Your next 2020 Democratic presidential primary thread: Now we're serious

Shakey sold his

It really is easy to get involved with Dem politics, you just have to (physically) show up and start volunteering for things. There's usually more work to be done then there are people to do it, and you're likely to have "power" pressed upon you pretty quickly whether you like it or not.

Like, the reason why state and local D parties are dominated by old folks, for example, is that they're the only ones who show up.

that's true!

I know a handful of people who do show up who are in their 30s-40s, regularly attend city council meetings or watch them online, and regularly contact their local representatives

the image of elected representatives only doing what their donors/party want has a bit of truth but for most, they act on issues that are brought to them by concerned parties. sometimes that's a couple persistent letter writers instead of the local union or corporation

you can have direct influence by getting coffee with your city council member if you're in a smaller city!

sorry, I get pretty angry with people that complain about the system and then refuse to do the bare minimum to learn how it works.

Bernie's message of grassroots political revolution must really be resonating with his online proponents lol

your standard is higher than Pelosi's "that's like, five people" i guess

Writing longer versions of what I said isn't really blowing my mind, Shakes. Yes, you can theoretically vote for the guy who votes for the guy who votes for the guy who votes for the guy who votes for the guy who eventually votes for Tom Perez who then nominates a half dozen oil lobbyists to the DNC Executive Committee. Hence 'obfuscating layers.' I know how 'it works.'

so you want, what, direct elections for every Democratic Party decision and office? get ready to vote a lot.

one man's obfuscating layers are another man's delegated responsibility

same

https://thehardtimes.net/opinion/my-brain-says-warren-my-heart-says-sanders-and-my-dick-wont-stop-screaming-jeb-bush/

also am confused as to how you can say all those people voting up the line within an established framework do not constitute a political party

xps

It's definitely impossible to conceive of a system with, say, dues-paying memberships supporting mail and online voting for various 'decisions and offices.'

lol dues-paying gtfo

gonna go out on a limb here and just write off your political opinions as totally asinine

milo is right actually

Organizations with dues, a wild and unheard of concept.

a political party that requires dues paying is a) elitist and b) inherently corrupt

I think that is 100% anti-democratic and totally fucked up and there's no way yr hero Bernie would endorse that

So... the Wisconsin Democratic Party?

It is not hard to do and people do it. You don't have to get elected to anything. In Wisconsin you have to pay $25, less if you're a student or elderly.

you can charge a waivable $12

clearly the existing democratic party, which I believe can accept unlimited donations for party activities, is not corrupt

yup I think that's totally wrong

donations are not dues

xps

I also paid $25 or something to join my local LD Democratic organization a while ago but I forgot to show up to the endorsement meeting for the local election which was my whole motivation to join, I probably won't bother until Kshama Sawant is up for reelection again.

yeah donations can be used to peddle influence unlike dues

Οὖτις in Canada most if not all parties charge an annual fee for membership, and I'm talking low two digits. I suspect this is true of many other countries. The notion that this is "elitist" is ridiculous.

a political party that requires dues paying is a) elitist and b) inherently corrupt

not sure where i stand in this epic debate, but the first thing that comes to mind is how donating money to favored candidates is the standard way to support them. it's not required, no. but it's how you participate in the election. or at least, that's what joe biden eternally asking if he can bum $5 off of you seems to think

i guess that's already been covered, whoops

$12 vs "take a weekend off to travel across the state to the state convention and maybe get to vote on something"

it's elitist in the sense that poor people aren't going to do it for the privilege of weighing in on low-level party functionary elections.

donating to a candidate is a more direct way of saying "I want to vote for this person for elective office", it's a bit more direct

ftr I hate the whole dynamic of candidates having to raise money at all - either from small online donations or PACs or huge donors - I'm basically for publicly-funded elections.

xps

Impossible to guess which of those is going to get more people involved.

donations can be used to peddle influence

this happens way less than people think ime

fwiw I would like to point out that milo significantly moved the goalposts here, which originally were "there are no political parties" and "there is no way to participate", both of which are still demonstrably untrue.

In your experience? How many closed door meetings have you been in? Xp

UK Labour has membership fees as low as like 3 pounds a year, it's almost like you can design fee structures to account for income levels, age, etc..

and now we're arguing about whether parties should charge dues for the privilege of participating via online voting.

xps

by many countries' standards neither the GOP or Dems would qualify as proper political parties, I suspect

I mean I paid dues to a local organization and I don’t even know if they’re actually an arm of “the party” or if they’re just “a club of democrats in my legislative district”, I think they are responsible for precinct committee officers whatever those are. I didn’t even get a membership card! Sham party imo.

How many closed door meetings have you been in?

all of them!

j/k I mean generally just from reading about how major legislation has gotten hashed out historically. (Pork barrel projects are sort of a different category)

we really need to bring back earmarks, doing away with them is how we got into this mess in congress

I agree about that, actually

I thought about trying to join Socialist Alternative but you have to submit to an interview where they ask you if you agree with their views and I'm not up for that

now there's a party

I was typing on my phone while eating lunch, Shakes, I mean you could have asked me to explain what I meant rather than having a rage incident.

I said we 'don't have political parties' because - via the undemocratic structure - we don't have something (rules, platforms, a coherent ideology) built and actually supported by membership. Again, this was specifically in reference to the DNC superdelegate rules, which had essentially zero democratic influence in their creation.

essentially zero democratic influence

this is also not true

I mean just... what is it with these sweeping pronouncements

aaahahahahahaha

appearing at a Tom Steyer rally tomorrow night in Columbia, S.C.: Yolanda Adams, DJ Jazzy Jeff, and Juvenile

— Josh Jamerson (@joshjame) February 27, 2020

why look, a vote of the party membership determined something
https://www.cnn.com/2018/08/25/politics/democrats-superdelegates-voting-changes/index.html

7000 people who could travel across the country voted on a proposal forced on the executive committee, yes.

That is definitely more democratic and less elitist than a major decision being put to any larger portion of the 30+ million people who voted in the 2016 primary because you saw the word 'dues.'

I kinda don't want microdecisions left to voters