Not all transgressions are the same - there is a bit of a tone that everything is equivalent to rape.
The democratic ideas on consent have gotten much more stringent.
The “believe all women” puts men on the defensive in such a way that is different from any other crime.
They threw Al Franken under the bus for some off color humor he engaged in in the past.
The Democrats had much different views in the past - as can be seen in the defense of Bill Clinton.
Really it’s not the prudishness that bothers me as much as the quickness with which labels are attached to anyone who disagrees with these changes - I used to see this as the exclusive domain of the religious right.
I wasn’t trying to imply any overlap in that Venn diagram. Sorry for the misunderstanding. My point was that those protestors are having an effect opposite to what you want to accomplish by motivating Republicans to go vote when they might otherwise have just stayed home.
These are exactly the things you need to be doing. Good luck!
Democrats went low with the Kavanaugh hearings - how’d that work out for you?
Perhaps you weren’t clear enough. Every Democratic candidate for the House or Senate needs to make it crystal clear that, if the Democrats get control of the House and Senate, they will impeach Kavanauagh and Trump and Pence and every other Republican who stands in their way.
Not so much “despicable” as “pointing out the obvious”. Although I recognize how unpleasant it must be for Democrats to find out that when they are as bad as the worst Republicans, they still lose.
Trump’s approach to politics has been “total war” on opponents. He was this way in the primaries and eviscerated his competitors. He is that way now with the Democrats and other adversaries. This is what has earned him a solid 40% of the country behind him. The Republicans just happen to be along for the ride, and none will speak against their master, who is also implementing their agenda. Democrats need to get people to the polls, and vote only D all the way down the ballot - this is how Republicans vote, and so for now, we need to as well.
For the Democrats to change their attitude, they are going to have to come back toward the center to attract Blue Dog Democrat voters and peel away moderate Republican voters. A lot of these people are not so wrapped-up in the #metoo movement, or immigration, or trans-gender rights, but are motivated more by economic issues - mainly their own, IMHO. Hilary glossed-over these constituencies and focused on the safe coasts. Traditional D strongholds in the mid-west fell like dominoes to Trump. If the Democrats continue to appeal to their safe constituencies, they will lose again. They need to show these voters that Trump and the Republicans’ economic and trade policies are hurting them - stop trying to convince people to vote along moral grounds - talk about their wallet.
this. just look at the different narratives they paint depending on who’s speaking: Trump acts like a rude, insulting jackass, and “he’s just telling it like it is.” If a Democrat says anything forceful, they’re being “incivil.”
I’m not sure I understand this argument. That is: I think that the population that you think you’re addressing mostly doesn’t exist.
Do you think the people who protest and shout at republicans in restaurants don’t vote? I bet they do. Those people are highly politically active. They vote. No one is thinking “ok, I’m going to devote X hours to political activity, but darn I spent it all on making snarky signs to carry in protests, so I guess I’ll skip voting this election”.
I don’t think there exists a substantial group of people motivated enough to make signs and march and hound politicians, yet so apathetic that they don’t show up to vote.
It’s all the people who (maybe, some of us are assuming) agree with them, but don’t vote and don’t do any of that other stuff who need to get off their asses and vote.
I would bet a lot, but also: Most of the people who participated in protests have elected officials who agree with their views. Because we’re geographically self-segregating.
Every single position that I can vote for is already filled by a Democrat, and will likely be won by a Democrat again this election. Except President. I guess I could write my (female, Democrat) Senators and tell them that I disagree with the misogyny of the President. Would that accomplish anything? In contrast, making snarky signs and marching with my friends is kinda fun and fosters community and maybe if there’s enough of us there’ll be more news stories about how deeply unpopular Trump is. I dunno.
This is all sort of hypothetical. I haven’t marched in any protests. But honestly I think I’m more likely to do so than to write to my congressman about how much I think Trump sucks. He already agrees!
Also, in response to the OP, this tweet is useful. When you have less than a majority in every branch of government, there’s no amount of strategy or ruthlessness that’s going to accomplish much. You mostly have to change minds and get people to vote.
A hundred million women voters in this country. And you guys just put another sex criminal to the Supreme Court. Who was put there by the sex criminal you elected President. Let’s see how that works out.
We won’t be looking to impeach every Republican. Just the ones who have committed crimes. So probably not Pence.
This strikes me as sound advice, but I’m reasonably confident the Dems will not follow it. It’s all outrage all the time for them. Moderating isn’t a skillset they have anymore.
Heh, Dems adopting ‘total war’ as it has been called is pretty much exactly what Republicans want. They are about destroying the system and faith in the system. Comity is the enemy. Any semblance that the current form of government is capable is a loss for them. Read about Newt Gingrich some time. To his breed of Republicans (which largely dominate the party) the government as it is now is an existential threat to America. There is too much power in the hands of people who don’t know what to do with it. They see the government as a fundamentally flawed body that needs to be destroyed so that a new more powerful body capable of fighting against the world can take its place. “Going low” feeds them, it doesn’t defeat them.
Agree. But I remember the Bush-Gore election in 2000 - the Republicans managed to convince a lot of people the economy was stumbling at the end of the prosperous 90s. There were other factors that led to Gore losing. My point is the Democrats are not going to win back any votes by only playing the “but, he is a poo-poo head” card.
I see these sorts of phrases such as 100 million women voters, and I bristle at the notion that women should not be heard on this issue. That it should be assumed the vast majority of women think one way about the issue without anything to back it up is a but hypocritical in my opinion. You also say you guys; you should say you men and women in my opinion if women are going to be taken seriously.
Y’know why I took that tone? It’s because I feel like I have a pretty good grasp on you, and I know what it means when people accuse the left - the side of BDSM, freewheeling sexuality, LGBT people, and pro-sex feminism - of “prudism”. It’s almost always a defense of sexual assault! And what do you know:
“Off-color humor” such as playfully groping a colleague over her clothes and photographing it without her knowledge. :rolleyes: I hate to be the humorless one, but that’s not funny. It’s just kinda rapey. Not full-on rape, but definitely sexual assault.
And “believe all women” is not a legal standard.
That said, we live in a society where something like 0.6% of rapes lead to the conviction of the rapist, one in five women get raped within their lifetimes, and men are almost certainly more likely to be raped than to be the victims of false rape accusations. Given that, your first concern is, “But if we believe women, men have to constantly be scared of false accusations”? Your understanding of risk is badly skewed, to the point where it’s kind of a problem for the rest of us.
This is a major right-wing talking point - “If we trust women when they make accusations of sexual assault, men are in danger.” And it’s just not true. Women who come forward against figures who aren’t well-known typically get ignored or worse. #WhyIDidn’tReport is instructive here; there’s a whole thread full of people on this forum who were raped and explained either why they didn’t report, or why their reports didn’t end up mattering (or even hurt them). Those who come forward against public figures face substantial risk - as seen in the case of Mrs. Ford, who had to flee her home and go into hiding after she was doxxed and faced a massive barrages of death threats towards her and her family. That is the norm for women who come forward with claims of sexual assault against public figures.
Now imagine for a moment that, instead of some random cis guy, you were saying this to a woman, who has a 1/5 lifetime chance of being raped.
Sounds… kinda shitty, right?
Yeah. That was a mistake. We defended someone who was almost certainly at least a serial sexual harasser, and we’re gradually figuring out that that was a really bad idea. Were Clinton to ever run for office again, this would be a millstone around his neck - hell, it was a millstone around his wife’s neck for merely defending him!
You see I don’t think your grasp of me is really relevant in this conversation. I can have an opinion, and you could say you disagree with that opinion and we could have a discussion about the opinions themselves, not about who we are as people. You seem not to have an interest in a discussion, you seem to prefer arguing.
That is what I believe to have changed for the worse in the Democratic party.
I don’t think you get it. I don’t think you ever will get it.
Democrats went low on the Kavanaugh hearings. Here you are saying flat out that Kavanaugh is a sex criminal, and that he committed crimes. That’s going low. And you believe that will appeal to 100 million women voters. I doubt that it will, because [list=A][li]There aren’t 100 million women voters in the US[/li][li]It won’t appeal to Republican women voters, and what’s more[/li][li]It won’t appeal to fair-minded voters either. The less overlap between Republican and fair-minded, the worse off you are.[/list]You’re not getting it. That’s not the kind of “low” you want to go, because it won’t work. You’re just not good enough at it.[/li]
Regards,
Shodan
You’re the ones who aren’t counting correctly. You’re locked in your Real American mentality. When you imagine the people who live in this country, you only picture people who look like you and forget about all the rest.
But here’s the reality: there are over 326,000,000 people in this country. And 163,000,000 of them are women. So we can safely assume that there are over a hundred million women who are old enough to vote.
Do they all vote? No. But they can. (At least for now. Repealing the 19th Amendment is probably somewhere in the Republican agenda.) And you guys are doing everything you can to drive them to go out and register and vote.
You’re right, Shodan, we went “low” - we’ve gone on record as being opposed to sex criminals. And you guys have gone on record as supporting sex criminals. Now let’s see which position is preferred by the voters.
You can start yelling “Bill Clinton!” now. And you’re right. He probably couldn’t get elected in 2018 or 2020. But he isn’t running for office, is he? Is there anyone with a history of sexual assault who will be running?
I believe that many people were convinced that a clown like Trump couldn’t win, and they stayed home.
When a Democrat is accused of sexual misconduct, he is encouraged to resign by his associates, and does.
When a Republican is accused of sexual misconduct, he lies and his associates vote him in.
What good will it do me to write to my Republican Senators? They are following the party line, and they know I won’t vote for them whatever action they take on any issue.
