ECB

Both can be true. I agree with you.

I remember just after all this kicked off last October there was an interview with an ex hamas guy (who is now an anti-extremism researcher) about what their plan was with all of this.

He mentioned how their plan had always been to force a reaction from Israel and then use social media to build support among specifically both the Muslim diaspora and progressive non-muslims in Europe/NA.

The worse it gets in Gaza, the better it is for Hamas. Their support in Gaza goes up, and they gain additional support abroad, while Israel loses support. Win/win/win

My sleep-routine is that I read (usually my kindle) in bed at night.

It's kind of great both because I like reading, but also because it makes me fall asleep.

The US is just an oligarchy. Most political scientists agree these days.

It might not be Russia-levels of oligarchy, but it's trending that way.

I went through a pretty big libertarian phase way back in my late teens.

Not the 'deregulate everything' type, but rather more of a 'everyone's place in society is governed by the choices they make' social-darwinist sort of angle.

Once I got out and experienced real life more (and learned about all the little nuances behind everything) I realized just how wrong I was.

Nowadays I'm a big leftist/socialist

Some parts of the US, not all

To be fair, before Trump took over the party, the Republicans were generally considered to be in a death spiral.

The prevailing idea was that the party just didn't have a future. Their brand was this basically an unappealing mix of boring religious people and self-professed 'sensible', common-sense stewards of the status quo. Looking at demographic trends at the time, they were trending towards irrelevance.

Then Trump took over and brought back the enthusiasm. They also started to court minority votes (Hispanics, Blacks) which tend to be very socially conservative. At the same time, the democrats slipped into the 'boring status quo protectors' role.

Hopefully the Dems wake up, but it might take a while.

Politics (especially among republicans) has become a bit religious, so it's not really THAT different I guess

The Dems should definitely move more central on social issues, as the US election system has a huge built in rural bias.

Then focus on more broad-reaching progressive economic topics. Less focus on legislation targeting specific marginalized groups and more on policies which would impact everyone directly. As a potential example, Universal Basic Income ("Freedom Bonus" or whatever it was called) was one such policy which was floated a couple elections ago.

You're right, I agree with you and I think his goals are both damaging and stupid... but at the end of the day his strategy is winning and we will obviously have to adapt to beat it.

Just look at history though and you'll see that most significant changes (both bad and good) happen abruptly and it's often a bit messy.

Unfortunately it's just the way that humans work

Sure, that didn't help, but she also was a "more of the same" candidate (she's rhe current VP!)

As much as I wanted her to win, she was always a stupid choice in at a time where voters can essentially all agree on one thing: they want change.

Status quo politics is dead, the dems just haven't realized it yet. As braindead as Trump and a most of his policies are, people like that he doesn't give a shit about disrupting things to achieve his goals.