That would require Zohran to be ideologically liberal. I think it’s pretty clear from a number of litmus tests that he’s a socialist. It’s much more difficult to go from being a socialist to a centist. Ideologically, being a socialist isn’t merely a step to the left of liberal. It’s a fundamentally different worldview which resembles American liberals in a few areas but only in appearance. E.g. both a liberal and a socialist might advocate for universal healthcare. The liberal feels that private healtchare is a defect of an otherwise functioning system. The socialist sees the system working as intended in that it enriches the oligarch class via private healtchare. Therefore the socialist sees public universal healthcare as removing a revenue stream from the oligarch class, diminishing its power in the process and reducing the scope of the capitalist system. The improvement to people’s lives naturally follows as a consequence of that. From this perspective, it would be very difficult for a socialist to be convinced they should abandon universal healthcare because insurers would lose too much money like Obama did.
You’re not wrong and that could totally be the case but again, he’s gotta be a really good actor to keep the socialist line when being grilled on some issues. It’s certainly possible that he is. But I think he’s leftist schtick is very different than Obama’s. Only one way to find out. Vote for him if you’re in NYC. 😁
I badly want to be wrong, but there’s something about these supposed progressives that changes when they get into office and suddenly are confronted with the possibility that they can 100% exploit their office to give their family generational wealth.
So while I’m cautiously optimistic, most of me is very ‘I’ll believe it when I see it’.
I believe it’s the progressives who realize they’re an extremely small minority within the DNC, so you must swallow a few bitter loads to get certain stuff you believe in through while making backroom deals you would never do.
Ultimately it is up to the American People to shift the Overton window to the left. It is possible, but won’t be easy as Democrats cave to Corporations and the media being billionaire owned doesn’t help when you’re a progressive.
This strikes me as something written by someone who doesn’t clearly remember 2008. After Obama got the nod, Democrats largely cleared the field for him. They didn’t spend months talking about how they didn’t know who he was, or saying that they couldn’t endorse him.
I was referring to the primaries, not the general. There was definitely a sense that it was Hillary’s turn and they did their best to keep Obama’s popularity from developing into a legitimate candidacy.
Not that it mattered. Obama was another smooth-talking son of a bitch, just like the rest of them.
I think part of that is true and part of that is that they just don’t get enough votes to actually do things.
Especially as just a Congressperson you can’t change everything all at once. You don’t have the same influence as a president. So you pick your battles.
People here get disappointed they didn’t get enough done fast enough and then vote red in the next election hoping for faster change.
Well, we got faster change. Never seen change as fast as this.
People not voting comes down to living through the last eight years and both parties doing nothing meaningful about the fact that you’re working 100 hours a week at three jobs and all you can afford is a roach-infested studio.
Why would you miss a badly needed day’s pay?
As for the folks who switched to vote Trump. That was the only option for change that they had, and they knew from experience how shitty Biden/Harris were. Of course they switched.
For the first few months of his presidency, following the tail end of the economic growth under Obama. Under Trump the economy dumped jobs and it only did well for the wealthy. Biden added like 100,000 jobs to the economy during his first 4 months.
It’s amazing how this happens every single time. Republicans control the narrative so well that people forget that the economy consistently does better under Democrats. Every. Single. Time. It happened with Clinton and Bush. It happened with Obama and Trump. And it happened with Biden and Trump. Republicans add billions to the national debt, destroy aid programs, shrink the job market, drive up housing prices and the cost of living, and cause all that lost money to siphon to the oligarchy while lowering their taxes and raising them for everyone else. Everybody blames the Democrats for it while Republicans are in charge, and then completely miss it getting better when the Republicans are out of office.
It would also require a group of Republicans with the power to gag him every time he tries to do something.
Years ago, I saw a list that someone compiled of all of Obama’s campaign promises and the results of them, and basically all but one he tried to do and was voted down by Republicans who threatened to shut down the government if Democrats tried to push it through. The one thing he promised and didn’t even attempt to do was shutting down Guantanamo Bay. For everything else, the Republicans who controlled both the house and the Senate for 7 and a half years of his presidency shut him out. There’s a reason that Trump spent the first two years of his presidency repealing every executive order that Obama made. Besides being racist and upset that a black man held any power in this country, of course.
Where do you get the republicans controlled senate and house for seven and a half year?
Democrats had 57 senators after 2008 and 51 after 2010, 53 in 2012, then lost the majority in 2014.
In 2006 they got 233, increasing to 257 in 2008. They lost that majority in 2010 and lost more seats in the following years.
Did I get it reversed? I was talking strictly from memory so it wouldn’t surprise me, and that does sound more right that the Dems had control for at least the beginning of Obama’s presidency and lost it when they did nothing with it. What I remember from that period is that when the Dems had control, the Republicans would threaten to shut down the government or filibuster every time the Dems tried to pass something, and the Dems would back down every single time. Sometimes before the Republicans would even have the chance to say something. But that still doesn’t mean that Obama lied or broke his promises, it means that the Dems as a whole were/are spineless and didn’t want to actually do the things they were elected to do. Except for closing Guantanamo Bay. That’s completely on him and not something we should forgive and forget. We’ve seen similar things this year already, where they need 3 Dems to vote with Republicans in order to pass their abominable legislation, and the same 3 vote with the Republicans every single time. Or how 100% of Dems voted yes on the first couple of Trump’s cabinet picks. That’s not Biden’s fault.
It’s much more difficult to go from being a socialist to a centist.
Mussolini was a socialist, and I don’t mean in a fake “national socialist” way (although yes, later he became that), I mean he was an important figure of the “Italian socialist party”, editor in chief of the official party newspaper
Well he didn’t turn into a tinkering-around-the-edges liberal. 😄
I’m not arguing that people’s views can’t change. Rather I’m making this narrow point of the difficulty shifting towrds the centre from a liberal versus socialist position. I think one’s much lower friction than the other. Both are possible.
That would require Zohran to be ideologically liberal. I think it’s pretty clear from a number of litmus tests that he’s a socialist. It’s much more difficult to go from being a socialist to a centist. Ideologically, being a socialist isn’t merely a step to the left of liberal. It’s a fundamentally different worldview which resembles American liberals in a few areas but only in appearance. E.g. both a liberal and a socialist might advocate for universal healthcare. The liberal feels that private healtchare is a defect of an otherwise functioning system. The socialist sees the system working as intended in that it enriches the oligarch class via private healtchare. Therefore the socialist sees public universal healthcare as removing a revenue stream from the oligarch class, diminishing its power in the process and reducing the scope of the capitalist system. The improvement to people’s lives naturally follows as a consequence of that. From this perspective, it would be very difficult for a socialist to be convinced they should abandon universal healthcare because insurers would lose too much money like Obama did.
He says he’s a socialist.
Democrats say a lot of things that sound really, really good too… until they’re elected, and then we realize they’re shit-stains.
You’re not wrong and that could totally be the case but again, he’s gotta be a really good actor to keep the socialist line when being grilled on some issues. It’s certainly possible that he is. But I think he’s leftist schtick is very different than Obama’s. Only one way to find out. Vote for him if you’re in NYC. 😁
I badly want to be wrong, but there’s something about these supposed progressives that changes when they get into office and suddenly are confronted with the possibility that they can 100% exploit their office to give their family generational wealth.
So while I’m cautiously optimistic, most of me is very ‘I’ll believe it when I see it’.
I believe it’s the progressives who realize they’re an extremely small minority within the DNC, so you must swallow a few bitter loads to get certain stuff you believe in through while making backroom deals you would never do.
Ultimately it is up to the American People to shift the Overton window to the left. It is possible, but won’t be easy as Democrats cave to Corporations and the media being billionaire owned doesn’t help when you’re a progressive.
AIPAC Is the issue here.
Pessimism of the mind, optimism of the will.
This guy all ready comes from a well off family so it’s not like that I don’t think.
Most politicians do. Then again most politicians don’t play leftist very well. I hope we find out.
Obama explicitly and repeatedly stated he was a capitalist
The dems trying to take him out is evidence that he’s real
No, it isn’t. They did the same with Obama, because at the time it was supposedly Hillary’s turn.
This strikes me as something written by someone who doesn’t clearly remember 2008. After Obama got the nod, Democrats largely cleared the field for him. They didn’t spend months talking about how they didn’t know who he was, or saying that they couldn’t endorse him.
That’s fair.
I’m thinking before that point. They did everything could to tank his candidacy in the primaries but the voters overwhelmingly rejected Hillary.
How deep you want to go down the rabbit hole?
https://redshirtsalwaysdie.com/posts/voyager-kicked-off-a-butterfly-effect-that-ended-with-obama-becoming-president-01hn8tvncaya
AFTER Obama got the nomination.
Exactly. This dude got the nomination and they’re still not endorsing him.
Uh, were you around in 2008? That’s definitely not what happened. If anything that’s what happened to Bernie. Are you confusing Bernie with Obama?
I was referring to the primaries, not the general. There was definitely a sense that it was Hillary’s turn and they did their best to keep Obama’s popularity from developing into a legitimate candidacy.
Not that it mattered. Obama was another smooth-talking son of a bitch, just like the rest of them.
I mean show me a better candidate then.
That’s the problem. Thank you for articulating it.
I think part of that is true and part of that is that they just don’t get enough votes to actually do things.
Especially as just a Congressperson you can’t change everything all at once. You don’t have the same influence as a president. So you pick your battles.
People here get disappointed they didn’t get enough done fast enough and then vote red in the next election hoping for faster change.
Well, we got faster change. Never seen change as fast as this.
I don’t think so.
People not voting comes down to living through the last eight years and both parties doing nothing meaningful about the fact that you’re working 100 hours a week at three jobs and all you can afford is a roach-infested studio.
Why would you miss a badly needed day’s pay?
As for the folks who switched to vote Trump. That was the only option for change that they had, and they knew from experience how shitty Biden/Harris were. Of course they switched.
They should have known that Trump was worse from term one…
Removed by mod
For the first few months of his presidency, following the tail end of the economic growth under Obama. Under Trump the economy dumped jobs and it only did well for the wealthy. Biden added like 100,000 jobs to the economy during his first 4 months.
It’s amazing how this happens every single time. Republicans control the narrative so well that people forget that the economy consistently does better under Democrats. Every. Single. Time. It happened with Clinton and Bush. It happened with Obama and Trump. And it happened with Biden and Trump. Republicans add billions to the national debt, destroy aid programs, shrink the job market, drive up housing prices and the cost of living, and cause all that lost money to siphon to the oligarchy while lowering their taxes and raising them for everyone else. Everybody blames the Democrats for it while Republicans are in charge, and then completely miss it getting better when the Republicans are out of office.
If your underpants get a shit stain you should change them. Democrats haven’t changed the shitty underwear in over 60 years.
It would also require a group of Republicans with the power to gag him every time he tries to do something.
Years ago, I saw a list that someone compiled of all of Obama’s campaign promises and the results of them, and basically all but one he tried to do and was voted down by Republicans who threatened to shut down the government if Democrats tried to push it through. The one thing he promised and didn’t even attempt to do was shutting down Guantanamo Bay. For everything else, the Republicans who controlled both the house and the Senate for 7 and a half years of his presidency shut him out. There’s a reason that Trump spent the first two years of his presidency repealing every executive order that Obama made. Besides being racist and upset that a black man held any power in this country, of course.
Where do you get the republicans controlled senate and house for seven and a half year?
Democrats had 57 senators after 2008 and 51 after 2010, 53 in 2012, then lost the majority in 2014. In 2006 they got 233, increasing to 257 in 2008. They lost that majority in 2010 and lost more seats in the following years.
They had a window of complete control.
Did I get it reversed? I was talking strictly from memory so it wouldn’t surprise me, and that does sound more right that the Dems had control for at least the beginning of Obama’s presidency and lost it when they did nothing with it. What I remember from that period is that when the Dems had control, the Republicans would threaten to shut down the government or filibuster every time the Dems tried to pass something, and the Dems would back down every single time. Sometimes before the Republicans would even have the chance to say something. But that still doesn’t mean that Obama lied or broke his promises, it means that the Dems as a whole were/are spineless and didn’t want to actually do the things they were elected to do. Except for closing Guantanamo Bay. That’s completely on him and not something we should forgive and forget. We’ve seen similar things this year already, where they need 3 Dems to vote with Republicans in order to pass their abominable legislation, and the same 3 vote with the Republicans every single time. Or how 100% of Dems voted yes on the first couple of Trump’s cabinet picks. That’s not Biden’s fault.
McCarthy spins in his grave
Can we hook him up to a dynamo? Free, clean energy.
Free?
McCarthy spins faster
Mussolini was a socialist, and I don’t mean in a fake “national socialist” way (although yes, later he became that), I mean he was an important figure of the “Italian socialist party”, editor in chief of the official party newspaper
Well he didn’t turn into a tinkering-around-the-edges liberal. 😄
I’m not arguing that people’s views can’t change. Rather I’m making this narrow point of the difficulty shifting towrds the centre from a liberal versus socialist position. I think one’s much lower friction than the other. Both are possible.