3 ms·

>>The Democrats are basically Republicans-lite and have been for decades Democrats don't want to abolish every regulation possible in order to maximize corpora

>>The Democrats are basically Republicans-lite and have been for decades Democrats don't want to abolish every regulation possible in order to maximize corporate profits. Democrats don't want to cut healthcare and entitlement programs in order to give massive tax cuts to rich people. Democrats don't want to defund Planned Parenthood and are not rabidly anti-abortion. Democrats don't want to ban gay marriage. Democrats don't work their asses off trying to suppress minority votes. Democrats don't want to prevent refugees from war zones from seeking shelter in the United States. I can go on. Basically, the idea that Democrats and Republicans are nearly identical is popular only amongst people who don't pay attention to politics because they are wealthy and privileged enough to not be directly affected by any of it. But if you ask a low-income woman, for example, I guaran-fuckin-tee you that she will gladly educate you on the finer details of decades of Republican oppression of women.

emodendroket 9y ago
Do you remember when Bill Clinton made dismantling welfare his signature policy proposal and Obama practically begged the Republicans to reach a deal with him to cut Social Security, or is it only privileged people who don't pay attention to politics who remember that?
- enraged_camel 9y ago
  Obama suggested making a slight change to the measure of inflation used to calculate Social Security cost-of-living adjustments from the Consumer Price Index for Urban Wage Earners and Clerical Workers (CPI) to the chained CPI. This would have modestly improved Social Security's finances while resulted in retirees getting slightly smaller increases to their Social Security checks. Obama suggested this as an olive branch to the obstructionist Republican Congress that worked hard from the moment he got in office to prevent him from doing anything. It was a move borne out of desperation rather than the cynical hatred for the poor. I'm not going to defend Bill Clinton. He made a lot of mistakes, including, as you say, making drastic, misguided changes to welfare and being "tough on crime". Although, for what it's worth, he has recently apologized for some of those mistakes [1]. In any case, fast-forward 17 years to today. Democrats and the Republicans are very, very different parties. I stand by my original statement: the only people who believe the two parties are similar are those who aren't paying attention. -- [1]http://www.cnn.com/2015/07/15/politics/bill-clinton-1994-crime-bill/ http://www.cnn.com/2015/07/15/politics/bill-clinton-1994-cri...
  - emodendroket 9y ago
    Today the Democratic Party is almost entirely positioning itself on "not being as bad as the Republicans" without any sort of positive vision. That's the reason all they can talk about is Russia and Trump; it keeps them from even having to articulate a position other than being against these enemies. There are a handful of figures to whom this does not apply, but the greater party apparatus fights tooth and nail against any substantive change (on the grounds that the current strategy is the only way to win elections, even as they lost all three branches of the national government and are irrelevant in more and more states) so I'm not holding my breath.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
Consultant32452 9y ago
>Democrats don't want to cut healthcare and entitlement programs in order to give massive tax cuts to rich people. Bill Clinton had an agreement with Newt Gingrich to privatize Social Security that was only stopped because the Lewinsky scandal broke. >Democrats don't want to ban gay marriage. Who passed DOMA? Obama was against gay marriage until it became clear that it was going to get passed. >Democrats don't work their asses off trying to suppress minority votes. No, they just work their asses off to keep minorities poor and beholden to the state because that makes them good Democrat voters. >Democrats don't want to prevent refugees from war zones from seeking shelter in the United States. We wouldn't have refugees in Syria seeking shelter if Obama hadn't bombed Syria so much we literally ran out of bombs. >But if you ask a low-income woman, for example If that woman became a high income woman, she'd be much less likely to vote Democratic. The Democrats have no incentive to actually help her, only to make her more beholden to the state.

emodendroket 9y ago

Do you remember when Bill Clinton made dismantling welfare his signature policy proposal and Obama practically begged the Republicans to reach a deal with him to cut Social Security, or is it only privileged people who don't pay attention to politics who remember that?

enraged_camel 9y ago
Obama suggested making a slight change to the measure of inflation used to calculate Social Security cost-of-living adjustments from the Consumer Price Index for Urban Wage Earners and Clerical Workers (CPI) to the chained CPI. This would have modestly improved Social Security's finances while resulted in retirees getting slightly smaller increases to their Social Security checks. Obama suggested this as an olive branch to the obstructionist Republican Congress that worked hard from the moment he got in office to prevent him from doing anything. It was a move borne out of desperation rather than the cynical hatred for the poor. I'm not going to defend Bill Clinton. He made a lot of mistakes, including, as you say, making drastic, misguided changes to welfare and being "tough on crime". Although, for what it's worth, he has recently apologized for some of those mistakes [1]. In any case, fast-forward 17 years to today. Democrats and the Republicans are very, very different parties. I stand by my original statement: the only people who believe the two parties are similar are those who aren't paying attention. -- [1]http://www.cnn.com/2015/07/15/politics/bill-clinton-1994-crime-bill/ http://www.cnn.com/2015/07/15/politics/bill-clinton-1994-cri...
- emodendroket 9y ago
  Today the Democratic Party is almost entirely positioning itself on "not being as bad as the Republicans" without any sort of positive vision. That's the reason all they can talk about is Russia and Trump; it keeps them from even having to articulate a position other than being against these enemies. There are a handful of figures to whom this does not apply, but the greater party apparatus fights tooth and nail against any substantive change (on the grounds that the current strategy is the only way to win elections, even as they lost all three branches of the national government and are irrelevant in more and more states) so I'm not holding my breath.
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]

Consultant32452 9y ago

>Democrats don't want to cut healthcare and entitlement programs in order to give massive tax cuts to rich people. Bill Clinton had an agreement with Newt Gingrich to privatize Social Security that was only stopped because the Lewinsky scandal broke. >Democrats don't want to ban gay marriage. Who passed DOMA? Obama was against gay marriage until it became clear that it was going to get passed. >Democrats don't work their asses off trying to suppress minority votes. No, they just work their asses off to keep minorities poor and beholden to the state because that makes them good Democrat voters. >Democrats don't want to prevent refugees from war zones from seeking shelter in the United States. We wouldn't have refugees in Syria seeking shelter if Obama hadn't bombed Syria so much we literally ran out of bombs. >But if you ask a low-income woman, for example If that woman became a high income woman, she'd be much less likely to vote Democratic. The Democrats have no incentive to actually help her, only to make her more beholden to the state.