That about sums it up.
I was driving and listened to the progressive channel on SiriusXM a bit and whoa boy are we fucked. Like the main take is that Biden and the establishment Dems are good but they need to wake up. No real takes about the system. Lots of faith in the backlash being enough to win, with no talk of how that will actually functionally happen.
The Constitution itself is a bigger impediment than eDems. People who keep going back to abolishing the filibuster donât demonstrate an understanding of this because they still want to fix things under the current regime.
I donât know how the fuck we fix it. A constitutional convention would be a completely rigged affair. Accept machine gun Jesus or die motherfuckers.
Your solution requires a nationwide civil war. I suggest you raise up an army or shut the fuck up about it.
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lots of angst tonight
not sure the âdonât vote for bidenâ plan is going to work either
Bidenâs plan is to get to 60 in the Senate and then try to codify Roe, or to wait for the Supreme Court to break in our favor, whichever comes first. Neither of those is coming any time soon.
My plan is to stop voting for shitty eDems and vote in every primary for good candidates. I donât mind if theyâre moderate on a left-right scale, I do mind if they wonât nuke the filibuster, pack the court, etc.
Ultimately weâre not winning until one of the following conditions is met:
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We get to 60 seats in the Senate, along with a trifecta
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We get to 50+1 votes in the Senate to nuke the filibuster, along with a trifecta that supports nuking the filibuster
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We pick off two Supreme Court seats, which means zero liberals vacate seats and two or more conservatives vacate seats while the Democrats hold the Senate and the White House
To me itâs pretty clear that the best path is trying to get to 50+1 votes in the Senate to nuke the filibuster, with a trifecta that supports nuking the filibuster. So any Dem who opposes that is useless to me.
If you have any other ideas that will work any quicker, let me know.
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I donât think Iâve discussed it much if at all here, but IRL Iâve frequently ranted that I thought the real end game for conservatives was to break the system so badly that folks on both the left and right call for a convention. I feel like the Federalist Society/Koch-Funded Think Tank/ALEC types would just be more well-prepared and more cutthroat and just straight up outplay the progressive side.
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There wouldnât be any âprogressive sideâ
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Also, NBZ has been essentially advocating for violence/civil war for like the entire existence of this forum and itâs getting tired. At this point I could care less about anyone advocating for violence against certain people or property, but Iâm also sick of hearing about how we need to overthrow the entire government via civil war.
Like, the government has suicide drones they can fly from like 50 miles away and crash into shit and blow it up. Never mind their tanks and bombers and fighter jets and javelins and the fucking Marines and Seal Team Six.
Iâm supposed to believe that NBZ can raise up an army and beat that? And that the potential for that success is greater than like voting in primaries, protesting, organizing, civil disobedience, rioting, etc?
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Itâs not really a plan. Itâs just an emotional thing about personally not wanting to feel like a mark, and for some people that vote they donât have to admit to anyone is a bigger motivator than the extra death and misery they know comes with not-Biden
I feel like the most likely outcome by far would be a Koch wet dream, but like the variance in that scenario is high and the second most likely outcome would be a populist (so economically progressive) dream. I donât know how to estimate the odds, maybe 80/20? If I were them, I wouldnât want that gamble. Iâd be happy to continue chipping away slowly but surely.
Because progressives are too embarrassed and/or individualistic in their lifeâs priorities to get involved in the muck
Theyâd rather just spend their time convincing themselves theyâre smart on the internet
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People seem to think the heroes would have to materialize out of thin air
There are no heroes, and itâs either you or itâs nobody
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Constitutional convention cmon. First off the other side rabidly worships âthe constitutionâ or what they think it is and any of that talk would be tReAsOn. Second what would they get out of a new government they donât have now? Codify âjesus is lordâ? 60%+ of americans wouldnât sign off on that and no dems in power now. I donât get that at all.
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For sure Iâm emotionally at my witâs end with this shit, and Iâm on tilt, and Iâm in the fog of war⌠but like Iâm seriously also not convinced that four more years of Biden = less suffering in the next 25, 50, 100 years than not Biden.
Sort of like flattening the covid curve doesnât mean fewer cases, it just means theyâre spread out over a longer period of time. That means less death if youâre expanding hospital capacity and improving treatments and getting people vaccinated, but if youâre just slowly letting everything crumble, whatâs the difference?
Four more years of Biden is four more years of the Silent Generation running the Democratic Party into the ground. Another Biden win means that the Biden wing of the party will be in prime position to pick the candidate in 2028, and that the candidate with the big head start will be Kamala Harris.
It means four more years of the head of the Democratic Party calling for more funding for police, not less. Four more years trying to be bipartisan to get stuff done with the Republican Party. Four more years legitimizing the Supreme Court, legitimizing todayâs GOP, legitimizing the institution of the Senate. Four more years of the party standing for half measures on climate. Four more years of protecting the filibuster.
I think weâve already lost for like three to five decades and none of this matters, but to the extent we have any chance, itâs going to require the establishment getting wiped the fuck out via an electoral curb stomping. The Dems needed to deliver that kind of electoral curb stomping in 2020 to have a real chance to avoid the worst outcomes, and they came up just short, which left them with the chance hinging on Bidenâs ability to twist Joe Manchinâs arm and Kyrsten Sinemaâs arm, and he didnât seem to even try.
So now that thatâs done, and the map is what it is in 2022 and 2024, our best chance may well be if the Democratic Party takes such an absolute beating in 2022 that they get absolutely smoked in primaries in 2024 and we have a changing of the guard and a shift away from corporatism.
Like, full stop, Biden and company have just told the two biggest constituencies of the Democratic Party to pound sand until we have 60 votes. Black voters will get no voting rights bill and no criminal justice reform, and female voters will watch their reproductive rights get taken away while Biden effectively says, âVote harder, stupid!â Oh and just for a little cherry on top, Biden strategically decided not to court Hispanic voters in the last election.
So if the Democratic Party isnât for women and it isnât for people of color, then what the fuck is it for other than corporations and why the fuck should we vote for it in this iteration?
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Iâll speak for myself: because the conservatives have won so much that their doctrine rules the day and this is the land of get rich or get fucked. Any time spent not trying to get rich is time spent moving closer to getting fucked, so giving up on that pursuit in order to do something altruistic is to risk immense personal suffering thereafter. If I get to my number and can basically secure safety for myself and my girlfriend, then all of that changes. But the likelihood of that isnât great.
It feels better to feel smart and feel like you knew what was coming and know whatâs coming next than not to, yeah.
There are peaceful ways to replace the Constitution.
Even if Democrats werenât establishment fools, they would still face a difficult political battle because of the structure of our government created by the Constitution. On of the weak points of the Constitution is the Senate. The Constitution says that no state may be deprived of its equal representation without its consent. I doubt small states will willingly give up their disproportionate power in the Senate. I suppose you could neuter the Senate and take away itâs powers, but the concept of civil religion strongly suggests that the American people will resist giving up our current form of government unless you break their faith in it first. If you can build the political will to radically change the structure of government, then you have enough support to change everything from the ground up with a new constitution.
There are paths to this that donât have to go through civil war, but I admit they all run the risk of civil war. I see some parallels between fear of civil war on this country and fear of nuclear war due to whatâs going on in Ukraine. There is no safe path.
We should be working to erode faith in American institutions, in the police, in the Supreme Court, in Congress, etc.
I have been advocating for this for a long time, but at the end of the day the best/easiest way to enact that change is not to try to draft a new Constitution which is virtually impossible. Itâs to weaken the disadvantages in the Senate by nuking the filibuster, granting statehood to DC and Puerto Rico, packing the court, etc.
Right now the GOP can be extremely unpopular nationally and still maintain a majority in the Senate, or at least block a filibuster. I mean shit how much more unpopular could they get nationally than they were in 2020 and they held 50 Senate seats and will likely expand it in the next two cycles.
Making it tougher for them to do that forces a shift in the Overton Window and weakens their position. Dems should also enact policies that would attempt to shift liberal population into winnable red states to make them purple or blue.