Republicans Boost Jill Stein as Potential Harris Spoiler
wsj.com
“Federal Election Commission records show Stein paid $100,000 in July to a consulting outfit that has worked with Republican campaigns, as well as Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s independent presidential bid. The firm, Accelevate, is operated by Trent Pool. The Intercept reported that he appeared to be part of the mob that breached the grounds of the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6., 2021. The Journal hasn’t independently verified the reporting.”
And not just republicans. You can find all stripes of accelerationist crazies doing that on this very website.
We must bring about glorious revolution, even if our methods aren't particularly effective and millions suffer.
No you see they have a plan.
Its brilliance is in its simplicity!
Why do you believe folks voting for Stein would be likely Harris voters?
So if you look at the policy positions of a Green Party, it tends to align more closely with voters who would traditionally vote Democratic.
Here’s their own blurb from their website
Considering that the Republican Party uses the phrase “social justice warrior” as an insult and to this day field candidates that reject climate change, the idea that Republican voters might choose to vote for this party over their own seems less likely to me.
The Green Party is politically left of center, so it seems reasonable to me that the people that would vote for them would be more likely to come from the group of voters more likely to cast a ballot for Harris than trump.
If you look at the textbook positions, sure. But if you look at the activities of the Democratic Party while in power, you see some sharp deviations. Biden expanding oil drilling leases on public lands. Harris taking money from Crypto shills and other energy ravenous tech billionaires. Their hard-line opposition to immigration. Their continued endorsement of arms sales to Israel.
If you go back to the 2000 election with Nader and you look at Green turnout trends in Florida relative to party affiliation, you discover lots of GOP / Green crossover voting. Nearly as many Greens defected from the Bush Oil Family as the Gore camp. In fact, its the SJW and climate denialist rhetoric that turns died-in-the-wool Republicans into Green defectors on the regular.
But the dirty secret about Green voters (much like their Libertarian counterparts) is that they tend to win votes in districts and states where one party thoroughly dominates. You'll find more Green Dems in bright Blue California and Minnesota and New York and Washington. You'll find more Green Republicans in Texas and South Carolina and Utah and Ohio.
The platforms of the Green Party have been shared by both parties across the decades. And you can regularly find Greens who fell out of one party or the other precisely because of the drift.
What we're seeing today is a large number of Arab American spilling out of the Democratic Party, because the Dems are abandoning even a semblance of support for a Rules Based International Order, with respect to Israel. That's what has people freaked out about Jill Stein. She's become a magnet for disaffected liberals.
But go back twenty years, to when John McCain was pushing a climate change bill and George Bush Jr was signing legislation full of EV car credits, and you can find liberal Republicans with Green frills. Go back farther than that and you can find Green Republicans in the Sierra Club and even Greenpeace. The Greens aren't Left-of-Center. They're simply platforming issues that the other two parties have abandoned.
If the republicans thought that the Green Party was going to be an attractive option for their voters in 2000 they certainly adopted an odd strategy
https://web.archive.org/web/20050912163938/http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/aponline/20001027/aponline115918_000.htm
It’s not some crazy conspiracy either, the Republican Leadership Council explained the ad buys in this way
You might notice how the answer doesn’t really make any sense, a pro Bush Republican PAC wanted to run ads in Gore strongholds promoting Nader with the argument that Gore broke numerous promises. Why? Because groups said that a vote for Nader is a vote for Bush. It sounds like they are trying to counter this but then their actions fully support that idea.
Maybe some republicans could be persuaded to join the greens, but I pay attention to how people spend their money because talk is cheap. If republicans spend money to promote Nader in states they want to win, they obviously think they’ll poach more gore voters than Bush voters, it just doesn’t make sense otherwise.
I actually agree that the Green Party is staking out policy positions that both parties have abandoned, but I still think the abandoned policies they’ve picked up to champion are still more attractive to left leaning people than right leaning people.
Unless the WSJ has been taken over by liberals, owned by famous liberal Rupert Murdoch, they seem to be following a similar path now https://www.wsj.com/politics/elections/jill-stein-republican-support-harris-voters-5a194ebf
So while I imagine some of these policy positions might be attractive to some disaffected republicans, republicans seem to think it will be useful to promote them. The only way that makes any kind of sense is if they think it will attract more potential Democratic Party voters than republican.
Republicans try things that fail or backfire all the time. That same year, George Bush was stumping in Fresno California a month before the general election.
Does that mean Republicans had a genius plan to win California? No. Bush's pollsters were just shitily over-optimistic.
Dems employ similar tricks, backing the wackier GOP primary contenders during the primary for instance.
But in the end, how well do they work? Is a dollar spent on some quixotic 11D chess more successful than old school retail politicking?
Consultants love to pretend they are masterminds by zigging left when everyone else zags right. For all the panic you hear about Jill Stein being a Republican ploy to get people to care about environmentalism, I've rarely seen the GOP fumble harder than when they gave AOC's Green New Deal a vote in the Senate and raised her to national stature.
Don't confuse people throwing shit at the wall with effective strategy.
It’s true that consultants seem to love these “extremely clever” plays. I imagine if Harris wins, you’ll see a lot more “let’s switch the candidate out and get an excitement bump like that thing that worked that one time.”
I looked for data to try to quantify the demographics of Green Party voters and couldn’t find much, if you’ve got some I’d love to see it.
I suppose the thing that stands out to me is how Republican and Democratic programming works. Both parties enforce norms and spend a lot of time programming at their constituencies. I believe that trump was able to take over the Republican Party against the wishes of the party leadership because he intuitively understood this. He sorta hijacked this programming because he knew the dog whistles and catch phrases and was willing to shamelessly iterate and say whatever would work. Here’s a fun article about him thinking “drain the swamp” was a bad line and then embracing it wholeheartedly when it worked https://www.washingtonpost.com/video/politics/2016-trump-explains-why-he-didnt-like-the-phrase-drain-the-swamp-but-now-does/2016/10/26/4a2f257a-9be0-11e6-b552-b1f85e484086_video.html
This programming is where we get political tropes from. It’s why if you see a thumbnail about “woke dei bullshit” you can be pretty sure that’s going to be a conservative complaint video.
When I look at the Green Party messaging, if they are trying to attract republicans as much as democrats, it’s weird. The comms are full of Republican third rails like social justice, the carousel says that the Green Party is the birthplace of the green new deal, the rail against corporate power. Now this isn’t to say there wouldn’t be anyone on the right that wouldn’t be cool with these ideas, but to frame it in these terms goes against decades of Republican talking points and programming.
It’s not like support for the green new deal is something of a question on the right. They have been upset about the non-green new deal since FDR passed it, and I’ve never seen a single Republican politician or talking head have anything but disdain for the green new deal. As you point out, they didn’t promote it because they like it, but as a way to knee cap AOC which backfired.
If you start with the belief that I hold that the Green Party has no chance of winning, which seems like a reasonable starting point. Every voter that would have voted for Harris and instead votes for stein is net 1 vote for trump and every voter that would have voted for trump and instead votes for stein is net 1 vote for Harris.
I scroll around gp.org and it doesn’t have anything that looks like it’s aimed at attracting Republican voters. I do see a lot of stuff that seems like it could be aimed at attracting leftist and crunchy democratic voters. That’s not a criticism or anything, if that’s where their policy values are, that’s perfectly fine. But I just struggle to really think there are a ton of people about to vote for trump that are going to end up on that website and think “oh wow, finally a party that actually wants to work towards social justice.”
As someone that is left of the Democratic Party I recognize a lot of the things on this website, it’s a lot of the things the democrats have been promising and failing to deliver for a long time. Perhaps because so many of the talking points and policies are so familiar and feel so comfortable to me as someone who is disappointed in the democratic party’s failure to deliver on these things I find it hard to believe that republicans are looking at this site and thinking “I’ve found my people”
I'm much more interested in your plan than whatever strawman you can make up about the voters whom Democrats have left on the table for objecting to the genocide they want to fund.
Focus on getting progressives into local and state offices so they can build experience necessary to successfully run for federal office. Vote lesser evil for president in the meantime to buy time for progressive to get that experience. In 10-15 years of diligent efforts we can get progressives into probably about a 1/3 of our congressional seats. At that point, a progressive presidential candidate with congressional experience stands an actual chance of winning the presidency, and will have the legislative support to actually accomplish their policy goals when they get there.
How does this differ from the plan 10-15 years ago? Should we not be seeing returns if lesser evil voting did anything other than ratchet us over to the right? Should a politician have to do anything to earn the votes that put them into office?
It doesn't, we just haven't been doing it. Progressives show up at mid terms in lower proportions than conservatives, we have to show up for every election, even the boring local ones. Governors and Senators become Presidents. If we want a progressive President, we need progressive Governors and Senators to nominate.
Perhaps I wasn't clear: voting lesser evil is necessary for change but it is not sufficient. Again, the return on lesser evil voting is delaying the greater evil so that good can get into position. If we're not using that delay to vote progressive into lower offices, then yes voting lesser evil accomplishes little else.
This isn't a productive perspective. Lots of things should happen. You shouldn't have to look both ways before crossing at a crosswalk when you have the light; but if you follow "should", you'll have the satisfaction of being in the right when you get hit by a car.
The point of your vote isn't to reward candidates for having the right policies, the point of your vote is to protect your interests. You vote lesser evil for the same reason you lock your doors, to mitigate a worse outcome.
That's my point. I'm not convinced that my vote is protecting my interests at all, and what's changed to make the story any different with the plan from 10-15 years ago?
The voting system works well for Republicans as it is currently. They have no reason to make the radical changes in the next four years that are being fearmongered right now. At least not any that the Democrats, with or without the president, would do anything to stop.
Every bogeyman propped up as reasons to vote against republicans has not slowed down under recent democratic administrations, who refuse to defend the rights and meet the demands of the people even in the face of clear power grabs by the other side. There is no firm policy being presented, only vague projections that it won't be as bad as under republicans, who have shown us that don't need the presidency. The tail is already wagging the dog in that respect and the side that claims to represent the left believe in decorum too much to say enough.
It is up to the democrats alone to convince anyone otherwise. We should not be scolding voters for being disillusioned by poor and ineffectual governance. If that's where we're at; blaming the voters for the failures of politicians that are first and foremost chosen by monied interests; then we've already lost democracy.
We can do this again in four years, just like we did it four years ago and four years before that, or we can get what we want right now by banding together and telling them that our votes are on the table only if they make a good faith attempt to meet our demands, and if we're serious we will put our votes where our mouths are when the day comes. It's not impossible to win that way, we just watched it happen when they switched out Biden for Kamala.
You're going to have at least as much success doing that as you are scolding american voters every four years for voting their conscience just to then turn around and somehow convince them to be more politically active. Because that's who you're alienating, the handful of voters that actually care about the state of politics and may hold just enough power to swing a federal election. Certainly not the voters that are won just by having a larger campaign budget.
You can't beat them, so join them. Do not let this political moment go to waste, do not let yourself be complicit in genocide. Put pressure on the democrats to acknowledge the genocide in gaza, to stop arming Israel. That will get everyone on the same side, along with being a show of good faith that voters wishes still matter to Democrats. At a minimum, open your mind to that possibility.
Do not let the establishment intimidate you into forgetting what power we hold as a collective, into actively working against collective's own interests and shielding the establishment from the electoral consequences of their actions.
That’s not how evaluating a plan works.
Here, I’ve got a cure for cancer, shove pinecones up your ass.
You can determine that this plan is bad without having to have a cure for cancer.
Right, well you keep guaranteeing your vote for Democrats every year and attacking anyone that criticizes them for being ineffective and see how much that gets you, since their current platform and every election leading up to this one hasn't been enough to prove that they don't really care that much about defending progressive policy and will throw both it and their voters under the bus if they think it will help them tap into the republican base instead. Continue directing your ire at your fellow voters instead of using it to hold your elected representative's feet to the fire. That definitely seems like a sound plan and totally isn't more of what got us here in the first place 👍
It’s a nice straw man you’ve erected and if I did any of those things you might have some kind of point.
I didn’t attack anyone, I pointed out that this alternative plan is unlikely to bring about any substantive change either.
So you keep telling people to sit at home and I’ll wait for the glorious revolution, maybe if you shout down people and tell them to read more theory that’ll help. The American people are super into reading political theory.
Lmao I've never told anyone to read theory or to sit at home but go off I guess.
I thought we were just casting aspersions for fun 🤣
Oh, so you're just trolling. Got it 👍
Including Russian trolls
This is the hilarious tragedy of the Democratic party:
If the race is close, then the electoral college, courts and other methods can be used to bump things to the GOP (2000).
If the race isn't that close, then people will feel comfortable voting third party to "make a statement", which can cost enough votes in key states to cost the election (2016).
I mean, in 2016 Dems still handily won the popular vote, so it was still the electoral college as the ultimate problem, and third parties were only contributing factors.
In addition to just being a good idea, getting rid of the electoral college would be good because we’d never have to hear about meaningless third-party candidates acting as spoilers. They’d either be real contenders or just narcissists like Jill Stein.
Getting rid of the electoral college would not solve spoiler candidates necessarily. For that you would need to replace it with ranked voting or multiple rounds. Would still be a good idea, as the college just means presidents caring a lot more about swing states.
Without the electoral college though, the only time a third party candidate could act as a spoiler would be if they had a significant share of the vote. They deserve to be spoilers in those cases I think. My problem is with folks pulling in 1% - 3% of the vote in a single state ultimately deciding a national election.
But yeah, RCV would be the best way to ensure better representation (though honestly it can still easily have what could be viewed as “spoilers”)
Haven’t we all known this about Shill Stein for a very long time, or are we supposed to pretend it’s a big shocking reveal so the leftists can feel better about being duped?
Are the democrat candidates not shills themselves?
That being said, fuck Jill Stein for squandering the Green Party. She needs to go away
Who are they shilling for? See, Comrade Stein is shilling for Russia. As we know- there is a connection. But who exactly would the democrats be accused of shilling for?
Netanyahu. AIPAC bought two candidates right out in the open. The party welcomes foreign interference against progressives.
Israel paid directly for two candidates and committed FARA violations? That's a big claim buddy. Got any... Evidence?
AIPAC paid to defeat Jamaal Bowman and Cori Bush. If you want to believe that AIPAC is actually independent of Israel, I can't make you stop believing absurdities.
I know what AIPAC is. Your claim is that they have direct funding from the government of Israel. That's illegal. You are allowed to set up a lobby group in the US that supports another country as long as the funds are obtained from within the US.
I know this might come as a shock to you, but there are many jews living in the US that happen to support Israel. You are welcome to set up any lobby group you want. Go ahead and set one up for Lebanon. But FARA is very clear about the source of the funds.
If youre not familiar with FARA take some time to acquaint your self? Or talk to a lawyer maybe? I don't know.
Your argument in favor of foreign interests interfering in US elections is essentially "well, it's perfectly legal, and if you don't like it, help another foreign interest interfere in US elections."
Are you doing it on purpose? It seems you're trying really hard. Like really hard.
That's not my argument. I think it's clear to everyone else reading you're doing it on purpose so I'm out. Cheers.
Then what is? It's fine to buy candidates as long as your PAC has the fig leaf of US funding when it operates on behalf of a foreign government? Because that's what happened. Israel didn't like the incumbents. AIPAC spent loads of money on their challengers.
Back in 2022, we were told that when the party propped up the anti-choice, pro-nra, anti-labor Henry Cuellar against his progressive challenger Jessica Cisneros, it absolutely wasn't because he was a centrist and she a progressive. It was that the party protects its incumbents in order to maintain the incumbency advantage and the proven track record for winning.
But we just saw the party do absolutely fucking nothing at all to protect the progressive incumbents Jamaal Bowman and Cori Bush, while their opponents took boatloads of cash from AIPAC to sink them.
As far as I'm concerned, the party supports Netanyahu's ongoing genocide, and in exchange AIPAC spends heaps of money in opposition to progressive incumbents that party leadership refuses to protect.
I understand what you're trying to say, but you've mixed in 3 different topics into a blender to build up a narrative. This is literally a gish gallop and it's intentional.
The only thing I pushed back was that AIPAC was taking money directly from Israel and circumventing FARA, which is a common conspiratorial talking point.
Now in addition to addressing FARA, you want to talk about
incumbent advantage and popularity of these candidates
dems support for genocide,
the influence of lobbying in elections.
Ok, let's both take a step back here, I ask that you humor me for a moment. Could you please quote where I said that Israel directly funded AIPAC in contravention of FARA? I don't recall making such an assertion, but you seem to be arguing as though I did.
Accusing me of being a conspiracy theorist for noticing that AIPAC spent loads of money to essentially buy candidates is low. Calling it a gish gallop when I expanded on it is lower still.
That's really all you have to say. We know you can't back up your claims with evidence already.
ROFL! Hilarious!
Yes, you find 14 pages of dead Palestinian infants to be the funniest shit ever. The perpetrator of the ongoing genocide in Gaza bought candidates for you.
No, I find your bullshit false accusations to be funny. Especially when it’s backed up by quite a lengthy mod log of removed misinformation and bullshit trolling attempts.
I have no sock puppet accounts. If I Had sockpuppets, my comments would have more upvotes and a lot more genocide supporters would have more downvotes. Only one comment I've ever made has been (unjustly in my opinion) removed as misinformation.
You're just mad that I didn't immediately shut up when you used "hilarious" as a rebuttal. Now you're responding to my comments multiple times, spouting conspiracy nonsense, and going through my comment history to stalk me into other threads.
News flash bud…. There’s no genocide supporters here. But ironically, I did see you get bent out of shape when someone accused you of being a Trump supporter.
Hypocrite.
If you can’t take it- don’t dish it.
You stood up for a genocide denier in the thread you followed me into on another community.
No, I didn’t.
You did. As for your ridiculous lie that there are no genocide supporters on lemmy:
https://lemmy.world/modlog?page=1&userId=1207993
https://lemmy.world/modlog?page=1&userId=9567319
https://lemmy.world/modlog?page=1&userId=67131
Those are just the ones I've been able to find since my comment of 54 minutes ago, in the midst of considerable distraction. One of them is the genocide denier you defended.
EDIT: Here's another:
https://lemmy.world/modlog?page=1&userId=67131
How do I know your bullshit is entirely ignorable?
You're not doing a very good job of ignoring it.
Scroll down, I brought receipts.
Yes, everyone who doesn't agree with you loves genocide. Let me get right on reading about that
Still ignoring me, I see.
Look at that! Four upvotes within mere minutes on a completely dead end comment chain! You’re about as authentic as they get bud!
No amount of suck puppets will make the shit you say appear any less stupid.
Lol what? Are you just totally ignorant to corporate involvement in politics? Do you know what a lobbyist is?
Comparing Russian influence on a compromised asset to lobbyists is a bit of a reach bud. But you do you!
Wow, wow. Have you seen Erin Brokovich? Do you think corporations have your best interest at heart? Triangle shirtwaist factory? OSHA? Johnson&Johnson gave generations of babies cancer with their talc. Just look up tort reform and tort cases. Watch the documentary Hot Coffee. Watch the documentary The Bleeding Edge about medical devices. How about the Oakville Blob scandal that happened during Clinton's administration? What about social media companies and tech companies and the products they produce? Lead in baby food and Dollar Tree foods. The Nestle baby formula scandal. Thalidomide babies. Glyphosate being a neurotoxin that's permeated our water supply. What about environmental impacts of our companies and how those are genociding more people than actual active war? What about P Diddy and Epstein and all their connections to literal business owners who fund and come up with many policies? Or earth being past 6 of 9 planetary boundaries?
And think about how insurance companies lobbied to prevent Medicare for All policies and the best thing we could get was Obamacare. Or how price gouging has been shown to have happened with current inflation around fucking FOOD prices. Or how fucking taxes and tax breaks work for corporations compared to the rates in the 70s.
Notice how all these things harm the general public? The very people our representatives should represent? Yeah, Dems are shills and have blood on their hands.
They are literally killing us through abusive policies, inaction, medical neglect, starvation, climate change, and mismanagement. The Dems may be less fucked up than others, but they are absolutely fucked up.
Clinton was buddies with Epstein. They are NOT "for the people." They are for the status quo.
Totally fine so long as it's our rich people who control politicians, just so long as it's not foreign rich people.
Nationalism is a hell of a drug.
AIPAC
Hilarious.
I don’t think supporting genocide is.
Yeah. No one does. So what’s hilarious is your baseless accusation that flies in the face of all things real and proven.
No! Come on, everyone! Third party candidates are what's best for the country. We aren't doing this to dilute the vote, we just want to have our voices heard. Sure, everything we are saying is being said by the main two parties, but we also smoke a lot of weed. So, come on, guys, just vote for the Green Party.
I vote Green.
Because I live in a country with an actual proportional representation system, so my vote for a minor party still allows the major party that I most closely align with to gain power
That has no barring on the Green Party this post is about. They are not the same just because they share a name.
I guess my point is less about the party specifically, are more that your country might not be collapsing quite so quickly if 49% of the population didn't feel massively disenfranchised every 4 years, and if there were actually incentives for collaboration and compromise between different view points
Roughly half of the States in the US have a higher population than the entirety of New Zealand. That is a much larger population to deal with, and the politics don't apply the same way. It isn't linear, it's logarithmic. The more people there are, the more exponentially difficult it is to manage. The Urban area of my city has about half of the Population of New Zealand, and my city has third party representation on the local level. Please, keep your condescension to yourself.
And I couldn't be more happy for you.
Goddamn thats some hypocrisy
No, it's sarcasm, and I was laying it on thick.
Oh just kidding, they hate proportional representation for some reason
Whoop di do, who gives a fuck?
Hear, hear!
She can't acknowledge that it's possible this year? When it was known for a fact that it happened eight years ago?
I think everyone basically agrees - the key to getting those voices heard is to build the party from the bottom up, develop a grassroots and get folks elected at all levels of government who can help influence policy, starting local. Stein is the opposite of that.
Before Stein, the Green party had a marginal presence and was likely on the way out... I almost wonder, what if it actually did fall apart and die while Stein was in charge, but she kept the clothes?
If it hasn’t been posted there already, you should post this to !politicalmemes@lemmy.world!
Done. I looked for that community and missed it the other day. ¯\(ツ)/¯.
Putin's party supports Putin's hand pick spoiler candidate.
Wait so she is just using a consultancy firm that has previously worked with republicans? Is that the story here?
Sort of. She also has some Russian ties.
While I don't think she is some kind of Soviet black ops plant, she's secured funding many times by less savory means. That does mean the things she says and does require a little extra thought though.
I do wish it wasn't part of the "assassinate the left, cozy towards center" mentality that democrats are embracing.
Yes as much as I don't like Stein nor will I vote for her I feel the splurge of news on her is mediocre at best and very obviously being paid for.
She's not done anything to warrant the scrutiny she literally hasn't done ANYTHING at all. Why am I hearing about her so much?
Because the options to the Democrats was either do right by Muslim voters and take this genocide seriously, or attack anyone else they could vote for.
Proof
Weird how Republican interest is a 100% match to tankie talking points. So super weird and beyond explanation.
There is no way they're the same folks, that would be insane 👌
Republicans staunchly oppose the Gaza genocide, demand universal health care, and want tight new regulations on carbon emissions nationally.
I know this because I listen to right-wing radio, where they are constantly saying these things and then platforming Jill Stein to repeat them.
Lol
If you’d like to understand the electoral college better, I highly recommend reading Heather Cox Richardson’s blog post this week. She is a historian that reflects on current events through the lens of history:
https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/p/september-20-2024
Sometimes people do the right thing for the wrong reasons.
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I knew the right wing would eventually go after Harris' support for Israel's genocide. It's her most obvious weakness, she's not Obama 2.0 like libs think, she's a rerun of Hilary.
Decades of shitty democrat policy with hollow platitudes and no action boosts Stein as the preferred candidate.
Fixed the title
From your post history, I’m going to have to say it looks like you’ve never fixed - or honestly done much of- anything in your life. Political Edgelord is definitely a vibe. In fact, I’m not sure I can find a single example of you improving a discussion on here.
Weird that you keep posting in the exact same way though. Almost like you’re playing a character rather than being a real person reacting to things.
I tagged this account as a "Right-wing troll/Russian Bot" months ago lol
I have them tagged as "🇷🇺🤡" for the same reason
I put funny tags on accounts like this so that I can easily identify them. I can't repeat this account's tag as I wouldn't want the operator to feel like I'm attacking their character, but your experience has been mine as well.
Same here. Nice to know who is consistently wrong and/or pushing agendas.
I've had many altercations with anticolonialist. He states that he's been fighting on the streets for communism his whole life. (Highly doubt)
I vote green in my own country, where it’s an actual organized party, and even I can see from here that Stein is a Republican plant at best.
Came on here to say this. Me too, practically.
No action?
On behalf of my gay daughter who will be able to marry who she wants to because of Democrats, I just want to say [REDACTED SO I WON'T GET BANNED]. And on behalf of my son, who is trans, [THESE WORDS WOULD ALSO GET ME BANNED].
Come to think of it, I have Democrats to thank for a return to sane pandemic policies, and Democrats to thank for the Inflation Reduction Act, the most impactful environmental legislation in thirty years. So you can take your "no action" and [NOPE, NOT GONNA SAY IT].
I'm under no illusion that Democrats are perfect, but they've been as effective as possible, given the situation with literal Russian assets on the other side of the aisle, trying as hard as possible to destroy America.
Democratic legislators won't protect her marriage by codifying Obergefell, just like they refused to codify Roe when they had the chance. Democratic legislators spent decades on half-measures and it had to be decided by the Supreme Court instead. Now that sort of incrementalism is a dead end. SCOTUS works against the people.
What part of the last two decades had a filibuster-proof Democratic supermajority in the Senate? I'll tell you: A two-week span under Obama, during which Ted Kennedy was busily dying in a hospital.
And what part of the last two decades had sufficient Democratic votes to eliminate or reform the filibuster? I'll tell you that, too: None.
Perfect is the enemy of the good. Democrats have been good for my daughter. Republicans are guaranteed, 100%, to be much, much worse. Stop trying to sabotage her future.
When the Supreme Court overturns Obergefell, what's Democrats' plan to get her rights back? We gave them the necessary majorities to codify both Roe and Obergefell, and they did neither. And I'm not seeing any concrete plans to move the needle back on Roe. Do you suppose there are any for Obergefell?
When it happens, will you also make excuses for how the party squandered majorities that we gave them?
When? When exactly did we give them those "necessary majorities?" The last time Democrats held a 60-vote supermajority in the Senate was a two-week stretch during the Obama presidency, while Ted Kennedy was dying in a hospital bed.
And do you think denying Democrats Senate seats in the future will help my kids more somehow? Spell out how carrying water for Republicans is going to help them.
Any time in which Democrats had at least 50 was sufficient to kill the filibuster forever. We gave them necessary majorities and they squandered them.
Did I say that? I can criticize Democrats when they're useless (which is virtually always) without wanting fewer of them in the Senate.
My apologies. I've been getting inundated by people who purport to believe that dividing the left up is a winning strategy, and mistakenly clumped you in with them.
No worries. I'm used to it.
Thanks. And for the record, I agree with you that it's 100% fair to criticize Democrats when they don't live up to their promises.
On behalf of your daughter who's marriage may be under threat because of the Respect for Marriage act from Democrats she may be no better off then before 2012 depending where she lives. What protections have Dems provided for your son other than lip service in the face of republicans passing over 500 anti-trans bills the last several years? The DNC claims to have their backs while denying them affordable housing, livable wages, access to affordable health and mental care. Nothing but lip service from them.
The first 2 months of US bombs in Gaza had the same environmental impact as burning 150k tons of coal. That war has been going on for nearly 12 months. Out of one side of their mouth they talk about mitigating environmental damage. But their actions tell a different story.
What the fuck are you even talking about?
If SCOTUS strikes down Obergefell or Loving it allows states to refuse licenses to same sex and/or interracial couples.
Ok? That's on SCOTUS.
Then the entire argument has nothing to do with democrats and you "people" are giving Dems, who are mostly anti gay marriage, way, way too much credit.
Oh cute, a 1 day old account spouting nonsense.
You don't get to speak on behalf of my daughter or my son when you're working as hard as you possibly can to elect the Republicans who want to destroy their futures.
Why you are supporting someone that won't protect them
The game you're playing: "Democrats are imperfect! They haven't done everything possible to protect your kids! Please pay no attention to the fact that they've been hamstrung by the filibuster in the Senate for decades, and a Supreme Court that's been stacked due to the electoral college giving Republicans two popular-vote losers as president in the span of 16 years. Ignore all that and fight like hell to keep Democrats out of office!"
You're fucking transparent, and again, someone fighting to get Republicans elected doesn't get to speak on behalf of my children.
It takes a simple plurality to eliminate the filibuster. They use it as a weapon to prevent legislation they have no intention of passing, just like their rotating villains
3 of those conservative sitting SCOTUS justices are there because of direct action from Democrats, they HELPED Republicans stack the court
Thank you. With that one sentence, you've made it clear I never have to take any of your assertions seriously.
It takes a majority to invoke the "nuclear option" and override Senate Rule XXII, not a plurality. Given the makeup and structure of the Senate, a plurality that is not also the majority on any given vote is for all intents and purposes impossible.
The "nuclear option" for overcoming the filibuster and changing its rules didn't even exist until Harry Reid came up with the idea in 2013. Before that, it was just a given that the only way to overcome a filibuster was by reaching 60 votes in favor of cloture.
Since that time, the Senate has only been either in Republican hands, or in razor-thin majority Democratic hands. There are several Democratic senators from conservative states who are on record since 2013 as opposing ending the filibuster for legislation.
That means any attempt to do so for the last ten years would have been a non-starter. And the only way to change that is to elect more Democrats, not fewer. Which you oppose.
So like I said, I'm done making the mistake of taking you seriously.
Nothing but excuses and carrying water for right wing authoritarians.
Like I said: Not serious.
We're done. Bye.
I'm sure you would be sticking around if I contributed to your echo chamber
What's more hollow than the Green Party saying they'll do all these great things and then never winning office? That's far less action than what the Democrats have done for the people.
Cant believe they wouldnt just choose to win office
It's their choice to file proper paperwork to get on ballots and they're choosing to be incompetent.
They did. https://thenevadaindependent.com/article/nevada-democrats-sue-to-block-green-party-from-2024-ballot
They resubmitted the signatures with a form given to them by the secretary of state.
Absolutely no one weighing in on this seems to care about the intent of the forms, only that theres a technicality to bar a candidate they dont like from participating in democracy. The form is for submitting petition signatures to show enough support to appear on the ballot, and both submissions of the form contained 3 times the required number of signatures.
You're right. It's sad how fascist people are these days.
Btw, it is, at its core, fascist to suppress or deny people their rights, including the right to vote and the right to run for office. This is literally fascism.
They've filed the proper paper work, the Dems love to sue though
How dare people not blindly vote blue no matter who for the 100th time while material conditions worsen. This is the same collective of people bragging about Dick Cheney endorsements, and said Harris doesn't even need to promise any policy. The threat of Trumpism will continue after the election and future ones.
The DNC will always have a Trump as a big scary Boogeyman