fandomsecrets | [ SECRET POST #5649 ]

⌈ Secret Post #5649 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.

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[Ted Lasso]

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05. [SPOILERS for Jurassic World Dominion]

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06. [SPOILERS for Jurassic World Dominion]

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07. [WARNING for discussion of marital infidelity]

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08. [WARNING for discussion of incest]

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09. [WARNING for discussion of child abuse, sexualization of children]

Notes:

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Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

I get the frustration, because it sure seems like Democrats are worse than Republicans at wielding power when they have it, but also the Republican congresscritters under McConnell only had two goals. Block all Democratic legislation, policies, and nominations that might actually help someone who wasn't obscenely rich, and appoint as many conservative wingnut judges as humanly possible.

Actually helping their poor and middle class constituents by passing laws that cost money and/or giving them things that cost money, or just giving them money, isn't something Republicans do.

So when they aren't in power, they block Democrats from accomplishing much of anything. When they are in power, they shovel money to people who already have solid gold diamond inlaid money shovels, appoint judges, strike down existing laws, and make new laws that don't improve their voters' lives but do make the people their voters hate miserable.

And to actually pass legislation through the Senate, they need Manchin and Sinema to stop being Republicans wearing blue shirts, or enough new Dem senators to make their bullshit irrelevant.

Actually helping people is hard and frequently expensive. Feeding and perpetuating their hate is easy and often cheap.

But I do think Democratic lawmakers in safe districts should be funneling money and influence towards their vulnerable Dem colleagues as well as Dem Senate and House candidates at least as much as they fill their own war chests.

+1000

NAYRT

Much of what you say is true, there are a ton of challenges facing Democrats trying to get anything done. But i don't think that's the whole problem - it's also that Democratic institutionalists don't really seem to want to fight. They say they do but there's no fire in most of them. They don't seem to view all of this stuff as an existential crisis and they don't seem to have a strategy for responding to all the roadblocks and challenges. Their only response to anything is to tell us to vote and donate more and it's an immensely frustrating thing. It feels like the Democratic Party is failing as an institution.

That’s because the strategy that doesn’t involve illegal seizures of power and installing a dictatorship involves voting enough Republicans out of office to allow meaningful legislation to be passed and to hold the Court accountable. Passion looks good on twitter, but voting gets shit done.

I'm not arguing against voting. What I want is a sense of drive and an understanding of the stakes of the situation. I want to know what meaningful legislation Democrats are going to pass to deal with these issues. I want to understand how they're going to sell that legislation in a coherent way to the American people. I want to understand what their plan is for winning enough seats in the House and Senate to pass that legislation. I want Democrats grappling with the fact that their current electoral and political strategy is not an unalloyed success and that it may need to be changed and improved. I want to see the Democrats fighting as hard as they can for every House seat, every Senate seat, every state legislature, every governorship. I want them to understand that it is their job to win our votes and I want them to have a strategy for it and carry that strategy out. I don't want to see Democrats getting lost in endless internal power struggles and internecine Beltway intrigues, and then telling us it's our fault when they lose, and not taking any responsibility for it and just blaming us for not voting more.

What, you need to be inspired to vote? You need to be courted? Like this is a country club membership being sold to you?

This is your life. Your civil rights and liberties. If Democrats suck, then think of voting as less about supporting your team and more about fighting your enemy. That's how the Republican voters do it. Their leaders are consistently shown to be dishonest, hypocritical, and actively working to harm their own base, but they vote anyway to fight the black transgender atheist agenda that they believe to be coming for them.

AYRT

That isn't what I said at all. You're responding to stuff I never said. These things aren't conditions for me to vote. I'll vote no matter what.

However - I don't think that simply telling people to vote is enough. I think we need more from the Democratic Party. I think these are the standards that they need to meet to be an effective political party in the current crisis.

And while I agree with you that people should vote for Democrats no matter what - I think it's practically a lot easier to convince people to vote for your party if your party is effective and knows what they're doing. Maybe people shouldn't need to be convinced to vote but many people do. And that is literally the Democratic Party's job - to convince people to vote for them and then deliver once in office. Right now it doesn't seem like they're up to it.

NAYRT--There isn't a magic strategy that will work to fix this, though?

Like, they have plans. None of them work without enough legislators working together, and I don't think they'll go in for murdering Republican legislators with Dem governors or something.

I vote in my local elections on up for the furthest left candidates who can actually articulate that they have a plan and what it is. Passion is awesome, but "I support the environment, PoC, legalized drugs, UBI, immigrants, and taxing the rich at 90%" is a statement of support, not a plan.

But then, I live in coastal California, so I am often picking between two leftist candidates, and almost every local office has a Democratic candidate of some description running.

In places where the only candidates are Mitch McConnell clones (evil, willing to break the rules to get his way) and Marjorie Taylor Greene clones (evil, thinks rules are an invention of Demoncratic baby eating lizard people) I can see how voting feels hopeless.

The dramatic, shut the government down via refusing to vote on or pass any legislation, debt ceiling default, no budget agreement so the federal government shuts down shit that the GOP does? Won't work for Democrats because at least some of them actually want to help people.

And if Democrats copied McConnell's strategy? The GOP would be fine with it, because their goal is to a) break the government beyond repair and b) enrich themselves and their rich donors c) make life suck for everyone who's not a rich cis straight white able-bodied evangelical Christian man. The Dems copying their "shut down the government, it's useless anyway" strategy gives them exactly what they want and nothing that Democrats do.

I wish nation wide ad campaigns that listed concrete stuff the Democrats have tried to give people (help with the cost of baby formula and gas, protection from price-gouging, cheap insulin, free pre-K school/daycare, guaranteed paid sick and maternity leave etc) and stuff they've actually given people that Republicans have already or want to take away (cheaper healthcare, cleaner air, cleaner water, subsidized internet, universal free school lunches, increased child tax credit etc) were a thing.

Maybe it's illegal to run ads that aren't about a specific candidate? Because I've never seen an ad that lays out "we want to give you things that make your life better, and Republicans keep stopping up, and the Republicans want to take away the good things the government currently does for you so they can take your taxes and give you nothing."

[ SECRET POST #5649 ]

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NAYRT

Re: NAYRT

Re: Roe v. Wade thread.