Enthusiastically in agreement that funding of school districts and regional equity is a major problem. Funding is likely problem #1, but I think the problems with funding are more complex than just property taxes.

Concentrating poverty also creates poor areas and exacerbates the problem. It’s so frustrating that there are so many NIMBY assholes that don’t want affordable housing near them.

Bill Gates fucked the public school systems pretty hard.

Something I think is extremely fucked up in general is that if you have millions to throw at a pet cause, you will disproportionately benefit your cause over other causes in a non-democratic manner. That means that every individual and organization involved in fields related to your pet projects are incentivized to focus on your pet projects over others. Because you have so much money, you basically individually shape public policy.

Look at the WHO (source):

…over 80 per cent of WHO’s funding relies on “voluntary contributions,” meaning any amount of money given freely by donors, whether member states, NGOs, philanthropic organisations or other private entities.

The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation alone is responsible for over 88 per cent of the total amount donated by philanthropic foundations to the WHO. Other contributors include the Bloomberg Family Foundation (3.5 per cent), the Wellcome Trust (1.1 per cent) and the Rockefeller Foundation (0.8 per cent).

So yeah, it’s great that they donate so much… but that also means they can stop donating… so they have control.

Adam Conover makes some good points on this topic.

My mother’s life insurance policies, many of which she’s had for decades, are actually bleeding her dry with premium increases. I’m hoping seeing an accountant can convince her to drop at least some of them. She’s so obsessed with “leaving me something” when she dies that she’s going into debt to pay for it…

Edit: Don’t get me wrong, I’m not looking to get anything from her and I’ve told her so repeatedly.

You know how in many industries there is a standard amount of time something takes and that determines the standard cost? Like it takes .5 work hours to change your oil so they charge .5 of labor + cost? Well, as I understand it, the plan was to limit the amount of anesthesia they’d cover based on the standard/expected time a medical procedure would take.

“In other words, if a procedure takes longer than expected, patients may wake up to an unexpected bill.” https://www.prevention.com/health/a63104965/blue-cross-blue-shield-anthem-insurance-anesthesia-time-limit/

Wait until all the ballots are counted. Ballots still being counted aren’t in those totals but, obviously, they finished counting 2020. Shit, California is still like 60% counted at this point. And they’re at 10 million votes counted… that’s like 6.5 million more votes just estimating CA.

I’m not seeing turnout down by 20m. Where are you seeing this data? Note, we haven’t even finished counting all the votes.

Admittedly, I was expecting there to be overwhelmingly high turnout and there wasn’t that from what I’ve seen.

The dude won the popular vote. I’m sure a lot of the shady bullshit that happened all around the country to suppress voting inflated his lead a little bit but I don’t think it was substantial enough to explain this.

1. It would have to go through congress, which wouldn’t approve it, so it would be a lie.

The policies are extremely popular and universal. Doesn’t really matter in a politicalcampaign if you struggle to achieve those ends. Trying is important and failing gives you ammunition against those who oppose extremely popular policies for next campaign.

2. They told people “I won’t do mass deportations or order the assassinations of my enemies” and it didn’t work. Why do you assume that this other stuff would?

The bottom line is that the average person isn’t listening for anything besides “how is the candidate going to help me because I feel like I’m drowning”. The right scapegoats something and promises to fix your problems by hurting the scapegoat (immigrants, minorities, socialists, whatever). This is a lie, but it’s just as, if not more, direct of a solution so some voters will support them.

Harris had attention when she said things like stopping price gouging and providing in-home elder care. Those were extremely popular ideas that she didn’t focus on. Instead, she pivoted right.

The shareholders are the real victims here. Despite being willing to pay their new CEO more than their competitors, the rate at which the company’s profits are increasing is 0.8% less than their competitor’s! Their stock price just took a massive nose dive of $0.08 overnight! Better give the CEO a better incentive package. I’m sure he can replace our QA team with Elon’s new Optimus robots. That might increase our margins and keep us competitive!

All of these things are happening or heading towards happening now, under Democrat leadership.

Events I’ve pointed and sourced:

Golan Heights, Jerusalem recognized as the capital, bailing on the Iran Nuclear deal… they happened because Trump made them happen while he was president. They aren’t happening or heading towards happening now. He literally did them between 2016 and 2020. You. are. lying.

Also, I’m done. Good luck trolling, spreading disinformation, or whatever gets you off.

There aren’t my facts and your facts. Facts are facts. That’s what makes them facts.

I don’t know how I can make this any clearer. This election, 2024, is not normal. In 2020 or any year prior I’d agree with you that things are not black and white.

The man attempted a fucking coup after he lost in 2020. He has forced anyone loyal to him, or fearful of his political power, to deny that he legitimately lost the last election. An enormous effort has been undertaken to install people loyal to him through the election process in countless states and counties throughout the country to have already tested their ability to contest, refuse to certify, and/or slow walk the electoral process.

The upcoming election is black and white. If this man doesn’t suffer an overwhelming loss, there is a very good chance the US will become a dictatorship.

from an opinion a lie you dislike can easily prove to be untrue.

FTFY

Lol, half of these things Trump already did. This is what bad faith arguing looks like.

Well I wouldnt tell that person to go on message boards and shit on every single person who shows the slightest bit of hesitance to vote democrat.

Lol. You aren’t hesitant, you are falsely equating a party that is deeply flawed and a party actively working to undermine and steal an election because they know that their policies are so disturbingly bad and unpopular that even the disproportionate power their given by the electoral college can’t sustain them unless they cheat.

There are more than two outcomes, but I know that several very possible outcomes result in christofascism ruling the USA for the foreseeable future.

You can bark at me all you want but you care more about predicting who wins than affecting change, so we aren’t even talking about the same things.

Predicting who wins? What are you even talking about. I don’t know who is going to win so my point is all hands on deck to preserve what flawed democracy we still have left. If you plan is to sit this one out in some misguided attempt to “affect change” by doing nothing, then I’m going to bark.

If we are clutching onto the shreds of democracy through bullshit votes where pointing out the obvious might break moral to the point of slipping fully into fascism… That just feels like the end of an empire.

So you you think this is the last chapters?

Being honest, yes. I didn’t expect so many people to be misinformed enough to think someone like Donald Trump will make their lives better. Or, worse, they only know he’s promised to make life worse for “those people” and that’s enough for them to want him in charge.

I’m not sure what you are saying or what it has to do with ending an empire.

Do you think the democrats will legitimately provide a challenge to FPTP voting? To the electoral college?

In time, with enough constituents demanding it, yes. The electoral college specifically hurts their chances.

Do you think the republicans will?

They would have no power without the electoral college. They are close to losing even with a disproportionate amount of influence which is why they are willing to sabotage the country to get back into power.

How would that get overturned, what would that actually look like?

The best way to challenge this captured system is to recapture it via one of the two parties. Make sure your representatives know what you want, convince others who agree with you to do the same, and convince the rest that disagree with you that you are in the right. Then you get critical mass and make it happen. The same way every cultural change happens.

Alternatively or simultaneously, you could have efforts pushing third parties locally. It is easy for an established party to destroy one political opponent on the national level. Just throw money at the problem. 1,000 local elections though? Much harder to manage an attack on a thousand fronts.

There are better ways to end an empire than making a christofascist the emperor and hoping it burns to the ground eventually.

Then your values are flawed.

You are watching a victim forced to give a gun to either

1. sleazeball or

2. a psychopath who has an explicitly outlined plan to use the gun to get more guns and kill as many people as possible.

Instead of urging the victim to choose the lesser evil you are doing… nothing? Bravely doing nothing so that next time… the sleazeball will make better choices or arguments? Or maybe so that next time the victim will learn their lesson and find a third option?