Feel like I mentioned again and again that I’m talking about his campaign politics. I took a look at his 2008 campaign policies to see if I was misremembering anything and it’s pretty centrist to me, even his health care plan. And like I mentioned, he explicitly did not support gay marriage which at the time would have been an easy progressive signalling, but he either truly opposed gay marriage or he was trying to cater to a broader audience.

Like I said, he had a convincing image of idealism but not the politics to back it up, and you are saying AOC could win because she has progressive politics. She would need the flashy campaign to back it up, and so many people just hate her I don’t think it would work.

Anyway I’m just saying the same things over and over again in different wording and it’s getting tired, respond if you want, idc, but I’m going to stop here.

I think I was pretty clear saying his campaign was based on the idea and image of idealism, but his politics did not reflect that, not his actual politics or his promised politics in 2008. You’re showing me this poster as if I didn’t directly mention the art and sloganing as a major reason for his win.

AOC may have idealistic policy positions, but her public image is so meme-ified I don’t think she could successfully do the Hope thing that Obama did. Obama was much less well known of a politician when he ran.

I’m not talking about catering to Conservatives, I’m talking about the cultural campaign of meme-ification of AOC that conservatives have been waging for years, that could be convincing to moderates and moderate Democrats.

The only successful Democratic presidential candidates in the last twenty years have been Obama and Biden. Obama won because he has a lot of natural charisma, and came along with a story of having our first black president. Biden won as a reaction to the first Trump presidency. Neither were really particularly idealistic Democrats… Obama did not even express public support gay marriage when he came into office, he had pretty centrist positions overall and gave off an idealistic message with campaign art, speeches and slogans, but his actual policy was not especially progressive.

So Obama won as a biracial black man with the conservative stance against gay marriage, and overall very center-liberal politics, but flashy idealistic messaging.

If progressive idealism had been working, we would have had Bernie presidency by now tbh

AOC is a lightning rod for conservatives, moreso due to sexism imho than her politics because she gets way more hate than Bernie even though they’re politically very similar. She’s not a good choice just because of that. I don’t think the general population of the US is ready for two women on a ticket, esp two women of color. Could make an exciting ticket in the way Obama was, but only if Kamala proves to be as engaging of a speaker. Which, honestly I think she’s a good orator but a lot of people will have trouble seeing past the fact she is a woman, and Kamala will unconsciously or consciously have all the usual biases against women in power (bossy, crazy, etc).

I honestly had no idea who Beshear is but just looking him up, I think he’d be an okay pick. Looks like a boring white guy, has solid liberal track record. I feel like a white guy who supports Palestine would be better, Kamala has a lot of pushback from leftists from her time as DA in CA. Idk who that would be.

Very telling how many people are hesitant to name specific mods.

Third spaces are one part, but honestly the biggest part is literally not having time to spend with people outside of work.

edit: biggest part for me. my friends are mostly able to host at our own houses, and there are low cost (or free) third spaces we have found/created.

if you want a third space, you can actually make your own! kind of. reach out to libraries, local left-leaning businesses, and they might let you set up a weekly salon/hangout kind of thing. community activism!

We are not restricting discussion (those are your words) because this is a life and death situation.

we are removing purely speculative and baseless assertions of fact, because this is a life and death situation.

So one, like I said, it’s not really a life and death situation. And secondly, in the immediate aftermath of an event, practically everything is speculation.

You said you are restricting discussion on whether the assassination was staged because it is a life or death situation. You have not provided compelling evidence that one form of speculation is more or less “life or death” than another.

So you’re making moderation policy based on an assumption that people who have been exposed to the idea that the shooting may have been staged are more likely to incite violence than people who haven’t been? You don’t have source for that stance do you? One could argue that believing it is a failed assassination attempt would also incite people to violence. If a comment in particular calls for violence, thats one thing, but what you’re saying is not logical.

Speculating on an event that has already occured is not a “life or death situation” in the way spreading information that discourages the use of life-saving vaccines is.

I don’t personally think it was staged, but be honest … it’s not like you delete every single comment that doesn’t have sources …

Advocating for, or not advocating for, violence is a political stance. Many people defend Israel’s ongoing genocide and are not blocked from doing so. That doesn’t feel like the rules being consistently enforced. The people speculating on whether or not this is staged have access to the same information as everyone else, and in the spirit of true discourse, if it was seen to be false you could figure that out by discussion rather than censorship.

“hey guys don’t politicize an attempted political assassination”

“no actual discussion allowed” got it

When are you going to implement accountability for mods? I have reached out to mods/admins in the past to talk about issues w another mod. (mod FlyingSquid has said he would use his mod powers in a retaliatory manner due to disagreements, and I have seen many other people complain about them). Some mods/admins listened, another said basically to fuck off and they’d block me just for reaching out, considering me reaching out to be harassment. There is no accountability.

Right, just like 9/11 was justified due to U.S. imperialism.