The Republican demands were to NOT do things, which can be moved towards by filibuster and delay. The Democrat demands are to DO things, and filibuster and delay would just get the Republicans what they want, while being able to blame the Democrats for all the negative effects that are surprising to their constituents. They need to find better messages and ways to get those messages out, absolutely, but it's not a mirror image to the Republican situation four years ago.
A lot of US benefits have "benefit cliffs" where making $1 more substantially reduces or even completely disqualifies a person from programs like SNAP (food stamps) or childcare subsidies or Medicaid. https://www.ncsl.org/human-services/introduction-to-benefits-cliffs-and-public-assistance-programs
It's not surprising people whose families are directly affected by, or who know people affected by, benefit cliffs think the lawmakers set up taxes the same way.
It's not coming from a centrist in this case: the article is written by someone who argues Bernie is insufficiently left.
Reading the article, the argument is that Bernie isn't left enough, and more radical candidates need to be run in primaries.
they’ve been shrinking as we ~~evolved~~ changed our diet
No genetic changes (evolution) happened. If as children we ate only very tough meat and lots of chewy vegetables - no bread or rice or potato softness - our same genetics would result in much larger adult jaws.
Using the original meaning of a word and not chasing off on the euphemism treadmill is hardly shifting to the right.
If it's representing value produced by a population, and that population is both growing in numbers and finding ways for each person to be more productive, it makes sense for the index to go up. The current drop in stock markets is not related to either population decline nor to some widespread productivity hit, meaning sustainability isn't the problem at hand.
Deep in human history, staying in good graces with our tribe was more important to survival than having beliefs be factual. We are genetically hardwired to pull whatever mental gymnastics are required to maintain membership in the tribe, because our ancestors who failed at that died before passing on their genes. It's not really stupidity or incompetence, it's an operating system property.
Fair, thanks for replying. I suspect I am much more worried about deteriorating conditions than you, and that different risk/benefit weighting leads me to different conclusions, but it's helpful to hear other lines of thinking.
Also, your serious replies prompted me to comment-stalk you a little, and led me to a few interesting conversations the lemmy algorithm had not otherwise shown me, so thanks for that, too!
Although its moneyed backers used that line in recruiting and messaging, the Tea Party was the opposite of grass roots: https://time.com/secret-origins-of-the-tea-party/
But yes, consistent victory at the ballot box over a long time period is key. The Koch money investments in the 1990s - thirty years ago - are still playing out now.
The politics aspect is much more driven by identity and social group than by sunk cost or refusal to have buyer's remorse. A singular respected leader can turn the ship - churches and pastors were critical in the US civil rights movement, for example - but groups can be more nebulous without a particular leadership structure, like how difficult it is for people to leave Twitter: even though most users agree the experience has significantly degraded, there is no critical mass agreed on a replacement.
The more nebulous groups can break up - Twitter's engagement is declining - it's just slow. Maybe years or decades slow to get to the point it's no longer one of the dominant social media. So I guess keeping the social connections open (giving someone who wants to make a major change an option to still have a friend or family member who will talk to them after), and patience.
Or work to implement ranked choice voting. The more localities use it, the more comfortable people get with it (the primary anti-ranked choice argument is it's "too confusing for voters"), the more chance it has to be adopted by more states beyond the current Maine and Alaska beachhead.