StrangeSox

Statistically and historically, what rate of success has chasing Republican voters had for Democrats? What is the rate of success in shifting our political landscape? How long do you keep chasing Republican votes as the party gets crazier and crazier and crazier? How spectacularly did that assumption that Clinton could pick up hesitant suburban Republicans backfire? Exactly! Republican voters will vote Republican or sit home. Turn out your voters and expand your base.

Who cares what garbage candidate Republicans will go for? Stop chasing their votes! Get all your Democrats voting, and go after the people who are currently non-voters. That's another source of frustration among the left with the Democratic leadership.

As we saw with the ACA, 15 or 16 is more than enough to derail any decent legislation in the Senate so long as the filibuster still exists. Had it not been for long-term garbage establishment Dems like Lieberman, we would have had a public option. edit: thought credit is due to Pelosi for shuttling a public option through the House. I have less of a problem with her leadership there than with the rest of the clowns running the show for the past decade.

DOJ caving and giving this briefing to Trump's GOP backers and even Trump's lawyer is a pretty big institutional failure. edit: and of course Congress demanding this meeting and GOP leadership allowing it is an even larger constitutional crisis.

Ken Burns made a good documentary about his life

He was helping to rile it up and did so again this morning, but you're right that it's not entirely about him or anything. Sponsors made some noise but I don't think anyone pulled out last year? I understand that they're trying to stop their declining ratings which have been falling for a variety of reasons. I'm just saying that this policy doesn't seem like it's going to make the people who were mad in the first place happy, so what have they gained? Maybe I'm wrong, maybe viewership will stabilize and sponsorship dollars will keep flowing in just as much, but early signs show that it's going to still be an issue.

But it doesn't seem to have made the people who were mad in the first place, chiefly the President, happy. So what did they gain from this new policy if those same people are still mad about the kneeling and now more people are mad about the NFL's new policy? I get why they're trying to do this, it just doesn't seem to be working.

well right, so what exactly did this new policy accomplish? Trump is still mad, and those fans that agree with him are still going to be mad. Now they've also annoyed whatever portion of their audience isn't happy with the new policy, and they didn't seem to make the people previously upset any happier.

lol buddy I've been compromising my values by voting D in every election since I was of voting age. I'll be the first to argue that voting is a utilitarian exercise in harm reduction rather than an opportunity to pat yourself on the back for staying pure and clean with a 'principled' vote who brought us to this point? who failed spectacularly at every level for a long period of time? who got outplayed by the GOP over and over and over again? who has had an economic platform that's helped to perpetuate our large and growing economic gaps, entrenching wealth and power in the hands of a few? who had no response to an increasingly unhinged GOP throughout the Bush years, culminating in Trump, the logical end-game of decades of GOP politics, not a bastardization? why should the establishment be trusted? why are they the safer option in the wake of their catastrophic failures in 2016? where have they shown that they've changed and learned? what, exactly, is inspiring and trust-building so far in Schumer's leadership? e: until you stop ranting about "Bering and his followers" and actually engage in what others are saying, which is broader and goes back farther than Sanders, I think I'm done with this convo.

What's dragged the establishment to support those causes, which they sure as hell weren't previously? the left base! the same base you keep attacking again and again and again. I also never mentioned any of those specific things so I'm not sure who you're yelling at there?

What did Clinton do in the 90's? What about Obama's "Grand Bargain" proposal during his turn? I voted for Clinton in the general. I'll vote for Lipinski this fall as well, despite him being the worst Dem in the House and having to be dragged even mildly left from his anti-abortion, gay-hating, anti-health care stances of old by a legitimate progressive challenger this year. What if I want better than what establishment Dems have offered on abortion, environmental protections, climate change, and especially health care? Why is it always up to the progressives to compromise their views and stances in service of the centrists?

The party also did terribly from 2000 up until 2006. 2006 was good, 2008 was better, 2012 was okay. 2000, 2002, 2004, 2010, 2014, and 2016 were all disasters. Some signs point to a big year this year, but it's still a long-shot to take back the Senate and maybe 50/50 to take the House right now. More establishment candidates have been running, so of course more of them have won. It's...sort of expected that there will be more establishment candidates than outside challengers. You're also really, really hung up on Bernie when the conversation is broader than him specifically. You gotta move past your Bernie hate if you want to have any hope of engaging with or even just understanding the left base of the party. "The establishment candidate is the safe choice!" is a really hard message to sell after 2016.

the attempted appeasement backfired in less than 24 hours

*looks at state of Democratic party from local level up through the federal government across the country* that's a strange definition of winning! but you don't seem interested in actually having a discussion or, like I said, at least trying to understand where others on the left are coming from. you just want to dismiss anyone who doesn't support the democratic establishment who has a great history of LOSING BIGLY, though has been WINNING SOME along with MORE LEFT/PROGRESSIVE CANDIDATES ALSO WINNING SOME. so have fun getting extremely mad at anyone fed up with the state of the Democratic party and their failed leadership that led us to GOP dominance across the board.

Bucks' statement on Sterling Brown arrest https://www.nba.com/bucks/news/bucks-organization-statement-sterling-brown What struck me, though maybe it really shouldn't at this point, is that there were at least half a dozen police in response to a simple parking violation. Contrast this to the NFL moving to appease Trump over some NFL players' silent protest of police abuse and Trump responding by threatening to deport US citizens for not standing for a song.

not exactly a shocking response, the NFL should have seen this coming. Threatening to strip US citizens of their citizenship and deporting them (to where?) for not standing for a song. I'm sure the entire GOP is just rushing to condemn such a flagrant assault on the 1st Amendment from the President of the United States.

Imagine having your child slaughtered and then facing years of harassment from insane conspiracy theorists

speaking of the usefulness of centrists

This, but for establishment candidates and the left side of the Democratic base!

Look at Schumer's quiet backing of the bank deregulation bill in the Senate. Look at Obama's failure to prosecute anyone for the financial fraud crisis. Look at the half measure that is the ACA. Pelosi statements praising capitalism. The establishment has had to be dragged kicking and screaming to the left since at least Clinton's presidency in issue after issue. If the progressive movement you increasingly detest didn't constantly challenge them, they'd be even worse. You're not really putting in much effort to try to understand the lefts frustration with the mainstream Democratic party from their perspective. You might not still end up agreeing with that perspective, but the path you're in now is just going to result in more anger and confusion from your end if the left wing if the base gets frustrated with yet another slate of weak spined incremental politicians who work more for tiny tweaks on the status quo than anything big and bold.

You've eagerly defended alt right white supremacist gatherings as "free speech rallies" on multiple occasions so you seem to care!

Well, that's more of an indictment of Congress than anything lol But I didn't mention pelosi. I'm talking about the Manchin types, the Lipinski types where they aren't needed. Feinstine and Schumer. And it's not specifically about Sanders or our revolution and their candidates but the policy and ideology. Again, look to Virginia. A dsa-backed candidate won! They're to the left in Sanders! Look at the Philly da. Major reforms that never would have come from the establishment. And it shouldn't need pointing out how badly the Dem establishment had been at electoral politics for a long time now. 2006 and 2008 and 2012 versus everything else since 2000.

America’s Version of Capitalism Is Incompatible With Democracy http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2018/05/americas-brand-of-capitalism-is-incompatible-with-democracy.html much more at the link, but a really solid article that touches on the divisions within the Democratic party as well

"Bernie's brand" has done well in some races and not in others. I don't think there's any basis for your sweeping dismissal of it (and implicit endorsement of centrist politicians in its place). I'm not a guy shouting that we need to primary Joe Manchin because he casts a lot of votes I don't like--I recognize that he's probably the best we can hope for from WV. Certainly miles better than any R replacement. But I do reject the idea that Democrats need to essentially cede political ground to Republicans and run as Republican-lite everywhere. In some places maybe that's what needed, but then again, maybe it isn't! Doug Jones didn't back down into wishy-washy nonsense on abortion on his way to winning Alabama. Conor Lamb isn't some progressive hero, but he took strong stances rather than capitulate to whatever framing Republicans have put out there as we saw again and again in 2010-2016. And on the flip side, you've got guys like Ossof who ran seemingly blah campaigns that didn't really end up going anywhere. Just look at Virginia last year. You had candidates across the Dem spectrum doing well. Look at the new da in Philly. Cheering for more centrist candidates to beat progressive candidates because electibility doesn't have a strong track record. At least the "run socialists everywhere" side doesn't have a history of failure since it's never really been tried.

Running in primaries against other candidates isn't "attacking dems," though. You seem gleeful that more progressive candidates are losing simply because Sanders' organization endorsed them. Guess what! There's lots of disagreement ideologically within the Democratic base as well! A lot of people are beyond frustrated with the approaches of the Clintons and Schumers of the world. A whole lot of people were disillusioned when Obama's Hope and Change was undermined by people like Lieberman. I hate that my rep is probably the worst Dem in Congress (Lipinski), it's a shame he barely held on in his primary despite being "attacked" by someone daring to challenge him and his awful policies. There's plenty of dumb in the Sanders camp, too. Some who'll never reconcile with voting for the least-bad and vote Clinton in 2016 or Booker/etc. in 2020. They want Bernie or someone to his left or they'll sit out. They see the Democratic party as offering little more than half-measures that still largely appease modern capitalism and capitalists because, hey, that's who their wealthy donors are. But at the same time, guys like you need to realize you're going to have to reconcile with at least some of that more progressive base who's distrustful of the Democratic establishment and the DNC. What good do you think your attitude does? How many potential progressive voters do you think that sort of vitriol directed at anyone who dares to challenge a Democratic establishment which has sucked for a very long time are turned off by it?