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PoliGAF 2017 |OT3| 13 Treasons Why

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Plinko

Wildcard berths that can't beat teams without a winning record should have homefield advantage
Not sure id go that far.

But I do not give a single fuck about Russia until the full investigation is concluded. I kind of hate it to be honest, especially the day to day "oppo".

I doubt this is on his list of priorities right now

He works for Trump and Trump desperately wants this. Wouldn't surprise me in the least.
 

PBY

Banned
I agree with this, and this is a point Josh Barro has been making from the other direction.

The Democratic position on immigration is that they want basically open borders but don't want to say that because they think Americans hate the idea. This leaves them in an incoherent place on messaging.

I want open borders but I think a reasonable place to start is to say we should just have amnesty for all illegal immigrants. Might have to put a felony limitation in there I guess.
I kind of feel like the entire Dem platform has this issue. What is the policy on minimum wage? Medicare for all? College? Weed?
 

Blader

Member
I'm fairly confident Sessions wanted this hearing public to take more heat and attention off the health care stuff.

Or maybe the former FBI director just heavily and very publicly insinuated that Sessions was a subject of the Russia investigation and Sessions wants to get out and disentangle himself from that perception as quickly and publicly as possible


You guys are going to drive yourself crazy with this "X is a distraction from Y" nonsense. This administration is going to be doing several bad, corrupt, and incompetent things simultaneously over the next three years, as they have been doing the last five months. It's not a calculated media strategy, it's a consequence of having so many malicious and stupid people in the White House at once.
 
Uh oh.

DCOWMWhVoAA4EsL.jpg


2.5% is LOW. Wonder what that means for Gillespie.
 

Plinko

Wildcard berths that can't beat teams without a winning record should have homefield advantage
Or maybe the former FBI director just heavily and very publicly insinuated that Sessions was a subject of the Russia investigation and Sessions wants to get out and disentangle himself from that perception as quickly and publicly as possible


You guys are going to drive yourself crazy with this "X is a distraction from Y" nonsense. This administration is going to be doing several bad, corrupt, and incompetent things simultaneously over the next three years, as they have been doing the last five months. It's not a calculated media strategy, it's a consequence of having so many malicious and stupid people in the White House at once.

Hey, with every backhanded and sleazy thing the GOP has done to try and push a health care bill with a 17% approval into law, I guess I don't see this as crazy in the least.
 

Plinko

Wildcard berths that can't beat teams without a winning record should have homefield advantage
For someone so skeptical of Republicans, you sure do believe their statements at face value a lot.

I guess I don't get this. Are you insinuating he didn't request this?

The Justice Department told the AP Monday that Sessions wants the testimony in public because he "believes it is important for the American people to hear the truth directly from him."
 
This is precisely what Sanders Democrats attempted to do, and for their trouble they were not just defeated in the election, they were branded as sexists and racists, smeared as just as bad as Trump, called useful idiots for Vladimir Putin, and generally treated like pariahs.

That happened when Bernie and others went from constructive vision to all-out attack..

Terms like "money laundering" and "bribes" and "corrupt" were thrown around casually. Those are actually all criminal charges. That's not activism to pull the party left, that's burning it down.

The far left playing victim in this is disingenuous. Reminiscent of the time the Sanders campaign stole voter data and then played victim when they were locked out for a day in response.

The left *has* been successful when it's not in attack mode. We're talking about substantial minimum wage increases, for instance, more than the mainstream Democrats originally advanced. But when the far left starts attacking the moderates as "basically Republicans" (which I see all the time) then they are working against their own goals.
 

Blader

Member
I don't know, is that really that tricky? Dems want to raise the minimum wage, make sure everyone has affordable healthcare and college. GOP does not want to do these things under the veil of choice and personal responsibility. Like, is anyone going to mistake Republicans for being the party of the minimum wage just because Dems haven't come to a consensus on $12 vs. $15 (though I think the party seems leaning pretty heavily in the latter direction now)?

Hey, with every backhanded and sleazy thing the GOP has done to try and push a health care bill with a 17% approval into law, I guess I don't see this as crazy in the least.

This administration and this Congress will be doing plenty of backhanded and sleazy things long after the AHCA is brought to a vote.
 
Lovett is right and this is a critique that the center-left is going to eventually have an answer to. It doesn't at the moment.

https://medium.com/@freddiedeboer/i...adequacy-of-the-democratic-party-b2b6be6c2891

There are elements of this critique that I agree with and elements that I disagree with.

Where I agree: Democrats have generally done a bad job at articulating a positive vision. "Republicans are bad" is not a compelling enough message to get people to vote, knock on doors, etc. This was a huge problem with the Clinton campaign, where the message was overwhelmingly about how bad Trump was and the few policy messages you saw in commericals/soundbites were generally bland and sounded like they had gone through focus groups. Obama was generally better than Clinton on this front, but I think the party still can and should do better.

Likewise, the point about the Democratic message being confused/convoluted is salient. I think there are a variety of reasons for that. Part of it is the lingering effects of the Reagan era (and more generally losing 5 of 6 presidential elections, often in blowouts, going back to Nixon). Democrats were left with a sense that there is a conservative consensus in the country and they had to work their policies into that framework to make them palatable to voters. That may or may not have been true in 1992, but I think in general the party should recognize that it isn't 1992 any more and we don't need to play the game on Republican terms. I think there can also be a sense of what certain blocs of voters want (such as professionals) that aren't necessarily correct. We should be careful about applying lessons from elections in one country to another, but it is worth noting that in the UK Labour moved to a more unapologetically left position and made major gains among more educated voters. Again, this was a major issue with the Clinton campaign. There was no simple answer to the question "what is your vision for the middle class?" There was a mishmash of policies (many of which were good) but again it all came across as muddled and focus grouped.

Where I disagree: For an essay whose thesis is that the center-left misses the nuance in the left's arguments, the author misses tons of nuance in the response of the Democratic Party to the critiques from the left. As much as I can criticize Democratic messaging, "we're the lesser evil so you have to vote for us" has always been a strawman. Likewise, there's much focus on overheated rhetoric in response to the Sanders primary campaign (which, like, there was plenty of overheated rhetoric on both sides) and misses how the party is moving left in many ways in response. Sanders had a lot of influence on the party platform and has been given a very prominent role since the election. His ideas (single payer, $15 minimum wage, free college, etc.) are gaining increasing traction among mainstream Dems (see legislation in NY and CA). That's not to say there's no resistance to Sanders and his ideas (see how quick many are to interpret his action in the most uncharitable way possible and pounce) but I think his primary was successful in many ways in getting the party to rethink its assumptions about the party's role and what its voters want.

Long story short, the author has some good points but also paints an overly simplistic picture of the dynamics at play here.
 

Pryce

Member
I kind of feel like the entire Dem platform has this issue. What is the policy on minimum wage? Medicare for all? College? Weed?

Depends on who you ask. Bernie/Warren wing plus left leaning dems: $15, yes, free, legal.
Mainstream dem/DC wing: higher but no too high, no, maybe, no.

That may be too simple but until there's a platform it's all up in the air.

I feel I'm really conservative on immigration in relation to many on this forum
 
Uh oh.

DCOWMWhVoAA4EsL.jpg


2.5% is LOW. Wonder what that means for Gillespie.

Would I be correct in assuming Fairfax is Gillespie territory? Affluent, establishment, more moderate Republicans, etc? I would have to guess that the more rural parts of the state are Stewart territory. I wonder what the GOP turnout is looking like elsewhere?
 
Stewart's supporters were more motivated than Gillepsie's according to that poll that came out a few days ago. If turnout is low then Gillepsie's goose could very well be cooked.
 

kirblar

Member
Would I be correct in assuming Fairfax is Gillespie territory? Affluent, establishment, more moderate Republicans, etc? I would have to guess that the more rural parts of the state are Stewart territory. I wonder what the GOP turnout is looking like elsewhere?
Yes. That's probably bad for Gillespie.
Stewart's supporters were more motivated than Gillepsie's according to that poll that came out a few days ago. If turnout is low then Gillepsie's goose could very well be cooked.
If Stewart wins we literally have mini-Trump in the race and any issues getting Northam/Pierello's voters behind the other (which ... shouldn't be hard, they've both kids-gloved each other) should be even less of an issue than it would have otherwise been.
 
Sessions is extra-special-NEVUH indignant about Comey "usurping" judicial powers by "declining to prosecute" Clinton and I don't know why it isn't politely pointed out that an FBI director can't do anything except decline to recommend prosecution.
 
There are elements of this critique that I agree with and elements that I disagree with.

Where I agree: Democrats have generally done a bad job at articulating a positive vision. "Republicans are bad" is not a compelling enough message to get people to vote, knock on doors, etc. This was a huge problem with the Clinton campaign, where the message was overwhelmingly about how bad Trump was and the few policy messages you saw in commericals/soundbites were generally bland and sounded like they had gone through focus groups. Obama was generally better than Clinton on this front, but I think the party still can and should do better.

Likewise, the point about the Democratic message being confused/convoluted is salient. I think there are a variety of reasons for that. Part of it is the lingering effects of the Reagan era (and more generally losing 5 of 6 presidential elections, often in blowouts, going back to Nixon). Democrats were left with a sense that there is a conservative consensus in the country and they had to work their policies into that framework to make them palatable to voters. That may or may not have been true in 1992, but I think in general the party should recognize that it isn't 1992 any more and we don't need to play the game on Republican terms. I think there can also be a sense of what certain blocs of voters want (such as professionals) that aren't necessarily correct. We should be careful about applying lessons from elections in one country to another, but it is worth noting that in the UK Labour moved to a more unapologetically left position and made major gains among more educated voters. Again, this was a major issue with the Clinton campaign. There was no simple answer to the question "what is your vision for the middle class?" There was a mishmash of policies (many of which were good) but again it all came across as muddled and focus grouped.

Where I disagree: For an essay whose thesis is that the center-left misses the nuance in the left's arguments, the author misses tons of nuance in the response of the Democratic Party to the critiques from the left. As much as I can criticize Democratic messaging, "we're the lesser evil so you have to vote for us" has always been a strawman. Likewise, there's much focus on overheated rhetoric in response to the Sanders primary campaign (which, like, there was plenty of overheated rhetoric on both sides) and misses how the party is moving left in many ways in response. Sanders had a lot of influence on the party platform and has been given a very prominent role since the election. His ideas (single payer, $15 minimum wage, free college, etc.) are gaining increasing traction among mainstream Dems (see legislation in NY and CA). That's not to say there's no resistance to Sanders and his ideas (see how quick many are to interpret his action in the most uncharitable way possible and pounce) but I think his primary was successful in many ways in getting the party to rethink its assumptions about the party's role and what its voters want.

Long story short, the author has some good points but also paints an overly simplistic picture of the dynamics at play here.

I think this is right.
 

kirblar

Member
https://twitter.com/mattyglesias/status/874722650286956546

The future of socialism is literally going to be the bourgeoisie fighting for the proletariat against the hatred and violence of the proletariat.
This is the future liberals expect:

But seriously, this urban/educated/cosmopolitan vs rural/uneducated/xenophobic divide is the new normal. It's not going away, we can't go backwards, and conservatives are the ones drawing the lines. We're just adapting to the new playing field.
 
Depends on who you ask. Bernie/Warren wing plus left leaning dems: $15, yes, free, legal.
Mainstream dem/DC wing: higher but no too high, no, maybe, no.

That may be too simple but until there's a platform it's all up in the air.

I feel I'm really conservative on immigration in relation to many on this forum

Similar story here; full-on open borders makes my eyebrow go up. But then again, that's what the articles about right?

Sessions is extra-special-NEVUH indignant about Comey "usurping" judicial powers by "declining to prosecute" Clinton and I don't know why it isn't politely pointed out that an FBI director can't do anything except decline to recommend prosecution.

Yup. He's getting specific and practiced when spinnin' a yarn.
 

dramatis

Member
Having an open border doesn't mean people only come in, it also means people can go out. Both ways without worrying about getting caged up.
 
How would open borders work prior to governance shifting to the international, rather than national, level? I'm for a global society, but before that is achieved, I think countries being selective about who they receive, and how many, is perfectly reasonable, given they are the ones footing the bill for the protections and social services people who enter their borders will receive.
 

kirblar

Member
Trump has historically been in favor of expanding healthcare, so this actually makes sense.

Hates Obamacare cause he hates Obama (cause he's black.)

Doesn't actually read any bills people put in front of him.

Actually reads bill, shocked to find out it's not at all in line with his personal policy preferences.

Just like his (white) voters, he actually thought the bill wouldn't affect them!
 
This is the future liberals expect:


But seriously, this urban/educated/cosmopolitan vs rural/uneducated/xenophobic divide is the new normal. It's not going away, we can't go backwards, and conservatives are the ones drawing the lines. We're just adapting to the new playing field.

Rural is fighting a losing battle
 

Plinko

Wildcard berths that can't beat teams without a winning record should have homefield advantage
Unless there is a major paradigm shift in this country, I'm not sure we see a female president for quite some time. The way Kamala Harris is chided for her actions on the committee is disheartening, especially when another democrat male was doing the exact same thing earlier and nothing was said. For some reason, people have a major problem with a strong-willed female leader.
 
How would open borders work prior to governance shifting to the international, rather than national, level? I'm for a global society, but before that is achieved, I think countries being selective about who they receive, and how many, is perfectly reasonable, given they are the ones footing the bill for the protections and social services people who enter their borders will receive.

This position holds that countries should leave people to poverty, starvation, or even death because our social services are for us only.

The open borders position starts with the question, "what's the difference between an American human and a non-American human?"

The answer is nothing at all.

Though I agree this means a more international world instead of a national one. I think opening borders spurs that on. Pigeon is right that it's not super popular but I agree that a clause like "kill someone and you're out" would help.
 
Unless there is a major paradigm shift in this country, I'm not sure we see a female president for quite some time. The way Kamala Harris is chided for her actions on the committee is disheartening, especially when another democrat male was doing the exact same thing earlier and nothing was said. For some reason, people have a major problem with a strong-willed female leader.

We were like 60,000 votes away from a female president in 2016???
 

Vixdean

Member
Lovett is right and this is a critique that the center-left is going to eventually have an answer to. It doesn't at the moment.

https://medium.com/@freddiedeboer/i...adequacy-of-the-democratic-party-b2b6be6c2891

I want to take him seriously, but his point on Obama's deportation record is disingenuous. Yeah, Obama deported millions, but most of those were folks caught in the act of illegally crossing the border. Previous administrations had just turned them away, but under Obama they were taken into custody, processed, and given their day in court. Yes, many were still eventually deported which inflated his numbers, but it was a much more humane policy that did take individual circumstances (like family already here) into account. Furthermore, Lovett is smart and knowledgeable enough to know it's disingenuous, which taints the entire point he's trying to make here.
 
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