Well, we could simply try looking up the meaning of the word “crony”. You know, the word I actually used? (Hint: did I say anything about “cronyism?”)
Here’s Merriam-Webster’s definition.
I mean, really. Do we not understand basic English anymore? Or is it simply a thing these days to assume an implication one wants to dislike, just so one can respond accordingly? :dubious:
:rolleyes:
Do you know what “connotation” means?
Look at the bottom of your cite:
The mayor rewarded his cronies with high-paying jobs after he was elected.
the criminal’s cronies were also closely questioned about the illegal gambling operation
“crony” has a strong connotation of cronyism. Doubtless why you used 'crony" rather than “friends”.
You do know that this would destroy the left and any chance they could even get lefty-lite programs implemented in the US, right? I mean, I get you want to destroy the Democrats (which this would certainly do), but it’s not like a left wing only party would be able to win anything in our system. Both the Dems and the Pubs are successful parties in the US because they are big tent parties…try and spin off just one part and both the part and the party would lose everything (well, until someone with some sense rebuilt the party and reformed themselves to bring back a coalition strong enough to compete with the other major party…and the left wings would basically become the Green Party, or the Libertarian Party or one of the various socialist/communist parties in the US).
It’s sad, but I suspect it’s folks who don’t get that who are the real reason we have Trump today. All those who just couldn’t bring themselves to hold their nose and vote for Clinton are the ones who really fucked us all. 
What if the Democrats focus more on calling out microaggressions and insisted that members of Congress only use gender-specific pronouns when invited to? That sure seem like a way to being more college-age voters into the tent.
[/tongue-firm-in-cheek]
The reason we have Trump is because of all the people who voted for Trump.
I disagree. I think it was all the people who voted for Obama and didn’t vote for Clinton. After all, Trump didn’t even get as many votes as Romney did.
Ok, ok…I blame those idiots who voted for Trump at all as well. But it steams me that so many people just stayed home and allowed this idiot to win. :mad:
It’s the old debate of the sin of commission vs sin of omission. I think the sin of commission wins out over the latter. When you start getting into sins of omission, everyone is guilty for virtually all the bad in the world because they didn’t stop it. Spreading the blame around like that leads to nonsensical conclusions. We might as well blame all those people with Trump voting friends who didn’t convince those friends not to vote for Trump.
I’m disinclined to be reasonable. 
I think this is pretty much how I see it as well. Pelosi’s become a political Leviathon owing to the right wing fiction machine, not really that great but not really that bad, either. But her time has come and gone. It’s clear that as it was with the Clintons, Pelosi just doesn’t sell anymore. Getting today’s generations of voters excited about the the Pelosis, the Schumers, the Clintons of the world…it’s like getting people half your age to enjoy Cheers or Seinfeld re-runs. Once upon a time, but not anymore.
And yet the youngsters love Bernie, who is older than all of them. Well, almost. Pelosi is a year older, but at that age it’s pretty much a wash. I’m not sure it’s age so much as “establishment”.
A large part of this is funding. The whole Clintonista shift was based on getting more corporate money for advertising on TV and newspapers. The pair of dimes has shifted. The power of small donations is making itself felt. I doubt that such moneys will ever overwhelm the Pubbie advantage, or that they will allow it if they can possibly stop it. But it is a factor that is gaining importance.
So, in the cold light of realpolitik…keep her, if her presence reassures the corporadoes enough so that they hedge their bets and throw a couple of bucks the Dems way. Starting to look like advertising is losing its clout, politics wise, so the playing field is shifting even as we speak.
I’m pretty sure Clinton had a larger war chest of contributions than Trump did, so not sure if that makes your case or not, but doesn’t seem to me the Dems are exactly sucking hind teat wrt funding for their campaigns.
Not even close to being that simple. Both parties have an “official” war chest, but much more is spent than what is in that bucket. Many Republicans, for instance, will not contribute to the “official” pile because the candidates on offer are not sufficiently evil. A similar pattern in the opposite polarity occurs amongst the left.
And there’s also “dark money” which is hard to talk about factually because its, well, dark. In the absence of reliable facts, your “pretty sure” is as good as anyone else’s.
At bottom, the Party that most protects money and business will be most favored by money and business. Très duh, mais non?
No, it is NOT why I used “cronies” rather than “friends” (do you have some sort of telepathic power I’m not aware of??). I used “cronies” because they are precisely the type of people the DEFINITION discusses. They aren’t her “friends” because how would I know how she feels about the rest of the House leadership?
You are INFERRING something that was NOT IMPLIED. Try just taking it at face value. 
And besides Bernie, the other big political superstar among millennials is the Notorious RBG- no spring chicken either.
So while it would be nice for the party to hand the reigns of power to a new generation just for the sake of optics, it’s not so much age that speaks to a lot of millennials, but a certain kind of old-school, hopeful FDR-liberalism that is unsullied by the usual Clintonion Republican-lite politics & coziness with Big Money. A younger generation of pols with that same message would be an appealing new face for the Democratic party.
I think Seth Moulton fits that mold well, being a military vet & someone who chose public office instead of continuing his lucrative career in the private sector. There are others too, but they’re green, and the old Boomer war horses seem desperate to hold on to power as long as possible, at the expense of new political talent.
Sent from my R1 HD using Tapatalk
Rodgers, with a *d? *Like Paul Rodgers? Are you trying to say Louie is “bad company”?
This isn’t the divine right of kings. Pelosi isn’t entitled to a leadership position just because she’s there.
The problem is that the DCCC and the Democratic Party in Congress are literally organized as a (weirdly amateurish) fundraising outfit. It’s like a really boring school club that spends most of its time begging sponsors for money. Pelosi, however good a whip she is, seems to be at the top of the hierarchy largely because she raises lots of money, quite aside from any actual leadership on policy. What has to be changed is what the “leadership” even is. And that would mean reinventing the party into something with an internal organization more like the Australian Labor Party, where votes from members and constituent councils count for more than pulling in millions from Silicon Valley. Failing that reinvention, progressives should break away and form a new Labor Party or the like.
Liberal Republicans, man. Sold out Reconstruction, don’t trust 'em.
Yeah, time to break into another post.
Actually, my proposal is based on previous historical precedent, including in this country.
The Grand Old Party, so strangely christened at its birth, was literally the abolitionist wing of the Whig Party. It ended mutating and growing into the dominant party in the USA for decades. The Whigs finally won the country by pruning away the pro-slavery wing and reinventing themselves. And yes, part of that success was the incorporation of the Liberal Republicans in the post-Grant period, when the GOP stopped being so radically progressive and turned a bit more fat-cat. That part wasn’t exactly necessary or smart, though. They could have kept on a radical road and defended Reconstruction, in theory.
The UK’s Liberal Party lost its position as one of the two big parties after the Great War. With the rise of a separate and more socialist Labour Party, the Liberals became a minor party, some eventually merging with SDP to become the LibDems.
And of course, in Greece today, PASOK has basically completely fallen apart. George Papandreou is still around, but SYRIZA basically absorbed PASOK’s base. That hasn’t actually meant a hard left turn. SYRIZA have had to concede a lot to less leftist elements in the European community for pragmatic reasons. But it is a new group of people, from previously small “fringey” elements, that are in government. Note that the right-wing party (ND) didn’t just swoop in and crush the left, either.
I have specific historical precedents in mind. I should have put a little history lesson in my first post, I think.
But more to the point is the political science. The Democratic Party “leadership” is still rooted in a pre-1994 non-ideological paradigm. They are a club of professional beggars, little more. This is not managing to compete with the ideological conviction of the Conservative Movement. Republicans keep their promises, however stupid; Democrats don’t make promises.
The GOP have become ever less compromising on abortion and on taxes. They will let the world drown rather than betray their donors. They are loyal.
The Democrats, by contrast, are “everybody else.” A big tent like that needs a Grand Coalition, with the union of the Left and the Center. That’s *not the same *as the intersection of left and center. And Grand Coalitions are hard; broad cooperations despite disagreement, with lots of compromise from all sides and acknowledgement of those compromises. But the centrists demanded voters show loyalty to Mama Clinton when she has shown no loyalty to them, nor to unions, nor even to the other pols in her party. What concessions were the left getting? $12/hr? How weak is that? This isn’t working.
Hillary wouldn’t even join the Fight for 15, and she blames the left for not showing up?
Nah, man. Build a coalition clearly of the following:
[ul]
[li]poor people who need Medicaid benefits / socialized medicine advocates[/li][li]radical enviros and conservationists / the poor sinking state of Florida[/li][li]Black Lives Matter / minorities concerned about their futures on multiple fronts[/li][li]Fight for 15 / labor / workers[/li][li]immigrants / DREAMers / Christians who believe in the ideals of the Good Samaritan[/li][li]the civil service / government contractors / people who would lose their jobs to any more Reagan-style spending cuts[/li][li]the anti-war, pro-welfare tendency (butter over guns)[/li][li]prisoner’s rights / corrections reform[/li][/ul]
That is definitely a coalition, but they’re all clearly opposed to the fat-cat wing. The trick is to come up with a way to unify all of them beyond, “Trump sucks!”
There’s one element I feel a little weird about leaving off that list: LGBT as a major category. That wasn’t intentional. LGBT people have to be welcome in the party. But I’m leaving it off the list because, well, rich LGBT people kind of are fat cats. I want to help poor LGBT runaways more than I want to suck up to eccentric LGBT elites. Sorry.
The one group that can’t lead that coalition? Fat cats like Pelosi and Schumer. They seem like nice people, but their interests are too misaligned for them to be in charge of such a party.
Those aren’t distinct categories (big overlap between some), and one of them consists of people who aren’t even citizens. But how are you breaking down numbers for those groups?
CA has by a large margin the largest population and the largest economy and the largest agriculture, so of course it has the most illegal aliens.
CA has only the 10th highest tax burden. NY is the highest.