pjwestin

joined 1 year ago
[–] pjwestin 6 points 19 hours ago (1 children)

This lady who had to resign from her town council after doing it. I thought there was at least one other, but I can't find it now.

[–] pjwestin 2 points 1 day ago (1 children)

I could ask you to explain what you think I'm not reading, but I think we both know this is just a ridiculous cop-out, and you simply don't want to engage with facts that contradict your worldview.

[–] pjwestin 2 points 1 day ago (3 children)

This is conjecture, not evidence, but if leftists really are that powerful of a voting block, that seems like further proof that the Democrats should adopt leftist policies.

[–] pjwestin 2 points 1 day ago (5 children)

I am saying that Democrats perform better with a progressive message than a centrist one. If you don't believe me, you're welcome to look up the party platforms and stump speeches from these years and compare which candidates were pushing leftist platforms and which were centrist. You can compare Biden's BBB plan, which contains child tax credit extensions, universal pre-k, ACA subsidies, affordable housing, and dozens of other progressive programs to the, "economic opportunity," platform of business loans and first-time homebuyer's credits that Harris ran on. You can look up Obama's stump speeches regarding homeowner bailouts and compare them to the HAMP program he actually put in place.

The evidence is pretty clear; voters go to Democrats when they offer a strong, progressive vision for the country, and they abandon them when they pursue centrist policies. Yet liberals like Harris and Clinton both lost by courting, "moderate," Republicans. They’ve convinced themselves to ignore the facts and follow the, "common sense," idea that they need to move further towards the center. Even you have dismissed every piece of information I've presented you and instead continue to insist, without evidence, that being is a liberal centrist is the best strategy. This is why liberals continue to defeat themselves.

[–] pjwestin 3 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (7 children)

In 2008. Barack Obama beat Clinton by running an extremely progressive campaign, which included homeowner bailouts, universal healthcare, and ending our foreign wars. He then abandoned all of those promises and governed as a centrist.

It's also worth noting that, despite being a centrist, Biden's platform was very progressive. In fact, Bernie Sanders helped write it. Unfortunately, centrists like Manchin and Sinema killed that legislation, even though it was very popular.

A better question is how many times has a purely centrist message won? Because I'm struggling to think of an example besides Bill Clinton.

[–] pjwestin 16 points 1 day ago

I'm sure most of them just believed they could get away with it and then abruptly realized they did not have the same power and influence as the richest man on Earth.

[–] pjwestin 3 points 1 day ago (14 children)

A) Poll numbers are all hypothetical. Non-hypothetical poll numbers are called election results. In every poll, Sanders was beating Trump by more points than any of the Democratic nominees. We'll never know for sure if Sanders would have won, but our best evidence showed he would have performed better than the Democratic nominee.

B) Yes, a coordinated effort by the Democratic party blocked Sanders in 2016 and 2020. He couldn't overcome this institutional opposition, so the Democrats' preferred candidates won the primaries. One of those candidates lost in 2016, while the other won in 2020 but imploded before 2024. We are currently living with the results of the Democrats' attempts to select a, "centre-left winger who actually has a chance of winning," and it turns out those results are almost entirely losses.

[–] pjwestin 3 points 1 day ago (16 children)

Sanders. His polling numbers were better against Trump than the last three Democratic candidates, but the party leadership organized to block him in favor of centrist liberals. Biden was the only one of those liberals who was able to eke out a win against Trump, and he was on track to lose worse than Carter lost to Regan when he dropped his reelection bid.

[–] pjwestin 3 points 1 day ago (18 children)

Half of those people lost, and one of the winner's reelection campaign was going so badly that he had to resign. Meanwhile, the, "far-left," alternative to them had more favorable polling numbers in the last 3 elections. After the last 10 years, I'm not sure there's any serious way to argue that the center-left are the only ones who have a shot of winning.

[–] pjwestin 43 points 1 day ago (6 children)

It is very funny that there are so many examples of people basically saying, "It wasn't a Nazi salute, watch I'll show you," and then immediately ruining their lives by doing it.

[–] pjwestin 35 points 1 day ago

Worth noting that he has not, at any point, denied it was a Nazi salute. Closest thing to a denial he's done so far is reply, "Thank you," to an ADL tweet defending him, and he immediately followed that up with a bunch of Nazi puns. Feels like that's gonna hurt his case.

[–] pjwestin 15 points 2 days ago

Yeah, I had the same reaction over the summer when people rediscovered the 2016 lawsuit that accused Trump of raping a 13 year old. Everyone was like, "Why is no one covering this???" Because they did. Eight years ago. Nothing new happened, it just got picked up by social media again.

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"Winner" (lemmy.world)
submitted 1 month ago by pjwestin to c/lemmyshitpost
 
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submitted 1 month ago by pjwestin to c/memes
 

Seriously though, don't do violence.

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Seems Legit (lemmy.world)
submitted 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) by pjwestin to c/outofcontextcomics
 

Shazam's first page.

 
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Ghosted (lemmy.world)
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submitted 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) by pjwestin to c/politicalmemes
 

Tankie's original use was for British communists who supported Soviet military expansion. In the modern sense, it is used to describe communists who are authoritarian-apologists. For example, a communist who romanticizes the Soviet Union or makes excuses for the Uyghur genocide is a tankie. I've also seen it stretched to include militant anti-capitalists, or more commonly, "militant," anti-capitalists who call for violent resistance to capitalism from the safety of a keyboard.

Democratic-Socialists are not tankies. Socialists are not tankies. I don't even think most communists qualify as tankies. Criticizing Democrats does not make you a tankie. Condemning Israel's human rights violations does not make you a tankie. Voting third party doesn't make you a tankie. I see this term used here every day, but never correctly.

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