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theCalamity posted:They’re saying that even with democratic control, it doesn’t mean that they’ll actually do anything progressive. They’ll try to compromise with the GOP to be seen as bipartisan. This isn’t a reason to oppose a democratic majority in the senate. Eliminating republican control of the legislature might not be sufficient for progressive laws to be made and passed, but it’s certainly necessary. My home state of Washington had its legislature turn, and in a single year we got things like teen voter registration, first in the nation net neutrality, required insurance coverage for abortion, ban on the use of NDAs to prevent the disclosure of wages and raises for teachers. There were also significant efforts made towards a carbon tax, repeal of the death penalty (executions are on hold because of the governor and have been for a long time) and requiring people purchasing tobacco/vape products and guns. They screwed the pooch by trying to get rid of some transparency laws, but were quickly shamed into reversing their position. But hey, I guess I’m the big dummy for thinking that having republicans in control of the legislature is a good thing.
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Jun 16, 2018 21:12
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You know, if you'd made that strawman any bigger your post could host its own Burning Man.
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Jun 16, 2018 21:22
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Solkanar512 posted:
Hey, you're the one trying to let 80s Republicans have control over the entire government.
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Jun 16, 2018 23:19
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Painting opposition to bad Democratic politicians as support for Republicans is a common tool in the "anti-leftist" (for lack of a better term) playbook.
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Jun 16, 2018 23:25
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Broke: today's republicans Woke: Reagan republicans
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Jun 16, 2018 23:54
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I said this in the Trump thread but if the Democrats had any inclination to actually fight racism they would have supported Manchin's opponent in the West Virginia race. If he then won anyway you transision your support to him afterwards (like theoretically they would have had to do if Swearengin had won). The fact that she got totally ignored while Manchin runs around saying Trump is maybe ok  and that the border wall is totally a cool thing right before this whole child separation thing really hit the fan shows that they just don't really care until the optics reach a point where it just can't be ignored. He also voted for both Sessions and Devos. He's worse that useless because he can't be counted on for anything outside of the most absolutely beyond the pale votes in favor of Democrats while constantly doing poo poo that makes the entire party look soft on stuff that is supposed to be their core ideology. If you are going to say you are "fiscally conservative but socially liberal" but then support a guy that's all but saying he thinks Trump's immigration strategy is solid what do you have left? Do we just support Manchin until the end of time because the party has internalized the idea that he is the only person that can get elected in West Virginia while doing absolutely nothing to make that not the case in the future?The feeling I get from Manchin supporting Democrats is there's almost this pride that they are willing to do what has to be done and forgo "purity politics" because the Serious strategy involves tough decisions. It's why they get incredibly angry when you chip away at the idea that these Red State Democrats are actively hurting the social policies that their position in congress is supposed to be helping. "Good Politics" means compromising and getting stuff accomplished but everything after 2008 has made it clear that comprising with people acting in bad faith just gets bad deals. Just look at Tim Kaine working to give Trump even more power in the name of bipartisanship; the idea of compromise as the goal despite results is absolutely toxic and taken over the Democratic party. Getting control is all well and good but a repeat of 2008-2010 where bad Democrats stood in the way of the Dream Act which is one of the reasons we are in the current situation with DACA recipients fearing deportation is going to repeat itself and we are never getting 60 votes in the Senate again, especially not with a cushion for the inevitable Red State traitors. The ONLY benefit to him is the Senate majority if he's the single guy that flips it since his voting record is trash and indicates he's supremely racist. I'm absolutely not confident in such a situation he doesn't switch parties. Eggplant Squire fucked around with this message at 12:17 on Jun 17, 2018 |
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Jun 17, 2018 12:07
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Radish posted:The ONLY benefit to him is the Senate majority if he's the single guy that flips it And then we get another Lieberman situation where we were totally gonna pass Medicare 4 All but we were just one vote short, you guys! We'll try better next time!
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Jun 17, 2018 12:23
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twodot posted:So the last time the Democrats had a majority we got one or more of: single payer, inflation indexed minimum wage, criminal justice reform, drug legalization, reduced wars, and reduced deportations? That handout to insurance is literally saving lives so shut the gently caress up.
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Jun 17, 2018 13:36
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HootTheOwl posted:That handout to insurance is literally saving lives so shut the gently caress up. Seriously Obamacare sucks and the Supreme Court finishes the job Lieberman started.
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Jun 17, 2018 14:43
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*slaps the worlds most expensive band-aid over an arterial bleed* how dare you criticize the effectiveness of the band-aid!!!
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Jun 17, 2018 14:46
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HootTheOwl posted:That handout to insurance is literally saving lives so shut the gently caress up. love 2 bankrupt people with mandatory garbage insurance they cant afford and won't help them
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Jun 17, 2018 15:04
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I mean the insurance handout did manage to coincidentally manage to improve/save a lot of lives, that's true. The fact that the only healthcare reform that Democrats managed to pass with a majority in Congress and the Presidency was 1) far too little and 2) a handout to insurance companies should be telling you something regardless of it's effectiveness.
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Jun 17, 2018 15:26
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Ytlaya posted:Painting opposition to bad Democratic politicians as support for Republicans is a common tool in the "anti-leftist" (for lack of a better term) playbook. I already said Manchin was a poo poo and there was nothing wrong with opposing him. Why are you lying about this?
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Jun 17, 2018 17:24
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Solkanar512 posted:I already said Manchin was a poo poo and there was nothing wrong with opposing him. You specifically said that being opposed to Manchin = "letting Republicans have control of the legislature." As I said before, this whole "opposition to bad Democrats translates to Republicans winning" thing is a commonly used rhetorical tool. It's also pretty ironic since you could say the exact same thing about demanding votes for bad Democratic politicians in order to defeat Republicans (in the sense that it depresses voter enthusiasm towards the Democratic Party). If the real concern was Republicans winning, the people in question (not necessarily referring to you) would put more focus on transforming the Democratic Party than on demanding people vote for the lesser evil.
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Jun 17, 2018 19:58
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Manchin is switching parties next year, easy.
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Jun 17, 2018 20:13
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Raskolnikov38 posted:*slaps the worlds most expensive band-aid over an arterial bleed* The optimal Democratic strategy should be to pass one bill a year that saves the life of a single human being. They can then say "ARE YOU SAYING YOU'D RATHER (PERSON) DIE?!" any time people get mad at them for not doing more.
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Jun 17, 2018 20:36
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Ytlaya posted:You specifically said that being opposed to Manchin = "letting Republicans have control of the legislature." No, I said “manchin is a poo poo, but you shouldn’t ignore the power of being in the majority”. Sorry that nuance is too hard for you to understand though.
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Jun 17, 2018 21:06
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Solkanar512 posted:No, I said “manchin is a poo poo, but you shouldn’t ignore the power of being in the majority”. last time dems were in the majority, they showered health insurance companies and banks with taxpayer money and scapegoated individual baddems to explain why we can't have nice things, even though broad segments of the dem caucus supported the policies they enacted B B fucked around with this message at 21:45 on Jun 17, 2018 |
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Jun 17, 2018 21:24
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I think we should pursue a truth in the middle policy and only put half the kids in cages. Why do you want all of them to be in cages you monster.
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Jun 17, 2018 21:44
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What I don't understand is the goal/motivation of the people who feel the need to argue "BUT THE ACA HELPED PEOPLE" when others are arguing about how it fails to come close to actually addressing the problem. What are they worried about? That leftists will somehow remove the ACA and not replace it with something better? Or in the case of the topic the below post is referencing, why do people get so irritated and upset at people getting angry with Democrats not addressing the variety of major issues affecting millions of people? It just confuses me why a person would be more concerned about leftists hypothetically causing Democrats to lose (which is already a silly premise) than they would the current state of the party resulting in so many issues going unaddressed. The only answer I can come up with is "because they aren't affected by the harm of the status quo, their greatest concern is preventing things from becoming even worse (as opposed to making them better)." But even then, their priorities don't really fit with someone who truly wants to beat the Republican Party. It's more like they want to beat the Republicans without the "risk" of significant leftward change. Solkanar512 posted:No, I said “manchin is a poo poo, but you shouldn’t ignore the power of being in the majority”. What you were arguing is effectively translating opposition to people like Manchin into somehow being against a Democratic majority (and other people explained why the usefulness of that is very limited, mostly because it only applies to the subset of bills that have unanimous Democratic support and zero Republican support). It's also very questionable whether, in the long run, the benefits of a Democratic majority (that includes people like Manchin) outweigh the harm caused by allowing the party image to be "corrupted" through association with people like that.
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Jun 17, 2018 22:09
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What kind of majority is it if it can't get anything done due to said lovely dems being against good policy? It is a useful bulwark against GOP nominees and conservative legislative action generally, but as we have seen, that function is incredibly temporary absent getting said poo poo done.
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Jun 17, 2018 22:14
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Ytlaya posted:What I don't understand is the goal/motivation of the people who feel the need to argue "BUT THE ACA HELPED PEOPLE" when others are arguing about how it fails to come close to actually addressing the problem. What are they worried about? That leftists will somehow remove the ACA and not replace it with something better? Or in the case of the topic the below post is referencing, why do people get so irritated and upset at people getting angry with Democrats not addressing the variety of major issues affecting millions of people? Hillary Clinton posted:I want you to understand why I am fighting so hard for the Affordable Care Act. I don’t want it repealed. I don’t want us to be thrown back into a terrible, terrible national debate. I don’t want us to end up in gridlock. People can’t wait. People who have health emergencies can’t wait for us to have a theoretical debate about some better idea that will never, ever come to pass.
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Jun 17, 2018 22:19
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Republicans are good as long as they have a D in front of their name
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Jun 17, 2018 22:22
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MooselanderII posted:What kind of majority is it if it can't get anything done due to said lovely dems being against good policy? It is a useful bulwark against GOP nominees and conservative legislative action generally, but as we have seen, that function is incredibly temporary absent getting said poo poo done. For the most part politics are a team sport to most people and they do not give a poo poo about policies as long as the correct letter is next to the politicians name.
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Jun 17, 2018 22:22
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part of why the ACA is poo poo on so much is it was clearly designed to be a handout to insurance cos and be hostage legislation to turn out voters than to help voters. and by hostage legislation, i mean it was designed to easily be dismantled and scaled back, so that dems could whip people to vote with doomsaying about the republicans being elected and ripping away their healthcare i mean,, it hasn't been in effect fully for a decade, and it was already needing congressional intervention to shovel even more money into the private insurance system to keep it from falling apart. it was fragile as hell legislation, and it was fragile on purpose to help give dems something to campaign on see also: obama not bothing to push hard for the sc justice seat that came up during his presidency edit: also, see hillary wanting real bad to run against trump. dems desperately do not want to run on issues, or making things better for people. they want to run against republicans doing X, Y, or Z. and when they win, they may well not stop republicans for doing X,Y, or Z, cause why bother when you can just blame the republicans for being bad and demand people vote in more dems next time? Condiv fucked around with this message at 22:32 on Jun 17, 2018 |
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Jun 17, 2018 22:27
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Condiv posted:part of why the ACA is poo poo on so much is it was clearly designed to be a handout to insurance cos and be hostage legislation to turn out voters than to help voters. and by hostage legislation, i mean it was designed to easily be dismantled and scaled back, so that dems could whip people to vote with doomsaying about the republicans being elected and ripping away their healthcare Also enacting the Dream program through the executive branch.
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Jun 17, 2018 22:29
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Matt Zerella posted:Also enacting the Dream program through the executive branch. Remember, Machin was one of the 5 bad Dems who voted against the Dream Act back in the lame duck session at the very end of 2010: https://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/19/us/politics/19immig.html quote:President Obama had personally lobbied lawmakers in support the bill. But Democrats were not able to hold ranks.
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Jun 17, 2018 22:34
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MooselanderII posted:Remember, Machin was one of the 5 bad Dems who voted against the Dream Act back in the lame duck session at the very end of 2010: i am a broke-brained idiot B B fucked around with this message at 22:42 on Jun 17, 2018 |
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Jun 17, 2018 22:37
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Not that Manchin isn't a complete piece of poo poo, but I'm pretty sure that article doesn't say what you think it does
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Jun 17, 2018 22:38
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B B posted:So you're saying that Democrats knew as early as 2010 that Joe Manchin was a racist piece of poo poo--and that they squandered almost a decade that they could have spent finding an electable West Virginian who would support their corporate policies who wasn't also a racist piece of poo poo? It is no secret that the Democratic Party has no interest in doing the work to displace a well financed incumbent, regardless of what his political views are.
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Jun 17, 2018 22:40
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self unaware posted:Not that Manchin isn't a complete piece of poo poo, but I'm pretty sure that article doesn't say what you think it does  I am dumb, yeah.
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Jun 17, 2018 22:41
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Ytlaya posted:What I don't understand is the goal/motivation of the people who feel the need to argue "BUT THE ACA HELPED PEOPLE" when others are arguing about how it fails to come close to actually addressing the problem. What are they worried about? That leftists will somehow remove the ACA and not replace it with something better? Or in the case of the topic the below post is referencing, why do people get so irritated and upset at people getting angry with Democrats not addressing the variety of major issues affecting millions of people? Drawing from my own experience as someone who defended Bad Dems for far too long, I really do think a lot of it is a defense mechanism. People invested a lot of personal hope (for lack of a better word) in Obama, and they still want to defend his legacy. It's tough to square away the fact that Obama, A, was probably the best president in many of our lifetimes; and B, also made some choices (either deliberately or mistakenly) that helped make a far-right populist resurgence inevitable. The waters became further muddied because the Republicans managed to do the impossible and make themselves even more of cartoon villains than they were during the Bush years. When so many of the loudest criticisms of Obama were so completely whacked-out already (and you can obviously extend this to Hillary and all present-day Bad Dems), it was easy to lump all other criticisms (particularly those less-trumpeted by the media) under the "fake news" umbrella. I know that for me, at least for a little while, it was easy to believe that if the leftists would just stop bitching about the details and get behind the Dems, together we would crush the Republicans, Obama would do what he REALLY meant to do (ie: be a social democrat), and we'd all have Nice Things. (of course, it didn't take me long to see the cracks in this mindset) So I'm not sure what the Bad Dems here think the practical outcome of criticizing the ACA and other parts of Obama's and Hillary's and other centrist Dems' legacies would be. I don't think they've thought it through that far, to be honest. I think their mentality doesn't really go very far beyond, "Fall in line so we can beat the Republicans," without realizing how much that attitude helps further the Republican agenda in the long-run.
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Jun 17, 2018 22:41
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Majorian posted:It's tough to square away the fact that Obama, A, was probably the best president in many of our lifetimes; and B, also made some choices (either deliberately or mistakenly) that helped make a far-right populist resurgence inevitable. This becomes less tough to square when you realize how low a bar A is to clear. If you were born after 1980, the list of candidates for "best President in your lifetime" is: Reagan Bush Sr Clinton Bush Jr Obama Trump So, yea, Obama might be the "best President" on that list, objectively, but it isn't really saying much considering the "second best" President on that list is a rapist who killed welfare.
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Jun 17, 2018 22:56
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WampaLord posted:This becomes less tough to square when you realize how low a bar A is to clear. Oh sure, and eventually one comes to the realization that the best US presidents overall are, uh, still pretty bad. But I know I didn’t have that perspective in, say, 2009. Nor did I actually internalize the fact that my saying “The ACA is not great, but it’s better than nothing” was a statement of the incredible privilege that I enjoy as someone who has never had to fear going broke because I got sick. That’s one lesson that I wish I would have learned earlier: incrementalism only works for people who can afford for things to move that slowly.
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Jun 17, 2018 23:13
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It's also worth noting that while Obama may be the least offensive President since Carter, he blew a once in a lifetime opportunity with respect to addressing climate change (something he had campaigned on!), with the strong possibility that human civilization is doomed as a result! He may not have been the "worst," but his squandering of the crises of early 2009 relative to what he achieved (almost nothing) and what he promised (millions of green jobs, economic transformation, etc) may very well label him as one of the worst Presidents of all time in the long run. That is to say nothing of all of the other issues he punted on that led to Trump!
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Jun 17, 2018 23:28
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also worth pointing out he squandered the largest opportunity for systemic change (the 2008 financial crises) out of the bunch as well
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Jun 17, 2018 23:33
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self unaware posted:also worth pointing out he squandered the largest opportunity for systemic change (the 2008 financial crises) out of the bunch as well Ya, I consider the 2008 crises to have lingered into the start of his presidency. It can't be understated that some of the traditional private forces (auto industry, financial sector, etc.) that typically grind legislative action to dust, were literally at their weakest in historical memory. Sadly, without even firing a shot, Obama buckled and appointed and heeded Timothy loving Geithner. Jesus christ.
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Jun 17, 2018 23:37
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https://twitter.com/JuddLegum/status/1008471402809356288Jaxyon posted:Manchin's good cause sometime's he'll vote with us
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Jun 18, 2018 00:57
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MooselanderII posted:Ya, I consider the 2008 crises to have lingered into the start of his presidency. It can't be understated that some of the traditional private forces (auto industry, financial sector, etc.) that typically grind legislative action to dust, were literally at their weakest in historical memory. Sadly, without even firing a shot, Obama buckled and appointed and heeded Timothy loving Geithner. Jesus christ. Not only did he appoint Geithner, he straight up stacked his administration with Wall St people. I loved 2008 Obama on the campaign trail but goddamn I'm angry at myself for taking this long to wake the gently caress up.
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Jun 18, 2018 02:33
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Matt Zerella posted:Not only did he appoint Geithner, he straight up stacked his administration with Wall St people. 
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Jun 18, 2018 02:38
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