So this aged great, huh?

Because he’s fucking right. Maybe the Democrats should start listening to people who are fucking right for once.

I’ll also add that you need to primary basically anyone that has been in politics for more than 15 years. There is just too much, “common sense,” in this party that is just wrong. In 2016, it was smart to run a centrist campaign that tried to move moderates away from Trump, and it failed. In 2024, they ran the same fucking campaign, and it failed.

There are well intentioned people that somehow still think that the 1992, third-way strategy will deliver gains through incrementalism, and it’s just not going to happen. Primary them, so that they at least have to contend with the new political realities. Trump picked up working class voters across across all demographics, not just the white working class. Everyone wants change; offer real change.

I doubt that, but it would be nice if you’re right.

Yeah, a Trump victory scares me, but what scares me more is the more competent fascist that comes next. The Democrats can’t keep waiting for the Republicans to, “come to their senses.” The material conditions of the working class need to improve, or fascist populism will take in the absence of economic populism.

The Dark Knight trilogy really wanted to be a realistic, grounded take on the Batman mythos, so they dropped the more fantastical elements of some characters’ backstories. Ra’s Al Ghul was no longer immortal, Bane didn’t have super steroids, the Joker wasn’t permanently bleached by chemicals…then there’s Two-Face.

I guess they thought acid burns were too unrealistic, so they gave him regular burns…apparently without knowing that burns that severe would be so painful that he wouldn’t even be able to remain conscious, much less run around the city on a killing spree. I mean, you can see exposed muscle in some places. There’s a line where Gordon says he’s rejecting skin grafts, and I remember thinking, “WTF are you talking about? He should be in a medically induced coma, not making healthcare decisions.” Half of his body was an open wound; I’m amazed he didn’t die of infection 15 minutes after he left the hospital.

Who is this for? They’re acting like getting endorsements from the families of Bush and Cheney is like getting an endorsement from Ronald Regan, but Bush and Cheney were not popular at the end of their administration; they started two interminable wars and ended with the largest recession in recent history. Trump cut his teeth in 2016 by trashing George Bush and curb-stomping his brother in the primary. Conservatives who are still open to Trump probably aren’t huge fans of the Bush family! All this is doing is demoralizing the progressive base and showing conservatives that the kind of Republicans they rejected in 2016 support Harris.

Yup. We gotta vote for them this election, but replace them in the next. Otherwise, we’re just hitting snooze on fascism for another 4 years.

What about my original comment led you to believe I thought they were equivalent? As I said, Republicans are vile, hateful, and exploiting our political divisions for power. But the Democrats are just as responsible for the material conditions that have allowed facism to flourish, and demanding accountability and change for that isn’t nitpicking. If the Democrats don’t stop being corporate stooges, this doesn’t end if Trump is defeated; it ends when another fascist finally wins.

History didn’t start in 2016. The Democrats were happy to cozy up to the Silicone Valley tech giants, even as they developed into monopolies whose products gave users the very brain-poisoning that delivered Trump. They were happy to prioritize Wall Street bailouts over homeowners’ bailouts after the subprime mortgage crises, even if meant their constituents lost their homes. They’ve been happy to sideline or undermine anyone who dares run to their left, from Bernie Sanders to Rashida Tlaib.

The Democrats are not well-meaning, helpless progressives that just can’t get anything done because of America’s byzantine political structure. They have actively stopped any significant changes to the status quo in order to keep their donors happy. They’ve spent decades deluding themselves into thinking they could somehow improve conditions for the working class without demanding concessions from the billionaire class, even as the largest wealth transfer in history, from the lowest income Americans to the highest income Americans, was taking place. They may not be as vile or hateful as the Republicans, but they are just as responsible for America’s decay.

Oh, that’s easy; we don’t! Every four years, the fabric of our society frays and tears a little more, while our politicians either exploit our divisions or attempt to repair them without making any changes to the material conditions or systemic problems that create these fractures, because fixing these underlying issues would upset the handful of billionaires that actually control our government! But there’s a new Fast & Furious movie every two or three years, so it balances out.

Did you read this? This article is about the pro-Russian separatists’ conscription of Ukrainians to fight for Russia.

From your source:

The Guardian recently reported that men in the Donbas region in eastern Ukraine are being forcibly conscripted into the armed forces of the self-declared Donetsk Peoples Republic (DPR) and Luhansk Peoples Republic (LPR).

From the Gaurdian article they’re referencing:

Pro-Russia separatist forces have stepped up the forced conscription of men – including Ukrainian passport holders – in occupied areas of the Donbas region, amid mounting evidence of the scale of losses on the Russian side.

According to credible evidence from the region, forced conscription – already a feature of the Russian-backed separatists’ rule before the Kremlin’s invasion on 24 February – appeared to have picked up again in June, with checkpoints and patrols, some reportedly involving Chechen fighters allied to the Kremlin, on the lookout for men to recruit.

From another article cited by your source:

Russia justifies its invasion of Ukraine arguing it is defending the “Luhansk and Donetsk People’s Republics.” Mere days before Russia launched its attack, when tens of thousands of Russian soldiers had been amassed on Ukraine’s border, these self-proclaimed “People’s Republics” beyond Kyiv’s control launched major mobilization drives. Men between the ages of 18 and 55 are no longer permitted to leave.

Even if Ukraine is using conscripted soldiers, you just proved that A) pro-Russian forces are doing the exact same thing and B) you don’t even look at the articles you’re sharing.

Well, there also seem to be credible leaks that it’ll have some sort of duel screen system, potentially functioning like the DS. It’s probably going to be more than just a bigger switch.

It’s the only site with a similar post/comment structure and a large enough user base to be viable, so in that regard, it’s the only alternative. Culturally, it’s much different. It’s far more left-leaning and hasn’t fallen victim to the same salf-importance and group-think that Reddit users have. It also doesn’t have the same wealth of knowledge Reddit built up over 20 years, though, and it’s prone to petty infighting between communities and instances (and even admins).

Ultimately, I prefer it to Reddit, and never feel the urge to go back. I’m not convinced that Federation is a silver bullet for all of social media’s ills, but I think Lemmy is an interesting project, and I’m interested in seeing how it develops.

Slightly further away in the sequel trilogies, but slightly closer because it was a prequel.

In the lead up to the release of Episode 1, the Sci-Fi channel ran some bumpers of fans waiting in line arguing with each other. One of them said something to the effect of, “Given that this is a prequel, and that we know the universe is expanding, shouldn’t the crawler read, ‘A slightly less long time ago in a Galaxy slight less far away…’” 25 years later and that still pops into my head sometimes.

You probably didn’t have early-onset childhood schizophrenia. This girl was undiagnosed at the time and literally thought she was talking to Slender Man, as well as Severus Snape, unicorns, and ghosts. I’m not saying she should be released, but she’s been in treatment for a decade, and she’s requesting the court appoint an expert to evaluate her and make a recommendation about her release. Seems pretty reasonable to me.

No, this is literally where the U.S. falls on a global political spectrum. The Democrats would be considered center-right in most other nations. Even by their own historical standards, they’re center right; if you took a Democrat from 1975 and transported them to 1995, they’d ask you why the party had adopted the Republicans’ fiscal policies.

I certainly hope so; I’m on Wolrd, and most of my favorite communities are located on World, but I often find the admins’ decision questionable, and I have just as many reservations about ml. I hope I could put together a good group of communities without either instance, but sometimes it feels like they’re necessary to a good Lemmy experience. But either way, I think you’re right, most instances won’t defederate.

Look, the question was, “Do you think Lemmy and other parts of the fediverse will eventually enshittify? I think this would be an interesting discussion to have.” I gave an answer explaining that I didn’t think Lemmy would enshittify, but pointing out another senerio where Lemmy could collapse. Sorry if you found it too pessimistic, but if you didn’t want to hear negativity, maybe this wasn’t the discussion for you. Also, if your solution is, “make multiple accounts to get around defederation, start your own instance, or GTFO,” that’s going to be a problem for growth, because most users will pick GTFO.

Also, I think hyper-specialized instances will only exacerbate any potential schisms. Tribalism isn’t necessarily political (although that is currently the central conflict on Lemmy). Admins could find divisions over rule enforcement, fediverse philosophy, or just get into good old-fashioned pissing contests. The admins on my instance recently created a real mess with the moderators of their own Vegan community, overriding their moderating decisions and then retroactively changing their own rules to justify it. Now imagine that conflict was between two instances, and you need to make a separate account just to talk about veganism. If anything, it seems like having an eclectic group of communities on each instance would be better than specializing, since admins would really have to consider whether it’s worth cutting their users off from multiple diverse groups over a conflict.