rational_lib

No major social media is being crowdbacked by communities outside of what lemmy itself is.

But that's exactly where the Democratic party could help. Their primary activity is fundraising. With all the money they spend hiring pop stars to sing at events, they could be creating an actual media presence for themselves instead.

The Democrats had it during their entire presidency

Specificity is the path to the truth. People call out for "the list", but don't seem to know exactly what this is. Given that all this activity is illegal, there's little point in storing a list of illegal sex clients in QuickBooks.

Instead, the closest thing would probably be a contact list, with people who were in on it and not mixed in. Prosecutors definitely have such a list, as it was shown in court - exhibit "GX52". This list was partly shown in the Maxwell trial, but also sealed by the judge - not Democrats. Supposedly it contains "many, many, many, many names" including some with "massage at Palm Beach".

Now you could say, why didn't Biden tell the DOJ to release that list. Probably for the same reason he didn't tell them to drop the prosecution of Hunter, which he later pardoned him for. Be cynical as you want about the separation of the DOJ and the president, (which Trump has consistently ignored) Biden did make a show of upholding it. And releasing the list to embarrass Trump would be a pretty blatant violation of that principle. It would also probably violate the seal order, making DOJ attorneys vulnerable to contempt.

Imagine doing such a bad job as mayor that even as an incumbent, you're polling behind Curtis Sliwa.

It's part of why they lost and a big part of why they'll keep losing. Everyone says they have no message. But how would we know if they did? They have no place to put it.

Here's Elon just before the 2024 election telling Tucker Carlson:

If Trump wins that Epstein client list is gonna become public. And some of those billionaires behind Kamala are terrified of that outcome

I'll just point out the risk of what I'll call "Joe Roganing" here. Elon pretends he hates both parties while there's no election coming up. Then when the election arrives he "makes up his mind" and endorses Republicans. This allows him to 1) attract people fed up with both parties just to hand them to Republicans, and 2) have a credible that that forces Republicans to do his bidding.

You're on a bus with 9 people. 1 guy takes up 2/3rds of the bus by himself. 3 people take up 90% of what remains, and the last 5 are stacked on top of each other on the last remaining seat.

The one guy with 2/3 of the bus says he wants to throw two of the other passengers off a cliff at random so he can have their seats. 2 of the 3 in the next segment think this is a terrible idea and say we should keep things as they are, with one voting for it because he thinks somehow everyone will benefit from the top guy having more space. The bottom segment votes 3-2 in favor of the idea, because they hate the people in the second group for taking up space they could use, and like the idea of possibly throwing them off a cliff.

Well that would eliminate the whole point of corporations, which is to make it easy to raise money.

Let's start with an understanding of why corporations suck in the first place. The root of all good and evil in a corporation is limited lability. This allows investors to not have to worry that they're going to lose more than their investment, so they don't need to think too hard before putting their money in some company they just heard of. This is great for investors and for the corporation.

But this comes with a cost to everyone else. There's the direct cost that if the corporation ends up owing people money through excessive debt, negligence, or illegal activities, they can declare bankruptcy and the investors don't have to worry any paying for those (other than their losses on the stock). But I suspect the more pernicious effect is that the investors' lack of concern over their investment as anything but a vehicle of profit basically leads them to pick sociopathic CEOs and demand profit maximizing behavior at the cost of social good and even long term stability. And since all this sociopathic activity is really great at amassing money, it's kind of a big power boost for sociopathy overall.

However, the ease of investing can be a good thing for society too - basically it allows a lot of people to retire at some point, and allows for rapid funding of new ideas. So is there a way to get corporations back under control without throwing out the baby? I tend to think we should tax corporations higher if nothing else, as it is we do the opposite thanks to Trump's last tax cut plan.

Ackman is also a part owner of X, and that platform will also definitely be a big part of an effort to defeat Mamdani.

Edit: a family member just asked me what I think of Mamdani wanting to put a tax on all hiring, saying he proposed a 35% tax on the salary of all new hires. I googled this, and the only results are on X. The fix is in.

It's not enough to just elect Democrats. Ok technically Democrats would have 67 votes in the Senate if they flipped every single Republican seat, which would be just enough to convict. But that's not happening.

Instead, there needs to be a movement by anti Trump forces from across the spectrum to primary Republicans and replace them with anti Trump candidates. That effort needs to start now.

Fair enough, but this is the opposite of going for the eyes and throat. This is attacking Trump where he's least vulnerable. It's an uphill frontal assault on Trump Castle, armed with a nerf gun. The best you can hope for is a valiant effort.

Better option would be they should stop pretending they have power, and go out there in the media and into communities and yell about how Republicans have too much power, and need it taken away.

I'm sorry I know this impeachment is important to all your emotional needs after feeling bullied and all, but it would be extremely helpful to Trump.

Bear with me please. Here's how impeachment actually works:

1. Trump does something terrible that is extremely unpopular.
2. Outrage forces Democrats to impeach him.
3. Because impeachment requires a 2/3 majority, which is literally unobtainable for Democrats even after the midterms, there's absolutely no chance whatsoever he gets convicted, so he wins at the Senate.
4. Trump declares victory, says the whole thing was a hoax.
5. (This is the key) Low information voters regard the issue as now settled in Trump's favor.
6. No one talks about the illegal war, leading the Jan 6 riot, or trying to corruptly shake down Zelensky again, because these are all now worthless as attacks against Trump.

See the last two impeachments. There's no way this works well. American democracy sucks, but realize it's a game. You can't win at poker by playing every hand, no matter how much you deserve to win. Impeachment is a 2-7 off suit. Fold it on sight.