General US Politics

[Slumber]

14 minutes ago, Lord Raven said:

I was talking about Hillary. Bill was known for being a third way Democrat at the time, and that was the only way to be competitive against the 90s GOP.

But their platform wasn't very different. Clinton was a wonk, Obama was an organizer. But they did not differ noticeably in platform.

Biden supports universal healthcare, he doesn't support M4A.

Either way, you're calling all this leftist when the non-war stuff was Clinton's platform in 2016 and Biden's platform in 2020. So is Obama/Clinton/Biden's campaign leftist or are Obama/Clinton/Biden's campaign moderate?

I don't know why you'd mention Hillary when she didn't win. She lost the 2008 primary to a candidate who was much further to her left(Again, FOR THE TIME), and then lost the 2016 election. She's not an example of moderate policies winning.

You're comparing 2008 Obama to 2016 Clinton and 2020 Biden. There's nearly a decade rift between them, and you don't have to look very hard to find that both Clinton AND Biden supported staying in Iraq in 2008, and Obama took them both to task regularly over their votes in favor of it during the Bush administration.

Being vocally against the Iraq war in 2008 was not a moderate position because, surprise surprise, most big name democrats, who were still around in 2008, voted in favor of invading Iraq.

14 minutes ago, Lord Raven said:

Your description of Obama's campaign seems to be far divorced from the reality of his campaign, and if it's not far divorced from the reality of his campaign then it appears to be far divorced from the reality of the other campaigns you are criticizing. If Obama was a radical leftist for all those positions in 08, then Clinton and Biden were/are too right now...

Again, I'm looking at these campaigns within the context of the times they took place in. Biden and Clinton were so much closer to the center than Obama was in 2008 that their positions then are nearly unrecognizable to the campaigns they ran in 2016 and 2020.

If it took nearly a full decade for Obama's policies to be considered this supported within the party, doesn't that indicate that he wasn't just another moderate(At least during the 2008 primaries) and a fair number of his positions were... "progressive", for lack of a better term, for the time period?

Edited September 26, 2020 by Slumber

[XRay]

3 minutes ago, Crysta said:

As for why moderates are the only ones who win... well it's because they're the only ones who are nominated. And they're nominated not because they hold the views of most of their constituents (because lol Biden doesn't), but because we're afraid of alienating the middle and the Democratic establishment is essentially moderates themselves. So they always will nominate a moderate unless the left wing of the party can leverage enough clout to make them nominate something else.

 

If the left wing does not have the clout to even win a Democratic nomination, how can I expect them to win the national election? What can the far left even do to win over non-Democratic moderates who are even more likely to reject their message and ideas?

[Crysta]

11 minutes ago, XRay said:

If the left wing does not have the clout to even win a Democratic nomination, how can I expect them to win the national election? What can the far left even do to win over non-Democratic moderates who are even more likely to reject their message and ideas?

I think they will, eventually, and once the electorate tries on the SocDem policies the Republican propaganda machine has spent the last 40+ years vilifying -- and discover that they actually like them -- we can finally get something vaguely resembling a functioning republic once more. If Bernie's voters actually showed up en masse he might have had a chance. That's on them.

But I'm not deluding myself to thinking our current strategy is working, and we won't just see the same Republican gimmicks work time and time again because we let them work.

Edited September 26, 2020 by Crysta

[Lord Raven]

  

1 hour ago, Crysta said:

(because lol Biden doesn't)

yes he does lol

you make good takes but you can't even read a platform before saying this? If so, what do the people actually want then? It sounds like his platform matches it pretty well. He did poach policy guys from other D campaigns, after all. What more do you even want?

I'm not even a moderate and it's pretty easy to see Biden/Harris platform is ridiculously progressive, especially for the US.

1 hour ago, Slumber said:

I don't know why you'd mention Hillary when she didn't win. She lost the 2008 primary to a candidate who was much further to her left(Again, FOR THE TIME), and then lost the 2016 election. She's not an example of moderate policies winning.

You're comparing 2008 Obama to 2016 Clinton and 2020 Biden. There's nearly a decade rift between them, and you don't have to look very hard to find that both Clinton AND Biden supported staying in Iraq in 2008, and Obama took them both to task regularly over their votes in favor of it during the Bush administration.

Being vocally against the Iraq war in 2008 was not a moderate position because, surprise surprise, most big name democrats, who were still around in 2008, voted in favor of invading Iraq.

Again, I'm looking at these campaigns within the context of the times they took place in. Biden and Clinton were so much closer to the center than Obama was in 2008 that their positions then are nearly unrecognizable to the campaigns they ran in 2016 and 2020.

You're still way off. You need to really read back up on that election, it's not how you remember it. For the record, I brought up Clinton because she was more recent; Kerry and Gore both were in close elections where they were the underdog and with vote fuckery in Ohio and Florida respectively.

Obama was not "much further to her left." https://www.vox.com/2015/6/15/8779449/hillary-clinton-populist-record first result on google. It was a toss-up in terms of their views, and they were very very close to one another in platform. You can find plenty, plenty more but Obama being far more of a leftist than Clinton is definitely far, far, FAR from the truth. The majority of non-foreign policy Obama was in favor of, Clinton was also in favor of in 2008. And then Clinton took up the mantle in 2016, and Biden took it in 2020.

Being vocally against the Iraq War in 2008 was the mainstream position. Not the moderate position. Fucking nobody liked the Iraq War after like 2005 or 2006. If being pro-Iraq War was mainstream, it doesn't explain Bush's 20% approval rating at the time in spite of Iraq. Iraq and Katrina both plummeted Bush's presidency and the Republican party for Obama to swoop in.

Biden and Clinton were much further left than Obama 2008 and 2012. The Clinton campaign was more progressive in 2016.

Regardless, my argument was that if Obama was progressive in 08 because of those platforms, then surely Clinton was also a progressive leftist. Those are very vague platforms and paradigms.

Quote

If it took nearly a full decade for Obama's policies to be considered this supported within the party, doesn't that indicate that he wasn't just another moderate(At least during the 2008 primaries) and a fair number of his positions were... "progressive", for lack of a better term, for the time period?

Obama's policies were never what you thought they were. You already really do need a refresher; if you think the Iraq War was popular in 2008, you really really really did not pay attention. I'm not meaning to insult your intelligence at all, since I genuinely am surprised to see you post and I remember liking a lot of your posts, but there's this chasm between us and I think you need to spend *a lot* of time looking over the 2008 primaries and the 2008 election in general.

In fact, Obama being painted as some sort of leftist in 2008 is definitely republican revisionism. Not calling you a republican, but you can go to more left-leaning and satirical media of the time (Boondocks comes to mind easily) and you can easily see that your perception is off the mark of the reality of the time.

Also, proof about the Iraq War's popularity: https://www.pewresearch.org/2008/03/19/public-attitudes-toward-the-war-in-iraq-20032008/

It was career suicide in the early 2000s (see: Dixie Chicks). By 2008 it was an anti-Republican wedge.

Edited September 26, 2020 by Lord Raven

[Crysta]

19 minutes ago, Lord Raven said:

  

yes he does lol

you make good takes but you can't even read a platform before saying this? If so, what do the people actually want then? It sounds like his platform matches it pretty well. He did poach policy guys from other D campaigns, after all. What more do you even want?

Are we not pro Medicare for All, significantly decriminalizing illegal immigration and anti fracking?

How about wanting those things, or is that just a bridge too far?

[Lord Raven]

21 minutes ago, Crysta said:

Are we not pro Medicare for All, significantly decriminalizing illegal immigration and anti fracking?

How about wanting those things, or is that just a bridge too far?

We as in the denizens of serenes forest, or we as in the US?

70% of the people want M4A. Great! I still don't think M4A is viable during a Biden presidency. We still lack infrastructure for it, as is my understanding. He's pro-UHC and pro-public option; I thought most of the country was also in favor of UHC. M4A is just shifting to a unicorn wedge. I don't even think Elizabeth Warren could come up with a plan to make M4A within a single presidential term (in fact, her platform was M4A in the long run, but not in the short run), I really don't think Biden or Sanders are anywhere close to being able to do that.

Significantly decriminalizing illegal immigration is a universal value? The country is definitely not in favor of that. Seeing as he's pro-DACA, I'm not really sure what your gripe is unless you want fully open borders or something.

Fracking? He's anti-expansion of fracking. He also has a climate plan to go carbon neutral by 2035...

I mean, I've gone through much of his platform and statements. But this is 10000% the most progressive presidential platform in the post-JFK era. This country is just way more conservative than you think, and people expecting M4A from any administration within the next 4-6 years are pretty much dreaming. A public option allows us to still use medical resources, it just doesn't go medicare quality, but it still helps decelerate rising costs while we can...  expand healthcare infrastructure greatly so we can actually have medicare for all.

Ultimately part of the fucking issue with M4A is that we lost literally a decade of change to improve the ACA and our healthcare infrastructure. And we fucking didnt, because of Mitch McConnell. So in the end, it's really Mitch's fault we won't have M4A by 2024.

Edited September 26, 2020 by Lord Raven

[Excellen Browning]

Americans as a population have been anti-immigrant for as long as I care to know about. This has been true for more than a century.

[Lord Raven]

Even immigrants can be pretty heavily anti-illegal immigration.

(I'll just virtue signal and say that my family and I are not at all among them, but it's a fairly common view that's like "i paid my dues for my citizenship, they should pay theirs")

[XRay]

Just now, Excellen Browning said:

Americans as a population have been anti-immigrant for as long as I care to know about. This has been true for more than a century.

Depends on where the immigration comes from. Immigration is very welcoming right now if you come from Europe. Asia seems acceptable too. Latin America and Middle East gets the most anti-immigration rhetoric right now. I have not noticed much anti-immigration rhetoric for Africa, although that might be due to lower immigration rates compared to Latin America, terrorism is usually more associated with the Middle East, and African-Americans are the minority with the most political power.

[Lord Raven]

You don't notice anti immigration rhetoric from africa because it's lumped in with anti black rhetoric somehow. Although african immigrants seem to have much more in common with asians.

[Crysta]

45 minutes ago, Lord Raven said:

We as in the denizens of serenes forest, or we as in the US?

Democrats in the U.S. The party that nominated him. "Constituent" may have not been the correct term because that implies the country as a whole, if they choose to elect him, but whatever I'm clarifying it now.

45 minutes ago, Lord Raven said:

70% of the people want M4A. Great! I still don't think M4A is viable during a Biden presidency.

That's a different argument.

45 minutes ago, Lord Raven said:

The country is definitely not in favor of that. Seeing as he's pro-DACA, I'm not really sure what your gripe is unless you want fully open borders or something.

I don't think overturning the 90-year-old provision in U.S. immigration law that makes entering the country illegally a criminal offense is radical. It enabled the current administration to do what it wants to do. It makes being present in the United States without authorization open to criminal prosecution versus just a civil offense similar to a traffic violation.

In any other administration I doubt most of them are actually prosecuted, but you know.

After going out and looking at the polling instead of just relying on my memory, I'm not actually correct anyway so I'll concede that point. I know the Republicans certainly don't favor illegal (sometimes even legal) immigration in any meaningful form.

Source

woe is me thinking if it's a viable position to take during a democratic debate then it must be at least nominally popular lol

And yes, he's not in favor of expanding fracking.

That's kind of different than saying you're not gonna do it.

 

Edited September 26, 2020 by Crysta

[Lord Raven]

23 minutes ago, Crysta said:

Democrats in the U.S. The party that nominated him. "Constituent" may have not been the correct term because that implies the country as a whole, if they choose to elect him, but whatever I'm clarifying it now.

I don't think the politician's full will is M4A. Public Option is progressive and will get us by until actual infrastructure reform can bring fruit. It is essentially what people are asking for. I sincerely think a UHC system is what people are asking for, and it's framed as M4A.

23 minutes ago, Crysta said:

I don't think overturning the 90-year-old provision in U.S. immigration law that makes entering the country illegally a criminal offense is radical.

You're right and we do need to clamor for this. I just don't think that's a heavy priority compared to other policies affecting american citizen-adjacents that will actually destroy millions of lives. It is fucked up because it needs to be addressed so as an administration as cruel (but not as dumbshitted) as this one can't take advantage of it.

I personally currently don't think that's a heavy priority to bring up (because we both know that this administration's views towards DACA are fucking horrific and have been tried in SCOTUS -- this supreme court nominee is probably the scariest time in their lives), but that is also a very tenable position. It needs to be marketed properly though, which blows because you can lose a lot of immigrants if the media ends up losing their minds over it.

23 minutes ago, Crysta said:

  And yes, he's not in favor of expanding fracking.

That's kind of different than saying you're not gonna do it.

This probably means he'll starve the beast since he won't expand it. Fracking is well on its way out in a free market anyway. If they rebuild the EPA and perform the meaning climate change reforms in their platform, fracking will just go away and ideally there will be some degree of Green New Deal implemented to replace it. I do think it will go hand in hand with a climate bill, without actually targeting voters (directly, anyway).

Hate to make a comparison, but Abraham Lincoln was against the expansion of slavery in 1860, which is part of the reason why the south seceded. I don't believe he went full on abolitionist in his campaign. But even without the Civil War, slavery was well on its way out and replaced by many forms of automation, so I mean, I'm not saying climate change is comparable to slavery in any way shape or form, but it's definitely a way to kill things without directly losing voters who want to keep their jobs. There still are blue collar unionists on the edge (between voting and staying home) who really aren't affected by a whole lot but kinda seem conservative.

Also he wants to win Pennsylvania. I'm not sure if you're following 538's election forecast, but Pennsylvania is likely going to decide the election if Florida goes Republican... and it's hard leaning Biden right now, but their government's a piece of shit when it comes to voter suppression.

 

 

Although trust me, for an old guy, he's changing and it's remarkable. I think the Democrats need to honestly just fuckin drop gun control as a rallying point (and just keep universal background checks in the background of their platform and the things they do but not much more) and it'll be fine and continue to trend leftwards. I don't think we'll ever go towards socialism, I think socdem/capitalism with good social safety nets is pretty much the point they're trending to but we still need to drag whole swaths of the country there in both rhetoric and idea. And just shut racists the fuck up, jesus christ.

Edited September 26, 2020 by Lord Raven

[Crysta]

Okay.

I contended that Biden doesn't entirely represent what his voters want. And that's it. You disagreed.

I brought up the issues where Biden breaks from Democratic voters to support my claim. You're now arguing that these things his voters want are unrealistic or whether or not they matter enough to really complain about.

Since I'm not here to actually dissuade voters voting for the obviously much better presidential platform, I have little interest in actually tearing it apart, so I'm not gonna.

Edited September 26, 2020 by Crysta

[Lord Raven]

Well, I was gauging the temperature of the take. What you're actually believing is much less hot than what I perceived. I do this a lot.

My ultimate stance is: I don't think "moderate Dems" are trying to lose, and I don't think they're really "moderate" which was the major point in all of this that I'm contending, since there's around 2-3 people in the thread who brought up similar points around the same time. I'm high and it's 3am and I'm not scrolling up to look.

You're not the only person I'm really responding to, even if your points are what I'm direclty quoting. And I'd rather talk about shit like this than anything related to the Republican Party, since they're toxic pieces of shit and they've made talking about anything politics related seeming like a dissuasion from voting. I think too hard all the time, this challenges me and makes me either understand what i think from a different point of view or help formulate what part of the issue actually is. Sometimes just talking about shit they say is horrible to me lol, because I refuse to grant it legitimacy. (In general, I don't think there's many conservatives or non-voters that are going to be in this thread or browsing this thread, so are we just going to outrage jerk or hopefully either strengthen arguments against voting / bring up what's fucked up in the world and needs fixing? / etc?)

I'm really not trying to "win" or whatever, I just poke aggressively. Winning/losing arguments is just another toxic feature of political discussion that is a massive part of our political system and I'm never actively trying to pretend that we're in CNN's Crossfire or going to a Ben Shapiro rally.

Edited September 26, 2020 by Lord Raven

[Crysta]

Being terrible at winning doesn't mean you want to lose. I think every team that goes on the field comes with a desire to win.

It doesn't mean they know how to pitch.

I do think the core of the Democratic establishment is pretty centrist/moderate, though.

 

Edited September 26, 2020 by Crysta

[Lord Raven]

Well, they've lost the popular vote once since 1992. Clinton and Obama both won two terms; Gore lost in the supreme court, Kerry mostly just lost Ohio.

In which case, Clinton lost 3 states by 80k votes total. And the popular vote by 3 million. Sure, they fucked up the campaign, but presumably the candidate was more than good enough to win, just unfortunate since it was so slim. Especially in a disadvantageous election cycle for a Democrat.

This is definitely somewhat of a disadvantageous cycle for Democrats, but the fact that Trump is doing so poorly is the only reason they have a chance, really. Turns out the son of a blue collar guy from Scranton is probably the best appeal to the midwest, since they're really focused on identity politics.

I don't think the democratic establishment really is a thing you can pin down. They are clearly fluid enough to, say, change the superdelegate system when an outsider complains about it. And allow outsiders to run even if they really don't have a chance and still absorb their platform in.

I really do think COVID was cataclysmic enough to shift everything significantly, and from what I'm seeing it has.

[Excellen Browning]

I'd have to agree that the democratic party is capable of changing with the times, and has done so several times. 

Being against gay rights, abortion and transgenders were mainstream positions held by democrats till the early 2000s. That's virtually wiped out now. 

[Excellen Browning]

It looks like Trump's going to nominate Amy Coney Barrett to the scotus.

https://edition.cnn.com/2020/09/25/politics/donald-trump-amy-coney-barrett-supreme-court/index.html

 

[Lord Raven]

Oh sweet I love the handmaid's tale 

[Tryhard]

Some people have been circulating that The Handmaid's Tale is based on the group that Amy Barrett is part of. This isn't true, although it's a secretive group of very religious mostly-Catholics where the founders engaged in such things as speaking in tongues, and one former member described it as a cult, and 'women leaders' are referred to as haidmaids, so it may not be that outlandish.

Supposedly, she has been going around since the nomination saying that her devout religiosity will not affect her judgement, citing Scalia as an example (hmm...), but you really do have to wonder about the truth of that, especially when it comes to matters involving abortion.

Her appointment wouldn't look out of place in a theocracy like Iran. Just a different religion.

Either way, she will obviously find any justification to support social conservative positions and oppose progressive ones.

Edited September 27, 2020 by Tryhard

[Lord Raven]

1 hour ago, Tryhard said:

Her appointment wouldn't look out of place in a theocracy like Iran. Just a different religion.

It's a mix of this and like...  South Korea of a few years ago.

[Tryhard]

According to the NY Times, Trump never paid income tax for 10 of the 15 years before 2016, and only paid $750 in 2016 and 2017.

https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/518510-trump-paid-no-income-taxes-for-10-of-past-15-years-report?fbclid=IwAR2OWpxnprCGXCFDQBihJVfW2wYt6EAaCw1xF6_tNM9l4Kdw8iC1WzZAsQY

Actually, he paid more money to Panama, India, and the Philippines than the US.

He's already come out and called this fake news of course, but I have one suggestion for how to clear this up if the NY Times is truly wrong, Donald - go ahead and release them. You're really so full of shit that you're still going with the whole under audit excuse - it's been four years.

Until that time, I'm inclined to believe Don is a welfare queen that is subsidised by the American government.

Edited September 28, 2020 by Tryhard

[XRay]

51 minutes ago, Tryhard said:

According to the NY Times, Trump never paid income tax for 10 of the 15 years before 2016, and only paid $750 in 2016 and 2017.

https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/518510-trump-paid-no-income-taxes-for-10-of-past-15-years-report?fbclid=IwAR2OWpxnprCGXCFDQBihJVfW2wYt6EAaCw1xF6_tNM9l4Kdw8iC1WzZAsQY

Actually, he paid more taxes to Panama, India, and the Philippines than the US.

He's already come out and called this fake news of course, but I have one suggestion for how to clear this up if the NY Times is truly wrong, Donald - go ahead and release them. You're really so full of shit that you're still going with the whole under audit excuse - it's been four years.

Until that time, I'm inclined to believe Don is a welfare queen that is subsidised by the American government.

From what I recall doing research about it for my class several years ago, I believe he was offsetting his income with losses to avoid paying federal income taxes. He had some pretty big (possibly strategic) losses.

51 minutes ago, Tryhard said:

Actually, he paid more taxes to Panama, India, and the Philippines than the US.

As much as I dislike Trump, the article's statement is a bit misleading in my opinion.

While he probably paid more taxes to those countries compared to income taxes paid to the United States, income taxes are not the only tax that our government collects. We do not know how much Trump paid in total taxes to the states and Uncle Sam, so it is still possible that he paid more total taxes to America compared to total taxes to any other foreign country.

Edited September 28, 2020 by XRay

[Lord Raven]

16 hours ago, Tryhard said:

Until that time, I'm inclined to believe Don is a welfare queen that is subsidised by the American government.

i made 48 million more dollars than trump in 2018

Edited September 28, 2020 by Lord Raven

[Excellen Browning]

Trump angling to be president for life to sustain a life of luxury because he bankrupted himself makes a lot of sense to me, weirdly.