Now is the time to start taking action to move the administration left. This will take real work. Complaining on a message board is fun and cathartic but has zero real world effect. Let’s use this thread to think of ideas and post successes the forum members have had trying to move the agenda.
Here are some initial ideas:
put a note in your calendar to call your representative once a week about whatever topic is important that week,
volunteer for a local progressive candidate,
start a monthly donation to a progressive cause, if you can afford it,
even better, volunteer for that cause,
write an oped for your local paper,
join in protests,
run for office yourself!,
join your local chapter of the American Constitution Society,
start trying to reprogram a MAGA family member of friend,
offer to teach an extension course at your local college.
I am sure there are many other great ideas. Post them here and let’s get to work!
imagine being a Canadian who is completely unaffected by any of Biden’s policies and then coming to this board to whine about how other posters criticism of Biden makes one unable to enjoy the celebration. After having spent the primary making post after post denigrating the American left and implying they didn’t care about the issues they claimed to care about.
Signed, a guy who has done plenty of things on this list only to be told by Clovis that his work in the field was merely performative art
I think this is fair, but the way I look at it is: “Are people like @clovis8 the enemy?” I think the answer is no, and its easier to partner with the mushy middle left than to fight them. If nothing else, you can Good Cop Bad Cop the eDems.
Second sentence is just irrelevant and will just provoke a derail. I’ve learned a huge deal from posters who have and will continue to bag the shit out of this ‘steady-as-she-goes’ cash machine for the 1% government. Reading these posters helps me to better enunciate my viewpoints in my own life.
Sorry, my whole point was that if someone thinks differently than me about something I find it helpful to ask if they can be worked with or not. Like Trumpers are not worth engaging because they want a world so different that there’s no point. But I can engage with someone who wants a world like the one I want even if they hate the way I want to get there.
Thank you because to be honest I am completely done with being called a centrist and shitlib on this site and have zero intentions of letting it slide anymore because everyone who posts it knows it’s a complete lie.
The right won by,
Creating the federalists society and spending decades infiltrating law schools
Creating Fox News and spending decades building a right wing media
Creating the tea party funding it and spending decades grooming right win candidates for office
I’m suggesting itt it’s time to start working. Complaining here is fun. I am one of the most prolific posters here. But it doesn’t help. Take the same arguments and turn it into an oped or debate piece at a local political organizing. That helps.
I made the argument for a year that we get Biden in then push him left. The day after his inauguration I make a thread bait pushing him left and get mocked. I am being ideologically consistent.
Someone tell me how you intend to accomplish progressive goals if not with the things I suggested since so many seem to believe we differ so much of how to get there.
Who is up for an immigration protest in SoCal this weekend! LA or SD? Anyone? Microdaughter and I are on board (haven’t asked nanodaughter or wife yet), but I’m not sure if we have the gumption to do it on our own.
Masks, outside, and 12’ social distancing. Double the CDC recommendation!!
The federalist society has nothing to do with conservative electoral or structural success. It is a very small part of the legal world, and without it the GOP would still find deplorable judges.
The Tea Party wasn’t really a thing beyond the fact that it was a bunch of elected officials identifying as part of a group. The major difference is that the Tea Party’s interests aligned with the party’s interests as a whole. The Squad is the closest thing we’ve got, and their interests clearly conflict with the donor class’s interests and, consequently, the party’s interests.
The Fox News thing is true, but the analogy would be a cable news network that yells at Biden in the way that you chastise posters here for doing.
Above all, I think I fundamentally disagree with the idea that posting on Twitter or whatever isn’t an effective way to push the party left. If nothing else, you certainly can’t argue that Facebook/Cambridge Analytica/Parler/etc contributed to Trump’s victory and the rise of the deplorable right while at the same time arguing that social media isn’t where “real activism” takes place.
But like - it wasn’t like the tea party and the GOP were competing for funding, right? It was largely (minus some notable primaries) the same people with the same beliefs, being funded by the same people, just with new branding.
My point was there isn’t that same kind of path forward for a comparable progressive movement within the Democratic Party.
There is a lot of progressive organizing and fundraising and it’s gotten progressive candidates into office. I don’t know if that’s sustainable the way a movement funded by a small percentage of fossil fuel profits is though.
