|
Owlofcreamcheese posted:Cool, weird that that wasn't the issue that got brought up and instead the original go to attack was some incorrect lie about them not having a platform people want to vote form even though they have gotten the most votes in nearly every election in decades. Almost like people bringing it up are disingenuous or something! That's the trap of the lesser of two evils strategy. From inside the voting booth it makes sense to choose the best of the options available. From outside it's dangerous to look at that and say "See, they like what we're doing!" when by itself all it says is "I prefer what you're doing to the other options". Positioning yourself as not as bad as the other guy can work, but casting a vote as a grudging necessity (or in my case a mostly symbolic gesture since I live in KY) doesn't seem like the best way to get people out to vote.
|
#
?
Feb 15, 2018 18:27
|
|
|
|
| # ? Apr 28, 2024 21:15 |
|
|
Inescapable Duck posted:You're so close to busting out Virtue Signalling and fishhook theory can be complete. The thing is, there is no virtue signalling happening, it seems like people you'd never even guess they had any leftward tendency at all if they didn't inform you that they totally do, somewhere, way in the back, that they will totally advocate for once they finish attacking the true enemy.
|
|
#
?
Feb 15, 2018 18:29
|
|
|
Inescapable Duck posted:Also, what does that say for Democrats who are constantly trying to 'reach across the aisle' for 'bipartisan solutions'? that they're mature legislators who understand the need for balanced, inclusive bills which will surely gain them the votes of suburban republicans THIS TIME
|
|
#
?
Feb 15, 2018 18:30
|
|
|
Neurolimal posted:Books dont actually sell that much, even best sellers. It takes an unnaturally popular fluke like Twilight and 50 Shades, and even that usually pales in comparison to the film rights. Certainly not a niche political book tell-all released after the election. To put in perspective how many niches within niches we're dealing with, that's a book (72% of americans read books, no data on purchasing books) written by a democrat and pertaining to democrat politics (48% of -registered- citizens identify as democrat) about Hillary Clinton (?% of people who still care about Clinton after the election) which is negative (36% of Clinton's voters were 'very enthusiastic' to vote for her). If that's the standard we are working with, then you should substitute "cash-in" with "opportunistic" in my post. My point remains the same. I don't think the book was an amazing statement of repentance. It struck me as a massive self-preservation exercise from someone trying to keep herself relevant and part of the party's decision-making process. Am I supposed to admire Brazile for that ridiculous book and her actions and record overall?
|
|
#
?
Feb 15, 2018 18:31
|
|
|
Owlofcreamcheese posted:The thing is, there is no virtue signalling happening, it seems like people you'd never even guess they had any leftward tendency at all if they didn't inform you that they totally do, somewhere, way in the back, that they will totally advocate for once they finish attacking the true enemy. Even if this were true, it seems like the best way to put one over on these people is to start passing the progressive leftist policy that they secretly hate, thereby making their hidden strategy to boost conservatives using reverse psychology backfire horribly.
|
|
#
?
Feb 15, 2018 18:31
|
|
|
Baron Porkface posted:But I thought Obama was the EEEEEvil centrist. Obama ran to the left of Clinton on a lot of issues. Also I don't tend to call centrists evil - just out-of-touch. I used to be one, so I would know. quote:edit: and Turmp is an enormously different candidate from McCain. Mmmmm, not as much as you'd like people to believe. His voting record's been pretty Trumpian over the last few years, and he tried to put Sarah cocking Palin a heartbeat away from the Oval Office. The fact that the PUMA crowd would back him shows how incredibly shallow their feminism really was. quote:and Bernie supporters raged across the internet spreading anti-clinton propaganda I certainly don't remember that in 2008 after the convention. Clinton surrogates spread Birther conspiracy theories pretty widely in 2008.
|
|
#
?
Feb 15, 2018 18:33
|
|
|
Owlofcreamcheese posted:I seriously believe that a group of people have declared themselves "leftist" while holding no significantly or particularly leftist ideas and doing nothing but amplifying a bunch of right wing narritives by believing everything they half heard from their conservative dad. The people you're talking about make up a fraction of a percentage of Bernie supporters and left-wing critics of the Dems.
|
|
#
?
Feb 15, 2018 18:36
|
|
|
Majorian posted:The people you're talking about make up a fraction of a percentage of Bernie supporters and left-wing critics of the Dems. Sure, and a huge vocal part of a bunch of internet communities that have nonstop extremely loud temper tantrums to make sure to derail or stop conversations larger groups of people might have had that might have been.
|
|
#
?
Feb 15, 2018 18:42
|
|
|
Owlofcreamcheese posted:Sure, and a huge vocal part of a bunch of internet communities that have nonstop extremely loud temper tantrums to make sure to derail or stop conversations larger groups of people might have had that might have been. 
|
|
#
?
Feb 15, 2018 18:45
|
|
|
Brony Car posted:The GOP and conservative indoctrination organizations like the Federalist Society have done an amazing job screwing up the political landscape. Money always mattered in politics, but ever since Citizens United, the money level required to campaign effectively has grown to ridiculous heights. Bill Clinton acted like a Republican as president, way before Citizens United happened. Lets not pretend that the Democratic party will magically become progressive once you fix CU.
|
|
#
?
Feb 15, 2018 18:47
|
|
|
I am sure that a conversation where the starting point is that everyone in every election is always "evil" was going to be a totally great conversation and not a total circlejerk
|
|
#
?
Feb 15, 2018 18:50
|
|
|
Mister Fister posted:Bill Clinton acted like a Republican as president, way before Citizens United happened. Lets not pretend that the Democratic party will magically become progressive once you fix CU. I did not say that. What I'm saying is that progressives need to address the campaign money disparity issue in one way or another (maybe by building their own successful fundraising network that can bring up large amounts) because you're otherwise selling a David v. Goliath narrative in a world where, unlike in the Bible, Goliath usually wins.
|
|
#
?
Feb 15, 2018 18:52
|
|
|
I've posted about it before, but the Ultimatum Game is a good example of how human behavior differs from the assumptions inherent in game theory rationality, and as a result why Lesser Evilism, which shares those same theoretical assumptions, is such a failure in reality. In the Ultimatum Game one player (the proposer) gets to decide how to split a pot of money with the second player (the responder). The responder can only accept or reject the split, if he rejects it both get nothing. According to game theory getting something is always better than nothing so a rational responder should accept any offer except $0. Therefore assuming the respondent will always accept something, a rational proposer would offer $1 and keep the rest of the pot. This is the Nash Equilibrium, neither player can change strategies unilaterally and do better, if the proposer offers $0 it will be rejected, if the responder rejects $1 he gets nothing. And so game theory predicts the responder will get a pittance and the proposer will walk away with almost all the money. Of course, if you do this experiment with real human beings, that prediction turns out to be a wildly inaccurate model. In reality, the splits are almost always fairly close to even and offers that diverge from that are nearly always rejected. Although some responders individually do worse than game theory predicts because they choose to forego some money in order to punish unfair offers, on average responders do much much better than game theory predicts. Instead of getting almost nothing, they get almost half the money. And that's because real human beings have a limit to how lovely they can be treated before they are willing to inflict punishment for antisocial behavior even at a cost to themselves, and other humans (having interacted with real human beings before) know this and act more socially-inclined as a result. Dem politicos (and people who cosplay as them online like OoCC and Baron Porkface) would see a group of humans happily playing the Ultimatum Game and dividing the pots fairly among themselves and shriek "this is so inefficient! Why are you offering so much when game theory says you don't have to? Let me show you how to play, idiots  "..."Oh my god, why are all my offers being rejected, don't you stupid proles understand that letting yourself get hosed over is your rational subgame perfect strategy? GAH YOU DID IT AGAIN! YOU COULD HAVE HAD A DOLLAR, NOW WE'RE BOTH BROKE AND IT'S ALL YOUR FAULT!!!
VitalSigns fucked around with this message at 19:02 on Feb 15, 2018 |
|
#
?
Feb 15, 2018 18:56
|
|
|
Brony Car posted:unlike in the Bible, Goliath usually wins. Well, in the bible goliath won twice a day for 40 days before being beat. So he usually won too.
|
|
#
?
Feb 15, 2018 18:56
|
|
|
Brony Car posted:If that's the standard we are working with, then you should substitute "cash-in" with "opportunistic" in my post. It was absolutely an attempt to cover her rear end publicly, I'm just dismissing any suggestion of her making poo poo up.
|
|
#
?
Feb 15, 2018 19:00
|
|
|
Baron Porkface posted:This isn't a debate about Democratic positioning. This is a thread where Democrats are called evil by non-voters and that goes unchallenged. And allegedly that evil extends to the state and local offices that non-voters non-voted for; or maybe non-voters are too idiotic to know there are people running other than President and congress. What are you referring to in the bolded part? I think it is entirely reasonable for someone who is left-wing to think Democrats are evil (or at least harmful, if you'd prefer that word). If you believe that status quo is evil and inexcusable, it makes sense to think the same thing about a political party who would essentially maintain the status quo (with maybe a mix of minor improvements and extra harm). To a leftist, the Democratic Party is more or less equivalent to a pro-status quo party back when chattel slavery existed in the US; evil by virtue of not acting to truly change the status quo. As I think I've said before, I actually personally disagree with not voting, but I can understand why people do it. "If I don't vote for Democrats, they'll feel the need to change in order to get me to vote" is the sort of logic that seems to make sense, even if it ends up being false in reality. The main reason why I think people should always vote Democratic in general elections is because the evidence seems to indicate that the Democratic Party just ignores people who don't vote, so you may as well take action to prevent the GOP from winning. But I can easily understand someone not wanting to vote for a party they actively dislike, and it makes even more sense if they are in a position where voting would be a significant inconvenience. It also seems like a component of your argument is "why are people focusing on Democrats instead of the even worse Republicans?" The answer to this is pretty simple - liberals/leftists complaining about the GOP accomplishes literally nothing, and the GOP will never stop being bad. From a sheer pragmatic perspective, it makes more sense to focus your efforts on making the Democratic Party into something that is actually good (and this has the side benefit of also improving their chances in elections against the GOP). Owlofcreamcheese posted:On many issues they are the good guys and you should vote for them with no hesitation until whatever full communism now party you support actually succeeds at being a realistic contender in any race anywhere. The "lol I bet you want Full Communism Now" argument against people who dislike the Democrats is the dumbest poo poo and everyone who makes that argument is an idiot. Even someone like Bernie Sanders is an extremely milquetoast social democrat. Baron Porkface posted:I'm not convinced of that. This thread, for example. No, it's an actual fact that the radical left turns out for Democrats at least as much as pretty much any other sub-group on the left. Obviously you can find people who don't vote, but you can do the same for any other ideology, including centrists, etc (and there are almost certainly far more centrists who don't vote than leftists). Baron Porkface posted:But I thought Obama was the EEEEEvil centrist. How old were you in 2008? Because PUMAs were at least as common as anti-Clinton Sanders supporters. Also, there isn't really much difference between McCain and Trump in terms of actual policy. For people who actually care about the material effects of government (instead of how rude the politician is), it shouldn't make much of a difference whether the president is McCain or Trump. Ytlaya fucked around with this message at 19:16 on Feb 15, 2018 |
|
#
?
Feb 15, 2018 19:09
|
|
|
Owlofcreamcheese posted:I am sure that a conversation where the starting point is that everyone in every election is always "evil" was going to be a totally great conversation and not a total circlejerk Mmmmm yes, that always is the starting point. They don't begin with valid criticisms of bad candidates or anything. 
|
|
#
?
Feb 15, 2018 19:16
|
|
|
Mister Fister posted:Bill Clinton acted like a Republican as president, way before Citizens United happened. Lets not pretend that the Democratic party will magically become progressive once you fix CU. I don't know how you can say that. It's not like he himself literally said, "Where are all the Democrats? I hope you're all aware we're all Eisenhower Republicans [...] We're Eisenhower Republicans here. Here we are, and we're standing for lower deficits and free trade and the bond market. Isn't that great?"
|
|
#
?
Feb 15, 2018 19:18
|
|
|
Ytlaya posted:As I think I've said before, I actually personally disagree with not voting, but I can understand why people do it. I hate the Republicans enough that I spite-vote straight-ticket D. But I still have limits for how lovely a Dem could be and still get my vote, if the 2020 election were between Donald Trump (R) and Paul Ryan (D) I would have to vote third party even though Paul Ryan is "not as bad" as Trump by some microscopic amount because he would still be a disaster. Everyone has that limit somewhere on some issues. Which is why Lesser Evilism is such a terrible strategy from a pragmatic standpoint. Even though if you browbeat someone enough in the Ultimatum Game, you might be able to get them to modify their personal threshold for how much they are personally willing to suffer to punish some level of antisocial behavior. But you will almost never be able to convince them to passively accept any amount of lovely treatment in exchange for a pat on the head. At the end of the day, if Dem politicians want to convince millions of people not to hit the Punish button, the only way to do that is to improve their offers instead of pounding on the Defect button like it stole something.
|
|
#
?
Feb 15, 2018 19:21
|
|
|
Majorian posted:Mmmmm, not as much as you'd like people to believe. His voting record's been pretty Trumpian over the last few years, and he tried to put Sarah cocking Palin a heartbeat away from the Oval Office. The fact that the PUMA crowd would back him shows how incredibly shallow their feminism really was. All the times that John Sydney McCain III did not vote with Trump: pre:7/27/17 Imposing sanctions on Russia, Iran and North Korea (98-2) Yes 6/14/17 Imposing sanctions on Russia (97-2) Yes 12/7/17 Extension of government funding for two weeks (81-14) No 9/7/17 Raising debt limit/extending government funding/Hurricane Harvey relief (80-17) No 7/28/17 Senate "skinny repeal" health care bill (49-51) No 7/26/17 Repealing major parts of the Affordable Care Act, with a transition period for replacement (45-55) No 5/11/17 Nomination of Robert Lighthizer to be United States trade representative (82-14) No 5/10/17 Repeal of a rule requiring energy companies to reduce waste and emissions (49-51) No 2/16/17 Nomination of Mick Mulvaney to be director of the Office of Management and Budget (51-49) No
|
|
#
?
Feb 15, 2018 19:35
|
|
|
Majorian posted:I don't know how you can say that. It's not like he himself literally said, "Where are all the Democrats? I hope you're all aware we're all Eisenhower Republicans [...] We're Eisenhower Republicans here. Here we are, and we're standing for lower deficits and free trade and the bond market. Isn't that great?" Why did you take out the "with voice dripping with sarcasm" note that Woodward had put in? Frontline Interview with Leon Panetta posted:In April, 1993, there's a lot of pressure to get health out, and they're talking about NAFTA, and taking about GATT. According to Woodward, there's this meeting in the Oval Office, and Clinton bellows, "Where are all the Democrats? I hope you're all aware we're all Eisenhower Republicans," with voice dripping with sarcasm. "We're Eisenhower Republicans here. Here we are, and we're standing for lower deficits and free trade and the bond market. Isn't that great?" Do you remember that?
|
|
#
?
Feb 15, 2018 19:36
|
|
|
Owlofcreamcheese posted:Cool, weird that that wasn't the issue that got brought up and instead the original go to attack was some incorrect lie about them not having a platform people want to vote form even though they have gotten the most votes in nearly every election in decades. Almost like people bringing it up are disingenuous or something! The Republicans are inherently less popular in terms of the actual number of people who support them, because the ideas they support are transparently bad and malicious (particularly to ethnic minorities, who are a growing part of the population). So the Democrats can enjoy a significant amount of support simply by being neutral, even though being neutral is evil in and of itself in the context of the grotesque state of our current society. This isn't something you should be satisfied with, because a hypothetical "current Democratic Party controls the entire government forever" situation would be terrible, even if it would be less terrible than the Republican alternative. Why is it that the left bothers you so much? What are you worried about? And I want specifics - what is the bad scenario you are imagining that will occur due to the radical left? "Letting Republicans win because they don't vote enough" isn't a reasonable answer, because there's zero evidence the left votes less than any other sub-group (like centrists/moderates). Why is it that the left bothers you so much while, say, the center doesn't? I think you should take some time to think about these questions, because from the outside the bizarre distaste people like yourself display towards the left just doesn't make sense. I could understand it if you actually explicitly disagreed with their ideology and policy goals (which is what motivates the radical left to dislike the center/center-left), but that stuff never comes up in these discussions. Owlofcreamcheese posted:If you find yourself agreeing with republicans now and then then sure, that is no big deal, if you find yourself agreeing with republicans often enough you might just be a republican as their party best represents your values. The gently caress? But this isn't remotely the case? The people on the left in these discussions disagree with pretty much every Republican policy position. Owlofcreamcheese posted:I seriously believe that a group of people have declared themselves "leftist" while holding no significantly or particularly leftist ideas and doing nothing but amplifying a bunch of right wing narritives by believing everything they half heard from their conservative dad. Where are these leftists who don't hold leftist ideas? Can you name some of them who post on these forums? What are the non-leftist ideas they have? I'm sure there's a non-zero number of leftists somewhere on the internet who have bad views, but the overwhelming majority of leftists are considerably to the left of the mainstream Democratic Party (and the average Democratic voter) politically. Even the worst ones (who complain about identity politics and what have you) aren't any worse than the Democrats when it comes to actual policy related to those issues. Majorian posted:I'd still like to see evidence of them parroting Fox News talking points, besides Jimmy Dore, who is not really left wing - he's just a loving moron. There's a subset of people who identify as leftists (and it's not really fair to pull a "no true scotsman" here, since "leftist" as a term is somewhat vaguely defined) who seem to base their views mostly on a sort of anti-establishment sentiment and are composed of people similar to those who voted Ron Paul in previous elections. But there aren't that many of these people, and the real question is why people like the person I quoted above are specifically so annoyed at the left, despite there being dumb subsets of literally every major political ideology. Why is it that the radical left bothers them so much compared with the center? Heck, they sometimes seem to have more kind words for "moderate" Republicans like McCain than they do the radical left. There isn't really a good answer to this question, and I find it interesting to try and suss out the real source of their irritation/anger. Ytlaya fucked around with this message at 19:58 on Feb 15, 2018 |
|
#
?
Feb 15, 2018 19:37
|
|
|
Ytlaya posted:There's a subset of people who identify as leftists (and it's not really fair to pull a "no true scotsman" here, since "leftist" as a term is somewhat vaguely defined) who seem to base their views mostly on a sort of anti-establishment sentiment and are composed of people similar to those who voted Ron Paul in previous elections.  , but it's telling that Owlofcreamcheese can't put up or shut up even when I set the bar that low.
|
|
#
?
Feb 15, 2018 19:55
|
|
|
In my neighborhood the only Democrats around are blue dogs who were too stubborn or loyal to defect when older boomers and silents started voting Republican for cultural and FYGM reasons. Among those who have stayed with the party, they're vastly different than they were eight years ago. A lot of these people used to basically be Republicans who vote Democrat because of Medicare/Social Security and unions, but fighting a losing cultural battle with the local CHUDS has moved them to the left on a lot of issues. Obama endorsing gay marriage, however belatedly, forced the local party faithful to adjust. We lost a fair few assholes in the process, but life has gotten appreciably better now for a lot of friends and neighbors now that they have an open institutional ally in the community. The same goes for economic issues, with a lot more local candidates far more willing to endorse formerly radical ideas as they're incorporated into the mainstream debate within the Democratic Party. "Buy-in options" for Medicaid tend to fare better than Single Payer, but the latter is getting some air time at local meetings as well. One of the reasons I participate in local party politics is because its ultimately therapeutic even if I'm still an ideological outlier. It's really interesting to hear from old union workers who talk about their brief dalliance with conservatism under Nixon/Reagan and vowing "Never to make that mistake again." Seeing people renounce bad ideas is inspiring, even if its only because they need the support of gays, immigrants and the poor to defeat their common enemy. They still have some "bad dem" trappings they haven't shed yet, but it's really hard to hate people who can regale you about brawling with strikebreakers back in the day. I mean, punching little shits like Steven Crowder in the face goes a long way with me. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_HeHMzYKLJI
|
|
#
?
Feb 15, 2018 20:02
|
|
|
Ytlaya posted:Why is it that the radical left bothers them so much compared with the center? Heck, they sometimes seem to have more kind words for "moderate" Republicans like McCain than they do the radical left. There isn't really a good answer to this question, and I find it interesting to try and suss out the real source of their irritation/anger. 
|
|
#
?
Feb 15, 2018 20:04
|
|
|
Bring back "Moonbeam City."
|
|
#
?
Feb 15, 2018 20:06
|
|
|
Ytlaya posted:Why is it that the left bothers you so much? What are you worried about? And I want specifics - what is the bad scenario you are imagining that will occur due to the radical left? "Letting Republicans win because they don't vote enough" isn't a reasonable answer, because there's zero evidence the left votes less than any other sub-group (like centrists/moderates). Why is it that the left bothers you so much while, say, the center doesn't? Because I have no actual belief that many of the people actually hold any particularly left wing beliefs and instead just discovered that if they call hillary a "neoliberal" every place their dad said "liberal" they can just regurgitate his worldview without being ostracized by their liberal friends, to the point they might not even realize when they are making legitimate concerns and when they are buying into republican narratives. The negative effect of that is reading yet another ten page essay on the evils of shillary clinton that largely calls for her to support policies she already supports and denounce things she already denounced mixed all in with real criticism in a way that makes it harder to address real criticism than if they had not helped in the first place.
|
|
#
?
Feb 15, 2018 20:16
|
|
|
Hello all, this is just the result of my latest kung fu technique, where you say "Bernie sanders" at five critical points in time to make a neoliberal's psyche explode
|
|
#
?
Feb 15, 2018 20:39
|
|
|
Owlofcreamcheese posted:https://twitter.com/realdonaldtrump/status/878946025662296064 is trump supposed to be leftist according to you? cause he asked for evidence of leftists parroting fox news talking points
|
|
#
?
Feb 15, 2018 20:45
|
|
|
Owlofcreamcheese posted:Because I have no actual belief that many of the people actually hold any particularly left wing beliefs and instead just discovered that if they call hillary a "neoliberal" every place their dad said "liberal" they can just regurgitate his worldview without being ostracized by their liberal friends, to the point they might not even realize when they are making legitimate concerns and when they are buying into republican narratives. Ah the "drive around Occupy Wall Street until you find an idiot to interview, then conclude 'obviously everyone here is just like that so bailing out and protecting white collar criminals must be fine' " argument.
|
|
#
?
Feb 15, 2018 20:50
|
|
|
Owlofcreamcheese posted:Because I have no actual belief that many of the people actually hold any particularly left wing beliefs Mmmm yes indeed, the enduring popularity of Medicare for All (as well as Sanders even after the election) certainly isn't evidence of this or anything. quote:The negative effect of that is reading yet another ten page essay on the evils of shillary clinton that largely calls for her to support policies she already supports and denounce things she already denounced mixed all in with real criticism in a way that makes it harder to address real criticism than if they had not helped in the first place. I'm not seeing much evidence for this being a decisive factor in the '16 election. If it's so clear, you should be able to find that evidence easily. But you can't, because it's actually not true.
|
|
#
?
Feb 15, 2018 21:45
|
|
|
So is this just a tone argument OoCC? You don't actually have any ideological disagreement with something like single-payer health care, but because some people out there don't really care about it beyond using it as a club against Hillary and also those people are stupid and annoying and their butts smell, we need to oppose it in order to spite some dumb internet people? Is it really wise to let the Democratic Party be worse than it needs to be and keep the American health care system worse than it needs to be out of spite? That doesn't seem wise at all, like at least Obama's excuse for doing it was getting boatloads of cash, which was morally wrong but at least it was in his self-interest which is more than I can say for the argument you seem to be making.
|
|
#
?
Feb 15, 2018 22:10
|
|
|
Colin Powell got more votes from democratic electors than Bernie Sanders.
|
|
#
?
Feb 15, 2018 22:19
|
|
|
Riptor posted:I fully support mandatory voting, provided it's a 1 for this thread Reinforce the wards on the bad thread.
|
|
#
?
Feb 15, 2018 22:21
|
|
|
Owlofcreamcheese posted:Because I have no actual belief that many of the people actually hold any particularly left wing beliefs and instead just discovered that if they call hillary a "neoliberal" every place their dad said "liberal" they can just regurgitate his worldview without being ostracized by their liberal friends, to the point they might not even realize when they are making legitimate concerns and when they are buying into republican narratives. It's impossible to really articulate how bizarre this is to me. There are a bunch of stereotypes I've seen of leftists, but "like your conservative baby boomer dad" certainly isn't one of them. It seems like you genuinely can't comprehend the idea of people disliking the Democratic Party from any perspective other than a right-wing/conservative one. Like, I could sort of understand if you had the typical "college communist wearing a Che shirt" stereotype in mind (and I think most of the leftist-hating liberals on these forums more or less have this sort of thing in mind), but "crypto-Republicans" is a new one for me. What you're saying here just isn't true, and you've reasoned yourself into a position where other people can't even disprove it. You seem to be saying that, no matter what a leftist claims to believe, you magically know that they secretly don't. How is someone even supposed to respond to that? As someone else said, you're literally making a "virtue signalling" argument. It would be one thing if you had some polls/data on hand showing that leftists (or some proxy for leftists, like Sanders primary supporters) were more right-wing than mainstream liberals, but I'm pretty sure actual data shows the complete opposite. Majorian posted:Mmmm yes indeed, the enduring popularity of Medicare for All (as well as Sanders even after the election) certainly isn't evidence of this or anything. Unfortunately, he isn't exactly wrong about that. See: Biden being at least as popular as Sanders, despite probably being even worse than Hillary ideologically. The best angle to take with this topic is "the American public, or at least potential Democratic voters, aren't opposed to more left-wing policy." Ultimately it's possible to find polls that seem to "prove" a variety of things about the political preferences of the American public, so I think the most important take-away is that left-wing policy doesn't drive voters away. And that's all you really need to prove (if you believe left-wing policy is good, at least). Ytlaya fucked around with this message at 22:50 on Feb 15, 2018 |
|
#
?
Feb 15, 2018 22:46
|
|
|
Brony Car posted:The GOP and conservative indoctrination organizations like the Federalist Society have done an amazing job screwing up the political landscape. Money always mattered in politics, but ever since Citizens United, the money level required to campaign effectively has grown to ridiculous heights. This is a popular sentiment, but really, the decline started well before Citizens United and happened with the active participation of the Dems, who were complicit in the growth of money in politics because they thought they'd be able to outraise the GOP. You wave the phrase "Koch money" around like it's some kind of boogeyman, but the Dems have been in the pocket of big banks for more than a decade. The current generation of machine politicians and consultant grifters built this relentless dependence on fundraising because they could, not because they needed to.
|
|
#
?
Feb 15, 2018 23:04
|
|
|
To be fair, Biden sees bizarre popularity due to the personality he's groomed and his connection to Obama. We dont know how well he'd fare getting his politics cross-examined in a presidential primary, and he's too smart to walk into that.
|
|
#
?
Feb 15, 2018 23:08
|
|
|
Main Paineframe posted:This is a popular sentiment, but really, the decline started well before Citizens United and happened with the active participation of the Dems, who were complicit in the growth of money in politics because they thought they'd be able to outraise the GOP. You wave the phrase "Koch money" around like it's some kind of boogeyman, but the Dems have been in the pocket of big banks for more than a decade. The current generation of machine politicians and consultant grifters built this relentless dependence on fundraising because they could, not because they needed to. I have a hard time looking at the pre-Citizens United and post-Citizens United expenditure levels and thinking that the case did not have a major impact. The levels of spending, especially by opaque non-party organizations, jumped crazily after 2006. https://www.opensecrets.org/news/2018/02/how-citizens-united-changed-campaign-finance/
|
|
#
?
Feb 15, 2018 23:25
|
|
|
Neurolimal posted:To be fair, Biden sees bizarre popularity due to the personality he's groomed and his connection to Obama. We dont know how well he'd fare getting his politics cross-examined in a presidential primary, and he's too smart to walk into that. Yeah, the interesting thing about Bernie's popularity is that he has no "default" advantages. Little positive media coverage, no association with an existing political figure, etc. Obama is the main example of someone who succeeded in a somewhat similar position, though from what I understand Obama also had considerable institutional backing at the time (the establishment wasn't all for Hillary in the beginning like it was in 2016).
|
|
#
?
Feb 15, 2018 23:33
|
|
|
|
| # ? Apr 28, 2024 21:15 |
|
|
Ytlaya posted:Yeah, the interesting thing about Bernie's popularity is that he has no "default" advantages. Little positive media coverage, no association with an existing political figure, etc. The party establishment wasn't in massive debt in 2008 either...
|
|
#
?
Feb 15, 2018 23:34
|
|