I vote blue with my nose held as always for harm reduction, but neoliberals like Pelosi are why so many actual leftwing people that want a society walked away, they have no party that isnt enthusiastically part of the root problem of maintaining crony market capitalism at society's catastrophic expense.
I guess they just want to be in charge for no other reason? Not really sure what their game is, but they'll follow the money to get elected and then do what their donors wanted them to do. Then??? I'm not really understanding what they have to gain other than insider information.
Profit. That's pretty much it. Why does anyone seek excess power in a capitalist society? Personal wealth gain. That insider info allows them to make their winning stock trades, and the "perks" they receive from their high offices (think private jet travel, free meals, tickets to events, etc) ensure that their expenses are kept at a minimum. Their lavish lifestyles while we struggle, and the fact that they could help resolve society's problems yet don't to keep the status quo, is the epitome of "fuck you, I got mine."
I don't really understand how it's a lavish lifestyle if you have to hang out with a bunch of politicians and business people all the time. That sounds like pure hell to me. Like you're going to hang out with the vice president of East Coast sales for some manufacturing company or some shit, no thanks.
Yeah but some people get off on it, like that being in the company of the rich and powerful increases their social stock (in their own insular world), and some thrive on that type of stuff.
I think that's partially why the well connected and famous billionaires are such miserable assholes. Their lives really aren't that great because they're all uninteresting losers surrounded by uninteresting losers who sold their souls for money and power and spend decades between having any moments of real joy.
It's like that movie, The Mask (and it's like that for the rest of us, too): the more times you put it on and the longer you wear it, the more you meld into it and the mask into you.
I only ask because Americans are trained from birth to know (through for profit media and oligarch captured public education) that money is the alpha and the omega, the beginning and end, and the very meaning of existence and life itself as its own end.
It's why we're a bunch of rugged individuals competing against one another for oligarch scraps and not a society. It's the wedge that informs all others to keep their exploited capital batteries at war with each other instead of looking up at the greedy bastards running up their ego scores by burning us.
Yeah, but I don't really care what other people think of me, so I don't feel the need to have to have a ton of money just to impress other people. Though having more money is always helpful just to make things easier in life. I'd be much happier if I didn't have to worry about paying for things like healthcare and education.
Congratulations, you bucked the overwhelming norm. People who make it to Congress, with the exception of spoilers, have proven to their respective parties through state elections that they love money, don't get bored of getting moar money, and know how to get it. That's how you get promoted in the parties. It's all they care about.
Because our values are so far beyond fucked it's almost funny in an absurdist humor kind of way.
Yeah, but I don't really care what other people think of me, so I don't feel the need to have to have a ton of money just to impress other people.
I'm sure most of these politicians also don't care what other people think of them which is why it's so easy for them to do all this vile shit and stand in front of a national audience telling complete lies with a straight face. They aren't doing it to gain approval from other people, they're doing it because they're following their own concept of what an impressive person does.
........let her keep running then. Seems like an easy win. Even if she wins her 4th run, it was still a net positive for the democrats. She lost 3 times, and won 1 time. That's a +2 for democrats.
Ugh... I don't really want to be that guy, but she was well liked when she was first in office. In fact, I dare say she was cool once when she advocated for more AIDS support in the late 80s and pissed off Reagan, which is always good. But that was around when I was born, haha.
Unfortunately House seats rarely see competition, and I'm certain she grew complacent with age. Almost 40 fucking years, oof.
She's not the best, but she's not the worst. Her biggest crime is what, using insider knowledge to trade stocks?
It's not like she gave a list of our spies to the Russians. Or likely sold classified documents. She didn't betray our allies. (Do I mean the Ukrainians, the Afghanis, or the Kurds?)
She was miles better than Manchin or McConnell. She wasn't our best, but she sure as hell wasn't a Republican. She got vilified primarily because she was a prominent Democrat for years. And it stuck because there was more than zero legitimacy.
They vilified her so much that some douchebag went after her and her husband with a hammer. There's a reason they didn't go after Manchin or Sinema or Menendez or McConnell or Gaetz.
I had a chem teacher in highschool that loved "Pelosi." He never drank coffee, just 2-3 cans of, as he put it, "cola joy."
He was the kinda teacher that if you didn't understand something and asked questions, he'd say the exact same thing, only SLOWER and LOUDER. I hated chemistry until i got to college and met real teachers, and I've hated "Pelosi" since.
This is funny because an "elder statesperson" is valuable because they've been in the room for allllll the dirt, over decades. They are a walking blackmail bomb and are tolerated because they can call in "favors" when compromise is really really needed.
Edit whoever downvoted this, care to comment? If you think this was a "yay pelosi" comment you're wrong.
Hi. Not the downvoter, but I'll weigh in. I get single downvotes on a lot of my comments. Comments that I can't see a single reason TO downvote. One time somebody was a single downvote to me say "what?" after a guy went on a long long rant that didn't say anything of value.
The point is, on Lemmy, I'm convinced there's a single guy, who just goes around downvoting EVERYTHING. Because I notice the trend isn't just MY posts. It's all over Lemmy.
So somewhere, out there in the world, is one guy, in what I assume is a dirty trailer, just downvoting everything, because he's miserable.
I've heard that some apps may make it a little too easy for some users to accidentally up/down vote without realizing. I've definitely caught a few accidental votes myself, so I'm not sure how many more I didn't notice. Also, totally random anecdote, but the pockets in my "house pants" have a weird fabric that combined with the on body detection to keep my phone unlocked sometimes allows my thighs to "butt dial" if I put my phone in my pocket with the screen facing my body, and I'm sure other people have similar stories about accidental inputs, so I wouldn't worry about it too much.
I can tell you, that i truly and honestly think that Nancy Pelosi is the greatest! She's never wrong about anything, and I'm totally not eating my own vomit as i type this!