Democrats Decide to Just Go Ahead and Implode

[tyrannosaurus vex]

The left hates each other more than they hate the alt-right.  Dress it up all you like, doesn't change the facts.

The two main factions of the left are now even more rabid with respect to each other than they were during the primaries, because they are - like all humans - dumb as fuck and possessing the survival instincts of a dodo.  I am honest puzzled as to how we survived the interval between "falling out of the trees" and "inventing the shotgun".

This is why the right is shitting the place up with very little actual opposition..."All that evil requires is for good people to act like dumbasses."

Clearly, we have collectively decided that surviving was a bad move. We have spent our entire history trying to undo that mistake.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

I also feel the need to point out that despite being the oldest continuously-existing political party in the world, it has also almost never been anything BUT fractious, and certainly not at all in the last 100 years. The Republican party has been hooting and gnashing about how little Democrats agree with each other for as long as it has existed. It's literally their one big dead horse that they won't stop beating. The reason for this is that the Democratic party, ie. the people who register Democrat, spans very different populations with very different priorities. That liberal white people and conservative black people agree on enough to register in the same party to begin with is nothing short of astonishing. So the nonstop wailing about how the Democratic party is "fractionalized" or "imploding" is basically occurring as individual people notice something that has never not been the case in their lifetimes.

Yeah, I know all of this. Of course it has been fractious and divided, like everything any group of humans do. I'm not commenting on that obvious fact. I'm commenting on the need to not only be fractured and exclusive but the need to more or less declare open war on the other half of the coalition as if they're a bigger enemy than the actual enemies. That it isn't enough to be a coalition (however fractious), that "coalitions" themselves are now insufficient for progress. There have always been differences of opinion and even strong disagreement under the Democratic roof, of course, and I'm not naive enough to think there hasn't been. It's the shift to a bridge-burning tone that I object to.

It's just another log on the fire that is currently consuming the republic. This anti-coalition, True-Believerism that says if you're not 100% on my side of all the lines, then you must be a mortal enemy. We are no longer interested in any kind of compromise. If you agree on everything but one issue, that one issue will become so important that it eclipses every other area where cooperation might have happened. It already ate up the GOP, but it took them 30 years to do it. The Democratic Party is probably going to take half that time and may not even survive. As naive as it would be to think that the Democrats have ever been homogeneous or entirely unified, it would be equally unobservant to think that those divisions are not growing deeper and faster in the last few years. I'm not talking about our differences, I'm talking about the rapidity with which they are expanding beyond any hope of reconciliation. The differences aren't new -- our complete abandonment of any hope of overcoming them is, or at least, we haven't seen it this bad for 150 years.

Do I really have to point out your error of assumption, here? It's literally the same one I already pointed out.

[Junkenstein]

Progress in the US can probably be measured quite accurately by how many people find "Socialism" a filthy concept that must not be spoken of. I'd guess around 85-90% of your population still equate it with terrible communism of the worst kind. This results in 35% or so out of the nominal 50% of democratic voters still being almost equivalent to any alternative on the republican side of things.

It's pretty amazing really. For a country that large, with that many politicians to have hardly any that you can actually point at and say anything positive.

[The Good Reverend Roger]

Progress in the US can probably be measured quite accurately by how many people find "Socialism" a filthy concept that must not be spoken of. I'd guess around 85-90% of your population still equate it with terrible communism of the worst kind. This results in 35% or so out of the nominal 50% of democratic voters still being almost equivalent to any alternative on the republican side of things.

It's pretty amazing really. For a country that large, with that many politicians to have hardly any that you can actually point at and say anything positive.

We kinda pride ourselves on the ability of our politicians to pander to a vicious minority of voters.

[tyrannosaurus vex]

I also feel the need to point out that despite being the oldest continuously-existing political party in the world, it has also almost never been anything BUT fractious, and certainly not at all in the last 100 years. The Republican party has been hooting and gnashing about how little Democrats agree with each other for as long as it has existed. It's literally their one big dead horse that they won't stop beating. The reason for this is that the Democratic party, ie. the people who register Democrat, spans very different populations with very different priorities. That liberal white people and conservative black people agree on enough to register in the same party to begin with is nothing short of astonishing. So the nonstop wailing about how the Democratic party is "fractionalized" or "imploding" is basically occurring as individual people notice something that has never not been the case in their lifetimes.

Yeah, I know all of this. Of course it has been fractious and divided, like everything any group of humans do. I'm not commenting on that obvious fact. I'm commenting on the need to not only be fractured and exclusive but the need to more or less declare open war on the other half of the coalition as if they're a bigger enemy than the actual enemies. That it isn't enough to be a coalition (however fractious), that "coalitions" themselves are now insufficient for progress. There have always been differences of opinion and even strong disagreement under the Democratic roof, of course, and I'm not naive enough to think there hasn't been. It's the shift to a bridge-burning tone that I object to.

It's just another log on the fire that is currently consuming the republic. This anti-coalition, True-Believerism that says if you're not 100% on my side of all the lines, then you must be a mortal enemy. We are no longer interested in any kind of compromise. If you agree on everything but one issue, that one issue will become so important that it eclipses every other area where cooperation might have happened. It already ate up the GOP, but it took them 30 years to do it. The Democratic Party is probably going to take half that time and may not even survive. As naive as it would be to think that the Democrats have ever been homogeneous or entirely unified, it would be equally unobservant to think that those divisions are not growing deeper and faster in the last few years. I'm not talking about our differences, I'm talking about the rapidity with which they are expanding beyond any hope of reconciliation. The differences aren't new -- our complete abandonment of any hope of overcoming them is, or at least, we haven't seen it this bad for 150 years.

Do I really have to point out your error of assumption, here? It's literally the same one I already pointed out.

I have no particular desire to apologize for the occasional lingual shortcut through territory best by sniping pedants. The gist, I think, was clear enough. We have more pressing causes to fight for at the moment than insufficient dedication to Progressive-ism. Let's worry about the Nazi infestation that threatens the lives of people forst, then maybe if there are still enough of us standing, turn guns on the Corpocrats. But if it's not a position worthy of voicing out loud, or one that can be acknowledged without being picked apart because it wasn't phrased quite right, Ican keep it to myself.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

The basic premise of this whole thread is that the Democratic Party is being fractionalized by people starting a new party. The underlying assumption is that Democrats that have historically been active within the Democratic party are splintering off to start a new party, thus weakening the existing party.

However, I would suggest that this assumption is erroneous, given that the Bernie Sanders supporters (including those who registered Democrat during the last election) who are likely to be disgruntled with the Democratic party are unlikely to be historic Democrats, and more likely to have been unregistered, independent, Socialist, or Green. I doubt the creation of yet another additional party weakens the Democratic party at all, certainly no more than the formation of the Working Families Party did (which was statistically not at all), and it certainly doesn't look anything like "implosion". New parties are being created (and disbanded) all the time as part of normal political evolution.

You may take my criticisms of your premise as pedantic sniping if you wish, but it is simple disagreement with the entire fundamental premise of your post.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

Not only that, but I feel I have to point out that the Justice Democrats aren't even a new political party; it's an action committee formed to push the Democratic Party in the direction its members want it to go by garnering supporters and demonstrating that this is what Democrats want.

I disagree completely and fundamentally that all people who are of a particular political alignment must all fight the same battles in order to be effective. It's a lot like the idea that all researchers must research the same diseases in order to be effective; the "let's throw everything at one problem at a time" mentality. It simply isn't practical and doesn't work. What is practical, and does work, is people tackling the problems that matter the most to them personally, forming multiple coalitions that each focus on their own area of specialty.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

Also see http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Not_as_bad_as

[tyrannosaurus vex]

I know better than to try and continue a line of thought once you've declared it wrong, so I concede. I can settle for 3rd or 4th smartest guy in the room.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

I have no problem with disagreement; I just really want disagreement to be to the very high standard of which I know you are capable. That way, if I am wrong I know it beyond a shadow of a doubt, and also I will understand why, and vise versa.

I think that the Democratic fractionalization narrative worked very well for the Republican party in this last election, which is ironic if only because they are an absolute shitmess of a party, as parties go.

[tyrannosaurus vex]

I know the JD are not a political party, though they are a little more organized and intentional than most of the Tea Party was in 2009/2010. I also know that there are serious corpocratic tendencies in the Democratic Party that are legitimate problems that need legitimate solutions. But the JD are an outgrowth of the "Never Hillary" Berniebots who sat out the last election or tossed their votes uselessly to a 3rd-party candidate knowing full well the result this would have. It isn't that there aren't enough resources or reasons to fight more than one fight at a time, it's that this fight is one whose outcome we have already seen and are already living with. It's also one more area that has been touched by the scourge of fanatical extremism, one more coalition threatened with extinction because it has become self-aware and self-loathing.

Democratic fractionalization isn't just a narrative, it's a reality that cost us an election that should have been easy. It illustrates that the Democratic Party's coalition is absolutely essential. It doesn't win elections without internal integrity and compromise. When it frays and falls apart, America still has a core of white nationalism big enough to pick up the pieces, of which I am sure you are more acutely aware than I am. Of course we have to keep having dialogue and even disagreement within the coalition, but we can't afford another election where we turn on each other and refuse to come together for the common good.

The kind of language employed by the Justice Democrats picks up where the sneering condescension left off in 2016 and will only get worse as we approach the midterms of 2018. I can't see that resulting in anything other than a whole ticket full of microcosmic reproductions of the Clinton/Sanders primary, splitting the Democrats' votes and in many cases allowing whatever passes for Republican after their next primary a clear shot at general elections. If the JD can manage to push the Democrats farther left, I'd be thrilled. But more likely, they'll just discourage moderates from bothering at all.

[The Good Reverend Roger]

Between gerrymandering and democrat fecklessness, the GOP will strengthen their hold in 2018. 

You saw it here first.  There is no series of events in view that allows the situation to get better.

[tyrannosaurus vex]

Between gerrymandering and democrat fecklessness, the GOP will strengthen their hold in 2018. 

You saw it here first.  There is no series of events in view that allows the situation to get better.

Disagree. This outlook is not sufficiently sadistic to mesh well with the character of this century. I think 2018 will show a slight tick back in Democrats' favor, maybe even the House or the Senate will flip. This will mean nothing functionally, of course. We will continue to slip slowly downward. Then, in 2020, all the other shoes will drop, Trump will be re-elected in an actual landslide somehow, and nobody will even bother pretending there's a republic anymore by about March of 2021.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

I know the JD are not a political party, though they are a little more organized and intentional than most of the Tea Party was in 2009/2010. I also know that there are serious corpocratic tendencies in the Democratic Party that are legitimate problems that need legitimate solutions. But the JD are an outgrowth of the "Never Hillary" Berniebots who sat out the last election or tossed their votes uselessly to a 3rd-party candidate knowing full well the result this would have. It isn't that there aren't enough resources or reasons to fight more than one fight at a time, it's that this fight is one whose outcome we have already seen and are already living with. It's also one more area that has been touched by the scourge of fanatical extremism, one more coalition threatened with extinction because it has become self-aware and self-loathing.

Democratic fractionalization isn't just a narrative, it's a reality that cost us an election that should have been easy. It illustrates that the Democratic Party's coalition is absolutely essential. It doesn't win elections without internal integrity and compromise. When it frays and falls apart, America still has a core of white nationalism big enough to pick up the pieces, of which I am sure you are more acutely aware than I am. Of course we have to keep having dialogue and even disagreement within the coalition, but we can't afford another election where we turn on each other and refuse to come together for the common good.

The kind of language employed by the Justice Democrats picks up where the sneering condescension left off in 2016 and will only get worse as we approach the midterms of 2018. I can't see that resulting in anything other than a whole ticket full of microcosmic reproductions of the Clinton/Sanders primary, splitting the Democrats' votes and in many cases allowing whatever passes for Republican after their next primary a clear shot at general elections. If the JD can manage to push the Democrats farther left, I'd be thrilled. But more likely, they'll just discourage moderates from bothering at all.

I think I partially agree with you, but for a completely different reason. If the Justice Democrats is indeed a coalition of Bernie Bros, it will become clear by the next election that the underlying issues behind the lack of cohesion of the Democratic platform are institutionalized misogyny and racism.

I don't think we are going to unite white progressives on matters of racial equity, because a good size chunk of white progressives are closet racists who already think that everything is fine and black people are just whining for special privileges and playing victims. I don't think we are going to unite white OR black Democrats on matters of sex equity like access to reproductive health care and equal pay, because most black Democrats are too conservative and both are still deeply, unconsciously entrenched in the kind of unconscious patriarchal ideology that leads to peer reviewers finding equally productive woman scientists 1/3 less qualified than their male counterparts.

I also think you profoundly underestimate the degree to which plain old-fashioned ingrained patriarchal misogyny, along with well-orchestrated gerrymandering, cost the Democrats the election last year. Even keeping in mind that Clinton won the popular election with a greater voter turnout than any male politician ever other than Obama, it is also statistically clear that a large number of white Democrats opted to vote for Trump, which should tell us more than just that the "emails" campaign worked. http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-38254946

I think you have a really great story, I just don't think it's a story that is supported by facts.

[LMNO]

Ok, without my former glibness, my main problem with the JDs isn't that they're criticizing the Dems from the Left.  I think the Dems are too centrist, and too willing to concede to the right without fighting.  A strong progressive force pulling Left would be beneficial, IMO.

My problem is they seem to be attacking more than persuading, using the same tactics (and often, the same arguments) that the Right uses.  I simply don't feel that's an effective way to go.