|
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 |
On November 09 2024 09:43 WombaT wrote:Show nested quote +On November 09 2024 08:50 L_Master wrote:On November 09 2024 07:32 WombaT wrote:On November 09 2024 06:43 L_Master wrote:On November 09 2024 05:11 Liquid`Drone wrote:On November 09 2024 04:41 L_Master wrote:On November 09 2024 02:54 Luolis wrote:On November 09 2024 02:52 L_Master wrote:On November 09 2024 02:29 Luolis wrote:On November 09 2024 02:06 WombaT wrote:
[quote]
Why do populations have to be homogenous?
Certain ethnic groups do have slightly different medical needs, but those aren’t giant hurdles
You can make very simple, IMO correct arguments that certain political systems work best, or less well depending on how politically and culturally homogenous a nation is.
I think it’s a much harder sell with healthcare
It's just the classic "black people are ruining our country" argument that he's trying to mask as being rational and somewhat politically correct. Except the country isn't "being ruined". And you're right, men like Thomas Sowell are just total human pieces of garbage and we should just deport all of them. eyeroll.jpeg In your own words, tell me what homogenity has anything to do with the efficiency of different healthcare systems. If you mean tell you why I think it *might*, then both genetic factors in longevity and then differences in personality. E.g. less impulsive -> less risk taking behavior -> plausibly longer lifespan. My eye roll is for the out of nowhere value judgement in there. I think you’re implicitly assigning “good” or “bad” with certain differences in personality to come to that idea. I can imagine you going “oh he thinks certain races are more or less impulsive and thus they are bad”. Maybe I’m wrong, if so apologies. In either case, I find that statement nonsense. I see tradeoffs in personality traits. High impulsivity/low conscientiousness for example might take more risks and engage in certain harmful behaviors more often…but flip side is those also tend to be the traits of brilliant people that take the crazy risks in entrepreneurship or research that push or society forward. Or take trait neuroticism. High neuroticism sounds “bad” to most people. Like oh you’re just more susceptible to negative emotions than other people. But when you consider the superorganism it’s beneficial. You’re higher neuroticism people are your canaries in the coal mine. They are the people that are first to notice things getting bad, and make noise that gets everybody else aware. You’re low neuroticism would just go “it’s fine” as things go wrong around them until they hit a point where they realize “oh shit were fucked” but now it’s too late. Considering how this part of the discussion started with you stating that health care went to shit around the time more asians and hispanics started living in the US, what you should do is demonstrate that Asians and Hispanics cost the health care system more than people of other races. I have a relevant link for you: The estimated age-standardized total health care spending per person in 2016 was $7649 (95% UI, $6129-$8814) for American Indian and Alaska Native (non-Hispanic) individuals; $4692 (95% UI, $4068-$5202) for Asian, Native Hawaiian, and Pacific Islander (non-Hispanic) individuals; $7361 (95% UI, $6917-$7797) for Black (non-Hispanic) individuals; $6025 (95% UI, $5703-$6373) for Hispanic individuals; $9276 (95% UI, $8066-$10 601) for individuals categorized as multiple races (non-Hispanic); and $8141 (95% UI, $8038-$8258) for White (non-Hispanic) individuals, who accounted for an estimated 72% (95% UI, 71%-73%) of health care spending. After adjusting for population size and age, White individuals received an estimated 15% (95% UI, 13%-17%; P < .001) more spending on ambulatory care than the all-population mean. Black (non-Hispanic) individuals received an estimated 26% (95% UI, 19%-32%; P < .001) less spending than the all-population mean on ambulatory care but received 19% (95% UI, 3%-32%; P = .02) more on inpatient and 12% (95% UI, 4%-24%; P = .04) more on emergency department care. Hispanic individuals received an estimated 33% (95% UI, 26%-37%; P < .001) less spending per person on ambulatory care than the all-population mean. Asian, Native Hawaiian, and Pacific Islander (non-Hispanic) individuals received less spending than the all-population mean on all types of care except dentalSo clearly that argument is just utter bullshit. I'll grant you that there can be elements where a more homogenuous society outperforms a less homogenuous one, but the notion that american health care costs are caused by immigration from Asia and Latin America (which are the groups that increased at the point you said health care started going bad) isn't grounded in reality. Tbh this, to me, sounds like something I'd expect to find at tylervigen's great webpage, next to 'the number of secretaries in alaska correlates to the distance between jupiter and the sun'. ( + Show Spoiler +) It’s the little things that make this group so….difficult for me to “get”. I didn’t claim that health care went to shit. And it’s pretty friggin subtle. I jumped into a discussion that was about American healthcare costs being MUCH higher. And in particular that inspite of that lifespans are shorter in the US. I can see how the frame there is “US health care sucks/went to shit”. And I pointed at the exact point where cost/lifespan went wrong. Ergo “the point where US healthcare went to shit”. Yet, I wouldn’t feel confident saying US Health Care went to shit. I would feel even less comfortable saying “US health care is solid system”, but that’s neither here nor there. I don’t believe I claimed that either. To me, my post was writing a list of observations/questions that came to mind. A few of which would be in the direction of “are we sure US health care is bad/went to shit?” Your comment reads to me like you think I’m attributing the decline in health care to the arrival of Asians/Hispanics. From my point of view, I’m wondering if there even *is* a decline in healthcare. Or, more than that, is healthcare change the driving factor behind lifespan decline? From my POV, this thread feels like an alien culture. It’s similar to mine , but it feels like there are a myriad of little assumptions about people’s intent, about reality itself, about general heuristics, that cause my posts to fail to convey what I’m attempting to convey. It’s like a minefield, and I’m walking to all these mines, that when they go off distorting my message.
It feels to me vaguely like joining a new group, with some unspoken customs that I don’t get and I keep offending people doing what I think is friendly behavior but is seen as rude. It’s that kind of “I’m missing something in a big way, yet it’s subtle”
(Or maybe I just suck at communication. Skeptical of that as I’ve done my fair share of writing in various places without this)
Much like the little tangent into nutrition. I wasn’t experiencing “these guys disagree with me”.
I was experiencing “I’m failing to communicate what I want with these guys, and I don’t know why. It’s like they hear 90% of my message, but a critical 10% was lost and now they have the wrong understanding”
It’s a little frustrating that so many of the interpretations that are just off then assume the absolute worst, but more than anything I’m confused yet curious.
I’m probably engaging 85% now to try and get a sense of what’s causing that. Aight, I’ll have a crack at this. It can be a minefield, it’s not always your fault, sometimes it may be. Over time one may learn where those mines are buried. One must also consider that, perhaps your audience may have heard a similar argument made many times before you, perhaps with those with bad faith intentions. You may have good faith intentions, but this can very easily get people making those assumptions based on past experiences. Humans can’t really function properly without a degree of generalisation forming, but there may be downsides too. In the case of this particular one, genetic racial differences is one of the biggest possible minefields you can hope to negotiate. It’s not impossible, but even certain language can have the same intended meaning as another phrasing, but be perceived very differently. So firstly it’s a pretty sensitive, dicey topic. As it is thus, this also pushes the barrier higher from ‘I’ve got a theory’ towards needing some kind of tangible evidence to back it up. Or some kind of logical extrapolation. It is uncontroversial that Sub-Saharan Africans or those descending from there have a much higher prevalence of sickle cell anaemia than other ethnic groups. Or that Asians are much more lactose intolerant. I’ve just said that and put it out there that there are genetic differences between ethnic groups. I am going to wager that this will not get me a huge amount of pushback. This isn’t meant to be particularly critical at all, purely advisory and hopefully you can stick around and contribute. As I’ve said many a time I’d welcome more voices that aren’t obviously of the left, but many fall into the same pitfalls. It’s not always super friendly, sometimes it is, but also that’s what lively, show your working critical discourse actually tends to look like. Happy hunting! I think you're on the money here, and this is helpful. Especially this: One must also consider that, perhaps your audience may have heard a similar argument made many times before you, perhaps with those with bad faith intentions. You may have good faith intentions, but this can very easily get people making those assumptions based on past experiences. Humans can’t really function properly without a degree of generalisation forming, but there may be downsides too. Something to be said for that, I think the word is dogwhistle or something like that, where the generalizations are made based on past pattern and experiences. Had it been just a topic like that, I think I'd call it a day...but it's happened on a couple other topics, including the discussion on nutrition that I don't think of as quite such a minefield, and where I'm still pretty sure we all more or less agreed. Maybe it all does come down to that heuristics/rounding off point though, and that's just stronger here than other places I've been. On November 09 2024 08:13 Uldridge wrote:On November 09 2024 04:20 Magic Powers wrote:On November 09 2024 01:55 Uldridge wrote:
No, actual funding could be used to find a cure instead of management, with shitty side effects at that. There is no cure for HIV. There are only treatments. Your objection makes absolutely no sense. It's an effective treatment, so stop fearmongering. I'm not claiming there's a cure for HIV, I'm claiming there could have been one already. Could as in might? Or could as in would have been? A reverse dog-whistle if you will. If someone else has a better, snappier term please let me know! To clarify that’s not quite what a dog whistle is just if you were unaware. A dog whistle is ‘I want to say something racist so that my fellow racists know what I mean when I’m being racist, but other people either don’t recognise the coding and thus don’t recognise it in this case, or I can plausibly deny what I meant.’ It’s quite an effective metaphorical term, as only dogs can hear dog whistles. Yours is perhaps the essential opposite. You’re not meaning to make a racist point, but, by phrasing it in a way that people who use dog whistle language also do, people who recognise dog whistles will construe it as a dog whistle. So if a dog whistle is I’ll use x language sneakily so that I can say heinous shit and my intended audience gets it, you’re using language earnestly to not make a bigoted point, and your intended audience doesn’t get it.
That makes some sense to me.
I guess on that specific topic, it's (not entirely) that most people who do talk about biology or genetics are racist. It seems that's a default assumption, and I don't talk about this stuff in person because I haven't found a gain anything from it.
I just don't see an incompatibility between personality, preference, etc. having a stronger biological basis than people typically credit and being supportive and inclusive of everyone.
I don't see good/bad in these things. I see tradeoffs. Benefits and drawbacks. Almost every component of personality I can think of, especially when we consider the superorganism, brings both benefits and challenges. I mentioned trait neuroticism earlier, but I think it applies across all traits.
Religious conservatives for example drive me insane. They are super, super low openness. Rigid. Inflexible. Almost zero theory of mind. Yet I think they are a valuable class of people, personal annoyance aside. They are the bulwark against the tinkering types like myself. I want to change things, try new things, innovate, etc. If those innovations are too drastic, too fast....then boom, I can steer my family, community, nation, civilization right off a cliff. Or at least into a gulley. Our religious conservative friends resist that change, slowing the first and second derivative and reducing the ability for types like me to exuberantly lead us to disaster.
On the flipside, those conservatives find people like myself super high in openness to be degenerate, deviant, and for them this seems to usually manifest in a form of disgust. They can't help it, to my eye. It's just there biology. Yet, many of the great movers and shakers of civilization have been very high in trait openness, and that allowed them to move society forward and raise prosperity over time.
Because I don't see good or bad, I don't see groups as good or bad either. Everybody brings something to the table.
To some degree, I struggle to see why the genetic racists even draw the "group X is good, group Y is bad conclusion". It's never made sense to me.
|
On November 09 2024 09:36 WombaT wrote:Show nested quote +On November 09 2024 09:00 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:On November 09 2024 08:20 Zambrah wrote:On November 09 2024 07:54 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:On November 09 2024 07:30 Zambrah wrote:On November 09 2024 07:15 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:On November 09 2024 05:59 Vindicare605 wrote:Looks like the Democrat leadership is laying the blame for Kamala's botched nomination process entirely on Biden. I don't blame them, from the outside looking in it really did look like he engineered the timeline of events to occur in such a way that trying to get an open primary done in time for the election was all but impossible. If he wasn't going to be allowed to run again, then he wanted his hand picked VP to take the nomination and no one else. Welp. Thanks a lot Joe. Ya done fucked us. https://x.com/selinawangtv/status/1854968427854635409Nancy Pelosi to the NYT: “had the president [Biden] gotten out sooner, there may have been other candidates in the race.” “The anticipation was that, if the president were to step aside, that there would be an open primary. “ “And as I say, Kamala may have, I think she would have done well in that and been stronger going forward. But we don’t know that. That didn’t happen. We live with what happened. And because the president endorsed Kamala Harris immediately, that really made it almost impossible to have a primary at that time. If it had been much earlier, it would have been different” https://www.nytimes.com/2024/11/08/us/politics/pelosi-harris-biden-open-primary.html Not a terrible take imo. There are other factors to blame too, but if Biden doesn't run for re-election, then there's actually enough time for an open primary. Regardless of whether or not Harris wins that hypothetical primary, we get more hype and galvanize the base more and fewer people are left with the notion that it's unfair for Harris/whoever to be the nominee. If this is the extent of their introspection then it is totally terrible lol, while having a primary probably would have helped some I don't think it actually flips to a Harris win. Democrats need to (but will not) learn that they have to advocate and achieve active improvement in the lives of the working class. Aggressive use of the systems of governance to make shit happen. Theyre the disadvantaged party in the Having To Do Some Shit factor but they also have a higher cap for success. Instead of pursuing that success though they're gonna continue to hope they can appeal to Republicans and maybe scrape out a meagre win here or there that will surely pale in comparison to the bad shit Republicans will be getting done in that same time. That was literally Harris's entire campaign, but okay lol. Lowering taxes, lowering the price of groceries, lowering healthcare and medical costs, increasing the minimum wage, creating more jobs, strengthening unions, making housing more affordable, making childcare more affordable, and so on. Those were Harris's plans, while Trump was obsessed with identity politics and pretending that universal tariffs won't end up leading to taxes passed on to American consumers. Perhaps what you're referring to is the media's decision to keep Trump in the limelight, by focusing on his felonies, fascism, sexism, racism, sexual misconduct, and all his other scandals that should have been ethically disqualifying for a presidential candidate, instead of amplifying Harris's pretty solid economic stances. A side-by-side comparison of Harris's economic vision and Trump's economic vision unequivocally show that Harris's is far superior for the working and middle classes. Unfortunately, all of those plans either weren't communicated well or communicated at all to the American people. (There are likely other non-economic reasons for Harris's loss as well, but this is just addressing the misconception that Harris didn't "advocate and achieve active improvement in the lives of the working class".) What I am referring to is Democrats being unwilling to wield power for the serious material benefit of the working class, it’s actually the sentence immediately after the one you bolded. Democrats always have lots of stances and what winds up materializing is, at best, stemmed bleeding. Being such technocratic dipshits will never motivate people, and the more people feel slowly bled out the less they’re going to trust their word, and Democrats are real low on people being able to trust their word, lol. I liked what Harris was saying, but you expect me to think she had any real intention to make that shit happen? When she wanted Republicans in her cabinet? When she was hanging with Dick Cheney? It screamed duplicitous Democrat bullshit, that same intention to maybe try a little bit but give up hard and quick if any mild roadblocks pop up and not be even a little sad about it. To offer infinite concessions to scumbag Republicans for no good reason. Typical Democrat bullshit. So since Harris wasn't going to make progress fast enough by only moving a little bit forwards, it makes sense to go backwards? Since she was willing to be bipartisan and work with Republicans (who were going to be relevant in Congress, whether we liked it or not), that means she's betraying us, and the only solution is to let Trump continue to undo previously-made progress? Reading that Harris is to blame because Republicans are terrible is getting old. That's not how governing works when you have three branches with control split between two parties ( especially if two branches are already Republican-controlled, and the only chance at treading water or swimming even a bit forwards - instead of drowning - rests in the hands of the president). The irony, of course, is that for Harris to make every single change that progressives want within a single term, Democrats would need to control all three branches of government, but the whining about how that's impossible has contributed to giving that exact thing to Republicans. No Harris? Cool. Time to see Republicans unilaterally destroy everything without any checks or balances. I hope it was worth it. Republicans control all three branches come January, dominate the Supreme Court, either in action or rhetoric I don’t recall a huge amount of compromise with Democrats. This doesn’t mean that I’d love to see them emulate everything the Republicans do, nor is this the only way to do things, as a caveat. As I’ve said numerous times I think the bases and their respective appeals are sufficiently different to perhaps require different approaches. I think there’s a fundamental problem of mixed messaging here though. Perhaps mechanically rather than conceptually. Donald Trump and by extension much of the GOP are shitbags, also were willing to work with them!
1. I don't interpret that as mixed messaging, because of how it's required to work with (at least a few) Republicans to successfully govern, especially when Republicans have a good amount of control across Congress and the Supreme Court. Biden's bipartisan accomplishments, for example, are a testament to that. Being a leader who's willing to work with the other side, out of necessity, doesn't mean you love them or think they're amazing people or agree with them or even want to work with them.
2. Harris bent over backwards not calling Republicans "shitbags", and her message was so open-armed and unifying to the point where she's getting criticism for even entertaining the idea of being bipartisan. She didn't run on calling Republicans "shitbags".
3. Trump ran on calling everyone shitbags. This is an insane double-standard.
I think most with a vague knowledge of civics know that, ultimately you do have to either dominate, which is rare with the other side. You don’t necessarily have to make a big virtue of it. A nod to it perhaps.
Or, alternatively you can go all in on being bipartisan and trying to heal the country. I don’t think that’s easy, indeed I’m not even sure it’s actually possible. But 6 of one, half a dozen of the other gets rather messy
Brass tacks, you’ve got to consider who you potentially gain with certain messaging, and who you potentially lose and how that tradeoff works.
I said it at the time, GH and I’m pretty sure others did as well. It was an election to galvanise one’s base. If there was a big cohort of undecided independents, or a soft edge of Trump’s following that could be picked away at, that was significantly bigger than the potential progressive vote, then I may not like it but pragmatically that makes some sense.
But no polling data I’ve ever seen indicated that this was a smart, pragmatic move. Trump’s ratings amongst designated Republicans have been borderline bulletproof since he entered the scene. Nor did this see any gains whatsoever with designated Independents.
I think there’s a misconception that progressives aren’t happy unless you do everything they want. They just want you to at least try. Or, more accurately that perception has to exist. I do think Harris’ platform and by extension her time in Biden’s administration does have some of those policies, but we actually read policy platforms and records.
Harris laid out in-depth plans and was basically quoting Bernie Sanders for some of them (e.g., "$15/hour minimum wage"), and GH still insisted that Trump had more of a plan than Harris. The bar for Harris and other Democrats is, unfortunately, up in the stratosphere; Trump's is on the ground.
Not really on her or her campaign this one, but perception is well, most of electoral politics.
To give a semi, but not quite directly equivalent example, Labour has pivoted centre in recent times. We’re not quite as one party, and usually x party has enough to basically govern unilaterally.
It still pissed plenty of people off when Keir Starmer took a defector from the Conservatives. Yes it’s another vote in Parliament, but it was done in a rough epoch where basic lifelong left-leaning Labour stalwarts had been booted out of the party.
I am fully aware that an extra vote goes some way, but equally you have to consider the impact of further pissing off a left wing of your own base that already isn’t exactly enthusiastic about you. I don’t think it’ll tank his government or anything, but I think it was an absolute net loss
That's definitely a fair critique. I think that would have been best addressed if Biden hadn't run again, and if there was an open primary. I think Harris did a pretty solid job given the hand she was dealt, with only 3 months to run for president, and I don't think it would have been possible to have an open primary as late as when Biden endorsed Harris.
|
Northern Ireland24328 Posts
On November 09 2024 09:59 L_Master wrote:Show nested quote +On November 09 2024 09:43 WombaT wrote:On November 09 2024 08:50 L_Master wrote:On November 09 2024 07:32 WombaT wrote:On November 09 2024 06:43 L_Master wrote:On November 09 2024 05:11 Liquid`Drone wrote:On November 09 2024 04:41 L_Master wrote:On November 09 2024 02:54 Luolis wrote:On November 09 2024 02:52 L_Master wrote:On November 09 2024 02:29 Luolis wrote:
[quote]
It's just the classic "black people are ruining our country" argument that he's trying to mask as being rational and somewhat politically correct. Except the country isn't "being ruined". And you're right, men like Thomas Sowell are just total human pieces of garbage and we should just deport all of them. eyeroll.jpeg In your own words, tell me what homogenity has anything to do with the efficiency of different healthcare systems. If you mean tell you why I think it *might*, then both genetic factors in longevity and then differences in personality. E.g. less impulsive -> less risk taking behavior -> plausibly longer lifespan. My eye roll is for the out of nowhere value judgement in there. I think you’re implicitly assigning “good” or “bad” with certain differences in personality to come to that idea. I can imagine you going “oh he thinks certain races are more or less impulsive and thus they are bad”. Maybe I’m wrong, if so apologies. In either case, I find that statement nonsense. I see tradeoffs in personality traits. High impulsivity/low conscientiousness for example might take more risks and engage in certain harmful behaviors more often…but flip side is those also tend to be the traits of brilliant people that take the crazy risks in entrepreneurship or research that push or society forward. Or take trait neuroticism. High neuroticism sounds “bad” to most people. Like oh you’re just more susceptible to negative emotions than other people. But when you consider the superorganism it’s beneficial. You’re higher neuroticism people are your canaries in the coal mine. They are the people that are first to notice things getting bad, and make noise that gets everybody else aware. You’re low neuroticism would just go “it’s fine” as things go wrong around them until they hit a point where they realize “oh shit were fucked” but now it’s too late. Considering how this part of the discussion started with you stating that health care went to shit around the time more asians and hispanics started living in the US, what you should do is demonstrate that Asians and Hispanics cost the health care system more than people of other races. I have a relevant link for you: The estimated age-standardized total health care spending per person in 2016 was $7649 (95% UI, $6129-$8814) for American Indian and Alaska Native (non-Hispanic) individuals; $4692 (95% UI, $4068-$5202) for Asian, Native Hawaiian, and Pacific Islander (non-Hispanic) individuals; $7361 (95% UI, $6917-$7797) for Black (non-Hispanic) individuals; $6025 (95% UI, $5703-$6373) for Hispanic individuals; $9276 (95% UI, $8066-$10 601) for individuals categorized as multiple races (non-Hispanic); and $8141 (95% UI, $8038-$8258) for White (non-Hispanic) individuals, who accounted for an estimated 72% (95% UI, 71%-73%) of health care spending. After adjusting for population size and age, White individuals received an estimated 15% (95% UI, 13%-17%; P < .001) more spending on ambulatory care than the all-population mean. Black (non-Hispanic) individuals received an estimated 26% (95% UI, 19%-32%; P < .001) less spending than the all-population mean on ambulatory care but received 19% (95% UI, 3%-32%; P = .02) more on inpatient and 12% (95% UI, 4%-24%; P = .04) more on emergency department care. Hispanic individuals received an estimated 33% (95% UI, 26%-37%; P < .001) less spending per person on ambulatory care than the all-population mean. Asian, Native Hawaiian, and Pacific Islander (non-Hispanic) individuals received less spending than the all-population mean on all types of care except dentalSo clearly that argument is just utter bullshit. I'll grant you that there can be elements where a more homogenuous society outperforms a less homogenuous one, but the notion that american health care costs are caused by immigration from Asia and Latin America (which are the groups that increased at the point you said health care started going bad) isn't grounded in reality. Tbh this, to me, sounds like something I'd expect to find at tylervigen's great webpage, next to 'the number of secretaries in alaska correlates to the distance between jupiter and the sun'. ( + Show Spoiler +) It’s the little things that make this group so….difficult for me to “get”. I didn’t claim that health care went to shit. And it’s pretty friggin subtle. I jumped into a discussion that was about American healthcare costs being MUCH higher. And in particular that inspite of that lifespans are shorter in the US. I can see how the frame there is “US health care sucks/went to shit”. And I pointed at the exact point where cost/lifespan went wrong. Ergo “the point where US healthcare went to shit”. Yet, I wouldn’t feel confident saying US Health Care went to shit. I would feel even less comfortable saying “US health care is solid system”, but that’s neither here nor there. I don’t believe I claimed that either. To me, my post was writing a list of observations/questions that came to mind. A few of which would be in the direction of “are we sure US health care is bad/went to shit?” Your comment reads to me like you think I’m attributing the decline in health care to the arrival of Asians/Hispanics. From my point of view, I’m wondering if there even *is* a decline in healthcare. Or, more than that, is healthcare change the driving factor behind lifespan decline? From my POV, this thread feels like an alien culture. It’s similar to mine , but it feels like there are a myriad of little assumptions about people’s intent, about reality itself, about general heuristics, that cause my posts to fail to convey what I’m attempting to convey. It’s like a minefield, and I’m walking to all these mines, that when they go off distorting my message.
It feels to me vaguely like joining a new group, with some unspoken customs that I don’t get and I keep offending people doing what I think is friendly behavior but is seen as rude. It’s that kind of “I’m missing something in a big way, yet it’s subtle”
(Or maybe I just suck at communication. Skeptical of that as I’ve done my fair share of writing in various places without this)
Much like the little tangent into nutrition. I wasn’t experiencing “these guys disagree with me”.
I was experiencing “I’m failing to communicate what I want with these guys, and I don’t know why. It’s like they hear 90% of my message, but a critical 10% was lost and now they have the wrong understanding”
It’s a little frustrating that so many of the interpretations that are just off then assume the absolute worst, but more than anything I’m confused yet curious.
I’m probably engaging 85% now to try and get a sense of what’s causing that. Aight, I’ll have a crack at this. It can be a minefield, it’s not always your fault, sometimes it may be. Over time one may learn where those mines are buried. One must also consider that, perhaps your audience may have heard a similar argument made many times before you, perhaps with those with bad faith intentions. You may have good faith intentions, but this can very easily get people making those assumptions based on past experiences. Humans can’t really function properly without a degree of generalisation forming, but there may be downsides too. In the case of this particular one, genetic racial differences is one of the biggest possible minefields you can hope to negotiate. It’s not impossible, but even certain language can have the same intended meaning as another phrasing, but be perceived very differently. So firstly it’s a pretty sensitive, dicey topic. As it is thus, this also pushes the barrier higher from ‘I’ve got a theory’ towards needing some kind of tangible evidence to back it up. Or some kind of logical extrapolation. It is uncontroversial that Sub-Saharan Africans or those descending from there have a much higher prevalence of sickle cell anaemia than other ethnic groups. Or that Asians are much more lactose intolerant. I’ve just said that and put it out there that there are genetic differences between ethnic groups. I am going to wager that this will not get me a huge amount of pushback. This isn’t meant to be particularly critical at all, purely advisory and hopefully you can stick around and contribute. As I’ve said many a time I’d welcome more voices that aren’t obviously of the left, but many fall into the same pitfalls. It’s not always super friendly, sometimes it is, but also that’s what lively, show your working critical discourse actually tends to look like. Happy hunting! I think you're on the money here, and this is helpful. Especially this: One must also consider that, perhaps your audience may have heard a similar argument made many times before you, perhaps with those with bad faith intentions. You may have good faith intentions, but this can very easily get people making those assumptions based on past experiences. Humans can’t really function properly without a degree of generalisation forming, but there may be downsides too. Something to be said for that, I think the word is dogwhistle or something like that, where the generalizations are made based on past pattern and experiences. Had it been just a topic like that, I think I'd call it a day...but it's happened on a couple other topics, including the discussion on nutrition that I don't think of as quite such a minefield, and where I'm still pretty sure we all more or less agreed. Maybe it all does come down to that heuristics/rounding off point though, and that's just stronger here than other places I've been. On November 09 2024 08:13 Uldridge wrote:On November 09 2024 04:20 Magic Powers wrote:On November 09 2024 01:55 Uldridge wrote:
No, actual funding could be used to find a cure instead of management, with shitty side effects at that. There is no cure for HIV. There are only treatments. Your objection makes absolutely no sense. It's an effective treatment, so stop fearmongering. I'm not claiming there's a cure for HIV, I'm claiming there could have been one already. Could as in might? Or could as in would have been? A reverse dog-whistle if you will. If someone else has a better, snappier term please let me know! To clarify that’s not quite what a dog whistle is just if you were unaware. A dog whistle is ‘I want to say something racist so that my fellow racists know what I mean when I’m being racist, but other people either don’t recognise the coding and thus don’t recognise it in this case, or I can plausibly deny what I meant.’ It’s quite an effective metaphorical term, as only dogs can hear dog whistles. Yours is perhaps the essential opposite. You’re not meaning to make a racist point, but, by phrasing it in a way that people who use dog whistle language also do, people who recognise dog whistles will construe it as a dog whistle. So if a dog whistle is I’ll use x language sneakily so that I can say heinous shit and my intended audience gets it, you’re using language earnestly to not make a bigoted point, and your intended audience doesn’t get it. That makes some sense to me. I guess on that specific topic, it's (not entirely) that most people who do talk about biology or genetics are racist. It seems that's a default assumption, and I don't talk about this stuff in person because I haven't found a gain anything from it. I just don't see an incompatibility between personality, preference, etc. having a stronger biological basis than people typically credit and being supportive and inclusive of everyone. I don't see good/bad in these things. I see tradeoffs. Benefits and drawbacks. Almost every component of personality I can think of, especially when we consider the superorganism, brings both benefits and challenges. I mentioned trait neuroticism earlier, but I think it applies across all traits. Religious conservatives for example drive me insane. They are super, super low openness. Rigid. Inflexible. Almost zero theory of mind. Yet I think they are a valuable class of people, personal annoyance aside. They are the bulwark against the tinkering types like myself. I want to change things, try new things, innovate, etc. If those innovations are too drastic, too fast....then boom, I can steer my family, community, nation, civilization right off a cliff. Or at least into a gulley. Our religious conservative friends resist that change, slowing the first and second derivative and reducing the ability for types like me to exuberantly lead us to disaster. On the flipside, those conservatives find people like myself super high in openness to be degenerate, deviant, and for them this seems to usually manifest in a form of disgust. They can't help it, to my eye. It's just there biology. Yet, many of the great movers and shakers of civilization have been very high in trait openness, and that allowed them to move society forward and raise prosperity over time. Because I don't see good or bad, I don't see groups as good or bad either. Everybody brings something to the table. To some degree, I struggle to see why the genetic racists even draw the "group X is good, group Y is bad conclusion". It's never made sense to me.
We have certain elements of culture intersecting with like, base genetics too to consider.
That aside, a big flaw about how many discuss genetics is that it’s tied to historical racial categorisation. Person A from place A is black, person B from place B is also black. Ergo they’re genetically similar (within the obvious being human parameters)
But that’s not actually how it works, at a base genetic level.
If one wants to talk genetics, ya gotta talk genetics and not crude categorisations that are centuries old.
I can’t remember the exact comparative grouping so, apologies if I’m incorrect but in terms of actually looking at base genetic difference between any group, the biggest variance yet found is between Aboriginal Australians and Sub-Saharan Africans. The Aboriginal part I’m 100% on, which specific Africans less so from memory
But they’re both black right so they must be genetically similar? No actually within human parameters they are the most genetically different.
Genetic makeup doesn’t actually correlate all that well to what one would call ‘race’ or ethnic grouping, because racial groupings were made purely on ‘what someone looks like’ before any real conception of genetics even existed
|
Northern Ireland24328 Posts
On November 09 2024 10:15 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:Show nested quote +On November 09 2024 09:36 WombaT wrote:On November 09 2024 09:00 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:On November 09 2024 08:20 Zambrah wrote:On November 09 2024 07:54 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:On November 09 2024 07:30 Zambrah wrote:On November 09 2024 07:15 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:On November 09 2024 05:59 Vindicare605 wrote:Looks like the Democrat leadership is laying the blame for Kamala's botched nomination process entirely on Biden. I don't blame them, from the outside looking in it really did look like he engineered the timeline of events to occur in such a way that trying to get an open primary done in time for the election was all but impossible. If he wasn't going to be allowed to run again, then he wanted his hand picked VP to take the nomination and no one else. Welp. Thanks a lot Joe. Ya done fucked us. https://x.com/selinawangtv/status/1854968427854635409Nancy Pelosi to the NYT: “had the president [Biden] gotten out sooner, there may have been other candidates in the race.” “The anticipation was that, if the president were to step aside, that there would be an open primary. “ “And as I say, Kamala may have, I think she would have done well in that and been stronger going forward. But we don’t know that. That didn’t happen. We live with what happened. And because the president endorsed Kamala Harris immediately, that really made it almost impossible to have a primary at that time. If it had been much earlier, it would have been different” https://www.nytimes.com/2024/11/08/us/politics/pelosi-harris-biden-open-primary.html Not a terrible take imo. There are other factors to blame too, but if Biden doesn't run for re-election, then there's actually enough time for an open primary. Regardless of whether or not Harris wins that hypothetical primary, we get more hype and galvanize the base more and fewer people are left with the notion that it's unfair for Harris/whoever to be the nominee. If this is the extent of their introspection then it is totally terrible lol, while having a primary probably would have helped some I don't think it actually flips to a Harris win. Democrats need to (but will not) learn that they have to advocate and achieve active improvement in the lives of the working class. Aggressive use of the systems of governance to make shit happen. Theyre the disadvantaged party in the Having To Do Some Shit factor but they also have a higher cap for success. Instead of pursuing that success though they're gonna continue to hope they can appeal to Republicans and maybe scrape out a meagre win here or there that will surely pale in comparison to the bad shit Republicans will be getting done in that same time. That was literally Harris's entire campaign, but okay lol. Lowering taxes, lowering the price of groceries, lowering healthcare and medical costs, increasing the minimum wage, creating more jobs, strengthening unions, making housing more affordable, making childcare more affordable, and so on. Those were Harris's plans, while Trump was obsessed with identity politics and pretending that universal tariffs won't end up leading to taxes passed on to American consumers. Perhaps what you're referring to is the media's decision to keep Trump in the limelight, by focusing on his felonies, fascism, sexism, racism, sexual misconduct, and all his other scandals that should have been ethically disqualifying for a presidential candidate, instead of amplifying Harris's pretty solid economic stances. A side-by-side comparison of Harris's economic vision and Trump's economic vision unequivocally show that Harris's is far superior for the working and middle classes. Unfortunately, all of those plans either weren't communicated well or communicated at all to the American people. (There are likely other non-economic reasons for Harris's loss as well, but this is just addressing the misconception that Harris didn't "advocate and achieve active improvement in the lives of the working class".) What I am referring to is Democrats being unwilling to wield power for the serious material benefit of the working class, it’s actually the sentence immediately after the one you bolded. Democrats always have lots of stances and what winds up materializing is, at best, stemmed bleeding. Being such technocratic dipshits will never motivate people, and the more people feel slowly bled out the less they’re going to trust their word, and Democrats are real low on people being able to trust their word, lol. I liked what Harris was saying, but you expect me to think she had any real intention to make that shit happen? When she wanted Republicans in her cabinet? When she was hanging with Dick Cheney? It screamed duplicitous Democrat bullshit, that same intention to maybe try a little bit but give up hard and quick if any mild roadblocks pop up and not be even a little sad about it. To offer infinite concessions to scumbag Republicans for no good reason. Typical Democrat bullshit. So since Harris wasn't going to make progress fast enough by only moving a little bit forwards, it makes sense to go backwards? Since she was willing to be bipartisan and work with Republicans (who were going to be relevant in Congress, whether we liked it or not), that means she's betraying us, and the only solution is to let Trump continue to undo previously-made progress? Reading that Harris is to blame because Republicans are terrible is getting old. That's not how governing works when you have three branches with control split between two parties ( especially if two branches are already Republican-controlled, and the only chance at treading water or swimming even a bit forwards - instead of drowning - rests in the hands of the president). The irony, of course, is that for Harris to make every single change that progressives want within a single term, Democrats would need to control all three branches of government, but the whining about how that's impossible has contributed to giving that exact thing to Republicans. No Harris? Cool. Time to see Republicans unilaterally destroy everything without any checks or balances. I hope it was worth it. Republicans control all three branches come January, dominate the Supreme Court, either in action or rhetoric I don’t recall a huge amount of compromise with Democrats. This doesn’t mean that I’d love to see them emulate everything the Republicans do, nor is this the only way to do things, as a caveat. As I’ve said numerous times I think the bases and their respective appeals are sufficiently different to perhaps require different approaches. I think there’s a fundamental problem of mixed messaging here though. Perhaps mechanically rather than conceptually. Donald Trump and by extension much of the GOP are shitbags, also were willing to work with them! 1. I don't interpret that as mixed messaging, because of how it's required to work with (at least a few) Republicans to successfully govern, especially when Republicans have a good amount of control across Congress and the Supreme Court. Biden's bipartisan accomplishments, for example, are a testament to that. Being a leader who's willing to work with the other side, out of necessity, doesn't mean you love them or think they're amazing people or agree with them or even want to work with them. 2. Harris bent over backwards not calling Republicans "shitbags", and her message was so open-armed and unifying to the point where she's getting criticism for even entertaining the idea of being bipartisan. She didn't run on calling Republicans "shitbags". 3. Trump ran on calling everyone shitbags. This is an insane double-standard. Show nested quote +I think most with a vague knowledge of civics know that, ultimately you do have to either dominate, which is rare with the other side. You don’t necessarily have to make a big virtue of it. A nod to it perhaps.
Or, alternatively you can go all in on being bipartisan and trying to heal the country. I don’t think that’s easy, indeed I’m not even sure it’s actually possible. But 6 of one, half a dozen of the other gets rather messy
Brass tacks, you’ve got to consider who you potentially gain with certain messaging, and who you potentially lose and how that tradeoff works.
I said it at the time, GH and I’m pretty sure others did as well. It was an election to galvanise one’s base. If there was a big cohort of undecided independents, or a soft edge of Trump’s following that could be picked away at, that was significantly bigger than the potential progressive vote, then I may not like it but pragmatically that makes some sense.
But no polling data I’ve ever seen indicated that this was a smart, pragmatic move. Trump’s ratings amongst designated Republicans have been borderline bulletproof since he entered the scene. Nor did this see any gains whatsoever with designated Independents.
I think there’s a misconception that progressives aren’t happy unless you do everything they want. They just want you to at least try. Or, more accurately that perception has to exist. I do think Harris’ platform and by extension her time in Biden’s administration does have some of those policies, but we actually read policy platforms and records. Harris laid out in-depth plans and was basically quoting Bernie Sanders for some of them (e.g., "$15/hour minimum wage"), and GH still insisted that Trump had more of a plan than Harris. The bar for Harris and other Democrats is, unfortunately, up in the stratosphere; Trump's is on the ground. Show nested quote +Not really on her or her campaign this one, but perception is well, most of electoral politics.
To give a semi, but not quite directly equivalent example, Labour has pivoted centre in recent times. We’re not quite as one party, and usually x party has enough to basically govern unilaterally.
It still pissed plenty of people off when Keir Starmer took a defector from the Conservatives. Yes it’s another vote in Parliament, but it was done in a rough epoch where basic lifelong left-leaning Labour stalwarts had been booted out of the party.
I am fully aware that an extra vote goes some way, but equally you have to consider the impact of further pissing off a left wing of your own base that already isn’t exactly enthusiastic about you. I don’t think it’ll tank his government or anything, but I think it was an absolute net loss That's definitely a fair critique. I think that would have been best addressed if Biden hadn't run again, and if there was an open primary. I think Harris did a pretty solid job given the hand she was dealt, with only 3 months to run for president, and I don't think it would have been possible to have an open primary as late as when Biden endorsed Harris.
1) Fair. I’m going to say perception a lot here, but I think you just need the perception you’re busting your ass to do whatever it is, and if you’re blocked well, you tried.
2) Also fair, but the wider base was absolutely doing that. Perception usually comes from ‘the Dems’ or ‘the libruls’ or ‘the left’ and what they’re doing. That perception still exists even if Harris herself was more conciliatory. So to a degree you either have to bend with your base, or alternatively drag them into a more bipartisan line. Harris didn’t really do either well.
3) It’s a double standard of a sort. Equally, without going full class war I don’t think you can really emulate that approach as Democratic voters have different sensibilities. In a crude sense, you gotta sell something aspirational for its own sake. The right will sell you aspiration, but also it’s only X other group denying you said aspiration. Could be stinkin’ liberals, could be China. This isn’t a uniquely American problem either, be it with the centre or further left populists, they struggle against that ‘other’ enemy landing better.
The Democrats have the problem that they do have an ‘other’ in their playbook, but it’s free market capitalism. However, a lot of their base are quite fond of it, so they can’t play it.
In the recent past prior to Brexit the right always had the EU boogeyman to blame for everything (and also their inability to solve the problems they’d claimed were problems). China appears to increasingly be a US analogue for something similar.
In the UK context the left couldn’t remotely adopt that kind of messaging because much of the left was rather fond of the EU.
|
On November 09 2024 09:00 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:Show nested quote +On November 09 2024 08:20 Zambrah wrote:On November 09 2024 07:54 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:On November 09 2024 07:30 Zambrah wrote:On November 09 2024 07:15 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:On November 09 2024 05:59 Vindicare605 wrote:Looks like the Democrat leadership is laying the blame for Kamala's botched nomination process entirely on Biden. I don't blame them, from the outside looking in it really did look like he engineered the timeline of events to occur in such a way that trying to get an open primary done in time for the election was all but impossible. If he wasn't going to be allowed to run again, then he wanted his hand picked VP to take the nomination and no one else. Welp. Thanks a lot Joe. Ya done fucked us. https://x.com/selinawangtv/status/1854968427854635409Nancy Pelosi to the NYT: “had the president [Biden] gotten out sooner, there may have been other candidates in the race.” “The anticipation was that, if the president were to step aside, that there would be an open primary. “ “And as I say, Kamala may have, I think she would have done well in that and been stronger going forward. But we don’t know that. That didn’t happen. We live with what happened. And because the president endorsed Kamala Harris immediately, that really made it almost impossible to have a primary at that time. If it had been much earlier, it would have been different” https://www.nytimes.com/2024/11/08/us/politics/pelosi-harris-biden-open-primary.html Not a terrible take imo. There are other factors to blame too, but if Biden doesn't run for re-election, then there's actually enough time for an open primary. Regardless of whether or not Harris wins that hypothetical primary, we get more hype and galvanize the base more and fewer people are left with the notion that it's unfair for Harris/whoever to be the nominee. If this is the extent of their introspection then it is totally terrible lol, while having a primary probably would have helped some I don't think it actually flips to a Harris win. Democrats need to (but will not) learn that they have to advocate and achieve active improvement in the lives of the working class. Aggressive use of the systems of governance to make shit happen. Theyre the disadvantaged party in the Having To Do Some Shit factor but they also have a higher cap for success. Instead of pursuing that success though they're gonna continue to hope they can appeal to Republicans and maybe scrape out a meagre win here or there that will surely pale in comparison to the bad shit Republicans will be getting done in that same time. That was literally Harris's entire campaign, but okay lol. Lowering taxes, lowering the price of groceries, lowering healthcare and medical costs, increasing the minimum wage, creating more jobs, strengthening unions, making housing more affordable, making childcare more affordable, and so on. Those were Harris's plans, while Trump was obsessed with identity politics and pretending that universal tariffs won't end up leading to taxes passed on to American consumers. Perhaps what you're referring to is the media's decision to keep Trump in the limelight, by focusing on his felonies, fascism, sexism, racism, sexual misconduct, and all his other scandals that should have been ethically disqualifying for a presidential candidate, instead of amplifying Harris's pretty solid economic stances. A side-by-side comparison of Harris's economic vision and Trump's economic vision unequivocally show that Harris's is far superior for the working and middle classes. Unfortunately, all of those plans either weren't communicated well or communicated at all to the American people. (There are likely other non-economic reasons for Harris's loss as well, but this is just addressing the misconception that Harris didn't "advocate and achieve active improvement in the lives of the working class".) What I am referring to is Democrats being unwilling to wield power for the serious material benefit of the working class, it’s actually the sentence immediately after the one you bolded. Democrats always have lots of stances and what winds up materializing is, at best, stemmed bleeding. Being such technocratic dipshits will never motivate people, and the more people feel slowly bled out the less they’re going to trust their word, and Democrats are real low on people being able to trust their word, lol. I liked what Harris was saying, but you expect me to think she had any real intention to make that shit happen? When she wanted Republicans in her cabinet? When she was hanging with Dick Cheney? It screamed duplicitous Democrat bullshit, that same intention to maybe try a little bit but give up hard and quick if any mild roadblocks pop up and not be even a little sad about it. To offer infinite concessions to scumbag Republicans for no good reason. Typical Democrat bullshit. So since Harris wasn't going to make progress fast enough by only moving a little bit forwards, it makes sense to go backwards? Since she was willing to be bipartisan and work with Republicans (who were going to be relevant in Congress, whether we liked it or not), that means she's betraying us, and the only solution is to let Trump continue to undo previously-made progress? Reading that Harris is to blame because Republicans are terrible is getting old. That's not how governing works when you have three branches with control split between two parties ( especially if two branches are already Republican-controlled, and the only chance at treading water or swimming even a bit forwards - instead of drowning - rests in the hands of the president). The irony, of course, is that for Harris to make every single change that progressives want within a single term, Democrats would need to control all three branches of government, but the whining about how that's impossible has contributed to giving that exact thing to Republicans. No Harris? Cool. Time to see Republicans unilaterally destroy everything without any checks or balances. I hope it was worth it.
A little bit forwards lol, how are women's rights a little bit forwards? Democrats can't do anything positive, they can only ever make the damage inflicted by Republicans less bad, they have no interest in wielding power, Republicans can make far flung plans to win key elections, enact huge reversals of people's rights, be awful in ways not thought possible in American politics not that long ago, but Democrats? They can't do shit.
Sorry if people look at your crappy party full of feckless turds and have a hard time believing they have any intention of achieving anything they might say they want to do.
But hey, if you think Kamala Harris' strategy was really good and it's not the Democrats fault actually then don't you worry, because they'll keep running it back and this will happen over and over, theyll win sometimes, lose more often than they should, and America will continue to bleed out.
2. Harris bent over backwards not calling Republicans "shitbags", and her message was so open-armed and unifying to the point where she's getting criticism for even entertaining the idea of being bipartisan. She didn't run on calling Republicans "shitbags".
Yes, we, people who like good things like women's rights, universal healthcare, etc. don't want the government to be freely and willfully exposed and abused by people who like bad things, like taking away people's rights, for profit healthcare,etc.
How is this hard to understand? Do you think Harris should have tried to court all the Nazis too? Ooooh, I bet some Nazis vote, we certainly seem to have them in Congress! We should try to get them to our side!
I'm more likely to kick a Nazi in the face repeatedly than share a fucking room with one.
|
Northern Ireland24328 Posts
On November 09 2024 11:33 Zambrah wrote:Show nested quote +On November 09 2024 09:00 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:On November 09 2024 08:20 Zambrah wrote:On November 09 2024 07:54 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:On November 09 2024 07:30 Zambrah wrote:On November 09 2024 07:15 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:On November 09 2024 05:59 Vindicare605 wrote:Looks like the Democrat leadership is laying the blame for Kamala's botched nomination process entirely on Biden. I don't blame them, from the outside looking in it really did look like he engineered the timeline of events to occur in such a way that trying to get an open primary done in time for the election was all but impossible. If he wasn't going to be allowed to run again, then he wanted his hand picked VP to take the nomination and no one else. Welp. Thanks a lot Joe. Ya done fucked us. https://x.com/selinawangtv/status/1854968427854635409Nancy Pelosi to the NYT: “had the president [Biden] gotten out sooner, there may have been other candidates in the race.” “The anticipation was that, if the president were to step aside, that there would be an open primary. “ “And as I say, Kamala may have, I think she would have done well in that and been stronger going forward. But we don’t know that. That didn’t happen. We live with what happened. And because the president endorsed Kamala Harris immediately, that really made it almost impossible to have a primary at that time. If it had been much earlier, it would have been different” https://www.nytimes.com/2024/11/08/us/politics/pelosi-harris-biden-open-primary.html Not a terrible take imo. There are other factors to blame too, but if Biden doesn't run for re-election, then there's actually enough time for an open primary. Regardless of whether or not Harris wins that hypothetical primary, we get more hype and galvanize the base more and fewer people are left with the notion that it's unfair for Harris/whoever to be the nominee. If this is the extent of their introspection then it is totally terrible lol, while having a primary probably would have helped some I don't think it actually flips to a Harris win. Democrats need to (but will not) learn that they have to advocate and achieve active improvement in the lives of the working class. Aggressive use of the systems of governance to make shit happen. Theyre the disadvantaged party in the Having To Do Some Shit factor but they also have a higher cap for success. Instead of pursuing that success though they're gonna continue to hope they can appeal to Republicans and maybe scrape out a meagre win here or there that will surely pale in comparison to the bad shit Republicans will be getting done in that same time. That was literally Harris's entire campaign, but okay lol. Lowering taxes, lowering the price of groceries, lowering healthcare and medical costs, increasing the minimum wage, creating more jobs, strengthening unions, making housing more affordable, making childcare more affordable, and so on. Those were Harris's plans, while Trump was obsessed with identity politics and pretending that universal tariffs won't end up leading to taxes passed on to American consumers. Perhaps what you're referring to is the media's decision to keep Trump in the limelight, by focusing on his felonies, fascism, sexism, racism, sexual misconduct, and all his other scandals that should have been ethically disqualifying for a presidential candidate, instead of amplifying Harris's pretty solid economic stances. A side-by-side comparison of Harris's economic vision and Trump's economic vision unequivocally show that Harris's is far superior for the working and middle classes. Unfortunately, all of those plans either weren't communicated well or communicated at all to the American people. (There are likely other non-economic reasons for Harris's loss as well, but this is just addressing the misconception that Harris didn't "advocate and achieve active improvement in the lives of the working class".) What I am referring to is Democrats being unwilling to wield power for the serious material benefit of the working class, it’s actually the sentence immediately after the one you bolded. Democrats always have lots of stances and what winds up materializing is, at best, stemmed bleeding. Being such technocratic dipshits will never motivate people, and the more people feel slowly bled out the less they’re going to trust their word, and Democrats are real low on people being able to trust their word, lol. I liked what Harris was saying, but you expect me to think she had any real intention to make that shit happen? When she wanted Republicans in her cabinet? When she was hanging with Dick Cheney? It screamed duplicitous Democrat bullshit, that same intention to maybe try a little bit but give up hard and quick if any mild roadblocks pop up and not be even a little sad about it. To offer infinite concessions to scumbag Republicans for no good reason. Typical Democrat bullshit. So since Harris wasn't going to make progress fast enough by only moving a little bit forwards, it makes sense to go backwards? Since she was willing to be bipartisan and work with Republicans (who were going to be relevant in Congress, whether we liked it or not), that means she's betraying us, and the only solution is to let Trump continue to undo previously-made progress? Reading that Harris is to blame because Republicans are terrible is getting old. That's not how governing works when you have three branches with control split between two parties ( especially if two branches are already Republican-controlled, and the only chance at treading water or swimming even a bit forwards - instead of drowning - rests in the hands of the president). The irony, of course, is that for Harris to make every single change that progressives want within a single term, Democrats would need to control all three branches of government, but the whining about how that's impossible has contributed to giving that exact thing to Republicans. No Harris? Cool. Time to see Republicans unilaterally destroy everything without any checks or balances. I hope it was worth it. A little bit forwards lol, how are women's rights a little bit forwards? Democrats can't do anything positive, they can only ever make the damage inflicted by Republicans less bad, they have no interest in wielding power, Republicans can make far flung plans to win key elections, enact huge reversals of people's rights, be awful in ways not thought possible in American politics not that long ago, but Democrats? They can't do shit. Sorry if people look at your crappy party full of feckless turds and have a hard time believing they have any intention of achieving anything they might say they want to do. But hey, if you think Kamala Harris' strategy was really good and it's not the Democrats fault actually then don't you worry, because they'll keep running it back and this will happen over and over, theyll win sometimes, lose more often than they should, and America will continue to bleed out.
Here’s a wee policy. We might not get it done, but actual universal healthcare. We’ll give it our best shot though, finish what Obamacare started.
Hey if the Republicans block it they block it. But it’s at least a big statement effort.
You mentioned some of your healthcare costs and by European sensibilities that’s pretty fucking brutal man.
Out of curiosity I stuck myself through an American health insurance provider just to see what that looked like.
Considerably more than you, and I’m not even unwell. I could either have almost no coverage for anything meaningful or I’d have to live off food banks and perhaps the local flora and faunae I could scavenge.
By actuarial standards, being bipolar means you have a higher suicide rate than any other mental health condition. You’re also more prone to substance abuse.
My insistence that ‘I love myself too much to die’ doesn’t really ring true versus averages. Like a smoke and beer but im pretty sensible.
I can’t even get non-extortionate travel insurance here in the UK, which isn’t ideal but hey I can take the risk.
If I was American I mean I can’t just take the risk on being covered for like, potentially dying.
Within the American system I would either be dead, or crippled with completely irrecoverable medical debts to the extent I would have been doomed to subsistence living at like 25. Within the UK system I’ve got to recover, return to study and retrain again and am like 8 months off tripling my potential salary.
Also as an aside man, hope you’re kicking cancer’s arse and are keeping well!
|
Theoretically fine with the cancer thanks, ~1% odds of recurrence and 5 years of repeated tests in case it does come back, but I should be fine.
And the COBRA costs certainly aren't my healthcare costs, I'd be currently letting tumors grow through my lungs, liver, and brain if it was lmao. I pay closer to like 200 - 250 a month, overall Im in the whole for overarching expenses closer to like ~8,500USD. Wipes out all of my savings, but hey, thats America for you, I'm super glad I can count on Democrats to maybe sort of do something about it eventually sometime possibly in the future maybe.
I'll be cheerleading them from the sides while they figure it out lmao.
|
On November 09 2024 10:43 WombaT wrote:Show nested quote +On November 09 2024 10:15 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:On November 09 2024 09:36 WombaT wrote:On November 09 2024 09:00 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:On November 09 2024 08:20 Zambrah wrote:On November 09 2024 07:54 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:On November 09 2024 07:30 Zambrah wrote:On November 09 2024 07:15 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:On November 09 2024 05:59 Vindicare605 wrote:Looks like the Democrat leadership is laying the blame for Kamala's botched nomination process entirely on Biden. I don't blame them, from the outside looking in it really did look like he engineered the timeline of events to occur in such a way that trying to get an open primary done in time for the election was all but impossible. If he wasn't going to be allowed to run again, then he wanted his hand picked VP to take the nomination and no one else. Welp. Thanks a lot Joe. Ya done fucked us. https://x.com/selinawangtv/status/1854968427854635409Nancy Pelosi to the NYT: “had the president [Biden] gotten out sooner, there may have been other candidates in the race.” “The anticipation was that, if the president were to step aside, that there would be an open primary. “ “And as I say, Kamala may have, I think she would have done well in that and been stronger going forward. But we don’t know that. That didn’t happen. We live with what happened. And because the president endorsed Kamala Harris immediately, that really made it almost impossible to have a primary at that time. If it had been much earlier, it would have been different” https://www.nytimes.com/2024/11/08/us/politics/pelosi-harris-biden-open-primary.html Not a terrible take imo. There are other factors to blame too, but if Biden doesn't run for re-election, then there's actually enough time for an open primary. Regardless of whether or not Harris wins that hypothetical primary, we get more hype and galvanize the base more and fewer people are left with the notion that it's unfair for Harris/whoever to be the nominee. If this is the extent of their introspection then it is totally terrible lol, while having a primary probably would have helped some I don't think it actually flips to a Harris win. Democrats need to (but will not) learn that they have to advocate and achieve active improvement in the lives of the working class. Aggressive use of the systems of governance to make shit happen. Theyre the disadvantaged party in the Having To Do Some Shit factor but they also have a higher cap for success. Instead of pursuing that success though they're gonna continue to hope they can appeal to Republicans and maybe scrape out a meagre win here or there that will surely pale in comparison to the bad shit Republicans will be getting done in that same time. That was literally Harris's entire campaign, but okay lol. Lowering taxes, lowering the price of groceries, lowering healthcare and medical costs, increasing the minimum wage, creating more jobs, strengthening unions, making housing more affordable, making childcare more affordable, and so on. Those were Harris's plans, while Trump was obsessed with identity politics and pretending that universal tariffs won't end up leading to taxes passed on to American consumers. Perhaps what you're referring to is the media's decision to keep Trump in the limelight, by focusing on his felonies, fascism, sexism, racism, sexual misconduct, and all his other scandals that should have been ethically disqualifying for a presidential candidate, instead of amplifying Harris's pretty solid economic stances. A side-by-side comparison of Harris's economic vision and Trump's economic vision unequivocally show that Harris's is far superior for the working and middle classes. Unfortunately, all of those plans either weren't communicated well or communicated at all to the American people. (There are likely other non-economic reasons for Harris's loss as well, but this is just addressing the misconception that Harris didn't "advocate and achieve active improvement in the lives of the working class".) What I am referring to is Democrats being unwilling to wield power for the serious material benefit of the working class, it’s actually the sentence immediately after the one you bolded. Democrats always have lots of stances and what winds up materializing is, at best, stemmed bleeding. Being such technocratic dipshits will never motivate people, and the more people feel slowly bled out the less they’re going to trust their word, and Democrats are real low on people being able to trust their word, lol. I liked what Harris was saying, but you expect me to think she had any real intention to make that shit happen? When she wanted Republicans in her cabinet? When she was hanging with Dick Cheney? It screamed duplicitous Democrat bullshit, that same intention to maybe try a little bit but give up hard and quick if any mild roadblocks pop up and not be even a little sad about it. To offer infinite concessions to scumbag Republicans for no good reason. Typical Democrat bullshit. So since Harris wasn't going to make progress fast enough by only moving a little bit forwards, it makes sense to go backwards? Since she was willing to be bipartisan and work with Republicans (who were going to be relevant in Congress, whether we liked it or not), that means she's betraying us, and the only solution is to let Trump continue to undo previously-made progress? Reading that Harris is to blame because Republicans are terrible is getting old. That's not how governing works when you have three branches with control split between two parties ( especially if two branches are already Republican-controlled, and the only chance at treading water or swimming even a bit forwards - instead of drowning - rests in the hands of the president). The irony, of course, is that for Harris to make every single change that progressives want within a single term, Democrats would need to control all three branches of government, but the whining about how that's impossible has contributed to giving that exact thing to Republicans. No Harris? Cool. Time to see Republicans unilaterally destroy everything without any checks or balances. I hope it was worth it. Republicans control all three branches come January, dominate the Supreme Court, either in action or rhetoric I don’t recall a huge amount of compromise with Democrats. This doesn’t mean that I’d love to see them emulate everything the Republicans do, nor is this the only way to do things, as a caveat. As I’ve said numerous times I think the bases and their respective appeals are sufficiently different to perhaps require different approaches. I think there’s a fundamental problem of mixed messaging here though. Perhaps mechanically rather than conceptually. Donald Trump and by extension much of the GOP are shitbags, also were willing to work with them! 1. I don't interpret that as mixed messaging, because of how it's required to work with (at least a few) Republicans to successfully govern, especially when Republicans have a good amount of control across Congress and the Supreme Court. Biden's bipartisan accomplishments, for example, are a testament to that. Being a leader who's willing to work with the other side, out of necessity, doesn't mean you love them or think they're amazing people or agree with them or even want to work with them. 2. Harris bent over backwards not calling Republicans "shitbags", and her message was so open-armed and unifying to the point where she's getting criticism for even entertaining the idea of being bipartisan. She didn't run on calling Republicans "shitbags". 3. Trump ran on calling everyone shitbags. This is an insane double-standard. I think most with a vague knowledge of civics know that, ultimately you do have to either dominate, which is rare with the other side. You don’t necessarily have to make a big virtue of it. A nod to it perhaps.
Or, alternatively you can go all in on being bipartisan and trying to heal the country. I don’t think that’s easy, indeed I’m not even sure it’s actually possible. But 6 of one, half a dozen of the other gets rather messy
Brass tacks, you’ve got to consider who you potentially gain with certain messaging, and who you potentially lose and how that tradeoff works.
I said it at the time, GH and I’m pretty sure others did as well. It was an election to galvanise one’s base. If there was a big cohort of undecided independents, or a soft edge of Trump’s following that could be picked away at, that was significantly bigger than the potential progressive vote, then I may not like it but pragmatically that makes some sense.
But no polling data I’ve ever seen indicated that this was a smart, pragmatic move. Trump’s ratings amongst designated Republicans have been borderline bulletproof since he entered the scene. Nor did this see any gains whatsoever with designated Independents.
I think there’s a misconception that progressives aren’t happy unless you do everything they want. They just want you to at least try. Or, more accurately that perception has to exist. I do think Harris’ platform and by extension her time in Biden’s administration does have some of those policies, but we actually read policy platforms and records. Harris laid out in-depth plans and was basically quoting Bernie Sanders for some of them (e.g., "$15/hour minimum wage"), and GH still insisted that Trump had more of a plan than Harris. The bar for Harris and other Democrats is, unfortunately, up in the stratosphere; Trump's is on the ground. Not really on her or her campaign this one, but perception is well, most of electoral politics.
To give a semi, but not quite directly equivalent example, Labour has pivoted centre in recent times. We’re not quite as one party, and usually x party has enough to basically govern unilaterally.
It still pissed plenty of people off when Keir Starmer took a defector from the Conservatives. Yes it’s another vote in Parliament, but it was done in a rough epoch where basic lifelong left-leaning Labour stalwarts had been booted out of the party.
I am fully aware that an extra vote goes some way, but equally you have to consider the impact of further pissing off a left wing of your own base that already isn’t exactly enthusiastic about you. I don’t think it’ll tank his government or anything, but I think it was an absolute net loss That's definitely a fair critique. I think that would have been best addressed if Biden hadn't run again, and if there was an open primary. I think Harris did a pretty solid job given the hand she was dealt, with only 3 months to run for president, and I don't think it would have been possible to have an open primary as late as when Biden endorsed Harris. 1) Fair. I’m going to say perception a lot here, but I think you just need the perception you’re busting your ass to do whatever it is, and if you’re blocked well, you tried. 2) Also fair, but the wider base was absolutely doing that. Perception usually comes from ‘the Dems’ or ‘the libruls’ or ‘the left’ and what they’re doing. That perception still exists even if Harris herself was more conciliatory. So to a degree you either have to bend with your base, or alternatively drag them into a more bipartisan line. Harris didn’t really do either well. 3) It’s a double standard of a sort. Equally, without going full class war I don’t think you can really emulate that approach as Democratic voters have different sensibilities. In a crude sense, you gotta sell something aspirational for its own sake. The right will sell you aspiration, but also it’s only X other group denying you said aspiration. Could be stinkin’ liberals, could be China. This isn’t a uniquely American problem either, be it with the centre or further left populists, they struggle against that ‘other’ enemy landing better. The Democrats have the problem that they do have an ‘other’ in their playbook, but it’s free market capitalism. However, a lot of their base are quite fond of it, so they can’t play it. In the recent past prior to Brexit the right always had the EU boogeyman to blame for everything (and also their inability to solve the problems they’d claimed were problems). China appears to increasingly be a US analogue for something similar. In the UK context the left couldn’t remotely adopt that kind of messaging because much of the left was rather fond of the EU.
bolded - are you sure about that? Racists, homophobes, transphobes, misogynists, far right, Nazis, fascists, Russian assets, maga idiots to name a few. And I agree with your point 2 Kamala didnt said this things (far as I know), Democrats though most definitely did (by democrats I mean her voters also). Lets not forget that Democrats message was so unifying that there were 2 assassination attempts on Trump.
Regarding Biden being to blame for lost election, yeah sure he was and so were the voters and everything and everyone but Dems, they did splendidly. Bernie literally told them what the problem is, and reaction to this is:
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/nov/08/nancy-pelosi-biden-democrats-election-loss
"According to the Times, Pelosi also rejected comments from Bernie Sanders in which the independent senator from Vermont said Trump won because Democrats “abandoned working-class people” – remarks the chair of the Democratic National Committee, Jaime Harrison, called “straight-up BS”.
“Bernie Sanders has not won,” Pelosi said. “With all due respect, and I have a great deal of respect for him, for what he stands for, but I don’t respect him saying that the Democratic party has abandoned the working-class families.”
According to Pelosi, cultural issues pushed American votes to Trump.
“Guns, God and gays – that’s the way they say it,” she said. “Guns, that’s an issue. Gays, that’s an issue. And now they’re making the trans issue such an important issue in their priorities, and in certain communities, what they call God, what we call a woman’s right to choose” regarding abortion and other reproductive care."
Meanwhile Madame Deficit got endorsement from Taylor Swift, J Lo, Clooney and so on, clearly connecting more with working class families, than Orange men getting endorsed by family of dead soldier, or doing stunt in McDonald. Foolproof plan.
|
Northern Ireland24328 Posts
On November 09 2024 12:04 Razyda wrote:Show nested quote +On November 09 2024 10:43 WombaT wrote:On November 09 2024 10:15 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:On November 09 2024 09:36 WombaT wrote:On November 09 2024 09:00 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:On November 09 2024 08:20 Zambrah wrote:On November 09 2024 07:54 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:On November 09 2024 07:30 Zambrah wrote:On November 09 2024 07:15 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:On November 09 2024 05:59 Vindicare605 wrote:
Looks like the Democrat leadership is laying the blame for Kamala's botched nomination process entirely on Biden. I don't blame them, from the outside looking in it really did look like he engineered the timeline of events to occur in such a way that trying to get an open primary done in time for the election was all but impossible. If he wasn't going to be allowed to run again, then he wanted his hand picked VP to take the nomination and no one else.
Welp. Thanks a lot Joe. Ya done fucked us.
[quote] Not a terrible take imo. There are other factors to blame too, but if Biden doesn't run for re-election, then there's actually enough time for an open primary. Regardless of whether or not Harris wins that hypothetical primary, we get more hype and galvanize the base more and fewer people are left with the notion that it's unfair for Harris/whoever to be the nominee. If this is the extent of their introspection then it is totally terrible lol, while having a primary probably would have helped some I don't think it actually flips to a Harris win. Democrats need to (but will not) learn that they have to advocate and achieve active improvement in the lives of the working class. Aggressive use of the systems of governance to make shit happen. Theyre the disadvantaged party in the Having To Do Some Shit factor but they also have a higher cap for success. Instead of pursuing that success though they're gonna continue to hope they can appeal to Republicans and maybe scrape out a meagre win here or there that will surely pale in comparison to the bad shit Republicans will be getting done in that same time. That was literally Harris's entire campaign, but okay lol. Lowering taxes, lowering the price of groceries, lowering healthcare and medical costs, increasing the minimum wage, creating more jobs, strengthening unions, making housing more affordable, making childcare more affordable, and so on. Those were Harris's plans, while Trump was obsessed with identity politics and pretending that universal tariffs won't end up leading to taxes passed on to American consumers. Perhaps what you're referring to is the media's decision to keep Trump in the limelight, by focusing on his felonies, fascism, sexism, racism, sexual misconduct, and all his other scandals that should have been ethically disqualifying for a presidential candidate, instead of amplifying Harris's pretty solid economic stances. A side-by-side comparison of Harris's economic vision and Trump's economic vision unequivocally show that Harris's is far superior for the working and middle classes. Unfortunately, all of those plans either weren't communicated well or communicated at all to the American people. (There are likely other non-economic reasons for Harris's loss as well, but this is just addressing the misconception that Harris didn't "advocate and achieve active improvement in the lives of the working class".) What I am referring to is Democrats being unwilling to wield power for the serious material benefit of the working class, it’s actually the sentence immediately after the one you bolded. Democrats always have lots of stances and what winds up materializing is, at best, stemmed bleeding. Being such technocratic dipshits will never motivate people, and the more people feel slowly bled out the less they’re going to trust their word, and Democrats are real low on people being able to trust their word, lol. I liked what Harris was saying, but you expect me to think she had any real intention to make that shit happen? When she wanted Republicans in her cabinet? When she was hanging with Dick Cheney? It screamed duplicitous Democrat bullshit, that same intention to maybe try a little bit but give up hard and quick if any mild roadblocks pop up and not be even a little sad about it. To offer infinite concessions to scumbag Republicans for no good reason. Typical Democrat bullshit. So since Harris wasn't going to make progress fast enough by only moving a little bit forwards, it makes sense to go backwards? Since she was willing to be bipartisan and work with Republicans (who were going to be relevant in Congress, whether we liked it or not), that means she's betraying us, and the only solution is to let Trump continue to undo previously-made progress? Reading that Harris is to blame because Republicans are terrible is getting old. That's not how governing works when you have three branches with control split between two parties ( especially if two branches are already Republican-controlled, and the only chance at treading water or swimming even a bit forwards - instead of drowning - rests in the hands of the president). The irony, of course, is that for Harris to make every single change that progressives want within a single term, Democrats would need to control all three branches of government, but the whining about how that's impossible has contributed to giving that exact thing to Republicans. No Harris? Cool. Time to see Republicans unilaterally destroy everything without any checks or balances. I hope it was worth it. Republicans control all three branches come January, dominate the Supreme Court, either in action or rhetoric I don’t recall a huge amount of compromise with Democrats. This doesn’t mean that I’d love to see them emulate everything the Republicans do, nor is this the only way to do things, as a caveat. As I’ve said numerous times I think the bases and their respective appeals are sufficiently different to perhaps require different approaches. I think there’s a fundamental problem of mixed messaging here though. Perhaps mechanically rather than conceptually. Donald Trump and by extension much of the GOP are shitbags, also were willing to work with them! 1. I don't interpret that as mixed messaging, because of how it's required to work with (at least a few) Republicans to successfully govern, especially when Republicans have a good amount of control across Congress and the Supreme Court. Biden's bipartisan accomplishments, for example, are a testament to that. Being a leader who's willing to work with the other side, out of necessity, doesn't mean you love them or think they're amazing people or agree with them or even want to work with them. 2. Harris bent over backwards not calling Republicans "shitbags", and her message was so open-armed and unifying to the point where she's getting criticism for even entertaining the idea of being bipartisan. She didn't run on calling Republicans "shitbags". 3. Trump ran on calling everyone shitbags. This is an insane double-standard. I think most with a vague knowledge of civics know that, ultimately you do have to either dominate, which is rare with the other side. You don’t necessarily have to make a big virtue of it. A nod to it perhaps.
Or, alternatively you can go all in on being bipartisan and trying to heal the country. I don’t think that’s easy, indeed I’m not even sure it’s actually possible. But 6 of one, half a dozen of the other gets rather messy
Brass tacks, you’ve got to consider who you potentially gain with certain messaging, and who you potentially lose and how that tradeoff works.
I said it at the time, GH and I’m pretty sure others did as well. It was an election to galvanise one’s base. If there was a big cohort of undecided independents, or a soft edge of Trump’s following that could be picked away at, that was significantly bigger than the potential progressive vote, then I may not like it but pragmatically that makes some sense.
But no polling data I’ve ever seen indicated that this was a smart, pragmatic move. Trump’s ratings amongst designated Republicans have been borderline bulletproof since he entered the scene. Nor did this see any gains whatsoever with designated Independents.
I think there’s a misconception that progressives aren’t happy unless you do everything they want. They just want you to at least try. Or, more accurately that perception has to exist. I do think Harris’ platform and by extension her time in Biden’s administration does have some of those policies, but we actually read policy platforms and records. Harris laid out in-depth plans and was basically quoting Bernie Sanders for some of them (e.g., "$15/hour minimum wage"), and GH still insisted that Trump had more of a plan than Harris. The bar for Harris and other Democrats is, unfortunately, up in the stratosphere; Trump's is on the ground. Not really on her or her campaign this one, but perception is well, most of electoral politics.
To give a semi, but not quite directly equivalent example, Labour has pivoted centre in recent times. We’re not quite as one party, and usually x party has enough to basically govern unilaterally.
It still pissed plenty of people off when Keir Starmer took a defector from the Conservatives. Yes it’s another vote in Parliament, but it was done in a rough epoch where basic lifelong left-leaning Labour stalwarts had been booted out of the party.
I am fully aware that an extra vote goes some way, but equally you have to consider the impact of further pissing off a left wing of your own base that already isn’t exactly enthusiastic about you. I don’t think it’ll tank his government or anything, but I think it was an absolute net loss That's definitely a fair critique. I think that would have been best addressed if Biden hadn't run again, and if there was an open primary. I think Harris did a pretty solid job given the hand she was dealt, with only 3 months to run for president, and I don't think it would have been possible to have an open primary as late as when Biden endorsed Harris. 1) Fair. I’m going to say perception a lot here, but I think you just need the perception you’re busting your ass to do whatever it is, and if you’re blocked well, you tried. 2) Also fair, but the wider base was absolutely doing that. Perception usually comes from ‘the Dems’ or ‘the libruls’ or ‘the left’ and what they’re doing. That perception still exists even if Harris herself was more conciliatory. So to a degree you either have to bend with your base, or alternatively drag them into a more bipartisan line. Harris didn’t really do either well. 3) It’s a double standard of a sort. Equally, without going full class war I don’t think you can really emulate that approach as Democratic voters have different sensibilities. In a crude sense, you gotta sell something aspirational for its own sake. The right will sell you aspiration, but also it’s only X other group denying you said aspiration. Could be stinkin’ liberals, could be China. This isn’t a uniquely American problem either, be it with the centre or further left populists, they struggle against that ‘other’ enemy landing better. The Democrats have the problem that they do have an ‘other’ in their playbook, but it’s free market capitalism. However, a lot of their base are quite fond of it, so they can’t play it. In the recent past prior to Brexit the right always had the EU boogeyman to blame for everything (and also their inability to solve the problems they’d claimed were problems). China appears to increasingly be a US analogue for something similar. In the UK context the left couldn’t remotely adopt that kind of messaging because much of the left was rather fond of the EU. bolded - are you sure about that? Racists, homophobes, transphobes, misogynists, far right, Nazis, fascists, Russian assets, maga idiots to name a few. And I agree with your point 2 Kamala didnt said this things (far as I know), Democrats though most definitely did (by democrats I mean her voters also). Lets not forget that Democrats message was so unifying that there were 2 assassination attempts on Trump. Regarding Biden being to blame for lost election, yeah sure he was and so were the voters and everything and everyone but Dems, they did splendidly. Bernie literally told them what the problem is, and reaction to this is: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/nov/08/nancy-pelosi-biden-democrats-election-loss"According to the Times, Pelosi also rejected comments from Bernie Sanders in which the independent senator from Vermont said Trump won because Democrats “abandoned working-class people” – remarks the chair of the Democratic National Committee, Jaime Harrison, called “straight-up BS”. “Bernie Sanders has not won,” Pelosi said. “With all due respect, and I have a great deal of respect for him, for what he stands for, but I don’t respect him saying that the Democratic party has abandoned the working-class families.” According to Pelosi, cultural issues pushed American votes to Trump. “Guns, God and gays – that’s the way they say it,” she said. “Guns, that’s an issue. Gays, that’s an issue. And now they’re making the trans issue such an important issue in their priorities, and in certain communities, what they call God, what we call a woman’s right to choose” regarding abortion and other reproductive care." Meanwhile Madame Deficit got endorsement from Taylor Swift, J Lo, Clooney and so on, clearly connecting more with working class families, than Orange men getting endorsed by family of dead soldier, or doing stunt in McDonald. Foolproof plan.
None of those are really the ‘other’ in the same way mechanically. It doesn’t work quite the same
A sexist, or a racist can conceivably stop being so. It becomes a matter of changing that behaviour, and perhaps some aren’t very good at that.
‘The other’ is quite different. They’re an innate, inalienable enemy by virtue of what they are.
Not to invoke Nazi Germany, but you could be a patriotic war hero from WW1, didn’t really count for much if you’re Jewish in the 1930s. It’s an extreme example, but chosen for a reason.
|
On November 09 2024 12:14 WombaT wrote:Show nested quote +On November 09 2024 12:04 Razyda wrote:On November 09 2024 10:43 WombaT wrote:On November 09 2024 10:15 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:On November 09 2024 09:36 WombaT wrote:On November 09 2024 09:00 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:On November 09 2024 08:20 Zambrah wrote:On November 09 2024 07:54 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:On November 09 2024 07:30 Zambrah wrote:On November 09 2024 07:15 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:
[quote]
Not a terrible take imo. There are other factors to blame too, but if Biden doesn't run for re-election, then there's actually enough time for an open primary. Regardless of whether or not Harris wins that hypothetical primary, we get more hype and galvanize the base more and fewer people are left with the notion that it's unfair for Harris/whoever to be the nominee. If this is the extent of their introspection then it is totally terrible lol, while having a primary probably would have helped some I don't think it actually flips to a Harris win. Democrats need to (but will not) learn that they have to advocate and achieve active improvement in the lives of the working class. Aggressive use of the systems of governance to make shit happen. Theyre the disadvantaged party in the Having To Do Some Shit factor but they also have a higher cap for success. Instead of pursuing that success though they're gonna continue to hope they can appeal to Republicans and maybe scrape out a meagre win here or there that will surely pale in comparison to the bad shit Republicans will be getting done in that same time. That was literally Harris's entire campaign, but okay lol. Lowering taxes, lowering the price of groceries, lowering healthcare and medical costs, increasing the minimum wage, creating more jobs, strengthening unions, making housing more affordable, making childcare more affordable, and so on. Those were Harris's plans, while Trump was obsessed with identity politics and pretending that universal tariffs won't end up leading to taxes passed on to American consumers. Perhaps what you're referring to is the media's decision to keep Trump in the limelight, by focusing on his felonies, fascism, sexism, racism, sexual misconduct, and all his other scandals that should have been ethically disqualifying for a presidential candidate, instead of amplifying Harris's pretty solid economic stances. A side-by-side comparison of Harris's economic vision and Trump's economic vision unequivocally show that Harris's is far superior for the working and middle classes. Unfortunately, all of those plans either weren't communicated well or communicated at all to the American people. (There are likely other non-economic reasons for Harris's loss as well, but this is just addressing the misconception that Harris didn't "advocate and achieve active improvement in the lives of the working class".) What I am referring to is Democrats being unwilling to wield power for the serious material benefit of the working class, it’s actually the sentence immediately after the one you bolded. Democrats always have lots of stances and what winds up materializing is, at best, stemmed bleeding. Being such technocratic dipshits will never motivate people, and the more people feel slowly bled out the less they’re going to trust their word, and Democrats are real low on people being able to trust their word, lol. I liked what Harris was saying, but you expect me to think she had any real intention to make that shit happen? When she wanted Republicans in her cabinet? When she was hanging with Dick Cheney? It screamed duplicitous Democrat bullshit, that same intention to maybe try a little bit but give up hard and quick if any mild roadblocks pop up and not be even a little sad about it. To offer infinite concessions to scumbag Republicans for no good reason. Typical Democrat bullshit. So since Harris wasn't going to make progress fast enough by only moving a little bit forwards, it makes sense to go backwards? Since she was willing to be bipartisan and work with Republicans (who were going to be relevant in Congress, whether we liked it or not), that means she's betraying us, and the only solution is to let Trump continue to undo previously-made progress? Reading that Harris is to blame because Republicans are terrible is getting old. That's not how governing works when you have three branches with control split between two parties ( especially if two branches are already Republican-controlled, and the only chance at treading water or swimming even a bit forwards - instead of drowning - rests in the hands of the president). The irony, of course, is that for Harris to make every single change that progressives want within a single term, Democrats would need to control all three branches of government, but the whining about how that's impossible has contributed to giving that exact thing to Republicans. No Harris? Cool. Time to see Republicans unilaterally destroy everything without any checks or balances. I hope it was worth it. Republicans control all three branches come January, dominate the Supreme Court, either in action or rhetoric I don’t recall a huge amount of compromise with Democrats. This doesn’t mean that I’d love to see them emulate everything the Republicans do, nor is this the only way to do things, as a caveat. As I’ve said numerous times I think the bases and their respective appeals are sufficiently different to perhaps require different approaches. I think there’s a fundamental problem of mixed messaging here though. Perhaps mechanically rather than conceptually. Donald Trump and by extension much of the GOP are shitbags, also were willing to work with them! 1. I don't interpret that as mixed messaging, because of how it's required to work with (at least a few) Republicans to successfully govern, especially when Republicans have a good amount of control across Congress and the Supreme Court. Biden's bipartisan accomplishments, for example, are a testament to that. Being a leader who's willing to work with the other side, out of necessity, doesn't mean you love them or think they're amazing people or agree with them or even want to work with them. 2. Harris bent over backwards not calling Republicans "shitbags", and her message was so open-armed and unifying to the point where she's getting criticism for even entertaining the idea of being bipartisan. She didn't run on calling Republicans "shitbags". 3. Trump ran on calling everyone shitbags. This is an insane double-standard. I think most with a vague knowledge of civics know that, ultimately you do have to either dominate, which is rare with the other side. You don’t necessarily have to make a big virtue of it. A nod to it perhaps.
Or, alternatively you can go all in on being bipartisan and trying to heal the country. I don’t think that’s easy, indeed I’m not even sure it’s actually possible. But 6 of one, half a dozen of the other gets rather messy
Brass tacks, you’ve got to consider who you potentially gain with certain messaging, and who you potentially lose and how that tradeoff works.
I said it at the time, GH and I’m pretty sure others did as well. It was an election to galvanise one’s base. If there was a big cohort of undecided independents, or a soft edge of Trump’s following that could be picked away at, that was significantly bigger than the potential progressive vote, then I may not like it but pragmatically that makes some sense.
But no polling data I’ve ever seen indicated that this was a smart, pragmatic move. Trump’s ratings amongst designated Republicans have been borderline bulletproof since he entered the scene. Nor did this see any gains whatsoever with designated Independents.
I think there’s a misconception that progressives aren’t happy unless you do everything they want. They just want you to at least try. Or, more accurately that perception has to exist. I do think Harris’ platform and by extension her time in Biden’s administration does have some of those policies, but we actually read policy platforms and records. Harris laid out in-depth plans and was basically quoting Bernie Sanders for some of them (e.g., "$15/hour minimum wage"), and GH still insisted that Trump had more of a plan than Harris. The bar for Harris and other Democrats is, unfortunately, up in the stratosphere; Trump's is on the ground. Not really on her or her campaign this one, but perception is well, most of electoral politics.
To give a semi, but not quite directly equivalent example, Labour has pivoted centre in recent times. We’re not quite as one party, and usually x party has enough to basically govern unilaterally.
It still pissed plenty of people off when Keir Starmer took a defector from the Conservatives. Yes it’s another vote in Parliament, but it was done in a rough epoch where basic lifelong left-leaning Labour stalwarts had been booted out of the party.
I am fully aware that an extra vote goes some way, but equally you have to consider the impact of further pissing off a left wing of your own base that already isn’t exactly enthusiastic about you. I don’t think it’ll tank his government or anything, but I think it was an absolute net loss That's definitely a fair critique. I think that would have been best addressed if Biden hadn't run again, and if there was an open primary. I think Harris did a pretty solid job given the hand she was dealt, with only 3 months to run for president, and I don't think it would have been possible to have an open primary as late as when Biden endorsed Harris. 1) Fair. I’m going to say perception a lot here, but I think you just need the perception you’re busting your ass to do whatever it is, and if you’re blocked well, you tried. 2) Also fair, but the wider base was absolutely doing that. Perception usually comes from ‘the Dems’ or ‘the libruls’ or ‘the left’ and what they’re doing. That perception still exists even if Harris herself was more conciliatory. So to a degree you either have to bend with your base, or alternatively drag them into a more bipartisan line. Harris didn’t really do either well. 3) It’s a double standard of a sort. Equally, without going full class war I don’t think you can really emulate that approach as Democratic voters have different sensibilities. In a crude sense, you gotta sell something aspirational for its own sake. The right will sell you aspiration, but also it’s only X other group denying you said aspiration. Could be stinkin’ liberals, could be China. This isn’t a uniquely American problem either, be it with the centre or further left populists, they struggle against that ‘other’ enemy landing better. The Democrats have the problem that they do have an ‘other’ in their playbook, but it’s free market capitalism. However, a lot of their base are quite fond of it, so they can’t play it. In the recent past prior to Brexit the right always had the EU boogeyman to blame for everything (and also their inability to solve the problems they’d claimed were problems). China appears to increasingly be a US analogue for something similar. In the UK context the left couldn’t remotely adopt that kind of messaging because much of the left was rather fond of the EU. bolded - are you sure about that? Racists, homophobes, transphobes, misogynists, far right, Nazis, fascists, Russian assets, maga idiots to name a few. And I agree with your point 2 Kamala didnt said this things (far as I know), Democrats though most definitely did (by democrats I mean her voters also). Lets not forget that Democrats message was so unifying that there were 2 assassination attempts on Trump. Regarding Biden being to blame for lost election, yeah sure he was and so were the voters and everything and everyone but Dems, they did splendidly. Bernie literally told them what the problem is, and reaction to this is: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/nov/08/nancy-pelosi-biden-democrats-election-loss"According to the Times, Pelosi also rejected comments from Bernie Sanders in which the independent senator from Vermont said Trump won because Democrats “abandoned working-class people” – remarks the chair of the Democratic National Committee, Jaime Harrison, called “straight-up BS”. “Bernie Sanders has not won,” Pelosi said. “With all due respect, and I have a great deal of respect for him, for what he stands for, but I don’t respect him saying that the Democratic party has abandoned the working-class families.” According to Pelosi, cultural issues pushed American votes to Trump. “Guns, God and gays – that’s the way they say it,” she said. “Guns, that’s an issue. Gays, that’s an issue. And now they’re making the trans issue such an important issue in their priorities, and in certain communities, what they call God, what we call a woman’s right to choose” regarding abortion and other reproductive care." Meanwhile Madame Deficit got endorsement from Taylor Swift, J Lo, Clooney and so on, clearly connecting more with working class families, than Orange men getting endorsed by family of dead soldier, or doing stunt in McDonald. Foolproof plan. None of those are really the ‘other’ in the same way mechanically. It doesn’t work quite the same A sexist, or a racist can conceivably stop being so. It becomes a matter of changing that behaviour, and perhaps some aren’t very good at that. ‘The other’ is quite different. They’re an innate, inalienable enemy by virtue of what they are. Not to invoke Nazi Germany, but you could be a patriotic war hero from WW1, didn’t really count for much if you’re Jewish in the 1930s. It’s an extreme example, but chosen for a reason.
But they are arent they? Trump voter didnt had to be neither of those to be called that. And you cant exactly stop being something you arent. (my bad you can, you could publicly endorse Kamala, because whoever you are, even you see that Trump is bad)
Edit: Funny story:
https://www.dailywire.com/news/exclusive-fema-official-ordered-relief-workers-to-skip-houses-with-trump-signs?topStoryPosition=1
apparently "A FEMA supervisor told workers in a message to “avoid homes advertising Trump” as they canvassed Lake Placid, Florida to identify residents who could qualify for federal aid, internal messages viewed by The Daily Wire reveal. The supervisor, Marn’i Washington, relayed this message both verbally and in a group chat used by the relief team, multiple government employees told The Daily Wire."
While its daily wire it seems FEMA confirmed the story.
What was it about unifying message?
|
Northern Ireland24328 Posts
On November 09 2024 11:55 Zambrah wrote:
Theoretically fine with the cancer thanks, ~1% odds of recurrence and 5 years of repeated tests in case it does come back, but I should be fine.
And the COBRA costs certainly aren't my healthcare costs, I'd be currently letting tumors grow through my lungs, liver, and brain if it was lmao. I pay closer to like 200 - 250 a month, overall Im in the whole for overarching expenses closer to like ~8,500USD. Wipes out all of my savings, but hey, thats America for you, I'm super glad I can count on Democrats to maybe sort of do something about it eventually sometime possibly in the future maybe.
I'll be cheerleading them from the sides while they figure it out lmao.
Glad to hear it dude!
I imagine it’ll be imminently before the Sun goes supernova and our species is distinguished by the time the Dems actually deliver universal healthcare
Hey I’d love to be proven wrong but, hey I won’t be around
We’ve gone from outright conflict and a stacked system against Irish identifying people, to a (US brokered, fair play Bill) peace deal, thru to me being pretty confident I may see a United Ireland before I die
Not even within my own lifetime, within a time I could vaguely recall, and sorta understood what was going on. I actually met Hillary Clinton as we were one of the first avowedly religiously integrated schools here, so it was a good photo OP while Bill and George Mitchell were negotiating the Good Friday Agreement
In the same span the US domestically has gone from an unbelievably shit healthcare system to one slightly less shit.
As an related aside, American foreign policy does frequently fucking suck, they can do some good for no real tangible benefit to themselves on occasion
People without goldfish minds here absolutely do remember that.
|
Northern Ireland24328 Posts
On November 09 2024 12:21 Razyda wrote:Show nested quote +On November 09 2024 12:14 WombaT wrote:On November 09 2024 12:04 Razyda wrote:On November 09 2024 10:43 WombaT wrote:On November 09 2024 10:15 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:On November 09 2024 09:36 WombaT wrote:On November 09 2024 09:00 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:On November 09 2024 08:20 Zambrah wrote:On November 09 2024 07:54 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:On November 09 2024 07:30 Zambrah wrote:
[quote]
If this is the extent of their introspection then it is totally terrible lol, while having a primary probably would have helped some I don't think it actually flips to a Harris win. Democrats need to (but will not) learn that they have to advocate and achieve active improvement in the lives of the working class. Aggressive use of the systems of governance to make shit happen.
Theyre the disadvantaged party in the Having To Do Some Shit factor but they also have a higher cap for success. Instead of pursuing that success though they're gonna continue to hope they can appeal to Republicans and maybe scrape out a meagre win here or there that will surely pale in comparison to the bad shit Republicans will be getting done in that same time. That was literally Harris's entire campaign, but okay lol. Lowering taxes, lowering the price of groceries, lowering healthcare and medical costs, increasing the minimum wage, creating more jobs, strengthening unions, making housing more affordable, making childcare more affordable, and so on. Those were Harris's plans, while Trump was obsessed with identity politics and pretending that universal tariffs won't end up leading to taxes passed on to American consumers. Perhaps what you're referring to is the media's decision to keep Trump in the limelight, by focusing on his felonies, fascism, sexism, racism, sexual misconduct, and all his other scandals that should have been ethically disqualifying for a presidential candidate, instead of amplifying Harris's pretty solid economic stances. A side-by-side comparison of Harris's economic vision and Trump's economic vision unequivocally show that Harris's is far superior for the working and middle classes. Unfortunately, all of those plans either weren't communicated well or communicated at all to the American people. (There are likely other non-economic reasons for Harris's loss as well, but this is just addressing the misconception that Harris didn't "advocate and achieve active improvement in the lives of the working class".) What I am referring to is Democrats being unwilling to wield power for the serious material benefit of the working class, it’s actually the sentence immediately after the one you bolded. Democrats always have lots of stances and what winds up materializing is, at best, stemmed bleeding. Being such technocratic dipshits will never motivate people, and the more people feel slowly bled out the less they’re going to trust their word, and Democrats are real low on people being able to trust their word, lol. I liked what Harris was saying, but you expect me to think she had any real intention to make that shit happen? When she wanted Republicans in her cabinet? When she was hanging with Dick Cheney? It screamed duplicitous Democrat bullshit, that same intention to maybe try a little bit but give up hard and quick if any mild roadblocks pop up and not be even a little sad about it. To offer infinite concessions to scumbag Republicans for no good reason. Typical Democrat bullshit. So since Harris wasn't going to make progress fast enough by only moving a little bit forwards, it makes sense to go backwards? Since she was willing to be bipartisan and work with Republicans (who were going to be relevant in Congress, whether we liked it or not), that means she's betraying us, and the only solution is to let Trump continue to undo previously-made progress? Reading that Harris is to blame because Republicans are terrible is getting old. That's not how governing works when you have three branches with control split between two parties ( especially if two branches are already Republican-controlled, and the only chance at treading water or swimming even a bit forwards - instead of drowning - rests in the hands of the president). The irony, of course, is that for Harris to make every single change that progressives want within a single term, Democrats would need to control all three branches of government, but the whining about how that's impossible has contributed to giving that exact thing to Republicans. No Harris? Cool. Time to see Republicans unilaterally destroy everything without any checks or balances. I hope it was worth it. Republicans control all three branches come January, dominate the Supreme Court, either in action or rhetoric I don’t recall a huge amount of compromise with Democrats. This doesn’t mean that I’d love to see them emulate everything the Republicans do, nor is this the only way to do things, as a caveat. As I’ve said numerous times I think the bases and their respective appeals are sufficiently different to perhaps require different approaches. I think there’s a fundamental problem of mixed messaging here though. Perhaps mechanically rather than conceptually. Donald Trump and by extension much of the GOP are shitbags, also were willing to work with them! 1. I don't interpret that as mixed messaging, because of how it's required to work with (at least a few) Republicans to successfully govern, especially when Republicans have a good amount of control across Congress and the Supreme Court. Biden's bipartisan accomplishments, for example, are a testament to that. Being a leader who's willing to work with the other side, out of necessity, doesn't mean you love them or think they're amazing people or agree with them or even want to work with them. 2. Harris bent over backwards not calling Republicans "shitbags", and her message was so open-armed and unifying to the point where she's getting criticism for even entertaining the idea of being bipartisan. She didn't run on calling Republicans "shitbags". 3. Trump ran on calling everyone shitbags. This is an insane double-standard. I think most with a vague knowledge of civics know that, ultimately you do have to either dominate, which is rare with the other side. You don’t necessarily have to make a big virtue of it. A nod to it perhaps.
Or, alternatively you can go all in on being bipartisan and trying to heal the country. I don’t think that’s easy, indeed I’m not even sure it’s actually possible. But 6 of one, half a dozen of the other gets rather messy
Brass tacks, you’ve got to consider who you potentially gain with certain messaging, and who you potentially lose and how that tradeoff works.
I said it at the time, GH and I’m pretty sure others did as well. It was an election to galvanise one’s base. If there was a big cohort of undecided independents, or a soft edge of Trump’s following that could be picked away at, that was significantly bigger than the potential progressive vote, then I may not like it but pragmatically that makes some sense.
But no polling data I’ve ever seen indicated that this was a smart, pragmatic move. Trump’s ratings amongst designated Republicans have been borderline bulletproof since he entered the scene. Nor did this see any gains whatsoever with designated Independents.
I think there’s a misconception that progressives aren’t happy unless you do everything they want. They just want you to at least try. Or, more accurately that perception has to exist. I do think Harris’ platform and by extension her time in Biden’s administration does have some of those policies, but we actually read policy platforms and records. Harris laid out in-depth plans and was basically quoting Bernie Sanders for some of them (e.g., "$15/hour minimum wage"), and GH still insisted that Trump had more of a plan than Harris. The bar for Harris and other Democrats is, unfortunately, up in the stratosphere; Trump's is on the ground. Not really on her or her campaign this one, but perception is well, most of electoral politics.
To give a semi, but not quite directly equivalent example, Labour has pivoted centre in recent times. We’re not quite as one party, and usually x party has enough to basically govern unilaterally.
It still pissed plenty of people off when Keir Starmer took a defector from the Conservatives. Yes it’s another vote in Parliament, but it was done in a rough epoch where basic lifelong left-leaning Labour stalwarts had been booted out of the party.
I am fully aware that an extra vote goes some way, but equally you have to consider the impact of further pissing off a left wing of your own base that already isn’t exactly enthusiastic about you. I don’t think it’ll tank his government or anything, but I think it was an absolute net loss That's definitely a fair critique. I think that would have been best addressed if Biden hadn't run again, and if there was an open primary. I think Harris did a pretty solid job given the hand she was dealt, with only 3 months to run for president, and I don't think it would have been possible to have an open primary as late as when Biden endorsed Harris. 1) Fair. I’m going to say perception a lot here, but I think you just need the perception you’re busting your ass to do whatever it is, and if you’re blocked well, you tried. 2) Also fair, but the wider base was absolutely doing that. Perception usually comes from ‘the Dems’ or ‘the libruls’ or ‘the left’ and what they’re doing. That perception still exists even if Harris herself was more conciliatory. So to a degree you either have to bend with your base, or alternatively drag them into a more bipartisan line. Harris didn’t really do either well. 3) It’s a double standard of a sort. Equally, without going full class war I don’t think you can really emulate that approach as Democratic voters have different sensibilities. In a crude sense, you gotta sell something aspirational for its own sake. The right will sell you aspiration, but also it’s only X other group denying you said aspiration. Could be stinkin’ liberals, could be China. This isn’t a uniquely American problem either, be it with the centre or further left populists, they struggle against that ‘other’ enemy landing better. The Democrats have the problem that they do have an ‘other’ in their playbook, but it’s free market capitalism. However, a lot of their base are quite fond of it, so they can’t play it. In the recent past prior to Brexit the right always had the EU boogeyman to blame for everything (and also their inability to solve the problems they’d claimed were problems). China appears to increasingly be a US analogue for something similar. In the UK context the left couldn’t remotely adopt that kind of messaging because much of the left was rather fond of the EU. bolded - are you sure about that? Racists, homophobes, transphobes, misogynists, far right, Nazis, fascists, Russian assets, maga idiots to name a few. And I agree with your point 2 Kamala didnt said this things (far as I know), Democrats though most definitely did (by democrats I mean her voters also). Lets not forget that Democrats message was so unifying that there were 2 assassination attempts on Trump. Regarding Biden being to blame for lost election, yeah sure he was and so were the voters and everything and everyone but Dems, they did splendidly. Bernie literally told them what the problem is, and reaction to this is: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/nov/08/nancy-pelosi-biden-democrats-election-loss"According to the Times, Pelosi also rejected comments from Bernie Sanders in which the independent senator from Vermont said Trump won because Democrats “abandoned working-class people” – remarks the chair of the Democratic National Committee, Jaime Harrison, called “straight-up BS”. “Bernie Sanders has not won,” Pelosi said. “With all due respect, and I have a great deal of respect for him, for what he stands for, but I don’t respect him saying that the Democratic party has abandoned the working-class families.” According to Pelosi, cultural issues pushed American votes to Trump. “Guns, God and gays – that’s the way they say it,” she said. “Guns, that’s an issue. Gays, that’s an issue. And now they’re making the trans issue such an important issue in their priorities, and in certain communities, what they call God, what we call a woman’s right to choose” regarding abortion and other reproductive care." Meanwhile Madame Deficit got endorsement from Taylor Swift, J Lo, Clooney and so on, clearly connecting more with working class families, than Orange men getting endorsed by family of dead soldier, or doing stunt in McDonald. Foolproof plan. None of those are really the ‘other’ in the same way mechanically. It doesn’t work quite the same A sexist, or a racist can conceivably stop being so. It becomes a matter of changing that behaviour, and perhaps some aren’t very good at that. ‘The other’ is quite different. They’re an innate, inalienable enemy by virtue of what they are. Not to invoke Nazi Germany, but you could be a patriotic war hero from WW1, didn’t really count for much if you’re Jewish in the 1930s. It’s an extreme example, but chosen for a reason. But they are arent they? Trump voter didnt had to be neither of those to be called that. And you cant exactly stop being something you arent. (my bad you can, you could publicly endorse Kamala, because whoever you are, even you see that Trump is bad)
Somebody might be wrong in calling somebody else a sexist, but even if they are wrong, if said person stoped being a perceived sexist, it wouldn’t be an issue.
Whereas say, China will basically always be an antagonist regardless of what China does. Because China is doing well, and people don’t like that.
It could convert to like, the egalitarian politics of Finland and Trump’s base still wouldn’t like it.
|
Yeah Democrats are useless and by every indication I've seen they're choosing to continue to learn nothing. Any democrat or supporter who looks at the Trump years and thinks to themselves, "yeah, lets just keep running this strat back," is almost as dumb as the average Trump voter as far as Im concerned.
|
Northern Ireland24328 Posts
On November 09 2024 12:33 Zambrah wrote:
Yeah Democrats are useless and by every indication I've seen they're choosing to continue to learn nothing. Any democrat or supporter who looks at the Trump years and thinks to themselves, "yeah, lets just keep running this strat back," is almost as dumb as the average Trump voter as far as Im concerned.
You mean to tell me the powers that be who hung around with Biden frequently and who only acted upon a disastrous debate performance, leaving no time for a democratic succession plan, and also leaving Harris little time to carve a niche might not actually be genius political strategists? :O
|
On November 09 2024 12:39 WombaT wrote:Show nested quote +On November 09 2024 12:33 Zambrah wrote:
Yeah Democrats are useless and by every indication I've seen they're choosing to continue to learn nothing. Any democrat or supporter who looks at the Trump years and thinks to themselves, "yeah, lets just keep running this strat back," is almost as dumb as the average Trump voter as far as Im concerned. You mean to tell me the powers that be who hung around with Biden frequently and who only acted upon a disastrous debate performance, leaving no time for a democratic succession plan, and also leaving Harris little time to carve a niche might not actually be genius political strategists? :O
I dunno about you, but I think they're SUPER geniuses, I mean how can an organization as large and monied as the Democrats NOT be run by super geniuses?!
Anything that we may perceive as a dumb move was actually just the fault of everything other than them, after all super geniuses dont make such dumb mistakes over and over! That'd be insanity.
|
On November 09 2024 11:33 Zambrah wrote:Show nested quote +On November 09 2024 09:00 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:On November 09 2024 08:20 Zambrah wrote:On November 09 2024 07:54 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:On November 09 2024 07:30 Zambrah wrote:On November 09 2024 07:15 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:On November 09 2024 05:59 Vindicare605 wrote:Looks like the Democrat leadership is laying the blame for Kamala's botched nomination process entirely on Biden. I don't blame them, from the outside looking in it really did look like he engineered the timeline of events to occur in such a way that trying to get an open primary done in time for the election was all but impossible. If he wasn't going to be allowed to run again, then he wanted his hand picked VP to take the nomination and no one else. Welp. Thanks a lot Joe. Ya done fucked us. https://x.com/selinawangtv/status/1854968427854635409Nancy Pelosi to the NYT: “had the president [Biden] gotten out sooner, there may have been other candidates in the race.” “The anticipation was that, if the president were to step aside, that there would be an open primary. “ “And as I say, Kamala may have, I think she would have done well in that and been stronger going forward. But we don’t know that. That didn’t happen. We live with what happened. And because the president endorsed Kamala Harris immediately, that really made it almost impossible to have a primary at that time. If it had been much earlier, it would have been different” https://www.nytimes.com/2024/11/08/us/politics/pelosi-harris-biden-open-primary.html Not a terrible take imo. There are other factors to blame too, but if Biden doesn't run for re-election, then there's actually enough time for an open primary. Regardless of whether or not Harris wins that hypothetical primary, we get more hype and galvanize the base more and fewer people are left with the notion that it's unfair for Harris/whoever to be the nominee. If this is the extent of their introspection then it is totally terrible lol, while having a primary probably would have helped some I don't think it actually flips to a Harris win. Democrats need to (but will not) learn that they have to advocate and achieve active improvement in the lives of the working class. Aggressive use of the systems of governance to make shit happen. Theyre the disadvantaged party in the Having To Do Some Shit factor but they also have a higher cap for success. Instead of pursuing that success though they're gonna continue to hope they can appeal to Republicans and maybe scrape out a meagre win here or there that will surely pale in comparison to the bad shit Republicans will be getting done in that same time. That was literally Harris's entire campaign, but okay lol. Lowering taxes, lowering the price of groceries, lowering healthcare and medical costs, increasing the minimum wage, creating more jobs, strengthening unions, making housing more affordable, making childcare more affordable, and so on. Those were Harris's plans, while Trump was obsessed with identity politics and pretending that universal tariffs won't end up leading to taxes passed on to American consumers. Perhaps what you're referring to is the media's decision to keep Trump in the limelight, by focusing on his felonies, fascism, sexism, racism, sexual misconduct, and all his other scandals that should have been ethically disqualifying for a presidential candidate, instead of amplifying Harris's pretty solid economic stances. A side-by-side comparison of Harris's economic vision and Trump's economic vision unequivocally show that Harris's is far superior for the working and middle classes. Unfortunately, all of those plans either weren't communicated well or communicated at all to the American people. (There are likely other non-economic reasons for Harris's loss as well, but this is just addressing the misconception that Harris didn't "advocate and achieve active improvement in the lives of the working class".) What I am referring to is Democrats being unwilling to wield power for the serious material benefit of the working class, it’s actually the sentence immediately after the one you bolded. Democrats always have lots of stances and what winds up materializing is, at best, stemmed bleeding. Being such technocratic dipshits will never motivate people, and the more people feel slowly bled out the less they’re going to trust their word, and Democrats are real low on people being able to trust their word, lol. I liked what Harris was saying, but you expect me to think she had any real intention to make that shit happen? When she wanted Republicans in her cabinet? When she was hanging with Dick Cheney? It screamed duplicitous Democrat bullshit, that same intention to maybe try a little bit but give up hard and quick if any mild roadblocks pop up and not be even a little sad about it. To offer infinite concessions to scumbag Republicans for no good reason. Typical Democrat bullshit. So since Harris wasn't going to make progress fast enough by only moving a little bit forwards, it makes sense to go backwards? Since she was willing to be bipartisan and work with Republicans (who were going to be relevant in Congress, whether we liked it or not), that means she's betraying us, and the only solution is to let Trump continue to undo previously-made progress? Reading that Harris is to blame because Republicans are terrible is getting old. That's not how governing works when you have three branches with control split between two parties ( especially if two branches are already Republican-controlled, and the only chance at treading water or swimming even a bit forwards - instead of drowning - rests in the hands of the president). The irony, of course, is that for Harris to make every single change that progressives want within a single term, Democrats would need to control all three branches of government, but the whining about how that's impossible has contributed to giving that exact thing to Republicans. No Harris? Cool. Time to see Republicans unilaterally destroy everything without any checks or balances. I hope it was worth it. A little bit forwards lol, how are women's rights a little bit forwards?
I don't understand what you mean by this. Don't you think restoring women's right to bodily autonomy would be moving forwards? Wouldn't raising the minimum wage to $15/hour be moving forwards? Wouldn't lowering medical costs and making housing and childcare more affordable? Wouldn't strengthening unions? Wouldn't taking steps towards addressing climate change?
Democrats can't do anything positive, they can only ever make the damage inflicted by Republicans less bad, they have no interest in wielding power, Republicans can make far flung plans to win key elections, enact huge reversals of people's rights, be awful in ways not thought possible in American politics not that long ago, but Democrats? They can't do shit.
Did you not pay attention to Biden's presidency and accomplishments? He got plenty done, even when Congress was partially run by Republicans. If people merely assert that Democrats can't get stuff done, and then those same people don't elect Democrats, then that just creates a self-fulfilling prophecy where Democrats can't get stuff done because they're not in power. Biden got stuff done. Obama got stuff done. Clinton got stuff done. Each of those three literally led enormous economic recoveries after Republican presidents messed things up, not to mention other non-economic accomplishments too.
Sorry if people look at your crappy party full of feckless turds and have a hard time believing they have any intention of achieving anything they might say they want to do.
But hey, if you think Kamala Harris' strategy was really good and it's not the Democrats fault actually then don't you worry, because they'll keep running it back and this will happen over and over, theyll win sometimes, lose more often than they should, and America will continue to bleed out.
I didn't say it wasn't the Democrats' fault. I very specifically pointed out that there were plenty of factors contributing to Harris's loss, with plenty of blame to go around. Harris was far from perfect. Biden and other Democratic leaders share in the blame, as does the media. Trump also clearly provided a message that reached more voters and resonated with more voters, so he (and other Republicans) were also integral to Trump's win and Harris's loss.
Show nested quote +2. Harris bent over backwards not calling Republicans "shitbags", and her message was so open-armed and unifying to the point where she's getting criticism for even entertaining the idea of being bipartisan. She didn't run on calling Republicans "shitbags". Yes, we, people who like good things like women's rights, universal healthcare, etc. don't want the government to be freely and willfully exposed and abused by people who like bad things, like taking away people's rights, for profit healthcare,etc. How is this hard to understand? Do you think Harris should have tried to court all the Nazis too? Ooooh, I bet some Nazis vote, we certainly seem to have them in Congress! We should try to get them to our side! I'm more likely to kick a Nazi in the face repeatedly than share a fucking room with one.
Do you really think that Democrats hypothetically attempting to court the votes of a small, far-right group is analogous to Democrats attempting to court the votes of millions of swing voters and moderates who would generally consider voting for a Democrat if their messaging was better? I'm all for moving the Democratic policies more to the left, but it still has to be packaged and communicated in such a way that it appeals to people other than the left wing.
|
I don't understand what you mean by this. Don't you think restoring women's right to bodily autonomy would be moving forwards? Wouldn't raising the minimum wage to $15/hour be moving forwards? Wouldn't lowering medical costs and making housing and childcare more affordable? Wouldn't strengthening unions? Wouldn't taking steps towards addressing climate change?
No, getting something back that we already had is not what I consider moving forward. Climate change action has been wildly inadequate, we're already past the point where any small steps there mean anything, another net nothing. Housing costs have gone down? Where? Every indication I've seen are that prices continue to be extremely bullshit. Childcare is still wildly unaffordable. Unions are still weak, didn't Biden literally sign a bill blocking a strike?
Pitiful.
Do you really think that Democrats hypothetically attempting to court the votes of a small, far-right group is analogous to Democrats attempting to court the votes of millions of swing voters and moderates who would generally consider voting for a Democrat if their messaging was better? I'm all for moving the Democratic policies more to the left, but it still has to be packaged and communicated in such a way that it appeals to people other than the left wing.
This is nonsense, Democrats win on turnout, your swing voter strategy is trash. Garbage. Awful. The same tired, ineffective crap Democrats have been plying.
Turnout. Turnout. Turnout.
Playing footsies with people widely considered somewhere between awful people and fuckin' war criminals by your base is idiotic strategy, whoever you court from the "moderates" you lose by depressing your base. This election wasn't lost because of swing voters, it was lost because Democrats are the definition of ineffective milquetoast worthlessness.
People like you will "vote blue no matter who," people who need to be motivated and spoken to are the working classes, the people who might otherwise vote but are too depressed by the state of their lives and their options that they simply don't bother waking up early to vote, don't bother spending that energy. The people who ostensibly agree with you politically but are disaffected.
Give people reason to be hopeful, and no, Democrats are in no position to rely on their cheap words, Democrats have to actually make big meaningful change, or at least appear to be using all possible levers of governmental power to do so.
Senate Parliamentarian? Go fuck yourself! Republicans want to get judges through Congress? Not on our watch! Pull a Mitch McConnell. Do whatever it takes, because Republicans, fascistic fucking Republicans, are.
I didn't say it wasn't the Democrats' fault. I very specifically pointed out that there were plenty of factors contributing to Harris's loss, with plenty of blame to go around. Harris was far from perfect. Biden and other Democratic leaders share in the blame, as does the media. Trump also clearly provided a message that reached more voters and resonated with more voters, so he (and other Republicans) were also integral to Trump's win and Harris's loss.
Trump had no real message and it reached noone special, he simply has a motivated base that always turns out. This is the truth of Republicans, they could put literal Adolf Hitler up there and their base would justify themselves in whatever way in voting for literal Adolf Hitler. This election's outcome had little to do what anything Republicans did and everything to do with Democrat turnout.
Did you not pay attention to Biden's presidency and accomplishments? He got plenty done, even when Congress was partially run by Republicans. If people merely assert that Democrats can't get stuff done, and then those same people don't elect Democrats, then that just creates a self-fulfilling prophecy where Democrats can't get stuff done because they're not in power. Biden got stuff done. Obama got stuff done. Clinton got stuff done. Each of those three literally led enormous economic recoveries after Republican presidents messed things up, not to mention other non-economic accomplishments too.
People who work hard miserable jobs are not paying attention to every little thing that Joe Biden is accomplishing. People have to feel change to appreciate change, if the change is so minimal that they can't feel it then it might as well not be happening for a significant chunk of people.
You just have absolutely no idea about how so many working class americans are, you are the out of touch coastal elite type that Republicans have demonized, you and so many people defining Democrat strategy are just clueless, wondering to yourselves why arent the masses reading Joe Biden's policy documents, why arent they doing X or Y to inform themselves.
Because theyre spending all day on their feet, being berated by customers, they go home worrying about paying their bills, trying to figure out if they can afford to just grab something quick to eat instead of having to spend the time and effort cooking, they are tired, they do not have the energy to go home and read policy documents, to keep track of politicians. These things are a luxury for this class of person.
If you want them to get out and vote and care and put their limited mental and physical energy into your electoral politics, then you have to give them enough motivation to do so.
|
@Zambrah
The claim that climate action amounts to nothing is strictly false. We've slowed down climate change very significantly. If we hadn't acted, it would certainly be a lot worse right now. Can you imagine something even worse? I'm afraid to find out.
We're turning the ship around, and Trump's response is that the ship hasn't turned around enough, therefore lets sink it.
|
On November 09 2024 13:56 Magic Powers wrote:
@Zambrah
The claim that climate action amounts to nothing is strictly false. We've slowed down climate change very significantly. If we hadn't acted, it would certainly be a lot worse right now. Can you imagine something even worse? I'm afraid to find out.
We're turning the ship around, and Trump's response is that the ship hasn't turned around enough, therefore lets sink it.
https://www.science.org/content/article/new-un-climate-report-offers-bleak-emissions-forecast
Global emissions are expected to keep climbing despite promises from almost 200 nations to address climate change, propelling temperatures upward and threatening to shatter the threshold of 2°C that scientists say would invite dramatic changes to ecology and the economy.
The 10th Emissions Gap Report by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), released today, warned that there's "no sign" greenhouse gases will hit their zenith anytime soon. It arrived a day after the World Meteorological Organization revealed record-high concentrations of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases in the atmosphere.
I dunno, I see things like this, passages like,
"The summary findings are bleak," the UNEP report said. "Countries collectively failed to stop the growth in global [greenhouse gas] emissions, meaning that deeper and faster cuts are now required."
and ask myself, "are Democrats any good at doing making deep, fast change?" And then some sort of comedy sfx happens out in the universe and faint laughter rings out.
https://academic.oup.com/bioscience/advance-article/doi/10.1093/biosci/biae087/7808595
We are on the brink of an irreversible climate disaster. This is a global emergency beyond any doubt. Much of the very fabric of life on Earth is imperiled. We are stepping into a critical and unpredictable new phase of the climate crisis.
Yeah, we're doing great.
Side note, its the longest stretch without rain my area has ever recorded! Also, its fucking 80 degrees in November. I look forward to seeing the end of having four regular seasons in the DMV. Record high temps, record low rain, I look forward to breaking these records in the near future!
|
Netherlands6196 Posts
On November 09 2024 06:29 Sadist wrote:
In the netherlands is your health insurance typically through your employer? Thats one of the major fucked up things in the US. Large company = more employees/customers = better rate. Small company or an individual buying insurance = worse rates or plans.
The base insurance plan is the same for everyone. There are companies that have deals with insurers for better rates. In practice it's almost never worth it since the deals are usually with the most expensive insurers. The cheapest plans are available to everyone if you're willing to shop around once a year.
|
|
|
|
|
|
EPT![[image loading]](https://www.tylervigen.com/spurious/correlation/image/2733_the-distance-between-jupiter-and-the-sun_correlates-with_the-number-of-secretaries-in-alaska.png)
