1. Anti-federalism – Deep rooted distrust of the Federal Government has been around since the dawn of the USA, though its often been part of the minority.

2. Know Nothing / Native American Party – 1850s era movement. Protectionist, isolationist, nativist. Originally they popped up as anti-Irish and anti-Catholic, but overall the concept is that immigrants suck. The modern concept is: “I know nothing”, about the movement. The overall idea is that even in the 1800s, it was bad to look like a racist bigot, so you’d keep your support for these causes secret. Everyone in the party knows that “the Know Nothings are larger than everyone expects”, but no one really knows how big the movement is. And that’s the point.

3. America First – 1930s saw the rise of Fascism vs Communism in Europe with the dawn of the Spanish civil war. The “America First” movement focused on isolationism and even pro-German / Nazi slant mixed with religious fervor. This was pushed by tech-gurus of the time: Charles Lindberg (airplane entrepreneur, first Trans-atlantic flight, etc. etc.), and the Christian Front. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1939_Nazi_rally_at_Madison_Square_Garden).

4. NAFTA – 1990s free-trade by Bill Clinton opened up Mexico and Canada as incredible trading partners. However, local industry / local steel lost out as companies started to shop in Mexico for material. As Bill Clinton was a huge pusher of NAFTA, the anti-NAFTA political group consolidated under Republicans. This is likely where the bulk of blue-collar workers is coming from, especially because Trump started adding Tariffs / anti-globalism concepts back to the forefront of American Politics.

Some more recent context:

1. Trump has been building his brand for decades as a very rich, very macho straight-talker. Even in the 80s and earlier, there’s a large number of Hotels, Casinos, Resorts, Golf Courses (etc. etc.) that have relatively high reputation among Americans in general with Trump’s name.

2. Trump reads from the teleprompter in “another voice”, openly showing his disdain for public speaking and the political system. Anyone who has lost faith in the political system loves this. Trump pretends that the teleprompter is forcing him to talk and its all just a “through the motions” thing. Then Trump obviously goes off teleprompter and talks about different concepts, the “real stuff”. (Or so goes his branding). This simple trick is enough to get the gist to his followers: don’t listen to what I say (because I’m being forced to say this politically correct crap). This means that Trump’s true actions are only limited to the imagination of the listener.

3. Trump is playing and leaning into the borne again Christian role. From a religious perspective, the “former enemy / former outsider” coming into religion is a common story and religious love it. Trump was openly a Democrat in the 90s / 00s before switching into Republicanism.

The “bulk” of Trump’s political style is Know Nothing + Macho + anti-political correctness.

No, you won’t. Worst you’ll do is stay home on election day.

There’s some leftist picks that will make me pick Trump.

It sounds like you got a good head on your shoulders at least. I’m not sure if I’m convinced yet but I can appreciate your point of view now.

EDIT: I should note that I’m worried about the money because its $240 Million. That’s a lot for this portion of the race, and a lot of money to risk in this time where inflation has eaten away at most small people’s savings. I’m really not sure if Democrats will raise similar amounts if Biden drops out now.

Go cancel a Kickstarter and then tell everyone the team has moved to a new manager and everyone needs to switch their donations. And see how many people you get to successfully switch. Its only going to work if the new candidate is better than Biden. And you can’t even tell me who is better than Biden.

Chances are, you’re just a progressive hoping to bring down the party and warp it into your own mold. So anyone is better for you. But that’s the problem, I don’t trust Democrats. I’m not even a Democrat. If you throw this to chaos and try to get someone on the far left in I might vote for Trump.

Can you at least give me an idea of who you want in the top position? No. Because you know that risks tipping your hand. You’ve spent this entire discussion avoiding the subject.

I’m just saying: forget the delegates. Just discuss with me who you’d support. If not Biden and if not Kamala, then who? There’s a few governors who people have made as a rumor (but I’ve made it clear that I’m quite concerned about the financials / hundreds-of-millions pledged to Biden’s campaign). But since we disagree with that, we can move on anyway. Can you give me anyone who you’d support?

And if its Bernie so help me.

I mean, the main hope is that the Biden delegates basically get together and crown someone else the nominee.

The delegates are basically set since so much of the primary is done already. Having Biden drop out will force them to pick someone. (Without dropping out, the delegates may vote for Biden like they initially promised)

But we still have the big money problem, whoever they pick. Haris would be the leading contender of this process anyway just because of the money thing.

I’m not 100% sure if Harris can beat Trump, even if I support her personally. I just want the one who has the biggest chance to win and today that’s Biden from all options presented to me.

You’ve had 2016, 2020, and now the entirety of 2024 campaign season to come up with somebody.

Time is out. We pick now. Its Biden or Harris. You pretending like there’s a 3rd option ignores the fact that fundraising season is over and that you’d permanently hamper the new candidate to not have money in time for the November election.

Lets say Biden resigns tomorrow. Where does the campaign cash go? Maybe (and I’m not 100% sure), MAYBE Harris. But its not earmarked to anyone else. So that just burns that pile of cash effectively.

So maybe before going into the 2024 election without any fucking money, give this a few minutes of thought and come up with a better plan.

Obama circa 2008 hasn’t shown up yet. We’ll get to meet them in about three weeks.

Why didn’t your hypothetical and imaginary friend show up in the Democratic primaries earlier this year? And why do you delude yourself into thinking that they exist?

Some strong governors have been floated as options aside from Haris. But I’m not seeing how the various governor candidates deal with the money issue highlighted over the past week. Biden resigning, Haris inheriting the money and then picking a strong running made might be the best path forward.

Can you agree to this plan? Of course not. You’re resisting me. I know you won’t agree to this. If that’s insufficient, I’m pretending that Biden gets 25th-Amendmented on January 2025 anyway and Haris takes over. So I’m not seeing a major difference aside from Harris maybe getting a good VP pick to help her out this season.

Yeah. The plan to not have a plan at all.

Lovely. And you wonder why you lose independents and don’t like your style of governance.

Now come back when you have a real plan to win Arizona, Michigan, and Pennsylvania.

The chaos of Occupy Wall Street in 2011 caused the Republicans to win in 2012, 2014, and 2016.

I don’t think you guys are as good at chaos as Republicans. No offense. I’m betting on predictability. You guys think you’re winning when in fact you’re just turning the independents against you and killing your chances. Every fucking time.

Biden beat Trump. Biden got results. I’m still putting my trust in that over the random chaos that the far left asks for every time.

What we can’t have is another “Bernie or Bust” scenario, where we name a viable candidate too early, get everyone to fall in love, then replace them with unmitigated boredom. Naming a candidate today runs that risk.

The problem with Bernie is that he’s a socialist in a country that hates socialists. Yall picked poorly. We’re not running to make progressives feel good (like Occupy Wall Street in 2011) only to have Republicans kick your ass. We’re trying to beat Trump this year as priority #1.

I already said earlier who the alternative is: its Kamala Harris and only if some legal technicalities regarding Biden’s campaign funds can be figured out. Can you pledge your support of Kamala Harris today with me?

There’s some very large piles of money that need to be moved around and maneuvered here to support whoever the Democrats pick is. And a lot of that pile of money is signed and earmarked to Biden specifically. If Biden and Harris aren’t your pick, what’s your plan to do with the money?

Yes. You need to prove to me that Biden stepping out is better for Democrats and/or America than Biden staying in.

If your strategy is bullshit “I’ll figure it out later”, then sorry, I’m sticking with Biden for my support. If you can’t even reliably tell me that you’ll back Kamala Haris (or any other specificly named reasonable replacement), then that’s proof of your lack of strategy.

This is too important of an issue to fuck up and turn into chaos just a few months before the election. If yall don’t like Biden, then my strategy is for Biden to run and then resign in January, making Kamala President (and keeping the important technicalities of donations which are earmarked to the Biden campaign). Anything else has incredible amounts of risk tying up important money that’s been collected for months. (Alternatively, if someone can assure me that Kamala will have the full support of the Biden campaign’s resources if Biden leaves… I can support Kamala without a doubt).

Being concerned about your own race is not enough.

We need to know what the national strategy is. Who would replace Joe Biden? The fact that Scholten calls for Biden to get out, while is herself unable to name a reasonable replacement shows the magnitude of the problem. These Democrats want Biden to leave before a cohesive post-Biden strategy is formulated.

I’m not necessarily against replacing Biden. But I am absolutely against Democrats running around like a headless chicken 4 months before the election. Have Democrats settled on Harris as the replacement? Are yall actually cool with that?

Can you actually say “Harris should replace Biden” moving forward, rather than this wishy-washy “Please leave Biden” kind of talk? One statement speaks far louder than the other.

I’ll vote for Harris. I’ll vote for Biden. This strategy doesn’t affect me or my vote. So I see it as a waste of time. But if everyone else is nervous, give me a sign that you actually have a cohesive strategy moving forward rather than just having nerves or weak knees about this situation.

I expect progressives are using this as an opportunity to backstab Biden and most Democrats, and install someone much further left / appealing to their personal politics. That’s why progressives can’t name someone they actually want to run / replace Biden and want to just bring Biden down in the vain hopes that they win out in the chaos. But that’s too dangerous of a strategy for me moving forward. I want to know who actually has reasonable chances of beating Trump (and I think Kamala Haris has worse chances than Biden actually). I want to know who specifically these people want to support before Biden steps down.

I’ve begun to pay for Kagi.com

I wouldn’t say that it “blows my mind” or anything, but simply that it seems to work as expected (which is more than what I can say for Google). There’s also a “Fediverse” button on Kagi.com, so it can search lemmy.world (and more??).

It’s len(str) in Python. Not str.length.

Is it wrong that I’m stuck trying to figure out what language this is?

Trying to figure out what string.length and print(var) exist in a single language… Not Java, not C# (I’m pretty sure its .Length, not length), certainly not C, C++ or Python, Pascal, Schme or Haskell or Javascript or PHP.

Lets reverse it.

Why must the circumference and diameter of a circle be related in such a way by two integers precisely?

IE: Why are you so confident in “proving” that these two values are related to integers? Especially if you’re a modern mathematician who knows about irrational numbers (aka: can never be represented by a ratio of two integers) or imaginary numbers (which truly appear in electricity: phasors and the like. Just because the name is “imaginary” doesn’t mean that they’re not real!!!)

I’m not denying that we got rid of Saddam. What I’m saying is that the move isn’t as self-serving as many critics try to force. The earlier post is trying to argue that we’ve somehow stolen the resources of Iraq, but no such thing has happened.

Sanctions are “I’ve decided not to trade with you”, which hardly constitutes “imperialistic ambitions”. Mercenaries do not constitute proper US policy either.

And yes, I recognize we’ve done some shitty things in the 1950s (“banana republic”), but its difficult to even call those things “Imperialism” proper, especially given their overall effects between our countries. Shitty foreign policy does not necessarily mean that we’re going around trying to conquer people.

The Iraqi Constitution says that Iraq is in charge of the oil, and what US imported we paid a fair price for.

And most of Iraq’s exports is oil. So how is this imperialism? Iraq keeps it’s most precious resource and we pay a fair price for it despite militarily enforcing the area. In fact, there is a lot of criticism from the Republican base that we didn’t take advantage of the Iraqis.

Are you saying that we SHOULD have take the oil??

But in this case, its Jordan who wants to have its border defended from ISIS, and the USA also wants to kill ISIS, so why not make a deal between us where we can have a military base that does both?

Win-win for both parties. This is more like the CEO wanting to give a pay-raise to the employee, and the employee accepting it. Both sides are happy.

Just because there’s a power imbalance doesn’t mean that there’s any ill-will or problem. US-Jordan relations are very close, and have been great for decades.

Its not US troops who’d destroy Jordan though. Its all their neighbors (ISIS, Syria, and Iranian Militia).

That’s my point. US Troops are the source of stability here. A good thing for everyone. Meanwhile, actual Imperials were like… I dunno… how the Soviet Union treated the Polish.

as the history of US “Manifest Destiny” and colonialism were 100% about taking power. We also have the Monroe doctrine and Rosevelt corollary as examples of the US attempting to take power over an entire hemisphere.

1800s everyone was taking power, even well into 1910s or 1930s. But modern 1990s+ era politics is pretty different. Monroe Doctrine barely applies today (we’ve kept our hands off of Venezuelans even as they collapsed, and I’d prefer if we stabilized South America more actually…)

The history of US power ambitions have essentially lead us to the modern day funding of bases across the world as we spend more on our military than the next ~10 nations combined. I’d argue that with two large oceans on either side and friendly nations north and south, that money is not for “defense” purposes.

Its largely for the defense of trade routes. Look at the Houthis, they’re not exactly a minor entity. They have cruise missiles and other such weaponry. To effectively combat Houthis, it makes sense to attack them with overwhelming might. Even then we aren’t going to really deal with them or stop them from disrupting trade in the Red Sea.

Why the USA? Well, look at Saudi Arabia or Egypt. They haven’t been able to keep the area peaceful by themselves and we now have to step in with Operation Prosperity Guardian. Or what? Are we supposed to just let $Billion cargo ships get boarded by the Houthis?

Imperialism is when you conquer a region. If Jordan didn’t want us there, they can kick us out. So its really not Imperialism at all.

If this were Roman times or other such actual Empires or rule of Imperialism, we’d be forcing these states to be paying us directly and they wouldn’t be allowed to kick us out.