Lightning Knight posted:

Ok I hit the anger/acceptance stage at work. Here is my big huge pointless effort post no one will read.

My Take on the Democratic Post-Mortem, 2016:

* For Everyone

1. We are not doomed. Donald Trump ran on a fascist platform but he's not a true believer, he's a con man. He won't fight for his abhorrent causes, he's going to dismantle the government slowly but surely to enrich himself. The Republican Party is split three ways between the business class, the ultraconservatives/Tea Party and the new Trumpists and they're not going to vote in lockstep on everything. It's a drat near thing and almost everything has to go right, and we need to be lucky, but it's not over. We just have to fight the Battle of Agincourt now, rather than the Siege of Berlin.

2. We need everyone. This will be a recurring theme. We can win the Presidency with a relative few more votes, but we need way, way more voters to win the House, Senate, and state governments. We can't afford to alienate large swaths of people, even if we feel justified in doing so. There's limits to this - there's people we can't win - but that's the long and short of it.

3. We are out of time. We can't wait for demographics to save us and we can't wait for lovely Boomers to die out. If Hillary had won she could've stemmed the bleeding on global warming and given us a liberal supreme court. Now we don't have that luxury. We are on a ticking clock.

* For progressives

1. You (probably) aren't as radical as you think you are. If you think the New Deal, or for that matter Bernie Sanders, is "socialist," you are not a socialist. If you are actually a socialist and know what socialism is, you probably still don't have the spine to go out and fight in person. That's ok, most don't. But we need to be realistic about what we are. Bernie Sanders wasn't that far politically from Hillary Clinton, as much as we want to project our perfect savior fantasies on to him, and the sooner we realize this the better. I'm not saying we shouldn't fight for socialism - we should - but unless you're straight up an actual bomb-throwing anarchist, you aren't that radical. If you are, why aren't you at a protest right now?

2. Bernie Sanders is smarter than you. That's why when he knew he couldn't win the primary he endorsed Hillary and campaigned for her. That's why now he's not abandoning the Democrats and is fighting for their leadership. Progressives labor under the delusion that we are the most charismatic people ever and if everyone could just hear our ideas they'd believe us and join us. That the Democrats will just magically come around and become a progressive party on their own. That's bullshit. If we want a progressive party, we have to make one. Building a third party is much, much harder than just taking over the Democrats. That means voting - especially in primaries - fighting for leadership positions, and still showing up even if we didn't get what we want. Conservatives don't stay home if their guy doesn't win the primary. We shouldn't and can't afford to either.

3. Leave your pride at the door. I want Chuck Shumer's head on a pike too. Too bad. Progressives need to be willing to work with the party and to compromise and play nice with others. That means realizing we won't always get what we want. Bernie Sanders didn't take his ball and go home when he lost. Why should we? This does not mean do not question the party. Far from it. It means that instead of fighting a pointless civil war with the conservative wing or staying home like children, we work to change the party to fit our vision. That means we sometimes won't get what we want. Grow the gently caress up.

4. Republicans change the system so they have an easier time holding on to power. We should too. I do not mean voter suppression. But why aren't we pushing for a constitutional amendment to harmonize elections and get rid of off-year votes? Why aren't we fighting against gerrymandering, voter suppression, and the Electoral College? Why aren't we pushing for automatic registration at 18, mail-in ballots in every state, extended early vote, and if necessary national ID? We should be.

5. White straight male progressives are not the future of our movement. Yes, that means Bernie should not run again. White straight male progressives need to learn to sit down and shut the gently caress up some of the time, and to listen to minority voices. POC, LGBT, and female candidates are our future and we need to pave the way for them, not throw tantrums when we don't get to run the show. And for that guy reaching for his keyboard to say " why do you hate white straight men???" shut the gently caress up. Don't even. White straight men already get to be the center of the universe every other place. If you even want to pretend to be progressive don't you start that poo poo here.

6. Nativism, isolationism, and anti-trade positions are a cancer upon the Western World. The progressive left needs to drop any notion of adopting these planks right the gently caress now. Demonizing Chinese and Mexican people to appeal to white working class voters won't help us because we can't out-Republican the Republicans. The rest of the world is also deserving of not being poor too, and the West is largely responsible for their poverty, so we should be responsible for helping them too. American foreign policy is poo poo but withdrawing and letting world trade collapse will just lead to another war. And if you are too much of a sociopath to care about foreign poor people or world peace, then at least remember what happened the last time we mixed nativism with leftism.

7. The Russian Government is not your friend. Neither is the US Government for that matter. You might think it's great that the Russians did Watergate 2.0. on the DNC, or that Comey kneecapped our campaign in the last 14 days, but realize that they won't stop when the progressives take over. It won't be funny anymore when Kamala Harris 2020 gets sunk by Russian hacks. Only the most delusional tankies think the Russians are a friendly power as they fund and nurture dangerous far-right movements throughout the Western World. Remember Paul Manafort? Donald Trump was their bid to kill America. Don't think they'll be helpful to a progressive DNC. Ditto for institutions like the FBI.

8. White working class people ARE racist, sexist, and homophobic. But we need them. We really, really do. At the same time keep in mind that we are asking minorities to sit at the table with people who are ambivalent to their right to life at best and who happily voted for a man who ran on a platform of hatred and murder towards them. We have to walk a razor thin line to keep a coalition like this together and trying to whitesplain to black people that no really they aren't racist is stupid and pointless. This is more about our dialogue than what we campaign on.

9. Identity politics DO matter. A program of economic reform and anti-poverty measures are good and will help everyone if we do it right, but a higher minimum wage and free college doesn't stop police bullets, conversion therapy, or lower the rates of sexual assault, and if you aren't prepared to fight just as hard for forgiveness of your student debt as you are for Black Lives Matter, go home, we don't need you.

10. Stop buying into Republican framing. Bullshit like "establishment, coastal elites, (((globalism))), etc." are poo poo that the Republicans use, among a host of other phrasings, to delegitimize and undermine the left. Remember, that poo poo is all too often dogwhistles for Jewish people or the urban poor black community. We constantly, constantly harp on the failure of Democratic messaging and it's because we always, consistently buy into Republican framings of every issue. You hate Bill Clinton? Well guess what, his innovation was to attempt to out-Republican the Republicans. He failed. We can't make the same mistakes. This isn't about the correctness of these terms (for example, "establishment"), but more so about the framing of our issues.

11. People are three-dimensional. It's bad to boil down white working class people to "they're racist" even if they are because they have more going on than that and we can still reach them through other messages in spite of their racism. By the same token however, neoliberals and conservative Democrats are not mustache-twirling villains. Many of them really do believe that their ideology is good and right and can help people. If you insist on simplifying them to "evil assholes who don't agree with me" we won't get anywhere. This also goes for Republicans, we just can't reach them realistically in the time we have.

12. Stop trying to vilify Hillary Clinton. You don't have to like her. You're free to hate her in fact. But realize that trying to retroactively turn her into "American Margaret Thatcher" is both ahistorical and will alienate many, many people. We are not the mainstream in our hate for her on the left. Most of her unpopularity was with conservative straight white men. She still won the popular vote and there are millions of women and minorities who look at her as a hero, and it isn't a good look for white straight male progressives to poo poo on the legacy of one of the most influential women in American history. Even if you hate her, we can't win with that message going forward. Grumble in private about her if you must but make your peace with her legacy in public and move on.

* For conservative/centrist Democrats

1. Hillary Clinton is smarter than you. She saw that Bernie represented a sea-change in Democratic politics and adopted most of his platform after she won. She fought a largely congenial primary with him and worked hard not to alienate his voters. Conservative Democrats are not the way forward, and this election was proof. You will have to learn to live with the progressive wing.

2. Paying lipservice to identity politics isn't going to cut it anymore. The poor white population just voted in a monster because they hate you. They're fools, but you have to recognize that this is the new normal. Likewise telling minority voters you will help them and then abandoning them in office is no longer acceptable either. You get to choose between being less rich and helping leftist causes for real, or losing everything to insane fascists. No more threading the needle to maintain your power.

3. We need to engage young people. Yes, that means Hillary should not run again. Making stupid pop song ads and campaigning with famous people isn't good enough. Neither, apparently, is offering free college. But we need to engage young people and we need to do it now. We all saw that state map if only young people could vote. We need that now, not in 20 years.

4. Stop fighting a civil war with the progressive wing. Bernie Sanders didn't win the primary but he came drat close with no prep time and a conservative DNC that was hostile to him. The writing is on the wall. You don't have to roll over and die if you're a true believer in neoliberalism but you must compromise with progressives lest everything you've ever cared about is laid to ruin by the Republican Party.

5. Unions, unions, unions. Relying on big business and Wall Street for our funding has been a disaster. We need a financial base that won't sabotage our efforts from within. Unions conveniently also own and would go a long way towards helping us attract working class people of all colors again, provided we fight hard for them to both flourish and be inclusive.

6. Give up on gun control. I hate the Second Amendment and gun culture and all the horrific toxicity surrounding them. I hate that mass shootings have become so common as to be like a hazardous weather condition more than a tragedy. But gun owners care more about voting down gun control than liberals care about voting for it. We can mitigate and prevent mass shootings and gang violence with guns without direct gun control and it's a dumb hill to die on.

7. Give up on the war on drugs. Legalization of all controlled substances and prison reform would earn you huge points with young and black voters and they are good things. Clinging to the war on drugs for the sake of a foreign policy tool or the enrichment of corporate interests is foolish and short-sighted. Give it up.

8. It's time to abandon the middle class. We bought into the Republican framing of "a strong middle class," but the truth is that this is a huge dogwhistle for white suburbanites. I bet enough of us are white suburbanites to know that they vote straight R anyway regardless of how much we pander, because they care more about tax cuts than people's lives. We need working class people, not lovely FYGM suburbanites.

* For minorities

1. If you have to flee, flee. But when you move to Canada or wherever, try and keep your citizenship. We aren't entitled to your volunteer hours or money but an absentee vote to make America not suck is in your interests even if you move abroad because you might escape the persecution of minorities but you can't escape US foreign policy.

2. You're probably going to have to sit at the table with people who hate you. I'm sorry. If I could have a world where we didn't need lovely people with backwards beliefs to win elections I would. But this is not that world. Progressives need to fight for your rights and fight to educate ignorant people, but we need to build a coalition and that is a messy business.

3. We need your candidacy. I care about Black Lives Matter, immigration reform and amnesty, marriage equality and adoption rights, workplace discrimination laws and challenging rape culture. But we need to attract the white working class again. You are right to fear the white moderate, and that's why we need you to run instead. I'm sorry you have to do everything for white straight men. We suck. But the only way we can ensure minority rights get a seat at the table of economic populism is to run minority candidates.

There's probably more and I didn't put everything I had thought of but I think this is my comprehensive hot take (tm).

Lightning Knight posted:

There have been plenty of people from the primary to now saying we need to downplay identity politics and go hard on "no war but the class war."

Lightning Knight posted:

Even if it isn't common outside of here it's a dumb notion and we shouldn't buy into it. Minority turnout was also down in part because of voter suppression.

Lightning Knight posted:

Not pushing trade deals that don't screw over working people is a good thing but that's not what people want. When people scream "no TPP" they aren't saying "I'm mad this doesn't have environmental and labor protections." People actually want to be anti-immigration and anti-trade but from the left and it's dumb because Donald Trump's take on that will beat us every time. We have to come up with a different platform to win, because trying to out-Republican Republicans doesn't work.

Lightning Knight posted:

I didn't say white working class people vote solely on race or prejudice. I said they are racist and prejudiced. Recognizing this reality doesn't change that we need to appeal to them anyway, it's more about understanding that minorities won't be happy about it. We have to build a coalition and it means getting people who don't like each other to play nice.

Lightning Knight posted:

There might not be a strong civil-war against progressives yet but there will be push back when we gain power.

Lightning Knight posted:

I also didn't say that minorities should flee, I said if they feel that they need to (and implicitly if they have the means) then they should. I don't fault people whose lives are at stake from running. I wish they didn't need to, but I don't claim to know what's best for them.

Lightning Knight posted:

You misunderstand me. I'm not just talking about why we lost the Presidency. I'm talking about why we have systematically lost control of every level of government for fifty years running. We need more than the Presidency to enact change. Obama proved that.

ErIog posted:

I like that all of us arguing eventually came to the conclusion of, "Yo, gently caress the DNC."

If there is one group in this election that refused to understand or listen to voters it was the DNC. Beltway rear end in a top hat leadership spent years clowning around during the Obama presidency instead of chasing down state races. Fuckers were so incompetent Obama had to get his turnout with an entirely separate organization he built. We all bitched hard about Lieberman and other blue dogs, but like.. in some states you're just not going to elect a progressive. Better to have a blue dog than anybody who caucuses with Republicans.

DWS as head of the DNC for as long as she was was a huge mistake. Donna Brazile too. All those fuckers need to be out on their rear end. We have to clean house, and as much as I like Howard Dean he is not the dude to lead us into a new era. He should be a part of it, but not the leader of it.

Scent of Worf posted:

Let's hope the left can stop fighting itself by the time 2020 rolls around

punk rebel ecks posted:

This poo poo. gently caress "coming together". These people are incompetent morons that lost to literally the worst candidate in American history in the worst fashion possible. Purge these fucks from the party.

Lightning Knight posted:

First of all, you're an idiot who subscribes to the just world fallacy. There absolutely is deserving based on past injustice. We enslaved black people for five hundred loving years and built a nation on the backs of their labor, on land taken from murdered natives.

Secondly if minorities make up the majority of the base they deserve to lead because they are the majority. Seems simple enough to me.

punk rebel ecks posted:

Crowsbeak posted:

If the GOP tries to second convention the country to suicide we may have
To rebirth America on their ashes. With some laws that make their thought reason to be reeducated.

Killer robot posted:

A thousand times this. Atop it all, the particular approaches to gun control endorsed by most Democrats are as effective in curbing gun violence as the approaches of most anti-abortion people are in protecting children. It's not even a progressive cause so much as it is a socially conservative cause for city folks. If you want to spend any finite amount of money and effort on reducing murder rates, you're better off spending 100% of it on pulling back the war on drugs and strengthening social safety nets. And even if those programs also will get opposition from the same conservatives that fight gun control, they'll fight tooth and nail to protect guns in a way they won't to shut down the rest. Because that's something that affects their daily lives in a visible way. Seriously, call single-issue gun voters dumb all you want, but there's lots of people who are only affected indirectly and abstractly by many political issues but are affected directly and concretely by gun laws. And they know enough about the topic to see what factually ridiculous bullshit AWBs and rantings about mostly imaginary gunshow loopholes are. If you harp on those they'll just assume you're full of poo poo and malice on every other issue too.

Yeah, most of the damage on gun control is done by this point, but that's no reason not to stop the bleeding. It's fine not to like guns and it's not like all restrictions are going to get equal pushback, but especially if you don't actually know the topic well shut up about it and focus on progressive causes where you can find some common ground. Like, literally you'll hurt your chances less inviting them to gay muslim weddings.

Lightning Knight posted:

1. Yes there literally has been itt. Don't expect me to compensate for your lack of reading comprehension.

2. Minorities weren't the ones who primarily didn't show up. We lost white women and college educated white people despite polling positive with them. That indicates a lack of turnout.

3. Donald Trump won by campaigning on anti-immigrant rhetoric, anti-free trade and globalization couched in racist dogwhistling like (((globalists))). We won't win by trying to do the same thing, we've been campaigning as "Republicans lite" for far too long.

4. It's not that simple. Minorities won't turn out in huge numbers if they sense we're abandoning them for poor white people and submerging their issues in bullshit. Likewise we have to avoid having poor white people do the same drat thing they did with Reagan and jump ship for racist dogwhistles.

5. You really think the Democratic leadership will roll over and die?

6. Good job telling people who feel their lives are threatened how to respond, bro.

7. No, we lost the Presidency because of turn out, we lost the Senate because of turn out, and we lost the House because of gerrymandering and literally not running enough candidates. All of this swings back to dissatisfaction with the politics of the party and the candidates we run. It also is because the Republicans successfully set up the rules so they will win more than they lose.

8. lmao if you think we can win without the conservative wing. Millions of people do not subscribe to progressivism as an ideology and full communism now won't just sweep the board.

Huzanko posted:

http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/438481/chuck-schumer-democrats-will-lose-blue-collar-whites-gain-suburbs

“For every blue-collar Democrat we lose in western Pennsylvania, we will pick up two moderate Republicans in the suburbs in Philadelphia, and you can repeat that in Ohio and Illinois and Wisconsin.” -- Chuck Schumer

Trump didn't win. Hillary lost.

Leon Trotsky 2012 posted:

Also, Trump actually won the under 30 vote among whites and almost tied union members.

lol

Mendrian posted:

While I'll never claim there aren't people even in the government who want more gun control, 'gun control', the Issue(tm) is a policy crisis invented by the right. There are vanishingly few Democrats asking for anything other than common-sense gun control laws (often the very same measures that the NRA endorses) but the idea of gun-bans is totally fabricated. Liberals can back off of the issue more certainly but I don't know how they can distance themselves from it anymore besides actively endorsing gun ownership.

Actually thought would be pretty funny.

quote:

Bad candidate, bad strategy, bad leadership, bad turnout.

Ladies and gentlemen your new senate minority leader:

Lightning Knight posted:

I am in a backlog on reading the thread and I just got to this and this is very damning and bad news. I am going to be very, very disappointed if we get trapped into buying into anti-immigrant and free trade rhetoric and actually go full in America First FYGM to the rest of the world. It will not end well.

I'm not shocked white young people are lovely though because I've talked extensively to young white people and lol.


"Common sense gun control" isn't common sense to many gun owners and the NRA vehemently opposes any and all gun control because they're a lobbyist for the industry, what are you talking about?

Like we run on gun control measures that poll positive with gun owners and they still vote against us because the NRA is a massively effective lobby group.

I bet we could get gun control in a heartbeat if there was organized minority gun ownership but that'll never happen.


k I think we can compromise with the conservative wing but I still want Schumer's head on a pike anyway.

Lightning Knight posted:

I am in a backlog on reading the thread and I just got to this and this is very damning and bad news. I am going to be very, very disappointed if we get trapped into buying into anti-immigrant and free trade rhetoric and actually go full in America First FYGM to the rest of the world. It will not end well.

I'm not shocked white young people are lovely though because I've talked extensively to young white people and lol.


"Common sense gun control" isn't common sense to many gun owners and the NRA vehemently opposes any and all gun control because they're a lobbyist for the industry, what are you talking about?

Like we run on gun control measures that poll positive with gun owners and they still vote against us because the NRA is a massively effective lobby group.

I bet we could get gun control in a heartbeat if there was organized minority gun ownership but that'll never happen.

FAUXTON posted:

https://twitter.com/CNNPolitics/status/797703548519743488

Obama realizing "oh gently caress gently caress gently caress we need to snip this poo poo off know before that orange baboon kills a million people with indiscriminate tag-team bombing sorties alongside his tovarich vladdy"

Cup Runneth Over posted:

Please do not embrace literal thoughtcrime and brainwashing people for having opposing political beliefs.

boner confessor posted:

meh, the fight against collapsing isis is and has been rolling along quietly all year

my fear at this point is that the coalition takes raqqa in mid-spring and yokels across america finally take notice and credit trump for his foreign policy brilliance

Huzanko posted:

There is no more conservative wing. The Blue Dogs are gone.

FAUXTON posted:

I like that there was a post some pages pack that was like "why can't we nominate sherrod brown?"

I like the idea of a Tom Waits sounding candidate.

Mendrian posted:

Most gun owners and most card carrying NRA members are in favor of things like background checks and waiting periods. There are some loud, stupid outliers but if you walk up to any guy on the street he'll usually be in favor of that kind of thing. The difficulty is that there is a persistent belief that liberals want to take away the guns and that's just never really even been on the table before, it's never been a rallying cry, and yet people still believe it. Because it's a fabricated policy position designed to make gun owners paranoid. It's just rhetoric.

boner confessor posted:

my fear at this point is that the coalition takes raqqa in mid-spring and yokels across america finally take notice and credit trump for his foreign policy brilliance

Monaghan posted:

I think discussion on how these free trade deals really benefited the rich over the working class is a legitimate discussion.

Monaghan posted:

I don't see much anti-immigrants so far in any of the discussions, but I think discussion on how these free trade deals really benefited the rich over the working class is a legitimate discussion.

ErIog posted:

If there is one group in this election that refused to understand or listen to voters it was the DNC. Beltway rear end in a top hat leadership spent years clowning around during the Obama presidency instead of chasing down state races. Fuckers were so incompetent Obama had to get his turnout with an entirely separate organization he built

Lightning Knight posted:

There have been posters, both progressive and Trump supporting throwing about how letting in immigrants is bad and wrong and how we need to raise tariffs and other poo poo that wouldn't end well. Personally given my immigrant heritage I am deeply, deeply concerned about any moves in that direction because it doesn't bode well.

That said I never said that discussion of the impacts of free trade on the working class were wrong and shouldn't be had. Free trade programs have absolutely failed working people but it isn't because free trade is evil. The standard of living we enjoy today is because of trade. The problem is that we let rich people bleed most of the profits of that trade.

Lightning Knight posted:

Further still I didn't make that point to say we should campaign on "white people are bad." I said that we as progressives must acknowledge this because we expect minorities to put up with being in the same party as these people and it's a lot to ask.

stranger danger posted:

pretending there isn't an establishment that heavily caters to the interests of the ultra rich or that middle-class liberals on the coasts don't often look down their noses at benighted "flyover country" denizens... good grief that post is filled with a lot of stupid loving garbage.

stranger danger posted:

Literally all white working class people are prejudiced (every single one), being against free trade is unreasonable when it's destroyed swathes of the country, pretending there isn't an establishment that heavily caters to the interests of the ultra rich or that middle-class liberals on the coasts don't often look down their noses at benighted "flyover country" denizens... good grief that post is filled with a lot of stupid loving garbage.

stranger danger posted:

Literally all white working class people are prejudiced (every single one), being against free trade is unreasonable when it's destroyed swathes of the country, pretending there isn't an establishment that heavily caters to the interests of the ultra rich or that middle-class liberals on the coasts don't often look down their noses at benighted "flyover country" denizens... good grief that post is filled with a lot of stupid loving garbage.

Monaghan posted:

That's reasonable, I misinterpreted your post.

Pedro De Heredia posted:

Sure, it's a lot to ask. Being part of political coalitions usually is.

The reason you are seeing a lot of backlash against "identity politics" right now is because a lot of the people who supported these politics had an attitude of "we've won the numbers battle already, this is the coalition now and it will lead to triumph always, suck it up people who disagree" and now after an electoral failure this argument is utterly destroyed.

Lightning Knight posted:

First of all, you're an idiot who subscribes to the just world fallacy. There absolutely is deserving based on past injustice. We enslaved black people for five hundred loving years and built a nation on the backs of their labor, on land taken from murdered natives.

Secondly if minorities make up the majority of the base they deserve to lead because they are the majority. Seems simple enough to me.


not an empty quote

Admiral Ray posted:

"Just rhetoric" won the election. I get what you're saying, but it's gonna take real door-to-door poo poo to convince gun owners that Democrats don't want to disarm them. The NRA is a huge problem here as they are just loving awful propagandaists.

Lightning Knight posted:

I am wary of a white dude from Ohio as the face of economic populism.

I think Bernie's decision to specifically push Keith Ellison, instead of any other progressive Congressmen, is very significant and we should be getting a message from that. I think even he realized that white dudes won't be able to campaign on populism without terrifying minorities.

The Puppy Bowl posted:

I believe in affirmative action. I believe congress should research strategies to effectively implement reparations. I also believe that promoting an individual candidate based solely upon their race is racist. While they do face modern institutional and personal racism that need to be eliminated the Cory Bookers of the world deserve nothing based upon the unjust suffering of their ancestors. This goes for every other marginalized group as well. We should pursue a meritocracy. Obviously that's a pursuit that can never actually be achieved, but that only stresses the importance of a robust safety net that excludes no groups.

I think a lot of people would be thrilled with the idea of being initially treated the same as every random white dude. But, I am just some random white dude so I'm open to hearing other opinions.

Lightning Knight posted:

Free trade programs have absolutely failed working people but it isn't because free trade is evil. The standard of living we enjoy today is because of trade. The problem is that we let rich people bleed most of the profits of that trade.

The Puppy Bowl posted:

This is retarded. The people that need to lead the Democratic party are the most capable politicians who can successfully push the best policies. There are no turns. There is no deserving based on past injustice. There is only equal opportunity.

Anything else leads to the system of concessions that gave us candidate Clinton.