The status quo is the current Constitution. This is not a fixable document.
Right now a majority of the country, probably a super majority, thinks the Supreme Court has to have nine justices and thatās not a thing that can be changed. If it were at 10-5 then at least weād have broken that misconception.
I mean, do you follow American politics? Have you watched debates in Democratic primaries? Have you read any of the think pieces on this? Cause frankly you sound completely uninformed.
Did he really, though?
The current Constitution does not prevent us from nuking the filibuster and packing the court.
The current Constitution does prevent us from getting rid of equal representation for each state in the Senate. The current Constitution grants too much power to state government.
But we can add states, and the only way we replace this Constitution is with a civil war. Youāre all about advocating for that but I donāt see you out there raising up an army to battle the fucking Marines, so itās just mental masturbation.
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Iām all about replacing the Constitution. Anything else feels like mental masturbation to me. The means isnāt important. Sure, thereās at least a risk of civil war, but maybe that can be avoided.
The problem with eDems is their loyalty to a vision of America that identifies strongly with the Constitution. They have faith in the American version of liberal democracy and capitalism in line with Fukuyamaās end of history theory. They believe that we only need to tinker around the margins, that anyone who suggests radical change is making a mistake. I consider getting rid of the filibuster, packing the court, even passing the popular vote interstate compact as tinkering around the edges.
What we really need to do is break Democratsā faith in American capitalist democracy and the Constitution, allowing us to throw off the shackles of history and tradition so we can contemplate truly radical change. This will lead to massive uncertainty that eDems instinctively fear, but maybe shifting from battling within the system to battling the system is the best way to avoid slouching towards authoritarianism.
In addition to ALEC, other reactionary right wing groups of importance started around that time, like Fed Soc and Heritage Foundation that were integral to developing reactionary conservative ideas and building a network of judges. These are the groups that laid the ideological groundwork for people like Rush to become big.
I think part of this is a real problem with how young left-wing people think about what politics is. Ryan Grim caught some heat for these posts the other day but I thought they were accurate:
https://mobile.twitter.com/ryangrim/status/1539598270665736192
https://mobile.twitter.com/ryangrim/status/1539598862058414080
https://mobile.twitter.com/ryangrim/status/1539599155613556748
Like is āunderstanding how anti-trans policies disproportionately impact BIPOC folksā going to help with basic feminism like making abortions legal throughout the US? And if it isnāt, why should I give a shit?
Itās not that what the quoted tweet is advocating for is wrong, itās that itās a category error. Itās personal ethics. And they are important and worth debating, but they are not to be confused with politics.
This is why I said the other day that a political shift of mine in the last 5 years or so is increasingly believing that leftism must be based in unionism and labor power. Because if it isnāt, the result is spinning off into esoteric debates about personal ethics at the expense of boring consensus-building to fight for everyday issues in peopleās lives.
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admit more states. 19 californias. The document is absolutely 100% broken and dogshit but there are steps that can be taken to at least mitigate a lot of the current issues with the implementation.
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If you like football analogies, being a voter for Democrats is like constantly being part of a defense thatās tried really hard and just got a fourth down stop, only to watch their shitty offense take the field. After the third or fourth time you watch your QB throw an interception into triple coverage, it kinda disheartens the defense.
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The actual problem isnāt American politicians, itās Americans.
Iāve said this before, but the American dream and its focus on individualism is the cancerous core to everything wrong with your nation. It leads Americans, on both sides, to broadly have terrible ideas about how a society should be organized and operate.
In too many ways, Dems are simply following what the majority of Americans want in terms of broad social philosophy.
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Wait a second here. Not to bring up old wounds but pretty sure you went hard in the paint for a presidential candidate who would do nothing but completely toe the party line and traded his cache to support a super moderate in exchange for a cabinet position.
Coming in here and acting like we are the losers when the majority of this forum supported someone who actually wanted to change things is fucking rich.
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Grunching a bit here but the Republicans figured out that 9 wasnāt a magic number 6 years ago and their voters went right along with it. Itās just that our side is too stupid or too scared to see otherwise. Anyway yāall got to look on the bright side, the rights you have today at this very moment are the high point probably for the rest of our lives. On Monday weāll have fewer, in a year even fewer and thereās nothing I can see thatās going to stop it.
Notice how this scenario only talks about how shitty the republican is and says nothing about the democrat. āVote against the other guyā is losing / has lost its effectiveness. People need something to vote for, and the absolute best people on our side still want to keep giving cops more money.
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The real 4 decade program has to be grass roots organization for a third party that is actually progressive.
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Unless I am missing something more than that one tweet, your comment about Abrams just isnāt fair. She said cops should make a living wage which seems completely in line with progressive policy. She is not saying cops should get more money to buy tanks which is how way too much of the left is falsely portraying it.
We really need to stop eating our own for very minor differences of opinion.
She is stuck playing in todays game and therefore if you are going to support cops in any way her comment seems like the most anodyne way possible.
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I agree with this being a serious underlying problem. But where did that come from? At least in recent times it came from Reagan and American propaganda. Iām not sure itās fair to blame the brainwashed people over the brainwashers.
Also lots of progressive policy is wildly popular here. Our politicians just donāt actually implement the policy that is actually popular. So again Iām not sure I agree this all falls in the lap of the voters.
Itās only wildly popular in theory.
If these numbers mattered, Bernie would have waltzed to the nomination (and wouldnāt have been the only top-tier candidate who supported it).
Instead, Bernie only barely got pluralities in Iowa and New Hampshire, then got absolutely obliterated in South Carolina.
Whatās the point of the popularity of a policy if people are just going to vote against a person that promotes it?
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Media, man. Itās so bad.
What Riverman said. The anti-bernie, anti-socialism propaganda was cranked to 100 and that was that. That example is pretty much my entire point.
I mean we literally had Chris Matthews talking about Bernie and his Brown shirts hanging him in Times Square or whatever it was.
Biden finished nearly last in every primary until the media and DemE machines started telling people he was the only rational choice.