The Boy Who Cried Wolf (Politics)

Politics and religion
21

The UK post-election polling proved pretty conclusively that putting together a platform out of a bunch of policies which are individually “popular” does not necessarily result in a popular manifesto.

I don’t like “electability” as a term. But a candidate have to seem reasonable and meet the voters where they are, and the platform and how ti is percieved plays a big part of that.

Taking wealth taxes as an example, centrists (The people you need to vote for you) might well poll well on that individual policy, but at the same time they are going to see Bill gates’ comments and it becomes a knock on the global plausibility of the electoral offer. If that goes too low then it doesn’t matter how popular the policies are because people see your plans as a whole as unrealistic and destructive.

I thing you will get more done going big on one or two major progressive aims and neutralising attacks everywhere else.

Primaries work the other way of course - each candidate tries to highlight the way they are “more progressive”.

22

A side note related to this comment: observe how a billionaire can use his outsized influence to effect policies that benefit himself. And he can seem (and even be) entirely benign while doing so.

23

Connor lamb in Western Pennsylvania is a good example.

A lot of the rust belt states can be won over by the progressive side of things like support for labor, and a good number of the policies, but the people there are often much more conservative, culturally, than in more metropolitan areas.

24

Yeah, we are definitely talking about two different things.

You are talking about the political struggle in Congress, and there I agree with you completely. It’s even worse than you say, because the Republicans have a structural advantage that is very difficult to overcome. Their central thesis is that the federal government – particularly Congress – does not work. So if they pull stunts to stop our passing things, they are not just getting their way on policy, they are simultaneously proving that they are right about federal government. And if down the road, we retaliate in kind, then we further prove that they are right about federal government. Moral of the story (according to the GOP line): “Give up on using the federal government to rein in the abuses of laissez-faire capitalism; all the Founders authorized was a system reining in abusive government.” The people who have run the GOP for time out of mind will never give up on that line, and negotiation will not address the problem.

No, I was talking about negotiating with blocks of voters, the constituencies that build the two main coalitions. And lead to the numbers in Congress.

Republicans have done extremely well in that area. The people that ran the party for decades really did not care a whole lot about abortion or the role of Chirstianity in public affairs or civil rights for blacks or illegal immigration. They cared about the 1% of the 1%‘s ability to protect and grow their wealth – and grow their power in order to assure protection of that wealth. They simply made common cause with these other groups, regardless of their private feelings about things like abortion because hey, none of those things impacted their real priorities. Just sound supportive, and ignore the fact that most of these allies don’t give a rat’s ass about their wealth protection schemes. (Besides which, until quite recently, they could get away with simply paying lip service to these allies’ grievances without doing much of anything to actually effect policy changes. THAT is why some conservatives hate Trump: he outbid them, by being much more sincere about addressing these allies’ grievances. But even Trump, more than anything else, got through a tax bill protecting wealth. Who would have thought?)

Throughout my life, Dems have increasingly done the opposite. Rather than considering which groups of uncommitted or GOP-leaning voters could be enticed with policy or sympathy, they broad brush huge swaths of the electorate as hopeless because they have been voting the other way. My allies would be glad to make an alliance – with any group that already puts minority rights and women’s rights and LBGTQ rights and the environment at the top of their priority lists. And who does not make too big a deal of Christianity. Or flag waving. Or question science too much. Or…

The bristling hostility of so many vocal Dems makes it very, very difficult to attract the votes of new groups who might not really care a lot either way about some or all of our issues, but who care a whole lot about other things that the Republicans are not doing very well at serving.

Listening to fellow liberals here and on various other forums, the message is clear: The people who voted against us last time are too racist (or sexist or anti-environment or fundamentalist) to bother with. Better our group be pure and losers, than to dirty our hands and play politics and fix any of these things. Which I find extremely frustrating because, with the possible exception of police reform, we would probably win nationally if those issues were decided on a straight forward referendum. Heck, some would win right here in my bright red rural county, if I could just get liberals to sush a moment about the fact that they also think these people are rednecks for loving their guns.

25

This is why I am much more willing to support moderates who are willing to do things like court-stack and other measures that will help in the long term. A big reason I have such strong opposition to Buttigieg is that he opposes such measures (so does Bernie, the reason I prefer Warren in an electability-neutral scenario is because she does support it.)

I’d be willing to support some radical proposals if necessary, such as splitting DC into 13 gerrymandered blue states (this is actually constitutional).

26

That is hilarious. Never heard the idea before.

27

Those ideas are nonsensical. They are entirely entrenched in the current partisan breakdown, and essentially are just an attempt to solidify a current partisan majority.

How can you not see how embracing such stuff is going to blow up in your face? Just want to rig the game when you control things, so then you don’t need to win future elections fairly? WTF is wrong with you?

28

The situation is pretty awful though. What if the dems win 53% of teh vote, the presidency, the house, but are nowhere near a majority in the senate, and the senate then blocks everything on a party line vote. What is the democrat play in that situation?

Or similarly, what if they are able to pass laws, but those laws get gutted by clearly partisan 5-4 supreme court judgements? What should the democrats do?

29

It has worked quite well for Republicans for going on 3 decades now. At some point we get tired of losing even though we have the majority and fighting fire with fire starts to make sense. What’s your suggestion?

30

Except Bill Gates is for a wealth tax. The details vary, but he says we should tax invested wealth if it’s just being held for long periods of time without any taxable event.

The other side is rigging the game. What’s the answer?

Yes, precisely.

31

But it’s one of the things that makes them bad! The answer to people trying to destroy democracy isn’t to destroy democracy!

Trying to impose a system that is specifically designed to disenfranchise the people who you disagree with politically, is fucking wrong.

What’s so messed up about this is that you don’t seem to actually care about the destruction of Democratic norms, you only care that your team isn’t the one in charge of the authoritarian state at the end.

32

So what’s your suggestion?

33

And there is the fundamental conundrum. To fix the game requires fundamental changes to politics that simply are not possible currently.

I mean Roberts himself ruled against provisions to reign in gerrymandering. When the Supreme Courts official position is ‘its bad, but we will do nothing’ and so legal means of undoing bad outcomes are no longer tenable, then what?

There aren’t a lot of options. Fight fire with fire, and use the same nonsense to gain the ability to fundamentally change how elections are handled, by making it a bipartisan issue. Consign yourself to being right, but lose forever anyhow. Or extra legal actions against people like the North Carolina gerrymanderers.

I mean if the politicians no longer fear the voters, and feel free to do extreme gerrymandering such as in Wisconsin where with 1/3 of the vote they have over 60% of seats? And the courts tacitly approve? What other options are on the table.

Maybe if Roberts hadn’t sided with GOP gerrymandering there would be more alternatives. But he did. So it is either fight back, or fight in the streets. And I don’t know that a wave of political violence is preferable to pulling a reverse Carolina.

34

Or maybe just turn out the vote?

I mean, in terms of things like gerrymandering, you can do that. The voter turnout in the US is garbage. Convince people to actually give a shit and exercise their existing right to vote, before you decide that you need to rig the game.

That’s how the GOP rigged the game. They won in Fair elections, and THEN rigged the game. And it’s the second part of that which is the bad part.

35

While this is somewhat true, it is not a magical remedy. Part of the reason turnout is low is because for so many it is irrelevant. And it isn’t like increasing turnout automatically overcomes gerrymandering. I mean I know I, and others, in the past have given examples of how this gerrymandering is set up. And how for places like North Carolina or Pennsylvania to overcome gerrymandering and have even representation would require +20 dem margins.

It isn’t like moving turnout +5% would have an impact on many races. If you look at the margins the house races have been 30% or greater on average for at least the last decade.
https://ballotpedia.org/Margin_of_victory_analysis_for_the_2018_congressional_elections

I mean… we are talking only a handful of districts nationally where there is even a 5% outcome. <10%. With over 70% of seats being 15% or greater.

Add in things like voter suppression, the games the Florida GOP is going to actively disenfranchise people, selectively purging voter rolls in Ohio, deliberately closing polling stations in minority or urban communities to ensure long lines and reduced turnout, and so on. Low turnout is an entirely predictable outcome.

If it will take you hours to wait in line and vote, if your vote is irrelevant because you’re in a packed district anyhow, and the local party is ensuring they did everything to make sure only the ‘right’ people are allowed to vote in the first place? They have deliberately stacked things to make it harder to exercise the right, and meaningless for most to make the effort.

36

I have no idea why anyone believes this. What the UK election proved is that you can’t say that your core constituencies, which you’ve been throwing under the bus for decades, voted wrong in the referendum and must be forced to vote again. The maps came out soon after the election and everything.

37

The polling doesn’t bear this out, but enjoy your alternative facts.

38

But voter turnout in the US is only 55% of eligible voters. Get those other 45% to give a shit. Convince them to support you.

Yeah, it’s unfair you have to work harder, because the Democrats dropped the ball after electing Obama. That’s what you are left with.

But after you do that, the answer isn’t too gerrymander yourselves into permanent power.

39

Sure it is. People with conservative principles are bad and dangerous. It’s right to silence them :)

40

NC did find a solution- they won the judicial elections and the governor’s race, and are using those to slowly reign in the legislature. There’s at least a chance of winning now.