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United States10529 Posts
On November 09 2020 05:32 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:Show nested quote +On November 09 2020 05:27 FlaShFTW wrote:On November 09 2020 05:20 micronesia wrote:
Note: The 2020 election day thread had relaxed posting standards. This thread does not. Please resume posting in accordance with the moderator note at the top of the thread and general policies for discussion threads that are not "live-report" style. Micronesia really doesn't want us talking about dumps anymore. I'm still not convinced that America is ready for progressives yet. AOC is obviously going to cherrypick her stats to show, hey look, establishment/traditional dems bad, progressive dems good! But when we saw how New Mexico's two progressives that primaried incumbent establishment dems and went on to lose to republicans, it's really hard to show me that progressives have entered mainstream politics in the eye of the American electorate. I think Dems right now need to continue to pull at those moderates and fringe conservatives and educate them what the current Dem platform is. Once they get comfortable with the middle ground, they'll be more likely to accept progressive policies. One doesn't just randomly jump from being a Trump to a progressive, or even a lean-conservative to being a progressive. That's where I am right now, was a conservative, now a moderate, and I'm continuing to educate myself on progressive polices like M4A, Green New Deal type policies, massive wealth taxes, so on and so forth. Not quite there yet, but I wouldn't even have thought about caring about those policies or given them the time of day when I was still a lean-conservative. It certainly does seem like a catch-22 though: appealing to the moderates and fringe conservatives might pick up support on their side, but will disenfranchise the left-wing..... and vice-versa. I don't know if there's a way to please people on both sides of that center-left.
Well I think progressives have to just accept that maybe this decade is just not their time to reach the top. And I know they really want to keep pushing and using the momentum that Bernie and AOC have given them but if I'm the progressive's top strategist, it's not time to start pushing for bigger seats, it's time for more education. You don't need seats to educate, just look at Andrew Yanga and how many people picked up the idea of UBI just this year. The idea is to chip away at that base, not just gung-ho let's throw everything we have an make America progressive immediately. America is slow to change. We don't like change. So while we were the country of the past where everyone looked to us for change, we're the ones who are lagging behind. I mean, we just had our first woman VP this year, our first woman Presidential candidate last election. We're a glacier when it comes to changing the electoral demographic.
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I mean, we just experienced some pretty insane change in that we elected a lunatic with erotic fantasies of naked fascism.
I think America is honestly ripe for change, and I think that the education comes along directly with campaigning as a progressive, theres no separating the two. The DNC will entirely fight the education process anyways and point to "well, look, they're not being elected, so its all bullshit we need to keep appealing to John fucking Kasich!"
Progressive words have to match progressive action, our time is whenever we make it, I have a hard time accepting the "sit down and wait your turn" mentality that has spawned the Hillary Clintons of the Democratic party.
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On November 09 2020 05:34 Slydie wrote:You might be right, but jumping the other way, from Progressive to Trump, is definitely a thing. If you are tired of the establishment, want radical change and to "drain the swamp", doing it in the opposite direction might be a compelling alternative.
It really depends on the policy.
Trump ran as, by far, the most moderate of the 2016 GOP field. Even counting Kasich.
That's because he flat out campaigned on some progressive policies that had been anathema to the GOP base for decades, said he'd do them, and then wound up being a standard republican in office on most issues or did the worst possible interpretations.
He said he was for universal health care, was anti-war (the only one that he sorta followed up on as president), blasted the US' foreign policy interventionism, had protectionism for workers (TPP pullout/Tariffs - he followed up on these... but like a moron would), etc.
If you were solely an economic progressive then Trump in 2016 was not terribly different from Hillary (on everything else he was so much worse, but some people literally care about nothing else). When you evaluate moderate voters in the US, they are almost never centrists on issues.
They're usually people with extreme views that are on opposite sides of expected. Like being pro-Death Penalty for all felonies, but also pro-choice.
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Come on, whatever Trump said about universal healthcare wasn't taken seriously by anyone, including himself. IIrc he put a lot of emphasis on attacking Obamacare, so most people wouldn't even notice if he made any arguments in favor of universal healthcare.
Wow I am a high templar now. Crap, I feel like I wasted this post. May Tassadar forgive me.
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People are dumb. He said he was going to replace Obamacare with Universal Healthcare, a lot. Of course he was lying, but I'm positive a lot of his voters were still convinced by that.
Hell, I'm sure they're still convinced he's going to do it, even after the last time he was asked for his plan he passed over a binder of random (already passed) legislation.
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On November 09 2020 03:26 Liquid`Drone wrote:Show nested quote +On November 09 2020 03:11 Blitzkrieg0 wrote:On November 09 2020 02:09 Liquid`Drone wrote:On November 09 2020 01:23 Blitzkrieg0 wrote:
What you're saying is that if enough progressives existed, Biden would suddenly shift political winds to that position except you can't admit that. I mean, I'm not Zambrah, but sure, I do believe that. The thing is though, there's a conflict between different 'types' of politicians. Should they be reactive (weathervane-type), or reformers? Myself, I believe that virtually all the 'great' politicians are reformers. They don't simply react to public opinion, they also shape it. It's not a virtue by default - while I think all great politicians are reformers, I believe it also holds true for the most abhorrent ones. Trump has not only responded to the ugly side of his electorate, he has also shaped public opinion (but from my perspective largely in a negative manner, some of it very dangerous/damaging. The entire handling of COVID is one such example, where I am confident that if Trump had backed expert opinion rather than contradicted it, it would have been more closely adhered to by the public). The weathervane politician is the 'career' politician, ones that never opine anything that does not poll well. They are the kind that opposes gay marriage publicly even if they are privately positive towards it / don't give a damn on a personal level. More likely to be technocrats, sure, and often they will provide us with some incremental improvement backed by experts. But this group is unlikely to provide society with truly meaningful change. Which type you prefer, will largely be determined by how content you are with the current direction of society. Sanders is a reformer. Yang seems like one, too - even if I agree more with Sanders than with Yang, I will give Yang credit for being the type of politician who tries to come up with solutions to problems society faces and then tries to convince people that this is the right solution, rather than checking the polls to see what his opinion should be. Clinton was absolutely an example of a weathervane politician. Biden is largely one, too, although I don't see him as being equally cynical about it. Obama, I actually think wanted to be a reformer, but he was largely neutered. (I do believe Biden is a genuinely caring human being. And I think the US needs some degree of bland , inoffensive leadership for the problem of 'increased societal division' to possibly be addressed. However, I also believe you need radical change to deal with many of the political issues you struggle with. Biden is probably as good of a unifying candidate as the US could find right now - so he checks that box, but I don't see him provide the actual change required, because I think you need changes that don't necessarily have majority support at the moment. ) The problem is that your reformers never have power. You point out that Obama wanted to be a reformer. His first reform of healthcare cost him the house and his entire presidential agenda. Your previous post pointed out that Bernie isn't a "mainstream politician" despite being in the US congress for thirty years and he was a politician in Vermont before that. I don't put any value in people having ideas. You have to get them implemented for them to have any meaning. What has Sanders reformed besides getting more pork for Vermont? The most interesting thing about the election to me was Florida voting for a $15 minimum wage and Republican. That would be a reform I could point out that Sanders champions. The logical thing to happen is that your reformer's ideas become main stream enough to get them elected. Not this, they don't have majority support but we're going to force them through anyway that you're posting. Sanders has succeeded in garnering a whole lot of youth support for many policies he advocates for. Many of those youth will be future supporters. And Sanders, today, has more credibility than any other American politician I can think of precisely because of his long term unwavering tenacity and honesty. Short term power and influence is exactly what motivates the weathervane politicians, so there's no surprise that they 'win out' in that regard.
To me, reformer Bernie Sanders runs as an independent. Definitely in 2020 if you believe anything GH posts about democrats, but maybe even in 2016. You can moan about game theory and how he'd crush himself and the democrats, but that is because there is no progressive mandate in this country. You're going to have to explain how you can be a reformer, but fall in line behind the status quo at every opportunity.
You're claiming youth support for his policies that didn't translate into any gains as well. The way people talk about Bernie you'd believe in the blue wave with a democrat controlled house, senate, and presidency. Instead we have the democrats losing seats in the house, maybe a senate majority if they can secure Georgia runoff, and scraping by into the presidency versus the worst candidate ever.
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Seeker
Where dat snitch at?37100 Posts
After further discussion, we've decided to keep the Election thread open for a little bit longer. I am locking USPMT again and opening Election day thread again for the time being.
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Seeker
Where dat snitch at?37100 Posts
Everyone, thank you for participating in the 2020 US Election thread. The mods have decided that it is now time to migrate back over to the USPMT. Go go!
Time to resume the ever so chaotic US politics discussions again...
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United States24784 Posts
Once again,
Note: The 2020 election day thread had relaxed posting standards. This thread does not. Please resume posting in accordance with the moderator note at the top of the thread and general policies for discussion threads that are not "live-report" style.
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Bisutopia19371 Posts
Big thanks to mods and posters in the voter thread. I thought it was great fun and learned a lot from everyone. Thanks! Let’s keep the spirit of quality discussion alive here as well.
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I hope the Election thread posters don't go anywhere, the Old School Thread regulars need the shakeup imo, lol
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I also would like to thank the mods and posters of the Election thread. I have followed the thread since election day and found it very interesting and informative.
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Regarding the debate about "growing the economy" and automatisation:
Automatisation is literally how the economy grows. The economy grows in exactly two ways: If each person is on average more productive, or if there are more people doing productive stuff. The latter is actually pointless, because it doesn't lead to an increased quality of live for each person, because economy per person still stays constant.
In the long term, automatisation is the only way to retain and increase our quality of life. If you currently live in a western country, you have a bunch of people in third-world countries working for peanuts to increase your quality of live. That is not sustainable in the long term.
Automatisation is absolutely something positive. The only problem is that we need to figure out a way to distribute the efficiency gains from automatisation fairly. Currently, if a job gets replaced by a machine, the machine owner gets all the gains, while the person whose job is now gone is fucked. That is a bad setup. Fighting against automatisation will not work in the long term, see automatic weaving frames and the opposition to them. That is not the fight we should take on. We should instead fight to make the owner class share some of the additional wealth with the people who are being replaced.
Automatisation is going to happen, and it is a good thing. All of the additional generated wealth being concentrated on the owners of the machines while leaving the people who are getting replaced by machines with nothing is bad.
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I just came across this 2019 article about a hypothetical situation where Warren (lol) won the EC majority, but the Republicans were finding ways and loopholes to overturn the results, mainly by having the state government use their right to directly pick their EC representatives rather than respecting the popular vote of the state.
Is there anything to this, or would such a maneuver be too risky, even for shameless Republicans? I am anyway very happy that the results are not as close as many feared, and that shady procedures would have to be used in multiple states to shift the majority.
The US legislation around elections seems like such an outdated mess!
https://lawecommons.luc.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=2719&context=luclj
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Trump possibly wants to run in 2024 again. Normally i would say that would be impossible but it would be typically trump in some ways,making a comeback. Still i wonder how likely it is,4 years is a long time during which things can change. He will no doubt keep his hardcore base but if that would be enough for winning a 2nd primary i am not sure.
"I hope the Election thread posters don't go anywhere, the Old School Thread regulars need the shakeup imo, lol"
A shake up is welcome i do agree,participation from more people and different angles on actual topics would be good.
If i look at myself then i will probably post considerably less but i will stay around and at times give my opinion.
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@Simberto
As long as there's no attitude change from "I get to reap the fruit of my labor, not the person who's doing nothing", I don't see it happening.
Even though people generally want to do things, when they're set aside by the system they'll be viewed as low lifes nonetheless.
Our societal mentality is pretty immature and it'll take a while before it's all eroded to make way for something more constructive.
You need an entire government on board for this to happen and with increasing polarisation everywhere in the West I just don't see it happen.
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On November 13 2020 21:11 Uldridge wrote:
@Simberto
As long as there's no attitude change from "I get to reap the fruit of my labor, not the person who's doing nothing", I don't see it happening.
Even though people generally want to do things, when they're set aside by the system they'll be viewed as low lifes nonetheless.
Our societal mentality is pretty immature and it'll take a while before it's all eroded to make way for something more constructive.
You need an entire government on board for this to happen and with increasing polarisation everywhere in the West I just don't see it happen.
Yeah, but people need to realize that currently the people who reap the fruits are mostly those who do nothing. They are just a different class of people that do nothing than those people generally think about. When you work today, the person who generally profits most is in the owner class. They profit at your place of work, they profit when you spend your money on rent and other stuff.
To some degree that is probably fair if the owner class is motivated to generally improve stuff for everyone through that. But they do need to learn to share.
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On November 13 2020 20:59 pmh wrote:
Trump possibly wants to run in 2024 again. Normally i would say that would be impossible but it would be typically trump in some ways,making a comeback. Still i wonder how likely it is,4 years is a long time during which things can change. He will no doubt keep his hardcore base but if that would be enough for winning a 2nd primary i am not sure.
"I hope the Election thread posters don't go anywhere, the Old School Thread regulars need the shakeup imo, lol"
A shake up is welcome i do agree,participation from more people and different angles on actual topics would be good.
If i look at myself then i will probably post considerably less but i will stay around and at times give my opinion.
Since he'll have 4 years where he's no longer immune to prosecution, he'll either be behind bars, or fled the country by then (likely the latter, as that's what he himself has claimed that he's going to do). I am not worried in the slightest that he'll try to rerun as president again. I guess his children could potentially take up the torch, but they each have enough legal claims against them as it is, and I don't believe they have the same "charisma" as their father did (Charisma in quotations as I personally think he has zero, and actively makes me nauseous every time I see him. But I can't deny that apparently a lot of people find him endearing)
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On November 13 2020 21:16 Simberto wrote:
Yeah, but people need to realize that currently the people who reap the fruits are mostly those who do nothing.
The people that own the things don't think of it as doing nothing, though. They put in hard work and took risks to provide spaces for people to use their stuff! (sarcasm, but you get this gist of how your argument will fly in the face of those people)
But they do need to learn to share.
Another one you'll have a hard time getting to pass. Some people understand this (because its their inherent characteristic), other people will never understand this, because it doesn't make sense to them. The sentiment of people needing to share the "fruit of their labor" will only make sense once its permeated in every layer of society.
You'll need the entirety of government on board with that before you can have an actual plan of action, like systematically eradicating smoking from public spaces and drunk driving - because as far as I remember, that's been going on for over 20 years and it's still prevalent.
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EPT
