But the real crime is that the left never exploited that. If I was in charge, I’d have mountains of draft legislation vetted, proofread, run by every lawmaker, and printed out years before any potential majority just in case it ever came about. Whoever was in charge of the DNC in 2009 should feel ashamed of letting a generational advantage largely go to waste.
Fillibuster is a senate procedure rule. That's about the weakest a thing could be. At any point Democrats could have gotten rid of the filibuster with a 51 majority.
Democrats would much rather let congress do nothing than do something. It's hurt their reputation so much.
I like the idea of the filibuster, but like most things it degraded from a way to force the stand to consider your ideas at all costs, to a blatant stalling tactic, to a lazy button to push against anything you disagree with. I'd rather throw it out these days than keep it, but ideally we'd completely revamp it to close such obvious loopholes and bring back some skin in the game.
But the similarities stop there. The party platforms are in stark difference, and the GOP is now literally a cult of personality run by a mob boss. The naked corruption is off the charts.
In fact right now Trump is working to cancel or refusing to acknowledge mid-term elections and acts as if he were king.
I say this as someone who used to be a Democrat but left in disgust when Clinton remade the DNC into pro corporate puppetry. Partisan politics is a cancer on the citizenry and may very well be the end of what we call democracy in the United States.
I've tracked presidential politics since watching the Watergate hearings and what is happening today is beyond the political pale.
My pushback is that now is not the time for both-sides-ism. It needs to be addressed but most voters are poorly informed or vote their emotions and that talking point needs to go in the back pocket for later, if there is one.
I get your point, and the other one stating that Democrats are not "the left", but they are the the least worst option that a 2 party system offers.
The game is rigged, but this quote nails it:
On Undecided Voter s: "To put them in perspective, I think of being on an airplane. The flight attendant comes down the aisle with her food cart and, eventually, parks it beside my seat. “Can I inter est you in the chick en? ” she asks. “Or would you prefer the platter of shit with bits of broke n glass in it?”
To be undecided in this elect ion is to pause for a moment and then ask how the chick en is cooked.” ― David Sedaris
Actual US identity expression "issues" (visible drag queens, actually trans people, sports questions) seem to be small number small beer problems that should fall under US principles of "We let Nazi's march, so why not Furries" ?
"woke" has been a goldmine for the Right. Who needs policy when fear, panic, and anger get the voters in those booths? After all, drag queens and trans people are scary -- think of the children!
That phrase gets used a lot, I'm curious what you mean by that.
If you mean "woke", then you're probably missing the irony of how that is actually used politically. Based on the phrasing of your question, I'm guessing you might have an irony deficiency. But please go on.
Political discussion here is frowned upon because it usually devolves into partisan name calling -- which justifies it not being tolerated.
But if you want to discuss policy or "hacking society", please do. I am of no political party and am more than happy to acknowledge the foibles of those I might associate with, as well as any of my own because everybody makes mistakes, no?
I ask because as an outsider I overwhelmingly see US identity politics issues being raised by the new "Republicans" and to a lesser degree by the old Republicans.
> if you materially make peoples lives better they will vote for you.
This doesn't explain the last election in the slightest unless relaxed to "if you pinky promise to materially make peoples lives better..."
The idea that there are any significant number of people out there deliberately hurting themselves for hate's sake is a complete myth. People reach for it because it feels good to imagine that your opponents are hate-warped idiots, but there is not a shred of evidence to support such a claim. When you actually talk to people (and not just assume you know what's in their heads), you find out that they, like you, are just trying to do good in an imperfect world.
Of course nobody's going to vote for a candidate who doesn't promise what they want. But if the promises are lies and never honored, and instead the winner does things that leads to making things worse for them, they have effectively voted against their own interests.
Very little of what Trump promised was related to the common voter's best interests:
* lowering prices and inflation
* ending the war in Ukraine (in one day, to boot!)
* "fix" US trade
Most of the other stuff was ideological red meat, much of which he actually has done, but I'd argue that it wasn't in the interest of the common person in the end (tariffs fucked up US manufacturing and businesses, and in the end was revoked because it was illegal).
Meanwhile, he started a new war with no clear way out, has ballooned the national debt, destroyed the US's relationships with our allies (likely permanently), etc. In the interest of brevity I'm just putting some relevant nuggets, but the list is quite long.
If you look at his promises and platforms, a majority of it was a revenge and hate spree, and the hunger for that hate was actively indoctrinated into his base.
If you read through any of the DNC talking points of any given campaign, you're not going to see much on social issues until you maybe get to Kennedy. It's just not really something that's a pressing issue for a presidential run.
And honestly, I can't think of any social policies in the last 50 years that was seriously pushed by a sitting president. They at best pay lip service by painting a rainbow on some building, often years after the actual legal and legislative battles were won.
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Now, to directly answer your question: I'd rather not rely on deplorables to vote progressive. the nature of how they approach life simply won't allow that, even if they are otherwise in full agreement with every point. We need to energize the entire 3rd of the country that took one of the most important elections in the past 60 years and simply shrugged, staying home. We need to give them someone who will fight for them.
Of course, and that line of reasoning has consistently failed at the polls since it was deployed as a readguard attempt to bolster Clinton's failed presidential campaign. Like, how many times does the DNC have to stick a fork in this particular outlet before it becomes transparent that this line of rhetoric simply doesn't produce the desired results?
Not only is it absolutely time, it is well and truly past time to underline the functionally identical economic policies of both parties, how the economic turmoil this causes drives identity politics and political division in this country, with a clear eye towards bringing an end to all of that through any means available.
A two party system is a rigged game. Period.
The Democratic party absolutely needs to be taken to task and none of their bullshit should be tolerated or defended, ever, except one small exception: election day, in the general election -- because we can't fix the government if it's no longer a democracy.
We are in violent agreement in all but this: I refuse to reward the Democratic party for putting a gun to my head. If they as a political organization are willing to literally risk our democracy when the alternative is assembling reforms that clearly address the imbalances in our society then we can all burn together because I refuse to continue to reward their brinksmanship.
I want to point out that there were enough viable voters for Harris to win (but I am in the camp that believes there was actual election fraud done by Trump supporters).
The anger at blessing Harris without a proper primary, the genocide in Gaza, and the "everything's fine in the economy because the market is doing great!" -- none of that should be tolerated, and I recognize the anger leading to not voting for her because of that.
But by not voting in that unpalatable compromise we have an administration that is as evil, corrupt, and anti-democratic as could be. It's not clear if we can ever wrest control again. I'm frankly terrified.
We have to be strategic in our opposition, but that involves all of us reading from the same script -- a power that the Right excels at and the Left seems incapable of doing.
Case in point: "wokeness". It's been artfully weaponized by the Right and is the Achilles heel of the Left. It's the GOP's golden ticket to victory.
One of the superpowers of "wokeness" is that it's definition is never acknowledged on the Right other than "shrill libruls trying to boss everyone around and make everybody transgender and gay". That vagueness is intentional. To the Right it's an opaque blob of hate that requires no thought, no reason, other than "I hate that shit".
As "woke" was really about becoming aware of the institutionalized racism of the US I would call myself "fully woke" in that regard. But as it's more of a amorphous entity now I'd call it "human decency".
That said, I believe the Dems need to bail on "woke" and follow the model of the Tea Party, where a subgroup can espouse the more "extreme" stuff, and the main party can say "oh those silly people, that's not us, we're the serious party of populist economics and foreign policy"; then once that is framed in the public's eye, to go "oops, the extremists made me do this".
Politics means 2 distinctly different things: tending to the rules of governance, and tribal warfare. It's the latter that makes people hate talking about it.
This is all a game, a very important game, and a very strategic game. The rules used to be more clear but now its Calvinball.
Our only viable choice is to play the game the best we can, and recognize and act on what will help us "win".
Disclaimer: while I shit on the GOP, I recognize the value of "conservatism" and would love to see a GOP that existed to be the check and balance of any follies that the Dems enage in. If we're stuck with a two-party system, that would be our best bet for the country to survive, let alone succeed.
There is nothing sweeter to the oligarch constitunecy than the idiots who can't see shades of grey.
but if you can't see the stark difference in pro-mega-corp policies and blatant pay-to-play corruption in the last 1.5 yrs with the previous 4 years, you're clearly not paying attention
the fact that BigCorp couldn't wait to get rid of Lina Khan, and found a willing ally in Trump, is just one tiny example