupidest shit in the world.”
Sorry but I do all of that and it’s not any better at all. No washer/dryer, no washing machine, I live in a fucking garage and pay more rent than anyone in the 50s paid mortgage.
Houses that are glorified sheds in flood zones in the worst parts of town go for 300k+. I’m not even entry level and I can’t afford the cheapest garbage excuse for a house out here without becoming house poor. I can’t even “move where it’s cheaper” because WFH people did and now it’s not cheaper. The areas that are truly cheap, are so because there’s no work to be had around them. Can’t appreciate the low cost of an area when your unemployed.
I specifically said it wasn’t better. That’s what “massively increased standard of living” implies.
It is cheaper though, which is why you do it. I agree it sucks.
That we should make it easier to achieve a massively better life than the 50s is the intent of the post you are replying to.
You can absolutely live like it’s the 50s right now.
No, you can’t . You can’t send your kids to a state college or university today and expect them to work their way through on part-time minimum wage and graduate without debt. Pensions are a thing of the past. Unions have been decimated and their protections have been unavailable to most workers for decades now. Today, banks are regulated by private trade associations made up of- you guessed it- banks. Today, employers buy back their own shares (which was made illegal in the 1930s and brought back in 1982) at labor’s expense. Today’s median wage buys you less than minimum wage did then.
My post above was not a call to go back to the 50s, (fuuuuuck that) it was a call to recognize that the buying power available to labor has been squeezed so hard that the middle class as a demographic is shrinking and that in turn probably causes people to lose faith in democracy. When both major parties have worked together to dismantle labor protections and to deregulate finance, is your democracy really working for you, or for corporate power?
Yes, today it’s normal to buy things that didn’t exist then, and most fatal childhood diseases have been all but wiped out, and bigger houses and a housing inventory shortage is a thing, but that’s not the whole picture by a long shot. Raw material inputs (like lumber, and basic foodstuffs) cost more in normalized labor purchasing power terms and that’s probably largely because of corporate mergers in the supply chain and wage standards have not kept up with basic costs.
I think it’s remarkably silly that so many Americans that long for the 50s to come back think they’re gone because the Democrats embraced civil rights or because of feminism and not because they joined the GOP in dismantling the New Deal.
Roughly 50% more people go to college now than in the 50s and 60s: https://educationdata.org/college-enrollment-statistics#college-enrollment-statistics
That’s why college is more expensive now. It used to be something you paid for to go, and now there are loans. This drove up demand and changed the financial incentive structure. It’s the #1 reason why I believe college should be free for the lower three quintiles.
Pensions are a crap idea and always were. Today my wife and I are straight up cashing in her pension because it’s worth more in an IRA.
Share buybacks are good for companies, workers, and the market in general - which protects 401(k)s as well. Not sure why that’s an issue for you?
Unions are expanding again and I hope that really takes off.
I definitely do not see how the New Deal was “dismantled” or that the Democrat party of today had anything to do with it. The New Deals/Great Society were a defining time for conservatives and many conservative Democrats left the party over it.
For anyone that wants to really know exactly what the conservatives plan to do against the American people, read their ”Project 2025: Mandate for Leadership."
At least read the Forward, but here’s the whole PDF:
https://thf_media.s3.amazonaws.com/project2025/2025_MandateForLeadership_FULL.pdf
The rhetoric just in the Forward is frightening, disgusting, and dangerous.
We MUST vote for the Democrats if we’re going to maintain any semblance of real freedom for everyone and not just conservative white people.
(Side note, I found it hilarious that the “Forward” felt like it was 1000 pages down. And reading that much BS made me feel gross.)
Ok so, the Project 2025 thing is terrifying. Their Forward is terrifying. They have no plan for making this country better for anyone except themselves. They state very clearly they want to delete anything they don’t like.
They want to ban books and open discussions.
They want to deny racism exists or ever existed.
They want to deny that biology exists outside of their narrow minded beliefs.
They want to force a single religion on everyone.
They cite problems and point the finger at everyone except themselves.
As if it wasn’t abundantly clear at this point based on their ACTIONS what Republican rule will be… And yet we still have millions of people fully invested in that cult of hate and fear.
I’m not American, but reading the Foreword was just plain scary to me since it comes from a major party. There’s nothing about economics and all about moral outrage. You guys need to diversify your parties somehow.
Bruh. I’m so fuckin sick of this 2 party bullshit.
“We Must vote for the Democratic party”
How about no. Fuck the Democratic & Republican party.
I’m sick of the two party system also but also recognize that’s the system in place. Requires voting reform for that to ever change, which I support. I’m still going vote for democrats in the meantime because anything else, to include third party or abstaining, is ultimately supporting the republicans whether one wants to admit it or not.
If enough people, 5% of the population, voted 3rd party in one election, it gives the 3rd party the ability to get on the ballot in every state. This goes a long way.
Neither side wants ranked choice voting. Neither side is going to give up power.
We have to vote something different to change the 2 party system. Not going to change itself.
So what’s your plan to stop the US from turning into Gilead? Wear lots of black clothes and whine about it?
I can’t speak for the previous commenter, but I know that not voting for either party is my plan. Everyone that votes out of fear of “the bad one getting elected” is part of the problem. How about something you can vote for instead of something you’re voting against?
But you’re supposed to pick a side and be willing to literally lay down your life for them and their cause! Ra ra, go team go. Otherwise you’re just part of the problem according to either side.
I agree with you and I’ll go a step further and say fuck all politicians in general. Today, they’re all owned in some way by the money that puts them in power. They’ll all tell you what you want to hear. They’re all experts in half truths. Never trust a politician.
Politicians are owned by their constituents, who they overwhelmingly vote in alignment with.
The whole “politicians are owned” thing just doesn’t show up in any data whatsoever.
no no no he has it all wrong. It’s the party of the WORKING class. E.g. they are going to put you all TO WORK.
Keeping the wealth with the wealthy means you get to work for them. They’re in charge don’t you see? We’re just their worker bees. There’s enough of us that we don’t need healthcare. Education is a luxury for the children of the wealthy elite, NOT the workers. The dumber and more ignorant the worker the less they need to offer them in compensation. If you don’t know better, you don’t ask for more!
It’s all about being the smartest in the room. Why do good things for people when you can just fuck them over and have them sing your praises? This is why they want to teach that slavery taught valuable skills. They want to enslave us, and they are slowly doing that generation after generation with income disparities. Pretty soon we’ll work our whole lives just to subsist and owning a home will be only afforded to the wealthy elite. The rest of us will work for them in the form of rent and they will be our land LORDS.
It’s definitely the party of workers. More workers! Work for your owners!
BuT hOw ArE wE gOnNa aFfOrD iT!?!?!?!??!?!?!!?
the fucking pentagon can’t account, literally cannot conceive, of where more than two thirds of its budget WENT.
Of almost a TRILLION DOLLARS, 886 billion dollars, they only know where ONE THIRD of it went.
That ~600 Billion Dollars have afforded all those things.
The Pentagon does know where there money goes but they are never going to tell a committee of idiots who cannot keep a damn thing secret. If you can’t trust even the President to not run his mouth or expose classified satellite capabilities to our enemies then why would they ever tell anyone in politics where that money is going? I want a transparent govt as much as the next person but it isn’t going to happen.
They’re legally required to tell those things, and democracy is not built on secrecy.
This is the major interest point for me in UAP investigations - it looks exceedingly likely that the Pentagon is embezzling some of those funds through “pet projects” that are all legacy, ultra-secret, unaccountable, and need to produce nothing.
