Is America great now?

[Julius_Van_Der_Beak]

"Defund the police!" There's a real winner. No wonder they lost seats.

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Rubio? Who would vote for that little weasel?

Good job moving goalposts.

 

[Jaguar]

Good job moving goalposts.

Deal with it.

 

[Julius_Van_Der_Beak]

Deal with it.

You watch too much MSNBC.

 

[Jaguar]

You watch too much MSNBC.

Rubio and Hillary suck.

 

[Julius_Van_Der_Beak]

BTW, the people who lost seats were against defunding the police.

 

[Lark]

People hated Hillary. For decades. Stop making it out as if 'norms and civility' had a goddamn thing to do with Trump winning. If there had been a decent Dem. candidate to run against, there would be no Trump to speak of.

Dems exist to turn power to the GOP.

 

[The Cat]

Someone like Trump is not exclusive to any particular form of government; there always have been and always shall be would be exploitative authoritarians lurking in the wings ready to heh "capitalize" on any situation where there is power or profit to be made; throwing the rest of their country under the bus, that's just the cost of doing business... Trump has not been alone in his "presidency". He's surrounded by smiling ghouls on both sides who seemingly neither checked nor balanced him...

 

[Jaguar]

BTW, the people who lost seats were against defunding the police.

‘Defund The Police’ Cost Democrats Seats In Congress, Says Top House Official

 

[Julius_Van_Der_Beak]

‘Defund The Police’ Cost Democrats Seats In Conat gress, Says Top House Official

Jim Clyburn has no evidence for that claim. As you know, politicians can say a lot of things. That does not make them true. Contrary to what MSNBC might say, Donald Trump is not the first or only U.S. politician to lie.

 

[The Cat]

Half the neck of a regular republican with zero net spine.

 

[Julius_Van_Der_Beak]

Half the neck of a regular republican with zero net spine.

Why would anyone want to vote for a diet republican party?

 

[The Cat]

Why would anyone want to vote for a diet republican party?

I have absolutely no idea. Other than that it's rumored to be a very "civil" cola. No bite. It's a bit hard to swallow for my taste, but then I dont drink soft drinks over much.

 

[Siúil a Rúin]

Why would anyone want to vote for a diet republican party?

I have absolutely no idea. Other than that it's rumored to be a very "civil" cola. No bite. It's a bit hard to swallow for my taste, but then I dont drink soft drinks over much.

Those artificial sweeteners are possibly proven to make people demented.

 

[Julius_Van_Der_Beak]

This, to me, sounds like a more plausible reason for why they lost seats.

AOC said the reason Democrats lost seats in Congress is that they barely advertised on Facebook and are internet incompetent

Gosh, it's utterly inconceivable that the Democratic party would behave in such an ossified manner. No way a party that fronted a campaign based around "I was Obama's best friend" would stay stuck in the past.

 

[The Cat]

Those artificial sweeteners are possibly proven to make people demented.

The Phenylketonurics Nation

 

[Julius_Van_Der_Beak]

Biden didn't run on "defund the police". The people that lost their seats didn't run on that (the squad, who did, however, got reelected). So how is it to blame, exactly?

You're saying that a slogan that was repeated at protests a few months before the election had more of an effect than something like running effective internet campaigns (which has not been disputed as far as I can tell, by the way)?

I also find the idea that people should coordinate activism with the Democratic party to help Democrats win (who abandon them as soon as they can like the Democrat party is currently doing) rather absurd. In my opinion, a major failure of Occupy Wall Street is that it seemed to go out of its way to avoid criticizing the Obama administration; it ended up doing little more than helping his re-election campaign (so we didn't have to endure president Romney OMIGOD even though he's now the savior of the Republic).

The reason why things are such a steaming pile of shit is that voters have let the Democratic party lead them rather than the other way around. Republicans voters have no issue criticizing Republicans that are insufficiently conservative (granted, they're usually ghouls whose brains have been turned to pudding by Fox News and talk radio,). It seems to work well for them despite the fact that they would have been unable to win the presidency by the popular vote since 1988. Maybe it's something the left should be doing, rather than constantly put out the fire of any sort of enthusiasm? Just a thought.

 

[Jaguar]

Biden didn't run on "defund the police".

No, but he had to constantly defend his position that he wasn't supporting the idiotic idea, since Republicans were constantly claiming he was for it in their TV ads and calling him a "radical socialist like the people in his party."

 

[Virtual ghost]

Thing is, the only people I've known who are promising progressivism with balls call themselves socialists. Most of the people opposed to that label have little to offer IMO, and focus excessively on norms and civillity. Biden, for instance, reassured donors that nothing would fundamentally change, which makes sense for a campaign that focused on norms and civility. My issue with norms and civility is that this is insufficient to stabilize anything; the proof in that we had 8 years of that before and we got Trump. I was willing to accept "norms and civility" politics (if not love it) for quite a while, on the basis that it was necessary to keep far-right extremisms at bay. Now that it's been demonstrated that it is incapable of doing that, I have no further use for it. In cother words, if the "social stability" sought by centrists like Obama means that people like Trump can get elected, it's not something of any value to me. I truly believe that if Obama had taken more radical steps (for instance, not enabling Wall Street to continue to act recklessly, and bailing out homeowners as opposed to just the people who caused the crash in the first place), we would not have had a Trump presidency.

The dynamic in this country is also such that any attempt to reform capitalism gets labeled as socialism regardless, and that tends to stick. Given that, it makes a certain amount of sense to redefine what that means so that the label becomes ineffectual. At this point, I also don't see much about our institutions that is worth preserving, given how much they have failed us on every level.

That is true but the point was that this has to change. Plus I don't think I have seen counter attacks to that "socialist" accusation. Instead there seems to be "Yes, we are socialist!". What probably feels good on the personal level but it isn't really a winning strategy, since you alienate plenty of people in the start. In the case that Bernie didn't openly drag socialism into the whole story and instead focused more on explaining and implementation of the ideas the history would probably have went in different direction. Even if they accused him of being a socialist he should have just smiled and said "Nah, let them bark. They have no clue about what they are talking about. After all these are the ideas that will feed the people".


I never said that you should be submissive or really nice in the playground, I am just saying that you should be calm and rational instead of looking and sounding as an idealist. Sounds corny but you really must know your audience and that means that your political block will support your ideas. However now someone has to develop strategy how to explain to the other parts of the society that there is some value in what you are offering. That wouldn't work with everyone but you don't really need truly everyone. While if you are repeating for the 143th time that you are going to give working families healthcare that sounds kinda wrong in messaging. Because after 30th time it is a waste in free air time. I mean in the countries that are your allies this works for generations and therefore it is surely better to focus more on the implementation side and explaining things in detail. After all that is the point when an average right winger starts to really listen. But as I said it is perhaps better not to start with something heavy like healthcare.

 

[Julius_Van_Der_Beak]

That is true but the point was that this has to change. Plus I don't think I have seen counter attacks to that "socialist" accusation. Instead there seems to be "Yes, we are socialist!". What probably feels good on the personal level but it isn't really a winning strategy, since you alienate plenty of people in the start. In the case that Bernie didn't openly drag socialism into the whole story and instead focused more on explaining and implementation of the ideas the history would probably have went in different direction. Even if they accused him of being a socialist he should have just smiled and said "Nah, let them bark. They have no clue about what they are talking about. After all these are the ideas that will feed the people".


I never said that you should be submissive or really nice in the playground, I am just saying that you should be calm and rational instead of looking and sounding as an idealist. Sounds corny but you really must know your audience and that means that your political block will support your ideas. However now someone has to develop strategy how to explain to the other parts of the society that there is some value in what you are offering. That wouldn't work with everyone but you don't really need truly everyone. While if you are repeating for the 143th time that you are going to give working families healthcare that sounds kinda wrong in messaging. Because after 30th time it is a waste in free air time. I mean in the countries that are your allies this works for generations and therefore it is surely better to focus more on the implementation side and explaining things in detail. After all that is the point when an average right winger starts to really listen. But as I said it is perhaps better not to start with something heavy like healthcare.

Right, but Americans don't care about what people in Europe do, on the whole. You're assuming that if people take the time to explain why it isn't socialism, they will suddenly get on board. I've seen people do that for a long time and not find much traction. People called Biden a socialist. Do you think if Bernie had taken the time to explain that he was really asking for social democracy (which is an end goal I would be fine with) that would have made a difference? You're assuming everyone is rational like you. You can't do that with politics.

The benefit of not running from "socialism" is that you get to spend more time talking about your vision and less time engaging in pointless arguments about semantics and definitions. Which I love as an INTP, but most people don't care about such things.

 

[Julius_Van_Der_Beak]

It is pointless to constantly fret over whether or not people will call you "socialist." Really the only thing you need to be considered socialist in this country is not be in favor of the president if the GOP has that office. If you're worried about people calling you a socialist, you might as well have voted for Donald Trump, since that's the only way to escape that label. Lest we forget that we've had people on this forum calling Fox anchor Chris Wallace a leftist for not kissing the President's ass? That seems to be fairly representative of the GOP electorate, from my experience.