Every corporation in America is running the same experiment right now.
How much will we pay before they stop?
Bag of chips at $8. They found out.
$20 cocktails. Still paying.
$400 weekly grocery bills. Still paying.
$800 car payments. Still paying.
They will keep raising prices until enough people say no.
And because most Americans have no alternative.
The answer keeps being yes.
That is not a market.
That is captivity.
I'm not running for office. But if I were, these are some of the lessons I'd take away from what happened in NY yesterday.
1. Authenticity is measurable. Voters can smell a focus group from a mile away.
2. Endorsements from the current Democratic leadership now read like warnings. The establishment wing of the party is no longer a sword. It's a question mark.
3. Conviction beats caution. The candidates who said hard things about rent, about who pays for what, about Gaza, they won. The triangulators lost.
4. Cost of living is everything. Everything else is wallpaper.
5. The middle is not a strategy. It's an empty room. Voters reached past the establishment to grab someone who actually believes something.
6. Don't fear the base. Court it. The Democrats who ran from their own voters lost. The ones who ran toward them won.
7. If you want to lead a party you have to be willing to fight inside it. Mamdani didn't ask permission. He took the field.
The lesson under the lessons: the country is tired of being managed. People want to be led.
I know it’s become pretty cliche and cringey to talk about at this point but if you’re under like 25 I cannot stress enough how one time Obama wore a tan suit and people spent a week arguing over whether or not it was demeaning to the Oval Office and they were serious about it.
Are we doing the opt out thing now? I don’t see why I have to pay for the military when I don’t support the war, basic road maintainance when I walk and bike and schools for other people’s children. I also don’t want to pay for Medicare and SSI since they’ll be insolvent for me.
The discourse switching seamlessly from "stop eating lunch if you want to afford a home" to "abolish my property taxes because I can't afford it and refuse to change my lifestyle at all" has been interesting to witness.
I'm getting feedback from some Seniors, saying that only young people should have to pay property taxes because it's the young people that have children in the public schools.
That because Seniors don't make use of the public schools, they shouldn't have to help pay for them.
Okay, sure -- I can appreciate this logic.
So now, let's readjust everyon'e healthcare insurance costs.
Younger people barely need medical assistance at all -- so we can go ahead and adjust their rates DOWN.
Older people, however, quite often need medical assistance -- so we can do ahead and adjust their rates UP -- by right around 60%, according to the best estimates.
Afterall, we wouldn't want younger people subsidizing something that they don't personally use, right?
James Talarico: “It’s really easy to love your neighbor who looks like you, prays like you, votes like you. The challenge is to love people who look differently, who pray differently, who vote differently”
Mayor Zohran Mamdani mocks Ronald Reagan’s infamous quote.
“I can think of nine words more terrifying than ‘I’m from the government and I’m here to help…’”
“I worked all day and can’t feed my family.”
The republican mind is amazing. Zohran has been in the news for:
- balancing the budget without cutting services
- raising taxes on the rich
- cracking down on shitty landlords
- freezing the rent
- universal childcare
what, exactly, is "lunatic" about that? This guy supports a war criminal pedophile rapist con man. That's actual "lunatic" shit.
Tucker Carlson completely corners Kevin O'Leary on live TV. He brilliantly exposes how the billionaire class steals taxpayer money to fund private AI data centers.
When challenged on how corporate welfare is capitalism, O'Leary arrogantly replies welcome to America.
I wonder how many of these people understand they’re arguing for rich people who can buy their home with cash up front to never owe a dime of property tax, while making people who have to take out loans to buy a house pay all the property taxes for 30 years
I think some people are missing the point. It's not even simply that "person dies not getting care = murder"
Some insurance companies and their leadership have a deliberate strategy to simply not pay for care, under the calculation that they can wait until the patient dies, and thus not have to pay.
This deliberate strategy IS social murder.
I can't take the gaslighting, guys. I really can't. Conservatives are now running around saying "Iran has been waging war on us for 47 years." Okay then why didn't any of you call for an attack on Iran at any point until now? Why didn't you make a case for Trump "ending the war, not starting it" until precisely the moment when Trump did it? You and I both know that you are latching onto a talking point you never used until 45 seconds ago. You and I both know that almost every conservative influencer in the business was opposed to war with Iran until just now. And now you're trying to use justifications that stretch back decades. It doesn't make any sense. If you changed your mind, fine. Say so. Explain why. You're allowed to change your mind. I've changed my mind about things. But don't try to rewrite history. Be honest about it. There's too much at stake to play these games.