General News Thread

[Tobias]

Did you know AOC has actually stopped supporting far left challengers to more centrist candidates? And that while seats were flipped everywhere, seats in the heartland and in prime swing states were won through a concerted (and skillfully done) effort by the DNC by way of a two pronged approach of promising useful reforms as well as a rebuke on trumps actions as president.

this is of course exactly the same strategy they are implementing with Biden. Yes there were a few seats flipped by far left candidates but of the 40 won by democrats the vast majority were won by people who deliberately cast themselves as pragmatic democrats who could get things done. Not hyper ideologues

[I3uster]

She still endorsed Bernie and hawks leftist policies all the time. She's just more of a careerist than people thought she was but I expect her to in the end align in a more Warren-esque end position once she really settles. As of now, nobody can say if she gets crushed by the machinery or stays the course.

Also I think fundamentally you fail to address the popularity of Warren and Sanders among democrat voters with metrics like highest individual donation and size and number of volunteer operations. There's just no ignoring the appeal anymore.

Sure Warren, at the end of her campaign when she suddenly needed PAC money, pivoted to more centrist rhetoric and dropped M4A and all that. But looking at poll numbers its pretty clear dropping M4A broke her neck.

For the record I do think you're closer to the actual pulse of the party than the collectively shouting left wing in here as evidenced by Biden's numbers now, but you know he's not running on any policy. People vote for him because he's the guy chosen and they want Trump gone, or run the "how to appeal to disaffected reps" mental math. When you're looking at the future of the party, do you consider running people like that the future?

Their most successful run obviously was Obama who totally tapped into this desire for political change even if he did not deliver. I think the better long term strategy is not to run people like Biden but people capable of at least tapping into that desire on a surface level like Warren could.

[Tobias]

One of the things I’m most excited about Biden is his policies actually. His plans for minimum sentence guidelines, rebuilding the tax code, and energy reforms are all well thought out and informed. And as I have note previously, the only way M4A becomes a thing is if it proves its own worth, and it’s Biden who is going to do that too.

this no policy thing is just a twitter talking point.

[Mcjon01]

I think a public option, if properly implemented, would be an excellent stepping stone to m4a and even a great improvement on its own, but I have let’s say negative faith that the good ol’ U.S. of A. will pinch out anything more than a poison pill that’s set up to fail so that when it crashes and burns they can just point to it and say, “Look, we tried! Guess public health care is just a bad idea!”

I guess I’m more pessimistic than I’d like to be.

[I3uster]

The problem is he's rebuilding the tax code with JP Morgan and BofA guys on the levers and has explicitly ruled out repealing Trump's billionaire tax cut cuz it can hit middle class families too. Minimum sentence guidelines obviously not the reform the US justice system needs but I think it's a good, easy sell to minority voters and prob a good thing for his volunteers to bring up, and politically achievable, this is the one I'll give you. His clean energy plan relies on fracking and carbon sequestration, it's a complete joke.

[Tobias]

I think a public option, if properly implemented, would be an excellent stepping stone to m4a and even a great improvement on its own, but I have let’s say negative faith that the good ol’ U.S. of A. will pinch out anything more than a poison pill that’s set up to fail so that when it crashes and burns they can just point to it and say, “Look, we tried! Guess public health care is just a bad idea!”

I guess I’m more pessimistic than I’d like to be.

people said the same thing about Obamacare, and it ended up being so strong that a republican president, republican control officials both houses of Congress and republican control of the Supreme Court couldn’t kill it.

thats the thing about good ideas. They take root and grow if you let them. Do I wish the blue dogs hadn’t killed the public option? As a hospital worker and a therapist, very much so. But it seems the country is ready now. Assuming of course, we have a president and a congress who can get it done.

[asterism42]

Their most successful run obviously was Obama who totally tapped into this desire for political change even if he did not deliver. I think the better long term strategy is not to run people like Biden but people capable of at least tapping into that desire on a surface level like Warren could.

Trump also ran on a platform of political change (dwain da swamp!), and I think part of his appeal was that he wasn't a career politician.

People don't want the 'everything as usual' guy.

[I3uster]

Tbf I think post Trump presidency the "everything as usual" guy has unique appeal, it's just that on the flipside Trump also showed conventional political wisdom is no longer applicable, so the wings get energized.

[Tobias]

Trump also ran on a platform of political change (dwain da swamp!), and I think part of his appeal was that he wasn't a career politician.

People don't want the 'everything as usual' guy.

they didn’t, but considering that bernie’s numbers have actually tanked against Biden in the last two weeks (even further, which is saying something) following the corona outbreak heavily suggests there is a level of buyers remorse now and people actually would like an experienced and calm hand at the tiller.

2016 sentiments are not the same as 2020 sentiments.

[Mcjon01]

Is this where we get stuck in an eternal recurrence of time where Democrats win by promising to take us back to the “normal” that gave us Trump, and once we’re there we get another Trump who gets beaten by a Democrat promising to take us back to the “normal” that gave us Trump and...

[I3uster]

Joe has momentum and Bernie's support relies on ground work which is significantly impaired when the campaign itself advises people to stay home (while establishment voices recommends going out and voting just in case you weren't clear on priorities)

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Is this where we get stuck in an eternal recurrence of time where Democrats win by promising to take us back to the “normal” that gave us Trump, and once we’re there we get another Trump who gets beaten by a Democrat promising to take us back to the “normal” that gave us Trump and...

I think this is the crux of the problem. There is no winning for more left wing policies, just constant revamping of right wing trailblazing. The billionaire tax cut being prob the posterboy NOW but let's think back on Guantanamo, foreign policy and immigration under Obama.

At some point there has to be a left wing pushback or the US will simply cease to have political choice in any meaningful sense because inertia drags it to the right with no counterbalance.

[Tobias]

Is this where we get stuck in an eternal recurrence of time where Democrats win by promising to take us back to the “normal” that gave us Trump, and once we’re there we get another Trump who gets beaten by a Democrat promising to take us back to the “normal” that gave us Trump and...

If things are done super exactly perfectly right, they get a little better each day.

Trump, assuming he doesn’t win reflection will fail to kill obamacare. If Biden does his job right bidencare and his changes to the tax and penal codes will prove similarity durable.

frustrating and slow? Yup. But worth fighting for.

EDIT: also the idea that there is some grand rightward float to the country also does not seem supported by the facts. 20 years ago the idea that preexisting conditions wouldn’t be a central pillar of bankruptcy court was preposterous. 10 years ago the public option was to liberal for democrats. 6 years ago minimum wage advances to 15 bucks an hour was a fools errand.

all of these are now settled law or permanent planks of Biden’s platform and he is oft viewed as to centrist. And I haven’t even gotten to gay marriage or THC legalization.

[I3uster]

This of course assumes the ensuring cow trading will not make shit worse for everyone, which is an optimistic proposition if one looks at historical precedent.

[Pendant]

they didn’t, but considering that bernie’s numbers have actually tanked against Biden in the last two weeks (even further, which is saying something) following the corona outbreak heavily suggests there is a level of buyers remorse now and people actually would like an experienced and calm hand at the tiller.

2016 sentiments are not the same as 2020 sentiments.

This is the very same "calm hand" who said that M4A wouldn't help in a pandemic because the issue the pandemic presents is one of getting government funding to rural hospitals. What the fuck does this guy think single payer health care is? Is he just so used to lying that he just doesn't care anymore or is he banking on the fact that his followers are too stupid to notice?

If he wants to say it wouldn't help, fine, make the case but don't argue against it in such a ridiculous way.

[I3uster]

EDIT: also the idea that there is some grand rightward float to the country also does not seem supported by the facts. 20 years ago the idea that predicting conditions wouldn’t be a central pillar of bankruptcy court was preposterous. 10 years ago the public option was to liberal for democrats. 6 years ago minimum wage advances to 15 bucks an hour was a fools errand.

all of these are now settled law or permanent planks of Biden’s platform and he is oft viewed as to centrists. And I haven’t even gotten to gay marriage or THC legalization.

In the meantime there's wage stagnation, massive concentration of capital, increase in emissions, constant warfare, an outright paramilitary immigration enforcement agency and with one more person on the supreme court abortion will be gone (the one, actually good argument for voting Biden because god knows ginsburg is not gonna make it much longer).

I'm not doubting the Democrats' ability for cosmetic change in exchange for tax reforms and applauding "regime change" operations, I'm more thinking if the trade is worth anything to someone who actually wants to improve living conditions and foreign policy in the long term. Because I'm not seeing it.

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i got so into it i forgot constant overreaching surveillance of your own population

why did obama just not touch that at all

[Tobias]

It helped him stop a couple of bombings and he gave up on reducing the security laws. It’s one of those decisions I kind of disagree with but also understand it was a seriously complex and difficult choice to make.

its one thing to risk your own life for morals but it’s quite another to risk someone else’s life or lives to make a ethical point.

[I3uster]

why can the belgian police do it without overreach

[Mcjon01]

Wait I just had a brilliant idea
People talk about how the progressive wing of the democrats should split off and make their own party because they don’t really fit in with the rest of the party, but that that would lead to republicans dominating every election forever but WHAT IF — and bear with me here — what if the CENTRIST democrats just split off and made a new party but also called that party the Republican party (are party names trademarked?) so that republicans can keep voting for republicans but also now those republicans aren’t, like, literal garbage trolls

And we could all just pretend the current republican party doesn’t exist
Would that work? Can we do that?

[Pendant]

i got so into it i forgot constant overreaching surveillance of your own population

why did obama just not touch that at all

Not only did he not touch it Obama is a big proponent of the surveillance state. This is an area where voting Democratic won't bring us into a position where our rights are valued over nebulous notions of security. Feinstein, who is a Democrat, is one of the most fiercely pro-surveillance voices in Washington and Democrats as a whole continue to reauthorize the Patriot Act.

People like to argue whether Obama was left-wing or right-wing and everything in between. This is actually off-base, what Obama actually is is a statist and an elitist.

[I3uster]

The problem with the current Republican party is, and this will never cease to be funny to me, the exact problem that lead to the creation of ISIS.

you cant just keep feeding idiots incendiary shit to hate your opponents when part of it applies to yourself, because at some point they will take seriously what you say, and get your ass