It's the only way Obama can say things like "Don't let them take away your democracy" while the DNC actively rejects things that are undeniably popular among a majority of all Americans, let alone people who register as democrats.
Democracy for an insignificant minority, democracy for the rich— that is the democracy of capitalist society.
—Lenin, State and Revolution
It's extra funny when Obama says that since he had 8 years as president and entered office with a democratic supermajority where he could have prioritized electoral reforms and repealed that shitty GOP bill on the post office. But oopsy doopsy we're too busy bailing out banks and deporting immigrants to complete basic political objectives.
And then he spends 3.5 years afterwards parasailing with billionaires before his triumphant return to politics to, let me check my notes here, decapitate the only politician willing to enact the wildly popular reforms necessary to slow the decline of the American empire.
But hey if Trump wins in November it's because you all were too complacent and let democracy slip through your fingers.
Lieberman was basically the 60th vote that gave them a supermajority. They didn't even need to put pressure on him, they could have just gotten rid of the filibuster and ended the stupid concept of a supermajority. They could have done whatever they wanted while still having up to 9 conservative Democrats refusing to play along.
apparently it was more like 15. lieberman was the guy willing to take the blame publicly but the public option had 15 no votes from the Ds. this is why the continued emotional investment everyone here has in the party is so fucking useless.
The moral of the story is that the outcome that occurs will always be the only outcome that could have occurred in the capitalist society we have. Also applies to Bernie running for president. If they didn't stop him the way they did, they would stop him another way, which we actually saw with them priming people to accept super-delegates stopping Bernie at the convention, which they didn't end up needing, just like they didn't end up needing those 15 or more potential nays to stop the public option.
or by throwing the general and campaigning for Trump in all but name. or doing what labor did in the UK and lying to Corbyn about whether they were running his strategy or not. or. or. or.
I mean, that's the story. there was also a week of rebellion prior.
I see this argument come up a lot about Obamas time in office and it requires far more nuance about how hard it is to actually get anything done in a large legislative body. Especially within the American system where elected officials operate much more as local public figures rather than some anonymous entity that has no other option but to stick to the party line. Our form of government, by design, makes change incredibly difficult even when you in theory should have all your cards in order.
The way in which democrats won their super majority was through a massive expansion of the blue dogs, who in the current year basically no longer exist because you'd just be a Republican. The only thing that made these people democrats is their willingness to vote for Pelosi (or really any other democrat) as speaker. The conservative wing of the democratic party today is much more liberal than they were in 2008, and would actually be able to pass things relating to the rights of women and minorities, something they were totally unable to do back then (like seriously, they couldn't even pass workplace protections for LGBT in the house even with that super majority, nor could they pass any sort of immigration reform). Hell, they were only able to pass the ACA by giving out a fuck ton of pork in the stimulus, todays democrats would be far more willing to advance some sort of healthcare reform without needing to bribe people en mass (including reps in safe blue districts).
I totally understand that the realities of party politics are way more nuanced than what I wrote, but this is far too charitable to the democrats.
they couldn’t even pass workplace protections for LGBT in the house
Yeah no shit they couldn't, gay marriage wasn't adopted by the Democratic party until a bunch of rich gay guys brought it to the Supreme Court (and of course, liberals tout that as a win for themselves, forgetting that they told activists "now's not the right time" for decades). It's a pretty cherry-picked example of what was untouchable legislation-wise. How about moving election day to a weekend, making it a holiday, expanding mail-in voting, or taking the shackles off the post office? None of those are anywhere near as controversial as LGBT anything or shudder socialized health insurance (even though it isn't). What, is Joe Manchin supposed to stand up and say that protecting voting rights is "too divisive" or whatever?
And the worst part about this is that it's just horrible politics. We all know the adage that when more people vote, the more Democrats win (and vice versa for Republicans). So expanding or protecting voting rights (even in bullshit meager reforms) helps keep Democrats in power, and allows them to continue executing their agenda. And what's absolutely killer is that Republicans love these strategic objectives - they can be heavy handed like with Trump sabotaging the post offices, or privatizing schools to undercut teacher unions (who vote and donate to Democrats), or more subtly. My favorite example is when W. Bush campaigned on "Tort Reform" and ending "junk lawsuits", which conveniently would lower the compensation for tort lawyers, who overwhelmingly donated to Democratic campaigns (I remember reading that at the time, 75% of the Texas Democratic party funds came from tort lawyers).
And here's the thing: They didn't even try. It's a slam dunk set of reforms that can easily be sold to the public and keeps them in office. And the alternative is that you risk losing your seat to a Republican who won't waste an opportunity to give himself even a marginal edge in the next election. But there was no attempt. A competent party who cared about wielding party would press their advantage at every opportunity, but the Democrats have proven that they aren't that party.
I think you are oversimplifying it. If you want it to be real democracy, you must also be seen, and be valid.
Which is why democracy is incompatible with capitalism. If your needs are only valid in a market context, if you are poor, you don't exist. If you can't afford water, your thirst doesn't exist. If you can't afford a politician, your needs don't exist.
What does this mean? I think democracy is extremely simple. Everyone gets a vote, and the majority rules.
The mechanisms for ensuring that individuals can be seen, heard, or validated should come from that majority.
I was referring to the empty lib phrase "I see you, I hear you, you are valid". In all seriousness democracy is a bit more complicated than relying on the majority, as that majority can (and has) easily hurt minorities.
Ahh gotcha. This turned semantic then we agree I think. The difference is that I wouldn't lump those things into "democracy." To me democracy is literally that simple. The result (as you point out) is that sometimes democracy can lead to injustice. If I might try and put words in your mouth to demonstrate this:
I would say "achieving democracy isn't enough if there is still injustice in the world"
You would say "if there is injustice, then you don't have democracy"
It's glossed over that the founding fathers were by and large some of the wealthiest men in the continent at the time. And they wanted independence because the British were all like, "hey, all those service we provide for you to make ungodly fortunes, you should chip in at least a little for it. Also, you can't just take land from the native inhabitants with impunity". The founding fathers lost their shit over that.
Nah libs don't even think that, they think democracy is exclusively getting to vote every once in a while for a few particular job posts.
The amount of times I've seen people say and post shit like protesting in front of an elected officials house is undemocratic is obscene. They very likely view any means to which people hold their elected officials accountable as being out of the purview of normal democracy.
That sounds like majoritarianism. Not democracy.
The majority supported the war on drugs in the 80’s. Including blacks. That don’t make it right.
I would say it does make it right. It's a hard pill to swallow but one that needs to be taken in order to orient yourself towards building a system that will work and has some strength to it.
For the same reason that universal benefits are harder to break than means tested benefits, trying to give rights to a minority is always going to result in a perversion of democracy. Sometimes it will be good and sometimes it will be bad. But you'll never have "democracy" at the end.
Tell the generations of black men lost to the prison industrial complex that it was right that they suffered because the majority of Americans are bloodthirsty.
Democracy isn't always right, tyranny by either majority or those with the biggest microphones can result in deeply unpopular and bad things happening within any particular democratic system.
Democracy really isn't a singular thing, but all in all, I still think having the ability to vote to change things to a certain degree is important.
This is why majoritarianism isn’t democracy. A true democracy protects minorities from the reactionary elements of the majority.
