I was touring apartments in the Chicago area earlier this year, and a lot of them were the same places I looked into back in 2010. In every case, the rents had at least doubled.
As an example, I lived in a one bedroom apartment with a $795 monthly rent in a nice suburb in 2010. Now, just 15 years later, the rent for the exact same apartment is almost $1,700.
Back in 2010, I was able to afford that price in spite of having car and school loans to pay and an entry-level salary in higher education. Could someone with an entry-level salary--which has not doubled--afford that rent now? Only if they didn't want to eat.
The path we are on as a nation is not sustainable. Cutting programs for the poor and giving tax cuts to the wealthy while boosting military spending will not make it easier to live in America. Conversely, tinkering with Obamacare and promoting the status quo will only allow pressing problems to fester.
Bold reform is needed to address the urgent problems our society faces if we want to stem the suffering and precarity people are facing daily.
Anya is live and ready to show you everything. Watch her strip, dance, and perform exclusive shows just for you. Interact in real-time and make your fantasies come true.
â Live Streamingâ Interactive Chatâ Private Showsâ HD Quality
Anya is LIVE right now
FREE
Free to watch ⢠No registration required ⢠HD streaming
this cannot be said enough: even if you voted for trump in both 2016 & 2020, but you're voting for Harris/Walz this year, YOU ARE MORE THAN WELCOME HERE. we need all the help we can get. if you've voted Republican for MULTIPLE decades but you plan on voting for Harris/Walz this year, YOU ARE MORE THAN WELCOME HERE.
centrists, moderates, libertarians, liberals, conservatives, Democrats, Republicans, even if you consider yourself far left, no matter how you politically identify but plan to make sure trump doesn't win: YOU ARE MORE THAN WELCOME HERE.
PLEASE DON'T BE AN ERNST THĂLMANN. DON'T STOP TALKING ABOUT PROJECT 2025/AGENDA 47. you're ALL welcome here if you want to fight for our democracy. check your voter registration status often (as many times as possible) & vote early if you can. talk to friends, make a day of it. LET'S DO THIS!!
I find it really interesting how we've been getting more and more films that are critiques not just of the powerful, but of the moderates. Sinners, Us, Saltburn, to name a few. Films that while the "bad guys" are representative of bigger systemic evils such as white supremacy, Classism, Patriarchy; the antagonists are not those on the top of the system, but usually someone from the middle who has bought into the rules of the game of hierarchy.
In Sinners, the vampires offer success for the trade off of letting them claim your cultural knowledge for their own exploitation. The depiction of the KKK as the more overtly racist evil, puts the vampires in the middle, offering more of a quid pro quo, rather than the straight elimination that the KKK promises. In Us, Adelaide, when given opportunity to escape the under class, she imprisons her double in her place, that if there's only space for one to thrive, it'll be her, solidarity being damned. And in Saltburn, while Oliver manipulates his way into and eliminates an upper class family, he does so from a place of Middle Class aspiration, and not one from a mindset that the ruling class is something abhorrent, that the wealth should be redistributed and the hierarchy destroyed. The fact that the film ends with Oliver's victory strut through his ill-gotten manor, shows him physically vulnerable and alone, shows his own inability to form true community, perpetuating the system.
These films highlight that it's not just the Evil Masters in the ruling class that are the problem, it's the mythologies of success and wealth that are promised for our participation in these systems, and how our participation can turn us into monsters in service of the ruling class.
Anya is live and ready to show you everything. Watch her strip, dance, and perform exclusive shows just for you. Interact in real-time and make your fantasies come true.
â Live Streamingâ Interactive Chatâ Private Showsâ HD Quality
Anya is LIVE right now
FREE
Free to watch ⢠No registration required ⢠HD streaming
Two new polls suggest that moderate Democrats too want higher taxes on the rich and some measure of economic populism. Moderate isnât what i
Perry Bacon Jr. at The New Republic:
The center-left group Third Way held a conference last week where moderate Democratic strategists and politicians blasted progressive ideas and the partyâs left wing. Third Way and other centrist Democratic groups espouse positions such as opposing Medicare for All and wealth taxes. In Washington, the idea that these groups speak for moderates across the country is never questioned. But now, some evidence is emerging that suggests Democratic voters who describe themselves as moderate are in a different place. They want Democrats to push harder to increase taxes on the wealthy and corporations and donât think the party is overly liberal on issues such as abortion and transgender rights.
This distinction between moderate Democratic voters and the partyâs moderate elites is critical to understand. Moderate Democratic voters are not centrists clamoring for a return to the Clinton era or rebukes of Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Senator Bernie Sanders. So progressive groups and politicians can probably push rank-and-file Democratic voters to the left on a wide range of issues. And more center-left Democratic politicians must (and increasingly do) adopt more progressive positions to remain viable in a party where even the people who call themselves moderate have fairly liberal views.
Iâm basing this analysis in part on a recent poll of some 2,400 prime Democratic voters (those who vote regularly in primaries) conducted in January on behalf of The New Republic by Embold Research. Respondents were given five choices to describe their ideology: conservative, moderate, moderate-to-liberal, liberal, and progressive. Only 12 percent said they identify as moderate, while another 21 percent called themselves moderate-to-liberal. And the interesting thing is that even among those two groups, their beliefs are pretty liberal.
Around 70 percent of moderates (combining the moderate and moderate-to-liberal respondents) said Democrats are âtoo timidâ in taxing the rich, taxing corporations, and cracking down on companies that break the law. A clear majority of moderates said the party is too timid in regulating Big Tech companies. Fewer than 5 percent of moderates said Democrats are âtoo aggressiveâ in their dealings with the rich, corporations, and Big Tech.
On other issues, from government spending to fighting climate change to LGBTQ rights, the overwhelming majority of moderate respondents said that Democratsâ positions are âabout right.â
Overall, about 70 percent of moderate Democrats think the partyâs economic policy positions are about right, compared to around 15 percent who think those stances are too liberal and another 15 percent who think they are too conservative. On social issues, about 65 percent of moderate Democrats are aligned with the partyâs stances, while about 25 percent think the partyâs positions are too liberal and 10 percent think they are too conservative.
[...]
To be sure, there are differences within the party. Liberals and progressives are (of course) even more left-wing on all of these issues. In the TNRÂ survey, a whopping 63 percent of progressives think Democrats are too conservative on economic issues. (Only about 15 percent of moderates think that.) Ninety-three percent of progressives think Democrats are too timid about taking on the rich.
There are also demographic differences. The partyâs moderate bloc has more African Americans, people without college degrees, people age 50â65, and people with family incomes below $50,000 than the party overall. The progressives are younger, whiter, richer, and more educated than the broader party.
And none of these surveys asked respondents about defunding police departments, abolishing the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency, canceling education debt, and other firmly left-wing positions that might have shown a bigger gap between progressives and moderates and more outright opposition from moderates.
But the overall picture is one where even the most moderate Democrats arenât clamoring for a more aggressively centrist or conservative Democratic Party.
This data has important implications. Politicians associated with the partyâs center-left wing, such as new governors Mikie Sherrill of New Jersey and Abigail Spanberger of Virginia, often take populist and progressive actions. Thatâs probably because thatâs where their voters are. Sherrill and Spanberger are cracking down on ICEâs conduct in their states because thatâs what even moderate Democrats want. Arizona Senator Ruben Gallego, who has also positioned himself as a moderate and is considering a 2028 presidential run, is warning corporations currently collaborating with the Trump administration that Democrats will break them up if they get back into power. Texas Senate candidate James Talarico is also courting moderates by attacking the wealthy.
The partyâs growing liberalism doesnât mean that Ocasio-Cortez will cruise to the 2028 nomination. What it means is that taking some progressive stands, particularly on economic issues, is probably a necessity for even 2028 candidates, such as Governors Andy Beshear and Josh Shapiro, who are trying to appeal to moderate voters. And more progressive hopefuls, such as Ocasio-Cortez and Representative Ro Khanna, have a real chance to win the nomination if they can convince moderate voters that they could win a general election.
A moderate Democrat in 2026 is different from the moderate Democrats of the Clinton or Obama eras.
Progressive advocacy groups, ideological nonprofits, activist donors, and unions have enormous influence over candidate recruitment and poli
By: Jesse Arm
Published: Mar 9, 2026
California Governor Gavin Newsom suggested during a recent CNN appearance that to win again, Democrats need to become âmore culturally normal.â In response to this obvious point, far-left commentators accused Newsom of betraying the partyâs values and ceding moral ground to the Right.
The backlash was predictableâand, if you look at the data on who Democrats are, absurd. Most Democratic voters arenât radical. But the party is run by people who are, and who have built institutions to ensure that their preferences dominate.
A new Manhattan Institute survey of nearly 2,600 Democratic voters and 2024 Kamala Harris supporters offers the most granular look yet at this disconnect. Contrary to broadly held assumption, the Democratic base is not a caricature coalition of socialist revolutionaries and woke militants. The activists are there, but they are a minorityâand not a particularly large one.
In the survey, a plurality of respondents (38 percent) said that their party should move toward the ideological center. Just 22 percent supported shifting to the left. Democratic voters also said, by a greater than 2-1 margin, that future party leaders should prioritize effective governing over fighting Donald Trump and Republicans.
The median Democratic voter, in other words, is not asking for a more far-left version of the party. He wants something closer to the moderation of Bill Clinton or the politics to which Newsom is now unconvincingly paying lip service.
Analysis of the data suggests the Democratic coalition can be broken into three distinct blocs. Moderatesâvoters who identify as moderate Democrats, independents, or anti-Trump Republicansâaccount for 47 percent. They are demographically diverse, older on average, and the most electorally flexibleâonly 45 percent say they have never voted for a non-Democratic presidential candidate.
A second bloc, Progressive Liberals, make up 37 percent. They are reliably left-leaning, whiter than the other blocs, and disproportionately concentrated in suburbs and on the West Coast.
Last comes the Woke Fringeâvoters who identify as democratic socialists or Communist. These add up to just 11 percent of the coalition. The Woke Fringe is the youngest of the three groups, the most conspiratorial, the most likely to report poor mental health, andânot incidentallyâthe most likely to spend excessive sums of time on the internet. Notably, previous quantitative and qualitative Manhattan Institute research on the GOP coalition shows that the youngest and most hyper-online Republicans also skew hardest toward ideological wackiness.
As this distribution implies, our polling reveals that moderate views are more common than many might expect. Take immigration: in our poll, only about one in ten Democratic voters actually supports open borders. Fewer than a quarter want to increase legal immigration levels. Majorities favor shifting the system toward skills-based admissions while prioritizing the deportation of criminal offenders.
On public safety, Democrats are divided over their support for the criminal justice system in general. But they strongly support aggressive prosecution of gun crimes, view the police as essential to maintaining order, and overwhelmingly reject political violence. On transgender issues, most voters support preventing biological boys from competing in girlsâ sports, banning transgender medical and surgical interventions for minors, and requiring schools to notify parents if a child requests to identify as transgender or change pronouns in class.
The coalitionâs economic views are similarly less revolutionary than the partyâs rhetoric often implies. Democrats favor redistribution and consumer protections, but only small minorities embrace the more radical view that Americaâs economic system is so rigged it ought to be torn down or that billionaires should not exist. Most express real concern about welfare fraud. Large numbers show renewed interest in free trade and other supply-side policies.
On foreign policy, most Democrats affirm Israelâs right to exist, though younger voters are markedly more skeptical. Remarkably, two in three Democratic voters still say that America has historically been a force for good in the world.
If Democrats are this moderate, why does the party so frequently appear otherwise?
Part of the answer is the institutional ecosystem that now governs Democratic politics. Over the past two decades, a network of progressive advocacy groups, ideological nonprofits, activist donors, and aligned unions has accumulated enormous influence over candidate recruitment, messaging, and policy priorities. Primary candidates who deviate from activist orthodoxy often face organized opposition, well-funded primary challenges, and relentless pressure campaigns from within their own coalition.
As a result, Democratic politiciansâ incentives point toward escalation rather than moderation. Itâs often safer, electorally speaking, for them to echo the loudest voices in the party than to represent the quieter instincts held by most of their voters.
Economics supercharges this dynamic. Many party leaders depend directly on government spending, regulation, or nonprofit advocacy for their livelihoods. This produces a kind of patronage politics, as the leadership benefits materially from an ever-expanding progressive agenda. Any electoral value offered by moderation pales in comparison to the threat that it poses to these interests.
In such circumstances, meaningful reform rarely comes from within the system itself. It often requires an outsider willing to disrupt it. A decade following Donald Trumpâs hostile takeover of the Republican Partyâwhich paired a radical, populist disposition with substantive policy moderationâit is striking that a majority of todayâs Democrats now say they would support some notable figure from outside politics running for president in 2028.
Whether such a figure will emerge remains to be seen. What the data make clear, however, is that the Democratic electorate itself is not the problem. Most Democratic voters donât want a more radical party. They want a more normal one.
ââ
A new national survey conducted by the Manhattan Institute examines todayâs Democratic coalition and the tensions shaping the party ahead of
By: Jesse Arm
Published: Mar 6, 2026
A new national survey conducted by the Manhattan Institute examines todayâs Democratic coalition and the tensions shaping the party ahead of the 2026 midterm and 2028 presidential election cycles. The poll reached 2,593 respondents who are either registered Democrats and/or voted for Kamala Harris in 2024. The survey also includes oversamples of Hispanic and black voters who meet that criteria.
This study helps clarify a central question confronting the modern Democratic Party: is the median Democratic voter actually moving leftâor is the party being pulled left by a smaller activist faction that dominates elite discourse and low-turnout politics? The findings point to a coalition that is often more moderate, more internally divided, and more pragmatic than what is found across left-leaning social media, cable news, and donor-funded groups. More voters favor moving the party toward the ideological center than further left.
The Democratic coalition is best understood as three blocs. The largest blocâModeratesâhold middle-of-the-road views across many of the most contentious issues in national politics, including immigration, crime, transgender policy, and DEI. A second blocâProgressive Liberalsâleans left but remains closer to the partyâs institutional mainstream. A significantly smaller but distinct third blocâthe Woke Fringeâtakes consistently maximalist positions on issues and is disproportionately young and conspiratorial.
Across issue areas, the coalitionâs preferences tend to reflect this structure. On immigration, only one-in-ten take a true âopen bordersâ position, less than one-in-four want to see more legal migrants come into the country, and majorities support shifting to prioritize skills-based immigration and deporting criminals. On public safety, the coalition is divided over the criminal justice system in general, but it strongly supports aggressive prosecution of gun crimes, views the police as essential, and rejects political violence. On transgender issues, most voters support parental notification requirements, preventing biological boys from participating in girlsâ sports, and age limits on medical transitions. On economics, the coalition favors redistribution and consumer protections, but it shows limited appetite for âburn it downâ politics, real concerns about welfare fraud, and a new interest in free trade as well as certain other supply-side policies. On Israel, most voters affirm the Jewish stateâs right to exist, though younger voters are markedly less supportive and more open to antisemitic tolerance. And on national identity more broadly, two in three Democrats see America as historically a force for good in the world.
The political implication is straightforward: activist politics often speaks for the most ideologically intense voters, but on many issues, the majority view within the coalition is that of the Moderatesâoften alongside black and Hispanic votersârather than the partyâs most activist faction. The Woke Fringe, however, may still exert outsized influence in low-turnout primaries and online discourse. Because this group is younger, it represents a plausible source of future ideological change inside the party, even if it is not the median position today.
For the purposes of this report, the Democratic coalitionâor todayâs Democratsârefers to (1) all 2024 Harris voters, regardless of party registration, and (2) all registered Democrats, including those who did not vote for Harris. To understand the coalition more precisely, we divide it into three analytically distinct blocs based on self-identified ideology:
Moderates (47% of the Democratic coalition)âvoters who describe themselves as a âModerate Democrat,â âIndependent,â or âAnti-Trump Republican.â
Moderates form the largest segment of the coalition. With an average age of 53, they are somewhat more likely to be non-college graduates and are demographically diverse: 62% white, 17% black, 13% Hispanic, and 5% Asian. More than half live in suburban communities, and they are the most electorally flexible faction in the coalitionâonly 45% say they have never voted for a non-Democratic presidential candidate.
Progressive Liberals (37% of the Democratic coalition)âvoters who describe themselves as a âLiberal Democratâ or âProgressive Democrat.â
Progressive Liberals are similar in age, averaging 52 years old. They are the whitest (65%, with 11% Hispanic, 17% black, 5% Asian) of the three groups and are evenly split between those with a college degree and those without. A large majority describe themselves as ideologically left leaning. This group is also disproportionately concentrated on the West Coast and in suburban areas.
The Woke Fringe (11% of the Democratic coalition)âvoters who describe themselves as a âDemocratic Socialistâ or âCommunist.â
The Woke Fringe stands apart demographically and attitudinally. It is the youngest faction, with an average age of 43 and seven in ten members under the age of 50. It is the group with the fewest Hispanics (6%) but the largest proportion of black (22%) and Asian voters (7%); 60% are white. This group is more likely to live in urban areas, particularly in the Northeast. Ideologically, it is the most consistently left-leaning faction, with a majority identifying as âvery left-leaning.â Members of this group are also significantly more likely than other Democrats to report poor mental health (25%), compared to the other groups (14% for Moderates, 16% Progressive Liberals.)
[ Continued... ]
==
The Dems are a sane party trapped in the body of an insane party.