Democratic (Party) Direction

you are aware of the basic concepts of entertainment? mass media? heightening the drama by playing up their differences is all they have. this is a personality war. this has little to do with actual votes on actual laws.

the parties work together in favor of war spending and corporate special rights. regardless of what any one figurehead presents as the public truth.

the supreme court doesn't even exist!

the parties work together in favor of war spending and corporate special rights

no they don't

yes they do. when they wrote Obamacare they literally had lawyers from the pharma lobby writer drafts of laws for both sides of congress and the senate.

war spending is at record levels with a Democrat president right now.

http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/war_stories/2016/02/president_obama_s_military_budget_is_still_one_of_the_biggest_ever.html

there is not across-the-board coordination. Dems have long tried to strip tax breaks from petroleum industry, for ex., which is opposed by the GOP.

as for war spending, remember this: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/06/24/libya-funding-house-vote-obama-war-powers_n_884029.html

that kind of shit happens all the time. The GOP throughout Obama's tenure has fought to withhold every single thing he could count as a legislative accomplishment, there is not uniform cooperation because the parties have different goals and constituencies. Sometimes those constituencies overlap, but not always. It was Dems that passed Dodd-Frank, and it was GOP that opposed it etc. There are millions of examples of this.

Adam, are you gay?

He's definitely never needed an abortion

Just based on his punctuation choices? Project much?!

war spending is at record levels /= falls only a few billion dollars short of the largest defense budget since the start of the century

the latter also features some major hedging ("since the start of the century" = oh just the last 15 years then, ok). Military spending is always going up because spending is always going up in general (the magic of inflation), what you want to look at is what it's percentage of the overall budget is. I have a hard time believing the current defense budget is anywhere close to Iraq War spending levels as a percentage of the total budget.

If so, then you can see differences between the parties immediately. You're making good points about the corporate money fueling both parties, but even to accuse Dems of being neoliberals is not to say they and the GOP are the same or stand for the same things.

observe the handy "Historical Spending" table:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_budget_of_the_United_States#Historical_spending

and draw your own conclusions

steady decline over Obama's tenure:

20.9 17.1 20.7 20.4 19.1 17.5 16.8 16.0

er defense spending as percentage of total budget

2008 - 20.9%
2009 - 17.1%
2010 - 20.7%
2011 - 20.4%
2012 - 19.1%
2013 - 17.5%
2014 - 16.8%
2015 - 16.0%

90% of Americans having health insurance would totally have happened under McCain, though, it's true

But they took input from the largest industries tied to healthcare in the process so fuck it, burn it down

if you want change, work to flip state legislatures, where the fun begins.

^^^

there are huge structural and policy and tactical problems within the Democratic Party. But marching in lockstep with the Republican Party is not one of them.

that 1972 platform is pretty heartbreaking

yeah

Adam, are you gay?

― The burrito of ennui (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Tuesday, May 17, 2016 6:29 PM (11 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

no. but i have lots of friends who are gay and it has been good to see gay and non-traditional orientation rights spread throughout the US. it seems like this part of bipartisan efforts bc now even Republicans support it bc they have family members who have come out due to the changing culture, which seems to me to be nation-wide at a local and national level. now that we have the internet it seems these issues can be both local and national and international, all at the same time, all at the same instant. i believe that social issues need this kind of broader coalition of 50 states' nationwide grass roots support rather than strict top-down party line support in order to stay strong in the struggle against massive dis-representation and make things better for everyone in the long rong.

fwiw i know nothing of the bathroom debate right now if that is what you are referencing? i don't know why you asked that question.

well, I need your help at the grass roots.

If so, then you can see differences between the parties immediately. You're making good points about the corporate money fueling both parties, but even to accuse Dems of being neoliberals is not to say they and the GOP are the same or stand for the same things.

― The burrito of ennui (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Tuesday, May 17, 2016 6:33 PM

For more than a decade I've written thousands of words here and my blog accusing the Dems of being cowards and corporatists, but I am more comfortably a Democrat now than I was in 2000 or 2005. If the party's priorities have realigned with its 20th century electoral triumphs, it's thanks to the grass roots.

the 1972 platform btw http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=29605

I can't read that. I've already had a glass of wine.

it seems like this part of bipartisan efforts bc now even Republicans support

bhahahahaha O RLY

do you remember Dont Ask Dont Tell? it was a 90s Clinton joint.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don%27t_ask,_don%27t_tell

yup and Democrats (not Republicans) repealed it. In fact, an out gay Democrat in the House repealed it. There are no out gay Republicans in the House.

in fact there are no out gay Republicans in Congress period afaik

trivia question: every single state legislature that tried to outlaw gay marriage was controlled by which party?

no differences here, nope:

http://time.com/3656219/2016-candidates-gay-marriage/

why these two curves are exactly alike!

http://content.gallup.com/origin/gallupinc/GallupSpaces/Production/Cms/POLL/2ba5lvbvhew-fvqivfxv_a.png

hey here's another miraculous instance of the parties being in total agreement about major policy issue:

http://content.gallup.com/origin/gallupinc/GallupSpaces/Production/Cms/POLL/dx4yatylw0gg6-townapxg.png

my former congresswoman, Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, is the only GOP member of the House LGBT caucus.

(ftr Adam no she is not gay)

her son is transgender; I'm sure that helped

your Democratic Party, ladies & gents, with 'leaders' saying sure we'll work with President Trump somehow

http://www.esquire.com/news-politics/politics/news/a44993/moderate-democrats-work-with-trump/

euthanize it

not even that good at keeping abortions ubiquitous

also fuck gay marriage

Well, as we're talking about a woman, Sanders supporters are probably threatening to euthanize her as we speak.

it's fine and all, but also a marketing fig leaf for the bloody savagery abroad that both parties drink deeply of

it's lovely that the Dems believe in climate change. they're not going to do anything to stop it (and likely can't).

so Adam otm; have a nice day, except Frederik who for godsakes should castrate himself

srsly dude, go immolate your idiot ass

Nihilism Party Registration here

"they're not going to do anything to stop it (and likely can't)"

never let facts get in the way of dogma

as expected Schmuck in as Senate leader; Bernie added in junior leadership role (so there, "he's an Independent" folx)

Schumer also expanded the Democratic leadership team to 10 members, with Sanders (I-Vt.), Joe Manchin III (D-W.Va.) and Tammy Baldwin (D-Wis.), adding to the team’ ideological, geographic and gender balance. Baldwin is also the first lesbian senator to hold a leadership role.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/powerpost/wp/2016/11/16/schumer-elected-senate-democratic-leader/

Thomas Frank in a Politico roundtable

You look at a place like Missouri. I grew up in Kansas City. And when I was a kid, Missouri was a very Democratic state. Harry Truman is from Missouri. Dick Gephardt is from Missouri. But you look at the map now, and Trump took every county except for St. Louis, Kansas City and the college town, Columbia. And it is a wipeout for Democrats out there. You go to these small towns, and there is no Democratic presence in these places.

Thrush: I want to know what the issues are. Because it has always struck me that in the absence of a really charismatic …

Frank: Oh, can I give you an idea?

Thrush: Yeah.

Frank: Small towns, all over America, boarded up, the businesses are all gone, the kids leave as soon as they can, the family farms are dying. OK, what do you do about that? Well, one thing that’s really easy is antitrust. You know, you start going after the agricultural monopolies. Every farmer I’ve ever met knows about these companies, and is furious about them. And those people—I mean, this is a very Republican cohort now—but, you know, you start talking about their one obsessive concern, and you might be able to win some of them over. You start going after Wal-Mart, which has destroyed the businesses in every small town in America. Do you remember when Barack Obama won Iowa over Hillary Clinton in 2008? It was a big surprise, a big shocker. And the way he did it was by promising to use the antitrust laws against agricultural monopolies, or that was one of the things that he said.

Thrush: I think there were a couple of other things, too.

Frank: Yeah, of course, but this was very important to rural voters. And he never did anything on that. And, by the way, this gets us to a larger problem. Hillary Clinton actually, as I said earlier, looked pretty good on paper on economic issues. But there was not a lot of credibility there, and one of the reasons is because you have this man in the White House who, while Hillary is out there saying, “I’m against the TPP,” and here is her president pushing it.

http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2016/12/how-democrats-rebuild-2016-214533

Wow, I was so OTMFM in 2006.

For a while I've had the idea that the Democratic Party could improve its future by putting more money and resources into local party organizations, campus recruiting, things that give people real human connections to the party. People are much more likely to listen to their neighbor than some internet ad.
― Abbadavid Berman (Hurting), Thursday, January 19, 2006 10:36 AM (ten years ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink