We actually got the wave we needed. Trump found 10 million new dumb racist pieces of shit that had never voted before and somehow got a decent chunk of the Hispanic vote, which just fucking lol.
Has anyone looked into whether people voted for trump out of fear of reprisals if he won? Makes a lot of sense to me given the minority precincts where the overall vote total was both down and shifted toward trump.
We needed a win in 2016 and for Dems to go HAM defending the Supreme Court from theft. Not much they can do now except yell at Breyer to retire and how to god they get to fill his seat.
Itâs over now. There is no plausible path to stopping whatâs coming. Itâs going to take some wild external event because itâs now quite obvious no amount of insanity will matter. The GOP is all the way gone - explicitly so - and it just doesnât matter. The structural advantages and (critically) willingness to do anything to get and retain power will continue to completely overwhelm their feckless opposition.
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A new COVID variant kills 25% of the unvaxxed.
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Bernieâs equity in the primary was always zero, and if he somehow had won there weâd still have Trump as President.
So what youâre saying is you think Biden is perfect and you love him? Ha, gotcha!!
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Might already be too late for Biden to replace Breyer. Has to retire like now, not gonna happen post midterm it will just be a repeat of McConnell taking a seat
Even if he retired today, Manchin and Sinema would find a reason to oppose and progressive judge.
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Gotta keep the court non-political! Breyer says so.
Amazing Collins was able to rubber stamp Mitch agenda and won by 10 points, and we get Manchin and Cinema
Double post
Iâll start with the cliff for those who donât want to read further: Why is the Democratic party so astonishingly weak and impotent? Thatâs it. Thatâs the question
We all know what the agenda of the new Republican party is: Nothing short of overthrowing democracy and taking over via full blown fascist rule. Yet the Democratic party seems unwilling or unable to stop them
A friend and I were discussing the abomination that has become the Republican party and what will happen if they ever again control both chambers and the executive office. Theyâre not even hiding their willingness to cheat, lie, obstruct, and use any means necessary to gain full control to employ a very evil agenda. Yet the Democratic party continues to fight with both hands tied behind their backs and take the polite high road. Once upon a time this may have made sense when the American people had an expectation for honor amongst our politicians and didnât have an appetite for the uncouth abhorrent behavior that is now common practice from Republicans. But we can all see this isnât the case any more. What needs to be done is obvious:
End the filibuster, increase the number of SCOTUS seats, pack the courts, enact voting rights laws, get rid of the electoral college, end gerrymandering, and make sure we end this minority rule. After what Texas just did, they should already be working on federal law to protect womenâs rights before abortion becomes illegal across all southern states
Democratic politicians are not acting with the sense of panic and urgency required. And it canât be because they donât see the danger. I get that they donât care about a lot of things as long as they remain in power and can continue their grift. But arenât they scared of losing power themselves? Are they planning to switch sides if Republicans are successful in taking down democracy?
I donât get why they arenât fighting with greater urgency to protect not just the people, but themselves. Perhaps someone can explain it to me
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I noticed that poll from Matt Yglesias also based it off of Republicans needing a trifecta to lock in one party rule.
They donât. Once democrats can no longer pass federal voting rights laws its over. Republicans control a ton of the gerrymandered state houses in swing states. They have already rigged those swing states, and they will rig them more once democrats lose the house and canât do anything about it.
All they need to do is rig the swing states on a state level and they can effectively lock on democrats in perpetuity. They donât need to pass any state laws.
Itâll likely be too late by 2022, much less 2024. Once democrats lose a single governorship in PA/WI/MI itâs all over, democrats will not be able to win those states. They will be rigged just like GA/TX/AZ
Liz lad, didnât read
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And democrats arenât a monolith. Most of them are power hungry sociopaths, and many have decided that for their personal power it is better to obstruct change that it is to let change happen. Theyâd rather Republicans do the one party rule but stay in office than prevent it and lose office.
Plus a lot of them are clearly being bribed.
I still think the majority of democrats get it, but they canât do shit when like 5+ senators wonât budge.
ugh, need someone to ask DVault to answer this one. (On second thought @skydiver8 might have some expert on the ground thoughts on this.)
Iâll give you some inchoate partial answers:
The democrats represent a wider philosophical base than the more homogeneous republicans. The distance between AOC and Manchin is much further than Gohmert and Murkowski. So, the democrats donât always agree on what the goal of policy should be. Right now, Clinton type blue dog, âcommon senseâ types in both houses are going to tank the $3.5T infrastructure bill because it is not paid for.
Because the dems are less homogeneous they fight over what to do and also how to do it. Canât run on defund the police because that doesnât work in more moderate districts. etcâŚ
Related is that the USA system of government favors rural and minority population states. So even if the electorate voted more to their walletbook interests and voted more democratic, the 2 senators to a state rule would prevent their will from being recognized.
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This is as good of an answer I can think of. It makes total sense that the wider philosophical base doesnât allow for homogeneous discourse. I mean, jfc I consider myself about as progressive as anybody and Iâve been thrashed and diced up on this forum at times as though I were Mitch McConnell himself posting
skydiver8 has very good political knowledge and is well versed in whatâs going on, but she and I must be very far apart ideologically (she supported Mayor Pete who I could never get behind). Still, I very much respect her takes and value her opinion if she has one on how to become more organized
Why canât there be a 3rd party (or 1 party) system)? Dems are basically two parties operating as one and thatâs part of the problem. Maybe splitting up the vote between progressive/centrist would be handing an even easier win to Republicans, but what weâre doing now clearly isnât working
There has to be a way to become organized and band together with so much at stake. I also think there needs to be some soul searching and recognize that Trump got some things right. He recognized that the overwhelming majority are against wars, sick of the establishment, tired of hearing about cancel culture, and he basically ran as a populist. You canât tell me that Sanders wouldnât have walloped him in the general both in 2016 and 2020 (he wouldnât have done well with the anti-cancel culture types, but wouldâve won on every policy issue). Trump got a lot of independents because of this
The 2022 election is obviously the most important in my lifetime. If we lose 2022, we have no shot at the presidency in 2024. You canât keep asking people like myself to vote for the lesser of two evils. Iâve done so twice now and not sure Iâll do it again. I donât even think the presidency is that important if Dems control both chambers. The problem is, they donât use their leverage when they have it
In the late 80s, the GOP got together with the Christian coalition, et al, and set an agenda. That agenda was to run candidates for every open seat in the country. This is why you see these crazy school board things going on now.
Democrats (voters AND the Party) concentrate too much on federal races and leave literally hundreds of thousands of these local races uncontested. Why? Because the Party doesnât support or help these local candidates. The GOP helps theirs. Dems are left on their own to fundraise and campaign, so many say â why bother if Iâm just gonna lose?â Thing is, only ~5% of first time candidates win their races. The point, especially in âredâ areas, is to show people that thereâs an alternative to the good ol boys and pave the way for the next election.
So we are 40 years behind on winning the âcultureâ war and actual ground-based, local, retail politics.
People on this forum and on twitter arenât going to like hearing it, but you cannot be ideological when you run for or serve on a water board or a school board or even town/city council (Iâm not talking about LA or SD or NYC here. I mean Podunk, Iowa council). People donât give a shit about your party if you promised to fill potholes and you break that promise.
The good news is that some county parties are starting to realize this. Iâm currently on a working group to identify and support candidates for every open local seat in east San Diego county. The party is committed to helping, mainly when one of the Dems they ignored in 2020 only lost by 5 votes in a race theyâd written off as unwinnable. Thatâs why running is so important, even if we lose. It shows people that nothing is unwinnable.
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And they got together with the Koch Network, Joseph Coors, Richard Scaife, John Olin, etc.