Matt Taibbi

Compromise is not a principle, but a method.

Someone needs to tell the dems that.

i love that obama has become bolder + issued more executive orders since he discovered that the republicans could not be negotiated with, but considering taibbi's article is about how undermining democracy is bad i think complaining that obama compromises too much w/ democratically elected representatives is inconsistent.

even craven neoliberal bill clinton did more for democracy + the non-wealthy than a single republican.

The latter is... arguable. Nevertheless, this is the fundamental "lesser evil" argument for Dems that has turned out badly so many times before and quite possibly would again if the Republicans hadn't nominated the worst candidate of any of our lifetimes.

it's like you forget we live in the ideological capital of capitalism. ppl to the right who refuse to vote for democrats don't do so bc they're too capitalist, it's bc they aren't capitalist enough. you know how you know that? bc that's how the republicans campaign.

Lesser Evillism moves the whole political structure to the right EVERY TIME.

as anyone who's wasted part of life reading these threads knows, M and map are either liars or ignorami.

"the era of big government is over" - W J Clinton, 1996

and so am i

"party of lesser evil" is just propaganda. every choice you ever make is between the better of two options. rarely in life do you get two options where either is perfect.

i guess if you're picking between chocolate and vanilla ice cream you might feel like both are great choices and you're thrilled to pick either. but anything more complicated -- like if you've ever had to decide whether to take a treatment w/ X side effect, or risk a disease progressing further - or paying to replace a part now or waiting and possibly ruining the machine later - your entire life is weighing choices that have ups and downs. only w/ politics is "lesser evilism" seen as a legitimate critique of those choices - presumably bc ppl think it has more to do w/ their personal morality than health or appliance repair.

^^^

and btw i know this has been pointed out a million times and somehow still hasn't landed but the far right make the exact same arguments. their representatives compromise too much, the culture keeps moving to the left, the republicans are the party of lesser evilism, etc.

There are more non-voters than voters

this isn't true btw, at least not during presidential years. in 1996 it was just under 50% and then was above 50% since 1924

The far right isn't wrong on some parts of that - culturally, they're losing and all the Republican holding actions can't stem the tide. Yay!

Unfortunately, economically, the left is right about Democrats. Wealth and income inequality grew rapidly under both Clinton and Obama and even Obama, who was an inspirational candidate and figure in many ways, has provided almost nothing in terms of making life better for all the people who have lost out to contemporary capitalism. (Clinton, of course, was actively hostile to those losers.)

i think more ppl should vote btw and i think even a system w/ mandatory voting would be preferable to what we have, not to mention easier ways to increase voting % like a voting holiday, or more access to absentee and mail-in ballots. i suspect these, as well as apathy/political ignorance, are greater impediments to voting than ppl are who too pure for the parties.

ACA? Dodd-Frank? and i have no doubt he would have done more if he had control of the legislation for more of his administration. not to mention that he had an impossible task taking over the country right after the second worst depression in its history. fdr had the advantage of being able to bully the senate into signing whatever he put in front of him - and even that only lasted so long before they grow a backbone and started shooting down every piece of progressive legislation he proposed.

Obama didn't have FDR's majorities

The difference between left-wingers and right-wingers is that right-wing policies aren't actually popular (whereas left-wing policies ARE more popular). Despite that, the right-wing strategy has moved the American political goalposts to the right as the rest of the developed world has gone the other way.

Tbf, the Great Panic of 1893 was pretty damn bad, too.

the right as the rest of the developed world has gone the other way.

wait waht this is not accurate

EU austerity policies, Chinese command economy, Japan in an economic slump for over a decade, s. america leftists failing all over the place

if anything the economic policies of Obama administration have been to the LEFT of everybody else

do u guys honestly believe that if the democratic party started introducing far left policy in the house that the american right-wing would defect to them?

― Mordy, Friday, July 1, 2016 1:54 PM Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

even by your standards you've been on a roll of willful obtuseness and misunderstanding lately.

the argument isn't that people don't support republican policies. the argument is that, from the standpoint of their own self-interest, they're not benefiting from those policies (and actually harmed by them), and that there are reasons they are convinced otherwise (including anti-immigrant nativism, etc).

there was no equivalent to the 2009 American Recovery and Reinvestment Act in the UK for ex.

(xp)

the argument isn't that people don't support republican policies. the argument is that, from the standpoint of their own self-interest, they're not benefiting from those policies (and actually harmed by them), and that there are reasons they are convinced otherwise (including anti-immigrant nativism, etc).

okay but how will the democrats being more left-wing convince them otherwise which is what we're actually discussing here

so happy you were elected chair of what we are actually discussing

Mordy, you want it both ways - the Democrats were "powerless for decades" (because they didn't have the White House for 12 years, despite having part or all of Congress that entire time) so they had to crash to the center and adopt welfare reform/etc. to prop up Clinton, now Obama gets a pass for not doing anything because the Republicans have Congress. Of course, both Clinton and Obama had Democratic congresses for parts of their first term and didn't make use of them - and the Democrats had Congress for half of Dubya's terms and didn't accomplish anything (well, unless you count happily endorsing wars of aggression, hey-o).

You seem to be saying that Democrats can't be held accountable for anything, politically, unless they control Congress and the White House, which is silly.

talk about obtuse. look up and see what the entire conversation has been about. whether the problem is that the democrats compromise too much and whether they would gain electorally if they moved further to the left. xp

i agree that right-wing policies are harmful and that their voters are hurting themselves. so why would we be arguing about that? bc it's an easy strawman to knock down?

milo, i'm saying that the system was designed to stymie progress without consent from at least 2 but really all 3 branches of government. that was a feature not a bug. that means sweeping change when you only control the executive or only control the legislative, is hard to do.

A side issue is that what positives we can attribute to Democrats - ie winning on social issues - have fuck all to do with the Democratic Party. They don't lead on gay rights or women's rights or police reform or criminal/drug or anything else - they're led by grassroots movements that would be decried if they were economic movements. The Democrats are the party of DOMA and Don't Ask Don't Tell and leadership too scared of the right and electability to openly endorse the real reforms that would make life better for a lot of Americans.

i think in the past they've been scared of losing their jobs if they campaigned too far from the left but i think that is changing as they see that there is a constituency for those policies. when the voters move the politicians follow - i think the complaint that politicians just flow w/ the popular opinion and don't have principles of their own is age old. iirc solomon mentions it in kohelet.

i'm not sure what quote i was thinking of - possibly an interpretation i heard of these two that suggested that the dog metaphor was chosen bc they pretend to lead like a dog who runs ahead but look behind to make sure their owner is following behind them (but can't google it up):

"Israel’s watchmen are blind, they all lack knowledge; they are all mute dogs, they cannot bark; they lie around and dream, they love to sleep. They are dogs with mighty appetites; they never have enough. They are shepherds who lack understanding; they all turn to their own way, they seek their own gain.” (Isaiah 56:10-11)

Obama didn't have FDR's majorities

― Οὖτις, Friday, July 1, 2016

FDR's majorities were a menace after 1937 after court packing. The Southern Dems made peace with the GOP to block any social program and attempt at war preparation. Got even worse after the 1942 congressional elections.

A side issue is that what positives we can attribute to Democrats - ie winning on social issues - have fuck all to do with the Democratic Party. They don't lead on gay rights or women's rights or police reform or criminal/drug or anything else - they're led by grassroots movements that would be decried if they were economic movements. The Democrats are the party of DOMA and Don't Ask Don't Tell and leadership too scared of the right and electability to openly endorse the real reforms that would make life better for a lot of Americans.

― Kiarostami bag (milo z), Friday, July 1, 2016 2:58 PM (22 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i think in the past they've been scared of losing their jobs if they campaigned too far from the left but i think that is changing as they see that there is a constituency for those policies. when the voters move the politicians follow - i think the complaint that politicians just flow w/ the popular opinion and don't have principles of their own is age old. iirc solomon mentions it in kohelet.

― Mordy, Friday, July 1, 2016 3:02 PM (

You're...both right? I've read and seen enough the last 25 years to tell that Something Has Changed in the last five years.

However, I wish Obama had used executive powers for more anti-trust prosecutions. The Carter administration had 60+ its last year in office (and Carter began the deregulation program!); Obama has...far less than that.

They don't lead on gay rights or women's rights or police reform or criminal/drug

most of these are issues decided in the courts, ie with favorable rulings from judges typically appointed by Democrats, ie people elected by Democrats

xp

i think the difference is whether you see the party as a conduit through which to express your own political wishes or a company that should win your business by catering to your needs. in the former context you vote bc that's how you pressure politicians to do what you want. in the latter you withhold your vote until you get better service.

i think in the past they've been scared of losing their jobs if they campaigned too far from the left but i think that is changing as they see that there is a constituency for those policies.

Are we not saying the same thing here?

yes but you're suggesting that this is not how the system is supposed to work but i think in a democracy politicians are supposed to do what their voters want

seems like a truism that an elected legislator will not advocate for policies that are not popular with their constituents - ie legislators are not leaders, in general, and they never have been

xp

occasionally you have crisis points (wars, economic threats) that will require a legislator to convince the public of a particular course of action but that's really the only time "leadership" comes into it

shall I link to that Greg Lemieux post again

er, Scott Lemieux

Ok, if I understand your punctuationless sentence fragment correctly, you are happy with politicians as followers rather than leaders. I guess that's our disagreement. X-post

idk happy but this is a taibbi article about how democracy is the best even when the people demand things that are bad for them like trump so i think there's maybe an inconsistency here

I shouldn't be surprised anymore about Dem (and GOP) faith in people. I've got a few friends posting nasty E. Warren shit because she endorsed Hillary. When Sanders eventually endorses Clinton, are these people gonna kick the dirt and stay home? We have a repugnant candidate who's gonna endorse the most liberal Democratic Party since 1984, itself a pallid version of 1972's. Grassroots work is hard. The movement creates candidates, not the other way around.

you are happy with politicians as followers rather than leader

well I definitely don't prefer fascists or other leaders who don't have to answer to constituents, if that's what you mean

not sure what Lemieux post yr referring to Alfred

I dug Chris Lehman's reaction to that Atlantic piece as well:

http://thebaffler.com/blog/political-class-struggles-lehmann

Shakhey: http://www.lawyersgunsmoneyblog.com/2016/06/the-party-left-me-and-other-complaints-of-the-voter-as-atomistic-consumer

Voting for Johnson, as we’ve discussed, was a classic “lesser evil” vote in the sense that he means it. So was FDR, given the many compromises the New Deal had to make with the white supremacist faction of the party. So was Lincoln, an incrementalist on an issue of the utmost moral urgency. Major progressive reforms are almost always the result of lesser-evil voting and coalition-building, and are virtually never the result of dramatic flounces out of the coalition, as the same-sex marriage movement shows. Did movement conservatives take over the Republican Party by voting third party if they didn’t win? They did not. They try to get their candidates elected in the primaries, they won some and they lost some, but they kept pushing. It’s not complicated, but it works.

Refusing to support Hillary Clinton from any point on the democratic left and trying to persuade others not to do so, although this election presents one of the widest gaps between the parties of any presidential election in American history, can mean one of two things. One is that all of the horrors that would flow from at least four years of a President Trump almost certainly joined by 4 years of a Republican Congress are a price worth paying to “punish” the Democrats (note: it is not Democratic leaders who would actually bear the brunt of the punishment, but people of much less privilege). This is a monstrous position, in my view, given that the horrible things are certain and the speculation that the bad things would lead to better things implausible in the extreme, but if it’s your position at least own it.