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BillBrasky Memorial Political Chat Thread

I guess? I mean how many democrats live in western Massachusetts to start with compared to those in the greater Boston area?
 
Democrats love to talk that progressive shit and then vote against progressive bills. It's just a huge fucking coincidence that none of their bullshit soundbites ever turn into actual policy because either it's not the right time to take a stand, or the proposal isn't realistic. Waiting for a Democrat to support progressive policy is like waiting for Lucy to let you kick the football. I'll wait the rest of my life for a Democrat to say "ok, this election isn't very important, go ahead and vote your conscience." Their whole fucking grift depends on perpetually escalating the stakes. The apocalypse could strike and we'd still be scared to raise middle class taxes. It's Hellworld.

Every election is important and letting republicans win isn't going to help move the political football left. Dems have controlled the Presidency and both houses of congress what 2 years since the early 90s. Not sure what dreamlist progressive bills you were expecting to get passed in that time.

There is an opposition party that is dedicated to demonizing government and getting nothing done with a huge structural advantage due to the US electoral system. And the far left plays right into their hands.
 
Every election is important and letting republicans win isn't going to help move the political football left. Dems have controlled the Presidency and both houses of congress what 2 years since the early 90s. Not sure what dreamlist progressive bills you were expecting to get passed in that time.

There is an opposition party that is dedicated to demonizing government and getting nothing done with a huge structural advantage due to the US electoral system. And the far left plays right into their hands.

We play right into their hands by actually holding Democrats accountable for their votes instead of just sucking their dicks for making 'Cheeto man bad" tweets? Yeah, I'm not going to apologize for expecting people to vote as progressively as they talk. If Democratic success depends on the entire party being hypocritical liars, then let it burn.
 
Well in the case of the Massachusetts election we’re discussing, Republicans don’t fare much of a chance. Markey and Kennedy are both popular in the state overall while the GOP’s two candidates are a political newcomer who is a partner at a massive law firm and a batshit crazy conspiracy theorist with an MIT degree who claims to have invented email.

Whoever wins the Dem primary is going to romp in the general election. There’s no Scott Brown this year.
 
And regarding Markey vs Kennedy vote for who you prefer. Progressives absolutely have a right to try to get people elected in the Democratic party and move policy to the left internally. But regardless of who wins get out and vote in the general election because voting gives you power which will move things to the left.
 
Yeah it should be interesting as to who wins. I’m still skeptical Markey will pull it off but he has my vote.
 
And regarding Markey vs Kennedy vote for who you prefer. Progressives absolutely have a right to try to get people elected in the Democratic party and move policy to the left internally. But regardless of who wins get out and vote in the general election because voting gives you power which will move things to the left.

But I think the point here is, wtf is the dem party doing by running centrist primary candidates in strongly Dem districts/senates races with progressive incumbents? Y’all make the electability argument and that we need Dems like manuchin in right leaning areas because progressives, with their radical ideas to help poor people, can’t get elected. So why is Kennedy sucking up donor dollars in a safe senate race in Mass?
 
But I think the point here is, wtf is the dem party doing by running centrist primary candidates in strongly Dem districts/senates races with progressive incumbents? Y’all make the electability argument and that we need Dems like manuchin in right leaning areas because progressives, with their radical ideas to help poor people, can’t get elected. So why is Kennedy sucking up donor dollars in a safe senate race in Mass?

"Why does a Kennedy want to be a senator from Massachusetts" answers itself
 
Yeah it’s frustrating and I share the WTF sentiment as far as wasted resources but I mean I get why Kennedy wants the seat and thinks he can win as well.

There’s a backlog of promising up and coming Democrats in the state who are queuing up over the next few years: Maura Healey, Kennedy, Ayanna Pressley. Warren’s seat isn’t up until 2024 and who knows if she will run again. I expect Healey to run for governor at some point and suspect the current republican lieutenant governor Karyn Polito will run for the GOP nomination which makes the race pretty interesting.
 
How the hell can Joe Kennedy III be the third Joe Kennedy, when his grandfather was Robert Kennedy?
 
Democrats love to talk that progressive shit and then vote against progressive bills.

not terribly unlike conservatives running on social issues -- like abortion and gay marriage -- that they keep losing ground on, while actually passing tax cuts and other laws that hurt the working class
 
How the hell can Joe Kennedy III be the third Joe Kennedy, when his grandfather was Robert Kennedy?

Once a Kennedy gets elected they get to pick their own name, like the Pope. His name is actually Jimmy.
 
Once a Kennedy gets elected they get to pick their own name, like the Pope. His name is actually Jimmy.

So it's like Queen Elizabeth II is not the daughter of Elizabeth I but the second Queen with the name Elizabeth. Or how George V was the great great great grand nephew of George IV. So they think they are like a royal family. Awesome.
 
Since some Democrats here read The Nation, apparently, lets read an interesting article from The Nation:
https://www.thenation.com/article/economy/bipartisan-cares-act-unemployment/

"If the 2008 economic crisis led to a new Washington consensus that large banks were too big to fail, then 2020 has radically extended that idea: Now Wall Street as a whole is too big to fail.

The revolutionary new policy of the Federal Reserve received a bipartisan seal of approval with the passage of the Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security (or CARES) Act on March 27. The CARES Act had unanimous support in the Senate and only five votes against it in the House of Representatives, with Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez distinguishing herself as the only Democratic vote of opposition.
As the economic historian Robert Brenner noted in an article in the New Left Review, the most crucial aspect of the CARES Act was the $454 billion allocated to spend on corporate bailouts, with no strings attached. The Federal Reserve was able to leverage this money as a backstop for a loan program that was much more extensive, running now in excess of $7 trillion in low-interest loans to some of America’s wealthiest companies. Moreover, the knowledge that the federal government was acting as a safety net for Wall Street served to comfort private lenders, who had previously been scared by the pandemic. This led to a resumption of private lending that has revitalized the stock market, even as the coronovirus spreads unabated in the United States.

The Federal Reserve loan program has truly broken new ground: government loans at near zero interest to some of the biggest companies in the world—with no oversight or political demands. While Main Street worries over whether it can keep up with the mortgage, pay the rent, or afford health insurance, Wall Street is now getting money for nothing, or almost nothing. In this new environment, Amazon was able to take out a loan of $10 billion at 0.4 percent—only a smidgen above the rate than the American government itself pays.

As Brenner notes, “Even in the midst of one of the worst economic crises in US history, with the living standards of large swathes of the population profoundly threatened, top managers and stockholders would be free to line their own pockets via share buybacks, dividends and executive salary increases, while reducing employment and investment—very much as they had routinely been doing with their companies’ earnings and borrowings throughout the previous decade.”

The upshot is that big business has “been enabled to achieve this incredible enlargement of wealth unconditionally, without having to commit to doing anything with their money or to adopt any particular economic policy.”"
 
You gotta love bipartisanship - it really "gets things done".
 
"Why does a Kennedy want to be a senator from Massachusetts" answers itself

Yeah, the Kennedys have more or less seen (and treated) Massachusetts like a medieval family fiefdom since JFK's first election to the Senate in 1952. When little brother Ted ran for the Senate in 1962, he was barely 30 (the minimum age for a Senator) and had no real experience or qualifications for the job other than that his dad had lots of money and his brother was POTUS and had held the same Senate seat for eight years. In the Democratic primary he debated his opponent, who turned to him and said "If your name were Edward Moore (his middle name) instead of Edward Moore Kennedy, your candidacy would be a joke." Teddy won easily anyway. If Joe III does lose this race, it might finally signal the end of the Kennedy era/domination in Massachusetts politics.
 
While the stock market is getting all of this interest free cash from the government, working class people are eating their own - because Frontline essential workers are resentful of the people who have been at home collecting unemployment. Does the Democratic party do anything to break up that resentment? Does the Democratic Party say or do anything to turn that working class resentment towards corporations instead of neighbors? FUCK NO. Because Democrats aren't populists - they're elitist shitbags who are far more concerned with the health of the stock market then they are of the working class eating itself. Its this dickbaggary that leads businesses to put up "Heroes work here" signs while their workers get COVID, and then resist every regulation or expansion of benefits that help their workers.
 
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What’s your problem with the HEROES act Dems passed in May?
 
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