Harris-Walz / Dems

Pocket

jumbled pile of person
Citizen
Amazing how this split emerged right when Occupy Wall Street was starting to gain some traction.
No, it's a pretty recent thing from what I can tell. The big social-justice movement didn't even get started until around 2012, and for a while it seemed like they were a united front of anti-capitalism and anti-bigotry. The first I noticed signs of infighting was that left-coast city where protesters—ostensibly allied with BLM—managed to set up a "Zone" where cops were afraid to go, and tried turning it into some kind of anarchist commune or something like that. And there were complaints that it was being "co-opted." Does anyone remember the incident I'm talking about? It was during the second wave of BLM protests in 2020.
 

Anonymous X

Well-known member
Citizen
Are the Democrats doing anything at the moment to show any level of opposition or resistance? Or have they resigned themselves to de facto “managed opposition”* status?

* like the non-banned political parties in Russia which aren’t Putin’s United Russia party.
 

KidTDragon

Now with hi-res avatar!
Citizen
Resigning themselves to de facto managed opposition status technically falls under the category of "doing anything", so yes, I guess they are.
 

Rhinox

too old for this
Citizen
Aside from speeches, condemnations on the floor, and telling people that horrible jive is happening, there really isn't much they can do. We cannot stop this train for 2 years. The GOP holds all the majorities.

The real question is what will be left after those 2 years and whether we'll even have real elections after Musk lobotomizes all the systems designed to protect the elections.
 

Anonymous X

Well-known member
Citizen
Aside from speeches, condemnations on the floor, and telling people that horrible jive is happening, there really isn't much they can do. We cannot stop this train for 2 years. The GOP holds all the majorities.
Oh, I realise that, but organising as a strong oppositional force is vital, regardless of congressional representation. The worst thing they can do is the British Labour Party strategy of acting limply on sidelines until the public get sufficiently disgusted by the incumbents.

The real question is what will be left after those 2 years and whether we'll even have real elections after Musk lobotomizes all the systems designed to protect the elections.
I’m not even sure they’ll be much left of the republic at that rate! I don’t want to sound overly pessimistic, but if by 2026 I can still talk to any of you guys online in some form, I’d see that as a win. This already seems far, far worse than the darkest, bleakest days of Bush 43 or Trump 1.0.
 

Pocket

jumbled pile of person
Citizen
Oh, I realise that, but organising as a strong oppositional force is vital, regardless of congressional representation. The worst thing they can do is the British Labour Party strategy of acting limply on sidelines until the public get sufficiently disgusted by the incumbents.
No, the worst thing they can do is is the British Labour Party strategy of acting limply on the sidelines until the public get sufficiently disgusted by the incumbents, and then using their supermajority to push all of the exact same fascist policies that their rivals did. As cynical as I am, I don't expect that to happen, but then I wasn't expecting Labour to do it either.
 

CoffeeHorse

Exhausted, but still standing.
Staff member
Council of Elders
Citizen
Oh, I realise that, but organising as a strong oppositional force is vital, regardless of congressional representation. The worst thing they can do is the British Labour Party strategy of acting limply on sidelines until the public get sufficiently disgusted by the incumbents.

You have to understand how fossilized our party leadership is. It's not like European parties that chew through leaders every few years. The House has been Nancy Pelosi's institution for decades. She ran the place even when Republicans had the majority, because she knew House rules and procedures better than anybody else, and she was better at counting votes than anybody else. But she is semi retired now and her chosen successor is a dud. Senate Democrats have Chuck Schumer, and he seems like he has a few years left, but he has little charisma and he's never really mastered the Senate the way Pelosi mastered the House. The Senate has absolutely been Mitch McConnell's institution, though he's finally reluctantly passing the torch. He knows arcane procedural tricks the founders forgot about. Schumer's really not on that level.

Congress is going to get boring for a while. It's just going to be party line votes with no big procedural twists because no one's going to know how to do them anymore.
 

Anonymous X

Well-known member
Citizen
No, the worst thing they can do is is the British Labour Party strategy of acting limply on the sidelines until the public get sufficiently disgusted by the incumbents, and then using their supermajority to push all of the exact same fascist policies that their rivals did. As cynical as I am, I don't expect that to happen, but then I wasn't expecting Labour to do it either.
Oh, this one billion per cent! I’m absolutely disgusted with the Labour Party; even at my most pessimistic I didn’t imagine that they’d go so full-on Tory so quickly.
 

Paladin

Well-known member
Citizen
surely new blood is what the Party needs.

Let's see what newly-elected Senator Slotkin, chosen as the official responder to Donalds' last speech has to offer....

“After the spectacle that just took place in the Oval Office last week, Reagan must be rolling in his grave,”
As a Cold War kid, I’m thankful it was Reagan and not Trump in office in the 1980s,” she added.
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/co...peech-democratic-response-congress-rcna194088



....yeah, we don't have a ******* PRAYER.
 

Rhinox

too old for this
Citizen
surely new blood is what the Party needs.

Let's see what newly-elected Senator Slotkin, chosen as the official responder to Donalds' last speech has to offer....





....yeah, we don't have a ******* PRAYER.
I am confused by your hand wringing here. Invoking the specter of Reagan, who only a few short years ago, was basically the Republican Messiah, is an excellent way of drawing a distinction between the MAGAts we have now and the old republican party.
She's basically needling them with their own hero, drawing comparisons that older generations will be able to digest.
 

Pocket

jumbled pile of person
Citizen
I do wish it didn't have to be Democrats saying those things, though. Like, the most charitable reading of the situation is that Democrats have taken over the vacant position of the Republican never-Trumpers in the hopes of shaming the shameless, and in the process leaving a vacancy of their own that the two-party system makes it impossible to fill.
 

Wheelimus

Administrator
Staff member
Council of Elders
Citizen
Jumping the gun there a little bit, the race to replace Trump doesn't really begin until 2027. Now is the race for the mid-terms, where if we can at least retake the House we can make Trump a lame duck President. Which I think we're in excellent shape to do.
 

Paladin

Well-known member
Citizen
I am confused by your hand wringing here. Invoking the specter of Reagan, who only a few short years ago, was basically the Republican Messiah, is an excellent way of drawing a distinction between the MAGAts we have now and the old republican party.
She's basically needling them with their own hero, drawing comparisons that older generations will be able to digest.

Ronald Reagan was a ******* monster and the faster we break away from the deathgrip of his nostalgia the better America can be.
There is not a single flaw in modern American society that cannot be traced directly to the Presidency of Ronald Reagan.




And frankly they're NOT that different. how Donald treated COVID is pretty much how Reagan treated AIDS.
 

Rhinox

too old for this
Citizen
I don't disagree with your assessment of Reagan. I believe I've been very vocal about him.
But my point stands. Every bad point against him stands, but Reagan played very well the situation with Russia. And whether we like him or not, he's still the closest thing to a living god the GOP has had in the past 50 years. Weaponizing the memory of Reagan to use against Trump is not a bad thing.
 


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