erik wrote:Kaelik, you can say that Bernie made socialism less of a dirty word and moved the needle leftward, but I think he got the support he did because of demographics already shifting to provide that support. If he tried for president with the demographics 10-20 years ago he would have been a nobody. While Bernie deserves some credit, I think you give too much credit to the individual politicians and not enough to the progression of demographics and social mores. That progression is what I'm holding on for.
I don't give any credit at all to individual politicians, and that's my point.
Racism is bad, and Demographics help with that. But Black people and Hispanics are not all secret communists just waiting to explode, they are people tentatively buy in to whatever economic proposals are made by Democrats because Democrats don't call them them names and talk about how they are ruining the country. Demographics are never ever ever ever going to make actual left wing policies win as long as there are a bunch of non racist democrats advocating right wing policies.
I give zero credit to Bernie Sanders or any other politician, Sanders hasn't said a single thing economically to the left of Nixon and Eisenhower proposals, because that's where this country is. Clinton is even more to the right than Sanders on economics. I have only blame for politicians, because they have been telling everyone everywhere for 24 years EVEN ON THE "LEFT" that the only path forward economically is to kick people off welfare and lower taxes.
erik wrote:I think things will continue to get better if we can continue to have Democrat presidents appointing federal judges and vetoing Republican batshit craziness until demographics complete the GOP's death knell. The demographic shift is basically a weakening of the party that is espousing hate and fear and antithetical to facts and logic. When the side of disinformation is losing, the side of facts and reality surely gets a bump. I do believe reality has a liberal bias, and when given a fair fight that liberal bias is winning out. The only blockade is if millions of voters get their voting rights taken away. If we can stop that then the liberal bias of reality should bear out and give evidence-based policies a chance.
Here's what is going to actually happen in your far flung death of the Republicans world:
1) The Republicans will die.
2) The Democrats will split into two parties:
a) The Democrats (let's be honest, they will keep the name, because they already rule the party with an iron fist): The party of lower taxes, more corporate welfare, more obedience to our rich masters, more pulling yourself up by your own bootstraps, more balanced budgets, but not racism or homophobia, but we will do the minimal possible amount of leftism to not completely destroy the country with our bad economic policies.
b) The Actual Left: The party of actual leftism.
3) All those black and hispanics that you were relying on to save the country will keep voting for Democrats, because they aren't actually secret communists.
And the point is that Tim Kaine definitely, and Bill Clinton definitely, and Obama definitely, and Hillary Clinton probably, would all pick the Democrats in that division. And then for the rest of your lifetime, all the people were told every day for 24 straight years by the President of the United States that our economic pathforward is Technocratic Corporate Wealth and Fuck the Little Guy Just Gently Enough That They Don't Revolt, are going to keep voting that way.
erik wrote:I think the youth vote is too fucking unreliable still and I don't count on them to be proportionally involved in local elections or non-presidential elections, or even presidential elections. They will be courted when they fucking bother to vote. But they'll keep coming and be replacing their conservative forebears that forsook science and evidence as elitism.
Except that all of that is bullshit. The youth vote turns up all the time in local elections and non off year national elections. It's just that it's always the conservative youth vote showing up. I wonder why that is? No I don't, I know why it is, because every two years when actual leftist youth is being told they need to vote for abortion hating, gun loving, corporate welfate giving, tax lowering senators and congresspeople "or else the Republicans win" they just say "Fuck this" and don't vote. It's not because they are just so unreliable, it's because they only reliably vote for the people that actually represent them, which is why a host of purple democrats keep losing to red republicans who do get the youth (conservative) vote.
If you want the youth vote to be reliable, maybe just once ever, the Democrats could actually pretend to represent them, instead of, as Clinton is doing, and Frank is advocating "For some reason when I tell them I'm going to push them into a fire if they don't lick my taint, they don't lick my taint, so why should I pull them out of the fire?"
Then maybe, when the youth vote stops being told how terrible they are for not voting for DINOs instead of republicans, they might actually vote for you if you advocate any kind of economic leftism at all.
Yes, in a perfect world, white youths will vote for the Candidate that isn't racist but is otherwise exactly identical to their challenger, because not doing so prevents Merrick Garland from being appointed to the Supreme Court, but if the Democrats are so fucking evidence based maybe they can respond to the evidence that actually being a candidate that promises tangible differences from your opponent might get people to support you.
erik wrote:The new normal will be an expectation of healthcare for everyone, presidents who aren't white men, equal treatment for all sexual identities, a decreased sense of religiosity, a strong tolerance of diversity
And also that we must obey our corporate overlords, and we must lower taxes, and that fuck socialism, which is also the old normal, but also the new normal, because it's what every Democrat has told us for the last 16 years, and what Clinton will retell us now that she's hunting the general election for the next 8.
As an admittedly somewhat anecdotal example, The Great Failure of the Youth Vote, 2008-2010, the Democrats lost three House Members in Texas. One of them abstained on Obamacare, was anti-gay, was pro drilling, pro tax breaks for corporations, anti-abortion. One of them who's sole defining characteristics was being Pro Veteran, Pro Homeland Security, and Pro Wall Building To Keep Out Them Immigrants (he was hispanic, so he was a Democrat who wanted to build a wall to keep out the immigrants), and an anti-gay, anti-abortion, pro business, but also pro taxes on rich individuals, and Oh Yeah, He voted against ObamaCare.
Now, all of these had some Democratic positions, but can you really be that mad that they didn't get record youth votes turning out in favor of these "Democrats." Of course they didn't, it's hard to get the energy up to vote for people who refuse to represent you.
