Seems like a stretch in your first paragraph. It is a common thing you saw with politicians even way back.
Promising to be progressive and then governing to the right is indeed something that goes way back. These days, they hardly even bother with the first part anymore.
I do think biden did what he reasonably could
You can think that all you like but it doesn’t make it true. Biden could’ve stopped the tar sands pipeline and he could’ve declared an emergency to keep his campaign promise.
Also, I’d just like to point out that this guy was a reactionary his whole career and had a hand in creating virtually every problem we’re dealing with today. Democrats convinced themselves that he had this whole drastic change of heart in his 70’s and suddenly became a progressive. Of course, then when he doesn’t deliver on his promises, they’re full of excuses. The fact is that he’s buddies with the oil industry and has appointed their lobbyists to high level positions.
Why on earth would he “do everything he reasonably could?” Am I supposed to believe he’s some true believer in environmentalism as opposed to an opportunistic careerist? Come on.
I don’t view him as a true believer in environmentalism. Only a few are like that in washington but he does understand global warming is happening and we have a need to curb it and that pollution is bad. He does not think global warming is a hoax and moves forward incentives for clean energy while disencentivizing fossil fuels even its just to delay things already in motion. Again I agree its not enough but its leagues better than doing than doing the opposite.
Who said anything about supporting the greater evil? You can conditionally support the lesser evil, dependent on them changing policies to what needs to happen, or build up a party that’s actually good until they’re strong enough to either win or extract concessions in exchange for support.
when it comes down to it there was a push to do like you say when reagan won and when bush won and when trump won. They are just getting worse and have to be made inconsiquential so that we can make greater gains on the left. we can’t go left by having the right win.
They’re never going to be made inconsequential. The democrats have the problem of being associated with the status quo while not enacting the necessary policies for the status quo to actually work for people. As long as the right is able to present themselves as “outsiders” and an alternative to the status quo, frustrated people are going to turn to them. And the problem is likely to get worse as conditions deteriorate, because we’re in a state of decline. It’s necessary to either force the democrats to adopt the leftist policies needed for the status quo, or to break with them to present an alternative vision that is neither the far right nor the status quo.
Trump didn’t come out of nowhere, and unless the conditions that led to him winning are addressed, there will be more Trumps and they will continue to win. And those conditions are much bigger than the tiny margins of third-party voters. If things weren’t broken, Trump would’ve been defeated every time in a landslide.
This is the problem. The democrats are the status quo but they are only in charge half the time. In my time biden/trump bushsr/carter are a wash at one term a piece. clinton/reagan and bushjr/obama are a wash at two terms a piece. Congress went similarly but not as the same time as the presidents. I can clearly see where it was better and where it was worse. the republicans may not be going away but they should and I realize its a tall order but much more likely than like the us becoming an ideally functioning communist state or a third party taking a significant share without their fall. I have lived through both and I want that half a loaf desperately because im sick of the moldy, weevil filled crumbs we get otherwise. We have the primaries and we have our actions outside of voting but for the situation as it stands today I do not see holding a gun to our heads demanding action. Since the 2000’s I won’t vote for a republican for the most inconsiquential of local elections and at this point I won’t third party either lest it tip the scales. Now this could change but the republicans would need to change enough to not be such a nightmare. I agree trump did not come out of no where he came out of the republican party which still wins more than enough to eff things up. The idea that he came up because the dems don’t do a good enough job fixing what they screw up and making it better so they bring in bigger screw ups to lead. Its crazy to me.
Let’s be completely clear about one thing that you both seem to be neglecting in this conversation:
You cannot govern if you lose. And due to how our government is structured and how elections work, an administration gets maybe two years (more like 12-18 months) of actual governing before they have to start focusing on getting (re)elected.
So it’s all well and good to ask for radical change and drastic measures to avert climate disaster. But if the consequence of those actions is that democrats up and down every ticket lose the next election, it’s all for naught, because it’s FAR easier to dismantle hastily enacted radical changes than it is to cement them long term, especially when the people coming into power after you have no scruples about lying, cheating, and profiteering.
due to how our government is structured and how elections work, an administration gets maybe two years (more like 12-18 months) of actual governing before they have to start focusing on getting (re)elected.
That’s completely false and also ridiculous. You can still govern while running for reelection, and even if you couldn’t, our election seasons may be long but they aren’t two years long, much less three.
If that actually were true, then pretty much the only thing worth doing would be passing legislation aimed at shortening election lengths, so that the government isn’t completely nonfunctional the majority of the time, at which point I would have to ask what the democrats have done on that front, to address your exaggerated/made up problem?
Tell me you’ve never worked in US politics without telling me you’ve never worked in US politics, speedrun edition
I’ll try to remember to explain the details to you when I’m not actively deplaning from a week-long work trip, because I’m not down with the “do your own research” attitude. But for real, if you have the opportunity to talk to someone who has actually dealt with state or federal election campaigning I encourage you to discuss the nuance of this with them.
In truth, politicians literally never stop campaigning. Every single decision they make until the moment they decide not to run for office again is colored by the need to get elected again. And even then, they are all thinking about how their actions are going to impact their colleagues and successors
There’s a huge difference between “decisions being colored by the need to get elected again” and “being so singularly focused on reelection campaigns that they are unable to enact policy.” It’s just another BS excuse.
Of course their decisions are colored by the need to get elected again, as they should be in any reasonable government. Part of that includes actually doing their jobs.
If you could spend three times as much time enacting legislation by giving up on reelection, then anyone who’s ideologically committed should simply do that. Biden especially has no excuse, what reason was there for him to spend 3 years of his 4 year term worrying about reelection when he was just going to end up dropping out due to age? If that’s what actually happened, it’s worse than any alternative explanation.
When did I say anything about being “so singularly focused […] that they are unable to enact policy”? They choose not to pursue the policy positions you want largely because it’s politically expedient.
Part of that includes actually doing their jobs
This right here is where you’re not hearing me
What you define as “doing their jobs” and “doing the thing most effective at getting them re-elected” are not the same thing. That’s literally the problem. Humans aren’t as ethical, self-aware, intelligent, and future-thinking as you seem to want to believe.
Humans are, in fact, incredibly easy to manipulate, as it turns out.
Your idealism is noble but untempered by reality. Solving this particular problem will require something far different from simply abstaining from voting or whatever, and until you and others are ready for that, shitting on Harris and Biden for playing the rhetoric game when the alternative at the moment is a literal extreme fascist is not only a pointless endeavor but actually puts other people in harms way
When did I say anything about being “so singularly focused […] that they are unable to enact policy”?
Right here, in the part I quoted:
due to how our government is structured and how elections work, an administration gets maybe two years (more like 12-18 months) of actual governing before they have to start focusing on getting (re)elected.
Promising to be progressive and then governing to the right is indeed something that goes way back. These days, they hardly even bother with the first part anymore.
You can think that all you like but it doesn’t make it true. Biden could’ve stopped the tar sands pipeline and he could’ve declared an emergency to keep his campaign promise.
Also, I’d just like to point out that this guy was a reactionary his whole career and had a hand in creating virtually every problem we’re dealing with today. Democrats convinced themselves that he had this whole drastic change of heart in his 70’s and suddenly became a progressive. Of course, then when he doesn’t deliver on his promises, they’re full of excuses. The fact is that he’s buddies with the oil industry and has appointed their lobbyists to high level positions.
Why on earth would he “do everything he reasonably could?” Am I supposed to believe he’s some true believer in environmentalism as opposed to an opportunistic careerist? Come on.
I don’t view him as a true believer in environmentalism. Only a few are like that in washington but he does understand global warming is happening and we have a need to curb it and that pollution is bad. He does not think global warming is a hoax and moves forward incentives for clean energy while disencentivizing fossil fuels even its just to delay things already in motion. Again I agree its not enough but its leagues better than doing than doing the opposite.
How are we ever supposed to reach a point where we have someone who does do enough if we keep unconditionally supporting the lesser evil?
How are we ever supposed to reach a point where we have someone who does do enough if we keep unconditionally supporting the greater evil?
Who said anything about supporting the greater evil? You can conditionally support the lesser evil, dependent on them changing policies to what needs to happen, or build up a party that’s actually good until they’re strong enough to either win or extract concessions in exchange for support.
when it comes down to it there was a push to do like you say when reagan won and when bush won and when trump won. They are just getting worse and have to be made inconsiquential so that we can make greater gains on the left. we can’t go left by having the right win.
They’re never going to be made inconsequential. The democrats have the problem of being associated with the status quo while not enacting the necessary policies for the status quo to actually work for people. As long as the right is able to present themselves as “outsiders” and an alternative to the status quo, frustrated people are going to turn to them. And the problem is likely to get worse as conditions deteriorate, because we’re in a state of decline. It’s necessary to either force the democrats to adopt the leftist policies needed for the status quo, or to break with them to present an alternative vision that is neither the far right nor the status quo.
Trump didn’t come out of nowhere, and unless the conditions that led to him winning are addressed, there will be more Trumps and they will continue to win. And those conditions are much bigger than the tiny margins of third-party voters. If things weren’t broken, Trump would’ve been defeated every time in a landslide.
This is the problem. The democrats are the status quo but they are only in charge half the time. In my time biden/trump bushsr/carter are a wash at one term a piece. clinton/reagan and bushjr/obama are a wash at two terms a piece. Congress went similarly but not as the same time as the presidents. I can clearly see where it was better and where it was worse. the republicans may not be going away but they should and I realize its a tall order but much more likely than like the us becoming an ideally functioning communist state or a third party taking a significant share without their fall. I have lived through both and I want that half a loaf desperately because im sick of the moldy, weevil filled crumbs we get otherwise. We have the primaries and we have our actions outside of voting but for the situation as it stands today I do not see holding a gun to our heads demanding action. Since the 2000’s I won’t vote for a republican for the most inconsiquential of local elections and at this point I won’t third party either lest it tip the scales. Now this could change but the republicans would need to change enough to not be such a nightmare. I agree trump did not come out of no where he came out of the republican party which still wins more than enough to eff things up. The idea that he came up because the dems don’t do a good enough job fixing what they screw up and making it better so they bring in bigger screw ups to lead. Its crazy to me.
Let’s be completely clear about one thing that you both seem to be neglecting in this conversation:
You cannot govern if you lose. And due to how our government is structured and how elections work, an administration gets maybe two years (more like 12-18 months) of actual governing before they have to start focusing on getting (re)elected.
So it’s all well and good to ask for radical change and drastic measures to avert climate disaster. But if the consequence of those actions is that democrats up and down every ticket lose the next election, it’s all for naught, because it’s FAR easier to dismantle hastily enacted radical changes than it is to cement them long term, especially when the people coming into power after you have no scruples about lying, cheating, and profiteering.
That’s completely false and also ridiculous. You can still govern while running for reelection, and even if you couldn’t, our election seasons may be long but they aren’t two years long, much less three.
If that actually were true, then pretty much the only thing worth doing would be passing legislation aimed at shortening election lengths, so that the government isn’t completely nonfunctional the majority of the time, at which point I would have to ask what the democrats have done on that front, to address your exaggerated/made up problem?
Tell me you’ve never worked in US politics without telling me you’ve never worked in US politics, speedrun edition
I’ll try to remember to explain the details to you when I’m not actively deplaning from a week-long work trip, because I’m not down with the “do your own research” attitude. But for real, if you have the opportunity to talk to someone who has actually dealt with state or federal election campaigning I encourage you to discuss the nuance of this with them.
In truth, politicians literally never stop campaigning. Every single decision they make until the moment they decide not to run for office again is colored by the need to get elected again. And even then, they are all thinking about how their actions are going to impact their colleagues and successors
There’s a huge difference between “decisions being colored by the need to get elected again” and “being so singularly focused on reelection campaigns that they are unable to enact policy.” It’s just another BS excuse.
Of course their decisions are colored by the need to get elected again, as they should be in any reasonable government. Part of that includes actually doing their jobs.
If you could spend three times as much time enacting legislation by giving up on reelection, then anyone who’s ideologically committed should simply do that. Biden especially has no excuse, what reason was there for him to spend 3 years of his 4 year term worrying about reelection when he was just going to end up dropping out due to age? If that’s what actually happened, it’s worse than any alternative explanation.
When did I say anything about being “so singularly focused […] that they are unable to enact policy”? They choose not to pursue the policy positions you want largely because it’s politically expedient.
This right here is where you’re not hearing me
What you define as “doing their jobs” and “doing the thing most effective at getting them re-elected” are not the same thing. That’s literally the problem. Humans aren’t as ethical, self-aware, intelligent, and future-thinking as you seem to want to believe.
Humans are, in fact, incredibly easy to manipulate, as it turns out.
Your idealism is noble but untempered by reality. Solving this particular problem will require something far different from simply abstaining from voting or whatever, and until you and others are ready for that, shitting on Harris and Biden for playing the rhetoric game when the alternative at the moment is a literal extreme fascist is not only a pointless endeavor but actually puts other people in harms way
Right here, in the part I quoted:
You seem to have misconstrued what “actual governing” means in this context
Then what did you mean by that? Because I think it’s pretty reasonable to interpret “actual governing” as “enacting meaningful policy.”