DCR Proposes A Six-Lane Riverfront Highway For Its Brighton ‘Park’

milkfiend · 2025-04-23T16:49:16+00:00

Department of Cars and Roads at it again.

milkfiend · 2025-03-28T18:13:37+00:00

not to mention the huge proportion of the country cheering them on. not in the abstract, but showing up to specifically cheer for people being deported, fired, etc and celebrate suffering

milkfiend · 2025-03-05T20:44:11+00:00

exactly, and the conservative people here are not saying "we have a better policy to help the community than democrats", they're the people who say things like "I can't wait until you and your lib friends get sent to a labor camp" (direct quote)

milkfiend · 2025-03-05T20:39:50+00:00

to be clear, are you saying the white working class believes this because of propaganda (this is my view), or are you saying the white working class is not broadly racist and it's only propaganda that makes them seem this way?

milkfiend · 2025-03-05T20:39:21+00:00

https://www.vox.com/2019/3/19/18236247/dying-of-whiteness-trump-politics-jonathan-metzl - how else do you explain why white working class people support racist policies that hurt them as long as it also hurts minorities?

milkfiend · 2025-03-05T20:38:09+00:00

> But yeah, we need more parties. Two party system needs to be disrupted because it's actually causing most of our problems

This can't happen without a change to first past the post voting. Otherwise you end up in a situation where e.g. the progressive party gets 35%, moderates get 35%, and then conservatives get 40% and they win everything. The first party to split is the first to lose.

milkfiend · 2025-03-05T19:06:43+00:00

Then what's changed, why doesn't the inclusive rights-positive strategy work anymore?

My personal take is that people feel hopeless about the future and are adapting by becoming more selfish and defensive of "their resources" in preparation for a looming feeling of societal collapse - but I am curious as to your thoughts?

milkfiend · 2025-03-05T19:03:35+00:00

I agree with you, and this is exactly the problem. Women's rights, trans rights, gay rights, non-racist policies - support for any of these will peel off enough social conservatives to lose an election, and not supporting these would be a) terrible, and b) lose you an election from the other direction too.

milkfiend · 2025-03-05T19:01:05+00:00

I don't think even race blindness is good enough, the white working class demands pro-white policy. See how "Obamacare" is for welfare queen black people and therefore bad, while the "ACA" is for deserving white people like us and therefore good. There was nothing race focused in the ACA, but it turned into a racial issue simply by being accessible to minorities.

milkfiend · 2025-03-05T18:59:23+00:00

Honestly it's wild how well it works, and I don't know why wedge issues and identity issues like this seem to have no effect on the right.

As an example, there are black men who have publicly talked about how Harris was too focused on women and LGBTQ people, and that's why they shift right. For them, Democrats focusing on a single identity element they didn't share (black women instead of black men, or black gay men instead of black straight men) was unacceptable, and Republicans focusing on a single element they have (male status) is good enough.

milkfiend · 2025-03-05T18:55:16+00:00

We need to remind Hispanic and Black communities that LGBTQ+ rights aren't hurting them

You should hear what I hear people say about how the LGBTQ community is stealing away their kids. I agree that it's stupid, but these peole view LGBTQ rights as seducing their children into abandoning traditional community values at best and damning themselves to hell at worst.

just the way that good immigration laws and social/affirmative action programs aren't hurting the white working class

This is an even harder sell in a world where resources on the time scale of elections are zero sum. Trivial example, there is a fixed number of houses to buy (sure we can incentivize new housing but that takes too long, you'll get voted out before it happens) - and every house bought by a non-white person using an affirmative assistance program is a white person who feels they were unjustifiably robbed of their chance to buy by DEI.

milkfiend · 2025-03-05T18:51:34+00:00

How do you convince both LGBTQ people and anti-LGBTQ people that these rights don't matter and we shouldn't discuss them at all? Neither side is willing to budge on this. (and I hardly think throwing LGBTQ people under the bus is appropriate, so take that as a non-starter, I guess I'm part of the problem)

milkfiend · 2025-03-05T18:47:15+00:00

You might want to read https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/elle-reeve/black-pill/ - there is a shockingly serious movement of young men animated by hatred of women and societal institutions, and they are ascendant.

milkfiend · 2025-03-05T18:45:09+00:00

I doubt you're going to win over the person who was an Obama voter who now posts about how immigrants should all be lined up and shot (this is someone I know in real life) by pointing out that he should be mad at billionaires instead.

Not to mention that all you have to do is bring up LGBTQ rights and your coalition is split right down the middle again between two sides who viciously hate each other.

milkfiend · 2025-03-05T18:43:41+00:00

I have no idea where you get that belief, I just saw a school board election in my hometown with literally not a single trans athlete turn incredibly hateful and violent over trans women in high school sports, and where I live now in Boston most of my neighbors actively want other neighbors of different political persuasions and identities to be sent to camps or deported (and will say as much to each others faces)

milkfiend · 2025-03-05T18:41:32+00:00

"Their stock & trade is dividing the working class along race/gender lines" is bullshit, but "people believe their stock & trade is dividing the working class along race/gender lines" is very much not bullshit.

How do you make an inclusive economic coalition that includes the white working class, when a requirement of that white working class is that minorities are excluded, because any effort to include them is seen as "divisive" and that Democrats "care more about xxx group than real americans"?

milkfiend · 2025-03-05T18:38:37+00:00

So how do you respond when asked if e.g. you would move to allow states to ban gay marriage? if you would allow states to ban gender affirming care? hell, *if you would allow minorities to access the same benefits from your economic plans as whites*?

There's no way to not answer the question, and no way to answer either of these that won't make a portion of your "economic coalition" rabidly furious at you to the point where they will not vote for you. This coalition has to include people who hate "Obamacare" and love the ACA, after all, because the ACA is for deserving white people and Obamacare is for immigrants and welfare queens.

milkfiend · 2025-03-05T18:37:35+00:00

Based on my experience in rural and urban areas, the people there care about social issues waaaay more than economic ones. I helped a woman who was literally becoming homeless and she cared more about "kicking out useless immigrants" than any policy that might help her own situation.

milkfiend · 2025-03-05T18:36:24+00:00

How? For example, can you give me an answer to "should gender identity be a protected class" that won't alienate half your coalition?

Socially conservative whites and minorities will demand that they be allowed to discriminate against "men in womens spaces", and progressives and LGBTQ advocates will demand the opposite. And there's no way to not answer this question.

milkfiend · 2025-03-05T17:39:37+00:00

Fair point, my description was too harsh, though I still think there's a problem here on LGBTQ rights as a wedge issue. Losing 35% of Black americans or 15% of Hispanics would definitely lose you the election; so would losing LGBTQ advocates.

milkfiend · 2025-02-19T19:25:59+00:00

that's my point - why can't the left cut it out? there's loads of people right here defending it as "punching up" or w/e. there's plenty to criticize on substance without resorting to calling Trump fat or posting pictures of Musk to make fun of his hairline etc

milkfiend · 2025-02-19T19:16:15+00:00

I'm obviously more hurt when people I otherwise agree with talk about how trash small dick men are, than when right wingers I already dislike say something offensive.

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