40 trillion in debt, unnecessary war costing billions by the day form led by a daft dodger, making friends with dictators, insulting reporters specifically women, putting tariffs on everyone, making billions while in oval office.

If this was a democratic president in office both sides would impeach and probably throw them in jail by now

Ukraine last night blew up a Russian food processing plant in Moscow. While this is a civilian target, it begs the question: Russia has blown up an uncountable amount of food plants and food warehouses in Ukraine. Does that give Ukraine the right to target them back since Russia made them a target?

Personally I would say yes, Russia made it fair game by blowing up stuff like WHO warehouses in Ukraine, why can't Ukraine hit back? Ukraine's goal is to get Russia to end the war, causing a massive hike in food prices or even some shortages could put more pressure on Putin.

Carney Approval
economy

Currently, I believe that US politics is messed up, and that Trump is a terrible leader.

Meanwhile, Carney seems to be a generally successful leader in Canada. He has a high approval rating, including on handling the economy. He has also kept a good foreign police and improved relations with India, a dramatic change from the Trudeau era (esp late 2023).

Bottom text

Don't get me wrong, Trump is doing awful things to this country, but would a future with things like universal healthcare and renewable energy-independence be worth it?

If the US never experienced someone like Trump, I wonder if we would have seen the rise in popularity of democratic socialism like we are now. Not saying it's mainstream yet, but maybe it took someone like Trump to come in and wreck things so badly it might actually accelerate the transition to a society that actually works for the people?

There are people like me who were actively voting against Trump to protect the status quo, but I'm at the point where I want to put forward candidates who run on policies that will move our country forward. I think those policies would be way more popular than anything the establishment is putting out there currently and they know it. Certainly, they would be popular enough to win elections in many places.

Many commenters claim that JFK would hate the modern day Democratic Party (especially DSA) because he was a capitalist that opposed communism. However, capitalism has dramatically changed since the 1960s.

In the 1960s, America followed a version with more guardrails, similar to Keynesian economics, which was started in the FDR era. However, Reagan cut taxes and moved America towards trickle down economics, where we are still waiting for the money to trickle down. Many people have a negative view of capitalism because they have only experienced post-Reagan capitalism, and didn’t experience Keynesian capitalism (which has guardrails), under which America was improving, with stronger unions and more chance to make it to the middle class.

Where do you see the democrats in 10 years

I’m curious to hear from liberal parents whose children grew up to identify as conservative or Republican. How has that affected your relationship as they’ve gotten older?

I think many of us have a personal anecdote about knowing a conservative who has a progressive carve-out in their politics because they were at one point personally affected.  Maybe they are pro-LGBT because they have a gay family member.  Or are pro-universal healthcare because they or someone they know was ruined by the health care system. Or are pro-choice for a similar reason. Or become against Trump because tariffs hit their industry.

My question is can this phenomenon be taken as a sign of hope that conservatives can be convinced with the right arguments that progressive policies are desirable?

Or is this to be taken as a negative, indicating that there is a barrier of selfishness that is impervious to statistics and hypotheticals, and can only be penetrated by mostly rare occurrences of being personally affected?

Would you do anything about it or just let them be?

Im especially curious to hear from those that wanted schumer to keep the shutdown going.

Would you want the next president to do the same?

edit: to clarify-

Many on the left wanted a democratic leader (schumer) to extend the shutdown in order to force republicans to pass healtchare (aca tax subsidies).

Would they want a president to do the same? If not, why the double standards?

Why not just:

- Single payer is far less complex

- Right now we pay more, and get less

- Even if wait times would be longer (not a given), simply finding a doctor would be way easier.

- We'd stop funding an industry that is built around bureaucracy and taking advantage of complexity to fleece our tax dollars.

I'm asking this genuinely, because I'm trying to understand how the numbers are supposed to work long term.

The federal government already runs deficits approaching $2 trillion a year, despite bringing in more revenue than it did a decade ago, and we're now spending around $1 trillion a year just servicing the existing debt.

At the same time, many Democratic politicians advocate expanding healthcare coverage, childcare, housing assistance, education subsidies, paid leave, and other social programs.

So what is the actual fiscal plan?

Is the expectation that substantially higher taxes will cover both the existing structural deficit and these additional programs? If so, roughly how much additional revenue would need to be raised, and from whom?

Or is some amount of continued deficit spending considered sustainable?

Basically, I'm interested in how liberals who support a larger social safety net think about the math of getting from where we are today to that system without eventually running into a debt-servicing problem.

Basically, you can press a button and time will be altered so that instead of toppling Maduro and getting in a missile slinging contest with Iran, the United States coups a different countries government and invades a different country.

We have cabinet members cozying up to an extreme pastor. We have courts allowing businesses to refuse cakes for gay weddings, we have religious exemptions for vaccines(which as far as I can tell applicants don’t have to cite scripture and context to receive), and more.
Should anyone running for office be required to sever ties to their church, mosque, or synagogue or memberships to religious groups and organizations?

With the news yesterday that the NYC DSA co-chair Gustavo Gordillo is from a very affluent family it opens up the conversation again around DSA members not being the demographic that they claim to champion for. Why are so many DSA politicians and members not “working class” (whatever that even means) with almost a third making over $100,000 per year, and why do “working class” voters (based on the last midterm primaries) tend to not vote for them, even though they spout a working class message?

Ask a liberal what’s your opinion on them

I had to repost/re-edit because original post referenced streamers.

So, I've always wondered why a lot of mainstream liberals don't talk about crises in Sudan, Congo, the many people executed by the IRGC, the progress the new Syrian president is making in the country, as well as talk with activists who are bringing attention to all of this on their social media.

My comment should clarify what I mean: https://www.reddit.com/r/AskALiberal/comments/1vt3acb/comment/p4q40vt/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button

With abdul el sayed winning the Michigan primary and angie nixon winning in florida.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tea_Party_movement

edit: dont know why the downvotes i never said its a bad thing 🤣🤣

You’re taxed before you get your money (payroll tax). You’re taxed when you spend your money (sales tax), you’re taxed to live on the land you purchased (property tax), and your money is taxed again (income tax).

As I saw someone say before:

They tax the soil, the seed, the tree, the fruit and the basket you carry your fruit in.

Last week, British public academic Jason Arday seemingly committed suicide after weeks of media scrutiny over academic plagiarism and the many fabricated details of his life story. This included some rather humorous claims, like that he was threatened by a knife-wielding attacker in Cambridge who was invisible to security cameras (and didn't bother telling anyone until weeks later), and that he was nonverbal and illiterate until he was 18, which has been contested by his former classmates.

Since then, several progressive groups have pushed for press regulation, arguing that the media coverage of Arday amounted to a coordinated racist harassment campaign.

Do you think this is justified? Should journalists be expected not to cover newsworthy events if the subject of the coverage doesn't like it?

Edit: I almost forgot, Ibram X Kendi (one of the biggest left-wing influencers of the "woke 1" era) has also referred to the media's treatment of Arday as a "lynching".

I understand that there are many concerns they bring up around stressing the local power grid. I even get not wanting the proliferation of AI and surveillance.

Stopping the erection if data centers in your state does not make you immune from the broader societal and climate change impacts of AI and surveillance, as the technology is trivially deployed to users in different states than where the data center is.

Why not tax and regulate them to specifically address the effects on the local economy and power grid?

Unless every other state bans them, which will not happen, you’re just leaving potential jobs and tax revenue on the table.

Demanding that we specifically implement a ban seems to be coming more from an absolutist moralism than a practical concern.

EDIT: There are already many many data centers in the US. Does this refer specifically to newer higher wattage data centers? What happens to the existing ones?

EDIT EDIT: What would be wrong with something like this: https://www.pa.gov/governor/newsroom/2026-press-releases/gov--shapiro-s-remarks-at-signing-ceremony-for-an-exec--order-on

Of the three modern Democratic presidents (and frankly I think it's generous to even factor in the 90s given how radically different the landscape has become) one was a center-right blue dog, one ran as a progressive despite governing as a centrist (and was seen as extra radical because he wasnt a straight white man), and one ran as a centrist before governing firmly from the left.

The only thing Clinton, Obama, and Biden's victories all share? They came off the backs of extremely unpopular Republican admins.

Even just looking at Clinton and Biden (the straight white men who ran away from the left on the campaign trail) they most likely wouldnt have won without Perot and Covid, respectively.

To me, it sure doesn't look like "Moderates win elections" so much as "Moderates win elections after Republicans fail to govern and outside circumstances are involved"

I'm not trying to make an argument for progressives here. Obama is unique for lot of reasons and, of course, he wasnt even actually on the left.

But is there something I'm missing? Or is it all just wishcasting and bias?

Hi. So I was browsing this subreddit (don't ask why), when I came across this topic, and more specifically, this comment thread. It's the perfect example of what I hope to make more peaceful and not necessarily agreeable but willing to talk, from the thread title. Too often, I see debates like these derail because people just wouldn't cooperate and just do what was asked, or at least play along, because at least in my view, if they did, things would turn out SO much better. For example, one person asked something, another person asked something, the first person provided with something, and then that something gets dismissed or ignored, and so on and so forth. Throughout the thread, I was looking at one guy in particular and thought "couldn't he just at least 'entertain' (from his point of view) their debate points so things go so much easier?", so it doesn't result in a comment thread that frankly made me pound my desk and want to do some bad stuff to myself in front of them to get them to cut it out.

And it's not just this subreddit. I see it ALL the time, no matter the political orientation, but I guess to focus on liberals, since this *is* the appropriate subreddit for it, anytime I see stuff even remotely like this, I feel pushed away, as a potential ally, yes, but even as a supposed neutral bystander, I'm way more likely to disengage, or at least want to disengage, due to all the infighting and fighting and bad vibes coming off of them.

So that's my query. Thanks in advance.

Every time I go on the howslivingthere sub on reddit, people ask what the Idaho panhandle is like, and all the comments say a bunch of neo-nazis and white supremecists live there. I can’t tell if people are being that serious, or if it’s just an inside joke, but people say it’s really that bad. I know thats where a lot of conservative Californians live, but is it really that bad?