LogFAQs > #976991231

Here's my take on things: if the Democrats vote in lock-step to boot Santos, they still lose, because the Republicans won't give the numbers to do it. And the end result is the Republicans being able to say "Look at the Dems making things political. This whole Santos thing is political. The people elected him and Democrats want to subvert the Democratic process for political gains." AND "We voted to expel one of our people over something stupid and minor, so therefore it's okay to do the same to literally ANY Democrat for ANY reason."

The ultimate problem Democrats face is that they catch flak for WHATEVER choice they make in almost every situation, and they're held to a much higher standard than the Republicans will EVER be. And it all comes back to what I've tried to point out in the past: our country is EXTREMELY conservative. I think for all the polling of "x progressive policy is super popular", at the end of the day, a majority of this country's electorate wants lower taxes (regardless of how that negatively impacts us), high policing and military, and lower prices on goods (and will only blame whoever happens to be in power at the time they experience prices they consider too high).

So Democrats, being in opposition to a lot of this, are constantly forced to walk a tightrope where they have to make the argument of "We know you don't like or want a lot of our progressive policies, but at least we're not violent lunatics. We're the mature party that is at least trying our best to govern, even if you hate our entire platform". And any time the Democrats try to play hardball and play politics the way the GOP does, that allows the idiot fence sitters to say "Oh shit, I guess the Democrats are just as bad as the GOP at playing politics, and at least the GOP want to cut my taxes".

Our electorate is fucking stupid and is either incapable of understanding nuance (see the Israel/Palestine debate, where yes, Biden may be taking a hit with Arabic voters for his stance...but if he came out in favor of Palestine in ANY way, he would be immediately attacked by the Democratic base of white suburbanites who think he's "supporting terrorists")...OR they just lack pragmatism and are unwilling to accept incremental change as any sort of positive.