Hardkill

Platner isn't a DSA. He's a New Deal/pro-labor Democrat with Bill Clinton-like, Obama-like, or Trump-like charisma, but in the way of Teddy Roosevelt or FDR. Btw, dude. It isn't recent college grads disaffected by the 'American dream'. The working class and non-college workers feel betrayed over by the system. In fact, the working class folk and non-college workers are more anti-establishment/populist than college grads and post-grad people are. They, distrust corporations and hate rich people who come off as wealthy elite snobs. They want change with the system. How do you think Obama won in 2008 and in 2012? McCain was an old uninspiring GOP establishment who was tied to the unpopularity of the party in power (Bush and the Republicans) and how terrible the system was. Obama, is a truly one-in-a-generation charismatic candidate who inspired a bold liberal vision for country with Hope and Change. Mitt Romney was another uninspiring establishment GOP candidate tied to the unpopularity of the traditional Republicans and came off as an elitist wealthy financier/corporate oligarch who was for the status quo ante. Trump in 2016 and 2024, despite being born in raised in a super wealthy big business family and has always come off as "self-made billionaire businessman", unlike Romney, Trump was able to present himself as an outsider who's highly anti-establishment, alpha male, charismatic, and strong. People hate the fucking establishment and want bold change more than ever before without any identifying as a Democratic Socialist. Collins is one of the most status quo establishment Republicans with a terrible record of being pro-war while Platner is a patriotic military combat veteran who anti stupid fucking wars. Collins really sounds so out-of-touch, has no real charisma, seems out of element with the working class and rural America. Also, she's showing serious signs of cognitive or neurological decline including memory-related issues and essential tremor. Plus, this is the very first time that she'll be running for re-elaction during a year that's both very anti-Republican and doesn't have Trump or any GOP presidiential nominee on the ballot to help her with GOP voter turnout. Additionally, she has the worst approval rating she's ever had.

Janet Mills is an old uninspiring establishment candidate. She didn't run a bold vision for change. The country, especially Maine, hates the establishment more than ever before and demands greater change. Dan Pfieffer from Pod Save America said before she dropped out of the face for the nomination: "In a different era, Janet Mills would be a top-tier, A-plus recruit. She’s a two-term, popular governor with a history of winning statewide. She won reelection in 2022 by an impressive 13 points. She’s ideologically and temperamentally moderate — very much in line with Maine voters — and could not be more qualified for the job. But politics has changed dramatically in the last few years. The qualities that once made someone a winning candidate may now be weaknesses. A deep-seated anger and frustration with our political and economic system powers today’s politics. People have never been more cynical about politicians, and trust in institutions is at an all-time low. In the final New York Times/Siena poll before the 2024 election, 92% of likely voters said America’s political and economic system needed changes, and 51% said it needed major change. That helps explain why every election for the last decade has been a change election — why we went from Obama to Trump to Biden to Trump — and why the House and Senate have both flipped twice since 2016. In this tumultuous environment, the Democratic brand is faring poorly. A Wall Street Journal poll from July found that the Democratic Party’s approval rating was at its lowest level in 35 years. Democrats aren’t much happier with their leaders than the rest of the public. A Reuters/Ipsos poll found that 62% of Democrats want new leaders. There’s also a lot of gerontocracy at the top of the party. Concerns about Biden’s age dominated politics for years, and the debate over his ill-fated decision to seek reelection still rages. Given all of this, I have to question the political judgment of anyone who looks at the current landscape and concludes that the right answer is a 77-year-old establishment politician. At the end of her first Senate term, Mills would be in her mid-80s — several years older than Joe Biden was when he dropped out of the presidential race. According to Politico, the DSCC has never even reached out to Platner. In 2020, Democrats ran an establishment politician against Collins and got their asses kicked. Mills would likely run a better campaign than Sara Gideon, but at a time when voters hate politicians, are down on Democrats, and are yearning for younger leaders, is a 77-year-old, two-term incumbent governor really the best choice? The fact that Senate Democratic leadership is so sure she is concerns the hell out of me. The establishment picking Mills over Platner illustrates one of my biggest concerns about their approach to politics in recent years. Democrats are incredibly risk-averse. We optimize for the candidate least likely to lose by a lot — preferring high-floor, low-ceiling candidates over low-floor, high-ceiling ones. There are some races where all you need is a competent, generic Democrat — someone disciplined enough not to self-immolate. That works when the Republican is an extremist like Herschel Walker in Georgia or Doug Mastriano in Pennsylvania, or when running against a generic Republican in a deep-blue state. The Maine Senate race is not one of those. Susan Collins is very hard to beat. She won reelection in 2020 by nearly nine points in a state Biden won by 11 — a stunning number of crossover votes in this era. She’s done a lot to enable Trump’s worst impulses, but the size of the Republican majority has allowed her to distance herself from him. Because the GOP didn’t need her vote, Collins was able to oppose the “One Big Beautiful Bill” and some of Trump’s most toxic nominees. To beat someone like Collins, Democrats need to take risks and think outside the box. Mills is the safe choice, but she may not be the right choice. Platner could blow up — or he could win back a bunch of working-class Trump voters. He has a lower floor but a higher ceiling. In a tough race against a tough opponent, that’s the kind of candidate Democrats should at least be open to. Mills isn’t the only “safe” candidate backed by the DSCC. In Michigan, they’re supporting centrist Rep. Haley Stevens over less proven but more exciting options like state Sen. Mallory McMorrow or Abdul El-Sayed. I have met all three candidates. I like all of them, but for the life of me, I can’t figure out why the DSCC is getting involved in this race. If Mills (and Stevens) want to run for Senate, they absolutely should — but voters in those states should pick their nominees, not Beltway Democrats. The DSCC doesn’t have to endorse anyone — and usually doesn’t. Democratic elites imposing their judgment on voters is how we ended up with Joe Biden running for reelection against the wishes of most Democrats. The fact that the DSCC is intervening so aggressively against younger, outsider, and talented candidates is deeply concerning. It suggests a failure to learn anything from 2024." The Siena poll and Fox News could very well be underestimating Platner's strength as a charismatic populist for change. Also, Gideon ran a terrible elite consultant class campaign in 2020 and when Trump was on the ballot to help with Republican voter turnout.

Janet Mills did win a state wide election in Maine, but she’s become an old uninspiring establishment favored candidate. Graham Platner has already shown such talent in being able to beat an establishment favored candidate without going too far to the left, without running on any authoritarian or unpopular policies and ideas. He also won the nomination while withstanding such scandals. He’s also running on ideas and policies and a vision that are all broadly popular with Maine and the rest of America. I think that he has the charisma of Trump or Bill Clinton, but in a more Teddy Roosevelt anti-oligarch manner. If he wins this race, then he might very well be one of the truly few men who can lead our country into a war against Trumpism/MAGA.

Platner is not a DSA candidate. He’s a pro labor progressive capitalist. Also, we don’t know how accurate that poll is.

Yeah, and cronyism is probably the most disgusting form of charity. It's a real mockery of true charity.

I still find the Google search engine to have a lot of use for me. I think that it can at times still find me a lot of high quality sources more easily than any AI chat program can, imo. It just depends on what I am looking for.

I think the wrong kind of charity are lavish gifts from the government including major tax cuts for the rich and corporations, deregulation of big businesses or of any part of the financial system, excessive amounts of government contracts for big defense contracting companies, PACs/SuperPACs, all kinds of tax loopholes for all corporations, excessive allowance for forming too many monopolies, allowing big businesses to crush the working class and unions, allowing Big Pharma and private health insurance companies to rip off and suck the life out of consumers, etc.

I agree with the motivational idea that people should not mentally disqualify themselves just because the economy is bad. That part is useful. But I’m skeptical of the stronger claim that most people can become financially successful in any economy if they simply work hard enough, get creative enough, or think like entrepreneurs. Because that does not scale. Yes, some people made wealth during the Great Depression. Yes, some entrepreneurs made money during the 2008 crash. Yes, some highly resourceful individuals can find opportunity even in terrible conditions. But “some people can win” is not the same as “most people can win.” That distinction matters. A bad economy does not mean opportunity disappears completely. But it does mean opportunity becomes scarcer, more competitive, more unequal, and harder to access. If consumers are broke, credit is tight, wages are falling, businesses are failing, and people are afraid to spend money, then creativity alone cannot magically create enough profitable opportunities for most people. Even if everyone became ambitious. Even if everyone worked harder. Even if everyone tried to do something different. Even if everyone became more entrepreneurial. You would still run into the same bottleneck: Not enough demand. Not enough capital. Not enough access. Not enough stability. Not enough purchasing power. That is why I’m skeptical of turning individual success stories into a universal economic philosophy. The fact that an outlier succeeded during a recession does not prove that most people could have done the same. It proves that outliers exist. And outliers are not a theory of mass prosperity. If most people could become financially successful in any economy through sheer ambition and creativity, then why did societies need major reforms like the Progressive Era, the New Deal, the Great Society, financial regulation, labor protections, social insurance, stimulus programs, and public investment? Those reforms existed because markets do not automatically give most people a free and fair shot. The economy has to be governed. It has to be stabilized. It has to be structured so that ordinary people’s effort can actually turn into real opportunity. So yes, I believe in personal agency. I believe in ambition. I believe in creativity. I believe in not using the economy as an excuse to give up. But I do not believe that most people can simply “hustle” their way into financial success during bad economic times. The better distinction is this: A bad economy still contains opportunities for some people. But it is not necessarily structured in favor of most people. That is the difference between individual possibility and broad-based prosperity.

Consider yourself lucky, OP. It's now $6.12 a gallon here in the land of Reagan (State of CA), especially in LA County and the OC. Trump and the Israeli lobby really did it this time! Oh, believe me, and my parents, when we say that this is something that we've thought about for many years now. Our country really has too many greedy people, too many stupid people, and way too many people brainwashed by the brain-rotting content from the right-wing media, TikTok, and all kinds of slopulism online and the rest of social media. My parents, who were born in the 1940s, have said that Trump is by far the worst president our country has ever had. They've always been much smarter, much more well-educated, significantly more well-read, definitely more informed about the news and politics than most Americans. My dad's older brother, who is a lawyer and really follows politics, is truly dismayed and disgusted by Trumpism. So, that is really telling you how upsetting it has been for my family and for me.

Are you a conservative or a Republican?

Viktor Orban is no longer the PM of Hungary. Peter Magyar just got inaugurated as the new Prime Minister of Hungary. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/may/09/hungary-prime-minister-peter-magyar-sworn-in-viktor-oban

We should have better government policy that helps the homeless and the struggling, but I still am skeptical that most people can succeed during bad economic times like Leo and others like him are saying.

Responding to Leo's recent IG video on "The economy is never why you aren't wealthy": I get the value of pushing people toward extreme personal responsibility. But how do you avoid collapsing everything into “it’s just your mindset”? At what point do you acknowledge that system-level constraints are the dominant factor—like during the Great Depression— rather than individual psychology? What’s your actual method for separating the two in real life?

How do you tell that to a homeless person who can get food only from bread lines, sickly, and may or may not be able to survive? How do you tell that to a working-class person or family who is or are constantly living on edge and may not be able to make rent or struggling to pay off their mortgage despite their best efforts?

But what about those who can't or couldn't succeed from no fault of their own despite their best efforts?

Fair enough — I understand you’re not saying it’s “just mindset.” But I still think there’s a difference between saying: 1. The economy is enormous and there are always opportunities somewhere, and 2. The economy is always “in your favor” in a practical or broadly accessible sense. Because if the economy were always naturally in people’s favor, then why did America need the early 1900s Progressive Era reforms, the New Deal, the Great Society, the governance reforms after the stagflation crisis of the 1970s/early 1980s, and later economic interventions under Clinton, Obama, and Biden? Those reforms existed because markets and economies do not automatically give the greatest number of people a free and fair shot at becoming economically or financially successful. They required political governance, regulation, public investment, labor protections, social insurance, anti-poverty programs, and crisis management to make broad-based prosperity more realistic. So I agree that highly resourceful individuals can still find opportunity in almost any economy. But that’s different from saying the economy is “always in your favor.” Maybe the better distinction is: The economy always contains opportunities. But whether the economy is actually in your favor depends on how it is governed, structured, and accessed.

but when would two or three of the conservative US supreme court plan to retire? What if all of the 6 conservatives on the bench never retire even during the next presidential term?

Okay, well then, if you are not a native German and you actually happen to be Iranian, then that's different. Sorry. In fact, in that case, I fully sympathize with your support for Palestine and Palestinians. To be clear, I fully acknowledge that there have been self-described leftists who were responsible for some of the worst atrocities of the 20th century. Those were communist and Marxist-Leninist rulers including Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot, and others like them. But those rulers did not embody the true emancipatory meaning of left-wing politics. They betrayed it. They claimed to stand for workers, equality, liberation, anti-imperialism, and the oppressed, but in practice they built totalitarian police states, crushed dissent, created leader cults, ruled through fear, and treated human beings as disposable instruments of the state. So yes, they used left-wing language. But the way they actually governed was authoritarian, hierarchical, militarized, anti-democratic, paranoid, and brutally oppressive. In practice, they reproduced many of the same power dynamics seen in fascist, far-right, monarchic, imperial, colonial, and theocratic regimes. And that is the part people love to ignore: emperors, kings, colonial rulers, slaveholding elites, religious tyrants, and racial supremacists were not necessarily “right-wingers” in the modern electoral sense. But in practice, they operated through many of the same core power dynamics as fascists, far-right dictators, and ultranationalists: absolute hierarchy, domination, dehumanization, racial or religious supremacy, repression of dissent, militarism, conquest, forced labor, and the belief that certain groups of people could be ruled over, exploited, expelled, enslaved, or eliminated. That is the deeper historical pattern. Mass atrocity does not come from “the left” or “the right” in some cartoonish way. It comes from unchecked authoritarian power, dehumanization, ideological fanaticism, militarism, supremacy, and systems that place the ruler, state, race, empire, religion, or party above human life. So no, I am not denying communist atrocities. I am saying communist dictators are one modern category of atrocity-producers, not the whole story of atrocity in world history. Across history, many of the worst atrocities have also come from fascists, far-right dictators, emperors, kings, colonial rulers, slaveholding elites, religious tyrants, racial supremacists, ethnic nationalists, and ultranationalists. Hitler was not some left-wing humanitarian gone wrong. Mussolini was not some progressive reformer gone too far. Franco was not some champion of liberation. These were authoritarian right-wing rulers and movements built on hierarchy, repression, militarism, nationalism, anti-left politics, and the crushing of human freedom. And Netanyahu is not some moderate liberal statesman either. His government is a radical right-wing, ethnonationalist, militarized project. I have never excused what Netanyahu and his government have done to innocent Palestinians. I totally hate it. The mass killing, starvation, displacement, humiliation, and collective punishment of Palestinian civilians is morally disgusting and indefensible. So using Palestinian suffering to whitewash far-right politics or to be for a radical right-winger like Dan Bilzerian is absurd. The people brutalizing Palestinians today are not left-wing social democrats. They are overwhelmingly coming from a radical right-wing governing project. That is why Dan Bilzerian does not impress me just because he says one correct thing about Palestine. He looks like another far-right winger trying to use Palestinian suffering as a moral shield for his own reactionary politics. If someone only cares about Palestinian children when it gives them an excuse to attack liberals, Jews, immigrants, Muslims, women, minorities, or the left, then they are not actually standing for universal human rights. They are exploiting Palestinian blood for their own ideological agenda. Opposing the slaughter of Palestinian children is morally necessary. But it does not magically make far-right politics humane, principled, or safe. A person can be right about one atrocity and still be wrong, poisonous, bigoted, authoritarian, or dangerous in the broader political sense. The consistent position is simple: oppose the massacre of Palestinian children, oppose U.S. and Western complicity, oppose Israeli occupation and apartheid, oppose antisemitism, oppose Islamophobia, and oppose authoritarian far-right politics everywhere.

Ok, to be quite frank, native Germans have absolutely no right to say what's good for the Jews/Israel or even what is the right thing to do for the rest of humanity including who would be best for the Palestinians. You guys totally lost that argument, especially when Germany allowed such an unfathomable abomination rise to power and commit the greatest evil ever in human history, especially on the Jews. Not to mention that Hitler was an extreme right-winger just like Dan Bilzerian and Trump are. I am glad that Germany became a strong supporter of Israel after WWII, but that's still not good enough.

Wait, are you actually from Germany? Dan Bilzerian has no real plan or experience for getting anything done for the people. He's actually part of the wealthy elites and corporate tyrants, who need to be held accountable for their corruption and crimes. I would focus on that if I were you. We need an FDR like hero more than ever before

This is why we may need another Great Depression, a mass labor movement, a major breakdown in the right-wing media ecosystem, progressive media ecosystem that dominates the media environment, and an FDR-like savior to save and fix our country.

How is he different from Trump? He's a radical right winger which is the complete opposite of being a Leftist like Bernie Sanders, AOC, or Mamdani. Only, true leftists with enough power can give you actually what you want. However, centrists are the 2nd option for pro-palestinian rights. Even, Bernie Sanders, AOC, or Mamdani say that it's still better to vote for a moderate/establishment Dem than for any right-winger or Republican, including when it comes to pro-palestinian rights.

These upcoming midterms are not a good time for any brand new Republican candidate in any case. If Dan Bilzerian was smart enough then he would run as a Democrat. Btw, Bilzerian is already very anti-Trump having already called him an "an extreme narcissist", and having called on Trump's cabinet to invoke the Twenty-fifth Amendment. I wonder how he will be able to win the primary if he is going to piss off too many MAGA voters in the GOP primary who still see Trump as their "God-King" no matter what Trump has done. Oh yeah, I love how Dan Bilzerian said before after Trump won in 2016, that it was a great relief that he became president, because we finally have someone "telling it like it is", his anti–political correctness stance, and how culturally masculine — exactly the kind of image Bilzerian liked. Now, Bilzerian has swung so hard against Trump that he's like: “Trump sold out America to Israel / foreign interests / warmongers.” I knew that Dan Bilzerian would turn out to be such a complete moron. I am sure that all of that coke and roids and whatever else he's been pumping into his veins for most of his life already fucking fried whatever small amount of brain cells he ever had to begin with. In fact, what are men like Dan Bilzerian without their looks, money, status, and machismo? I mean I am sure he worked hard for much of what he earned, but at the end of the day, he's fundamentally just another mindless, ego-driven, empty, worthless, corrupt, weak, soul-sucking vampire starved for attention just like Trump is. It's a damn shame that someone like him with his military service record and the body and business acumen that he built could've been a real hero or a true warrior for the people like Graham Platner is. Instead, he took the wrong path because of his fear and greed.

Wait until you fool around and find out with him like how Trump supporters/voters have been now with Trump. Just like also what happened by the end of Bush's presidency. People are then going to say: "Dan Bilzerian lied to us like Trump did. He's just turning out to be a playboy moron who doesn't know what the fuck he's doing. I regret for voting him now, just like how I regretted voting for Trump, just like how I regretted voting for Bush. This really is a fucking disaster. Shit! I should've just stayed home and not voted for anyone...."

Happy birthday Leo!