How are the Clinton hating dems feeling now?

[Banquet_Bear]

@Lance_Turbo

They did account for the health issues mentioned in that article

…how did they account for them exactly?

@Lance_Turbo

and confirmed judges at a record pace for two years.

@ABC

While Biden is currently pacing ahead of his three immediate predecessors – and tied with Reagan for the fastest first-year confirmations in four decades – he is not on track to outpace President Trump’s overall rate.

Biden has appointed 105 federal judges, outpacing Trump, Obama and Bush

Bolding mine.

@Lance_Turbo

She’s out now with a completely unrelated health issue that is not mentioned in that article. It is causing a delay and if a solution arises in a reasonable amount of time there will be no long term damage.

Do you understand what the word “emblematic” means?

Because I said this:

@Banquet_Bear

Feinstein is just emblematic of this.

This was never just about Feinstein. This is the thing you seem to be missing. If it was only this single issue then maybe it wouldn’t matter so much. But it isn’t just this.

@Lance_Turbo

You keep saying that they should have dealt with this issue but they have successfully dealt with it for two years and are continuing to deal with it now.

By “successfully dealing with it” you mean they ignored it. And are only dealing with it now because some democrats spoke out.

@Lance_Turbo

But I’m honestly curious what dealing with this issue looks like to you. Because it seems like you want to force old people to do things they don’t wish to do, or bar the elderly from office, or I don’t know what.

I’ll give you the numbers again.

The median age in the Senate is 65.3.
There have only ever been eleven Black senators. Only five American Indian senators.
Only 25 out of 100 serving senators are women.

I’m not calling for a “bar on the elderly from office.”

I’m merely pointing out to you that this isn’t a representative group. That the senate is made up primarily of elderly white men, this has always been the case, and will continue to be the case unless the Democrats decide to change that.

As for Feinstein? From 2022.

@Vanity Fair

According to lawmakers and former staffers cited in the report, Feinstein’s memory is “rapidly deteriorating.” The 88-year-old lawmaker has, at times, seemed to have difficulty recognizing longtime colleagues, recalling conversations and complicated policy, and “can no longer fulfill her job duties without her staff doing much of the work required to represent the nearly 40 million people of California,” according to the Chronicle .

…

While the colleagues who raised concerns about her condition said that her memory lapses “do not appear to be constant,” they recounted distressing episodes that raised significant questions about her ability to govern. In one, a congressional Democrat from California who has known Feinstein for 15 years had to repeatedly introduce themself to the senator over the course of several hours of “small talk.”

It really comes down to what it is you want from your elected officials. If you just need a body who might vote the way you want it, then fine. But personally? I have higher expectations for the people I vote to represent me.

@Lance_Turbo

What does dealing with this issue look like to you? No more nonsensical they need plan and a strategy talk. What does dealing with this issue look like to you?

Don’t put the fucking burden back on me.

Feinstein is emblematic of the issue.

But she isn’t the fucking issue.

The issue is that the democrats are just “going with the flow.” The leadership simply isn’t there. If there was, then Feinstein wouldn’t have been sitting on the Judiciary committee in the first place.

Its emblematic in the same way as people had convinced themselves not to worry, roe vs wade is never getting overturned.

Don't worry, Roe v. Wade is never getting overturned

I am convinced that the conservative powers that be have no interest in overturning Roe v. Wade. Overturning it would give a great deal of single issue voters no reason to vote Republican anymore. Republicans could pack the court with more conservative judges and would always remain “one more vote away” from overturning it. If they tried it right now I bet Gorsuch or even Kavanaugh would vote against if it was needed to keep Roe.

Its this belief that “everything is fine, we are doing fantastic” right up to the moment everything falls off a cliff.

Everything is not fine.

[Lance_Turbo]

@Banquet_Bear

Don’t put the fucking burden back on me.

Go fuck yourself, clueless.

[Banquet_Bear]

@Lance_Turbo

Go fuck yourself, clueless.

…LOL

[sciurophobic]

@Miller

She is a progressive Democratic governor. She’s the sort of candidate we should have rallied behind in 2016,

And that progressive governor would have been who? Was there someone who wanted to run and would have stood a chance if not for Hilary and the forces of the Democratic Party who backed her? Don’t waste time talking about who should have if there was no one who could have.

[Czarcasm]

@Miller

She is a progressive Democratic governor. She’s the sort of candidate we should have rallied behind in 2016, and if we had, we wouldn’t have had four years of Donald Trump.

In 2016 she was a judge, she wasn’t well-known enough to get the support needed…and the Republican smearistas would have run right over her. Any candidate put forth by the Democrats would have gotten the same treatment, and the the result would have been the same. “(Fill in name of Democratic candidate) was the only person who could have lost against Trump!”.

[Buck_Godot]

@Miller

That’s not the lesson, here. The lesson here is when the Democratic party actually listens to its progressive wing, it wins elections.

Whitimer and their like didn’t win a trifecta majority because they were more progressive, they were able to be more progressive because they won a trifecta majority. When you don’t have the power you can’t do progressive things. When you do have the power you can. For the most part both the Centrists and the progressives want the same thing. Its just that the Centrists want concentrate on getting the power so that they can implement the progressive agenda while the progressives just prefer to blame for the Dems for not being able to change the laws of Mathematics. All the progressive who whined about how we nominated yet another mainstream Dem in 2020, have been impressed that once elected Biden has been pushing a fairly progressive agenda to the extent allowed by 48 Democratic Senators, and 52 Republican Senators (2 of which were moderate enough to call themselves Democrats). I wasn’t surprised at all. All of the Democrats basically want the same thing, and with enough power we could get it, but first we need to get the power, which may mean not over reaching to goals that are not currently politically feasable, or shooting our guys in the trenches because you don’t think they are advancing fast enough.

[Max_S]

@Banquet_Bear

This isn’t a national strategy. There is no plan on how to protect reproductive rights or trans people in republican states.

Didn’t I explain this to you months ago, before the midterms?

@Max_S

@Banquet_Bear

They want to know what the plan is. What is the strategy. What actionable steps do the leadership want their party to do in the lead-up to the midterms.

The plan is to make gains in the midterms that will break the political gridlock in the Senate. This requires two miracles. First, the Democrats must retain control of the House. That’s miracle one. Second, the Democrats must gain at least two Senate seats, so that 50 Senators are willing to weaken the filibuster and enact meaningful policy. That’s miracle two. There is no backup plan and none is possible.

~Max

Since the Democrats did not manage to secure both miracles, the only possible national plan is to make these gains in 2024, plus keep hold of the Presidency. That pushes the fastest possible timetable for sweeping federal legislation into late January of 2025.

There are half measures in the form of unilateral executive actions such as Title IX regulations (binding upon federally funded schools). But such measures may be blocked or even struck down in court. A comprehensive solution remains firmly out of reach until Democrats accumulate more political power.

---

New Zealand doesn’t seem to have this problem, probably because y’all have a totally different form of government. We still have first past the post in the U.S., and when it comes to our executive and upper chamber, it’s purposely designed not to reflect population (cannot be stressed enough - the U.S. is anti-democratic by design, for better or worse). An effective national progressive coalition in the U.S. looks like 60%, maybe 70% of the gross national population, even more if the filibuster remains intact. An effective national conservative coalition in the U.S. needs maybe 10% less popular support, a consequence of the undemocratic form of government we have and the current political geography of Republicans. There have only been four months this century where the U.S. had a working political coalition at the national level. Obama enjoyed one for about four months in 2009-2010, during which the Affordable Care Act was passed. At all other times we have been without a ruling party.

We also can’t change the national law with a binding referendum as New Zealand did to get a mixed member proportional system in the '90s. There is an option to have another constitutional convention, but the exercise of this option requires the consensus of thirty-four of the fifty State legislatures which is quite impossible; any amendment requires the assent of thirty-eight State conventions which is even more impossible; and, any amendment making Senate representation proportional to population requires the assent of all 50 states, which will never happen.

~Max

[Banquet_Bear]

@Max_S

Didn’t I explain this to you months ago, before the midterms?

…nope.

@Max_S

Since the Democrats did not manage to secure both miracles, the only possible national plan is to make these gains in 2024, plus keep hold of the Presidency. That pushes the fastest possible timetable for sweeping federal legislation into late January of 2025.

The fact that the “plan” is only a single thing that requires “two miracles” is precisely the problem here. Miracles aren’t actionable. Divine intervention isn’t a plan. Divine intervention won’t protect trans people.

@Max_S

A comprehensive solution remains firmly out of reach until Democrats accumulate more political power.

And outside of divine intervention, whats the plan to accumulate more political power?

[Max_S]

@Banquet_Bear

The fact that the “plan” is only a single thing that requires “two miracles” is precisely the problem here.

Yes, I literally implied that accumulating enough political power requires divine intervention, but that was obvious hyperbole.

@Banquet_Bear

whats the plan to accumulate more political power?

It’s too early to have a detailed plan. First off, there are a number of key individuals who haven’t announced their intention to run for re-election. The national party can’t form a plan until it knows who is in the race, as defending or unseating an incumbent requires a totally different strategy than installing a new member. If the incumbent is Republican, or if an incumbent Democrat is not seeking re-election, the national Democratic party won’t get officially involved before the primary election, usually around May, leaving about six months until the general election.

Senator Sinema (Independent, Arizona), for example, hasn’t announced. If she is running it’s not clear whether the Democrats should try and run against her and risk the seat flipping to Republicans, or support her campaign.

Interest groups, which are not the national Democratic party proper, are sometimes heavily involved in the primary process and tend not to like progressive candidates. You might see hundreds of thousands a day spent on attack ads against progressive candidates, paid for by Democratic PACs, but not the Democratic party. A recent and highly controversial trend is for Democratic PACs to sponsor Republican primary candidates, in the hopes of the Republican being so extreme he is unelectable in the general election. But again it’s way too early to do any of this stuff, except in special elections.

~Max

[Banquet_Bear]

@Max_S

but that was obvious hyperbole.

…doesn’t seem like obvious hyperbole to me. The “plan” appears to be to hope that the stars magically align. And if those stars align then maybe they might do something. Maybe.

@Max_S

It’s too early to have a detailed plan.

Of course its too early.

It will never be the right time.

There is no plan.

There won’t be a plan.

Marginalised people living in extremist states are going to have to look after and protect themselves. Because there is no plan to protect them. You don’t appear to be disagreeing with me.

[Max_S]

@Banquet_Bear

Of course its too early.

It will never be the right time.

I didn’t say that. I said if there’s a Democratic primary, details for that race have to wait until after the primary, which is usually May of the election year.

In the case of Democratic incumbents running for re-election, they get party perks even now.

After the primaries the national party kicks into high gear, which means direct support provided to more candidates, mostly consulting as there’s a cap on $5k direct cash from the national party, and $5k from the local party. Things like logistics and voter analytics, or access to data from other Democratic campaigns covering the same area, so you know what kind of ad would be more effective or which neighborhoods you should send your volunteers to. You can read more here. Most of the actual money in elections flows into and out of political action committees which aren’t necessarily under direct party control, although the big ones tend to coordinate with the national party.

There’s invaluable networking within the Democratic party between donors (including those who control the PACs) and candidates and political strategists. This happens year round. Nancy Pelosi built a reputation as one of the most effective fundraisers in modern history. As a random example, in January she tapped one of her aids to head a major PAC that acts as a conduit between donors and campaign ads. The cogs of the machine have to be oiled year round.

~Max

[Banquet_Bear]

@Max_S

I didn’t say that.

…I know what you said.

[Tfletch1]

@kaylasdad99

And since it’s a given that the shittiest Democrat is better suited for any office than the best Republican, the best strategy I can suggest is to constantly remind every American of the well-established fact that it’s a sin to vote for a Republican.

Exactly! People complaining about how Democrats on the national level aren’t doing enough of this, that, etc. are living in a fantasy world. The only way Democrats will be able to get anything done is if the Republicans are destroyed in the voting booth for decades. Of course, we may have to subvert a few more coup attempts and will have to deal with more rightwing terrorism.

It’s going to get worse and those of you who think you’re safe in a blue state can think again.

@Kimstu

Pro-Clinton Dems and anti-Clinton Dems cursing at each other for allegedly allowing things get into such a terrible state, on the basis of their opposing unprovable beliefs about contrafactual hypotheses, strikes me as about the most counterproductive activity possible. I’m sick of the lot of you. Apologies for threadshitting.

I’m definitely not pro-clinton. I’m anti-republican. I voted for Clinton because I saw this coming and I know it’s going to get a lot worse. See, I came from small town USA and my in-laws are rightwing, evangelical republicans. I know what they think and we’re fucked.

[Akaj]

@Buck_Godot

All of the Democrats basically want the same thing, and with enough power we could get it, but first we need to get the power, which may mean not over reaching to goals that are not currently politically feasable, or shooting our guys in the trenches because you don’t think they are advancing fast enough.

@Tfletch1

People complaining about how Democrats on the national level aren’t doing enough of this, that, etc. are living in a fantasy world. The only way Democrats will be able to get anything done is if the Republicans are destroyed in the voting booth for decades.

Quoting these in agreement. We’re on a modest three-cycle winning streak (counting 2022 as a win for holding the Senate and averting the much-predicted red wave) and the only legal, non-violent way we can make progress toward a more fair society and avert an authoritarian takeover is to keep winning. I’m as pissed as anyone that progress is so slow, and lose sleep knowing losing one cycle could end our democracy. But without resorting to extra-legal, violent means this is the only route we have.

[Banquet_Bear]

@Tfletch1

People complaining about how Democrats on the national level aren’t doing enough of this, that, etc. are living in a fantasy world.

…not living in a fantasy world. Because:

@Tfletch1

The only way Democrats will be able to get anything done is if the Republicans are destroyed in the voting booth for decades.

You don’t get to destroy the Republicans in the voting booth for decades unless you work to some sort of a gameplan.

The fantasy is thinking something like what Max outlined in the previous post is the plan. “Networking” and “raising funds from donors” then giving that to highly paid consultants to pay lowly paid interns to do basic market research isn’t a plan to fight the rising tide of fascism. That’s just basic electioneering.

@Akaj

and the only legal, non-violent way we can make progress toward a more fair society and avert an authoritarian takeover is to keep winning.

The question is though, “how do you keep winning?”

What does “winning” mean? Do you just mean the House, the Senate and the Presidency? Because you lost one of those last time. What about Florida? Texas? School boards? Local councils? What about the increased militarization of the police that when the “revolution comes” will most probably side with the fascists?

“Just keep winning” isn’t a plan. If an army is surrounded on all fronts, then the holding the line is important. And I think the short term plan needs to be exactly that. Hold the line.

But that can’t be the totality of the plan. Because a single breach could lead you to get overrun. At some point, you need to go on the offensive or else the line will forever be in retreat.

[kaylasdad99]

@Tfletch1

The only way Democrats will be able to get anything done is if the Republicans are destroyed in the voting booth for decades.

Umm.

Well, I guess you could divide “forever” into ten-year chunks, if you wanted to…

[Robot_Arm]

@kaylasdad99

Well, I guess you could divide “forever” into ten-year chunks, if you wanted to…

Somewhere I heard a comedy routine based on the reading of a will.

"To my nephew I leave a pittance, to be paid in ten installments of one-tenth-of-a-pittance each.

[Buck_Godot]

@Banquet_Bear

But that can’t be the totality of the plan. Because a single breach could lead you to get overrun. At some point, you need to go on the offensive or else the line will forever be in retreat.

OK, so what is your proposal?

[Banquet_Bear]

@Buck_Godot

OK, so what is your proposal?

…my position in this thread is that there isn’t a plan, and that if the goal is for “Republicans to be destroyed in the voting booth for decades”, then that isn’t going to happen unless you are specific about what voting booths you are talking about, what your plan is to win those votes, and what the people who live in places where you can’t win the vote have to do in order to protect themselves.

I don’t pretend to know all the answers. And I’ve got no skin in the game. So again, I’ll turn this over to you. Is there a plan to protect marginalised people in extremists states or not? What do you suggest they do?

Because if I were to come up with a plan, it would have to start there. Who is most vulnerable, and what do we do about them?

Trans people are already finding ways to protect themselves. Stockpiling medication. Planning to move states. So the question I’d put back to the Democrats: what do you do here? Are they on their own? Do you set up proper sanctuary states that will proactively provide resources for trans refugees? Do you invest in overturning restrictive voting rights laws in those states and invest in the candidates so that you can win those states from the Abbots and the DeSantis’s? Or do you put your resources into establishing and funding safe pipelines for the vulnerable so they can escape what is turning into fundamentalist rule?

I’m aware that a lot of that is happening right now. But unlike the Republicans, the Dems aren’t singing from the same hymn-book. The entire CRT panic was engineered by one guy. You can’t effectively combat disinformation like that if you don’t have a gameplan. The Republicans won that battle. CRT means something completely different to most people now, and its being used as a wedge to transform education throughout the country, not just in fundamentalist states.

I’m not pretending to know the answers. Which is why I don’t have a “proposal.” I just know that the genocide is coming, and the time to do something about that is now. Because going back to Feinstein: that is emblematic of the problem here. They’ve known she had cognitive issues for (by my guess) at least five years now. But it wasn’t until recent events that they were forced into doing anything. We know what the intent in regards to trans people is. They don’t want trans people to exist. They have said this openly and explicitly. They want to ban abortion completely. You can’t wait until they take things to the next level. If that means increased Balkanization, then so be it.

[Atamasama]

@Banquet_Bear

I’m aware that a lot of that is happening right now. But unlike the Republicans, the Dems aren’t singing from the same hymn-book. The entire CRT panic was engineered by one guy. You can’t effectively combat disinformation like that if you don’t have a gameplan. The Republicans won that battle. CRT means something completely different to most people now, and its being used as a wedge to transform education throughout the country, not just in fundamentalist states.

The same thing happened with “wokeness”.

The Republicans redefined what the term “woke” meant, and label everything they don’t like with that term, and manage to make bigotry seem like a virtue. It’s disgusting and it’s working, at least in small ways.