Box of Kittens
Banned
I think of all the things that made the primary such a wonderful and fun experience, my favorite was arguing about whose supporters are more mean. Glad to be doing that again.
-
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.
PoliGAF 2016 |OT16| Unpresidented
- Thread starter ItWasMeantToBe19
- Start date
- Status
TestOfTide
Banned
Then stop taking offense at your own straw man of the horseshoe theory.
Which state and rural, suburban, or urban part of that state?
I worked 550 hours last year as a Fellow for the Democratic Campaign in rural NH. When I talk about what democrats need to win elections more, I am speaking from the experience of talking with thousands of voters.
And I like that you deflected my counterpoints about Bernie. Fact is that Bernie votes with the Democrats because he mostly believes in the same policies as them.
And sorry but claiming that communism and fascism are opposite ends of the spectrum is ridiculous considering that Stalin was a communist dictator.
smokeandmirrors
Banned
okay yeah whatever you say. keep grilling people like you're a goddamned expert at everything. i'm sure you're lovely at parties.
Bonen no Max'd
Banned
I mean, this means Jill Stein is stupid, not further to the left of Bernie.
That was just a popular talking point from people on the left: Jill Stein and her running mate, Socialist Alternative, Chris Hedges and a bunch of others. They were all pretty upset Bernie didn't run third party and I believe saw it as him not being Xtreme enough.
TestOfTide
Banned
Except Jill Stein was quoted as saying she WANTED Trump to beat Hillary if she could only choose between the two.
That's the point of it being called horseshoe theory!
He was, I agree. And I don't think that's all bad. But the reason I mentioned him was because he doesn't subscribe to everything on that list. The point was to show that there is diversity of opinion in the far left.
Secondly, I also agree! I've said many times that Bernie is not as far left as many claim. But I have been told that he is FAR LEFT and he is held up as the paragon of far leftists in US politics all the time simply because he's further to the left than the mainstream Dems. So without a disclaimer, I couldn't have assumed you weren't counting him.
Same thing here, plenty of people hold Chomsky to be "far left" even if you wouldnt. But our definitions of far left can't be based around whether they subscribe to that list of points, but whether they believe in socialism. That, to me, is the primary determinant. And socialists can subscribe to the those things or not.
I've certainly said dumb things in the past. For example, I gave the Ukrainian separatists more leeway in 2014 than I should have because there genuinely were people in the east who were rallying against Kiev because they were afraid of the fascists among the protesters, and there were those who wanted a return to socialist ideals. They got overshadowed quickly by Putin's goons. And I didn't see the extent of the threat that Putin posed until I learned about Dugin, so I was more skeptical of NATO'S involvement in Europe up to that point. I also learned a lot about the differences in the Democratic coalition and their viewpoints doing this past election. I think Greenwald used to be better than he is now. But I own up to errors and change when I absorb new information. Yet surprisingly, I remain on the far left.
Slavoj Zizek said the same thing. Leftists suck sometimes.
Bonen no Max'd
Banned
I'm not sure how that contradicts my point? I just said she was stupid and that has nothing to do with being to the left of Bernie.
TestOfTide
Banned
Stupid? She just scammed a bunch of idiots into giving her millions of dollars.
She WANTED Trump to win because for the Green Party politics is about nothing except "fuck the imperial west".
Why do you think Putin funded not just far right candidates across the west, but far LEFT ones too?
Not really. No where does the horseshoe theory state "there are equal amounts of people on both sides".
And I'm not talking about sensible people like Bernie. I'm talking about the left extremists who peddle shit like anti-vax BS.
So basically you take issue with the horseshoe theory because some idiots told you that Bernie is far left?
There your definition of "left" is a crappy one too considering how vague "believes in socialism" is. Does that mean I'm a leftist if I believe in the US Postal Service?
No, you are not the far left, because you are willing to actually admit when you take your ideology too far. The shit you just brought up, the far left would respond by claiming its all imperialist propaganda.
I think it is stupid. I don't think there's anything to the idea being impractical somehow makes you more radical and leftist. But I was saying precisely because there were plenty of leftists that hung on to the idea that Bernie running as a democrat "gave" legitimacy to the democrats being a party of the working class and that running as a third party would have been more meaningful/ showed a real break from the neoliberal establishment. Or something.
Bonen no Max'd
Banned
None of this is disproving my point that Stein isn't appreciably more left than Sanders but both are pretty different in their beliefs?
I get what you're saying but I think this is a pretty small group of people.
I agree with you. I don't know in what meaningful sense Jill Stein is to the left of Sanders. I think she was a lot less practical, said some dumb stuff, and had worse policies.
You really should get a Bachelor's in another part of the humanities (I'd strongly recommend Econ). There's no depth/hard center w/ Polysci. It's just trumped up philosophy.
It's not about it being "bad or good", its about "does this statement actively reflect the world", and it does- you see the same patterns of behavior on both political extremes.
Those less practical, much more stupid policies are pretty much exactly the meaningful differences you're looking for?
I mean, granted, she's hard to pin down because she's a scam artist, but still.
TestOfTide
Banned
Oh you want examples of how Stein and/or the Green Party are more left than Bernie, sure how about:
- being vehemently anti-israel
- wanting to dismantle more than half of the US's global military bases
- being ridiculously antiGMO
Just off the top of my head.
EDIT: And I'm just going to add the stuff where she goes so far too the left she starts mimicking the far right:
- She is anti-vax
- She constantly defends Putin
- She claimed that Trump being elected would be better than Hillary getting elected because of accelerationism BS
Oh and I almost forgot, Jill Stein is so fucking leftist that she thinks Nuclear Power Plants are literal nuclear bombs waiting to happen.
Sirpopopop
Member
Guess what, when you have one side who questions the very institution of the party itself, this is what you are going to get.
This fight is more important to me than 2020. We need at least one rational party to stick around. Not one that takes standard office gossip and blows it up into, "SEE! RIGGED!"
smokeandmirrors
Banned
this is so factually incorrect on multiple levels that i don't even know where to begin... good lord.
like socialism and communism are THE definition of the far left.
TestOfTide
Banned
Communism is the definition of the far left. Defining left as socialism is too vague considering how many different ways you can apply the term.
Bonen no Max'd
Banned
Fuck off with this, polisci is a real thing.
Bernie is literally the most anti-Israel candidate to come out of a mainstream party, wants to largely scale back US military involvement (and if the USSR is an important part of horseshoe theory, global military isn't necessarily farther left), and lol GMOs are not a real left/right issue.
To be fair, soviet style socialism wasn't that great right?
T
thepotatoman
Unconfirmed Member
For Russia, far left foreign policy people are basically defined by an extreme focus on the mistakes and misdoings of the United States past and worrying about repeating those mistakes to the point that they might give Russia's words equal weight to the US.
That is very different from the far right's fear and hatred of the other, and loyalty to their friends, to the point that they can go from treating russia like america's biggest threat to best friend overnight (at least if that country is majority white).
For globalization and trade policy, the far left dislikes it because it creates a capitalistic race to the bottom that increases inequality. It's really hard setting up labor rights and higher taxation when it's so easy for companies to just go somewhere where the government bends over for anything big business wants.
Again, quite different from the far right disliking globalism because of patriotism in their country, and a dislike of foreigners.
TestOfTide
Banned
First off, Bernie was still IN SUPPORT of Israel, even if he was also in support of Palestine: https://berniesanders.com/sanders-outlines-middle-east-policy/
Whereas Jill Stein was literally advocating we just stop helping Israel AT ALL.
Second, find me where Bernie Sanders advocated closing half of our military bases.
Third, how are you not aware of the fact that the far left is known for being ridiculously anti-GMO as well as ridiculously anti-Nuclear-energy?
Even if the motivations are slightly different, the end result is still the same in the sense that you have these two ends mostly advocating the same shit in certain areas.
No, I take issue with it because it is too vague to properly describe variants of political ideologies.
Nationalization isn't necessarily the same thing as socialization.
None of that is me stopping myself from taking my ideology too far though, it's adjusting my opinion about a particular issue because of new facts or perspectives. My ideological outlook/end goal - that I want the abolition of all classes and the control of the means of production handed over to the workers - remains the same.
I mean, how is that not far left, just because I try to be logical? Far doesn't mean idiotic, it means far from the mainstream. I think this is our hold up here.
It's all theory and conceptualization. You can't disprove anything nor can you prove anything because there's no empirical way to do so. Studying it is a waste (imo) because at the end of the day, there's no "right" answer. I started in Polysci and Nope'd out once I realized this.
This is, incidentally, why the non-math/data-based humanities flock to things like Marxism, because in their fields everything is literally opinion. Because the most you can say against it is "I disagree.", it gets to go unchecked. In the social sciences that can experiment, though- suddenly you can start proving things right or wrong, and it completely changes how you have to approach concepts/ideas/etc. (And Marxism does not hold up as an economic theory.)
The big development in modern economics is it going hard on the science/data part and veering hard away from any ideological underpinnings.
Bonen no Max'd
Banned
I mean, you're wrong, but I'm not really seeing any point in trying to argue this with you.
Though lol at philosophy being a waste of time.
That's the point, the only way to "win" is through argumentation. Not data. That's the problem.
Bonen no Max'd
Banned
I just meant you're wrong that it's "trumped up philosophy".
I've done plenty of math though, I might even teach it depending on how early job prospects look for me.
I've done plenty of math though, I might even teach it depending on how early job prospects look for me.
Carpe Libertatem
Member
You either only took an intro class or your school's program was bad because this is absolutely false.
Tons of hard numbers in political science. For just one example, I did a project my sophomore year analyzing if openness in an electoral system (with respect to parties) has any connection with extremist party success. Looked at decades worth of election numbers across a dozen countries.
You're talking more about political theory/philosophy, which is sort of the case. But there's still value in it, I think. It can't be the only thing people study though, IMO
I'm trying to imagine what a partial repeal that doesn't topple the healthcare industry even looks like.
TestOfTide
Banned
Then you are missing the whole point of the horseshoe theory. The theory's purpose isn't to categorize all of politics. It's to show that when you go to the very extreme ends you end up with striking numbers of similarities.
Oh so it's suddenly socialism if it were just run by individual states then?
And my point is that you are a lot less extreme than you claim if you are willing to change your view when presented with relevant facts.
Meanwhile Jill Stein TO THIS DAY believes that Wi-Fi hurts people's brains.
Let me put it this way:
You say that's your goal, but are you the kind of person who thinks that anything short of that is a useless endeavor?
There is no such thing as an absence of ideological underpinnings.
Bonen no Max'd
Banned
You can't just define being "far left" as "believes things I think are crazy and/or are believed by the far right".
Horseshoe theory definitely applies if you do define it that way, though.
Horseshoe theory definitely applies if you do define it that way, though.
VendettaRed07
Member
So my friends were talking about the $20 bill and when Harriet Tubman bills were supposed to come out
And my other friend went "Well, never now. Trump is going to stop that and put himself on the $20"
And I actually really believe that is something he would actually try to do. Because fucking why wouldn't he
And my other friend went "Well, never now. Trump is going to stop that and put himself on the $20"
And I actually really believe that is something he would actually try to do. Because fucking why wouldn't he
You can but it's not necessarily so and it falsely breaks down politics into two mere directions.
No, it's socialism if the workers controlled it. I'm ok with nationalization if it's run by a democratic government but that's still just a representative sort of socialism, not direct socialism.
I don't disagree, but I don't think that precludes me from being on the far left. Criticism and self criticism are two of the core tenants of "scientific socialism" as Marx liked to call it.
No, but again, I think we are thinking of what defines something as "far" differently.
TestOfTide
Banned
The whole point is that when you go into the far ends you get into crazy shit that half the time relies on conspiracy theories.
But good to know you don't want to admit to the flaws of the far left, because apparently you don't realize that antiGMO and anti-Nuclear-energy BS is mostly a far left thing.
Except most of modern politics IS a two sided thing. Just because there are a few exceptions doesn't negate the fact that most political affiliation is on those two mere directions.
I think I see the issue here. I'm gonna test it with a question:
Do you acknowledge that the far left gets ridiculous with their attitude regarding nuclear-based energy?
Full ACA repeal seems unlikely but it doesn't matter. They can still cripple it by killing the subsidies and doing plenty of other things via the HHS secretary. They will just starve the beast. Typical Republican strategy. Then they'll point to it and say this is why universal healthcare is a bad idea and people will eat it up. Universal healthcare is dead for at least another generation. Elections have consequences. It's damning that we now know Russia had at least something to do with having to endure these consequences. It's an act of war, I don't care what anybody says.
The Technomancer
card-carrying scientician
I think its less that you can "trace" the horseshoe along its curve and find more extremism gradually as you get further from center, and more that groups that tend to believe that its just ridiculous that their clearly obvious solutions haven't been implemented and some form of revolution to seize power over institutions, the populace, or both to just do what's obvious is correlated with fanaticism for any ideology.
Or to put it another way, I think who most of us are talking about are the people who believe that complex problems have simple solutions (or complex problems have simple causes), and these people are usually pretty far into something. When I talk about the "far left" in this context I'm talking about the people who just think that we should just have universal healthcare already damnit and that the only reason we don't is because of the pharmecy industry or something and not because...Americans might not actually want Universal Health Care and need to be educated before they'll change how they'll vote. But no, its always "neoliberalism" that's to blame
Or to put it another way, I think who most of us are talking about are the people who believe that complex problems have simple solutions (or complex problems have simple causes), and these people are usually pretty far into something. When I talk about the "far left" in this context I'm talking about the people who just think that we should just have universal healthcare already damnit and that the only reason we don't is because of the pharmecy industry or something and not because...Americans might not actually want Universal Health Care and need to be educated before they'll change how they'll vote. But no, its always "neoliberalism" that's to blame
Stein actually ended up getting over 1% of the vote.
Bonen no Max'd
Banned
This is more understandable but I don't think it's just extremes that feel this way. Perot ran a campaign and got 19% of the vote (I'm not aware of any other third party candidate doing this well in this century, and luckily benji is banned right now so he can't correct me) running as a centrist who "just wanted to get under the hood and fix all the things that went wrong because of partisans". He also had largely crazy ideas and embraced conspiracy theories, but he pulled near equally from both parties.
I also think there's a difference between "everything is an easy problem that I'll just fix because I'm the best" and avoiding wonkiness. While Sanders did simplify things and probably isn't a great wonk, by avoiding complex policy details he was pretty successful at keeping a campaign message that was clear and felt honest.
Sure, there's tons of numbers. There's a lot of good work using those numbers. But at the end of the day, like on Who's Line, they don't matter, because people will pick and choose what they want to. There's no way to say "No. You are wrong." definitively w data.
Political ideology. If you are subscribing to dogma, you are wrong. It doesn't matter which dogma- they're all bad.
People's policy goals/preferences will of course be influenced by ideology- but if it's influencing your analysis you are doing it wrong.
Even assuming continuously nipping at the ACA like so doesn't cause a domino effect, you still leave a bunch of folks who relied on said subsidies without healthcare, angering them into voting against the republicans. Not to mention that, after finally gaining enough power to pull off the repeal they've been loudly and angrily crying out for, to just do some weak-kneed snipping here and there and not get rid of the much-unloved mandate would leave the GOP looking pathetic.
not that i doubt their ability to spin such a situation into a positive for the diehards though
The Technomancer
card-carrying scientician
The ACA is the one thing they're not going to be able to dodge simply because its the one thing that actively affects their constituent's pocketbooks. You can spin "he said he'd make jobs" with "well he did make all these jobs here here and here", a lot of his voters weren't unemployed in the first place.
But "we'll improve your healthcare and stop it costing so much"? That effects almost everyone, especially with less people getting employer coverage. Their only option would be to invest in an actual larger, better program and they'll never do it because Ryan will never let them. Literally anything else they do will make things tangibly worse for a ton of people
But "we'll improve your healthcare and stop it costing so much"? That effects almost everyone, especially with less people getting employer coverage. Their only option would be to invest in an actual larger, better program and they'll never do it because Ryan will never let them. Literally anything else they do will make things tangibly worse for a ton of people
Hillary Clinton
Banned
Republicans have a good talking point right now that Democratic response to Russian hacking is justified but late and politically motivated. Excellent distraction from the complete inability on the president-elect's part to commit to robust and vigorous countermeasures.
You walk that shit back, right now.
Untrue, they can lower premiums by a fairly large margin by uninsuring large swaths of people. Also, they can blame Democrats for fillibustering market-based improvement amendments. Or they can just say that the changes will take time to translate into savings and their voters will forgive them.
You walk that shit back, right now.
Untrue, they can lower premiums by a fairly large margin by uninsuring large swaths of people. Also, they can blame Democrats for fillibustering market-based improvement amendments. Or they can just say that the changes will take time to translate into savings and their voters will forgive them.
DrForester
Kills Photobucket
Bitch about Apprentice Ratings and insult my successor. Check
Defend Russia and a pedophile. Check
Bitch about the US Intelligence Community. Check
Threaten news networks that don't kiss my ass. Check
OH SHIT IT'S 7PM. BETTER TWEET HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO MY SON!
Defend Russia and a pedophile. Check
Bitch about the US Intelligence Community. Check
Threaten news networks that don't kiss my ass. Check
OH SHIT IT'S 7PM. BETTER TWEET HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO MY SON!
Bitch about Apprentice Ratings and insult my successor. Check
Defend Russia and a pedophile. Check
Bitch about the US Intelligence Community. Check
Threaten news networks that don't kiss my ass. Check
OH SHIT IT'S 7PM. BETTER TWEET HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO MY SON!
And he hasn't even taken the oath of office yet...
T
thepotatoman
Unconfirmed Member
Probable Obamacare repeal plan:
- Immediately get rid of all related taxes, ignoring any deficits that produces.
- Get rid of Planned Parenthood and specify that ACA pre existing condition protections no longer apply to gender identity, mental health, or being a woman.
- Schedule the mandate, tax credits, and medicare expansion to end 2021, when they can blame a democrat controlled senate when the health industry implodes.
- Immediately get rid of all related taxes, ignoring any deficits that produces.
- Get rid of Planned Parenthood and specify that ACA pre existing condition protections no longer apply to gender identity, mental health, or being a woman.
- Schedule the mandate, tax credits, and medicare expansion to end 2021, when they can blame a democrat controlled senate when the health industry implodes.
Ugh this is depressing.
Not sure what to do with today's information (which isn't really all that new, I guess).
whyamihere
Banned
I just went through the gay marriage legalization thread.
There was so much hope and happiness that day
There was so much hope and happiness that day
Bolded point won't fly - either they won't do it, or it'll cost them a fuckton of votes. They'd love to do it, I have no doubt about that, but they'll be making martyrs out of every sexist-redneck's mom. Just imagine it: endless human-interest stories along the lines of "My mom had X as a pre-existing condition, and my Republican representatives did nothing!"
As for scheduling, does this not depend upon how it's done? Could an incoming Dem president issue an Executive Order to countermand this happening?
- Status