Political Roundtable Part XXX

[closg00]

I guess part of it is that the Dems need to actually pass stuff to be successful, why the GOP is successful if they stop things, which is much easier.

The GOP failed at pretending to be the party of small government, so they decided to be the part of bad government.

MAGA has settled on a party identity, it is one of white grievance and paranoia, their voters can reliably be counted on to vote against their own interests.

[dobrojim]

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It's horrifying that the GOP has gotten away with this throughout my lifetime.

That said, it's notable that these claims are made, that dems are the party of divisiveness,
but no actual examples are provided and then WhiteBoy says the dems are trying
to make political hay from the tragedy of Buffalo. Meanwhile Tuckums carries on
with flat out racist claptrap, basically stochastic terrorism, over and over again
and they think it's just normal political discourse.

[Wizardspride]

Sad to say but if you vote Republican at this point, I just assume you're a white supremacist or at the very least racism isn't your "red line".

[Zonkerbl]

When I was in 2nd grade we would go outside and play soccer, all sixty of us. At the start of the year there were thirty kids on each side, but one team started to be perceived as the "winning" team and kids starting switching over to the winning side, until by the end of the school year there were five of us left on the "losing" team, playing against fifty kids.

I always think about that when people complain about white supremacy. It's the winning team. They won so decisively in 2016 that no amount of winning from the Democrats will ever mean anything again. I imagine most people are going to switch over to that side eventually, it's just a matter of time.

We've already seen that the definition of "whiteness" is flexible. The Irish didn't used to be considered white, or Polish. Certain hispanic populations are already identifying as white. And of course white people like me who are already white...

[Wizardspride]

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[Zonkerbl]

tl;dr: Cops forced a 16 year old into confessing to a crime he didn't commit. Years later they find the real culprit - no apologies from anyone involved for ruining an innocent 16-year-old's life

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[Wizardspride]

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[Zonkerbl]

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Ooh Columbus Ohio

Dude aren't you about 15 years too late? Where were you when we needed you?

[pancakes3]

Barely after those who were murdered in Buffalo are cold in the ground, 16 more killed at a Texas Elementary School. Can't wait for Fox commentators to tell us to not politicize the gun issue.

[Pointgod]

I get the desire to point the finger at the GOP and it feels good to point out how evil they are. Gosh knows I've done it on this thread. But I think it is also useful to look at why the GOP is successful. They understand what motivates voters, and the Dems do not. There is a lot of community building that the Dems could do that they refuse to do because of their unconscious racism.

Why is legalizing marijuana too much to ask?

Why can we only talk about police reform, and not harm reduction?

Why can't we have a national level decarceration conversation?

Why can't we pass national level abortion protection laws?

Why can't we talk about a carbon tax?

None of these things are so controversial that a coordinated propaganda campaign repeating certain ideas over and over couldn't condition this nation of brainwashable idiots to accept it. The GOP gets it. Why don't the Dems? Why are they so afraid of persuasion?

You keep saying that the Dems have unconscious racism but you don’t provide any concrete examples as to how that plays out.

The Republicans have smartly realized that the majority of policies and legislation get pushed through the state level. Everything you talked about, climate change policies, legalizing marijuana, ending qualified immunity can all be done at the state level. How many states have a Democratic House, Senate and Governor? I’m guessing that it’s less than 20. So that means over half of the states are either outright hostile to the policies above or there’s gridlock to do anything because of Republicans. At the Federal level Republicans have a built in advantage in the Senate where Democratic Senators represent something like 30 million more votes yet the Senate is 50/50 and the idiots like Manchin and Sinema refuse to get rid of the filibuster. It’s easy for Republicans in Congress to say vote for us and we’ll ensure that the big bad Federal government won’t tell you what to do, while they can carry out their monstrous agenda at the state level. The majority of people in Kentucky may want to legalize weed, but not if it’s the big bad government telling them they have to. Keep in mind, Kentucky has a Democratic Governor, at some point it’s up to the voters to hold the clowns in the state legislature responsible for blocking any type of progress.

And from a propaganda perspective the right wing is so far ahead that it’s actually scary. Billionaires are playing the long game. Look at people like Ben Shapiro and Charlie Kirk and realize that they have billionaire backers pumping tons of money into an online presence. The right wing ecosystem is coordinated to push propaganda and lies. Shapiro, Kirk, Bongino will push a message from the right and people like Tim Pool, Glenn Greenwald, Jimmy Dore push right wing talking points from the “I used to be Liberal but they are too radical” position. And that’s not even taking into account the big daddy Fox News. Just read some of these right wing nuts on Twitter and you’ll see that they have the same talking points but they at never any point tell their followers that both parties are the same or voting doesn’t mean anything. They put every issue as an existential threat to their freedom and that Democrats can never get power. There’s just not that coordination on the left where they attack each other and discourage voting for Democrats or voting all together. The answer is that there needs to be a sustained grassroots efforts in enough states that matter to move the Overton window to a less radical right wing view of politics and policies, but that takes time, coordination and a lot of money, but most importantly a sustained effort from voters to keep the GOP from gaining power.

I'm so glad you asked, because in fact I've given many, many examples in this thread. But to save you the time of going back and reading them, here is just a sample:

1) The War on Drugs. Racist, racist, racist, largely created by a bipartisan group of Democrats and Republicans.
2) The unfettered worship of cops, who are clearly trained to target non-white people - racist.
3) The clutching of pearls whenever "defunding the cops" is mentioned - racist. I don't know if this counts as different from #2 but whatever. For Biden to say "For god's sake I don't want to defund the cops" when it was he people who want to defund the cops that got him elected? How does that even happen? What a disaster.
4) The refusal of Biden, who represents "moderate" Democrats, to even consider legalizing marijuana - racist.

1. Yes war on drugs is racist no argument from me. I have a hard time calling Democrats racist when they’re the only party that will recognize mistakes of the past and will actively work with activists to address racial inequalities.

2. The only party that worships cops are Republicans. Democrats are just poor at messaging when it comes to police accountability and racial Justice so their message is often muddled and ends up shallowly pro cop.

3. Defund the police is a horrible political slogan and even the majority of black people don’t support defunding the police based on that messaging. Sorry man but moving away from a political loser is not racist.

4. I don’t know why Biden hasn’t decriminalized marijuana. It’s the easiest position to have. The Democrats in the House have passed legislation. Senate is what’s holding up a vote.

Here's some new ones - I would argue that the failure of the Dems to pass nationwide prochoice legislation when they had the chance is racist by omission - white women will be able to get abortions, generally - although as I mentioned earlier, statistically between now and next November a pretty white woman will die from a complication because she couldn't get an abortion. It's just the law of large numbers. But statistically the women who will suffer the most from the Republican's abortion ban is non-white women. This is the demographic that is most responsible for kicking Trump out, and this is the thanks they get.

I don’t know maybe there’s an argument. I think it’s just that Democrats took for granted that the Supreme Court wouldn’t obliterate precedent and they’re scared politically about the backlash, especially since it would require eliminating the filibuster which I support.

Generally the absolute refusal of the Dem party to embrace the Squad - to me that's racist, for the same reason. These are the Congressional Representatives of the demographic that defeated Trump. Has Nancy Pelosi over spoken out publicly in defense of AOC, like Republicans have publicly defended MTG and similar scum? You could make an argument it's not racism, but it's basically racism.

Not to sound flippant but the squad are actually pretty irrelevant in the grand scheme of things. They’re 6-8 members out of 300. They’re all in safe districts so they can message whatever they want without losing their seats. This is big problem with Progressives, they believe the country is as far left as their district while if you looked at the median of the US, it’s probably more center right. I’m not sure what exact examples you’re thinking of with the squad, but the reason Republicans tolerate The Unfrozen Cavewoman is that she has the ear of their cult leader and she’s the number one fundraiser. And if you pay close attention they don’t defend Greene directly, they reframe everything as cancel culture, radical left. They connect it to their voters.

I could go on. Every time I complain about the Dems making some strategic mistake, it's because rich white moderate dems don't want to stand up for the true backbone of the party, non-white voters. Every time Dems strategize about winning elections, their first thought is trying to persuade hard core racist/xenophobic/misogynist non-college educated white males to switch back over to voting Dem, and I include Bernie in this, rather than trying to figure out how to maximize, for example, black voter turnout, in off-cycle elections (which you could do, for example, by taking defunding the police seriously).

I agree with you that the Democrats are unorganized and bad at messaging. A lot of what you attribute to racism can be attributed to the fact that the party is a big tent and has not created a message that bridges the different factions of the voter base. I agree there’s too much emphasis on the mythical swing voter, but it’s much easier to persuade than to turn out new voters.

You know how the Republicans maximize their turnout? They talk, talk, talk about what they plan to do, endlessly, even if it takes them DECADES to do it. The Republicans have done nothing but talk about how they want to get rid of Roe v. Wade, and their commitment to their radical right voters has earned them the radical right wing vote in return. And because of the depth of their commitment, they WON, SHOWING their voters that their trust was justified. Honestly I'll be shocked if the Dems ever win another election after this. What a CRUSHING DEFEAT electing Trump was. The victory was so complete that the Dems control three branches of the government and are completely powerless to stop Republican policy.

I think you’re giving too much credit to Republicans and ignoring the historical swings in politics and the fact that Republicans have built in advantages through gerrymandering and the electoral college. Republicans commit to voting in every election, not just Presidential. They vote locally and they have a message that appeals to independents as well because it’s easy to say that you’ll just give everyone tax breaks and cut spending because you’re not expected to actually improve people’s lives.

Democrats WON'T talk about abortion, they WON'T talk about decarceration, they WON'T talk about defunding the police, they WON'T talk about marijuana legalization, they WON'T talk about decriminalizing heroin and prostitution. Why is that? Because none of these things benefit white people, the "moderates." Now maybe you'll say that's not racism, and we'll just have to agree to disagree. But, IMHO, everything that's wrong with the Dem party stems from white moderate dems lack of enthusiasm for supporting issues that matter to the backbone of their party, whose only fault is not being white.

Just from a pure numbers perspective, the Democratic Party needs white voters. Black voters are the most consistent and voters but they don’t have the numbers to put Democrats over the edge, especially in states where there’s not a significant population. I don’t know that’s necessarily white moderates, but I think what’s lost on a lot of white Liberals is that black and Hispanic voters are more conservative than Twitter would have you believe. I mean is the national platform you want to run on decriminalizing heroine?

There's a real easy solution to various constituencies in the Dem coalition telling each other not to vote. Have their back. Instead of saying "vote harder," say "defund the police." Out loud. Over and over and over again until the Overton window shifts.

I agree with the bolded. Democrats don’t show people they’re fighting for them. Like I said the Party is unorganized and horrible at messaging. Where I’ll disagree with you is that just tossing out slogans is going to get Democrats out to vote. Let’s see how many members of Congress actually run on a defund the police platform using those exact words without any context. I’m going to guess the number will be very low, even among those in safe blue districts.

You bring up a lot of legitimate points and there’s no doubt racism within the Democratic Party just like with pretty much every institution in America but I find it hard to believe the Party that has a high number of non white people in Congress, the Executive Branch and staffing is racist at its core. Republicans have one black Senator and 2 black members of Congress and it shows….

[Pointgod]

Well Republicans manage to keep electing the biggest **** ups. Walker has to be the most unqualified person running for Senate this midterm which is amazing because they’re a ton of unqualified Republicans running. And Walker could very well win!

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[Zonkerbl]

I think the Democratic party is 75% racist and pat themselves on the back for not being 100% racist. I stand by each of my points. I don't find anything you said at all persuasive, basically just put your fingers in your ears and yelled "lalalala" at every one of my arguments.

You're flat out wrong that the moderate Dems, the voting bloc that controls the party, is not pro war on drugs. Biden is one of its PRINCIPAL AUTHORS. He refuses to legalize marijuana, or even consider it. That's racist man.

And Democrats ABSOLUTELY WORSHIP COPS. Pay attention! If "defund the cops" is such a bad *slogan,* why are all the moderate dem proposals only about cop *reform,* which absolutely addresses exactly none of the problem? Why are there no reform options being proposed by the Dems that actually defund the cops and reallocate those funds where they are most needed?

Come on man, you're better than this. The problem in the Democratic party is deep seated racism that prevents them from embracing the policies that will help encourage their core voting blocs to turn out and vote. We absolutely need to start with defunding the cops. That needs to be our four decades long project, just like abortion was for the GOP.

[dobrojim]

I'm curious if anyone besides me was struck by the tragic irony of all the armed
law enforcement men personnel shown over and over again on the looped video
from Uvalde. Even though these folks were present as quickly as they could possibly
have been (story is still a little unclear), they were unable to prevent a massacre.
Of children. In a school. One can only wonder if a well placed social worker,
working in the community, coundn't have done more to prevent this. The obvious
answer is that however little a social worker might have accomplished, it wouldn't
be less than what all the armed law enforcement did. Unless you want to say
the 18 yo kid who did this would have killed everyone in the school without them.

I've never lived in Texas, nor would I want to. They seem to specialize in stupid
when it comes to pretty much everything.

At the risk of pointing out the obvious and to repeat something that's been pointed
out repeatedly, there is virtually no reason why a civilian, much less an 18 yo child
needs a military style assault weapon designed to kill as many as possible as quickly
as possible. Only in Amurika. The next one is bound to be soon.

[Zonkerbl]

You know what's crazy is Australia has next to zero mass shootings and the main difference between their gun policy and ours is an annual $300 gun license fee

Well that and you have to demonstrate a genuine need for the gun to get the license

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gun_laws_of_Australia#:~:text=The%20states%20issue%20firearms%20licences,least%2018%20years%20of%20age.

[Wizardspride]

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[popper]

It seems to me that gun crime (the non-passionate kind, including suicide) could be drastically reduced with some simple common sense measures. I'd look at three categories of people that account for the overwhelming majority of gun crime. It shouldn't be difficult to come up with a plan to address each of these dangerous categories of people. I don't see why it couldn't be a bipartisan effort as well.

Persons who are mentally healthy yet have a criminal intent for profit or prestige
Persons who are mentally ill that have criminal intent
Persons who are mentally ill and don't understand or can't control their actions

[Zonkerbl]

Stacey Abrams' get out the vote efforts in Georgia are blowing GOP voter suppression efforts out of the water. Good for her.

[pancakes3]

It seems to me that gun crime (the non-passionate kind, including suicide) could be drastically reduced with some simple common sense measures. I'd look at three categories of people that account for the overwhelming majority of gun crime. It shouldn't be difficult to come up with a plan to address each of these dangerous categories of people. I don't see why it couldn't be a bipartisan effort as well.

Persons who are mentally healthy yet have a criminal intent for profit or prestige
Persons who are mentally ill that have criminal intent
Persons who are mentally ill and don't understand or can't control their actions

In an ideal world with perfect information, sure. Maybe. But given that we don't live in a perfect world, it's not workable. The problem is from which direction we're approaching limiting arms from. We either:

1) Assume everyone is mentally healthy and responsible, and until proven otherwise, take gun access away from them.
2) Assume everyone is capable of murder with a gun, and allow people to apply for guns if they can prove that they are not mentally ill or otherwise dangerous.

Using a car analogy, we don't assume everyone is a safe driver, and after the accident happens, take access to cars away. We assume that everyone is not able to drive, and after being licensed (however rubberstamped) allow them to access cars.

It's this fundamental belief that everyone has a right to access guns until proven otherwise that's the source of the danger because it allows for, and even requires tragedies to happen before ex post facto actions are taken.

[Zonkerbl]

It seems to me that gun crime (the non-passionate kind, including suicide) could be drastically reduced with some simple common sense measures. I'd look at three categories of people that account for the overwhelming majority of gun crime. It shouldn't be difficult to come up with a plan to address each of these dangerous categories of people. I don't see why it couldn't be a bipartisan effort as well.

Persons who are mentally healthy yet have a criminal intent for profit or prestige
Persons who are mentally ill that have criminal intent
Persons who are mentally ill and don't understand or can't control their actions

It may surprise you to hear me say that this is a right wing talking point that is completely disjoint from reality. Mental illness has nothing to do with any of this - the degree of mental illness is the same here as it is in Australia, which has orders of magnitude less gun violence than us.

Gun crime is committed with guns. The less guns, the less gun crime. Passionate, dispassionate.

For example, suicide. First of all, suicides are preventable. It is insane right wing propaganda to say that someone who wants to commit suicide eventually will, so why bother trying to stop it. Complete hogwash. The cruelest thing you can say to someone whose loved one has just committed suicide - "don't blame yourself, it was inevitable." It's not true. "We couldn't save him/her, but suicide isn't inevitable - you can help other parents avoid the pain you are going through." Your average success rate for attempted suicide is 10%.

https://www.cdc.gov/suicide/facts/index.html#:~:text=People%20who%20attempt%20suicide%20and,and%20other%20mental%20health%20concerns.&text=The%20good%20news%20is%20that,on%20to%20die%20by%20suicide.

Suicide is not committed by people who are sad - it is committed by people with treatable clinical depression. If you survive the suicide attempt, you can be given anti-depression medications that are clinically proven to reduce suicidal ideation ("suicidal thoughts").

Problem is, suicide attempts WITH GUNS are 90% successful.

https://preventfirearmsuicide.efsgv.org/about-firearm-suicide/statistics/

The less guns lying around, the more likely your teenage daughter will survive a suicide attempt, the more likely you can get her the treatment she needs so it won't happen again and she will survive to be an adult.

The problem. Is guns.

[popper]

It seems to me that gun crime (the non-passionate kind, including suicide) could be drastically reduced with some simple common sense measures. I'd look at three categories of people that account for the overwhelming majority of gun crime. It shouldn't be difficult to come up with a plan to address each of these dangerous categories of people. I don't see why it couldn't be a bipartisan effort as well.

Persons who are mentally healthy yet have a criminal intent for profit or prestige
Persons who are mentally ill that have criminal intent
Persons who are mentally ill and don't understand or can't control their actions

In an ideal world with perfect information, sure. Maybe. But given that we don't live in a perfect world, it's not workable. The problem is from which direction we're approaching limiting arms from. We either:

1) Assume everyone is mentally healthy and responsible, and until proven otherwise, take gun access away from them.
2) Assume everyone is capable of murder with a gun, and allow people to apply for guns if they can prove that they are not mentally ill or otherwise dangerous.

Using a car analogy, we don't assume everyone is a safe driver, and after the accident happens, take access to cars away. We assume that everyone is not able to drive, and after being licensed (however rubberstamped) allow them to access cars.

It's this fundamental belief that everyone has a right to access guns until proven otherwise that's the source of the danger because it allows for, and even requires tragedies to happen before ex post facto actions are taken.

Just for the sake of argument, assume we will never be able to confiscate the many millions of guns currently present in the country. Further assume that you've been hired to come up with a plan to drastically reduce gun crime. How would approach the problem?