There probably are much better ways for you to spend your time.
Do your job however you wish. I’m just hoping to move beyond “fuck them all” and I don’t apologize for trying to raise the level of discourse here.
I happen to think that center-left voters who stayed home, and center-right voters who didn’t are a big segment of that 2020 push, and that you are risking alienating them, but we can disagree on strategy without mine being called shitty.
The left doesn’t field candidates. Candidates put their hat in the ring and fight it out in the primaries. Sanders who more fit your mold lost in no small part because a few segments of the Dem base hated him, and a few loved Clinton. That dynamic’s going to happening 2020 as well, and primaries are what they are. The use of the word “deplorable” mostly points to something outside the Dems’ control - the media. The term itself was used in a way that was probably too honest, but it was in the context of working on the other stuff on your list. The media took Clinton reaching out to the people we’re now framing as the Trump backers who can be swayed, and turned it into a ludicrously misframed attack on her.
But that also points to the fact that Clinton was in many ways a totally unique candidate, in much the same way that there were a lot of oddities in that election that were one-offs. The media’s rules for treating her are unlike the way they treated most politicians. Putin’s personal hatred of Clinton was relatively unique and probably contributed to Russia’s concerted attacks against Clinton and the Dem. House, while aiding the GOP. The FBI/Comey’s treatment of Clinton was massively over the line and in itself was a single event that swayed things to Trump, but isn’t something you can project onto any 2020 candidate. There are lessons from 2016, but they need to be considered in the context of a unique candidate in unique circumstances with unique press treatment.
There’s an alternative reality for last fall where the weather was different in certain counties and Clinton wins. Trump needed absolutely every single break he got - Russian involvement, FBI involvement, no one releasing Apprentice outtakes, mainstream media refusing to cover a lawsuit against him for that time he raped a 13-year-old, police stopping instead of participating in voter disenfranchisement, the democrats selecting the least popular presidential candidate they could have without recruiting Trump himself. It was a perfect storm.
The people who we keep being told to listen to are a shrinking minority who managed to “win” because US democracy is full of weird systems that give them disproportionate power. I think trying to empathize with them and convince them to do differently next time is probably strategically a huge waste of time. It’s massive effort to convince a small number of people that they’d like to undo something that’s already done. Forget Trump, are they going to vote against their GOP representatives in the house or the senate? Against Mike Pence after Trump is impeached for embezzling millions after his popularity sinks to 15%? Trump may well never run again.
So yeah, fuck them. If anyone needs to be convinced they were wrong, it’s the leadership of the Democratic party. They need to figure out a new set of policies that change the course of America and stop pandering to the mega-wealthy.
I swear if someone would have run on “We’re finally going to prosecute the bankers involved in the 2008 crash” it would have been a coronation.
Anyone going on about needing to listen to that crowd.
Here is the answer: look at 33min of that HUGE Florida Monstrosity, when the trumps step out of the plane and the singing begins. And then look at the video below, and then think about how that story continued.
And then tell me honestly, that there is any alternative to running, like Sally Balls and Isherwood and his friends did.
Clinton courted center-right voters. A lot. It didn’t work. The Dems have tried the strategy of courting the center right a lot. It rarely works and even when it does, we’re all fucked for it. I’m not going to sugar coat it for you - it’s a shitty strategy.
I think I finally understand why some people care (and care deeply) that some guy they don’t know who lives three towns over is gay.
Well, “understand” might not be the right word.
A large % of the 62 million Trump voters probably do not want to torture or kill you. Each person had to make a difficult, individual, binary choice between two candidates who both had very low popularity ratings. Just because some chose R over D doesn’t mean that they all think alike.
It does however mean that they believe that tRump is somehow acceptable in the first place.
It means they’re okay with being on the same side as the neo-nazis, the transphobes, the abortion clinic bombers, and so forth. Being okay with having those causes as my allies is just unfathomable to me.
Well, it has only been a month. Almost all of the Republicans I know are not on the same side as the neo-nazis, transphobes, bombers etc. They got us into this mess and maybe they’ll get us out.
The past month reminds me of how NHTSA crashed a lot of cars, and thereby made cars much safer. Donald Trump may end up improving the democratic process, just by “OK let’s never do that again!”
Of course, NHTSA used dummies rather than real passengers, and they didn’t have just one car to test…
You are aware of what the Christian right says about LGBT people, aren’t you?
Conversion therapy is torture (and doesn’t work, but that’s a whole other issue). The attempted suicide rate for trans people in unsupportive environments (like those found in conversion therapy) is 35-50%, depending on the study. The attempted suicide rate for the general population is around 5% at worst. People are beaten up or killed for being trans on a regular basis. I still suffer from the injuries of such an attack from 2004.
I don’t care about what the reasons were for voting R. People who did are supporting those who are willing to commit atrocities in the name of their god. I’ll talk to them when they admit they have made a mistake and will not vote R until the party changes. I don’t want them on their knees begging for forgiveness, a simple “I was wrong, I won’t do it again” will do. I don’t care who they vote for, as long as they vote against those who intend to harm people like me.
If they continue to support and vote for those who want to harm me, then there is nothing to talk about.
I am reminded of how smoking was assumed to be a basic right, and how put-out smokers were when they couldn’t light up wherever they liked. And now smoking cigarettes has dropped significantly also because we don’t tolerate it.
You engage in poisonous activities, I will excommunicate you. You need us more than we need you. It hurts when we reject you, but you can stop spreading poison and we’ll let you back in again.
Except if I embrace them, I’ll get a knife in the back and my wife’s family sent back to the showers. You don’t hug fascists and nazis and try to understand their feelings. You confront them head on and call them on all their bullshit while fighting back.
No but they’re happy to turn a blind eye while others do so and pass laws to enable it. That makes them just as bad.
A significant number of center-right high profile Republicans publicly stated “for the good of what the party used to be, and for the good of the country, do NOT vote for Trump.” Anyone who calls themselves “center-right” and voted for him – just like the ones who call themselves “conservative” – are not, and have already alienated themselves from any sense of the word “moderate”.
Sounds interesting… you should write up a review after you’ve played it some and post it here.
Maybe this weekend.
I played the companion game, Lost Constellation, set in NITW’s legendary time. It was very strange and atmospheric.
Or would they have voted for Sanders, a Jewish Social Democrat! That’s a line that gets trotted out, but much like Warren, I think they’d come up with some other excuse to not vote for him. I do think that more people on the left would have been excited and gotten out to vote for Sanders, which might have won him the election. The problem on the Democrats side was that few people were pumped to vote for Clinton AND that they pretty much ignored the rust belt states, which Trump was able to win over. But I also think that gender was a key reason why some wouldn’t vote for Clinton and we ignore that aspect of this at our peril.
How do we win over people who think like this? (or people who vote for people who think like this?)
I posted something a few days ago about a survey in which she lost to Trump where a hypothetical unnamed Democrat would win.
The GOP really want to make her the face of the Dems and then attack her.
http://www.politico.com/story/2017/02/elizabeth-warren-democrats-midterms-235238
Bring it, I say. I’d be delighted to be able to vote for her.
Unfortunately, many people can’t take advantage of option 5.
Women have been having abortions since the time we have been able to get pregnant. If you want less abortions, then you push for cheap or free, easily accessibly birth control and make sure children understand basic sexual biology from an early age (age appropriate education, of course). You don’t shout at women outside abortion clinics or put up posters of aborted fetuses on college campuses. And even if you manage to make abortions rare, they are still necessary in some cases. Abortion is a part of reproductive health for women because it happens inside of our bodies.
