Yeah I know but the gray hairs are happening

Sure, democrats suck, politicians suck, and frequently they all collude together. But change does happen. Once upon a time black people were slaves and women couldn't vote. 15 years ago gay people couldn't get married, weed was illegal everywhere, and people with Crohn's disease couldn't get health insurance.

Sometimes it's as simple as getting an extra Supreme Court seat or losing the public option due to having 59 Senate votes instead of 60. Other times it feels like two steps forward, three steps back.

The absurd thing about our political system is that population voting changes from 52% to 49% to 54% can have monumental differences in governing outcomes. We can use this fact to our benefit though.

The lesson about Trump for you should be that just because the media often props up objectively horrible people, doesn't mean that someone the media hates is necessarily any good.

Disillusionment and apathy are things the ruling class thrives on and encourages as much as possible.

I'll add that by the 2008 Obama/McCain election any hope of much agreement between me and the majority of posters was gone.
That Obama was not going to be anything close to Hope & Change was super obvious to me. He was supported and pushed by the corporate media and The Revolution Will Not Be Televised . Hope and Change was impossible because it was televised. And Obama had people like Brzezinski as a foriegn policy advisor and he was team Citibank. Now ideas like that are getting to become commonplace and I don't even know who believed in hope & change then honestly. But people did and they still do. It just changes forms.

For sure. Please don't misinterpret anything I said to think that I don't have that understanding. About Trump, Tulsi Gabbard, or anyone else.

Apathy maybe. It's true that there more non-voters than there are Republicans or Democrats.
But disillusionment is a different thing. Ignorance isn't bliss. That's just a lie that is told to people.
As far as the good things that have happened--it's hard to know what to say to that. It isn't the idea that if the ruling class had their way that we'd all still be peasant farmers while they sit in their castles. Progress happens. Like I said earlier, millions of people have been lifted out of poverty. People have more opportunity now than ever before. But that doesn't make the world any less of a crazy place just the same.

Re your capitalism point, I guess my counterpoint would be all the massive improvements coming from capitalist societies.

But my main point is that life is pretty damn good for the lower two economic deciles in the United States and the developed world. Due to massive improvements to out standard of living. I wasn't really trying to get into the capitalism versus socialism or communism or whatever debate. I'm just saying that the media and the left (even the right, to the extent they have conceded the point) focus on the difference between the top income and the bottom income, when what should be discussed/measured is the standard of living, compared to historical standards of living.

Isn't disillusionment just the crime of not fitting into a box?

It's all to do with expectations vs reality

Very little to do with absolute standard of living

One can have realistic expectations within their control about the unrealistic expectations beyond their control, though.

So, what American intellectuals are worth paying attention to these days?

Twitter seems infected by pundits enamored with trying to sell their lectures, books or TV shows and it is increasingly hard to find the serious voices.

Political slants is not an issue, but nice to forego if possible. I can read both Chomsky and Scalia without fuming.

I am in the waiting room at my doctor and they have a magazine called "The Philadelphia Trumpet" which is put out by the Philadelphia church of God, this thing is insane. In an article about how Germany is going to start ww3, "the book of Isaiah calls America and Britain by their ancient name, Israel, and Germany by its ancient name, Assyria."

Maybe, from a practical standpoint most revolutions are caused by a discontented middle class, not the lower classes, so even for someone who doesn't care about inequality as a problem and sees it really as a PR issue to be managed it still helps to have inequality on the radar, otherwise the Kochs will still find themselves on the guillotine side of things.

I ran out of episodes of the Derry Girls so I might have to start posting again.

Yes, this ^^^ is a good point. It should be on our radar. Maybe my main point is that the right should not be conceding this point. And to the left, I see what you're doing, obscuring the massive standard of living improvements over the past 50 years to focus on a difference when the absolute is what matters.

Basically, I'm saying the media and left are doing politics, not just reporting, and to some extent, they've won, because they've framed the debate successfully. That may be trivially obvious, but I thought it worth pointing out.

Thanks. I forgot about that. I'll go back and pick up the series.

I think it's politics all the way down. There's no neutral framing of the issue

Solidarity forever

https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/m...us-auto-strike

Clarence Thomas is not a sell out

https://nyti.ms/2oaLJq4

Not the intended response but reading g that article increases my respect for Thomas.

Here’s my conservative principal. Government can’t.

Clarence Thomas is married to a Republican lobbyist who pushes anti-Dem conspiracy theories on social media.

I'm sure there's no conflict of interest there.

So he should resign because of his wife?

Well, I guess if you exclude all the places where government does, then you might have a point.

Well, they screw up most things. The one thing they do well is use of force - military and police. Let em stick to that.

Guy compares eminent domain to ethnic cleansing in Kelo but turns into a blackpilled nihilist in voting rights cases, arguing that there's no hope politically for minorities so why try. He's a grade A troll.

The list of military and policing failures are too numerous to get into. That stuff is by far the thing government does the worst at.

I don't know. They seem pretty good at mailing checks out to people every month. Should probably do more of that.