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Are we really sure that that's what's been happening? The democrats have fundamentally abandoned the working class in favor of stupid wedge issues. It was the "

by noqc 1y ago

Are we really sure that that's what's been happening? The democrats have fundamentally abandoned the working class in favor of stupid wedge issues. It was the "progressives" who chose to shift their campaign focus onto gaining more privileges for trans women, abolishing the police force, endorsing Islamic supremacist groups tale of their own victimhood, and denying the basic right for country to have an immigration policy. I don't see how any of this is aimed at the working class.

alabastervlog 1y ago
Where’d you get the idea they shifted to any of that whatsoever? Right wing talking heads claim those things, but democrats don’t govern as if it’s true and those aren’t positions espoused by the vast majority of the party, including all the ones with notable power.
- gruez 1y ago
  >but democrats don’t govern as if it’s true and those aren’t positions espoused by the vast majority of the party, including all the ones with notable power. Maybe they're not "governing as if it’s true", but their statements certainly do. See for instance, the "Kamala is for they/them" attack ad? Granted, it was an attack ad and Kamala moderated her stance in the 2024 election, but her statements in 2020 was far left of the average voter, which was why it was why it was so effective.
- palmotea 1y ago
  > but democrats don’t govern as if it’s true and those aren’t positions espoused by the vast majority of the party, including all the ones with notable power. Even if that's true, those kind of positions are a notable and visible part of progressive/Democratic culture. For instance, the famous "in this house we believe" yard sign (https://www.amazon.com/Debbies-Designs-18x24-inch-Weatherproof-Corrugated/dp/B08B9JDRNH https://www.amazon.com/Debbies-Designs-18x24-inch-Weatherpro...). "No human is illegal" can be reasonably interpreted to imply "denying the basic right for country to have an immigration policy." It was also pretty well documented in the 2024 postmortems that people and groups who espoused those extreme positions were very constraining on "democrats...with notable power."
  - alabastervlog 1y ago
    > "No human is illegal" can be reasonably interpreted to imply "denying the basic right for country to have an immigration policy." Reasonably? No.
    - palmotea 1y ago
      > Reasonably? No. Sorry, yes. Given the political charge around the term "illegal," the sign repudiates the status of "illegal immigrant," and if you can't have illegal immigrants (or whatever euphemism of the day is), you can't have an immigration policy.
      - alabastervlog 1y ago
        This is pretzel-logic to justify the original absurd claim. No, it’s not reasonable at all.
        palmotea 1y ago
        > This is pretzel-logic to justify the original absurd claim. No, it’s not reasonable at all. No it isn't. It's what you need to interpret the sign. It's not list of literal statements statement of clear positions, but a thing that plays off vibes and associations to send a political message without being super direct (at least when it was new). But if you think my interpretation absurd (which it is not), what you you think "no human is illegal" means, in the context of the sign? The problem may be that the wide use of these kinds of vague signals and slogans invited misinterpretation.
        alabastervlog 1y ago
        See my explanation a couple posts away. It means the thing that many on the left often express on this topic, not the thing that almost none ever do. [EDIT] To ground this, the claim is that it's reasonable to interpret "no human is illegal" as "denying the basic right for country to have an immigration policy". This is a "reasonable" leap reached by following "what you need to interpret the sign". Not a hostile interpretation by someone who already decided what's what and is working backwards from that.
duxup 1y ago
Honestly your post sounds more like rhetroic than anything else. Organized labor still seems supportive of left leaning candidates. If they had "abandoned" them you'd think it would show. I don't buy into these ideas that <observes behavior that doesn't jive in some way> must be directly related to <pet peeve of mine>. Voters behave in unexpected ways all the time.
- rbanffy 1y ago
  > If they had "abandoned" them you'd think it would show. A left-leaning candidate that has "abandoned" worker's causes is still a better prospect than a candidate that openly opposed to them. I find it odd that so few people vote in the US - like I said, if all candidates are terrible, one is certainly less terrible and your job, as citizen, is to vote for the lesser evil to prevent the worse one to get power.
  - deleted 1y ago
    [deleted]
  - UmGuys 1y ago
    Working people are effectively slaves. Everyone has children or college debt. Health care is useless in not urban areas and even then it's restricted by insurance or lack of it. There's not much hope to own a home other than through inheritance. Even inheritance is unlikely as health care for aging parents is very expensive. People are uneducated, don't have time, and rightly feel like politicians don't represent them. No one wants to have no home or the worst health care system except the people taking bribes. There's no incentive for reform.
    - rbanffy 1y ago
      Still, even if all options are bad, there has to be one that's less bad.
      - UmGuys 1y ago
        Which is why sane people should vote democrat, even if they're objectively bad. GOP is infinitely worse.
bryanlarsen 1y ago
The left "abandoning" the working class is Clinton telling coal miners "I'll spend $30B on retraining you for new jobs, and building up new industry in coal mining region" vs Trump saying "I'll save your jobs". Was Clinton "abandoning the working class"? It doesn't feel like it, but it certainly could be construed that way. OTOH, Trump's statement was a bold faced lie. He didn't save coal mining jobs, coal mining jobs dropped significantly during his first term.
- giantg2 1y ago
  People will take unknowns over the current status. The coal regions are still severely depressed. It likely doesn't matter to those people if $30B was spent if they didn't see an improvement in their own lives from it. Even if you get retrained, you have to leave the area to get a decent job about half of the time, which many don't want.
  - bryanlarsen 1y ago
    Sure, Trump's lie was better than Clinton's promise. Which explains why Trump won in 2016. But it should have lost him the votes in 2024. "Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me."
    - giantg2 1y ago
      I think that depends on what Biden/Harris was promising them. If nothing really improved under Biden for them and Harris didn't have a good value proposition for them, then what was their alternative? Neither Trump nor Biden/Harris helped them, but one option is saying they will help them (or is more aligned with their values on non-economic topics).
UmGuys 1y ago
Point by point you seem off. GOP makes poor people. They oppose organized labor and support what Lincoln would refer to as "wage slavery". No one in government cares about sex and gender than GOP. I've never heard anyone else mention regulating the bedroom, porn, sex, etc. Ever. Maybe you're somewhat accurate about abolishing police. I wouldn't phrase it that way, but reform is needed and abolition is likely better than our police state. Opposing Israel's war isn't supporting an Islamic supremacist group. Practically no one in US government opposes funding Israel. Biden and Obama both deported more people than Trump. They used the existing law s to do it. Trump is spending more, ignoring law, and deporting less. GOP really wants government to not function so they can steal everything good that's been created.
- xtiansimon 1y ago
  > “GOP really wants government to not function so they can steal…” And plunder federal assets (land) and privatize governmental services.
  - UmGuys 1y ago
    That's what I mean. They do it everywhere. It's the strategy I think Mitch McConnel came up with. Obstruct, break everything, ensure government doesn't work for people, then claim government is bad, corrupt, etc. And move in to privatize and sell everything to the highest bidder.

by noqc 1y ago

alabastervlog 1y ago

Where’d you get the idea they shifted to any of that whatsoever? Right wing talking heads claim those things, but democrats don’t govern as if it’s true and those aren’t positions espoused by the vast majority of the party, including all the ones with notable power.

gruez 1y ago
>but democrats don’t govern as if it’s true and those aren’t positions espoused by the vast majority of the party, including all the ones with notable power. Maybe they're not "governing as if it’s true", but their statements certainly do. See for instance, the "Kamala is for they/them" attack ad? Granted, it was an attack ad and Kamala moderated her stance in the 2024 election, but her statements in 2020 was far left of the average voter, which was why it was why it was so effective.
palmotea 1y ago
> but democrats don’t govern as if it’s true and those aren’t positions espoused by the vast majority of the party, including all the ones with notable power. Even if that's true, those kind of positions are a notable and visible part of progressive/Democratic culture. For instance, the famous "in this house we believe" yard sign (https://www.amazon.com/Debbies-Designs-18x24-inch-Weatherproof-Corrugated/dp/B08B9JDRNH https://www.amazon.com/Debbies-Designs-18x24-inch-Weatherpro...). "No human is illegal" can be reasonably interpreted to imply "denying the basic right for country to have an immigration policy." It was also pretty well documented in the 2024 postmortems that people and groups who espoused those extreme positions were very constraining on "democrats...with notable power."
- alabastervlog 1y ago
  > "No human is illegal" can be reasonably interpreted to imply "denying the basic right for country to have an immigration policy." Reasonably? No.
  - palmotea 1y ago
    > Reasonably? No. Sorry, yes. Given the political charge around the term "illegal," the sign repudiates the status of "illegal immigrant," and if you can't have illegal immigrants (or whatever euphemism of the day is), you can't have an immigration policy.
    - alabastervlog 1y ago
      This is pretzel-logic to justify the original absurd claim. No, it’s not reasonable at all.
      - palmotea 1y ago
        > This is pretzel-logic to justify the original absurd claim. No, it’s not reasonable at all. No it isn't. It's what you need to interpret the sign. It's not list of literal statements statement of clear positions, but a thing that plays off vibes and associations to send a political message without being super direct (at least when it was new). But if you think my interpretation absurd (which it is not), what you you think "no human is illegal" means, in the context of the sign? The problem may be that the wide use of these kinds of vague signals and slogans invited misinterpretation.
        alabastervlog 1y ago
        See my explanation a couple posts away. It means the thing that many on the left often express on this topic, not the thing that almost none ever do. [EDIT] To ground this, the claim is that it's reasonable to interpret "no human is illegal" as "denying the basic right for country to have an immigration policy". This is a "reasonable" leap reached by following "what you need to interpret the sign". Not a hostile interpretation by someone who already decided what's what and is working backwards from that.

duxup 1y ago

Honestly your post sounds more like rhetroic than anything else. Organized labor still seems supportive of left leaning candidates. If they had "abandoned" them you'd think it would show. I don't buy into these ideas that <observes behavior that doesn't jive in some way> must be directly related to <pet peeve of mine>. Voters behave in unexpected ways all the time.

rbanffy 1y ago
> If they had "abandoned" them you'd think it would show. A left-leaning candidate that has "abandoned" worker's causes is still a better prospect than a candidate that openly opposed to them. I find it odd that so few people vote in the US - like I said, if all candidates are terrible, one is certainly less terrible and your job, as citizen, is to vote for the lesser evil to prevent the worse one to get power.
- deleted 1y ago
  [deleted]
- UmGuys 1y ago
  Working people are effectively slaves. Everyone has children or college debt. Health care is useless in not urban areas and even then it's restricted by insurance or lack of it. There's not much hope to own a home other than through inheritance. Even inheritance is unlikely as health care for aging parents is very expensive. People are uneducated, don't have time, and rightly feel like politicians don't represent them. No one wants to have no home or the worst health care system except the people taking bribes. There's no incentive for reform.
  - rbanffy 1y ago
    Still, even if all options are bad, there has to be one that's less bad.
    - UmGuys 1y ago
      Which is why sane people should vote democrat, even if they're objectively bad. GOP is infinitely worse.

bryanlarsen 1y ago

The left "abandoning" the working class is Clinton telling coal miners "I'll spend $30B on retraining you for new jobs, and building up new industry in coal mining region" vs Trump saying "I'll save your jobs". Was Clinton "abandoning the working class"? It doesn't feel like it, but it certainly could be construed that way. OTOH, Trump's statement was a bold faced lie. He didn't save coal mining jobs, coal mining jobs dropped significantly during his first term.

giantg2 1y ago
People will take unknowns over the current status. The coal regions are still severely depressed. It likely doesn't matter to those people if $30B was spent if they didn't see an improvement in their own lives from it. Even if you get retrained, you have to leave the area to get a decent job about half of the time, which many don't want.
- bryanlarsen 1y ago
  Sure, Trump's lie was better than Clinton's promise. Which explains why Trump won in 2016. But it should have lost him the votes in 2024. "Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me."
  - giantg2 1y ago
    I think that depends on what Biden/Harris was promising them. If nothing really improved under Biden for them and Harris didn't have a good value proposition for them, then what was their alternative? Neither Trump nor Biden/Harris helped them, but one option is saying they will help them (or is more aligned with their values on non-economic topics).

UmGuys 1y ago

Point by point you seem off. GOP makes poor people. They oppose organized labor and support what Lincoln would refer to as "wage slavery". No one in government cares about sex and gender than GOP. I've never heard anyone else mention regulating the bedroom, porn, sex, etc. Ever. Maybe you're somewhat accurate about abolishing police. I wouldn't phrase it that way, but reform is needed and abolition is likely better than our police state. Opposing Israel's war isn't supporting an Islamic supremacist group. Practically no one in US government opposes funding Israel. Biden and Obama both deported more people than Trump. They used the existing law s to do it. Trump is spending more, ignoring law, and deporting less. GOP really wants government to not function so they can steal everything good that's been created.

xtiansimon 1y ago
> “GOP really wants government to not function so they can steal…” And plunder federal assets (land) and privatize governmental services.
- UmGuys 1y ago
  That's what I mean. They do it everywhere. It's the strategy I think Mitch McConnel came up with. Obstruct, break everything, ensure government doesn't work for people, then claim government is bad, corrupt, etc. And move in to privatize and sell everything to the highest bidder.