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On January 29 2019 02:14 IgnE wrote:Show nested quote +On January 29 2019 01:20 Plansix wrote:On January 29 2019 01:11 KwarK wrote:On January 28 2019 11:37 Plansix wrote: Some folks in the Democratic Party and the left are opposing her because of her race and gender. The left has its own problems with race and gender, which it refuses to talk about.
Also all those things are also true. Or they’re pragmatists. A black woman from California? Are we even trying to win the electoral college? Which Trump voters are we hoping to flip? It is this weird thing when racist and sexist people use the language of pragmatist to sound reasonable. Like all those folks who talk about border security and protecting western culture. “pragmatists” trying to sound “reasonable?” how weird! its fine if you take this stance P6 but then you can’t lean on pragmatism-based appeals to vote for whatever Democrat is chosen because we a FPTP electoral system and we need to stop trump’s reelection etc etc I mean, I can and will. The entire point of that comment was not to invalidate pragmatic arguments, but to point out that sexists and racists employ the same arguments as cover.
Luckily there appear to be like 5 women running and there are likely to be multiple black and brown candidates. So the person who says "any woman but the 5 that are running, and here are my pragmatic reasons" is just sexist.
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i dont see a whole lot of people saying “i love everything kamala harris stands for, i just wish she was a white man so shed have a better chance of winning.”
but more to the point, racists and sexists use a lot of arguments for cover, including arguments based in law and order, economics, and national interests.
centrist pragmatic progressivism: we need to be willing to compromise on justice reform, drone strikes, regime change, tax reform, and a host of other economic, domestic, and foreign policies, but we absolutely must not consider race, sex, or personal presentation lest we abandon our commitment to diversity of appearance (polling be damned)
although i actually think the current situation is even more unusual than that, in that i think most democrats think that not being a white man is, pragmatically speaking, a positive thing from an electability standpoint
my point is that your exasperation at so-called progressive demands (usually couched in condescending phrases like “purity tests” and “unrealistic”) resorts to pragmatic reasoning when it suits you, but for some reason stops short of considering whether a woman or a black person or a black woman would hurt the democrats’ chances at winning. this is a “purity test” too, no different in kind from someone who refuses to consider whether a socialist candidate would be “unelectable.” “electability” is an empirical question, not an ethical one, at least within the horizon of pragmatism (and discounting the disreputable state of “polling science”). a person can very “reasonably” point to poll numbers that show the electorate is racist/sexist without the person him/herself being racist or sexist. it is also possible that the polls show being anything other than a white man would be an advantage, electorally speaking.
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id also point out that given the response to AOC, a woman of color, by the “far left” progressives you slander here, your premises seem fatally under-argued and amount to an unjustifed smear campaign
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On January 29 2019 01:59 Plansix wrote:Show nested quote +On January 29 2019 01:43 Nebuchad wrote:On January 29 2019 00:45 Plansix wrote: I’m not quite as cynical about political parties and that they can change. Look at the Republicans. 15 years ago they would never have talked about cutting entitlements. Now they are all about it. Democrats are the same party that debated how to fix healthcare for two years and didn’t land on single payer because of one asshole in the senate where they needed 60 votes. And that asshole made it his mission to kill single payer, which sort of gives you an idea of how likely it was. I get that people are suspicious of the party leadership, but it’s not like the left hasn’t been making gains since the early 2000s.
I am also exhausted with the small but loud subset of progressives that are desperate for any reason to throw their hands up in the air and claim the Democratic leadership out to get them. They are exhausting. You may be exhausted by this struggle between social democracy and liberalism . When the fuck did I say this ? I said I was tired of the people who instantly run out of the room crying about how the democratic leadership is against progressives. Luckily that isn’t any of the progressive Reps that were elected, so it is mostly clowns on twitter who don't understand that politics is the forever fight. Don’t try to rope me into these debates about capital “P” Politics when I am talking about the nitty gritty of effecting political change within a party.
We're talking about the same thing? There is a struggle in the democratic party as to whether it's going to be liberal or social democratic. The people on Twitter that you talk about have correctly identified that the establishment is an adversary, in that it wants to remain liberal. It's not an isolated idea that is shared between six people on Twitter though, it's the message that all leftist media (as opposed to "liberal") agrees upon. You will rarely find a leftist that knows about the US and thinks otherwise. Granted there are more productive things to do than whine on Twitter about it, for example we can run candidates that are social democrats and have them elected, as you point out here.
And for the record, this isn't capital p Politics. Social democracy is still capitalist. Of course I have ulterior motives when I hope that the US gets more social democratic and I'd like them to get further left somewhere down the line, but the technicality is important.
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But I would be open to discussing the pros and cons of Kamala Harris being not-white and a woman, if it were framed exactly like that. I would be fucking thrilled if someone said they were worried that her gender and race might give Trump and the Republicans a real advantage and the person was honest that even having the concern made them feel bad. It would be more honest that most discussions about race in this country.
The same goes for progressive policies. I'm more than happy to have a debate about them, but it needs to be in the context of what implementing those policies will cost in political and real capital. We just lived through 8 years of Republican gains because of the most modest of healthcare bills possible. So modest it’s foundation was created by conservatives. That is the cost of slamming through legislation on the federal level. Now, I can find a lot of reasons why Republicans were able to make those gains, including the existence of the first black president. But the point remains that there needs to be a discussion of if pushing through something like Medicare for All could cost the party control over congress.
And as the final note, if someone wants to make the argument that the only way to assure progressive policies have a chance is to have a white dude as president so it is hard for the Republicans to turn him into a racist caricature to run against; that is a depressingly pragmatic discussion that should likely happen. But people need to be honest about it.
On January 29 2019 03:23 IgnE wrote: id also point out that given the response to AOC, a woman of color, by the “far left” progressives you slander here, your premises seem fatally under-argued and amount to an unjustifed smear campaign Its weird, because I praise her all the time. I find her to be an amazing communicator and stellar freshmen politician. And I have praised her ability to fight within the party without rushing to her supporters to attack the party leadership. I want more progressives like her.
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Now that Bloomberg is saying he'd never run as an independent, I really hope he tries to be a democrat so we can watch him poll below 1% and people can finally move on.
The lurking question of "yeah but maybe Bloomberg?" has needed to be beaten into the ground for a long time. The entire idea of an old Billionaire other than Gates or Buffett winning the democratic nomination is impossible.
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We just lived through 8 years of Republican gains because of the most modest of healthcare bills possible. So modest it’s foundation was created by conservatives. That is the cost of slamming through legislation on the federal level
I think that's a bit of a glossing over. Part of why the ACA was so attackable as a political point is because of how watered down it was to try to win Republican approval. For a lot of people the bill didn't meaningfully improve their lives and the bill was left defenseless from future meddling. And the watered-down nature of it made marketing the bill tough because the benefits are situational to groups of people and those benefits still come with caveats.
When you start talking about M4A you are talking about a bill that's generally going to impact everyone in the country. You may not be too poor to afford insurance, but M4A could mean that you can now reliable visit the same doctor even if you change jobs. If the democrats don't bumble it like they seem to everything else they have a popular piece of legislature that can be marketed well to a large number of Americans; neither of which were really true of the ACA.
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On January 29 2019 03:42 Logo wrote:Show nested quote + We just lived through 8 years of Republican gains because of the most modest of healthcare bills possible. So modest it’s foundation was created by conservatives. That is the cost of slamming through legislation on the federal level I think that's a bit of a glossing over. Part of why the ACA was so attackable as a political point is because of how watered down it was to try to win Republican approval. For a lot of people the bill didn't meaningfully improve their lives and the bill was left defenseless from future meddling. And the watered-down nature of it made marketing the bill tough because the benefits are situational to groups of people and those benefits still come with caveats. When you start talking about M4A you are talking about a bill that's generally going to impact everyone in the country. You may not be too poor to afford insurance, but M4A could mean that you can now reliable visit the same doctor even if you change jobs. If the democrats don't bumble it like they seem to everything else they have a popular piece of legislature that can be marketed well to a large number of Americans; neither of which were really true of the ACA. Winning votes from the other party is how to assure the bill remains in place as a law and isn’t used as a political rallying cry or is attacked for its entire existence. I am not sure how that is going to work going forward, given the state of the Republican party being lead a bunch of bad faith actors. But the only way to make durable legislation is for both of the political parties to have skin in the game so they both want to seek the legislation succeed. The Republicans are not going away, even after Trump.
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On January 29 2019 03:51 Plansix wrote:Show nested quote +On January 29 2019 03:42 Logo wrote: We just lived through 8 years of Republican gains because of the most modest of healthcare bills possible. So modest it’s foundation was created by conservatives. That is the cost of slamming through legislation on the federal level I think that's a bit of a glossing over. Part of why the ACA was so attackable as a political point is because of how watered down it was to try to win Republican approval. For a lot of people the bill didn't meaningfully improve their lives and the bill was left defenseless from future meddling. And the watered-down nature of it made marketing the bill tough because the benefits are situational to groups of people and those benefits still come with caveats. When you start talking about M4A you are talking about a bill that's generally going to impact everyone in the country. You may not be too poor to afford insurance, but M4A could mean that you can now reliable visit the same doctor even if you change jobs. If the democrats don't bumble it like they seem to everything else they have a popular piece of legislature that can be marketed well to a large number of Americans; neither of which were really true of the ACA. Winning votes from the other party is how to assure the bill remains in place as a law and isn’t used as a political rallying cry or is attacked for its entire existence. I am not sure how that is going to work going forward, given the state of the Republican party being lead a bunch of bad faith actors. But the only way to make durable legislation is for both of the political parties to have skin in the game so they both want to seek the legislation succeed.
I disagree, I think that's one option but mostly for lower profile legislation no one is going to bring up again. It's always going to be the case that a high profile piece of legislation can be attacked for political gain if it's championed at all by one party. Compromising for extra votes, like the ACA did, doesn't really seem to mean much. If the current sitting opposition doesn't oppose it then it's just a big tool for a primary challenger to differentiate themselves.
It seems pretty clear to me that the key to lasting legislation is implementing legislation that affects a very large number of people positively in an easy to understand way, get the bill to be popular with those people, and have them defend it. The ACA does none of that, a lot of people are the same before and after the ACA because of their company insurance so they have little to no motivation to defend it. Sure the ACA has helped a good # of people, but at the level of the voting population of the US it's really not much (doubly so because of its reliance on states adopting medicare expansion).
The whole idea doesn't even make sense really. The Republican agenda is to weaken and reduce the role of the government. If the Democrats can't show the ability for the government to meaningfully improve people's lives then they're effectively arguing for the Republican agenda. Sitting around waiting on only bi-partisan bills just reinforces the Republican's entire narrative which is just going to lead them to keep winning elections and keep stocking their leadership with 'bad faith actors'.
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That is how we got Medicaid, Social Security and Medicare. That is how we got the Civil Rights Act. Those were different times, with different parties that were less likely to vote along parties lines. But it allowed large, sweeping legislation to be passed without one party worry about losing 40 seats in the next election.
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Those were different times, with different parties that were less likely to vote along parties lines. But it allowed large, sweeping legislation to be passed without one party worry about losing 40 seats in the next election.
But we're not in that world anymore, and with the way communication occurs today it's not clear how to get back there. So it seems odd to advocate for crafting legislation for an era we no longer live in.
And even with the bi-partisan support to pass the legislature, there's clearly been a lot of politicians who have taken sight at the various pieces of those legislations. But those legislations have remained intact and it seems silly to suggest the voting record in 1938 impacts the voting of today. I contend those things are still in place today because they're pieces of legislation that affects a very large number of people positively in an easy to understand way and those people will time and time again come out to defend it when threatened.
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The issue is that you keep viewing the situation as if liberals and social democrats were trying to obtain the same thing when they quite simply aren't. The goals of liberalism and the goals of social democracy are not aligned when it comes to the economy. I think you're mostly a social democrat from what I've seen you write, I'm sure you have some liberal beliefs but at the core you strike me as economically leftwing (correct me if I'm wrong). If I'm right, that means that there is a contingent of people, who you represent, who should be on our side but have been convinced that the opposition is our allies. How are we ever going to move forward if we don't address that?
This would be like looking at the Republicans who go "I'm not a transphobe but" and stating, well, they are not transphobes, so they are clearly moderates who are on our side; we should have a pragmatic approach and take what they say into account when we figure out what to do with trans people in this country, otherwise it's going to be hard to get progress. No. No we should not.
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The Republicans did not take over the country by keeping expectations and aspirations low. They shot for the Pegasus galaxy and accepted Pluto. Enthusiasm and energy is really important. Moderate, yet still heavily polarized democrats, are not going to vote for Trump because our candidate wants medicare for all. And a lot of the wishy washy moderates in the midwest just want people to tell them they'll get something amazing and transformative. If you tell them you've got this big amazing idea to transform their lives, they will bite. Just as they did for democrats with unions, then republicans to build a giant wall, now we just need something else big for workers rights and they'll bite.
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On January 29 2019 04:36 Mohdoo wrote: The Republicans did not take over the country by keeping expectations and aspirations low. They shot for the Pegasus galaxy and accepted Pluto. Enthusiasm and energy is really important. Moderate, yet still heavily polarized democrats, are not going to vote for Trump because our candidate wants medicare for all. And a lot of the wishy washy moderates in the midwest just want people to tell them they'll get something amazing and transformative. If you tell them you've got this big amazing idea to transform their lives, they will bite. Just as they did for democrats with unions, then republicans to build a giant wall, now we just need something else big for workers rights and they'll bite.
For what it's worth, we could go back to Unions since we lost that one hard along the way.
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On January 29 2019 04:32 Nebuchad wrote: The issue is that you keep viewing the situation as if liberals and social democrats were trying to obtain the same thing when they quite simply aren't. The goals of liberalism and the goals of social democracy are not aligned when it comes to the economy. I think you're mostly a social democrat from what I've seen you write, I'm sure you have some liberal beliefs but at the core you strike me as economically leftwing (correct me if I'm wrong). If I'm right, that means that there is a contingent of people, who you represent, who should be on our side but have been convinced that the opposition is our allies. How are we ever going to move forward if we don't address that?
This would be like looking at the Republicans who go "I'm not a transphobe but" and stating, well, they are not transphobes, so they are clearly moderates who are on our side; we should have a pragmatic approach and take what they say into account when we figure out what to do with trans people in this country, otherwise it's going to be hard to get progress. No. No we should not. You are right. I am all about either winning over centrist Democrats or forcing them to vote for progressive policies. Or beating them in primaries if necessary. But state of Illinois exists and isn’t changing unless it’s gets hit by a meteor. And it is the every burning trash fire of terrible centrist Democrats and will continued to crank them out for at least another decade or two. So I choose to treat them as shitty allies rather than overt opponents.
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On January 29 2019 04:50 Plansix wrote:Show nested quote +On January 29 2019 04:32 Nebuchad wrote: The issue is that you keep viewing the situation as if liberals and social democrats were trying to obtain the same thing when they quite simply aren't. The goals of liberalism and the goals of social democracy are not aligned when it comes to the economy. I think you're mostly a social democrat from what I've seen you write, I'm sure you have some liberal beliefs but at the core you strike me as economically leftwing (correct me if I'm wrong). If I'm right, that means that there is a contingent of people, who you represent, who should be on our side but have been convinced that the opposition is our allies. How are we ever going to move forward if we don't address that?
This would be like looking at the Republicans who go "I'm not a transphobe but" and stating, well, they are not transphobes, so they are clearly moderates who are on our side; we should have a pragmatic approach and take what they say into account when we figure out what to do with trans people in this country, otherwise it's going to be hard to get progress. No. No we should not. You are right. I am all about either winning over centrist Democrats or forcing them to vote for progressive policies. Or beating them in primaries if necessary. But state of Illinois exists and isn’t changing unless it’s gets hit by a meteor. And it is the every burning trash fire of terrible centrist Democrats and will continued to crank them out for at least another decade or two. So I choose to treat them as shitty allies rather than overt opponents.
I'm curious why your strategy is so different on social issues: you'd never treat your opponents like shitty allies there.
And every time I see a point of data it leads me to believe that you're overstating the opposition. The progressive positions are really popular, what's going to protect the gains there is not the acceptance of the liberals, it's the fact that we're doing what the people want in a democracy. Most recent I've seen was there:
https://www.voterstudygroup.org/publications/2016-elections/political-divisions-in-2016-and-beyond
+ Show Spoiler +
Look at how few people there are in the economically "conservative" (i.e. liberal) and socially liberal quadrant ^.^
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On January 29 2019 05:27 Nebuchad wrote:Show nested quote +On January 29 2019 04:50 Plansix wrote:On January 29 2019 04:32 Nebuchad wrote: The issue is that you keep viewing the situation as if liberals and social democrats were trying to obtain the same thing when they quite simply aren't. The goals of liberalism and the goals of social democracy are not aligned when it comes to the economy. I think you're mostly a social democrat from what I've seen you write, I'm sure you have some liberal beliefs but at the core you strike me as economically leftwing (correct me if I'm wrong). If I'm right, that means that there is a contingent of people, who you represent, who should be on our side but have been convinced that the opposition is our allies. How are we ever going to move forward if we don't address that?
This would be like looking at the Republicans who go "I'm not a transphobe but" and stating, well, they are not transphobes, so they are clearly moderates who are on our side; we should have a pragmatic approach and take what they say into account when we figure out what to do with trans people in this country, otherwise it's going to be hard to get progress. No. No we should not. You are right. I am all about either winning over centrist Democrats or forcing them to vote for progressive policies. Or beating them in primaries if necessary. But state of Illinois exists and isn’t changing unless it’s gets hit by a meteor. And it is the every burning trash fire of terrible centrist Democrats and will continued to crank them out for at least another decade or two. So I choose to treat them as shitty allies rather than overt opponents. I'm curious why your strategy is so different on social issues: you'd never treat your opponents like shitty allies there.And every time I see a point of data it leads me to believe that you're overstating the opposition. The progressive positions are really popular, what's going to protect the gains there is not the acceptance of the liberals, it's the fact that we're doing what the people want in a democracy. Most recent I've seen was there: https://www.voterstudygroup.org/publications/2016-elections/political-divisions-in-2016-and-beyond+ Show Spoiler +Look at how few people there are in the economically "conservative" (i.e. liberal) and socially liberal quadrant ^.^ It really isn't that different. I'm willing to tolerate a lot of less than great people to enact social reforms too.
And if the opposition to those progressive programs is so weak, then it shouldn't be hard to convince the political establishment that its the path forward. Or win the next 2-3 midterm elections and eliminate or convert all the centrists in the Democratic party.
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That's an interesting article, but at risk of restarting the debate about the definition of populism: boy does it use a stupid definition of populism.
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On January 29 2019 05:49 Plansix wrote:Show nested quote +On January 29 2019 05:27 Nebuchad wrote:On January 29 2019 04:50 Plansix wrote:On January 29 2019 04:32 Nebuchad wrote: The issue is that you keep viewing the situation as if liberals and social democrats were trying to obtain the same thing when they quite simply aren't. The goals of liberalism and the goals of social democracy are not aligned when it comes to the economy. I think you're mostly a social democrat from what I've seen you write, I'm sure you have some liberal beliefs but at the core you strike me as economically leftwing (correct me if I'm wrong). If I'm right, that means that there is a contingent of people, who you represent, who should be on our side but have been convinced that the opposition is our allies. How are we ever going to move forward if we don't address that?
This would be like looking at the Republicans who go "I'm not a transphobe but" and stating, well, they are not transphobes, so they are clearly moderates who are on our side; we should have a pragmatic approach and take what they say into account when we figure out what to do with trans people in this country, otherwise it's going to be hard to get progress. No. No we should not. You are right. I am all about either winning over centrist Democrats or forcing them to vote for progressive policies. Or beating them in primaries if necessary. But state of Illinois exists and isn’t changing unless it’s gets hit by a meteor. And it is the every burning trash fire of terrible centrist Democrats and will continued to crank them out for at least another decade or two. So I choose to treat them as shitty allies rather than overt opponents. I'm curious why your strategy is so different on social issues: you'd never treat your opponents like shitty allies there.And every time I see a point of data it leads me to believe that you're overstating the opposition. The progressive positions are really popular, what's going to protect the gains there is not the acceptance of the liberals, it's the fact that we're doing what the people want in a democracy. Most recent I've seen was there: https://www.voterstudygroup.org/publications/2016-elections/political-divisions-in-2016-and-beyond+ Show Spoiler +Look at how few people there are in the economically "conservative" (i.e. liberal) and socially liberal quadrant ^.^ It really isn't that different. I'm willing to tolerate a lot of less than great people to enact social reforms too. And if the opposition to those progressive programs is so weak, then it shouldn't be hard to convince the political establishment that its the path forward. Or win the next 2-3 midterm elections and eliminate or convert all the centrists in the Democratic party.
Okay, my mistake then. It's not the impression that I got out of interacting with you on here. I don't agree with your strategy but at least it's coherent^^
I feel like the establishment is already convinced that progressivism is what they need to say going forward, as evidenced by the platform Kamala Harris and others are running on. I just suspect that they don't really mean it because they're liberals... and you have to reach a ton of the electorate with that difference to change even a single politician; it's not that easy.
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On January 29 2019 06:01 Nebuchad wrote:Show nested quote +On January 29 2019 05:49 Plansix wrote:On January 29 2019 05:27 Nebuchad wrote:On January 29 2019 04:50 Plansix wrote:On January 29 2019 04:32 Nebuchad wrote: The issue is that you keep viewing the situation as if liberals and social democrats were trying to obtain the same thing when they quite simply aren't. The goals of liberalism and the goals of social democracy are not aligned when it comes to the economy. I think you're mostly a social democrat from what I've seen you write, I'm sure you have some liberal beliefs but at the core you strike me as economically leftwing (correct me if I'm wrong). If I'm right, that means that there is a contingent of people, who you represent, who should be on our side but have been convinced that the opposition is our allies. How are we ever going to move forward if we don't address that?
This would be like looking at the Republicans who go "I'm not a transphobe but" and stating, well, they are not transphobes, so they are clearly moderates who are on our side; we should have a pragmatic approach and take what they say into account when we figure out what to do with trans people in this country, otherwise it's going to be hard to get progress. No. No we should not. You are right. I am all about either winning over centrist Democrats or forcing them to vote for progressive policies. Or beating them in primaries if necessary. But state of Illinois exists and isn’t changing unless it’s gets hit by a meteor. And it is the every burning trash fire of terrible centrist Democrats and will continued to crank them out for at least another decade or two. So I choose to treat them as shitty allies rather than overt opponents. I'm curious why your strategy is so different on social issues: you'd never treat your opponents like shitty allies there.And every time I see a point of data it leads me to believe that you're overstating the opposition. The progressive positions are really popular, what's going to protect the gains there is not the acceptance of the liberals, it's the fact that we're doing what the people want in a democracy. Most recent I've seen was there: https://www.voterstudygroup.org/publications/2016-elections/political-divisions-in-2016-and-beyond+ Show Spoiler +Look at how few people there are in the economically "conservative" (i.e. liberal) and socially liberal quadrant ^.^ It really isn't that different. I'm willing to tolerate a lot of less than great people to enact social reforms too. And if the opposition to those progressive programs is so weak, then it shouldn't be hard to convince the political establishment that its the path forward. Or win the next 2-3 midterm elections and eliminate or convert all the centrists in the Democratic party. Okay, my mistake then. It's not the impression that I got out of interacting with you on here. I don't agree with your strategy but at least it's coherent^^ I feel like the establishment is already convinced that progressivism is what they need to say going forward, as evidenced by the platform Kamala Harris and others are running on. I'm just afraid that they don't really mean it because they're liberals... and you have to reach a ton of the electorate with that difference to change even a single politician; it's not that easy. I mean, they either beat Kamala Harris in the primary or they don’t. A lot of the complaints I heard about here are valid and she isn’t my first choice. It’s also a crowded field, so folks have options if they don’t like her. But people also have to entertain the possibility that she could win. And even if she does, progressives will have an ability to set the platform for the party along side everyone else. There is more to the party than the White House.
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