balladofwindfishes
Member
And, surprise surprise, so is the majority of the United States. We live in a conservative country.
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Democrats bracing for town hall protests directed at them ask Bernie Sanders for help
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And, surprise surprise, so is the majority of the United States. We live in a conservative country.
the party has done a bang up job of losing elections all on its own, and refuses to recognize the problems at the root of it all. even now they're saying that they have a messaging and image problem, not an ideological problem. continuing on like that they may win back the white house from trump but none of the core issues that enabled his election will get fixed and we'll be right back here after the next round.
The Technomancer
card-carrying scientician
This is the part I worry people really need to wrap their heads around. Progressive change is won either by the margins or by cities dragging their states along. We haven't had anything like populist progressivism in power at least since the era of the New Deal (which was constructed to exclude black people, shocker)
A lot of this country doesn't want progressivism. Which means we need to drag them into it. It doesn't mean there's a secret pool of voters who just need the right platform to be "activated"
the most reliable voting bloc is solidly conservative but that's not the same thing as what you're saying. most people don't vote at all and the further left you go the more there is a sense that democrats do not represent your interests.
we have one party that consistently does what their base wants and has been electorally rewarded for it, and another party that massively compromises every policy they put forward before they even have a chance to put it into law. it's completely unsurprising to me that democrats have lost so much.
Big Baybee
Member
I'm happy they are concerned, they should be beholden to their fucking constituents.
balladofwindfishes
Member
The Democrats have to compromise because we live in a Conservative country.
Do you think they compromise with the Conservatives for funsies?
It's a balancing act of remaining true to liberal ideals, while making sure not to go so far as to get yourself voted out by the majority right leaning white people that vote in every election.
i think they compromise with themselves because a small part of the party is progressive and most of it is fundamentally conservative. if you think the democrats as a whole actually want things like a $15 minimum wage and single payer health care but can't talk about it because they're scared of republicans you're delusional.
LegendofJoe
Member
Not being able to get a public option passed was a failure of massive proportions. I know they came close, but close doesn't count when things are all said and done.
Thankfully, the next time the Dems have Congress and the White House they WILL KNOW that a failure to pass progressive economic policies will boot them out of power. People aren't going to put up with it anymore because they literally can't afford to. If there are Democrats out there who don't understand the desperation many are feeling then they don't deserve to be elected officials.
balladofwindfishes
Member
In states where Democrats don't have to pretend to be moderate to not get destroyed by the GOP, they pass stuff like a 15 dollar minimum wage.
They actually do want those things. But the American people do not.
the impetus for raising the minimum wage came entirely from outside the party, and democrats in left-leaning states only supported it when it became popular enough to replace the status quo. that is what i mean when i say they're conservative, they don't want change and only shift their positions when they're forced to. that's a conservative party.
republicans aren't conservative, they're reactionary.
It doesn't have to be this way. We can build a new party if we reject easy solutions and commit to doing real work at the municipal level. Take a look at Kshama Sawant's example in Seattle:
http://www.newyorker.com/news/benja...-minimum-wage-movement-entered-the-mainstream
More recently, she led the effort to get Seattle to divest from Wells Fargo for their support of the Dakota Access pipeline:
http://www.king5.com/news/local/sea...s-fargo-over-dakota-access-pipeline/395337991
Wow, what a badass.
What makes you think so? The behavior of a gerrymandered congress dominated by moneyed interests?
oh please, the public option was a compromise to begin with. the very first thing obama did when he took office and started putting the ACA together was go to pharmaceutical and health insurance companies to get their input. the whole thing was a market-based solution, which is right-wing to its core.
and you can see from what they're saying right now that democrats do not think they need to change their politics. they seriously think that the way they've been running things is totally fine and people are just too stupid to realize it.
balladofwindfishes
Member
Liberals have only ever won anything in this country following disastrous Conservative administrations. The American status quo is always to elect the Conservative.
Even before the recent round of gerrymandering, when Democrats held large majorities -- a huge portion of that majority was conservative democrats. But I doubt he was talking about Congress
The Technomancer
card-carrying scientician
Even before the recent round of gerrymandering, when Democrats held large majorities -- a huge portion of that majority was conservative democrats. But I doubt he was talking about Congress
Also this. Actual dyed in the wool progressive Democrats have never been a political majority, either among the people or politically
OniBarubary
Banned
Bingo bango.
Change happens when people are dragged kicking and screaming into it.
Even before the recent round of gerrymandering, when Democrats held large majorities -- a huge portion of that majority was conservative democrats. But I doubt he was talking about Congress
Self identification don't mean shit. People also hate Obamacare but love what's in it.
Being labeled as liberal has a stigma attached to it, esspecially if you live in a red state.
The Technomancer
card-carrying scientician
People love what's in Obamacare but hate that black people also get it. That's the subtext behind pretty much all of the opposition and then "wait I didn't think you were going to take it away from meee" reactions. I mean yes, I guess you can argue that a good chunk of the country supports economically progressive reforms for white people
How can we hold the Dem politicians accountable at this point when they simply do not have the power to enact any meaningful change given their current situation? The democratic base is just as much at fault for not showing up to the polls during midterms, if they did then the dem representitives could potentially have the power to block this shit more realistically.
They are voting for Trump noms and supporting his policies.
How can you possibly excuse this?
LegendofJoe
Member
I would agree with you if the House had not managed to pass a bill with the public option included, but they did. The Senate (where real corporate corruption occurs) and Obama are the ones at fault for the option not making it through.
Im not excusing it, I'm just asking what they can possibly do to stop it when they are outnumbered and even when they have a tie it's broken by the Vice President?
I just wish people would get out and vote during the midterms so that we were not in this situation in the first place.
Officerrob
Banned
You are asking for too much.
Considering who votes, this is totally unsurprising. Voting in America is a difficult and lengthy process particularly alienating to those who are not older, whiter, and wealthier. The electoral college favors the right by giving disproportionate power to low-population states, which are overwhelmingly conservative. Candidates who openly challenge our economic status quo can't expect to get the financial or institutional support of their opponents, which is why staunchly left-wing politicians have no real hope at taking the White House. Votes for congress are even more unfair, in ways that surely don't need to be reiterated.
Out entire electoral system is rigged toward conservative candidates.
Even before the recent round of gerrymandering, when Democrats held large majorities -- a huge portion of that majority was conservative democrats. But I doubt he was talking about Congress
Only 37% of Americans self-identify as conservative. This expressly proves balladofwindfishes wrong.
If they can't stop it that doesn't mean they have to support it. Esspecially if they're in safe seats.
blaming the electorate is always a losing strategy. you should be asking the party to give people a reason to vote for them, because clearly that's not happening. and "we're not as bad as the republicans" doesn't count.
LegendofJoe
Member
Does Jimmy Carter not exist anymore?
And lmao at Nixon being a liberal. An economic liberal? You could make an argument there (with China as a big counterpoint though), but everywhere else? GtFO
balladofwindfishes
Member
So you've pretty much wrote a nice paragraph about why the Democrats are not a truly liberal party and why they operate and do what they do out of necessity. You've basically explained exactly why the Democrats won't and shouldn't move further left and doing so is moving them to their doom. That there isn't some kind of untapped block of far left voters waiting for support. Because those people are not voters.
When you boil down to raw issues, other than gay marriage, Americans are pretty conservative and have been becoming more so.
What Trump policies are Democrats voting for or supporting?
The cabinet picks that have gotten Democratic support are largely responsible, qualified people who are fine choices for those jobs and, in some cases, actually align with Democratic interests (I threw out a few examples of this on the last page). And hell, the one nominee who got total Dem support was an Obama appointee. Not literally every one of Trump's choices is a disaster, and the ones who truly are that bad have thus far gotten zero or nearly zero Democratic votes.
Sirpopopop
Member
And it's valid. See: Delaware in 2010.
But who is being a spineless appear for Trump?!
I feel like I'm looking at a completely different Democratic Party when I read posts like these.
Some of them I'm okay with. Others that had Democrats voting for I'm not. McMahon for example.
He did give us the EPA...The statement is certainly accurate, and on an economic level at, Nixon is probably the most progressive president we have had other than FDR.
Carter was a great president no doubt, but this assertion comes from "responding to power".
Nixon signed the EPA, the OSHA job safety bill, product safety commission, proposed single payer and wanted voting rights for DC citizens.
Not because hebelieved in that, he's tricky dick, but because he was terrified of the people's unrest and protests, so he had to. Carter instead was scared of the OPEC.
Dude Abides
Banned
As if they'd listen to Bernie. This is a genuine grassroots opposition movement, not his faux "revolution."
Yeah. Your left wing is often described as being farther right than the right wing parties of other countries. Excluding all these racist shit parties that have come up in recent times, of course.
Nixon did sign a lot of liberal initiatives into law and considered some others that never happened (e.g. basic universal income). But he also considered all of these as failures of his presidency, too. :lol
What's wrong with McMahon? Serious question. Like I said in the thread about her yesterday, I don't know anything about her track record to know how good or bad of a choice she is, all I know is the ridiculousness of a WWE executive working in the White House.
For my money, the truly dangerous cabinet choices -- and not just the these-are-Republicans-therefore-I-don't-like-them ones -- are Sessions, DeVos, Price, Mnuchin, Puzder, Pruitt, and Mulvaney. Dems have held the line, plus or minus Manchin, on those first four, and it sounds like they intend to do the same on the other three (I'm kind of undecided on Tillerson personally, but he was opposed by nearly every Democrat too). That's the level of opposition that I'm looking for, personally. I do not believe Elaine Chao and Ryan Zinke should be treated the same way as Scott Pruitt and Betsy DeVos just because they were picked by the same president; they aren't equally terrible, and some aren't terrible at all, and treating them all like it obscures who the real threats and the truly unqualified candidates are.
What's wrong with McMahon? Serious question. Like I said in the thread about her yesterday, I don't know anything about her track record to know how good or bad of a choice she is, all I know is the ridiculousness of a WWE executive working in the White House.
For my money, the truly dangerous cabinet choices -- and not just the these-are-Republicans-therefore-I-don't-like-them ones -- are Sessions, DeVos, Price, Mnuchin, Puzder, Pruitt, and Mulvaney. Dems have held the line, plus or minus Manchin, on those first four, and it sounds like they intend to do the same on the other three (I'm kind of undecided on Tillerson personally, but he was opposed by nearly every Democrat too). That's the level of opposition that I'm looking for, personally. I do not believe Elaine Chao and Ryan Zinke should be treated the same way as Scott Pruitt and Betsy DeVos just because they were picked by the same president; they aren't equally terrible, and some aren't terrible at all, and treating them all like it obscures who the real threats and the truly unqualified candidates are.
She paid to get that position just like Devos. The only justification I could see is that if they thought she was the best they were gonna get, but I haven't seen anything to suggest that.
pelosi too
the entire leadership circle of the party should be thrown out on their asses
TurnipFritters
Member
And people wonder why marginalized groups of wary of this current batch of Real True Progressives.
freeofgreed
Member
I honestly don't understand why there's still this underhanded animosity towards him from some people on this board. The primaries are over and he's been nothing but co-operative with the Dems since, yet some people still hate his guts for some reason.
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