The Left Fails Yet Again

[Cloud_Strife]

And you think the GOP is going to suddenly going to change course?

 

[Bugfatty300]

Well, you said it was trying to smooch them up. Presumably it would have to adopt policies to their liking, thus reforming the party. So that's a good thing.

The trick is convincing more minorities that the status quo and reactionary policies is actually good for them. Then you don't have to cater to them at all.

 

[Patine]

Governing without real direction is often the art of ad hoc patching until the next elections.
Here there is now a lot of patching with using 40 feet sea containers (rent 513 Euro per month). Gig housing.
(no real effect, but selling hope sells well)


With direction and structural:

To set housing straight in NL... with forcing house prices of 90% of existing housing to replacement values without speculation effects on too high land price..
=> building adequate new, taking care of individual house owners that go underwater, taking over investor properties going underwater, etc
We need between 20%-30% of GDP.
With less than 60% of GDP government debt, we can easily get that done. It's political will + wrong definitions of the "ruling" IMF macro indicators (definition govt debt).

Climate ofc looming.
We need 20% GDP for dikes etc and roughly 80%-100% GDP for zero CO2-Methane + washing out surplus CO2 (of which 20% of cost is planned to be passed on to the citizens)

This is a big part of why China is rising ascendant over the Western First World - because they DO have long-term planning, visions, agendas, and budgets, and can actually get think things done without the same political instability or the economic model. I hate to say it - but democracy and capitalism DO have a few weaknesses as systems, and they are starting to show, here and there.

@Peuri Yes, my problem with those terms is NOT merely pedantic - it's a far worse problem, and more harmful in the discourse than many people realize. In fact, I'd like to formally ask @Zardnaar to change the title of this thread and edit the opening post in this light to be more productive.

 

[Rashiminos]

One aspect of gerrymandering recently brought to my attention is prison placement, prisoners count as population residing in the prison's jurisdiction for purposes of representation, so mass incarceration of black people literally transfers voting power from poor black people in the inner cities to white people in rural Republican-leaning districts.

As does disenfrachising them via felony status, but I'm not sure there is a middle position on whether felons can vote, other than what crimes if any are worthy of such a punishment..

The trick is convincing more minorities that the status quo and reactionary policies is actually good for them. Then you don't have to cater to them at all.

The trick is convincing various demographics about which policies have created the status quo, on the assumption that it's a planned result and stable.

This is a big part of why China is rising ascendant over the Western First World - because they DO have long-term planning, visions, agendas, and budgets, and can actually get think things done without the same political instability or the economic model. I hate to say it - but democracy and capitalism DO have a few weaknesses as systems, and they are starting to show, here and there.

"democracy has a few weaknesses" - Beware the seductions of the dark side, aka neoreaction.

Use of arbitrary power can ensure things get done, sometimes even expediently.

 

[Lexicus]

Well, you said it was trying to smooch them up. Presumably it would have to adopt policies to their liking, thus reforming the party. So that's a good thing.

@Cloud Strife mistyped, he said that they "doubled down on reaching out to minorities and women" but what he meant was undoubtedly the opposite of that: they doubled down on hostility to minorities and women (though treating 'women' as a political category is problematic due to the extremely conservative voting behavior of many white evangelical women particularly in the South). After the loss in the 2012 election the Republicans actually produced an internal report arguing the party needed to tone down nativism and start making real outreaches to younger and nonwhite voters. What actually happened instead was that they doubled down on appealing to their shrinking older white demographic base with Donald Trump.

And the irony is that many black Americans actually have quite conservative politics...but are driven to vote for the Democrats by margins of close 90-10 because the GOP is so clearly racist and, as Cloud says, hostile toward their existence. As you said, the Demos rules and the Demos of the Republican Party is seriously racist, which first tied the hands of the more moderate elements of the party - as @Sommerswerd recently put it in one of these threads, McCain probably lost the election because he pushed back against the racism of his own base - and has now, with the advent of Trump, all but obliterated the moderate elements.

 

[Berzerker]

One aspect of gerrymandering recently brought to my attention is prison placement, prisoners count as population residing in the prison's jurisdiction for purposes of representation, so mass incarceration of black people literally transfers voting power from poor black people in the inner cities to white people in rural Republican-leaning districts.

What possible solution could there be to such a problem? Maybe prisoners shouldn't count like everyone else in the census, maybe they should count as... 3/5ths. If large cities want that representation maybe Democrats shouldn't build their prisons in rural parts of the states. Nah, just count prisoners using their addresses before incarceration.

 

[Rashiminos]

The racists among Republican voters use a variant of that "demos rules" argument.

To them, it's not clear that it matters how racially hostile the GOP appears to be, if black voters will never vote for them anyway. Dial up the hostility and make the GOP explicitly white, and only cater to voters whose minds are convinced by Republican governance, and not Republican campaigning. They're likely overestimating the value of Republican governance for nonwhite voters, but Black Americans can vote with their feet as much as their ballots.

It would be the racist inversion of run as progressive, govern as a centrist, with all due skepticism.

 

[Zardnaar]

Is there a jurisdiction where building a lean-to in a forest or inhabiting a cave is actually illegal?

Here you would need resource consent.
On a farm or something you would probably get away with it.

It's a slight exaggeration but apartment living never really caught on here and building codes funtionally make cheap houses illegal.


For example insulation and double glazing is mandatory here for warm homes (some NZ houses are shocking). Land prices make things rough as well.

Down here it makes sense some parts of NZ have a Mediterranean climate almost and s cold day is like 12 degrees.

I grew up in the South a cold day is in the negatives, and the houses didn't have insulation or double glazing. I don't mind cold hate wet though as a damp house will make you sick.

We have universal welfare, grew up on it. Harder now though.



https://i.stuff.co.nz/national/1141...ice-what-its-really-like-to-be-on-the-benefit

Government campaigned on building houses.
https://www.newsroom.co.nz/@politic...hil-twyford-lost-housing-and-kiwibuild-failed

I don't think the electoral blow back wont be to bad, previous government denied there was a problem.

 

[Commodore]

Or it could be because big business and corporations find the right wing to be a lot more ameniable to their general goals, so support them rather than the left.

Except the left has more billionaires and big businesses supporting it than the right does right now. Not to mention the support of most universities, the faculty and administration of which are the very definition of the wealthy elite.

I mean it's kind of hard to say you are the party of the little guy, when you have people like Bezos, Zuckerberg, and Soros on your side.

 

[Zardnaar]

Hilary outspent Trump. Here the right outspent the left ,3-1 and still lost.

Money helps but you can't buy an election it seems.

 

[Socrates99]

Except the left has more billionaires and big businesses supporting it than the right does right now. Not to mention the support of most universities, the faculty and administration of which are the very definition of the wealthy elite.

I mean it's kind of hard to say you are the party of the little guy, when you have people like Bezos, Zuckerberg, and Soros on your side.

Turns out that when running a big business it's best to be socially liberal since you'll have more customers by being inclusive rather than exclusive.

It doesn't stop any of those big donors from being economically conservative though. That's why centrist Democrats over emphasize social stuff while dismissing economic woes.

 

[Berzerker]

Home Depot is under threat now because the 90 year old former ceo gave Trump millions in 2016. He hasn't really been involved running the business for 20 years and he penned an oped about the situation. Course some issues are 'winners' for business to champion since they produce more committed consumers compared to boycotters.

I remember years ago Idaho was considering a pro-life law and national pro-choice forces threatened a boycott of the state's potato producers and the politicians backed down. Not really an example of a politically active business but shows how walking a tight rope can result in a backlash. Nike embraces Kaepernick and pisses off uber'patriots' but wins with other people.

 

[Ajidica]

Home Depot is under threat now

Is it? Is it really under threat? I only knew about the 'boycott' because it was a slow news Friday and I was trying to kill time at work yesterday.

 

[Arwon]

Except the left has more billionaires and big businesses supporting it than the right does right now. Not to mention the support of most universities, the faculty and administration of which are the very definition of the wealthy elite.

I mean it's kind of hard to say you are the party of the little guy, when you have people like Bezos, Zuckerberg, and Soros on your side.

Is there a single person with a functioning brain who thinks that the United States Democratic Party as an institution is in any form actually leftist

Much less worker abusing tyrants like Zuckerberg and Bezos

 

[aelf]

OP doesn't live in Singapore, a small island with ultra-high property prices and about 6 million people and that aims to have 10 million in the not-too-distant future, where it's not even viable to vote for the Left.

So my sympathy is pretty much 0.

 

[Socrates99]

Home Depot is under threat now because the 90 year old former ceo gave Trump millions in 2016. He hasn't really been involved running the business for 20 years and he penned an oped about the situation. Course some issues are 'winners' for business to champion since they produce more committed consumers compared to boycotters.

I remember years ago Idaho was considering a pro-life law and national pro-choice forces threatened a boycott of the state's potato producers and the politicians backed down. Not really an example of a politically active business but shows how walking a tight rope can result in a backlash. Nike embraces Kaepernick and pisses off uber'patriots' but wins with other people.

Sounds like the invisible hand to me.

 

[Hamid.H]

And you think the GOP is going to suddenly going to change course?

why would they? theyre #winning while they laugh in our faces and drink our delicious salty tears because were apparently all soy boys and cluckholds. theyve already out grouped muslims, latinx, trans, gay, non-gender binary people and have established literal concentration camps all over the south west where theyre splitting up families and forcing them to live in the most inhumane conditions possible. and theyre getting away with it because the white liberal establishment would rather attack the people like aoc who are leading the charge against these fascists and their tactics. perhaps this is because the white middle class is sympathetic to fascists and are more concerned with trump destroying the economy though pointless trade war than they are about literal concentration camps.

hh

 

[Patine]

@Zardnaar, you haven't changed this erroneous, counter-productive, completely imprecise, non-credible, misleading, over-simplistic, and outright farceacle and embarrassing (or should be embarrassing) thread title, nor even addressed my request, with a rational and comprehensive reason as to why and how it make the topic at hand have any respectability and be able to be taken seriously and treated as though it was an educated topic, at all.

 

[Imaus]

why would they? theyre #winning while they laugh in our faces and drink our delicious salty tears because were apparently all soy boys and cluckholds. theyve already out grouped muslims, latinx, trans, gay, non-gender binary people and have established literal concentration camps all over the south west where theyre splitting up families and forcing them to live in the most inhumane conditions possible. and theyre getting away with it because the white liberal establishment would rather attack the people like aoc who are leading the charge against these fascists and their tactics. perhaps this is because the white middle class is sympathetic to fascists and are more concerned with trump destroying the economy though pointless trade war than they are about literal concentration camps.

hh

People care about what impacts them, not just what they see. It's why topics like immigration, foreign abuses of human rights, or even minority rights issues become quagmired if a huge political bloc says "Ain't me, I don't give a ****". Meanwhile stuff like economics, trade wars, tariffs, imports-exports, infrastructure (to an extent), healthcare and welfare become huge ride-or-die issues.

 

[Berzerker]

Sounds like the invisible hand to me.

Indeed... Thats one way to drive corporate money out of politics