US Politics - And Now it Begins

[Kalbear]

1 minute ago, The Great Unwashed said:

This was my edit:

ETA: I'm also just pointing out that I'm picking my side, but I wasn't the one drawing the line; after the primary and the bullshit after the election, it became pretty clear that people like me aren't welcome in the party. I know, no big loss.

I'd really like to understand how you don't feel that you're welcome. Is it because you have fairly extremist views or something that aren't supported by any representation? Is it that you feel that you personally are blamed for any losses? Is it that you feel there are no wins for your viewpoints no matter what?

I'm genuinely curious. From where I stand, there are no other parties that would remotely consider a very progressive person, and at least with Democrats  in the US a number of very left-leaning policy goals are routinely discussed if not enacted. 

Now, my personal view is that this sort of thing is EXACTLY why multiparty representation needs to exist. But outside of that, I'm not sure what else you got. 

[Fragile Bird]

I’m glad to see all your predictions about Democrats being at each other’s throats the moment the election is over is coming true!

[Kalbear]

So here's an example of how the Left (I still don't know why that's being used instead of progressives; is it because the Left only cares about economic goals?) is pushing Biden. Biden heard that Emanuel was wildly opposed, and instead of putting him at a fairly prestigious position thinks about putting him a lot lower:

 

To me this signals that Emanuel is owed something and can cause a lot of problems for Biden and other dems, which sucks ass, but giving him a pullshit position with no real power is probably the best of a bad situation. 

[The Anti-Targ]

1 minute ago, Fragile Bird said:

I’m glad to see all your predictions about Democrats being at each other’s throats the moment the election is over is coming true!

I guess technically TGU isn't a Democrat, so it's not quite Democrats at each other's throats?

Is Trump really conceding because MI just certified for Biden, or did the Sidney Powell fiasco show Trump how far down the rabbit hole he needed to go to keep the fight going, and it was too far even for him?

[The Anti-Targ]

2 minutes ago, Kalbear Total Landscaping said:

So here's an example of how the Left (I still don't know why that's being used instead of progressives; is it because the Left only cares about economic goals?) is pushing Biden. Biden heard that Emanuel was wildly opposed, and instead of putting him at a fairly prestigious position thinks about putting him a lot lower:

 

To me this signals that Emanuel is owed something and can cause a lot of problems for Biden and other dems, which sucks ass, but giving him a pullshit position with no real power is probably the best of a bad situation. 

USTR is arguably the most important role from the perspective of NZ's interests. I hope he isn't a protectionist a-hole.

[DMC]

9 minutes ago, The Great Unwashed said:

ETA: I'm also just pointing out that I'm picking my side, but I wasn't the one drawing the line; after the primary and the bullshit after the election, it became pretty clear that people like me aren't welcome in the party. I know, no big loss.

I agree that the immediate reaction by the "mainstream" media on MSNBC and continued attacks/blame towards "leftists" not only looks to be empirically inaccurate and a laughably stupid argument, but also needless, outrageous, and counterproductive.  And I've said so on here.  But two wrongs don't make a right (or a left, I suppose).

To return to your original point, and use your specific example, if you think most Democratic politicians dragged their heels and even publicly position-took against SSM during the nineties and the aughts because they were just cynically exploiting voters and actually wanted to prevent such change, then you're quite simply out of your fucking mind.

[The Anti-Targ]

I predict Trump will never concede in words, only by his actions (such as letting the transition begin) will he concede. When he walks out of the White House for the last time he will still claim that he won but was robbed of the chance to prove it.

[DMC]

20 minutes ago, Kalbear Total Landscaping said:

One big thing to see is what Biden can do to change the VRA. I honestly don't know entirely what he can do other than SERIOUSLY enforce consent decrees with the DOJ, but I'm cautiously hopeful there's something that can be done there.

Biden's DOJ can aggressively pursue and aid Section 2 and the bail-in mechanism of Section 3(c) as remedies to circumvent Shelby striking down the coverage formula of Section 4(b).  All Democrats should be vigilant in ensuring that happens.

[Lollygag]

25 minutes ago, Trebla said:

"...no, now it ends."

 

This doesn't look anything like a Trump tweet. Someone obviously tackled him and stole his phone.

[Guest]

Just now, Kalbear Total Landscaping said:

I'd really like to understand how you don't feel that you're welcome. Is it because you have fairly extremist views or something that aren't supported by any representation? Is it that you feel that you personally are blamed for any losses? Is it that you feel there are no wins for your viewpoints no matter what?

I'm genuinely curious. From where I stand, there are no other parties that would remotely consider a very progressive person, and at least with Democrats  in the US a number of very left-leaning policy goals are routinely discussed if not enacted. 

Now, my personal view is that this sort of thing is EXACTLY why multiparty representation needs to exist. But outside of that, I'm not sure what else you got. 

I'll accept your challenge at sincerity.

Yes, when it comes down to brass tacks, I feel that the Party blames me, or rather, people like me for failures in 2016 and 2020. I think that if Pelosi didn't want the stuff said during the post-election conference call to come out, it wouldn't have. I think the strategy is to win the Senate seats in Georgia by culling the left. I think that exemplifies the current leadership strategy towards the left (except Schumer, who is trying to fend off a possible primary challenge).

Since I was out marching this summer, when "defund the police" becomes the canard on which those centrist Democrats are trying to hang losses without even waiting for any kind of postmortem, when leftists were out busting their asses volunteering for candidates across the spectrum, yes I feel like those Democrats feel I share in that blame. 

Since I volunteered for Bernie in 2016, and because some asshats who also supported Bernie decided to be asshats on an online platform I don't even have an account on, and then get smeared with the broad "Bernie-bro" brush, which group then became a favorite target of blame for Clinton's loss, I feel like centrist Democrats see me as complicit.

And so establishment Democrats wielding the levers of power push those narratives, which get parroted by the neo-liberal MSM and broadcast as fact, and eventually it starts seeming that the left is more of a convenient scapegoat than a continuous gadfly, and that the powerbrokers in the party are more than willing to throw stones out the windows of their glass houses.

How the hell could a leftist ever feel welcome in the Democratic party?

[Kalbear]

Here's a poll of what people are most concerned about as far as opposing Democratic senate control:

 

 

[DMC]

19 minutes ago, Kalbear Total Landscaping said:

To me this signals that Emanuel is owed something and can cause a lot of problems for Biden and other dems, which sucks ass, but giving him a pullshit position with no real power is probably the best of a bad situation. 

Heh.  I wouldn't even want him as USTR, albeit substantively he's not gonna be discernibly different than any other free-trader Biden will appoint.  Maybe he's owed something, but it appears that article is from Crane's Chicago Business.  As I mentioned earlier, all these rumors may well be Rahm planting them due to his vanity.

[Fez]

37 minutes ago, The Anti-Targ said:

I guess with Michigan certifying the result that means Joe has his 270 in the bank now. So there is no longer any pretense to continue to delay the transition process. I suppose the Trump cult will continue its efforts to overturn PA and...(?) in the hopes that they can get Biden's ECV total as low as possible and then hold out some kind of hope that they can get an unprecedented number of people to be faithless electors. A forlorn hope, but no doubt some will be determined to cling to it until the EC actually casts its votes.

Michigan definitely seems like what caused it, but Biden's not technically at 270 certified EVs yet. Besides PA and AZ not being certified, there's a bunch of blue states that aren't done yet either. Not because of Republican holdups, but just because the process can be slow.

[Guest]

15 minutes ago, DMC said:

I agree that the immediate reaction by the "mainstream" media on MSNBC and continued attacks/blame towards "leftists" not only looks to be empirically inaccurate and a laughably stupid argument, but also needless, outrageous, and counterproductive.  And I've said so on here.  But two wrongs don't make a right (or a left, I suppose).

I appreciate you acknowledging this, and I've seen you saying the same before.

Quote

To return to your original point, and use your specific example, if you think most Democratic politicians dragged their heels and even publicly position-took against SSM during the nineties and the aughts because they were just cynically exploiting voters and actually wanted to prevent such change, then you're quite simply out of your fucking mind.

We're supposed to applaud their courage for coming out against SSM for decades until it they favored it when it became politically expedient to do so? I'll pass.

[DMC]

Just now, The Great Unwashed said:

We're supposed to applaud their courage for coming out against SSM for decades until it they favored it when it became politically expedient to do so? I'll pass.

I didn't say applaud them.  But also don't say they were solely exploiting voters (which is basically irrelevant in this example anyway) and especially don't say they were trying to prevent change until they couldn't.  The establishment Dems' positioning on SSM in the nineties and early aughts was quite obviously due to reelection interests, otherwise known as political survival.  If they came out aggressively and got trounced by the GOP by an even more escalated backlash than we saw in 2004 with Rove using it as a wedge issue, do you really think that would've aided progress in public opinion?

[Kalbear]

2 minutes ago, The Great Unwashed said:

I'll accept your challenge at sincerity.

Yes, when it comes down to brass tacks, I feel that the Party blames me, or rather, people like me for failures in 2016 and 2020. I think that if Pelosi didn't want the stuff said during the post-election conference call to come out, it wouldn't have. I think the strategy is to win the Senate seats in Georgia by culling the left. I think that exemplifies the current leadership strategy towards the left (except Schumer, who is trying to fend off a possible primary challenge).

Since I was out marching this summer, when "defund the police" becomes the canard on which those centrist Democrats are trying to hang losses without even waiting for any kind of postmortem, when leftists were out busting their asses volunteering for candidates across the spectrum, yes I feel like those Democrats feel I share in that blame. 

Since I volunteered for Bernie in 2016, and because some asshats who also supported Bernie decided to be asshats on an online platform I don't even have an account on, and then get smeared with the broad "Bernie-bro" brush, which group then became a favorite target of blame for Clinton's loss, I feel like centrist Democrats see me as complicit.

And so establishment Democrats wielding the levers of power push those narratives, which get parroted by the neo-liberal MSM and broadcast as fact, and eventually it starts seeming that the left is more of a convenient scapegoat than a continuous gadfly, and that the powerbrokers in the party are more than willing to throw stones out the windows of their glass houses.

How the hell could a leftist ever feel welcome in the Democratic party?

Okay, well, I don't blame you. And for what it's worth, I don't think that there are a ton of people who blame you or people like you.

My personal opinion is that Clinton lost because she was unpopular, because of sexism and because of racism. I don't think progressivism had a lot to do with it other than show her unpopularity in general, and given how Sanders performed in the same states in 2020 I think this bears out; there were a lot of people voting for Sanders in Michigan who were doing so because he wasn't Clinton.

I do think that you - and others - need to recognize certain battles aren't worth fighting. Defund the police is a prime example here. It is broadly criticized and not liked, even in progressive areas. And I think there are a lot of centrist dems who are frustrated at the single lack of universal messaging and consistent support they get in the party, especially compared to Republicans absurd ability to say the same damn thing through 150 different voices. But that's just going to happen, just like you're going to blame centrist dems for any losses. 

I guess that's what I'd caution on overall; the problem isn't centrist vs. left dems, it's that the US has massive systemic issues in politics that favor a government that does nothing or dismantles systems, and it favors a party that gets the support of largely reactionary, racist people. The US had an election that one person won by 6 million votes AND an election where that same person only won by 67k votes. And if you don't attempt to reach out in some way to get some of those voters on the other side to at least not vote, you're simply going to lose - and if you lose, you don't get to have any say in anything. In some places this means you should go pretty far left - especially in places with major urban areas where the state is also doing well economically. California and Washington and New York should be able to lead the nation in progressive state policies that end up going everywhere else eventually. But that ain't gonna fly at the federal level because the US is built on racism and religion and a system that enforces that. 

As to how a leftist could ever feel welcome in the Democratic party - I'd say 'easily'. AOC is a massive star in the party. Katie Porter is another. Sanders, for his losses as a person, has been absurdly successful in driving policy changes and viewpoints. Warren has had some success as well. It doesn't come all at once, and progressives are simply a minority compared to the rest of who is in the democratic wing - but they're also the ones with some of the biggest wins in the last 15 years, and a lot of the policies are broadly popular and winning across both sides (like the $15 minimum wage in FL and pot legalization in, like, everywhere). These are things that should show you exactly how Dems are able to support leftists and left policies at least most of the time. 

Is it going to be everything? Nope. You have to understand that too - that not getting everything you want is pretty much par for the course in a democracy. And things are going to be slow at times. But progressives are certainly gaining more than, say, gun rights activists are. 

[GrimTuesday]

49 minutes ago, DMC said:

I think it's offensive to ascribe such motives to people that largely disagree on the strategic pragmatism of effecting change.  Even if you disagree with on policy preferences or the efficacy of policy outcomes, there is still large agreement on the overall goals among "moderates" and "leftists."  And I'm not just talking about people on this board, I'm talking about Democrats at the elite level.  Many if not most of them chose that career at least in part in an effort to do good.  Many often lose their way, either willingly or unintentionally, sure, but this type of posture is never going to be helpful.  Further, it's based on a in-out group paradigm that "leftists" generally think is fundamental to the iniquities of this country and world.

I think that there is a lot of agreement in terms of stated goals, but I think that stated goals and actual goals are different. As I said earlier, I think that the Democrats like to say that they have these goals, but in reality there are a lot of Democrats who either prioritize maintaining their own personal power or they like to play at being progressive for public perception purposes while ensuring that the system that has made them wealthy continues to work for them and their friends. I honestly think that there is a class dimension that crosses party lines, because the wealthy do actually have solidarity with each other and they know that if they keep giving the working class people crumbs, they can keep them just happy enough that they don't end up effecting their wealth and power. I'm very cynical about this sort of thing.

 

33 minutes ago, Kalbear Total Landscaping said:

Yes? because I'm trying to showcase some of the places that can have some work done. I'm also mostly disagreeing with @GrimTuesday, who doesn't appear to have a position other than "Israel SUUUUCKS" and pointing out that you should not just leave them to drift in the wind.

Yes, Israel does SUUUUCK,What the fuck do you want for that? The reality is the US actively backing them allows them to take the posture that they have taken which actually destabilizes the middle east and allows the religious far right to agitate against them. They are a repressive, right wing bordering on fascistic state that has millions of people living as second class citizens many of whom live in an open air prison. Does this mean that we just walk away? No, but there is a lot of space between walking away and enabling their actions. You said that they are nothing compared to places like China, and it is true that China does have a lot of human rights issues, but we can actually have a significant influence on Israel because they are a smaller country who is dependent on us. China is outside of our sphere of influence, Israel is not, and by doing nothing but wagging our finger (at worst) we are complicit in their crimes.

We need to do exactly what we did with South Africa to use diplomatic pressure to force them do cease their apartheid practices. Boycott, Divest, and Sanction (BDS) is the only way we are going to make Israel correct their ways.

[teej6]

5 minutes ago, Fez said:

Michigan definitely seems like what caused it, but Biden's not technically at 270 certified EVs yet. Besides PA and AZ not being certified, there's a bunch of blue states that aren't done yet either. Not because of Republican holdups, but just because the process can be slow.

Most likely Michigan certification did it. Another story being reported in the Post is that business leaders (Partner for New York City) put pressure. In a call on Friday, some of them discussed withholding campaign contributions from Georgia’s two Republican Senate candidates to motivate the party to push for the transition.  Now that might have stirred Mitch McConnell. 

[IheartIheartTesla]

Looks like when it came right down to it, some of the American institutions did hold. The courts mostly did their job, and the Republican SoS in Georgia as well as the Senate/House leads in Michigan didn't go against the principles of the election (with similar pronouncements coming out of PA). I think one of the tasks of future administrations is to make sure this kind of stuff doesn't happen again (although with divided government not sure how that is supposed to be accomplished)

Also, is Trump going to slowly fade away? Getting a concession speech from him was never going to happen, but I wondered how the end game would be, and it seems like it will be him tweeting less and less until Biden is sworn in and life goes back to normal.

[DMC]

2 minutes ago, GrimTuesday said:

in reality there are a lot of Democrats who either prioritize maintaining their own personal power

Obviously self-interest guides any elected official's public posture.  That self-interest, or reelection, is inextricably fused with the public-interest - how the elected official wants to govern in order to align with their policy preferences.  You can't affect change without being in power.  This tug-of-war is at the root of millennia of political theory, we're not gonna solve it in this thread.  My point is basically don't demonize your friends or those that can help you achieve your goals - and especially don't assume such motives.  The latter often does make an ass out of..ya know.  

As for the general point about the wealthy exploiting and dividing the working/lower classes, sure.  That's just how the world, and subsequently politics, works.