The in-your-face topics of "society and culture" and "comedy" are close to evenly split.
The shows the right is dominating in are things like sports and wellness and spirituality with political sprinkles. The left didn't even have one show in the article's survey of those topics.
The "society and culture" and "comedy" topics are only slightly right-skewed, which seems representative of the US voting behavior with Republicans winning more elections but not by much.
The non-political topics with political sprinkles are interesting, and where the right overwhelms the left. People don't listen to these shows because of the politics - they are there for the sports talk, or the discussion on getting and staying healthy, or for some inspiration and spiritual reflection - but the political sprinkles aren't enough to drive them away. Does anyone see a path to a left-leaning host attracting significant audiences for mainly sports or wellness or spirituality, with occasional progressive sprinkles?
The Netherlands has party-list proportional representation. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Party-list_proportional_representation
Instant run-off / ranked choice voting is a different system, and where implemented I'm not aware of it leading to many parties. I believe it will make the two parties better, which is still a good and beneficial outcome.
Using the original meaning of a word and not chasing off on the euphemism treadmill is hardly shifting to the right.
If it's representing value produced by a population, and that population is both growing in numbers and finding ways for each person to be more productive, it makes sense for the index to go up. The current drop in stock markets is not related to either population decline nor to some widespread productivity hit, meaning sustainability isn't the problem at hand.
Deep in human history, staying in good graces with our tribe was more important to survival than having beliefs be factual. We are genetically hardwired to pull whatever mental gymnastics are required to maintain membership in the tribe, because our ancestors who failed at that died before passing on their genes. It's not really stupidity or incompetence, it's an operating system property.
Fair, thanks for replying. I suspect I am much more worried about deteriorating conditions than you, and that different risk/benefit weighting leads me to different conclusions, but it's helpful to hear other lines of thinking.
Also, your serious replies prompted me to comment-stalk you a little, and led me to a few interesting conversations the lemmy algorithm had not otherwise shown me, so thanks for that, too!
Although its moneyed backers used that line in recruiting and messaging, the Tea Party was the opposite of grass roots: https://time.com/secret-origins-of-the-tea-party/
But yes, consistent victory at the ballot box over a long time period is key. The Koch money investments in the 1990s - thirty years ago - are still playing out now.
The politics aspect is much more driven by identity and social group than by sunk cost or refusal to have buyer's remorse. A singular respected leader can turn the ship - churches and pastors were critical in the US civil rights movement, for example - but groups can be more nebulous without a particular leadership structure, like how difficult it is for people to leave Twitter: even though most users agree the experience has significantly degraded, there is no critical mass agreed on a replacement.
The more nebulous groups can break up - Twitter's engagement is declining - it's just slow. Maybe years or decades slow to get to the point it's no longer one of the dominant social media. So I guess keeping the social connections open (giving someone who wants to make a major change an option to still have a friend or family member who will talk to them after), and patience.
A quick internet search suggests 36 weeks (eight months), which is well into the third trimester, is the most common start of restrictions, and many airlines will accept a doctor's note the woman is low risk even past that. It was a 2008 election blip when the media got ahold of Sarah Palin flying while in labor because she wanted her special-needs baby delivered by the medical team that had prepared for him, which suggests even the written restrictions in airline policy are not consistently enforced.
Medical cost-to-value and care availability in the US is horrible. The baby steps toward lesser horrid like not allowing denial of insurance due to preexisting conditions barely scratch the surface.
If you are comfortable sharing (I know conversations on the internet can go unproductively negative fast, and engagement is often not worthwhile), do you expect to see costs like medical and grocery get better while Trump is President? If so, are you expecting to see that benefit this year, or for it to take a few years?
I have gotten a lot of social connections and philosophy learning through my congregation, consumed a variety of exercise safety and effectiveness tips, enjoyed discovering recipes that fit with my lifestyle and dietary preferences (many of which contribute healthy variety to my food intake), and get positive feelings finding spaces that share experiences and tips around specific health conditions I have. It's sad to see all of those experiences cast as me being a victim of grifting.