JeffersonClay posted:

Actually that thread was about how democrats should tie Trump to the shittiest aspects of capitalism like Wall Street and environmental destruction but I guess it's too much to expect you to read for comprehension in the midst of a raging tantrum.

JeffersonClay posted:

Again, manufacturers were moving jobs to Mexico before the passage of NAFTA, which you are still ignoring.

JeffersonClay posted:

Actually that thread was about how democrats should tie Trump to the shittiest aspects of capitalism like Wall Street and environmental destruction but I guess it's too much to expect you to read for comprehension in the midst of a raging tantrum.

The Kingfish posted:

And it [JC's anti-Trump thread] completely ignores the fact that Democrats are to close to Wall Street to even participate in such clearly advantageous political theater. That's why this thread is more important for the time being. The DNC can't implement a proper anti-Trump strategy without making serious changes itself.

E:

call to action posted:

Where did Democrats learn that "the new normal is just the way it is" and "can you imagine the impact this would have on American competitiveness?" are compelling slogans that should be communicated to an external audience?

call to action posted:

Where did Democrats learn that "the new normal is just the way it is" and "can you imagine the impact this would have on American competitiveness?" are compelling slogans that should be communicated to an external audience?

call to action posted:

Where did Democrats learn that "the new normal is just the way it is" and "can you imagine the impact this would have on American competitiveness?" are compelling slogans that should be communicated to an external audience?

KomradeX posted:

Is that thread even still active I don't think I've read it out seen it I the first page in a few days

Majorian posted:

The point that you are so doggedly ignoring is that it doesn't really matter if NAFTA was the actual, original cause of deindustrialization in the Rust Belt or not (and of course it wasn't - deindustrialization's roots go back to at least the 50's, and the decline actually started in the 70's). The point is, the Clinton Administration did very, very little to alleviate this, and NAFTA just pinned a big target on their backs that said, "Hey, that factory that just closed in your town? It's in Mexico now! But someone's net worth in New York went up, so...congratulations!"

There is very, very little reason for Rust Belt voters who abandoned the Democratic Party to trust them, because of moronic "Third Way" strategies that embraced deregulation, supply side economics, and "welfare reform." The Republicans may be worse, but that's not much of a reason for those folks to vote for more centrist Dems like Hillary Clinton (or Cory Booker, or whoever they try to run in 2020).

quote:

Another thing you keep ignoring is my point that winning the presidency while leaving Congress and state governments in Republican hands (which is the best-case outcome of your strategy) is a pretty pyrrhic victory.

JeffersonClay posted:

Kilroy posted:

You lost, badly - move aside and quit being a pain in everyone's rear end.

JeffersonClay posted:

You claimed rust belt voters abandoned the democrats because the 90's was when their jobs started disappearing and their communities fell apart. That just isn't true. Now you've completely reversed yourself and are claiming Rust Belt voters abandoned democrats because of Bill Clinton's policies.

quote:

I am not advocating ignoring the house and senate, quite the opposite. Opposing unpopular presidents has historically been an excellent way to make gains in midterm elections like in 2006 and 1994.

Frijolero posted:

Who the hell thinks the Democrats have been doing just fine and that people need to appreciate them more.

JeffersonClay posted:

Literally no one thinks that.

Why is it the dumb leftists can't engage with any of the actual arguments being made?

JeffersonClay posted:

Literally no one thinks that.

Why is it the dumb leftists can't engage with any of the actual arguments being made?

JeffersonClay posted:

Literally no one thinks that.

Why is it the dumb leftists can't engage with any of the actual arguments being made?

JeffersonClay posted:

Again, it seems extremely convenient that Rust belt voters are aware of Bill Clinton's policies from two decades ago, but are too overwhelmed by poverty to be aware of the policies Obama passed which clearly benefitted them, like auto industry bailouts and the ACA.

Majorian posted:

Wrong on both counts. My point has been, since the beginning of this discussion (and you can check yourself! Go back and do it!), that the Democrats failed in 2016 to make it seem like they took the Rust Belt working class' misery seriously, empathized with them, and wanted to stop the neoliberal policies that hurt them. The point isn't that the Dems were the original cause of all of this; no one here has claimed that. The point is that the Dems did not do enough to help. Your brand of pearl-clutching and concern trolling only enables that poo poo.

Majorian posted:

A: they don't have to know much about policy to know that poo poo started going badly for them in the 90's. They lost their jobs to outsourcing, automation, and the collapse of industries like steel and coal. Their standard of living cratered when Clinton started making it harder for them to survive as they scrambled to find new jobs. They may not be terribly well-informed, but they can put two and two together.

quote:

Clinton failed to seem like she gave a poo poo about people who were really, genuinely suffering.

quote:

The JeffersonClay strategy seems to suggest that there's nothing to be done about this, and the Democrats really shouldn't bother trying to recapture those voters - those that defected to Trump will stay home in 2020, and the Dems will win the presidency.

This is, to say the least, a pretty short-sighted strategy.

quote:

The reason why the Dems retook Congress in 2006 was because the Republicans tried to privatize social security, you idiot.

Majorian posted:

What is your actual argument, JC? On what basis are you opposing the Dems appealing to economic justice? Be specific. Because it seems like you don't disagree with us on anything, except when you're strawmanning.

JeffersonClay posted:

If Democrats need to make some leftward concession to shore up their base, the three options seem to be trade, welfare, and wall street. My preferences would look like this:

1) Wall Street. Jailing some dudes from wall street, making GBS threads on them in speeches, and advocating strong financial regulations isn't much of a lift. Nobody likes Wall Street so it's a low risk strategy. It probably wouldn't help the average person much, although regulations might stop another financial crisis on a long-term timeframe, and it wouldn't do much to address inequality, except maybe slow it down at the edges, but it would be a political win. Policy impact C-, Politics A.

2) Welfare. Advocating a larger welfare state would actually help people the most of the three options. It might be popular, but it's a higher risk strategy because Republicans are good at using the southern strategy to get working class whites to vote against handouts to minorities. Policy impact A, Politics C+ due to unertainty.

3) Trade. Solutions that would actually help people aren't easy to explain or sexy (capital controls?). Policy impact C politics D. Solutions that are popular (repeal Nafta) would be disasterous for the poor. Policy impact D-, Politics B.

Demonizing wall street seems like the best compromise between political risk/reward and actual policy impact. It's also really easy to tie Trump to Wall Street. But if the rust belt really didn't trust Hillary because of trade, getting their votes is a lot trickier. I guess you could make arguments about capital controls under the umbrella of Wall Street regulations but I wouldn't expect anything that wonky to actually resonate with non-college educated rust belters.

JeffersonClay posted:

Here's one I made in reply to you less than 24 hours ago.


Dumb leftists will ignore it, again.

JeffersonClay posted:

Rust belt voters seem to have both a high and low level of policy knowledge depending on the needs of your argument at the time. If they had a high knowledge of policy, they would realize that the ACA was the biggest expansion of the safety net in a generation and that the democratic platform was as progressive as ever.

JeffersonClay posted:

Here's one I made in reply to you less than 24 hours ago.

Dumb leftists will ignore it, again. I'm not talking about you, you're one of the good ones.

JeffersonClay posted:

Dumb leftists will ignore it, again. I'm not talking about you, you're one of the good ones.

Majorian posted:

The reason why the Dems retook Congress in 2006 was because the Republicans tried to privatize social security, you idiot.

call to action posted:

Never forget how Obama desperately, and I mean desperately, tried to slash Social Security and Medicare. Real hero of the common man, there.

Condiv posted:

1) would actually help income inequality a bit. The 2008 recession has been recovered from, but only by the rich. You can reasonably expect the inequality gap to grow when we have recessions in our current system, so punishing obviously risky behavior like the poo poo Wall Street is pulling should help slow that down
2) reality does not bear out your risk assessment here. We're literally living in times where right wingers are mad at trump for his healthcare bill screwing the poor over.
3) NAFTA hurt the poor in a lot of places and continues to do so. A sudden repeal would be harmful to the poor like sudden ppaca repeal would be, but it does need to be phased out because it's directly responsible for the immigration situation which helps republicans atm.

Pedro De Heredia posted:

Leftists will read it, and think "that's a very bad post".

Pedro De Heredia posted:

Healthcare premiums are too expensive. That is why people don't like the ACA. It was well known since before the law passed that this would likely be the case.

WampaLord posted:

By the way, Majorian is just as much of a "dumb leftist" as the rest of the people responding to you, he's just way too civil.

Ytlaya posted:

.
Also, I feel like BI NOW GAY LATER and a few other posters are looking at some of the really dumb leftist posters in threads like this and feel that any opinion they hold must inherently be wrong because the person holding it is dumb. This isn't necessarily a conscious thing; it's more that there's this general feeling of "I don't like this dumb guy, and have a gut feeling all their conclusions must be wrong because the logic they use to reach those conclusions is flawed." As a result, they automatically assume from the beginning that any positions these people hold are probably false and then seek out an explanation for why they're false. I feel like this sort of thought process begins from a logical place ("you should be skeptical of the things a person who is demonstrably irrational believes") but then takes it too far and instead forms a strong bias against anything such people say (a "Hitler liked dogs, therefore dogs are bad" situation).

The reason I'm addressing these posters instead of the aforementioned dumb leftist posters is because 1. even if they sometimes have dumb reasons, the latter generally want the same things I want politically and 2. dumb leftists have very little power in our political system, so it doesn't make sense to focus much effort on them (while dumb "centrist/mainstream" Democrats do hold the most power within the party). .

JeffersonClay posted:

NAFTA (or free trade) repeal would not help the poor, manufacturing jobs aren't coming back and prices would necessarily rise.

Your 3) is proving my point about uncertainty around the politics of welfare state expansion. Republicans use xenophobic and racist appeals to oppose the welfare state, both by fearmongering about immigrants (and brown people) benefitting more from welfare, and by freamongering about generous welfare policies attracting more (lazy) immigrants. We are literally living in times where Trump rode a wave of white resentment into office and where the Nordic countries are watering down welfare benefits due to waves of nonwhite immigration.

JeffersonClay posted:

If the smart leftists want to make a list of dumb leftists I should ignore, I would appreciate it.

Condiv posted:

Actually, the trump voters getting angry about the state of AHCA directly contradicts your theory.

quote:

As for NAFTA repeal hurting the poor, it's hard to hurt them more than wiping out the wealth of the Mexican poor to the point where they have to sneak into a country full of people who hate them just to make ends meet. NAFTA pitting the poor of our two countries against each other is way worse than any small price increase from NAFTA phaseout would cause. Stop pretending NAFTA is designed to help anyone but the richest members of the US.

Kilroy posted:

democratic-party.txt

(it's all the leftists )

JeffersonClay posted:

Here's one I made in reply to you less than 24 hours ago.

Calibanibal posted:

majorian, just to put this to rest,

are you a dumb leftist y/n

quote:

are you in the middle of an enraged tantrum y/n

thanks in advance

WhiskeyJuvenile posted:

https://twitter.com/daveweigel/status/845375946970533888

Majorian posted:

This is what I was hoping their response would be. "What reform will we work with you on? How about Medicare for all?"

Ytlaya posted:

The reason I'm addressing these posters instead of the aforementioned dumb leftist posters is because 1. even if they sometimes have dumb reasons, the latter generally want the same things I want politically and 2. dumb leftists have very little power in our political system, so it doesn't make sense to focus much effort on them (while dumb "centrist/mainstream" Democrats do hold the most power within the party).

WampaLord posted:

You might want to read that again.