Far left democrats and SJWs are scaring off moderates like me.

[Kraenen]

I'm contrasting AOC's idealism with Palin's nutjobbery. The comparison might stick when AOC starts rattling off incoherent shit at rallies and making up facts as she goes.

She may one day, who knows, I just think the comparison is unfair.

Well, like I said, there's an asymmetry in how the left and right distribute their power. I can respect your perspective. It's just that blank stare of hers... lol.

[Doctor Amadeus]

"YOU'RE EITHER RED OR BLUE"

Man get the fuck off your high horse lmao

That shit is absolutely ridiculous and what has been killing politics.

No stupidity is killing politics not people knowing what the issue are and taking a stance.

[Monster Hunter]

A made-up scandal by shitty British rags*

says the anti-semite, i think we have had enough of your "jews don't have a right to self determination" in a different thread, no need to bring your Nazi agitprop here.

[tripleh]

You can thank sjw/pc for helping get him relected in 2020. Just gonna be sitting here eating popcorn , watching youtube videos of more people crying and moaning about it when it happens. TYT meltdown was funny. All the college kids screaming didn't accomplish anything.

[Kraenen]

That doesn't make sense at all. "SJW" is just a mock label that conservatives (and worse) use to describe people with liberal social values.
Did you mean libertarian?

No not at all. SJWs are explicitly anti-liberal, or illiberal. It's the whole point of this thread. SJWs go after people who just want to live and let live (liberals). The notion this is only libertarian is bizarre. They are values shared by libertarians and liberals are free speech, freedom of (and from) religion, freedom of association, etc. Which are at odds with a modern progressive political plan.

[Stardrift]

No stupidity is killing politics not people knowing what the issue are and taking a stance.

What?

You mean you're stupid if you want to take the few pros in the left and right and ditch the cons?

Lmao okay. I'll take your word and screech at someone for wearing a blue or red shirt. Depending on which poison I want to drink of course.

[Themius]

I just don't believe you OP. SJW's are gonna make you vote against almost all of your beliefs? Not the actual candidates, but some whiny people online? Or maybe I misunderstood?

He's one of those trump supporting conservative view only holding "moderates"

[Elegiac]

I'm just going to point out that having a vocal far wing component isn't necessarily a bad thing; in fact, it often makes more centrist candidates appear more reasonable by comparison to attract swing voters. The problem is when you let said vocal far wing either co-opt the party (see: the Freedom Caucus) or allow it to split the base (see: the Berniecrats).

OP doesn't realise he's demanding the same level of ideological purism from his representatives as the people he claims are driving him away from said representatives. Kek.

[Endus]

In terms of being relatively out there in American politics, it's pretty easy to find extreme policies:

Pretty outside the normal window of politics. Voting against opening the government because it funds ICE is quite reckless and, extremist.

The top marginal tax rate was 65% or higher in the USA (I'm downgrading to 65% to capture the "nearly 70%" factor, since the drawing an arbitrary line RIGHT at that value is baseless) between 1917-1921, and again from 1936-1981. So out of the last 105 years, the top marginal rate in the USA was above 65% for 50 years. Nearly half that time. Claiming this is "extreme" or something outside of consideration in the USA is just straight-up willfully ignorant of history.

Defunding ICE is something you're misrepresenting, on purpose. The move to abolish ICE isn't a move to end border and customs enforcement, it's an administrative position, arguing that those duties should be moved back out of Homeland Security and integrated back into US Customs and Border Protection. That's it. Pretending it's anything else is lying about the facts. Again, this is not "extreme" in any sense whatsoever.

This, I agree with the policy, but it's easily extreme in the view of American politics.

Agree with her on this as well. But really I should mention even some of her feminist base finds this extreme and mysogynist, not to mention the right would find it extreme.

Neither universal health care (a de facto standard in the developed world outside the USA, which is the exception) nor basic human rights for transgender people are "extreme" viewpoints.

Indeed, deciding to prejudicially abuse people because they're transgender (the alternative to recognizing their equal rights and treatment) is clearly the extreme viewpoint, here.

The defense of her seems more like a knee-jerk attack against Republican hatred for her. Which, I guess is understandable, it just comes off a bit odd.

Lowering the expense of university and acting to mitigate student loan debt is, again, something that basically the entire developed world except the USA, is already on board with. The USA's baseline is the extreme outlier, not Ocasio-Cortez.

- - - Updated - - -

I'm just going to point out that having a vocal far wing component isn't necessarily a bad thing; in fact, it often makes more centrist candidates appear more reasonable by comparison to attract swing voters. The problem is when you let said vocal far wing either co-opt the party (see: the Freedom Caucus) or allow it to split the base (see: the Berniecrats).

OP doesn't realise he's demanding the same level of ideological purism from his representatives as the people he claims are driving him away from said representatives. Kek.

Also, the idea that "neither candidate 100% represents my perfect ideals so I won't vote" is an undemocratic stance that fails to grasp some pretty basic civics concepts.

[Elegiac]

Also, the idea that "neither candidate 100% represents my perfect ideals so I won't vote" is an undemocratic stance that fails to grasp some pretty basic civics concepts.

Civics isn't a federally required course in the US.

[Endus]

No not at all. SJWs are explicitly anti-liberal, or illiberal. It's the whole point of this thread. SJWs go after people who just want to live and let live (liberals). The notion this is only libertarian is bizarre. They are values shared by libertarians and liberals are free speech, freedom of (and from) religion, freedom of association, etc. Which are at odds with a modern progressive political plan.

Then you're talking about a fantastically tiny segment of the population, who have no official foothold in governance at any level.

But that's now how "SJW" is used. I'm a liberal, and I get called an "SJW" all the danged time, for things like "not being an abusive shitlord towards LGBT people" or "thinking women are just as good as men".

[tankbug]

No not at all. SJWs are explicitly anti-liberal, or illiberal. It's the whole point of this thread. SJWs go after people who just want to live and let live (liberals). The notion this is only libertarian is bizarre. They are values shared by libertarians and liberals are free speech, freedom of (and from) religion, freedom of association, etc. Which are at odds with a modern progressive political plan.

Well, I don't share your definition of an SJW, in fact, I was not aware of the existence of such a stereotype that you describe. In all the discussion I've seen, the term has been used differently, and even there it's been broadly applied to all liberal posters. I'm not claiming it's a libertarian thing, I was just confused why you would oppose "liberal" and "sjw", and asked you if you meant "libertarian", because they disagree on many things, although sounding somewhat similar.

[Doctor Amadeus]

AOC isn't even an extremist.

She's a pretty run-of-the-mill progressive Democrat who, again, has a real gift for social media and is fucking superb at trolling the Trump-right. She hasn't espoused a single position position that is extremist. They're all pretty much part of the progressive or center-left mainstream. But she pisses off... and I mean DEEPLY pisses off... some pretty unbalanced people who want to pretend that this brown skinned woman with the funny name who doesn't take their shit is the next Fidel Castro. That's she's Chavez come to America.

There is AOC the representative for her district and AOC the troll of the Trump-right, and the Trump-right keeps walking into her trolling because they can't stand her and she's excellent at giving them new reasons to hate her.

Wanna know what that makes them?

Her most reliable accomplices.

She is raising her profile by using them as her soapbox.

If you want empirical proof of that, watch how she votes for budget bills on the final passage (not amendments) votes over the next two years. Talk is cheap. In the United States, money is what makes things happen, and how a person votes on spending bills is indicative of where their politics are.

You will find her an utterly conventional Democrat on the topic of actually keeping America running. Or to put it another way, she'll keep playing up the "Fidel Castro in heels" troll of the Trump-right that's so useful to her, and then turn around and vote for the next two year budget deal (the third overall) that Schumer, Pelosi and McConnell are already cooking up to coincide with the next increase in the debt ceiling, that raises defense spending by another $90 billion over two years.

That's how sausage is made. And AOC is already proving an utterly conventional sausage maker. But one very gifted at the modern iteration of politics, which is very heavy into all things social.

I find AOC a distraction for Trumpsters and Alt Right. However I do find her refreshing. She is young and I think that’s a good thing, She does need to be careful McConnel is already trying to bully her. Her ability will be measured by what she gets done which for a freshman might not be much. At this point she needs to be careful of land mines.

I seen her C-SPAN video and she was impressive as hell. But theater won’t save her if she isn’t smart. Trey Gowrdy comes to mind he was hot too, not that hot but he burned himself out.

[Endus]

Civics isn't a federally required course in the US.

Which is ridiculous. We don't have a separate course for it here in Canada, but it's wrapped up in what gets called "social studies" in most curriculae; it's basically history and civics rolled together.

[Elegiac]

Which is ridiculous. We don't have a separate course for it here in Canada, but it's wrapped up in what gets called "social studies" in most curriculae; it's basically history and civics rolled together.

Hey, preaching to the choir. I'm also in favor of bringing an updated home economics course back to teach folks how to cook and manage personal finances.

[RobertoCarlos]

We need a third major party!

represented by a non-gender gymnist balancing on a tight rope which sways from left to right depending on the wind/His or Her balance on that day aka mood/whatever else that sways people

[Wyrt]

I'm just going to point out that having a vocal far wing component isn't necessarily a bad thing; in fact, it often makes more centrist candidates appear more reasonable by comparison to attract swing voters. The problem is when you let said vocal far wing either co-opt the party (see: the Freedom Caucus) or allow it to split the base (see: the Berniecrats).

OP doesn't realise he's demanding the same level of ideological purism from his representatives as the people he claims are driving him away from said representatives. Kek.

Democrats are splitting because the establishment was right wingers pretending they were left wing and the "Berniecrats" are actually left wing.

[shoegazing]

This is actually a pretty common response from moderate/centerist Dems that I have spoken with. People who hate the far left just as much as the far right and find that the further left the Dem Party goes, the less they feel represented by the Dems. I know folks who either will vote Repub or won't vote at all because of this.

Kind of sucks for those who want and are willing to compromise to have a functional society, who don't live in some fringe extremist world to one side or the other.

The most 'fringe, extremist' left candidate is Bernie Sanders who is.... a Social Democrat.... which is a very moderate or even center/right platform by current international standards.

[Elegiac]

Democrats are splitting because the establishment was right wingers pretending they were left wing and the progressives are actually left wing.

Nothing necessarily precludes both from existing within the same political sphere; the Australian Labor Party has had formalised wings of the party for decades.

There is some transitional pain as the median shifts leftward, but quite a lot of it is attributable to the vacuum created after Obama left office, which Pelosi has only recently filled.

[Kraenen]

The top marginal tax rate was 65% or higher in the USA (I'm downgrading to 65% to capture the "nearly 70%" factor, since the drawing an arbitrary line RIGHT at that value is baseless) between 1917-1921, and again from 1936-1981. So out of the last 105 years, the top marginal rate in the USA was above 65% for 50 years. Nearly half that time. Claiming this is "extreme" or something outside of consideration in the USA is just straight-up willfully ignorant of history.

Yeah, this is pretty accurate historically. It's just that modern politics is pretty far-removed from those days. Remember when for the majority of history the Democrats were the racist party? I suppose we should now believe the Dems are still the racist party? Not at all. If anyone's willfully ignorant it's yourself in order to prove some useless point.

Defunding ICE is something you're misrepresenting, on purpose. The move to abolish ICE isn't a move to end border and customs enforcement, it's an administrative position, arguing that those duties should be moved back out of Homeland Security and integrated back into US Customs and Border Protection. That's it. Pretending it's anything else is lying about the facts. Again, this is not "extreme" in any sense whatsoever.

How did I misrepresent anything? I literally just quoted her policy position. The notion that a literal copy paste of her position is "misrepresenting" speaks to your bizarre defense of her. What you've actually done is completely ignore the fact that she voted against opening government because it was funding ICE. Pretty convenient you left that out of your rebuttal. Again, misrepresentation is what you've done, not me.

Neither universal health care (a de facto standard in the developed world outside the USA, which is the exception) nor basic human rights for transgender people are "extreme" viewpoints.

Having to refer to countries outside the US is missing the point.

Indeed, deciding to prejudicially abuse people because they're transgender (the alternative to recognizing their equal rights and treatment) is clearly the extreme viewpoint, here.

Are you sure? Historically speaking this is the typical position. Or are you switching the goal posts? I suppose we could just look at certain centuries in various countries the world all over in order to bolster a position.

Lowering the expense of university and acting to mitigate student loan debt is, again, something that basically the entire developed world except the USA, is already on board with. The USA's baseline is the extreme outlier, not Ocasio-Cortez.

Did you read the quote? Translating "cancel all student debt" as "lower expensive of university and to mitigate student loan debt" is a pretty obvious re-interpretation in order to make the position more normalized.