Democratic (Party) Direction

fwiw i don't have a twitter account and did not go to these reporters' twitter accounts to find out who they were. i just looked up the reuters article whose headline is visible immediately beneath those twitter handles.

what i'm trying to say is there are many ways you can find things out for yourself if you feel like you're lacking critical information.

Let's not argue about who killed who.

I'm upset AOC didn't include a Wikipedia link for those of us who don't know what a "Biden" is.

"we aren't going to do anything to make things better, but if you don't vote for us it will get even worse"

It's a bold strategy, Cotton. Let's see if it pays off for 'em.

People saying “don’t vote, it doesn’t help:” this is how Trump won in 2016 by 77k votes, and appointed the 3 justices who overturned Roe and more. Want to see how much worse things can get, be apathetic and let Republicans take majorities. This hand wringing is a fool’s errand.

— Amy Siskind 🏳️‍🌈 (@Amy_Siskind) June 30, 2022

I mean, yeah, of course I vote blue in November.

I will also take a dump at some point this afternoon

Bernie or gut bust

tbh probably the most consequential votes I will cast this year were in my local Republican primary in May. A couple of moderate Republicans beat back hard-right challengers, with a certain amount of crossover support from non-Republicans. (I vote in way more GOP primaries than Democratic ones, around here it's the only way to have any say in a lot of offices.)

my heart goes out to the intern that has to keep breaking the news about roe to dianne feinstein every 4 hours

— أنيا anya (@unc00lniece) June 26, 2022

fuck off

― more difficult than I look (Aimless), Thursday, 30 June 2022 bookmarkflaglink

Glad I'm not going to be responsible for your care.

you really are a cold-hearted piece of shit julio

every previous time i've started on you it's been the result of direct antagonism but come on, are we all really going to stand by while this worthless nutcase pisses his poison everywhere

sorry to be all "austerity socialism" but in any rational world no nut milks would exist - oats, on the other hand? can be grow in all sorts of different environments and don't haemorrhage water as much. Under socialism it will be only oat milk if you're vegan sorry

— Arbeitology (@Arbeit_Fish) July 1, 2022

can we not live in a socialist utopia where there’s a magical milk alternative with the water-use of oat milk and the low calorie count of almond milk??

does soy milk count as a "nut milk"

I got some nut milk for ya

is it already no nut milk november?

Do nuts "haemorrhage" water?

If a bathing suit can barely contain them.

"if you don't vote for us it will get even worse" is 100% true about Democrats. They suck and it's true. Both things are true at the same time. Democrats did not nominate/confirm justices that would overturn Roe. Republicans did. That's it. I think people want too badly to like and identify with their politicians and should be more calculating and purely see it as what they gain/lose.

In fact, this largely happened because evangelical christians who don't personally like a lot of republicans nonetheless voted for them en masses so they could get supreme court justices that push their agenda.

well at this point we have,,, oh yeah tons of dems supporting fascists while doing nothing.

evangelical christians who don't personally like a lot of republicans nonetheless voted for them en masse

It's been discussed to death, but their ability to sign on to a total piece of shit like Trump, to the point where they're posting memes of Jesus hugging him in the Oval Office, in order to get Roe v. Wade overturned, is really remarkable. Meanwhile, tons of Dems couldn't vote for Hillary because reasons.

I guess the point is that it shouldn't be so remarkable. They realize they don't need to love Trump the man to get whatever the hell they think God wants on earth.

It's also a matter of organization. They belong to organizations that reinforce that message, whereas Democrats just kind of personally browbeat people for not voting the right way.

iirc the GOP went out and expressly courted evangelicals right? it may have been more two-sided than that, w evangelicals showing a little leg and then implementing some coercion when their politically motivated flock proved too large to ignore (I’ve only read Nixonland but I’m guessing Invisible Bridge and Reaganland get more deeply into it).

I just can’t see the Democratic Party (as currently constructed) going out and doing anything to attract DSA/ fellow travelers or apolitical poor and working people. I mean, democrats *hate* those people.

yeah there was definitely some two-way reinforcement going on there

I think "Vote for Trump even if you don't like him because you will get something you want" is a better message than "Vote Hillary you idiots Trump is bad!" even if the latter is arguably a good enough reason to vote Hillary

"Vote for Biden because he'll...make a lot of promises and follow up on none of them, nor actually advocate for any of them in any substantive way"

I guess Poppy and his types were pretty uneasy w evangelicals, but they liked winning more than they were embarrassed by a bunch of Christ-bitten rubes. Also, white values voters with an inclination to fear communism don’t upset capital

I think "Vote for Trump even if you don't like him because you will get something you want" is a better message than "Vote Hillary you idiots Trump is bad!" even if the latter is arguably a good enough reason to vote Hillary

― longtime caller, first time listener (man alive), Friday, July 1, 2022 11:50 AM (nineteen minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

sure, but it must be said that Hillary got 3 million more votes in 2016, and Biden 8 million more in 2020, a big part of the issue for Dems is they have to win by so much more. for god's sake look at the Wisconsin legislature, Dems won the popular vote by like 10 points but only got a third of the seats. I mean all these conversations are worth happening but issue 1A for them has got to be making sure that Democrat votes count just as much as Republican votes and they've failed miserably there.

of course one other issue re: "getting what you want" is that the satisfaction is so much more immediate for Republican voters as their foremost priority, as they've articulated time and time again, is to make people they don't like upset. doing blatantly evil things will do that. I vote Democrat even if most of their policies wouldn't directly benefit me, and yeah that's a big part of why things feel so stagnant, personally. I don't even get the satisfaction of watching these idiots get pissed off because, who's gonna argue against stuff like the Child Tax Credit, or wind farms on the East Coast? it doesn't trigger anybody, it's just common sense

I will argue against wind farms on the east coast

There is more to the NIMBY/"you're ruining my view" people.

Offshore windfarms devastate local marine ecosystems, and invite non-native marine life to inhhabit the artificial reefs that such wind farms create. That's only the beginning—

the idea that we can solve problems of emissions and climate change by engaging in acts that wantonly destroy ecosystems and lead to habitat loss is absolutely fucking bonkers and the height of hubris.

And don't get me started on the emissions caused by building, transporting, and maintaining windfarms in places like Wyoming and etc. It's like tote bags— they do a fine job for what they're used for, but they aren't actually all that eco-friendly.

It's been so dispiriting to see how ill-prepared the Democrats seem to be in the wake of Dobbs--it feels like they had nothing in the can for this eventuality. This was a scenario with a high probability of occurring--shouldn't a major political party have a filing cabinet full of contingency plans for the end of Roe, a repeal of ACA, etc.? Isn't that what all these think tanks, consultants and wonks are paid millions of dollars for?

I understand the plan is "vote harder/elect a bigger majority"--but then what? Why can't Pelosi/Schumer/whoever assure us that they have a strategy? Hold a press conference and announce, "If we gain a majority, we'll 1) introduce and pass a law containing a, b, c and d; 2) Do X to ensure Y; 3) Safeguard future rights by doing Z."

Instead, it feels like the situation is, "Give us a majority, and then we'll figure something out. You know, explore our options, brainstorm."

That would require them to have a strategy. Or even desire a strategy.

the idea that we can solve problems of emissions and climate change by engaging in acts that wantonly destroy ecosystems and lead to habitat loss is absolutely fucking bonkers and the height of hubris.

― broccoli rabe thomas (the table is the table), Friday, 1 July 2022 17:30 (six hours ago) link

What can we do to solve problems of emissions and climate change that doesn't have any ecological consequences whatsoever? I'm pro-nuclear power for example, but I imagine if you don't like wind farms you don't like those either. Mining of the minerals needed to make lithium batteries and solar panels is pretty dirty business too. These are conservative talking points.

or I guess I should say fossil fuel industry talking points

They’re also radical environmental talking points, fwiw.

Reduce consumption? No. Limit air travel? No. Limit farm and ranch subsidies? No. Mandate crop diversification while limiting overtillage? No.

But destroy fragile ecosystems just so we can continue “our way of life”? Sure, sounds great.

YOU are the conservative here, NOT me.

jeez, table, stop with the accusations. You could've made your points and omitted the last sentence.

(I think no one will accept being less comfortable. The difficulty is to make it equally comfortable or more comfortable at equal or less cost and to communicate the trajectory as well as has been done for infiation, for example. I wish this is how global politics and influence could be shaped in the future. Oil has been the stick.)

end the military? no

Many people who are in favour of renewable energy projects (which may well do some ecological damage) are also strongly in favour of reducing consumption, flying less, questioning "growth", cutting meat production, etc.

These things are not opposed, at least in terms of the constituencies that support them.

I wonder if personal lifestyle choices can make a difference when weighed against industrial consumption if on a sufficient scale. I guess the point is to make the choice anyway, and industrial production might respond accordingly.

I was thinking along the lines of accepting a fundamentally lower standard of living by choice for environmental reasons, but I don't think that will ever be a choice anyone will be compelled to make. Perhaps instead the gradual increase in the standard of living enjoyed by the majority would begin to reverse itself over time as the cost of living got more expensive when factoring in environmental costs.

The military would probably still be around. I was thinking that less emphasis might be placed on extraction of natural resources and more on technological innovation.

Kate Soper wrote a recent book on this that has its flaws, but has some good points about how our “standard of living” and “way of life” are actually not all that great, and that one of the main ways to “sell” degrowth to a skeptical populace is to talk about how degrowth would inevitably allow us more connection to our families and communities, as well as allow us a more simpatico relationship with our environments.

Sorry I attacked you, man alive, I just don’t like being compared to conservative or fossil fuel lobbyists, as my perspective is entirely oppositional.

Xp I don’t take any offense. I think we probably all want human life to be able to continue in some non miserable form and want to minimize ecological disruption. I’m all for reduced consumption, I just don’t think it’s possible to prevent global warming by that alone without causing untold human suffering, and thereby making the solution the same as the problem. And I don’t think there is any way to live free of ecological sin. Cities, for example, while efficient at reducing carbon footprints, are in many other ways ecological disasters.

I guess I just don't agree with you about the "untold human suffering" part— I truly believe that in "the west," at least, we would all be a lot happier and healthier if we consumed less and did so less often, but the way that so much of our society is set up makes that seem unthinkable to a lot of people. Like, many people genuinely believe that you need to buy a new phone every year, or a new wardrobe every season, when that thinking is obviously false and completely oppositional to what a good life actually is, imho.

it's also categorically false, cost of a 100% renewables transition would be recouped in just over 5 years, this was literally just covered on ILX although the thread escapes me

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