5 ms·

Even in a Populist Moment, Democrats Are Split on the Problem of Corporate Power

30 points by connor11528 10mo ago

alsetmusic 10mo ago
Weak. Ineffectual. Letting us down when it should be easy to lead against terrible policies. Good job, Dems.
ploden 10mo ago
The problems in the US are systemic. There will be no significant change without abolishing the two party system.
- criddell 10mo ago
  A lot of people are worried we will soon effectively have a one-party system.
  - c-linkage 10mo ago
    Too late. Its those with money versus those without money. And those without don't count. And if you work for a living, you don't have money.
  - hulitu 10mo ago
    You have a 1 party system with 2 fractions. There really is not so much difference between democrats and republicans.
    - vkou 10mo ago
      Pretty sure there's a pretty big friggin difference between [Democrats/Romney and Bush republicans] and [MAGA republicans]. The former are nearly indistinguishable between eachother. The latter are something entirely different, and have purged all the non-crazy from their party.
- MaxfordAndSons 10mo ago
  Counterpoint: The problems in the US are systemic. There will be no significant change without abolishing unlimited corporate campaign donations.
  - barbazoo 10mo ago
    Plus the separation of powers seems too reliant on the president being a decent human being. It'll be interesting to see that play out over the next decades.
  - vunderba 10mo ago
    Agreed. I feel like the Supreme Court abandoned any semblance of critical thinking during the Citizens United v. FEC decision.
- vkou 10mo ago
  Be careful what you wish for. It's most likely that the only replacement for a two-party system the US will get... Will be a one-party system. Because there is no legal pathway[1] towards solving the conditions that create the two party system, but there are many illegal offramps that will get rid of one of those parties. --- [1] There are way too many obstacles, and the bar for consensus is too high to legally have these reforms. The bar is much lower for having them illegally - all you need is a single-party trifecta - lead by the kinds of people who'd start a coup rather than relinquish power.
  - TulliusCicero 10mo ago
    That's true at the federal level, but it's possible to get past the two party system at the local or state level where there's allowance for voter initiatives. Portland's new city council setup, with four districts and three representatives each based on ranked choice voting, is a step in that direction.
    - vkou 10mo ago
      Once this problem is 'solved' at the federal level, what makes you think the feds won't similarly solve it at lower levels.
      - TulliusCicero 10mo ago
        Not sure what you mean by 'solved' here.
- nickthegreek 10mo ago
  While breaking the 2 party system seems unimaginable, I do feel like rank choice voting can do a lot to get us on a better path in the short/medium term.
  - websiteapi 10mo ago
    I don’t know people are so hung up on ranked choice. Approval voting is simpler to explain, doesn’t require changing ballots and can be implemented immediately. Not to mention empirically results in more moderate candidates.
    - ClayShentrup 10mo ago
      yeah. https://asitoughttobemagazine.com/2010/07/18/score-voting/ https://asitoughttobemagazine.com/2010/07/18/score-voting/
  - ClayShentrup 10mo ago
    nope. you need approval voting. https://asitoughttobemagazine.com/2010/07/18/score-voting/ https://asitoughttobemagazine.com/2010/07/18/score-voting/
- RickJWagner 10mo ago
  The problems with the US are less than the problems in the countries where the flood of wishful immigrants are coming from. The fences on many countries are to keep people in. For the US, it is to keep people out.
andrewmutz 10mo ago
These days the policy positions of each party are hashed out on social media by non-experts. For both the democrats and the republicans, instead of any sort of research or experts driving public policy decisions, it's instead the things that resonate with your average person's feelings as they scroll through their feed and get engagement. The end result is of course populism. Each election cycle gets us closer to the policy positions of the Republicans being "Immigrants are bad" and Democrats being "Billionaires are bad". We know where populism leads, and we've seen it for decades in south america. In a few decades, we will get to choose between the populist far left and the populist far right. Policy will get crazier and crazier and measurable societal outcomes will stagnate and perhaps go backwards. This will continue as long as social media is the primary form of entertainment in the US.
- rpcope1 10mo ago
  [flagged]
  - andrewmutz 10mo ago
    I agree with you that my words are unpopular. Populism is popular. Government and economics is complicated, so it's not that crazy to suggest that your average person doesn't understand it very well. The medical analog of economic populism is antivax and free birth content. Super popular online, but leads to bad outcomes.
    - computerthings 10mo ago
      [dead]
  - JohnBooty 10mo ago
    Those damn plebs just have no idea what's best for them. Most people are not an expert in a single field, much less multiple fields, and never every field. So yes, we need experts to play a substantial role in running things. Perhaps even more importantly: it's not solely about what's best for every individual. You know what would be best for me? If the government gave me a free giant SUV that gets 4mpg fuel economy, and also let me drive as fast as I wanted while also subsidizing 90% of my fuel costs. Also it should drive itself so I can sleep while driving. Sometimes we need to consider what's best for society and the planet, too.
SpicyLemonZest 10mo ago
> Political leaders and activists are petrified to go outside of a few slogans, because those slogans represent what the party writ large agrees on. They are actually angry when anyone demands they do so, making claims that there’s an attempt to avoid a “big tent” or engage in forms of inappropriate litmus testing, instead of seeing the demand to do the political work necessary to build a society. I think this is really the core dispute, and I'd encourage the author to take it more seriously. Does the Democratic coalition work without pro-corporate liberals on board? How many people would jump ship if you excommunicated Reed Hastings and Ezra Klein, and which are the Republican voters who would be swayed to replace (and hopefully more-than-replace) them? Without good answers to these questions, there's a very real risk of creating an energized, passionate, anti-corporate Democratic party which simply does not have any path to 270 electoral votes. "Chuck Schumer still imagines America as it was in 1980", in the author's words. But what this means is that Chuck Schumer remembers an era where California was a Republican stronghold, a poorly constructed Democratic coalition led to three consecutive Republican landslides, and they hung on in Congress only by maintaining the loyalty of legacy segregationists. He knows that it can happen again.
- lapcat 10mo ago
  > How many people would jump ship with Reed Hastings if you excommunicated him By people do you mean voters or donors? I suspect that approximately zero voters would care. > which are the Republican voters who would be swayed to replace (and hopefully more-than-replace) them? This is a false dichotomy. At this point, Republicans cannot be swayed by anything. Trump just said that Rob Reiner was murdered because of "Trump Derangement Syndrome". It's impossible for him to lose his loyal followers, no matter what he does or anyone else does. Both major political parties are extremely unpopular among nonpartisans. They plug their noses and vote, if they vote at all. In the 2024 Presidential election, 37% of eligible voters voted for neither, mostly for nothing, whereas only 32% of eligible voters voted for Trump. Swing voters and nonvoters are not necessarily "moderate". That's a myth. They're nonpartisan, which is not to say that they're "between" the two parties. Many of them hardly even pay attention to politics. There's a lot of room to appeal to people who are disaffected with the system. The most popular politician in the US is Bernie Sanders. And the reason is that he's the most popular politician among political independents. He's not the most popular politician among Democrats (which is why he lost the Democratic nomination), and obviously he's not the most popular politician among Republicans, but across the whole spectrum, he's more popular than anyone else. It's also important to note that it wasn't until after the Reagan Presidency (and arguably due to its policies) that the ultra-wealthy came to monopolize most increases in personal income, so populism itself wouldn't have been as popular in the 1980s as it is now, as economic disparity has grown unabated in the decades since.

30 points by connor11528 10mo ago

alsetmusic 10mo ago

Weak. Ineffectual. Letting us down when it should be easy to lead against terrible policies. Good job, Dems.

ploden 10mo ago

The problems in the US are systemic. There will be no significant change without abolishing the two party system.

criddell 10mo ago
A lot of people are worried we will soon effectively have a one-party system.
- c-linkage 10mo ago
  Too late. Its those with money versus those without money. And those without don't count. And if you work for a living, you don't have money.
- hulitu 10mo ago
  You have a 1 party system with 2 fractions. There really is not so much difference between democrats and republicans.
  - vkou 10mo ago
    Pretty sure there's a pretty big friggin difference between [Democrats/Romney and Bush republicans] and [MAGA republicans]. The former are nearly indistinguishable between eachother. The latter are something entirely different, and have purged all the non-crazy from their party.
MaxfordAndSons 10mo ago
Counterpoint: The problems in the US are systemic. There will be no significant change without abolishing unlimited corporate campaign donations.
- barbazoo 10mo ago
  Plus the separation of powers seems too reliant on the president being a decent human being. It'll be interesting to see that play out over the next decades.
- vunderba 10mo ago
  Agreed. I feel like the Supreme Court abandoned any semblance of critical thinking during the Citizens United v. FEC decision.
vkou 10mo ago
Be careful what you wish for. It's most likely that the only replacement for a two-party system the US will get... Will be a one-party system. Because there is no legal pathway[1] towards solving the conditions that create the two party system, but there are many illegal offramps that will get rid of one of those parties. --- [1] There are way too many obstacles, and the bar for consensus is too high to legally have these reforms. The bar is much lower for having them illegally - all you need is a single-party trifecta - lead by the kinds of people who'd start a coup rather than relinquish power.
- TulliusCicero 10mo ago
  That's true at the federal level, but it's possible to get past the two party system at the local or state level where there's allowance for voter initiatives. Portland's new city council setup, with four districts and three representatives each based on ranked choice voting, is a step in that direction.
  - vkou 10mo ago
    Once this problem is 'solved' at the federal level, what makes you think the feds won't similarly solve it at lower levels.
    - TulliusCicero 10mo ago
      Not sure what you mean by 'solved' here.
nickthegreek 10mo ago
While breaking the 2 party system seems unimaginable, I do feel like rank choice voting can do a lot to get us on a better path in the short/medium term.
- websiteapi 10mo ago
  I don’t know people are so hung up on ranked choice. Approval voting is simpler to explain, doesn’t require changing ballots and can be implemented immediately. Not to mention empirically results in more moderate candidates.
  - ClayShentrup 10mo ago
    yeah. https://asitoughttobemagazine.com/2010/07/18/score-voting/ https://asitoughttobemagazine.com/2010/07/18/score-voting/
- ClayShentrup 10mo ago
  nope. you need approval voting. https://asitoughttobemagazine.com/2010/07/18/score-voting/ https://asitoughttobemagazine.com/2010/07/18/score-voting/
RickJWagner 10mo ago
The problems with the US are less than the problems in the countries where the flood of wishful immigrants are coming from. The fences on many countries are to keep people in. For the US, it is to keep people out.

andrewmutz 10mo ago

These days the policy positions of each party are hashed out on social media by non-experts. For both the democrats and the republicans, instead of any sort of research or experts driving public policy decisions, it's instead the things that resonate with your average person's feelings as they scroll through their feed and get engagement. The end result is of course populism. Each election cycle gets us closer to the policy positions of the Republicans being "Immigrants are bad" and Democrats being "Billionaires are bad". We know where populism leads, and we've seen it for decades in south america. In a few decades, we will get to choose between the populist far left and the populist far right. Policy will get crazier and crazier and measurable societal outcomes will stagnate and perhaps go backwards. This will continue as long as social media is the primary form of entertainment in the US.

rpcope1 10mo ago
[flagged]
- andrewmutz 10mo ago
  I agree with you that my words are unpopular. Populism is popular. Government and economics is complicated, so it's not that crazy to suggest that your average person doesn't understand it very well. The medical analog of economic populism is antivax and free birth content. Super popular online, but leads to bad outcomes.
  - computerthings 10mo ago
    [dead]
- JohnBooty 10mo ago
  Those damn plebs just have no idea what's best for them. Most people are not an expert in a single field, much less multiple fields, and never every field. So yes, we need experts to play a substantial role in running things. Perhaps even more importantly: it's not solely about what's best for every individual. You know what would be best for me? If the government gave me a free giant SUV that gets 4mpg fuel economy, and also let me drive as fast as I wanted while also subsidizing 90% of my fuel costs. Also it should drive itself so I can sleep while driving. Sometimes we need to consider what's best for society and the planet, too.

SpicyLemonZest 10mo ago

> Political leaders and activists are petrified to go outside of a few slogans, because those slogans represent what the party writ large agrees on. They are actually angry when anyone demands they do so, making claims that there’s an attempt to avoid a “big tent” or engage in forms of inappropriate litmus testing, instead of seeing the demand to do the political work necessary to build a society. I think this is really the core dispute, and I'd encourage the author to take it more seriously. Does the Democratic coalition work without pro-corporate liberals on board? How many people would jump ship if you excommunicated Reed Hastings and Ezra Klein, and which are the Republican voters who would be swayed to replace (and hopefully more-than-replace) them? Without good answers to these questions, there's a very real risk of creating an energized, passionate, anti-corporate Democratic party which simply does not have any path to 270 electoral votes. "Chuck Schumer still imagines America as it was in 1980", in the author's words. But what this means is that Chuck Schumer remembers an era where California was a Republican stronghold, a poorly constructed Democratic coalition led to three consecutive Republican landslides, and they hung on in Congress only by maintaining the loyalty of legacy segregationists. He knows that it can happen again.

lapcat 10mo ago
> How many people would jump ship with Reed Hastings if you excommunicated him By people do you mean voters or donors? I suspect that approximately zero voters would care. > which are the Republican voters who would be swayed to replace (and hopefully more-than-replace) them? This is a false dichotomy. At this point, Republicans cannot be swayed by anything. Trump just said that Rob Reiner was murdered because of "Trump Derangement Syndrome". It's impossible for him to lose his loyal followers, no matter what he does or anyone else does. Both major political parties are extremely unpopular among nonpartisans. They plug their noses and vote, if they vote at all. In the 2024 Presidential election, 37% of eligible voters voted for neither, mostly for nothing, whereas only 32% of eligible voters voted for Trump. Swing voters and nonvoters are not necessarily "moderate". That's a myth. They're nonpartisan, which is not to say that they're "between" the two parties. Many of them hardly even pay attention to politics. There's a lot of room to appeal to people who are disaffected with the system. The most popular politician in the US is Bernie Sanders. And the reason is that he's the most popular politician among political independents. He's not the most popular politician among Democrats (which is why he lost the Democratic nomination), and obviously he's not the most popular politician among Republicans, but across the whole spectrum, he's more popular than anyone else. It's also important to note that it wasn't until after the Reagan Presidency (and arguably due to its policies) that the ultra-wealthy came to monopolize most increases in personal income, so populism itself wouldn't have been as popular in the 1980s as it is now, as economic disparity has grown unabated in the decades since.