It took me far too many braincells to realize that this headline means "being mean to scabs is effective" and not "being mean to scabs is, itself, doing work."
Not just them, their whole family. There are people in Wales and Scotland that were bullied at school because their dad’s crossed a picket line. It’s something that’ll almost literally define their lives in that area or country.
Fun fact: when someone says “benefits will be used on drugs!”, that person is not a Democrat; that person is a fascist who “others” people for his own selfish gain.
Liberals aren’t that different from conservatives. When someone on their team does something that doesn’t exactly align with all their beliefs, all of a sudden the bad guy isn’t on their team. Vote people, not parties.
Joe Manchin is literally a member of the Democratic Party, won the Democratic Primary for his seat with the majority of Democratic Party Primary voters voting for him.
So just a little tip: people on the left don’t blindly worship the politicians and party they vote for. So comments like this don’t really hit like you think they do.
There is no one type of “people on left” or “people on the right”. I’ve met many people on the left that blindly worship the DNC and their entire agenda. Plenty of them. Just listen to NPR if you want to hear the latest programming that they will be parroting.
I have never met a leftist or progressive that blindly worships the DNC. In fact, criticizing the party is almost a defining factor at this point. The Democrats are a centrist party, the people you have apparently met (uh huh sure) that are blindly worshiping the DNC are not “people on the left”. They are centrists.
I’d continue talking to you but your snide “uh huh sure” directly implies you don’t believe me and are not discussing in good faith so you suck it if you don’t trust my words. Why would I waste my time on Lemmy making up shit like that? I’m not some 16yo edgelord on 4chan. I’m almost 50 in west Los Angeles and know many people that are hard left on any political topics, do social work, help homeless people and immigrants, support any social programs you could think of. But they aren’t highly political and don’t make their identity about politics, so they are easily fooled by DNC propaganda.
I suggest you educate yourself. Look into David Brock. They have think tanks, political action committees, and lobbyists working full time to shape their messaging. They have direct representation at CNN, MSNBC, and NPR to amplify their talking points.
All major political parties are is propaganda machines. To claim they don’t have coordinated messaging is like saying that lions don’t hunt. It’s absurd in the extreme. “laughable”. Ooookkkk.
Look into Correct the Record, or Hamilton 68. Get your head out of your ass.
i’m left wing as they come mate I just recognize that 50 > 1. if we want to dunk of the democratic party there are better people to dunk on that are more representative of the liberal failings as a group.
a pretty dumb one at that if they don’t recognize that manchin isnt the problem with the democratic party. you want to dunk on the liberals fine, I’m right there with you I’m about as left wing as they come but manchin isn’t the person you hold up and say ‘THIS IS WHY LIBERALS ARE BAD’ schumer or someone that actually represents the group holistically.
the argument is that Manchin is the designated “vote no guy,” blocking legislation the corporate donors oppose while allowing the rest of the democrats to say “gee I’d like to help my constituents but I can’t.” People point out the apparent lack of serious pushback or pressure on Manchin from the rest of the democrats.
What exactly is the Democrat philosophy LOL. They have no consistency. They are just the opposite stance of the republicans on any particular issue (except for sucking off their corporate sponsors), so they will left or right wing on different subjects. For instance they used to be the party of free speech, which is absolutely a leftist stance, but since the right wing has latched onto it, now the Democrats are no longer in support.
I am not a Democrat apologist, but Manchin consistently acts like a conservative Republican so there fire not a Democrat and I dont give a fuck what party is next to his name.
And free soeech rights DO NOT extend to genocidal Nazis and white supremacist shitbags. Those fuckers broke the social contract and as a result they get no rights. This has nothing to do with Democrats. The right wing DO NOT believe in free speech; they only believe in amplified fascist speech. They have openly censored the speech if others.
If you disagree with any if this, that’s fine…but you would be a liar.
You sound like a reactionary and you haven’t been paying attention. The free speech issues have spread WELL beyond the small population of Nazis and white supremacists, but go on with your straw man… I’ve seen videos of right wing journalists of asian ethnicity being attacked due to being a “Nazi”. Everyone you don’t like is a crypto Nazi, which is why your attitude is the fascist one. Unless they claim to be a Nazi, doing salutes and wearing swastikas, then they aren’t a fucking nazi. That’s why Germany has very specific laws about this.
Yeah see you act just like a gestapo yourself. You are implying that Ngo is a Nazi and deserves to be silenced and have violence committed against him. But he is not a Nazi. You create these vague boundaries and bundle anyone as a Nazi if it suits your purpose, even if they only associated with someone who associated with someone else that is a Nazi. Virtually everyone is 2 degrees of separation from a Nazi, so you are probably a Nazi by these absurd notions.
Once again, free speech is a leftist stance, and people aren’t Nazis just because you don’t like them. You disingeously use this “Nazis don’t deserve free speech” because you know you will use it against everyone, Nazi or not.
That being said, Andy Ngo is a loser and an asshole spreading the wrong ideas. Not a Nazi though.
You are disingenuous trash. Gaslighting asshole. Just say any garbage that comes to mind whether it matches reality or not.
Typical bullshit strategy:
Throw out some misinformation or half truth, like "Hitler ate Jewish babies on toast"
Wait for someone to correct your bullshit, due to it being factually incorrect.
Scream like a 11 year old on a middle school courtyard about “look at the Nazi defender” with emojis and all
You are advocating censorship and violence without due process to those you disagree with. You just need to categorize someone is part of some group who is exempt from due process for some reason, and then flip out with sneering and ad hominem if anyone disagrees with your bullshit. Sounds like fascism to me.
I’m certain I’ve done more for left wing causes than your trolling ass. You are the worst, trolls that identify as left wing and give the rest of us a bad name. You aren’t interested in facts or peace. You only care about us vs them and waging war. You probably think facts and nuanced discussion is a right wing thing.
I would classify someone who provides lists of left wing protestors to neonazi terror organization Atomwaffen to be at the very least “fascist-adjacent” but that’s just me shrug-outta-hecks
I don’t think you are correct that he provided a list directly to atomwaffen. I’m open to being wrong, but could find any evidence of this.
He met with a group that associated with Atomwaffen. So he’s fascist-adjacent-adjacent. He is a hack journalist catering to a shitty audience for money, kind of like Tim Pool or Jimmy Dore or Joe Rogan. If this is the kind of person who deserves violence and censorship then you are only proving my point further.
Curious if you are an anarchist or believe in the rule of law. If the latter, what would be the legal boundary between people who deserve censorship and violence without due process?
The legal boundary would be the lying, slander, and vicious radical fascist antagonization (i.e. stochastic terrorism) that Ngo engages in. These people absolutely should be censored by any means necessary as their actions ARE NOT “protected speech”.
They ARE NOT.
The fucking shitheads you defend make violent threats to their political opponents all the time, even pushing people out of races (which is how MTG won). If you defend them then you too are an anti-American terrorist sympathizer.
They are TERRORISTS. They are not “voicing a different opinion”. They are TERRORISTS.
So much to unpack here. Not sure what country you are from, but in the US slander is already illegal, and orthogonal to fadcism.
And how is stochastic terrorism equivalent to radical fascist antagonism. And how would you prove stochastic terrorism? Just decide in your own and then lynch without trial? I have no idea how that would even be enforced in a legal framework. You gotta give me something here. I’m not just gonna go with twitter justice, sorry.
You also moved the goalposts. The original premise was that Nazis don’t deserve free speech or protection from violence. Now we are switching to state department propaganda, with “the terrorists, oh my!”.
I’m not defending anyone, so fuck off with that bullshit now. I am simply trying to establish the facts. I only brought up one person, not a multitude. I’m not aware of any violent threats that he made.
Fuck you types that value fighting “your enemy” over facts and understanding. I won’t be bucketed as a sympathizer or right wing just because I challenge factually inaccurate information about a shithead. It’s such a lazy disingenuous fucked up asshole thing to do, to label someone as the outgroup for disagreeing with you. Fuck you, trash.
But you hella moved the goalposts. You all are really proving my point that you just have vague arbitrary moving lines you draw around people you don’t like so you can act like shitheads yourselves and feel good about it.
Let’s go full circle again for you people with the memory of goldfish.
I’m actually fine with that, and as I said at the beginning of the thread, if they actually take the name, wear the symbols, and walk the walk.
But crypto-fascists such as yourself take advantage of this one exception that is hard to disagree with and decide to label every fucking person that disagrees with you as a Nazi. Not much different from what the Nazis did themselves. Create this fearful vague enemy that they had to break rules for to protect your safety.
Sorry, but Andy Ngo is not a Nazi, and fuck you for the gaslighting
What do you think he is, then? Also, I cant help but notice that we had a huge rise in radicalized fascists as center and left people kept insisted g that radicalized fascists should have all the free speech rights while demanding none of their own. Weird that nobody is asking Fox or OANN to allow free speech to socialists, liberals, leftists, or even centrist Democrats. Meanwhile, they passed a law allowing them to buy up all the airwaves and spew nonstop fascist ideology and Heritage Foundation radicalism.
It reminds me of the joke about Edison creating a light bulb and then wondering where all these fucking moths came from…
He’s a hack journalist catering to a right-wingers to make money.
You are blind to the fact that both the “left” and “right” wing in the US are mostly artificial constructs by the corporate ruling class created to corral people like you into their pens.
The kind of shit you spew isn’t fundamentally different from the shit some right wing hillbilly spews about socialism and pedo cults. It’s all one big straw man to divide everyone into two manageable groups that have no overlap and see the other side as pure evil. You are a diddling kids under your Stalin poster according to billy bob deep in the appalachians. It’s just as accurate a depiction as everyone on the other side being a fascist nazi.
Oh no, I’m not blind to that fact but I do recognize when one is considerably more sinister and violent than the other, and that this sinister violence is highly similar to the same similar violence we have seen in past history.
I am not going to spend effort trying to relitigate the reasons to hate a right wing grifter who collaborates with fascists. Personally, if I wanted to avoid violence, I wouldnt associate with groups that associate with Atomwaffen, but that’s just common sense shrug-outta-hecks
If you knew anything about his politics and methodology you would know that he is in fact most definitely a fascist at least, and very possibly a Nazi. Also, thanks for proving my point
“probably”. Ok I guess that’s good enough for violence and censorship. The point of this discussion wasn’t to determine whether he was a Nazi. You got lost. The point was that your mob justice is stupid and deadly. You can just label anyone you want then go ham open season on. them. You aren’t even sure yourself whether he’s a nazi for fuck sake.
You are sure. I guess caps lock proves it. Lol. Half of journalists are stochastic terrorists, whatever the fuck that means. Guess we should burn down fox news and CNN.
The abject hypocrisy. I tried to keep this civil but you fired the first shot with the sneering and shit talking. Amazing the lack of self awareness people like you have. You have the memory of a goldfish considering the number of childish insults you already dropped.
David Duke denies that he's an antisemite, racist, or bigot.
The individual doesn't need to identify and tell others that they are fascist to be objectively fascist. Or should we take the word of David Duke that his bigoted beliefs aren't bigoted because he doesn't recognize them to be bigoted beliefs?
I wonder how many people are going to tell me that he is quite literally a Democrat before this thread has died? I’ll bet every one of them thinks they’re the first to do so, and thinks they won the debate when they do.
What about John Cornyn, Kevin Cramer, Deb Fischer, Cindy Hyde-Smith, James Lankford, Jim Risch, Roger Wicker, and all the other Republicans?
Yes, Manchin voted with them instead of with the Democrats, but ultimately it was almost entirely Republicans who voted to end the child tax credit. I can’t see any reason why he deserves more blame than them.
We expect them to vote like assholes because they caucus with assholes. Manchin is allegedly supposed to be a Democrat and work with Democrats in Congress, but he seems to have more in common with Republicans. The only reason Democrats defend him at this point is because of their razor-thin majority in the Senate. If he switched parties or otherwise stopped caucusing with them, Republicans would take the majority and gain further control over our government. And that never ends well.
You should expect the senators from West Virginia to vote republican. West Virginia is definitely red at this point. You have a better chance of getting a Democrat to replace Susan Collins or maybe even Ted Cruz than having any other “Democrat” from West Virginia.
We get that. The complaint here is that while the far-right will fuck us over for their corporate masters, they’re generally honest about that. But Manchin’s sabotage comes from within the Democratic party. He helps the Democrats obtain technical majority in the Senate, then blocks their agenda so Republicans and trolls can say “see? Democrats are just as bad! They’re not interested in helping Americans either!”
And since the average voter isn’t following legislation and how Republicans have weaponized obstruction, they hear that and assume it must be true. All because Manchin and Sinema don’t have a problem with Republican obstruction.
You’re overthinking it. Manchin votes with Biden nearly 88% of the time. A full 20% more than the nearest Republican. The next lowest 90% is Bernie Sanders.
You’re overthinking it. Manchin votes with Biden nearly 88% of the time.
You’re ignoring that things usually only come to the floor for a vote when we think we have Manchin on board. This statistic is meaningless and you know it. Stop being dishonest on behalf of the guy who cast the deciding vote to double child poverty for you.
Call him out for ever bill he should support that he doesn’t. That’s not my point at all. My point is he’s not a Republican with a D next to his name. He’s measurably better than the best Republican. When he leaves the seat will go from 87% agreed to under 40% no matter what.
People have these naive ideas that they are going to replace him with a progressive.
We should stop propping him up and expend the resources to elect a better candidate in another state. You know, instead of constantly defending him his seat.
I’ve run into the rhetoric or Reddit for years to primary him. I think a few members of congress have said the same.
Yes, flip seats in other states that are flipp able. That’s the point. Trump won West Virginia by 39 points in 2020. The second highest marching of victory, and somehow we have a Senator who votes for Democrats/Biden 20% more than any other Republican from that state. Under that context why would you criticize him? You’re being handed unearned wins basically.
What in the hell are you talking about? Lemmy doesn’t exist in a vacuum. There’s ample criticism for Manchin here, and my point couldn’t be more simple.
The statistic isn’t meaningless at all. Is there someone that could win that seat that would have voted for this bill? No. Wtf is the point?
Is there someone that could win that seat that would have voted for this bill?
I’ve already addressed this point. Since you want to argue against someone who wants to primary Manchin, find someone who holds that view to argue against.
Don’t keep pretending I hold a view you’ve practiced arguing against just because you don’t know how to counter anything else.
I mean, the article’s about how Manchin once again voted to fuck over poor people, and his acolytes are yet again like “Don’t blame Manchin for doing what we wanted him to! Blame Republicans!”
He betrayed the poor and his party. He’s right to catch blame for being the deciding vote here. No matter how much his supporters want to draw attention away from how he did what they wanted him to do.
Nobody is saying he doesn’t deserve any blame. Are you people here incapable of grasping nuance? Manchin doesn’t have any fucking “acolytes”, just people who are able to understand basic math.
If we didn’t have 50 Republican senators, his one vote would not matter. They’re constantly getting a pass so people who claim to be on the left can focus on the ONE DEMOCRAT that voted with those 50 Republicans, while ignoring the fact that these votes are passing with 51 votes, not 1.
Supporting 5% of their legislation is better than his replacement supporting 0%. The solution is not to replace manchin but to reduce his importance by broadening the majority.
By a Republican who would be easily elected over any Democrat other than Manchin. Trump won WV In 2016 by a wider margin than any other state.
Only reason Manchin gets elected there is because he’s practically a Republican. He votes like shit but he’s still far better than the alternative. We need more progressive senators in winable states.
It’s overstated. He only votes against the Democrats 3% less than Bernie Sanders (87% to 90%). He votes with them 20% more than the nearest Republican.
Very possibly true, not all votes are weighted the same. I’d have to look further into it, but I know Bernie has done the same in the past where he wanted something better that had no traction. I can recall something healthcare related a few years back, but he may have still voted for it in the end. This also doesn’t take into consideration bills that never make it to vote.
Those stats are worthless when they don't count all the bills that died without getting a vote because he wouldn't support them. Put those in the voted against Biden collumn and suddenly the stats look way worse.
It already got packed. Do you not remember longer than a month ago? First a new Justice was blocked by the Republican House, who then went against their own grounds to install even more right-favoring justices. Then that group overturned Roe v. Wade, running against a “supermajority” of society’s view on reproductive rights.
So is it just convenient for you to pretend that didn’t happen when pointing fingers, or do you legitimately not understand what’s going on?
You mean Senator Mitch "whaddya do if another justice needed to be appointed to fill a vacancy in an election year with Trump in office? {giggle to himself} I'd fill it" McConnell somehow used the Democratic held House in '20 to fill RBG's seat with the help of Republican minority?
We are using two definitions of packing. In my view, and the common view when the term has been used, nominating and confirming replacements for open seats on the court is not called “packing”. Adding new seats because you don’t like the make up of the court is what people usually mean when they use the word.
Right, and you're just going to completely ignore that they made that opening remain open until their guy could nominate the judge they wanted because of a rule they made up that they completely trashed a few years later. Yeah okay.
Also who exactly is talking about adding seats? Citations needed.
Huh, not one single person with any power to do anything. Why exactly should I care, when the people who could do something have repeatedly and explicitly said they ain't gonna?
You asked who was talking about it. That looks like a big propaganda push to normalize the idea. And besides, that last link negates what you said anyway.
We are using two definitions of packing. In my view, and the common view when the term has been used, nominating and confirming replacements for open seats on the court is not called “packing”. Adding new seats because you don’t like the make up of the court is what people usually mean when they use the word.
Can we fucking defederate from hexbear already? I’m so tired of these tween shitheads having the worst informed hot takes and trolling. Generally, I don’t mind a good trolling, I can appreciate the humor of it, but these guys don’t have any. They’re just fucking Edge Lords for the sake of it. Be gone
Your feeble attempts to take a stab at the motivation behind my comment has failed you miserably sorry. My concern is the users are severely degrading the overall content quality every time they show up. It’s not that I care about their descending opinions, it’s the fact that their childish and don’t have good arguments and act like absolute cunts everywhere they go. I don’t give a fuck what anybody believes, but don’t be a fucking idiot about it.
I’m on board with defederating with them. They are basically a public nuisance at this point, filling any even remotely political post with a lot of noise in the form of memes and a toolbox of trite talking points. They downvote everyone else and upvote themselves and basically drown out any valid discussion that doesn’t toe their childish line.
Then they claim that it’s us liberals who can’t abide opposing viewpoints while simultaneously openly admitting that purging Lemmy of “right wing” opinions is the entire point of their trolling project.
I was originally inclined to be patient with them, but at this point nothing about hexbear seems like it’s done in good faith. It’s all just noise for its own sake.
I guess I will have to figure out how to block them.
In my humble opinion, blaming the continued dismantling of these welfare programs on Joe Manchin or another ghoul of the day™️ isn’t actually a ‘well informed take’ unless you think legislation is a sport Democrats keep mysteriously fumbling at
If Joe Biden can be given credit for the actions of legislators, surely he must also take the blame. Biden’s total inability to enforce any kind of party discipline is on him and the rest of the Democratic leadership.
Speaking as a non-american, the only way to avoid burgerlands nosedive into fascism would take so much more work and would definitely involve losing the senate. To me, you have to completely remake the Supreme Court and senate, and part of that is to always attack them and their legitimacy. Every democratic spokesperson should be bring up how corrupt and unaccountable these institutions are
Like, open up criminal cases against Clarence Thomas and Alito over their corruption. Same with manchin. Every one of these ghouls have done criminal acts. Even if you don’t win the court cases (and you won’t), you’ve dragged these peoples names into the mud and will help expose the flaws in both Congress and the courts. Get a majority of people mad enough that they shut down the country through strikes and demonstrations and you’ll suddenly find the remaining judges and congresspeople a lot more amenable.
Now, you’ll have thought up a ton of reasons why this won’t work. So have I, and the major reason to me is that most of the democrats are the same kind of garbage as the republicans, along with Americans being incredibly docile except when they’re murdering each other plus a million other reasons. So fuck both parties, vote or don’t, I don’t really care, but don’t expect me to be impressed by joe Biden
Withdraw any party support from them, kick them from the party, and fund their opposition. The Democratic party can absolutely do this when they need to try and stamp out anyone to the left of the blue dogs.
West Virginia is extremely conservative and risking a seat can be quite dangerous when you are trying to govern against literal fascists
Before Shelley Morito got elected in 2015, the last time West Virginia had a republican senator was during the eisenhower administration. And if Manchin votes as a republican anyway why does it matter? Like he’s straight up come out and said he won’t vote for a Joe Biden pick for the supreme court.
West Virginia has gotten more and more conservative over time. It used to be more of a blue state. In 2020, Trump got double the votes that Biden did. Manchin is going to struggle to hold the seat if he runs again, let alone some left wing upstart without name recognition who is poorly matched to the state’s politics.
Again, if Joe Manchin is functionally a republican why does it matter if he loses? And Joe Manchin is unpopular in his own state, he’s not a person who is uniquely equipped to hold the state. Like you’re just gaslighting yourself into supporting a Republican.
Joe Manchin is conservative for a Democrat, but he is no Republican. Any replacement will be a right wing Republican that the Democratic Party has no influence over. Manchin highlights his independence from either party. A replacement would highlight their mindless opposition to any proposal by the left or Democrats.
West Virginia has gotten more and more conservative over time. It used to be more of a blue state.
WV was a blue state because unions. When Dems started attacking the largest union industries in the state, and started emphasizing identity politics over labor that was pretty much it.
yes. the democrats are so good at protecting marginalized peoples. that is clearly where their effort goes. just ask anyone trans who lives in joe biden’s america how much fun they’re having~
Never said they were successful at that. What I’m getting at is that there’s a shift in Dem rhetoric that happened about 20 years ago where the emphasis stopped being on labor, and started being on identity groups. This is very convenient for their corporate sponsorship, as silly things like worker’s rights and labor unions are not things said sponsors want to support, for obvious reasons. By comparison, something like which bathroom trans people shit in is a perfectly fine topic from the perspective of the corporate masterminds, because it doesn’t impact their cash flow.
This is the same reason why the Dems are comically bad at getting anything done - half their policies are pro-worker ones kept eternally on the back burner only to be brought out in a pre-compromised form and then compromised further on when the calls from the base get too loud, and the rest are ones where they try to keep various minority groups on the edge of existential terror by suggesting that if you don’t vote for them then you’ll be one step closer to being marched off to the death camps.
Why are Democrats giving money to “Democrats” who won’t support their agenda? Why did the DNC support Manchin and Sinema financially, but actually give money to Republicans over Progressive Democrats? You can’t be against Fascists, but still financially support them over Social Democrats…An unemotional look at the DNC’s behaviour shows that even if you got 70 Senators, the things we want would not get done. The Democrats are closer to the Republicans than any Socialist/ Communist/Anarchist in here…
you bring them into your office and say hey, you vote the way I want to or I’m going to destroy your fuckin life. direct the IRS to find any discrepancy in their taxes, direct the DOJ to find any thing they’ve ever done wrong in their life, have the NSA leak their texts, charge them with one of those bullshit charges like wire fraud. these people are absolute cowards, they don’t care about anything other than protecting their wealth - make that slightly inconvenient for them and they’ll buckle. or honestly just have the CIA kill them, who cares? the CIA is off killing civil rights leaders and foreign politicians anyway, may as well kill some of our own that are holding good things up.
lol, I bet you think killing Nazis is bad too and there’s some kind of rule that states you have to have reactionaries in your politics instead of just getting rid of them.
In freedom democracy burgerland, the average citizen has 0 influence on their elected officials decision making, and must resort to hoping they do something effectual. This is good and rational.
In authoritarian, freedom-hating China, a recall vote can be initiated against a politician at literally any time by their constituents if they feel the will of the people is not being enacted. This is horrible and bad.
Okay so address the point without latching onto the most extreme conceit they made. God forbid anything happen to a coal baron senator.
With all of the power of the executive branch, the democratic party apparatus, and the leadership of the body they are members of, you can excuse zero attempts to coerce their votes?
You live in a democracy? When is the last time you and everyone else in your workplace got together to make a decision democratically instead of that decision being made unilaterally?
What’s even worse is that the person we’re replying to is likely fully aware of how the US has been sending its military and intelligence forces all over the world for the last 70-80 years to violently crush any movement that ever so slightly opposes its hegemony, and yet they still believe that the US is somehow not “authoritarian”
At this point someone should probably dig up that research paper that shows that what the US public wants has no influence on what is actually carried out by the US state.
bud, you could literally rub their noses in the most solid evidence and they won’t accept it in the same way you can drag a mule to water but you can’t make the jackass drink
You live in the US which has the world’s largest prison population by both total numbers and percent of the population. Is this the non-authoritarian democracy you’re talking about here? We have so many people in a cycle of poverty, bad health, and prison because we all got together and decided that this is how we want to allocate resources? Billionaires, private prisons, private healthcare, unaffordable housing, and child poverty?
Democracy is when no political party dominates, and the more power doesn’t consolidate around a very justifiably popular party the more democratic it is.
If the democrats started doing good things the last time they had concrete control over all three branches and jumped to something like 80 percent popularity and got 80 percent of the vote, that would be undemocratic. Just like how the CPC has an above 90 percent approval rate according to international observers and holds almost all political offices in China.
During the cold war, the anticommunist ideological framework could transform any data about existing communist societies into hostile evidence. If the Soviets refused to negotiate a point, they were intransigent and belligerent; if they appeared willing to make concessions, this was but a skillful ploy to put us off our guard. By opposing arms limitations, they would have demonstrated their aggressive intent; but when in fact they supported most armament treaties, it was because they were mendacious and manipulative. If the churches in the USSR were empty, this demonstrated that religion was suppressed; but if the churches were full, this meant the people were rejecting the regime’s atheistic ideology. If the workers went on strike (as happened on infrequent occasions), this was evidence of their alienation from the collectivist system; if they didn’t go on strike, this was because they were intimidated and lacked freedom. A scarcity of consumer goods demonstrated the failure of the economic system; an improvement in consumer supplies meant only that the leaders were attempting to placate a restive population and so maintain a firmer hold over them. If communists in the United States played an important role struggling for the rights of workers, the poor, African-Americans, women, and others, this was only their guileful way of gathering support among disfranchised groups and gaining power for themselves. How one gained power by fighting for the rights of powerless groups was never explained. What we are dealing with is a nonfalsifiable orthodoxy, so assiduously marketed by the ruling interests that it affected people across the entire political spectrum. parenti
If they ban other parties, they’re a one-party state. If they don’t ban other parties, actually yes they do and it’s all a secret scheme to convince us they’re not a one-party state.
We had a president literally try to overturn an election in his favor and the Senate still failed to convict him. 43 Republicans had their lives put in danger by his actions but still voted him not guilty. If that’s not enough to remove a president from office then what makes you think this would?
Because they voted that way for tribal reasons. They refused to hold one of their own accountable. Democrats have before and will again. We don’t cover for someone’s crimes just because they belong to the right party.
We don’t cover for someone’s crimes just because they belong to the right party.
lmao remind me again the last time a president was tried for war crimes? Obama literally bombed hospitals and the Dems still haven’t done a damn thing about it.
Way to miss the point about Obama acknowledging the incident and no one finding any evidence that he deliberately ordered the hospital to be bombed. War crimes are deliberate. Better if we’re not bombing anyone at all, but his actions didn’t rise to the level of criminality which is why even Republicans didn’t try to get him on that. It’s not like they weren’t looking for an excuse to impeach him and put him on trial. They tried really hard with Benghazi, and still couldn’t manage it.
So if somebody kicks your door in and shoots you in the head then gives your family $50 that’s all good as long as the murderer didn’t have a handwritten note saying “I know this is an extra judicial killing and don’t care” in his jacket?
Actually political parties can and should enforce political discipline on their members, and there should be reprisals for going against the party and its leadership.
But the reality is, letting Manchin trash this legislation is probably more the plan than an opposition to it
If they can’t control him then they’ve already functionally lost a seat (unless of course, they actually like having him block legislation they don’t actually want to pass)
Parties exert control on their members in this country, they always have, and generally not through violence or torture. Usually its through taking away party support from them and their personal agenda. It could be attacking political pork to West Virginia, close military or other government facilities there, and support challengers/kick him out of the party so he can’t run on their ticket. It could possibly include more strong-arm tactics, not violence, not even anything necessarily illegal, that’s speculative but possible.
What you’re asking people to explain, is something that is the norm. You’re the one actually making an outrageous claim of how do we expect a political party to control and discipline its members. And pretending that the Democratic Party or the President just have no power in this situation is ludicrous
I don’t think elections hold a lot of promise of fixing anything. I think Manchin and Sinema are exactly where their party wants them. I don’t think that this legislation failing is something that the Biden Admin or the DNC are against.
I think they’re happy about it, and thats why there’s no discipline exerted on either of them. That’s what i meant by you making an extraordinary claim about party discipline. Theres no party discilple or reprisals because the party doesn’t care about this legislation. They like having these scapegoats. The Democratic Party leadership does not share your view, that these people shouldn’t be there. That’s why elections in this system will not fix it
Guy dude pal it was already pointed out to you that he was the cause/excuse for the bill being watered down AND that the bil did not need his vote. Like it wasn’t even close to needing his vote. It passed the senate with double digit votes.
You were also already given those examples of what the party could do.
You’re doing a little thing called lying, and it’s not very nice.
I think they're supposed to argue against their democratic/republican nominations in their states or something for future elections, but I honestly could be wrong because It's not something I often think about. Just that there has to be some sort of repercussion for consistently voting against your party....
I’m gonna put on my political scientist hat, and point out that almost every political party on this planet enforces internal discipline in a multitilude of ways, a handful of which have been mentioned in this discussion thread already.
The idea that parties are these big tents where you can’t possibly enforce any kind of internal discipline is both a uniquely America-brained take, and also not entirely true.
Like, there are literally people called “Party Whips” who’s job it is to pressure the party members vote along party lines.
He’d be using republican money for re-election instead of taking money from potential progressive politicians before getting elected and voting against the dems entire platform.
I guess it’s good that Biden didn’t really try to get leverage on manchin then. Its good that Biden saw all the damage manchin was doing and said “well I guess I gotta give up now”
People who really care will try everything even if it might not work. Biden didn’t try shit because he doesn’t care
So Democrats should turn into Republicans. Yup, that’ll really fix the problem! Clearly I was mistaken that the goal here was good governance instead of seizing and holding power.
Good governance is when you let your country fall apart because you’re too scared of getting your hands dirty to reign in rogue senators who are putting your country’s population at risk of starvation
Having different ideas of what constitutes being a good public servant and how to do the job doesn’t make them the enemy. Neither is following the rule of law. We can agree that more needs to be done and Biden’s not doing everything right, but not that he’s the bad guy because he’s not doing everything we want him to do.
The rule of law is a dumb concept and should be ignored. The laws we are talking about were written by monsters and no one with a soul should respect them
Republicans get things done and Democrats don’t. I don’t want dems to pick up Republican social ideals but I do want them to pick up Republican political strategies that actually produce results. Why do you want the party of the “good guys” to be so feckless? Isn’t it a HUGE problem when the “good guys” are weak and the bad guys are strong?
I don't think that would work because republicans are bankrolled by billionaires who gain by Republican governance. Good democratic governance wouldn't be making anyone bank so there is no reason billionaires would fund a massive propaganda network to achieve that goal.
you can tell how little attention Democratic Party apologists like this pay attention to the Democrats, because they never seem to see any of the absolutely dirty tricks they pull against popular progressives to enforce discipline, that are somehow never ever deployed against these sineating right-wing assholes like Sinema and Manchin.
like a proper fool who has no idea of what is going on and yet is dead convinced of his own…let’s call it “reasons”
In order to hit the rule of three you included “you still have your opinion even after I called someone else stupid” for your reasons why someone’s comment was stupid.
The Biden administration has overseen the sharpest rise in child poverty in America in decades. It’s the responsibility of the governing party to figure out how to get results, not how to take a feels-good position.
I am not a “liberal expert”, but am generally familiar.
The president can’t do anything they want, forever.
Biden used an executive order to enact a bunch of assistance programs during the end portion of covid. Included in that were things related to this topic.
Executive orders are temporary, and exist to allow the president to make fast adjustments to hopefully help people out or protect the country, on lots of topics. For example, if the president believes there is an imminent security risk, they can mobilize the military for a short time without Congressional approval.
If it seems like a topic that should be continued (like this one), Congress takes the issue up for a vote. Only Congress can make longer term budget decisions.
In this case Joe manchin campaigned on being aligned with this type of issue, and being aligned with Democrats on a variety of core positions. On several occasions in his career he has gone against this alignment at critically painful moments, and sided with republicans. Essentially not acting as he advertised. With Congress being closely split, his vote really matters.
So bidens temporary appropriations are now ending, and Congress didn’t continue them when it was expected they should be able to.
If Biden tried to just order it again, it would be struck down in courts due to this vote. This is an example of the balance of power between executive, representative, and judicial.
Biden is literally the most powerless person ever to exist while Trump was a dictator, even though both guys occupied the same political office. I am extremely intelligent.
How did separation of powers apply in 2008 when Obama was president, 60 democrats were in the senate, and the SCOTUS was “moderate”? Why didn’t the democrats pass universal health care and codify Roe during that time? Oh yeah, because they’re controlled by the same white supremacist bourgeoisie that controls the republicans. Now you’ve learned about the existence of class struggle—congratulations! And you’ve also learned that you’ve taken the side of the global 1% versus the global 99%, so pat yourself on the back!
You do realize using the word bourgeois instantly lets people know that you aren’t to be listened to, right? I’m going to call it a cat whistle because it’s the opposite of a dog whistle.
Usefulness is when you lick the boots of Nazis, I am extremely intelligent, when has this approach ever failed? Excuse me now while I steal every penny to my name from the global poor!
Tbh my comments seem to be showing up in the wrong areas and idk if it’s a lemmy issue or an app issue but it’s happened in a few spots today. I’ll delete the comment contents because at this point idk where it was supposed to be.
We can only do terrible things permanently. Good things are always temporary and we are powerless to change that. Children have to starve because otherwise politicians might have to actually do some work for a change. This is a very good and serious political system and we should just accept it as it is and ignore any alternative.
So it’s good that these programs were hugely successful and impactful to millions of people for very low relative cost (hint: it actually generates more than it costs) are just gone now for no fucking reason other than “it wasn’t a permanent measure”
We COULD have been doing this THE WHOLE TIME
We STILL COULD BE DOING IT
But no, fuck that, can’t help people now can we
Fucking liberals goddamn
You are disgusting, do a tiny bit of reflection got damn
Yeah blame the Democratic party because one shitty Democrat, and ignore the 50 Republican senators that are actually doing all this shit. Totally makes sense.
The Democrats enable this. They know exactly what they are doing, and have the same corporate sponsors as the Republicans. They spent literally billions of dollars to railroad Sanders’ agenda, but let Manchin and Sinema run amok. They do that because Manchin and Sinema are the levers by which they can either decide to make something policy or use as an excuse why they couldn’t adopt some policy, since somehow the two parties are always split 50/50 in some magical way that coincidentally benefits their corporate rulers.
The Democrats work with the Republicans to enact the corporatist agenda.
I’m learning real fast that “this is Lemmy” everyone hates liberals/democrats and fake hating Republicans, but never call them out directly. They just love to hate Democrats and hide behind “both sides” bullshit. They have at best a tepid understanding of how our government functions.
It’s actually more futile to argue with them than it was to argue with maga morons on reddit…
Another user mentioned that we’re being brigaded by Hexbear users. Which would explain all the poorly written, ignorant comments I’ve been seeing here.
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