Will the democrats change and represent their membership?

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Debate & Discussion > Will the democrats change and represent their membership?

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Will Perez force the dems left? This poll is closed.
Yes	33	6.38%
No	343	66.34%
Keith Ellison	54	10.44%
Pete Buttigieg	71	13.73%
Jehmu Green	16	3.09%
Total:	416 votes

[Edit Poll (moderators only)]

Kilroy: Oct 1, 2000

MooselanderII posted:

Uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh take a look at https://youtu.be/erspfMkqLN4

Thanks for posting this - I looked for it earlier today and was starting to wonder if maybe I had imagined him talking about a public option during one of the debates, or if perhaps he'd said it in one of the Democratic primary debates which obviously "wouldn't count" if you're a centrist weasel shithead.

So now hopefully we can put to bed this utterly stupid idea that:

Hillary had a really progressive platform, on her website, so the fact that she still lost means that moving left isn't such a good idea.
Obama won, but it wasn't because he championed progressive causes, because those planks were only outlined on his website and so didn't matter.

Note that I'm not relying on the super obvious contradiction in that reasoning to refute it, since we already tried that and it didn't work on our brain-damaged pet centrist. Instead I'm just pointing out that the facts are wrong - Obama did mention e.g. a public option during one of the debates.

And now comes the part where I'm informed that my reading comprehension is poo poo �\_(ツ)_/�

# ¿ Apr 5, 2017 07:19

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# ¿ May 13, 2024 01:59

Kilroy: Oct 1, 2000

JeffersonClay posted:

First, congress is covered by a private insurance plan so he's not describing a public option here, but regardless, if mentioning it during the debates counts, then Hillary campaigned on a lot of progressive policies like paid family leave, raising taxes on millionaires to fund social security and expand benefits, substantial investment in green energy, community policing and implicit bias in police forces, overturning Citizens United, ending the exploitation of undocumented workers, nonproliferation, raising the minimum wage, debt-free college...

And now comes the part where that doesn't matter because you've forgotten what we're actually talking about.

# ¿ Apr 5, 2017 08:47

Kilroy: Oct 1, 2000

VitalSigns posted:

OK so it's confirmed that the Hillary wing's strategy for 2020 is "I support Trump's wars, but remember he's a bad person so vote for me to do the wars"

# ¿ Apr 7, 2017 07:02

Kilroy: Oct 1, 2000

Majorian posted:

Juxtapose Warren's statement on Syria with Clinton's:

Warren would have won.

Ahem I will have you know that Warren fared poorly in polls against a Generic Democrat.

# ¿ Apr 7, 2017 08:01

Kilroy: Oct 1, 2000

Willie Tomg posted:

I think it's really cool how that resistance will be geometrically more difficult in 2018/2020 after Legitimately Presidential Donald has been a wartime president for multiple years exercising the DNC foreign policy consensus despite running on: not that, at all.

well now you see I actually agree with my opponent here on an awful lot, however I thi

# ¿ Apr 9, 2017 23:06

Kilroy: Oct 1, 2000

Majorian posted:

That's not true at all. I was a Sanders supporter. I did tell people who lived in swing states and refused to vote against Trump that they were being stupid, so perhaps I...triggered you? Just a little?

Well if he was wrong in your case he can go ahead and be right in mine. I was basically equally happy with Sanders or Clinton winning the nomination, mostly because the perception that Hillary was more likely to win despite agreeing with Sanders on more stuff - and anyhow even if she was a pretty terrible champion of it she did have a very progressive platform, for what that's worth (not much, as it happens). And during the general I defended Hillary both here and elsewhere, and was glad to inform people having doubts they should shut the gently caress up and vote for Hillary. Basically I didn't listen.

So this election made me reexamine how I think about politics. I don't see how it could be any other way for anyone who claims to be remotely leftist or even centrist for that matter. The real test of this election was if it prompted you to reexamine, if not your beliefs, then at least how you approach politics. If it didn't, then it's unlikely that anything ever will, and you probably have some mild brain damage.

Speaking of mild brain damage I notice our pet centrist idiot has been remarkably silent since around the time Hillary came out in favor of more wars. That's good.

# ¿ Apr 12, 2017 08:20

Kilroy: Oct 1, 2000

I'm with Condiv on this though. The DNC is loving worthless and the KS-04 election proves it. The whole sneak under the radar bit is the most mealy-mouthed bullshit I've heard out of them in about, oh let's say a month which is quite a lot. This coming from the same crew that insists that since the '16 Presidential election was so close nothing major needs to change, to hear that nothing could have been done to win this and all the DNC and DCCC support in the world would not have delivered that final 6%, is just aggravating and infuriating. And of course we see how committed they are to a fifty-state strategy (not at all).

We can scream at them all we want but it's not going to make any difference until they're run out of the party and the only people left to scream at are ourselves.

# ¿ Apr 12, 2017 08:27

Kilroy: Oct 1, 2000

Majorian posted:

Things don't change on a dime like that; it takes sustained pressure from below before party leadership starts to transform. The Republicans didn't immediately accede to the Tea Party's demands, either - but they still bended to their will relatively quickly. The Democrats will do the same, if we keep putting pressure on them. Just sitting out of the process and whining on dead gay comedy forums isn't going to help speed this process along, though.

We don't really have the luxury of waiting around for a decade while the Democrats get their poo poo together. We need them to have their poo poo together oh, about 8 or 10 years ago. We're on literally borrowed time already and while we keep sorta playing at the idea that all this talk of purges is strictly in a political sense, with global warming on the line and a neo-Nazi in the White House I'm comfortable with just regular ol' Soviet-style purges if it means we can get a party that will win elections and do something about climate change, about black people getting gunned down by cops, and about an electorate enraged by the fact they're one of the more productive workforces on the planet yet have gently caress all to show for it (and the political dysfunction that inevitably flows from all that rage).

# ¿ Apr 12, 2017 08:34

Kilroy: Oct 1, 2000

Majorian I think the most frustrating thing about the Democrats, and perhaps a big reason why your comparisons to the Tea Party kinda fall flat, is that for all their other failings even establishment Republicans do seem to desire power and intend to do something with it once they acquire it. Establishment Democrats seem to want power because it looks good on a resume and because they can use it to get favors and reward their friends, but the moment it looks like they might actually be asked to do something with that power, then they start talking about the advantages of being shut out of power a la Pelosi and so on. Like, if actually doing poo poo is on the table they'd kinda rather lose the next couple of elections and set themselves up for next time when the mood of the electorate is not so strongly in favor of doing poo poo, and more in favor of stuff you might find in an Aaron Sorkin fanfic.

Republican ambition is a thing the Tea Party could work with. We don't have as much of that to work with on the Democratic side. There is that comic with the Democratic and the Republican electoral strategy, where the Democrats are just sniveling weasels who will do anything for a vote, while the GOP is "more money for us; gently caress you". In fact it is often the opposite: if the GOP base wants to gently caress over minorities, ban gays from getting married or just plain ban gays altogether, and lower taxes on people who effective do not pay tax, then the Republicans are all to happy to do that poo poo. And so they win. Meanwhile if the Democratic base wants a $15 minimum wage, then Democrats get busy trying to come up with good excuses why it can't happen ever. If a progressive candidate barely loses an election in a deep red district without DNC support, Democrats are immediately spinning it as evidence the leftist wing of the party has no support nationally. And so on.

For all their faults the Republicans at least want to win. They want to take over the country, really. That's a lever the Tea Party got to pull that just isn't available to progressive Democrats.

Majorian posted:

Make them fear for their job security, and they will acquiesce. That is my firm belief.

If the party was full of Chuck Schumers you'd be right. The party has one Chuck Schumer.

# ¿ Apr 12, 2017 09:20

Kilroy: Oct 1, 2000

Majorian posted:

Well, wait a second there, though - you don't think Republicans do that, like, constantly? Because I guarantee you, when 2020 comes around, the refrain from Trump et al. is going to be, "WE COULDN'T MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN BECAUSE THE MEAN DEMS WOULDN'T LET US." I'm sorry, but I really don't buy this notion that the Democrats are worse than the Republicans on this. This is not a peculiarity of one part or the other; it's a feature in the system.

I think there is one political party in this country with the organization and the ambition and the strategic intelligence required to wield power like they control most of the government, when in fact they control half of one branch. It isn't the Democratic party. The Democratic party needs full control of the national government and a good chunk of the state governments before you even get to the point where they're coming back to you with excuses for why they couldn't get anything accomplished.

The GOP needs a tenuous grasp on power in order to get poo poo done, or failing that make sure nobody else gets poo poo done. They nearly got huge concessions out of Obama as part of the Grand Bargain in 2011, dismantling much of the welfare state - they were not in a position really to achieve any of that at the time and the reason it didn't happen had nothing to do with Democrats, it was extremists in their own party who felt it didn't go far enough that ended up killing it.

# ¿ Apr 12, 2017 09:33

Kilroy: Oct 1, 2000

Like, assume that the Democrats take the House in 2018 and the rest of the government is basically the same as now: do you think they would wield that as effectively as the Republicans did in 2011? I doubt it.

# ¿ Apr 12, 2017 09:35

Kilroy: Oct 1, 2000

Well that's a really low bar to clear but you're not wrong.

# ¿ Apr 12, 2017 09:39

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# ¿ May 13, 2024 01:59

Kilroy: Oct 1, 2000

Majorian posted:

Literally no one here is defending Dem leadership.

Actually I'm going to go ahead and state that I think Chuck Schumer is a good guy to have in the party. He seems to be the only Democrat left who has any political instincts to speak of, certainly in the centrist faction. If the DNC were dominated by centrists like him Democrats would probably be running the country right now.

Instead we've got the ones put there by

and the rest. C'est la vie.

# ¿ Apr 12, 2017 09:45

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Debate & Discussion > Will the democrats change and represent their membership?

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