Ironically, that's a rather short-sighted take.

Biggest issue here is that you've misrepresented or misunderstood what I stated. Mine wasn't a discussion about "appealing to" those folks. If we're already politically aligned on some set of goals (ex: limit Trump's damage to the USA), I don't have to appeal to them, they're already with me on that issue as long as I don't slam the door shut in their faces.

Next issue is that if you insist on dropping the ball on the short-term, you'll never achieve what you want in the long term. On the other hand, getting wins along the way, short-term or not, will definitely get you closer to that long-term win you're after. Build, build, build. Hold the line when something breaks, then get back to building. You absolutely will fail if you insist on building a skyscraper in a single day.

Turning folks away at a time when you're politically disadvantaged simply because you think you know which ones will "actually be Democrats" is also terribly, terribly naive (or narcissistic or both). You're not psychic and neither am I. People DO change their political perspective all the time and you can't always predict who is going to change, who is going to stick with it.

And besides, a big reason the right is in the position it is in now -- FULL CONTROL of the federal government, largely in control of state & local government top to bottom across the country -- is because they were willing to welcome folks into their house party. It didn't matter if folks only aligned on one topic. It didn't matter if it was only going to be a series of short-term wins. Those short-term wins added up, and added up, even if people eventually walked away. Trump and his cronies have almost absolute power now, in part because they courted the latino vote in key areas. Do you honestly think they care about the latino vote long-term now that you're seeing what they're doing to those communities?

The ideological purity test being touted here is the losing strategy. Short-term. Long-term. Full-term.

And those folks are WAY more vocal & principled than most of us who consider ourselves to be progressive.

You are as much the enemy as they are.

Regardless of your personal feelings, it's 100% true: Give your opponent a golden bridge on which to retreat.

Maybe they are reformed and truly see that you were right. Maybe they aren't. Maybe they actually are incredibly stupid and will do the same thing again the first chance they get. But if they're ideologically aligned with your same goals at the moment, then you better open up and make some space for them because I guarantee that your actual enemies are busy doing everything they can to make the path back to the dark side as easy and non-judgemental as possible.

Depends if you're talking about ethical vegan or dietary vegan.

If it's human based and there's consent, there are vegan factions who find that A-OK and would still consider it vegan.

At least, that's how I understand it from having dated and befriended my fair share of vegans.

And also a lot of us, maybe a majority of us, don't care if this was a recycled joke from Reddit because it's not like we've seen it on Reddit ... we don't use that place.

Vegan food. I mean, a lot of them eat vegan. Not all of them.

For me it's directly proportional to the density and raw number of people and other conversations going on around me as to the extent that my brain does a wipe out.

show me them bean toes.

I am getting so hot, I'm gonna boop them bean toes.

I know this is preaching to the choir here, but that is so very out of touch for many/most/all of us.

Those things cost like $5 - $9 in my area, and you can even get the "old" ones for a couple dollars cheaper at times. It costs very little more than raw chicken, and in some cases, the rotisserie chickens cost less. Then you factor in time for cooking, clean-up, products for clean-up, and other time / material costs, and the difference comes out a wash.

So, they are apparently suggesting that having chicken in a meal at all is a splurge. Sure, in some idealistic world where we all eat a vegan diet to save the earth, that might fly. But in the real world, it's literally insane propaganda to suggest that chicken is a splurge.

I don't think dinosaurs were taking x-rays of beaver tails, my dude. Go read a book sometime.

If this turns out to be true, and really even if it doesn't, I'm just tired of MAGA on MAGA gang violence in the USA. Can't these people just settle their differences over a Bible or the blood of baby Jesus?

The ambulance ride is $2,500 USD. It's out of network, so you owe 100% on that, we don't pay for it. No, you don't get to choose which ambulance service comes to pick you up, you get what you get and you have to pay if it's not in network. Oh, great news! Your emergency room is fully covered! But you haven't met your maximum out of pocket, and you still have your co-insurance and deductible, so another $2,500 USD, please. So, uh, the doctor in the emergency room that you never even saw, he's also out of network, so that's an additional $900. And the ibuprofen they gave you, that's $45 because we only cover 90 day prescriptions and those have to be pre-authorized. On the bright side, your share of the imaging is only only $1,800 USD. Pinky swear, we actually paid out $7,200 USD on that one.