Having the courage of one’s convictions doesn’t make a person any less honest, decent, and kind. These qualities are orthogonal to each other.
When Alison Lundergan Grimes ran for Senate against Mitch McConnell in 2014, for instance, her reluctance to even admit to having voted for Obama didn’t make her any more decent or kind, and probably made her less honest to boot.
Reparations are not going to fly, though higher earned income credits or guaranteed basic income might. Medicare-for-all has next to no chance, while “Medicare for all who want it,” as Mayor Pete proposes, is much more possible. Buttigieg also points out that it’s not fair for lower-income people to have to subsidize college expenses for people who will end up earning a lot more than they do. A path to citizenship for the 11 million undocumented people in America will be a hard sell, if it has any chance at all.
What choice do Democrats have but to lean toward the middle? Are they spineless or just realistic? There’s a real Catch 22 situation at work.
David Brooks on the perils of pulling too far to the left:
Among my conservative friends I’m a politically correct, tax-and-spend liberal who tells a good joke. Among my progressive friends, I’m a friendly old, suburban, white guy who means well, but wants to hang on to what he is because he’s too old to start over.
And all I can say in response to all of them is, “if you piss me off enough, I won’t vote for either of you.”
Our definition of spineless is different then. You seem to feel spineless means taking up whatever political position gets a 51% approval rate. So if being pro-choice is 51%+ approval Mitt Romney is pro choice. If being pro-life is 51% approval, Romney is pro-life. Personally I think Obama acted the same way. He appeared to be much more leftward in the 90s on issues like health care and LGBT rights when he was a state senator, then moderated his positions when running for president a decade later.
However the definition of spineless I"m using is being unwilling to use legal tools to achieve your goals, or being unwilling to stand up for your beliefs. The democrats don’t gerrymander like the GOP does. They don’t engage in voter suppression. When a GOP politician loses an election they fight back, when a democrat loses they cave and give up. They don’t obstruct everything they possibly can in the senate. They don’t engage in massive dishonesty, projection and gaslighting of the public like the GOP does. It feels like hte GOP will use every tool in the toolbox to achieve their goals, the democrats will only use 30% of the tools. That makes them spineless. Granted democracy is more important than winning, but right now the GOP has descended into an anti-democracy, neo-fascist, white nationalist party that encourages treason, so they have to be stopped.
Liberal policies like universal health care, gun control, addressing climate change, progressive taxes, importation of Rx meds from overseas, overturning citizens united, expanding voter rights, stronger regulations on the financial industry, higher minimum wage, upholding Roe v Wade, etc poll very well with the public. Yes some of them have less support when you get into the details (will UHC or climate change raise taxes for example) but many of these policies do not require tax increases.
I’m totally good with using every available tool that works **directly **against the power of the other party. Kill the filibuster, DC and PR statehood to get more Dem Senators, then pack the courts - I’m down with all of that.
But I’m 100% against the Dems using tools that would be used directly against the voters, and only hurt the GOP through acting against the citizenry. Whose side are we on? We’re supposedly on the side of the people, and against what Roosevelt called the “malefactors of great wealth.” If we have to gerrymander, engage in voter suppression, and engage in massive dishonesty (isn’t the truth about the GOP devastating enough?) to win, I want nothing to do with it.
I don’t know where I stand anymore, because I see the GOP as the biggest threat to democracy we face. ISIS just blows up buildings, they aren’t dismantling democracy piece by piece like the GOP are. So the GOP have to be stopped.
Gerrymandering will probably be necessary, like it or not now that the 5 conservative SC judges said gerrymandering is legal. If every red state is heavily gerrymandered and every blue and purple state is fair, that means the democrats have to win elections by 5-10% just to break even.
The main problem with today’s Democrats was best articulated by William Butler Yeats. “The best lack all conviction, while the worst Are full of passionate intensity.”
What we really need are a few middle-of-the-road extremists.
Here is a better example of spinelessness.
In 2016 Obama wanted McConnell to be bipartisan and say that the Russians were hacking our election. McConnell obviously said no, but on top of that he told Obama ‘if you talk about this, we will make fun of you and call you names’.
Obama bowed his head and did whatever McConnell told him to do, because he was scared of being called names and being made fun of by republicans.
Fast forward to three years later and the Mueller report is out. What is one of the major talking points of the GOP? “Why didn’t Obama stop this”. Obama did what McConnell told him to do because he was afraid of being made fun of, and now the GOP is making fun of him anyway for the thing he caved in over. Even Democrats blame McConnell, but Obama deserves a lot of the blame. Obama doesn’t answer to McConnell. Would Trump bow his head and do whatever Chuck Schumer told him to do if Schumer said ‘we will make fun of you unless you do what we say’? No he wouldn’t.
Things like that are why the democrats are spineless.
Here is another example.
CT democrats are looking at health reform. One part of health reform is a public option which would drive down prices and drive up choices. It is supported by the majority of the public.
Cigna told the governor if they passed a public option, they would be mad. The very next day the democrats gave up. It took the democrats one day to give up on their public option plan because rich people said they’d be mad.
Republicans threaten to leave Oregon. Democrats promise to pull bills on vaccinations and gun control. Republicans leave anyway. Democrats then find they don’t have the votes for a climate change bill despite a majority in congress.
Things like that are why the democrats are spineless. All it takes is someone threatening to be mad at them and they’ll fold like a cheap suit. And the person threatening them will be mean to them anyway.
Obama did what McConnell told him to do because he was scared of being made fun of. And he got made fun of anyway. Its pathetic.
I endorse the general tone and central ideas of Wesley’s post.
Democrats have principles but no spine. Republicans have spine but no principles. That’s just how it is.
What caused the GOP takeover in 2010 was Democrats’ total unwillingness to push back against the lies that Republicans told about the ACA. “Death panels” put several state legislatures in the hands of Republicans just in time to reap the benefits of gerrymandering following the 2010 census. Obama himself was particularly inept at defending his own law, giving inane babble about red pills and blue pills. Add that to the nincompoops who had totally worthless cheapo health insurance and when they had to upgrade and pay more due to the ACA, whined “Waaaaah! Obama said if I like my insurance I could keep it!”
Ask yourself, what would Trey Gowdy have done if Obama had been accused of rape? I’ll tell you what, Congress would have done NOTHING but hold endless hearings about it. Now our fourth estate completely ignores the story, with the excuse “well, people knew he was a philandering sexual predator in 2016 so who cares?”
It has been almost two months since the treasury department refused a legal demand for Trump’s tax returns. The Democrats have taken no action. Why would anyone comply with any of their demands?
Yup. Impeachment would’ve happened a long long time ago if Obama did 1/10 of what Trump has done.
Democrats are terrified people will not like them or be mean to them if they impeach. The GOP doesn’t give a fuck if people like them or if they are mean to them.
Democrats never figure things out. A big part of why they lost in 2010 was that they were so spineless, disorganized and incompetent that their voters didn’t feel motivated to vote for them in 2010.
In 2008, 65 million democrats and 52 million republicans voted for federal house candidates.
In 2010, it was 39 million democrats and 45 million republicans.
26 million people who voted for democrats in the house in 2008 stayed home in 2010, but only 7 million republicans stayed home. People didn’t switch parties, but nearly 30 million democrats figured ‘why bother’ and didn’t show up to vote after seeing how the democrats used the power they were given.
Democrats didn’t give their voters a reason to show up and vote for them. They act like spineless pussies terrified of being called names. They don’t use the power they are given. The laws they pass are tepid half measures at best. Obama did some good things in his first two years (stimulus ended the great recession and started job growth. The ACA was a step in the right direction). But both were half measures designed not to offend right wing extremists or the rich.
Then when their voters get demoralized and stay home the democrats stay ‘lets become even more passive and terrified of our own shadows’
Its a fucking shit show. There is no other way to put it.
The GOP has no spine. …or principles.
What? Why would Obama care that much about being called names? He wasn’t running for office again. :dubious:
Yes. Well, there was that one time a bunch of them seceded after a Republican was elected president, but since then it’s been “spineless shitshow” pretty much 24/7.
A lot of people don’t realize that Democrats and Republicans have switched positions on race since the Civil Rights Act. The generations of Democrats in the south who opposed Republican-led Reconstruction and embraced racism and resisted integration all became Republicans within 15 years of the passage of CRA.
Democrats had plenty of spine when it came to establishing Social Security and Medicare, when it came to fighting the Nazis and Japanese, when it came to challenging the nation to get to the moon. Time to find the spine again and impeach the traitorous crooked sexual predating racist rapist in chief.
Thats how I feel as well. I’m a true independent voter. Democrats seem spineless to me, but I like their policy positions a lot of the time. They will never get it done because they seem like a bunch of pansies.
I don’t like a lot of the Republican positions but I have a lot more faith in them getting it done. They stay the hell on message and aren’t afraid of a fight.
Its a shame that the Republicans are so gerrymandered because if they actually had to do the will of their constituents (not the pitch fork stuff, like fix healthcare, fix immigration) they might not be so scary.
My 2 cents anyway.
It was my impression that he didn’t want to look to be swinging the vote one way or the other. I mean he was fucked either way looking back at 2016 from the clarity of 2019, but if he said anything about “russians are trying to help trump” that would have been a whole other shit show. I mean we have a shit show now so who cares, am I right?
Yeah but back then southern whites were all democrats. Now the south is very heavily republican. The democrats had supermajorities back then.
But then again, in several blue states the democrats have supermajorities. Some northeast states or west coast states and in those states the democrats are still pussies.
As I mentioned upthread, the democrats in Connecticut were considering health reform. Cigna threatened to be mean to them so they gave up in one day. Even when the democrats aren’t in danger of losing their majority, they’re still terrified of people being mean to them.
Back then, the Democrats were Republicans, and the Republicans were Democrats. Republican presidents who are thought of in high regard, such as Abraham Lincoln and Theodore Roosevelt were progressives and would have been Democrats in today’s world. Possibly Eisenhower would too. All the great U.S. Presidents have been on the progressive rather than conservative side of politics. The best Republican/conservative president is therefore probably Ronald Reagan.