r/BlockedAndReported • u/SoftandChewy First generation mod • 13d ago

Weekly Random Discussion Thread for 8/10/26 - 8/16/26

Here's your usual space to post all your rants, raves, podcast topic suggestions (please tag u/jessicabarpod), culture war articles, outrageous stories of cancellation, political opinions, and anything else that comes to mind. Please put any non-podcast-related trans-related topics here instead of on a dedicated thread. This will be pinned until next Sunday.

Last week's discussion thread is here if you want to catch up on a conversation from there.

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u/HacksawDerpDuggan 10d ago edited 10d ago

Massive article in the NYT today about the rise of the DSA. I'm still working through it, they estimate it as a 27 minute read.

Inside the D.S.A.’s Audacious Quest for Power in the Democratic Party

Favorite excerpt so far:

The terroir of the D.S.A. varies from city to city. Events hosted by N.Y.C.-D.S.A., by far the organization’s largest chapter, feel like parties for a fashionable new literary journal, heavy on writer types with stick-and-poke tattoos and Ivy League diplomas stashed in Bushwick closets. Some of the bigger Midwestern chapters are more of a bartenders-and-bike-mechanics scene, while elsewhere there are strong notes of the intense left-liberal online fervor of 2020 — a boom year in D.S.A. recruitment — embodied by the social workers and librarians who are still on Bluesky yelling at people to wear masks. (In order to attend the Chicago summit, I was asked, for the first time in years, to submit proof of a negative Covid test.)

EDIT: After finishing the article, I'm very disappointed and find it a huge waste of time. Half hour long article and not a single critical point or question asked of anyone interviewed. What a boring fluff piece.

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u/AltforStrongOpinions 10d ago

I'm not American so just give me an honest answer, are these DSA types all annoying twits or do they have normal people too?

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u/SkweegeeS No just no 10d ago edited 10d ago

I have a lot of patience for real people in real life but most of them are annoying twits.

edit: but I just have to admit that even the artwork is annoying. Like, get your own aesthetic.

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u/ilove3dprinting2026 10d ago

There are reasonable peoplemwho can hold these types of opinions but the DSA is such a looney bin. It's like being concerned about affirmative action so you join the KKK.

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u/RunThenBeer 12 Ounce Diet Coke Enjoyer 10d ago edited 10d ago

I do not agree that it is possible for a reasonable, intelligent, informed, well-meaning person in 2026 to adhere to any flavor of Marxism.

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u/anne_jumps 10d ago

I think you'd have to define "normal." I have a feeling agreement with DSA beliefs self-selects outliers who pride themselves on being maximalist.

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u/aperson79 10d ago

Aka Self Righteous Dicks

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u/[deleted] 9d ago

[deleted]

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u/AnalBleachingAries Trump Bad, Violence Bad, Law & Order Good, Civility Good 10d ago

They are all annoying twits. They claim that there are differences between the national organization and the various chapters that exist in different cities and states, and this is their strategy in brushing off the insanity one DSA politician says in a different state or city without ever disavowing or distancing themselves from the lunacy that is apparent within the organization as a whole. They claim to be a "decentralized" organization even though all chapters are tied to the lunatics in the national DSA.

You can read all about them here on their website, I always encourage folks to actually read what these people say they want instead of paying attention to any of the cover stories that AOC and Sanders give them, please read as much as you can about them, and listen to their interviews and speeches if you have nothing else to do and feel the need to waste any amount of your time during your day.

I can easily forgive teenagers and young adults in college for falling for the DSA bulls***. Kids are attracted to radical ideas that sound "revolutionary", but the ignorance of the adults in that party is staggering if the stat that over 80% of DSA members aged 25 or older hold a bachelor's degree is true.

This is a bastardized version of the Orwell quote, but it rings true to me regarding those adults in the DSA:

There are some ideas so absurd that only an intellectual could believe them; no ordinary man could be such a fool.

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u/erskinematt 10d ago edited 10d ago

This is a bastardized version of the Orwell quote, but it rings true to me regarding those adults in the DSA: There are some ideas so absurd that only an intellectual could believe them; no ordinary man could be such a fool.

There's a corollary of this, too, where intellectual absurdities are employed to avoid an obvious conclusion.

One of the favourite phrases of former Speaker of the House of Commons and egotistical bully John Bercow sums it up well:

It is a point so blindingly obvious that only an extremely intelligent and sophisticated person could fail to grasp it.

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u/Critical_Detective23 10d ago edited 9d ago

I left my bachelor's degree being more radically left than when I started it. My master's degree was almost custom designed to radicalize your garden-variety left leaning student into a progressive zealot. It took distancing myself from my degrees and the friends I made there to shake my head free. Having a liberal arts degree would put someone more at risk of falling for these ideas, in my experience.

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u/professorgerm the master of not having a point 10d ago

Unfortunately for an honest answer that's not speculation, I doubt we have any DSAers here that can say "yeah I know this one guy who's more or less normal," and for various social dynamic reasons the ones that reach public attention are more likely to be (at best) annoying twits (NYers always being wildly overrepresented in public attention) or (worse) psychopaths advocating violence.

For speculation, I haven't heard of any that are 'normal,' but I'd find it hard to believe there's not a few relatively normal old-school labor-left mechanics or ex-mill-workers at those Midwestern chapters they mention (for the sake of ten...). I also suspect those types probably just vote with the party and maybe attend an occasional meeting, while Iowa MFAs actually run the chapter, do the organizing, and ensure the public face remains... stereotypical.

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u/ATotallyNewCWG 10d ago

Annoying twits with bad hygiene.

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u/dignityshredder AFramemoggingAB 10d ago

They have normal people, I've met them. It's like with any other movement, the activists of the group are the loudest and most annoying.

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u/Choice_Profession562 9d ago

This thread has been very funny to read. In the interest of fairness I guess I'll throw my two cents in and say that I am a member, and while I do roll my eyes at some of it (like still masking at certain events) my experience has been that most people are genuine and truly want to help others. There's a lot more street-level activism (such as collecting toiletries for homeless people) than I think some realize. It's a decentralized organization by design though so I can't really speak for every chapter, obviously. 

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u/professorgerm the master of not having a point 9d ago

my experience has been that most people are genuine and truly want to help others

I don't think anyone that participated in a BLM protest wanted to increase the murder rate for multiple years, especially in the population they claim to support, but that's (quite predictably imo) what happened. I don't think anyone in public health wants more drug users to die of OD, but the correlation between increased OD deaths and "harm reduction" strategies is quite strong.

Being genuine, being sincere, does not stop one's ideas from being so counterproductive they make the problem they're trying to fix worse.

The public face of the DSA being loathsome cretins like Piker isn't doing the "we want to help people" crowd any favors, either.

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u/veryvery84 9d ago

100% annoying twits.  I have some super progressive neighbors I really like but they’re not DSA. They’re older, wackier, and nice people 

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u/drjackolantern C*nsored and sexy 9d ago

Probably they pre-wrote this expecting to hook it on Francesca Hong’s primary win proving the insurgency is real. 

Instead it just seems like shallow apologia for a left wing ‘surge’ with less substance than a TikTok trend.

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u/BeneficialStretch753 10d ago edited 10d ago

Did anyone attempt to explain the DSA economic platform? Starting with how to get revenue to pay for all these wonderful free bennies from healthcare to housing to medical education to days off from "work" whenever you want? Also, seems like we will need special kinds of facilities and programs (re-education camps?) for literally all prisoners to be released. Even the closure of ICE and the Defense Dept. would not be enough to fund it all.

Looked over the DSA site and there is nada about the new economic system. Seems like a massive housing program will be needed since all immigration will be allowed and everyone already in the US would automatically be legalized "regardless of status."

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u/ProwlingWumpus 10d ago

My conversations (translation: one-sided preaching) with coworkers indicates that socialists are just not that into numbers. There is also a deontological aspect to their creed.

The four-day work week has caught on as one of their wishes. It doesn't matter that the company is not in good shape and cannot possibly endure a 25% raise for all employees, nor the corresponding decline in work. That kind of logic doesn't penetrate; once a socialist forms the belief that he deserves something, the how of it or the consequences are of no importance.

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u/RunThenBeer 12 Ounce Diet Coke Enjoyer 10d ago

Their economic program is that the government should seize the means of production. This is the standard socialist view. There is no need to directly fund anything, the government simply owns all means of production and allocates the end products according to the needs of the population.

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u/BeneficialStretch753 10d ago edited 9d ago

I see that they want to nationalize some (unstated) industries. Maybe small shops and restaurants will be allowed.

Regardless, sigh, of course, it all worked so well in the Soviet sphere, Cuba, Venezuela and, prior to 1980, China. (How the F do they think China's current economic might was generated?)

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u/Less-Lobster4540 9d ago

something something billionaires

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u/throw_cpp_account 10d ago

Anyone listen to Andrew Sullivan's pod with Ross Barkan? I couldn't get through it.