Lightning Knight posted:

Hahaha like you would've been an abolitionist in the early 1800s, every white dude in this thread would've been at best pro-"send them back to Africa" and you loving know it.

Dan Didio posted:

The real story is actually that Ellison lost.

Lightning Knight posted:

Not really. I mean it's lovely and I would've preferred Ellison, but I disagree in the grand scheme of things. Ellison's political career isn't coming to a screeching halt while he does permanent administrative work, he has a place at the head of the DNC and we turned a procedural vote for a bureaucratic position into a battle over the future of the party when four years ago we wouldn't have even been listened to.

Leftists are bemoaning their lack of power without recognizing that in this political moment, we have power at all, which is a huge improvement from past standing and an opportunity to kick the door down harder next time.

Majorian posted:

Greater name recognition, and the narrative that the Clintons were better on race than they actually were.

Lightning Knight posted:

Not really. I mean it's lovely and I would've preferred Ellison, but I disagree in the grand scheme of things. Ellison's political career isn't coming to a screeching halt while he does permanent administrative work, he has a place at the head of the DNC and we turned a procedural vote for a bureaucratic position into a battle over the future of the party when four years ago we wouldn't have even been listened to.

stone cold posted:

But I'm glad Jeb!Repetition got to feel like a big man on campus calling people a homophobic slur.

Majorian posted:

Let me stop you there and direct you to a couple posts ago, when I said that most voters are low-information, regardless of race, gender, etc.

Probably Magic posted:

And I think that false sense of superior Clinton minority handling comes from the economy doing better in the Nineties and benefiting them immensely, with a lot of the blame for the eventual bubble collapse falling on Bush, so they were never held accountable for how little longevity their power had. It's an easy mistake to make, especially since it's what's buoyed Hillary for so long even after 2008, but I think a lot of Millennial minorities suffering under the full brunt of neoliberalism understood that the Nineties had ultimately let them down.

Majorian posted:

the narrative that the Clintons were better on race than they actually were.

stone cold posted:

I'm also a woman, and maybe we should turn on our fellow women who voted for the orange pig who wants us to revert to chattel, and keep agitating, instead.

Politics is a constant, long, hard struggle and some people can't keep up with that constantly or it will hurt them deeply, and that's not a bad thing for people to take a break.

But if your gut reaction to a group of white men getting swept in who literally see us at best as baby making machines and at worst as pussy to be grabbed is to kvetch and go whyyy should I keep supporting the group that actually sees me as a person, then go ahead and vote republican.

stone cold posted:

You're the one who has to live with yourself, after all.

Jeb! Repetition posted:

You're getting burned so bad you're hoping anyone, me included, will care about some poo poo from a year ago in my rap sheet you obsessively combed over.

Nevvy Z posted:

Please elaborate

Dan Didio posted:

Promising a vague, incremental future victory and stage for leftist politics has been the Democratic party's inner stick to swat at disruptors for decades now.

Condiv posted:

why should we have power at all? it's not like the centrists blew an election they should've had in the bag and have been blowing elections so much recently that we're close to the repubs being able to convene a constitutional convention on their lonesome. we're lucky we even get made-up positions in the party

Majorian posted:

Once again, . Plus, as I said before, Ellison would only have disappointed left-Dems as head of the DNC, largely because the DNC chair doesn't set the platform or pick candidates. He would have had more of a platform, and that would have been nice, but I think he would have been wasted in the position, overall.

yellowyams posted:

that's the issue, i don't feel like they see me as a person when they favor lobbyists over me or abandon me because i'm in a red state so my vote isn't worth the investment. i'm not as valuable to them because i don't have enough money to change anything but they can pretend like they're the ones on our side because the other side is worse, they can decide how much or how little effort they spend defending my rights because there's no better alternative, they can tell me i don't have a choice because third-party is suicide and that's the reality of the two party system, and i'll probably keep gobbling up the poo poo they feed me because they're right, but that's not going to mobilize people and right now they really loving need to mobilize people. i voted for hillary in the election, if you put a literal war criminal paying mere lip service to progressive policies i would vote for them over trump, i've compromised with dems every time because i felt too much was at stake to risk it and they've continued to lose and to make dumb decisions and shoot themselves in the foot and it's looking like they will continue to do that.

yellowyams posted:

i'm probably going to die before the next election so it doesn't really matter what i think.

Majorian posted:

Yes, it has been. So we need to take over the party. It sucks that we didn't this time around, but that doesn't mean there won't be many, many more opportunities in the future. Probably better opportunities than this one.

Jeb! Repetition posted:

Yeah. Plus Perez isn't even that bad. I mean he's definitely better than DWS

Dan Didio posted:

Promising a vague, incremental future victory and stage for leftist politics has been the Democratic party's inner stick to swat at disruptors for decades now.

Lightning Knight posted:

Now I only mostly make angry pissbaby arguments.

BiohazrD posted:

we have pretty much universal support for marriage equality in the party AND transgender rights which didn't even exist as a concept at a major party level 8 years ago.

Lightning Knight posted:

I mean, for forty odd years leftists have very literally been mostly powerless, we're at a moment of sea change in American political history and losing the DNC chair isn't going to put a stop to it so easily, and it would be an immense mistake to assume that there is nothing more to be gained from the Democratic Party.

I think it's bad to frame it in terms of "the establishment should cede power to us." Of course they won't. That's not how this work. It was always going to be a matter of taking.

Majorian posted:

Yes, it has been. So we need to take over the party. It sucks that we didn't this time around, but that doesn't mean there won't be many, many more opportunities in the future. Probably better opportunities than this one.

BiohazrD posted:

man so loving what, nothing happens quickly. we aren't going to get a dem candidate that runs on full socialism now in 2020

we have pretty much universal support for marriage equality in the party AND transgender rights which didn't even exist as a concept at a major party level 8 years ago. the party is actively saying that single payer healthcare is the goal

do you realize that if you told a voter from the 80s or 90s that this was the democratic platform they would probably begin foaming at the mouth?

stone cold posted:

Oh no! Not the burns! I sure am sad we won't have homophobes like you voting for Democrats, you pretty-much-Trumpist.

Edible Hat posted:

And yet, on every issue, Democrats have moved leftward for the last decade. A decade ago, an Ellison figure would not have gotten half of the votes he received today and Sanders would have been an also-ran. To say that Democrats are moving rightward is belied by all evidence I can see. Now, like many of you, I wish they were moving leftward faster and will vote according to make them happen. What are you doing to achieve that?

Edible Hat posted:

And yet, on every issue, Democrats have moved leftward for the last decade. A decade ago, an Ellison figure would not have gotten half of the votes he received today and Sanders would have been an also-ran. To say that Democrats are moving rightward is belied by all evidence I can see. Now, like many of you, I wish they were moving leftward faster and will vote according to make them happen. What are you doing to achieve that?

yellowyams posted:

Probably Magic posted:

Much like Tim Kaine, it's not an enthusiasm killshot in and of itself, but it's just another reminder that the DNC not only doesn't care but actively wants to subvert any leftist momentum. Maybe I'd feel differently if Perez had entered the race before Ellison, but as it is, well, it's a bad look.

RaySmuckles posted:

Jeb! Repetition posted:

I never said anything about not voting for Democrats. I always have and (probably) always will, and one of the reasons is I actually give a poo poo about LGBT rights beyond using them as a pretext to call internet people I don't know homophobes.

Dan Didio posted:

lol

stone cold posted:

Um, as a member of the LGBT community, allies who call people faggots aren't real allies, sorry to teach you this. Or are you Milo, because if you're Milo, you can gently caress off.

Lightning Knight posted:

Don't get trapped in a depressive spiral looking at the news all day and fearing the worst. I'm not going to tell you things will be ok. Things won't be ok. But there are people who want to fight for you and protect you from people like Trump, regardless of who is DNC chair, and you can't give up on the idea that things can get better if we fight hard enough for it. If you do, there's nothing left to doters and whether or nor identity politics and economic policy are mutually exclusive or whatever bullshit.