The only reason Biden gets some slack is when the reaction was needed to take place hard and fast was under trump. And we have had the knowledge of how to stop the spread of an epidemic/pandemic for centuries.

1. Stop interactions between people.
2. People showing signs or symptoms should quarantine.
3. If you can avoid contact with people - you do so. In the past this was the wealthy who could go out to the country side and largely avoid contact with masses of people. But there is documentation of towns shutting down interaction with outsiders to avoid risk of disease spreading either into, or out of the town.

But when every single country fails to take actions - it isn’t a single case of ONE bad leader. It’s a case of systemic issues - and that is the case throughout the west: The west is infected by economist bean counters who are insistent on “number go up”. That is Canada, the US, UK, France, Germany… the list goes on. And that attitude has gutted the western spirit, economy, and more. This idea that we need immigration - when immigration is a bandaid to a much deeper problem that starts in and around 1965, but really has it’s first signs in 1967 in the US, and that is spiraled out of control with the end of the gold standard.

Yes: That is where the problems stem from.

The fact is: Biden has been in politics, for basically the entire run of problems stemming and bubbling over. And he has been right smack dab in the middle voting basically for every measure that continued the problem forward. Making promises that were inevitably funded with printed money - printed money that created inflation, that required interest rates to go up, that drove people out of home. Economic conditions that enabled and even encouraged manufacturers to offshore US manufacturing to places like China - destroying US jobs in the process.

Who benefited?

If there is a politician to blame: It is Biden. He has been there practically every step of the way.

Proper like in 2016?

The more one looks into the DNC, the more questions exist. Is it really a wounder how much inflation took place over the Obama years? Under Biden? They push party people, they get party people, who have the same great money management skills. And people are fed up with it.

People are fed up with GOP folk just the same - for different reasons. Trump was the NOT GOP, not DNC nominee, it isn’t really a wounder why he found support. It’s really just a wounder how the leadership of the parties couldn’t figure out that serious reform is needed internally.

Why would you say that?

Harris didn’t lose because she was a woman - she lost because she was associated so heavily with the Biden administration as more, and more questions started being asked.

Hillary didn’t lose because she was a Woman, she lost because she was a Clinton and there are so many left overs - and by popular vote: She won, but the US isn’t about the popular vote. But when we look at the split - it is VERY interesting.

AOC is generally speaking - widely approachable, talks some sanity, is willing to talk both sides of the Aisle, and so on. I can’t actually readily find a reason to be flat out opposed to her: I mean sure, there are policies and such that I don’t always agree with - but generally speaking, it is rare to find someone you completely agree with, and someone you completely disagree with: And if you ALWAYS disagree with everything, and can’t have a discussion - often times it’s not the other person with the issue.

The reality is, there are plenty of Men and Woman that won’t or will vote one way or another for a wide number of reasons, and odds are - put into the mix, it all washes out.

Truth is, when Covid was raging on - I kinda thought that Republicans would basically screw themselves over with the way it was handled and the death counts etc. But what it turns out - is a lot of deaths were assigned to covid but related to Cancer, heart disease, and so on with Covid as a contributing factor: So while dangerous, it seems the numbers were conflated - and that, is a very dangerous thing to do as the truth will, sooner or later, win out. And here we are.

The thing is: AOC doesn’t strike me as mainstream Democrat. And that alone will mean the DNC is unlikely to back her as a candidate - they want a party person through and through, and that, is ultimately what lost them this election.

Why would people that benefit from forced labour want to end it? Cheap labour benefits the wealthy - more money to make money with. And to those who think criminals should face actual punishment and pay back society - well: Why would they have a problem with forced labour. And, we have the political spectrum nicely tied up there - at least a majority of it.

If you want to get reform in: You need to address two groups - the “tough on crime” crowd, and the “abuse of prisoners is unacceptable” crowd - and that CAN be done. We need some core changes:

1. Restrict Solitary Confinement to violent outburst - and restrict it’s use. After all, our goal is to encourage people to participate not drive people into nonfunctional insanity.
2. Create base rate pay that is tied to minimum wage (like 2/3’s of it) with 1/3 going towards a savings fund, and 1/3 for the individual to use on whatever is allowed for them to buy. In effect: There should be a reason to work.
3. Increase base rate of repeat offences BUT tie in a labour + rehabilitation program participation as a way to reduce that sentence across the board.

Those three things - increase penalty for uncooperative individuals; It creates an environment of owning responsibility for actions; and it means that prisoners aren’t being paid a fraction of the minimum pay rate of the 1960’s. We can go even further with this:

1. The 2/3 of minimum wage is for low security prisoners.
2. Medium security prisoners have a lower rate of pay - say 1/2 of minimum wage, with the difference going directly towards restitution costs.
3. Violent criminals and high security prisoners gain no rate of pay for 10 years or until restitution is fully paid - whichever comes sooner, and their pay rate is 1/3 of minimum wage with the difference going to restitution costs.

In this way: There is a STRONG incentive to take actions, and efforts that will get you transferred to a lower security prison. We can also do things with half-way houses - and support training programs, and perhaps even voluntary association with a case worker post conviction for individuals that FEEL like they need extra support avoiding re-offending. This is not about reducing, or removing the existing system - but expanding it.

In effect: This entire set of changes is not about reducing the punishment on crime, nor straight up reducing the incarcerated population. Instead: It’s all about PERSONAL responsibility. And maybe, you could actually get THAT kind of reform through.

At risk of being downvoted into oblivion: People are hyper polarized and unable to have nuanced discussions as a broad generalization any longer. And that, is the core of the problem.

But where does it stem from? Misdirection - it might not seem relevant, but, I assure you: It is. We have to talk - as a recent video reminded me, and taught me something very important, Beoing. And maybe Intel - but mostly Boeing.

Back in the Early 60’s - Boeing was Successful, very successful, it was THE MOST SUCCESSFUL airplane company - and it was, surprise surprise: ran by engineers. Then we have Douglas - ran by Finance bean counters. In 67, Douglas was facing bankruptcy, and - as a defence contractor, the US government in it’s infinite wisdom forced Boeing to merge with it, and - to put the cream on the top followed by the crowning toxic jewel on top: The executives that caused the problems at Douglas were put in charge, and - Boeing has gone downhill since. At one point an executive at the new Boeing said something along the lines of: “I don’t want to be distracted by the details of building airplanes” - like, I’m sorry: THAT IS WHAT YOUR COMPANY DOES, those aren’t the distractions - that is your core needed responsibility to make sure it’s done right.

We good with why the above is a problem?

So lets look at Covid: Finance people want the economy to keep going - so drag their feet on doing what is necessary. Finance people don’t want to be inconvienienced, so… push for changes that are beneficial to them IN THE SHORT TERM. And finally, we see the idea that a Stage 4 Cancer Patient who passes away being labeled as a Covid Death… Why? I think it serves 2 reasons: 1, it makes the hospital numbers look more paletable for awhile - Covid death is “new scary virus” not, “Something we have been dealing with for forever” and 2. It justifies massive inflationary spend by the government - enabling them to effecitvely pick winners (big business), and losers (small business).

The thing is: This shift - this Financiers over Engineers and people in their field running the show, is both the Republicans AND Democrats. That is: Democrat Social Justice types use inflationary spending to shove money at the cost of EVERYONE at whatever group they are “fighting for” and, Republican types love to shove tax benefits in the hands of their prefered businesses. And what are the fixes? It’s really simple: End Inflationary Monetary Policy.

Thing is: Sick people masking? Makes sense. Properly cleaning high contact often terribly dirty things like debit pin pads - makes sense. More frequent cleaning of public bathrooms: Makes sense. This isn’t exactly rocket science. But forcing an untested thing onto people, after hiding the details from the public is disgusting. And the fact that people don’t get it - that is a huge problem.

Ok: PeerTube is interesting. But: in terms of replacement? No. non-viable.

The problem you have is multifold - and one of them is constant content availability, and total bandwidth. The value of Youtube is on demand streaming - you click a video, it plays, basically anywhere in the world. The other value is… copyright: Because of the way youtube is set up, you don’t have the same kind of copyright problems as you would without the back end negotiating and systems youtube as put in place. You can think copyright as it stands is oppresive and sucks -and I agree; but with the law the way it is - youtube is the best work around that is feasibly possible.

Mirroring all of youtube needs piles of terrabytes of new storage DAILY. and it’s in the hundreds of thousands as a low end estimate. You need the computational power to do the transcoding. You need the distribution of servers to load balance and avoid over saturating and d-dossing any given server cluster.

The reality is the Torrent protocol has been around forever - and there is a reason it never really took off, despite live watching while streaming was feasible: It has too many pitfalls.

And then, there is the content creator side: If you want to make money - youutube is kind of the place to put your content up with youtube premium sharing, ad revenue sharing and so on once you can monetize your channel. And while there are all kinds of BS in regards to what can and can’t be monetized - there really isn’t a replacement, not for the average person just getting started - and not if you are trying to build your following.

Do you have one reason to not vote for Harris, or Many reasons not to vote? Lets say in this Trolley like problem scenario that Flipping the lever to run over one is voting for Harris, flipping it to roll over the list is voting for trump - and rejecting making the choice is walking away.

Thing is - this gets complicated: Just because someone publicly says they aren’t voting because of Gaza does not mean 1. they didn’t vote, and 2. doesn’t mean they don’t see all the other problems - because left organizations/groups have a tendency of vilifying anyone that opposes their view points excessively - because they have the moral high ground supposedly - the end result is: People won’t speak up about the real reasons, they will stick to the socially acceptable one and move on. It’s far easier, simpler.

So: What is on the long list of problems?

1. Biden ending the “Stay in Mexico” Agreement.

2. Tax payer dollars being sent to illegal immigrants in various ways.

3. The way deaths were assigned to Covid - even when the person had stage 4 cancer, and covid was maybe a contributing factor.

4. Catch and Release policies found in a number of Democrat stronghold cities - to a point that stores are giving up trying to operate in the regions. And I’m not talking small locations - I’m talking big businesses. Small ones end up going belly up because they can’t eat the costs, insurance premiums for protecting your inventory in the areas have gone up and that means small businesses can’t afford to insure, and that raises their risks.

Should I continue?

Trumps anti-sanctuary city, record on putting in effective policy to deal with the southern boarder problem, and take on the fact that US cities should be sanctuaries for US citizens - well: That resonates with people. It resonates in California (where voter support from previous years to today went up ~8%), it resonates in New york (comparing previous years to today is ~+7% over previous years), even in Texas (~3% uptick). Trump WON the popular vote with fairly high voter turn out.

The Truth is

No person struggling in their own life, cares all that much about people in another country. When the government can find money to fund a foreign war - people are going to start wondering why they can’t find money to fix roads, law enforcement, housing, and other issues back home: It would be far cheaper over all.

In a world where crime has gone up since 2020, while being down from 2013: People are going to see it. And if you live in Seattle, or New York it’s difficult to ignore massive stores closing locations and a growing number of vacant store fronts. And should that problem continue - it’s going to cause further knock on effects. After all: Blank store fronts are not attractive, and if you make them look full - those looking for space are going to presume it’s filled. And these buildings are often times leveraged - and if they reduce lease rates to draw in interest, they may very well have debts called in: And that will hurt the current owners. Worse yet - without revenue coming in, it’s very likely that SOME of the maintenance needed is being avoided.

So while some the Gaza issue is JUST the Gaza issue - my bet, is that to a lot of people, it’s just the socially acceptable excuse. But honestly - it has some legitimacy as well. After all: Supporting the war effort with a lot now, or a smaller amount over a bit of time nets the same result.