Aren’t you just restating my comment? Yes, progressives regaining relevancy results in a Democratic party that is left of one taken over by conservatives.

I already answered your first paragraph in the comment you replied to, but I’ll embellish. Not every wealthy person involved in politics is in favor of insanely low taxes on corporations and the wealthy. Over reliance on austerity to balance the national budget is ultimately not in their best interest, and some of them are bright enough to realize it. Those are the concessions I mentioned.

The stark reality is that the situation for working Americans has gotten worse under both Republican and Democratic administrations. It’s not just because Republicans have always managed to out maneuver Democrats in leveraging power. It has often been caused directly by Democratic legislative “successes”. “The era of big government is over!” came from Bill Clinton as he shredded federal welfare programs. Obama reacted to the mortgage crisis by bailing out his Wall Street donors and hanging homeowners out to dry.

As for your second paragraph, it’s as delusional and historically ignorant as anything I’ve heard out of MAGAts. Democratic victories are necessary for progress, but it’s only the threat of immanent fascism that has historically driven Democrats to make improvements.

Biden went from being one of the most conservative Democrats in Congress to the most progressive Democratic President in fifty years. All it took was a massive fascist movement barking at his heels.

That’s not usually how it works. Democrats serve Wall Street and Silicon Valley first, but make concessions to Main Street as necessary to keep Republicans from taking over. The less of a threat Republicans are, the less incentive establishment Democrats have to put the needs of voters ahead of their sponsors.

Conservatives took over the Democratic party over 30 years ago. Progressives have just recently started inching themselves back into relevance.

the meme that you should vote third party or stay home because the Democrat isn’t liberal enough for them.

You understand Russia well enough, but if you think the left is upset at a Democrat for not being liberal enough, you really don’t understand left politics. Liberalism is fundamentally a conservative ideology. It was liberals that made the Democrats into weak and ineffective corporate bureaucrats, thus setting the stage for the latest rise of fascism. (That’s how fascism always takes root BTW.)

You are also buying into the establishment bullshit argument that the left doesn’t show up for elections. Left leaning voters are the most reliable voting demographic in the country, in spite of the Democratic establishment blaming them for all their failures.

If just half the energy wasted lecturing the left were put to good use, we wouldn’t have Trump in the first place.

Anybody that the Republicans put in charge of any federal agency is there for the purpose of destroying that agency. I used to think defense was an exception but, given Republican’s new found love for Russia, I don’t think that can be assumed any longer.

Trump’s way ahead of you there.

Everything but Biden.

How about you go do that fuck off thing yourself. These movements need a failing political system in which to pedal their bullshit and the world’s neoliberals have been more than happy to provide it for them.

Right wingers have an unreasonably radical view of liberals because that’s what the right wing hate machine churns out relentlessly. Liberals think most right wingers are confused but reasonable because thinking otherwise clashes with liberal philosophy. Leftists think that right wingers are rabid fascists because right wingers always show themselves to be rabid fascists the moment someone gives them permission. Enlightened centrists think both sides have equal and opposite prejudices because they like that vibe, not because it reflects reality.

An event that would only be watched by voters who already support Harris.

If humanity were proactive enough to do this, then we wouldn’t need to do it at all.

The pandemic is over. Now it’s endemic, significantly less lethal, and our own immune systems are better prepared. That doesn’t mean we shouldn’t take it seriously, but it’s not the same situation we faced in 2020.

COVID now isn’t what COVID was during the initial outbreak. Current mutations are significantly less lethal. Between the vaccines and the fact that almost everyone has had it at least once by now, we are far more prepared to handle it. It’s still something that should be taken seriously, but it’s also well into the endemic phase. This is the steady state where humanity will have to coexist with COVID indefinitely, not the pandemic where talking about “super spreader events” is reasonable.

It was Wells Fargo, and he was actually fired under threat from Congress led by Elizabeth Warren. The board replaced him with his chosen successor who had also been implicated and Congress actually stepped in again to force the replacement out. It would be nice to see them charged with something, but there is really no evidence that they actually broke the law themselves, they just created the massively over-competitive environment that made some desperate workers into criminals.

It’s not the justice I would want, but “slap on the wrist” seems like an accurate description.

He was arguably a worse president than even Trump. Which of them is a worse human being is a different question.

After End Game they stopped being Marvel movies and started being Disney movies.

Nobody has forgotten the stutter.

Agreed. It’s pretty telling that none of these corporations would accept an open ended arbitration clause in their dealings with any other corporation.

I could see very specific cases where arbitration makes sense with a very well defined scope. “Parties agree that disputes over widget quality related to this agreement are to be adjudicated by the Widget Quality Counsel”. The courts are not always the best arbiters for every dispute.

However, what we have now is every corporation finding ways to slide arbitration clauses of global scope into every transaction. That is always bullshit.