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some plague rats posted:Because the Republicans didn't win immediately but they actually kept working at it. They chipped away at abortion on the state level, and cut taxes when they were in power and did all that other culture war poo poo to keep their voters onside. Instead of taking the Democrat approach of shrugging and going "welp, haven't got the votes, guess you guys didn't really want this" while means testing everything to the point where no one can point to a single helpful thing they actually did, they went out there and found ways to actually accomplish a bunch of insanely evil poo poo using the courts, state governments, school boards, etc and demonstrated an actual will to power that convinced a whole raft of people to keep voting because as soon as they get in the repubs would actually work on poo poo their hog voters want Its more like Republican voters go back and vote again and again and again extremely reliably, even if they lose. They don't throw up their hands and say "welp we didn't get what we wanted, so I guess that really means they secretly didn't want to do anything and so voting is a waste of time."
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Jun 28, 2022 02:57
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Rigel posted:Its more like Republican voters go back and vote again and again and again extremely reliably, even if they lose. They don't throw up their hands and say "welp we didn't get what we wanted, so I guess that really means they secretly didn't want to do anything and so voting is a waste of time." Yeah and my contention is that the reason they don't throw up their hands like that is because when the Republicans win they do things that their voters want so they have an incentive to go out and vote. Even if they didn't win this time, they can be sure that when they do they'll get red meat thrown their way.
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Jun 28, 2022 03:04
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I AM GRANDO posted:It’s not projection. Aside from feeling sadness and concern, I’m coming around to a clear understanding that I have been a huge sucker, that the democrats aren’t merely bad at protecting rights or not really interested in doing so, but have absolutely no intention to preserve any rights at all. They were lying the whole time. It’s not a huge discovery because I’ve known how useless they were since Obama, but this is my final parting. They didn't spend that time spinning their wheels and doing nothing, nor did they spend that time merely voting and nothing else. They spent that time involved in ALL KINDS of political work. Expanding their power in local and then state governments, founding all sorts of advocacy groups and protest orgs to put heavy pressure on elected officials, relentlessly trying over and over again to primary out centrists, and making sure to install radicals in every deep-red seat they could. They still showed up and voted R in every general election, because they felt that even a bad R was better than a Dem, but they did a HELL of a lot more than just showing up and voting every four years.
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Jun 28, 2022 03:06
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I remember seeing the difference in strategies when HB2 passed in Texas in 2013, which put restrictions on abortion care to force abortion providers to have admitting privileges to a hospital within 30 miles. They were able to message that in a way which sounded reasonable to people who would answer "legal in certain circumstances". Well yeah, it's medical care, seems safer to have it near a hospital right, what's wrong with that?  Republicans were happy with that incremental progress, and they kept working at it. If the roles were reversed, I can imagine our activists losing their poo poo over the weakness of our reps to compromise and deliver half measures. I see it now in reactions to the gun control bill that just passed this last weekend. We also have to do more to educate people, even those on our own side. I've heard a well-meaning active progressive say "well, late term abortion seems extreme, its an actual baby at that point", not understanding the context of why those happen, how rare they are and so on. It is very easy to pick at the edges of the "legal in certain circumstances" crowd if we aren't getting this information out there. And persuading the electorate in general, I think Dems look at national polls showing our ideas as overwhelmingly popular but we neglect what that means in individual districts.TX-28 recently is a good reminder: https://twitter.com/mkraju/status/1540363530293202949?s=20&t=cAm-kP2j7raHNUcWx2le0g He's not wrong, it's a pretty conservative district even among democratic voters there. Yes we should browbeat Cuellar, but it's also our job to persuade folks in his district, make him the minority in his district so he loses his primary and so we still win in the general after.
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Jun 28, 2022 03:54
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Have Some Flowers! posted:And persuading the electorate in general, I think Dems look at national polls showing our ideas as overwhelmingly popular but we neglect what that means in individual districts.TX-28 recently is a good reminder: Wouldn't it be much easier to persuade Pelosi than the electorate in that district? As the tweet notes, he only survived with heavy support from Pelosi.
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Jun 28, 2022 05:11
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shimmy shimmy posted:Wouldn't it be much easier to persuade Pelosi than the electorate in that district? As the tweet notes, he only survived with heavy support from Pelosi. If instead you persuade the electorate, you win the primary and general election without the undemocratic and problematic step of expecting people to vote for someone who doesn't share their views, and it takes Pelosi out of the equation, and it's a more lasting and durable change. Now you have a community that understands the value of reproductive care, and that's important beyond just the election.
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Jun 28, 2022 05:28
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I think there's another big difference Rs and Ds, and that I don't see people mention very often. And it's that, materially speaking, R issues don't actually matter to them. Abortion, gay rights, trans right, gun rights, you name it. If the Rs ever lose on any of those issues, their lives aren't impacted at all. The implication here is that they can afford to lose on them. They can play the long game. And it also means that R politicians have to be responsive to their voters, because they know that their voters can afford to not support them if they aren't. And on the other side of the coin, D issues are issues of life and death. D voters can't afford to play the long game. They have to vote D or their lives could be significantly worse. And D politicians know this, and they know that it means they don't have to offer them anything more than just being slightly better than the Rs. It seems completely paradoxical, but I think it's a natural consequence of a two-party system. So if you're asking "Rs spent the last 50 years working to repeal Roe, why can't Ds just suck it up and do the same?" And that's one big reason why, imho.
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Jun 28, 2022 05:57
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Have Some Flowers! posted:He survived the primary with Pelosi's support, but if the district is still anti-abortion, it's not certain if his primary challenger would have won in the general. I think she had a good shot for other reasons but, this one issue wasn't going to make it any easier. Wait, am I misunderstanding or are you advancing the argument that running anti-choice pieces of poo poo like Cuellar is fine because maybe people don't want abortion to be legal?
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Jun 28, 2022 06:15
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some plague rats posted:Wait, am I misunderstanding or are you advancing the argument that running anti-choice pieces of poo poo like Cuellar is fine because maybe people don't want abortion to be legal? He's not advancing that argument, no, but in his district, that seems to be true. He's arguing that if you can change the minds of those anti-abortion folks you don't have to worry about thumbs on the scale for POS like Cuellar just because he's pro-life because the people voting will no longer consider that a make or break.
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Jun 28, 2022 06:21
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some plague rats posted:So... We just take his word for it? Do you think the guy who tripped over himself to explain that he was rabidly pro-life and couldn't wait to tighten abortion restrictions successfully presented himself as a moderate? If the argument is he fooled a bunch of low-info people who don't pay attention to politics into thinking he's a moderate that's a fair call, but when we say someone ran as a moderate I'm assuming we're referring to the things they expressed an intention to do when in power, not what a bunch of people who constantly get led around by the nose decided. Yes, Rats, that is exactly what he did. That's what many politicians do. They tell their hardcore supporters one thing, and then tell the general public a different thing. And many times they win doing it, because swing voters only pay attention to ads and maybe some endorsements at the end of the campaign cycle. This is as old as politics itself. And I'll stop being condescending when you do, and maybe admit you were wrong, thanks. There's nothing shame in admitting you made an error while arguing on the internet.
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Jun 28, 2022 06:25
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Mellow Seas posted:Also Dems apparently have a lively Senate primary in IA (Abby Finkenauer vs. Mike Franken), even though Grassley is basically unbeatable. It's a good thing to have a decent candidate for that race because there's always a small chance that somebody as old as Grassley is going to say something incredibly hosed up and make the race competitive. Unfortunately Grassley seems to have a talent for keeping his mouth shut. I apologize for necroposting, but, I am a Des Moines area Iowa Democrat who voted for Franken over Finkenauer. I was annoyed that Finkenauer's campaign had to deal with the signature issue after just a few years ago, Theresa Greenfield's signature count became an issue for her campaign. It came across as an unforced error that gave the Republicans an attack angle. I also admire Admiral Franken personally and think he has a better shot than Finkenauer at unseating Grassley, and I don't think it's the lost cause that others do.
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Jun 28, 2022 06:37
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shimmy shimmy posted:Wouldn't it be much easier to persuade Pelosi than the electorate in that district? As the tweet notes, he only survived with heavy support from Pelosi. TX-28 isn't a deep-blue seat where only the primary matters. Whoever wins the primary goes on to face a GOP candidate who'll have the full support of national Republican organizations. It's kind of important to have the electorate persuaded for that!
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Jun 28, 2022 06:39
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Oracle posted:He's not advancing that argument, no, but in his district, that seems to be true. Main Paineframe posted:TX-28 isn't a deep-blue seat where only the primary matters. Whoever wins the primary goes on to face a GOP candidate who'll have the full support of national Republican organizations. It's kind of important to have the electorate persuaded for that! Seems like this puts you on a hiding to nothing, though. If people are anti-abortion enough that it influences their vote, why would they ever vote for a Dem, regardless of how he personally feels on it, when they can just vote for the candidate of the anti-abortion party that repealed RvW? Where is the sense in running diet republicans when the real thing is right there and available to vote for? How the gently caress is "I believe the same things as that guy, but unlike him the party I'm representing doesn't support them, so... vote for me anyway!" a winning pitch?? If the idea is to attract people who agree with the majority of the Dem platform but don't like the national stance on abortion... They already agree with the majority of the Dem platform. They're not going to vote republican. Run someone who can generate some grassroots enthusiasm, someone who doesn't oppose the party on the most important issue of the last decade, and doesn't have to be dragged across the finish line by the vampires at the DNC. some plague rats fucked around with this message at 07:09 on Jun 28, 2022 |
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Jun 28, 2022 07:05
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Oracle posted:He's not advancing that argument, no, but in his district, that seems to be true. Pieces of poo poo like Cuellar shouldn't have received support in the first place. It's not some inevitable force of nature, the DNC looked at a dude who loathed women and said "This is who we want to represent our party"
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Jun 28, 2022 07:12
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some plague rats posted:Wait, am I misunderstanding or are you advancing the argument that running anti-choice pieces of poo poo like Cuellar is fine because maybe people don't want abortion to be legal? Here's an expert on this specific situation: quote:Rice University political science professor Mark Jones said it's smart of Cisneros to target Cuellar's anti-abortion stance, saying the leak of the draft opinion is "manna from heaven" for her and a "plague" for Cuellar. My strategy is, persuade the voters. Then either Cuellar moves left, or Cisneros wins the primary and is now also most positioned to win the general. The Eye of Pelosi moves on to other races because this one looks to be in good shape for a win, the only thing she cares about. And now you also reap huge benefits from having a community that better values and supports reproductive rights and services. some plague rats posted:Seems like this puts you on a hiding to nothing, though. If people are anti-abortion enough that it influences their vote, why would they ever vote for a Dem, regardless of how he personally feels on it, when they can just vote for the candidate of the anti-abortion party that repealed RvW? Where is the sense in running diet republicans when the real thing is right there and available to vote for? How the gently caress is "I believe the same things as that guy, but unlike him the party I'm representing doesn't support them, so... vote for me anyway!" a winning pitch?? Here's one example: AP News article from May 2022, "Texas race tests abortion’s resonance with Democratic voters" posted:At a food truck outside San Antonio, Citi Ramos, 64, teared up describing her opposition to abortion while taking a break from serving tacos and burgers to customers. She called herself a Democrat and strong Catholic who typically doesn’t get involved in politics. But, she said, Cisneros’ position is one she can’t sit out.
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Jun 28, 2022 07:36
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Have Some Flowers! posted:
Pretty sure he meant persuade Pelosi to stay the hell home and let Cisneros run a fair race instead of dragging her carcass down there to put a thumb on the scales?
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Jun 28, 2022 07:42
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That would still be incompatible motivations if she thought that Cuellar was best positioned to win the general, because that is the most important thing she cares about.
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Jun 28, 2022 07:47
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Have Some Flowers! posted:That would still be incompatible motivations if she thought that Cuellar was best positioned to win the general, because that is the most important thing she cares about. You have a lot more faith in Pelosi than I do! Personally I would assume her intervention was more about crushing left-wing candidates and ensuring center to right ones are given a clear run, as the DNC reliably does. Without her intervention he would probably have lost the primary, that doesn't sound like someone "best positioned to win the general" if he can't even rally the support of his own voters?
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Jun 28, 2022 07:53
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Assuming you're correct (and I agree with you that that's part of it) then the other poster's strategy of "persuade Pelosi to let Cisneros run a fair race" is even less viable.
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Jun 28, 2022 08:08
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some plague rats posted:Pretty sure he meant persuade Pelosi to stay the hell home and let Cisneros run a fair race instead of dragging her carcass down there to put a thumb on the scales? She, fwiw. Have Some Flowers! posted:My argument is that if we can win over the actual people in the district to become more pro-choice, we don't have to consider a compromise like Cuellar in the first place. It was mostly a throw-away hypothetical. I don't think "influencing and/or removing one politician who is very old" is a bigger ask than trying to adjust the views of a decent-sized portion of the electorate; if you think you're more likely to be able to shift the voters there than shift Pelosi it just seems to illustrate the potential futility of either. Dem leadership, specifically Pelosi but also others, wants anti-abortion Dems like Cuellar to be part of the face of the party. It's been something she's talked about for a while. You're assuming that, essentially, Pelosi is making some kind of tough choice here and would love to not have to, but it's what she wants. Here's a few articles about it from 2017 and 2018, it's not a new thing. https://www.cnn.com/2017/05/03/politics/nancy-pelosi-democratic-party-abortion/index.html https://thehill.com/homenews/house/384638-pelosi-rejects-litmus-test-on-abortion/ You might argue that this bites them in the rear end when it turns out Whoops, Roe Is Important but hey, it's not really her problem.
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Jun 28, 2022 08:31
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shimmy shimmy posted:She, fwiw. Noted! Sorry, no way to check profile on awfulapp but still shouldn't assume
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Jun 28, 2022 09:06
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Have Some Flowers! posted:That would still be incompatible motivations if she thought that Cuellar was best positioned to win the general, because that is the most important thing she cares about. This is an article of faith which assumes facts not in evidence.
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Jun 28, 2022 12:45
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Have Some Flowers! posted:He survived the primary with Pelosi's support, but if the district is still anti-abortion, it's not certain if his primary challenger would have won in the general. I think she had a good shot for other reasons but, this one issue wasn't going to make it any easier. Educating people like this is a great idea and would be a great solution. Also the Democratic party has had many chances to do this and at least with Cuellar they've supported him since he won the seat in 2005 against a more liberal Democrat in Ciro Rodriguez. He's been in that seat for over 10 years now, it will hit 20 once he wins. No one in the Democratic party wants to enact your plan or wants the things it would get or they would have tried by now.
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Jun 28, 2022 13:13
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Y’all forgetting that districts in Texas are severely gerrymandered. TX-28 goes from the border to San Antonio.
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Jun 28, 2022 15:28
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shimmy shimmy posted:You're assuming that, essentially, Pelosi is making some kind of tough choice here and would love to not have to, but it's what she wants. "https://thehill.com/homenews/house/384638-pelosi-rejects-litmus-test-on-abortion posted:Taking questions from students at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C., Pelosi said the Democrats’ broader goal of winning the House is more important than the views of any one candidate on a particular issue. Gumball Gumption posted:No one in the Democratic party wants to enact your plan or wants the things it would get or they would have tried by now. That's why our strategy as activists/leftists/progressives/liberals needs to include moving the electorate itself to the left so the Dems have to chase us, rather than us just chasing Dem leadership all the time.
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Jun 28, 2022 15:49
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Have Some Flowers! posted:That's why our strategy as activists/leftists/progressives/liberals needs to include moving the electorate itself to the left so the Dems have to chase us, rather than us just chasing Dem leadership all the time. So what about on issues where the country is already left? The country loves the idea of Medicare For All, it's consistently extremely popular whenever it's polled, hell it's still above 50% popularity even when you tell people that it might increase their taxes. The country loves certain lefty policies like this. M4A, legal weed, universal background checks for gun ownership, all of these ideas poll extremely highly. Why aren't the Democrats pushing these policies that seem like election winners? Why do they spend so much of their time fighting candidates who run on these kind of policies? Source on M4A polling: https://thehill.com/hilltv/what-americas-thinking/494602-poll-69-percent-of-voters-support-medicare-for-all/ quote:Support for Medicare for All has remained consistently strong over the past two years, according to a new Hill-HarrisX poll.
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Jun 28, 2022 16:03
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WampaLord posted:So what about on issues where the country is already left? The country loves the idea of Medicare For All, it's consistently extremely popular whenever it's polled, hell it's still above 50% popularity even when you tell people that it might increase their taxes. There are plenty of candidates who do just that and get washed all over the place- people will say they support the policies, but then never actually vote for the politicians espousing them.
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Jun 28, 2022 16:05
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Panzeh posted:There are plenty of candidates who do just that and get washed all over the place- people will say they support the policies, but then never actually vote for the politicians espousing them. I think that has more to do with massive capital interests tied into both liberal and right wing politics uniting to crush a very popular policy that would instantly wipe out potentially billions of dollars of grifted revenue overnight.
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Jun 28, 2022 16:22
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SMEGMA_MAIL posted:I think that has more to do with massive capital interests tied into both liberal and right wing politics uniting to crush a very popular policy that would instantly wipe out potentially billions of dollars of grifted revenue overnight. I guess you could say shadowy forces are at work, or you could say the things that get people to vote for candidates are different, or perhaps you could consider that support for policies varies by region. Up to you. Bernie couldn't even win a democratic presidential primary. His opponents did in fact do politicking, but the person behind the 'massively supported' policies should be able to overcome things. He had more money. If your favored political strategy rests on 11 opponents staying in the race and them never securing endorsement while you receive nothing but fawning media coverage, maybe it isn't that good a strategy in the first place. (USER WAS PUT ON PROBATION FOR THIS POST) Panzeh fucked around with this message at 16:30 on Jun 28, 2022 |
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Jun 28, 2022 16:26
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WampaLord posted:So what about on issues where the country is already left? The country loves the idea of Medicare For All, it's consistently extremely popular whenever it's polled, hell it's still above 50% popularity even when you tell people that it might increase their taxes. I would think that the better question is, why won't the people on those elections vote for said candidates? Are the people voting simply not part of the population that likes those things because as a constituency they don't benefit? If so, the left primary candidates should be getting in new constituencies to vote by any method possible. Is it because the messaging is more effective by the establishment? If so, the left needs to make their existing message more efficient, or develop new, more efficient methods of messaging. Is it because the type of people who vote for these things find greater obstacles in their way if trying to vote? If so, the left needs to find ways to remove these obstacles. When I look at the campaigns of progressive vs. establishment candidates, barring few examples who rise above in messaging due to innate or practiced charisma (or both) or fame outside politics - the voter gathering, messaging, and dealing with obstacles is identical except one candidate has more money behind them. If one candidate is for M4A and one candidate is for things that sound as good as M4A for the layman who can't discern a difference - are the two campaigns really different? Is it surprising when you play by the same rules and tactics as somebody who has more resources and experience behind their game, that the latter wins? I find myself asking all of this every time I look at Democratic primaries. And I honestly wonder how many progressive candidates do. Because while complaining about establishment Democrats would win 100% of the SA vote, its not enough for a wider election, clearly and that seems to be the only thing progressive candidates do that establishment doesn't that is radically different. And even those who win don't win based on that (but because of charisma). DarkCrawler fucked around with this message at 16:37 on Jun 28, 2022 |
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Jun 28, 2022 16:29
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Panzeh posted:I guess you could say shadowy forces are at work, or you could say the things that get people to vote for candidates are different, or perhaps you could consider that support for policies varies by region. Up to you. They’re not really shadowy. They had y their class interest ms and work towards that coupled with billions of money.
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Jun 28, 2022 16:29
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theCalamity posted:They’re not really shadowy. They had y their class interest ms and work towards that coupled with billions of money. These candidates often lose even when they have more money than their opponents.
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Jun 28, 2022 16:31
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WampaLord posted:So what about on issues where the country is already left? The country loves the idea of Medicare For All, it's consistently extremely popular whenever it's polled
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Jun 28, 2022 16:38
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some fresh post-dobbs polling https://twitter.com/lxeagle17/status/1541794894112358400 not sure how this will translate to November, but it is interesting to see the shift occur.
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Jun 28, 2022 16:39
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For example, if policy were the most important thing in american voters' minds, state legislators would have policy preferences in line with ballot measures. While gerrymandering is certainly a part of it, there's also the simple fact that people prioritize issues- it's easy to find someone to say "M4A Y/N" but hard for someone to say "M4A will determine my vote".
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Jun 28, 2022 16:42
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WampaLord posted:So what about on issues where the country is already left? The country loves the idea of Medicare For All, it's consistently extremely popular whenever it's polled, hell it's still above 50% popularity even when you tell people that it might increase their taxes. Because running on those policies hasn't been a path to electoral success. Regardless of what generic issue polling may say, the past couple of decades have made it extremely clear that voters across a wide geographic swath of the US do not actually care about those issues enough to make them a primary factor in their voting decisions. The left really has no choice to move past this kind of thinking. If these policies really are overwhelmingly popular and easy election winners, then progressives should be able to prove it through action: by riding those policies to easy yet overwhelming election wins. If we can't back up that hypothesis with results, then the natural conclusion is that the hypothesis isn't true. And if it isn't true, then being stuck on it is actively counterproductive. If these policies aren't absolute election-winners, then we need to figure out how to Do Better. If we're not winning elections, then we need to change our strategy somehow Yes, even if the party actively opposes the candidate: if these policies can't even beat a conservative Democrat with the support of national Dems, then we don't exactly have much basis for claiming that they could easily beat a conservative Republican with the support of the national GOP. If Pelosi's endorsement is worth more in Texas than these "election winner" policies, then calling them "election winners" is just deluding ourselves. Even the centrists realize that much! They're not going to take political advice from a faction that has very little political success of their own. If we want to tell them how to win elections, we need to win elections ourselves, and then lead by example.
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Jun 28, 2022 17:22
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of course, moderating those positions has ALSO not proven to be a vote-winner: witness the tidal waves of conservative support that failed to materialize following the centrists' "raping subordinates is no longer something worthy of censure" and "we can have little a child concentration camps, as a treat" initiatives. this leaves little confidence in the current centrist brainwave marketing itself as 'popularism' to disguise its actual proposal, which is to just let the right do whatever it wants to trans people because protecting them isn't worth the hassle. the value of incumbency is tremendous, and must be overcome. we have witnessed that appealing to these policies, alone, is not sufficient. living memory shows us that jettisoning them doesn't work either.
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Jun 28, 2022 17:52
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What and what isn't a vote winner seems to be entirely dependent on how they are said, not what is being said (charisma vs policy). That, or hate. All this waffling over policies and centrism vs progressivism seems to ultimately be completely meaningless. Either you find a person who everybody you try to appeal to likes, or you find a target that is easy for them to hate. The attention span for anything else just doesn't seem to be there.
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Jun 28, 2022 18:29
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Look how the conservative machine gins up culture war issues for it’s base. You used to have conservatives who might be not exactly enlightened but willing to vote for gay marriage now braying for the blood of the cabal of globohomo groomers. The liberals have been trying to do this with guns which is an unpopular issue almost anywhere electorally important. If even a tiny amount of effort was put into popularizing M4A or legal weed as wedge issues core to the party it would probably work. It’s just that both those are against what the donors want. The Dems would rather lose and fail to implement policy on capital’s approved platform than win, because the former is better individually for the DNC elites.
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Jun 28, 2022 18:31
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Have Some Flowers! posted:The strategy the other poster advanced was: persuade Pelosi, who would then browbeat Cuellar into more pro-choice positions. But let's play it out - this would put him at odds with his district on this issue that it happens to be conservative about, reducing the odds of him winning in the general election. I can follow the logic but I think the probability of Cuellar winning the general in that district are always 100% regardless of his stance on abortion. His margin of victory in the 2020 general was a 19.3pp landslide, in 2016 it was 34.9pp. In midterm years it's always over 68pp because the GOP can't even find someone to run. This is not a district where Democrats have to worry about electability. The woman you quote from that article was motivated to support Cuellar in the primary because he's anti-abortion, but that doesn't mean she wouldn't've voted for Cisernos in the general election - and it's really unlikely she'd've voted for the Republican, because voting behavior is so linked to partisan identity. I think Pelosi's intervention in the primary was about incumbent vs. challenger, not about Cisernos being potentially unable to win a district where the Democrat always wins by a landslide.
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Jun 28, 2022 18:33
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