Democratic (Party) Direction

Hoos you know I agree that things are bad and we need to react accordingly but this is not Europe in the 30s. This isn't even America in the 30s.

Do I think we're in the midst of a global downturn with food lines? No. Do I think we're watching global ascendant fascism like we haven't seen in almost a hundred years, and that we're moving closer by the day to unmasked American authoritarian nativism? Yes.

I agree!

but the level of armed conflict isn't even close to what was happening in the 1930s (much less the 20s)

I was gonna say, the entire species is facing total destruction and MAD is not gonna cut it this time. Alarmism is appropriate. xp

I'm not sure that Smucker's arguing that the level of armed conflict is what's comparable. His point is that on which we seem to agree.

in the 30s the choice was between two sides that were p much ready to murder the other wholesale, I don't think we're there yet (at least not on our side, because we're a bunch of rational humanist pussies and they own all the guns)

Not to be overly dramatic, but the last time industrialized nations had such a stark choice was in the 1930s.

yeah, all due respect but that's overly dramatic

― Οὖτις, Thursday, June 28, 2018 3:32 PM (forty-six minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

this aged well in light of the baltimore newsroom shootings

oh gimme a break

I know you guys have read one or two history books

let's not confuse America's rich tradition of bloodthirsty lone gunmen with America's rich tradition of organized political violence, sometimes these things overlap but they are not interchangable

does Faith of My Fathers by John McCain count?

Have we posted the clip of MSNBC failing to actually describe what AOC is about?

here’s the full clip pic.twitter.com/k983eBhr88

— Connor 🌹 (@alsoconnor) June 28, 2018

Yeah see no it's the climate that concerns me and only a massive restructuring will make a dent xps

no argument there

hrm, Democratic Alarmism, it has a ring to it i admit

Nixonland reminded me how much daily public violence occurred in the US in my childhood

thanks, really, this stuff is scary and def gonna get worse so perspective helps

Nixonland reminded me how much daily public violence occurred in the US in my childhood

an instance when old man "back in MY day!"-ism is actually valuable. Anyone who lived through the 30s + WWII and the late 60s-early 70s would tell you this is nothing compared to the regular incidents of open political violence of those eras. But, y'know, we're def heading in that direction since at least Charlottesville if not earlier.

i'm not THAT old

Do you recommend Nixonland?

I mean one glance at the level of historical violence between organized labor and strikebreakers in the US, or kristallnacht (30k people carted away!) in Germany, or the multiple(!) shootouts between the Panthers and various police departments, or Kent State, or any number of incidents puts the lie to that kind of rhetoric. Don't minimize what's going on today, but don't minimize what happened in the past either.

Nixonland is great.

Democratic (Party) Direction could be doing more political violence, just a thought

seems like it would be good, idk

I need to spend more time working and less time being a nihilist on ilxor but yknow

remember when a bunch of state legislatures tried to pass laws that said it was ok to mow down protestors with your car? That seems like organized political violence to me.

Outlawing abortion would be political violence by other means, also

Perlstein's three books are essential for anyone who wants to participate in this thread.

I've locked it until everyone's read them.

rmde at equating failed bills and anticipated legal rulings with people actually getting gunned down by politically organized and funded forces. I get it, you guys are scared and angry. I don't blame you but come on.

Women will very likely die if Roe v Wade is struck down.

keep diggin

So! Have we settled on a direction?!

left, I think

toppermost of the poppermost

I just want to clarify I have not read John McCain's book that was a joke

I very much enjoyed The Invisible Bridge as an audiobook, probably will do Nixonland in the same fashion.

already posted way too much today so I'll just say I take a wider view of what constitutes political violence than many do, and it includes the adoption of policies that will provably result in death and injury (generally to the marginalized population the right already hates implicitly or explicitly). I don't think that's crazy.

in that case the political violence of the 30s really was exponentially worse than today, cuz abortion was actually illegal (among other things, like lynching)

(er I meant to say "as opposed to other" not "among other" there)

also no Ralph Nader in the '30s, so people died in cars a lot. (eg, Nathanael West)

Who better to comment on AOC’s victory than....the editor of the National Review. Thanks, Atlantic.

https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2018/06/democrats-immigration-midterms/563987/

I thought that was a lot more cogent than any of the mainstream liberal commentary I’ve seen tbh.

Yeah, it seemed good and helpful to me too.

It seemed low key enough to be a cogent identification of some of the contradictions and pitfalls in her agenda. It is well that the author did not suggest his own view of more reasonable policies, in that it would more than likely have laid him open to a rather more scathing critique of their inherent problems.

Basically he was saying we can't make the USA more attractive without attracting people who want to live here. This does not seem to me very penetrating or sharp-witted, but the implication seems to be that we must not make the USA a more attractive place for the poor to live in, or else we must be prepared to ruthlessly and remorselessly kick every poor person of foreign birth who wishes to live here in the teeth.

He seemed also largely aware that his ‘some liberals say’ could be expected to have no effect on AOC at all.

On the other hand, this clumsy magic trick:

that would have the cumulative effect of sharply increasing redistribution from the native-born nonpoor to low-income immigrant-headed households.

sharply increasing redistribution from the native-born nonpoor to low-income immigrant-headed households

Is this supposed to be a bad thing?

If he's a National Review guy, yes.

Salam's conclusions about these issues and policies would probably be different from mine, but he doesn't state most of those here and that's not what the article is about, which is fairly respectable imo. I thought it was "good and helpful" in terms of summarizing and clarifying some key issues on which AOC differs from mainstream Democrats and and also elaborating a bit on distinctions between her position on immigration and Sanders's.

yeah the piece was fine

Now that "abolish ICE" is becoming more widespread I would like to see more candidates elaborate on that and speak with more specificity so that they can't just leave the door open on simply shifting ICE's M.O. to a different dept.

Splitting authority between agencies could still have the effect of reducing the abuses of the Deportation Force by disrupting coordination and consolidated authority.

I also think it's good to get the message out that "abolish ICE" doesn't mean "open borders," it means "the system we had until 2003 was doing just fine at serving our border security needs and wan't an unaccountable kidnapping ring"