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Nick Soapdish posted:https://bsky.app/profile/maxkennerly.bsky.social/post/3lfbmjs6kkk2h Is this person just learning about reconciliation? Practically all substantial legislation since, like Obama has been done through reconciliation, including Trump's tax cuts and Biden's Inflation Reduction Act.
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Jan 9, 2025 04:17
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CainFortea posted:No, it's a reminder that the dems could have also done this but didn't. Acebuckeye13 posted:and Biden's Inflation Reduction Act. I get being mad at the dems but come the gently caress on
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Jan 9, 2025 08:44
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Vincent Van Goatse posted:The DoE was created because Truman(?) didn't want the country's nuclear energy infrastructure in military hands IIRC. Atomic Energy Commission came first, which was subsumed by the DoE when it was created in the '70s.
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Jan 15, 2025 03:38
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Kazinsal posted:The Democrats also just... don't want to win. They want to come close enough to make it look like they tried, but winning? Winning means you have to actually do work for four years. If you narrowly lose, you get to spend the next four years collecting donations while sitting on your rear end. 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. Do you think people are still giving their money to Mandela Barnes? Amy McGrath? Phil Bredesen? And campaigning is the hard part - and even if you win, half the time, you're still on the phone begging for donations anyway! There's a fantasy that a lot of people buy into, which is that the Dems lose on purpose, because the reality is actually much darker: Democrats, while flawed, are still generally well-meaning people who are doing what they think gives them the best chance to win. Oftentimes, they do as best as anyone can humanly do, taking popular positions and making strong moral stands, and still lose. And they lose because the entire American political and cultural landscape has been warped and twisted to suit the right-wing grifters and ideologues that have ascended to rule our media, our technology, our religious institutions, and the entire Republican party. They wield an enormous structural advantage such that they can run even with and beat Dems in competitive elections despite running on spectacularly unpopular policies. For example: should Harris have run on something big like Medicare for All? Sure. That also shouldn't have mattered, since Trump was actively running on crashing the entire economy with tariffs! But because the media is run by spineless cowards or are directly in bed and actively coordinating with the Republicans, it didn't matter. "Bernie would have won" is the most common invocation of that fantasy. And sure, maybe it's true - maybe Sanders' campaign would have done what Hillary couldn't. But he would have faced the exact same structural issues facing Clinton, issues that are now even more deeply entrenched then ever, and there's a good chance they could have made him lose even harder. Simply swapping out existing Dems for candidates with politics that you find more agreeable isn't going to change those structural issues by themselves - with the very important exception that it is important to elect candidates that will actually do something with their power once they have it to actually attack those structural issues, which is one of the biggest things that Biden very clearly failed to do, as good as he was in other areas. e: this isn't to say that better candidates don't win elections. Biden and Harris hosed up a whole bunch and a better candidate/campaign could have possibly pulled it off. But losing isn't itself a sign of complacency - because, trust me, if you're simply in politics to make money, it's easier to do literally anything else Acebuckeye13 fucked around with this message at 05:36 on Jan 18, 2025 |
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Jan 18, 2025 05:30
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also saying dems are in it to lose elections and make money is also kind of a wild accusation to throw at Joe Biden specifically given that he spent the vast majority of his life winning elections and making extremely little money
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Jan 18, 2025 05:35
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M_Gargantua posted:Ahh, you're right, just evidence that the party is incompetent instead... "Trying badly" versus "not trying at all" is an important distinction. Ultimately: there are incredibly talented and driven people who lose elections. And there are incredibly stupid and incompetent people who win elections. I don't think a single person in this thread would argue (I hope!) that Doug Jones wasn't trying and didn't deserve to win against Tommy Tuberville. Painting the entire party and its associated candidates under the brush of "They don't care and are trying to lose" is both inaccurate and unhelpful at diagnosing the party's actual problems or suggesting solutions that anyone involved in the discussion can actually contribute towards. pantslesswithwolves posted:https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/topstories/how-kamala-harris-burned-through-1-5-billion-in-15-weeks/ar-AA1ukaVU Sure, and they're a leech that needs to be excised. I'm talking about candidates specifically.
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Jan 18, 2025 05:52
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Platystemon posted:IDK seems like the the old man did all right. Hunter Biden traded on his father being Vice President to make millions from do-nothing positions, most famously from the Ukrainian oil company Burisma. Joe Biden famously had very little to show for his time in politics until after he retired from the Vice Presidency and finally made some money on the speaking circuit, and even then made substantially less than his contemporaries. For all his many faults, by all appearances and evidence Biden truly believed in the things he advocated for as a Senator, or was otherwise very bad at getting money from holding those beliefs.
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Jan 18, 2025 06:00
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To make sure we're all on the same page: -If you think that there are many Democratic politicians that are cowards with bad politics, including many in party leadership, I agree. -If you think there are many people that work as consultants or operatives in the Democratic Party that are corrupt grifters, I agree. -If you think that Democratic candidates intentionally throw elections in a Springtime for Hitler routine or are otherwise not actually trying to win in high-profile elections, I think you've been badly mislead or have otherwise no idea about how literally any of that would work and I have deep misgivings about your overall political acumen.
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Jan 18, 2025 06:07
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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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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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I've lowered my expectations to the point that if there's still something resembling a country in 4 years I'm going to be pleasantly surprised
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Jan 21, 2025 03:14
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I'm extremely low on the totem pole working for an agency that most people like, so I don't think I'm going to get directly hosed with but it's a bad time to be in government regardless.
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Jan 27, 2025 23:43
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cult_hero posted:Cool. New FAQ email for the "fork in the road" stupidity encouraging federal employees to move from "low productivity" government positions to "high productivity" private sector jobs. I work 10 hour days and I wish I could spend every minute of them throttling whoever wrote that email.
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Feb 1, 2025 06:46
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