You know the president can add justices, right? Court expansion is under the jurisdiction of the executive branch and approved by the Senate. So no, he doesn’t need to kill a justice, he can just increase the court size.
The Constitution does not specify the size of the court.
I missed the part where Dems are somehow simultaneously the weak opposition party 100% of the time, and when they do have all three branches in control, there’s always somehow one Democrat that they can’t whip a vote from and tanks the whole bill.
Are you talking about Joe Lieberman and the ACA and then Manchin and Sinema in 20-22? The fuck do you mean “always?” They’re constantly fighting back against the Republicans
They have buddy-buddy dinners with each other all the time lol. This is not a serious power struggle to them.
Since 1980 there have only been 3 periods where Democrats have had solid control of the House, the Senate, and the presidency. The first was under Clinton, for 2 years, where they rammed through a number of right wing bills (that Genocide Joe helped with, like the Crime Bill and NAFTA). The next two were the ones you refer to, where Democrats adopted their excuse-making strategy rather than actually hold clear lines. And because the Dem base is domesticated, they learned to parrot those excuses rather than organize to demand policy.
“We can’t fight because they might fight back” is a poor political strategy and will guarantee that they fight you while you lose because everyone knows you don’t have their backs.
The Dems are incapable of doing that fighting at the moment. Their strategy is to, once in power, begin the excuse-making for why they can’t do anything. They are, however, lying to you. They pick someone like Manchin to be the whipping boy and put zero pressure on him, run no party strategy of, “we will get that done because we won’t support candidates that fall out of line”, i.e. a strategy that actually creates the promised policies over a period of multiple election cycles.
Sometimes this is because the policy is seen as a useful wedge issue for getting votes. More useful to them than actually creating the policy.
Either way, the Democrats will continue to be the party of capitulation and excuse-making while conditions degrade if their grassroots members don’t organize to demand change and provide consequences when their demands aren’t met. The logic you’re currently following is the polar opposite of that and will ensure the status quo downward spiral.
Honestly, the same could probably be said for Republicans as well, though they do occasionally get stuff done.
So why do people keep supporting the stupid twp-party system? If every election is so important that we can’t vote third party, when will we end the two-party stranglehold?
Why are you burning down the house that you’re going to buy back in two years?
This was talking about libertarian party infighting, but it applies to the two major parties as well. Why mess up the government that you’re going to have majority control of in the next cycle? Likewise, why expand the power of a position that’s going to change hands soon?
Republicans do the same kind of thing, yeah, but they throw some red meat to their base every so often. And over time they have created enough true believers in what was originally a cynical wedge issue that they are forced to create the policy. Dems haven’t created those true believers that demand policy and throw a fit when they don’t get it. They teach their constituents to repeat their excuses. Look at how weak they all are in response to the Supreme Court overturning Roe v. Wade. An organized constituency that actually cared about the policies would be rioting and demanding the court be delegitimized. Some of the younger people had the energy and approach for that but were tut-tutted by everyone up the chain. “The discourse” was immediately restricted to just, “Vote Blue”. They aren’t even primarying pro-life Dems, lol.
So why do people keep supporting the stupid twp-party system? If every election is so important that we can’t vote third party, when will we end the two-party stranglehold?
Political education is very poor in the United States. Not only are people uneducated in basic political strategy or the core topics of politics itself, they are constantly inculcated with fairy tales from mass media. Not just the Kabuki of news television and various newspapers, but entertainment media that teaches lessons about being a principled loser fighting the good fight rather than organizing to win against forces that actually oppose your interests.
Americans only gain political education by attempting to get more involved and seeing how the sausage is made. Learning from others with more experience, and discovering that there is an entire library of political education out there that has been suppressed, by sheer volume of samey pap “political” books, from being on everyone’s basic curriculum.
There are more ways to describe the forces at work, but the key issue is that Americans learn a false consciousness that is repeatedly pounded into their heads so that they cannot even understand that, for example, criticizing a reactionary Democrat does not mean you are a Trump-loving Republican.
The positive side of this is that we can use organization and education to move past this. If you can get someone to join a reading group, 9 out of 10 times they will learn, they will discard wrong ideas, and they will advance in their consciousness.
Re: third party, I think it’s fine for raising consciousness and being part of an organized group, but we should always remember that the electoral system itself was set up by slaveowners that just wanted to keep their own money and power and that it continues to be an expression of ruling class interests. You can exhaust yourself just trying to get ballot access and the other parties will just change the rules anyways once you start doing well. There are other ways to build and yield power than entering legislatures and we shouldn’t loss focus on them.
This was talking about libertarian party infighting, but it applies to the two major parties as well. Why mess up the government that you’re going to have majority control of in the next cycle? Likewise, why expand the power of a position that’s going to change hands soon?
Just say no.
The reason to expand the power would be to achieve the promised policy goals of a political program, of course. That they prefer to make excuses reveals exactly how much they prioritize those goals. They are players on a team that is more beholden to corporations’ wishes than any premised policy that would save millions of lives. They just need you to not realize that so you’ll keep voting them in.
Why? The ruling honestly made sense, Roe v Wade was based on a concept of privacy through a convoluted reading of the Constitution. It was a crappy, sketchy ruling.
What should have happened is a federal law ensuring a right to abortion access (or at least a law establishing the right to privacy that Roe v Wade assumed existed). That should have happened way back when Roe v Wade was originally being considered. But Congress is disfunctional and doesn’t actually seem interested in solving important problems.
You can exhaust yourself just trying to get ballot access and the other parties will just change the rules anyways once you start doing well
Sure. But if enough people actually notice it and care, politicians who do that won’t do as well in reelection. The deck is already stacked against third parties (even the “private” debates use the same 15% polling BS the debate commission used), why not push politicians to make it more obvious.
Surely at some point people will demand change, we just need to be vocal and ever present so people get riled up about it.
The point isn’t to get elected as a third party, it’s to steal enough of the votes that the two major parties need to adjust their policies to pull votes from them. Trump promising to free Ross Ulbricht is a small example of that (I doubt he will though).
There are other ways to build and yield power than entering legislatures and we shouldn’t loss focus on them.
Yes, and that’s through forcing candidates to adjust policy positions to get enough votes to win. A great way to do that is media attention for fringe parties, and another is being vocal between elections (contacting reps, attending legislative hearings, protests, etc). Be loud, consistently.
Unless you live in a swing state/district (unlikely), your vote is better spent protesting the duopoly. I personally don’t care what third party you pick, just vote for anyone other than the two major parties. Write someone in if you have to, the point is to reduce their votes.
Yeah, he should have…had one of the conservative justices murdered? WTF do you want him to do
You know the president can add justices, right? Court expansion is under the jurisdiction of the executive branch and approved by the Senate. So no, he doesn’t need to kill a justice, he can just increase the court size.
The Constitution does not specify the size of the court.
Did you miss this part?
I missed the part where Dems are somehow simultaneously the weak opposition party 100% of the time, and when they do have all three branches in control, there’s always somehow one Democrat that they can’t whip a vote from and tanks the whole bill.
Why. Won’t. They. Fight. Back. Against. The. Republicans.
Remember three years ago when the Senate parliamentarian magically blocked the Dems from getting the $15 minimum wage onto Biden’s COVID-19 relief bill?
Or a year and a half ago when they betrayed the rail workers by splitting the bill and then voting down the workers’ right to strike?
Those were kayfabe. The Democrats wanted to lose those fights.
Because. They’re. On. The. Same. Side.
Are you talking about Joe Lieberman and the ACA and then Manchin and Sinema in 20-22? The fuck do you mean “always?” They’re constantly fighting back against the Republicans
They have buddy-buddy dinners with each other all the time lol. This is not a serious power struggle to them.
Since 1980 there have only been 3 periods where Democrats have had solid control of the House, the Senate, and the presidency. The first was under Clinton, for 2 years, where they rammed through a number of right wing bills (that Genocide Joe helped with, like the Crime Bill and NAFTA). The next two were the ones you refer to, where Democrats adopted their excuse-making strategy rather than actually hold clear lines. And because the Dem base is domesticated, they learned to parrot those excuses rather than organize to demand policy.
And then the next conservative President will pack it again, and the Supreme Court will become a joke. There’s a reason norms exist…
There is literally no downside because the Supreme Court is already a completely bought joke.
You say that, but it can always get worse. Let’s not encourage that…
“We can’t fight because they might fight back” is a poor political strategy and will guarantee that they fight you while you lose because everyone knows you don’t have their backs.
The Dems are incapable of doing that fighting at the moment. Their strategy is to, once in power, begin the excuse-making for why they can’t do anything. They are, however, lying to you. They pick someone like Manchin to be the whipping boy and put zero pressure on him, run no party strategy of, “we will get that done because we won’t support candidates that fall out of line”, i.e. a strategy that actually creates the promised policies over a period of multiple election cycles.
Sometimes this is because the policy is seen as a useful wedge issue for getting votes. More useful to them than actually creating the policy.
Either way, the Democrats will continue to be the party of capitulation and excuse-making while conditions degrade if their grassroots members don’t organize to demand change and provide consequences when their demands aren’t met. The logic you’re currently following is the polar opposite of that and will ensure the status quo downward spiral.
Here’s how I see it:
Honestly, the same could probably be said for Republicans as well, though they do occasionally get stuff done.
So why do people keep supporting the stupid twp-party system? If every election is so important that we can’t vote third party, when will we end the two-party stranglehold?
I recently watched an interview of Larry Sharpe by Sabby Sabs where he said,
This was talking about libertarian party infighting, but it applies to the two major parties as well. Why mess up the government that you’re going to have majority control of in the next cycle? Likewise, why expand the power of a position that’s going to change hands soon?
Just say no.
Republicans do the same kind of thing, yeah, but they throw some red meat to their base every so often. And over time they have created enough true believers in what was originally a cynical wedge issue that they are forced to create the policy. Dems haven’t created those true believers that demand policy and throw a fit when they don’t get it. They teach their constituents to repeat their excuses. Look at how weak they all are in response to the Supreme Court overturning Roe v. Wade. An organized constituency that actually cared about the policies would be rioting and demanding the court be delegitimized. Some of the younger people had the energy and approach for that but were tut-tutted by everyone up the chain. “The discourse” was immediately restricted to just, “Vote Blue”. They aren’t even primarying pro-life Dems, lol.
Political education is very poor in the United States. Not only are people uneducated in basic political strategy or the core topics of politics itself, they are constantly inculcated with fairy tales from mass media. Not just the Kabuki of news television and various newspapers, but entertainment media that teaches lessons about being a principled loser fighting the good fight rather than organizing to win against forces that actually oppose your interests.
Americans only gain political education by attempting to get more involved and seeing how the sausage is made. Learning from others with more experience, and discovering that there is an entire library of political education out there that has been suppressed, by sheer volume of samey pap “political” books, from being on everyone’s basic curriculum.
There are more ways to describe the forces at work, but the key issue is that Americans learn a false consciousness that is repeatedly pounded into their heads so that they cannot even understand that, for example, criticizing a reactionary Democrat does not mean you are a Trump-loving Republican.
The positive side of this is that we can use organization and education to move past this. If you can get someone to join a reading group, 9 out of 10 times they will learn, they will discard wrong ideas, and they will advance in their consciousness.
Re: third party, I think it’s fine for raising consciousness and being part of an organized group, but we should always remember that the electoral system itself was set up by slaveowners that just wanted to keep their own money and power and that it continues to be an expression of ruling class interests. You can exhaust yourself just trying to get ballot access and the other parties will just change the rules anyways once you start doing well. There are other ways to build and yield power than entering legislatures and we shouldn’t loss focus on them.
The reason to expand the power would be to achieve the promised policy goals of a political program, of course. That they prefer to make excuses reveals exactly how much they prioritize those goals. They are players on a team that is more beholden to corporations’ wishes than any premised policy that would save millions of lives. They just need you to not realize that so you’ll keep voting them in.
Why? The ruling honestly made sense, Roe v Wade was based on a concept of privacy through a convoluted reading of the Constitution. It was a crappy, sketchy ruling.
What should have happened is a federal law ensuring a right to abortion access (or at least a law establishing the right to privacy that Roe v Wade assumed existed). That should have happened way back when Roe v Wade was originally being considered. But Congress is disfunctional and doesn’t actually seem interested in solving important problems.
Sure. But if enough people actually notice it and care, politicians who do that won’t do as well in reelection. The deck is already stacked against third parties (even the “private” debates use the same 15% polling BS the debate commission used), why not push politicians to make it more obvious.
Surely at some point people will demand change, we just need to be vocal and ever present so people get riled up about it.
The point isn’t to get elected as a third party, it’s to steal enough of the votes that the two major parties need to adjust their policies to pull votes from them. Trump promising to free Ross Ulbricht is a small example of that (I doubt he will though).
Yes, and that’s through forcing candidates to adjust policy positions to get enough votes to win. A great way to do that is media attention for fringe parties, and another is being vocal between elections (contacting reps, attending legislative hearings, protests, etc). Be loud, consistently.
Unless you live in a swing state/district (unlikely), your vote is better spent protesting the duopoly. I personally don’t care what third party you pick, just vote for anyone other than the two major parties. Write someone in if you have to, the point is to reduce their votes.
Oh, yeah, because playing nice with the right wing has worked well so far.
Nothing is stopping them from doing it anyways. Let’s keep the norms while a rogue court takes our rights.
Why are you asking me when I just told you? We’ve been saying it for the last three years: pack the court.