So Trump won. Next few years are gonna be rough, I know. What happened, and where can the Dems go from here?

James Carville said it best: It’s the economy, stupid (even if he predicted the wrong candidate). Inflation was a big concern among voters, mostly driven by gas, groceries, and housing. Rightly or wrongly, many voters tied this to Biden, and through him to Harris. They viewed Trump as being likelier to fix things, with a big bold plan (tariffs, deportations, tax cuts). I suspect some (many?) voters wanted to punish Dems for inflation. Others probably thought Harris would worsen it. While she had a long proposal, she didn’t seem to talk about it much, nor boil it down to soundbites. Many of the demos that swung were hit hard by the price increases.

We saw swings among Latinos, young voters, and rural voters toward Trump. Some of this was due to depressed D turnout (Harris got 15 million fewer votes than Biden), but in other cases it was due to genuine swings. Starr County, TX went Republican for the first time in decades. New Jersey only went for Harris by single digit percentages. Black voters had a small 2% decline of the share of the electorate.

I think non-immigration identity politics played a smaller role. I do think Harris/Walz could’ve talked more about men’s issues specifically (suicide, the academic gap, poor job prospects), although they are hard to soundbiteify and not sound forced. They likely could've approached it from a universalist angle. Trans issues might’ve driven some voters to Trump, but I believe it was more localized (e.g., reduced margins in Loudoun County). Latinos likely weren’t particularly turned off of Trump because they aren’t a cohesive bloc, and in many cases not even the same race (you’ve got whites, indigenous, blacks, mixed, even Asian Latinos). Between the countries the cultures can be very different, to the point of each country hating the other. They can be more socially conservative as well, especially those in their 40s and older.

Immigration was definitely a bigger issue, dovetailing with economic issues (housing costs, “why are migrants getting help but not me”, homelessness). The migrant bussing by Gov. Abbott will be viewed as one of the greatest political maneuvers of the 21st century. It brought the issue to voters outside of border states. The number of people coming to the border was frustrating/scary for some voters.

Abortion didn’t play as big of a role, I suspect because many women don’t think they’ll need one, or because they don’t view care that legally may qualify as one.

The state of democracy didn’t motivate enough people for the Dems, in fact, some people who thought it was important voted for Trump.

Foreign policy didn’t play much of a role, although Israel/Palestine probably was significant in Michigan. But that needle would’ve been hard to thread for any candidate, and probably would’ve been less of a problem if other points were addressed.

I think the fact that Harris is a biracial woman did reduce votes, but I don’t think it was necessarily decisive in her losing. The right woman can definitely win (Thatcher won the U.K. in 1979, so it should be possible in the U.S. in 2024). I would probably hold off in 2028, but I don’t see an issue with running women long-term.

So, what are the takeaways for Dems?

1. Suburban white-collar voters are not the end-all be-all. They are a good bloc to have (reliable voters in many swing states, including in off-years), but they are not enough to outweigh the others.

2. You cannot take minority demographics for granted. They will not stay with you forever. They are not monolithic.

3. Social policy can only go so far. Its salience can be quite limited compared to the economy. Negatives can be very negative, white positives may be “meh”.

4. Running against someone, rather than for yourself only works so many times.

5. You can only have so many issues stacked against you and be able to win. If it was just the economy, it might’ve been closer, but you had the economy, and immigration, and social policy, and Israel/Palestine.

6. The average voter does not account for lag in terms of policy. Trump got credit for a good economy even though Obama did a lot of the work.

7. Places that are or have been “safe” are not guaranteed to stay like that forever, especially when paired with point 2, without work.

8. NatCon populism is here to stay. The combination of left-ish economics and social conservativism, propelled by apathetics and the hard right is a winning one, and needs to be countered accordingly.

9. Many folks view Democrats as being the “mom” or “Karen from HR” party. That is not the kind of reputation that wins elections.

10. It’s the economy, stupid.

Based on that, what would my strategy be for Dems in 2026/2028?

1. Clean house. The folks in charge lost 2024 and only barely won 2020. Care needs to be taken to ensure replacements have sufficient political/management experience.

2. Don’t be the party of why/if. Be the party of do. The former implies insecurity, the latter confidence.

3. Bring back the 50-state strategy. Open offices in rural areas. States viewed as safely blue came awfully close to flipping for Trump this year. But the reverse can also be true, especially with a good candidate (cf. Indiana in 2008 ). And even if the presidential candidate loses, downballot candidates can still win, especially in off-years. I think the Dems had a good ground game, and while it cannot make up for everything else, it’s usually better to have it than not. Local elections matter a lot because they have stronger day-to-day impact, and they are the breeding ground for future politicians. North Carolina had several good Dem victories.

4. Focus on economics. Moderate suburbanites aren’t enough to win on, and many people like Trumponomics. Go for smart tariffs, universal policies (e.g., Child Tax Credit, universal Medicare, etc), targeted tax cuts and increases along with tax code simplification, and one other oddball policy (withdrawal from the WTO? Annual gas tax holiday?) likely to be popular with voters.

5. Social moderation/tolerance. The party is a big tent one, and there’s going to be friction over social issues. This doesn’t mean abandoning core constituencies, but being smarter about rhetoric and candidates (you won’t win the Georgia governorship with an Everytown candidate). Candidates should be allowed to have differing views on social policy (especially if it is personal and doesn’t extend to the political realm), and there should be a mechanism to allow dissent on an issue an individual is out of touch on. Related: get the loudest social progressives away from the party. They frequently clash with it but manage to tie the party to an unpopular viewpoint with something they said on Xitter/Tik Tok. I did like the initial message of freedom the Harris campaign was putting out, but it didn’t seem to be used much.

6. Turnout still matters. You need to be able to turn out more people for you than the other guy.

7. (My weird, hot take-ish view) Go on an offensive cyber campaign. You’ve got Russian operatives shilling for Trump and the GOP. Hack them. Make it so they can’t just continuously pump out disinfo. Even a few million should be enough to establish a unit dedicated to fucking up Russian troll farms.

8. (Courtesy of @EgoEimi) Go for the reality TV angle. Lots of rallies, some political stunts, and bring loads of energy.

One final thought: Trump is a sui generis candidate. He energizes people who aren’t into politics normally. Thus far, the GOP hasn’t been able to translate that into off-year elections or non-Trump POTUS candidates. Nobody wants diet Trump, they want the real deal. When he passes away, it remains to be seen whether someone (Vance?) can take over with the same level of success.

Hi. I'm finishing my schooling and have received a job offer on the west coast (Vancouver). I also have comparably good, though marginally worse, job offers here on the east coast where I live (Toronto).

I'm familiar with Toronto and have many friends here or nearby, especially since I grew up and went to school not too far. However, the offer I have in Vancouver is "better" both in terms of compensation (though not that it makes a big difference) and in terms of the actual learning experience I would have on the job.

If this job was also in Toronto I would take it immediately with no hesitation. However, it being in Vancouver gives me some pause. I've visited the city and have some mutual, but not personal, friends there. The city overall is fairly agreeable, and I enjoy the nature and scenery a lot.

Question: have any of you made similar moves, how did you feel about it retrospectively, and how did you go about establishing a friend group outside of work?

The other thread about potential spam on the site got me thinking, can/should Tildes hide itself from Google and other search engines (aside from just the main page) to avoid the tentacles of SEO from infiltrating the site? I'm not sure how feasible that is, but I know reddit has the option to prevent your profile from getting indexed by search engines so perhaps that could be applied to the site as a whole.

There are currently four computers in my household: a Windows 10 desktop, a Windows 11 laptop, and two additional Linux laptops (those are "mine"). One is a very weak but new machine, basically the cheapest laptop I could buy that was neither Android nor literally a toy. It is running Lubuntu 24.04, and is used largely for writing and light browsing. The other is an older machine running MX Linux. Right now it's single purpose is running my Plex server. Given that setup, transferring files between machines is often a necessity.

Both my desktop computer and my Plex server are connected via Ethernet directly to the router. The other two laptops are connected largely via WIFI, although I do connect my writing laptop via an USB/Ethernet adapter for updates/upgrades and larger downloads when necessary.

Among other things, I often download movies on my Windows 10 desktop computer and then manually transfer them in batches to my Plex external hard-drive, and then to my Plex laptop (when it has enough space, otherwise I just keep the movies on the hard-drive). That is because it is way more convenient for me to (re)search what I wish to wwatch, find and download it to my desktop than it would be the case for my Plex laptop. The laptop is not only in a position that makes it uncomfortable to use but is also very slow even for basic things such as firing up Firefox. I also prefer to do the scraping using MediaElch and while it is a fairly heavy (probably Electron) application, my desktop is powerful enought that it doesn't make any diference. I also use Subsync sometimes, which is, as far a I know, only available as a GUI application on Windows.

Most content I find online is very practical, teaching me how to follow concrete steps to make things work, but I haven't found much advice on which programs or tech "stack" would be adequate for a specific situation such as my own. I just want a robust way to seamlessly transfer file between all the machines on my home without having to plug and unplug hard-disks and flash drives.

Any suggestion? Thanks!

I was just looking at a job posting. It's fully remote, good pay, and almost a perfect match to my skill set. It's got a somewhat humanitarian aspect to its mission even if there are also profit motive aspects.

I looked at glass door, and the overwhelming majority of the reviews are, "it's not a bad place to work, but it doesn't have good work life balance." Or "expect startup culture hours".

If you want to see the job posting, DM me and I'm happy to share, but I don't want to publish a public link when I might apply for it.

My question for Tildes is, what experience do you have just saying no to overtime / forcing management to prioritize by just telling them you can't do everything / etc? Is this workable if your work is good and you make an effective contribution in a 40-50 hour week? What are your success or failure stories? Strategies you used for vetting the team / manager? Other things I should be thinking about?

Thanks as usual for any thoughts.

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This is the eighth of an ongoing series of book discussions here on Tildes. We are discussing Kindred by Octavia Butler. Our next book will be The City We Became by Jemisen the first week of December.

I don't have a particular format in mind for this discussion, but I will post some prompts and questions as comments to get things started. You're not obligated to respond to them or vote on them though. So feel free to make your own top-level comment for whatever you wish to discuss, questions you have of others, or even just to post a review of the book you have written yourself.

For latecomers, don't worry if you didn't read the book in time for this Discussion topic. You can always join in once you finish it. Tildes Activity sort, and "Collapse old comments" feature should keep the topic going for as long as people are still replying.
And for anyone uninterested in this topic please use the Ignore Topic feature on this so it doesn't keep popping up in your Activity sort, since it's likely to keep doing that while I set this discussion up, and once people start joining in.

I will preface this by stating I'm not an American, and I certainly don't claim to speak for everyone. I'm also not against voting in principle, and in my own country I prefer to vote when I can, and have done so most of the time. But there were times when I chose not to, and there was a time when I regretted voting. I've also been browsing the English internet for a long time, which is dominated by Americans, and I've been part of English-speaking leftie spaces for a while too, which are also dominated by Americans. I base my post on these experiences.

There's a lot to be said on this topic, but I will try to briefly explain a key point I've been able to put into words only recently. Being a leftist, not a left-leaning person or a "leftist" that just means left-leaning liberal, but a genuine leftist, is a weird experience. You have a lot of issues close to your heart. You spend a great deal of time and energy learning to criticize the systems you live under, whether they be capitalism, nation-state, or some cultural hierarchy. You already feel alienated from most people on political issues, because you hold wildly unpopular opinions, and people treat you like a weird person for it. You get into a lot of arguments and conflicts as a result, which often result in further alienation. After all, refusing the status quo is not an easy thing to do, and it often leads to social isolation at some level. It's not predestined, and it's not all-encompassing, but you can't help but feel alienated from most. Their ideas, their ideologies, the things they endorse—it all seems, to put it mildly, a little bit insane.

Then comes the election season, and you realize the politicians of the supposed major """left""" option, which is actually just relatively left compared to the insanely right alternative(s), never take you seriously. They never voice policies that speak to your sensibilities, wishes, beliefs, morality, and principles. They always voice par for the course arguments, and obviously don't care for what you want.

Then, people that are part of the "normal" politics start making the same arguments. In my experience, this happens regardless of the country we're talking about.

• You should still vote for us. The other side is worse.
• If you don't vote for us, you're a traitor.
• A vote not cast for us is a vote cast for them (interestingly, the opposite of this is never voiced: "a vote not cast for them is a vote for us.")
• I don't approve of them in every way either, but this is the lesser of two evils.
• This is not the time to be having these arguments. It's a time for unity.
• This is the only option possible.
• You're not voting out of privilege. (extremely untrue, can even be called an outright lie)
• You should be logical and not emotional. Vote with your brain, not your heart. Be an adult.

The last item on thist list, I think, strikes at the heart of this post. People expect you to be this ultra-rational decision-making machine, "pragmatic" to the core, always willing to shut up and toe the line when it matters, without a care for what you want. But they don't expect this from anyone else (barring minorities). The far-right, right-wingers, centrists, liberals, people satistified with par for the course politics—they all get to voice their wishes, wants, opinions. They all get to act according to their own emotions, without critically examining their own beliefs, ideology, behavior. They all get concessions made to them by politicans. They all get to have a say. But not you. You should shut the fuck up and vote for them. You don't get a say.

They take it for granted that you would vote for them, that's why they never take what you want seriously. They give tons of shits about every other group, which are all part of the status quo politics, but they never give a shit about you. That's why they never make concessions to you.

At some point, naturally, you realize how hypocritical, unfair, and insidious this is. You may not consciously know it, or even be able to put it into words, but deep down you feel it: everybody else gets one, but not you. Then they seriously expect you to support them. And when you don't, they go on a witch hunt, labeling you a traitor.

For example, they expect you to be fine with "your" candidate supporting a genocide, even though this is the worst possible thing a country can do, and then be baffled when you don't take this well. And god forbid, if you "act emotionally" and have your own worldview and sensibilities, like every other group does, and not vote for them, you get labeled a traitor. These people don't realize that their own eagerness to so readily uphold the status quo politics, resulting in your own wishes and values getting eternally ignored, brings about your response.

So, I think this is why a lot of leftists don't vote when they prefer not to. I suspect this also applies to other demographics, such as minorities that get overlooked. And as long as the status quo politics ignores this problem, it won't be solved.

I think, for other people like me, something we can do is to voice why we don't vote when we choose not to. Because the status quo politicians and their supporters seem very eager to get the wrong message, which is "we need to move further right". This, of course, doesn't work, because right-wingers choose the original instead of the imitation anyway.

What I'm saying, I guess, is a very simple democratic process. If you want people to vote for you, you have to take them and what they want seriously, and at the very least make concessions to them. If you do not, they probably won't, and you can't blame them for it. This is how it works for every demographic. So, instead of blaming potential and future voters and supporters, you should criticize the party that failed to get their support.

I've spent the past months with an unhealthy obsession with "the news", due to both an election in my own country and the one in the US. Maybe it was an attempt at being in control of a situation I have absolutely zero control over, despite it shaping aspects of the world I really care about. But that control is an illusion.

I've rediscovered an older article by Rolf Dobelli called "Avoid News – Towards a Healthy News Diet". It argues against the value of high-frequency (daily) news consumption in 15 points. It does not vilify journalism as a whole, however, arguing for replacing a daily feed of online news with individual, high-quality, in-depth articles consumed weekly or so.

I know that I probably can't resist having some idea of what is going on in the world (and I have some niche interests that I genuinely find productive to keep up with). So I'll try something simple: No "news" (quotes because I include random social media feeds in this) during weekdays. No news websites, no tildes, no reddit. There's ways to filter for the top posts of the "last 7 days". I never use this feature since I look almost daily, anyways. Well, I'll try and make that my default way of consuming social media. On weekends I can decided to use some of my precious free time to read up on the "big" events of the week. I hope this will make me realize that most weeks go by without producing any information that I can use to improve my own life (both privately and at work) or that of people I care about.

There is stuff I'm looking forward to: This sounds depressing but I have this huge list of non-critical things I wanted to accomplish that I kinda stopped even considering because every damn minute of free time I had was spent doom-scrolling. I hope the "touch grass" people are right and spending more time focused on my own environment will also help me get a better sense of what is important.

I also feel slightly guilty about the thought that this will make me less compassionate towards people who live outside my own bubble and whose stories I would not hear just talking to friends and family. This is an attempt to put my head in the sand and pretend that large parts of the world do not exist. But the truth is: There is only so much I can do, effectively. I can maybe join a group dedicated to fixing a specific wrong or raise awareness. Maybe two. But I could never address that whole laundry list of problems from my news feed that left me paralyzed with fear. I will have a more positive impact on the world if I focus on less.

Let's see where this goes.

I'm looking for something to keep me busy / focused on with minimal actual concentration, planning or learning required. Things that you can't look away from while playing or you lose what you're doing. Nothing that involves interaction with other people.

Things that have worked for me for this in the past are Bejeweled 3 lightening mode, Insaniquarium, driving around mindlessly in Forza Horizons.

I'm kind of terrible at anything that requires twitch reflexes, so anything that punishes you for slowness isn't great. Bejeweled it's not a problem because the game is basically identical no matter how you score.

In shadows cast, a serpent sleek,
With bands of black and white.
In self-encircling, fate draws near,
A moment tense, a future unclear.

Yet, ere the bite, a raptor bold,
Descends with grace, a tale unfolds.
Its talons clasp the serpent’s plight,
A dance of choices in the fading light.

Two paths converge, in present’s hold,
Humanity’s tale, a story bold.
Betwixt self-will and forces unseen,
The dance of fate, on history’s screen.

Preface: I am familiar with Habitica. This idea would probably scratch a similar itch, but I'm also using this as an opportunity to sharpen my Rust skills.

My idea came about when I was trying to find out some new tactics to curb my alcohol consumption, which isn't quite out of control yet, but I don't want to tempt fate.

I've also really liked the progression aspect of RPGs. What if I could gamify my quest to not drink alcohol and make it sort of a fun, unique RPG experience at the same time?

In the broadest sense, it would go something like this:

• You open the game up, ideally each day. You are instantly prompted: "Did you drink yesterday?" (and perhaps it will go back a few more days if you skipped).
• For each day you answer "no", you are rewarded with some sort of tokens, credits, etc. -- currency to play the game. If you answer "yes", maybe you get penalized somehow.
• Then, you pick up your journey, which is sort of a standard RPG experience -- fighting battles, buying gear, learning spells, leveling up, advancing through the world, you name it.
• The game should get progressively more difficult, but should not have an ending, as "quitting alcohol" does not have an ending either. At the same time, it should scratch the RPG progression itch.

The initial game concept I came up with is just one that I see as the quickest way to get this off the ground, which would be something CLI-based, where you are presented with a menu ("visit shop, enter arena, view equipment" etc.). You spend battle tokens to enter into arena battles, which reward experience points, money, and gear. You level up, work towards a build (there needs to be a way to respec because restarting isn't really an option), and progress through the arena.

In total, you would probably spend less than 5 minutes every day playing the game, which is by design. It should be an every day habit. But, there should be enough entertainment value that, if I'm not getting those sweet battle tokens by not drinking, I'm missing out on experiencing the game (or, I could lie, which defeats the purpose of the app).

So that's where I'm at right now. I'm really interested to hear your thoughts, ideas, critiques, etc. before I spend a free weekend building out a concept.

Some questions in particular:

• I was leaning toward just building this in CLI because it will be extremely simple. It could just be a matter of STDINs. However, I'm open to other Rust-based options. Is there a good Rust UI toolkit or web framework that is worth looking into that would make this a little more modern?
• What about game features? What could make this a really fun experience, while also balancing the whole concept of being built around your life and your habits?

In the end, this is a deeply personal project that would be built, first and foremost, for my specific needs. But that's not to say I couldn't build it with some scalability in mind. Rather than asking about alcohol, perhaps the "habits" can be customized, and so forth.

Anyway, have a great weekend!

This topic is part of a series. It is meant to be a place for users to discuss creative projects they have been working on.

Projects can be personal, professional, physical, digital, or even just ideas.

If you have any creative projects that you have been working on or want to eventually work on, this is a place for discussing those.

What have you been watching and reading this week? You don't need to give us a whole essay if you don't want to, but please write something! Feel free to talk about something you saw that was cool, something that was bad, ask for recommendations, or anything else you can think of.

If you want to, feel free to find the thing you're talking about and link to its pages on Anilist, MAL, or any other database you use!

The blaze has officially ignited!

The November 2024 Backlog Burner is officially live. Use this topic to post about the games that you play.

Quicklink: Backlog Bingo

Etiquette:

• It is fine to make multiple top-level posts throughout the week.

• It is also fine to respond to your own posts.

• If you are playing Backlog Bingo, you can share your table either by markdown or through screenshots.

Gameplay guidelines:

• Goals for this event (if any) are entirely individual and self-determined.

• Playing Bingo is optional and not required.

• You do NOT need to finish games unless you want to. The point is to try out games and have fun, not force ourselves to play things we're not interested in.

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I recently switched over my reading platform from Kobo to BookFusion. BookFusion lets you upload your own ebook files and sync them between devices, so I spent a lot of time de-DRMing my Kobo library and porting it over, as well as adding in some old de-DRMed books from my old Kindle.

For "traditional" titles I plan on still buying them on Kobo and then just stripping the DRM and transferring them over, but I also know there's an entire internet out there full of non-traditional publishing:

• Authors who sell their ebooks directly to consumers (e.g. Cory Doctorow)
• Publishers who sell ebooks directly to consumers (e.g. Boss Fight Books, Topatoco)
• Ebook bundle sites (e.g. StoryBundle)
• Public domain works (e.g. Project Gutenberg, Standard Ebooks)
• Assorted other stuff that doesn't really fit a simple category (e.g. this Planescape: Torment novelization)

I'm interested in adding some of these to my library, given that it feels like the "spirit" of BookFusion is to bring your own organic grassfed files, rather than glom them off of a DRMed service like I have been doing.

The hard part is that discoverability for stuff like this is really tough, since they're sort of just scattered across the internet. Furthermore, when I do tend to find stuff, I tend to find entire catalogs rather than individual titles. It's hard to know what's worth diving into from entire collections. That's why I'm hoping people can help me out by pointing me in the direction of specific stuff that they've loved!

With regards to recommendations, I want to leave the topic open to anything and everything. I don't want to limit this topic to just my tastes, in case other people find it useful.

If people do want to tailor some recommendations to me though, I tend to love sci-fi, nonfiction, LGBTQ stuff, videogame-related books, and comics/graphic novels (but only if the series are completed).

Important note: I am NOT looking for pirated books. I'm happy to pay for books I'm interested in, especially if they're supporting independent authors/publishers or online hobbyists.

As part of a weekly series, these topics are a place for users to casually discuss the things they did — or didn't do — during their week. Did you accomplish any goals? Suffer a failure? Do nothing at all? Tell us about it!

A place to collect articles about what happened in all the other contests.

Edit: please post what the election results were (with a link to the article) at top level and then we can discuss them underneath it.

Recently I was watching the World War 2 series "Masters of the Air". In one of the last scenes, there is an American prisoner of war who climbs up the flag pole and replaces the German flag with the American flag as American troops liberate the camp. I thought it was a powerful aesthetic image: A battered flag of freedom replacing a flag of oppression.

The American flag looks very nice to me, especially used in dramatic art. But I think that's mostly the connotations of my upbringing. If you look at the aesthetics of it without any history of it, it looks like a striped tablecloth sewn to a starry apron or something. And to a lot of other people in the world it looks like greed or violence or oppression or something else again.

I'm sure these aren't original thoughts, but the use of this flag as a symbol has been bothering me for the last 8 or 10 years. It's been co-opted to mean something different than before, inside the very places where it previously would have much more positive connotations. If I see that flag on a big pickup truck, I have a strongly negative connotation with it. Or if I see it defaced with a blue line on it. Or if I see it on the pin of a politician. Or on a pole in a used car lot. Or in any advertisement.

This is more about my own naivete about whatever the United States was actually about, separate from what we are taught as children and the stories we tell ourselves. But I'm guessing a lot more people have these thoughts than did a few years ago.

I remember some people a few years ago were telling progressives to "Take back the flag from the right wing". I guess I don't know if that's going to work, there seems to be a poisoned well now and anyway everyone always brings their own experiences to such symbols and your display of positivity may have the opposite effect on others.