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any opposition to raising the minimum wage immediately is rooted in supporting the ruling class. if ma and pa businesses can’t support the minimum wage, they too are extractive and oppressive in their operations. and while it’s easier for corporations to shift their awful distribution of monies because of their sheer size and initial capital, that doesn’t mean laborers should continue being paid piss wages for the sake of working for Grandma Sue instead of jeff bezos
 
I'm new to Smogon, how do you react to comments with "Haha" instead of "Like"? I need it for... reasons.

Don’t have much to gain under Biden...?

-Will Americans get to vote again in another election?
this is not a gain. this is what people already had, and there's nothing to indicate Trump would have taken this right away. You have imagined this threat.

-Will Americans have to live under an autocrat?
Another imagined threat. Trump was bad but calling him a dictator is disingenuous.

-Will Americans be able get a vaccine against covid?
No reason to believe a 2nd Trump term wouldn't have had the same vaccine rollout we're currently getting.

-Will Americans get more economic support due to covid?
As we have already established, Americans are getting less economic support than Trump gave.

-Will Americans get an administration that takes the advice of scientists?
Biden is sticking to his desire to reopen schools in 100 days, so apparently not.

-Will American make progress towards climate change?
Maybe? A few minor concessions from Biden but most of the policies to address climate change that America will accept do little to nothing to address the capitalist systems that are most contributing to climate change. Biden opposes the Green New Deal, the closest thing to meaningful climate change legislature that has been floated in American politics. I'm personally gonna call this a "no" but it's maybe the closest thing here to a "yes".

Will Biden get to appoint Federal judges, cabinet members, and a Supreme Court justice?
Oh boy I'm sure Biden's picks will be great lol

Not only is this maybe the lowest bar of expectations I've ever heard for a presidency, Biden won't even meet half of them.

Look, I get it: you needed to sell everyone and yourself on Biden after he was installed as the Dem nominee. Criticizing Biden was risky last year because Trump was probably worse than Biden and you wanted Trump out. But that time is over, and now Trump is no longer a threat.. for now.

Now we need to be real with the fact that Biden was ALSO a terrible candidate on his own merit and is already signalling that he won't change. He is entirely the wrong person for this particular moment in history, and he is offering no alternative vision of what this country can be to compete with that of the Qanon whackjobs and hedge fund managers who want Trump back in 24. If this is the best, bold and brightest vision Biden can offer, his presidency will be a one-term failure and Trump will win again next cycle.

Now is not the time for incremental change, because there has never been a time for incremental change. My thoughts on what you call the American process can be tidily summed up by Anton Chigurh:

 
it puzzles me that you consider this to be some kind of powerful argument. what do you expect me to say to this? 'oh gosh, i could never let someone think that i don't respect the American Process! i must look like such the fool!

i have 0 respect for the 'american process,' i kind of thought that went without saying for many of the leftists here. i get that you're a super fan who enjoys watching/analyzing that process slowly take place as people's lives fall to ruin. good for you i guess, but people with normal human being priorities are in a different galaxy from that.
That’s how the US government works. The republic Americans live under favors incrementalism. Nothing gets passed without a majority in the Congress and for more contentious actions, a 2/3 or 3/4 supermajority. Democrats have a majority in the Senate by technicality only. Passing anything will be difficult because the math is bad. That is just the reality whether progressives accept it or not.

If you want to argue that’s where representative democracy sucks that is an understandable position. However, we watched fascists try to stage a violent coup just two months ago. That’s what one alternative looks like.
 
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If you want to argue that’s where representative democracy sucks that is an understandable position. However, we watched fascists try to stage a violent coup just two months ago. That’s what one alternative looks like.
again, this is just totally disingenuous. A bunch of depressed loser dorks broke into the White House with no plan, no platform, nothing. Taking selfies of yourself doing minor property damage and smoking a joint in Pelosi's office is not a fascist coup. If this what Americans conceptualize as a fascist coup, they will be very confused if (when?) a future president has the backing of the military to actually enact undemocratic regime change. My suspicion is that media outlets and the political establishment pushed the narrative of this being some evil plot instead of just a temper tantrum so they could increase security and crack down on protestors of all kinds (read: left-wing).

Regardless, as Lily points out, let's say it is a fascist coup! Your alternative to fascism is.... sitting on your hands, doing next to nothing? You think that is a meaningful resistance to a rising tide of fascism? Conservatives take 5 steps forward, you take half a step back? What is the endgame here? What could possibly be achieved by this strategy?

hover over the like button and you'll have a popup with the other reaction options :)
Thank you!
 
Regardless, as Lily points out, let's say it is a fascist coup! Your alternative to fascism is.... sitting on your hands, doing next to nothing? You think that is a meaningful resistance to a rising tide of fascism? Conservatives take 5 steps forward, you take half a step back? What is the endgame here? What could possibly be achieved by this strategy?
That’s a strawman argument. I’ll reiterate my point; the average American voter wants to see the Biden administration get the country past covid (where a supermajority 60%+ of the electorate believes Trump failed miserably) and to get the schools and economy back fully open. Those are tangible improvements that will be seen as a success. There’s a good chance for an infrastructure package and a hike in the minimum wage (likely not the full $15) in the next two years as well.
 
I don't think it's a strawman to respond to a thing you said but whatever. I don't see why you brought up the "fascist coup" at all then if it wasn't a defense of the American process, in which case it's non sequitur.
 
Rent here is ~1,200 a month on the low end (for a shitty place that's falling apart with barely any space or in a super dangerous area)
Add utilities to that and it'll be a few hundred more.

8.56 is the min wage, which gives you 1,356 a month to deal with if you have a full time job.

Assuming utilities is ~150, you have a grand total of... 5$ to use in the month with the current min. wage.

Florida just approved a "dollar a year" increase to minimum wage starting at 10$ this September.
With an incremental increase to $10 a month, with all things equal, you'll get 1,600$ instead.
Now you have... 250$ to spend in a month.

And then in two years, it'll be $1,760 a month when it rises to $11 an hour. You'll have $420 to spend in a month.

So we're talking about the next 2.5 years here (in the middle of a pandemic). NONE of these are livable wages. Does anyone think that someone living in a situation like this favors incremental increases to an already disgustingly low minimum wage as opposed to a $15 min wage (still low) now?

And god forbid you have kids, debt, or any sort of medical accident or condition that requires long term medical plans. Good thing we have universal healthca- oh wait we don't. So we're screwed there too.

Gotta love the hypocrisy of the cruel incremental crumbs thrown at the working class domestically but the drastic very-not-incremental foreign policy of dropping bombs on a country we shouldn't be in in the first place.
 
https://www.dailyposter.com/p/how-to-stop-the-manchin-presidency

Pretty good essay on what we've been discussing here.
I saw this intra-party conflict play out in Jersey with our previous Democratic governor, who decided to wage war on his own Democratic legislature. The result was he got booted out in one term, followed by eight years of Chris Christie in an otherwise reliably blue state.

The frustration I understand but as far as political tactics it is stupid to vote down your own party’s legislation, especially when it is extremely popular. Covid relief has over 70% approval, and Manchin’s counter offer of $11 / hour polls roughly the same.

Our current Democratic governor is considerably to the left of his legislature, who has been slow to act on his campaign promises. In the end, most of it will get done. Government is slow and takes work. Progressives have to stop expecting big structural change in one electoral cycle. It just doesn’t happen.
 
We watched fascists try to stage a violent coup two months ago and in your universe that's evidence in favor of incrementalism. Hm, okay
neoliberal brainrotting propaganda has convinced people like raikou that anything that isn't meaningless platitudes and incrementalism will lead us directly to fascism.

You can see that he just quotes stuff Biden says without meaningfully looking at what Biden has actually done ("Biden listens to science" when Biden pushes to reopen schools and won't ban fracking) and doesn't take a meaningful look at why things like 1/6 happened. He's afraid of a fascist coup but his solution is to return to the exact same policies that we had under Obama for the 8 years leading up to Trump. Those policies were bad enough for people that they joined a crazy death cult and rather than thinking about cause and effect he just shrugs and moves on

This is one of the biggest problems with our country in general. People have been so brainwashed by media propaganda that they don't think critically about what our politicians are doing and how cause and effect happens, their first instinct is to just come to their defense and protect them because the people most brainwashed are people who live comfortable enough lives that they never have to deal with the outcome of actually having to live with the current minimum wage or healthcare system nor do they actually know anyone who does, so the concept of "people are suffering" is too abstract for them to understand.

It is really infuriating for Biden to just go back on nearly every half-decent promise he made and then to go see people just take his shit excuses at face value and complain about people wanting better when it's well within Biden's power to do so. Of course I fucking want more, our country spends trillions of dollars propping up the weapons industry but people are being forced to beg on their knees just to survive

Like, why the fuck are people like Nancy Pelosi saying we need a strong Republican Party? Do people like Hands and Raikou not agree that scum like Ted Cruz and Josh Hawley are also responsible for shit like 1/6? Don't you think it's fucking weird that they have this mindset when Republicans are going in front of the supreme court and saying politics are zero-sum and that's why they're trying to suppress voters? Like, these people are openly evil and the Speaker of the House and one of the most prominent Democrat politicians is going "yes, but I want to keep them around"

Like, really? Which ones? Because if the president is really a pathetic loser with no power, that would mean a majority of Republicans are responsible for Trump's antics (like, say, all the ones that sided with him during impeachment, which is a vast majority). I want to see the bidenbros in this thread defend this, why do we need a strong Republican party when the Republicans constantly undermine your politicians and threaten fascism and ending our democracy? Why is this preferable to having a Democrat party with a Socialist party to the left of it? I can think of very good reasons why someone like Pelosi and the rest of the big boy DNC members would want that, but why do YOU think it's a good idea?
 
It truly says something about the state of the thread when a post like this somehow gets five likes
This isn’t anything new, this forum has always trended in that direction. I mean during the election the smogon marxists were telling everyone that not voting was actually the best option because it would send a message or something i guess lol. Interestingly when Hillary lost, I don't recall the smogon left blaming the establishment then or similar talk to what's going itt now but instead lots of blaming of "racist white americans" for voting trump instead. interesting shift. pessimism really sells i guess?

Discourse online with strangers is mostly useless, although I'll admit it's fairly amusing following threads like this. I think the way the thread is now is probably better than any alternative such as when the maga users were really out in force. it's not like this thread is really representative of any kind of reality (i mean my own "progressive" california is barely a beacon of progress itself) and I think it's pretty harmless for people to be exposed to more minority viewpoints.

No disrespect to meant to anyone, I wish everyone the best of luck in creating genuine political change. I'd happily vote for a marxist if one wants to run where I live!
 
Interestingly when Hillary lost, I don't recall the smogon left blaming the establishment then or similar talk to what's going itt now
I can't speak for Smogon specifically since I wasn't active here during that time, but in general there were plenty of people saying this kind of stuff, including before Hillary lost.

interesting shift. pessimism really sells i guess?
Maybe you're just observing the process of people learning from the past?
 
I think it's cool how they made so many concessions to the right on the covid bill just to get 0 Republican votes. Almost exactly like the ACA. Who could have seen that coming?
They didn’t. It’s still $1.9 trillion with $1,400 checks.

neoliberal brainrotting propaganda has convinced people like raikou that anything that isn't meaningless platitudes and incrementalism will lead us directly to fascism.
Getting the country through covid is “propaganda?” Riiight.

You can see that he just quotes stuff Biden says without meaningfully looking at what Biden has actually done ("Biden listens to science" when Biden pushes to reopen schools and won't ban fracking) and doesn't take a meaningful look at why things like 1/6 happened. He's afraid of a fascist coup but his solution is to return to the exact same policies that we had under Obama for the 8 years leading up to Trump. Those policies were bad enough for people that they joined a crazy death cult and rather than thinking about cause and effect he just shrugs and moves on
He’s been in office all of six weeks, half of which Congress was consumed by Trump’s impeachment and you’re already calling the administration a bust.

This is one of the biggest problems with our country in general. People have been so brainwashed by media propaganda that they don't think critically about what our politicians are doing and how cause and effect happens, their first instinct is to just come to their defense and protect them because the people most brainwashed are people who live comfortable enough lives that they never have to deal with the outcome of actually having to live with the current minimum wage or healthcare system nor do they actually know anyone who does, so the concept of "people are suffering" is too abstract for them to understand.

It is really infuriating for Biden to just go back on nearly every half-decent promise he made and then to go see people just take his shit excuses at face value and complain about people wanting better when it's well within Biden's power to do so. Of course I fucking want more, our country spends trillions of dollars propping up the weapons industry but people are being forced to beg on their knees just to survive
No. The problem is a lot of so called “progressives don’t actually give a shit about tangible outcomes. They want to win intellectual arguments. They’ll probably call the Democrats assholes for raising the minimum wage to less than $15 / hour than find a way to heap praise on Trump.

Like, why the fuck are people like Nancy Pelosi saying we need a strong Republican Party? Do people like Hands and Raikou not agree that scum like Ted Cruz and Josh Hawley are also responsible for shit like 1/6? Don't you think it's fucking weird that they have this mindset when Republicans are going in front of the supreme court and saying politics are zero-sum and that's why they're trying to suppress voters? Like, these people are openly evil and the Speaker of the House and one of the most prominent Democrat politicians is going "yes, but I want to keep them around"

Like, really? Which ones? Because if the president is really a pathetic loser with no power, that would mean a majority of Republicans are responsible for Trump's antics (like, say, all the ones that sided with him during impeachment, which is a vast majority). I want to see the bidenbros in this thread defend this, why do we need a strong Republican party when the Republicans constantly undermine your politicians and threaten fascism and ending our democracy? Why is this preferable to having a Democrat party with a Socialist party to the left of it? I can think of very good reasons why someone like Pelosi and the rest of the big boy DNC members would want that, but why do YOU think it's a good idea?
One party rule is not good for Democracy. I agree that Democrats should have severe consequences for Cruz and Hawley and that this Republican Party shouldn’t even bother showing up to work. The difference is, I’m not willing to call Biden an enemy six weeks into his term for not getting the entire progressive wish list through Congress during a fucking global pandemic. That’s insanity.
 

MZ

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So I find the idea that we can't start doing incremental change until we've handled the current crisis an absolutely brilliant defense of the process of incrementalism that has absolutely nothing wrong with it. Just top notch stuff there.
That being said I'd just like to know what Biden is doing that's so incredibly important, beneficial, and time consuming that the office of the president can't think of pushing for a minimum wage increase right now. Like the crux of RaikuLover's argument seems to be that Biden is and must be laser focused on "getting us through Covid" but I genuinely don't know what Biden's done that would be all that different from any other administration. Vaccine rollout is probably better than it would be under Trump but otherwise doesn't seem like it has much to do with him. He's not, say, paying people to stay at home (not to mention he's pushing for less money than he explicitly promised in the stimulus checks but since Raikou claimed that $1400 is not a concession I'm assuming he does not see it that way). Eviction extension is nice but a single order and again probably doesn't go far enough, a mask mandate does what now? I've probably forgotten like one other single order too. Point is even if we take "can't do minimum wage until covid is done" at face value, what is he doing that's so time consuming?
No. The problem is a lot of so called “progressives don’t actually give a shit about tangible outcomes. They want to win intellectual arguments. They’ll probably call the Democrats assholes for raising the minimum wage to less than $15 / hour than find a way to heap praise on Trump.
As a side note, I'm also very confused by the bit where you go "they don't care about tangible outcomes" but then say "they'll be mad about the the tangible outcome of the minimum wage increase being insufficient and fairly useless". I see that you're also saying that progressives want to praise Trump so you may just be trolling/lying which is totally fair, but if you're not then could you explain how being mad at a bad outcome means you don't care about outcomes?
 
So I find the idea that we can't start doing incremental change until we've handled the current crisis an absolutely brilliant defense of the process of incrementalism that has absolutely nothing wrong with it. Just top notch stuff there.
That being said I'd just like to know what Biden is doing that's so incredibly important, beneficial, and time consuming that the office of the president can't think of pushing for a minimum wage increase right now. Like the crux of RaikuLover's argument seems to be that Biden is and must be laser focused on "getting us through Covid" but I genuinely don't know what Biden's done that would be all that different from any other administration. Vaccine rollout is probably better than it would be under Trump but otherwise doesn't seem like it has much to do with him. He's not, say, paying people to stay at home (not to mention he's pushing for less money than he explicitly promised in the stimulus checks but since Raikou claimed that $1400 is not a concession I'm assuming he does not see it that way). Eviction extension is nice but a single order and again probably doesn't go far enough, a mask mandate does what now? I've probably forgotten like one other single order too. Point is even if we take "can't do minimum wage until covid is done" at face value, what is he doing that's so time consuming?
This entire argument is disingenuous. You are implying that coordinating a national strategy (from scratch!) to vaccinate 300 million people in the first couple months of a Presidency amounts to nothing. That is in addition to the President’s other duties of filling his cabinet, being commander in chief, and re-evaluating our foreign policy. All things that went to shit and were all but burned to the ground by Trump on his way out just six weeks earlier.

As a side note, I'm also very confused by the bit where you go "they don't care about tangible outcomes" but then say "they'll be mad about the the tangible outcome of the minimum wage increase being insufficient and fairly useless". I see that you're also saying that progressives want to praise Trump so you may just be trolling/lying which is totally fair, but if you're not then could you explain how being mad at a bad outcome means you don't care about outcomes?
This is pretzel logic. Again, the so called “progressives” will bitch and complain about a minimum wage increase even if it’s less than the aspirational $15. To people on the ground, actually delivering the increase is more important than the intellectual debate over how much. One poster actually cited an article calling for progressives to vote down their own COVID bill until the $15 minimum wage is included. That that’s the type of action that is politically suicidal but it sure makes the purity test crowd feel better.

Yes, practically speaking Biden and the Democrats are correct not to use this moment to expend political capital on the $15 minimum wage. The overwhelming majority of Americans live in states with higher minimum wage than the Federal, and most blue states have already passed it. This issue is simply not as important as covid. This Congress will get to the minimum wage, but it is not a battle that needs to be fought in the next two weeks.
 
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MZ

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is a Site Content Manager Alumnusis a Top Team Rater Alumnusis a Social Media Contributor Alumnusis a Community Leader Alumnusis a Community Contributor Alumnusis a Top Tiering Contributor Alumnusis a Top Contributor Alumnusis a Top Smogon Media Contributor Alumnusis a Battle Simulator Moderator Alumnus
This entire argument is disingenuous. You are implying that coordinating a national strategy (from scratch!) to vaccinate 300 million people in the first couple months of a Presidency amounts to nothing. That is in addition to the President’s other duties of filling his cabinet, being commander in chief, and re-evaluating our foreign policy. All things that went to shit and were all but burned to the ground by Trump on his way out just six weeks earlier.
No you misunderstand. I mean in what way does getting this vaccination program rolled out take up all of Biden's resources and attention. Like he's assigned a coronavirus czar, he probably had some part to do in planning the rollout and negotiating buying vaccines, and then what? Like what does that still require that he has to be focusing all of his resources on? Your argument is that we should not expect more than just this for the time being but I do not understand why you cannot delegate multiple tasks at once here. You've just listed other things Biden can do and is doing right now, why is pushing for a minimum wage increase not also one of those things he can do? I don't understand the functional difference between that and, say, foreign policy re-evaluation.
This is pretzel logic. Again, the so called “progressives” will bitch and complain about a minimum wage increase even if it’s less than the aspirational $15. To people on the ground, actually delivering the increase is more important than the intellectual debate over how much. One poster actually cited an article calling for progressives to vote down their own COVID bill until the $15 minimum wage is included. That that’s the type of action that is politically suicidal but it sure makes the purity test crowd feel better.
If the minimum wage increase is not enough to make the difference to give people a livable wage then I don't understand how this isn't being concerned about the actual product being delivered. Like replace "progressives are only concerned with the intellectual debate" with "progressives are only concerned more people in poverty". That doesn't sound like a purity test to me. You're just framing it as sounding more trivial than it actually is. But even if progressives eventually cannot get the minimum wage increase passed, why not fight for better things now rather than immediately handicapping what you might get? Push for the $15, if you can't get it take the $11. I think we both conceptually agree there but you're saying that just pushing for the $15 is already complete suicide and virtue signaling or whatever buzzword and that's just kind of confusing. I still can't figure out where you get that from. Like, you might not get the votes because of Joe Manchin but you might be able to pressure him into voting for it or use the fact that he and other Republicans are voting against a popular measure in the future against them before taking the smaller $11 increase anyway. Hell, voting against the covid bill until you get the minimum wage is not something I've heard of before now but it doesn't sound like the dumbest thing in the world to like, actually fight for less people in poverty (although I admit that does seem like it gets much closer to sacrificing the safe $11 for a shot at the $15). e: to be more clear here it doesn't sound crazy that Dems should have to capitulate to more progressive members instead of Joe Manchin, there's more of them than him. We can try to get a better increase but also deliver the increase, yes? And if not, why?

I'm really just asking two questions here because I do not understand why we have to give up on getting people out of poverty so fast. $11 might be all we get in the end but it's important to remember that it's a huge compromise that doesn't go nearly far enough in helping people. It is not a living wage. I will absolutely take it if it's all we can get but you're taking that assumption as fact and that's where you're losing me.
 
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No you misunderstand. I mean in what way does getting this vaccination program rolled out take up all of Biden's resources and attention. Like he's assigned a coronavirus czar, he probably had some part to do in planning the rollout and negotiating buying vaccines, and then what? Like what does that still require that he has to be focusing all of his resources on? Your argument is that we should not expect more than just this for the time being but I do not understand why you cannot delegate multiple tasks at once here. You've just listed other things Biden can do and is doing right now, why is pushing for a minimum wage increase not also one of those things he can do? I don't understand the functional difference between that and, say, foreign policy re-evaluation.

If the minimum wage increase is not enough to make the difference to give people a livable wage then I don't understand how this isn't being concerned about the actual product being delivered. Like replace "progressives are only concerned with the intellectual debate" with "progressives are only concerned more people in poverty". That doesn't sound like a purity test to me. You're just framing it as sounding more trivial than it actually is. But even if progressives eventually cannot get the minimum wage increase passed, why not fight for better things now rather than immediately handicapping what you might get? Push for the $15, if you can't get it take the $11. I think we both conceptually agree there but you're saying that just pushing for the $15 is already complete suicide and virtue signaling or whatever buzzword and that's just kind of confusing. I still can't figure out where you get that from. Like, you might not get the votes because of Joe Manchin but you might be able to pressure him into voting for it or use the fact that he and other Republicans are voting against a popular measure in the future against them before taking the smaller $11 increase anyway. Hell, voting against the covid bill until you get the minimum wage is not something I've heard of before now but it doesn't sound like the dumbest thing in the world to like, actually fight for less people in poverty (although I admit that does seem like it gets much closer to sacrificing the safe $11 for a shot at the $15). e: to be more clear here it doesn't sound crazy that Dems should have to capitulate to more progressive members instead of Joe Manchin, there's more of them than him. We can try to get a better increase but also deliver the increase, yes? And if not, why?

I'm really just asking two questions here because I do not understand why we have to give up on getting people out of poverty so fast. $11 might be all we get in the end but it's important to remember that it's a huge compromise that doesn't go nearly far enough in helping people. It is not a living wage. I will absolutely take it if it's all we can get but you're taking that assumption as fact and that's where you're losing me.
I support $15 minimum wage, along with about 47-48 Democratic Senators. I believe Biden supports it as well. Problem is we don’t currently have the votes and it does not take precedence over dealing with COVID. The house as on fire but we are having intellectual debate on the best hose to use.

My point about the states also stands. Most Americans live under jurisdictions with higher minimum wage than the Federal. That’s not the ideal situation, but makes torpedoing an urgent covid rescue package for a Federal increase an insane proposition.

EDIT: Manchin isn’t the only “problem.” Eight Democratic Senators voted no on Sanders’ amendment to $15 minimum wage.
 
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Yeah, it says a lot that they think comparing Biden unfavorably to Trump is praising him lol, more than one thing can be bad!

There's just nothing to say to these people tbh, their brains were broken by Trump too much to view the Democratic Party as anything less but wise, noble heroes and not just the other side of the same coin as Republicans. They'll never accept criticism of Biden or any other Dem because "it could be worse!!!!" but of course, it could never be better.

At this point, "it's not the right time" is just an old Dem proverb. It's okay though, I'm sure economic collapse, environmental disaster, etc. will respect the process.
 
yeah i feel like when you're saying 'we need a republican party, just not this republican party,' you're kind of a lost cause at that point

the thing about this bullshit incrementalism stuff is that it's essentially a non-falsifiable position. no matter what happens, the outcome can and will be used to support incrementalism and/or the 'american system.'

if biden does very little and people are happy? obviously proof that incrementalism is the way to go!
if biden does very little and people are unhappy? there is backlash even with this small amount of progress. which means that if we made even more progress, there would be even more backlash! proof that incrementalism is the way to go.
if biden is somehow pressured to do lots of awesome stuff but it doesn't go perfectly/republicans are upset? proof that incrementalism is the way to go!
if biden does the awesome stuff and people are happy? wow, look at how great the democrats are! the american system works!
 
yeah i feel like when you're saying 'we need a republican party, just not this republican party,' you're kind of a lost cause at that point
Please explain why wanting a viable Conservative party makes for a “lost cause.”


if biden does very little and people are happy? obviously proof that incrementalism is the way to go!
if biden does very little and people are unhappy? there is backlash even with this small amount of progress. which means that if we made even more progress, there would be even more backlash! proof that incrementalism is the way to go.
if biden is somehow pressured to do lots of awesome stuff but it doesn't go perfectly/republicans are upset? proof that incrementalism is the way to go!
if biden does the awesome stuff and people are happy? wow, look at how great the democrats are! the american system works!
This is nothing but strawman arguments. It is not clear what you’re actually arguing against. “Progressives” want “big structural change” yet don’t have the votes for it. As for the Democrats, the progressive primary candidates lost to Biden. If that is what the people wanted, a “progressive” would have been the nominee.
 
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