Did Joe Biden over use those powers? How about Obama?
In fact, the Republicans just about begged Obama to grab power. Like with that whole “debt ceiling” fantasy: If the debt ceiling were a real thing, then Obama would have been forced to pick and choose which spending to actually do. But he didn’t.
In my opinion, the problem isn’t so much the Republican messaging, it’s the Democratic inability to get on the same page and stay there in terms of ideology and messaging.
As long as there isn’t a clear and consistent message from the Democratic party and all the politicians singing from the same hymnal, the Republicans will take advantage of that messaging ambiguity.
I’m sure Bill Kristol and AOC both vote Democratic these days. What message works for both of them?
The Democrats really are a big tent – disaffected Republicans turned off by the racism and general disaster of the current GOP, pro-Union people who may be socially conservative, social liberals and progressives. Just because you’re pro-Union doesn’t mean you’re pro-trans rights. Being pro-choice doesn’t make you automatically for higher taxes on the wealthy.
That’s all fine and dandy, but to people who may still make a choice, they look shambolic, uncoordinated, and weak. Not being able to get Kristol and Ocasio-Cortez on the same page looks like a failure, rather than a feature. And not repudiating Bernie Sanders’ stuff (he’s NOT a Democrat after all) is the same sort of thing.
That’s just it though; the Democratic Party ought to be more than some sort of default dumping ground for any political position that is not Republican/conservative. It should have a coherent platform and positions, and try to enforce proper messaging about that. That’s what political parties do, or should anyway.
You say dumping ground; I say inclusive.
…I’m not sure why Bill Kristol has come up here in this thread but his position on abolish ICE is quite public.
Just to point out the other side: Trump has gone on and on, at Truth Social and elsewhere, telling his party to abolish the filibuster and pass a law to make it harder to vote (SAVE Act). His true believers agree with him and pass it on. But the rest of the Republicans ignore him.
Maybe that’s why they are behind in the midterms. But much more likely is that it’s for the same obscure reason the party in the White House is usually behind in the midterms.
U.S. political parties are big tents with little ability to discipline their members for policy deviations. This didn’t change when we went from a democracy to a hybrid regime.
The reason moderate Democrats are not going to sign on with Abolish ICE is that they come from centrist or even Trumpy districts where it would be loser for them.
In other countries, with multiple parties, different parties can appeal to more specific parts of the electorate – labor, green, liberal, conservative, etc. Then, in parliament, parties with more in common than not can come together and form a government.
This isn’t that country.
The GOP has become the party of hate, corruption, exclusion, and you can build a coalition of the deplorables out of that. Then, the party leaders toss in some corporate welfare and budget-busting tax cuts to keep the money coming in from the oligarchs and the companies. It’s truly terrible, and if you can’t stand it, even if you’re fiscally conservative (which the GOP hasn’t been since Reagan) or socially conservative, you might give up on them.
This is pretty far off-topic. Sorry about that. I reaffirm my position that the Dems should make abolishing ICE part of their platform. If even Bill Kristol is on board, it seems like a no-brainer.
The GOP can not get all of their people on the same page either, look at Rand Paul.
And in this context- who the fuck is Bill Kristol? He is not a Democratic party leader, nor does he hold any elected position. He was a Republican for most of his life, and was an aid to Dan Quayle of all thing. Why the hell should the Dems care about what he says?
Now, AOC is just a member of the House, and rather outspoken. So, what she says is somewhat important.
Which created the compromise that made Netanyahu the Prime Minister, and also Boris Johnson.
Well, yeah. Few people around the country actually want open borders or unfettered immigration. The de jure mission of ICE remains as valid and necessary as it’s ever been.
But the organization itself has become co-opted and corrupted and become a tool of terror and harassment for immigrants and Hispanics in general. That’s why the organization should be abolished, but with extreme care shown to communicate that its original mission is as valid as ever, and that it’ll still be carried out.
That’s the big problem with sound bite slogans like “Abolish ICE” or “Defund the Police” is that they’re catchy and short, but they leave so much open to interpretation that they seem to backfire as much or more than they help.
She’s actually a huge symptom of what I’m talking about. She should not be going rogue and saying whatever she wants; that can put the party leadership in binds, and cause messaging confusion, etc…
There’s something different about say…the way that AOC speaks out of school versus how Chip Roy does it. It seems to me that he’s more or less calling them out when they don’t stick to the more hardline aspects of their ideology and platform, while AOC is pushing for something not in the platform. That’s just a sort of vague feeling about it, but both of them do sort of fill the same role on opposite sides of the aisle.
Bill Kristol and AOC are both on board with ‘Abolish ICE’.
And I say that they are going in so many different directions that, for the most part, they are going nowhere.
From the polling I’ve seen, AOC is the most popular Democratic office holder in the country. Maybe the party should be taking their cues from her.
Maybe so. Regardless they all need to be on the same page.
To what degree? Some democrats want to abolish ICE, others may want to reform ICE. I see that as an agreement that the current ICE cannot stand. YMMV.
That will probably never happen, but we can hope.
Of course the answer to that depends on who you ask. Since you asked me: I saw overly-Imperial stuff from each of them. I particularly disliked the way Obama’s Administration never saw a proposed corporate merger it didn’t love. Way too much industry-consolidation.
Anyway, I liked @Chronos’ answer to you, too.
In principle this makes all kinds of sense. But in the real-world situation of one wildly-pro-autocracy party (which has NO trouble putting forward a unified message, or nearly-unified, anyway) and one group generally representing The Rest of Us…
Those two opposing camps will never treat “adoption and promotion of a Platform” equivalently.
Kristol is a complete nobody. AOC is a junior congresswoman but quite vocal and popular.
https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/5731749-ocasio-cortez-endorses-key-candidates/
5th, but that is pretty good.
YouGov’s popularity tracker ranks Ocasio-Cortez as the 5th most popular Democrat in the country, as of the end of the year, ahead of Newsom, Mamdani, the Clintons and other top party figures.
Sure, Mind you so far I only see AOC in the “abolish” camp, of the more well known Dems.
But Reform, at least. But in order to do so, the Dems have to win some elections. If they take the House (and taking the Senate would be a solid), they can cut the budget for ICE. Hakeem Jeffries and Chuck Schumer- that is Dem leadership want to reform and defund ICE.
More or less then- every President? But so far- no one has tried to do what trump is doing.
So is the consensus that abolishing ICE is synonymous with open borders, or is there some other mechanism to enforce federal immigration law, or? This doesn’t seem to be very well thought out from a political perspective.