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2020 Presidential Election: Biden v. Trump

Joe biden supports higher taxes and a public option.

Jeb Bush supports tax cuts.

Just the same.
 
PhDeac said:
Pubs have been doing it. “It” being winning elections in a two party system.

How does that tweet explain how to break the two party system without winning elections in a two party system?
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I understand this line of reasoning.

What was disheartening for me was going and knocking on unfriendly doors in the cold for hours on weekends away from home for a candidate I liked and believed in and just getting owned by a candidate that didn’t even run a campaign. National politics isn’t really going to change from the outside in or the ground up. Organizing politics works at a local level or on businesses and communities, but it usually fails at scale against established power.
 
The funny conundrum for Trump this election is that his base is made up of

1) people most vulnerable to this virus
2) people least likely to take it seriously

How to thread that needle? If you look at his surrogates nationwide, the red meat he’s throwing is basically The China Virus and “they want to take our Chili’s from us”

I get why it’s tempting to just not run a campaign when that’s the best the other party can do.
 
TownieDeac said:
I understand this line of reasoning.

What was disheartening for me was going and knocking on unfriendly doors in the cold for hours on weekends away from home for a candidate I liked and believed in and just getting owned by a candidate that didn’t even run a campaign. National politics isn’t really going to change from the outside in or the ground up. Organizing politics works at a local level or on businesses and communities, but it usually fails at scale against established power.
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It does until you become the established power. And again, that happens from the ground up.
 
DeaconSig said:
It does until you become the established power. And again, that happens from the ground up.
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Too far gone now, I’m afraid. Too many decades of deregulation and monopoly power. I think the problem of the next century is that a few big corps have extranational and extrajudicial power, greater than any state. Here’s a good example: https://theintercept.com/2020/01/29/chevron-ecuador-lawsuit-steven-donziger/

Chevron pumped hundreds of millions of dollars of waste into the Bolivian Amazon River over decades. It was linked to what amounts to a genocide of indigenous peoples. One environmental lawyer won a judgment over them, fairly minor, less than $10bn, but Chevron to this day has not paid a cent. And moreover, they convinced a federal judge to bring criminal contempt charges against the lawyer, convinced them to hire a private firm who has represented Chevron in the past to try the case, and has essentially put the lawyer under house arrest ever since.

Where is there any room for ground up justice? No amount of environmental organizing will topple the power of oil in America.
 
Sorry that should say gallons of waste not dollars
 
RJKarl said:
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Pretty much. Con artists often hold in contempt the people they're conning, because they see them as weak and dumb and gullible. They're easy marks. The reason Trump hates the "coastal elites" so much is because he desperately wants to be a member of their club, like a bumpkin who's made a fortune and wants to hang out with the bluebloods and be accepted and admired by them. When that inevitably doesn't happen he lashes out, but he still secretly envies them and likely always will. On the other hand, he'll never hold his rural and working-class followers in anything but private contempt. He uses them and revels in their adoration, but he doesn't want to associate with them otherwise. Tucker Carlson, Sean Hannity, and Laura Ingraham likely all feel the same. To them they're useful idiots and nothing more.
 
Trump is the Rodney Dangerfield character from Caddyshack. That’s how his followers see him. They see “coastal elites” like the Bushwood members. They think of themselves as the working class caddies and staff.

Townie, good posts but they don’t recognize the progressive gains that have been made in the last four years. Graasroots organizing doesn’t do much nationally until those grassroots principles make it to the national stage. Once a progressive ran for President on an unabashedly progressive platform, that opened the floodgates for grassroots candidates to get elected at the local and state levels. Even established candidates have to take those groups seriously. And it helps that there’s a broader realization that Republicans won’t compromise in good faith.
 
P sure decades of media portrayal of Trump as an object of success in the American imaginary isn't going to crumble because Trump doesn't fuck with anyone who doesn't have money.

Idolatry is often the farthest thing from similarity or reciprocity. You want to be like them not be liked by them.
 
PhDeac said:
Trump is the Rodney Dangerfield character from Caddyshack. That’s how his followers see him. They see “coastal elites” like the Bushwood members. They think of themselves as the working class caddies and staff.

Townie, good posts but they don’t recognize the progressive gains that have been made in the last four years. Graasroots organizing doesn’t do much nationally until those grassroots principles make it to the national stage. Once a progressive ran for President on an unabashedly progressive platform, that opened the floodgates for grassroots candidates to get elected at the local and state levels. Even established candidates have to take those groups seriously. And it helps that there’s a broader realization that Republicans won’t compromise in good faith.
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didn’t this whole conversation start with you disregarding the opinion of a black lives matter activist posted by a dsa activist?
 
Strickland33 said:
didn’t this whole conversation start with you disregarding the opinion of a black lives matter activist posted by a dsa activist?
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Not sure what that has to do with my post but this conversation started by a DSA activist posting the opinion of a BLM activist as a way to disregard the political behavior of 95% of black voters.

Neither of them explained how they plan to take down the two party system without winning two party elections. Meanwhile I’ve explained how progressives have made strides by competing in primaries, winning primaries, and by winning two party elections.
 
Strickland33 said:
Did you miss the post above his?
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No. But forgive me if I don’t value the thoughts or opinions of a shitposter who called Warren a republican and Obama a war criminal. I don’t value Brad’s or theReff’s thoughts or opinions either.
 
PhDeac said:
Not sure what that has to do with my post but this conversation started by a DSA activist posting the opinion of a BLM activist as a way to disregard the political behavior of 95% of black voters.

Neither of them explained how they plan to take down the two party system without winning two party elections. Meanwhile I’ve explained how progressives have made strides by competing in primaries, winning primaries, and by winning two party elections.
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Either you value grassroots action or you don't. You have taken both positions depending on the argument. Progressives have also made strides when social movement goals become part of the policy lexicon. For whatever reason, you refuse to acknowledge how progressive activists have changed "the system" from outside of it while championing the change that they have been able to make inside of it. Why is that, Ph? Frankly, that tweet stream that you disrespected was a pretty reasonable to the, frankly, pathetic conclusion of Biden's Breakfast Club interview. Did you watch the whole thing yet? I'm interested in your thoughts.

Finally, the first Obama term definitely was a boon to progressive activists, but not the second. The second was arguably the opposite of what you're describing. Progressives were largely pushed out of institutional power positions by the party to pave the way for a Clinton run in 2016. That's the only reason that the Sanders candidacy was even possible, which is what inspired organizations like Justice Democrats to support a lot of successful national and state-level congressional candidates. My hunch is that you'll see a similar reaction in 2022, as progressive activists turn the bad taste that the Biden/Trump presidency is going to leave in folks' mouths into seats.
 
DeaconSig said:
No. But forgive me if I don’t value the thoughts or opinions of a shitposter who called Warren a republican and Obama a war criminal. I don’t value Brad’s or theReff’s thoughts or opinions either.
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Point taken. Obama took the drone program to the next level, though, so depending on how we're defining war criminal, I don't think that's as insane as calling Warren a republican, which is just an absurd statement.
 
From a structural perspective you aren't going to change the two party system by running third (or fourth) party candidates in state wide or presidential elections. There may be the occasional coup for a Ventura type candidate or the occasional independent who has political capital built up from the local level or becomes an independent once they have name recognition, but it is not a sustainable way to change the system.

The two most realistic options IMO are to effect change from inside the party (tea party model, populist Donald model, and to some extent what a decent number of Bernie supporters are trying to do - as far as those actually registered as Democrats) or effectively advocate and campaign (a longer but more permanent process) for a change to the electoral system from a plurality rule election in single-member districts to proportional representation. As long as the former system exists third parties aren't going to move the meter to a meaningful degree.
 
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