The imminent collapse of the liberal-conservative consensus.

[Lago PARANOIA]

https://thehill.com/latino/573053-hundr ... exas-begin
https://twitter.com/thehill/status/1441097080873762826

@PressSec on Haitian migrants being sent back: "First of all, they're not deportations. People are not coming into the country through legal methods."

It's the exact same language as Trump, or, more to the point, it's the exact same language as Bill Clinton and Obama. The two men who are actually responsible for Hillary Clinton's surprise loss to Donald Trump.

[Kaelik]

I will briefly point out that of course this is absolute bullshit lies.

The LEGAL PROCESS for seeking asylum is

1) CROSS THE BORDER INTO THE US HOWEVER THE FUCK YOU CAN
2) Go to a US official to request asylum.

That's the legal way to request asylum. They are crossing the border legally, and it's absolutely bullshit to watch these fucking assholes lie.

[Lago PARANOIA]

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/10/26/busi ... ation.html

“It is a highly incomplete view to try to assess the economy, and even people’s views about the economy, by looking at inflation alone,” Jared Bernstein, a member of Mr. Biden’s Council of Economic Advisers, said in an interview. “You also have to appreciate the robustness of the expansion, and how it’s lifting job and earnings opportunities.”

Mr. Bernstein and other advisers say many of the causes of inflation are already improving. They point to calculations by Mark Zandi, a Moody’s Analytics economist, that suggest Americans who have left the labor force will begin flocking back into the job market by December or January, because they will likely have exhausted their savings by then.

I thought this article was interesting because it shows where establishment liberalism has its head at. There's obviously no sense of urgency to consolidate Biden's gains or prevent a GOP counterattack. They're thinking of ways to immediately pivot to pleasing the propertied capitalists, with no realization that pleasing these people means sabotaging Biden's regime. I don't even think there was an ideological motivation towards having a 1,400 stimulus or a reconciliation package. I legit think the Democratic Party thinks that stimuluses are just things that you're supposed to do when the economy is bad, rather than there being an underlying reason for it.

I voted for Biden specifically because I thought that he'd be the agent of destruction for the Democratic Party. All the same, I'm kind of stunned at just how little of a survival instinct he and his allies have.

[MGuy]

Biden came into office preaching about the importance of bipartisanship after being in the vice spot of Obama's presidency. Whatever instincts he has, they are not sharp ones. As for everyone else involved though I think appeasing the same people who are backing the likes of Manchin is integral for Biden to stay in office. Probably moreso than passing popular legislation. Being able to raise money from big money donors has been a key part of the political strategy for both parties. I don't see why they would change course on that.

[Lago PARANOIA]

Any of you other guys received threatening e-mails about restarting student loan payments?

If I didn't know better, I'd say that the Democrats were unwittingly taking a dive because they seriously did not understand how precarious a situation they're in. However, I live in a world where Obama left the United States for dead after Trump swooped in with a united Congress. So I know that this dive was not accidental, it was coldly calculated. The Democratic establishment plans to skip town once the fascists push their shit in come 2022 and 2024 and make Trump (or W. Bush for that matter) look like a slap on the wrist. The richer ones will just outright retire, the not-so-rich ones will fundraise from the shadows, suckle on the necrotic teat of dwindling donor class cash until the New Fascist Party declares liberalism illegal.

[MGuy]

I don't think there's a lot of calculated decisions going on at a macro scale. Their personal and material interests provide every cog in the machine enough incentive to get to where we're inevitably going. Getting the parliamentary to have them an excuse to never try to raise minimum wage? That's a calculated move. Barely doing anything to earn votes? Biden said himself that nothing significant would change. That's their promise. Obama going on holiday is just what the wealthy do. If you have the wealth and power borders mean a lot less to you.

[The Adventurer's Almanac]

The stratification of our society becomes more severe with each passing year. They don't need to try to alienate half the country with their decisions, it's just what they do. It's what they think is right. Justified in their own superiority, they cram their ideology down everyone's throats and strangle the economy while telling you that your neighbor is the real problem because you have different thoughts about how to solve the same problems. As one side grows more extreme, so does the other in response. We are an ouroboros of self-destruction and lots of people are eager to play into that.
The Democrats won't go anywhere this decade. They have too much money and power to buy people's thoughts, and when they can't buy your thoughts, they will buy your compliance. If they can't buy that, they'll threaten you and your livelihood. They are snakes in suits pretending to be human beings with empathy and meaningful connections to people around them.
2022 will be a bloodbath. Things are only going to get more violent in the coming years until some form of relief is found.

[Lago PARANOIA]

The Democrats won't go anywhere this decade. They have too much money and power to buy people's thoughts, and when they can't buy your thoughts, they will buy your compliance. If they can't buy that, they'll threaten you and your livelihood. They are snakes in suits pretending to be human beings with empathy and meaningful connections to people around them.

This is too optimistic. Maybe if this was 1988 or even 2002, but the fascist rank-and-file have made it clear that they are not in the mood to continue previous detentes of the Democratic Party. These people didn't in the past have enough power, even under Trump, to enact their wishes. Even at Trump's height of power, he barely had a governing majority and didn't have a governing majority composed of just 'kill all the SJW' fascists. But if the Democratic Party gets destroyed in 2022/2024, there's no coming back. There will be enough 'kill all the SJW' fascists that they can't be put in check by the Roberts types. The rank-and-file fascists are quite aware that they're being demographically washed out and can't compete fairly -- and this is the best chance they had in a hundred centuries to completely reverse their fortunes.

The Democrats might shrug their shoulders on Nov. 2024 and figure that it'll just be like 2004 or even 2016. Awful, but survivable. They do not realize that they will not be able to come back through the pathway of liberal democracy. The GOP (probably) won't go around outright assassinating high-level Democrats, but it won't really be a problem when they start doing things like repealing poll taxes, implement new voting laws, cranking up deportations and incarcerations, soforth.

America and Humanity as a whole will then faced with two choices. Either accept the transition of de jure to de facto fascist dominance made using legitimate channels without revolt. Or they defy the wishes of the liberal-conservative consensus and not just revolt against the fascists, but against the entire American system. They'll either be whittled down to a regional Vichy France-like rump while the fascists call the shots, or they'll have rebel against the political system that allowed the fascists to take and keep power. Liberal Democrats, of course, will never do the latter. Executing Trump after a triumphant street battle in NYC is one thing (and I have a hard time believing they would allow even that), imprisoning the entire SCOTUS and shipping them off to the Hague is a bridge too far. They would much rather just play the role of Vidkun Quisling and enjoy their position as bitchmade lapdogs of the fascists.

Either way, there won't be room for a Democratic Party that's able to exercise power or even control voters.

[MGuy]

Implying the current democratic party can exercise power?

[Whatever Jr.]

Stopping things from happening is an exercise of power.

[MGuy]

I suppose filling seats so Republicans aren't continuously in charge is something. Biden did end the war in Afghanistan. Though I don't know if he gets points for that since he was very active in helping start it.

[Lago PARANOIA]

Implying the current democratic party can exercise power?

Absolutely.
https://www.dailyposter.com/sanders-tri ... op-attack/

In a last-ditch attempt to rescue Democrats from their own worst instincts, Sen. Bernie Sanders (Ind-Vt.) is working to try to limit the party’s politically toxic initiative to enrich wealthy property owners in liberal locales. If his maneuver fails, Republicans will have a potent political weapon heading into the 2022 midterms, as evidenced by a new video the GOP just released on Monday.

At issue is corporate Democrats’ proposal to raise the amount of state and local taxes (SALT) that can be deducted from households’ federal taxes. The $275 billion proposal is now the second largest part of the Build Back Better legislation, even though it would only benefit the 13 percent of Americans who itemize their tax returns.

I thought it would've sunk in by now that the Democrats are not actually powerless and incoherent, it's just a posture they affect to hide their agenda of answering to the same capitalist paymasters as the fascists.

[MGuy]

I was thinking about them exercising power in a way that did something good for people. I hadn't thought that more tax cuts was a thing that even needs Dems since Republicans also do that. If that counts then I certainly don't see how Dems, as long as they exist, would ever lack opportunities to do more of that.

[Lago PARANOIA]

The vibe I'm getting from Twitter/Facebook is that rank-and-file liberal partisans are starting to freak out about their prospects. And what triggered this freakout is their voter customer base switching from 'do better, Biden, please!' to 'student loans were the last straw, hope your party dies', openly mocking their threats of a GOP resurgence in November 2022.

That just me?

[The Adventurer's Almanac]

You're on Twitter/Facebook?

[Omegonthesane]

Twitter is very easy to be on. What I'm surprised at is that you have a hose plugged into the specifically liberal zeitgeist on either of those media platforms, as opposed to something further left.

[Zaranthan]

Yeah, wasn't the whole point of this thread that "liberal", "progressive", and "card carrying Democrat" aren't synonyms?

[The Adventurer's Almanac]

Twitter is very easy to be on. What I'm surprised at is that you have a hose plugged into the specifically liberal zeitgeist on either of those media platforms, as opposed to something further left.

Yeah, god forbid he keep tabs on people he doesn't like.

[Omegonthesane]

Twitter is very easy to be on. What I'm surprised at is that you have a hose plugged into the specifically liberal zeitgeist on either of those media platforms, as opposed to something further left.

Yeah, god forbid he keep tabs on people he doesn't like.

Doing so requires a level of effort which I wouldn't expect someone to put in unless it was part of their actual day job.

[PseudoStupidity]

I can't speak to why someone would be on Twitter and following a bunch of liberals, but a lot of people use Facebook to stay in touch with the minion memes their parents post and are thus exposed to a lot of liberal opinions.

The once or so a week I log into facebook is always an interesting time. It's either people I know from my engagement in local politics talking about how shitty the world (but specifically MA a lot of the time) has gotten or family members posting liberal things and the occasional borderline fascist meme from a relative who I genuinely thought had already died. And of course a billion ads for jock straps and overtly horny anime figurines.

[Kaelik]

I don't believe any person is actually divining the "real" opinions of any large group of people on twitter or facebook, but since I follow a lot of "progressive" (by which I mean liberals who talk about how much they totally want the same thing as the left and then swear to never vote for Bernie Sanders while lying to people about how the democratic party is more left then it is) media people, and I assume that likewise other "leftists" which I guess is what I'm going to classify Lago as, though I'm sure most people can agree he's incoherent politically, would follow some group of people which they consider representative of some meaningful section of people, not specifically that their entire feed is.

I also follow people who tweet about how all democrats are universally evil (from the left) but I don't consider their opinions when I'm trying to understand the opinions of "liberal dem majority" or whatever.

All that said, my current feeler subject to the limits of which individuals I actually follow is that in fact the liberal dems are still extremely brain broken Biden stans who are too busy either: a) Unsophisticated people defending every Biden murder and deportation because they can't admit they are wrong, or b) Sophisticatedly posting exclusively about how bad repubicans are and never mentioning democrats in power even once, with sometimes an occasional exception for Manchin or Sinema who are the sole and only bad democrats doing bad things, please ignore the president using executive power to be evil, and the fact that 8 dems voted against minimum wage and probably if Manchin and Sinema reformed tomorrow, someone else would step in to kill Biden's one kind of okay legislation he wants to pass but not enough to try to do anything.

[Lago PARANOIA]

which I guess is what I'm going to classify Lago as, though I'm sure most people can agree he's incoherent politically,

How rude. I'm a pretty orthodox leftcom. Politics largely indistinguishable from pre-2015 FrankTrollman's before he turned into a huge bitch and started begging the Clintons for salvation from Trump. Just replace the Marxist theory of 'money as commodity' with MMT's 'money as debt' and there you go.

[Lago PARANOIA]

which I guess is what I'm going to classify Lago as, though I'm sure most people can agree he's incoherent politically,

How rude. I'm a pretty orthodox leftcom. Politics largely indistinguishable from pre-2015 FrankTrollman's before he turned into a huge bitch and started begging the Clintons for salvation from Trump. Just replace the Marxist theory of 'money as commodity' with MMT's 'money as debt' and there you go.

I don't stress out too much about this misperception of my politics, though. I'm just an early adopter of an attitude and ideology that will become crystal fucking clear in the next couple of years.

[Kaelik]

I don't stress out too much about this misperception of my politics, though. I'm just an early adopter of an attitude and ideology that will become crystal fucking clear in the next couple of years.

No one is confused about your position that you hate democrats. It's just that most of the people I know who have rejected the democratic party have rejected electoralism, instead of deciding that electoralism is the only path to a better future, but it has to be done by alternating between electing the worst democrats possible and electing the republicans back and forth until ??????? we elect good people.

[Lago PARANOIA]

I have NEVER said (well, I haven't since 2016) electoralism is the path to the future. In fact, I believe quite the opposite. Electoralism, at least as it exists in the United States, must be destroyed or at least discredited and suborned by mass labor politics if humanity is to have a chance of survival. Unfortunately, we're kind of on a time crunch with this climate shit, so I seek out ways to accelerate its death.

Fortunately for me, harm reductionists are so fucking stupid that they can't even read an electoral map from more than a couple of cycles ago. I thus vote for Democrats who I feel have a good chance of disappointing the party when their aspirations run up against systemic friction. Alternatively, I vote for shitty centrists who will cause more long-term harm to the party. And by hilarious coincidence, these are exactly the two kinds of Democrats the moronic harm reductionists believe will reduce the most harm!

If you understand those two premises, that electoralism must die ASAP and that liberals unwittingly cause more harm to electoral politics than the actual saboteurs, my position is coherent.

If you don't though, that's okay. Your understanding is not all that important to its execution. In fact, it's kind of a hindrance. Just keep putting up Democrats like Bernie and Biden and I'll keep voting for 'em with a smile. If I feel like they can REALLY hurt the Democratic Party, I'll even send them some money.