***Official Political Discussion Thread***

[rexanglorum]

it did not "collapse" the turnout was fine,






I did not say have a “sista solja moment” against anyone.

Im saying Dems are losing non college educated people of all races. perhaps its time to rethink the idea that an inflationary policy that benefits college educated is good politics.

if you think debt relief is the right thing to do thats fine, but don't tell me its a policy to run on.
that seems like a viewpoint that can only be born from a party captured by those interests.


THIS IS EXACTLY THE PROBLEM IM TALKING ABOUT.

i say "college debt relief is inflationary and may alienate swing voters
you say "Let’s not become the Pepe-lite party"

????

We have to be able to have debate about policy without being accused of racism/sexism/homophobia/transphobia.
we have to be able to be honest.


if you want to spend political capital to help a coalition group memeber thats fine.
Just lets be honest about what we are doing. it's an inflationary regressive policy fundamentally and it may hurt dems with swing voters..

I’d just suggest that we don’t treat lumpen 20 year olds, who voted for Trump, as some solid and now powerful voting bloc to be appeased.

I do agree that we should lead with wages and prices as the central campaign message, that’s all that a lot of the American peasantry cares about. Give the sack-o-potatoes what they want, in that regard.

fantasy land

there is no evidence the walz tactic of calling the weird works.
people gotta stop repeating this.

Is Calling Republicans "Weird" our Best Message?

MAGA Republicans are super weird, but the voters already know that

www.messageboxnews.com

we're really going with "not enough left wing shunning"

Excommunication and shunning get the goods.

These MAGAs are desperate for social prestige and they think that voting for Trump will achieve that. They need to be disabused of this notion.

 

[kdawg]

Someone else who could see the future:

 

[gry60]

If the institutional Democratic Party can muzzle Walz’ extremely effective tactic of calling them “weird.” The base will spend the next four years calling MAGAs weird.

MAGAs thrive off of your fear and displays of your fear. What kills them is NOT getting a reaction other than a little dismissal.

Shunning gets it done. MAGAs should be treated like South African Boers prior to 1990, or Israel soccer fan now. They aren’t good people and we need to stop being such extreme people pleasers.

Don't forget that they are prone to violence, since they value compliance over other people's habeas corpus.

The irony of the current situation is that gun ownership might become a winning issue for women, and Reagan-style gun control may gain favor among those incels.

 

[osh kosh bosh]

I’d just suggest that we don’t treat lumpen 20 year olds, who voted for Trump, as some solid and now powerful voting bloc to be appeased.

I do agree that we should lead with wages and prices as the central campaign message, that’s all that a lot of the American peasantry cares about. Give the sack-o-potatoes what they want, in that regard.

if it was just "lumpen 20 year olds" maybe i would agree.

the problem is it seems to be

Black men
Latino men
Non college educated people
Gen z men
Rural americans

and your response to this is "lets double down college educated"

im struggling to understand this strategy.

Excommunication and shunning get the goods.

These MAGAs are desperate for social prestige and they think that voting for Trump will achieve that. They need to be disabused of this notion.

so from 2016-2022 you don't think their was enough shunning
you thought we needed more shunning?

 

[rolaholic]

 

[keko jones]

Brother, you don't know that there truly is no end to the valley of stupidity in America and/or the mankind overall.

Oh trust, I know the amount of stupidity running rampant. However, I refuse to believe that these are the type of conversations that are happening NOW.

 

[rexanglorum]

if it was just "lumpen 20 year olds" maybe i would agree.

the problem is it seems to be

Black men
Latino men
Non college educated people
Gen z men
Rural americans

and your response to this is "lets double down college educated"

im struggling to understand this strategy.




so from 2016-2022 you don't think their was enough shunning
you thought we needed more shunning?

2024 was different from 2016.

I spent years being nice to Trumpers and talking to them like they were decent people. It only emboldened them.

So yeah, 2016-2022 was full of denunciations of Trumpism on TV but they got way too respect and acceptance in 2016 and 2020 on a person to person basis. It only let them feel like their would be no personal consequences for voting with out a d proud rapists in 2024.

They are trash, and they should be shut them out of mainstream American life and institutions.

 

[essential1]

2024 was different from 2016.

I spent years being nice to Trumpers and talking to them like they were decent people. It only emboldened them.

So yeah, 2016-2022 was full of denunciations of Trumpism on TV but they got way too respect and acceptance in 2016 and 2020 on a person to person basis. It only let them feel like their would be no personal consequences for voting with out a d proud rapists in 2024.

They are trash, and they should be shut them out of mainstream American life and institutions.

As a smart man once said, until they told him not to.

"They're weird."

 

[osh kosh bosh]

As a smart man once said, until they told him not to.

"They're weird."

IT DIDN'T WORK.

 

[osh kosh bosh]

I enjoyed the weird thing.

but like ...it didn't work, it's clearly something partisans enjoy,
but it doesn't seem to move swing voters.


sorry calling them weird more wasn't going to work.
and Tim Walz in general was a bust.

 

[Brownstone]

In the shadow of Goldwater, Pat Buchanan was able to forge a coalition of the wealthy and old guard, evangelicals, and racists. On the face of it, you’d imagine that tent was a fractious as any in the current left. And a big part of the strategy was identifying a common enemy: global communism.

Now, at the risk to angering rexanglorum , I think it’s not controversial in 2024 that the mid-century Communist regimes were actually pretty terrible and their defeat was almost certainly a good thing for the world. So I guess good on Pat? Certainly throughout the second half of the twentieth century, the 2nd world probably enjoyed more support from the American left than was merited. A lot like some of my dumb friends who liked Hugo Chavez 20 years ago.

Anyways, as I think about it, I think my own instinct it to always fight the aggregation of power by any entity that has no accountability to the public. I mean, we should be careful of empowering *any* entity - but special scrutiny to those we can’t simply vote out. Stalin and Mao really answered to no one and that’s why they were able to do so much damage.

These days, I think the biggest unchecked aggregation of unaccountable power is to international mega corporations. A lot of the problems we see: inflation, wage stagnation, income inequality can be tied to the degradation of markets under oligopoly. Every industry is so heavily concentrated that rent seeking has permeated international commerce.

Oligopoly is anti-capitalist. It breeds laziness and corruption. It has infiltrated our government. It’s antithetical to American values. It creates misery an across the globe and in almost every American household. It’s 21st century’s biggest challenge to liberty and meritocracy and we need a new coalition to recapture all American institutions that are corruptly occupied by the agents of oligopoly.

It’s not anti-business. It’s pro business and the restoration of fair, competitive, and capitalist markets.

You bring up a really good point.

I do think corporate welfare, consolidation, or oligopoly as you lay it out is bad for the economy, capitalism and really the United States. I also think (don't want to assume you meant this) that it is a form of wealth inequality in that big firms do in some sense squeeze out the middle man.

This issue (like immigration) has not seen real progress from the left or the right. I mean not letting Coach merge with Michael Kors? Really? Most if not all of the banks would be better ran as separate entities. And anyone who has worked in a large corp knows that synergy sounds nice, but really is hard to find internally across departments.

All that being said, what do you propose? I don't necessarily disagree with your position that oligopolies are anti-competitive, but do they breed laziness? I would argue our largest firms are where most of the innovation is happening, and if they aren't they become one of our largest firms through market capitalization (Nvidia)

I also don't think increasing the corporate tax rate is the answer, we all know how business works. In the end, we are left holding the bag, or they just outright leave (Apple). I also am not sure what your stance means for the global landscape. Wouldn't hindering the strength of large companies here, strengthen the reach of powerful firms overseas? I tend to think so. If Chase isn't lending to a large farm in Poland- Chinese construction bank will.

I do agree though, it's just imo a much more complex issue than individual income inequality, and unlike the supreme court would have us believe corporations are very different. Is there a way to intertwine the two? I don't know.

 

[essential1]

IT DIDN'T WORK.

He was specifically told not to starting in August.

By people that continuously lose elections.

 

[keko jones]

NT in a nutshell!

 

[youngwolf]

 

[1995]

 

[staffsgtdignam]

All of that already has a process and a price. It just needs to be funded, and I suspect there’s a decent appetite right now to do so.

Plus, eventually you’ll se voluntary repatriation if you cut off income. They hey is punitive financial damages to businesses employing undocumented labor.

Even if it were fully funded, it still takes time to process that many people since we are limited by the number of immigration attorneys and immigration officials that work for the federal government. Honestly, even if you had 100% support of mass deportations, you would still have to deal with these logistical challenges. It’s not as simple as rounding people up and just shipping them off to wherever.

 

[dacomeup]

As bad as things may get under the Orange man, one thing that is obvious is that this thread is far from the echo chamber that the trolls drop by and claim it is. Obviously a massive copout for them being able to engage in good faith discussions, but hilarious still given all the disagreement in here.

 

[Belgium]

Something that probably goes understated though is that the terminally online leftist political sphere is very radicalized too. Obviously there's a big difference in what kind of views and behavior that develops but still.

For example, the most popular leftist politics influencer, who has a large young audience, is Hasan Piker. The most popular streaming platform, Twitch, is entirely dominated by Hasan and parasites leeching off his clout.
On the other hand you have a much more moderate leftist like Destiny but he comes off as a sociopath and is overall very controversial as a person for a variety of reasons. He's kind of the black sheep of the leftist political content creators but has a large fanbase nonetheless. In addition to that, both of these influencers and their viewers are basically persona non grata in eachothers' community. The word Destiny is banned in Hasan Piker's chat, to give you an idea of the disdain between these communities.

 

[osh kosh bosh]

He was specifically told not to starting in August.

By people that continuously lose elections.

IT WASN'T WORKING WHEN HE WAS DOING IT.

do you think people are stupid? they obviously tested the messaging.

I get that you don't Republicans so calling them weird was very morally satisfying, I found it satisfying also..

But we have to accept that regular people don't see it the same way.

 

[staffsgtdignam]

A friend and I were discussing and it’s almost funny how it was right in front of our eyes the whole time: many people know Trump to be the ultimate conman, but that’s exactly what makes him so appealing. People really do continue to buy what he’s selling, even if it’s pure snake oil.

For as despicable as he is, and how many view a conman, he is literally the best at it and it shouldn’t be a surprise he’s successfully conned half the country into voting for things that will likely actually hurt them.

Politics is a dirty game and he has (somewhat magically and possibly unintentionally) mastered it.

Yep, people are stupid and honestly deserve whatever fallout happens from Trump term 2.0. I think we need to hit rock bottom and many people need to suffer before we institute real lasting long term changes. If you look at major long term policy changes, all the major ones that are still in place today happened after tough times: Social Security after the Great Depression, Medicare after WW1 vets started aging, Obamacare/ACA after the 2008 financial collapse, etc. etc.

I think COVID was instead handled with short term solutions (PPP loans, stimulus checks, etc.) that we are paying for now with inflation (to be fair, most of the world did this and is seeing inflationary issues at different levels as well).

One thing I’m glad about is that the election was at least a decisive one and nobody on the left can rightfully scream “Russian interference”, etc. Trump won fairly and everyone who voted for him will have to reap whatever results that come from this-both good and bad.

 

[osh kosh bosh]

 

[staffsgtdignam]

Something that probably goes understated though is that the terminally online leftist political sphere is very radicalized too. Obviously there's a big difference in what kind of views and behavior that develops but still.

For example, the most popular leftist politics influencer, who has a large young audience, is Hasan Piker. The most popular streaming platform, Twitch, is entirely dominated by Hasan and parasites leeching off his clout.
On the other hand you have a much more moderate leftist like Destiny but he comes off as a sociopath and is overall very controversial as a person. He's kind of the black sheep of the leftist political content creators.

I think it goes both ways though, the radicalized left seemed to embrace antisemitism with the guise of defending Gaza, for example (obviously this wasn’t true for all Gaza supporters, just the radicalized ones).

I think the problem lies when people don’t think people with ideological leanings on their side can be radicalized.

 

[wavycrocket]

One thing I will say, is the FUNDING of the wars in Ukraine & Israel…..REALLY F’d the democrats up.

Trying to explain geopolitics to people struggling to get by….when they see numbers like $400 million to __every month in the headlines is impossible.

 

[osh kosh bosh]

I'm like 10% joking but


The Dems should let Trump do all the dumb stuff he wants to do.
.and just sit back a **** post about it for 4 years.

 

[staffsgtdignam]

One thing I will say, is the FUNDING of the wars in Ukraine & Israel…..REALLY F’d the democrats up.

Trying to explain geopolitics to people struggling to get by….when they see numbers like $400 million to __every month in the headlines is impossible.

Funding Ukraine was never about funding the war to fight Russia via proxy.

It was always to set up the precedent that we would not leave allies in the dust in the event they are attacked/invaded. Same thing in a different way with Israel.

All of this was to show China that if they ever invaded Taiwan (where the chips in many/all of our devices come from), we would not mess around.