RaySmuckles posted:

what purpose does "being the adult" serve if its a) losing you elections, b) never being reciprocated, c) only serving to benefit the other party?

Boon posted:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_party_strength_in_U.S._states

You'll see what you want to see. But what I see here is a historical trend of wide shifts that take years to form and take years to swing. We're at the apogee of a conservative swing so it shouldn't be all that surprising.

Majorian posted:

It seems to me that gridlock would be the outcome, which is infinitely preferable to getting any significant portion of the Trump/GOP agenda passed into law. Again, I think you're still operating under the assumption that the Democrats can successfully appeal to voters by being the adults in the room. Recent history has kind of undermined that hypothesis, don't you think?

RaySmuckles posted:

i see no reason the dems should make concessions with the republicans since the republicans refuse to do the same.

if the dems are the adults in the room and the only party willing to compromise then anything short of moderate conservative policy is already out the window by definition.

sure they may be "holding the process together" but to what end? it only serves to further the conservative agenda since only one party is willing to compromise. all concessions will by nature only benefit the republicans.

instead the democrats should be appealing directly to the people. they should ignore the desires of the donors and instead try to offer the american people things that will objectively make their lives better. incrementalism and capitulation to the republicans has gotten the democrats no success and has alienated their base

the example that stands out to me is something i heard on chapo. the republicans put something like 200 amendments into the ACA and still, still, the ACA receive ZERO republican votes. now maybe that's not 100% accurate but the point stands that the democrats just let the republicans walk all over them thinking "this time they'll have to play ball." but the republicans never do, so its just the democrats watering down their own legislation and undermining their own positions for literally no gain.

what purpose does "being the adult" serve if its a) losing you elections, b) never being reciprocated, c) only serving to benefit the other party?

boner confessor posted:

or, the electoral college is weird and does not elect the most popular candidate

don't let me interrupt what i'm sure is a fascinating and well sourced rant about how liberals are ruining america though which i definitely will not read

Majorian posted:

That part isn't. What is surprising, is how much of an outlier this particular moment in history is, in terms of Republican dominance. I mean, you realize that, right? This isn't just a normal swing in the GOP's direction. People in the Democratic Party really had to screw the pooch to get us to this point.

Majorian posted:

I mean, I acknowledge that that's a possibility, and I hope you're right. But look at how the Democrats in Congress have performed over the past decade or so. You can understand why people on the left might be bracing themselves for the Democratic leaders giving up too much in a vain attempt to appeal to Republican reason and better angels, right?

punk rebel ecks posted:

- That's not how the game is played. That's like complaining why a team didn't win football because they had more yards than the other team. Trump campaigned heavily in swing states because he knew he needed those states to win. Hillary didn't.

- Even factoring that in the fact that Trump got so close to the Democratic candidate is hysterical. The most hated and unpopular candidate in American politics gets practically neck and neck with the other candidate.

RuanGacho posted:

It occurs to me that it is not clear who the leftists and who the centrists or liberals are supposed to be.

I'm also given pause in that now the word I heard being used by Rush Limbaugh growing up as a catch all for The Bad People is being used unironically in the same way in this thread.

May I suggest people consider exactly what their point is?

quote:

“Never believe that anti-Semites Leftists are completely unaware of the absurdity of their replies. They know that their remarks are frivolous, open to challenge. But they are amusing themselves, for it is their adversary who is obliged to use words responsibly, since he believes in words. The anti-Semites Leftists have the right to play. They even like to play with discourse for, by giving ridiculous reasons, they discredit the seriousness of their interlocutors. They delight in acting in bad faith, since they seek not to persuade by sound argument but to intimidate and disconcert. If you press them too closely, they will abruptly fall silent, loftily indicating by some phrase that the time for argument is past.”

Koalas March posted:

If you want to argue Leftists vs Liberals/Democrats take it to the loving Dem thread.

Don't make me bother the other mods and admins to shut you dummies up.

R. Guyovich posted:

ps post about politics topics and not posters or the thread. report posts about posters or the thread. don't post about the ignore function. bye

Mr Hootington posted:

https://twitter.com/mattdpearce/status/910896817973243905

An endless hell

Boon posted:

I think where you and I diverge is that I sincerely, truly, do not believe that the US can exist as a country if the Democrats do not attempt to maintain the order and the laws of our institutions and instead shift to a hyper-partisan mentality.

GreyjoyBastard posted:

punk rebel ecks posted:

- That's not how the game is played. That's like complaining why a team didn't win football because they had more yards than the other team. Trump campaigned heavily in swing states because he knew he needed those states to win. Hillary didn't.

quote:

natesilver: Well, it wasn’t about the Midwest per se — it was about campaigning in too narrow a range of states. She could also have campaigned more in Colorado and Arizona, for example.

But in terms of evidence of this mattering? There’s very little of it, actually. There’s basically no relationship between how much the candidates campaigned in a state and how well they did there.

perry: I see their mistake in being too focused on certain kinds of voters (non-white, college-educated, suburban). That is what I came away thinking might be the case after reading the Jonathan Allen-Amie Parnes book. But her staff, when I talked to them, and maybe this is self-serving, said that Clinton visits to some areas in rural Pennsylvania turned off voters. Her campaigning more there would not have helped and may have hurt.

natesilver: Things like advertisements and rallies don’t move the needle all that much, in a race where the issues are as momentous as the ones being debated in 2016.

Also, the math doesn’t really check out. Even if Clinton had won Wisconsin and Michigan, that wouldn’t have been enough to win the Electoral College. She’d also have needed to win Pennsylvania or Florida, where she campaigned extensively.

Anyway, I give that one a 1.5. A good litmus test is that if a reporter says “But Wisconsin” when someone brings up another cause of Clinton’s defeat, that reporter doesn’t know what they’re talking about.

Boon posted:

Yeah sure, Trump truly is the worst and Clinton doesn't really need to be discussed further because we all understand how bad she is, but it wasn't even all that long ago that we were discussing how on the ropes the GOP was federally, how much of a civil war they were in, how the electoral college was stacked against them. And at the time between 2008 and 2014 it was all true. To pick the 2016 election out and call the entire party broken despite having all the same people who led the 2008 and 2012 elections is just highly suspect to me.

Let me note that I'm not saying there are not problems with the Democrats, and once again, that much of my disagreements with posters is more on procedural grounds. I think, Majorian, you fall into this category anytime we post at one another as I generally agree with you.

As to the gridlock piece - yeah I do think that the Democrats did get blind-sided by it. In the history books it will probably be Mitch McConnell, not Donald Trump, that is public enemy number one. I think the first 3 years after Obama's election was the Democrats trying to desperately cope with an opposition who wanted to do nothing but blow up the rules and the system. I don't think they're the Democrats are the same now as they were then.

Leon Trotsky 2012 posted:

What about Bernie Sanders?

I haven't actually heard anyone with a strong opinion (pro or con) on him. Would his campaign have been different?

Boon posted:

I think where you and I diverge is that I sincerely, truly, do not believe that the US can exist as a country if the Democrats do not attempt to maintain the order and the laws of our institutions and instead shift to a hyper-partisan mentality.

If you grant me that, then the question becomes what is better between a complete societal breakdown and what we have now. If we continue on this way, is there the chance that the pendulum swings back to a more orderly Congress? While John McCain is an utter poo poo, his speech to Congress before voting down the last healthcare bill was at least a moment of self-awareness - even if it isn't to be trusted to translate to policy.

Mr Hootington posted:

https://twitter.com/ValeriePlame/status/910884546723196929

*tugs collar* holy smokes

theflyingorc posted:

Nate Silver completely disagrees with you about this:

(the scale being discussed is "how important is this factor in her loss from 1 to 5")

edit: This doesn't mean that she didn't pitch poorly to certain DEMOGRAPHICS of voters, which he also discussed. But "she didn't go to Michigan" is a really poor argument.

As is "if Bernie had backed down, she'd be fine", as well. Silver gave that a 1.

Taerkar posted:

He could have won, from what I've heard.

Boon posted:

I think where you and I diverge is that I sincerely, truly, do not believe that the US can exist as a country if the Democrats do not attempt to maintain the order and the laws of our institutions and instead shift to a hyper-partisan mentality.

If you grant me that, then the question becomes what is better between a complete societal breakdown and what we have now. If we continue on this way, is there the chance that the pendulum swings back to a more orderly Congress? While John McCain is an utter poo poo, his speech to Congress before voting down the last healthcare bill was at least a moment of self-awareness - even if it isn't to be trusted to translate to policy.

Inescapable Duck posted:

Like, Trump could be best described as stumbling into victory in the Republican primaries and the general election basically by accident partly because his unfiltered horrible opinions resonated with enough people and included vague tidbits of hope to people who had none, and mostly because all of his opponents were amazingly incompetent hobgoblins who managed to squander massive campaign budgets, establishment and media support to lose massively.

Boon posted:

Yeah sure, Trump truly is the worst and Clinton doesn't really need to be discussed further because we all understand how bad she is, but it wasn't even all that long ago that we were discussing how on the ropes the GOP was federally, how much of a civil war they were in, how the electoral college was stacked against them.

quote:

Let me note that I'm not saying there are not problems with the Democrats, and once again, that much of my disagreements with posters is more on procedural grounds. I think, Majorian, you fall into this category anytime we post at one another as I generally agree with you.

Taerkar posted:

I'm not even convinced that the GOP isn't still on the ropes. The complete dysfunctional nature of them right now in congress is not a healthy indicator of their future.

Jaxyon posted:

I like how a narrow loss including a millions of vote popular victory is a massive loss.

Jesus gently caress at least be realistic here. There's numerous tiny changes that would have ended up in a victory such as not having voter suppression.

Taerkar posted:

I'm not even convinced that the GOP isn't still on the ropes. The complete dysfunctional nature of them right now in congress is not a healthy indicator of their future.

Majorian posted:

Delve into this a bit. In what way would a Democratic shift into a hyper-partisan mentality destroy American institutions to a degree in which they haven't already been destroyed by Republican hyper-partisanship?

Majorian posted:

Well, but here's the flip-side of that: what if the Republicans didn't have a complete and utter moron as President? Without that variable, I think it's pretty likely that the ACA would be very dead by now.

AriadneThread posted:

it's amazing how the gop can be such a smoking disorganized mess when they supposedly have majority control in every branch and the the majority of state governments, if they were at all competent, they'd be lining us all up to go into their free-market death camps by now

AriadneThread posted:

it's amazing how the gop can be such a smoking disorganized mess when they supposedly have majority control in every branch and the the majority of state governments, if they were at all competent, they'd be lining us all up to go into their free-market death camps by now

Heck Yes! Loam! posted:

I'm the centrist.

And most of these lovely people don't have a point beyond gurgling white hot rage at people that aren't pure enough for them. They'll whine and whine about being attacked, but all they do is attack others. They come up with over simplistic ideological jingoism and pretend it is policy, and when you try and get details about how they would enact it, you get attacked. it's really obvious who these people are and I really wish the mods would start probating people for this lovely gimmick. these same people will howl about free speech like the god damned nazis do when you try and shut them up.

Majorian posted:

I think people referring to a massive loss are talking about the last decade of bad elections for the Dems, not just 2016.

quote:

Also, let's face it: our nominee lost to an extremely weak candidate, and we did worse in downticket races than expected. It was a pretty bad loss.

AriadneThread posted:

it's amazing how the gop can be such a smoking disorganized mess when they supposedly have majority control in every branch and the the majority of state governments, if they were at all competent, they'd be lining us all up to go into their free-market death camps by now

Jaxyon posted:

I like how a narrow loss including a millions of vote popular victory is a massive loss.

Jesus gently caress at least be realistic here. There's numerous tiny changes that would have ended up in a victory such as not having voter suppression.

BetterToRuleInHell posted:

Sorry about the lack of details but I'm phone posting -- i just saw on CNN that China has agreed to stop doing business with with banks in North Korea or something to that effect?

That seems like a huge deal on China's part...

theflyingorc posted:

I'm not sure how much of that is Trump himself, and how much of it is that people don't want to lose the things it provides. Back at the first failed house bill, the consensus was that they didn't want to ever vote on a bill at all, and he's the only reasons they went for it and maybe the only reason they went for it a second time.

Ze Pollack posted:

welcome to realism. when your strategy finds a way to lose white women in an election vs. a guy caught on tape bragging about committing sexual assault, it needs changing.

Inescapable Duck posted:

The GOP playbook works. The Democrat one doesn't.

theflyingorc posted:

It's not their competence, it's that what they're proposing is obviously terrible to anyone who can think and they were depending on a D president to veto it so they didn't have to worry about promises they couldn't deliver on.

Winning the presidency wasn't in their calculations. The only thing they've gotten was Gorsuch.

Mr Hootington posted:

https://twitter.com/ValeriePlame/status/910884546723196929

*tugs collar* holy smokes

Jaxyon posted:

No it's just hyperbole on Clinton


Everyone thought she was going to win, including the 'weak candidate'. She very nearly did, except for some very minor differences that ended up deciding it.

The Muppets On PCP posted:

there's a discussion to be had about the roots of neoconservatism in reactionary anti-communist russian and eastern european jewish immigrant communities who otherwise helped form the backbone of the american left in the mid-20th century, but that sure ain't how you do it