Is "The Squad" to blame for lack of support for the Democrats these days?

Politics & Elections
41

I don’t think people are listening to what AOC is saying about how their high school should teach racism either. They’re either listening to local politicians, activists that specifically push for those things, or GOP operatives who have shrewdly made this an issue (EDIT - should say made this a national issue). And those GOP operatives actually aren’t spending a lot of time quoting AOC on this. They’re focusing on how this is playing out in specific school districts.

Sure some of the economic stuff the squad talks about is popular with swing voters and some isn’t. I don’t think any of it (popular or unpopular) is a significant driver for Democratic approval ratings. People are impatient with the recovery and it’s hurting the Democrats. That’s a bigger issue than anything else for them.

42

96% of the media in the US is owned by 6 corporations. Other than Fox News and Sinclair broadcasting, these corporations don’t really care about democrat vs republican. They care about making sure the ownership class gains and retains power and that nothing that actually helps most Americans at their expense happens.

So on this, the vast majority of American media, the democratic, and republican parties are all on the same page - any sort of progressive agenda, anything that benefits the economic interests of the vast majority of Americans must be opposed.

So you get the exact same bullshit from the supposedly “left wing” media that mischaracterizes anything as remotely progressive as “hard left” as this article does. It turns out that when you actually ask Americans about specific issues, they are far more progressive than both the republican or democratic party are. But they’re convinced to act against their own interest by the propaganda scam that our media runs on them which tells us that anything that could actually help people is extremist, socialist, hard left.

You’re familiar when right wing media does this - because they’re far more obvious about it - but all corporate owned media does it, which is almost all media in the US. They all consistently run anti-progressive propaganda. They portray progressives unfavorably -particularly as “hard left extremists” when they have, what in the rest of the developed world, would be considered centrist and possibly even center-right ideas and ignore or play down the fact that most Americans are closer in their stances on issues with progressives than they are with republicans or democrats.

So “the squad” is an easy target for this sort of propoganda from both right wing media sources, but also the rest of the corporate media, too, which is almost all of it. They make up exaggerated boogeymen straw men and then assign those ideas to “the squad” and the rest of the “hard left” even when they have nothing to do with any of it, like a lot of the examples in the article in the OP.

I actually do agree with the idea that democrats are overly focused on “identity politics”, on racial and gender and gay and other politics. Not because they’re wrong to take those positions - those are the right positions - but simply because it’s bad strategy to take something that’s alienating to a lot of people and use it as the main thrust of your campaign. Why not take something that has much broader support and can improve the lives of more people, like improving the economic self interest of all Americans?

Well, because they can’t, obviously. The ownership class controls both the republican and democratic party and makes sure that nothing that improves the economic interests of the average American happens. But politicians have to fight over something, right? So they let us fight over shit that the rich don’t really care about - abortions, guns, identity politics. That’s why “woke” politics is so prominent - not because every democrat really thinks that’s the absolute top most important issue, but because they aren’t going to act to actually improve the economic wellness of the American people and they need something to squabble over us to distract us from the fact that the democratic party offers us nothing at all.

What is it that the democratic party represents at this point? “We’re not republicans” is literally all they’ve got. And they’re not even doing a good job of that. They’re doing a fucking terrible job of fighting the ongoing coup and have pretty much already permanently lost the American democracy. They don’t offer anything at all that makes the American people excited to vote for them. Yes, I know the republicans get in the way, but they’re not even striving for anything inspiring that will make people want to go vote for them. People showed up in droves in 2020 to give democrats power - and what have they got back for it? Jack shit. It would hard to be more disappointing.

The democrats are a terrible fucking political party. They’re very bad at actually getting anything done - I actually have a hard time thinking that they’re anything but the Washington Generals who are supposed to put up a token fight and lose to the Harlem Globetrotters, they are owned by the same ownership class that the Republican party is owned by, they have no good policies of note, they focus on stupid shit that alienates their potential voters, and they basically have nothing at all positive going for them.

But a lot of Americans hate to see this country implode, to see the rich get even richer off our backs while rent has doubled and salaries have stagnated and we can barely afford to live. They hate to see us destroy the Earth. They hate to see us lose our democracy to flagrant anti-democratic actions of the republican party. But they can’t and/or won’t actually do anything about any of those things, so what are they going to do to keep the American people from clamoring for something that will actually make things better for the vast majority of Americans? Well, they’re going to join the republicans in demonizing the “hard left” progressives so that they can con the American people into voting and rooting against their own interests.

This is exactly what all this stuff against “the squad” and “woke politics” and all of this bullshit is about. The democratic party being utterly useless is to blame for the lack of support for the Democratic party. If they actually leaned into progressivism and tried to actually make things better for anyone, you’d see their support skyrocket, but we don’t live in a democracy, we live in a plutocracy, and every attempt to examine when the interests of the American people vs the interests of the rich are in conflict has demonstrated that conclusively.

43

All they watch is media that makes them angry, so I guess just about everything triggers them?

44

Modnote to all: Please get back on track. End the Socialism definition debate.

Also remember, attack the post and not the poster.

This thread is veering way subject.

Cooling off this thread for 20 minutes. Please get back to the Op when it opens.

49

That’s a subtle, but not insignificant change to the words that I used, which does change their meaning, but anyway…

The first two things on your list are red herrings. It’s not “the squad’s” fault that we have partisanship, nor is it their responsibility to fix it. We’ve always been, and always will have some amount of partisanship, as different groups have different needs and priorities.

Hyperpartisanship in recent times begins with Gingerich’s “Contract on with America”, and and has been increasing as the Republicans become less and less willing to work across the aisle, to cooperate or compromise on anything. McConnel summed it up well when he stated that he had nothing to gain from working with the Democrats when they were in the majority.

So, what do you want AOC et al to do to reduce Republican obstructionism?

The second on your list is something that is addressed in the Freedom to Vote Act. It wasn’t “the squad” that voted against it.

What do you want them to do above and beyond what they have done?

Now we get to old infrastructure. Yes, that is something that is addressed in the Build Back Better plans, as well as in the Green New Deal. You may not agree on particulars, but to say that they are not working on that problem just doesn’t make any sense given the reality of the situation.

Then we get to healthcare, which is expensive. For some reason, you seem to be claiming that working on a national healthcare program is not addressing this. Every other industrialized nation has a national healthcare program, and they have lower costs than we do. The entire point of a national healthcare system is to lower costs, both to individuals, and to society as a whole.

Now we get to what you claim they are doing to address the problems, really is another whole tin full of herring, but we’ll address them anyway, to be thorough, and because I don’t have anything pressing for the next 25 minutes to do.

“Social programs tagged as infrastructure”. You will need to be more specific on this as to your objections. Infrastructure is more than just roads and bridges, pipes and electrical grids.

“Packing the court”. Two points on this. The first is that that is simply an accusation, not something that actually has any substance, “packing the court” means different things to different people. If you are for the proposed justices, then it’s just placing people on the court that will fairly adjudicate based on the constitution. If you are against them, you are packing the court with a bunch of radicals.

Secondly, you say that something needs to be done about gerrymandering? Well, any federal law that addresses gerrymandering is going to end up in front of SCOTUS in fairly short order. If the courts are in favor of gerrymandering, then that legislation will fall apart. If the courts are in favor of equitable districting policies, then it will be upheld. You can’t address what you claim to be an important problem without addressing the situation on the courts. Same with quite a bit of legislation that the progressives want to pass. Doesn’t do any good if it gets struck down by a partisan conservative court.

Now we get to racial inequality. I think that this is something that does need to be addressed. Others think differently, usually those who benefit from it. So I’m sure that if you don’t want the country to be for all its citizens, just the ones that were born into the right skin color, then you’d be against working on that problem.

And finally we get back to healthcare, where you are claiming that expanding the Healthcare program will not address rising healthcare costs.

ETA: saw mod note and redacted response to XT about socialism.

50

And I don’t think that the progressive proposals are examples of socialism either, anymore than roads, schools, or emergency services are, but I am instructed that anything more than that specific point should be spun off into its own thread.

If you want to discuss any further why you think that progressive proposals are examples of socialism, I would be more than happy to join you in a discussion there.