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United States43978 Posts
The entire thing was put together without any desire for input from them or interest in courting their votes. Perhaps many of them feel that voting up the least bad components of it would validate the entire process. Did Rubio ask them for their votes?
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when was the last time the Democrats were literally writing a major piece of legislation the day or two before they voted?
look up the amount of hearings that the ACA had.
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New version adds 1.5 trillion by 2027, according to the CBO. God bless those people working past midnight to serve these useless garbage pretending to be policymakers.
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Unbelievable. Only one Republican was brave enough to vote against it?
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They only needed a simple majority to pass this dumpster fire? Oh well it's not like we needed graduate school to be affordable for anyone but the super rich anyway.Or health care, or a middle class. I guess trump wants to america to be more like his idol/puppermaster putins country and have everyone that isn't in the top .1% live in absolute poverty.
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If you don't elect a progressive in 2020 I think the world should just give up on your country, to be honest
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So what is your guys' main opposition to the bill? I hear a lot of vague assertions about how it's the worst thing ever, but not very many specific complaints. I'm not a fan of it's handling of grad school tuition waivers, but that's only a small piece of the overall changes.
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"Congress’s own think tanks — the Joint Committee on Taxation and the Congressional Budget Office — calculate that in 10 years, people making between $50,000 and $75,000 (around the median income in the United States) would effectively pay $4 billion more in taxes, while people making $1 million or more would pay $5.8 billion less under the Senate bill."
At the very core of it, we're paying 1 trillion dollars for that net benefit.
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On December 02 2017 18:10 mozoku wrote:
So what is your guys' main opposition to the bill? I hear a lot of vague assertions about how it's the worst thing ever, but not very many specific complaints. I'm not a fan of it's handling of grad school tuition waivers, but that's only a small piece of the overall changes.
i mean, specific complaints are hard to come by if you don't know the... you know... specifics
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On December 02 2017 18:06 Nebuchad wrote:
If you don't elect a progressive in 2020 I think the world should just give up on your country, to be honest
I just spent about an hour talking about this with a few liberal friends. We were trying to work out ways in which the country doesn't collapse or become a hellhole until after we've died, and it wasn't really good. Reality doesn't seem to matter in elections anymore, reasonable economic ideas can all be slandered as communism, people are voting for Moore because they're convinced Democrats are pure evil, and it seems like Republicans can trump any economic platform with appeals to moral panic or racist attacks.
One of the guys involved in the discussion has this theory that the rich are eventually going to exterminate most of the rest of us via enforcement of property rights and owning literally everything, which this tax bill just took a big step in helping to come true. I don't really feel like trying to explain the whole thing, but it was really hard to argue against the idea that in some fashion in the next 30 to 40 years the US is going to either fall apart or become a third world-ish hell where the only people with decent lives are the aristocrats and the people working for them while everyone else struggles to survive on the scraps.
Electing a progressive to President isn't good enough. We need to elect a progressive Congress, too, and start making immediate and large movements towards less inequality, less money in politics, and a stronger safety net. Problem is, progressive economics has been slandered as communism for so long, and Democrats as a whole aren't a progressive party.
Back in 2016, before the election, I thought things have been getting worse and Clinton would at least slow the bleeding, and so wasn't terrible. Now the bleeding is a hemorrhage, and the sort of policies Clinton espoused aren't going to cut it.
Republicans have been using this "we need to stop liberalism here or we're lost" rhetoric, but I'm starting to become convinced that if liberals don't stop the Republican economic-political engine in it's tracks by the end of the 2020 elections, it's going to become an unstoppable force. At the very least, that sort of apocalyptic rhetoric has worked for Republicans, so it can't hurt for liberals to adopt it.
One consensus issue between all of us is that we're probably looking at another great depression by around 2030 if this tax bill doesn't get more or less totally reversed in 2021.
Well, there's the vague hope that the House and Senate can't manage to agree on anything and it never becomes law, but this isn't like healthcare where they knew that what they said they were doing was terrible but had promised to do it and were hoping to be able to offload the blame. This time, they wholeheartedly want this. They totally sold out America to the rich, and they didn't even try to hide it. Worse, they did it in the sort of rapid, secretive process that belongs in banana republics, not America.
Just, fuck.
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On December 02 2017 18:10 mozoku wrote:
So what is your guys' main opposition to the bill? I hear a lot of vague assertions about how it's the worst thing ever, but not very many specific complaints. I'm not a fan of it's handling of grad school tuition waivers, but that's only a small piece of the overall changes.
Toaddestern said this already, but it bears repeating. Over and over, as many times as needed. We don't have specifics about the ways it's going to screw people over, because in banana republic fashion, Republicans hid the text of the bill until a few hours before the vote, and then it got amended a bunch of times. At the moment, the only people who really know what it does are the people who wrote it. Unless Republicans were all given copies ahead of time.
At least this shit got removed.
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On December 02 2017 18:34 Kyadytim wrote:Show nested quote +On December 02 2017 18:06 Nebuchad wrote:
If you don't elect a progressive in 2020 I think the world should just give up on your country, to be honest I just spent about an hour talking about this with a few liberal friends. We were trying to work out ways in which the country doesn't collapse or become a hellhole until after we've died, and it wasn't really good. Reality doesn't seem to matter in elections anymore, reasonable economic ideas can all be slandered as communism, people are voting for Moore because they're convinced Democrats are pure evil, and it seems like Republicans can trump any economic platform with appeals to moral panic or racist attacks. One of the guys involved in the discussion has this theory that the rich are eventually going to exterminate most of the rest of us via enforcement of property rights and owning literally everything, which this tax bill just took a big step in helping to come true. I don't really feel like trying to explain the whole thing, but it was really hard to argue against the idea that in some fashion in the next 30 to 40 years the US is going to either fall apart or become a third world-ish hell where the only people with decent lives are the aristocrats and the people working for them while everyone else struggles to survive on the scraps. Electing a progressive to President isn't good enough. We need to elect a progressive Congress, too, and start making immediate and large movements towards less inequality, less money in politics, and a stronger safety net. Problem is, progressive economics has been slandered as communism for so long, and Democrats as a whole aren't a progressive party. Back in 2016, before the election, I thought things have been getting worse and Clinton would at least slow the bleeding, and so wasn't terrible. Now the bleeding is a hemorrhage, and the sort of policies Clinton espoused aren't going to cut it. Republicans have been using this "we need to stop liberalism here or we're lost" rhetoric, but I'm starting to become convinced that if liberals don't stop the Republican economic-political engine in it's tracks by the end of the 2020 elections, it's going to become an unstoppable force. At the very least, that sort of apocalyptic rhetoric has worked for Republicans, so it can't hurt for liberals to adopt it. One consensus issue between all of us is that we're probably looking at another great depression by around 2030 if this tax bill doesn't get more or less totally reversed in 2021. Well, there's the vague hope that the House and Senate can't manage to agree on anything and it never becomes law, but this isn't like healthcare where they knew that what they said they were doing was terrible but had promised to do it and were hoping to be able to offload the blame. This time, they wholeheartedly want this. They totally sold out America to the rich, and they didn't even try to hide it. Worse, they did it in the sort of rapid, secretive process that belongs in banana republics, not America. Just, fuck.
Welcome to the revolution 
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On December 02 2017 18:46 GreenHorizons wrote:Show nested quote +On December 02 2017 18:34 Kyadytim wrote:On December 02 2017 18:06 Nebuchad wrote:
If you don't elect a progressive in 2020 I think the world should just give up on your country, to be honest I just spent about an hour talking about this with a few liberal friends. We were trying to work out ways in which the country doesn't collapse or become a hellhole until after we've died, and it wasn't really good. Reality doesn't seem to matter in elections anymore, reasonable economic ideas can all be slandered as communism, people are voting for Moore because they're convinced Democrats are pure evil, and it seems like Republicans can trump any economic platform with appeals to moral panic or racist attacks. One of the guys involved in the discussion has this theory that the rich are eventually going to exterminate most of the rest of us via enforcement of property rights and owning literally everything, which this tax bill just took a big step in helping to come true. I don't really feel like trying to explain the whole thing, but it was really hard to argue against the idea that in some fashion in the next 30 to 40 years the US is going to either fall apart or become a third world-ish hell where the only people with decent lives are the aristocrats and the people working for them while everyone else struggles to survive on the scraps. Electing a progressive to President isn't good enough. We need to elect a progressive Congress, too, and start making immediate and large movements towards less inequality, less money in politics, and a stronger safety net. Problem is, progressive economics has been slandered as communism for so long, and Democrats as a whole aren't a progressive party. Back in 2016, before the election, I thought things have been getting worse and Clinton would at least slow the bleeding, and so wasn't terrible. Now the bleeding is a hemorrhage, and the sort of policies Clinton espoused aren't going to cut it. Republicans have been using this "we need to stop liberalism here or we're lost" rhetoric, but I'm starting to become convinced that if liberals don't stop the Republican economic-political engine in it's tracks by the end of the 2020 elections, it's going to become an unstoppable force. At the very least, that sort of apocalyptic rhetoric has worked for Republicans, so it can't hurt for liberals to adopt it. One consensus issue between all of us is that we're probably looking at another great depression by around 2030 if this tax bill doesn't get more or less totally reversed in 2021. Well, there's the vague hope that the House and Senate can't manage to agree on anything and it never becomes law, but this isn't like healthcare where they knew that what they said they were doing was terrible but had promised to do it and were hoping to be able to offload the blame. This time, they wholeheartedly want this. They totally sold out America to the rich, and they didn't even try to hide it. Worse, they did it in the sort of rapid, secretive process that belongs in banana republics, not America. Just, fuck. Welcome to the revolution
Ah... I've been in the revolution, so to speak, since somewhere in the middle of Bush the second's term of office. Right now, I'm just despairing at how futile it seems. I've been frustrated by Democrats unwillingness to adopt the rules of engagement Republicans have been using for years - their attacks on a shared understanding of reality, the ceaseless villainizing of prominent figures, etc. - and that's finally come home to roost. States are gerrymandered to hell, McConnell is using Trump to pack the courts with lifetime appointments of barely qualified judges in their 30s. There's all the ways Republicans have conceived of to depress voter turnout amongst Democrats.
We're barely a functional democracy at this point, and the partisan split is so wide and so vicious that I don't really see this ending without civil war. I am unconvinced that if Trump loses in 2020 he will actually give up rather than trying to void the election somehow with accusations of fraud or something. I don't see the current congress impeaching him even if we somehow got video evidence of him talking to Putin about repaying Putin's help in the election or something. I believe that Trump could indeed stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot someone and unless it was someone the Republican base approves of, he wouldn't get impeached.
The only way I see things not being terrible is if Democrats somehow end up turning out something like 10% more of the eligible voters than normal in 2018 and 2020, totally crushing Republicans in elections across the country, get control of the Senate and the House, and start totally rewriting the tax code, workers' rights, somehow overturn citizens united, completely reform campaign finance, and possibly criminalize a politician knowingly deceiving constituents. It's a pipe dream.
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On December 02 2017 19:11 Kyadytim wrote:Show nested quote +On December 02 2017 18:46 GreenHorizons wrote:On December 02 2017 18:34 Kyadytim wrote:On December 02 2017 18:06 Nebuchad wrote:
If you don't elect a progressive in 2020 I think the world should just give up on your country, to be honest I just spent about an hour talking about this with a few liberal friends. We were trying to work out ways in which the country doesn't collapse or become a hellhole until after we've died, and it wasn't really good. Reality doesn't seem to matter in elections anymore, reasonable economic ideas can all be slandered as communism, people are voting for Moore because they're convinced Democrats are pure evil, and it seems like Republicans can trump any economic platform with appeals to moral panic or racist attacks. One of the guys involved in the discussion has this theory that the rich are eventually going to exterminate most of the rest of us via enforcement of property rights and owning literally everything, which this tax bill just took a big step in helping to come true. I don't really feel like trying to explain the whole thing, but it was really hard to argue against the idea that in some fashion in the next 30 to 40 years the US is going to either fall apart or become a third world-ish hell where the only people with decent lives are the aristocrats and the people working for them while everyone else struggles to survive on the scraps. Electing a progressive to President isn't good enough. We need to elect a progressive Congress, too, and start making immediate and large movements towards less inequality, less money in politics, and a stronger safety net. Problem is, progressive economics has been slandered as communism for so long, and Democrats as a whole aren't a progressive party. Back in 2016, before the election, I thought things have been getting worse and Clinton would at least slow the bleeding, and so wasn't terrible. Now the bleeding is a hemorrhage, and the sort of policies Clinton espoused aren't going to cut it. Republicans have been using this "we need to stop liberalism here or we're lost" rhetoric, but I'm starting to become convinced that if liberals don't stop the Republican economic-political engine in it's tracks by the end of the 2020 elections, it's going to become an unstoppable force. At the very least, that sort of apocalyptic rhetoric has worked for Republicans, so it can't hurt for liberals to adopt it. One consensus issue between all of us is that we're probably looking at another great depression by around 2030 if this tax bill doesn't get more or less totally reversed in 2021. Well, there's the vague hope that the House and Senate can't manage to agree on anything and it never becomes law, but this isn't like healthcare where they knew that what they said they were doing was terrible but had promised to do it and were hoping to be able to offload the blame. This time, they wholeheartedly want this. They totally sold out America to the rich, and they didn't even try to hide it. Worse, they did it in the sort of rapid, secretive process that belongs in banana republics, not America. Just, fuck. Welcome to the revolution Ah... I've been in the revolution, so to speak, since somewhere in the middle of Bush the second's term of office. Right now, I'm just despairing at how futile it seems. I've been frustrated by Democrats unwillingness to adopt the rules of engagement Republicans have been using for years - their attacks on a shared understanding of reality, the ceaseless villainizing of prominent figures, etc. - and that's finally come home to roost. States are gerrymandered to hell, McConnell is using Trump to pack the courts with lifetime appointments of barely qualified judges in their 30s. There's all the ways Republicans have conceived of to depress voter turnout amongst Democrats. We're barely a functional democracy at this point, and the partisan split is so wide and so vicious that I don't really see this ending without civil war. I am unconvinced that if Trump loses in 2020 he will actually give up rather than trying to void the election somehow with accusations of fraud or something. I don't see the current congress impeaching him even if we somehow got video evidence of him talking to Putin about repaying Putin's help in the election or something. I believe that Trump could indeed stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot someone and unless it was someone the Republican base approves of, he wouldn't get impeached. The only way I see things not being terrible is if Democrats somehow end up turning out something like 10% more of the eligible voters than normal in 2018 and 2020, totally crushing Republicans in elections across the country, get control of the Senate and the House, and start totally rewriting the tax code, workers' rights, somehow overturn citizens united, completely reform campaign finance, and possibly criminalize a politician knowingly deceiving constituents. It's a pipe dream.
The Revolution knows giving power to Democrats (as they currently exist) just prolongs the problems and decorates them in ways we prefer.
It took everything the Democrats had not to start celebrating again like they did when Republicans tried to kill a bunch of people with their "healthcare" bill.
They'd much rather a Republican boogieman than Republicans that wanted to pass everything they wanted to and then some, because then they wouldn't have a job.
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On December 02 2017 17:58 hunts wrote:
They only needed a simple majority to pass this dumpster fire? Oh well it's not like we needed graduate school to be affordable for anyone but the super rich anyway.Or health care, or a middle class. I guess trump wants to america to be more like his idol/puppermaster putins country and have everyone that isn't in the top .1% live in absolute poverty.
You really think that is the case?
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On December 02 2017 19:18 GreenHorizons wrote:Show nested quote +On December 02 2017 19:11 Kyadytim wrote:On December 02 2017 18:46 GreenHorizons wrote:On December 02 2017 18:34 Kyadytim wrote:On December 02 2017 18:06 Nebuchad wrote:
If you don't elect a progressive in 2020 I think the world should just give up on your country, to be honest I just spent about an hour talking about this with a few liberal friends. We were trying to work out ways in which the country doesn't collapse or become a hellhole until after we've died, and it wasn't really good. Reality doesn't seem to matter in elections anymore, reasonable economic ideas can all be slandered as communism, people are voting for Moore because they're convinced Democrats are pure evil, and it seems like Republicans can trump any economic platform with appeals to moral panic or racist attacks. One of the guys involved in the discussion has this theory that the rich are eventually going to exterminate most of the rest of us via enforcement of property rights and owning literally everything, which this tax bill just took a big step in helping to come true. I don't really feel like trying to explain the whole thing, but it was really hard to argue against the idea that in some fashion in the next 30 to 40 years the US is going to either fall apart or become a third world-ish hell where the only people with decent lives are the aristocrats and the people working for them while everyone else struggles to survive on the scraps. Electing a progressive to President isn't good enough. We need to elect a progressive Congress, too, and start making immediate and large movements towards less inequality, less money in politics, and a stronger safety net. Problem is, progressive economics has been slandered as communism for so long, and Democrats as a whole aren't a progressive party. Back in 2016, before the election, I thought things have been getting worse and Clinton would at least slow the bleeding, and so wasn't terrible. Now the bleeding is a hemorrhage, and the sort of policies Clinton espoused aren't going to cut it. Republicans have been using this "we need to stop liberalism here or we're lost" rhetoric, but I'm starting to become convinced that if liberals don't stop the Republican economic-political engine in it's tracks by the end of the 2020 elections, it's going to become an unstoppable force. At the very least, that sort of apocalyptic rhetoric has worked for Republicans, so it can't hurt for liberals to adopt it. One consensus issue between all of us is that we're probably looking at another great depression by around 2030 if this tax bill doesn't get more or less totally reversed in 2021. Well, there's the vague hope that the House and Senate can't manage to agree on anything and it never becomes law, but this isn't like healthcare where they knew that what they said they were doing was terrible but had promised to do it and were hoping to be able to offload the blame. This time, they wholeheartedly want this. They totally sold out America to the rich, and they didn't even try to hide it. Worse, they did it in the sort of rapid, secretive process that belongs in banana republics, not America. Just, fuck. Welcome to the revolution Ah... I've been in the revolution, so to speak, since somewhere in the middle of Bush the second's term of office. Right now, I'm just despairing at how futile it seems. I've been frustrated by Democrats unwillingness to adopt the rules of engagement Republicans have been using for years - their attacks on a shared understanding of reality, the ceaseless villainizing of prominent figures, etc. - and that's finally come home to roost. States are gerrymandered to hell, McConnell is using Trump to pack the courts with lifetime appointments of barely qualified judges in their 30s. There's all the ways Republicans have conceived of to depress voter turnout amongst Democrats. We're barely a functional democracy at this point, and the partisan split is so wide and so vicious that I don't really see this ending without civil war. I am unconvinced that if Trump loses in 2020 he will actually give up rather than trying to void the election somehow with accusations of fraud or something. I don't see the current congress impeaching him even if we somehow got video evidence of him talking to Putin about repaying Putin's help in the election or something. I believe that Trump could indeed stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot someone and unless it was someone the Republican base approves of, he wouldn't get impeached. The only way I see things not being terrible is if Democrats somehow end up turning out something like 10% more of the eligible voters than normal in 2018 and 2020, totally crushing Republicans in elections across the country, get control of the Senate and the House, and start totally rewriting the tax code, workers' rights, somehow overturn citizens united, completely reform campaign finance, and possibly criminalize a politician knowingly deceiving constituents. It's a pipe dream. The Revolution knows giving power to Democrats (as they currently exist) just prolongs the problems and decorates them in ways we prefer. It took everything the Democrats had not to start celebrating again like they did when Republicans tried to kill a bunch of people with their "healthcare" bill. They'd much rather a Republican boogieman than Republicans that wanted to pass everything they wanted to and then some, because then they wouldn't have a job.
If you looked at what I wanted them to do, it's not something Democrats would actually do, probably? That's why I said it's a pipe dream.
But practically speaking, the only alternative to Republicans is the Democrats, so the first step is to have the Democrats crush the Republicans in an election. Then, we can use the overwhelming victory as leverage to drag the party toward the left by threatening primaries against moderates who won by a landslide. Also, winning landslides in 2018 and 2020 gives Democrats control of redistricting.
As much as I hate the Tea Party obstructionist shit, the general practice of gerrymandering and then running primary challenges from the outside of center was unquestionably effective in giving the active core of the base substantial control over the party without actually costing them national power. But the first step is working with the party to give them that overwhelming control at so many levels of government to skew things in their favor.
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On December 02 2017 19:40 Kyadytim wrote:Show nested quote +On December 02 2017 19:18 GreenHorizons wrote:On December 02 2017 19:11 Kyadytim wrote:On December 02 2017 18:46 GreenHorizons wrote:On December 02 2017 18:34 Kyadytim wrote:On December 02 2017 18:06 Nebuchad wrote:
If you don't elect a progressive in 2020 I think the world should just give up on your country, to be honest I just spent about an hour talking about this with a few liberal friends. We were trying to work out ways in which the country doesn't collapse or become a hellhole until after we've died, and it wasn't really good. Reality doesn't seem to matter in elections anymore, reasonable economic ideas can all be slandered as communism, people are voting for Moore because they're convinced Democrats are pure evil, and it seems like Republicans can trump any economic platform with appeals to moral panic or racist attacks. One of the guys involved in the discussion has this theory that the rich are eventually going to exterminate most of the rest of us via enforcement of property rights and owning literally everything, which this tax bill just took a big step in helping to come true. I don't really feel like trying to explain the whole thing, but it was really hard to argue against the idea that in some fashion in the next 30 to 40 years the US is going to either fall apart or become a third world-ish hell where the only people with decent lives are the aristocrats and the people working for them while everyone else struggles to survive on the scraps. Electing a progressive to President isn't good enough. We need to elect a progressive Congress, too, and start making immediate and large movements towards less inequality, less money in politics, and a stronger safety net. Problem is, progressive economics has been slandered as communism for so long, and Democrats as a whole aren't a progressive party. Back in 2016, before the election, I thought things have been getting worse and Clinton would at least slow the bleeding, and so wasn't terrible. Now the bleeding is a hemorrhage, and the sort of policies Clinton espoused aren't going to cut it. Republicans have been using this "we need to stop liberalism here or we're lost" rhetoric, but I'm starting to become convinced that if liberals don't stop the Republican economic-political engine in it's tracks by the end of the 2020 elections, it's going to become an unstoppable force. At the very least, that sort of apocalyptic rhetoric has worked for Republicans, so it can't hurt for liberals to adopt it. One consensus issue between all of us is that we're probably looking at another great depression by around 2030 if this tax bill doesn't get more or less totally reversed in 2021. Well, there's the vague hope that the House and Senate can't manage to agree on anything and it never becomes law, but this isn't like healthcare where they knew that what they said they were doing was terrible but had promised to do it and were hoping to be able to offload the blame. This time, they wholeheartedly want this. They totally sold out America to the rich, and they didn't even try to hide it. Worse, they did it in the sort of rapid, secretive process that belongs in banana republics, not America. Just, fuck. Welcome to the revolution Ah... I've been in the revolution, so to speak, since somewhere in the middle of Bush the second's term of office. Right now, I'm just despairing at how futile it seems. I've been frustrated by Democrats unwillingness to adopt the rules of engagement Republicans have been using for years - their attacks on a shared understanding of reality, the ceaseless villainizing of prominent figures, etc. - and that's finally come home to roost. States are gerrymandered to hell, McConnell is using Trump to pack the courts with lifetime appointments of barely qualified judges in their 30s. There's all the ways Republicans have conceived of to depress voter turnout amongst Democrats. We're barely a functional democracy at this point, and the partisan split is so wide and so vicious that I don't really see this ending without civil war. I am unconvinced that if Trump loses in 2020 he will actually give up rather than trying to void the election somehow with accusations of fraud or something. I don't see the current congress impeaching him even if we somehow got video evidence of him talking to Putin about repaying Putin's help in the election or something. I believe that Trump could indeed stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot someone and unless it was someone the Republican base approves of, he wouldn't get impeached. The only way I see things not being terrible is if Democrats somehow end up turning out something like 10% more of the eligible voters than normal in 2018 and 2020, totally crushing Republicans in elections across the country, get control of the Senate and the House, and start totally rewriting the tax code, workers' rights, somehow overturn citizens united, completely reform campaign finance, and possibly criminalize a politician knowingly deceiving constituents. It's a pipe dream. The Revolution knows giving power to Democrats (as they currently exist) just prolongs the problems and decorates them in ways we prefer. It took everything the Democrats had not to start celebrating again like they did when Republicans tried to kill a bunch of people with their "healthcare" bill. They'd much rather a Republican boogieman than Republicans that wanted to pass everything they wanted to and then some, because then they wouldn't have a job. If you looked at what I wanted them to do, it's not something Democrats would actually do, probably? That's why I said it's a pipe dream. But practically speaking, the only alternative to Republicans is the Democrats, so the first step is to have the Democrats crush the Republicans in an election. Then, we can use the overwhelming victory as leverage to drag the party toward the left by threatening primaries against moderates who won by a landslide. Also, winning landslides in 2018 and 2020 gives Democrats control of redistricting. As much as I hate the Tea Party obstructionist shit, the general practice of gerrymandering and then running primary challenges from the outside of center was unquestionably effective in giving the active core of the base substantial control over the party without actually costing them national power. But the first step is working with the party to give them that overwhelming control at so many levels of government to skew things in their favor.
Well, we'll be here when you're ready to realize that's not going to work.
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On December 02 2017 20:02 GreenHorizons wrote:Show nested quote +On December 02 2017 19:40 Kyadytim wrote:On December 02 2017 19:18 GreenHorizons wrote:On December 02 2017 19:11 Kyadytim wrote:On December 02 2017 18:46 GreenHorizons wrote:On December 02 2017 18:34 Kyadytim wrote:On December 02 2017 18:06 Nebuchad wrote:
If you don't elect a progressive in 2020 I think the world should just give up on your country, to be honest I just spent about an hour talking about this with a few liberal friends. We were trying to work out ways in which the country doesn't collapse or become a hellhole until after we've died, and it wasn't really good. Reality doesn't seem to matter in elections anymore, reasonable economic ideas can all be slandered as communism, people are voting for Moore because they're convinced Democrats are pure evil, and it seems like Republicans can trump any economic platform with appeals to moral panic or racist attacks. One of the guys involved in the discussion has this theory that the rich are eventually going to exterminate most of the rest of us via enforcement of property rights and owning literally everything, which this tax bill just took a big step in helping to come true. I don't really feel like trying to explain the whole thing, but it was really hard to argue against the idea that in some fashion in the next 30 to 40 years the US is going to either fall apart or become a third world-ish hell where the only people with decent lives are the aristocrats and the people working for them while everyone else struggles to survive on the scraps. Electing a progressive to President isn't good enough. We need to elect a progressive Congress, too, and start making immediate and large movements towards less inequality, less money in politics, and a stronger safety net. Problem is, progressive economics has been slandered as communism for so long, and Democrats as a whole aren't a progressive party. Back in 2016, before the election, I thought things have been getting worse and Clinton would at least slow the bleeding, and so wasn't terrible. Now the bleeding is a hemorrhage, and the sort of policies Clinton espoused aren't going to cut it. Republicans have been using this "we need to stop liberalism here or we're lost" rhetoric, but I'm starting to become convinced that if liberals don't stop the Republican economic-political engine in it's tracks by the end of the 2020 elections, it's going to become an unstoppable force. At the very least, that sort of apocalyptic rhetoric has worked for Republicans, so it can't hurt for liberals to adopt it. One consensus issue between all of us is that we're probably looking at another great depression by around 2030 if this tax bill doesn't get more or less totally reversed in 2021. Well, there's the vague hope that the House and Senate can't manage to agree on anything and it never becomes law, but this isn't like healthcare where they knew that what they said they were doing was terrible but had promised to do it and were hoping to be able to offload the blame. This time, they wholeheartedly want this. They totally sold out America to the rich, and they didn't even try to hide it. Worse, they did it in the sort of rapid, secretive process that belongs in banana republics, not America. Just, fuck. Welcome to the revolution Ah... I've been in the revolution, so to speak, since somewhere in the middle of Bush the second's term of office. Right now, I'm just despairing at how futile it seems. I've been frustrated by Democrats unwillingness to adopt the rules of engagement Republicans have been using for years - their attacks on a shared understanding of reality, the ceaseless villainizing of prominent figures, etc. - and that's finally come home to roost. States are gerrymandered to hell, McConnell is using Trump to pack the courts with lifetime appointments of barely qualified judges in their 30s. There's all the ways Republicans have conceived of to depress voter turnout amongst Democrats. We're barely a functional democracy at this point, and the partisan split is so wide and so vicious that I don't really see this ending without civil war. I am unconvinced that if Trump loses in 2020 he will actually give up rather than trying to void the election somehow with accusations of fraud or something. I don't see the current congress impeaching him even if we somehow got video evidence of him talking to Putin about repaying Putin's help in the election or something. I believe that Trump could indeed stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot someone and unless it was someone the Republican base approves of, he wouldn't get impeached. The only way I see things not being terrible is if Democrats somehow end up turning out something like 10% more of the eligible voters than normal in 2018 and 2020, totally crushing Republicans in elections across the country, get control of the Senate and the House, and start totally rewriting the tax code, workers' rights, somehow overturn citizens united, completely reform campaign finance, and possibly criminalize a politician knowingly deceiving constituents. It's a pipe dream. The Revolution knows giving power to Democrats (as they currently exist) just prolongs the problems and decorates them in ways we prefer. It took everything the Democrats had not to start celebrating again like they did when Republicans tried to kill a bunch of people with their "healthcare" bill. They'd much rather a Republican boogieman than Republicans that wanted to pass everything they wanted to and then some, because then they wouldn't have a job. If you looked at what I wanted them to do, it's not something Democrats would actually do, probably? That's why I said it's a pipe dream. But practically speaking, the only alternative to Republicans is the Democrats, so the first step is to have the Democrats crush the Republicans in an election. Then, we can use the overwhelming victory as leverage to drag the party toward the left by threatening primaries against moderates who won by a landslide. Also, winning landslides in 2018 and 2020 gives Democrats control of redistricting. As much as I hate the Tea Party obstructionist shit, the general practice of gerrymandering and then running primary challenges from the outside of center was unquestionably effective in giving the active core of the base substantial control over the party without actually costing them national power. But the first step is working with the party to give them that overwhelming control at so many levels of government to skew things in their favor. Well, we'll be here when you're ready to realize that's not going to work.
Who's this "we" and what's your great plan that is going to work?
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