LogFAQs > #955677897

I think that's fair, aside from the last paragraph. We've had THIS discussion before as well, but I think America as a country is extremely conservative in its values, and it is only in recent years that (socially) progressive ideals have started to become more mainstream. The GOP was successful in pushing to the far right, largely because that conservative mentality was already the backbone of this country's politics. The problem with responding to the GOP's far-right tendencies by pushing a far left agenda (I know, I know, by global standards, our left wing would be like, center-left at best, but in this country, the progressive wing is a far left ideology) is that it immediately alienates the majority of the country who are conservative. Even if you succeed in winning a small victory (see: Obama in 2008 and the ACA in 2009), it results in IMMEDIATE and devastating backlash that we are still suffering the effects of to this day. Liberal policies cannot succeed in a "one step forward, two steps back" environment, where anything we do is immediately undone by the opposition party when they inevitably win by campaigning against "far left policy", resulting in us needing to burn a ton of time and political capital just to repair damage and prevent further backsliding.

This is why I keep repeating that we just need to keep voting Democrat and holding the line. I know it sucks, and I know that nothing is getting done, but the alternative is to lose every other election, have our conservative population push us farther right every time, and be constantly stuck trying to hold back that tide. There needs to be a point where the GOP needs to have a reckoning. They need to be punished for their current campaign strategy to the point where they need to start moving back to the left to become politically relevant again. As it stands, they don't need to change a single thing they're doing, and they're rewarded more and more often for pushing further to the right (in a way that Democrats have not shown evidence of being rewarded when they push left). They literally don't have a platform other than opposing the Democrats, and it succeeds slightly more than half the time.

Yes, our system sucks. Yes, it is rigged in favor of the GOP. And yes, we should absolutely abolish the filibuster, because in its current state, it ONLY benefits the GOP (since they campaign on literally stopping all progress, and having gridlock allows that to happen). But unfortunately, there are a LOT of Democratic voters to the right of me who either vote for moderates in the hopes of bipartisanship and working across the aisle (because these voters are naive and live about three decades in the past at best), or don't have a problem with the GOP when they get in power, because they're privileged enough to not suffer the worst fates when the GOP take charge.

This is why I keep saying that there needs to be an effort by progressive voices to try and market their ideas towards those moderates who are deciding primaries. Because the ideas themselves are good, but they're painted in a way that's meant to appeal to people who already agree with them, which is firebrand-y enough to alienate moderate voters who are more in favor of slow, incremental change.

That's why I loved Elizabeth Warren's two cent plan during the primaries. It pushed for a progressive policy (free childcare), while painting it in a light that came across as reasonable (only two cents of every dollar billionaires make). To me, that was amazing branding. By throwing out that two cent number, even the stupidest of voters (you know, the people who think "ESTATE TAXES?! LIKE HELL THE GOVERNMENT IS GONNA TAKE A CHUNK OF MY $500 SAVINGS ACCOUNT!") can't get all that made, because it's a small enough number that it doesn't seem like a lot unless you take the trouble to multiply it by a total dollar amount. But then Elizabeth and Bernie but stumbled when it came to universal healthcare, because they tried to keep hammering that the super rich were going to pay the larger share, or that you would save more in healthcare than you'd pay in taxes. The voters are fucking stupid, and all they heard was "higher taxes", which is a non-starter. If one of them came out and said "the richest people are going to pay a nickel off every dollar they make, and that'll fund universal healthcare", I think that would've been far more easily digestible to the masses, without scaring them off via the threat of taxes.

---

Touch fuzzy. Get fuzzier.
Inviso