I think if you looked at the history of the global economy and geopolitics since 1970 or 1900 pre Federal Reserve, I think you could make an argument that the dystopia that you're worried about already exists.
You're right it's not a startup. It's an organization in a town that voted 90%+ in favor of keeping their jobs, not being prosecuted, or some kind of "threat to democracy".
You can't run an organization if the ground troops are resistant to executing the vision of leadership
Management is as much about convincing people you’re right as it is about getting your way always. Sometimes your subordinates are right and a good manager can still work with that situation. Even in a professional army like the US military there is disagreement and negotiation. This idea that we are all troops in some kind of militia who should blindly follow one person’s will is the bottom half of fascist ideology.
The term "ground troops" was just used as a metaphor for people at the bottom who do a big chunk of the actual work. Every organization would rather have people at least be pro "big picture" vision, and, yes, there should be dissonance and compromise on the "how" we get there part
You can say that but you could also have called them “workers.” Calling them ground troops is intended to evoke the image of people being shelled in foxholes and then running away. It is a bad euphemism that is meant to suggest we are fighting a war. You have to ask yourself—-when someone evokes the imagery of war, do you not think they are spoiling for a fight?
Government employees shouldn't be immune to layoffs. If the government goes bankrupt, everyone is much worse off. The longer these systems stay down the worse things can go, this is the most humane way to do what needs to be done. Which is take away the power (money) that the parasitic relationship between business and DC is built on and make sure we don't go bankrupt.
They will be able to collect unemployment, do we know if they are getting severance?
I am aware that it is about the fire and rehire. If no one can say why something should exist, then yes, the quickest solution is turn it all off and see what breaks. You might not agree with it but it is a valid strategy given all the dynamics at play. Your definition of leadership isn't my definition.
I don't think we should go to war at all.
I don't think you understand why Trump was elected or middle America culture. The popular vote was a vote against deterring and corrupt institutions that already exist
I've been a backend engineer for about 10 years, with my last job doing an aws lambda stack.
I started a job in manufacturing a few months ago and having to think that this has to work for the next 20 years has been a completely different challenge. I don't even trust npm to be able to survive that so web stuff has been been an extra challenge. I landed on lit web components and just bringing it in via a local CDN.
I am exactly who you are talking about, I live in a very purple city in the midwest. I grew up in a town of 3000 people, my family was Amish 4 generations ago. I'm also a 90s kid and grew up on south park. Turned into a redneck hippy.
It's a complete social poison pill in the city to have voted a certain way. Have had the same look of "how could you be that dumb" from people ranging from strippers to lawyers.
All I want is love and belonging, not sure how to feel love when I've heard the word "barbarian" to describe certain types of people. Not sure how to feel love when men's loneliness and suicide problems aren't being prioritized
Yeah, the hurt turns into anger sometimes, but yes, I need them too. For me to exist, my opposite has to exist, and I should love us both.
I appreciate you sharing this story. I'm from the suburbs of Detroit and while I voted for Kamala, I have a lot of friends and family who either openly voted for Trump or who I imagine secretly did. And while it can be so hard for me to not call them stupid (I tend to default to insulting people's intelligence sometimes because I feel so confident in mine), I try really hard to see how they're really just struggling/suffering.
And it can hurt me so much when I see people in my life attack people very hard for voting for Trump. The ones in my life who voted for him sometimes seem to be the ones who are craving the most social connection, the most interaction, and don't get it. They seem to want to engage with people and sometimes the best way to engage is to say something controversial. Like the kid who can't get the mom's attention and so starts hitting her in the leg.
People on the right are not a basket of deplorables, they're human beings who want love and attention, often from those who they fear think they're better than them. Often from those they admire the most, who keep ignoring them and running away from them.
So thank you for sharing this and helping me see this even more deeply and lovingly.
People have despaired of making common cause, because bipartisanship IS punished within the republican party, and by FOX.
I can apprecaite my fellow man, but I must also answer the question posed by the success of their tactics. I know that during the Bush era, the republicans would be AGHAST at someone like him. Someone who openly doubted McCain?? Good gravy, that would have been something to see.
But reality has drifted, and political success has dependend more and more on extremism and animosity. They can dispute the existence of evolution, and succeed in making it an issue!
Today, all that seems to matter is poltical efficiency. People have voted for Trump even KNOWING that he is going to be terrible, but because he is better for their goals.
I can feel for everyone, but as the right likes to say - who gives a frig about your feelings?
What matters is winning.
Make emapthy win. Make bipartisanship work again, then you have a chance. But why should the republicans ever do that? Their approach has given them everything they have ever desired.
Gaining voters from the right shouldn't be the Democrats primary focus.
Their primary focus should be retaining voters, by broadening the range of opinions which are acceptable within the party.
They are a decade down a purity spiral, which has resulted in the range of acceptable opinions within the party shrinking considerably, and the shunning of many individuals unnecessarily, who either stop voting altogether or find company on the right.
I gave the example above of how the republican party is able to accomodate a significant number of both pro-life and pro-choice members. The Democrats will similarly need to learn to expand their umbrella as well. Perhaps not with abortion rights, but maybe by shedding some of their zero-sum economic thinking, or race-centric thinking.
If they can fix this, they will grow, because their biggest source of new members is young adults becoming eligible to vote, not people they pull away from the right. The Democrats just need to stop churning so many people away.
> Perhaps not with abortion rights, but maybe by shedding some of their zero-sum economic thinking, or race-centric thinking.
I think this is the big one here. Race and gender, this seems to be the only thing Dems can even talk about. I just saw videos from the recent DNC winter meeting. Watch for just 75 seconds starting here: https://youtu.be/1pHvkq4ehkE?t=93
I guess this apparently plays well among the tiny base that the DNC still has, but when most independents and moderates look at this nonsense, this party is a caricature of itself.
And my point isn't that they need to pull the far right into their tent somehow. But rather that most people including the average first-time voters, are much more moderate than the current DNC has positioned itself now, and it seems like Dems mostly just want to shock them rather than win their hearts.
> I know that during the Bush era, the republicans would be AGHAST at someone like him.
The Bush era has been the worst disaster for the right wing this century in both the US and potentially globally. He was a warmonger, an economic vandal and an unprincipled man at the helm of a state that flubbed any chance at setting up for meaningful long term success in favour of the patriot act and slaughtering goat herders in the middle east. Under his eye the Republicans exiled the right from cultural relevance for around a decade. The party around him were cut from the same cloth.
There is a reason the modern Republican party went with Trump rather than another person who looked like Bush. The entire Trump story has been the Republicans - without too much recrimination - attempting to purge the remains of the Bush era because they were a gross embarrassment whos legacy has been little short of a disaster. If the US Democrats had undertaken the same purge instead of embracing the leadership of the same era then they wouldn't have tried to run Biden then Kamala.
This is what is annoying - you saw a noun, and talked about that noun.
Not about the conversation we were having which is about standards of decency expected from the Dems in speech.
And how those standards don’t matter on the right.
Bush was an idiot, does stating that satisfy you ? Would that allow you the peace to reconnect with the point ? (Also yeah. Warmongers suck. Surprisingly something everyone agrees on. The anti war position is the OG leftie position, so it’s great to see it on the right.)
Maybe make your point more directly next time. It seems that point was winning is the only thing that matters and that is driving change in the Republicans.
That isn't what is happening; if they were focused on winning at all costs they wouldn't ever nominate Trump. The man has some of the most dedicated enemies out there short of those found in a multi-generational religious war and he doesn't poll especially well. The female half of the population tend to be a bit lukewarm towards him and that doesn't help win elections either since there are a lot of them.
The Republicans are engaged in an ideological reform to clear out specifically the people who were active in the Bush years. That happens to be a broader election winner too.
You see the same desperation when a religion starts faltering/drying up. Loads of good folks start to break away. Those that remain tend to be beneficiaries from the system, or are sociopaths who don't know how to adapt, or are gullible folks who don't know how to discern lying, or are andbusy folks for whom inertia is less painful than change.
I see that in politics in a lot of ways. I'm still figuring out my concept model for it, but the experience of religious exit is showing similarities.
What I lost would not have been changed by ignoring reality. A too large share of people in the country support a traitor, amongst other deplorable qualities. The reason why informs me to how I should play the game.
In the short term, I am sure I will benefit greatly from Trump’s leadership, just like I did last time. In the long term, I need to plan for what is best for my family to live in a country (world?) with less and less societal trust/cohesion (including family members).
Maybe the reality of this level of tribalism was always there, temporarily hidden from me by my youth and economic momentum from previous decades.
It is funny, ironic, but moreso sad, to complain about the loss of societal trust and cohesion whilst actively engaging in an ideological purity spiral that merely worsens that loss.
Not really. Traitors are traitors, and people who oppose women’s rights are people who oppose women’s rights. It seems expected to not trust someone who attacks your country, much less one’s mother/daughter/sister/etc.
Sure, you can say I support killing babies. It is black and white that a woman (and her doctor) should have zero qualms about doing whatever they need to prioritize the woman’s health.
Literally no one is killing babies who can survive outside of their moms for fun. They are all medically necessary healthcare procedures.
Doubling-down on the dehumanization and simplification of your enemies is not how you convince others that you actually care about societal trust or cohesion.
I am not dehumanizing anyone. I know they are humans, which is why they are behaving as they are. Humans just don’t happen to be better than most other animals when change in relative status (and hence power) is happening.
I used to think we were a little better, though.
For the record, I actually like some of Trump’s ideas, like no (earned) income tax, about Gaza, and I would still buy a Tesla (although I would prefer if a different automaker that isn’t led by someone who makes Nazi salutes would make buying a car as easy as Tesla).
But he’s not the guy I want my kids to see as the leader of their country, both for his character and his support of other policies/traitors/racism/general chaotic nature.
Your black and white thinking is dehumanizing. By being so rigid in your stance you're being neglectful of other peoples view of the world. It comes across so invalidating and dismissive, the lack of curiosity as to why people have these world views makes it even worse. The flavor of neglect feels very much like the kind growing up in a devoted christian home. You don't get to have a personality or have a valid view of the word because "god".
Stop being so intolerant! You know the existence of vaccines is religious persecution as they make it so there are fewer lepers to be embraced. </s>
As a libertarian who voted conservative (democratic) nationally for the first time in 2020, this narrative is so upside down. The overriding dynamic is that of the wedge issue, where republicans dredge up things our society either took for granted or at least agreed to disagree on and reanimate the old arguments. They find or craft the worst hyperbolic instances that appeal to thirty second attention spans, and then harp on them until there are enough "independent thinkers" staking out a contrarian position to make it an "issue".
The democratic party has its problems and is still fundamentally working to serve the corporate status quo. But contrast the soul searching that's been going on even since November, to the unapologetic doubling down of "stop the steal" in response to an objectively disastrous first Trump term.
The real answer is that people are squeezed, angry, don't know how good they actually have it, don't want to listen to reason, and just want to fuck shit up. Well, now we're all going to get it good and hard.
(edit: added /s tag to mitigate Poe's law, as it's 2025)
I have the same perspective. On top of it, society has gotten use to seeing reality TV shows. DC looks like a reality TV show for ugly people to them. It's not even done well.
I agree with you in spirit. Everyone is equally responsible on "how" they communicate. When the giving side is coming from a place of contempt and disgust, the work for improvement shouldn't be trivialized.
But the receiving side can also get better at receiving contempt and disgust and realizing the pain the other person is going through. Honestly, working on how to receive punches has helped me so much in my life. An ex-girlfriend of mine lied to me about being pregnant (I think). And at first, I was furious. Then I realized that if she were to lie about that, she must have been going through so much pain, and I probably did something to contribute to that pain. I apologized to her and felt a lot better and it also allowed me to regain trust in women again, maybe even deepening my trust.
