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"coming out" for universal childcare means that as president you would sign a universal childcare bill if it got placed in front of you. HRC "supports" universal child care," but I have no idea what HRC would actually fight to make happen.
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Feb 28, 2017 22:40
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JeffersonClay posted:In the immediate future we should focus the bulk of our efforts on resisting trump, and tying republicans to trump, and then run the 2018 election as a referrendum on trump. Run on congress blocking his policies. Run on congress investigating him. If he passes poo poo, run on repealing it. otherwise just pick popular elements of the 2016 platform like raising the minimum wage that trump has come out against. Are you not a little worried about this strategy? Wasn't this the message of the Clinton campaign--that Donald Trump is a bad man and shouldn't be president? Don't get me wrong, I agree with it, but it didn't turn out key constituencies that could have swung the election. I think this focus on Trump definitely needs to be there but you also need big policy goals to grab the public imagination and get people excited to vote for something, and not just against Donald.
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Feb 28, 2017 22:41
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The GOP is not gaining strength right now. We should focus on attacking them and not our allies, even if they are allies of convenience.
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Feb 28, 2017 22:43
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The Kingfish posted:"coming out" for universal childcare means that as president you would sign a universal childcare bill if it got placed in front of you. HRC "supports" universal child care," but I have no idea what HRC would actually fight to make happen. You know she fought for CHIPS to be created, right? I think she absolutely would have fought for universal childcare. Like there are plenty of things that she would "support" in the way you're talking about, but that one? Yeah should would have fought for it and we have her long record on working on issues for families and children to show as proof.
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Feb 28, 2017 22:44
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Brainiac Five posted:And there you have it. Policies don't matter, what matters is the brand and the efficacy of the advertising campaign. This but... Unironically?
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Feb 28, 2017 22:44
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The lesson of 2016 is the same one we failed to learn in 2004: relying primarily on negative campaigning does not and cannot work for the left, because it depresses turnout, which always always benefits the right because old people are immune to it. If all you can say in defense of your candidate is "they are not as bad as the other guy," America will say "well why bother voting then" and stay home (especially if your secondary message, as in 2016, is "our candidate is inevitable"). Running on "the Republican president is the worst and we need to resist him" will get us nothing. We need more. Running against Bush in 2008 only worked because of Obama's message of hope. It failed so loving hard in 2004, and surprise surprise even against the dumpster fire known as Trump, it just barely didn't work in 2016. Let's figure something else out, please.
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Feb 28, 2017 22:45
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Answers that amount to "Bernie needed to be the candidate" tell me you don't care about policy, just about whether the candidate is likable. They're irrelevant to the direction of the party unless you want a dystopia based around reality tv.
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Feb 28, 2017 22:45
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BI NOW GAY LATER posted:I don't feel like rehashing the mechanics of HRC's campaign failures, but again materially different from "they give us not even an inch" and "they didn't campaign on it enough." A politician is a combination of both what they accomplish and what they campaign on. The DNC has not accomplished anything as a compromise with the left. HRC ran such a disaster of a campaign that it can hardly be said that she ran on anything at all so I'll consider it a wash. The question is what is the DNC going to campaign on in 2018 and 2020? You seem to think that just campaigning on Trump will work, and I disagree.
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Feb 28, 2017 22:45
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Harrow posted:I do not care if the centrist Democrats are destroyed. If they are, no skin off my back. If they capitulate instead, that's almost as good. if they capitulate i'll vote for them. but they won't. so i won't. quote:I care about a) whether the progressives will actually win and b) what the country is going to look like as a result of this strategy. That's why I keep pointing to the Tea Party as an example--because they were effective at changing an American political party just like we want to--and warning against a scorched earth strategy. Letting Republicans win just because you don't like the Democrat that might have won is not effective political strategy if you want things to move to the left and not the right. Some lovely Democrats, like Manchin, are still useful as dams against a total Republican flood. nah, centrists will just change the rules to lock us out, if they don't just straight out ignore them like they have multiple times in less than a year. that's why we gotta purge them till they relinquish power.
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Feb 28, 2017 22:46
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GreyjoyBastard posted:This but... Unironically? But then there's no problem with centrism as long as we have enough money spent on marketing, and no need for actual good policies, because we can just lie forever without consequences.
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Feb 28, 2017 22:46
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Brainiac Five posted:But then there's no problem with centrism as long as we have enough money spent on marketing, and no need for actual good policies, because we can just lie forever without consequences. You can't polish a turd, it's very hard to market Hillary and her type as the people's champion.
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Feb 28, 2017 22:48
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BI NOW GAY LATER posted:You know she fought for CHIPS to be created, right? I think she absolutely would have fought for universal childcare. Like there are plenty of things that she would "support" in the way you're talking about, but that one? Yeah should would have fought for it and we have her long record on working on issues for families and children to show as proof. See above. If its something she would have fought for then everyone in America should have known it was one of her policy planks by November, but its hard to determine where incompetence meets tepidness with HRC.
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Feb 28, 2017 22:48
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The Kingfish posted:A politician is a combination of both what they accomplish and what they campaign on. The DNC has not accomplished anything as a compromise with the left. HRC ran such a disaster of a campaign that it can hardly be said that she ran on anything at all so I'll consider it a wash. The question is what is the DNC going to campaign on in 2018 and 2020? You seem to think that just campaigning on Trump will work, and I disagree. I don't. I think we should run on protecting workers, immigrants, people of color, lgbt from him. I think we should run on expanding and strengthening the welfare state. Not only do we want to "protect" obamacare, but we want to expand it and make it better. We want to make a universal single-payer (if we want to call it medicare for all, fine, gently caress it...).
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Feb 28, 2017 22:48
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loquacius posted:The lesson of 2016 is the same one we failed to learn in 2004: relying primarily on negative campaigning does not and cannot work for the left, because it depresses turnout, which always always benefits the right because old people are immune to it. 2006
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Feb 28, 2017 22:48
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WampaLord posted:You can't polish a turd, it's very hard to market Hillary and her type as the people's champion. Under this model, the problem is that we didn't lie enough, then.
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Feb 28, 2017 22:48
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It's a false choice; it's not "purify party and let reps rule, or follow centrists", it's "purify party and let reps rule, or follow centrists and let reps rule". We have no significant power within the party, they're mealy-mouthed invertabrates that bend over for just about anything. There's no discipline to keeps reps from getting the few D's they need, and the rest only muster a spine when leftist orgs or the progressive caucus raise a stink about it. We saw how the first few Trump appointments went before public momentum started. In light of all this, this is in fact the best time for party infighting. Run the purity tests, pressure your representatives, demand fiscal leftism, push for leftist candidates. Centrists will not save us, and if we wait for stable times guess what? They wont give a poo poo about your voice. Calls for centrist unity against trump instead of arguing over positions has about as much genuity as republicans demanding the same after X school shooting. It's a stall tactic.
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Feb 28, 2017 22:49
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Brainiac Five posted:Answers that amount to "Bernie needed to be the candidate" tell me you don't care about policy, just about whether the candidate is likable. They're irrelevant to the direction of the party unless you want a dystopia based around reality tv. The reason Bernie needed to be the candidate isn't that he is likable (although he is), it's that he has a clear and sincerely-held message. Centrism is not a message. Presenting yourself as in opposition against someone else's message is not a message either, even if the opposing message loving sucks. The problem is that Democratic primary voters, most of the time, will vote for whoever has the most stuff on their resume, and it turns out nobody else loving cares.
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Feb 28, 2017 22:49
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The Kingfish posted:See above. If its something she would have fought for then everyone in America should have known it was one of her policy planks by November, but its hard to determine where incompetence meets tepidness with HRC. Like I said, I think you can look at her record on healthcare and specifically on issues for children and see she would have fought for it, and I agree, I wish she would have spent more time talking about it but I understand why they didn't.
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Feb 28, 2017 22:50
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Condiv posted:if they capitulate i'll vote for them. but they won't. so i won't. You are making assertions about stuff that has not happened yet in the future. You aren't even trying to take advantage of the current rules to gain power. Seriously, there is no answer that is good enough for you other than full leftism now, it seems. And even then your strategy seems to be to stay at home and not vote rather than be engaged for fighting for leftist candidates wherever its possible for them to win. Are you for grassroots activism, or not?
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Feb 28, 2017 22:51
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loquacius posted:The reason Bernie needed to be the candidate isn't that he is likable (although he is), it's that he has a clear and sincerely-held message. Centrism is not a message. Presenting yourself as in opposition against someone else's message is not a message either, even if the opposing message loving sucks. Okay, so now we're talking about eliminating the traitorous primary voters. Cool.
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Feb 28, 2017 22:51
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JeffersonClay posted:The GOP is not gaining strength right now. We should focus on attacking them and not our allies, even if they are allies of convenience. Oh and also people who don't agree that the general election was won and lost on Russia hacking. Those people are not your allies, even of convenience, according your own posts.
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Feb 28, 2017 22:52
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blackguy32 posted:And even then your strategy seems to be to stay at home and not vote rather than be engaged for fighting for leftist candidates wherever its possible for them to win. we get yelled at for doing this too though  Brainiac Five posted:Okay, so now we're talking about eliminating the traitorous primary voters. Cool. yeah, that's exactly what I said
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Feb 28, 2017 22:52
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blackguy32 posted:You are making assertions about stuff that has not happened yet in the future. You aren't even trying to take advantage of the current rules to gain power. i'm perfectly fine voting for leftist dems and fighting for leftist dems. i just won't vote centrist dems in the general, if it should come to that. i want them out, cause they just got done locking us out of power again.
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Feb 28, 2017 22:54
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Wraith of J.O.I. posted:Are you not a little worried about this strategy? Wasn't this the message of the Clinton campaign--that Donald Trump is a bad man and shouldn't be president? Don't get me wrong, I agree with it, but it didn't turn out key constituencies that could have swung the election. I think this focus on Trump definitely needs to be there but you also need big policy goals to grab the public imagination and get people excited to vote for something, and not just against Donald. Next time trump will have an actual record to run against. Last time he was an anti-establishment outsider with no record that people projected their hopes onto. Now he'll bee a historically unpopular incumbent. I agree with you that the democrats need a policy agenda, too, but we should tailor that to fit into our anti-trump strategy, i don't think we need any radical changes from the platform we have. loquacius posted:The lesson of 2016 is the same one we failed to learn in 2004: relying primarily on negative campaigning does not and cannot work for the left, because it depresses turnout, which always always benefits the right because old people are immune to it. Bush was still quite popular in 2004. His approval ratings didn't tank until mid 2005. Running against him worked great in 2006 and in 2008, and we didn't need Obama's charisma and platitudes for it to work in 2006. If you think the democrats need a positive message of hope to go along with all the negative attacks, sure, sounds fine, but let's not pretend that Hope and Change was a substantive leftist agenda, it was just a good slogan.
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Feb 28, 2017 22:54
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Harrow posted:Caveats exist, of course. If there's an unpopular Democratic senator who is probably going to lose to a Republican, primary away, nothing to lose. If there's a centrist Democrat who could reasonably win but they're in a state where a progressive can also win, primary away, let's do this. I'm saying that removing even lovely Democrats who can win in situations where the person we'd be running instead definitely cannot is the equivalent of burning something in effigy: it accomplishes exactly nothing. There's no reason to inflict casualties when it won't do anything to help push a favorable outcome.
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Feb 28, 2017 22:55
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JeffersonClay posted:The GOP is not gaining strength right now. We should focus on attacking them and not our allies, even if they are allies of convenience. JeffersonClay posted:We're probably better off without people that can't tell the difference between losing a primary and getting ratfucked by the FSB.
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Feb 28, 2017 22:57
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JeffersonClay posted:Next time trump will have an actual record to run against. Last time he was an anti-establishment outsider with no record that people projected their hopes onto. Now he'll bee a historically unpopular incumbent. I agree with you that the democrats need a policy agenda, too, but we should tailor that to fit into our anti-trump strategy, i don't think we need any radical changes from the platform we have. You're making assumptions that we didn't need Obama's charisma and engagement of young voters and activists. After the number of incorrect assumptions involving a recent election, I personally would stick to real arguments instead of depleted faith in your soothsaying.
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Feb 28, 2017 22:57
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BI NOW GAY LATER posted:I don't. This might work if he really fucks up one of those groups, but I doubt reality will compare to the pre-2017 fear of what Trump might do. BI NOW GAY LATER posted:I think we should run on expanding and strengthening the welfare state. Not only do we want to "protect" obamacare, but we want to expand it and make it better. We want to make a universal single-payer (if we want to call it medicare for all, fine, gently caress it...).
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Feb 28, 2017 22:57
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loquacius posted:we get yelled at for doing this too though You said primary voters were the problem.
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Feb 28, 2017 22:58
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BI NOW GAY LATER posted:Not that you'll admit that, again, because it undermines the whole internecine party slapfight the Bernies so desperately feel the need to continue. The establishment picked this fight, not the left. Everyone was coalescing around Ellison until the establishment decided that they would rather maintain total control over a shattered party than cede even a shred of authority to the left.
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Feb 28, 2017 22:59
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The Little Kielbasa posted:The establishment picked this fight, not the left. Everyone was coalescing around Ellison until the establishment decided that they would rather maintain total control over a shattered party than cede even a shred of authority to the left. This is key
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Feb 28, 2017 22:59
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The Kingfish posted:This might work if he really fucks up one of those groups, but I doubt reality will compare to the pre-2017 fear of what Trump might do. I am not coming up with the messaging, just the general strokes for what should underline it... but uh, on point one? He's already started loving things up for people. Rescinding the title ix protections for trans children is literally life threatening. his first act as president was to make it harder for minorities to get home loans. like he's doing all of those things already and it's only going to get worse. The Little Kielbasa posted:The establishment picked this fight, not the left. Everyone was coalescing around Ellison until the establishment decided that they would rather maintain total control over a shattered party than cede even a shred of authority to the left. Except they're handing it to an equally left wing guy who just isn't Bernie's Choice TM. So you'll forgive me if I am not ready to storm the Bastille here.
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Feb 28, 2017 23:00
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The basic and fundamental problem here is that people don't want policies, they want slogans and advertising, and they have convinced themselves that doing so is being authentic to what people want. This seems really hard to reconcile with historical evidence.
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Feb 28, 2017 23:00
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The Little Kielbasa posted:The establishment picked this fight, not the left. Everyone was coalescing around Ellison until the establishment decided that they would rather maintain total control over a shattered party than cede even a shred of authority to the left.
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Feb 28, 2017 23:00
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Kilroy posted:Well since you've already defined "ally" as "person who will vote for a Democrat no matter what" and anyone else can gtfo, I think you've got your work cut out for you. in this context an Ally is someone who caucuses with us and votes with us most of the time so Bernie qualified even when he was pro-gun. I maintain that any "democrat" that can't recognize ratfucking or thinks it's not a big deal has no place anywhere near the levers of power in the party. nearly 90% of the Democratic Party agrees with me.
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Feb 28, 2017 23:01
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BI NOW GAY LATER posted:I don't. I think a big problem with single payer is that most people have coverage and most people with coverage are generally satisfied with their coverage situation, regardless of source, and saying "we're going to take away this thing you like and replace it with something better" requires a level of trust that I'm not sure you're gonna get. Like people got really upset about the ACA minimum coverage standards taking away their ability to pay for coverage that wouldn't actually cover anything if they needed it! Taking away actually decent coverage that people like, even if it's for something that's better and cheaper, is the sort of wonkish technocratic approach that Democrats have been rightly excoriated for. As such, introducing a public option to the ACA marketplaces is probably the best way forward
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Feb 28, 2017 23:01
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JeffersonClay posted:Bush was still quite popular in 2004. His approval ratings didn't tank until mid 2005. Running against him worked great in 2006 and in 2008, and we didn't need Obama's charisma and platitudes for it to work in 2006. If you think the democrats need a positive message of hope to go along with all the negative attacks, sure, sounds fine, but let's not pretend that Hope and Change was a substantive leftist agenda, it was just a good slogan. There's a difference between slogans and messages, and there's also a difference between messages and agendas. One is a PR tactic, one is a strategic document, and one is the fundamental question of what it is you stand for. You can't be an effective politician without answering that question. If you have a good centrist Mission Statement apart from "we are not Trump" I'd love to hear what it is. Brainiac Five posted:You said primary voters were the problem. I said the problem is that Dem primary voters have a certain tendency, where did you get purging traitors from out of that  If you'd like, rephrase it as "an obstacle" rather than "the problem"
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Feb 28, 2017 23:03
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Condiv posted:nah, centrists will just change the rules to lock us out, if they don't just straight out ignore them like they have multiple times in less than a year. that's why we gotta purge them till they relinquish power. At what point did they "straight out ignore" rules to screw over the left in the past year? I'm legitimately curious about this, because 2016 was also the year that the Democrats adopted a more progressive platform than they ever had, and 2017 was the year that Keith Ellison performed very well in the race for party chair and came out of it forging what (so far) looks like an actual partnership with the guy who won, who is also to the left of many establishment Democrats, policy-wise. The Democrats are not a perfect party. Hell, they're not a good party. But right now, what I care about above literally everything else is removing Republicans from office and replacing them with people who are better than them. If the people who are better than them still aren't great but are the ones who can win, I'll take it. I'll fight that battle later. If there's an opportunity to beat a Republican with someone legitimately good, I'm all about it. But if the cost of removing someone not great is handing their power to someone horrible, I'm not in favor of that, not ever. Under no circumstances am I going to take a self-inflicted wound over ideological purity. If that makes me a centrist shill, so be it. I took enough of that poo poo from Facebook "friends" of mine who called me a shill for voting for Clinton over Stein so at this point I'm ready to own it. I know what your next response is: "the centrists are not going to win, so they must be removed." It's easy to look at the Democrats' losing record and blame it on not being progressive enough, but I don't think we can make that claim yet when the Democrats have also had a loving awful electoral strategy. I don't think we can separate the influence of policy vs. strategy when we have yet to actually have a strategy that's better than Debbie Wasserman Schultz writing ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ on a piece of paper and then asking for money. Remember that Democrats did really, really well with Dean's 50 state strategy and I'd never call Dean a serious progressive. I want more progressive Democrats because I want them to get into office and push progressive policy where it counts, not because I think they're literally the only way Democrats ever win again. And I am never going to knowingly sacrifice winning important fights in the name of ideological purity. Harrow fucked around with this message at 23:05 on Feb 28, 2017 |
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Feb 28, 2017 23:03
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JeffersonClay posted:in this context an Ally is someone who caucuses with us and votes with us most of the time so Bernie qualified even when he was pro-gun. I maintain that any "democrat" that can't recognize ratfucking or thinks it's not a big deal has no place anywhere near the levers of power in the party. nearly 90% of the Democratic Party agrees with me. 
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Feb 28, 2017 23:03
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Neurolimal posted:You're making assumptions that we didn't need Obama's charisma and engagement of young voters and activists. After the number of incorrect assumptions involving a recent election, I personally would stick to real arguments instead of depleted faith in your soothsaying. Democrats won in 2006 without Obama, and without the financial collapse. Hell, Nancy Pelosi got to claim credit for the win.
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