A Buttery Pastry posted:

The Republicans and Democrats are just the American Bilderberg theater group, putting on a show to distract people from the truth.

MaxxBot posted:

Pener Kropoopkin posted:

Americans have pretended for a long rear end time that material conditions have no bearing on an individual's party politics. You should see all the stuff that claims America is a classless society.

Talmonis posted:

Ignoring the history of it all is a mistake. The Clinton's centrism was a direct response to the Republican sweeps from Nixon to Bush Sr. Leftism was a losing prospect in the eyes of the public. They tried centrism, and it worked. They tried to pass left leaning legislation, and Gingrich destroyed it. Getting anything at all done, was only allowed at the behest of the Republicans. So Democrats compromised every which way to keep the country running.

When Gore "lost," the tables turned. Suddenly you were a traitor if you stood against the President. Fox and the major networks would crucify you for even daring to not wear a flag pin. Eight years of non-stop "Decorum", "Respect the office!" and "Wartime unity!" Didn't take a single day for that to evaporate when Obama was sworn in. Suddenly, you can scream at the president and call him a liar, so long as he's a Democrat. Two years of filibusters for every piece of legislation, promises to compromise on Healthcare, and given every bit of consession on it, and still tried to block the goddamn thing. Six years of holding the economy hostage, demanding horrible cuts that the Leftists in this here thread blame the Democrats for taking instead of letting it all burn. All of this while Republicans are repeatedly outed as child molesters, sexual assaulters and crooks. And what ill political effect do they receive? Nothing. Not a god drat thing. A Republican leader could rape a child on live TV and the party proper would never suffer electorally for it. But a bunch of terrorists shoot up an underfunded and underdefended embassy? Four year investigation costing millions. Use the wrong email server? Investigation, universal condemnation and the public ire.

The Liberal's greatest sin, is his inability to remember that the average American will forgive a Republican anything, and expect perfection from Democrats. The second greatest is pretending that the left will ever be there when they're needed.

Azathoth posted:

Someone once said, perhaps on these forums, that the reason that the public gets pissed at each party is different.

Republicans piss off voters by over-promising during the campaign, then when voted into power, they don't do what they say. The whole Obamacare repeal debacle is a perfect encapsulation of this.

Democrats piss off voters by attempting to deliver exactly what they promised on the campaign trail, which voters invariably interpret as going too far. The original passage of Obamacare is a pretty good example. They rammed it through Congress and voters punished them for it in 2010.

I think that reaction with Democrats goes back decades and is rooted in deeply-ingrained fears of Communism in a large portion of the populace and a deeply-ingrained fear of appearing Communist on the part of the Democrats.

It's only now that a significant portion of the voting population didn't grow up with the Soviet Boogeyman (or have moved past it) that we're seeing any kind of national appetite for the kind of legislation and policy advocated by Bernie during the primary.

comedyblissoption posted:

haha this is so loving wrong.

democrats held the majority in the house for 40 straight years from 1955 to 1995. 40 loving years. those include all of the administrations between nixon, reagan, and bush sr. this stretch becomes even more remarkable when you consider stretching this timeframe back to FDR.

democrats held the majority in the senate for 34 out of 40 years from 1955 to 1995.

please let me know how controlling congress for so long during those administrations counts as "Republican sweeps"

the democrats started winning hard for 50 years when they became and were remembered as the party of FDR. it's when they started selling out and abandoning being the party of FDR that they lost.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_power_in_the_United_States_over_time

comedyblissoption posted:

we had to sell out and move to the right because we needed to win and get corporate money is the common refrain and excuse from corporate and centrist democrats

this strategy has hosed them over in congress much more than the "be the party of fdr" strategy. with the last election cycle it's absolutely crushed the democrats at basically all levels of government from the state houses to congress to governorships to the presidency. they haven't been this out of power in like a century.

Main Paineframe posted:

uh, I would expect a sitting US senator to at least understand the basic structure of the US government

rudatron posted:

LBJ lost because of Vietnam, not civil rights.

Not a Step posted:

LBJ ran against basically Hitler clone Barry Goldwater (lol Hillary campaigned for him) in what was essentially a referendum on Civil Rights, and he won in the largest landslide in history (to that point).

Then LBJ got caught up in Vietnam, a war he believed was important, and when the next election cycle came round he was a beaten bitter man worn down by popular opposition and who no longer cared to run for the Presidency. Also he probably had sad brains.

Not a Step posted:

Yeah. LBJ's one election was a Civil Rights referendum. He never had a Great Society referendum because Vietnam overshadowed everything else and he refused to run again. LBJ is the classic example of great domestic policy, bad foreign policy. Although I have a soft spot for LBJ because despite Vietnam being a colossal gently caress up, he believed in the necessity of the war in a way I don't think any other President did for their respective foreign policy gently caress ups. It doesn't make it suddenly right or good, but it humanizes LBJ in a way that, for example, the Iraq 2 doesn't GWB, no matter how much he paints.

Dreddout posted:

Dude I can't tell if you're joking but the outlook of our society is looking pretty dire.

comedyblissoption posted:

when a liberal says they support social security and medicare, you have to ask them to clarify. "supporting" in their minds might include cutting these programs in the rationalization that you need to cut them so they don't go "bankrupt"

rudatron posted:

So there's this tendency, in some quarters, to think that you have to overturn everything to start the process of change. The assumption being that everything that comes before has embedded within the social conditions that created it, ie "the master's tools will never dismantle the master's house".

While the supposition is correct (things like science and technology are not immune to ideology - what gets funded and what doesn't depends on whether or not it is of value to people with the money), the conclusion is not. Whenever you are in a desperate situation, you have to use whatever is at your disposal. The seeds of the new society, lie dormant, in the products of the old. So whatever tool can be used, should be used.

So if this scheme helps people in poverty adapt + survive, I'm not going to be against it. You framed it as something that 'numbs' you to pain, and therefore reduces the possibility of social revolution. But I'm not so sure that's the case. I don't think it's a lack of 'pain' that's preventing revolution.