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Forums - Politics Discussion - Official 2020 US Election: Democratic Party Discussion

HylianSwordsman on 01 October 2019
Machiavellian said:
HylianSwordsman said:

But that's why I want Bernie over Warren. He doesn't need Dems or GOP, he has our support. "Political Revolution" isn't just a campaign slogan. It's a plan, a strategy. 

https://www.politico.com/story/2019/08/19/bernie-sanders-labor-protest-2020-1455151

This was the strategy he used to get Amazon, which I might remind you, is a giant, greedy in the extreme corporation, not a democratic institution, to raise its minimum wage to $15 an hour. He'll wield the bully pulpit like a club and beat Congress into submission by leading us all against them. Imagine Operation Wall Street, right outside Congress, led by President Sanders. That's what will happen. That's how he'll get Congress to act. Its an untested strategy for the executive branch of the federal government, but I want to try it. At the very least, he'll go into any bargaining situation with a stronger position than anyone else, rather than trying to compromise before he even starts like Dems do now in hope of getting "bipartisan" support in the form of one or two vulnerable Republicans voting for a watered down version of their bill.

To get established old heads in Congress to go along with Bernie plans would be a revolutions but in order for that to happen, he would need to control the party at the same level Trump controls the GOP.  Dems and GOP are different in that respect and Dems are so diverse in what they want, I just do not believe he can get enough of them to fall in line.  I can definitely be wrong so I would love to see what he can do but it would be interesting to see what political power Bernie could weld if he became president.

If I were to hazard a guess, I suspect that there would be a massive "#NeverBernie" exodus from the party, even bigger than #NeverTrump, and that the resulting party would be much more populist on average, opening the party to a more broad populist coalition of progressives and centrist populists (these tend to look like the old labor movement, and are more tightly focused on such class-based issues). I think you'd see a lot of independents and people that currently feel alienated from the Democrats because of perceived corporate friendliness be really impressed by the exodus of corporate Dems, and feel safer to jump on board the class-based populism of Sanders. With this, I imagine you'd see a subsiding of xenophobia, racial animus, and the racial grievance motivated pseudo-populism of Trump, as the angst of socioeconomically stagnant white people was redirected towards more productive class-based outlets.

I recognize this is all pure speculation, but I base this speculation off of my understanding of the 1910s, 20s, and 30s. These decades featured a level of xenophobia comparable to today, but as the 1920s wore on and economic inequality got to historic levels, and the labor movement started to die out, eventually it lead to the Great Depression, right around the time when the Republican party held the Presidency, House, Senate, and the Supreme Court, and initiated tax cuts for the ultra wealthy. If history repeats itself, which it has done so pretty uncannily so far, then the warnings of a recession right now are real, it will be exceptionally nasty, and, as back then, it will wake people the fuck up about class issues and be a shot of adrenaline straight to the heart of an already recovering labor movement and a young progressive left.



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HylianSwordsman on 01 October 2019
morenoingrato said:
Also, I wonder what my percentage of agreement is with Trump.
I have to give him credit for recognizing Venezuela's Guaido and pushing for him, but I can't think of anything else.
His tax cuts were fiscally irresponsible and gave nonsensical breaks to the ultra-rich, he is really bad for tech, bad for long-term growth. Besides Venezuela, his foreign policy blows. He dislikes traditional media.
I guess you could argue there might be some overlap in law enforcement, but that's a hard sell considering he is a borderline criminal.
So ~5%?
Regardless, thanks to Trump and McConnell, I'm ultra partisan. I'd choose a Dem I despise (the Squad) over a good, rational Republican (Murkowski) any day of the week.

He only supported Guaido because his opposition was socialist, and thus supporting him gave Trump the ability to sell a cold war nostalgia of triumphant capitalism to his base. He didn't actually care whether the country's democracy was in danger or not. The best way to think of Trump is that a stopped clock is right twice a day. When Trump is right, it's usually for the wrong reasons, or he finds a way to ruin it some other way. So I'd say then it'd be fair to say that like a stopped clock, which I'd agree with for 2 seconds of each day, I agree with Trump 2/86400 or 0.0023% of the time.

You support wings of the Dems you dislike over parts of the Republicans you don't hate because no matter the Republican, they're part of a horrifically corrupt political apparatus, as opposed to the Dems who, from the Blue Dogs to the Squad, all fundamentally support the values of democracy that America stands for. The Democratic Party is the only party that is democratic. The Republican Party genuinely wants the US to be a non-democratic republic.

Last edited by HylianSwordsman - on 01 October 2019

HylianSwordsman on 01 October 2019
Jaicee said:
tsogud said:

 

All this time I thought you were a socialist not a social democrat... :''''( but yeah I think you're right that it's a generational thing. The squad specifically AOC have become important icons among my generation and my personal idols. AOC and Bernie have inspired me to get into the political sector. Like Hylianswordsman, I too can't wait until AOC is presidential age she'd have my 10000% support!

Well hey, I'm glad you're inspired to get into politics!

To be clear, I am a democratic socialist, by which I mean specifically that personally my preference would be for a broad reorganization of the economy such that the means of production would become public property, workers would manage their workplaces day-to-day, and the economy would be democratically planned out routinely by the population as a whole in a participatory fashion. I believe this would require a general devolution of political power to more local levels. There are a number of communities around the world that currently live in this sort of communalist fashion and they're my source of inspiration in this area. Nobody in the U.S. Congress or running for president advocates this type of broad restructuring or even close. All the progressive elected officials at the national level are reformists, whatever they claim about themselves.

That said, I'm a pragmatist and as such am inclined to support those reforms which move society in the general direction of the type of change that I believe in. In the area of economic policy in particular, AOC advocates many ideas that I strongly agree with and support, and I would commend her for leading the House Democrats to formally, at least on paper, embrace the Green New Deal. In a general sense, I consider the economic policy ideas of the progressive Democrats their strong suit. That's the main reason I view them more favorably than other political factions that exist in the U.S. at this time. That includes AOC.

However, there are other policy areas where I don't agree as much with the progressive movement, and in which it could be said I agree less with AOC than with the likes of Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders. Foreign policy is definitely one of those areas. I'm in favor of a moderate approach. When it comes to policy toward Israel, for example, I'm for cutting off military aid for painfully obvious reasons, but I don't go so far necessarily as to support imposing broad sanctions on what frankly is really the only halfway functioning liberal democracy in the Middle East because "Benjamins". When it comes to stuff like this, I think you can see how my own views are more similar to those of Warren and Sanders than to those of AOC and "the squad".

I think it's also worth pointing out that, though I do consider myself to be a democratic socialist, a feminist, an environmentalist, pro-immigrant, an opponent of mass incarceration, this sort of thing, I don't actually consider myself to be a progressive these days. That's because I've found that progressives don't view me as one of them. The specific term "progressive" appears to have a very specific connotation in the current parlance. For example, I'm not allowed on the Revolutionary Left forums because I have voiced openness to deep green politics, not just bright green; deep green apparently being considered reactionary. From this I gather that the term "progressive" in the contemporary parlance specifically includes not just the general goal of improved equity in economics, politics, and cultural life, but also insistence upon technological advancement. I find I'm not allowed in other progressive spaces either for this and other reasons ranging from my opinions about women's right to private spaces and freedom of speech to my negative view of religion. Over the decade, I've found that voicing any kind of support for radical feminist groups like Femen and well frankly any of current South Korean feminism has been a particularly sure-fire way to get removed from progressive spaces quickly.

I've thought about embracing the term "moderate" because a lot of politically marginal people do so, but it just doesn't sound accurate to me. I need a label that sums up my overall worldview on all the issues and I can't think of one that's accurate.

For further clarity on my level of support for the people we're talking about here, I would say that I agree with...

...Elizabeth Warren about 80% of the time...
...Bernie Sanders about 75% of the time...
...AOC about 70% of the time...
...Joe Biden about 55% of the time...
...Donald Trump and Mike Pence about 10% of the time each, for different reasons.

Something like that.

This kind of stuff right here is why I don't really believe in the political left-right spectrum. It's useful to a degree, sure, but not everyone fits into it. That said, I feel like deep green doesn't make you reactionary, if anything, them kicking you out for it makes them reactionary. I haven't seen that dynamic in the environmentalist space, though. Of course, I don't have any places online that I hang out with an environmentalist bent, so it's not like I have a good sense of these things. I have some deep green leanings myself. I feel like at some point we're going to run into the physical limits of our environment pretty hard. I'd say that point is maybe a couple decades from now at best if we don't change how our society works. Unlimited growth is impossible. I'm not sure I'm against "industrialism" per se so much as I am against economic systems, like ours, that assume infinite growth as a prerequisite for any possibility of functioning. I think technology has a lot of potential to mitigate the damage and prevent a lot of loss of life both human and non-human from our ecological overshoot, but am under no delusion that it'll somehow make infinite growth possible. I just know that population will probably level off soon as women's rights, education, and affordable birth control make their way across the world, and hope that we can squeeze that already oversized population into a small enough portion of the earth that it can continue to support us all. That will require a new economic system, but that sounds great to me honestly. You sound like you're against technological advancement, but I see nothing inherently wrong with it, so long as it advances in the right directions. Indeed, I see it as essential to preventing a mass extinction event at this point, or at the very least to prevent a die-off of humans on the order of several billions.



Mnementh on 02 October 2019

Mark Zuckerberg apparently is not too happy about Elizabeth Warrens plan to break up big tech companies (I know, shocker):
https://www.theverge.com/2019/10/1/20892354/mark-zuckerberg-full-transcript-leaked-facebook-meetings

Yet Elizabeth Warren is unfazed:



Here is a screenshot of the deleted tweet Warrens answers:



3DS-FC: 4511-1768-7903 (Mii-Name: Mnementh), Nintendo-Network-ID: Mnementh, Switch: SW-7706-3819-9381 (Mnementh)

my greatest games: 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022, 2023

10 years greatest game event!

bets: [peak year] [+], [1], [2], [3], [4]

Jaicee on 02 October 2019
Mnementh said:
Mark Zuckerberg apparently is not too happy about Elizabeth Warrens plan to break up big tech companies (I know, shocker):
https://www.theverge.com/2019/10/1/20892354/mark-zuckerberg-full-transcript-leaked-facebook-meetings

Yet Elizabeth Warren is unfazed:

*snickers*

Aaawwww, might have to give up Instagram and WhatsApp! What is the world coming to?

That's one of those things that endears me all the more to Elizabeth Warren! Kind of like that commentary by Wall Street insiders about her on CNBC not long ago that she turned into an online campaign ad of sorts. This class of people has no self-awareness whatsoever. They seem to have no idea just how unpopular they are. Lots of people view these corporate anti-endorsements as positives for Liz Warren, myself included. They reinforce her image as an economic populist.

Last edited by Jaicee - on 02 October 2019

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Jaicee on 02 October 2019
tsogud said:

So you are a democratic socialist, nice! And yeah I see now why you'd vote for Warren. My political identities are basically the same things as you but my feminism is intersectional not radical. On Israel I'm more in line with AOC and the squad. I believe we need to be clear on where we stand on the human rights violations the Israeli government commits to the Palestinians. I'm Jewish so it pains me to see how their government is behaving and I really do want to see Israel flourish but not at the expense of others, we need to set our boundaries of how far we're willing to enable their government.

Don't let the haters get you down, I've always thought of you as a progressive and from what you've told me it does sound like you are one. But I guess you could go with something generic like "economic populist" though basically all progressives are populists but idk honestly. Regardless don't change how you identify based on others reactions toward you and how they make you feel "not in the club," they're just judgemental purists. Change your political identity because of yourself.

I agree with AOC the most probably like 85-90% of the time, Bernie about 85%, Liz about 70-75%, Biden about 20-30%, 45 and vp 0% of the time.

morenoingrato said:
I generally have a positive view of Israel, but I can't stand Netanyahu. Partisan, toxic, and borderline far-right. His disrespect and contempt towards Obama was disgraceful. How does a foreign leader come to the US to speak in opposition to the head of state? How can he complain about the no-strings-attached US aid?
American friendship with Israel must continue, but unless Netanyahu is out or does a 180 in his undiplomatic conduct, he should expect a cold shoulder.

Considering the sheer range of self-contradicting positions that emanates from the White House in a given week, is it actually possible to disagree with Trump 100% of the time?

It's very rare, but every so often I find myself incidentally agreeing with Trump. For example, we were just discussing Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg's threat to sue the U.S. government if Elizabeth Warren is elected president because she has pledged to break up major tech companies like his that engage in monopolistic business practices. The Trump White House, for its own reasons, is also investigating Facebook for potential violations of antitrust law. So there's one thing I can agree with.

Another of these rare examples goes back to the 2016 primary season. There was a point during that campaign wherein a bunch of Christian leaders held a high-profile event wherein the host pastor called for all of the non-heterosexual people in this country to be rounded up and executed. Participating in this event, and excitedly shaking hands with said pastor shortly after he had delivered this sermon, was none other than presidential candidate and Senator from my home state Ted Cruz. Now one is not guilty by association in my mind (are we not all realistically associated with homophobes, after all?), but...the overlap between those two things sent chills down my spine. That's an idea you should definitely rebuke in your own speech if that just happened right in front of you!

My mind contrasted that with Donald Trump's response to the Pulse night club shooting. I mean yeah you could say that he had his Muslim ban (he was still on the original, comprehensive version of which at the time) in mind, but still one had to notice the difference in attitudes toward gay and lesbian people. I've just never really gotten the feeling, in fact, that Trump personally has an issue with same-sex attraction as such the way the Christian conservatives (like Mike Pence!) do.

A month later, there was a moment at the Republican National Convention wherein the attendees applauded Pulse and Trump said something like "It's good to hear you clap for that". Something like that. Anyway, my point is that the fact that Trump wound up winning the nomination seemed to have the effect of making many Republicans a bit more accepting of gay and lesbian people. I think that's something of value anyway. That counts for something in my book.

There was also the First Step Act.

Yeah, that's really the best I can do when it comes to finding areas where I agree with Trump, but just saying that it is theoretically possible.

Concerning Israel, the good news is that it actually looks like Benjamin Netanyahoo, who will always be this guy in my mind...

(Now if only he could get his hands on a weather forecast.)

...will probably be unable to form a new government following last month's election. His party failed to win the most seats in this most recent election and Netanyahu himself is currently facing indictment for fraud and bribery in three corruption cases. His main rival, a liberal centrist, has stated that he has no intention of participating in any government headed up by someone facing criminal charges. So it's actually looking like there is (finally) an impending change in leadership.

Last edited by Jaicee - on 02 October 2019

jason1637 on 02 October 2019

https://www.instagram.com/p/B3HtNjqAdNY/?igshid=186gu3lnad9sj
Holy shit Yang raised $10m in Q3 with about 300k donors.



jason1637 on 02 October 2019

Bernie is taking a break from the campaign due to blockage in his arteries. Hope he feels better soon.
https://edition.cnn.com/2019/10/02/politics/bernie-sanders-artery-blockage-2020/index.html



Jumpin on 02 October 2019

News here is that Bernie Sanders has had a heart attack!



I describe myself as a little dose of toxic masculinity.

tsogud on 02 October 2019
Jaicee said:
tsogud said:

So you are a democratic socialist, nice! And yeah I see now why you'd vote for Warren. My political identities are basically the same things as you but my feminism is intersectional not radical. On Israel I'm more in line with AOC and the squad. I believe we need to be clear on where we stand on the human rights violations the Israeli government commits to the Palestinians. I'm Jewish so it pains me to see how their government is behaving and I really do want to see Israel flourish but not at the expense of others, we need to set our boundaries of how far we're willing to enable their government.

Don't let the haters get you down, I've always thought of you as a progressive and from what you've told me it does sound like you are one. But I guess you could go with something generic like "economic populist" though basically all progressives are populists but idk honestly. Regardless don't change how you identify based on others reactions toward you and how they make you feel "not in the club," they're just judgemental purists. Change your political identity because of yourself.

I agree with AOC the most probably like 85-90% of the time, Bernie about 85%, Liz about 70-75%, Biden about 20-30%, 45 and vp 0% of the time.

morenoingrato said:
I generally have a positive view of Israel, but I can't stand Netanyahu. Partisan, toxic, and borderline far-right. His disrespect and contempt towards Obama was disgraceful. How does a foreign leader come to the US to speak in opposition to the head of state? How can he complain about the no-strings-attached US aid?
American friendship with Israel must continue, but unless Netanyahu is out or does a 180 in his undiplomatic conduct, he should expect a cold shoulder.

Considering the sheer range of self-contradicting positions that emanates from the White House in a given week, is it actually possible to disagree with Trump 100% of the time?

It's very rare, but every so often I find myself incidentally agreeing with Trump. For example, we were just discussing Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg's threat to sue the U.S. government if Elizabeth Warren is elected president because she has pledged to break up major tech companies like his that engage in monopolistic business practices. The Trump White House, for its own reasons, is also investigating Facebook for potential violations of antitrust law. So there's one thing I can agree with.

Another of these rare examples goes back to the 2016 primary season. There was a point during that campaign wherein a bunch of Christian leaders held a high-profile event wherein the host pastor called for all of the non-heterosexual people in this country to be rounded up and executed. Participating in this event, and excitedly shaking hands with said pastor shortly after he had delivered this sermon, was none other than presidential candidate and Senator from my home state Ted Cruz. Now one is not guilty by association in my mind (are we not all realistically associated with homophobes, after all?), but...the overlap between those two things sent chills down my spine. That's an idea you should definitely rebuke in your own speech if that just happened right in front of you!

My mind contrasted that with Donald Trump's response to the Pulse night club shooting. I mean yeah you could say that he had his Muslim ban (he was still on the original, comprehensive version of which at the time) in mind, but still one had to notice the difference in attitudes toward gay and lesbian people. I've just never really gotten the feeling, in fact, that Trump personally has an issue with same-sex attraction as such the way the Christian conservatives (like Mike Pence!) do.

A month later, there was a moment at the Republican National Convention wherein the attendees applauded Pulse and Trump said something like "It's good to hear you clap for that". Something like that. Anyway, my point is that the fact that Trump wound up winning the nomination seemed to have the effect of making many Republicans a bit more accepting of gay and lesbian people. I think that's something of value anyway. That counts for something in my book.

There was also the First Step Act.

Yeah, that's really the best I can do when it comes to finding areas where I agree with Trump, but just saying that it is theoretically possible.

Concerning Israel, the good news is that it actually looks like Benjamin Netanyahoo, who will always be this guy in my mind...

(Now if only he could get his hands on a weather forecast.)

...will probably be unable to form a new government following last month's election. His party failed to win the most seats in this most recent election and Netanyahu himself is currently facing indictment for fraud and bribery in three corruption cases. His main rival, a liberal centrist, has stated that he has no intention of participating in any government headed up by someone facing criminal charges. So it's actually looking like there is (finally) an impending change in leadership.

Yeah there could have been a few things here and there that I agree with 45, like not going to war with Iran despite being pressured to by his cabinet, so I guess it's prolly more like 5%, very very rare.

Idk how you could say you feel he's helped queer people like ourselves. His administration and him have been aggressively anti-LGBT specifically anti-trans and have been trying to roll back our rights from day one. Here's a list of the things his administration and he has done against LGBT individuals since he took office.