Shahid Buttar: the civil rights cyberlawyer and community organizer who's challenging Pelosi from the left #ShahidVsPelosi

boing
41

Efforts to “primary” relatively progressive House members like Pelosi can certainly have an effect of ever-so-slightly tweaking the Party’s Overton window. That’s great, but you’ll get more of an effect if you can replace powerful bluedogs like Cheri Bustos, though more likely the effect there would be to simply get a R back into the seat.

The most effective way to change our government right now is to identify vulnerable GOP-held Senate seats, find a D candidate who is smart and honest but also electable in that state (which might mean compromising on a position or two, though we needn’t go full-on Manchin), and do whatever it takes to get that person into office.

2 Likes
42

We’re talking about the US, yet you keep pointing to Europe, an entirely different culture, demographic and forms of government. What’s popular there, isn’t here.

The progressive agenda, like single payer and the Green New Deal are popular with progressives. They also mean different things to different people, when details are added they become considerably unpopular. In fact, when actual proposals, with details are added all or nearly all of the progressive agenda becomes unpopular.

Yes, climate change is a crisis, but AOC’s Green New Deal is a fantasy. Even if it was implemented next year, we’d still have temperatures increasing for decades and decades to come. However, it would be impossible, both financially, socially and political to implement her plan by 2030. Even 2050 would take a miracle.

The Republican and Trump would love it if the Democrats ran on increasing the top tax rate to 70%. Not a good idea politically.

Reparations? Yet another very unpopular idea and the Republicans would love for the Democrats to run on it.

Both Sanders and Warren proudly raised and waved their hands during the Democratic debate when asked whether they supported eliminating private insurance. That’s what Sanders has advocated and Warren supports. That alone would make them unable to win in the general election.

Breaking up tech companies by politicians who can barely use email and their phones. Congress is pretty clueless about technology.

Glass-Steagall is still largely intact. If it was restored to it’s entirety people would lose many of the benefits like interest bearing checking and the like. We do have the Consumer Protection Agency, thanks to Warren, but it’s been pretty gutted by the Trump administration. However, what’s now being proposed by Warren is over the top.

No, most of the progressive agenda isn’t popular when you get into the details. You can’t blame the evil corporate media. I seriously doubt that any candidate advocating much of the progressive agenda would get anywhere near 50%. Only about a third of the Democratic party is progressive, with the remaining being center-left and moderates. Republicans overwhelmingly support Trump, about 90% approval. Trump will have no problem getting at least 45% of the popular vote in 2020 and he won with 46% in 2016.

You guys really need to read this article. Yes, I know it’s from a Republican, but sometimes they can give good advice. Please read it with an open mind.

“There are four states that matter in 2020: Wisconsin, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Florida. Win three out of four of those states and Trump is a one-term president. No matter how popular something might be with activists in Los Angeles or donors in Manhattan, it’s dead weight or worse if it isn’t a winner with Rotary Club members in Kenosha, Wisconsin.”

"Democrats are already guaranteed a nominee that will excite their base and drive a big turnout. His name is Donald Trump. Getting activists “excited” by bold policy positions is a waste of time. "

"The people you really have to motivate aren’t the Democratic base, they’re the people in the middle who have been unsettled by Trump’s presidency. "

“Democrats have one job in 2020: Beating Donald Trump. Nothing else matters. If progressives manage to mess this up by insisting on hard-left positions and ideological purity, they will own Trump’s second term. There is a time and a place for everything.”

43

The polls I provided were of Americans, and not just progressive ones. I refer to Europe and Canada to point out inaccurate statements you’ve made.

Across the board, that’s not true. There should be a debate within the context of the broadly stated need for a Green New Deal and a detailed comparison of proposals, but Pelosi and the rest of the Dem establishment don’t want to discuss the GND at all.

So your alternative is … do nothing? I can see why you support Pelosi and the party establishment.

Do you know how many Americans make more than $10-million/year?

I doubt they’ll run on it as their main plank, because it is unpopular thanks to aggressive mischaracterisations by conservaitves. The final proposal will be more to set up Congressional committees and investigative studies, etc.

Yes, they want to eliminate private insurance as the (here’s the key part) only way the vast majority of Americans can pay for health care, which is the current state of things even with ACA.

Yes, but this isn’t about technology, this is about business models.

No it isn’t. Dodd-Frank did nothing substantive to restore the wall between investment banking and commercial banking. No progressive candidate is arguing for an exact revival of the 1933 Glass-Steagall. Rather they’re proposing a new form that accomplishes the same basic protections (interest-bearing chequing accounts could live within that context, although losing them would be no great hardship to most Americans who live paycheque to paycheque or under crushing consumer debt anyhow).

If he’s so opposed to Biff he’d be better advised to tell his fellow Republicans how to get him off the ticket in 2020. It’s not the Dems’ job to move further to the right and compromise yet again, it’s the GOP’s job to move away from right-wing populism. Il Douche is his party’s mess to clean up.

6 Likes
44

For concrete claims about the popularity of positions in the US, we can at least look at recent polls:

http://maristpoll.marist.edu/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/NPR_PBS-NewsHour_Marist-Poll_USA-NOS-and-Tables_1907190926.pdf#page=15

The following poll as “good ideas” to the majority:

  • Background checks for gun purchases at gun shows or other private sales 89%
  • Medicare for all that want it, that is allow all Americans to choose between a national health insurance program or their own private health insurance 70%
  • Government regulation of prescription drug prices 67%
  • A pathway to citizenship for immigrants who are in the US illegally 64%
  • Legalizing marijuana nationally 63%
  • A Green New Deal to address climate change by investing government money in green jobs and energy efficient infrastructure 63%
  • A Wealth Tax, that is a higher tax rate on income above one million dollars 62%
  • A ban on the sale of semi-automatic assault guns such as the AK-47 or the AR-15 57%
  • A national minimum wage of 15 dollars an hour 56%
  • Having the United States rejoin the Paris Climate Agreement 53%
  • Free college tuition at public colleges or universities 53%
  • A tax on emissions of carbon based fuels such as coal, oil, and natural gas 50%

They didn’t poll on the particular health care proposal you cite. Reparations did get polled, and was incredibly unpopular, at 27% approval.

6 Likes
45

Pulling this out of the Republican’s article for a separate comment.

This is not exactly a great revelation. It will be as true in 2020 as it was in 2016. The key is not to have a complacent establishment candidate who doesn’t understand the importance of the broken Electoral College we’re stuck with and takes certain states for granted. That was the real screw-up, not Clinton going all scary progressive (a ridiculous notion only put forward by conservatives).

We need to work hard to ensure that we don’t have a repeat of Clinton in that regard, which is why many of us are so critical of the Dem establishment and its preferred neoliberal-lite Third Way candidates.

3 Likes
46

No one said that. But American isn’t so exceptional or special or unique little snowflakes that we can’t look at what’s been successful for our own purposes. On top of that, we are a mix of global cultures, not something that’s never been seen in history.

And when it comes to the environment, our addiction to oil isn’t just about us, it’s about the entire globe. We’re at a tipping point that requires bold action, and there is no reason why the US can’t take on the leadership position on that - because it’s the right thing to do, and if we don’t (given how wasteful we are as a society), we’re fucking over everyone else. And given that we are the only country on earth to have put a man on another planet, don’t give me that “it’s too hard/too expensive” argument. We have both the productive power and the will, when we want to have it.

7 Likes
47

The Dem establishment, in thrall to the neoliberal consensus, just doesn’t. Their first question is always “what are the downsides for the markets and capitalism?” instead of “how will this address or help mitigate global warming?” (priorities!). This is how they manage to ignore the fact that, for example, job creation is at the heart of most GND proposals. The willful lack of imagination would be quite the spectacle if we all weren’t also getting screwed over by the lack of action it’s engendering.

2 Likes
48

The polls to which you refer are flawed in that when asked if you favor Medicare for All, it’s somewhat popular. However, what exactly Medicare for All means is highly relative and different to everyone. People project whatever they want onto its meaning. When you add that they’ll lose their private insurance, or have their taxes raised then support drops dramatically. Medicare for All is a political loser and a progressive fantasy.

Pelosi knows the Green New Deal is a political loser, would never pass Congres, and is yet another progressive fantasy.

You are using a logical fallacy known as bifurcation. It’s not the Green New Deal or nothing, that’s a false choice. The AOC Green New Deal is not feasible, either politically or realistic, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t other alternatives that are doable that would help. We cannot stop Global Warming, the best we can do now is keep it from being catastrophic.

Raising taxes is unpopular, even on the wealthy. People fear that eventually the threshold will be lowered or that someday they may be that rich and not want to be taxed at that level. Every time the Democrats have raised taxes, even on the wealthy, they’ve taken a real beating in the next election.

Reparations have already come up as a progressive idea in the news. You cannot undo that. Whether it’s on the official platform is irrelevant and will be used against any progressive candidate.

I repeat that eliminating private health insurance is very unpopular and a political loser. Even your own poll shows that. Both Sanders and Warren lost the general election when they raised their hands in support of its elimination.

If you don’t understand the technology, you don’t understand their business.

Did you read the article I cited? What part isn’t’ good advice? It doesn’t sound like you read it.

Again, those polls are misleading. For example, simply asking whether you support the Green New Deal sounds good until you learn what is required to implement. Even if the Democrats retake the Senate, the Presidency and hold the House it will never get passed. The same is true of the MFA.

Some of those suggestions are hardly progressive, they’re quite moderate, like rejoining the Paris agreement or a pathway to citizenhship.

Most of the others are a fantasy. A wealth tax is unconstitutional and would require a Constitutional amendment, like what was required for Income taxes. A ban on assault weapons, sound nice, but it hasn’t been effective in the past since it’s hard to define what such a weapon is, and I doubt the current Supreme Court would uphold such a ban.

Most of those ideas barely break 50% and that’s BEFORE there’s an actual campaign. That’s not very good support.

You cherry-picked the polls! How about the rest of the progressive agenda:

Getting rid of the Electoral College: 42%
MFA that eliminates private insurance (Sanders and Warren): 41%
Abolishing the Death Penalty: 36%
Health insurance for illegal immigrants (most of the Democratic candidates): 33%
Decriminalizing illegal border crossings: 27%
Providing reparations for slavery: 27%
Universal Basic Income: 26%

The progressives are already on record as support the above, very unpopular ideas. Expect the Republicans and Trump to use that to great effectiveness.

49

See my answer below.

50

@grp000 is totally right. ( hah, no pun intended. )

american conservatives have given up on american exceptionalism.

we can’t do anything to mitigate climate change. there’s no way we can take on the big tech companies, or the big insurance and pharma companies. we can’t do anything to address poverty. we can’t address racial injustice. not ever.

americans are basically incompetent and uncaring. so we might as well just give up. don’t support anyone actually trying to fix things because they’re only going to fail. only support candidates who will keep us bumbling along till some other country is there to turn the lights out.

give up. throw in the towel. it’s the only solution.

( i may have paraphrased some of the details wrong, but that seems to be the logical conclusion. thankfully we don’t actually live in that world. we just have to have some guts to actually do the work. )

1 Like
51

Where are the polls backing up your claims? Both @Knappa and I have provided our own on public support for the proposals that Pelosi and the establishment won’t even entertain in their broadest forms, while you just make unsupported statements about “political losers” and “progressive fantasies”. Until you back up your claims with reputable sources I’m done discussing this with you.

And yes, I read the USA Today article and responded to it. The ideas aren’t new, just the usual rehash of stating the obvious about swing states and demands that the Dems stay on the same unsustainable path or go further to the right in regard to global warming and inequality and corporate deregulation and impeachment.

Frankly, the impression I get of your position is that of one somewhere between Blue Dog Democrat and Republican moneyCon (like the USA Today writer) – to the right of Pelosi. Which is a valid position (at least if you’re white, male, and wealthy) but which isn’t exactly a formula for getting out the Dem vote with younger people and others who recognise the urgency of the crises we face as a society.

5 Likes
52

Sadly, the Dem establishment has internalised that attitude, albeit to a lesser degree than conservatives have.

2 Likes
53

you do realize states like CA used to have free in-state tuition, and that a 70% top marginal rate would be 21% lower than the top marginal rate during those awesome 1950s/early60s boom times that “conservatives” keep wanting to take us back to, right?

4 Likes
54

you know that, sometimes, it is a politician’s job to explain to people why they want to do things that will make people’s lives better. sometimes, a politician has to work to convince people. well, it used to be a thing Democrats did, anyway. Lyndon Johnson’s bag of fucks was pretty well empty when he shoved through the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Sometimes you do the right thing because it’s the right thing to do. sometimes you prepare the ground for the right things to be done. polls are useful as a gague of where you are in the process of building support, not an iron boundary for what can be considered possible.

i mean, 15 years ago, gay marriage had similar levels of support to things on your list of “OMG this will lose Dems all the elections if they talk about it” issues. it’s a good thing people who cared about equal protection of the laws didn’t take the same damn advice you’re offering up today, and give up on what ended up being a totally winnable fight for justice.

6 Likes
55

Ah, to think how many disasters in history that could have been avoided had humans opted for doing what’s moral and right instead of what polls well.

1 Like
56

Pelosi is a disgrace to everything her party used to stand for. She will be gone soon. One way or the other. Thank god.

57

Are they to the left or right of the UK Labor party leader?

1 Like
58

The system described in the poll example above says all that. People would pay for a government run insurance system, and leave or modify their private insurance systems, Its not a fantasy, its how health insurance works in many parts of the world.

2 Likes
59

It remains to be seen if AOC can do anything BUT twitter

1 Like
60

Well, she is a freshman representative. She really doesn’t have all that much actual legislative weight, and that’s not her fault (or anyone’s, really). If anything, she has unusually good committee position, in no small part because of Pelosi. (Speaking of which, I have the strongest feeling that the purported feud between Pelosi and the progressives is mostly invented by people who want to have an enemy to rage at.)

5 Likes