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Obama was elected on a tide of 'gently caress Republicans/bankers/politicians in general' and promptly spent the next 8 years bending over backwards to Republicans, apologizing to banks and being the typical Chicago politician people warned he would be. He was a pretty popular guy who had no trouble using his charisma to escape the backlash, but that sure as gently caress didn't save Democrat legislatures who got sandwiched between a GOP-lite President and Nancy "ALL THE GUNS" Pelosi.
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Apr 10, 2017 18:09
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It still amazes me that Democrat Obama tried to bargain away parts the safety net for magic beans and we were saved by Ted loving Cruz of all people (admittedly since the deal wasn't evil enough).
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Apr 10, 2017 18:12
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Radish posted:It still amazes me that Democrat Obama tried to bargain away parts the safety net for magic beans and we were saved by Ted loving Cruz of all people (admittedly since the deal wasn't evil enough). What did you expect him to do with a Republican Congress, not destroy the key legacy of their party in the 20th century. You have to think of the political capital - A.V.S.P
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Apr 10, 2017 18:56
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redneck nazgul posted:So the solution for Democrats not being able to leverage their position is to become even more like Republicans by eating their own and forcing out moderates? honest question, at this point, what defines a moderate democrat? I mean the democrats were definitely centrist/center-right in the 90s but have being shifting to the left with every electoral cycle: someone like bernie would have gotten 10-15% of the vote tops if this was 2004
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Apr 10, 2017 19:02
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Typo posted:honest question, at this point, what defines a moderate democrat? According to this forum, quote:anyone to the right of Stalin
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Apr 10, 2017 19:04
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redneck nazgul posted:Really not sure what you expected a Democratic president with both parts of Congress controlled by Republicans to accomplish, honestly. not trying to gut social security would be a good start. oddly enough, a republican congress somehow blocked him on that one
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Apr 10, 2017 19:37
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redneck nazgul posted:According to this forum, oh wow you're really dumb or you think bernie sanders is a moderate democrat
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Apr 10, 2017 19:39
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Yeah Obama wasn't perfect but this party has kinda sucked rear end on a lot of fronts. Also, I know this line is getting tired in this subforum, but our presidential candidate was a horrible option. I'm not going to say Bernie would have won (imma think it loudly tho), but half the nation still thinks Benghazi was an inside job and most of the other half remembers the whole superpredator bullshit.
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Apr 10, 2017 19:53
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Radish posted:It still amazes me that Democrat Obama tried to bargain away parts the safety net for magic beans and we were saved by Ted loving Cruz of all people (admittedly since the deal wasn't evil enough). I think this is a large part of why the voter turnout was so low this past election. This guy got elected on a huge mandate to do a lot of things, twice, and for 8 years just went "nah." All the while, the quality of life in America has declined, and more and more people have fallen into crushing debt or poverty, and have fallen under the shadow of a government that believes that only the market has the legitimacy to wield power in America. Many people feel their government has completely detached itself from sticking up for the little guy in day to day life, and has ceded almost completely to corporate power - the Department of the Treasury was even sticking up for Apple's efforts of international tax evasion last year. It's been a horrific look for the Democrats in the wake of one of the most humiliating political defeats in a long time, from Pelosi declaring "I'm a millionaire, and we're capitalists, and that's that" to the photos of Obama windsailing with a billionaire CEO after Trump's inauguration, to the DNC Chair nightmare race. If the Democrats want to over hold a meaningful amount of power in America again, they can start by acknowledging that people's problems are legitimate, and proposing policy that will solve these problems. "America is Already Great" hasn't been true for millions upon millions of Americans for many years now.
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Apr 10, 2017 20:09
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Edible Hat posted:Wouldn't you find around the same number of seats being lost during the span of any two-term president? (Wikipedia doesn't have a concise article about the number of state legislative seats by party or governorships by party during Eisenhower's time.) I think a major difference is that during those eras the ideological differences between parties were alot smaller: Reagan basically led a conservative coalition in congress that included blue-dog democrats, Eisenhower basically governed as a new deal president etc etc so it didn't matter quite as much if your party loses down ballot seats in those days Clinton though yeah was a big backlash against him for reforming healthcare but what was the actual difference between a blue-dog and a moderate republican those days?
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Apr 10, 2017 20:11
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redneck nazgul posted:Really not sure what you expected a Democratic president with both parts of Congress controlled by Republicans to accomplish, honestly. Also that time where they took over the Justice Department and forced poor Eric Holder to prosecute all those whistleblowers. Man those Republicans are real bad dudes.
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Apr 10, 2017 20:51
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Obama bears NO RESPONSIBILITY for anything bad, ever. Hope this helps OP 
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Apr 10, 2017 21:12
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Typo posted:honest question, at this point, what defines a moderate democrat? A consciously affected affinity to the political center/a theoretical belief that the center is the ideal position and that concessions to the left are just that, concessions for the sake of political experiency
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Apr 10, 2017 21:31
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icantfindaname posted:A consciously affected affinity to the political center/a theoretical belief that the center is the ideal position and that concessions to the left are just that, concessions for the sake of political experiency the same could be said of the Republican establishment and the conservative right in the 60s-80s between Goldwater and Reagan candidacies, in the end the establishment lost and the grassroots goldwater people won the establishment have disproportionate power relative to their number in controlling party politics but pretty much always gets kicked to the curb when the voters gets pissed off enough
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Apr 10, 2017 21:42
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Typo posted:the same could be said of the Republican establishment and the conservative right in the 60s-80s between Goldwater and Reagan candidacies, in the end the establishment lost and the grassroots goldwater people won I agree with all of that, but your initial post implied that the concept of 'Moderate Democrat' was incoherent, when clearly it is not
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Apr 10, 2017 21:51
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Radish posted:Republicans only controlled both houses starting in 2015. Obama didn't really coordinate well with Dems who were up for reelection during the midterms, and didn't give them much to campaign on. In 2010, while LGBT advocates were slamming him for his refusal to live up to his promises on DADT repeal, he was busy trying to work out a plan for deficit reduction with the GOP. In the end, the Dems didn't seriously take up DADT repeal until after the midterms.
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Apr 10, 2017 22:47
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redneck nazgul posted:So the solution for Democrats not being able to leverage their position is to become even more like Republicans by eating their own and forcing out moderates? the republicans did that and got both houses of congress, the supreme court and president trump. what is your point here exactly
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Apr 11, 2017 02:19
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Obama is 100% to blame. He seceeded the house to the reps ans capitulated 2nd term like most democrats.
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Apr 11, 2017 02:27
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Obama had terrible policies on basically every single front. A compromised heritage foundation healthcare plan in lieu or a more functional system set up a lot of criticism against him, he continued and even expanded bush era foreign policy, he blew both the bp oil spill and the financial crisis, as the opportunities they were, to reform both climate policy and financial policy, bailing out the banks but not homeowners. Basically a catastrophe of a presidency, but not for the reasons that the right days it was, its for the opposite reasons.
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Apr 11, 2017 03:55
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His failures as a president, represent the ideological failure of neoliberal centrism that dems have adopted up to their highest echelons. The problem preceded him, he didn't start it or create it, he's just the most resent demonstration of their creative bankruptcy and corruption.
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Apr 11, 2017 04:05
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R. Guyovich posted:the republicans did that and got both houses of congress, the supreme court and president trump. what is your point here exactly They got that by having a base that actually votes, not specifically by guillotining their own. Having the Democrats eat anyone to the right of Zizek will alienate the few remaining moderates and then the Democrats never win an election again because they're about 40 years too late in the "If you ever vote for the other party, you will lose your job and family to evil" messaging department.
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Apr 11, 2017 04:21
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they dont have to eat anyone, they simply have to treat the left wing of the party's base with the same respect as everyone else they won't do this obviously, because doing so is incompatible with their radical centrist third way stuff
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Apr 11, 2017 04:25
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icantfindaname posted:they dont have to eat anyone, they simply have to treat the left wing of the party's base with the same respect as everyone else I thought they already completely ignored the left wing of their base. You're giving me mixed signals here, and I suspect that's part of the problem with the Democrats: They can't offer a coherent message like the Republicans.
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Apr 11, 2017 04:27
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redneck nazgul posted:They got that by having a base that actually votes redneck nazgul posted:Having the Democrats eat anyone to the right of Zizek will alienate the few remaining moderates and then the Democrats never win an election again Rent-A-Cop fucked around with this message at 05:28 on Apr 11, 2017 |
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Apr 11, 2017 05:25
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Rent-A-Cop posted:Remember that time the Republicans amended the Constitution so they could pass a law to force Obama to invade Syria? That was crazy. IDGI
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Apr 11, 2017 05:46
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I don't think you need to eat everyone to the right of Zizek. Even Bernie Sanders isn't that far left. He still fundamentally believes in capitalism, he just wants industrial policy and a welfare state that reins in its excesses in European Social Democratic fashion. If that's enough to send the moderates screaming into the hands of the Republicans then they're probably Republicans already anyway (spoiler alert: they are, that's why Hillary's dream of winning two affluent white suburbanites for every disaffected working class voter was a hilarious/horrific failure, people making above $50k went R again like they always do).
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Apr 11, 2017 06:10
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VitalSigns posted:I don't think you need to eat everyone to the right of Zizek. This bears repeating.
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Apr 11, 2017 12:42
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VitalSigns posted:I don't think you need to eat everyone to the right of Zizek. Based on social media and the Hillary fans that are REALLY angry about Bernie's platform I totally believe there are Democratic voters that would run to the Republicans and give up on all that social justice stuff if the party started turning more leftist economically. Remember that hillaryis44.com supported Trump. However I don't think those people are significant enough to keep running the current plan of flubbing elections until the Republicans gently caress up so bad that it just can't be ignored anymore. There's almost nothing left to lose at this point by trying something different. But yeah for the vast majority anyone that is voting Republican is already doing that so this constant DNC dream of cross over conservatives that had a moral epiphany really needs to stop. Hillary getting GOP politicians to endorse her was really loving stupid.
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Apr 11, 2017 12:48
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Some, but don't understate Tim Kaine's incredible role in losing hundreds and hundreds of seats and then the presidency lol
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Apr 11, 2017 12:56
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Constantly chasing right leaning voters is the sign of the lack of vision. Maybe instead of pandering to the public through focus group treated phrases, you use, like, persuasion, and convince people of your ideas? Don't conform yourselves to the narrow worldview of suburbanites, project your own ideology outwards, and convince others of your substance. Like, lead by loving example, don't lead by ~messaging~.
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Apr 11, 2017 14:59
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At the center of the failure of democrats, is the elitist notion that the public is stupid, isn't worthy of respect, and the idea that you only get things done by tricking as many people as possible. Its all very smug and self congratulatory, but also empirically wrong - the 'stupid' public, even if they are not always able to voice it coherently, had subconsciously recognized that dems have no spine, no passion, don't really care and can't lead. And they're right. And no amount of tv ads or celebrity endorsements is going to change that. If you want to see what real political polemics look like, compare the language that Lenin uses, to the language that permeates dem leadership today. Its not just substance, they're a real 'heart' the language used by real inspirational leaders, and that follows from the fact that they had an idea of what they wanted, and pushed it.
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Apr 11, 2017 15:06
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Democrats didn't really support gay marriage until the issue was forced in the courts and it became clear that people at worst didn't really care and at best supported it. http://www.mtv.com/news/1598407/barack-obama-answers-your-questions-about-gay-marriage-paying-for-college-more/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/loca...m=.e8a07b377767 Hillary Clinton 2008 posted:I’m struggling with how we can support this with a religious and family context They don't even really want to lead on social issues anymore and wait until things are strategically popular. That's obviously better than Republicans that want to screw over these people but they need to actually push on some things instead of just rolling with public consensus when they have the power to do good.
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Apr 11, 2017 15:10
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gently caress, LBJ was hardly an intellectual, but he had a better practical knowledge of what politics was than the useless dysfunctionaries of Clinton And The Corporatists - you have an visionary idea, and you execute it by hook or by crook, twist as many arms as you can to get it. If that means you dislocate the shoulders of republicans, or just straight up tear then off, then that is what you do
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Apr 11, 2017 15:12
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VitalSigns posted:I don't think you need to eat everyone to the right of Zizek. 2012:  2016:  US politics is bificated by race, not class. Obama lost the rich people by very wide margins while Hillary basically tied with them, her strategy actually did sort of work, just not nearly as well as she thought. the above should be really scary btw because there is a very very good possibility the next Dem government is elected by rich white people + every minority in the country, thus making the defining political argument nationalism vs globalism (aka perma 2016) the dividing line for the next generation. You might have to vote for the nativist racists to vote against neoliberalism
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Apr 11, 2017 15:16
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Obama is at what? 85% approval among democrats? Clinton didn't have anywhere near Obama's accomplishments and democrats still love him too. In 20 years Democrats are going to put Obama's face on Mt Rushmore.rudatron posted:At the center of the failure of democrats, is the elitist notion that the public is stupid, isn't worthy of respect, and the idea that you only get things done by tricking as many people as possible. The public IS stupid and not worthy of respect. Though recognizing that hasn't really helped democrats the way it helps republicans. I mean we have an actual con man in the while house who won by recognizing that. mcmagic fucked around with this message at 16:46 on Apr 11, 2017 |
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Apr 11, 2017 16:38
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That kind of senseless elitism is why the modern left fails so hard. Everybody thinks they are smarter than average, that's why advertising works. Ask anybody they'll say that advertising doesn't work on them. The mass line is the true source of intelligence and creativity. The myth of the "smart individual/dumb mass" is just a capitalist appropriation of aristocratic "Great Man" theory. That's dangerous and bad because innovations in mass media has allows groups with capital to hijack the thinking of the mass line by exploiting it's blind spots. This creates a hybrid situation that allows for Republicanism to thrive. The intuitive moral good of the mass line rightly recognizes empty suits devoid of vision and desperate for approval. The general will is not born from polling. However, marketing creates an exploit where a certain type of visionary huckster because the mass line recognizes and responds to clear moral vision. It sees that as an expression of its will. Competent advertising let's them be all things to all people while shutting down objections that would normally arise. This leads to the whole "I never thought leopards would eat my face" cries woman who voted for the leopards eating people's faces Party.
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Apr 11, 2017 17:03
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Typo posted:2012: I mean, we all know already that Clinton and the Democrats are in a fantasy realm already when they blame everything on Comey and the Russians, but underperforming with low-income voters by 10 points? You've lost track of your economic message.
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Apr 11, 2017 17:04
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mcmagic posted:The public IS stupid and not worthy of respect. Though recognizing that hasn't really helped democrats the way it helps republicans. I mean we have an actual con man in the while house who won by recognizing that. Even the mentally retarded have a voice, a spark of consciousness, a something, such that even if they have difficulty externalizing it, it's real, it exists. Hopes, fears, dreams, nightmares, all of that means something to them, it expresses some humanity. The difficulty is in difficult is figuring out what. Approach the voter psycho-analytically, not using this absurd and insulting political-wonk model, of the voter as a confused lumbering zombie, without direction or imagination, that merely hunts after
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Apr 11, 2017 17:07
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mcmagic posted:The public IS stupid and not worthy of respect. Though recognizing that hasn't really helped democrats the way it helps republicans. I mean we have an actual con man in the while house who won by recognizing that.
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Apr 11, 2017 17:15
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I think with the whole the person is smart/ people are stupid I've always seen as an indictment of mass hysteria and mob thinking. Where people will ignore all rationality and behave reactionary and lash out. I think the US inbetween 9/11 and the Iraq war going south I think is a good demonstration of that thing. Not that mass action is always wrong but hysteria does sweep crowds.
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Apr 11, 2017 17:17
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