Don’t sell your rage short. It is one of the constraints on a president’s behavior.

And in favor of what? Putin or Xi’s moral clarity? I’m unhappy with the situation in Gaza, but as flawed as the West might be, I’m of the opinion that it creates much fewer human rights atrocities. I want it improved and refined, not dismantled. In the absence of stability, do you really think leftism is what is going to rise out of the ashes? Like, really consider what you’re advocating for here. How do you fight a genocide in Gaza by dismantling our own democracy at home and kicking off hundreds more in the struggle to fill the void of American hegemony? Again, I find myself questioning the pragmatism of these options.

I genuinely see a path to a better tomorrow through maintaining our democracy long enough for the boomers to age out a bit more and then filling that vacuum with a more leftist party to contend with the more centrist democrats. Even better would be a growing and pragmatic left that uses bargaining, cooperation, and political capital to achieve their ends. Getting back to a sane form of “bipartisanship” once we have rubbed the modern conservative populist movement into the ground. Rivals that can at least agree on the fundamentals of humanity.

At the end of the day, I want to flip the general leftist position. I’m a social democrat. I’m super open to a ton of leftist positions. Why would I want to vote for the left right now? They’re angry, disorganized, almost powerless, refuse to compromise, and the rising populism movement’s inability to perceive and work with the nuances of government are extremely concerning. I hear more about what’s wrong from them than I ever do an actual solution.

I need solutions and I need us to remain on the rails so those improvements can be made. Asking for the country to collapse is just cruel to so many people. Possibly literal magnitudes above a genocide in Gaza.