Well, if we want to bring it into the fold of the Party: there’s always the Rotating Villain hypothesis for the blockage of Progressive Legislation by Democrats over and over again, and how leadership never manages to overcome it despite their supposed stated desires:
The primary tactic in this game is Villain Rotation. They always have a handful of Democratic Senators announce that they will be the ones to deviate this time from the ostensible party position and impede success, but the designated Villain constantly shifts, so the Party itself can claim it supports these measures while an always-changing handful of their members invariably prevent it. One minute, it's Jay Rockefeller as the Prime Villain leading the way in protecting Bush surveillance programs and demanding telecom immunity; the next minute, it's Dianne Feinstein and Chuck Schumer joining hands and "breaking with their party" to ensure Michael Mukasey's confirmation as Attorney General; then it's Big Bad Joe Lieberman single-handedly blocking Medicare expansion; then it's Blanche Lincoln and Jim Webb joining with Lindsey Graham to support the de-funding of civilian trials for Terrorists; and now that they can't blame Lieberman or Ben Nelson any longer on health care (since they don't need 60 votes), Jay Rockefeller voluntarily returns to the Villain Role, stepping up to put an end to the pretend-movement among Senate Democrats to enact the public option via reconciliation.
I’m loathe to reference Greenwald any other time, but at this point there seems a repeat pattern of party behavior on transformative progressive policies, for nearly twenty years now, that even he serves as the stopped watch for
[does worst person you know made a great point apply when the point was made over a decade ago?]
Again at some point, either the party does have a rotating villain problem that they field to combat the progressive wing’s push for transformative legislation, or the party is in deep denial about how it’s big tent has eroded its soul in the name of a status quo that is grinding our society down but by bit into something horrid (and creates the appearance of such a tactic by leadership). either way, ultimately the course they trace is a slower path to the same rebuke of the reforms of the 20th century as the GOP seeks to establish openly
This is the kind of stuff I’m looking for, thanks. Not the awfulness of the Dem party, but an explanation of the position that they are coordinating to get what they want. I'm not totally sold on the idea, but I admit, Villain Rotation and incompetence look mostly the same.
Edit so as not to double post:
What makes me not dismiss this idea out of hand is that there is evidence for it going back before Tfumps rise to power, and the specific pattern RE progressive legislation that various wealthy interest do not want.
Yeah we don't need a wacky conspiracy theory to explain this. It's that crafting progressive legislation is tricky, convincing people to make changes is hard, and opposition will often solidify around a single person. That's all just the nature of politics.
i object to the same word that's used to describe moon landing silliness being used to describe a clear pattern of behavior on the part of one of the two parties that runs the country. is it really that wacky that a bunch of decrepit senators and congresspeople are trying to wrangle a bunch of irreconcilable goals by saying one thing and doing another? that would also seem to be just the nature of politics. and once gain, if it's not intentional it's a result of incompetence, and since we little people have about the same zero chance of getting things moving whether it's one or the other i don't know how much it actually matters which it is
It's a conspiracy theory if you claim that when a group looks like they failed at something, they were actually pleased with the result for nefarious reasons. It's not exactly pizzagate but it's certainly toxic to politics, because it drives bothsides thinking. The Democrats are sweating blood to get this passed, and failing. They aren't pretending to care but actually secretly relieved to fail.
It's a conspiracy theory if you claim that when a group looks like they failed at something, they were actually pleased with the result for nefarious reasons. It's not exactly pizzagate but it's certainly toxic to politics, because it drives bothsides thinking. The Democrats are sweating blood to get this passed, and failing. They aren't pretending to care but actually secretly relieved to fail.
but if they're sweating blood and still can't get anything done, no matter the reason, how is that not literally bothsides? that's the basic reality of the situation, whether they actually want to or not they aren't doing anything and it's going to kill them. us nerds on a video game message board talking about politics are one thing, but for most people, most voters even, it's just gonna be a straight line from "biden isn't doing what he promised" to "i'm not voting for him again." they won't care whether congress is intentionally spiking legislation they don't want or pelosi and schumer are so bad at their jobs they can't get massively important stuff through their own party, it makes no difference
It's a conspiracy theory if you claim that when a group looks like they failed at something, they were actually pleased with the result for nefarious reasons. It's not exactly pizzagate but it's certainly toxic to politics, because it drives bothsides thinking. The Democrats are sweating blood to get this passed, and failing. They aren't pretending to care but actually secretly relieved to fail.
but if they're sweating blood and still can't get anything done, no matter the reason, how is that not literally bothsides? that's the basic reality of the situation, whether they actually want to or not they aren't doing anything and it's going to kill them. us nerds on a video game message board talking about politics are one thing, but for most people, most voters even, it's just gonna be a straight line from "biden isn't doing what he promised" to "i'm not voting for him again." they won't care whether congress is intentionally spiking legislation they don't want or pelosi and schumer are so bad at their jobs they can't get massively important stuff through their own party, it makes no difference
What specifically would you like Pelosi and Schumer to do to make Manchin and Sinema vote for the reconciliation bill?
Edit: "but for most people, most voters even, it's just gonna be a straight line from "biden isn't doing what he promised" to "i'm not voting for him again." they won't care whether congress is intentionally spiking legislation they don't want or pelosi and schumer are so bad at their jobs they can't get massively important stuff through their own party, it makes no difference"
Maybe this is where you then push back and call out that bullshit then, instead of excitedly going "Yeah, you're right, this is Biden, Schumer, and Pelosi's fault and NO ONE ELSES"?
i'm not a senator, it's not on me to answer that question
like that is my whole point. we're here talking about the details of why shit can't get passed and your average voter just does not care, they'll just see the result and say why bother. they'll especially say why bother in places where the republicans have already made it extremely hard to vote, on purpose
what i would like the party in general to do is give people a reason to vote for them, because as much as i detest the democrats the republicans are usually worse being that when they get voted in they somehow can actually do shit
It's a conspiracy theory if you claim that when a group looks like they failed at something, they were actually pleased with the result for nefarious reasons. It's not exactly pizzagate but it's certainly toxic to politics, because it drives bothsides thinking. The Democrats are sweating blood to get this passed, and failing. They aren't pretending to care but actually secretly relieved to fail.
but if they're sweating blood and still can't get anything done, no matter the reason, how is that not literally bothsides? t
No. If Democrats really want to do it but don't have the votes, us ordinary folks can organize and get more Democrats elected and get the bill passed. But if the Democrats are a Sinister Conspiracy to Do Nothing, that would not work - and that's what the bothsides fallacy is.
like that is my whole point. we're here talking about the details of why shit can't get passed and your average voter just does not care, they'll just see the result and say why bother.
Right. That's why the Republican strategy of NO! is so effective.
It's a conspiracy theory if you claim that when a group looks like they failed at something, they were actually pleased with the result for nefarious reasons. It's not exactly pizzagate but it's certainly toxic to politics, because it drives bothsides thinking. The Democrats are sweating blood to get this passed, and failing. They aren't pretending to care but actually secretly relieved to fail.
but if they're sweating blood and still can't get anything done, no matter the reason, how is that not literally bothsides? t
No. If Democrats really want to do it but don't have the votes, us ordinary folks can organize and get more Democrats elected and get the bill passed. But if the Democrats are a Sinister Conspiracy to Do Nothing, that would not work - and that's what the bothsides fallacy is.
if that's what you believe then by all means do what you can to make it happen, i have nothing but respect for someone who gets out there and does the thing, but as time goes on and this keeps happening it's gonna just get harder and harder to convince people that with just a few more senators the democrats could do all their wonderful agenda items
like that is my whole point. we're here talking about the details of why shit can't get passed and your average voter just does not care, they'll just see the result and say why bother.
Right. That's why the Republican strategy of NO! is so effective.
it's effective because the democrats have no counter to it! if the GOP can dictate terms even when they're in the minority what are the democrats ever supposed to be able to do? why bother supporting or defending them if all they ever have is excuses?
seriously, please convince me. i don't want the situation to be as hopeless as it clearly is, but i don't see any other way to look at it
Progressive changes aren’t going to come fast enough legislatively, vote against the fascists but look locally and at labor for opportunities to invest in actual change
The situation is hopeless right now; the fault is the Republicans, who are pure evil. Doesn't mean we get to give up and wallow in bothsides conspiracy thinking.
how will the hopeless situation not become hopeless when the republicans will use whatever means they can to push their agenda through but the democrats will not?
also i mentioned this earlier in the thread but giving up on electoral politics is not giving up on politics in general, that's a dangerous, kind of shitty conflation. nobody's wallowing, i'm trying to understand why a situation i see clearly for one thing other people seem to see clearly for another completely opposite thing
how will the hopeless situation not become hopeless when the republicans will use whatever means they can to push their agenda through but the democrats will not?
also i mentioned this earlier in the thread but giving up on electoral politics is not giving up on politics in general, that's a dangerous, kind of shitty conflation. nobody's wallowing, i'm trying to understand why a situation i see clearly for one thing other people seem to see clearly for another completely opposite thing
because fascism and authoritarianism are bad no matter whether we agree with the policies or not.
the president is not a king. Congress are not retainers beholden to the party or the president.
it's amazing how quickly this degrades to horseshoe garbage every time.
also i mentioned this earlier in the thread but giving up on electoral politics is not giving up on politics in general
If you give up on electoral politics, the only methods available to effect change are not permitted to be discussed on this forum. Or local feelgood stuff like building houses for charities, which will do your soul a world of good and get you into heaven but will never help big picture stuff like climate change.
If I think our current form of representative democratic... republicanism has failed us, and the world's burning and we're dying
What should I do?
If the current 50/50 senate cannot get anything of notice done, and there's no way I believe Biden will expand the supreme court, or abolish the filibuster, and literally no legislation which will actually help the working class will ever pass, what should I do?
I've voted blue no matter who for 19 fucking years and I'm poorer and worse off than I was when I was a teenager
There is a certain point where the ends actually do justify the means. At this point I would probably prefer an authoritarian state that makes major efforts to solve the climate change/environmental crisis over a democratic state that fails to do so, simply for survival reasons (although this is not my preferred solution to our problem).
Edit - I'm speaking generally, though, that argument is not super relevant to the Democratic party
There is a certain point where the ends actually do justify the means. At this point I would probably prefer an authoritarian state that makes major efforts to solve the climate change/environmental crisis over a democratic state that fails to do so, simply for survival reasons.
If we get an authoritarian state, it will be a fascist one, and they don't give a shit about the environment.
There is a certain point where the ends actually do justify the means. At this point I would probably prefer an authoritarian state that makes major efforts to solve the climate change/environmental crisis over a democratic state that fails to do so, simply for survival reasons.
If we get an authoritarian state, it will be a fascist one, and they don't give a shit about the environment.
I agree, it's more a hypothetical I've been thinking about than a realistic outcome here.
also i mentioned this earlier in the thread but giving up on electoral politics is not giving up on politics in general
If you give up on electoral politics, the only methods available to effect change are not permitted to be discussed on this forum. Or local feelgood stuff like building houses for charities, which will do your soul a world of good and get you into heaven but will never help big picture stuff like climate change.
honestly, without heat, i think it's pretty fucked up to refer to local mutual aid as feelgood stuff. that shit saved my life once upon a time and the mutual aid work i've done is probably the most important anything i've ever done in my life. a couple years of helping get food to people who need it and fixing brake lights so people don't get pulled over and broken in half by fines (not to say potentially murdered by cops) has done more concrete good than a sporadic decade and a half of doing election work for democrats, and it sucks pretty bad to have that work minimized as Local Feelgood Stuff
anyway i'm glad you bring up climate change because because it's like the best illustration of what i'm trying to get across that i can think of. we're heading for a massive existential crisis that's going to kill millions or billions of people, and the democrats are not doing meaningfully more about it than the republicans. they admit it exists and i guess that's not nothing, but the shit they propose in a blue-sky not even in a bill kind of way isn't enough to even make a dent, and then it gets watered down and a concrete number of dollars is assigned and put in a bill, and then in the first round of negotiations they halve that already-bordering-on-useless number. for someone that really cares about this issue that does not inspire a lot of loyalty in the democratic party! you can do all the vote drives and phone banks you want, but if the organization you're doing that work for is dropping the ball this hard then that puts a pretty drastic limit on what you're able to do in that framework
There is a certain point where the ends actually do justify the means. At this point I would probably prefer an authoritarian state that makes major efforts to solve the climate change/environmental crisis over a democratic state that fails to do so, simply for survival reasons (although this is not my preferred solution to our problem).
Edit - I'm speaking generally, though, that argument is not super relevant to the Democratic party
An authoritarian state will deploy ecofascism, which will not actually take measures to address the climate crisis but will exploit the results of and demonize the victims of the climate crisis in order to solidify its own hold on power.
Teen Vogue has a short piece covering the basic concept.
There is a certain point where the ends actually do justify the means. At this point I would probably prefer an authoritarian state that makes major efforts to solve the climate change/environmental crisis over a democratic state that fails to do so, simply for survival reasons (although this is not my preferred solution to our problem).
Edit - I'm speaking generally, though, that argument is not super relevant to the Democratic party
An authoritarian state will deploy ecofascism, which will not actually take measures to address the climate crisis but will exploit the results of and demonize the victims of the climate crisis in order to solidify its own hold on power.
Teen Vogue has a short piece covering the basic concept.
The fascists are building up to shooting climate refugees at the border, you can see them lusting to do it.
Yes, I don't know exactly how it came to happen but Teen Vogue is a legitimately fantastic outlet for investigative reporting and coverage of progressive political issues.
Authoritarian government isn’t the answer, but neither is a hypothetical Democratic Party actually capable or willing to enforce party discipline among membership of the party an authoritarian political entity.
It’s just a functional political party. No kings, no retainers. Just a party that actually means something
if i were the democratic party, and genuinely believed i was the last bulwark against fascism and climate destruction, i would be trying to legalize weed, make it rain stimulus checks, and giving everybody three day weekends
the democratic party is hans moleman negotiating down to a smaller seed bell during the bird apocalypse
if i were the democratic party, and genuinely believed i was the last bulwark against fascism and climate destruction
If I were the Democratic party, I'd be a hivemind too. However, there are two Senators who don't give a shit about anything and are clearly bought and paid for.
+5
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HachfaceNot the Minister Farrakhan you're thinking ofDammit, Shepard!Registered Userregular
edited November 2021
Is the Rotating Villain phenomenon malice or incompetence? It's both!
The principal actors in the "conspiracy" behind the Rotating Villain isn't Democratic Party leadership. It's the corporate donor and lobbying network that operates outside the party. This is where the malice is. You can see this especially clearly in the case of Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema. Manchin has already been essentially caught on tape coordinating with a billionaire donor network to sink filibuster reform.
Now official Dem leadership is not party to this plot. They are in fact the plot's targets. This is where the incompetence comes in. They are consistently unable to wrangle control over individual senators who have been coopted by moneyed interests.
Well, if we want to bring it into the fold of the Party: there’s always the Rotating Villain hypothesis for the blockage of Progressive Legislation by Democrats over and over again, and how leadership never manages to overcome it despite their supposed stated desires:
The primary tactic in this game is Villain Rotation. They always have a handful of Democratic Senators announce that they will be the ones to deviate this time from the ostensible party position and impede success, but the designated Villain constantly shifts, so the Party itself can claim it supports these measures while an always-changing handful of their members invariably prevent it. One minute, it's Jay Rockefeller as the Prime Villain leading the way in protecting Bush surveillance programs and demanding telecom immunity; the next minute, it's Dianne Feinstein and Chuck Schumer joining hands and "breaking with their party" to ensure Michael Mukasey's confirmation as Attorney General; then it's Big Bad Joe Lieberman single-handedly blocking Medicare expansion; then it's Blanche Lincoln and Jim Webb joining with Lindsey Graham to support the de-funding of civilian trials for Terrorists; and now that they can't blame Lieberman or Ben Nelson any longer on health care (since they don't need 60 votes), Jay Rockefeller voluntarily returns to the Villain Role, stepping up to put an end to the pretend-movement among Senate Democrats to enact the public option via reconciliation.
I’m loathe to reference Greenwald any other time, but at this point there seems a repeat pattern of party behavior on transformative progressive policies, for nearly twenty years now, that even he serves as the stopped watch for
[does worst person you know made a great point apply when the point was made over a decade ago?]
Again at some point, either the party does have a rotating villain problem that they field to combat the progressive wing’s push for transformative legislation, or the party is in deep denial about how it’s big tent has eroded its soul in the name of a status quo that is grinding our society down but by bit into something horrid (and creates the appearance of such a tactic by leadership). either way, ultimately the course they trace is a slower path to the same rebuke of the reforms of the 20th century as the GOP seeks to establish openly
This is the kind of stuff I’m looking for, thanks. Not the awfulness of the Dem party, but an explanation of the position that they are coordinating to get what they want. I'm not totally sold on the idea, but I admit, Villain Rotation and incompetence look mostly the same.
Edit so as not to double post:
What makes me not dismiss this idea out of hand is that there is evidence for it going back before Tfumps rise to power, and the specific pattern RE progressive legislation that various wealthy interest do not want.
I think Lanz is underselling it, honestly. You can see echoes of this argument in the arguments surrounding FDR and the New Deal, such as the American Liberty League which was a bipartisan (but mostly Democrat) coalition of wealthy business-friendly politicians and Tammany Hall insiders. You can also see it in Truman's reluctance to oppose the Taft-Hartley act and his generally tense relationship with labor unions.
It makes more sense to talk about it in the post-1964 era, because ideological heterogeneity within political parties was more common prior to the post-1964 party realignment. Both of the major parties and their predecessor parties were more ideologically diverse than the major parties are today.
every person who doesn't like an acquired taste always seems to think everyone who likes it is faking it. it should be an official fallacy.
the "no true scotch man" fallacy.
+6
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daveNYCWhy universe hate Waspinator?Registered Userregular
The Republicans, as far as party discipline goes, have effectively turned into an opposition party from a parliamentary democracy, and are working on becoming a ruling party from the same. The American system cannot handle that, it simply has too many veto points to handle that level of lockstep voting. And that's too many veto points that are just WAR in the constitution. The Senate rules like the filibuster and blue slips just compound the issue.
The fact that the Democrats still don't seem to have fully adjusted to that, nor to the fact that the Republicans are only supportive of democracy* when the vote goes their way, is highly disappointing.
* Yes, yes, politicians of all stripes have been, shall we say, more results oriented when it comes to elections than would be ideal throughout American history, which goes double for elections in foreign countries that we have an interest in.
Shut up, Mr. Burton! You were not brought upon this world to get it!
Now official Dem leadership is not party to this plot. They are in fact the plot's targets. This is where the incompetence comes in. They are consistently unable to wrangle control over individual senators who have been coopted by moneyed interests.
I would like to know what they are supposed to do. They could throw Sinema and Manchin out of the party, which gets them nowhere. They could blackmail them illegally (does anyone support that?) They could primary them when they are up for election (I'm dead sure this will happen to Sinema, but Manchin has a lock on his local Democratic party) which will take a few years.
i've decided that the democratic party is a viable way forward for dealing with at least one or two of the half dozen society-ending cataclysms coming our way. i go to my congressional representative's websites and see that they're in favor of a carbon tax that i just read an article last week was basically designed so that small companies that don't actually produce anything can sell their carbon credits to bigger companies, thus solving nothing. this clearly isn't good enough, so i write a letter to my rep saying so, they need to get with the program and start treating this seriously
i never hear back until my third attempt when i get a form letter thanking me for being involved. six months pass and the carbon tax bill gets killed by the senate. clearly we need better representatives if there's any hope at fixing this problem, so i start working on a progressive upstart candidate's campaign to primary my rep who's been in office since before i was born. the state party says in no uncertain terms that we're not getting any help from them, in fact they're giving the incumbent millions of dollars to campaign on and they'll blacklist any consulting firms or what have you that we try to hire, so no one will work with us for fear of retribution. the candidate gets 20% of the primary vote and that's that. alternately we somehow pull out a win and get our candidate elected, and in six months the new rep has stopped taking our calls about when they're gonna start doing the shit we got them elected to do. neither option seems very productive!
what is the mechanism by which we can force a party to care about things they get paid a lot of money to not care about? how does this work on the ground?
Now official Dem leadership is not party to this plot. They are in fact the plot's targets. This is where the incompetence comes in. They are consistently unable to wrangle control over individual senators who have been coopted by moneyed interests.
I would like to know what they are supposed to do. They could throw Sinema and Manchin out of the party, which gets them nowhere. They could blackmail them illegally (does anyone support that?) They could primary them when they are up for election (I'm dead sure this will happen to Sinema, but Manchin has a lock on his local Democratic party) which will take a few years.
What exactly could they do right now?
Right now? Right now they are boned. They are reaping the consequences of decades of bad strategy. They picked bad positions. They backed bad candidates. They have been completely checkmated by forces that want to see them fail, forces they have collaborated with all along the way.
What they should do now is resign in disgrace. But they won't because they are narcissistic gerontocrats who love being in a position of power even as they institution they allegedly lead is falling apart around them.
Now official Dem leadership is not party to this plot. They are in fact the plot's targets. This is where the incompetence comes in. They are consistently unable to wrangle control over individual senators who have been coopted by moneyed interests.
I would like to know what they are supposed to do. They could throw Sinema and Manchin out of the party, which gets them nowhere. They could blackmail them illegally (does anyone support that?) They could primary them when they are up for election (I'm dead sure this will happen to Sinema, but Manchin has a lock on his local Democratic party) which will take a few years.
What exactly could they do right now?
Right now? Right now they are boned. They are reaping the consequences of decades of bad strategy. They picked bad positions. They backed bad candidates. What they should do now is resign in disgrace. But they won't because they are narcissistic gerontocrats who love being in a position of power even as they institution they allegedly lead is falling apart around them.
Posts
This is the kind of stuff I’m looking for, thanks. Not the awfulness of the Dem party, but an explanation of the position that they are coordinating to get what they want. I'm not totally sold on the idea, but I admit, Villain Rotation and incompetence look mostly the same.
Edit so as not to double post:
What makes me not dismiss this idea out of hand is that there is evidence for it going back before Tfumps rise to power, and the specific pattern RE progressive legislation that various wealthy interest do not want.
i object to the same word that's used to describe moon landing silliness being used to describe a clear pattern of behavior on the part of one of the two parties that runs the country. is it really that wacky that a bunch of decrepit senators and congresspeople are trying to wrangle a bunch of irreconcilable goals by saying one thing and doing another? that would also seem to be just the nature of politics. and once gain, if it's not intentional it's a result of incompetence, and since we little people have about the same zero chance of getting things moving whether it's one or the other i don't know how much it actually matters which it is
hitting hot metal with hammers
but if they're sweating blood and still can't get anything done, no matter the reason, how is that not literally bothsides? that's the basic reality of the situation, whether they actually want to or not they aren't doing anything and it's going to kill them. us nerds on a video game message board talking about politics are one thing, but for most people, most voters even, it's just gonna be a straight line from "biden isn't doing what he promised" to "i'm not voting for him again." they won't care whether congress is intentionally spiking legislation they don't want or pelosi and schumer are so bad at their jobs they can't get massively important stuff through their own party, it makes no difference
hitting hot metal with hammers
What specifically would you like Pelosi and Schumer to do to make Manchin and Sinema vote for the reconciliation bill?
Edit: "but for most people, most voters even, it's just gonna be a straight line from "biden isn't doing what he promised" to "i'm not voting for him again." they won't care whether congress is intentionally spiking legislation they don't want or pelosi and schumer are so bad at their jobs they can't get massively important stuff through their own party, it makes no difference"
Maybe this is where you then push back and call out that bullshit then, instead of excitedly going "Yeah, you're right, this is Biden, Schumer, and Pelosi's fault and NO ONE ELSES"?
like that is my whole point. we're here talking about the details of why shit can't get passed and your average voter just does not care, they'll just see the result and say why bother. they'll especially say why bother in places where the republicans have already made it extremely hard to vote, on purpose
what i would like the party in general to do is give people a reason to vote for them, because as much as i detest the democrats the republicans are usually worse being that when they get voted in they somehow can actually do shit
hitting hot metal with hammers
No. If Democrats really want to do it but don't have the votes, us ordinary folks can organize and get more Democrats elected and get the bill passed. But if the Democrats are a Sinister Conspiracy to Do Nothing, that would not work - and that's what the bothsides fallacy is.
Right. That's why the Republican strategy of NO! is so effective.
if that's what you believe then by all means do what you can to make it happen, i have nothing but respect for someone who gets out there and does the thing, but as time goes on and this keeps happening it's gonna just get harder and harder to convince people that with just a few more senators the democrats could do all their wonderful agenda items
it's effective because the democrats have no counter to it! if the GOP can dictate terms even when they're in the minority what are the democrats ever supposed to be able to do? why bother supporting or defending them if all they ever have is excuses?
seriously, please convince me. i don't want the situation to be as hopeless as it clearly is, but i don't see any other way to look at it
hitting hot metal with hammers
also i mentioned this earlier in the thread but giving up on electoral politics is not giving up on politics in general, that's a dangerous, kind of shitty conflation. nobody's wallowing, i'm trying to understand why a situation i see clearly for one thing other people seem to see clearly for another completely opposite thing
hitting hot metal with hammers
because fascism and authoritarianism are bad no matter whether we agree with the policies or not.
the president is not a king. Congress are not retainers beholden to the party or the president.
it's amazing how quickly this degrades to horseshoe garbage every time.
maybe try legal weed
If you give up on electoral politics, the only methods available to effect change are not permitted to be discussed on this forum. Or local feelgood stuff like building houses for charities, which will do your soul a world of good and get you into heaven but will never help big picture stuff like climate change.
What should I do?
If the current 50/50 senate cannot get anything of notice done, and there's no way I believe Biden will expand the supreme court, or abolish the filibuster, and literally no legislation which will actually help the working class will ever pass, what should I do?
I've voted blue no matter who for 19 fucking years and I'm poorer and worse off than I was when I was a teenager
Edit - I'm speaking generally, though, that argument is not super relevant to the Democratic party
If we get an authoritarian state, it will be a fascist one, and they don't give a shit about the environment.
honestly, without heat, i think it's pretty fucked up to refer to local mutual aid as feelgood stuff. that shit saved my life once upon a time and the mutual aid work i've done is probably the most important anything i've ever done in my life. a couple years of helping get food to people who need it and fixing brake lights so people don't get pulled over and broken in half by fines (not to say potentially murdered by cops) has done more concrete good than a sporadic decade and a half of doing election work for democrats, and it sucks pretty bad to have that work minimized as Local Feelgood Stuff
anyway i'm glad you bring up climate change because because it's like the best illustration of what i'm trying to get across that i can think of. we're heading for a massive existential crisis that's going to kill millions or billions of people, and the democrats are not doing meaningfully more about it than the republicans. they admit it exists and i guess that's not nothing, but the shit they propose in a blue-sky not even in a bill kind of way isn't enough to even make a dent, and then it gets watered down and a concrete number of dollars is assigned and put in a bill, and then in the first round of negotiations they halve that already-bordering-on-useless number. for someone that really cares about this issue that does not inspire a lot of loyalty in the democratic party! you can do all the vote drives and phone banks you want, but if the organization you're doing that work for is dropping the ball this hard then that puts a pretty drastic limit on what you're able to do in that framework
hitting hot metal with hammers
An authoritarian state will deploy ecofascism, which will not actually take measures to address the climate crisis but will exploit the results of and demonize the victims of the climate crisis in order to solidify its own hold on power.
Teen Vogue has a short piece covering the basic concept.
Rock Band DLC | GW:OttW - arrcd | WLD - Thortar
Still can't do shit about a global problem like climate change.
The fascists are building up to shooting climate refugees at the border, you can see them lusting to do it.
Yes, I don't know exactly how it came to happen but Teen Vogue is a legitimately fantastic outlet for investigative reporting and coverage of progressive political issues.
Rock Band DLC | GW:OttW - arrcd | WLD - Thortar
It’s just a functional political party. No kings, no retainers. Just a party that actually means something
the democratic party is hans moleman negotiating down to a smaller seed bell during the bird apocalypse
If I were the Democratic party, I'd be a hivemind too. However, there are two Senators who don't give a shit about anything and are clearly bought and paid for.
The principal actors in the "conspiracy" behind the Rotating Villain isn't Democratic Party leadership. It's the corporate donor and lobbying network that operates outside the party. This is where the malice is. You can see this especially clearly in the case of Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema. Manchin has already been essentially caught on tape coordinating with a billionaire donor network to sink filibuster reform.
Now official Dem leadership is not party to this plot. They are in fact the plot's targets. This is where the incompetence comes in. They are consistently unable to wrangle control over individual senators who have been coopted by moneyed interests.
I think Lanz is underselling it, honestly. You can see echoes of this argument in the arguments surrounding FDR and the New Deal, such as the American Liberty League which was a bipartisan (but mostly Democrat) coalition of wealthy business-friendly politicians and Tammany Hall insiders. You can also see it in Truman's reluctance to oppose the Taft-Hartley act and his generally tense relationship with labor unions.
It makes more sense to talk about it in the post-1964 era, because ideological heterogeneity within political parties was more common prior to the post-1964 party realignment. Both of the major parties and their predecessor parties were more ideologically diverse than the major parties are today.
the "no true scotch man" fallacy.
The fact that the Democrats still don't seem to have fully adjusted to that, nor to the fact that the Republicans are only supportive of democracy* when the vote goes their way, is highly disappointing.
* Yes, yes, politicians of all stripes have been, shall we say, more results oriented when it comes to elections than would be ideal throughout American history, which goes double for elections in foreign countries that we have an interest in.
I would like to know what they are supposed to do. They could throw Sinema and Manchin out of the party, which gets them nowhere. They could blackmail them illegally (does anyone support that?) They could primary them when they are up for election (I'm dead sure this will happen to Sinema, but Manchin has a lock on his local Democratic party) which will take a few years.
What exactly could they do right now?
i've decided that the democratic party is a viable way forward for dealing with at least one or two of the half dozen society-ending cataclysms coming our way. i go to my congressional representative's websites and see that they're in favor of a carbon tax that i just read an article last week was basically designed so that small companies that don't actually produce anything can sell their carbon credits to bigger companies, thus solving nothing. this clearly isn't good enough, so i write a letter to my rep saying so, they need to get with the program and start treating this seriously
i never hear back until my third attempt when i get a form letter thanking me for being involved. six months pass and the carbon tax bill gets killed by the senate. clearly we need better representatives if there's any hope at fixing this problem, so i start working on a progressive upstart candidate's campaign to primary my rep who's been in office since before i was born. the state party says in no uncertain terms that we're not getting any help from them, in fact they're giving the incumbent millions of dollars to campaign on and they'll blacklist any consulting firms or what have you that we try to hire, so no one will work with us for fear of retribution. the candidate gets 20% of the primary vote and that's that. alternately we somehow pull out a win and get our candidate elected, and in six months the new rep has stopped taking our calls about when they're gonna start doing the shit we got them elected to do. neither option seems very productive!
what is the mechanism by which we can force a party to care about things they get paid a lot of money to not care about? how does this work on the ground?
hitting hot metal with hammers
Right now? Right now they are boned. They are reaping the consequences of decades of bad strategy. They picked bad positions. They backed bad candidates. They have been completely checkmated by forces that want to see them fail, forces they have collaborated with all along the way.
What they should do now is resign in disgrace. But they won't because they are narcissistic gerontocrats who love being in a position of power even as they institution they allegedly lead is falling apart around them.
That's just a bunch of emotions, not a plan.
I think they fear he will just jump ship to the Republicans, who can protect him from legal consequences.