The Democratic National Chairperson election 2017

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Debate & Discussion > The Democratic National Chairperson election 2017

blackguy32: Oct 1, 2005; Say, do you know how to do the walk?

This just seems like yet another primary proxy battle that will be fought over the thinnest of differences. Have any of them put out any plans on moving the party forward?

# ¿ Jan 4, 2017 21:45

Adbot: ADBOT LOVES YOU

# ¿ Apr 28, 2024 07:24

blackguy32: Oct 1, 2005; Say, do you know how to do the walk?

A Buttery Pastry posted:

Which primary battle do you think was fought over the thinnest of differences? Actually, what do you even mean by "proxy battle"?

The most recent Democratic primary battle. But that is a discussion for another thread (it already has been discussed to death). Proxy battle in that I think sides are going to form just because of who is backing them.

Fulchrum posted:

Obama is also pro-breathing, I assume you want to stop doing that?

My policy on this is basically anyone but goddamn Brown, but knee-jerk opposing literally anything because Obama is for it with no further thought is literally tea party logic.

At this point, I am undecided too.

# ¿ Jan 4, 2017 22:38

blackguy32: Oct 1, 2005; Say, do you know how to do the walk?

Helsing posted:

What's your basis for saying this?

Why? There's symbolism at play here. You can't really escape the fact that Bernie and Warren are putting their chips behind one candidate and that a lot of people who are still pissed off over the primary are mobilizing around stopping that candidate. There's a factional power struggle going on here and that power struggle is likely to have implications for how the party interprets it's defeat in 2016.

It sounds very high minded and mature to posture about the need to let bygones be bygones but is that really reflective of how political power operates in practice? A win for Ellison presumably emboldens the Bernie Bros. His defeat suggests the party is still resistant to handing them more power. I guess you could argue that it would be better if these overtones weren't projected onto the race for chairman but that's not really avoidable at this point.

This poo poo feels like a Christopher Nolan movie in which it's like we aren't really electing people, but rather we are electing ideas. It feels as if it isn't about the person but rather who they represent.

Main Paineframe posted:

The job of the DNC chair is primarily strategy around election organization. To be specific, their main jobs are fundraising and soliciting donations, directing the usage of those resources to protect incumbent Dems and elect new ones, and so on. They have no real say over policy; at best, they can somewhat guide national-level messaging and ad buys. Their ability to change the party is fairly limited - they're not in any position to tell centrist Dems to gently caress off and back primary challengers against them, or anything like that.

And most importantly of all, the chair is not a dictator, and is very limited in their ability to do something that the DNC's 400-plus members disagree with. For example, the initial draft of the 2016 Democratic platform was composed by a committee of 15 DNC members, and was finalized by a committee of 187 DNC members. Even on executive decisions, the chair's power is nowhere near absolute - the DNC also has five vice-chairs and a National Finance Chair, all of whom are elected by the entire DNC membership. There's not much info out there on the day-by-day workings of the DNC, but as far as I can tell, it doesn't much matter who wins the chairman battle - both viable candidates have pretty much the same plan for the party anyway. It's mainly just a proxy battle being waged by various factions intent on getting a symbolic victory to demonstrate their power over the future of the party.

What matters far more for changing the direction of the party is changing the composition of the DNC as a whole, which mostly means putting new people in high positions in state-level DNCs - which we should be doing anyway as part of reversing Dems' heavy losses in state governments. Honestly, the focus on the national DNC chair might be damaging that effort - both because people are directing resources and attention at that rather than at the far-more-important state races, and also because progressives are directing their attention and resources toward a guy who's actively undermining state-level progressive efforts. The Sanders folks in Florida are not happy with Ellison, who endorsed an establishment megadonor against their preferred candidate in the race for Florida DNC chair, and I can say from personal experience that being a Florida progressive is discouraging enough already without being outrighr betrayed like that.

This I think cannot be stated enough. Because what is the endgame? Even if we push through a dnc chair, what can they really do, and another question is what if they fail, what will the narrative be then? I feel as if people love talking up grass roots stuff, but when it comes to local things people suddenly go silent.

The great thing about internal party politics is that you usually will know most of the people involved on a somewhat personal level if you are even slightly involved.

# ¿ Jan 6, 2017 03:54

blackguy32: Oct 1, 2005; Say, do you know how to do the walk?

Nevvy Z posted:

DNC chairman doesn't need to be popularly elected and it'd be pretty loving stupid to do so.

Yeah, I think this is blowing up into something much bigger than it should be, considering what the DNC chair actually does.

# ¿ Jan 6, 2017 22:15

blackguy32: Oct 1, 2005; Say, do you know how to do the walk?

Fulchrum posted:

Yeah, African American is one culture because every black person had their culture before a certain point taken away.

No. African American is a variety of cultures comprising immigrants, creoles, regional differences, etc. We don't all celebrate Kwanzaa. We don't all celebrate Juneteenth. Politics is probably one of the few places where we largely agree on one thing.

# ¿ Jan 13, 2017 01:36

blackguy32: Oct 1, 2005; Say, do you know how to do the walk?

Lightning Knight posted:

I am fine with understanding why Trump won, and I don't really think understanding how Trump won is that complicated with a working knowledge of American history. I just think we should be careful of crossing into gleeful gloating about how great it is that, say, Hillary Clinton lost. While it may feel good to get the upper hand over the centrists, it's not Hillary Clinton who is going to live through hell for the next four years, it's minorities and the poor. We have to square the circle of making nice with Midwestern white middle class blue collar workers while making it clear to those that are marginalized by the decisions of Midwestern white middle class blue collar workers that we aren't going to abandon them because it's convenient.

Which is to say, while neoliberal centrism hasn't been great for minority communities, we have to present a credible alternative that they can believe will be. That wasn't there for Bernie, but I think that it is there for, say, Keith Ellison.

I agree with this. But my hope is that people would stop taking not getting their way as a slight against them. It doesn't fill me with confidence of the people that throw a temper tantrum, because they believe the party is loving them over every single time.

# ¿ Feb 19, 2017 10:30

blackguy32: Oct 1, 2005; Say, do you know how to do the walk?

That is the kind of stuff that I always see thrown around as a given. I think there are people that just won't vote period. Even when you lower all the barriers and make it easy as gently caress, they just forget about it or don't bother.

Now, while I don't think Ellison being elected signals nihilism as the article states. I don't think that it is as simple as moving to the left to gather more voters, because I do think that some moderates will either stay at home or actually will vote for Republicans.

But in the end, I don't think Perez getting elected means what a lot of people think it means.

# ¿ Feb 19, 2017 18:16

blackguy32: Oct 1, 2005; Say, do you know how to do the walk?

SKULL.GIF posted:

Yeah, absolutely. But there's a good chunk of that 90+ million that are easily recoverable if the Democrats stop playing the loser's game of trying to politically triangulate. Drop the inauthenticity and go straight for "This is what the problem is and this is how we will help you!" like Bernie did.

I think Perez will be fine but it'd be a huge enthusiasm blow to the base, much like Clinton winning the primary was.

The DNC absolutely and completely need to abandon the strategy that Wasserman-Schulz and Kaine were pushing, it's just so thoroughly and relentlessly ineffective. There needs to be a massive buildup from the ground up for the Democrats to recover and move the party forward. State legislatures, governorships, Congressional representatives. That's what will give the Democrats a strong position to recover the Senate and Presidency in 2020. And it needs to start as soon as possible.

But that is the thing though. There were plenty of people that were enthusiastic about Clinton. I was one of them. And while I don't mind Ellison winning, where does it stop? What will be the next hangup that people perceive to be a slight against them?

I don't necessarily disagree with you, but I think it is going to be a bit more difficult than people are making it out to be and I think the issue is far more complex than go left and hope we pick up more Millenial voters while hopefully retaining most of the voters we have.

# ¿ Feb 19, 2017 18:36

blackguy32: Oct 1, 2005; Say, do you know how to do the walk?

Kilroy posted:

If it's such a silly and pointless fight then why put forward Perez at all? Why not let the leftists have this one?

Like I understand where you're coming from but it seems you don't realize you're just buttressing Raskolnikov38's point for him: if this is not such a big deal then the resistance to Ellison from the Dem establishment is even more worrying, because it signals they are going to continue to marginalize and stymie the left on everything.

Stymie the left how? This isn't exactly a position that hammers out policy. I am also questioning why people are referring to the left as "the base". I really don't see it considering how wishy washy that base seems to be when it comes to voting.

# ¿ Feb 19, 2017 19:50

blackguy32: Oct 1, 2005; Say, do you know how to do the walk?

SKULL.GIF posted:

Because it's not a "concession", it's what the members of the party want.

The platform doesn't matter anymore. It doesn't exist. Trump won, we aren't going to see a single one of these planks take effect until 2020.

If the party shifts towards policies that actually and actively help people economically and socially, policies that ensure and secure civil rights and liberties for these people, and this is what causes people to vote for the Republicans (who, I remind you, are currently subservient to Nazis), then these people weren't people we want in the party.

JeffersonClay, yes, it's likely we'll lose some people that were on the rightward fringe of the party's base. What people are saying is that we'll gain much more people than we'll lose.

This is what purity looks like. The Democrats at the moment are a pretty big tent of people from different demographics, which is why I believe it is much easier for Republicans to vote lockstep with each other. Policies that help people aren't really universally liked, even among the party's voters. Remember the affordable care act? Most people like it currently, but that was hardly the case when it was being passed.

I am not particularly sold on the Bernie wing of the party, because I still don't really trust them when it comes to racial issues. But in terms of the party chair position, I don't really care who wins. But the question is, when do the concessions stop? Will there be another thing to get pissed about next time? Is everything in the party's future going to be a proxy battle even though all signs point to that not really being the case? I guess we will find out in the future.

Kilroy posted:

If this were a zero-sum game you'd be right. It's not.

It's my view that the Democratic party essentially doesn't have a base right now. The fractured coalition of disempowered leftists and moderates embarrassed by the GOP, is not enough to reliably win elections with anything less than the most charismatic politicians. That's not something to build a winning coalition around. What we need is a strategy where even the Democratic equivalent of Mitch McConnell can reliably win elections.

African Americans have been a key part of the party's base since the 1960s and I don't think that will change anytime soon.

# ¿ Feb 19, 2017 20:01

blackguy32: Oct 1, 2005; Say, do you know how to do the walk?

Dr. Fishopolis posted:

This is the part that baffles me most. It's like the party completely forgot what Obama actually ran on in 2008. Candidate Obama was a hard left, progressive motherfucker, and he won harder than any Democrat since FDR.

I feel like you have to ignore a whole lot of poo poo to say "we have to have broad appeal and not rock the boat" when every available piece of evidence that shows us how we can be successful in a national election says the exact opposite thing. All I want from the party is to give us Hope and Change candidates that actually stick with it when they get into office.

Wait what? 2008 Obama was hardly a left wing progressive candidate. Maybe slightly left of center, but a moderate candidate nonetheless. It easily showed when he tried to work with the other side.

It helps that he fired up a bunch of people because he was a minority, and it helps that the economy tanked right in the final months of the Presidential election.

SKULL.GIF posted:

I think this would have been a real problem if Hillary had won and the dissension from the primary continued into this weird split between economic and social issues, whether one or the other should get the primary focus, in the party.

I think Trump's presidency, however, shocked almost all the Bernie supporters into realizing that they need to stand in solidarity with the rest of the people on the left on all the leftist issues and to stand with all minorities against this poo poo. Maybe I'm being optimistic, but all the diehard Bernouts I know have been active in fighting back against his racist EOs and the other insane poo poo he's been doing. The grumbling about "identity politics" between the election and the inauguration has vanished and is now, from what I've seen, almost exclusively a right-wing activity.

I am not convinced after the frontman of their movement basically stuck his foot in his mouth when talking about Identity politics shortly after the election. He focused on his economic message and said that it wasn't enough for a candidate to be a woman or black. But what does he know? Under his logic, we would have never had Barack Obama as President. Something that was immensely important to a lot of minorities. I honestly believe it is a tad optimistic, because race is a great way to fracture coalitions. It has happened before with the New Deal coalition, and the populist movement.

# ¿ Feb 19, 2017 21:04

blackguy32: Oct 1, 2005; Say, do you know how to do the walk?

Cease to Hope posted:

We are standing in the remains of that strategy. Fighting in Kansas and Arizona and Virginia and Ohio is important, but "a Democrat is anyone who isn't a Republican" is not an inspiring rallying cry.

I am curious to see how Ellison and Perez plan to expand the party out of the cities without electing more Manchins that undercut everyone else.

I don't think its going to happen. I mean if they are going to cede control of that stuff to local people, then the kind of people that spring up from that are going to be quite different for the most part.

Crowsbeak posted:

Still not going to explain how social policies are the only thing dems need to win? You claimed you had some surefire ones that were better then pro worker policies that pass in red states. I am starting to wonder if its just smoke and mirrors. Also I don't answer your questions until you answer mine. Not that I expect you to do.

I don't think it is the only thing that the Democrats need to win. But keep in mind, Trump ran on pretty much NO economic policy and won. I think Democrats are much stronger on social issues than economic ones because the economic messages being pushed are in many cases closely tied with racial messaging that works.

It's similar to how welfare began to lose a bunch of support when it became tied to helping minorities by the media.

# ¿ Feb 21, 2017 22:59

blackguy32: Oct 1, 2005; Say, do you know how to do the walk?

snyprmag posted:

And it that's all it took for it to not work then it never loving will.
We can go on about if one has a moral obligation to support a lesser evil candidate, but we shouldn't count on it working.

Except these things have consequences. So while people are hamstringing about purity and not wanting support a lesser evil candidate: families are being broken up, people are dying, etc.

I also hate using that, because for many people, Hillary Clinton was their candidate. It wasn't about lesser evil for them. If I would have had to vote for Bernie Sanders, it would have been supporting the "lesser evil"

# ¿ Feb 21, 2017 23:13

blackguy32: Oct 1, 2005; Say, do you know how to do the walk?

snyprmag posted:

Deportations, arrests, police brutality and war happened under democratic governance. Democrats keep running on those issues and then not fixing them and then wonder why people don't show up to vote for them.

My point it more that we need to find out why people aren't voting, not just shaming them.

Ok, I guess that is a simple answer for a complex problem. But the alternative of that was basically more of those things. But I think there are plenty of reasons that people aren't voting, and while not being left leaning enough is one of them, I think it is far from the only one, especially in a country that is known for making it extremely difficult for certain groups to vote.

Crowsbeak posted:

Gay Marriage is settled unless of course you mean putting bakers out of business is protecting it.

Trans rights. Yeah considering that it doesn't actually bring the votes out I don't see how it helps.
Opposing police brutality? How can that not be coupled with people having better economic standards so they don't live in decaying urban or suburban wastelands? (I know the answer you don't want your taxes to go up).
Abortion rights? Maybe. Didn't win the Dems Texas. Actually lost them votes in 2014. I mean when the GOP runs guys who start question rape you can win on it. But when they just talk about how they love life. It becomes a hard sell.
Here is the thing though. Politics is about people having their interests catered to. How do you ensure this cover 51% of the population that you need to win an election>DOes this actually cover the interests and needs of 51% of the population. If it doesn't you'll lose. Now on the other hand alot of the population needs more pay. ALot of the population needs more healthcare. Why not aso cater to them, rather then do as you call for and ignore their plight?

To the question itself. Tammy Baldwin and Maggie Hansan were both endorsed by Sanders and won their elections. Sorry you hate Sanders so much. Also I'll tell you what makes a true leftist dem. Someone who doesn't instinctive attack any one who wants better rights for workers, or better access to healthcare.

Also Maybe if your sainted Corey wants to keep his seat he'll show concerns for anyone outside of Wall Street and the pharmacutical industry.

Abortion is health care. More pay doesn't matter if you are trangender and can't get hired or dead. But I fail to see how economic issues were not catered to this past election.

# ¿ Feb 21, 2017 23:34

blackguy32: Oct 1, 2005; Say, do you know how to do the walk?

JeffersonClay posted:

No that's not the point at all. If centrism is what turned voters off, and pure progressivism is what will motivate them again, you'd expect the progressive candidate to do better than the centrist candidate in a given state or district, but we don't actually see that anywhere. It's not that Bernie hurt her, it's that centrism didn't hurt Clinton, and indeed it may have given her an advantage.

I don't think there is enough data to make a judgment. But I don't agree that because Hillary Clinton lost, that it means that people are waiting for a huge shift leftward.

# ¿ Feb 22, 2017 01:03

blackguy32: Oct 1, 2005; Say, do you know how to do the walk?

Crowsbeak posted:

Its not about leftword or rightword. Its about appealing to a persons basic wants and then appealing to ideals. If they want their job protected. Then make it clear their job will be protected. If they want better pay. promise better pay.

You can't really do this if you are just promising lies. You can't protect jobs that aren't there anymore. I mean, my great grandfather may have been the best lighthouse operator out there, but things and times do change. I do think a lot of people are being unrealistic about their job prospects. I however, do think we should give support to people that would help them reenter the workforce in a direction that the economy is shifting.

# ¿ Feb 22, 2017 01:22

blackguy32: Oct 1, 2005; Say, do you know how to do the walk?

Craptacular! posted:

That and EFF was sounding the alarm that the patent/trademark/IPlaw related elements of TPP was SOPA/PIPA levels terrible. It was an awful stand for Obama to go out on.

edit:

I'm 25 pages back when y'all were accusing people of being anti-semetic and trying to parse a difference between Ellison/Perez than just rehashing a primary, and I want to say that it's pretty funny that the general assumption is that if the far-left doesn't get on board with the center-left and let the center-left win, then the right wing will overrun us all. It feels like an admission that there's no reason to be centrist. A proper centrist should draw enough votes from the Republicans that losing a few radicals shouldn't matter.

Also, can we admit that if we do recalibrate our meaning of left/right that some old voting blocks might become less powerful? Part of the reason I've speculated that the Sanders left was viewed as a bunch of white boys who couldn't get black people to vote for them may be because, as a national demographic, black people have a strong role for the church in their communities. I have periodically thought that, if the Republicans weren't always attacking the poor as a signal of attacking black people, that their anti-abortion, pro-church viewpoints would get them more traction in the black demographic. It's possible that the Democrats 98% support among black people might need to erote to 70% or so if we're to move further leftward, and we'd just have to accept that.

I don't want to "play the card" or whatever, but Ellison may be able to better bridge that divide. That's one reason I lean toward him.

I think it's important to remember that black religious people do not think the same as white religious people. Remember there was a brief period of time where black support for Gay marriage was greater than white people as a whole. Shortly after Obama started pushing it.

Another key difference is that black evangelicals are much much more likely to support abortion in all cases than white evangelicals and that black people are slightly more for abortion than white people.

http://www.pewforum.org/2017/01/11/public-opinion-on-abortion-2/

Lightning Knight posted:

Younger black people majority supported Bernie iirc.

This is true up to a point. After around age 30, the votes for Sanders sharply fell off, and even among those under 30, the vote was still pretty close. But it really didn't help that they were only 3 percent of the electorate in the states polled.

Craptacular! posted:

I'm not so much speculating so much as I am reacting to the primary threads where the general consensus was that the Sanders coalition was a bunch of whiny whites and thank god that Democratic turnout in the south were sane and voted Abuela. The only thing I actually know is in the south party affiliation frequently aligns with race. Clinton supporters read those turnout numbers and saw fit to chalk it up to the black vote.

I don't want to say it was a bunch of whiny whites, but the racism coming out of supposed white progressive mouths around that time was palpable. I will just leave it at that to avoid further primary chat.

Grognan posted:

If Black Conservative voters want to waffle on progress because they got their middle-class poo poo comfortable and accepted enough to poo poo on others, they are probably wrong.

MLK Jr. had it right and it earned him a ton of cross-party hate. I do not see why real progress would be any different.

Edit: Mostly talking about this because I see Democrats shut down progress because they see such progress as being impossible. They will blame it on the nebulous other, but their own lobbyists and movers and shakers also don't want change to happen. It is really easy to just pin it down on the other party instead of taking an ineffectual stand and alienating the hands that hold their purse strings.

Is there any reason you are blaming alot of this stuff on Black conservatives instead of white conservatives or Hispanic conservatives? Party affiliation is pretty complex when complicated by race and doesn't necessarily fall along class or religious lines.

Cease to Hope posted:

Ellison's organization is devoted to getting out the vote and energizing progressives even when the rest of the ticket isn't backing him. His experience is exactly what the Democrats need right now. That was the most convincing case I've heard for Perez's experience, though.

Honestly, they are both about the same on pretty much every thing I have heard from them on, which completely confuses me from posters in this thread because it seems to me that you would want Ellison out there talking about policy, not being locked away raising money from donors.

# ¿ Feb 22, 2017 12:49

blackguy32: Oct 1, 2005; Say, do you know how to do the walk?

BI NOW GAY LATER posted:

I think he's a good guy, but he's not good at this kind of thing -- which again, why Ellison is just much better.

I don't know. I think this does both Ellison and Perez a disservice. Ellison because if he is elected Party Chair, policy isn't really going to matter. Perez because the party chair position isn't really something you can have a debate about. It's like debating with someone on purely administrative work.

# ¿ Feb 23, 2017 05:25

blackguy32: Oct 1, 2005; Say, do you know how to do the walk?

BI NOW GAY LATER posted:

I mean, I think Perez has a lot skills that aren't gonna be shown here and Ellison has them too. For me though a big part of this job is being able to talk to people and the media is really important.

True, at this point, the only thing I question is should we be putting someone that apparently everyone loves for policy reasons into a position that doesn't deal with policy. Not to mention that being party chair seems to be a political dead end.

# ¿ Feb 23, 2017 05:55

blackguy32: Oct 1, 2005; Say, do you know how to do the walk?

karthun posted:

There isn't any leftists in West Virginia and North Dakota to push Manchin and Heitkamp to the left. University of North Dakota is basically all of District 42, they elected a Republican State Senator and two Republican State Reps and voted against Berniecrat Chase Iron Eyes for Federal House Rep. You have college students voting for Republicans and you think there is a going to be a rising leftist tide in North Dakota?

If you want a 50 state strategy you are going to have accept a hell of a lot more people like Manchin and Heitkamp. If you want to target someone go after Senators Feinstein and Caper, go after the 50 or so Rep's who are more conservative then their district. Don't go after Collin Peterson, after he is gone that seat will always go red.

I can agree with this. I honestly don't even think some of these people lose anything by simply switching their party to Republican. At least if we keep them under the banner, they can at least vote on the Democrat side for key pieces of legislation.

# ¿ Feb 23, 2017 10:39

blackguy32: Oct 1, 2005; Say, do you know how to do the walk?

Nevvy Z posted:

A thousand times jesus christ people are the worst.

Is anyone here really strongly against Ellison? Or strongly in favor of Perez over Ellison? I've been assuming that we have the obvious "ellison only " types and then everyone else, but the primary chat is obscuring some of the lines of "reasoning".

Not particular strong but I think Ellison would be slightly better in Congress and Perez would probably be better behind the scenes.

# ¿ Feb 24, 2017 04:12

blackguy32: Oct 1, 2005; Say, do you know how to do the walk?

mcmagic posted:

Perez winning just has the optics of the same decision making process that ended up with Hillary Clinton as the nominee.

Her winning by 3 million votes?

# ¿ Feb 24, 2017 16:40

blackguy32: Oct 1, 2005; Say, do you know how to do the walk?

mcmagic posted:

Who cares about the 3 million votes?

You should because that is why she was the nominee.

# ¿ Feb 24, 2017 17:07

blackguy32: Oct 1, 2005; Say, do you know how to do the walk?

Vincent Van Goatse posted:

How'd that work out for her, by the way?

Not getting into primarychat.

# ¿ Feb 24, 2017 17:09

blackguy32: Oct 1, 2005; Say, do you know how to do the walk?

gohmak posted:

If Perez is "so much like Ellison" why is he running?

Because he isn't Ellison? Even if they have similar views, there are things that don't really come off well in soundbytes, such as leadership qualities and knowing how to run and fix institutions.

# ¿ Feb 25, 2017 06:22

blackguy32: Oct 1, 2005; Say, do you know how to do the walk?

Why does it have to be that? Why can't they just have faith in him to do a good job and they know the kind of work he does?

Why does everything have to be some sort of grand conspiracy?

# ¿ Feb 25, 2017 10:04

blackguy32: Oct 1, 2005; Say, do you know how to do the walk?

Ogmius815 posted:

Bernie Would Have Won

Ha, lets leave Bernie behind for a second. Sometimes it is great to have people that you know can work diligently behind the scenes and that can keep poo poo together. Those kind of people were invaluable when I worked in politics briefly.

# ¿ Feb 25, 2017 10:10

blackguy32: Oct 1, 2005; Say, do you know how to do the walk?

Uglycat posted:

I'm from South Bend. Rust Belt AF. On the boarder of Michigan and Indiana (both states that swung HARD Bernie in the primaries, surprising all the pollsters).

This - racist conservative Trump voters that would have voted Bernie but /never/ Hillary - is /actually/ the case. I know, it's bizarre - but true.

His whole point is that you can't really say what the outcome would have been because he was already defeated and never really ran against Trump. Basically, there isn't enough information to make an assertion.

# ¿ Feb 25, 2017 10:27

blackguy32: Oct 1, 2005; Say, do you know how to do the walk?

Wraith of J.O.I. posted:

Dems have been chasing the center forever, and where are they now?

Wait what? While they still support some very corporate decisions, I would hardly say that they have stayed at the center. In fact, they have moved quite a bit leftward in a few areas.

Edible Hat posted:

At the federal level, Democrats are in much better shape than the Republicans in 2008, despite having a system that is stacked against them. (At the state level, they are worse off than the 2008 GOP, but not much worse.) In other words, they have a lot of room to shrink. On the other hand, Tea Party extremism coincided with electoral gains for the GOP (with other factors contributing to those, of course), so the waters are a bit muddied. My point is that a leftward shift won't necessarily lead to a great 2018 or 2020. That seems like an obvious point, but most of the posters in this thread don't seem to agree with it.

I agree with this. I am not convinced that doing what people are suggesting in this thread will lead to more votes.

LITERALLY MY FETISH posted:

I think the fear is more that Perez only ran because he was pretty forcibly prodded in by the clinton/obama wing, and the main reason for them to do that is to maintain control of the party, which is what got us into this mess in the first place. It's not really about Perez's qualities, it's about why Perez is in the race in the first place.

Yes, but that is just people reaching at straws and guessing.

blackguy32 fucked around with this message at 19:17 on Feb 25, 2017

# ¿ Feb 25, 2017 19:14

blackguy32: Oct 1, 2005; Say, do you know how to do the walk?

Chelb posted:

Congrats Perez! I think he'll do a good job and expect him to work with Ellison and others to help revitalize the Democratic party.

I agree. I think he has what it takes.

# ¿ Feb 25, 2017 21:33

blackguy32: Oct 1, 2005; Say, do you know how to do the walk?

WhiskeyJuvenile posted:

there's always some slight that they're gonna threaten to do so and the only answer remains what it's always been: run someone who can credibly speak to the left as an actual candidate for office

If, say, Bernie wins the primary in 2020, I don't think people are gonna stay home because Perez won the DNC chair race in 2017

I agree with this. The important thing is the candidates that will be run. I think all of this going in circles about how the DNC screwed over Ellison is just hot air and people licking their wounds.

Also, I am not convinced that if the Democratic party dies out, what it will be replaced with will be anymore to the left than what we have now.

# ¿ Feb 27, 2017 11:48

blackguy32: Oct 1, 2005; Say, do you know how to do the walk?

readingatwork posted:

Very few people on the left are suggesting that we abandon minorities. What I have seen though is a growing frustration with the way the left talks about these issues (like dog-piling on potential allies over very minor infractions) as well as the establishment's cynical use social justice as a wedge issue to shut down voices they don't like (usually people advocating economic reforms). Both of which I feel are legitimate criticisms.

Are you sure? Because after Bernie lost the South, I saw a lot of racist language popping up about the way African Americans voted as if they were automatically ignorant for not voting for Bernie Sanders.

Dead Cosmonaut posted:

I'll play the world's smallest fiddle at your funeral after you fall on your neoliberal sword

You are playing straight into Trump's game of dividing the working class because you can't stand the idea that the people who voted for him didn't do it because of race

What makes you think that he is neoliberal?

# ¿ Feb 27, 2017 12:17

blackguy32: Oct 1, 2005; Say, do you know how to do the walk?

Lightning Knight posted:

edit: or to put it another way, POC and women on average didn't go for Bernie, but they may well go for, say, Keith Ellison.

I think minorities will go for anyone that doesn't seem like they will throw them under the bus at the first sign of trouble. Minorities need politicians that don't see them as an afterthought.

# ¿ Feb 27, 2017 12:26

blackguy32: Oct 1, 2005; Say, do you know how to do the walk?

Dead Cosmonaut posted:

People who support Clinton used identity politics to defend their right wing views- not their left wing ones. They have it in there heads that there are some 45 million racist poor people in this country who voted for Trump to kick out Mexicans and beat up blacks. Meanwhile Hillary was ineffectively trying to court middle class Reagan Era Republicans with her foreign policy even though they had much more of a damning record (hint: people who were part of the Tea Party weren�t poor). Even Huey Long did a better job than she did at it.

There was never any disunity in the left. There are just right wing Democrats masquerading their ideology behind social justice.

What I suggest Lightning Knight do now is actually bother reading up on how liberal parties in Sweden had to deal with SD before going off on how well equipped he is to deal with the elections in 2020.

I am seeing a lot of assertions with very little evidence. And no evidence to prove that Lightning Knight is a neoliberal.

# ¿ Feb 27, 2017 12:51

blackguy32: Oct 1, 2005; Say, do you know how to do the walk?

Dead Cosmonaut posted:

I�m not doing his word versus his word. You can read through his previous posts to find remarks being inherently classist.

It�s not something where any progress is going to be made. Lightning Knight is just going to have to lose a few elections to admit he�s wrong.

The fact of the matter is that the only two entities who stand to gain from dividing the Democrats are the neoliberals who want to retain control of the party and Donald Trump.

You think he is inherently classist because he doesn't support economic policy at the detriment of identity politics. I got it.

# ¿ Feb 27, 2017 13:07

blackguy32: Oct 1, 2005; Say, do you know how to do the walk?

Dead Cosmonaut posted:

Before proceeding further, maybe you should take some time to consider why both Hillary and Obama failed to pin Donald Trump as an enemy of the working class, which he clearly is. Political correctness protects the views of upper class white people just as much as it protects minorities from derogatory, demeaning remarks. I hope you have the imagination to do that.

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2016/nov/3/obama-says-donald-trump-no-friend-working-class/

:confused:

# ¿ Feb 27, 2017 13:11

blackguy32: Oct 1, 2005; Say, do you know how to do the walk?

Dead Cosmonaut posted:

It�s a good start for everyone to believe that the institutions are not there to protect them in any way, going forward. Nobody is safe. Not in Trump�s America.

No, things should not have to be awful for everyone. I have no idea why you think that things should be.

# ¿ Feb 27, 2017 15:45

blackguy32: Oct 1, 2005; Say, do you know how to do the walk?

JeffersonClay posted:

If you look at all the states Obama might have lost but did not, really he almost didn't win, despite winning by by more than 100 in the electoral college. 2012 wasn't close. It wasn't a blowout like 2008, but it wasn't close.

The only state I could find where it was really close was Florida. All of the other battleground states, he won by a couple of percentage points at least.

# ¿ Feb 27, 2017 20:46

blackguy32: Oct 1, 2005; Say, do you know how to do the walk?

Postorder Trollet89 posted:

Yeah but their status as residents is either legal or illegal.

"an illegal" is just a shorthand version of "an illegal alien", it's a perfectly valid term.

Their status as residents is out of the question until they go through due process.

Postorder Trollet89 posted:

Thats reactionairy and dehumanizing? If kicking illegal aliens out of your country is inhuman then I better bail from the social democrats and strap on a brownshirt SA uniform right now.

Please don't read up on the state of political discourse in Europe, you might just get a heart attack. If anything american "white nationalism" is rather tame if the deplorable nazis in this thread is anything to go by.

The way I see it honesty about certain topics would do the US some good, if you reject that then know it will only get worse. Europe is the way it is right now because we've had waaay to many taboo topics, with us on the left being inconsistant in our values and not finding a sufficient counterargument on the basis of socialism. Amongst the radical left here in Sweden stuff like secularism and gender equality have thus been sacrificed by self proclaimed feminists and socialists on the altar of "anti-racism" and "cultural sensitivity", it's insane. You don't have to bend the knee to religious conservatism just to differentiate yourself from an obsolete concept like racism, especially if you do it just because said fanatics are browner than you. Don't loose sight of the class issue, and don't sacrifice it to score cheap points in a culture war debate that was going to be decided via a generation gap anyway.

Thats precisely why the democrats needed a guy like Bernie Sanders or Keith Ellison but now have to settle for Tom "TPP" Perez.

You know what, I am quite comfortable with you not talking about how American "White nationalism" is rather tame.

# ¿ Feb 28, 2017 15:18

Adbot: ADBOT LOVES YOU

# ¿ Apr 28, 2024 07:24

blackguy32: Oct 1, 2005; Say, do you know how to do the walk?

Crowsbeak posted:

When it comes to Operation wetback. Of course I believe in bringing in any Americans who were unjustly forced out. I also believe in compensation tho them and their families. However any of that Atzlan nonsense I cannot support. I have friends living in those states. None of them want to be part of Mexico.

Eh... I don't quite think that was what Aztl�n was all about. You can't really take a movement like that out of his historical context considering that was their way of resistance from both their parents' views as well as the views of racist Whites.

Condiv posted:

i'm surprised there are still people supporting the DNC, although they are once again flouting their own bylaws to defend people who voted for perez

the democratic party is anti-democratic, and people are still defending them

I don't see why you are surprised. Most people don't really care about DNC background politics.

# ¿ Feb 28, 2017 16:38

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Debate & Discussion > The Democratic National Chairperson election 2017

«‹›2 »