“It’s breaking me. And there’s nothing that can be done for it, unless the president does something,”

This is a huge part of our problems right now. A lot of people look to the president to fix everything. The president is powerful, but they’re not that powerful. And thank god for that. If the entire US relied on just one person to fix everything, that would be absolutely terrible, and that’s even if that person were super smart and ethical, which of course our current president is not.

The people we should be looking to, at the Federal level, are Congress. But of course we all know how ineffectual they are. Feels like they might as well not even exist, sometimes. Though, there are some real structural reasons for their ineffectiveness: the incredible influence is moneyed interests in our politics, for instance, and the fact that a representative in the House represents over 700,000 people! For comparison, each member of the Canadian parliament represents about 120,000. Even that’s high compared to a lot of European democracies. Each seat in Norway’s parliament represents about 33,000 people.

But, the people of West Virginia have another representative body they can look to: their state legislature. Each seat in West Virginia’s House of Delegates represents about 17,000 people. You don’t have much of a voice at the Federal level, but you have much, much more of a voice at the state level. The people who can best help West Virginia are West Virginians.

I hate this country so much. I just hate it. I hate my country.

Lol, yeah he’s quite the prognosticator. He also seems to be getting pretty popular, which I think is a little concerning.

I agree. I wonder what will follow. Neoconservativism and Fascism are both failed systems. It’s only a matter of time before they fail this time, too. I wonder if the failure of Neoconservativism/Fascism will lead to so many crises that there will be a collapse of the current global order, specifically US hegemony. Could that lead to the Chinese model becoming the new preferred paradigm?

And as far as here in the US, well, maybe when this is an over there won’t be a US anymore. But if there is, I wonder what the next dominant ideology will be.

You’re probably right. So if most Americans are either non-ideological or heterodox, what would the orthodox ideology be?

“Right-wing” isn’t an ideology. I agree that most Americans are right of socialism, and probably even social democracy, but that encompasses a lot of ideologies.

according to Gallup’s data from 2025, more than half of Americans – 54% – identify as either Democrats or Republicans, with another 35% characterized as “Republican-leaning independents” or “Democratic-leaning independents”. Pew data has the number of self-identified Republicans or Democrats at 59%.

Ok, but what does that mean? “Republican” and “Democrat” are not ideologies, they’re political parties. And very broad parties, at that. Because of our de facto two party system, both parties usually try to be “big tents.” So neither party ever has exclusively one ideology.

What is the guiding ideology of the Republican party (or rather, what was it before the party became the cult of Trump)? What is the guiding ideology of the Democratic party? I think it used to be Neoliberalism, or “Third Way” Liberalism. But what is it today? Is it still Third Way Liberalism, like during the Bill Clinton era? Or is it more traditional Social Democracy?

In a lot of ways, the Third Way was meant to be a compromise between Neoliberals and Social Democrats, but are either of those sides willing to compromise today? Should they compromise? It seems to me there are aspects of Neoliberalism and Social Democracy that are mutually exclusive. For instance, Neoliberalism usually wants lower taxes, but Social Democrats want a strong social safety funded by a progressive tax system, which usually means higher taxes, at least for income earners near the top. Well, taxes can’t be both lower and higher at the same time, so which is it? You can compromise and just lower taxes a little, and have a smaller safety net, but while compromise seems like a good idea, it usually just ends up with watered down policies that no one is fully happy with.

So where are the majority of Americans, ideologically? Is there a majority ideological consensus? If so, what is it?

The Republican party has gone completely bat-shit insane, and because of our de facto two party system that leaves the Democrats as our only real hope. A scary prospect, but that’s where we are. If the Democrats are going to save us, they have to humble themselves enough to learn the right lessons from their mistakes and make the right adjustments. That’s easier said than done, for sure, but that’s our best hope.

At least, that’s our best hope at the Federal level, but maybe we should stop looking to the Federal government as much and focus on our state governments more. I honestly think a lot more can be done at the state level and state representatives represent far fewer people than federal representatives, so there’s a better chance your state representative will listen to you.

you don’t redress readily-manipulated people by punishing or culling them

I certainly didn’t mean to imply that we should do that. I definitely don’t think we should.

you do so by snuffing their propaganda and educating the population…

Yeah, but education can’t be imposed on people. Not without violence and repression, anyway. They have to be willing to learn, and the Trump supporters I know are some of the most defiantly, proudly ignorant and misinformed people I’ve ever known.

But maybe the right leader could change that. I don’t know.

I agree with you, but that’s 77 million people. How are you gonna hold them responsible? And I ask sincerely, because something’s gotta be done with those assholes. I’d accept them just learning from their mistakes and changing their behavior, but, man, I do not see that happening. I hope it does. I hope to god it does, but I’d be lying if I said I was optimistic about it. And if they won’t listen to reason, like, what can we do?

“I am literally the only Democrat in America, in Congress, that I’ve come across that’s saying, ‘I think it’s a great thing to break and destroy the Iranian regime,’” he added.

There are plenty of Democrats who have often supported a US interventionist foreign policy. There are plenty of Democrats who are perfectly fine with letting Israel direct US policy regarding the Middle East. This has led many Democrats to support terrible foreign policy decisions, like the Iraq war. To their credit, many Democrats are finally starting to wise up and learn from these past mistakes. They’re ever so slowly starting to realize that it might not be such a great idea to keep making the same devastating blunders, over and over and over again.

Unfortunately, men like Fetterman and Trump are not big on learning or wisdom. They’re too fucking stupid to realize that they haven’t destroyed the Iranian regime, they’ve certainly strengthened it. All they’ve done is put a younger Ayatollah in power with even more reason to hate the US and Israel. Congratulations, you’re an idiot. But they have weakened the global economy! So there’s that.

Pot calls kettle black.

Not sure if you mean in that particular race or ever.

Of course I meant in that particular race. Trump received the most votes of the candidates in the 2024 presidential, general election.

More Americans voted for Trump than any other candidate.

If they didn’t want it, why did they vote for it?

I think this will definitely help. It’s not going to completely fix the problem, but it should help. But, the problem of affordability cannot be fully addressed until profit is taken completely out of housing.

Even before the U.S. attacked Venezuela, Cuba was struggling with severe blackouts, soaring prices and scarcity of basic goods. Experts say that a disruption in oil shipments from Venezuela and now Mexico could unleash a potentially catastrophic crisis, especially since U.S. President Donald Trump signed an executive order Thursday that would impose a tariff on any goods from countries that sell or provide oil to Cuba.

Overall, many Cubans I’ve interviewed have shrugged off what could be impending doom, with experts saying that the Trump administration aims to spark a popular uprising in hopes that a new government will be established. But Cubans have said they will not be manipulated by outside forces. Meanwhile, some are preparing even though they doubt an invasion is looming. Those who can afford it are installing solar panels, while others are growing their own produce.

To any of my fellow Americans reading this who still support this strategy for whatever reason, you need to understand that this strategy DOES NOT WORK. Trying to get the people of a country to overthrow their government by making their lives really hard through external means, DOES NOT WORK. The people don’t blame their government, they blame YOU. WE are the foreigners involving ourselves in THEIR country’s affairs. Even if they don’t like their government, they will see US as the greater threat. And rightfully so. In fact, it will likely influence many of the people who had been upset with their government to start supporting their government, at least conditionally, because now they and their government have a common enemy. By supporting this strategy, you are HELPING the repressive government stay in power. You’re not making things better! STOP! I don’t care what your fucking intentions are, you’re NOT helping the people. So, unless cruelty is the point, unless you just want to hurt Cuban people, fucking STOP!

There was a neoliberal consensus in place for a good three decades, and moderate Democrats were absolutely a part of that consensus group. Then the 2008 financial crisis and its aftermath happened, and the consensus fell apart. That doesn’t mean neoliberalism went away immediately following the crisis. Neoliberalism was still the consensus among most elites, but in the general populace the consensus collapsed. The “silent majority” neoliberal middle shrunk, with some going further to the right and some going further to the left.

That’s essentially where we’ve been since: without a popular consensus. In the absence of a popular consensus, different ideological groups have been competing for control. Liberals, socialists, reactionaries, and even fascists, right libertarians and anarchists. But through it all, no real majority consensus has yet emerged. Trump has thrived in the absence of a consensus by leveraging the resentment of various groups to seize as much control as possible, and different groups, both foreign and domestic, have opportunitistically latched onto the Trump movement to try and get what they can. Trump has been a useful idiot for several disparate groups, that are not necessarily ideologically aligned.

We might be seeing a new majority consensus emerge, however. Maybe. It’s hard to say. But there are signs that things could be moving in that direction. But it’s not socialism, it’s good old fashioned, new deal, Keynesian social democracy. And a very, VERY watered down, pro-markets version of it, at that. America is such a conservative country that we can’t allow ourselves to look forward to new possibilities, only back to what’s already been done. We’re so backward that economic policies from the 1930s seem radical to us.

I don’t hate Jews. But I don’t want Israel controlling US foreign policy, either. Israel is not a part of the US. It’s not a US State or territory. Israel is an independent nation, if they want to bomb Iran that’s their business. I don’t agree with it, but it’s not my country. But Israel wants to have the US on a leash, like we’re their own personal attack dog. That does affect me. That’s MY fucking government they’re controlling. That fucking pisses me off. I don’t fucking care that they’re Jews. It would piss me off if they were Muslim or any other religion or ethnicity. Israel needs to stay the fuck out of my government. They have their own government. Go back to your own government and get the hell out of mine.

Yeah, “civility” and decorum aren’t solutions to our problem. They can help mask over ideological divisions, but only ever temporarily. The fact is, it’s not possible for the United States to adopt contrasting, mutually exclusive ideologies simultaneously.

The US cannot be, for instance, both fully socialist and fully capitalist at the same time, or fully autocratic and fully democratic at the same time. It is possible for a compromise to be struck, in which parts of each ideology are adopted to form some kind of “hybrid” model, and that might seem reasonable, but that almost always results in half measures and policies that are knee capped from their inception, making them ineffective at achieving their stated goal.

And not all ideologies are equally capable of achieving the same goal, assuming they even have the same goal. Again, autocracy and democracy are mutually exclusive. The goals of autocracy supporters and the goals of democracy supporters are in direct opposition to one another. I suppose you could try and form some kind of hybrid between the two, but, besides being ridiculous and nonfunctioning, it wouldn’t fully satisfy either the autocrats or the democrats, and they would be constantly looking for ways to undermine the other with the aim of fully implementing their system.

And then of course not all ideologies are equally ethical. No rational person is going to claim that a violent, genocidal fascist government is as ethical as a democracy that protects basic human rights for all.

That being said, humans are complicated, and it is often the case that no ideology fully captures all of those complexities, regardless of how ethical it is, in theory or in practice. And we should strive to be intellectually honest enough to recognize when our preferred ideology falls too far short of capturing enough of our human complexity to be viable. But still, that means the solution is a better ideology, not necessarily ideological plurality.