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I’m honestly pretty pissed off with the Democrats picking a candidate that’s not pro legalization. The one alternative we have to the republicans is just doing

• brenden2 6y ago
  Democrats and Republicans are two sides of the same coin. They both represent the elite class, and do not care about these issues. They've had decades to do something about it, and instead gave themselves raises and made it harder for anyone to change anything. Edit: It's funny because I actually applied to YC to build a company that would try and fix this. Naturally they didn't even offer to interview me. YC doesn't care about fixing a system that helped get them where they are, either.
  • orf 6y ago
    The "both sides are the same" argument is a complete nonsensical distraction and wears really thin when faced with reality.
    • save_ferris 6y ago
      Sure, there are pretty significant differences in the day-to-day conduct between the two parties, but it is true that both parties are beholden to major corporate interests and are decreasingly supporting positions held by the public at large. The centrist wing of the Democratic Party refuses to seriously consider universal healthcare as a platform while we all watch the current healthcare system fall further and further into dysfunction via private bureaucracy. Numerous progressive policies have wide support across the political spectrum, but aren’t being seriously considered by either major party. And that is something that both parties are very guilty of.
      • Ididntdothis 6y ago
        The Democrats are the spineless party. They have no courage to take a position. It’s all wishy-washy trying not to offend anybody (especially not their donors).
        • brenden2 6y ago
          This is exactly right. At the end of the day they only answer to the people who write the biggest cheques and pay for the fanciest dinners and vacations they get to enjoy.
        • orf 6y ago
          They have plenty of positions though. The republican parties position seems to be "whatever the opposite of the democratic position is". Nothing can be clearer than that point especially contrasting their conduct during the Obama administration vs the current administration. I also wouldn't consider staunch opposition to LGBT rights as a spine worth having.
    • ssklash 6y ago
      Absolutely. Want to see a great breakdown? https://np.reddit.com/r/politics/comments/2kaubu/just_a_reminder_of_what_the_senate_was_doing_the/cljns3q/ https://np.reddit.com/r/politics/comments/2kaubu/just_a_remi...
      • brenden2 6y ago
        This is great, thanks for sharing. I would like to point out that it's still cherry picking, and ignores the cases where Democrats voted against sensible legislation. They supported the Patriot Act for example, and recently supported bailouts for large companies that didn't need free money from the government but still got it, all while keeping it difficult for people to access unemployment benefits.
        • knowaveragejoe 6y ago
          Actually what you're doing here is closer to cherry-picking, since you've found a handful of examples compared to the dozens in the link.
  • ogre_codes 6y ago
    This used to be the case, but recently things have changed and in the wrong way. Rather than one party getting better, over the past 15 years Republicans have gotten far worse on pretty much every metric I care about. I'd love to go back to when I felt they were just modestly different.
    • brenden2 6y ago
      Literally heard this story 100 times. Remember Obama and how he was going to change the world? The way it turned out, he basically changed nothing. Couldn't even get a proper health care bill passed.
      • BoiledCabbage 6y ago
        Yes because the entire Republican establishment changed their policy and objectives to essentially focusing on opposing anything and everything he tried to do - no matter how reasonable or how much compromise Obama made. And they admitted that was their only strategy. Stop governing and just oppose. To try to stop his reelection. That's when this country went off the rails.
        • AtHeartEngineer 6y ago
          Good ole Mitch
        • floren 6y ago
          > Stop governing and just oppose. To try to stop his reelection. Boy I'm glad nothing like that happened after 2016
          • mikepurvis 6y ago
            The democrats have continually come to the table— it's still the republicans obstructing. Remember DACA-for-wall? http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/the-immigration-deal-trump-shouldve-taken-didnt http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/the-immigration-deal...
  • standardUser 6y ago
    One party is doing everything in its power to undermine democratic institutions and erect barriers to participating in democracy. The two parties are not the same because only one party is doing that. And parties change, and are made up of individuals. Go watch some of last years Democratic presidential debates to see where things are now, not 4-12 years ago.
    • brenden2 6y ago
      What people say in debates is irrelevant. The only thing that matters are their actions. People keep falling into the trap of listening to the speeches, but ignoring the actual policies, policy implementation details, and the whole bureaucratic side of things. People are hyper focused on the TV version of reality, and completely ignore the day to day humdrum action. I think part of the problem today is the TV-ification of politics. For example, Trump is obsessed with "ratings" and Twitter likes, rather than actually doing anything meaningful. What's incredibly bizarre is how many other politicians have started copying him by focusing on grandstanding, Twitter likes, and getting more news airtime, rather than actually getting work done.
      • standardUser 6y ago
        Democrats have had minimal power at the federal level since 2014, which is around when the party started seriously drifting leftward. Look at the state and local level. Cities have gotten rid of bail, states legalize marijuana, protections for trans people, hugely increased minimum wages, widespread criminal justice reform, tons of environmental laws, etc, etc. Not all Democrats are bold lefties these days, but some are, and they are actually doing shit.
      • jeegsy 6y ago
        > What's incredibly bizarre is how many other politicians have started copying It has always been this way. Professional politicians are just better by nature at hiding unseemly attention grabs. Which is most definitely not something that fits with Trumps personality type.
• hawkice 6y ago
  I highly recommend telling pollsters you'll be voting Libertarian, as that will help them get into debates. Someone should be on that stage saying drug laws are wrong. Edit: vote for whoever you want, I just think the debates will be better with their voice.
  • Ididntdothis 6y ago
    I would vote libertarian if I didn’t have to buy into their vision to eliminate “burdensome “ regulations like environmental protections and their pipe dream of free market healthcare.
  • macintux 6y ago
    When I was younger I was turned off by what I perceived to be the Libertarian obsession with drug legalization. Now I get it, but I’m sure I’m not the only person who got tired of them sounding like a broken record.
  • JshWright 6y ago
    Ah yes... Libertarian, the "I got mine, fuck the rest of you" party...
    • colejohnson66 6y ago
      Isn’t that the “rule of law” conservatives? You know? The “pull yourself up by your bootstraps” people? Or is it not? Maybe political parties aren’t singular entities and are actually a collection of people. Of which there’s crazies in all of them.
      • newen 6y ago
        Libertarians are by their core policy positions all about “I got mine, fuck the rest of you”. In the libertarian paradise, if you’re rich you’ll do fine, you’ll have your gated community and private security, but if you’re poor and starving, well, sucks to be you, you can starve to death.
• rayiner 6y ago
  On the national stage, Democrats have to run someone who can appeal to people in Mississippi as well as New York. The more important thing is why this article is about a city in the suburbs of New York City. The Westchester County Board of Legislators has 16 Democrats and 1 Republican. Why can’t Democrats make any progress even in places where they have total control and don’t need to compromise? Westchester County can’t change federal drug laws, but they have total control over their own police force and how they’re trained and what they focus their efforts on.
  • drocer88 6y ago
    No. Mississippi will vote Republican and New York will vote Democratic. They need to run someone that can appeal to the swing states: Florida, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Ohio.
    • selimthegrim 6y ago
      Which primary votes do you think gave Biden the nomination? Is the older black base in MS pro-legalization? Did he get any black voter enthusiasm from the under 40s?
      • rayiner 6y ago
        Black and Hispanic voters support marijuana legalization at a slightly lower rate than whites. But because black voters are overwhelmingly Democrat, and Hispanic voters are disproportionately so, that means they are far to the right of white democrats on the issue. 78% of democrats as a whole support marijuana legalization, versus 67% of black and 63% of Hispanic people. Because black and Hispanic people comprise roughly 35% of the party, the rest of the party (for the most part, whites) have to support legalization at 85%. So there is roughly 20% gap between white and black and Hispanic Democrats on legalization. See: https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2019/11/14/americans-support-marijuana-legalization/%3famp=1 https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2...
  • binxbolling 6y ago
• Ididntdothis 6y ago
  Democrats haven’t had the courage to take a real position for a long time. Their program is basically to run as the slightly better Republicans. Obama wrote a really nice article a few days ago. But when he was running things he basically did nothing to improve the situation although the issues with police were well known.
  • mschuster91 6y ago
    > But when he was running things he basically did nothing to improve the situation although the issues with police were well known. Because police laws and funding is a state matter where the federal government can't do anything, and to top that Obama was locked by a Republican HoR in 6 of his 8 years.
    • Ididntdothis 6y ago
      He didn’t even try.
      • mikeyouse 6y ago
        That's nonsense. He directed his DOJ to avoid prosecuting low level drug crimes (which Trump immediately reversed), his budgets were the first since Carter that proposed spending more on treatment than on criminalization, thousands of Federal drug prisoners were granted early release, he did a ton that apparently people choose to ignore.. https://www.vox.com/identities/2016/12/19/13903532/obama-war-on-drugs-legacy https://www.vox.com/identities/2016/12/19/13903532/obama-war...
      • AtHeartEngineer 6y ago
        Ya that's a battle he probably should have picked
      • agustif 6y ago
        blindless Bi-partidism never brought much democracy anywhere
    • cwhiz 6y ago
• evanelias 6y ago
  > the Democrats picking a candidate that’s not pro legalization That's putting it mildly. Biden was an active participant in the war on drugs. He was the primary sponsor of the RAVE Act in 2002: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reducing_Americans%27_Vulnerability_to_Ecstasy_Act https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reducing_Americans%27_Vulnerab... Nevermind the fact that his home state of Delaware didn't have much of an electronic music / rave scene at the time. Or that the music genres in question were all originally created by people of color. Or that most music venues (regardless of genre or clientele) have been over-charging for water for decades. It's also cruelly ironic that this act primarily targeted a drug that causes people to become perma-grinning touchy-feely overly-emotive types, which (in my view) is essentially how Joe Biden seems to behave on a regular basis. Needless to say, as a Democrat I share your deep frustration with this candidate.
• tastyfreeze 6y ago
  Then don't vote for that candidate. Vote for who you think will do a good job regardless of their party affiliation. Even if you need to write them in. The only wasted vote is an unused vote.
• mullingitover 6y ago
  For both parties, the only constituencies they really care about are big businesses. The big corporations backing republicans are benefitted by a smaller government, so that's what republicans advocate for. The big corporations backing democrats are benefitted by a larger government, so that's what they advocate for. (There are of course other non-corporate groups in play, e.g. unions, but the idea stands). Beyond that, there's a lot of overlap in what big businesses want, and that's were you get bipartisan agreement. Corporations generally care about drugs in the sense that they want a labor pool that's not on drugs, so both parties kowtow to them on this topic. Parties will pay lip service to the wedge issues of the day, but ultimately the parties do not actually concern themselves with the common voter except to make the appropriate sounds that those voters want to hear.