The great fiction of American politics at this point seems to be the belief that the non-voting population are definitely an election margin who'll definitely come and vote for you provided you support <commentators preferred policy here>.
I don't think anyone here was ever trained on nuance, so how are they going to separate that from political platitudes???
Both parties are against them, owned by oligarchs and mega donors that are actively trying to increase the wealth gap and make average Americans fight each other over the petty dilemma of the week, rather than the real fight of the whole country vs maybe a couple thousand ultra rich douchebags.
The problem is that the media has essentially lost most of its usefulness as a bulwark against the most egregious excesses of crony capitalism and cozied up to it instead. It feels like the Gilded Age again, but the people are somehow more insufferable. Cramming the “light of human consciousness into the stars” apparently requires we create CSAM generating machines powered by nitrogen oxide belching gas turbines. Even the folks at non-profit news outlets like Pro Publica have leadership that refuses to understand that it is difficult to prevent AI errors at scale. Nobody reviews drafts with such detail, we make a lot of assumptions, we trust that the person/machine is not feeding us trash.
This is, of course, doesn’t even bring up the fact that a lot of people in the US now get their news—similar to folks in India via WhatsApp (that became such a problem that Meta was forced to curtail the number of forwards you could do in the app)—by passing trash, hate fueling articles around on social media.
The media, where it isn’t outright compromised, is dying to survive on any revenue stream. local news outlets which are the backbone of solving actual Issues for citizen are not profitable and dying.
We have platforms, which instead incentivize for the largest viewer count, so local content is sacrificed at the altar of the zeitgeist.
It’s a manufactured controversy with only a handful of trans athletes (usually at high school level) in the entire country. It does not make the slightest difference to the lives of the vast, vast majority of voters. If you let it outweigh factors that actually affect your life then you’re a dumb voter.
Is the crucial statement there. Not “it is”.
> It affects women and parents of girls
No it doesn’t. It’s a new boogeyman to demonize that isn’t actually a factor in almost anyone’s lives. Not to mention that the people pushing this issue are proposing things like genital inspections to ensure the boogeyman never arrives:
https://www.newsweek.com/kansas-republicans-pass-bill-genita...
As the parent of a girl I’m a hell of a lot more concerned about that than I am of a trans kid wanting to play sports.
I agree with "seen as" vibes think of the children era being foolish but its what liberal parents are talking about. Mega followers never accepted trans in sport or life so this doesn't change viewpoints.
The "issue" is only an "issue" because some people on Fox News told you it was an "issue." Ask what you're being distracted from.
Suddenly, not wanting trans folks to participate in civilization, Conservatives have gone all in on the transvestigation bullshit that includes genital inspections, accusing conventionally less feminine-looking cis women of being men, etc.
These people are just bigots.
But of course data reuse isn't a sufficiently controversial framing, so a "genital inspection" angle is pushed instead by the author of the article.
For professional or top-tier competitive sports, virtually every sports organization has had rules in place to handle this for decades. The IOC has used testosterone levels as the barometer for fairness since 2003. The entire right-wing apparatus works by feigning ignorance, pretending nobody has ever thought about the fairness of trans folks in sports, all to infuriate easily suggestible rubes. It's beyond absurd.
Not to mention, I don’t even understand how these are substantiated. I clicked through to the source link for some of the results cited and they’re just results tables? What does that “prove” the athlete is trans? Who vets this stuff?
Polling shows that most people across the political spectrum would consider this a reasonable approach.
And then, the Republicans lose most of their attack lines on this topic, and the Democrats don't have to worry as much about having to defend foolish beliefs.
I don't disagree, fundamentally, but the voters are prioritizing minor issues that affect one in a million people over major issues that affect everyone. That's not good judgement, it's stupidity. It's why wedge issues work so well.
And still they refuse to back down on a number of policies that have been proven to be extremely unpopular.
-Independent..
I want to vote for someone who sticks to their plan, who is as honest as possible, who actually cares about Americans instead of saying some catchy phrases and looking good on camera while shaking hands with lobbyists and harmful industries - it's ludicrous!
I agree with the sibling comment that the dems rank lower because their base is made of people who begrudgingly vote for them when the time comes and spend the rest of the time being frustrated that it's our best option.
Most people don't vote based on policies and data. They are naturally skeptical about whether your five-point plans are actually going to have the intended effect. Instead, they vote based on their assessment of your judgment and whether you broadly share their ideas about what "good" and "bad" are.
The only way Obama was objectively radical as a politician and president was the color of his skin.
This is maybe an odd view for an American but it makes sense within a Bangladeshi social context. And democrats are the ones who chose to cultivate an electoral map based on immigrants like my mom in states like Virginia and Michigan.
Sanders is not a member of the party. AOC didn't run for office until Obama had been retired a few years.
Also, it's still insane to expect Obama to police e.g. AOC's language 10 years post-Presidency. That's just an insane expectation. Reality is many voters are crazy.
Its not like it’s totally alien in America. After Biden’s disastrous debate in 2024, Obama was the one who swooped in to lead the party through the chaos. And if Michelle ran for the nomination, she’d probably win. If she had stepped in in 2024 she would’ve won the nomination and the election.
In US politics, that mantle holds until someone else takes the nomination. That role is Biden's. It seems really odd that a former leader other than the most recent would be in charge of the party anywhere. (Remembering here that Biden is still alive and generally capable if suffering age-related decline. Also contextualizing with the fact that the sitting president is also obviously suffering age-related decline.)
> control of the party might pass to Michelle (like happened at least four times in Bangladesh, India, and Pakistan).
Yeah, I can see how someone from one of those countries might project onto US politics things that are not commonly done here. Relevant here is Obama beating Hillary for the nomination in 2008.
> After Biden’s disastrous debate in 2024, Obama was the one who swooped in to lead the party through the chaos
I am a political sicko, and I do not remember this happening. Are you perhaps elevating the importance of a single speech Obama gave?
Yes, that was my point. Someone asked me why my mom lumped Obama in with “radicals” and I tried to explain that she probably thinks it’s his job as the most senior man. Biden isn’t because he’s too old and sick. The patriarch is someone like Obama’s age. Gray haired but still vigorous.
Another explanation is that she is misinformed and brainwashed by all the Facebook memes targeted towards boomers. It's not exactly a secret that Meta continues to push right wing propaganda in order to help elect conservative politicians.
> But she left an unstable third world country and viscerally dislikes what’s going on with DSA, immigration, etc.
What does she dislike about DSA, immigration, etc.? What does she think of the rhetoric coming from the Republican party that America doesn't need and want third world immigrants such as herself and her family? And that you should be rounded up, denaturalized, and deported back to Bangladesh (see Laura Loomer's recent comments).
> That said she also hates Trump’s Queens immigrant affect, unpredictability, populism, etc.
I guess it's a rite of passage for all American immigrants to hate on immigrants. "I got mine and I'm the 'correct' type of immigrant. Others are not."
She thought the future would be Bangladeshis acting like British people instead of Bangladeshis acting like Bangladeshis in Britain.
> What does she think of the rhetoric coming from the Republican party that America doesn't need and want third world immigrants such as herself and her family?
She doesn’t want “Little Bangladesh” in Queens to be happening anymore than Trump does. One of the few things she agrees with him on. We came to a red state in 1989 and a county with a Republican congressman who ran unopposed most years, and everything was fine because we were trying very hard to absorb the local culture instead of changing it with our own. Nobody had a problem with Bangladeshi immigrants when it was just a handful of people who left their culture of origin at the door. Americans are extremely tolerant and accommodating people.
I don't quite get this. What acting like Bangladeshis or acting like British people mean? And what does it have to do with DSA?
> She doesn’t want “Little Bangladesh” in Queens to be happening anymore than Trump does. One of the few things she agrees with him on. We came to a red state in 1989 and a county with a Republican congressman who ran unopposed most years, and everything was fine because we were trying very hard to absorb the local culture instead of changing it with our own. Nobody had a problem with Bangladeshi immigrants when it was just a handful of people who left their culture of origin at the door. Americans are extremely tolerant and accommodating people.
So similar to Little Italy or Chinatown and other ethnic places? Why do you have to leave your culture of origin at the door? I thought one of the great things about America was that everyone can celebrate their culture. What local culture did you try to absorb if everyone left it at the door? Or are you specifically talking about white vs other ethnicities? Are you ashamed of your ethnicity and country where your parents immigrated from?
"We are the right kind of people, not the others" Internalized racism is such a weird thing to me.
There's a lot going in Pakistan / India / Bangladesh that's been shaped by the effect of British commerce, manipulation, and rule over a long period.
The Brits imposed a local civil service structure that itself became one of many forms of caste, classism and hierarchy, this one associated with British dress, language, and mannerisms.
You can see similar attitudes in the UK from the now old and historic first waves of post WWII immigrant uncles and aunts, overly formally British in dress and manners and looking down on their own descendants for pushing back on that and adopting other attitudes in dress and speech.
Having the power to ram something more partisan-palatable through and choosing to negotiate with the opposition to find a more mutually-tolerable consensus is the antithesis of radicalism.
You can't really simplify it to such a degree. I believe humans are creatures of action. We like it when things happen. Sometimes, not all the time but sometimes, our morals are downstream of that desire to "be effective". We will align ourselves, no matter the violence we have to do to our own senses, with what is useful.
Specifically, their willingness to skeptically engage with your five-point plan demands that you're actually able to execute it. If you categorically can't make anything happen, then people will cling to an explanation and a morality that can. American democracy has been at a standstill for upwards of 30 years, If the American people have to believe that all their politicians are pedophiles to get some sort of movement again. Then that's what they are going to believe.
So the prediction sounds right? The Republicans have burnt the youth vote pretty badly and have never really recovered.
(See, e.g. https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2025/06/26/voting-patte... and https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2024-elections/exit-polls. Annoyingly, the polls don't cleanly break down into generations; Gen X would be the ~44-60 crowd for that election.)
Sure, lots of people were not happy with Bush dragging the country into two wars, but most Republicans remained Republicans, and the angst (based on facts or otherwise) against Obama is what made the Tea Party Movement so big.
(Of course, there was the whole social media thing that became huge around the same time, but the design of social media doesn't favor one side over another...)
They like the way his administration has been terrorizing brown people. Dig in with any of these ~simpletons~ undecided voters and it’s literally that simple.
I despise this current administration. Yet, when I talk to people, I treat them with the same respect as I would my own parents -- don't matter who they are. I have had fun conversations with near toothless factory workers, literal walking stereotype caricatures of MAGA guys, who really aren't bad. They're just trying to live life and keep their lives together yet here's the world, changing all around them. Then this big mouth assures them it will be all right if you vote for him. They get worked up about things like DEI, LGBTQ, foreigners, etc. Sure it sounds stupid but it is what it is, you deal with it using tact. And here I am, born and raised NYC who was a minority at my public high school (may time the only white kid in class), dated the rainbow, and have a lot of experience with a lot of culture. I usually have a hard rock/heavy metal look so I fit in and they feel comfortable. I just tell them fun or funny stories about cultures and all variety of people I knew. These stories help to clear up misconceptions. Like literally the dentally challenged MAGA fellow I mentioned before told me on my way out that he enjoyed my stories and that he learned something new about people. That's the magic -- story telling and gentile nudging of opinions. Rome wasn't built in a day.
I'm actually hopeful in my own way, but the current political environment is being shaped by adult aged children on both sides and it just gets worse. Though they always say, it gets worse before it gets better. Keep nudging that knowledge.