While I agree with the general sentiment, I think the same could have been said regardless of which candidate won. It feels like the left moved left, the right moved right, and instead of catering to moderates, threatening them to pick a side.

Said another way, I think a young Jimmy Carter type candidate would have wiped the floor with either side this election.

> like the left moved left, the right moved right,

The only leftist pandering that Kamala offered was getting rid of taxes on tips (something that Trump offered first, actually), she seemed fairly center, or even a bit right of center (putting off far lefties) as Democrat presidential candidates are usually these days. Trump, likewise, didn't really veer right, he actually veered a bit left in offering to lower prices, make life easier, less wars, and stuff that you would not really hear from a far right candidate either (well, except for the ultra nationalism). I don't think left and right really describes our parties anymore.

> Said another way, I think a young Jimmy Carter type candidate would have wiped the floor with either side this election.

I don't think someone like young Jimmy Carter could get elected today, he is just too honest and wouldn't be promising enough short term juice. Most Americans are too inward focused for that kind of politician right now.

> well, except for the ultra nationalism

and also excepting the fact that he wants to end abortion, be a dictator, end elections, and drill babay drill.

Other than that he's very left. Very.

How are you reaching these conclusions?

I just don’t see the conservative and liberal labels being useful at this point. Trump is a populist who focuses on nationalism, he says what his base wants to hear. My main beef with him is that he is irresponsible and petulant, I still vote for a mix of conservative and liberal candidates actually (voting from Seattle, everyone I voted for this November lost).

> I think the same could have been said regardless of which candidate won.

I don't disagree. It's a matter of degrees, though. The post-WWII era was always going to go away when everyone who remembered WWII (or were children of those who fought it) passed away. That's kind of where we are now.

"Both sides" doesn't really correspond with reality though. She made a concentrated effort to reach out to people on both sides, including the Cheneys, of all people.

Both sides of the right wing, the only wing.

Associating with Republican party establishment types like the Cheneys is a giant middle finger to far more people than it isn't.

They are no longer "Republican party establishment types" though.

oh but there are … and plenty of them … behind closed doors they are talking “we gonna milk this MFer next 4 years and will be here another 25-30 when he’s retired in FL (or dead)” (I know this almost first-hand…)

they are there and they always run the show - all else as always just smoke&mirrors

At least Kamala's not a rapist.

I'm not sure what you mean by the left moving left. In my view, if anything the left wing has been moving rightward for at least a couple decades. Just not as far or quickly right as the right wing.

Totally agree. I see nothing 'left' in the current democratic party. Pro wars, pro boarder hardening, no real effort on healthcare. Slowly but surely they are turning towards the 'conservative' path. Arguably that is one of the big reasons they lost. They are trying to be the Republican Lite party.

No way. Our politics are like a bar fight. Dirty and reactionary.

I see this as the crux of most issues in modern American politics - that is, the primary elections… they act a feedback loop galvanizing each party. i.e. the fact that you can’t become “the repub/dem candidate” unless you represent the party’s values to the most extreme extent means the selection of a moderate candidate becomes increasingly unlikely with time.

"It feels like the left moved left"

In what way? If anything, Democrats have moved to the right on topics like border control and immigration, and haven't really moved strongly to either side on social issues like abortion or drugs, on education, gun control, campaign finance, trade, healthcare, or foreign policy.

Since I've been asked a thousand times by leftists, I'll try to answer. I feel like at least the right recognizes they're going further right.

> Democrats have moved to the right on topics like border control and immigration

Yes, because it's become such an apparent clusterfk they had no choice but to. It's not much different than a child covered in Nutella, with Nutella all over the table and floor telling their parents maybe no more Nutella. It wasn't a policy shift, it's attempting to save face. To this day some areas are claiming to be sanctuary and will fight it all.

Trans issues. Men in women's sports, tampons in men's bathrooms. Sex ed in elementary school? Kid's books about gay or trans parents and sex. Kids on puberty blockers? All would seem insane to Carter democrats.

DEI. BLM. Affirmative action The whole equity explanation and movement. To my knowledge, they still want reparations, which are hugely unpopular.

Economy. UBI? The whole antiwork movement? The open rise of communists/socialists in citizens.

Biden and Kamala are pretty far right of the left, as many pointed out. It doesn't mean the left as a whole isn't moving further left.

Maybe to leftists things feel like they are moving right, but they absolutely aren't. The candidates representing them, poorly, are trying to salvage any votes they can and shy away from the movement of the members at large because they know they're not popular.

Trump is in many ways the same. Well, I have no idea what he is, he's a smooth talker and probably far to the left of whatever the MAGA movement is. Which is itself moving continually to the extreme right, to some fanfare.

People will probably link to some enlightened centrist meme. I don't care. I don't think I'm smarter or know policy better than anyone. I mostly want to be left alone, and draw ideas from both sides. I think the base for each is moving further apart. I don't care if it's downvoted, don't tell me my own eyes deceive me.

Edit: Please don't waste energy telling me why I'm wrong. I'm used to it. I likely won't read it. Read the end of the last paragraph again.

I strongly disagree with most of what you've said, but I think more meta, this comment is not constructive (in so much as politics/ideology is supposed to be avoided anyway), in particular I don't think posting a rant and telling people you don't care what they have to say is good.

In particular, "Comments should get more thoughtful and substantive, not less, as a topic gets more divisive."

I agree. Thanks for calling me out.

I'd meant to indicate I was answering a question without interest in further political debate, but it came across very dismissive. Apologies.

Ironically you didn’t write a thoughtful and substantive comment whereas parent clearly expressed his opinion in detail. If you disagree with any of his points, which you clearly do, I suggest that you share them so we can have a conversation instead.

I’m not even American but just making a note as an outside observer.

I didn't comment on them because one, there's a lot there, and two, they said they didn't want to have a debate.

I guess in hindsight they weren't even necessarily stating their positions on these things (although I think the way some of it is talked about is revealing).

Honestly I don't even know that I disagree that the left has moved left, but I don't think I'd express it without some major caveats, because politics feels very convoluted right now.

Generally, I think id agree that the democratic parties positions haven't shifted much and that there's a greater visibility of things I'd consider far left, but I don't know to what degree these are just shifts in visibility and how closely tied the party is to the base, vs which are actually tied to underlying changes in views.

The trans topic is a wedge issue that has absolutely no impact on 99% of people. Many of the things people like to bring up when complaining about "a shift to the left" are fringe ideas even on the left, and are amplified by right-wingers who are trying to paint the left as out of touch with reality.

Having said that, age-appropriate sex ed in elementary school (e.g. talking about bodily autonomy and consent) is actually a good idea, since children at that age are often victims of sexual abuse and don't understand exactly what is happening to them.

And if you genuinely get bent out of shape about tampons in mens bathrooms, I'm really happy for you. Your life must be genuinely amazing that something so meaningless even warrants being mentioned as a point of contention. Personally, as somebody who sometimes purchases tampons for his wife, it seems at best marginally useful, and at worst completely irrelevant to me.

The economy topic is hardly a left-wing issue. People on the right cheered for Luigi just as much as people on the left, because they're suffering just as much, or more. What is happening here is not the left moving to the left, it's poor people being disenfranchised and reacting to it. This is also a major reason why Trump got elected: people have so little trust in the current system that they'd rather vote for somebody who promises to break it, than for somebody who promises to improve it.

I'm not sure what exactly you mean by "communists/socialists", since those two words have been stripped of all meaning in the US.

"It wasn't a policy shift, it's attempting to save face"

You're just using different words, but you're saying the same thing I did: it's a shift to the right. It's also dumb and counterproductive, because immigration is not the source of people's problems, and curtailing immigration in the way it is currently being done will only make things worse, but that is besides the point.

> The trans topic is a wedge issue that has absolutely no impact on 99% of people.

The idea of "gender identity" as based on a subjective inner sense of self, and that "gender identity" must supersede sex, fundamentally reframes a core characteristic of the entire human population.

When implemented in law and policy, this affects everyone.

The impact is mostly on women and girls, for whom female-only spaces are essential for their safety and dignity. Allowing any man who says he's a women into such spaces undermines the very reason they exist in the first place, and effectively destroys them.

This isn't progress; it harms women and girls. It shouldn't be a surprise why so many people are against such changes being imposed.

"The impact is mostly on women and girls, for whom female-only spaces are essential for their safety and dignity."

This is an inherently self-contradictory position, because it implies that trans men must be forced into women's spaces.

I don't see how this is a self-contradictory position. Women who've decided to call themselves men are in fact still women.

Your position is that this is about protecting women's spaces and making them feel safe and dignified.

Your position is also that somebody like Buck Angel must use the women's bathroom, because he is "in fact still a woman."

My assertion is that this is contradictory, because forcing somebody like Buck Angel to use the womens' bathroom will make women and girls feel less safe, not more.

This is about every female-only space, not just bathrooms.

Consider prisons, for example. There have been many cases recently of male criminals being transferred to the female prison estate, on the basis of their self-declared so-called "female gender identity", who have then raped and in some cases impregnated women incarcerated with them.

It should be obvious that the same risk is not present from other female prisoners. Even if they happen to look very butch and/or hirsute. So keeping prisons single-sex is clearly a much better policy for incarcerated women.

Even for bathroom spaces, the prospect of laws that penalize males who decide to use female bathrooms is good news. This is because the threat of negative consequences for such behavior makes it much less likely that any such males will even bother trying, which means that women in general will not only be safer, but also can feel safer, because they know that any individuals encountered in these spaces are almost certainly female. Even if, like Buck Angel, they don't conform to feminine stereotypes.

You’re assuming that most women would rather share bathrooms with trans men than with trans women. I suspect that were these mad ideas ever to be fully implemented in practice, we’d find that that was not in fact their revealed preference.

The truth is that most of the people currently stirring up a moral panic around gender are barely even aware of the existence of trans men and simply haven’t thought this through properly. Which isn’t surprising, as they don’t care about the issue itself, but only its potential as a political wedge.

It's a reasonable assumption that most women prefer to share female spaces with other women, regardless of how they look, and not with male intruders who have decided to disregard women's boundaries for their own pleasure while falsely identifying themselves as women.

If trans men have to go to women’s bathrooms then that actually makes it easier for cis men to go into women’s bathrooms too (as in general they are indistinguishable with clothes on). So there isn’t even any internal logic to this idea. The only way to have bathrooms segregated by genitals is to have genital inspectors outside bathrooms, which is neither practical nor desirable (not to mention that bottom surgery is a thing).

"It's a reasonable assumption that most women prefer to share female spaces with other women, regardless of how they look"

This is not a reasonable assumption based on my experience talking to women, and if it was, I don't understand how it would work in reality. Even if biological women preferred sharing the women's bathroom with trans men, rather than trans women, how would biological women know whether they were sharing the bathroom with a trans man or a biological man?

It seems much easier for trans men to pass than for trans women, so allowing trans men into women's bathrooms basically ensures that all men can freely enter them, claiming to be trans men.

> so allowing trans men into women's bathrooms basically ensures that all men can freely enter them, claiming to be trans men.

Any examples of this hypothetical situation actually happening?

If these spaces were regulated by law, and there was a realistic prospect of penalties for males who choose to impose themselves on female spaces, then this would have a significant deterrent effect. The males who say they're women (including males with a transwomen identity and your hypothetical set of males who claim to be transmen) would refrain from intruding.

Since the question here is what women would prefer, I haven't done an extensive search, but it seems at least a majority of women support allowing people to use the bathroom of the gender they identify as: https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/2016/09/28/3-public-spl.... Interestingly, men are more strongly opposed than women.

I'll also leave this comment for thought. You're arguing that allowing transgender women into spaces reserved for women (unqualified) degrades the utility of them. I'm actually somewhat sympathetic to this argument, but not universally. I think allowing transgender women into women's sports is maybe not right, because transgender women don't have the same underlying physicality as women who have grown up with female hormones. I think it's an interesting discussion about why we perhaps somewhat arbitrarily segment sports in this way but not others (why no under 6 ft basketball leagues?) and the role that genetics plays in sports vs training and practice, but I think it's a generally effective means of allowing a group (generally women) to have meaningful leagues where it's not just women + men who aren't very good but have a genetic advantage. As well with regards to prison, since this is already a segment of the population (people in prison) who have committed some crime, so trusting them in the way we might trust random people from society to act may not be the right choice.

That said, your comments make it sound like you don't respect the existence of transgender people in general.

In particular, "I don't see how this is a self-contradictory position. Women who've decided to call themselves men are in fact still women.", and "It's a reasonable assumption that most women prefer to share female spaces with other women, regardless of how they look, and not with male intruders who have decided to disregard women's boundaries for their own pleasure while falsely identifying themselves as women.".

The first is I think clearly denying the right of someone to identify as transgender, and the latter is a fallacy. I agree that women would not want to share the bathroom with "male intruders who have decided to disregard women's boundaries for their own pleasure while falsely identifying themselves as women.", but this is not an accurate description of transgender women.

If you think it's an inaccurate description of how you feel (that you do in fact respect transgender people) I would suggest that being more careful in your debate might help you to convey your arguments effectively.

> I agree that women would not want to share the bathroom with "male intruders who have decided to disregard women's boundaries for their own pleasure while falsely identifying themselves as women.", but this is not an accurate description of transgender women.

How is it not accurate? They are male (by definition), so when they decide to impose themselves upon a female space this means they are doing so with a disregard for women's boundaries.

Based on your comment, you seem to believe that "woman" is just an identity, that any male can choose to adopt if he desires so. If that is the case, why do you believe this?

"It should be obvious that the same risk is not present from other female prisoners"

This is false. Female inmates are raped by female inmates, and male inmates are raped by male inmates. This is a "rape in prison" problem, not a trans women problem. In fact, rape of biological women by trans women in prison is extremely rare.

And, again, your stated hypothesis is self-contradictory, because it implies that the problem of inmates getting raped is solved by putting trans women in male prisons, which is plainly false. It will likely increase the number of rapes.

"the prospect of laws that penalize males who decide to use female bathrooms is good news"

I remember tiredly accidentally using a women's bathroom after a long flight. I'm not looking forward to being punished for it because of the latest moral panic. I'm sure all of the women who are falsely accused of being men because they don't conform to societal stereotypes of what women look like also feel much safer.

Meanwhile, there are, as far as I can ascertain, currently no cases of trans women assaulting biological women in women's bathrooms. I'm sure cases exist, but they must be exceedingly rare.

There are, however, plenty of cases of trans women being assaulted (and, in some cases, murdered) in men's bathrooms.

Rape of female prisoners by male prisoners is extremely rare overall because, thankfully, most prisons are still segregated by sex. However, in every jurisdiction that has decided to implement a policy of housing prisoners by self-declared "gender identity", this has - as everyone against such policy predicted - made the problem of sexual assault and rape in prisons worse, because this enables predatory males access to female victims, who are trapped in prison with these men.

This is why we have single-sex prisons in the first place, because of the inevitable harm to women, through violence, sexual assault, rape and unwanted pregnancy, that was committed against them by male prisoners in mixed-sex prison systems. Look up the work of Elizabeth Fry: she and other prison reformers extensively documented the horrors of prisons in Victorian England and in particular the awful impact upon women of being incarcerated with men.

Exactly the same is happening now, in the 21st century, because of these misogynistic "gender identity" policies that benefit males while deliberately ignoring the risks and harms inflicted upon women.

But dying because a fatally unhealthy pregnancy can't be terminated, or being forced to carry a rape pregnancy to term, or being denied contraception, or being shot in a classroom doesn't harm women and girls?

Your priorities might be considered a little slanted.

Gender identity is used by the right because - like most sex-related issues - it's emotive and triggering. It's a single issue dog whistle.

Given the evidence, there is no reason to believe that anyone who uses it for political gain actually cares about women or girls.

You are making incorrect assumptions about my priorities. I don't support the political right either, for the reasons you mentioned and more.

> This is also a major reason why Trump got elected: people have so little trust in the current system that they'd rather vote for somebody who promises to break it, than for somebody who promises to improve it.

I agree this is what appears to have happened but I still can’t follow the logic. What happens next? Who builds the next system and why should we expect it will be any better?

My impression is that a lot of people are just hoping for everything to go to hell to the point where fundamental changes become inevitable, and they're assuming that these fundamental changes will likely be beneficial to them.

I'm not sure if this is evidence of how bad people think the status quo is, or if it is evidence of how naive most people are.

> they're assuming that these fundamental changes will likely be beneficial to them.

That rarely works out. When a country collapses the ensuing is chaos going to be a very rough time. Recent examples include the collapse of the Soviet Union. The 90s were really bad for people there. A lot of them moved here to the US to escape that and try to find a better life. I worked with some of them. And now what do they have in Russia? A dictatorship that's not any better than what they had in Soviet times - certainly worse than what they had under Gorbachev.

People who assume that something better will rise out of the ashes of collapse, but that rarely happens. Better to try to work to make the system you have better even if in small ways.

> they're assuming that these fundamental changes will likely be beneficial to them.

This is the part that confuses me. I have met a few “burn it down” types but never heard one articulate why that would work out well in the long run. I’m only assuming they even thought that far ahead.

The only people who can tell me why they voted for Trump are people who want his specific brand of incremental change.

There was an interesting article in the NYT recently by Nate Cohn (formerly of 538) on the realignment that seems to be happening in politics. It was an interesting read: https://www.nytimes.com/2024/12/25/upshot/trump-era-republic...

Maybe the left, as in those of us with relatively progreasive views, moved left. But as a result of that, no major party actually reflects outlr views. The Democratic party is not a progressive party, and spends almost all of its effort courting centrist and center-right voters, not sure what you mean about moderates not being catered to. They are, at the cost of completely alienating and disenfranchising the actual left.