I mean, this article seems like it’s gaslighting progressives like myself, but i decided to get other opinions.
I don’t think the squad is at all perfect, but they weren’t the ones standing in the way of Biden’s original plan. The plan he got elected on. I think saying that they are pushing to defund the police, rename schools and tear down statues is kind of a strawman. Have they said some things that could have been worded better, or better explained, yes, but every says stupid crud from time to time. That’s not what they are all about.
A lot of people got angry when I criticized Nancy Pelosi for presenting a musical number as a responce to January 6th’s anniversary… and in my circles I wouldn’t have expected that. So, am I missing something?
There are a lot of policies in BBB that are beneficial and popular with working folks. I’m entirely frustrated with corporate democrats than progressives, for sure. I know they keep saying that rural Americans don’t want progressive things, but the indivdual programs they seem to be for. I fear the corporate Demands care too much about the opinions of those who are inflammatory trards the women.
I was going to edit this, but I mistakenly posted it. Instead of editing it, I’ll just apologize for any mistakes. It takes me a while to compose a message that’s relatively error free…
Their biggest problem is with messaging. They suck at it, I mean really suck. “Defund the police” is probably one of the stupidest phrases I’ve ever heard in politics. Because “defund the police” doesn’t actually convey what DTP actually is.
I think DTP could actually get bipartisan support if the progressives didn’t suck so much at messaging. Is “We need a new blue” really all that hard to come up with? It’s catchier and gets the actual message across.
Yeah, I agree with this. They suck at messaging for sure. And I think they rub a lot of voters the wrong way, and I’m not talking about Republicans or conservatives who aren’t going to like any Democrat and don’t really seem to make that much distinction between liberals and progressives in any case.
Then yeah, people aren’t going to be very happy. Now, whether those are precisely the fault of The Squad or not, progressives are certainly to blame and the Squad is certainly a prominent face of that movement.
I don’t think that means anything these days, but that might just be me. I think it’s the obvious socialism and radicalism in much of what they say and do, but, again, that might be me. I have made no bones about my own distaste for socialism. I also think they have been a bit heavy-handed and out of line wrt trying to keep Democrats toeing the line…that’s a job for the senate majority leader, not the progressive wing of the party.
All that said, while I have voted Democrat for the past decade or so, I’m not a member of the Democrat party, so grain of salt…
That’s fine. I don’t agree that it means anything today to be non-white or female, but I can see why folks would disagree.
Parts of it, sure. I totally agree with putting a lot of money into infrastructure, and I fully supported doing that. The rest? No, I don’t agree with all or even most of it. Especially the first take on this when the progressives were pushing for the world. Even the stripped-down drafts were a bit over the top for me. But then, I’m not a liberal or a progressive, so, again, grain of salt.
James Carville is well respected as a political strategist for the Dem party.
And he has been widely quoted for his two-word explanation of why the Dems are losing support : “Stupid Wokeness”
The 4 members of the Squad are fully part of the Dem party, and not one of the other 250 reps in the party has the guts to tell them to shut up. Therefore the entire Dem party shares the blame.
Just like the entire Republican party shares the blame for Trump, because nobody has the guts to tell him to shut up.
The difference is that when the Republicans let their loud-mouth fool run unrestrained, they win re-election. When the Democrats let their squad of loud-mouth fools run unrestrained it drags the entire party down to defeat.
As already noted, “the Squad” is much more relevant (as a convenient scare tactic) to the right than to Democrats and liberals. Those who are worked up over the Squad are people who would never vote for Democratic candidates anyway, or support Democratic-led initiatives, anyway.
From what I see, the issues that the Democrats have is around muddled messaging on priorities, and a general inability to bring their own caucuses (in both houses of Congress) into any sort of unity on most issues. The Democratic party is much more of a “big tent” than the GOP has become, and it’s a lot harder to herd.
Well, there are always differences of opinion that are affected by one’s worldview and political leanings. Of course, they matter, however.
That’s a really complicated question with an even more complicated answer. Personally, I think that the ‘rich’ should be paying more. But then, I also think that the not-so rich should also be paying more, as should the definitely not rich. Either that, or we need to rethink our budget requirements. We either need to cut that budget, or everyone at every level (outside of the truly poor) needs to be paying what it takes to make it happen. This is the condensed version of the complicated answer, and the devil, as always, is in the politics…and the details.
I don’t think that the squad is doing the Dem’s any favors as regards gaining support of the Dem’s outside the liberal base, but I don’t blame them for the lack of support. If the squad didn’t exist, the Republicans would just find the next rung up the ladder to use as a focus for their hate.
You will note that none of the examples given in the cited article actually had anything directly to do with any of the squad members. None of them are members of the San Francisco school board, nor running for election in Virginia. The article would be better titled is vocal anti racism of the far letf to blame for the lack of support for the Democrats these days.
But even that would be a mischaracterization because what voters are really reacting against in straw man misrepresentation of anti-racism movement promoted by the conservatives. As others have said the problem is messaging but, it isn’t just that Democrats are bad at it, its that Democratic positions are nuanced unlike the simple black and white positions or Republicans and are hard to get across in the 3 second attention of the average voter. “Police good criminals bad” is much easier to explain then “police are necessary but due to structural racism within the police force and a strong degree of solidarity that resists holding bad actors accountable major reforms are needed.” So due to their platform the Democrats are at a structural disadvantage with regard to messaging.
that’s all the squad is. it’s a boogeyman of young, non white, non Christian (either Muslim or secular), female, feminist proud liberals. they’re also first or second generation immigrants from what I know.
they get under the skin of old white Christians who believe in patriarchy and nativism and are terrified of the great replacement theory and what it means. America isn’t comfortable discussing the real reason the squad gets the hatred they do so we have to collectively pretend the hatred is about slogans, or policy.
Bidens agenda was torpedoed by sinema and Manchin. two conservative corporate democrats
I would agree with that. I honestly can’t tell you the last time I heard anyone mention “the Squad” around my circle. It’s been a couple years. I’m not exaggerating. And the only member of “the Squad” I could even name is AOC.
That’s a kind way of putting it. Really, it’s just a straight up lie.
Right, but you don’t hear it from “The Squad”, so who are you saying sucks at messaging?
IMHO, the ones that suck at messaging are the ones that allow the right wing propaganda machine to frame the message, and allow things like “Defund the police” continue to live rent free in their heads a year and a half after anyone actually used that phrase.
That’s a large part of it.
Sure, if people choose to present it in such a reductionist and absurd way, then they won’t be happy. Just like you wouldn’t be happy if I told you how that sausage you are eating was made.
Progressives are to blame for what? Acknowledging that list of problems and actually working to solve them?
And your list of the “plan of attack” is not actually based in reality.
It may just be. We have big problems facing us, and the alternate solutions proposed by their opposition is to ignore them and hope they go away.
Socialism is a spectrum. If you drive on roads and send your kids to school and expect emergency services to come when you need them, then you are already happily partaking in socialism. It’s just where that line is, when other people are getting more than you think that they deserve, that we are determining.
Most of the time, when parts are stripped out, and are asked about individually, people actually are in favor of it. It’s when it’s all put together that people object, for… reasons.
Yes, but mostly not the elected officials, but the “regular” people, who allow the right to drive the narrative, and are terrified that they will be called socialists if they dare to suggest that things may be better if we make things better.
Once again, a right wing boogieman that the left allows to drive the narrative. Just because “people are saying” doesn’t make it true.
I think you mean, they don’t have the guts to tell them to stop being minority women who have won seats in congress. They don’t need to even open their mouths to get the right up in arms and the left to become apologetic for upsetting them. they just have to exist.
It’s funny that in another thread, we were just talking about censorship, and how horrible it is. And now we are talking about how certain people need to sit down and shut up.
Less about what they say, and more about who they are, right?
Basically they were unable to get two people to work with them, destroying pretty much all their plans, and making any messaging useless, as a message is what you are planning on doing, and they can’t do anything so long as there are the two Democrats who drag down the whole party.
Exactly, any solution that fits on a bumper sticker is wrong, and any solution that doesn’t fit on a bumper sticker is just too complicated.
Exactly. They are the ones who are, well, let’s not go overboard and claim that they are 100% to blame, so we’ll be more realistic and go with 99.975% to blame for the lack of support for the Democrats these days.
They are the ones who have sabotaged any and all plans the Democrats had to provide solutions to the problems that we are facing, they are the ones who kept Biden from keeping his campaign promises.
If the Republicans allow history to be taught in schools in the future, They will go down as the ones who handed our country to them.
I can, but my “circle” originates in Trumplandia. I hear these conservatives complain about them in such “kind” terms nearly every day. I haven’t heard any of my liberal friends mention them at all.
“Defund the police” was a terrible slogan, and even if the Squad originated that many Democrats parroted it (so you can’t just blame the Squad). “Somebody did something” was just stupid. AOC botched the “Green New Deal” (instead of being about protecting the environment, it became about Universal Basic Income) which many Democrats signed off on without knowing about the UBI stuff. (Apparently that wasn’t intentional. So somebody slipped it in, and nobody double checked it?)
They are terrible at messaging, too inexperienced to know they’re bad at it and too stubborn to learn or moderate themselves. Because they’re so visible every mistake gets amplified. Making matters worse, the right jumps all over them and uses them to paint Democrats as extreme.
I don’t think they have much influence beyond messaging, however. There are a lot of very liberal loud Democrats. Their “influence” is mainly triggering Trumpists (maybe not such a bad thing) and giving Trumpists stuff to complain about beyond QAnon/election conspiracy nonsense.