that means a democratic party that wins will often fail to give the left wing of the base what it wants. a faction that treats every compromise as betrayal is just not a viable part of a political coalition.
the point of the democratic party is to win general elections. general elections have lots of voters in them who believe all sorts of different things. to win, you cannot just appeal to one faction of your base. you have to appeal to other people, too.
i think you're maybe not understanding my point. i agree that democrats have not given the left everything it wants. (i don't necessarily agree with all the specific points you made).
bsky.app/profile/desd...
i'm not sure what time period you have in mind when you say this. marriage equality was very unpopular for a very long time. when obama endorsed it in 2012 it was roughly a 50-50 issue
news.gallup.com/poll/1651/ga...
bsky.app/profile/desd...
i never said otherwise.
bsky.app/profile/desd...
of course im not saying that persuading trump online is a useful goal or that democratic politicians should never be criticized.
im not sure i understand this. before you were saying the democrats dont listen to the base and that's why people on here are so hostile and "exasperated" but now you're saying it's because democrats do listen and that's why it's worth criticizing them on here.
bsky.app/profile/desd...
to be completely honest i have no idea who or what you are talking about here. do you have any links i could look at?
bsky.app/profile/desd...
until this year, israel was seen as more sympathetic than palestine by the public
news.gallup.com/poll/702440/...
bsky.app/profile/desd...
abortion cannot be banned or protected through reconciliation, since it's not a category of taxation or expenditure, so neither side can pass a nationwide law on it.
the budget reconciliation procedure allows filibusters to be avoided for budgetary provisions. this is why democrats were able to pass the inflation reduction act on party lines but republicans are not able to pass the SAVE act.
bsky.app/profile/desd...
i would consider this biden's greatest failure as a president
merrick garland investigated thoroughly to avoid giving courts the impression of a politically motivated prosecution. he should have moved faster but you can see from trump's failed attempts to prosecute comey, james etc. why this was necessary
bsky.app/profile/desd...
frankly my main basis for believing this is seeing how i and others behave online
i dont see this as very strong evidence. sudden changes are both stressful and identifiable, so it isn't surprising many people said this. that indicates very little about the long-run impact of social media.
it seems the two of you have a disagreement
i do agree that most americans crave some sort of change, but changes happen all the time in society. so i wouldn't agree that elites have both the desire and ability to ensure nothing changes.
but i also think that most people would be very unhappy with any particular fundamental change like that
when you say "fundamental change" i envision something like a total reordering of society, like a centrally planned economy or deporting all nonwhites or something. so i agree that nothing like that would happen regardless of which party is in power because elites still have enough sway to stop that
until 2025, yes. going forward, unclear.
so, i don't understand why you feel like democrats do not listen to the base
its totally true that there were specific topics where the left did not get what it wanted. in most cases this was simply because of republicans, but for instance, as you observed, biden was a *lot* friendlier to israel than most of the left wanted.
when biden was president he pushed for left-wing priorities like a child tax credit, addressing climate change, and ending the afghanistan war. he appointed a supreme court justice who reliably votes in left-wing ways. he raised taxes on the rich. but he wasn't listening to the base?
when obama was president he pushed for left-wing priorities like universal health care, addressing climate change, and ending the iraq war. he appointed supreme court justices who reliably vote in left-wing ways. he raised taxes on the rich. but he wasn't listening to the base?
7. "the only reason people seem more hostile and exasperated in their critiques is because for decades the dems refuse to listen to their base."
i don't understand this view at all, really. i assume you view "their base" as the left, but the past two dem administrations listened to the left a lot!
i cannot think of any other form of organized conflict -- war, revolution, sports, etc. -- where anyone seriously thinks it is generally productive to spend more energy and focus on fighting your own team than the enemy team. yet it appears to me that many people on social media do just that.
6. "You criticize your "side" because you want it to actually do great" i think this is true sometimes, but i think left-wing criticism of democrats has a lot more to do with the hope of extracting policy or symbolic concessions than helping the party win.
5. i dont agree with KOSA. social media is poisonous and i understand why there is support for trying to protect children from it, but this isn't the way. i think this is a fair criticism of both parties.
3. israel is a controversial issue among democrats. some democrats are supportive of israel and others are very much not. viewing The Democrats as a unified actor is not a useful way to understand this.
4. it would be better to have the propaganda machine on our side.
1. are you asking "why were the prosecution efforts against trump generally unsuccessful" or are you asking "why didn't they extralegally arrest trump"
2. the women's health protection act passed the house and was filibustered by republicans
