Candelestine

I dunno, I think it's working fine. If some younger, fiery leftist had wanted to primary him, I think that'd have been fine too, but just ... none did. Among the couple of people that did primary him, none really stood out. Like, Dean Philips was fine, but the guy literally didn't have a platform that wasn't "I'm a mainstream dem that's not Biden."

That's not good enough to take down an incumbent.

But otherwise, what do you want? If nobody with positions runs against him, then nobody with positions runs against him. It's not like AOC was 10 years older and vying for the nomination and we all ignored her or something.

Now this is a quality unpopular opinion post. You have somehow managed to succeed where all others fail.

I don't think he knows what the word "directly" means...

At least be honest. You don't want a functional president, you want a left-leaning one. That's fine, but at least represent yourself accurately. Otherwise you're just acting with the same childishness as the guys on the other side of the aisle.

From a pure functionality perspective, he's gotten a shitload done. Even if you don't agree with it all, like helping Netanyahu and such.

Yeah, human systems all work on the honor system, via cultural pressures mostly. Either they work smoothly or they don't, and which is kinda up to us. No system is immune to people making choices though. And we probably wouldn't like it if we had one anyway.

To add to this, most Americans have some exposure to the metric system. It's used in science classes, as well as in the military.

Which is why diplomatic tools should be attempted first, then escalation to economic tools. Military deterrence is too big a jump, currently.

I agree, it's a very big deal. I never said it was nothing and we shouldn't respond. I said we should respond in kind, as we can.

I merely draw a distinction between these kinds of attacks, and the actual invasions of places like Gaza or Ukraine. Information warfare has a culpable deniability to it, similar to espionage, that makes it inherently harder to tackle.

It's just not so simple as bomb the people that fuck with us or something like that. That would not fix the problem. It's trickier.

Interesting argument. I prefer to draw a distinction between a fertilized embryo and a human. The idea that a fetus has the same rights as an awake, thinking, feeling person is absurd. If fetuses have rights, then liver cells should too.

The bodily autonomy arguments are a little less effective imo. The right does not genuinely believe in freedom or rights period, much less bodily autonomy. Thus, body autonomy arguments will not work. They simply don't really believe in it. They believe people are a resource, to be used up, just like coal or oil. As soldiers or workers or breeders or whatever. They won't admit it, but that's kinda how they feel. Kinda that whole old-school "work to live" line of thinking.

Btw, I hope I'm not confusing you, but I'm not actually a conservative. I'm simply willing to sound like one whenever it helps me to communicate a point to someone. I'm no genuine christian though, Jesus, while real, was a human man, nothing divine about him.

First and foremost. Though that argument in practice drifts annoyingly towards anti-abortion arguments, which are a different situation.

When it comes to door-knocking, it's less about your opinions and more about listening to and addressing their concerns. So you don't really want to just hammer with what comes across as a propaganda sledgehammer, as much as listen and converse. With extra emphasis on listen. Have to be flexible.

With a phone bank, probably have to stick to a script.

There's other things too though, registration drives and giving people rides to polling places on election day, teaching people how mail-in works, stuff like that. Just generic get-out-the-vote stuff.