Democratic (Party) Direction

That's been the base of your whole argument!

― broccoli rabe thomas (the table is the table), Tuesday, July 5, 2022 6:50 PM (twenty-one minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

I think you are seriously confused about normative and descriptive values.

If by "assigning virtue" you mean do I think pointing out that a woman who has chosen to enter politics as a career and has done it arguably "successfully" may be a more appropriate direction for Democratic leadership than a woman who is a career academic that you just decided should be in politics, then I guess so. I do believe in women having agency over their lives.

Have fun with your straw women arguments. Just don't assign them to me.

I know Elliot Spitzer and Andrew Cuomo were both AGs but I feel like they were more known for going after fraud and financial crime. and also Cuomo sucks.

― longtime caller, first time listener (man alive), Tuesday, July 5, 2022 7:02 PM (eighteen minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

I think Spitzer and Cuomo were "more known for" some other things.

Many white male prosecutors have gotten a free pass into higher office but the same people who supported those white male prosecutors don't care that Harris was one. I have my doubts that anyone who changed their twitter bio to 'COPmala' has a kind word to say about Clinton/Kerry/etc..

You could point to someone like Larry Krasner (except for tabes, who also hates Krasner IIRC), but I haven't seen 'draft Krasner' movements taking shape. Elect progressive prosecutors and leave them there IMO.

If by "assigning virtue" you mean do I think pointing out that a woman who has chosen to enter politics as a career and has done it arguably "successfully" may be a more appropriate direction for Democratic leadership than a woman who is a career academic that you just decided should be in politics, then I guess so. I do believe in women having agency over their lives.

Have fun with your straw women arguments. Just don't assign them to me.

― felicity, Tuesday, July 5, 2022 9:20 PM (seven minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

I don’t think you mean this in bad faith, but that seems like such a bizarre misunderstanding of table’s point, which is about what the politics of being a prosecutor represent and not about “agency.” I don’t see how arguing about who would it wouldn’t be well suited for certain political positions could ever deny a person agency.

I took table's point exactly as he made it: a gross exaggeration and distortion of my postings. If he wants to engage with my actual postings, I will return the favor.

man alive, how is this hard to understand?

You have in this thread three American women of color talking about a fourth American woman of color who is currently the Vice President of the United States and the President of the United States Senate. table's suggestion for a better Democratic party direction is a fifth American woman of color who admittedly has expressed zero interest in thrusting herself into the white-hot cauldron of national politics (and its attendant scrutiny). That last bit is what I mean by "agency." Why on earth would table think he should decide that a woman should go into politics to serve his interests? It's insulting.

Can't a woman of color choose not to go into politics, and can't a woman of color discuss Harris' political prospects on this thread seriously without having to fight off a cartoonish "reverse Uno" attack? It's silly, really.

My understanding is that Tabes isn’t suggesting that Ruth Wilson Gilmore should get into party politics, it was just a way of saying that their values are closer to Gilmore than to Harris.

If I’m asked who I would choose to play the 4 for the Mavericks next season I would say Giannis. This is unrealistic but it doesn’t seem like suggesting that he be forced into the job.

I didn't realize we were playing fantasy sports picks here. My bad.

I’m no longer engaging with your “arguments” because they don’t make any sense and seem to be more about turning me into a sexist boogeyman.

On top of that, you seem to be willing to forgive the reprehensible aspects of Harris’ political career simply because of her identity. Forgive me, but I don’t care that the boot on the neck of my sex worker friends is owned by a Black woman, and that anyone could view the world this way is positively baffling to me.

I’m not going to talk to you or address you after this post. Enjoy your time here table-free.

It's ok, the people that don't want to engage, you can have your thread back; you don't need to live in fear that someone may think you are sexist instead of actually clarifying your point.

Fwiw, I understood both perspectives (and Felicity's argument in no way "didn't make sense"). I actually looked up whether Gilmore "or bust" (I get now maybe this was glibly posted) was running for anything too because I was confused about this and if this was a wish list thing or if we were dealing with reality. Most good people, doing productive things don't want to seek political office. There is a reason there has long been a barrier for people to enter politics, in the US (especially for non-white men with maybe non-anglo names) or that it would truly be 100% unappealing for a lot of people to go into politics.

It's frustrating to see the exact same statements, posts (a lot of talking past each other) on repeat 3, 4, 5, years later from when I last was active in these threads. And there are barely any people posting here so it makes it worse. I actually was asking some of the questions about the kamala 'bad career choice' harris because I didn't ask more questions about this during the primaries when more candidates were being scrutinized. And to say if you aren't bringing up this same tired stuff about Kamala now, that you are stanning her is like saying everyone that didn't vote for Trmp is in love with Biden. No one wanted him, this is what happened, and this is currently reality. I still remember how people here were so shocked and confused about why black people in SC would vote for Biden.

I clarified my points only for felicity to attack me for being racist and sexist. Meanwhile, she (and now you) continue to dismiss Harris’ atrocious to very mixed record on the carceral state and policy toward the most vulnerable members of society as somehow “in the past,” as if the people rotting in prison or relegated to the dangers of selling their bodies on the street don’t currently exist. They do, and their immiseration can be directly traced toward policies that Harris supported and in some cases, actively supports.

The Gilmore comment was glib and meant to imply that the only people whose politics and ethics would be acceptable are not interested in doing electoral politics. I wasn’t “conscripting” a woman into a job she doesn’t want— there was nothing there that suggested that’s what I meant. Instead, those words were put in my mouth by felicity as another way of distracting from the fact that there’s no way to defend many parts of Harris’s record, particularly on incarceration.

xp

hey yerac, i just want to apologize again about my dig at you, it was weird and i really don't know you at all. i backed out because i recognized i was getting .. bitey lol and i needed to take a break.

i guess, to the points being raised, all i have to say is that someone like ruth wilson gilmore, the value there is that she is already the example of political organizing we need, her accomplishments point to and indeed embody transformative organizing outside of the traditional channels. what i was trying to get at, i think, is that what we really need is for politics to exist outside of the two-party system to a greater degree. because if you compare kamala harris to ruth wilson gilmore, you see that qualitatively, the results of their actions are diametrically opposed! and that's the lesson there i think, the democratic party doesn't have a monopoly on political organization and results, it's already demonstrated its true allegiances time and time again over literally 30 years, etc, and what we need is political organization outside of that edifice. obviously a huge task but it's happening a little bit with new unions forming etc. that feels like something i can direct energy towards that might produce results, you know? meanwhile i will continue to vote d in local elections and stuff, more likely if i move to a state where d candidates actually exist and i feel like doing a chore that day, but yeah.

Table, I said it is valid to criticize Harris. I have said it 3 times.

What part of that are yiu not able to parse?

Just try to read my posts as carefully as you read that German Lopez Vox article. That is what actually feels sexist - your inability to read my posts at face value.

Then we can have a good discussion.

i also misread your post felicity and i'm sorry for reacting like that.

Thanks map. I appreciate that.

It has been a good discussion regarding prosecutors as politicians. Justice Sotomayor was a prosecutor.Justice Kagan was Solicitor General - kind of a prosecutor.

The thing is, prosecutors wield a lot of discretion. Somebody less progressive will do the job otherwise. So this wave of reformist prosecutors (like the Philadelphia Attorney General mentioned upthread) is kind of an interesting trend.

Harris is pretty activist (or at least vical) in trying to reform the system. While she and her office took some bad very bad positions with bad effects (and we can discuss these in detail), if you dig further than the one 2020 Vox article cited above, she thas or has tried to counter or reduce the harms done as AG. But yeah, being a prosecutor means often upholding drug sentencing and other laws that Biden and others have been screwing up for decades. Reforming them even imperfectly is a tough job.

otfm

In any case, I think the more interesting point that the Ruta article makes is not that the Dems need to talk about their religious backgrounds, but that a message of class warfare of the "people vs. the powerful" variety should not be at the core of their campaigns. The point that was made, and I suspect it is valid, is that the broad mainstream of voters do not feel themselves particularly oppressed economically, and are much more likely to respond to candidates who seem to hold the same values that they do on a variety of issues, rather than the ones who try to stir them up against the perceived preferential treatment given the wealthy. In a sense, this is a healthy attitude in that voters have the sense to realize that taking the ultra-rich down a few pegs may not actually make much difference to their individual economic situations, and they are not motivated sufficiently by schadenfreude to vote on that basis.

I think the questions raised in this post are still relevant. A lot has changed since it was originally posted. It seems to be asking whether or not systemic change is possible and about what actually motivates voters and increases turnout.

https://navigatorresearch.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/05/Navigator-Update-06.01.2022.pdf?emci=7de4990f-23e1-ec11-b656-281878b85110&emdi=ea5a50ca-a6e1-ec11-b656-281878b85110&ceid=1401585

This would seem to indicate that "people vs. the powerful" can indeed resonate - page 7, corporate greed and price gouging questions

even Sean McElweenie
https://groundworkcollaborative.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/05/dfp_groundwork_inflation_message_test_may_2022.pdf

perhaps because times for changed but more likely because that was a lousy argument to start with - two years after gabbneb's post we got a resounding Democratic victory on the back of an campaign appealing to marginalized and young people's need for change.

Has identification with socio-economic class become more permissible or common and does that identification cut across cultural lines or issues? (The entire thread needs to be loaded to find the quote in context. Thanks for the pointers to recent research.)

(I am not sure if I should question slide presentations.)

Sotomayor is pretty classically "tough on crime" fwiw, whatever else her politics may be.

perhaps because times for changed but more likely because that was a lousy argument to start with - two years after gabbneb's post we got a resounding Democratic victory on the back of an campaign appealing to marginalized and young people's need for change.

― papal hotwife (milo z), Thursday, July 7, 2022 4:59 PM (three hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

I don't really understand what the Democratic Party can even claim to represent otherwise - are we saying they should just be the party of professional class complacency, tolerance, and superficial diversity? I guess in some elections that plus "we're not the horrible ones" is enough to win, but overall it feels like the ground is slipping out from under the party.

Pretty sure being the party of upper-middle class bureaucracy was exactly gabbneb's vision tbh.

Sotomayor is pretty classically "tough on crime" fwiw, whatever else her politics may be.

― longtime caller, first time listener (man alive), Thursday, July 7, 2022 6:41 PM (one hour ago) bookmarkflaglink

It depends what vector we are talking about re "tough on crime"? For example, with the Criminal Section of the Civil Rights Division of the DOJ (who go after cross burners, voter intimidation, hate crimes etc.), one would hope they would be "tough on crime."

I used the example of Justice Sotomayor is context-specific to illustrate that it takes gallons of privilege to declare that path after path for empowerment (law school, prosecution) should be closed off to marginalized people, especially when they have been paths to power for others. Sotomayor is a jurist, not a politician, but progressive in her context.

I do like these new Democratic Gen Z candidates though: https://www.npr.org/2022/07/06/1109193929/the-first-gen-z-candidates-are-running-for-congress-and-running-against-compromi

I was the one who said ‘no prosecutors,’ IIRC - I’m not sure why that being a traditional “path to power” for a group of people I despise means I should give a pass on it to Harris or anyone else?

An ideal for a political party could, theoretically, be to functionally eradicate marginalisation through socialised equity, rather than celebrating individuals who advance into the structures of wildly imbalanced power.

Oh that is fine, milo doesn't have to give "a pass" to Harris or anyone else. But you must admit it would be humorous to suggest everyone - especially women - should go through life with a set of milo-shaped priorities. This "group of people you despise" - milo, could you be more specific? Maybe men are threatened by smart women and prosecutors, I don't know. I am threatened by men, because they can kill me with their bare hands. So maybe I despise prosecutors less than milo, because, yeah, the threat of consequences for people who mean me criminal harm feels like it could be beneficial.

At the time, I think I was reacting to a tendency to single out women for scrutiny and criticism where the same is not being done to similarly-situated men. Patterns in which "individuals" you choose to focus on and criticize just happen to be women is a thing that women online are very attuned to noticing, even if men are not.

And the way people sometimes word things online ("I don't see why" "I'm not sure why" "I just can't understand" "It makes no sense that") seems to demand a justification of why the world shouldn't align along with that particular person's perspective, and maybe this way of positing questions seems to come from men more than women? Just a personal theory.

As for "socializing equity" versus "celebrating individuals who advance into the structures of wildly imbalanced power" I would again be interested in the specifics of exactly who you mean and what you propose. To reduce things to ideals in response to concrete problems in American that are being discussed can come off as a little "let them eat cake" so let's hear the details.

This "group of people you despise" - milo, could you be more specific? Maybe men are threatened by smart women and prosecutors, I don't know.

I quoted it in large part, I believe. The "others" for whom the job of putting people in cages has been a "path to power." I don't think the world needs more Bill Clintons and John Kerrys (or Sheldon Whitehouses or Richard Blumenthals).

You say you're "reacting to a tendency to single out women" but as the person who said "no prosecutors" I didn't carve out an exception to that statement for white male prosecutors or the leadership of this godforsaken nation up to this point.

Oh I guess your reference to Larry Krasner threw me off, since he is a "progressive prosecutor" and is a white man.

Maybe you better bash Krasner a little, just so I'm not confused. ;)

I mean, the sentence that follows that up is "elect progressive prosecutors and leave them there IMO." If it is necessary to have ostensibly leftist or progressive or reformist or whatever people playing a lead role in the carceral state, that's where their political career should end, in part so they can actually do the job of reforming rather than simply using it as a stepping stone as the others referred to have done before. (To be clear, I'm not aware of any of the recent spate of 'progressive prosecutors' doing so - there's no fervor for Larry Krasner to run for Governor. He has to survive an attempted impeachment currently, I believe.)

Jobs that involve locking people up should not be a stepping stone to amassing greater power.

There are term limits to some of these jobs, such as California Attorney General. It's hard to know what you want people to do after serving 2 full terms - I guess they could go into private law practice and make tons of money or find another way to work on reform. National-level prison/sentencing reform could come from somewhere. Just wondering if your proposed disqualification would make it more likely to happen than not. If local or state-level prosecutors are not elected to national-level positions, I wonder who would better have the track record and experience to reform the federal carceral system or Federal Sentencing Guidelines.

This 2020 article (sorry for paywall) mentioned a few other progressive prosecutors.

Various reforms aimed at providing alternatives to prison, reducing harshness and inequality, and charging and prosecuting less have also been implemented by a slate of progressive prosecutors, notably Eric Gonzalez, in Brooklyn; Kim Foxx, in Chicago; Kim Gardner, in St. Louis; Aramis Ayala, in Orlando; and Rachael Rollins, in Boston. The latter four are following Harris as some of the first Black women to serve as top prosecutors in major American cities.

Not sure what has happened to these people since the article was written. Would be interesting to follow them.

And I'm not sure if you are saying if you do despise Krasner for also having the job of putting people in cages, or just that he's not worth despising or criticizing online, as he seems to have no national political aspirations at the moment.

I didn't say anything positive or negative about Krasner upthread - I pointed to him as a potential point of hypocrisy for some people who changed their twitter bios to COPmala in 2019, given his DSA endorsement and the like but also that that support hasn't translated into calls for him to take higher office.

I don't really care about him as a person or politician - I don't live within 2000 miles of Philadelphia. His record sounds mostly fine for a prosecutor, I'm sure he's pursued things I don't approve of but he probably* hasn't taken an active role in hiding exculpatory evidence like his predecessors (and so many others). He should remain the DA for as long as he's allowed and leave legislating to other people (preferably the teachers, labor organizers and public defenders who would replace our troops/prosecutors/landlords as mentioned earlier).

State and local prosecutors are elected to national positions all the time - if they were a key to improving things I'd think we'd see that. Even if we want to think 'this time it's different' because of a change in the makeup (ideological or otherwise) of the prosecutors moving up, you're going to need a lot more progressive prosecutors before they can displace more than a couple of the lousy former prosecutors we've already got in Congress. So even from a purely strategic perspective, they can do more good on the local DA stage if it turns out they're the ideal prosecutor as actual public servant.

Maybe we'll miss out on a couple of good ones who could have wound up in the Senate but we have 320 million bodies, there are people to pick up the slack. I don't believe we particularly need people of any special profession to reform the remaining crack/powder disparity or figure out that having 50% of federal prisoners be in the pen for drugs is destructive and monstrous - but if lawyers are helpful on that point, there are thousands of public defenders/defense attorneys out there too. (I'm not Team No Lawyers from above, I trust JDs way more than say, MDs in general. Just not prosecutors.)

*never say never, though

What I'm saying is an absolutely sweeping, broad and unrealistic desire - but like the question of who should lead the Democratic Party, if we restrict things to realistic options (people who want the job and can conceivably take it) there aren't any good answers.

Katie Porter got brought up - she'd be a fine whatever job we think defines the leader of the party (President, Speaker, some other amorphous position outside of that but which is the Face of the Democrats) and I'd say she'd want the position... but she's no more realistic than Ruth Wilson Gilmore. The party wouldn't even slightly nudge the rules on her committee assignments this time around! The centrists would rather lose for 50 years than have a Katie Porter or AOC as the leader of the party.

I am wondering why in your mind people have to be all one thing or all the other thing. Because, in reality, lawyers often have experience doing both defense work and prosecution work.

Rachael Rollins has taken a higher office since that New Yorker article was written in 2020. In 2020 she was Suffolk County D.A. Now she is the U.S. Attorney for the District of Massachusetts. She was bitterly opposed in the confirmation and it was Harris who cast the tie-breaking vote. For some reason the U.S. Marshals refused to give Rollins a security detail even though she had multiple death threats.

In her past, Rollins was an NLRB field attorney. I would think this would appeal to you, but it would require some allowance that people can be more than one thing.

Maybe it comes down to are we picking fantasy sports teams or are we working with what we have. To me, prison issues are important, but it is not my one single issue. To then extend the prison issue to say that anyone who contributes in any way to upholding that system for any part of their career (even though they did not create it, and even if they try to reform it), while also paying off student loans or supporting their families or whatever -- while they are systematically denied equal support, protection and opportunities and also given proportionately much more criticism and scrutiny than men doing the exact same things - it just feels like a lot to ask women to do, to atone for what are largely the sins of white men. And actually defense attorneys do a lot in that system as well.

It's not that I think Rollins or Harris should get a pass for doing the same job as Clinton or that they shouldn't be asked questions or held to account. I think maybe we need to redefine "merit" and at least consider that some forms of representation at the national level of government can be forms of justice as well, when women of color have for so long been excluded.

the last two politicians I gave money to are Nina Turner and Ilhan Omar.

I support candidates that say and ostensibly believe things that I agree with.

Ilhan Omar seems really good. Will Nina Turner run again?

I am just wondering how perfect Democratic politicians have to be. For example, do people criticize Tammy Duckworth for being an Iraq veteran, even though she unseated a Republican?

not sure about Nina’s future. it’s possible her drop from early polling leads is that as the campaign wore on she simply didn’t connect with the people in that district. or it might be another example of Dem establishment’s (and some pretty cool aligned outside groups’) laser focus on kneecapping progressives will forever outweigh their ability to stop

stop the GOP even when they control the executive legislature*

I don’t think “perfection” is necessary. I’m just dem soc and I want to support people who agree with me.

if I lived in Duckworth’s state obviously I’m going to vote for her in the general. Depending on who would be running against her in the primary I may very well support her there, too.

I’m going to vote for Stacey Abrams in November. I will likely end up doing some volunteering as well, same as 2018.

stop the GOP even when they control the executive branch AND legislature*


gah I hate typing on an iPhone

it just feels like a lot to ask women to do, to atone for what are largely the sins of white men

Almost everyone I've referred to is a man. The vast majority of the troops/ghouls/prosecutors/cops I'm talking about displacing are men. Men have traditionally gotten a free pass but the people who gave them that pass also don't care that Harris (or Klobuchar or anyone else) was a prosecutor. They haven't suddenly become police or prison abolitionists. I'm asking prosecutors to atone for the sins of prosecutors, which is a position you have to seek out to start with.

And the atonement I'm asking for, if they believe they're breaking down the corrupt system from the inside, is to stay there and keep doing that.

Maybe in 40 years a wave of progressive prosecutors and AGs will have entrenched themselves across the country and killed cash bail and misdemeanor jail time and we can look at the position in a different light - but that's not what we've got. We've got prosecutorial misconduct, free passes for killer cops unless there's the threat of sustained civil unrest, people being locked up for petty theft and drugs. It's a job whose central duty is putting people in jail playing a leading role in a system that does that far too often and to largely marginalized people.

"Even if they try to reform it" - perhaps, but we don't really have examples of people seeking high office who've done that to look at for guidance. Harris had a mixed record as a DA and a downright lousy one as AG. Had she taken a more progressive stance as AG, she probably wouldn't have become Senator and then Vice President.

If Rollins or Krasner or John Creuzot or etc. do run for Senate, then they can get a spotlight on how much reform they actually sought - but I continue to not really see why we need them.

do people criticize Tammy Duckworth for being an Iraq veteran, even though she unseated a Republican?

Your point returns me to an earlier moment in this thread about paths to power and wealth for women and minorities.

Another path to class stability for many people is joining the military.

Another is becoming a corrections officer.

Afaic, these people don’t get passes, no matter their race, gender, or anything else— and the same goes for prosecutors.

While the law is a field I have problems with, given how it is constructed, I have many lawyer friends and most of them are women. They’re wonderful. But none of them are prosecutors, because I’d sooner spit on a prosecutor than associate with one.

if you’re talking platitudes

^ps pardon my barely intelligible posts itt. meaning the generic you here, obv not *you* felicity.

Somehow I have never ever ever heard centrist dems say “Don’t let the perfect be the enemy of the good” in reference to supporting candidates that are further left than they would like.

And the atonement I'm asking for, if they believe they're breaking down the corrupt system from the inside, is to stay there and keep doing that.

I guess it depends how you define system. And if "staying there" in a role is literally impossible because of term limits, what should they do when they have termed out?

man alive, I wonder whether centering yourself as the "everyman" isn't further underscoring some of my points about perspective.

All of these are good perspectives though. Thank you for the discussion.

Table, your feelings are totally understandable, knowing a bit more where you're coming from!

I think it's important to acknowledge the systems in place that might make people feel like they don't have options other than to, let's say, join the military or become a CO. Those systems ARE real, but if we take the concept of free will at all seriously, so is choice. Plenty of people who live in rural areas where the only major industry is a prison move away or find other realms of employment, and plenty of talented, impoverished people don't join the military because fuck the military. The same can be said for cops, too— cops make tons of money, especially given how little training or schooling is required, but a lot of people don't become cops because they don't want to be cops.

This mostly ties into the conversation because I really do think that there might be good progressive prosecutors, but I can count the ones I know of on two hands. Many of the prosecutors I've had either personal or indirect experience with have been "lower than a snake's asshole," which is how George Carlin describes prosecutors, fwiw. Power-hungry bullies, in other words. Wish our system didn't reward these types of people, but oh well.