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Hellblazer187 posted:Seems like even without M4A they could... do a lot to make this system less punishing for ordinary folks. Obviously they should do M4A, don't get me wrong. I'm just saying a regulated private health insurance system doesn't need to be quite that stupid. They could, but then they wouldn't get fat bribes A comically large sack with a dollar sign on it is the One Weird Trick to get lawmakers to do anything you want
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Nov 2, 2021 23:34
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Angry_Ed posted:India Walton has nobody to blame but herself: iirc she also threw up the old "cops are workers too" chestnut at one point which is always a giant red flag
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Nov 3, 2021 08:42
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Delthalaz posted:In general, it looks like there's no real correlation between what a politician or political party accomplishes and their electoral success because our society creates people who are utterly mind-poisoned. Not just recently by the internet and social media, but by the matrix of capitalist discourses and power that produces the ways people see themselves, their knowledge about the world, their desires, and their expectations for life. Expecting voters in this kind of a system to somehow reward good policies is pure Sorkin liberalism. The correlation seems fairly substantive. Biden's current poll numbers are dipping precisely because his administration are somewhat justifiably seen as do-nothings, while Trump was actually clawing his approval back up via actively fighting for things he wanted(even if those things were all horrible) until the pandemic really hit and he nosedived again e: spouse posted:I am fine ignoring the rule of law so long as it benefits the people I care about, and once that floodgate is open there is absolutely nothing bad that will happen as a result. Pendulums only swing one direction, after all. A lot of things people are suggesting isn't even ignoring the rule of law, it's just being rude. When Trump was stumbling around breaking things we learned that a lot of rules are actually just established norms and there's no real punishment for breaking them. Yinlock fucked around with this message at 21:04 on Nov 3, 2021 |
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Nov 3, 2021 21:00
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Valentin posted:And had they been done by more competent lawyers, way more of them would have gotten through. See this, and the WP analysis it's leaning on. Also yeah a lot of Trump's failures are due to him being dumb as hell rather than the noble U.S institutions holding him back. If he was capable of even the barest amount of subtlety things could have been way, way worse.
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Nov 3, 2021 21:10
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Delthalaz posted:Is that true? The big decline in approval over time I see coincides with the best thing he's done as president: pull out from Afghanistan That was only really unpopular with the media and warhawks. Though the dip probably coincides with the media no longer covering for him in retaliation(for the crime of having slightly less war), so it's still a significant turning point. TulliusCicero posted:...I can't believe I'm loving saying this, but I'm actually going to give Trump something resembling a compliment: 
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Nov 3, 2021 23:53
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Vorik posted:Well, the BBB is coming up next and that one will be an additional $1.75T. These two bills plus the COVID bill from earlier in the year alone will have made this administration worth it. That's almost $5 Trillion in direct spending on America and Americans. BBB is very likely going to be gutted further if it passes at all. The entire reason Manchin has been so insistent on the infrastructure bill being passed first was so that BBB has no leverage whatsoever. Ershalim posted:I wondered why people keep saying "the largest spending bill since the New Deal," so I tried looking up other things that the government has done since then. There isn't a really good list available of how much various things cost that I was able to find, but I did find that "1 trillion dollars" isn't really all that much in the grand scheme of how much the government, y'know, spends. The military alone is over 700 billion dollars per year, so even just two years of that costs more than all of this "historic bill." I think another important fact is what the bill actually accomplishes, which so far is some basic maintenance and even that required fabulous cash prizes to the already-rich to get though Comparing it to the New Deal, which basically restructured the entire U.S economy in an extremely short time-frame, is bizarre.
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Nov 6, 2021 23:48
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Relevant Tangent posted:Joe Biden ripping a huge one in front of the Queen-to-be is extremely good and I like him better for it. I think him dumping rear end in front of the Pope was funnier overall Hey kid's, choose your own favorite Joe Biden Shits His Pants in Public moment
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Nov 7, 2021 08:38
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nine-gear crow posted:I kind of appreciate that you folks have been able to transition smoothly from I've never once denied he poo poo his pants, but it's probably the least offensive thing he's done in an official capacity so I don't care all that much. It's also extremely funny. If people are going to pretend that he's a very important figure and not an ancient skeleton with a horrific political history being trotted out like a puppet to say platitudes then i'm going to laugh when he dumps rear end on live TV.
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Nov 7, 2021 10:21
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Shammypants posted:Yea, we're in a weird situation where republicans can run on stopping culture war issues that aren't even occurring and win elections, and democrats need to broadly repair the country during an unprecedented global event in order to campaign and win. This idea of winning elections by materially improving people's lives sounds good on paper but it surely wasn't the driving issue in Virginia- it was revenge, craziness at schools, craziness over covid vaccinations and mask mandates etc. It wasn't the driving issue in Virginia because nobody was actually campaigning on it. It was just Crazy poo poo vs I'm Not That Guy
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Nov 7, 2021 22:16
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Willa Rogers posted:I dunno; when I see WH talking points still effectively flowing downward verbatim through cable news, and then through the politically aware like on this forum, I don't see a hostile media reporting critically on the administration. It's not super hostile, access journalism is still king after all, but it's definitely not 24/7 fawning like it was pre-pullout
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Nov 7, 2021 23:57
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Vorik posted:The common thought that Dems just need to pass huge spending bills and all of a sudden Americans would turn leftist is hilariously out of touch. Look at VA. Last year I saw so many leftists screeching about "how dare parents want to send their kids to school" and "how dare people want to get back to normal". That single issue, schools, is what sunk Dems in VA and also made such a massive dent in NJ's race. This is an...interesting way to frame peoples' objections with forcing kids back into crowds in the middle of a pandemic. I'm not sure whether the volume of the posts was ever implied or relevant, you'll have to specify where the "screeching" took place for me. This framing also implies that the school issue resonated so strongly that it swung the entire election, rather than it being the only issue raised because the other candidate ran on nothing except Not That.
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Nov 8, 2021 00:51
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socialsecurity posted:The people voting against the dems wasn't because they were being forced back to school, it was because masks were being mandated, also CRT. They specified "leftists last year" and I provided a reason why leftists were not huge fans of trying to dump kids back into school ASAP. I dunno about the right, they were probably mad about masks and the fact that schools aren't actively whipping children or whatever. e: ARE SCHOOLS has been a pet issue of the right for forever, they are constantly convinced that schools are a tool of communist indoctrination(meanwhile hard-right schooling is just 90% "Obedience is good. Obedience makes you happy."). If dems are suddenly losing to it that's not a sign that it's the biggest issue of our times, it means that Dems are unable or unwilling to put forward something more compelling which is itself worrying. Yinlock fucked around with this message at 01:15 on Nov 8, 2021 |
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Nov 8, 2021 01:05
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The obsession with getting Back To Normal is part of the problem, the appearance of everything being fine has become more important than things actually being fine(see also student loans starting up again for no reason). Sanguinia posted:According to Willa's poll only 25% of Americans even think BBB will help them period, so who even gives a poo poo. All the loving garment rending and exulting about how Dems are shooting themselves in the foot by whittling down the bill and the people it's supposed to help don't even want it. And don't tell me its because of cuts, do you think anyone responding to that poll even knows what's supposed to be in build back better other than the vague 6o'clock news summary of "Biden's social and climate spending agenda?" Instead of just writing off anyone who doesn't care about BBB as a drooling moron, take a moment to think about why. People don't think the government is going to help them, because it largely does not and the ruling class spends all day thinking of ways to give themselves money. How do we change this perception? By loving helping people instead of siphoning their money straight to a hog trough and feasting while hollering about how the poors are just too stupid to appreciate all this hard work. Or trying to weasel out of your promises. Or overcomplicating everything into a means-tested tax credit for ages 55-60 under the libra sign. Just...loving do something useful and talk about how you're doing something useful.
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Nov 8, 2021 05:32
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Regarde Aduck posted:We're in the crunch phase before the real poo poo starts I mean that's going to come from the refusal to address the current problems, so I don't really think they'll be particularly silly.
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Nov 8, 2021 05:44
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BougieBitch posted:Actually, that's not what it means. The conversation we were having about this a page or two ago was that a lot of people are PERSONALLY doing better, but think that "the economy" is doing worse. There is a difference between the two, and other recent polling that emphasizes the difference. I think just the vague generalization of "The Economy" makes it hard to answer, and the working and ruling classes have vastly different answers as to what The Economy even is.
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Nov 9, 2021 03:52
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Peter Daou Zen posted:It would actually be hilarious if Saudi-American relations got so bad we decided Aw gently caress it, and made nice with Iran again. But can the U.S.A ever forgive Iran for keeping to their deal and thus not giving the U.S an excuse to invade?
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Nov 11, 2021 21:44
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FizFashizzle posted:By the time we get to 2024, trump is just going to claim he was still President the entire time. Given how obsessed both parties are with him he might as well have been
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Nov 11, 2021 21:56
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GreyjoyBastard posted:"surely the legislature will never become propaganda-poisoned morons," muses thomas jefferson as he orders his newspaper buddies to dunk on john adams It's Fine When I Do It was the guiding principle of the founding fathers
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Nov 12, 2021 08:55
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Epic High Five posted:Okay, then the flip side is that the people who just wanted to keep killing it year after year in the shadows were doing so because doing so meant they could run every cycle on passing the RTW repeal, and if they failed for some unknown reason they'd be able to run on actually having done it. It was entirely about lowering the reactor rods in the discussion of state political priorities and who is going to make a mint as a result of the session to keep things slow and controllable to the enormous benefit of themselves and their moderate allies who sought to run on something they never intended to deliver because they knew they could ensure it never saw a vote They basically made an example of Carter for daring to actually try to enact the good things he promised, it also ruffled a lot of careerists because he didn't go through the proper think-tank channels to do so(thus the accusations of "wanting to take credit" or whatever; careerists cannot see the benefits of the policy beyond how it affects their own careers and assume everyone else is similarly sociopathic) papa horny michael posted:I've always heard from staffers that they don't care about mail, or phone calls, to the offices. Unless it's a big media blitz of pressure, but otherwise that mail and calling don't persuade politicians from their positions. That neither are worth anything. Does anyone have any experience here? The ruling class generally don't care about much besides profit and/or property. The best a big phone call/mail rush can do is make them soften their language somewhat but they'll very rarely actually change their minds unless they're personally inconvenienced or feel threatened by the consequences of inaction. It's why old-timey union statements used to have an underlying message of "or we'll start breaking your poo poo"
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Nov 13, 2021 12:21
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the_steve posted:Harris was the original establishment choice for presidential nominee, but then Klob murdered her on stage during one of the debates and she was so monumentally unpopular that not even the DNC could thumb the scales hard enough to save her, so they went to plan B - Backdoor her in with Biden. The establishment seemed to bounce between candidates, they settled on Buttigieg at one point but he hosed up by being insanely openly shady and letting Bernie gain momentum. Everyone else was kind of a darling-of-the-week and nobody could really gain any real traction(until of course there was a danger of someone even a hair to the left actually winning, at which point the obama directly intervened and formed centrist voltron to put a stop to that nonsense). Harris was legendarily unpopular even from the very start though. The establishment being unable to cement a real rising star has been an issue for a while, mostly because their picks are always soulless corporate drones with no charisma whatsoever.
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Nov 15, 2021 14:06
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Kraftwerk posted:Having said that I'm reminded of Aeosp's fable about the wind and the sun. Perhaps being more diplomatic and trying to charm their way into what they want is the way forward for a lot of these groups. It wouldn't be the first time a society tried to use media or art to gain international prestige. The Koreans and Japanese have done a pretty good job of this in their own right. Unfortunately trying to soften the issue will typically just get them ignored even harder. The ruling class just wants the oppressed to shut up and die quietly, the only real defense against that is to be louder and angrier.
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Nov 16, 2021 04:18
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Main Paineframe posted:The left's not going to win elections by whining about weaksauce poo poo like losing to a write-in candidate, or getting called mean names by political rivals, or losing urban areas from their districts. Liberals are like a 1000T weight around the ankles of the left, constantly co-opting and dragging down even the smallest success. I agree that the left does need to remove itself from the Democratic Party, but the left are not the parasites in this scenario
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Nov 16, 2021 22:47
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Harold Fjord posted:Shot by the CIA. Yeah an additional wrinkle is that the ruling class aren't afraid to drop the hammer on the left, unlike liberals and conservatives who get kid gloves. Gumball Gumption posted:I wonder what happened to that whole occupy movement. They sure we're a bunch of leftists who were making charges in the discourse and were getting people to listen to them and pay more attention to what's going on. Honestly you really can point to them as the start of a lot of the public awareness in how influenced things are. BLM leaders also have a habit of getting murdered super hard
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Nov 16, 2021 23:06
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DarkCrawler posted:It is way easier, because hate and fear work as a way to get votes. They work way, way, way better than promising to change an unfair system with substance and policy, something I don't think Americans believe out of the mouth of anyone at this point even if they were serious. Except nobody ever actually tries, it's just assumed by default that policy can't possibly earn votes and the only Sensible Pragmatic Choice is to take a deep breath and get more racist Over-reliance on Not The Other Guy has put the Democratic Party in sharp decline for a decade and change now, it's not a viable long-term strategy because everyone already able to be swayed by it in the long-term votes Republican anyway. But for some reason nothing gains fiercer resistance than the notion of offering anything substantial. That's why the left is complaining. Yinlock fucked around with this message at 02:39 on Nov 20, 2021 |
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Nov 20, 2021 02:36
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InsertPotPun posted:unlike obummer who has millions of dollars and lives in a fancy penthouse and never talks to anyone who isn't a millionaire because he thinks he's better than you! To be fair this part isn't really wrong
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Dec 1, 2021 01:06
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