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I can only speak for myself, but let me put it this way: there are fates than electoral loss. Democratic politicians do not wish to lose for losing’s sake, but they value the integrity of the party and their position in its hierarchy more than avoiding any particular loss, no matter how catastrophic such a loss might be to the public they pledge to serve. So long as they don’t lose as badly as the Whigs did one hundred and seventy years ago, the gravy train rolls on.
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Jan 18, 2025 06:20
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One thing I'm increasingly encountering in local politics is what I'd call Democrats-in-name-only who are trying to shove the Overton window rightward from within the party. Most of them are closely aligned with large corporations and bill themselves as "business friendly" while closing schools left and right and voting for expanded police budgets, powers and a whole honkin' lot of surveillance capabilities. You see similar groups pushing gender checks and book bans in school districts while claiming to be "progressive".
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Jan 18, 2025 06:22
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Platystemon posted:I can only speak for myself, but let me put it this way: there are fates than electoral loss. Democratic politicians do not wish to lose for losing’s sake, but they value the integrity of the party and their position in its hierarchy more than avoiding any particular loss, no matter how catastrophic such a loss might be to the public they pledge to serve. this is complete and absolute nonsense. Joe Manchin bucked the party constantly, won constantly, and was one of the most powerful men in the Senate for a time. If you see politicians out there with what you believe to be dumb positions that will lose them an election, chances are they think it'll actually get them votes with people that don't think like you, or they actually believe it.
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Jan 18, 2025 06:30
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facialimpediment posted:chuds are very flag-mad because Biden did the standard thing on the death of a president - flags at half-mast for 30 days This isn't just flying the flags at full staff, this is flying the flag of a political faction with equal precedence to the flag of the nation. I don't like the historical precedence for this. Acebuckeye13 posted:Democrats, while flawed, are still generally well-meaning people I do not believe this, or at least, I do not believe those who make the decisions that matter within that party are well-meaning people. That's not to say that they're like the republicans, just that they're a different breed of awful. A.o.D. fucked around with this message at 08:03 on Jan 18, 2025 |
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Jan 18, 2025 08:00
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quote is not edit, damnit.
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Jan 18, 2025 08:02
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The dems want European style capitalism. The Republicans are ushering in the return of the robber barons. A lot of people on this site like to act like their basically the same. I don't get it.
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Jan 18, 2025 08:29
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Acebuckeye13 posted:I've said it before but this is a ludicrious argument that comes from people whose only exposure to politics is loving twitter. As a candidate, you do not make money by losing. Where do you think the money goes? Anyway, they're not actively trying to lose. But they also don't care if they win. Because they get what they want from the campaign, which is other people's money to spend on their co-conspirators. You should try understanding how pork works.
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Jan 18, 2025 09:28
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CainFortea posted:Where do you think the money goes? You are so aggressively, confidently, and insultingly wrong when you're arguing with me and it's infuriating, I just want you to know this. "Do I know how pork works," clearly you don't since that's not what that word means! Have you ever even read a single word about politics that came from a book and not an Internet forum or Twitter? You should try, maybe then you'd learn how reconciliation works.
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Jan 18, 2025 10:41
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vast majority of money goes towards local television ad buys, by the way. FEC keeps track of all of that info. You can read it yourself! A portion of the money is kept by ad firms, but again, that money does not go back to the candidate. If anything, running a campaign is a great way to lose money - just ask Michael Bloomberg!
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Jan 18, 2025 10:44
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Kesper North posted:Most of them are closely aligned with large corporations and bill themselves as "business friendly" while closing schools left and right and voting for expanded police budgets, powers and a whole honkin' lot of surveillance capabilities. This is basically just Neo-lib dems since the Clinton era onwards imo. E: in better news https://x.com/DurrutiRiot/status/1880267898217992528 That Works fucked around with this message at 11:20 on Jan 18, 2025 |
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Jan 18, 2025 11:13
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https://x.com/PolitlcsUK/status/1880281214767989079
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Jan 18, 2025 12:26
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Grip it and rip it posted:The dems want European style capitalism. The Republicans are ushering in the return of the robber barons. A lot of people on this site like to act like their basically the same. I don't get it. As was mentioned, the endless security and police expansion. Dems want people to quietly shut up and go back to work and not complain while the system chews us to bits. Its being brutalized while being told "oh I don't approve but also I'm not going to stop him from doing it, even when I have the power to". The fact the republicans are a hooting death cult is somehow supposed to make us tolerant of the democrats' evil and refusal to meaningfully bring suffering to our enemies who immiserate, agonize and slaughter us by the hundreds of thousands. At this point both parties are united in their hatred of the homeless and are coming around to rounding them up into camps/killing them en masse. Luigi brought more hope to more or less everyone who isn't a decorum lib or billionaire worshiping chud than any democratic politician in my lifetime ever did. The dems pal around with and take donations from the people that Deny, Defend, and Depose to keep us poor and dying and under their heel. Trump and the republicans are just maggots feeding on the corpse of the body politic, the democrats are the ones who killed hope that things can radically and substantially change for the better. The millions of democratic voters that were too traumatized to bother voting during this poo poo show are entirely 100% the fault of the democratic party and its inability to motivate them through not giving them anything to fight for. Trump being trump is not something to fight for, its "mean orange man rocking the boat and status quo and threatening our norms" when the status quo and norms loving SUCK. The fact the republicans want to make it even worse is not going to make people hate the dems less for this. There was a feeling after covid that we were on the verge of a radical restructuring of the country and it felt like dems just moved heaven and earth to restore the pre-covid status quo. I don't think you realize how much people have completely lost hope in democratic american norms as being a good thing and its not just death cult chuds.
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Jan 18, 2025 13:20
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Grip it and rip it posted:The dems want European style capitalism.
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Jan 18, 2025 13:31
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Reminds me of her last visit 
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Jan 18, 2025 15:35
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the people want, to paraphrase a better man than me, not to have their leg pissed on and be told that it's raining
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Jan 18, 2025 17:36
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Ronwayne posted:As was mentioned, the endless security and police expansion. Dems want people to quietly shut up and go back to work and not complain while the system chews us to bits. Its being brutalized while being told "oh I don't approve but also I'm not going to stop him from doing it, even when I have the power to". The fact the republicans are a hooting death cult is somehow supposed to make us tolerant of the democrats' evil and refusal to meaningfully bring suffering to our enemies who immiserate, agonize and slaughter us by the hundreds of thousands. Uh huh, I'm not sure this really reflects the observations of Joe Blow Dem.voter in the US maffew buildings posted:the people want, to paraphrase a better man than me, not to have their leg pissed on and be told that it's raining Really? Ive seen it suggested more than once on this site that we need to adopt the Republican strategy of lying to everyone in order to get them to vote dem. Its almost like there are multiple different coalitions that make up the dem party who don't coordinate or communicate because they don't like each other and can't agree on what needs to be done? Grip it and rip it fucked around with this message at 17:40 on Jan 18, 2025 |
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Jan 18, 2025 17:38
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Acebuckeye13 posted:You are so aggressively, confidently, and insultingly wrong It's funny because this whole thing started because of you doing this.
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Jan 18, 2025 17:53
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CainFortea posted:It's funny because this whole thing started because of you doing this. How do you know he dems don't care if they lose? Seems like a weird claim to make when they win about half the time?
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Jan 18, 2025 17:57
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Grip it and rip it posted:Uh huh, I'm not sure this really reflects the observations of Joe Blow Dem.voter in the US You asked why people hate the dems and then said the answer doesn't count, so I dunno where to go. This kind of gaslighting is ANOTHER major part of why people hate the dems. I don't know how to convince you of the howling shriek of despair that permeates everything while dems and their supporters think we can go back to some kind of West Wingian style of norms and decorum. We are less than 5 years away from when police stations burned in america, the social contract is held together with snot and dreams and the last of the dreams just evaporated.
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Jan 18, 2025 18:09
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Grip it and rip it posted:
Republicans lie about who is responsible for problems (immigrants, the woke mind virus), they lie about their policy proposals making things better (lower taxes, deregulation, persecution of sexual minorities), and sometimes they lie about the reality that their target audience can't verify (San Francisco is covered in ten feet of homeless poo poo, Portland was burned to the ground and turned into gay socialist tent camps). Democrats tell their prospective voters that actually the economy is great and we're doing great vote for us to continue things the way they are. That's what he means.
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Jan 18, 2025 18:18
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Ronwayne posted:You asked why people hate the dems and then said the answer doesn't count, so I dunno where to go. This kind of gaslighting is ANOTHER major part of why people hate the dems. I don't know how to convince you of the howling shriek of despair that permeates everything while dems and their supporters think we can go back to some kind of West Wingian style of norms and decorum. We are less than 5 years away from when police stations burned in america, the social contract is held together with snot and dreams and the last of the dreams just evaporated. I'm pretty sure it was exclusively dem state administrations that ever tried to reign in the police and security state? For their efforts they got painted as soft on crime and voted out of office, because many of the same people who demanded those reforms refused to stick up for those policies because there was a new problem that precluded them from voting. Over and over this process has played out at small scale, and the result is generally that the reactionary right gains ground because people complain the dems aren't doing enough. The focus is constantly on the Dem establishment amd how they're "failing to earn votes" even as they stick their necks out on policy that is outside the mainstream. It makes total sense that they don't court the vote of the American left - they've shown themselves to be an entirely unreachable block. Their singular response to any situation is to withhold their vote and force the center left to cede ground to the right, all while whining that nobody is doing what needs to be done. Its old as gently caress and entirely predictable at this point. Stultus Maximus posted:Republicans lie about who is responsible for problems (immigrants, the woke mind virus), they lie about their policy proposals making things better (lower taxes, deregulation, persecution of sexual minorities), and sometimes they lie about the reality that their target audience can't verify (San Francisco is covered in ten feet of homeless poo poo, Portland was burned to the ground and turned into gay socialist tent camps). The dems said that the economy was doing well, generally, because wage growth was outpacing inflation. I don't recall them telling people to shut up and die in the street like has been suggested over and over again. They literally passed the legislation that reigned in inflation and brought forward a bunch of green power subsidies in order to kill two birds with one stone, and they got jack poo poo for credit for doing so. The republicans are literally chopping up every single tax-break and grant that goes to fund poor folks in order to further enrich the richest guys on the planet, and nobody seems to notice or talk about it. It seems like every one has been trained to react violently to any Dem failures and shrug their shoulders as the fascists sharpen their knives. It's loving crazy. Edit: To be clear, the republican strategy is literally going to steal money out of the pockets of just about everyone on this board, while simultaneously making essentials like food harder to afford. Its a double whammy that is going to be absolutely devastating for the working poor and harmful for just about everyone up to the top tax bracket. The whole thing was entirely predictable and foreseeable, but the focus seems to remain on the fact that the Dems didn't bow and scrape hard enough when people said prices were hurting them. The double standard is totally bizarre and untenable in my mind. Grip it and rip it fucked around with this message at 18:51 on Jan 18, 2025 |
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Jan 18, 2025 18:25
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Grip it and rip it posted:I'm pretty sure it was exclusively dem state administrations that ever tried to reign in the police and security state? For their efforts they got painted as soft on crime and voted out of office, because many of the same people who demanded those reforms refused to stick up for those policies because there was a new problem that precluded them from voting. Over and over this process has played out at small scale, and the result is generally that the reactionary right gains ground because people complain the dems aren't doing enough. An yet MORE blaming the left for the failure of the democratic party. It'd sure be nice if the dems actually fought reaction instead of trying to court it. If the left is 'unreachable', its because the dems are failing to implement leftist policy and isntead just chasing the GOP rightwards. If voting is not working and the right has the dems at an inherent disadvantage I'm going to have to ask at what point does anti-reactionary politics have to come from non electoral direct action? Are you not seeing that the democratic party's failures here have created a situation where violence is going to increasingly be seen as the only way groups hated by the right have to defend themselves? For the record, I think this is BAD, but increasingly what are you going to do when people feel like cornered animals about to be killed while dem supporters tell them you're 'unreachable' and not worth bothering with? This is epecially enraging after being told "if you don't vote, they won't listen" then voting, and when the dems failed, being scolded that my vote was not worth pursuing in the first place! Ronwayne fucked around with this message at 19:00 on Jan 18, 2025 |
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Jan 18, 2025 18:54
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Grip it and rip it posted:
I don't disagree with you, but when you keep saying that the economy is doing well generally and the average voter is saying that they are feeling absolutely lovely about the economy the thing to do is not keep messaging that it's doing well, actually. The thing to do is figure out why the average voter is feeling that way and market towards them. The Republicans did. They said "I believe you, I feel your pain, and it's ALL THEIR FAULT." Beyond the "number go up?" aspect of the economy, which the Democrats were focused on, the Harris campaign was based around "Trump will burn everything down" and didn't realize that most people don't trust any institutions and want to see it all burn. Yes, I know that the Republicans are largely responsible for destroying faith in institutions but that doesn't change the reality of how to campaign in this environment. Democrats already had an uphill battle to counter Trump's economic populism messaging when the Democrats were the party in power. It really doesn't help that Democrats are also seen by most of the public as a bunch of weak old fucks who don't do anything but cozy up to elites for donations. Democrats are where Republicans were in 2008 - a worn out party of out of touch olds that doesn't know how to do anything but suck up to their donors and lose elections. Trump killed the creaky Wall Street suit Romney Republican party and the Trump Party was born as a fiery right wing populist party.
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Jan 18, 2025 18:55
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There isn't an infinite-money, literally endless AI-produced stream of surgically targeted, algorithmically perfected propaganda on every imaginable medium of information championing leftist goals and outcomes while simultaneously painting the enemy as baby raping pedophile sex ritual Satan worshipping adrenochrome chugging triple commie mega-Hitler socialist pinkos. They're going to lose every time they try to improve things just like they'll lose every time they don't try to improve things because half the voting population of the country will never even hear about either outcome in their media bubble and everyone outside that bubble still has to swim through the social waters of a country polluted by that omnipresent messaging.
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Jan 18, 2025 18:57
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Stultus Maximus posted:Republicans lie about who is responsible for problems (immigrants, the woke mind virus), they lie about their policy proposals making things better (lower taxes, deregulation, persecution of sexual minorities), and sometimes they lie about the reality that their target audience can't verify (San Francisco is covered in ten feet of homeless poo poo, Portland was burned to the ground and turned into gay socialist tent camps). I meant (again quoting a better man than me) "Brando's got us on our bellies and he's reaching for the butter!"
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Jan 18, 2025 19:05
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Acebuckeye13 posted:vast majority of money goes towards local television ad buys, by the way. FEC keeps track of all of that info. You can read it yourself! A portion of the money is kept by ad firms, but again, that money does not go back to the candidate. If anything, running a campaign is a great way to lose money - just ask Michael Bloomberg! Right, it does not go to the candidate. When people say “democrats don’t care about losing” they mean the larger state/national organizations, affiliated PACs and the campaign consultants do not care as long as the money comes in. In the case of an ad buy the candidate likely pays a consultant, the consultant hires one or more agencies and the agencies pay for ad spots. The consultant and agency get paid whether or not the campaign wins and likely will keep getting work from whoever runs next time.
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Jan 18, 2025 19:09
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maffew buildings posted:I meant (again quoting a better man than me) "Brando's got us on our bellies and he's reaching for the butter!" Ah. Well then. bird food bathtub posted:There isn't an infinite-money, literally endless AI-produced stream of surgically targeted, algorithmically perfected propaganda on every imaginable medium of information championing leftist goals and outcomes while simultaneously painting the enemy as baby raping pedophile sex ritual Satan worshipping adrenochrome chugging triple commie mega-Hitler socialist pinkos. Democrats also have absolutely dropped the ball on social media and communication. Yes, Republicans have the advantage with the richest man in the world buying one of the top platforms in order to control messaging but the Democrats aren't even trying. There's no Joe Rogan of the left (or left-center, whatever) and the Democrats haven't tried and wouldn't know how to do it if they did try. Because the Democratic consultant class are completely out of touch.
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Jan 18, 2025 19:12
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Stultus Maximus posted:Ah. Well then. Yeah, the response to that should be "okay, so what should be do to counter that and build a counter-message?" The dems keep giving up after getting hard countered, or even soft countered with minimal pushback, on just about everything, and saying it couldn't be done. No, it could be done, the other side just wanted it more. There is also zero thought going to how to shut down these propaganda networks, of treating murdoch as an enemy foreign agent, shutting down fox, disrupting the money trails going to online right wing demogouges, and other dirty fighting that could absolutely be done to disrupt the reactionary message. Tim Pool shut down or at least shut the hell up for a bit when his foreign funding got outed, and I'm positive there's a RICO case to be brought against whatever shadowy money network is keeping these shitheads funded. Ronwayne fucked around with this message at 19:26 on Jan 18, 2025 |
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Jan 18, 2025 19:19
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I'm gonna keep blaming the Democrats for losing until they fire everyone within shouting distance of leadership for making GBS threads the bed against Trump twice.
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Jan 18, 2025 19:20
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Stultus Maximus posted:There's no Joe Rogan of the left (or left-center, whatever I've heard this a few times and this I feel this is ridiculous. Joe Rogan "works" because he's a blank slate that doesn't think critically about... well anything that I can tell outside of weed, psychotropics, and martial arts. Dude will nod along with anything outside of the most blatantly obvious 'ism's. Now whether he is a grifter who will bring literally anyone on that will pop a rating and to do that he just needs to sit back and put any idiot on his show, or he's genuinely a curious dude who just wants to interview people and takes the approach, that actual mainstream media outlets take, that it's better to just nod along with the interviewee and only push back if they say something entirely hosed is still up for debate in my eyes. A "Leftist" or even a "Facist" Joe Rogan doesn't work, because such people aren't going to be easy to listen to for joe douchebag on the street. Defenestrategy fucked around with this message at 19:34 on Jan 18, 2025 |
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Jan 18, 2025 19:32
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That Works posted:I'm gonna keep blaming the Democrats for losing until they fire everyone within shouting distance of leadership for making GBS threads the bed against Trump twice. And put hard tweeting ivy league polisci grads out of their sinecure work? In THIS economy? What are you, heartless?
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Jan 18, 2025 19:55
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Stultus Maximus posted:Ah. Well then. Yeah that’s true, was interesting two decades ago being around conservative friends & realizing how well organized talk radio messaging was, like Rush mailing out newsletters & how that crap was in the background of cars, offices, garages etc nonstop & no one thought anything of it, and there was near zero leftist equivalent. There was an attempt with Air America from 2004 to 2010 trying to be leftist radio but it didn’t get much traction. Podcasts have definitely filled that void & its distressing as ever to hear it considered smart or a way to get both sides.
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Jan 18, 2025 19:56
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Defenestrategy posted:I've heard this a few times and this I feel this is ridiculous. Joe Rogan "works" because he's a blank slate that doesn't think critically about... well anything that I can tell outside of weed, psychotropics, and martial arts. Dude will nod along with anything outside of the most blatantly obvious 'ism's. https://www.reddit.com/r/youtubedl/comments/cjjzeu/list_of_joe_rogan_experience_guests_by/ Rogan puts Nazis online in one of the biggest platforms in his type of medium. A "Blank Slate" that platforms Nazis is a Nazi platform, doesn't matter if he gets Bernie Sanders on there once or something.
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Jan 18, 2025 19:57
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Defenestrategy posted:I've heard this a few times and this I feel this is ridiculous. Joe Rogan "works" because he's a blank slate that doesn't think critically about... well anything that I can tell outside of weed, psychotropics, and martial arts. Dude will nod along with anything outside of the most blatantly obvious 'ism's. Right, and Bernie Sanders is the only Democrat-adjacent person who went on his show. All the others Dems thought that his show was beneath them and Republicans took advantage. It's also not ridiculous to think that there could be a talk show/podcast/whatever with a host that likes weed and wrestling and fart jokes but also has left leaning guests when things get political. It's not ridiculous to imagine a 30 years younger Howard Stern, for example. We had people like Stern, Jon Stewart, Stephen Colbert but they've gotten old and nobody has bothered to find younger versions. Voters under 30 largely see Democrats as old rich elitists who are more likely to scold you for not using the term "unhoused person" than they are to actually help the homeless.
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Jan 18, 2025 19:59
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Stultus Maximus posted:It's also not ridiculous to think that there could be a talk show/podcast/whatever with a host that likes weed and wrestling and fart jokes but also has left leaning guests when things get political. It's not ridiculous to imagine a 30 years younger Howard Stern, for example. We had people like Stern, Jon Stewart, Stephen Colbert but they've gotten old and nobody has bothered to find younger versions. Younger versions are either empty suits that nobody wants to listen too or are too leftist for the money to want to fund a show of. Its a clear symptom of the Dem top level policies and fundraising system.
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Jan 18, 2025 20:05
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That Works posted:https://www.reddit.com/r/youtubedl/comments/cjjzeu/list_of_joe_rogan_experience_guests_by/ I mean doesn't this view of things simply cede a platform to the nazis if they're ever able to get access? when we're talking about someone that has a viewership as large as Joe Rogans, it seems like it would be worth it to try and displace the nazis rather than condemn the entire platform? For the record I loving hate Joe Rogan and can't stand his fans but they do seem like a large, impressionable group of people. When I was in law school I had to sit through morons repeating talking points that they heard on his show about different topics. If he is as amenable to all sides as some people seem to think, it sounds like a potentially valuable avenue to reach people, nazis or no.
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Jan 18, 2025 20:15
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Grip it and rip it posted:I mean doesn't this view of things simply cede a platform to the nazis if they're ever able to get access? when we're talking about someone that has a viewership as large as Joe Rogans, it seems like it would be worth it to try and displace the nazis rather than condemn the entire platform? I get your point but going through the list in the link I am not really seeing a lot of leftists etc. Rogan is one of the major reasons (IMO) that we have people not taking vaccines, etc. The platform does vastly more harm than good. If you want to try to engage with it to take advantage of it, you're still helping perpetuate a platform that signal boosts people that want you dead. I'm not sure how you square that circle. It's like saying Fox News is fine if they just keep bringing out a democrat now and then.
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Jan 18, 2025 20:20
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That Works posted:I get your point but going through the list in the link I am not really seeing a lot of leftists etc. yeah I get that. I think it's pretty clear to see how his and his producer's politics skew, even if they maintain a facade of being "open to all sides". It seems like we need some kind of charismatic individual to unite everyone to the left of the nazis, but I just don't see that ever happening. I used to think that AOC was going to be a shoe-in for presidential politics by the end of the 2020s, but now that possibility seems further and further away. In large part I think I had been expecting the US to correct it's course since the 2000s. The Bush and Trump administrations were both so catastrophic that I couldn't imagine that people would willingly vote for more, but here we are. In terms of international politics we are destroying the position of the US as the leader of the free world, and in doing so destabilizing the extant world order. This naturally is going to lead to a re-arrangement of norms that we are already witnessing with events like the War in Ukraine and the genocide in Palestine. Eventually, in the US continues ceding its influence and position, I would expect that a war will break out with a near peer competitor. And everything Trump has done seems almost intended to accelerate into the eventuality. I just don't get it.
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Jan 18, 2025 20:31
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That Works posted:I get your point but going through the list in the link I am not really seeing a lot of leftists etc. Staying away sure as poo poo did nothing to reduce his reach so maybe we can file that approach away as “failed.”
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Jan 18, 2025 20:32
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Stultus Maximus posted:Staying away sure as poo poo did nothing to reduce his reach so maybe we can file that approach away as “failed.” Is this what happened? Were people from the left invited and declined to attend in real numbers? Or did Rogan's staff just invite loads of right wingers and throw in an occasional lib? (legit asking because I don't know. I refuse to listen to Rogan).
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Jan 18, 2025 20:45
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