• Gates9@sh.itjust.works
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    3 days ago

    The Democratic Party is a honey pot trap used to attract and neutralize progressive and leftist politicians and policies and ensure that the “Overton Window” of American politics never moves left. They will let you “talk” about universal healthcare, for example, but they will never, EVER allow it to move forward as a serious legislative agenda.

    • skisnow@lemmy.ca
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      3 days ago

      Never forget that Obama had two whole years of a significant Democratic majority in both Congress AND Senate, and still somehow couldn’t muster the cojones to pass anything even close to the socialised healthcare he’d campaigned on and had a huge popular mandate for.

      Someone please explain why it is that when Republicans are the minority they have the ability to block absolutely everything the ruling party attempts, and yet when the Democrats are in opposition suddenly somehow it’s impossible for them to do anything?

      • Bloomcole@lemmy.world
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        3 days ago

        They simply don’t want to.
        Once it can happen, when it’s a pattern happening their entire history it should be obvious.
        The game is R: 5 steps right, D: 1 step left. But apparently americans can’t see it.
        Totally their own fault.
        it’s a running joke, especially now.
        The game format inevitably results in a far-right stage eventually.
        And yet they cry crocodile tears and are confused how they ended up there.

      • ALLHAILHYPNOTOAD@lemmy.ml
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        3 days ago

        Obama actually ran on the heritage foundation Romney care plan. It was Hillary Clinton during the 2008 primary that actually ran on a public option.

        • Ensign_Crab@lemmy.world
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          2 days ago

          It was Hillary Clinton during the 2008 primary that actually ran on a public option.

          Liar. Obama ran on a public option and no individual mandate. Clinton ran on no public option and an individual mandate.

          Centrists are allergic to telling the truth.

          • ALLHAILHYPNOTOAD@lemmy.ml
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            2 days ago

            I looked it up and you are right, it was on his website he just didn’t openly push it as much. I remembered a speech he specifically said he did not run on the public option. 17 years ago, I went from memory, my bad. I was actually supporting Obama over Hillary back then. Not sure why that immediately made me a centrist liar. You seem kind of intense.

            • Ensign_Crab@lemmy.world
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              2 days ago

              I remembered a speech he specifically said he did not run on the public option.

              Yeah, that was gaslighting after it became clear that the public option was always a bill of goods designed to be jettisoned as quickly as possible.

              You seem kind of intense.

              Yeah, 17 years of lies from Clinton supporters and being blamed every time centrism either fails to win or succeeds in blocking their own campaign promises will do that. I didn’t see someone who was mistaken; I saw someone who was trying to pretend that Clinton was even slightly progressive by attributing policy to her that her wing of the party killed.

              • ALLHAILHYPNOTOAD@lemmy.ml
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                2 days ago

                I only brought it up because too many people remember Obama as better than the heritage foundation capitulating fake lefty he was. I thought I was making a point he was more to the right than Hillary who gets more readily pegged as a center right hawk. Oh well.

                • Ensign_Crab@lemmy.world
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                  2 days ago

                  If her performance in 2016 is any indication, if she had beaten Obama, she would have considered her job done.

                  • ALLHAILHYPNOTOAD@lemmy.ml
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                    2 days ago

                    Yeah, I supported Obama back then because I assumed Hillary was lying. Clinton was always a corporatist and she was right with him. NAFTA fucked the working class hard. Plus she pushed the super predator narrative.

          • lmmarsano@lemmynsfw.com
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            2 days ago

            no corroborating sources when linking them would have been trivial

            You settled nothing. Why should anyone take anyone’s word on here for it?

            • Ensign_Crab@lemmy.world
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              2 days ago

              I am under no obligation to prove that the sky is blue to someone who will hear all my patient explanations of Rayleigh scattering and just be like “nope. red.”

              They had debates. They’re still out there. Just pick one. Maybe the ABC one where it was clear that George Stephanopolous was still the Clintons’ press secretary.

              • lmmarsano@lemmynsfw.com
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                2 days ago

                No one has to care about lazy words lacking substance of corroboration.

                Again, you settled nothing besides showing lack of will to settle anything.

                • Ensign_Crab@lemmy.world
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                  2 days ago

                  No one has to care about lazy words lacking substance of corroboration.

                  Like your idiotic and ridiculous lie that Clinton supported the public option and Obama didn’t. You never even attempted to back that up. Yet somehow I have to entertain your deliberate attempts to waste my time by demanding news articles from 16 years ago that you already intend to dismiss without reading.

                  • lmmarsano@lemmynsfw.com
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                    2 days ago

                    Like your idiotic and ridiculous lie that Clinton supported the public option and Obama didn’t.

                    Who do you think you’re replying to? Do you observe commenter names?

                    I’m just calling out lazy unwillingness around here to link to corroborating sources (easy & common sense for settling an argument) to instead sling words like petty, incompetent bitches. I don’t think I’m alone in not recalling the exact nuances of healthcare proposals candidates had in 2008.

        • skisnow@lemmy.ca
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          3 days ago

          He didn’t pass that either, though, only a massively watered-down version of it packed with every compromise the Republicans demanded, to make sure that the healthcare companies still got to keep over 15% of households in medical debt.

      • finitebanjo@lemmy.world
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        3 days ago

        Socialized healthcare was filibustered by every single republican, and in the 72 days they had supermajority WITH INDEPENDENTS one of which opposed public option, they passed the medicaid expansion which gave healthcare and in some cases dental to tens of millions of people. The time period you’re talking about was also the most productive congress on record since the mid 20th century.

      • lmmarsano@lemmynsfw.com
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        2 days ago

        still somehow couldn’t muster the cojones to pass anything even close to the socialised healthcare

        You guys are really trash at recalling or just looking up recent history. Many of us were there when it happened. We remember how it went down.

        Too many conservative, pro-life Democrats were against anything better, and they had barely enough Democrats to squeeze through procedural obstacles (filibusters) in the Senate. A number of them voted against the bill that passed.

        quotations

        They chose this approach after concluding that filibuster-proof support in the Senate was not present for more progressive plans such as single-payer.

        The holdouts came down to Joe Lieberman of Connecticut, an independent who caucused with Democrats, and conservative Nebraska Democrat Ben Nelson. Lieberman’s demand that the bill not include a public option was met, although supporters won various concessions, including allowing state-based public options such as Vermont’s failed Green Mountain Care. Many voted against the bill that passed: it barely got through.

        The White House and Reid addressed Nelson’s concerns during a 13-hour negotiation with two concessions: a compromise on abortion, modifying the language of the bill “to give states the right to prohibit coverage of abortion within their own insurance exchanges”

        On December 23, the Senate voted 60–39 to end debate on the bill: a cloture vote to end the filibuster. The bill then passed, also 60–39, on December 24, 2009, with all Democrats and two independents voting for it

        Then at reconciliation of House & Senate bills for passage

        The remaining obstacle was a pivotal group of pro-life Democrats led by Bart Stupak who were initially reluctant to support the bill.

        The House passed the Senate bill with a 219–212 vote on March 21, 2010, with 34 Democrats and all 178 Republicans voting against it.

        Someone please explain why

        Because Democrats & leftists are better at infighting than setting aside differences to win.

        • Eugene V. Debs' Ghost@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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          2 days ago

          Because Democrats & leftists are better at infighting than setting aside differences to win.

          There’s no infighting as Democrats aren’t on the left, they’re center right.

              • lmmarsano@lemmynsfw.com
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                1 day ago

                Leftism is the pursuit of social equality and egalitarianism.

                Democrats are social liberals.

                Social liberalism: Social liberal parties stress civil and human rights and favour a social market economy.

                Refer to social market reforms & social programs from the New Deal (social security, security & exchange commission, labor relations, wealth redistribution, consumer protections, fair employment practices, public housing, minimum wage), their continuation & expansion of civil rights from Great Society (civil rights acts, voting rights act, war on poverty antipoverty programs, medicare, medicaid, welfare, social security expansion, education programs), more recent market regulations, health care expansions, consumer protections (eg, Dodd–Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act, Affordable Care Act). This is a clear record of reforms to address social & economic inequality, improve education & healthcare, promote civil rights, regulate markets.

                In terms of political spectrum

                Generally, the left wing is characterized by an emphasis on “ideas such as freedom, equality, fraternity, rights, progress, reform and internationalism” while the right wing is characterized by an emphasis on “notions such as authority, hierarchy, order, duty, tradition, reaction and nationalism”.

                Political scientists and other analysts usually regard the left as including anarchists, communists, socialists, democratic socialists, social democrats, left-libertarians, progressives, and social liberals.

                The Democratic party is made up of factions with the center-left & left caucuses dominating: it tends left.

                Claiming Democrats aren’t left (if impure) requires a level of delusion that outright denies basic definitions of left & political classifications, historical record, and usual knowledge of political scientists & analysts.

        • kreskin@lemmy.world
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          2 days ago

          All the left wanted in the last election is for Harris to say the zionists were conducting a genocide. Thats it. Its a trivial ask. And then she would have won. But “centrist” dems couldnt even give the left that tiny speck of a fig leaf. But sure blame both the left and the centrists equally if that makes you feel righteous.

    • finitebanjo@lemmy.world
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      3 days ago

      Clearly it’s not working because despite progressive stances being a wide majority we haven’t elected more than 48 DNC since 2013.

    • yucandu@lemmy.world
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      3 days ago

      See I think that kind of defeatist logic is the trap - they flood the internet with pessimism and “there’s no point in trying” and “there’s no point in voting” to make sure YOU don’t try. To make sure all you do is sit on your ass at home and complain on the internet.

      • ALLHAILHYPNOTOAD@lemmy.ml
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        3 days ago

        The only way to change America is to remove billionaires from existing. As long as they hold all the power, nothing will get better significantly.

      • Gates9@sh.itjust.works
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        3 days ago

        I never said any of that shit. The point is that, tactically speaking, we should be dealing with them as they are, and not giving them the benefit of the doubt, assuming they are on our side and operating in good faith, like the tired meme of Lucy pulling the football away from Charlie Brown.

        The threat is existential, and there should be qualifying and disqualifying criteria, and that criteria should be set by US, not some party dignitaries, not some fucking “consultants” who are getting money from billionaire funded PAC’s and think tanks.

      • skisnow@lemmy.ca
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        3 days ago

        That’s not defeatist.

        Defeatism is deciding now, over 3 years before the next election and 15 months before midterms, that there’s no way you get someone elected who actually represents you, so you should just suck it up and vote for Kodos.

          • BrainInABox@lemmy.ml
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            3 days ago

            Lol. “I’m not a Nazi! I blame all our problems on a secret mass conspiracy and infiltration of our society by a completely different race!”

              • BrainInABox@lemmy.ml
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                3 days ago

                Yeah yeah, tell us more about how the Judeo-Bolshivik’s are harvesting adrenochrome under Comet Pizzaria. Sure love Nazi conspiracy theories in my “progressive” com