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United States40776 Posts
On April 28 2017 10:02 a_flayer wrote:Show nested quote +On April 28 2017 10:00 KwarK wrote:On April 28 2017 09:52 a_flayer wrote:On April 28 2017 09:49 KwarK wrote:On April 28 2017 09:26 a_flayer wrote: You know whats embarrassing? Giving up a free win to the Orange Fuckface von Clownstick, Man-Baby, Comedy Entrapment and Unrepentant Narcissistic Asshole that is Donald Trump. You might know him as Mr President. Who only won because of the bullshit electoral system of constituency FPTP, exactly the same system you're refusing to acknowledge in your strategy to deal with him. No, I just don't think he is the only one that needs to be dealt with. If the Dems splinter then the damage will be done exclusively to those who believe in left leaning causes. Exclusively. According to a certain Democratic presidential candidate, economic policy is one the few areas where the Republicans and Democrats see eye to eye. Democrats are hardly on the left. Thus returning to the problem. You see the Democrats as being insufficiently ideologically pure by your own leftist standards and therefore want to give the Republicans total control of the government until things get better. Ask the north of Britain how that turned out. At no point does the opposition who benefit from the division say "we sure are tired of getting to ignore the plight of most of the population and getting what we want all the time". A strategy built on throwing victories and power at the people you disagree with until they do what you want isn't a working strategy. You can't threaten to keep giving the Republicans electoral victories until they listen to you and expect them to suddenly start listening.
In FPTP you must form a coalition before the ballot box. There are no take-backs. No "well if I'd known Trump would win I'd have voted Democrat, not Green". No nothing. If you don't form the coalition before the ballot box then there is no coalition. You are advocating for the breakup of the coalition between the economic leftists and the social leftists. Nothing good is coming out of that.
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I think we are witnessing a rejection of liberalism world wide though. If france leaves the EU that will seal the deal for me that liberal ideas have gone too far, so much that trump and brexit and any future political earth quake is simply a correction. Will you guys actually correct? or just blame the EC, russia, Comey? Gotta be careful of ideology, and ironically Trump actually cleansed the republican party a bit of their purity. That is a good thing.
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United States40776 Posts
On April 28 2017 10:13 biology]major wrote: I think we are witnessing a rejection of liberalism world wide though. If france leaves the EU that will seal the deal for me that liberal ideas have gone too far, so much that trump and brexit and any future political earth quake is simply a correction. Will you guys actually correct? or just blame the EC, russia, Comey? Gotta be careful of ideology, and ironically Trump actually cleansed the republican party a bit of their purity. That is a good thing. I disagree. Most of the Western world doesn't use FPTP. Only the oldest nations with continual government since the 19th Century and a British legacy do. Populism is almost exclusively a FPTP problem and newer countries don't use it.
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On April 28 2017 10:13 biology]major wrote: I think we are witnessing a rejection of liberalism world wide though. If france leaves the EU that will seal the deal for me that liberal ideas have gone too far, so much that trump and brexit and any future political earth quake is simply a correction. Will you guys actually correct? or just blame the EC, russia, Comey? Gotta be careful of ideology, and ironically Trump actually cleansed the republican party a bit of their purity. That is a good thing. Isn't Le Pen down like 30 points in the polls? It's not likely at all. Beyond the scope of this thread though.
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United States40776 Posts
On April 28 2017 10:15 Nevuk wrote:Show nested quote +On April 28 2017 10:13 biology]major wrote: I think we are witnessing a rejection of liberalism world wide though. If france leaves the EU that will seal the deal for me that liberal ideas have gone too far, so much that trump and brexit and any future political earth quake is simply a correction. Will you guys actually correct? or just blame the EC, russia, Comey? Gotta be careful of ideology, and ironically Trump actually cleansed the republican party a bit of their purity. That is a good thing. Isn't Le Pen down like 30 points in the polls? It's not likely at all. Beyond the scope of this thread though. France doesn't use FPTP. Le Pen has a minority of dedicated supporters which made the first round extremely competitive, coming within a million votes of a plurality (which is a win in FPTP). But in the second round all but the top two candidates of the first round are eliminated, forcing both candidates to attempt to create a coalition with the other parties who were eliminated in the first round to win over their supporters for the second round. In a FPTP system Le Pen could easily have won. But this isn't FPTP, this is forced coalition rule and a broad coalition against Le Pen is likely to form.
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I'm sure she's hoping for a few more ISIS attacks since that's her biggest talking point.
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Maybe she should go hold some more press conferences with Putin holding up a giant check lol. I'm sure that helps her chances.
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On April 27 2017 21:12 Danglars wrote:Show nested quote +On April 27 2017 18:23 Biff The Understudy wrote: So this tax reform is a textbook reverse Robin Hood apparently. Steal to the poor, give to the rich. I guess those transfer of wealth upward are deep down the raison d'être of the GOP. Bake it with a sauce of white resentment and you pull the perfect con by getting blue collars to vote to get robbed.
People who know their Washington, is it going to pass? Because at a time where inequalities are one of our biggest problems, this is simply horrifying. Inasmuch as you can admit the current progressive tax system is Robin Hood and a focus on inequality is pure societal envy, you can be right. If Robin Hood slows his robbery or quits the trade and things return more to keeping the money you make, it will always be criticized by progressives/progressive-leaders as tax cuts for the rich, trickle-down, etc. It's pretty passé at this point and about as surprising as claiming Republicans don't care about minorities.
So Danglars attributes inequality concerns to pure societal envy. Perhaps the better word would be ressentiment. Resentment is the problem. It is the fundamental (re)action to social violence. Jean Pierre Dupuy would say that it only possible to contain this violence through the institution of the sacred, which allows for what Hayek would call "self-exteriorization" or the process whereby humans institute a hierarchy that contains the founding violence of civilization by creating an external hinge upon which to contain it. For most societies throughout history that hinge has been god(s).
But Hayek grasped that societally organizing logic in a secular sense and so for him "the market" is the organizing capacity upon which secular, liberal society is founded. The market's logic structures thereby offer the hinge for liberal subjects of a certain worldview (i.e. Hayekian disciples like Danglars) to institute the sacred, which structures and contains (in Dupuy's double sense of hierarchically dominating and restraining) the ressentiment that inevitably result in those societies.
So for Hayek (and presumably for Danglars) the market just is, and to fulfill its telos we need to maximize the market freedoms that allows us liberal subjects to exchange information (via market mechanisms) and thereby maximize market value. Appeals to "supply side economics" are not empirical, or rational, they are sacred shibboleths which underwrite the legitimacy of market-based hierarchy. I think the morality here is more nuanced than some of the middlebrow posters might recognize. Hayek doesn't condemn the unsuccessful, because he recognizes the importance of chance and market inefficiencies. It's just that any of the barbarisms resulting from unfettered market logics are simply the price that must be paid, the sacrifice, if you will, to the gods.
The problem of course is that during periods of crisis, hierarchies are destabilized. The sacred is profaned. The market logic which contained the violence of (neo)liberal democracy becomes blurred, losing its emotional/spiritual force. But we can't just tear down the sacred and leave pure violence to spiral out of control. That is the problem with liberal left reform, and specifically the Democratic party. It shuts its eyes to the crisis going on around it, without offering a new vision. It leaves the collapsing hierarchy intact.
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On April 28 2017 12:12 IgnE wrote:Show nested quote +On April 27 2017 21:12 Danglars wrote:On April 27 2017 18:23 Biff The Understudy wrote: So this tax reform is a textbook reverse Robin Hood apparently. Steal to the poor, give to the rich. I guess those transfer of wealth upward are deep down the raison d'être of the GOP. Bake it with a sauce of white resentment and you pull the perfect con by getting blue collars to vote to get robbed.
People who know their Washington, is it going to pass? Because at a time where inequalities are one of our biggest problems, this is simply horrifying. Inasmuch as you can admit the current progressive tax system is Robin Hood and a focus on inequality is pure societal envy, you can be right. If Robin Hood slows his robbery or quits the trade and things return more to keeping the money you make, it will always be criticized by progressives/progressive-leaders as tax cuts for the rich, trickle-down, etc. It's pretty passé at this point and about as surprising as claiming Republicans don't care about minorities. So Danglars attributes inequality concerns to pure societal envy. Perhaps the better word would be ressentiment. Resentment is the problem. It is the fundamental (re)action to social violence. Jean Pierre Dupuy would say that it only possible to contain this violence through the institution of the sacred, which allows for what Hayek would call "self-exteriorization" or the process whereby humans institute a hierarchy that contains the founding violence of civilization by creating an external hinge upon which to contain it. For most societies throughout history that hinge has been god(s). But Hayek grasped that societally organizing logic in a secular sense and so for him "the market" is the organizing capacity upon which secular, liberal society is founded. The market's logic structures thereby offer the hinge for liberal subjects of a certain worldview (i.e. Hayekian disciples like Danglars) to institute the sacred, which structures and contains (in Dupuy's double sense of hierarchically dominating and restraining) the ressentiment that inevitably result in those societies. So for Hayek (and presumably for Danglars) the market just is, and to fulfill its telos we need to maximize the market freedoms that allows us liberal subjects to exchange information (via market mechanisms) and thereby maximize market value. Appeals to "supply side economics" are not empirical, or rational, they are sacred shibboleths which underwrite the legitimacy of market-based hierarchy. I think the morality here is more nuanced than some of the middlebrow posters might recognize. Hayek doesn't condemn the unsuccessful, because he recognizes the importance of chance and market inefficiencies. It's just that any of the barbarisms resulting from unfettered market logics are simply the price that must be paid, the sacrifice, if you will, to the gods. The problem of course is that during periods of crisis, hierarchies are destabilized. The sacred is profaned. The market logic which contained the violence of (neo)liberal democracy becomes blurred, losing its emotional/spiritual force. But we can't just tear down the sacred and leave pure violence to spiral out of control. That is the problem with liberal left reform, and specifically the Democratic party. It shuts its eyes to the crisis going on around it, without offering a new vision. It leaves the collapsing hierarchy intact. The focus on it in isolation, particularly when people say wealth inequality is one of our biggest problems at the moment, is absolutely a case of it and I stand by it. But let's say you want to make the social violence play, that it will erode societal trust, sacred property rights, even the moral forces that say I respect your property as means of legitimizing my demand that you respect mine. Then I could agree with parts of the collapsing hierarchy (though I can't entirely accept your framing), and how the Hayekian vision alone cannon sustain it. You might even say our constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.
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it's very convenient to have a God who agrees with Hayek and thinks property is sacred
"Do not suppose that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I did not come to bring peace, but a sword."
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The only reason to try to form a national party to the left of the Democrats is if you believe they are so rotten that it is worth ceding power to the Republicans for the foreseeable future in order to force a change of direction in the long term. And that is only worth it if you think your long term gains are so great that they are worth giving up on anything you might win in the short term.
GH looks like he's there. I didn't think anybody else in this thread thought it was worth having Trumpyancare, unbridled Reaganomics and no EPA for dubious promises of a future Utopia.
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On April 28 2017 08:35 KwarK wrote:Show nested quote +On April 28 2017 08:23 GreenHorizons wrote:On April 28 2017 08:13 a_flayer wrote: Can someone explain to me how the Republican Party got started? ikr. It is how it is and was and always will be. Accept and embrace your corporate overlords already. No but seriously, He's more popular than they are, if he waits for the right moment it could work. A significant number of Democrats (republicans too) could just as easily vote progressive if it meant full coffers and winning elections. It's a small number within the party that directly benefit or ideologically agree with the whole neoliberal thing they have going. GH don't embarrass yourself further by adding yourself to the roster of fools who promote third parties in a two party system. It's been tried plenty of times, what you get is Maggie Thatcher winning a landslide, modelling herself on Reagan and engaging in class warfare. In 1981 four of the most senior figures in the British Labour Party defected and founded their own party, the SDP (now the Lib Dems). In the 1983 election Labour got 8,456,934 votes, 27.6% of all votes cast. The SDP got 7,780,949, 25.4% of all votes cast. The Conservatives got 13,012,316 votes, 42.4% of all votes cast and a colossal majority in Parliament, 61.1% of all seats. They actually got a lower share of the votes than they had in the preceding election, down from 43.9%. It's not just theoretically impossible, the theory that says that the divided vote will fuck the voters over has been shown to be true plenty of times. The SDP (Lib Dem) got fucked over and over until 1997 when they ran a coordinated campaign with Labour, the party they splintered away from, where Labour voters would vote Lib Dem in Conservative seats where Lib Dems were second and Lib Dem voters would vote Labour in Conservative seats where Labour were second.
That you're so arrogantly sure that it can't happen reminds me of something....
Democrats are collapsing in on themselves, and that's why they spastically attacked Bernie over the Mello thing. They are scared he is taking control of the base, and they're right. It's a small but vocal minority within the party with animosity toward Sanders, but nearly unanimous distaste in corporate media and people are putting that together.
With just the right spark the Democratic party could easily combust into a flaming garbage heap with politicians fleeing toward anything that isn't them.
No doubt the cards are stacked against such a thing, but if I were you I'd take a break about being too sure about what's politically possible.
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On April 28 2017 10:08 KwarK wrote:Show nested quote +On April 28 2017 10:02 a_flayer wrote:On April 28 2017 10:00 KwarK wrote:On April 28 2017 09:52 a_flayer wrote:On April 28 2017 09:49 KwarK wrote:On April 28 2017 09:26 a_flayer wrote: You know whats embarrassing? Giving up a free win to the Orange Fuckface von Clownstick, Man-Baby, Comedy Entrapment and Unrepentant Narcissistic Asshole that is Donald Trump. You might know him as Mr President. Who only won because of the bullshit electoral system of constituency FPTP, exactly the same system you're refusing to acknowledge in your strategy to deal with him. No, I just don't think he is the only one that needs to be dealt with. If the Dems splinter then the damage will be done exclusively to those who believe in left leaning causes. Exclusively. According to a certain Democratic presidential candidate, economic policy is one the few areas where the Republicans and Democrats see eye to eye. Democrats are hardly on the left. Thus returning to the problem. You see the Democrats as being insufficiently ideologically pure by your own leftist standards and therefore want to give the Republicans total control of the government until things get better.
1) You're using "ideological purity" to describe the difference between the approach of economy by socdems and liberals, which is kind of insane. 2) You're assuming that the creation of an economically leftwing party would only draw votes from the liberals and not from the republicans, which I would argue has little basis in reality and only seems intuitive to you because you view it through the prism of social issues.
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On April 28 2017 16:20 Nebuchad wrote:Show nested quote +On April 28 2017 10:08 KwarK wrote:On April 28 2017 10:02 a_flayer wrote:On April 28 2017 10:00 KwarK wrote:On April 28 2017 09:52 a_flayer wrote:On April 28 2017 09:49 KwarK wrote:On April 28 2017 09:26 a_flayer wrote: You know whats embarrassing? Giving up a free win to the Orange Fuckface von Clownstick, Man-Baby, Comedy Entrapment and Unrepentant Narcissistic Asshole that is Donald Trump. You might know him as Mr President. Who only won because of the bullshit electoral system of constituency FPTP, exactly the same system you're refusing to acknowledge in your strategy to deal with him. No, I just don't think he is the only one that needs to be dealt with. If the Dems splinter then the damage will be done exclusively to those who believe in left leaning causes. Exclusively. According to a certain Democratic presidential candidate, economic policy is one the few areas where the Republicans and Democrats see eye to eye. Democrats are hardly on the left. Thus returning to the problem. You see the Democrats as being insufficiently ideologically pure by your own leftist standards and therefore want to give the Republicans total control of the government until things get better. 1) You're using "ideological purity" to describe the difference between the approach of economy by socdems and liberals, which is kind of insane. 2) You're assuming that the creation of an economically leftwing party would only draw votes from the liberals and not from the republicans, which I would argue has little basis in reality and only seems intuitive to you because you view it through the prism of social issues.
But i am pretty sure that that is how it will turn out. It is the US after all. An economically leftwing party will be "leftists", and thus, no good republican would switch over to those ungodly commies. Or do you think that economically leftwing party would also have positions like "Evolution is bullshit" or "fuck gays!"?
I totally agree with Kwark here. The US is fucked. They have caught FPTP, and will be stuck with it for a while. And you can only get rid of FPTP by winning at FPTP hard. At which point you have no reason to get rid of it, because you won at it and are in control.
The worst option in an FPTP system is to try to make a third party. Because you will take the votes of the party closest to your actual goals. Which means that you give the other party total control of everything. And lets be honest here. Democrats might be bad. But republican policies are simply batshit insane. If you make a leftwing third party which is even remotely popular, you might get to a situation where you get 30% of the votes, dems get 30%, and reps get 40%. Which in FPTP means that reps get EVERYTHING. FPTP is simply that bad of a system. But in the US, you have to deal with it. Which means no third parties, sadly. It means vote dem or vote republican, or waste your vote. It means that the only chance you have of getting what you want is to usurp the democratic party. Or leave the country. It sucks, but those are the border conditions you have to deal with.
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On April 28 2017 16:49 Simberto wrote:Show nested quote +On April 28 2017 16:20 Nebuchad wrote:On April 28 2017 10:08 KwarK wrote:On April 28 2017 10:02 a_flayer wrote:On April 28 2017 10:00 KwarK wrote:On April 28 2017 09:52 a_flayer wrote:On April 28 2017 09:49 KwarK wrote:On April 28 2017 09:26 a_flayer wrote: You know whats embarrassing? Giving up a free win to the Orange Fuckface von Clownstick, Man-Baby, Comedy Entrapment and Unrepentant Narcissistic Asshole that is Donald Trump. You might know him as Mr President. Who only won because of the bullshit electoral system of constituency FPTP, exactly the same system you're refusing to acknowledge in your strategy to deal with him. No, I just don't think he is the only one that needs to be dealt with. If the Dems splinter then the damage will be done exclusively to those who believe in left leaning causes. Exclusively. According to a certain Democratic presidential candidate, economic policy is one the few areas where the Republicans and Democrats see eye to eye. Democrats are hardly on the left. Thus returning to the problem. You see the Democrats as being insufficiently ideologically pure by your own leftist standards and therefore want to give the Republicans total control of the government until things get better. 1) You're using "ideological purity" to describe the difference between the approach of economy by socdems and liberals, which is kind of insane. 2) You're assuming that the creation of an economically leftwing party would only draw votes from the liberals and not from the republicans, which I would argue has little basis in reality and only seems intuitive to you because you view it through the prism of social issues. But i am pretty sure that that is how it will turn out. It is the US after all. An economically leftwing party will be "leftists", and thus, no good republican would switch over to those ungodly commies. Or do you think that economically leftwing party would also have positions like "Evolution is bullshit" or "fuck gays!"?
Well yeah, that is an illustration of what I've said. It seems intuitive to you because you view it through the prism of social issues. Meanwhile Bernie goes to Trump country in West Virginia and gets a crowd of Trump supporters to applaud him because "a senator from the North East protects them better than Mitch McConnell from Kentucky." He didn't do that by saying evolution is bullshit and fuck gays, he did that through having an economically leftwing message, and that resonated. Even there.
Will all of these people turn to a leftwing party? Of course not. Will none of them? Seems just as absurd.
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On April 28 2017 17:05 Nebuchad wrote:Show nested quote +On April 28 2017 16:49 Simberto wrote:On April 28 2017 16:20 Nebuchad wrote:On April 28 2017 10:08 KwarK wrote:On April 28 2017 10:02 a_flayer wrote:On April 28 2017 10:00 KwarK wrote:On April 28 2017 09:52 a_flayer wrote:On April 28 2017 09:49 KwarK wrote:On April 28 2017 09:26 a_flayer wrote: You know whats embarrassing? Giving up a free win to the Orange Fuckface von Clownstick, Man-Baby, Comedy Entrapment and Unrepentant Narcissistic Asshole that is Donald Trump. You might know him as Mr President. Who only won because of the bullshit electoral system of constituency FPTP, exactly the same system you're refusing to acknowledge in your strategy to deal with him. No, I just don't think he is the only one that needs to be dealt with. If the Dems splinter then the damage will be done exclusively to those who believe in left leaning causes. Exclusively. According to a certain Democratic presidential candidate, economic policy is one the few areas where the Republicans and Democrats see eye to eye. Democrats are hardly on the left. Thus returning to the problem. You see the Democrats as being insufficiently ideologically pure by your own leftist standards and therefore want to give the Republicans total control of the government until things get better. 1) You're using "ideological purity" to describe the difference between the approach of economy by socdems and liberals, which is kind of insane. 2) You're assuming that the creation of an economically leftwing party would only draw votes from the liberals and not from the republicans, which I would argue has little basis in reality and only seems intuitive to you because you view it through the prism of social issues. But i am pretty sure that that is how it will turn out. It is the US after all. An economically leftwing party will be "leftists", and thus, no good republican would switch over to those ungodly commies. Or do you think that economically leftwing party would also have positions like "Evolution is bullshit" or "fuck gays!"? Well yeah, that is an illustration of what I've said. It seems intuitive to you because you view it through the prism of social issues. Meanwhile Bernie goes to Trump country in West Virginia and gets a crowd of Trump supporters to applaud him because "a senator from the North East protects them better than Mitch McConnell from Kentucky." He didn't do that by saying evolution is bullshit and fuck gays, he did that through having an economically leftwing message, and that resonated. Even there. Will all of these people turn to a leftwing party? Of course not. Will none of them? Seems just as absurd.
Yes, but unless you actually manage to get a majority, it only matters if more dems or more reps swap to you. So even if you take one ex-republican voter for every two ex-democrats, that still means that republicans win. Lets say we start at 50/50 republicans and democrats. If you take 20 percent points from the democrats, and 10 from the republicans, the result is still 40% republican, 30% you, 30% democrats. And that is a major leap for a new party. I think it is illusory to assume that you will be able to get a majority against established parties right of the bat. Which means that you gift every election to the republicans. And once you have done that once, the ex-democrats will notice that republicans now control everything, and that that is kind of shitty. And not vote for you in further elections down the line.
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On April 28 2017 17:12 Simberto wrote:Show nested quote +On April 28 2017 17:05 Nebuchad wrote:On April 28 2017 16:49 Simberto wrote:On April 28 2017 16:20 Nebuchad wrote:On April 28 2017 10:08 KwarK wrote:On April 28 2017 10:02 a_flayer wrote:On April 28 2017 10:00 KwarK wrote:On April 28 2017 09:52 a_flayer wrote:On April 28 2017 09:49 KwarK wrote:On April 28 2017 09:26 a_flayer wrote: You know whats embarrassing? Giving up a free win to the Orange Fuckface von Clownstick, Man-Baby, Comedy Entrapment and Unrepentant Narcissistic Asshole that is Donald Trump. You might know him as Mr President. Who only won because of the bullshit electoral system of constituency FPTP, exactly the same system you're refusing to acknowledge in your strategy to deal with him. No, I just don't think he is the only one that needs to be dealt with. If the Dems splinter then the damage will be done exclusively to those who believe in left leaning causes. Exclusively. According to a certain Democratic presidential candidate, economic policy is one the few areas where the Republicans and Democrats see eye to eye. Democrats are hardly on the left. Thus returning to the problem. You see the Democrats as being insufficiently ideologically pure by your own leftist standards and therefore want to give the Republicans total control of the government until things get better. 1) You're using "ideological purity" to describe the difference between the approach of economy by socdems and liberals, which is kind of insane. 2) You're assuming that the creation of an economically leftwing party would only draw votes from the liberals and not from the republicans, which I would argue has little basis in reality and only seems intuitive to you because you view it through the prism of social issues. But i am pretty sure that that is how it will turn out. It is the US after all. An economically leftwing party will be "leftists", and thus, no good republican would switch over to those ungodly commies. Or do you think that economically leftwing party would also have positions like "Evolution is bullshit" or "fuck gays!"? Well yeah, that is an illustration of what I've said. It seems intuitive to you because you view it through the prism of social issues. Meanwhile Bernie goes to Trump country in West Virginia and gets a crowd of Trump supporters to applaud him because "a senator from the North East protects them better than Mitch McConnell from Kentucky." He didn't do that by saying evolution is bullshit and fuck gays, he did that through having an economically leftwing message, and that resonated. Even there. Will all of these people turn to a leftwing party? Of course not. Will none of them? Seems just as absurd. Yes, but unless you actually manage to get a majority, it only matters if more dems or more reps swap to you. So even if you take one ex-republican voter for every two ex-democrats, that still means that republicans win. Lets say we start at 50/50 republicans and democrats. If you take 20 percent points from the democrats, and 10 from the republicans, the result is still 40% republican, 30% you, 30% democrats. And that is a major leap for a new party. I think it is illusory to assume that you will be able to get a majority against established parties right of the bat. Which means that you gift every election to the republicans. And once you have done that once, the ex-democrats will notice that republicans now control everything, and that that is kind of shitty. And not vote for you in further elections down the line.
My guess is you'll get a bunch of independants too, and since those numbers don't really reflect much in terms of facts, they're pretty worthless in themselves. It's kind of hard for assumptions like these to have value no matter how you make them given that you don't really know what would happen, and also given that it also depends on the personal strength of the specific candidates.
But to be honest I personally don't think the leftwing should create a new party, I think the Justice Democrats have it right, they should move the democratic party to the left so that it becomes socdem or at least centrist on a world standard as opposed to liberal. It won't be easy, what else is new. But it's the most logical path.
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On April 28 2017 15:59 GreenHorizons wrote:Show nested quote +On April 28 2017 08:35 KwarK wrote:On April 28 2017 08:23 GreenHorizons wrote:On April 28 2017 08:13 a_flayer wrote: Can someone explain to me how the Republican Party got started? ikr. It is how it is and was and always will be. Accept and embrace your corporate overlords already. No but seriously, He's more popular than they are, if he waits for the right moment it could work. A significant number of Democrats (republicans too) could just as easily vote progressive if it meant full coffers and winning elections. It's a small number within the party that directly benefit or ideologically agree with the whole neoliberal thing they have going. GH don't embarrass yourself further by adding yourself to the roster of fools who promote third parties in a two party system. It's been tried plenty of times, what you get is Maggie Thatcher winning a landslide, modelling herself on Reagan and engaging in class warfare. In 1981 four of the most senior figures in the British Labour Party defected and founded their own party, the SDP (now the Lib Dems). In the 1983 election Labour got 8,456,934 votes, 27.6% of all votes cast. The SDP got 7,780,949, 25.4% of all votes cast. The Conservatives got 13,012,316 votes, 42.4% of all votes cast and a colossal majority in Parliament, 61.1% of all seats. They actually got a lower share of the votes than they had in the preceding election, down from 43.9%. It's not just theoretically impossible, the theory that says that the divided vote will fuck the voters over has been shown to be true plenty of times. The SDP (Lib Dem) got fucked over and over until 1997 when they ran a coordinated campaign with Labour, the party they splintered away from, where Labour voters would vote Lib Dem in Conservative seats where Lib Dems were second and Lib Dem voters would vote Labour in Conservative seats where Labour were second. That you're so arrogantly sure that it can't happen reminds me of something.... Democrats are collapsing in on themselves, and that's why they spastically attacked Bernie over the Mello thing. They are scared he is taking control of the base, and they're right. It's a small but vocal minority within the party with animosity toward Sanders, but nearly unanimous distaste in corporate media and people are putting that together. With just the right spark the Democratic party could easily combust into a flaming garbage heap with politicians fleeing toward anything that isn't them. No doubt the cards are stacked against such a thing, but if I were you I'd take a break about being too sure about what's politically possible. So let's say the ideologically pure progressive democrats split off and become the Sandernista party. It could happen. The Sandernistas run for state offices in progressive states and have some success against Democrats who may have otherwise run unopposed. They might even snipe a few congressional seats in the right districts. However, a strange thing happens. Suddenly Republicans start winning Senate seats in progressive states and pick up a few odd congressional districts that they never could have won before and grab even more governorships. When the Sandernistas run a presidential candidate, he does well and even gets more than the democrat, but the Republican wins in an electoral college land slide.
The Democrats see that the Sandernistas are more popular than they are and realize that the Democratic party is no longer needed. The more liberal side of what's left joins up with the Sandernistas while the blue dogs go Republican. So now you only have the Sandernistas and the Republicans, except the Republicans are a little larger than they used to be and the Sandernistas are a little smaller than the Democrats used to be because more moderates were forced to shift right as the left ran further away. So the country continues in a rightward direction on the whole even as the average view is more leftward than ever before.
You also find that a lot of those democrats that joined up late with the Sandernistas are good at organizing. They are good at bringing in money and getting their name out. Within the Sandernista party, those old democrats seem to primary out the true progressives with appeals back to the middle (the Sandernistas would have open primaries and wouldn't dare try to enforce ideological purity in their primary voters, right?). Slowly, the Sandernistas get taken back to the middle where the democrats used to be and we get back to where we are now except we've handed almost every office in the country over to the Republicans in the meantime and it'll take a long time before you can even start to get progressives back in the supreme court.
That's the "successful" version of creating a new party to replace the Democrats and it turns out that it's really just a rebranding as the two parties will eventually come back to an equilibrium. The more likely scenario is that the Sandernistas break off, have very little success, only pick up a rare few state/congress seats, greatly increase the success of Republicans, and fail to ever eclipse the Democrats. Eventually leading them back into a reconciliation with the Democratic party after handing the country over to the Republicans.
You know what works better? The Sandernistas should become Democrats. They should primary out the democrats they disagree with. They should create a strong message of what our country should be doing. They should make a strong case for progressive Healthcare Reform, Banking Reform, Tax Reform, Criminal Justice Reform, Election Reform, Immigration Reform, Foreign Policy Reform, Trade Reform, Environmental Reform and whatever other reform you want. The country is slowly shifting left on a lot of issues and the Democrats should be taking advantage of that shift with strong unified messaging.
Unfortunately, rather than taking advantage of that shift by creating a clear message, the democrats are fighting a constant battle against it's own people for not being ideologically pure enough. The Democratic party is a flailing monstrosity right now and it's a damn shame. My personal political views are all over the board and I usually consider myself a moderate, but I've tended to vote Democrat. However, there are a lot of things Sanders says that I absolutely agree with and think the Democrats should shift towards. Unfortunately, I think he acts like a petulant child who will never get anything done because he refuses to be a part of the Democratic party (except when it's convenient for him). He's standing on the outside shouting at the system rather than getting into the system, getting his hands dirty, and making real change. Unfortunately, too many of his followers are the same.
If you really want to change things as a liberal, join the democratic party and encourage your friends to do the same. Push issues that are important to you from the inside. Start spinning the wheels on the inside of the machine to get it going in the right direction. And for your own sake, support the candidates that will at least give you some of what you want over those who will actively go against your interests.
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I understand the power of propaganda on a general level but even then I'm still surprised that the notion of "ideological purity" is capable of fooling people so thoroughly.
1. If we come back to the birth of the "ideological purity" defense, it was used to criticize the people who criticized people like Booker for taking money from pharmaceutical companies before he decided to vote against Bernie on the subject of pharmaceutical companies. What's in question there is his integrity, not his purity. Your premise is factually flawed. 2. Leftwing economics aren't an ideologically pure version of liberalism. As evidenced by all of the liberal press ripping on Bernie's plans for the economy during the primary against Clinton.
You aren't an ideologically impure version of us. You have a different ideology. You know that we know that, right?
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