we're all stories in the end

Oh my goodness, I'm going to break my two-year tumblr hiatus to answer this question because I love it!!

1. JHO has like claws dug into my heart, I was pretty neutral on Louis pre-JHO and then BOOM in love forever ride or die

2. DLIBYH, a one-way road to something better. To me this song IS Louis Tomlinson. Optimism and faith through hard times is always at his core, it's something he's always been consistent about and this just encapsulates it into a song.

3. COACOAC, when he hits that YOUNG MAAAAAAN hush your crying, I get chills

4. TOO YOUNG, it's just so pretty??? Like his soft little voice at the start, that quiet resignation of the lyrics matching the quiet simplicity of the music?! It feels like a sigh, an exhale. chef's kiss!!

5. WALLS, YOU WERE MY BECAUSE

6. FEARLESS, this was a sleeper hit for me. I used to skip it!! Now I love it. The driving tell me do you, tell me, do you still remember feeling young, and then the TELL ME THE TRUTH gets me everytime. That beseeching first line followed by the louder plea: muwah, so smart, so clever

8. CHANGE, silver streets and the neon signnnnssss is like the prettiest thing I've ever heard him sing

7. WE MADE IT, underestimated, and always underrated. I love the actual words he uses in this song, if that makes sense? So many are interesting in how they sound together. And it has this really contained structure that makes the big WITH YOUR HAND IN MINE where the music drops away slap!!!

OK I could go on for all of his songs lol!! But I'll contain myself. Thank you for this ask!!!

Yeah! I used to respect what he brought to the party, I liked that he pulled people left. But the levels of worship around the man + the fact that he’s somehow made people believe he can deliver on his outrageous promises to the point where they vote for him over someone who could actually better their lives is ... frustrating to say the least. 

Obamacare was passed when the House, Senate and White House were all held by Dems, and it still was watered down to a ghost of what it started out as. It used to include a public option! Nancy Pelosi had to practically sell her organs to get that thing passed and that was pre- tea party, pre trump, pre left wing of the Dems. Like... we’re in an environment where people can’t even agree on legislation to stop surprise medical bills from happening even though literally everyone wants a bill on it. 

Saying Bernie would get M4A passed or debt forgiveness passed and that’s the reason to vote for him is wildly unrealistic to me. 

I’m curious, if you feel like sharing, what makes you think she has centrist tendencies and what plans Bernie has that would help you more than her plans? Keeping in mind that she wants to implement Medicare for All as well on a more realistic timeline. 

What I’m saying is even if Warren has better ideas and programs that can be actually implemented, if Bernie wins there’s a better chance to implement those ideas rather if let’s say Biden wins. As someone form the outside of the US I’ve noted your presidency’s runs are very individualistic so I don’t know how possible it is for something like that to happen, but having a front runner (2)

who defines himself as a socialist is better than any other dem candidate for Warren’s ideas to actually be done if Bernie’s can’t be implemented because of all what you said (3)

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Ah! Ok I hear what you’re saying (and also, my heart breaks for you over the political changes, I cried for like three months straight after trump won, I hear you!)

So moving beyond a warren/bernie vote because sadly I don’t think she’ll last long after the next round... I still think I (a socialist!) would vote for Biden over Bernie for these two reasons:

-- Most people don’t think Bernie can win in a match up against Trump. States like california will always go for the Democratic candidate no matter who they are, so what the candidate needs to do is win states like Pennsylvania and Ohio that flip from Republican to Democrat given the candidate. The people who live in those states tend to have more moderate politics and are far more likely to stay home if a socialist is the option. 

-- On top of that, I think Bernie scares Republican voters enough with his policy ideas that they’ll go out to vote against him in a way that Biden wouldn’t provoke. So they may have stayed home for Biden but they’ll vote for trump against Bernie

-- If Bernie wins (and that’s a big if) I find it highly unlikely he’ll get any of his policies implemented, whereas Biden will probably at the very least shore up with health marketplace (which the Republicans have been dismantling for the past four years). While he probably wouldn’t get Medicare for All past, neither would bernie. But he might get a public option through, especially if miracles of miracles we take the Senate. Bernie refuses to consider a public option, so we would have nothing, which would leave us worse off. Plus Biden has promised he’d only hold office for four years, and by that point we may have shifted as a country enough to get a good progressive candidate into office.

I’m not sure I’m right on any of this, to be honest, these are the conversations everyone here is having these days. I vote in my primary on Tuesday and I desperately want to vote for Warren, though I know she isn’t going to win. So I have to decide if that’s worth casting a vote for her. It’s really tough and stressful to be honest right now. The mood is pretty doom and gloom that none of them can beat trump. sigh. 

Oh hun, you weren’t rude!! You probably got a longer answer than you wanted, but I completely agree with you! TLDR on my other post, I want people to vote for Warren who is essentially a more practical, better qualified Bernie. 

I'm not saying he's the better option tho but like Hilary for example I get the hype of having a woman I president I literally cry when mine finally elected ours but the international affairs she and her husband were like any other right wing president and I wish that wasn't the case but USA have been killing so many people directly and indirectly in so many countries and destroying democracies around the world we can't handle other president like that 2/2

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Hi!!! Thank you for your thoughts I appreciate them <3 I do get wrapped up in my domestic policy bubble too much, for sure, so it’s great hearing from someone outside of that.

You’re absolutely right about our presidents (even our “liberal” ones) being moderate on the global scale of what’s considered liberal. Our short-hand for candidates like Bernie and Warren is “progressive”--they kind of fall into this bucket that you could slot AOC into also for example...

And I would LOVE for a progressive to become president... Someone was trying to get to the bottom of my Sanders displeasure once and they were like... oh so he’s not progressive enough for you! Ha! I am a pacifict, tax-loving, safety-net-program-adoring socialist. I want government sponsored health care, generous food stamp programs, generous immigration policies, tight regulations on environmental pollution, etc. etc. BUT the problem with Bernie is he promises things he can’t make happen and then people vote for him OVER people who I think have a better chance at shifting us toward that future I want to see. 

Unfortunately, I know how our Legislature works and it ain’t pretty. We’re held hostage by voting habits (the head of our Senate has like a 10 percent approval rating in his state and yet i guarantee he’ll be reelected) and a voting system that gives ultra-conservative states outsized power over liberal states (that’s how Hillary won three million more votes than Trump and yet still lost). My vote is weighted less than someone who lives in a Republican state out West. 

It’s hard to tell people to vote realistically rather than with their hearts, i get it (though in Warren they have a much better progressive option than Bernie) but the consequences of choosing the wrong Democratic candidate is that Trump will get four more years and I just ... I just don’t think the world can survive that. Especially without the threat of reelection hanging over his head. 

Right???? Like I get it, I’m not naive to political campaigns, they promise things they want to see happen and not things that will actually happen... but Bernie is on a Trumpian level when it comes to that and he just released a “plan” to pay for everything that still did not even come close (it’s like when Trump said Mexico would pay for his stupid ass wall)

And again that would be whatever, except Bernie doesn’t get anything done ever! He’s been in Congress for longer than god and he has passed nothing. Hillary had a more progressive voting record than him. He really wants to help all these people??? Where is the governing that would have actually done that?? Where was the hard work where you had to compromise and make hard choices and not live in a circle jerk of one where you could spout ideologically pure beliefs because you were never responsible for helping one god damn person other than yourself

Meanwhile Warren who literally created the consumer financial protection bureau is offering *slightly* more realistic plans that actually might get somewhat implemented and yet people are going but Sanders will clear my debt no matter what I make. No. No he will not. Warren might actually make your life better in the long run, Bernie is going to talk a lot about class inequality and actually do nothing about it.

And maybe this is me just being bitter about Hillary because I will go to my grave partly blaming Bernie for trump being in office right now, but it feels like again we have this fabulous, smart, capable woman running and she’s getting passed over for an old angry white dude who is sexist and racist and narcissistic and likes to yell a lot. Sound familiar?

Oh and the icing on the cake is that if Bernie does win, we’ll be slaughtered in the house in midterms (and we barely have a chance of taking the Senate) so you’ll have a president who gets nothing done, and Congress that’s blocking him anyway, a newly conservative scotus, lower courts that have been stacked with trump judges and basically we’re all fucked.