US Democratic Party Problem

I write this before US 2024 presidential election have been called but Trump is clearly winning. The 2024 elections were full of nasty smear campaigns. Most importantly however there was no candidate that addressed any issues I cared for in any meaningful way. If they do not want to do anything I care for, why would I vote for any of them? 

World goes haywire, homelessness and poverty are rampart, housing is unavailable and unaffordable homeless build literal tent cities... So many pressing issues that has to be addressed urgently and all major candidates are talking about is abortion. So pathetically useless, so useless that vote for either of them is a vote wasted.

Here I can partly understand Republican Party, they supposedly represent a more well-off segment of society who does not suffer from these problems. Despite that Trump at least talks about these and many other problems that plagues the country.

The biggest issue is what Democrats are doing. Not only is they do not do anything, but they also even deliberately work to silence the problem, accusing those who talk about these issues of negativism or bigotry. Instead, they prefer to focus on token issues that anyone outside of privileged well-off section of society could not care less about.

Back in the 2016 they had Bernie Sanders who talked about these issues and wanted to address them when in office. Dems silenced him, removed from the race and ignored everything he was talking about as if it was some boogeyman. 

In 2016 Dems lost to Trump. It was a well-deserved loss for a deaf and blind party that ignores need of people it supposedly represents. They learned nothing from that but despite that ended up winning in 2020. Now they hope to win again in 2024.

Dems think the problem is in Trump but in reality, problem is with Dems themselves. The party is deeply out of tough from people it supposed to represent. Not even BBC could find enough difference in political stances of two candidates.

If people consistently vote for a person, you keep calling devil incarnate then it's not them who are stupid, it's you who do not understand or care for people or issues that matter to them. 

People voting for Trump does not mean they like Trump or even agree with him, it just means they hate him less than the Democratic candidate. Biden could win because there is nothing to hate him for. Hillary or Harris could not because they have nothing to offer the people, and they get endorsements from celebrities who spend more money on their hair than most earn a year. It's like Marie-Antoinette and her eat cakes.

Issue with parties being out of touch is not new, many parties suffer from such problem. However, the US Democrats are especially prone to being out of touch. One possible reason for that is that this party did not begun as a Socialist or Labour movement that represented people who work hourly wage and whose members are also worked hourly wage. FDR and his reforms were measures that benefitted working class, but they were measures from above: measures made by a person who himself was not a working-class person and had a socio-economic status and lifestyle much better than those of whom he helped.

After FDR Dems continued to sort of look after working class to keep themselves electable, but it was from the above. Overtime they grew to take working class vote for granted. They stop thinking of what these people need and instead begun to think in terms of what we want from them. They replaced care for actual working class with care for some token minorities, women and other such picture perfect disenfranchised that would make a champagne socialist look good among his peers. 

All the while a common average boring Walmart or McDonalds employee with an enormous debt is simply forgotten and ignored. However, these people are many and they matter because they vote. When you remove Bernie Sanders whom many of them supported, they were angry and voted against you. Now when you cannot cancel student debt and instead focus on abortion issue, they are angry again.

No matter how right maligned Obamacare, it actually helps a lot of people with their expenses on health and made many people more well off than what they were before. 

Ever since Obama there was not any proposal from Dems that would see significant portion of poor people being better off than what they were before him. Biden Administration tried to cancel some of student debt, but Supreme Court have blocked it. Kamala Harris have not mentioned what she will do to get it passed.

As a little final extra: Tweedledee and Tweedledum illustrates well how two main candidates differ from each other. I guess red one wins this time. I already mentioned somewhere how some of Kamala Harris speeches make you feel she is right wing candidate. She talks more of tax relief compared to student debt of minimal wage. In contrast Donald Trump feels very left wing when he criticizes establishment and the rich.

In a choice between bad and even worse than that, bad won. I am not sure if it's something worth celebrating though.

On Differences Between Max Stirner and Ayn Rand

It's more of a difference in perspective, however there are some substantial differences as well.

I did not read enough of Ayn Rand, but from what I can gather objectivism is just a narrow-minded perspective on work and business. Just a world view from a perspective of a business owner who thinks all he has is solely due to his own effort and overlooks other factors that contributed to that. In the end objectivism just underpins interests of business owners by wrapping them into a somewhat palatable ideology that would justify these interests as something good and benevolent and nothing else.

Any Rand saw Russian Revolution and grew to reject everything it was, the main beef was with Leninist. Thus, Ayn Rand created her philosophy out of rejection of everything USSR and Bolsheviks are. Its die-hard anti-Leninism to to be more preside a reversed Leninism: it's bad because Lenin said its good, its good because Lenin said its bad. Lenin's ideology boils down to benefit for the majority taken to the extreme end often absurd end. Rand replaces it with certain individuals are better than others and the rest should just exist to pave way for such individuals. She also takes this principle to the extreme even absurd end.

On one hand you can sympathize with Rand's opposition to abuses of Soviet approach but at the same time she justifies the abuses coming from the other end that led to October revolution in the first place.

In contrast Stirner's main issue was not with collectivism but with moral that dictates what one can or cannot do. Striner rejects moral and asserts completely unrestrained right to do whatever one wants. Unlike objectivism is not just about business owners and their needs but about everyone.

Stirner opposed to both, people Ayn Rand opposes, but also to people she hails as heroes. According to Stirner there is no need to listen to the likes of Ellsworth Toohey and do good for everyone. On the other hand, there is also no reason to not leech off Dagny Taggard and Hank Rearden if that is in your self-interest.

How to Solve North Korea

The so called "Hermit Kingdom" of North Korea for a long time was an object of ridicule. Country that bans internet, computers, mobile phones and other modern equipment sounds more like a joke then a viable state that can survive and function in modern world.

Many experts predicted that this impoverished starving state would soon collapse, and Korea would re-unite under Seoul government. DPRK however managed to defy these predictions and continued to exist until this day. As of now demise of Pyongyang regime looks ever more distant, despite its poverty and inhumanity it continues to cling to its existence. That raises the question: why?

The answer to that is rather straightforward, DPRK has a powerful protector in form of China that keeps propping them up and prevents their demise. Every so often another powerful protector in form of Russia helps out as well.

However, why would China or Russia bother to prop this unstable and inhuman regime? Isn't North Korea a danger to everyone around them with their nuclear experiments? Aren't they abhorrent tyrannical regime that is afront to everything good and just? Wouldn't it benefit China to instead have a direct border with South Korea for easier trade?

These arguments may be true to the west, but China does have a peculiar reason for supporting continued existence of DPRK. The reason is propaganda and information control. 

Chinese are very envious people and care deeply how much they are better off compared to their immediate neighbors. Being "better than Joneses" next door is crucial to their continued approval or disapproval of their government. 

That is why China runs its infamous Great Firewall of China. Its purpose is not so much as to prevent people from mocking leaders so much to prevent them from learning about places like South Korea, Taiwan or Japan. China wants to be seen as indisputable leader of the Asia and uses its great firewall to filter out all information that contradict this image. Information such as quality of life and prosperity in three Asian democratic countries.

Because China borders only impoverished DPRK, Vietnam, Laos and Myanmar who all look to China for guidance allow CCP of China claim that they are better off than all their neighbors. South Korea and Japan are physically too far away to allow ordinary Chinese to easily compare these countries to their own.

In contrast having a direct border with RoK, that not only has friendly relationship with the US but also much wealthier than PRC would make Communist Party of China look incompetent in its people's eyes. Chinese public would start questioning their government and one-party system. They would ask things like why we can't have democracy like those Koreans and prosper as much as they do? After all what else South Korea has that China does not?

That would put current rulers at risk of losing power and they do not want that. Because of that they keep spending increasing amounts of Chinese money to keep DPRK somewhat alive and prevent complete collapse of Pyongyang regime. China needs some impoverished loser next door to feel good about itself.

However, while China needs DPRK on its border, it does not mean it needs DPRK to be in its current form and size. A complete disappearance of North Korea and direct border with Seoul government would be a step too far for Beijing, but a rump North Korea that continues to hold some land on Chinese border, preventing direct border between RoK and PRC might just be enough for Beijing. This rump North Korea would then continue to function as part of Great Firewall of China just as before. This can be combined with some areas under direct Chinese occupation as well as no man's lands.

While this solution is not as good as complete unification of Korea under Seoul government, it is at the same time better than continuation of the current system. North Korea's most populous areas lie in the country south, close to its border with RoK. Annexing just these would allow making lives of millions of Koreans much better and safer.

As to where the border should then go, then perhaps mountains in the very north, close to Yalu River would be good enough to China. If not these, then the area between Sinanju and Hanju, where the Korean peninsula is thinnest, might work. The borders can be discussed with Chinese directly.

This partial Korean re-unification is more realistic than a complete one and can make lives of so many people in Korea much better. That would make South Korea larger and more productive on the world stage. I think its a goal that diplomats should attempt to reach.

Russia's Conflicting Priorities Problem

 

In his Rules for Rulers video, CGPGrey clearly outlined that the most backward dictatorship are very stable and the most free and advanced democracies are stable. Only countries that fall in between these two extremes are constant unstable ground for revolution. Because when people somewhat educated and somewhat connected, they have more opportunity to rebel and overthrow a dictator.

However, in places like Russia, China and Iran we see a consistent attempt to create people who would be educated enough to build spaceships and computers yet at the same time, too backward to desire democracy or freedoms.

The idea is absurd in itself. How would you prevent people from understanding what a freedom and democracy is, when you expect them to understand physics and complex math.

Predictably enough it goes not work. Computers they attempt to make do not work and to prevent them from rebelling a huge army of riot police is constantly employed. All three of these countries are plagued by constant problems, brain drain, protests, insurgencies and so on. Smart people emigrate to real democracies or if they can't, simply do not use their talents to help the state and rulers they detest. 

Dictator Inc rockets cannot fly as well as democratic ones. Iran and North Korea try to build nukes and consistently fails. Russia tried to create its own Silicon Valley, and it get them nowhere. Reality constantly reminds the rulers of these countries that the contradiction they attempt to achieve is impossible, rulers constantly ignore it.

Despite that rulers entertain themselves with fairy tales about ascetic genius Perelman and hope one day another such genius would build them weapons better than what Americans have.

Meanwhile the country suffers the bullshit of these rulers.

Making Sence Out of Everything that is Called Marxism or Socialism

 

Nowadays many ideologies and political movements calling themselves socialist and Marxists. Despite that they often have little to nothing in common with each other. To make matters worse, all of them like to stake claim on Marx's legacy and claim to be the real Marxist who represent actual views of Marx. Thus, what are Marx's views became distorted and corrupted over time.

 To make sense out of all this mess I decided to write an explanation of what all these movements are and how they all relate to each other. I already wrote couple of articles on this topic, but I think I need to go into more details.

What Marx Wrote

To begin with there was just Marx and he wrote some critique on the economic system that was contemporary to him, that is the middle of 19th century. In this critique he described many issues system already have as well as correctly predicted many future challenges this system with face. To tackle these challenges a system will have to be significantly reformed in order to continue functioning. The reformed system however will be significantly different from its predecessor thus warrant a new name for itself. 

Marx called the contemporary 19th century system a capitalism. A system that will replace it he dubbed socialism and then system that will in turn replace socialism a communism.

Every such replacement will happen naturally and only once level of industrialization and economic development would reach a certain level. The only time Marx mentioned a revolution was a transition from socialism to communism. He argued that amount or change needed would be too great and too hard for some to accept, thus a revolution might be needed to achieve that. In contrast transition from capitalism to socialism would go smoother.

How all that Worked

Now looking back, we can tell that transition from capitalism to socialism indeed happen just as Marx predicted. We do not call this system socialism but for all intends and purposes it is socialism as Marx defined it.

As for how it happens, then in the late 1920s there was a Great Depression. System indeed came to a halt and cannot restart itself on its own. In response to that, Franklin Delano Roosevelt launched a series of weeping reforms that dramatically increased role of the state in economy. As a result, the US government became the biggest employer of the US and either directly or indirectly controlled the entire economy in the interest of the public and state. FDR did not call it socialism but rather New Deal, but for all intends and purposes it was socialism as Marx have defined it several decades ago.

Now Financial Crisis or 2009 calls for a further reform and some brighter minds already have the answer, UBI. However, the conservative side of the world resists. Thus, indeed a revolution might be needed to bring about UBI, or as Marx dubbed it, communism. Once again, we do not use terms Marx used, because these terms are not appropriated by a different people for their own needs.

Marxism

Marx ideas did not go unnoticed and already in 19th century, way before Great Depression and FDR there were people who liked Marx ideas so much, they wanted to bring them into reality here and now.

Marx himself cautioned against that, saying that socialism and communism can only happen when economic development and industrialization reaches certain level. Trying to bring it forward is pointless and stupid as trying to build a 7th floor of the apartment block without completing the 6th floor first. (my metaphor) 

Marxists of course promptly ignored Marx and begun discussing how they will bring about socialism, communism and better future here and now. To that end they decided to form International Workingmen's Association and begun discussing how to bring about the better future, promised to them by Marx, who refuted that as I mentioned before.

Marxists Split into Several Groups

As time went differences in opinions eventually led towards rifts in the association. First to be expelled were anarchists. The association voted to expel Guillaume and Bakunin because they claimed that if a Marxist party will come to power, its members would be as bad as the current ruling class. 

Guillaume, Bakunin and their supporters went to establish their own congress in St. Imier Congress. The St Imier congress did not last long, but rejected authoritarianism, promised mutual defense of its members and declared aspiration to create truly free economic system. 

Black International aka Anarchists

After the St. Imier Congress they continued as International Working People's Association or so called Black International. Later they will acquire label Anarchist. Nowadays Anarchism is often associated with chaos, however of all leftists and Marxists this group was by far the most freedom loving and sensible.

Members of Black International would continue to meet only occasionally, often to commemorate various key dates of their history. They use terms such as Syndicalism, Mutualism as well as other terms with Anarcho- prefix to describe themselves and their views.

In practice Black International could not come up with a policy that would satisfy its desire to free the working class from exploitation. They could see problems with the current system but at the same time they saw even more problems with every solution proposed by Marxists. In the end they opted to do nothing over the solution that in their opinion was worse than the problem it was meant to solve.

The rest soon went full throttle.

2nd International and How it Split

The rest of Marxist continued as 2nd (Socialist) International. For the most part they were more radical than the Anarchists, even more moderate among them such as Possibilists still claimed that revolution is their final aim. Unlike the "anarchists" from the rival organization, most members of second international supported strong state.

Just like the first international, the second one ended up splitting up, but that only happened during the WWI and Russian Revolution. 

The key difference here was nationalism vs internationalism. Certain members or second international went to support their nations in the Great War. 

Other instead denounced war and proclaimed that socialists should be opposed war and nations in general. Instead, they should topple their governments while they are busy fighting the war. They should aim to use this once in a lifetime opportunity to topple all government and establish worldwide communism.

The latter internationalist position eventually became Communist or Third International (Comintern). They succeeded in using war to topple Russian Imperial government and establish a revolutionary state in its place. A state where they could attempt to bring their ideas into reality.

The nationalist side at first divided into two rival organizations based on what side their country was during the WWI. The Axis members became International Working Union of Socialist Parties and Allied powers reunited into Berne International. However eventually they agree to merge into Labour and Socialist International

Socialist International After WWI, WWII and Nowadays

Nationalist Labour and Socialist International eventually became simply Socialist International. Once again war, this time WWII interrupted its existence, but it was re-founded afterwards. 

Overtime it became more and more moderate. Many current center-left parties that govern in Europe and other parts of the world are or were members of this Socialist International. Recently a Progressive Alliance have split from this organization due to dispute over governance and acceptance of undemocratic parties. 

Despite the split and some high-profile defections Socialist International continues and unites many left to center left parties across the globe.

Members and member parties use terms Progressive, Labour, Social Democrat, Democratic Socialism and sometimes simply Socialism to describe their ideology and their views.

Trotskyism Splits from Comintern

In contrast Communist International continued to splinter into many new groups. Most notably the 4th or Trotskyist International. 

Trotsky and his supporters disagreed with Stalin on many core issues. One was building socialism in one country, the USSR and instead believed in the original Comintern idea of a global communist revolution. They backed it with the pre-WWI theories that claimed that a single socialist state surrounded by capitalist world cannot function and will collapse. To solve this problem, they wished to overthrow every single capitalist government in every single country of the world and establish global communist.

Stalin did not disagree with them that global revolution should be ultimate goal but believed that socialism in one country has to be intermediate solution as they bide their time to make global revolution a reality.

The other point of contention was Trotskyist criticism of Soviet ruling class. Trotsky argued that revolution created so called new class that is as bad as the previous bourgeoisie ruling class that revolution overthrew. These views were voiced by the Anarchists before and later was also echoed by George Orwell's Animal Farm.

Here Stalin refused to compromise and expelled Trotsky from USSR and later assassinated him.

Comintern and Communism

The Stalin Trotsky split was echoed in the individual members as well as parties. Parties that supported Stalin and his version of communism, practiced in the USSR often adopted term communist for themselves. 

They however continued to use terms such as Socialist and Marxist. Many would hyphenate Marxism with Leninist to emphasize that it is a version of Marxism modified by Lenin and USSR's experience.

Many of such Marxist-Leninist parties were de facto satellites and puppets of USSR. At first USSR controlled them through Comintern and even run a special school to teach foreign communists how to overthrow their government. Many famous communists such as Mao Zedong were graduates of this institution.

Stalin abolished Comintern at request of his WWII Allies, but that was just a token measure and did not remove his ties with other Marxist-Leninist parties. After the WWII they run a Cominform, but eventually abolished that as well.

These relationships continued all the way to the dissolution of the USSR and in certain cases even afterwards. Even nowadays North Korea sends its soldiers to help Putin wage his war in Ukraine. However most communist parties across the globe felt lost and confused after USSR collapse. Many had to do a lot of soul searching to find their new ideology and role in the world. Some continued Soviet orthodoxy and others adopted some novel left-wing ideas.

Usage of term socialist by communist parties would confuse them with members of the Socialist International despite the huge differences between them. For communist term socialism somewhat echos Marx own usage, albeit in a distorted way. Here socialism is an intermediate state on social development between capitalism and communism. Capitalism is used to call the system that existed before communist party took over, socialism is used to describe the system they currently have, and communism is used to call a system they ultimately want to establish.

Trotskyism and 4th International

Trotskyists are both the most radical and the most ideologically purist group. Only after implementing Marxism in USSR did, they realize that Anarchists were right all along. 

Unlike Anarchists who understood impossibility of solving their problem, Trotskyists believed that corruption from within destroyed true socialism in USSR and it could work if done right.

Nowadays they are small fringe, but very active group. It is them who like to say that real socialism was never tried, and they sure would get it work this time around.

Members unite themselves into Fourth International that was dissolved at one point but then was re-founded.

4th International uses the most confusing terminology that overlaps with pretty much every other group. They do not try to distinguish themselves from other groups but rather try to monopolize all Marxist legacy as the only true to Marx group. Often, they simply call themselves Socialist, despite their views and policies being as far from Socialist International as one could be. Sometimes they use term Worker's and such. The only term they somewhat avoid is communist, to distinguish themselves from Comintern.

New Left, Green, Euro Communism and 5th International

As Socialist International was moving further and further center, there were some who were dissatisfied with this and came to believe that this was no longer left enough. At the same time, they did not want to be like USSR and their Marxist-Leninist communism. 

There movements and parties adopted variety of names and terms. Sometimes they would simply call themselves left. Other times they would use some completely different term altogether. Very often they call themselves Green or ally themselves with ecological movements who call themselves Green.

There groups are often oblivious of Trotskyists, so their relationships are nonexistent. However sometimes they could mix up with each other by accident or by desire to improve their electoral changes.

Their policies are typically social democratic but taken to the extreme. They simply want more redistribution than center-left willing to commit to. Unlike other groups they do not seek to change economic system, nor are they bothered with understanding any such complex matter. Instead, they rely on populism. 

Syriza and Podemos are examples of such parties.

Bookchin and American "Socialism"

Now we finally reached the craziest of them all, various American varieties of Socialism.

Unlike all other forms of Marxism and Socialism, American varieties did not split from any of the European organizations. Neither they are based on any theory from these organizations. Instead, American Socialism often based on American anti-Socialist propaganda mixed with each individual author own views. It was not created by working class people for their benefit but rather by some university intellectuals with some strange love for dystopian life and aesthetics.

Because of that pretty much all versions of American Socialism are ultimately grotesque and dystopian. 

Even the most dedicated supporter of USSR style communism would justify all problems with the system as mistakes or necessary evil. Drab look of Khruchevkas was due to desire to save time and money and build more hosing in short time to house as many people as possible. Disposing of business owners and nationalizing businesses was for the benefit of the people who work there. A private owner would make employees work as much as possible and pay them as little as possible to maximize his profits. Sure, business owner would lose his business, but it's a one-man loss over many people under his employ gain. 

The reason for executing or imprisoning former business owners was the fact that such people would want to return ownership over their business and therefore likely to support a conservative coup or foreign intervention from a country who is likely to restore them their former businesses. That would make former business owners extremists who seek destruction of the state and therefore a danger to society.

A government appointed, socially and politically reliable manager would instead prioritize fair treatment of workers and their wellbeing. When in practice these managers would manage Ukraine's Kolkhozes into starvation of millions, they would explain it with miscalculation from Moscow. People who set targets in 5-year plan thought these productivity targets were reasonable, but actual reality on the ground was different. Managers chose to follow their directives from Moscow and ignored problems on the ground before it was too late. 

At the very least they maintained their intention were best interest of working people. Optimist could believe they acted in good faith and their intention were benevolent. Cynic might say they are lying. Realist might point out that Anarchists predicted it will end up this way. Managers, dependent on goodwill of Moscow bosses will always prioritize pleasing them over the people on the ground who cannot fire them. 

A bad system was replaced with a system bad in a different way. However, it was a system made by working class people who never owned a business for the benefit of other people who never owned business just like them. All forms of socialism with exception of American maintain that.

In contrast American socialism often looks at worst examples of continental socialism as something to imitate. They do not want to make life of working class better. Far from it, they want to make everyone's life worse on purpose. They find some strange pleasure in drab socialist aesthetics and want to see it imposed on society on purpose.

Often such people are motivated by some moral conviction that justifies doing this. In one of my other articles, I connected them to puritans and their extreme religions. 

Regardless of where they are coming from. this is the most strange and dubious form of "socialism" out there. In most ways it is the opposite of any other form of Marxism out there. It's like LDS Mormon Church that calls itself Christian but not recognized as such by other Christians.

American varieties of "Socialism" are the most insane dystopian projects out there. I truly baffle me to think of people who would support it and why?

On Donald Trump

People tend to say a lot of things about Donald Trump, people call him fascist or authoritarian. Claim he would destroy democracy and liberties. Implement some loony Project 2025, drink blood of Christian babes and who knows what else.

I watched a few videos of him and came to a drastically different conclusion. Not only he is neither of the above, but he also hardly even right-wing. Most of his political positions and opinions are syncretic and opportunistic. He has no clear ideological bend and just supports variety of stuff popular with vastly different people on the net. On the other hand, he does not oppose anything that can actually jeopardize his popularity. For example, he vetoed any Republican repeal of Obamacare until it was watered down to just cancellation of universal mandate, after that he finally signed it and took credit for repealing Obamacare. He even consistently uses blue as his personal electoral color. 

One thing that works for Trump electorally is that he speaks in ambiguous ways to give people benefit of the doubt on what he actually means by that. That gives his detractors opportunity to make a mountain out of anthill. These however mostly backfire against Trump opponents as his supporters can cross check that with what he actually said and know that anti-Trump camp just blatantly lie, while actual extremists are more likely to vote Trump after hearing Dems accuse him of crazy stuff. Thus, a Teflon Donald continues to fly high in politics due to his careful wording of things that make vastly different people think he supports what they want.

Trump's success makes other radical right wingers like Tony Abbot think that they can do the same thing. However, they do not imitate the actual Trump but rather the slander, left wing makes up about him. Their political positions and polices are actually right wing and not syncretic like those of Trump. Because of that they will never be able to become a second Trump.

On American Elections

QLD recently had an election, but count have not finished yet so I will not comment on that for now.

Instead, I will talk about American election. Recently I watched debate between Trump and Harris as well as between their VPs. I have to say this is the worst debate and choice of candidates in probably the entire history of the US. Surely worst in the most recent history.

Debate between Harris and Trump are nothing more than a series of empty threats and accusations. It can be summed up in "He is literal devil. No, she it." Neither Trump nor Harris said much of their policies or program, but instead kept telling how much horrible things the other will do if they get elected. To a Trump credit, he would at least bother to refute in detail Kamala's accusations and tell his own version of the story. Kamala would just dismiss all he says as lies and will parrot her own narrative as much as she could.

Trump clearly devolved from how he was back in 2016 and even 2020. Back then he was sharp and smart, told things how they were, exposed many of the inconvenient truth and so on. The only issue with him was the conflict of interest: he promised to do things that would disadvantage him as a rich property developer, like banning illegal migrants that often work such jobs. Because of that you might question if he would really implement the promises that people want but would damage Trump Organization's business.

Still in 2016 Trump was a much better choice compared to Killary Clinton, who had no ideas of policies of her own, yet snubbed Bernie Sanders who actually had policies that would have made America better and so many people supported. The least she and Dems could do is to make Bern a VP candidate to unite the party. Instead, they kicked him to the side and cut a lot out of the student loan forgiveness program that they reluctantly took from Bern to placate his supporters. That was an insult too far that turned me from a Bern supporter into a Trump one.

In 2020 Trump was vain and complacent. He all forgotten about the independents that brought him to power and now pandered to core Republican base with low tax and conservatism. He correctly exposed many social issues in 2016 yet did nothing to address any of them while in office. You might at least expect him to make up some excuses on why it was not done, like Dems controlled the Congress and prevented him from acting, but he did not do either. 

Overall, however it was appropriate to give incumbent administration a boot for not doing anything for 4 years and simply vote for another guy. Fortunately, Biden was perfect for a such job. He is so plain, boring and inoffensive there is absolutely no reason to not vote for him. There is no reason to vote for Biden in particular either and against a better candidate he would not stand a chance, but here we had bad options.

Finally in 2024 we have 2 candidates that are so bad a body pillow or a potted plant would make a better president. Even a deliberate satire from 2008 looks more presidential than either Trump or Harris. See for yourself. After seeing Trump vs Harris, you do not even notice straightaway that it is an impersonation and a satire. Students who play Sarah Palin and Joe Biden certainly sound more presidential than current nominees. Trump and Harris not only make Sarah Palin a sensible choice, but they also even make a deliberate satirisation of her a sensible choice. Congratulations.

Afterwards I watched a debate between VPs. In contrast to presidential smear campaign, both JD Vance and Tim Walz sounded very respectable and civil. It was refreshing and pleasant for the first 30 minutes or so.

Eventually however issues emerged. Most importantly lack of policies. The only real policy issue they discussed and disagreed on was abortion. Here you could clearly see and choose between two diverging views on the issue.

Moderators asked VP candidates on housing issue that affect and concert many Americans, but candidates felt like they do not care. Tim Walz said something about his expertise of building housing in Minnesota. JD Vance about seizing federal land for housing projects. None of them of them gave any concrete numbers of how many new homes their administration will build during their tenue. It was pretty clear that neither of them cared for this very important for every Millennial issue.

So, what do I take from this 2024 election. Both candidates are so bad and useless, it makes voting 3rd party reasonable. Unfortunately, 3rd party candidates from Libertarians and Greens are useless too. Alas Andrew Yang is not running this time. I do not think he is recognized as Write In candidate either, but I think we should write in his name anyway. He is the only guy is this madhouse who cares for things that matter and has a plan. Vote Andrew Yang.

The election seems more of a culture war. In that case Trump who gives middle finger to this bullshit makes a lot more sense than Harris who peddles it. Still, write in Andrew Yang, he is the only one who makes sence.