US politics

Dedicated to the memory of Will Stancil.

1. Obviously the president cannot do X, he doesn’t have the political capital/votes/the Supreme Court. Your average online liberal is very big on making excuses for why it’s just not possible for the Democrats to do anything, but very sure that more, harder voting next time will solve the problem. That this strategy hasn’t worked the last six presidential elections won’t stop them from making more excuses next time.
2. But the parliamentarian says we cannot do this. The online liberal is very strict on rules when those rules prevent Democrats from achieving anything. Rules need to be obeyed, no matter how nonsensical and attempts to get around them are just wrong. That the president breaks not just rules, but the law on a daily basis by say supporting the genocide in Gaza somehow always escapes their attention. Rules are sacred and it would be wrong to break or ignore them, regardless the outcome. Sportsmanship is everything.
3. But if we abolish the filibuster, we cannot use it ourselves when Trump gets into power again.. The online liberal is not so keen on trying to fix the whole broken political system, but rather worries endlessly about what the GOP might do if we change anything. The filibuster being the most well known example, but there’s also e.g. the blue slip procedure. If a senator objects to a proposed judicial candidate in their state, they can send a blue slip to the responsible committee and as a courtesy that candidate will be removed. Something the Republicans paid no attention to whatsoever when they lead these committees, but the Democrats keep adhering to.
4. But the Supreme Court will strike it down anyway so this is pointless. The online liberal loves to capitulate before the fight. In that they resemble their leaders, who are also not keen to start anything that might require more effort than sending out fund raising emails. The filibuster is a good example of this, as this is always brought up as an example of why we can’t have nice things. But did you know that the modern filibuster consists of nothing more than some junior staffer sending an email that their boss would filibuster if a bill is brought to a vote? No effort required at all. Considering the laziness of your average senator, that Democrats do not call this bluff is inexcusable, but understandable considering the laziness of your average senator.
5. Vote Blue no Matter Who. Or, it doesn’t matter that Biden supports genocide, Trump is worse so it’s imperative that you vote for him regardless of what he does. Don’t put pressure on Democrats to change, you don’t want the Republicans to get in, do you? Also seen in the UK, where the usual bunch of centrist muppets had spent the last half decade describing most Labour voters as antisemitic scum who should disappear, but still expect their votes. The online liberal expects the voters to adjust to their politicians, not the other way around. The online liberal therefore will always scold the voter for expecting their elected leaders to listen to their concerns.

The Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez interview in the (ugh) New York Times is a must read:

I’ve been begging the party to let me help them for two years. That’s also the damn thing of it. I’ve been trying to help. Before the election, I offered to help every single swing district Democrat with their operation. And every single one of them, but five, refused my help. And all five of the vulnerable or swing district people that I helped secured victory or are on a path to secure victory. And every single one that rejected my help is losing. And now they’re blaming us for their loss.

Biden may have finally won the election, but in both the House and Senate the Democrats either lost seats or won less than expected, leaving the possibility of a divided government open. This unexpected result was of course immediately blamed on “the left” and Black Lives Matter and other centrist bugaloos, but as AOC points out, the actual leftwing candidates won. And, as she also points out in the interview, a lot of the losses by more rightwing candidates were due to just plain incompetence: not spending enough money, not spending it on the right channels, just plain not running a proper campaign.

If the party believes after 94 percent of Detroit went to Biden, after Black organizers just doubled and tripled turnout down in Georgia, after so many people organized Philadelphia, the signal from the Democratic Party is the John Kasichs won us this election? I mean, I can’t even describe how dangerous that is.

What AOC is careful not to say here is that the Democratic Party’s establishment finds it less important to win than it is to keep their left in check. Medicare for all, the New Green Deal, Black Lives Matters may be vote winners but the Democratic establishment opposes these policies just as much as the GOP does. In general, they’re content to be the junior partner to the GOP in America’s political duopoly, only getting in power once the Republicans have fucked up too much and the country needs a cleanup again. Democrats winning elections with actual leftwing policies is the last thing they want.

On the eve of the presidential election, Der Spiegel reported on the state of the American nation

This realization became only too apparent during and after Hurricane Sandy, the monster storm that ravaged America’s East Coast last week, its effects made all the more devastating by the fact that its winds were whipping across an already weakened country. The infrastructure in New York, New Jersey and New England was already in trouble long before the storm made landfall near Atlantic City. The power lines in Brooklyn and Queens, on Long Island and in New Jersey, in one of the world’s largest metropolitan areas, are not underground, but are still installed along a fragile and confusing above-ground network supported by utility poles, the way they are in developing countries.

Ouch.

Complete article does feature cameos by Tom Friedman and Aaron Sorkin, so take with a grain of salt.