i can almost like that post. only it’s not about purity. the goal here needs to be not just getting children out of cages, but the end of the gop’s assault on immigrants.
“yes, and…” are the statements the left needs to be saying.
i don’t want the “compromise” to be a borderwall, the dreamers being kicked out, and yet another increase to ice’s powers.
that’s why the administration is doing this. these kids are about to become the gop’s bargaining chip.
My response was not an attempt to say that everything is hopeless, or that there’s no point in fighting what’s going on. I just think it’s unrealistic to say that this sort of thing is turning off a huge swath of Trump’s supporters, or that they’re broadly remorseful about their vote. On the contrary, the GOP seems to be broadly fine with it.
The only group that backs abducting babies more strongly is, perhaps unsurprisingly, Trump supporters (62%). I don’t think that’s the result of his base eroding, either – his general approval rating has been fairly steady of late.
I take your point that even my office is not a monolith, but the overwhelmingly dominant tone is still absolutely pro-Trump, even now. It’s great that Laura Bush has (finally) found a line not worth crossing, but her objections are not likely to move anyone who’s already on board the “Actually, Stealing Babies Is Good If They’re Brown” bandwagon, including and especially every single Republican in Congress who has so far refused to take any sort of actual stand against this shit beyond “thoughts and prayers”. Those people do exist, and they do need to be fought, and I do believe we can beat them, but it won’t be by convincing them of the depravity of their convictions. It will ultimately only be by kicking every last one of these feckless motherfuckers out of office and then never letting them have a voice in the public square ever again. Nobody standing idly by through this disaster deserves any modicum of reputational rehabilitation.
"Cruz’s proposal, according to a release from his office, would require immigrant families detained along the border would remain together “absent aggravated criminal conduct or threat of harm to the children.”
“It would also require that asylum cases are adjudicated within 14 days, approve new temporary shelters for immigrant families and increase the number of immigrant judges.”
IMO, there’s no real way to gauge such unquantifiable emotions as ‘repulsion’ or “remorse.”
In the end what really sways people is their own personal self-interest.
Like my mentor always told me;
Never try to appeal to anyone’s better nature - they may not even have one. Instead, always attempt to appeal to their self interest, because pretty much everyone has that…
I don’t believe any argument I could make will convince Republicans to stop being fascists. If ANYONE has a shot at convincing Republicans not to be fascists it’s their fellow Republicans. So much as I hate GWB and his apologists I still support Laura’s decision to speak out against Trump.
I would love for this to be true, but I don’t buy it – do you have any references for such a statement?
It’s not the sort of thing on which you can easily find direct data, but you can infer it from a few sources.
Firstly, issues-based polling. This was a poll of 2016 likely voters:
Given that “likely voters” tend to be substantially whiter and wealthier than the average person, expanding that survey to the whole population would likely skew it even further left.
There are also age and race factors:
And see here:
Notice how a lot of the blue dots are hard against the left edge of the graph, while even Trump voters seem to be relatively moderate on economic issues?
The ceiling effect on the left and the empty right margin of the economic scale shows that the survey was miscalibrated; they assumed that Americans were further to the right on economic issues than they actually are. A lot of those blue dots on the edge would probably be significantly further left if the scale allowed for it.
On almost every issue, the public are to the left of both parties. Medicare For All has majority support, tuition-free college has majority support, cutting military funding has majority support, taxing the rich has majority support.
However, neither party supports these issues in Congress, because neither party is representative of the American people. The Congressional Democratic Party works on behalf of its donors, not its voters.
The non-voters are disproportionately working class and disproportionately PoC. Although the correlation is not absolute, class shapes ideology, and the ideology of the working class is socialism.
The problem with that is that every time the establishment Dems make a show of support for a “reasonable Republican”, they lose credibility on the left.
The people with the best awareness of this issue, and the most experience and energy for campaigning on it, are those most directly affected: people from Central America.
How do you think a Nicaraguan-American is going to respond to a celebration of the Bushes? They remember the Contras, they remember the death squads.
The message that they will take from this is “destroying Central American countries is fine, installing fascist dictatorships is fine, just make sure you do it in a way that isn’t quite so upsetting to rich white Americans”.
Why would they be willing to trust or work with Democrats after hearing that message?
Are you sure that Laura Bush is a war criminal? Aren’t you declaring her guilty by association?
That was a comment that I made in another thread. Anyway, Laura Bush seems to have opinions that are not always perfectly aligned with those of her husband’s family:
I’m not a big fan of Eva Braun, either.
However, I did use “the Bushes” in that sentence rather than “Laura Bush” on purpose.
But this thread is about what Laura said. Is she a war criminal that is not allowed to speak anymore? Should people be punished and scorned for the misdeeds of their relatives?
At no point have I said anything about Laura Bush not being allowed to speak.
But of course Laura Bush should be scorned for her complicity in the crimes of her husband. Once again: this was not a few misdemeanours, it was deliberate mass murder.
If she’d had any sense of ethics, she’d have cut his throat while he slept.
Okay then!
Guess somebody’s reelection campaign isn’t going as smoothly as planned.
I didn’t say I support Laura Bush. I said I support her statement against the Trump administration on this issue. That doesn’t mean I’m about to invite her over for tea.
I don’t see the point in getting angry at Republicans for expressing things I agree with. Heaven knows I have enough things to be angry with them about already.
And how soon will you declare that anyone who’s not raring for a bloody and violent revolution have no place in the left and no sense of ethics?
I sincerely hope you don’t talk like this in your everyday life, because I can’t think of a better way to make yourself, and through association other leftists, look like unhinged, bloodthirsty lunatics. Seriously man, what the everloving fuck?
This doesn’t look like regret to me.
Please keep in mind two things:
Good points, thanks.
