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Headlines “Politics” [read the OP before posting]
- Thread starter vonFiedler
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Democrats, holding a gun in their hand, gawking at the smoldering crater in their foot: “why would progressives do this?”
Unironically the US should have a new March to the Sea, rooting out every Red legislator and jurist.
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Art.
Dear man in his thirties: I hear you, learning about government is HARD! Here are some helpful explainers to learn more about how government works, including the state legislatures, division of powers, and the constitution!
Now that you've seen these videos, you now know it's willful ignorance to pretend like Democrats can legally stop a rogue Republican judiciary or state legislatures, because there are no real checks on the judiciary. Even without the filibuster, any federal ban on abortion bans is just going to get baselessly ruled unconstitutional because it impedes "states rights." But that's not going to stop Very Smart People and reddit replyguys from meaninglessly pointing out that Democrats have the presidency and federal legislatures.
Idk what kind of fucking point you think you're making, but you seriously need to check yourself if you're going to start attacking people for giving options to women in places they might see those options. If your outrage is spent attacking the very people trying to protect abortion access (or the people trying to still give women options), it's clear you're neither progressive or a leftist
also gonna add these mfers can't even be bothered to vote, so the idea that they would try anything drastic involving a whole lot more effort is extremely funny to me
I don’t think I’ve ever actually gotten mad at a post on smogon. Boo836, I would like to commend you for this.
I am angry about how much this all sucks and how preventable it was. I’m sure you’ve seen the posts. Obama in his 2nd term issuing a statement that “abortion rights aren’t a big priority” (paraphrasing). Pelosi currently endorsing an anti-abortion incumbent democrat in his campaign for re-election against a pro-abortion democrat challenger. I have watched the Biden administration spend 16 months introducing what would be genuinely good legislation only for it to get killed by, surprise, other democrats.
And you know what? I voted for this shit!!! I spent 3 hours waiting in line so I could vote for Hillary and blue everything else in 2016. I voted for Biden and blue everything else in 2020. You can even check my posts from 2 years ago— as disappointed as I was that Biden was the nominee, I was convinced Biden was a significantly better option than not voting at all. A large component of that was specifically because I knew trump 2020 meant the end of roe.
And look where we are. The democrats are in power, have accomplished, like honestly what significant thing have they even done in 2021 or 2022? We have watched a republican minority effortlessly stonewall whatever democrats want to do AND on top of that they’re about to achieve one of their greatest political goals of the last 30-40 years in overturning roe.
Your response? Should have voted harder, cwl. Myzozoas point about how, hey it’s actually not that easy for every single person to just, go somewhere else to get an abortion, is met with, like Christ you calling them regressive for making that observation?
And as for civics? We are witnessing, again, a republican minority that is about to overturn a policy that is actively favored by 58% of Americans and disfavored by 28%. How are they doing this? Because when they were in power they rammed as many judges and justices into lifelong offices that were not only sympathetic to their policies, but actively aligned with them, while successfully blocking many of the democratic parties attempts whenever they tried to do the same. We witnessed a literal coup attempt over a year ago. The only significant repercussions for those responsible have been for the rubes who were convinced to do the dirty work. People fucking died because of this event!
I am a cis white man born into significant financial privilege. I’m not going to pretend that the right for abortion and reproductive freedom is as drastic for me as it is for others. I am autistic, and bisexual, and I read Alitos opinion. There is no doubt in my mind that the next step after roe will be for me to be, by law, a second class citizen. And I have it nowhere near as bad as other historically marginalized groups. This shit is personal. I am genuinely baffled how someone can go through life, see this situation, and craft condescending posts about, lol, civics videos, in response.
I am angry about how much this all sucks and how preventable it was. I’m sure you’ve seen the posts. Obama in his 2nd term issuing a statement that “abortion rights aren’t a big priority” (paraphrasing). Pelosi currently endorsing an anti-abortion incumbent democrat in his campaign for re-election against a pro-abortion democrat challenger. I have watched the Biden administration spend 16 months introducing what would be genuinely good legislation only for it to get killed by, surprise, other democrats.
And you know what? I voted for this shit!!! I spent 3 hours waiting in line so I could vote for Hillary and blue everything else in 2016. I voted for Biden and blue everything else in 2020. You can even check my posts from 2 years ago— as disappointed as I was that Biden was the nominee, I was convinced Biden was a significantly better option than not voting at all. A large component of that was specifically because I knew trump 2020 meant the end of roe.
And look where we are. The democrats are in power, have accomplished, like honestly what significant thing have they even done in 2021 or 2022? We have watched a republican minority effortlessly stonewall whatever democrats want to do AND on top of that they’re about to achieve one of their greatest political goals of the last 30-40 years in overturning roe.
Your response? Should have voted harder, cwl. Myzozoas point about how, hey it’s actually not that easy for every single person to just, go somewhere else to get an abortion, is met with, like Christ you calling them regressive for making that observation?
And as for civics? We are witnessing, again, a republican minority that is about to overturn a policy that is actively favored by 58% of Americans and disfavored by 28%. How are they doing this? Because when they were in power they rammed as many judges and justices into lifelong offices that were not only sympathetic to their policies, but actively aligned with them, while successfully blocking many of the democratic parties attempts whenever they tried to do the same. We witnessed a literal coup attempt over a year ago. The only significant repercussions for those responsible have been for the rubes who were convinced to do the dirty work. People fucking died because of this event!
I am a cis white man born into significant financial privilege. I’m not going to pretend that the right for abortion and reproductive freedom is as drastic for me as it is for others. I am autistic, and bisexual, and I read Alitos opinion. There is no doubt in my mind that the next step after roe will be for me to be, by law, a second class citizen. And I have it nowhere near as bad as other historically marginalized groups. This shit is personal. I am genuinely baffled how someone can go through life, see this situation, and craft condescending posts about, lol, civics videos, in response.
Did it ever occur to you that the reason why abortion rights weren't a priority during the Obama years was because it was literally unthinkable for jurists to overturn Constitutional rights at the whim of party leadership? You're just making excuses to be mad at the people actually fighting for abortion access. And at no point has my argument been to "vote harder," it's that if you can't make the bare minimum required for effort, the idea that you intend to instigate any sort of change or fight is laughable. If you're genuinely concerned about becoming a secondary citizen, you don't discourage others from making the same basic effort. If you only voted in the Presidential elections, you didn't even fully do the bare minimum. If you were really concerned with the 1/6 attacks, you would recognise the necessity of removing every single Republican from office.
All this grandstanding about your life experience only demonstrates we have similar experiences. Except I've been beaten unconscious and hospitalised for my sexuality, because I'm actually willing to put myself on the line for our rights. If you want to understand how someone could be so condescending to DSA replyguys who clearly don't take this shit seriously, go get your head kicked in by people who want us dead and maybe you'll begin to understand.
Plague von Karma
Banned deucer.
Danny McCormick is moving to make abortion a homicide act in Louisiana. Remember to check that abortion map and get out there, the Republicans are moving fast!
Here's the bill itself for context. You can view the text and stuff, click around as you normally would.
https://www.legis.la.gov/legis/BillInfo.aspx?s=22RS&b=HB813&sbi=y
There's also the fact that you can still illegally get an abortion. A ban on it doesn't stop the issue. It just makes the process of getting one possibly dangerous. I guess you could say that for literally anything, but this point has always been the one that's resonated with me on my abortion stance
seems to me that if libs are so upset about progressives and leftists (allegedly) not voting for Dems enough, that the Dems should compromise their hardline stance against policies that these crucial voters want.
when they blame progressives and leftists for this happening while they control the government, it almost seems as though they aren't actually serious about things like protecting abortion rights, and would rather use the fear of losing basic rights as a fundraising tactic to gin up electoral support for their candidates without having to change their party platform, which appears to be "do nothing and blame anyone but themselves"
just how it looks to a layman though! I'm sure someone with far more nuanced analytical skills could explain how this is actually Susan Surandon's fault, and Biden is trying his darndest.
when they blame progressives and leftists for this happening while they control the government, it almost seems as though they aren't actually serious about things like protecting abortion rights, and would rather use the fear of losing basic rights as a fundraising tactic to gin up electoral support for their candidates without having to change their party platform, which appears to be "do nothing and blame anyone but themselves"
just how it looks to a layman though! I'm sure someone with far more nuanced analytical skills could explain how this is actually Susan Surandon's fault, and Biden is trying his darndest.
I've been kind of thinking that something is seriously wrong with the current judicial system for awhile. It seems like the original intention with Supreme Court appointments in particular was that the President and the Senate would have to agree on someone with the wisdom and morals to do what was best for the country and its people, but instead it just devolved into "the only acceptable nomination is a yes-man for my party". People expressed concern at the time, but now we're really seeing the potential effects.
Then again America is decades behind most other first-world countries in a lot of respects, bodily autonomy included. But potentially slipping backwards like this is bad even by American standards.
Yup… unless we can change the law to explicitly provide reasonable access as a right.
I think that Progressives (except Bernie) have consistently advocated for eliminating the filibuster— it’s just not going to be a near-term political feasibility for the Dems to get a majority big enough to override it, and do so without 2-10 Joe Manchin’s tanking it.
And I think people have got every right to believe that if we did get to 70 Dems in the Senate, we’d suddenly find ourselves with 15-20 Joe Manchin’s and a lot of flip-flopping. (Existing Right Wing Dems pretending to be more moderate, and voting progressively when they know the votes are not going to come together will outright vote reactionary if they are pushed to)
I think the abortion issue really really underscores the problem with relying on budget reconciliation because there are clearly really really really important legislative agendas that just can’t be seen as a budget issue (like constitutional amendments to expand civil rights…) and more that they’ll find ridiculous explanations for how it’s not a budget issue ($15 Min Wage).
To get the type of Dem Party domination we’re talking about I don’t think you’ll get there just with activism and civic engagement. It’s got to be a big cultural shift— we’d really need the Republicans to just simply flat-face so badly and culturally be so unacceptable that they’re just completely irrelevant, seen as backwards and ridiculous and ultimately go the way of the wigs (and after which we can replace them with a party left of the Dems)—
But I think the party, the GOP’s ideas and its politicians are already that crazy and ridiculous but the party failure is far from happening. The conservative media sphere and cultural sphere is too robust, and it feels like the small crazy base that embraces fascism is expanding not contracting in response to the country’s wider long-term move towards progressive culture.
It’s not unfair for the liberal/progressive voters to expect a bit more cut throat politics out of our party, in service of the party agenda or even just in service of getting more power— like rigging gerrymandering more in Dem favor, adjusting voting access of broad democracy so cities have more sway/population > land having more voting say, etc. etc.
It’s also not unfair for us to expect Democrats to embrace a bit of populist style of campaigning when/where it strategically makes sense to win elections. Even the fascists are smart enough to lie about support for workers/“economic populism” before voting more pro-oligarch on policy than the tea party when they get in office.
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Heh. Didn't think I'd be posting back here anytime soon. I guess life is full of surprises.
I'll just cut to the chase. Once upon a time, there was a person named Roe, and a person named Wade. Apparently they had some crazy debate over the topic of abortion, but naturally since our education system is such a freaking joke, I know almost nothing about either side of the discussion. The only things I can say for certain are that my family is predominantly conservative and that some whistleblower fella came out with some information about a Supreme Court ruling not too long ago.
I already know where I stand on the issue: whether or not this gets overturned, it doesn't necessarily mean that getting abortion(s) is/are required. In other words, a pro-life woman is still going to be much less likely to abort her unborn child even if a pro-choice outcome is what comes out of this ruling. For this reason I'm actually going to depart from my overly conservative brethren a little bit and say that allowing them is probably the "safer compromise between two controversial options". The lesser of two evils, if you will. Just so I'm caught up with the full story, though, I would like to ask if there's anything else I still need to know. I'll still be looking at replies, but I wouldn't expect to see me come back here for another actual post for quite some time. Thanks in advance :)
Late Edit: Wow, I’m a freaking idiot; I actually got the opinions of each party backwards when I made this post. My opinion remains the same, but like… how do I mess up that badly?
I'll just cut to the chase. Once upon a time, there was a person named Roe, and a person named Wade. Apparently they had some crazy debate over the topic of abortion, but naturally since our education system is such a freaking joke, I know almost nothing about either side of the discussion. The only things I can say for certain are that my family is predominantly conservative and that some whistleblower fella came out with some information about a Supreme Court ruling not too long ago.
I already know where I stand on the issue: whether or not this gets overturned, it doesn't necessarily mean that getting abortion(s) is/are required. In other words, a pro-life woman is still going to be much less likely to abort her unborn child even if a pro-choice outcome is what comes out of this ruling. For this reason I'm actually going to depart from my overly conservative brethren a little bit and say that allowing them is probably the "safer compromise between two controversial options". The lesser of two evils, if you will. Just so I'm caught up with the full story, though, I would like to ask if there's anything else I still need to know. I'll still be looking at replies, but I wouldn't expect to see me come back here for another actual post for quite some time. Thanks in advance :)
Late Edit: Wow, I’m a freaking idiot; I actually got the opinions of each party backwards when I made this post. My opinion remains the same, but like… how do I mess up that badly?
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please do not question the integrity of our democratic institutions, you wellbutrin eating libtard.
*voats* ok this time climate change will really go away! this time we will really fix it! *voutes* nice! another irreversible win for human rights! *vots* conservative media outlets that teach millions of americans to hate every day, as well as the conditions that produce demand for them, are key to a healthy democracy! *votus* if anything ever gets out of hand, i’m sure we can fix it by voting!!!!!
don’t get me wrong revolution is a larp but so is doing politics in the neoliberal sense of the word
don’t get me wrong revolution is a larp but so is doing politics in the neoliberal sense of the word
Correct, a 50-50 split isn't really control of the Senate, and it's definitely not enough to forward any coherent agenda. It just ends up empowering a minority of bad actors within the party. A great deal of those bad actors, like Sinema and Tulsi Gabbard, drew their influence from the exact sorts of fauxgressives that are telling people to not vote. Others, like Manchin, are exactly the sort of reactionary that people who inform themselves with bad comedy podcasts were trying to say Democrats should appeal to throughout 2018 and 2020, to connect with the white "working class."
Neoliberalism is a forty year old political and economic ideology that isn't even relevant anymore. Using it as shorthand for "things I don't like" makes no sense. Is voting neoliberal now? Are we condemning RSDLP Bolsheviks as neoliberals because of their initial human rights focus and participation in Duma elections? It's wild how we've gone from the electoral politics and revolutionary activity to undertaking neither electoral politics or revolutionary activity. It's this right here that perfectly demonstrates what I mean when I talk about performative politics.
TheValkyries
proudly reppin' 2 superbowl wins since DEFLATEGATE
Sorry I’m still trying to figure out how you reasoned out that it’s leftists and progressives fault that democrats can’t do anything with complete federal legislative power. Do you mean that like… progressives need to win in hostile red states at the state level also? Genuinely by what magic is it progressives fault that red states are red?
The filibuster means they don't have complete legislative power. You could get every single Democrat in office unified behind a hive mind and it wouldn't mean shit because the Republicans will just filibuster any proposals into oblivion.
We need to stop propagating this myth that the Democrats "control" anything besides the presidency. Without more Democrats in office or Republican support the Dems simply lack the legal power to get a lot of what we want passed.
Mr hands what are your thoughts on eliminating the filibuster
Sounds nice until the Republicans do "better than expected" in 2024 and proceed to make a mockery of this country while the Democrats can do nothing to stop it.
Remember the Democrats use the filibuster as well. They used it quite a bit during Trump's presidency.
Two questions:
What notable situations have the democrats successfully used the filibuster? And what did that prevent?
Are there situations where the democrats could have filibustered, but didn’t, that would have prevented something important? (By important, I mean from the perspective of the ramifications)
I recognize these come of as leading questions but I genuinely do not have answers for these. I of course, have my own opinions on the filibuster as a concept, but would be interested to see a compelling argument for it being worthwhile to keep
https://www.senate.gov/legislative/cloture/clotureCounts.htm
i.e. in the 2019-2020 congress, McConnell filed cloture motions 327 times (and Schumer once), the most ever by quite a margin in a single congress, meaning over 300 times he was trying to force votes on things that Democrats were stalling. This stark increase is largely because of how many judicial nominees there were (and how many were unqualified and/or clear partisans) and since the filibuster no longer exists functionally for nominees, pretty much all of those ended up being meaningless. So don't necessarily look at the counts too closely, but if you click through the links you will see that it was certainly used for some legislation too, primarily on various budget/appropriations bills.
While the budget/approps bills that were the primary targets of Democratic filibusters may sound innocuous, Republicans didn't actually do all that much standalone legislation under Trump to be quite honest... our government has been increasingly been run by appropriations + executive action for quite some time, dating back at least to the absolute obstruction of Obama, but the roots go back farther than that. So often times appropriations bills have lots of junk shoved into them and Democrats would filibuster to force Republicans back to the negotiating table to pass clean approps bills without the extra junk.
Probably the most notable example was this
https://apnews.com/article/4089515ecc8b43198b2f3bb7062453f6
Since Congress doesn't actually legislate much anymore, the filibuster is more of something in the toolbox that prevents a lot of legislation from ever even being attempted than something that is actually constantly used. (Really, this is a vicious circle - having the filibuster around is a very significant factor in why so much legislation is done through appropriations bills and not as standalone votes.)
In terms of standalone legislation, I'm not remembering too much. There was Tim Scott's police reform act that Democrats felt was inadequate and there was some abortion legislation, such as this one
https://www.congress.gov/bill/116th-congress/senate-bill/3275
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pain-Capable_Unborn_Child_Protection_Act
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