Supreme Court has voted to overturn abortion rights, draft opinion shows

[Razgovory]

The obvious solution is to simply tell lurid lies like the GOP does. 

"The GOP is planning to put all non-white 'Replacers' into to camps for deportation!"

"Republicans don't want to let you choose you religion.  Will institute mandatory services!"

"Religious Right will dock you pay 10% for mega churches!"

"Saying 'Godamn' will be a felony".

[Iormlund]

You call them what you want.

But it's counter-productive for Dem politicians to think of them that way because they're trying to get these people to vote for them.

Why though?

The votes they should be looking for are those of progressive people who don't bother going to the polls.
And who can blame them? Lets face it, it's not like the Dems are going to do anything actually progressive with those votes.

Decent healthcare? Socialism! What are we, Europe?
Curtailing corporations/billionaires' power on the political system? Yikes!
Packing the Court, which would at least provide judicial cover to millions for a few years? Heresy! That would destroy the institution's prestige!

Yeah, much better idea to chase a mythical "center" ever shifting right.

[Oexmelin]

Won't work - because you'll always have your AOCs (and if not elected politicians, then your activist base) talking about these topics.  And as a response you'll have the GOP trying to tie all Dems to what the fringiest parts of the left are saying.

And that will always happen - they were able to make Hilary into an unhinged leftist, ffs. To let the Republicans occupy that space is a losing strategy. Meanwhile, conservatives seem utterly happy to think what Cawthorne, or Taylor Green, or the other fascists is just fine and dandy, and not worthy of comment or distance. You want Dems to answer those accusations because these are elements that concern you as a conservative. But I don't think the center that you think is there for the taking, share in that major concern. 

Flood the waves with what you want to do, and make Republicans appear as if they were concerned with silly stuff and/or naked power grab.

[Barrister]

You call them what you want.

But it's counter-productive for Dem politicians to think of them that way because they're trying to get these people to vote for them.

Why though?

The votes they should be looking for are those of progressive people who don't bother going to the polls.
And who can blame them? Lets face it, it's not like the Dems are going to do anything actually progressive with those votes.

Decent healthcare? Socialism! What are we, Europe?
Curtailing corporations/billionaires' power on the political system? Yikes!
Packing the Court, which would at least provide judicial cover to millions for a few years? Heresy! That would destroy the institution's prestige!

Yeah, much better idea to chase a mythical "center" ever shifting right.

That's the base turnout strategy.  Which has the added benefit of telling activists they don't need to compromise on anything in order to win.

It also hasn't shown itself to work very well.

[Josquius]

I've noticed that in recent weeks, it's a funny thing. The word "activist" being used to mean left wing people in general. Like the right doesn't have activists?

As I said, even if the democratic party totally set themselves at odds with AOC and Co... Will that really sway many people? I doubt it. It would do more harm than good to divide the left from the centre. Already people on the left are flaky when it comes to voting dem. And there are a lot of people in the US who sit left of americas very right wing centre.

[grumbler]

https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/biden-congress-votes/

He's the kind of guy who votes with Biden 95.5% of the time.

Which is in the bottom 10% of Democratic Senators.

[grumbler]

"American political discourse" though is different from "American politics".

There's still a centre out there, just the two parties aren't speaking to it.

So take those popular policy positions and run with them - I'm not suggesting the democrats become the GOP-lite.  But back off on some of the culture war fights you can't win.  Make sure voters know you support border security, although you support more legal immigration.  You want police reform, not abolition.  You support trans people, but not trans athletes in competitive sports.  You believe abortion should be safe, legal and rare.

Those are the Democratic platform positions, by and large (though their definition of which sports can and which can't survive the participation of transwomen may differ from yours).

The Democrats definitely have a communication problem, and an age image problem.  Perhaps they really SHOULD become as shamelessly dishonest as the Republicans and their pet network, but they lack both the party discipline and the party hypocrisy to pull it off.

[grumbler]

That is exactly the GOP lite you say you are not advocating for.  Why, for example should abortion be rare?  That is the kind of logic that renders abortion services rare to non existent.

Abortion (at least, surgical abortion) should be rare because it is traumatic, carries some risk, and takes time and money away from medical treatments than cannot be easily avoided.  Contraception is superior to abortion in every sense.  And heart transplants are rare, yet heart transplant services are not rare to non-existent.

[crazy canuck]

That is exactly the GOP lite you say you are not advocating for.  Why, for example should abortion be rare?  That is the kind of logic that renders abortion services rare to non existent.

Abortion (at least, surgical abortion) should be rare because it is traumatic, carries some risk, and takes time and money away from medical treatments than cannot be easily avoided.  Contraception is superior to abortion in every sense.  And heart transplants are rare, yet heart transplant services are not rare to non-existent.

In an ideal world, yes.  But a terrible public policy position.  If abortions should be rare then it's ok to restrict access.

[Razgovory]

Don't be daft.

[crazy canuck]

Don't be daft.

How would you ensure abortions are rare?

[Razgovory]

Like Barrister said, encourage contraception.  That makes it rarer.

[Berkut]

That is exactly the GOP lite you say you are not advocating for.  Why, for example should abortion be rare?  That is the kind of logic that renders abortion services rare to non existent.

Abortion (at least, surgical abortion) should be rare because it is traumatic, carries some risk, and takes time and money away from medical treatments than cannot be easily avoided.  Contraception is superior to abortion in every sense.  And heart transplants are rare, yet heart transplant services are not rare to non-existent.

In an ideal world, yes.  But a terrible public policy position.  If abortions should be rare then it's ok to restrict access.

We do restrict access. Roe v Wade didn't say you could not restrict access at all. In fact, it said you very much could.

[Admiral Yi]

You call them what you want.

But it's counter-productive for Dem politicians to think of them that way because they're trying to get these people to vote for them.

Why though?

The votes they should be looking for are those of progressive people who don't bother going to the polls.
And who can blame them? Lets face it, it's not like the Dems are going to do anything actually progressive with those votes.

Decent healthcare? Socialism! What are we, Europe?
Curtailing corporations/billionaires' power on the political system? Yikes!
Packing the Court, which would at least provide judicial cover to millions for a few years? Heresy! That would destroy the institution's prestige!

Yeah, much better idea to chase a mythical "center" ever shifting right.

  Do progressives not care about abortion?  Gun control?  Stopping Trumpists?

[Solmyr]

They do, well at least the ones that are actual policies.  Except student debt.  The majority support that already.

You sure about that?

https://www.usnews.com/news/education-news/articles/2022-04-25/only-38-of-young-americans-support-total-cancellation-of-student-loan-debt-poll

And that's just when asked in the abstract.  People generally like the idea of free money when asked, but less so when presented as actual policy.

Doing a quick google it suggests that 37% of Americans above the age of 25 graduated from college.  That of course means 63% did not.  Imagine you're a welder struggling with lots of debts of your own - a mortgage, car loan, credit cards - and you hear that a bunch of graduates from fancy schools are suddenly having their debt forgiven.

Or even if you are a college graduate yourself, but you decided to go to a less expensive state school, or gave up on graduate school, because you didn't want to take on so much debt.  Or you scrimped and saved for years in order to pay off your student debt.  Are you going to be happy that Biden is forgiving student loans for other people?

So what you are saying is, people hate it when good things happen to other people and therefore decide they must support the party of crazies?