While that’s true, I think by positioning ourselves at the 2nd state, it allows us to “negotiate” our way down to getting the 1st state. Its kind of like haggling. If you start at the more extreme position, opposition will (in an ideal scenario) try to find a middle ground to agree on. And that middle ground would look like the 1st state. It’s a way of combatting the ratcheting effect.

Woah. That sounds interesting. Care to elaborate?

It’s literally the artist’s self insert OC. How else are they supposed to communicate that they’re talking about a personal experience about them self and not speaking broadly on the topic? Notice how the person commissioning the NSFW art is pictured very plainly without much detail. That’s because they’re a generic stand-in. But the artist is more detailed, because they are a specific person.

Or. And hear me out here. The message of the comic is “the author thinks sex is gross. The author doesn’t like drawing sex. The author is willing to give up on those values for the right sum of money.” And it’s a tongue in cheek joke about how their opinions can be easily swayed by financial incentives, rather than a reflection of all artists.

I completely agree on the idea of voting for Harris for harm reduction. But I’m genuinely curious why you think her being elected would put us in a better position to get progressive reform. She showed that she was completely unwilling to back down or change her stance to get elected. Once she had won the election, there really isn’t any reason for her to change her stance. Even the idea that she would try to gain popularity to be reelected seems unlikely. Because if we have already proven that we’ll vote for someone not because they have good policies, but because they have less bad policies. The next election would be the same. With her most likely running for reelection. And either Trump or some other far right extremist running against her, forcing a repeat of the hypothetical 2024 election where she won.

It’s a rather bleak cycle, that makes it frustrating when people constantly hammer against the voters for not holding their nose and voting for the lesser of two evil, rather than the Democratic party in general for not listening to what their constituents want, and changing to a more populist progressive policy. I don’t agree with the protest voters, but I can at least empathize and understand where they’re coming from.

The really depressing thing is that even after losing because of it, we’re still not seeing much of a shift within the party. This should have been a wake up call for them. But it seems they still haven’t learned their lesson and seem more intent on using the Republican party as a cudgel to beat the population into voting for them, rather than actually adopting policies that make people want to vote for them.

I agree with the sentiment, but the reason they’re looking at third party apps is to avoid the control that payment processing companies have over censorship following the whole Visa/MasterCard issue.