Quo Vadis, Democrats?

[viper37]

The left of center in the US let the extremist dominate the discourse, but they never game them any real power, unlike the populist right.  And that created frustration, because extremists, especially on the left, aren't content with slow, gradual change.

Talks of overthrowing democracy aren't anything new on the left.  The right was just more numerous and able to do it before the left.

What discourse do they dominate? Not a single major media outlet. We don't really have a version of 'The Guardian' over here.

In the past.

Project 1619, White privilege, Bernie bros, the Black Lives matter riots, all that stuff.


The Democrats gave the appearance of going way too far to the left, but never actually gave any power to the extremists - which is a good thing.  But that created resentment inside the party, and still does.  The Republicans caved in to their extremists, and in the end the Tea Party took over the Republicans.

I don't know how the Dems could/should have handled it.

[Valmy]

I don't know how the Dems could/should have handled it.

They defanged and co-opted all of those things.

Black Lives Matter got turned into a vague slogan.

Defund the police? Actually they means fund the police.

Though they never did that with Bernie Bros, though Democratic Party supporting media attacked them brutally. The term 'Bernie Bros' itself is a slur designed to discredit Bernie Sanders and his supporters.

[The Minsky Moment]

Maga ad Trump are not "nationalist"; or at least it is in only the sense that Nazis were nationalist.  When fighting the "enemy within" takes priority over external threats, that is a clue that the "nation" is just being used an Orwellian stand-in for the tribal subset of the national population that seeks dominance over, and potentially the destruction of, the others.  That is why Trump will always side with Putin and other foreign powers he sympathizes with over the majority of Americans who oppose him.  Better Putin than Harris.

[The Minsky Moment]

In the US, political party games have swallowed everything, but the political has been under attack for a while - the sense that what you should have control over, that should be of concern to you, is increasingly narrow, and inconsequential. The rest is the purview of experts, bosses, academics, college-degree kids, economists - who all purport to say that what they describe is always the constraints of reality over the possibilities of individual action (if you are a liberal or libertarian) or collective (if you are a progressive or populist).

This is a common criticism, but I don't think it is solidly based.  It ascribes a monolithic view to the "experts" that does not comport with reality, as you are probably in a better position to observe than I am. The reality is that the diversity of "expert" views is probably greater and broader than general views of society.  Trump in his first terms experimented with tariffs, admittedly against the view of most professional economists, but with the support of a core group of academics.  Similarly, on the Left, MMT theory got a hearing in the Biden administration.  The idea that some restrictive professional and academic consensus is strangling political discourse is just not correct; it's closer to the truth to see that many "expert" ideas and innovations never get a hearing because they are too far from the accepted mainstream for politicians relentlessly chasing the median voter under the Amercian two party system.

Trump has flipped the script in that he is the first American politician since the emergence of the party system to pursue a minoritarian political strategy of mobilizing a minority base and exploiting a combination of the electoral college distortions and programmatic demoralization of opposition voters.  He has shown that such a minoritarian strategy, when it succeeds, can smash through conventional political limitations because there is no need to secure majority support.  The downside is such a method can sustain itself only by deepening authoritarian rule and suppressing dissent.

[Oexmelin]

The Electoral Consequences of Ideological Persuasion: Evidence from a Within-Precinct Analysis of U.S. Elections

Most research on the electoral penalty of candidate ideology relies on betweendistrict or longitudinal comparisons, which are confounded by turnout and ballot composition effects. We employ a within-precinct design using granular precinct-level election data from the MIT Election Data and Science Lab (2016-2022) alongside comprehensive data on candidate ideology. By analyzing within-precinct variation in two-party vote shares for contests simultaneously appearing on the same ballot, we isolate the effect of ideology on vote choice among a fixed electorate. We estimate how voters respond to candidate ideology in terms of vote choice across diverse electoral contexts, holding turnout fixed. A standard deviation change in the midpoint between candidates results in an average vote share penalty of 0.6 percentage points. The effect varies with office type, information availability, incumbency status, and partisan geography. Overall, we find that gains associated with ideological moderation are relatively modest and likely secondary to turnout effects.

https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=5172049

[Oexmelin]

Btw, if you live in a blue state/blue district, this is the time to call to urge your representatives and senators to grow a fucking spine and stop trying to negotiate (poorly) for crumbs, as Republicans seek a blank check to fund the White House's agenda.

[Zoupa]

Can someone explain to me the potential gvt shutdown? I saw some senate democrats are wondering if they should vote for the republican house bill to avert a shutdown.

Isn't the senate 53 r 47 d or something? Why would Democrat votes be needed to fund the gvt?

[Zoupa]

Eight Democrats are needed to back the year-long CR. Sen. John Fetterman (D-Pa.) is the lone member of the conference to indicate support for it.

If others don't follow, Republicans have made clear they will make this painful for the minority party.

"If Democrats choose to shut down the government, they're going to own it lock, stock and barrel," Senate Majority Whip John Barrasso (R-Wyo.) said.

You need 60 votes I guess.

Also it must be nice to be a republican politician. Even when you control all branches of government, nothing bad is ever your fault.

[Sophie Scholl]

...unless they vote for cloture of debate, in which case only a simple majority is needed. Then Democrats could say they didn't vote for the CR, but still allow it to pass.

[Valmy]

Eight Democrats are needed to back the year-long CR. Sen. John Fetterman (D-Pa.) is the lone member of the conference to indicate support for it.

If others don't follow, Republicans have made clear they will make this painful for the minority party.

"If Democrats choose to shut down the government, they're going to own it lock, stock and barrel," Senate Majority Whip John Barrasso (R-Wyo.) said.

You need 60 votes I guess.

Also it must be nice to be a republican politician. Even when you control all branches of government, nothing bad is ever your fault.

Yeah? Well you can go fuck yourself lock, stock, and barrel Senator Barrasso.

[Valmy]

The Democrats made it very clear what their conditions were to pass it and the House gave them zero of them.

The days of acting like the Republicans are acting in good faith and the Democrats should cooperate for the good of the country are over. This bill gives way too much power to the President, who has shown himself disastrously unfit to wield it. The Republicans must meet the Democrats conditions if they want Democratic votes. Period.

At least the fucking Democrats are giving conditions the Republicans can do. Fucking a lot more than those motherfuckers ever gave them who just vote shit down for no reason other than "not give the Democrats a win."

[grumbler]

...unless they vote for cloture of debate, in which case only a simple majority is needed. Then Democrats could say they didn't vote for the CR, but still allow it to pass.

The cloture vote is the very vote that needs 60 yeas to pass.  Once cloture is granted the subsequent vote on adoption needs only be a majority vote.

[Sophie Scholl]

The cloture vote is the very vote that needs 60 yeas to pass.  Once cloture is granted the subsequent vote on adoption needs only be a majority vote.

Ah! Gotcha. Appreciate the clarification.

[dist]

[Oexmelin]

Stop. With. The. Fucking. Bridge. Building.