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Brave New World posted:Wtf is even the point of having a caucus if you're not going to whip people into line? Who's even held accountable for literally anything? Why the gently caress would anyone trust a party that never maintains a consistent record of voting for the ideals it professes to adhere to during every single campaign? https://twitter.com/theonion/status/1039201480597749761?s=21
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Sep 18, 2018 22:41
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The point was that if you tell someone there's no consequence for doing something bad that's a tacit encouragement toward that kind of action, which no one can argue against. Just ignore the diamond thief angle, I botched that and now we're focusing on free samples, just focus on "this thing is bad and hurts but nothing will happen to you if you do it", that's the core of what I was trying to get at.
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Sep 18, 2018 22:58
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I would be reasonably confident in making the prediction that if New York MTA put up signs saying "We disagree with jumping turnstiles, but if we're not going to force anybody and if you want to do it that's fine bc we're not going to enforce any consequences whatsoever" that generally people would feel encouraged to jump the turnstile.
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Sep 18, 2018 23:02
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There's a difference between your friends saying you'll get away with it and the people who can throw you out saying you'll get away with it.
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Sep 18, 2018 23:04
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MSDOS KAPITAL posted:You can discuss the current state of the Democratic leadership provided you're not on the Trump Thread Crybabies Club shitlist, in which case any mention of the Democrats at all will result in a massive derail as the crybabies pile on, ending in you getting a probation and the crybabies feeling vindicated. You're not on the shitlist, HY!L, which is why you won't get a probation. Other posters would, again for exactly the same content as what you posted. This is basically it. In the examples Trabisnikov posted, there is absolutely nothing wrong about VitalSigns' post; it's not remotely sarcastic or insulting or whatever. But VitalSigns has developed a reputation as "someone who frequently criticizes Democrats," and it's the existence of those people that the Trump thread doesn't tolerate. They will tolerate the occasional dissent as long as you keep it a minor opinion that doesn't characterize your posting. This basically reflects the same way mainstream liberal discourse deals with the topic. They will sometimes criticize Democrats, but only in a limited fashion (and one that usually focuses more on "cowardice in fighting Republicans" than actual ideological disagreement*). Anyone who actually makes their ideological opposition to the Democratic Party (from the left) apparent is immediately perceived as someone who shouldn't be taken seriously, and this is basically the way things work in the Trump thread. You can express disappointment with the Democratic Party's actions, but it isn't okay to actually question their motives or disagree with their goals. * This is a big thing I've noticed - criticism of Democrats by liberal individuals/media isn't that uncommon, but it is nearly always focused on being disappointed with Democrats having a "backbone" in their opposition to Republicans. It is rarely, if ever, focused on actual ideological disagreement. The basic premise that Democrats share positive goals is never questioned - only whether their strategy is ideal. Heck Yes! Loam! posted:Trader Joe's encourages theft! ...logic isn't really your strong suit, is it? Ytlaya fucked around with this message at 23:33 on Sep 18, 2018 |
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Sep 18, 2018 23:06
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Ah yes the caucus leader and the whip, the people with the power to hand out committee assignments, maybe the most important thing ever to rank-and-file senators, have no actual power they're just like your smokin jokin buddies or something
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Sep 18, 2018 23:07
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Helsing posted:There's a substantial body of political science literature examining how US politicians will have divergent public and private positions on certain issues. You can even track how people in congress will 'trade' difficult votes with each other in such a way that the Democrats or Republicans can pass an unpopular bill with just enough support while protecting vulnerable members from taking a vote that might hurt their re-election. And the same people who insist you have to always take it at face value when Schumer says something pleasing, will gladly lecture you about realpolitik and hall passes and public v private positions if you say "hey wait why are Democrats voting against cheaper prescription drugs?" They don't want to! In their heart-of-hearts they'd love to vote for it but it's doomed anyway because Republicans/DINOs/inability-to-whip they're just tricking the pharma companies into giving them more money while secretly working against them!
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Sep 18, 2018 23:13
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Sneakster posted:There's a difference between your friends saying you'll get away with it and the people who can throw you out saying you'll get away with it. Yeah, exactly. Thank you for expounding.
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Sep 18, 2018 23:27
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I love how every other week Heck Yes! Loam! has to be dragged kicking and screaming from a position of "wow! these dumb leftists are very rude and stupid! There is no evidence that [Democratic politician] does [either a bad thing or is acting in bad faith]!" to him meekly acknowledging that he was wrong and that he has a lot of learning to do. This happens constantly, but he never seems to actually learn from it. At least Fulchrum is an obvious rabid troll, but I truly believe this brain dead idiot is for real.
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Sep 19, 2018 00:47
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MooselanderII posted:I love how every other week Heck Yes! Loam! has to be dragged kicking and screaming from a position of "wow! these dumb leftists are very rude and stupid! There is no evidence that [Democratic politician] does [either a bad thing or is acting in bad faith]!" to him meekly acknowledging that he was wrong and that he has a lot of learning to do. This happens constantly, but he never seems to actually learn from it. At least Fulchrum is an obvious rabid troll, but I truly believe this brain dead idiot is for real. I think part of the issue is that many people have an instinct that you should assume good will on the part of others, and liberal orthodoxy in particular assumes this of politicians. Liberal rhetoric also sort of preempts arguments against Democrats by creating a stereotype of the radical left being overly cynical, so when they see the left questioning the virtue of Democratic politicians they think "ah, just what I would expect from the left." The biggest thing, though, is just the fact that mainstream ideas are treated as "defaults" by most people, that are true until proved otherwise, while non/less-mainstream ones are treated the opposite (false until proved true). So the default idea is that Democrats are generally acting with good intentions, or at least towards the same goes as the radical left, and explicit proof must be supplied that this isn't the case (proof that is often impossible, since they can explain things like votes and other actions as "they did this out of necessity as a compromise" or whatever). That being said, I'm not totally sure that applies to Loam; I get the impression that they aren't quite that naive, and that they're driven more by the social dynamics, where mainstream liberals are the more "normal" in-group and the radical left is the stereotyped out-group. So even if they might agree more with the left on the details, it's easier to fall into the mental pattern of ridiculing them because that's what our political culture has conditioned us for (seriously, think about it - there aren't many negative stereotypes of mainstream liberals that aren't from the right, but there are many for the radical left).
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Sep 19, 2018 02:18
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Ytlaya posted:I think part of the issue is that many people have an instinct that you should assume good will on the part of others, and liberal orthodoxy in particular assumes this of politicians. Liberal rhetoric also sort of preempts arguments against Democrats by creating a stereotype of the radical left being overly cynical, so when they see the left questioning the virtue of Democratic politicians they think "ah, just what I would expect from the left." He obviously has some sort of weird axe to grind, but it really is quite pathetic that he gets owned constantly, says he'll do better, and then never does. I think a leftist badly hurt his feelings and so he keeps returning to the position of punching left, hitting himself instead, and then apologizes for it.
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Sep 19, 2018 02:34
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In any case that post has gone unactioned for long enough that I think it's safe to say that R. Guyovich was full of poo poo the other day, and that the mods here do not apply the rules evenly. I mean in case you didn't already know that.
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Sep 19, 2018 02:50
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Was going to post this on the Trump thread but realized that it belonged here. It occurs to me that one problem that the Democrats face is that they have to make their case to relatively reasonable but largely ignorant people while the Republicans only have to play to their authoritarian base and provide a plausible comfortable cover to pull in some portion of the same. That's why despite the left's desire to drop  the Democrats have to go through the motions, we all know full well that the Republicans are going to vote to confirm Kavanagh and damned the consequences. But by going through this Kabuki theater they craft a narrative that provides cover for red state Democrats to be able to vote no by pointing to this debacle.It's frustrating but ultimately necessary because there aren't enough "woke" people to win on a watered down Norwegian style democratic socialism much less full communism now.
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Sep 19, 2018 03:29
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I don't see how the narrative "sure gently caress women and gays and unions whatevs, as long as a rapist isn't the one doing it" is a smart plan, even if it works on Kavanaugh it just means red state dems are committing themselves to voting for the next right-wing stooge assuming Republicans can find one that hasn't molested a woman. If the only problem with Kavanaugh is that he's a dishonest rapist then the next poo poo-rear end just has to not be that and I guess it's cool? Also it's not like they knew this would happen when Schumer first came out and said "vote for him or not whatever it's fine" VitalSigns fucked around with this message at 03:38 on Sep 19, 2018 |
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Sep 19, 2018 03:36
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Skex posted:Was going to post this on the Trump thread but realized that it belonged here. You're making a lot of statements but not really backing them up with anything. Why do you think there's so many people who actually give a poo poo about tedious decorum, and so few who are sufficiently "woke"? E: Like, the republicans don't need to go through the decorum poo poo because the base they're playing to actually have an ideology that they put before everything else. Why do you think that there is no sizable population with a left wing ideology? Saagonsa fucked around with this message at 03:40 on Sep 19, 2018 |
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Sep 19, 2018 03:37
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MSDOS KAPITAL posted:In any case that post has gone unactioned for long enough that I think it's safe to say that R. Guyovich was full of poo poo the other day, and that the mods here do not apply the rules evenly. I mean in case you didn't already know that. ...I can't believe sky shark still posts. Skex posted:It's frustrating but ultimately necessary because there aren't enough "woke" people to win on a watered down Norwegian style democratic socialism much less full communism now.
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Sep 19, 2018 03:44
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Saagonsa posted:
This really can't be stressed enough. You see it with the sex pests and really everyone else: the republican base does not give a single solitary poo poo what someone does or how big of a personal hypocrite they may be as long as they feel they can trust them to carry out their ideology through their political actions. That is an incredibly powerful force and the democrats have no actual answer to it beyond praying that ~demographics are destiny~ will add a few more captive demos.
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Sep 19, 2018 03:46
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Oh Snapple! posted:This really can't be stressed enough. You see it with the sex pests and really everyone else: the republican base does not give a single solitary poo poo what someone does or how big of a personal hypocrite they may be as long as they feel they can trust them to carry out their ideology through their political actions. That is an incredibly powerful force and the democrats have no actual answer to it beyond praying that ~demographics are destiny~ will add a few more captive demos.
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Sep 19, 2018 03:54
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It's weird that people keep saying Americans aren't ready for social democracy when Medicare For All and a federal jobs guarantee are the most popular proposals in the country, with majority support even among Republicans but apparently appealing to Republicans is only worthwhile if it means cutting Medicare and social security
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Sep 19, 2018 03:58
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VitalSigns posted:It's weird that people keep saying Americans aren't ready for social democracy when Medicare For All and a federal jobs guarantee are the most popular proposals in the country, with majority support even among Republicans but apparently appealing to Republicans is only worthwhile if it means cutting Medicare and social security I agree it is a tired take, and we need people to embrace those opinions going forward, not shy away from them.
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Sep 19, 2018 04:08
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Is simultaneous full communism now and dissolving national sovereignty to establish a country with roughly the legal structure equivalent to a Shadowrun-esque land fiefdom of Disney World an actual view of the tubular left now? No wonder liberals think of themselves as serious people. Jesus Christ. Some lightbulb in the Trump thread said the Clintons were trying to bring UHC. For context: the proposed 90s reforms were nothing resembling UHC, and in fact was little more than a sleazy scheme for the Clintons to make bank off helping consolidate the larger players in the health insurance market absorb and ransack the smaller ones. Imagine being so ignorant and confused as to think the extreme rightward shift of the Democratic party since the 80s is both exaggerated and made up by the alt left, and that the Republicans are solely whats holding everything good back, and pointing out these details is just making it harder for the Democratic leadership doing the best it can. I'd be angrily defensive of a group think hug box if my view of reality was that much of a loving cartoon.
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Sep 19, 2018 04:27
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Sneakster posted:...alt left...
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Sep 19, 2018 04:36
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Skex posted:Was going to post this on the Trump thread but realized that it belonged here. What sort of evidence is necessary to convince people that democratic centrism and endless compromising are not an electoral tactic but their actual policy stance? We don't even need to discuss if the electoral tactic makes sense, because it's not an electoral tactic. Democrats will take unpopular stances in the name of the so called compromise (like supporting cuts to social programs, deregulating finance, nominating milquetoast judges that don't fire up the base.) It would be one thing if they were taking a decorum and compromise approach only on issues that may influence red state elections. But does anyone really think that deregulating wall street made democrats in red states any safer? That nominating Garland instead of someone that would excite the base was better? Not to mention that we've seen what the democrats have done in safe blue states and cities. Did Emanuel need to crush teacher unions as an electoral strategy? Or California democrats have to kill single payer? Or the Baltimore mayor have to veto $15 minimum wage? I mean, even Sheila Bair, Bush appointee to the FDIC, was shocked about how cozy, compromising and lenient the Obama administration was with Wall Street. Was that sort of policy popular with anyone, anywhere?
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Sep 19, 2018 04:38
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Brave New World posted:Don't do that. Joy Ann Reid invented that term to punch left, and then Trump started using it too. joepinetree posted:Was that sort of policy popular with anyone, anywhere?
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Sep 19, 2018 04:41
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Saagonsa posted:E: Like, the republicans don't need to go through the decorum poo poo because the base they're playing to actually have an ideology that they put before everything else. Why do you think that there is no sizable population with a left wing ideology? My personal feeling is that the percent of Americans with a specifically left-wing ideology is small, due to the fact that such ideology has almost no representation in American media/politics/culture, but that the percent of Americans who would be receptive to left-wing politics (if mainstream liberal-aligned media and politicians started supporting it) is very high. For example, if Democrats and MSNBC suddenly started pushing for a bunch of stuff radically to the left of the current Democratic status quo, I imagine the vast majority of Democratic voters would be receptive to it. The main reason many aren't now is just that they have the false perception that these ideas aren't viable (because they don't see them expressed in media/politics much). Things have started to change in that regard, though.
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Sep 19, 2018 05:54
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Never forget that every single person on TV news is a millionaire.
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Sep 19, 2018 06:00
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Yeah things have started to change in that regard because no one under forty gives a flying poo poo what goes on in cable news land and never will. There are definitely problems with the alternative sources of news that younger people are consuming but I still think they're miles better than what they replaced.
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Sep 19, 2018 06:50
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MSDOS KAPITAL posted:In any case that post has gone unactioned for long enough that I think it's safe to say that R. Guyovich was full of poo poo the other day, and that the mods here do not apply the rules evenly. I mean in case you didn't already know that. there was a period of inactivity roughly this long before the first round of the d&d purge. probably just a coincidence.
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Sep 19, 2018 08:19
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R. Guyovich posted:there was a period of inactivity roughly this long before the first round of the d&d purge. probably just a coincidence. I believe you are referring to the "Nerd Extermination Policy," or "NEP."
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Sep 19, 2018 08:31
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people think because clinton won because third way works. they never look up what percent of the vote he got. or what turnout was for his reelection. gore didn’t just lose (i mean he actually won but it shouldn’t have been close) because he was boring and shied away from bill. the clintonite policies didn’t energize people.
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Sep 19, 2018 11:37
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https://twitter.com/TheBeatWithAri/status/1042178102267445251
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Sep 19, 2018 13:15
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Reminder Baddems will be happy if Biden makes a press conference apologizing, like that will be enough for them 
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Sep 19, 2018 13:44
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Skex posted:Was going to post this on the Trump thread but realized that it belonged here. This absolutely isn't true. It's a convenient narrative for Dems, but it's also complete and utter bullshit used as nothing more than an excuse for moving right. Though it also sees play as an excuse for them losing elections. On top of that, the idea that red-state Dems need "cover" to vote against Kavanaugh is crazy. If their constituents wanted to back blatant GOP partisans, they would have voted straight-ticket GOP in the first place.
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Sep 19, 2018 14:30
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Democrats care about decorum above all things, that's why the Garland shenanigans brought them out in record numbers to punish the GOP for obstructing an old-rear end moderate that they suggested in the first place.
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Sep 19, 2018 14:52
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Skex posted:Was going to post this on the Trump thread but realized that it belonged here. I think this is the narrative that "establishment democrats" -- Feinstein, Obama, etc. -- believe to be true. They all learned their political instincts in the 1990's or earlier (in Feinstein's case, what, the 1960's?) and they think they need to be the reasonable ones in the room at all times, like a form of learned helplessness in the face of always-on Republican insanity. What they don't realize is that everyone 40 and under already knows the Republicans are crazy and doesn't need to be convinced by the reasonable-ones-in-the-room act; plus, the nation is in much greater crisis overall than most people who are rich, white, and over 50 are prepared to comprehend. At best the Democratic leadership is a bunch of socioeconomic Neville Chamberlains, desperately trying to maintain the illusion that all that needs to be done is appear reasonable and polite.
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Sep 19, 2018 14:54
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I can't count the number of times I've heard coworkers and neighbors discuss the biggest problems of the day: stagnating wages, neverending recession for the bottom half of the country, exploding healthcare costs, failing schools, child prisons, cops murdering Americans with impunity, an endless pointless meatgrinder war on the other side of the world, but you know what always tops the list: that's right the sad disregard for the unspoken conventions of polite parliamentary procedure. Not a day goes by that I don't hear someone angrily ask how long they have to keep withholding their vote before the Democrats finally wake up and start being more gracious to the GOP to really shame them hard for their misbehavior and disregard for the spirit of the rules of the senate VitalSigns fucked around with this message at 15:06 on Sep 19, 2018 |
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Sep 19, 2018 15:01
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The idea that anyone outside of like a thousand people in the entire country gives a poo poo about the Senate's dumb rules that aren't even in the constitution is absurd. Like ask anyone, left or right, "you could get your dream legislation passed but it would require your side to buck decorum and take advantage of the system, maybe be mean to the other party even, to do it" and I can't think of many that would say no to that. Eggplant Squire fucked around with this message at 15:42 on Sep 19, 2018 |
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Sep 19, 2018 15:12
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Since Trump has hosed so many of people’s world views it has created a fascinating split in self-described liberals. Do you wish a return to Obama and an old status quo? Congrats that’s a conservatism. Most of those people were conservative at heart but the contradictions have been heightened.
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Sep 19, 2018 16:08
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You kind of have to hand McConnell some grudging respect for how shrewdly he works over the kind of self-important trivia-obsessed dork who smugly thinks memorizing a bunch of inane procedural and historical artifacts makes him a politically savvy insider genius. Like Democrats will rout Republicans in a landslide and McConnell will say "no you can't nominate any circuit judges we don't like, if you don't respect the blue slip there will be hell to pay! The voters will have your head!" And the next day a thousand thinkpieces on the admirable and sacred history of the blue-slip and the time the late great Henry Clay used one to deliver a stunning coup de grace to the Jackson administration or whethever come out, and ten thousand smuglords like skex will paraphrase them on boards just like this "oh sit down and be quiet if you don't know about the time Henry Clay..." And then Republicans get in and McConnell snorts "lol idiot, the voters don't care about blue slips they only want results that's why I'm getting rid of it" "But you said--" "bahaha I can't believe you fell for that, and no this won't bite me when power changes hands, good luck doing anything when our conservative courts will strike down everything you pass for the next 50 years sucker" "drat it if only we'd decorumed harder this wouldn't be happening  "
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Sep 19, 2018 16:36
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R. Guyovich posted:there was a period of inactivity roughly this long before the first round of the d&d purge. probably just a coincidence.
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