u/nakfoor

I think many of us have a personal anecdote about knowing a conservative who has a progressive carve-out in their politics because they were at one point personally affected.  Maybe they are pro-LGBT because they have a gay family member.  Or are pro-universal healthcare because they or someone they know was ruined by the health care system. Or are pro-choice for a similar reason. Or become against Trump because tariffs hit their industry.

My question is can this phenomenon be taken as a sign of hope that conservatives can be convinced with the right arguments that progressive policies are desirable?

Or is this to be taken as a negative, indicating that there is a barrier of selfishness that is impervious to statistics and hypotheticals, and can only be penetrated by mostly rare occurrences of being personally affected?

I really like Quake 1.  I was playing through the original and the expansions recently.  I especially liked Dimension of the Machine.  My problem is it gets old fighting the same enemy cast through the whole thing.  What's there is certainly really good and compliments each other well.  But I think it needs more to enhance the variety of the game.  I get tired of the same progression of early-game ogres and knights to late-game death knights and vores over and over. It reminds me of the advancement from Doom 1 to Doom 2.  Doom 1 only had the two former humans, the imp, the caco, the lost soul, the baron, and the two bosses.  That worked well enough for one game but it was Doom 2 and its hugely expanded cast that really took the amount of situations you could have in an episode to an exponential degree.  Especially ones with special behaviors like the archvile and the pain elemental. I feel like Quake never got that opportunity.

I became aware of this case today. It pertains to eminent domain. It was decided 5-4 in favor of the city who allowed a private company to develop some populated land. But what stood out to me is that the liberals + Kennedy were the majority opinion while the conservatives dissented. Yet many civil rights organizations were arguing on behalf of the plaintiffs. At face value you would expect the conservative court to be in favor of the business. What am I missing here?

I think this would be a great movie for the Podcast. I think its a movie about self-discovery, healing, and reconciliation. Intimate parent/son and brotherly bonds with other people over a lifetime.

Fathers and daddys are heavily featured in the film. I liked it when it first came out but hit me in a completely different way recently after my dad died in 2025. I felt like on an emotional level it perfectly captures the feeling of reflection and the insatiable desire to understand and speak with a deceased parent. How sometimes that feeling of loss and that emotional journey can change who you are. It's now one of my favorite movies.

In my time it's been a sandwich shop, hot dog shop, Mexican food, Korean food, then Court Street Eats. Why can't anything survive there?

I was watching this interview and this came up. What are your thoughts on this and the interview in general? Link below. Specific quote is at 17:30

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OQeh\_Pg0Nz0

I'm a 34M who has had a back pain that has not gone away. About two months ago I woke up one morning with a pain in my lower back. I don't remember doing anything unusual. Although it seems like it was building up prior to that. I'll explain later. It has the following characteristics. Its focused around my spine but slightly biased on my left side. It's in the lower back like right where the spine meets the hips. Maybe about 6 inches up from the start of my crack. The pain is concentrated, maybe about a quarter-sized area. In terms of severity it was a 7 when it first started. It recovered considerably but has plateaued in recovery now. Most days its a 4 on average in the sense that its present and is physically and mentally draining but can be lived with. The activities that aggravate it the most are standing from a sitting position, standing in general, lifting something with too much weight on the lower back, and walking. I run alot and strangely running doesn't cause it to flare up. In fact its not present at all when running. Walking will quickly degrade it, however.

I'm a healthy weight (188 lbs, 6'3") and fit in the sense that I do a lot of long distance running. I could be better about strength training and core exercises. As an attempt at self treating I have been doing ab exercises again and it does seem to help. But I need to be more consistent.

As far as the build up I had mentioned, I feel like I noticed a much lesser version of it whenever I was standing. Whenever we'd have a standing meeting at work and I would be standing for a long time, I would notice the pain start to build. It was only slightly uncomfortable and I didn't think much of it. I filed it away thinking I needed to do more core exercises and that was it. Then something broke and now its an advanced version of that pain. I honestly dont remember how long that was going on. I do commute a lot and have been doing so for the last two years. Four times per week on average I'm in the car for 90 minutes.

Overall it doesnt affect my lifestyle too much in that I can do the majority of what I want to do. But its ever present nature is demoralizing because it makes me feel older and tired more quickly. I think at 34, that slight hit to my moral and ambition is putting me on a negative trajectory.

Any ideas what it is and what can be done?

I was just wondering if there was a consensus opinion on this. Like if its recommended to get to 20% equity before you start looking at renovations as opposed to as soon as you buy a home at 3% equity. Or is it more, if you want to do it, do it?

I was thinking that Obama was the last standard bearer of the Democratic party that men of all ages and backgrounds could connect with.  Men of all ages could see an aspirational version of themselves in him as he was fit, young, energetic, empathetic, a powerful orator, and highly educated.  He presented men with a powerful option in which they could define their masculinity.  Republicans were backfooted.

I feel like since Obama, the Democrats have not put forward a universally aspirational male candidate for men to connect with.  There have been some that have been fine for certain slices of the population.  Tim Walz could connect with older mid western men to some degree.  Joe Biden was the right man at the right time for a country that wanted to return to normalcy. 

The only other I can think of is Bernie Sanders who was a powerhouse but I think came up a little short in terms of universal popularity due to his age.

I don't feel like men want to be Gavin Newsome, or Pete Buttigieg, or even James Tallerico, due to various reasons such as seeming too sleazy, too arrogant, or just a little too soft, aesthetically. I think Zohran could have potential in the future.

This has left a vacuum that Republicans have filled with their own alternate version of male image.  Trump is an aspirational candidate for men, in the sense that he offers them a clear and attractive image to aspire to.  He embodies a form of masculinity centered around revenge, accumulation of wealth, and domination.  My contention is that Democrats have not produced an alternate image of masculinity to compete with the Republicans since Obama.

Do you agree?  Do you think offering a competing image is key to winning again? What does that look like?

Democrats have not won the majority white vote in a presidential election since LBJ.

Fundamentally, I think people look for their own identities in the parties' front-facing aesthetic.  Whether that be race, background, or aspirations.  The composition of the Republican politicians has been almost exclusively white, male-dominated, and conventionally masculine in appearance for a long time.  Therefore, white people and especially white men see their own identities in the GOP.

At the same time, Democrats have the aesthetic of a multi-racial, gender-egalitarian coalition.  Politicians come from diverse backgrounds and ethnicities.  It's a big tent that many different kinds of people can see themselves in.  Hence why it outperforms across non-white demographics.

Is it possible for the Democrats to remain the multi-racial party while also recapturing the white vote?  Can Democrats reclaim the white vote simply by having more white, male, traditionally-masculine candidates at the forefront?  Or will doing this erode its advantages as the big tent party?  Is having both a possibility? Should they even try?

The usual advice is that a strong enough economic-populist message will break through across racial lines.  However, I think there is one thing standing in the way.  That is, there is a subtext that by joining with the Republicans as a white person, you can have all the power.  You don't have to share with other kinds of people, your access to the best housing, jobs, and opportunity will be protected. Through the elimination of immigration and DEI, as an example.  Essentially it's a competing argument against economic populism that says: why share when you can have it all?

Do you think Democrats can find a message that simultaneously lets them remain the big tent party while also overcoming the Republicans direct appeal to white identity and reclaim the majority of the white vote?

My 2.4L I4 automatic camry has an issue where it will bump a few times at low speeds and at stops.  By a bump I mean a small clunk where the engine sounds like it had a misfire and there is the slight sensation of the car trying to move itself forward.  The quintessential situations are:

First starting up, putting it in drive, letting it roll, it bumps a little with no gas then a little more when first starting to give gas.

After cruising and coming to a stop, it will bump a few times at the stop while waiting.

In reverse its really noticeable, bumping through the entire thing.

My instinct is the transmission because the sensation is that of the transmission of power trying to engage.  Instead of allowing the transmission to slip at the right times when power is not needed, it feels like its try to engage.  Like something is tapping the flywheel.  Also, most important to this line of thinking is that it doesn't do it in neutral and park.  Last, I've had misfires before and those usually throw the check engine light.  But I'm not ruling it out.

Alright this one has been driving me crazy for a while. I have a recollection of being about six years old and having a demo of a game that was a third-person shooter with an espionage-action aesthetic. You could pick from between at least one male or female character and I think they had different stats and equipment between them. The gameplay was using guns and gadgets to progress through a level in a linear fashion and your enemies would be humans with guns. These would be like guards, insurgents, or goons with guns who would shoot you on sight. I remember we had the demo and the only level was on an island or a coast-line. You would start in some ruins to get the hang of it then move outside where you'd have to fight the armed men to progress. Seemed like other locations in this level were open, outdoor stretches of the island/coast on a sunny day, maybe a villa, and a ruin. I think I remember at one point you approach a ruin and there's a sniper who shoots at you.

I went through a list of third-person shooters from 1998 and Syphon Filter fits the bill about 90%. It has a male and female lead character that fit my memory of what the player character looked like. It has that espionage-action aesthetic. The graphics and gameplay match whats in my head. I was prepared to say THIS IS IT. But there's one fatal flaw... it was a playstation exclusive and we did NOT have any consoles in the house. Putting that aside I also couldn't find an island level. So, what am I thinking of?

What is an event or concept that you feel is most central to how conservatives arrive at their policy opinions or worldview in the current era.  In other words, which event or concept, if explained, would be more consequential in changing a conservative's worldview?

I was thinking about this because I was thinking about some things about the first Trump term.  One being the Ukraine impeachment, and I think that one has just sort of floated by without ever being really understood by Trump-aligned people.  Another being COVID 19 as it relates to public policy of health, and Jan 6 as it relates to the extent of the intent to overthrow the election.  Others being some of the SCOTUS decisions such as Citizens United, Bush V Gore, and Trump V US as it relates to the diminishment of checks and balances on the executive.

Bonus question: will we ever start to close the information gap on some of these events?

Bot armies serve three purposes for right wing channels. One, fake engagement to boost the channel. Two, fake popularity to add credibility. But I realized a third reason. The endless stream of brainless one-line comments prevent opposing messages from reaching the audience. It makes it impossible to make and boost a comment that pierces the echo chamber with contradictory information. Just something I was thinking about today.

There is a narrative that I became aware that says the following.  Democrats dominated politics from the early 1930s to the late 1960s because the New Deal policies were successful.  Within that there is an important and sometimes overlooked truth that non-whites were often excluded from New Deal programs.  The narrative says that in the Civil Rights era, when non-whites began to be cut in on some of the opportunities for housing, jobs, and political power as whites, this soured part of the electorate on New Deal style policies.  The effects remain to this day.

Do you believe this is an accurate representation of history.  Or is this just a false mythos?

If so, do you think this is still an obstacle in getting the majority of Americans on board with social democracy?

Non-Americans, have you seen anything like this in your own country?