Good, it needs to end. Supremacist thinking is dangerous.

The big problem is decades of attacks on education.

A lot of Americans have been voting to attack education, too.

I consider myself a staunch democrat (notice the lower case “d,” I am not a liberal), in that I am a strong advocate for democracy. But, maybe I, and others, need to rethink our positions on democracy. It doesn’t seem like a very good idea to have people who are generally ignorant of climate science, or science in general, deciding what US climate policy should be. We shouldn’t put questions like, “is climate change real,” to a vote. We have the scientific method for determining that, and It works so much better than popular opinion.

My defense of democracy generally comes down to: “yes, there are some ignorant people out there, but most people are well enough informed and reasonable enough.” Maybe that’s not always true.

I was just trying to think of models that are eligible for the maximum $7,500 tax credit, and that are relatively affordable. There are lots of great EVs out there from several different manufacturers.

Edit: I will mention, though, the Equinox EV looks like it’s a pretty good car, for the price. Car and Driver rated it 8.5/10.

…Tesla - by far the nation’s biggest EV maker - have told a Trump-transition committee they support ending the subsidy…Elon Musk, one of Trump’s biggest backers and the world’s richest person, said in July that killing the subsidy might slightly hurt Tesla sales but would be “devastating” to its U.S. EV competitors, which include legacy automakers such as General Motors.

Jesus. So much for the idea that Tesla is working to accelerate the transition from ICE vehicles to EVs.

I will never buy a fucking Tesla. Ever. I would buy a Chevrolet Equinox EV, and I encourage anyone who is in the market for a new vehicle to buy one before the tax credit goes away.

Edit: I would also get the Honda Prologue. It’s also eligible for the $7,500 tax credit. So is the Volkswagen ID.4.

Unless emissions plummet

Define “plummet.” If by plummet we mean global GHG emissions decrease by about half from current levels, by 2030, then I don’t see that happening. Not unless all the governments of the world are somehow taken over by climate activists. Or, maybe if there’s a global economic collapse. Whatever it is, something radical would have to change for that to become even remotely possible.

This is abhorrent, and anyone who is ok with this is a terrible person.

I find that a bit hard to believe

Why? Two things can be true at once. I can believe that a woman can do whatever she wants with her body, while also acknowledging that if liberal women stop having kids, before too long there aren’t going to be very many liberals.

Unless you think my saying that is some form of coercion. But that would be silly because my words can’t force a woman to do anything. My words aren’t taking away any woman’s agency, especially since I’m not necessarily advocating for anything. You assumed I was, not that’s not my problem.

I wouldn’t count on spontaneous liberal epiphanies and teenage rebellion to preserve the liberal hegemony.

I’m not necessarily advocating for anything. If you don’t want to have kids, don’t have kids. I’m certainly not going to mourn the death of liberalism, but I’m not thrilled about Conservativism taking its place as the dominant ideology.

I didn’t say they were. I certainly believe that a woman can do whatever she wants with her body, and if some women choose not to have children, that’s their right, as far as I’m concerned. But, the fact of the matter is, if women aren’t having children, before too long there won’t be any more people. It’s really as simple as that.

Sounds like a great way to ensure that conservatives are the only ones having kids. This is just liberal women organizing their own extinction.

Yeah, that’s the thing. There’s the Trumpist Republicans, who are unified and devoted, but then there’s everyone else.

I think the “everyone else” block can be broken down into a three main groups: leftists, progressives, and liberals. And it’s frustrating because people use these terms interchangeably, as though they’re all the same, but they are NOT. Leftists are socialists, of one variety or another. Progressives are social democrats, and Liberals are social liberals and neoliberals, which are center-left and center-right respectively. These three groups do not agree on some key issues, and they do not necessarily like each other.

The neoliberals are going to more closely align with moderate conservatives than social democrats or socialists because they just agree more with moderate conservatives on key issues. The Democratic party is a neoliberals/social liberal party. They are center-left to center-right. Therefore, socialists and social democrats should not look to the Democrats for representation. They don’t agree with you, they don’t necessarily like you, they will not represent you. Unfortunately, the US is a de facto two pay system, so progressives and leftists are essentially without representation, outside of a handful of independents, like Bernie Sanders.

Democrats have a problem and it is the economy. According to this Pew Research study from May of this year, people did not feel great about the economy, and those feelings are strongly partisan. When Trump was president, Republicans thought the economy was great, when Biden was president, they thought it was terrible. A lot of this might have been driven by pandemic related lock downs, but regardless Republicans loved the economy under Trump but hated it under Biden.

Ok, so does that mean that Democrats thought the economy was terrible under Trump but great under Biden? No, not really. Democrats don’t seem to be nearly as partisan in their opinions on the economy. 39% of Democrats rated the economy as good or excellent by the end of Trump’s first term, and 37% rate it as good or excellent today. It seems that Republicans are much more about partisan vibes: things are great when our guy is in charge, terrible when their guy is in charge. Everyone else seems to be much more negative on the economy in general, regardless of which party is in power.

That is bad for the Democrats. America is divided, but we’re not all divided in the same way. Republicans are remarkably unified. Everyone else is very fractured. There is no single block of non-Republican Americans that can rival and counter the Republican block. They are unified, the rest of us are not.

It may need to be the EU. I know the EU isn’t a nation, but as a block perhaps Europe has the power and influence to lead the effort. Maybe a new entity needs to be established, a global union of nations. Or maybe a union of continents. Maybe each continent should establish its own union of nations (I think every continent already has some kind of union of one type or another) and then have a global union of continents. I don’t necessarily know the best course of action, all I know is the US cannot lead.

I’m very aware that other countries have been taking climate action, much more than the US, in many cases. I didn’t say the rest of the world needed to start doing anything related to climate, as if they had been up until now doing nothing, I said they needed to take LEADERSHIP. And if you’re going to claim that the world hasn’t been looking to the US for leadership on climate action, you’re either an idiot or a liar.

It’s up to the rest of the world now. We can’t put climate action on hold for four years in hopes that a new administration will take over in 2029 that will lead the world in the transition away from fossil fuels.

The world has gotten very used to US leadership since the end of WWII, but that era is over. Maybe it should have ended a long time ago, but now it must. The US can’t lead anymore, we lack the competency, efficacy, and morality to lead the world. Someone else is going to have to captain the ship.

I think it’s important that America’s replacement not be just the next most powerful nation. I think it’s time for democracy to go global. We need the nations working together, instead of a single nation dominating the world through military might and economic control. The violent hegemonic orders of the past must be replaced with a global democratic order, based on inclusion, cooperation, and the consent of the governed.

Edit: I realized that I need to explain what I mean when I say that someone other than the US needs to take the leadership role in the transition away from fossil fuels. Climate action in an individual country is a very good thing, and very necessary, but climate change is a global problem. It’s great that countries are taking steps to reduce their own GHG emissions, but unless such action is taken everywhere it’s not going to be sufficient. GHG emissions have to reach net zero everywhere, not just in a few, relatively wealthy European countries. That will require cooperation and collaboration between nations, and I think that will require leadership. The US cannot be relied upon to lead that effort, so someone else is going to have to.

Sanders is a populist, though

That’s true, but he’s not the right kind of populist for America.

I remember going to a Bernie rally in Salt Lake City in 2016, during the Democratic primaries. The line to get into the rally was so long it took us an hour and to get in. He got a lot of people excited, and I was one of them. To this day it was the only political rally I’ve ever been to.

But as popular as Bernie was, and still is, among a certain segment of America, he is equally hated and despised by other segments. Trump is the (faux) populist America chose. It’s because he’s an unapologetic capitalist. Americans would never vote for a socialist, even a populist one.

The Times reported Pelosi also took issue with Independent Sen. Bernie Sanders saying, after Harris’ loss, that “It should come as no great surprise that a Democratic Party which has abandoned working class people would find that the working class has abandoned them.”

“Bernie Sanders has not won,” she said. “With all due respect, and I have a great deal of respect for him, for what he stands for, but I don’t respect him saying that the Democratic Party has abandoned the working-class families.”

She’s right, Bernie Sanders has not won, but neither did the liberal technocrats. American voters don’t want social democracy, but they don’t want liberal technocracy, either. They want populism, or at least the appearance of populism. She can piss and moan all she wants, but it doesn’t change the fact that liberalism/neoliberalism is not popular, at least not popular enough.

The liberals will do what they always do: blame the American people. They love America, at least technically. They love the theory of America, the concept of America, the mechanisms, but they hate Americans. They can’t stand the troglodytic unwashed, uncouth, irreverent, ignorant masses.

I’ll always wonder if Biden would have won. I was against the Democrats switching candidates so late in the election, but I came around thinking Harris would get roughly the same support as Biden, maybe even more. I should have stuck with my first instinct. Yes, Biden had a terrible debate, and yes he is very old and showing signs of cognitive decline, but maybe he would have won regardless. Harris certainly didn’t perform better than Biden did in 2020, and in fact she performed worse in many instances. Of course we’ll never know, but, given Tuesday’s result, I can’t help but think the Democrats wouldn’t have been better off taking their chances with Biden.

Only sometimes?