At least the people currently voting in primaries suck. The solution is for more people who don’t suck to start voting in primaries

Obama was an upset candidate. Hillary was the DNC choice in 08.

Yeah, the establishment has their thumb on the scale, and that sucks. It means that it will take more primary voters to overwhelm their influence. Like I said, I’m not optimistic.

But it is still the most viable path to change at this time. Unless you have a better suggestion? (Or do you just want to complain?)

If you mean that democratic primary voters in subsequent states voted for Biden after Sanders had the early lead, yes.

If people start voting in primaries that can change.

Am I optimistic that it will? No. But the problem is that people who want to see change aren’t voting in primaries and then they complain that their choices suck.

Time or technical challenge are not the issue. The issue is that the utility of a social network is a function of the number of individuals in that network.

That’s why Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Reddit all still have dominant positions in their regimes. If you want to see what your friends are saying you need to be on the same network they are on. And if they are on Twitter, signing up for Bluesky doesn’t magically get you their content. I’m off twitter, never really used insta, I have my FB account, but I only log in now when I need to check on specific things (like seeing if people were OK after the wildfires swept through the town I used to live in), and I guiltily admit I still use reddit, largely because a lot of the niche subs I frequent aren’t here. I know the solution to that last problem is for someone like me to step up and make them, but… I’m tired boss. I can either be a volunteer firefighter, or I can admin a firefighter com on Lemmy. I can’t do both.

I built one back when I lived in California during fire season, and then again during the pandemic. They do such a nice job making the air less gross.

I think that’s about what mine looked like after 3 or 4 weeks too…

*measurable if you have some damn good instruments.

It will put off about as much heat as a single incandescent light bulb

I was coming here to say that! It’s possibly apocryphal, but the way I heard it was that the University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign did this when they did their main quad (I still remember them telling me this when I got a tour before applying there 30 years ago). And they didn’t just look for where the plants were dead, but they also looked for broadleaf weeds, which sustain trampling better than grasses (it’s a land grant university in the midwest. Of course there’s an agriculture angle).

Tell us you’re not paying attention to the rest of the world without telling us you’re not paying attention to the rest of the world.

I’m working on it too. I’m part way there. (47 year old telecommuting engineer and off grid homesteader hoping to retire to do farm stuff full time as soon as I can)

All the post said was that she voted for Trump to piss off liberals. She never said she was hardcore maga.

If you weren’t talking about the post in question, I think my mistake in assuming that you were was reasonable, given where we are…

Have a good one

I’m not saying you’re wrong, because I don’t know enough details about their economy at that time, but people have been saying that about the US economy for decades and it hasn’t happened yet (not that I think it wouldn’t under Trump, because he’s really going nuts on it, but…).

Do you have anything you can point to that makes the case that the situation was so precarious that collapse was inevitable, or just that they were precarious (as the US has been since GWB at least)?

You’re making a really common mistake.

You assume that everyone who voted for trump is ultra hardcore maga. A lot of them are just ignorant shits who fear the woke boogeyman.

I live in a district that voted for Trump. I’m around people who voted for him all the time. The vast majority of them are extremely low information voters and are uncomfortable with change. It’s not that they all think Trump is the second coming. The most visible ones think Trump is the second coming, but that’s not most of them…

I personally know at least 2 who have changed their mind about him since the election. And I try not to talk to them about him, so I probably know others who just haven’t told me yet.

I’m not op, but I like speculative fiction. I was really into Ministry For The Future. I also liked Termination Shock.

What have you got?

I think it’s pretty rad that you offered to recommend books. You’re alright.

Primaries!

If more people voted in primaries we would have probably had president Sanders instead of Trump the first time around

Massed armies in the street aren’t how you beat superpowers.

At this point I’m not going to be looking to the US institutions for medical recommendations. I’ll be looking at Canada and the UK.

And I’m fortunate enough to be day trip range to canada, so as long as the border stays open I’ll be able to get vaccines.

At some point people are going to start having to risk their comfortable lives to resist

“We love America just as much as they do. But in a different way. You see, they love America like a 4-year-old loves his mommy. Liberals love America like grown-ups. To a 4-year-old, everything Mommy does is wonderful and anyone who criticizes Mommy is bad. Grown-up love means actually understanding what you love, taking the good with the bad and helping your loved one grow.”

-Al Franken