Welcome to Derry

Yeah, her.

Yeah…something to that. Nice profile pic swap!

Basically for the same reason that no one votes for Democrats who are Republican-lite.

If the Democrats who ran as immigration hardliners and instinctually threw trans people under the bus actually believed those things, they’d just run as Republicans.

I don’t agree with the meme. I think many Dems believe these things and fight for them, and I believe many that take harder lines think they need to in order win power and be kinder to oppressed groups than the alternative.

All I was saying is that Will and Starfish are getting the meme wrong.

Yeah, that’s the thing.

I’m not saying I agree with the meme, but the point it’s making is that Democrats don’t actually mean any of that and think it’s just a good sales tactic the way Gingrich and Livingston obviously weren’t being genuine about their concern with Clinton’s infidelity.

The DNC isn’t selling Dasani - they’re selling Diet Sand, and there is no market for that.

Sure. Hard to have two garages and an oversized shed full of tools, recreational vehicles, and a half dozen sets of golf clubs in a Brooklyn walk up. And yeah, that ain’t me, but I’ve spent enough time in rural areas to know that the more frequent occurrence is lack of structures to house it all.

Sure. I think Will’s read on preference here is basically right.

I’m just saying some subset of the people that think they hate cities and Indian food are composed of people who only think they do because of how it’s been described to them and would be very surprised if they ever took a bite.

On balance I still think you’re right - correct for all three of these unidirectional pressures and I still would agree that the median American prefers something like suburbia over even the most walkable urbanism.

But I do think the natural divide is less lopsided than the manufactured one.

So combine that with the subsidization effect you acknowledge plus the added social pressure from rooted/backrow types that leaving for the city is betraying your family, spitting on your heritage, looking down on your upbringing (and in all these things there’s no reverse version) and it adds up.

No, probably not. But I will say that there are probably a non-zero number of suburban/exurban/rural folks who think they don’t like cities because they’re always being told they are hell holes, and if they paid a visit it would be like the videos where someone tries Indian food for the first time.

If only they were this competent at anything not involving the coverup of child sex trafficking rings.

So Labour had agreed to defund the NHS? To fully privatize the pension system?

Look, you might get urban and suburban Londoners onboard with the immigration & anti-trans stuff, but the UK is a big, rural country.

Forget about the Welsh; no true Scotsman is going to sign on to these half-measures.