Quo Vadis, Democrats?

[Valmy]

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".

[Valmy]

I have to say it is enormously frustrating for me that the Republicans can openly call for dismantling the justice system and destruction of the FBI and be fine. Whereas for Democrats activists can say something FIVE FUCKING YEARS AGO before Biden was even elected and Raz insists that is official government policy adopted by the Democrats in order to please "marginalized" groups.

I mean in a political situation where somebody who is not even in your party years and years ago says something and it sticks like glue and the other party can call for insane policies and actually do them and it slips right off, what chance do you have? None. Zero.

So I got nothing Raz. I don't know how you overcome that kind of bizarre playing field.

I am certainly not for listening to extreme activists, but even if you don't listen to them, it clearly makes no difference. Whereas the Republicans can put their extreme activists in charge and pretty much purge the party of every centrist and moderate element and they are doing great.

[Valmy]

The Republican Party can be completely taken over by anti-vaccine activists. This is great.

An activist says something five years ago and never actually shapes any policy and that is devastating to the Democrats.

I don't know. It is obviously hopeless.

[HVC]

Obviously when you disagree they're activists, and when you agree it's just common sense.

Politics is all sorts of messed up right now in the states. No idea what the answer is.

*edit* you the plural pronoun, not *you* specifically, Valmy.

[viper37]

Nothing about the minimum wage?

I can't search about everything else, but:
https://www.cnn.com/2024/10/23/politics/federal-minimum-wage-harris-trump/index.html

The rest is at State level, don't have time for that either.

[Grey Fox]

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.

[DGuller]

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.

[Valmy]

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.

Clearly. Somebody said something five years ago, it never became policy, and that decides everything for years.

But beyond going out and hunting down everybody that might say something bad and having them shot I am not sure how to handle that.

[HVC]

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.

Isnt it the same class? Pay both sides and they both give you what you want, just in different ways.

[viper37]

Suggestions that out of touch progressives have been controlling the DNC seem laughable to me. None of the strong progressive voices are close to the inner circles of the party. None of them were close to Biden, or Harris' inner circles either. If their voices seem louder, it's because the "official message" from the DNC is muddled, weak, or inexistant. In that vacuum, some more progressive voices get heard more.

Oex is on to something.

When the Dems lost, everyone said it was because they weren't progressive enough, not bold enough, not radical enough.

Even a few days ago as we were discussing the DNC leadership, it was said they were too mainstream.

Now you're all saying they're too far to the left...

So either these people have the ears of Pelosi & all or they're all chatting for the people who want to ear them without any kind of real influence.

Otherwise, you have a party of extreme centrists... governed by far left idiots?  Doesn't really make sense to me. 

[HVC]

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.

Clearly. Somebody said something five years ago, it never became policy, and that decides everything for years.

But beyond going out and hunting down everybody that might say something bad and having them shot I am not sure how to handle that.

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.

People are dumb, as a general rule, get them to follow and once they're along for the ride they rarely question why they're on the bandwagon.

[Valmy]

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.

People are dumb, as a general rule, get them to follow and once they're along for the ride they rarely question why they're on the bandwagon.

Sure. But guys like him don't show up very often, which is why the second it was obvious Obama had charisma he was shoved to the front of the line even though he might not have been ready for prime time.

But if another Obama or whomever shows up I agree, we need to get that person out in front. But who was the charismatic leader before Obama? Kennedy? That is quite a long gap between charismatic leaders.

[DGuller]

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.

Clearly. Somebody said something five years ago, it never became policy, and that decides everything for years.

But beyond going out and hunting down everybody that might say something bad and having them shot I am not sure how to handle that.

You keep saying it never became policy, but that crazy thinking has reflected on many policies, often on a local level.  I don't want to rehash the same conversation we had after election, but the BLM protests and the groupthink that followed had a lasting impact on NYC, for example.  Also, it wasn't an activist who limited his choices for veep to women and thus left us with a poor choice for a candidate 4 years later.

Apart from that, it seems to assume that people vote for policy proposals, which seems like an unrealistic assumption to me.  It seems more likely that people vote for ideals they believe politicians represent, because that would guide them in what they actually do.  After all, Trump claimed explicitly he didn't run on Project 2025, but people who understand the ideals GOP was running on knew better.

[HVC]

You need to wait for your old guard to die. Or implement age limits. The Pelosi's and Clinton's* of your party won't step aside to give them room.

* no idea how they're still influential.

*edit* before Obama was Clinton, then Reagan, then some duds and the Kennedy. Duds can fight duds on equal footing.

[Valmy]

You keep saying it never became policy, but that crazy thinking has reflected on many policies, often on a local level.  I don't want to rehash the same conversation we had after election, but the BLM protests and the groupthink that followed had a lasting impact on NYC, for example.

Ok well I don't live there, but I thought Eric Adams was this big cop dude.

Also, it wasn't an activist who limited his choices for veep to women and thus left us with a poor choice for a candidate 4 years later.

Well I 100% agree that was a disastrous decision.

Apart from that, it seems to assume that people vote for policy proposals, which seems like an unrealistic assumption to me.  It seems more likely that people vote for ideals they believe politicians represent, because that would guide them in what they actually do.  After all, Trump claimed explicitly he didn't run on Project 2025, but people who understand the ideals GOP was running on knew better.

Yep. But it didn't hurt him, or at least not enough to lose.

And that is pretty depressing.