Democratic (Party) Direction

the "average person" can spell maybe 3 our of the 4 words you just put in quotes

this is an encouraging read

https://theintercept.com/2018/09/15/jess-king-pennsylvania-lancaster-stands-up/

tombot do you ever have nightmares where you yrself are stupid

lancaster stands up rules!!!

this is more like it

✅ Medicaid Expansion
✅ Protecting People with Pre-existing Conditions
✅ Medicare-for-All
✅ Women’s Healthcare

If we vote, we win.#BringItHome

— Andrew Gillum (@AndrewGillum) September 19, 2018

tombot do you ever have nightmares where you yrself are stupid

flowers for algertom

medicaid expansion and medicare for all on the same platform is a bit confusing, but I guess you can have an immediate goal and a reach goal?

I mean really all of those would be covered by "medicare for all," but good to spell out the policy goals

yeah that confused me too

"medicaid expansion" is something that the government of florida has refused to act on since the ACA opened it up. it's something a new government in florida could immediately and decisively accomplish. medicare for all is the bigger long-term national goal.

tombot do you ever have nightmares where you yrself are stupid

I was unaware that nightmares came in other flavors, and I am only being slightly sarcastic in this post

not understanding anything / not knowing what is going on / forgetting trousers when I'm supposed to boarding an airplane for a work trip = pretty much the nightmare menu at chez la tete de tombot

didn't actually graduate high school, have to go back for one class per day/last week of a college class that I haven't been to for the entire semester/thrown back into waiting tables after 15 years with no training + endless weeds/same but no pants

in summation, nightmares are a land of contrasts

The Dems were so close to a great idea—make this about the Supreme Court again, and if the fates somehow give you the opening, make this about women—and then they veer back to their worst impulses, pumping the rich donor class for money and bringing out “the Clintons.” This has to also mean Bill, who’s been conspicuously absent from the campaign trail during this age of #MeToo. (Also, Joe Biden’s terrible history with Anita Hill does not exactly make him the best person to turn to either.)

https://splinternews.com/democrats-stumble-on-good-idea-that-theyre-absolutely-r-1829192550

Two consultants who work on Democratic campaigns called Axios to brag about all the money they’re about to make and ta-da, the one true master plan of all Democrats is revealed.

Your epistemic closure is especially embarrassing when you rely on 3rd-party cherry-picking of already-curated anonymously sourced quotes that came from a speaker phone in Jim fucking VandeHei’s office

speaking of the need for a renewed anti-military movement, copied from a friend but I cosign 100%

"Every single person that voted "yea" to approve this $607B military budget, the largest since the peak of the Iraq war, should be primaried then made to volunteer in an Afghani hospital.

That's all but seven of your senators, by the way. And only one of those seven wasn't a Republican.

Totally normal country."

https://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_lists/roll_call_vote_cfm.cfm?congress=115&session=2&vote=00212

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_rV2CwmzRLw&feature=youtu.be

anti-military movement

yeah, that’ll sell it

Maybe try “bring the troops home” or “end the war” or any of a dozen other simple options? Christ, what’s with the self-owns on this front.

that is a fair point, I am using outdated 80's terminology and I agree with you

and I meant "militarism" but was lazy and tired, your terms are better and blaming "the military" is a terrible idea as you note.

Veterans under 50 are generally really sympathetic to increasing domestic spending and taxing the rich to pay for it. They’re middle class or blue collar and they didn’t go over there to fight for tax cuts for the rich.

A lot of Senators who voted for that are good. Seems like it would be bad idea to focus on primarying them for this one vote.

with all due respect I don't think there's anything a Democrat could do, no matter how craven and awful, that would make you think they needed to be primaried

your viewpoint is basically the viewpoint that I want the party to move beyond

and yeah I'll give Merkley a pass here but I would LOVE to see Wyden replaced with an actual progressive

No I’ve voted against incumbents in primaries before. Chris Murphy is good on foreign policy and this vote on military spending doesn’t negate remotely that.

You’re friend seems like a million other people who don’t follow policy and just really feel the surface level appeal of “they’re all the same”

Wyden has done yeoman's work on the Senate Intelligence Committee. He observed the rules and never leaked classified info, but he all but blinked out distress messages in Morse Code to let the public know when the NSA was spying wholesale on American citizens. Snowden nailed that stuff to the church door, but Wyden was waving his arms about that stuff for years, back when the NSA director was flat-out lying to Congress about it.

So what are some good nuanced reasons to support this much military spending

xxp you would be incorrect there

Can anyone give a reasonably succinct rundown on why all the Democrats went along with this increased spending for military? Its supposed to be that compromise will then get them some of the stuff they want? Can't see where the positives are in terms of optics, right before midterms though - unless I'm misreading?

Spending bill isn’t an endorsement of military policy. Who and who doesn’t agree with say John Bolton’s views on intervention is about a million times more important and imperative a thing to be looking at.

"Why?" is my question to both of those sentences.

The nuanced reasons for massive military spending are mostly about our sitting in the geopolitical driver's seat by creating and maintaining dependencies within our alliances on the military protection and intelligence that we pay for and they either cannot afford or do not wish to pay for. Countries outside our treaty alliances that have regional or global ambitions, like Russia, Iran or China play the same game in much the same ways as we do, but we are the global big dog and maintain a world that is mostly inside our sphere of influence. If the USA backs away from that role, other powers will fill the resulting vacuum and influence the world in directions they find preferable.

Xpost Jobs would probably a big factor depending on which states they represent.

xp to Aimless disagree, look at what China's been doing in Africa with (largely) soft aid, although they do sell weapons

"jobs" seems like a stretch here, honestly, but it depends on the district I guess

while we waste all our money on this bullshit we are rapidly being surpassed and out maneuvered on the world stage in nearly every other arena, there's no excuse for this spending orgy other than "America is insane" imho

Circulating money into your district via the military-industrial complex doesn't count as 'nuanced' in my view. That's just raw back-scratching pork barrel politics of the crudest sort.

now that I agree with

Did your friend ever post about the Trump Admin pulling out of the Iran Deal?

not sure how that's relevant, honestly. fill me in if you want.

going back to that second sentence of yours, do you really still think Congress has any say in the use of military force? I'm pretty sure Bolton doesn't give a fuck what the Senate thinks when he orders the latest Yemeni drone strikes, or worse.

If you’re genuinely concerned about the dangers of militarism the US pulling out of the Iran Deal is far more important and consequential than this military spending bill. One the biggest nuclear/non-proliferator agreements in history torn up by hawks who want a war we’ll never be able to extract ourselves from, broad destabilization, won’t stop Iran from getting nuclear weapons and could lead to escalation with other nations.

RE: Bolton. Impending wars have a huge public relations component. It’s very important that congress as well as activists be opposed be vocal and public in their opposition and warn of the dangers. It’s one of the worse things to be “we can’t do anything about that!” about

I'm highly suspicious that no one left of center who's upset about defense spending is nonplussed about pulling out of the Iran deal. It's not really an either/or situation.

xp we literally can't do anything about it other than vote the fuckers out, they do not give a shit about protest anymore (I think protests are still worthwhile, but for other reasons like networking and therapy)

also milo's right, it's not a zero sum game where you only get one choice

Just slightly upthread there’s “let’s primary every democrat that voted for this one spending bill regardless if they would have never done/will strongly oppose the very dangerous Iran Deal pullout”

yup. and I agree with it 100% and would support any primary attempt based on that reasoning, they don't get a free pass because there's some other vote they made that you like

also, wtf is wrong with primary challenges from progressives?

your assumption seems to be that they are de facto bad

Let’s definitely focus right now on bitching about the Democrats who are against the apocalypse