6 ms·

> There are some rather unhinged people on the left, sure, but they're basically just nutters on the internet, maybe a few activist groups, and things like that

> There are some rather unhinged people on the left, sure, but they're basically just nutters on the internet, maybe a few activist groups, and things like that. They're certainly not the ones running the show Just the other day, Senator Mark Warner (D-VA) was quoted as saying, regarding his own Democratic Party, that “I think the majority of the party realizes that the ideological purity of some of the groups is a recipe for disaster and that candidly the attack on over-the-top wokeism was a valid attack” - https://www.politico.eu/article/us-senator-mark-warner-democrats-brand-really-bad-msc-us-election/ https://www.politico.eu/article/us-senator-mark-warner-democ... So, (if I’m interpreting you correctly) you are saying extreme views isn’t a major problem in the Democratic Party, while Senator Warner is arguing it was a significant contributor to their loss in the 2024 election, and hence Trump being back in the White House. Who is right here?

staticman2 2y ago
If you want to know why voters voted the way they did you'd probably try to find a good poll of voters not instead search for the most exciting quote you can find from a politician.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- skissane 2y ago
  Maybe Warner’s diagnosis of the 2024 election is wrong-but that’s not my point. My point: it would be rather strange for leading Democrats to come to believe their party is being harmed by its own extreme element if that element was non-existent or completely lacking in any relevance.
  - staticman2 2y ago
    He said "over the top" not "extreme". Those two terms are not synonyms. If you don't believe me ask your favorite LLM. Maybe you think he meant "extreme" and was using a euphemism. But then we have a second problem: politicians aren't necessarily reliable for analysis because they can't necessarily say what they believe.
    - skissane 2y ago
      > He said "over the top" not "extreme". Those two terms are not synonyms. They are different vaguely defined degrees on the same continuum; while “extreme” no doubt has stronger connotations than “over the top”, neither term has a precise definition and the boundary between the two isn’t clearly defined. > But then we have a second problem: politicians aren't necessarily reliable for analysis because they can't necessarily say what they believe. True, but I think you’ll find that in that soul-searching period which inevitably follows defeat, they have the greatest freedom to speak their minds and say what they really think, or at least much closer to what they really think. And the bigger the defeat, the more that’s true: and while November 2024 wasn’t that big a defeat in raw numerical terms, I think it was a much bigger loss in psychological terms
  - johnnyanmac 2y ago
    >it would be rather strange for leading Democrats to come to believe their party is being harmed by its own extreme element if that element was non-existent or completely lacking in any relevance. I'm not surprised. It's a neoliberal congress ignoring a platform demanding increasingly socialistic ideals. We're not aligned at all.
    - skissane 2y ago
      > I'm not surprised. It's a neoliberal congress ignoring a platform demanding increasingly socialistic ideals. I don’t think “socialistic ideas” are what Warner was talking about. I think he was really talking about social and cultural issues. If you look at antiwoke Marxists such as Adolph L Reed Jr and the Trotskyist International Committee of the Fourth International, you’ll find they’d agree with a lot of Warner’s criticisms of “wokeism”, even as they condemn Warner himself as a member of the capitalist class (with a net worth over $200 million, he’s the second richest US Senator)
      - johnnyanmac 2y ago
        > I don’t think “socialistic ideas” are what Warner was talking about. He isn't, but my main point is that a lot of congress's represenatives are not aligned with what their people want to begin with. As neoliberals they do support hypercapitalistic ideas as well as deregulation. Which is the opposite of what many in their voterbase want in terms of better governmental support and proper worker protections. I'm not really focusing on the "woke" part beyond "If they aren't harming anyone, just let people live how they want, please".
johnnyanmac 2y ago
> the attack on over-the-top wokeism was a valid attack It was making Mt. Everest out of a molehill. No matter the "validity", sending a missle at said molehill is overkill. >So, (if I’m interpreting you correctly) you are saying extreme views isn’t a major problem in the Democratic Party It is not in my eyes. Very few disagree with DEI programs and LGBT issues. If those are "woke" I suppose Women's suffrage 120 years ago was also "woke". I just want people to have equal rights in life, no matter their origin.
- skissane 2y ago
  > Very few disagree with DEI programs and LGBT issues. Americans as a whole are close to evenly divided on DEI programs. A recent YouGov/Economist poll found 45% support abolishing DEI programs in education and government, 40% opposed; a Reuters/Ipsos poll found 44% supported “closing all federal government DEI offices and firing federal employees working on the issue” with 51% opposed. [0] Unfortunately I don’t have detailed crosstabs (which tend not to be very reliable anyway), but I expect they’d show that there is a decent minority of Democrats and Biden/Harris voters who are opposed to DEI programs “LGBT issues” are a whole bunch of different issues, and attitudes vary depending on which of them we are talking about. A Gallup poll from May last year [1] found 69% of Americans support same-sex marriage, a slight decline from 2022-2023 but still close to an all-time high. Yet, the same survey also had 51% of respondents labelling gender transition as “morally wrong” [2]. And in 2023 the same survey found 69% of Americans opposed transgender athletes being able to compete as the gender they identify with [3]. So it seems like the average American supports some “LGBT issues” but opposes others > If those are "woke" I suppose Women's suffrage 120 years ago was also "woke". It all depends on how you define “woke”. The African-American anti-woke Marxist Adolph L Reed Jr defines “woke” [4] as a form of progressivism that rejects the traditional Marxist analysis that class oppression is the root cause of non-class-based oppression. He wouldn’t call women’s suffrage “woke” because most Marxists historically supported women’s suffrage as a means of empowering working class women, and saw it as fundamentally compatible with their class-first analysis of society’s problems; but he does criticise a lot of contemporary “wokeness” as being in fundamental contradiction to that analysis [0] https://www.forbes.com/sites/bowmanmarsico/2025/02/03/how-popular-is-dei/ https://www.forbes.com/sites/bowmanmarsico/2025/02/03/how-po... - I think the difference in results may be partially due to the question asked - I expect some respondents would have said “Yes” to the first question but “No” to the second, because while they support shutting down government DEI programs, they’d prefer to see the government workers involved reassigned to other tasks rather than simply fired. Asking a question “Do you support A and B?” is problematic because you don’t know if people answering “No” oppose both A and B or only one of them [1] https://news.gallup.com/poll/646202/sex-relations-marriage-supported.aspx https://news.gallup.com/poll/646202/sex-relations-marriage-s... [2] https://news.gallup.com/poll/645704/slim-majority-adults-say-changing-gender-morally-wrong.aspx https://news.gallup.com/poll/645704/slim-majority-adults-say... [3] https://news.gallup.com/poll/507023/say-birth-gender-dictate-sports-participation.aspx https://news.gallup.com/poll/507023/say-birth-gender-dictate... - I can’t find 2024 figures but I assume they haven’t substantially changed [4] https://newrepublic.com/article/160305/beyond-great-awokening https://newrepublic.com/article/160305/beyond-great-awokenin...

staticman2 2y ago

If you want to know why voters voted the way they did you'd probably try to find a good poll of voters not instead search for the most exciting quote you can find from a politician.

deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
skissane 2y ago
Maybe Warner’s diagnosis of the 2024 election is wrong-but that’s not my point. My point: it would be rather strange for leading Democrats to come to believe their party is being harmed by its own extreme element if that element was non-existent or completely lacking in any relevance.
- staticman2 2y ago
  He said "over the top" not "extreme". Those two terms are not synonyms. If you don't believe me ask your favorite LLM. Maybe you think he meant "extreme" and was using a euphemism. But then we have a second problem: politicians aren't necessarily reliable for analysis because they can't necessarily say what they believe.
  - skissane 2y ago
    > He said "over the top" not "extreme". Those two terms are not synonyms. They are different vaguely defined degrees on the same continuum; while “extreme” no doubt has stronger connotations than “over the top”, neither term has a precise definition and the boundary between the two isn’t clearly defined. > But then we have a second problem: politicians aren't necessarily reliable for analysis because they can't necessarily say what they believe. True, but I think you’ll find that in that soul-searching period which inevitably follows defeat, they have the greatest freedom to speak their minds and say what they really think, or at least much closer to what they really think. And the bigger the defeat, the more that’s true: and while November 2024 wasn’t that big a defeat in raw numerical terms, I think it was a much bigger loss in psychological terms
- johnnyanmac 2y ago
  >it would be rather strange for leading Democrats to come to believe their party is being harmed by its own extreme element if that element was non-existent or completely lacking in any relevance. I'm not surprised. It's a neoliberal congress ignoring a platform demanding increasingly socialistic ideals. We're not aligned at all.
  - skissane 2y ago
    > I'm not surprised. It's a neoliberal congress ignoring a platform demanding increasingly socialistic ideals. I don’t think “socialistic ideas” are what Warner was talking about. I think he was really talking about social and cultural issues. If you look at antiwoke Marxists such as Adolph L Reed Jr and the Trotskyist International Committee of the Fourth International, you’ll find they’d agree with a lot of Warner’s criticisms of “wokeism”, even as they condemn Warner himself as a member of the capitalist class (with a net worth over $200 million, he’s the second richest US Senator)
    - johnnyanmac 2y ago
      > I don’t think “socialistic ideas” are what Warner was talking about. He isn't, but my main point is that a lot of congress's represenatives are not aligned with what their people want to begin with. As neoliberals they do support hypercapitalistic ideas as well as deregulation. Which is the opposite of what many in their voterbase want in terms of better governmental support and proper worker protections. I'm not really focusing on the "woke" part beyond "If they aren't harming anyone, just let people live how they want, please".

johnnyanmac 2y ago

> the attack on over-the-top wokeism was a valid attack It was making Mt. Everest out of a molehill. No matter the "validity", sending a missle at said molehill is overkill. >So, (if I’m interpreting you correctly) you are saying extreme views isn’t a major problem in the Democratic Party It is not in my eyes. Very few disagree with DEI programs and LGBT issues. If those are "woke" I suppose Women's suffrage 120 years ago was also "woke". I just want people to have equal rights in life, no matter their origin.

skissane 2y ago
> Very few disagree with DEI programs and LGBT issues. Americans as a whole are close to evenly divided on DEI programs. A recent YouGov/Economist poll found 45% support abolishing DEI programs in education and government, 40% opposed; a Reuters/Ipsos poll found 44% supported “closing all federal government DEI offices and firing federal employees working on the issue” with 51% opposed. [0] Unfortunately I don’t have detailed crosstabs (which tend not to be very reliable anyway), but I expect they’d show that there is a decent minority of Democrats and Biden/Harris voters who are opposed to DEI programs “LGBT issues” are a whole bunch of different issues, and attitudes vary depending on which of them we are talking about. A Gallup poll from May last year [1] found 69% of Americans support same-sex marriage, a slight decline from 2022-2023 but still close to an all-time high. Yet, the same survey also had 51% of respondents labelling gender transition as “morally wrong” [2]. And in 2023 the same survey found 69% of Americans opposed transgender athletes being able to compete as the gender they identify with [3]. So it seems like the average American supports some “LGBT issues” but opposes others > If those are "woke" I suppose Women's suffrage 120 years ago was also "woke". It all depends on how you define “woke”. The African-American anti-woke Marxist Adolph L Reed Jr defines “woke” [4] as a form of progressivism that rejects the traditional Marxist analysis that class oppression is the root cause of non-class-based oppression. He wouldn’t call women’s suffrage “woke” because most Marxists historically supported women’s suffrage as a means of empowering working class women, and saw it as fundamentally compatible with their class-first analysis of society’s problems; but he does criticise a lot of contemporary “wokeness” as being in fundamental contradiction to that analysis [0] https://www.forbes.com/sites/bowmanmarsico/2025/02/03/how-popular-is-dei/ https://www.forbes.com/sites/bowmanmarsico/2025/02/03/how-po... - I think the difference in results may be partially due to the question asked - I expect some respondents would have said “Yes” to the first question but “No” to the second, because while they support shutting down government DEI programs, they’d prefer to see the government workers involved reassigned to other tasks rather than simply fired. Asking a question “Do you support A and B?” is problematic because you don’t know if people answering “No” oppose both A and B or only one of them [1] https://news.gallup.com/poll/646202/sex-relations-marriage-supported.aspx https://news.gallup.com/poll/646202/sex-relations-marriage-s... [2] https://news.gallup.com/poll/645704/slim-majority-adults-say-changing-gender-morally-wrong.aspx https://news.gallup.com/poll/645704/slim-majority-adults-say... [3] https://news.gallup.com/poll/507023/say-birth-gender-dictate-sports-participation.aspx https://news.gallup.com/poll/507023/say-birth-gender-dictate... - I can’t find 2024 figures but I assume they haven’t substantially changed [4] https://newrepublic.com/article/160305/beyond-great-awokening https://newrepublic.com/article/160305/beyond-great-awokenin...