There’s also just a massive element of the Democrats no longer functioning as a coherent political unit. It wouldn’t help in an instance needing a filibuster-proof majority, but since being a Democrat is mostly negatively defined as “We’re not the Republicans” these days, it has grown to encompass a range of views that prevents them from having a cohesive platform backed by all members in the way the GOP largely operates today.

Yes, Republican obstructionism is a major element in the dysfunction of our government at the moment, but even before you run into that, you have a party that embraces the Joe Manchins, Kyrsten Sinemas and Joe Liebermanns of US politics, while also having your Bernie Sanders and AOCs. Even before you encounter the obstructionist tendencies of Republicans, you have Democrats who don’t fall in line that can hold the party platform hostage, and no meaningful mechanisms to force them to do so.

The Democratic Party really needs to start defining itself positively, rather than the current “We’re not the other guy, so at least we aren’t so bad” stance, and presenting a unified front in the face of Republican obstinance. There should be a time a place for intellectual debate, but the Democratic status quo not only makes them look incompetent when they can’t hold members to task for failing to support major elements of the party platform (see Manchin’s stranglehold over Biden’s agenda that left quite a bit dead on arrival prior to Republican efforts), it also demotivates would-be voters.

I didn’t think you were, I was more saying that the loss of many of those jobs that had been outsourced in the pursuit of cheap stuff means that, even if Trump’s proposed tariffs were effective at bringing those jobs back, it might not matter because they would still cost more than most residents of the US would be able to afford. At least, with current working conditions, many of these goods would simply cost more than people would be willing to pay, as we’ve been collectively conditioned to want as much stuff as possible, as cheap as possible. Domestic production of so many goods would require a drastic shift in consumer habits to even have a chance at being viable in the long term, but they absolutely couldn’t do the sort of volume that places like China has and be able to sell at a profit, barring the implementation of Chinese-style working conditions.

nor the desire to build their own shit

I would say that we’ve also largely lost the means to afford stuff built here, in large part as a consequence of our endless pursuit of cheap crap while scraping the bottom of the barrel with outsourcing. Even if you want to buy domestically-made goods, since we’ve lost so many of those good union jobs, especially in manufacturing, we no longer have the means to pay what it costs to make such a product with American workers. Especially if people intend to continue with their current consumerist trends.

I’m making $20/hour at the moment. If I want to buy American, union-made shoes, it’ll run me $400 a pair, on the lower end. I think it’s pretty reasonable to have a pair of work boots, a pair of regular shoes for wearing out and about, and a pair of dress shoes, which at that low end will run me 37.5% of my monthly gross pay. Now do the same for domestically produced clothing, and you’ve probably run up a bill of several month’s pay, just to have enough outfits to last you a single week, leaving aside coats, seasonal clothing, or formal attire. We’re either going to have to sharply curtail our purchasing and focus on buying a smaller amount of goods meant to last as long as possibly, or the sadly more likely scenario, we’ll see the establishment of domestic sweatshops to fuel the consumerist impulses of what remains of the middle class and up. Whether we’ll just go even more insane in our treatment of the poor here, or use prison labor and undocumented migrants “pending” deportation in these sweatshops remains to be seen, but Americans have demonstrated we shortsightedly value our ability to accumulate cheap trash over anything else.

I’d love to be proven wrong, and see a growth of strong unions and domestic production leading to a resurgence in American craftsmanship again, but the current environment is less than amenable to this outcome, to put it mildly.

The bigger issue is communication. If these policies aid a significant part of voters, how can we convince them of this in the face of the right wing propaganda machine? That battle is as important as the policy platform, and it’s a very tricky challenge to overcome.

I think a big part of this comes down to the messenger here. The Democrats need a charismatic individual who is credible to voters. Unfortunately, they’ve only got Bernie to fit the bill for someone who had half a chance at being electable, and the DNC did everything they could to sideline him whenever they had the chance. Instead, they trot out establishment, corporatist party members and policy wonks to get the messaging out, or do absolutely baffling stuff, like sending Ritchie Torres to campaign for them in Michigan. It’s bad enough to send out bland candidates who may have a less than stellar recording for really fighting for the working class and holding the line to get them what they need, but for a key swing state with a huge Muslim population that has signalled many times they may not vote for Harris because she hasn’t indicated any shift in her policy on Gaza, you send the most rabidly Zionist, anti-Palestinian Rep you could pull from the Democratic bench? That’s an absolute own goal. It’s like sending a rep named Che Castro that tweets constantly on ending the embargo on Cuba to stump for you in Miami, then wondering why Cuban voters went to the other guy.

Unfortunately, I think it will really take a while for the Democrats to dig themselves out of this hole and have someone with a record long enough for people to find them credible when they say they’re going to fight for the working class as the rule, rather than the pleasantly surprising exception.

As @TheAgeOfSuperboredom@lemmy.ca already pointed out, Rogan’s “I’m just promoting free-speech and practicing neutrality” platforms people who are wholly uninformed with equal standing as experts in a given field. For an example of how this is irresponsible, and yes, the average American really is too stupid to be trusted with distinguishing a square turd from a brownie, look at the rise of anti-vaccine sentiment and COVID denialism coming out of Joe “Just asking questions” over the years.

I wouldn’t call it an alt right media bubble. I just think it’s individuals exercising their free speech, which has landed us in a situation where the traditional media, which is bought and paid for by big business, can no longer compete.

It most certainly is an alt-right media bubble when those who get sucked into it refuse to even consider any evidence that doesn’t come directly from Joe Rogan, Fox, OANN or whatever other goofballs they watch. If you think these people and organizations are above the influence of big business, I’ve got several bridges to sell you.

This also isn’t strictly a matter of them not trusting news from other sources that don’t align with their own biases, but denying objective facts from experts in the field, all because Joe smoked DMT once, and what the experts say doesn’t feel right to him. See Rogan et al. as they promoted baseless COVID conspiracy theories while also disregarding any medical advice from public health experts, or the growing consensus amongst medical professionals and epidemiologists as we came to understand things better after a couple of years.

No, I would say an over reliance on mainstream media certainly hurts them, but their messaging still sucks. Just to go with examples Bernie provided here, how do you think the Democrats message that the economy is doing just great resonates with the 60% of Americans living paycheck to paycheck, the 25% of elderly people who need to eke out a living on $15,000 a year or less, or the 20 million Americans working for less than $15/hour? It’s a slap in the face to all of them. Messaging is not just getting the message out, but sending the right messages, and the Democrats whiffed hard on that front. They need to do some serious self-reflection and make some drastic changes to both the structure of the party and its platform if they want to do anything more than win the odd election for a single term when the GOP oversteps itself. Pelosi and the old ghouls that support her should all be kicked to the curb.

There is a sizable group of young men who not only feel like the Democrats (and people on the left, in general) have not only ignored the issues they face, but view them as being inherently bad in some way. The alt-right spaces have been very successful at translating discussions of privilege into a message that everyone but the GOP believes young men, especially young, white men, are doing just fine and are greedy for demanding any sort of help or attention, as well as inherently being oppressors of the marginalized groups that have featured so prominently in contemporary discourse, with no way of redeeming themselves short of complete and total submission to these groups. Basically, painting white guilt on steroids as the only acceptable option for these young men to the Democrats, but with the caveat that nothing they do will ever absolve them of the crime of being born with a penis.

This is obviously nonsense, but it’s quite attractive to these people to hear someone say that they acknowledge their problems, those problems are real, and what’s more, those problems are not their fault. The absence of acknowledgement or inclusion of these problems in the Democratic talking points lends it some credibility, and there’s a robust media apparatus in place, with folks like Joe Rogan or Jordan Peterson, that allow them to form some sense of community and identity, while also moving them further on the way to being full-blown MAGA supporters.

It’s the same sort of strategic failure that the Dems encountered with working class people more broadly; they dismissed their concerns, told them everything was actually fine, when many acutely feel the struggle of existence, and didn’t offer a platform that got them excited and feeling like their economic concerns were being addressed. Then add in policy proposals that specifically target groups like black men, and many of them begin to view the entire field of politics as a zero-sum game, which one side is looking to rig against them.

Of course, this is a misguided take, at best, but it’s amplified by podcast bros and alt-right youtubers, and the way the DNC strategists takes the votes of these groups for granted lends further credence to the notion, in their eyes. The DNC desperately needs to come up with some countermeasures for the alt-right media bubble and stop assuming they can count on any votes as safe, especially if they don’t have heavy messaging targeting the demographics in question.

Other old people is probably a safe bet. If anything, his audience is probably hyped about how “Finally, somebody gets it and is talking about these damned young people!”

wouldn’t Israel simply partner with Russia or China instead?

Why would either of those countries pick up such a pointless financial burden, though? The US has spent $17.9 billion in military aid just since October 2023. I’m not sure Russia could afford to sustain that sort of spending long-term, and even if they could, what do they get from it? They get another piece of baggage to further isolate them on the international stage, while also conveniently pissing off local Muslim populations they’ve been cultivating influence with, and potentially stirring things up back home with Muslim separatist groups that have been known to pop off the odd attack or civil war from time to time.

Likewise, China can get all the natural resources Israel could offer them on better terms and at lower cost elsewhere, without any of the drawbacks that backing Israel in the absence of the US would bring them. China already has a presence in the region in relationships with Gulf states, they don’t need Israel. What, Israel is going to win them over with some cheaper citrus, or something?

People keep saying, “But what if Russia or China backed Israel instead?” without any reason for either to do so.

It’s a bit of a win-win situation for these nuts. If the election officials force their way in, they’ll get to shriek about how corrupt Biden-Harris officials are trying to force their way into polling sites to steal the election. If it goes to court, they’ll declare victory before the lawsuit is decided, and then Trump-loving muppets will start spamming lawfare, psy-op, or whatever the new word of the day is for trying to dismiss everything that would prevent them from illegitimately seizing power as the result of an insidious Democratic plot all over social media again once the lawsuits turn out in favor of the feds. Wild what you can get away with when you’ve got this rabid a death cult going for you.

Part of this seems like it’s attributable to changes in lifestyle and material conditions of younger people, relative to their parents. Different aesthetics might mean their parents’ stuff looks incredibly gaudy to them, and doesn’t go with anything else in their apartment. My parents’ home is larger than any place I can reasonably expect to be able to afford, so I also don’t want their big dining room table that I’d have to pay for storage on for years before I can afford a space that it will immediately fill all of. Even if it’s a nice piece of furniture, that’s just a pain in the neck to go through, all for something I might never get to use.

On the topic of collections, boomers just fundamentally ignore key parts of collectibility. First, old collectables only became so valuable precisely because people weren’t obsessively hording and caring for everything with the intent of selling it down the line. Old Superman comics are rare and valuable due to people who bought them at the time they first came out largely treating them as disposable. They didn’t assume they were anything special that merited being held on to and cared for, so they didn’t. When everyone and their dog buys up commemorative plate sets, or Beanie Babies, or whatever other collectable grift boomers fell for, and they take great care of them, they don’t generally see their value do anything but decrease. The supply doesn’t get significantly reduced, and everyone else can see that they didn’t pan out as the collectable investments they were billed as, so who would want them?

That said, even for collections of items of genuine worth, you mostly need to hope that whoever you’re looking to give it to is as into whatever hobby as you are. If I were planning on having kids, I think it would be pretty unreasonable to expect them to know what to do with my fountain pen collection, unless they were into them as well. Otherwise, it’s just a ton of fussy pens that seem to have a fair number of duplicates that are really only distinguished by knowledge I couldn’t expect them to take the time to go gathering. Then, it’s still a big pain to actually identify things, make sales listings and sell them off. Hell, I have the knowledge, and even I find it annoying to do so.

Maybe we could address this, in part, by normalizing expanding options a bit for inheritance. If my hypothetical kids aren’t going to know how to make heads or tails of my pen collection, but I’ve got a younger friend who is just as into the hobby as I am, it would be nice if I could just leave them that specific collection, without having to worry it’ll kick off some acrimonious squabbling. Failing that, have parents indicate who they trust to sell an item for a fair price if nobody wants it. You can take it and think about it, but if it’s just not for you, you’ve got a trusted source to sell it off for you, so you (hopefully) don’t have to go through an ordeal trying to find someone to sell it for you that will give you a fair shake.

Parks and libraries, sure, but the rest pretty much all cost money around me. Art spaces are largely monetized, outside of maybe a free night a week, for a limited amount of time before closing that doesn’t include access to all exhibits. Community/rec centers host events and charge money for most of them now, since I guess younger generations aren’t becoming members in large enough numbers to make things self-sustaining otherwise. Churches have the disadvantage of being churches. Sure, you can technically hang out in them for free, so long as you don’t mind constant religious services, which kind of comes with the territory on that one.

I can’t remember another recent candidate in the US that not only wasn’t super pro-Taiwan, but said the US should just hang them out to dry if the PRC were to invade the island. They probably like that side of him.

Plus, an incredibly vain, greedy and self-confident idiot is not the hardest of targets to get to do what you want.

Americans have to learn to live with each other, one way or another.

Honestly, I often think Americans need to learn to live apart from each other these days. I’m very skeptical of the notion that the US can ever function as a coherent political unit again, and it might be better for all to just cut bait and move to an EU-esque free movement regime. Let New England, the South, the Midwest, the West Coast and whatever Alaska and Hawaii want to be each be their own independent countries, but any citizen of one has the right to move to any if the others and work immediately. If Republicans want to enact their own little Handmaid’s Tales in the deep South, they can go for it, but no moaning when women and POC decide to move elsewhere. The non-GOP hellscape regions can implement social safety net programs to allow anyone who wants to leave the conservative regions to do so, regardless of financial means, knowing they will have housing, food and healthcare when they get to a civilized country.

It really feels like some backwards regions are holding the whole country hostage at this point.

Beating your wife? I could not see as a cultural thing.

That’s kind of exactly my point, though. I see claiming being loud and inconsiderate to others as people practicing their culture to be just as disingenuous an argument as saying wife-beating is a part of Irish culture that just has to be accepted. It’s just brought out to defend bad behavior, often with the implication that if you continue to criticize said behavior, you’re automatically in the wrong, having revealed yourself as bigoted against whatever group you’re criticizing.

its people practicing their culture.

Personally, I hate this line, because I only ever hear it trotted out to excuse bad behavior that people know they shouldn’t. Saying that being a loud nuisance in public is people practicing their culture is just as absurd as saying Irish men getting drunk and beating their wives is practicing Irish culture. It might be a negative cultural stereotype some of them actually live up to, be it doesn’t mean it should be tolerated.

Even if you want to accept that it’s a valid argument, one’s right to practice their culture ends where it limits the rights of others to do the same. People don’t get carte blanche to make everyone else change their lives to accommodate a culture with no sense of appropriate volume or consideration for others.

A lot of the things they name aren’t inherently city noises, either, though. I don’t live near any concert venues or airports, so I don’t hear noise from either of those sources. You could live in the middle of nowhere, but if you live above the local bar, it shouldn’t come as a surprise that it’s loud on Friday and Saturday nights. Dogs and birds aren’t exactly uniquely urban phenomena, and the sound of peoples’ shoes on the sidewalk being a major source of noise just strikes me as absurd.

I don’t mind interacting with others in public, but I very much dislike inconsiderate people who decide to monopolize public spaces at the expense of others being able to enjoy them in their own way. I don’t care about someone listening to the radio with their friends at a reasonable volume while they chill and talk. The reality is more often rival clusters of people with massive speakers, each turning their stuff higher because they can’t hear their crappy music over the other people doing the same thing up and down the block. Me being unable to sleep at 4AM on a Wednesday because I can hear your terrible choice in Dembow and Rap that you choose to accompany your domino games and hookah sessions from my apartment on the seventh floor isn’t us having an interaction, it’s you being a nuisance.

They may be idealists that don’t reflect a use case I think is reasonable to expect of the average user, but I would also say that it’s very important to have them there, constantly agitating for more and better. They certainly don’t manage to land on achieving all their goals, but they also prevent a more compromising, “I just need to use my stuff now, not in 10 years when you figure out a FOSS implementation” stance from being used to slowly bring even more things further away from FOSS principles in the name of pragmatism.

Not every opinion you disagree with can just be dismissed as bots. The idea of blue MAGA is a perfectly legit criticism of the same dumbasses who months ago were screaming “VOTE BLUE NO MATTER WHO! BIDEN IS PERFECTLY MENTALLY COMPETENT AND THE GREATEST CANDIDATE TO EVER RUN, AND IF YOU SAY OTHERWISE, YOU’RE A CRYPTO-REPUBLICAN WHO REALLY WANTS TRUMP TO WIN!” whenever anyone expressed even the mildest criticism of the Democratic platform or reservations about Biden’s ability to win the election.

Lemmy, particularly lemmy.world, is full of blue MAGA nonces who read a post saying, “I’ll hold my nose and vote for Harris, but I really wish she would change her stance on X” and reply, “Now isn’t the time for this divisive rhetoric, I can tell you’re a Russian shill who wants Trump to win.”