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US Politics: Weimar, Washington, Whining, Bush II


A Horse Named Stranger

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1 hour ago, DMC said:

Heh.  The clip you posted if from the last (seventh) season.

What exactly?

Honestly, when I use liberal, I associate it with third way politics. The idea that there is some kind of nobility in compromise, technocratic tinkering, and a closer association to big business and capital. This is of course something of a no true Scotsman fallacy since there are those who identify as "liberals" who aren't for all of these things and there are "progressives" who aren't opposed to all of these things.

Their end goals may be similar, but the idea that their vision on how to achieve those things and what the end result looks like is the same same I am going to disagree with you.

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Just now, GrimTuesday said:

Honestly, when I use liberal, I associate it with third way politics.

Yeah, I just don't understand that.  Third way politics is the blue dogs.  It's Dick Fucking Morris.  The third way is trying to fuse the liberals with the conservatives - or at least moderately conservative.  That's why it's called the third way.  The first two ways are liberal and conservative.

2 minutes ago, GrimTuesday said:

the idea that their vision on how to achieve those things and what the end result looks like is the same same I am going to disagree with you.

I honestly don't know if this is true, and neither do you.  Because both academic and commercial pollsters do not compare progressives to liberals.  Like I said, the terms are ideologically interchangeable.  Is there a discernible difference on strategy/tactics?  Maybe.  But I suspect not nearly as much as you seem to be assuming.

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4 minutes ago, GrimTuesday said:

Honestly, when I use liberal, I associate it with third way politics. The idea that there is some kind of nobility in compromise, technocratic tinkering, and a closer association to big business and capital. This is of course something of a no true Scotsman fallacy since there are those who identify as "liberals" who aren't for all of these things and there are "progressives" who aren't opposed to all of these things.

Sorry for the tag team, but...

This is a joke. You're on the left of the political spectrum, quit nitpicking. You're stuck on the wrong things.

Quote

Their end goals may be similar, but the idea that their vision on how to achieve those things and what the end result looks like is the same same I am going to disagree with you.

There are many paths with many overlapping courses. Do they all travel the same journey? Do they all achieve their pursuits? Do they all find what they're searching for? The answer is always no. But if the paths are on the same general trajectory, why cut each other down when the other way hates everything you're walking towards? 

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So if the Republicans try to push through a Supreme Court nomination before the election, the nominee would presumably appear in hearings before the Senate Judiciary Committee. Senator Kamala Harris is on that committee. I wonder how that would play with the American public at large?

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1 minute ago, Old Zog said:

So if the Republicans try to push through a Supreme Court nomination before the election, the nominee would presumably appear in hearings before the Senate Judiciary Committee. Senator Kamala Harris is on that committee. I wonder how that would play with the American public at large?

She'll be seen as an uppity grandstander making politics out of the non-partisan supreme court. What American public are you thinking of?

Also, I would like to add for the record that I think Democrats are bad people and I am pleased with the new order. Long live our Republican values. I am not a dissident.

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13 minutes ago, Jace, Basilissa said:

She'll be seen as an uppity grandstander [...]

This is what I'm honestly curious about. Most of the folks I know would be really fired up - in a positive way - seeing Sen. Harris aggressively take on whoever the nominee is. But I live in the Bay Area. The Democrats don't need to run up the score here any more than they already will. Likewise, I'm sure many conservatives would react negatively to Sen. Harris, but many of them live in states President Trump will already certainly win. How does this move things in swing states?

I worry that the more the election is about Harris (and the less it is about Biden) the better for Trump. But I don't know.

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Just now, Old Zog said:

Most of the folks I know would be really fired up - in a positive way - seeing Sen. Harris aggressively take on whoever the nominee is.

I don't see much benefit in Harris questioning Trump's nominee, but I also don't see much loss in it either.  It's not gonna move the needle much either way, if at all.

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14 minutes ago, Varysblackfyre321 said:

I think it’s becoming a likely possibility that democrats lose the house as well as fail to capture the senate and presidency.

It's really not.  According to Cook, the GOP would have to sweep all 28 tossups (along with 14 lean GOP seats) AND pickoff 5 lean Dem seats.  According to Sabato it's even worse.  They have 232 seats in at least the lean Dem column.  So, obviously, the GOP would have to pick up 15 of them along with the 11 tossups they have.  That statistical likelihood of such a result is well under 1 percent.

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24 minutes ago, DMC said:

Yeah, I just don't understand that.  Third way politics is the blue dogs.  It's Dick Fucking Morris.  The third way is trying to fuse the liberals with the conservatives - or at least moderately conservative.  That's why it's called the third way.  The first two ways are liberal and conservative.

I honestly don't know if this is true, and neither do you.  Because both academic and commercial pollsters do not compare progressives to liberals.  Like I said, the terms are ideologically interchangeable.  Is there a discernible difference on strategy/tactics?  Maybe.  But I suspect not nearly as much as you seem to be assuming.

I think that we still have a lot of folks who are ideologically attached to some aspects of the third way movement. Pay-Go shit, obsessing about the deficit, this idea that we can't have a 3.4 trillion dollar messaging bill so just go for 3 trillion, allowing the health insurance companies to have a say in healthcare reform (which they then tried to torpedo), free trade. Also I'm pretty sure that the other two ways were socialism and laissez-faire capitalism.

Saying that the terms are ideologically interchangeable is ignoring the change in usage that we have seen in the last four years. Words evolve, things change, and I think that using progressive to delineate the left wing from the liberal centrist/right wing part of the party. It's kind of like the fact that Populist was created as a name for a left wing political party in the late 19th century, and now it is a stand in for any party that tries to win through mass mobilization and playing to the passions of the mob

As for how different the strategy and tactics are, "liberals" tend to favor technocratic, incremental solutions (no need to start that discussion up again since it will just go in circles, again) where as "progressives" tend to be more populist in how they approach the electorate and favor bolder and more sweeping reforms. I think that is a considerable difference.

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1 hour ago, Tywin et al. said:

Sorry for the tag team, but...

This is a joke. You're on the left of the political spectrum, quit nitpicking. You're stuck on the wrong things.

There are many paths with many overlapping courses. Do they all travel the same journey? Do they all achieve their pursuits? Do they all find what they're searching for? The answer is always no. But if the paths are on the same general trajectory, why cut each other down when the other way hates everything you're walking towards? 

Your way or no way. Purity politics rears it's head again.

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11 minutes ago, GrimTuesday said:

I think that we still have a lot of folks who are ideologically attached to some aspects of the third way movement. Pay-Go shit, obsessing about the deficit, this idea that we can't have a 3.4 trillion dollar messaging bill so just go for 3 trillion, allowing the health insurance companies to have a say in healthcare reform (which they then tried to torpedo), free trade. Also I'm pretty sure that the other two ways were socialism and laissez-faire capitalism.

Well, I think you have a point on the pay-go, that shit has to go-go.  In terms of the relics that are deficit hawks, I don't think that's liberals anymore at all (if it every really was), but I do agree Biden has way too many on his team that still have somewhat of such a mindset for my liking.  The messaging bill would've been pointless.  The current message - that Pelosi went down a billion to try to meet Mnuchin and the GOP in the middle and the Senate GOP responded by offering less funding - is a much better message.  Health insurance, as far as MFA goes, I think you know my thoughts on that by now.  As for trade, there's a fine line between free trade and fair trade, that's a very nuanced subject that has always elicited strange ideological bedfellows. 

And, no, socialism was not one of the two ways when Clinton and co. adopted the third way.  It was explicitly a strategy to move away from the liberal paradigm that dominated Democratic politics since FDR and appeared to be losing since Reagan.  I suppose you could substitute "laissez-faire capitalism" for conservatism, but economically they too are coterminous.

18 minutes ago, GrimTuesday said:

Saying that the terms are ideologically interchangeable is ignoring the change in usage that we have seen in the last four years.

Right, that's my problem.  I reject this change of usage that is primarily driven by malcontents on social media because it's bollocks.  As for delineating progressives from centrist or moderates - then just accurately describe the difference is between those two, NOT liberals.  There's a difference between centrists/moderates and liberals just as there is between centrist/moderates and progressives.

21 minutes ago, GrimTuesday said:

As for how different the strategy and tactics are, "liberals" tend to favor technocratic, incremental solutions (no need to start that discussion up again since it will just go in circles, again) where as "progressives" tend to be more populist in how they approach the electorate and favor bolder and more sweeping reforms. I think that is a considerable difference.

Again, this may be the perception at the elite level, but I'm not aware of any evidence of such strong conflicting tendencies among the electorate between liberal and progressive - and I doubt you are either.

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51 minutes ago, Simon Steele said:

Your way or no way. Purity politics rears it's head again.

You're (again) parroting some far right talking points here.

This argument is the exact same argument the way far right religious social conservatives use when the left tries to make them respect others' rights. Basically this is their whole you're-being-tyrannical-because-you're-limiting-my-right-to-be-tyrannical bullshit.

 

 

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4 minutes ago, Liffguard said:

Seems like there would be a lot less confusion if you guys would just adopt the same terminology as the rest of the world and recognise the distinction between liberalism and socialism.

Yep, that's what it used to be here too.  "Liberalism" effectively started with FDR here, which was a fight against unfettered capitalism yes, but also the emergent socialist movement at the time.

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Actblue has processed over $27 million in donations to Biden and other Democrats in the past 9 hours. Which has been mostly over night for most of the country. Could be that for once the electoral politics of a SCOTUS vacancy favor us. Cold comfort for the longterm judicial ramifications (barring major action in January), but I wouldn't worry just yet about this somehow throwing the election to Trump at least.

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If Democrats don't get serious about using power to its maximum extent if and when they're back in control of the Senate and Presidency, we are doomed. Abolish the filibuster, pack the court, admit DC and Puerto Rico (if they want it) as states. Voters do not understand and will not punish these types of procedural power grabs, which is why Republicans always get away with them. 

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