I thought your "thesis" was that people didn't have the time or money to hang out and make impulse purchases anymore. Sorry if I misunderstood.

There are some legit merit acceptances, but a huge proportion of students get in by donation and/or family prestige.

In this episode of "let's watch Western society descend into fascism", we have Italy's government passing laws banning "ethnic shops" from being open past 9pm, blaming foreigners for Italians getting drunk and doing drugs.

Its gotta be real weird to live in a world where **** happens for no reason

All was great in America until the Mexicans invaded and the socialists attacked.

https://jacobinmag.com/2019/02/enzo-traverso-post-fascism-ideology-conservatism

On the one hand, this guy is attempting something cool, trying to understand the kind of "post-fascism" today and how it diverges from past fascism. But he gets some **** just so wrong:



Trump was 1000% not a serious contender in the eyes of the Republican leadership early in the primary period. Trump's takeover of the Republicans was something more of a coup than an open embrace, and he absolutely took them in a new direction. You know, previously they only dogwhistled the racism to keep the evangelicals and insane people happy, but at the end of the day were primarily doing it cynically so they could continue their economic and social projects. Trump simply took that racism from being a dogwhistle to being the platform. Since nobody actually likes the Republican policies, only the racist dogwhistles, he pulled away the mass of the voting base.

This wasn't the pillar Republicans at all, this was a subversion of the Republican party. So his point is just.. not that accurate. It's really missing a key part of Trump's rise, which is the latent feelings of many Americans which does kind of align with fascist sentiment.

Something like that:

Reminds me of this tweet:



I mean, sure, some suggestions on the left are ridiculous. But if we're already tacking on trillions of debt to make jets too fast to pilot and to make Jeff Bezos billions more. It wouldn't be hard to transfer some of this ludicrous spending to make a few beneficial social policies.

Apparently though that makes you a braying ass.

It’s been pretty amazing to see the US liberal media lately try to define “real” socialism for their readers. Like it’s some kind of last-minute negotiation, “we know we’ve been slurring these people as socialists for just wanting us to pay the taxes we already owe, but there’s real socialists out there and they actually want change so don’t confuse them with the fake socialists like Bernie and AOC”.

That's because that's exactly what it is, a negotiation. The DNC is pretty much terrified of the popularity of AOC. They're realizing now people who vote for them want some serious political action towards economic reforms that they don't intend to do. So they want to pull back the reigns while seeming to be in support. Part of that is trying to isolate "scary socialists" from the "just socialist-sounding but actually liberals".

I wouldn't know. Seriously, though, why do you feel the need to pretend that my experience fits your theory? Whether or not I have the time or money (I do, more than when I used to frequent malls) that doesn't change the fact that there isn't any place in the mall that interests me anymore. Note that I didn't dismiss your ideologically self-serving theory which I'm sure is true for at least some people.

Man I sure miss those stores that closed for no reason

Bernie Sanders announces 2020 run. So old that he might beat William Henry Harrison’s record, but Godspeed.

Elizabeth Warren announces plan for universal child care, a social democrat favorite. By god, we’ll get those low income moms back to work even if we have to subsidize the absolute **** out of their employers.

Kamala Harris announces she is willing to consider renaming Columbus Day to Indigenous People’s Day. So, erm, keep breading those circuses I guess.

I should stop calling the mainstream democrats propensity to do **** all and wrap it in a progressive bow “bread and circuses”. The Romans actually had a government provided guaranteed minimum diet and really did throw parties. They did way more for the poor than the Democrats do.

The romans also had a wealth tax.

Edit: man how bad are our liberal democracies doing that they compare unfavourably to the friggin romans.

Hm. Perhaps I can't disassociate what represents mainstream media outlets from those that aren't mainstream, but I've detected quite a bit of enthusiasm from the establishment for AOC. I mean, you can imagine that the aftermath of 2016 could've played out very differently: you could imagine that instead of Democratic politicians with presidential ambitions largely embracing Bernie Sanders' political agenda, that they could've instead continued to try to galvanize support based on a need to confront Russia for hacking the election, punishing Facebook for disseminating fake news, and the whole host of other ways that centrist Democrats have tried to justify HRC's loss in 2016 (sounds terrifying!). But they didn't: they've embraced Sanders' signature proposals, and have competed with him by introducing some of their own, in effect trying to prevent getting outflanked by him from the left. It seems like, rather than being scared of AOC and Bernie, Dems are trying to harness the excitement around them, and have moved the party to the left (or at least the part of it that is running for president).

And since the 2018 election, the media has largely promoted candidates who are further to the left, despite the fact that the Democrats actually won its 2018 landslide on a much more moderate message than one might have expected given the political climate (most importantly, defending Obamacare), and many of the representatives elected are actually much more moderate than is generally depicted, especially in light of the skewed view that the media's focus on AOC, Ilhan Omar, etc, gives. So with the media in addition to the party, I mostly see enthusiasm, with occasional complaints when AOC says something that's factually incorrect.

Uh huh. I know you're trolling but everybody knows the real reason the stores closed and it certainly isn't the one you propose.

Prediction: Sanders wins the Democratic primary. Centrists panic and Howard Schultz runs as an independent, splits the Democratic vote cleanly between leftists and liberals, and hands Trump the White House in 2020.

Inflation/population adjusted US total retail spending has been flat since 1993. That means e-commerce growth (Amazon and Walmart) is coming out of the rest of retail shrinking, but while this is happening upscale anchor stores like Macy’s (3.7%), Nordstrom (9%), and even Target (7%) have still seen strong revenue growth.

So if you’re suggesting that I should be reading this market as not being driven by the new spending averse habits of the majority consumer, I’m sorry, but you’ll have to explain why.

Target is like Walmart with decent dressing rooms. They also do a good job of placing them far away from low income housing. Makes it a much more pleasant shopping experience for white Americans.

Columbus was bad but not.. quite so bad? as he is often portrayed. It seems people lump onto him all of the sins of early colonization regardless.

I also remember reading how some of his more egregious sounding quotes are mischaracterized and a bit more defensible in context.

Maybe that's wrong, but I don't have the time to dig into the historical work on him right now.

I imagine people are just picking 15th century "Great Europeans" to excommunicate according to 21st century standards. It's not hard to find faults if you do that. Thomas Jefferson is next!

Prediction: Kamala Harris wins the Democratic Primary as a safe alternative who is willing to pay lip service to popular causes. Black people refuse to vote for her because she is a former prosecutor. Donald Trump wins again without the popular vote. The liberal media blames Bernie Bros and/or Howard Schultz.

Howard Schultz is such a ****er. He’s basically admitted he only wants to run as a spoiler (his own polls predict he will take 5% of the vote, entirely from Democrats, handing the next win to Donald Trump - the guy who cut his taxes).

He deserves to win.

Maybe then this will be the test of identity politics: will people vote for Harris solely on the basis of her skin color, despite her record?

No. Donald Trump will win.

I mean.. it's pretty hard to defend raping your slaves as just part of 18th century life. The reality is Thomas Jefferson was just kind of ****ty.

However, the uncomfortable truth of life is that morally wrong people can do good things. Thomas Jefferson still produced great ideas. Bill Cosby is still funny. It's just, you know, they were pieces of **** too.

I think I've said this before but I wish I could ever talk about Jefferson sometimes without talking about Sally Hemmings. He's a pretty big icon around here and it's ****ty he did what he did, but goddamn it's as if there was nothing else worth talking about. You don't want to discourage mentioning how ****ty America's history is but, people, can we talk about something else too?

Oh yeah, people I know decided upon this like 1.5 years ago. It was obvious the media was grooming her for next president. And she'll be stale just like Hillary.



JFC:



Yeah just like Hillary won them in 2016.

this. people are still to this day writing off the next election as a guaranteed democrat win

i have to think these are the sorts of people who isolate themselves in the vox-bubble. they think trump is going to be impeached any second now and that many people are leaving the republican party now because he's on record saying so many false things. lawl. trump still has overwhelming approval from republican party members. very little has changed from 2016, it's not like gerrymandering has stopped, or the electoral college, or that americans have suddenly decided being retarded is a poor political choice.

On the other hand, wouldn't Sanders lose to Trump anyway, if he (hypothetically) won the primary? He'd call him a socialist.

I'd say that someone like Warren seems the most acceptable to centrist Americans.

Hmm, never mind. To my surprise, it seems that Sanders polls better than Warren does against Trump.

https://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2020/president/us/general_election_trump_vs_sanders-6250.html

https://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2020/president/us/general_election_trump_vs_warren-6251.html

Actually, I bet either one could win the popular vote and still lose the Electoral College....

idk probably. america's future is pretty much already set, i doubt presidential elections are switching us from this track aimed at the cliff.

What is that supposed to mean? Are you one of those people who voted for Nadar because Bush and Gore are the same?

No, I'll vote for whoever the Democrat front runner is. I just mean America is pretty hopeless. There's little to suggest anything will really change in our political system, but its problems are festering. I hope to be proven wrong but nothing seems to add up to anything but the future being ****ty.

I could make the same complaint about doctors, they don't stop the inevitable but I am still obligated to see them.

Recently I talked with a liberal elite centrist professor about how I thought instant-runoff voting was a great idea. But he told me that it led to radical candidates, and that he preferred approval voting, where instead of ranking candidates, you just give a thumbs up to the ones you would vote for. One of the arguments he gave was that IRV is too confusing for voters.

liquid democracy via blockchain obv the answer

I'm not even sure I want to know what that is. lol