U.S. Politics-Getting a Handel On Why the DNC Is Pissing Ossof

[DMC]

3 hours ago, Dr. Pepper said:

Certainly the Democratic Party needs something, progressive voters need to be different.  But no fucking way do we need to hide our women in the closet just so a bunch of white men will want to vote for the party again.

Sorry I do have to push back on this because it appears ousting Pelosi will indeed be a topic in the coming days/weeks.

Thinking Pelosi should step aside has nothing to do with "hiding women in the closet."  If she can be replaced by a woman that'd be great - wish Warren was in the House.  It has everything to do with Pelosi being the longest serving House party leader - of either party - since Sam Rayburn (one of the two or three most famous Speakers in history).  Extend to the Senate, and the only party leader that beats her tenure in the post-WWII era is Mike Mansfield, the longest serving majority leader in that chamber's history.

She's been around a very long time, and has significantly higher levels of both name ID and unfavorables than any other congressional leader.  And that link's from 2013.  In the Georgia 6th yesterday, she had 98% name ID and net favorability of -35 according to WaPo.  Those numbers are untenable.  And the notion the GOP will simply create the next leader, or Schumer, as an equally salient boogey(wo)man is pure mishegoss.  

First, Senate leaders historically have not been targeted in House races due to basic logic - and Senate candidates can portray their independence with much more ease.  Second, Schumer just got on the job, he's not going to approach Pelosi's name ID for a few years.  I'd venture to say he's not even the most famous Schumer if you ran a poll right now.  Third, for "alt-right" or intense Trump supporters, their own leaders have been demonized more so already - see Boehner, Cantor, and now Ryan.

[S John]

3 hours ago, Manhole Eunuchsbane said:

Jobs. Period. Whether that involves a shift in education, an infrastructure retool, tax incentives to cutting edge businesses, or what. A rededication to the Working Class that makes sense in the 21st century. (In other words, not this Trump shell game involving dead industries and saving factory jobs that are already gone)

Agree 100%.  I completely understand that class, race, and gender are inextricably tied together in the United States, but I think the Dems need to be realistic about what they can offer to actually solve via government policy and take the position that economic security helps all Americans.  Going to bat for the poor and middle class is something that they can do, and it's something they should be well positioned to do after the latest injection of supply side economics further poisons the patient.  

 

[ThinkerX]

Might be premature.  Might be a hoax.  The website that appeared on my Facebook Feed is highly unreliable at best - and too dangerous to link too.  Still:

 

Word is Trumps motorcade was involved in a serious accident mere minutes ago.  Anybody able to confirm/deny this?

 

[Rippounet]

2 hours ago, ThinkerX said:

Might be premature.  Might be a hoax.  The website that appeared on my Facebook Feed is highly unreliable at best - and too dangerous to link too.  Still:

Word is Trumps motorcade was involved in a serious accident mere minutes ago.  Anybody able to confirm/deny this?

Nothing much:
http://edition.cnn.com/2016/07/18/politics/donald-trump-motorcade-accident-rnc/index.html

Though you made me consider what would happen if Trump was the victim of an assassination attempt...

[lokisnow]

6 hours ago, Manhole Eunuchsbane said:

Jobs. Period. Whether that involves a shift in education, an infrastructure retool, tax incentives to cutting edge businesses, or what. A rededication to the Working Class that makes sense in the 21st century. (In other words, not this Trump shell game involving dead industries and saving factory jobs that are already gone)

yup. Obama and Geitner oversaw a recovery that had zero messaging focus on jobs and 100% messaging focus on no strings attached infinite cash to wall street. and as a result, most people thought the recession lasted four, five, six years. Many might say we're only now coming out of it. Even if on paper, the infinite cash to wall street ended the recession in the accounting books after a few sine curve months, in practice of how it worked day to day for actual people, the perception was the recession lasted for years and years.

and the perception is probably more important than the paper.

so they're mad. because there are no jobs. or because of tech. there are only shitty jobs. and they're mad because tech looks at the jobs they have left and tech thinks, "those people have jobs, we should take away those jobs, destroy their families, drive them to suicide and bankruptcy and depression because those jobs are jobs tech can replace"

So democrats, in focusing on jobs, are in a very nasty paradox, they rely on the tech sector to fund like 90% of their operations. and the stated goal of the tech sector (every time the tech sector gleefully talks about their grim and apocalyptic future of vengeance upon the non college educated) is the sector's glowing vision of destroying millions of families by systematically targeting and murdering even more of the jobs of the non college educated, really ruthlessly going after those non college educated jobs, all the low hanging fruit. they're the easiest jobs for tech to murder.

Such easy profits.

Such delightful revenge for the torments of high school. hahahah.

Democrats would be well equipped, in terms of their traditional partnership with labor, in preserving the sanctity of american jobs and families.  It would be incredibly easy to pass regulations heavily restricting the implementation of self driving tech, for example. Much easier than the extremely onerous and complicated hard work of passing a bevy of regulations making the coming job genocide easier.

Intervening in the tech driven job genocide is an ideal place for government to intervene to protect the livelihoods of millions, and we know how republicans feel about government regulation.

Instead, democrats will partner with the "no regulations" republicans in actively enabling the job genocide.

So if democrat nerds in charge of strategy and tactics want to focus on jobs, first they have to figure out how to protect the jobs of the kids that were not nerds in high school. democrats have to figure out how to protect the jobs of the people who picked on them. democrats have to figure out how to protect the jobs of people who are "other" (meaning didn't go to college like they did) and anathema to them and who they eagerly segregate themselves from to avoid at all costs encountering or living near. The democrat nerds that have embraced their own cultural, economic, and educational segregation are going to have to abandon all of their beautiful college apartheid if they want to focus on jobs. because the story on jobs for the next few years is how many hyper local jobs the tech sector can destroy with their latest developments. we're rapidly approaching an inflection point on tech job displacement.

Tech destroying jobs is sort of like Gore's Global Warming Hockey Stick graph, for a long time, tech murdering jobs didn't matter because a lot of new jobs were created as a result of the new tech (not replacement jobs for the yokels whose livelihoods were destroyed, but no one ever cares about the poor so we don't talk about them, just the the numbers "average out" without thinking of the human misery that "average out" euphemism covers up) but eventually tech takeover reaches the point that jobs start getting destroyed at a much more rapid pace than jobs can be replaced.

and since the displacement of jobs is asymmetrical in terms of the old jobs killed and the new jobs created you are inherently creating an ever larger constituency that grows as you move up that exponential curve climbing he Hockey Stick graph of tech destroying jobs. That means that immigration is clamored for by the tech sector since the tech sector would never consider training American or hiring non college educated.  Again government intervention forcing the (racial, gender, education) desegregation of the tech sector and requiring hire america quotas would be a place government can intervene.  

But democrats won't do that and republicans are not going to regulate so that job-murdered constituency gets ever more disgruntled by being black listed from the opportunities of the new world, while well educated immigrants are given every opportunity and advantage and privilege never accorded to them. 200,000 trucking jobs in all the springfield xx towns just disappeared? well, that's the same thing as four programming jobs at uber, and six mechanics at tesla, so obviously it average out, right? right? It's not? guess we better hire 2000 programmers from india (certainly we can't hire american!) and 500 mechanics from the philippines. that's the same thing as those 200,000 lost american jobs, right? right?

Oh your local factory? we democrats sent all those jobs over seas in trade deals, because 500 jobs lost in your town is economically a good bargain if it means you can buy a $100 tv at wal mart. Human misery and suffering from the catastrophic loss of five hundred families in your community? what does that matter, theres' no line in the paperwork for human misery from factory closings, just a line for reiterating how wonderful it is that Target sells socks at 6 pairs bundled for $9.99, aren't you happy about that tremendous victory? You're not? did you know you can buy (year round!) blueberries from Chile for 2.99!  Surely you now see that ruining a few million lives for benefits like that is a good bargain. go democrats!

[Rippounet]

5 hours ago, OldGimletEye said:

The problem here in the United States is that this identity stuff and the economic stuff are interlocked and interlinked. If you don’t deal with issues of racism, sexisms, etc. you may not get very far on the economic stuff.  A couple threads back, I presented a paper showing that racial issues had an impact on economic policy outcomes.

And I don't doubt it. But prison reform and a new-deal-type infrastructure project for example might prove more popular (in the short-term at least) than affirmative action, and yet improve the economic plight of minorities just as much. It's all about communication.

5 hours ago, OldGimletEye said:

2. The tax cuts for the rich, the Republicans always want to do, never pan out the way they say they will. Even the tax cuts under Reagan. As I’ve repeated many times, in these threads, that whole recovery was about monetary policy. The main effect of Republican tax cutting polices seem to be mainly to increasing wealth inequality.

3. The Republican Party always brags and talks about “growth” and how awesome it is at it, but historically over the 20th Century, Republican presidents have not done better than Democratic Presidents. In fact Democratic presidents have done better.

There is a reason why I continually ridicule the Republican Party as "The Party of Business".

5. Republicans love to talk about “economics” to justify their polices, conveniently forgetting lot what is known, like labor market frictions, externalities, informational problems, etc. etc. and just rely on pop Econ 101 to justify their policies.

Speaking of which... Maybe the Democrats could be more aggressive on that front? But since Obama mentioned Reagan as a reference at some point I wonder whether Democrats are willing to call out the bullshit that supply-side economics is. Well, with the exception of Sanders I guess.

[OldGimletEye]

Just now, Rippounet said:

Speaking of which... Maybe the Democrats could be more aggressive on that front? But since Obama mentioned Reagan as a reference at some point I wonder whether Democrats are willing to call out the bullshit that supply-side economics is. Well, with the exception of Sanders I guess.

I agree that the Democrats could and should be a lot more aggressive on this front. Democrats don't talk nearly enough about "growth" the way Republicans do. And Democrats should, because they have done just as well on this front, or even better, than Republicans have.

And they should repeatedly hammer home that supply side economics is nonsense. And be willing to give a vigorous intellectual defense of the welfare state.

[Fez]

9 hours ago, Dr. Pepper said:

The problem here is determining whether winning is more important than values.  If you stop combating misogyny because you just want to win, then the core values disappear and it's an entirely different party.  The fact is that women tend to be hated and reviled more than men for petty disgusting reasons.  The answer isn't to tell all the women to go away because 'that's just the breaks.' Certainly the Democratic Party needs something, progressive voters need to be different.  But no fucking way do we need to hide our women in the closet just so a bunch of white men will want to vote for the party again.  

Except when you run on values that cause you to lose, it lets the other side impose their values; which are even less desirable. Republicans learned this lesson a long time ago; they don't run on almost any of things they want to do. They keep them hidden away and then just do it when they are in power. Democrats need to do the same thing on issues where there is not majority support.

Better for there to be a Democratic party in power without female leadership that is still supporting and advancing women's rights, than a Democratic party out of power with female leadership that is powerless to stop Republican policies reducing women's rights.

[Dr. Pepper]

27 minutes ago, Fez said:

Except when you run on values that cause you to lose, it lets the other side impose their values; which are even less desirable. Republicans learned this lesson a long time ago; they don't run on almost any of things they want to do. They keep them hidden away and then just do it when they are in power. Democrats need to do the same thing on issues where there is not majority support.

Better for there to be a Democratic party in power without female leadership that is still supporting and advancing women's rights, than a Democratic party out of power with female leadership that is powerless to stop Republican policies reducing women's rights.

And this is why there will likely be/should be a split in the democratic party at some point.  I don't want any part of a party that says we should go forward without encouraging female leadership because the mean white men are afraid of them. There's a long history of people attempting to delay or roll back civil rights, saying "lets just wait, your time will come", all on the notion that we need to placate the other side.  No. 

[Inigima]

I would be more sympathetic to the suggestion that Pelosi step down from leadership if she weren't basically unremarkable politically. (That's not a dig, I like Pelosi fine.) It's not like she's some liberal firebrand far to the left of the party or even the country. She's a mainstream Democrat. So it's harder for me to buy the idea that she is a unique liability, and easier to buy the idea that whoever stepped into her place would be quickly cast in an identical role by the opposition.

I'm also not convinced that Pelosi is a decisive factor in GA-06. I understand that some Handel ads tried to tie Ossoff to Pelosi, but a. I haven't seen any clear evidence that it moved the needle and those voters wouldn't have just voted Handel anyway, and b. tying Ossoff to Pelosi is just tying Ossoff to current leadership. It's not at all clear to me that it wasn't essentially tying Ossoff to the generic Democratic national agenda.

[OldGimletEye]

8 hours ago, Dr. Pepper said:

And this is why there will likely be/should be a split in the democratic party at some point.  I don't want any part of a party that says we should go forward without encouraging female leadership because the mean white men are afraid of them. There's a long history of people attempting to delay or roll back civil rights, saying "lets just wait, your time will come", all on the notion that we need to placate the other side.  No. 

As far as I can tell, the Democratic Party’s farm team kind of sucks. What I mean is the current Democratic leadership seem old and at the end of their careers, and I’m not real sure about whose going to replace them.

The Democratic Party needs to start right now recruiting both talented women and minority candidates and run them. And I say, you know what? Take chance once a while and run them in conservative leaning districts. If the GOP can run Nikki Haley in place like South Carolina, then surely the Democratic Party ought not to be shy about running female or minority candidates.

I think it would be a disaster if the Democratic Party split. In short, the only way I can see going forward is to encourage more female and minority candidates.

[OldGimletEye]

Just now, Fez said:

Except when you run on values that cause you to lose, it lets the other side impose their values; which are even less desirable. Republicans learned this lesson a long time ago; they don't run on almost any of things they want to do. They keep them hidden away and then just do it when they are in power. Democrats need to do the same thing on issues where there is not majority support.

I'm not sure I entirely agree with this. Maybe it's true in the short run. It seems to me say back in the 1970s when the conservative movement was recovering, from the beating their candidate took in 1964, the conservatives in the Republican Party did stick to their guns, culminating in the election of Ronald Reagan. And, as I've argued, in other places, I think they were successful, shifting American politics to the right, getting the "New Democrats" and Bill Clinton to "triangulate" or whatever.

[Dr. Pepper]

2 minutes ago, OldGimletEye said:

As far as I can tell, the Democratic Party’s farm team kind of sucks. What I mean is the current Democratic leadership seem old and at the end of their careers, and I’m not real sure about whose going to replace them.

The Democratic Party needs to start right now recruiting both talented women and minority candidates and run them. And I say, you know what? Take chance once a while and run them in conservative leaning counties. If the GOP can run Nikki Haley in place like South Carolina, then surely the Democratic Party ought not to be shy about running female or minority candidates.

I think it would be a disaster if the Democratic Party split. In short, the only way I can see going forward is to encourage more female and minority candidates.

I agree with this.  The Pelosis of the party and the Bidens of the party need to step down and make room.   But the conversation so often focuses on the Pelosis while also suggesting that the Bidens ought to run again.  It's a problem.  The fact is the Republicans are always going to do their best to demonize Democrats.  They are going to tear down the women and minorities for obvious misogynist or racist reasons.  They'll then try to hold up their own and act as though they are the part of equality and civil rights at the same time they pass anti-women, anti-black, anti-poor legislation.  They'll do that whether the Democratic party sends it's old ladies away and injects new blood into the party.  My objection is that we should do any of this to placate the old white men who have fled the Democratic party because they don't like the women and blacks.

Yes, it would be a disaster if the Democratic Party splits.  I compromise a TON by continuing to vote for this party, I think a lot of people do.  I'm complicit in the murder of children in several different countries because I continue to choose to vote for this party.  But I do so because I think it will get us from point A to point B.  I'm not willing to continue to compromise is some of the major values are tossed aside to placate the old white men of the country.

[DMC]

32 minutes ago, Inigima said:

So it's harder for me to buy the idea that she is a unique liability, and easier to buy the idea that whoever stepped into her place would be quickly cast in an identical role by the opposition.

I "buy" ideas that are based on facts and evidence.  Pelosi being a unique liability in terms of notoriety and subsequent unpopularity as a legislator - and the GOP's repeated use of this to gain an electoral advantage - undoubtedly is.

34 minutes ago, Inigima said:

I'm also not convinced that Pelosi is a decisive factor in GA-06.

If you've figured out a way to determine decisive factors in elections please let me know; the point is she was a factor.

8 minutes ago, Dr. Pepper said:

The Pelosis of the party and the Bidens of the party need to step down and make room.

Absolutely.  Pelosi, Hoyer, Biden, Durbin - all of them.  The Democrats need new blood.

[Dr. Pepper]

4 minutes ago, dmc515 said:

 

If you've figured out a way to determine decisive factors in elections please let me know; the point is she was a factor.

 

You could say that about everything.  Abortion was also a factor, should we stop promoting women's reproductive health and rights, too?

[DMC]

4 minutes ago, Dr. Pepper said:

You could say that about everything.  Abortion was also a factor, should we stop promoting women's reproductive health and rights, too?

Well sure, anyone can say anything's a factor, but that doesn't make it valid.  Ossoff exploited a specific and particularly unpopular decision by Handel in an effort to gain women votes.  He tried to use a certain aspect of women's rights to his advantage so I don't really get your point here.  In other words, both sides tried to use abortion as an issue, but I didn't see Ossoff run any ads on his excitement with working for Pelosi.

[Gorn]

12 hours ago, Dr. Pepper said:

The problem here is determining whether winning is more important than values.  If you stop combating misogyny because you just want to win, then the core values disappear and it's an entirely different party.  The fact is that women tend to be hated and reviled more than men for petty disgusting reasons.  The answer isn't to tell all the women to go away because 'that's just the breaks.' Certainly the Democratic Party needs something, progressive voters need to be different.  But no fucking way do we need to hide our women in the closet just so a bunch of white men will want to vote for the party again.  

I agree with your general point, but I would argue that the race and gender of leadership personnel is symbolic and irrelevant compared to the effects of actual underlying policies. After all, the police brutality which led to Black Lives Matter movement happened during the terms of a black president and two black Attorney Generals.

For example, Bernie Sanders cannot magically turn himself into a young minority woman, but this doesn't mean he should quit politics and turn over his Senate seat to someone who checks the right boxes in the diversity checklist.

[DMC]

11 minutes ago, Gorn said:

I agree with your general point, but I would argue that the race and gender of leadership personnel is symbolic and irrelevant compared to the effects of actual underlying policies.

That's not necessarily the case.  There has been myriad studies across the industrialized world demonstrating women legislators are better at consensus building and focusing on policy than their male counterparts.  We need more women in Congress, and it's not symbolic.

[Gorn]

4 minutes ago, dmc515 said:

That's not necessarily the case.  There has been myriad studies across the industrialized world demonstrating women legislators are better at consensus building and focusing on policy than their male counterparts.  We need more women in Congress, and it's not symbolic.

OK, let's imagine that Clinton managed to beat Obama in the 2008 and went on to win the general election. What would demonstrably and visibly improve in the life of an average American woman as a result of Clinton presidency (as opposed to Obama presidency)?

[Fez]

2 hours ago, Dr. Pepper said:

And this is why there will likely be/should be a split in the democratic party at some point.  I don't want any part of a party that says we should go forward without encouraging female leadership because the mean white men are afraid of them. There's a long history of people attempting to delay or roll back civil rights, saying "lets just wait, your time will come", all on the notion that we need to placate the other side.  No. 

But the thing is, going slow on civil rights works. For instance, the advancement of gay rights took an incredibly long time and Democratic legislators and the Supreme Court didn't act to implement them until there was majority support. And the result has been that post-gay marriage legalization there has been continued growth in support of gay rights, and its one of the only progressive policy areas that Republicans aren't trying to significantly rollback (there are throwbacks like Pence of course, but the party isn't there anymore and neither is Trump).

On the other hand, going fast on civil rights locks people's opinions and opposition in place and leads to resentment and continued pushback. For instance, support for abortion rights has stagnated since Roe v. Wade. There's a reason Ginsburg has criticised that case has moving things too far, too fast.

 

1 hour ago, OldGimletEye said:

I'm not sure I entirely agree with this. Maybe it's true in the short run. It seems to me say back in the 1970s when the conservative movement was recovering, from the beating their candidate took in 1964, the conservatives in the Republican Party did stick to their guns, culminating in the election of Ronald Reagan. And, as I've argued, in other places, I think they were successful, shifting American politics to the right, getting the "New Democrats" and Bill Clinton to "triangulate" or whatever.

Yeah, but the Republicans was not nearly as conservative then as it now. Back then there was majority support (or close enough) to what they wanted to do that it was fine to run on that. There isn't anymore, except on a few cultural issues, so they lie or don't talk about their economic and budget plans.