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Twincityhacker posted:Okay, fine. Most people in the thread aren't excited for a civil war, they are just... completely resigned to the fact to the point where absolutely nothing can avoid it to the point of not even trying anymore? Everyone should recognize that war is hell and misery with the added bonus that there is no guarantee of a positive outcome. That being said, the alternative is to stand by and watch the fascist-lead SCOTUS give the green light to state sanctioned violence toward groups conservatives hate. Voting rights have been sabotaged at the state level so even if Dems were effective at fighting fascism (they aren't), they'll never hold congress again. All electoral paths out of this are dead ends. It isn't going to stop at abortion, and if history repeats or rhymes, they'll be jailing or murdering political opponents within a decade. Well, fascists are already running over and shooting protesters, and women are about to be dragged from their homes for miscarriages... so we're at a weird place where the civil war is on, but the majority of the barbarism isn't being visited on nice suburban white folks yet. (USER WAS PUT ON PROBATION FOR THIS POST)
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Jun 25, 2022 19:07
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Nonsense posted:If the Democrats can prevent the loss of the Senate in November, that would be pretty unexpected. The House doesn't seem salvageable, Pelosi spiked it. Yeah, things aren't looking good there. The generic congressional ballot currently has Republicans up by 2.3 points. The Democrats lead the generic ballot by 7.3 points in 2020 and ended up with a 9-seat majority (which actually involved them losing 13 seats) in the House and a tie in the Senate. It's looking very grim for the Democrats holding onto either chamber.
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Jun 25, 2022 19:10
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Twincityhacker posted:Okay, fine. Most people in the thread aren't excited for a civil war, they are just... completely resigned to the fact to the point where absolutely nothing can avoid it to the point of not even trying anymore? What can be done to avoid civil war and what are the democrats doing to prevent it? Are they in the process of preventing a civil war? What are they doing to prevent the christofascists? I don't think we're going to see a civil war. I do see a lot of stochastic terrorism in the future, though, as we have been seeing
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Jun 25, 2022 19:13
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Cornyn is on Twitter talking about how it's high time we get rid of Brown v Board and Plessy v Ferguson and he's not alone in that sort of thing, wonder if these state AGs are getting ready to start throwing women into superjail forever because they got hit by a lifted F350 King Ranch Extended Cab at a protest or got exposed to a tear gas canister with an abortifacient chemical in the mix and either caused them to miscarry. Naturally a lot of these states passed laws protecting the police and drivers in these situations so that avenue is a no-go.
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Jun 25, 2022 19:16
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World Famous W posted:I don't recall no one say not to try anything at all, the disagreement is how much electoralism is part of the solution The alternative is emigration. If you can't do that (most of us cant), then there is nothing else.
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Jun 25, 2022 19:16
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Majorian posted:What can be done to avoid it? I'm genuinely asking. Getting the "left," such as it is, to turn out to vote in November isn't going to make much of a difference; the number of leftists who don't already turn out to vote anyway is pretty small. The much bigger problem for the Dems is that they're hemorrhaging non-ideological working-class black and brown voters, who aren't turning out for the Dems reliably because the Dems don't give them much of a reason to turn out anymore. Yeah if I was making a prediction I don't expect a civil war. I expect a weakening federal government who roles back most enforcement of anything allowing each state to be the America it wants to be. Polarization will increase and stochastic terrorism will become even worse but we won't see a civil war. States will govern themselves and the federal government isn't divided enough internally to lead to any sort of break that would cause war. If anything led to war it would be blue states attempting to leave the union and I don't see that. Also this is D&D, I expect to be able to discuss and ponder on these subjects without it being considered full throated endorsement. I don't want war, I do not think it would be good, I do think violence is going to get worse and people need to consider that when they base their decision making on keeping the peace. Are they really keeping the peace or are they opting for long quiet violence over short and loud? Gumball Gumption fucked around with this message at 19:20 on Jun 25, 2022 |
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Jun 25, 2022 19:17
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Craptacular! posted:I can't remember all the details or which tell-all it came from, but Bill Clinton wanted to run campaign events in states that Robby Mook told him had flipped red since the 90s and that Bill was wasting his time. I think it was like Wisconsin or something? Unable to get any real support from the campaign organization, Bill went and did townhall speeches in those states in the final weeks with minimal production or organization. Clinton narrowly lost instead of the washout that Mook expected. The fact that Hillary ran a lovely campaign should have come as surprise to no one after 2008. She bascially expected to walk away with it and this upstart guy from Illinois had the audacity to challenge her! All he did was give a great speech in 2004!
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Jun 25, 2022 19:17
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Rigel posted:The alternative is emigration. If you can't do that (most of us cant), then there is nothing else. I thought I was pessimistic but "there is literally nothing you can do to affect politics except vote" is insanely blackpilled, holy poo poo.
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Jun 25, 2022 19:18
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B B posted:Yeah, things aren't looking good there. The generic congressional ballot currently has Republicans up by 2.3 points. The Democrats lead the generic ballot by 7.3 points in 2020 and ended up with a 9-seat majority (which actually involved them losing 13 seats) in the House and a tie in the Senate. It's looking very grim for the Democrats holding onto either chamber. Well, the problem for the democrats is the congressional maps are stacked so heavily against them via gerrymandering that they need an inherit +5 swing to break even.
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Jun 25, 2022 19:19
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Twincityhacker posted:Okay, fine. Most people in the thread aren't excited for a civil war, they are just... completely resigned to the fact to the point where absolutely nothing can avoid it to the point of not even trying anymore? When you say “civil war,” what are you imagining?
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Jun 25, 2022 19:19
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Liquid Communism posted:Just voting to oppose the fash would be a necessary good if the opposing candidates would effectively oppose the fash. It can be so much worse, in so many places, so much faster than it is now. It is very easy to imagine what wholesale Democratic party defeat would look like. I'm not arguing that the Dem party will improve things, but I think it's undeniable that when we have two choices, they are the choice that slows down harm and gives us time to make progress elsewhere.
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Jun 25, 2022 19:20
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Zero_Grade posted:The best way I've seen it put is essentially 'The Troubles, but American sized', which really sums it up succinctly. Hoo boy, that is indeed a stark-but-good way of putting it. Have Some Flowers! posted:There is a way to see the real, measurable impact of democratic party opposition. Compare red states and blue states. I live in Texas, where I have to worry about losing my kids if my 2 year old son wants to wear one of his sisters shirts to daycare and another parent decides they want to collect a bounty by reporting a groomer parent to child protective services. Is that a thing in California or New York? So why aren't the Dems making that case? Why is the rhetoric still, "There are good Republicans; we just need to bring them back to sanity! We need a strong Republican Party"? Here are a good couple of tweets from AOC on what the Dems need to do if they want a snowball's chance in hell of at least minimizing their losses in November. This, to me, would look a lot more like they're making the case for voting for them and voting against fascism: https://twitter.com/AOC/status/1540755955373277186 Rigel posted:The alternative is emigration. If you can't do that (most of us cant), then there is nothing else. People have given you plenty of other potentially fruitful avenues for political activity besides voting in this discussion. I know I certainly have. Majorian fucked around with this message at 19:25 on Jun 25, 2022 |
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Jun 25, 2022 19:21
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The Democrats have had many, many opportunities to codify Roe. Abortion rights have been under attack for decades now. The Hyde amendment prevented Native Americans from getting abortions at Indian Health Services since that is run by the federal government. The last abortion clinic in West Virginia just stopped performing abortions. Katie Quinonez, the executive director of the clinic said that Roe was never enough but is was the last thing protecting people in West Virginia. So many abortion clinics have been closed in red states through various schemes, but the response from national Dems was basically do nothing. The Democrats allowed Roe to be the only defense for abortion rights and that is a complete failure on their part.
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Jun 25, 2022 19:22
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Rigel posted:The alternative is emigration. If you can't do that (most of us cant), then there is nothing else.
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Jun 25, 2022 19:23
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The Democrats went out of their way to get Henry Crueller re-elected who is an anti abortion democrat, they don’t give a poo poo outside of theatrics and fundraising. There is no consequence for Sinema and Manchin because that is who they are. Right now only way out is Bernie Sanders/Progressive wing and Americans don’t seem to want to vote left enough to save themselves.
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Jun 25, 2022 19:25
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Uncle Boogeyman posted:I thought I was pessimistic but "there is literally nothing you can do to affect politics except vote" is insanely blackpilled, holy poo poo. The irony is that it's the exact same behavior that drives us nuts about the democratic party leadership, but at the individual level. "We've tried nothing and we're all out of ideas!"
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Jun 25, 2022 19:26
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Rigel posted:The alternative is emigration. If you can't do that (most of us cant), then there is nothing else. It's important to note that emigrating just to get out of America, while understandable, doesn't give you spiritual credit, based on the juristic principal that emigrating for secular reasons only gives you a secular reward: Umar bin Al-Khattab: posted:
In other words, the reward for leaving America to get out of America is that you are no longer there!
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Jun 25, 2022 19:32
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Majorian posted:Hoo boy, that is indeed a stark-but-good way of putting it. That is so much more better than telling people to go vote and asking for money. People need to know what the Dems plan on doing about this. Give us plan A and then the contingencies.
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Jun 25, 2022 19:34
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Majorian posted:So why aren't the Dems making that case? Why is the rhetoric still, "There are good Republicans; we just need to bring them back to sanity! We need a strong Republican Party"?
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Jun 25, 2022 19:37
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This is the same argument I made yesterday, to which the only reply was "Do some research or run for office". Personally I don't believe the Democrats have any sort of coherent plan, again because this is not a priority for them, and I do not think they would ever communicate a plan so clearly and directly to the public because then they might be held accountable for results.
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Jun 25, 2022 19:38
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Uncle Boogeyman posted:I thought I was pessimistic but "there is literally nothing you can do to affect politics except vote" is insanely blackpilled, holy poo poo. If electoralism means "just vote and literally nothing else" to you, then I guess we both have a different idea of what that word means.
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Jun 25, 2022 19:42
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Biden probably would have been advised to not be in the country when the decision went down. His focus remains Ukraine fearing he won’t be able to do anything after November for them.
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Jun 25, 2022 19:47
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Rigel posted:If electoralism means "just vote and literally nothing else" to you, then I guess we both have a different idea of what that word means. What does electoralism mean to you?
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Jun 25, 2022 19:48
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Rigel posted:If electoralism means "just vote and literally nothing else" to you, then I guess we both have a different idea of what that word means. What else does it mean to you? What is electoralism to you other than voting and believing that elected officials will help in an effective way?
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Jun 25, 2022 19:53
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theCalamity posted:What does electoralism mean to you? It includes everything else that goes into convincing people to vote for your ideas, with the overall goal of winning office to do good things. To me, "alternatives to electoralism" implies actions that are outside of trying to win elections, which is..... what exactly. Leaving the country, violent revolution, your state seceding, or just quietly trying to survive while ignoring the world (good luck with that last one when people who hate you have all the power).
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Jun 25, 2022 19:54
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Where do you believe power is gained from?
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Jun 25, 2022 19:57
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Rigel posted:It includes everything else that goes into convincing people to vote for your ideas, with the overall goal of winning office to do good things. I think the easiest way to get to this, would you consider a general strike to be electoralism?
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Jun 25, 2022 19:59
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Rigel posted:It includes everything else that goes into convincing people to vote for your ideas, with the overall goal of winning office to do good things. Some of the most famous and effective progressive political actions carried out by citizens in US history, don't really fit into any of the categories you listed.
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Jun 25, 2022 19:59
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Rigel posted:It includes everything else that goes into convincing people to vote for your ideas, with the overall goal of winning office to do good things. Alternatives to electoralism is exactly what you said, from my understanding. There's direct action, demonstrations, mutual aid, developing dual power structures to name a few. But for you, electoralism is just voting. You're dressing it up, but it comes down to voting. And people voted. The Dems are in power and are failing to meet the people's needs in this moment. What ideas are the Democrats putting for and how are they convincing people to vote for their ideas? All I've seen is just them saying "go vote" and calls for donations to themselves, not to any mutual aid networks or anything, but to their reelection campaigns
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Jun 25, 2022 19:59
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Nonsense posted:If the Democrats can prevent the loss of the Senate in November, that would be pretty unexpected. The House doesn't seem salvageable, Pelosi spiked it. AZ: Mark Kelly is the less controversial of the two Arizona senators, and is fairly well-liked overall. Remains to be seen who his final opponent is, but none of the candidates seem particularly remarkable and he's way way up right now. GA: Warnock lucked out with Herschel Walker getting the nom, that's winnable if the turnout machine works as well as it did in 2020. Also helps that Walker and his idiot son seem determined to continue to put themselves out there at every possible opportunity. Very narrow despite all that because Georgia lol. CO: Bennet is not exciting, but Colorado has swung far enough blue at this point I think it's safe. FL: Unfortunately the Florida Dem party is a fuckin' mess, so Rubio is gonna walk away with this one. MO: The incumbent Blunt is retiring, but I don't see this as a pickup. NC: Another incumbent retiring, with a closer race. This would be a really nice pickup, but I'm not seeing it especially in an off year. Still fairly close at the moment for what that's worth. NH: Hassan's gonna keep it. NV: I don't know how to call this one. Can the incumbency advantage overcome the midterm disadvantage in a slightly blue state? Polls seem to be all over the place right now. OH: Similar to Florida as another big state trending more and more red, but nobody on the right seems to actually like JD Vance. Tim Ryan is a shitass centrist, but he may be able to eke this one out. Too early to know, but a great race to be pessimistic on! PA: Like Georgia, this is another one where the Dems lucked out by having a looney toon nominated on the other side, plus the more progressive blue candidate won. Fetterman's walking away with it, plus as the larger candidate, he could simply eat the smaller candidate. WI: One of the other big hopes for a Dem +1. Primary isn't until August however. In summary: still too early to get reads on some key races, but there's hope to gain mayyybe two seats, four if you're wildly optimistic (in which case, expect Chris Coons, Sherrod Brown, Jon Tester, and/or Tim Kaine to start whining about progressives, probably in that order). Zero_Grade fucked around with this message at 20:03 on Jun 25, 2022 |
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Jun 25, 2022 20:00
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Majorian posted:What can be done to avoid it? I'm genuinely asking. Getting the "left," such as it is, to turn out to vote in November isn't going to make much of a difference; the number of leftists who don't already turn out to vote anyway is pretty small. The much bigger problem for the Dems is that they're hemorrhaging non-ideological working-class black and brown voters, who aren't turning out for the Dems reliably because the Dems don't give them much of a reason to turn out anymore. Do you have turnout rate data for working class minority voters? You seem to be insinuating that the turnout rate is decreasing with this statement, but at least in presidential elections overall for minority groups, turnout has [slowly] increased since 1996. And for most races, it's at least as high as it was in 1976  https://www.statista.com/statistics/1096113/voter-turnout-presidential-elections-by-ethnicity-historical/
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Jun 25, 2022 20:05
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Gumball Gumption posted:I think the easiest way to get to this, would you consider a general strike to be electoralism? It is possible, I suppose, depending on the circumstances. Even if the goal wasn't necessarily to win an election, I wouldn't be opposed to it, but I don't think it is a realistic option at all in our country, given the history and the culture. A general strike is not going to be a thing in the US anytime soon. Any serious attempt to call for one this year in the USA would most likely have a rather sad and pathetic end as almost no one participates while the far right gleefully mocks the effort.
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Jun 25, 2022 20:06
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Rigel posted:It includes everything else that goes into convincing people to vote for your ideas, with the overall goal of winning office to do good things. I think it might be useful to try a mental exercise. Ask yourself: what would you do if voting was made illegal? I want you to seriously explore that question, and not just fall back to a lazy binary of "well I guess it's either violence or nothing". What would you want to do if voting wasn't an option? What would you try to do? What would you be prepared to do?
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Jun 25, 2022 20:07
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Rigel posted:It is possible, I suppose, depending on the circumstances. I'm really just asking to understand your definition of electoralism, I don't need this doomer poo poo. You are a self fulfilling prophecy of the culture you keep complaining about.
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Jun 25, 2022 20:08
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Majorian posted:It helps that Capital is very much on their side and very much not on ours. The billionaire class is only too happy to bankroll insurgent right-wing candidates and movements because hey, shockingly they always seem to benefit from it. But also, the broader left (let's say that's everyone to the left of the Dem mainstream) does reliably turn out in elections to vote blue no matter who. See this Pew study, and of course, read "liberal" as "left-wing," because our political media is really stupid and loves to treat those labels as synonyms. The groups that don't reliably turn out for the Dems tend to be working-class people of color. that article is really not make the case that you're suggesting it does quote:Black voters form the core of the Democratic Party base. They cast ballots for Democrats in greater proportions than pretty much any other demographic group. Without the massive backing of Black voters, the last three Democratic nominees (Joe Biden, Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama) would not have made it to the general election. It's disproportionate mostly because it is so high. You're talking about by far the most solidly democratic constituency in the country and in 2020 much of the rise in black support of non-dem candidates was the result of non-partisan gotv efforts. black turnout as a whole was significantly up and efforts were not targeted towards any specific party and previously non-voters were less uniformly on one side than long-time regular voters. Like he's less popular, but that framing you used is wilfully ignoring the bigger picture. Black voters are the core dem constituency more than anything else.  Chart ends in 2017, but you're looking at about a 1% change from 2016 to 2020. I am also deeply skeptical that republicans are going to succesfully convert a lot of voters as long as they're going full speed into their turner diary fantasy poo poo. Zero_Grade posted:The best way I've seen it put is essentially 'The Troubles, but American sized', which really sums it up succinctly. Anyone who doesn't find that possibility terrifying is an idiot and is deluding themselves. Herstory Begins Now fucked around with this message at 20:19 on Jun 25, 2022 |
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Jun 25, 2022 20:15
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Rigel posted:It is possible, I suppose, depending on the circumstances. We have a robust tradition of direct action in this country. From sit ins at lunch counters to literally chopping up bars to pieces with a hatchet.
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Jun 25, 2022 20:16
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Gumball Gumption posted:I'm really just asking to understand your definition of electoralism, I don't need this doomer poo poo. You are a self fulfilling prophecy of the culture you keep complaining about. Anything short of actually having power and controlling government is a woefully inadequate substitute. To me, demonstrations are just an aggressive high-risk part of electoralism, it is sending a message not really to those in power because they will just ignore you and crack down if your movement isn't popular, but to send a message to voters that your issues should matter. Demonstrations are an aggressive form of convincing people. Demonstrations alone really don't do poo poo long term, its the use of power that came from winning elections that those demonstrations could have made possible. They could also change the views of existing politicians who see the winds of change and want to be re-elected, but that is also electoralism.
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Jun 25, 2022 20:21
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Rigel posted:Anything short of actually having power and controlling government is a woefully inadequate substitute. To me, demonstrations are just an aggressive high-risk part of electoralism, it is sending a message not really to those in power because they will just ignore you and crack down if your movement isn't popular, but to send a message to voters that your issues should matter. Demonstrations are an aggressive form of convincing people. You have a very bizarre understanding of electoralism and demonstrations then. Here's my definition: demonstrations are a means of showing (or perhaps "demonstrating") to the people in power that there is a large number of angry people who will not settle down until their needs are met. Your definition only works in democracies, so why are there still demonstrations in non-democratic states? Fister Roboto fucked around with this message at 20:26 on Jun 25, 2022 |
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Jun 25, 2022 20:22
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Rigel posted:It includes everything else that goes into convincing people to vote for your ideas, with the overall goal of winning office to do good things. I also want to add that the Democrats have done a lot in negatively affecting their ability to convince people to vote in general and voting for their ideas. Remember, that the Democrats helped kill ACORN. And after 2008, Obama and the Democrats let the grassroots organization that hurled Obama into the White House wither away: quote:As we now know, that grand vision for a postcampaign movement never came to fruition. Instead of mobilizing his unprecedented grassroots machine to pressure obstructionist lawmakers, support state and local candidates who shared his vision, and counter the Tea Party, Obama mothballed his campaign operation, bottling it up inside the Democratic National Committee. It was the seminal mistake of his presidency—one that set the tone for the next eight years of dashed hopes, and helped pave the way for Donald Trump to harness the pent-up demand for change Obama had unleashed.
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Jun 25, 2022 20:25
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Rigel posted:Anything short of actually having power and controlling government is a woefully inadequate substitute. To me, demonstrations are just an aggressive high-risk part of electoralism, it is sending a message not really to those in power because they will just ignore you and crack down if your movement isn't popular, but to send a message to voters that your issues should matter. Demonstrations are an aggressive form of convincing people. How does popularity decide if there's a crack down or not?
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Jun 25, 2022 20:28
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