Quo Vadis, Democrats?

[DGuller]

Eric Adams is an ineffective politician, so it's not that relevant what he's for or against.  The city council is much more relevant.  That said, at the time I said that Adams's election should've been a warning sign that even New Yorkers would prefer an obviously corrupt cop to a woke candidate, but unfortunately people that matter didn't see it as such.

[garbon]

Another area where activists seem to have gotten it wrong is abortion. 

Yeah, that amounted to absolutely nothing, didn't it?  I do wonder if the true Pyrrhic victory would be the death of wokeness.  I bet the majority of the left secretly wants it to die just as much as the right does, and once it's done away with, the right will lose its most effective recruitment tool.

That feels like a woeful misunderstanding of the right. They don't actually need the Democratic Party to be doing much of anything to spin a narrative. See: The Emails, Pizzagate, Q, 'They're eating the dogs, they're eating the cats', "crisis actors", drag queen story hour, trans people, voter fraud, unreliability of vaccines...

They don't need it, but it helps a lot.  The two are also synergetic:  some people become open to the nonsense from the right when they become disenchanted with the left.  Wokeness is a very potent repulser.

Sure, you can always blame an amorphous concept for all the ills. Sort of like how political correctness used to be to blame.

[Valmy]

Eric Adams is an ineffective politician, so it's not that relevant what he's for or against.  The city council is much more relevant.  That said, at the time I said that Adams's election should've been a warning sign that even New Yorkers would prefer an obviously corrupt cop to a woke candidate, but unfortunately people that matter didn't see it as such.

I am just glad New York has limits to how far they will go. Texas clearly does not.

[Oexmelin]

Charisma. Last charismatic leader the dems had was Obama. Bush wasn't the sharpest tool in the shed, but seemed like someone who you could share a beer with. With new media it's harder to hide behind press releases and journalist doing your work for you.

Sure, charisma is something, and it's very important. But charismatic people also need to be given some room to breathe; they need to be attuned to the zeitgeist in some way and they need to be ready to exercise power.

In a way, I agree with the DNC's diagnosis that the messaging wasn't good enough. But I think they are drawing the wrong lessons. They mean they didn't explain their position well enough - and whenever I hear that, I think of Elizabeth Warren's thirty-one detailed plans. They need less to explain, and more to embody. At the Congress level, they need to develop the necessary politics for a moment of anger, confrontation, and corruption - which means that all of those past high school presidents are utterly unprepared for that sort of thing.

They also need to invest - and invest considerably - in grassroots politics, which I feel they have utterly abandonned. 

My sense of the current moment is that we are in a crisis of disempowerment. People who used to traditionally feel empowered are feeling things slipping out of their control. In a way, that's reflected in the rise of "living by proxy" that is so prevalent on social networks, that accompanied the rise of the superhero movie and its associated power fantasies. That is what people like Musk, and Trump embody. They act, and people have to do their bidding. They can cut through the government bullshit - which people associate with their frustrations with the DMV, or their health insurers. For years, people have been told the remedy to their sense of disenfranchisement was to make money - and now, even that seems to slip. That fuels resentment. That's why the celebration of strength, wealth, and obedience, and finding scapegoats sustains fascistic tendencies. What the right does, is promise some measure of empowerement through retribution and proxy: you may not have a lot of power, but your team does. And you may even be able to partake in it, by saying horrible things without consequences, or by denouncing your neighbour, or by being guaranteed some measure of impunity.  Where I agree with Guller's woke obsession is that whenever people feel disempowered, it's rarely a good idea to shut them up by saying other people have been historically disempowered, and for much longer. Where I disagree is when being antiwoke is the sum total of the political proposition they wish for the left, and for it to return to "explaining my comprehensive plan one more time".

[viper37]

Isn't the answer to all this capital? The Republican capital class wants and needs those crazy policies while the Democrat capital class wants nothing to do with the policies of their extremists.

There are different "Republican capital class".

For the Demos, yes, for the GOP, it's more nuanced.

The old conservative capital class like Murdoch and Walton want and need it.

Lazy Blacks, AIDS giving gays, pedophiles transgenders, it's all to rise up public support on a cause to support the party that will tax them less and give them less regulations.

The financial sector want less regulation while at the same time knowing that they will become too big to fail and be rescued, along with their bonus and golden parachutes.

And you have the tech bros, who can read your mind, thanks to all the spying of their network.  They can read the writing on the wall and observe social tendencies in real time.  They switch their support accordingly.

[viper37]

Raz insists that is official government policy adopted by the Democrats in order to please "marginalized" groups.

Raz would prefer to see MedicAID ends so long as it lets him beat him a few Muslims.  It's a fair compromise.

[viper37]

Well I 100% agree that was a disastrous decision.

It might not have been so bad if Biden had retire himself as was the plan and there had been a true primary, with enough time for each candidates to express their ideas & vision of the party, where it should go, where they erred, where they did good, and then all members chose a candidate which would have had about a year to campaign everywhere in the US.

It might have been Harris, it might have been someone else, but at least he/she would have stood a chance.

And there would have been no party infighting between the old guard and the new guard.

[HVC]

Raz insists that is official government policy adopted by the Democrats in order to please "marginalized" groups.

Raz would prefer to see MedicAID ends so long as it lets him beat him a few Muslims.  It's a fair compromise.

Come on now, it's getting old

[DGuller]

Well I 100% agree that was a disastrous decision.

It might not have been so bad if Biden had retire himself as was the plan and there had been a true primary, with enough time for each candidates to express their ideas & vision of the party, where it should go, where they erred, where they did good, and then all members chose a candidate which would have had about a year to campaign everywhere in the US.

It might have been Harris, it might have been someone else, but at least he/she would have stood a chance.

And there would have been no party infighting between the old guard and the new guard.

It was still bad, because a veep is not just a default next candidate, but also the person who can become a president at any moment.  I truly believe that Biden believed everything he said about Trump being a threat to democracy, which just shows how much hold identity politics had over the mainstream Democratic politicians that they still took this risk to check the demographic box, while knowing what was at stake.

[viper37]

Raz insists that is official government policy adopted by the Democrats in order to please "marginalized" groups.

Raz would prefer to see MedicAID ends so long as it lets him beat him a few Muslims.  It's a fair compromise.

Come on now, it's getting old

Nah.  I do not rejoice in his suffering, unlike he does in other.

But I won't stop putting his own sociopath nose in his own shit.

[viper37]

It was still bad, because a veep is not just a default next candidate, but also the person who can become a president at any moment.  I truly believe that Biden believed everything he said about Trump being a threat to democracy, which just shows how much hold identity politics had over the mainstream Democratic politicians that they still took this risk to check the demographic box, while knowing what was at stake.

And the voters still chose to vote for the fascist despite the threat to Democracy.  Far left voters, Black voters, Hispanic/Latino voters, Muslim voters, on top of deeply religious Republican voters who really want a theocracy for the US.

At some point, if voters are too stupid to make the good choice, you can't blame everyone else around but their own stupidity. 

In Canada, people were warned about the stupidity of Justin Trudeau and how he was unqualified to run this country.  They were warned of the danger of his policies.  They refused to listen, they voted him in office thrice.  Then they complained the results of his policies gave exactly what we warned them against.  And we almost got our own Trump because of this.  It's still a risk.

[HVC]

Raz insists that is official government policy adopted by the Democrats in order to please "marginalized" groups.

Raz would prefer to see MedicAID ends so long as it lets him beat him a few Muslims.  It's a fair compromise.

Come on now, it's getting old

Nah.  I do not rejoice in his suffering, unlike he does in other.

But I won't stop putting his own sociopath nose in his own shit.

Then at least contain it to the Israel Hamas thread, pretty please. Right now it like you're a kid chasing a girl all over the place and pulling her pigtails. It's distracting

[DGuller]

And the voters still chose to vote for the fascist despite the threat to Democracy.  Far left voters, Black voters, Hispanic/Latino voters, Muslim voters, on top of deeply religious Republican voters who really want a theocracy for the US.

At some point, if voters are too stupid to make the good choice, you can't blame everyone else around but their own stupidity. 

No argument there, it was truly depressing to realize that the pundits saying that "threat to democracy" message doesn't sell were correct.  The abdication of civic responsibility by citizens has been breathtaking.  That said, you have to take the voters as they are, even if what they are is stupid. 

[The Minsky Moment]

The Pelosi's and Clinton's* of your party won't step aside to give them room.

Pelosi did step aside, she is just an ordinary member of Congress now.
No Clinton has run for office since 2016.

[Razgovory]

As a result you get stuff like Defund the Police and Open Borders.  Things that the majority of Black and Hispanic people don't actually want.

Ok look I never noticed ever the Democrats call for decriminalizing the border, I follow this stuff pretty close and that was news to me. But they certainly never did anything of the sort in practice. The only thing I have seen any practical impact was maybe a confused policy on the border by Biden for the very beginning of his Presidency but surely with the end of the COVID-19 Pandemic we were going to see a surge from pent up demand for labor anyway?

But defund the police? The Democrats have been increasing funding for the police and bending over backwards saying they love the police.

And yeah it is bad if prominent Latino leaders are completely out of touch with their own supporters, but is that something that really means "marginalized" peoples are being catered to? If important Democratic leaders within important voting blocks have it so wrong what difference does it make if they are  "marginalized" or not? I don't understand your point there or what my take away should be beyond you don't like the term "marginalized".

My point is that marginalized people aren't being catered to, it's that Democrats defer to elites that share some characteristics with marginalized people.  Simply being Black doesn't give you special insight into the lives of all Black people.  So deferring to wealthy Black scion from Colorado who attended Columbia University when crafting policy for poor Black people in Mississippi is counterproductive.