I would agree that "the political situation in America is deteriorating due to mutual distrust and paranoia." However, the cause of that mutual distrust and paranoia is not a mutual thing, and we can't get rid of the distrust and paranoia unless folks like Mitch McConnell, whose entire career for the past decade has been sabotaging Democratic policies and packing federal courts, are out of power. The GOP has been very clear that they do not believe Democrats should have any political power at all, regardless of the outcomes of elections--even John McCain said they'd prevent a President Clinton from ever filling a Supreme Court seat, just like they agreed to block Obama's SC nominee before Obama even named him.
We saw a perfectly functional government for the first 2 years of the Obama administration, when Democrats controlled both houses of Congress as well as the presidency. We then saw 6 years of gridlock due to a Republican Congress that didn't want the country to succeed under Obama. Then we saw 4 years of absolutely blind, incoherent leadership under Trump--even for the first 2 years when Republicans also controlled both houses of Congress, proving that it wasn't just Democratic sabotage that made the Trump administration chaotic and useless.
When Democrats controlled House, Senate, and the Oval Office, we saw groundbreaking healthcare legislation. Ever since then, the GOP has controlled the Senate, and the only major legislation has been more tax cuts for the wealthy and stimulus that went straight to big business. How many times has the Trump administration told us they had a big new plan for a wall or for healthcare or for COVID, and then nothing happened?
I do think getting back to normal governance will require Democrats to control House, Senate, and the presidency. The last time they did, we had a functioning government. Any GOP control will mean sabotage; that's what we've seen for the past 10 years.
There are valid conservative ideas worth implementing; Obamacare/the ACA was one of them (we will never tire of pointing out that it was based on Romney's healthcare plan). However, the GOP as it currently exists isn't about that anymore. They're about winning elections now and clinging to power, and if that means sabotaging a Democratic president, they'll do it.
The GOP couldn't govern even when they had full control.
The Democratic Party could govern only when they had full control.
That's what we've seen over the past 12 years. The GOP is the common denominator when the government is dysfunctional; the Democratic Party is not.
So what then is the solution?
Vote for folks who actually want to govern, folks who have actual policies and plans, folks who don't sabotage the opposition, folks who think about something besides winning the next election. Currently that just means Democrats, but that's not a permanent thing: if we refuse to vote for GOP candidates who don't want to govern, they will be replaced by GOP candidates who do want to govern, and then we'll have more than just Democrats to vote for.
I'll add that the ONLY way to address this mistrust and paranoia IS outreach, and by god, it has been tried. The entire Obama Presidency was an attempt at outreach (to it's detriment). The countless profiles of Trump supporters in every major media outlet was an attempt at outreach. Merrick Garland was an attempt at outreach. Joe Biden sure as shit is an attempt at outreach (a party sacrificing it's own more liberal goals to woo conservative voters who may be paranoid of a woman, black man, socialism, etc). And not only is the hand slapped away every time, now they are just attempting to bite the hand off.
And where's the outreach and the call for outreach to the other side? On the one hand we're told that the polarization is not symmetric, on the other hand only the less polarized side is called out.
The obvious subtext of the argument being made is that only Democrats/the left side of the spectrum can be reasoned with. That's telling.
I think the solution is absolute defeat at the ballot box. It's not that Democrats "win every election from now". It's that Republican suffer a string of defeats so convincing that they have to change to be competitive in elections. We're not there yet, but we are getting there imo.
No you won't get there because the Republicans will find some other neglected people to make up the difference just like they did in 2016 with the Rust Belt. The rank and file Republicans may not be the most educated but I guarantee you that there are very smart people among the conservatives.
We saw a perfectly functional government for the first 2 years of the Obama administration, when Democrats controlled both houses of Congress as well as the presidency. We then saw 6 years of gridlock due to a Republican Congress that didn't want the country to succeed under Obama. Then we saw 4 years of absolutely blind, incoherent leadership under Trump--even for the first 2 years when Republicans also controlled both houses of Congress, proving that it wasn't just Democratic sabotage that made the Trump administration chaotic and useless.
This is extremely well said. Obama and the Democrats might not have passed one's policy preferences, but it was not a dysfunctional government. And even during that term, Obama had to compromise with a very broad Democratic coalition that included key Senators from places like Nebraska. Not super liberal people!
Good governance is entirely possible in our times in the US.
It's not that Democrats "win every election from now". It's that Republican suffer a string of defeats so convincing that they have to change to be competitive in elections.
Yeah. I don't want the GOP gone; I just want it to get its shit together and come up with some actual ideas for solving our national problems. That won't happen until they have to have real ideas to win elections, and voters need to make that a requirement.
I'll add that the ONLY way to address this mistrust and paranoia IS outreach, and by god, it has been tried. The entire Obama Presidency was an attempt at outreach (to it's detriment). The countless profiles of Trump supporters in every major media outlet was an attempt at outreach. Merrick Garland was an attempt at outreach. Joe Biden sure as shit is an attempt at outreach (a party sacrificing it's own more liberal goals to woo conservative voters who may be paranoid of a woman, black man, socialism, etc). And not only is the hand slapped away every time, now they are just attempting to bite the hand off.
The obvious subtext of the argument being made is that only Democrats/the left side of the spectrum can be reasoned with. That's telling.
It is telling.
While it's hard to measure polarization in any objective fashion, I think "disliking people or losing friends solely over differing political beliefs" is a good measurement of it. In that regard, Democrats have consistently been more polarized for a long time. I imagine it is the broad trend of liberals rejecting conservative peers and not listening to conservatives opinions that has brought them into this echo chamber where they believe all negative qualities are inherent to the opposition, and apply not at all to themselves.
I have a plan. How about having our educators get back to teaching mathematics, the scientific method and critical thinking instead of pseudo-scientific political claptrap? How about training our children how to guard their minds from bullshit instead of training them to be obedient consumers? How about treating all human beings the same instead of dividing them into little sub-groups, separating them and turning them against each other? How about politicians actually doing any of the fucking things they promise instead of parading the same old Goddamned promises every 2-4 years to get everybody fired up until the election is over?
At this stage, I'd gladly settle for a modest educational campaign that explains why Flat Earth theory is not scientific. But hey, if you wanna dream big, more power to you.
Calling out and shaming these tactics: has it made the situation better? Has it made Republicans less likely to engage in them or believe them? Is the Republican party now, after decades of this, now more likely to accept science and evidence?
It has won elections, and gotten Republicans out of power both in 2018 and right now. So yeah, I'd say it's working.
I'd also argue it's only very recently, with the gratuitous excesses of Trump, that the neutral press has even begun to call out Republican bad behavior for what it is. For much of Obama's term and even W Bush's disastrous term, the "both sides" framing was the norm -- again, as the essay I linked to argued.
I'm not talking about op-ed pages here, but the neutral news. Even the front section of the NYT, despite conservative complaints about it, has been at extreme pains to dub Trump a liar.
I would agree that "the political situation in America is deteriorating due to mutual distrust and paranoia." However, the cause of that mutual distrust and paranoia is not a mutual thing, and we can't get rid of the distrust and paranoia unless folks like Mitch McConnell, whose entire career for the past decade has been sabotaging Democratic policies and packing federal courts, are out of power. The GOP has been very clear that they do not believe Democrats should have any political power at all, regardless of the outcomes of elections--even John McCain said they'd prevent a President Clinton from ever filling a Supreme Court seat, just like they agreed to block Obama's SC nominee before Obama even named him.
We saw a perfectly functional government for the first 2 years of the Obama administration, when Democrats controlled both houses of Congress as well as the presidency. We then saw 6 years of gridlock due to a Republican Congress that didn't want the country to succeed under Obama. Then we saw 4 years of absolutely blind, incoherent leadership under Trump--even for the first 2 years when Republicans also controlled both houses of Congress, proving that it wasn't just Democratic sabotage that made the Trump administration chaotic and useless.
When Democrats controlled House, Senate, and the Oval Office, we saw groundbreaking healthcare legislation. Ever since then, the GOP has controlled the Senate, and the only major legislation has been more tax cuts for the wealthy and stimulus that went straight to big business. How many times has the Trump administration told us they had a big new plan for a wall or for healthcare or for COVID, and then nothing happened?
I do think getting back to normal governance will require Democrats to control House, Senate, and the presidency. The last time they did, we had a functioning government. Any GOP control will mean sabotage; that's what we've seen for the past 10 years.
There are valid conservative ideas worth implementing; Obamacare/the ACA was one of them (we will never tire of pointing out that it was based on Romney's healthcare plan). However, the GOP as it currently exists isn't about that anymore. They're about winning elections now and clinging to power, and if that means sabotaging a Democratic president, they'll do it.
The GOP couldn't govern even when they had full control.
The Democratic Party could govern only when they had full control.
That's what we've seen over the past 12 years. The GOP is the common denominator when the government is dysfunctional; the Democratic Party is not.
So what then is the solution?
Vote for folks who actually want to govern, folks who have actual policies and plans, folks who don't sabotage the opposition, folks who think about something besides winning the next election. Currently that just means Democrats, but that's not a permanent thing: if we refuse to vote for GOP candidates who don't want to govern, they will be replaced by GOP candidates who do want to govern, and then we'll have more than just Democrats to vote for.
If the Democrats are so close to total victory, how did they manage to lose seats in the House with such a supposedly unpopular President as Trump (who wasn't nearly as unpopular as he was thought to be apparently)? It isn't very likely that the Senate goes Democrat either, despite Yang's moving to Georgia for the next two months. The Democrats are just as delusional about their popularity as the Republicans. The truth is that there are a LOT of people who don't give two shits about either party and there will always be enough of those folks to fuck over the grandiose plans of either 'side'. Sorry but it's true...
The Democrats, blessed be their name, have never, ever "sabotaged", or refused to work with, any Administration or President. Don't believe your lying eyes over the past 4 years. When they were saying "Trump is a traitor to the United States and I will never, ever work with him" or "punish everyone who has ever worked with that man" they really meant "we will cooperate with you to the fullest, old buddy".
If the Democrats governed so well in the first years of Obama’s presidency... why didn’t voters want that to continue? (Even given the way in which the Senate favours smaller states.)
Does governing ‘well’ pay off at the ballot box?
In countries where parties have had sustained success- e.g. India, Japan, South Africa etc. - was governing ‘well’ more important than other factors? I’m not sure if I would agree, apart from anything else the fruits of good governance are often not observable at the best time for the electoral cycle.
The United States needs a set of "radical" policies implemented yesterday to deal with the deeply ingrained economic and social problems it has. If barely perceptible change at the margins while affirming the status quo counts as "good governance", I can see why it didn't last very long.
Your only "solution" so far is for us to stop pointing out how bad Republicans are. This doesn't strike me as a "plan".
That was not a solution. That was a "Stop arguing over whose fault it is we're going over a cliff because we're going over a cliff."
Once mutual agreement is reached that "Holy shit, we are going over a cliff!" and this is presumably declared more important than whose fault it was, then actually useful discussion can in theory be had about what to do about the incipient dive off a cliff.
To put it another way, what I want to do is not convince you the Republicans aren't bad (because they are), but shift you to at least thinking about what can be done to improve this horrible zero-sum situation where the majority of both sides hate and fear the other side. That's why I was willing to concede on the "Republicans are 100% to blame for this" argument; that's not actually the most important part. I'd do the same thing if I was having this argument with a Republican/right-winger.
So, let's discuss the solution to the pressing problem here:
I'll add that the ONLY way to address this mistrust and paranoia IS outreach, and by god, it has been tried.
I find this genuinely fascinating. You state that the only way to address this mistrust and paranoia is outreach... but you don't want to do it, think it doesn't work, and don't think it can work.
So... what do you think can work? Or do you genuinely feel that the only way forward from here is for things to get worse and worse until the country splits apart/a dictator takes power/civil war occurs? Or something else I'm not considering?
Jesus christ, I'm saying it's BEEN tried, ad nauseam, and that I'm PERSONALLY sick of it because it NEVER works and is NEVER reciprocated. It's pretty clear to me your only goal here is to dissect everyone's posts line by line, scoring the exact "points" you accuse us of wanting to score on Republicans.
I don't really think anything can "work", and if you'd just cared to ask it, I would have told you two hours ago. The only thing that can currently be done with the chess board as it is currently laid out is 4-8 years of damage mitigation and harm reduction in the most basic sense. That's it. That's best case scenario for Democrats. That's how little we are asking for and will accept at this point.
@Mantis37: Funny thing is, Obamacare, which started out so unpopular at first, became very popular years later. Voters repudiated the Democratic Party in 2010 for passing it, but now most folks want it to stay.
@Balrog99: I don't think the Democrats are so close to total victory--I think they've just made incremental progress in winning over voters. Meanwhile, the GOP has found other means of winning elections: stoking fear, identity politics, misinformation, conspiracy theories, voter suppression, gerrymandering, the electoral college, and the typical mainstay of corporate campaign donations.
For what it's worth, Democratic policies are broadly more popular with voters (polls show that year after year), and Democrats do get more votes overall than Republicans--it's just that the Senate isn't tied to population, the electoral college is only partially tied to population, the House of Representatives hasn't been updated to be tied to the current population, and good old fashioned gerrymandering can give you political power even when the majority rejects you. As we've griped many times, a lot of GOP-dominated governments were elected with a minority of votes.
Popularity is a predictor, not a determinant, of political power in our system.
Democratic policies are broadly more popular with voters
To be fair, this is because Republican policies on economics have typically been in line with Scrooge McDuck, or your average comic book villain. If they couldn't be more popular than this, there would have to be something seriously wrong with them.
These forces in the GOP lost big under Trump and I hope to see it continue to happen, because many "liberal" economic policies are also more popular with conservatives. GOP members simply betray their base on economics, full stop.
And where's the outreach and the call for outreach to the other side? On the one hand we're told that the polarization is not symmetric, on the other hand only the less polarized side is called out.
The obvious subtext of the argument being made is that only Democrats/the left side of the spectrum can be reasoned with. That's telling.
It's telling... of the fact I'm arguing with leftists, in a forum thread where most of the posters are leftist.
It's not particularly telling of anything else, which is why I keep noting without any hesitation that Republicans are worse.
You're not going to find me out to be a secret Republican, or even a secret centrist.
I think the solution is absolute defeat at the ballot box. It's not that Democrats "win every election from now". It's that Republican suffer a string of defeats so convincing that they have to change to be competitive in elections. We're not there yet, but we are getting there imo.
Republicans gained in the House, most likely didn't lose the Senate, and gained in state control. The data, both of this election and of the thin margins and shifts of control over the course of this century, does not suggest that "a string of defeats so convincing" is in the offing. At the very least, a rational look should tell you this is in no way guaranteed.
And if your solution that Republicans will be forced to behave by electoral defeat does not come to pass... what then?
Are you going to offer a single solution to your own question, or are we just puppets on your string in this conversation??
If the Democrats are so close to total victory, how did they manage to lose seats in the House with such a supposedly unpopular President as Trump (who wasn't nearly as unpopular as he was thought to be apparently)? It isn't very likely that the Senate goes Democrat either, despite Yang's moving to Georgia for the next two months. The Democrats are just as delusional about their popularity as the Republicans. The truth is that there are a LOT of people who don't give two shits about either party and there will always be enough of those folks to fuck over the grandiose plans of either 'side'. Sorry but it's true...
As I've explained previously, anti-democratic institutions enable the Republican Party to cling to power while defying what most Americans would prefer -- i.e. Senate control.
The logic of why democracy is preferable to autocracy is because the people should be able to select leaders who are answerable to them. But the GOP has found a way to build a faction that's not the majority in order to cling to power and thus break the core promise of democracy.
While many people don't cite this as the reason, imo, it's one of the core reasons why the federal government feels so broken to many Americans.
The Democrats are not close to total control of anything. It's more likely than not they lose the House in two years. This has very little to do with how broadly "popular" their agenda is compared to the other side, and everything to do with the rules of the game.
I have a plan. How about having our educators get back to teaching mathematics, the scientific method and critical thinking instead of pseudo-scientific political claptrap? How about training our children how to guard their minds from bullshit instead of training them to be obedient consumers? How about treating all human beings the same instead of dividing them into little sub-groups, separating them and turning them against each other? How about politicians actually doing any of the fucking things they promise instead of parading the same old Goddamned promises every 2-4 years to get everybody fired up until the election is over?
For your points on education, it would be good if you were more specific, and it would probably behoove you to realise that education is an inevitably politicised field precisely because it involves molding the minds of children, and that you're doomed to struggle if you really think there is an "objective", apolitical way to educate anyone.
Who precisely is "dividing humans into little sub-groups"? Or, more to the point, who isn't? Certainly not the political right. HUMANS do that, because dividing things into groups (especially "us and them") is a consistently fundamental part of human nature.
I guess I'm not referring to minor promises, just the same major ones I've been hearing over and over again from both sides for 4 decades now (balancing the budget, fixing the infrastructure, fixing healthcare, fixing education, blah, blah, blah...).
Education wasn't always as political as it is now. The partisanship is starting to pollute the system I think. The main thing I don't see being taught is critical thinking and perspective. That was mostly taught to me in science classes, but I did learn from history classes and even some of my language arts classes how to see things from other people's perspectives. It's much harder to hate somebody or dismiss them if you can see where they're coming from (yes, even if you think/know that they're wrong).
The dividing is done by human nature, but that doesn't mean it can't be overcome. I'm not talking about everybody being best buddies. That's never going to happen. But maybe if we all followed the golden rule a bit more we could at least make sure people aren't persecuted for petty differences...
Folks need to stop citing this point cuz it doesn't mean what you think it does. Every House seat was up for election this year. Democrats won the majority of them. Voters preferred Democrats in their House races by a fair margin.
This isn't the Senate with staggered election and where slow gains are important. Seats can swing wildly election to election. A five seat swing is about as close to consistent election-to-election standing in the House as you will find. By contrast the House swung by forty seats 2016-2018.
They are not close to total control. They won't be taking voting power away from powerless farmers and truck drivers, as excited as they are at the prospect, any time soon. It looks like, as much as they hate it, they might actually have to throw the working class a bone once in a blue moon. Democracy isn't as exciting when you realize you also have to help people in the country you might not like very much.
I would agree that "the political situation in America is deteriorating due to mutual distrust and paranoia." However, the cause of that mutual distrust and paranoia is not a mutual thing
Okay, cool. I don't entirely agree with you, but let's focus on the part we do agree on.
I do think getting back to normal governance will require Democrats to control House, Senate, and the presidency. The last time they did, we had a functioning government. Any GOP control will mean sabotage; that's what we've seen for the past 10 years.
But this will not happen. No party has taken control of every branch of government for more than two years for a long time. So to me, this in tantamount to saying "barring the occasional couple of years, there can be be no functional governance in the United States", which is... not very optimistic. It's also ignoring that apparently the voting public does not electorally reward functional governance, since they responded both times it existed by promptly voting the Republicans into control two years later.
(Note: the voting public also keeps destroying Republican majorities after two years.)
Vote for folks who actually want to govern, folks who have actual policies and plans, folks who don't sabotage the opposition, folks who think about something besides winning the next election. Currently that just means Democrats, but that's not a permanent thing: if we refuse to vote for GOP candidates who don't want to govern, they will be replaced by GOP candidates who do want to govern, and then we'll have more than just Democrats to vote for.
The problem is: that isn't a solution, it's an aspiration. People will not vote the way you want them to. We know this, because they didn't vote the way you wanted them to in 2020. (They didn't vote the way Republicans wanted them to either, it's worth pointing out.)
"We", as you use it in this case, is people who didn't vote for the GOP anyway. But they're not the ones that actually need to shift what they value. Can you think of anything that would make GOP voters value these things in a way more in line with the way you do?
The entirety of this conversation is a master-class in why it's INCREDIBLY obvious that only Democrats are viewed as actually having agency, and Republicans are just gonna "do what they're gonna do".
The entirety of this conversation is a master-class in why it's INCREDIBLY obvious that only Democrats are viewed as actually having agency, and Republicans are just gonna "do what they're gonna do".
I mean, this is probably the view among Democrats, which says a lot about themselves and nothing about anyone else. But such beliefs seem typical nowadays. Only Democrats are capable of thought, reason, and empathy. Everything else is the gibbering lunacy of raving madmen.
The entirety of this conversation is a master-class in why it's INCREDIBLY obvious that only Democrats are viewed as actually having agency, and Republicans are just gonna "do what they're gonna do".
I mean, this is probably the view among Democrats, which says a lot about themselves and nothing about anyone else. But such beliefs seem typical nowadays. Only Democrats are capable of thought, reason, and empathy. Everything else is the gibbering lunacy of raving madmen.
It's Republicans that have chosen to reject scientific views on a number of issues -- issues that aren't controversial in conservative parties in other democracies.
They are not close to total control. They won't be taking voting power away from powerless farmers and truck drivers, as excited as they are at the prospect, any time soon. It looks like, as much as they hate it, they might actually have to throw the working class a bone once in a blue moon. Democracy isn't as exciting when you realize you also have to help people in the country you might not like very much.
Last time the Democrats had complete control of the government, they passed a healthcare bill that expanded coverage to tens of millions of Americans, disproportionately benefiting lower income folks.
Last time Republicans had complete control of the government they passed Paul Ryan's tax cuts, that disproportionately benefited the wealthiest Americans.
Folks need to stop citing this point cuz it doesn't mean what you think it does. Every House seat was up for election this year. Democrats won the majority of them. Voters preferred Democrats in their House races by a fair margin.
This isn't the Senate with staggered election and where slow gains are important. Seats can swing wildly election to election. A five seat swing is about as close to consistent election-to-election standing in the House as you will find. By contrast the House swung by forty seats 2016-2018.
Every House seat is up for election every two years. The fact is that the Democrats lost seats compared to 2018. Thus less of a majority. Thus closer to losing the House. I don't see any rosy view for the Democrats to believe that they're going to gain ground in 2022 either. The plain fact is that the election of a President from one party generally swings Congress away from that party in the next election. I'll predict right now that the Republicans will gain the House but lose the Senate in 2022 (the Senate is indicating a trend to the left and the 6 year terms make it lag a bit behind). You heard it here first!
Trump lost because he was down 5% with white men, despite gaining with all minority groups in comparison to last election. These margins are always close and polarization will ensure it remains that way, almost without fail. I essentially agree with @Ayiekie that to reject bipartisanship is to reject a functioning government for the United States. But this starts with the people as much as it does with the politicians.
Comments
We saw a perfectly functional government for the first 2 years of the Obama administration, when Democrats controlled both houses of Congress as well as the presidency. We then saw 6 years of gridlock due to a Republican Congress that didn't want the country to succeed under Obama. Then we saw 4 years of absolutely blind, incoherent leadership under Trump--even for the first 2 years when Republicans also controlled both houses of Congress, proving that it wasn't just Democratic sabotage that made the Trump administration chaotic and useless.
When Democrats controlled House, Senate, and the Oval Office, we saw groundbreaking healthcare legislation. Ever since then, the GOP has controlled the Senate, and the only major legislation has been more tax cuts for the wealthy and stimulus that went straight to big business. How many times has the Trump administration told us they had a big new plan for a wall or for healthcare or for COVID, and then nothing happened?
I do think getting back to normal governance will require Democrats to control House, Senate, and the presidency. The last time they did, we had a functioning government. Any GOP control will mean sabotage; that's what we've seen for the past 10 years.
There are valid conservative ideas worth implementing; Obamacare/the ACA was one of them (we will never tire of pointing out that it was based on Romney's healthcare plan). However, the GOP as it currently exists isn't about that anymore. They're about winning elections now and clinging to power, and if that means sabotaging a Democratic president, they'll do it.
The GOP couldn't govern even when they had full control.
The Democratic Party could govern only when they had full control.
That's what we've seen over the past 12 years. The GOP is the common denominator when the government is dysfunctional; the Democratic Party is not.
So what then is the solution?
Vote for folks who actually want to govern, folks who have actual policies and plans, folks who don't sabotage the opposition, folks who think about something besides winning the next election. Currently that just means Democrats, but that's not a permanent thing: if we refuse to vote for GOP candidates who don't want to govern, they will be replaced by GOP candidates who do want to govern, and then we'll have more than just Democrats to vote for.
No you won't get there because the Republicans will find some other neglected people to make up the difference just like they did in 2016 with the Rust Belt. The rank and file Republicans may not be the most educated but I guarantee you that there are very smart people among the conservatives.
This is extremely well said. Obama and the Democrats might not have passed one's policy preferences, but it was not a dysfunctional government. And even during that term, Obama had to compromise with a very broad Democratic coalition that included key Senators from places like Nebraska. Not super liberal people!
Good governance is entirely possible in our times in the US.
It is telling.
While it's hard to measure polarization in any objective fashion, I think "disliking people or losing friends solely over differing political beliefs" is a good measurement of it. In that regard, Democrats have consistently been more polarized for a long time. I imagine it is the broad trend of liberals rejecting conservative peers and not listening to conservatives opinions that has brought them into this echo chamber where they believe all negative qualities are inherent to the opposition, and apply not at all to themselves.
At this stage, I'd gladly settle for a modest educational campaign that explains why Flat Earth theory is not scientific. But hey, if you wanna dream big, more power to you.
It has won elections, and gotten Republicans out of power both in 2018 and right now. So yeah, I'd say it's working.
I'd also argue it's only very recently, with the gratuitous excesses of Trump, that the neutral press has even begun to call out Republican bad behavior for what it is. For much of Obama's term and even W Bush's disastrous term, the "both sides" framing was the norm -- again, as the essay I linked to argued.
I'm not talking about op-ed pages here, but the neutral news. Even the front section of the NYT, despite conservative complaints about it, has been at extreme pains to dub Trump a liar.
If the Democrats are so close to total victory, how did they manage to lose seats in the House with such a supposedly unpopular President as Trump (who wasn't nearly as unpopular as he was thought to be apparently)? It isn't very likely that the Senate goes Democrat either, despite Yang's moving to Georgia for the next two months. The Democrats are just as delusional about their popularity as the Republicans. The truth is that there are a LOT of people who don't give two shits about either party and there will always be enough of those folks to fuck over the grandiose plans of either 'side'. Sorry but it's true...
Does governing ‘well’ pay off at the ballot box?
In countries where parties have had sustained success- e.g. India, Japan, South Africa etc. - was governing ‘well’ more important than other factors? I’m not sure if I would agree, apart from anything else the fruits of good governance are often not observable at the best time for the electoral cycle.
Jesus christ, I'm saying it's BEEN tried, ad nauseam, and that I'm PERSONALLY sick of it because it NEVER works and is NEVER reciprocated. It's pretty clear to me your only goal here is to dissect everyone's posts line by line, scoring the exact "points" you accuse us of wanting to score on Republicans.
I don't really think anything can "work", and if you'd just cared to ask it, I would have told you two hours ago. The only thing that can currently be done with the chess board as it is currently laid out is 4-8 years of damage mitigation and harm reduction in the most basic sense. That's it. That's best case scenario for Democrats. That's how little we are asking for and will accept at this point.
@Balrog99: I don't think the Democrats are so close to total victory--I think they've just made incremental progress in winning over voters. Meanwhile, the GOP has found other means of winning elections: stoking fear, identity politics, misinformation, conspiracy theories, voter suppression, gerrymandering, the electoral college, and the typical mainstay of corporate campaign donations.
For what it's worth, Democratic policies are broadly more popular with voters (polls show that year after year), and Democrats do get more votes overall than Republicans--it's just that the Senate isn't tied to population, the electoral college is only partially tied to population, the House of Representatives hasn't been updated to be tied to the current population, and good old fashioned gerrymandering can give you political power even when the majority rejects you. As we've griped many times, a lot of GOP-dominated governments were elected with a minority of votes.
Popularity is a predictor, not a determinant, of political power in our system.
To be fair, this is because Republican policies on economics have typically been in line with Scrooge McDuck, or your average comic book villain. If they couldn't be more popular than this, there would have to be something seriously wrong with them.
These forces in the GOP lost big under Trump and I hope to see it continue to happen, because many "liberal" economic policies are also more popular with conservatives. GOP members simply betray their base on economics, full stop.
Are you going to offer a single solution to your own question, or are we just puppets on your string in this conversation??
As I've explained previously, anti-democratic institutions enable the Republican Party to cling to power while defying what most Americans would prefer -- i.e. Senate control.
The logic of why democracy is preferable to autocracy is because the people should be able to select leaders who are answerable to them. But the GOP has found a way to build a faction that's not the majority in order to cling to power and thus break the core promise of democracy.
While many people don't cite this as the reason, imo, it's one of the core reasons why the federal government feels so broken to many Americans.
I guess I'm not referring to minor promises, just the same major ones I've been hearing over and over again from both sides for 4 decades now (balancing the budget, fixing the infrastructure, fixing healthcare, fixing education, blah, blah, blah...).
Education wasn't always as political as it is now. The partisanship is starting to pollute the system I think. The main thing I don't see being taught is critical thinking and perspective. That was mostly taught to me in science classes, but I did learn from history classes and even some of my language arts classes how to see things from other people's perspectives. It's much harder to hate somebody or dismiss them if you can see where they're coming from (yes, even if you think/know that they're wrong).
The dividing is done by human nature, but that doesn't mean it can't be overcome. I'm not talking about everybody being best buddies. That's never going to happen. But maybe if we all followed the golden rule a bit more we could at least make sure people aren't persecuted for petty differences...
Folks need to stop citing this point cuz it doesn't mean what you think it does. Every House seat was up for election this year. Democrats won the majority of them. Voters preferred Democrats in their House races by a fair margin.
This isn't the Senate with staggered election and where slow gains are important. Seats can swing wildly election to election. A five seat swing is about as close to consistent election-to-election standing in the House as you will find. By contrast the House swung by forty seats 2016-2018.
The entirety of this conversation is a master-class in why it's INCREDIBLY obvious that only Democrats are viewed as actually having agency, and Republicans are just gonna "do what they're gonna do".
I mean, this is probably the view among Democrats, which says a lot about themselves and nothing about anyone else. But such beliefs seem typical nowadays. Only Democrats are capable of thought, reason, and empathy. Everything else is the gibbering lunacy of raving madmen.
It's Republicans that have chosen to reject scientific views on a number of issues -- issues that aren't controversial in conservative parties in other democracies.
Last time the Democrats had complete control of the government, they passed a healthcare bill that expanded coverage to tens of millions of Americans, disproportionately benefiting lower income folks.
Last time Republicans had complete control of the government they passed Paul Ryan's tax cuts, that disproportionately benefited the wealthiest Americans.
Every House seat is up for election every two years. The fact is that the Democrats lost seats compared to 2018. Thus less of a majority. Thus closer to losing the House. I don't see any rosy view for the Democrats to believe that they're going to gain ground in 2022 either. The plain fact is that the election of a President from one party generally swings Congress away from that party in the next election. I'll predict right now that the Republicans will gain the House but lose the Senate in 2022 (the Senate is indicating a trend to the left and the 6 year terms make it lag a bit behind). You heard it here first!