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readingatwork posted:Fun fact: Money in politics first became a thing after some Supreme Court rulings in the 1970s. Interesting timing isn't it? It is also at the close of the Cold War where center-left parties were also moving right on-mass across the developed world. It certainly didn't help but there was a massive political shift across the 1980s.
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Jan 25, 2017 00:31
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FAUXTON posted:Don't forget about voting. It should be abundantly clear that money isn't the inexorable path to victory it used to be. Party establishment support isn't the requirement for primary victory that it used to be. Hillary was the Jeb on the Democratic side, though the actual Jeb had a superior primary opponent. Volunteering is not against the law and when push comes to shove the more consistently engaged bloc of party voters wins the day. Yeah, if anything this election was proof that money and establishment support != winning. Both Hillary and Jeb are proof of that. Meanwhile the fact that Sanders got as far as he did says that clearly money and influence with establishment politicians aren't the end all be all of determiners. What has me worried if whether or not this will hold true in 4 years. Establishment politicians of both the right wing and neo-liberal variety can't have not noticed that some of the old stand-bys to power are publicly wavering, even if they are keeping quiet about the effects it had on this election. And a lot can change in 4 years. Edit: Heck, Obama's first election is arguably proof of this too. Obama was by all accounts not the first pick of many establishment politicians. They just rallied around him when they realized he could at least throw them a few bones. Archonex fucked around with this message at 00:50 on Jan 25, 2017 |
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Jan 25, 2017 00:34
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Archonex posted:Yeah, if anything this election was proof that money and establishment support != winning. Both Hillary and Jeb are proof of that. Meanwhile the fact that Sanders got as far as he did says that clearly they aren't the end all be all of determiners. Obama was the face man for this same battle within the party, as he had the support of some older, further-left figures like Ted Kennedy. His election should be a lesson that the centrist establishment will be more than happy to get on board with the party moving leftward in order to stay relevant with a leftward-shifting base. They'll revert to their old selves if not kept under pressure, which was or at least should have been the lesson from subsequent elections. Donors have round-the-clock influence, we have votes every two years and party committee stuff at the local level. It's not necessarily an equitable distribution of power, but the establishment people know their gravy train stops when they get primaried as easily as it stops when they lose the general, and even Hillary shifted leftward during the primary. They bend to a challenge, they just need to be challenged. Empty primaries and doofy protest votes in the general don't form that challenge, legwork and diligence do. If you're an accelerationist then you'd probably be hoping that as many people as possible take away a lesson that the party is what you make it, and abysmal midterm turnout with unopposed primaries or completely disorganized primary opposition make the party very comfortable with approaching the people who do vote, that being the loving GOP. They won all those state and federal seats over the past 8 years, they can be counted on to at least go to the polls which is why their votes got courted. FAUXTON fucked around with this message at 01:09 on Jan 25, 2017 |
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Jan 25, 2017 00:58
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Tight Booty Shorts posted:So many people just don't loving vote because both democrats and republicans are perceived to want almost the exact same things. But democrats want one or two executives to be a different sexual orientation or race. That's the major difference. Maybe the first week of GOP rule will make those morans grow a brain.
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Jan 25, 2017 06:23
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Archonex posted:Yeah, if anything this election was proof that money and establishment support != winning. Both Hillary and Jeb are proof of that. Meanwhile the fact that Sanders got as far as he did says that clearly money and influence with establishment politicians aren't the end all be all of determiners. Yeah. Sanders had more money than Clinton but lost, and Clinton had more money than Trump but lost.
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Jan 25, 2017 06:40
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I love how Hillbots defense of Hillary boils down to the fact that Hillary managed, with the full support of the entire DNC establishment as well as decades of planning, managed to beat a joke candidate who ran to provide some red meat in the primary. A joke candidate who ran to provide some red meat in the primary who would have won, unlike Hillary. Like, the whole "sore winner" was a common complaint but Hillbots were going loving crazy. The fact that someone who wasn't seriously running managed to derail the Hillary coronation should have looked like a May Day parade to the Hillary campaign: a sea of red flags. Instead, a huge part of the general was spent making GBS threads on Bernie voters. Voters who loyally showed up to vote for Hillary in a way that Hillary voters did not show up for Obama. Talk about picking the wrong fight!
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Jan 25, 2017 07:54
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"Bernie lost to Hillary in the primary, therefore he would have lost to Trump in the general" sounds like really poor reasoning to me. It completely depends on an unsupported and frankly suspect premise that the primary always selects the candidate with the greatest chance of winning the general, and I see no reason to automatically believe such a thing.
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Jan 25, 2017 08:04
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VitalSigns posted:"Bernie lost to Hillary in the primary, therefore he would have lost to Trump in the general" sounds like really poor reasoning to me. It completely depends on an unsupported and frankly suspect premise that the primary always selects the candidate with the greatest chance of winning the general, and I see no reason to automatically believe such a thing. Neoliberals need this to be inevtiable because to admit otherwise means their religion is a joke.
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Jan 25, 2017 08:09
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JeffersonClay posted:I think two years is enough time for dumb leftists to realize their error but maybe not if they keep putting their fingers in their ears screaming about Bernie. Hillary won 90% of Bernie voters and carried the most progressive areas in the country by bigger margins than Obama so I don't think this was a leftist Dolchstoß. Looking at the map, it seems the states she lost had been voting Republican at the state level for years, and she got destroyed among moderates and independents that her centrist policies, her Serious People friends in Wall Street and business, her chummy relationship with war criminals and ghouls like Henry Kissinger, and her supposedly organized and capable techocratic campaign were supposed to bring in (which was, of course, the whole Third Way pitch that they and only they can win the election by bringing in middle class suburban Republicans and independents and lol she couldn't even do that). It wasn't triggered lazy safe-space trophy-getting millenial urban hipsters who abandoned her in the states that swung the election, turned out it was older union voters who didn't think she'd do anything for them and fell for conservative social issues and white identity politics bullshit that they've been trending toward for years as Democrats abandoned them (but that's okay, so the theory goes, because for every one we lose we'll pick up two suburban Republicans!) VitalSigns fucked around with this message at 09:06 on Jan 25, 2017 |
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Jan 25, 2017 09:04
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Speaking from the perspective of an outsider, y'all need to start organizing outside of the democratic party. The social democratic progress of western europe and scandinavia mainly came from labour unions organizing together to form political parties, where they themselves selected candidates from their own ranks to run. The organization itself was a key point, because labourers were everywhere and now a political organization from their own ranks with their specfific welfare in mind was now speaking to them - right where they worked and lived - of political goals to reach, about solidarity, egalitarianism and social justice. Bargaining from a position of strength brought labourers and poor people concessions and improved working conditions, better wages and better lives. It was tangible progress, and this bought a massive amount of loyalty and votes. The labour parties of Europe were largely self-funded by their own members. It created a situation of "us against them", "them" being the capitalist overlords and owners of factories and such. The remnants of this early-to-mid 19th century revolution remain today, in scandinavian socialist "paradises" where the labour party often still is the largest political party in parliament. This, in spite of neoliberalism, right-wing shifts and growing resentment of immigrants, and the fact that most of these places - because of the policies of these reigning labour parties in the past - have a very high proportion of college and university educated people, who often don't work anywhere near anything associated with the word "labour". The decline of democratic socialism in western europe is due both to what I call "corruption from success" (greater levels of personal wealth, much smaller proportion of traditional labourers or replacement of labour with outsourced or worker migration, cultural change towards personal greed etc.) and the fact that the labour unions and parties have lost touch with their base and their original goals and tangible progress. What you guys need is a new type of union and a type of labour party (obviously though, not calling it a labour party ought to be step one). A union for all working folks, everyone who is employed at all should feel welcome and need support from such an organization. With strength in numbers, such an organization will be able through strikes and other means force concessions out of even the political elite. This is the bread-and-butter of democratic socialism, folks, that's where it starts. From this movement, you can work towards making it socially unacceptable to NOT be in the union, and make it very obvious how beneficial joining is, which is how it gathers strength at a grassroots level (seriously, in some soc. dem. countries, being a member of a union gives you unique advantages such as higher pay, more vacation time and more vacation pay, etc.). From there, the way to a serious socially democratic worker's party isn't all that long. I keep hearing about Bernie Sanders and all kinds of stuff about a movement, but to be honest those people are trying to build a house on a foundation made from twigs. It's not going to work unless you do it from the bottom up. You have all kinds of popular sentiment with you, but that doesn't automatically translate into an organization that makes a tangible impact. The smartest (and most horrifying) thing Reagan et.al. did was destroy the unions, because that's how you paralyze the progressive left and destroy the ability of the population to organize, to get information from a trusted source, to fund their own elections and to demand better treatment from a bargaining position of strength. They knew that and did the most effective thing to stop social progress. That also gives you the greatest clue on where to start. Maybe get that Mike Rowe fellow on board as a figurehead, he seems pretty popular and deeply interested in labourers.
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Jan 25, 2017 09:29
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Even smarter and more horrifying was when Reagan promised to give the air traffic controllers' union a better deal than Carter (who was playing hardball with them at the time) so they'd vote him into a position where we could wreck their poo poo. Good job Jimmy Carter way to save a buck on union salaries, you really earned a lot of respect and political capital from the right.
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Jan 25, 2017 10:01
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VitalSigns posted:Even smarter and more horrifying was when Reagan promised to give the air traffic controllers' union a better deal than Carter (who was playing hardball with them at the time) so they'd vote him into a position where we could wreck their poo poo. If only he had compromised harder.
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Jan 25, 2017 10:22
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XyrlocShammypants posted:Maybe the first week of GOP rule will make those morans grow a brain. It's not likely. In fact, they're gonna get dumber. The solution is to no longer be perceived as wanting the same things as republicans. I know it's difficult for you and others to accept but that's what the Dems have got to do. This country's weak rear end loser left wing is probably the only thing that's gonna fight against total environmental devastation and death.
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Jan 25, 2017 12:49
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WhiskeyJuvenile posted:Yeah. Sanders had more money than Clinton but lost, and Clinton had more money than Trump but lost. Oh Sanders raised 1.5 billion without fundraisers or superPACs? Word?
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Jan 25, 2017 12:50
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Shbobdb posted:I love how Hillbots defense of Hillary boils down to the fact that Hillary managed, with the full support of the entire DNC establishment as well as decades of planning, managed to beat a joke candidate who ran to provide some red meat in the primary. Don't forget she also beat Martin O'Malley and some other losers no one remembers. The meat grinder Democratic primary of a "joke" candidate that wasn't supposed to even be there, some nobodies, and the obvious choice. Eggplant Squire fucked around with this message at 14:47 on Jan 25, 2017 |
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Jan 25, 2017 14:45
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VitalSigns posted:Hillary won 90% of Bernie voters and carried the most progressive areas in the country by bigger margins than Obama so I don't think this was a leftist Dolchstoß. I don't think you know that with any degree of certainty. The 90% figure is from a poll in late July and other polls around the time show a range from the high sixties to 90%. quote:Looking at the map, it seems the states she lost had been voting Republican at the state level for years, and she got destroyed among moderates and independents that her centrist policies, her Serious People friends in Wall Street and business, her chummy relationship with war criminals and ghouls like Henry Kissinger, and her supposedly organized and capable techocratic campaign were supposed to bring in (which was, of course, the whole Third Way pitch that they and only they can win the election by bringing in middle class suburban Republicans and independents and lol she couldn't even do that). So now it wasn't about leftist enthusiasm? Are you making the case that moderates and independents are pining for socialism or a chomskyan foreign policy, despite trending more and more republican? quote:It wasn't triggered lazy safe-space trophy-getting millenial urban hipsters who abandoned her in the states that swung the election, turned out it was older union voters who didn't think she'd do anything for them and fell for conservative social issues and white identity politics bullshit that they've been trending toward for years as Democrats abandoned them (but that's okay, so the theory goes, because for every one we lose we'll pick up two suburban Republicans!) Why can't it be both? The margins were close enough that many factors could have swung the election. I don't think old white people are racists because democrats abandoned them, that's absurd. And we aren't going to increase voter share among conservative leaning independents by taking a hard left on policy. VitalSigns posted:Even smarter and more horrifying was when Reagan promised to give the air traffic controllers' union a better deal than Carter (who was playing hardball with them at the time) so they'd vote him into a position where we could wreck their poo poo. People forget that carter was a hardcore fiscal conservative. He torpedoed a bill guaranteeing full employment with government jobs and a progressive healthcare bill. So when were democrats not lovely centrist compromisers? Did carter light a 40 year fuse that blew up Hillary's campaign? Why would these hypothetical bettayed democrats pick right now to jump ship and not 4, 8, or 20 years ago? They didn't turn racist because democrats have been abandoning them for decades, they voted for a racist because they liked the racist appeals Trump was making.
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Jan 25, 2017 16:03
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I think (enough) moderates and independents were pining for someone openly and enthusiastically willing to wield government power against the markets and in their favor.
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Jan 25, 2017 16:17
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Then why did they vote for the guy promising tax cuts, eliminating regulations and privatization?
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Jan 25, 2017 16:58
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JeffersonClay posted:Then why did they vote for the guy promising tax cuts, eliminating regulations and privatization? Because he wasn't Hillary, the worst candidate in 40 years All of that stuff is better than having the Saudi Arabian government back your campaign
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Jan 25, 2017 17:03
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JeffersonClay posted:Then why did they vote for the guy promising tax cuts, eliminating regulations and privatization?
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Jan 25, 2017 17:04
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JeffersonClay posted:Then why did they vote for the guy promising tax cuts, eliminating regulations and privatization? Lol I'm kind of in disbelief someone could be this willfully dense.
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Jan 25, 2017 17:06
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You can't really blame Republicans for voting for the less racist candidate
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Jan 25, 2017 17:07
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Ferrinus posted:Uh, they DIDN'T vote for the democrats. What appealed was someone promising to use direct and forceful intervention to make voters' lives better rather than completely restrict government action to rules tweaks and number massaging in hopes of emergent consequences vaguely resembling what you claim to want. Trump promised to gut regulations, cut taxes, and unchain the free market. These attempts to paint trump voters as secret socialists are pathetic.
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Jan 25, 2017 17:12
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Tight Booty Shorts posted:Lol I'm kind of in disbelief someone could be this willfully dense. Don't sign your posts
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Jan 25, 2017 17:13
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JeffersonClay posted:Trump promised to gut regulations, cut taxes, and unchain the free market. These attempts to paint trump voters as secret socialists are pathetic. They're not secret socialists. They just want the power of the government to reach down from on high and help them directly rather than look on impassively as they wither away. Trump's promises to strongarm jobs into coming back from overseas or explicitly ban all immigrants of the wrong color weren't at all socialistic, but they were also a far cry from carefully shepherding political capital or steering the supertanker of government a scant few degrees or whatever. People aren't going to vote you into power if you tell them you're not going to use that power to do anything because that would be extremely brash and intemperate and anyway things are going fine so there's no need to.
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Jan 25, 2017 17:15
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So when you said people were desperate for someone to intervene on their behalf against the market, you just meant on trade, and were ignoring all the areas where Trump promised to destroy the government interventions in the market like corporate taxes, environmental and labor protections, and public infrastructure. You don't get to ignore the trump policies that contradict your narrative.
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Jan 25, 2017 17:25
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Hmmmm, is it possible some economically depressed voters aren't policy wonks? nah.
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Jan 25, 2017 17:35
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Yes, exactly. Trump promised to intervene directly on peoples' behalf against the market. Meanwhile, suffocating technocratic austerity was being peddled by the wonks and establishment types on both sides. Remember, back in the primary that he completely demolished, our president was up against an entire rogues' gallery of debate club fuckshits for whom lowering the income tax and stripping labor protections and whatever was, like, the sum total of their platform. It turned out no one actually gave a poo poo about the principled conservatism of Ted Cruz - they wanted someone who at least appeared to be in their corner and was willing to use the power of the office to somehow make their lives easier. I'm sure you could find people who don't like slashed regulations but think the protectionism and white nationalism are worth it, and people who still believe the old dogma and so see both protectionism and lowered corporate taxes as positive moves the government is making in the little guy's favor, and lil' Ted Cruzes who hate the protectionism angle but held their noses and voted Trump because at least the gov't is no longer wasting its funds on so-called "climate change". But, either way you slice it, a politician who promises to directly rather than indirectly wield the power of their office isn't the political poison everyone thought it was. In fact, it set the unlikeliest of candidates ahead of the pack, when by all rights they shouldn't have made it more than halfway through their own party's primary.
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Jan 25, 2017 17:37
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JeffersonClay posted:So when you said people were desperate for someone to intervene on their behalf against the market, you just meant on trade, and were ignoring all the areas where Trump promised to destroy the government interventions in the market like corporate taxes, environmental and labor protections, and public infrastructure. You don't get to ignore the trump policies that contradict your narrative. This is how voters responded to Trump though, they accepted the parts they liked and labeled anything they didn't like as just posturing. What is your point?
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Jan 25, 2017 17:39
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JeffersonClay posted:You don't get to ignore the trump policies that contradict your narrative. Of course you can.
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Jan 25, 2017 17:41
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JeffersonClay posted:You don't get to ignore the trump policies that contradict your narrative. Why not? Voters do this all the time on both sides of the isle.
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Jan 25, 2017 17:52
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It's disingenuous to dismiss Trump voters' (mistaken) understandings on those issues and just paint them as broadly anti-whatever. Trump is NOT perceived as anti-union by a lot of union voters, in fact he met with union leaders a few days ago and it supposedly went well. Most Trump voters do in fact really believe that climate change is a hoax. Trump is not perceived as anti-infrastructure spending, quite the opposite.
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Jan 25, 2017 17:55
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Given the choice between an obvious conman and someone who was openly contemptuous of them, rust belters opted to stay home.
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Jan 25, 2017 18:04
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Shbobdb posted:Given the choice between an obvious conman and someone who was openly contemptuous of them, rust belters opted to stay home. Or fell for the con.
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Jan 25, 2017 18:07
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MooselanderII posted:Or fell for the con. Trump didn't have significant gains over Romney. Same people that always vote R turned out. Some people did fall for the con, that's what a conman does. Can't be too surprised by that. But from an institutional level, R-voters turned out at the level they always do while D-voters opted to stay home.
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Jan 25, 2017 18:12
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Shbobdb posted:Trump didn't have significant gains over Romney. Same people that always vote R turned out. Some people did fall for the con, that's what a conman does. Can't be too surprised by that. But from an institutional level, R-voters turned out at the level they always do while D-voters opted to stay home. Either way, the result is the same. Hillary's shittiness led to some crossing over and some leaving the freaking presidential ballot part blank.
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Jan 25, 2017 18:20
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JeffersonClay posted:You don't get to ignore the trump policies that contradict your narrative. They actually did get to do that.
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Jan 25, 2017 18:22
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We don't actually know that yet. We'll get turnout by party ID numbers in March IIRC. But turnout wasn't down vs 2012, even accounting for population growth.Ferrinus posted:Yes, exactly. Trump promised to intervene directly on peoples' behalf against the market. Meanwhile, suffocating technocratic austerity was being peddled by the wonks and establishment types on both sides. No, that's bullshit. Trump promised to gut existing interventions into the market, as well. Democrats were not campaigning on austerity, period. Stop trying to twist observed reality into your nonsense narrative. MooselanderII posted:This is how voters responded to Trump though, they accepted the parts they liked and labeled anything they didn't like as just posturing. What is your point? How do you know trade barriers are the thing they really wanted and gutting regulations and lowering taxes was the stuff they ignored? That's pure speculation to support your narrative.
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Jan 25, 2017 18:23
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JeffersonClay posted:No, that's bullshit. Trump promised to gut existing interventions into the market, as well. Democrats were not campaigning on austerity, period. Stop trying to twist observed reality into your nonsense narrative. He also promised to intervene in new ways. Hillary promised nothing much, and differed from Jeb Bush or Ted Cruz only in matters of degree rather than kind. Indeed, intervening in new ways and cutting the old might have been uniquely palatable precisely because what were SUPPOSEDLY strong government interventions on the people's behalf pushed by the Democrats in times past were in fact watered-down ineffectual bullshit. The reason Trump pulled ahead of those people, and the reason that Sanders's socialism would have worked to his advantage, is that people were ready and willing to hear about direct, even crude interventions of government power on their behalf. They didn't recoil in fear from the very idea of big gov't doing anything at all, the way mainstream Republicans and Democrats do. Ferrinus fucked around with this message at 18:34 on Jan 25, 2017 |
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Jan 25, 2017 18:27
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JeffersonClay posted:We don't actually know that yet. We'll get turnout by party ID numbers in March IIRC. But turnout wasn't down vs 2012, even accounting for population growth. Why do you have such a hard time understanding that Trump's empty promise to bring jobs back resonated with people, notwithstanding his other objectively lovely policies?
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Jan 25, 2017 18:34
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