Comment Rescue: Jason330’s Step By Step Plan For Dems Not Voting
On the post “What does being a “Democrat” in 2015 actually mean anyway?” Jason330 lays out a plan. I started to respond in the comments, but realized I couldn’t possibly list all the ways 100% enacting the Republican agenda would take shape. So, I’m turning to our commenters for help creating the list. First, let’s look at the Jason’s comment:
Agreed. A press would be nice. And yes, it is going to be tough medicine for everybody (mostly, as you and Cassandra point out the least well off among us) but at this point I’m a political nihilist. This so-called two party shit mess has to be reduced to splinters. Here is my step by step.
1) GOP takes everything. White House, Congress, Courts, State Governments, School boards. With just a couple of Dem show ponies hanging on to keep the hoax of bi-partisanship alive. [Don’t gasp… With Citizens United and the Democratic Party we have now, this is inevitable, so I’m just saying hurry up and get here.]
2) The country wakes up to what a fucking disaster it is in.
3) The pretend Democratic Party we have now is swept away.
4) Something better replaces it.
So, if the GOP takes everything (and he pretty much covers everything) what would that look like?
Here’s a few things off the top of my head:
1. Massive deregulation of everything – food, medicine, safety, no minimum wage
2. Privatization of everything – schools, social security, post office
3. Discrimination permitted, and encouraged
4. Forced birth and no birth control
5. While they control everything they also get to write laws (at every level of government) that would make it extremely difficult to overturn what they’ve done. Add to that… they’ll have stacked the Supreme Court to uphold these laws no matter if Dem’s eventually come back into power. Electing Progressive Dems will not be enough to undo the damage.
6. Gay Marriage… gone – complete with laws defining marriage as between one man and one woman, which the Conservative Court will uphold.
7. Christianity established as the official religion – religion in our public schools, work places, government buildings
8. And they won’t need to worry about Dems taking any elected office since the new voting laws they pass will make it almost impossible and difficult for Ds to vote.
I dashed those off the top of my head. Add more in the comments – because there are a lot more. Like having to tug your forelock and/or curtsy when in the presence of the 1%.
And I do understand Jason’s frustration. I just don’t think his plan will turn out the way he thinks.
Tags: Democratic Party, Voting
Add in:
Increased transfer of middle-class and working class wages to businesses.
More privileges for businesses at the expense of workers and other citizens.
Taxpayers fully on the hook for the backstopping the unnecessary business risks taken by the Too Big to Fail.
It is difficult with the Democrats we have to hold the line on some of this. Still, this isn’t going to be a good place to live when the GOP is allowed to let the government fall quite utterly into fascist government and when the only thing they want to regulate is women.
True.
Add killing science – except Viagra 😉 – to the list.
How about… mandatory gun ownership since there will no longer be any gun laws.
And I do understand where Jason is coming from. There just has to be a way to make Dems more Dem without handing everything over to the Rs. Personally, I think the demographic change will do a lot.
Like I said, with Citizens United and the Democratic Party we have now, this is inevitable, so I’m just saying hurry up and get here.
So let’s look at the alternative. What does Mitch Crane style voting get us? Every bit of what you list, only drawn out over a longer timeline. I think my plan is the optimistic one because it gets us to a possibility of change faster.
If anyone can tell me, step by step, how voting for the least bad Republican (e.g Modern Democrat) gets us away from the tyranny described above, I’d be all ears.
Cassandra, We are the boiled frog. Our reality is already the GOP Potterville you envision. You just have a sentimental attachment to Bedford Falls. I did too until recently.
Now I’m completely depressed. You do have a point, J. I’m just not willing to go there without at least coming up with another plan.
100% GOP agenda enacted would be devastating to the neediest among us – the ones that would lose access to voting, assistance, medical, jobs/wages, equal/civil rights, etc.
And I’m not convinced we’d recover.
The neediest among us are not currently being represented by a legitimate political party, so it is no wonder they don’t vote. And yeah, it is going to be terrible for a long long time.
Sorry to be a downer. I should take a break from blogging and from consuming news for a while.
Maybe a Democratic candidate for some office somewhere will miraculously decide to be a Democrat and I can put the blinders back on after cooling off for a while.
What is unwritten but i had hoped was understood in my comment is the importance of well qualifed and well funded progressives running in primaries. That is where changes are made. I made such a race in 2010 and the incumbent was held to 32%. Of course someone muddied the field and I lost by 1,100 votes. Of course that was only a race for insurance commissioner, but it shows the possibilities.
Certainly Democrats aren’t especially useful at this point, but as a defensive line against the worst of it all. Still — there are plenty of Democrats who aren’t this unhappy. And I’ve posted poll after poll here that shows that most Democrats actually value bipartisanship. But the thing that the teajhadis get that Dems do not is that each election is a chance at revolution. Which means that there isn’t a binary have or have not. There is territory to get or to lose. And they’ve figured out how to be influential in a way that you have not. We have to define what being a Democrat means and get a way to inflict some pain to those who don’t get it. But we’ve had this conversation before. You are looking for someone to lead you out of the wilderness and I think that we should redefine what wilderness means.
Ideological movement conservatives have a voice in politics that is vastly greater than their numbers, even when their hand-picked candidates don’t win, and I believe it is in no small part because they have adopted Jason 330’s attitude. By showing a willingness to lose elections (e.g., by running primary candidates like Sharron Angle and Christine O’Donnell, whose victory assured Democratic wins in the general election), they have forced all Republicans to listen to them and respond to their wishes. As an example, when GWB nominated Harriet Miers to the Supreme Court, conservatives began mounting a huge opposition campaign. While Miers had other baggage, I believe conservative opposition certainly contributed to Bush’s decision to replace her with a much more conservative nominee, Samuel Alito. Could you imagine, in America in 2015, any Democrat who matters paying any attention to progressive outrage or opposition to anything?
^^^This.
That is a tidy summary. Progressive thinking Dems are caught between a hammer and an anvil. The hammer is the threat that a Republican may win and the anvil is the continuing abuse at the hands of their party’s leadership (Schwarzkopf recruiting Republicans to run as Democrats, Markell constantly cutting services to pay for corporate tax breaks, are two close at hand examples).
It has been common wisdom that the horror of a Republican winning outweighs the horror of being sold out yet again by a Democratic Party leadership that doesn’t give a fuck.
I’m ready to experience the horror of some Republicans winning.
Cassandra: the problem with “poll after poll that shows that most Democrats actually value bipartisanship” is that those samplings no doubt include many registered D’s who would think Carper, Carney and Coons are just fine. However, you, and I, and most others who populate this blogsite do not include corporate buttkissers within our definition of a true Democrat.
Most of us here are not happy with the Democratic party because we do not like what it has become. Its leaders are, broadly speaking, “Republican lite,” and the party’s defining characteristic seems to be “we’re nicer to, and more understanding of, those less fortunate than us” than the other guys are. Such sentiments are good for the soul but they don’t win elections and they don’t move the ball down the field toward the progressive goal line.
I share Jason’s concerns but not his pessimism because I believe in the innate ability of the GOP leadership to self-destruct.
In the political marketing game, unfortunately “conservative” now plays better than “liberal,” but while the standard definition of “conservative” refers to keeping what we have, the GOP is constantly attempting to turn back the clock.
A key component of any political redefinition must be the relabeling of ideas: We must resolutely assert that what we want is “progressive” and what the other side is trying to do is “regressive.”
“Progressive” has a lot more meat to it than some amorphous “hope and change,” and, when Americans are given a progressive/regressive choice, the option of moving forward or turning back the clock, I’ll take the odds on them betting in favor of their futures.
the problem with “poll after poll that shows that most Democrats actually value bipartisanship” is that those samplings no doubt include many registered D’s who would think Carper, Carney and Coons are just fine.
I definitely get this, and I point it out to the opportunity. Seriously, when did working together get to be more important than making sure Social Security survives? We’re in a state where the main paper does not report on the votes our representatives take except for the controversial stuff. Other polls show that the topline list of stuff that is important to progressives is important to majorities of Americans. How did that get hidden in favor of bipartisanship?
Cass, I agree. Hate to have my cynicism show through too much, but it seems that the Democrats we elect find it easier to give the other guys what they want than to fight for the things we want. I don’t want to say they’re not committed to what we believe in but, yes, I will say it: They’re not committed to what we believe in.
“poll after poll that shows that most Democrats actually value bipartisanship”
So, you guys are not most Democrats. So who are you? Or who are the “most Democrats?” Are they DINOs? And honestly does it matter who the real Democrat is? As an observation if you don’t value bipartisanship (just an example) aren’t you missing the shared values aspect of belonging? Maybe you are really like me, an independent who often sees things as the lesser of two evils. Maybe you aren’t the Democrats and maybe they aren’t the Democrats.
I agree that “progressive” has meat on it, or at least it used to. What does it mean now? Well for good or ill, to many people (I have no data, so anectodally) it means entitlements. Is that a key value shared by millennials? I bet it isn’t. In fact the Delaware data shows that the Democrat 21-29s had a 13% turnout and the 30-39s had a 21% turnout. I examined the Wilmington data and the percentages were exactly the same. So where were all the people from 21-39 on election day? Were they busy or they don’t care because it doesn’t make any difference?
I am sure there is a degree of apathy involved, but I am also just as certain, that millenials are to some degree self-centered but along with that they are more self-reliant and intend to make their way in this world in spite of the societal and political obstacles that are presented by government. In short, the parties and government are perceived as obstacles to surmount rather than agencies of change. Obviously this is an idea/assertion on my part. I’ll do some research to see if there any studies that confirm or refute these ideas.
They’re not committed to what we believe in.
Bingo. And they pay no price for not being committed to what we believe in.
Voting this year was meh for me, mainly because no one was running (or running with an opponent) in my district. I received very few mailers (two, maybe three) and three robocalls. Truthfully, if I wasn’t interested in politics I would have probably missed the election!
As far as Millennials… I think they are more socially liberal, but I’d guess that their economic view is tied to their paycheck. Meaning, wealthy Millennials will balk at taxes and spending – just like a lot of wealthy people. That’s my guess.
As far as “entitlements” go, most non-poverty young people don’t think about them because SS, Medicare and Medcaid don’t impact them. It’s not that they don’t care, it’s that they don’t know, due to having no experience with them. So, I’d hesitate to guess their opinions – and I’m raising two of them.
I will say that they are aware of college costs – you know, because most have lived that experience. Those with older parents, or who are watching their parents helping their grandparents who are struggling, or who need nursing home care are probably more in tune with those costs and the plus side of entitlements and realize without them they could be in a financial bind down the road.
But one thing never goes away, and that’s older people calling out the youngins’ for their selfishness, laziness, music, hair…
I don’t think self-centered means selfish. It simply is that they are preoccupied with their own interests. I also don’t find millennials lazy at all. In fact I find them more forward leaning than any other group in my history. They have all the good ideas and they didn’t vote this time. Unfortunately, they don’t read mailers or perhaps they would have.
Amazing timing, in the wake of this comment rescue comes this article in the NYTimes:
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/08/us/politics/economic-plan-is-a-quandary-for-hillary-clintons-campaign.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&module=first-column-region®ion=top-news&WT.nav=top-news&_r=0
The article can be summed up as, “Hillary Clinton consults 200 policy experts for advice on how to offer false hope to the middle class while assuring her Wall Street backers that she’ll still be watching out for them.”
A couple things stand out here:
1. Notice how the Democrats have completely adopted Republican talking points, with Larry Summers criticizing the “politics of envy” and HRC talking about “inclusive capitalism.” (Remember “compassionate conservatism”?)
2. Bush III is doing the exact same thing as HRC, minus the 200 policy experts. According to the article, he’s also now harping about income inequality too. Of course, he’ll be pushing supply side economics and pro Wall Street policies, but he’s offering the same false hope on the same issue as HRC. (The fact that he’s doing this without appearing to be placing his finger in the wind to take note of popular opinion illustrates what I think is a big appeal of Republicans. Whatever else you might say about GWB and Dick Cheney, they never appeared to consult pollsters or to consult hundreds(!) of experts before making the big decisions, and people like that in a leader. Of course, because the Dems consult only other elites when attempting to take the pulse of American public opinion, they manage to pull off the incredible feat of appearing both out of touch and as spineless political shape shifters beholden to the whims and vagaries of opinion polls.)
It’s looking more and more like our choice for president in 2016 is going to be between a candidate whose co-presidency resulted in the evisceration of Glass-Steegle, the end of AFDC, and job-decimating free trade agreements; whose time in the Senate was marked by votes in favor of invading Iraq and consumer bankruptcy reform supported only by the credit card lenders; and who now collects $200,000 per speech from Wall Street banks…or Bush III.
We need a broad leftist movement in this country. I encourage all dems and liberals to support not just progressive dems but other leftist organizations such as the International Socialist Organization and the Green Party. Also supporting social causes that champion equality is also a step in the right direction. Donate time and money to these causes.
Damn that’s depressing. Seems that there’s always enough old angry white people who can be easily manipulated and coerced by tribal hate, racism, fear and misinformation to keep any reform candidate from being elected