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Post by Albert on May 11, 2022 13:17:18 GMT
"Don't just stand there; do something!" ETA: I should have added that because of the filibuster, nothing will pass and, at best, you'll get Senators on the record for their position for whatever that's worth. The failure to pass it then leads to stupid, but effective, complaints that "The Democrats don't get anything done.". "We're not a real political party. We can't win elections, and we can't enforce party discipline. Vote for us anyways. We often boast that our voters are disproportionately the most educated, and represent the bulk of the country's GDP, but somehow, by sheer magic, we keep getting outmaneuvered by the reactionary troglodyte party. What is politics anyways?" |
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jackd
Assistant Professor
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Post by jackd on May 11, 2022 17:21:40 GMT
If Democrats won't vote, they can't expect the party to come through for them.
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AnBr
Associate Professor
Posts: 1,766
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Post by AnBr on May 11, 2022 23:11:03 GMT
Could be my wife who voices a lot of the same complaints. There is some truth to them but as far as I can determine, Democrat bashing is the only sport enjoyed across the political spectrum, especially as an election approaches. Some days it can be hard to distinguish Daily Kos from Red State. The behavior was reminding me of some of the head bashing nonsensical circular arguments that DSP used to do. |
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Post by Albert on May 12, 2022 0:21:30 GMT
If Democrats won't vote, they can't expect the party to come through for them. Nonsense. Democrats voted multiple times for party, including handing it a near supermajority in 2008. It was the fecklessness of the decrepit gerontocrats in charge of the party that squandered those opportunities, because they're a spent force.
Mitch McConnell has achieved far more of his political aims with far less votes than Obama had in 2008. The Right ultimately has accountability for its leaders, and will hold their feat to the fire for failing to delivers. The Right is still a political movement with political aims that it wishes to achieves. Democrats are Nietzsche's last man slowly crawling towards the edge of the cliff.
Liberals such as yourself will make excuses for Democratic Party incompetence till the cows come. Your political imagination is so utterly lacking that you can only imagine why the Democrats can't get *anything* done even when they have ample means.
It was Chuck Schummer (supposed party sage and leader) who decided to *hand* a senate seat to Sinema, only for her to use it to obstruct her own party's president on crucial items. And that's supposed to be the voter's fault? Please.
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Post by goldenvalley on May 12, 2022 15:24:06 GMT
If Democrats won't vote, they can't expect the party to come through for them. Nonsense. Democrats voted multiple times for party, including handing it a near supermajority in 2008. It was the fecklessness of the decrepit gerontocrats in charge of the party that squandered those opportunities, because they're a spent force.
Mitch McConnell has achieved far more of his political aims with far less votes than Obama had in 2008. The Right ultimately has accountability for its leaders, and will hold their feat to the fire for failing to delivers. The Right is still a political movement with political aims that it wishes to achieves. Democrats are Nietzsche's last man slowly crawling towards the edge of the cliff.
Liberals such as yourself will make excuses for Democratic Party incompetence till the cows come. Your political imagination is so utterly lacking that you can only imagine why the Democrats can't get *anything* done even when they have ample means.
It was Chuck Schummer (supposed party sage and leader) who decided to *hand* a senate seat to Sinema, only for her to use it to obstruct her own party's president on crucial items. And that's supposed to be the voter's fault? Please.
Politics is a lot harder than it looks. You can't just count up Ds and Rs to figure out why things happen or don't happen. You forget the Blue Dog Democrats held 54 seats in the House in 2009. Eventually the Tea Party types replaced the Blue Dogs but the result was the same. Blue Dogs didn't like Obamacare; Tea Partiers were there because they had R after their names and they didn't like Obamacare either. The Senate was closely split and Lieberman in particular would not vote for anything with a public option in it. |
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Post by LFC on May 12, 2022 16:05:51 GMT
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Post by LFC on May 12, 2022 16:08:34 GMT
Mitch McConnell has achieved far more of his political aims with far less votes than Obama had in 2008.
Do you at least acknowledge that he did this through a massive shift in the way congressional politics operate and no longer adhering to the rules that both sides mostly abided by for decades? |
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pnwguy
Associate Professor
Posts: 1,447
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Post by pnwguy on May 12, 2022 16:45:35 GMT
Mitch McConnell has achieved far more of his political aims with far less votes than Obama had in 2008.
Do you at least acknowledge that he did this through a massive shift in the way congressional politics operate and no longer adhering to the rules that both sides mostly abided by for decades? Like my signature line says.... "You are always at a disadvantage with a kidnapper who is willing to kill the hostage without hesitation" |
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Post by LFC on May 12, 2022 20:48:47 GMT
Republicans continue to try to downplay the significance of their victory against abortion rights. The ones who wanted it are doing their own victory dances and don't need their political hacks to do it for them so they are simply trying to avoid the other 2/3 of the electorate who disagrees with what they've been trying to accomplish for decades.
Oh, Teddy. Spoken like a true pasty, right-wing man. Well, boy.
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Post by Albert on May 12, 2022 23:31:46 GMT
Mitch McConnell has achieved far more of his political aims with far less votes than Obama had in 2008.
Do you at least acknowledge that he did this through a massive shift in the way congressional politics operate and no longer adhering to the rules that both sides mostly abided by for decades? The fact that you're even trying to wrangle such a useless acknowledgement out of me speaks volumes about your misunderstanding about politics. Who cares that the right 'broke' the rules (which were fictitious and short-lived anyways). Winning is its own justification. You should ditch your loser mentality and attain a better understanding of how political power works.
Interestingly, the Democrats of yesteryear understood this perfectly well, and it was actually these figures that people like Gingrich and McConnell drew inspiration from.
People like Pelosi and Schummer talk about 'rules' and 'bipartisanship' (she's still been on that train this week in conversations about Roe's repeal), because they're senile, decrepit, and are pampered multimillionaires completely detached from the conditions in the country and the world at large. So politics has no stakes for them, and they're ready to surrender at every turn, because no matter what happens, they'll still be millionaires.
```Democrats denied minority legislators adequate staff, excluded them from committee deliberations, gerrymandered their districts and even, Republicans were convinced, stole elections. Wright piously recorded in his diary that Republicans were making it impossible to “rely upon the gentlemen’s rules which have prevailed for all of my 30 years in Congress,” but the speaker broke plenty of norms himself with his parliamentary rule-bending. And despite the Watergate babies’ desire to remove money from politics, the Democrats did little to halt the stream of funds from lobbyists, private money and special interests that flowed principally to the majority party.
Those to whom evil is done do evil in return. Democratic bullying made moderate Republicans willing to empower Gingrich — their support was critical to his election as minority whip in 1989 over a more conciliatory candidate — and to tolerate his scorched-earth tactics. Gingrich insisted that the only way to end the Democrats’ four-decades-long majority was for Republicans to destroy Congress in order to save it. They would have to “put aside their concern for governance until they regained power,” according to Zelizer. They would seek to persuade the public that Congress had become “morally, intellectually and spiritually corrupt,” in Gingrich’s words, and to overthrow Speaker Wright as the embodiment of that illegitimate establishment. In pursuit of these ends all means were permissible, including the shattering of traditional customs, the destruction of opponents’ reputations and the embrace of maneuvers long held to be off-limits, like shutting down the government.
```
That is how the Democrats of yesteryear operated, because they understood power and winning. Today's liberals tell themselves fantasies about rules, bipartisanship, norms, and the rest while they lurch from defeat to defeat. Utterly pathetic.
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jackd
Assistant Professor
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Post by jackd on May 13, 2022 0:32:52 GMT
So that's the pitch! The Democrats didn't empower the progressives who didn't vote and blame the party for not "empowering" them. Maybe some day they'll become realistic. Probably not. Can't blame themselves; triggers guilt feelings.
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Post by Albert on May 13, 2022 2:36:30 GMT
So that's the pitch! The Democrats didn't empower the progressives who didn't vote and blame the party for not "empowering" them. Maybe some day they'll become realistic. Probably not. Can't blame themselves; triggers guilt feelings. I don't give a hoot about the 'progressives' in Democratic Party. They're as pathetic and impotent as the senile neoliberals running the party. It's a perfect marriage really. A party of inept, impotent losers. Also, I love the fact that you're lecturing anyone about realism, when your ideology is so utterly unrealistic that it's getting defeated at every turn by the reactionary knuckle-dragging party. Perhaps *you* should try some realism.
This is the 'moderate', sagacious, realist Nancy Pelosi:
Is there even a hint of realism or pragmatism in there? No, that's senility and pure delusion. These are the war time leaders that Democrats have chosen to lead them through this supposed dark assault on democracy fascistic period.
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Post by Albert on May 13, 2022 2:37:18 GMT
I don't know why link isn't embedding properly, but this should work hopefully.
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Post by LFC on May 13, 2022 2:59:10 GMT
Do you at least acknowledge that he did this through a massive shift in the way congressional politics operate and no longer adhering to the rules that both sides mostly abided by for decades? The fact that you're even trying to wrangle such a useless acknowledgement out of me speaks volumes about your misunderstanding about politics. Who cares that the right 'broke' the rules (which were fictitious and short-lived anyways). Winning is its own justification. You should ditch your loser mentality and attain a better understanding of how political power works. Soooooo ... the Democrats should have realized that the Republicans were going to break all the rules that they had held to for decades and gotten their first? Thank you for the most amazing display of 20-20 hindsight I've seen in a while. It's almost like you weren't paying attention to politics at all back in 2009 and you're quite new to all of this. |
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jackd
Assistant Professor
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Post by jackd on May 13, 2022 2:59:37 GMT
Ok, Albert, so who are you, then? Just another monkey slinging feces? Or maybe you actually have something to say or advocate for?
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AnBr
Associate Professor
Posts: 1,766
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Post by AnBr on May 13, 2022 11:02:38 GMT
It's got to be DSP.
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andydp
Tenured Full Professor
Posts: 2,739
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Post by andydp on May 13, 2022 12:40:55 GMT
Ok, Albert, so who are you, then? Just another monkey slinging feces? Or maybe you actually have something to say or advocate for? Not sure if you noticed, Albert has recurring themes which he rearranges to continue making the same points: Democrats are not smart because... Schumer is to blame because... Democrats are just waiting for the rest of the US to wake up to the "dangers". GOP is smart because... I really appreciate someone with a differing opinion to keep us on our toes. Unfortunately, after several posts saying the same thing, we start to ignore the messenger. Sadly some points may be helpful but we may not see them. |
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Post by indy on May 13, 2022 13:23:51 GMT
Well, there is certainly a consistent undercurrent to the posts that portray Democratic leadership as too old, too out-of-touch, too indifferent, too principled, and just too stupid to know what they are doing. Even assuming Democratic leadership decided to fight the Republicans on their own home turf of the crazy and reality-challenged, there is no argument being made that it would result in better outcomes. Presumably the argument is that there is no way for things to get worse which is not at all true.
It's also an odd time to be making these arguments about 'defeatism' when the house, senate, and presidency are in the hands of Democrats.
Since 1933, government has been unified under democrats 18 times and under republicans...four, but they still apparently need anonymous posters on the internet to explain to them how to win.
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jackd
Assistant Professor
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Post by jackd on May 13, 2022 13:29:22 GMT
I don't think I'm ignoring the messenger. Rather, I'm trying to understand what he thinks we should do, if anything, to correct the mistakes going forward.
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Post by Albert on May 13, 2022 14:16:26 GMT
The fact that you're even trying to wrangle such a useless acknowledgement out of me speaks volumes about your misunderstanding about politics. Who cares that the right 'broke' the rules (which were fictitious and short-lived anyways). Winning is its own justification. You should ditch your loser mentality and attain a better understanding of how political power works. Soooooo ... the Democrats should have realized that the Republicans were going to break all the rules that they had held to for decades and gotten their first? Thank you for the most amazing display of 20-20 hindsight I've seen in a while. It's almost like you weren't paying attention to politics at all back in 2009 and you're quite new to all of this.
What hindsight? It's been clear for at least 3 decades, since Newt's time that the GOP is what it is.
Joe Biden is still preaching bipartisanship and 'working with the GOP', and Nancy Pelosi is talking about:
```Pelosi went on: "So rather than saying, 'Well, we have to defeat them,' no, let's just try to persuade them. I want the Republican party to take back the party, take it back to where you were when you cared about a woman's right to choose, you cared about the environment."
To the audience's resounding claps, the House Speaker added: "Hey, here I am, Nancy Pelosi, saying this country needs a strong Republican party, and we do, not a cult, but a strong Republican party."```
Who was the audience? A bunch of out of touch 'political scientists' at the Aspen Ideas festival. That was this month.
With leadership like this, who needs enemies?
I was following politics in 2009, and I can assure you I was following it a lot closer than you folks. Obama's whole 'the GOP obstructionist fever pitch will break once I win reelection'
was nonsense then and it was proven to be nonsense in the subsequent years.
"BIDEN says the fever will break: “The thing that will fundamentally change with Donald Trump out of the White House, not a joke, is you will see an epiphany occur among many of my Republican friends.”" -- 2019, on the campaign trail.
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Post by goldenvalley on May 13, 2022 15:32:47 GMT
Is Nancy Pelosi aiming bipartisanship talk at the never Trumpers in an attempt to get them to vote against the MAGA types running in 2022 and 24? Trying to reach past the tribalism and offer them a chance to influence legislation if they just dump MAGA and/or vote for Dems this next couple of elections?
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Post by LFC on May 13, 2022 15:33:42 GMT
What hindsight? It's been clear for at least 3 decades, since Newt's time that the GOP is what it is. It's been clear for 3 decades that the Republican Party would go 100% obstruction? Sure, let's go with that.
Of course if the Dems had gone scorched earth first and lost the next election you'd now be screeching that they are awful, should have known better, and ruined the country. Rinse, wash, repeat.
I've said many times the Dems need to fight harder, be more vocal, and more brutally attack Republicans who tell wild lies (which is most of them now) but I can also see the reality of the Sinemanchin situation and the limits they are under. You need to check your blind rage, drop the "Dems 100% bad 100% of the time!" if you want to offer anything more than shrill commentary.
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Post by LFC on May 13, 2022 18:49:49 GMT
Republicans continue to desperately soft-pedal partisan hack SCOTUS's destruction of Roe. They want to simultaneously be able to take credit for it with their base while not taking any credit for it publicly.
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AnBr
Associate Professor
Posts: 1,766
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Post by AnBr on May 13, 2022 20:55:17 GMT
I've said many times the Dems need to fight harder, be more vocal, and more brutally attack Republicans who tell wild lies (which is most of them now) but I can also see the reality of the Sinemanchin situation and the limits they are under. You need to check your blind rage, drop the "Dems 100% bad 100% of the time!" if you want to offer anything more than shrill commentary.
I am becoming more and more convinced that this is actually a return of DSP. Same myopic vision of reality with absolutist untethered conclusions. |
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Post by indy on May 13, 2022 21:06:11 GMT
I've said many times the Dems need to fight harder, be more vocal, and more brutally attack Republicans who tell wild lies (which is most of them now) but I can also see the reality of the Sinemanchin situation and the limits they are under. You need to check your blind rage, drop the "Dems 100% bad 100% of the time!" if you want to offer anything more than shrill commentary.
I am becoming more and more convinced that this is actually a return of DSP. Same myopic vision of reality with absolutist untethered conclusions. Nah. |
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