Lurker > legendary_zell

It takes a very long time to solve a problem on behalf of a hated group that's almost entirely outside of the political community of people politicians have to worry about and that has a very hard time organizing. The only way to do it is for people of that group to organize, or to have a Cold War situation where it looks bad for the whole society to continue treating people like trash. We don't have that, and the easiest solution for addressing the unhoused is either indifference or violence.

TL:DR-No political price for harming them, high political cost for helping them, and often a high political gain for harming them as well. That's how we get here.

No, give me regular red sauce or give me death.

Yep, goodbye forever to all of you.

SHRlKE posted...

!RemindMe 5 years.

Truth is Labour tried the left route and got absolutely destroyed at the elections. Doubling down wasnt an option.

Personally I do agree with you. Its depressing. But just by the fact the Overton window has shifted to the right. Labour still unironically get called socialist by ardent Tory supporters even to this day. I think in 10 years time well see a big push to a far right party. More of the same isnt an option long term. In the electorates mind going left is dead and gone. So the only viable option will be the right. And I fucking hate saying that.

This is probably right and it seems liberal democracies all around the world are falling into the same trap. The left gets discredited by corporate media, right wing elements of government, enemies within their allegedly left parties, and real unforced errors by leaders/rank and file. The conservatives inevitably fuck up, leading to a large victory for the formerly left party, who proceeds to squander all the energy and discredit themselves further, leaving only the far right as the option for sorely needed change.

The only solution is left that's functional from the ground up that runs the Starmer types out on a rail through an undeniable grassroots movement. But there's no proof that anyone knows how to do that or that it could be done before the next election if it could be done.

SHRlKE posted...

Still better than the Tories.

But because of that reality, we'll be back here wondering how the Labour party collapsed and how the British people could possibly be ready to hand power over to an even more fascist Tory party. It'll be even worse it comes after the Labour party wins an overwhelming victory but does absolutely nothing to change the trajectory of the country and locks in some of the worst trends the Tories established.

In less than a decade's time, Rowling will be an open Tory. She's clearly on that trajectory.

Labour seems to have infinite patience, understanding, and willingness to compromise for the right of their coalition, and a very short leas for the left. Seems weird for what's supposed to be a labor party. But what do I know?

The fix is in on this race. The moderates have decided they smell blood and have a chance to kick out someone who plays ball a little less and replace them with a reliable soldier. He could go out tomorrow and quote DeSantis and promise to vote like him and wouldn't lose an endorsement or a dollar.

We'll see if the people of the district agree. On Reddit, the loudest voices are going with the idea that progressives are the enemy and moderates are the true progressives, and this guy is antisemitic, so it doesn't matter if their guy's racist or bought and paid for.

saspa posted...

How is that possible when there are actually smart, hard working people who barely get by, hell some don't even have a job. Like say an engineer who hasn't been able to find work or study work since graduating.

It just doesn't make any sense,

The world is extremely chaotic, there's not much inherent rhyme or reason to anything and no automatic fairness, sadly. Everyone is living a unique experience which means some people get extremely lucky even though they're awful/incompetent, and some people get just as unlucky.

I wish everyone involved would treat the situation we're in with the stakes that it deserves. But basically no one is. The politicians definitely aren't, except for the worst politicians on the right. Their only strategy seems to be pressing the red emergency button without changing or even proposing to change anything else or examining why this is all happening. And they're gonna be all surprised Pikachu when it eventually stops working.

And the electorate isn't either because so many are checked out, blackpilled, misinformed, or more interested in the blame game than holding politicians to account.

If you're working class, LGBT, an immigrant, a POC, disabled, a woman, etc you have the right to vote for the Republican Party. No one is denying that right. Emancipation and agency includes the right to have any opinion you want and to make mistakes.

If you actually do it though, that's incredibly dumb, and harmful to other people and they should and will say something to you about that. Legitimizing the social forces that want to harm you is not a neutral action, it's something that requires correction.

As I've gotten older, I've realized that there's a huge chunk of people who come across as relatively normal day to day, they may have a job and relationships etc, but they're missing core skills you'd think everyone has. The ability to read/write/do basic arithmetic, emotional regulation, the ability to distinguish fiction from reality, a bs detector, these people just don't have it. Somehow, they skate by.

Either literally or functionally. He's gonna be a shell of even his current self by the end.

havean776 posted...

Tell you what you waste your time begging non voters to see reason despite the fact they have four years of evidence why they should vote.

I'll spend my time helping people register and let them know about mail in options, helping them with the process. I don't need them excited I just need to help them get the process done.

I think together we've got this.

Don't ask me to waste my time on people who have no desire to vote. I will not. Because plenty of people want my help. Young people voting for the first time, older people strugling to mail in. They deserve my time.

I think getting people who have voted is a better bet than getting people who don't know about mail in options and aren't even registered at this point. Counting on such people is a big part of why Bernie lost twice. We can agree to disagree on this though.

I'll do my part by doing what I can to improve civil rights and give people an economic/political vision that will get them to vote 100 percent of the time and never so much as fathom voting Republican/conservative. But also gives them to ideology and tactics not to be dependent on establishment Democrats to save them and gives them the tools to make politicians fall in line with voters, not the other way around.

havean776 posted...

First I doubt it's large.
Second. Yes you should never waste energy on a lost cause.

If they decide that LGBT people need to suffer under Trump for their moral superiorty they are not worth my time.

Guess what. It's also a winning strategy.
I know you want me to grovel and beg for people who have decided to never vote. But heres a little secret. I don't need them to win, I only need Democrats.

So instead I'll just focus on helping people register and ready to vote Dem.
Thanks for your concern. Hope to see you at the 'Trump got reked party.'

I don't think you have a rational analysis on this for a number of reasons. The size of the group we're talking about, whether they're lost causes, whether you can defeat fascism without them going forward, whether you need to grovel rather than just doing popular things etc.

For example, why are people who are not already registered and planning to vote Dem at this point, only a few months out from the election different from who I'm talking about and how can you tell? And is it really a better strategy to try and get people who are not even registered to vote and who were not going to vote without your intervention excited for Biden, vs people who are already rabidly anti-Trump and left leaning, who likely voted for Biden last time, but are turned off by him this time?

I hope for both of our sakes that your approach works and we get to have that party.

LightningThief posted...

Your stance was consistently every time the topic popped up during the primary election that these people were only talking about the primary election.

The primary is now over with the general around the corner, with you here to no surprise still defending non voting, still.

Like then, your classic roundabout way of going about defending not voting in 2024 and claiming both sides will result in the same.

Your actions in this topic speak for itself.

The literal post I quoted from you has you attempting to rationalize not voting and defending the irrational false equivalency angle of "regardless who wins both sides will result in the same thing." As per always, it's trying to go in a roundabout "both sides the same, so it's reasonable or understandable these people dont want to vote."

Talking to you is like talking to a brick wall. You seem to have decided in your head what I'm saying and no amount of saying other things will shake you from that conviction. No one else seems to be having trouble with this, other than you. I hope the people in charge of the Democratic Party and Biden's campaign are more capable of understanding nuance and who their enemies are than you've proven to be on this topic.

havean776 posted...

Because they don't think a Trump Presidency will be that bad?

If so than yeah lost cause. Don't waste energy on lost causes.

Is writing off entire chunks of your current/future coalition as lost causes really your strategy? You all seem to think this group is large enough to lose the election for Biden, and yet your strategy is to ignore them at best and insult them and ban their social media at worst?

Doesn't seem likely to produce positive results.

LightningThief posted...

Look at that, the same person who was swearing up and down months ago in the orimary election that, "they only mean the primary," is here to defend not voting in the general now. Also peddling "same thing both sides."

I am shocked, shocked I say!!

At least get my stance right. My stance was not in favor of non-voting in the primary. It was for voting for someone with better stances than Biden or doing a clear protest vote at that stage. None of those options make sense in the general. If you're going to vote for the President at all, you should vote for Biden. What I came here to dispute is the idea that the only reasons to not pull the lever for Biden is stupidity or maliciousness. There are other valid reasons. And yet I've been consistent that if someone is actually in the position where their vote matters and they're not voting for the death/deportation/firing of family/friends by doing so, they should vote for Biden to reduce harm.

I don't know how you could read anything I've said in this topic as same thing both sides. You've gotta be incredibly pilled to take that reading.

wanderingshade posted...

What's privileged is sitting out an election over a moral stance because you know you have personally nothing to lose if Trump wins and breaks out the marching Brown shirts.

I have a lot to lose, including my job and I still think not voting for Biden over what he's done is justified, just as it would be if anyone else had done it. It's a bad idea, and I won't be making that same decision myself, but I don't blame my Palestinian friend who's had multiple family members killed, or my friends at civil and immigrant rights orgs who have been kneecapped by Trump style immigration policies. I'd still tell them to vote for Biden if they were in battleground states as harm reduction, but since they're in 100 percent decided states, I don't blame them, I blame Biden.

EPR-radar posted...

If someone is so disgusted by the system that they check out and don't vote, that's one thing. I can respectfully disagree with someone who does that (and doesn't make a giant production out of it).

It's another thing entirely if someone purporting to be like this goes online and posts over and over and over and over and over and over and over again about how awful Biden and the Democrats are, and that everyone should just stay home and let Trump win.

I view the second option above as ratfucking, because it's inconsistent to supposedly view the system as being beyond saving and yet still do partisan posts online.

It's one thing to publicly voice your disgust with what Biden is doing and to say you can't bring yourself to vote for him. I think that's always valid as a matter of conscience. It's another thing to try to influence others or build a movement of non voters or third party voters. There's no good outcome there and that becomes harmful, first and foremost, and yes, suspicious. I don't know where you hang out, but I don't think I've seen anyone actually take that final step and say "let's all not vote or let's vote third party!"

I've seen people voice justified disgust over his immigration policy or Gaza policy or strike breaking etc. I haven't seen anyone here or elsewhere try to influence others not to vote for Biden though. I'm not on TikTok, Instagram, Twitter, etc though, so maybe it's rampant out there, I don't know. I've seen a lot of people conflate voicing disgust with telling people not to vote/to vote third party and I don't think those things are equivalent. We shouldn't expect people to be quiet or positive when a President or a party, or an entire society as a whole is doing unforgiveable things.

EPR-radar posted...

This. Anyone online claiming to oppose Trump but also not voting for Biden "because reasons" is either a Republican ratfucker or so stupid as to be effectively indistinguishable from a Republican ratfucker.

I appreciate you as a poster and agree with you almost all the time, but you've voiced this sentiment before and it's just false and it's a very important point to get right. A system can be so broken that it makes people check out and the very idea of engaging with it starts to seem foolish/pointless. People can become convinced that things are on rails, that decisions are made regardless of their input. People can be so disgusted with both options on offer or the fact that there's only two options that they check out. They can care a great deal, but deeply believe that both options lead to an unacceptable place or the same place. They can be so disgusted by Biden killing/facilitating the killing of their family members that they can't pull the lever for him.

There's many reasons other than stupidity or maliciousness for Biden to lose votes. Saying otherwise absolves him of responsibility when he's the President and leader of the party that's supposed to be the vehicle for good things actually even having the potential to happen in this country. We cannot ever allow ourselves to think that way, because the minute we do, both parties effectively have a blank check and democracy is already a corpse at that point.

I note that almost everyone saying it's just that bad is politically conservative.

SHRlKE posted...

I'm mad at both. A lot of people are. And should be.

And yet people only make topics about one. People only call for imprisonment for one. People only seem to show visceral anger towards one. Criminal penalties are likely only on the table for one.

I'm not even saying I think this type of activism is effective. I don't think it is. I'm just frustrated at what people openly clutch pearls about and what they don't. How people come into topics like this and just say "bad optics" and pat themselves on the back.

CADE_FOSTER posted...

Uk really needs to start giving them long prison sentences so they stop and huge fines

Where's this energy for the CEOs of Exxon, BP, Shell, etc? It really doesn't make sense.

People getting mad about this, but not oil companies guaranteeing that millions/billions will die and most countries will become fascist is why it feels like we're all doomed.

It's Ohya. She's an adult and an alcoholic. With a terrible haircut. And trash buffs.

Character switching and turn indicators. Which is why FFX is one of the GOATs.

This is gonna lead to a lot of memes and conspiracy theories.

100 percent good

Borders are sites of concentrated violence, racism, and dehumanization. Unless we develop a fundamentally different concept of how we view migrants and borders, this will only be the beginning as climate change causes huge migration flows. This is the natural result of the way we do things now.

andel posted...

you claimed the party was shifting right when it has actually been moving to the left. obv it shifted to the right after fdr, he was the best potus in us history and by far the most progressive. he also had unprecented levels of executive power to push a common sense agenda and a clear mandate from the populace. clinton absolutely accelerated the privitization that has killed our economy, but obama and biden have governed much more sensibly in the decades since clinton. the problem is that democrats never have a mandate (save the 2 years under obama when aca got passed and still got kneecapped by lieberman). it isnt possible to shift hard left when a huge percentage of the voting public just flat out wont elect a progressive.

the solution is the one democrats have deployed in recent decades. the ec and the senate are stacked against us while a huge portion of house seats are gerrymandered. we have to keep voting the best available candidates and chip away at the far right stranglehold on the judiciary. there is no quick fix, we just have to vote for democrats and young people have to keep skewing left to erode the massive institutional disadvantages we are facing.

I did not claim the party was shifting to the right. I claim they shifted to the right and haven't shifted back to the left yet. And they haven't rejected the core tenets of neoliberalism and gone back to even New Deal or Great Society liberalism.

FDR was able to wield that executive power in large part because of the strength and alignment of the working class behind him because he made the Democrats the party of the working class. There was nothing common sense about his agenda, it was considered radical at the time and has become radical again. The modern Republican Party was radicalized by it and created to fight against it by destroying white working class solidarity.

A mandate doesn't just come from the heavens, it comes from your tactics, your policy, your ideology, your fundamental orientation, and your history of action. Since the 70s, the answer to all of that has been an echo of conservatism, with a sprinkling of positive change on social issues. That is never going to be enough to get 67 senators. We wouldn't even need 67 senators if the Senators we had weren't so status quo oriented and unaware that we're already at war with fascism. The only way to get the support we need is to make voting Democrat a vote for all the most popular things for the most people. I.E., make it a party of those who work for a living vs those who live off rent and other people's work. That doesn't require being "hard left" it requires being willing to piss off people that regular people WANT pissed off. That's what Trump does for his base and what FDR did for his.

So crypto bros will graduate from being incredibly annoying to potentially killing the elderly and infirm by destroying the power grid.

The combination of right wing libertarianism and tech and its consequences have been a disaster for the human race.

wackyteen posted...

Didn't their patron saint, Ronald Reagan, do something similar to this?

He did more. It was full amnesty for millions and a pathway to citizenship. Not just restrictions on prosecution/deportation and a work permit like this and DACA. That shows you how the political winds have shifted to the right. A Democrat would never even suggest that nowadays and would instead focus on deporting record numbers as their signature immigration achievement.

I don't get their strategy on immigration then. They're taking the full hit for the cruelty of their border and asylum policies, getting no credit from the right or moderates for doing so, while at the same time undercutting that "tough" message by doing this, which will only resonate with people who are already fully onside and weren't too disgusted by the asylum policy and will infuriate many. Seems highly likely to be the worst of both worlds.

That said this is good to attempt regardless of the political calculus.

Kradek posted...

The fact that they always show up no matter what is why they win far more elections than they should considering their candidates are abhorrent both morally and politically, because Dem-likely voters justify why it's ok to stay home and not bother voting. It's why they've managed to turn so many of the court systems into right-wing theocrats at the behest of the Federalist Society and why we'll have to deal with this Christo-fascist USSC stripping our rights away for the next 2-4 decades.

Letting Republicans win does not advance the progressive/left-wing agenda, it regresses society on rights and equality, making it even less likely the progressive/left-wing agenda issues will ever get addressed.

As andel pointed out, the Dem party has also not been drifting further right. Biden is the most progressive POTUS we've had even though he's not progressive who has passed the largest green energy initiative in our history, he's also decriminalized marijuana possession and given pardons, and has been the only one seriously focusing on eliminating/reducing student loan debt for people who aren't in the military IE the common citizen.

There's literally nothing to be gained by risking a Republican victory and this time around, as well as in the foreseeable future, the stakes are a Christo-fascist takeover that wants to end democracy so that we have to live under some shitty Christian Sharia version of Iran.

Caring about the progressive agenda involves making sure that doesn't become a reality because it's not progressive or cool to let these people obtain power and then start wiping out racial & sexual minorities they deem undesirable.

Don't forget Grassley. Dude's 90

I'm not arguing in favor of staying home. I'm arguing in favor of taking over the party and pushing it left. That involves always voting on every level for the furthest left candidate and always voting against Republicans. That involves putting extreme pressure on centrists and moderates at every level and ruthlessly criticizing them, including the President. I think that if we do that, many of the people telling us that what they wanted from us is participation will reveal themselves to be less than candid. What they want is a more conservative party. What they want is 100 percent turnout from the left while giving us scraps and expecting us to be happy because it's not a Republican, even as they enact many conservative policies to take them away from the right as Clinton did with welfare "reform" and Biden is doing with the border right now.

Additionally, saying Biden is the most progressive president we've had is straight up false. Saying Biden did the largest X in Y is not impressive when the party and the entire political system has abdicated progressive policy since Carter. If you can't acknowledge the difference between the Democratic Party of FDR/Johnson and the party today, I don't know what to tell you. You're just not tracking historical trends then.

andel posted...

how have democrats 'marched to the right'? evrry democratic president in my lifetime has implemented a more progressive agenda than the previous one. biden, despite being viewed as a moderate, has policy that is significantly to the left of obama. democrats have achieved gay marriage, healthcare reform, student debt forgiveness, more environmental policy, ect under the executive.

republicans always fall in line for major national level elections. they consistently show up to vote for whatever shit sandwich is nominated for potus no matter what. they may try and primary congressional reps and senators, but they damn sure dont do that for potus and they show up to vote straight gop down ballot regardless.

america is facing an existential crisis as gop fascism is open and blatant while biden has been a good potus anyway from a policy standpoint. anyone threatening to withhold a vote from biden when the alternative is donald trump is just one of the most privledged people to ever exist on this planet.

https://jacobin.com/2022/07/democratic-party-neoliberalism-dlc-clinton
https://jacobin.com/2024/03/democrats-dealignment-progressive-economic-policy-neoliberalism
https://inthesetimes.com/article/bill-clinton-neoliberalism-milton-friedman-democrats-market-capitalism

You don't have to take my word for it, the shift is well established historically. The party has fundamentally accepted the conservative/neoliberal view of the market and the role of government in society. For example, I'm assuming Clinton was in your lifetime and he continued damn near every trend of privatization, austerity, deregulation, and increased criminalization that Reagan started. Obama is not the start of the left, he was a neoliberal politician and a continuation of Clinton. Being more progressive than Obama is not impressive when the party adopted neoliberalism decades before then.

This is not to say they haven't done good things, they take much better positions on social issues now. And some of their policies attempt to harken back to their earlier working class party roots. But it's objectively true that the party has drifted dramatically to the right on economics and aren't even bringing up stuff that used to be common sense for liberals.

And I'm pretty sure we'd be accused of being saboteurs and Russian agents if we did what Republicans do and vote for Republicans while relentlessly pushing the Democrats to the left by attacking incumbents. We'd be accused of trying to destroy the party, hand Congress to the right, ruin the national brand etc. The party is attacking and trying to unseat the Squad as we speak and they've largely played ball.

You know who plays the "my party has to earn my vote" game and thus wields and holds power? Conservatives within the Republican Party. They've been purity testing, letting the perfect be the enemy of the good, primarying incumbents, revolting, etc for decades now and that's why they control their party. When you openly declare you'll vote for slop no matter what, you get slop and nothing but slop. When you declare that you don't care how awful your guy is if the other guy is worse, your guy gets to be as awful as possible. That's literally just politics, there's no way around it.

That dynamic that people on this board present as the only rational way to approach politics is disproven by the history of the two parties from the late 20th century onward. The Republicans have been increasingly driven by an activist base and will attack anyone who doesn't meet objective standards for what a "conservative" is at any given time. Democrats since Carter at least have marginalized the activist base and expected lockstep conformity as they've marched to the right. You can't increasingly adopt the worldview in opposition to part of the core of your party and expect them to suck it up because the other guys are worse.

The funny thing is that there's a movement out there trying to give workers more room for political speech and freedom of thought in the workplace. It's called a union. But these types actively hate unions and support dictatorial workplaces because they want to be the dictator.

The lawyers that wrote this should have been disbarred for hitting send.

A very large contingent of lawyers make trash money. Many people who work for state governments, nonprofits, and even most law firms won't clear 80k. Lawyers are not the auto upper class job many people think of them as.

THUNDERING DARKNESS KNEEEEEE!!!!

Very fitting, that's probably a move Zell actually had if you stopped time enough.

Flood it with sauce. There can never be too much sauce, only not enough.

To allow Defendants unlawful action to stand would be to functionally rewrite Title IX in a way that shockingly transforms American education and usurps a major question from Congress, wrote OConnor, an appointee of Republican former President George W. Bush."

This sounds like a Plaintiff's brief, not a neutral statement of the law by an impartial judge. These Federalist society weirdos allllllll need to be off the bench. Honestly, we need to rethink the bench in general, it's an anti-democratic force in society that's screwing things up more than it helps.

Why listen to someone who demonstrably sucks at politics and is widely hated? She has never had her finger on the pulse of the country at any point.

This church lacks holiness if any church ever has. They defined themselves by supporting all the greatest evils in American history, their analysis of what's right and wrong should be trusted less than anybody's.

Sounds like some Jim Crow, "poll taxes aren't because of race" language.

They also often wanna just say things and then have it be true based on social coercion. They don't like the concept of any objective authority that very regularly disagrees with them and acts as an arbiter of shared reality. They hate that shit, they wanna say things like "the Founding Fathers were liberty loving perfect demigods who were right about everything and never did anything wrong or bigoted or just stupid" and have it be true by making it unpatriotic to agree. So historians explaining for example how Thomas Jefferson was a genocidal rapist who deeply understood that everything he was doing was wrong, hypocritical, and dooming the country to catastrophe....they're not gonna like that person.

I've lived it for several years now after being on the opposite extreme before then and it's objectively better. Everyone should have access to it. A car is nice, but in this situation, you see that as nice as it is, it's largely a burden you don't need, and all the downsides quickly become apparent and irrational. Bikeable cities are also great.

Conservatives deify existing social structures and hierarchies. New social science work can upset that hierarchy, question it, make it defend and justify itself, destabilize it. It can draw uncomfortable historical parallels and imagine new futures. Social science people can also be condescending and off-putting in their view. Those are all the things they hate more than anything. So it's no surprise.

Heineken14 posted...

I don't know. I have it on good authority that if we just stop trying to prevent any of this because it doesn't immediately 100% fix the problem then that will somehow be a wake up call for people and instead we will elect super ultra progressives that will give us everything we want. Or something.

How is attacking super ultra progressives going to solve this issue when the establishment Democrats won't even acknowledge it? They're all hyper institutionalists with a fear of fighting and irregularity. They're committed to form above substance. It's only the super progressives as you call them that will do what needs to be done here and yet you're attacking them for some reason.

Democrats are fighting an asymmetrical war and have been for decades and for decades they haven't realized it. At this point, voting for regular Dems and expecting that to somehow save democracy and fix an anti-democratic, far right court is an underpants gnome plan. We're going to have to break some norms, blow past some safeguards, if not outright change or disregard the constitution to save ourselves. We need people who are willing to do that immediately, yesterday.