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Fulchrum posted:Keyword here being in the primaries. In the context of just among democrats, it's viable for an individual. However, in nationwide polling as a concept, it still polls poorly. That's hardly a point worth defending. Yeah, if you run a nationwide poll and ask people "would you vote for a socialist president" the result should be obvious. It says less than nothing about how an actual socialist with a solid narrative would perform in an election. Sanders had something that Clinton lacked: a clear vision of the future. Centrism just isn't a narrative. To win anything, Democratic candidates have to be able to articulate a clear picture of what the future looks like. The only way you can win anything with 3rd-way-ism is if the candidate themselves have a powerful enough personal narrative to fill in the gaps. Whether you call it socialism or not, a well-articulated, progressive vision of the future will win elections. Hell, Booker is a bald-faced, obvious hypocrite but he's still a superstar for being able to do what people like Pelosi and Schumer can't: Paint a loving Picture.
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Feb 5, 2017 02:48
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Keep in mind, Schumer has had people camped outside his house in Brooklyn screaming at the top of their lungs pretty much constantly since the inauguration. The locals have made it pretty clear that he either stands up for progressives or gets voted the gently caress out. My favorite moment was around 100 people showing up with literal spines. At least here in New York, the opposition to Trump has very little centrism in it, and it's starting to rub off on Schumer.
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Feb 8, 2017 00:58
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Literally the only substantial difference I can see between Ellison and Perez is that Ellison explicitly backs banning lobbyist contributions to the DNC, where Perez hasn't committed to the idea. It's not as important a point as it seems anyway, since the DNC chair has no power to unilaterally impose the rule. They both acknowledge that the joint fundraising agreement with Clinton was a horrible idea, they're both for reforming the superdelegate system (though neither suggests an alternative) and they both want to return to Dean's 50 state strategy. The narrative that it's a Sanders wing / Clinton wing referendum is straight up ignorant. Neither of them has a coherent narrative, or a particularly clear vision of the future for the DNC. If you're looking for compelling leftist leadership in this race, hoo boy are you barking up the wrong tree.
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Feb 9, 2017 22:22
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BI NOW GAY LATER posted:The Joint Fundraising Agreement is such a dumb red herring though. I mean, practically everything the DNC is concerned with is a dumb red herring. Everyone in the organization, including Ellison and Perez, are dying to get their hands on Sanders' email list. They genuinely seem to think that sending unsolicited DNC fundraising emails to loving Sanders donors is a good strategy.
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Feb 9, 2017 23:08
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Zerilan posted:Because "the left" that's crying about Perez mostly consists of the cult of personality around maple grandpa and think that because Sanders supports Ellison that Ellison is the only true progressive in the running any anyone else is Hilobama's establishment puppet. It's certainly dumb as hell, but as has been pointed out, it's not like going with Ellison will lose anything for the DNC. They're basically the same candidate, except he has better optics and the support of low information socialists. If Perez loses because there are enough people in America who define their narrative entirely by Sanders soundbites, that's a really, really good sign for the left. I'm having a real hard time seeing a downside to Sanders being able to rally the kind of people who usually don't vote or think very hard about politics.
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Feb 10, 2017 00:55
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Cease to Hope posted:The DNC chair is not a public election! All of the voters are Democratic Party officials. Everyone voting is not only involved in politics, but at least a semi-professional political organizer. I'm entirely aware of that. Are you arguing that public opinion has no bearing on how this vote will play out?
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Feb 10, 2017 01:09
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Megaman's Jockstrap posted:What you basically have in this thread is 3 hardline Clintonites trying to gaslight everyone into thinking that Tom Perez and Keith Ellison are the same guy and those insisting on Ellison are being whiny little partisan babies. What significant differences are there between the strategies and vision proposed by these two candidates? You seem to think this is a progressive vs centrist referendum, what evidence led you to this belief?
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Feb 10, 2017 18:15
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NNick posted:It is a proxy war because the grievances are real and the fear of history repeating itself is real. Do you believe that Ellison represents a major shift in strategy for the DNC? What led you to this belief?
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Feb 10, 2017 18:17
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RaySmuckles posted:oh cool, the intercept has an article about literally everything we're talking about that does a great job of covering it. See, I hadn't watched Perez completely stonewall that reporter. This article genuinely changed my mind. I'm still not convinced that Ellison would hold any different position re: israel than Perez would, but I'm fairly confident he wouldn't slink away from a fair, direct question like that like a loving coward.
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Feb 10, 2017 20:45
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Fiction posted:that guy is dumb but he's also right that people expect a sign that the party understands how it did wrong and is aiming to fix that. i don't think it'll be an entire split if perez wins because he's perfectly capable of doing that imo but there's a reason for the trepidation around him. I don't know about that. Look at Perez' twitter feed. It's literally a greatest hits record from Hillary's campaign playbook. I think the sum of it is this painfully staged photo op with black high school students where he refers to institutional racism as an "opportunity gap". The whole thing is a carefully curated, inoffensive, tone deaf round of kum ba yah. Whatever actual opposition to Trump is there is in utterly meaningless and cringeworthy platitudes. Now look at Ellison's. It looks like the feed of your average leftist activist. It's not polished, it's current, it's relevant and it doesn't go out of its way to editorialize. There's a clear political momentum inferred by it. Extremely serious political things are happening right now, and Ellison is at least aware of them, if not directly involved. Which of these twitter feeds do you want to represent the party? Which do you think is effective in restoring populist legitimacy? I don't think there's a shred of actual policy difference between these two men, but I'm no longer convinced that matters at all. The DNC chair is a fundraiser, first and foremost, and Ellison has the potential to create the kind of populist momentum that Obama did in 2008 and Sanders did last year.
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Feb 10, 2017 21:12
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At least 5 times, yes.
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Feb 10, 2017 22:34
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WhiskeyJuvenile posted:MD Gov: Perez I like this a lot, but only if Warren doesn't run in 2020.
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Feb 11, 2017 06:48
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WhiskeyJuvenile posted:Gonna have to be ageist here wow holy gently caress I didn't even realize she was 67. She looks easily 10 years younger.
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Feb 11, 2017 17:49
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Convergence posted:Maryland's republican governor is actually pretty great and has a >70% approval rating, and is no threat because of the eternally blue legislature. He's one of the very, very few examples of actual functional fiscal conservatives (and not insane corrupt ideologues). He also loathes Trump. I don't really care if the governor of Maryland is the second coming of black baby jesus, the republicans are exactly one state away from being able to call a constitutional convention and he must be deposed at all costs.
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Feb 12, 2017 07:25
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Nevvy Z posted:Blaming people in general isn't helpful, but blaming the exact wrong people seems worse to me, for some reason. I don't think it's unreasonable to feel like the DNC had some complicity in Trump's election. I also don't think you're doing any good by dismissing people who feel that way. I also think democrats who are unwilling to examine what went wrong, why the message of the DNC isn't resonating and what needs to change right now for it to be effective should sit down and get out of the way. Defending Hillary does no good for anyone at this point. She lost, and she's out of the game. The only way forward is to focus only on what works, and it's increasingly clear that centrism and compromise with the right is not it.
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Feb 16, 2017 17:06
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BI NOW GAY LATER posted:Wherein you treat Hillary and Bill as the same person and also get your history wrong about Bill "stabbing the left in the back" (He didn't, because he never ran on a promise to do anything for the left.) I hadn't realized that running for president as the candidate for the left wing political party of the united states doesn't count as a promise to do things for the left.
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Feb 16, 2017 17:15
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BI NOW GAY LATER posted:That's a different loving concept from "he betrayed us!" He never promised you anything, you assholes. You're right that he never promised anything other than mealy-mouthed centrist apologies. It doesn't change the fact that he hired current Tea Party Patriot Dick Morris for his 96 reelection in response to Gingrich's stranglehold on the House and swung hard right. He did not end his presidency on the same platform that he started on, he absolutely did change course completely in his second term, and it's hard to see that as anything but a betrayal. How old were you in the 90s?
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Feb 16, 2017 17:33
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BI NOW GAY LATER posted:You're more than welcome to criticize Bill and the Third Way. I generally agree that a lot of that poo poo was hosed up; what I don't agree with is the stupidity of pretending it was some sort of "back stab." You're rabidly defending this extremely reduced narrative that you've invented that nobody's attacking, and it's weird. Clinton's legacy isn't nearly as straightforward as you're making it, and nobody's really arguing with you on that anyway. You should let it go, I think most of the people in this thread probably agree with you on the basic issues we're discussing in here.
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Feb 16, 2017 17:48
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BI NOW GAY LATER posted:Dude, the last 200 posts of this thread have been people crying about how they won't ever support the DNC ever again if they choose Perez over Ellison and it all comes back to the same dumb poo poo about how the "left has been serially betrayed by the Evil Clinton Establishment." It's the fuckin heart of the issue. You're seriously this upset because people feel betrayed rather than just let down by Bill Clinton 20 years ago? You're literally debating whether he showed up as a centrist or made some concession to the left in nineteen ninety loving two. We all agree that he ended up a right wing shitheel so same difference, who cares, let's move the gently caress on already christ.
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Feb 16, 2017 17:59
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BI NOW GAY LATER posted:I am annoyed because people continue to act like they've gotten absolutely nothing from the party. I am annoyed because people are saying they'd rather stay home than vote for someone they don't agree 100%, enabling fascist, racist monsters to take control of their government. So yeah I care. I care because we had a candidate running openly on a platform of racial, social and economic justice and a bunch of loving assholes wanted to say "but democrats are just as bad." I agree with all of this. I voted for Bernie in the primary, and I actively campaigned for Hillary once she was the nominee, and I was overjoyed that she adopted Bernie's platform wholesale. But we can't continue to support candidates who have no hope of actually selling that platform. Hillary's strategy to win back bernie supporters wasn't to paint a clear, vivid picture of a future that includes civil equality, socialized medicine and education, and strong labor protections. She put it on her website, and went back to her bland narrative of compromise and institution because that's what she knows how to do. I don't doubt she would have enacted that plan if she was president, but neither she nor any other centrist can sell the message, even if they're smart enough to realize that's what the public is asking for. The progressive wing is the way forward, and the purity testing is not necessarily a bad thing. We need to have better internal vetting if we want better candidates and if that means a big loud argument within the party right now, that's a very very small price to pay. We should be overjoyed that Democrats are finally having an internal debate that even considers adopting real leftism.
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Feb 16, 2017 18:22
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Chelb posted:I don't necessarily disagree with this. I do think Hillary Clinton espoused policies during her campaign that explicitly moved away from her husband, but the bigger questions I have are these: Neither of them represent the progressive wing, but Ellison is explicitly saying that he will shift the fundraising strategy away from big donors. That is the single most important thing the Democrats can do to gain public support. It indicates a move away from the kind of "pity-charity" liberalism that appeals to the very rich and very poor, and a move toward solidarity with the middle class working majority.
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Feb 16, 2017 18:42
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Lightning Knight posted:The middle class is only the majority if you accept the Federal poverty line as the bar for being poor. In practical terms, people at the median income level of 50-60k a year are a single moderate financial issue away from total economic failure, and that group together with the lower brackets makes up the majority of the country as working poor. The fact that the middle class is completely hosed is not lost on me, nor does it alter my point. Lightning Knight posted:I don't disagree with your idea that modern liberalism as a charity pursuit of the rich is bad, just in your framing of the way forward as Bernie's "bring the factories back" rhetoric. The future is in green energy, infrastructure, and wealth redistribution. Bernie's rhetoric has never been "bring the factories back" it's always explicitly been "The future is in green energy, infrastructure, and wealth redistribution". Nor do I want to bring factories back, nor did I say anything of the sort. In fact, I disagree with Bernie about NAFTA, but that's a whole other argument.
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Feb 16, 2017 19:07
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BI NOW GAY LATER posted:I think we're better served by not using Bernie as template for how to talk about progressive issues to people because I think he lacks the vocabulary to talk about it in a way that's not just shy of Corbynism. If you can show me someone who has been more effective in engaging Americans in progressive politics in recent history, I'll gladly use them instead.
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Feb 16, 2017 19:10
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Lightning Knight posted:I guess my peeve is that by emphasizing the middle class, we by definition presuppose that there must be a class lower than them to serve as the Other. It buys into the class politics of the right. The thing we need to shift is the idea that solidarity with the middle class necessarily means "at the expense of the poor". We can't do that if we don't acknowledge the identity of the middle class. We can't change class politics by pretending they don't exist.
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Feb 16, 2017 19:14
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BI NOW GAY LATER posted:I don't think he's been all that effective. I can't really process how you could possibly think that. Is there an alternative progressive politician whose success you think the DNC should model?
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Feb 16, 2017 19:15
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JeffersonClay posted:Bullshit. Decrying the loss of American manufacturing and advocating trade policies that encourage american companies to stop outsourcing is not the same thing as advocating bringing factories back.
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Feb 16, 2017 19:24
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Lightning Knight posted:Then how do you escape the reality that the American middle class is overwhelmingly spiteful and hateful towards the poor? It doesn't matter as much as you think it does. The Republicans feed that hatred because they have nothing else to offer. The middle class knows the Republicans are loving them, but at least they're showing up and pretending to listen. The middle class will vote in its own best interest when it's provided an opportunity and narrative to grab onto.
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Feb 16, 2017 19:29
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JeffersonClay posted:He's obviously talking about creating trade policies that will rebuild American manufacturing. If that really wasn't his intention, then he hosed up real bad and inadvertantly primed the rust belt to fall for trump. Where did he do that? What speech?
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Feb 16, 2017 19:31
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JeffersonClay posted:It takes willful ignorance to look at that quote and not see the implication. I see a rallying cry against NAFTA that I don't necessarily agree with, but what I don't see is a promise to bring back manufacturing. What I have seen all over his website and in a shitload of interviews is a promise to grow a green energy economy, invest in infrastructure, increase broadband access and make state college free so people can get jobs relevant to the current economy. I've just literally never seen him advocate for manufacturing, so I'm wondering if that actually happened or not.
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Feb 16, 2017 19:39
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JeffersonClay posted:I care that after Bernie had decisively lost his dumbest supporters guzzled down naked ratfucking like it was ambrosia. Bernie's dumbest supporters are annoying, but I don't get how they're statistically significant enough to generate as much outrage as you seem to harbor. The vast, vast, vast majority of Bernie supporters voted for Hillary.
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Feb 16, 2017 20:35
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JeffersonClay posted:No it's ratfucking to hack your opponents and leak information that will inflame tensions in your opponent's coalition. You can't be this obtuse. It was certainly an attempt at ratfucking Hillary, and it may have cost her the election. And that sucks. But we're here now, and the conversation that this started effectively deposed Schultz as the chair and started the Democrats down what could be the path to being the party that doesn't just offer up the least bad option, but actually presents candidates that can sell progressive policies to the working class. Being mad at Bernie bros for being lovely about identity politics and party solidarity is the least helpful response to any of this. What we should be doing is embracing the debate that's happening right now and encourage the Democratic party to finally, actually embrace and enforce the spirit of the New Deal. We can either do it now, or we can do it after the next Great Depression. Financial deregulation and climate change aren't going to wait for us to come to our senses.
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Feb 17, 2017 06:08
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JeffersonClay posted:I'm not really excited for Ellison to win precisely because it would validate a strategy I think has significant risks. We've lost 900+ seats over 8 years, and Republicans are about to hold all three branches of government. Why should the Democratic party be risk-averse in any way? What is there left to protect?
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Feb 17, 2017 07:30
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JeffersonClay posted:For what? A higher minimum wage? That's great! Does that mean that democrats should fight for 15 and reject any lower amount as a spineless compromise? I don't think so. A 10 dollar federal minimum has more support than a 12 dollar minimum, and they both have more support than a 15 dollar minimum, which polls below 50% often enough to worry me. This is exactly the sort of spineless, data-driven waffling that loses elections and makes the public lose faith in the party. We've been fighting to compromise for what's possible for a decade, and we've lost horrendously as a result, and we've deserved it. Our opponents have been presenting a fascist, top-down vision of what the future should look like while we run around meekly taking the temperature of our constituents and trying to please every single member of the big tent, thereby pleasing nobody. We need to loving stand up for something. Leadership does not mean doing what's popular and polls well, it means presenting a clear vision for a better future and building a coalition around it. If we don't do it, the Republicans will and we know what their vision of the future looks like. So yes, any lower amount is a spineless compromise. You know how to get that to poll better? Stand up and loving fight for it, you pathetic coward.
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Feb 17, 2017 20:56
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JeffersonClay posted:My point is that supporting a 15 dollar minimum wage isn't spineless compromising bullshit just because a superior but less achievable option exists, and the same thing is true for a 12 dollar minimum wage. Moving to 12 dollars after writing 15 down in big bold letters in the party platform would be a clear and obvious message that you're a spineless coward, regardless of whatever polling data you think justifies it. Moreover, gently caress polls. Please god, just stop with the loving polls. Using polls as an indicator of public support for something you haven't even campaigned for yet is just depressing. You're admitting right out of the gate that your party has zero ability to swing public opinion and your only hope is to support whatever the cool kids think is the right thing to do. You're operating from a desperate fear that people won't like you. It's bad strategy, bad optics, and bad for morale. Stop.
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Feb 18, 2017 00:42
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BI NOW GAY LATER posted:What if actual economics tell us that 15 nationally might not be a very good idea? It's not, it's too low. But it's a start, at least. edit: And moreover, it's in the loving platform, so the debate is over. If you genuinely want to try and walk that number down after it's been campaigned on you deserve the political shitstorm that ensues. Dr. Fishopolis fucked around with this message at 02:46 on Feb 18, 2017 |
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Feb 18, 2017 02:44
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Brainiac Five posted:So, what you believe is that if the Democrats had an ideology, they would be able to easily get the mass of people, who are non-ideological, to go along with it. Yes, and that's so obvious and provable that I have to wonder if you've paid much attention to politics over the last 30 years. Why do you think the Republican message is so successful, despite the fact that it's an obvious lie? Brainiac Five posted:It's interesting to note how this is anti-materialist- instead of dealing with the possibility that people, for various reasons of false consciousness, generally reject the idea of increasing the minimum wage to a living wage and moving on from there, it is assumed that all people must automatically agree with you, and if there are no visible signs of that, well there's obviously some sort of conspiracy to hide the truth. What the gently caress are you talking about? Nobody is saying anyone automatically agrees with anything, the complaint is that the default centrist position is to throw up your hands, go with the status quo and not bother trying to change anyone's mind about anything. Centrists are dismissive of the idea that it's possible to change public opinion, while complaining at the same time that Republicans have turned public opinion against them. Dr. Fishopolis fucked around with this message at 17:45 on Feb 18, 2017 |
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Feb 18, 2017 17:41
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Brainiac Five posted:Because it's well in line with various ideological beliefs people hold. Beliefs about the superiority of white Americans, beliefs about the inherent suspicious character of government, beliefs about how they're totally independent of other people, or could be when not held down by government. Beliefs about how America is a classless society. Beliefs that women and men each have their places and must stick to it. Belief that freedom comes from lack of limits. Right, exactly. These ideologies are widespread enough to distill and shape into an appealing, easy to digest agenda that people who feel this way can support. The Republicans are so good at this, that they can twist these disparate and often conflicting ideologies into a policy platform that feels so good to support that you don't even care that it's loving you in the eye and sending your children to war. The Democrats are so bad at this that their main appeal is "anything but that poo poo" and yet they still have the majority party enrollment nationwide by 9 or 10 points. The set of ideologies that Republicans prey on is not the majority opinion at all. Brainiac Five posted:Well, here's the thing. While nyou, fursonally, might be well aware that changing public opinion isn't generally done by having the Party dictate things, other people apparently nyare not, since they are presenting this nyas totally a matter of internal party politics. Nyas opposed to politics outside of the party, bottom-up politics. I think I might agree with you but you need to take a break from the computer and go outside.
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Feb 18, 2017 18:06
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BI NOW GAY LATER posted:Yet the consequence is that they can't really govern. Wait, you think the Republicans inability to govern is a result of their messaging? What does this mean?
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Feb 18, 2017 18:07
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Ardennes posted:To be fair, the most honest explanation is that centrists probably just don't want to rock the boat too much and they aren't necessarily confused or "ignorant" but center-left reformism is something they actively don't want. That's fine. If you genuinely hate the idea of center-left reformism, you're either a Republican or politically apathetic. Either way, you don't belong in the Democratic Party, and the party really shouldn't be wasting time considering your opinion. Sorry!
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Feb 18, 2017 18:14
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BI NOW GAY LATER posted:It's part of it, yes. They've spent the last twenty years whipping people into such a frenzy that they can't make actual hard choices in governing. ACA Repeal is a perfect example. They know that fully repealing it is a bad political idea, and they know they'd rather replace it with a giant giveaway to rich white people, but they can't even do that now because they've so poisoned the well. So they're stuck. I see your point, but that's a pretty unique scenario. I mean, sure, I agree that the Democrats probably shouldn't stomp their feet and throw a tantrum for 8 years over legislature that they themselves wrote. They also shouldn't then run on repealing said legislature with zero plan for replacing or improving on it. That would certainly be bad for them. I don't think that's a compelling argument against the Democratic party having a coherent ideology.
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Feb 18, 2017 18:19
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