“It’s a little too quiet” - US Politics February 2021

milo I'm really curious about this magical third party candidate that we were all apparently too stupid to vote for that would have magically fixed everything.

Yeah he definitely said that

This wouldn't have happened in a Jill Stein administration!

I know he didn't say that, I'm just irritated by the constant insinuation that there was a better option that the rest of us were just too gosh darn dumb to pick.

I don't think that's the insinuation! Morbs was the 3rd party voter

They probably won’t do that because good things do not happen.
― Canon in Deez (silby), Friday, February 26, 2021 1:38 PM (seven minutes ago)

in terms of rhetorical grandstanding posts in this thread, this is the most otm.

no, the insinuation is that people are rubes for ever thinking that anything could ever get done in a democratic administration. what can be done about this? he doesn't know, but being as cynical and confrontational as possible is how he's chosen to react to his belief.

I mean I got a few years of the End of History in my earlier childhood and since then it's been 9/11 Patriot Act great recession deportation force forever war Trump blah blah blah

with all the talking past one another and absurd misrepresentation of the views of posters y'all dislike, it's like this thread is modeling itself after the shitty government we are complaining about in this thread ...

but hey, the 2009 recovery act was signed on feb 17th and this bill isn't even getting signed until february damn 27th! please don't point out the fact that the 2009 bill was woefully inadequate.

maybe we can just fast forward to the part where someone pulls the equivalent of Marjorie Hitler and puts a transphobic sign up

Careful, I've been directly scolded for even mentioning Q adjacent folks itt. There's a whole other thread for that now.

I have a strange feeling that if the only response milo got was "Gee, ain't that the truth!"

It actually is pretty remarkable the lengths posters are going to to come up with reasons why it somehow isn't the truth? ... C'mon, Neando of all people, with yr improv background ... this should be a "yes, and" situation where we move on to other topics.

(don't mean that as a dunk on Neando, just that he would get the "Yes, and" reference)

no, the insinuation is that people are rubes for ever thinking that anything could ever get done in a democratic administration. what can be done about this? he doesn't know, but being as cynical and confrontational as possible is how he's chosen to react to his belief.

Actually, I have talked about possible solutions - primarily, organizing people to withhold votes to force the party to do the bidding of people who want less bombing and coups or more healthcare and racial justice. Once you're a guaranteed vote, they don't need you - and if you are a guaranteed vote and think they care about your desires, yeah, you're a rube.

When you start talking about things like that, possibly costing Democrats so much as a city council seat somewhere at ILX you are "pretend[ing] Joe Biden is Tom Cotton or whatever."

lol @ "yes and"

(i was never good at improv btw)

What I don't understand about you "withhold votes" plan is the mechanism by which this translates into action taken to adopt better policies.

You don't understand how "you can't get elected without us" transitions to "so do the things we want done"?

Have you never trained a dog to sit?

no. now what would that mechanism be in terms of human politics?

Cool cool cool the CPAC stage is shaped like the odal rune. What @Lollardfish has named "vice-signaling." pic.twitter.com/ougTUAwtDB

— Kristen Hanley Cardozo (@KHandozo) February 26, 2021

The stage at this weekend's Conservative Political Action Conference is shaped like a Nazi rune.

that scans

ok but the actual result of a "vote strike" or whatever would be republicans in office. which i think is probably bad.

Still struggling to understand how withholding our votes from Biden, thus ensuring another four years under a Trump administration, would have put the overall progressive agenda in a better position.

Lol hate it when my phone doesn’t show me recent posts.

remember when everybody got pre-emptively angry that Democrats were means testing the payments to much lower levels than previous stimulus checks and then that didn't actually wind up happening

When you start talking about things like that, possibly costing Democrats so much as a city council seat somewhere at ILX you are "pretending Joe Biden is Tom Cotton or whatever."

Lol no, when you say liberals are just like conservatives— or want many of the same things, or whatever — that’s when you’re saying “Joe Biden is just like Tom Cotton or whatever.”

But of course this is just the same old fight. A lot of people on the left get way more impassioned being mad about centrist Democrats than they ever do about Republicans or conservatives. It’s like they just don’t want to engage with our actual political situation. You want to have all these arguments in which the entire political spectrum runs from Marxism to Joe Biden. That’s just not the country we have. It’s not the situation that we are in right now. So a lot of this discussion always just seems ridiculous, because it is operating in a political fantasy land. A lot of what you’re saying sounds to me like, “why doesn’t Joe Biden just wave his magic wand? He must just hate poor people and immigrants.”

And whenever anybody tries to talk about political reality, there’s this reaction of, don’t tell me about reality! As if the mere recognition of it is some kind of compromised concession.

When you start talking about things like that, possibly costing Democrats so much as a city council seat somewhere at ILX you are "pretending Joe Biden is Tom Cotton or whatever."

Lol no, when you say liberals are just like conservatives— or want many of the same things, or whatever — that’s when you’re saying “Joe Biden is just like Tom Cotton or whatever.”

But of course this is just the same old fight. A lot of people on the left get way more impassioned being mad about centrist Democrats than they ever do about Republicans or conservatives. It’s like they just don’t want to engage with our actual political situation. You want to have all these arguments in which the entire political spectrum runs from Marxism to Joe Biden. That’s just not the country we have. It’s not the situation that we are in right now. So a lot of this discussion always just seems ridiculous, because it is operating in a political fantasy land. A lot of what you’re saying sounds to me like, “why doesn’t Joe Biden just wave his magic wand? He must just hate poor people and immigrants.”

And whenever anybody tries to talk about political reality, there’s this reaction of, don’t tell me about reality! As if the mere recognition of it is some kind of compromised concession.

Oops! Pardon the double post.

xpost Nazis appropriated the runes, but didn't invent them. It could also be a Jesus fish I guess... either way, it's win-win.

why is it noteworthy that the Nazi conference has Nazi shibboleths

Still struggling to understand how withholding our votes from Biden, thus ensuring another four years under a Trump administration, would have put the overall progressive agenda in a better position.

Did I tell any of you to note vote for Biden? Pretty sure I didn't.

No one here has the money to buy politicians - absent that, your vote is all you have to sell. One vote isn't worth much - but organized groups of people casting or withholding their votes are extremely valuable. See any Republican's response to even possibly angering their primary voters.

Yes, forcing them into line may cause temporary pain, it's not really a good plan if you're not willing to take risks to stop bombing people on the other side of the globe or defunding police or reforming healthcare. Unless some force does bring the Democrats into line, though, we're fucked anyway and our slide into the apocalypse will continue unabated.

oh wait that's a straight-up Nazi rune... my mistake.

And whenever anybody tries to talk about political reality, there’s this reaction of, don’t tell me about reality! As if the mere recognition of it is some kind of compromised concession.

The issue is the pragmatic adults' absolute belief that their better things aren't possible vision is 'reality.'

You're one of the people who waved off Sinema as the product of a red state so whatchagonnado. The problem with that bit of political realism, though, remains that Sinema is less popular than $2000 checks, the minimum wage hike and numerous other pieces of progressive policy.

why is it noteworthy that the Nazi conference has Nazi shibboleths

― Canon in Deez (silby), Friday, February 26, 2021 2:32 PM (three minutes ago)

they're not _all_ Nazis ... some of them are merely Nazi-adjacent

remember when everybody got pre-emptively angry that Democrats were means testing the payments to much lower levels than previous stimulus checks and then that didn't actually wind up happening

They're still arguing about this - Pramila Jayapal is still having to do media rounds championing the previous means testing thresholds. Everybody got "pre-emptively angry" at a thing Biden and Democrats said they were into.

Biden and centrist Democrats

forcing them into line may cause temporary pain, it's not really a good plan if you're not willing to take risks to stop bombing people on the other side of the globe or defunding police or reforming healthcare

"temporary pain"
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Go...
fuck...
yourself

as opposed to the current pain-free slide into a completely failed state

did we travel back in time to late october 2020

lotta Murc's Law going on today

They're still arguing about this - Pramila Jayapal is still having to do media rounds championing the previous means testing thresholds. Everybody got "pre-emptively angry" at a thing Biden and Democrats said they were into.

― Joe Biden Stan Account (milo z), Friday, February 26, 2021 5:41 PM bookmarkflaglink

the point is it is almost a certain that it isn't going to happen, and those people that pointed out that the means testing adjustments weren't necessarily going to happen got shouted down in the thread as being soft

*certainty

I'm already seeing people posting "REPUBLICANS GOT $1800 OF STIMULUS PASSED, DEMOCRATS ONLY $1400? GOOD LUCK, WE'RE GOING TO HAVE TRUMP SECOND TERM" on social media. lol

The issue is the pragmatic adults' absolute belief that their better things aren't possible vision is 'reality.'

Not at all. Better things are possible, are achievable! Have been achieved, many times. I'm not the one you need to convince of this. Better things are possible but require strategy and an understanding of complex politics. Which includes an honest assessment of the situations you find yourself in. And can also include saying that an $11 minimum wage is better than a $7.25 minimum wage. Especially if it's inflation-adjusted. That still helps people. It doesn't mean you stop pushing for $15 or $20. But moving the rock is important.

tipsy has been OTM all day

Idk what’s the last good federal legislation? PPACA was a big fucking deal I guess, before that…the ADA? Is the federal government capable of doing good things? I don’t expect it to.

Half measures are an impediment, they blunt progress making it a settled issue. $11 throws away all leverage over the centrists by giving them the out, just as the Bidens of the world have been able to champion ever-increasing subsidies to Blue Cross execs in the name of Obamacare.

The $15 minimum wage was in Biden's platform and in the 2016 and 2020 Democratic platforms. As noted by table, even that is not enough. So, no, $11 isn't good enough.

I think between the ADA and now the federal government did rule that Serbian war criminals were bad and that Balkan women raped by soldiers and mercenaries that fleed to the U.S. got to stay in the US and become citizens. That was good.