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Helsing posted:I wouldn't say it should override everything they've done, skepticism doesn't necessarily mean total opposition, it just means you should be wary of why this candidate is getting the endorsements they are getting. In this case I think he's essentially the anyone-but-Ellison candidate and that elements of the democratic party who are resistant to giving ground to progressives are endorsing him for that reason. This is sort of how I feel when using a political candidate's wealth as a basis for judging them. I'm not going to decide who to vote for solely on that basis (unless everything else is equal) but I'm inherently going to be a little more skeptical of a wealthy person's commitment to fixing issues like income equality (especially if they were born into a wealthy family) than I am someone who isn't as wealthy. Obviously policy is more important, but it's still one of many factors I think are worth considering. Normally I wouldn't really care much about Perez's more direct involvement with Obama (and I still don't really care much about it for that matter), but given that he seems to be pretty much the same as Ellison when it comes to policy it's enough to tip the scales in favor of Ellison. The same also goes for Ellison being Muslim; not even close to a deciding factor, but it's a nice bonus to help tip the scales, since it's always good to have more people of minority faiths in leadership positions. I think more broadly these issues are mostly related to how much you feel you can trust a candidate to pursue their stated goals. If you want a candidate to change the status quo, for example, someone involved more closely with the previous administration is inherently going to be at least a little bit less trustworthy than someone less involved (though don't confuse this with me saying they're not trustworthy; it's slightly less relative to the alternative).
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Jan 5, 2017 02:24
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My feeling is that even if they were nearly identical as people, the fact that Ellison has the support of the more left-leaning wing of the party and is generally perceived as representing more leftist interests is still significant and important, because him getting the position would sort of symbolically represent a potential increase in influence ad visibility for that portion of the party. It's sort of like how I thought Sanders and Clinton would have accomplished mostly the same things while in office, but Sanders being elected would have still been a symbolic victory in the sense that it would send a message that leftism/socialism is now more mainstream and viable. And even if Clinton's platform had been identical to his, it would still be better to elect him because it would send the message that Americans prefer the candidate that is perceived as more left-leaning, even if they actually weren't. So even if Ellison and Perez were identical, the mere fact that Ellison is perceived as more left-leaning makes his appointment worthwhile.
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Jan 24, 2017 03:02
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Main Paineframe posted:On the other hand, Obama was generally perceived to be to the left of Hillary and a relative outsider to the Dem establishment (at compared to Hillary), and he didn't end up being a big triumph for leftists or anti-establishment, not even in messaging. In fact, I'd say the net effect was pretty bad, because people who had thought he would be more of a leftist were generally slow to change their opinions, so for the first couple of years of his presidency, most of the progressive enthusiasm his campaign drummed up ended up being directed at defending his centrism and making excuses for his foot-dragging. I'm real worried about another betrayal like that - if the left elects someone they think is a leftist but turns out to be another lovely centrist, I think that's honestly worse than electing a clear centrist that the left can spend the next two years hating unconditionally. While I see what you mean, in terms of actual policy he still probably wasn't worse than Hillary would have been (they probably would have been mostly the same, minus possibly foreign policy), so I think the benefit of having a concrete manifestation of the popularity of more leftist views outweighs the downside of a potential negative backlash from them not actually being leftist (and it's not like Obama's lack of leftism hurt leftists; if anything Sanders' performance in the primary is well beyond what he could have achieved pre-Obama, though this is more evidence of Obama having no effect than Obama having a positive effect). Also, while Obama was definitely perceived as more leftist, I don't think he had the same direct association with socialism among those on the left (since obviously conservatives consider literally every Democrat socialist). People thought Obama was more leftist, but he rarely actually referenced anything particularly leftist on the campaign trail; he just used a lot of rhetoric that sort of implied he might. Sanders, on the other hand, was very explicit with some of his leftist views (and hopefully future leftist candidates will be as well). Main Paineframe posted:I'm worried that if Ellison wins, people are going to take that as a victory for progressivism and check out of politics for four years, while if Perez wins the angry progressives would react by increasing their efforts elsewhere, which is exactly what I want to happen. Hm, I guess I can understand that, though as another poster mentioned this logic leads to always being afraid to win because it'll make leftists less politically active. Like, if it's the case that victory causes leftists to inevitably lose their next elections, we're just hosed regardless, right? tsa posted:The vast majority of people don't even know this is happening, never mind knowing the differences between the people running. I think one of the reasons wonks predictions are often garbage (see the primary election) is because they think people think about politics and policy the way they do and the truth is most people don't have a clue and almost no one votes on policy. People vote on identity and tribe membership, basically no one actually takes an honest intellectual approach. We read things that agree with what we think, we dismiss things that disagree with us. This is a point I've tried to make when talking about some Trump voters. People say "well, Trump said/did all this obviously terrible racist stuff, is supported by the KKK, etc, so everyone who supports him must also agree with these things, right?", but I don't think they understand how low info the average American voter is. Many people go into the ballot box with nothing but some vague fourth-hand perception of the candidates in question (and in the case of Trump, probably the main thing a low-info voter would associate with him is "anti-establishment", which was a big appeal this past election). Ytlaya fucked around with this message at 17:32 on Jan 24, 2017 |
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Jan 24, 2017 17:27
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TyrantWD posted:I don't get the fascination with the DNC Chair position. It's a terrible job that progressives should want nothing to do with. Ellison's primary role would be kissing up to donors up and down the coasts to ensure Democrats have half the funding of their GOP counterparts, instead of 1/3rd the funding. But didn't the Democrats outspend the Republicans by some tremendous margin in this past election?
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Jan 24, 2017 17:50
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Main Paineframe posted:You can't just elect the right person, you have to elect hundreds of right persons. And they have to actually be the right people - "symbolic wins" aren't worth the paper they're printed in. If Hillary had won in 2008 and proposed the ACA in 2010, progressives would have figured out it was bad in 2010, not 2014. That's a valid point; mainstream liberal media in general is very bad at criticizing anything they associate with being very liberal, but it puts a ton of effort into debunking the ideas of those in direct opposition. I think the perception of Obama as being a leftist lead to most liberals* just sort of trusting that he was doing a great job. * While some leftists quickly became disillusioned with Obama, I don't think this was true of most Democrats
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Jan 24, 2017 20:20
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Paracaidas posted:Depends. These are the highlights of his time during the Obama administration: This stuff is all really good, but I think it's important to draw a line between just "helpful/good stuff" and stuff that doesn't have near-unanimous support among Democrats. Probably the most ambitious thing I see on that list is the change to managerial overtime exemption, because that's something that has a notable effect on businesses' bottom lines. But pretty much all of that stuff would earn easy approval from almost any Democratic politician. I think that what Democrats need to focus more on (in addition to what they're already doing, not instead of) is more board, sweeping changes that will be felt by most Americans (either directly or through knowing someone directly affected) like significant increases to the minimum wage or free/heavily subsidized public college. These sorts of changes are generally harder to push through and only recently became acceptable for mainstream Democrats to support. It's also much harder for future Republican governments to roll back changes like this once they've been put in place, while it's easier to undo changes that only impact a small minority of citizens. So I guess to summarize, all that stuff Perez did is good, but it's also nothing that is particularly controversial among Democratic politicians. It's certainly good and I'd rather have him than some hypothetical "neutral" candidate, but if given a choice I'd rather have someone who pushes the envelope even further to the left (or is associated with the faction of the party who would do so).
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Feb 3, 2017 03:13
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JeffersonClay posted:Also, leftists who are claiming to be democrats, please stop smearing putin's ratfucking bullshit everywhere, thanks. He hacked and released this poo poo precisely to inflame primary salt. While I get where this argument is coming from, it isn't really sufficient by itself, since it's sort of self-evident that it's technically possible for stuff to be uncovered by actions like this that are so bad they can't be ignored. This isn't really the case in this specific instance of hacking, but if hacking had found that, for example, Podesta had been sacrificing children at the alter of electing Clinton president, that would still be something people should pay attention to even if only the Democrats were unfairly hacked. So I guess my argument is that "only the Democrats were unfairly hacked, therefore you should automatically ignore everything uncovered" is bad logic, because it's obviously possible for stuff to be uncovered that should be revealed regardless of how unfair the hack was. In this particular case it just so happened that nothing particularly incriminating was actually uncovered, and your argument should focus on why the stuff in the e-mails isn't actually bad rather than some sort of weak claim that it's unfair it was revealed in the first place. As for Perez's support of Clinton, I only think it's a bad thing in the sense that I agreed more with Sanders politically (and thus probably disagree with Perez in the same sense). But since the DNC chair's political views aren't particularly relevant I'm not sure how much that matters. I'm actually somewhat persuaded by Main Paineframe's argument about Ellison being selected as a concession potentially backfiring. If he isn't selected, many leftists will continue to be upset and active, whereas they might relax their efforts if Ellison wins. It's hard to say.
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Feb 4, 2017 08:15
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Helsing posted:It would be very in character for the Democrats to decide that Trump is so bad that they will inevitably win in the next midterms and the next presidential election. Someone I was talking with at work made that argument (specifically he said Democrats need to just lay back and coast on through in 2020). I believe this sort of view (among non-politicians at least) ultimately stems from a lack of empathy/understanding. From the perspective of your average liberal, Trump is terrible and they can't really understand why anyone would think otherwise (and just assume people will feel the same, which is helped by selectively consuming news about mainstream Republicans being anti-Trump and what have you*). I tried to make the argument that if Trump being terrible was enough to make him lose, he would have lost the election, which was obviously full of stories about Trump doing terrible things. * As a cringe-worthy story related to this, this one liberal girl I know posted on Facebook about how she now follows John McCain and Glenn Beck on Twitter after being so impressed by their anti-Trump views. Stuff like this basically supports my theory that in America how "liberal / left-wing" you are is defined not by the policies you support, but by how vocally you are against Republicans. If a person lays down a sweet burn on Republicans, they are perceived as being very liberal. Jon Stewart is a great example of this.
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Feb 4, 2017 19:31
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Paracaidas posted:Step back for a moment. The "establishment" has been forced to unite behind a candidate who strongly supports (in action and rhetoric) labor, increasing taxes, voting rights, protecting immigrants, helping the working and middle classes, and purging racist law enforcement agencies. This isn't a proxy battle, it's the capitulation of the Third Way. I think I'll try to explain where the main difference in opinion is here. Democrats have always been passing (or attempting to pass) legislation/policies that are genuinely good and genuinely help people. What Perez has done is good. What people have noticed, however, is that there's been a hard line drawn at any sort of broader/wider-reaching policy which would have a significant impact on wealthier Americans/corporations. Like, being against voter disenfranchisement, being against racist law enforcement, protecting immigrants, even helping unions, these are all very good things but they're also things that cost the wealthy very little. Even the tax increases proposed usually amount to little more than undoing tax decreases under Republicans; they're increases which are palatable to the Democratic portion of wealthy Americans. To use a specific example, there's a subset of Americans who want some sort of genuinely universal, possibly single-payer, healthcare to be passed. They do not believe the current path Democrats are on - even more left-leaning Democrats, like Perez - will ever lead to that destination. They will continue to patch very real holes in the "ship" of America, but won't do anything particularly ambitious that requires more from wealthy American individuals and corporations.
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Feb 4, 2017 22:55
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Fulchrum posted:Yes, it is utterly without any form of parallel or historical precedent that the party that holds the white house loses in midterms and gets replaced after 2 terms in the white house. Truly this utterly without parallel situation, never before seen in politics, must be seen as a sign that democrats are dead forever and we need to purge just for the sake of purging. I mean, this is possible (though there's a bunch of pretty concrete stuff Democrats have been doing poorly when it comes to strategy and winning down-ballot races), but I would prefer to remove a bunch of current Democrats just because I disagree with them politically. I think many people feel the need to have some sort of "pragmatic" excuse for this, but it's okay to just say "I want people who are more closely aligned with what I believe to replace current Democratic politicians." I think it remains to be seen whether American discontent with Democrats will continue to become a more serious issue. It hasn't been long enough to get a clear picture yet (since we haven't seen how, for example, Democratic voters respond to a Republican/Trump presidency at the polls), but it's at least plausible that what we're seeing is the genuine result of people responding to years of economic stagnation (not in terms of GDP, but for the average American). Certain norms (for example "the mere mention of socialism as political suicide") are being overturned, possibly due to a combination of newer voters with different worldviews entering the equation and the aforementioned economic dissatisfaction. Fulchrum posted:Also, any situation that includes the word socialist and viable in the same sentence about American politics is a joke. This is clearly changing; Sanders' association with socialism was well known and he was still pretty competitive with Clinton in the primaries.
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Feb 4, 2017 23:15
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Paracaidas posted:Is there any scenario where Perez wins without it being a ratfuck, in your eyes? While I don't agree about it being a ratfuck, I don't think you can use this logic about something that isn't a public election, especially if the person is being chosen from inside the party apparatus. It's not like the Hillary vs Bernie thing where you could say "it's fair because she got more votes," since in this case the votes are solely coming from within the DNC itself. If Perez was actually a really bad candidate (which I don't personally believe), it would be completely reasonable to consider him winning to be an unjust outcome regardless of how it transpired.
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Feb 8, 2017 10:26
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Paracaidas posted:It's also not as if Keith Ellison is somehow outside the party apparatus-what as congressman for a decade and cochair of the CPC. As has been repeated throughout the thread, it's a disservice to each candidate to treat this as a continuation of the eternal slapfight and the actual matchup is one that defies easy categorization as establishment/insurgency, insiders/outsiders, progressive/centrist, or really anything other than Bernie's Legacy/Literally Anything Else. I think you misunderstood me; I wasn't talking about Perez being inside the party apparatus as opposed to Ellison or whatever. I meant that because the candidate isn't chosen by the general public, if someone happened to believe that 1. the DNC was bad/corrupt and 2. Perez (or whoever) was also bad then it would make sense for them to consider the outcome unjust regardless of how it transpired otherwise. In the case of a general election, assuming there isn't any literal corruption/cheating you can at least claim the results are legitimate even if you don't like the person who won, but in the case of an internal election like this it's possible to say "if this bad person is selected it will be bullshit regardless of how it transpires." Either way it doesn't really apply much to this situation since I don't think Perez is bad (I don't think he's ideal either, but neither is Ellison). Your post just reminded me of people after the primaries who said "Is there anything that would convince you Clinton's nomination was just/acceptable?"
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Feb 8, 2017 16:44
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That's kinda a strange thing to say. I'm firmly in the leftist, Sanders-supporting wing of the party and even I think it's a huge exaggeration to say the primary was rigged.
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Feb 9, 2017 04:35
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BI NOW GAY LATER posted:So maybe the left are just a bunch of idiots? People of all political persuasions are a bunch of idiots. It's just that the combination of being emotional/passionate and dumb looks worse than being a dumb centrist/moderate.
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Feb 10, 2017 04:03
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BI NOW GAY LATER posted:He was the Labor Secretary for the President who approved it? But are you also just saying that support for a trade agreement is unilaterally bad? Or do you have specific criticisms about TPP that are actually real and valid. And how does support for a trade agreement effect the role of the chair of the DNC, who's job is mostly raising money to fund the party activities? While I agree it's not relevant to the topic of selecting the DNC chair (especially in this specific case), I don't like this line of arguing. It's true that a very large portion (possibly most) of people against TPP don't really know what they're talking about or have any concrete criticism of it. But it is absolutely true that it would have done a bunch of bad stuff (alongside some good stuff, though my personal feeling is the bad outweighs the good). There was an article on (I think) Vox that did a decent job of summarizing its pros/cons. Calling out a person on their ignorance isn't proof that they're necessarily wrong. (Also I would argue that unless the pros very obviously outweigh the cons, which isn't the case with the TPP, the default assumption when it comes to trade deals and other business/finance-related policy should be that it's intended to enrich investors/corporations.)
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Feb 10, 2017 18:38
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BI NOW GAY LATER posted:I mean, this isn't really the thread for a discussion on the merits or demerits of a trade deal, which is kind of the point. I know, I was just referring to your "Or do you have specific criticisms about TPP that are actually real and valid" which seems to imply that there aren't any "actually real and valid" criticisms. I see this sort of arguing strategy a lot (especially against leftists), where someone assumes that if the person they're talking to doesn't have a good reason for what they believe, what they believe must be wrong. It's especially annoying when people are now just a single Google search away from finding a well-reasoned argument made by someone who has some idea what they're talking about.
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Feb 10, 2017 18:49
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Man, never thought I'd see the day when we'd have the Hillary assassination theories coming from within our threads.
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Feb 12, 2017 00:05
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There seems to be some sort of general opinion that Buttigieg is to the left of Ellison/Perez. Why is this? I'm not necessarily disagreeing with it, but I can't find anything specific that seems to point towards that conclusion.
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Feb 14, 2017 10:35
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That line is literally just saying "we need to communicate with people about how what the government does affects their lives in various ways." How in the gently caress would someone find it offensive? I especially like the implication that the "our marriages" part is somehow an anti-gay marriage dog whistle, despite the same article talking about how gay marriage is important to the existence of his future family as a gay man.
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Feb 14, 2017 18:50
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BI NOW GAY LATER posted:White Working Class have never stopped being appealed to, the only difference is we also started talking about how other people's lives were important and, what do you know, suddenly fragile loving white people stopped thinking it was all about them. It's true that white people have never stopped being appealed to, but the working class? The working class hasn't been appealed to in a substantive manner in ages.
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Feb 14, 2017 19:52
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^^^ Eh, they did seem to have a non-negligible presence among Sanders supporters (like maybe 10-15% or so, which - while still obviously a minority - isn't completely meaningless).BI NOW GAY LATER posted:What I chaffe at is this idea what we stopped talking to working class whites, or that we stopped having them in mind with our policies. We've mostly stopped honestly talking to working class people period, not just whites and not just rural people.
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Feb 14, 2017 20:05
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Man, Brainiac Five and Crowsbeak really know how to make threads become bad.
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Feb 16, 2017 19:06
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JeffersonClay posted:I don't think it's self evident that the political strategy the left is outlining will make it easier to win the next election. Um, you do realize that some people want these changes because they think they are good things for reasons other than helping to win elections, right? People are not advocating for leftist policy just because they think it is a pragmatic strategic decision that will get more votes; they're advocating for it because they think it will help people. You're free to disagree with that, but you keep trying to recast things in terms of "are you literally 100% sure beyond the shadow of a doubt that moving to the left will help win elections?!" when people are just saying they think it's a good idea because they think such policy will help people.
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Feb 17, 2017 09:07
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JeffersonClay posted:I don't put a lot of faith in your evidence-free assertions, that's the issue with your approach here. As I think I've mentioned before, you have a strong irrational bias in favor of centrist liberal (or more accurately "whatever happens to be the next 'step' to the right of what left-leaning liberals support") positions and take them as the default position that other people have to prove is wrong. This is not logical.
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Feb 18, 2017 02:11
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One kind of important point regarding people who talk about the need for compromise: It's true that compromise is important, but the people who need to make such compromises are politicians, not voters. There is literally nothing to be gained from a voter saying "I think a $12 minimum wage is good because $15 might not be politically pragmatic." There is no reason not to advocate for a $15 minimum wage so that you contribute to overall support for it, and then politicians can start from that position and compromise if necessary. Basically the fundamental dumb thing about people with such viewpoints is that they talk about there not being enough support for (insert more left-wing policy) while simultaneously not contributing any support (or, at best, just contributing tepid "well maybe in a perfect world it'd be good" support) towards those policies. There is nothing wrong with advocating for something that might not currently be politically viable. As a voter - not a politician - the best thing you can do is act as a data point pushing things in the direction you want them to go. It is not your role to compromise with the right. If compromise is necessary, that is something for politicians to do.
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Feb 20, 2017 06:41
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^^^ Yes, a big problem with JeffersonClay's (and anyone else who relies too heavily on polling data) rationale is that it seems to conflate "people expressed X opinion in a poll" with "people truly feel X opinion and this is an immutable fact." Unless a poll result has either 1. been the same for a very long time, 2. been continuing along a particular trend for a long time*, or 3. shows a really massive discrepancy there's no reason to think it's some immutable reality of American voters that can't be changed through ads, the candidate's message, or some other strategy. And heck, even under those conditions it still might be possible to change, as in the Putin example above. * For example, if support for gay marriage were 60% and had been increasing gradually over the past 20 years, it would be reasonable to assume it's probably not going to drop below 50% any time soon. SKULL.GIF posted:Exactly this. And I think a big part contributing to this sort of perspective is media reporting on "the polls indicate" and "the Democrats' strategy is" and whatnot. It only serves to reinforce the sort of Very Serious Person who eats that up and concludes that they need to share their politicians' positions for maximum success. It's self-undermining. One thing I want to be clear about, though, is that I'm not saying you shouldn't vote (or worse, vote Republican or something) in the General election if your politicians aren't advocating for the exact same policies you want. If you're in a state that has even a remote chance of becoming a swing state, you should absolutely vote for the Democratic candidate under those circumstances. But this doesn't mean you should stop vocally disagreeing with them or voting for people you agree with more in the primaries. So I guess what I'm trying to say is that there's an important distinction between how someone votes and what opinions they express. Voting in the general election is essentially a pragmatic decision since you know one of those two candidates will be elected, but this doesn't mean you shouldn't keep talking about the things you disagree with the candidate about or trying to push them in the direction you want them to go politically. As a side note, there's one thing I've always found funny about the "we should advocate for the policy with the great support" people: If, hypothetically, literally everyone felt this way (about advocating for the most widely supported position in the polls), it would lead to a self-reinforcing system where nothing ever changes, because all the centrists would constantly be causing the status quo to be validated through some sort of feedback loop. This way of thinking may make sense for politicians, but it's really wrong-headed for voters to take this approach. Basically centrists are some sort of bizarre constituent that exists only to reinforce whatever is currently the most popular position, which inherently works against promoting any sort of change. This isn't how democracy is supposed to work. (It's fine if they genuinely think the policies they support are the best policies, but I always see a reasoning of "I support this because it is needed to win elections" which is silly; you can vote for a politician as a pragmatic decision while still advocating for your own views, and there isn't some need to sync your own opinions with those of the politicians you vote for.) Ytlaya fucked around with this message at 18:02 on Feb 20, 2017 |
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Feb 20, 2017 17:55
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My feeling about that particular poll is that, while it doesn't prove that Democrats/Americans will necessarily support these policies, it at least shows that they aren't necessarily completely un-viable (which is an argument made by a lot of more centrist Democrats). So while I don't think that poll is saying "people definitely support this stuff!", I do think it indicates that they aren't strongly against it either and that there's a good chance the public could be persuaded to support such policy.
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Feb 20, 2017 18:17
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BI NOW GAY LATER posted:I think Americans, in general, would be reluctant to see a big, seismic change in the way in which healthcare is delivered. I think you're seeing that now with how the Republicans are suddenly getting cold feet on their plans that would dramatically change the way we get healthcare. What is fundamentally different about Americans now from Americans back when other broad social programs were passed? I can understand thinking that there might be strong resistance to flat-out nationalizing healthcare, but I think that something like a single-payer system would definitely be viable as long as industry resistance could be dealt with. The problem would be more with the very powerful business interests who wouldn't want such a thing to happen than it would be with voters. And even if we assume you're correct, it's not like things will ever change unless individual voters start to support this stuff. There is no benefit to saying "well, I'm against it because I think most Americans aren't willing to support it yet." I mean, what exactly are you gaining from being against this stuff on the basis of believing most Americans wouldn't be okay with it? Like, what harm is caused by supporting it if you think it is actually a good idea that would help people? If most Americans really don't want it, then politicians aren't going to support it regardless, so it's not like your individual support is going to somehow lead politicians to propose unpopular legislation or something. You can just act as one data point in favor of such change, and maybe at some point in the future enough people will be in favor that it will be plausible. If you're genuinely against changing the way healthcare is delivered, that's one thing, but to be against it on the basis of "I don't think most Americans would be willing to accept such change" is just stupid and accomplishes nothing. Ytlaya fucked around with this message at 18:39 on Feb 20, 2017 |
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Feb 20, 2017 18:36
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Main Paineframe posted:Did you read the articles I posted? They give a lot of telling examples of why the polling data can be unreliable. For example... While this is all true, I think it would be useful to compare with the data from policy that was successfully passed. In other words, having most of the country support the details of a policy may not be necessary to getting it passed. It seems very possible to me that policy that Americans vaguely support but disagree with once described in more detail is still entirely viable. A huge portion of Americans will automatically say no to anything that involves increasing their taxes (even if it reduces their overall spending), but once you actually pass the policy they may end up supporting it. I mean, isn't Obamacare actually an example of this? That it's not necessary for Americans (who are generally kinda ignorant about a lot of stuff) to approve of a more detailed description of a policy in order to pass said policy?
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Feb 20, 2017 19:13
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BI NOW GAY LATER posted:This is the most circular bullshit I've ever experienced talking to an adult. I am telling you that we need to propose policies that help us get to the goal and to fight, incrementally, for change being aware of what obstacles are infront of us. We need to get out and talk to people about why those things are good and working on our messaging. What harm do you believe is caused by more left-leaning Democrats advocating for single-payer UHC (or some other policy you believe to be to the left of what the American public will support)? Because the key issue here is that you seem to really dislike people advocating for policy that you don't think is currently plausible/pragmatic. My feeling is that, even if someone supports a policy that probably can't be passed anytime soon, it still helps to effectively shift the Overton window to the left, making more left-leaning policies seem more moderate/reasonable by comparison. So it doesn't really make sense to tell those people "no you're wrong, you should instead support something more moderate/pragmatic!", since they're just helping to make your views seem more moderate by comparison.
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Feb 20, 2017 20:20
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JeffersonClay posted:If these candidates can win enough of the government to call a constitutional convention without public funding, competing against candidates funded by corporations and the rich, they will have disproven the need for the constitutional amendment they advocate. We believe in this constitutional amendment so strongly, we'll prove it's superfluous! This actually isn't the case. If winning an election is a function of both funding and other factors, it's entirely possible for candidates to win without funding without it indicating that funding has no effect; it just means they managed to overcome the influence of funding through some other means in those specific cases. edit: Basically, even if it's possible to overcome the disproportionate advantage moneyed interests have, that doesn't mean it isn't still a problem.
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Feb 21, 2017 00:09
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Dr. Fishopolis posted:This really underscores the situation we have right now. The fact that there was a non-zero section of the population who supported both Trump and Sanders indicates that populism and rejection of the status quo isn't about party politics as we understand it. Both parties had the same opportunity to ride that wave, and Clinton chose to dismiss it with condescension rather than embrace it. The game now is not about policy. More than ever, it's about throwing easily digested concessions to the frothing crowds, and the left has a lot of that to offer if we can package it properly. To be 100% fair, I don't think there's anything Clinton could have done to really take advantage of that populism, since her image in that regard was already tarnished (thanks to a combination of her actual history and Republican smearing). It would have required a different candidate.
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Feb 21, 2017 05:23
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stone cold posted:gen x is a bunch of reactionary idiots, btw I feel like it is impossible to ever maintain a good society for the long term, because it seems like any time quality of life becomes particularly good (on average) people become less empathetic and more reactionary/conservative. So even if things becoming bad might lead to people pushing for positive social change, if things actually manage to become too good as a result people flip back into "gently caress you got mine" mode.
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Feb 21, 2017 18:57
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BI NOW GAY LATER posted:It was a meaningless vote, but by all means go find someone to challenge him. I get what you're trying to say here, but this is a dumb argument. "Well can you think of a specific person who can win? No? Then you can't criticize this person!" edit: It's like the political version of "You don't like this movie? Well can you make your own movie that's better??"
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Feb 22, 2017 01:03
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blackguy32 posted: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. Yeah, honestly I think the people who are saying "in order to win elections we need someone who is far more left-leaning" are probably wrong*, but I don't bother arguing the point since ultimately they're still pushing for roughly the same sort of change I want. So I mostly consider all the "purge centrists from the Democratic Party" stuff a useful sort of energy to harness, since it's not like that's actually going to happen regardless. I only draw the line at people who say they won't vote Democrat in swing states (or potential swing states) on the basis of the candidate not being left-leaning enough, since that's the only way this sort of mindset can actually cause problems. *Though I would argue that ultimately how left/right-leaning a politician's platform is does not determine their electoral success, and that their success more strongly influenced by a bunch of other factors unrelated to their platform. So I don't think that a more left-leaning platform would necessarily hurt or harm a candidate, since there are other things that matter more in terms of winning elections.
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Feb 22, 2017 01:14
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WampaLord posted:I can't believe that people are unable to grasp this poo poo. No, you don't understand, all voters are carefully reading the politicians' platforms and rationally voting based upon their opinions of those platforms!
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Feb 24, 2017 19:23
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Nevvy Z posted:I don't think children throwing temper tantrums should be bought the toys they are demanding, but that's just me. This is from some pages back, but it really cuts to the core of where I think a lot of the more anti-leftist/Sanders people are coming from. Despite what they may say, they aren't arguing from a pragmatic perspective. They just feel strong disdain towards those more leftist voters and don't want them to get their way. They see the worst of the opposing side and think "gently caress these guys" and then form their opinions based upon that starting point. It's kind of ironic, because it's the exact same mindset they (rightly) accuse many leftist/Sanders-supporters of having.
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Feb 27, 2017 19:19
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stone cold posted:I agree, the people who think pedophilia is a kink, and the people who are revolted by pedophilia are the same. Both you and Crowsbeak (and a bunch of people on "both sides" in this thread, to be honest) have a bad tendency to immediately assume that anyone you may disagree with is some ridiculous stereotype, either of some racist/sexist "Berniebro" or some sniveling technocrat liberal, depending upon the poster's own views. Effectronica takes this even further, often escalating things to the point of telling people to kill themselves in a way that doesn't seem entirely ironic. I think the internet can sometimes be bad for discussion because of this. The anonymity encourages some people to assume the absolute worst about their "opponents." Something that may be made with a conciliatory or unsure tone in person is often interpreted as a strong position the poster is unwilling to budge on if it's just text on the internet. To be honest, I don't think the conflict over the DNC is as big of a deal in terms of how it might impact voters as some people are making it out to be. Most Democratic voters have not been following the DNC Chair election, and many of the people upset about the results will have lost a lot of their anger/energy by the time the next election rolls around. My personal feeling is that while both Perez and Ellison likely would have performed about the same as Chair, it's a little worrying that many members of the DNC are explicitly considering this as a conflict between the leftist/Sanders wing of the party and the more centrist wing. Despite some posters' arguments to the contrary, there is clearly a non-insignificant portion of the Democratic Party establishment that does consider there to be a conflict between the leftist portion of the party and the more centrist/establishment portion, even if there's no significant conflict between the political views of Ellison and Perez specifically. Antipathy towards leftists from within the Democratic Party establishment is a real problem (assuming you're a leftist, at least); it isn't just some conspiracy theory leftists have fabricated.
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Feb 28, 2017 00:23
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stone cold posted:Um, crowsbeak called pedophilia a kink, so nice Yeah, and I'd say that overall what he said is worse, but it's still really obvious that Crowsbeak is not an actual pedophile and that what he said was him misspeaking in a real dumb way. And don't get me wrong, I don't think that referring to pedophilia as a kink is some minor thing that should be ignored. It's definitely a bad thing, but it does not imply that the person who said it is a pedophile or someone who honestly thinks pedophilia is equivalent to being into BDSM or something.
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Feb 28, 2017 00:39
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where you didn't even read the posts in question? 
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Brainiac Five posted:No one has said that it is. The point is to rhetorically demonstrate that it is normalization. You are automatically assuming stone cold is extremely stupid/hateful, rather than giving the benefit of the doubt. The point about normalizing pedophilia is completely valid. But it was then followed with "Take your apologia elsewhere, imo. Don't they like pedophiles over somewhere else?" which directly implies that the poster actively believes pedophilia is similar to actual* kinks. *Just as an example, I almost mistakenly said "other kinks" without thinking and fortunately managed to catch myself before hitting post. If I had missed that someone would have been right to reply with "it's bad to equate pedophilia with legitimate kinks like that" but clearly wrong to assume that I was apologizing for pedophilia since it would have literally been an example of me mistakenly typing something dumb.
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Feb 28, 2017 00:48
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