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> I think you’re misdiagnosing the cause. Nearly everyone I know—my circle skews highly educated and well compensated—cares more about social issues than econom

by jmyeet 4y ago

> I think you’re misdiagnosing the cause. Nearly everyone I know—my circle skews highly educated and well compensated—cares more about social issues than economic ones. That's because they're liberals (or, worse, neoliberals) and liberalism is about aesthetics. It's about appearing to do something without actually doing anything. I don't mean this is any kind of perjorative sense by the way. I know many people like this too. Take the Democratic Party. In response to the Dobbs leak the Demorats did... nothing. When the decision was handed down they sent a bunch of fundraising emails and texts and did... nothing. Well, other than "vote harder" messaging. The leadership has decided an issue with 75% public support is "too controversial" to tackle. Why is the Democratic Party in this situation? Because there is always a rotating villain that blocks any action. Currently that's Senators Manchin and Sinema. In past years it was Joe Lieberman. This is by design. Everyone else gets to point at the rotating villain and say they tried but they got blocked and then fundraise off [insert blocked issue here]. Now look at an issue like homelessness. The most important factor that leads to homelessness is cost of housing. The one thing that would help above anything else is a housing-first policy, meaning giving homeless people somewhere to live. But rampant NIMBYism, even in heavily blue states like California, means that's a nonstarter. This is why you'll see people fund raise for homelessness without tackling the root causes. This is what I mean by aesthetics.

rayiner 4y ago
You can’t overlook the deliberate prioritization of certain issues over other issues. The Democratic Party is a coalition of people who agree on “bigger government offering more services” and little else. Obama as a populist and social moderate in 2008 and got Obamacare with several Senate votes in socially conservative Midwestern states. Since then Democrats tacked left on social issues and kicked the “deplorables” out of the coalition. They’re mad at Sinema and Manchin, who are holding onto seats deep in GOP territory, but should be mad at the party that lost labor and agriculture voters in South Dakota, Iowa, etc. Folks I know were talking about kicking Joe Manchin out of the coalition for being pro life before the 2020 election. About 1/4 of the Democratic Party identified as “pro life.” 1/6 (mostly Black and Hispanic people) oppose same sex marriage. 1/10 want to restrict immigrant (and that’s after Trump converted a bunch of those voters in 2016). Kick all those people out of the party and give capital owners exactly what they want.
- jen20 4y ago
  > coalition of people who agree on “bigger government offering more services” and little else. If I could vote in the US I’d vote democrat (and likely join them) because I don’t want Christian fundamentalists to be in power, not because I believe in their policies and especially not in their abilities. There may be a coalition of people who believe in what you think, but I’d wager the vast majority of support comes from those who simply think they’re less bad than the alternative.
  - rayiner 4y ago
    > I don’t want Christian fundamentalists to be in power America is as religious, in terms of percentage of people praying daily, as Bangladesh: https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2019/05/01/with-high-levels-of-prayer-u-s-is-an-outlier-among-wealthy-nations https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2019/05/01/with-high-l.... That includes core Democrat constituencies, like Black people. 76% of Black Protestants, who overwhelmingly vote Democrat, think the Bible should have at least some influence on US laws: https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2020/04/13/half-of-americans-say-bible-should-influence-u-s-laws-including-28-who-favor-it-over-the-will-of-the-people https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2020/04/13/half-of-ame.... Most atheists and agnostics are Democrats, but they're a pretty niche constituency within the party.
    - jen20 4y ago
      I don't care - I still don't want them in power any more than I would want to live in Afghanistan with the Taliban in power as a non-Muslim, and consequently would vote to keep them out, almost regardless of other policy. Furthermore, those who think the Bible should have influence on US laws fundamentally fail to understand the very basics of the first amendment of the constitution: "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof." Allowing influence of a particular religious sect over laws is exactly akin to a state religion, which is expressly unconstitutional.
      - nathanaldensr 4y ago
welshwelsh 4y ago
The Democratic Party becoming liberal is a recent development. In 2006, 32% of Democrats identified as liberal. 23% were conservative (the rest identified as moderate). In 2018 it's 46% liberal/35% moderate/17% conservative. That means that even today, a minority of Democrats are liberals. An even smaller minority are progressives. The Democrats are not and have never been a majority liberal party, although that is rapidly changing. The reason democrats like Manchin and Sinema block liberal policies is that they are conservatives. Both parties have traditionally had sizable liberal and conservative wings, but they are rapidly polarizing and Democrats are pushing out the conservatives. In the 90s there would be about 20 Democratic senators like Manchin, now we only have a couple. >In response to the Dobbs leak the Democrats did... nothing. Everyone who follows politics knew that when Hillary lost in 2016, Roe v. Wade would inevitably be overturned. There's nothing we can do about this in the short term, especially when we don't have liberal majorities. I'm going to disagree on your main point- social issues are the main problem in the US and they cannot be distinguished from economic ones. Abortion, for example, is an economic issue. Allowing women to control their reproduction is, by far, the most effective way to combat poverty. A child costs over $250,000 to raise on average, and that's the type of burden that keeps people in poverty. Abortion rights have strong support among the wealthy; this is not a case of the "elites" dividing the working class, it's the working class that supports regressive policies. Also, wealthy countries that are ethnically and culturally homogenous generally have much stronger social support systems than the US. This is, again, a social issue. Americans don't want their taxpayer money helping people who they see as "different" so they vote against welfare programs. And again, the wealthier and better educated someone is the more progressive they are in this regard, this is another example of working class people shooting themselves in the foot.
- rayiner 4y ago
  > Abortion, for example, is an economic issue. Allowing women to control their reproduction is, by far, the most effective way to combat poverty. A child costs over $250,000 to raise on average, and that's the type of burden that keeps people in poverty. Abortion rights have strong support among the wealthy; this is not a case of the "elites" dividing the working class, it's the working class that supports regressive policies. Meanwhile, just 29% of folks who primarily speak Spanish at home, and 41% of first generation Hispanic immigrants, think abortion should be legal. If Democrats want to be the party of telling working class Hispanics that their views are “regressive” and the most important problem is that they can’t or won’t abort enough of their babies, that’s a dream come true for the GOP. Bonus points for “[a]bortion rights have strong support among the wealthy.” The attack ads write themselves. “Wall Street bankers and Silicon Valley engineers think that their maids and gardeners are having too many kids and should abort more of them.”
Workaccount2 4y ago
I have no idea what people expect dems to do about abortion. They cannot pass a national law without the senate. Most blue states already put in protections. It's not like they can just trot down to the court house and change the judges mind.
- jmyeet 4y ago
  That's a great question ("What can they do?") and the answer is a lot. As you may or may not know, legislative bodies have a whip. The current Democratic Senate whip is Senator Dick Durbin (D-IL). The job of a whip is quite literally to whip votes. It is to get legislation passed. Betwen the whip and the Senate Majority Leader, Chuck Schumer (D-NY), they could: 1. Remove Manchin and Sinema from committee chairs; 2. Remove them from committees completely (eg Dianne Feinstein was effectively removed because she's basically a billion years old and senile); 3. Investigate the links between Manchin, his actions on the Energy Committee and his brother's coal company in West Virginia from which he personally profits. The counterargument is that they'll switch sides and either join the Republicans or simply caucus with them to retake the majority (eg like Tom Daschle did with Jim Jeffords). Let them. You cannot allow people to hold you hostage like that. They probably won't either because currently they enjoy a disproportionate amount of power. As soon as the GOP doesn't need them, they'll just be relegated to being junior Senators with little to no power. The Republicans unlike the Democrats know how to whip votes. Take the fascinating case of Madison Cawthorn who found himself the subject of an organized hit campaign after making off-the-cuff remarks about Republican sex parties (seriously). He got dragged into Kevin McCarthy's office and came out looking like he'd been physically beaten. The GOP primaried him and he lost. That's how you get your caucus to toe the line. So Manchin and Sinema could (and should) be primaried. Biden could create executive orders to advance his agenda. He's too much of an institutionalist to worry about separation of powers and doing anything "too divisive". You know who doesn't worry about that? Republicans. Republicans care about winning. Democrats care about fundraising off how terrible Republicans are. Even if such executive orders are struck down by the Supreme Court as overreach then at least you tried. Example: The Senate could raised the minimum wage to $15 as a budget reconciliation process. They didn't. Why? Respect for some outdated notion of norms, rules and procedures. You know what the Republicans did when faced with pushback from the Senate parliamentarian on passing Bush's tax cuts? They fired him and found someone else [1]. Remember that keeping Roe v. Wade enjoyed wide public support (eg 64% according to [2]; I've seen other figures as high as 70-75%). Even if legislation cannot pass you force politicians to put their vote on the record. Votes on the record matter. Hilary's support for the Iraq War came back to haunt her (in 2008, mostly). [1]: https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/2001/05/08/key-senate-official-loses-job-in-dispute-with-gop/e2310021-0f14-4667-a261-54e6c033207c/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/2001/05/08/k... [2]: https://www.npr.org/2022/05/19/1099844097/abortion-polling-roe-v-wade-supreme-court-draft-opinion https://www.npr.org/2022/05/19/1099844097/abortion-polling-r...

by jmyeet 4y ago

rayiner 4y ago

You can’t overlook the deliberate prioritization of certain issues over other issues. The Democratic Party is a coalition of people who agree on “bigger government offering more services” and little else. Obama as a populist and social moderate in 2008 and got Obamacare with several Senate votes in socially conservative Midwestern states. Since then Democrats tacked left on social issues and kicked the “deplorables” out of the coalition. They’re mad at Sinema and Manchin, who are holding onto seats deep in GOP territory, but should be mad at the party that lost labor and agriculture voters in South Dakota, Iowa, etc. Folks I know were talking about kicking Joe Manchin out of the coalition for being pro life before the 2020 election. About 1/4 of the Democratic Party identified as “pro life.” 1/6 (mostly Black and Hispanic people) oppose same sex marriage. 1/10 want to restrict immigrant (and that’s after Trump converted a bunch of those voters in 2016). Kick all those people out of the party and give capital owners exactly what they want.

jen20 4y ago
> coalition of people who agree on “bigger government offering more services” and little else. If I could vote in the US I’d vote democrat (and likely join them) because I don’t want Christian fundamentalists to be in power, not because I believe in their policies and especially not in their abilities. There may be a coalition of people who believe in what you think, but I’d wager the vast majority of support comes from those who simply think they’re less bad than the alternative.
- rayiner 4y ago
  > I don’t want Christian fundamentalists to be in power America is as religious, in terms of percentage of people praying daily, as Bangladesh: https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2019/05/01/with-high-levels-of-prayer-u-s-is-an-outlier-among-wealthy-nations https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2019/05/01/with-high-l.... That includes core Democrat constituencies, like Black people. 76% of Black Protestants, who overwhelmingly vote Democrat, think the Bible should have at least some influence on US laws: https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2020/04/13/half-of-americans-say-bible-should-influence-u-s-laws-including-28-who-favor-it-over-the-will-of-the-people https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2020/04/13/half-of-ame.... Most atheists and agnostics are Democrats, but they're a pretty niche constituency within the party.
  - jen20 4y ago
    I don't care - I still don't want them in power any more than I would want to live in Afghanistan with the Taliban in power as a non-Muslim, and consequently would vote to keep them out, almost regardless of other policy. Furthermore, those who think the Bible should have influence on US laws fundamentally fail to understand the very basics of the first amendment of the constitution: "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof." Allowing influence of a particular religious sect over laws is exactly akin to a state religion, which is expressly unconstitutional.
    - nathanaldensr 4y ago

welshwelsh 4y ago

The Democratic Party becoming liberal is a recent development. In 2006, 32% of Democrats identified as liberal. 23% were conservative (the rest identified as moderate). In 2018 it's 46% liberal/35% moderate/17% conservative. That means that even today, a minority of Democrats are liberals. An even smaller minority are progressives. The Democrats are not and have never been a majority liberal party, although that is rapidly changing. The reason democrats like Manchin and Sinema block liberal policies is that they are conservatives. Both parties have traditionally had sizable liberal and conservative wings, but they are rapidly polarizing and Democrats are pushing out the conservatives. In the 90s there would be about 20 Democratic senators like Manchin, now we only have a couple. >In response to the Dobbs leak the Democrats did... nothing. Everyone who follows politics knew that when Hillary lost in 2016, Roe v. Wade would inevitably be overturned. There's nothing we can do about this in the short term, especially when we don't have liberal majorities. I'm going to disagree on your main point- social issues are the main problem in the US and they cannot be distinguished from economic ones. Abortion, for example, is an economic issue. Allowing women to control their reproduction is, by far, the most effective way to combat poverty. A child costs over $250,000 to raise on average, and that's the type of burden that keeps people in poverty. Abortion rights have strong support among the wealthy; this is not a case of the "elites" dividing the working class, it's the working class that supports regressive policies. Also, wealthy countries that are ethnically and culturally homogenous generally have much stronger social support systems than the US. This is, again, a social issue. Americans don't want their taxpayer money helping people who they see as "different" so they vote against welfare programs. And again, the wealthier and better educated someone is the more progressive they are in this regard, this is another example of working class people shooting themselves in the foot.

rayiner 4y ago
> Abortion, for example, is an economic issue. Allowing women to control their reproduction is, by far, the most effective way to combat poverty. A child costs over $250,000 to raise on average, and that's the type of burden that keeps people in poverty. Abortion rights have strong support among the wealthy; this is not a case of the "elites" dividing the working class, it's the working class that supports regressive policies. Meanwhile, just 29% of folks who primarily speak Spanish at home, and 41% of first generation Hispanic immigrants, think abortion should be legal. If Democrats want to be the party of telling working class Hispanics that their views are “regressive” and the most important problem is that they can’t or won’t abort enough of their babies, that’s a dream come true for the GOP. Bonus points for “[a]bortion rights have strong support among the wealthy.” The attack ads write themselves. “Wall Street bankers and Silicon Valley engineers think that their maids and gardeners are having too many kids and should abort more of them.”

Workaccount2 4y ago

I have no idea what people expect dems to do about abortion. They cannot pass a national law without the senate. Most blue states already put in protections. It's not like they can just trot down to the court house and change the judges mind.

jmyeet 4y ago
That's a great question ("What can they do?") and the answer is a lot. As you may or may not know, legislative bodies have a whip. The current Democratic Senate whip is Senator Dick Durbin (D-IL). The job of a whip is quite literally to whip votes. It is to get legislation passed. Betwen the whip and the Senate Majority Leader, Chuck Schumer (D-NY), they could: 1. Remove Manchin and Sinema from committee chairs; 2. Remove them from committees completely (eg Dianne Feinstein was effectively removed because she's basically a billion years old and senile); 3. Investigate the links between Manchin, his actions on the Energy Committee and his brother's coal company in West Virginia from which he personally profits. The counterargument is that they'll switch sides and either join the Republicans or simply caucus with them to retake the majority (eg like Tom Daschle did with Jim Jeffords). Let them. You cannot allow people to hold you hostage like that. They probably won't either because currently they enjoy a disproportionate amount of power. As soon as the GOP doesn't need them, they'll just be relegated to being junior Senators with little to no power. The Republicans unlike the Democrats know how to whip votes. Take the fascinating case of Madison Cawthorn who found himself the subject of an organized hit campaign after making off-the-cuff remarks about Republican sex parties (seriously). He got dragged into Kevin McCarthy's office and came out looking like he'd been physically beaten. The GOP primaried him and he lost. That's how you get your caucus to toe the line. So Manchin and Sinema could (and should) be primaried. Biden could create executive orders to advance his agenda. He's too much of an institutionalist to worry about separation of powers and doing anything "too divisive". You know who doesn't worry about that? Republicans. Republicans care about winning. Democrats care about fundraising off how terrible Republicans are. Even if such executive orders are struck down by the Supreme Court as overreach then at least you tried. Example: The Senate could raised the minimum wage to $15 as a budget reconciliation process. They didn't. Why? Respect for some outdated notion of norms, rules and procedures. You know what the Republicans did when faced with pushback from the Senate parliamentarian on passing Bush's tax cuts? They fired him and found someone else [1]. Remember that keeping Roe v. Wade enjoyed wide public support (eg 64% according to [2]; I've seen other figures as high as 70-75%). Even if legislation cannot pass you force politicians to put their vote on the record. Votes on the record matter. Hilary's support for the Iraq War came back to haunt her (in 2008, mostly). [1]: https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/2001/05/08/key-senate-official-loses-job-in-dispute-with-gop/e2310021-0f14-4667-a261-54e6c033207c/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/2001/05/08/k... [2]: https://www.npr.org/2022/05/19/1099844097/abortion-polling-roe-v-wade-supreme-court-draft-opinion https://www.npr.org/2022/05/19/1099844097/abortion-polling-r...