the people who ridicule the imperative “be normal” (i.e., persuade, be kind/affable/generous) often paint it as a self-servingly easy, small task
Socialism demands, for them, dramatic, all-consuming deeds of heroism. Your life on the line—man the barricades, that sort of thing. What kind of simpering weakling thinks “being normal” is sufficient?
Of course in practice this functions as a way to do nothing that they find uncomfortable; there are not really many good opportunities to man the barricades, because such actions require you to have *already succeeded at large-scale coordination of radical action* to have any merit. And “being normal” is a chore.
So you can instead focus on *calling* for radical actions, which you don’t have to actually do—because you’re ineffective at building a movement which could carry them off—and *also* keep being judgmental, mean, superior, disdainful, aggrieved, and everything else that gets in the way of successful organizing, but which feels good.
In other words, if you’re not willing to do the small stuff, the “be normal” stuff, then you’re not really willing to do the big stuff, either. Because you never get there without first being normal. It’s just this perfect circle they get to trudge around, day in and day out, of bemoaning everyone else’s lack of radical commitment, while avoiding any commitment of their own.
Mallory McMorrow: “The support for a true single-payer system just isn’t there yet.”
Data For Progress poll (11/26/2025):
65% of Americans (78% of Dems, 71% of Independents, 49% of Republicans) support Medicare for All
I think people should be able to take a class and become deputy parking inspectors. Give em an app that takes geotagged photos, a reasonable ceiling quota, and 10 percent of the take. Fight American driver individualism with American bounty hunter individualism.
genuinely confused about the population of autistic people (or those who consider themselves as part of the online neurodivergent community) who are so afraid of the word deficit.
the way so many qrts on this are "JUST BECAUSE YOU LOVE HAVING A GIANT PIECE OF METAL SHOVED UP YOUR VAGINA DOESN'T MEAN I HAVE TO" and it's like... well, nobody loves that. you don't have to love it. it's a medical procedure that takes 30 seconds & helps you not die of cancer.
i don’t know why so many people seem to believe there would suddenly be an ethical way of farming a billion pigs and a hundred billion chickens given the earth’s existing space & resource constraints when capitalism is no longer an obstacle
Centrists define themselves against the left on the basis of bipartisanship, until the left does bipartisanship, and then that’s the Horseshoe Theory. If the center and right are aligned it’s an invincible consensus, but if the left and right are aligned it’s unserious extremism.
Just the American government threatening the Catholic Church with the possibility using military force to take down the Vatican and install their own antipope.
Because the alternative is to institutionalize severely disabled people. This keeps them with their family members
For example, I know someone who has a young disabled son who has to sleep on a ventilator each night to stay alive and this program allows him to live with his family instead of hours away in a care facility
If this program weren’t available, she would have to work 40 hours a week to institutionalize him. Because of it, she is able to provide him 24-7 care instead of a stranger