If the posters of this board and in this thread are any indication of the real feelings of the left then abs-o-fucking-lutely NO compromise.
Why should anyone have to compromise with another person/group who calls them Nazis & Racists & whatever else?
I despise the hardcore left more than just about anything and I’m in full support of any politician who gives them a nice public middle finger at every available opportunity.
I mean Kavanaugh was a perfect example of the pure filth the left will lay out without a fucking care in the world. Compromise with that? Fuck no.
The game is broken, both sides do everything in their power to manipulate, poison-pill, soundbite. Everything is an angle. Bills are blocked for no good reason other than not wanting the other side to have a win.
I’m genuinely curious what was so wrong about what was done to Kavanaugh. If he has a history of sexually abusing women that is going to factor into his attitudes about women’s rights.
Also the right has no issue going back to the 70s to dig up dirt on the Clintons, so why is this different?
I also use a car analogy for politics, you can’t have a car that only has an accelerator (Progressivism) or only has a brake (Conservatism) is useless, you need both because while it’s good that you can accelerate towards a destination if you don’t have functioning brakes you are going nowhere but the hospital.
I would say that, personally I think that the people on the pedal-to-the-metal side of the continuum are the most likely to cause the most damage; I do recognize that parking in the middle of a train crossing is bound to end in tragedy, but statistically speaking, its the speeding that kills.
This is why, if anything, I’d call myself a moderate, which contrary to what the extremist love to claim doesn’t mean that if I’m in a car going 100km/h and a dear old lady walks into the road my choice would be to slow down to 50km/h and run down the old lady anyway.
That was one of the biggest and most obvious attempts at public humiliation and slander I think I’ve ever seen and was so obviously partisan it was insane. Its plays into the Democrats whole strategy where facts dont matter, just news cycles and soundbites, truth and objectivity be damned.
The Clintons are legacy Democrats with actual dirt to dig up.
But again, it seems like the left justifies everything they do by what the right does, aka a twisted form of ‘retaliation’ so I guess if thats the political standard you wanna go by then go for it.
See, here’s the thing: That outcome would be the compromise. There’s no way the Democrats can pull this off without lots of former GOP voters essentially deciding for themselves to compromise with the Democratic Party, in opposition to what the GOP has become over the last 10 years.
Compromise with the GOP party leadership is effectively impossible at this point. But with their voters? Maybe. Leave the GOP party out in the cold for a few election cycles, and see if that convinces them to reign in the crazy wing.
This is pretty much where I am at with respect to Canadian politics, btw.
So your argument is its ok when Republicans dig up dirt but when democrats do it it is unfair slander?
To me, you are so radicalized that facts, law, morality and good/evil have been abandoned in favor of tribalism. You remind me of the gop voters who felt Roy Moore was being ‘railroaded’ because the press investigated him being a child abuser.
If he had tried for an M4A plan in 2008, it wouldn’t have passed even with a filibuster-proof senate. There were Democrats who wouldn’t pass the ACA with a public option. So, I don’t think there’s anything else that Obama or Pelosi could’ve done at that time, even with large majorities in the Senate. The Democrats were bargaining amongst themselves.
@**septimus **- I realize you offered this loosely in response to ongoing discussions, but this is a hijack and it’s out of place in this forum to personalize discussion in this fashion. You seem to have a fixation on this particular point. I have previously cautioned you against bringing this up in unrelated threads else you be warned for harassment:
After that instruction, you proceeded to bring it up several times. In chronological order:
**
If you continue to bring up McVeigh, “entirely unreasonable”, or anything that I think is along those lines a single time in any GD or Elections thread in any fashion that isn’t specifically and directly related to the topic, you will receive a warning. Do not do this again.
**
[/moderating]
There are compromise-able issues and uncompromisable ones.
Fixing the budget deficit/debt is perfectly compromisable. Just get Democrats to agree to enough spending cuts, and Republicans to agree to enough tax hikes, and you get there.
Abortion, on the other hand, is not compromisable. You have one side who considers abortion to be murder (how can you agree to 50% murders instead of 100%?) and another side who sees it as a blatant violation of a woman’s autonomy and right to her body (how can you agree to a woman being controlled/overriden only 50% instead of 100%?) There is no happy middle ground.
You don’t compromise in that way. You compromise in whatever the general consensus is about the bright red line. Like now.
Hint: There aren’t really all that many (and I’d bet the number is falling as well) that believe that abortion is truly murder
I think that any voters who currently support Trump have been fully trained to a hateful, oppositional mindset. I do not think they are interested in compromise.
I’ve proposed that the democrats should take control and unilaterally implement policies to help the rural poor. I fully believe that a disturbingly large portion of the rural poor would hate and oppose their efforts on this front, sheerly because they’re Democrats and thus their plans must be evil.
I’m less sure whether they’d come to such conclusions if they weren’t being continuously fed bile by the republicans, their media, and the russians. Maybe they would start to recover without regular infusions. Or maybe they’re permanently corrupted. I don’t know.
Back before Obama’s presidency I might have said that partisan politics were the issue and we need to get out of our entrenched positions and come towards the middle.
But Obama tried to do that and they thoroughly shafted him for it. They still talk about him as the worst president ever even as he acceded to many of their demands.
And now, under Trump, the republican party has gone full wackadoodle and is busy shredding the constitution and any sense of decency or rationality.
Now, it might be the case that some democrat policies might overlap with republican policies in some areas. And that’s fine.
But actually constructively working with the GOP and compromising is sadly not possible and won’t be for a long time.
ETA: The media constantly “both sides”-ing everything, and talking about “polarization” is not helping at this point. It just enables the GOP to get more shameless.
I know this is a frequent narrative, but I don’t really remember him acceding to a lot of right-wing demands. My sense is more of things that couldn’t be accomplished because of the opposition in Congress, including the Republican threat to filibuster during the first two years of his time in office.
Also, Obama was somewhat notorious for not consulting Congress about much of anything – he just thought he should propose stuff and let the legislative process happen, without trying to grease the wheels at all. He didn’t seem to believe in, or perhaps he was uncomfortable with, making deals.
So can you recall and mention here any specific cases where Obama either tried cross-party compromise, or acceded to Republican demands?
I recall hearing that Obamacare went back and forth for a while and was riddled with attempts to cede just enough ground to get the republicans on board. But sure, if you’re going to tell me that Obama dropped the stack of paper on the table and it was promptly passed with no discussion or modifications then sure, I’ll believe that, because I’m the credulous sort.
Right, that’s the ideal candidate to me… if they existed.
“It wouldn’t be that way with me. I swear, it wouldn’t. I’d take only what I set out to get.”
~Frank C. Dobbs
~Max
As far as fixing the budget, I disagree. Obama tried to pass a long term budget policy and the GOP opposed it because it had some tax hikes and because they were scared of being seen as friendly to Obama. I’m glad the bill failed since it may have increased the medicare age, but he did offer a bill of tax hikes and spending cuts.
The republican party today is not the GOP under Reagan, when bipartisan compromise to make the country a better place was an option. THe GOP has seen almost all white people who score high in authoritarianism move away from democrats and become republicans, while their southern strategy and racial resentment strategy means the base of the GOP party is now full of racists, authoritarians and religious fundamentalists. You can’t govern when your politicians are a reflection of people who fall into these categories.
I don’t think compromise is very possible, because GOP politicians know their voters will punish them for it.
Pretty much the exception, though, if I am remembering correctly. My opinion was that he did it because he wanted a success on a big piece of legislation in an important area, and this was it.
Now, since I asked for “any specific cases” and you provided one, I don’t want to be accused of moving the goalposts. I acknowledge that this was a notable instance. But I do contend that one instance, even a notable one, doesn’t really warrant a conclusion.
When I spoke of Obama not consulting Congress, I was mostly referring to his unwillingness or inability to establish relationships with important people in the House and Senate, that he held himself aloof for the most part. Maybe he wasn’t willing to horse-trade like others have done. As a personal trait it’s possibly admirable, but the record shows it is not effective within the halls of power in Washington.