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[smjjames]

EDIT: Not going to change this because I don't want to act like I didn't post it, but this came off MUCH nastier on reread than I intended it to, and I apologize for that.

It did take a few re-reads to completely get where it was going and yeah it's a bit harsh, but it's like a frustrated sort of harsh.

I don't think Salmongod meant it quite like that, just that there is frustration with compromise going nowhere fast.

As for 'compromise is evil', blame it on the Republicans who keep stonewalling and deciding that compromise is evil, leading to the Democrats becoming ever more frustrated and urgent at Republican inaction. Yes, I know inaction isn't quite the same thing as not compromising, but you can't compromise if you don't act.

This appealling to moderates and elections, unreciprocated compromise, navigating legislation based on "realism", etc has been the prevailing logic for 20 years. 

More than 20 years actually I think. The 90's were a heck of a lot less partisan (the way others tell it, not from personal experience since mine is about as long as yours) than things are today, Clinton impeachment debacle nonwithstanding.

[SalmonGod]

I understand how you could misunderstand what I'm saying that way, but this

"Compromise" is not a dirty word. If a policy that does 80%, or even 60% of what you want it to do can get passed, it is better than a 90% or 100% policy that has no chance. It is even worse when you're in a situation where you'd be able to get 70% or 80% if you hadn't been screaming "GIVE ME 100% OR GO TO HELL!", which is far from an uncommon situation. Deciding that "well, Candidate A isn't everything I want a candidate to be, but Candidate B who I like better will probably lose, so I'll support A" is basic logic - you won't get anywhere if you don't make the best effort to make some forward progress.

is not the reality of the last 20 years.

I would be fucking over the moon ecstatic like you wouldn't fucking believe to see my interests even 60% represented in politics.  I would celebrate like I just won a million dollars if a president was elected who represented me that well.

What we've seen in reality:

Pros

• Modest, gradual progress on the culture war (i.e. women's and LGBT rights).  That's a good thing.

Cons
Continuous, bleeding-from-the-neck magnitude of horrendous losses on the fronts of

• mass surveillance
• government and corporate secrecy/corruption
• the militarization and unaccountability of law enforcement
• economic inequality
• war profiteering/war crimes
• social programs
• infrastructure
• education policy and funding
• the environment

Democrats have sufficiently represented me on like 10-20% of my political interests.  And that's if I generously disregard the political interests I have which I understand to be far outside the realm of establishment politics, such as transitioning away from capitalism completely, where I know looking for representation is an impossible expectation.  Everything else has been sacrificed on the altar of pragmatism in legislative strategy and appealing-to-moderates in election strategy.  On the promise that winning comes first, and then all that other stuff comes second. 

Well... in the last 20 years, the appealing to moderates strategy lost us more elections than it's won.  Arguably, the only Democrat president since 1996 was also the least moderate-seeming candidate.  (compare Obama's optics to Gore, Kerry, and Hillary)  And even when we won elections AND CONTROLLED BOTH HOUSES, our legislative strategy STILL saw us losing ground on every single one of those bullet points above.

So tell me again why I should believe in it?

If what you say is true - that doing other than appealing to the minority while screeching that "ANYONE WHO DOESN'T AGREE WITH ME IN ALL WAYS IS FAR-RIGHT" will lose us all elections forever.  Then why even care?  If you're willing to decide that giving any consideration at all to the interests of 68% of the population is unthinkable, why are you even pretending that you believe in democracy instead of demanding Imperial rule by whoever you think is The God-Savior of Humanity?

And my argument has nothing to do with who we appeal to or how we label those who disagree with us.  I'm not looking for 100% purity, and I am absolutely not the type to label someone far-right over any disagreement.

My argument was that the environment is collapsing, and we have a very limited time to do anything about it.  We are at a point where it will take radical action to prevent apocalypse-level bad stuff from happening within our lifetimes.  We either succeed in radical action, or we all die.  This is not hyperbole.  Do or die.  Scientific certainty.

In this context, does winning an election even matter anymore if we give up our chances of survival in the process?  How is that winning?

[scourge728]

If it's true we only have 18 months left to save the planet, then what I do doesn't matter anymore, so might as well live it up

[SalmonGod]

Cons
Continuous, bleeding-from-the-neck magnitude of horrendous losses on the fronts of

• mass surveillance
• government and corporate secrecy/corruption
• the militarization and unaccountability of law enforcement
• economic inequality
• war profiteering/war crimes
• social programs
• infrastructure
• education policy and funding
• the environment

It's worth pointing out that my bullet-point list of cons is not radical stuff.  That's all really common, basic leftist priorities.  And it's common for establishment Democrats to openly take conservative positions on like half of them.  Look at the shit Biden says and his record, and how that relates to those bullet points.  If that is what appealing to moderates is about, then what this means for me is that if I vote strategically based on what can win the election by appealing to moderates, then I am voting in support of throwing away almost all of my political interests.  It's pro-actively championing 90% horrible just to prevent 100% horrible, and life continually getting worse and worse forever.  Something has to change at some point.  What better time than the apocalypse?

If it's true we only have 18 months left to save the planet, then what I do doesn't matter anymore, so might as well live it up

Might as well take a chance on not supporting shitty candidates, too.  What do you have to lose?

[scourge728]

that wasn't intended to be related to the prior discussion btw

[MetalSlimeHunt]

Ok but... All of those people you described are swing voters, though, Metal. A swing voter is any person who is not a firm supporter of any particular political party who votes based on other issues. Their vote can go to any candidate based on their own views and needs, which can be difficult to quantify.
 
It's not any specific group of people, just the ones whose votes do not directly correlate with political membership/affiliation. That is what a swing voter is.

Wow, what's this gore-splattered goalpost doing sticking out of my chest? I wrote a whole sarcastic paragraph about that but it's really more productive to just say that's not what swing voters are. Not one page ago did you see the actual use of the words swing voter, which is moving from center-right to just plain right in a vain attempt to strip voters off the far-right. And I know this because never in my fucking lifetime has a big name Republican ran on getting swing voters. That's just their normal base. Because swing voters don't exist.

People all vote based on their own views and needs, they're not p-zombies for their party id. Some people just know what they want, or at least the only option to potentially get what they want. But again, you can't satisfy anybody's needs as long as the approach to politics is mystical instead of materialist. You can just learn to talk good and occasionally succeed by accident, not that 95% of elected officials can even clear that bar.

If what you say is true - that doing other than appealing to the minority while screeching that "ANYONE WHO DOESN'T AGREE WITH ME IN ALL WAYS IS FAR-RIGHT" will lose us all elections forever.  Then why even care?  If you're willing to decide that giving any consideration at all to the interests of 68% of the population is unthinkable, why are you even pretending that you believe in democracy instead of demanding Imperial rule by whoever you think is The God-Savior of Humanity?


"Compromise" is not a dirty word. If a policy that does 80%, or even 60% of what you want it to do can get passed, it is better than a 90% or 100% policy that has no chance. It is even worse when you're in a situation where you'd be able to get 70% or 80% if you hadn't been screaming "GIVE ME 100% OR GO TO HELL!", which is far from an uncommon situation. Deciding that "well, Candidate A isn't everything I want a candidate to be, but Candidate B who I like better will probably lose, so I'll support A" is basic logic - you won't get anywhere if you don't make the best effort to make some forward progress.

I love how these two paragraphs are perfectly and directly hypocritical unless and only unless you are approaching the argument from the exact presumption SG and I are criticizing - that the left needs to shut up and serve as the base of centrists. In my opinion, since centrist candidates are all demonstrably proven failures going back to before Nixon, they clearly need to step aside and serve as the base of the left. Hey, we'll throw you 20%, promise. Act quickly, this deal is only available for a limited time.

Also, god how I wish everyone who disagreed with me was far-right. At least then all other leftists would realize soon enough that there was no point in trying to persuade obvious opponents. I don't know if the center will default to fash as we enter the long crisis, but I bet if they do they'll still be casting out those sparkly lures of Reasoned Debate even as the extermination orders are signed with a heavy heart and a "what else could you do?".

I would be fucking over the moon ecstatic like you wouldn't fucking believe to see my interests even 60% represented in politics.  I would celebrate like I just won a million dollars if a president was elected who represented me that well.

Yeah, this. Even the leftmost wing of the Democrats is getting to, on a good day, maybe 35% of what I'm looking for. A big chunk is probably held secretly by some members but would get you censured if not impeached (see Ilhan Omar getting an act of Congress passed by her own "allies" to censure her for saying that maybe Israel should consider not constantly murdering Palestinians), and a big chunk just isn't discussed at all by anybody outside politics nerds.

Although I do like the latter somewhat since it's easy to convince people about something that Fox News doesn't know to brainwash them on.

[McTraveller]

So realistically - over how large a geographic area, encompassing how large a population, do you want to make reforms?  If you start looking at things from that perspective, then you can probably get things moving in the direction you want. I mean look at the Libertarians who were/are trying to take over New Hampshire.  Why not even just try to get a bunch of like-minded people together in a county or two?

I mean - do you really have to fix the entire world? Why not just affect a city or two to start?  I bet if you could do that, actually, you'd probably have a pretty good shot at affecting much larger areas.

In other words - don't not do something because it's not "big enough".

[Dunamisdeos]

Ok but... All of those people you described are swing voters, though, Metal. A swing voter is any person who is not a firm supporter of any particular political party who votes based on other issues. Their vote can go to any candidate based on their own views and needs, which can be difficult to quantify.
 
It's not any specific group of people, just the ones whose votes do not directly correlate with political membership/affiliation. That is what a swing voter is.

Wow, what's this gore-splattered goalpost doing sticking out of my chest? I wrote a whole sarcastic paragraph about that but it's really more productive to just say that's not what swing voters are. Not one page ago did you see the actual use of the words swing voter, which is moving from center-right to just plain right in a vain attempt to strip voters off the far-right. And I know this because never in my fucking lifetime has a big name Republican ran on getting swing voters. That's just their normal base. Because swing voters don't exist.

People all vote based on their own views and needs, they're not p-zombies for their party id. Some people just know what they want, or at least the only option to potentially get what they want. But again, you can't satisfy anybody's needs as long as the approach to politics is mystical instead of materialist. You can just learn to talk good and occasionally succeed by accident, not that 95% of elected officials can even clear that bar.

.......Metal, a swing voter isn't someone who votes based on their views and needs as opposed to a person who does not. It's not even a dichotomy against the concept of people who vote solely based on party lines.
 
Swing voters are the people without a clear, discernible pattern based on political affiliation. It's just a common term for it.

[Reelya]

If it were truly winning strategy, we would have gotten somewhere by now.  But everything is shit. 

That's because they are using that strategy too. You can't expect to always win. But, abandoning the middle and isn't the right response. It's like if your team is losing at football, and you say "well each game we try passing the ball, but we end up losing, let's not pass the ball anymore". Hint: passing the ball isn't why you were losing. But if you actually count every election since 1992, Democrats have won 4 times, Republicans 3 times. The strategy does actually work.

Nobody is saying you have to copy Trumps ideas or any bullshit, but you need to find a thing that's going to claim the center. That could be improved health care. Why do you think the Republicans are always saying "tax relief"? First, it's something that anyone can say "sure, I'd like that" and secondly, it puts the spin on the language: "relief". Saying "tax breaks" implies that it's giving back something you owe, whereas "tax relief" is a stroke of genius in phrasing.

"Medicare for all" works as a slogan too, does basically the same thing as just bleating "tax relief", which is why the emphasis is on "medicare for all" as the Democrat side's version of mindless populism. Just making everyone eligible for Medicare by itself is a shit idea, and doesn't do a whole lot to address any of the actual problems with the health system. But ... first, Medicare is something cuts across both sides of the political spectrum, similar to the tax issue, pretty much everyone may have family members or friends getting Medicare, so the concept of just expanding Medicare eligibility for everyone is something anyone can get on board with. Also, if you oppose it, it's similar to saying you oppose "tax relief". A lot of the Republican base receive Medicare, so if they point out the cost issues with Medicare costs, it sounds like they're anti-Medicare, and the Republicans may be in bed with the companies doing price-gouging under the Medicare system, so they're stuck between a rock and a hard place and can't easily mount a sensible objection.

[Reelya]

Double-post, but I wanted to point out I've just read about Elizabeth Warren not being able to give details of her Medicare for All proposal. They act like that's a bug, but actually, it's a feature. "Medicare for all" is a slogan. If you start explaining details then you've lost, they get you on the details. It's like Medicare, right? And it's for you all. Right? If you start explaining about how you're going to pay for it, it would be like campaigning on "tax relief" then immediately listing all the stuff you're going to cut to pay for that.

EDIT:

But everything is shit.  Abandon your typical statistics-based approach for a moment and look at recent history.  Why should anyone who looks back at the last 20 years believe in this shit anymore? 

Yeah well that's one perspective. But ... pretty everything was actually shittier before. What we have now is omnipresent media which makes it seem like terrible things are more common than ever, but that's mostly illusory, similar to how murders are down but the media reports on murders more.

Pretty much everything was more shit before. Higher chance of homicide, more prevalence of rape, shorter lifespans. If you want shit, look at the 1980s.

EDIT: it used to be that decreases in the crime rate correlated pretty well with Americans polled as believing there was less crime. That stopped being true around 2000, probably when the internet started becoming a news source for people. Crime's continued to fall most years since then overall but every year there's a consistently high proportion of Americans, about 70% who constantly believe crime is on the rise year to year
https://news.gallup.com/poll/186308/americans-say-crime-rising.aspx

[Kagus]

I know people who are fundamentally opposed to the idea of Medicare for All, despite knowing or being people who are directly benefitting from Medicare, because it conflicts with the American dream of paving your own way and working hard enough to afford the things you need in life. The only people I know who are opposed to tax relief/cuts are the ones who think about it longer than a slogan and go "well that's probably not gonna work like that", making it less of a spiritual issue. Those people are fairly few and far between.

I get the comparison, but I feel like the left doesn't really have a good blanket slogan that hasn't already been poisoned by the right...



...and of course there are people who were never swing voters to begin with, but who will proudly fight and die on the hill that Obamacare is ruining the country, despite only being alive today because the ACA saved their dumb asses when they were diagnosed with life-threatening illnesses they couldn't afford to treat... Some folks are just swayed by idiots who are full of sound and fury, and leave logic and reasoning completely in the dust because they're not used to working with those concepts anyways.

[SalmonGod]

But if you actually count every election since 1992, Democrats have won 4 times, Republicans 3 times. The strategy does actually work.

Ok.  So you add Clinton to the mix.  In the Clinton era, off the top of my head...

• landmark bank de-regulation
• the first free trade agreements accelerated the worst aspects of globalism
• racist crime legislation essentially re-established slavery/Jim Crow in order to feed the new private prison industry (thanks Hillary & Biden)
• ECHELON began tapping into satellite and the internet planting the seeds of today's style of mass surveillance
• law enforcement's brutal new millennium approaches to activism were prototyped in 1999's Battle in Seattle

What actually worked here?  Just winning elections doesn't mean anything if we don't actually do better on any of these things

• mass surveillance
• government and corporate secrecy/corruption
• the militarization and unaccountability of law enforcement
• economic inequality
• war profiteering/war crimes
• social programs
• infrastructure
• education policy and funding
• the environment apocalypse

Without even touching the nature of the elections in the 90's (I was in high school government class during the 2000 election, and was taught that Bush and Gore's strategies were a major departure from recent history), you're telling me that an overall net loss on my political interests means a strategy is "working".

Yeah well that's one perspective. But ... pretty everything was actually shittier before. What we have now is omnipresent media which makes it seem like terrible things are more common than ever, but that's mostly illusory, similar to how murders are down but the media reports on murders more.

Pretty much everything was more shit before. Higher chance of homicide, more prevalence of rape, shorter lifespans. If you want shit, look at the 1980s.

Yeah, crime rates have fallen (among the general population).  I know this.  I'm one of those people who regularly reminds people of this when they're gasp-gossiping about whatever terrible thing is on the news.  That doesn't mean that a lot of other things I care about haven't gotten worse.  Like... that bullet point list of my political interests that I've repeated 3 times now.  All of those things have gotten worse.  Including... you know... the fucking apocalypse.  Tell me how any single one of them has gotten better, and you might earn a little respect for your message.

[Trolldefender99]

Apparently trump tried to blackmail/stranglehold (correct term? Threatening with punishment...) the ukraine president to investigate Biden (or his son...both?). Never has a US president been so brazen with corruption, except maybe nixon but I wasn't around in his time. Trump knows biden would beat him and is now using dirty nasty tactics to do anything possible to undermine his potential candidacy. A severe abuse of power. Sadly it takes both congress and senate to impeach, and its not likely senate is gonna do that being trump controlled.

[smjjames]

Extortion would be a closer word, but it still falls in the same bucket of corrupt behavior as extortion and blackmail.

[Doomblade187]

Oh, btw. I feel like we're overly picking on Trolldefender here: they actually did read up when we noted them of places to learn more.