Board 8 > Politics Containment Topic 437: The Father of IVF(?) (eugh)

(+) Yeah! (+)

Inviso posted...

This is the most insane thing you've said in this topic series. REPUBLICAN VOTERS are more adversarial with the party? REALLY? The party who runs on a platform of "Democrats are pure evil and must be stopped at all costs" is the party that holds their own accountable? Meanwhile, the big tent party that has to thread a goddamn tightrope between progressives who think they're not doing enough and moderates who think they're doing too much...THOSE voters fall in line and fawn over their candidates?

Jesus CHRIST, Cyclo. How can you even say that sentence with a straight face?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Removal_of_Kevin_McCarthy_as_Speaker_of_the_House

Tony the thing is that the centrists do not mind ratcheting to the right except on culture. neolib economics they can live with, they all have good professional jobs. they just want abortion and civil rights.

the problem is, a lot of the working class is actually kinda culturally conservative. and when they know the democrats are ABSOLUTELY NOT gonna do anything for the working class economically, and just care about social issues, they are just gonna vote for the republicans. because, like you said, they know they will actually do the stuff they say they will...so if that is all they can get, they will take it.

I think people are talking about different things wrt Republican voters. Internally its super bloodthirsty eg in primaries where its a constant purity test to be the most MAGA. Externally the general Republican voters will just vote for whoever, much more reliably than Democrats. Nobody is wrong here.

ChaosTonyV4 posted...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Removal_of_Kevin_McCarthy_as_Speaker_of_the_House

They removed him because he worked with democrats, so their platform of "democrats are evil" was still in full swing here

LightningStrikes posted...

I think people are talking about different things wrt Republican voters. Internally its super bloodthirsty eg in primaries where its a constant purity test to be the most MAGA. Externally the general Republican voters will just vote for whoever, much more reliably than Democrats. Nobody is wrong here.

but that's exactly why they get what they want more. one of the things that dems say to jill stein voters etc is "purity tests are for the primaries" but democrats in the primaries STILL vote for the candidate they think is better for the general and not for the candidate they like the most. so the only possible explanations are that either those people are liars, and ARE actually voting for what they want the most, or they are acting not to get what they want, but to stop the other side from doing so.

Renarima posted...

correct. and even if you just wanna talk about trump- like foolmo said, a lot of the pre-tea party gop is currently endorsing and voting for kamala. they are willing to oppose trump. other than like tulsi gabbard I have never heard of a dem politician endorsing either the gop or a green or something. they toe the line.

I think this comes back to the usual sticking point I have when I argue with Tony or other progressives on this subject: the divide between politicians and voters.

From these debates, it seems as though progressives believe that politicians have all the power in our system, and in CERTAIN aspects of the political process they do. Obviously they put forth the actual legislation that may or may not get voted on. But it leads to this mindset that the political class are the ones controlling everything, completely unchecked in any way. Your post talks about "look at all the ex-GOP politicians that are endorsing Harris" as though that's a major deal. Tony just posted about the shitshow of House Leadership throughout 2022, which was POLITICIAN in-fighting. Meanwhile, on the other side of the aisle, you guys will regularly make claims that the establishment works against changes to the status quo (see: Bernie in 2016, India Walton in 2021, Jamaal Bowman in 2024). In your eyes, the politicians and the party itself are the ones circling the wagons and working to prevent change.

From my perspective, the politicians only have as much power as their voters allow them to have. None of the Republican leaders endorsing Harris are currently in positions of power. The voters spoke up and drummed them out of office in order to have a cohesive unit that are going to toe the party line at all costs. Despite the House being a complete shitshow in 2022, the voters don't care. They're not going to hold accountable the people fucking up on their side of the aisle. They're going to turn out and give the GOP all the opportunity in the world to hold onto whatever shreds of power they can (if not handing them a trifecta again). Meanwhile, Democratic voters don't typically turn out to vote progressive. In primaries, progressives don't usually win...and when they do, they usually get fucked by voters (both moderate Democrats, and Republicans who have no chance in a given area) who would rather see a moderate win than a progressive. Democratic politicians are CONSTANTLY informed by election results that their voters DON'T WANT progressive policy. Sure, they'll turn out in Florida to overwhelmingly vote in favor of restoring voting rights to felons who've done their time; to overwhelmingly vote in favor of securing abortion rights; to overwhelmingly vote in favor of raising the minimum wage. But then those same voters will turn out to vote for POLITICIANS that actively despise and work against all of those initiatives. Which sends the message that those policies, however popular they may be, aren't as important to voters as the OVERALL platform that the Republican Party has to offer.

Dangit, Lightning said what I wanted to say so much more succinctly.

Renarima posted...

but that's exactly why they get what they want more. one of the things that dems say to jill stein voters etc is "purity tests are for the primaries" but democrats in the primaries STILL vote for the candidate they think is better for the general and not for the candidate they like the most. so the only possible explanations are that either those people are liars, and ARE actually voting for what they want the most, or they are acting not to get what they want, but to stop the other side from doing so.

Isn't it possible that Democratic primary voters just...PREFER the candidate they're voting for? It's not some political calculus about "Well, who can win in the general election?" Isn't it possible that the majority of Democratic primary voters just tend to be moderate rather than progressive?

I think democratic voters prefer moderates more so because they are concerned about electability than because they are against the policies of the left wing. I think the polling supports that. If I am wrong though, all the more reason for leftists to organize somewhere besides the Democratic party.

Voting is completely downstream of primaries and internal conflict. Voters are thus controlled by all the same things that influence the internals. It's wrong to treat those 2 steps as distinct.

Renarima posted...

I think democratic voters prefer moderates more so because they are concerned about electability than because they are against the policies of the left wing. I think the polling supports that. If I am wrong though, all the more reason for leftists to organize somewhere besides the Democratic party.

2006, Joe Lieberman, Connecticut Democratic Senate Primary. Lost the primary to progressive Ned Lamont. Lieberman ran as an independent in the general election and crushed Lamont, securing his Senate seat, where he would go on to be the primary face (and progressive punching bag) of the internal Democratic movement to prevent the ACA from being more progressive than it was. Also, as progressive as the ACA was, its passage then turned around into a massive blowout in which the Democratic Party got ROUTED in Congress.

I don't know what else to tell you: if the voters do not reward efforts to push progressive policy (even if it's not AS sweeping and progressive as you'd like), why do you think the message the party receives will be "Well, we should go harder to the left" instead of "We went too far to the left"?

Inviso posted...

Isn't it possible that Democratic primary voters just...PREFER the candidate they're voting for? It's not some political calculus about "Well, who can win in the general election?" Isn't it possible that the majority of Democratic primary voters just tend to be moderate rather than progressive?

Sure, that's possible. But like we've discussed before, we know President Obama called the other candidates and told them to rally around Biden, and they did.

And then I'll point to this ->

ChaosTonyV4 posted...

The main reason people don't default to Democrat in the same way they do Republican, in my eyes, is simple: People don't believe the Democratic Party wants to improve things. In fact, people like Inviso say it all the time "we just need things to stay the same until the Republicans are beaten".

So they checked out. And they continue to check out because there's no trust! While polling shows an event spli between party identification, the largest group of nonvoters tend to be an ethnically diverse group of the poorest people, that should be Democrats bread and butter.

Damn, I made the decision yesterday to try and step back a little from being so plugged in to politics because it was really starting to fuck with my mental health and you guys trying to drag me back in lol because this whole discussion partially ties into my increasingly oft-talked about but never written mini-paper on the GOP's history and how I think this all runs back to Obama being elected breaking them. I'm still not gonna write it right now but maybe instead of my original intention of treating it like a sorta genuine research paper I'll write a lighter version just because I feel like a lot of our recent discussions intersect with the ideas bouncing in my head - this right here isn't it but more of a summary of one aspect of it (the real thing would be a lot longer, more detailed, and cover several more topics/background.)

So, what I think happened with the Republican party is that the establishment made a couple of cynical, but critical mistakes in 2009-2010 - namely harnessing the racial animus against Obama being elected (and the associated white grievance, white supremacist, and fear of an increasingly diverse nation that came with it) to fight back against the wave election that Obama swept in with on the back of the GOP causing the Great Recession.

This was, of course, the Tea Party - which you may (or may not) recall was largely astroturfed by big Republican donors but portrayed as a groundroots backlash against Obama and Democratic policies. Despite having the veneer of an economic objection (remember that the name stemmed from, aside the obvious Boston Tea Party imagery, "Taxed Enough Already") it looked to mobilize the animus that resided in the GOP (blah blah Southern Strategy, obviously you can trace the roots to all this as far back as you like - Reagan, LBJ/Nixon/Civil Rights Act/Southern Strategy, the sabotaging of Reconstruction, the literal compromises made to the Constitution in its design, 1619, etc. I'm choosing 2008 because I think it was when this particular powder keg got lit. Although, notably, I think we're in a hellscape where some other "schemes" that more directly trace back to the 70s/80s have reached full maturity right around now and are adapting to this moment to execute their schemes - a lot of the Court Packing/Project 2025 stuff falls in this bucket) And in the short term it was wildly successful in the goal of immediately clawing back the power they lost and breaking the Democratic trifecta that 2008 brought in.

From the perspective of the GOP elites/establishment/big donors they were essentially viewing this as putting a leash on the monster of the deep-seated racism that existed and turning it into an attack dog that they controlled for the purpose of gaining political power. But the key mistake they made was thinking they could control it. But in the very short term they were correct - in 2012 despite the multiple attempts by other candidates to unseat Romney in that primary, the various wings of the base couldn't do it. But Obama won re-election anyway, in an election that both the establishment and base thought they had on lock.

The canary in the coalmine - and what I think NFUN was referring to - was when Eric Cantor, then Majority Leader, and considered one of the up-and-coming GOP leaders was successfully primaried by a more extreme "Tea Party" type in 2014. While this was a shocking upset at the time I think the establishment saw it as a fluke. Incidentally, we have a close counter-example on the Democratic side with AOC - who upset Crowley, also a high ranking Dem leadership member, Chair of the House Democratic Caucus, but the difference here is a bit two fold I believe. I think AOC came in with the desire to affect positive change in the party and saw working with the establishment as a path to achieve it and also that the Democratic Party establishment - already forced to be a big tent by necessity - genuinely is stronger and more used to working with differing factions.

Then it all fell apart once Trump decided to get involved since he had basically made himself the figurehead for the racial animus part of the movement with Birtherism and the weakness of the GOP as a party was exposed as the individual ambitions of its politicians made it so there could be no actual challenge to Trump - each of them wanted to be the "2012 Romney" establishment scion and so split the vote and allowed Trump to sweep to a primary win despite having a comparatively low vote share in 2016. Again, the Democrats have a comparable example - this time in 2020 where the more collectivist-positive and stronger Democratic Party was willing to work this out amongst themselves and settle on a single challenger (Biden and the "moderate Voltron")

Addendum/Edit: When I say "stronger party" here I don't mean in terms of winning elections. I mean as an institution. The GOP got consumed by the racial animus they unleashed and that's now what they are at the top-line. The Democratic Party by contrast is better able to "defend" itself from "external" attempts to consume it. As someone who wishes it would move left that's a bit frustrating in that it's not as easy and quick to fundamentally change it as the GOP was but it's important IMO to identify the situation for what it is.

tl;dr: The GOP establishment is actually a lot weaker than they thought they were, unleashed a monster into American political discourse thinking they had it under control and could bring it to heel when desired. They managed to do so for about 4 years but then it turned out they were wrong and they were consumed by the very beast they set loose.

so your point is that voters voted for what they want (a progressive), and then centrists and republicans teamed up to stop the progressive, and that means democratic voters don't want a progressive? no, they did, they voted for it. the fact that centrists will team up with republicans to oppose progressives is not something I dispute. It is why I do not bother trying with the Democratic party. I know no matter what, centrists will always abandon you even if you win fairly. So I do not consider them my allies whatsoever.

ChaosTonyV4 posted...

Sure, that's possible. But like we've discussed before, we know President Obama called the other candidates and told them to rally around Biden, and they did.

And as I'VE said in the past: Biden LOST the first three primaries of 2020. Yet despite having a massive field of moderate candidates compared to just Bernie and Warren on the progressive end of the spectrum...Bernie still struggled to solidly beat PETE BUTTIGIEG. Not Joe Biden, who you could argue was the "safe" candidate that party insiders thought was most likely to stand a chance in the general election. No, Mayor Pete gave Bernie a run for his money in a primary that, let's be honest here...was Bernie's to lose.

ChaosTonyV4 posted...

So they checked out. And they continue to check out because there's no trust! While polling shows an event spli between party identification, the largest group of nonvoters tend to be an ethnically diverse group of the poorest people, that should be Democrats bread and butter.

There's no trust from the party either. When they consistently try to push to the left (not as much as progressives want, but more than they give credit for), and are shot down by voters during actual elections, it's just going to reinforce that progressive issues are not popular and the voting public doesn't ACTUALLY want them, no matter how much positive polling there is.

Also I would add in that scenario you propose, the alternative to electing the progressive in the primary was just electing the guy who won anyway so how would nominating lieberman have been better???

Renarima posted...

so your point is that voters voted for what they want (a progressive), and then centrists and republicans teamed up to stop the progressive, and that means democratic voters don't want a progressive? no, they did, they voted for it. the fact that centrists will team up with republicans to oppose progressives is not something I dispute. It is why I do not bother trying with the Democratic party. I know no matter what, centrists will always abandon you even if you win fairly. So I do not consider them my allies whatsoever.

My point is that SOME voters voted for what they wanted. But then MORE voters (centrists and Republicans together) outvoted them. Lamont won the primary by less than 10k votes, and Lieberman went on to win the primary by more than 100k votes. That's NOT you getting fucked over; that's you not being as politically popular as you think you are.

There's an increasingly huge gap between social/foreign and economic issues. The thing about the far left that many centrists outside the Democratic Party cannot take is the social stuff. The thing about the far left that the centrists who run the Democratic Party will never support is the economic stuff.

Also, the Democrats are not a big tent party. Kamala Harris might be trying to run a big tent campaign but people need to feel welcome by people beyond just the leader. At the grassroots, the Democrats are deeply unwelcoming for any swing voter choosing between them and the Republicans.

In Florida, there was a race between Marco Rubio(R), Charlie Crist(I), and Kendrick Meeks(D). Charlie Crist is the moderate. He loses to Rubio, because all he really did was take all Kendrick Meeks voters. That is how that plays out in most scenarios. The Lieberman example is an outlier, because it is a really small state, he was a powerful politician, and because the state is so blue, voters were more willing to abandon the R nominee to get Lieberman over the progressive. It really is not a race, which btw was 18 years ago, that says anything about how popular progressive policy is.

Renarima posted...

In Florida, there was a race between Marco Rubio(R), Charlie Crist(I), and Kendrick Meeks(D). Charlie Crist is the moderate. He loses to Rubio, because all he really did was take all Kendrick Meeks voters. That is how that plays out in most scenarios. The Lieberman example is an outlier, because it is a really small state, he was a powerful politician, and because the state is so blue, voters were more willing to abandon the R nominee to get Lieberman over the progressive. It really is not a race, which btw was 18 years ago, that says anything about how popular progressive policy is.

In your own example, the independent former Republican still received more votes--with a CURRENT Republican on the ballot to potentially leech his support--than the Democratic candidate. What does that tell you about the VOTING POPULOUS?

LightningStrikes posted...

The reality is while most people are definitely to right of 99% of people on Board 8 and elections in two party systems are won from the centre, the political establishment tends to overshoot and drastically underestimate how progressive people are on average. In an American context look at the mass support for public healthcare, abortion access, and gun control. That is not being met by the political class, and on at least two of those even the Democrats dont fully agree.

There is absolutely space to the left that the public are willing to accept. Helped by the fact that the Republicans have gone so far-right.

ive noticed this is is pretty accurate up here in Canada

you do multiple where do you stand tests with right wingers up and and they test spits out youre left wing and they all just ignore it and go about their day

I mean, your example is in Connecticut. It tells me what I said, centrists are willing to work with Republicans to stop progressives. (which is why anyone who believes them when they call you a piece of shit etc for not voting for them to stop republicans is a mark, rube, etc.) My example is in Florida. it tells me Florida is pretty moderate and has an extremely weak Democratic party (and always has and still does).

Yep political identification is in many ways about culture more than policy. There are probably a good number of Republicans who support left-leaning policies but will always vote Republican because of how they were raised.

LightningStrikes posted...

The reality is while most people are definitely to right of 99% of people on Board 8 and elections in two party systems are won from the centre, the political establishment tends to overshoot and drastically underestimate how progressive people are on average. In an American context look at the mass support for public healthcare, abortion access, and gun control. That is not being met by the political class, and on at least two of those even the Democrats dont fully agree.

There is absolutely space to the left that the public are willing to accept. Helped by the fact that the Republicans have gone so far-right.

I kinda disagree here. Left-wing policies are popular in general, true, and they get more people to go out and vote. But it's the classic first-past-the-post problem - progressive policies scare away the swing voters who almost always tend more conservative. In an election it doesn't matter if you get an extra 50% on top of the votes you were already getting in areas you're always going to win, it matters if you get that 5% of conservative swing voters in key areas, or at least prevent them from voting against you out of fear. If Democrats pull for any of those issues it's probably an instant loss of a lot of the most important voters, as well as encouraging conservatives who aren't really bothered about voting to get out and vote through fear. Like, Republicans are already so far right and 45% of voters turn out like clockwork for them. The left-wing policies will not be accepted in practicality unless they're dressed up in right-wing populist rhetoric.

The political establishment know it's just better to just tend rightward because it wins the votes they need.

Progressive policy is popular in a vacuum but many voters simply don't make the obvious leap to "then I should elect progressives/Democrats." and happily vote for Republicans without seeing the disconnect.

Case in point: there was a poll a few days ago (yesterday?) in Florida showing both the abortion rights amendment and marijuana legalization amendments are sitting at 60%, if barely, which is what they need to pass. But simultaneously Trump leads the state by like 10 points and Rick Scott leads in the Senate.

Why? I think that's also multi-faceted. I think a ton of it is "politics as sports/tribes" where even if you poll something like "Want legal weed? Or background checks on guns?" you'll get overwhelming support - in some cases comically so, like 80-90%... but this doesn't penetrate the fact that their "team" is "Republican" or that they/their family "grew up as Republicans" so they just keep voting for the people who oppose these policies.

Some of it is that a lot of people are susceptible to attacks on these policies that they're going to "the wrong people." This is the Reagan "welfare queens" type of attack that continues to this day. UBI may be popular depending on how you phrase it, but then the conservative attacks of "some lowlife who doesn't have a job is getting a monthly check from YOUR taxes" where they show some pictures of minorities with tattoos and shit and support craters. On the flipside, something like the New Deal was only possible because it explicitly and intentionally tried to cut out minorities from receiving the benefits so it was basically "progressive policy for whites only" and so was broadly popular with the public.

Obviously some of it is just low info/misinformed voters who don't follow politics and/or have basically zero civics knowledge like those stories of people thinking Biden is responsible for Roe being overturned simply because "it happened while he was president" despite the fact that it is entirely the fault of Trump who appointed the justices who proved the margin there (including a seat they essentially stole from Obama.) There's a lack of knowledge and curiosity of how shit gets down in government that a lot of people boil down to "who was POTUS at the moment this issue mattered to me?" in a government that was designed to work slowly and in a world where a lot of policy takes time to have its effects felt ("Trump's economy" basically being Obama's economy continuing on the exact pace it had been before it all fucking exploded with the mishandling of COVID and then Biden being saddled with the inflation and supply-chain issues caused by it that occurred under Trump - and to be fair - some of that was just "global pandemic" shit and not related to even Trump but that got pinned to Biden anyway despite him not being at fault.)

And a lot of it is that people simply don't believe that Republicans support the shit they literally say they support. Again, there's plenty of anecdotes from the 2012 Obama campaign where they tested messaging with swing voters on Romney's actual policy and people thought they had to be lied to/told a biased take because it couldn't be that unpopular/evil. Same with stuff that had actually happened like tax breaks forced in right after 9/11. The Obama campaign ultimately found that it would actually be more resonant with swing voters to simply attack Romney's character than to attack his policies because people would believe he was a callous businessman than believe he supported callous policies. It was fucking whack. That Project 2025 broke through in spite of this is kinda miraculous but even there you see people who are willing to believe it's overblown or accept Trump's obvious lies that he's not connected to it. Same with 1/6 being an insurrection attempt despite the fact we have actual evidence that Trump was trying to install DOJ officials who wanted to impose martial law and violently put down any riots that resulted if they simply rejected the election results - and then SCOTUS decided to cover for him by saying "oh that's inadmissable. immunity!" "When people tell you who they are, believe them" is simply something many voters refuse to do and will contort reality however they need to to accomplish that.

LightningStrikes posted...

Yep political identification is in many ways about culture more than policy. There are probably a good number of Republicans who support left-leaning policies but will always vote Republican because of how they were raised.

its very odd having conversations with people about policy and then agreeing with you and youre like okay so youre left wing and then they get offended and say no way fuck Trudeau I vote conservative

and Im like ya but you just agreed with a bunch of left wing policy and they have no response outside of liberals suck tho

its wild

Renarima posted...

I mean, your example is in Connecticut. It tells me what I said, centrists are willing to work with Republicans to stop progressives. (which is why anyone who believes them when they call you a piece of shit etc for not voting for them to stop republicans is a mark, rube, etc.) My example is in Florida. it tells me Florida is pretty moderate and has an extremely weak Democratic party (and always has and still does).

...WHAT? How...how do you see an election result of "Republican candidate gets approximately 49% of the vote, Independent candidate/Former Republican governor gets approximately 30% of the vote, Democratic candidate gets approximately 20% of the vote" and think "That spells moderate and the Democratic Party apparatus is just really bad"? Like, if you're adding the numbers and saying "50% didn't vote Republican compared to 49% that did"...okay. But you then HAVE to take the other side and say "79% didn't vote Democrat compared to 20% that did". Like...do you understand that, to me, that comes across as absurd levels of mental gymnastics, all to deny the statement of "American voters are not as progressive as we believe they are/should be"?

Sheep007 posted...

I kinda disagree here. Left-wing policies are popular in general, true, and they get more people to go out and vote. But it's the classic first-past-the-post problem - progressive policies scare away the swing voters who almost always tend more conservative. In an election it doesn't matter if you get an extra 50% on top of the votes you were already getting in areas you're always going to win, it matters if you get that 5% of conservative swing voters in key areas, or at least prevent them from voting against you out of fear. If Democrats pull for any of those issues it's probably an instant loss of a lot of the most important voters, as well as encouraging conservatives who aren't really bothered about voting to get out and vote through fear. Like, Republicans are already so far right and 45% of voters turn out like clockwork for them.

Oh to be clear I agree with that fully in principle, I just think they overshoot and go more centrist than they actually need to in order to win (which I think Labour did in the UK as well). Like 60% of people in the US support public healthcare provision, you can win an election with that in your platform.

LightningStrikes posted...

The reality is while most people are definitely to right of 99% of people on Board 8 and elections in two party systems are won from the centre, the political establishment tends to overshoot and drastically underestimate how progressive people are on average. In an American context look at the mass support for public healthcare, abortion access, and gun control. That is not being met by the political class, and on at least two of those even the Democrats dont fully agree.

There is absolutely space to the left that the public are willing to accept. Helped by the fact that the Republicans have gone so far-right.

I know I'm a broken record on this, but this position belies how either of Bernie's campaigns worked.

He legitimately got "moderate/center" working class voters to come into his fold, because people believed him when he said he wanted to improve their economic conditions. At the end of the day, the "extreme" social issues posts like HeroicCrono (is that TimJab? Remind me who this is?) say scare people away only scare away people who don't think the economic benefits make it worthwhile. If their needs were being met, they would have a whole lot less time to stew and become disgruntled over the social issues that don't actually affect their life at all.

The way it is now, they see their lives getting worse and assume it has to be because of the leftist weirdos, when it reality it's the morons in the center who also let the "leftist weirdos" take the blame when they don't do shit.

To be fair, as a Canadian, Americans are not progressive

ChaosTonyV4 posted...

the "extreme" social issues posts like HeroicCrono (is that TimJab? Remind me who this is?)

red sox

helping fill this up so we can get to the non-CEer topic

Inviso posted...

...WHAT? How...how do you see an election result of "Republican candidate gets approximately 49% of the vote, Independent candidate/Former Republican governor gets approximately 30% of the vote, Democratic candidate gets approximately 20% of the vote" and think "That spells moderate and the Democratic Party apparatus is just really bad"? Like, if you're adding the numbers and saying "50% didn't vote Republican compared to 49% that did"...okay. But you then HAVE to take the other side and say "79% didn't vote Democrat compared to 20% that did". Like...do you understand that, to me, that comes across as absurd levels of mental gymnastics, all to deny the statement of "American voters are not as progressive as we believe they are/should be"?

I lived in Florida at the time. People voted for Crist because they are moderate, or did not like Rubio, and he had a massive amount of money behind him. Meek had essentially no campaign and was just a filler D. Florida has literally no Democratic party basically. Crist is now basically the major Democrat there, and like you said, he used to be the Republican. And many states are like this. Only a small amount of them are remotely competitive. Basically the powerful people win because morons just go "oh yeah I liked what he said once" and move on with their life. That does not mean progressive policy is unpopular.

ChaosTonyV4 posted...

I agree, not making things worse is a positive, but that puts the left in a position of we offer you maybe things not getting worse and the right gets cabinet position under a Democratic President.

Again, she's making this offer to create a permission structure for republicans to vote for her. Democrats don't need promises, because we can expect she'll put liberals in her cabinet because she is liberal, and she picked a liberal VP in Tim Walz. If she was solely courting Republicans, she'd pick Josh Shapiro. Easing the concerns of the wacko Republicans is necessary in large part because of the electoral college system.

LightningStrikes posted...

Yep political identification is in many ways about culture more than policy. There are probably a good number of Republicans who support left-leaning policies but will always vote Republican because of how they were raised.

Why is why nearly 100% of major issues are centered around demographics. Abortion and immigration primarily, but also public school which supposedly have the power to change someone's demographic (make kids trans, etc)

LightningStrikes posted...

Oh to be clear I agree with that fully in principle, I just think they overshoot and go more centrist than they actually need to in order to win (which I think Labour did in the UK as well). Like 60% of people in the US support public healthcare provision, you can win an election with that in your platform.

I'd like to piggyback off what Thorn said above (because A, I agree with him, and B, I recall either earlier in this topic, or in the last topic, he felt that we'd completely ignored his contribution...and I definitely don't want to ignore that.) I think--and I fully acknowledge that this is likely where a lot of progressives are getting their belief in progressive popularity from--that if you took individual progressive policies completely in a vacuum, without any context or discussion of potential impact on taxes, most people would probably vote favorably. But the problem is that the only one of the two parties who makes any effort to address those popular policies...gets none of that popularity rubbed off on them. They are constantly told via elections that voters would rather put politicians in power that stand AGAINST those massively popular progressive policies. And the message THAT sends is that EITHER those policies aren't as popular as polling would suggest...OR they might be popular, but they're not as important as other policies are when it comes to determining which candidate to vote for.

Inviso posted...

I'd like to piggyback off what Thorn said above (because A, I agree with him, and B, I recall either earlier in this topic, or in the last topic, he felt that we'd completely ignored his contribution...and I definitely don't want to ignore that.) I think--and I fully acknowledge that this is likely where a lot of progressives are getting their belief in progressive popularity from--that if you took individual progressive policies completely in a vacuum, without any context or discussion of potential impact on taxes, most people would probably vote favorably. But the problem is that the only one of the two parties who makes any effort to address those popular policies...gets none of that popularity rubbed off on them. They are constantly told via elections that voters would rather put politicians in power that stand AGAINST those massively popular progressive policies. And the message THAT sends is that EITHER those policies aren't as popular as polling would suggest...OR they might be popular, but they're not as important as other policies are when it comes to determining which candidate to vote for.

ok well people like you call anyone who votes based on policies and red lines a massive piece of shit so how do you expect us to give politicians the hint that policies matter and send that message if we don't ever send that message

edit: you also don't want it sent in the primary so DO NOT SAY THAT

ChaosTonyV4 posted...

I know I'm a broken record on this, but this position belies how either of Bernie's campaigns worked.

He legitimately got "moderate/center" working class voters to come into his fold, because people believed him when he said he wanted to improve their economic conditions. At the end of the day, the "extreme" social issues posts like HeroicCrono (is that TimJab? Remind me who this is?) say scare people away only scare away people who don't think the economic benefits make it worthwhile. If their needs were being met, they would have a whole lot less time to stew and become disgruntled over the social issues that don't actually affect their life at all.

The way it is now, they see their lives getting worse and assume it has to be because of the leftist weirdos, when it reality it's the morons in the center who also let the "leftist weirdos" take the blame when they don't do shit.

I agree and dont think this contradicts my post at all! In fact it complements it nicely.

Renarima posted...

ok well people like you call anyone who votes based on policies and red lines a massive piece of shit so how do you expect us to give politicians the hint that policies matter and send that message if we don't ever send that message

I mean...this is just me spitballing...but maybe consider WHICH politicians you need to be sending the message to. MAYBE you need to send the message to the right-wing lunatics who keep moving further and further AWAY from the things you want as a progressive. You know, a message of "Hey, the Democrats might not be perfect; in fact, I think they suck shit. And yet they are still SO MUCH BETTER than what you have to offer that I'm going to turn out and vote for them EVERY ELECTION, and you will not gain power EVER again until YOU fuckers calm your shit down and and give me a reason to feel safe withholding my vote and allowing you to get back in-charge."

I mean...this is just me spitballing...but maybe consider WHICH politicians you need to be sending the message to

I have done so and decided to go with the ones who are closer to where I am at instead of the ones who literally are nowhere near me.

Renarima posted...

I have done so and decided to go with the ones who are closer to where I am at instead of the ones who literally are nowhere near me.

And there's your problem.

not being a centrist is not my problem its your problem. it works great for me.

Democrats do win quite well in local/state elections with that strategy. But the feds can still dominate if they choose to (like Trump endorsing a random local person). The increasing centralization of power in the feds enables this, and it's completely intentional to maintain the 2-party status quo.

That's part of what's so sad about the US. Local politics is pretty decent in general, but federal politics is so incredibly terrible, and getting worse.

"If we just let Republicans win, Democrats will surely get the message that they should move left."

(9-0 Republican Supreme Court overturns every policy of the Democrats)

"WHY ISN'T THE PRESIDENT DOING ANYTHING?!"

Renarima posted...

not being a centrist is not my problem its your problem. it works great for me.

Then why are you complaining so much about the Democrats? If everything's so great, then you should be fine with them understandably ignoring what you want when you actively choose to remove yourself from the political process.

Inviso posted...

Then why are you complaining so much about the Democrats? If everything's so great, then you should be fine with them understandably ignoring what you want when you actively choose to remove yourself from the political process.

how am I actively removed from the political process? I vote and organize locally. and I have said multiple times I get why they ignore me. you are their base. I do not consider them my people at all.

Vote Harris

Vote Kamala