EPTUS Politics Mega-thread - Page 2161
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Now that we have a new thread, in order to ensure that this thread continues to meet TL standards and follows the proper guidelines, we will be enforcing the rules in the OP more strictly. Be sure to give them a complete and thorough read before posting! NOTE: When providing a source, please provide a very brief summary on what it's about and what purpose it adds to the discussion. The supporting statement should clearly explain why the subject is relevant and needs to be discussed. Please follow this rule especially for tweets. Your supporting statement should always come BEFORE you provide the source. If you have any questions, comments, concern, or feedback regarding the USPMT, then please use this thread: http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/website-feedback/510156-us-politics-thread | ||
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mierin
United States4943 Posts
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Liquid`Drone
Norway28876 Posts
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GreenHorizons
United States24264 Posts
On March 05 2020 02:13 mierin wrote: We'll always "need to worry about supreme court seats" and "just short term get the other guy out"...when is this going to stop? In theory if the Democratic party started losing en masse would it finally put forward candidates that actually represent progressive values? They are arguing Joe Biden is the pick for down ballot after he oversaw Dems losing 1000+ seats nationally while VP. So no. On March 05 2020 02:14 Liquid`Drone wrote: You are saying Gore should have done what exactly to get the presidency? Not preemptively conceded and organized mass action instead. But he's a 'white moderate' so he handed it over to Bush to avoid conflict. First, we know that Gore won Florida in 2000. If a full, fair statewide recount had taken place, he would have become president. Second, Gore lost largely because, unlike Bush, he refused to fight with all the tools available to him. Jane McAlevey, a longtime union organizer, witnessed the disaster up close as part of the AFL-CIO’s team on the ground in West Palm Beach. In the prologue to her 2012 book, “Raising Expectations (and Raising Hell)” (excerpted with permission below), she describes what she saw in enraging detail, concluding that “the absolute determination with which the labor elite and the Democratic Party leadership crushed their own constituents’ desire to express their political passions cost us the election.” Today, she is deeply concerned that Democrats have forgotten — or never even knew — what happened 18 years ago. “It’s another national, defining crisis,” theintercept.com | ||
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Liquid`Drone
Norway28876 Posts
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Nebuchad
Switzerland12502 Posts
On March 05 2020 02:32 Liquid`Drone wrote: I'm not convinced that would have worked, however I am certain that if all the guys who voted Nader had went for Gore, (95k, bush winning by 500~) there wouldn't have been any need for a recount. Also imagine if the people who voted for Bush had voted for Gore instead, it would have been a landslide. Ok I'll quit the snark. Stop blaming voters for elections. It's gross, and I don't understand how you don't feel bad for doing it as a leftist. | ||
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JimmiC
Canada22817 Posts
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Gorsameth
Netherlands22526 Posts
On March 05 2020 02:13 mierin wrote: Have you considered that maybe your progressives values don't actually have a majority in the US? That there currently is no obvious path to victory regardless of whether or not you accept "just short term get the other guy out"We'll always "need to worry about supreme court seats" and "just short term get the other guy out"...when is this going to stop? In theory if the Democratic party started losing en masse would it finally put forward candidates that actually represent progressive values? Its easy to say "should I make them lose until they accept my position' but what if your position simply can't beat the other side anyway? I'm not saying you should stop trying but maybe America isn't ready to move towards Denmark. The primary is the place to convince somewhat like minded people that your path is the best path. If that is already proving to hard, why would the national election be easier? | ||
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GreenHorizons
United States24264 Posts
On March 05 2020 02:32 Liquid`Drone wrote: I'm not convinced that would have worked, however I am certain that if all the guys who voted Nader had went for Gore, (95k, bush winning by 500~) there wouldn't have been any need for a recount. I'm not convinced they would have went to Gore without Nader, but the fact is Gore won if we counted the votes, but he couldn't even fight for that. It's easier to punch down and blame Nader voters though. | ||
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JimmiC
Canada22817 Posts
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Simberto
Germany11952 Posts
On March 05 2020 02:37 Nebuchad wrote: Also imagine if the people who voted for Bush had voted for Gore instead, it would have been a landslide. Ok I'll quit the snark. Stop blaming voters for elections. It's gross, and I don't understand how you don't feel bad for doing it as a leftist. I think in the US, we have the perfect storm of a shitty voting system AND large amounts of shitty voters. We are talking about a country where large parts of the population think that the best person to lead their country is Donald Trump. The absurdity of this is beyond believable. Aided by infinite Now, I agree that you should not blame the people who voted for who they believed to be the person best representing their own views on politics. You should blame the shitty system that transmutes that very reasonable action into somehow helping the person most removed from their own views. FPTP is one of the worst ways of doing democracy. Allowing infinite dark money into politics is just ridiculous. A parliament basically incapable of actually passing laws or doing anything is just insane. Having the most important judges be appointed for life, and thus giving absurd power to the party who happens to hold the presidency when a bunch of them die is stupid. But at the end of the day, half of the country continues to vote for republicans. Democrats are not the best either, that is true. But in any sane country, democrats would be the rightwing party, and you would have a few parties to the left of them. Republicans would hang around at 5-20% of the votes (there are always a few rightwing nuts), and basically never partake in politics. | ||
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Liquid`Drone
Norway28876 Posts
On March 05 2020 02:37 Nebuchad wrote: Also imagine if the people who voted for Bush had voted for Gore instead, it would have been a landslide. Ok I'll quit the snark. Stop blaming voters for elections. It's gross, and I don't understand how you don't feel bad for doing it as a leftist. I'm not really blaming anyone, I'm sure the guys who voted Nader thought they were making the world a better place through doing so. I might have done it myself at that time (although I wasn't of voting age, I was fond of Nader, and didn't care much for Gore. )I do however believe that in retrospect, they were wrong, and it would have been much better for the world if at least 1000 of those 95k had went with Gore. And I think there's a reasonably high probability of the same thing being the case 20 years from now - that Bernie supporters not voting Biden is what ends up giving Trump 4 more years, and that this ends up being a much bigger disaster for the world than whatever is accomplished through not voting not happening would have been. I've voted for a party left to Sanders every election of my life. They were even part of a coalition government at some point. Currently however, we have a coalition government consisting of 3 of the 4 most rightward parties (with the far-right progress party out of government), and I'm not fond of them. However, I am also really, really happy that it is the other 3 rightward parties governing and not the progress party, and if I somehow lived in a Norway where the only two parties were the progress party and the conservative party, I'd vote conservative every time with no hesitation. Liberalism really isn't fascism, and climate denial is far worse than kinda attempting to tackle it but not going far enough. In fact the looming climate issue is one reason why any sort of 'accelerationist' idea is monumentally idiotic as far as I'm concerned. | ||
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GreenHorizons
United States24264 Posts
On March 05 2020 02:45 JimmiC wrote: It is equally easy to blame both. Blaming others is always easy no matter the target! Well... I was a child, so I'm not taking blame for that one lmao. But the guy running to lead the US takes the lion share of that one, not people that voted for who they believed best represented their interest (and might have netted Bush more votes without Nader as an option anyway) On March 05 2020 02:50 Liquid`Drone wrote: I'm not really blaming anyone, I'm sure the guys who voted Nader thought they were making the world a better place through doing so. I might have done it myself at that time (although I wasn't of voting age, I was fond of Nader, and didn't care much for Gore. )I do however believe that in retrospect, they were wrong, and it would have been much better for the world if at least 1000 of those 95k had went with Gore. And I think there's a reasonably high probability of the same thing being the case 20 years from now - that Bernie supporters not voting Biden is what ends up giving Trump 4 more years, and that this ends up being a much bigger disaster for the world than whatever is accomplished through not voting will be. I've voted for a party left to Sanders every election of my life. They were even part of a coalition government at some point. Currently however, we have a coalition government consisting of 3 of the 4 most rightward parties (with the far-right progress party out of government), and I'm not fond of them. However, I am also really, really happy that it is the other 3 rightward parties governing and not the progress party, and if I somehow lived in a Norway where the only two parties were the progress party and the conservative party, I'd vote conservative every time with no hesitation. Liberalism really isn't fascism, and climate denial is far worse than kinda attempting to tackle it but not going far enough. In fact the looming climate issue is one reason why any sort of 'accelerationist' idea is monumentally idiotic as far as I'm concerned. I can't imagine seeing the Democratic primary and thinking it is voters not supporting the Democrats clear abandoning of democracy (Iowa is unacceptable in a functioning democracy) that would give Trump 4+ more years. Like you have to look over so many glaring problems with Democrats to land at "it is actually a handful of voters that should of just sucked it up that kept us from a better world" | ||
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farvacola
United States18866 Posts
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Nebuchad
Switzerland12502 Posts
On March 05 2020 02:50 Liquid`Drone wrote: I'm not really blaming anyone, I'm sure the guys who voted Nader thought they were making the world a better place through doing so. I might have done it myself at that time (although I wasn't of voting age, I was fond of Nader, and didn't care much for Gore. )I do however believe that in retrospect, they were wrong, and it would have been much better for the world if at least 1000 of those 95k had went with Gore. And I think there's a reasonably high probability of the same thing being the case 20 years from now - that Bernie supporters not voting Biden is what ends up giving Trump 4 more years, and that this ends up being a much bigger disaster for the world than whatever is accomplished through not voting not happening would have been. I've voted for a party left to Sanders every election of my life. They were even part of a coalition government at some point. Currently however, we have a coalition government consisting of 3 of the 4 most rightward parties (with the far-right progress party out of government), and I'm not fond of them. However, I am also really, really happy that it is the other 3 rightward parties governing and not the progress party, and if I somehow lived in a Norway where the only two parties were the progress party and the conservative party, I'd vote conservative every time with no hesitation. Liberalism really isn't fascism, and climate denial is far worse than kinda attempting to tackle it but not going far enough. In fact the looming climate issue is one reason why any sort of 'accelerationist' idea is monumentally idiotic as far as I'm concerned. Maybe the Biden people should feel bad, having voted for a candidate that they knew a bunch of leftists wouldn't support, therefore helping Trump? But you won't hear them criticized for that. Maybe the Warren people should feel bad, having voted for a candidate that couldn't win, effectively making Sanders' task more difficult? But if the Sanders people start talking about this (incorrectly, they shouldn't talk about this), they will be scolded for talking about it. It's always the left that has to compromise on its values, regardless of what's going on. Never the liberals. Really makes you think. I really dislike talks that are critical of the concept of democracy, especially coming from leftists. Democracy is one of the main successes of socialism that we have in the world today. I bet a lot of liberals can't wait to replace it with a benevolent AI or some dystopian shit like that. Democracy is awesome, let's keep it. And let's expand it if we can, as Simberto alluded to, since the democratic apparatus of the US is pretty bad. | ||
Nakajin
Canada8990 Posts
It come down to such split second decision in these kind of situation, it's really more about political posturing and corridors agreement, because once the TV station and official announce the winner it's pretty much over and every minute that pass make's it harder and harder to overturn the legitimacy claim of the new president and then obviously the supreme court thing happened and at this point it's pretty much over outside of a putsch kind of operation. I think we can all agree Gore did a shitty job at playing his card, IDK if it's because he didn't want to fight, and I certainly don't think it has much to do with ideology, pure selfishness do the job just as well at that point. Could mass protest have change the outcome? Probably not, it was most likely already to late at this point, it certainly didn't affect Trump claim on the presidency for a second, but if Gore had thought he could garner street support behind him as a way to win the presidency he probably would have. | ||
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Liquid`Drone
Norway28876 Posts
Like, in Norway we do have one party (they're called Rødt - or 'Red') with parliamentary representation that is to the left of the socialist left party that I vote for. Those guys are actual communists, used to be revolutionary communists until fairly recently. There's a saying among some of their voters that go 'I have voted for Red all my life, and I hope they never attain power' - quite some of their voters want them to push everybody else leftward, but without actually implementing a communist revolution. | ||
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LegalLord
United States13779 Posts
On March 05 2020 02:50 Liquid`Drone wrote: And I think there's a reasonably high probability of the same thing being the case 20 years from now - that Bernie supporters not voting Biden is what ends up giving Trump 4 more years, and that this ends up being a much bigger disaster for the world than whatever is accomplished through not voting not happening would have been. It's truly difficult to, in good conscience, let the party put down anything resembling a truly meaningful change to the status quo then let them take the voters hostage with the threat of "Trump will be even worse, so accept this candidate that's 0.01% better that we're going to ram down your throat." And it's downright foolish to do that a second time, after 2016 has shown it to be a clear losing strategy. We don't even have to look back 20 years to see how that will end. Just 12 years ago, Democrats had their chance to make things better, in electing Obama. He hardly did a bad job, and yet the problems that a president is meant to solve were left so fundamentally unresolved that 2016 was a clear breakout year for populism. After Trump, or after Biden, the lack of resolution to these real problems will mean that the country is going to be further stuck in a way that will just lead to more Trump type candidates getting elected. When all the major parties hold certain "key positions" as non-negotiable tenets of the party, despite the fact that those positions are severely in conflict with the will of the people, you are indeed going to see rebellion against those parties in a way that the parties will insist are "illogical." In the US, one of the big ones seems to be that the government services the wealthy class first and foremost, a position that both parties very much hold. We can't compromise on that, but why don't all you leftists still vote for us because we're holding the Supreme Court and healthcare and such hostage? Fuck that. If it takes another four years of Trump to break the DNC's absurd approach, then the right answer is probably to vote for Trump and let it play out. The notional difference between the two parties isn't enough to play the sucker's game for a second election in a row. | ||
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Nebuchad
Switzerland12502 Posts
On March 05 2020 03:10 Liquid`Drone wrote: The fringe has to compromise.. That's pretty much the nature of a compromise. In a multi-party system, it can be an argument for voting for a party to the left (or right) of what you yourself believe, (because the compromise they will be part of might be the closest to what you want), and in a two party system, it's an argument for voting for the lesser of two evils, because not doing so empowers the greater of two evils. Like, in Norway we do have one party (they're called Rødt - or 'Red') with parliamentary representation that is to the left of the socialist left party that I vote for. Those guys are actual communists, used to be revolutionary communists until fairly recently. There's a saying among some of their voters that go 'I have voted for Red all my life, and I hope they never attain power' - quite some of their voters want them to push everybody else leftward, but without actually implementing a communist revolution. Not the fringe, the powerless, important distinction. Also I'm not sure why you call it a compromise when they get 100% of what they want and we get 0% of what we want, sounds like a weird rhetorical choice of words. | ||
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GreenHorizons
United States24264 Posts
On March 05 2020 03:04 Nakajin wrote: IDK if the 2000 Bush-Gore thing as much to do with ideology or wanting to avoid conflict, I certainly don't think Hillary would have gone down without a fight in a similar situation and she's as white moderate/neolib as it get. It come down to such split second decision in these kind of situation, it's really more about political posturing and corridors agreement, because once the TV station and official announce the winner it's pretty much over and every minute that pass make's it harder and harder to overturn the legitimacy claim of the new president and then obviously the supreme court thing happened and at this point it's pretty much over outside of a putsch kind of operation. I think we can all agree Gore did a shitty job at playing his card, IDK if it's because he didn't want to fight, and I certainly don't think it has much to do with ideology, pure selfishness do the job just as well at that point. Could mass protest have change the outcome? Probably not, it was most likely already to late at this point, it certainly didn't affect Trump claim on the presidency for a second, but if Gore had thought he could garner street support behind him as a way to win the presidency he probably would have. I mean the letter is long so my excerpt doesn't cover it all but it's not just literal in the sense of "moderate" politically, but speaks to motivation behind the selfishness. It means that they'll sacrifice (in Gore's case, countless Iraqi lives among much more) those that will suffer for their own personal comfort. The idea that the system that oppresses those people could collapse and bring them with it threatens them more than perpetuating the suffering under the status quo (or a marginally better/worse version). | ||
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Liquid`Drone
Norway28876 Posts
Could see it for Trump vs Bloomberg tho. | ||
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