He’s also not popular with the stable, middle class democratic electorate who make up a plurality of their consistent voters. I think they’d vote for him in the generals if he won the primaries but I don’t think even with media hype he can win those primaries without a massive wave of independents voting in them

As a youngish, college educated white man who voted against Bernie in 2016, his appeal certainly extended beyond that demographic, all my queer POC friends loved him. He polls horribly with the stable, comfortable middle class Democrats who reliably vote for sure, and I doubt he can/could ever make it through a Dem primary, even if the DNC leadership pushed him. But he does do really well with the same groups trump does, the disaffected and marginalized. In an election matchup, Trump wins the extremely bigoted voters, and Bernie wins the leftists and targeted minority groups and drives much higher turnout in them. The moderate Republicans who swung to Biden and Kamala probably vote third party or abstain, the establishment Dems probably hold their nose and vote Bernie. I think it would be very close, and if there were third party centrist candidates they would get more votes than expected, but I think turnout general would be a lot higher than 2016 or 2024

I mean, the projected winner maps aren’t the US government’s decision, it’s what whatever news your watching has modelled as settled with an acceptable margin of error based on current information. Realistically they could have called most of the states months ago with that same error, some organizations just veil it more

No, the Republicans also don’t have the power to fix the system. That’s not their goal. Both parties have the power to completely gum up the works of the government, which is antithetical to fixing the system, but is perfectly acceptable if your goal is to weaken protections to allow a privileged few to gain more power through extragovernmental levers. If we entered a mirror world where the Democratic party were gunning to be a fascist dictatorship and the Republicans were gunning to stop them, but all voters retained their current alliances, not much would change long-term because there are enough people in both parties to obstruct and roadblock, unless the now-pro-civil-rights supreme court kept being radical but in a positive direction

Still a conspiracy if it aims to conspire, if there are receipts it ceases to be a theory and becomes just a true conspiracy

I think that’s part of the point? The twitchy zoomers aren’t on?

If you’ve ever played around with an old-style lighter (think classic Zippo) you’d get it! They’re fairly expensive, and aren’t airtight so they need to be refilled every few days/weeks. If you fill them too much they need to be kept upright or they’ll spill lighter fluid on you. Super cool and can hold flames for a while but not nearly as conventient as a matchbook for quick fire lighting