Board 8 > Politics Containment Topic 375: Joe Bidin' his time

(+) Yeah! (+)

Inviso posted...

Or Bernie, if we're talking hypotheticals.

Cant help but make these digs, lol can you?

Sorry but your hypothetical doesnt work, because Bernie would spend every single day calling out (some might say yelling at) anyone in the way of helping the people.

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ChaosTonyV4 posted...

Cant help but make these digs, lol can you?

Sorry but your hypothetical doesnt work, because Bernie would spend every single day calling out (some might say yelling at) anyone in the way of helping the people.

And that would...change things? The voters wouldn't just place all the blame on him, rather than on the GOP legislators? Really?

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you must be the most optimistic person in this topic if you think sanders yelling at mcconnell would make him bring a nominee to a vote, let alone overcome the 60 vote threshold

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It has to be intentional how hard you guys are missing the point, lol.

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Actually, my point had been subtly remarking on the irony of you jumping at Suprak's comments on 2016 in his justified frustration of SCOTUS's rulings saying it was tired when in the same breath you slipped in a dig at the Democratic Party which is just as tired in this topic, if not more so.

i simply continued in morbid curiosity of what possible universe GOP obstructionism is overcome when they held the majority. I didn't intend to and had moved on from the topic entirely, but then you brought Sanders into this directly just now.

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But Im not even talking about overcoming GOP obstruction, at least not in the short term, Im talking explicitly about not letting the GOP take total control, at which point nothing from 2016-2024 has mattered at all!

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xp1337 posted...

Actually, my point had been subtly remarking on the irony of you jumping at Suprak's comments on 2016 in his justified frustration of SCOTUS's rulings saying it was tired when in the same breath you slipped in a dig at the Democratic Party which is just as tired in this topic, if not more so.

i simply continued in morbid curiosity of what possible universe GOP obstructionism is overcome when they held the majority. I didn't intend to and had moved on from the topic entirely, but then you brought Sanders into this directly just now.

To be fair, I brought Sanders in, not Tony. And that's largely out of frustration for Tony's regular refrain of saying the Dems are shit, even though any progressive would be in the exact same position, given just how combative and obstructionist the GOP is.

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ChaosTonyV4 posted...

Sorry but your hypothetical doesnt work, because Bernie would spend every single day calling out (some might say yelling at) anyone in the way of helping the people.

You have too much faith in people if you think that would actually do anything.

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ChaosTonyV4 posted...

But Im not even talking about overcoming GOP obstruction, at least not in the short term, Im talking explicitly about not letting the GOP take total control, at which point nothing from 2016-2024 has mattered at all!

...But how does this change in Earth-3 where Sanders beats Clinton and Trump in 2016?

If the GOP still holds the Senate, Sanders can't really advance much of an agenda over McConnell. Your answer thus far, as far as I can tell, is that Sanders would be calling them out... but what in the world makes you think that would change anything? The GOP won't budge and there is no reason to believe that it would trigger a historically unprecedented gain in the 2018 midterms. (As you'll recall this has been my long standing criticism of Sanders. Obviously I love most of his policy ideas but his plan to get there has never seemed realistic. It's always hinged on some massive surge of voters from the abyss to either pressure the GOP into submission (lol) or sweep them out of office.) Now, I'm admittedly cheating a bit by switching back to Earth-1 for a moment here but this strategy couldn't even sweep Biden out of a primary that should theoretically be a friendly pool for him than the general electorate against an allegedly stupid and incompetent Democratic Party. So I'm willing to enter that into circumstantial evidence that we're probably not looking at some midterm takeover in 2018 because the general electorate is outraged at GOP obstructionism.

...So, in terms of actual results how is this hypothetical timeline different than the one we're currently in? Like maybe there's the feel-good self satisfaction that Sanders is calling out the GOP from behind the seal of POTUS but if it isn't translating into actual legislation how is it forestalling the GOP's erosion of small-d democracy?

I'm genuinely asking, what exactly would be different here in terms of achieving actual legislation? Are Dems winning the midterms in 2018? By enough to overcome the Manchin types? Is he flipping Manchin? How - you think public pressure flips him? Why? If not then how are passing any of the necessary electoral reforms to prevent the GOP from implementing the shit they've been doing for years, decades before all this. It's not like it started with Trump.

Like I get the impression that you think we only crossed the point of no return recently. In reality, we probably passed it in 2014 but you can just as easily argue 2010, 2000, 1980, or further back. Biden winning in a landslide that got us 52+ in the Senate was basically the full court heave at the buzzer that could have sent us into OT (not even win the game, just stay alive!) and we missed.

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You dont think it would be objectively better than the alternative, (which isjust not? )

Anyway, my original point was that the Man dont you guys wish you voted Hillary in 2016! scolding isnt going to mean a whole hell of a lot if the GOP takes back over in 2024.

To stay on this topic, if Joe Biden gave a speech every single day saying I want *insert popular thing* to happen, the American people deserve this and heres why, do you think its chances would go up or down?

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ChaosTonyV4 posted...

You dont think it would be objectively better than the alternative, (which isjust not? )

Anyway, my original point was that the Man dont you guys wish you voted Hillary in 2016! scolding isnt going to mean a whole hell of a lot if the GOP takes back over in 2024.

To stay on this topic, if Joe Biden gave a speech every single day saying I want *insert popular thing* to happen, the American people deserve this and heres why, do you think its chances would go up or down?

I don't think it would have a single impact.

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Oh so you, exactly like that Matt Yglesias tweet I shared awhile ago, have literally no idea how ideas become popular, and in turn become laws.

Got it.

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ChaosTonyV4 posted...

Oh so you, exactly like that Matt Yglesias tweet I shared awhile ago, have literally no idea how ideas become popular, and in turn become laws.

Got it.

C'mon man. You can't even admit that shouting "Defund the Police" and "All Cops Are Bastards" are poor ways of generating popularity behind the underlying concept implied by those terms. Let's not pretend you understand how ideas generate the support to become laws either.

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Inviso posted...

C'mon man. You can't even admit that shouting "Defund the Police" and "All Cops Are Bastards" are poor ways of generating popularity behind the underlying concept implied by those terms. Let's not pretend you understand how ideas generate the support to become laws either.

God you try so under not to understand me.

My argument for that whole discussion was never that they were popular, its that they were policy and ideology, not slogans.

I said that explicitly multiple times.

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ChaosTonyV4 posted...

God you try so under not to understand me.

My argument for that whole discussion was never that they were popular, its that they were policy and ideology, not slogans.

I said that explicitly multiple times.

Well if there is this much "misunderstanding" (and not just with me), maybe you're doing a bad job of your messaging and should consider correcting that.

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ChaosTonyV4 posted...

You dont think it would be objectively better than the alternative, (which isjust not? )

Not particularly, but there's too much what-if going on. For all we know, Sanders is obstructed by the GOP for 4 years and voters continue to blame the president because they think we're more like a monarchy and if stuff isn't getting done that's on POTUS and elect like DeSantis in 2020 with 2-3 vacancies they've held open throughout Sanders's term and now they're the ones with a trifecta and while they haven't gone as deep down the Trump rabbit hole as they are now, he started them there still. So we're basically in the same present only instead of Biden and an admittedly toothless Dem trifecta, it's a GOP trifecta instead.

But it could play out differently sure, I just hold no optimism it's any better than it currently is, no. I think we basically walked into our own collective grave in 2014 when Dems again didn't bother showing up in the midterms and let the GOP finish the job of taking the Senate and fully grinding everything to a halt.

ChaosTonyV4 posted...

To stay on this topic, if Joe Biden gave a speech every single day saying I want *insert popular thing* to happen, the American people deserve this and heres why, do you think its chances would go up or down?

I'm being totally honest when I say no change. I honestly don't think it moves anyone. It certainly doesn't move anyone in Congress. Manchin and Sinema will continue to live in their fantasy world and claim we all need to join hands and work together and it'll happen if we just try harder.

You really underestimate how pessimistic and resigned I am about our situation! I just don't think it's constructive to note in all my posts that, "Fun Fact: Did you know in a poll of institutions, people ranked the military, police, and Amazon as the top 3 while 'antifa' was ranked below hostile foreign adversaries? So, criminal justice reform is looking swell!" or "Great how the EPA has finally rolled back some of the most heinous Trump deregulations, it'll come in handy considering how much of the population of the world lives close to sea level and our major cities will likely be underwater sooner rather than later!" or "The PNW isn't the only place facing a heatwave everyone, Antarctica is setting records too!" so I just operate under the barest facade that things are somehow going to work themselves out in these discussions except when we're discussing them directly so I'm not depressing everyone with endless nihilism.

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Inviso posted...

Well if there is this much "misunderstanding" (and not just with me), maybe you're doing a bad job of your messaging and should consider correcting that.

Its most frequently you, and then the natural obvious game of telephone occurs, my guy.

Proof:
xp1337 posted...

I didn't intend to and had moved on from the topic entirely, but then you brought Sanders into this directly just now

You took us down a path, not understanding my intention, and xp followedI didnt bring up Bernie!


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i am just the worst aren't i

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Jesus christ I'm going to lose my mind going from relitigating 2016 to slogan shit again.

Voters are not responsible for the failures of Democratic Party strategy. It is not the job of activists making demands of politicians to make sure their demands work as campaign slogans for the people they are criticizing.

Likewise the political reality that Dems are constrained by a shitty system doesn't absolve them of not even TRYING to placate their base in other ways like Republicans do when things don't go their way. None of this is contradictory or hard.

Just nuke the topic from orbit whenever 2016 comes up at this point

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xp1337 posted...

i am just the worst aren't i

I dont blame you for it, for the record.

HeroDelTiempo17 posted...

Voters are not responsible for the failures of Democratic Party strategy. It is not the job of activists making demands of politicians to make sure their demands work as campaign slogans for the people they are criticizing.

Likewise the political reality that Dems are constrained by a s***ty system doesn't absolve them of not even TRYING to placate their base in other ways like Republicans do when things don't go their way. None of this is contradictory or hard.

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Ultimately, I think my argument comes down to this. Tony, you regularly complain about the Democratic Party being useless and not taking extreme action to push the progressive agenda that the voters want. I don't think that's what's happening here. I think the Democratic Party is behaving EXACTLY how the MAJORITY of their voters want them to act. The Democratic Party is not this overwhelming progressive monolith. At best they are in a 3-2 minority (more likely a 4-1 minority) against the moderate wing of the part. And the moderates, as stupid and irrational as this sounds, want bipartisanship. They want the country to be united, which means both parties coming together to craft legislation for the good of all. I fully admit that this mindset is fucking stupid. You are completely right to be pissed off about it. But that's the will of the moderate majority of VOTERS.

This is the problem, and I've mentioned this before. But the moderate wing of the Democratic Party looks at the Republicans and correctly sees them as raging extremists. But at the same time, they look at the progressive wing of the party and similarly see THEM as raging extremists as well (largely because of the combative messaging of both policy, and how to accomplish it). If the Democrats just say fuck it, and start aggressively pushing progressive legislation without the moderate wing's blessing, they stand to lose a lot more, because suddenly the moderates are in the middle of two parties, and they believe neither one of those parties represents their views. If they feel disenfranchised, that's a HUGE chunk of the Democratic Party potentially sitting out and handing power to the GOP. With this in mind, the party is expecting the progressives to be more pragmatic and vote the better of the two options, because the GOP is actively spiteful towards the progressive agenda, whereas the Democrats nominally support progressive policies.

So the party IS doing right by their base. It's just not what progressives want.

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HeroDelTiempo17 posted...

Just nuke the topic from orbit whenever 2016 comes up at this point

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And again, that IS on the voters, HDT. That's on moderate voters for being scared of progressive policies in the first place, but it does not help with progressive are openly hostile to messaging in a way that appeals to moderates, as opposed to progressives, who are already onboard with those policies.

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HeroDelTiempo17 posted...

Voters are not responsible for the failures of Democratic Party strategy. It is not the job of activists making demands of politicians to make sure their demands work as campaign slogans for the people they are criticizing.

Perhaps not, but I'm pretty sure the research has shown that where the GOP was able to successfully able to tie "Defund the Police" to Democrats it worked to their (GOP) benefit.

Even if the policy demand is correct, if the result of the activism results in the only side willing to hear you out even a little, then I mean... it's ultimately a backfire, isn't it?

I don't think the blame lies with the activists though. I think it's an indictment of the electorate. But then I think I also have a far dimmer view of the broader electorate than many of you!

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Inviso posted...

I think the Democratic Party is behaving EXACTLY how the MAJORITY of their voters want them to act.

Inviso posted...

This is the problem, and I've mentioned this before. But the moderate wing of the Democratic Party looks at the Republicans and correctly sees them as raging extremists. But at the same time, they look at the progressive wing of the party and similarly see THEM as raging extremists as well (largely because of the combative messaging of both policy, and how to accomplish it). If the Democrats just say f*** it, and start aggressively pushing progressive legislation without the moderate wing's blessing, they stand to lose a lot more, because suddenly the moderates are in the middle of two parties, and they believe neither one of those parties represents their views.

Ok but if you actually believe this, you dont get to complain when people dont play ball.

Youre saying they should be pragmatic and vote for the guys who you say INTENTIONALLY wont give in to their demands (because if they did, theyd lose the moderate wing), but you cant have it both ways, sorry.


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I would actually contest Inviso's proposition that the progressive wing is the minority of the Democratic Party at this point but that hinges heavily on how we're defining progressive. Sure, that's probably true if you had AOC and Manchin both draft up a huge list of how to deal with everything and told everyone to take a side and it was all-or-nothing... but I think it's pretty clear that in the past few years the "progressive wing" has made huge in-roads into the direction of policy demands and direction.

It's hard to tell a lot because you still have the moderates populating leadership largely on seniority, but at the same time we live in a world where Schumer continuously calls for Biden to just cancel student debt and putting aside the fact that he hasn't actually done it yet (which is some BS) the fact that Schumer, the Majority Leader, is publicly onboard student debt cancellation is a massive departure from even 6 years ago.

I think the ideas that were once damn near solely in the realm of Sanders, Warren, and a few House members has rapidly started to guide more and more of the party's overall direction and it's doing so with a good deal of speed all considered.

The problem is that with the margins the way they are it doesn't matter if the progressive wing was 95% of the party, that other 5% can blow it up by themselves and that's what they're doing right now.

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Let me put this another way, if the group you consider the minority is big enough to swing the election, you need to say and do something to earn their vote.

Thats all there is to it.

You can disagree and say the threat of Republicans is enough, but we all know its not, the party with more apathetic voters loses.

Edit: XPs post is exactly what I was referring to at 263, progressive politicians continually talking about how good a policy is for people has made those things WILDLY popular.

I know this sounds crazy, but when elected leaders tell people something is good, the people who elected that person often listen.

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ChaosTonyV4 posted...

Edit: XPs post is exactly what I was referring to at 263, progressive politicians continually talking about how good a policy is for people has made those things WILDLY popular.

I know this sounds crazy, but when elected leaders tell people something is good, the people who elected that person often listen.

While this is true (that when political leaders support something people tend to follow; contrary to the conventional wisdom that politicians should wait for the people to get behind an idea) the reason I earlier stated I don't think it'd move the needle if Biden did it is because on a results level I don't think Manchin/Sinema/etc. are moved by it and honestly with how media bubbles have developed I feel like the effect is likely to become more diluted.

Ironically, it probably works better for the right because their media bubbles are basically fully formed propaganda outlets at this point. The left has no equivalent whatsoever. Saying CNN, MSNBC, NYT, WaPo are is first off fucking hilarious given how often they bend over backwards for the GOP but secondly that's not really a bubble like Fox it's a bunch of small little ones.

I feel like the Machiavellian play would be for some leftist multi-billionaire (let's ignore if that's inherently a contradiction) to intentionally create a Fox equivalent for the left and fully embrace the idea of basically disseminating progressive/leftist views, arguments, and talking points. I'm just... not sure if it'd work. Another in-built advantage the right has is how older people tend right and they tend to be radio and TV viewers at a higher rate and also tend to be less tech-savvy and thus far more susceptible to Facebook, etc. misinformation and having that hazy recollection of when news was actually news and therefore just automatically believing that if it's on a (self-proclaimed) news channel/site/outlet it must be true.

There's the argument that progressives are less likely to want a propaganda-ish outlet like this but I'm not so sure I don't cynically think confirmation and selection bias couldn't overcome that at the end of the day. And at this point we're so deep into the weeds of "ends justify the means" that the whole idea has become deeply uncomfortable many sentences ago.

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ChaosTonyV4 posted...

Let me put this another way, if the group you consider the minority is big enough to swing the election, you need to say and do something to earn their vote.

Thats all there is to it.

You can disagree and say the threat of Republicans is enough, but we all know its not, the party with more apathetic voters loses.

It SHOULD be enough. Unfortunately, Democratic voters are politically stupid. GOP voters are stupid, full stop, but they understand politics. They understand that they need to vote for their guy, or the other guy will win. They don't need to vote for policy, they just need to vote AGAINST the Democrats. The fact that the Dems don't have that kind of blind loyalty is good from a "not having an authoritarian dictator" perspective, but it winds up fucking us over time and time again.

Also, again, if appeasing 20-35% of the party's potential voters alienates the other 65-80%, then that's a bad strategy, and it's ultimately a more likely losing strategy. Especially if the options are "I'm going to give you 10 dollars" (Progressives), "I'm going to take 10 dollars from you" (GOP), and "I'm not going to take any money for you, but I'm not giving you anything either" (Moderates), where the moderates are factually less damaging to the progressives than the GOP.

Like, you get pissed off when I make comments saying you should just vote Democrat no matter what, but at the very least, the Democrats are MORE progressive than the Republicans, so you're better off under the Dems. But like, can you understand that your attitude is basically treating moderates the same way you believe they're treating you, with the added downside that it's far less damaging for THEM if the GOP takes power over the Dems?

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ChaosTonyV4 posted...

Let me put this another way, if the group you consider the minority is big enough to swing the election, you need to say and do something to earn their vote.

The problem for the Democrats is that there are multiple groups that large in the party and they all disagree. Doing things progressives want still loses elections if it pisses off the moderates.
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Long story short, Democrats get fucked time and time again because we may have a majority of the population, but we're not a united cult like the GOP. And until we starting playing politics, as voters, the way the GOP does, it doesn't matter what policy we push, what messaging we use, or candidates we support. We will lose long-term in a way that GOP never does. The only way anything is ever going to change is if the GOP gets soundly defeated in multiple consecutive elections, and realizes that their current strategy (I'm assuming they get beat so bad that even their voter suppression efforts fail) is flawed, and they need to take a new stance. As it stands, under the current system, the GOP is always only two years away from taking back at least one lever of power and getting exactly what they want (which is complete obstruction and nothing getting done).

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On one hand, my theory, where Democrats actually push hard to DO stuff, maybe lose the moderates, lose the election, but that stuff meanwhile sticks around, helps people, and forces Republicans to actively take things away from voters.

On the other hand, your theory, Democrats intentionally do nothing, everyone votes for them, they win the election, repeat that for 12 years until THEN we can do stuff?

In the words of Joe Biden: come on, man.


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ChaosTonyV4 posted...

On one hand, my theory, where Democrats actually push hard to DO stuff, maybe lose the moderates, lose the election, but that stuff meanwhile sticks around, helps people, and forces Republicans to actively take things away from voters.

On the other hand, your theory, Democrats intentionally do nothing, everyone votes for them, they win the election, repeat that for 12 years until THEN we can do stuff?

In the words of Joe Biden: come on, man.

Again, they're not intentionally doing nothing. They're doing exactly what their voters want them to do, which is try to get things done without becoming a dictatorial single-party regime like what the GOP aspires to be.

Why is it that you have all these excuses and comebacks for me, yet you can never come up with anything your side could do differently or better to win? Seriously, you keep fucking losing and your reaction is never "what can we change" and is instead "the establishment/the media is rigged against us". And then you laugh and wonder why people bring up horseshoe theory. Are you just incapable of coming up with an electoral strategy that is able to sell your ideas without openly insulting or discounting the majority of voters you're trying to sway?

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I think that's putting the cart before the horse. Or you're arguing what Dems should do once they get into power while Inviso is arguing how they have to get to power.

I agree with you that once Dems achieve power they should absolutely push for sweeping legislation to help people even if it means they'll suffer electorally in the short-term. This is what happened with the ACA - Pelosi got the House in line to vote for it even when both she and some of her members knew they'd be ending their political career by voting for it. Of course, the problem was that thanks to Lieberman and the like in the Senate the ACA they ultimately signed and paid that price for was extremely watered down and nowhere near what it could or should have been.

As has been touched on, much of the problem is that the GOP is far more monolithic. It has wholly embraced identity politics and then had Trump's cult of personality thrown on top of that too. The Democrats are basically a coalition of a number of different groups that have at times differing and even opposing views so even when they have the majority as a whole, the internal conflict within can mean it doesn't have an effective majority on a given issue. If the majority were large enough you might be able to navigate that without too much trouble, but given it's not - and the electoral structure of government further disadvantages them from ever getting one like that - it becomes a clusterfuck.

Even still, it's immensely disappointing that the one thing I thought could unify them - voting rights - is apparently not important enough in the minds of a handful of them and thereby likely tanks the entire thing. I had discarded hopes for most big, necessary changes even after Georgia because a 50+1 majority is so fragile but it's failed to meet even my pessimistic bar.

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Inviso posted...

Again, they're not intentionally doing nothing. They're doing exactly what their voters want them to do, which is try to get things done without becoming a dictatorial single-party regime like what the GOP aspires to be.

My guy they campaigned on progressive stuff that consistently polls at 60%+ popularity and theyre not doing it?

Tell me please what youre talking about!

Are they afraid to offend these mythical moderates you speak of that voted for them after they campaigned on it?

Inviso posted...

Why is it that you have all these excuses and comebacks for me, yet you can never come up with anything your side could do differently or better to win? Seriously, you keep f***ing losing and your reaction is never "what can we change" and is instead "the establishment/the media is rigged against us". And then you laugh and wonder why people bring up horseshoe theory. Are you just incapable of coming up with an electoral strategy that is able to sell your ideas without openly insulting or discounting the majority of voters you're trying to sway?

Someone please god, back me up on this.

How do I keep losing if the current President and Vice President literally said were going to do what you want and then dont do it? I guess I AM a loser for believing them, but thats not really what you meant.

What part of my strategy needs to change, the part where the head of the Democratic Party says he agrees with me before hes elected, or the part where he doesnt follow through?

Please, Im waiting.

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Also you want to randomly shoot off about horseshoe theory, literally implying people like me are close to the Right, yet Republicans spend their whole time saying you and I, and every non-Republican voter are all Communists, so I guess I just dont understand the way you understand political alignment at all.

Horseshoe brain: Yes, Im obviously the guy who never wants to work with the right ever is nearly a RepublicanI am very smart

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Tony, why do you react towards any hypothetical involving Bernie like we're taking the lord's name in vain? I do not remember the last time anyone here even outright criticized him.

(Hardcore supporters are a different matter, before you conflate the two.)
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Where did I get offended for Bernie? Weve moved passed Bernie.

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Joe Biden campaigned on being "not Trump", and the voters rewarded him for being "not Trump". Unfortunately, the voters also rewarded the obstructionist Republican Senate for being "not Trump" in 2018 and 2020, to the point where it took a Hail Mary of two runoff elections to give the Democrats a 50+1 majority in the Senate. You could, in theory, make the argument that being viewed as progressive as he is/was is what prevented a bigger blowout for Biden. Being able to stir up fears of progressivism and socialism were enough to hold seats like Susan Collins' in Maine, by having them serve as a counterbalance to a Democratic president.

That's the reason I was so depressed by the election results, even a week after when Biden was declared the victor. The message I got from those results was not a resounding "We saw what four years of GOP control looked like, and we want something better", but rather "We think Trump sucks, but we don't want the Dems to have too much control either." Honestly, you could say that the only reason we have a Democratic Senate is because Trump threw a temper tantrum after his loss and really fucked over the Georgia Senate races for his party.

I'm just super cynical overall. All the polling in the world doesn't matter if voters won't turn out regularly to vote in favor of those policies. Florida can vote for all the progressive ballot initiatives they want, and it won't matter if they keep personally voting Republican legislators who will do whatever they can to undermine those initiatives.

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I wonder how much the world changes if Beau Biden doesn't die when he did.

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Inviso posted...

The message I got from those results was not a resounding "We saw what four years of GOP control looked like, and we want something better", but rather "We think Trump sucks, but we don't want the Dems to have too much control either."

I think this is a pretty big indicator of our differences, ideologically.

You think the gridlock/Democratic struggle is a willful and intentional act by the voters.

The fact is, the system is literally stacked against Democrats. You have to stop taking middling Democratic performance as the intent of the voters, when at best its the realization of the intent of the creators of things like the Senate and gerrymandering, and at worst its the intent of Democrats to not doing anything polarizing.

Like Im sorry, but if you have one party thats way right and moving further, and you have another party (in your pov/opinion) that thinks its their job to appease/find the middle ground, then literally the only place we can ever go is right. Standing still is an active struggle, and most people dont have the mental capital to pay attention any further than One party wants to do nothing, the other wants to crush their enemies.

Fair?

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FFDragon posted...

I wonder how much the world changes if Beau Biden doesn't die when he did.

Hmm... I'm not sure who wins in a Biden vs. Hillary primary, but with Biden taking most of the anti-Hillary votes Sanders is probably a complete nonfactor. That'd be a big setback for progressive ideas in general due to not getting mainstream exposure. Assuming Biden does win the nomination, I don't think he's a 100% lock to beat Trump. Obviously Biden wouldn't have to do that much better than Hillary did, but it's not like Biden was all that popular on his own anyway. Even if Biden did win, the GOP would probably still keep Congress and block his agenda (which would be much less ambitious than that of 2020 Biden anyway). This would continue for 4 years, at which point the GOP would nominate not-Trump for president and win easily.

...So overall a little better? The Supreme Court might be better off if the GOP chose to let a Biden nominee replace Scalia, but I doubt that happens. At least we probably get to avoid the incompetence of the Trump administration, but the GOP would be in a much more powerful position now.
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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.

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ChaosTonyV4 posted...

Where did I get offended for Bernie? Weve moved passed Bernie.

I meant earlier, sorry. I have no intention of getting involved in the minutiae of this debate. It's just a curious overly defensive reaction to me.
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Inviso posted...

Joe Biden campaigned on being "not Trump", and the voters rewarded him for being "not Trump".

That might be true in very broad strokes, but he did actually have policy positions that either havent panned out or hes gone back on entirely, which are what Tony is referring to I think

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xp1337 posted...

Perhaps not, but I'm pretty sure the research has shown that where the GOP was able to successfully able to tie "Defund the Police" to Democrats it worked to their (GOP) benefit.

Even if the policy demand is correct, if the result of the activism results in the only side willing to hear you out even a little, then I mean... it's ultimately a backfire, isn't it?

I don't think the blame lies with the activists though. I think it's an indictment of the electorate. But then I think I also have a far dimmer view of the broader electorate than many of you!

I don't deny this happens but I still am forced to see it as a messaging problem, and one the GOP has a good solution for. For better for worse, the Democrats are working on a "big tent" methodology and that means that part of their job is to manage the tent. Various factions within the tent are always going to confront them with ideas and they'll have to synthesize something that works.

Take healthcare as an example. Here you have progressives demanding an extreme (Medicare for All) and moderates offering compromises as a rebuttal. The GOP of course seizes on the extreme (socialist healthcare!) but moderates actually have some sort of rebuttal (no, we are actually going to do public option, or expand the ACA, or whatever). Progressives don't have to be happy with it totally but you get the compromise and that's progress. That's how the system is supposed to work.

(Relevant aside here that one of the problems is that we don't even get the compromise. Biden has been awfully quiet about healthcare since getting elected, aside from lowering the Medicare age, which is a far cry from the ACA expansions he was touting during campaign season)

But the compromises to stuff like defund the police and green new deal? Crickets. They don't have tenable messaging or compromises on actual policy (often times because they don't WANT to even make a compromise, even on stuff that's popular like weed!) and so the party strategy just becomes "PR nightmare, deny and disengage" which pisses off the tent and isn't enough to fend off the GOP attacks. They straight up pick the [Everyone disliked that] option. This is never ever going to stop being a problem as long as the big tent exists and Dems can't afford to axe their entire left wing. There's no one to blame here but bad Democratic PR, that's the only sane reality. The other reality is the one Inviso subscribes to where the electorate really is that stubborn and immutable, and not only do I not think that's true from a cynical perspective (people are very susceptible to propaganda!), but electoral politics is just doomed anyways if that's true.

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HeroDelTiempo17 posted...

bad Democratic PR

Is there any other kind?

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Jakyl25 posted...

Is there any other kind?

I fuckin wish dude

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Ooh wait are we rehashing stuff again? Let me get in on this.

TULSI. GABBARD.

Okay that was fun.

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Oh shit Tulsi was the last thing I needed on my bingo card. Thanks SEP!

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