Democratic (Party) Direction

PLEEEEEEASE let that happen

that would mean EVERYTHING to me

10 years ago, on this very forum, i used to argue against student debt relief, on the grounds that if many billions of dollars were going to finally be allocated to help people with financial problems, that money should instead go to the homeless, or toward a truly universal safety net, rather than toward a subset of people who were already well off enough to be in a position to get a loan.

however, now i just really want my student loans to go away.

Crazy fact: US total amount of student debt is higher than what the entire govt of Canada spends in year.

Great idea for an economic stimulus workaround as well

New long interview with David Shor:
https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2020/11/david-shor-analysis-2020-election-autopsy-democrats-polls.html

It is a very solid piece (unfortunately I was sad for like an hour after reading it)

Shor's skepticism about the value of voter turnout efforts is kinda hard for me to square with the amount of voter suppression we're dealing with.

I'm skeptical of one sentence about the weakness of canvassing followed by one about GOTV mail as if they're the same thing - and the Vox article they link to is about phone calls being as effective as in-person interactions (in the context of why it's okay to not canvas during COVID).

I throw away most mail without looking at it, I do not answer my phone for any number that isn't saved as a contact. Both those methods are more likely to miss me than in-person canvassing - which is less annoying than either junk mail or junk calls, and harder to ignore. Does anyone answer phone calls from unknown numbers? That's some landline Boomer shit.

Idk but yesterday I looked up a bunch of NYC races that are happening in 2021 and a fair number of the declared candidates didn't have websites or a cultivated social media presence that showed any awareness of "online" as important. In the year of our Lord 2020 if you don't have a website you are not serious. (Except for that one guy in Coney Island who is probably gonna beat Mathylde Frontus, apparently. The article is stupid and contradictory imo but there are some good quotes in the last two paras.

xp: I answer numbers I don't know because sometimes it is an alternate number from my doctor or vet.

this is really good imo. breezy convo with Dorothy Fortenberry (Handmaiden’s Tale writer). nuanced takes RE current/ future of Democratic Party. gets weirdly naive in the Amy Kony 2020 Barrett section but hey I’m not catholic so...


https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/know-your-enemy/id1462703434?i=1000496529236

someone needs to get on that podcast transcription market

why is there a giant intractable conveyor belt that moves everyone with any power to the right? is that just how power works? it seems to be some kind of law of physics. sheesh!

what's that quote from Scarface again? first you get the money... then you get the power... then you turn into a selfish douchebag who will remorselessly crush the rest of humanity to maintain your dragon's hoard of wealth

before you get to that last step though you have to bothsides rich people because i mean they are just people after all! who are victims of things too!!!!!1

reminder that the first major NY Times headline about Bernie Sanders accused him of being in the pocket of Big Poor pic.twitter.com/6HhHpisJCN

— David Sirota (@davidsirota) November 11, 2020

Don't think "bias" is being used in a pejorative sense there.

https://www.nytimes.com/1981/03/08/us/vermont-socialist-plans-mayoralty-with-bias-toward-poor.html

what? i think it's pretty clear that it's nytimes usual at-a-remove irony, which is pejorative

that article is pretty great. crazy that Vermont was solidly Republican until 1992

It doesn’t come across that way in the article to me

the article paraphrases something Bernie said as "bias towards the poor," in context it's non-perjorative. Still a bad Timesian headline imo

this is pretty in the weeds but I wonder if the word "bias" has increasingly taken on a negative connotation over time, as it's not an inherently negative word

In woodworking and fabric, bias often = strength.

his is pretty in the weeds but I wonder if the word "bias" has increasingly taken on a negative connotation over time, as it's not an inherently negative word

― longtime caller, first time listener (man alive),

it sure has

I take it none of you are into Kpop then

“Bernie is my bias” would be an extremely positive thing to say in that context

AOC casually raised $75K+ for low-income families by playing video games for a few hours while educating current & future young voters on the GOP Senate's indifference to pandemic economics. The kind of outreach that Dems typically spend millions in consulting fees to figure out.

— Adam Herman (@AdamZHerman) November 28, 2020

The Democrats could win elections and push their agenda through with relative ease if someone with influence and guts told Pelosi and Schumer to step down and put some younger people in charge who could get young people to give a shit and vote.

— Adam Herman (@AdamZHerman) November 28, 2020

As a former marketer, it is frustrating to see how the DNC squanders their robust mailing lists by just HAMMERING people with donation requests instead of informing and igniting their supporters. Give me content, get me excited and THEN ask for money.

— Angela is MORE THAN THIS (@angelinadarling) November 28, 2020

I don't know much about politics but one thing I do know is that anybody who tells you there's a simple easy way to win elections is bullshitting you.

I mean I think the Democratic Party should make way for younger and fresher leadership on the merits, I just don't have any particular confidence that younger, fresher leaders will actually be better at winning elections / passing legislation.

xxp extremely otm especially w/r/t GOTV which is key IMO

Herman didn't say there's a "simple easy way to win elections" - he said they could win elections and then easily push their agenda through with younger leadership.

The problem with that is that AOC's agenda and the gerontocracy's agenda aren't the same - maintaining a death grip on power and doing the minimum to not be completely laughable is their agenda. Pelosi's a deficit hawk - if Democrats had 55 Senate seats, she'd be horrified at having to actually pursue what people think the party's agenda is. (cf. 2009-10 with 57+ seats in the Senate and a comfortable House majority)

I guess that's a way to read "The Democrats could win elections and push their agenda through with relative ease"

If Pelosi is too far out of step with her caucus they can depose her.

Good politicians know what got them elected. Any bloc of young, smart progressive politicians who, like The Squad, got elected by primarying an out-of-step incumbent, would have the opportunity to form alliances, and put someone forward to challenge Pelosi for the speakership. She can't keep that death grip on power without the backing of her caucus.

You want the gerontocracy out? Then challenge them and win elections. It isn't remotely easy, but it's easier than winning an armed revolution.

fuck you and your smug, pointless posts

you embody everything that is wrong with the Democratic party

Come now let’s not start making it a rule that posts have to have a point or I’ll really be in trouble

you embody everything that is wrong with the Democratic party

you are referring to my belief in democracy? or something else?

I’m surprised you can advance this marketplace of ideas stuff while reading a book about trusts.

controlling the power of government always comes back to winning elections. that is a raw fact. the co-option of government by corporate power is another raw fact, but the only way to wrest back that power is to win elections. this is not necessarily about a 'marketplace of ideas', in the sense that the best ideas win, but ideas are a real piece of the mechanism. you can convert ideas into enthusiasm and thence into votes. most importantly you can convert ideas into policy. and policy is the end product of politics. you can't legislate without some kind of ideas.

conservatives like the Kochs have spent hundreds of millions of dollars subsidizing think tanks for a reason. they needed to change the conversation. they need talking points. they need off-the-shelf policies and arguments to push onto legislatures. it is a competition for votes at every level and ideas play an important role in legitimizing the raw interests that drive the process.

Aimless otm. what is the counterpart to the Hoover Institution or the Federalist Society on our part?

What is "abolish the police", if not an idea that is attempting to become a policy? And how is it going to become policy if no one who is elected to a position that votes on budgets backs that idea? And if they don't back it, how do you change that, if not by convincing them it is a good idea, or by replacing them at the next election with someone willing to back it, or by convincingly demonstrating you have the power to vote them of office, so they capitulate to save their job?

what is the counterpart to the Hoover Institution or the Federalist Society on our part?

The American Constitution Society is aiming to be the liberal Federalist Society. Check them out, they're doing good stuff!

And if they don't back it, how do you change that, if not by convincing them it is a good idea, or by replacing them at the next election with someone willing to back it, or by convincingly demonstrating you have the power to vote them of office, so they capitulate to save their job?

you have the fossil fuel industry decide that abolition of police will hasten their aims of destroying the planet in search of short-term financial gain, duh. no cops = nobody to prosecute massive oil spills and regulatory violations.

that inane (dare I say smug?) answer demonstrates everything that's wrong with the knee-jerk opposition to the Democratic Party, who take the first step of identifying what the problem is and the desired policy solutions, but never commit to any kind of plan to get from here to there. my apparently wrong-headed answer is and will continue to be raise up good candidates who agree to pursue the desired solution and organize to build enough public support that they get elected.

I eagerly await the craftier, smarter, better plans that you all have. Until then, my smug, old-fashioned plans are exactly the same as what Stacey Abrams is trying valiantly to do in Georgia.

Oh, and sleeve... fuck off.

why would I (or anyone) come up with a craftier, smarter, better plan to get to your nominated policy outcome, to which I have no commitment myself, when you already said my simple & efficient good-faith plan was inane

genuinely interested in what Stacey Abrams' plan to abolish the police is though? I like her outlook and messaging

but never commit to any kind of plan to get from here to there

The smug and pointless part is your continued insistence that no one but you thinks about this, giving you license to treat us to a daily dose of the worst Schoolhouse Rocks-level civics lesson.

This is ilxor.com, a place where people have posted pictures of their penis and develop eternal distaste for others based on disagreements about Britpop.

hmm I missed the dick picks they weren't in the Neil Young thread

a place where people have posted pictures of their penis and develop eternal distaste for others based on disagreements about Britpop

Just begging for New Board Description.