Hardkill

Also, Americans are more conservative than people like me had thought before and the country is going through a serious right-wing populist backlash. However, if Dems sounded a lot more like right-wingers on virtually every social issue, except on climate change and abortion rights, and ran on more New Deal economic populist type of messages, then they could eventually win back the solid majority of the people including the majority of white voters and rural voters in this country. I hate to say it, but it's become clear to me now that most of the social justice stances the Democrats have taken since the late 1900s have hurt their party way too much by scaring too many older voters, rural voters, white voters, protestant voters, men, and working-class voters.

Yes, people say they want the kinds of things that Bernie proposes, but most Americans don’t trust the government to enact those progressive policies to the degree that liberals/progressives believe in using the government as an agent of human welfare. Also, the way he sold M4A was bad because he said that it would replace all private health insurance with government run health insurance. Most Americans still prefer private health insurance over government run health insurance.

I am surprised that Sweden is seriously considering this. It's a liberal/progressive-leaning country. If it's not part of some good plan they have for managing sex and porn in their country then I think it could backfire.

Happy birthday, Leo! Congrats on reaching the 4th decade of your life! That's a major milestone! Thank you for all of the work you've done and all of the advice you've given us over the past several years!

Yet, he lost the Democratic nomination in 2016 and 2020. It wasn't even close either times. It's because he doesn't come off as someone who can relate to most everyday Americans culturally.

Climate change needs to be framed in a way that has to be with providing the working class, middle class, and working poor good-paying green jobs like the IRA has been on its way to doing. They also need to talk about how renewable energy will be the future backbone of our economy and will bring about perpetual energy independence in the US.

Democrats need to stop talking about race/ethnicity, gender, LGBTQ+, and any other social justice issues besides abortion and climate change. Abortion is the only social issue that Democrats are clearly winning and climate change is one of the most vital issues for everyone in the long-run. The Democrats have kept moving too far to the left on social issues since the 1970s and need to move more to the left on economic issues.

I didn't know that much about him, but he seemed like a good guy and open-minded overall. May he RIP.

How?

I get it. I know that Russia still requires a ruthless dictator to run the country. However, that doesn't excuse how egotistical Stalin was or how self-serving Putin is. Like you said before, the less developed a society is the more selfish the people are and the more they need to be governed by fear, whereas the more developed a society is the less selfish the people in the country are and the more they can be governed with love.

How does it not have to do with narcissism? Lack of empathy is one of the key traits of narcissism. psychologists, psychiatrists, and other legitimate mental health experts have stated that the nine big traits of narcissism are: 1. Lack of empathy 2. Excessive need for admiration 3. Envious of others 4. Sense of entitlement 5. Grandiose sense of self 6. Arrogant and haughty behavior 7. Exploitation of others 8. Interpersonally exploitive behavior 9. Arrogance You have to have an insane lack of empathy to do everything that Putin has done. Putin has also undoubtedly exhibited all of the 8 other traits of narcissism.

Everyone has at least some degree of ego or narcissism in order to survive. However, when it gets to clinical levels of narcissism if not extreme levels of narcissism that's when you really begin to truly ruin the lives of people you're involved with. Yes, authoritarianism is suited for a country like Russia and Putin comes off as a smart, hard-working, and serious leader; however, you cannot deny how incredibly selfish he is for murdering a lot of innocent and good people in Russia and Ukraine. I don't think he really cares about the well-being of the people of his country. He just cares about amassing as much power and wealth as possible and having a great legacy.

Putin is very narcissistic. You can't become a power-hungry ruthless monster like him without unusually high levels of narcissism. Not to mention the incredible lack of empathy he has for all of the lives he has taken in both Russia and Ukraine.

I genuinely wish that the United States would adopt many of the collectivist principles found in China. I also wish more Americans believed that government, in general, is good. However, as you know, China is still nowhere near as developed, wealthy, or powerful as the United States. Not to mention, of course, the significantly reduced freedoms and voting rights for Chinese citizens compared to Americans. Additionally, China's economy is currently in far worse shape than America's due to factors such as weak private consumption, comparatively limited social safety nets, and an intense cultural fear of personal debt, despite being burdened by considerably higher levels of corporate and governmental debt than the U.S. Furthermore, China's financial system heavily favors producers and local governments rather than consumers, while the U.S. financial system provides substantially greater support for consumers—quite ironic given China's collectivist orientation. Nevertheless, I think it's possible that China and US could become equal superpower nations one day, whereby the USA would be the greatest Western superpower in the world while China would become the greatest Eastern superpower in the world.

Will most people care about this?

He also doesn't seem well educated.

After reading Leo's blog post on "How Right-Wing Dominates Social Media" I was contemplating again on what seriously needs to be done to combat the dominance of the right-wing media. Here are more ideas I have for that: The majority of people are still Stage Blue (order, tradition) or Stage Orange (success, logic). If you speak only in Stage Green language, you’ll sound confusing, weak, elitist, or alien. But if you code-switch — using language and stories that resonate with Blue/Orange values — you can open doors for them to evolve upward. 💬 Example: Don’t say “late-stage capitalism is causing ecosystem collapse.” Say: “Big corporations are screwing your kids’ future just to pad their profits.” Same truth. Different language. 2. 🏗️ Stage Orange Is Necessary for Building Infrastructure Orange energy is strategic, productive, money-savvy, ambitious. You need Orange for: Running organizations Monetizing without selling out Scaling operations Playing algorithm chess Hiring creatives and coders who can compete with Silicon Valley 🔧 Green alone can't build the machine — Orange knows how to build systems that work. 3. 🔵 Stage Blue is How You Reach the Masses Emotionally Blue understands loyalty, family, patriotism, morality. You can reach people who seem MAGA by speaking to their values — but reframed. 💬 For example: “You love your country? Then make sure every American has clean water and a decent job. That’s real patriotism.” This is framing justice as moral duty, not just policy preference. 4. 🟢 Stage Green Sets the Compass Green brings the vision. It holds the ethical standard, the humane perspective, the inclusive worldview. Without Green, you risk becoming another hollow corporate media company. But Green needs Orange and Blue to carry the vision to the masses. 🧭 Green = compass 🔨 Orange = builder 🔊 Blue = amplifier 🔄 It’s a Spiral, Not a Hierarchy Each stage plays a role: You don’t mock Blue — you uplift its healthy expressions (loyalty, sacrifice, faith). You don’t shame Orange — you steer it toward long-term impact over ego. You don’t isolate Green — you embed it within the language of the people. And eventually… you graduate to Stage Yellow — which integrates all previous stages and thinks systemically. TL;DR ✅ Stage Green brings the values ✅ Stage Orange builds the strategy ✅ Stage Blue delivers the story

Look at the video on it on a new post that Leo made yesterday on his blog. Unfortunately, the decriminalization of drugs in Oregon has caused a serious spike in homelessness and joblessness in the state.

If the legal marketing of recreational use of weed was a mistake, then I'd say that the marketing of alcoholic beverages has also been a terrible mistake for our society. Obviously outlawing alcohol failed miserably before, but there should be rules and regulations that enforce great restrictions on marketing alcohol to the public just like how there are for all nicotine-based products. I usually don't like shaming or judging others who are not bad people, but perhaps stigmatizing recreational drug use and regularly drinking alcohol is one of those things that needs to be done.

I think that they should be decriminalized/legalized for only medical or spiritual uses. I didn't realize beforehand that decriminalizing/legalizing psychedelics for recreational use turned out to be a mistake until I found out what's been happening in places like Oregon. That being said, I still believe that the penalties for drug offenses on black, brown, and poor people in America are still too harsh and unjust.

He performed excellently in terms of substance and ran the perfect message for the country in 2008. However, he didn't push far enough, as he didn't want to transition into a more aggressive, fire-breathing populist and partisan advocate, unlike TR, Truman, FDR, LBJ, or Biden who all did during their presidencies. In fact, Obama became more pro-establishment and more non-partisan as time went on which is not what the people were hoping. If Obama had grown more of a spine by leveraging his exceptional charisma more boldly during his first term as the incumbent president, then perhaps a broader majority of Americans would have developed greater faith in our country's institutions, liberalism, and the Democratic Party.

True.

However, there’s a reason why the solid majority of high propensity, highly informed/educated voted against Trump in 2016, 2020, and 2024.

Yet, even authoritarian leaders such as Xi Jinping or Putin don’t impose tariffs on other countries unless they got hit with tariffs from that country or countries. Trump could’ve just sit back and not touched Biden’s economy and would’ve gotten a major amount of credit for the prosperity and strength of the US economy under him while he just plays golf at Mar-A-Lago.

Tragically, the justice system never gets everyone it should. Even if his reputation gets tarnished, I fear that he will be able to get enough people to come back around to him, just like with Trump, especially in this day and age where we live in an era of very low trust in legitimate Institutions, am extremely fractured media environment with unprecedented widespread internet/social media brainwashing, and celebrity level charisma/status forgives virtually everything. This is why I now think that we or some other people out there outside of the law may need to take matters into our own hands by becoming vigilantes.