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BI NOW GAY LATER posted:I don't think you really know me. I want a far-left liberal state that empowers and enriches its people. I want free, universal healthcare. Free, universal childcare. Basic income that would allow people to thrive. I see the world as it cold be, for sure. I also see that there are limits to how much can be achieved and that great change never happens without hard work and occasionally compromises along the way. Great, then I did misjudge you and I apologize. But if you believe in and want those things, you must think they're possible, right? If your default position is "people don't want the things I want and they can't be convinced otherwise" then you're already done. You have your answer, you can go home. If your default position is "I can help change this" then welcome to being a politically active human, and incidentally you are no longer a centrist.
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Feb 18, 2017 19:02
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Ardennes posted:To be honest, I think that is rather wishful thinking though at least on their broader trajectory. They are more actively challenging Trump that is true, especially since they have been absolutely backed into a corner but at the same time I really would have to see some pretty fundamental changes both in policy and how they present that policy. I could easily see the current Democratic Party continue to triple down on "building the middle class" and more or less minor tweaks to current policy. That misunderstands partisanship in the US. For most of our history, ideology and partisan identification were not closely mirrored. The Democratic Party has never, solely, been owned by the "left."
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Feb 18, 2017 19:04
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Dr. Fishopolis posted:Great, then I did misjudge you and I apologize. But if you believe in and want those things, you must think they're possible, right? I've never been a centrist. I believe in the power of change and that we can change things, I am just under zero illusions about how difficult those things are to achieve and how we must occasionally accept less than perfect solutions on our path to ultimate goals.
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Feb 18, 2017 19:05
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So you make more than 15$ an hour and are comfortable with your status quo and changing it can only harm your position in your eyes?
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Feb 18, 2017 19:16
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Grognan posted:So you make more than 15$ an hour and are comfortable with your status quo and changing it can only harm your position in your eyes? Aren't you the guy who was ranting about immigrants and the lying press? Did they invent a cure for Nazism?
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Feb 18, 2017 19:17
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While you people fight over how low of a minimum wage the Democrats should fight for because ~optics~ or whatever, keep in mind that killing the minimum wage entirely is the goal of multiple GOP powerbrokers.
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Feb 18, 2017 19:18
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Grognan posted:So you make more than 15$ an hour and are comfortable with your status quo and changing it can only harm your position in your eyes? The democratic party has no place for nazis like you grognard
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Feb 18, 2017 19:36
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BI NOW GAY LATER posted:I've never been a centrist. I believe in the power of change and that we can change things, I am just under zero illusions about how difficult those things are to achieve and how we must occasionally accept less than perfect solutions on our path to ultimate goals. That's fair, but advocating centrist compromise politics just isn't even pragmatic anymore. You can look at a poll where Warren loses the general election vs a "generic democrat", poo poo your pants and run to the right (nevermind that any specific candidate nearly always loses to the generic), or you can look at things like 53% of millenials supporting bigger government and the fact that more of them voted for Sanders than Clinton and Trump combined. Democrats win when young people vote. If you want young people to vote you cannot advocate centrism or compromise with the right. Therefore, if you want the Democratic party to win, you must support the left.
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Feb 19, 2017 04:10
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Dr. Fishopolis posted:That's fair, but advocating centrist compromise politics just isn't even pragmatic anymore. You can look at a poll where Warren loses the general election vs a "generic democrat", poo poo your pants and run to the right (nevermind that any specific candidate nearly always loses to the generic), or you can look at things like 53% of millenials supporting bigger government and the fact that more of them voted for Sanders than Clinton and Trump combined. But support for "bigger government", judging by people who proudly voted for Bernie but not for Hillary, doesn't necessarily translate into support for socialism generally. So you still have the problem of interpretation and divining what it is people actually want, and when Bernie-or-Busters whine about how the PPACA is bad, then how exactly are you supposed to develop a healthcare program that is possible within the current confines of our political system, assuming you're a staffer who's responsible for actually formulating policy? Relying on the belief that you can establish a left-wing filibuster-proof majority by saying you'll implement "universal healthcare"?
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Feb 19, 2017 04:18
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You don't do it by pretending you don't Effectronica. You do so by being honest and saying the current system is highway robbery and killing people Then say onl a unamerican creature will stand against you.
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Feb 19, 2017 04:20
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Crowsbeak posted:You don't do it by pretending you don't Effectronica. You do so by being honest and saying the current system is highway robbery and killing people Then say onl a unamerican creature will stand against you. So, the Crowsbeak plan is to avoid any actual work, but instead to get up on a big stage and blather some semi-coherent nonsense. Just, you know, yell about how the current system is bad and then you'll completely circumvent all the people who think it's bad because of government regulations or the possibility of suing for malpractice. And of course, when your system fails to control costs because anyone with any knowledge of healthcare is going to be expelled from the party like your cohort Dr. Fishopolis keeps suggesting and so it's just a single-payer system of insurance that ignores pharmaceutical costs (or implements half-assed measures) and totally ignores the role healthcare providers have played in spiraling costs, then nobody will be disillusioned with it, unlike with PPACA. And this whole thing will be immune to right-wing propaganda efforts. Uh huh.
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Feb 19, 2017 04:24
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Brainiac Five posted:But support for "bigger government", judging by people who proudly voted for Bernie but not for Hillary, doesn't necessarily translate into support for socialism generally. How else would you interpret it? How would you change the party messaging to appeal to those voters? They came out in droves for the primary, but stayed home for the general. How do you change that?
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Feb 19, 2017 04:30
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Dr. Fishopolis posted:That's fair, but advocating centrist compromise politics just isn't even pragmatic anymore. You can look at a poll where Warren loses the general election vs a "generic democrat", poo poo your pants and run to the right (nevermind that any specific candidate nearly always loses to the generic), or you can look at things like 53% of millenials supporting bigger government and the fact that more of them voted for Sanders than Clinton and Trump combined. I don't know why you keep lecturing me about how I need to support leftist policy goals, I do. What I keep telling you people is that, collectively, the leftist activists need to also understand that they're not going to always get what they want and that occasional compromise on the road to their final goal isn't retreat and that they're capable of proposing bad ideas -- like Medicare for all -- and that when people push back against them, they need to defend them with something other than "you neoliberal shill centrists why do you want people to die." Dr. Fishopolis posted:How else would you interpret it? How would you change the party messaging to appeal to those voters? They came out in droves for the primary, but stayed home for the general. How do you change that? I have bad news for you about people who voted for Bernie: a lot of them weren't going to vote for him in the general.
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Feb 19, 2017 04:32
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Dr. Fishopolis posted:How else would you interpret it? How would you change the party messaging to appeal to those voters? They came out in droves for the primary, but stayed home for the general. How do you change that? You could probably interpret it as them having been raised in an environment where "socialism" means "having a minimum wage". Well, I don't have all the facts. If I were to judge it based on people who post about it on these forums, I would not try to appeal to them because 1) they'd demand total control of the party, 2) they've very little sympathy for minority issues except where those can be generalized to benefit the majority, and 3) a substantial fraction of them will never actually support a Democratic party that isn't actively alienating large segments of its supporters. But that's almost certainly not the total picture. With the evil concept of "empiricism", you could figure out what the main issues are that the Democratic party could reasonably address and focus on those.
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Feb 19, 2017 04:37
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BI NOW GAY LATER posted:I have bad news for you about people who voted for Bernie: a lot of them weren't going to vote for him in the general. why is such a great and powerful oracle wasting his time derailing the thread about the DNC chair election Cease to Hope fucked around with this message at 04:44 on Feb 19, 2017 |
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Feb 19, 2017 04:37
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Cease to Hope posted:why is such a great and powerful oracle wasting his time detailing the thread about the DNC chair election Why is a living human being with a brain in their head convinced that they can eliminate this discussion instead of backgrounding it into passive-aggressive sniping?
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Feb 19, 2017 04:38
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Brainiac Five posted:Why is a living human being with a brain in their head convinced that they can eliminate this discussion instead of backgrounding it into passive-aggressive sniping? There's a perfectly good election thread.
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Feb 19, 2017 04:43
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BI NOW GAY LATER posted:I don't know why you keep lecturing me about how I need to support leftist policy goals, I do. What I keep telling you people is that, collectively, the leftist activists need to also understand that they're not going to always get what they want and that occasional compromise on the road to their final goal isn't retreat and that they're capable of proposing bad ideas -- like Medicare for all -- and that when people push back against them, they need to defend them with something other than "you neoliberal shill centrists why do you want people to die." I, like a lot of leftists, are extremely sensitive to waffling and compromise when it comes to democratic party strategy. Every time we've tried to hold the DNC's feet to the fire when it comes to banking regulation, healthcare, military spending, or frankly any other left issue with popular support, the answer is either "Well those rascally conservatives just won't budge and we don't have enough votes because blue dogs" or "Good news, we got you a tenth of what you asked for, and all we had to do was sign off on another billion dollar handjob for the private prison industry. Wait, why aren't you happy?" I really just don't want to hear it anymore. The platform is crystal clear now, and the Democrats need to build a coalition around it. It's not the time to be debating the political expediency of $15 vs $12 vs $10, it's time to say "$15, no less, and that's just the start toward UBI, and gently caress your right to work bullshit forever." BI NOW GAY LATER posted:I have bad news for you about people who voted for Bernie: a lot of them weren't going to vote for him in the general. That's... interesting. How do you know this?
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Feb 19, 2017 04:43
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Cease to Hope posted:why is such a great and powerful oracle wasting his time detailing the thread about the DNC chair election I think the number of people who supported Bernie, truly, and then looked and Hillary and Trump and went "I am voting for Trump" is pretty small. His claim was that people "came out in droves!" for Bernie and then stayed home, which isn't really based in fact.
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Feb 19, 2017 04:43
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Brainiac Five posted:So, the Crowsbeak plan is to avoid any actual work, but instead to get up on a big stage and blather some semi-coherent nonsense. Just, you know, yell about how the current system is bad and then you'll completely circumvent all the people who think it's bad because of government regulations or the possibility of suing for malpractice. And of course, when your system fails to control costs because anyone with any knowledge of healthcare is going to be expelled from the party like your cohort Dr. Fishopolis keeps suggesting and so it's just a single-payer system of insurance that ignores pharmaceutical costs (or implements half-assed measures) and totally ignores the role healthcare providers have played in spiraling costs, then nobody will be disillusioned with it, unlike with PPACA. And this whole thing will be immune to right-wing propaganda efforts. Uh huh. To be fair, getting up on a stage, blathering incoherently, circumventing all roadblocks and claiming success even when it fails has been Trump's entire strategy.
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Feb 19, 2017 04:43
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But, unless you manage to disappear every single person who sees this as a proxy conflict for the future of the Democratic Party so that you can have your RSS feed thread or whatever your idealized vision is, you're going to have discussion on that subject. I'm sorry it makes you mad, but there's perfectly useful scroll wheels on most computer mice sold nowadays.
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Feb 19, 2017 04:45
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Brainiac Five posted:So, the Crowsbeak plan is to avoid any actual work, but instead to get up on a big stage and blather some semi-coherent nonsense. Just, you know, yell about how the current system is bad and then you'll completely circumvent all the people who think it's bad because of government regulations or the possibility of suing for malpractice. And of course, when your system fails to control costs because anyone with any knowledge of healthcare is going to be expelled from the party like your cohort Dr. Fishopolis keeps suggesting and so it's just a single-payer system of insurance that ignores pharmaceutical costs (or implements half-assed measures) and totally ignores the role healthcare providers have played in spiraling costs, then nobody will be disillusioned with it, unlike with PPACA. And this whole thing will be immune to right-wing propaganda efforts. Uh huh. Yeah you don't talk about malpractice or other minutiae when you're selling your politics. Most of the public give a poo poo. This should be pretty obvious to anyone in politics. Minutiae boors all but the most autistic people like myself.
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Feb 19, 2017 04:46
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Crowsbeak posted:Yeah you don't talk about malpractice or other minutiae when you're selling your politics. Most of the public give a poo poo. This should be pretty obvious to anyone in politics. Minutiae boors all but the most autistic people like myself. You can't read and you can't write. Can you even speak?
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Feb 19, 2017 04:49
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Dr. Fishopolis posted:I, like a lot of leftists, are extremely sensitive to waffling and compromise when it comes to democratic party strategy. Every time we've tried to hold the DNC's feet to the fire when it comes to banking regulation, healthcare, military spending, or frankly any other left issue with popular support, the answer is either "Well those rascally conservatives just won't budge and we don't have enough votes because blue dogs" or "Good news, we got you a tenth of what you asked for, and all we had to do was sign off on another billion dollar handjob for the private prison industry. Wait, why aren't you happy?" The DNC party platform gave you virtually everything you wanted dude, I don't know what else to tell you. We don't have power and we're not going to have power anytime soon. When we do, feel free to lobby for the most left change possible, but you do need to understand that you're not going to get everything you want -- it simply doesn't happen that way. And again, you also need to be ready to accept that maybe your specific ideas for getting to the same policy goal may not be the best or workable -- like Medicare for all -- and that you can be wrong from time to time. Dr. Fishopolis posted:That's... interesting. How do you know this? Let's take a look at some of what they voted for elsewhere on the ticket. Let's take, my state for example, where Bernie won the primary overwhelmingly, but a conservative won the SCOWV race and the most progressive Dem in the governor's race who endorsed Bernie finished a distant third to a billion Coal Baron, and more people voted in Democratic primaries than did Republicans. You see this all over. Look at Zephyr Teachout's district, where she under-performed HRC. I am not saying that Bernie and the left don't have real enthusiasm among a broad swath of people, but I think you need to be careful about trying to draw distinctions from a Primary Race and comparing that to a national election. To be clear I am not trying to re litigate the primary (Cease to Hope), I am simply saying that we need to be careful about the conclusions we draw from it as we move ahead into the future of the party. BI NOW GAY LATER fucked around with this message at 04:54 on Feb 19, 2017 |
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Feb 19, 2017 04:51
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Dr. Fishopolis posted:How else would you interpret it? How would you change the party messaging to appeal to those voters? They came out in droves for the primary, but stayed home for the general. How do you change that? If people voted for Bernie Sanders because he was perceived as being more to the left of Clinton, that still doesn't mean that they all voted and would turn out for the same issues. One's perspective on what makes for a leftward candidate depends entirely on the issues that affect the voters in that area, and that is how we should be designing and promoting our policies, not on a one-size-fits-all model. As much as we groan about the effects of the "War On Woman" messaging in 2014, maybe the issue wasn't the messaging, it was that the committees in Washington were driving a top-down message to begin with.
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Feb 19, 2017 04:58
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BI NOW GAY LATER posted:The DNC party platform gave you virtually everything you wanted dude, I don't know what else to tell you. We don't have power and we're not going to have power anytime soon. When we do, feel free to lobby for the most left change possible, but you do need to understand that you're not going to get everything you want -- it simply doesn't happen that way. And again, you also need to be ready to accept that maybe your specific ideas for getting to the same policy goal may not be the best or workable -- like Medicare for all -- and that you can be wrong from time to time. I think we agree and we're talking past each other. I'm happy with the platform, what I'm not happy with is the lack of a coherent strategy around it. I think the chaos and infighting needs to happen to get to that point, but at some point we have to say: at the end of the day, you're either committed to the party platform or you're not getting party support. And incidentally, I didn't bring up Medicare for all. I have no illusion that introducing a government program in direct competition with the healthcare industry is a simple or easy fight, and I agree that we need at least a few stepping stones past the ACA before we really start talking about socialization. What I don't have a problem with is the DNC talking about that end goal right now, because if you want to present a vision of the future that people can latch onto, fixing healthcare is a big one. It's a huge gap in the Republican narrative right now. They don't have an answer after years of throwing their toys out of the crib, and there's a big opportunity to step forward with a unified, popular vision. BI NOW GAY LATER posted:Let's take a look at some of what they voted for elsewhere on the ticket. Let's take, my state for example, where Bernie won the primary overwhelmingly, but a conservative won the SCOWV race and the most progressive Dem in the governor's race who endorsed Bernie finished a distant third to a billion Coal Baron, and more people voted in Democratic primaries than did Republicans. You see this all over. Yeah, I mean, what I said was "they came out in droves for the primary and stayed home for the general". Aren't we saying the same thing? I agree, it's a problem, and I'd like to figure out how to fix it. I don't think the right conclusion is "people got excited for Bernie specifically and stayed home when he lost because they were butthurt". I think it's a misread to call him a cult of personality. But I think the Democrats need to really analyze exactly what he tapped into and leverage it. Dr. Fishopolis fucked around with this message at 05:07 on Feb 19, 2017 |
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Feb 19, 2017 05:05
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Dr. Fishopolis posted:I think we agree and we're talking past each other. I'm happy with the platform, what I'm not happy with is the lack of a coherent strategy around it. I think the chaos and infighting needs to happen to get to that point, but at some point we have to say: at the end of the day, you're either committed to the party platform or you're not getting party support. My larger point is that prescriptive leftism isn't going to build you a governing party that can get the things we want.
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Feb 19, 2017 05:14
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it's utterly insane you can say the Bernie people got everything they wanted and then in the same literal post say medicare for all is crazy irresponsible lefty stuff. look forwards to permanent republican rule as the democratic center burns the party to the ground before they give up control over their pile of ashes
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Feb 19, 2017 05:21
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icantfindaname posted:it's utterly insane you can say the Bernie people got everything they wanted and then in the same literal post say medicare for all is crazy irresponsible lefty stuff. look forwards to permanent republican rule as the democratic center burns the party to the ground before they give up control over their pile of ashes It's not? Medicare for all is an example of "good idea for uhc that's not market based; bad policy because of not only that medicare needs a whole lot of work that he didn't propose, but also that his specific proposal was unworkable."
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Feb 19, 2017 05:23
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BI NOW GAY LATER posted:It's not? Medicare for all is an example of "good idea for uhc that's not market based; bad policy because of not only that medicare needs a whole lot of work that he didn't propose, but also that his specific proposal was unworkable." Okay, never mind then. That was a dumb snipe, sorry IMO Perez will probably be the same in practice as Ellison but regardless of that fact who wins it will be interpreted as either a slight or an olive branch to Bernie voters, so it seems dumb to choose Perez?
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Feb 19, 2017 05:27
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BI NOW GAY LATER posted:My larger point is that prescriptive leftism isn't going to build you a governing party that can get the things we want. cool, and decades of prescriptive centrism/third-way has gotten us trump thanks for priming us all on the importance of compromise meanwhile, the republicans continue to radicalize and hey, check it out, they control almost the entire country at the state AND federal level! that's crazy, huh? edit: remember when the republicans in 2012 said "change nothing, just message it better?" well, that's what they did and they got blasted out of their own party by trump. intransigence is a losing strategy for both parties at the moment. people want change and are voting for it. RaySmuckles fucked around with this message at 05:45 on Feb 19, 2017 |
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Feb 19, 2017 05:43
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RaySmuckles posted:cool, and decades of prescriptive centrism/third-way has gotten us trump And they've backed themselves into a corner where they can't govern because of it. Certainly the thing I want to mirror.
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Feb 19, 2017 05:45
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BI NOW GAY LATER posted:My larger point is that prescriptive leftism isn't going to build you a governing party that can get the things we want. Well, what is? It's hard to interpret the democratic strategy from Clinton's second term all the way to the present as anything other than a giant, neon sign blinking "CENTRIST COMPROMISE DOESN'T WORK". The Republicans have complete control of the system through prescriptive fascism. I don't understand why the opposite wouldn't be effective, at least in the short term.
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Feb 19, 2017 05:48
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The most utopian socialist policy in the world isn't worth dick if you cannot sell it. Where was Clinton yelling about how Daraprim and Epi-pen price gouging was loving bullshit because I sure as poo poo didn't see that. Maybe a less sickeningly narcissistic campaign slogan than "I'm with her" might have helped too idk.
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Feb 19, 2017 05:49
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BI NOW GAY LATER posted:And they've backed themselves into a corner where they can't govern because of it. Certainly the thing I want to mirror. yes, republican state houses are stripping governors of their authority, overturning anti-corruption referendums, and making women cremate their unborn children. sounds like a real struggle. meanwhile at the federal level, republicans are working on obliterating obamacare, hawking wars with iran and russia, and stripping away every regulation they can get their hands on. i see no corner. sure, trump isn't succeeding with every executive order, but that in no way means they've backed themselves into a corner. the shitshow hasn't even started yet
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Feb 19, 2017 05:49
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BI NOW GAY LATER posted:And they've backed themselves into a corner where they can't govern because of it. Certainly the thing I want to mirror. One month of chaos doesn't mean they aren't getting anything done. In fact, they are getting a loving lot of things done, and it's horrifying.
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Feb 19, 2017 05:50
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the GOP can and probably will pass an obamacare repeal even if they have no real plan to replace it. whether it fucks them over in 2018 is the question
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Feb 19, 2017 05:52
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Brainiac Five posted:You can't read and you can't write. Can you even speak? I think no one who matters in an election. (The average voter) cares about specifics of whatever bullshit you're proposing is pretty clear. I am sorry if you have such a low comprehension.
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Feb 19, 2017 05:57
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I don't know, has any of the countless ways they've hosed over the American people hurt them in elections yet? Y'all motherfuckers still concerned about stupid things like "facts" that have long since left the building. We're strapped in securely for a toboggan ride straight to hell for the next two years. Whether or not we survive remains to be seen. Assuming generously that we do somehow make it through mostly in one piece we need to start planning now for what happens next (I mean, if we don't then it scarcely matters what we plan to do at that point). Clinton has failed and Obama has failed before her, so whatever happens next I'm guessing trying more of the same thing isn't going to yield any different results from last time. That's got to change but I don't see a dawn on the horizon right now, much less anybody who can credibly lead us towards it.
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Feb 19, 2017 05:57
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Sapozhnik posted:The most utopian socialist policy in the world isn't worth dick if you cannot sell it. Where was Clinton yelling about how Daraprim and Epi-pen price gouging was loving bullshit because I sure as poo poo didn't see that.k. She did? Dr. Fishopolis posted:Well, what is? It's hard to interpret the democratic strategy from Clinton's second term all the way to the present as anything other than a giant, neon sign blinking "CENTRIST COMPROMISE DOESN'T WORK". The Republicans have complete control of the system through prescriptive fascism. I don't understand why the opposite wouldn't be effective, at least in the short term. I don't think that far left policies are as popular as you think, while there's a whole bunch of white people who are more than on board with White First Nationalism.
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Feb 19, 2017 05:58
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