In two ways. They also killed the chances of further good deals. When they aren’t in power why would democrats ever want to negotiate with them
Because democrats are willing to do their jobs.
And here I thought Democrats even participating in a BS, “bipartisan” bill that only served to validate the xenophobia being put forth by the opposing party was appalling and a clear example of the utter failure they represent.
Then again, illegals is common vernacular now, so what the fuck do I even know, really.
I’ve voted for Dems my entire life, but you’ll never catch me saying they “do their jobs”. The party embarrasses me at nearly every opportunity; any support I have for/give to the party is despite its leadership, not because of it.
Willing, and capable are different. They are politicians after all.
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Rolling over for republicans is in their job description?!
… that explains a few things…
When politics function correctly, that is what they are supposed to do in order to get concessions on other important things. Compromise leaves everyone unsatisfied.
Compromise is supposed to come with consessions from BOTH sides, not just handing one side everything they actually want after they make an unreasonable request…
That’s capitulation, not negotiation.
That’s what the democrats were trying to do. Republicans tied funding for Ukraine and some other things to tightening border security. The democrats called their bluff. They said “Here’s a border security bill that does what you’ve been asking for now let’s get this all done”. Republicans’ made surprised Pikachu face and said “We didn’t want it this way! We want it done by OUR president so he gets credit!” So, even though the Democrats were giving the Republicans what they’ve been asking for in exchange for things the Democrats wanted, the Republicans said “no”.
Republicans never argue in good faith, and they always put power and politics over policy.
“That’s what they were doing! Republicans made a dishonest and completely unneccessary move, and Democrats compromised with that unreasonable position!”
Yes… exactly. Democrats GIVE IN TO BAD FAITH DEMANDS. That is NOT negotiating. That is capitulating.
I don’t think you really read my comment. Here’s my summation of how the back and forth went:
Dems: We want funding for Ukraine.
Reps: We want border security. No funding for Ukraine without border security!
Dems: Okay! Let’s do both!
Reps: Wait! We didn’t really mean it!
The Dems called the Reps bluff and the Reps backed out. The Dems were getting something they wanted in the deal, too. Plus, Dems seem to be warming to the idea of border security more recently so they’re not exactly getting nothing from that part either.
That doesn’t sound like giving in to bad faith demands. That sounds like negotiating. It’s just that the Reps aren’t actually interested in negotiating and flipped the table over even though they were getting a pretty good deal. It shows the Reps as the selfish babies that they are while the Dems show willingness to actually get things done.
No, but Republicans convincing you it is, is the primary requirement in a Republican’s job description.
Why do the Democrats let Republicans write their job description? They should negotiate, not capitulate. I know that’s a difficult distinction these days given how much of the latter has been going on, but wake up and realize the difference.
They don’t. You are letting Republicans write it and dismissing reality. You are their tool. A useful idiot. The poorly educated.
You are beyond pathetic if you think I support Republicans.
I’m pointing out that Democrats CONSTANTLY allow the Overton window to move to the right. They do these “compromises” that only offer legitimacy to the OUTRIGHT LIES of Republicans.
Democrats are the useful idiots, and you morons are here seal-clapping as the Dems give creedence to the Republican version of “border crisis”.
There is no border crisis. Not a NEW one, anyways… and now you have Democrats screaming, “give me the power, I’ll shut down the border today!”
You all are pathetic for failing to see who the actual useful idios are.
Please explain your grand strategy for passing meaningful legislation while the GOP controls a house of Congress. How exactly do Democrats pass aid to Ukraine?
You know how you move the Overton window back? Remove conservatives from Congress. You do that by winning elections. And you don’t do that by SOLEY denigrating the only party we can actually capture and use to our advantage. You aren’t helping the cause you supposedly support. You’re just doing damage, not offering a single workable alternative solution, and throwing a temper tantrum. Saying “Democrats bad” over and over, while again not offering any real criticism of the GOP or a better solution, is precisely what a Republican would do.
Moderates control the party because they made specific strategic decisions to capture, grow, and maintain that power over many elections. We have to do the EXACT. SAME. THING. If you aren’t willing to support that, just admit you’d rather have moderates or conservatives in charge.
Did you just learn the word capitulate or something?
You’re suffocating all the discussion in this thread by making that “point” to anyone who replies.
Notice how no one is disagreeing with an actual point that means anything against what I said. Including yours. Good job failing to listen or think.
Nobody is disagreeing because nobody wants to interact with the guy who immediately replies to every comment in the thread, especially when it’s a 12 year old that just learned a new word.
Oh yeah, they should do what the Republicans are doing and use a scorched earth, no compromise strategy! I mean, geez, look at all these huge legislative wins accomplished by this congress using this strategy. Maybe we can even have a cool purity-test driven speaker role, that’s been working well for them! Anything else we should imitate that I’m forgetting? A demagogic, unrestrained president would definitely tie things up nicely.
Okay I’ll stop being a sarcastic jerk now, but you get the point. This strategy from Republicans works wonders when it comes to obstructing and shutting things down, but you’re never going to build anything with it. It’s destructive at its core.
Do you think its a bad strategy for taking action that the people actually want?
Sometimes, yep. A small handful of decades ago, “the people” would have wanted gay marriage banned forever. Before that, interracial marriage. Before that, women’s suffrage. I want a system that enacts good, just law in a stable manner and while I always think democracy should be a part of any system I would be a part of, pure democracy has no effective way of ensuring minority rights.
That’s answering your question in the abstract. For this situation specifically, of course I want democratic, progressive legislation passed. In fact, I want to maximize the amount of democratic progress over the longest period of time, to the point where I’m willing to take losses on smaller items for the bigger picture.
Notice how I am distinctly not asking for Democrats to become as obstructionist. I’m saying they should act like adults dealing with unreasonable people.
If you act as if you have leverage you don’t and refuse to engage with those who have power, your only choice is obstruction. This is what the Republicans are learning right this moment. Now, lucky for them, obstruction happens to coincide pretty well with their political objectives. For anything “constructive” though, they fail time and time again because none of them know how to compromise.
Politics is compromising with factions to achieve your goals. I loathe some of the things we have to compromise on, but these people exist and they will have representation in our government for as long as they do.
They do not deserve representatives that cannot uphold their oath of office just because they also think that way
We do not let murderers write the laws on murder, yet people CONSTANTLY excuse Congress for being illegally vile…
What the fuck is wrong with everyone? Neither party’s behavior is acceptable REGARDLESS of how large the gulf between them is.
Note how I have never once said to not vote for dems over repubs. I just want people to realize you are not working with quality. You CANNOT expect dems to do the right thing on their own. Ever. They require constant pressure to the left, or they DO get dragged to the right.
This played out in real time and people EXCUSE the risk. The risk vs reward is pathetically small for gheir gamble. This was NOT a smart move even IF it worked out, and it’s literal insanity to sit here and listen to buffoons defend a terrible decision that moves the Overton window to rhe right.
Yet again, people are cheering the Dems allowing the Overton window to slip to the right… Pathetic. Beyond pathetic. It will be the death of this country.
You talk about “acceptable” and “deserving” but you have to realize that power is the only thing that matters in the end. They get power, they enact their whims. They don’t, they can’t. Right now, they have it, so you have to negotiate. That’s it, that’s just how it works.
People who complain about the Overton window are wasting their time. You don’t get to control that. Focus on winning what is possible with the window you have to work in. Expand that window if and when you can. Refusing to participate until the window looks like what you want it to is just ineffective.
And I just don’t agree with your characterization of the dems. I have my problems with their direction or actions at times, but they’ve fought and won for my rights and for the rights of various others in my lifetime. I do consider the more leftist parts of the party to be allies, but I’m not willing to give complete credit for those victories to only that wing of the party. I think it’s really disingenuous to look at the victories won for LGBT rights, climate change, and healthcare in the last 20 years (incomplete as they may be), and just write off the work done by democrats to achieve those.
The last time they had a majority (first mandate of Obama if I recall?) they tried to work with the Republicans in good faith and they got nowhere so fast that the public voted them out from dissatisfaction.
Correct me if I’m wrong, but that’s how I remember it.
It was a one person majority in the Senate that only lasted for a brief amount of time and was gone once healthcare reform ate up all of the time before Ted Kennedy died. They basically took what Mitt Romney had done at the state level and applied it federally, which is what Republicans claimed to want before they decided to call it Obamacare and pretend they didn’t help craft it.
The health care bill contained a series of things that are broadly popular when they were laid out individually. Package them together and call it “Obamacare” in the media and it was suddenly unpopular.
Tea Party astroturfing can’t be understated, either. The GOP grabbed back power at just the right time to be able to gerrymander districts and then keep them gerrymandered up until now. We’re only beginning to erode that back.
Technically, during the Obama Admin the Democrats had a senate supermajority for I think less than 2 months. During that time no substantial bills hit the senate floor that I recall, but I remember they approved a bunch of USPS locations which seemed odd to me. Politics are crazy but they’re even weirder in retrospect.
Because you need 60 votes to do anything in the Senate.
Only until the instant the Senate takes a simple majority vote to lower it to 50.
While the Senate has historically been a useful bulwark for pushing back against the creeping fascism of the GOP, it’s also a matter of fact that it is an antidemocratic institution that in the longer term we’re better off minimizing or eliminating. It’s the House of Lords and we do not need a House of Lords in the modern era.
Though I would like to see proper reapportionment in the House of Reps first, including adding significantly more members.
While the Senate has historically been a useful bulwark for pushing back against the creeping fascism of the GOP
Has it?
Maybe. Maybe not. I won’t come to the defense of that, it was more of a hedge.
The argument works for the House of Lords, which has often acted as a moderating force (and loses power every time it does), despite its antidemocratic nature.
I think it’s a non-starter for the Senate. It was deliberately constructed as a conservative brake on Congress, being heavily weighted to smaller (more rural) states which tend to be more conservative. True conservatism is obviously opposed to fascism but in practice, it isn’t (and neither is liberalism if it is feeling threatened by socialism).
But muh states rights!
Because corporate dems are basically republicans. Our whole political system is right of center. With a few outliers.
I commented this a while back, and I believe it wholeheartedly -
The current U.S. system is set up so that only two political parties can exist. In a perfect world, they would be rational, and represent differing facets of the voters values/goals. But in addition to not having a perfect world, through manipulation, degradation of the laws, and just human error/unintended consequences, we’ve wound up with a system where the two parties in power are largely funded by corporations, or those who have the resources to create PACs and launder their money into politics, and those groups represent roughly the same values and political goals.So the political ‘game’ now is to acquire money to campaign (so you can get the votes) by appeasing the donors while appearing to do things that attract voters, because voting has not quite been manipulated to the point where money equals votes, yet. (Save for gerrymandering, which renders the voting ‘problem’ moot.)
I now believe politics is largely theatrical, and the media, also controlled by the interests that fund the political campaigns of politicians that do their bidding, works very hard to keep folks divided and arguing, rather than facing the real problem of their systemic disempowerment.
I am increasingly disillusioned that a solution to this problem is possible.
But anyway - I guess I’m saying I agree with you.
Have you ever listened to Democrats? The leadership keeps saying that they believe we need a strong Republican Party for some reason.
Imagine the soundbites if they said they wanted to destroy the opposition party.
GOP talking heads say the same thing all the time
The difference between the GOP base and the Dem base.
The GOP had a sign that said “we are domestic terrorists.” Can we stop caring what these radicalized disruptors think? Anyone who claims to be a moderate at this point is not welcome in my house none the less would I want to be on the same side as them.
Lol, it’s not the GOP base that the soundbite would be used against. It’s the dem base, the people who open the new york times homepage on the way to do their wordle every morning that would see the headline 'DEMS SAY GOP DESTRUCTION AT HAND, “TOTAL ONE PARTY DOMINATION IF WE PLAY OUR CARDS RIGHT” ’ that would gasp and be so rattled they forgot the word for Sunday in their Spanish Duolingo lesson.
They say this because their lobbyists want nothing to change and if the Republicans are too weak, Democrats may actually have to make peoples lives better or the whole charade falls apart.
For better or worse we have a two dominant party system, which totally breaks down when one party decides to go it alone and only advance causes they can win with their votes.
That is a weak party, so divided internally they don’t dare compromise externally.
If we don’t have at LEAST two functional parties, it all falls apart.
That sounds like an utterly stupid system that is fragile and easily manipulated… Go figure it’s ours…
I’m not arguing with that, but it’s the system we have. We can modify it, improve upon it, or let it completely fall apart and be replaced with One Party Rule.
why would democrats ever want to negotiate with them
For the sheer joy of capitulation.
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The year is 2006 and Republicans are killing a compromise deal that they all admitted they actually liked.
The year is 2014 and Republicans are killing a compromise deal that they all admitted they actually liked.
The year is 2024 and the GOP is about to win in a landslide on the “Democrats never get anything done” platform, so I guess you can’t argue with their results.
Idk if I believe that.
We’re about to see a lot of “unlikely voters” turning out…
And to think, running the same guy who tried to cling to power with a self coup after losing the last election in a landslide to the guy you lost to 4 years ago who’s supreme court justices “Roe is settled law” brought about headlines of suffering and skyrocketing teen pregnancy…
Anyway remember that foreign policy is about power, not morality. And if “both sides are the same” no, one side is corporate shills and the other are fascist sycophants.
Not voting for Biden or Not Voting is a vote for the Christian Caliphate where white is right but only if you’re a straight male. Everyone else can stay in the kitchen or go to the camps. History doesn’t repeat but it rhymes
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My uterus is downright furious. I’m so glad it can’t read or it might try arson.
Amen.
Never forget that Democrats were supposed to lose the midterms in a landslide and the economy was the top priority, supposedly. They barely lost the House but made gains in the Senate. And I think if you ask Republicans if they feel like winners in the House… Well, we can all see how that’s been going.
And then the clown show that is the house is proving that they don’t know how to govern…
Hear hear!
Yo yo
We’re about to see a lot of “unlikely voters” turning out…
I’ll fucking believe that when I see it.
We’re about to see a lot of “unlikely voters” turning out…
If the primary and the off-cycle elections are any indication, we’re going to see a big downturn in participation - particularly among Biden’s left wing base - as enthusiasm for another four years of Republican Lite administration tanks out.
Anyway remember that foreign policy is about power, not morality.
Hitler Particles Detected
Not voting for Biden or Not Voting is a vote for the Christian Caliphate
Its not the votes that count, but who counts the votes. And in my home state of Texas, the Governor has already made moves to consolidate election authority in the governor’s mansion.
If the primary and the off-cycle elections are any indication, we’re going to see a big downturn in participation - particularly among Biden’s left wing base - as enthusiasm for another four years of Republican Lite administration tanks out.
This 1000%. You can’t keep treating leftists as a bigger enemy than the Republicans and expect them to keep voting for you just so we move 2 inches right instead of 4.
EDIT: Look at all the democrats treating leftists as a bigger enemy than the Republicans. If leftists are the ones keeping you from winning, maybe it’s time to start moving your policy left instead of bullying them while you sprint right to court “centrists” that we all know will NEVER vote for a Democrat as long as they live.
A vote for Democrats isn’t a vote against fascism, it’s a vote for fascism in 4 years instead of now.
So you’d rather move 100 yards right in your analogy then by ensuring a Trump victory. Got it.
If you want to be an indignant self-righteous leftist deciding to not vote, don’t be surprised when you don’t get a chance to vote for a leftist candidate four years from now, or ever. You’re acting like a petulant child over an extremely important election just because you can’t get EXACTLY what you want.
Hey look, a Democrat treating leftists as a bigger enemy than the Republicans while expecting us to vote for them so we move 60 yards right instead of 100. 🤷
If leftists are the reason democrats can’t pull a win as yall can’t stop having an aneurysm screaming at us about, maybe it’s time you move your policies left instead of bullying us at every turn as you sprint further right chasing “centrists” we all know will NEVER vote for a dem.
You need to watch Beau of the Fifth Column.
If you want to build a leftist movement it has to start local. Run for the school board. Build a community network
Don’t let the fascists win because of the Democrats not being left enough.
You build the coalition from the bottom up, not from the top down.
I vote against fascism,and I vote against genocide. You give me a Democratic candidate that can do better than “I sidestep congress to fund genocide instead of sidestepping congress to commit genocide” and I’ll vote for them. 🤷
I can’t get over the fact that yall claim to be the “good guys” by backing full fascism in 4 years instead of this year. It’s still fascism my guy. Yall keep yelling at us that it’s OUR fault for not backing local antifascism, but SPOILERS - YOU’RE THE ONES BACKING FASCISTS.
You keep backing fascism then taking some sort of high ground for doing so. Get the fuck out of here. YOU ARE THE BAD GUYS BECAUSE YOU’RE STILL VOTING FOR FASCISM. You don’t magically become the good guy for voting fascist locally as well as nationally.
Yep go ahead and either not vote or make a protest vote. Just remember your lgbtq friends in the camps.
You shoulda thought of that when you kept voting BNMW and never getting of your fucking couches. And when the xamos start filling up you’ll still be on your fucking couches.
I dont think that will fly this time. It’s VERY obvious now that they can’t do ANYTHING in the house. Their ability to govern has been laid bare.
Meanwhile Biden managed to pass some of the most meaningful and useful legislation in decades with the previous congress. So even if Republicans do nothing, Biden’s done more than the last two presidents to move the needle.
Also, they got clowned hard. Biden admitted he’d shut down the border–which is what they were clamoring for him to do. Then they killed it. They dont care about the border and its obvious. This isn’t going to be laid at Dems feet.
It’s VERY obvious now that they can’t do ANYTHING in the house.
But it is equally obvious that guys like Abbot and DeSantis have an open hand to act as they please on the border. That’s where this gets dangerous.
By bogging down the legislative process and allowing Biden to twiddle his thumbs in the White House, we have transferred enormous amounts of power to the border states with the most horrific people in charge. The GOP decision to kill the bill was calculated, as it accrued authority to their allies in the Southwest.
Also, they got clowned hard.
They got laughed at by the same group of jokers who were going to point and laugh at them regardless. Meanwhile, right-wing talk radio is spinning this as a victory for the Immigration Absolutists and a rallying cry for the Trump Presidential campaign.
Democrats have shown their hand on what they will concede. Republicans are in a strong position to advance their majorities in House and Senate into the next cycle. That puts the ball in their court, even if Mike Johnson personally looks like a weak Speaker. Republicans don’t care if he’s weak, because they’ve put all their chips on Trump anyway.
The year is 2024 and the GOP is about to win in a landslide on the “Democrats never get anything done” platform, so I guess you can’t argue with their results.
2018 is going to be a red wave2020 is going to be a red wave2022 is going to be a red waveSurely 2024 will be a red wave!
You left out 2016, 2014, 2010, 2002, and 1994.
Surely 2024 will be a red wave!
The gains Dems have made in the Midwest are heavily predicated on minority voters (particularly Arab Americans) sticking with the party. And it looks like Biden’s getting ready to piss all that away.
So, these elections are basically down to independent voters.
Not the leftists that hate both parties and say they’re independent voters
Not the libertarians that hate both parties and say they’re independent
But the actual independents, especially those in swing states - that vote for either opposing party - is what these elections come down to.
And weve already seen how they voted in the midterms, despite a shit economy.
If it’s Biden versus Trump, I’d wager it’s a Biden win
I hate both parties and I say I’m independent, as I realize they are both beholden to their corporate interests and lobbyists.
The system isn’t designed for people with good ideas to emerge and change things for the better, but I like to think at some point in the future individuals like that could win outside of party lines. They have us all mixed up in these culture wars while the rich people keep on getting richer at an accelerated pace.
But you are right, I’m going to vote for my version of less crazy, along with everyone else, and we’ll collectively go nowhere until the current crop of politicians age out or die.
Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to throw this in every Trump voter’s face any time they mention the border or national security ever again. They’ll be back to know-nothing cockroach status again in 2025.
Yeah, that’ll work about as well as reminding them about the Reagan tax cuts, Bush’s wars, and Trump’s fuckery ballooned the national debt that they’re always so “worried” about.
I’ve used similar pressure about Trump’s steel tariffs to shut chuds up about politics. It works.
Could you elaborate? I like to shut chuds up too but I no has smart.
Somebody I know tried to lie and say Trump was good for the economy because the steel trade war with China was somehow a patriotic, protectionist thing to do. Most of the rest of the family is not as educated as we are and don’t really care how something like steel tariffs work. I like to let a lot of bullshit go, but not that time.
In pretty much any policy field you can find examples of how Trump mechanically goes against the things he says he is.
Sabotaging the border deal was the worst thing he could have done. Man could have been unofficial speaker of the house and he blew it because of his ego, maybe not thinking straight on account of 91 felony indictments
I can tell you exactly what they’ll say, actually, “The Bill gave billions to Ukraine and Israel and 20 Million for border defence what a joke” and at that point you should remind them that they instead decided to give $0 to the border defence, delegitimized Abbot’s perimeter for drowning women and children, and the next time the GOP have power they still won’t do anything because they’ll have created another massive deficit like they always do.
Imagine overlooking the benefit to your citizens because you want your would be leader to do it instead.
And people still vote for these pieces of shit
We need to start labeling all politicians that go against the citizens enemies of the state. They should be allowed only a public defender. Life in prison or choice of beheading. Expedited charging of no more than 30 days. No last meals. We want cheap costs and swift resolutions, they fight against citizens they should be relieved of the rights awarded to citizens.
I feel like you didn’t think that all the way through before you wrote it
Yeah, perpetuate the cycle of dehumanizing violence! That’ll show them what’s what!
Calm down there Saudi Arabia
I know, right?
You have the 2nd amendment. “A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed”
Just shoot them.
If you’re ever arguing with a relative, remember that this is the most unproductive House of Representatives that we’ve ever had. Ever. They’re barely even working in there. Why? Because republicans are sitting on their hands for everything
If talking to a relative remind them that the border patrol themselves supported this bill despite normally criticizing Biden.
That’s what will fluster them the most.
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Can’t argue with that! True, the cult is largely a lost-cause. But just like Thanksgiving dinners across the country, the loudmouth uncle often gets the floor and influences the bystanders. In that respect, always remember the target-audience are the fence-sitters listening in.
There’s a lot of reasons to sit at the kids’ table these days.
CBP, USBP, and ICE would have all benefited SO much from this bill.
Voters are dumb as fuck or lazy. It should be a complete wipe out so many times over but the fact that it’s even remotely close is crazy.
You’ll have some person come in and say the usual: “the Dems can’t work or get stuff done”.
This type of thing should ensure none of them should work in public office again but the voters ain’t gonna do shit.
I’m a voter. I will ‘do shit’. It’s a fucked up world and many people fit your generalization, but it’s the job of reasonable people everywhere to educate others and promote sanity and optimism wherever possible.
Yeah, you’re right. I think Jon Stewart said that he hates apathy and all that when he first departed the Daily Show.
I just think my wall-to-wall coverage of all of this has angered me too much.
Thanks for being a reasonable voice.
I’m glad that he’s coming back. I think he’s likely to call out apathetic people and give them a reality check.
I’m a voter. I will ‘do shit’. It’s a fucked up world and many people fit your generalization, but it’s the job of reasonable people everywhere to educate others and promote sanity and optimism wherever possible.
Thank you citizen for your efforts.
promote sanity and optimism
Exactly. Optimism is how you win elections. It gives us the hope that a better tomorrow is possible, and our efforts will get us closer to it.
Complacency and apathy are the enemies. After 2022, I don’t really care much for polls. It’s nice to know the vibe, but they are descriptive, not prescriptive.
Voters are dumb as fuck or lazy.
You’ve got a pair of parties, one of which refuses to do anything particularly popular while they’re in office because that wouldn’t be bipartisan and another of which only does the most vulgar populist shit imaginable as soon as they get the reins. Who are voters supposed to support?
You’ll have some person come in and say the usual: “the Dems can’t work or get stuff done”.
Give me one reason why Democrats couldn’t pass DC Statehood. They had three big golden opportunities - in '93 and '09 and '21 - to pick up a full sized state complete with 2 Senators and 6 House Reps that would be the most reliably Dem state in the union from now until the next major party alignment, and they refused to do it every fucking time.
There is no downside to DC statehood for Democrats.
This is just the tip of the iceberg on “Things Democrats could easily do if they actually wanted to”. But we consistently see legislators, executives, and party leaders alike drag their feet and pass out unpopular compromises, rather than pushing through reforms that are both wildly popular and obviously beneficial to their partisan interests.
This isn’t a voter problem. It is entirely a problem within the party leadership - much of which is totally opaque and intractable to the voting public.
Exactly this, and I’m sick of getting blamed for their incompetence.
How exactly do you think laws get passed? It’s not like Democrats in the house can just vote harder and overcome the Republican majority.
Give me one reason why Democrats couldn’t pass DC Statehood.
They need either 60 votes in the Senate, which they don’t have, or 50 votes in the Senate to get rid of the filibuster, which they don’t have.
Fact of the matter is they don’t have the votes. I suspect you’ll call it controlled opposition and “there’ll always be someone because Democrats don’t actually want it”, but that’s baseless theory. Especially since the last time Dems did have those votes, for a scant 2 months, they put together Obamacare. It even had single payer, but the 60th vote they needed refused to support it unless they took it out.
You could get 49 ideal leftist socialists elected, but as long as there’s 1 detractor, the party can’t do anything. And it’s silly idealism to think that some mean words will make that single detractor come to your side.
This right here.
At this point, I think that people asking “Why didn’t Democrats do X and Y” posts are sea-lioning, and not asking in good faith. “I’m just asking questions!”
And Joe Fucking Yacht-boy Manchin was the best we will ever get from West Virginia - maybe for the rest of our lifetimes.
They need either 60 votes in the Senate
Democrats can get rid of that number at the start of any Congressional session. They have deliberately chosen not to do so, because they cling to the idea of bipartisan reforms passing through the upper chamber.
You could get 49 ideal leftist socialists elected, but as long as there’s 1 detractor
You offer the detractor the carrot or the stick. Very easy to wipe the vote of a Senator when the next Defense Authorization bill is up for a vote and everyone is talking about which bases to close.
Bush did not need 60 votes. Trump did not need 60 votes. Reagan sure as hell did not need 60 votes.
Democrats are lying to themselves if they think 60 is a magic number. They’re lying even harder if they think 49 Socialist Party Senators would not be able to whip support for their policies, given how ably the GOP has skated by with a meager 40.
Do you have any examples of a carrot or stick actually convincing a politician to change their mind? If that worked, you could just shame Republicans into getting 100-0 votes for everything.
This is what’s ridiculous to me. You’re cynical and conspiratorial that there will always be controlled opposition, but you also think a bully pulpit and the right words will convince that opposition to support you.
Do you have any examples of a carrot or stick actually convincing a politician to change their mind?
The Civil Rights Act was a big one.
Could you elaborate? I’m genuinely interested in knowing more.
I mean, I don’t want to be snide but… there’s an ample backlog of historical material that gets into the details. Just pick up a book. Nick Kotz’s “Judgement Days” offers a deep dive. Chapter 17 of Howard Zinn’s “People’s HIstory” gives you the abbreviated version. There are plenty of others.
From Johnson’s acerbic legislative style to the economic leverage applied by MLK’s boycotts and the militant organizing of Malcolm X’s radicals, historically intractable politicians were swayed with both the carrot of an enormous new activist constituency and the stick of strikes, shut-downs, and the President literally grabbing and twisting your ballsack because you failed to deliver him the votes.
The point was never to secure the border, the point was to make it look like Democrats weren’t.
it was a gift, and they tossed it because the democrats might look good for compromising and working across-the-aisle.
The point was to elevate their invented crisis by rhetorically placing it on the same level as a genocide in Ukraine.
Its ALWAYS one vote short. The 60th voter- ONE FUCKING PERSON-fucked the entire voting popukation.
It is absolutely controlled opposition, every time.
Pussies for Trump should be their catchphrase.
They lack the warmth and depth to be pussies.
The only thing that matters to authoritarians is that they win. They do not care if they are king of the shitpile, or if the world burns down around them. As long as other people are kissing their ass while it happens.
Just wanted to point out if you’ve got a spare half hour, it’s worth listening to the audio in the article where they interview Michael Bennett. He hits on a lot of nuances about the immigration issue that isn’t often covered in most articles.
Thank you, I wouldn’t have listened otherwise!
Yeah, yeah, yeah. We all know that Republicans are nothing more than fucking cowards that won’t ever do what’s right and will always bitch and fucking moan about how they know they’re shit people when they’re alone.
The rest of us are admitting it in public, so maybe they should too.
This should be in the dictionary under the phrase “Cutting off your nose to spite your face.”
I’m pretty sure it’s “spider face” /s
Don’t worry friend. I got your office reference
That doesn’t even make sense as a joke…
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Have you ever seen a spider with a nose?
Is this the only good deal that they’ve ever acknowledged? All the other good deals that’d benefit Americans just weren’t good deals in their eyes that they happily shot down, but this one was the exception to them?
Yes. This was a wet dream for Republicans who want to dehumanize migrants. This was the only “good” bill in their evil twisted eyes.
