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Potato Salad posted:Yes, progress doesn't come from activism, it comes from internet thoughts and prayers Progress doesn't come from putting the progressive movement in a literal no-win situation, you massive dolt. Potato Salad posted:Like, say, wrest for control of the Dems? You literally cannot wrest control of an institution from the establishment if you're categorically binding yourself to always support said establishment in the end, because then they can take away your ability to influence the institution with impunity. Like, let's say that you're making progress in your plan, but since the establishment knows that you'll vote Dem in the end, they abolish the primary system. Now every candidate is handpicked by, say, the DNC. The hell do you do then?
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Feb 27, 2018 23:56
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Cerebral Bore posted:Like, let's say that you're making progress in your plan, but since the establishment knows that you'll vote Dem in the end, they abolish the primary system. Now every candidate is handpicked by, say, the DNC. The hell do you do then? Remind yourself that Republicans are bad
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Feb 27, 2018 23:58
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Potato Salad posted:In the US, I can't vote far left within a coalition that will ultimately lock horns to protect the poor , discriminated, and disenfranchised. Coalition building in the US takes place, sorta-kinda-not-really in the primaries, and the constraints of two parties are so hosed up that you can't refuse participation without ceding power to the right. Again, yes, taking away support from the marginally-less-bad option allows the more bad option to win immediately, however taking away that support is a component of replacing the less bad option with a good option. It has to happen at some point. You can't get lovely politicians out of power if you keep voting for them, because all you are doing is supporting the mill of lovely politicians that rely on "well the republicans are worse" as their only selling point.
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Feb 27, 2018 23:59
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Never in history, people tell me never in history has a party realignment or severe shift ever happened. Apparently.
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Feb 28, 2018 00:09
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Potato Salad posted:Never in history, people tell me never in history has a party realignment or severe shift ever happened. there's one going on right now you're just not on the right side of history any more
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Feb 28, 2018 00:11
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Ytlaya posted:I think I replied with something similar to this before, but the really big and important differences here are that 1. the other player has goals other than winning and would possibly rather lose than fulfill your demands and 2. the other player doesn't necessarily know why you rejected the deal (and in the case of the Democratic Party, they're likely to interpret it as "because we weren't racist enough" or something). You're not wrong (and as we saw in the UK, there were more than a few Labour [UK democrats] leaders willing to admit that they would rather the Tories win than allow a left prime minister), but at the same time it's possible that there will be politician unwilling to go down with the ship in the name of Centrism. Shumer for example was more than happy to start tapping his feet to Bernie's drum until they managed to get the RUSSIANS topic rolling. I imagine it would be significantly harder to get donors for a "Intentionally Lose So Leftists Cant Get Power" party than a "Win And Get All The Lobbyists" party, and politicians happy to be eternal losers than check-cashing senators. as for figuring out the why, this wouldn't necessarily be a problem in the long term (worst case: they try to go further right, still dont win people, still need to try something else), and in the short term I'd argue that there's more public leftist democrats ready to lead the party than public conservative democrats.
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Feb 28, 2018 00:12
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Potato Salad posted:Never in history, people tell me never in history has a party realignment or severe shift ever happened. I would suggest that they probably haven't happened as a result of people invariably supporting the status quo of said party, no.
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Feb 28, 2018 00:14
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Potato Salad posted:Never in history, people tell me never in history has a party realignment or severe shift ever happened. As has been explained to you, that's literally impossible to pull off if everybody acted like you want them to. This shouldn't be a difficult concept to grasp, even if you're thick as pig poo poo.
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Feb 28, 2018 00:29
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Potato Salad posted:Never in history, people tell me never in history has a party realignment or severe shift ever happened. We're trying to do one and you're sitting here arguing with us about doing it the wrong way.
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Feb 28, 2018 00:54
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Potato Salad posted:Lol, just lol at "giving people a reason to vote" the reason is plain as party affiliation in most cases, on the basis that the few unions that remain are about to be killed by Neil Gorsuch. My sexual orientation is now protected information per the Civil Rights Act by ruling of US circuits 2 and 9. It would have been great for these rulings to stand long term instead of facing inevitable reversal when Ginsburg/Breyer dies or Kennedy retires. Thanks, internet "progressives." I'm just as convinced as you are that a Hillary justice would've been worse for my human rights than a Trump pick Maybe unions would have voted for the Dem if the Dems had done basically anything to benefit them in the past *checks watch* twenty years or so? The Dems have been abandoning unions for political gain more and more openly ever since Carter, and unions have been becoming more and more disgruntled with the Dems over the past years. The Obama administration had a rocky relationship with labor leaders, who couldn't help but notice that they were completely ignored when Dems controlled all three branches and that union-busting efforts in the states failed to gain much Democratic opposition. The Clintons made hostility to unions one of the features of their triangulating centrism, and while Hillary's presence on the Wal-Mart board of directors was mostly attacked for their tremendous wealth and lovely wages, let's not forget that Wal-Mart is also stridently anti-union. The Dems can't expect to get away with just promising to do nothing and taking people's votes for granted. If they're not willing to make a stand in favor of groups, they're going to have trouble motivating those groups. On the flip side, they're not entitled to people's votes either. If they learn that they can do absolutely nothing for a group and still get that group's votes, then they're going to continue to do nothing. Naturally, if they start losing that group's votes, then they're going to need to promise more in order to get it. One perfect recent example of that, actually, is the Obama administration's timeline on LGBT rights - campaigned on DADT repeal in 2008, doing fuckall about it in the first two years, losing the midterms, immediately rushing DADT repeal through in a matter of days, and then "evolving" their position on marriage equality right in the middle of the 2012 election campaign. If the best thing you can say about the Dems is that they won't do anything about these issues one way or the other, then it shouldn't be too surprising that people aren't psyched to vote for them. Potato Salad posted:Yes, progress doesn't come from activism, it comes from internet thoughts and prayers Voting isn't activism.
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Feb 28, 2018 01:07
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Cerebral Bore posted:Progress doesn't come from putting the progressive movement in a literal no-win situation, you massive dolt. I mean we learned recently that the DCCC not only brick walls progressive candidates out of races through rolodexing to make sure they are already in the back pocket of wealthy patrons, require the campaign to spend at least 75% of it's funds on pre-approved advertising consultants, but actively lobby Democrats to be shittier once they are in office. https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/dccc-las-vegas-massacre-email_us_5a9579f6e4b036ab0142c108?ncid=engmodushpmg00000004 quote:The morning after the Oct. 1 mass shooting in Las Vegas, a member of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee’s press staff warned House candidates and their staffs not to “politicize” the shooting that day. Politicization, according to the DCCC official, included talking about gun violence prevention policy. https://theintercept.com/2018/02/27/dccc-internal-polling-congress-single-payer/ quote:Single payer does, however, pop up a number of times in the document — under the banner “LIKELY REPUBLICAN LINES OF ATTACK.” Members of Congress were given two pages of Republican and conservative attacks against Vermont Independent Senator Bernie Sanders’s single payer plan without being offered any sort of defense against the claims. The problem is that if we vote for the candidate that we want in the primary, then vote for the DCCC approved candidate in the general, we are actively making it more difficult to change the Democratic party into something better because frankly these people are our enemies even if they are less scary than Republicans and you don't win by making your enemies stronger. These people have repeatedly proven that they will actively fight against any progressive change and have no intention of either fighting against or providing an alternative to an increasingly white nationalist Republican party. What do we buy by supporting these people other than a couple of seat warmers that will block anything better while literal Nazis are taking over the Republican party?
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Feb 28, 2018 02:42
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Iron Twinkie posted:I mean we learned recently that the DCCC not only brick walls progressive candidates out of races through rolodexing to make sure they are already in the back pocket of wealthy patrons, require the campaign to spend at least 75% of it's funds on pre-approved advertising consultants, but actively lobby Democrats to be shittier once they are in office. "PROACTIVE SOLUTIONS (only if asked)" <--- this has to be the most democratic party phrase ever
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Feb 28, 2018 03:11
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Theres nothing to be gained from blaming the non-voters for not voting other than the moral high ground. It doesnt magically make them voters. If all you want is to feel righteous while the country burns down around you, cool, but also gently caress you.
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Feb 28, 2018 18:27
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Control Volume posted:Theres nothing to be gained from blaming the non-voters for not voting other than the moral high ground. It doesnt magically make them voters. If all you want is to feel righteous while the country burns down around you, cool, but also gently caress you. I mean, by all means, don't primary centrists I guess.
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Mar 1, 2018 13:25
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Main Paineframe posted:Maybe unions would have voted for the Dem if the Dems had done basically anything to benefit them in the past *checks watch* twenty years or so? The Dems have been abandoning unions for political gain more and more openly ever since Carter, and unions have been becoming more and more disgruntled with the Dems over the past years. The Obama administration had a rocky relationship with labor leaders, who couldn't help but notice that they were completely ignored when Dems controlled all three branches and that union-busting efforts in the states failed to gain much Democratic opposition. The Clintons made hostility to unions one of the features of their triangulating centrism, and while Hillary's presence on the Wal-Mart board of directors was mostly attacked for their tremendous wealth and lovely wages, let's not forget that Wal-Mart is also stridently anti-union. What you're describing is centrist Dems slowly and painfully being dragged left on LGBT equality despite not being primaried out of office. You're literally describing a change that took place slowly because nobody primaried these fucks out of office. No sane person would deny the existence of a feedback loop between party minority status and platform realignment, per VitalSign's M4A example. You can lose and lose and lose to drag the establishment at snail's pace to the left. Woohoo, congrats  However, there is greater efficacy in engaging in, to invent a term, first strike activism where you elect leftists and don't need to endanger anyone by empowering a hostile majority. That isn't helped by ensuring that the progressive movement is as cynical and disengaged as possible. Sure, fine, hold out for the 2012-style , after-the-fact evolution of party policy if you want. I don't loving trust centrist Dems enough to crawl leftward quickly enough to address oppression and discrimination, particularly the Religious Freedom movement, adequately. Stick to your suggested path and we're going to see a Potato Salad fucked around with this message at 13:41 on Mar 1, 2018 |
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Mar 1, 2018 13:29
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Potato Salad posted:What you're describing is centrist Dems dragging left on LGBT equality despite not being primaried out of office. You're literally describing a change that took place slowly because nobody primaried these fucks out of office. There is greater efficacy in engaging in, to invent a term, first strike activism where you elect leftists and don't need to endanger anyone by empowering a hostile majority. uh, centrist dems didn't drag left on LGBT equality. they were dragged left by outside groups after all the hard work was done despite centrist efforts to stymie them. hth
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Mar 1, 2018 13:35
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Condiv posted:yes, and how is voting for centrists that will help continue the decline of the middle and lower classes, encourage grotesque levels of income and wealth inequality, and force disastrous trade policies and gut our education systems fighting and winning? seems more like giving in and losing to me. Just a point here....You can steer centrists from your own party, especially now as 3rd Way centrism is on the run and reeling. You cannot steer the opposition.
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Mar 1, 2018 13:54
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TyroneGoldstein posted:Just a point here....You can steer centrists from your own party, especially now as 3rd Way centrism is on the run and reeling. You cannot steer the opposition. You can only steer centrists when they're losing. Doesn't matter whether they're losing to primary challengers or general election challengers, but they won't change as long as they can win just by doing what they always do. And even then, they're still pretty stubborn - after all, they honestly believe that what they're doing is the way to win.
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Mar 1, 2018 14:05
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I see that Potato Salad has adopted the bold debating strategy of ignoring all rebuttals to your argument in favour of just restating it over and over.
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Mar 1, 2018 14:22
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TyroneGoldstein posted:Just a point here....You can steer centrists from your own party, especially now as 3rd Way centrism is on the run and reeling. You cannot steer the opposition. it's almost impossible to steer them, and they will fight you tooth and nail. and they will betray you at critical moments. they are false friends and it doesn't really help us to help them attain power, especially when they're in the middle of stacking the deck in the primaries in order to prevent anything we want from happening
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Mar 1, 2018 15:06
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Potato Salad posted:No sane person would deny the existence of a feedback loop between party minority status and platform realignment, per VitalSign's M4A example. You can lose and lose and lose to drag the establishment at snail's pace to the left. Woohoo, congrats Potato Salad posted:However, there is greater efficacy in engaging in, to invent a term, first strike activism where you elect leftists and don't need to endanger anyone by empowering a hostile majority. Potato Salad posted:That isn't helped by ensuring that the progressive movement is as cynical and disengaged as possible. Sure, fine, hold out for the 2012-style , after-the-fact evolution of party policy if you want. I don't loving trust centrist Dems enough to crawl leftward quickly enough to address oppression and discrimination, particularly the Religious Freedom movement, adequately. Stick to your suggested path and we're going to see a Yeah no poo poo, but since you're unlikely to be able to Jedi mind-meld people who want jobs and healthcare and education into not caring about that, your only option if you want them to vote for my gay rights is to offer them those things alongside it. And since there's no reason not to offer healthcare and jobs and education (besides corporate ghouls paying politicians not to), refusing to do it is choosing to lose and keep the bribes coming rather than win and possibly get cut off the gravy train. You can insist that Republicans are so bad voters owe you their votes, you can even help Trump in the primary like Hillary did in the hopes that his badness will excuse hers, but spoiler alert that's not as effective at getting out the vote as offering people real hope and real solutions.
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Mar 1, 2018 17:16
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Potato Salad posted:What you're describing is centrist Dems slowly and painfully being dragged left on LGBT equality despite not being primaried out of office. You're literally describing a change that took place slowly because nobody primaried these fucks out of office. Donors are fine with LGBT rights, donors are not fine with the massive systemic changes that are needed to improve everyday people's lives. That's the difference.
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Mar 1, 2018 17:22
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Potato Salad posted:I mean, by all means, don't primary centrists I guess. This is like the fifth time youve pulled this bad faith poo poo. gently caress off
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Mar 1, 2018 17:41
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https://twitter.com/MotherJones/status/969339577931583489 Can't wait for the Lesser Evil argument to vote for Lipinski if he wins the primary
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Mar 1, 2018 23:49
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Remember when national democrats burned Heath Mello's career to the ground because he was about 1/2 as pro life as Lipinski is?
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Mar 2, 2018 02:00
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VitalSigns posted:https://twitter.com/MotherJones/status/969339577931583489 Don't let him win it.
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Mar 2, 2018 04:00
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Nevvy Z posted:Don't let him win it. it's tough when the establishment has firmly placed their thumb on the scale for him. not that people aren't going to try to win the primary
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Mar 2, 2018 17:46
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But if he does win, we should vote against gay rights and women's health because Republicans are worse, right?
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Mar 2, 2018 17:51
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VitalSigns posted:But if he does win, we should vote against gay rights and women's health because Republicans are worse, right? The district’s Republican being a literal Illinois nazi is likely a factor in all this.
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Mar 2, 2018 18:22
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Office Pig posted:The district’s Republican being a literal Illinois nazi is likely a factor in all this. I think he just wants to hear a consistent response such as he's heard with fiscal leftism. That is to say, he wants yo hear someone have the balls to say: "Yes, queer and female voters should vote against LGBQT protection and reproductive rights to keep the republicans out". It's rather telling that there are posters who will enthusiastically throw poor americans under a bus, but squirm when a topic dear to their clique becomes the focus.
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Mar 2, 2018 18:41
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Office Pig posted:The district’s Republican being a literal Illinois nazi is likely a factor in all this. The district's Republican doesn't have a chance. This is a district that voted blue in every presidential election since a 1992 redistricting. Hillary won it by 15 points, and the district went for Bernie before that. This is a district where whoever wins the Democratic primary wins the election. Meanwhile, Lipinski has been a notably disloyal Dem who voted against the ACA, voted against LGBT protections, voted against the Dream Act, openly opposed abortion, and repeatedly voted against Pelosi's minority leadership. There's no reason for the party to be backing him other than machine politics - the same machine politics that got him the seat in the first place, since his influential daddy exploited his position in regional politics to hand his seat down to his son without a primary.
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Mar 2, 2018 18:51
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Main Paineframe posted:The district's Republican doesn't have a chance. This is a district that voted blue in every presidential election since a 1992 redistricting. Hillary won it by 15 points, and the district went for Bernie before that. This is a district where whoever wins the Democratic primary wins the election. Meanwhile, Lipinski has been a notably disloyal Dem who voted against the ACA, voted against LGBT protections, voted against the Dream Act, openly opposed abortion, and repeatedly voted against Pelosi's minority leadership. There's no reason for the party to be backing him other than machine politics - the same machine politics that got him the seat in the first place, since his influential daddy exploited his position in regional politics to hand his seat down to his son without a primary. I completely agree with this, which is why I imagine the primary and general are quietly going to frame the election as a matter of maintaining some fragile hold that doesn't exist with some dumb slogan like "Better Safe Than Sorry" so the establishment doesn't actually have to explain or justify the choices it makes.
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Mar 2, 2018 19:04
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Neurolimal posted:I think he just wants to hear a consistent response such as he's heard with fiscal leftism. That is to say, he wants yo hear someone have the balls to say: Correct, I want to see whether anyone will have the stones to be consistent with their Lesser Evilism and say they'd throw gay people to the wolves to win a short-term electoral victory.
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Mar 2, 2018 19:15
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Neurolimal posted:It's rather telling that there are posters who will enthusiastically throw poor americans under a bus, but squirm when a topic dear to their clique becomes the focus. In general it is transparently obvious that some liberals do not consider issues like poverty/material inequality to be as serious/important as certain social issues. I say "some" because a significant portion don't even take social issues seriously, but I think a bunch of the younger liberals on these forums at least seem to genuinely care about issues like racism or LGBT rights, but in doing so they reveal their much higher tolerance for other forms of injustice. The most obvious example is the way they treat politicians/individuals who are bad about the topic in question. They will (correctly) treat being against gay marriage or affirmative action as unacceptable, but they'll call you a purist if you apply the same standards to people who oppose universal healthcare or refuse to take non-trivial action to address wealth/income inequality. My personal theory is that this is usually because they might personally know some racial/gender minorities (or are one themselves) but don't know anyone who isn't relatively materially well-off.
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Mar 2, 2018 20:31
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VitalSigns posted:Correct, I want to see whether anyone will have the stones to be consistent with their Lesser Evilism and say they'd throw gay people to the wolves to win a short-term electoral victory. lmao at your new title, you made a centrist mad enough to spend 
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Mar 3, 2018 00:21
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rip racist redtext from the heart thread
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Mar 3, 2018 05:31
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VitalSigns posted:Correct, I want to see whether anyone will have the stones to be consistent with their Lesser Evilism and say they'd throw gay people to the wolves to win a short-term electoral victory. "Lesser Evilism" implies that it is, in fact, the lesser evil. So yeah, I'd do it. It sucks and I won't be happy about it but I'd feel a lot worse if instead of "no LGBTQ protections" we got "mandatory conversion therapy". I know that's cold comfort for gay/trans people, but until we are rid of FPTP voting systems it's unfortunately what we're left with.
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Mar 3, 2018 06:05
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SSNeoman posted:"Lesser Evilism" implies that it is, in fact, the lesser evil. So yeah, I'd do it. It sucks and I won't be happy about it but I'd feel a lot worse if instead of "no LGBTQ protections" we got "mandatory conversion therapy". I know that's cold comfort for gay/trans people, but until we are rid of FPTP voting systems it's unfortunately what we're left with. And next year, you get to choose between 'mandatory conversion therapy' and 'execution'.
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Mar 3, 2018 06:10
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Inescapable Duck posted:And next year, you get to choose between 'mandatory conversion therapy' and 'execution'. Or maybe next year I can choose between 'better LGBTQ protections' or 'the same as they are'. You're also responding to an answer I gave towards a hypothetical scenario with a slippery slope. Not exactly sure what you're trying to do here.
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Mar 3, 2018 07:39
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Point out that the Republicans have been blatantly using the Democrats' willingness to roll over the 'compromise' to push further and further right, until you've got them tacitly supporting literal Neo-Nazis with increasingly little subtlety.
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Mar 3, 2018 07:43
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