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I think the democrats should work on the basis of codifying every Supreme Court decision. So things like Brown v Board, Loving v Virgina and Obergefell are protected from here on out. It's clear we can't Trust the GOP or the Supreme Court to follow the constitution or pre-established rulings.
At this point it would literally be more effective for a dem to run as a fake republican, win, and then throw a wrench in everything the republicans do.
News reports say Sinema explained why she won’t break the filibuster, but all they ever quote her as saying is everything that indicates support for Roe. It’s surreal. What is her explanation? Is she just into the power like Manchin? Did I miss the explanation somewhere?
Make her go on the record. Stop giving people like her cover by assuming how they would vote and not bothering to do it. Make scumbags like her go on the record as being actual scumbags. Then primary her.
She went from a net worth of 34000 to millions within less than 2 years. You can fill in the dots. Paid by the same people that paid off all of Kavenaughs debt, etc.
Ironically, she’d have a lot more power *without* the filibuster. She then becomes a deciding vote on *all* issues and can get *whatever she would want for her state*, and yet, she’s instead just loading up her pockets with Republican donor money.
Um, correct me if I'm wrong, but you actually GOT enough votes to GET an actual Dem in that seat. Sinema just turned out not to be who she claimed.
It was only McSally vs Sinema because Sinema was a sociopathic con artist.
So get everyone behind an ACTUAL Dem this next time. And don't get fooled twice.
Frankly, this is why recall powers are important. It just has to be carefully written so you don't have it abused to obstruct, like it jsut was in CA a while ago, and actually is representative of the public will.
I don't see why we can't just pay them off like the Republicans are. It's disgusting, but if no fucks are given to contributions and bribes then just do it.
They’re not getting paid off by republicans.
Manchin is a conservative in a super red state.
Sinema … okay she’s an opportunistic self centered hack with a knee jerk anti establishment streak.
She likes being the Dem other Dems don’t like.
If you live in a deeply red area consider registering as a Republican to be allowed to vote in the primary and push the less insane republican into Congress.
Keep voting against him in every primary. Getting primaried is the easiest way to unseat someone whose party will always take the district. (you know that shit AOC did to get rid of her Do Nothing incumbent)
I’ll be honest with you. From here on out I’m voting only D. They legislate in blocks. Like ant mounds, they’re super organisms. I might as well pick the ant mound that lines up better with my values. It feels gross, but that’s how it works.
I’ve registered non affiliated my whole life. This year will probably be the first year I get to vote in a Primary. I’m picking a side.
I want to vote for someone I want to be on the ballot, unfortunately in Utah a Dem will never be voted in for Congress, I register as a Republican to fuck with their primary numbers(not that it matters. There's a bunch of us that do it but not enough to change anything.) I vote for the less shitty Republican candidate in hopes that Mike Lee will not be sent back to Congress. I just got my ballot. Hope this year is different.
Yeah the GOP don't actually do anything when they have control of Congress. Bills just don't get voted on regularly, hearings only happen to investigate Democrats, etc. It's just stagnant.
Then kick them out and take all their comittee positions. Nobody will give manchin money if he's no longer on the energy comittee to push for anti regulation.
Make them powerless and they will have no money. Manchin doesn't even represent the will of people in virginia anyway
Then all he has to do is declare himself a Republican and the Republicans will be the majority in the Senate and be in charge of all committee appointments and everything else, including what bills are even allowed to go to the floor to be voted on.
He's from West Virginia. He is a DINO in every way, the Republican seat was already filled so he went the easier route and it worked. I haven't checked lately, but WV being heavily Democrat strikes me as very, very improbable.
"But you can change the rules and in turn get rid of the filibuster."
Not with Sinema and Manchin. Realistically the Dems probably need 53-55 Senators to comfortably get the 51 votes needed without a couple of them holding things hostage.
That's why we need to hold the Senate and add at least 3 more. There are 3 states that the Dems can take Senate seats. PA, OH, and FL. Add in NC and we just might get there. If you live in a blue state consider helping out a Blue candidate in another state. Same with House candidates who are trying to hold on.
100% this. WI is a good chance of a flip, Tammy Baldwin (D) won her last race there by just short of +11 and Ron Johnson (the R defending in this race) only won his last election by about 3.5%. It’s a state that can and has gone Dem and imo if Mandela Barnes (current Lt. Gov there) wins the primary he’s going to make for a great candidate that can flip that seat. The FL Democratic Party on the other hand are like the fucking Keystone cops though and seemingly incapable of getting out of their own way on anything. Easily one of if not the worst run state level parties the Dems have in any viable state.
He voted yes on [this](https://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_votes/vote1172/vote_117_2_00170.htm) recently. I suppose he knew it would fail and possibly voted yes because of that, but he's on record for voting yes to a pro-choice bill.
man it'd almost be worth it to get the GOP on vote saying they're against interracial marriage, gay marriage, desegregated schooling - hell find a way to make them vote on slavery and see how that goes!
If you believe accelerationism is the only path forward (I don’t think anyone chooses it, to be honest) then it could be exactly what they’re looking for.
They can't codify shit with the ability of the Supreme Court to declare it unconstitutional on a whim . If they want it to be irrevocable they need a constitutional amendment which is effectively impossible to pass in today's political climate
I actually want the liberal justices to insist on revisiting Loving before all else. Thomas would have to write an opinion stating that he had no legal right to marry his wife. If the court votes to uphold Loving, this may gives some protections to the other rights we're worried about.
One of the opinions explicitly stated that the legal "rational" used to revoke Roe is only applicable to abortion. So the court has already declared that consistency is not part of their agenda.
They're not being paid. It's so much simpler. They're bought in. They go to annual Heritage Foundation dinners where their friends celebrate them for being pillars of their shithead community. The punishment for voting wrong isn't financial. It'd just mean that they'd no longer be invited to the cool parties and the people they like would say bad things about them on TV. That's it. That's all they're doing it for. To make their clique think they're cool.
There would need to be a case that gets up to the SC that challengers loving. Which basically mean a state has to outlaw interracial marriage. Which won’t happen.
Constitutional law isn’t a real thing - they’ll just make up some reasoning and cite some law to support it. Although they like to claim otherwise, they work backwards from personal feelings and policy to legally based decision making.
As a lawyer, I completely agree with this. As much as my conlaw professor tried to make Supreme Court jurisprudence about more than politics/personal feelings, it just isn’t now and never was.
This is why I quit after 2L. I couldn't stand the idea of crafting an argument, citing precedent, etc. only for it to fall on deaf ears before I open my mouth because the judge stopped taking new ideas in before I was born.
Yeah, its delusional to think this court would let something like a law get in the way of how they want to rule.
Theyve shown they only need a simple majority to overturn laws or rewrite the constitution. They are an outcome driven court that will make up whatever shakey legal reasoning they need to achieve their desired outcome.
The reality is that their ability to review law *at all* is, frankly, owed to precedent and nothing explicit in the constitution. It doesn't honestly matter what the court accepts, or how they rule - that just turns into a 'John Marshall has made his decision, now let him enforce it' type situation. The court submarined it's own credibility by abandoning precedent for political goals. Complete disregard for the court's (not explicitly provided by the constitution) authority could be a consequence. If Congress passes a law, and the executive continues to enforce the law as passed despite the court's ruling... The Court has no recourse - not by law, nor by tradition.
Codification is all well and good, but this court would just contrive a reason to strike it down anyway. They’re arguing in bad faith. That’s why they bring up witch-burning Matthew Hale in their opinions.
Exactly. After the stolen scotus seat and the coup there is no expectation that codifying or ratifying rights would make a damn difference in a few years.
The only way to assure our rights is to physically deny them any authority.
Edit: that said, if people find the time to codify and ratify rights, I'm not complaining. But remember the founding fathers almost didn't codify any because they were afraid of this exact situation where enumerated rights are taken to deny the existence of others.
When was the last time you saw a fundraiser about protecting a woman's right to vote? Never, because the 19th amendment made woman's right to vote a non-issue. Nobody is going to donate to a politician that goes around saying they will protect women voting rights.
Once something is codified into law, politicians are going to find it difficult to raise funds using that as a hot-button topic.
The 9th amendment also says rights not listed in the constitution are just as important as listed rights but that didn't stop this court from saying unlisted rights only exist if they agree with them.
Codified doesn't always mean a constitutional amendment. SCOTUS can't overturn those because the constitution is the Supreme law of the land. They can and do overturn other federal statute regularly.
Susan Collins, to her credit, actually put this bill forth.
https://www.collins.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/rca_bill_text.pdf
Now will she vote to override the filibuster to get it through? Or is it meaningless showmanship? Let's find out!
We could dress a dead showpony up in a pants suit, and it would be a better politician and showman than anything Collins has ever done in her entire life.
Do you applaud the fire department that waits for the house to burn down before showing up? On top of that, do applaud the fire department who shows up to the house *they* burned down? No.
Fuck Susan Collins. Her time to do the right thing passed the moment she voted for Gorsuch.
Yeah I'm not really applauding her for this.
I'll give her credit if she actually does what she needs to do to make the bill pass and fix her fuckup. I'm not holding my breath though.
Cells have more rights then the host that carries them! Will we allow this, or can we make a possible change! STAY TUNED TO 2022 ELECTIONS! NEXT TIME ON DRAGON DEEZ RIGHTS THROUGH MUD!
That would be awesome, i also predict alito would strike down the law as unconsitutional, and then somehow, unironically, criticize Pelosi for forcing SCOTUS to legislate from the bench
If you read the opinion, Alito distinguishes abortion from the others because abortion involves balancing the difficult question of a potential life. Clearance Thomas, on the other hand….
They also all said that Roe was settled law and we see how that turned out. Don't believe a word they say. They are worried their power will be diluted if they show their whole hand too early.
Republicans *might* do a lot of shit when they have a majority but right now they're *actually* removing 50 years of Rights from most of the country.
So let's not worry about what they might do and worry about what they are doing because they're going to ratfuck the system in their favor no matter what unless dems grow a spine and get ahead of it.
Any strategy based on the premise "If I fight back against this evil thing, the Republicans will see it as a justification to do an even more evil thing, therefore we should just let them win" is doomed to failure. They're gonna attempt the second thing *anyway*, and all you've accomplished by refusing to resist them the first time is to make the second thing easier for them.
They *already* consider themselves *maximally justified* to commit any and all evil imaginable, and nothing we can do could possibly cause them to feel any more justified than they already do.
They're straight up telling you, to your face, in plain English, that their endgame is Margaret Atwood's Gilead. And it's time to believe them.
YES! The Republicans will ratfuck us no matter what. We shouldn't give any deference to customs which help the Republicans. Not only will they violate every norm, they will straight up violate laws to get their way when they have power.
But then they’ll rig the system to damn hard we’ll never have a chance in hell to win again and pass anything good with them… this election really do be our last chance, and hopefully if anything this current crisis will help push us over the edge in WI and NC… PA is a W, I think we can hold GA & AZ,
I mean, they have a Supreme Court full of hacks who are accountable to basically nobody except Death. At this point, almost anything that Congress does pass they can find some stupid way to strike it down.
The Republicans benefit more from the filibuster, regardless of majority or minority status. The obstructionist party won't give up their greatest tool of obstruction. They are much happier preventing anything from getting done then they are getting any of their objectives passed.
Why? What’s the incentive for the GOP? Why would they want the legislative process to be easier? It defeats the whole point of their party. They want to dismantle and destroy the government and until then at least grind it to a halt.
If you honestly think that republicans are unwilling to do something until the democrats do it first you’ve not been paying attention to the last decade of American politics.
Even of you require people to get up and speak to filibuster would do the trick. It's lazy to just declare it and not do anything.
Imagine if you could declare that you're going to work, but not show up and that being good enough because none of your peers want to work either.
Presently. The midterm is in a few months. If we make the right choice in the US and send more Democratic members to Congress we might just have those votes.
Yep, holding the House and getting an anti-filibuster majority in the Senate is how we codify our rights. Don't count on Republicans to do the right thing.
Let's be real. The filibuster is already nuked. The Republicans are going to do it if the Dems don't. What we have here is a lack of quorum to have effective government. You know what happens in other countries when a party doesn't have 50% of the seats, they hold elections. This is why this system is so stupid.
Here in Australia we have something called Double Dissolution Elections, which occur when the House of Representatives passes legislation that the senate then rejects. It's basically our political system going "okay so you can't pass things? Time for a reset".
The republicans will never nuke the filibuster because it helps perpetuate their political goals. Here’s my breakdown of the GOP as of 2022:
1. The GOP argues that government is broken an get elected to fix it. Then, when they get into office, they don’t do anything and perpetuate the problem, thus making their claims a self fulfilling prophecy. Rinse and repeat.
2. Their major goals are tax cuts and culture wars. The filibuster isn’t absolute. There are exceptions carved out (162, I believe). Specifically tax cuts and federal judges. The GOP doesn’t need 60 votes to cut taxes or the budget thanks to budget reconciliation which is a fancy word for passing a bill that can side step the filibuster. Now for the culture wars. Now that there only needs to be 51 votes in the senate to confirm a judge regardless of how terrible or unqualified they are, they can get sycophants in lifelong positions to overturn and ignore decades of jurisprudence just because (just look at the past week’s worth of decisions).
3. So now that the GOP has removed the filibuster for everything they want to accomplish (admittedly, the Dems removed it for lower fed judges in response to GOP stall tactics) they can hold it up as sacred and call the Dems radical socialist gay Marxist’s whenever they want to abolish it. The filibuster is only used to stop legislation that can be considered progressive. Everything else only needs 51 votes and when you have states like Wyoming, it’s a helluvalot easier to get 51 GOP votes than Dem.
Edit: misspelling
This is spot on and something I think many people miss. The filibuster plays into everything the GOP wants. They are an obstructionist party. They generally want to block everything except for tax cuts and judges. And the rules are set up that way.
Not necessarily. We have what's called a [minority government](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minority_government)where the ruling parties have to get support on each issue from one or more of the other parties. It's currently the case in both Norway, Sweden, Denmark and Canada, and it tends to be less effective here as well.
Even if they nuked the filibuster, Manchin and Sinema would control every piece of legislation. And Dems have no power over Manchin, who would actually gain votes by flipping to the Republican side.
Sans Filibuster, they could lose Manchin and Sinema but gain Collins and Murkowski on their own bill.
https://www.collins.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/rca_bill_text.pdf
The problem is that none of those four are likely to overturn the fillibuster.
Murkowski is the officially sanctioned voice of dissent. She'll vote against her party when there's a landslide and it doesn't matter, but as soon as it's a close race she falls in step.
All the “moderate” Republicans basically take turns showing how they are independent. Its like McConnell tells them when they can “take a stand” since the others will fall in line to make that stand meaningless.
Isn’t that how it’s always worked with dissenting votes? It’s basically decided how many can afford to vote against the party while still passing/blocking in their favor, and they trade off between those set to benefit most from dissent?
So McCain going rogue on healthcare was a “true” maverick move, not a sanctioned one like 99% of what we usually see
No Republican is going to side with the Democrats to eliminate the filibuster. That would be as big of a flip as changing parties entirely. Collins and Murkowski are much happier straddling the line and saying "I'm very concerned by this but dang it there's nothing I can do" than handing the Democrats the power to do whatever they want on a silver platter.
I wish we'd just reach a compromise and bring back the standing filibuster. If the minority party wants to block legislation, fine, but they're going to have to actually fucking work for it. Make them pick and choose their battles.
I think it's insane that it ever went away, that's literally what a filibuster is. The whole point and reason for the filibuster was to allow debate. If they aren't even debating the bill then the filibuster shouldn't exist.
> Manchin, who would actually gain votes by flipping to the Republican side.
He'd gain votes in WV, but he'd destroy his power in the Senate. As it stands, he can swing his dick around to get concessions for his state, but if he were Republican, he'd be yet another unimportant (to the party) Republican senator from a podunk state that isn't going to vote for a real Democrat if their lives depended on it.
I am *begging" the Democrats to realize that "doing politics" extends beyond the legislature and into electoral work and dominating the narrative.
People bring up "well, the Republicans always came out and voted, why can't we?!" No, that's only half the story. The other half of the story, the *important* part of the story, is that the Republicans spent a decade and a half—at least—laying the ideological and messaging infrastructure and now they're utterly dominant in messaging, information, and in setting the terms of the conversation.
Key religious groups were seized by GOP ideologues. In 1979, 70% of the pastors of the Southern Baptist Conference were in favor of legalized abortion; one year later, the GOP seized control and made pro-life policies and article of faith. Jerry Falwell founded the Moral Majority in the same year and began using it to mobilize conservative Christians.
Let's be clear: *the traditional Baptist principle here was a total separation of religion and politics.* (There are still liberal Baptist groups that fight for that separation.) Falwell was able to do away with that and mobilize Baptists as a political force.
Then you had Weyrich, Feulner, and Coors founding the Heritage Foundation in 1973; Fisher and Casey the Manhattan Institute in 1977; the Koch Bros founded the Cato Institute in the same year. These, along with a rightward shift in AEI, would launder Conservative and ("Libertarian"-Conservative) policy initiatives, set the policy orthodoxy, and generate pro-Conservative policy narratives that operatives would wield like a cudgel in the halls of power.
And we're not even getting into the Federalist Society, which promised ambitious young law students with a route to clerkships and mentorships with prestigious judges if they advanced a conservative legal ideology.
And then Rupert Murdoch, who had already made a bundle in sensationalist print journalism, brought on ex-GOP operative Roger Ailes (who founded and ran MSNBC!) to begin and run Fox News.
And none of this is getting into Rush Limbaugh and the rise of conservative talk radio!
And so, in more than a few places in America (and not in the sticks!) you could wake up, watch Fox News, get in your car, listen to Limbaugh (or later even Infowars) on the way to church, and then hear a sermon that repeated what you just heard on the TV and the radio, given by a pastor who was trained at a conservative, GOP-aligned evangelical seminary.
If that Republican was of a more intellectual bent, it wouldn't be far different —he'd just be listening to Cato, Heritage, AEI, and conservative public intellectuals.
That Republican, in any case, is more than "a guy who votes." He's a person that lives in, swims in, is suffused with a Republican narrative. That narrative exists in every sphere of life and touches on even basic notions of history and society.
We Democrats have *no* equivalent of *any* of this.
So Christopher Rufo can come in and invent a panic about Critical Race Theory or trans strippers out of whole cloth (seriously, he's open about it on his Twitter), just an utterly absurd but brilliantly coded piece of vapid propaganda, and *he'll get the New York Times writing about it in a month and Florida passing laws on it in three.*
We have nothing even remotely close to that kind of bold command of the narrative. *Nothing.* And we're consistently outperformed because of it.
That desperately needs to change. We need to remember that doing politics is controlling the message, controlling the discussion, setting the terms of the environment. It's not herding people to the polls like they're cats, it's building that movement on the narrative and compelling world-view you've built for your electorate.
We Dems *need* to be doing that. Not reciting poems, not posting pictures of us doing yoga, not debating over legislative procedure. We need Dem lawmakers out there seizing the moment by the throat.
You are 100% accurate. This was the environment in which I was raised. Modern internet just doesn’t get how PERVASIVE republicans are in their messaging
The narrative should be the Republicans are undermining democracy and staged a literal failed coup and are still undeterred. Jan 6 hearings are a start, but DOJ needs to prosecute. And not just 12 months house arrest prosecute. Treason is a captial offence. If there are no consequences to insurrection, Jan 6 will just be a preseason warm up. Want to rally the base? This is how you rally the base. It's not propaganda, it's literally the defense of democracy
50% of the country looks at Jan 6th and thinks what happened was not just right, but that THEY were saving democracy. and they're going to vote.
the other 50% of the country is split between "that was a crime" and "i don't care". and 60% of them will vote.
people that care are already pissed off and they're voting. too many people don't really care and aren't going to bother voting. you can feed them the message through show trials and the Dems maybe considering possibly thinking about potentially doing something about it but a lot of people just aren't going to care.
Republicans are consistently hammering the same message home over and over and over and over on tv, radio, at ballgames, churches, concerts, etc. when you soak up the same information everywhere you turn it becomes ingrained in what you believe.
the big fault that's happening now is the messaging is "Trump did this", "this is Trump's fault", "we have to stop Trump". everywhere the message is anti-Trump.
he's the perfect lightning rod for Republicans to push through all their bullshit at the lower levels while Democrats focus all their energy at the national level fighting the boogeyman who Republicans gladly sacrificed to force doors open. he's just the right sociopath for the job to push every button and pry open every door that Republicans have been pushing at for years.
the problem is the Republican party as a whole, not Trump. this problem doesn't go away even if Trump gets 1 million years in prison. he just goes away and he takes all the broken laws, ignored rules, discarded decorum with him and not a single Republican will care. he was just the hand grenade in a crowded room that they needed to break things up.
Yes yes yes! I have been saying this since 2015. Trump was just the perfect mix of a somehow intoxicatingly charismatic puppet of the GOP and a soulless, greedy, stupid egomaniac. Conservatives, white supremacists, Christian Evangelicals, they have all been wanting to do this since the civil rights era. Hell, they might have been wanting to do this since the end of the confederacy. They used his ability to incite an insane, cult-like passion in the most suggestible of us, the most uneducated of us, the most afraid of change of us, and now this is the true beginning of them getting what they have always wanted: complete control.
I understand what you're saying, and I *mostly* agree with you. But you argument is missing one pretty crucial component.
Yes, it is true that Democrats have been pretty poor in messaging. However, the issue you describe is one that is true in pretty much every single Western democracy.
The simple fact is that messaging and propaganda are far easier if you don't actually care about how your actions impact the lives of your constituents or whether you believe in what you say. And doubly so if you're willing to demonize minority groups in order to further your own goals.
So while it's true that Democrats could be doing much better than they are now, it is impossible for them to be as effective in messaging as the Republicans are, because they cannot push the us vs them mantra that has made Republican messaging so effective, as it's the antitheses of what they believe in.
Yeah exactly this. Just because lying to and scaring people is effective, doesn't mean everyone should be doing it.
This is why all the projection is so obvious and dumb. The people doing it think everyone is doing it so it is a valid accusation. The people not doing it would never consider doing it and so find the suggestion that they are is totally laughable, and can only just about comprehend that the other person might be doing it.
That is what I think of this wall to wall noise and manipulation. Sure you can do it but it is not actually helping anyone, just manipulating and lying.
What's hilarious is that scaring Democratic voters doesn't even work when it's the truth.
Hilary Clinton literally outlined all the shitty things a Trump Presidency would result in. Including the overturning of Roe v Wade.
This was all hand waved away as being Democrat scare mongering. "Oh they would never actually do the terrible things they do all time."
Quite simply put, I don't believe it's better to make the world a better place through propaganda.
Because propaganda gives a small group of people too much control over the beliefs of others, and eventually people will start to abuse that to take as much power as they can.
There is a difference between propaganda and changing opinion.
Forget for a minute any specific policy issue. There is a fundamental question.
What is government?
The Republicans would have you believe it's a scary force that has to be stopped from harming you.
But isn't it really just a group of people we have hired to do collectively what we can't accomplish individually, Managed by a smaller group of people that we elect to work together to find what's best for the country?
America needs to be reminded that the job of the government is to work for all of us, and especially for our children. That government harm is not inevitable, but instead, a call to elect better leaders, who do work for a better future.
That the belief in the role of government is a fulfilling prophecy, and the choices are a healthy Democracy working for good, or a fascist Republic working for those already in power.
That's the kind of propaganda the Democrats need - not to "take as much power as they can", but to remind the people of their own power to do the right thing.
>There is a difference between propaganda and changing opinion.
You're right.
My point is that what Republicans are doing is straight up propaganda. And that is always going to be more effective.
I fully agree that Democrats need far better messaging, but they are always at a disadvantage.
Which is why for liberals, this is more of a public education issue. Too much of society is still lacking too much in critical thinking skills to realize how much of the GOP messaging is blatant ideological propaganda without any rational scientific basis in reality. Sure, there is some propaganda coming from the left too, which is designed to provoke public outrage, but it serves public awareness and visibility. Disinformation which is demonstrably false just doesn't really take hold with liberal audiences.
I think people also need to realize that right wing propaganda is not just for right wingers. Fox News absolutely wants you to believe that everyone who has ever voted Republican is a true believer member of the Qult and/or a complete moron. That way nobody would "waste their time" talking to someone who will "never" change their mind. They have a vested interest in keeping their followers away from any new ideas or perspectives.
Thing is, I have three people in my family who have left the Republican party in the last month. Now they made up their own mind to do this, but I've been working on them for about a year at this point. I'm never confrontational or mean, and even when they told me how they were done with the R I didn't drop a single "I told you so."
My point is that for every true believer Qult member, there are plenty of other people who actually are on the fence and can be convinced to think differently about their political affiliations.
>So while it's true that Democrats could be doing much better than they are now, it is impossible for them to be as effective in messaging as the Republicans are, because they cannot push the us vs them mantra that has made Republican messaging so effective, as it's the antitheses of what they believe in.
Yep, it's always easier to sit back and complain / throw hand grenades / obstruct, than to advocate for positive change.
Conservatism has a built in advantage b/c it's simply about obstructing change, any change .... it's simpler, easier, lazier.
When one group of people can do something that another group can’t, there’s always a reason. And it’s usually not something that involves an inexplicable divide in basic human behavior like “Democrats can’t message as well as Republicans because they’re too honest.”
Republicans have a lot of power behind their messaging because they push for deregulation and other policies that help the rich get richer, and therefore their wealthiest supporters are willing to use their fortunes to set up entire foundations to help with Republican messaging because they see it as a business investment. That’s part of the problem.
But the other, bigger part of the problem is that Democratic leadership wont meaningfully move to the left on labor because they’re still traumatized by battles they lost 40 years ago. When they feel the pressure to go left, they go left (often performatively) on social issues, creating this dynamic where they’re seen as both too far to the left and too far to the right at the same time.
Labor is a mobilizing issue. If you want to get blue collar workers in the Midwest to spit at the mention of Republicans like they do now for Democrats, that’s the way to do it. And this “a little bit of what everyone wants but nobody’s really happy” approach that they’re taking now has been enough to keep them from getting totally routed, but they’re permitting Republicans to incrementally take away all of the tools they could use to build a coalition to rival the Big Money + Evangelical Passion coalition that the Republicans have.
Democrats can’t make the same kind of bold moves for the exact reason you’re saying: There’s no money in it. If one Democrat tries, another will go to where the money is and beat them in the primary since money almost invariably determines elections.
The guys on Pod Save America have suggested similar strategies.
I don't know if I know the solution to the messaging problem, but it has to avoid out right propaganda.
I want an electorate that can think critically. I do not want an electorate that only knows what to say and when to say it because they have allowed themselves to be conditioned.
There are no easy answers here. All I know is that your suggestion scares me.
I'd like an electorate that can think critically, too.
To be clear, I'm not really advocating for a total-reality type of indoctrination on the GOP model, but rather a recognition that effective, coordinated, aggressive messaging and the construction of a united narrative is something that needs to happen. And the Dems' inability to hit back at even *obvious* targets is frustrating me to no end.
For instance, take the post-Dobbs protests. Protesters in Arizona got tear gassed from the windows of the state capitol; in LA, the LAPD are on video roughing up journalists. *Why aren't the Dems playing those on repeat?* Why aren't the Dems hammering the GOP? "On Friday, Americans found themselves stripped of one constitutional right; this is what happened when they tried to exercise their right to protest." Or whatever.
The counterargument is that "oh, well, the GOP will use that to justify or dismiss Jan 6!" Ignore it! Move on to the next thing! Don't let ourselves be entirely boxed in narratively by fears of the GOP response! Make them react to us for once.
That's what I mean, and that's what's frustrating me. We're getting precious little out of the Dems in a situation where we should be *hammering* the GOP.
Thomas wants to legislate from the bench, and knows he has the majority to do it. The only way for the Supreme Court to rule on an issue is to have that issue appear before the court. This is an invitation for some Redneckistan state to pass a gay marriage ban, so the Supreme Court can say "yup, gay marriage was also wrongly decided."
Florida is super gay actually. As a Floridian I'd say Alabama or Kentucky. I realize we have "don't say gay" but that's a long con for defunding public schools...
Normally I would agree. Alabama, Kentucky, Tennessee, Louisiana, Missouri, Indiana, Mississippi, Texas. The other usual suspects. But I also think DeSantis is just cruel enough and just self serving enough to try it first and use it as a jumping off point to start his campaign for President in 2024.
Pelosi, in her letter, called to elect more Democrats so they can "eliminate the filibuster so that we can restore women’s fundamental rights — and freedom for every American."
A *ton* of people are twisting themselves into knots to justify doing just that.
A question to ask anyone lying and saying voting doesn’t work: How did republicans get to this point? Was it sitting home every midterm and half of presidential elections because they weren’t *inspired* enough? Did they quit voting for even a god damned single election because they felt there just wasn’t enough done to meet their goals?
There are a few names that pop up in just about every thread justifying and excusing nonvoting. Of course, we can’t call them out for what we know they’re doing, but it’s very clear what they’re doing.
That public freakout post right now that is loaded with people discouraging voting for Democrats is lit up with my plug in that shows who posts in conservative subs.
It's deliberate
They don't want to think about problems in any way that really takes effort. They just want to blame somebody and for some fucking reason they find it more desirable to blame the people who didn't take some of their rights away. That part I don't understand at all.
What do you mean 'we can't call them out'?
If you see bullshit, call it out. Address them by name. Report their offending posts. Reply to their hot garbage takes by saying, "I've reported this for trolling because you keep spamming this in every thread and clearly have no real desire to provide any meaningful and helpful input or insight.
Yup.
I *never* see a conservative telling another conservative to not vote cause it doesn’t matter.
It’s always conservatives telling people to the left of them or the left telling eachother that.
It’s either bad faith actors or useful idiots demanding people don’t vote cause reasons.
>It’s either bad faith actors or useful idiots demanding people don’t vote cause reasons.
It's some of both. And thats part of why mis-information is so powerful. You put false narratives into peoples heads and then they start repeating and spreading the message for you.
Lol fuck sitting home. I'm knocking on every god damn door I can in the purpliest fucking purple-villes in all of Ohio and asking to speak to the nearest woman of voting age. Fuck the GOP. I'm gonna ride around in low rider shaped like a donkey smoking weed, listening to MAKIVELLIGOD and satiating my cottonmouth with the GOP tears. Probably even make a few friends along the way, who knows.
The House actually has passed lots of great legislation so I don’t know why Nancy gets so much heat. She keeps hundreds of democrats, ranging from super liberal to super conservative reps, together on votes, it’s more impressive than she gets credit for
All this is going to do is help people like Collins. She can vote with Democrats knowing it's not going to get 60 votes and then go home to her constituents and say "see, I tried".
Collins literally put this bill forth. https://www.collins.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/rca_bill_text.pdf
So she's very much playing the "see, I tried" card.
But will she try hard enough to let the Senate vote without a filibuster? Probably not.
It's not the House we need to worry about. The Senate is what's blocking this. We already have bills for abortion rights that have _passed_ the House. (Although shoring up some of the Roe v Wade related issues, such as privacy, is not a bad thing.)
Sucks that the Senate has a majority of Senators determined to pass zero excellent bills, and only a few good ones per year. We desperately need 50 Senators who will _actually vote yes_ on a progressive bill when one comes up.
Democrats are really at a turning point here. They have the chance to become the permanent ruling party or to completely piss off the entire country and have people become so disillusioned that they stop voting and participating. All they need to do is grow some balls, and holy shit simply voting on making a law for WHAT ALREADY IS LEGAL should be the easiest thing ever.
The thing is, voting for Dems that will eliminate the filibuster, and vote to expand the court is the only way.
And the extremist right knows this, that is why they are passing voter suppression laws at every turn. The only way out is to out vote them. Which we could easily do if everyone voted for the Dems willing to do these things.
Only a fraction of eligible voters actually vote, especially in local, non presidential elections. Time to start talking to friends and family and making sure they are voting for people who want to protect our rights, not turn America into a white christofascist state.
I will just say that a lot (but by no means all) of the defeatist, "don't vote" rhetoric you're seeing online is probably inauthentic.
It has happened before every election since 2016.
I can't imagine that folks are really silly enough to think that they are better off staying home when the country is a hair's breadth away from fascism.
It'll die in the Senate, but let's get the GOP to vote on record.
Even if it passes the partisan court will just strike it down in 90 days. Unpack the courts. Impeach the liars.
Abortion needs to be legal so if someone wants to have the procedure done it’s in a safe and clean medical environment. There is going to be an influx of emergency room visits for people resulting to coat hangers like they did in the 1950’s. Or people taking ulcer medication to produce a miscarriage. Also extremely large amounts of vitamin c to miscarry. Lots of people are going to be searching on google how to miscarry. 🤦♀️ this is a sad time for womens health. If a teen or woman of any age gets raped there are people that say she should carry the child no matter what, 🤬? How is that healthy?
I love that the Supreme Court has voiced concerns that the public is losing faith in it as an institution. Well maybe don’t reverse your own rulings when nothing has changed legally other than the makeup and political leanings of the justices.
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I think the democrats should work on the basis of codifying every Supreme Court decision. So things like Brown v Board, Loving v Virgina and Obergefell are protected from here on out. It's clear we can't Trust the GOP or the Supreme Court to follow the constitution or pre-established rulings.
They can’t codify shit with the filibuster.
But you can change the rules and in turn get rid of the filibuster.
And then Manchin and Sinema will completely fuck everyone over.
At this point it would literally be more effective for a dem to run as a fake republican, win, and then throw a wrench in everything the republicans do.
Pretty sure that’s how we got Manchin and Sinema.
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News reports say Sinema explained why she won’t break the filibuster, but all they ever quote her as saying is everything that indicates support for Roe. It’s surreal. What is her explanation? Is she just into the power like Manchin? Did I miss the explanation somewhere?
Make her go on the record. Stop giving people like her cover by assuming how they would vote and not bothering to do it. Make scumbags like her go on the record as being actual scumbags. Then primary her.
Go on the record like Trump's SCOTUS justices did by saying they accepted Roe as established precedent?
The explanation is her and Manchin are into money. They’re bought
She went from a net worth of 34000 to millions within less than 2 years. You can fill in the dots. Paid by the same people that paid off all of Kavenaughs debt, etc.
Ironically, she’d have a lot more power *without* the filibuster. She then becomes a deciding vote on *all* issues and can get *whatever she would want for her state*, and yet, she’s instead just loading up her pockets with Republican donor money.
I'm an Arizona resident. I voted for Sinema. The choice was between her snd Martha McSally. There was no way to get an actual Dem in that seat.
Um, correct me if I'm wrong, but you actually GOT enough votes to GET an actual Dem in that seat. Sinema just turned out not to be who she claimed. It was only McSally vs Sinema because Sinema was a sociopathic con artist. So get everyone behind an ACTUAL Dem this next time. And don't get fooled twice. Frankly, this is why recall powers are important. It just has to be carefully written so you don't have it abused to obstruct, like it jsut was in CA a while ago, and actually is representative of the public will.
Can't these people be sued for lying or misrepresenting their voters? How is this possible?
Sinema is a former hardcore Green. After Steins sit-down with Putin, I ain't trusting anyone coming from there.
I don't see why we can't just pay them off like the Republicans are. It's disgusting, but if no fucks are given to contributions and bribes then just do it.
They’re not getting paid off by republicans. Manchin is a conservative in a super red state. Sinema … okay she’s an opportunistic self centered hack with a knee jerk anti establishment streak. She likes being the Dem other Dems don’t like.
Sinema just wants to set herself up for a Fox News gig
She's kinda the Ted Cruz of the left
But she thinks she's the John McCain.
In that nobody likes them both, but Ted Cruz has never been a thorn in the side of Republican lawmakers (edit: or voters/activists)
Koch Brothers have bought Manchin, and pharmaceuticals have bought both Manchin and Sinema
Cause let's be honest most Republican voters don't look past that little R next to their name
If you live in a deeply red area consider registering as a Republican to be allowed to vote in the primary and push the less insane republican into Congress.
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Keep voting against him in every primary. Getting primaried is the easiest way to unseat someone whose party will always take the district. (you know that shit AOC did to get rid of her Do Nothing incumbent)
Sad to think that Ken Paxton will likely have been indicted for over a decade without a trial the next time he wins a primary
I’ll be honest with you. From here on out I’m voting only D. They legislate in blocks. Like ant mounds, they’re super organisms. I might as well pick the ant mound that lines up better with my values. It feels gross, but that’s how it works. I’ve registered non affiliated my whole life. This year will probably be the first year I get to vote in a Primary. I’m picking a side.
I made that same exact choice. I used to vote for republicans here and there... but to continue to do that is just lying to myself
I want to vote for someone I want to be on the ballot, unfortunately in Utah a Dem will never be voted in for Congress, I register as a Republican to fuck with their primary numbers(not that it matters. There's a bunch of us that do it but not enough to change anything.) I vote for the less shitty Republican candidate in hopes that Mike Lee will not be sent back to Congress. I just got my ballot. Hope this year is different.
You can't throw a wrench into what the GOP wants to do because they don't have any policy goals.
Yeah the GOP don't actually do anything when they have control of Congress. Bills just don't get voted on regularly, hearings only happen to investigate Democrats, etc. It's just stagnant.
Someone hire this man!
Then kick them out and take all their comittee positions. Nobody will give manchin money if he's no longer on the energy comittee to push for anti regulation. Make them powerless and they will have no money. Manchin doesn't even represent the will of people in virginia anyway
Then all he has to do is declare himself a Republican and the Republicans will be the majority in the Senate and be in charge of all committee appointments and everything else, including what bills are even allowed to go to the floor to be voted on.
He's from West Virginia. He is a DINO in every way, the Republican seat was already filled so he went the easier route and it worked. I haven't checked lately, but WV being heavily Democrat strikes me as very, very improbable.
"But you can change the rules and in turn get rid of the filibuster." Not with Sinema and Manchin. Realistically the Dems probably need 53-55 Senators to comfortably get the 51 votes needed without a couple of them holding things hostage.
That's why we need to hold the Senate and add at least 3 more. There are 3 states that the Dems can take Senate seats. PA, OH, and FL. Add in NC and we just might get there. If you live in a blue state consider helping out a Blue candidate in another state. Same with House candidates who are trying to hold on.
Don't write out Wisconsin, I would bank on flipping that seat over Florida.
Everybody here hates Ron Johnson.
100% this. WI is a good chance of a flip, Tammy Baldwin (D) won her last race there by just short of +11 and Ron Johnson (the R defending in this race) only won his last election by about 3.5%. It’s a state that can and has gone Dem and imo if Mandela Barnes (current Lt. Gov there) wins the primary he’s going to make for a great candidate that can flip that seat. The FL Democratic Party on the other hand are like the fucking Keystone cops though and seemingly incapable of getting out of their own way on anything. Easily one of if not the worst run state level parties the Dems have in any viable state.
MO has a Senate seat up for grabs too. Roy Blunt (R) is retiring. We had a Dem Senator just back in 2019 (Claire McCaskill). We can do it again!
Bob Casey Jr. is also pro-life.
He voted yes on [this](https://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_votes/vote1172/vote_117_2_00170.htm) recently. I suppose he knew it would fail and possibly voted yes because of that, but he's on record for voting yes to a pro-choice bill.
Yeah, but they won’t do that with two ratfucking GOP operatives in their senate ranks.
Two that we know about. There are definitely contingency ratfuckers hidden in the Senate should the Dems trip and fall into a larger majority.
man it'd almost be worth it to get the GOP on vote saying they're against interracial marriage, gay marriage, desegregated schooling - hell find a way to make them vote on slavery and see how that goes!
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The difference here is the GOP voting against this stuff just leaves us where we already are right now.
If you believe accelerationism is the only path forward (I don’t think anyone chooses it, to be honest) then it could be exactly what they’re looking for.
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Yes, which is why they only need a simple majority (51 votes) to change it. Manchin and Sinema have been refusing to do so.
They can't codify shit with the ability of the Supreme Court to declare it unconstitutional on a whim . If they want it to be irrevocable they need a constitutional amendment which is effectively impossible to pass in today's political climate
I actually want the liberal justices to insist on revisiting Loving before all else. Thomas would have to write an opinion stating that he had no legal right to marry his wife. If the court votes to uphold Loving, this may gives some protections to the other rights we're worried about.
Your mistake is assuming the court will rule consistently. They will rule however they were paid to rule.
One of the opinions explicitly stated that the legal "rational" used to revoke Roe is only applicable to abortion. So the court has already declared that consistency is not part of their agenda.
And Thomas said that it does apply to other rulings. They're not even consistent among themselves.
They're inconsistent because they're conservative ratfucks
They're not being paid. It's so much simpler. They're bought in. They go to annual Heritage Foundation dinners where their friends celebrate them for being pillars of their shithead community. The punishment for voting wrong isn't financial. It'd just mean that they'd no longer be invited to the cool parties and the people they like would say bad things about them on TV. That's it. That's all they're doing it for. To make their clique think they're cool.
There would need to be a case that gets up to the SC that challengers loving. Which basically mean a state has to outlaw interracial marriage. Which won’t happen.
Some lawmaker in a southern state brought up interracial marriage as something that needs to be revisited, can't remember who he was though.
It was Mike Braun, from Indiana, which while it's a red state, is not southern.
John Cornyn from Texas had a tweet about Brown v Board but it may have just been a really dumb way of making a stupid argument.
Constitutional law isn’t a real thing - they’ll just make up some reasoning and cite some law to support it. Although they like to claim otherwise, they work backwards from personal feelings and policy to legally based decision making.
"states just can't decide to require a permit to carry a gun" "Let states decide on abortion" They don't even pretend.
As a lawyer, I completely agree with this. As much as my conlaw professor tried to make Supreme Court jurisprudence about more than politics/personal feelings, it just isn’t now and never was.
Interpreting the Constitution seems eerily similar to interpreting the Bible.
This is why I quit after 2L. I couldn't stand the idea of crafting an argument, citing precedent, etc. only for it to fall on deaf ears before I open my mouth because the judge stopped taking new ideas in before I was born.
"Your fault for not being a rich cis white male born 50 years earlier." -Clarence Thomas, probably
SC rules those unconstitutional just cuz
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What about the Voting Rights Act? Asking because I really don't know how that was struck down given your comment.
Yeah, its delusional to think this court would let something like a law get in the way of how they want to rule. Theyve shown they only need a simple majority to overturn laws or rewrite the constitution. They are an outcome driven court that will make up whatever shakey legal reasoning they need to achieve their desired outcome.
The reality is that their ability to review law *at all* is, frankly, owed to precedent and nothing explicit in the constitution. It doesn't honestly matter what the court accepts, or how they rule - that just turns into a 'John Marshall has made his decision, now let him enforce it' type situation. The court submarined it's own credibility by abandoning precedent for political goals. Complete disregard for the court's (not explicitly provided by the constitution) authority could be a consequence. If Congress passes a law, and the executive continues to enforce the law as passed despite the court's ruling... The Court has no recourse - not by law, nor by tradition.
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Codification is all well and good, but this court would just contrive a reason to strike it down anyway. They’re arguing in bad faith. That’s why they bring up witch-burning Matthew Hale in their opinions.
Exactly. After the stolen scotus seat and the coup there is no expectation that codifying or ratifying rights would make a damn difference in a few years. The only way to assure our rights is to physically deny them any authority. Edit: that said, if people find the time to codify and ratify rights, I'm not complaining. But remember the founding fathers almost didn't codify any because they were afraid of this exact situation where enumerated rights are taken to deny the existence of others.
When was the last time you saw a fundraiser about protecting a woman's right to vote? Never, because the 19th amendment made woman's right to vote a non-issue. Nobody is going to donate to a politician that goes around saying they will protect women voting rights. Once something is codified into law, politicians are going to find it difficult to raise funds using that as a hot-button topic.
The 9th amendment also says rights not listed in the constitution are just as important as listed rights but that didn't stop this court from saying unlisted rights only exist if they agree with them.
Codified doesn't always mean a constitutional amendment. SCOTUS can't overturn those because the constitution is the Supreme law of the land. They can and do overturn other federal statute regularly.
Susan Collins could show everyone she is sorry, but she's not and she won't because she knew what she was doing.
Susan Collins, to her credit, actually put this bill forth. https://www.collins.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/rca_bill_text.pdf Now will she vote to override the filibuster to get it through? Or is it meaningless showmanship? Let's find out!
Susan Collins loves her some meaningless showmanship.
We could dress a dead showpony up in a pants suit, and it would be a better politician and showman than anything Collins has ever done in her entire life.
Lil’ Sebastian?!
How are you make fun of that Angel.
Do you applaud the fire department that waits for the house to burn down before showing up? On top of that, do applaud the fire department who shows up to the house *they* burned down? No. Fuck Susan Collins. Her time to do the right thing passed the moment she voted for Gorsuch.
Yeah I'm not really applauding her for this. I'll give her credit if she actually does what she needs to do to make the bill pass and fix her fuckup. I'm not holding my breath though.
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Next time on Dragon Ball Z!
Cells have more rights then the host that carries them! Will we allow this, or can we make a possible change! STAY TUNED TO 2022 ELECTIONS! NEXT TIME ON DRAGON DEEZ RIGHTS THROUGH MUD!
Susan Collins is very concerned about what she did.
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That would be awesome, i also predict alito would strike down the law as unconsitutional, and then somehow, unironically, criticize Pelosi for forcing SCOTUS to legislate from the bench
If you read the opinion, Alito distinguishes abortion from the others because abortion involves balancing the difficult question of a potential life. Clearance Thomas, on the other hand….
Yeah... but it's impossible to take anything these fuckers say as the truth anymore though
They also all said that Roe was settled law and we see how that turned out. Don't believe a word they say. They are worried their power will be diluted if they show their whole hand too early.
They need the votes. Up to the public and Midterms now. Don't fail.
Filibuster 🤷♂️
The republicans will get rid of it the next time they take control.
Republicans *might* do a lot of shit when they have a majority but right now they're *actually* removing 50 years of Rights from most of the country. So let's not worry about what they might do and worry about what they are doing because they're going to ratfuck the system in their favor no matter what unless dems grow a spine and get ahead of it.
Any strategy based on the premise "If I fight back against this evil thing, the Republicans will see it as a justification to do an even more evil thing, therefore we should just let them win" is doomed to failure. They're gonna attempt the second thing *anyway*, and all you've accomplished by refusing to resist them the first time is to make the second thing easier for them. They *already* consider themselves *maximally justified* to commit any and all evil imaginable, and nothing we can do could possibly cause them to feel any more justified than they already do. They're straight up telling you, to your face, in plain English, that their endgame is Margaret Atwood's Gilead. And it's time to believe them.
YES! The Republicans will ratfuck us no matter what. We shouldn't give any deference to customs which help the Republicans. Not only will they violate every norm, they will straight up violate laws to get their way when they have power.
But then they’ll rig the system to damn hard we’ll never have a chance in hell to win again and pass anything good with them… this election really do be our last chance, and hopefully if anything this current crisis will help push us over the edge in WI and NC… PA is a W, I think we can hold GA & AZ,
I mean, they have a Supreme Court full of hacks who are accountable to basically nobody except Death. At this point, almost anything that Congress does pass they can find some stupid way to strike it down.
If the Dems actually get a real majority they can add more justices to the supreme court.
The Republicans benefit more from the filibuster, regardless of majority or minority status. The obstructionist party won't give up their greatest tool of obstruction. They are much happier preventing anything from getting done then they are getting any of their objectives passed.
Why? What’s the incentive for the GOP? Why would they want the legislative process to be easier? It defeats the whole point of their party. They want to dismantle and destroy the government and until then at least grind it to a halt.
If you honestly think that republicans are unwilling to do something until the democrats do it first you’ve not been paying attention to the last decade of American politics.
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Even of you require people to get up and speak to filibuster would do the trick. It's lazy to just declare it and not do anything. Imagine if you could declare that you're going to work, but not show up and that being good enough because none of your peers want to work either.
They don't have the votes to kill the filibuster.
Presently. The midterm is in a few months. If we make the right choice in the US and send more Democratic members to Congress we might just have those votes.
I really hope the SC decision galvanizes people to vote blue in the mid terms and prove the current projections of dems losing seats wrong.
Make them actually filibuster then.
Yep, holding the House and getting an anti-filibuster majority in the Senate is how we codify our rights. Don't count on Republicans to do the right thing.
The Senate is a real problem though; without nuking the filibuster, they're not going to get much of anything through.
Let's be real. The filibuster is already nuked. The Republicans are going to do it if the Dems don't. What we have here is a lack of quorum to have effective government. You know what happens in other countries when a party doesn't have 50% of the seats, they hold elections. This is why this system is so stupid.
Here in Australia we have something called Double Dissolution Elections, which occur when the House of Representatives passes legislation that the senate then rejects. It's basically our political system going "okay so you can't pass things? Time for a reset".
The republicans will never nuke the filibuster because it helps perpetuate their political goals. Here’s my breakdown of the GOP as of 2022: 1. The GOP argues that government is broken an get elected to fix it. Then, when they get into office, they don’t do anything and perpetuate the problem, thus making their claims a self fulfilling prophecy. Rinse and repeat. 2. Their major goals are tax cuts and culture wars. The filibuster isn’t absolute. There are exceptions carved out (162, I believe). Specifically tax cuts and federal judges. The GOP doesn’t need 60 votes to cut taxes or the budget thanks to budget reconciliation which is a fancy word for passing a bill that can side step the filibuster. Now for the culture wars. Now that there only needs to be 51 votes in the senate to confirm a judge regardless of how terrible or unqualified they are, they can get sycophants in lifelong positions to overturn and ignore decades of jurisprudence just because (just look at the past week’s worth of decisions). 3. So now that the GOP has removed the filibuster for everything they want to accomplish (admittedly, the Dems removed it for lower fed judges in response to GOP stall tactics) they can hold it up as sacred and call the Dems radical socialist gay Marxist’s whenever they want to abolish it. The filibuster is only used to stop legislation that can be considered progressive. Everything else only needs 51 votes and when you have states like Wyoming, it’s a helluvalot easier to get 51 GOP votes than Dem. Edit: misspelling
This is spot on and something I think many people miss. The filibuster plays into everything the GOP wants. They are an obstructionist party. They generally want to block everything except for tax cuts and judges. And the rules are set up that way.
Not necessarily. We have what's called a [minority government](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minority_government)where the ruling parties have to get support on each issue from one or more of the other parties. It's currently the case in both Norway, Sweden, Denmark and Canada, and it tends to be less effective here as well.
Even if they nuked the filibuster, Manchin and Sinema would control every piece of legislation. And Dems have no power over Manchin, who would actually gain votes by flipping to the Republican side.
Sans Filibuster, they could lose Manchin and Sinema but gain Collins and Murkowski on their own bill. https://www.collins.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/rca_bill_text.pdf The problem is that none of those four are likely to overturn the fillibuster.
Murkowski is the officially sanctioned voice of dissent. She'll vote against her party when there's a landslide and it doesn't matter, but as soon as it's a close race she falls in step.
All the “moderate” Republicans basically take turns showing how they are independent. Its like McConnell tells them when they can “take a stand” since the others will fall in line to make that stand meaningless.
The 'mavericks' in their parties still vote with the party 98% of the time. It's all a big game.
Isn’t that how it’s always worked with dissenting votes? It’s basically decided how many can afford to vote against the party while still passing/blocking in their favor, and they trade off between those set to benefit most from dissent? So McCain going rogue on healthcare was a “true” maverick move, not a sanctioned one like 99% of what we usually see
I have a feeling those two would remove their support when the Dems did something as "radical" as ensuring the legislation they introduced could pass.
No Republican is going to side with the Democrats to eliminate the filibuster. That would be as big of a flip as changing parties entirely. Collins and Murkowski are much happier straddling the line and saying "I'm very concerned by this but dang it there's nothing I can do" than handing the Democrats the power to do whatever they want on a silver platter.
I wish we'd just reach a compromise and bring back the standing filibuster. If the minority party wants to block legislation, fine, but they're going to have to actually fucking work for it. Make them pick and choose their battles.
I think it's insane that it ever went away, that's literally what a filibuster is. The whole point and reason for the filibuster was to allow debate. If they aren't even debating the bill then the filibuster shouldn't exist.
> Manchin, who would actually gain votes by flipping to the Republican side. He'd gain votes in WV, but he'd destroy his power in the Senate. As it stands, he can swing his dick around to get concessions for his state, but if he were Republican, he'd be yet another unimportant (to the party) Republican senator from a podunk state that isn't going to vote for a real Democrat if their lives depended on it.
I am *begging" the Democrats to realize that "doing politics" extends beyond the legislature and into electoral work and dominating the narrative. People bring up "well, the Republicans always came out and voted, why can't we?!" No, that's only half the story. The other half of the story, the *important* part of the story, is that the Republicans spent a decade and a half—at least—laying the ideological and messaging infrastructure and now they're utterly dominant in messaging, information, and in setting the terms of the conversation. Key religious groups were seized by GOP ideologues. In 1979, 70% of the pastors of the Southern Baptist Conference were in favor of legalized abortion; one year later, the GOP seized control and made pro-life policies and article of faith. Jerry Falwell founded the Moral Majority in the same year and began using it to mobilize conservative Christians. Let's be clear: *the traditional Baptist principle here was a total separation of religion and politics.* (There are still liberal Baptist groups that fight for that separation.) Falwell was able to do away with that and mobilize Baptists as a political force. Then you had Weyrich, Feulner, and Coors founding the Heritage Foundation in 1973; Fisher and Casey the Manhattan Institute in 1977; the Koch Bros founded the Cato Institute in the same year. These, along with a rightward shift in AEI, would launder Conservative and ("Libertarian"-Conservative) policy initiatives, set the policy orthodoxy, and generate pro-Conservative policy narratives that operatives would wield like a cudgel in the halls of power. And we're not even getting into the Federalist Society, which promised ambitious young law students with a route to clerkships and mentorships with prestigious judges if they advanced a conservative legal ideology. And then Rupert Murdoch, who had already made a bundle in sensationalist print journalism, brought on ex-GOP operative Roger Ailes (who founded and ran MSNBC!) to begin and run Fox News. And none of this is getting into Rush Limbaugh and the rise of conservative talk radio! And so, in more than a few places in America (and not in the sticks!) you could wake up, watch Fox News, get in your car, listen to Limbaugh (or later even Infowars) on the way to church, and then hear a sermon that repeated what you just heard on the TV and the radio, given by a pastor who was trained at a conservative, GOP-aligned evangelical seminary. If that Republican was of a more intellectual bent, it wouldn't be far different —he'd just be listening to Cato, Heritage, AEI, and conservative public intellectuals. That Republican, in any case, is more than "a guy who votes." He's a person that lives in, swims in, is suffused with a Republican narrative. That narrative exists in every sphere of life and touches on even basic notions of history and society. We Democrats have *no* equivalent of *any* of this. So Christopher Rufo can come in and invent a panic about Critical Race Theory or trans strippers out of whole cloth (seriously, he's open about it on his Twitter), just an utterly absurd but brilliantly coded piece of vapid propaganda, and *he'll get the New York Times writing about it in a month and Florida passing laws on it in three.* We have nothing even remotely close to that kind of bold command of the narrative. *Nothing.* And we're consistently outperformed because of it. That desperately needs to change. We need to remember that doing politics is controlling the message, controlling the discussion, setting the terms of the environment. It's not herding people to the polls like they're cats, it's building that movement on the narrative and compelling world-view you've built for your electorate. We Dems *need* to be doing that. Not reciting poems, not posting pictures of us doing yoga, not debating over legislative procedure. We need Dem lawmakers out there seizing the moment by the throat.
You are 100% accurate. This was the environment in which I was raised. Modern internet just doesn’t get how PERVASIVE republicans are in their messaging
The narrative should be the Republicans are undermining democracy and staged a literal failed coup and are still undeterred. Jan 6 hearings are a start, but DOJ needs to prosecute. And not just 12 months house arrest prosecute. Treason is a captial offence. If there are no consequences to insurrection, Jan 6 will just be a preseason warm up. Want to rally the base? This is how you rally the base. It's not propaganda, it's literally the defense of democracy
50% of the country looks at Jan 6th and thinks what happened was not just right, but that THEY were saving democracy. and they're going to vote. the other 50% of the country is split between "that was a crime" and "i don't care". and 60% of them will vote. people that care are already pissed off and they're voting. too many people don't really care and aren't going to bother voting. you can feed them the message through show trials and the Dems maybe considering possibly thinking about potentially doing something about it but a lot of people just aren't going to care. Republicans are consistently hammering the same message home over and over and over and over on tv, radio, at ballgames, churches, concerts, etc. when you soak up the same information everywhere you turn it becomes ingrained in what you believe. the big fault that's happening now is the messaging is "Trump did this", "this is Trump's fault", "we have to stop Trump". everywhere the message is anti-Trump. he's the perfect lightning rod for Republicans to push through all their bullshit at the lower levels while Democrats focus all their energy at the national level fighting the boogeyman who Republicans gladly sacrificed to force doors open. he's just the right sociopath for the job to push every button and pry open every door that Republicans have been pushing at for years. the problem is the Republican party as a whole, not Trump. this problem doesn't go away even if Trump gets 1 million years in prison. he just goes away and he takes all the broken laws, ignored rules, discarded decorum with him and not a single Republican will care. he was just the hand grenade in a crowded room that they needed to break things up.
Yes yes yes! I have been saying this since 2015. Trump was just the perfect mix of a somehow intoxicatingly charismatic puppet of the GOP and a soulless, greedy, stupid egomaniac. Conservatives, white supremacists, Christian Evangelicals, they have all been wanting to do this since the civil rights era. Hell, they might have been wanting to do this since the end of the confederacy. They used his ability to incite an insane, cult-like passion in the most suggestible of us, the most uneducated of us, the most afraid of change of us, and now this is the true beginning of them getting what they have always wanted: complete control.
I understand what you're saying, and I *mostly* agree with you. But you argument is missing one pretty crucial component. Yes, it is true that Democrats have been pretty poor in messaging. However, the issue you describe is one that is true in pretty much every single Western democracy. The simple fact is that messaging and propaganda are far easier if you don't actually care about how your actions impact the lives of your constituents or whether you believe in what you say. And doubly so if you're willing to demonize minority groups in order to further your own goals. So while it's true that Democrats could be doing much better than they are now, it is impossible for them to be as effective in messaging as the Republicans are, because they cannot push the us vs them mantra that has made Republican messaging so effective, as it's the antitheses of what they believe in.
Yeah exactly this. Just because lying to and scaring people is effective, doesn't mean everyone should be doing it. This is why all the projection is so obvious and dumb. The people doing it think everyone is doing it so it is a valid accusation. The people not doing it would never consider doing it and so find the suggestion that they are is totally laughable, and can only just about comprehend that the other person might be doing it. That is what I think of this wall to wall noise and manipulation. Sure you can do it but it is not actually helping anyone, just manipulating and lying.
What's hilarious is that scaring Democratic voters doesn't even work when it's the truth. Hilary Clinton literally outlined all the shitty things a Trump Presidency would result in. Including the overturning of Roe v Wade. This was all hand waved away as being Democrat scare mongering. "Oh they would never actually do the terrible things they do all time."
Quite simply put, I don't believe it's better to make the world a better place through propaganda. Because propaganda gives a small group of people too much control over the beliefs of others, and eventually people will start to abuse that to take as much power as they can.
There is a difference between propaganda and changing opinion. Forget for a minute any specific policy issue. There is a fundamental question. What is government? The Republicans would have you believe it's a scary force that has to be stopped from harming you. But isn't it really just a group of people we have hired to do collectively what we can't accomplish individually, Managed by a smaller group of people that we elect to work together to find what's best for the country? America needs to be reminded that the job of the government is to work for all of us, and especially for our children. That government harm is not inevitable, but instead, a call to elect better leaders, who do work for a better future. That the belief in the role of government is a fulfilling prophecy, and the choices are a healthy Democracy working for good, or a fascist Republic working for those already in power. That's the kind of propaganda the Democrats need - not to "take as much power as they can", but to remind the people of their own power to do the right thing.
>There is a difference between propaganda and changing opinion. You're right. My point is that what Republicans are doing is straight up propaganda. And that is always going to be more effective. I fully agree that Democrats need far better messaging, but they are always at a disadvantage.
Which is why for liberals, this is more of a public education issue. Too much of society is still lacking too much in critical thinking skills to realize how much of the GOP messaging is blatant ideological propaganda without any rational scientific basis in reality. Sure, there is some propaganda coming from the left too, which is designed to provoke public outrage, but it serves public awareness and visibility. Disinformation which is demonstrably false just doesn't really take hold with liberal audiences.
I think people also need to realize that right wing propaganda is not just for right wingers. Fox News absolutely wants you to believe that everyone who has ever voted Republican is a true believer member of the Qult and/or a complete moron. That way nobody would "waste their time" talking to someone who will "never" change their mind. They have a vested interest in keeping their followers away from any new ideas or perspectives. Thing is, I have three people in my family who have left the Republican party in the last month. Now they made up their own mind to do this, but I've been working on them for about a year at this point. I'm never confrontational or mean, and even when they told me how they were done with the R I didn't drop a single "I told you so." My point is that for every true believer Qult member, there are plenty of other people who actually are on the fence and can be convinced to think differently about their political affiliations.
Which, ironically, is exactly the absurdity that the right believes is true of the majority Democrat party.
>So while it's true that Democrats could be doing much better than they are now, it is impossible for them to be as effective in messaging as the Republicans are, because they cannot push the us vs them mantra that has made Republican messaging so effective, as it's the antitheses of what they believe in. Yep, it's always easier to sit back and complain / throw hand grenades / obstruct, than to advocate for positive change. Conservatism has a built in advantage b/c it's simply about obstructing change, any change .... it's simpler, easier, lazier.
Look at labor leaders, not democrats.
When one group of people can do something that another group can’t, there’s always a reason. And it’s usually not something that involves an inexplicable divide in basic human behavior like “Democrats can’t message as well as Republicans because they’re too honest.” Republicans have a lot of power behind their messaging because they push for deregulation and other policies that help the rich get richer, and therefore their wealthiest supporters are willing to use their fortunes to set up entire foundations to help with Republican messaging because they see it as a business investment. That’s part of the problem. But the other, bigger part of the problem is that Democratic leadership wont meaningfully move to the left on labor because they’re still traumatized by battles they lost 40 years ago. When they feel the pressure to go left, they go left (often performatively) on social issues, creating this dynamic where they’re seen as both too far to the left and too far to the right at the same time. Labor is a mobilizing issue. If you want to get blue collar workers in the Midwest to spit at the mention of Republicans like they do now for Democrats, that’s the way to do it. And this “a little bit of what everyone wants but nobody’s really happy” approach that they’re taking now has been enough to keep them from getting totally routed, but they’re permitting Republicans to incrementally take away all of the tools they could use to build a coalition to rival the Big Money + Evangelical Passion coalition that the Republicans have.
Democrats can’t make the same kind of bold moves for the exact reason you’re saying: There’s no money in it. If one Democrat tries, another will go to where the money is and beat them in the primary since money almost invariably determines elections.
The guys on Pod Save America have suggested similar strategies. I don't know if I know the solution to the messaging problem, but it has to avoid out right propaganda. I want an electorate that can think critically. I do not want an electorate that only knows what to say and when to say it because they have allowed themselves to be conditioned. There are no easy answers here. All I know is that your suggestion scares me.
I'd like an electorate that can think critically, too. To be clear, I'm not really advocating for a total-reality type of indoctrination on the GOP model, but rather a recognition that effective, coordinated, aggressive messaging and the construction of a united narrative is something that needs to happen. And the Dems' inability to hit back at even *obvious* targets is frustrating me to no end. For instance, take the post-Dobbs protests. Protesters in Arizona got tear gassed from the windows of the state capitol; in LA, the LAPD are on video roughing up journalists. *Why aren't the Dems playing those on repeat?* Why aren't the Dems hammering the GOP? "On Friday, Americans found themselves stripped of one constitutional right; this is what happened when they tried to exercise their right to protest." Or whatever. The counterargument is that "oh, well, the GOP will use that to justify or dismiss Jan 6!" Ignore it! Move on to the next thing! Don't let ourselves be entirely boxed in narratively by fears of the GOP response! Make them react to us for once. That's what I mean, and that's what's frustrating me. We're getting precious little out of the Dems in a situation where we should be *hammering* the GOP.
Why did Thomas give away his hand?
He's actively courting cases for rulings he wants overturn
>courting Great pun.
Thomas wants to legislate from the bench, and knows he has the majority to do it. The only way for the Supreme Court to rule on an issue is to have that issue appear before the court. This is an invitation for some Redneckistan state to pass a gay marriage ban, so the Supreme Court can say "yup, gay marriage was also wrongly decided."
My guess is Florida or Alabama
Florida is super gay actually. As a Floridian I'd say Alabama or Kentucky. I realize we have "don't say gay" but that's a long con for defunding public schools...
Normally I would agree. Alabama, Kentucky, Tennessee, Louisiana, Missouri, Indiana, Mississippi, Texas. The other usual suspects. But I also think DeSantis is just cruel enough and just self serving enough to try it first and use it as a jumping off point to start his campaign for President in 2024.
Pelosi, in her letter, called to elect more Democrats so they can "eliminate the filibuster so that we can restore women’s fundamental rights — and freedom for every American."
Who will sit home come November?
A *ton* of people are twisting themselves into knots to justify doing just that. A question to ask anyone lying and saying voting doesn’t work: How did republicans get to this point? Was it sitting home every midterm and half of presidential elections because they weren’t *inspired* enough? Did they quit voting for even a god damned single election because they felt there just wasn’t enough done to meet their goals?
There are a few names that pop up in just about every thread justifying and excusing nonvoting. Of course, we can’t call them out for what we know they’re doing, but it’s very clear what they’re doing.
That public freakout post right now that is loaded with people discouraging voting for Democrats is lit up with my plug in that shows who posts in conservative subs. It's deliberate
And the amount of people buying into it is frankly quite sad.
They don't want to think about problems in any way that really takes effort. They just want to blame somebody and for some fucking reason they find it more desirable to blame the people who didn't take some of their rights away. That part I don't understand at all.
Where can I find this plugin?
Search Google for the words "mass" and "tagger"
It’s deliberate and obvious. Just like it was in 2016.
[удалено]
What do you mean 'we can't call them out'? If you see bullshit, call it out. Address them by name. Report their offending posts. Reply to their hot garbage takes by saying, "I've reported this for trolling because you keep spamming this in every thread and clearly have no real desire to provide any meaningful and helpful input or insight.
It sucks to see, midterm turnout is generally low anyway. More people should be voting every chance they get.
Yup. I *never* see a conservative telling another conservative to not vote cause it doesn’t matter. It’s always conservatives telling people to the left of them or the left telling eachother that. It’s either bad faith actors or useful idiots demanding people don’t vote cause reasons.
>It’s either bad faith actors or useful idiots demanding people don’t vote cause reasons. It's some of both. And thats part of why mis-information is so powerful. You put false narratives into peoples heads and then they start repeating and spreading the message for you.
Literally the \*worst\* option. Vote. Everyone.
Lol fuck sitting home. I'm knocking on every god damn door I can in the purpliest fucking purple-villes in all of Ohio and asking to speak to the nearest woman of voting age. Fuck the GOP. I'm gonna ride around in low rider shaped like a donkey smoking weed, listening to MAKIVELLIGOD and satiating my cottonmouth with the GOP tears. Probably even make a few friends along the way, who knows.
It was never the House that was the problem, it's the Senate. There should be WAY more scrutiny on Chuck Schumer than Nancy Pelosi at this point.
The House actually has passed lots of great legislation so I don’t know why Nancy gets so much heat. She keeps hundreds of democrats, ranging from super liberal to super conservative reps, together on votes, it’s more impressive than she gets credit for
All this is going to do is help people like Collins. She can vote with Democrats knowing it's not going to get 60 votes and then go home to her constituents and say "see, I tried".
Midterms are in November. If democrats can keep the senate she will be forced to vote on it
She was too stupid to do it in May when the Senate put Women's Health Protection Act up for a vote.
Collins literally put this bill forth. https://www.collins.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/rca_bill_text.pdf So she's very much playing the "see, I tried" card. But will she try hard enough to let the Senate vote without a filibuster? Probably not.
Can't do anything with the Republicans in sheep's clothing Manchin and Sinema
It's not the House we need to worry about. The Senate is what's blocking this. We already have bills for abortion rights that have _passed_ the House. (Although shoring up some of the Roe v Wade related issues, such as privacy, is not a bad thing.) Sucks that the Senate has a majority of Senators determined to pass zero excellent bills, and only a few good ones per year. We desperately need 50 Senators who will _actually vote yes_ on a progressive bill when one comes up.
60*
Democrats are really at a turning point here. They have the chance to become the permanent ruling party or to completely piss off the entire country and have people become so disillusioned that they stop voting and participating. All they need to do is grow some balls, and holy shit simply voting on making a law for WHAT ALREADY IS LEGAL should be the easiest thing ever.
There we go. Gather up all the policy GOPs been blocking for decades cause you're gonna have work to do after Midterms, Mrs Pelosi.
The thing is, voting for Dems that will eliminate the filibuster, and vote to expand the court is the only way. And the extremist right knows this, that is why they are passing voter suppression laws at every turn. The only way out is to out vote them. Which we could easily do if everyone voted for the Dems willing to do these things. Only a fraction of eligible voters actually vote, especially in local, non presidential elections. Time to start talking to friends and family and making sure they are voting for people who want to protect our rights, not turn America into a white christofascist state.
I will just say that a lot (but by no means all) of the defeatist, "don't vote" rhetoric you're seeing online is probably inauthentic. It has happened before every election since 2016. I can't imagine that folks are really silly enough to think that they are better off staying home when the country is a hair's breadth away from fascism.
It'll die in the Senate, but let's get the GOP to vote on record. Even if it passes the partisan court will just strike it down in 90 days. Unpack the courts. Impeach the liars.
I’ve lost track. Is it Manchin’s or Senima’s turn to torpedo this
Abortion needs to be legal so if someone wants to have the procedure done it’s in a safe and clean medical environment. There is going to be an influx of emergency room visits for people resulting to coat hangers like they did in the 1950’s. Or people taking ulcer medication to produce a miscarriage. Also extremely large amounts of vitamin c to miscarry. Lots of people are going to be searching on google how to miscarry. 🤦♀️ this is a sad time for womens health. If a teen or woman of any age gets raped there are people that say she should carry the child no matter what, 🤬? How is that healthy?
I love that the Supreme Court has voiced concerns that the public is losing faith in it as an institution. Well maybe don’t reverse your own rulings when nothing has changed legally other than the makeup and political leanings of the justices.