clairecloutier
Well-Known Member
- Messages
- 11,093
Carry on ...
I think McConnell totally knew what he was doing. The rules have changed and we liberals haven't accepted it yet. McConnell made Warren look weak. All the bleating we do in the media isn't going to remediate that. Tearing someone down in the media - like liberals are doing to McConnell - is a play under the old rule book. In the current rule book, strength is important.
I think Warren is done. That move finished her as a Democrat party leader.
You say that like all votes are exactly the same and all voted for the same reason. Plus, your arguments assume that the majority of the country agrees with Trump somehow even though he lost the popular vote, won the EC by an extremely small margin, and had help from both Comey and Russia.@MacMadame So voters do in fact care about how the U.S. will operate on the world stage and about things beyond what affects them personally?? You're talking about the electorate that just elected Donald Trump!
Telling people who mostly agree with you that they are the liberal elite and it's all their fault that Trump is in office is neither true nor helpful.
As the world’s attention was occupied with the chaotic implementation of the travel ban and its dramatic domestic and international impacts, the Trump administration and the Department of Homeland Security has quietly moved forward with elements of the earlier executive orders, according to internal communications obtained by The Intercept.
Trumps orders on border security and public safety in the interior of the U.S. resurrect some of the most controversial immigration enforcement programs of recent years, seek to deputize state and local law enforcement as immigration officials across the country, and threaten major cuts to federal funding for cities that fail to fall in line with the administration’s vision.
Trump has called for the construction of new immigrant detention facilities along the U.S. border with Mexico — including through private contracts — as quickly as possible. Trump has also directed DHS to “allocate all legally available resources to immediately assign asylum officers to immigration detention facilities” for the purpose of conducting so-called credible fear hearings for asylum seekers. According to internal DHS communications obtained by The Intercept, this latter step is already underway.
You're mischaracterizing what I said. In any case, I don't really want to, and shouldn't, get into arguments with other Democrats. But OTOH, I do believe that the party's only hope of success lies in rejecting the technocratic, neoliberal, Davos-class philosophical approach that has driven the party over the last 25 years. So I guess I will continue arguing that.
“The middle class, the working men and women in the world . . . are just tired of being dictated to by what we call the party of Davos,” Bannon said in a 2014 speech to a conference at the Vatican in a recording obtained by BuzzFeed.
Bannon’s readings tend to have one thing in common: the view that technocrats have put Western civilization on a downward trajectory and that only a shock to the system can reverse its decline. And they tend to have a dark, apocalyptic tone that at times echoes Bannon’s own public remarks over the years—a sense that humanity is at a hinge point in history. His ascendant presence in the West Wing is giving once-obscure intellectuals unexpected influence over the highest echelons of government.
“The central thing that binds [the revolt] all together is a center-right populist movement of really the middle class, the working men and women in the world who are just tired of being dictated to by what we call the party of Davos,” said Bannon, referring to to the Swiss town where the World Economic Forum holds annual gatherings. “A group of … people in New York that feel closer to people in London and in Berlin than they do to people in Kansas and in Colorado, and they have more of this elite mentality that they’re going to dictate to everybody how the world’s going to be run.”
I think cucks is used for mainstream republicans.
NPR had a story on last night about working class Russians and why they stood by Putin - they wanted to be respected, even if that meant financial hardship. Maybe there is some element of that here too.
Yup. They are trying to set up a complete corporate takeover of our country.It always comes back to privatization, cronyism and exploitation for the GOP and top 1%. They're going to take money allocated for other programs and move the money to their buddies in the private sector.
@jeffisjeff I guess I'm supposed to be insulted at being compared to Bannon. Just because we may see some of the same trends doesn't mean we reach the same conclusion. LOL.
I never said anything about the conclusions you reach. And, my goal was not to insult. If I wanted to insult, I could use name-calling. Instead, I have just been trying to point out that this repeated name-calling (liberal elites, Davos-class, etc.) is not helpful because these names reinforce stereotypes promoted by the right-wing, of which Bannon is just one example, and are divisive.
Yes to this, but more. My point is that people are talking from within the framing that got us here in the first place. Now, we could win some battles doing that but if we're going to get somewhere in the long-term and do more than constantly battle back and forth between left and right, its going to require abandoning the old framing that has served the right so well.
No one has figured this out yet and I don't think its something that happens by implementing a strategy. Its more organic.
Right now I feel like what we are seeing at least superficially is just a hardening of divisions. I have no idea how we get beyond this.
I never said anything about the conclusions you reach. And, my goal was not to insult. If I wanted to insult, I could use name-calling. Instead, I have just been trying to point out that this repeated name-calling (liberal elites, Davos-class, etc.) is not helpful because these names reinforce stereotypes promoted by the right-wing, of which Bannon is just one example, and are divisive.
I feel like I'm roughly a member of the liberal elite--college-educated, live on the coast, raised in reasonable safety/comfort, decent income, whatever. Am I upset by criticisms of the liberal elite? No. We have issues. We have not understood other people's lives. I know I haven't at times.
^^ I guess we will just have to agree to disagree. We are just completely not understanding each other, I think.
I think it also pertains to adopting more trade protectionist policies - thus the reference to Davos.
Vash, I noticed that your favourite chocolates are from See's. Just FYI, they apparently advertise during The Apprentice. Not saying to ban or not, that depends on people's own parameters. For myself, I figure me not watching the show will cause sponsors to leave. And I still watch other nbc shows, like This is Us.
I know, it sucks to hear! As a Canadian, I don't get See's but my cousin always buys me and my dad the chocolate suckers. OMG, love.
It seems to me there are differences in the Democratic Party among those who want a more overtly socialist policy such as single payer and college for everyone (what Bernie advocated) and those who favor more of the Obama approach. I'm not sure why policy disagreements are subsumed under messaging arguments. If the Democrats should more overtly be saying that corporations need to be reigned in and back it up with refusing to take corporate money, none of that needs language about a "liberal elite," does it? I'm not really sure what "liberal technocrats" even means but isn't the point from the left that what is needed is for the Democrats not to raise money from Wall Street and instead to be more anti-corporate?
And definitely those who are pro open trade, need to be able to frame that in a way that shows that we can have open trade without it being skewed by the political power of the wealthy and corporations (such as are represented at Davos) to prioritize their interests over the 99%.