Right? The guard can get called to go to other places though, and is controlled by the government. I just think people should be prepared for whatever in their own communities, and if you’re a responsible member of that well regulated “militia”, then sure you can own guns.

I think leaning into the well regulated militia part of 2A is where I would focus. In my thinking every town or district or whatever would have a local militia. Anyone could be involved whether they want to be armed or not. Basically the militia would train for all sorts of emergency situations in a very local way. It would have to be independent from the government though. Like, only in your town. Where do we meet? What resources will we have? Are there good choke points we should defend? Under what circumstances? And then of course actually training as a defensive militia. Each militia should have an armory/barracks. While the individual person would still technically own the weapon, anything other than hunting weapons would need to be kept in the armory unless the militia declared an emergency and everyone got their guns and manned their posts. Maybe even hunting weapons. Just have a system for checking your weapons out for hunting or practice. I’d be willing to make this sacrifice. And I’d feel much more secure knowing I lived somewhere with a well organized militia and not reliant on some far off government or a bunch of yahoo vigilantes.

If that’s true then they should, not exactly flip, but the Dems should embrace themselves as being the “this is how far RIGHT you’re allowed to go before you’re a crazy person” party… Instead of what they are now which is the same but for the left. Completely ignore maga and they’ll die out one way or another, and start working with a more serious left and whatever the far left shapes up to be. Yeah the more serious left will take some of their more progressive members, but they’ll stay competitive with the Republicans joining them… You know, until the boomers are all gone. Then we’ll be rid of both of these monstrosities, and replaced with basically whatever parties the millennials and younger generations build. Maybe even an entire election system. Sorry daydreaming there at the end.

Gen x can come too if they want, I guess

The only one on your list that I would take up arms to defend is AOC. And she’s been pushing it lately.

The 2016 primary has nothing to do with what’s happening now (other than Clinton getting us into this whole mess with her arrogance and hubris).

The report you linked to shows what I’m saying. You should give it a read sometime. As I did… Weeks ago… Because I do plenty of research. I’m familiar with how campaigns are run.

You really think there’s millions of people out there on the fence between Biden and Trump? Like “I know I’m going to vote, but I just can’t decide who I like better, Trump or Biden”… or maybe you think there’s tons of people who are like “I’ll definitely vote for Biden because Trump is such a threat, but if it was someone like Bernie, no way, suddenly Trump doesn’t seem like that much of a threat.” That just doesn’t exist. The people on the fence this election are deciding whether or not to show up at all. If they show up they’ll vote against Trump, but the more they can believe in who they’re voting for the more likely they are to actually show up.

The report you linked to shows what I’m saying. You should read it.

Do you really think there are millions of people out there thinking “well I’ll vote for Biden, but it’s a close call… If it wasn’t Joe then I’d vote for Trump”? Who do you think is actually on the fence between Trump and Biden? No one… The fence is full of people deciding between showing up and not showing up. If we can get them to show up, they’ll vote against Trump.

I think she/Biden/Dems would gain more progressives than they would lose conservatives/moderates/independents… absolutely. The types of people who vote for Clinton/Biden ALWAYS vote… And they sure as shit aren’t going to vote for Trump or even stay home. They will vote for whoever is the Dem nominee every time. Which means a progressive would also get those votes. Maybe, big maybe, some of the more conservative Dems would choose Trump over Bernie, but I highly doubt it.

So everyone who would vote for Biden, would also vote for Bernie, but not everyone who would vote for Bernie would vote for Biden. The math isn’t that hard.

If you take a look at this chart from the article you sent, it sums things up pretty well. Bernie vs Clinton was just the blue. If all the liberals voted and all the progressives voted, Clinton wins. Obviously not all registered voters voted in the primary, but it still would have been pretty close. Also I won’t get into the fact that Clinton’s minions absolutely had their thumb on the scale.

However if you recognize that pretty much all the reds always vote, and the light blues always vote, then that leaves progressives (dark blues) left to sway. Except it’s just a matter of how many you can get to show up. IF they do show up, they vote blue. The Dems have to choose between dark blue and light red. They seem to think they can peel off more red than they could ever get dark blue. But they’ve never been able to peel off more than a percent or two… Meanwhile they basically tell the much larger group of dark blues to shut up and vote for them without ever actually courting them. In the end though… The difference between an R win and a D win comes down to how many progressives actually show up. That’s it.

Eh… I’ll agree to some extent… Though I think people are also deliberately restricted from taking meaningful action. And after 40 years of the center teaming up with the right instead of the left, when teaming up left would mean almost certain victory, I think many people are disillusioned and burnt out. They don’t see a way of ever being represented, given the current system, so they’ve given up on the system. The only way for someone to get them off the couch is to come with a plan to change the system completely.

Well, costs keep rising while my pay stays the same. I’m in mental health care, so in general not enough is being done to help with the mental health crisis we’re facing, and what is being done is clearly to increase pharmaceutical company’s profits more than to help people, so that makes my job harder. The fact that at no point have the Dems ever actually tried to unfuck our election system so I have to go through this nonsense every few years. More than 100k in Student loans that I can’t scrub with bankruptcy, thanks Biden. Medical bills that should be covered by single payer. And believe it or not, some people care about what happens to other people too… So there’s the genocide which isn’t actually a new thing, Dems have been supporting it for decades. The bullshit at the border. The drone wars killing innocent people everywhere. Education is fucked. Abortion rights are fucked. Dems never saw an increased military budget they didn’t like, while they continue to allow social services to be cut. Billionaires haven’t been taxed out of existence. On and on.

Shit for me is every 4 years being told “just vote for us this time and we’ll fix the election system so this doesn’t keep happening,” and then not even attempting to fix it… But yes all that other stuff too I guess

But they WOULD have shown up to vote for Bernie. And all those blue no matter who Clinton voters also would have shown up. And we’d have had Bernie instead of Trump. Instead, Clinton spit in their faces, gaslit them, chased the right (who most of these people consider to truly be the enemy )and then still had the audacity to demand their vote.

But don’t diminish the real fighting they actually did. They participated in one of the largest and most robust field programs US politics has seen since the civil rights movement. They knocked on millions of doors and spoke to millions of people. Often times not just pushing Bernie, but also pushing for downballot Dems as well. It’s a level of engagement effort most campaigns never even attempt

Especially if you were promised ice cream the last 4 times you agreed to come to the party, and once again you’re being told “sorry, all the ice cream is for the Nazis. Best we can do for you is this cone full of dog shit. What do you mean you’re leaving? Don’t you know YOU’LL be the one letting the Nazis win?? How dare you not take this cone of shit and be happy!”

Eh… Bernie got a shit ton of them out fighting for real… They just need a leader to fight for

You see, when most people think of “compromise”, they think of meeting halfway… When liberals and their corporate owners think of “compromise” they think “I give an inch, you give a mile”

Young people still have some fight in them (and they’re brains are still working on understanding long term consequences), so often times they see their great grandpa pacifying the rich and mostly ignoring them and they think, fuck that, I’d rather fight.

The people Biden needs to turn up, aren’t paying attention. They’re not not showing up because they’re pissed. They’re not going to show up because nothing about politics has caught their attention. They show up when something excites them. Dems know that, but still keep going for the least exciting candidates they can find. That’s on the DNC and Biden.

All of us were always going to vote… Let’s be honest. But that’s not going to be enough. Biden needs millions of young progressives to turn up and vote for him, but to get them to do that, he’s going to need to start meeting them halfway, instead of continuing to meet Republicans/fascists halfway.

Or is this naive optimism? We HOPE he isn’t, but all signs indicate OP of this comment is correct. Don’t bury your head in the sand. Recognize the reality and keep fighting to turn it around. And definitely DO NOT join in the gaslighting bullshit. Biden didn’t just “have a bad debate night”. He’s senile and has dementia… Don’t try to pretend he doesn’t. Stick to the fact that at least with him we’ll get a not batshit insane cabinet, and at least the government will be fighting against the fascists in the upcoming civil war, instead of fighting with them.

Oooo look at the pretty gaslight!

This is not gaslighting, but it is odd.

What would have happened if you had just said “sorry I’m really busy with work today and won’t be able to meet you at the drop off”?

If this would cause her to act the same way, then there’s something wrong. Maybe she recently did a true crime binge and is feeling insecure about her safety? Or maybe she’s showing signs of mental illness. If you guys are in your early 20s, that’s when schizophrenia typically shows up, and can definitely have some paranoia to it. But, you’d need to get a professional to diagnose something like that.

If it wouldn’t cause her to act like this, then she’s probably just pissed you didn’t do what you said you would do. Maybe you have a track record of this kind of behavior and she’s starting to get tired of it?