Dem VP choice

[RedDenver]

14 minutes ago, commando said:

nobody meets the progressive purity test.  not even bernie after he endorsed Biden.  he sold out the "true" progressives with that endorsement.

It's not a purity test, it's just my opinion.

 

12 minutes ago, FrantzHardySwag said:

How about the Working Families Party? Who endorsed Bernie in '16. You can not like her, or disagree with her, but that doesn't make her not progressive. Alright I've said my piece. I'll let this go, since we will never agree.

Let me put it a different way: Warren doesn't always align with progressives as the article I linked describes. Whether that makes her a progressive or not isn't the point - it's that she doesn't entirely represent progressive values or policies. That's all I'm really trying to say. And if she's the VP pick it's not going to silence/placate the progressives who want something more than what Warren offers.

[Danny Bateman]

1 hour ago, RedDenver said:

Wait, what? Your second sentence acknowledges that Warren isn't a progressive, so how can your first sentence be true?

 

OK,  even if we accept your premise that Warren is not a progressive, my point is that progressives alienate a lot of natural allies through excessive gatekeeping. Hence to me it seems a bit odd progressives would be so skeptical of Warren.

 

Also from a game theory perspective, I'd think they'd be quite happy with her in that we'd be more likely to enact progressive change with her as the second in command compared to someone like Klobuchar.

[Landlord]

It's an ugly self-defeating reality of identity politics that eventually, if you play the game long enough, everyone ends up in the gulag.

 

That's why progressives don't win much.

[RedDenver]

1 hour ago, Danny Bateman said:

OK,  even if we accept your premise that Warren is not a progressive, my point is that progressives alienate a lot of natural allies through excessive gatekeeping. Hence to me it seems a bit odd progressives would be so skeptical of Warren.

 

Also from a game theory perspective, I'd think they'd be quite happy with her in that we'd be more likely to enact progressive change with her as the second in command compared to someone like Klobuchar.

I'm all for Warren as an ally to progressives, but like many progressives I'm skeptical of if she really wants to be an ally. Much of that comes from her flip-flops on policy and her attacks against Bernie but little against the centrists. Some of that is just campaigning though, so I'd like to see what she is actually bringing to the table.

 

As for gatekeeping, I'd be curious if Warren considers herself a progressive as she spent a lot of time distancing herself from progressives during the campaign. Maybe I'm trying to draw a distinction between what I consider as the center of the progressive ideology and where Warren is, which might be towards the right of the progressives. Or maybe I'm just wrong, and Warren is a progressive. Maybe I'm just not a progressive. In the end we're just arguing over labels, so I should just let it go.

 

And I agree with your game theory perspective. I've been trying to make the point that Warren can be a bridge to progressives regardless of whether she's in or out of the club.

[Guy Chamberlin]

19 hours ago, FrantzHardySwag said:

Yeah this does nothing to disprove her history in govt as a progressive lawmaker. Her medicare for all plan isn't Bernies, therefore it's not progressive? She is running on a medicare for all platform, legalize marijuana, she was being endorsed by progressive groups, she attacks wall st as much as anyone. I can find multiple intercept articles calling her a progressive. She IS progressive. 

 

Well no. Warren had recently outlined her Medicare for All platform when polling indicated that M4A might be a liability in the general election. Warren quickly backed away from her own proposal and aligned with the more moderate fixes proposed by Biden, Buttigieg and the other candidates competing for the centrist Dems. 

 

It may have been the savvy political move, but it tipped her ideological hand. Sanders has been saying the same thing forever, and considers M4A inevitable (a lot of opponents do, too) and yes, some folks like that purity. In the waning days of her campaign, Warren also backed off some of her Wall Street rhetoric, continuing to make a play for the Biden, Buttigieg, Bloomberg, and Klobuchar voters rather than pull progressives from Bernie. I personally thought Warren might have found the sweet spot for this electorate, but her numbers didn't budge.

 

It will be interesting to see what Warren champions from here on out. Interesting, too, how many of those progressive platforms are quickly going mainstream. Sanders and supporters hung everything on Medicare for All, and while it's both morally and economically justifiable, it might still be four or more years ahead of its time. 

[Guy Chamberlin]

17 hours ago, Landlord said:

It's an ugly self-defeating reality of identity politics that eventually, if you play the game long enough, everyone ends up in the gulag.

 

That's why progressives don't win much.

 

In this case, if you play the game long enough, your numbers just get smaller and smaller. 

 

Sanders supporters like myself think we genuinely need a revolution. We've been led to believe the status quo is normal when it's  actually quite insane. We like to think of ourselves as the people trying to keep folks out of the gulag. 

 

But most of us aren't naive. I'm mildly heartened by the introduction of progressive ideas in the mainstream, but hardly surprised by the weaponizing of socialism, even when it's not socialism, and the powerful pull of centrism and incremental solutions. Most of us will vote for Joe Biden. The progressives who insist on an uncompromising candidate will be the minority in this minority. Many of them will refuse to vote for Joe Biden, but many of those will come from the ranks of the disaffected who already didn't vote, or cast third party protest votes. Some of those will turn out for local candidates and simply decline to vote Biden. The bigger concern is energizing the millions of less-ideological Americans who are rarely inclined to vote at all. 

 

On the other hand......consider the landscape ten years ago, when the Tea Party was considered a rouge operation at the extreme end of the Republican Party. They challenged their own incumbents, ignored the Party's protocols, knocked establishment Republicans out of leadership positions, took over the party and pushed a far right agenda that now stands as the Republican baseline, with a President and Congress going along for the ride. They were so successful that we don't even use the words Tea Party anymore. It's just the Republican Party.

 

Discuss. 

[BigRedBuster]

2 minutes ago, Guy Chamberlin said:

Sanders supporters like myself  Trump supporters think we genuinely need a revolution.

 

I guess we are going to have a revolution. Great.  20% on the right and 20% on the left are going to have a revolution. While the 60% in the middle get caught in the middle.

[funhusker]

35 minutes ago, BigRedBuster said:

 

I guess we are going to have a revolution. Great.  20% on the right and 20% on the left are going to have a revolution. While the 60% in the middle get caught in the middle.

I agree.  And it makes me wonder: what percent of the population was actually responsible for the actual American Revolution and Civil War.  How many people were "in the middle" and like "I know things aren't perfect, but do we need to actually kill and be killed over it???"

 

During both wars many people went to Canada or the "west" to not get involved.  

[Danny Bateman]

13 minutes ago, Guy Chamberlin said:

 

In this case, if you play the game long enough, your numbers just get smaller and smaller. 

 

Sanders supporters like myself think we genuinely need a revolution. We've been led to believe the status quo is normal when it's  actually quite insane. We like to think of ourselves as the people trying to keep folks out of the gulag. 

 

But most of us aren't naive. I'm mildly heartened by the introduction of progressive ideas in the mainstream, but hardly surprised by the weaponizing of socialism, even when it's not socialism, and the powerful pull of centrism and incremental solutions. Most of us will vote for Joe Biden. The progressives who insist on an uncompromising candidate will be the minority in this minority. Many of them will refuse to vote for Joe Biden, but many of those will come from the ranks of the disaffected who already didn't vote, or cast third party protest votes. Some of those will turn out for local candidates and simply decline to vote Biden. The bigger concern is energizing the millions of less-ideological Americans who are rarely inclined to vote at all. 

 

On the other hand......consider the landscape ten years ago, when the Tea Party was considered a rouge operation at the extreme end of the Republican Party. They challenged their own incumbents, ignored the Party's protocols, knocked establishment Republicans out of leadership positions, took over the party and pushed a far right agenda that now stands as the Republican baseline, with a President and Congress going along for the ride. They were so successful that we don't even use the words Tea Party anymore. It's just the Republican Party.

 

Discuss. 

 

The country and the GOP itself are worse off because the uncompromising idealogues on the far-right started an uprising that culminated in Donald Trump seizing power and utter, unfailing fealty to their god-king being the one requisite to remain in the party. The radicalization has turned their base into extremists who shun their own eyes and ears in favor of instruction from the party and they now view anyone outside their group with hostility if not as an outright enemy. Remind you of anything?

 

 

What scared some of the rest of us was seeing some of these same traits in certain factions of the Sanders camps - uncompromising,  angry at the perception they're being ripped off, hostile and quick to attack those who question them, berate those with different views  as impure or corrupt, resistant to facts or evidence that fly in the face of their beliefs - and the hope that the Democratic Party did not undergo a similar transition.

 

Maybe we do need a revolution. Maybe the left should overthrow the party, seize the infrastructure and assume the reigns. But if they did so and some of these same traits remained, I fear a lot of people would ultimately be cast out and exiled from the party to the Great Disaffected Middle in the same way that BRB or TGH or commando or other former Republicans have.

 

I don't doubt progressives intentions are absolutely good. But their ability to effect their plans is extremely suspect. Taken as a whole, the Democratic base is far more mottled and diverse than that of the GOP. So any group hoping to harness their electoral power to bring about change will necessarily have to stitch together a coalition of wildly varying and oftentimes contradictory factions of people. Progressives have not shown an ability to do that competently. It was much easier for the Tea Party because their base is far more homogeneous.

 

Also I would posit that the Tea Party had some successes but they've been utterly impotent and unable to enact most of their agenda (shrinking government, reducing debt, trimming spending, reducing government involvement in healthcare, etc.). Even within the modern party, the hardliners like the Freedom Caucus of the House have limited influence and serve mainly to push the broader governing body within the GOP to the right by obstructing. I would argue most if not all Tea Party ideology has been replaced since 2016 by whatever the hell Donald Trump is currently pretending to believe in.

 

[Guy Chamberlin]

1 hour ago, BigRedBuster said:

 

I guess we are going to have a revolution. Great.  20% on the right and 20% on the left are going to have a revolution. While the 60% in the middle get caught in the middle.

 

Well there were a lot of people who supported civil rights, and/or women's equality, and/or gay rights, and/or King George, or opposed the Vietnam War and/or Iraq War, and/or our current healthcare system, but were told they were in the minority and that challenging the status quo would risk upheaval.  

 

Sometimes the "revolutionaries" fight the fight on behalf of the people in the quiet middle, and discover they have more allies than they thought.  

 

The 20% on the right are fighting for the smallest government possible. Sometimes that sounds like the good fight, but a lot of times it's not. 

 

Since Medicare for All would qualify as revolutionary — and no Republican Senate would let it happen -- were not talking about violence in the streets yet. 

[Landlord]

1 hour ago, Guy Chamberlin said:

On the other hand......consider the landscape ten years ago, when the Tea Party was considered a rouge operation at the extreme end of the Republican Party. They challenged their own incumbents, ignored the Party's protocols, knocked establishment Republicans out of leadership positions, took over the party and pushed a far right agenda that now stands as the Republican baseline, with a President and Congress going along for the ride. They were so successful that we don't even use the words Tea Party anymore. It's just the Republican Party.

 

 

Honestly, I don't think it's a good strategy, but I think the right is better at playing the left's game than the left is. The Tea Party was successful because A) they adopted identity politics in response to the leftist adoptation of identity politics, and B) they are the cultural underdog, or so they seem, so they're more willing to compromise to keep their ranks strong.

 

Whereas the left can't stop eating itself, the right will welcome the utilitarian help of people far outside their actual ideological purity if those people can help them.

 

 

 

 

38 minutes ago, Danny Bateman said:

 

The country and the GOP itself are worse off because the uncompromising idealogues on the far-right started an uprising that culminated in Donald Trump seizing power and utter, unfailing fealty to their god-king being the one requisite to remain in the party.

 

On the contrary re: the bold, the far-right ideologues are very, very willing to compromise and they do it often. That's why they're powerful right now. 

 

 

 

34 minutes ago, Danny Bateman said:

What scared some of the rest of us was seeing some of these same traits in certain factions of the Sanders camps - uncompromising,  angry at the perception they're being ripped off, hostile and quick to attack those who question them, berate those with different views  as impure or corrupt, resistant to facts or evidence that fly in the face of their beliefs - and the hope that the Democratic Party did not undergo a similar transition.

 

 

This still scares me a great deal. Leftist post-modern ideology has already won the culture war, and I'm not too convinced to a good end. I've trusted Bernie to be a good stewart and our checks and balances to be a good arbiter of slow and measured change, but sometime down the line I'd be very nervous of that version of America.

[Guy Chamberlin]

39 minutes ago, Danny Bateman said:

 

 

Also I would posit that the Tea Party had some successes but they've been utterly impotent and unable to enact most of their agenda (shrinking government, reducing debt, trimming spending, reducing government involvement in healthcare, etc.). Even within the modern party, the hardliners like the Freedom Caucus of the House have limited influence and serve mainly to push the broader governing body within the GOP to the right by obstructing. I would argue most if not all Tea Party ideology has been replaced since 2016 by whatever the hell Donald Trump is currently pretending to believe in.

 

 

Yeah, it's an interesting double-edged sword. The power and budget of almost every social service and regulatory agency has been slashed, and bedrock entitlements programs like Social Security are on the table -- virtually unthinkable a decade ago. Yet the government continues to grow, deficits spending increases and debt balloons. Something that happens in every recent Republican administration, having nothing to do with emergency COVID responses. Some Tea Party stalwarts are no doubt vexed, but I think over the last decade they replaced people who would vote for Jeb! Bush with people who thought Donald Trump was their kind of outlier.  

[BigRedBuster]

49 minutes ago, Guy Chamberlin said:

were not talking about violence in the streets yet. 

Great.

[Danny Bateman]

53 minutes ago, Guy Chamberlin said:

The 20% on the right are fighting for the smallest government possible. Sometimes that sounds like the good fight, but a lot of times it's not. 

 

Since Medicare for All would qualify as revolutionary — and no Republican Senate would let it happen -- were not talking about violence in the streets yet. 

 

I don't know that I'd agree with that. I think the far-right revolutionaries, at least the Tea Party element, often veil their arguments under the guise of small government. But at their root, especially since Trump, they just operate a lot like any other political actor: They simply want a government that gives them what they want, addresses their special interests and smites their enemies. Purely self-interest, pretty divorced from principles.

 

I for one don't think the leftists and the far-right envision the future or the means to it similarly at all - they just loosely share some of the same language and personality traits.

 

48 minutes ago, Guy Chamberlin said:

Yeah, it's an interesting double-edged sword. The power and budget of almost every social service and regulatory agency has been slashed, and bedrock entitlements programs like Social Security are on the table -- virtually unthinkable a decade ago. Yet the government continues to grow, deficits spending increases and debt balloons. Something that happens in every recent Republican administration, having nothing to do with emergency COVID responses. Some Tea Party stalwarts are no doubt vexed, but I think over the last decade they replaced people who would vote for Jeb! Bush with people who thought Donald Trump was their kind of outlier.  

 

Most of these Tea Party types are fiscal conservatives for small government... until it comes time to take the programs they themselves utilize to the bath tub. Then all of a sudden that rhetoric isn't so appealing and they're back to being big supporters of the government.

 

1 hour ago, Landlord said:

Honestly, I don't think it's a good strategy, but I think the right is better at playing the left's game than the left is. The Tea Party was successful because A) they adopted identity politics in response to the leftist adoptation of identity politics, and B) they are the cultural underdog, or so they seem, so they're more willing to compromise to keep their ranks strong.

 

Whereas the left can't stop eating itself, the right will welcome the utilitarian help of people far outside their actual ideological purity if those people can help them.

 

On the contrary re: the bold, the far-right ideologues are very, very willing to compromise and they do it often. That's why they're powerful right now. 

 

This still scares me a great deal. Leftist post-modern ideology has already won the culture war, and I'm not too convinced to a good end. I've trusted Bernie to be a good stewart and our checks and balances to be a good arbiter of slow and measured change, but sometime down the line I'd be very nervous of that version of America.

 

Good points all around. I'd add that part of the Tea Party's success was also that it was a heavily astroturfed movement financed by the Koch Brothers and big lobbies for their own benefit. A lot of working-class folks were either oblivious or didn't care and bought in anyway. This can't happen with progressives because the movement is explicitly opposed to dark money in politics in general.

 

Republicans also tend to value loyalty and allegiance to a group moreso than Democrats, which backs up your bolded claim. They'll have a far easier time taking any help as long as they're convinced you're both on the same team and share a common enemy.

[Guy Chamberlin]

Good discussion.