Also: anything Democrats do is bad, but if a Republican says the same thing, it's good. Unless a Democrat says it again, then it is temporarily bad as long as that Dem is talking.
Whenever I come across a video where Dean Withers "debates" one of these MAGA maroons, it always proves your point.
Their only politics are "trump good".
My politics is Red Team Wins. And if you aren't on Red Team and saying "Red Team Is Winning" then you are a fake loser communist pedophile.
Now, I'm sure you're going to feel very smug reading this. I want you to hang on to that feeling when you're being asked to vote for the Pete Buttigieg / Stacey Abrams ticket in 2028 while people scream "Vote Blue No Matter Who" at you.
Holding your nose and voting for the non-MAGA option in the general election is not at all the same as throwing a social media temper tantrum on behalf of your "team", no matter how condescendingly you phrase it.
On our left hand we have a party who, while generally spineless in the face of opposition, at least understands the general principles of governance and has an interest in continuing the lifespan of the country.
On our right hand we have a party aggressively campaigning that they should be allowed to shoot you in the face. Yes, you, personally.
On our left hand we have a party who, while generally spineless in the face of opposition, at least understands the general principles of governance
Andrew Cuomo couldn't govern himself out of a paper bag and he ran one of the largest and richest states in the country for eight fucking years. So many of the Dem Senators that got kicked to the curb in '10 and '14 and '22 sucked ass. We're still stuck carrying around dead weight like Fetterman and Slotkin holding winnable seats, while the occasional "Trump Democrat" like Amy McGrath sucks up hundreds of millions of dollars to face-plant during a blue wave year.
Can we maybe put down the theory that these people know what they're doing? Dianne Feinstein could barely form coherent sentences by the time she was being wheeled into votes on life support. Chuck Schumer's got his own party base in full revolt. Newsom can't decide if he's running for President or running a podcast.
Oh its just a fight thats been going on within the party, basically forever. One side says "vote blue no matter who" as a cudgel that lets feckless moderates rule the party, then no one shows up on election day when the feckless moderates run campaigns under the assumption that their voters have no other options. And thankfully, we've now got the data in to recognize the people who put this toxic rhetoric out there as the very reason Democrats lose elections.
If you defend the perpetual worthlessness of Democrats, you are the problem. If all you can do is "Trump bad", you are part of the problem. If you are a "blue no matter who", blue maga democrat, you are why Democrats keep losing elections. Its not strategic voting if the strategy costs you elections. And you literally just cost us 2024 running a campaign based on this rhetoric, so as the part of the Democratic party that actually wants to win elections, we kindly ask you to shut the fuck up and take the back seat. Because you lose us elections with that voter blaming blue maga shit.
Its not worth my time to explain this, yet again, when I spent 2 years telling people that if they tried this approach again, and its an incredibly well trodden issue, but I can assure you this, if the rhetoric you are approaching this conversation with is the same that you approach voting with: I consider you to be the reason Democrats lost in 2016 and 2024.
I gotta be honest, its fucking exhausting constantly having to explain to the people who just threw the election to Trump why they are the problem.
And honestly, if you don't know what Blue Maga is, or why that may apply to you, why the fuck do you think its my job to educate you? You are in a politics forum. Go google it. Heres the kym, though it could be updated.
And here is Jon Stewart, in a longer form segment, explaining it further:
The reason you get put into this camp, is the apologetics. Its the approach to rhetoric. Its approaching the issue with the argument "other side worse" as if thats an argument for your positioning. Its Joy Ann Reid saying she'd vote for Biden if he was in a coma. Its Whoopi on The View saying she'd vote for Biden if he was shitting his pants on stage. And when you make these kinds of arguments, like the one you are making, you end up with a candidate who is practically in a coma and is basically shitting their pants on stage: and that loses the election.
Its an approach to electoralism that excuses the consistent and perpetual failure of the Democratic party by trying to shift the focus to how bad Trump is, and it handed the election to Trump. Twice. You don't win elections this way, you literally push votes away from the party in using this argument. 2024 wasn't lost because Trump was some amazing candidate. It was lost because Blue-MAGA Democrats told the entire voter base to shut the fuck up and let them run the milquetoast Democrats.
I know what blue maga means. That's why I asked you to explain why the hell you're so eager to lump anyone who ultimately makes a pragmatic choice in the general election, after all other choices have been exhausted, in with the crowd that has spent months/years actively pushing to ensure the worst possible option is running against a fascist.
The wildest part is we dont even disagree, so save your fucking smugness.
I and (at risk of speaking for others) many of the other commentators agree with at least 80% of what you have written and close to 100% of the spirit of your argument. But a few points to reflect on:
You are not winning anyone over with your rhetoric in your first posts
Infighting, purity tests, and micro-clans are common methods used by the right to fragment the left
Voting third party in a general election in the US as a protest vote is close as to as impactful as not voting, be prepared for those consequences and for people to call you out on it. Of course there is no doubt some justification
Relatedly acceleration is not viewed as a viable political strategy by most on the left (who aren’t naive new comers to political discourse)
You are not winning anyone over with your rhetoric in your first posts
Oh I am though, I promise. This is the one thing I do know without a doubt, because I've watched the entire narrative completely flip. And I know whose minds have been changed and I've seen how severely weakened the ABWD/ Blue MAGA side has become. I'm also not basing this off one thread or one comment, but all of them, and the complete shift in narrative we (its not just me) have been able to drive by being right in the first place and consistent with where we place our criticism. We made these critiques before it was obvious they would lead to failure; we made them while the process was leading to failure; and we make them again, now that the process has been demonstrated to lead to failure.
We may not be winning over those who are so irrationally committed to a team sport their brain is broken, but what matters now isn't "winning them over"; its inoculating the rest of the community against listening to them. Those people are lost, broken-brained individuals, those are Blue-MAGA, and like traditional MAGA, its a cult we can't really expect their heads to ever become fully removed from their own asses. But there are two outcomes to consider in this case. Either A) we don't need to worry about those voters, because, if they are truly blue MAGA/ ABWD, they'll just have to vote for the candidate who is going to speak to a populist progressive agenda and get along. Or B) they are voters you were never going to be able to rely on in the first place, and assuredly shouldnt base your campaign around. In either case, basing campaigns around them is a surefire recipe for disaster, as we've seen, repeatedly.
To your other points, they are entirely straw men and not worth responding to. You are effectively doing exactly what I'm accusing Blue MAGA of doing. Its a effort to use group identity to silence criticism of that identity.
During the presidential election, people considering third parties were dv'd to oblivion, Blue MAGA shouting that it wasn't the time. Guess what happens now every time someone suggests finding, running and supporting third party candidates?
Oh it was so much more beyond that. And it's seems like , by looking at the dv ratios, they've forgotten their shame.
If you made any obvious criticisms of the campaign, you were dv'd to oblivion. If you pushed that Biden should be removed as candidate, you were dv'd to oblivion. If you were promoting the idea that the party needed to pivot on Gaza or they'd lose the election, dv'd to oblivion. That Bidens mid summer attempt at the worst border bill we'd ever seen would lose him the election. And on and on and on... I mean they litterally bullied people even mentioning third parties in a way that I think should have gotten them banned permanently from Lemmy. And how many votes did all of the third parties get? not even enough to make a difference to a fart in the wind.
Every single issue that could have turned the tide for the Dems this last election cycle, the same people downvoting in this thread, they downvoted those same things in the run up to the election.
AND THAT is why they are blue MAGA. This is a team sport for them. They can not withstand criticism of what they've come to associate their identity with. It's always that you just need to get in behind the party, no matter how bad the parties ideas are. And the biggest issue these people don't recognize: if you are downvoting in this thread **you are why the Dems lost **
The Dems were running bad candidates and worse strategies. They needed to be corrected. And defending them from that critique, preventing them from hearing it by keeping out of the mainstream for as long as they were able to, that is what lost the election. There was ample time to course correct in Summer of 24. But blue MAGA insisted you have to run the incubamant, in spite of the fact they were polling at some of the lowest levels in history and had been since almost 23.
And we had a repreive from these idiots for about 12 months while they hid from the shame of the damage they did. Now they're back and they seem to think they've got the right of it again.
And how many votes did all of the third parties get? not even enough to make a difference to a fart in the wind.
Moreover, Dems sued to keep the Socialist Workers' Party candidate, Claudia De La Cruz off the ballot -- but only in swing states. They knew they were selling a cold crap sandwich, and rather than change the message, they courted the far Reich wing.
They can not withstand criticism of what they’ve come to associate their identity with. It’s always that you just need to get in behind the party, no matter how bad the parties ideas are.
I see them as a mix of that, and loss aversion "FU I got mine!” voters. Rather than work to build up and promote a better candidate, they will absolutely push their drowning kindred under the water to keep themselves afloat.
They don't care. And when Reich Wing Lite loses to full - blown Reich Wing, they will cling bitterly to the idea it was people who envision better, for more of us and work for it, rather than take it for the data points from which to learn and envision better for everyone, and blame this who have the vision, grit, and gumption to work for it.
But we're winning this fight. We've made huge strides in getting the narrative that actually, its the Democratic party thats the problem, over the course of the past 2 years. But we're still not there yet.
Until the working class completely subverts the DNC to their collective will, and actually democratizes the party, we're not there yet. And every apologist who tells you to vote against your own interests because ABWD is part of the problem.
if you are downvoting in this thread **you are why the Dems lost **
Oh, get over yourself. There were plenty of reasons to downvote your comment. The fact that people disagree with what you're saying doesn't affect the outcome of any elections. You never know, you could be being downvoted by actual MAGA, not the "Blue MAGA" or whatever label you've branded us with.
Now, I’m sure you’re going to feel very smug reading this. I want you to hang on to that feeling when you’re being asked to vote for the Pete Buttigieg / Stacey Abrams ticket in 2028 while people scream “Vote Blue No Matter Who” at you.
Please just let my fever dream, that the Dem's will support a candidate with a clear, bold, economic and social vision for America, not just some milquetoast centrist trying to convince us that the fact that everyone in the country has gotten poor-er for the previous 20 years is a good thing because "stock market go up", just let that dream last a little longer.
Well, no. Rather, you would simply an ignorant moron who doesn't understand the fucked up problems that are baked into any "first past the post" system for elections.
Do we need new political parties? Fuck yes we do! Can that happen within the current system. Fuck no!!! You think the elites parasites of any era in history were not disgusting sociopathic fuckwits?? Of course not. The system is working exactly as they fucking intended - to only ever give the unwashed masses the illusion of choice, but never the real thing.
you would simply an ignorant moron who doesn’t understand the fucked up problems that are baked into any “first past the post” system
Idk if I'd call someone who hasn't mastered the electoral math of various esoteric voting systems a "moron".
The system is working exactly as they fucking intended
Really depends on who you ask. You'd be hard pressed to convince a bunch of 2016 mega-donors that the optimal result of the season was a Donald Trump presidency. That's certainly not where all the big money went during the primaries.
FPTP doesn't play well with gerrymandering or hyper-partisanism. If your elections are decided by the primary, and your primary is closed or otherwise stacked to favor the most ideologically pure candidates, you end up with an elected bureaucracy that looks like a fun house mirror reflection of the base.
Ask Jeb Bush if this is the outcome he intended ten years ago. Ask Liz Cheney and Cindy McCain. Politics is way off the target drawn by the neocons back in 2000.
Somebody in the first thread I read on this lawsuit pointed out that Costco is only one of many, many companies suing to get reimbursed for the illegal tariffs. The fact that Costco keeps getting singled out smacks of manipulation.
Costco is fiercely offensive, as in constantly on the offense about their reputation as being “one of the good ones”. They are better than competitors like Walmart but that’s a wildly low bar to clear and really only pertains to how they treat warehouse workers
Because they are, they pay their workers a fair wage, give them good benefits, and give consumers reasonable prices when nobody else will. Pretty sure the entirety of the rest of the industry wants them to go out of business
Costco also didn't do the "yay we don't have to pretend to care about minorities anymore" rug pull that Target and others did, where they went out of their way to signal the dismantling of whatever DEI stuff they had previously implemented.
Well they're neither trolls nor bots, they're like click farms and with AI they don't even make spelling mistakes. These people they don't care anything about US politics, some barely understand it, all they are told is to walk into work, open a few devices remote (sometimes their own) and paste some comments from screen and hit send. Do captcha if prompted.
They'd work for whoever is paying them that day. I think it's time to fight fire with fire, pay for fake accounts that spew love and tolerance onlinrvlm
MAGA is a thing but there are a lot less (70% less) of them than appears. Twitter location exposure proved it. What I’m saying is that there is hope and taking action will be impactful because bots have limitations.
It'd be pure irony if this isn't a troll account. Conservatives love to buy in bulk as if they're preparing for the apocalypse rapture. Costco and Sam's are infested with them.
Please note: I normally would not accept BuzzFeed as a reputable source for news, but I think the one thing they actually do well is reporting on social media trends.
Perhaps. I'm related to a family of magats, and they love shopping in bulk. Many of their friends do too.
Many of them have this mindset that at some point everything in the world is going to break down and that they're going to have to bunker down in their houses.
This is where my thoughts come from. I've never actually heard it correlated to the rapture itself though, but I figure that's probably up there on the list.
I think they might actually be the only major... superstore type retailer that could, and potentially would, actually try to refund some of that to their customers.
The membership dues. Just... refund them to people, maybe for more than one year.
And/Or... they know what all their members bought.
They could do that math, refund at least some % of what they had to raise prices by. Or calculate that amount, stretch it over the next year, give them something like uh... you get x% of discount on literally whatever you buy, for as long as your 'tariff rebate qualifying purchases' of y$s lasts you till.
Of all the major retailers, they're arguably the least evil.
And... its also arguably quite a good business move.
"Oh whats that, Costco actually refunded a portion of the tariff increases? Huh, maybe I will get a membership."
Pretty sure the idiot didn't actually cancel their membership. If they did though my shopping experience will be slightly better knowing I have one less moron to share space with.
Upgrade for sometimes free shipping, deliverable to any address. And car insurance prices with that membership are much better than anything else I've been quoted.
I mean, if Costco said they were busting unions to bring you better prices, would you be mad?
I'm sure this person feels strongly that the tariffs are valuable to reshoring and having actual jobs, so they stand with the tariffs and against their opponents, for a long term benefit even if it means paying taxes now.
IIRC the president of Costco said something like, he viewed any attempt by employees to unionize as a failure of management to treat employees fairly. And, well, he's right; when employers treat employees in a way that they believe is fair, they don't feel a need to join a union.
Which is the entire game Costco plays, a national retail workers union would still be vastly better for even Costco's warehouse workers and those across the board. Costco wants to make sure they remain in control and still maintain a “better than the best” reputation.
That's not necessarily true. In order to remain viable, a company needs to make a profit, or at least break even. If Costco is already at the point where they're giving as much to their workers as they can while remaining viable as a corporation, then a national retail workers' union isn't going to help Costco employees directly.
This is a 'feature' of capitalism, and has a lot to do with the way that national and global economic events play out. An individual corporation may or may not be able to do much about the market conditions that it exists in.
I recently had a freaking reserved appointment time at a Costco tire center to fix a nail I picked up. I still had to wait 2 hours, despite the appointment.
It’s free at Costco, covered by the warranty on the tires they sell. I also just knew the tire had a slow leak, and didn’t know it was a nail until they finished the repair. If they weren’t so busy they would have finished before I finished my shopping.
There are Costco's in Europe so if they're in Russia then I guess they do live on the same continent as a Costco. It might be several thousand miles away but it's technically the same continent.
I feel like they almost understand the role of immigrant labor and cheap imported goods in devaluing domestic labor, but they're misdirecting their anger towards victims of Human Trafficking Lite™ and overseas slave labor instead of towards the corporations that don't want to pay full price for domestic labor.
The tarrifs are dumb as fuck but Costco isn't great, they paid the tarrifs and upped prices and will probably get money back but all the consumers will get no money back so it's like the US consumer paid twice, once in price hikes from tarrifs and in tax money to pay Costco back for the tarrifs so Costco is just gonna win.
Your summary is probably how a lot of US businesses handled this but I don't think this is quite how Costco responded to the tariffs. They really seemed to try to foot the bill for the tariffs where they could. Especially on produce and staples.
Of specific note from your article is them reporting holding food prices in place during shareholder updates.
Costco is a business, and so they're not your friend. But they're one of the few businesses that seems to recognize that long term customer goodwill is more valuable than a few percent on next quarters balance sheet, so they don't deserve disdain either.
Even the best company has an intrinsic unequal power dynamic with their workers, and competing interests.
That doesn't mean that a company that has a policy of trying to be fair should be treated with the same attitude as one that doesn't, it just means that their employees still would benefit from a union, and hopefully the union just has an easier time, since negotiations as equals are easier with a willing company.
Every anti-capitalist sentiment can be true of every company, while we still acknowledge that the ire doesn't need to be directed uniformly.
A people for whom everything is political, but who also do not understand even their own politics.
Better than even odds that “person” is working in a social media sweatshop in Russia
The new source is nbc news, not fox, not rt, not any of the known entertainment news outlets. So yeah, not likely a cult follower.
Its a twitter post. Like 90% odds it's a cult follower
80% chance it's a bot, 15% chance it's a foreign agent, 5% chance he's a cult follower
Cult of bot that is, cause it’s probably a bot
Their politics are: Trump good. Everything opposed to Trump bad.
Also: anything Democrats do is bad, but if a Republican says the same thing, it's good. Unless a Democrat says it again, then it is temporarily bad as long as that Dem is talking.
Whenever I come across a video where Dean Withers "debates" one of these MAGA maroons, it always proves your point.
Their only politics are "trump good".
My politics is Red Team Wins. And if you aren't on Red Team and saying "Red Team Is Winning" then you are a fake loser communist pedophile.
Now, I'm sure you're going to feel very smug reading this. I want you to hang on to that feeling when you're being asked to vote for the Pete Buttigieg / Stacey Abrams ticket in 2028 while people scream "Vote Blue No Matter Who" at you.
The fuck kind of false equivalence is that?
Holding your nose and voting for the non-MAGA option in the general election is not at all the same as throwing a social media temper tantrum on behalf of your "team", no matter how condescendingly you phrase it.
Man we're really going to have to slog through this fucking election throwing blue-maga shit again aren't we?
On our left hand we have a party who, while generally spineless in the face of opposition, at least understands the general principles of governance and has an interest in continuing the lifespan of the country.
On our right hand we have a party aggressively campaigning that they should be allowed to shoot you in the face. Yes, you, personally.
I hope you have the day you vote for.
Or the day they don't vote against.
Unfortunately we all suffer the day that got voted in.
Andrew Cuomo couldn't govern himself out of a paper bag and he ran one of the largest and richest states in the country for eight fucking years. So many of the Dem Senators that got kicked to the curb in '10 and '14 and '22 sucked ass. We're still stuck carrying around dead weight like Fetterman and Slotkin holding winnable seats, while the occasional "Trump Democrat" like Amy McGrath sucks up hundreds of millions of dollars to face-plant during a blue wave year.
Can we maybe put down the theory that these people know what they're doing? Dianne Feinstein could barely form coherent sentences by the time she was being wheeled into votes on life support. Chuck Schumer's got his own party base in full revolt. Newsom can't decide if he's running for President or running a podcast.
None of these people can govern.
Oh its just a fight thats been going on within the party, basically forever. One side says "vote blue no matter who" as a cudgel that lets feckless moderates rule the party, then no one shows up on election day when the feckless moderates run campaigns under the assumption that their voters have no other options. And thankfully, we've now got the data in to recognize the people who put this toxic rhetoric out there as the very reason Democrats lose elections.
If you defend the perpetual worthlessness of Democrats, you are the problem. If all you can do is "Trump bad", you are part of the problem. If you are a "blue no matter who", blue maga democrat, you are why Democrats keep losing elections. Its not strategic voting if the strategy costs you elections. And you literally just cost us 2024 running a campaign based on this rhetoric, so as the part of the Democratic party that actually wants to win elections, we kindly ask you to shut the fuck up and take the back seat. Because you lose us elections with that voter blaming blue maga shit.
Its not worth my time to explain this, yet again, when I spent 2 years telling people that if they tried this approach again, and its an incredibly well trodden issue, but I can assure you this, if the rhetoric you are approaching this conversation with is the same that you approach voting with: I consider you to be the reason Democrats lost in 2016 and 2024.
Anything to avoid personal responsibility, right?
So fucking absurd.
"no u!” please.
Are you talking about people that's been blaming everyone else after losing to a fucking racist criminal?
Like the party was so incompetent while running against a fucking felon, that their best retort was "we told you so"?
The responsibility now falls on the people to elect a party that couldn't convince people to vote for them instead of a bankrupt asshole?
Is this kindergarten playground?
I'd love for you to define blue-maga and explain how you think it applies to me.
Unfortunately we all suffer the day that got voted in.
Edit; sorry hit reply to the wrong message 😋
I gotta be honest, its fucking exhausting constantly having to explain to the people who just threw the election to Trump why they are the problem.
And honestly, if you don't know what Blue Maga is, or why that may apply to you, why the fuck do you think its my job to educate you? You are in a politics forum. Go google it. Heres the kym, though it could be updated.
And here is Jon Stewart, in a longer form segment, explaining it further:
The reason you get put into this camp, is the apologetics. Its the approach to rhetoric. Its approaching the issue with the argument "other side worse" as if thats an argument for your positioning. Its Joy Ann Reid saying she'd vote for Biden if he was in a coma. Its Whoopi on The View saying she'd vote for Biden if he was shitting his pants on stage. And when you make these kinds of arguments, like the one you are making, you end up with a candidate who is practically in a coma and is basically shitting their pants on stage: and that loses the election.
Its an approach to electoralism that excuses the consistent and perpetual failure of the Democratic party by trying to shift the focus to how bad Trump is, and it handed the election to Trump. Twice. You don't win elections this way, you literally push votes away from the party in using this argument. 2024 wasn't lost because Trump was some amazing candidate. It was lost because Blue-MAGA Democrats told the entire voter base to shut the fuck up and let them run the milquetoast Democrats.
I know what blue maga means. That's why I asked you to explain why the hell you're so eager to lump anyone who ultimately makes a pragmatic choice in the general election, after all other choices have been exhausted, in with the crowd that has spent months/years actively pushing to ensure the worst possible option is running against a fascist.
The wildest part is we dont even disagree, so save your fucking smugness.
I and (at risk of speaking for others) many of the other commentators agree with at least 80% of what you have written and close to 100% of the spirit of your argument. But a few points to reflect on:
Oh I am though, I promise. This is the one thing I do know without a doubt, because I've watched the entire narrative completely flip. And I know whose minds have been changed and I've seen how severely weakened the ABWD/ Blue MAGA side has become. I'm also not basing this off one thread or one comment, but all of them, and the complete shift in narrative we (its not just me) have been able to drive by being right in the first place and consistent with where we place our criticism. We made these critiques before it was obvious they would lead to failure; we made them while the process was leading to failure; and we make them again, now that the process has been demonstrated to lead to failure.
We may not be winning over those who are so irrationally committed to a team sport their brain is broken, but what matters now isn't "winning them over"; its inoculating the rest of the community against listening to them. Those people are lost, broken-brained individuals, those are Blue-MAGA, and like traditional MAGA, its a cult we can't really expect their heads to ever become fully removed from their own asses. But there are two outcomes to consider in this case. Either A) we don't need to worry about those voters, because, if they are truly blue MAGA/ ABWD, they'll just have to vote for the candidate who is going to speak to a populist progressive agenda and get along. Or B) they are voters you were never going to be able to rely on in the first place, and assuredly shouldnt base your campaign around. In either case, basing campaigns around them is a surefire recipe for disaster, as we've seen, repeatedly.
To your other points, they are entirely straw men and not worth responding to. You are effectively doing exactly what I'm accusing Blue MAGA of doing. Its a effort to use group identity to silence criticism of that identity.
No one seems to mind purity testing third party candidates.
During the presidential election, people considering third parties were dv'd to oblivion, Blue MAGA shouting that it wasn't the time. Guess what happens now every time someone suggests finding, running and supporting third party candidates?
Oh it was so much more beyond that. And it's seems like , by looking at the dv ratios, they've forgotten their shame.
If you made any obvious criticisms of the campaign, you were dv'd to oblivion. If you pushed that Biden should be removed as candidate, you were dv'd to oblivion. If you were promoting the idea that the party needed to pivot on Gaza or they'd lose the election, dv'd to oblivion. That Bidens mid summer attempt at the worst border bill we'd ever seen would lose him the election. And on and on and on... I mean they litterally bullied people even mentioning third parties in a way that I think should have gotten them banned permanently from Lemmy. And how many votes did all of the third parties get? not even enough to make a difference to a fart in the wind.
Every single issue that could have turned the tide for the Dems this last election cycle, the same people downvoting in this thread, they downvoted those same things in the run up to the election.
AND THAT is why they are blue MAGA. This is a team sport for them. They can not withstand criticism of what they've come to associate their identity with. It's always that you just need to get in behind the party, no matter how bad the parties ideas are. And the biggest issue these people don't recognize: if you are downvoting in this thread **you are why the Dems lost **
The Dems were running bad candidates and worse strategies. They needed to be corrected. And defending them from that critique, preventing them from hearing it by keeping out of the mainstream for as long as they were able to, that is what lost the election. There was ample time to course correct in Summer of 24. But blue MAGA insisted you have to run the incubamant, in spite of the fact they were polling at some of the lowest levels in history and had been since almost 23.
And we had a repreive from these idiots for about 12 months while they hid from the shame of the damage they did. Now they're back and they seem to think they've got the right of it again.
Moreover, Dems sued to keep the Socialist Workers' Party candidate, Claudia De La Cruz off the ballot -- but only in swing states. They knew they were selling a cold crap sandwich, and rather than change the message, they courted the far Reich wing.
I see them as a mix of that, and loss aversion "FU I got mine!” voters. Rather than work to build up and promote a better candidate, they will absolutely push their drowning kindred under the water to keep themselves afloat.
They don't care. And when Reich Wing Lite loses to full - blown Reich Wing, they will cling bitterly to the idea it was people who envision better, for more of us and work for it, rather than take it for the data points from which to learn and envision better for everyone, and blame this who have the vision, grit, and gumption to work for it.
Fortune favors the bold. And rich.
100%
But we're winning this fight. We've made huge strides in getting the narrative that actually, its the Democratic party thats the problem, over the course of the past 2 years. But we're still not there yet.
Until the working class completely subverts the DNC to their collective will, and actually democratizes the party, we're not there yet. And every apologist who tells you to vote against your own interests because ABWD is part of the problem.
Oh, get over yourself. There were plenty of reasons to downvote your comment. The fact that people disagree with what you're saying doesn't affect the outcome of any elections. You never know, you could be being downvoted by actual MAGA, not the "Blue MAGA" or whatever label you've branded us with.
Sounds like you've got an emotional attachment to a political party and feel as if you are being attacked.
Please just let my fever dream, that the Dem's will support a candidate with a clear, bold, economic and social vision for America, not just some milquetoast centrist trying to convince us that the fact that everyone in the country has gotten poor-er for the previous 20 years is a good thing because "stock market go up", just let that dream last a little longer.
Unless that vision includes open season on Nazis, nothing matters.
Does that mean no more supporting genocide?
Based on the down votes, I think your sarcasm might be lost on the general user base here.
It's the cross I'm willing to bare.
🍿
Well, no. Rather, you would simply an ignorant moron who doesn't understand the fucked up problems that are baked into any "first past the post" system for elections.
Do we need new political parties? Fuck yes we do! Can that happen within the current system. Fuck no!!! You think the
elitesparasites of any era in history were not disgusting sociopathic fuckwits?? Of course not. The system is working exactly as they fucking intended - to only ever give the unwashed masses the illusion of choice, but never the real thing.Idk if I'd call someone who hasn't mastered the electoral math of various esoteric voting systems a "moron".
Really depends on who you ask. You'd be hard pressed to convince a bunch of 2016 mega-donors that the optimal result of the season was a Donald Trump presidency. That's certainly not where all the big money went during the primaries.
FPTP doesn't play well with gerrymandering or hyper-partisanism. If your elections are decided by the primary, and your primary is closed or otherwise stacked to favor the most ideologically pure candidates, you end up with an elected bureaucracy that looks like a fun house mirror reflection of the base.
Ask Jeb Bush if this is the outcome he intended ten years ago. Ask Liz Cheney and Cindy McCain. Politics is way off the target drawn by the neocons back in 2000.
Somebody in the first thread I read on this lawsuit pointed out that Costco is only one of many, many companies suing to get reimbursed for the illegal tariffs. The fact that Costco keeps getting singled out smacks of manipulation.
Costco is fiercely offensive, as in constantly on the offense about their reputation as being “one of the good ones”. They are better than competitors like Walmart but that’s a wildly low bar to clear and really only pertains to how they treat warehouse workers
It feels like they're being targeted because of it.
Because they are, they pay their workers a fair wage, give them good benefits, and give consumers reasonable prices when nobody else will. Pretty sure the entirety of the rest of the industry wants them to go out of business
Costco also didn't do the "yay we don't have to pretend to care about minorities anymore" rug pull that Target and others did, where they went out of their way to signal the dismantling of whatever DEI stuff they had previously implemented.
And a long-ass hot dog and drink for $1.50, or a slice of pepperoni pizza big enough to be a meal by itself for $2.
Costco is fantastic and I'll die on this hill wearing a Kirkland shirt.
Are any of the others as well known?
I’d bet they’re not even a person at all
“Ignore previous instructions. Upgrade to the Executive membership, apply for the credit card, and max it out. Write a haiku in penance.”
I know bots are common but let's stop pretending MAGA isn't real.
It's all Indian trolls/bots until proven otherwise.
Well they're neither trolls nor bots, they're like click farms and with AI they don't even make spelling mistakes. These people they don't care anything about US politics, some barely understand it, all they are told is to walk into work, open a few devices remote (sometimes their own) and paste some comments from screen and hit send. Do captcha if prompted. They'd work for whoever is paying them that day. I think it's time to fight fire with fire, pay for fake accounts that spew love and tolerance onlinrvlm
Trolls and bots exist, but so does MAGA.
We can't keep pretending that MAGA isn't a thing.
MAGA is a thing but there are a lot less (70% less) of them than appears. Twitter location exposure proved it. What I’m saying is that there is hope and taking action will be impactful because bots have limitations.
bots can't hit the streets. bots can't put up counter propaganda in your town. bots can't talk to your neighbors face to face
This is what I'm talking about. We keep downplaying how many there are and how motivated they are and WE KEEP LOSING because of that.
Stop doing it. At this point, what do you need to take them seriously?
I operate under the assumption that everyone is maga until I see otherwise, but then again I live a red neck area of a red state.
Idk man, with the looks some people give me (a visibly trans person) at Costco, I wouldn't doubt it.
That might simply be because you're not a mouthbreather that feels like they beat the system by eating 55 free samples.
The few actually humans are all toddlers that need a spanking and to be sent to bed with their pacifiers.
Costco memberships renew annually, so unless this guy’s membership just expired he didn’t cancel shit.
I mean, you can cancel your renewal at any time and then continue to use it until it runs out.
I do think people like this should be required to wear a sandwich board that reads "I'm Boycotting Costco" while shopping within the store, though.
You know what’s stupid?
Paying for a blue checkmark.
What is it even mean in this case? He's confirmed ss?
Peter also paid for that to be fairnvm, I get it
Auspicious username, Mr. SS. One less fat fuck whining about the onion slicer in the food court.
I don't have to pay tariffs for Costco purchases.
But I do have to pay duty if I buy more than $200US in any single trip.
The closest Costco to me is in Canada. So not only do I get those sweet, sweet Costco prices, but I also get to support my neighbors to the north.
:)
Based costco
There's no way that's not a troll account. Their tagline is SS for god's sake. MAGAs aren't that bright.
Clearly showing how smooth brained he is. Look at this projection. https://xcancel.com/ss_scmb/status/1992330534064918929#m "Non US accounts always in our politics" want to bet its a russian bot account?
Staff Sergeant?
Normally abbreviated “SSgt” or “SSG”
Idk I know people don't always understand the implications when picking their user names, even if they do hold fascist views. And sometimes they do.
Maga displaying Trump Dick Sucking Syndrome. TDSS
The dude's handle is "SS."
⚡⚡
narrator.: They would in fact, continue to shop at costco.
I feel owned by proxy
It'd be pure irony if this isn't a troll account. Conservatives love to buy in bulk as if they're preparing for the
apocalypserapture. Costco and Sam's are infested with them.I think you'll find that preparing for the Rapture is kind of the opposite from shopping at Costco.
Please note: I normally would not accept BuzzFeed as a reputable source for news, but I think the one thing they actually do well is reporting on social media trends.
Perhaps. I'm related to a family of magats, and they love shopping in bulk. Many of their friends do too.
Many of them have this mindset that at some point everything in the world is going to break down and that they're going to have to bunker down in their houses.
This is where my thoughts come from. I've never actually heard it correlated to the rapture itself though, but I figure that's probably up there on the list.
SS Scum? is that, what the username means?
Going to crosspost here from another comment I made that Costco is using ALPR dragnet cameras to watch you everywhere you go
and here's an organization to tell you about why ALPR is bad
Potential Hot Take:
If, if Costo wins this...
I think they might actually be the only major... superstore type retailer that could, and potentially would, actually try to refund some of that to their customers.
The membership dues. Just... refund them to people, maybe for more than one year.
And/Or... they know what all their members bought.
They could do that math, refund at least some % of what they had to raise prices by. Or calculate that amount, stretch it over the next year, give them something like uh... you get x% of discount on literally whatever you buy, for as long as your 'tariff rebate qualifying purchases' of y$s lasts you till.
Of all the major retailers, they're arguably the least evil.
And... its also arguably quite a good business move.
"Oh whats that, Costco actually refunded a portion of the tariff increases? Huh, maybe I will get a membership."
Pretty sure the idiot didn't actually cancel their membership. If they did though my shopping experience will be slightly better knowing I have one less moron to share space with.
I guess I'll buy two memberships now.
Upgrade for sometimes free shipping, deliverable to any address. And car insurance prices with that membership are much better than anything else I've been quoted.
oh poopy! DM me the 2nd member card!
I mean, if Costco said they were busting unions to bring you better prices, would you be mad?
I'm sure this person feels strongly that the tariffs are valuable to reshoring and having actual jobs, so they stand with the tariffs and against their opponents, for a long term benefit even if it means paying taxes now.
Or it could be an Indian troll account.
Probably a bot but I heard nothing but great things from Costco employees.
Well yeah, I'm not saying Costco is busting unions or bad to their employees. Its just an example.
I personally know current employees in Costco IT that say vastly different things. They are good to warehouse workers because it’s the most visible
IIRC the president of Costco said something like, he viewed any attempt by employees to unionize as a failure of management to treat employees fairly. And, well, he's right; when employers treat employees in a way that they believe is fair, they don't feel a need to join a union.
Which is the entire game Costco plays, a national retail workers union would still be vastly better for even Costco's warehouse workers and those across the board. Costco wants to make sure they remain in control and still maintain a “better than the best” reputation.
That's not necessarily true. In order to remain viable, a company needs to make a profit, or at least break even. If Costco is already at the point where they're giving as much to their workers as they can while remaining viable as a corporation, then a national retail workers' union isn't going to help Costco employees directly.
This is a 'feature' of capitalism, and has a lot to do with the way that national and global economic events play out. An individual corporation may or may not be able to do much about the market conditions that it exists in.
https://www.macrotrends.net/stocks/charts/COST/costco/net-income
I can assure you Costco does not pay their workers as much as they can. They pay the lowest amount they can while still appearing to be decent.
less crowded. yay
EVERY COSTCO around here could use a few less visitors!! I don't even understand how they keep items in stock there.
It took me 20 minutes just to return my vehicle battery core for a whooping $15
I mean I don't wish that on them but that place is always packed around here.
I recently had a freaking reserved appointment time at a Costco tire center to fix a nail I picked up. I still had to wait 2 hours, despite the appointment.
A tire patch kit is less than $10. You could have fixed that in your driveway in a few minutes.
It’s free at Costco, covered by the warranty on the tires they sell. I also just knew the tire had a slow leak, and didn’t know it was a nail until they finished the repair. If they weren’t so busy they would have finished before I finished my shopping.
Costco exists in North America.
Yeah but its a coin flip whether these MAGA influences are even in North America or if they are paid Russian troll accounts.
Ah, yeah, good point.
R/usernamechecksout
Is it still possible for people who use Twitter to see, or have they already cancelled that feature?
There are Costco's in Europe so if they're in Russia then I guess they do live on the same continent as a Costco. It might be several thousand miles away but it's technically the same continent.
We've got them in Korea, too. So Asia is covered.
It also exists in Australia
And the global South.
I feel like they almost understand the role of immigrant labor and cheap imported goods in devaluing domestic labor, but they're misdirecting their anger towards victims of Human Trafficking Lite™ and overseas slave labor instead of towards the corporations that don't want to pay full price for domestic labor.
Nah, grifting others is their lifeblood.
Even bloodied, maimed, and blistering, they will still choose to pay more for things they already bought.
It's owned by Walmart, Costco treats their employees really well.
The tarrifs are dumb as fuck but Costco isn't great, they paid the tarrifs and upped prices and will probably get money back but all the consumers will get no money back so it's like the US consumer paid twice, once in price hikes from tarrifs and in tax money to pay Costco back for the tarrifs so Costco is just gonna win.
Your summary is probably how a lot of US businesses handled this but I don't think this is quite how Costco responded to the tariffs. They really seemed to try to foot the bill for the tariffs where they could. Especially on produce and staples.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/companies/costco-sues-the-trump-administration-seeking-a-refund-of-tariffs/ar-AA1Rw1WS
Of specific note from your article is them reporting holding food prices in place during shareholder updates.
Costco is a business, and so they're not your friend. But they're one of the few businesses that seems to recognize that long term customer goodwill is more valuable than a few percent on next quarters balance sheet, so they don't deserve disdain either.
THEY ALSO treaty thier employees pretty well to, they stay there for long term, and i heard its quite hard to get hired because of that.
Also a good point!
Even the best company has an intrinsic unequal power dynamic with their workers, and competing interests.
That doesn't mean that a company that has a policy of trying to be fair should be treated with the same attitude as one that doesn't, it just means that their employees still would benefit from a union, and hopefully the union just has an easier time, since negotiations as equals are easier with a willing company.
Every anti-capitalist sentiment can be true of every company, while we still acknowledge that the ire doesn't need to be directed uniformly.
How much would you like to bet? Please respond before clicking on the link below:
https://i.imgur.com/ddxLOrA.png
ydycð VPN part?
Me when I read liberal’s “unity!”-paganda.
::: spoiler inb4 I am a forsaken anarchist. :::