Is there some element to the either/or nature of the Russia/Concentrate on progressive policy debate that I am missing?

I keep asking why both cant be done at the same time, and so far not really got any answers.

Yeah, talk about Russia OR policy is a false dichotomy. Democrats have talked about what Trump is doing, that's a big part of why his approval % is so low; they haven't sat on their hands re. AHCA, travel ban, etc.

Scaring people about Russia doesn't fit with traditional leftist politics, thus spending lots of time on it doesn't advance those leftist politics long term.

The point DVaut is making is that the 11PM news is only going to spend 2 minutes a night on national politics and that number isn't going to go up because Trump is a buffoon. Thus liberals should want to have the abolute best possible message during their part of that 2 minutes.

No, we didn't miss that - it's how Trump was elected.

Also the public has a limited attention span and finite amount of time to devote to political interests. So time spent on Russia which can feel distant and irrelevant to lots of people is wasted time/opportunity to instead affirmatively tell voters what the left wants instead.

Bickering about Russia: another esoteric story for many
Bickering about health care: this is relevant to me, my family. What are the two sides saying?

You want to spend as much time being able to engage in the second debate and as iron says, developing long-form arguments and narratives about why you are good and the other side bad. Bickering about Russia is a replay of the 2016 strategy of just telling voters why the other side is bad. I don't doubt you damage Trump doing that, but there's only so much fruit to bear there. At some point we must build and ask for more. Waiting until August of 2020 or whatever is a miss; tell our story now. Of course we can 'do both' but that's ineffective, adulterated messaging. See above that there is simply not infinite public time and attention. Political parties exist for many reasons but one core reason -- one central mission -- is to guide and persuade voters into caring about certain issues and priorities over others. Democrats fail when they prioritize poorly and I maintain, strongly, that a focus on Russia is prioritizing poorly for voters even if it comes with dialog about other, better, more salient and relevant issues. Why not separate the wheat from the chaff? I acknowledge Russia isn't total chaff but it's not a highly durable, marketable good either.

this is what capitalism looks like

trump lying
russia cheating
healthcare stealing

There's also this aspect to it. The Russia thing does fit into the liberal agenda overall, which is: we need a real democracy, not a crony capitalist oligarchy. However, two problems with this. As DVaut rightly points out, Democrats in office don't have credibility on this righ tnow. Secondly, the economic agenda is more likely to appeal to culturally illiterate voters who frankly don't have a clue about history, fascism, democracy, or any of those concepts that the Russia situation plays into. People got on a visceral level how the AHCA was going to impact them negatively. It's lame, but I think we have to kind of play to the common denominator here at the least for the time being until we can establish some goddamn cultural literacy in this place.

Can I make sick ninja edits or what?

With that said, I place a priority in getting Trump impeached and Russia is the only realistic way to do that. I'm willing to sacrifice some narritive building to do that.

this.

some retirement, imo.

It's not lame. It's not least common denominator. It's not even a compromise for leftists! Since when did "provide material sustenance and services like health care via redistributed resources" become a LEAST COMMON DENOMINATOR for us?! That's our whole intellectual underpinning. The sanctity of national sovereignty isn't our party. If anything that's the other guys. We were once the internationalists set against global capital and management, and ardent nationalism, and for the working class and labor, not like, the gatekeepers against Russian influence. When the leftist party in America sold THAT, and told people that we were defenders of what you refer to as some sort of sell-out common denominator, we won like 5 straight Presidential elections and controlled Congress for like 60 years. Added benefit: even the Republicans that got elected and rose to power like Eisenhower were like actual pretty great.

Your post is OK but that one sentence seems sounds like you're apologizing and also don't really understand or are not committed to what the left was about since ~the French Revolution, at least since the height of the Industrial Revolution.

We can also frame this as a global competition narrative. The truth is that coal mining + manufacturing is simply not coming back. To be competitive going forward, America needs to invest in clean energy, advanced technology, and advanced education for its citizens.


https://twitter.com/SenSanders/statu...26731633770496

70 year old? LOL

Not sure what you mean by getting dunked on, but I have yet to be proven wrong on anything I said. And fyi my life is immensely enjoyable thanks.

As a matter of fact I have just got back from a very enjoyable surfing trip down the coast. The weather was hot, the chicks were hot and the surf was pumping.

Bummer of a life alright.

Well, yeah when you support Nazi's that's a bummer

FYP - it's not what you say it's what they hear.

Not everyone is ready to go to college. There's too many people there already. They'll just goof off and waste our dollars. Get a job and live in a van for 4 years. We didn't complain about not getting free college in my day when tuition was $700 semester. Etc.

Odds Sushy had a Nazi coloring book growing up?

If Republicans can sell these people that strip mining their mountains and dumping sludge all over their lakes and rivers is in their best interest, I think we can convince them that free college for their kids and for themselves is in their best interest.

Just to provide a lens through which to view Sushy saying "the chicks were hot," he once expressed that he feels Kellyanne Conway is hot.

Walked into the kitchen at a party Sat night - "I'll give Trump one thing, he's a negotiator. See these other countries think he's crazy. They don't know if he'll use nukes. So that gives him leverage." I replied "Yes, unless he actually uses the nukes - then that would be bad" and walked right back out.

Confirmed NONE of this **** we argue about is getting through to the casual low-info crowd.

Yeah - but it needs to come from Trump - so they know it's been given the "for white people" seal of approval. That's what happened with healthcare. But then again his core supporters think college is just for libtards. So it's a tougher sell.

Yea it goes back to what everyone here has been saying over and over again. The Trump voters need to be hurt as far as wages, jobs, or healthcare goes in order to see he's conning them. Until that happens, nothing will get through.

Don't get me wrong, the economic agenda is very important to me. But the liberal democracy agenda is very important too. It's something that gets lost in my pleas to end the Electoral College and gerrymandering and voter suppression, but it's directly tied to my issues with Russia and their interference in our election. Having a real liberal democracy, one person one vote, with actual proportional influence in Congress is the root of so many of our problems. I believe we have to address this issue or in the long run we are going to have more Trumps and McConnells and Paul Ryans--irrelevant, unpopular morons calling the shots for 300 million people.

Wheelin dealin
Kiss stealin
Limo ridin
Jet flyin

Wait, what are we doing?

This is pretty far upstream though. You've probably started to get the vague intuition no one gives a **** about a lot of this. I don't mean people on this forum or activist types, but normal people. You're likely frustrated about it. I get it.

But the reason why lots of people find all of that **** ephemeral and uninteresting is because they don't see the practical ways government impacts their lives. Can't envision the ways the government might help them. Those impacts are not obvious, and the benefits not really manifest, and Democrats holistically are just awful at telling the story. So the value of the things you're talking about is subtle for people. So they aren't going to invest in trying to build their democratic rights or civic values. Not worth the time and effort for a system that often feels distance, complex, and focused on banalities instead of practicalities.

Master the art of talking to people about the things that matter to them (their work, their dignity, their towns, their jobs, their income, their health care) and getting them to see how political, communal action can and does matter. Defensiveness about all the stuff you mention will flow naturally from that. People will eventually place a value on it. But not until that is clear. The GOP's natural base of the wealthy get this intuitively and they have a whole AM radio/cable news/chain mail ecosystem to reinforce it with the deplorables in ways that speak directly to their wretched, miserable hearts. So they have a coalition who sees civic virtue in protecting their wealth and/or putting the jackboots to the undeserving mooching poors and blacks and immigrants. They believe it so deeply they've started acting on collective fictions about it: how many Trump voters have a bizarro world imaginary fantasy kicking around in their heads that Trump is going to bring back 'Merry Christmas' as if it went anywhere and the President can even repossess them of a greeting. Like, the ****? And that's like tens of millions of people, I'm sure of it, believe it deeply and it motivated them. The only equivalent thing I can think of is that one YouTube video of that one girl at the DNC in 2008 who said Obama was going to make it so she didn't have to pay for gas anymore. Some right-winger like 2325Falcon will go find it and post a link for you. Why don't we have armies of people believing that ****?

Democrats need to get to that place of seeing how the government gives them practical value, but instead of selling it to haters and rich bozos -- sell it to the masses of people who are inclined to agree with them. Only then will anyone give a **** about their statutory rights and systemic biases in the system.