Tinidril @ Tinidril @midwest.social

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2 yr. ago

Damn. So, no right wing government exists or has ever existed will ever exist or could ever exist. What a clever model you dreamt up. No wonder you find it so easy to defend establishment Democrats. Everyone is just as good as everyone else if just put in the right context. You are certainly right about the math. It's a pretty damn useless way to model the world though.

It's called an analogy. Actual AIDS policy is irrelevant to my point.

But hey, "both sidez" lol

Here is something "both sides" do, thought terminating cliches.

So, half of the Taliban is left wing? Half of the third Reich was left wing? No, the center of office holders is not how we measure political leanings. You can go with political theory that defines left and right in a pretty fixed way, or you can go by the center of the population. By either of those standards, the Democrats are moderate right wing.

There is nothing particularly "stupid" about Americans. They are just flawed humans, and there is a reason for the mismatch between where they fall on issues and where they fall on (let's call them) themes. The themes come from the narratives they receive from our two right wing parties. Ask them about particular issues and they think like individuals. Ask them about themes and they line up with the narratives coming to them from our two right wing parties.

That's not even a proper use of that meme.

If Americans don't wake up to the fact that both of our parties have been leading us down a road that only leads to fascism, we will just keep sinking in the quicksand.

Look at it like this. Democrats are AIDS and Republicans are pneumonia. AIDS will never be the thing that kills you, but it's the thing that should have been addressed to avoid the pneumonia. Pneumonia will absolutely kill you, but only takes hold when there is already a broader issue.

Democrats took away our ability to effectively fight fascism, and now fascism has come for us. We might beat fascism back for a time, but failing to address the broader issue means that time will be short.

Huh? What center are we talking about? Democrats are left of Republicans (marginally before Trump, but still) but the center of office holders is a pointless measure. Issue by issue the Democrats are solidly to the right of the vast majority of the US population.

To be clear, you already have to prove you are a citizen to vote. It's done through the voter registration process which has to be done before you can vote. The new requirement would be that the ID used at the polling place include proof of citizenship, which is completely unnecessary.

There is zero evidence of any significant number of non-citizens on the voter rolls, and zero evidence of a significant number of voters using false identities. The few cases we have seen could never swing an election and are almost entirely done by Republicans.

Neoliberalism is proto fascism. Fascism is where the Democrats have led us. They are not anti-authoritarian, they are just not as authoritarian as the fascists.

Neoliberalism is not a left of center political philosophy. We have to right of center parties and a moderately left of center population. That's why the Democrats are always referred to as the lesser of two evils.

The problem is that every time Republicans get something like this passed, their very next step will be to make it harder to get. Maybe they add new requirements to get the ID, or maybe they close half the administrative offices in "undesirable" districts, or maybe they raise the cost. It's always something. Their goal is not to secure elections, it's to discourage people from voting. The people it discourages most are the ones with the least free time to jump through hoops. A single mother with two jobs is not going to allocate too much time to voting.

So, what is the party going to do about it? If the answer is nothing, then the party itself shares the blame. Republicans enforce party discipline while Democrats use a lack of party discipline as an excuse.

What do Democrats have to do with the left? Especially the Democrats in question.

Establishment Democrats have shived the left a million times and I never hear this pearl clutching about how they are "dividing the left" from folks like you. When a progressive primaries a corporate Democrat we get told that we shouldn't mess with incumbents. When a corporate Democrat challenges a seated progressive, the establishment pumps tens of thousands of dollars into the challengers campaign.

We aren't "dividing the left", we are acknowledging a divide between the left and third way neoliberals. Establishment candidates want our votes and especially our donations, but then they want us to sit down and shut up.

Thanks for explaining how voting works but ignoring the impact of money is lunacy. There aren't enough "progressive voters" in any district in the country to win an election. The same can be said about conservative, libertarian, socialist, or MAGA voters. The vast majority of voters are not policy wonks and, if they even claim a political philosophy, they sure can't explain it.

Which, far too often, is whomever has the most money. The Democratic establishment and AIPAC have successfully flooded progressives out in several races. It's not that we can't win, but it's clear that the party is against us, which was my point. It's not just a handful of shitty Democrats we need to replace.

Try to primary them and see how fast the Democratic establishment is to come to their defense. "Democrats" is fair. Not all Democrats, but the party establishment is rotten.

Yeah, at this point it's beyond clear that it goes beyond "a few bad apples". Any attempt to primary these fuckers will have to overcome a tidal wave of Democratic establishment and AIPAC money.

It is on Facebook and X-itter.

I just said that I have the same problems with SA that I do with Israel. If you don't want to rehash things, you have a weird way of showing it. The fact that there are reasons why one impacted the election and the other didn't, and the fact that Israel was intentionally manipulating our election were undiscussed, but don't contradict what I was saying.

Public support for Israel in Gaza had dropped to around 60% long before the election, despite both parties and the media constantly glazing Netanyahu. Imagine how low it would have dropped if Democrats had a backbone and actually acted like leaders. That was the path to overcome Netanyahu's interference - not to mention avoiding participation in a genocide.

When leaders lead, people follow. Republicans don't twist their positions into pretzels looking for a path to appeal to 51% of the electorate. They tell people what to believe, and they do it with conviction. Most of the population wants that, even if they won't admit it. That's why Democrats are so universally dispised, even by their voters.

You know this isn't Reddit, right? You and your fellow bots can downvote me all you want. I won't miss the karma.

So, I'm supposed to believe that you have no idea how "on the ballot" is regularly used in politics to refer to something that is not literally written there? Please. There is no way you are that obtuse.

As for Saudi Arabia, sure. It's not what we were discussing, but all the problems I have with Israel can easily apply in some form to Saudi Arabia, with one exception. Support for SA was not polling in a way that was a concern for the election - which is the topic we were discussing. (Well, what everyone else was discussing. I don't know what the hell you are doing.)

Yeah, that's what I thought.