The Dems Don't Get It: How liberalism without a spine gave way to a party without a brain or soul

[Gandhi]

We want debt ratios to be falling during good economic times, and the post-tax-cut situation is clearly unsustainable. A balanced budget would be precisely the opposite of protecting our future (it would implicitly be saying that we don't expect growth and can't find any place to invest).



Well, to be more accurate, because of opposition by the <5% most right-wing Democratic Senators. The thing about growing your support is that you bring in more moderates.



Obviously meant 2016.

Para 1, yup

 

[Jack V Savage]

Last sentence, how are you evaluating this?

By what method are you attributing the recent economic gains to tax cuts and then offsetting those gains against the extra incurred debt ? Especially given that said debt would be about x2 effective economically if was delayed and incurred during a downturn via something other than give tax aways to corporations to prop up the stock market via share buy backs.

LOL! The metric is that the GOP passed the cuts and therefore they are good, and the fact that people who actually study the issue conclude differently just means that you can't trust academics.

 

[Gandhi]

LOL! The metric is that the GOP passed the cuts and therefore they are good, and the fact that people who actually study the issue conclude differently just means that you can't trust academics.

 

[ChillBroBaggins]

It's good. But what I mean is that there are cycles and random events that people try to explain with bullshit narratives. Back in 2006, I think anyone could have predicted that if there were a huge financial collapse in 2008, Democrats would have won the presidency in 2008, and then that that would mean they'd likely lose seats in all races after that, and then that unless there was another big downturn, they'd probably retain the presidency and continue to lose seats, and then they'd be underdogs in 2016, and if they lost that election, we'd see big gains for them in 2018, though maybe not enough to take the Senate. The 2020 Senate map will be more favorable and Democrats will likely take the Senate then. Normally the president wins re-election unless there's a recession, but Trump is unusually corrupt and incompetent so that one's a tougher call. If he wins in 2020, we'll see further Democratic gains in other races. If not, we'll see Republicans come back. Etc. But people always want to attach narratives to it.

It applies to other things, too. After the 2020 election, it was inevitable that Republicans would fill at least two SCOTUS seats. Likewise, after Democratic wins in 2008, it was clear that we were going to get serious healthcare reform and a rational response to the downturn. In both cases, partisans blamed the losing party for losing fights ("if they just fought harder they would have won") that they were destined to lose from the start.

Ultimately I agree and in the case of recent politics there seems to be a large degree of determinism. Before recently I hoped the internet would become a enlightening force on our collective thought and allow new pockets of common sense ideas to take hold, which eventually become politically relevant. While I believe that is still the case, the osmosis of ideas is gradual and unfortunately humans much prefer internet group-think to their own detriment.

After all, who knows what will happen? The future is too chaotic and includes far too many moving pieces to predict specifics. And narratives are completely normal, the product of our need to understand and compartmentalize events, and who can blame us for our evolved logical fallacies?

The GOP debates the last two runs have been some of the best television ever.

Easily amused, are you?

 

[Andy Capp]

I'm coming around to this position but I still tend to vote Dem because I think their economic policies are just better and will have a more concrete impact on people's lives. Maybe its my contrarian instinct that has led me here since being socially conservative is a surefire way to distinguish oneself from most modern American leftists but whatever the case its certainly a bone of contention between myself and some of my leftist peers. I'm pretty pessimistic when it comes to social issues though, I really think the genie is out of the bottle when it comes to a lot of the excesses and degeneracy of the left.

That's a key point. What's more, the fact that the Dems wink at certain progressive social policies to maintain their image as a left wing party while more or less maintaining relatively right wing economic policies leads to the impression by Republicans that they are a far left party which polarizes the electorate even more. The GOP voters then become more willing to excuse the excesses and failings of their own party to fight the take over by LGBT communists which pulls things more to the right.

Please elaborate on what "a lot of the excesses and degeneracy of the left" entail.

 

[Andy Capp]

Both of those things are more symbolic, though, aren't they? We basically just rebranded existing trade deals and now everyone who hated them before is happy (realistically, few people understand it but they were whipped into a frenzy and now they're told they should be happy), and illegal southern border crossings have been net negative for a decade now. People who supported the wall mostly realized there wouldn't be one built but they liked that "someone was finally talking about the issue" that had actually been a much-talked about issue until effective solutions were implemented.

I would have more respect for the right wingers around here if they could admit to these things being true.

 

[jrams]

Easily amused, are you?

You should get on the Cain Train

 

[AlzheimersAluminum]

Well-spoken sir. I can't remember ever being dumb enough to believe fox news for a second.

 

[Pessimystic]

Liberals are trash. Deal with it.

Short, concise and straight to the point.

 

[Amerikuracana]

Too concerned with showing bipartisanship and civility?

Their campaign slogan is "resist" captain delusional.

Republicans were for nothing good, (that they followed through on; the social and moral stuff) and that's why I voted Democrat. Trump was for serious, plain speak efforts to return industry to America, and to stop being the piggy bank for the world. He was un-pc enough to actually do something.

It's the democrats that stand for nothing. The new elitist white collar "gay lunch friend at work" party abandoned it's platform of putting the American worker first, although Bernie still says some things I agree with.

Identity politics. That's what Ds offer right now. We don't need that. We opposite of need that.

 

[Amerikuracana]

Maybe the Economists talked to his former business partners or witnessed the magic he worked at Trump Casino, Trump steaks and Trump vodka

Economist base everything off a model of impossible endless growth, embarrassing "ifs," and some ideology created by people who existed when the world had 500 million people, total, and who had no idea a thing called a "car" would ever exist.

 

[Amerikuracana]

I don't think we've ever seen identity politics play a bigger role in a presidential campaign than we did in Trump's, but aside from that, much of political commentary reminds me of this:

You're right. Absolutely. The identity was "American."

 

[Amerikuracana]

Trump has 2.5 more years in office. We will see whether his actions were good or bad for the country and perhaps a mixed bag. Meh...

If you listen to a far left, it's impossible that he do good for the country. That's a problem.

It was a problem when fox news made its fans think the same about Obama.

 

[splendica]

 

[58miles]

You are the CLASSIC liberal poster. You’re either so uninformed, or so ignorant, it’s the reason the right doesn’t even bother talking to the left anymore. For instance,

About that “A” rating.

Are you aware that before they cleaned up their books for the 2016 run, and before that they were actually on a charity watchdog warning list, and their “accounting practices” were so shady? Read their filed documents before they cleaned up, their donation totals were disgusting.


“Cries about selling weapons”

After Obama was arming radical jihadists and contributing to the genocide of half a million Syrians.

Pre Hillary election campaign was not about shady account practices it was about accounting practices that weren't open enough for the charity watchdog groups which is why some watchdog groups put them on the warning list, after opening up their accounting practices they were given A. After her Campaign the Clinton Foundation is still being given an A rating.

"Cries about selling weapons" What part of against US law and lying don't you right wingers understand? Those weapon sales were secret and against the law and he lied about the whole issue. If you are going to argue about the Saint Ronald of California years please brush up before making yourself look silly.

 

[Jack V Savage]

You're right. Absolutely. The identity was "American."

No, it was saying that most Americans aren't "real" Americans, wink wink.

 

[Only Here for Attachments]

But this is good because as long as Democrats think they can win via "platform" and keep putting up garbage candidates, they'll never get anywhere

 

[bushman505]

The republicans have embraced fascism. You can't play nice with fascists.

Yes it’s republicans who are violently attacking anybody who disagrees with them...

 

[Jorge Luis Borges]

Our corporate tax rates were too high. Lowering them has allowed corporations like Apple bring a lot of their money home to the US and has made US corporations more competitive internationally. As far as personal taxes, I'll always appreciate being able to keep a bit more of my hard earned money.

Concerning the debt, I've stated already in this thread that it was irresponsible to pass that bloated monstrosity of an omnibus bill after cutting taxes. The two had to go together and Trump and the GOP Congress made a big mistake in this regard.

Now as to economists, of course different economists have differing views and there was far from a monolithic response to Trump's cuts. A key problem with technocracy is that technocrats are usually ideologues with little actual experience managing the things they want to dictate to others. If you talk to business men and women, they'll tell you the cuts have opened up a lot of opportunities for expansion. To me, a growing economy is often a better thing than a growing government.

 

[Pessimystic]

No one sensible here who is aware of your posting history is going to believe it is a metaphor. You have expressed wishes of violence and indifference to violence on others whos politics you don't like and as i noted you excused the behavior of historical figures who shared your views despite the fact they were undoubtedly butchers of their fellow man.

You claiming ahaha i fooled you with my metaphor! Amounts to little more than this.

Are you going to try to call me a republican or conservative again because i am critical of your views?
If you recall you attempted to do that last time and then backtracked and rambled about me then having no political ideology when i scoffed at your original accusation.

The Republican Party is certainly irredeemable at this point However the Democratic party is in a glass house currently and needs to be careful with its stones. You have in this thread posters who are presumably democrats being so intellectually dishonest and outright phony beyond belief with their claims of oooh oooh we just need to be less merciful next time with our opponents! Thats the reason!

No the more pressing matter is a segment of the Democratic party have gotten lost in these childish identity politics, they thought it was a great idea to prop up a corrupt old vile crone as the face of liberal values for the presidential run and now they have sunk even lower by using what appears to highly likely be a false rape accusation as a method of ousting their rivals. These are the pressing issues the party needs to address internally. A spine needs to be grown in this regard and the Democrats who supported these ridiculous measures need to be pushed out. Then and only then will the party be back on track.

Further they need to refrain from associating with people like yourself who thinks acting like a savage towards others is perfectly dandy. Quite frankly you're not even a good trusting face for pushing Marxism as a valid political ideology much less helping the democratic party or any party for that matter. Its precisely your views and your attitude thats causes the damage that we see in both parties.

Solid post.