As White House officials weigh how much to give in to his demands, rift grows between president and senator from West Virginia

It’s worth leaving a comment to let the Biden Administration know that you want the greenhouse gas reduction measures in the Inflation Reduction Act preserved

  • silence7OPM
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    10 months ago

    The structure of the US Senate inherently favors the Republicans; it was designed that way by admitting a bunch of low-population states in the late 1800s. Same for the House, where the gerrymandering favors Republicans.

    That means that the actual path to power for Democrats means not just energizing their base, but making common cause with a bunch of low-information and moderate voters.

    That’s why you see a real effort to win over moderates.

    • VikingHippie@lemmy.wtf
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      10 months ago

      Nope. There are tens of millions more democrats and disenfranchised leftists than Republicans and disenfranchised nazis. Even in most of the “red” states.

      It’s true that the deck is stacked in favor of Republicans, but not so much that a coalition of the “always votes, blue no matter who” groups and the neglected millions to their left wouldn’t have WAY more than the numbers needed to take 60-65% of both houses every. single. time.

      The Dem leadership wouldn’t want that, though. They’d lose their main excuse for kowtowing to their owner donors. Might even have to enact real systemic change that benefits regular people more than the already rich and powerful! 😱

      • silence7OPM
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        10 months ago

        The way you address that is by working with groups like the Environmental Voter Project to turn non-voting environmentalists into voters or the DSA to get people who will do the right thing past the primary in left-leaning districts.

        Mobilization isn’t some instant thing that’s going to happen on its own just because existing elected officials change thier tune

        • VikingHippie@lemmy.wtf
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          10 months ago

          And it’s ESPECIALLY not some thing that’s working at all when existing officials both elected and unelected are working non stop as well as spending tens if not hundreds of millions of dollars each election cycle to retain the status quo by, amongst other things, rigging primaries against left-leaning candidates in all districts.

          You keep saying to unrig the system by moving pieces belonging to the party leadership that rigs it on the board owned by the party leadership that rigs it, stubbornly refusing to admit the blindingly obvious fact that the status quo will continue until the corrupt people at the top have been removed from their positions.

          • argv_minus_one@beehaw.org
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            10 months ago

            rigging primaries

            Lying about the elections isn’t okay when Trump does it, and it isn’t okay when you do it, either.

            • VikingHippie@lemmy.wtf
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              10 months ago

              Equating the documented and admitted truth of the Dem leadership rigging primaries to Trump’s preposterous lies about them rigging the 2020 general shows either profound ignorance or colossal dishonesty. Be better.

              • argv_minus_one@beehaw.org
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                10 months ago

                the documented and admitted truth of the Dem leadership rigging primaries

                …doesn’t exist and you know it. Be better.

                • VikingHippie@lemmy.wtf
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                  10 months ago

                  So this is just a figment of my imagination? This court decision was purely hypothetical? The former head of the party is just a disgruntled employee making shit up? ANOTHER former leader of the party stepped down just for funsies? This is just the fevered ramblings of a lunatic or a Trump supporter (but I repeat myself)? They weren’t the main reason that Cuellar, the last anti-choice democrat in Congress managed to “beat” Cisneros whose policy positions were many times more popular across the board?

                  You really need to get your head out of the fucking sand and/or stop knowingly lying.

                  • argv_minus_one@beehaw.org
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                    10 months ago

                    So this is just a figment of my imagination?

                    That is an opinion piece.

                    This court decision was purely hypothetical?

                    Kushner-controlled paper. Not credible.

                    The former head of the party is just a disgruntled employee making shit up?

                    Paywalled.

                    And no, I’m not interested in you copy-and-pasting the text for me, because I don’t trust you not to alter the text.

                    ANOTHER former leader of the party stepped down just for funsies?

                    Not an admission of guilt. Sometimes people resign just to defuse controversy, even though they are not actually to blame.

                    This is just the fevered ramblings of a lunatic or a Trump supporter (but I repeat myself)?

                    That isn’t relevant. It complains about how down-ticket candidates are selected, but Bernie Sanders was on the ticket.

                    They weren’t the main reason that Cuellar, the last anti-choice democrat in Congress managed to “beat” Cisneros whose policy positions were many times more popular across the board?

                    If that were true, Cisneros would have won the election. She came close, but she didn’t get the votes. And no, it’s not cheating for politicians to endorse each other.

                    You really need to get your head out of the fucking sand and/or stop knowingly lying.

                    The feeling’s mutual. If you want to successfully deceive me, you’re going to have to try a lot harder than that.

          • silence7OPM
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            10 months ago

            This isn’t a project where a single example of a courageous politician suddenly solves everything. It’s one where winning is a multi-decade project, so to get there we need to change the incentives so that even middling cowardly politicians will do the right thing.

            Both the Environmental Voter Procject and the DSA are doing that though conflict expansion (to bring in people who weren’t previously involved) and shifting the Overton Window (to make the unthinkable possible)

            • VikingHippie@lemmy.wtf
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              10 months ago

              This isn’t a project where a single example of a courageous politician suddenly solves everything.

              Correct. It’s one where hundreds of cowardly politicians (and unaccountable unelected officials) too focused on their own wealth and power (and on not upsetting the status quo that’s so lucrative to them) to ever help regular people.

              It’s also one where tens of millions of gaslighted and gaslighting regular people make up all kinds of excuses for the hundreds of cowards no matter what they do or don’t do, forever.

              It’s also late in my time zone and I’ve frankly had enough of today, so I’m gonna head to bed. Sweet dreams about a better and more honest world when you get that far.

              • Empiricism@sustainability.masto.host
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                10 months ago

                @VikingHippie @silence7 @climate

                The silver lining of ecological degradation is that no amount of political posturing or businesses (ignorance) greenwashing will prevent the climate from deteriorating.

                The planet’s biosphere is the ultimate “authority”, the ultimate power. As such, it’s the ultimate “judgement” regarding how human cultures can, & can not, survive.

                The planet is, what it objectively is. Ecological limiting factors are the ultimate long-term regulators.

                Nature finds a way

              • silence7OPM
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                10 months ago

                Complaining about the problem doesn’t do anything. What does something is changing the incentives that politicians face; that means giving them both a carrot (the opportunity to earn votes) and a stick (in the form of credible negative consequences) for corruption, which has completely broken down in that it’s well-neigh impossible to prosecute any Republican unless they do something so extreme as to attempt a coup.

                I’ve been working on the carrot because it’s a key part of the process, and will continue to do so.