• Hey, guest user. Hope you're enjoying NeoGAF! Have you considered registering for an account? Come join us and add your take to the daily discourse.

NYT: Weakened Democrats bow to voters, opting for total war on Trump

Status
Not open for further replies.

kirblar

Member
Hopefully this stance doesn't backfire and end up radicalizing the party moving it further to the left, which potentially could result in giving birth to a "I'm so pure you can't possibly meet my standards" unelectable creature (think of Jeremy Corbyn).
Public opinion is moving heavily towards favoring globalization now that the GOP is taking that L on populism's behalf. I linked a few articles earlier in the thread- the best places for Dems to pick up seats are suburban areas that are rapidly shifting away from the GOP.
 

wandering

Banned
Good, we need to follow the Tea Parties example of showing up to the polls in lockstep to primary the remaining fascist sympathizers.

No, no, no. This is how we lose even more seats and end up handing the GOP the rope to hang us with. Purple states are a reality we need to contend with.
 
all this current talk of angry, motivated voters being a basic, yet major part of the strategy of eventual political change sure does sound familiar
 
I will not REST until Republicans fear using the term 'Demorat' because the last time they did, we dragged them under the mud and held them there 'til the bubbles stopped.

The name of the game cannot be "When they go low, we go high," it has to be "when they go low, we get even."

I want to destroy the GOP as an institution. I want them to fear leaving their homes. I want them to quietly, meekly, mutter their worthless ideas and insipid phrases with a stutter borne from fear of awakening the beast again.

They look like Biff used to be in Back to the Future. I want to make them like Biff is at the end of it.

And we're not going to do that unless we fight. Every step will be downwind of their bullshit, and we're going to have to keep going until their toxic ideology is gone.

To quote Sean Connery in The Untouchables, "If you open the ball on these people, you must be prepared to go all the way. They won't give up the fight until one of you is dead."

The second part of it, that I won't quote here for risk of being misconstrued as calling for violence, rings true as a metaphor. They want to fuck with us, hit them back harder. Escalate. Push them to the brink then blame them for doing it.

For too long have they called us slurs, reported to their people how bad we are, all while knowing we'd never stoop to that level -- we'd never be able to convince people otherwise.

I don't want to convince them otherwise. They're already convinced that we're the worst imaginable.

Let's show them that their tiny worldviews couldn't even begin to conceptualize how bad it can get.

I want war.

Absolutely.

Dan Savage made a similar point about this on a recent episode of Blabbermouth. GOP is highly invested in killing people and making those still alive complacent with it. The majority of its hardline political stances involve the denial, manipulation and obfuscation of reality and truth & making literal existence impossible for the poor, women, minority ethnicities, & minority genders/sexualites, young and old. It's more than past time to stop treating this like a time of compromise. GOP has shown up to the fight ready to do whatever it takes, even attempting the unconstitutional and illegal, to slice into the stomachs of those that don't fit into their boxes. Lives are on the line and it's time to scratch, bite and swing whatever weapons we have to save and protect people and democracy.
 
I will not REST until Republicans fear using the term 'Demorat' because the last time they did, we dragged them under the mud and held them there 'til the bubbles stopped.

The name of the game cannot be "When they go low, we go high," it has to be "when they go low, we get even."

I want to destroy the GOP as an institution. I want them to fear leaving their homes. I want them to quietly, meekly, mutter their worthless ideas and insipid phrases with a stutter borne from fear of awakening the beast again.

They look like Biff used to be in Back to the Future. I want to make them like Biff is at the end of it.

And we're not going to do that unless we fight. Every step will be downwind of their bullshit, and we're going to have to keep going until their toxic ideology is gone.

To quote Sean Connery in The Untouchables, "If you open the ball on these people, you must be prepared to go all the way. They won't give up the fight until one of you is dead."

The second part of it, that I won't quote here for risk of being misconstrued as calling for violence, rings true as a metaphor. They want to fuck with us, hit them back harder. Escalate. Push them to the brink then blame them for doing it.

For too long have they called us slurs, reported to their people how bad we are, all while knowing we'd never stoop to that level -- we'd never be able to convince people otherwise.

I don't want to convince them otherwise. They're already convinced that we're the worst imaginable.

Let's show them that their tiny worldviews couldn't even begin to conceptualize how bad it can get.

I want war.
This is a very appropriate response. I love it.
 

Bishman

Member
http://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2017/02/democrats-war-lets-compare-and-contrast-2009-and-2017

Here's a headline currently running in the New York Times:

blog_nyt_democrats_war_trump.jpg


I don't have any beef with this. The Democratic base is demanding total war on Trump, and Democratic politicians have mostly gotten on board. What I do wonder, though, is whether the Times ever used language like this during the first couple of months of the Obama administration? Maybe they did, but via Google, here's a walk down memory lane as reported by the Times in early 2009:

blog_nyt_headlines_early_obama_term.jpg
Obama woos and visits and holds receptions and reaches out and sets a new tone. Republicans are "resistant," they skip briefings, they vote unanimously against budgets, and unanimously against the stimulus bill. But there's no war in those headlines.

Later, of course, we learned that there was a war. Before Obama was even inaugurated, Republicans met and agreed to form a united front that unanimously blocked every Obama initiative, sight unseen. The fact that the country was mired in the most serious economic downturn since the Great Depression didn't matter. Their only goal was to prevent Obama from having any legislative successes.

The smoking guns that uncovered this strategy didn't come until later, but anyone reporting from Capitol Hill surely knew what was happening almost immediately. Republicans publicly spurned Obama's attempts to compromise. They voted against the stimulus bill unanimously in the House and nearly unanimously in the Senate. They launched the era of the routine filibuster on everything. They embraced the tea party within a month of Obama taking office.

So why the difference this time? Democratic activists have been pretty vocal about what they want, but then again, by this time in 2009 the tea party had already gotten its start. They were pretty vocal too.

My guess: as always, Republicans are given a pass for their ultra-conservative views, which might be a little crazy, but are still presumed to be deeply rooted and genuine. Democrats, conversely, are generally thought craven if they "give in" to their base. Democrats tend to be a bit wonkier and more policy driven than Republicans, and as a result reporters generally don't believe that they're truly passionate about their principles. The very fact that they're more willing to compromise proves this. So when they oppose Trump, it's because they've "conceded" to their base; they're "mimicking" the Republican strategy; they're "quietly worried" that their base expects too much; they "still hope for compromise"; and "protesters are leading the politicians." In other words, it's pretty calculated, not at all like those Republicans with their deeply ingrained family values and distrust of government.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Top Bottom