Democratic (Party) Direction

that's pretty stupid

I read as much of that as I could stand, but for someone who says he has no strategy and the direction of the left needs to be the result of a collective conversation, he makes one hell of a lot of assertions about strategy and most of them are hella simplistic and indistinguishable from neoliberalism. Not to mention the ones that are just wrong.

i like that it skipped from point 4 to 6. seemed illustrative of the entire argument: i live in a warped universe where there is no number 5

tuned out around 4 but kept scrolling and boy did it continue

it should be a crime for a 'tweet thread' to last more than two tweets

Who even are all these people!!! Posting things. Ffs

New board description

someone who's supposed to be - and often is - very smart

could've fooled me

I always think he's Matt Zoller Seitz

https://www.cnbc.com/2020/03/20/mike-bloomberg-to-donate-18-million-to-dnc-in-2020-election.html

and he spent something like, what, $600 million or so on his own primary campaign and made it sound like he would pitch in at least that much to defeat Trump in the general election?

I'm sure he'll spend a lot more, just wish he was doing it w/ his own pac or whatever and not through the party

https://www.mcclatchydc.com/news/politics-government/election/article243820362.html

of course

thinking about USPS, tax day, that two-year period of complete Democratic control of government we had a while ago, and how many small and easy things they didn't fix on account of none of them being normal people with normal problems

— 'Weird Alex' Pareene (@pareene) July 16, 2020

Democrats did not have a veto-proof majority until a few months in 2009, and Pareene knows that; but, yes, the USPS bill should've been repealed.

To be fair, I think everyone who supported Democrats in the 2006 & 2008 elections did it on the condition that Joe Lieberman, Ben Nelson be given veto power over everything.

I guess I shouldn’t say everyone but I know I did.

— Mike Racioppo (@RacioppoMike) July 16, 2020

i also disagree with the idea that "none of them are normal people with normal problems"
that's just not true and that's not why they didn't pay attention to the USPS during this short period

being a multimillionaire is not normal

A veto-proof majority isn’t needed when you have a Democratic President.

I think the issue is cloture not veto

putting on kid gloves to deal with Justice Dems

https://theintercept.com/2020/07/18/jamaal-bowman-nancy-pelosi-statement/

she also made a point of endorsing ilhan omar

Legalize Marijuana

DNC Platform
vote: 106n, 50y, 3a
% support: 31/67 (-36)
👈

Polling – Pew 11/19
Public: 67/32 (+35)
Dems: 78/20 (+58) ←

Medicare for All

DNC Platform
vote: 36y, 125n, 3a
% support: 22/76 (-54)
👈

Polling – KFF 5/20
Public: 57/40 (+17)
Dems: 78/19 (+59) ←

🤦‍♂️

But at least the president will tweet 5 times a year.

"We are proud our party welcomes advocates who want to build on and strengthen the Affordable Care Act and those who support a Medicare for All approach."

Incisive

absolutely worthless

One thing voters in 2020 really love is triangulation and taking a halfway approach on everything, like their health, and fossil fuels.

FWIW the majority of Americans also oppose eliminating private health insurance.

I.e. a lot of people think “Medicare For All” sounds like a great idea but when you poll them on policies that would be implemented under M4A they don’t like it

I thought it was the otherb way around?

The crumb crust is a texture and flavour thing - it just looks more appetising. Also seconding peas in cheese.

accidentally otm

depends which "policies that would be implemented" are being polled, I think. for example, "you get free healthcare forever" polls well. "the GOVERNMENT will tell HARD WORKING COMPANIES they CAN'T MAKE MONEY ANYMORE" polls badly.

the whole party apparatus is like a character in Jurassic Park trying to remain perfectly still as the election (T-Rex) gets closer because they think that's the only way they'll survive.

"the GOVERNMENT will tell HARD WORKING COMPANIES they CAN'T MAKE MONEY ANYMORE" polls badly.

I seriously doubt this is how the poll question is framed, and I’m guessing the reason people don’t want private insurance abolished is that they think it gives them more choices and lower costs, not that they’re concerned about the welfare of insurance companies.

I feel like it's the same reason a lot of people (indeed most people in the US) think public school should be a free, taxpayer-funded option for everyone, but also don't think private schools should be abolished, don't really get why anyone would think of this as a weird or hypocritical or unlikely stance for people to have.

(I think private schools should be abolished)

pvmic

show me one out-of-character post I've made! Actually don't I can think of some

no shade implied; we admire your consistency

they think it gives them more choices and lower costs

than... what? I believe you that a lot of people think this; a lot of people think American has 'the best' health care in the world! but that's just the result of decades of effective propaganda by the insurance industry, surely. i'm not implying it won't be hard to disabuse people of these ideas, of course

crut, you're right that my simplification doesn't capture a lot of the sentiment out there. but we know the whole routine by now and what the counterarguments and counterpropaganda moves are. it would be nice for the democratic party at the national level to look at the M4A polling, recognize the challenges, and participate in the organizing work needed to continue flipping those scripts. this is obviously a fantasy ---- but i'm just saying, i get why the contrast between the poll numbers and the platform votes is galling.

Exclusive: Democrats introduce a bill to fund legal assistance for those facing eviction. https://t.co/ihvF0Dx7HB

— Vox (@voxdotcom) July 28, 2020

this...doesn't really get to the root of the problem

This Alex Morse story is crazy. It seems like this guy (30-something mayor of a small MA city, primarying a Dem incumbent) was accused of using his talks to College Democrats groups as a way to meet undergrads who he'd then try to pick up on dating apps -- there was a huge amount of "it's not against any official rule to treat the audience at your campus visit as a group of potential sex partners, what's the problem here" defensiveness -- but now Intercept is reporting that the whole thing was a setup and Morse was NOT actually doing any of this and maybe even was being catfished by students supporting his opponent trying to gin up disqualifying text messages? What a mess.

yeah these kids should be ashamed and probably expelled. buttigieg canvassers, because of course
https://theintercept.com/2020/08/12/alex-morse-college-democrats-chats/

Timothy Ennis is going to have a long and lucrative career in the Democratic Party.

That story has grown crazier in the last 24 hours.

Wow Taibbi wrote an article defending Morse a couple days ago and I was rmde. Now it turns out it was a frame-job?

I thought this was good:

https://www.vox.com/2020/8/17/21369922/democratic-convention-dnc-speeches-lineup

Low-trust voters are something of a blind spot for the Democratic Party, which is run and funded by a group of people — cosmopolitan, diverse, well-educated, economically secure — who see the world in positive terms and who feel their personal concerns are frequently catered to by cultural tastemakers.

...

Democrats aren’t going to suddenly stop being the party of college educated cosmopolitans, and Joe Biden couldn’t reasonably campaign as a revolutionary outsider. But conventions are about choices and branding, and it’s striking that Democrats are choosing to dedicate so little time to highlighting voices who could speak to any of the demographic groups on the margins of their coalition — the diverse group of mostly young, mostly working-class people who feel the political system has lost interest in them.