OK, I want to focus on this last part:
What’s crazy in the [USA] Democratic Party’s coalition?
What’s crazy in modern progressivism?
What’s good about the Democratic Party?
What’s good about progressivism?
I’m not going to steer you with a poll this time, I want serious answers that you’ve thought about, wherever you are in your political affilations.
I added a different thread about the Republican coalition: What’s crazy in the (USA) Republican Party?
You’re going to have to use a better word than “crazy” to have a meaningful debate here, especially since you weren’t the first one to use it. At the very least, tell us how you define “crazy” in a political context. Are you OK with each side using their subjective, partisan definition of what the other side does that is “crazy” or are you going for something that at least tires to be objective (i.e., a strategy that is bound to undermine itself).
Why am *I *responsible for octopus’s characterization?
Identity politics is what’s crazy about the Democratic Party. People have become too obsessed with being hand-capable, transgendered, left-handed, bi-sexual, colorful people without penises. I’m all for true equality and justice, but “social justice” has practically become a joke.
I think if the Democratic Party focused more on economic justice, and less on bathrooms and skin tone, we’d be better off.
Take Caitlyn Jenner, for example. I’m all her change of gender, if that’s what she wants. But she’s still a rich celebrity. She’s not a hero. She’s a rich person who had an operation. She doesn’t need to be on the cover of half a dozen magazines. I’d much rather hear what an ordinary working person had to go through. It’s as if the Democratic Party has forgotten what it’s supposed to be about.
I liked Bernie. I wish we were talking about free or low-cost education, healthcare for everyone, and higher wages.
Caitlyn Jenner is a Republican.
Your third paragraph has nothing to do with the first two. Caitlyn Jenner got attention not because she’s transgendered: there are tens, if not hundreds, of thousands of trans Americans whose names you don’t know. She got attention because she was already a celebrity.
It’s like complaining about our divorced-obsessed culture because of all the attention we paid to Brangelina’s split.
I certainly think the Democratic party should be paying more attention to economic issues. Thing is, it already pays a lot of attention to them. In this last election, the demagogue managed to drown out the Democratic economic message; we can’t let that happen again.
But when you say focus “less on bathrooms and skin tone,” do you mean we should not defend the rights of trans folks and folk of color? Because fuck that noise. The correct response to bigotry isn’t to bow and scrape to it; the correct response is to punch it in the side of the head.
I think if “crazy” means wilful ignorance of the facts, then there’s far less craziness among the Dems right now. Simple as.
There’s no reason why political parties should be equal in every way, or “as bad as each other”, and the GOP simply is the party that bases a lot of rhetoric on misinformation, even prior to Trump.
There’s no comparison.
But if “crazy” just means poorly thought out ideas, then sure the Dems have those too.
Some advocate basically shutting down nuclear and fossil fuels virtually overnight. And free college tuition is sometimes thrown out there with little consideration of how costly it would be and/or how much structural reform it would take.
Who is going to pay for this so-called “free” education?
Who pays for it now?
Holy shit–are you saying that there might be taxes? And they might be raised from citizens?
Goddamn, dude, stop the presses! This story has got to get out!
An uneducated populace is a happy populace.
Why do you and your ilk call it “free”, when it’s clearly not?
I’ve explained language to you before with great success, so I’ll happily do it here.
It’s established convention that we talk about a free public education. My state enshrines it in the constitution:
Note that these free schools are paid for by taxation and otherwise. Were the folks that wrote the constitution idiots?
No, of course not: they recognize that words can mean more than one thing. In this case, “free” means “without extra expense to the person using the service.” In other words, you pay whatever you owe in taxes, and then you use the service or not, paying nothing extra if you do.
When folks talk about free higher education, they’re using the word “free” with the same meaning.
I know you’re busy, so no need to thank me; I know the thanks is implicit!
Have you ever heard of the saying that there’s no such thing as free lunch?
The same applies here.
That’s one way to use the word “free”. The NC (and others’) Constitution, and many others in common conversation, use it as LHoD described.
I’m liberal and voted for obama twice, and hillary this time, and live in a deep-red state blah blah… I think we’ve won on the LGBT thing, lost on gun control and abortion and I’m willing to accept that. Gun control because the cat is out of the bag as far as there being guns available and it’s just a rallying cry for conservatives; abortion because people that believe it is equivalent to murder will always be sickened by the thought some people don’t. I agree with the dems agenda to reduce abortions, and I think the GOP’s actually increase the need (restricting birth control, abstinence education), but alas, this is a big single-issue vote. The republican party is batshit crazy right now, and in power, and I’m actually scared for the first time as an American in what damage our gov’t can do with a bull in the china shop scenario. I’d prefer the dems to concede on those two issues to ensure more victories. There are more important things… and we should give birth control out like candy.
I’m afraid that LinusK may be correct (with or without the irrelevant mention of Ms. Jenner). I support gay rights, but Democrats must win elections to do anything about them. Put gun control in the same category. The D’s must focus on the most important issues — the economic plight of Middle America and dangerous trends in Wall St. and in the world’s “hot spots” — and not on wedge issues that the R’s can exploit electorally.
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Oh my! If this were an example of intelligent debate, we could all be debating on the Yahoo blogs, with no need to come here.
When I change the oil in my car, I get a free car wash. I guess your ilk would “need” to say “TNSTAAFL; they probably hiked up the price of the oil to pay for the wash.” When McDonald’s offers you free ketchup with your fries, does your ilk throw it back with a "“TNSTAAFL” war cry? If your massage parlor offers a “free happy ending” do you insist on a discount, because you don’t want to be happy?
Let’s ask you (and your “ilk”!) serious questions: Do you think D’s or Dopers are unfamiliar with the concept of public funding through taxation? Do you think D’s or Dopers believe there’s a magic wand that turns sand dunes into teachers for free schooling? Do you think that repeating “2+2 is 4” is much help when someone from the oppositie ilk is studying for their calculus exam?
Living in San Francisco, a lot of the political battles are between the “progressives” and “moderates” where progressives believe such things like supply and demand not applying to housing and that it would be better for the poor if employers left the area.
A lot of the more extreme end of the campus speech stuff seems very nutty to me, especially when individuals are witch hunted when they dare to deviate from the orthodoxy feels like it is fueled by the same fascist and authoritarian desires that the far right has. However, I’ve talked to a number of people who are attending college right now and their personal experience has generally been that they don’t encounter it in any serious way and that it’s been overblown by the media.
I think Academia’s failure at meaningfully grappling with diversity when it comes to political belief to be incredibly hypocritical and it falling back on precisely the same excuses that other groups have to justify discrimination is bitterly ironic. There have been studies, for example, where identical resumes are submitted with the exact same qualifications except one shows membership to liberal groups and the other to conservative groups and the accept rates are wildly different which is enough to justify corrective action in other attributes but is dismissed when it comes to political belief.
A lot of the alt-science stuff comes from the left, stuff like anti-vax, crystal healing, homeopathy and the like are obvious nonsense.
I think the Vox piece on the smugness of liberals is spot on and there’s a certain strain of upper middle class liberalism which equates consumption choices with moral worth which I find very off putting (ie: me driving a new Tesla makes me a morally better person than you driving an old Ford Focus despite objectively keeping an older car being better for the environment).
I think the overwhelming orthodoxy of the entertainment industry is troubling and, while there’s been a big and successful push in recent years to expand the range of voices when it comes to gender, race, age & class, I think political diversity in entertainment has actually narrowed over the years and the issue has largely been ignored.
Gosh, no I haven’t. Do tell–what’s this saying?