Start a new political party, the 'American Progressive Majority'.

Yeah, I observe the same thing here in The Netherlands. In theory, democracy should work best for the working class majority. In practice, people somehow tend to vote for something not in their own self interest.

Wonderful example is the area where I live, our town shares a border with a Belgian town. Most people do groceries on one side of the border, go to the bar on the other side. In essence, we operate as one town that happens to be in two countries. Ask anyone in the street if they are open to a "Nexit" from the EU, most will say a hard: "No".

Then look at the election results, the party in favor of a Nexit became the largest party, also in the town I live. It's wild that people vote different to what they believe in. If you then ask them: why did you vote for this party, because it contrasts your earlier answer. People will say: "Yeah, but it won't come to that". Then I look at Brexit and it's exactly how that cluster fuck happened.

My brain simply cannot process this idiocracy.

Just going to drop this here

https://socialistra.org/

https://youtu.be/w0ndPOs8Q1c

There are more guns than people because people that own guns own multiple. And people that own a lot of guns own a loooot of guns. 29% of gun owners own five or more guns. It takes like 2 seconds to confirm this shit...

Too many people love their guns, there's literally more guns than people here.

Loving their guns and wanting better gun control laws aren't two opposite things you know. They can easily go hand in hand. See Canada to the north. Lots of guns, and better gun control laws.

The only thing with majority support is a narrow majority thinking trans people should be allowed to be discriminated against overtly in jobs and public spaces (but those people also generally don't think forcing a women to use the men's restroom is discrimination). Few people will say they oppose protections against discrimination, but "neutrality" is just a polite way of supporting discrimination...

The working class must never disarm. Post jan 6th and George floydd and people still have yet to learn that no one will protect us but ourselves. How delusional of me to think anything will ever drive this point home in people's frightened minds.

It would be nice to have some reforms, but that's not what anti gun people want. They want everything. We could pass reforms and somebody will shoot up some gun free zone and people will be back to take more. It's a never ending circle that only stops at fully stripping the right to own a firearm completely. Some aren't even ashamed to admit it.

My body, my choice in how to protect it. Prisons are gun free, prisoners have very few rights. Yet rape / violence in prisons are a running joke everyone enjoys repeating. I will not be a prisoner.

Good luck to OP with their party but I want no part of it. Plus they aren't in favor of legalizing all drugs so you support the police state's right to continue to ruin lives and shoot people for fun with no repercussions. Not to mention the lives lost from tainted unregulated drugs of a unknown potency. Oh and nothing on replacing First-past-the-post voting so we can have more then two parties? Super hard pass. We'd only be 3-4 generations before the capitalist class captures this political party as well. If not less.

If only we could join a commune that best reflects each of our values. OP could be completely unarmed in their commune and mine would have nukes cause humans are psychotic hairless apes that only respect one thing. Overwhelming violence.

SocialistRA.org

If not now when? When is a revolution ever at a good time. The Democrats have been "waiting" for 20 plus years ...

It’s because the phrase “Medicare for all” has been propagandized. If you instead asked if people wanted “affordable medical treatment and preventative care for themselves and others”, I’m sure that number would be much higher.

About 70% of Americans are overweight or obese, why should healthy people be penalized more because of them?

It certainly doesn't seem to be reflected by the results of the election.

Hopefully they leave the Democrats and start and actual leftist party. Otherwise their impact will be limited.

You're free to look them up if you care.

I think most people, including "moderate" Republicans, have polled in favor of regulations that make it easier to catch criminals and prevent people convicted of violent crimes from buying guns.

The firearms lobbyists have prevented this, and politicians conflate normal regulations with the "Obama is coming to take your guns" threat for easy political support.

If we could get people to believe reasonable regulations are possible and not get distracted by the fear mongering we would actually have better laws.

But as it stands, conservatives believe the Republicans and Trump are protecting them from liberals stealing their guns. And this is despite Trump saying ‘Take the guns first, go through due process second’

Le-sigh

The whole gun control should be formulated as „sane regulation of gun ownership and sales“. Focusing on illegal guns instead of law abiding gun owners might be a good choice as well. Assault weapons ban and similar are ineffective window dressing policies.

but you will go to jail if you harm someone with them.

So after the suicidal maniac goes on a killing spree at the local elementary school and wipes out a chunk of the next generation, then you send them to jail (and take their guns away? You didn't clarify that part)

Guns are a hobby. They should be a privilege you earn, and one you have to work to keep (don't get in trouble with the law, keep your registration up to date, etc).

The solution to our current situation isn't to go out and kill people, it's to fight legal battles and go out and vote when the time comes. A civil war doesn't guarantee we'll end up with the country you want even if the MAGA army is crushed. It's going to cause immense death and destruction, and it will open us up to attack from our adversaries. It will almost certainly ruin your life, mine, and everyone you know and love.

But even IF a real civil war is inevitable, getting guns and fighting won't be a challenge. Trump has very few allies in the rest of the world, but democracy does. NATO would not just sit and watch while a nuclear power goes through such a destabilizing event, especially when Trump's ties to Putin are so well known.

This is by design, the US election system was built to prevent "tyranny of the majority". Which makes sense in theory, but it would make more sense if it was also backed by a government structure like a parliamentary republic with proportional representation instead of a presidential republic.

Yes, Dems need to give up on gun control. My wife and I are lifeling Dems and just bought each other handguns and range time for valentines day. We feel we will be needing guns

The way it works in the UK - very well by the way - is that simply being caught with a gun is enough to get you thrown in the slammer. Consequently crims don't go around armed, and for the most part the police don't need to be armed either. It was a real shock to me the day I walked through Heathrow and there was a pair of armed officers walking around; I think that's the first and only time (off-screen) I've ever seen a gun. If the police need armed backup then they have to call for a specially trained squad.

The only other armed units are the Services. We don't have any "militarised forces that abuse their power", afaik.

Guns for sports are allowed but there are extremely strict regulations around them.

Shootings here are extremely rare. Of course they still happen, no solution is 100%, but it's close, and a hell of a lot closer than the bizarre American fetish that the ultimate solution to gun violence is more guns and more guns and more guns, absolutely flying in the face of all the facts.

That Onion article entitled "No way to solve this, says the only country with this problem" is spectacularly on point.

Sadly there's this idea that Americans are being taxed to death, when in reality not so much.

People don't understand that while we'd pay maybe hundreds more in taxes to fund Single Payer, we'd pay THOUSANDS less in healthcare costs, so we still come out ahead

I have been having arguments with idiots telling me "not voting isn't inaction" or "the lesser of two evils" is how we got to where we are now

No. Not voting is literally doing nothing. You are helping their voter suppression efforts. And we got here not because of "the lesser evil" getting worse over time but because historically we only have 40-50% voter turnout for the last few decades.

Democrats have shifted more conservative because progressives hardly vote. I say that as a progressive. If it wasn't true then Bernie would have won the primary, but he had a ton of support from young voters and then younger voters only had like 10-15% turnout.

Too many people have 401k for no stock ownership to make sense.

It's not. 67% of the US identify as Christian. 44% of the population is Protestant and 22% Catholic.

It's honestly a miracle these numbers aren't lower. The bible says a marriage is between a man and a woman, but also to give to the poor, disabled, and orphaned. Ironically, both liberal and conservative Christians have to reject a lot of the bible to be consistent with their political beliefs. Being 'Christian' these days seems to have more to do with what parts of the bible you don't believe in than what parts you do.

How we vote is controlled at the state level. We don't need federal reform to change how we count votes to make 3rd parties able to participate without a spoiler effect.

Alaska has passed these reforms, so can your state. Unless of course your state representatives don't support democracy.

It's set up so that three parties can't be viable simultaneously, but which two are viable does change periodically.

It doesn't say anything about taking away guns. It says gun control laws. These often include things like a waiting period to purchase a gun if you don't have your concealed weapons license. Or bans on people owning guns if they have previous convictions for assault/battery.

The first they try to do to prevent crimes of passion. Basically if someone finds out their spouse is cheating on them and they find out, they don't walk into a pawn shop, walk out immediately with a gun go shoot the person they cheated with, their spouse and then themselves. Instead the hope is that they walk into the pawn store, buy the gun, they tell them they can come back in 5 days and pick it up. And hopefully in 5 days they will have calmed down enough they have found a better way to deal with the situation. States like Florida had these rules for handguns because they are easier to conceal while shotguns and rifles you could walk out with same day. Desantis I believe changed the gun laws recently though, so idk what they are anymore. I've bought guns in Florida and Tennessee, and I always thought laws like that were reasonable.

I mean realistically what is you owning a gun gonna do against a drone strike or whatever other tech the military has? The only way a revolution happens in the modern day is if the military lets it. I can definitely see the value in guns for protection against paramilitary groups trying to go after people but beyond that guns aren't gonna stop the US government from doing fascist stuff if the military is on their side.

Edit: Also at a certain point if you're actively fighting and resisting against the government getting access to guns even if they are illegal isn't gonna be the biggest problem you have.

The second amendment is vitally important for the exact reason of what we are going through right now: the overtaking of the US government by oppressive fascists.

And yet, from outside USA looking in, I can clearly see that the moment has come and passed without a single gun owner doing anything. Keep polishing I guess.

You're going to hand over your guns without making a fuss the microsecond that the gestapo knock on your door, and you know it.

Because people don't vote on policy, they vote on personality and vibes. It's how it's always been. This list of policies is (mostly) just a copypasta of the Democratic platform. But people have never voted that way. The Democrats put forth the crypt keeper, then replaced him with one of the most boring public speakers to come out of the Democratic Party in a generation. And they were running against someone who is a horrific fascist, yes, but also has stage presences and charisma and knows how to play to an audience. As much as he's one of the worst people on the planet, Trump knows how to make himself entertaining to watch.

That's what drives votes for politically disengaged people who don't pay attention to politics until the middle of October every 4 years. They listen to who is more entertaining and pretend like that candidate is telling them what they want to hear, regardless of whether or not he is.