Dem Post Mortem

[Loren Pechtel]

The thing we need to do is find ways to overcome. him, not blame the people who support him. Some can be influenced in positive ways, but so far, we haven't found all the answers to that problem.

Here's a novel idea, try nominating viable candidates with sound policies rather than dopey chicks that run on vibes.

The Felon, sound policies?

Vance 2028 it is.

What election?

 

[ZiprHead]

Are you insane?

No. Are you?

After the current Republican budget came out with huge record breaking deficits

Yes, the budget bill is a hot mess. What does that have to do with "Dem post mortem"?

and your criticizing AOC debt spending I can no longer take you seriously.

I am actually focusing on the topic of the thread, which is Democrats.
In particular, I was referring to the ideas from post #1,774, which posited that expensive spending programs like the Green New Deal or free college, were popular in some polls, and post #1,882 which also referred to a poll where AOC was found to be third most popular Democrat (albeit even then with only a +2 net favorability).
The idea you are pushing is that Democrats did not go too far left enough already, and should move to the left even more. In particular, AOC herself pushed the idea that deficits do not matter in order to justify the GND spending she wants.
Ocasio-Cortez boosts progressive theory that deficits aren’t so scary

You are most obviously highly partisan. You can try to deny it but your silence about the Republicans speaks volumes.

This is a thread about Democrats. Stay on topic, please.

And since I voted for Trump exactly zero times, but voted for Obama twice and also for Biden and Harris, I reject your accusation that I am "highly partisan" toward Republicans.

No. Your hypocrisy is now the subject of the thread.

 

[Derec]

No. Your hypocrisy is now the subject of the thread.

No hypocrisy on my part.

But it is pretty obvious why you are so desperate to derail - you have no arguments.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

Oh, a progressive who thinks Republicans did nothing wrong. We're into whole new fucking frontiers, here!

They did nothing wrong from their perspective. They voted for their guy, and helped get him elected. Textbook outcome of voting, really.
Naderites did something wrong from their perspective. They voted for a hopeless candidate, and helped the guy who is diametrically opposed to their views get elected.
Can you walk me through which part of this is still not clear?

It's actually much better to make a honest mistake than commit an intentional crime.

If 2000 was the honest mistake, repeating it in 2016 would have been a crime.

Also, that has nothing do with who "really" got someone elected.

It does. It is like in Canada with the Conservatives were winning elections because the liberal vote was split between the Liberals and NDP. People voting for liberal ideology were outnumbering conservatives. Yet, the Conservative party was winning the Election. When the people turn out and vote Democrat, we win Senate seats in Georgia! When they don't an asshole named Trump wins the Presidency.

 

[thebeave]

Well, this is one way to deal with the Democrats' issues and crushing 2024 loss. Get the hell out of Dodge.

Karine Jean-Pierre is leaving the Democratic Party.

 

[Jarhyn]

You are using the word "fascist", but I don't think you understand what the word means. You are also using words, you are calling people names from up high on a self-constructed pedestal.

Get fucked?

I know damn well what the word means.

The fact is, fascism happens exactly because folks exactly like you let it, because while you claim to know what it "means", you don't actually.

If you knew what fascism was, you wouldn't be slouching your way towards it; you would know it's hallmarks, and milestones, and patterns and you would know that the #1 way fascism spreads is through those who think they aren't fascist supporters at all, by making all the people who "hate fascism" complicit in building it because they think it's somehow impossible to "hate fascism" and still enable it at the same time.

News flash, that's how they get you.

If it didn't seem reasonable at the time it never would have happened in Germany.

 

[Swammerdami]

I skim-read some of these threads and endure various degrees of confusion. Often I end up canceling whatever's accumulated in my edit buffer, and just moving on.

But here's a post that leaves me quite confused; I am compelled to seek clarification.

The country consists of over 300 million people with varying desires, needs, hopes, and dreams

And the world consists of over 7 billion.

That doesn't act as a justification for selecting desires, hopes, and dreams that harm, or for tolerating that harm because it's happening to someone else.

You are as much of a casual fascist as Emily Lake and yes YOU are a fascist too, just a weaker and wimpier sort that I somehow have LESS respect for than the obvious Nazi, because at least the obvious Nazi doesn't hide their support for the nazification process behind self-unaware platitudes that they are only *leaning* right rather than running there.

You call Jimmy Higgins a "fascist" ?? Mr. Higgins impresses me as a rational centrist. Where in Heck do you get the idea he is a "fascist"?? Obviously it wasn't the post you quote. Can you point to anything that Jimmy has written that validates your insult? Note that staying home on Election Day 2024 or voting for Nader in the 2000 election -- if that's what the accusation is -- does not make someone a "fascist."

(Although perhaps irrelevant to my question, the very definition of "fascist" is controversial. I hold with those who define the term as an approach to obtaining political power rather than any particular social or economic ideology.)

 

[Swammerdami]

Well, this is one way to deal with the Democrats' issues and crushing 2024 loss. Get the hell out of Dodge.

Karine Jean-Pierre is leaving the Democratic Party.

Certainly every single member of the Biden Administration is orders of magnitude more noble and worthy than every single lackey of Trump-47 [/slight hyperbole]. Nevertheless it is still disappointing that top government officials are not always the best and brightest.

In the olden days being an important government leader was almost the highest calling an American could hope for. Today the call of Mammon is stronger.

I thought Jen Psaki was one of the greatest press secretaries one could hope for -- even better than C.J. Cregg!
Why did she leave her post? Were the millions offered by MSNBC too irresistible?

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

I skim-read some of these threads and endure various degrees of confusion. Often I end up canceling whatever's accumulated in my edit buffer, and just moving on.

But here's a post that leaves me quite confused; I am compelled to seek clarification.

The country consists of over 300 million people with varying desires, needs, hopes, and dreams

And the world consists of over 7 billion.

That doesn't act as a justification for selecting desires, hopes, and dreams that harm, or for tolerating that harm because it's happening to someone else.

You are as much of a casual fascist as Emily Lake and yes YOU are a fascist too, just a weaker and wimpier sort that I somehow have LESS respect for than the obvious Nazi, because at least the obvious Nazi doesn't hide their support for the nazification process behind self-unaware platitudes that they are only *leaning* right rather than running there.

You call Jimmy Higgins a "fascist" ?? Mr. Higgins impresses me as a rational centrist. Where in Heck do you get the idea he is a "fascist"?? Obviously it wasn't the post you quote. Can you point to anything that Jimmy has written that validates your insult? Note that staying home on Election Day 2024 or voting for Nader in the 2000 election -- if that's what the accusation is -- does not make someone a "fascist."

(Although perhaps irrelevant to my question, the very definition of "fascist" is controversial. I hold with those who define the term as an approach to obtaining political power rather than any particular social or economic ideology.)

I reported this post for them calling me a "centrist". Name calling is against forum decorum.

 

[Politesse]

When the people turn out and vote Democrat

You seem to be confused. People who vote Republican, have not voted Democrat.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

When the people turn out and vote Democrat

You seem to be confused. People who vote Republican, have not voted Democrat.

Do I have to spell every word out to you? Or can we discuss things like adults?

 

[Politesse]

When the people turn out and vote Democrat

You seem to be confused. People who vote Republican, have not voted Democrat.

Do I have to spell every word out to you? Or can we discuss things like adults?

I am trying. You're making the irrational argument that 90,000 people who voted for a third party are as responsible or even more responsible for an electoral win that was really the result of 3 million people intentionally voting for the winner. Faithless "moderates" who actually switched sides and voted for Bush against their own interests and yours, you forgive. The entire state of Florida shifting from its former purple to deep, dark red, you ignore. Principled pacifists you attack, and will never forgive, even twenty-five years after the fact.

Even though they were right to oppose those wars. Absolutely right. The Democrats should have listened. Even if you don't give a flying shit about dead soldiers and innocent civilians, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan never benefited the Democratic Party in any way. Every way in which the country changed during those years was to the benefit of neo-conservatives and the growing alt-right, who were always successful in claiming as their own accomplishment any and all gains in the field, while Democrats forever took the blame for all the negative consequences of interventionism, right up until Biden withdrew our remaining troops from Afghanistan and took a hit to his approval rating from which he never recovered. Those wars were bad calls, from beginning to end. A generation sacrificed, a world system dismantled, and for what gain? Pelosi, Obama and the rest should have known better, and if they didn't know better, they should have listened to those who did.

 

[ZiprHead]

No. Your hypocrisy is now the subject of the thread.

No hypocrisy on my part.

But it is pretty obvious why you are so desperate to derail - you have no arguments.

Says the king of whataboutisms.

 

[Jarhyn]

I skim-read some of these threads and endure various degrees of confusion. Often I end up canceling whatever's accumulated in my edit buffer, and just moving on.

But here's a post that leaves me quite confused; I am compelled to seek clarification.

The country consists of over 300 million people with varying desires, needs, hopes, and dreams

And the world consists of over 7 billion.

That doesn't act as a justification for selecting desires, hopes, and dreams that harm, or for tolerating that harm because it's happening to someone else.

You are as much of a casual fascist as Emily Lake and yes YOU are a fascist too, just a weaker and wimpier sort that I somehow have LESS respect for than the obvious Nazi, because at least the obvious Nazi doesn't hide their support for the nazification process behind self-unaware platitudes that they are only *leaning* right rather than running there.

You call Jimmy Higgins a "fascist" ?? Mr. Higgins impresses me as a rational centrist. Where in Heck do you get the idea he is a "fascist"?? Obviously it wasn't the post you quote. Can you point to anything that Jimmy has written that validates your insult? Note that staying home on Election Day 2024 or voting for Nader in the 2000 election -- if that's what the accusation is -- does not make someone a "fascist."

(Although perhaps irrelevant to my question, the very definition of "fascist" is controversial. I hold with those who define the term as an approach to obtaining political power rather than any particular social or economic ideology.)

I do not see much "rational" about "centrism". I see it as a vote to pretend that the knives are not being sharpened in preparation for our backs, especially over the last 30 years.

I just have no respect for that.

What makes someone a fascist is, I think, the utter spinelessness in the face of all of this, because of someone didn't want it to happen, they would not be doing the things folks like me have been saying for decades are the things that make that happen.

Eventually, this whole political powderkeg is going to ignite and I'm going to be right in the fucking middle of it, in Minneapolis, a stronghold of "progressivism".

I'm going to be in that mess when it comes here, and I can only hope that the work Info between now and then makes ANY difference for ANYONE.

I have heard Jimmy repeatedly talk about how "people" don't want this and "people" don't want that and "these policies are not popular enough" like their inability and disinterest in helping people understand and accept those policies isn't part of the reason.

I've lived long enough to know when people use "people" as a proxy, what they are really talking about is what they want.

Thr democrats lost because they could not deliver a message of "strength".

"Strength" can be delivered in a lot of ways, and what people of different walks of life understand as "strength" varies. For people on the right, it's being told all your life that someone is strong and associated with strong people and is good at stuff and is "successful". It means having all the right coincidences line up to be given power. It means not getting caught. It means being "stronger than the rules", and having and using leverage.

On the left, it generally means being strong in other ways. To me, it means holding to your principles, and having good principles, principles for the benefit of everyone, even when it hurts you personally.

On the right, it means being strong enough to stick someone's face in the fire. On the left it means being strong enough to pull someone out of the fire even if it means you get burned.

It has never ever meant shrugging your shoulders and doing nothing. It has never been rolling over.

I find 'centrism' and fence sitting in a world where people literally want to line up and shoot leftists in the streets, where this is preached to whole churches of nodding fools, as to be one of the least rational positions.

If conservatism is locking the lower decks off and underfilling the life boats and saving furniture, and leftism is people screaming to eat the rich as they drown behind the gates, Centrism, today, is "rearranging deck chairs". It has every appearance, every last one, of doing nothing at all while the world burns and hoping nobody doesn't notice that your number would be sufficient to overpower the guards and throw open the gates.

How are we supposed to interpret the higher interest in the trains running on time over the lower interest in keeping those trains from being loaded with minorities?

When the people turn out and vote Democrat

You seem to be confused. People who vote Republican, have not voted Democrat.

Do I have to spell every word out to you? Or can we discuss things like adults?

I am trying. You're making the irrational argument that 90,000 people who voted for a third party are as responsible or even more responsible for an electoral win that was really the result of 3 million people intentionally voting for the winner. Faithless "moderates" who actually switched sides and voted for Bush against their own interests and yours, you forgive. The entire state of Florida shifting from its former purple to deep, dark red, you ignore. Principled pacifists you attack, and will never forgive, even twenty-five years after the fact.

Even though they were right to oppose those wars. Absolutely right. The Democrats should have listened. Even if you don't give a flying shit about dead soldiers and innocent civilians, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan never benefited the Democratic Party in any way. Every way in which the country changed during those years was to the benefit of neo-conservatives and the growing alt-right, who were always successful in claiming as their own accomplishment any and all gains in the field, while Democrats forever took the blame for all the negative consequences of interventionism, right up until Biden withdrew our remaining troops from Afghanistan and took a hit to his approval rating from which he never recovered. Those wars were bad calls, from beginning to end. A generation sacrificed, a world system dismantled, and for what gain? Pelosi, Obama and the rest should have known better, and if they didn't know better, they should have listened to those who did.

 

[Swammerdami]

You call Jimmy Higgins a "fascist" ?? Mr. Higgins impresses me as a rational centrist. Where in Heck do you get the idea he is a "fascist"??

I do not see much "rational" about "centrism".

What do you even think "centrist" means??? Trump wants to grift $2 billion for his family and deport 300,000 aliens on student visas. The Ds want $0 for the Trump family; and zero student deportations. Do you think a "centrist" wants to split the difference? To let Trump grift only $1 billion, and to deport just 150,000 students?

I do NOT think that centrists are fascism enablers. I do NOT think Jimmy Higgins is a fascism enabler.

What I DO suspect is that you accused Mr. Higgins of being a "fascist" because you think he is a "fascism enabler."
Did I guess right? Help please! Is that what's happened? You think Jimmy enables fascism somehow and change "fascism enabler" to "fascist" because you want to maximize the insult?

Is that what happened? Answer just Yes or No, please -- I will not wade through another long screed.

More than once I've inadvertently dropped a crumb of cake on the floor and my strict daughter might scold me for being an "insect enabler." She does NOT call me an "insect"!

Hitler came to power in part due to a reaction against communists. Trump came to power in part because of the antipathy of rural voters toward modern "progressive" values. It is not a rejection of those progressive values to state this fact.

I'll guess that IF you manage to answer the Yes/No question above, THEN we will learn that Yes, you wrote "fascist" with an intended meaning of "fascism enabler." You'll still be wrong, but at least your thesis will no longer be nonsensical. If you do decide to present your thesis, whatever it is, in a less stupid fashion please strive for CLARITY rather than INVECTIVE and HYPERBOLE. Thank you.

 

[Derec]

It's actually much better to make a honest mistake than commit an intentional crime.

It is not a "crime" in a democracy to vote for somebody Politesse does not like.
In any case, it is worse to vote for C and thereby help A get elected, when B is much closer to your views, than to have views close to A, vote for A, and thereby help A get elected.

Again, it's not a difficult concept that voting Nader helped somebody get elected who was much further from Nader than Gore.

Also, that has nothing do with who "really" got someone elected. They all "really" helped Bush get elected, votes are not weighted by moral purity.

Of course not. Bush voters helped Bush get elected more than Nader voters did. Sure. But Bush voters wanted Bush, Nader voters did not. One helped get elected a person they supported, the other helped a person get elected whom they are pretty much diametrically opposed to.

I'm not Floridian, and did not vote for Ralph Nader. So no, I did no such thing. Nor is my vote for the presidency meaningful to anyone but me, as California's electoral votes are haven't been in serious contention since 1984.

Fair enough, but you did defend Nader voters, particularly Nader voters in a close battleground state where they very much affected the election.

 

[Derec]

Except the reps care far more about appearances than reality.

Unfortunately, yes. However, I think representative democracy, for all its faults, is still far better than the shit show that direct democracy would be.

Personally, do I want free tertiary education? No, I want affordable tertiary education. We used to have affordable tertiary education, it was good for the country. But every budget cycle the politicians nibbled away a bit of it.

I agree. But I also think that we do need a reform of tertiary education. I think "college for everybody" has been a failure. For sure, everybody with the aptitude and inclination for university education should not be prevented from attending due to cost. At the same time, people who barely graduated high school and need remedial classes (for math, that is pre-algebra level even though many take algebra as early as 8th grade!) to attend would probably better off pursuing vocational training. So strengthening the path toward skilled trades would be a good thing, without sacrificing support for university education.

The thing with universal healthcare is that it's mostly a matter of redirecting existing money, not spending more. I do not believe it would work due to politicians cutting corners, but the concept is sound.

Some form of universal healthcare is surely doable. But I think it requires more than just redirecting money. For one, different countries have very different concepts of "universal healthcare", not every country embracing what may be described as "single payer". Germany has a very different system than UK or Canada.
Then there is also the issue of physician pay. As long as doctors make markedly more in the US than in most other developed countries, US healthcare will cost more, even if we were to eliminate the insurance middlemen.
US physician workforce is also very specialist-heavy, with primary care being woefully neglected.

 

[Derec]

I am trying. You're making the irrational argument that 90,000 people who voted for a third party are as responsible or even more responsible for an electoral win that was really the result of 3 million people intentionally voting for the winner.

Then try harder. Nobody is saying that 3M people voting for the winner are not more responsible for his electoral win, but that they got what they wanted. Naderites got the guy far less aligned with their views then the alternative, who was actually pretty progressive, esp. on climate.
Not voting for a major party candidate better aligned with your views because that candidate is insufficiently ideologically pure is stupid. In a diverse electorate, any major candidate must attract a broad coalition. That pretty much precludes ideological purity.

You may hate Ronald Reagan, but he was absolutely right when he said this:

Naderites rejected an 80% ally (at least) in Gore.

Faithless "moderates" who actually switched sides and voted for Bush against their own interests and yours, you forgive.

How do you know voting for Bush was against their own interests? We do know Naderites, by helping elect Bush, voted against their own interests. For people genuinely positioned ideologically between Democrats and Republicans, that is far from clear.

The entire state of Florida shifting from its former purple to deep, dark red, you ignore.

That is a fascinating topic in its own right, but distinct from what is being discussed here.
As recently as the 2018 gubernatorial election, Dems managed to get within 0.4 percentage points of taking the governorship. With a less methy candidate, they would likely have won against RdS.
So what happened in the last 7 years? I am not sure, but I am sure you will blame the Florida Dems' lack of ideological purity.

Principled pacifists you attack, and will never forgive, even twenty-five years after the fact.

There is nothing principled about playing a spoiler. It's childish to not appreciate that presidential elections are a binary choice.

As far as this being a quarter century in the past. Sure. But it is a very good case study because the spoiler effect is so clear cut. And the fact that it is not recent gives us a more detached vantage point - we are not in the middle of it any more.

In any case, the Florida 2000 case gives us insight into more recent cases where lack of ideological purity was used as a cudgel to justify voting for third party candidates. For example, Kamala Harris, despite being one of the most left-wing senators during her tenure, was not left-wing enough for some, who preferred voting for Jill Stein or simply stayed home.

Even though they were right to oppose those wars. Absolutely right.

What wars? Afghanistan and Iraq? Tell me how exactly voting against Gore helped US avoid those wars.

while Democrats forever took the blame for all the negative consequences of interventionism, right up until Biden withdrew our remaining troops from Afghanistan and took a hit to his approval rating from which he never recovered.

Biden did not have to withdraw our troops from Afghanistan, especially not in the chaotic manner he did. But I guess voting against Gore is justified by Biden fumbling a withdrawal 21 years later. Sure, whatever you say.

Those wars were bad calls, from beginning to end. A generation sacrificed, a world system dismantled, and for what gain? Pelosi, Obama and the rest should have known better, and if they didn't know better, they should have listened to those who did.

And who would that be exactly? Ralph Nader? Jill Stein? Cynthia McKinney?

 

[Politesse]

Then try harder. Nobody is saying that 3M people voting for the winner are not more responsible for his electoral win

That is literally what was said:

"You want to blame the pragmatic acceptance of the general American public with enabling fascism. No... the people in Florida that voted for Nader are responsible."

Jimmy wants us to excuse those who intentionally enable fascism, and attack those who may have lost one state in one election because they were tired of endless garland wars and wanted a president who could spell.

 

[Harry Bosch]

The country consists of over 300 million people with varying desires, needs, hopes, and dreams

And the world consists of over 7 billion.

That doesn't act as a justification for selecting desires, hopes, and dreams that harm, or for tolerating that harm because it's happening to someone else.

You are as much of a casual fascist as Emily Lake and yes YOU are a fascist too, just a weaker and wimpier sort that I somehow have LESS respect for than the obvious Nazi, because at least the obvious Nazi doesn't hide their support for the nazification process behind self-unaware platitudes that they are only *leaning* right rather than running there.

You call Jimmy Higgins a "fascist" ?? Mr. Higgins impresses me as a rational centrist. Where in Heck do you get the idea he is a "fascist"?? Obviously it wasn't the post you quote. Can you point to anything that Jimmy has written that validates your insult? Note that staying home on Election Day 2024 or voting for Nader in the 2000 election -- if that's what the accusation is -- does not make someone a "fascist."

(Although perhaps irrelevant to my question, the very definition of "fascist" is controversial. I hold with those who define the term as an approach to obtaining political power rather than any particular social or economic ideology.)

I do not see much "rational" about "centrism". I see it as a vote to pretend that the knives are not being sharpened in preparation for our backs, especially over the last 30 years.

I just have no respect for that.

What makes someone a fascist is, I think, the utter spinelessness in the face of all of this, because of someone didn't want it to happen, they would not be doing the things folks like me have been saying for decades are the things that make that happen.

Eventually, this whole political powderkeg is going to ignite and I'm going to be right in the fucking middle of it, in Minneapolis, a stronghold of "progressivism".

I'm going to be in that mess when it comes here, and I can only hope that the work Info between now and then makes ANY difference for ANYONE.

I have heard Jimmy repeatedly talk about how "people" don't want this and "people" don't want that and "these policies are not popular enough" like their inability and disinterest in helping people understand and accept those policies isn't part of the reason.

I've lived long enough to know when people use "people" as a proxy, what they are really talking about is what they want.

Thr democrats lost because they could not deliver a message of "strength".

"Strength" can be delivered in a lot of ways, and what people of different walks of life understand as "strength" varies. For people on the right, it's being told all your life that someone is strong and associated with strong people and is good at stuff and is "successful". It means having all the right coincidences line up to be given power. It means not getting caught. It means being "stronger than the rules", and having and using leverage.

On the left, it generally means being strong in other ways. To me, it means holding to your principles, and having good principles, principles for the benefit of everyone, even when it hurts you personally.

On the right, it means being strong enough to stick someone's face in the fire. On the left it means being strong enough to pull someone out of the fire even if it means you get burned.

It has never ever meant shrugging your shoulders and doing nothing. It has never been rolling over.

I find 'centrism' and fence sitting in a world where people literally want to line up and shoot leftists in the streets, where this is preached to whole churches of nodding fools, as to be one of the least rational positions.

If conservatism is locking the lower decks off and underfilling the life boats and saving furniture, and leftism is people screaming to eat the rich as they drown behind the gates, Centrism, today, is "rearranging deck chairs". It has every appearance, every last one, of doing nothing at all while the world burns and hoping nobody doesn't notice that your number would be sufficient to overpower the guards and throw open the gates.

How are we supposed to interpret the higher interest in the trains running on time over the lower interest in keeping those trains from being loaded with minorities?

Then try harder. Nobody is saying that 3M people voting for the winner are not more responsible for his electoral win

That is literally what was said:

"You want to blame the pragmatic acceptance of the general American public with enabling fascism. No... the people in Florida that voted for Nader are responsible."

Jimmy wants us to excuse those who intentionally enable fascism, and attack those who may have lost one state in one election because they were tired of endless garland wars and wanted a president who could spell.

You accusing Jimmy of being a facist is similar to Barbos accusing Ukrainians of being Nazis!