The only fast food I enjoyed in recent memory was Pizza Hut. During some scare about MSG they removed all of the MSG and I ordered it a time or two after that and it was nearly inedible.

I suspect similar things happened with other types of fast food. I think there’s a flanderization effect happening with a lot of it. The same is definitively not the case for things like pizza in general, as I can order from my local NY-style pizza place and pizza is still just as good as it ever was.

All that is to say it wouldn’t surprise me at all if fast food was objectively shittier across a number of different metrics.

Looks like it was famous enough that it got its own wikipedia page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kamala_is_for_they/them

I read an article saying that basically everyone that watched the ad came away with much less support for Harris. It triggers the exact portion of people’s lizard brain that they use to make their political choices. It was the 2024 version of the “Willie Horton” ad.

The small business tax credit program Harris spent so much time talking about seemed like exactly the wrong thing to be talking about to exactly the wrong people.

It would maybe work for people who are fiscally conservative and socially liberal (AKA nobody). Deeply nerd-brained capitalists that think “gee whiz, this market is not competitive, competition could be grown by creating small businesses for the giant corporations to compete with!”…it’s a completely bookish garbage policy competing for ad space in an environment where her opponent was talking about how Harris was for giving transgender, border-crossing, violent criminals “sex changes” for free with “your tax dollars”.

When I saw the “She’s for they/them, not for you” commercials airing on NFL broadcasts this year, I shuddered to myself and I got that bad 2016 feeling all over again.

I understand that, but at the same time, I still don’t think that’s the majority of the voter base for Trump.

Every Trump voter is either an asshole, enables assholes, tolerates assholes, or is some combination of those things.

The question remains the same; what do we do? Because right now, the strategy seems to be offering them incremental, technocratic solutions, then insulting them when they don’t understand how they’re better than Republican lies. And it doesn’t seem to be working.

I’m not a political consultant, but one of the things – if it were me (which it isn’t) – would be to start talking to people in this country not as if they’re involved people with a lot of knowledge about how anything works, but rather on their (4th grade reading) level, and keep repeating simple messages. At least for your mainline politicians, it’s important to appear somewhat stupid, so that the American voters think you’re one of them.

Bernie was actually very good at this IMO. I’m not sure his policies would’ve ever gotten anywhere – who knows? I would’ve loved to find out – but he was very good at repeating the same shit over and over again and speaking at a stupider level (most likely on purpose, because he’s not a stupid guy).

Ted Bundy was politically involved too, but I guess he somehow evades blame for any of the destructive policies he supported and only gets blame for his direct actions.

You guys are space cadets.

Why isn’t the smart person able to fool the stupid people into voting for her?

She didn’t think that’s what she was trying to do, IMO.

You were saying Joe Biden is somehow worse than Ted Bundy. You’re ridiculous and you’re now on my block list.

Not everyone sees it as a genocide. The political class especially doesn’t see it as a genocide.

You and yours see even simple explanations of other people’s viewpoints as agreeing with them…because you’re simpletons.

You can keep screeching about it online all you like…making crappy analogies and apologizing for Ted Bundy? weirdly?, but there was zero choice to be made between Trump and Harris on support of Israel. Both support Israel, and Israel will continue to do whatever it wants regardless of your online bullshit.

Suggesting that the problem is he just doesn’t have the power to do anything differently is a lie.

I wrote about things he conceivably could’ve done differently. I also stated some possible reasons why he didn’t do those things. How is that a lie?

If a president truly wanted to stop supporting Israel, they absolutely could do it, but it would come with repercussions. Either Biden did not want to face those repercussions, or did not want to stop supporting Israel. In his case, it’s probably both.

Believe it or not, some people are still outraged over the terrorist attack that occurred in October 2023. The US had a similar scale attack on 9/11/01 and launched two lengthy ass wars over it.

I don’t support this shit and think it’s an overreaction similar to how the “war on terror” was, but there was no choice to be made in this election cycle about this issue.

That’s right, just accuse me of lying and post ap news articles that don’t disprove anything I said, and then when it turns out you were wrong…words no longer matter!

It’s possible to be intelligent and disliked by stupid people. I think that’s more common than being intelligent and well-liked by stupid people.

In addition, Harris is a woman. Stupid dudes definitely do not like it when a woman is smarter than them.

But let’s say you’re right; the Democrats are mostly anti-war, but they’re too complacent with the status quo, and Trump voters are all idiots who can’t tell the difference. What are we gonna do about it? 51% of the electorate went to Trump. Are the Democrats going to stand up to the military industrial complex to make their anti-war stance so clear even an idiot could see it? Or are they just gonna lose forever?

You’re predicating your false dichotomy on the idea that: (A) the electorate will vote consistently for pacifism and for pacifists, (B) the electorate tracks the policy positions of politicians. Neither of these things are true.

This single issue did not decide this election, and it will not decide future ones (if we even have them) either.

The electorate is vibes based and has been for some time now.

The article you linked, did you even read it? That is approval of weapons sales, not sending them more money.

Congress allocates funds in our government.

I hate the way liberals just shamelessly lie about this stuff

I hate the way label obsessed “leftists” don’t know basic shit about how the government works, and spend all of their time online talking out of their ass and name-calling.

They absolutely will. Even today, they’re sending out fundraising emails for recounts or whatever. The emails start with things like “I know you’re upset and things didn’t go the way we wanted” and then launch into “SEND US $5, $10”. It’s really pretty ridiculous.

All I can hope for is that he isn’t actually as authoritarian as everyone and everything seems to indicate. We’ll see I guess.

They do the same thing when they talk about climate change. It makes everyone think it’s just politics as usual. I think it’s part of the reason people see them as so unauthentic…because they have to be lying in some way otherwise they wouldn’t be behaving the way they are.

The average joe six pack doesn’t even know they’re one missed paycheck away from disaster and they’re out there looking at new F-150s hoping to get an approval. 🤞

Also, I watched a lot of Harris interviews and crap, and she would always start her statement with “I know a lot of people aren’t feeling the progress we’ve made on the economy and that’s why we want to X”, but that was too nuanced for donkey brains.

She should’ve came out with a series of ads saying things like “I am running for president, the previous president is Joe Biden who stepped aside and will not be on this year’s ballot” and then talked about basic governmental structures in the country…preferably over a popular song.

Everything I’ve read from the people on this site is analysis that would apply if the electorate wasn’t full of complete idiots. However, it is.

Trump communicates on their level because he repeats obvious things over and over again and he is donkey brained just like them…that’s part of the reason why he’s their hero.

Neither war is happening on US soil (or between the US and any country involved) and the US and Israel have had an alliance – which will remained unchanged if not strengthened in the Trump-Vance administration – spanning decades. In addition, Congress allocates funds to send to other countries and the President executes the orders he is given. Biden could’ve vetoed the aid bills I suppose, but there is a good chance that they would’ve overridden his veto. He could’ve impounded the funds, but I’m not really sure how strictly-speaking legal that even is, and Democratic administrations face pressure from both sides to follow norms (i.e. I wouldn’t be surprised if Biden’s own party members would’ve impeached and removed him given just cause for doing so).

But, as per usual, people like yourself expect the impossible (world peace) under Democratic administrations and yet many of them will turn around and think any war that Trump starts is fully justified and support it bigly until the next Democrat (if there is one) gets in there.

The thing is that you’re paying waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay more attention to politics than the average joe six pack voter. The imagined reasons you have for why they voted the way they did are just that.

But I’ve heard this take before (well, except the Hitler part, that’s bat-shit insane) and it might be worth reflecting why a lot of the electorate no longer sees the Democratic party as the anti-war party. That’s a big shift that’s occurred in my lifetime, and it’s worth examining.

Because they’re idiots?

Every major war started in my lifetime (including the “war on drugs”) was started by Republicans.

The Democratic party is the party of complacency, I’ll grant them that, and we were in wars for several administrations that Republicans started. So it’s hard for their donkey brains to remember when and why the wars started and when they ended. A lot of people think that Obama was in office when 9/11 happened. The country is full of idiots.

There is a possibility that in their haste to suck him off, the Republicans either all but eliminate or completely nuke the filibuster. If this happens and we have another election, there is no way it isn’t a positive development IMO. The filibuster absolutely sucks and is a clear obstacle to majoritarian rule in the country.

If they pull this to do wildly unpopular things on a short time scale, it will suck, no doubt, but they will likely pay a huge price for doing unpopular things in the next cycle.