1. #16606
    Ultimate Member babyblob's Avatar
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    I know a few people have mentioned AOC as a rising start for the Dems and maybe someone to put out on a national level. I admit I dont know much about her policies. But it does seem that she is not taken seriously even with in her own parry. If that is the case how can she be put on the national level with out support and a shift in how the party treats her?
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  2. #16607
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    Excellent article on why people shouldn't honeymoon over a Biden victory:

    No Honeymoon for Joe Biden

    Quoting some gems from it:

    If there was ever a case where the victory of the lesser evil over the greater evil merited busting out a bottle or two of champagne, this was it. But once you’ve sobered up, remember that being less evil than Trump is fully compatible with being an implacable enemy of the working class. The incoming Joe Biden administration doesn’t deserve an ounce of credit for having the right intentions or a day of progressives patiently waiting to see how it acts before pivoting to a posture of opposition.

    This might seem wildly overstated. A quick glance at the Biden/Harris campaign website shows that the president-elect wants to make community colleges tuition-free, create a public option to compete with private health insurance companies, and allow workers to unionize through a simple and easy card check process, which would boost labor’s membership and power.

    Socialists have good reasons to criticize the inadequacy of these proposals. I’ve argued in previous Jacobin articles that proposals like the one on Biden’s website to create a “Medicare-like” public option amount to proposals for a two-tiered health system that would lack most of the benefits of Medicare for All and would keep most of the downsides of the status quo. Similar points could be made about providing community college tuition-free but keeping the colleges where more affluent parents send their children expensive. But there’s no denying that the reforms on Biden’s website would improve the lives of millions of working-class people.

    The problem is that there’s no good reason to take any of those proposals seriously.
    Burgis then goes over Biden's record, which I think is obvious so I won't bother requoting it. This part however is relevant:

    It’s technically possible that Biden has undergone some sort of Road to Damascus–style conversion experience, and that he’s now dedicated to opposing the establishment interests he’s spent his life serving. That sort of thing does happen. Wendell Potter, for example, went from being a health insurance executive who lobbied against even incremental reforms to a passionate advocate of single-payer.

    One problem with this hypothesis is that he’s very recently acted like the same old Biden. If he did undergo some Potter-type transformation, had it happened yet in June 2019, when he notoriously promised a roomful of wealthy donors that he wouldn’t “demonize” the rich, no one’s “standard of living” would decline under his presidency, and “nothing would fundamentally change”? What about this March, when even in the midst of the initial chaos of the COVID-19 pandemic, he told an interviewer that if both houses of Congress passed Medicare for All while he was president, he would veto it? While not technically incompatible with the half measures he’s officially committed to on health care and higher education, these moments don’t exactly scream “changed man.”

    Only two weeks ago, various outlets reported that Biden’s transition team is vetting several Republicans for prominent cabinet positions, including Charlie Dent, a former congressman turned lobbyist, and John Kasich, the former governor of Ohio. When Dent rushed to register as a lobbyist after the legally mandated one-year “cooling off” period following his resignation from Congress, the clients he disclosed were pharmaceutical companies and private health insurance providers. As governor, Kasich was a notorious union-buster.

    Even if it’s an overstatement to say that “personnel is policy,” this isn’t the sort of team you’d be likely to assemble for an all-out push for reforms like card check and a public option.
    Lastly, Ben addresses the argument that Biden might have changed for opportunistic reasons:

    A more superficially realistic way of making the case that the proposals buried on the Biden/Harris should be taken seriously goes like this: "Sure, Biden isn’t a changed man. He’s a cynical opportunist, just like he’s been his whole career. But the winds have shifted. He was tough on crime back when that was popular, and he’s against mass incarceration now that that’s popular. He was all for getting tough on poor people trying to declare bankruptcy in 2005 when that kind of personal responsibility rhetoric played well, but now that the party’s moved left, he’s moved with it. Since he doesn’t have any principles of his own, he’ll go with the flow — and right now, that means he’ll govern as a progressive.” This is more or less what the Trump/Pence campaign has spent most of the year trying to scare conservative suburbanites into believing: that despite Biden’s long career as a business-friendly centrist, he was now little more than a front for Bernie and the Squad. Most leftists rolled their eyes when Trump said things like that, but maybe we shouldn’t have. Maybe Biden really will govern as at least Bernie Lite.

    There are at least three reasons not to buy this argument. The first is that when a politician spends decades acting one way and then he claims in an election year that he’ll suddenly start acting in a very different way, it’s rational to suspect that he’s not a pure chameleon — that he really does have policy preferences, and that they really were reflected over the course of his long career in public life.

    The second is that, while the rise of Bernie’s movement and the popularity of its policy proposals really is an exciting development, saying that “the party” has moved to the left severely overstates the case. Out of hundreds of Democrats in Congress, the members of the informal “democratic socialist caucus” can still be counted on one hand.

    The third and most significant is that we don’t have to speculate about what someone from the centrist wing of the Democratic Party making left-populist promises while running for president would do in office. We’ve seen this movie before. When what Biden likes to call “the Obama/Biden administration” came to power, Obama’s campaign platform included both card check and a public option.


    The story that was fed to the Democratic base was that Obama tried to get a public option until very late in the process of passing the Affordable Care Act, but it just wasn’t possible to get sixty votes for one in the Senate. The awkward fact that the ACA ended up being passed via a reconciliation process that only required fifty votes was always a problem for this narrative, but in any case, it was later revealed that the idea of including “a public plan” was taken off the table as early as the summer of 2009 in negotiations with the insurance companies and the hospital association.

    Card check was dropped much more quietly. After what could only very generously be described as a “push” from the Obama administration, it never even made it to a vote. The administration’s point man for that “push” was . . . Vice President Biden. Bad memories of that episode lingered last year when Biden was working to line up union endorsements for his run for president.

    We know how the movie ended last time. The Obama/Biden administration bombed weddings in Pakistan, pursued Edward Snowden around the world, and presided over a steady expansion of economic inequality at home. It coordinated with local officials to repress Occupy Wall Street, and it waged a quiet but effective war against teachers’ unions.

    Maybe the sequel will be different. I’d love to be proven wrong about all of this, and I’d spend the next four years fighting with liberals about issues like whether Biden’s newly enacted public option is good enough or we need to press on to Medicare for All. But we can’t operate on that assumption. We certainly can’t afford to hold off on attacking the incoming administration on the belief that Biden wants the things we want and he’s trying his best.
    Last edited by Kaitou D. Kid; 11-08-2020 at 04:46 PM.

  3. #16608
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    Quote Originally Posted by babyblob View Post
    I know a few people have mentioned AOC as a rising start for the Dems and maybe someone to put out on a national level. I admit I dont know much about her policies. But it does seem that she is not taken seriously even with in her own parry. If that is the case how can she be put on the national level with out support and a shift in how the party treats her?
    1) The Democrat Party does take AOC seriously, it's just that they don't want to admit it, or rather the Dem leadership at the House (not just Pelosi but others).

    2) AOC is a major fundraising star, able to raise funds and send that to candidates across the board. That means that her endorsement does have force. Her endorsement for Bernie Sanders in the Primaries after his heart attack made a big difference and Bernie became the contender until Super Tuesday. Likewise her endorsement of Ed Markey in the MA Senate Primary helped him carry ahead of the Kennedy kid (who had the endorsement of Nancy Pelosi herself). Remember no Kennedy ever lost in MA, and AOC helped make that happen.

    So AOC is not a major powerful figure in the Dem Party at large, but she is effective and influential, and the second most famous House Member (after Pelosi herself). So yeah, the Dems take her seriously but they also don't entirely trust her on a lot of issues.

    I agree she's not ready to be a national level politician i.e. major ticket candidate yet. And I agree with the feelings and issues other House Reps might have about how they don't get as much attention and so on...and the challenges of being a moderate Dem in a Red district, but hey if you aren't going to take advice, or are going to campaign badly...I don't think blaming the ones who are doing their job is the solution especially when the answers haven't come in yet.

    I don't agree that socialism is some dealbreaker. If America can elect a white supremacist, if "fine people on both sides" isn't a dealbreaker then there's no inherent reason for socialism to be so.

  4. #16609
    Ultimate Member Gray Lensman's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by babyblob View Post
    I know a few people have mentioned AOC as a rising start for the Dems and maybe someone to put out on a national level. I admit I dont know much about her policies. But it does seem that she is not taken seriously even with in her own parry. If that is the case how can she be put on the national level with out support and a shift in how the party treats her?
    AOC has to deal with some resentment from establishment types, since she pushed out the guy who was supposed to be Pelosi's #2 during the primary. Add in Pelosi's old school understanding of power (the Squad has 4 members, AOC is at most 4 votes) and seemingly inability to understand the younger woman's command of social media, and you have a generation gap in addition to other things.
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  5. #16610
    Invincible Jersey Ninja Tami's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by babyblob View Post
    I know a few people have mentioned AOC as a rising start for the Dems and maybe someone to put out on a national level. I admit I dont know much about her policies. But it does seem that she is not taken seriously even with in her own parry. If that is the case how can she be put on the national level with out support and a shift in how the party treats her?
    That's what happens when you go too far, too fast. She was a rising star before making it to Congress and that caused problems. I'm not a fly on the wall, so I don't know for sure what is going on, but, well, imagine you have been working for a company for years and then they hire someone new, someone younger, someone who everyone is talking about as being on a fast track to the next promotion or whatever.

    Imagine that you are working on a project with that person, and there is a conflict of ideas. Imagine how either of you would feel if those around and above you sided either way.

    I don't know what's going on, only somehow, I'm not totally surprised it's happening.
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    Quote Originally Posted by babyblob View Post
    I know a few people have mentioned AOC as a rising start for the Dems and maybe someone to put out on a national level. I admit I dont know much about her policies. But it does seem that she is not taken seriously even with in her own parry. If that is the case how can she be put on the national level with out support and a shift in how the party treats her?
    She's a 20-something Latina woman who used to be a bartender.

    So she gets hit with ageism, racism, sexism, and classism.

    I don't knock her for any of those. But those are the internal biases that people have that might make them want to not take her seriously. But they should, she's amazing.
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  7. #16612
    Mighty Member Mecegirl's Avatar
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    Meh. Just looks like growing pains to me. The old guard and the new guard have different styles, and they have yet to figure out how to mesh them. That's what happens when there is such a big tent. I just wish they did a better job of hiding their disagreements.

  8. #16613
    Ultimate Member babyblob's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by worstblogever View Post
    She's a 20-something Latina woman who used to be a bartender.
    She is 31.

    Thank you Jack, Tami, Lensman, Mecgirl And WBE for the answers. Like I said I dont know much about her. ut when I see her talked about on talk shows (Not just Fox News) it is most of the time in a negative way. IE being too young, not wanting to work with in the party/trouble maker, Being to progressive ETC... Now I havnt really seen any elected officials talk about her just the media. And I was thinking if the media was this rough on her then maybe those in her party were as well, like what is going on with the blaming her for some set backs right now. So i just thought it would be hard to elevate her to a national stage with these things happening.
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  9. #16614
    Ultimate Member Mister Mets's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Revolutionary_Jack View Post
    Well even better then. Though I expect that being so close to retirement will make him even more high on the mulep-ss that he claims to know a great deal about.



    That's because you are thinking in 2010 terms. In 2010, the Republicans were mobilized against the Democrat Trifecta, and even then they needed the Tea Party to do it. This time there's a Republican Senate led by the most nationally hated Sen. Maj. Leader in modern history on the ballot. Divided governments on Midterms don't always go well for the opposition
    (https://www.jstor.org/stable/449151?seq=1).

    Remember in 2020, Democrats did far better in Red States than vice versa. Dems were competitive in Texas and Florida scoring higher votes there than Trump did in 2016, whereas Trump can boast of no similar improvement in CA and NYS. Incompetence in Democrat House and Senate Campaigning, on State and National Level, is largely responsible for the lack of blowout, as were weak regional candidates. It wasn't approval of Republican politicians and ideas that carried the day by any means.

    So it's not a given that things will follow the script you have in your mind. Anything can happen.

    Your party came out of 2020 with a stay of execution, but it's still on death row, especially given that it has two one-term losers in its history in the last 30 years, and only one (narrow) popular vote victory, and not a single majority since 1988. Combined it represents a population that's a minority and shrinking. The Republican SCOTUS is this close to a Dred Scott moment from losing its legitimacy. So don't think it's going so well for you. That's an illusion and a mirage.
    I'm not thinking just in terms of 2010, but 1994 and 2014. There is a record of Republicans having good midterms with Democratic Presidents.

    It's not a given that things will follow the script, but I would say the odds favor Republicans. I'll also note my statements are less extreme than your claim that a party that likely kept the Senate is on death row.

    It isn't clear that Democrats will be able to get a better message for congressional campaigns in 2022.

    The New York and California numbers aren't that relevant. It doesn't matter if a senator wins by five percent or thirty-five percent; it's still going to be one Senator. Likewise, it doesn't matter if a Democrats wins California's electoral votes by ten percent or 40 percent; it's the same number of electoral votes.

    Gerrymandering thanks to reforms passed in the interims won't help them well in Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Minnesota in 2024. Ratf--king 2.0 which obviously will go underway next year will help them but not yield the total bonanza they want. So different conditions are underway.

    Again it's not at all a given conditions in 2022 will be the same as 2010 or 2014.

    Only a fool would want to be in the position of the Republican Party in 2020 rather than the position of the Democrat Party of 2020.
    I've argued before that the effects of gerrymandering are greatly exaggerated.

    This is especially true in statewide races. There is no reform that's going to change the state boundaries.

    Looking at it dispassionately, the Republicans do have some advantages.
    - A terrible President lost by three percent. It stands to reason the party can run a better candidate who will have a stronger performance.
    - The party doesn't quite have a lock on the Senate, but it's close enough.
    - Voters generally think Republicans are better on the economy.
    - Joe Biden is unlikely to run for reelection, meaning the next presidential election is likely to be an open one, which mitigates the advantages of incumbency.
    - Kamala Harris is the overwhelming favorite to be the Democratic nominee in 2024. Her general election strength is unknown.
    - Democrats are unlikely to make major gains in redistricting, but it also means some house incumbents will be running in altered districts.

    It was a gamble that didn't work but we can only say that in hindsight. At the time it probably did seem the right thing to do. And it does seem it could have worked had the party not messed up the downballot campaigns so badly. Either way, I think Pelosi has a lot of meetings with donors, party leaders and others which she has to smarm and talk out of. I think blame would have to be placed on her, not for gambling, but for not doing enough to make that gamble pay off.
    What could Pelosi have done that would have helped Sara Gideon in Maine, or Cal Cunningham in North Carolina?
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    Quote Originally Posted by worstblogever View Post
    She's a 20-something Latina woman who used to be a bartender.

    So she gets hit with ageism, racism, sexism, and classism.

    I don't knock her for any of those. But those are the internal biases that people have that might make them want to not take her seriously. But they should, she's amazing.
    She's a Freshman. Older, more experienced Congress people expect to be respected to a degree. There have been enough Freshmen Congress people before her that had one or morev of those qualities and yet survived and did well.

    Unless others in Congress come forward to say that there is rampant 'isms among Democratic Congress Members I'm not ready to jump to any conclusions.
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    Quote Originally Posted by Kaitou D. Kid View Post
    Excellent article on why people shouldn't honeymoon over a Biden victory:
    You can do both.

    I like reading the World Socialist Website (which is basically so leftist that it's against anyone even slightest bit left to it, treating Jacobin the same way it treats the Democrat party). They point out that Jacobin has published articles attacking the Lockdown, and also saying that the Gretchen Whitmer plot was some exaggeration.

    https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/202.../jaco-o22.html

    The Jacobin ought to be treated carefully. Not that I am saying that what it does is wrong or invalid of course.

    I think the stuff in the Jacobin article that isn't talked about is Biden challenging Reagan on apartheid, and other progressive stuff he did. His work overseeing Obama's stimulus which helped out of the Great Recession and directed funds to Green Energy. The bad stuff ought to be balanced with the good. As for criticisms about the ACA and so on...that's valid but it can't be denied that the ACA we got still helped a great many people in America and black and brown communities in particular. Maybe Obama was too timid and comfortable with neoliberal oligarchs and so on, but a lot of right wing seem to hate it.

    Here's something y'all need to understand. Obama was so hated that the right-wing turned to a supervillain like Donald Trump, but no supervillain will come for Bernie Sanders, or for that matter AOC. At least not yet.

    Lastly, Ben addresses the argument that Biden might have changed for opportunistic reasons:
    Robert Caro said of Lyndon B. Johnson, "There's an old saying: 'All power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.' The more I've learned, the less I believe it. Power doesn't always corrupt. What power always does is reveal. When a guy gets into a position where he doesn't have to worry anymore, then you see what he wanted to do all along."

    Ultimately we will know what Biden is and what kind of person he is in the next four years, just as we learned who Obama was in his 8 years. Obama was the one behind drone bombings but also killed Bin Laden, Obama was the one who ran anti-immigration policies, but he also did the Cuban Thaw and passed the Iran Nuclear Deal. Obama refused to send ground troops in Syria and drag America into another Iraq when shove came to push.
    Last edited by Revolutionary_Jack; 11-08-2020 at 05:01 PM.

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    Nobody in their right minds think Biden is some grand savior of the Left, just that he'll be a competent leader that'll do something about the raging pandemic Trump has largely ignored. That said the public option dying can be layed right at the feet of Leiberman.

  13. #16618
    Ultimate Member babyblob's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by wjowski View Post
    Nobody in their right minds think Biden is some grand savior of the Left, just that he'll be a competent leader that'll do something about the raging pandemic Trump has largely ignored.
    I think what he can do will be limited. He will listen to advisors and do a better job of backing the science. But there will still be a good deal of spread. Its not like the Anti maskers are going to all the sudden wear a mask because of him. in fact they will be more against it then ever because of him. And lasts nights massive parties and crowds in the cities will lead to a good amount of spread I think even though most of the people were wearing masks.

    This virus will be around for a very long time. A lot of people (Not saying you) Are acting like Covid goes away a week after Biden takes office.
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    Quote Originally Posted by Tami View Post
    That's what happens when you go too far, too fast.
    You say that as if AOC has cratered or failed when she just got re-elected as a sophomore and her endorsements had general success.

    She was a rising star
    What's with the past tense? She is still in Congress.

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    Ultimate Member Mister Mets's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Revolutionary_Jack View Post
    Show me the proof that Greene was treated badly by Fox News and Donald Trump.

    AOC is treated so badly by the Democratic establishment that just 2 days into Election Week when the full data wasn't out yet, people are blaming her and her platform for Dem underperformance. This after she and Reps aligned to her and her platform, even in swing districts, all won re-election.

    She's speaking on it at CNN.

    https://www.cnn.com/videos/politics/...u-aoc-full.cnn

    It's a good thing she's got ahead of it now, because that has a chance of tearing this narrative down before it becomes dogma.
    Nancy Pelosi was on the cover of Rolling Stone with AOC and Ilhan Omar.

    The Fox News equivalent would be some sit-down interview with either Kevin McCarthy or Steve Scalise, and Majorie Greene.

    It's one thing to say that Fox should go after Greene more, but I'm unaware of any indication that they're promoting her as much as the media has promoted AOC.

    As for the comment about how reps aligned to her platform in swing districts won, I am curious about which districts she's referring to.



    Quote Originally Posted by worstblogever View Post
    That might be because the media tend to be able to pain politicians who tell the truth more family than ones that tout anti-Semitic conspiracy theories and truck in rhetoric that invites stochastic terror attacks.


    BUT WAH, MEDIA BIAS!

    Still sensing an 11 letter word that starts and ends with "g" with this sorts of talk.
    To be clear, I think the media's promotion of the likes of AOC is not helpful to Democrats.

    I certainly don't think they should be promoting the likes of Greene either.

    Quote Originally Posted by Revolutionary_Jack View Post
    1) The Democrat Party does take AOC seriously, it's just that they don't want to admit it, or rather the Dem leadership at the House (not just Pelosi but others).

    2) AOC is a major fundraising star, able to raise funds and send that to candidates across the board. That means that her endorsement does have force. Her endorsement for Bernie Sanders in the Primaries after his heart attack made a big difference and Bernie became the contender until Super Tuesday. Likewise her endorsement of Ed Markey in the MA Senate Primary helped him carry ahead of the Kennedy kid (who had the endorsement of Nancy Pelosi herself). Remember no Kennedy ever lost in MA, and AOC helped make that happen.

    So AOC is not a major powerful figure in the Dem Party at large, but she is effective and influential, and the second most famous House Member (after Pelosi herself). So yeah, the Dems take her seriously but they also don't entirely trust her on a lot of issues.

    I agree she's not ready to be a national level politician i.e. major ticket candidate yet. And I agree with the feelings and issues other House Reps might have about how they don't get as much attention and so on...and the challenges of being a moderate Dem in a Red district, but hey if you aren't going to take advice, or are going to campaign badly...I don't think blaming the ones who are doing their job is the solution especially when the answers haven't come in yet.

    I don't agree that socialism is some dealbreaker. If America can elect a white supremacist, if "fine people on both sides" isn't a dealbreaker then there's no inherent reason for socialism to be so.
    If you were right, it doesn't stand to reason that a country that can elect a white nationalist can also elect a socialist. This could be an indication that the far-right can outperform the far left.

    Quote Originally Posted by Revolutionary_Jack View Post
    You say that as if AOC has cratered or failed when she just got re-elected as a sophomore and her endorsements had general success.



    What's with the past tense? She is still in Congress.
    Which of her endorsements won a competitive general election?
    Sincerely,
    Thomas Mets

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