wildcat09

Hah, I was looking back for some old posts of mine where I'd made similar arguments about how the party should actually moderate when it needs to and I basically said they need to run people like Walz nearly two years ago even though I didn't know who he was: I love it when I'm proven right. It's so awesome.

Which is extremely fucking relatable to pretty much anyone. Only someone like JD Vance who has had his entire life paid for by billionaires wouldn't get it.

He hasn't threatened to kill me so it's definitely not TTom.

Actually, that'd make them more likely to take bribes. One of the (very many) problems we have is that being an elected representative is actually not a good way to get ahead for yourself and your family in American society. Hell these days if you're a decent person but you've got some student debt and a mortgage for a house actually IN a major city you NEED a higher paying job than House rep. Because it doesn't actually pay all that well, most of the people running for elected office are those who just do it for attention and/or those who do it so they can sell their votes. Shit, look at what being a Texas legislator pays and try telling me with a straight face that we're doing it right here in Texas. We get what we pay for.

And there was a time in our history where policies like free school lunch WERE actually new and very progressive. Hell, there was a time in our history where public education was new and very progressive. People quite literally fought and died to have a weekend. The whole idea about what is "moderate" or in the "center" isn't actually about any specific policies at all but about how most people want to view themselves. Most people aren't comfortable thinking of themselves as part of an extreme and so they don't want to support ideas that people around them who they like and respect think are extreme. The right built up such a big right-wing propaganda machine that they managed to convince millions of people that feeding kids at school is dangerous extremism. Tons of communities now believe that because it's what the people they trust on TV say and what their friends and family and neighbors say. But that's actually a very easy bubble to pierce and you do it like Walz has: when challenged on it you stand firm and say something like "what a monster, kids got food and now can learn!" It's easy to show there's not some great harm in feeding kids, and it's not like it's too fucking expensive. There are all sorts of other issues like this too that the Dems should be more aggressively championing instead of running away from, but the prior generation of Democratic leadership was too traumatized from coming up under Reaganism too know how to fight.

You guys are all arguing around the fact that the “center” is actually a completely mythical thing. Most Americans aren’t super politically engaged or ideologically constrained and your average American has some views on some issues that many would reasonably consider very liberal while has views on other issues that many would reasonably consider pretty conservative. The average American’s views on many issues are also much more malleable than people tend to think and depend in large part in how an issue is presented and what those they’re close to think about it. It’s not a simple line from left to right and even calling it a spectrum is implying more coherence than is really there for many people. Walz as governor has championed what pretty much anyone involved in American politics for the last forty years would say is a very progressive agenda. But those policies are popular and it’s not hard to get people who don’t see themselves as progressive to support them, if you don’t run from them because you think you have to triangulate and adopt a bunch of unpopular conservative positions to show how you’re actually a moderate.

Well, not with her consent at least.

We're going to beat the shit out of him and probably his supporters too when they try a coup again and then we're going to replace Garland with a real AG and Trump's going to actually get charged and convicted for serious federal crimes and he's going to die cold and alone in federal prison.

I’m ready to run through a goddamned wall for Coach. Let’s fucking go.

Hence "supposedly."

I’m honestly not sure if this reflects worse on her or Allred. But it definitely says a lot about the political efficacy of the brand of centrism they both supposedly stand for.

A much saner court stole it in 2000. These assholes all just chose to give Trump total immunity a month ago, expecting he'll be the next President and that he'll finish destroying American democracy. They're going to be all in on that unless they're worried about angry mobs outside their homes.

The real key in blowing them the fuck out is that it will change the calculus of the Republicans on SCOTUS whether they think they can get away with it or not. If it's close like 2020 in several states and a bunch of county-level GOP officials refuse to certify, SCOTUS will likely make up some pretextual bullshit to intervene. If they lose by 2+ in those states and it's only close in like North Carolina, the Republicans on SCOTUS will be too scared of what might happen to them if they intervene to try.

Reed O'Connor is going to get overturned so fast on this one.

No, he's engaging. He's engaging by confronting their attacks head on and pointing out how they're fucking creeps and by being an example of what's actually normal and good.

Their campaign is such fucking clown shoes it's incredible.

Imagine being so pathetic you get bodied like this by Chuck Schumer.

Then the GOP should stop being so fucking weird about 9 year olds.

It won't break through to them quickly, but Tim Walz is a great example of an actually positive vision of masculinity and people on the left (not directly affiliated with the campaign) should talk about him in those terms.

I know this wasn't Biden's pick and maybe he didn't even have any input in it at all, but goddamn my hat is off to Biden and Harris over what they've been able to do in the last month. They were underwater, with virtually no enthusiasm from the base and facing down a donor revolt from a bunch of morons with punditbrain who wanted to force a contested convention. And in one month, thanks to great humility from Biden and a better grasp of politics than any fucking centrist dipshit pundits or the triangulation wing of the party will ever have, they've completely flipped the game around. Now the base is energized like we haven't seen since 2008, Harris and her campaign have finally figured out the right way to attack Republicans, and picking Walz shows that she's got better political instincts than the "progressive" Dems from Obama's era. You don't fucking moderate by triangulating and supporting unpopular Republican policies to try to appear bipartisan. You don't give on your core values to support some shit like school vouchers so you can say you worked across the aisle. It's actually not fucking weird or out there to think people deserve healthcare or that kids deserve to eat. Just fucking believe that and act like you believe it, and make it clear that you're happy to work with Republicans who believe it too but that the many who don't are fucking weirdos who are the ones who actually hurt kids.

I want to like this, but right now a Dem can’t be a decent person and work with Republicans. Maybe once the current GOP is ground into dust and replaced with something sane. Right now is the time to turn Republicans into social outcasts that nobody wants anything to do with.

The resistance winemoms have the mandate of heaven.

I think you might legitimately get better analysis from FoxNews these days.