Can Our Democracy Survive This?

[_beastie]

stormfront nonsense

[_Doctor CamNC4Me]

This is too funny. I was going to respond to beastie's post suggesting the Left use dank memes to get their point across and to communicate a position because most people are potatoes. Looks like Majax is smellin' what the Doc is cookin'!

I told ya, beastie. The Alt Right figured this out. Majax is living proof of communicating positions, not discussing ideas to any reasonable degree.

- Doc

[_Brackite]

I think it's not working because of the backfire effect. So do more of what hasn't worked? (Here I have to qualify that it may have worked on a level playing field, but it hasn’t worked with the electoral college and the move towards state-level control and gerrymandering that the republicans have mastered the last decade)

As regards to the electoral college, the bit of good news for the Democrats is that Arizona here is starting to turn purple. The GOP Nominee this year did not win Arizona by as much as the GOP Nominee did in this state back in 2000, 2004, 2008, and in 2012. Link
With Trump becoming President instead of Clinton, the Democrats have a much better chance of retaking the House of Representatives either in 2018 or in 2020.

[Guest]

Simply presenting reasoned and logical arguments doesn't dissuade people from erroneous beliefs....

Haidt makes the same argument in Righteous Mind. There's the elephant (intuition, feelings, subconscious processes) and the rider (how we rationalize and consciously try to reason). So the republicans have figured out how to appeal to the elephant, and democrats are busy talking to the rider. It isn't working, with the current constraints of our political system.

I will say that the one “elephant whisperer” that liberals have going for them is Hollywood. Movies, TV shows are our myths that speak deeply to our hearts. Republicans recognize the power of Hollywood and that’s why they vilify them. in my opinion, Hollywood made a significant different in the battle for LGBTQ rights, for example.

I don’t know what the answer is. All I know is that I’m deeply concerned that the factors I outlined in my OP have significantly, and probably permanently, changed the playing field. Those who support liberal ideas have to find a way to play on that new field.

I think we generally agree on the core ideas. Democracy is being challenged. The two things you point out in the OP are real concerns. We need to consider how to appeal to peoples emotions to build support for democratic values.

Where I feel concern is that there is a real possibility of losing the war in the attempt to win battles. At the heart of this are values, not just outcomes. In a sense, part of the failing of Clinton was that so many who might have voted for her but didn't saw her pragmatism as being unprincipled. Why? That's a tough question and I'd argue in part is comes from legitimate concern about, say, Clinton dealings with the women who were hurt by Bill's infidelity and her choosing to side with her husband.

But I don't think we can say the left is not guided by emotion right now. So what we are saying is the message needs to be refined, the messengers cloaked in ways that are not based on pragmatism but idealism. I think President Obama is a mild version of something I feel bedevils the progressive and liberal side of the American political structure. President Obama was a messenger people could buy into, not because of what he had done but because of what he said and how he said it. The right attacked him for being a messianic figure to the left, and that attack took hold because it has some merit. There is some evidence he was fairly pragmatic as a President, bordering on being a central moderate on most issues and hardly a strongly progressive leader. Yet most progressives would vote him a third term if possible. Why? I'd bet dollars to donuts it's because of narrative rather than reality. The narrative: He's not leading as he'd choose to because of a republican house and senate. Revealing that it isn't logic that is leading left-leaning voter TODAY. How many said they'd vote for Michelle Obama because she gave a few very good speeches?

The left isn't logical, either, and isn't running campaigns based on values. The left isn't pragmatic or more reasonable than the right. Both sides are being challenged by the rise of poorly informed, emotion-driven voters. And both threaten democratic values because neither is committed to them. Those committed to democratic values must discover at some point that both the left and right, in a deeply logical way, want the same things but disagree on how best to achieve them. The authoritarianism of Trump is a very real concern to both sides. But so is the backlash that is anti-democratic at heart.

Is it wrong to believe that the values and commitments to seeing each woman and man as being a capable agent rather than needing to be lead by Church, Nation, or Philosopher King because they are too base to govern even their own lives is what made western democracy possible? And the belief that the ideas of one side is so superior that the defense of these ideas justifies treating people as being unworthy of their own agency is to lose the war?

[_honorentheos]

I do agree that it's dangerous. I just don't know what else liberals can do, other than bunker down and prepare for the worst

Said the guy who makes six figures and lives paycheck to paycheck, and whose fear of others comes from wanting to be able to work less. Remember admitting that, Ajax? That at it's core, you are mad because you didn't get to be a trust fund kiddie?

[_beastie]

Said the guy who makes six figures and lives paycheck to paycheck, and whose fear of others comes from wanting to be able to work less. Remember admitting that, Ajax? That at it's core, you are mad because you didn't get to be a trust fund kiddie?

If I recall correctly, he is also mad that he once tried to get government assistance (was it when he was going to school? don't remember) and didn't qualify. He felt like the government was discriminating against him because he was a single white man.

[_beastie]

I found that particular discussion from 2012.

Just because you don't believe in socialism and you don't vote for it doesn't mean you don't have to pay for it. If I were not responsible for the taxes than maybe Beastie would have a point. But as long as I have to pay I believe I have as much right as anyone else to help. Of course that is hypothetical and even when I desperately needed it I was never eligible. Real world socialism is not even close to fair and I can share with you 1000s of cases of people who get things they don't deserve and people who should have been helped but were not. For those of us who socialism does not smile upon, don't be surprised when we say at the polls we'd rather take our chances wth the market.

viewtopic.php?p=631607#p631607

[_Doctor CamNC4Me]

From the link:

A vietnam veteran was denied disability even though he had lost his leg at the hip in battle. Military pensions apparently did not contain a cost of living increase and his pension was now little more than $250/month. No help from the welfare office, even when he showed a copious number of deskjobs he'd applied for unsuccessfully.

If the veteran has a condition due to a service-related disability it's covered fully. So Majax is either uninformed, lying, or the vet he's speaking of can't be bothered to go to the VA to get the treatment he earned. The veteran can appeal any decisions made by the VA, and has a right to be seen by a medical doctor at the VA's expense throughout the appellate process.

Also, a service-related disability pay does, indeed, receive a cost of living adjustment.

But, let's say the vet is roundly the subject of discrimination there are veteran service organizations that will link him up with pro-bono lawyers to sue the ever living crap out of the VA.

That said, Majax himself opted out of the insurance. That was his choice. He gambled and he lost. So, I'm not sure what he's griping about? Market forces, of which he fully supports apparently, dictated the cost of his care. He should be crapping himself with glee that he was a part of the market economy. What's the problem?

- Doc

[_Jersey Girl]

From the link:

A vietnam veteran was denied disability even though he had lost his leg at the hip in battle. Military pensions apparently did not contain a cost of living increase and his pension was now little more than $250/month. No help from the welfare office, even when he showed a copious number of deskjobs he'd applied for unsuccessfully.

If the veteran has a condition due to a service-related disability it's covered fully. So Majax is either uninformed, lying, or the vet he's speaking of can't be bothered to go to the VA to get the treatment he earned. The veteran can appeal any decisions made by the VA, and has a right to be seen by a medical doctor at the VA's expense throughout the appellate process.

Also, a service-related disability pay does, indeed, receive a cost of living adjustment.

But, let's say the vet is roundly the subject of discrimination there are veteran service organizations that will link him up with pro-bono lawyers to sue the ever living crap out of the VA.

That said, Majax himself opted out of the insurance. That was his choice. He gambled and he lost. So, I'm not sure what he's griping about? Market forces, of which he fully supports apparently, dictated the cost of his care. He should be crapping himself with glee that he was a part of the market economy. What's the problem?

- Doc

I can testify to two things in the above.

Majax is either repeating something that someone else told him or he's making it up, because he hasn't got a clue how the VA or service connected disabilities work. I assume he spent no time in service and doesn't really know anyone else who did, much less has he talked directly to a disabled vet.


Cam: Everything Cam said is exactly the truth. Everything.

[_Chap]

Majax is either repeating something that someone else told him or he's making it up, because he hasn't got a clue how the VA or service connected disabilities work.

Oh! I am shocked and surprised to hear this!

How can this be? Majax is sooo careful never to post anything he can't back up. And if, at rare intervals, he commits some slight inaccuracy, he always steps up to the plate and corrects himself.

I mean, it's not as if he just posts random stuff he finds off some alt-right blog simply because he likes the sound of it, is it?