Disability rules are extremely obtuse and unclear to both social security workers and people who need the benefits. See also: this npr story about similar bs.. Fiscal conservatives seem to think that if they make these programs punitive and stressful enough then the people who rely on them will simply stop being disabled (or stop existing).

This is the best advice here. Checkerboard pattern.

Pretty sure the normalization of sexual violence and harmful attitudes came from the adults in my life. If parents and teachers adequately teach kids to identify those things and know that they are unequivocally wrong, then teens who see unhealthy stuff in porn will notice and be critical of it. Probably indignant, too, since no one is more justice focused than a teen who has just learned something about the world.

The issue is backward ideas about relationships being reinforced by adults, either through active misogyny or just never talking about it. This argument boils my blood because the porn itself is not the problem. Awful attitudes about relationships and women start very early and they often come directly from parents themselves.

You’re so unbelievably right here.

Appeasing them is dangerous. I see this line of thinking a lot, but it has never led the dems to victory and it has repeatedly compromised our own values and degraded trust in the party. We cannot and should not cater to the worst people in the room at the expense of our own morals. It is wrong, but it is also a losing strategy.

Yessss

Fwiw, I am harshly critical of most elected dems but I have never considered not voting. I think I and many people hold our allies (for lack of better term) to higher standards and get angrier when they fuck up. So I think a lot of these posts are just that. Harsh criticism of a candidate =/= not voting for them. People are strategic about voting pragmatically, they’re just also very frustrated with the dem establishment’s behavior.