- cross-posted to:
- historymemes@lemmy.ml
- cross-posted to:
- historymemes@lemmy.ml
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What’s savery
Also called Umami, it’s one of the 5 basic flavors, along with salty, bitter, sweet, and sour.
Savory slavery
Yes, there were people who were anti-slavery for moral reasons.
Let’s not forget that there were plenty of people who thought that Africans were inferior who wanted slavery ended for economic reasons.
A slaveowner would rent out his slaves to do work for less money than any free man. Many slaveowners would bring skilled workers over from Europe and pay them for their jobs, and also to train some slaves. After the master carpenter moved on, the slaveowner had a dozen carpenters on his plantation. When they weren’t working for him, he’d rent them out. That meant that it was impossible for any local carpenters to earn a living.
Which is why I expect to see unions fighting for prison labor reform.
The Republican party pledged to fight the “twin relics of barbarism”: slavery and polygamy
Ironic that Mormons now overwhelmingly vote Republican
What beef did they have with polygamy?
And clowns today will tell you that a third party is doomed to fail because of the scawy two party system and first past the post.
FPTP ultimately results in a two-party system. That doesn’t mean it’s a two-party system 100% of the time. If a party truly screws up, that party can die and be replaced. You’ll still end up with two parties for the vast majority of the elections.
And that’s exactly what happened. Reality lines up with the math.
Yeah that’s what I’m trying to say. It’s what I call the two-party fallacy.
Where the fallacy
The idea that just because FPTP mathematically guarantees a two-party system third parties can never succeed under it, usually invoked to get out of having to consider making a third party as a viable solution to the chokehold the establishment has on American politics and more recently Trumpian fascism.
The math says I can’t fly, so I discount that as an escape route.
I’m serious. 30% of voters self identify as Republicans. 30% more as Democrats. These people aren’t thinking. They vote their party because daddy voted that party. Just look at how few people change their party affiliation. https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2020/08/04/voters-rarely-switch-parties-but-recent-shifts-further-educational-racial-divergence/
So any 3rd party would have to capture literally everyone else to be viable. And that’s from both extreme ends of the spectrum as well as the middle. Those people who actually think about politics and consider who is running and might change.
It’s literally impossible. You’d have more luck doing what the tea party did. Get a chunk of people then invade the Republican party.
The math says I can’t fly, so I discount that as an escape route.
As you literally said yourself, third parties can still succeed in a two-party system if they can cannibalize one of the two major parties.
These people aren’t thinking. They vote their party because daddy voted that party. Just look at how few people change their party affiliation.
Huh? The article says more than 10% changed party affiliation in less than two years. That’s not “few”, that’s a lot. It’s proof people are, to some extent, thinking about their party affiliation.
But the third party can’t win, that’s my point.
Maybe I don’t understand, but I feel like the tea party wasted years being outside the Republicans. Once they got inside they were able to change things. So why follow in their failures? Why not jump right to their success?
10% is very low, is my point.
The success of the Republican Party was only possible due to the fact that the Whigs had already crashed and burned, though.
gestures broadly at Democrats
Electorally crashed and burned. Though if you want to start replacing the current two-party system with a new two-party system, now would be a great time to get the gears moving.
Unfortunately, the person best positioned to do that, Bernie Sanders, is also the person least likely to do that. He’s rallying people right now, which is good, but I have no idea what for, and I’m not sure he does, either.
Yes, but the Republicans had been active during the crashing and burning of the Whigs and that’s why they were as successful as they were. The only reason the DNC isn’t crashing and burning is because progressives don’t want to challenge its increasingly flimsy claim to political legitimacy, but the necessary conditions are already there.
What issue is there, though, which would create a different coalition than the one already-present in the form of the Democratic Party?
I have to say: That is a really good question. It seems obvious, but it’s probably the most productive I’ve seen around here in a while. Anyway for the actual answer:
Well there are quite a few, but they all go under the two broad categories of progressive policy and spine. Promise a strong leadership willing to fight for democracy, minorities and the working class*, with clear examples of what the Democrats didn’t do that you plan to do and some real accomplishments to back these plans up, and you just might be able to get back the Obama coalition (which, to be clear, either has already collapsed or is collapsing; the modern Democrats don’t get to claim it). Additionally make sure your policies focus on working class people and minorities** and actively fight for them—both in Congress and in the media—and there, you have yourself a new party with a new identity, a new platform and a new coalition capable of contesting elections in ways the current DNC can’t.
*You need all three for this to work; in my view the DNC’s mistake was mostly abandoning the working class, which destroyed the trifecta.
**The Democrats also target these people, but they mostly take them for granted with their main audience being white college educated liberals.
I don’t really think that there’s a clear coalition that’s different enough to warrant the massive undertaking (and it is a massive undertaking) of trying to start a new party from scratch.
To go for a more progressive coalition - and make no mistake, a more progressive coalition is most popular with white college educated liberals, not minorities - does not seem to have a strong argument for itself considering that even as it stands now, most Dem voters want the party to either remain as is, or become more right-wing. Vile as that is.
In the media, as opposed to amongst political junkies like us, the Dems are already strongly associated with minority issues, and it is overwhelmingly not minorities which have failed to turn out in recent elections for Dems, but white middle and working class voters. Minorities, including in the most recent election, have been the staunchest supporters of the Dems and their most reliable voting bloc both in terms of turnout and in the terms of percentage of the vote gained. The Dems, for that matter, abandoned the working class in the 90s, it’s true, but despite moving back towards a more pro-labor position in the 30 years since, has not meaningfully regained working-class votes. This is not purely a Dem issue - all across the developed world, pro-worker policies and worker support have been increasingly decoupled from electoral results.
The sad truth is that I don’t know that there is a solution, in terms of forging or rebalancing current coalitions. IF, and I would like to emphasize that this is a very uncomfortable if, we still have free and fair elections in the coming years, I don’t think that there is a different coalition possible that would put us in a place better, polling-wise, than the margin-of-error victories we’ve had the past decade-and-a-half.
The promise of strong leadership is a nice idea, but the issue is twofold here - first, that, if the primary issue is lack of strong leadership in a party, that is still generally less of a disadvantage than building the vast political apparatus in a country of our size for a nationally-viable party from scratch. Second, that guaranteeing strong leadership is nearly impossible - the ability to convince people you’re a strong leader, and the ability to lead well, have very little overlap and very few ways to discern the difference until they’re already in the driver’s-seat and returning results of one sort or another.
Please don’t mistake this as me saying that there cannot be a third-party movement which has some form of success. Both third-parties as a threat/negotiating tactics, and third-parties as a potential replacement for one of the two parties, are viable options to work at, at this point in time. But at the end of the day, I think the most viable option is to do what the Tea Party did to the GOP. Leadership is fragile. Easily replaced. Organized and motivated, beyond a simple voicing of grievances or enthusiasm for a single candidate, factions can take over and steer the parties to which they belong. But it requires patience and sustained activity, neither of which the lynchpin of non-moderate voters in the Dem Party, young voters, are good at. It took the Tea Party 6 years to overtake the old guard of the GOP, and even then it was a near-run thing. And only now, some 15 years later, is the takeover complete.
The Dems must move left - for the good of the country. But moving left will also not deliver the Dems electoral success. We can and should perform that takeover, but it also should be understood that a suddenly-progressive full-throated Dem Party will not result in a string of clear victories. The voters most in need of convincing, and most capable of being convinced, white working and middle-class voters (and increasingly, Hispanic voters of the same economic positions whose voting patterns become more similar with white voters every passing year), simply are not going to respond to sound left-wing economic policy. Nor, for that matter, will they respond much to sound or unsound right-wing economic policy. They only listen to promises, in the form of sound-bites, and only offer support or opposition insofar as the vagaries of their own economic situations allow for it - as filtered through their favorite news org, of course. Since news orgs get more views from FUD than rational analysis or positivity, and since people are notoriously bad at judging trends and time, it will almost always be a backlash against whatever policy was most recently implemented. And since it is much easier to tear things down and sabotage them than to implement them, this almost always benefits conservatives.
Until that fundamental civic detachment is fixed, no amount of new coalitions, candidates, or parties will bring the American left reliable electoral victory, beyond the fucking coin flip that the Dem Party offers now. And to spit out a lot of blood, sweat, and tears just to end up at Square 1 will disillusion a lot of the folks involved in it.
Wow that’s a lot.
To go for a more progressive coalition - and make no mistake, a more progressive coalition is most popular with white college educated liberals, not minorities - does not seem to have a strong argument for itself considering that even as it stands now, most Dem voters want the party to either remain as is, or become more right-wing. Vile as that is.
Are you sure about that? If that’s true then American democracy is frankly hopeless, but the only evidence I’ve seen for these claims is Democrat leadership statements that I haven’t seen backed up by evidence. From what I know progressive policies polled without being explicitly labeled as such tend to get broad support from all demographics and across the political spectrum. For example here’s a poll about universal healthcare. That aside there’s no need to restrict your sight to Dem voters when you’re trying to build a new party; you can go after independents, non-voters and even Republicans if doing that won’t dilute your platform.
In the media, as opposed to amongst political junkies like us, the Dems are already strongly associated with minority issues,
Among white people, not among minorities themselves. That’s why I kept using the word “fight”; the DNC is pro-minorities but lacks the spine and economic policy to actually do any good for them.
and it is overwhelmingly not minorities which have failed to turn out in recent elections for Dems, but white middle and working class voters.
Many of those are dedicated Republican voters who should be excluded from the calculation entirely. If you’ll go after those voters, it should be exclusively through media efforts without compromising on your core platform, because otherwise you’ll repeat the same mistake as the Dems.
Minorities, including in the most recent election, have been the staunchest supporters of the Dems and their most reliable voting bloc both in terms of turnout and in the terms of percentage of the vote gained.
Yes, but Dem support among minorities has been falling and falling hard.
The promise of strong leadership is a nice idea, but the issue is twofold here - first, that, if the primary issue is lack of strong leadership in a party, that is still generally less of a disadvantage than building the vast political apparatus in a country of our size for a nationally-viable party from scratch.
If that was the only problem then maybe, but the issue is the triple whammy of Dem leadership: Their economic policy is horrible, they lack the spine to do much of anything and they’ll fight you to the death if you try to change that. Any one—or even two—of these alone would’ve been solvable, but with all three it’s easier to just start from scratch. The the pre-existent party apparatus and brand recognition are very attractive, but the price you’ll pay is a bunch of gerontocrats who will keep demanding concessions so they keep you in the party and giving absolutely nothing in return, which among other things will lose you legitimacy with your base (see: Bernie and AOC) while dampening the speed of expansion of both your political base and footprint within the party. Hell, if they’re successful they just might be able to take enough of you to their side to permanently cripple your movement.
Second, that guaranteeing strong leadership is nearly impossible - the ability to convince people you’re a strong leader, and the ability to lead well, have very little overlap and very few ways to discern the difference until they’re already in the driver’s-seat and returning results of one sort or another.
It’s very easy to provide stronger leadership than the DNC. I mean they passed that godawful budget how many days ago? Just not playing yourself in favor of the enemy is enough for a start, and most sane people should be able to guarantee that. Also you should be producing results through the process of building up your base since you won’t win the whole government all at once. That’s what I meant by saying that trying to take over the DNC will lose you legitimacy with your base; the process of achieving national recognition should give you enough of a track record for people to know what kind of operation you’re running.
Aaand I hit the character limit so I’ll reply to myself with the rest of this.
Are you sure about that? If that’s true then American democracy is frankly hopeless, but the only evidence I’ve seen for these claims is Democrat leadership statements that I haven’t seen backed up by evidence.
https://news.gallup.com/poll/656636/democrats-favor-party-moderation-past.aspx
From what I know progressive policies polled without being explicitly labeled as such tend to get broad support from all demographics and across the political spectrum. For example here’s a poll about universal healthcare.
Which should point out how useless polling on policy is for predicting electoral support. People will say they support a policy, but the moment it’s actually proposed, find some little detail to justify to themselves why they shouldn’t support it when it could actually happen.
Sadly, this is why party support is far more useful for predicting electoral results. Including of ballot initiatives.
That aside there’s no need to restrict your sight to Dem voters when you’re trying to build a new party; you can go after independents, non-voters and even Republicans if doing that won’t dilute your platform.
Dems form the leftmost demographic of the American electorate. And polls of independents continually and repeatedly confirm that.
You’re not going to get better numbers for progressive policy looking outside of the Dem Party. If your view is that a progressive party is the way forward, and can attract a large number of people, to the point of challenging the current two-party system, you have to square that with the facts, which would seem difficult.
Among white people, not among minorities themselves.
Would you be open to evidence challenging this?
Many of those are dedicated Republican voters who should be excluded from the calculation entirely. If you’ll go after those voters, it should be exclusively through media efforts without compromising on your core platform, because otherwise you’ll repeat the same mistake as the Dems.
I’m not saying we should ‘go after’ those voters. I’m saying those are primarily the votes the Dems have lost in the past ~30 years.
Yes, but Dem support among minorities has been falling and falling hard.
Yet as pointed out by your own source, 2020 had some of the strongest Black support on record for the Dems. You point to a systemic problem inherent in the basis of the party itself. If so, we should see a decline from whenever you think is most appropriate to peg the main change at; instead, we see a sharp drop without movement towards the problems you point as plaguing the party (correctly point at as plaguing, in my opinion, but incorrectly weighting their importance), and, indeed, despite moving left considerably in the past ten years thanks to the influence of Bernie and Berniecrats.
The the pre-existent party apparatus and brand recognition are very attractive, but the price you’ll pay is a bunch of gerontocrats who will keep demanding concessions so they keep you in the party and giving absolutely nothing in return, which among other things will lose you legitimacy with your base (see: Bernie and AOC) while dampening the speed of expansion of both your political base and footprint within the party.
Considering that the DSA rescinded its endorsement of AOC over [checks notes] acknowledging antisemitism, and that Bernie’s reputation was strong for some 30 years, I’m gonna go and hazard that the machinations of The Party™ are not the primary culprit here.
It’s very easy to provide stronger leadership than the DNC. I mean they passed that godawful budget how many days ago? Just not playing yourself in favor of the enemy is enough for a start, and most sane people should be able to guarantee that.
God, if only getting and keeping sane people in leadership was that easy.
We absolutely need a massacre (metaphorically, for the sake of my personal FBI Agent) of Dem leadership, but whether starting from a clean slate entirely, or trying to revitalize the Dem Party, there’s no way to guarantee good leadership will replace them.
Also you should be producing results through the process of building up your base since you won’t win the whole government all at once. That’s what I meant by saying that trying to take over the DNC will lose you legitimacy with your base; the process of achieving national recognition should give you enough of a track record for people to know what kind of operation you’re running.
That’s not how Americans vote or how they recognize success, man. If it was, our situation would be considerably easier.
Please don’t mistake this as me saying that there cannot be a third-party movement which has some form of success. Both third-parties as a threat/negotiating tactics, and third-parties as a potential replacement for one of the two parties, are viable options to work at, at this point in time. But at the end of the day, I think the most viable option is to do what the Tea Party did to the GOP. Leadership is fragile. Easily replaced. Organized and motivated, beyond a simple voicing of grievances or enthusiasm for a single candidate, factions can take over and steer the parties to which they belong. But it requires patience and sustained activity, neither of which the lynchpin of non-moderate voters in the Dem Party, young voters, are good at. It took the Tea Party 6 years to overtake the old guard of the GOP, and even then it was a near-run thing. And only now, some 15 years later, is the takeover complete.
An internal takeover—if possible—would be ideal, yes. However, the reason the Tea Party was so successful was because the GOP was open to change and the Tea Party had billionaire money behind them. Taking over a party that’s hostile to change without near-infinite money is a whole different beast. The inability of young voters to patiently and sustainably act themselves out of a paper bag is also a big problem, but I’d say part of that is lack of enthusiasm with the political system. Rather than the Tea Party I’ll talk MAGA because frankly I was way too young to know anything politics during the age of the tea party. The left’s equivalent of Trump is/was Bernie, but let’s face it: Is Bernie far to the left as Trump is far to the right? Bernie’s tendency to fall in with the establishment heavily contrasts with Trump’s willingness to say screw the establishment and say whatever he wants about whoever he wants. Now if I’m wrong and young voters are indeed incapable of patient and sustained activity even with strong leadership (which Bernie has been trying to be but is not), then America is screwed either way because moderates can’t fight fascism.
They only listen to promises, in the form of sound-bites, and only offer support or opposition insofar as the vagaries of their own economic situations allow for it - as filtered through their favorite news org, of course.
Very true, so make those promises. Say you’ll make healthcare and energy dirt cheap, tax the rich and give that money to the poor and middle class, expand social welfare, make it so people won’t need expensive cars to get around, etc etc. The right will hate your guts for it, but giving a shit about what the right thinks is a recipe for failure.
Until that fundamental civic detachment is fixed, no amount of new coalitions, candidates, or parties will bring the American left reliable electoral victory, beyond the fucking coin flip that the Dem Party offers now. And to spit out a lot of blood, sweat, and tears just to end up at Square 1 will disillusion a lot of the folks involved in it.
Yeah absolutely. I guess my fundamental assumption going into this is that civic detachment can be fixed by the knowledge that politics is important and can do good things for you rather than being a slew of lesser evils who promise to screw you slightly less than the other guy. I mean it works the other way so maybe?
We can start talking broadly about third parties in the general election when more of them start winning local and state elections. How many progressives are in Congress? State Governors? State Congress? I’ve checked, it’s not a lot. When that number gets much bigger, people will take them more seriously and consider them for higher office. This Jill Stein coming out of the woodwork every 4 years nonsense ain’t it.
What kind of cicada is Jill Stein?
The kind that grows in Russia
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/guess-who-came-dinner-flynn-putin-n742696
!We can start talking broadly about third parties in the general election when more of them start winning local and state elections.
Yeah that’s true. My remark extends to those elections as well, not just the presidential election. If there’s an effort by third parties to win any of those elections (edit: beyond business as usual), I definitely haven’t heard of it.
Savery is bad
I disagree, it’s my favorite of the taste sensations
Though umami is a close second
“Wrong, I deserve to own other human beings!”
-Pieces of shit
Since then it looks like the Republicans became Democrats and Democrats became Whigs.
Get in loser, we’re starting a new party
