rolling explaining conservatism

i don't trust any of us to have a clear take on that tbh

as the electorate has polarized, it is absolutely a better strategy.

median voter theory works assuming there are a decent number of voters are legit swing votes that will go for the most appropriately moderate option in front of them. but this doesn't describe a very large number of voters. base enthusiasm is what wins elections. this doesn't mean it's best to go as far to one direction or the other, but to go for the median of your base, the peaks of those bimodal distribution curves upthread. if your base is more jacked than theirs, you win.

It's not quite that simple, since 'the base' of the party isn't really Bernie-voters (who instead were independents, which is why Bernie did so well in open primaries), when instead the most loyally democratic demographic is black women. But yeah, there is not the slightest evidence that there's particularly many voters to pick up by a move further to the center, while it sure seems as if a number of leftist policies has broad appeal. From afar, it seems most fights are really over what kinds of leftist policy should be embraced and to what extent, feminist, anti-racist, economic, more directly labor, etc.

ctrl-f me where i said bernie, son

as the electorate has polarized, it is absolutely a better strategy.

a decent number of voters are legit swing votes that will go for the most appropriately moderate option in front of them. but this doesn't describe a very large number of voters. base enthusiasm is what wins elections. this doesn't mean it's best to go as far to one direction or the other, but to go for the median of your base, the peaks of those bimodal distribution curves upthread. if your base is more jacked than theirs, you win.

yeah see this just sounds like the stories we tell ourselves

i mean, its also shit i learned in grad school for political science so whatever

for all practical purposes, there are no centrist voters. that's a beltway construction.

(washington consensus, etc)

Sorry, I was responding to flopsons original post, m bison. I do see now that it seems like a remarkably flippant and wrong response to you in context.

like i'm not even sure where 'the people who voted for Obama in 2012 and Trump in 2016' slot into a left-right median voter theory-type scale

usually a sign a scale is not working

i was being terse cuz i'm not saying anything new but since u flatter me dmac-- i mean that "the center" is not actually popular enough to win from, that people want to be promised a transformation of some kind and if nobody promises one that isn't fascism they'll pick fascism-- or rather they'll stay home while a quarter of the country picks fascism for them.

but even if you do think it's the way to victory, the dems hardly need to be reminded not to fear the center. the dems have already spent decades working under the assumption that all the votes are in the center by definition, that people are clearly assigned to a simple continuum of political categories and the most popular one by mathematical law is the one in the middle, that politics is about polling people rather than leading them, that you cater to people's ideas of their own left/rightness rather than create them, that you have no power over the political continuum itself, that there's no point in thinking about interests or classes or actual unmediatable conflicts over actual scarce resources or even getting your base excited as long as you can draw a bell curve on a napkin. and that this childish simplification is actually a form of tough-minded pragmatism. how's that workin for ya, as sarah palin once asked.

tl;dr, m bison otm

the reason why the dems softening on racial, social, and economic justice to appeal to "the middle" or "obama 12/trump 16" voters is bad is not just because it's immoral/bad policy, but because it betrays their most important voting constituencies (voters of color, the poor/economically precarious). this will suppress their base while impressing few of the people who thought trump's "i alone can fix it" bullshit was convincing rhetoric. they dont need to go full bernie to win, but they should probably take the college and health care and raising the minimum wage ideas and run with them.

it betrays their most important voting constituencies (voters of color, the poor/economically precarious)

you misspelled "philadelphia suburbanites"!

funny thing about appealing to obama/trump voters (unnecessary, and a waste of time to talk about, but) is that imo if there is a way to get them away from trump it's also by going left. they voted for obama for the hopey-changey stuff. they were white enough and blinkered enough to get that same stuff from trump. having your racism indulged and lionized and turned into an explanation for everything is a helluva drug and some of these people are never coming back from it. but others will.

(that theory is literally impossible to express via "the continuum", you'll notice)

In English

― jk rowling obituary thread (darraghmac)

ok. the democrats shouldn't run on the platform "you should vote for us, we're only half-racist!"

the reason why the dems softening on racial, social, and economic justice to appeal to "the middle" or "obama 12/trump 16" voters is bad is not just because it's immoral/bad policy, but because it betrays their most important voting constituencies (voters of color, the poor/economically precarious). this will suppress their base while impressing few of the people who thought trump's "i alone can fix it" bullshit was convincing rhetoric. they dont need to go full bernie to win, but they should probably take the college and health care and raising the minimum wage ideas and run with them.

― nice cage (m bison)

right. you can't get new voters for free. every attempt to pick up new voters is a trade-off.

I need to know when and how to use to dr

tl;dr rather

Thread got better, I blame me

i find it's pretty hard to get a good grasp on whether 'dems should move left to solidify the base' is like actually objectively strategically true, or if i just believe that because it's what i want them to do anyways

― flopson

i'd actually prefer centrism, were it possible. acting like getting 41% on the left is a "mandate", the way the republicans do when they get 41% on the right, is not a recipe for good governance. if we're going to be brutally honest here, the only real way either of the poles on the u curve can effectively govern here is if they were to somehow manage to make the other pole on the u curve... go away somehow. centrism, on the other hand, works under the assumption that if someone doesn't agree with you, you talk with them and work out your differences, reach a mutually acceptable compromise. that ain't happening under current circumstances.

I have no idea what happened to this thread

http://i.imgur.com/bQU790A.jpg

"If 2016 showed Republicans anything, it's that there is no PC Police, they should never have been this scared, and as long as they gerrymander and disenfranchise enough poor people, they are invincible no matter what the media says."

I can only imagine what John of Patmos would've come up with if his visions had included that picture of five alpacas

Take a hint: the power elite aren't carrying you all on their backs anymore.

Stop eating so much.
Stop drinking so much.
Stop smoking so much.
Work out 3-4 days minimum.
Take responsibility for your health in both the short and long-term.

When you unhealthy takers stop demanding healthcare for your quadruple bypasses, then maybe the elites will chip in their tax dollars for a healthcare program.

Honestly, I don't disagree. Cuba spends only a tenth as much on healthcare, and lives longer. Their health improved when their economy collapsed.

When doctors go on strike, mortality declines. Annual health exams don't improve outcomes. If people had healthy lifestyles, and avoided the healthcare industry unless symptomatic, it would cut costs markedly without producing worse outcomes.

It would also make public financing of preventative medicine, or care for those with treatable ailments, far more plausible even in countries subject to neoliberal delusions.

centrism, on the other hand, works under the assumption that if someone doesn't agree with you, you talk with them and work out your differences, reach a mutually acceptable compromise. that ain't happening under current circumstances.

that's not a political position, that's a meta-political position that is only attractive because the radicalism and intransigence of the right have undermined the power of the left to achieve any goals with good-faith efforts at mutually acceptable compromise

Stop eating so much.
Stop drinking so much.
Stop smoking so much.
Work out 3-4 days minimum.
Take responsibility for your health in both the short and long-term.

This approach to improving health is statistically valid when applied to large groups. Whether it works in the case of an individual is totally hit or miss. You can do all these things religiously and still be stricken with a wide variety of chronic, debilitating and/or hellishly expensive health problems, ranging from quadriplegia to dementia. So, while you can take full responsibility for your actions, but you have only limited control over your health. Ergo, gtfo with this shit talk.

iow, even ironic stanning for that idea is nagl.

can Plasmon weigh in

I can commit to working out 3-4 days.

(A year, right?)

Hope not, 3-4 a year is way too often

I can do 3-4 days a week and then when I get depressed or my anxiety kicks in thanatos takes over and I decide I'd rather be dead and it's back to being sedentary

yay look at me drivin up the cost of healthcare

The majority of Trump supporters aren't working class, so I think focusing on them misses a lot.

The Trump supporters I know personally are like, someone who graduated at the top of their class at MIT and contributed to technology we use evetyday. Fancy private art school graduate. Successful entrepreneurs, etc.

What I've seen is, the appeal with Trump is the visceral thrill of total domination, control, and destruction for its own sake. The joy of the ultimate power trip with no repercussions.

What Trump is really offering is the luxury of hedonistic power over others. Putting black people "back in their place" after Obama, hunting down Muslims and immigrants, atomping down women again. And now here's the special treat: the chance to finally do this to "liberals" and intellectuals!

Trump is offering a fuckton of orgasmic stuff to these people. Plus the exciting gamble of finally getting those fruity egghead leftists under the thumb.

These are not sympathetic people in the least. They're fucking dangerous.

As always, larry, your unique insights are truly un-price-able.

was that a post or a transcribed Immortal Technique song

xpost

Literally the chyron on MSNBC just now

KAISER: TRUMP SUPPORTERS "DANGEROUS, NOT SYMPATHETIC"

would love to make a deal to wall off a good chunk of the US, rebrand it Trumpland, and let the Trumpkins move there if they'll let us have our country back

sry appleton infected me

I think that's the basic theme of that new show from HBO by the GoT showrunners that isn't happening anymore

I understand why you guys would want to ignore everything going on around you right now. Doesn't change a thing, though.

how the fuck *could* you ignore everything around you if you wanted to rn

Well then, wtf?

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2017/08/01/end-trump-gop-honeymoon.html

https://www.prri.org/research/lgbt-transgender-bathroom-discrimination-religious-liberty/

Halfway down there's a fascinating graph about which groups face "a lot of discrimination."

Republicans think Christians are tied for most discriminated against (with transgender people) and black Americans the least, but it's more notable that they just think there's half as much discrimination in the US across the board with all groups equally discriminated against (except, again, black Americans). Democrats see loads of discrimination except for whites and Christians.

They believe in a just world. God wouldn't allow truly good people to suffer needlessly, therefore people who are suffering must've done something to deserve it. To think otherwise would be to admit that life is random and without inherent meaning or direction.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/acts-of-faith/wp/2017/08/03/christians-are-more-than-twice-as-likely-to-blame-a-persons-poverty-on-lack-of-effort/?utm_term=.b2d457dc31e4

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2017/08/04/would-even-care-if-was-guilty.amp.html

getting off the thread topic and just veering directly into the NRO's The Corner rubbernecking territory