***Official Political Discussion Thread***

[rexanglorum]

I have had a little bit of promethazine with codeine, not a big recreational dose mixed with sprite. It's a little bit prescribed for an actual cough. However, I'll fully concede that it helped my to write that bit of speculative (some could say fan) fiction.

You'd have to admit though, that in time, a unicameral, parliamentary system in America would allow conflicts within the major parties (and mostly the Dem coalition because GOP is largely unified by its desire for strict hierarchies) to become more visible and yet easier to manage when it comes to beating the reactionary right.

 

[IATT]

 

[IATT]

 

[RustyShackleford]

I have had a little bit of promethazine with codeine, not a big recreational dose mixed with sprite. It's a little bit prescribed for an actual cough. However, I'll fully concede that it helped my to write that bit of speculative (some could say fan) fiction.

You'd have to admit though, that in time, a unicameral, parliamentary system in America would allow conflicts within the major parties (and mostly the Dem coalition because GOP is largely unified by its desire for strict hierarchies) to become more visible and yet easier to manage when it comes to beating the reactionary right.

Sure. Yes it would be more simply, and yes it would be easier to manage. And yes I would prefer it.

But like I said before the thing about our political system is that is forces coalition building before elections instead of after.

But in your scenario the right stays unified, so that means the reationary racist right still rules the right. And centrist will someone unify with them just to rent seek? So why don't they do it now?

Like your scenario really only works if the new system can splinter the GOP too.

 

[IATT]

Can someone please explain to me why this is news?

is she a candidate for something?

are either of her parents candidates for something which a potential conflict could arise?

 

[Nike Jordan]

Because the Clintons live rent free in the media's heads.

 

[IATT]

And even that headline is extremely misleading

that’s how much she has made since 2011, not just this year

Also she’s educated from Stanford, Oxford, Columbia and NYU.. I’d hope she’s smart enough to get paid

 

[rexanglorum]

The major things that played a role in forming the Democratic Coalition was not the GOP turning hostile to democracy. The parties started to realign before that.

It was civil rights and the fall out from that. Once the parties started polarizing around that, once the GOP chose white supremacy as their electoral strategy, we were set down this road.

Many DSA types seemingly can't face the fact that the thing holding back their workers coalition is not the Democratic Party looking out for the capital interest of rich people. It is because majority of white people don't wanted it. Full stop. Any analysis that ignores this fact or downplays it misses the mark.

There are large swaths of land where the Democratic brand is dead, yet the far left has made zero inroads with these workers. Why? Because they are rural areas that these people are motivated by white identity politics first and foremost.

Secondly, the insinuation that minorities, even white collar workers, would just throw their desire for more robust civil right policy aside to form a coalition with white supremacist is bull**** as well.

But as always, white supremacy is subordinate so let us view every through the economic lense.

A number of whites, in the 60's and 70's and 80's, literally and figuratively abandoned and then burned down the semblance of a decent, civil society that they had built after WWII, rather than share it with black people. There's no doubt about that.

At the same time, we are not forever caught in an inescapable curse that was cast in 1964. There have been at least three moments since that year that the prospect of a multiracial workers coalition looked possible and it was the Professional-Managerial class wing of the part that defeated it. In 1988, in 2009 and now, we have the urban professional faction of the attacking Jesse Jackson, the post 2008 mandate for socialism and now Bernie 2020 (who is leading with non white voters, it is just a plurality but he's leading. This is not 2016 where his base was almost all white).

Of Course, the Party elders now and back then would say that they share the same goals as Jackson or sanders or Obama's campaign promises in 2008. The problem is that we live in a super majority white, center-right country and we just can't fly too close to the sun. They'd argue that it'd be better to get half of what we want rather than nothing. Ok sure, let's say that's true at the national level. What about in virtually every major city and in some States who whites aren't a majority and the GOP is not a serious threat?

One would expect the Democratic Party and its elected officials to be further left in those places but they end up being hostile to workers, especially the poorest workers and especially to unhoused people. To get them to even moderate their ruthless towards the unhoused, for instance, you have to do a ton of direct action and sometimes you have to beat them in city council races and district attorney races. I don't expect any incumbent politician to just give up but after seeing enough elections where real estate interests spend lots of money to stop left wing, pro homeless candidates, it is hard to think of the Democratic Party as one big happy family of progressives with the same policy goals. When you got advocates for the housing secure and the housing insecure on the one side and you've got landlords and real estate developers, there is intractable conflict there.

So when I see a national politician in the Democratic Party not serve the homeless and instead serve real estate interests, I have to ask myself if they are doing this to appeal to suburban moderates or is this politicians doing what they wanted to do all along, which is serving their class interests and/or the class interests of their donors.

Sure. Yes it would be more simply, and yes it would be easier to manage. And yes I would prefer it.

But like I said before the thing about our political system is that is forces coalition building before elections instead of after.

But in your scenario the right stays unified, so that means the reationary racist right still rules the right. And centrist will someone unify with them just to rent seek? So why don't they do it now?

Like your scenario really only works if the new system can splinter the GOP too.

In this scenario, we'd have proportional, national voting for an American Parliament. Since the GOP has lost most popular votes this century, they would not be able to get 50% outright. Therefore, the left and center parties would be in the driver's seat to form a government. The GOP's path would involve getting close to 50% and grafting on one or more of the most centrist parties. Now in a situation where we have multiple, indentitarian, rent seeking PMC parties, the GOP would obviously reach out to the white PMC Party or they'd reach out to the women's PMC Party (which we know in this counter factual, would be mostly a white women's Party). I doubt that the hypothetical black PMC Party would be offered nor would it accept a offer to form a government that would be centered on the GOP and fascism.

The reason why I'm so down on the PMC is related to my experiences in a blue part of the country and, as I mentioned above, the discourse and rhetoric about homeless people in particular. The sight of or even the mere mention of unhoused people turn plenty of well educated, woke urban professionals into tea party style monsters. I think of how they act now and imagine the barbarism when we hit a major recession and of course, the coming effects and displacement of climate change.

 

[rexanglorum]

Can someone please explain to me why this is news?

is she a candidate for something?

are either of her parents candidates for something which a potential conflict could arise?

Because the Clintons live rent free in the media's heads.

There is public interest there although it is annoying that the MSM didn't use this story as a jumping off point to ask deeper question about meritocracy and its fail premise. Bundle Chelsea Clinton and Hunter Biden and the Trump kids with the hundreds of other adult children of current and former public officials who "earn," in a year or two, what many American earn in a lifetime.

 

[elpablo21]

Can someone please explain to me why this is news?

is she a candidate for something?

are either of her parents candidates for something which a potential conflict could arise?

The Hill is becoming Fox News lite

 

[IATT]

 

[AEA18]

Ivanka and Trump Organization linked to Suleimani's front company: New Yorker writer

www.rawstory.com

Maddow is/was the only person reporting (on TV) about trump's Azerbaijan deal. How is this not part of any current/past investigation into the orange clown?

 

[IATT]

the Trump kids

more concerned with the levels this family will go for their own self interest

between trying to get things approved directly for them (trade marks, building or other permits and investments)

however this is also concerning, given assumptions already get made when certain people publicly advocate for something

 

[-Red-]

If we had a parliamentary system and the DSA was in party, they would not be in power, they would not be the main left wing party, I don't even think they would be even be the secondary left wing party.

This is the fool's errand people like AOC are on, they think taking over the Democratic party is "winning". That's somehow all the Dems problems can be traced back to them not being left enough.

I mean I like her, but ole girl kinda be feeling herself too much. There are some things of things other progressives should push back on her about.

So what would you like to see people whose political vision is much more egalitarian than that of the mainstream Democratic Party do, exactly?

When they run third party, they are excoriated for splitting the "progressive" vote and handing power to the GOP. Now that they are working within the party to try to drag it to the left from inside, they are chided as running a "fool's errand."

What would you like to see them do instead, Rusty, since neither of these options are apparently acceptable to you?

EDIT: To your first point, I suppose it would depend on what you mean by "left-wing party."

 

[IATT]

 

[-Red-]

The major things that played a role in forming the Democratic Coalition was not the GOP turning hostile to democracy. The parties started to realign before that.

It was civil rights and the fall out from that. Once the parties started polarizing around that, once the GOP chose white supremacy as their electoral strategy, we were set down this road.

Many DSA types seemingly can't face the fact that the thing holding back their workers coalition is not the Democratic Party looking out for the capital interest of rich people. It is because majority of white people don't wanted it. Full stop. Any analysis that ignores this fact or downplays it misses the mark.

So as a result of this they Democratic Party has to build its coalition in a different way. Each faction needs to feel they are getting something special/specific out the deal (something that means more that the stuff the platform they disagree with) instead of unifying around the "worker" message.

There are large swaths of land where the Democratic brand is dead, yet the far left has made zero inroads with these workers. Why? Because they are rural areas that these people are motivated by white identity politics first and foremost.

Secondly, the insinuation that minorities, even white collar workers, would just throw their desire for more robust civil right policy aside to form a coalition with white supremacist is bull**** as well.

But as always, white supremacy is subordinate so let us view every through the economic lense.

The Southern elite have always been hostile to democracy—they were when they were Democrats and they are now that they're Republicans. The Southern political economy and the social order that flowed from it has always been rooted in the predominance of the elite and the immiseration of the masses—not just blacks (though obviously especially blacks), but whites also. Period.

Poll taxes, literacy tests, grandfathers clauses, etc. were established not only to disfranchise black folks, but also to disfranchise poor whites, and in many areas more than half of all whites were unable to vote under these policies. During Reconstruction, when white and black workers united against the Southern plantocracy's hegemonic power (formalized in the Democratic Party), the plantocracy embarked on concerted campaigns of deception, fraud, intimidation, and violence including assassinations to, often forcibly, regain power. "White supremacy" alone doesn't explain any of this, nor does it explain the post-civil rights political realignment in this country.

 

[-Red-]

Sure. Yes it would be more simply, and yes it would be easier to manage. And yes I would prefer it.

But like I said before the thing about our political system is that is forces coalition building before elections instead of after.

But in your scenario the right stays unified, so that means the reationary racist right still rules the right. And centrist will someone unify with them just to rent seek? So why don't they do it now?

Like your scenario really only works if the new system can splinter the GOP too.

Perhaps. But on one hand, nearly half of eligible voters don't actually vote, so I don't think splitting the GOP is necessarily needed. On the other hand, it is not impossible that the GOP could be fractured along class lines, even if not all working-class whites defected—indeed, there are already millions of working-class whites who currently vote Democrat.

 

[Present]

Chicago 1969: When Black Panthers aligned with Confederate-flag-wielding, working-class whites

Former members of the Chicago Panthers and YPO tell different versions of the same story of how the groups connected: Each attended the other’s organizing meetings and decided to work together on their common issues. Over time, the Black Panthers learned to tolerate Confederate flags as intransigent signs for rebellion. Their only stipulation was that the white Young Patriots denounce racism.

Eventually, Young Patriots rejected their deeply embedded ideas of white supremacy – and even the Confederate flag – as they realized how much they had in common with the Black Panthers and Latino Young Lords.

Assumed to be natural enemies, these groups united in their calls for economic justice. In the Aug. 9, 1969 issue of The Black Panther newspaper, the party’s chief of staff, David Hilliard, admiringly called the Young Patriots “the only revolutionaries we respect that ever came out of the mother country.” Recalling his work with the YPO, former Black Panther Bobby Lee explained that “The Rainbow Coalition was just a code word for class struggle.”

Fred Hampton wasnt assasinated for nothing.

Chicago 1969: When Black Panthers aligned with Confederate-flag-wielding, working-class whites

In this article from 2017, a look at the coordination of strategy between white and Black activists to fight systemic class oppression.

theconversation.com

 

[RustyShackleford]

The Southern elite have always been hostile to democracy—they were when they were Democrats and they are now that they're Republicans. The Southern political economy and the social order that flowed from it has always been rooted in the predominance of the elite and the immiseration of the masses—not just blacks (though obviously especially blacks), but whites also. Period.

Poll taxes, literacy tests, grandfathers clauses, etc. were established not only to disfranchise black folks, but also to disfranchise poor whites, and in many areas more than half of all whites were unable to vote under these policies. During Reconstruction, when white and black workers united against the Southern plantocracy's hegemonic power (formalized in the Democratic Party), the plantocracy embarked on concerted campaigns of deception, fraud, intimidation, and violence including assassinations to, often forcibly, regain power. "White supremacy" alone doesn't explain any of this, nor does it explain the post-civil rights political realignment in this country.

I was responding to Rex's comment that the coalitions we see are because of the GOP hostility to democracy.

His comment...

It is true that the Democratic coalition is huge (it has to be since the Republican Party enjoys a whole suite of counter majoritarian devices)

Rex then didn't include white suprremacy in his analysis, that is why I made the comment. I didn't argue it was exclusively the reason, just that Rex ignored it.

I will respond to the second part about those antidemocracy being a class issue instead of a race issue because it deserves a longer response.

 

[-Red-]

A number of whites, in the 60's and 70's and 80's, literally and figuratively abandoned and then burned down the semblance of a decent, civil society that they had built after WWII, rather than share it with black people. There's no doubt about that.

At the same time, we are not forever caught in an inescapable curse that was cast in 1964. There have been at least three moments since that year that the prospect of a multiracial workers coalition looked possible and it was the Professional-Managerial class wing of the part that defeated it. In 1988, in 2009 and now, we have the urban professional faction of the attacking Jesse Jackson, the post 2008 mandate for socialism and now Bernie 2020 (who is leading with non white voters, it is just a plurality but he's leading. This is not 2016 where his base was almost all white).

Of Course, the Party elders now and back then would say that they share the same goals as Jackson or sanders or Obama's campaign promises in 2008. The problem is that we live in a super majority white, center-right country and we just can't fly too close to the sun. They'd argue that it'd be better to get half of what we want rather than nothing. Ok sure, let's say that's true at the national level. What about in virtually every major city and in some States who whites aren't a majority and the GOP is not a serious threat?

One would expect the Democratic Party and its elected officials to be further left in those places but they end up being hostile to workers, especially the poorest workers and especially to unhoused people. To get them to even moderate their ruthless towards the unhoused, for instance, you have to do a ton of direct action and sometimes you have to beat them in city council races and district attorney races. I don't expect any incumbent politician to just give up but after seeing enough elections where real estate interests spend lots of money to stop left wing, pro homeless candidates, it is hard to think of the Democratic Party as one big happy family of progressives with the same policy goals. When you got advocates for the housing secure and the housing insecure on the one side and you've got landlords and real estate developers, there is intractable conflict there.

So when I see a national politician in the Democratic Party not serve the homeless and instead serve real estate interests, I have to ask myself if they are doing this to appeal to suburban moderates or is this politicians doing what they wanted to do all along, which is serving their class interests and/or the class interests of their donors.




In this scenario, we'd have proportional, national voting for an American Parliament. Since the GOP has lost most popular votes this century, they would not be able to get 50% outright. Therefore, the left and center parties would be in the driver's seat to form a government. The GOP's path would involve getting close to 50% and grafting on one or more of the most centrist parties. Now in a situation where we have multiple, indentitarian, rent seeking PMC parties, the GOP would obviously reach out to the white PMC Party or they'd reach out to the women's PMC Party (which we know in this counter factual, would be mostly a white women's Party). I doubt that the hypothetical black PMC Party would be offered nor would it accept a offer to form a government that would be centered on the GOP and fascism.

The reason why I'm so down on the PMC is related to my experiences in a blue part of the country and, as I mentioned above, the discourse and rhetoric about homeless people in particular. The sight of or even the mere mention of unhoused people turn plenty of well educated, woke urban professionals into tea party style monsters. I think of how they act now and imagine the barbarism when we hit a major recession and of course, the coming effects and displacement of climate change.

Right. We don't need to really guess what nominally progressive Democrats (i.e., mainstream, centrist, corporate, neoliberal—whichever phrase you might prefer) would do with power once they have it. We can see it in our cities that are governed by unassailable Democratic super-majorities, many of which are also in state governed by Democratic majorities. Many of these cities are even governed by coalitions that are even majority black or POC. The results have not been pretty, to put things quite mildly.

 

[RustyShackleford]

Perhaps. But on one hand, nearly half of eligible voters don't actually vote, so I don't think splitting the GOP is necessarily needed. On the other hand, it is not impossible that the GOP could be fractured along class lines, even if not all working-class whites defected—indeed, there are already millions of working-class whites who currently vote Democrat.

Without other Electoral reforms, I doubt changing to a parliamentary system will be enough to drive turnout that much more.

Secondly, again I was responding to Rex. In his scenario the GOP (racist and cruel as it is) doesn't split, but they gain power because centrist professionals of all races leave the left and join them. Centrist join with the reactionary right. I am saying that won't happen because people have a chance to do it now and they don't.

The only way it can happen is if the GOP splinters and sheds the worst of the right, so centrist fell more comfortable with that coalition. In Rex's scenario, white collar professional minorities get as morally bankrupt as dwalk31 . I just don't buy that this level buffoonery will be that widespread.

 

[keko jones]

Chicago 1969: When Black Panthers aligned with Confederate-flag-wielding, working-class whites

Former members of the Chicago Panthers and YPO tell different versions of the same story of how the groups connected: Each attended the other’s organizing meetings and decided to work together on their common issues. Over time, the Black Panthers learned to tolerate Confederate flags as intransigent signs for rebellion. Their only stipulation was that the white Young Patriots denounce racism.

Eventually, Young Patriots rejected their deeply embedded ideas of white supremacy – and even the Confederate flag – as they realized how much they had in common with the Black Panthers and Latino Young Lords.

Assumed to be natural enemies, these groups united in their calls for economic justice. In the Aug. 9, 1969 issue of The Black Panther newspaper, the party’s chief of staff, David Hilliard, admiringly called the Young Patriots “the only revolutionaries we respect that ever came out of the mother country.” Recalling his work with the YPO, former Black Panther Bobby Lee explained that “The Rainbow Coalition was just a code word for class struggle.”

Fred Hampton wasnt assasinated for nothing.

Chicago 1969: When Black Panthers aligned with Confederate-flag-wielding, working-class whites

In this article from 2017, a look at the coordination of strategy between white and Black activists to fight systemic class oppression.

theconversation.com

Ain't that what just happened in the NFL?

And what I mean by this is, no matter how people want to mask it ... it is what it is and that's WHITES ONLY COME CALLING WHEN THEY NEED SOMETHING. WHEN IT BENEFITS THEM.

That story is bull**** ...

The only reason Lincoln freed the slaves was to punish the south and because they needed more bodies to fight.

IN OTHER WORDS, IT BENEFITED THEM.


Call it what it is .....

 

[KHUFU]

Until Black people have our own political platform, one created for our own benefit, our own focus, with a connection politically to an all Black run country ala the Jews and Israel? Partnering with white americans will always be a precarious position to be in.

If you haven't learned, that sort of partnership has never reaped positive results for Black people, yet always elevating white people. See any organization that started out Black, yet winding up benefiting whites more than anyone else.

Affirmative action, #MeToo

Yet Black women are catching hell, dying while giving birth, less likely to get proper care, and even more less likely to be taken seriously in regard to reporting crimes committed against them.

White supremacy is THE problem that Black americans face on the daily. Thinking otherwise is simply ridiculous, willfully ignorant.

 

[IATT]

 

[aepps20]

Until conservatives start hitting Libbies, libs, liberals, soy bois, broke bois, clown dudes and sjws with smash mouth politics, nothing will change.