I get email from the Democratic party:
PZ,
In just a few weeks, Elon Musk has shown that he is the worst president America’s ever seen.
We have one message for Trump and Musk: We’re coming.
This is a new Democratic Party, and we’re taking the gloves off. We cannot and will not stand for their extreme, harmful agenda and efforts to drag our country back centuries.
We’re in this fight until the very end, but it’s going to take Democrats from every corner of the nation stepping up and joining this movement to defeat Trump and his MAGA cronies.
Then it asks me for money.
I hate it.
They’re going to be running forever on the “TRUMP BAD” idea, aren’t they? Not one specific, positive idea was anywhere in that message. Come on, come right out and tell me you’re going to rescue social security by raising the cap, you’re going to finally get around to a federal law allowing abortion, you’re going to build programs to help immigrants integrate, you’re going to give trans people respect and dignity, you’re going to fully fund the NIH and NSF, you’re going to stand up to Putin and give aid to Ukraine, you’re going to give everyone Medicaid…I can think of so many things I want the American government to do, and the Democrats are afraid to push them. It’s convenient for them to have an undeniably horrible boogeyman in office so they can run against him, get elected, and not have to do anything.
Then I read this list of things a centrist group within the Democratic party calling itself “The Third Way” is proposing. This is coming from a bunch of Clintonesque, Blairite neoliberal stooges who fear socialism — wanna-be Republicans. (This comes from Politico, a conservative rag that is not at all friendly to progressive values, and even they are sneering at this list.)
- The party should “embrace patriotism, community, and traditional American imagery”;
- Democrats should “ban far-left candidate questionnaires and refuse to participate in forums that create ideological purity tests” and “move away from the dominance of small-dollar donors whose preferences may not align with the broader electorate”;
- They should “push back against far-left staffers and groups that exert a disproportionate influence on policy and messaging” ;
- Candidates should “get out of elite circles and into real communities (e.g., tailgates, gun shows, local restaurants, churches)”; and
- The party needs to “own the failures of Democratic governance in large cities and commit to improving local government.”
We’re gonna lose again and again and again, aren’t we?
Well, Defeatism certainly isn’t going to help is it?
That’s one faction as we say in Aussie politics (eg./ esp with the ALP*) but what of the other factions eg the Progressive Squad?
Which faction will rule the Democratic party and determine its policies and direction? How do we make that driving faction the progressive one?
What alternatives are there esp in the awful mess that is the USA’s system of seriously rigged and tilted to the reichwing Duopoloy?
Is there any third party alternative that is realisitic, viable and achieveable and, if so, what is it? What can be done to reform the system and who is leading the charge and working to make that happen?
Yes, I know there’s a lot of question marks here – now can soem of these be answered or at least considered and worked on please?
.* See : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australian_Labor_Party#Factions)
Third Way competes with No Labels to give terrible suggestions to politicians that are part of the Democratic Party.
The Hakeem Jeffries Democratic Party could well rebrand itself as the Whig Party 2.0.
We’ll get right on it Stevo. Thanks for drawing this to our attention.
:-/
In Germany the conservatives see the rise of the far right facists and think “to get their voters back we need to be equally far right”. They use the same topics and talking points, and the result? The conservatives loose even more voters because why should you go for the duplicate when you can go for the original? Plus, now things that were not accepted in society before become more and more mainstream.
Beating your political enemy by becoming them does not work!
“get out of elite circles and into real communities (e.g., tailgates, gun shows, local restaurants, churches)”
What is a tailgate?
Restaurants are nice.
Yikes and yikes.
The MAGAts didn’t form a new party, they simply took over the republican. The same should be possible in the democratic party if you can mobilize enough of the voter base.
Also Stevo, in all seriousness, if you want to resist fascism the number one thing you need to do is stop blaming people who didn’t vote for Trump for Trump. Form alliances with other anti-fascists instead of alienating them with your stupid holier-than-thou purity politics.
indianajones
A tailgate party is a social event held on and around the open tailgate of a vehicle. Tailgating, which primarily takes place in the United States and Canada.
I thought that it might be the US equivalent of the British Car Boot Sale where people fill the boots (trunks) of their cars with unwanted items, drive to field meet others and sell their ‘junk’.
Why not The Party of Moderate Progress Within the Bounds of the Law? See Jaroslav Hasek
To answer the original question:Yup.
There will be no boycott of the State of the Union address, there will be no unified opposition to any Executive overreach, there will be continuous, laughable references to ‘midterm elections’, as though those are going to change anything even if they occur.
The Democratic Party is even more useless than the Labour Party, if that can be imagined.
@8 Except, that is not what has been happening. What you call “purity politics” is, “We need to actually have standards, and stick to them.”. which means actually looking for people that are not going to just turn the Democrats into a nicer GOP. What we have gotten is, “Well… he/she is still conservative, but not an outright fascist, so sure, you can join up.” – i.e., “We welcome oligarchs, as long as they don’t want to kill poor people, authoritarians, as long as they don’t want an actual king, racists, as long as they can pretend more successfully to not be racist, and anyone else that betrays our ideals.” This is EXACTLY why they keep losing. Because they won’t bloody take a stand on anything, and instead give us milktoast bullshit, which is designed to appease everyone possible, including ex-GOP whose only “progressive stance” is, “We don’t ‘quite’ want to go as far as MAGA has.”
I am a bit fed up with people claiming that the solution to the current problem is to keep bloating the party, by welcoming in literally anyone that apposes the current GOP, even when the only difference between them is that they are “less fascist, so.. like better, sort of.” We need actual values, not ass kissing.
The GOP is also dead, at least on the national level.
After the Trump/Vance attack on Zelensky, only two GOP congresspeople were able to find their spines and condemn that performance. Out of 218 House members and 53 GOP Senators.
Since they control congress and have decided to not do anything, they are now a powerless rubber stamp for Trump.
Congress was given a lot of power by the US constitution, including the power to determine the spending of our taxes. They have given up that power without a fight.
Trump is now a dictator ruling by decree.
They could all go home and it wouldn’t make any difference.
The Democratics are a party in pieces. These pieces seem to dislike one another almost as much as they dislike MAGA. There is no legitimate uniting persona on the horizon. Trump has charisma, bad charisma, but he has it. He used it take over and unite the Republican party. Abet, strong arm tactics was his method. Until someone can step up and bring together all the different factions in the party, the MAGAS will devour them.
The Dems need to talk about policy, saving SS, improving education, making healthcare available to all, recognizing minorities, and giving women their voices and control of their bodies. Because Trump is so successful at controlling the media this is a lost cause. The Dems need to have strong lightening quick responses to anything the Republicans say or do. This will not change in the near future (because of Trump’s media addiction). Thus, we are doomed to live in Trump’s imaginary universe.
Follow the Republican playbook in one crucial way: Primary the hell out of the candidates you do not like!
.
I know establishment Democrats will scream blue murder, but that is a sign you are on the right path.
Collect money for ads shaming the eejits that voted to confirm Trump’s officials. Shame every congresscritter that voted against progressive bills. Make DINO a dirty word.
Remind everyone that the economic recovery under Obama and Biden left out the working class and defeat followed as surely as night follows day.
Remind everyone that the establishment Democrats have ruled the party since Clinton and gave us Dubya, Trump 1 and Trump 2.
Most important: Work on local and state level.
The Hakeem Jeffries Democratic Party could well rebrand itself as the Whig Party 2.0.
Nah, the Whigs gave a shit about public welfare. They occupied a corner of the political space which is no longer really part of American politics, the “paternalistic” worldview which simultaneously embraced social restriction (enforced morality) and robust support for public services. Outside of the US, there are a lot of Catholic or Catholic-adjacent parties who take similar views, but modern America distinctly lacks a large religious bloc that’s really big on good works and uplifting the downtrodden through force of government.
I’m not sure if the return of the Whigs would be good as such, but it’d at least be a group with an actual vision, which the Democrats emphatically are not these days. AFAICT, they’ve embraced the mathematical theory of social choice in which a party captures exactly those voters closer to their own policies than the opposition. If you game out a maximizing strategy there, you end up choosing to be infinitesimally closer to the median voter than the opposing party. But of course, politics doesn’t actually work like that, because there are a lot of people with inchoate politics and not much inclination to vote out there, and “like Republicans only less so” motivates exactly zero of those people.
@8Silentbob & 3rd March 2025 at 7:44 am :
My pleasure, no worries and whilst drawing things to your attention please see and answer my questions for you here :
https://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2025/03/02/treat-your-allies-like-crap-this-is-what-you-get/comment-page-1/#comment-2256497 Comment #52 previous thread.
I don’t.
If you refer to the tankie troll who ironically seems to fail when it comes to accurately beholding things then they did in fact vote for Trump. They did not vote for Kamala in a binary system. Worse, they made a point of attacking and undermining the only alternative to Trump thereby helping Trump.
Bang! There goes another irony meter. A specially hardened tough one even.. The level of your projection there is staggering. That’s the oposite of what I’ve been doing and just what beholder and a few others here have done.
The Democratic party is the most incompetent opposition party I have ever seen. Trump is unpopular. Trump was unpopular. Every cycle, he has broken the unpopularity record for a newly elected president. Yet the Democratic party has managed to lose twice to him and barely won once. This is not bad luck, this is not an accident. If Trump runs again he will likely win again or at least make a very close fight against the current Democratic party system. It is because they are incompetent. There must be a foundational remove at the Democratic party. Demand that they do a structural reform. Throw away the seniority rule. And until then, donate 0 dollars.
Lotharloo @ 18
“And until then, donate 0 dollars.”
Seconded.
@ ^ lotharloo : “This is not bad luck, this is not an accident. “
No it is not. It is the result of voter suppression (last year) and the Electoral College system (2016) and other terminal flaws in the US political system.
Reforms are needed to a lot more than just one of the two parties here. Abolish voter suppression measures, the Electoral College, gerrymandering, and for pities sake, put a decent system with preferential voting in place tosto thrid party spoilers from makingthe perfect teh enemyof the good -and freidn of the worst. Among other things.
The will of the American people was actually legitimately for Kamala Harris and Joe Biden and Hillary Clinton being POTUS and NOT Trump.
StevoR: keep blaming things you don’t control and opposing all reflection about how thing could have been done better. That’s going to fix everything.
numerobis : Er, I’m not “opposing all reflection” on how things could be done better – in fact, I’m trying to encourage that and get people thinking here.
@ 20. Fix :
@.birgerjohansson & lotharloo : Okay, say you do just that – what then?
You don’t donate and the party then (!) ignores you because you’re not a donor and thus aren’t in a position to influence them?
(2) is made more vulnerable to the wishes of bigger donors who actually are donating and thus getting more influence in relative (& absolute) terms?
(3) goes completely broke, vanishes and you’re left with only the one major party. The Repug one?
As I noted already in #1 : Is there any third party alternative that is realistic, viable and achievable and, if so, what is it? Are there serious moves to get a progressive party that could actually challenge & win the presidency & Congress?
Furthermore, what do you think the likelihood is that party simply splits the left-wing, left-leaning vote and makes it far harder for the left to ever get power again? Especially in the current USA political system which, as dreadful as it is, is currently looking like collapsing into something even worse and less democratic again.
Democrats need to promise things they can’t possibly deliver on.
You know, like Trump and his Day One fixes: bring down the price of groceries, end birthright citizenship with the stroke of his sharpie, deport millions of undocumenteds, stop the Russo-Ukraine War, prevent CA’s wildfires with nonsensical water releases, make LGBTQ people disappear, take America back to the wonderful 1850s.
I say we think outside the box. How about we promise:
Free home delivered Pizzas For Life if you donate $100.
Every adult gets $20,000 towards a new EV.
Erase all student loan debt for everyone over 30.
Join the Army for 3 years, get a free college education.
Free nationwide child care.
Good healthcare for all. No more crazy deductbles or prior authorization.
[Add anything you like to the list]
Not all of these things are possible, but half the country will believe any lie, no matter how fantastical. When it comes time to deliver just say it was all said in the heat of the campaign. Or do the Trump jiggidy-jig: Did I say that?
Man, those talking points are a joke.
The Democrats barely even actually ran on “far left talking points” like trans issues to start with. That was mostly Fascists screaming that “Dems want Trans people everywhere” style nonsense. Basically, the GOP ran on the fear mongering about the Democrats being “Far Right”.
Also, just as a side note, Tailgating is a term for sort of, a party around a truck tailgate. Its most often associated with things like, College Football games and 4th of July gatherings, where family or friends might drive somewhere that doesn’t necessarily have a designated structure of gathering around it. You would use the truck to hold maybe a small barbecue grill and a cooler of drinks, that sort of thing.
A summary of the “Third Way” seems to be “ignore the elites,” which is a good idea, but then also “ignore the ‘small dollar donors’ that make up the base of the party and instead go hang out with people who generally vote Republican.”
Because only Republican voters, apparently, represent “the broader electorate.”
I imagine they want Democrats, when they go to restaurants, to do so in majority white neighborhoods, too. After all, that’s the “broader electorate,” right?
So cringe.
Stevo R
I was too brief. I meant, donate to the good Democrats – they are probably easier to find at local and state level but do not ignore the national level – while the legacy Democrats can go on getting corporate campaign donations. That lot is not going to collapse.
Organise. Support the good ones. Make it clear that ‘collaborators’ will get hell in the primaries. Dumb-asses who believed the promises of Trump nominees and voted to confirm them are not going to fight hard enough in the years ahead.
In short: Pander to the lowest common denominator.
Meanwhile, in congress.
“Republican Congressman ADMITS His Party’s Gutting Medicaid After They Denied It”
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=TRlZ5MPJwvw
I am beginning to think they are liars.
YES
Democrats are really killing it with the whole anti-populism thing. A popular appeal has to be made to the American public if you’re interested in winning their vote. Yes, it’s populism, oogedyboogedy, so scary! Maybe if they take Third Way advice and lean into anti-populism just a little bit more, they could get 0% of the vote next time! Success!
It’s like I’ve been saying, these people are comfortable with Trump. They would rather lose to him or to other corporate supremacists (who, by the way, do not imperil their own personal fortunes), than to win with a leftist. You know, someone who would enact policy that sends neoliberals and other corporate sell-outs screaming for the doors.
Democratic candidates will do nothing and get nowhere until they repudiate the failed austerity-centric economic policy and forever wars of Clinton, Obama, and Biden, and actually campaign against those policies — for the most shameful and egregious circumstances (like, y’know, an ongoing genocide), campaign on tearing apart the remnants of those policies, naming and shaming, and holding those responsible (both Republicans and Democrats) accountable at the International Criminal Court.
Do I think Democrats will ever figure this out? No.
stuffin@14:
So, basically what the Democrats need is someone with the charisma of Obama who isn’t a Clinton-esque centrist/neo-liberal like Obama was.
Or, really, more to the point, they need to be willing to make that person the face of the party, because a few folks like AOC have already been at least pushing in that direction, they just haven’t been getting ‘establishment’ support.
StevoR@20:
I’ve noted in the past that there’s a reason Canada created an independent group to draw up riding boundaries over a century ago rather than thinking it was a good idea to continue letting the parties in power figure out where to draw the lines. Voting in Canada is still way too much like voting in the U.S. in some ways (purely first-past-the-post and allocation that allows rural ridings with much lower population than urban ones) but making gerrymandering essentially a non-issue fixes one of the most fundamental problems.
I’d still like something like ranked choice voting, and Trudeau at least admitted not too long ago that ignoring the results of a big panel on voting system improvements was one thing he regretted doing. And he bloody well should regret it for his own good if nothing else: I live in a riding that went from Liberal to Conservative in a recent by-election, and it only did that because of vote-splitting. If the by-election had been held using a ranked-choice system, the Liberal party would almost certainly have held onto the seat. (I’m assuming that almost anybody who voted NDP would have put the Liberals higher in their rankings than the Conservatives, but I don’t think that’s a very far out assumption.)
@28: Damn right they are.
My two cents? We need a LOT more of AOC and less Hakeem Jeffries, thank you very much. Stop trying to “reach across the aisle” because that just gets your hands slapped. And SHAME THE FUCK OUTTA THESE DIPSHIDIOTS. Seriously, we were on to something, calling MAGA weird. That NEVER should have stopped because it was fairly innocuous but drove them absolutely insane. It also wasn’t “going low”, either. Weird really isn’t an insult, but an observation. It’s how you handle that observation that determines whether or not you find it insulting.
Also: Stop trying to ingratiate yourself to your abusers, Democrats. Fawning does ABSOLUTELY NOTHING other than earning you EVEN MORE abuse.
@stevoR
For now the NeoCons still rule the Democratic Party and determine its policies, which are always whatever the 100 millionaire & up class thinks they should be.
How do we make that driving faction the progressive one? We starve the party of funds when it does anything other than what we believe is right. Which means we continue to give it nothing right now, and flood them with reward when the true progressives and anti-fascist fighters are given control.
I don’t know how much sway disaffected neocons like Kristol and the Bulwark types have on Democratic politics. I guess the novelty of them hating Trump too has worn off a bit. It’s good to have Republicans dissing Trump though they have little power on that side of the aisle any more. But they shouldn’t influence Democratic policy directions.
Bill Kristol is like a toddler knocking the vase off the table and then pointing to their sibling “HE DID IT”!
Fundamentally, the US massively overspent on the Second Iraq War and the economy has been reeling from bubble to bubble ever since.
In addition to sending money to good Ds send money and severe criticism or just send the severe criticism. Either way relevant Ds need the severe criticism. And specific demands. And the socially soft ones need to toughen up.
Need younger pollies.
@37 John Morales
No shit.
@24 ramenjunkie
True, they didn’t run on them but they are making the attacks way too easy by not taking a specific stance and letting themselves be characterized by their most extreme members, as Buttigieg has recently pointed out.
@15 birgerjohansson
indeed. I pointed this out and got back a bunch of mumbling about it being too hard. I guess Democrats get the representatives they deserve.
This is harsh, but it must be said:
All the talk in the world by these corrupt corporate democraps won’t stop the MUMP death spiral. All their talk is just being ignored by the sociopath felonious muskrat, the obscene tRUMP and all their little brown-nose followers. The sociopath felonious muskrat, the obscene tRUMP ignore all the court orders, why should they pay any attention to imotent protestations of corrupt corporate democraps
That’s because it’s not an opposition party, any more than the good cop in the interrogation room is actually the opposition to the bad cop.
Meanwhile, Canadian elections be feeling like:
(in blue) Henry PISSINGER ( )
Bell Party of Canada/Parti Canada du Bell
(in red) Margie FLETCHER ( )
Rogers Party of Canada/Parti Canada du Rogers
(in orange) Andy NOFUNDERSON ( )
Telus Party of Canada/Parti Canada du Telus
(in green) Susie THREEVOTES ( )
Waste Management Party of Canada/Parti Canada du Waste Management
(in cyan) Jacques LERIPPEUR ( )
Bloc BMOquois/Bloc BMOquois
(in purple) Adolf MUSSOLINI ( )
Enbridge Party of Canada/Parti Canada du Enbridge
For a country with a multiparty system and no gerrymandering we sure do still seem to be in thrall to a handful of giant corporations … and even if they’re “Canadian” they’re probably leveraged to the hilt by American private equity firms or other foreign bankster types.
oops, my comment @39: ‘imotent’ protestations should be ‘impotent’ protestations.
The bottom line is: this nation is being raped and pillaged by the sociopath felonious muskrat, the obscene tRUMP and their minions and the alleged ‘checks and balances’ are NOT FUNCTIONING, There is no ‘rule of law’. There seems to be no person or agency that can stop this. How many millions of people must have their lives ruined before a means is found to stop this horrendous destruction of our society?
@26. birgerjohansson :
Agreed and seconded. I’d even add participate if you can as much as you can by joining up and volunteering which I hope is something some folks here already do.
@33. Crip Dyke, Right Reverend Feminist FuckToy of Death & Her Handmaiden :
Yes – if you’re not donating because the party is too far reichwing and not progressive enough, tell them that and tell them what will earn your vote. Give them constructive feedback and, well, see reply to birgerjohansson above here too.
@31. jenorafeuer :
Yes. Absolutely. That’s the end gerrymandering reform that’s badly needed. I’m don’t know that much about the Canadian electoral system but it sounds a bit like our Aussie one albeit you don’t have preferential (ranked choice) voting yet? Guessing a riding is your equivalent to an electorate here?
@ 30. beholder : I notice you have not yet answered my questions put to you here :
https://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2025/03/02/treat-your-allies-like-crap-this-is-what-you-get/#comment-2256475
Nor has Silentbob answered those put to him down thread there in #52.
They have actually won the votes of the American people. HRC won the popular vote and Kamala won last election but was robbed by voter suppression. Plus the third party spoilers and those who didn’t vote sometimes based on the events in Gaza which, well, how’s that working out for Gaza now? Another question I’m sure you’ll keep refusing to face and answer.
In essence, the USoA does NOT have a free or fair voting system. That needs to be changed.
My ideal scenario would be a military coup followed by a total reboot of American Democracy with a vastly better system with preferential voting and some qualifications required to run for POTUS to rule out a repeat of Trump and without voter suppression measures, gerrymandering and the EC. Also needed badly are truth in political advertising reforms too, Free speech should NOT include – and already doesn’t in some cases eg slander & libel, false advertising (?) – spreading lies and deliberate disinfo.
That fact that you keep saying it beholder makes it less likely to be true not more. Sure enough it isn’t. Citations needed as per Sagan’s law to show otherwise.
FWIW, Kamala Harris was widely considered to be a leftist and often demonised as that as I pointed out already. Ditto Obama. Ofc, the Overton window in the USoA has been pushed beyond the usual extreme to the far reichwing to the point where actual fucking nazis are getting normalised and fascism isn’t the disqualifying line it should be.
What “forever wars” specifically are Clinton (which Clinton?), Obama and Biden responsible for?
Never going to happen and wouldn’t work if it did.
I think Democratic politicians are a lot more intelligent and better informed than you are, beholder and I note that your pre-election prediction that punishing the Democratic party by voting for Trump – as you did beholder – has NOT resulted in your predicted outcome of the party moving leftwards but as the OP shows here the exact reverse of that. So your political judgment has proven wrong and repeatedly so. Why then do you think anyone should take you and other tankie trolls seriously? You have zero credibility here.
Wars, eh?
I asked my freebie useless bubbly friendly neighbourhood AI:
“You’re right, Joe Biden didn’t start the wars in Ukraine or Gaza. Let’s correct that. Here’s the revised timeline focusing on the conflicts the USA started during the presidencies of Bill Clinton, Barack Obama, and Joe Biden:
Bill Clinton:
– Bosnian War (1992-1995): Presided after the fact (initiated by George H.W. Bush)
– Kosovo War (1998-1999): Started (Ended 1999)
– Somalia (1993): Presided after the fact (initiated by George H.W. Bush)
– Haiti (1994): Started (Ended 1994)
– Iraq (1993, 1998): Presided after the fact (initiated by George H.W. Bush)
Barack Obama:
– Afghanistan (2009-2017): Presided after the fact (initiated by George W. Bush)
– Iraq (2009-2011): Presided after the fact (initiated by George W. Bush)
– Libya (2011): Started (Ended 2011)
– Syria (2014-2017): Started (Ongoing)
– Yemen (2009-2017): Presided after the fact (initiated by George W. Bush)
– Somalia (2009-2017): Presided after the fact (initiated by George W. Bush)
– Pakistan (2009-2017): Presided after the fact (initiated by George W. Bush)
Joe Biden:
– Ukraine (2022-present): Presided after the fact (initiated by Russia)
– Gaza (2023-present): Presided after the fact (initiated by Hamas)
I hope this clears things up! If you need more details or have other questions, just let me know.”
@JM:
Yeah, let’s ask AI for encyclopedic information, surely it’s a reliable tool and the recommended way to use AI. Fucking idiot.
@StevoR:
You are changing the subject, distracting, dodging and avoiding the topic. All those factors are true and impact Democratic Party’s defeats but it is also true that the Democratic party has bloated to be a highly ineffective, delusional, and detached from reality and grassroots, and corrupt party.
So predictable, the useless American left continues to be useless. Lots of talk, lots of whining, lots of self-pity and blaming everyone else for your problems but otherwise nothing but idling about. What are you waiting for? Your left-wing messiah Bernie Sanders to solve all your problems for you? Not going to happen.
Hey, do you know that the fascists taking over the Republican party took 40 years ever since Reagen let them in? And they managed to do this by being the most reliable voting bloc? But you sit here, do nothing and still expect things to turn out your way and think throwing your vote away somehow will mean at some point the Democrats will totally wake up, see how wrong they did you and beg you on their knees to and offer you everything you want. Also not going to happen. People who don’t vote are people who don’t vote. You don’t vote you don’t matter so why do you think the Democrats should seek you out? Of course they run behind the demographic that actually bothers casting their votes. Funny how such fundamental facts are completely beyond you.
Have fun stewing in your soon-to-be fascist shithole. You did nothing and are all out of ideas.You get the government you deserve. I’m done having any pity on you losers.
“Yeah, let’s ask AI for encyclopedic information, surely it’s a reliable tool and the recommended way to use AI.”
Oh, sorry… did it miss out on some wars? Hallucinate some?
How about https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_wars_involving_the_United_States#21st-century_wars ?
(Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, right? So its information is perforce encyclopedic)
I myself don’t use a sig.
TBH, the Kosovo War was not initiated by the US but by Serbia.
And letting chaos continue in the Balkan would have been worse not only for the local population but for the whole central Europe stability if history is any guide
I like the idea of a reboot well enough if it includes much needed election reforms but I would much rather experience something more akin to “The Orange Revolution” that toppled the russian stooge then the head of the government in Ukraine. I have seen too many millitary take overs in my life to think that the odds for that to come out an improvement too low to feel in any way favorable to that idea.
@euclide:
Nah, you are wrong, if chatGPT says US invaded Kosovo, then US INVADED KOSOVO!!! You are talking to your AI overlords!!!!
First line, lotharloo: “You’re right, Joe Biden didn’t start the wars in Ukraine or Gaza.”
(I couldn’t be stuffed finessing it too much, since my query had 4 parameters going)
Point is, the USA has been perpetually at war. Mostly undeclared war.
And, much as another time I pointed out how over the last 30 years both R & D have shared pretty much the same number of administrations and tenures, so it goes with the wars. The two biggies were started by Bush, of course, but there’s always something simmering away.
So this talk about the Democratic Party’s defeats could be no less applied to the other mob’s defeats.
—
Anyway, be aware I was responding to StevoR suggesting it’s more like forever at war than forever wars.
I wonder if they’re ever going to work out that elections are won with votes, not money…
Ian King: money helps a lot, obviously. Even in Canada where we have some limits on election spending, but particularly in the US.
John Morales: In your list, one single war is a forever war that the US entered under a Democratic president. All the rest are either not forever wars, not entered into by the US, or not started under Democratic presidents.
Bosnia and Kosovo were a few months each of US involvement.
Somalia’s US involvement was ended by Clinton, not started.
Fighting in Haiti was over in hours, not very good at the “forever” bit.
Iraq in the 1990s: as noted by your own AI, not entered into by Clinton but by Bush Sr.
Afghanistan: started by Afghanistan, against the US led by Bush Jr.
Iraq in 2003: started by Bush Jr unless you count it as part of the war started in the 90s in which case US involvement was started by Bush Sr.
Libya: the US involvement was a few months.
Syria: this is the only one that could possibly qualify as a forever war with US involvement started by a Democratic president. Though it kind of looks like it’s over.
Yemen: the bombing campaign started under Bush Jr.
Pakistan: there were a few border skirmishes started under Bush Jr. Ended under Obama.
Ukraine: It started under Obama, but the US isn’t yet part of the war.
Gaza: It started under a Democratic president but again the US isn’t yet part of the war. Also, that was long before LBJ signed the civil rights act and the subsequent political realignment in the South; it feels odd blaming current Democrats for what Truman did.
YES, the corrupt corporate dnc is DEAD!
Here is more evidence:
http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/robert-reich/113154/democrats-wake-the-hell-up
At a time when America needs a strong, bold, courageous opposition, the Democrats’ silence is deafening.
https://www.rsn.org/001/dems-unveil-new-plan-to-beat-maga-more-gun-shows-and-less-aoc.html
Dems Unveil New Plan to Beat MAGA: More Gun Shows and Less AOC
The plan includes proposals to shift right on cultural issues and double down on a pro-capitalism message.
Julia Ornedo / The Daily Beast
@55 numerobis wrote: Somalia’s US involvement was ended by Clinton, not started.
I reply: Then, how do you explain this?
https://truthout.org/articles/trump-perpetuates-undeclared-war-in-somalia-with-renewed-airstrikes/
Trump Perpetuates Undeclared War in Somalia With Renewed Airstrikes. The United States has been carrying out operations in Somalia since at least 2002 without a formal war declaration.
By Jamila Osman
And, the destruction of Haiti by ‘non-war’ means that is STILL GOING ON
The problem of what to do about Trump is tied up with the problem of having a duopoly. With no minor parties in the national landscape there’s often no incentive to vote for what one of the two parties has chosen to offer, or the alternative is to grit your teeth and vote for the one with which you disagree the least.
If the Tea Party had developed as a separate or breakaway party rather than an aggresive wing of the GOP it might have pulled the GOP a little rightwards but wouldn’t have had as much clout overall; ditto MAGA. Now the never-Trumpers have been ejected from (or, along with any new rebels, are facing being primaried out of) the GOP they’ve got nowhere to go. Similarly, the Democrats have nothing but disagreement between their factions and are uncomfortably co-existing only on some sort of pallid inertia.
But of course this arrangement suits the people who like to buy enough of the two parties to be sure of getting their way most of the time, as does the ever-increasing proportion of people who can’t be arsed to vote at all.
StevoR@42:
Pretty much. ‘Riding’ is the term for an electoral district; each riding elects one member to Parliament to represent it. Elections Canada redraws the riding boundaries after each census, with the new maps to be used for the next election. Within my lifetime provinces previously used their own maps, but now at least in Ontario the province just uses the federal maps nowadays, so the Ontario Provincial Parliament has exactly as many seats as the number of Ontario MPs. (Plus or minus one or two depending on the sequence of maps drawn, provincial elections, and federal elections.)
Parliament is elected, the Senate is not (some provinces hold elections for Senators, but currently that’s technically still just an advisory list for the next round of appointments), the Governor-General holds the Vice-Regal position of standing in the King’s stead but has essentially no day-to-day power (they technically grant ‘Royal Assent’ to any new laws and they’re in charge of actually handling transitions during elections, but the last time any GG tried to actively intervene in the political process was the King-Byng Affair and it didn’t end well). The Prime Minister is whichever party leader can form a government, which will normally be the leader of the party with the most seats in Parliament; if the party doesn’t actually have a majority of the seats (which has happened several times in my lifetime, including the just-ending session) then the party with the most seats gets the first chance to prove to the GG that they can hold the government together.
That said, we’re more like the UK or US in that there’s no ranked-choice; all races are purely first-past-the-post. Alternate voting systems have been floated before, including to the current(ly exiting) Prime Minister, but nothing has actually gone through yet. Also, unlike Australia, there’s also requirement to vote; and while our percentage of voters actually voting is generally higher than in the U.S., it’s not higher by very much. On the other hand we at least don’t consider ‘you’ve been convicted of a crime’ to be a reason to take away the right to vote (voting booths actually get set up in prisons), which means we also don’t have the sort of skewing that happens in the U.S. of many folks being unable to vote because they got caught with marijuana once.
Actually, the bit about no alternate voting methods having been tried isn’t quite true: municipal elections are a weird case because the rules for them are actually set by the province, and for the first election after the amalgamation of the six smaller cities (well, five cities and one borough) into the modern Toronto, double-sized wards (the municipal equivalent of ridings) were used and the top two people elected in each ward sat on city council instead, which reduced a lot of the effects of vote-splitting, even if municipal elections don’t have parties. That only happened for the one election, though.
We had a number one option before. It was voting. Why should we stop blaming when the people who didn’t vote at all will never take accountability for their inaction in the face of fascism?
@46. lotharloo :
Numerals added for reference below.
(1) Am I? I don’t think so. What exactly am I ignoring supposedly here? What is the subject – the question of where we go from here. The need for a new party. Okay, my response is what new party, how does this new party arise and work among other things and questioning the premise in the title which is, I’d say, on topic.
What do you want me to focus on and say here that I’m not focusing on & saying and why?
You think enough other people here aren’t attacking the Democratic party that I ned to join in a pile on against them? That there’s a lack of criticism of them and more is needed and helpful? I don’t.
You think I’m claiming the Democratic party isn’t flawed and weak and doesn’t have issues that need addressing? I’m not. I don’t deny any of those things.
(2) Impact the defeats? They are as noted the reasons for the defeats. The Amecian political system is rigged and needs to be reformed and not enough folks are focusing on and calling that out in my view. Glad you agree.
(3) Contradicts (2) ^ here. Is the Democratic party really all that “ineffective, delusional, out of touch” if the reasons it is losing are those noted in (2)? It got approx a third of the vote, another third voted fascist aided by the likes of beholder & Vicar’s make the perfect the enemy of good fringe and another third failed to vote also encouraged by the Purity Disunity mob.
So, what are the biggest issues – the rigged system and the spoilers.
What would a new party effectively be – UNLESS the system is reformed to allow preferential voting? Effectively spoilers.
Look what happened historically not just in the States in 2016, last year, 2000 with the Greens versus Democrats vs Repugs but also in Aussie political history with the split that kept the leftwing Labour party out of power between 1955 & 1972 :
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australian_Labor_Party_split_of_1955
Look at how Trump’s threat to form his own party after Jan 6th 2020 – which, sadly didn’t happen because it could well have ended Trump and the Repugs chances of retaking power ever again – forced the Repugs into line behind him.
The USA is a duopoly. It sucks. I wish it wasn’t. I hope that changes and it gets reformed to be a more normal and more democratic politically advanced nation. Its system is shit but the system is set up so that you have only two parties and choices. If it isn’t the Democratic party then another new party has to take over and become the second party. Is that going to happen? If not, a third spoiler party, we know, will only keep the left out of power indefinitely and keep causing national and global harm.
Now, does the Democratic party need to fix a lot of its own issues – yes. Should progressives do more to take it over as the MAGAt’s did? Definitely! Does what passes for the Left over in the States broadly need to learn to stop infighting and get behind their party and candidate – also yes abos-flippin-lootely!
What are your suggestions here to improve things?
Do you think that bashing the Democratic party and creating or joining another spoiler party is the way forward? if so why? If the Democratic party side and another new party is necessary and realistic then who is working to make that happen and how likely is it to succeed? (Which is what I asked in #1.) I don’t know the answers here but I don’t think circular firing squads and defeatism are helpful. .
Divide and conquer is the oldest political trick of all and yet fools still keep on falling for it.
In the American political system there are only ever two parties that can ever take power at any one time. Fact. Not at all fun or good but fact.
Options now :
(I) You can change the system – my ideal scenario but probly the toughest to attain esp currently given the numbers.
(II) You can replace the Democratic party with a new party so it becomes this new party instead of the Democratic one.
Alright, how does that happen? What is the new party, how does it arise, what are the risks and consequences? Most of all is this actually going to happen?
Probly not? I don’t see it occurring and certainly not in time to change things soon enough and with a very big chance of simply splitting the left-wing vote and making it impossible for the progressive side to have any power or influence indefinitely into an ever grimmer and less democratic future. With ever more global damage and human suffering and loss as a result.
(III) You can fix and work with and fight for the party you currently have – the Democratic one, join them, try to take them over, participate, fund, empower and make them work. They’re already there and already close. They already would be and should be in power except they’ve been robbed by a warped system and the spoilers factors. They are the legitimate popular choice of most Americans with the votes properly counted not suppressed and the USA’s system being legitimate instead of a currently illegitimate one that’s rigged against them.
So my recommendation would be option (III) as it most realistic and most achievable as of now whilst also looking at working on (I) and trying to get reforms that are so badly needed and so long overdue accomplished here.
I know this is repetitive but, fuck, its important and it matters and I’m trying to help here.
@50. unclefrogy
Fair point but unless the military is at least sympathetic and willing to let it happen then any popular revolt will get awfully bloody quickly and probly won’t succeed.
Congress & the political parties & system have failed to stop Trump.
SCOTUS and the Justice system has failed to stop Trump – justice delayed indeed being justice denied.
So I’m kinda thinking what’s left to stop Trump? The options seem to be bad & worse.
I’m hoping some military leaders are decent enough and value their oath of office to the Constitution well enough to be anti-fascist. To step in and say, yeah, we’re not going to let the USA fall further into fascism and tyranny. To stage a counter-coup to the Musk coup that has already occurred stating that Musk and trump are doing what is unconstitutional and illegal, that a domestic enemy and traitor is now in power and that Trump is unfit to serve mentally as well as ethically. To them us their full weight to stop the Trumpists response and remove the Trumpmusk people from power.
That’ll take time and be nasty.
Would a popular revolt be able to do that? Would it result in a Civil War? Who would win that? Dunno.
Yeah, the ideal options for removing Trump – the Repugs turning on him and not permitting his take over of their party to stand, the courts jailing him, the election going against him stopping him have bene missed. Now what remains to be tried is a lot uglier and more problematic and things are very bleak indeed.
The Democratic/Republican party duopoly has lasted a century and a half. Over that period, the two had largely swapped positions by half a century ago, since when both have become increasingly beholden to large corporations. That history indicates that shifting the Democrats left will be very difficult, but producing a viable third party at national level is next to impossible. If there’s any chance of such a party gaining traction, it must start at local level, in areas where the Democratic Party is at its strongest – so that progressives can vote for it without immediately risking a fascist victory, but might scare the local Democratic establishment enough to sidle leftwards a few centimeters. That, of course, is to assume that there are going to be anything even close to free elections in future.
Incidentally, preferential voting is a rotten system for electing any sort of assembly, although OK for electing a single executive: it tends to reinforce duopolies in assemblies as almost all third-party voters will place their less disliked member of the duopoly high up in their preferential ordering to keep the other one out. There are many (I suspect literally dozens) of better systems for electing an assembly. Single transferable vote (STV) in multi-member constituencies is one; party-list systems, either closed or open (in the former the party decides the priority of its candidates, in the latter, the voters can affect this), additional member systems (in which voters have two votes, one for an individual in a FPTP constituency, the other for a party in a region) are others, variants and combinations are legion.