That map is suspect. My* very liberal Connecticut county is shown red, which it is clearly not. We voted for Biden over Trump by 28 points (64% vs 36%); how is it a red county?
*Bottom left corner, bordering New York City.
ETA: We also voted for Hillary over Trump by 20 points.
The fundamental problem is that the right has been planning this for decades, and the left has kept it’s head in the sand. I still hear meany liberals state that “the major problem is online echo chambers, and if we just need to educate the right”, as if bigotry, cowardice, and evil aren’t deeply rooted issues.
The only way ya’ll can win is if you pass a sweeping voting rights bill very soon. However, this will require “radical” leftists to be in charge. But that ship has sailed, and many of you are arguing you need to vote in a “normal” president. The problem with a “normal” Biden-style president, besides the obvious cowardice, is that the right will continue to use the lack-of-action to undermine voting rights and secure their power.
tldr; the right has already won, and are merely polishing their endgame. The only thing you can do is leave (as I did).
EDIT: in above post I’ve completely dismissed violence as the answer. I mean, what are you going to shoot?? You can’t shoot a gerrymander or a racist voting law.
But you can shoot the racist voters.
Doesn’t matter how gerrymandered the voting districts are if the voters are dead.
We’re two years until the next presidential election. If we were having this conversation in 2006, would we have known that the correct answer to the question was Barack Obama?
No . . . I also know these days Obama isn’t ‘’‘left’‘’ enough to satisfy far too many. We’re ‘purity testing’ ourselves right into the fascist dictatorship some claim not to want.
If the former becomes a realistic imminent threat, the latter becomes a lesser concern, IMO.
But I get it, your main point here is that if it comes down to that, you would not be useful as a fighter. Fair enough. Dying standing your ground while accomplishing nothing, well, accomplishes nothing. Contribute what you are actually able.
OK how many times have I read this line or a paraphrase of it in the threads over the last few days??
We have no need for, nor should count on, nor should want, Messiahs.
Or boogeymen, ‘cause, you know, that is one if the things the Fright Wing will be scaring their base with as requiring action to prevent happening.
Even still, my answer to your question is that they are currently not known. We need to find him or her, because I wholeheartedly agree that our known options suck. (The only name I can think of is Corey Booker. Or maybe Beto O’Rourke.)
This quoted argument is also at odds with the reality that Biden was elected. No way he passes a leftist purity test.
What has elected “centrist” democrats gotten us? They are as controlled by rich as the republicans, they never win a political fight, they don’t even try - they don’t even have aspirational goals. Their entire identity is what you’re accepting and praising as necessary - “we’re conservatives, but not batshit like republicans”
Centrist democrats don’t inspire passion or voter interest. They have no wins, they have no platform to run on, they have no chance of actually improving the lives of the American people other than not being republicans. They are completely institutionally inept. You can’t even say that they’re the safe choice because they are actively losing the country to a coup right now. Real leftists would not be giving our country up without a fight, but the democratic party is basically the Washington Generals to the Republican’s Washington Globetrotters - a token party to be clowned on.
Your appeasement, electing democrats that are basically 1990s republicans because we apparently have to desperately try to maintain the status quo of constant losses to republicans, is a big part of what has given us a party that inspires no one, has no competence, is captured by the rich, and can’t even fend off a fascist coup that’s happening in slow motion. At best, they try to slightly slow down our descent off the cliff. “Third way” conservative democrats that now control the party are a key factor in why our government has gone to shit and has nothing positive to hope for. Actual leftists are the people who have dragged this country through progress when it has happened. Conservative, oligarchy-captured democrats like those who thoroughly control the party currently haven’t done shit for us.
Even as people like you have lead us right off the cliff by insisting that our only option is to go slightly less crazy right wing than the republicans, you’re still screaming that to the very end - just trying to slightly slow our descent rather than fight back and actually stand for something. Your tactics are what has left us with a pathetic, aimless democratic party who is offering no real resistance to the coup.
Then be my guest and insist on nominating an un-electable leftist and don’t complain when the Republicans win in another unprecedented landslide.
Future elections are pretty much irrelevant when the party you’re advocating for is, right now, losing any semblance of democracy we may have had. You elected this fucking useless party whose only purpose is “let’s be like the republicans but ruin things slower”
You can’t even say anything in praise of them except “we have to elect them because they’re not republicans!” as you and those you insisted we must elect guide us right into the grave. You, as much as they, are the reason we’re going out on this one without a fight.
You’re watching it happen in slow motion, in real time, seeing the democratic party roll over and lose our country, and you’re still trying to double down on an obviously failing strategy.
Remember how we all had to elect Joe Biden because he’s the lamest, most generic guy ever and he won’t scare anyone? Well he’s not scaring anyone or doing anything and just rolling over while we lose the country. Your solution is, apparently, that we need to double down on that and elect even more uninspiring, conservative, generic, useless democrats. Because the worst thing we could have is people who actually want to make things better or have some fight in them. No, that’s a “purity contest” to want that.
We knew as soon as Obama spoke at the 2004 convention that he was the one.
I have no idea how to foreclose the plodding coup that’s imperiling our Democracy at the State and Federal levels.
I do think that one message that cannot be hammered home often, and strongly, enough is the Bill Clinton quote:
Democrats fall in love. Republicans fall in line.
I’ve gotten tired of Bill Maher, but one thing he hammers home quite often is that we still only ever have two choices, and better – or less awful – is always the way to vote.
Republicans are using FUD pretty masterfully – seemingly as a belt-and-suspenders approach (ie, rig the elections procedurally, but also try to get the voters you need to either prevail or make it close enough to pass a cursory scrutiny).
That latter part (Plan B) a turnout game.
I know how the Rs are whipping up their voters. I’m still not sure how the Ds ought to be whipping up theirs. It’s very hard to shift demand. It’s very hard to tell tens of millions of voters that this … this is what you really need to care about.
But I don’t see another way.
The assault on our democracy reminds me of a George Carlin line:
Radar is also picking up a squadron of Russian ICBM’s, so I wouldn’t sweat the thunderstorms!
Man, there are a lot of Chicken Littles in this thread. I’m honestly puzzled at what SenorBeef thinks should be happening; should we be pre-emptively overthrowing the democratic government and establishing a leftist dictatorship so that the rightists can’t do it first? Or just rounding up all the Trumpists and imprisoning them without trial?
The Democrats have impeached Trump twice and are now holding public hearings which would seem to have no conceivable purpose other than to prepare the public for criminal indictments of Trump and his inner circle. And yet they are being accused of being oblivious to the threat.
If we had 250 Joe Bidens in the House, 60 in the Senate, and the WH, we’d have strong union protections, a much higher minimum wage, a wealth tax of some form, some form of universal health care, DC statehood, likely PR statehood (if the island wants it), strong climate change legislation, and many other progressive priorities.
The problem in the party, and in the country, is not Joe Biden.
I think that the problem is that Trump’s presidency (and perhaps the Tea Party before) gave permission to half the population to behave publicly like ignorant thugs.
This guy seems to get it. Maybe he should be President.
Start with this post for some things we could do. We could be winning the messaging war, we could be using the justice department to prosecute crimes against the United States, we could be filing court cases, we can be basically treating this seriously and acknowledging what’s happening.
Trump isn’t going to get charged. The people who facilitated the Jan 6 planning like giving recon tours of the capitol and suppressing the presence of security won’t get charged. We’re basically refusing to actually use the legal system of the United States or any of its institutions of justice to prosecute one of the greatest crimes ever committed against it.
It sounds like you’re basically saying the democrats have handled it as well as they can and there’s nothing more that they could’ve done. That’s pathetic. Imagine what a party with real leadership could’ve done in this scenario and it’s nothing at all like what the democrats have actually done.
I think it’s reasonable to criticize Biden and moderate Democrats for not understanding the extent to which radical social change is needed to eradicate the conditions in which fascism can flourish, but I don’t think it’s reasonable to claim that they don’t realize Trump is actually a fascist or don’t understand what the stakes are.
All right, but apart from strong union protections, a much higher minimum wage, a wealth tax of some form, some form of universal health care, DC statehood, likely PR statehood (if the island wants it), strong climate change legislation, and many other progressive priorities what have the Romans Democrats ever done for us?
I think you’re probably wrong and don’t understand how you can feel so certain in your predictions. I think Trump will be facing serious charges before the next election.