GET OUT: US politics November 2020

I probably didn't word it as concisely as I should have, but throwing your hands up and walking away from engaging in politics completely because you are pissed about Biden isn't the answer. At all.

I'm not pissed about Biden, I'm depressed because other people are pissed about Biden.

xpost to milo

i agree w/that, i was just thinking that trump has definitely changed things, in that his particular brand of incoherence and hatefulness has created a cult of personality within the party that they are finding now they can't entirely control.

trumpers/Q people feel fundamentally different than the Tea Party dickheads who quickly just revealed themselves to be careerist politicians, plus the tea party was actually much less of any kind of true movement, rather drummed up by TV and big GOP spenders...it's not like people were lining up to go into basketball arenas like they were for trump

they were always whipping up these kind of people with financial backing you describe for sure - but i think there used to be a firewall of sorts like hey no one really believes this shit at the end of the day or gives a fuck if abortion is legal but we ride it out and keep reducing capital gains taxes and increasing the amount of gravel that can legally be in baby formula by .75%

What does "engaging in politics" mean? If it means engaging in elections and such, then with exceptions at the local level, I think disengaging from politics is probably for the best for everyone. None of these ghouls in higher positions of power have their constituents' needs at heart.

Milo, go run for school board or city council or something. Be the change you want to see in the world, and all that.

I would say that I consider "engaging in politics" as paying attention as much as your psyche can handle and look for organizations and advocacy groups that align with your beliefs so you can donate your time and/or money.

Then we're in agreement about the basics, jvc!

Yeah I think I'm in agreement with a lot of people here! Which is why I was surprised by how hard milo was pushing back, but that partially just seems to be milo's thing at this point.

None of these ghouls in higher positions of power have their constituents' needs at heart.

Genuine question: Can you imagine the possibility that any (non-local) politician might have their constituents' needs at heart, or is the political system itself corrupted to the point that anyone who manages to attain higher office is necessarily compromised by what it took them to get there?

I cannot imagine it because I have never seen it.

I mean, I cannot think of a single holder of higher office who has half the integrity of some of the people who hold city council seats in Philly or Oakland, for example.

Which is why I was surprised by how hard milo was pushing back, but that partially just seems to be milo's thing at this point.

I pushed back because what I responded to was "people who seem to be very demonstrative in completely writing off the Biden presidency already instead of, y'know, making plans to continue pushing him."

This in an entirely different world from 'you should stay politically engaged,' where we're at now.

I'm not pissed about Biden, I'm depressed because other people are pissed about Biden.

Dunno if this question would be better-placed or worse- on the Biden thread, but: are you depressed because other people mention specific (if select) things Joe Biden says and does and has confidants leak, or by those things?

xpost - I guess I shouldn't have added the "him" at the end, which is where I think the issue got twisted and amplified in a different direction from what I intended. My original post was in response to waking up, scrolling through Twitter and seeing three different tweets from three different people that were each essentially, "I'm so fucking pissed off about Biden's names so far that I'm going to just give up and be ready for 2024". Which reads to me as an intent, even if, as I suspect, it's an empty threat borne out of understandable real anger, to disassociate from politics completely until then. Which, as I was saying, is decidedly not the answer. We need people to keep pushing. I'd love to see Biden get nudged left as a result (which I still think might happen on a few issues, with the right public pressure and Congress members working hard), but the entire part needs to be pushed now and next year and in 2024. Not just in election years.

"entire party"

once you 'give up' on Diamond Joe, you can focus your energy on "pushing politics left" in areas where you have agency.

I don't agree that 'giving up' on Biden is a necessary precondition to working where you have the most agency, but trying to "push Biden left" by any method other than 'pushing politics left in areas where you have agency' would show a misunderstanding of where one's real leverage is (unless you are in Biden's cabinet or a leadership position in Congress). I think we are in near-complete agreement here.

for most people choosing between "giving up" on biden or "pushing biden" left just means what type of tweets they are gonna write

xpost u could c+p the text of a milo post and he would still find a way to disagree with it tho (luv u boo)

Dunno if this question would be better-placed or worse- on the Biden thread, but: are you depressed because other people mention specific (if select) things Joe Biden says and does and has confidants leak, or by those things?

― huge rant (sic), Monday, November 30, 2020 1:23 PM (six minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

The former. I don't necessarily agree with some of the things that Biden has said and done, but it's not clear to me that they will significantly influence the direction of his administration, which I remain hopeful about. Constantly saying "this guy sucks" makes me feel less hopeful and thus depressed.

He sucks tho

He seems okay.

It's just too much to think about. It's dispiriting. I want to feel motivated.

I don't know where everybody else lives, but since I live in a very red state let me assure you the schadenfreude here is essentially the same as if the U.S. had just elected Revolutionary McSocialist. The ideological distinctions between Biden/Harris, Sanders/Warren and Chavez/Castro are nuances entirely lost on the local populace. (I know that's not the same as actually electing a progressive president, but there are at least some of the ambient benefits.)

trying to "push Biden left" by any method other than 'pushing politics left in areas where you have agency' would show a misunderstanding of where one's real leverage is (unless you are in Biden's cabinet or a leadership position in Congress). I think we are in near-complete agreement here.

Perhaps, but the people I'm responding to, over the course of months, are quite literally saying "push Biden left," or that it's important to vote for Joe Biden because "then you push him left" and accomplish your goals.

(And they don't mean build toward a glorious socialist paradise in two generations.)

It's just too much to think about. It's dispiriting. I want to feel motivated.

There's an old saying that misery loves company. The ilxors who find politics to be endlessly miserable are just recruiting.

It's rather the opposite - if you don't tie your hopes and dreams up in a guy who has been on the wrong side for numerous major issues of his career, then you can start finding political projects that won't be abject failures and bum you out even further.

Joe Biden is the guy who proposed a Police Officer's Bill of Rights weeks after the LAPD beat Rodney King. That's just who he is.

That was nearly 30 years ago.

Constantly saying "this guy sucks" makes me feel less hopeful and thus depressed.

Check. I'm personally aiming to continue quarantining my "this fuckin' guy" posts to the "this guy sucks" thread until at least January 21st (unless specifically asked, as above), but if the posts of a handful of people are making you depressed, consider as a counterbalance, each time you see one, that a larger proportion of the 80 million people who voted for Biden are likely more hopeful.

(Or post itt about something specific that actively makes you hopeful!)

Good point. A new Pod Save America episode will come out later today, which I expect will make me feel better.

I got kicked out of my eighth-grade English class for drawing cartoons to make other kids laugh in the back of the class. That's just who I am.

milo z: Which political projects are you devoting yourself to?

All of us here are devoted to the ILX political project.

speaking only personally, I'm not disengaged by the tone of this thread, but the collective weight of this year came crashing down on me yesterday so that's having just about the same effect.

That was nearly 30 years ago.

ok sorry to do it again but this was last month: GET OUT: US politics November 2020
- dismissing Biden actions as historic is more effective if he has changed his fundamental stance on those actions in the meantime, as with gay marriage.

The ideological distinctions between Biden/Harris, Sanders/Warren and Chavez/Castro are nuances entirely lost on the local populace. (I know that's not the same as actually electing a progressive president, but there are at least some of the ambient benefits.)

yeah but this is saying we might as well have elected a moderate or progressive president :)

(I don't see upsetting voters as a benefit btw! That these people have bad information is the problem in the first place.)

upsetting the right people was a huge part of trump’s appeal. could it work for the left too? who knows - hard to see how we’ll ever get a chance to see the experiment play out

Or post itt about something specific that actively makes you hopeful

^this seems like the logical correlate to "stop complaining and get involved!" that for obvious reasons rarely surfaces here, more often we see hope-for-hope's-sake (?) in the form of "I'm waiting to see what happens first"

I don't see upsetting voters as a benefit btw!

Not the reason to do anything in and of itself, but upsetting the people who want to send abortion doctors to prison and fund evangelical schools with tax money and roll back any and all LGBTQ rights and yell hoax about COVID and climate change certainly feels like a benefit to me. I would feel much, much, much, much worse if they'd actually won. I don't have to hold onto "hope," I'm fucking glad those assholes lost. Every Trump sign and flag I see these days gives me a little flicker of satisfaction.

I just want to say as The Black Guy that pointing at Trump as The Man Who Changed Politics completely misses the entire point of the Tea Party and really where the Republican Party has been since the progressives jumped ship circa The Southern Strategy.

The loud, populist racism isn't new, it's playing the oldies. We live in a country that used to view lynchings as picnic outings. Trayvon Martin, Mike Brown, Eric Garner, Tamir Rice, John Crawford III, Renisha McBride, Walter Scott, Freddie Gray, Rekia Boys, Aiyana Jones, Sandra Bland, Jamar Clark, Alton Sterling, Philando Castile, and many others were killed before Trump became the face of the Republican Party. Dylan Roof murdered 9 people in an attempt to incite a race riot before Trump came to prominence. The Republican Party spent most of its time blaming the victims for having the temerity to exist in the first place. It's comforting to say "this is an unprecedented turn and it's Trump's fault" but neither is true; Trump would not have been able to succeed without the Tea Party paving his way. Trump doesn't seem reasonable or viable as a national candidate without Sarah Palin running for VP in 2008. These assholes spent decades building exactly what we currently have in place and the people who ostensibly should have been opposing them rolled their eyes and said "do not feed the troll" and ceded credibility and air time to patently insane, vicious racists; the work we have in front of us now is so much harder because en masse, we have let the other side become legitimate again.

That was nearly 30 years ago.

As for political projects - I'm a lifelong socialist. Mutual aid, protests, ICE education walks, supporting picket lines, supporting the first good city council candidate of my life. Help isn't coming from above, and probably never coming from national Democrats.

DJP otm

I don't care that much about Biden's past, I'm not looking to canonize him. I care about what he will do as president.

certainly feels like a benefit to me.

I absolutely get it, not disparaging the instinct - a lot of these voters are individually terrible people. It's the context of irritating the entire bloc on principle that I personally don't read as a good in itself: my belief is that policies which materially improve the lives of all or most people will convert many bad voters to appreciating those policies. It's hard to take away, eg, universal health care once people have it.

(Boris is doing a very smart approach to it rn by simply naming specific private/corporate health functions with "NHS" in their title and then letting people die from them.)

Issue some sexy executive orders in the first couple months and then hang around xp

For most of my life personal milestones coincided with presidential elections: elementary school, high school, grad school, etc. I'm just old enough to note how January 1981 introduced a new ugliness that automatically made suspect the prisms and assumptions I was being taught as a child.

xxxp - you don't think past actions are a predictor of future behavior?

You dismiss his actions after King with a shrug - but he's still telling you nothing has changed with shoot 'em in the leg.
His whole "I can work with the Republicans" schtick? The evidence for that is his history of crossing the aisle to work with horrible people to destroy welfare or lock people up or engage in criminal wars.
He's still mumbling the echoes of his drug warrior past! https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2019/11/18/joe-biden-marijuana-gateway-drug-legalization/

Like Obama, but for different reasons, I think Biden's achieved his most lasting legacy just by getting elected. He made Trump a one-termer.

Beyond that, I'll take rejoining the Paris climate accord, shoring up the ACA (if they can), rejoining the Iranian deal (if it's salvageable), rolling back however temporarily a ton of bad executive orders, and ideally endorsing some well-chosen progressive legislation that can pass the House and be used against Republicans for refusing to pass it in the Senate. That would be a pretty good term under the circumstances.

"Big, massive dumps" for December Title.

Trump whines to Maria Bartiromo about the “massive dumps” he says cost him the election pic.twitter.com/oX2RPPOwbi

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) November 29, 2020

The toilet flushing fixation will never disappear.

I don't care that much about Biden's past, I'm not looking to canonize him. I care about what he will do as president.

Him saying during the campaign that he as president he will increase funding for police, insulate from oversight the specific ones that he says have corrupted the entire nationwide institution, and institute a policy of shooting protestors against police violence, do seem like reasons to be concerned that he might do those things as president.