***Official Political Discussion Thread***

[mplsdunk]

Ask him to point to Argentina on a map and see if he can.

 

[Belgium]

An "unidentified hacker" huh
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/11/19/...ytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare

Hacker Is Said to Have Gained Access to File With Damaging Testimony About Gaetz​

The computer file is said to contain testimony from the woman who said she had sex with Matt Gaetz, President-elect Donald Trump’s choice to be attorney general, when she was 17.

 

[sfc415]

They don’t even know what that is.

Laborers union was talking about how he’s going to go after project labor agreements too but it’s worth it not to advance the trans agenda.

I’m not too concerned being private sector in MN. if I was a public employee I’d look for a new job asap.

Crazy. I had to study the entire history of the NLRB a few years ago, and the things that stood out were how bad things were for workers pre union protection laws, and how much better things can be for workers today if they knew their rights and weren’t constantly discouraged to unionize. I’m sure what Amazon, Tesla, and Starbucks are trying to do is illegal, but going forward it’s all fair game.

They’ll probably try to replace unions with some bull @$&$ committees led by management instead, which is what the NLRB protects workers from nowadays. Hope sticking it to the one possibly trans athlete in San Jose State was worth never being able to negotiate for worker rights and fair pay again.

 

[Methodical Management]

but you've been making the claim, donald trump doesn't need to moderate, that he ran on pure base mobilization
so there for moderating is pointless no?

my point is he does try to strategically moderate, he does try to appeal to other groups,
if it were really true that Donald Trump could win on pure base mobilization with zero moderation, why does Donald Trump, the person with the most stake constantly lie about his positions to appear more moderate?
even he knows it's in his interest to appear moderate on certain subjects.

Base enthusiasm matters.

Trump did everything he could to energize his base and peel away at the Democratic coalition through targeted disinformation and “traditional,” hierarchical appeals to men, native-born citizens, Christians, and cishet people during a time when anti-incumbent sentiment was already high.

And that means Democrats need to further moderate position on what? Gender equality?

You aren’t able to disaggregate the effects of misinformation and anti-incumbency bias. All you do is point to the scoreboard like Trump wasn’t crushed when he was the unpopular incumbent, and act like Democrats can moderate their way out of the outright lies that distort their positions.

What positions - actual positions - did Harris take that were “culturally extreme?”

So “swing voters who chose Trump” were more likely to believe lies. Okay. And moving further right fixes this… how?

When people talk about the media ecosystem that proliferates these lies, you respond with characteristically adolescent 4chan quips like “lol git gud” or “learned helplessness,” and the specious claim that you can overcome disinformation simply by messaging better.

(Meanwhile, when you feel you’ve been mischaracterized here, your attitude is to blame everyone else for “lies” rather than “getting good” at persuasion.)

again you can be against bigotry without embracing niche left cultural ideas.

Again, what policies in Harris’ platform represent an embrace of “niche left cultural ideas?”

It just comes off like yet more reactionary whining about your co-workers - which you described as “fan fiction” before choosing to publish it as an auto-biography.

It’s like you want to scapegoat trans women (surprise surprise) for Harris’ loss when she never even took the position you think is “too extreme.”

And you’ve done nothing to demonstrate that these were the deciding factors for any significant number of people - that, all things being equal - if Harris had only been more openly hostile to transgender people, she’d have won.

The rest of your argument is window dressing.

Biden is the most pro union president ever and is losing rank and file union members to Trump,
Left wing economic policy is good policy but I don't know how to look at the democrats slide with working class voters post Bill Clinton and think,
left wing economics can overcome cultural distance. it's pretty to clear that it hasn't.

Oh, you mean the Bill Clinton who teamed up with Newt Gingrich to validate Reagan era “welfare queen” rhetoric and eliminate AFDC?

The Bill Clinton who escalated the “War on Drugs” with the 1994 crime bill?

The same Bill Clinton who helped sink the 1978 Labor Reform Bill?

Remind me: was NAFTA popular among “rank and file union members?”

Yeah, that’s a real mystery.


The history of organized labor in the United States is just one long proof for Du Bois’ critique of Marxism and the unlikelihood of Americans to achieve “class consciousness” in a society that grants a “public and psychological wage” to White people (and, by extension, other dominant groups.)

This is why doing the White Socialists’ bidding and focusing exclusively on economics has never worked.

low propensity voters are more moderate than high propensity voters, so its pretty doubtful that more stringent ideological commitment to leftism is what is needed to get them to come out.
imo the idea that "both sides are the same" is mostly because of the filibuster and the nature of bicameral presidential systems.

Not all “low propensity voters” are the same.

There are those who are disillusioned by politics in general. There are those who’ve been demobilized by misinformation. There are young people who’ve not yet voted. In many of these cases, low propensity voters believe that neither party has their interests at heart, that voting won’t accomplish anything.

Bill Clinton’s version of triangulation was playing the saxophone on Arsenio Hall while cozying up to Walmart, militarizing the police, and slashing public programs. You don’t see how that breeds cynical contempt?

People see a Democratic Party that offers words to “ordinary Americans” and deeds for lobbyists.

Triangulation takes for granted the very people who’ve been carrying the Democratic Party for generations.

People are tired of seeing Democrats bend over backwards to try and win over diet Republicans while daring the people who do the actual footwork for their campaigns to take their support elsewhere, knowing there are no viable alternatives.

Republicans demobilization campaigns apply relentless pressure to any cracks in Democrats’ bedrock support.

Triangulation fatigue is a big part of this - openly favoring unlikely supporters over stalwart allies.

If you think it’s purely additive, you’re not paying attention.

I think you can fight for people without embracing the unpopular ideas of activists groups that are unrepresentative of the people they claim to represent.

And how, exactly, did Harris “embrace the unpopular ideas of activist groups”?

i was a huge defender of bidens record as president. I hoped that it would be enough to overcome all these cultural problems.
It’s clear that it’s not.

Biden would have done far more if not for moderate obstructionism. We can agree that hurt him.

Biden was dealt a bad hand - as all Democratic administrations in our lifetimes have been - because while Republicans get to inherit a foundation, Democrats inherit the rubble they leave behind. In this case, that was mass layoffs and pandemic profiteering.

Most Americans did not share in the last four years of stock market gains. They did not feel a “soft landing.”

They experienced a dramatic increase in their cost of living, and they blamed the person in charge.


What else differentiates 2020 from 2024?

Unless you plan to articulate how Harris moved further “culturally left” than Biden, costing her the Presidency, then your argument is just vibes.

No, issue polling pushed by activist groups with no negative partisan framing is incredibly misleading. You should be skeptical.

Transwomen in sports is not one of these issues. Even when activist groups do the polling it is still incredibly unpopular.

Issues polling is better than nothing. But it's not an argument ender especially when it's done by activist orga.

Data for progress does better issue polling.

And yet, that’s all you have.

You’re not citing policies. You’re just pointing at charts you found on Twitter showing that policies Harris never adopted are unpopular.

 

[mplsdunk]

Crazy. I had to study the entire history of the NLRB a few years ago, and the things that stood out were how bad things were for workers pre union protection laws, and how much better things can be for workers today if they knew their rights and weren’t constantly discouraged to unionize. I’m sure what Amazon, Tesla, and Starbucks are trying to do is illegal, but going forward it’s all fair game.

They’ll probably try to replace unions with some bull @$&$ committees led by management instead, which is what the NLRB protects workers from nowadays. Hope sticking it to the one possibly trans athlete in San Jose State was worth never being able to negotiate for worker rights and fair pay again.

People are blind man, everyone thinks they can do it on their own and are worth more than the next guy.

Everything comes full circle though. They just forgot 100 years ago union members were getting killed by cops here and also killing scabs.

They forgot what the anarchists did in haymarket square and why we have weekends.

All these guys wanna be class traitors like people weren’t dying over this.

 

[pmatic]

 

[RustyShackleford]

Yesterday sucked because I had to be in an MRI machine for like an hour and a half and I swear WASHED KING or elpablo21 paid off the tech to mess with me, because I asked to listen to hip hop, and the playlist consisted of like Shaboozey's entire catalog, Ice Spice, and GloRilla.

I am not even lying when I tell you they played "Not Like US" like 5 times.

I was strapped to the table pleading for a break at min 75 like....

But reading the recent posts in here have made me feel better...

Loving the energy in here brahs, we gotta get it out before we refocus

 

[osh kosh bosh]

Base enthusiasm matters.

Trump did everything he could to energize his base and peel away at the Democratic coalition through targeted disinformation and “traditional,” hierarchical appeals to men, native-born citizens, Christians, and cishet people during a time when anti-incumbent sentiment was already high.

And that means Democrats need to further moderate position on what? Gender equality?

according to pod save america the Kamala campaign had data that the they add was moving swing voters
and they chose not to respond to the ad, and basically play dumb about all the positions she took in 2019.;

so yes obviously if your opponent is painting you as culturally out of the mainstream you should take moderate positions to assuage those concerns.
yes this is politics. i don't understand what is so wild about this concept. Obama did it, why is it suddenly contrarian to suggest that Kamala do it.

What positions - actual positions - did Harris take that were “culturally extreme?”

her entire 2019 campaign, including the transgender surgeries for illegal migrants.
my point isn't that she ran on them, my point is she failed to distance herself from them.

she tried to pretend like it never happened and moderate just on tone and optics. and it didn't worked. people thought she was still far left.

So “swing voters who chose Trump” were more likely to believe lies. Okay. And moving further right fixes this… how?

When people talk about the media ecosystem that proliferates these lies, you respond with characteristically adolescent 4chan quips like “lol git gud” or “learned helplessness,” and the specious claim that you can overcome disinformation simply by messaging better.

(Meanwhile, when you feel you’ve been mischaracterized here, your attitude is to blame everyone else for “lies” rather than “getting good” at persuasion.)

the alternative is what? give up? keep going further left untill latinos and working class black people totally abandon the party?
I think democrats should try to win and you should focus on the levers that you can control.

analyzing misinformation is a job for academics, politician have to win elections even in difficult circumstances.

Again, what policies in Harris’ platform represent an embrace of “niche left cultural ideas?”

It just comes off like yet more reactionary whining about your co-workers - which you described as “fan fiction” before choosing to publish it as an auto-biography.

It’s like you want to scapegoat trans women (surprise surprise) for Harris’ loss when she never even took the position you think is “too extreme.”

And you’ve done nothing to demonstrate that these were the deciding factors for any significant number of people - that, all things being equal - if Harris had only been more openly hostile to transgender people, she’d have won.

The rest of your argument is window dressing.

you can keep up the personal attacks but you plainly don't actually have an argument.
you just do sanctimonious preaching, present no evidence for your claims, and act like everything is self evident.

maybe im wrong, the future is hard to predict.

but Im certainly not going to be convinced, by a dude who plainly can't even pretend to understand the other sides argument;
"sports should be segregated by sex" means "been more openly hostile to transgender people" obviously not.

again go fight with made up person in your mind who makes that argument. not me.

Oh, you mean the Bill Clinton who teamed up with Newt Gingrich to validate Reagan era “welfare queen” rhetoric and eliminate AFDC?

The Bill Clinton who escalated the “War on Drugs” with the 1994 crime bill?

The same Bill Clinton who helped sink the 1978 Labor Reform Bill?

Remind me: was NAFTA popular among “rank and file union members?”

Yeah, that’s a real mystery.

the democrats have moved to the left on all this stuff. since obama.
and every election they lose more working class voters.

and your only answer to this is "left wing harder"okay. im sorry im skeptical.

The history of organized labor in the United States is just one long proof for Du Bois’ critique of Marxism and the unlikelihood of Americans to achieve “class consciousness” in a society that grants a “public and psychological wage” to White people (and, by extension, other dominant groups.)

This is why doing the White Socialists’ bidding and focusing exclusively on economics has never worked.

this stuff was more compelling when the Dems weren't also losing black, brown and asian people also.
but they are. so i think its time to update those priors.

Not all “low propensity voters” are the same.

There are those who are disillusioned by politics in general. There are those who’ve been demobilized by misinformation. There are young people who’ve not yet voted. In many of these cases, low propensity voters believe that neither party has their interests at heart, that voting won’t accomplish anything.

and your presumption is that left wing harder will bring out all these people.
and you base this on what?

Bill Clinton’s version of triangulation was playing the saxophone on Arsenio Hall while cozying up to Walmart, militarizing the police, and slashing public programs. You don’t see how that breeds cynical contempt?

People see a Democratic Party that offers words to “ordinary Americans” and deeds for lobbyists.

Triangulation takes for granted the very people who’ve been carrying the Democratic Party for generations.

People are tired of seeing Democrats bend over backwards to try and win over diet Republicans while daring the people who do the actual footwork for their campaigns to take their support elsewhere, knowing there are no viable alternatives.

Republicans demobilization campaigns apply relentless pressure to any cracks in Democrats’ bedrock support.

Triangulation fatigue is a big part of this - openly favoring unlikely supporters over stalwart allies.

If you think it’s purely additive, you’re not paying attention.

again is this based on anything, or if this just your "vibes"?
and again you keep saying this, the dems traditional base is eroding, despite moving far to the left of bill clintons.

can you tell me how far left do you have to go for this trend to reverse itself?

And how, exactly, did Harris “embrace the unpopular ideas of activist groups”?

she did in 2019, and then just avoided mentioning it in 2024. wasn't enough, as voters still viewed her as almost as extreme as Trump.

Biden would have done far more if not for moderate obstructionism. We can agree that hurt him.

Biden was dealt a bad hand - as all Democratic administrations in our lifetimes have been - because while Republicans get to inherit a foundation, Democrats inherit the rubble they leave behind. In this case, that was mass layoffs and pandemic profiteering.

Most Americans did not share in the last four years of stock market gains. They did not feel a “soft landing.”

They experienced a dramatic increase in their cost of living, and they blamed the person in charge.


What else differentiates 2020 from 2024?

Unless you plan to articulate how Harris moved further “culturally left” than Biden, costing her the Presidency, then your argument is just vibes.



And yet, that’s all you have.

You’re not citing policies. You’re just pointing at charts you found on Twitter showing that policies Harris never adopted are unpopular.

Biden got a lot done. like 3 massive pieces of legislation. the argument here is really. He needed to do more? In a 50/50 senate?
based on what?

you've never presented evidence for anything you claim,
when you start doing that maybe then i'll take your appeals for a higher evidentiary standard seriously.

 

[mplsdunk]

Dems need the rock talking militant about labor and egg prices running for president.

Nobody will listen otherwise

 

[moonman818]

You don’t even know what’s popular or unpopular in this country. Your entire view of everything about the US population comes from 24 hours of scrolling through Twitter, based on how often you rant about activists, and then you use that “knowledge” to show how smart you are to us idiots on Niketalk.

You’ve spent hundreds of pages lecturing people about what minorities and working class in the US go through, despite not being one of them and not living here and interacting with them on a daily basis.

Anytime anyone tells you about how real life is here, your go to is “that’s a brain dead take” or whatever dismissive comment with laughing smilies you want to post today to make yourself sound intelligent and unbothered.

To be fair you do this with every single topic I’ve ever interacted with you on, so I don’t even know why I even bothered to write this essay. I just see a huge disconnect between someone claiming to be mature and intelligent while also refusing to listen to anyone else or admit he’s wrong or uninformed about ANYTHING .

This is so on point

 

[osh kosh bosh]

What's crazy about all this drama, i'm not even suggesting Dem's need to go back to Bill Clinton style neoliberalism.

moderate more on, immigration, guns, deficit reduction, crime
and when an activist groups wants you to embrace some niche issue that polls at like -50% SAY NO,

and take clear public stances against it.


but maybe im wrong,
and what we need is an even bigger child tax credit, or an even bigger build back better, or an even bigger medicare for all package.


but id like to see some evidence for this, instead of appeals to "you wanna stab xyz minority group in the back."

 

[MakeNTGreatAgain]

Yesterday sucked because I had to be in an MRI machine for like an hour and a half and I swear WASHED KING or elpablo21 paid off the tech to mess with me, because I asked to listen to hip hop, and the playlist consisted of like Shaboozey's entire catalog, Ice Spice, and GloRilla.

I am not even lying when I tell you they played "Not Like US" like 5 times.

I was strapped to the table pleading for a break at min 75 like....

But reading the recent posts in here have made me feel better...

Loving the energy in here brahs, we gotta get it out before we refocus

 

[rexanglorum]

I’ll get back to the Dems’ messaging discussion soon but for now, I couldn’t help but notice this…



This content feels good to post, at least for a little while.

Republicans constantly bash social services, liberal politics, education, and social inclusivity, and that attitude guides policy in Red States. The results are, predictably, dismal for the average person in those States.


But after that feeling of vindication passes, comes the harsh reality that Blue State NIMBYism makes these kind of posts come off as elitist as hell. Most of the people in Red States, whose lives would be improved by moving to a Blue State, can’t afford to move to Blue States.

Blue States need to change their own internal housing policies and let millions of good people, trapped in bad States, vote with their feet.

Until they do, posts about superior outcomes in Blue States will just come across as a reminder of American Hokuo, the notion that born in underdeveloped areas are obliged to stay in that underdeveloped area instead of being able to move to the city in search of a better life.

 

[MakeNTGreatAgain]

I’ll get back to the Dems’ messaging discussion soon but for now, I couldn’t help but notice this…



This content feels good to post, at least for a little while.

Republicans constantly bash social services, liberal politics, education, and social inclusivity, and that attitude guides policy in Red States. The results are, predictably, dismal for the average person in those States.


But after that feeling of vindication passes, comes the harsh reality that Blue State NIMBYism makes these kind of posts come off as elitist as hell. Most of the people in Red States, whose lives would be improved by moving to a Blue State, can’t afford to move to Blue States.

Blue States need to change their own internal housing policies and let millions of good people, trapped in bad States, vote with their feet.

Until they do, posts about superior outcomes in Blue States will just come across as a reminder of American Hokuo, the notion that born in underdeveloped areas are obliged to stay in that underdeveloped area instead of being able to move to the city in search of a better life.

i agree

 

[mister friendly]

The ad played Trump about the Kamala and trans prisoners was powerful, it made her look extreme.

 

[Methodical Management]

according to pod save america the Kamala campaign had data that the they add was moving swing voters
and they chose not to respond to the ad, and basically play dumb about all the positions she took in 2019.;

so yes obviously if your opponent is painting you as culturally out of the mainstream you should take moderate positions to assuage those concerns.

You couldn’t name even one 2024 campaign policy, so now you’re resorting to “she didn’t respond to a deceptive attack ad the way a podcaster wanted!”

her entire 2019 campaign, including the transgender surgeries for illegal migrants.
my point isn't that she ran on them, my point is she failed to distance herself from them.

she tried to pretend like it never happened and moderate just on tone and optics. and it didn't worked. people thought she was still far left.

It’s unsurprising that you’ve totally adopted right wing framing of this.

A look at Trump's 'transgender operations on illegal aliens' debate claim

Former President Donald Trump claimed Vice President Kamala Harris wants to perform "transgender operations on illegal aliens that are in prison."

abcnews.go.com

Harris discussed this in the Brett Baier interview, noting that the Bureau of Prisons policy under Trump also allowed for gender-affirming care if deemed medically necessary.

What you’re asking for here is to legalize discrimination and claim that under no circumstance is gender affirming care necessary.

I think most of us by know where you stand on this. You once referred to transgender identities as a “self-evidently goofy concept.”


You feel empowered by the thought that your prejudice is popular, and this is your sad attempt at a victory lap.

How important is to voters, really?

To you, it feels like the most important. Let’s see where it actually ranks:

Ah, dead last.

The electorate is a moving target. Wedge issues that helped sink John Kerry are now mainstream.

The majority of Gen Z adults believe there are more than two genders. Read it and weep:

How Gen Z Changed Its Views On Gender

Gen Z young adults are much more likely to report identifying as either trans or nonbinary than other generations.

time.com

Gen X and Millennials are going to have to get over trans people existing just like Boomers had to get over gay and lesbian people existing.


Harris already took a moderate tack on this issue. What does moving further right even look like to you?

“I apologize for not discriminating against the TWO transgender people who received gender affirming care while serving prison sentences”?


This is petty. This issue doesn’t affect you at all, aside from your extremely online grievances against pronoun disclosures, but it GREATLY affects a very small and vulnerable minority, wielded by bigots as a diversionary scapegoat.

If someone who has encountered fewer than three transgender people in their entire lives is more concerned with trans people’s recreational activity or healthcare than they are in their own economic interests, I think we’ve moved beyond the point where we can pretend that they aren’t motivated by bigotry and are content with moderate neglect over reactionary punishment.

the alternative is what? give up? keep going further left untill latinos and working class black people totally abandon the party?
I think democrats should try to win and you should focus on the levers that you can control.

You want to keep going further left on economic policy. We’re in agreement on this. The difference is that you seemingly want to let go of the rope on social justice issues, like that’s going to bring in more voters than it costs, and you’re assuming that the reason Democrats are losing support is because they’re embracing “radical gender ideology”’ rather than failing to sufficiently meet working people’s needs.

If you think liberals are overstating the threat to Democracy and there will be a free and fair election in 2028, and you think that Republicans, who hold governance in contempt, will do to the country what they’ve already done to red states, then Democrats will have an advantage in 2028 that doesn’t require overreaction.

This is a great time for blue states to make an even stronger case for Democratic governance - and that does include changing housing policies to help accommodate red-states refugees.

We’re living in a time of unprecedented and growing inequality. The status quo doesn’t work for most people.

You keep mentioning Barack Obama like he didn’t run on hope and change.

How has social progress been achieved in the past? Benign neglect?


There are more Democrats than Republicans in this country. There are more non-White people than White people. There are more women than men - and young women are polarizing further than young men:

We have to stop pretending that whoever wins the Democratic Primary is going to be less palatable to the masses than whoever wins the Republican freak show, and that once nominated that candidate needs to immediately validate the cynicism of every disaffected citizen by courting Cheney voters.

We can gauge where Democratic voters are by voting OUR values in the primary elections - not by voting Mitt Romney’s values and engaging in a strategy of preemptive surrender.


Win the culture war. Vote your values and respect the primary process. Push forward.

maybe im wrong, the future is hard to predict.

but Im certainly not going to be convinced, by a dude who plainly can't even pretend to understand the other sides argument;
"sports should be segregated by sex" means "been more openly hostile to transgender people" obviously not.

again go fight with made up person in your mind who makes that argument. not me.

I think you have this backwards. You replied to me to express disagreement and I responded.

Your opinion is worth a grand total of one vote in Canada.

Why, exactly, do I need to persuade you?


And, pray tell, whose minds have you changed? I saw you got one like from a Trump supporter yesterday. Congratulations!

You can pretend that your reputation here has nothing to do with you if you want, that you are grossly unappreciated by an ungrateful world and it’s the children who are wrong, but ultimately this delusion will only cost you.


If your most reliable means of achieving human interaction is through provocation, the last thing you’re qualified to do is give advice on how to win a popularity contest.

 

[pmatic]

Dems need the rock talking militant about labor and egg prices running for president.

Nobody will listen otherwise