1869

Thing is, right now there is an evil in this world, and the rise of Fox News and Trumpism have given that evil outsized power.

There are 3 million American citizens in Puerto Rico who haven’t had electricity for a fucking month, who are drinking contaminated water and barely subsisting because they’re brown and speak Spanish.

If you have something as basic as a computer to type on and the leisure time to use a forum like Qt3, you have the luxury of being picky that lots of Americans do not have.

1870

The peevish side of me can’t help but wonder, though, why is it that only the right gets to be batshit and win elections? Why do they get to have people like Ann Coulter writing their books and candidates like Roy Moore waving guns and spouting total horseshit?

I’m not saying Democrats should go that way, I just wonder sometimes at the underlying assumption that craziness only works in one direction. Republicans seem only to get rewarded for being hateful, incompetent, and ridiculous. Why is that?

1871

Because they have put together a coalition of imbeciles, liars, and people who lack morals and ethics to the degree that they don’t care about whether things make sense.

They have specifically targeted the batshit crazy bloc.

You could target them too, but it means you need policy plans that appeal to them.

1872

I will continue to vote Democrat because I believe that the worst that the Dems can do is better than the best the Republicans can do.

1873

Ignoring them? Uh, no. The Democrats are the only ones who are helping them at all. Your list of policies from before?

These are Democratic policies. Jesus! To want to burn it all to the ground by giving the fucking Republicans any advantage at all by not voting is asinine. This is why we lose elections.

And how we wound up with the worst president in history.

1874

The right gets to win by being batshit crazy because that is the choice they made nearly two decades ago and we’re just now seeing it come to full fruition. For two decades the right wing propaganda machine of radio and television media has cranked up the crazy level and hammered home the rhetoric in ever increasing frenzy. It’s created a feedback loop, where now the ridiculous conspiracy theories and outraged hot takes become the “facts” on which new, even more insane theories and hot takes are born. They’ve lost control and nobody there has the ability to sort fact from fiction any longer. Truthfully, nobody there even cares to, because along the way they discovered there was a metric buttload of money in catering to the crazy.

In the beginning, the Conservative Media was a tool of the GOP to bring more voters into their fold by appealing to all the outliers. Over time though, the GOP has instead become the tool of Conservative Media. The Conservatives in elected office now owe their success directly to the insanity of the Conservative Media, and they don’t dare go against it. It is a parody of itself, and it’s happened so slowly, so insidiously, that most Republican voters don’t even realize it’s occurred. They think their outrage about Hillary is self-induced, that their distaste for Obama is simply their intelligence telling them how obviously wrong for the country he was. Just like Trump crafts all of his tweets and ideology from Fox and Friends, the average Republican now thinks they knew all along that Dems/Liberals were evil and Fake News was everywhere, and Conservative Media is just verifying their own obviously superior intellect.

How do you fight that? To defeat this, we need all hands on deck. We need a unified front. The fact remains that population-wise and politically, progressive leaning Americans outnumber Conservatives. But it takes a united front to bring that advantage to bear. We did it in 2008 to elect the first African-American President. We need to do it again in 2018 and 2020 to save the country from literally the stupidest and most self-destructive Administration that Washington has ever seen.

So if you aren’t 100% happy with whatever Democrats eventually get tabbed to run for your state Senate Seat, state House Seat, or for President in 2020…SUCK IT UP. Because the alternative is to divide the Democratic/Progressive vote once again, and that will mean chaos reigns until 2024.

Fuck that noise!

1875

This.

We’re taking a vote to shoot you in the head or the foot.
Well I don’t want either so I’m not going to vote.
Okay, we voted to shoot you in the head because all the head shooters were united and 2 of you ‘don’t shoot me’ guys abstained.

And then not vote because they weren’t progressive enough, effectively giving the regressionist horrific shit a vote and real power.

True to an extent, but it’s also just handing the nation over to theocratic authoritarians because we can’t have a Utopia immediately.

Voltaire: “The best is the enemy of the good.”

It’s the exact reason we have Trump as President: because people disliked stuff about Clinton and then voted for Stein, Johnson or no one. So evil won because good was dumb.

1876

OK, mega Sharpe post incoming:

Are they? On the national level?

Did Obama embrace universal health care? (Hint: the ACA at best has left 10% of the population uninsured, which is better than the 19% before ACA but not close to universal.) Are the national Dems now embracing universal health care? (Hint: during the ACA repeal fight, Pelosi actually prohibited Dems from proposing a public option, which is one of the best paths to universal health care.)

I will concede that the Dems do have some proposals to work on the student loan crisis, although I’m not sure those proposals would fully “address” the issue. They would probably help so I’ll give you that one.

Fixing income inequality? Other than Clinton endorsing reducing (but not removing) the preferential treatment of capital gains income, I don’t see any national Dem major policy that would really address income inequality. The national Dems are not proposing the kind of changes to upper income tax brackets, improving the bargaining power of the middle and working class, reducing the power of corporations, reducing the concentration of wealth via mergers and acquisitions, that would be truly necessary to fix income inequality.

Making taxation sane again? Obama did have a fairly sane proposal on corporate taxes (reduce the marginal rate, which is being evaded left and right, but reduce the exemptions to reduce the evasion) but never proposed the kind of changes to the tax code that would really help (higher brackets for higher earners, reduce the payroll tax on low income earners, uncap the payroll taxes, completely remove preferential treatment of capital gains, revamp the estate tax to allow working and middle class a reasonable break while not giving away the farm to the top .01%. Clinton did propose a modest change to capital gains but none of the other items.

What were the cornerstone policies of the Dems in 2016? From my liberal perspective, there were some good but modestly sized proposals on capital gains and student loans, but that’s it. The rest of the Clinton platform was IMO centrist incrementalism, which is both inadequate given the severe underlying issues in our country, and is also terrible tactics given the swing for the fences approach of the GOP.

Clinton proposed some improvements to family leave, which is fine but only helps a small number of people who already have jobs. It doesn’t address job creation, wages, or increasing middle and working class opportunity more generally. Clinton proposed some minor tweaks to taxes and ACA which would be small improvements but are dwarfed by the kind of massive changes the GOP is trying to push through.

I say all this having voted for Clinton in both the CA primary and the general election. I agree that although I am dissatisfied with the national Dems, I am still going to vote for them b/c voting for the GOP is a terrible idea and not voting at all, or voting third party, is equivalent to half a vote for the GOP.

But the Dems really do need to go bigger, both to appeal to their more left elements and also b/c the kind of broad based policies I’m suggesting would actually be popular with many in the middle. For example, you notice what is NOT in my list of policies? Other than ACA subsidies, I’m not suggesting small-ball targeted programs to just help those who are disadvantaged. I’m suggesting bigger policies that would help both the needy and those not in immediate need. And that’s actually something that sells well in America: people like programs where “everybody pays in” and “everybody is equal” much more than (so called) “giveaways to the poor”.

Here are a couple more good ideas:

Large scale infrastructure improvement, including transportation, energy and data, focused on integrating the rural and exurban areas of the US that are stagnating with the urban areas that are booming. This should appeal both to rural voters and to liberal voters. I’m not aware of the national Dems proposing this sort of thing.

Change our company by company unionization approach to the European style industry wide negotiation. (Note: this would be a brutal fight as both the current union infrastructure and the business lobby would hate it.) Again, not aware of the Dem party proposing this sort of thing.

I’m sure others can thing of more ideas. The Dems need to stop focusing on incrementalism and propose some meaningful changes, not just targeted at those most in need, but addressing fundamental issues in our economy and society.

1877

I fully believe that if Clinton had gone more populist in a substantial way, she would have won. People disliked things about Clinton and she just wasn’t offering enough big scale substantive change to offset that. That’s my take.

Keep in mind, I’m NOT saying that people should not vote for the Dems. We all should. But the Dems are going to continue to not get the most votes they can if they fail to go bigger in their policy positions. Small ball is death.

1878

To be fair, I think he got as close as he felt was politically possible. Dumping the public option was unfortunate, but was the result of a pretty long period of wangling and vetting. I think Obama himself felt the only way he could get the thing through was by modeling it on ‘conservative’ Romneycare. Maybe in those days he was naive enough to believe that this would make it less loathed by the right.

Now Bernie has rhetorically asked for much more, but could afford to be more aspirational as both an underdog candidate and as someone not actually dealing with the day-to-day of implementing the policy.

I think the two of them represent something of the tension and push-pull between the idea that ‘you need to pull people further to the left/right with your leadership’ and the old chestnut about politics being ‘the art of the possible.’

1879

Depends on what you mean by that. Dems going full Feinstein in, say, Texas are going to lose. Horrifically. Hell, they’d lose horrifically in the Midwest, Mountain states and most of New England.

The way you turn a ship as large as the US is by degrees. You start with decent and work your way towards good.

1880

Unless you’re a Republican, in which case you go full batshit and keep winning.

It’s weird to me that there are supposed to be more liberals than conservatives, the demographics are supposed to favor them, etc., but it’s always ‘baby steps, baby steps’ and meanwhile the Republicans could apparently nominate Yosemite Sam and suffer no negative consequences.

Kid Rock is going to be a fucking senate candidate. And he’ll probably win. Just saying.

I just don’t get how the math works out like this.

1881

Then lie to them and pander and be a populist. You’ll win.

Though it would require candidates that actually try, which barely happens at all.


You know what wont win? Crazy lefties that give the GOP free ammo and free wins.
Want to lose every election? Make gun control a key policy.
Black men will vote for white nationalists if they care about their guns. Think about that and adjust accordingly.

1882

Why are crazy righties viable while crazy lefties aren’t? That’s a weird lopsidedness to the current political landscape.

1883

Because crazy righties boil down to: “We wont do anything.”

People would rather be left alone than fucked with.

Give people the option between libertarianism and socialism and most will pick the former. Because they know the libertarians wont ever take shit from them and they’ll lower taxes. Eventually they might notice that the roads are shit and the water makes you sick and adjust, but if they don’t notice those things they’ll keep voting for “leave me alone.”

1884

Unless you’re a woman, of course.

1885

Which is why they tend to not focus on that part so much and if they do they pitch it as the “good ole days” or the like.
And I was talking more about what they present, not what they actually do. Because the Righties do plenty when they’re actually given the chance.

1886

This is such a strange take on actual policies and actual harm that gets done, whether it’s Net Neutrality or “the Muslim ban” or abortion or birth control or coal waste in streams or exacerbating climate change or literally killing people after a natural disaster (and the litany goes on but you get the gist

And not once has one single gun been taken away from anyone when Democrats are in charge.

1887

Of course they do, which is why we need to oppose them by winning elections. But if you think your parents and grandparents know what the hell Net Neutrality is…

And they spin the rest of it, most people don’t support those things anyway. They care about stuff they see directly impact them, such as:

Assault Weapons Ban disagrees. Technically they weren’t taken, they got grandfathered in, but they certainly weren’t available anymore other than on the secondhand market with inflated prices. Which… is a real world effect on people that they notice: shit got more expensive and harder to get.

If you pass a bill that slowly poisons everyone, they aren’t going to notice for a while. If you pass a bill that makes gasoline cost twice as much, they’ll notice instantly and you’ll never get elected again. Add racism to flavor, cook for 30 years until electorate swallows it.

Edit: And in case I haven’t made it clear: There is perception and reality. In American politics perception matters more because the electorate is stupid and easily manipulated. If you are perceived as the group that will leave people alone, they’re going to drift towards you.

1888

Ok, I can agree that that is unfortunately true.

I think this is where the lack of moral leadership exacts such a price.
We should look to those who “appeal to our better angels.” I mean, as biological creatures on an individual level people really are just concerned with those things that immediately impact them, but it is up to leaders to recognize the greater good and have a vision for a future that moves us all collectively forward. But as as @SlainteMhath so eloquently posted, we’ve already lost that battle to Conservative media. (Personally for me it’s a constant tug of war between idealism and pragmatism but I think for the short term anyway idealism is going to need to take a back seat.)

Edit: And Sharpe hits on something here too that dovetails with perception:

I think the perception is (rightly or wrongly) that the Democrats on the whole are more concerned with safety net and they do need to find a way to broaden their message.