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Joined 2 years ago
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Cake day: June 29th, 2023

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  • Traditionally, the incumbent has a huge advantage. I don’t believe that the party of any sitting president that was primaried ever won the election. There are only a few cases of a sitting president that was eligible for another term stepping aside, and those were a very long time ago.

    There was very little precedent for what Biden did, and I think very few could have predicted the enthusiasm for Harris - I remember her last campaign. It wasn’t inspiring.

    I think Biden felt like the safest choice to many, though obviously that’s been proven incorrect. Hopefully the Democratic party will take a lesson from this and be more willing to replace an incumbent in the future if there’s a better option.



  • Post belongs to Post Holdings, which is publicly traded. Folgers is a subsidiary of Proctor & Gamble, and Jimmy Dean is a subsidiary of Tyson Foods. It seems unlikely that all three companies would even support their products being hocked together in such a manner. I wouldn’t be surprised if this was unauthorized and he’s attempting to appear like he has more support than he really does.

    Edit: spotted Maxwell House in there too, and that’s owned by yet another company, Kraft Heinz.











  • You’re talking about income tax rates, and I agree that the top tax rates should be higher, but this won’t fix the problem because billionaires don’t make their money from salaries. Most of their money is theoretical and tied up in ownership of shares of a company.

    They can sell shares or earn dividends to make money, so capital gains should also be taxed at a much higher rate. But billionaires often choose not to sell shares either because they have a better option…

    They take out low interest rates loans using their shares as collateral. The interest rates they are charged are generally going to be far lower than the interest on their stocks that stay invested,. This is where most of their liquidity comes from, because loans aren’t taxed, and in some regard is almost an infinite money glitch for billionaires.

    I think we need to make it illegal to use financial holdings as collateral for loans, at least for starters.



  • As someone raised in a white evangelical household, an ex-evangelical myself, and someone who lived in a number of very conservative communities and as someone who regularly works with police and military, I feel I have a very solid understanding of (and have been thoroughly traumatized by) the conservative/evangelical/christian nationalist mindset - and I think the Christianity part is way more central that you are giving it credit.

    Similarly, while there is most certainly racism present, I have encountered few overtly, stereotypically racist people in those communities. They will enthusiastically accept any minority that shares their beliefs. I think it’s far more about ideology than race. Where the racism comes in is they automatically distrust people of other races unless they discover there is a shared ideology.

    They hate white Democrats/liberals/progressives just as much, maybe even more, than those of other races, because those are people who have “rejected the word of God” rather than being those who have simply not heard it yet and potential converts.