Well, in a representational democracy, you kind of have to expect your elected representatives to do that kind of shit. Because that’s why they’re there, ultimately. (The alternative involves guns.) The Democrats may not bear the blame for the attacks on democracy, but unfortunately they bear the burden of defending it.
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EXACTLY! 1/6/21 was only the beginning. The Oath Keepers are only a tiny part of the growing fascist insurgency, the American Revolution II, that would make a fat lying mob boss 
a monarch.
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you can say all day that democrats need to get their act together. But really they’ve been trying. It’s just procedurally impossible to actually accomplish anything in congress when the supposed majority is in actuality a minority because of the 2 democrats who are undermining every bit of legislation. The rest of teh party and the president have been constantly meeting with them, talking to them, reprimading them and doing everything they can to get them to come around but they are acting like they are paid plants put there by some corporate republican overlord. The only answer is to build a supermajority to overpower those two centrist democrats, But you can’t build a supermajority if everyone just thinks the democrats suck because they can’t get anything done. It’s a bit of a catch 22 and I fear we really are just F’d.
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No-one, including the professor in the video, is doing that. The Dem leadership is being taken to task for their haplessness in responding to the actions of the Republicans.
The Democratic Party alone can’t do it, but in the context of a republic that’s unfortunately structured as a duopoly they’re a major player if one is interested in resolving things through some form of liberal democracy.
With the complete non-involvement of the Democratic Party? You’ll have to expand on how you see that occurring. If you’re calling for violent revolution and direct actions by individuals or small cells then say that.
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Seems like more action is taking place on the state level anymore due to gridlock on the federal level.
With a hobbled federal government, the policies a state enacts are of greater importance.
State legislatures determine who gets to vote and also when and how. That and also the shape/composition of the district one may reside in. How these items are set on a state level does impact who gets elected on a federal level.
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centrist democrats
I kind of bristle when I hear people call them “centrist” Democrats. They are right wing democrats. The Republicans have dragged politics so far to the right, that what I would call centrist politics is in the middle of the Democratic party.
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oh yeah I totally agree. I didn’t mean that as my opinion.
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The chuds will keep calling it the Democrat Party anyway, just to be annoying
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Yeah, it never even crossed this nice man’s mind that maybe this particular democracy is not worth fighting to save. Or that, “sure you won, but at what cost?”.
The solution is revolution. Peace-loving people are hoping for a bloodless revolution that leads the USA towards a functional multi party democracy like the rest of civilized democracies. Non peaceful people are perfectly ready to burn it all down.
All we are saying, is give peace a chance. 
Or maybe they’d switch to the Demo Party, to associate them more strongly with the demonstrations (protests) that are “destroying American cities and the American way of life.”
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How’s that revolution going for you then?
I don’t mean to be flippant, since I’d like to see it too. But I’m not seeing much of any hopeful signs of a bloodless revolution these days.
And it seems to me that in the meantime, sitting back and letting Republicans conduct their quasi-fascist takeover would make it far less likely that such a peaceful revolution could happen.
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As Beau says, “Those who make peaceful revolution impossible, make violent revolution inevitable.” I would love to see this end peacefully, and I still think it is possible. But only if the folks who actually have their hands on the levers of power who are on our side (more or less) realize what is at stake. This is not the 1980’s. It is far closer to the 1850’s, and the storm clouds on the horizon are real. The folks who can’t see that are going into the history books right beside Neville Chamberlain. Assuming there are any history books…
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The GOP leadership is using the Putin playbook, which means they’ll know how to neuter attempts at peaceful revolution against their regime if or when the time comes.
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Not to mention what’s going to happen to some people if the GOP gets what they want.
And all those “good Germans”, too.
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This seems like it’s related to this discussion…
I have never seen Capehart get so pissed off before… He really looks like he wants to reach through the screen and strangle Brooks for once… which, you know… same.
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Smarmy Bobo Brooks, making “centrist” Boomers feel good about the GOP’s long slow march toward fascism since the 1980s.
[Also, a petty observation: check out the great intellectual’s colour-coordinated books in the background.]
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I’m not sure that Bannon is as smart or as disciplined as Putin.
But in either case a US going violently autocratic would also be no picnic for other countries now living between two such powers where both have armed forces stationed in their countries and on their borders.
No matter their smugly saying - hey - sucks to be you guys - but there’s nothing that can be done.
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And think about how many US troops are stationed around the world… But sure, who cares if America goes full-on autocrat! Not like that will impact any other country, right?
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True. Also, the history of tyranny-for-all isn’t as fully enmeshed in American political culture as it is in Russia, where it made Putin’s autocratic measures easier to implement.
Still, there are dangerous and smart people in the GOP paying close attention to the hard and soft methods that the Shirtless Wonder has used to make attempts at peaceful revolution frighteningly irrelevant there. I also don’t discount the toxic role thar the Murdoch outlets will play if the GOP establishes one-party rule in the U.S.
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Whats amazing is how early on the GQP is kowtowing to Trump, who hasn’t even declared yet. This is some long-range sycophancy! Through the power of the Hivemind, they are already anticipating the conception that the Dear Leader might be averse to a debate and creating this fig leaf to save him the humiliation of a short-notice withdrawal. “Why should he participate in a Rigged Debate hosted by the Fake News?”
In fact, I think Trump would go for an actually rigged debate. Hosted by OANN/Newsmax, Trump would of course get all the questions beforehand. Moderators would, by tone alone, confer oozing contempt to the incumbent. Maybe even some “accident” would befall Biden’s microphone at key moments. The lighting would favor Trump. The audience: full GQP in attendance, participation/hooting encouraged not discouraged. Trump would be allowed to interrupt. The ways OANN can rig it are endless. Which is exactly the way he would want it.
David Pepper really should have brought up the GQP’s footdragging/obstructionism at the federal level (principally the Senate). And the GQP’s ruthless, strategic aim at the Judiciary (something the Democrats do unevenly at best). Another situation where the GQP and the Democrats are each playing a different game by different rules.
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