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.
A quick internet search suggests 36 weeks (eight months), which is well into the third trimester, is the most common start of restrictions, and many airlines will accept a doctor’s note the woman is low risk even past that. It was a 2008 election blip when the media got ahold of Sarah Palin flying while in labor because she wanted her special-needs baby delivered by the medical team that had prepared for him, which suggests even the written restrictions in airline policy are not consistently enforced.
Medical cost-to-value and care availability in the US is horrible. The baby steps toward lesser horrid like not allowing denial of insurance due to preexisting conditions barely scratch the surface.
If you are comfortable sharing (I know conversations on the internet can go unproductively negative fast, and engagement is often not worthwhile), do you expect to see costs like medical and grocery get better while Trump is President? If so, are you expecting to see that benefit this year, or for it to take a few years?
It would require a lot of housing density for everyone to own four dwellings (and would kill rent demand well and good), but I wouldn’t call it infeasible. For everyone to have a quarter acre lawn and a 2,000 square foot house that shares no walls with neighbors? With those additional requirements having everyone own four is infeasible, sure, but a belief that’s the only dwelling worth owning is how we have throttled our housing supply in the first place.
Are you envisioning the government being a major landlord, like in Singapore? It seems to work really well for that country, but Americans seem uncomfortable with the idea of government housing.
A responsible landlord is “doing” arrangements for property maintenance and handling all tax and other legal requirements, and my hard feelings are towards slumlords who let dwellings become unsafe, or property flippers who kick all the renters out and build new dwellings to sell to more wealthy buyers.
But also, isn’t the hate for landlords equally applicable to banks and other financial institutions that hold mortgages? They really are earning money by no other responsibility than having the capital available at the start.
We’re all operating on the same human operating system, yes. Would be nice if we could figure out how to sand down some of the sharp corners, though.
It got through in Maine and Alaska. I am very disappointed on the loss in Nevada, but hopeful the current two-state foothold gets people more comfortable with the idea enough to support it, or at least not spend energy fighting it, in their state.
Australia has had ranked choice voting for decades. Wikipedia describes their system as a “mild” two-party system. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_political_parties_in_Australia
I don’t see any reason the US would have a different outcome. But I believe transitioning from our current “hard” two-party system to a “mild” one would be a huge positive.
Thanks for the article link. The additional drama around the “popculture” sub subreddit just adds to the absurdity of the situation.
Worked at the United States Digital Service (USDS) before it was renamed doge and had its priorities completely rewritten. Maybe half were laid off, and then 21 resigned in protest. So 45-ish people left from the agency’s previous incarnation.
Susan W near the bottom is also “who”. She is White House Chief of Staff, so maybe that indicates White House employees differently from doge-specific employees.
I think no more than two parties would dominate, even in a ranked choice system. But they would evolve more representatively: party platforms are shaped by issue polling, with the ballot box being both the ultimate poll but also obscure on what exactly the detailed driving issues are.
Ranked choice voting would give single-issue parties a real seat at the ballot box, and enable the two big parties to more accurately adjust their platforms to target voters who first-choiced a little party and second-choiced one of the big ones.
Both Roberts and Barrett joined the liberal block on this vote, and as a 5-4 ruling both of them were required to get to a majority. That only Barrett is getting social media energy over it says something.
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!