So, what, if we’re all going to be assholes, some of us should at least be rich? Ok, well, chances are it ain’t gonna be you or me who are the rich assholes, so what’s the point? For everyone to be miserable, but a few people get to be rich and miserable?

No.

You’re better off. Rich kids grow up to be assholes.

Edit:

Everybody thinks becoming rich will solve all of their problems. But even if it does solve some of your problems, it’ll just create new ones. Money is not a panacea that fixes everything. I mean, you look at the richest people and they’re not just assholes, their fucking psychopaths. That’s what you want? You wanna be a fucking psychopath? Oh, but, I know, it won’t be you. You won’t fall into the same trap as them. You’ll be one of the good ones. Money won’t corrupt you like it has them. Bullshit.

And what about everyone else? Not everyone can get rich. There are only so many resources on the planet and the more you have the less everyone else can have. It’s a zero sum arrangement. But, who cares about them, I got mine. Right? Congratulations, you’re well on your way to being a rich psychopath.

A monument to stupidity.

They are stupid people. That’s true. But they’re not wrong about this.

“It’s breaking me. And there’s nothing that can be done for it, unless the president does something,”

This is a huge part of our problems right now. A lot of people look to the president to fix everything. The president is powerful, but they’re not that powerful. And thank god for that. If the entire US relied on just one person to fix everything, that would be absolutely terrible, and that’s even if that person were super smart and ethical, which of course our current president is not.

The people we should be looking to, at the Federal level, are Congress. But of course we all know how ineffectual they are. Feels like they might as well not even exist, sometimes. Though, there are some real structural reasons for their ineffectiveness: the incredible influence is moneyed interests in our politics, for instance, and the fact that a representative in the House represents over 700,000 people! For comparison, each member of the Canadian parliament represents about 120,000. Even that’s high compared to a lot of European democracies. Each seat in Norway’s parliament represents about 33,000 people.

But, the people of West Virginia have another representative body they can look to: their state legislature. Each seat in West Virginia’s House of Delegates represents about 17,000 people. You don’t have much of a voice at the Federal level, but you have much, much more of a voice at the state level. The people who can best help West Virginia are West Virginians.

That could be, but the sub-heading makes me question that.

Brenda Shaffer, whoever she is, is clearly an idiot.

When a political movement believes that ignorance is strength

We’re in a timeline where Ogre from Revenge Of The Nerds has taken power over the country.

Might does NOT make right. You’re ability to beat somebody up or otherwise dominate them physically does not determine the validity of your beliefs. You can think the moon is made of cheese, and you might be able to beat into submission anyone who disagrees with you, but it won’t change the fact that the MOON ISN’T MADE OF FUCKING CHEESE!

Ignorance is NOT strength. Ignorance does NOT make you stronger, it makes you WEAKER.

I just don’t know how we get them to understand this. Somehow we have to get through to them, before they wreck everything.

Trump’s insanity is kind of like the US gun violence epidemic. Most reasonable people know it’s an extremely fucked up and unacceptable situation, but no one’s really sure what to do about it, so we’re just gonna kind of ignore it and become desensitized to it. I mean, most decent people thought Sandy Hook would be the turning point. That had to be a red line, right? Nope. Similarly, Trump threatens the existence of an entire civilization. That has to be it, right? Like, that’s gotta a red line, right? Probably not.

I hate this country so much. I just hate it. I hate my country.

Lol, yeah he’s quite the prognosticator. He also seems to be getting pretty popular, which I think is a little concerning.

I agree. I wonder what will follow. Neoconservativism and Fascism are both failed systems. It’s only a matter of time before they fail this time, too. I wonder if the failure of Neoconservativism/Fascism will lead to so many crises that there will be a collapse of the current global order, specifically US hegemony. Could that lead to the Chinese model becoming the new preferred paradigm?

And as far as here in the US, well, maybe when this is an over there won’t be a US anymore. But if there is, I wonder what the next dominant ideology will be.

You’re probably right. So if most Americans are either non-ideological or heterodox, what would the orthodox ideology be?

“Right-wing” isn’t an ideology. I agree that most Americans are right of socialism, and probably even social democracy, but that encompasses a lot of ideologies.

according to Gallup’s data from 2025, more than half of Americans – 54% – identify as either Democrats or Republicans, with another 35% characterized as “Republican-leaning independents” or “Democratic-leaning independents”. Pew data has the number of self-identified Republicans or Democrats at 59%.

Ok, but what does that mean? “Republican” and “Democrat” are not ideologies, they’re political parties. And very broad parties, at that. Because of our de facto two party system, both parties usually try to be “big tents.” So neither party ever has exclusively one ideology.

What is the guiding ideology of the Republican party (or rather, what was it before the party became the cult of Trump)? What is the guiding ideology of the Democratic party? I think it used to be Neoliberalism, or “Third Way” Liberalism. But what is it today? Is it still Third Way Liberalism, like during the Bill Clinton era? Or is it more traditional Social Democracy?

In a lot of ways, the Third Way was meant to be a compromise between Neoliberals and Social Democrats, but are either of those sides willing to compromise today? Should they compromise? It seems to me there are aspects of Neoliberalism and Social Democracy that are mutually exclusive. For instance, Neoliberalism usually wants lower taxes, but Social Democrats want a strong social safety funded by a progressive tax system, which usually means higher taxes, at least for income earners near the top. Well, taxes can’t be both lower and higher at the same time, so which is it? You can compromise and just lower taxes a little, and have a smaller safety net, but while compromise seems like a good idea, it usually just ends up with watered down policies that no one is fully happy with.

So where are the majority of Americans, ideologically? Is there a majority ideological consensus? If so, what is it?

You can charge an EV from a regular household 120V outlet. Sure, it will charge slower than molasses but that’s enough for a lot of people. You might only get 30 miles of range from charging overnight, but if you’re driving less than 30 miles everyday, that’s enough. I know I drive less than 30 miles a day, most of the time. But for those days where you’re driving more than 30 miles, yeah you’re going to need to know where there’re some fast chargers near you, but there’s more of those being built all the time.

And there are some good deals on used EVs, too. And the batteries they have now last long enough that there’s really no worry about having to replace the battery on a used EV.

Wait, this is real?! Holy shit, he’s gone off the deep end.

Better than them e-lectric vehicles. If my car ain’t big, loud, inefficient, polluting and running on ancient fossil goo that’s totally nonrenewable and expensive to pump out of the ground and refine, I ain’t interested!

Give me a Danny DeVito type campaigning on nationalized healthcare

That was Bernie Sanders. He ran for the Dem nom for president twice. He lost twice.