Peter's hair is ****ing amazing

Galfond seems to have won his first challenge and I need to write 1k words on my Marxist reading of Jesus Christ Superstar.

What a world.

Last month was the first March since 2002 without a school shooting.

I'm guessing the careful wording means that it wasn't the first month since 2002, but still seemed noteworthy.

I know I've said bad things about the Daily Mail in the past, but it really is the best place to go for all the hot I, Claudius-related gossip. Apparently Derek Jacobi is thirsty to be in a Star War.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbi...rs-movies.html

Oh Sir John Hurt, your scheming always gets the better of Sir Derek Jacobi!

Random drunk thoughts: one thing I definitely didn't see coming in US politics was people of the (online?) left adopting terms referring to "identity politics" as a pejorative.

Although I suppose I've read at least a few Marxist critiques thereof in the past, and even thought they had some validity?!

Last month was the first march without a school shooting in the states since 2002

Testicles May Make Men More Vulnerable To Coronavirus: Study

You hate to see it

If you mean progressive types, I think they (we ?) tend to be more populist.

The neoliberals liked to make much of the identity politics as cover for them advancing the corporate agenda.

Speaking of which, there's a guy who thinks he's better than me that's supposed to meet me here and tell me why.

As a rule, your DRUNK thoughts might be more coherent than most of my SOBER thoughts. (I don't drink, so ALL of my posts are written while sober. Scary, huh?)

I think this frames a normal aspect of democratic politics as somehow illegitimate. Many mainstream liberal Democrats reject socialist and other leftwing economic policies. However, they agree with leftists about social justice issues. Thus, it isn't surprising that liberals would emphasize this agreement (rather than the areas of disagreement) when asking for the votes of leftwing voters. Leftwing politicians do the same thing when asking for the votes of liberals, ask for their support by emphasizing areas of agreement, again often around identity politics issues. For instance, a leftwing politician like Warren will appeal for the votes of liberals with less leftwing economic views by emphasizing her views on social justice, where they are more likely to agree. Only political leaders uninterested in building a coalition focus on the areas of disagreement.

I agree. There are many who refer to themselves as 'mainstream' who are, in reality far right. Since that's an illegitimate way to represent the majority of Americans I don't mind framing it that way. There's already a right wing party for those people to join if they are so inclined.

We need a center left party badly. Being ruled by two wings of the same party isn't working.

no they dont. they dont want to mix with minorities. they dont want them coming "into our neighborhoods and schools."

they just want to chastise people for saying the n word.

they dont want to provide health care and a social safety net for trans people. they want to just say the names of murdered trans people at campaign events and then forget about them.

Not sure how it's illegitimate. You give centists an amazing passivity. They're just out there trying to coalition build. Sure they disagree with leftists, but that is. Do centrists actually have enconomic programs that they want to push? Do they want to make sure those programs get enacted rather than leftists programs? If that's the case wouldn't they try and find ways to delegitimize leftist economic ideas? That centrists sometimes use social justice as a cudgel against left wing ideas doesn't really seem to be in dispute



https://www.rollingstone.com/politic...ination-40504/

On and on.....

As far as "bringing up the points that centrists and leftists agree on" that's a pretty standard rhetorical ji jisu movie. Say that you both have the same goal, but X method won't help get you to that goal, Y method will. Milton Friedman was a master of this bad faith concern and a lot of ACists and Republicans use it quite regularly. "If you want to help the poor the best thing you can do is cut onerous regulation", etc.

So I don't think saying that centrists use social justice as a cover for centrist economic ideas is so far fetched.

https://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/2...alism-1745377/
As WN suggests, we've come a long way in this forum in a short time.
Now we need to understand that there isn't really such a thing as centrism.

I'm not sure we're on the same page. I'm not claiming mainstream Democrats are passive or don't have an economic views - quite the opposite as I tend to agree with their views. Obviously there are fights in the party between different factions (duh). But, when appealing to voters, politicians from different factions will emphasize what they think is most attractive about their candidacy. Bernie will talk about big banks and get more of the voters worried about the power of big banks. Hillary is going to emphasize the danger of racism and so get voters more worried about racism. So of course she will try to elevate the relative importance of racism and the danger of the GOP. Of course Bernie will try to elevate the relative importance of combating big business and banks. This doesn't mean they are pushing these popular ideas as a cover for their less popular ones in some nefarious way. Rather, it means they are normal politicians trying to win over voters by making their best case for themselves.

This isn't a counterargument, it is an attempt to inoculate people from taking my argument seriously. Oh noes, conservatives use rhetorical method x, so any argument that uses rhetorical method x is bad because it is associated with bad people. If you think I'm arguing in bad faith, just say so directly so I can attempt to reassure you that I'm not.

I do find it a weird tic when people highlight the tactics of the most successful rhetoricians among their political opponent as something to avoid.

Is it your view that the centrist politicians and the voters they represent don't actually believe or care about the social justice claims that they putatively hold in common with more economically leftwing politicians and voters? Remember, I'm referring to RFlushDiamonds understanding of "neoliberal," so I'm talking about eg Hillary, Biden, Obama, Pelosi, Booker, Schumer, etc. Because to my ear saying that social justice is a cover for something else implies that it isn't a genuine goal, but more a mask covering what is really going on. If this isn't your view, then I'll just say that I think the framing is misleading. If this is your view, then I would say I disagree and pointing to politicians emphasizing their areas of agreement with voters tells us nothing about which of us is correct.

I'm not sure what you're agreeing with here. I'm aware that the linear right/left scale you use to measure politicians is skewed to the left relative to conventional American usage. As such, you struggle to distinguish between American politicians and political ideologies on the issues that most concern voters. Like many leftists, you wish there was a powerful American political party that more closely aligns with your own beliefs. That's fine, I have no desire for that, but I don't have your political philosophy either.

I don't really care about your view of Democratic politicians. As best as I can tell, your primary goal here is to insult and degrade liberals, so I assume your advocacy of a position is motivated less by a concern for accuracy than whether you think it causes liberals who read it to feel negative emotions.

It isn't to democratize the workplace, nationalize the banks, nearly empty the prisons, and bring home all of the troops to usher in a free society of parecon?

The kinds of things actual socialists actually talk about?

Sure, I'm not generalizing from Victor to all socialists. I know and talk to many socialists that treat me and other people with whom they disagree with respect. And his attitude doesn't mean that I think Victor's leftwing beliefs aren't genuine. I just view our conversational goals as too divergent for most conversations to be useful. And of course, I might be wrong about Victor's primary goal here.

The people who want to talk about those things will presumably talk about those things, not write dozens of posts telling people that they actually believe.

I agreed with your observation of my framing.
But if you don't want me to agree with you I'll take it back.

Anyway, it's really not about me. It's about the country as a whole and what's good for the vast majority of Americans.

My beliefs are random and malleable. It would be stupid run a country based on them. But it's easy to see what works and what doesn't if you get your head out of your azz long enough to look around.

Foisting demented old Joe on America isn't likely to work, if you're wondering.
I suppose I'll vote for him when the time comes but I won't be surprised if he loses or if he wins and the dems lose big time in the mid terms.

The GOP is so bad the Dems should have control of all 3 branches easily.
The fact that they don't is an indication that too many of them think like you do, imo.

I got mine...so what are the poors whining about.....

Gotcha.

This is probably our most consequential disagreement. I find it very difficult to know what works. My explanation for this skepticism is that political and policy questions are generally hard questions, but obviously there are other explanations available depending on where my head is.

Biden isn't my 5th choice either, but I don't think my subjective reaction to Biden is very useful in knowing how electable he is. He's consistently polled best against Trump, he is well-known and relatively inoffensive, he has a plausible story about how he can appeal to swing voters in swing states that switched to Trump last time. Plus, my view is that presidential elections with an incumbent is mostly about how the public views the current president. Given a background prior that our subjective evaluation of politicians is heavily biased by group dynamics, I place relatively little weight on how much I personally like or am impressed by Biden when evaluating his electability.
I honestly don't get how your view is supposed to work. Somehow, mainstream Democratic politicians are so clever that they can for decades fool leftwing voters into supporting hard right politicians, but they are also so incompetent that they continuously throw away easily-winnable elections against Republicans. I understand this is why you've speculated that Democratic leaders don't actually care about winning the Presidency, but I find that completely implausible given the normal motives of politicians.
Yeah, you really don't know what you are talking about.

1.) What do you mean by relatively inoffensive?

2.) Why not both? Black and brown people are especially duped, historically by Dems, into transformational change and are those hit the hardest by bad education, the criminal justice system, and regressive flat taxation. Republicans are still even better at preserving loyalty in that their tribalism runs a bit deeper. The GOP fears the Dems more than the Dems fear the GOP.