What does a BIDEN Presidency look like?

[crazy canuck]

If the only goal of a party is to win, then what?

Wouldn't that be a better question for someone who believes that the only goal of a party is to win?

I may have misunderstood your point.  Isn't your argument that the Dems should condition their actions and statements on winning above all else?

[crazy canuck]

If the only goal of a party is to win, then what?

I'd probably go alont with the only goal of a party is to win - I think that might be the secret to the success of the "natural parties of government" around the world (Tories, Liberals, CDU, LDP, historically Fianna Fail). They may have sort of guiding principles but they never allow the theological debate around that to distract them for winning - or at least not for too long.

I think that kind of has to be the only goal in big-tent, two-party coalition politics like the US because otherwise what's the point of the big tent? The only reason is because it's a two-party system and the purpose is to win.

Even in a FPTP parliamentary system like the UK or Canada I think generally governments lose elections, rather than oppositions winning them - but the least the opposition has to do is be ready to present a credible alternative come election day.

And I don't even know what I am arguing against. It is starting to feel like there is a demand that we not try to win elections at all, because apparently it doesn't matter anyway? I'm not entirely sure at this point.

Maybe because I wasn't really arguing with you?

I agree it is certainly the recipe for success of the Canadian Liberal party.  But it also result in some bad public policy choices.  It is an interesting tension.

[Sheilbh]

I agree it is certainly the recipe for success of the Canadian Liberal party.  But it also result in some bad public policy choices.  It is an interesting tension.

Yes - but ultimately the goal of politics is power. I can think of far more bad public policy choices because the Labour Party decided to have the odd decade of self-indulgence.

As I say from where I'm sitting the US is doing pretty well at really kind of avoiding that. They ran a moderate-talking campaign and are now delivering quite radically. The left campaigned for the moderate candidate and helped him win, now they've got some capital and leverage to use.

[crazy canuck]

I agree it is certainly the recipe for success of the Canadian Liberal party.  But it also result in some bad public policy choices.  It is an interesting tension.

Yes - but ultimately the goal of politics is power. I can think of far more bad public policy choices because the Labour Party decided to have the odd decade of self-indulgence.

As I say from where I'm sitting the US is doing pretty well at really kind of avoiding that. They ran a moderate-talking campaign and are now delivering quite radically. The left campaigned for the moderate candidate and helped him win, now they've got some capital and leverage to use.

I am not so sure.  The NDP have never formed government Federally and so have never held power.  But they have been instrumental in the creation of much of what makes up Canadian public policy.  If they had simply sought power the public policy initiatives they pushed probably would never have been adopted. 

I think there is a real danger if everyone tries to be "moderates" whatever that might be.

[Zoupa]

Hey....how did we end up with 6 Supreme Court justices from the Tea Party when we won that damn argument so convincingly! How is it that the Senate is half fucking Trump troglodytes when we keep winning our argument so thoroughly????

Because of the structural issues within your system? I mean you have a President that lost the popular vote, nominating SC judges by having Wyoming senators overrule California senators.

Tlaib can be on message all she wants, it's not going to flip Wyoming.

If he is on message, and the rest f the party is on message, then it can most certainly flip plenty of states that are not Wyoming.

I don't understand how this isn't just obvious.

Not only is tis not obvious, it's also not true.

So your position is that there is no point in trying to win elections? It's hopeless...we should just have a revolution or something instead?

What is your point, now that you retreated from your rabid defense of "abolish the police!"

Oh fuck off already. What's the point of discussing anything with you man. When have I defended "abolish the police"? You argue in such bad faith and with such unsolicited attacks I really don't get it. Pat yourself on the back, you won yet again!

[Berkut]

If the only goal of a party is to win, then what?

Wouldn't that be a better question for someone who believes that the only goal of a party is to win?

I may have misunderstood your point.  Isn't your argument that the Dems should condition their actions and statements on winning above all else?

No.

[Berkut]

Hey....how did we end up with 6 Supreme Court justices from the Tea Party when we won that damn argument so convincingly! How is it that the Senate is half fucking Trump troglodytes when we keep winning our argument so thoroughly????

Because of the structural issues within your system? I mean you have a President that lost the popular vote, nominating SC judges by having Wyoming senators overrule California senators.

Tlaib can be on message all she wants, it's not going to flip Wyoming.

If he is on message, and the rest f the party is on message, then it can most certainly flip plenty of states that are not Wyoming.

I don't understand how this isn't just obvious.

Not only is tis not obvious, it's also not true.

So your position is that there is no point in trying to win elections? It's hopeless...we should just have a revolution or something instead?

What is your point, now that you retreated from your rabid defense of "abolish the police!"

Oh fuck off already. What's the point of discussing anything with you man. When have I defended "abolish the police"? You argue in such bad faith and with such unsolicited attacks I really don't get it. Pat yourself on the back, you won yet again!

In this debate you've called me an asshole several times, and NOW you are going to get all bent out of shape and offended? Awesome.

The entire discussion started with the observation that Tlaib is doing harm to the progressive cause by tweeting inane shit like calling to get rid of the police. That has been the subject all along, and the entire content of the objections raised against what YOU AND GARBON said was "woke" culture was around that comment specifically.

Like I said, if you are now coming over to our side - great. I am glad I was able to convince you even if you won't admit to having been wrong. Whatever. I don't care. I'm just confused as to why you are still arguing. You are saying I am right....but that it doesn't matter anyway, because it is not possible to convince anyone anyway? Really, I am genuinely confused what your point IS at this point.

I will go back to the beginning: If the Dems want to win and keep winning, and win by even more in a somewhat broken system where being a majority apparently is not enough....they need to figure out how to convince at least a few more percent of voters who are willing to vote either way (the magical people who we are told voted for both Obama AND Trump, as hard as that is to fathom) to embrace the Left.

Strides have been made. A moderate is President, and he is being very....moderate in his language, while being pretty not moderate in his policies. So far. This is awesome! This is just what we need. Progressive policies, sold well as being just good sense policies, not fire and brimstone socialism down with the capitalists! bombast. This works.

So this is good. Now we need more of it. We need to get better at keeping the vocal part of the left under reasonable control, while continuing to sell progressive policy as just good common sense. If we can get the Tlaibs and AOCs on board (I actually think AOC is damn good at this, actually - others not so much) with understanding the strategy, what I think can happen (and frankly must happen if we are to have any hope) is the actual destruction of the modern GOP as a viable political entity, to be replaced by a center-right progressive party.

If we can do this, we can imagine a future where the two parties (assuming we are stuck with this two party system) going head to head with each other, will be a fight between moderate/centrist progressives (the Biden/Buttigieg flavor of "progressives") up against the more progressive progressives (Warren/Sanders/AOC). That is the debate we should be having.

And THEN you guys can really legit hate me, because then at least we will be on actual different sides - but it will be between two different flavors of what we would call "progressives" today.

[Berkut]

Berkut, don't the democrats control the house senate and white house? Didn't they just win?

Barely, and not with enough of a win to effect a lot of the change needed. And that was against, literally, the Worst. President. In. American. History.

Someone just as bad as Trump, but not actually a fucking mentally ill moron, would have won. And one of the reasons they would have won, and one of the reasons Trump beat Clinton to begin with, is the bonkers crazy rhetoric and the bonkers crazy nutjob cancel culture identity politics of the far left that let the right scare the shit out of a bunch of people in the middle who for whatever dumb fucking reason actually are worried about double secret commies and immigrants and godless socialists. A lot of them cannot be reached, at least not in any kind of ethical manner, but some of them CAN be reached.

And again, you don't have to convince that many to absolutely blow up the GOP strategy. 5% 3%?

[Sheilbh]

I am not so sure.  The NDP have never formed government Federally and so have never held power.  But they have been instrumental in the creation of much of what makes up Canadian public policy.  If they had simply sought power the public policy initiatives they pushed probably would never have been adopted. 

Yeah and I think there is a role for that type of party that is aiming to change the discourse by their influence on other parties. I think in Europe the biggest impact has been the far/populist right - without those parties I don't think we have Brexit or the various fortress Europe policies or a Social Democrat government in Denmark deporting Syrian refugees because it's "safe" now (and considering measures to limit the size of "non-western" communities in disadvantaged areas). Some have formed governments but some just operate like a little gravity well pulling politics in their direction.

But I think if you're a party aiming to form government that has to be your number one priority, because you believe the other guys will make bad decisions - that's kind of the point.

I think there is a real danger if everyone tries to be "moderates" whatever that might be.

Agreed and there is a history of throwing minorities under the bus to be "moderate" - so in the UK in the 80s the Greater London Council was a regular tabloid story of being under control of the loony left. A lot of the policies that attracted that attention are now standard even for conservatives such promoting tolerance for the gays etc. Mainly because it's easy - it's reasonably easy to signal on a cultural issue (although maybe not convincingly) compared to shifting the public's views of your economic policies.

I also think there tends to be an incorrect perception by the political class of where the centre is - and that it moves. Re-hashed Blairism or New Democrats won't work because the world is different. People have moved politically. I think the key to understanding the popularity of the Tory government - especially in covid times - is that if you actually look at the polls, the British people (and this will vary country by country) are basically authoritarian social democrats - and they perceive all parties as broadly clustering around a liberal centre.

[Zoupa]

Like I said, if you are now coming over to our side - great. I am glad I was able to convince you even if you won't admit to having been wrong. Whatever. I don't care.

You really can't help yourself can you. You can't really believe this, so basically you're trolling. Aren't you rounding 50 dude? Grow up.

And one of the reasons they would have won, and one of the reasons Trump beat Clinton to begin with, is the bonkers crazy rhetoric and the bonkers crazy nutjob cancel culture identity politics of the far left

Once again, let's blame the lefties for Trump. Fucking hilarious how the folks who voted for him are never responsible in your book, somehow it's always the left's fault. As if Fox & co would not have smeared the Dems in any case, and as if Clinton ran and messaged anywhere near "crazy nutjob cancel culture identity politics". Just because you want something to be true does not make it so.

[DGuller]

You focus on what you can control, and you kick yourself for not controlling what you could've controlled.  I can't control the rain, but I can bring an umbrella.  If I get wet, then of course the rain is the primary party that's responsible, but somehow it's not reasonable to blame the rain.  At the end of the day, is it more productive to criticize the rain, or to criticize myself for not packing an umbrella?

[Zoupa]

Analogy doesn't work. People voting for Trump & co. is a conscious choice, not a natural phenomenon.

[Malthus]

Way I see it, the progressives' best argument for using more extreme rhetoric is that it pushes the Overton window in their direction. It may piss people off, but if everyone is all moderate all the time nothing would ever change.

The other side of the coin though is that shifting the Overton window is a long term strategy and elections are won or lost in the short term. Those on the right are busy shifting the Overton window in their direction with extreme rhetoric as well. If both sides are doing that, what you get is a chorus of cacophony in which nothing can be done - which is how non-progressive liberals tend to see it.

Another problem is that progressives and non-progressive liberals may not, in fact, be on the same "side". This always comes as a surprise to non-progressive liberals, but I think that it may in large measure be true. They differ not on specific policies, but in their whole outlook on society - progressives have a tendency to view current society as basically irreparably broken in several ways (on race, social class, the environment, etc.) and so only a radical reordering of society will work. Non progressive liberals agree that these are all problems, but tend to believe that a lot of progress has been made and will continue to be made - in short, that radical reordering of society is not necessary or desirable, in that it is likely to be rife with unintended consequences.

In this, progressives have something in common with the right in the US - which also believes that current society is irredeemable (while of course disagreeing in every respect with both progressives and liberals as to what the problems are and what solutions should be attempted). The right in the US has so abandoned current society, it has proved willing to actively destroy democratic institutions.

It is natural that progressives should come to define liberals as 'the enemy', despite the fact that liberals tend to agree with them on what the problems are. The liberals, certainly more than the right, act as a brake on the radical reordering the progressives believe to be necessary. The liberals are more plausible than the right in the US and they appeal to a similar audience (the right has abandoned any connection with rationality and so its rhetoric appeals only to itself). That very plausibility can look sinister. If one believes that society is irredeemably racist, for example, then supporting the continued existence of that society and not its radical reordering is basically racist - no matter how much such supporters claim they are not personal racist, believe that racism is a serious problem, and wish to create practical solutions for it.

Liberals of course see things completely differently. To them, practical solutions are most important, which means winning elections, building consensus within whatever systems exist for positive change, etc. For progressives, this just looks like putting a bunch of band-aids on a gaping wound and calling it a day - to the point where they doubt the liberals really care about the problems in the first place.

[Berkut]

Like I said, if you are now coming over to our side - great. I am glad I was able to convince you even if you won't admit to having been wrong. Whatever. I don't care.

You really can't help yourself can you. You can't really believe this, so basically you're trolling. Aren't you rounding 50 dude? Grow up.

And one of the reasons they would have won, and one of the reasons Trump beat Clinton to begin with, is the bonkers crazy rhetoric and the bonkers crazy nutjob cancel culture identity politics of the far left

Once again, let's blame the lefties for Trump. Fucking hilarious how the folks who voted for him are never responsible in your book, somehow it's always the left's fault. As if Fox & co would not have smeared the Dems in any case, and as if Clinton ran and messaged anywhere near "crazy nutjob cancel culture identity politics". Just because you want something to be true does not make it so.

You can't help yourself can you?

You know exactly what i am saying, since it is posted right there and you quoted it, yet you blatantly lie about it because the strawman is just so much easier.

I am not blaming lefties for Trump, and  said that perfectly clearly. I said "one of the reasons". You do know that most things are complicated, right? Not everything is just "those people are bad! Bad!". You do what you can, you pull the levers you can control.

What is ironic is that you are bitching that I am not blaming "the people who voted for Trump" (which you know is a lie since I've blamed them like....a thousand times on Languish, but whatever), *because* I am trying to explain that doing shit that drives people to vote for Trump is a mistake and people should avoid doing that if they want people to not vote for Trump.

I don't even believe that you cannot see this. You just want to pretend you cannot? I'm not even sure.

[Admiral Yi]

The way I look at it is similar to Malthus.

I personally feel the defining characteristic of the centrist to examine issues in a cost/benefit framework.  Is this change worth the cost?  What are the unintended consequences?  How do these measure up against the intended consequences.

Whereas progressives don't think this way.  They think in terms of righting wrongs, of pursuing THE GOOD.  And since by definition a cost/benefit will at best (from a progressive's standpoiint) qualify the good, hedge it in, limit it, it is easy enough for progressives to view cost benefit as the reaction of evil against the good.