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On November 09 2020 07:30 WombaT wrote:Show nested quote +On November 09 2020 07:20 FlaShFTW wrote:On November 09 2020 07:18 WombaT wrote:On November 09 2020 07:14 FlaShFTW wrote:On November 09 2020 06:28 LegalLord wrote:On November 09 2020 05:46 Zambrah wrote:I still think fringe conservatives are not a great group to choose to work on, at least not if they're the types Biden was trying to pick. I think we need to work with and educate the huge group of working class people around the country that progressive policies are targetted towards helping. It seems counterintuitive given they're deeper Trump-types than fringe conservatives, but I think what they saw in Trump makes them more amenable to being addressed. Nice easy to understand policy that clearly benefits them, making it super, SUPER, icantstressthisenough HYPER clear that they are listened to, that they are cared about, that their plight is not ignored. I'm biased though because the lower class is my class.  The group Biden would have been trying to court would be the "generally lean rightward, but disenfranchised with the Republican party in general and especially with Trump as president." There's a lot of establishment politicians of that type, and some number of generally well-to-do voters. Those kinds of people always vote, and they did indeed come out for Biden. A group that progressives might be more capable of courting is the working class, Obama-Trump voters that cost Clinton key states like Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin. Their main concern is economic policy that could help them out of their current predicament, less so than any trash like precedent or "international norms." A mix of Obama nostalgia and a botched Trump handling of the coronavirus let Biden edge out those states this time around, albeit barely. I wonder if Sanders would have done better, at the cost of "risking" a Florida loss. People like Ilhan Omar and Tlaib need to get that message out of progressive values in the non-D safe districts. I'm not familiar with ACA or universal healthcare, but I think a big worry from those swing voters and even lean-R people is that universal healthcare is the same as the big scary words of socialism and communism. But they need to tell them, and feel free to correct me if I'm wrong about this, is that under Bernies or other soc dems plan of healthcare, their taxes might go up a tiny bit, but they make all of that back and more by being able to see the doctor for practically no price. And it goes further because those people in those swing states need the healthcare and trips to the doctor more, because they're the ones that don't practice preventative health/medicine. If they can really get that message across where these people don't rely on getting a job for healthcare, or can actually go see doctors for pennies, then I think they'll have a stronger chance of making large grounds in those voters and get progressive policies squarely in the mainstream. People have been saying this for at least 15 years, it just doesn’t land. As to why it doesn’t land I’m genuinely unsure. Yeah I guess I've seen it tried before. Like I said in the USPMT before it got re-closed, the overwhelming majority of people's views in this country move like a glacier. It's hard to get people to budge. Status quo is comforting and warming, it's a nice warm blanket while a snowstorm is outside and you don't want to leave. Because the snowstorm is uncertainty while, as long as you're still surviving, the blanket is perfectly fine in your little corner of the room. 9100. Didn’t you only hit 9k like 5 minutes ago? I reckon the best shot is to ram it down people’s throats and just go and do it. Not exactly subtle but I think it may actually take a better functioning system actually existing and people interacting with it before they come round to it. In the age prior to internet ubiquity, such a system being a crazy pipe dream can kinda work as a counter argument, especially without counter-examples. But people seem to not respond well to ‘hey here is this thing that we do that works’ either. Then it shifts to the American exceptionalism of the US is too unique for it to work there.
It is so strange from a European perspective. They claim that a thing which is very clearly and obviously working over here is just utterly impossible. There are also lots of stats to back up that european style healthcare is cheaper for people, is cheaper with regards to public money, and leads to better results.
And yet people still claim that it is expensive and impossible, or would lead to bad results. Or just don't care and instinctively assume it is impossible because it sounds too good to be true.
There must be some weird psychological effects in play here.
A US style healthcare system sounds utterly horrific to us over here, and we just cannot understand why anyone would want to keep that. I have heard zero good arguments in favor of it. I want to repeat this again. The US already spends more public money on healthcare than the countries which have a universal healthcare system.
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We need to stop letting Republicans frame our policy argument and then arguing within that frame, thats where it comes from imo.
When you accept Republican framing it tells the electorate that what they're saying isnt the utter shite that it so often is.
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On November 09 2020 07:30 Zambrah wrote:
But status quo had a unanimous Fuck You thrown at it when Trump was elected, the lesson from this election isnt that we want the status quo back its that Trump was a god awful wretch.
Thats always been the fear with Biden, that people take a Biden win as somehow indicative of someone like Biden being what people want instead of just being what he is, the Only Alternative to Trump.
I think this is wrong. Not only Trump defeated a status quo candidate who got milions of votes in 2016, that candidate has won the popular vote. That candidate also won the democratic primaries against the more radical candidate. Trump also had a significant support of status-quo-supporting-republicans who accepted the results of their primaries and chose not to vote for Clinton.
Some could even argue that Trump would lose the republican primaries if normal republican candidates employed the stategy used by moderate democrats in 2020 after Super Tuesday. I don't believe in that because all of Trump's oponents were either "low energy" or very unlikeable and would likely lose in a 1on1 against Trump, but I still think it's wrong to say that the status quo got an unanimous Fuck You thrown at it when Trump was elected.
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Im not sure the argument "if the RNC chose to dogpile on Trump with all of their power to force him out he might not have won" is a compelling argument for why the American public thinks centrism is good.
Trump may not have won by a colossal margin, but there is literally no way to interpret Trump as anything other than a "fuck you" to our political establish. It wasnt unanimous via votes it was a unanimously stated intent of the part of the electorate that voted Trump.
And Hillary won the popular vote but she still lost to one of the most egregious jackasses in American political history. If centrism was actually popular Trump should've been the easy win that Hillary assumed he'd be, but she completely missed it.
Trump won, and then even when he lost, he made it pretty damn close, and the confluence of events in 2020 lend a REALLY compelling case that without Covid he may have won, which is horrifying.
This election wasn't a real repudiation of anything other than Trump, it certainly isnt indicative of popularity among establishment moderates, if it was the Democrats would have the Senate and wouldn't have lost House seats.
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On November 09 2020 04:52 Zambrah wrote:Show nested quote +On November 09 2020 03:11 Blitzkrieg0 wrote:On November 09 2020 02:09 Liquid`Drone wrote:On November 09 2020 01:23 Blitzkrieg0 wrote:
What you're saying is that if enough progressives existed, Biden would suddenly shift political winds to that position except you can't admit that. I mean, I'm not Zambrah, but sure, I do believe that. The thing is though, there's a conflict between different 'types' of politicians. Should they be reactive (weathervane-type), or reformers? Myself, I believe that virtually all the 'great' politicians are reformers. They don't simply react to public opinion, they also shape it. It's not a virtue by default - while I think all great politicians are reformers, I believe it also holds true for the most abhorrent ones. Trump has not only responded to the ugly side of his electorate, he has also shaped public opinion (but from my perspective largely in a negative manner, some of it very dangerous/damaging. The entire handling of COVID is one such example, where I am confident that if Trump had backed expert opinion rather than contradicted it, it would have been more closely adhered to by the public). The weathervane politician is the 'career' politician, ones that never opine anything that does not poll well. They are the kind that opposes gay marriage publicly even if they are privately positive towards it / don't give a damn on a personal level. More likely to be technocrats, sure, and often they will provide us with some incremental improvement backed by experts. But this group is unlikely to provide society with truly meaningful change. Which type you prefer, will largely be determined by how content you are with the current direction of society. Sanders is a reformer. Yang seems like one, too - even if I agree more with Sanders than with Yang, I will give Yang credit for being the type of politician who tries to come up with solutions to problems society faces and then tries to convince people that this is the right solution, rather than checking the polls to see what his opinion should be. Clinton was absolutely an example of a weathervane politician. Biden is largely one, too, although I don't see him as being equally cynical about it. Obama, I actually think wanted to be a reformer, but he was largely neutered. (I do believe Biden is a genuinely caring human being. And I think the US needs some degree of bland , inoffensive leadership for the problem of 'increased societal division' to possibly be addressed. However, I also believe you need radical change to deal with many of the political issues you struggle with. Biden is probably as good of a unifying candidate as the US could find right now - so he checks that box, but I don't see him provide the actual change required, because I think you need changes that don't necessarily have majority support at the moment. ) The problem is that your reformers never have power. You point out that Obama wanted to be a reformer. His first reform of healthcare cost him the house and his entire presidential agenda. Your previous post pointed out that Bernie isn't a "mainstream politician" despite being in the US congress for thirty years and he was a politician in Vermont before that. I don't put any value in people having ideas. You have to get them implemented for them to have any meaning. What has Sanders reformed besides getting more pork for Vermont? The most interesting thing about the election to me was Florida voting for a $15 minimum wage and Republican. That would be a reform I could point out that Sanders champions. The logical thing to happen is that your reformer's ideas become main stream enough to get them elected. Not this, they don't have majority support but we're going to force them through anyway that you're posting. Popular policies are regularly shot down as "pie in the sky" despite a majority of Americans wanting them, at the end of the day, when it came to the ACA its an issue of Obama playing Republican games and winning Republican prizes. He let it burn him out politically for a long time, he had the power to have run through something damn near European, but Democrats dont sieze on power like Republicans do. Thats the issue, Democrats rarely get power but when they do they strive to be as ineffectual as they can, so any change they do manages to irritate advocates of change for being Republicanized and irritate conservatives because change. They need to study the Republican playbook, not to learn how to play nice, but how to copy how they wield power (or obstruct the use of power, really.) Its a really, really sad state, its crap that we have a government that exists for one side to brute force the other via the system, but its what we have and pretending we can all play nice with each other just enables the bad actors to act badly and get their way. We also need to stop being god damned dictated at by weather vanes. MAKE THE POLICY POPULAR! I believe our ideas are good, progressives have to sell their ideas to the American people! Weathervane politicians have normalized forcing the public to decide whats good for them so that they can bandwagon alongside the public, but we need to work on actually SELLING our policy ideas to them, convincing the average American why what we want to do is good for them. Thats obviously hard, Americans are ignorant, sometimes willfully ignorant, but at the end of the day if we're going to be organizing anyways, getting out there, talking to people, talking about why our policy is good for people will be key to making our policy more popular, assuming they arent literally already popular enough. TL is special, people like Biff and Jimmi already generally seem to agree with progressive policy, and people who dont like Danglars and Wegandi aren't ever going to agree with it even if it they were on their deathbed and the progressive policy would literally save their life. We should work to appeal not to the Wegandis and Danglars, but first to the stereotypical Trump demographics, frame it similar to how Kwark does but... like... not so... horribly. Americans do love a fight, I sincerely believe framing it as a fight is the right way there. Fighting the billionaires, and the like. But poor, uneducated working class people should be a priority demographic as they're the people who are most likely to be impacted positively by progressive change. People in the middle and upper classes are already comfortable, they're cagey, the Republican ones are almost unwinnable imo, they're too fearful of change. The ones like Jimmi and Biff are doable, the barrier I see with that would be one of convincing that we are viable winners, the tough part of that is the DNC is very, very, VERY interested in keeping progressives as "the problem" faction of the party, they fight us all the time, the blame-the-progressive shit has begun and its going to be a hard media battle to fight. Rambling incoherency... ending? I hope its ending. Look, my Bidenesque ranting concludes with; We have to make our policy popular/make people understand its popular. In particular for the traditional stereotypical Trump demographics. We have to keep primarying Democrats until they respect that progressives can be winners. We need to put aside our idealized idea of how gov't should function in the US because its not how power is wielded here. EDIT: Also a Trump related note, We're in a stage of American politics where our business as usual shitshow is creating and incentivizing Donald Trumps. The Proof of Concept has won an election, he drove absurd turnout for his side in this election even if he lost. This is NOT the time to be weak and timid because the next Donald Trump is not going to be hampered by a pandemic, they might not be a daft moron with infinite scandal. This is a thing I keep seeing and it frightens me. BIDENS ELECTION DIDNT DEFEAT FASCISM IN THE US. We're still teetering on that precipice, ready to start falling down. Could happen as soon as next election, I get people want to be relieved about Biden but FUCK, GUYS, WE ELECTED DONALD TRUMP AND WE ALMOST ELECTED HIM TWICE. Be scared. Understand that Democrats and Republicans as we know them have brought the conditions to bring him to power, and their preferred nonsense will bring more and more forward, we need to nip this in the bud, this isn't the time to go soft, fascism in the US is still alive, stamp it out, don't get complacent, please sweet jesus.
What did I just read, rofl.
Bro, don't talk about the "Biff and the Jimmy", you just clearly have no clue what I stand for. Also I don't even fucking vote in the US and never will.
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Northern Ireland26785 Posts
On November 09 2020 07:45 Simberto wrote:Show nested quote +On November 09 2020 07:30 WombaT wrote:On November 09 2020 07:20 FlaShFTW wrote:On November 09 2020 07:18 WombaT wrote:On November 09 2020 07:14 FlaShFTW wrote:On November 09 2020 06:28 LegalLord wrote:On November 09 2020 05:46 Zambrah wrote:I still think fringe conservatives are not a great group to choose to work on, at least not if they're the types Biden was trying to pick. I think we need to work with and educate the huge group of working class people around the country that progressive policies are targetted towards helping. It seems counterintuitive given they're deeper Trump-types than fringe conservatives, but I think what they saw in Trump makes them more amenable to being addressed. Nice easy to understand policy that clearly benefits them, making it super, SUPER, icantstressthisenough HYPER clear that they are listened to, that they are cared about, that their plight is not ignored. I'm biased though because the lower class is my class. The group Biden would have been trying to court would be the "generally lean rightward, but disenfranchised with the Republican party in general and especially with Trump as president." There's a lot of establishment politicians of that type, and some number of generally well-to-do voters. Those kinds of people always vote, and they did indeed come out for Biden. A group that progressives might be more capable of courting is the working class, Obama-Trump voters that cost Clinton key states like Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin. Their main concern is economic policy that could help them out of their current predicament, less so than any trash like precedent or "international norms." A mix of Obama nostalgia and a botched Trump handling of the coronavirus let Biden edge out those states this time around, albeit barely. I wonder if Sanders would have done better, at the cost of "risking" a Florida loss. People like Ilhan Omar and Tlaib need to get that message out of progressive values in the non-D safe districts. I'm not familiar with ACA or universal healthcare, but I think a big worry from those swing voters and even lean-R people is that universal healthcare is the same as the big scary words of socialism and communism. But they need to tell them, and feel free to correct me if I'm wrong about this, is that under Bernies or other soc dems plan of healthcare, their taxes might go up a tiny bit, but they make all of that back and more by being able to see the doctor for practically no price. And it goes further because those people in those swing states need the healthcare and trips to the doctor more, because they're the ones that don't practice preventative health/medicine. If they can really get that message across where these people don't rely on getting a job for healthcare, or can actually go see doctors for pennies, then I think they'll have a stronger chance of making large grounds in those voters and get progressive policies squarely in the mainstream. People have been saying this for at least 15 years, it just doesn’t land. As to why it doesn’t land I’m genuinely unsure. Yeah I guess I've seen it tried before. Like I said in the USPMT before it got re-closed, the overwhelming majority of people's views in this country move like a glacier. It's hard to get people to budge. Status quo is comforting and warming, it's a nice warm blanket while a snowstorm is outside and you don't want to leave. Because the snowstorm is uncertainty while, as long as you're still surviving, the blanket is perfectly fine in your little corner of the room. 9100. Didn’t you only hit 9k like 5 minutes ago? I reckon the best shot is to ram it down people’s throats and just go and do it. Not exactly subtle but I think it may actually take a better functioning system actually existing and people interacting with it before they come round to it. In the age prior to internet ubiquity, such a system being a crazy pipe dream can kinda work as a counter argument, especially without counter-examples. But people seem to not respond well to ‘hey here is this thing that we do that works’ either. Then it shifts to the American exceptionalism of the US is too unique for it to work there. It is so strange from a European perspective. They claim that a thing which is very clearly and obviously working over here is just utterly impossible. There are also lots of stats to back up that european style healthcare is cheaper for people, is cheaper with regards to public money, and leads to better results. And yet people still claim that it is expensive and impossible, or would lead to bad results. Or just don't care and instinctively assume it is impossible because it sounds too good to be true. There must be some weird psychological effects in play here. A US style healthcare system sounds utterly horrific to us over here, and we just cannot understand why anyone would want to keep that. I have heard zero good arguments in favor of it. I want to repeat this again. The US already spends more public money on healthcare than the countries which have a universal healthcare system.
As I said it is utterly baffling, I’ve had too many brain-bursting convos on this topic with Yanks over the years to count.
Aside from other considerations, I think there’s a clear link to other outcomes that are almost uniquely American as a consequence of how healthcare is structured.
So not only is it worse in the regular categories, you have an opioid crisis, you have a clear over-prescription of psychoactive drugs, etc etc.
I’m pretty open about my year living my own personal version of One Flew Open the Cuckoos Nest by virtue of Bipolar induced psychosis, a crazy thing to me after that is finding out I’m on fewer meds, and lower doseages than American acquaintances for things like general anxiety issues.
Which is insane, but I got other (rather useful) help in terms of self-managing my environment and being aware of triggers and my particular condition from other medical sources beyond drugs. Saw a psychologist I was rather fond of, programs to rebuild me confidence, that kind of thing.
Such things cost more than x pill though, so it doesn’t surprise me the latter is the default port of call for many people who would benefit from more considered approaches.
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On November 09 2020 07:39 Zambrah wrote:
Would there be a way to find the numbers for these sorts of demographics in the 90s? Im curious where these Democrat leadership types who would have been in their political youth in the 90s get their insistence on their god awful mediocre strategies.
It's because of the losses of Walter Mondale and Michael Dukakis. They embarrassed democrats so badly that they said they were never running another liberal candidate again, basically (this happened during the formative years of current DNC leaders).
Carter's loss to Reagan also, as he was our last non-conservative/non-centrist president.
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On November 09 2020 07:57 Biff The Understudy wrote:Show nested quote +On November 09 2020 04:52 Zambrah wrote:On November 09 2020 03:11 Blitzkrieg0 wrote:On November 09 2020 02:09 Liquid`Drone wrote:On November 09 2020 01:23 Blitzkrieg0 wrote:
What you're saying is that if enough progressives existed, Biden would suddenly shift political winds to that position except you can't admit that. I mean, I'm not Zambrah, but sure, I do believe that. The thing is though, there's a conflict between different 'types' of politicians. Should they be reactive (weathervane-type), or reformers? Myself, I believe that virtually all the 'great' politicians are reformers. They don't simply react to public opinion, they also shape it. It's not a virtue by default - while I think all great politicians are reformers, I believe it also holds true for the most abhorrent ones. Trump has not only responded to the ugly side of his electorate, he has also shaped public opinion (but from my perspective largely in a negative manner, some of it very dangerous/damaging. The entire handling of COVID is one such example, where I am confident that if Trump had backed expert opinion rather than contradicted it, it would have been more closely adhered to by the public). The weathervane politician is the 'career' politician, ones that never opine anything that does not poll well. They are the kind that opposes gay marriage publicly even if they are privately positive towards it / don't give a damn on a personal level. More likely to be technocrats, sure, and often they will provide us with some incremental improvement backed by experts. But this group is unlikely to provide society with truly meaningful change. Which type you prefer, will largely be determined by how content you are with the current direction of society. Sanders is a reformer. Yang seems like one, too - even if I agree more with Sanders than with Yang, I will give Yang credit for being the type of politician who tries to come up with solutions to problems society faces and then tries to convince people that this is the right solution, rather than checking the polls to see what his opinion should be. Clinton was absolutely an example of a weathervane politician. Biden is largely one, too, although I don't see him as being equally cynical about it. Obama, I actually think wanted to be a reformer, but he was largely neutered. (I do believe Biden is a genuinely caring human being. And I think the US needs some degree of bland , inoffensive leadership for the problem of 'increased societal division' to possibly be addressed. However, I also believe you need radical change to deal with many of the political issues you struggle with. Biden is probably as good of a unifying candidate as the US could find right now - so he checks that box, but I don't see him provide the actual change required, because I think you need changes that don't necessarily have majority support at the moment. ) The problem is that your reformers never have power. You point out that Obama wanted to be a reformer. His first reform of healthcare cost him the house and his entire presidential agenda. Your previous post pointed out that Bernie isn't a "mainstream politician" despite being in the US congress for thirty years and he was a politician in Vermont before that. I don't put any value in people having ideas. You have to get them implemented for them to have any meaning. What has Sanders reformed besides getting more pork for Vermont? The most interesting thing about the election to me was Florida voting for a $15 minimum wage and Republican. That would be a reform I could point out that Sanders champions. The logical thing to happen is that your reformer's ideas become main stream enough to get them elected. Not this, they don't have majority support but we're going to force them through anyway that you're posting. Popular policies are regularly shot down as "pie in the sky" despite a majority of Americans wanting them, at the end of the day, when it came to the ACA its an issue of Obama playing Republican games and winning Republican prizes. He let it burn him out politically for a long time, he had the power to have run through something damn near European, but Democrats dont sieze on power like Republicans do. Thats the issue, Democrats rarely get power but when they do they strive to be as ineffectual as they can, so any change they do manages to irritate advocates of change for being Republicanized and irritate conservatives because change. They need to study the Republican playbook, not to learn how to play nice, but how to copy how they wield power (or obstruct the use of power, really.) Its a really, really sad state, its crap that we have a government that exists for one side to brute force the other via the system, but its what we have and pretending we can all play nice with each other just enables the bad actors to act badly and get their way. We also need to stop being god damned dictated at by weather vanes. MAKE THE POLICY POPULAR! I believe our ideas are good, progressives have to sell their ideas to the American people! Weathervane politicians have normalized forcing the public to decide whats good for them so that they can bandwagon alongside the public, but we need to work on actually SELLING our policy ideas to them, convincing the average American why what we want to do is good for them. Thats obviously hard, Americans are ignorant, sometimes willfully ignorant, but at the end of the day if we're going to be organizing anyways, getting out there, talking to people, talking about why our policy is good for people will be key to making our policy more popular, assuming they arent literally already popular enough. TL is special, people like Biff and Jimmi already generally seem to agree with progressive policy, and people who dont like Danglars and Wegandi aren't ever going to agree with it even if it they were on their deathbed and the progressive policy would literally save their life. We should work to appeal not to the Wegandis and Danglars, but first to the stereotypical Trump demographics, frame it similar to how Kwark does but... like... not so... horribly. Americans do love a fight, I sincerely believe framing it as a fight is the right way there. Fighting the billionaires, and the like. But poor, uneducated working class people should be a priority demographic as they're the people who are most likely to be impacted positively by progressive change. People in the middle and upper classes are already comfortable, they're cagey, the Republican ones are almost unwinnable imo, they're too fearful of change. The ones like Jimmi and Biff are doable, the barrier I see with that would be one of convincing that we are viable winners, the tough part of that is the DNC is very, very, VERY interested in keeping progressives as "the problem" faction of the party, they fight us all the time, the blame-the-progressive shit has begun and its going to be a hard media battle to fight. Rambling incoherency... ending? I hope its ending. Look, my Bidenesque ranting concludes with; We have to make our policy popular/make people understand its popular. In particular for the traditional stereotypical Trump demographics. We have to keep primarying Democrats until they respect that progressives can be winners. We need to put aside our idealized idea of how gov't should function in the US because its not how power is wielded here. EDIT: Also a Trump related note, We're in a stage of American politics where our business as usual shitshow is creating and incentivizing Donald Trumps. The Proof of Concept has won an election, he drove absurd turnout for his side in this election even if he lost. This is NOT the time to be weak and timid because the next Donald Trump is not going to be hampered by a pandemic, they might not be a daft moron with infinite scandal. This is a thing I keep seeing and it frightens me. BIDENS ELECTION DIDNT DEFEAT FASCISM IN THE US. We're still teetering on that precipice, ready to start falling down. Could happen as soon as next election, I get people want to be relieved about Biden but FUCK, GUYS, WE ELECTED DONALD TRUMP AND WE ALMOST ELECTED HIM TWICE. Be scared. Understand that Democrats and Republicans as we know them have brought the conditions to bring him to power, and their preferred nonsense will bring more and more forward, we need to nip this in the bud, this isn't the time to go soft, fascism in the US is still alive, stamp it out, don't get complacent, please sweet jesus. What did I just read, rofl. Bro, don't talk about the "Biff and the Jimmy", you just clearly have no clue what I stand for.
To clarify, you DONT believe in things like European style healthcare in the US, proactive climate change action, and other US progressive ideology?
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United States10399 Posts
On November 09 2020 07:30 WombaT wrote:Show nested quote +On November 09 2020 07:20 FlaShFTW wrote:On November 09 2020 07:18 WombaT wrote:On November 09 2020 07:14 FlaShFTW wrote:On November 09 2020 06:28 LegalLord wrote:On November 09 2020 05:46 Zambrah wrote:I still think fringe conservatives are not a great group to choose to work on, at least not if they're the types Biden was trying to pick. I think we need to work with and educate the huge group of working class people around the country that progressive policies are targetted towards helping. It seems counterintuitive given they're deeper Trump-types than fringe conservatives, but I think what they saw in Trump makes them more amenable to being addressed. Nice easy to understand policy that clearly benefits them, making it super, SUPER, icantstressthisenough HYPER clear that they are listened to, that they are cared about, that their plight is not ignored. I'm biased though because the lower class is my class. The group Biden would have been trying to court would be the "generally lean rightward, but disenfranchised with the Republican party in general and especially with Trump as president." There's a lot of establishment politicians of that type, and some number of generally well-to-do voters. Those kinds of people always vote, and they did indeed come out for Biden. A group that progressives might be more capable of courting is the working class, Obama-Trump voters that cost Clinton key states like Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin. Their main concern is economic policy that could help them out of their current predicament, less so than any trash like precedent or "international norms." A mix of Obama nostalgia and a botched Trump handling of the coronavirus let Biden edge out those states this time around, albeit barely. I wonder if Sanders would have done better, at the cost of "risking" a Florida loss. People like Ilhan Omar and Tlaib need to get that message out of progressive values in the non-D safe districts. I'm not familiar with ACA or universal healthcare, but I think a big worry from those swing voters and even lean-R people is that universal healthcare is the same as the big scary words of socialism and communism. But they need to tell them, and feel free to correct me if I'm wrong about this, is that under Bernies or other soc dems plan of healthcare, their taxes might go up a tiny bit, but they make all of that back and more by being able to see the doctor for practically no price. And it goes further because those people in those swing states need the healthcare and trips to the doctor more, because they're the ones that don't practice preventative health/medicine. If they can really get that message across where these people don't rely on getting a job for healthcare, or can actually go see doctors for pennies, then I think they'll have a stronger chance of making large grounds in those voters and get progressive policies squarely in the mainstream. People have been saying this for at least 15 years, it just doesn’t land. As to why it doesn’t land I’m genuinely unsure. Yeah I guess I've seen it tried before. Like I said in the USPMT before it got re-closed, the overwhelming majority of people's views in this country move like a glacier. It's hard to get people to budge. Status quo is comforting and warming, it's a nice warm blanket while a snowstorm is outside and you don't want to leave. Because the snowstorm is uncertainty while, as long as you're still surviving, the blanket is perfectly fine in your little corner of the room. 9100. Didn’t you only hit 9k like 5 minutes ago? I reckon the best shot is to ram it down people’s throats and just go and do it. Not exactly subtle but I think it may actually take a better functioning system actually existing and people interacting with it before they come round to it. In the age prior to internet ubiquity, such a system being a crazy pipe dream can kinda work as a counter argument, especially without counter-examples. But people seem to not respond well to ‘hey here is this thing that we do that works’ either. Then it shifts to the American exceptionalism of the US is too unique for it to work there.
LOL that LR thread reporting really pushed my post count up haha. 584 posts just in the last week, went from 8500 to 9100 from politics LMAO.
I think the ramming down their throats could work until they have no choice but to at least consider it. I definitely think the stories from other countries would be a really good way of demonstrating what it means. After seeing anecdotal incidents in countries like Japan and Korea from people on twitter saying they didn't have insurance and they healthcare places were like, oh this might be expensive... 30 dollars. LOL that was definitely an eye opener to me. Moreover, there's so much we can do with our raw budget. Military slashing frees up over 300 billion dollars (Currently at 700 billion), and I'm sure with better oversight and less bureaucracy the total slashing we can do elsewhere will pick up another several billion.
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Wait ... There was an election in the US? Did Obama lose?
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On November 09 2020 08:00 Zambrah wrote:Show nested quote +On November 09 2020 07:57 Biff The Understudy wrote:On November 09 2020 04:52 Zambrah wrote:On November 09 2020 03:11 Blitzkrieg0 wrote:On November 09 2020 02:09 Liquid`Drone wrote:On November 09 2020 01:23 Blitzkrieg0 wrote:
What you're saying is that if enough progressives existed, Biden would suddenly shift political winds to that position except you can't admit that. I mean, I'm not Zambrah, but sure, I do believe that. The thing is though, there's a conflict between different 'types' of politicians. Should they be reactive (weathervane-type), or reformers? Myself, I believe that virtually all the 'great' politicians are reformers. They don't simply react to public opinion, they also shape it. It's not a virtue by default - while I think all great politicians are reformers, I believe it also holds true for the most abhorrent ones. Trump has not only responded to the ugly side of his electorate, he has also shaped public opinion (but from my perspective largely in a negative manner, some of it very dangerous/damaging. The entire handling of COVID is one such example, where I am confident that if Trump had backed expert opinion rather than contradicted it, it would have been more closely adhered to by the public). The weathervane politician is the 'career' politician, ones that never opine anything that does not poll well. They are the kind that opposes gay marriage publicly even if they are privately positive towards it / don't give a damn on a personal level. More likely to be technocrats, sure, and often they will provide us with some incremental improvement backed by experts. But this group is unlikely to provide society with truly meaningful change. Which type you prefer, will largely be determined by how content you are with the current direction of society. Sanders is a reformer. Yang seems like one, too - even if I agree more with Sanders than with Yang, I will give Yang credit for being the type of politician who tries to come up with solutions to problems society faces and then tries to convince people that this is the right solution, rather than checking the polls to see what his opinion should be. Clinton was absolutely an example of a weathervane politician. Biden is largely one, too, although I don't see him as being equally cynical about it. Obama, I actually think wanted to be a reformer, but he was largely neutered. (I do believe Biden is a genuinely caring human being. And I think the US needs some degree of bland , inoffensive leadership for the problem of 'increased societal division' to possibly be addressed. However, I also believe you need radical change to deal with many of the political issues you struggle with. Biden is probably as good of a unifying candidate as the US could find right now - so he checks that box, but I don't see him provide the actual change required, because I think you need changes that don't necessarily have majority support at the moment. ) The problem is that your reformers never have power. You point out that Obama wanted to be a reformer. His first reform of healthcare cost him the house and his entire presidential agenda. Your previous post pointed out that Bernie isn't a "mainstream politician" despite being in the US congress for thirty years and he was a politician in Vermont before that. I don't put any value in people having ideas. You have to get them implemented for them to have any meaning. What has Sanders reformed besides getting more pork for Vermont? The most interesting thing about the election to me was Florida voting for a $15 minimum wage and Republican. That would be a reform I could point out that Sanders champions. The logical thing to happen is that your reformer's ideas become main stream enough to get them elected. Not this, they don't have majority support but we're going to force them through anyway that you're posting. Popular policies are regularly shot down as "pie in the sky" despite a majority of Americans wanting them, at the end of the day, when it came to the ACA its an issue of Obama playing Republican games and winning Republican prizes. He let it burn him out politically for a long time, he had the power to have run through something damn near European, but Democrats dont sieze on power like Republicans do. Thats the issue, Democrats rarely get power but when they do they strive to be as ineffectual as they can, so any change they do manages to irritate advocates of change for being Republicanized and irritate conservatives because change. They need to study the Republican playbook, not to learn how to play nice, but how to copy how they wield power (or obstruct the use of power, really.) Its a really, really sad state, its crap that we have a government that exists for one side to brute force the other via the system, but its what we have and pretending we can all play nice with each other just enables the bad actors to act badly and get their way. We also need to stop being god damned dictated at by weather vanes. MAKE THE POLICY POPULAR! I believe our ideas are good, progressives have to sell their ideas to the American people! Weathervane politicians have normalized forcing the public to decide whats good for them so that they can bandwagon alongside the public, but we need to work on actually SELLING our policy ideas to them, convincing the average American why what we want to do is good for them. Thats obviously hard, Americans are ignorant, sometimes willfully ignorant, but at the end of the day if we're going to be organizing anyways, getting out there, talking to people, talking about why our policy is good for people will be key to making our policy more popular, assuming they arent literally already popular enough. TL is special, people like Biff and Jimmi already generally seem to agree with progressive policy, and people who dont like Danglars and Wegandi aren't ever going to agree with it even if it they were on their deathbed and the progressive policy would literally save their life. We should work to appeal not to the Wegandis and Danglars, but first to the stereotypical Trump demographics, frame it similar to how Kwark does but... like... not so... horribly. Americans do love a fight, I sincerely believe framing it as a fight is the right way there. Fighting the billionaires, and the like. But poor, uneducated working class people should be a priority demographic as they're the people who are most likely to be impacted positively by progressive change. People in the middle and upper classes are already comfortable, they're cagey, the Republican ones are almost unwinnable imo, they're too fearful of change. The ones like Jimmi and Biff are doable, the barrier I see with that would be one of convincing that we are viable winners, the tough part of that is the DNC is very, very, VERY interested in keeping progressives as "the problem" faction of the party, they fight us all the time, the blame-the-progressive shit has begun and its going to be a hard media battle to fight. Rambling incoherency... ending? I hope its ending. Look, my Bidenesque ranting concludes with; We have to make our policy popular/make people understand its popular. In particular for the traditional stereotypical Trump demographics. We have to keep primarying Democrats until they respect that progressives can be winners. We need to put aside our idealized idea of how gov't should function in the US because its not how power is wielded here. EDIT: Also a Trump related note, We're in a stage of American politics where our business as usual shitshow is creating and incentivizing Donald Trumps. The Proof of Concept has won an election, he drove absurd turnout for his side in this election even if he lost. This is NOT the time to be weak and timid because the next Donald Trump is not going to be hampered by a pandemic, they might not be a daft moron with infinite scandal. This is a thing I keep seeing and it frightens me. BIDENS ELECTION DIDNT DEFEAT FASCISM IN THE US. We're still teetering on that precipice, ready to start falling down. Could happen as soon as next election, I get people want to be relieved about Biden but FUCK, GUYS, WE ELECTED DONALD TRUMP AND WE ALMOST ELECTED HIM TWICE. Be scared. Understand that Democrats and Republicans as we know them have brought the conditions to bring him to power, and their preferred nonsense will bring more and more forward, we need to nip this in the bud, this isn't the time to go soft, fascism in the US is still alive, stamp it out, don't get complacent, please sweet jesus. What did I just read, rofl. Bro, don't talk about the "Biff and the Jimmy", you just clearly have no clue what I stand for. To clarify, you DONT believe in things like European style healthcare in the US, proactive climate change action, and other US progressive ideology?
I think you really haven't followed, which is fine but why do you mention me then?
Of course I do support all of those, I vote for a party that is certainly left of Sanders; and I would vote in a heartbeat for progressive candidates if I lived in the US. I am just very unimpressed by the "duuuh the democrats suck, they are totally the enemy" that seems to be the cornerstone of some people's thought here.
I find the attitude of many progressives here infantile and quite the opposite of constructive.
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Thought:
There seems to be pretty universal support in this thread for forgiving (or ending mandatory repayments, or some version thereof) student debt. This is portrayed as a leftist or progressive proposal, however the US is one of the countries in the world with the highest wage premiums for college attendance, this feel quite jarring to me.
Focusing state resources so that the professional middle class can buy single family homes a few years earlier is certainly a vote winner but it doesn't do anything about the underlying class structure. If anything I think part of the reason the old social democratic parties in Europe fell from grace is that they forgot who they were supposed to represent.
So rather than forgiving 50-200k in debt for people who already have obtained 4 year degrees what about giving 50-200k in grants or cheaply financed loans for people _without_ college degrees. This can be used to fund adult professional education in fields that are deemed in demand, or to offset housing or health care costs, or whatever else.
Further the cash component of any welfare programs could be greatly expanded.
The goal of these policies should in my opinion be to spend resources to decrease the quality of living gap between the college educated professional middle class and the lower classes who lack college education.
And sure, I am aware that there are a _lot_ of people with college education who are struggling. That doesnt change the fact that people without college education on average struggle significantly more, and a 'left' party should be representing the working classes, not the professional ones. (Of course in truth the Democrats are primarily a liberal party representing educated professionals and workers dont really have representation in the American system but when talking 'left' or 'progressive' policy in my opinion the goal should be to change that.)
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On November 09 2020 08:18 Biff The Understudy wrote:Show nested quote +On November 09 2020 08:00 Zambrah wrote:On November 09 2020 07:57 Biff The Understudy wrote:On November 09 2020 04:52 Zambrah wrote:On November 09 2020 03:11 Blitzkrieg0 wrote:On November 09 2020 02:09 Liquid`Drone wrote:On November 09 2020 01:23 Blitzkrieg0 wrote:
What you're saying is that if enough progressives existed, Biden would suddenly shift political winds to that position except you can't admit that. I mean, I'm not Zambrah, but sure, I do believe that. The thing is though, there's a conflict between different 'types' of politicians. Should they be reactive (weathervane-type), or reformers? Myself, I believe that virtually all the 'great' politicians are reformers. They don't simply react to public opinion, they also shape it. It's not a virtue by default - while I think all great politicians are reformers, I believe it also holds true for the most abhorrent ones. Trump has not only responded to the ugly side of his electorate, he has also shaped public opinion (but from my perspective largely in a negative manner, some of it very dangerous/damaging. The entire handling of COVID is one such example, where I am confident that if Trump had backed expert opinion rather than contradicted it, it would have been more closely adhered to by the public). The weathervane politician is the 'career' politician, ones that never opine anything that does not poll well. They are the kind that opposes gay marriage publicly even if they are privately positive towards it / don't give a damn on a personal level. More likely to be technocrats, sure, and often they will provide us with some incremental improvement backed by experts. But this group is unlikely to provide society with truly meaningful change. Which type you prefer, will largely be determined by how content you are with the current direction of society. Sanders is a reformer. Yang seems like one, too - even if I agree more with Sanders than with Yang, I will give Yang credit for being the type of politician who tries to come up with solutions to problems society faces and then tries to convince people that this is the right solution, rather than checking the polls to see what his opinion should be. Clinton was absolutely an example of a weathervane politician. Biden is largely one, too, although I don't see him as being equally cynical about it. Obama, I actually think wanted to be a reformer, but he was largely neutered. (I do believe Biden is a genuinely caring human being. And I think the US needs some degree of bland , inoffensive leadership for the problem of 'increased societal division' to possibly be addressed. However, I also believe you need radical change to deal with many of the political issues you struggle with. Biden is probably as good of a unifying candidate as the US could find right now - so he checks that box, but I don't see him provide the actual change required, because I think you need changes that don't necessarily have majority support at the moment. ) The problem is that your reformers never have power. You point out that Obama wanted to be a reformer. His first reform of healthcare cost him the house and his entire presidential agenda. Your previous post pointed out that Bernie isn't a "mainstream politician" despite being in the US congress for thirty years and he was a politician in Vermont before that. I don't put any value in people having ideas. You have to get them implemented for them to have any meaning. What has Sanders reformed besides getting more pork for Vermont? The most interesting thing about the election to me was Florida voting for a $15 minimum wage and Republican. That would be a reform I could point out that Sanders champions. The logical thing to happen is that your reformer's ideas become main stream enough to get them elected. Not this, they don't have majority support but we're going to force them through anyway that you're posting. Popular policies are regularly shot down as "pie in the sky" despite a majority of Americans wanting them, at the end of the day, when it came to the ACA its an issue of Obama playing Republican games and winning Republican prizes. He let it burn him out politically for a long time, he had the power to have run through something damn near European, but Democrats dont sieze on power like Republicans do. Thats the issue, Democrats rarely get power but when they do they strive to be as ineffectual as they can, so any change they do manages to irritate advocates of change for being Republicanized and irritate conservatives because change. They need to study the Republican playbook, not to learn how to play nice, but how to copy how they wield power (or obstruct the use of power, really.) Its a really, really sad state, its crap that we have a government that exists for one side to brute force the other via the system, but its what we have and pretending we can all play nice with each other just enables the bad actors to act badly and get their way. We also need to stop being god damned dictated at by weather vanes. MAKE THE POLICY POPULAR! I believe our ideas are good, progressives have to sell their ideas to the American people! Weathervane politicians have normalized forcing the public to decide whats good for them so that they can bandwagon alongside the public, but we need to work on actually SELLING our policy ideas to them, convincing the average American why what we want to do is good for them. Thats obviously hard, Americans are ignorant, sometimes willfully ignorant, but at the end of the day if we're going to be organizing anyways, getting out there, talking to people, talking about why our policy is good for people will be key to making our policy more popular, assuming they arent literally already popular enough. TL is special, people like Biff and Jimmi already generally seem to agree with progressive policy, and people who dont like Danglars and Wegandi aren't ever going to agree with it even if it they were on their deathbed and the progressive policy would literally save their life. We should work to appeal not to the Wegandis and Danglars, but first to the stereotypical Trump demographics, frame it similar to how Kwark does but... like... not so... horribly. Americans do love a fight, I sincerely believe framing it as a fight is the right way there. Fighting the billionaires, and the like. But poor, uneducated working class people should be a priority demographic as they're the people who are most likely to be impacted positively by progressive change. People in the middle and upper classes are already comfortable, they're cagey, the Republican ones are almost unwinnable imo, they're too fearful of change. The ones like Jimmi and Biff are doable, the barrier I see with that would be one of convincing that we are viable winners, the tough part of that is the DNC is very, very, VERY interested in keeping progressives as "the problem" faction of the party, they fight us all the time, the blame-the-progressive shit has begun and its going to be a hard media battle to fight. Rambling incoherency... ending? I hope its ending. Look, my Bidenesque ranting concludes with; We have to make our policy popular/make people understand its popular. In particular for the traditional stereotypical Trump demographics. We have to keep primarying Democrats until they respect that progressives can be winners. We need to put aside our idealized idea of how gov't should function in the US because its not how power is wielded here. EDIT: Also a Trump related note, We're in a stage of American politics where our business as usual shitshow is creating and incentivizing Donald Trumps. The Proof of Concept has won an election, he drove absurd turnout for his side in this election even if he lost. This is NOT the time to be weak and timid because the next Donald Trump is not going to be hampered by a pandemic, they might not be a daft moron with infinite scandal. This is a thing I keep seeing and it frightens me. BIDENS ELECTION DIDNT DEFEAT FASCISM IN THE US. We're still teetering on that precipice, ready to start falling down. Could happen as soon as next election, I get people want to be relieved about Biden but FUCK, GUYS, WE ELECTED DONALD TRUMP AND WE ALMOST ELECTED HIM TWICE. Be scared. Understand that Democrats and Republicans as we know them have brought the conditions to bring him to power, and their preferred nonsense will bring more and more forward, we need to nip this in the bud, this isn't the time to go soft, fascism in the US is still alive, stamp it out, don't get complacent, please sweet jesus. What did I just read, rofl. Bro, don't talk about the "Biff and the Jimmy", you just clearly have no clue what I stand for. To clarify, you DONT believe in things like European style healthcare in the US, proactive climate change action, and other US progressive ideology? I think you really haven't followed, which is fine but why do you mention me then? Of course I do support all of those, I vote for a party that is certainly left of Sanders; and I would vote in a heartbeat for progressive candidates if I lived in the US. I am just very unimpressed by the "duuuh the democrats suck, they are totally the enemy" that seems to be the cornerstone of some people's thought here. I find the attitude of many progressives here infantile and quite the opposite of constructive.
Then let me clarify, I classify you and Jimmi and two people who share core progressive beliefs but argue for slower methodical systemic changes, and if either of you were in the US, I presume would literally never vote for a Republican.
You focus a lot on the rhetoric aspect, I’m focused more on establishing core beliefs.
An example is I believe people who are Libertarian Republicans like Wegandi don’t believe in the right to a decent life, be that healthcare a decent wage, etc. I don’t find it possible to get anything from talking with these people because at the end of the day there’s nothing core we share value wise.
The reason I engage with you and Jimmi is because at the end of the day our beliefs are, at what I perceive as their absolute cores, similar enough to make engagement worthwhile. I’m not really trying to change your mind, my involvement in this thread is basically twofold, 1. I live in America and it is gravely scary here, I am trying to be more outgoing politically, 2. Because as a poor person in the US I think I aim to offer a perspective of what poverty is like in the US. Obviously I’m not EVERY poor person in the US, I’m also college educated so I’m maybe even an outlier there, but I’ve experienced American poverty all of my life, I’ve weighed my life in dollars due to American healthcare, I’ve experienced racism, I’ve had to call the police and interact with them in the US (fucking terrifying, btw) I have a hard time imagining TLs European demographics are capable of really understanding how people fucked over by the US feel. I want to make my firsthand perspective on that clear.
If you ever wonder why Trump did so well with voters, why Republicans stay in power, how Democrats can lose elections, I believe it takes a willingness to engage with the emotions of the American populace. We are not well informed, we are not highly rational actors, we are not easily understood by our politicians at large.
There are deep feelings of contempt for politicians in America, you can call it childish or not constructive, but you don’t even seem interested in trying to understand the reason for why people might feel this way. You can chide us all you want but this is what the Democrats do and it causes people to feel unheard, and to want to rebel against what they consider a cold unfeeling uncaring government who has consistently ignored them. Trump tapped into those emotions, despite his deep deep character flaws he’s able to uniquely appeal to the American people. People are willing to believe that their government cheated him out of a win, they’re willing to believe that the system is rigged against him, and I believe a core reason for that is that they see Trump as a reflection of themselves, they see the ways our system is rigged against us and they have an easy time believing that it’s rigged against Trump. It’s obviously not, but going, “wow what idiots” doesn’t actually make any effort to get to the bottom of what to do to fix these feelings, to prevent another Trump from rising. These are people I believe often share core beliefs of wanting fair treatment of workers, a guaranteed quality of life, etc. obviously not all Trump people are like that, but a lot are, and I think it’s important to identify what might be shared core beliefs and then to work on bridging those beliefs away from Trump and towards the betterment of society.
Anyways, TL:DR, desperate impoverished American wants to make the emotional plight of America more readily understood, and also it’s cool to learn stuff about US politics from farv and GH and Nevuk and stuff
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Bisutopia19350 Posts
On November 09 2020 08:18 KlaCkoN wrote:
Thought:
There seems to be pretty universal support in this thread for forgiving (or ending mandatory repayments, or some version thereof) student debt. This is portrayed as a leftist or progressive proposal, however the US is one of the countries in the world with the highest wage premiums for college attendance, this feel quite jarring to me.
Focusing state resources so that the professional middle class can buy single family homes a few years earlier is certainly a vote winner but it doesn't do anything about the underlying class structure. If anything I think part of the reason the old social democratic parties in Europe fell from grace is that they forgot who they were supposed to represent.
So rather than forgiving 50-200k in debt for people who already have obtained 4 year degrees what about giving 50-200k in grants or cheaply financed loans for people _without_ college degrees. This can be used to fund adult professional education in fields that are deemed in demand, or to offset housing or health care costs, or whatever else.
Further the cash component of any welfare programs could be greatly expanded.
The goal of these policies should in my opinion be to spend resources to decrease the quality of living gap between the college educated professional middle class and the lower classes who lack college education.
And sure, I am aware that there are a _lot_ of people with college education who are struggling. That doesnt change the fact that people without college education on average struggle significantly more, and a 'left' party should be representing the working classes, not the professional ones. (Of course in truth the Democrats are primarily a liberal party representing educated professionals and workers dont really have representation in the American system but when talking 'left' or 'progressive' policy in my opinion the goal should be to change that.)
There is not universal support in this thread. Some of us are just reading everyone’s opinions quietly. I took out $100k in student loans, got a computer science degree, and paid off my debt in 5 years by working hard and not spending my money on needless stuff. No cable television or phone with data plan and I still don’t have either despite doing well in life now. Before my loan I worked minimum wage full time for two years at a different college before picking a path and going all in on it.
I think student loan debt is a product of the ill educated or ill prepared. Most students have no idea what an interest rate means before they get into college and take out these variable loans without thinking. It’s the same problem with home owners too. There should be classes taken by banks before even applying for a loan. People take these loans out and don’t understand their responsibilities to them. It’s not free money.
I’m open to the idea of more financial government support for college level education, but when you take out a loan that’s you making a promise that you better be willing to fulfill (sans terrible or tragic luck).
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On November 09 2020 08:18 Biff The Understudy wrote:Show nested quote +On November 09 2020 08:00 Zambrah wrote:On November 09 2020 07:57 Biff The Understudy wrote:On November 09 2020 04:52 Zambrah wrote:On November 09 2020 03:11 Blitzkrieg0 wrote:On November 09 2020 02:09 Liquid`Drone wrote:On November 09 2020 01:23 Blitzkrieg0 wrote:
What you're saying is that if enough progressives existed, Biden would suddenly shift political winds to that position except you can't admit that. I mean, I'm not Zambrah, but sure, I do believe that. The thing is though, there's a conflict between different 'types' of politicians. Should they be reactive (weathervane-type), or reformers? Myself, I believe that virtually all the 'great' politicians are reformers. They don't simply react to public opinion, they also shape it. It's not a virtue by default - while I think all great politicians are reformers, I believe it also holds true for the most abhorrent ones. Trump has not only responded to the ugly side of his electorate, he has also shaped public opinion (but from my perspective largely in a negative manner, some of it very dangerous/damaging. The entire handling of COVID is one such example, where I am confident that if Trump had backed expert opinion rather than contradicted it, it would have been more closely adhered to by the public). The weathervane politician is the 'career' politician, ones that never opine anything that does not poll well. They are the kind that opposes gay marriage publicly even if they are privately positive towards it / don't give a damn on a personal level. More likely to be technocrats, sure, and often they will provide us with some incremental improvement backed by experts. But this group is unlikely to provide society with truly meaningful change. Which type you prefer, will largely be determined by how content you are with the current direction of society. Sanders is a reformer. Yang seems like one, too - even if I agree more with Sanders than with Yang, I will give Yang credit for being the type of politician who tries to come up with solutions to problems society faces and then tries to convince people that this is the right solution, rather than checking the polls to see what his opinion should be. Clinton was absolutely an example of a weathervane politician. Biden is largely one, too, although I don't see him as being equally cynical about it. Obama, I actually think wanted to be a reformer, but he was largely neutered. (I do believe Biden is a genuinely caring human being. And I think the US needs some degree of bland , inoffensive leadership for the problem of 'increased societal division' to possibly be addressed. However, I also believe you need radical change to deal with many of the political issues you struggle with. Biden is probably as good of a unifying candidate as the US could find right now - so he checks that box, but I don't see him provide the actual change required, because I think you need changes that don't necessarily have majority support at the moment. ) The problem is that your reformers never have power. You point out that Obama wanted to be a reformer. His first reform of healthcare cost him the house and his entire presidential agenda. Your previous post pointed out that Bernie isn't a "mainstream politician" despite being in the US congress for thirty years and he was a politician in Vermont before that. I don't put any value in people having ideas. You have to get them implemented for them to have any meaning. What has Sanders reformed besides getting more pork for Vermont? The most interesting thing about the election to me was Florida voting for a $15 minimum wage and Republican. That would be a reform I could point out that Sanders champions. The logical thing to happen is that your reformer's ideas become main stream enough to get them elected. Not this, they don't have majority support but we're going to force them through anyway that you're posting. Popular policies are regularly shot down as "pie in the sky" despite a majority of Americans wanting them, at the end of the day, when it came to the ACA its an issue of Obama playing Republican games and winning Republican prizes. He let it burn him out politically for a long time, he had the power to have run through something damn near European, but Democrats dont sieze on power like Republicans do. Thats the issue, Democrats rarely get power but when they do they strive to be as ineffectual as they can, so any change they do manages to irritate advocates of change for being Republicanized and irritate conservatives because change. They need to study the Republican playbook, not to learn how to play nice, but how to copy how they wield power (or obstruct the use of power, really.) Its a really, really sad state, its crap that we have a government that exists for one side to brute force the other via the system, but its what we have and pretending we can all play nice with each other just enables the bad actors to act badly and get their way. We also need to stop being god damned dictated at by weather vanes. MAKE THE POLICY POPULAR! I believe our ideas are good, progressives have to sell their ideas to the American people! Weathervane politicians have normalized forcing the public to decide whats good for them so that they can bandwagon alongside the public, but we need to work on actually SELLING our policy ideas to them, convincing the average American why what we want to do is good for them. Thats obviously hard, Americans are ignorant, sometimes willfully ignorant, but at the end of the day if we're going to be organizing anyways, getting out there, talking to people, talking about why our policy is good for people will be key to making our policy more popular, assuming they arent literally already popular enough. TL is special, people like Biff and Jimmi already generally seem to agree with progressive policy, and people who dont like Danglars and Wegandi aren't ever going to agree with it even if it they were on their deathbed and the progressive policy would literally save their life. We should work to appeal not to the Wegandis and Danglars, but first to the stereotypical Trump demographics, frame it similar to how Kwark does but... like... not so... horribly. Americans do love a fight, I sincerely believe framing it as a fight is the right way there. Fighting the billionaires, and the like. But poor, uneducated working class people should be a priority demographic as they're the people who are most likely to be impacted positively by progressive change. People in the middle and upper classes are already comfortable, they're cagey, the Republican ones are almost unwinnable imo, they're too fearful of change. The ones like Jimmi and Biff are doable, the barrier I see with that would be one of convincing that we are viable winners, the tough part of that is the DNC is very, very, VERY interested in keeping progressives as "the problem" faction of the party, they fight us all the time, the blame-the-progressive shit has begun and its going to be a hard media battle to fight. Rambling incoherency... ending? I hope its ending. Look, my Bidenesque ranting concludes with; We have to make our policy popular/make people understand its popular. In particular for the traditional stereotypical Trump demographics. We have to keep primarying Democrats until they respect that progressives can be winners. We need to put aside our idealized idea of how gov't should function in the US because its not how power is wielded here. EDIT: Also a Trump related note, We're in a stage of American politics where our business as usual shitshow is creating and incentivizing Donald Trumps. The Proof of Concept has won an election, he drove absurd turnout for his side in this election even if he lost. This is NOT the time to be weak and timid because the next Donald Trump is not going to be hampered by a pandemic, they might not be a daft moron with infinite scandal. This is a thing I keep seeing and it frightens me. BIDENS ELECTION DIDNT DEFEAT FASCISM IN THE US. We're still teetering on that precipice, ready to start falling down. Could happen as soon as next election, I get people want to be relieved about Biden but FUCK, GUYS, WE ELECTED DONALD TRUMP AND WE ALMOST ELECTED HIM TWICE. Be scared. Understand that Democrats and Republicans as we know them have brought the conditions to bring him to power, and their preferred nonsense will bring more and more forward, we need to nip this in the bud, this isn't the time to go soft, fascism in the US is still alive, stamp it out, don't get complacent, please sweet jesus. What did I just read, rofl. Bro, don't talk about the "Biff and the Jimmy", you just clearly have no clue what I stand for. To clarify, you DONT believe in things like European style healthcare in the US, proactive climate change action, and other US progressive ideology? I think you really haven't followed, which is fine but why do you mention me then? Of course I do support all of those, I vote for a party that is certainly left of Sanders; and I would vote in a heartbeat for progressive candidates if I lived in the US. I am just very unimpressed by the "duuuh the democrats suck, they are totally the enemy" that seems to be the cornerstone of some people's thought here. I find the attitude of many progressives here infantile and quite the opposite of constructive.
It must be difficult for you to shield yourself from all of the news that demonstrate quite clearly that they are the enemy.
You might remember a few months ago we had a primary race, and when it looked like we had a shot at winning that race all of their candidates were pressured into quitting just to make it more likely that we wouldn't win. They all quit because us winning was too much of a threat for the party and told their voters not to go for us. Their candidate then ran quite distinctly on not being one of us, and now that he's won he wants to consider some republicans for his administration, rather than leftists.
But, like, even if you don't follow US news, do the liberals in Norway side with the left or something, is that a thing? In Switzerland they side with the far right something like 75% of the time? In France one of their answers to islamic terrorist attacks was to blame it on the left and they did so using far right terminology?
Even if you don't follow any news at all, you can check ideologies. One of the main tenets of leftist ideology is a fight against social hierarchies, we think they are generally harmful. We want to bring them down or at least limit their influence as much as possible. Liberalism, on the other hand, wants a meritocracy, where there is an existing and strong social hierarchy but it is justified by the fact that the people who are on top deserve to be on top.
So to sum up, they haven't demonstrated any will to be our friends in the US, or in Europe as far as I know, and it wouldn't even make sense for them to want to be our friends based on what we and they envision for society. And yet you think it's infantile not to treat them as our friends, because... I don't know why, really.
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United States43985 Posts
On November 09 2020 08:41 BisuDagger wrote:Show nested quote +On November 09 2020 08:18 KlaCkoN wrote:
Thought:
There seems to be pretty universal support in this thread for forgiving (or ending mandatory repayments, or some version thereof) student debt. This is portrayed as a leftist or progressive proposal, however the US is one of the countries in the world with the highest wage premiums for college attendance, this feel quite jarring to me.
Focusing state resources so that the professional middle class can buy single family homes a few years earlier is certainly a vote winner but it doesn't do anything about the underlying class structure. If anything I think part of the reason the old social democratic parties in Europe fell from grace is that they forgot who they were supposed to represent.
So rather than forgiving 50-200k in debt for people who already have obtained 4 year degrees what about giving 50-200k in grants or cheaply financed loans for people _without_ college degrees. This can be used to fund adult professional education in fields that are deemed in demand, or to offset housing or health care costs, or whatever else.
Further the cash component of any welfare programs could be greatly expanded.
The goal of these policies should in my opinion be to spend resources to decrease the quality of living gap between the college educated professional middle class and the lower classes who lack college education.
And sure, I am aware that there are a _lot_ of people with college education who are struggling. That doesnt change the fact that people without college education on average struggle significantly more, and a 'left' party should be representing the working classes, not the professional ones. (Of course in truth the Democrats are primarily a liberal party representing educated professionals and workers dont really have representation in the American system but when talking 'left' or 'progressive' policy in my opinion the goal should be to change that.) There is not universal support in this thread. Some of us are just reading everyone’s opinions quietly. I took out $100k in student loans, got a computer science degree, and paid off my debt in 5 years by working hard and not spending my money on needless stuff. No cable television or phone with data plan and I still don’t have either despite doing well in life now. Before my loan I worked minimum wage full time for two years at a different college before picking a path and going all in on it. I think student loan debt is a product of the ill educated or ill prepared. Most students have no idea what an interest rate means before they get into college and take out these variable loans without thinking. It’s the same problem with home owners too. There should be classes taken by banks before even applying for a loan. People take these loans out and don’t understand their responsibilities to them. It’s not free money. I’m open to the idea of more financial government support for college level education, but when you take out a loan that’s you making a promise that you better be willing to fulfill (sans terrible or tragic luck).
It’s weird to me that in one post you argue that many were insufficiently informed to understand what they were signing and practically children before concluding that they should be bound to the maximum extent of their contractual obligations. It seems the most dickish stance to take.
You could have argued that they knew what they were doing and should be forced to hold up their end. You could have argued that they didn’t know what they were doing and shouldn’t be forced to hold up their end. But instead you argued that they were taken advantage of, but should still be punished for that ignorance.
Adding in that you’d feel like you got a bad deal if they weren’t hurt because you paid off yours is also classic American hazing mentality. Making things better for other people is apparently bad because then they won’t have to suffer the way you did. It’s a weird flagellation where people who suffered for good things hate to see other people having them without also suffering.
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I think someone pointed out that Sanders might have won but only because the conservative part of the democrats were divided. There's still more people supporting someone like Biden than Sanders in the democratic party atm.
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Northern Ireland26785 Posts
On November 09 2020 08:41 BisuDagger wrote:Show nested quote +On November 09 2020 08:18 KlaCkoN wrote:
Thought:
There seems to be pretty universal support in this thread for forgiving (or ending mandatory repayments, or some version thereof) student debt. This is portrayed as a leftist or progressive proposal, however the US is one of the countries in the world with the highest wage premiums for college attendance, this feel quite jarring to me.
Focusing state resources so that the professional middle class can buy single family homes a few years earlier is certainly a vote winner but it doesn't do anything about the underlying class structure. If anything I think part of the reason the old social democratic parties in Europe fell from grace is that they forgot who they were supposed to represent.
So rather than forgiving 50-200k in debt for people who already have obtained 4 year degrees what about giving 50-200k in grants or cheaply financed loans for people _without_ college degrees. This can be used to fund adult professional education in fields that are deemed in demand, or to offset housing or health care costs, or whatever else.
Further the cash component of any welfare programs could be greatly expanded.
The goal of these policies should in my opinion be to spend resources to decrease the quality of living gap between the college educated professional middle class and the lower classes who lack college education.
And sure, I am aware that there are a _lot_ of people with college education who are struggling. That doesnt change the fact that people without college education on average struggle significantly more, and a 'left' party should be representing the working classes, not the professional ones. (Of course in truth the Democrats are primarily a liberal party representing educated professionals and workers dont really have representation in the American system but when talking 'left' or 'progressive' policy in my opinion the goal should be to change that.) There is not universal support in this thread. Some of us are just reading everyone’s opinions quietly. I took out $100k in student loans, got a computer science degree, and paid off my debt in 5 years by working hard and not spending my money on needless stuff. No cable television or phone with data plan and I still don’t have either despite doing well in life now. Before my loan I worked minimum wage full time for two years at a different college before picking a path and going all in on it. I think student loan debt is a product of the ill educated or ill prepared. Most students have no idea what an interest rate means before they get into college and take out these variable loans without thinking. It’s the same problem with home owners too. There should be classes taken by banks before even applying for a loan. People take these loans out and don’t understand their responsibilities to them. It’s not free money. I’m open to the idea of more financial government support for college level education, but when you take out a loan that’s you making a promise that you better be willing to fulfill (sans terrible or tragic luck).
Those people should be better educated in such domains for sure.
On the other hand, job market is complete horse shit if you don’t have a degree (at least here), so I really don’t blame anyone for wanting one.
Apart from anything else, college education has trended to be more expensive as the price of reproducing information and distributing it has considerably declined, so there are wider problems with the system as it stands than just things like student debt and fees.
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On November 09 2020 08:18 KlaCkoN wrote:
Thought:
There seems to be pretty universal support in this thread for forgiving (or ending mandatory repayments, or some version thereof) student debt. This is portrayed as a leftist or progressive proposal, however the US is one of the countries in the world with the highest wage premiums for college attendance, this feel quite jarring to me.
Focusing state resources so that the professional middle class can buy single family homes a few years earlier is certainly a vote winner but it doesn't do anything about the underlying class structure. If anything I think part of the reason the old social democratic parties in Europe fell from grace is that they forgot who they were supposed to represent.
So rather than forgiving 50-200k in debt for people who already have obtained 4 year degrees what about giving 50-200k in grants or cheaply financed loans for people _without_ college degrees. This can be used to fund adult professional education in fields that are deemed in demand, or to offset housing or health care costs, or whatever else.
Further the cash component of any welfare programs could be greatly expanded.
The goal of these policies should in my opinion be to spend resources to decrease the quality of living gap between the college educated professional middle class and the lower classes who lack college education.
And sure, I am aware that there are a _lot_ of people with college education who are struggling. That doesnt change the fact that people without college education on average struggle significantly more, and a 'left' party should be representing the working classes, not the professional ones. (Of course in truth the Democrats are primarily a liberal party representing educated professionals and workers dont really have representation in the American system but when talking 'left' or 'progressive' policy in my opinion the goal should be to change that.)
I have to agree with BisuDagger that I think my position is being misread on this.
I think it is inevitable, precisely because it's not going to be thought of as a progressive policy. It can instead easily be presented as a tax break on the middle, educated classes - loans effectively mean that we've been being taxed way above our rate to subsidize Boomer tax cuts. I've not been arguing that it should happen, I've been saying that we can examine the people backing it and see that it's very rapidly becoming a mainstream position.
The actual progressive policies were in making college free for everyone, which WOULD require congress.
It would personally benefit me, so I do want it, but not to the extent that it would affect many others as I have an excellent job.
America really rapidly entered an era where you are expected to either have a four year degree specifically related to the field or prior experience in the field, for things that don't need it. Only the absolute lowest skilled, most undesirable, lowest paying jobs don't expect a college degree. (They prefer a degree for coal miners now, for instance). I'm not sure if that's the case in Europe.
My four year degree during the height of the recession was literally unable to get me a job at one of the McDonald's in the area. That's how absurd it has gotten (during their open interview day they said they interviewed 400 people that day).
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