Без названия

It’s the same shit it’s been for years and years now. You can’t say shit like this or enable Republican victories by withholding your vote and relentlessly lying about the Democratic Party or openly say you don’t care about handing the Supreme Court to the far-right in 2016, and then cry that people hate you for being “too left." No, it’s that you’re much too similar to Republicans, not simply in enabling GOP victories, but in your reactionary bullshit.

tl;dr (screenshot from mariacallous, as I try to stay off twitter)

The reasons are many (homophobia, transphobia, being pro islamist, being communist, etc), but a big one in my opinion is that support for LGBTQ+ rights is a big thing that disproves their claims about Normie Dems and Libs

Look at the Democrats now vs 20 years ago, the anti-lgbtq+ Dems are basically gone, they either got forced out or came around to the rest of the party on the issue, fuck look at how things were 30 years ago, you couldn't be pro lgbtq+ outside of NY and Cali

Speaking of coming around to the rest of the party

I'm going to be blunt, if Muslims want to be part of the Democratic party, they need to get with the program or get out

Leftist logic is that 98% of Democrats supporting LGBT rights doesn't count because the 2% of red district Dems having to appeal to their voters are indicative of the party as a whole.

blatantly spreading the Greater Israel conspiracy as fact, and calling Israel itself "quite antisemitic"

I started watching him after deconverting from the Christianity I was raised in, his calm and thoughtful demeanour helped me avoid falling into the angry atheist stereotypes. while obviously critical of religion, he's always been very well educated and understanding, so seeing him repeat antizionist/antisemitic talking points without a second thought has been very disheartening :/

I think it’s primarily a Protestant thing, and even then, skews towards the less seeker-friendly fundamentalist/Evangelical churches.

Out of the handful of Christian schools I went to, I think only 2 of them really used it (one because it was already there in the Methodist church next door we used as a chapel, and the other had like… a full on Color Guard about it; that was the one that made us pledge allegiance to it).

We had to pledge allegiance to the Christian flag,

And to The Savior™️ for whose Kingdom™️ it stands,

One Savior™️, crucified, risen, and coming again

With life and liberty for all who Believe™️

And to the Bible, the Holy Word™️,

To make it a lamp unto our feet and a Light™️ unto our path

I think it’s primarily a Protestant thing, and even then, skews towards the less seeker-friendly fundamentalist/Evangelical churches.

Out of the handful of Christian schools I went to, I think only 2 of them really used it (one because it was already there in the Methodist church next door we used as a chapel, and the other had like… a full on Color Guard about it; that was the one that made us pledge allegiance to it).

We had to pledge allegiance to the Christian flag,

And to The Savior™️ for whose Kingdom™️ it stands,

One Savior™️, crucified, risen, and coming again

With life and liberty for all who Believe™️

And to the Bible, the Holy Word™️,

To make it a lamp unto our feet and a Light™️ unto our path

Yes and no.

It definitely came from the US, and the flag and pledge are obviously drawing from the American flag/pledge, so a lot of the connotations/associations it has are for sure rooted in Evangelical Americana, and it’s probably more common here than elsewhere, but it is a thing internationally, including in Canada.

There was even a controversy a while back when multiple Canadian local governments raised it.

So, you gotta think to yourself "how would this character vent their insecurities/frustrations at the expense of others?" and work from there.

Needless to say I've been thinking about these idiots a lot.

One part of the protests are Traditional Indigenous Owners wanting to visit sacred sites and rock art within the exclusion zone.

The other part is the Free Palestine Omni-cause, which somehow involves conspiracy theories about a joint military installation in the centre of Australia.

Pine Gap is home to a CIA base and satellite communications equipment. It is subject to similar conspiracy theories as Area 51, when the simple answer is "it's a good place for the ground based portion of spy satellite operations, because it's in the dead centre of a very peaceful continent... Making it very hard to attack".

There was a single, little known event last year that has completely changed my mind on single payer:

Federal employee health plans stopped covering gender affirming care.

Few people know about this. It didn't make the news. But in response to trump's executive orders in 2025, all healthcare plans offered to federal employees stopped providing certain healthcare coverage to trans folks at the start of 2026.

The federal government is the largest employer in the country. This affected millions of people overnight.

There is very little legal basis to challenge this. The Supreme Court ruled years ago in Hobby Lobby that employers can choose what coverage to offer their employees. So at the stroke of the pen, the president took away access to certain care for millions of people. And there's really nothing anyone can do about it.

Yes, only a fraction needed that care. But this is the foot in the door. First trans healthcare, then it'll be contraception, then vaccines, then routine care. First federal employees, then medicare and medicaid.

This isn't even getting started on how hospitals and doctors aren't covering any gender affirming care for minors anymore based on threats from the trump admin alone.

And I reiterate: employees can choose what to cover, and there's really nothing you can do about it, except pay out of pocket, buy your own insurance, or go to a different employer.

If the federal government becomes the sole source of healthcare coverage under a single payer system, the federal government can also take it away, and there will be nothing you can do.

Under a single payer system, an insane president or HHS secretary can take away whatever care you depend on at the stroke of a pen. I don't care how strong the enacting laws are. They can just stop paying.

So I can't support single payer anymore. This was the longest and most enduring progressive position I've held, and I can't abide it anymore. Like. This position hurts me to abandon. It was quite possibly my first and strongest political opinion from when I was young and my mother, a single mother and a nurse, taught me about the iniquities of the healthcare system before Obama was even elected and passed the Affordable Care Act. As an economics major, under a rational system, it should make sense and be the most efficient and cost effective. I built my goddamn political identity around single payer when I was in high school before Bernie was even elected to the Senate.

I live in a boring, stable country with universal healthcare. We also have private healthcare.

What this would mean is that if, G_d forbid, a similar corrupt and transphobic administration came to power here, people would be left with only the more expensive, private option.

That is still vastly better than the US clusterfuck because it’s one extra layer of defense.

Losing some public healthcare coverage effectively would just leave you where most US people are right now, today.

The way I, and many other M4A supporters, would conceptualize single payer healthcare is that it would displace or replace private insurance, and become mostly the only option, like in the UK or Canada. I know both countries have private insurance, but my understanding is that it's niche and not widely used. So that's the premise to which I'm referring: total replacement and government provision.

I know there are many other systems out there that are a mix of public and private, like I think Germany and Australia, but which I admit I don't fully understand. There are things like risk pools.

My understanding is that a mixed public private system would be anathema to many medicare for all supporters and would be viewed as capitulation. They don't want a mix, they want true single payer. Because evils of capitalism etc.

I'll note that in 2009 the U.S. came very close to a mixed public private system when early drafts of the Affordable Care Act included a public insurance option for purchase, which would have been a vast improvement. But it was killed by a vote or two in the Senate. So now we still have "only private" unless you qualify for Medicare or Medicaid.

Maybe I support a public option. Maybe I support risk pooling. I dunno.

AND it doesn't cover birth control because it's made for seniors first and foremost (fuck disabled people who haven't gone through menopause yet I guess). AND there's a law barring federal funds from covering abortion.

The changes to healthcare for federal employees is just another data point saying that you cannot really trust government healthcare. It needs to be available and accessible, AND people need avenues to cover gender affirming care, infertility care, birth control, and abortion.