Biden / Harris Focused Discussion

[Edge-]

i think the dems are actually what they can to help solve it already, or at least actively looking for ways.

Again: Not their responsibility. Republicans need to clean up their own house, not shit all over it and then expect Democrats to come and clean up all the shit.

Democrats have made good faith efforts over the years. They've tried to make reasonable proposals and negotiate. Eventually after you've had shit thrown in your face every time, you realize that further efforts will lead to the same results and it's a waste of time.

they waited for however many years for repubs to suddenly change their ways and they got trump for their waiting.

I don't even know what you're getting at with this. Can you elaborate/specify?

[Breccia]

i think the dems are actually what they can to help solve it already, or at least actively looking for ways.

Wait, are you mad at the Democrats for not cooperating, or mad because they cooperated?

Eh fuck it. Republicans have made themselves the problem. Trying to defend them is pointless.

Democrats say Republicans are hitting a new low with their recent attacks on President Biden — including a false narrative about the president taking away their hamburgers.

The conspiracy theory that Biden wants to ban beef gained steam in Republican circles and conservative media in the past week, fanned by lawmakers such as Rep. Lauren Boebert (Colo.) who accused Democrats of wanting “to limit us to about four pounds [of beef] a year.”

“They're showing everyone every day how f---ing small they are,” said one Democratic strategist bluntly. “This isn't even a strategy. It's carrying on Trump's lies.”

Some Republicans are also worried about the issue.

“Is it a strategy? I don't think it's a strategy,” said Tony Fratto, who served as deputy press secretary to former President George W. Bush. “I think these kinds of conspiratorial rumors are a feature of the modern Republican Party.

“This isn't something that happened to the party,” he added, pointing to the party's embrace of controversial figures such as Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.), who has been criticized for espousing conspiracy theories. “And they're not just spreading these bizarre ideas. They have a hand in manufacturing them. They are part of the machinery.”

Sen. Mike Braun (R-Ind.) said his party shouldn’t be embracing the conspiratorial narratives.

“It’s just no good for discussing things and it gets a lot of people confused,” Braun said. “I don’t think there’s any value in it at all.”

Stop wringing your hands and clutching your pearls that Democrats didn't do enough to side with them, then claim they did and that's worse. You won't be taken seriously. Related: this is the last reply you're getting.

[starlord]

Again: Not their responsibility. Republicans need to clean up their own house, not shit all over it and then expect Democrats to come and clean up all the shit.

Democrats have made good faith efforts over the years. They've tried to make reasonable proposals and negotiate. Eventually after you've had shit thrown in your face every time, you realize that further efforts will lead to the same results and it's a waste of time.

I don't even know what you're getting at with this. Can you elaborate/specify?

well, saying "its purely a republican problem so we should take no part or make no effort to help them resolve it. sooner or later they'll come to their senses!" only led to further radicalization. dems mistake prior was thinking public backlash would be enough. it wasn't.
we know that there are still elements within the party that seek to escape trumpism. those should be strengthened instead of the radical part.

heres a little tidbit of history:
https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.the...rticle/570832/

But Gingrich had a plan. The way he saw it, Republicans would never be able to take back the House as long as they kept compromising with the Democrats out of some high-minded civic desire to keep congressional business humming along. His strategy was to blow up the bipartisan coalitions that were essential to legislating, and then seize on the resulting dysfunction to wage a populist crusade against the institution of Congress itself. “His idea,” says Norm Ornstein, a political scientist who knew Gingrich at the time, “was to build toward a national election where people were so disgusted by Washington and the way it was operating that they would throw the ins out and bring the outs in.”

....

As his profile grew, Gingrich took aim at the moderates in his own party—calling Bob Dole the “tax collector for the welfare state”—and baited Democratic leaders with all manner of epithet and insult: pro-communist, un-American, tyrannical. In 1984, one of his floor speeches prompted a red-faced eruption from Speaker Tip O’Neill, who said of Gingrich’s attacks, “It’s the lowest thing that I’ve ever seen in my 32 years in Congress!” The episode landed them both on the nightly news, and Gingrich, knowing the score, declared victory. “I am now a famous person,” he gloated to The Washington Post.

....

Effective as these tactics were in the short term, they had a corrosive effect on the way Congress operated. “Gradually, it went from legislating, to the weaponization of legislating, to the permanent campaign, to the permanent war,” Mann says. “It’s like he took a wrecking ball to the most powerful and influential legislature in the world.”

....

It was in Verdun that Gingrich found an identity, a sense of purpose. “I decided then that I basically had three jobs,” he tells me. “Figure out what we had to do to survive”—the we here being proponents of Western civilization, the threats being vague and unspecified—“figure out how to explain it so that the American people would give us permission, and figure out how to implement it once they gave us permission. That’s what I’ve done since August of ’58.”

i see a lot of this same rhetoric from many alleged "leftists". "we should have power at any costs because we are morally in the right" is the exact same thing repubs were thinking when they went down that road.

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Wait, are you mad at the Democrats for not cooperating, or mad because they cooperated?

Eh fuck it. Republicans have made themselves the problem. Trying to defend them is pointless.

Stop wringing your hands and clutching your pearls that Democrats didn't do enough to side with them, then claim they did and that's worse. You won't be taken seriously. Related: this is the last reply you're getting.

i am "wringing my hands" that we should be working to repair government institutions. yea repubs are bad. dems doing their same tactics won't solve what led to the current situation because "everyone will be so happy with what the dems do that they'll suddenly stop being racist" or whatever.

[Edge-]

well, saying "its purely a republican problem so we should take no part or make no effort to help them resolve it. sooner or later they'll come to their senses!" only led to further radicalization. dems mistake prior was thinking public backlash would be enough. it wasn't.

Again, Democrats have tried. They've given up because eventually you realize your attempts are unsuccessful and are just a waste of time.

we know that there are still elements within the party that seek to escape trumpism. those should be strengthened instead of the radical part.

Unfortunately they're a quiet, tiny minority.

[Milchshake]

i see a lot of this same rhetoric from many alleged "leftists". "we should have power at any costs because we are morally in the right" is the exact same thing repubs were thinking when they went down that road.

It's important to note that the Gingrinch strategy works if your ideology is to halt progress and hang onto the status quo.
So any self-styled progressive pushing for these tactics is dumb and self defeating. See also; Dave Sirota's 30% Strategy.

Its like there's been a rise in 2 factions of the Leftist's community lately:

• Those that want to use the government to protect and help vulnerable groups; minorities and those in poverty.
• Those that that into the Anti Establishment Aesthetics. They want power to settle all of their personal grievances.

Hence the later will slip there masks and at times; and admire republicans/trump for their raw pursuit of power. Or admire
Republicans "governance". Confusing governance for score settling.

Speaking of those people. Yesterday they were calling a lid on Biden. Saying "Democratcs cant get anything done!!"



It already passed the Senate and heading to the House...

[starlord]

Again, Democrats have tried. They've given up because eventually you realize your attempts are unsuccessful and are just a waste of time.

Unfortunately they're a quiet, tiny minority.

i don't think they have given up. not just yet. But I'm wary of making predictions this early in the presidency.
i think if after this next 4 years we don't see any change, then there's no hope for the country at all.

[Rozz]

Did anyone mention the First Cat yet? It's some news I can smile about.

[Endus]

well, saying "its purely a republican problem so we should take no part or make no effort to help them resolve it. sooner or later they'll come to their senses!" only led to further radicalization. dems mistake prior was thinking public backlash would be enough. it wasn't.

They only really made the effort at all in the Trump era. Before that, there was a strong belief that the Republican Party was still being controlled by members that were seen as reasonable legislators, regardless of what the Tea Party types did in public; see the ACA discussions during Obama's era where they made repeated outreach to Republicans to try and make the program one that could see bipartisan support. It was already too late for that kind of effort, then, but Democrats didn't understand that (hindsight, and all that).

we know that there are still elements within the party that seek to escape trumpism. those should be strengthened instead of the radical part.

By "elements", you're talking about a literal handful of members. And the only "big name" that springs to mind is Romney. Pretty much every other bigwig in the Republican Party is already radicalized, or totally willing to work with and inflame the radicals at least (a distinction not worth making, IMO).

i see a lot of this same rhetoric from many alleged "leftists". "we should have power at any costs because we are morally in the right" is the exact same thing repubs were thinking when they went down that road.

No, you don't see that. Not "at any costs". A lot of "we need to have power or else the fascists will win and start up the deathcamps", sure. But still not "at any costs". I haven't seen left-wingers pushing for using voter fraud or pushing dishonest and illegal schemes to suppress Republican votes to try and sway elections, where that's been fairly constant on the right.

This is just "both sides" nonsense you're arguing, and it isn't a reasonable argument.

[Milchshake]

Did anyone mention the First Cat yet? It's some news I can smile about.

Yea, I'm psyched to see a First Cat again.

Yes ... Ha ha ha ... yes!

One of the Biden family’s dogs, Major Biden, has been trained to be around cats ahead of the arrival of the family’s cat in the White House.


Tonight on Tucker! Me and Glenn discourse the Librul Agendga of forced sensitivity training for Man's best friend!
Anything to ignore Matt Gaetz and that one dinner where he introduced his young looking "girlfriend".

[Edge-]

Did anyone mention the First Cat yet? It's some news I can smile about.

It's been a while since we last had a First Cat, I think Socks was the last one.

[starlord]

They only really made the effort at all in the Trump era. Before that, there was a strong belief that the Republican Party was still being controlled by members that were seen as reasonable legislators, regardless of what the Tea Party types did in public; see the ACA discussions during Obama's era where they made repeated outreach to Republicans to try and make the program one that could see bipartisan support. It was already too late for that kind of effort, then, but Democrats didn't understand that (hindsight, and all that).

By "elements", you're talking about a literal handful of members. And the only "big name" that springs to mind is Romney. Pretty much every other bigwig in the Republican Party is already radicalized, or totally willing to work with and inflame the radicals at least (a distinction not worth making, IMO).

No, you don't see that. Not "at any costs". A lot of "we need to have power or else the fascists will win and start up the deathcamps", sure. But still not "at any costs". I haven't seen left-wingers pushing for using voter fraud or pushing dishonest and illegal schemes to suppress Republican votes to try and sway elections, where that's been fairly constant on the right.

This is just "both sides" nonsense you're arguing, and it isn't a reasonable argument.

old newt didn't say to do fraud or illegal things either, he just "fuck bipartisanship and the other party" and that was the logical conclusion after a while. he thought he was morally in the right which justified that. sounds familiar.

[Edge-]

old newt didn't say to do fraud or illegal things either, he just "fuck bipartisanship and the other party" and that was the logical conclusion after a while. he thought he was morally in the right which justified that. sounds familiar.

So wait...he started all of this, unprompted, for purely political reasons. And Democrats didn't respond in kind for decades, instead making good faith attempts to continue to work in a bipartisan manner while Republicans slowly moved further and further into their hyper-partisan corner...

I'm still not seeing where this has anything to do with Democrats or how it isn't purely the Republican party needing to clean up their own fuckin house and reckon with their extremist base that they've cultivated and radicalized over the decades.

[starlord]

So wait...he started all of this, unprompted, for purely political reasons. And Democrats didn't respond in kind for decades, instead making good faith attempts to continue to work in a bipartisan manner while Republicans slowly moved further and further into their hyper-partisan corner...

I'm still not seeing where this has anything to do with Democrats or how it isn't purely the Republican party needing to clean up their own fuckin house and reckon with their extremist base that they've cultivated and radicalized over the decades.

i'm saying.. don't be like newt to all the people who keep saying "fuck bipartisanship and the other party because we are morally superior". we have an actual example of what it leads to. i'm not sure "gee i wanna be like trump" is the most left-y response to his administration...

it'd sever the last thread holding any kind of functional government together as it is, for a short term gain.

[Endus]

old newt didn't say to do fraud or illegal things either, he just "fuck bipartisanship and the other party" and that was the logical conclusion after a while. he thought he was morally in the right which justified that. sounds familiar.

You're still pushing a baseless "both sides" bit of bullshit, here. They aren't the same, and the arguments aren't being made for the same reasons.

It's impossible to work with the Republicans, by the Republicans' own stated mission and objectives. That's their choice, not the Democrats. All anyone is saying is to stop wasting effort on pleas to the nation's health and security when the Republicans clearly don't give a shit about any of it. Just go on about the business of securing those interests as best you can, since the Republicans are never gonna help.

You could take a Republican plan and offer it up, and they would categorically refuse to sign on to it, every single one of them. And that's neither hyperbole nor even hypothetical; the ACA was modelled after Romneycare, a Republican plan. And it got precisely one Republican vote; Joseph Cao of Louisiana, in the middle of his only two-year stint in the office, and that vote is probably what ruined his political career with Republicans, cratering his support both financial and at the ballotbox and leading to his losing the seat to the Democrat contender in 2010. Hard to call Cao a major figure among Republicans.

[SirBeef]

Again, Democrats have tried. They've given up because eventually you realize your attempts are unsuccessful and are just a waste of time.



Unfortunately they're a quiet, tiny minority.

And refuse to stand against it. So they are complicit and deserve to be lumped in with the shit. Like I said, guys like Joe Walsh and Justin Amash, have some credibility for leaving the GOP and/or calling out the BS, but if the rest are silent, fuck them.

[starlord]

You're still pushing a baseless "both sides" bit of bullshit, here. They aren't the same, and the arguments aren't being made for the same reasons.

whats the difference between "fuck democrats because we are morally superior, they won't let us do what we want" and "fuck republicans because we are morally superior, they won't let us do what we want"?

oh and so after all's said and done, who's going to put down the (figurative) gun first?

[Edge-]

i'm saying.. don't be like newt to all the people who keep saying "fuck bipartisanship and the other party because we are morally superior".

We aren't. We're not saying, "Fuck bipartisanship." and if you read anything we wrote you'd know this. We're saying, "Fuck wasting further time with attempts at working with a political party that has made it transparently clear that they have no interest in working together.", because it's a waste of time and will lead to nothing getting done, which achieves the goal of the other party - showing that government doesn't work by being the reason government doesn't work.

i'm not sure "gee i wanna be like trump" is the most left-y response to his administration...

A gross and extremely dishonest and inaccurate characterization of what's going on.

it'd sever the last thread holding any kind of functional government together as it is, for a short term gain.

Hey, remember the time Liz Cheney got attacked savagely by her own political party for giving Biden a fist-bump? Just a reminder of where the problem lies, it's not with Democrats attacking Biden for daring to fist-bump a member of the other party. Democrats, quite the contrary, didn't really give a shit.

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whats the difference between "fuck democrats because we are morally superior, they won't let us do what we want" and "fuck republicans because we are morally superior, they won't let us do what we want"?

The difference is that's not remotely accurate as to what's going on and is purely a fantasy living within your mind.

[Endus]

whats the difference between "fuck democrats because we are morally superior, they won't let us do what we want" and "fuck republicans because we are morally superior, they won't let us do what we want"?

oh and so after all's said and done, who's going to put down the (figurative) gun first?

I'm really not interested in your straw man.

That is not what's happening.

[starlord]

We aren't. We're not saying, "Fuck bipartisanship." and if you read anything we wrote you'd know this. We're saying, "Fuck wasting further time with attempts at working with a political party that has made it transparently clear that they have no interest in working together.", because it's a waste of time and will lead to nothing getting done, which achieves the goal of the other party - showing that government doesn't work by being the reason government doesn't work.

well except that people have been saying that.

A gross and extremely dishonest and inaccurate characterization of what's going on.

is it?

Hey, remember the time Liz Cheney got attacked savagely by her own political party for giving Biden a fist-bump? Just a reminder of where the problem lies, it's not with Democrats attacking Biden for daring to fist-bump a member of the other party. Democrats, quite the contrary, didn't really give a shit.

i've never said the problem lies with the democrats. the dems need to cultivate more liz cheney's (so to speak) if they want to change the situation as it won't resolve itself.

like whats the end goal here? pretend repubs don't exist until they magically go away or start agreeing?

[Ausr]

It's been a while since we last had a First Cat, I think Socks was the last one.

I dunno. Trump was kind of a pussy.