LogFAQs > #939570849

DoomTheGyarados posted...

but if you scorch only one half of the coin you are left with the endless waltz of death and despair that we have been drowning in since Reagan was sworn in.

"since Reagan", huh?

Wow, damn, I didn't know America's problems were so recent.

This is a country that has built into its very institutions undemocratic structures steeped in racism (like literally given how much of the Conventional Constitution was structured around appeasing the ability of the South to maintain slavery and entrench their political power from any effort to rectify it from the rest of the nation) continuing through the addition of states having to be "fair and balanced" to continue that until finally the South threw a fit when they tried to play brinksmanship and threatened the rest of the country with revolt if they elected a candidate they did not like.

Then they lost and murdered that president, one who was really only forced into realizing their own "worst fears" by their own rebellion, and managed to have one who fucking sabotaged Reconstruction to the point where you can plausibly argue there hasn't been a truly democratic tradition in the South for the breadth of this country's entire history: Slavery, Women's Suffrage (okay this one is the whole country not just the South), to Jim Crow, to the voter suppression and gerrymandering of the GOP that continues there to this day. The North is marginally better in this regard but make no mistake many of those same issues apply there as well.

These are some of the most fundamental obstacles in the way of actual progress in this country. Didn't start with Trump, didn't start with Reagan, didn't even start with the Southern Strategy. They were built into the very founding of the country. So much of what needs to be changed simply can not because the political reality is entirely infeasible: We can't even get equal rights for women guaranteed as a Constitutional Amendment in 2020. That is your opponent, one who won't even take the easiest PR lay-up of all time.

Yes, we need campaign finance reform, yes we need to do obvious things like vote-by-mail, expand early voting, and make Election Day a holiday. But more than that we need a plausible path to enact these policies. You can't do it by fiat. You have the institutions of this country at the highest levels actively hostile to it in SCOTUS. So how do you get it done? This has always been one of my bigger pet peeves with Sanders's message - he has not had a satisfactory answer. "Millions of people rising up in a political revolution!" are you serious? The GOP isn't going to cow to popular pressure. They maintain power right now without majority support. They oppose policy supported by 90% of the country and a majority of their own party. Have them voted out? Okay, we're starting to get somewhere now but hands up does anyone really think in this parallel timeline where Sanders wins (2016 or 2020, I don't care) you're just going to see Dem flips in Utah, West Virginia, Mississippi? No? So now what do we do when Sanders is up there and either can't get things passed over the GOP in Congress - or can, but has it eviscerated by a Supreme Court that has had a seat stolen by the GOP? If this unmotivated base of people somehow materialized only now for Sanders but couldn't be bothered to try and improve this country's lot before him are we to believe they're staying fired up and active after the system beats down his policies? Because I'm sorry no one person is going to fix this stuff we've got problems going back 250+ years we're still chipping away at. We've made progress sure, but there's a hell of a ways still to go. No president is going to just fix this shit in 4-8 years.

There's definitely some value to the bully pulpit of the presidency here, don't get me wrong, however much damage Trump may be doing to it these past 4 years. I'm not discounting that. And you can some good things done from there using it. I can't completely discount a top-down approach like this because we've seen it have results in Civil Rights at times. We've also seen it go the other way of course. It's the very nature of the pendulum cycle of politics where even if we get some progressive wave incoming, the electorate will just go, "Well, guess we oughta give the Republicans a shot again" in a matter of years regardless of whatever accomplishes were made under Democrats/progressives and no matter what disasters were created by Republicans. The reverse is true too, of course, but this is under its most significant fire yet as the Republican party more openly embraces its slide into authoritarianism as the path to winning elections democratically slips further and further from their reach. Voter suppression, voter intimidation, looking for and exploiting any loophole they can even as it very clearly violates any spirit to democratic rule.

DoomTheGyarados posted...

You accept the stall. You will hate to hear it. You will call some on the left unreasonable. You will say a thousand things, but ultimately you just accept it because civility is more important to you than people dying. It just is. You will hate that observation. I am not stupid, I am not unhinged, and I am not uninformed on any issue we could discuss in this topic. I am in fact paid to write for a news program about the realities of our political landscape, so even if you think I potentially do my job poorly it is still my job to know about the world around us.

Oh, get out with this nonsense. You disagree with my conclusion on what that path is, fine, whatever, I don't care. But if you think for one fucking second you have any fucking ability and insight to analyze and observe my beliefs from our limited interactions then you need to get over yourself.

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