Democratic (Party) Direction

https://www.google.com/amp/amp.slate.com/blogs/the_slatest/2017/05/04/democrats_tone_deaf_response_to_trumpcare_vote_singing_nah_nah_hey_hey_goodbye.html

Seems like there are good sources that it was the Democrats.

I care about this. This health care bill is potentially a death sentence for millions if it passes the Senate. It's not a hilarious tone deaf misstep by the Republicans, it's murder for profit.

Those things are true, and I want to mock these people for being so stupid and myopic.

How about save the gloating and singing until after you win some fucking elections?

House Dems vote as a unit against a bill that will kill people and mocked the Republicans who voted for it. I'm supposed to be upset? Or are we thinking BOO HOO THE DEMS SHOULD BE THE MATURE PARTY

should have included a public option rather than a fucking fine

They're mocking republicans for what? Getting exactly what they wanted?

this is a total non-issue and paying any attention to it at all means you care more about the sound of your own voice than the issue at hand.

^^^

this handwringing is some nonsense. This thing isn't even a fucking law yet! It's ALL optics/theater at this point.

Trade in the poster board on sticks for actual pitchforks from now on

How about save the gloating and singing until after you win some fucking elections?

Strangely enough, Marx, Jesus, Mohammed, Lincoln AND Moses all said the same thing. Also Churchill and Gandhi.

Then I want some DAMN royalties!

it goes without saying that on policy what's happening is disastrous

that said it's hard not feel apathetic reading all the political optimism from some dems coming out of this. the logic that by voting for a bill that is sure to be unpopular they're ensuring their own midterm defeat seems true but...is that all there is now? wasn't this exactly what happened 8 years ago? is this what we're going to see now, alternating wave elections for the foreseeable future? it's depressing.

is this what we're going to see now, alternating wave elections for the foreseeable future? it's depressing.

that's how American history has worked!

Check these out, especially 1894:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_House_of_Representatives_elections,_1890

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_House_of_Representatives_elections,_1894

means you care more about the sound of your own voice than the issue at hand.

― People like Malcolm X, Martin Luther King, Jr, and (Joan Crawford Loves Chachi), Thursday, May 4, 2017 6:31 PM (twenty-five minutes ago)

could the same be said of the congresspeople singing? smart money says yes

xp i know, it's just depressing to live it out. i was 19 or 20 when the ACA passed and it legit felt like a monumental achievement (even with the reservations that several of us itt shared). now i'm 8 years older and more cynical and tbf i just dgaf about looking forward to the next election or encouraging this infantile mock-singing

i would just like people to have health care

hey look I lived through forty years of Democratic dominance in the House. 1994 and 2002 felt like stomach punches, so much so that 2006 and 2008 were is-this-happening moments.

i would just like people to have health care

― k3vin k., Thursday, May 4, 2017 7:01 PM

otm

damn:

The fragmented and disoriented Democratic Party was crushed everywhere outside the South, losing more than half its seats to the Republican Party. Even in the South, the Democrats lost seats to Republican-Populist electoral fusion in Alabama, Texas, Tennessee, and North Carolina.[2][3] The Democrats ultimately lost 127 seats in the election while the Republicans gained 130 seats (after the resolution of several contested elections). This is the largest swing in the history of the House of Representatives, and also makes the 1894 election the single largest midterm election victory in the entire history of the United States. (A political party would not suffer triple-digit losses again until 1932.)

of course in 1894 I would've been a socialist or Republican.

Your cynicism was delayed by the election of a black president

many cross posts

alternating wave elections

About half the country hating the president's guts is the new normal.

I feel ya, K3v. P sure we all want people to have health care. Depressingly incremental steps in that direction may be the best one can hope for, and those steps will probably involve politics, alas. So stuff like optics and gloating and Bud Light and who sings what and what the tweetwits tweet? All that shit is going to matter to some extent.

this is a total non-issue and paying any attention to it at all means you care more about the sound of your own voice than the issue at hand.

In and of itself, sure. But it is an OMINOUS, OMINOUS sign that we can expect absolute worst from the Dems henceforth. Along with I'M STILL WITH HER gtfo.

we can expect absolute worst from the Dems henceforth

somehow I don't think this will prove difficult for you

this is a total non-issue and paying any attention to it at all means you care more about the sound of your own voice than the issue at hand.

In and of itself, sure.

stopped reading here

Morbs and Chris Cilizza expressing the same opinions, truly we live in an age of miracles.

medicare / social security for all

'free' public education through college

tax wealth and high incomes to pay for it

IT'S ALL OPTICS AND SHOWBIZ, COOL, POPTIMISTS

About half the country hating the president's guts is the new normal.

are you... zero years old? How did you find this website? that's amazing!

it actually is a pretty new phenomenon, dipshit

you care more about the sound of your own voice than the issue at hand

this is the kind of self-serving general shut-down you could tote around and apply to pretty much anything discussed online. conversational authenticity dick measuring content.

conversational authenticity dick measuring content.

my favorite line from "Paranoid Android"

I'm starting to feel hopeful about 2018, but it's really only because of two things: (1) the sheer unpopularity of the agenda republicans are forcing through and (2) a base energized by Trump. IMO this does not bode well for the longer term even if they take the presidency in 2020, because what will sustain the party when the Trump hate fest is over? Where is the positive vision for the future? Because I still see the same technocratic, almost apolitical attitude, typified by the outpouring of enthusiasm and money for Osoff a guy who, while far preferable to a Republican, seems to stand for nothing except boyish good looks and vague ideas about entrepreneurship, technology and doing policy in a "smart" way (as though there are no first principles, just solutions to problems).

Of course the GOP has a similar problem - without Obama hatred to fuel them, their platform is actually deeply unpopular, far moreso than democrats' platform. Trump was kind of a fluke for them, a lucky break that saved their asses against their own protests.

that's about where I am as well

Where is the positive vision for the future?

this is like the #1 thing the left has that dems don't

this is like the #1 thing the left has that dems don't

Really? Show me a single thing "the left" stands for as a political goal in 21st century America that can be achieved without, basically, magic.

I agree with 誤訳侮辱 here. Looking at what's out there right now I would personally totally settle for the standard D platform, even if it were advanced by someone with only good looks and vague ideas. (Right-wingers were thrilled to get behind a candidate that did not exactly fit their wish list, provided their wishes get advanced.) One can love lefty goals and still admit that we're missing some key intermediate steps on the way to them.

I want every Dem house candidate in 2018 to campaign on "medicare for all"

what 誤訳侮辱 would call "magic"

The "magic" of a majority of reps in both houses who support such policies and a president who will sign them into law.

I don't get why Morbs can't stop taking his uncontainable rage at the compromised, corrupt, stumbling fecklessness of the Democrats and making it personal with any poster who tries to grapple with it in a way that's insufficiently furious

man alive otm

Since we're talking about the direction of the Democratic party and how to win back people who switched from Obama to Trump in key swing states, I thought I would share this so you can what you are looking to win back:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2017/05/04/13-remarkable-quotes-from-people-who-voted-for-both-barack-obama-and-donald-trump/?tid=pm_politics_pop&utm_term=.edb01cc27c93

Key quotes:

1. A Michigan woman:

“Obama is more like your best friend who has parties and has Beyoncé over, and then Trump is like your dad. He's going to come whoop your ass because you didn't do what you were supposed to do and get it done, yeah.”

3. A Wisconsin woman:

“I voted for Obama too, because, I mean, there's always been a white person, obviously, in office. I mean, he was of African descent, so I voted for him thinking I would change a little bit of the race issues that we had going on and make the colored people feel better, like they have a black person in office.”

11. A Michigan woman:

“And I always thought that Obama is a really nice guy. Trump is not. But Trump is going to be a better president, because Obama was not.”

13. A Wisconsin woman:

“I didn't always like listening to Hillary. I didn't always agree with what he said, but I could listen to his like speech and stuff a wee bit more than Hillary's. Like anything she said just turned me off.”

whereas if you did vox pops of random poors who voted hillary it would all be extremely cogent and politically astute commentary? is american liberalism all about scoffing?

kiss my ass

apparently important voters are the ones who'd rather not be interviewed

The "magic" of a majority of reps in both houses who support such policies and a president who will sign them into law.

a majority of americans support such policies so I don't consider it "magic," just a lot of hard work getting non shitty people who respect their consituents to run for office and win

The "magic" of a majority of reps in both houses who support such policies and a president who will sign them into law.

― the last famous person you were surprised to discover was actually (man alive), Friday, May 5, 2017 1:40 PM (twenty-eight minutes ago

we had this chance in 2009 and kicked the can down the road. it's not happening in our lifetimes

this [nb:vision] is like the #1 thing the left has that dems don't

Really? Show me a single thing "the left" stands for as a political goal in 21st century America that can be achieved without, basically, magic.

You are criticizing visionaries for not being realists. But it is notably hard to bring something into reality if you can't even envision it.

More to the point, "the left" is a pretty broad brush, especially in the USA, where extra food assistance for poor pregnant women is considered a "leftist" program and just maintaining New Deal policies that have stood for 75 years automatically labels you as a leftist/liberal.