Uhuh. Read someones history before making that judgement. Disagreement with your bad takes does not make someone a centrist.

Not everyone. Just you. And just for the record, the party should absolutely listen to the left for the first fucking time. You just aren't the left. Even if you are left, your bad takes aren't representative of the vast majority.

You have no fucking idea what wing of the party I belong to.

To be clear, that's the only thing you have ever been or ever will be.

Oh, fuck off. I've been brutal towards the establishment. I just want them beaten, and pretending elections are rigged is counterproductive to that end. You're nothing but a right wing agitator.

they might respond to pressure to stop

Why would they? It's apparently working. Now who is suddenly feeling charitable towards the establishment? You think they can be shamed into playing nice? You are so full of shit.

Well, it is fucking kids. That should at least count as something, but it's still insane that anyone is surprised by it.

I don't think the word "rigging" tells an accurate story. I do think they pulled strings to get all the establishment candidates to Voltron into Biden for super Tuesday. I do think they influenced their cohorts in the media to make Bernie look like he couldn't win the general. I don't believe they messed with the voting process itself, which is what "rigging" tends to invoke.

Rather than try to deny it, they went with the tactic of saying

Again, context matters. In a legal process there are different times to make different arguments, and a good lawyer makes use every argument available. This particular argument dealt with whether or not the court had jurisdiction in the matter, so it came early in the process.

This in spite of their own charter mandating that they stay neutral

What exactly does that mean? Is every member required to be personally neutral in even their personal relationships outside the DNC? Does that extend to Obama who is neither a board member or on staff at the DNC? Being neutral is a good idea, but that rule is pretty meaningless.

To be clear, I am no apologist for the Democratic establishment. I blame them more for Trump than the Republicans. That's why I want progressives to show up and vote them out in primaries. Giving the false impression that their vote won't count is counterproductive.

It's accurate that their lawyer made that true argument. That's just how party primaries work in the US, unfortunately. It's not accurate that "the party went to court for the right to rig". The whole point of the argument was to avoid a potentially long and expensive case from moving forward. The context matters, and the lawyer would have been incompetent not to bring it up, as would a Republican or even Green party lawyer in that situation.

the party went to court for the right to rig.

Not a fair interpretation of an argument made by a single DNC lawyer in a single context. Also, the primary is over and Mamdani won.

DNC normally "3rd parties don't function in our two party system, there's no point in voting for them

That part is just reality.

Even if there were a magic politician who did everything right...

And even an apologist for Adolf Hitler might fall back to this vibe based argument.

Things can decline and progress at the same time.

Which is explicitly in my comment that you replied to.

The average american has access to far more luxury than ever before.

TVs are thinner (and cheaper), computers are faster and fit in your pocket. Technology moved forward, and you could even try to wrangle that into an argument for capitalism. (Which I would reject, but the bones of the argument are at least there). How you tie that to anything Democrats have done, I have no idea.

but I think on average things have improved

And you are delusional. Many things have gone well for some people, and some things have even gone well for almost everyone. That doesn't change the fact that the vast majority of working Americans are in way worse shape than they were 50 years ago.

You haven't wrestled with any of the facts above, but here are some more. The average personal savings rate in 1975 was over 12% and today it's below 6%. Nearly half of American households today have no retirement savings at all. Appliances now last less than half as long as they did in 1975. Jobs are far less secure than in 1975. Educational requirements are far higher than in 1975. College costs are way higher, as are medical costs - even for those with insurance. Even streaming media has been enshitified to where cable TV was cheaper and more convenient.

These are the kind of conditions that reliably turn neoliberalism into fascism.

Really? I think you might be the only one that doesn't see the decline. I've been making these points for years, and I've never had to defend the notion that things have gotten worse for workers. Sure, there are specific things tht have improved, but not the whole. Even a lot of the big improvements like the ACA have made the economic picture worse overall.

Union membership in 1975 was around 25% compared to 10% today. Wealth inequality has absolutely exploded, as has the percentage of Americans living paycheck to paycheck. Personal debt has also exploded. People used to borrow to buy a house. Then they started borrowing to buy a car. Then they started paying for college with debt. Now people are financing their groceries.

By every relevant measure, economic outlooks for everyone but the wealthy have crashed in the past 50 years, and Democratic solutions have done dick to stop it. In many cases it was even Democrats making things worse.

But America brings so much to the table! There's all the goods manufactured in America, there is all the creativity coming out of the American TV and movie industries, there is all the scientific research and knowledge that is totally not leaving. What about innovative software (licenses) and enshitified streaming services. America is on the cutting edge of defense and it's partners totally trust that America would never yank away support for those weapons at the whim of a mad king or anything.

Most importantly, how will the world ever get by without the American financial system that contributes nothing to the world and demands all the wealth in return? I think the world will find America hard to shake.

(Massive /s, just in case it's not obvious.)