We can’t drop them till there as bad or worse than Republicans. But we need to actually show some solidarity and engagement to get them to work to be better than Republicans and better than they are. Which most leftists are loathe to do. If we’re going to have a path to rank choice voting, multi-party systems, and more small d democratic representation. The path to that is through Democrats.
Don’t be absurd. Even hyperbolically that’s a stretch. And it’s nothing to do with inaction and everything to do with appeasement. It was wrong when Chamberlain did it and it’s wrong for Democrats to have done it and still do it. They are far better than Republicans while still being pretty bad in general but they have made real palpable positive changes in my lifetime. Slower than I’d like and not as far as I would like. But let’s be fair at least acknowledge it.
In my lifetime, the only thing of substance the Ds have done was the ACA…it’s arguably the worst fucking thing we could have possibly imagined for healthcare.
I don’t know if you’ve ever tried to get coverage off the market place, but for a family plan equivalent to my last employer is 2400 a month. That’s more than all my other bills combined.
It’s tragically bad at this point. Employers have realized they can fire staff and hire them back as contractors and not offer benefits. Those are the jobs Biden is touting…
Green energy is cool n all…but they need to gut the requirements for new cars to make them affordable. Who the fuck needs a forward facing camera? That will be standard in 2026…that’s a 500 dollar add on at least. Lane assist is standard…2k, airbags 2k a pop…the most bare bones bs EV you can buy is like 40k. (ICE isn’t much better due to all that shit)
No…the Democrats have not substantially made life better. They lost the supreme Court and let the R’s trash the constitution with abandon.
Obviously the strategy of voter shaming is acceptable to a lot of people.
I despise voter shaming. The politicians have to EARN our votes. Always. No exceptions.
Some folks are trying to flip this dynamic on its head, where the politician will do nice policies but only if we’re going to be good little boys and girls, shut up, stop making demands, and just vote for the billionaire-approved functionary.
My question is directed to you, the person who wrote
The Democratic Party cannot fail us.
I despise voter shaming. The politicians have to EARN our votes. Always. No exceptions.
This is kind of what I’m getting at. I interpreted your statement as “it is functionally impossible for the Democratic Party to not fail us” instead of "we need the Democratic Party to not fail us.
IMO, both of these things can be true:
Voting for the Democratic party is the best form of harm reduction available to us at this point in time
We should be critical of Democratic handling of <gestures vaguely at everything>
And the reason why it was allowed to get this far was exactly that attitude of “as long as they’re not as bad as the other team, they have my vote”.
Every time the Republicans moved right, the Dems moved with them, always chasing those (increasingly rare to the point of almost being extinct) “undecided” voters who are considering voting Republican but wouldn’t rather die than vote Dem.
As the Overton window has moved with the major parties, we now have literal fascists and anarcho-capitalists being described as if they were just your standard legitimate conservatives and a DEM president that governs to the right of Reagan on almost everything and to the right of everyone since Truman (or maybe even Hoover) on Israel, Saudi Arabia, and Iran, except for the Mango Mussolini himself.
All of that could have been avoided if people had held the people supposed to represent their best interests accountable beyond “I’ll vote for you as long as you’re even a tiny bit less bad than the alternative”.
All of that could have been avoided if people had held the people supposed to represent their best interests accountable beyond “I’ll vote for you as long as you’re even a tiny bit less bad than the alternative”.
Nope. The one and only thing that can move the overton window to the left is for Dems to win multiple elections in a row.
Yeah, because THAT will ever happen when they insist on sticking to the 1992 strategy of targeting only undecided almost-republicans, a dwindling and already tiny portion of the population 🙄
So literally anything the Democratic party does is acceptable?
Because that’s what it sounds like you’re saying
It’s sarcasm, but we’re in a tight spot where the Democratic party can get pretty bad before we should drop them.
We can’t drop them till there as bad or worse than Republicans. But we need to actually show some solidarity and engagement to get them to work to be better than Republicans and better than they are. Which most leftists are loathe to do. If we’re going to have a path to rank choice voting, multi-party systems, and more small d democratic representation. The path to that is through Democrats.
Their inaction is arguably worse than the Republican action. By sitting back and saying tsk tsk for 50 years they got us into this mess.
Don’t be absurd. Even hyperbolically that’s a stretch. And it’s nothing to do with inaction and everything to do with appeasement. It was wrong when Chamberlain did it and it’s wrong for Democrats to have done it and still do it. They are far better than Republicans while still being pretty bad in general but they have made real palpable positive changes in my lifetime. Slower than I’d like and not as far as I would like. But let’s be fair at least acknowledge it.
In my lifetime, the only thing of substance the Ds have done was the ACA…it’s arguably the worst fucking thing we could have possibly imagined for healthcare.
I don’t know if you’ve ever tried to get coverage off the market place, but for a family plan equivalent to my last employer is 2400 a month. That’s more than all my other bills combined.
It’s tragically bad at this point. Employers have realized they can fire staff and hire them back as contractors and not offer benefits. Those are the jobs Biden is touting…
Green energy is cool n all…but they need to gut the requirements for new cars to make them affordable. Who the fuck needs a forward facing camera? That will be standard in 2026…that’s a 500 dollar add on at least. Lane assist is standard…2k, airbags 2k a pop…the most bare bones bs EV you can buy is like 40k. (ICE isn’t much better due to all that shit)
No…the Democrats have not substantially made life better. They lost the supreme Court and let the R’s trash the constitution with abandon.
Acceptable to whom?
Obviously the strategy of voter shaming is acceptable to a lot of people.
I despise voter shaming. The politicians have to EARN our votes. Always. No exceptions.
Some folks are trying to flip this dynamic on its head, where the politician will do nice policies but only if we’re going to be good little boys and girls, shut up, stop making demands, and just vote for the billionaire-approved functionary.
My question is directed to you, the person who wrote
This is kind of what I’m getting at. I interpreted your statement as “it is functionally impossible for the Democratic Party to not fail us” instead of "we need the Democratic Party to not fail us.
IMO, both of these things can be true:
Only up until this exception: When the neofascist movement captures America. Then they won’t even need our votes, let alone earn them.
And the reason why it was allowed to get this far was exactly that attitude of “as long as they’re not as bad as the other team, they have my vote”.
Every time the Republicans moved right, the Dems moved with them, always chasing those (increasingly rare to the point of almost being extinct) “undecided” voters who are considering voting Republican but wouldn’t rather die than vote Dem.
As the Overton window has moved with the major parties, we now have literal fascists and anarcho-capitalists being described as if they were just your standard legitimate conservatives and a DEM president that governs to the right of Reagan on almost everything and to the right of everyone since Truman (or maybe even Hoover) on Israel, Saudi Arabia, and Iran, except for the Mango Mussolini himself.
All of that could have been avoided if people had held the people supposed to represent their best interests accountable beyond “I’ll vote for you as long as you’re even a tiny bit less bad than the alternative”.
Nope. The one and only thing that can move the overton window to the left is for Dems to win multiple elections in a row.
Yeah, because THAT will ever happen when they insist on sticking to the 1992 strategy of targeting only undecided almost-republicans, a dwindling and already tiny portion of the population 🙄