I've been volunteering with the Dem party since high school, I've worked campaigns and elections at every level in MA, CT, and CA. What I learned is that hardly anyone at all participates. The truth is neither you nor I nor anyone else has actually witnessed a truly engaged and empowered democratic party at the PEOPLE level.

Leadership remains because people refuse to engage.

Then you are remembering incorrectly. I turned 18 the year Obama was elected. I was super dialed in and remember this process very clearly.

I swear to God, almost nobody said milquetoast before February 2025. Now I hear it online constantly. Sometimes people spell it right, but so often it's "milktoast".

Some influencer or political commentator definitely said it recently and now everyone is repeating it everywhere. I'm not complaining, it's a great word -- but it's such a compelling example of words going viral

No, I am arguing with the fact that you said the that the 50s were a "blip" of non-work in women's working history, when in fact, all the same types of work that had been available to women for hundreds of years continued to be available to them in the 50s. The whole point of the Domestic Housewife image was an artificial cultural push to get women BACK into the types of work you are describing, the pre-WWII style of work to which most women did not necessarily want to return.

Yes, there was a reactionary advertising push toward the Domestic Housewife image that happened in the 50s, but that was a direct response to the fact that in the 50s women were demanding to maintain the transition from home work to society work.

I mean that's just not true. I thought everyone learned about how WWII offered women the opportunity to join the workforce in mass numbers for the first time because of the crucial roles that were left open by the men who were off to fight. That's what sparked the transition toward women's right to work at all. Before that, there was no such right. Unless you are counting cooking and cleaning at home, or tending the family farm, as "work", but I don't believe that's what people mean when we are referring to "a woman's right to work".

Huh? That other person seems calm and respectful too. What do you mean?

Under the current administration we indeed aspire to be more like Russia and are succeeding.

This is exactly the problem with lumping in everyone who is not a Trump supporter as "liberals". You end up with this completely misguided impression of who "liberals" are and what "liberals" do. It's become a meaningless term.