EPA says it will eliminate its scientific research arm

It’s because he only knows how to destroy, not build, and destroying is always easier than building. It may be impactful but it is going to set America back decades.

Reminds me of reading about Karl Marx in college. As I recall he basically made a name for himself talking shit about capitalism. Then, people said, "Bro, if capitalism sucks so much, why don't you come up with something better?" And that's how The Communist Manifesto was born, which was a total disaster, and set humanity back generations.

Talking shit and tearing stuff down is easy. Building something is hard.

What would you expect a competent opposition to do?

There’s not a lot the opposition can do. Elections have consequences and now people are gonna have to live with it. People stayed home or decided to vote against their own interest. It’s not like there wasn’t a previous track record to compare. Selective amnesia is not an excuse.

Be better (like doing it at all) of saying what they have accomplished. People don't know what they zone know. Make a list of things accomplished and say it out loud. Humility could be another way that democracy dies.

For starters, anything.

>Bro, if capitalism sucks so much, why don't you come up with something better?

That totally happened.

Select a candidate that would not lose to Trump.

Frankly, the Democratic party epically and massively failed their constituency by first running a mummy and then attempting to run perhaps the most unlikable, unrelatable, disconnected candidate of my lifetime - that literally zero people voted for.

It's not the people's fault, it's the party's... the party thought everyone would just jump when told to do so.

Democrats deserve better.

Like? It's hard to do anything when the executive, legislative, and judicial branches are all controlled by the same party. Until midterms, there's not much that can be done at the federal level. States can oppose some issues, and some States are, but what exactly do you think the opposition can/should be doing that they aren't already?

He's destroying for various reasons yes. But he knows how to build. Perhaps not personally, but he can wrangle a system to do things for him, mostly for him perhaps. OK completely for himself, but that's not to say he can't.

Currently there isn't much they can do, but they handed the election to a corrupt buffoon. Inaction the border & immigration, letting the woke crowd run rampant with their nonsense(not talking about it doesn't make it go away), and selecting a VP that if ever tasked with running for President--wasn't likely to win.

Have any sort of policy position and not run on the "at least I'm not him" platform.

In an era where Republicans are dismantling the government do you know what Dems will run on? That's right, dismantling the government, but in a kinder gentler way (see Ezra Kline's abundance agenda).

Dems are anemic to running on popular positions. Raise the minimum wage, expand Medicare, restore the institutions Republicans are dismantling.

The irony of you saying that about a real estate mogul.

To be fair, it's hard for the Dems to do anything effectively when a sitting president attempts to overthrow an election, fails, and then half of the voters think "You know what, I want that guy to lead our country again."

Not that they're blameless, of course - they had four years to throw Trump in prison, did nothing, and now we're reaping the result. But the problem goes much deeper than the Dems being incompetent. In a functioning democracy, voters aren't supposed to elect someone who literally committed treason, just because the alternative is "unlikeable" (what the fuck does that even mean, next to Trump).

> Inaction the border

Biden had an identical border policy to Trump term 1. Dems even tried to strengthen ice towards the end of Biden's term.

The fact that you think he was weak on the border really shows that Dems trying to out Republican Republicans on the border is a bad move. They should have been pushing for immigration reform and better/faster routes to becoming documented.

> letting the woke crowd run rampant with their nonsense

What does this mean?

> selecting a VP that if ever tasked with running for President--wasn't likely to win.

That's pretty typical. The much bigger problem is Biden ran while knowing his polling was in the gutter. It was him running with sundowning symptoms.

Harris's problem was that while knowing about Biden's unpopularity, she refused to distance our distinguish herself from him in any way.

(1) Actually have a coordinated plan would be the starting point.

(2) If the left truly wanted to help the American people like they say they do they need the programs they enact to actually work. Say what you want about Trump but he is effective. But then again, all authoritarians are.

IMHO, it's already too late for the midterms. In fact, it's probably too late for the 2028 presidential election, too. Democrats need to connect, and that connection isn't from showing up, out of nowhere, three months before an election and taking policy. The connection starts years before the election, by associating oneself to the things the voters also associate with. I think one of the most brilliant things Trump ever did was to get involved with WWE. That started the connection with Rural America. It was long before he ran for president, and it wasn't boring policy talk. It was, "Look at me! I'm your guy! I'm into wrestling, just like you!" Now, this is nothing new - Clinton played the sax on Arsenio Hall. But I think the Democrats are just terrible at it. And here's a great example: https://www.instagram.com/reel/DMIuyMQRAq1

  > Elections have consequences and now people are gonna have to live with it.

yes they do, but it seems dems favorability are fading [0]

  > People stayed home or decided to vote against their own interest.

it seems like the democrats standard mode of operation is to always wait for the opposition to screw up everything (2008, 2020) and then anoint some weak candidates (2016, 2020, 2024) and run on "we're better vote for us" and then get run over at the next election cause they didn't do much as expected (and their horrible messaging) [1]

the democrats need to clear out their decrepit leadership or its just gonna continue to slide worse and worse

[0] https://www.newsweek.com/congressional-democrats-favorabilit...

[1] https://thehill.com/homenews/3846305-democrats-have-a-messag...

   > Dems are anemic to running on popular positions. Raise the minimum wage, expand Medicare, restore the institutions Republicans are dismantling.

it may not be true, but the vibe to me is as if its almost some kind of elites' good-cop-bad-cop strategy with dems vs republicans...

American voters always look to the Dems and Republicans as if it’s a symmetric game.

So, one party puts up a person who encouraged and insurrection, has no coherent policy, ZERO moral standing, had security documents in a toilet, ran a crypto pump and dump scheme on the day of his inauguration, and wins.

But ALL of those things are not meaningful.

If one team comes to play football, and the other team brings in a posse of clowns who don’t play football, and the clowns win - then the game you are playing isn’t football. Hell, both teams should have fielded equally outrageous clowns. (This is what happens in completely corrupt nations, and America’s likely fate)

Playing a better game of football, is not as important as figuring out how the other team’s moves are legal.

In all earnestness - The question people really need to ask is not how the Dems lost, it’s how Trump ran in the first place.

Seventy million people voted for her.

I have a solution, talk The Rock into running for the dems. Wrestling and fame taken care of in one fell swoop!

Connecting with people, building a mass movement, organizing institutions that can funnel people and effort into building the world and election results they want. Taking risks by taking a stand on issues and saying those issues are the reason to vote for them (not to avoid having the other side win). Doing local politics to demonstrate competence and show that they care and are building things, then show off those things to the rest of the country and say “look, we can do this everywhere” or at least “look at what we can do on a small scale but our vision is bigger and it’s limited by the fact our vision needs to happen on a national scale and can’t be achieved fully at this small scale”. Lots of things.

Both parties are serving the wealthy. That's what prevents Dems from serving the working class. They know not to advocate raising the minimum wage.

It's what has created the behavior where Dems try to win over right wing independents because that's a more donor friendly position and Republicans can purely pander to their based, because they're already donor friendly (you know, for example, Republicans will always act to the benefit of big oil).

I voted for her, but I didn't do it because I *wanted* her.

All they needed to do was have a primary, but they didn't

That's a pretty stupid benchmark. A president who just nukes Chicago would also be "impactful".

In the primary? No... 70 million people were forced to vote for her in the general. That's why Democrats lost this election.

It's comments like yours that make it really seem like the Democrat Party hasn't learned a damn thing from this ordeal.

How was Kamala Harris more disconnected than, say, Mitt Romney, a billionaire who said that half of voters believed they were victims and were mooching off the government?

Or for that matter, how is she less disconnected than Donald Trump, who bragged about being able to get away with sexually assaulting people because he's famous?

I don’t disagree. But nobody should be surprised by everything that’s happening right now. Most people justified their vote by saying he’s either joking or it won’t happen to me or my loved ones and are getting buyers remorse now. There were two options and one was much worse than the other.

> Say what you want about Trump but he is effective. But then again, all authoritarians are.

What? No, they aren’t.

The book Why Nothing Works is worth a read.

I don’t think it was “for” her. Most votes against Trump.

They are all disconnected. The problem with Harris was that she was nothing. No message, no charisma.

The only thing he has ever directed that has been a net positive to society, Operation Warp Speed, is something he disowns because of the rabid anti-science stance of his base.

No message should have still won out against a message of hating everything about America, but here we are.

I agree that the Democrats are feckless, but still let's not forget which direction is up. (personally I think they're just coasting along and assuming they'll still be elites in whatever "new order" arises as long as they don't stick their heads up)

They should be putting out model legislation now on a monthly basis. No, none of it can pass, none of it can get to the floor. But they need bills that they can say they will pass if given a majority, and they need to be OK with the Republicans attacking them for the next 15 months. In fact the more time the Republicans spend attacking Democratic legislative proposals, the less time they are spending on selling their own.

The Democrats also need to put out radical proposals, not incrementalist ones or business-as-usualones along with fluffy messages about competency and management skills. The public does not want a party of competent middle managers whose primary skillset is watering down expectations and telling people to be patient while they redecorate. They need to put out policies that are going to make people spit out their coffee.

does he actually disown it? i thought he keeps up being proud of that despite his base hating it?

While a politician. You do realize he built many things or headed the building of many things prior to being a politician? In some cases to net good for the world, unbelievably. It's easy to vilify him for political or personal choices but that's not to say he can't do things.

> he built many things or headed the building of many things prior to being a politician

Are you talking about the gaudy casinos he bankrupted with the half-billion dollar head start his daddy gave him?

You're talking tropes. Life is more complicated. Read the book "Why nothing works"