Democratic (Party) Direction

No I’ve voted against incumbents in primaries before. Chris Murphy is good on foreign policy and this vote on military spending doesn’t negate remotely that.

You’re friend seems like a million other people who don’t follow policy and just really feel the surface level appeal of “they’re all the same”

Wyden has done yeoman's work on the Senate Intelligence Committee. He observed the rules and never leaked classified info, but he all but blinked out distress messages in Morse Code to let the public know when the NSA was spying wholesale on American citizens. Snowden nailed that stuff to the church door, but Wyden was waving his arms about that stuff for years, back when the NSA director was flat-out lying to Congress about it.

So what are some good nuanced reasons to support this much military spending

xxp you would be incorrect there

Can anyone give a reasonably succinct rundown on why all the Democrats went along with this increased spending for military? Its supposed to be that compromise will then get them some of the stuff they want? Can't see where the positives are in terms of optics, right before midterms though - unless I'm misreading?

Spending bill isn’t an endorsement of military policy. Who and who doesn’t agree with say John Bolton’s views on intervention is about a million times more important and imperative a thing to be looking at.

"Why?" is my question to both of those sentences.

The nuanced reasons for massive military spending are mostly about our sitting in the geopolitical driver's seat by creating and maintaining dependencies within our alliances on the military protection and intelligence that we pay for and they either cannot afford or do not wish to pay for. Countries outside our treaty alliances that have regional or global ambitions, like Russia, Iran or China play the same game in much the same ways as we do, but we are the global big dog and maintain a world that is mostly inside our sphere of influence. If the USA backs away from that role, other powers will fill the resulting vacuum and influence the world in directions they find preferable.

Xpost Jobs would probably a big factor depending on which states they represent.

xp to Aimless disagree, look at what China's been doing in Africa with (largely) soft aid, although they do sell weapons

"jobs" seems like a stretch here, honestly, but it depends on the district I guess

while we waste all our money on this bullshit we are rapidly being surpassed and out maneuvered on the world stage in nearly every other arena, there's no excuse for this spending orgy other than "America is insane" imho

Circulating money into your district via the military-industrial complex doesn't count as 'nuanced' in my view. That's just raw back-scratching pork barrel politics of the crudest sort.

now that I agree with

Did your friend ever post about the Trump Admin pulling out of the Iran Deal?

not sure how that's relevant, honestly. fill me in if you want.

going back to that second sentence of yours, do you really still think Congress has any say in the use of military force? I'm pretty sure Bolton doesn't give a fuck what the Senate thinks when he orders the latest Yemeni drone strikes, or worse.

If you’re genuinely concerned about the dangers of militarism the US pulling out of the Iran Deal is far more important and consequential than this military spending bill. One the biggest nuclear/non-proliferator agreements in history torn up by hawks who want a war we’ll never be able to extract ourselves from, broad destabilization, won’t stop Iran from getting nuclear weapons and could lead to escalation with other nations.

RE: Bolton. Impending wars have a huge public relations component. It’s very important that congress as well as activists be opposed be vocal and public in their opposition and warn of the dangers. It’s one of the worse things to be “we can’t do anything about that!” about

I'm highly suspicious that no one left of center who's upset about defense spending is nonplussed about pulling out of the Iran deal. It's not really an either/or situation.

xp we literally can't do anything about it other than vote the fuckers out, they do not give a shit about protest anymore (I think protests are still worthwhile, but for other reasons like networking and therapy)

also milo's right, it's not a zero sum game where you only get one choice

Just slightly upthread there’s “let’s primary every democrat that voted for this one spending bill regardless if they would have never done/will strongly oppose the very dangerous Iran Deal pullout”

yup. and I agree with it 100% and would support any primary attempt based on that reasoning, they don't get a free pass because there's some other vote they made that you like

also, wtf is wrong with primary challenges from progressives?

your assumption seems to be that they are de facto bad

Let’s definitely focus right now on bitching about the Democrats who are against the apocalypse

do you know what thread this is?

unconditionally supporting this level of military spending is definitely apocalypse-friendly and I am well within my rights to hold my Democratic Senators accountable for this horror show (that they also supported).

My question was asked in good faith! I'm prepared to accept the premise that voting for the increased spending was good because of reasons xyz! I just don't know what reasons xyz are, either stated or real

that's because Nerdstrom can't actually give us any good reasons

I went to Kamela Harris's twitter and she doesn't even mention it. Am i missing something or even if for some reason this is a good idea, aren't the optics bad? right before midterms

Primary challenges are not inherently bad obviously.

But the mentality of getting riled up about this one spending bill at the “vote them out!” level given what’s going on now is indicative of why we’re all going to die.

it's not up to you to dictate where I draw my lines, especially since you seem to have none whatsoever regarding what's unacceptable

and honestly you haven't answered any of the questions here to my satisfaction

But the mentality of getting riled up about this one spending bill at the “vote them out!” level given what’s going on now is indicative of why we’re all going to die.

I am riled up, yes!

One thing would stop me being riled up

A decent answer as to why this is a good thing. I don't want to primary anyone, I want an answer to my question that makes me go "ok, fair enough, I can accept that". Can be from Harris, Poindexter, or...anyone!

Guy who didn’t know what the Iran Deal is probably doesn’t know what is and isn’t “apocalypse friendly”

:(

um I said I didn't see how it was relevant, I am familiar with the issue and am aware that other countries are working to bypass it, but thanks for the useless condescension instead of an actual answer

we're waiting

Warrens twitter: Nothing
Bookers twitter: Nothing

dispiriting

If the USA backs away from that role, other powers will fill the resulting vacuum and influence the world in directions they find preferable.

― A is for (Aimless)

surely you mean the fifth international?

I'm actually persuadable that there is a good reason and its just I don't understand it, because the alternative is really grim

https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/519%2B72oO4kL._SX318_BO1,204,203,200_.jpg

Being performatively upset this one spending bill is an extremely “who cares” situation given the context of the various emerging foreign policy crises and the whole “John Bolton exists” thing.

Even if I am performatively upset I should still be able to find a decent answer from someone! then my upsetness (performative or otherwise) could go away! or at least dissipate somewhat

I may also be upset about other things in other places, detailed on the appropriate threads

I understand if you don't want to give an answer, but someone pro this spending should be able to give one, and I'd be happy to read it from anyone, doesn't have to be from any one particular person

I would ask though, that you accept I am being genuine in my question and not performative. I'd like to think I've only ever been genuine here and that a straight question should still hopefully lead to a straight answer

Have you reacted this way to lots of spending bills previously? Is it a regulator thing where you see how much money is allocated and you’re like “whoa whoa whoa whoa”

ftr I’m agnostic on the spending bill I’m just drawing attention to the “primary everyone” take may not have great perspective. I have noticed a thing online where people I know who complained about Obama drones a lot literally didn’t know what the Iran Deal is not do they complain about drones now even though the strikes have been greatly increased.

*nor do they

Have you reacted this way to lots of spending bills previously? Is it a regulator thing where you see how much money is allocated and you’re like “whoa whoa whoa whoa”

no I haven't! This is probably the first, to be honest

I'm prepared to accept that I'm not clued up enough, and that worse things have happened and I didn't realize, or question them at the time!

But thats why I want to know! Am i being persuaded into thinking this is worse than it is? Possibly! Can I be persuaded back? Possibly!

I'm not upset by the bill per se. I'm surprised by the bill, and then disquieted that I can't understand the reasoning. Where i became 'upset' was that I couldn't find a rationale, and none of the people pro the bill were prepared to give me an answer

surprized by the fact every democratic voted for it, i mean

oh I hadn't even thought about the primary everyone bit. I dont...actually really have a take, just wanted an answer so i could understand better, then got a bit riled up when there wasn't one

Bit of a detour, but to try and put more succinctly

I'm not riled up by the bill

I'm riled up that every single Democrat voted to both expand military spending and work with the Republicans and I don't know why and can't find a proper rationale. I'm prepared to accept there is one, i just want to know what it is

I'm riled up that this is happening right before the midterms, and I don't understand the optics, of being perceived as the war party and why they are not coming out to defend against that. I also don't understand why they are happy to be seen to be colloborating with Trump, righg before the midterms and doesnt this take the wind out of the sails of the base

I'm riled up that in the face of seemingly bad optics the senators above just seem not to be answering and I don't know why

I'm riled up that I don't understand. And not understanding something is always irritating!