This sounds like you were going to segue to today’s sponsor, Ground News.

We must be able to effectively fight it though. And blindly voting for the elite approved opposition ends in them holding the door open for fascists every time.

Oh no. It’s graciousness to vote for the guy you lost to and who went out of his way to break campaign promises on unions, climate change, and immigration. Another term is good loser.

But the point is there’s limits. There have to be limits or else you’re not a loser in a political contest, you’re a blind supporter they never need to actually listen to.

Sorry. how does AOC defeating democratic moderate in a primary impact a republican getting elected. I don’t think moderate D’s or voting R on the presidential ballot. A moderate Democrat is still voting democrat.

Well if’n it weren’t properly a democracy how comes that 'ere Kim fella put it in the name, huh?

It’d be like thinking the Democrats and Republicans are arguing about whether America should he a direct or representative democracy.

Yeah, that’s how elections work. If it were in good faith, it’d be a valid complaint. But it’s not. It’s just another thing they pulled from a hat labeled “how can we make Democrats look bad here?”

I like how that guy thinks the hive mind complains when progressives win because of “corporate donations”

Yeah, Stein was funded by Putin and his buddies.

Eh… There are a variety of end-runs around this mechanism.

Hiring politicians on as lobbyists or allowing friends and family to sit on private run boards and trusts can create a back channel for money to flow into a politician’s pockets. Public money can be funneled into private profits for which the supporting politicians are also stockholders. And politicians can receive discounted/free services from friendly private sector constituencies. FOX News, the classic example, is a multi-billion dollar network dedicated to running Republican-friendly media. But when corporate lobbyists and political strategists can be found everywhere from the boards of NPR/PBS to the guest chairs of MSNBC to the editorial rooms of the WaPo/WSJ/NYT, there’s really no safe spaces left.

You can mitigate the direct “bag of cash for favors” effect that, say, John Boehner cutting tobacco lobbyist checks on the floor of the House has produced in the past. But you can’t keep public sector administrators from finding ways to receive kickbacks via private sector channels unless you completely divorce these institutions.

Politics shift to the right when people feel disparity, and their future looks break. Politics shift left when people feel optimistic about their future.

The country i live in, which is Germany is corrupt and authoritarian with a complicit public and private media as well as the “center” parties moving further to the right and helping fascism rise faster than ever before. The “liberal” middle class are to a large extent just self delusional racists and the country will become a fascist hellhole in the next ten years.

The funniest part is that this has been brought about by the common belief that idealism is stupid and dangerous and leads to fascism, while cynicism is very smart and realistic. One good thing about idealism is that it gives you a reason to fight and sense of good and evil.

What I mean is that idealism, say, 20 years ago would be associated with extremism, neo-Nazis, unreformed Bolsheviks, sect members, radical Islam. But somehow the actual fighting forces sporting all such ideologies work without it too.

As if that “sail” filled not with wind, but with popular emotion were worse than lack thereof, because without it your “boat” wouldn’t be moved from the right (presumably) track. Turns out the “boat” also has “oars”. Evil doesn’t have to be charismatic, although it was that in the 1930s. It can do just fine with apathy and half-consent.

Yes, that’s right. The last European elections at the latest showed impressively that those dull people who are unable to see through the PR campaigns of the powerful are not an exclusive US problem. It is of course absolutely right that we in Europe rely far too much on the Americans and should set stricter limits to their capitalism, which in my opinion is completely out of joint. But I fear that we have already gotten too far into this quagmire. This is precisely why it is all the more important to raise awareness of this and to name those who are actually responsible for falling living standards and growing inequality - the US-type opportunists, the hangers-on and especially the blatant fascists in the ranks of our politicians and our societies. I am not at all convinced that the reasonable people have a shot, but I sure will continue to make an effort.

Feels like the whole world is on the same trajectory.

You’re welcome, I’m glad I could remind you of frogs on this day.

They’re pretty bad on Israel, yeah. All Things Considered is particularly terrible.

Innskeep and Mary Louise Kelly get me pissed of more than anyone else. Or Ayesha Roscoe. They’re all terrible interviewers.