There’s a germ of a good idea in there, but they’ve got it backwards: Big cities like Chicago need to “secede” from their states, like the free imperial cities of the Holy Roman Empire. “Secede” here being a colloquial metaphor; the real, legalistic action would be declaring Dillon’s Rule void, and taking state-like sovereignty for themselves.

It makes sense on many levels: Cities are where lots of people live close together, and their infrastructure, services, public health, and governance needs therefore are very different than rural areas. They are the economic powerhouses of the world, and we need to let the city leaders nurture that power by responding to their local needs. The political polarization divides largely on urban/rural boundaries, and our antiquated political system dilutes city-dwellers’ votes and influence.

Lastly, our political system is broken, and can’t be fixed entirely within the system. But tearing down the system will definitely lead to chaos. (See: actual secession in 1861.) As I see it, this would be a radical move by the cities, but it would solve a lot of issues in the political system without tearing it down. It’s unlikely they’d get representation in Congress the way that free imperial cities had representation at the imperial diet, but even just getting out from under the thumb of state legislatures would be a huge step.

Why would they want to be the target of a bukkake circlejerk?

We have a two-party system, and no world government, or galactic referees to appeal to. The repercussions can only come from the other political party, which had many opportunities and strong desire by its constituents, and just… didn’t. Not even things that the President can do without Congress.

Ostensibly because they were afraid of losing elections, but, well, here we are.

The single-dimension left-right paradigm is stupid and overly-reductive. I mean, that’s pretty clear even in this election: Voters gave Republicans the whole federal government, and voted for abortion rights. How is it possible that they could move right and left simultaneously; or, is there maybe some other principle in play?

You say that, but “vote blue no matter who” is exactly this argument under the paint.

I’m on this kick of pointing out that the utilitarian ethical calculation still works with 100% Hitler and 100.1% Hitler. Harm minimization, baby!

Oh boy, if you haven’t, read its history. Its real history. Wild stuff.

To continue this thought, you might be interested to know how neuroscience tells us the brain works: In short, the unconscious mind decides and acts, and the conscious mind makes up stories about why. Quite often, the story is just wrong, or at least misguided. Those voters have a real reason that they don’t understand or won’t admit to themselves, and a million reasons that they give instead to explain it.

Yes, we need to drop the misconception that people rationally decide about much of anything, and learn about their real reasons.

Reminds me of that joke about how there are only two races: White, and political. It’s disheartening to see folks (some here on Lemmy) confusing listening to the concerns of brown-skinned people with leftism. The Arab-Americans in Michigan, for a relevant example, are just people with a range of political opinions like the rest of us.

I just typed another reply to the effect that Democrats can’t express strong values because of the inherent contradiction of being a corporatist party trying to appeal to workers for votes. I would add that it’s not only a bad look, but a bad political tactic: If you don’t state your values, your opponents are more than happy to fill in the blanks with whatever batshit nonsense serves their purpose.

Agreed, just a little left-wing populism would’ve gone a long way. I’m cynical, so I see it as that the Democrats can’t be or do those things, because the need for campaign donations has turned them into a fundamentally neo-liberal party that stands for wealth and corporate greed. Like the GOP used to be, before it departed for Crazy Town in a lifted pickup truck.

See also: Joe Biden breaking the rail strike. (Before somebody points he followed up by getting some of the unions some of what they wanted, eroding union power generally was the headline news.) Can we imagine him nationalizing the rails and forcing the companies to strike a deal with the unions in exchange for using them? It would have been a stunning political sensation, but would’ve crossed Democrats’ corporate benefactors.

Yes, totally agreed, and I feel this discussion circling straight back to the OP point: Whose job is it to dismantle the machine, and counter the misinformation? It’s us; there’s no global referee that we can appeal to. How do we do it? Through the political process, because we don’t want violence and civil war. Since the winner-take-all voting system mathematically leads to two parties, our agent in the political process is the Democratic Party.

So, it’s not the DNC’s fault that the misinformation machine exists, but it is their responsibility to fix it, and we can certainly blame them because they’re really bad at it.

That’s a bold statement only a day after a campaign based on going hard-center crashed and burned.

Yeah, but that’s democracy. Those 75+ million people wanted something, and they voted for it, and they got it. Anything else is irrelevant. There’s no asterisk in the Constitution with a footnote that says the election is invalid if one side consists of hateboner-stroking bigots. If Democrats want something different, then they have to convince enough people to show up and vote for something different. They have to get good at public messaging and at running campaigns. Righteous indignation changes nothing whatsoever.

I disagree. At the risk of oversimplifying, American voters tend to respect strength of conviction, even if they don’t always agree with the policy, over milquetoast candidates. That’s why Sanders attracted so many voters who went on to vote for the other party’s candidate in the general election. Democrats need to decide what they believe in, and say it long, loud, and proud.

See, that’s the thing: It’s the passing lane, not the fast lane. A lot of semis are speed governed to 65MPH, so if I’m doing the 70MPH speed limit, I need to use it to pass them.

Think of it like chemotherapy, when you have to invest poison in order to get better.

The left lane, and how no, it’s not for going as fast as you want to drive.

They’re missing out, then.

Villagers: Let’s sacrifice a virgin to the volcano god.

Virgin: Help me, step-bro!

“Plot”: proceeds as one would expect

Yeah, the real question about him: Does he accept his payoff in rubles, or is he the kind of two-faced mercenary who demands dollars? (I know my guess.)