Hardkill

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Posts posted by Hardkill

  2. Posted · Edited by Hardkill

    3 hours ago, Leo Gura said:

    Today there is a clear difference between liberals (centerists) and leftists (progressives).

    The difference is that liberals are mostly okay with the status quo/captialism and leftists want radical systemic changes to capitalism, sometimes going as far as socialism but not always that far.

    It is a spectrum. "Liberal" is a term co-opted by leftists to call out neoliberal capitalists and centrists.

    Most liberals are too moderate and most leftists are too radical and utopian. So the correct place to be is somewhere in the middle of liberal and leftist.

    But liberalism and progressivism are both examples of stage Green, whereas the status quo/capitalism in America is primarily stage Orange.

    So, you mean that liberals are center-left, whereas progressives are solid leftists?

     

  3. Posted · Edited by Hardkill

    Hey Leo,

    About six years ago you wrote:

    On 8/24/2019 at 3:07 PM, Leo Gura said:

    @Serotoninluv 

    I would say progressives are usually more left than liberals and progressives really care about making structural reforms to the system without too much concern for maintaining the old norms. One of those old norms is the dogma that capitalism is the only viable system and an absolute good.

    To me a progressive cares most about making serious changes to society to improve it. A progressive sees not making enough change as more dangerous than making too much change. Which is the polar opposite of a conservative. A progressive has a vision for how great society could be if we get our shit together and act big as a unit.

    I’ve been thinking about that after studying how the terms liberal and progressive have evolved.

    Historically, figures like TR and Wilson called themselves Progressives, while FDR branded himself a Liberal—yet FDR’s reforms were even more transformative and “progressive” in practice.

    Today the boundary between the two feels even blurrier: mainstream liberalism dominates U.S. politics, while progressivism functions as a reformist minority inside it.

    Do you still view progressivism as that deeper willingness to redesign the entire system rather than merely improve it?

    And how do you distinguish progressivism from liberalism now—from a developmental or consciousness perspective?

    Has your view shifted as politics has evolved since you first said that?

    Would like to hear your updated take

  5. Posted

    39 minutes ago, kguirnela said:

    I get that, but what if he's been told the answer so many times? Also who is he listening to, pragmatic progressives like David Pakman, Thom Hartmann, Hutch etc, or some blackpill leftists like TYT, Secular Talk, Vaush etc? I'm also asking in a general sense. Ik I'm hypocritical to an extent but at the same time if I don't try to lower the content I consume or at least try to learn how the government works, I'm gonna end up a blackpill liberal. Does this make sense to you or I need to clarify more

    These days, I've been listening much more to pragmatic progressives like David Pakman, Pod Save America, BTC, Thom Hartmann, Hutch, IRI, etc. I still hate-watch TYT and Secular Talk, which I know I gotta stop doing.

  6. Posted

    2 hours ago, Husseinisdoingfine said:

    Republicans have both the House of Representatives and Senate, and yet they can't pass a budget bill. The bill to fund the government failed in the senate of all places, which is how the shutdown happened at all, where the Republicans have a comfortable lead of 53 out of 100 seats.

    You would expect the bill to fail in the house, where the Republican's majority is very slim, but no, it failed in the Senate.

    Edit: Never-mind, it turns out that according to the constitution, 60 votes are needed for a budget, not simply a majority.

    I was wrong and stand corrected.

    This is partially the Democrats fault, its both parties fault.

     

    I'd be very careful with your "bothsideism" if I were you.

  8. Posted

    9 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

    Of course!

    He will not leave office peacefully. He will attempt to hijack the whole government. They are working on it every day.

    He will not hold back. And as the left pushes back more, he will double-down in his power-grab.

    America is going full MAGA dictatorship. MAGA is too stupid not to try it.

    Key insight: MAGA is too stupid to not create a dictatorship. They cannot help themselves.

    As someone once told me before: Canada is looking real good now.

  9. Posted

    12 hours ago, Elliott said:

    The stat you just qouted me posting says the opposite.

    How so?

     

    12 hours ago, kguirnela said:

    Are you saying local elections don't matter??

    I didn't say that they don't, but the electorate is just not the same. 

    Here's a quote from Dan Pfieffer about this: 

    "As many of you know, Democrats are the party of high-propensity voters. As data from Catalist, a Democratic analytics firm, shows: the more frequently someone votes, the more likely they are to vote Democratic.

    That means as overall turnout increases, the additional, less-frequent voters who enter the electorate tend to lean Republican. In 2024, those voters broke for Trump — which explains how Biden could be trailing Trump in the polls even as Democrats were winning down-ballot races in red states like Kentucky."

    https://www.messageboxnews.com/p/democrats-keep-winning-special-elections?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email&utm_content=share

  10. Posted · Edited by Hardkill

    1 hour ago, Elliott said:

    It's typically democrats that do better in presidential elections compared to other elections.

     

    "2022 midterm example: A Pew Research Center report found that in the 2022 midterms, a higher percentage of 2020 Trump voters (71%) turned out compared to 2020 Biden voters (67%)"

    Yeah, well not so much anymore. They lost to Trump and the GOP in 2016, they barely beat them in 2020 when they should’ve killed them in a landslide, and they lost to them again in 2024.

  11. Posted

    5 minutes ago, Elliott said:

    It's in the bag

     

     

    Newsweek

    Map Shows Where Democrats Are Overperforming in Special Elections

    Sep 10, 2025 — Special election results, some of which have seen Democrats overperform Harris by 50 points or more,

    FB_IMG_1759198649054.jpg

     

     

    https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/economy/major-bank-raises-red-flag-on-us-economy-warns-of-93-chance-of-recession-based-on-hard-data-here-are-5-crucial-money-moves-you-need-to-make-now/ar-AA1NxOnq?ocid=BingNewsVerp

    Again, special elections don't have a lot of those dumb, low-information, and less engaged voters like in presidential elections.

     

  12. Posted

    4 hours ago, Elliott said:

    What damage? 'Republican' has been damaged, 'Democratic' has been strengthened by the overt republican corruption.

    Democrats have been winning in red districts.

    It's not about talent, democrats win on policy, it's republicans only way to win is by smoke and mirrors shows.

     

    https://www.npr.org/2025/09/24/nx-s1-5551198/democrat-wins-congressional-seat-in-arizona-narrowing-gops-slim-house-majority

    The Democratic brand is still more damaged than the Republican brand, sadly. So even though many people dislike the GOP, even more dislike the Democrats.

    Before the 2024 election year, I thought that the Democrats’ strong performance in special elections, midterms, and off-year elections was a good sign for their chances in 2024. However, it’s clear to me now that the electorate in special elections, midterms, and off-year races is too different from the general electorate in presidential elections.

    Presidential general elections bring out a much higher percentage of low-information, less engaged, and less politically developed voters than special, midterm, or off-year elections do. I don’t see how Democrats can win over enough of those voters when so many are too misinformed, too disengaged, or too deeply influenced by right-wing and alternative media.

  15. Posted

    48 minutes ago, Raze said:

    The top issues are healthcare, inflation, and economy. Democrats still have healthcare, so really all that matters is if people continue being unsatisfied with the economy and start to blame Trump more and think democrats could do better.

    So, what do you think about what David Pakman is saying?

    He's already interviewed many establishment/moderate Democratic politicians and says that none of them have been willing to learn how to be good at doing interviews in independent and alternative media. I worry that if Democrats don't fix their credibility, messaging, and media strategy problems soon, then the majority of Americans may never believe in electing any Democrat for president, may never be able to stop the radical right courts, and may never win back control of Congress, except for maybe just the House.

  16. Posted

    10 minutes ago, Mayonnaise said:

    @Leo Gura What do you think it will take for the majority of our society to elevate past toxic orange? how long do you think it will take? Also i know this is kind of a random way of thinking about it, but if God is infinity, then wouldn't it have to be included for a "timeline" or something for society to be toxic orange/ blue or red , etc. as a necessity to be included within that infinity? (but if thats the case, then at some point things will have to shift to other stages too) what do you think?

    I think that another economic depression and/or another World War or some extreme collapse of our country maybe the very best shot of getting the past this toxic orange.

  18. Posted · Edited by Hardkill

    7 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

    I'm talking about today's left in America.

    White supremacist, racist, sexist, homophobic, transphobic, xenophobic, Islamophobic.

    Kirk was all of those things.

    Learn what those term actually mean, not just as memes.

    Even though Lenin was a Hard Leftist he was still fundamentally a conservative. He was never a true liberal or progressive, correct?

  19. Posted · Edited by Hardkill

    On 9/17/2025 at 1:01 AM, Daniel Balan said:

    Conservatives are right on:

    • Migration
    • Not allowing late term abortions.
    • Pushing back against lgbtq trans propaganda 
    • Tight and secure borders
    • Pushing back against demonic climate change action such as deindustrialization that leave millions of factory workers unemployed. 
    • Strong police and military 
    • Wanting to stop offshoring and having manufacturing jobs back in their country as opposed to offshoring manufacturing overseas.

    Liberals are right on:

    • Well thought Climate change action. We need climate action as fast and as strong as possible but we also need to not have millions of people lose their jobs because of it.
    • Protecting sexual minorites, making sure the lgbtq community is safe and protected and has the same rights as the regular community. Although without propaganda in schools or obnoxious parades. 
    • Protecting womens right to have abortions but only up until the 12th week of pregnancy. After 12 weeks abortion should be banned.
    • Everything else :D

    You're mistaken about conservatives wanting to stop offshoring and having manufacturing jobs back in their country as opposed to offshoring manufacturing overseas. Trump and the right-wing pretend to care about that. In fact, manufacturing jobs during Trump's first term continued to be offshored even more. 

    Biden, progressives, and Democrats actually were responsible for the historic onshoring of manufacturing jobs during Biden's presidency with the American Rescue Plan, Chips and Science Act, Inflation Reduction Act, good stewarding of the economy, and so on. 

    As for having strong police and military, yes that has traditionally been a right-wing characteristic; however, as I explained in another thread, virtually every liberal has been very pro-military and police, and that if you look at US History, many liberal/progressive presidents upgraded our entire national security and law enforcement. Truman, who inherited the mantle of New Deal liberalism right after FDR died in office, presided over the most comprehensive, permanent redesign of the U.S. security state: the National Security Act of 1947 created the DoD, NSC, CIA, and a separate U.S. Air Force, regularized the Joint Chiefs, and his 1952 memo stood up the NSA—the core architecture we still use.

    Obama was the one who successfully presided over the assassination of Osama Bin Laden and Biden was the main leader of the world who united NATO and Ukraine against Russia, which saved most of Ukraine from Russia and dealt a very serious blow to Russia's standing in the world. All types of major crime throughout the entire country had plummeted to historic lows by the last two years of Biden's presidency.

    Btw, what proof is there that the so-called “demonic climate change action” has caused deindustrialization and left millions of factory workers unemployed? If anything, the historic action on climate change during Biden’s presidency has sparked reindustrialization—creating hundreds of thousands, if not over a million, new good-paying working-class jobs across the country since 2022 for the next several years. Sadly, much of the IRA got gutted by Trump and the Republicans, especially after their passage of the OBBB.

    As for immigration, progressives such as Bernie Sanders and those who are Center-Left like Joe Biden are for improving border security, and also are for more fair and legal immigration pathways in our country.

    Do you understand that the only main things that virtually every right-wing and Republican political actor in US History has only ever really done are enacting more major tax cuts and more deregulation policies for the very wealthy, very powerful, and big corporations at the expense of the everyday people, small businesses, and fair trade practices?

    Since the 1980s, most forward-looking national efforts to boost demand, rebuild industry, expand worker power and benefits, widen health coverage, and modernize infrastructure have been initiated by liberals and progressives. Only during times of great crisis, or when they are under intense constituency pressure, do Republicans back major packages (such as ARRA, IIJA, CHIPS, and the IRA) that provide broad relief and materially improve the lives of everyday Americans. Yet, since the 1980s, the right-wing politicians, their donors, and every conservative propagandist out there have generally prioritized tax cuts and deregulation over long-horizon industrial policy and broad, bottom-up social investment. Conservatives and the GOP usually revert to pro-capital priorities once the emergency passes, whereas Democrats and progressives continue to push for lasting, bottom-up gains outside of crises.

    The Right and the Republican Party have just been better than the Left and the Democratic Party at LYING to the people about how much they care about helping the working-class, middle-class, and working poor in economy, while the Left and the Democratic Party are worse at messaging than Right and the Republican Party and have had a much weaker media ecosystem for their side than the right-wing has for decades.

    Even the right-populist rebrand and rising right-populist interest in antitrust, industrial policy, and “worker power” rhetoric has just been talk on their side has been more rhetorical than programmatic.

    One more thing. Do you realize that almost every liberal or progressive president since the year 1900—except for Woodrow Wilson and Jimmy Carter—has ended their presidency with a booming economy and major net job creation in both the private and public sectors across the entire country? Meanwhile, did you know that almost every conservative president since 1900—except for William McKinley and Ronald Reagan—ended their presidencies with a recession, stagflation, depression, or even the looming of the worst economic crisis in American history, the Great Depression?

  20. Posted · Edited by Hardkill

    50 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

    His audience is not being lost, it is being absorbed by some other right-wing epistemic pervert like Ben Shapiro.

    Why aren’t enough centrists and Independents, even those who follow politics regularly, out there are not able to see that the Republican Party is much worse than the Democratic Party like?

    Are most centrists and Independents too afraid to take a side? Are they just more corrupt or more foolish than liberals and Democrats are? 
     

    Or do centrists and Independents generally not follow politics and are not as informed as much as left-wingers, right-wingers, and highly engaged party loyalists do?

  21. Posted · Edited by Hardkill

    1 hour ago, Leo Gura said:

    They completely ignore how corrupt the conservatives have become.

    This is not merely an issue of left vs right. It's an issue of corruption. Objectively, there has never been a more corrupt, dishonest, unfit, criminal, and authoritarian president in American history. To act like this is the fault of the left going to far is just brain-dead.

    Trump literally planned and executed a coup. And these assholes dare to speak about the left going too far left because of some trans stuff. Their level of analysis is embarassing. They have the political analysis of children. 

    Yeah, I am totally with you. It fucking pisses me off.

    Though their "rationale" is that it's not just the Democratic party that has gotten "too extreme" and "too partisan." They are saying that both major parties have gone insane and gone too far from the center, which is their reason for becoming Independents like you are. lol.

    They also say that they want Trump to succeed as president for the "good of the country" and so far give him at least a "C" grade overall for the job he is doing as president. Can you believe this nonsense? Trump doesn't deserve anything close to a passing grade.

  22. Posted · Edited by Hardkill

    18 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

    Lol.

    This is like saying:

    "I grew up owning slaves and things were cool. But then those crazy leftists ran so far to the left that now I'm fighting for the Confederacy. What a crazy world! Those crazy leftists!"

    No shit. Society evolves. If you don't evolve with it you become a dinosaur.

    When Owen Cook was born, beating blacks and gays to death was considered normal. It is no virtue to say that you haven't evolved in your politics. These guys say that like it's some virtue.

    Yeah, if PBD and Owen were born in 1910's Germany they would be proud Nazis.

    What about centrists like Manchin and Chris Cuomo saying that the Democratic Party and liberals today have gone too far to the left?

  23. Posted

    12 hours ago, DocWatts said:

    Pro tip, but you might want to consider renaming this thread 'Are Liberals More Epistemicly Developed Than Centrists' or something like that, since evolution doesn't have an end goal.

    Based on anecdotes from my personal life (so take this with a grain of salt), it's my observation that centrists tend to be folks who don't want to pick a lane. Engaging deeply with issues involves far more than picking the middle point between two extremes and assuming that this is the reasonable or correct position (is the Fallacy Of The Middle).

    But what about moderates like Washington and Lincoln and center-left leaders like FDR?

  24. Posted · Edited by Hardkill

    1 hour ago, Emerald said:

    Moderate from the perspective of the powers that be... yes.

    Conservative and moderate (in this regard) tend to mean the same thing... because moderates argue for the maintenance of the status quo and to keep the power structure as it is.

    We have lost sight of the meaning of the word Conservative in today's world, because our current "Conservatives" are actually acting as agents of radical change who are attempting to make revolutionary changes to American government and culture towards a Christo-Fascist dictatorship and/or a Technocratic Plutocratic Fascist dictatorship.

    But to be truly Conservative is to be a moderate. So, moderates in contemporary American culture are Libertarian-leaning Capitalists with mildly liberal social values... but in a disengaged way. 

    The reality is that moderates and centrists are the true Conservatives as they are always trying to maintain the status quo for the power that be. And loyalists of the crown were moderate from the perspective of those in power, despite being a minority amongst American colonists.

    But among the oppressed lower-powered colonists, revolutionary ideas gained a critical mass of people who wanted to break away from the norm. And they did so by force against the powers that be.

    They were radicals from the perspective of the moderate status quo (which is determined by those in power).

    And radicals only come to power by force. Nothing that's radical ever gets accepted through the established means of the powers that be... not by democratic voting nor by mandate of the king.

    But, given that the radicals became a plurality of the low-powered colonists, it gained a sense of normalcy within the American colonial population. So, it became normal in the context of the colonies to become a radical from the perspective of the powers that be.

    And they fought with force and won. And eventually, the radical position became the status quo... and therefore moderate.

    But the colonists were still radicals. They were just radicals who gained a critical mass... which does not make them moderate.

    The thing that made them moderate is that the figure-head American revolutionaries eventually got accepted as the powers that be.

    There is mainstream conservatism, mainstream centrism, and mainstream liberalism.

    but I get your point. What was once an unthinkable or radical form of progress eventually becomes mainstream.

  25. Posted · Edited by Hardkill

    5 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

    Banning guns in USA is simply impossible. But raising the age to own is possible and reasonable.

    We had a federal assault weapon ban passed in Congress in the 1990s during Clinton's presidency with the 1994 crime bill that was sponsored by then Senator Biden. Sadly, it only lasted for 10 years. Bush actually wanted to renew that law but never got the support he needed in Congress for it.

    Federal law banned the civilian transfer and possession of new machine guns as of May 19, 1986, through the Firearm Owners' Protection Act (FOPA).